Asus Taichi Ultrabook

This looks promising. My Acer netbook experienced its first black screen of death last night and I had to use my other more powerful dinosaur to create a bios boot on a flash drive. The only noticeable spec difference between the two models for the Taichi is battery life, 5 hrs vs 8 hrs. I like that it has a solid state drive. Though, 128 gb seems paltry compared to my netbook's 400 gb. It would be sweet to deliver a presentation on it without having to turn the laptop around to an audience.

[Update: 2013-04] I went to a Microsoft Store to check it out and quite literally, the unit felt and looked as though someone had slapped an ultrabook and a touch tablet together. To make it worse, when you open the unit like a laptop, the touch screen is on the other side of the viewing screen. Both screens are not touch capable, only the tablet side is, which makes using Windows 8 really uncomfortable. I am not going to swipe with a mouse, tyvm.

Coffee and Soda

The Atlantic reports that soda sales in the US are in a free fall, down 40%, while coffee sales have surged up by 50%. This is not surprising given the health backlash from consumers about sugary drinks; except coffee drinks don't have the same stigmas attached.

There are parts of that article that I did find peculiar. For starters, there's a bit about market share and consumer age. I wondered how many 13 yr olds it took to become a statistically significant data point. There are 14.3% of them (in the age group 13-24) that consume coffee drinks. And, there's no mention about the study or the survey size used. The National Coffee Association does track this, and in their study (or at least the preview of it) for 2012, roughly 3,000 adults in the US were surveyed about their coffee drinking habits, but the age cut-off is 18 or older. There's more about coffee drinking statistics at SBDCNet, a clearinghouse for consumer research.

A Viscountess Salutation

I came across Craghoppers, a UK-based adventure travel clothing company, when visiting with avid travel friends in California this past winter. Whether your passion for travel is for exploring the outdoors or simply wanting to do so in style and comfort, Craghoppers is one of the few manufacturers whose clothing lines do both. Sure, you could cite other US clothing manufacturers that offer competitive products, but when it comes right down to it, there are just a handful who can do at a price point that doesn't turn you into a one-time buyer.

But, this post is about Craghopper's email marketing, which was very amusing when signing up for it. I wonder just how many ordinary citizens enjoy seeing non-standard salutations on their email or postal mail from this company. I would be curious to see what the peak and average transaction value per salutation segmentation this company gets.

Craghoppers.com email sign-up form