UbiKann - Empowering Ubiquity

Braun Triumph toothbrush coupon con in France

By John Garner

I bought a Braun electronic toothbrush several months ago and just decided to write about it because I now want to buy a shaver but because of what happened with the Braun toothbrush purchase I have decided that regardless of the reviews, the proof or any other type of argument that may indicate (which you’ll see is not the case) that I should get a Braun shaver I WILL NOT.

braun oral b triumph professional care 9900 coupon con

braun oral b triumph professional care 9900 coupon con

Why may you ask, be so stubborn. Well I purchased a Braun Triumph toothbrush from Cdiscount and was promised a partial refund by sending it back with a coupon and proof of purchase.
The morning I received the toothbrush by post I sent the coupon on with everything asked for:
– Code bar from the box
– Bill with date of purchase
– Coupon filled in with all the information.

Several weeks if not months later I get a letter from some company I have never heard of saying that because I took more than 5 days to send the coupon in after the purchase I was disqualified and would not get the money from Braun. Also to be noted there was no email to contact anybody, neither Braun where ever they are in France and just a snail mail address for this company that did a great job of looking through the elements I sent. They might have seen that I purchased it online, and that well, guess what, you can’t send via email so it takes time for me to get the box with the code bar needed to get the refund.
You should know BRAUN coupons are a con in France and they cheat you!

So I will not spend another cent on anything from Braun. I am not going to buy a Phillips Sonic toothbrush just to spite them since the Braun toothbrush works fine but obviously don’t buy one 😉

Philips Flexcare Toothbrush

Philips Flexcare Toothbrush

However as explained I am now looking for a shaver and well I started looking at the Philips shaver because unlike the Braun toothbrush I am unhappy with my Braun shaver. I have looked at the Philips site and reviews about the arctic shaver and I must say for a dude like myself it looks like a cool gadget and looks a lot sexier than the Braun shaver. The whole cleaning system on my Braun one is just not good. But obviously for the moment I can’t compare. but I soon will be able to because as you guessed from the beginning of my post there is no way in hell I’m buying another Braun product. And to make it funnier I couldn’t even link to the page about the equivalent Braun product because it is all in Flash and couldn’t get an image either although I could from the Philips site because they were clever enough to do it in HTML with Flash rather than a full Flash site!

Philips 1095 Arcitec Rotary Shaver

Philips 1095 Arcitec Rotary Shaver: now does that look sexy or what

And the time indicator had better be readable upside down like on the image or else I will not be happy 🙂

I was also impressed by the Philips site because you could check the manual out. I was wondering whether the shaver would charge in the cleaning system and was able to confirm by ready the first few pages of the manual. But also found out that what looks to be just a cool looking travel case actually charges the shaver at the same time. You can buy it on their site and register the product online which is pretty cool. I found that the video that runs through the functions etc was good, although I felt the voiceover in French was a bit annoying, but that could just be me…

Working too hard is not that efficient

By John Garner

Working too hard is not that efficient… in the long term

At a time where people are worried about losing their jobs and working all hours god sends to stand out from the pack in a positive manner it seems that they may not be providing their company with the best of themselves. Obviously if your company is short staffed and still has as much work they may not be so interested in the article over at FastCompany. But may be worth reading so at least you are aware 😉

Examples from Flickr and Facebook are provided to illustrate the misconception that getting people to work their socks off may not be providing you with the best results in the end!

Make sure you check out this great video from TED, Stefan Sagmeister is a world renowned designer who explains how every 7 years he takes a year off to pursue personal areas. He also indicates that structuring his time off was probably one of the most important parts in a successful sabbatical year. Furthermore this time often allows him to be a better designer and provide his clients with a better quality service once the sabbatical is over! Better still take the time to view the video see for yourself.

Living the blogging life; ups and downs

By John Garner

I just came across a post on Jeff Atwoods ‘Coding horror’ site (can’t even remember how I ended up there), and a post about blogging, more specifically the reactions you can get from irate people. I’m not sure his recommendation to ignore people is ‘the’ solution but it’s an interesting point of view and account of his own experience with flame wars and irate people with comments like “I stopped reading your blog years ago“! Interesting read, especially for people that blog themselves…
PS: Sorry I remembered he has a good review of the Dell XPS M1330 and I had recommended this laptop to a client, Anne-Sophie, webmaster of the Adecco France website and reminded me she was also happy with her red laptop!

The first impressions of website designs

By John Garner

Designing sites is a great opportunity, especially when you are lucky enough to be surrounded by clever and experienced people. When you can combine extremely talented people at all the different levels you require to build a website the results can be amazing. Although traditional advertising agencies are starting to learn that they need to further integrate the technical implications of the production of a website into projects, user experience is just as important and often overlooked by so many agencies. Design is considered the Holy Grail but this can hide some ugly surprises when the user experience aspect of the website is overlooked. Experience architecture when used in a rigorous way can really help to understand what will help the end-users of a site will be looking for, how and where to include it in your website.

While reading an article on SearchEngineLand I was happy to see that the experience architecture aspect of a site build was nicely touched upon. First impressions count. It really does give you an extra insight into the way the site can be successful when you try to understand how people will react to a site, what they are looking for and how designing it differently can help you help them find what they are looking for quickly without compromising the design.
The gut feeling is an important factor with today’s fast moving generation Z, the same gut feeling can be tested with various personas you have identified as your key target population to make sure that you don’t alienate your other personas from previous generations.