A listing of all the reviews for childbook.com

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Both Elitedresses.com and ChildBook.com has a chat feature that give customers a quick way to ask a question online.

I have now had two chats that were a bit crank chats. I hung up on both of them and logged out of the chat. My guess is both were boys wanting to show how smart they are and were bored.

It reminds me of before caller ID, how some kids would also place crank calls. A friend of mine in High School (Eric, the one who now lives in Texas) got a crank call and actually had a good conversation with the boy placing the calls. The crank caller was at a local hotel and was bored. My friend has incredible patience. Unfortunately I don't have that type of patience or time.

What is interesting is one person was from Pakistan and the other was from Canada. My chat software shows where the ISP of a person is giving me some idea of their location.

Labels: childbook

My Internet connection issues finally got solved! No impact to my site, since this is hosted at another site, but my getting on the web has been challenging with my connection dropping all the time, and then reconnecting since Thanksgiving.

I spent about 15 hours on the phone with my Internet provider's tech support and went through 3 mode ms, and an onsite technician visit over almost a month's time. Yes, it was distracting!And I used to run an IT manager and know a bit about troubleshooting! I was very nice and explained to the tech why it was probably not the modem (3 of them would be pretty big coincidence), it was not the cable since I was using their brand new one that came with the modem and still had the same problem, and I was connected directly to the modem so it was not my router.

Finally I was working with a level 3 support group and they figured out the problem was a cable I believe. Which helped, but then it seems my modem set up had to be redone after the cable was fixed, so that got done this week.

I have no idea why I was so lucky, but I am glad it is over!

Tech Support organizations have levels of support. Level 1 is to solve simple problems and refer you to a level 2 for harder problems. Level 3 is for even harder problems. My first job after I got my MBA was working for a division of a mainframe manufacturer that provided basically 100% uptime. It was a good learning experience.

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I get quite a few phone orders for products and I totally understand the fear some people have of doing an order over the Internet, and just not for Learning Chinese Materials.

When I read articles like this about a computer virus - Viruses That Leave Victims Red in the Facebook from the NY Times, security becomes even more apparent. A friend of mine from my days at a PC Mall had his facebook account hijacked, and he is pretty hi tech. So it does happen.

What I like about the shopping cart system I use is I can't see a customer's credit card number. All I can see is the last four digits. This is so nice from a security prospective for me! And I can only decrease what a customer is charged, not increase it without their security code from their credit card. This is a bit of a headache when a customer wants to add one more item, but I appreciate it as added security. This way there is no argument about unauthorized charges!

Another issue that has come up is E-Mail addresses. One customer who order over the phone don't want to get them, which I understand. All the others want the receipt, which is delivered via E-Mail. The one customer worried about getting a lot of spam, which I can understand. Without filters on my E-Mail, I was getting over 500 a day and going crazy when I changed my ISP. Since then I routed it through Gmail that reduces it to a manageable level. I don't sell/share etc. the E-Mail addresses of my customers and I treat them as I would like mine to be treated, with respect.

With my E-Mail newsletters I use constant contact, so when you unsubscribe you are really unsubscribed. I don't think with how I set it up you can even re-subcribe.

Labels: childbook

Just 2 1/2 years ago I was still in my garage shipping Learning Chinese Books, CD's, and DVD's.

Then moved an industrial park and rented a couple of rooms (subleasing).

Now we just moved to our own warehouse that has so much room!

I am still getting used to not being squeezed for room and how much ChildBook has grown!

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ChildBook just moved, so we have a new phone number!

626 810 2088 (8's are lucky in Chinese, they have the same sound as Wealthy and Father, so August 8th is Chinese Father's Day).

Our old number was 909 595 8882 (notice the 8'th and 2 are OK).

Historic Phone Numbers for ChildBook.com

(909) 595-8882
(626) 810-0833
(909) 598-0282
(408) 738-8686 when I was living in Silicon Valley.

6's are ok, but 8's are preferred. 2's are also good.

Labels: childbook

ChildBook moved from our old warehouse to a new one about 4 miles away.

