New stand idea from Sennheiser

Posted on by Jeff Posted in Uncategorized — No Comments ↓

mike2 Everytime I think that there are no good mic stand ideas left, I come across another one. Sennheiser has mated low tech to wireless in a really clever way with their new line of wireless mic stands.

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Plug your mic into the top of the stand and a wireless transmitter-lots of companies like Sennheiser and Lectrosonics make these-into the base and you have a truly wireless solution that can be moved around a stage or set without any cabling issues. It also means that you can make a normally wired mic (e.g.- a backline amplifier mic) really wireless without buying more wireless mics.

Now that wireless mics have become reliable enough to use in situations where wired mics have been traditionally used (e.g. miking a drum kit) quick set and sound stage changes will become much easier.

Look for this stand to be used extensively on television award shows, or in any environment where fast stage set changes are necessary. It would be great for festival environments as well. As wireless mic battery life improves, this will become a workable solution in more and more entertainment production applications.
Here’s something else to look for. Sennheiser stands are extremely expensive. It won’t be long before one of the quality offshore stand makers comes out with something similar. Then we’ll really see this idea take off.

Have you seen a good new idea you’d like to share. Let us know!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Pro Gaffer gaffers tape, Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, wire ties from Bay State, Electratrac Multioutlet extension cords, OnStage Stand microphone stands, and lots of other useful great supplies.

Consumer Reports Muddies the Water

Posted on by Jeff Posted in Uncategorized — No Comments ↓

I came across an interesting article recently in Consumer Reports about batteries-specifically battery life. I had hoped that it might clear up some questions we (and our customers) have about battery life. Unfortunately, it did just the opposite.

In a nutshell, the article came to the conclusion that battery performance was a function of the power drain of the device in use. It seems that a well designed and manufactured battery would have superior performance across the board, but that is not the case.

Why should one brand of battery give better results in a digital camera and another battery do better in a portable cd player. The magazine fails to address this basic question.

The number one use for our battery customers is in wireless microphones. There are fewer high drain devices using batteries and rarely is there a case when so many people might be impacted by poor battery performance. Consumer reports didn’t address wireless mics (not really a consumer device), but a lot of their conclusions are still worth considering.

One of their most interesting findings was that the performance of some generic (house brand) batteries was good. In fact, they rated the Kirkland Brand from Costco to be a better value (peformance and cost) than a number of national brands.

They also went out of their way to recommend that you always use the battery a manufacturer recommends with that device. It has always struck us as odd that Shure ships their wireless mics with Duracell CopperTops even though the Duracell Procell is what the market to the pro audio market.

It would be interesting to run a test of the Kirkland brand in a wireless mic. At a cost of $.20 each in volume, a real cost savings is a possibility. Maybe we’ll set up a test.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Pro Gaffer gaffers tape, Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, wire ties from Bay State, Electratrac Multioutlet extension cords, OnStage Stand microphone stands, and lots of other useful great supplies.

Isn’t the Internet Just A Series Of Tubes?

Posted on by Jeff Posted in tape — No Comments ↓

spokesguyOne of the most interesting stories floating around the net today involves a little company called U Tube. No I’m not talking about YouTube.com, I’m talking about a company that actually sells metal tube making machinery.

I am constantly working with our web developer, Dale, to build up traffic for our web sites. He does a great job, and our web traffic continues to grow.

How about if you could see your site visits go from hundreds a day to millions every day, literally overnight. That’s what happened to U Tube.

All the news coverage regarding Googles purchase of YouTube.com has apparently led to a bad case of “i can’t spell it itis” on the web. UTube.com has had to upgrade its servers three times, has seen its site crash daily, and is usually unavailable to its customers and prospects. U Tube has asked YouTube.com for assistance in resolving the problem, but no offer has been forthcoming. All they really want is help in changing their domain and getting a new site up and running

U Tube, an industrial equipment vendor in Perryville, OH, has been in business over 20 years and claims, rightly I believe, that Google owes them some consideration regarding the damage that has been done to their web presence. They claim that they have lost business because customers and prospects are regularly denied access to their web site while some college student is looking for yet another video of a dog catching a frisbee or somebody dropping Mentos into a Diet Coke bottle.

