Chris O.

I'd lay odds this is a basic online store template with a few custom bits dropped in, and not very successfully at that. A store that tells you it's "five star rated" but not by whom, is immediately suspicious. It's all very cheaply put together, with many blank pages for goods categories provided by the template, but not used by the site, and doesn't look remotely like the sort of place that stocks expensive cameras and audio goods. It looks a lot more like a front for an individual using a dropshipper, I don't get the sense that there's a real company behind this. Given the number of reputable stores dealing in cameras and electronics, I can't see any reason to choose this one.

The Starving Musician is a northern California business with stores in Santa Clara, Berkeley and Santa Cruz. It sells a mixture of new and used gear, in proportions varying from store to store, and usually has a fair range of gear which is recycled around short-lived rock bands in the area. It offers a three-month guarantee on used gear, which is generous, considering how old some of it is. But it also sells bright, shiny new guitars, both electric and acoustic, keyboards and mics and PA gear, and brass band and woodwind instruments, and a range of drums and drumming supplies. School band rentals, tuition and repair services are also available.

Customers can also buy used and new gear direct from the website, and they'll ship free for anything under 50lbs.

The big shiny guitar shop down the road a way in San Jose is probably tough competition in some areas of trade, but it lacks the atmosphere of the SM and used gear there is limited. And anyway, no respectable local musician can go out to a gig without the immediately recognizable Starving Musician sticker on his guitar case. Well worth checking out if you're in the area.

I can endorse what the other reviewers have written, Musicians Friend has been a reliable provider for most of the time. On one occasion, though, I'd ordered an instrument as a birthday present and it didn't turn up at all. When I called, I was told that they didn't have it in stock and had no idea why they'd accepted payment for it and not told me that it was unavailable. I did get a prompt refund, but it still left me with no present to give and naturally I was unhappy about it. That was maybe one transaction out of half a dozen, though, so I can put it down to chance and just knock a star off the rating for it.

Although it's great to be able to save money, I will add that the company is big enough and popular enough to undercut smaller businesses, sometimes quite drastically. And that's a pity. So I'm inclined to say that if you really can afford to pay a bit more - not to be overcharged, just pay a bit more - then you might at least consider supporting a local business that doesn't have the advantage of a mail-order company's buying power.

But if you're just starting out and need to put the gear together for a band, this has to be the first place to look for a good deal. Then in a year or two when the band folds up and you have to sell the gear again, the local business will probably get it anyway. Maybe what goes around comes around.

Sorry but I don't get it. Why would anyone want to trade here? It's as phony as they come, sells only Chinese fakes and trades as a number of equally dodgy ventures under different names. There must be better ways to do business, surely?

I can't imagine how I missed reviewing this one before. Oh well, maybe Ugg-blindness, brought on by seeing so many of these darn phony sites. So, to catch up, this is yet another phony and pretty obviously so, but only if you know what to look for. Given the large amount of material stolen from the authentic site, it's a bit harder than some of the others. And it's avoiding using the magic words in its domain name, which is rare enough to make it look a bit more convincing if you didn't know better.

Aside from selling fake Ugg boots, the site claims to be a member of the BBB - lie; claims to have SSL - lie; claims to use PayPal - lie, claims to be Verisign certified - lie, oh well, you know, usual stuff. Most importantly there is NO secure checkout here even though they claim there is one.

All in all a bunch of Chinese cr*p that's a bit better disguised than most, but is still not an Ugg authorized dealer and therefore even if you didn't spot the phoniness on the site itself, just checking the authorized dealer list exposes this one:

http://www.uggaustralia.com/retailstores/onlinestores.aspx

Amazing special deal here:

"if your item is unfortunately out of stock, we will inform you immediately and hope you will choose other shoes, if you won't reply our email in time, your order will not be shipped out."

I. E. if the shoes you paid for are out of stock, you don't get your money back straight away. And if you don't choose another style quickly enough, you don't get your money back, ever.

Seems almost too generous to refuse, doesn't it?

All Chinese fakes, of course, and spot the small oversight on the account page:

"In order to continue, please login to your replica watches, replica watch, swiss replica watches account."

Oops.

"There is large product selection for you on our website. Welcome new and old clients to consult with us for more information! Action now! You will have surprise when you play the order."

Thanks, but I think we'll pass on the surprise, if it's all the same to you.

This applies to, and is posted at, the review sections for the following websites:

cocomartini.com, bukmall.com, saanjhi.com, 8ookstore.com, collegexpres.com and textsociety.com

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!" ~ Sir Walter Scott

Here's a tale of disappointed students to tug at your heartstrings. Or perhaps not...

