MadMax⁸³

The Gadget Show this week had a brilliant little section on it about talking to customer services, it gave advice like "Don't blame the person on the phone for the problem, its the companies fault, not there's", and "Write down what you want to say and be clear as most of them will be working to a script"

That was kinda interesting, but the really good bit was the websites they recommended.

Saynoto0870.com - This site will give you the geographical alternative number to an 0870 number, which means you can call them from your mobile inclusive minutes rather than paying a fortune to call the 08 numbers, which the company your calling take a cut of the profits from.

gethuman.com - This site tells you the buttons you have to press on automated telephone systems to get though to a human as fast as possible, so no more going though 20 mins worth of button presses only to find your at the wrong department anyway.

tiny.cc/CEOemails - This was the final site on the list, it lists the email addresses for lots of company CEO's, so if your not happy with how you have been treated by customer services, you can go right to the top with your complaint.

The CEO Email site is something I dont think I would really use, Customer services usually do quite a good job I think, and going to the CEO might not be the best approach.

Though being able to find a phone number I can call companies on for free from my mobile, and then knowing the button pressed to get though to a human as soon as possible, is definitely something im going to be using next time im having to call customer services departments!

If anyone gives this a go, let me know how you get on!

Image From: http://putsimply.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/customer-service.jpg

EMI Music are releasing a limited edition (30,000 units) 16GB Beatles USB stick, before I go any further, how awesome does it look!!!!

It features there full back catalogue in FLAC and MP3 format, 13 mini documentary's, album artwork, and other visual goodies.

This will set you back £200 from digitalstores.co.uk, though for one of the coolest looking USB drives ive seen, plus the fact its loaded with more Beatles stuff than you can shake a stick at, I think its a bit of a bargain.. I recon these will sell out fast though!!!

For a long time now I have wanted a way to be notified when new albums/artists I want to listen to get added to Spotify, and now thanks to there new API, this is a possibility.

I have written this very quick Spotify Notification Page where you can put in a artist/album or just general search for something you cant find on Spotify, It will then check each day to see if that has been added yet, once it has, it will email you to let you know!

As I said though, this was something I threw together in a spare half an hour I had, so it is all very basic at the moment. I plan to update this so you can login and see the searches you have pending, see when it found your search, and remove searches, though I will have to see when I have a few more min's to implement this.

If anyone has any comment or question about this, or if you have any idea about how I can improve it when I come to work on it again, leave me a comment, or drop me an email.

I am once again the proud owner of MadMax83.com

I will do my best to keep my contact details up to date this time so i dont loose it again!!!

I know this is pretty obvious, but using less revs when driving can save you money by giving you more miles out of your tank.

This is nothing new, I think most people that drive know and understand this, though what surprised me was the amount which could be saved!!!

I currently drive a Diesel Ford Mondeo, which red lines at about 5000 revs, now, I never used to drive it to the red line really, though I would change gear at about 4000 revs maybe. From driving like this, I would get about 400 miles from a tank of diesel..

Recently I moved, so I have a linger commute, and 400 miles didn't seam a lot, so I started to change at lower revs, usually between 2000 and 3000 dependent on traffic, as well as this, when driving on the motorway I make sure I dont go over 3000 revs either.

Because of this, I can now get 500 miles out of the same tank of diesel, so 100 miles extra, just by driving with lower revs, which is a hell of a lot of motoring!!

As I said to begin with, I knew driving at high revs would cost you more in fuel, though I didn't realise it would be 100 miles extra FREE for every £55 of diesel i put in...

If your ever interested in what im listening to, you can now find my Spotify Play lists in the Links section of my website.

They will get updated as and when i create a new play list, and as its Spotify, its Free, and if I add more tracks to a list once you have added it, you will be able to see them being added in real time!

Though I do only usually add tracks to my latest play list.