Once in a while you just get motivated to share something like this, totally out of context. Hope it helps someone.
We had a number of great experiences with Eventbrite.
We watch the founder(s) interviewed on techcrunch TV, love the story.
We felt safe and sound giving them our money for paid events - we've done it a few times for conferences and such.
An event came along that sounded like a lot of fun, Lean Startup Seattle - it was $400 for a couple tickets, we went for it.
As the date was getting closer and we were seeing other events we really wanted to attend, like the AT&T Mobile App Hackathon, we decided the Lean Startup event would be a better use of our time..
3 days before the event, we get an email more or less saying;
"Sorry, we have to cancel the event for now - we'll try to do it in June!"
Crap. Okay.. Let's get ready for the hackathon, and get our $400 back.
I know they won't be able to easily find me, because I know how running online payments works.. so I go lookup my order number and the email address I used to pay and I send a friendly email asking them to refund my money.
(trust me, it was friendly.)
I get a response the next day saying "sure, I understand"
Kind of as expected.. then I expect the money to land 3-4 days later...
about 5 days go by... I'm wondering if it was deposited..
The 7th day, I look it up, nope.
I send a friendly email, "Did this get processed? I Don't think I saw it.."
Then they tell me "They are bringing someone in to deal with refunds" and it should happen soon.
Now it's been a few more days, they are obviously such a disaster at this event that it would NOT be worth this amount of money. (it was implied the food alone would be worth the ticket price, okay.. that's a strange way to rationalize it.)
I'm the OPPOSITE of believing them that they are capable of processing a refund, so I open a support with Eventbrite to see how they handle this. I was sure they would just refund it and deal with the host themselves.. wouldn't that be exactly what you expect?
What do you think uber does? What do you think airbnb does? What do you think Bank of America does?
(hint, they take care of your money first, and figure it out later.)
Eventbrite went the other way, they said; Screw you, talk to the host, it's up to them.
Holy crap. For an event that was cancelled, the host can take the money, and Eventbrite has nothing to say about it.
What a disaster.
Hey Eventbrite, if you are listening, you need to get your head out of your ass. You aren't craigslist. You are fully expected to maintain full control in these situations. I'm almost sure my expectations are STANDARD here.
Here is my support ticket from Eventbrite
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Message-Id:MFQV58V6_4f97932a11509_45b7174aa6c17832e3_sprut
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I love educating people about why there is malware and spam, when a succint article comes along with some good background I love to drop it like it's hot right on our blog.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/02/whos-behind-the-worlds-largest-spam-botnet/
In the summer of 2010, hackers stole and leaked the database for SpamIt andGlavmed, sister programs that paid people to promote fly-by-night online pharmacies. According to that data, the second-most successful affiliate in SpamIt was a member nicknamed “GeRa.” Over a 3-year period, GeRa’s advertisements and those of his referrals resulted in at least 80,000 sales of knockoff pharmaceuticals, brought SpamIt revenues of in excess of $6 million, and earned him and his pals more than $2.7 million.
A variety of data indicate that GeRa is the lead hacker behind Grum, a spam botnet that can send more than 18 billion emails a day and is the primary vehicle for more than a third of all junk email.
What a fun bedtime story to tell the kids. There is big money in the spam and virus game.
Just to add a little side note to the conversation, many viruses you get don't even give you a symptom, if your computer is part of one of these botnets they want to keep that a secret so you don't go get your computer fixed. The virus will be entirely hidden, and these guys will spend their 6 million dollars of revenue (in addition to buying cool houses and cars) on making sure their latest virus is undetected so it can remain on your computer stealing and spamming as long as possible.
We usually only see the other type of recent virus, that will display itself front and center and ask you for money to "upgrade" the "Fake Antivirus" they installed on your computer.
Looking for friends to play online games with?
A friend of ours just launched his web service - go check it out. http://teamfind.com
I hear it's mostly to help you find people to play World of Warcraft with - but give it a shot :)
Parts are getting cheaper, and we're passing it on!
iPhone 4 front glass from $99!
iPhone 3 glass from $40!!
iPhone 4 Back from $40!!!
nobody will beat the price OR service - thanks :)
If you are a sysadmin - you must know about this tool..
