Is the Wambo team tired of their Sunnyvale offices? Yes and no. No, because this is a great building, with a lot of space, security codes to open every single door (even for the bathrooms! Don’t ask me why…), and a fitness room. But in a way, yes we want to move out, because we’re tired of always going to the same restaurants every day!!!

Should we put up with it? Maybe. But the thing is, it gets worse every day. A few months ago we were all enthusiastic to go have lunch. Here’s what we sounded like:
Xavier: where do you guys wanna go?
Guillaume: I don’t know, thai?
Anne-Laure: Sure!
Arnaud: OK, sound good.
Xavier: Let’s go!

But now it’s more like this:
Xavier: so where do you guys want to go? I don’t care. You choose…
Anne-Laure: Saint John’s?
Guillaume: Oh noooo!! I tired of eating at St John’s. What about Una Mas… It’s right there!
Anne-Laure: no way, it tastes terrible! Please, everything but Una Mas… I put my veto on it.
Arnaud: McDonald’s?
Guillaume: Fast food again?
Xavier: Why not Carl’s Junior, it’s better than McDonald’s
Guillaume: We were there yesterday…
Anne-Laure: I’m fine with it, I’ll take a low-carb burger.
Arnaud: OK, let’s go to Carl’s Junior.
… Xavier, Arnaud, Guillaume and Anne-Laure, walking towards Carl’s Juniors, heads down….

So… time to change offices or time to bring a lunchpack at the office?

AL

Yesterday at lunch, Xavier, Arnaud, Guillaume and I had a conversation about the ideal places to live in the US.

Arnaud and Xavier are both very fond of New York city, although Xavier made it clear that he wouldn’t want to live there. Too big… too crowded… too overwhelming. Arnaud, who spent quite some time in Florida during and after college, would really enjoy a house there, maybe in Boca Raton, and, if possible, not too far from the beach (of course!).

Xavier, on the other hand, prefers California, and more specifically the San Jose area. (good for him, cause that’s where he currently lives!)

Guillaume, the “Parisian” of the team, would like to live in… New Orleans! And if he could live in the French Quarter, he probably would. I totally agree with him: what’s better than listening to live jazz music while sipping on a Hurricane?

When it came to me, well… my answer was: San Francisco. Without a doubt. Yes, it is foggy in July; yes, it can be cold and windy in the summer; yes, there are a few sketchy places… BUT it is eccentric, it has a lot of character, and it has a good nightlife. To me, this is the most amazing city in this country.

We talked about other places, of course:
Colorado: very cool for me since I ski, too “central” for others (everybody here wants to live by the sea…).
Boston: why not? Irish pubs, delicious Italian food in the famous “North End” and lobster: sounds good.
Hawaii: absolutely, if we change careers or devote our time to surfing until the rest of our life.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been to all the beautiful places of the United States, and I don’t think we plan to relocate Wambo anytime soon. So, let’s stop dreaming now and let’s enjoy our little Sunnyvale.

Saturday was an important day for the Wambo team. It was Bastille Day, the French National Holiday. In France, people celebrate it with fireworks and a military parade on the Champs Elysee, in Paris. You would think that being in the United States, nobody even knows what Bastille Day is. Well… in San Francisco, THEY DO!

On Saturday night, there was a street party in Belden Place, the “little French quarter” of San Francisco. It was packed! People began jamming the bars at 5pm and the party soon spread out to other places on Bush and California streets. Many French expats gathered at Cafe Bastille, Cafe Claude and Cafe de la Presse, but surprisingly the crowd was mainly comprised of American people! Believe me or not, but for the whole night I heard a lot more “Happy Bastille Day” (in English) than “Joyeux 14 juillet” (in French).

Well, when you think about it, it’s not that surprising. In San Francisco, every kind of foreign festival is always a good excuse to go out and party. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve had Chinese New Year in February, St Patrick’s day (Irish) in March, Beer Fest (German) in April, Cinco de Mayo (Mexican) in May and, as you know, Bastille Day last weekend… And you know what? Whatever the event is, wherever it comes from, it’s always a good opportunity to go out and enjoy a beer with your coworkers.

AL

Today is the 3rd of July and tomorrow is… Independence Day!!! Meaning: HOLIDAY. For the Wambo team, this is the ideal day to catch up on sleep and do something different.

