This week, the HP vice president indicted for leaking trade secrets from IBM, his former employeer, pleaded guilty. Dude, UR DOIN IT RONG. Atul Malhotra allegedly emailed the goods to a coworker, drawing a big red arrow back to his own forehead. Ready to cash in on your inside info? Follow this six-step plan.

1. Be sure the secret is worth something. You don't want to risk your neck over info the company is already required to file with the SEC.

2. Pick the right potential buyer. Start with senior VPs or members of the executive team -– someone who can and will play ball.

3. Establish an anonymous Internet presence. Only do email from Internet connections that can't be traced back to you. Local Wi-Fi hotspots and unsecured home networks are your friend. Never use the same email address to contact more than one person. Don't just change addresses, hop from Gmail to Hotmail to Yahoo. Skyhook is developing a wonderful hybrid positioning system to pin down your location based on IP address. Keep that in mind.

4. Ditch email for prepaid phones from T-Mobile, available at your local Target, it a mark shows interest. But remember that if a 911 operator can find your location, so can anyone else. Check for security cameras in the area before you dial or take a call.

5. Use an untraceable method to transfer the info. British agents used Bluetooth or IR devices disguised as rocks to pass information. Get creative: A dropped USB stick, a misplaced folder, or a shared Google Doc all can work. The Madrid bombers created email drafts that others could access, so nothing was ever sent through an SMTP server that could be tracked. You needn't be high-tech. Aldrich Ames carried top secret documents out of the CIA in paper bags.

6. Hide the money. Never break omerta, lest you end up like Pink Cadillac Guy in Goodfellas. Living beyond your means always tips people off. It happened to Ames. And keep your mouth shut. James Hall III overshared with a Russian spy who turned out to be FBI. Earl Edwin Pitts' ex-wife and Robert Hannsen's brother-in-law helped turn them in. That's the downside of a successful sale: You sell the company's secret, but saddle yourself with one of your own.

Dieting and exercising suck. You are not going to have fun. The science is simple: eat fewer calories than your burn. Start quantifying. I use FitDay to track calories. Run a 1,000 calorie per day deficit. Go easy on the drinking. Take up smoking — a zero-calorie alternative. Eat one serving. Drink more coffee, an appetite suppressant. Low-fat ice cream has around 120 calories per half cup. After two weeks, your stomach will shrink. Step two is exercise. It's awful. Use an elliptical machine. Treadmills make you run. One hour per day, hard. You should be close to vomiting. Easy, huh?

(Photo by mandj98)

Beginning Tuesday morning, California drivers under 18 are forbidden from using a phone while driving. Drivers over 18 must use a hands-free device. I'm sure plenty of Valley wheeler-dealers will risk the $20 first-offense fine as "the cost of doing business." How very entrepreneurial of you. Since using a phone raises your risk of an accident to the same as driving drunk, why not crack a flask of Crown Royal while you're at it? It'll make the accident a lot less painful.

(Photo by Richard Masoner)

1. Find software that sells for $20,000 a copy. Don't try to come up with something new. If there isn't a product already, it's because there isn't a need. With something "new" you have to convince businesses or organizations they need it. An example: automated parking garage software.

2. Pick products supporting million-dollar companies. Those companies spend lots of money convincing customers they need their products. Then the customer will get quotes from everyone and might end up buying yours instead.

3. Build the product but only with the core features. Make a "lite" version initially. Use that money to continue to make it less "lite" and higher in price.

4. Get your name out in the industry. $20K software is certainly going to be "niche" software, with not a whole lot of customers out there who buy it. Get your company name out there so everyone knows you sell your systems and could be an alternative to what they already have.

5. Present yourself as consultingware. Be there on call and devoted to them and how they're using the product.

(Photo by Manuel Faisco)

When I politely declined, he wanted to know why, and I said something to the effect of 'I have no interest in working for companies whose sole existence is, and always will be, dependent on outside funding and other people’s platforms…not to mention those without any real business plans or actual use value.'His response? A resounding “I don’t think they would have gotten [insert large number here] of funding if they didn’t have value or a business plan.”

A smart move, especially as Facebook's ban of Slide's Top Friends application demonstrated how precarious the position of widgetmakers can be.

I work for a fairly large ad network that competes with Google Adsense. A couple of days ago, a new employee was sportin' a Google shirt and I was a little upset. What's the protocol on this? People have brought in embroidered bags from the likes of eBay and Yahoo, which is understandable because the logos are smaller and bags have more utility than a t-shirt. We also have our own company shirts available. So what are the rules? Can you represent your previous companies and what if your previous company is a competitor?

The first rule is, wear something nicer than a t-shirt. A pressed, button-front shirt or blouse, for instance. Haven't had time to do laundry? Light sweaters over a wrinkled shirt have saved many a morning. In fact, keeping a light sweater at the office (along with a full change of clothes tucked in a drawer) can save many, many embarrassments, from inappropriate logos to coffee stains are a romp in the janitor's closet.

