Just to let you know we're not dead (2011-08-16)

[angus454]

I'm in the pre-order last-1000 group... to hear you're down to the last 300 from your part is exciting. the only semi-bummer is to see there are premium order folks who dont have their units yet, so I'm going to be behind them in line. I have to admit a little confusion over the boards vs Pandoras vs premium units vs preorders and what it all means in terms of where mine is in the pecking order, but I've made it this far, I can be patient Keep up the good work, it's appreciated!

 

[stophle]

Yeah, you are having a point there.


Being a pre-orderer and not having a pandara I vaguely remember reading there wouldn't be any big delays for us due to premium pandoras.


How many premiums have been send out and how many batch 1 preorders are still waiting to be fulfilled?


I'm not sure but I guess I might already have mine queue position wise. And that sucks. I understand that it was important for keeping you guys from going bankrupt, but I'd appreciate a statement on that.


I assume I am back to square one... waiting for an undefined amount of time.


Order Date: Saturday 01 November, 2008


I bet it will be more than 3 years


I know I know, you're doing all you can. And I am very happy about that. But the waiting just isn't fun.


Keep it up and good luck with the German company!

 

[Link]

I would bet that RMAs have actually slowed down the process more than premium units.

 

[hedwards]

I'm in the pre-order last-1000 group... to hear you're down to the last 300 from your part is exciting. the only semi-bummer is to see there are premium order folks who dont have their units yet, so I'm going to be behind them in line. I have to admit a little confusion over the boards vs Pandoras vs premium units vs preorders and what it all means in terms of where mine is in the pecking order, but I've made it this far, I can be patient Keep up the good work, it's appreciated!

They're not down to the last 300, unless they mean of the most recent shipment. They haven't even gotten to the point of shipping the second half of the units, so until those of us that are in the 1500-1600 receive our notifications, I don't think that you're anywhere near receiving yours.


EDIT: Reread that, I'd trust ED's figures for his shop. But by the same token, the only way that's possible is if Craig's been holding back units that he's been supposed to be shipping. There's still plenty of sub 2k queue position orderers that haven't received a notification, and in my case I'm 1500-1600 and I haven't yet seen any evidence that Craig is anywhere near to the point of shipping mine as I'm seeing reports of folks that are in the 1200s that haven't received theres.


Admittedly, that might not be accurate, but nobody has been providing any information to explain that. And ultimately, all I know is that I haven't received my unit nor have I received a shipment confirmation.

 

[dreamer]

^ remember that queue-position does not equal Pandora-number.


There have been plenty of folks ordering multiple units. I'm supposed to be in ~2000 of craig's queue (which would be ~3000 overall queue), but I bet I'm near the end of the first batch in unit-number.


Anyway, I'm back to refreshing my inbox ...

 

[hedwards]

^ remember that queue-position does not equal Pandora-number.


There have been plenty of folks ordering multiple units. I'm supposed to be in ~2000 of craig's queue (which would be ~3000 overall queue), but I bet I'm near the end of the first batch in unit-number.


Anyway, I'm back to refreshing my inbox ...

Right, but they still haven't gotten past the fourth day of orders yet. And judging from what I've read they haven't even gotten past the 3rd day of orders at this point. I'm not really sure how many folks there are that canceled their orders, but they've never made a particularly clear indication of who might have been re-queued.


A little bit of explanation would be well appreciated as at this point the bad information out there is just getting folks riled up. Especially given the folks that are waiting due to getting bumped by premium orders.

 

[kasp]

If I receive my unit before the end of a year it will be a miracle.


Honestly this is the first post for a long time which has broken the 2 month trademark. If Circuit city continue at the pace they are currently going they will not finish batch one for 2 years. I also don't see things with a new company getting started until at least the start of next year. So either way it's almost guaranteed no pandora this year, I would be amazed if Batch 1 is finished before mid next year.


I don't know why people are looking at it like it is good news. To me it just seems to be confirmation of the fact that circuit city is completely useless at handling the pandora and just doesn't care and the fact the preorders and possibly even the premium orders wont have a pandora in time for another christmas .

 

[andmaz]

Circuit City are doing themselves no favours - no matter how cheap they are most Companies would look at this and decide not to place any business with them.


The only excuse they can have is if they are just doing this as a favour to OPT/TI and all other business is completed as agreed by contracts etc (I beleive OPT have no contract with CC that states the order has to be completed in a given timeframe).


Of course the board issues are definately the fault of CC as they should have populated the boards as they should they were doing and then solder the nubs at a later date - for this there is little to excuse as that is what they said they were doing.


This device is so unique that it must be allowed to succeed but CC and the other hurdles have cost so much money for such a small company - without the icontrolpad preorders may be waiting for nothing as the project would have died without major investment.