So I decided to go to Lake Tahoe, the perfect place to rest, breathe some fresh air and hike. However, now I am wondering if it was a smart choice. Not because I don’t like Lake Tahoe (I absolutely love it!), but because a wildfire recently devastated the forest and destroyed more than 100 houses and barns!! So I guess I’ll try to hike away from the flames…

As for Arnaud, Guillaume and Xavier, they plan to… sleep in. As you know, they just had a bad flu, and they’ve been working the whole time even though they kept coughing, sneezing (and complaining… just kidding guys!). So everybody will come back rested on Thursday and I promise I’ll post some nice pictures of Tahoe on our “Team Wambo profile”. Happy 4th of July!

AL

Today Xavier asked me to translate a description of “Swapper” from a German website. I replied: “Swapper is the fastest parcel service on the net”. So his first reaction was: “What??”.

Obviously, this short review wasn’t about “our” Swapper at all. Since this is not the first time it happens to me, I decided to google the word Swapper for fun and see what’s out there… Let me tell you, it’s crazy how many definitions I found! Some of them are quite funny actually. So today I want to share with you what Swapper is NOT :

- Swapper is not a puzzle game where you have to swap blocks to complete the puzzle

- Swapper does not change your desktop wallpapers

- Swapper is not a software for searching and downloading files from strangers.

- Swapper is not a website for Euro collectors to swap their coins

- Swapper is not a plugin that lets you exchange links

- And… Swapper has definitely nothing to do some kind of “couple” behavior.

So if you too experienced the same confusion, don’t worry, we’re still making this great application that lets you privately swap with your friends. Go Swapper!

AL

Monday was Memorial Day here in the US. So for once, we had a three-day weekend! And let me tell you, in this country, it doesn’t happen very often

It was so warm and sunny that some of us went to the beach. However, some of us are smarter than others, and put sunscreen on their arms and their face!!! You would think Guillaume is one of them… but no. After 10 years living in the Bay Area, he didn’t think about it… So guess what happened? He showed up with the arms all red and burnt this morning!

I personally didn’t have this problem: I took a long walk on Ocean Beach, the windiest beach in the Bay Area… a place where, basically, you don’t want to wear just a Tshirt!

So today back to work. Now that everybody’s rested, we can come back full of energy and good ideas!

Anne-Laure

Hi everybody!

We’re international! After translating Wambo in French, Spanish, German and Italian, we’re about to release a Portuguese version. Viva Brasil e Portugal!!!

So now we have quite a big crew of translators. Today, I asked them to tell me what they thought of Swapper. Wanna know what they said?

Alvaro : “Desde que uso Swapper todo es más fácil. Ya no tengo que buscar intermediarios para enviarle un archivo grande a mis amigos. Con Swapper va de mi ordenador al de mis amigos!”

Alvaro, our translator from Spain!!

Gianni : “Swapper è un grande prodotto web 2.0 ottimo per un file sharing che sia affidabile e di alta qualità.”

Diego : “Excelente inicitativa de Swapper ao lembrar do potencial do português abrindo suas portas ao Brasil. Parabens!”

Martin: “Ich freue mich darüber, daß Swapper in so vielen deutschen Webseiten empfohlen ist. Außerdem ist es sehr cool meine Wörter in den Beschreibungen zu sehen!”

JB: “Swapper est vraiment génial et je suis convaincu que ça va faire un carton en France!”

Thanks guys!

AL

Now that Xavier has stopped speaking Italian (well actually not quite, since he now posts comments on Italian blogs) , we’re having to deal with another issue that makes us go really crazy at work: we’re having Internet connection problems! Yes, in the Silicon Valley!!

It all started last night when Arnaud and Xavier were working on graphics for a landing page. Every 10 minutes or so, the Internet was down. After a good night of sleep, we all thought this would be over the next day… but no. Today, it was even worse! At around 11 am, we couldn’t work any more. So Xavier decided to call the Internet provider. You probably already know what it’s like to call one of these (800) numbers:

“For English press one…please enter your subscription number… press 1 if you would like to… press 2 if you… press 3 for…your call is very important to us, please stay on the line…”

Xavier (FYI, this picture has nothing to do with the phone call he made today )

Anyway, after 10 minutes, Xavier finally talks to the operator. Unfortunately, our phone works with the Internet, so guess what happened? The phone call drops! Here we go again… Xavier calls back… presses 1, 2, and so on… waits for the operator and starts over from the beginning.

At noon (finally!), the operator says they’re going to send someone over by tomorrow, and at the beginning of the afternoon we receive another phone call saying the problem has been identified and will be fixed soon. Hooray!!!