It's an exciting move to a much larger space. Moving was done over the holiday weekend. Thursday was for family, Friday morning was Father daughter time (ie Black Friday at the mall, we drove an hour to a mall in Irvine Spectrum and got there around 7AM). Moving took more time than I thought it would, we just finished moving stuff Tuesday night.

The old warehouse was a big step forward. It was a move out of the garage to a commercial location where I rented the second floor. The only headache was it was on the second floor of an office. The good news was I got lots of exercise moving stuff up the stairs, but moving out was challenging. The new warehouse is all on one floor and is a mix of office and warehouse space. The previous one I was using office space as a warehouse which worked, but was not great.

Phone an fax numbers have changed, unfortunately.

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I know enough to know how little I know in the area of type faces. I know, heavy users of Childbook who are into type faces are saying that's an understatement :-)

Fun article to read Design: Mistakes in Typography Grate the Purists from the NY Times.

A favorite book of mine is the Mac is not a typewriter, I believe I have the first edition. Second edition is 2003. It covers the basics such as DON'T USE ALL CAPS SINCE THEY ARE HARD TO READ, Don't use double spaces after a period. And don't use courier.

One of my first jobs after college was doing Desktop Publishing for Manuals.

Labels: childbook

A story I read today mentioned that 97% of all E-Mails are SPAM.

So why is your inbox not flooded with this stuff? ISP's do an amazing job of getting rid of the majority of SPAM, but unfortunately sometimes they go a little too far... Which is frustrating for legitimate E-Mail senders like me. And I am sure some E-Mails from customers have also accidentally gone missing.

The solution, resend when it. Just as Mail can go missing, the same things happen with E-Mail. Sometimes E-Mails can even take a day to arrive, and is not instant. And there are outages that happen if you use an online Mail solution. And if you have E-Mail on your desktop/laptop, sometimes there are crashes that happen.

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The new design for Childbook.com is up!

I am currently in bug hunting mode. The headache with new designs is making sure everything works with it, and fixing those things that no longer work. And also putting back those enhancements that were put in with the old design, that are no longer there with the new design.

Labels: childbook

Chinese works great in Snow Leopard! I was at an Apple Store last week and a sales person changed it to Traditional Chinese and my wife could use the track pad to write characters! It's a lot faster for her to write the characters, than type them currently.

We could have done this at home, but getting time on my daughter's Apple is challenging!

May be I should get a program that teachers her Chinese typing... I wonder what the equivalent to Mavis Beacon is learning Chinese typing?

My wife mentioned she wanted a new computer and I am leaning toward a Mac. Currently we have mostly PC's running XP and my daughter's Mac running Leopard. I like the PC because of MS Access that can do a lot of neat reports. With a new PC it would be Windows 7. I bought the Mac because I did not want to go the Vista route, MS had discontinued XP Home, and I was tired of playing IT manager at home. For work I have all PC's because of cost, but my daughter's Mac is a lot of fun to use and easy to set up. Compared to my daughter's previous PC that somehow got a nasty virus that took about a week to get rid of (it took 2 different anti virus packages to get rid of it and I spent a good 20 hours on that project).

Labels: childbook

Listening - real listening - is difficult because it requires a real investment: of focus, and empathy, and time. Worse yet, it's not even clear what the payoff is going to be. (You have to listen to find out!) It's easier to leave it undone and move on to the next thing.

A great quote from the article, Listening is Hard from Good Experience.

When you call ChildBook, I'm the one who answer the phone and I find it extremely useful talking to customers. Some days the amount of time it takes is frustrating, but over the longer term I view this as a key competitive advantage of childbook of listening to our customer. Finding out what they care about related to Learning Chinese and doing our best to take care of them.

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My family finally made time around my daughter's schedule and saw a movie tonight, Julie & Julia. Her SAT class had been moved to Monday, so she had the night off.

Fun movie that made all of us hungry after seeing it! I understand the pressure of blogging everyday!

Labels: childbook

My E-Mail server got upgraded a couple of days ago...

