Zeely Waste of Money and Time

Today we experimented with Zeely, which is a magic AI-powered tool that is supposed to generate sales, somehow. We saw an advertisement for it and figured we'd give it a shot.

Everything it gave us was crap - like garbage made up by AI that didn't even work. We paid $25 for nine leads from this - one was a wrong number, one was a call that could not connect, and the most interesting was a Spanish speaker:

     "Hola!"  (Hello)
     "Hola. Betty?" (Hello, Betty?)
     "Si."  (Yes) 

     "Did you fill out our contact form, looking for programmers?"

     "Lo siento, solo hablo español." (Sorry, I only speak Spanish.) 

     "¿Necesitas programadoras?" (Do you need programmers?)

     "No." 

     "Gracias, adios." (Thanks, goodbye.)

I called all nine of these leads. My wife emailed six of them, and I emailed the last three from her account. Interestingly, only one of the emails had any kind of bounce. 

If you look at what Zeely states they are offering, they said they would provide an "AI Powered Sales App" which they did. They sales app they provided worked, for lead collection, and the AI agents they used to populate it, really provided AI power. The value of the AI power was negative -  if I have an AI routine generate realistic-seeming data, from AI-generated leads, when I call those people they will have no idea what I am talking about.

Zeely did not actually do anything different from what it promised. After our credit card company flagged it as a fraudulent charge, we authorized it. I believe they sold us what they said they would, but what they said they would was not particularly useful.

AI is not magic. It still requires a human to understand, and validate, what is going on. 

It's also not a good idea to do business with someone with an F rating with the Better Business Bureau either.

MacBook Pro Replacement Screen Project

Today I replaced my MacBook Pro 2015 retina screen. My wife dropped her cell phone on the glowing apple on the back, and that's BARELY a piece of very thing glass onto the liquid crystal display. So, the glowing apple advertisement for Apple was a weakness in the design, that resulted in needing a screen replacement.

This was how my screen "worked" after barely hitting the glowing apple on the back.

Apple wanted $700 for the repair, and I bought the part off eBay for $263.99. At a savings of $436.01, it made sense for me to do this repair myself in two hours. None of our contracts are are $200 / hour, and I didn't want to deal with the hassle of a new laptop and setting everything up. I figured the repair would be quicker, and cheaper, than a replacement. 

This took some tools from ifixit, which I already had for cell phone screen replacement, and this really helpful guide.

The weirdness part about this repair was how many missing parts my computer had, before beginning. Apple was the only company to work on this (before me) so it's not like I took it to some sketchy repair shop operating out of some guy's van on Central Ave in Albuquerque.

This was the most interesting thing, an extra screw:

I studied computer science, not electrical engineering, but I can tell you a screw connecting two leads like this is not how to design a circuit.

In addition to the "extra" screw, there were some screws missing which hold the case together: 

Granted, the two on the bottom are different size than the other eight screws, and it can be really difficult keeping all your screws together while working on a repair.

The last interesting missing part was ONE plastic cushion along the hinges, the other was there: 

Image from ifixit. I didn't take a good picture of this.

None of this missing pieces were actually super important for the continued operation of my computer. It was just bizarre taking a look at Apple's handiwork, and seeing where they weren't actually any better than one of the sketchy repair shops.

The most uncertain part was the disassembly. I was concerned I'd break a connector, and then either have a much bigger repair job, or my computer would end up as junk. That's why I took a backup first, and decided I'd spent $263.99 on this, but $700 would be better spent on a new computer. After disassembling this successfully, I was pretty sure I could put it back together without breaking anything. Whenever I was unsure, I just kept going slower. That's why this took two hours, instead of the one the ifixit guide recommended. 

This is what it looks like after disconnecting your screen from your 2015 MacBook Pro.

Then, you have to send your wife a thumbs up picture after you're pretty sure you didn't destroy anything.

After following the guide in reverse, and putting everything back together with the new screen, I powered it on, and it worked. It's also amazing how scratched, dirty, and generally abused, my old screen had become.

It's alive!

I really, really like ifixit. They try and combat the throw away culture of making everything un-repairable, and the assumption that people are incapable, and/or unwilling, to understand how something works well enough to repair it.

* Despite that, I am not opening up a hardware repair shop.

Professional Headshots

There are many opportunities for promoting my business that can use professional headshots. By "headshots" I mean a business/profession photograph in which a person's head is the primary focus of the image, rather than a debilitating blow to the head.

My friend Efrain Grijalva has been interested in photography since I met him, thirteen years ago as an undergrad. Lately, he's been expressing an interest in taking headshots. I volunteered to be his model, since I'm positive I can use some (updated) images of myself when promoting software development services. Below are the results.

 This one is my favorite. I seriously think it could be a stock photo. 

I like this one, but I think if you look closely you can see the PhotoShop.

Overall, I'm extremely happy with the outcome. I would recommend ironing your shirt beforehand, as opposed to stuffing it in a backpack with a laptop and biking everywhere. If you're interested in having professional headshots done, give Efrain a call at 505- 453-5700.