Since YouTube.com has been no help in getting this resolved, Ralph Girkins, the owner of Utube.com is now trying to decide whether to sue Google or simply sell his domain name to someone who wants to instantly have millions of site visitors.

I wish goodbuyguys had that sort of problem.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

Gecko Tape May Have Us Climbing The Walls.

Posted on by Jeff Posted in gaffers tape — No Comments ↓

Tex Talks If you follow this blog, you know that I’m no fan of rechargeable batteries. The majority of our battery customers use batteries in wireless microphones, and the performance of rechargeables in this application has real problems.

Still, we do support the concept of reuse in the products we sell whenever possible. One good example is Velcro’s One Wrap Straps. They’re handy and can used many, many times without creating any waste

Reusable tape? Now there’s an idea!

Thanks to Geico Insurance, everybody knows what a gecko is. Real geckos can’t talk, but they do have a very special characteristic that makes them amazing characters. They can walk upside down as easily as they walk right side up. Wall climbing? No problem!

What’s that got to do with tape? Stick with me for a minute.

The geckos’ trick, according to National Geographic, involves millions of microscopic hairs on the pads of their feet. Each hair, or seta, provides a miniscule adhesive force called van der Waals, which operate over very small distances but bond to just about anything. Robert Full, a biologist at the University of California at Berkeley, believes that adhesives can be developed that are as strong (and infinitely reusable) as what geckos have on their feet.

I doubt that this technology will work its way down to the point of having reusable gaffers tape anytime soon, but it could happen someday.

Meanwhile, imagine yourself hanging upside down from the ceiling. That would be cool.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

Answer the phone, would ya!

Posted on by Jeff Posted in batteries — No Comments ↓

fred looks rightIt’s hard to imagine a more important customer service function than answering the phone. I have been trying to contact a couple of our suppliers (companies that we send thousands of dollars to on a regular basis) and I can’t get anyone to answer the phone. Voice mail followed by unreturned calls. Over and over again.

I’m not talking about customer service or sales calls. I am talking about calls from an existing customer to a supplier who spends millions trying to get us to buy and distribute their products.

I can understand the need to use voice mail and message taking when absolutely necessary, but it is difficult to imagine anything of more value to someone who sells a product or service than talking to your customer. After all, my calls are all about my desire to give your company money. What could be more important than that?

The advent of e-commerce and online sales has been incredibly liberating for us at GoodBuyGuys.com. We’ve always tried to make sure that a customer got a live human being when they called to order gaffers tape or batteries, or when they called for product info. Our phone rings less and less often, even though our sales are increasing, so we have lots more time and resources to field every phone call without adding phone lines or employees. It is the most important customer service function anyone around here performs. It’s easy and it is a service that is rarely abused by customers or prospects. They don’t call unless an interaction with a human voice is really needed.

Its obvious to us, that most people find it more efficient to deal with us (and most vendors) online when possible. Usually, you can get your questions answered and your order placed a lot quicker via the internet than by phone. That makes our job easier and frees up lots of resources to make available when the phone does ring.

We have resisted adding hold music or, even worse, some sort of recorded message to bore you while you are put on hold. If a caller is left on hold for more than 45 sec. the phone starts making a really loud and annoying beeping sound.

Occasionally, you may get voice mail if all our incoming lines are busy, but we strive to return ALL calls within the hour. It’s something that really matters.

When we make decisions on adding new suppliers and expanding our relationship with exisiting ones, how they handle the telephone is a very big part of our decision making process.

Why more companies don’t take advantage of the decrease in demand that e-commerce puts on their human resources is a mystery to me. Having a human answer the phone is a great way to build business relationships in a way that online interactions will never replace. You miss an awful lot when you are unwilling to answer the phone.

Got an insight into good customer service? Share it with us!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

Red Tape-Now the Government Is Buying It!

Posted on by Jeff Posted in tape — No Comments ↓

Tex TalksMy Google News server delivered up this little tidbit earlier in the week.

A federal judge in Nashville yesterday sentenced Natalie Coker to 46 months in prison. Coker was the associate director of the V-A’s Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy in Murfreesboro.