Congratulations to Craig and ED for keeping this all going.

 

[EvilDragon]

Right, but they still haven't gotten past the fourth day of orders yet. And judging from what I've read they haven't even gotten past the 3rd day of orders at this point. I'm not really sure how many folks there are that canceled their orders, but they've never made a particularly clear indication of who might have been re-queued.

Well, about 65% of the first batch orders happened on the first three days, I'm almost at the end of Day 2 with deliveries.


I guess about 10 - 15% cancelled (based on my figures, might also be more), and quite a few later in the queue upgraded to Premium.


So the queue is pretty much unpredictable right now.


Don't forget: I only have the information for what happens at my shop, so I don't know how many Premiums Craig sold, how many were upgrades, how many cancelled, etc.

This device is so unique that it must be allowed to succeed but CC and the other hurdles have cost so much money for such a small company - without the icontrolpad preorders may be waiting for nothing as the project would have died without major investment.

True, though I'm also thinking about getting a loan from the bank to make a faster start with the production here.


I haven't exactly figured out how to proceed, I'm doing all the calculations right now and as soon as I have the final quotations for the PCB production, I know how much money is needed.


I'm setting up a very accurate plan about how much money is needed and how many new Pandoras need to be sold to produce enough to get the loan back AND send the remaining preorders out.


Maybe I'll do another preorder-round (WITHOUT having to pay upfront!), because AFAIK you can use preorders you have to get the loan from the bank more easily (less risk, as they can be sure you can sell the unit for that price).


All that is currently being worked out, no quick and easy task, but I'm doing it as good as I can.

Congratulations to Craig and ED for keeping this all going.

Thanks. It sure isn't easy, but we want to keep the Pandora alive

 

[ahahah]

(CC means "circuit city"? :blink:


i thought it means "circuit company". it's for this reason i didn't find them with google :lol: )

I've got about 300 units left to deliver for Batch 1,

about 65% of the first batch orders happened on the first three days, I'm almost at the end of Day 2 with deliveries.

so considering approximatively 50% of 1st batch orders happened the first 2 days. 300 units left to you for the last 50%?

Don't know many Craig has left though

he is also an important actor in this project nevertheless we don't hear from him for a long time.


is he ok? the 50 last units arrived to him or to you?


about the orders and the queue position numbers:


i imagine the orders are computerized with an excel document or something like that, aren't they?


so each order has an exact queue position number in a line of the excel document. so why have we aproximate positions?


if there is one excel file for your shop and one excel file for craig's shop, so it is possible to have an exact position of one list and a total number of orders on this list, isn't it?


when a unit is sent, someone notifies it on the line corresponding to the customer, exact?

 

[EvilDragon]

(CC means "circuit city"? :blink:


i thought it means "circuit company". it's for this reason i didn't find them with google :lol: )

It's Circuit Co )

I've got about 300 units left to deliver for Batch 1,

about 65% of the first batch orders happened on the first three days, I'm almost at the end of Day 2 with deliveries.

so considering approximatively 50% of 1st batch orders happened the first 2 days. 300 units left to you for the last 50%?

Yes, I didn't sell as many as Craig. 300 units should be left when CC finishes all 1000 boards, yes.

Don't know many Craig has left though

he is also an important actor in this project nevertheless we don't hear from him for a long time.


is he ok? the 50 last units arrived to him or to you?

He is doing okay, just pushing the iCP right now as there's not much he can do Pandora-wise except for waiting for PCB deliveries.


The cases, etc. have all been setup, so all he needs is to put in the PCBs into them and ship.


He's also looking into legal options, but stuff like that all goes on in silence.


PCBs always go to Craig first, not me.

i imagine the orders are computerized with an excel document or something like that, aren't they?


so each order has an exact queue position number in a line of the excel document. so why have we aproximate positions?


if there is one excel file for your shop and one excel file for craig's shop, so it is possible to have an exact position of one list and a total number of orders on this list, isn't it?

I don't know how Craig handles them, but AFAIK he also has a shop system.


I am using osCommerce as shop, and all orders are in there, mixed with all the other orders I have, so it's not possible for me to simply spit out a list with all Pandora orders.


I have to browse through them manually.


The osCommerce database also is pretty complex. Each item has an ID, each status has an ID, each customer has an ID, each order has an ID, each address has an ID.


So I'd need to check for all orders with the ID of "not shipped" yet that include the item ID of the Pandora and then link it to the ID of the customer and address for that customer to find the name...

 

[Shadowfox]

I would bet that RMAs have actually slowed down the process more than premium units.

Does anyone know how many RMAs there have been total?


For some reason it's tempting to make a big spreadsheet and link it on the forum. :lol:

 

[Kaniu]

The osCommerce database also is pretty complex. Each item has an ID, each status has an ID, each customer has an ID, each order has an ID, each address has an ID.


