IceComet

The 2008 Olympics were supposed to be the event that brought China to the mainstream of political affluence; but in the communist’s haste for world approval, they may have overlooked a thing or two, their reputation being the most notable.

Within the first few days of the Olympics multiple scandals have broke…from underage Chinese gymnasts, to an “enhanced” opening ceremony (fake fireworks), and onto the cute little girl singing during the torch ceremony actually lip syncing to the voice of another as the true “vocalist” was not “pretty” enough to be the “face of china”.  If my over embellishment of quotation marks regarding the entire thing is not an indication of how I view the entire ordeal, I’ll go ahead and elaborate.

China was given a huge opportunity to chance the way other countries saw it in the world, to longer just being a place to manufacture counterfeit goods, and cheap labor; but something economically and politically respectable. But much like the notable amount of fake designer bags that come out of china (Coach, Dooney and Burke, L.V, etc) - the Olympics have turned out to be the exact same way; faux, at best. They have (admittedly) managed so far to keep (as intended) their human rights record at the back of people’s minds for the time being, but it is inexcusable for China to go to such extreme measures just to look good. Apparently they need a lesson in reputation - once everyone has discovered the facade, you’ve lost all credibility, and you will still just be seen as a childish developing country. The only way to fix it? Cut the crap.

Destroying millions of people’s homes to make way for an event in an attempt to garner support really seems counter-intuitive. Perhaps they just simply do not want to be seen as the one country who blew everything, the one country who couldn’t perform the moment they were called onto the stage, much like a porn star - but about 3 billion times worse, they just couldn’t get it up! Maybe they really couldn’t alter the weather to improve air quality (though I did laugh), and maybe as much as they want to appear to be perfect, they never will be.

With all eyes on you, how could they (the government) possibly come out and say they would deny honesty and integrity in the opening ceremonies by saying a little girl was not “pretty” enough to be in the Olympics. I, for one, was not aware that a part of communism was elitism. Tell me that girl will ever sing again. If that was me, I would probably off myself, to be identified, singled out, and then shot down by my own country, perhaps as much as China wants to seem united, there really is no pride in itself.  Maybe they just wanted to avoid another “William Hung” type of situation, but the girl had talent - give her her glory.

In summation, China has truly lived up to it’s name, and what it often represents to American (and foreign) consumers a like. Cheap, half-assed, and tainted with lead.  So long as China continues to “mess up” it can never truly enjoy the glory of such an important event in their (and the world’s) history.

I have long been a fan of consumer business which do not employ faulty advertising and deceitful customer service techniques as part of their business model. Unfortunately, what I once believed to be a sound company with a good heart towards service has turned out to be no better than the rest, and possibly worse than most. A title I once reserved for Best Buy - “Deplorable” has now officially been bestowed upon Fry’s Electronics.

Here is my tale:

On August 25th 2007, I purchased a Greenway HP Water Cooler from Fry’s Electronics in Concord, California for $169.99 in hopes of replacing a newly broken water cooler, slightly over a year old. As a result of having the previous water cooler break not over a month out of warranty, I also opted to purchase a 3 year extended warranty from Fry’s for an additional 29.95. Everything worked fine, and I felt good about my purchase until around June 11th, 2008 when I finally took it in for warranty service as the “cool” side of the unit was freezing shut, and thus non-functional.

Bringing it in for service was a pain, but I figured it was worth it if all would pan out, as long as I would not be forced to purchase a new one. After mountains of paperwork, a soaked receipt, and a bunch of angry service technicians (who seemed annoyed to be dealing with something else other than a computer) - I figured all was well. I called after a few days to check on the status, and things seemed to be progressing. About a week in, things turned sour; repeated calls to check on the status of the units repairs were met with phony answers, and outright lies.

Out of boredom, I called twice in the same day just to see if any progress had been made (It was a record month for heat in California, and I could’ve used some cold water), both times, I got different answers about where the water cooler truly was. The first time, it was being sent to the factory (Greenway) for repairs, and the other time, it was still being processed. This continued for a period of 36 days, when I was finally told a replacement was going to be shipped and available for pickup.

“Fine”, I thought — “brand new water cooler. Score!”

..Not so fast…

When I went to pick it up, the water cooler had been replaced with (what Fry’s calls in their “warranty” a “comparable replacement“). I chose to not pick it up, but to go back home and think it through. The new water cooler I was offered lacked some of the most basic functionality which I wanted (the reason I chose the Greenway model in the first place).