Coker and her boss, Joseph Haymond, were arrested in November after investigators uncovered a scheme to get kickbacks from a company that was selling the red tape to the V-A at inflated prices. The tape is stamped with the word “security” and is intended to deter tampering.

Judge Robert Echols found that Coker personally received more than $115,000 in kickbacks from a company that was selling security tape to the VA at inflated prices.

While there is nothing funny about government corruption, you’ve got to admit that the notion of the Veterans Admninistration buying red tape is a little humorous, regardless of the price.

We do, however, sell red tape ourselves (gaffers tape, duct tape, spike tape, etc). We would be happy to sell it to you (or the government) at a fair price.

Seen a funny tape story that might make us laugh? Share it with us!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

Net Neutrality Under Fire!

Posted on by Jeff Posted in tape — No Comments ↓

spokesguy I normally stay away from politics and controversy. Its enjoyable to write about our customers and comment on products and vendors, and that has been my focus.

However, today, there is an issue that I feel is worthy of discussion outside of my normal realm.

Net neutrality is under attack and if the big media and telco companies get their way, it will impact how we use the internet for generations to come. Net neutrality is the concept that any traffic on the net moves with the same priority and speed, regardless of who sends or receives it. These limitations on those who control the digital pipeline, preventing favorable treatment for some over others is basic to the explosive growth of the internet. Without it, we will quickly have a system of “haves” and “have nots” when it comes to how the internet handles your information requests.

Our company has been able to grow and prosper because, online, your orders, our web pages, your inquiries, etc. move at the same speed as data being transferred by the largest and most powerful companies in the country. We have been able to establish a niche for distributing our products and information and make good jobs for our employees because of net neutrality.

Now companies like Bell South and Comcast want to give priority to large companies that can pay more for access to the pipeline and, thus,  see their traffic move at a faster rates than the rest of us.

These are companies that have been given public monopolies in the past, as telephone and cable companies, with the promise that they would use this monopoly to build infrastructure so that everyone’s data would move faster. They have failed to honor their commitments to their customers and the communities they serve. Consequently, the United States has some of the slowest internet speeds in the developed world. If net neutrality is allowed to slip away from us, these same companies-the ones that have been given monopoly opportunities-will be able to decide who gets fast internet service and how it will be made available.

If you believe that innovation and grass roots growth can’t survive in a monopoly enviroment, let your representatives in Washington know how important you believe net neutrality is.

Got an opinion on this or some other important issue of the day? Let us know.

What Will Proctor & Gamble Do With ProCell?

Posted on by Jeff Posted in batteries — No Comments ↓

Battery Barney from goodbuyguys.com We are finally seeing some headway on the acquisition of Duracell by Proctor & Gamble (see my Sept. 20th post). The sale of the Duracell brand (along with the rest of the Gillette-owned family of products) has led to a lot of confusion for us and meant that our battery shelves have been essentially empty for the last couple of weeks.

Shipments have begun arriving again, and we are hopeful of catching up on a huge stack of backorders by week’s end. We appreciate the patience of lots of loyal customers and hope that we can get back to our “same day shipping” policy on most of our orders. Backorders are problems for everybody.

Duracell was named to the 84th position in Business Week’s list of Best Global Brands last year. They had 2005 sales of $3.57 billion dollars and it looks like the are continuing to gain market share from competitors like Energizer.

The acquisition of Gillette and all its brands was a $57 billion dollar deal and its hard to say how ProCell may fare in an acqusition like this.

Some see it as a great step.

“This merger is going to create the greatest consumer products company in the world,” said billionaire investor Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway is Gillette’s largest shareholder with 96 million shares, or about 9 percent of the company.

We’re not so sure. A specialty brand like ProCell may not fit in well with a company that is focused on consumer brands. ProCell, as you may know, is not packaged for retail sales and is intended for distribution to end users in the industrial, medical and electronics industries. After spending a lot of effort in promoting the brand to these industries, Duracell, under Gillette’s ownership, dropped most of these efforts, reduced their sales staff, and scaled back promotion of the brand.