From Sandy D:
"Don't order from this company! I placed my order 4 weeks ago when site said 7-10 day delivery. I received a shipping confirmation only after 3 angry emails. Impossible to find contact information on site. Of course, my bank was charged immediately, so I can't stop payment." 2/8/2010 Review of cocomartini.com

Sandy D then becomes Mecky C:

From Mecky C:
"Don't order from bukmall.com! I placed my order 4 weeks ago when site said 7-10 day delivery. I received a shipping confirmation only after 3 angry emails. Impossible to find contact information on site. Of course, my bank was charged immediately, so I can't stop payment" 7/20/2010 Review of bukmall.com

Mecky C then morphs into "David Parker" to post on Reseller Ratings:

"Don't order from bukmall.com bookstore! I placed my order 4 weeks ago when site said 7-10 day delivery. I received a shipping confirmation only after 3 angry emails. Impossible to find contact information on site. Of course, my bank was charged immediately, so I can't stop payment."

David Parker (the late Mecky C) then posts, on Reseller Ratings:

"don't buy college textbooks from this website http://www.saanjhi.com/ never get any replies, communication. Never receive the textbooks. Cheating"

David Parker then becomes Jeff C, of whom more in a moment, and goes over to Sitejabber, posting:

"don't buy college textbooks from this website http://www.saanjhi.com/ never get any replies, communication. Never receive the textbooks. Cheating" 7/3/2010 Review of saanjhi.com

Jeff C then channels the late Mecky C:

From Jeff C:
"Don't order from 8ookstore.com bookstore! I placed my order 4 weeks ago when site said 7-10 day delivery. I received a shipping confirmation only after 3 angry emails. Impossible to find contact information on site. Of course, my bank was charged immediately, so I can't stop payment." 7/25/2010 Review of Bookstore.com

Meanwhile we have another dual personality here...

From Brian W:
"I had an AWFUL experience with cocomartini.com too. Ordered books in January, never got them. Five months later they still refused to resend or refund my money. Customer service was INCREDIBLY RUDE. Accused me of lying and wouldn't answer my questions. WORST ONLINE SHOPPING I'VE EVER DONE!" 7/2/2010 Review of cocomartini.com

And

From David P:
"I had an AWFUL experience with 8ookstore.com. Ordered books in January, never got them. Five months later they still refused to resend or refund my money. Customer service was INCREDIBLY RUDE. Accused me of lying and wouldn't answer my questions. WORST ONLINE SHOPPING I'VE EVER DONE!" 7/22/2010 Review of 8ookstore.com

David then has a sex-change into "ellakoon", who I believe is 'Ella K' here at Sitejabber, and is also found at ResellerRatings.com:

"7/21/10 12:58 AM
I had an AWFUL experience with ErgodeBooks.com. Ordered books in January, never got them. Five months later they still refused to resend or refund my money. Customer service was INCREDIBLY RUDE. Accused me of lying and wouldn't answer my questions. WORST ONLINE SHOPPING I'VE EVER DONE!"

And there are more of these people:

From Ann O:
"ME TOO! I BOUGHT A BOOK FROM THIS WEB SITE A WEEK AGO AND AND STILL DIDN'T GET MY BOOK, AND I SENT TWO MESSAGES TO THEM AND GET NO REPLY. DID YOU GUYS GET YOU BOOK NOW?" 2/8/2010 Review of collegexpres.com

And back comes Jeff C:
"ME TOO! I BOUGHT A BOOK FROM THIS WEB SITE A WEEK AGO AND AND STILL DIDN'T GET MY BOOK, AND I SENT TWO MESSAGES TO THEM AND GET NO REPLY. DID YOU GUYS GET YOU BOOK NOW?" 7/8/2010 Review of textsociety.com

What does this tell us, aside from the obvious fact that SiteJabber ought to be paying me to expose this stuff?

It tells us that certain people believe that review sites such as this one really do influence their readers.

Otherwise, these people wouldn't bother with all this. Which means we're having an effect, which is great to know. But it also means they think we're all stupid, or unobservant, or that none of us care enough to root out the phoney reviewers and their often-obvious phony reviews. I think they're wrong.

It needs people to decide not to leave it to someone else, but to get involved, and give something back to the community, which isn't always easy, but it would be worthwhile and I have a feeling it will come, sooner or later.

