Where PC means Personal Care® · October 2004 · No. 49
Celebration & Sale ~ 2 days only! Oct. 23 & 24
For this momentous date, we'll really do it up right. It will be our biggest sale ever with everything in the store at least 10% off... YES, even a full computer system. There will be tasty food and beverages and a great prize drawing...
| Win a FREE Samsung 17" LCD monitor! Value over $500. No purchase required. |
Bill Hibler Reflects on Quidnunc's Ten Years...
When I opened Quidnunc in October 1994 I envisioned the computer equivalent of a bookstore – selling software, giving some advice and sharing my philosophy about computers. If things really took off, I might have one or two employees to help me out. I soon realized there were a few things besides software I could sell to make people's computing lives easier (some cables, adapters and ink cartridges), but I continued to tell people, "I don't sell hardware... and I never will." Today, hardware accounts for over 50% of our sales and is nearly 2/3 of our merchandise. Just goes to show how good a visionary I am, doesn't it!
Our business has evolved primarily because of the needs of our customers. Many times people brought in computers to me with their primary problem an incorrect installation of their hard drive. Consequently, we not only serviced them but eventually began to sell them. Modems also frequently needed adjusting and modem speeds began increasing. And of course, people needed CD-ROM drives and sound cards for those new programs on CD! As the demand for this kind of service increased, we finally needed a full-time employee to help with the service work. A big turning point for us was 1997, when we began to provide Internet service. In those seven years Internet has grown to be nearly 15%, and computer sales and service almost 60% of our business. We hired our first full-time computer technician in 1999 (and he is still with me today).
The service side of our business continues to grow as more and more small businesses are turning to Quidnunc for installation, configuration and support of their Internet and local area networks.
In our first year of business, about 2,500 people came through our doors. Now our customer list is well over 20,000 and half of those regularly receive our newsletter either by mail or email. We provide Internet service and/or domain hosting services to nearly 700 homes and businesses with about one-third of those using high-speed DSL connections.
In 1995 I hired my first part-time employee. Today we have seven full time and four part time employees besides me.
Some other interesting comparisons over the past ten years come to mind. When I opened the store, only about 20% of our software was on CD – the rest was on 3.5" floppy diskettes. When Windows 95 was released, most people got it on diskettes (30 of them!). We also had one of the best selections of Mac software, and we used color-coded stickers to distinguish between Mac and PC software and between diskette and CD. Today, software on diskette is either given away or thrown away. Some new computers do not even have a floppy disk drive!
Hardware changes over the past ten years are astounding. When I opened my store in 1994, the one computer I used for our point of sale system was a 486/66 with a 500 Megabyte hard drive, 32MB of RAM and a 14.4 modem that I used primarily to send and receive faxes. Occasionally I connected to bulletin boards (some people will remember these) to download shareware programs. Today we use 10 computers in the store and our "slow" one is a 1.2 GHz machine with a 20 GB hard drive and 512MB of RAM! This is about a 40-fold increase in processing speed and storage capacity!
One of the computers we used to demonstrate software was a 90 MHz Pentium so that people could see how a game ran on a "really fast computer!"
Recognition and Awards
In these past 10 years we have been fortunate enough to be honored at least 4 times as the best computer store in the West Seattle Herald Readers' Choice and also had our web site honored twice. We have been nominated for the Mayor's Small Business Award three times and we received the West Seattle Rotary Club Business of the Year award for 2001-2002. We have been featured in news articles for KOMO Channel 4, Q13 news (twice), and were featured in a front page article in the Seattle Times Business News in August of 2002.
Robert Spector, author of The Nordstrom Way, (about customer service) and Amazon.com: Get Big Fast, mentions Quidnunc in his upcoming book Category Killers (about "megastores".) Watch for the book-signing event in the not-too-distant future!
Quidnunc Today
Today we can honestly state that we are the most
Featured in this newsletter:
· Bill Reflects on 10 Years
· Internet Security
· FEATURED PRODUCT
· New Anti-Virus Program
Also:
Coupons
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FEATURED PRODUCT The Linksys Wireless – G Router with SpeedBooster is an excellent choice for many parents and small business owners. In addition to being a wireless access point, 4-port Ethernet switch and full-function router, this model offers enhanced network performance and a free trial of the Linksys Parental Control Service. The new Linksys Parental Control Service makes it easy for you to keep your family safe on the Internet. By setting individual profiles, you can control what each member of the family is allowed to see and even when they can use it. E-mail and instant messaging filters let you decide who can send messages to, and receive messages from, your family. You can view on-line individualized activity reports anytime. While intended for family use, many employers may also find the functions helpful to safeguard the ways their employees use the Internet. |
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New Anti-Virus Program
We have long been a proponent of Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus. However, in its 2004 version Symantec has added features that add little to the power or functionality of the program. This slightly "bloated" version has a tendency to use system resources and we have found it sometimes conflicts with applications, especially in the Windows XP environment.