The first missing function was the “room temperature” water, a favorite choice of a certain family member with ultra sensitive teeth. Secondly, the new model was not energy efficient at all. Hot water and Cold water was “on-tap” at all times; with the previous model, you pressed a button and waited for 2 minutes or so, and you had steaming hot water, without wasting all the energy. It also did not appear to have a light [LED] built in (perfect for getting water late at night, without having to turn on lights and tripping over things), also functioned as a night light. On top of all of this, the controls are awkward, seem cheap, and are just downright unpleasant to look at.

Outraged to learn all this, I drive back to the store and attempt to talk to the service manager about the situation. I did not want this “new” model (as a duplicate replacement of the one I originally owned was not available) - I just wanted a full cash refund for the amount I had paid. He was very “programmed” and kept on insisting that the amount I was offered ($114) was all I would be able to receive. This was not acceptable at all.

He continued to say that the retail price of the new model was equal to the retail price I paid for the old one (169.99), but as Fry’s was out to make a profit, I would only be refunded the cost it is for Fry’s to give me a new one ($114), not the retail value itself. Ironically enough, on a piece of paper (which I doubt I was supposed to have), it stated that the cost of the original model I had was ($125), but no, I could not have 9 dollars more. No way!

During the whole ordeal, the “Service Manager” a Mr. Petrus Steinmann, was incredibly confrontational, at one point holding up a finger (not middle) indicating for me to “be quiet” (a practice not indicative of any kind of reputable customer service) so that he may continue to insist that it is not based on the value alone, and advise I contact “Risk Management” at their Corporate HQ. I demanded the number, and he cockily wrote it on the back of his very own business card (apparently being a gentleman). Ironically - the number he wrote was wrong, it may have been him being an ass, or a genuine mistake; either way he had a piss poor attitude. What happened to a customer always being right? Not when the Service Manager is “Righter” apparently. I observed two other employees standing around watching, at one point one of them (a young teenager) moves to stands next to Mr. Steinmann, a stance denoted (in my opinion) as “back-up”, or to be taken as intimidation (Not likely…as he was so short I probably could have kneed him in the face if this was really going to be a “school yard fight”). Oh the lessons you learn on the playground. Might does not equal right.

I called the Corporate HQ (1-408-487-4500) and asked for the “Risk Management” department…the secretary paused for a moment, said “What, Risk Management?” - and then transfered me to Legal (apparently, no such department exists; good call Mr. Petrus Steinmann - blame it on the invisible people!). Legal transfered me to “Customer Relations”. I left a message, no one has called back. I was not aware that “Just ignore them, and they will go away” was a valid business practice. Strike 3, Fry’s Electronics. You’re a fraud.

To Review:
Paid 199.94 (not including tax) for a Greenway Water Cooler + 3 Year Extended Warranty
Waited 36 days for customer service to finally figure out where my property was, and the status of the repair
Record hot temperatures in CA - No water cooler, and they don’t care to hurry anything up.

Now:
Warranty is void (non-transferable to new product) - Out 29.95
Offered “non-comparable” (though they’re ignorant enough to believe otherwise) replacement, or refund value of $114.00 - Out an additional $55.00

Total Loss: $84.95

Conclusion:
Fry’s should not be selling warranties if they are not going to honor them in a respectable manor. Hiding behind a legal team and reducing all liability (as a means for stupidity) is not a valid business practice. I lost money when all was said and done, and I will never purchase a single item at Fry’s Electronics in the future. I would love to give them a shot at making this all right; however, further research (C/O Wikipedia <3) makes it clear this is not the first time this has happened, and will defiantly not be the last.

Apparently the practice of keeping nerds locked up in dark cubicles all day long, typing away and dealing with stupid IT questions has had a bit of backlash recently in San Francisco, CA and such a practice may need revisiting. The fear is no longer crazy postal workers, but disgruntled IT employees hungry for power over their drones of servers pent on taking over the world…if they can only get so far.

The events have played out as would a major blockbuster hit, except in an unlikely turn of events, it was not the Pentagon that was taken hostage but rather the City of San Francisco.Everything about this case (now that the man charged of doing it is in custody) has seemed rather odd up until this point, but they just got a little bit more strange as more details are being released and official documents filed.

In an article published by InfoWorld, we learn that the man charged with the crime (Terry Childs) finally gave up the passwords after locking city staff out of a private city staff network for a lengthy period of time…Mr. Childs was apparently only  willing to give them up to San Francisco Mayor - Gavin Newsom, though they were later discovered on a computer in his home. Apparently Mr. Childs, too busy playing World of Warcraft, was not paying attention while watching I.T Department empowerment movies; many which feature countless attempts at world domination/war/destruction and chaos, the pent up desires of many a social recluse, instead hoping for reform of what he called (in his words) “departmental incompetence”.

Mr. Childs, now the pariah of the IT world, and is now facing criminal charges and exile among his “clan” of disgruntled I.T workers for what is now a failed attempt at seeking control ,and fighting back against colleagues who ask stupid questions all day.