More space, faster, etc... from an industry leader - rackspace

Unfortunately a setting to forward the E-Mail to my Gmail account (great for spam filtering) did not work after the so called upgrade. So I was getting about 40% of my normal E-Mails. I was getting all the sales@childbook.com, but not the others.

I was all excited this morning since I was almost caught up! From my vacation and then the 3 day weekend. Then I found out about the E-Mail problem, figured out how to get the 150 or so E-Mails, mostly the type I need to reply to, download them, and start replying.

Just a few more to go! Good news is problem has been found and fixed. Challenging part is so much for my plans on being caught up today!

Labels: childbook

I was reading an article in the NY Times that was uncomfortable reading - Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On.

It hit home personally. After Y2K there was a recession in the technical area and it was not a fun time for technical types like me to get hired. Hiring was frozen. The good news was I got a lot of experience substitute teaching that taught me a huge amount about teaching and started work on my teaching credential/masters.

Running your own business is a great alternative and I appreciate how supportive my family has been on this. ChildBook is 12 years old, but most of the time I was running it at night. So I would have my day job, then at night do Childbook (exhausting). After I left my last outside job over two years ago as a Director of just about everything (started as marketing, kept on getting areas assigned to me such as HR, IT, and Quality), I took the opportunity to work full time on my business and it has been challenging.

My business plan missed the fact that the worst recession since the Depression would come along a year into my full time odyssey. Being very open, it has been a very challenging retail experience. The good news is I have kept on improving ChildBook to make it an even better shopping experience as well as expanding my inventory.

Many people ask me how ChildBook is doing, usually Chinese. I often have this feeling they are checking if they should start a business doing the same thing. Some of the questions I have gotten include how much are your sales, how many employees do you have, etc. And people will copy what your doing! They will open the same exact business right next to you. A family friend has a Taiwanese Restaurant and somebody opened the exact same type of restaurant right next to them (landlord should not have allowed this), which resulted in a price war. The other business finally left.

I am very open that selling Chinese Children's Learning Materials is a challenging business. From getting quality items, keeping the web site going, translations, marketing, answering phone calls, and there is a surprisingly amount of competition. Dealing with customers can be very challenging and my goal is to be fair to them, and my business.

For me, I am very happy working on ChildBook. It is using all the skills from my previous positions working for other people that I have learned so much from and giving me the chance to apply it to my own business. I have been very lucky working with some brilliant people that I learned so much from (thanks Rob, Dan, Steven, Komal, Andrew, Sani, Jeff Z., and many more at Mall).

Future plan are to keep on improving Childbook with the top goal of providing a great shopping experience, from the first click on the site, selecting the right product, to dealing with returns.

Labels: childbook

They are visible from where I live. Orange against the hills. About 30 miles from my house to the large fires.

Labels: childbook

Somehow childbook is ranking high for a term such as Free Chinese Books.

It is not intentional, because we don't have free Chinese books. We do have lots of other free stuff including Chinese Coloring Pages, Projects, Chinese New Year Events, Moon Festival Events, etc.

Not sure what can be done about it. I am just a reseller, so I don't have the option of posting the stuff I sell online (my suppliers would get a bit upset with me, not to mention the copywrite issues).

Labels: childbook

On the hosting service I am with, some body got a DDOS attack. Nasty. It slowed childbook.com for a day. Fixed now.

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I am leaving on Thursday night for a 9 day vacation and there will be no shipping for a week.

I am a bit worried about this, being truthful. I will do my best to notify customers of the delay.

At the same time I don't want to kill my sales for the entire week, so the trick is to balance this.

So the order notification will include this, I"ll probably put a note on the front page, and something in my weekly newsletter.

Labels: childbook

So my treat today is going with my daughter to see GI Joe.

Some Chinese Father's Day Coloring Pages

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Chinese Father's Day is coming, it's on the 8th Day of the 8th Month. Lunar Calendar is a bit different, of course. In the Gregorian Calender it's next Wednesday. And I am doing ChildBook's weekly Learning Chinese Sale on this.

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8's are a lucky number in Mandarin Chinese, they sound like Wealth and Father. So of course August 8th is Chinese Father's Day.