So I'd need to check for all orders with the ID of "not shipped" yet that include the item ID of the Pandora and then link it to the ID of the customer and address for that customer to find the name...

That doesn't sound complex at all, sounds like what databases are normally like... If it is a SQL-database, you just need a few joins... (I found the database schema of osCommerce on the net and looks like the edited query might do it. Of course it might need some tweaking, since I have no prior knowledge of the system and spent abount five minutes on the query)

select distinct o.customers_name, o.datePurchased from orders as o

inner join orders_products as p on p.orders_id=o.orders_id

inner join orders_status as s on s.orders_status_id=p.orders_status

where p.products_name='pandora'

and not s.orders_status_name='completed'

order by o.datePurchased

or something like that.


Kaitsu

 

[leo]

Hey Evildragon, random question here; instead of pushing circuit co to deliver those boards why not get them to refund the money? Or at least get the damaged boards back and have have them repaired by one of the German companies?


Your doing great by the way, just hang in there and kick some more butt!

 

[EvilDragon]

The osCommerce database also is pretty complex. Each item has an ID, each status has an ID, each customer has an ID, each order has an ID, each address has an ID.


So I'd need to check for all orders with the ID of "not shipped" yet that include the item ID of the Pandora and then link it to the ID of the customer and address for that customer to find the name...

That doesn't sound complex at all, sounds like what databases are normally like... If it is a SQL-database, you just need a few joins... (I found the database schema of osCommerce on the net and looks like the edited query might do it. Of course it might need some tweaking, since I have no prior knowledge of the system and spent abount five minutes on the query)

Yeah, it's probably easy for someone knowing MySQL - but I'm not THAT firm with Queries

Hey Evildragon, random question here; instead of pushing circuit co to deliver those boards why not get them to refund the money? Or at least get the damaged boards back and have have them repaired by one of the German companies?


Your doing great by the way, just hang in there and kick some more butt!

That's happening as well in parallel. We have a law company currently checking all options and possibilities.


It might be that the money could be used to fully pay the production in Germany.

 

[leo]

Thats very exciting to hear! I am sure everything will go smoothly once again, thanks ED!!

 

[hedwards]

Right, but they still haven't gotten past the fourth day of orders yet. And judging from what I've read they haven't even gotten past the 3rd day of orders at this point. I'm not really sure how many folks there are that canceled their orders, but they've never made a particularly clear indication of who might have been re-queued.

Well, about 65% of the first batch orders happened on the first three days, I'm almost at the end of Day 2 with deliveries.


I guess about 10 - 15% cancelled (based on my figures, might also be more), and quite a few later in the queue upgraded to Premium.


So the queue is pretty much unpredictable right now.


Don't forget: I only have the information for what happens at my shop, so I don't know how many Premiums Craig sold, how many were upgrades, how many cancelled, etc.

Thanks, you're always quite helpful. I realize that you're only dealing with your shop.


It's somewhat unfortunate that Craig is the keeper of the relevant information and hasn't chosen to give those of us in line for his shop any idea as to where we are at this point. I do understand that it's difficult to provide information when CC isn't providing it or when nobody knows, but still, patience does wear thin over time. And not getting information about how far back we're being pushed by premium orders really doesn't help at all.

 

[hedwards]

Hey Evildragon, random question here; instead of pushing circuit co to deliver those boards why not get them to refund the money? Or at least get the damaged boards back and have have them repaired by one of the German companies?


Your doing great by the way, just hang in there and kick some more butt!

That's happening as well in parallel. We have a law company currently checking all options and possibilities.


It might be that the money could be used to fully pay the production in Germany.

Without access to the contracts and relevant details, it's impossible for any of us on the fora to speculate, but it would surprise me if there wasn't grounds by now of breaking the contract or getting a refund. Good luck in getting things done.


EDIT: And I totally get why you're not giving more information about that, such proceedings can be pretty touchy at times.

 

[ZarkGhost]

thx for the answer i will send to uk... but it is true i am scary that in this time i dont get anything back... without news from there...


and i dont know... having this community, it is possible you tell the list of "minimal technology" you need to make a pandora board. And for sure we can make a search in different countries. Maybe in europe, reducing the prices in transportation.


I dont know... i just know that if you try to send a flower in other country to a person, and you search for companies with websites in english where they offer this, use to be much more, that if you search in the city using the local language. And, as the same with the restaurants, the restaurant with the biggest poster use to be the worst around.

 

[Pickle]

That's happening as well in parallel. We have a law company currently checking all options and possibilities.


It might be that the money could be used to fully pay the production in Germany.

Wouldnt that be quite unlikely seeing how if and when you did take someone to court it would be years before and final decision was made or even if a settlement was agreed upon starting the case.