So here we are at Wambo, all relieved, and hoping that tomorrow will be a more effective day

AL

Yes… This is true! And you wanna know why? Because I had all of my wisdom teeth pulled out last Friday.

At the beginning, I was pretty confident it was gonna be OK. To me, pulling out four teeth in the very back of my mouth did not seem to be too big of a deal. I was thinking it would just be a little bothering to chew for a couple of days, but that was it. I was almost laughing at my dentist when he told me I might have to stay in bed for 3 days.

Well… I was mistaken. I actually did stay in bed for 3 days. And not just comfortably in bed watching DVDs, no… In bed, either passed out or banging my head against the headboard out of pain.

And now, I feel better so I’m back to work! Working is actually fine since it makes me focus on something else than pain. However, it’s probably not so fun for my coworkers:

Guillaume, for example, has to wake up earlier to pick me up in the morning, and also has to drop me off at night (thanks Guillaume, I promise I’ll buy you coffee every morning for the next few weeks! ).

Other than that, it’s a pain in the neck for everybody whenever comes lunch time… Not only do I pick when and where we go eat, but it also takes me hours to eat my lunch (even when it’s just soup and mashed potatoes). So everyone always has to wait till I’m done… Not to mention they’re probably embarrassed to drag along a chipmonk with them all the time

Hooman on the other hand is really excited about it. First of all, he keeps IMing me to call me names which more or less refer to the shape of my head. He even suggested to take me to a party (thanks Hooman!)… but with a plastic bag on my head . Like a “good surprise” he said.

Anyway, I thought it would be nice to share with you what I look like. Check it out!

AL

All our users know Wambo for sure and sometimes our first names too. However, nobody knows how life at the office is. Let me give you a little taste of it

First thing in the morning, we always go to Mission City Café, the little coffee shop next to the office. The owners know us so well that we no longer have to tell them what we want. Last week, we even gave them Wambo Tshirts and Wambo mugs! I haven’t paid for coffee since that day

The morning goes by very quickly. At 12pm, Guillaume starts to be hungry, so he’s always the first one to suggest we go have lunch. However, his suggestion is hardly ever met with excitement, so we eventually go at 1:30pm (sorry Guillaume ). Then comes the important decision we have to make every day and that greatly influences our activity level in the afternoon: where should we go eat? The Thai restaurant, Saint John’s, or the sandwich place?

Our favorite is the Thai restaurant, although it’s a little bit of a challenge to get exactly what you ordered. Saint John’s is pretty good too, however, it’s a little more difficult to stay awake in the afternoon after eating a greasy hamburger with greasy French fries (sooo good though!). Anyway, whatever we eat, lunch is always a good time to brainstorm and talk about new ideas on an informal basis. That’s for example how we got the idea of video messages. And whenever a good idea emerges, we spend the whole afternoon (and the following days) trying to implement it, boosting ourselves with chewing gum and caffeine (our daily ammunition )

And when a new feature is completed, guess where we go celebrate… Ruby Skye, baby!!

Anne-Laure

Ummm… Yes and no.

Let me tell you a little more about Xavier’s new “disease”.
First of all, it is chronic. For several days now, we have been working with Gianni “Gidibao”, our Italian blogger friend, to translate Wambo website in Italian (thank you Gianni by the way, awesome job! ). Since Xavier has been reading those Italian translations, he keeps distracting the whole team by repeating over and over again the same sentences in Italian. How exotic would it be if he could actually speak Italian! Unfortunately, the sentences he likes repeating are more like “Cliccare su Finito per terminare l’operazione”, which means “Click on Finish to finish the operation” or “Messaggistica Privata di Gruppo”, which means “Private Group Messaging”.

Here are other information you need to know about this rare disease:

Is the disease contagious?
God no!

Are there secondary effects?
I’ll tell you in a few months. You never know, maybe Xavier will eventually decide to learn Italian.

What type of medication do you need?
Well, I’m not a doctor but I am pretty sure we need to call back our friend Enrique (see previous blog post on Ruby Skye) and ask him to fly back to California. If Enrique was here, Xavier would be speaking Spanish all day long. That would save us!

Hopefully, he’ll recover by himself. Actually, although Xavier is temporarily enduring severe “Italian-aholism” , I’m glad Wambo is becoming so internationally-oriented. Wambo has friends in so many countries now: Spain, Italy, France, Mexico, Argentina, Malaysia, Guatemala and others. Starting this week, you can even read our website in English, in French, in Spanish and in Italian. So we’re moving forward with the localization of our software. I hope you’ll enjoy it!

