Office Depot Good Deed

It's not often that you hear of a corporation going out of its way to be a good citizen, so I figure when I see one that does, I should publicize it. Office Depot just sent me a rebate check - but not one they owed me. They paid me the rebate I was owed from the manufacturer. Granted I bought the product at Office Depot, but they could easily have just hoped that I'd forget about it. Instead they made good on the manufacturer's promise. Here's the letter they sent me:

Dear Office Depot Customer,

Enclosed is your rebate payment in connection with your purchase of [...]
from Office Depot [...] We understand that the receipt of your rebate may have
taken longer than anticipated, and we regret any inconvenience that this delay
may have caused you. As you may know, this particular rebate was not
issued by Office Depot; rather it was issued by a vendor, from whom we acquired
the merchandise you bought at Office Depot. This vendor was directly
responsible for funding the rebates, but failed to do so.

In light of that failure and because Office Depot values you and your
expectations as an Office Depot customer, Office Depot has determined to satisfy
the rebates itself. Please accept your rebate with both our apologies for
the delay in getting it to you and our thanks for your loyalty and
business.

Thank you again for your understanding.

Sincerely,
John Lostroscio,
Vice President, Merchandising.

Good job, Office Depot. You've scored a point with me, and hopefully with the people who read this blog.

Vyser RoamAbout - browser widgets

Do you every find yourself looking at a web page containing an address that you want to map, but there's no map on the page and no link to have it mapped? So you open another page to display Google Maps, MSN Maps, or Mapquest, go back to the original page, cut the first line of the address, go to the map page, paste the text into the search field, go back to the original page, cut the second line of the address, go back to the map page, and paste the rest of the text into the search field, and then click on the button to display the address on the map - whew!

Or you are reading about a company, and you decide you want to look up the company's stock price, or get other information about the company. So you cut the company's name, then go to one of the myriad of business sites (e.g., Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, Google Finance, SmartMoney, etc.), paste the name of the company into the search box, and then click the button to display information about the company.

How would you like to display an address on a map just by selecting it and clicking a button? Or display information about a company just by selecting it and clicking a button? You can do these things and more with Vyser RoamAbout (though admittedly -for now - only if you are using Firefox).

RoamAbout puts an icon in the lower right corner of your browser window. You click on it to open or close a sliding icon bar displaying icons for the functions it provides. The picture below shows what your browser window looks like after you select an address and click on the "map" icon:

The picture below shows what your browser window looks like when you select a company name and click on the "stock quotes" icon: