Happy Birthday Christina!

It's Christina's special day.  How does that saying go?  You are not getting younger, you are getting better!

Enjoy your special day.

Fruit to You

Wouldn't it be nice to have a never-ending basket of fruit at you office.  Kind of a healthy version of Willy Wonka's everlasting gobstopper.

OK, so we don't have such a solution, but we have the next best thing.  The Fruit Guys provides fruit baskets delivered to your office.  They put together an assortment of in-season fruits along with the perennial favorites.  Gotta have bananas right?  The good news, if you are in the San Francisco Bay area or Los Angeles, the Fruit Guys can service your order.

Our recommendation, try out a basket from the Fruit Guys, and if it works out, figure out how often you'd like to have the fruit come so your office is always furnished with healthy snacks.  Your staff could use a break from the potato chips.

NOTE:  The fruits are delivered with the idea that they need to last for a few days.  So keep in mind that you may need to give some of the produce a day or two to ripen.

Discover Fraud

As mentioned in a recent post, GetQuik has a pretty rigorous credit card authorization process.  As well, the risk of getting busted trying to scam food online is not such a great idea.  However, as any business owner knows, anytime there is a product or service with a value, there are those looking to beat the system.

First a disclaimer to be fair.  Our sample size is very small (fortunately).  However, we have noticed an usually recent correlation between credit card fraud attempts and the Discover card.  There is a really funny scene about the Discover Card in "The Family Guy" episode where Peter opens a restaurant, but I digress.

As a business merchant frustrated with the hassles and cost of dealing with credit card charge backs, we thought we'd put out a feeler to see if any other businesses are finding a similar pattern of credit card frauds attempts coming from Discover Card transactions.  Coincidence?

The Sort of World Wide Web

It looks like the Google v China battle is not going to end with these powerhouses playing nice.  So the country with the most Internet users will no longer access Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Google.  This splintering of the so-called "www" is developing into a cyber cold-war. 

A little discussed angle is that Google is more than a search engine.  Google provides tremendous development leadership and api's for web-enabling technologies such as maps, messaging, calendars, productive tools and more. 

Web developers are mashing up a number of technologies components, and many of the building blocks are based on Google's technology.  Yes, there are other alternatives to Google, namely Yahoo! and Microsoft.  However, losing access to the most powerful and important web tool developer is going to create some interesting challenges for Chinese developers.  For Chinese Internet companies using Google maps, calendars, and other Google api's, these api's are going to break as Google becomes a banned site in China.  Yahoo!, Microsoft and Baidu are going to see a flood of new customers who are needing to migrate off Google technologies and hook in with these China approved web companies. 

It is difficult to say who is right or wrong in this conflict.  Google is certainly taking a brave and expensive stance on the matter, and China is sticking to their guns.  March 2010 may go down in history as the demarcation point from which we ceased to have one "www".  There likely will be a digital Berlin wall moment down the line, but for the time being the Great Firewall is getting longer and higher.

Feeling Loney? - Heald College Can Help

Irina has been considering taking some evening classes to learn about various technical professions.  On a recommendation, she was debating to register for a pharmaceutical technician classes.  So a few months back, her Heald College journey begins.

A few Google's - sorry Yahoo! searches later, she discovered that Heald College offers these classes.  So using the "Request Info" on their web-site, Irina entered her contact information. 

BIG MISTAKE!!!

Immediately she got a call to both her home and mobile #'s.  After learning more about the program, and a little more thought, she realized that the program might not be right for her.

Next day, a follow up call.  She politely tells the Heald contact, after consideration, "I am no longer interested in the program."  End of Story - right?  NOPE.

Next day, another call.  Irina, "I told the other person the other day, I am no longer interested, thank you."

End of Story ... now?  NOPE.

Next day, another call.  Irina, "I keep telling you that I am not interested in the program, but I keep getting these calls.  Can you take me off the call list."

End of Story... of course not.  Seeing a pattern.

Next day, another call.  Irina, "Why are you still calling me, I asked to be removed from the calling list."

OK, for the sake of time and boredom, I am going to finally cut to the chase.

For approximately a 2-3 week period after "requesting info", Heald College contacted Irina approximately 10-15 times culmulatively on her mobile and home phone numbers.

Fortunately, the calls are finally slowing down.  The calls are now coming in at around once a week.

I am not here to comment on the quality of their courses and education, but clearly their sales practices are out of whack.  Although there are legal channels which protect consumers against these sales practices, the time to pursue such actions are a hassle.  I recommend that Heald College launch a course in "Customer Service 101" and then require all their sales reps to take this class.

Where do you want your food today?

The company laptop that was assigned to me for work purposes turned out to be a real resource hog. No prizes for anyone who guessed that it was running on Vista.

So I kindly decided to make the laptop the way I want it. After backing up all the past interns' documents and, of course, my own, I installed Windows XP on it. Everyone kinda migrated to Windows 7, so there were some spare XP CDs lying around unused. This reminded me of the days when Windows XP just made its debut. Everyone practically gave me their Windows 98 CDs for free. Vista, which is basically Windows "fail" ME No.2, unsurprisingly had no unused copies floating about for me to grab (not that I would). No one ever bothered buying it.

So here I am fiddling around with Windows XP and I finally got reminded about what I really loved about it. Stability and hardware compatibility aside, it was so modifiable. There's a truckload of themes, skins, audio packs, and even guides to personalize your own copy of XP.