Anne-Laure

Last Thursday, a few of us at Wambo enjoyed an evening in the city! Enrique, a friend from out of town, arrived from Spain. We dined at a North Beach restaurant which offered upscale “classic” American food. Both the steak and seafood there were delicious! All of us enjoyed eating out together in a different setting than the workplace. It was really fun, and taking our out of town guest Enrique, provided us with a great opportunity for some fine dining and good conversation in San Francisco.

Initially, we were a little apprehensive because we were seated right next to the piano. There were a lot of instruments and a mini band at the restaurant, and we began to worry that our table would become the center of the musical extravaganza. Luckily, this was not the case. We just had to raise our voices a little to converse, but that was about it.

After dinner, we wanted to take our guest to a club to enjoy the evening. All of us drove over to the “Ruby Skye Club” where we enjoyed cocktails and some great dance music. Arnaud, the wine connoisseur, helped to pick out two bottles of wine. Afterwards, several DJ’s competed to win our approval in a music competition, and by 2 AM, I was completely exhausted and ready to go home! What a fun evening out on the town though!

-Anne-Laure

I thought I’d share a little secret we all keep it at Wambo - we have an idol and he’s name is Max. Max was one of the first to try (and… hmmm… share some “feedback”) the chatbox - the coolest, most awesome feature in the entire universe.

OK, that might be a little bit of an “exageration”, but I kid you not when I say that everyone here listens and cares about what Max has to say. Not a day goes by without getting a ping from Max on new ideas. He usually clicks on our chatbox link, right off the Wambo pages, or he IMs us in Wambo.

So what does this expert in telecommunication networks, no non-sense blogger is advocating? I would say a few very simple things - light-weight software applications that install swiftly without consuming too much memory, easy-to-use interfaces without too much clutter, and yes, bug free software - and trust me there, Max is a meticulous software engineer with an eye for quality. Thank you Max so much for your support - here to express our gratitude - and please keep us motivated and sharp!

Wambo T-shirt

We love you Max!

Anne-Laure

Lunches with the Wambo team are quite a ritual. After 45 minutes “wamboing” each other to tell each other how hungry we are, we eventually decide to go. Then comes the difficult decision we have to make every day. Where should we go?
The choice has become a little difficult lately, and I think I should tell you why

The Lebanese restaurant: We all like it. They have very good combo plates with a choice of lamb, chicken, or falafel, lettuce, pita bread and hummus.
The problem: by the end of the meal, Arnaud always has sauce stains on his pants. Eating meat in a pita bread is such an art!

Carl’s Junior: fast food is not very healthy, I admit, but they have a decent selection of hamburgers, so we go there once in a while.
The problem: the jalapeno burger has A LOT of jalapenos. Last time, Xavier was almost crying while eating his hamburger.

Una mas: this is the Mexican restaurant right next to our office. Their burritos are very tasty.
The problem: in the afternoon, you are struggling not to fall asleep at work.

The thai restaurant: if you feel like a good curry, this is THE place to go!
Problem #1: same as Carl’s Junior. Very good, but it can be extremely spicy. I found it a little bit more misleading, though. When you order a jalapeno burger at Carl’s Junior, you kinda know it’s going to be somewhat spicy. But if you order a “mild curry” at a thai restaurant, and specifically asks for “not too spicy”, what a surprise after you take the first bite . That’s what happened to me today, and my stomach is still in pain…
Problem #2: when they bring tofu instead of chicken… and when you’re someone like Xavier, who hates tofu!

But you know what? There no such thing as one of those small incidents when we want to have a good laugh

AL

Wambo’s roadtrip has been quite the adventure!! From UCSD to UCLA back to the bay area, the trip has been both exciting and enterprising. Although, we traveled to UCSD and UCLA with the same motive (meeting and learning about Wambo users), our experiences in both places were slightly different.

At UCSD, the career fair was held outside providing a more laidback atmosphere. The students that came to investigate Wambo and ask questions had a diverse set of majors from business and econ, to history, to engineering. Everyone at the school according to the team were motivated, open minded, and eager to hear about this “new instant messenger.” There was more of a sense of community at UCSD and the pace of life slower allowing for more attention to detail in the questions and concentrated attention to the Wambo presentation.

UCLA also proved to be a beautiful campus to visit. However, a few differences in the environment distinguished it from UCSD. Firstly, the career fair was held inside an auditorium in the company of other large companies. The show was more formal in manner. Also, we collected a more technical crowd, mostly engineering and computer science students who were curious about intricate details about the Wambo software.