Meanwhile, I'd definitely recommend you proceed with caution before using any of these student book sites, and especially if they are in China or India or some other foreign country. There's nothing necessarily bad about trading with a foreign country, but do remember that you've probably got little or nothing by way of a guarantee or a chance to send anything back, and you probably have about an equal chance, or less, of getting a refund if things go wrong. Or goods don't arrive. We know the Chinese are notorious for, how shall we say, a very distinctly Chinese way of doing business, and you should know what I mean by that. If you don't, you should probably not buy anything from there. But take care to at least make sure you know, if it's at all possible, what country you're buying from. And please let me or any of the top reviewers here know, if you stumble across a similar bunch of hoaxes.

Apparently the leading political blog and venue for a quarter of a million readers, to be honest I'm not sure if this is that cool or not. I'm not American, so although I grasp the fundamentals of politics here, I can't entirely feel the emotions that American people feel when the words "progressive liberal" are used. What I have seen, though, from my very subjective viewpoint in California, is that people on both sides get awfully heated, and polarized, over just about any political or economic matter. And they take it all personally, and then the custard-pie fights break out, leaving me an unimpressed onlooker and wondering whether I should laugh or cry.

This seems to me to be a highly polarized political venue that, as another reviewer has already written here, walks the narrow line between social responsibility and propaganda and leaves you uncertain which way it would like to jump. So in that sense, it fits. This is how I'd expect a polarized political source to work, and though it does lean toward responsibility more than bigotry, there's no doubt where the custard pies would be aimed if the chance arose.

It would be a solid "meh" from me, except that in fairness it will be a lot more attractive to progressive liberals who appreciate its stance and content more than I do. So I'll give it a "cool", which should balance the next conservative reviewer who will take a very different point of view.

The Neuber company sells a replacement for the standard Windows task manager, which provides much more information about running processes and also assesses their potential as security risks. I don't have it myself but have seen it running, and it does a better job than Windows alone.

However, the other, and very helpful use for this site is that it lists all known Windows processes that you might find running in the background and potentially slowing down your machine. You may even have an unwelcome visitor or two that haven't been picked up by your anti-virus programs.

The site also allows users to post their own information about processes, which is better than just relying on a commercial source, I think.

Many Windows processes and services are unnecessary in most or all cases of home use, and can be shut down or removed to increase performance. This is a good place to discover what those obscure names in Task Manager mean, and from here you can then pursue further inquiries of your own into whether it's safe to shut them down.

If I didn't know better, I'd be puzzled about why anyone would choose to buy from this site. But I know a lot of people don't understand what they're looking at here. So, lesson one is that if you don't know who you're dealing with, don't go into a deal knowing nothing about them or their business. There are thousands of other places to do business with, you don't have to choose this one. Think of it as a Chinese guy you met in a bar - that's as much as you know about this dealer.

Chinese wholesalers do not sell genuine western-branded products. Any claims to selling authentic or original devices, cameras, or other electronic equipment must be ingnored. Don't bother asking, either. They don't sell the real thing but they will assure you they do.

Do you really think Apple would be shipping wholesale quantities of iPhones to this anonymous guy in China, so that he can sell them back to the West for cost price, thereby undermining the Apple brand's exclusivity? Really?

Regardless of whether the original products are made in China, these are not they. They are clever and sometimes even functional, though the worst I've seen or heard of is empty iPhones with lumps of lead inside to make them weighty, and I heard not too long ago about some electronic device that had a brick inside for the same purpose. At best, you're buying a copy that has none of the quality or reliability of the original. At worst, your goods will be seized by Customs and impounded as illegal and you'll never see them.

Another pop culture bookmark, this site contains previews of upcoming comic book releases, and includes associated merchandising including trading cards, apparel, toys and models, collectibles and games. All pretty well presented with good full-color images of covers, and in some cases, those rather cool flip-book presentations from issuu.com are used to display a few extra samples of inner pages too.

Other sections include staff picks, tables of top games and more, and it's all presented in a very simple, highly accessible way. Look for the "plus" section to find releases that are so hot, you'll want to order them now, before they hit the shelves.

It does what it says in the domain name, allowing you to find comic book stores all over the USA and internationally, too. The few lists I tried by experiment appear to be pretty accurate and all my local stores seem to be there.

Additionally and equally if not more useful, the site also lists all the current and upcoming releases by all the major comic book publishers, and the prices of each title, not to mention a synopsis of each, as well. If you're interested in this genre at all, this is a great source of integrated information you'll want to keep handy.

I was able to discover, for example that "teen sensation" Justin Bieber is about to get his own comic.

"He is an extraordinary talent, his work has a real energy and life to it, a positive energy that works well for this book." said the writer, referring to the artist. That's the comic artist, not the singing one, alas.

