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Costco Roadshow: Yamaha Pianos
Big fan of Costco. Occasionally, the local Costco will stage a roadshow featuring some interesting product. If I don’t buy that very day, I sometimes have to find another local Costco (but further away) that will be hosting the same roadshow. It always takes me a few minutes to track down the roadshow calendar through…
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Credit Card Offers
Made me look, but was that really the point? Everyone receives credit card offers. People with excellent credit. People with horrible credit. Maybe even people who have previously declared bankruptcy. Everyone gets credit card offers. So, what can the marketing department at a credit card company do to make their offer stand out? Well, one…
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Costco Playing Both Sides
I love Costco. The store offers high-quality merchandise at low prices. This weekend, I joined the mad holiday rush and made a quick dash into the local warehouse store. Near the entrance, the Mountain View Costco was selling exercise equipment: treadmills, stationary bikes, etc. Just in time for New Year. I guess their members need…
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AT&T FamilyTalk Plan is Not Family Friendly
“Your World. Delivered.” Or, so they say. Anyone try to get a FamilyTalk plan that includes cell phones with phone numbers from different area codes? I think this can be done, but after spending 50 minutes talking to various customer service people within AT&T, I have run out of patience. I don’t need this that…
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Blame China
Bloomberg.com: Chinese-Made Cribs Recalled After Three Children Die. The maker of Graco and Simplicity cribs recalled 1 million Chinese-made cribs after three children died. Another China scandal right? Or so the headlines would lead you to believe. However, if you delve deeper into the news story, it reports that “[t]he problem with the recalled cribs…
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Stop Clogging Our Bank Branches
San Francisco Chronicle: BofA squeezes another buck out of noncustomers. Bank of America is leading the way, pushing up its ATM charge for noncustomers to $3 from $2 at 10,700 of its cash machines across the country as of last July. Other big banks are expected to follow suit. The “money” quote is that Bank…
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$4 Million is the New Million
New York Times: In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich. By almost any definition — except his own and perhaps those of his neighbors here in Silicon Valley — Hal Steger has made it. Mr. Steger, 51, a self-described geek, has banked more than $2 million. A million just ain’t what it used to…
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Gas Station User Interface
Considering the prevalence of credit and debit cards in everyday commerce, you would think that the someone has already figured out the ideal layout for all the various keys needed to process a transaction. I see some version of this keypad at ATM machines, supermarkets, retail stores, wholesale supply stores, gas stations, etc. But, none…
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Public or Private?
New York Times: China Finds Poor Quality on Its Store Shelves. China said on Wednesday that nearly a fifth of the food and consumer products that it checked in a nationwide survey this year were found to be substandard or tainted, underscoring the risk faced by its own consumers even as the country’s exports come…
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Damned if You Do…
Palo Alto Online reported that the city utility will be raising water rates. The commission also recommended raising water rates by 10 percent to generate $2.2 million. A fixed charge of $5 per residence and more for businesses would also be added that is not based on water usage, according to a staff report. Additional…