The Richter Scale^®

Almost four months ago I wrote a review of the Creative Zen Micro after having used one for six months.

I have been procrastinating sending the semi-broken unit in, but a couple of weeks ago, the Zen Micro I had purchased for my wife also failed, in that it would no longer boot up (unless connected to a PC or wall power supply, but not on battery).

So now I’m struggling with Creative’s customer service department to get two RMA numbers for these units.

Two out two units failing (and my wife rarely uses hers) in less then 10 month’s time is pretty ridiculous. I downgrade the Zen Micro to a 3.5 out of 10.0 on The Richter Scale as a result.

And then, adding insult to injury (no fault of Creative’s) is that Yahoo! is significantly (double the price) increasing the cost of their subscription music service if you want to continue to use subscribed music on a portable player (like the Zen Micro).

To heck with that. I’ll just go buy my CD’s on the cheap at Amazon’s CDNOW Preferred Buyer’s Club and then rip them into MP3s so I can use them on something more reliable like an Apple iPod. The new 60GB Video iPods sure look interesting…

One of the things we’ve been doing at CaribbeanArt.com is a monthly newsletter which includes specials. If you want to learn more, click here to see the newsletters as well as sign up to receive them yourself.

That newsletter is where you’ll find out about things like Linda’s newest painting - “Fishing Lessons”

I also write a newsletter with happenings at the Cinnamon Art Gallery of Bonaire - click here for information on that newsletter.

It’s been a busy last couple of months. Far busier than expected, and hence the lack of blog entries.

In addition to all my patent litigation consulting related work, I’ve also been busy working with my lovely and talented wife Linda on:

1) the launch of the Bonaire Creations 2006 Calendar:

2) A new on-line shopping site called Caribbean Art where one can now buy any and all of the art Linda and I produce (and hopefully art from other Caribbean-based artists in the coming months) - see www.CaribbeanArt.com

3) Launching a series of 20 new Bonaire postcards - 10 featuring Linda’s oil paintings, and 10 featuring my digital paintings (also can be seen at www.CaribbeanArt.com.

4) Getting the aforementioned calendar in item #1 above selected by the Tourism Corporation Bonaire as the Official 2006 Bonaire Calendar:

5) Helping with the guest exhibit openings for two sets of artists at our Cinnamon Art Gallery on Bonaire.

All of the above have required a lot of logistics in terms of production, marketing, and sales, never mind the technical issues.