In an act seemingly ripped from the literary pages of the likes of The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, Mr. Childs offered the passwords to SF Mayor Gavin Newsom in a secret jail house meeting emphasizing that he is the one person who is qualified to have them, due to incompetence in the cities IT department, much in the same way Dumbledore was the only person who could be trusted with the sorcerers passwords. Perhaps Mr. Childs will opt to plea insanity on the basis that Gollum was trying to steal something off of the VPN, thus the network must be locked down! (or destroyed).

At any rate, the article (and the developing story) is almost a must read, and is very interesting. It speaks volumes to the respect most have of Mayor Newsom, and definitely reiterates the need to eliminate some of the red tape likely plaguing the city - the reason for his charge of departmental incompetence.

Those days are slowly changing.

With the popularity of MMORPG’s such as Runescape and World of Warcraft, even games such as Neopets, it’s becoming easier and easier for Teens to make money under the nose of their parents without having to deal drugs, or get a real job. Great news, right?

Not so much.

When I began dealing in virtual currencies at the age of 14 (yes, fourteen) I was making more money than I could possibly have made mowing lawns, doing chores, or helping out around the house. When I started asking my parents to buy stuff with my earnings (primarily a new computer desk, and computer (building my own was quite fun!)), they surprisingly encouraged me, not understanding that what I was doing was technically illegal and I could have got into major trouble. What most parents of our modern generation might not understand is the problems and potential benefits of this new form of teen entrepreneurialism at its finest, and while it may seem like they are getting out of having to pay an allowance, what is the cost of the behavior?

Firstly; the greatest problem with this behavior is probably obvious — it will likely lead to wreck-less financial management down the road. If you give a 14 year old money he never thought he would have, just because he was able to play a game successfully, the value of money is quickly diminished. It seems easy enough to earn a nice amount of income with the few expenses you have at such a young age. As a result of this “epiphany” of sorts, the most noticeable change that anyone will see is a greatly lessened interest in School. It is nearly the same theory about taking a break after high school before pursuing a post-secondary education. Once you get the taste of money, it will never leave your mouth and you will always want more. For most modern-day merchants, this is exactly what happens. For me — it meant nearly dropping out of high school in the 9th grade, and it doesn’t stop there.

Aside from the poor management thing for a minute, the greatest part is that an entire generation is learning the ins and outs of copyright infringement and intellectual property…

While I really hate (such a strong word, yes - but it fits) the RIAA, MPAA, and all the copyright fiend lawyers who exist in the world, it does kind of set a bad precedent to see the rewards of such behavior, and with time it will only exacerbate the problem, especially when at the exact same time efforts are stepping up all over the world to be able to enforce intellectual property, copyrights, and the like.

Now that we have bad fiscal management, and law breaking — we now move on to the fun part. Evasion!

While it may seem like a joke, companies apparently do not like having their games undermined to such an extreme and (in some cases) they enjoy sending out Cease and Desist letters. If you wish to survive in the business you quickly learn it’s ‘adapt or die’ time. What does this mean? Simple - offshore hosting, fake domain name registrations, and addresses. Selling virtual currencies really is easy with a little bit of know how, and the money it earns is easily re-invested in all the previous stated methodologies.

Hell! I was the only kid in my class who knew what PayPal was, how to use it, how to use my parents bank cards (Oops, sorry mom!) and stuff to purchase hosting, buy currency, sell it, and such — no real good can come from this knowledge at such a young age, completely ignoring the fact that you’re supposed to be 18 to use PayPal - I had money, what else did I have to care about?

While I’m all for the entrepreneurial spirit, selling Virtual Currencies online may be a bit of an extreme form of enablement, and I would caution parents if they have a teenager who suddenly comes into a large sum of money not to just question if they’re dealing drugs, but if they’re dealing the drug of the 21st century: Virtual Currencies.

It is important to note that some games do not make any objections to virtual currency selling or exchanging and some of the legal risks to not exist in that case, but it’s also important to remember your teenager is engaging in financial transactions online and there are some risks which they may not be prepared for, such as losing money, exposing personal information, and the like. It’s best to keep the situation under control if you do permit your child to engage in this so called “internet black market” as things can go very sour, very quickly. I was never served with legal papers, but I knew people who were. It was all about trying to stay one step ahead of these corporations trying to enforce their copyrights and intellectual property; it was fun, crazy, and incredibly stressful, but I loved being an adrenaline junky. But now, knowing the risks — I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I do credit my modern day success to the foundation I established learning what no one else would teach me - How to do business and how to be successful.

…and it didn’t even involve a scale.

With the growing popularity of Blogs around the web, people have come up with creative ways of using their framework to support entire websites and provide ease of use for not only administrators but also users.