Our technicians have found an Anti-Virus product from Europe named Kaspersky that is as efficient at detecting and cleaning viruses but also detects, cleans and prevents spyware. It uses fewer system resources and we have yet to find a conflict with any application. It sells for a comparable price ($49.99) that includes a one-year subscription to virus updates. Kaspersky labs provides virus updates hourly. This has become the anti-virus of choice for our technicians.
Note: No spyware program finds everything. No matter what you use, you should use at least two different programs such as AdAware, Spybot Search & Destroy or any of the others recommended at the website www.spychecker.com/spyware.html
complete provider of computer products and services in Greater Seattle. While many stores may have a larger array of products, no one else offers our combination of computer products and services, Internet and instruction, together with sensible advice and great customer service. Our repair shop is A+ certified by CompTIA and we will soon have Microsoft certifications as well.
In 10 years, we have grown in size, variety and depth of products, as well as competence and expertise. While we have certainly gotten bigger and better known, I believe we have remained a neighborhood store that is focused on building personal relationships with our customers. Whatever success we may have enjoyed, I know that we could not have selected a better location than West Seattle. Those of you who have continuously supported us through the years, not only with your business but with your kind words and recommendations to your friends and neighbors are the principal reason we exist today. I know we could not have done this without you and for that, I sincerely thank you.
| Want to record your music? Burn a CD? QUIDNUNC has everything you need! |
| Quidnunc: the friendliest computer, software & Internet store in Seattle |
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Internet Security
Spoofing and phishing? What strange new forms of internet piracy might these be? Read on... Microsoft recently made the news by filing a lawsuit against companies known to send out "spam" email as well as fraudulent emails that fall into two different categories...
The first is "spoofing" – the practice of disguising the source of an email to make it appear as though it is coming from some legitimate organization.
The second is "phishing" (nearly always combined with spoofing) – sending an email message asking you to respond or click on a website where you are asked to provide confidential information (such as a credit card number, PIN, social security number, etc.)
At least once a month I get an email from US Bank asking me to verify my account information. I do not have an account with US Bank. This email has US Bank's logo on it and it's asking me to click on a website that has usbank.com in the address. This message is not from US Bank. Banks do not send out email messages like this. The sender is attempting to gather key information from you, the email recipient, that will allow them to make purchases in your name. This is also known as "Identity Theft." I have seen similar messages from EBay, Amazon.com and Wells Fargo Bank. You may have received an email from some other institution with whom you have an account. It's important to realize that NO REPUTABLE INSTITUTION WILL EVER CONTACT YOU IN THIS FASHION!
Earlier this year many of our Internet customers received email messages supposedly from support@quidnunc.net. The message either indicated that they had been detected as sending out spam or that there was a temporary problem with our email service. In each case, the user was told to click on the attachment and provide a password that was contained in the message–all of which was intended to make the message appear legitimate. Anyone who actually clicked on this attachment would find that they had received a worm in their computer that immediately sent a similar message out to everybody in their address book as well as providing the address book listing to some spammer.
The best advice is to remember that reputable businesses and institutions will never send you an attachment you are not expecting. Spammers have many ways to get email messages. A pretty good article about this is at www.private.org.il/harvest.html. Unfortunately, many people make it easy for them by unwittingly providing email addresses to the general public.
Remember, email messages themselves are insecure. They are text messages and anyone can intercept them, read them and forward them. This is not to say that it is highly likely that most of us have email being read by others, just that it is possible.
Consider this–all of us receive email messages that we know others in our address book would enjoy seeing. We forward them. However, many people put the entire list of email addresses in the "To" field or the "CC" field. This means that every person who gets that message also gets all of those email addresses. Some of those people will then forward that message to many people, and I can tell you from experience that they don't think of deleting the list of email addresses at the start of the message. I have received email where I had to scroll through several screens of email addresses before I finally got to the message they wanted me to see.
Consider this good etiquette as well as a safety practice– delete the top part of the message (with any email addresses of the original recipients) before you forward a message. It's a courtesy to the others on the list.
| Custom-built Computers! Games! Productivity! Utilities! Modems! CD-ROM! |
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Classes!
We have teamed up with H&R Block to offer a slate of computer classes including Windows XP, Internet, and Microsoft Office Products (Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint). We expect to offer digital photography classes in the future. Please visit the website to view class descriptions at www.quidnunc.net/classes.php.
Quick Reminder
We will recycle old computers, printers and monitors for a nominal fee of $15/computer or monitor, and $5/printer.
Get 3 FREE months DSL service!
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