Well it has been very hard to keep myself motivated to keep on blogging in last few years. As I have said so many times before, tools like Twitter does not help either to keep me motivated to blog [essentially blog something with substance].

As much as I love to keep writing and to share my views and thoughts and try to add value to some discussion, I need to find out ways that keep me both interested, motivated and make it fun. And for me, using Email is still fun!Posterous has made it easy to blog and to share thoughts/photos/links or for that matter, just quote somebody or something. So for now, I have decided to move to Posterous using my other domain Tejaspatel.com.

As of now, I don't know what I will do here on this blog or for how long I will be gone, but I will keep you posted. For now, you can check Tejaspatel.com to hear more of me.

This afternoon I got an email from Plaxo about how it's going to stop offering free service to it's Customers using Microsoft Outlook plug-in.

Fair enough but not really! My first reaction "Ah! Crap". I have been a faithful customer to Plaxo for quite some years now [nearly since they started their services] and do rely on their services solely for address book sync. between different computers and to remind me of important birth dates. Plaxo was offering it's premium services all this time but it's premium services never struck a bell with me! I just could not see any value in it's premium services [I can get a free de-duper thanks! and I prefer to send personalized email on a friend's birthday].

It's more irritating as they are now making a tool that was free for nearly 4-5 years that I can remember into a paid tool without really adding any additional value. Not a smart move [as far as retaining and converting your existing customers go] and I am seeing that a lot of people on Twitter already either deleting Plaxo accounts or finding alternatives including myself during this month. I am not saying that Plaxo decision is stupid as I am sure people running the company are smart people and this decision was not taken lightly, but where does it leave me as a customer. If they haven't convinced me in last 4 years to convert to a premium account, this move definitely is not going to push me into that decision.

So Plaxo, thanks for your services so far but even with discounts you fail to convince me that why I should pay $US 47.95/year for sync. my address book. I have not looked for alternatives yet, but one that comes to my mind straight away is MobileMe which I can get for $ AUD 99/year I believe for address book sync. and 20GB of storage space.

On the other hand, this is a fantastic opportunity for cloud based storage companies such as Sugarsync to offer address book sync. services along with offerings. If there is a company that is fast enough to take the advantage, there will be enough customers cutting loose with Plaxo between now and the end of the month!

Is there any service that is reliable, trustworthy that you can recommend?

I am a new Macbook Pro owner and I bought it from Apple Store, Chadstone.

Although I still admire Apple's customer service then most of it's competitor's, this time round I did not service to the best I was expecting. on a scale of 10, I would think my experience would qualify for 4 [ I have high expectation].

In the remarks to the Apple Survey that I recent after few days of shopping there, below is what I said:

- When I call, I am always told that the stock is available and once I get to the store, no stocks for the items
- The Customer Service Experience this time round was not the best compared to previous time
- The Sales Consultant was in a rush to brush me off and did not seem interested in understanding my requirements
- Sales Guy was not even looking straight into my eyes but was wondering on the walls in the store

I am sure the business of the store makes it difficult to focus and give attention to the customers they want, but personal attention is one reason, I travel 55 kms across the city to get to the Apple store!

I hope I have a better experience next time.

This week I bought the new Shiny 15" Macbook Pro.

I have been a PC all my life till I got my iPhone.

So I will like to share some of my findings in this post and I will keep on adding any interesting notes using Friendfeed. Do share your thoughts too.

I read an article on live blogging using Friendfeed and I wanted to try it.