A summary of the last few weeks (2011-05-26)

[craigix]

I don't know why they don't just make a simple post of how many units they send out every week and how many in total they have sent. It is worrying that they seem to be unable to do this.

Get real. This is additional bookkeeping work that is not necessary. Would you like them to send out 100-150 Pandoras per week but not getting exact numbers every week, or have them send out 70-100 Pandoras with exact numbers? I prefer the first one.


Good, Fast, Cheap. Choose any two.

It's a 2 minute job!


......and would not have to be exact just close as possible that's all!

2 minute job? I don't think so. We once got a detailed status about boards being produced, being replaced, repaired etc. as well as a number of pandoras that were already produced and/or shipped (or was it orders?) - and I guess this took a day or more to figure out. Anyway, either you want exact numbers - then someone needs to check orders vs. Pandoras, Pandoras sent out, Pandoras received for repair etc. and merge the numbers from the different people sending pandoras out. This is a time consuming task. If you don't believe it, do something like that yourself - take also into account that you're also earning a living and have a real life beside this.


Regarding possible numbers, it was said that about 100+ are send out every week and that the last 1000 of first batch are currently being worked on. That gives us about two months left for batch one - if nothing bad happens in between.


Imho that _IS_ as close as possible - and I might receive my second pandora within the next 8 weeks ;-)

^ Very true, some people can't seem to understand how it would take 1-2hours from each day to keep those numbers accurate, not only would I and Ed have to do those figures separately we would then have to work together to get a final total.


Neither of us wants to waste valuable time to do it, especially when the next day could see the previous days figures voided.


We do keep an absolute total though, this is monitored via the remaining LCDs.

 

[n6pfk]

I don't know why they don't just make a simple post of how many units they send out every week and how many in total they have sent. It is worrying that they seem to be unable to do this.

Get real. This is additional bookkeeping work that is not necessary. Would you like them to send out 100-150 Pandoras per week but not getting exact numbers every week, or have them send out 70-100 Pandoras with exact numbers? I prefer the first one.


Good, Fast, Cheap. Choose any two.

It's a 2 minute job!


......and would not have to be exact just close as possible that's all!

2 minute job? I don't think so. We once got a detailed status about boards being produced, being replaced, repaired etc. as well as a number of pandoras that were already produced and/or shipped (or was it orders?) - and I guess this took a day or more to figure out. Anyway, either you want exact numbers - then someone needs to check orders vs. Pandoras, Pandoras sent out, Pandoras received for repair etc. and merge the numbers from the different people sending pandoras out. This is a time consuming task. If you don't believe it, do something like that yourself - take also into account that you're also earning a living and have a real life beside this.


Regarding possible numbers, it was said that about 100+ are send out every week and that the last 1000 of first batch are currently being worked on. That gives us about two months left for batch one - if nothing bad happens in between.


Imho that _IS_ as close as possible - and I might receive my second pandora within the next 8 weeks ;-)

^ Very true, some people can't seem to understand how it would take 1-2hours from each day to keep those numbers accurate, not only would I and Ed have to do those figures separately we would then have to work together to get a final total.


Neither of us wants to waste valuable time to do it, especially when the next day could see the previous days figures voided.


We do keep an absolute total though, this is monitored via the remaining LCDs.

Ok, then how many LCDs are left?

 

[andmaz]

Look all we want to know is e.g. Last week 10 shipped to preorders - it would be better if we knew the queue positions as well.


The number of RMAs or even premiums shipped is irrelevant at this point as too is how many ED actually shipped.


That's where the it's a 2 min job comes from.

 

[stophle]

Look all we want to know is e.g. Last week 10 shipped to preorders - it would be better if we knew the queue positions as well.


The number of RMAs or even premiums shipped is irrelevant at this point as too is how many ED actually shipped.


That's where the it's a 2 min job comes from.

Letting people know how many units have shipped and monitoring how it changes would be very nice and would reassure people that slowly very slowly their pandoras are getting closer to being sent to them.


I've ordered November 1st 2008 in ED's shop.


This is an awful long time ago and I have no info what's so ever when I'll get my unit.


