NiniaPimp Magazine

On 6-31-2011 I purchased the Q-See Surveillance package for my business. It cost $465.43 from CompUSA in Brandon, Florida, including a 6 foot VGA cable that hooked the system into my computer monitor.

CompUSA offered complete installation for about $1,000, which was separate from the cost of the product.

I had the product installed for about 2 weeks when the first rainstorm hit. Immediately, two of the cameras flooded with water.

Q-See CCD Night and Day Camera with water damage.

I went back to CompUSA that weekend and they stated that there was a 14-day return policy for equipment, and I would need to call Q-See for replacements. I then called Q-See at 877-998-3440 extension 539 to ask about getting replacement cameras for the defective items. Unfortunately, they are not open on weekends so I was unable to contact customer service.

They are only open from 8:30 to 5PM during the week. These are hours that I also work in the field, so it wasn’t easy for me to find time to call them. The wait time was always incredibly long, and I never could get a hold of anyone in reasonable time on that number. In late July, I waited 53 minutes on hold to talk to an operator before my cell phone died and I had to call back. Ugh.

I finally got a hold of an operator in early August. He was very unhelpful. He basically emailed me a form to fill out online. When I didn’t fill out the form within 48 hours, they closed my ticket. I later called again and filled out the form.

I explained to customer service that they should mail me out new cameras based on the pictures of the damaged cameras, but they declined. I don’t want to uninstall the cameras, leave my business without the presence of cameras, and pay to ship the cameras back when they are responsible for making defective equipment. I also don’t like the idea of having to pay somebody to take them down and put them back up, when they are at fault for providing faulty equipment.

Please use this review as a testament to the quality of Q-See products, and their commitment to their customers. I recommend using other companies.

Wolfson Building (1621-1625 E. 7th)

The Wolfson family built this 1-story brick structure in 1922. It retains its metal awning rings and a water table. Its decorative brickwork bears the family name.

Note: The Wolfson family owned:

• Abe Wolfson Mens Wear
• Wolfson’s Trimming Store (Adam Wolfson & Son, William)

Weird news stories, bizarre news, strange but stories. You’ve come to the right place: Bizarre Florida, where weird is the norm. Exploding pythons. Armless, one-legged drivers. Yep. We certainly have unusual news stories. Offbeat news. Strange, interesting stories. Weird, unusual, true news stories. Get the picture? Have a story suggestion?

E-mail Bizarre Florida: bizarre@tampabay.com

When we first looked at the Motorola Brute i686, we wondered if there was a mistake. It seemed practically identical to the Motorola Brute i680, its predecessor. Even the overall features are similar–the 2-megapixel camera, GPS, Bluetooth, and of course support for Nextel’s iDEN network.

The main difference seems to be that the Motorola Brute i686 is a touch more durable. It now can be immersed in 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes. Aside from that, it retains the ruggedized exterior of its predecessor, keeping its “Brute” moniker alive. If you already have the Brute i680, we wouldn’t encourage you to run out and buy the i686, but if you’ve been looking for a tough phone that’ll survive a diving trip or two, then this might be for you. The Motorola Brute i686 is available for $119.99 with a two-year contract from Sprint Nextel.

Design
As we mentioned in the introduction, the Motorola Brute i686 hardly differs from its predecessor. At 3.92 inches long by 2.09 inches wide by 1 inch thick, the Brute i686 is just as bulky, and at 5.63 ounces, it’s just as heavy. It’s clad in hard plastic and a thick rubber exterior that protects it from all manner of scrapes and bruises. Indeed, we dropped it onto concrete and dunked it in a sink of water for a solid 20 minutes without ill effects. The Brute i686 is said to be military-certified under specification 810G for resistance to dust, shock, vibration, extreme temperatures, low pressure, salt fog, humidity, and more.

On the front is a color external display that supports 65,000 colors and 160×120-pixel resolution. We’re glad to see that it supports photo caller ID and recent call history, and it’ll also work as a self-portrait viewfinder when the camera is activated. As for the camera, that sits right on top of the display, next to the LED flash.

The left spine is home to the volume rocker and push-to-talk button, both of which are large and easy to find by feel. On the right is the Micro-USB charger jack hidden securely beneath a rubber flap. On the top of the Brute i686 are the speakerphone control and the usual Nextel button for accessing your recent calls list. Also on the top is a 2.5-millimeter headset jack protected by a rubber flap. We would’ve liked to see a 3.5mm headset jack, however. We also would have preferred a camera shutter control on the sides.

To keep the phone nice and dry on the inside, the battery cover is secured by a round locking mechanism that you can unlock with either a fingernail or a penny. Behind the battery cover is the microSD card slot.

Flip the phone open and you’ll find a simple but legible 2.2-inch color display. It only supports 65,000 colors and 220×176-pixel resolution, but as you aren’t likely to use this phone for multimedia purposes too often, we didn’t mind the average resolution. Colors are bright enough, and we like that we can change the text size and the backlight timer. Along the bottom row of the display is a series of shortcuts to frequently accessed applications or functions that you can toggle through. The main menu itself is displayed in either a grid or list view.

The navigation array consists of the usual two soft keys, a round toggle with a middle select key, a main menu key, a camera key, and the Send and End/Power keys. The overall keypad is spacious, with enough separation between each key. We found it easy to text and dial with the raised keys as well.

Features
The features on the Brute i686 are similar to the Brute i680, so forgive us if there’s a little bit of deja vu here. To start, the Brute i686 has a 600-contact phone book with room in each entry for seven phone numbers, an e-mail address, and notes. You can categorize those contacts into groups, and also into push-to-talk groups if you’re on Nextel’s Direct Connect service. You can also pair the contacts with a photo and one of 20 polyphonic ringtones for caller identification. The Brute i686′s Direct Connect features include International Direct Connect, Group Connect, and Direct Talk.

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   We’ve heard plenty of stories about people trying to push a beached whale back into the ocean, but beachgoers rescuing a large squid is a new one on us. But that happened in Delray Beach, TCPalm reports (it even has video).

   After bystanders wrestled it into a cooler, a lifeguard took the 3-foot cephalopod, which was spitting out ink by the cupful, out to neck-deep water and released it.

   “He’ll probably get eaten by a shark,” the lifeguard told TCPalm. “But I’d rather have [the squid] die in the ocean where it’s supposed to.”