If you have to wear a t-shirt, be a team player. If you're going to wear a shirt from a previous employer, make sure it's not a direct competitor or a company with better pay and benefits — with turnover what it is in the Valley means managers are constantly on the lookout for disloyalty. Though if you actually have a job offer from the competition, feel free to play it up for a raise.

Other acceptable options would be companies that have tanked, startups you know are hot but your boss hasn't heard of (as long as they aren't challenging your business), something from Threadless, an independent local artist or designer or a concert souvenir from either a new and hot or ironically old band. That is, if it were acceptable to wear a t-shirt to work.

• Solve a problem, not a class of problems. It's okay to not have your product do everything, as long as it does something well. Many platforms started that way. Linux, The web, Rails Django, PHP.
• Set things up so you get that rush of accomplishment as you finish things. Pick a problem that's worth addressing and doesn't require a lot of support code to address it.
• I'd read the initial idea wasn't important. Thing is, the initial idea determines how the initial idea will change. An example is the choice to go into gaming at all. Out of college, that was what we were familiar with and passionate about. But gaming is overcrowded.
• Developing in a vacuum never works. Prove yourself wrong as soon as possible.
• Have a product that is useful on its own. Del.icio.us, for example - it's just a bookmark manager that happens to be more useful as more people use it.
• Prototype any 3rd-party libraries.
• If you're doing anything other than building your project and getting users, it's premature.
• The product will take longer than you expect.
• People have an incentive not to crush your dreams. Take everything they say with a grain of salt.
• Know your limitations. Apple, or Sun, or Google — founders of those companies concentrated on the areas that they were experts in.

(Photo by dierken)

• Failing to spend enough time researching the business idea to see if it's viable.
• Miscalculating market size. Entrepreneurs say, 'The market size is 50 million people. If I only sell to 2 percent, I'd be selling a million.' But most products sell less than 1 percent.
• Making a commitment on sales projections that were wrong. Created costs that require those projections to be met. Run out of money.
• Overprojecting sales prospects.
• Making cost projections that are too low.
• Hiring too many people and spending too much.
• Lacking a contingency plans.
• Bringing in unnecessary partners.
• Hiring for convenience rather than skill requirements.
• Spending half their time doing something that represents 5 percent of their business.
• Accepting that it's "not possible" too easily.
• Focusing too much on volume and company size rather than profit.
• Looking for somebody to tell you you're right.
• Lacking simplicity.
• Lacking clarity of your long-term aim and business purpose.
• Going after too many targets at once.
• Lacking an exit strategy.

(Photo by juhansonin)

Then Wilson and Jerry Colonna founded Flatiron Partners and turned $150 million into $750 million. Says Wilson:

I don't recommend anyone reading this to try it the way I did it. If you choose to get an MBA, get a real job out of business school. Help to build a few businesses in an industry sector you really like. Become an expert in that industry. Then try your hand at venture capital. You'll be much better at it than I was my first ten years in the business.

• Jeff Quipp wrote 2 posts which comprise the definitive how-to guide for bad guys: "How to Bury Negative Online Mentions of You - Intermediate Level Tactics" and "50+ Sites To Help You Bury Negative Posts About You or Your Company!"
• David Wallace, in his post "Using Social Media To Help Manage Online Reputation," serves up an illustrated do-it-yourself guide to exploiting social media and blogs to "control" online reputation.
• Stuntduble, in the classic lay-it-out-for-anyone-to-easily-understand style, offers "Reputation Management Emancipation Proclamation - 10 Ways to "Own Yourself" Online." Think about the ramifications!

• How to be a girl and a CEO
• Invest in a magnifying mirror, with a light, for touching up your eyebrows if you can't get them done, and putting on eye makeup easier.
• Take hair vitamins.
• Get good facial and body scrubs.
• Buy a good nail polish and top coat — stretch the life of your manicure/pedicure.
• Find the easy, never fail thing for your hair when you're running late but want to look good.
• Have a default makeup look you can do quickly or on the go.
• Create pre-canned, ready to go outfits. Ask anybody about my black cashmere sweater dress. It has gotten me through a ton of events.
• Moisturize head to toe; include your cuticles.
• Buy hair glaze when needed before big meetings.
• Carry the essentials with you, always.

The best advice my old man gave, and the advice he drilled most emphatically and repeatedly was, ASK FOR THE ORDER. You'd be amazed how many people talk to customers forever and never actually say ask for the order.

Before we launched Half.com, we needed inventory. We reached out to stores and shops, sending them our three-page seller agreement. Retailers were either intimidated or didn't want to spend the money to have a lawyer review it. 60% of sellers would drop out. We made a change and asked the seller to agree to our terms of service by clicking a box. We didn't change what we asked for — we just changed the way we asked for it. One of my portfolio companies [was] talking with prospects about a big ad deal, sending out an "Advertising Partnership Agreement." They learned that all nonstandard agreements had to go to legal — which added weeks/months to the process. Instead, they sent over "Ad Insertion Agreement" which had the same terms of our prior agreement, [but] our marketing contact had full authority to sign.

