Diamonds on the Internet! A new and better way of shopping for your diamond and jewelry? Written by Angelo Tambe
How safe is diamond and jewelry shopping on internet? What do you need to know! An interview with Patrick J. Boening, President & CEO of Diamond Wholesale Corporation, aka: DWC Inc. One of North America's top firms in diamond online and wholesale business. (http://www.DiamondWholesaleCorporation.com)February 11, 2004-- Interviewing Patrick J. Boening, President and CEO of Diamond Wholesale Corporation. Q: More and more people decide to purchase their diamonds online. DWC Inc. could improve its online sales by an impressive 83%. How come? A: Price, Quality, Variety, Availability and good Customer Service. The confidence and trust in online diamond firms grow over last years enormously, as most online businesses did. This is 21st century; you don’t have to spend hours in jewelry stores only to be shown a medium quality diamond, in dimmed light for a ridicules price. Then you need to compare and run to next store to start whole process over and over again. A tiring, long and expensive way to do business. Retail stores will not give prices over phone. They need you trapped within their environment. They have to sell you what they have on stock rather then what is available on market. Remember, when you purchase a diamond or a piece of jewelry in a store, you pay for everything, expensive location, beautiful and costly store decoration, sales and security staff etc. etc. The price differences between online and store can easily be 50 – 70 %. On other hand, jewelers are spoiled and hate internet. It is like a secret leaked out. Did you ever wonder why jewelers did so well and whenever you passed by store, their is hardly customer traffic? The smart and educated client with access to internet realized all that. Q: Isn’t it to risky to purchase such expensive items over internet, and how can one minimize that risk? A: I have never heard of an internet diamond firm that "ran off" with client’s money. That would be a one time action. The internet is fastest media in world, such actions would be known and spread in hours, around world and this company would be black listed forever. Surely you should not trust anyone just because they have a web site. If you keep these 9 rules, your purchase will be safer then in most stores: Rule # 1: Trust a web site (company or organization) only if they publish on their web site, full businesses address (not only a PO. Box) and phone number. If they don’t, they have a reason. Many web sites are owned by same company or person and would show same address and phone number. Rule # 2: Check their references (Testimonials) and talk to existing clients. You will quick find out if they are real or made up. Rule # 3: Check professional trade networks and organizations, in diamond and jewelry field: JBT (Jewelers Board of Trade), Polygon, Rapaport Network etc. If they are not registered there, they are no professionals.
| | Philip Emeagwali - A father of the internet Written by Drahcir Semaj
In 1974, Philip Emeagwali read a 1922 science fiction article about how to use 64,000 mathematicians scattered around world to forecast weather for whole world. The theory intrigued him and 15 years later he developed a theory, HyperBall International Network, to use 65,000 computer processors scattered around world to forecast world’s weather. His theory was later used in weather forecasting but more importantly, HyperBall International Network is today known as Internet. Born in Nigeria in 1954, Emeagwali grew up poor in one of poorest countries in world. The son of James and Agatha Emeagwali, he lived typical life of a Nigerian child until 1967 when he had to leave school because of Nigeria-Biafara war. From 1967 to 1970 his family was homeless. They hid in refugee camps, abandoned buildings, and bombed out homes during ethnic cleansing in which 50,000 Igbos tribesmen were killed. “One of fifteen people in my hometown died in that 30-month war,” he said in a 2003 interview with jobpostings.net. “Both sides did not take prisoners of war; they did not want expense of caring for prisoners.” In 1968 he was conscripted into Biafran army as a child solider. After six months, civil war ended and he was reunited with his family. He returned to school, but later dropped out because his family could not afford his education. Emeagwali was determined to fulfill his education. Being a witness to destruction of his country gave him resolve to continue studying. “I came out stronger from civil war crisis,” he said, “I had self confidence and knew I had not fulfilled my potential.” He continued to study at home and in 1973 he earned his first diploma from University of London through correspondences courses. Later that year he won a scholarship to Oregon State University, where he intended to study mathematics; he excelled in his graduate studies at Oregon State. In 1974 he read a science fiction article on how to forecast weather using 64,000 mathematicians. The theory intrigued him and he began work on a theory on how to use 65,000 far-flung processors to forecast weather. He called this theory HyperBall International Network. His theory was so advanced for its time that it was rejected by his peers on grounds that it was impossible. Over next decade he was unable to find work but he continued to work on his dream. In 1987, Emeagwali submitted a proposal to gain access to “Connection Machine” at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The “Connection Machine”, a supercomputer with 65,536 processors, was available because it was considered impossible to program and there wasn’t a great demand for its time. Los Alamos scientists had been unable to program supercomputer and they were happy to give Emeagwali a chance to program it.
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