Home of iconic American heroes such as Batman, Superman, Wonder woman and Green Lantern, DC Comics is an American icon in itself. It also owns Vertigo, publisher of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series and the graphic novel version of Neverwhere, and Alan Moore's classis Swamp Thing and V For Vendetta (far better than the movie, which didn't entirely suck but had little to do with the original). Also in the stable here is Wildstorm, publisher of, amongst others, the Victorian Undead series which is currently featuring Sherlock Holmes vs. Jeckyll and Hyde, and which publishes Alan Moore's Wildc. A. t. S series.
In an entirely different vein, MAD magazine is also published by this group and has it's own sub-site here at DC.

You can't purchase here, but that's probably OK because these comics are available either off the shelf or by order at just about any bookstore anywhere, online or off. There are downloads, though, in the form of previews, wallpapers and avatars, and you can see all the latest collectibles, statues and action figures. Of course I'm far too old to appreciate this sort of thing, I only happened on the site by accident;-)

Also:
http://www.dccomics.com/wildstorm/
http://www.dccomics.com/vertigo/
http://www.dccomics.com/mad/

Google Labs is the official sandbox into which such off-the-wall ideas as Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Docs were once thrown, to emerge, or "graduate" as Google puts it, as fully-fledged and highly successful aspects of the ever-growing Google brand. Not everything that's tossed into the acid bath of public opinion in Google Labs will survive, but there are some pretty cool things to play around with while they're still there and the chances are that unless you've visited recently, you won't have seen or heard of the latest.

Take, for example, the instant Google store - just sign up for a payment processing service - Google Checkout, naturally, load up a spreadsheet with information about your products - in Google Docs - and fire up the Google Store Widget and in minutes, you'll have your own store front to drop into your blog or website. The pleasures of being a member of the merchant classes are only moments away.

The very latest beta app to hit the lab is Google Scribe, a service that tries to predict and provide the next word after the one you've just typed, giving you the chance to select the one you'd like from a list, or just carry on typing. You can tone it down to just offering suggestions when you hit the Tab key, which is probably a good idea; I started off with the word "now" and then chose all the top suggested words, to get:

"Now watching in My eBay Store maintained by the Reference Center on Environmental Information Regulations"

What I'd had in mind was more along the lines of "now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York", but the app either doesn't know Shakespeare or it doesn't get asked for, that much.

To be fair, the app has only been on the site for a week, and is no doubt learning as it goes. It may be a solution looking for a problem, but the only way to tell is to let people play with it, which is what Google Labs is about.

In recent times, web apps have been joined by mobile apps for Android phones, so if you're a mobile Google user, you're far from forgotten. Open Spot, for example, is an app which allows people who are leaving parking spots to share their spots with people who are searching for parking. Whatever next?

Many of the apps still in the undergraduate stage have been here for a year or more and haven't hit the mainstream yet, even though they seem well qualified to do so. I like Google Flip, myself, and Google News Timeline, one for the present and one for the past.

This site shares a server with a Chinese discount handbag site and another discount shoe store that claims to be in California but uses Chinese name servers and gives the billing address as "Foreignness".

The hosting company is Oc3 Networks & Web Solutions, widely accused of hosting spammers and even being associated with Russian criminals.

See:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/internet-fraud/oc3networks-pacificr/oc3networks-pacificrack-4fib-546a4.htm

http://scamfraudalert.wordpress.com/2009/12/26/whois-ocnetworks-com/

http://quadranet.pissedconsumer.com/oc3networks-pacificrack-4fibertech-webzooloo-and-quadranet**************.html

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/scam-c*******.html

http://www.complaints.com/2009/december/18/Quadranet__PacificRack_and_OC3_Networks_*******.htm

http://complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/ue4mSXpFMwDyUgjMTcbdyw (latest news)

The one shoe that I looked at was fake, too.

A site called Rotten Eggs has more visits than Google. That's www.google.com, as opposed to google.com, which has hundreds of millions more. But www.google.com does at least have a working page, whilst google.com doesn't. According to this, www.hotjobs.com has an Alexa ranking of 2, though Alexa disagrees. A site called yahoo.ca has a hundred million visits but no links on AltaVista or All The Web? Odd. Except that there's no such site, the correct URL being ca.yahoo.com. Statbrain didn't figure that one out. An obscure French T-shirt store is ranked at number 18 in the world, due to a typo. Need I go on?

This is all pretty useless if you're looking for even remotely reliable data. I can't imagine what it's even here for.

Environmental and social responsibility may be about to become a factor in your online transactions, if Scryve, currently in an early beta stage, becomes a success. Which hopefully, it will do. Using ESG (environmental, social, and governance) responsibility statistics gathered from the leading company in the field, along with private and public research, Scryve aims to inform you about how responsibly a business does business, and not necessarily about what they sell or supply or maintain.

