Month: June 2007

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

I’m not a fan of computer hardware that behaves the wants to, rather than the way I tell it to. My wife thinks it’s a control issue. She’ probably right.

I was getting peeved that the music on my (gifted) iPod wasn’t readable by anything that couldn’t decode the iTunes database structure. Well, the music is readable, but you can’t tell what song you’re clicking on unless you memorize the length and size of every song. The names are replaced with things like FWOX.mp3 in folders of similar names with dissimilar tracks (not of the same album). Plus you couldn’t copy (decoded) music from the iPod to another computer unless you purchased it through iTunes and were transferring it to one of your five approved machines. And you couldn’t play open-source music formats (ogg, flac, etc)

Well, I fixed that.
(more…)

Posted in Technical | No Comments »

I bought a pair of vegan birk sandals in April 05. For $90 you’d expect a pair of shoes to last more than 2 years, especially when they’re only seasonal wear.
I took them in the other day to get resoled, and the guy said fixing them would be “throwing good money after bad.” The footbed (the pride and joy of birks) was cracked, and the synthetic straps were tearing on both feet. Now they no longer (according to the birkenstock USA website) carry 100% leather-free sandals, so replacing them is as pointless as repairing them.

Just for grins and giggles, I’ll post the email exchange I’ve had with customer service. More if they bother replying again.

From: Phill Becker
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 12:17 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: My sandals are falling apart

I bought a pair of synthetic leather birks from a local shoe store here in April 2005. They started wearing thin this last winter, and I took them to a repair store today only to be told they were beyond repair. The straps are splitting on both shoes (right where they attach to the base) and the base is cracked on one.

I bought these sandals partly because I wanted to be able to repair them and keep wearing them for a long time. If 2 years is the max lifespan of Birk. sandals, I will never buy another pair. My Tevas lasted 5 years of hard abuse. I guess I expected more from legendary Birkenstock.

If you would like me to send the sandals back so you can examine them for quality control, please let me know. Otherwise I’ll wear them until they fall off my feet, then never buy another pair.

pb

On 6/8/07, Consumer Relations wrote:

Hello,

Thank you for emailing us at Birkenstock Distribution, USA!

Please Read our FAQ’s below for an answer to your inquiry.

We are the US distributor of Birkenstocks, and run as a company separate to other suppliers and retailers both in the US and internationally. So unfortunately, we do not do direct business with the general consumer base. And since all of our retailers are independently owned and operated we do not have insight to their specific inventory.

We are the US distributor of the Birkenstock Classic Brand only.

We no longer carry or represent Birki’s, Footprints, Tatami, Alpro, Papillio and Betula.

For more information on those lines of Bikenstock, please contact the appropriate distributor…

Tatami / Newalk / Footprints :

Web :http://www.tatami.com/tatami_usa.html