Initially, it looks like P&G may scale back even further. They appear to have replaced all the folks at Gillette who handled the nuts and bolts process of getting ProCell batteries to distributors and they have had great difficulty in keeping product in the pipeline. Industry reports indicate that as many as 6000 jobs may have been cut in the implementation of this acquisition. Who know how many of these cuts will impact ProCell?

I am hopeful that things will get back on track and Proctor & Gamble will realize what great customer loyalty ProCell has. Its a brand worth a lot more attention than they have given it so far.

Got an opinion about this mega-merger? Let us know.

Planned Obsolescence Takes It On The Chin

Posted on by Jeff Posted in Uncategorized — No Comments ↓

goodbuyguys.com spokespersonI have a tractor. It’s just a small one that I use for mowing and landscaping. Its a 1986 model and pretty much held together by wire ties and gaffers tape. But that’s not the point of this blog posting.

As I said, my little Japanese tractor is 20 years old. The amazing thing about this little workhorse is all the implements that my neighbor uses on his 40 year old Ford red belly tractor will fit my tractor too. The mower, the spreader, the bucket scoop-they’ll all work on both tractors.

Even more amazing, both his implements and mine will work on a brand new tractor being imported from Russia or China. Fifty years of tractor manufacturing across the globe and all the implements will work on all three tractors (and thousands of others).

Can you think of any other mechanical system with this sort of compatibility? Imagine a window mechanism from a ‘56 Chevy working on a 2004 Lexus. Not in a million years!

At first, I thought that this was some sort of great master plan by farmers and tractor makers, but now I believe that something else is going on. Something that all the tractor manufacturers really regret.

Here’s what I think happened.

It doesn’t take long for most farmers and landscapers to have as much invested in their implements as they do in the tractor. A good tow behind mower can cost as much as $1000.00 and its not unusual for a farmer to have a dozen or more implements all designed to work with the three point hitch and the power-take-off on the back of the tractor. Implements usually last a long time.

What this means is that even if the tractor manufacturer came up with a better system for attaching the implements to the tractor and powering their moving parts, the farmer wouldn’t buy it because it would mean that his old implements wouldn’t work with the new tractor. This back-and-forth decision making by the farmer-this year I need a new plow, next year I need a new tractor-means that the tractor builders can never make the system obsolete.

You’ll never find a farmer taking his implements to the landfill the way we all dispose of our old electronics because some new upgrade (e.g. USB ports on computers) makes the old system obsolete and the new component incompatible.

Just a theory, but I think that its a pretty good one.

Know of another idea that has risen above planned obsolescence? Let us know.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies

That Duct Tape Is Really Strong Stuff!

Posted on by Jeff Posted in Uncategorized — No Comments ↓

tape spokesman for goodbuyguys.comI subscribe to a great Google service called “Google Alerts”. You set up your alerts by entering in key words, and Google will send you an email about news stories anytime your keyword appears in an online posting.

Naturally, one of my key words is “duct tape”. Anytime the term “duct tape” appears in a story that Google has indexed, they send me a link to that web page. It is a great time saver and quite often leads to some amazing info.

Unfortunately, a great preponderance of duct tape stories are crime-related. It seems that duct tape is the restraint of choice in a lot of really creepy crimes.

This morning’s alert, however was really amazing. Here’s how the headline from the British newspaper , The Telegraph, read:

Crumbling Cathedral Held Together By Tape

Now, we know that duct tape can be used for a lot of amazing things, but holding together a 500 year old stone cathedral never crossed my mind. Canterbury Cathedral is beginning a $100,000,000.00 fundraising campaign for restoration of this world renowned building, and you, must admit, this made for a pretty compelling headline. It got my attention.

Pieces of the stone columns are coming off, and if you believe the spokespersons for the campaign, one in every five columns holding up the roof have had duct tape applied for some sort of short term repair.

Believe it or not, we have a product that’s even better for holding stone columns together than duct tape. Its called Gorilla Tape, and I am guessing that if the folks at Canterbury Cathedral used this, they could buy another 500 years.

We wish this campaign well, and hope that they are successful in stabilizing and restoring this amazing building. Meanwhile, if they need duct tape, the Goodbuybuys are ready to go to work. England, here we come.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies

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