Sharon Odom

Smooth Fitness 7.6 HR Pro Treadmill Warning

If you’re thinking about buying a Smooth Fitness 7.6 HR Pro for your treadmill desk … don’t.

I bought this model after my Smooth 5.25 broke. The repair was going to be expensive and was going to take awhile, so I decided to invest that money in a new supposedly better model. Because I loved my previous Smooth treadmill, I felt safe buying one that was LIKE NEW for a $200 price cut. That was definitely a bad move because it meant that I couldn’t return it. Here’s what happened:

It arrived in a beat up looking box and the top wasn’t even connected to the rest of it, it was totally loose. If I hadn’t been so desperate to have a treadmill, I would have refused delivery
It had NUMEROUS scratches and marks and dents
It had a bad squeak — expected when something is old but this was supposed to be LIKE NEW
The rails are a lot lower than my old one so the treadmill desk was at hip level. I had to set the keyboard and mouse on top of two reams of paper to bring it up to the right height. (see photo):
It doesn’t work the way my old one did. I’m on and off the treadmill all day long and at the end of the day, usually would record how long I’ve walked, distance, calories burned, etc. This treadmill resets itself after 3 minutes so I have to record everything EVERY TIME I get off. I called support and was told it’s a “feature”. Don’t you hate when a flaw is called a feature?

Ok so all of that was annoying but the thing couldn’t be returned so I had to live with it. But after awhile, it developed an intermittent problem — the motor makes a funny grinding noise, the belt vibrates and speeds up a bit, and the digital display goes a bit haywire, showing a pulse even though I’m not grabbing the sensors. It lasts maybe 20-30 seconds. It seemed to be getting worse recently so I wanted to get it checked while this piece of crap is still under warranty.

Submitted a service request and someone called the next day. A treadmill service guy came to check it out, and called Smooth to discuss. He told the Smooth rep about the treadmill desk, how I walk for long periods of time at low speeds, and I could tell from his face that I was not going to like what the Smooth guy was saying.

Get this … Smooth is saying that the treadmill is not designed to be used that way — as a treadmill desk — and doing so could/would void my warranty. What the hell does that mean? If I removed the desk and just used it to look at TV and walk for 4 hours, would THAT be okay?

I ordered this thing over the phone and told the lady what I was going to use it for, and she didn’t say anything about that voiding my warranty, nor do I see anywhere on the website that their treadmills can’t be used at low speeds for long periods of time. That makes no sense at all — there is no posted minimum speed limit in any gym I’ve ever been to. Just another case of a company trying to pass the buck and find some way to blame the consumer for their own shoddy merchandise.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to this rep myself and frankly was so pissed afterwards that I didn’t want to talk to him and put energy into something so negative. But I’m definitely going to call and discuss this with them. It’s stupid to mistreat someone who has bought TWO of their machines and has raved about them. Consider my recommendation to buy Smooth Fitness treadmills to be null and void, unless you want to void your warranty.

My 92-year-old Mother’s New iPad

Today my sister and I took our mother to the Apple Store to buy a computer. After playing around with the MacBook, we realized it would be overkill for what she needed — email and photos — so we looked at the iPad. I had played with one a few months ago and know I will get one at some point, but really thought the screen would be too small for her.

But this nice young man, Brett, helped show her how to do things and before you knew it, she whipped out her credit card and said “I’ll take it!”

Here’s a picture of Brett and my mother holding her new iPad.

My mother is no ordinary 92 year old grandmother — she’s been texting on her cell phone for the last year or two, and not one with a full keyboard either. She took to the touchscreen keyboard right away, and before I left the house, she was up and running with her gmail account.

I sent her an email asking did she like her new toy and she responded…

Yes!! I am learning and having fun

BLO
Sent from my iPad

Ok, I’m off to set up her iTunes account so she can download apps…

Lost Generation Video

Have you seen this palindrome video? It reads the same backwards as forward, but the meaning is totally different.

Did You See That? The Invisible Gorilla.

Watched a fascinating episode of Dateline NBC the other night about “inattention blindness”, where you’re attending to one thing so focused that you miss something big. something really obvious. Our eyes don’t always take in what’s right in front of us, which can trick us into missing key parts of the big picture.

It all comes down to the fact that, at any given moment, our senses are bombarded with all kinds of sights, sounds, and smells – many happening at the same time – and it’s impossible to consciously think about all of them at once. So, the brain is designed to filter out what it thinks is the unnecessary information for the task at hand, but sometimes there’s an error in that filtering process. It happens to all of us at one time or another. Think it couldn’t happen to you? Don’t be so sure.

Here’s a link to the Dateline Episode.

There’s a marketing lesson in there somewhere, don’t you think?

oDesk Screenshots a Security Risk?

Are you using oDesk.com to find outsourcers? If not, you should definitely check it out, I’ve found some WONDERFUL talent there –writers, link builders, programmers, just about any kind of skill you might need to build your business.

One cool feature of the oDesk interface is the ability it gives you to view screenshots of your outsourcers’ desktops, so you can see what they are working on. These screenshots are random, so the worker doesn’t know when their screen’s image will be captured.

This is all well and good, BUT…a word of caution about those screenshots. EVERY person that you hire through oDesk has access to them.

Yes, that’s right, if you give your programmer cpanel access to your money site or root access to your server, and the oDesk system happens to take a screenshot of that email or whatever, EVERYONE on your oDesk team will be able to see it. Even if it’s someone who you hired a long time ago and they did a few hours worth of work for you. To me that’s one of the great things about oDesk – you can build a team of people to call upon as you need them. But unless you terminate the assignment, they still have access to your team room, and all of the screenshots of all the other workers.

I didn’t realize this at first, I thought that only *I* could see everybody’s screenshots. Not so. Heck, even if they are still working for me, I don’t want *everybody* I hire to have access to everything.

There is no way to shut this off, all members by default have access to your team room. The only way around it is to create a separate team for each worker. If someone finds a better way, do let me know.

I still think oDesk is a great service, but this “feature” is a major security flaw IMHO.

Just thought I’d pass this along to you FWIW.

Smooth Fitness 7.6 HR Pro Treadmill Warning

My 92-year-old Mother’s New iPad

Lost Generation Video

Did You See That? The Invisible Gorilla.

oDesk Screenshots a Security Risk?

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