888 Blog Posts is a lot of posts and soon there will be some nice improvements coming to make ChildBook's blog more interesting and helpful for what Childbook is about. Which is Learning Chinese materials for kids.

Not Ray's observations on China's politics (Rio Tinto's situation is scary...), Chinese in the US, and of course my latest headache district of choice - why my daughter?

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I wished I had booked this instead of the vacation we are going on...

Cheap China Vacation from SF.

I have been informed I am going on vacation for a week in August after my daughter finishes her SAT class. My family is going to Florida and renting a minivan and tour the Southern US for a week. Should be fun with all the historically significant locations in the area (my daughter is taking US history AP next year). My current project is to map out where to go starting in Miami (tickets booked), and may be up to NY, or end up in Atlanta?

Labels: childbook

Currently companies are only required to collect sales tax within a state if they have a physical presence there. This is called Nexus. This is why non-California customers don't pay sales tax. California residences pay the sales tax for where I ship from (Rowland Heights), not for their actual location since ChildBook does not have operations within other states.

Theoretically, the person receiving items is supposed to voluntarily pay the sales tax within their state. For businesses, since they do get audited for sales tax compliance they prefer to work with firms that charge sales tax for commercial transactions. Examples of companies that do are PC Mall and CDW.

New York is trying to get sales taxes from Amazon by claiming that affiliates are acting as sales agents for Amazon, and therefore Amazon has a physical presence there. Amazon so far has lost this in court. What another company did was just eliminate affiliates in New York.

A sticky issue is how much activity represents nexus? Would a tradeshow in a state be potentially nexus? If they took orders at the trade show, yes, if they waited till they got back to their home office probably not. Court cases have varied on what constitutes nexus. Would mailing catalogs to a state be nexus? No, because it's not enough physical presence per the US Supreme Court. The reason behind the tax issue is the Commerce Clause in the Constitution, and with there being thousands of different sales tax rates in the US per the Supreme Court considered to be burdensome for retailers to collect sales tax for out of state purchases. Congress can legislate changes in the collection of sales tax, but so far has not.

In the future I believe sales taxes will be collected. With computers and databases, the issue of complexity is a non-issue. There is also a movement called the Streamlined Sales Tax Project to simplify the number of sales taxes across the US

References:

• Amazon affiliates nixed in two more states
• Overstock Reverses Plan To Drop Calif,Hawaii Affiliates
• Nexus Confusion: Sales Tax and Use Tax

Please note, I am not a CPA and the above is informational only and please consult with a professional before making any business decisions on charging and not charging sales tax.

Labels: childbook

I have been from time to time asked if ChildBook.com has a retail location, since we are a Chinese bookstore. Or if there are future plans to open a store.

At this time, no plans to open a store. Web stuff I understand, but a physical store I don't have the background/experience for. I would rather put my energy into improving the web site, than getting a bookstore going.

My warehouse is not made for visitors (and I don't have the right type of insurance). I am open to meeting customers at the beautiful Rowland Heights Post Office, but once I mention I have free shipping for orders over $25 the need for the meeting usually disappears.

Labels: childbook

A challenge I have had is when the publisher changes the cover. This happens with books I get for personal reading. Go to the store, new cover, and now you have two of them! So I would start checking to see if this was a reprint. Some of the Chinese books I got today have new covers. Luckily, since I have the publishers part number and ISBN, I believe I have the duplicate issue under control. Now I just need to scan in the new covers.

I wonder if I should also keep an image of the old cover?

Labels: childbook

Weekly Sale! Top 11-20 Products by Number of Reviews! Sale Ends Monday! Limited to Quantity on hand! Comments/Observations: All of the products on Sale in order of Number of Reviews! Last week's top 10 was well received, so I thought why not do 11-20 of the products with the top reviews. I have over 800 reviews and almost 2000 products (inventory control is a headache). And yes, I do WANT more reviews. I would like every product to have at least one review. #11 on my list has 8 reviews, and #20 has 6 reviews. I would have thought the Simplified Characters, Practical Chinese of the coloring/activity book would have more reviews instead of the Traditional Characters, Practical Chinese based on sales. I did not expect Cooking with Kids DVD to be rated by so many people. I have felt this is one of those under appreciated DVD's that more people should buy because it's done very well and a lot of fun. Monkey King Wreaks Havoc in Heaven - Of course! I like this one the best of the 4 books done so far. The Empty Pot is just a great read! Teach Me Chinese! - of course it would make the list. I have sold so many of these. Bao Bei DVD's - Very popular. The Frog in the Well - Very well done, but again one of those items I think should have more sales since it's done so well.