How can anyone say this is an ok situation? I've waited and I'll wait. I'd feel much better if I had a ball park number how long I'll have to wait.


I'll probably have my PhD before that and that really means something

 

[Blue Protoman]

We've been over this many times. Trying to count them all would be total hell.

 

[QBCS]

I'll probably have my PhD before that and that really means something

I ordered it to use while I was doing my Master's. I'll hopefully graduate in about Two Months™, maybe I should get a PhD after it comes...

 

[Kaniu]

^ Very true, some people can't seem to understand how it would take 1-2hours from each day to keep those numbers accurate, not only would I and Ed have to do those figures separately we would then have to work together to get a final total.


Neither of us wants to waste valuable time to do it, especially when the next day could see the previous days figures voided.


We do keep an absolute total though, this is monitored via the remaining LCDs.

What I can't understand is why each shop hasn't created an online searchable list of orders which is in the shipping order. Orders would be removed from the list as they are shipped or cancelled. Then everyone could use his or her own order number to ask how many orders are still in front in the queue. Doesn't really matter if the remaining orders contain more than one Pandora or if someone is sent a replacement Pandora. When you could check how many unsent orders are still in front of you and would see the number gradually decreasing, that would give some kind of a measure of progress.


You'd probably save a huge amount of time because you wouldn't need to write e-mail replies. And the community would be much happier to see some measurable progress instead of "70 units shipping today" announcements which really don't give any useful information if you are interested in when you are going to get your own unit.


Sure there would be some time required to create that kind of system, but you've had over two and a half years. And a lot of it was spent on waiting on one thing or another, which would have been a perfect time to create a searchable list.

 

[MarioPandio]

If only OPT hadn't given every pre-orderer (sorry 'Investor') their own wall chart for tracking the progress of their savings.


Repleat with coloured crayons, we could all be filling in the monthly slots two at once, whilst watching Craig n Co-ED's (perhaps by webcam) progress, with the happy smiles of a spectrum ZX80 customer watching the screen refresh


So I propose, OPT stops resting on its laurels and gets with the programme, as this project is a fragile as porcelain and Its as clear as Muhammed Ali's old title, that what we need, is visible, tangible targets for investors to feel as happy as Larry Flint with, in the absence of the Pandora they 'invested' 'to support the creation of'.


Something like this for marketing it might do :


(see the enclosed video)


http://www.piggybankpage.co.uk/wade_NatWest.htm

 

[kasp]

I don't know why they don't just make a simple post of how many units they send out every week and how many in total they have sent. It is worrying that they seem to be unable to do this.

Get real. This is additional bookkeeping work that is not necessary. Would you like them to send out 100-150 Pandoras per week but not getting exact numbers every week, or have them send out 70-100 Pandoras with exact numbers? I prefer the first one.


Good, Fast, Cheap. Choose any two.

What?? How is this hard, I have never dealt with a system ever that it was hard to work out how many units are shipping each week or how many left to go. Hell even a manual count of the units shipping out wouldn't take hours to do given the numbers are under 200 each week. You also have to ship the units out so there would be a dispatch book around somewhere as well.


This can also be done through a common sense calculation as well with no book keeping required if their system does take hours and hours to extract simple information. Since they are waiting for boards from CC so when CC sends them 100 boards then six days later they have 0 boards left because they have sent them all out they can say they have shipped out 100 Pandora in six days(If they are all good). They can minus the RMA's, premiums, broken stock etc and give numbers of Pre orders sent. How is that a nightmare to calculate?


If it is a "nightmare" to work out how many units you still need to ship to customers you are doing something seriously wrong on your admin side.

 

[ledow]

What?? How is this hard, I have never dealt with a system ever that it was hard to work out how many units are shipping each week or how many left to go. Hell even a manual count of the units shipping out wouldn't take hours to do given the numbers are under 200 each week. You also have to ship the units out so there would be a dispatch book around somewhere as well.


This can also be done through a common sense calculation as well with no book keeping required if their system does take hours and hours to extract simple information. Since they are waiting for boards from CC so when CC sends them 100 boards then six days later they have 0 boards left because they have sent them all out they can say they have shipped out 100 Pandora in six days(If they are all good). They can minus the RMA's, premiums, broken stock etc and give numbers of Pre orders sent. How is that a nightmare to calculate?


