Outrageous Bill

This happened last month (December 2007) in Singapore's world class international facility. Customers are charged a rounded UP amount in the bill when the total was not a multiple of a dollar. Take a look at the Rounding item in the bill below. Absolute nonsense!

Kudos to the cashier who decisively offered a 10% discount on the total bill after I brought this to his attention - apparently I was the first one to notice this (during dinner time on a super busy
day). He explained that the billing system was centralized by the entire facility and that individual outlets had no control over the system.

Suddenly I am ashamed to call myself a programmer (I make some assumptions how this could have happened).

Even if you have to perform rounding, you NEVER make the customer pay for it.

I greatly worry about the quality of the highly paid engineers and system analysts employed by one of the most prominent world-leading organization in the country (or the contractors they hire) that developed, tested and commissioned such a system, allowing such a glaring mistake to be released.

Acquisitions

Dual USB Travel Charger

Charges 2 usb devices at the same time. Ideal for MP3 players, PDAs, etc that are recharged via USB.


Esprit Esbrella (Umbrella with box)

• UV Protected
• Ultra Light
• Aluminium/FRP Frame
• Premium Polyester Cover

It's small, light and it comes in a box! To illustrate how small it is, let me compare it with a normal short umbrella against a A5 piece of paper.

Interesting Discoveries

Energizer has released an instant cell phone charger powered by 2 AA Lithium batteries. They also have a rechargable USB charger - a rather innovative product I should say.

Who says a company cannot make money by selling variations of the same product? Look at Canon - they sell hundreds of models of cameras for decades and are only getting more successful at it. Building up expertise, experience, industrial momentum, and commercial reputation are what makes a company successful. Foraying into distinct and unrelated products on the other hand, erodes consumer confidence as well as R&D/marketing momentum.

Wish List

For a 13.3 inch wide screen laptop computer,

• Tucano Stile Work Out
• Tucano 9DOTS Second Skin

For mobile phone and MP3 player,

• 4GB MicroSD card

That's all for now.