As you can see, you create a file - add 'configurations' to machines, and then it allows you to connect to many RDP machines at the same time, it auto-scales the desktop to whatever screen size is available, and let's you change between them with ease.
Great app!
(download an old version without limitations here: http://drpcfix.com/links-and-files/10-royaltsinstaller.html)
This looks like a lot of fun.. maybe a potential upgrade to the dreadful 'netbooks' that have been selling like crazy.
http://www.google.com/chromebook/#features
The one pictured here is an acer - they'll be priced just under $400 (cheaper than ipads) - and probably come down quickly in the year to come.
Nice little machines - keep your eye on these for the 'family room PC' replacement
Go get you some Android Caller ID made by really clicking. For all you Android users out there.. it's a must-have app.
It will get names for people that are NOT in your address book, even for most cell phone callers. Pretty cool.
But now that we love our iPad - should we feel differently? No..
"WILL SOMEONE PLEASE COMPETE WITH THEM??"
What would it take? There is obviously a big market.. Why can't anyone grab a piece?
The new change that took place is making waves, like usual, Apple looks like the bad guy..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/06/john-naughton-apple-dominates-market
"Then Apple abruptly changed the rules, stipulating that any publisher selling a digital subscription on a website must also make the same subscription offer within the app, from which Apple would take a 30% cut. Publishers have been furious about this, but there's nothing they can do about it. If they want to do business on the iTunes store, then they have to do it Apple's way.
In itself, this was just an example of the Big Unfriendly Giant flexing its muscles, but it could be a harbinger of things to come."
fun times ahead
While we look for a new office space in the Kirkland area - here is what we'll be doing for our fantastic Kirkland customers:
1. Free Pick-up and Drop-off service - so you don't have to unhook your computer
2. In-Home service calls - which can save time for everyone
3. Same phone number, Same Guarantee, Same great People
4. We will honor all warranties that happened at the Kirkland store
For now you'll be able to find us in our Redmond store - we'll be repairing computers from there until we find a new location in Kirkland.
We're taking this opportunity to IMPROVE our service to you - so don't hesitate to call and see how we can help you - 425-825-0222
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longer answer? okay...
Why isn't an automobile one-size-fits-all? Or a home theater? It has to do with very human concepts like:
I'm sure there are more - but the idea is kind of like this:
If you use your PC for chatting and socializing, and you have a current generation Core i7 CPU with 4GB of ram - your software environment can and should look a LOT different than someone that ONLY uses the computer for homework, has a 4 year old Pentium M CPU and 1GB of ram.
The technical reason - the first case you could have a few instant messaging applications installed, social toolbars, favorites synchronization, and multiple web browsers open at the same time and this could be normal and stable for a current generation computer.
In the later case, a computer used only for homework, having these programs installed and running all the time would have a HUGE impact on performance. No software PC cleaner will ever be able to figure that out and optimize your computer for you.
You don't have to.. Here is the cheatsheet
Check out a software tune-up by Dr PC Fix - available Online now
We are going with Microsoft Security Essentials for the first part of 2011. We change antivirus platforms about every couple years based on what is performing the best, catching the most viruses, and free.
First it was AVG, then Avast, now, MSE.
MSE is free for all home computers, and small businesses with up to 10 computers can use it according to the licensing.
You can very easily download and install it - and you are on your way..
AS USUAL - we do not recommend ANY 'pc cleaner' or 'c cleaner' or 'reg cure' or any other software to 'optimize' or 'cleanup' your PC - 99% of this software will make your computer worse than before you started.
Stick with Antivirus to keep the computer free of infection, and remove un-used software on an as-needed basis to keep your computer clean.
We have a tune-up service for this exact reason, if there was a good software that could do it - we would point you at it!
Read More about why software can't do a PC Tune-Up here on the blog
We are the only laptop repair shop around that will go this far above and beyond;
So if your laptop needs repair, don't look any further :)
Toshiba, Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer, Asus, Lenovo, IBM, we do them all..
We built this site for fun - please submit any ski bus that you know of - help this turn into a resource!
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