If it is a "nightmare" to work out how many units you still need to ship to customers you are doing something seriously wrong on your admin side.

It's only a nightmare if the bookkeeping is drastically unfit for purpose in the first place, or they just aren't keeping track of things they should be. The excuse has always been that the computer systems they used weren't immediately capable in the past (I can understand different distributors not integrating nicely but having NO way to get simple information out of a system - note, NOT computer system, just a shipping system - is laughable). Stick a Post-It on your desk and tick for every completed unit sent to the courier. Do it in the traditional 5-gate blocks and the end-of-week/month/year count takes seconds.


The device is nice. The organisation itself (from simple things like this, to keeping clients up to date, to getting info from suppliers, to having binding contracts with suppliers, to "Premium" orders etc.) is atrocious, and the main reason I haven't touched the project with a bargepole. Sadly, few seem to understand this and the cover-all is that it's a "community" project, which I see little evidence of at all.


All the excuses in the world can't really cover the fact that it would take *literally* seconds to produce this information if they were taking the business / clients seriously, no matter how overworked they were. In fact, they should *already* have this information just for their own use because I find it incredible that they can track *anything* without such information also being readily available. How would you pass a "surprise" tax audit, for instance? Would you tell them that it would take 2 years to get a reasonable, verifiable estimate of the number of devices shipped between two dates?

 

[levi]

Personally, I think it's fairly obvious that they don't want to give out numbers. Given they are demonstrably shipping units, I can think of a couple of reasons why that might be the case. That's pure speculation though.

 

[Christobevii3]

Not getting much of an update for the last month has finally made me cancel. It still seems like the "upgrade" pandoras are delaying batch 1 to me and the lack of information plus constant locking of topics swayed me over. I didn't care about exact numbers of parts/repairs etc. All I wanted to see was "Hey we shipped 50 from craigs store this week and 45 from ED's this week."

 

[neko]

The truth is, Craig shipped zero pandoras this week.


They are re-testing the boards because of the wifi problem. It would have been better if Craig would have admitted this up front instead of waiting for someone to complain about it, but Craig just doesn't like to post bad news.

 

[EvilDragon]

The truth is, Craig shipped zero pandoras this week.


They are re-testing the boards because of the wifi problem. It would have been better if Craig would have admitted this up front instead of waiting for someone to complain about it, but Craig just doesn't like to post bad news.

AFAIK, he still shipped units until two days ago and was just running out right now.


He was hoping to get more PCBs faster from CC, but they first need to fix the issue.


I'm still shipping, as I got at least 70 PCBs still to check, fix, replace nubs, build and ship them.


And as I'm the only one doing it here, I can't do that within a few days

 

[dreamer]

Had I known beforehand that I was going to be waiting 2.5 years I probably wouldn't have jumped on board.

 

[EvilDragon]

Had I known beforehand that I was going to be waiting 2.5 years I probably wouldn't have jumped on board.

Had we known the whole thing would be THAT hard to complete, we probably never would've started it

 

[WizardStan]

God Bless ignorance, it's the only reason we have a Pandora at all

 

[dreamer]

Had we known the whole thing would be THAT hard to complete, we probably never would've started it

Yeah I know


Just being bummed out that this will be the 3rd summer without a Pandora

 

[NekoAlvien]

The truth is, Craig shipped zero pandoras this week.


They are re-testing the boards because of the wifi problem. It would have been better if Craig would have admitted this up front instead of waiting for someone to complain about it, but Craig just doesn't like to post bad news.

I hope you guys dont think I was "complaining" D: That wasn't my intention, more like...."humorously crushed"

 

[lilington]

Had I known beforehand that I was going to be waiting 2.5 years I probably wouldn't have jumped on board.

Had we known the whole thing would be THAT hard to complete, we probably never would've started it

Had I known this beforeborn that this life will be like THAT, I probably refuse to born.


just humour for today. hope i will get my pandora before I change city again