Computing stuff tied to the physical world

Coming back for more

In News on Oct 18, 2011 at 00:01

The JeeLabs shop has always been based on the Shopify service (which I won’t recommend for European shops, because they haven’t got a clue about VAT). It looks nice, and I guess I fell for it before understanding all the implications. So Shopify it is, as far as JeeLabs is concerned. I’ve worked my way around VAT by simply refunding and issuing a VAT-exempt invoice where needed.

Anyway, it turns out that there is now a “customer login” option, which I activated a few days ago. What that means is that whenever you shop at JeeLabs, you now get a choice when checking out your order:

Screen Shot 2011 10 11 at 17 59 07

What that really means, is that you won’t have to re-enter your shipping details over and over again if you decide to come back for more. And judging from the info in Shopify, that’s about a third of all JeeLabs customers. I am very proud of that fact BTW, because in my view a return customer is someone who is genuinely satisfied with what he/she got the first time around. It feels good to be able to follow up.

If you don’t want to leave this sort of info on the Shopify servers, please keep in mind that the only difference is that you get to pick a password for re-using what you’ll need to enter anyway.

In case you’re worried that this information is going to be used (by me or anyone else), for anything but order fulfillment: don’t be. I’m probably far more extreme in my position than you on privacy. I do not track personal details. The internet is a nightmare in that respect as it is. I Really Do Not Track, nor keep logs, nor “forget” to remove logs. I don’t do Google Analytics. I don’t have the Shopify “stats” option. I don’t “visualize” web accesses. All I keep are recent activity logs of my own servers, to be able to figure out problems when needed.

Life’s too short for lots of things – and that includes feeding ego’s and spying on people, IMO :)

But that doesn’t mean you have to suffer and re-enter the same info over and over in the JeeLabs shop, eh?

  1. We only come back because of the highly adicting coffee candy :p

    Stian 18 October 2011 at 12am

  2. You sound “almost” as extreme on privacy as I am. I’m missing one thing to support that though. Https access to all JeeLabs sites!

    You can crank out a self signed certificate so it doesn’t cost you a fortune and once everyone has added it to his/hers browser for once, their browser will complain when things go south. You can also leave the old http setup running alongside it btw…

    Vliegendehuiskat 18 October 2011 at 8am

    • Or let StartSSL sign your cert. These certificates are only valid for one year but free. I use them for my personal projects since some years. Works very well and the root CA is included in all major browsers. http://www.startssl.com/

      THT 18 October 2011 at 10am

    • While I appreciate the suggestion, this is one step too far for me. SSL is used by the Shopify servers for all financial transactions, which is essential. But for access to public information, which is not sensitive in any way, I’m fine with standard HTTP – just as I am with SMTP for email. What’s the risk? Spoofing? What could possibly be the value of changing what is on the JeeLabs .org and .net sites?

      jcw 18 October 2011 at 10am
    1. Getting past firewalls that block pages with certain word (eg China). This makes the information more open!
    2. Up to date information since page information won’t be in caches other than the browser’s.
    3. Keeping my interests away from ISP’s using DPI (it’s illegal in NL, but not in the US for example).
    4. Go on…….
    Vliegendehuiskat 18 October 2011 at 10am

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