After browsing countless forums and PHP tutorials trying to find a decent idea for a CMS framework I finally succumbed to the idea that you really can use WordPress as a CMS, but the potential of it never really is fully explored by most webmasters. I am here to change that.

SEO

For SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to be most effective, most people believe that you need to have a constant front page, which you use for primary ranking purposes, tweaking text and other factors. Most people think of “blogs” as being a page with sometimes up to 50 posts all in one go, half the time each post being about a different subject. The best way that I’ve found to combat this is to use WordPress’ built in “Static Front Page” feature (available in the “Options” tab). This allows you the flexibility and control of having a home page which is always the same, with the ability to add content literally with the click of a few mouse and keystrokes.

Layouts

By far, the best thing about WordPress however is that there is an entire community of people who spent the time creating layouts for people to use. You can literally upload a few files to your server and have an entirely new layout and look in a matter of minutes, with minimal changes required. Unlike with a custom system, layouts that do not cover a static framework tend to be coded vastly different and can require sometimes hours of butchering and manipulating to get everything to line up properly. For efficiency, a CMS should be easily customizable not only on the coding level, but also on the visual level. WordPress gives you the chance of changing things quickly, without having to modify countless articles and blogs to make them stay compatible.

Security

The greatest problem that I have come across with writing a custom CMS (Which I have done before) is worrying about security and if your data is safe from people who may wish to do harm. In contrast, WordPress has not only an entire community of people constantly reporting, fixing, and scouting out bugs and security flaws, but there is also an incredibly fast turn around time in security. As long as you keep up to date with the security releases published by WordPress, there is less of a chance that something catastrophic will happen to your website, and if it does…

Backups!

I tell nearly everyone who is starting out in the web industry to make sure they have everything properly backed up in multiple places. After all, we are dealing almost entirely with technology here, and unfounded accidents tend to happen on a frequent basis. WordPress offers an entire backup of all of your post, pages, comment, and user data with the click of a mouse, and you can download it to your computer, burn it to a CD — or if you’re feeling particularly snarky, you can bury the newly burned data in your backyard!

Ad Integration

I would be kidding myself if I expected that everyone online created websites and blogs for the sheer sake of helping people and providing information. The real fact of the matter is that people want to make money. WordPress’ template system makes implimenting and integrating ads into your entire website entirely easy. I would just caution overly invasive ad techniques (IE: Putting 2 giant blocks in the middle of a post) as it mayput-off visitors to your site, but never-the-less - making a bit of money off your hard work and time really isn’t difficult with WordPress.

Conclusion

In conclusion; not only does wordpress provide the functionality, interactivity, and ease of use that is necessary for any website to be successful, it also provides it at no cost. Having once been a doubter of the “out-of-the-box” systems that people kept talking about, I am now an avid encourager and promoter of these methods for the stated reasons.

What are you waiting for? Download WordPress today and get started!

http://wordpress.org/

Rarely does a day go by now days when I don’t come up with 5-10 website ideas that I think are really decent, in fact — it’s almost overwhelming. Having your mind racing this much makes it harder and harder to stay focused. Making money online really is adrenaline of sorts, you’re not risking huge amounts of money, but you do have quite a lot of time invested into a project, and it’s always an ego kill to see one of them not work out as intended.

The first thing that I force myself to do is write down the idea. Even if I ‘nix’ it now, in a month, or a year (it happens) I could go back through the binders that I keep related to web development and see something that seems possible now, or more realistic. You never want to really just throw an idea away, lots of people spend a lot of time trying to figure out a great idea for a website, you should never take them for granted! However, to stay focused you must get them out of your mind and finish the project at hand.

Once you have the ideas laying on the table, it becomes easy to separate yourself from them and get a clear perspective allowing you to do the necessary time and research at a later date. If you have 10 ideas, it will become obvious that there are one or two that will likely stick out to you, that you can simply visualize. Sketch it, make more notes — do whatever you have to do. The best thing that happens is when you find a way to take the other 8 ideas that are on the table, and find ways to integrate them into the 2 ideas, or other websites that you already have. Remember, you can easily recycle functionality from website to website — that isn’t a sin.

The biggest mistake that I made when I was just starting out is being far to eager, not doing the proper research, and estimating the “worth” of a site, instead rushing over to my favorite Domain Registrar (Dynadot) and purchasing a few domains. When you’re just starting out this can take a major hit on the bottom line. Domains that you don’t use are simply excess cost than you really need. Unless you are absolutely sure that the idea is a “go” or that the domain has some monetary value attached to itself, there really is no harm in waiting until you’re closer to being ready to start the project. Time really is money, and while it may be just a few cents per day but on a long term scale, it can be quite costly.