First I downloaded UXTender, which is a tiny program that patches your Windows XP in order to allow theme customization within the Desktop Appearance settings. And voila! Total awesomeness.

Firefox using Black Office theme

Following this, I remembered that I had been playing around with a funky piece of software a few years back. It goes by the name of BootSkin. It allows users to change the Windows XP boot up loading screen. There's a ton of boot up screens I could've downloaded off the net, but I decided to create my own anyway. Check it out:

The limitations to the image modes of the boot screen really screwed up the quality. I guess I'll just have to make do with what I have. Anyone who is interested in the boot up screen may drop me a comment and I'll email it over. In the meantime, I'll be spending my lazy, DSTified-longer Sunday afternoon tweaking my XP.

On a sidenote, I don't really get Daylight Savings Time. There's just no practical usage for it. Does it exist just so that people of America may boast about having sunlight all the way till 7.30pm? That's just cheating.

Now For Something Completely Different - Morocco's Restaurant

We are pleased to announce the addition of the first Moroccan restaurant for the GetQuik network.  Morocco's Restaurant in San Jose is now open for GetQuik orders.

Where is Morocco?  The northwest portion of Africa - south of Spain.

Moroccan facts - Gained independence from France in 1956.  Capital city is Tangier.  Population 32 million.  Predominately Muslim - 98%.  Size of the nation is slightly larger than California.

Wikipedia says this about Moroccan food...

Moroccan cuisine is a very diverse cuisine, with many influences, due to the interaction of Morocco with the outside world for centuries. The cuisine of Morocco is a mix of Berber, Moorish, Mediterranean, Arab, and African influences.

The main Moroccan dish most people are familiar with is couscous, an old delicacy probably of Berber origin.
Beef is the most commonly eaten red meat in Morocco. Lamb is preferred, but is not as common due to its higher cost. Poultry was historically used and the importance of seafood is increasing in Moroccan food. The breed of sheep in North Africa has much of its fat concentrated in its tail, which means that Moroccan lamb does not have the pungent flavor that Western lamb and mutton can have.

Among the most famous Moroccan dishes are Couscous, Pastilla (also spelled Bsteeya or Bestilla), Tajine, Tanjia and Harira. Although the latter is a soup, it is considered as a dish in itself and is served as such or with dates especially during the month of Ramadan.

All Points Bulletin - The Novato Burrito Bandit is On the Loose

When we launched the GetQuik service, we discussed the risk of customers using bogus credit card information to scam food.  We setup our payment process to minimize such fraudulent behavior.  We were pleased to find that the number of fraud cases were extremely low relative to our sales volume.

That being said, as any victim of theft or fraud knows, any incident no matter how large or small is particularly frustrating.

For consumers and merchants who think that the credit card companies absorb fraudulent charges, here's the 411.  The merchant is almost always on the hook for these fraud charges.  So the true victim is not Visa/Mastercard, but instead the small business where the stolen card was used.  Fair or not, that is the way it works.

Here is the story of the Novato Burrito Bandit - still at large. 

We received a call from a lady in Arizona asking who we are.  When we explained what GetQuik does, she then when on to mention that she never ordered food from High Tech Burrito in Novato.  Unfortunately, this lady just got back from her honeymoon, and so a number of transactions had been run on her credit card by our burrito bandit. 

We got back to the lady and gave her the "name" of the person using her credit card - "Aaron Marks".  We are unclear if this is his real name or just a pseudonym.

So we called to the Novato High Tech Burrito to ask them if they remembered this dude.  The lady at High Tech Burrito did remember our criminal mastermind.  She described Mr. "Aaron Marks" as a tall Caucasian male with black, curly hair.

So taco and burrito merchants in the 415, beware of the above perpetrator.  The suspect may be using the name "Aaron Marks" is partial to hot salsa, bean & cheese and Hawaiian burritos.  He may be armed with a stolen credit card and a bag of chips and guacamole.  If you have any information regarding "Aaron Marks" or his whereabouts, please contact GetQuik or the Novato police (415-897-1122). 

Our Arizona identity fraud victim is filing a police report.  We did speak with the Novato police, and they were surprisingly helpful.  Until "Aaron Marks" is apprehended, no burrito transaction is safe!

GetQuik at IAAP - San Jose Chapter March Meeting

GetQuik will be participating as a table sponsor at the upcoming IAAP-San Jose Chapter meeting this Wednesday, March 10th.

What is the IAAP? 
The IAAP or International Association of Adminstrative Professionals has over 40,000 members and affiliates worldwide.  It is the largest not-for-profit member organization for those working in the administrative profession.

Details on the upcoming meeting can be found at IAAP-San Jose chapter web-site.  The IAAP offers professional development meetings, networking events, and professional certifications

A few GetQuik vendors have generously donated some restaurant gift certificates, which we will be raffling off at the event.  Looking forward to seeing you all at the event.

GetQuik at KASE/KAPS Event

I'll on the panel for the Korean American Society of Entrepreneurs(KASE)/Korean American Professional Society (KAPS) event tomorrow at the Computer History in Mountain View. Here's the link to the event.

The panel is going to focus on the challenges entreneurs face in growing a startup business. Fortunately for me the discussion will be in English, because my Hangukmal is not good.