Every listing will show an overall mark from a maximum of 10, based on all three factors that the site evaluates. Is the company behaving in an environmentally responsible way? Is it socially responsible, not just to its customers, but society as a whole and its employees too? And the way it manages its operations, is it accountable and ethical? Is it working toward a more sustainable environment?

The reports already here are worth a read and will probably surprise you. A company that takes care of its customers may have a record of mistreating its employees; one that has a solid record of environmental responsibility may also be engaged in dubious competitive practices. A wide range of factors play a role in each company's final mark.

Eventually, it looks like there will be explanations of the final reports which show the research sources used. At the moment, that part of the site, and in fact most parts other than the basic company search, are in closed beta. You may add your email address if you'd like to get in on the next round of beta testing, however, and then you'll be able to see the rest and try out some extra features including a browser tool which will show you the ratings of company sites in real time.

We already know that a main source of data will be KLD Research & Analytics, an established leader in the field of financial advice for organizations and individuals seeking to invest responsibly. In turn KLD has recently been acquired by the Risk Metrics group, specialists in financial risk management. It's a fair assumption that data from these sources is going to be more reliable than most.

The functioning part of the site at the moment is the search, which is predictive, meaning that if you type an "A" you will see all companies with names beginning with A. You may find only two or three under one letter right now, as samples for the beta test, but it's still worth taking a look at what data is already availiable. You may never buy breakfast cereal again.

Keep an eye on this one, because I can see that not only will the onsite reports be useful as they are, but the overall rating system will be ideal for incorporating into other projects and toolbars and adding to search engine indexes in the same way that WOT currently presents its ratings.

In any event, anything that encourages companies to perform more responsibly, while encouraging consumers to purchase likewise, has to be a step in the right direction.

A useful Firefox add-on, this examines every page you visit and reports on the invisible trackers, bugs and beacons that may be being used to monitor your activities. These are normally associated with ad distributors, and Google, though it isn't that hard for anyone to follow you around without your knowing, if they have the skills to implement the code.

There is an option to view a caption which overlays a small area of the page, listing all the services discovered, or to have a link in your toolbar or both. A very nice touch is the capability to then visit the Ghostery reference page which describes known information about that service.

You also have the opportunity to block any of these services, if you don' t already have other blocking add-ons doing that for you.

It's a revealing and helpful add-on that doesn't seem to have any negative aspects at all. Recommended, along with Ad-block Plus, Flashblock and NoScript as basic security measures.

Every murder ever recorded in London is displayed graphically here on a "murder map", and indexed by an advanced site search that allows filtering by several parameters. A researcher can drill down to individual cases and then move on to read further about each specific case.

I imagine a lot of visitors will have mixed feelings, and those who only read or hear about this and don't choose to visit, are all going to be shocked and horrified by the tastelessness of and insensitivity of it all. Especially as it looks to be at least partially powered by advertising.

On the other hand, I can see there are positive arguments too, aside from the potential usefulness of the database to criminal researchers. You'll really have to make up your own mind on this one.

Setting all other issues aside, if that's possible, it's a classic example of using web technology to present data that's normally obscure in an easily understandable way. And you don't have to visit. Somehow though, if you're a Londoner or have ever been one, it's going to be hard to stay away.

For the record this has just been launched at the time of writing, so please feel free to update this review with comments in future.

I wanted to promote this site because it has a compelling vivacity and purpose, but I'm not in the UK and need to cheat a bit by quoting the site's own PR:

"The Don't Panic Pack is a unique free publication found in carefully selected independent shops, bars, universities and art spaces. Also distributed outside alternative music events and launch parties, it contains all sorts of arts and culture goodies and information for cities all around the world with the emphasis on design and the future of our planet. At the heart of the pack find the Don't Panic Poster where a rotation of established and unknown, up and coming artists design around an issue that affects culture across the world."

The site is the online representation of this project, and you don't need to have collected a Don't Panic Pack to enjoy it (though I would be happy to get one, if anyone wants to mail one to California).

It's a very cool presentation, constantly colorful, constantly in motion and often unexpected. Aimed fairly squarely (but without being at all square) at the university-age audience, and promoting indie arts, political and environmental thought, it's not your mother's arts site. In fact, being as cool as it sets out to be, it's quite surprising to find it's out of London instead of L. A. Recommended, even if you're too far from Europe to make it to any of the events and have to content yourself with looking at photos of the happy people who got their Don't Panic Packs. The site can stand on its own, just try clicking around the various topic headers and see what you find.