Testing the tumblr plugin for wordpress and posting a quick image.

Just watched a very interesting and eye opening documentary called Food Inc. about the current state of the food industry and how a hand full of companies are controlling the entire food chain. Even though the movie shows the state of the food industry in the USA, I would assume a similar system exists in more of the developed nations.

I was amazed to know that one of the basic ingredient of 90% of the food in the super market shelf is “corn”. Yes, you heard me right. Corn is used as a basic currency in the food industry. It is even fed to cows (which are actually herbivores and eat grass) so that they gain more weight, quicker. The downside is that corn causes e-coli to grow in the cows stomach which then comes out via the excrement and spreads to other healthy cows and finally ends up in the ground beef that is used to make the hamburgers in the fast food chains.

In fact it is the low cost system of the fast food chains that encourages this kind of corn based food chain and is leading to a whole slew of problems including environmental damage on top of the human health cost.

I recommend you check out the Food Inc website and watch the movie if possible. The take away from the movie is to start thinking about what is in your food, buy locally produced food, stay away from fast food restaurants and eat healthy food and more…

I have been a regular buyer at Amazon.co.uk for the past 4 years. I have purchased 100s of pounds worth of books, DVDs and more.

In all these years I have never had a single problem. Amazon is a fantastic brand with a superb business model and top rate customer service to support that. In fact they have been on the forefront when it comes to introducing cutting edge usability features on their website and more.

A couple of days ago, I went online (amazon.co.uk) and ordered 3 nursery rhyme DVD for my daughter. On all three items, it said that if I paid for express delivery, it would be delivered before 1PM the next day. So paid £ 7.65 for express delivery.

I expected the items to arrive on Thursday, 15th Nov. But they never did. So I waited till today (16th Nov) and then logged into my account on Amazon.co.uk to find out what was going on. To my great surprise, I saw a message that told me that the estimated delivery date was 13 Dec – 28 Dec!

At first I thought there was some kind of system error. But when I clicked on my orders and went deeper, I saw the same message. So I tried to see if I can talk to some one about this. I check for support options and do not see any visible phone numbers.

I then keep clicking on the support related links till I get to a screen where there was some sort of option to request a call back. So click on that and this is the first screen:

So I enter the phone number and click on submit. I get an error. I try again and again and after 4 times I gave up. This is the error:

Another issue I encountered with the site that I found disturbing is when I tried to access the support system on Mozilla FireFox. This is the screen shot of the how the screen comes up. You can not see any thing and there is no way you can make the window bigger!

I think a brand such as Amazon should have a better support system. At least they should explain why a particular order is delayed etc. Also they should test their site on all browsers to make sure they have cross browser compatibility.

I am not angry with Amazon yet because of my loyalty to the brand. But as every ones knows it is very easy to lose the loyalty. Of course with a brand like Amazon, because there are fewer competitors out there, the consumer would be left with not much choice.

I have been watching the Phones 4 U adverts on TV for quite some time and am baffled at how bad they are.

The TV adverts typically show a bunch of really odd looking people with really odd expressions. The setting is usually a sea side town (probably Brighton) and the colors are all washed out and you get the feeling you are watching an old 70′s ad. The characters in the ad seem to suffer from a variety of issues such as poverty and brain damage.

The anchor in the advert turns up at this sea side town and tries to suggest that these odd characters need mobile phones. But I begin to wonder, who is Phones4U is saying is their target market? Why are they making fun of people with disabilities?

Or, are they saying that they treat their customers as if they were morons or some thing? Personally I thing this kind of branding is quite bad.