50 posts tagged “mp3”
Don't get me wrong - I think Amazon MP3 is a great service, and over the last ~1.5 years that I've been using them to buy music, I've usually had no problems with either purchasing music or dealing with their customer service group. But a recent issue makes me wonder if the right hand knows what the left is doing (or in this case, whether the developers are talking to the customer service reps, and vice-versa).
My most recent fiasco with them involved The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon my "Purchase Review" screen from the site:
When you first start using Amazon MP3, any time you try to get any
album/mp3, this screen will pop up after you click the "Get MP3"
button. It provides one last sanity check and confirmation that you're
actually purchasing what you want - in this case, the song is free, but
if you click on the wrong button or misread the price, this gives you
one last review screen to confirm you want to continue your purchase.
Unfortunately, it seems that if you uncheck the box "Always ask before completing purchase" shown on the picture and then continue, it is IMPOSSIBLE to re-enable this option to show this purchase review screen in the future. Not difficult, but actually physically impossible to ever see this screen ever again. There are no toggles in the user preferences/settings to turn this back on. No way for customer service to reset it. If you turn this off, it's gone the way of the dodo bird. I had three different customer service reps confirm this.
So, after going through the following steps (spanning 3 different customer service reps):
- Calling rep #1
- Deleting all my 1-click payment methods from the account
- Transferring to rep #2
- Deleting all the saved addresses from the account
- Arguing with rep #2 that this "Purchase review" page even exists and that it wasn't something new (I've used it for the last year without problems)
- Transferring to rep #3
- Logging out, deleting all cookies, and logging back in
- Still seeing the problem and finding out this rep had no clue on how to fix it either
the last rep suggested I do the following:
- Create a NEW Amazon account with the SAME email account but different password.1 This will create a new set of preferences and have this option available again (but only because you've basically created an entirely NEW account!) Of course, the purchase history and anything related to the old account (Amazon Associates, product reviews, etc) will not be available within the new account and they won't be linked in any way, but this would allow me to have a "purchase review" page again.
- Log
off of my account any time I wanted to make a purchase, and it would
ask me to log in before it actually allowed me to purchase the product,
providing an extra level of confirmation on my part.
Seriously? Your solution is to nuke my account and/or force me to log out and back in every time I want to purchase something? Because that is SO much easier than adding a fricking checkbox in one of the preference pages that gives the option to "Display review purchase confirmation page prior to MP3 purchases." Not to mention that the log out/in option won't even solve this problem, as it won't display a confirmation page prior to logging in, and after logging in it auto-purchases the album (believe me, I tried).
The last gal I spoke to said she'd forward on a request to the developers to add this option, but that I shouldn't expect it to be rolled out any time soon. She wouldn't go so far as to agree with me that this was a bug in the website, but what the heck else do you call it when you can disable something but can't re-enable it?
Oh wait, I know what you call it - an impetus to get me blogging again. :-)
1How many websites do you know that allow you to make completely separate accounts with the same login but different passwords? Isn't that sort of weird? I wonder how many different Amazon accounts you could create with the same email but different passwords? Anyone want to experiment and let me know if you hit a limit?
Well, it seems 30 days of consecutive blogging is enough to kill my sense of creativity (or maybe it was the excessive food and drink of my post-thanksgiving dinner). Either way, at the time that I'm writing this, I have neither the inclination nor the energy to put together a coherent blog post for my last day of NaBloPoMo. And since I'll be in the car for over 8 hours on Sunday driving home from my parents' house, I don't want to leave it to chance that I'll feel up to posting something when I do get home. So here you go - I made it 30 days, technically, but may be shy a few of the quality posts I had hoped to get out during the month of November. I still have plans to write some of them in December, though, so I don't feel like I failed in what I was trying to do this month.
To celebrate, here's a couple of tunes - no special theme or reason behind my choosing these, except that I like them and they're hitting the spot right now.
I must confess, I have a sweet-spot in my heart for many of the Swedish/Scandinavian pop and rock groups out there. I'm not sure what the attraction is, but even some of the lightweight song out there have ended up in my music collection, and I've even been known to sing along with such "classics" as Ace of Base's "All That She Wants" or any number of ABBA songs. My current obsession in the Swedish arena is with The Sounds, a popular group that unfortunately only has released two albums to date (but more on that in another post).
However, this post is about another favorite Swedish group of mine - Roxette. Even though their songs are sweet and simple, they're fun to listen to and the hooks are not only catchy, but don't get tired after many replays. I'd probably be embarrassed to have my coworkers catch me bopping along to some of their songs, but I'll definitely belt out a melody or two along with vocalist Marie Fredriksson when I'm driving in my car.
Here's a handful of my favorite tracks, off the only album of theirs that I've currently got in .mp3 format, in no particular order:
[NaBloPoMo 2008 - #18/30]
When I ask people if they recall the Screaming Trees, most folks give me a puzzled look. Some of those with better memories might recall their hit "Nearly Lost You" from the album Sweet Oblivion, which made it big, in part because it was part of the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's movie Singles.
First up - "Winter Song" - a little slower and more mellow, this may be my favorite track on the album:
Next, "Troubled Times". When people who really liked "Nearly Lost You" ask for me a recommendation for another track, this is the one I recommend. Very similar in feel to that song, it's also got a little bit of an Alice in Chains type feel to it:
Well, I noticed a distinct trend in the songs lately, and since everyone knows that Halloween gets all those sinners out there out of their houses and onto the streets, carousing and drinking and praying to some sort of hoodoo voodoo you-know-who, too, I thought we could all do with a bit of bible thumping around here. Welcome our guest preachers today - Solid Gold! Show those sinners a thing or two, fellas!
I'm not sure where I came across this track, but I heard it the other day in my random playlist and was very impressed. I'm a big Elliot Smith fan and although I do enjoy his version more than this one, something about Chris Garneau's performance gives me goosebumps.
Most people wouldn't know Prozzäk if you hit them over the head with a copy of one of the bands' CDs. Prozzäk (now known as Simon and Milo) was a pop music side project by two members of the Canadian band The Philosopher Kings, James McCollum and Jason Levine, conceived as a lighthearted mockery of their own romantic troubles.
The sound is hard to describe - hits of hyper-pop and rock, with a latin/euro dance beat thrown in, all mixed in a blender to a sweet and frothy finish. Definitely not the kind of sound you'd probably have blaring from your car stereo with the windows rolled down. However, these are just a couple of the songs by them that have my toes tapping and bring a smile to my face whenever I hear them.
Thank you Calliope No. 8, for letting me share this song!
I always thought Live's album Secret Samadhi got a bit of a bum rap. After Mental Jewelery and the radio play of chart-toppers from Throwing Copper, I know a lot of folks that felt very let-down by Samadhi (although not as much as by Bush's Razorblade Suitcase after their hit Sixteen Stone). But if you give it a chance, there are actually some really interesting/catchy songs on the album. Here's one of my favorites...
Yay, a song for the Calliope AND a cover (although you might have to listen to it to figure out who they're covering).
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