				Guess How Much I Love You
				Our Price: $17.95 Sale Price: $16.95 You Save $1.00! Average Customer Review: Based on 8 Reviews. Write a review.
				All children want reassurance that their parents' love runs wide and deep Little Nutbrown Hare thinks he found a way to measure the boundaries of love His father, Big Nutbrown Hare shows him parental love has no boundary

				Early Start Mandarin Chinese with Bao Bei the Panda #1
				Our Price: $19.95 Sale Price: $17.95 You Save $2.00! Average Customer Review: Based on 8 Reviews. Write a review.
				Volume 1: Colors and Animals Give your preschoolers a head start on Chinese words, phrases & tones Stimulating visuals Repetition encourages learning Uses common words and phrases for child's conversation

				Cooking with Kids - Exploring Chinese Food, Culture, and Language
				Our Price: $24.95 Sale Price: $22.95 You Save $2.00! Average Customer Review: Based on 8 Reviews. Write a review.
				A cooking feature for kids, by kids A fun way to learn Mandarin Chinese tones, words, and phrases. For ages 8-12 1-pc DVD

				Learning Chinese Coloring/Activity Book, Traditional Characters, Practical Chinese
				Our Price: $12.00 Sale Price: $9.95 You Save $2.05! Average Customer Review: Based on 8 Reviews. Write a review.
				Chinese For Children, A Coloring/Activity Book Learn Chinese words for Fruits, Colors, and Numbers Designed especially for young children Coloring is a good way to remember Chinese words

				Monkey King Wreaks Havoc in Heaven
				Our Price: $16.95 Sale Price: $14.95 You Save $2.00! Average Customer Review: Based on 7 Reviews. Write a review.
				Monkey King Wreaks Havoc in Heaven Bilingual in English & Traditional Chinese Monkey King creates havoc in heaven 500-year old Chinese folk tale that all ages enjoy For ages 6-9

				The Frog in the Well - Hard Cover. Traditional and Simplified Chinese and English
				Our Price: $14.95 Sale Price: $12.95 You Save $2.00! Average Customer Review: Based on 7 Reviews. Write a review.
				The Frog in the Well - Hard Cover. Traditional and Simplified Chinese and English Great book!

				Teach Me Chinese! - CDL001 CD and Book
				Our Price: $19.95 Sale Price: $17.95 You Save $2.00! Average Customer Review: Based on 7 Reviews. Write a review.
				Mandarin/English CD & Book Very popular Songs in English and Chinese with a great booklet Extremely popular

				Early Start Mandarin Chinese with Bao Bei the Panda #3
				Our Price: $19.95 Sale Price: $17.95 You Save $2.00! Average Customer Review: Based on 7 Reviews. Write a review.
				Bao Bei and the kids have a wonderful day! Learn basic Chinese words as they Dress up Have breakfast Go to the beach

				Chinese Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes
				Our Price: $7.99 Sale Price: $6.99 You Save $1.00! Average Customer Review: Based on 6 Reviews. Write a review.
				41 traditional Chinese nursery rhymes that will be fun to learn through verses, riddles, and rhyme games. Children will love the colorful illustrations inspired by classic Chinese art on every page! In bilingual format, English and Traditional Chinese characters. Paperback.

				The Empty Pot
				Our Price: $6.95 Sale Price: $5.95 You Save $1.00! Average Customer Review: Based on 6 Reviews. Write a review.
				Very cute story that teaches the importance of telling the truth. Highly recommended. Story of an emperor who gives a test to determine the next emperor by whoever grows the best flower from seeds he provides. Written by Demi. English.

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