December 26th, 2007 · Comments Off
I hope this blog post will inspire you to take similar action that I took this morning.
Christmas day is over and I hope you had a great Christmas celebration. In my blog post yesterday, I talked about my “disappointing” gift but today, I want to stand still for the people that don’t have a luxury life. In other words: people that don’t have a roof over their head and a good daily meal to eat.
Yesterday afternoon, before I visited family to celebrate Christmas, my wife and I were watching television and saw families that were not able to celebrate Christmas in the way we are able to.
Their children did not get a nice Christmas meal and there were no presents under the Christmas tree. Of course, they showed the sad eyes of the children.
When I looked around in our living room, the floor was covered with presents and gift wrapping paper. My defective TomTom navigation system was laying in a corner, abandoned to be returned to the manufacturer.
While visiting my family later that afternoon, I also noticed the nice gifts everybody received. Notebooks, a video camera, a Nintendo game computer and even a Sony playstation 3 were given.
I was still thinking about the poor people that were shown on television and got a guilty feeling. When I feel guilty, I want to get ride of that feeling as quick as possible so when my wife and I went home, I told my wife that there is one more gift that I want to give. She was surprised and said: “Patrick, you have given me already so many nice gifts this morning.” I explained to her that this gift was not a gift to her but to a charitable organization. My wife was surprised that those words came out of my mouth but she understood and agreed immediately.
Because it was a late evening, I decided to make a donation early next morning.
Today, after I got up, I researched on the computer for the best charitable organization. There are so many charitable organizations to choose so I found a website that was able to help me out with the selection of a good organization.
The name of the website is: Charity Navigator with web address: charitynavigator.org
This website provides ratings for thousands of charitable organizations in the world. You can search for organizations in your state and by different categories.
I choose for a homeless shelter in Portland, Maine and made my contribution. I feel good about my donation and don’t feel guilty anymore. Life is all about sharing the good life.
Please check out: charitynavigator.org and make a donation to a charitable organization of your choice.
If you need a push to make donation, please search on youtube.com under the keywords: homeless and shelter and watch some videos.
Let me know if you have guilty feeling towards people in need as well and how you handle these feelings.
[wp_youtube]uXptGHOVJGI[/wp_youtube]
Tags: Websites
December 25th, 2007 · Comments Off
First of all, I have to say that my Christmas morning was great. Pellet stove turned on, nice breakfast with an apple Danish strip and a good cup of coffee. Christmas music was playing softly in the background. It was time to unwrap the presents.
My wife got me a TomTom One 3rd edition navigation system. Awesome! Now I never get lost anymore. The TomTom One stores the whole map of the United States and Canada. You can also select Guam as the default map. I guess nice for our men in service that want to drive around on Guam.
Nice gift if the TomTom works…
It took me about 15 minutes to get the TomTom device out of the package. Wow, that was a challenge to get the device out. I turned on the device and customized some settings. Different color settings, not too bright, voice level loud enough so I can hear the lady’s voice clear. After my customization, I turned the TomTom off and went to my PC to install the software delivered on a CD.
In order to get the latest updates, you have to turn on the TomTom again and what happened?
I got a white screen. A pure white screen and nothing else happened. I pressed on the screen but the white screen stayed there. My mood started to change a little bit. What is going on with this device?
Immediately I started to google to find a cause and solution for this problem and I discovered that many people are complaining about the same problem. It turns out that there was a large batch of defective units shipped to the stores.
You can’t fix it yourself so you have two choices. Bring the TomTom back to the store or after calling the TomTom support line, receive shipping instructions and ship it back for another unit.
I was disappointed because I wanted to play with my new toy. Although there are worse things that can happen in somebody’s life so it is not going to ruin the rest of my day. My wife picked a nice gift for me and it was the thought that counts. We get this problem with the TomTom fixed though. Just return the device for a new one.
Please let me know if you got a Christmas gift that didn’t turn out as expected. I am also curious if I was the only person with a bad TomTom experience on Christmas Day.
Update 12/26/2007:
I called the TomTom support line at: 866-486-6866 and received excellent service. After going through the phone prompts, the representative asked for personal verification information and the serial number on the bottom of the TomTom starting with: C_No:
Because I had already a TomTom account, I only had to provide my email address and all my information appeared on their screen. After my phone call, I received a confirmation email from TomTom that I have to print out and include in the shipping box. I used a small carton box. The 2nd email that I received was from Fed-Ex with instructions on how to print out a prepaid shipping label.
I will send out my package tomorrow and expect a new device within 10 business days.
Update 01/02/2008
Today I received my TomTom back and everything is working perfectly. Taking the holidays into account, TomTom shipped a new unit back to me fairly quickly. I was able to update the maps and POI (Point Of Interests).
Tomorrow, I want to take the TomTom for a test ride.
Read reviews on Amazon.com:
Tags: Gadgets