• Don't say anything that might just as well be said in an email, i.e. "I'm sorry Steve, it's going to have to be $37."
• Don't forget how many people are listening. For example, do not say: "Oops, hope nobody notices the smell."
• Don't follow people you've never met. Exception: Diablo Cody.
• Don't follow Jason Calacanis.
• Don't add too many followers too fast. Like any dangerous recreational narcotic, one has to build one's tolerance before ignoring the Surgeon General's warnings.
• Don't expect timely and informative responses to your Twittered queries. Or for anyone to read them. Twitter is a heat sink for the unexpressed ego.
• Don't Twitter things that would be better said in person. Example: "@George, No, I won't marry you. It's the halitosis."
• Don't try to share your political, religious or business views in 140 characters. It takes more words to obfuscate how simple and derivative they are.
• Don't follow Robert Scoble.
• Don't follow bloggers who write about Twitter just to have an excuse to include a link to their Twitter account. They will bombard you with links to their blog posts, because they are paid by pageviews.

• 0:30: VCs need to better set founders' expectations. And vice versa, too.


• 1:27: Don't spend.


• 2:15: Don't respond to a bad quarter by doubling-down on engineering. Prune your management team.


• 2:55: If you take VC, you have to play by their rules.


• 3:29: Do you want to be rich or do you want to be king?


• 5:31: Fiduciary duty is the board's concern (not the founder). In other words, they have to look out for all the shareholders.


• 6:08: VCs make the most money when the founder goes all the way. The suit just wants money.

• (1-7) Your Avatar: have one. Use high contrast colours. Use a photo designed to be an avatar. Don't offend unnecessarily. Pay a graphic designer.
• (8-14) Stumbleupon allows only 200 friends. Make sure each friends you back. Make sure they are active stumblers. Say get lost to your pal sending you spam. People know what you stumble and you will be judged. Some stumblers are more powerful than others, get them to friend you, submit your stuff.
• (15-21)There is a specific culture on SU. Looking at those who stumble the hot stuff in your sector. Create similar content. People stumble ideas. Attract people into conversation. Stumble other people's stuff at least 5 times more than your own. Popurls.com can do a lot of the work for you. If it's hot on Digg it could be hot on SU.
• (22-28)Be polite. Accept criticism. Do not submit front pages of e-commerce sites. See it as a mini blog.

Update: Like any good court Jester, we've recontextualized Arrington's remarks to serve our own postmodern fun-poking purposes, excising much footage for brevity — and playfully misrepresenting what was left of his earnest advice for hilarity.

Louis XIV, the French king, gathered the nobles of France to Versailles, rewarding them with attention while robbing them of real power. For those outside the Web 2.0 scene, Arrington's rules must seem as baroque as the Sun King's court: Link to TechCrunch relentlessly on your blog and follow Arrington on Twitter, and he might grant you the imprimatur of a TechCrunch mention. Watch the whole speech, but replace Arrington's oft-repeated invocations of "community" with "noble court" — it makes much more sense. What's the fate of those who transgress against his sense of proper manners, or worse, refuse to kowtow entirely? No guillotine; he just blocks you on Twitter, a punishment which he believes to be the ultimate in ruthless dismissal.

Arrington's delusions of grandeur aren't so worrisome — a dash of humility and a vacation on another continent would fix that. What's scary is the collective fantasy shared by entrepreneurial true believers who honestly think they're destined to save civilization by monetizing pageviews on social networks. Decisions made in a bubble, whether it's the royal palace in Versailles, or a TechCrunch comments thread, veer toward groupthink, engender cults of personality and end in wild speculation and heavy losses. The Sun King's scheme worked for a while, but didn't it end with a monarch losing his head?

• Fans versus friends: Be careful who you call a friend, especially in public. Because they may very well publicly deny said friendship. Awkward! Instead, say you're a fan — you show your respect without requiring their reciprocation. On the other hand, be nice to your own fans, since they're the ones who rabidly defend you in the comments and show up to your parties.
• Pre-empt gossip: Get caught snogging someone of the wrong age, class or gender? See a flash pop as you lean into that pile of drugs for a whiff? Spin it in public yourself before the gossip hounds and rumor mill can spin it for (and against) you.
• Think before you publish: Every appearance made and project undertaken by a star is considered from multiple career angles before it's agreed to. You might call your Twitter updates about bowel movements "radical personal transparency." Others call it "bad business decision."
• Personal grooming: You might be able to show up on the Google campus in a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. That doesn't mean you should show up at the Webbys in the same outfit. If you make a pile of VC cash or flip your company, you might want to consider spending some of it at Barneys and getting a decent haircut.
• Don't swim without a buddy: Going out on the town, or just to South by Southwest? Bring a friend who knows these rules as well or better than you do. You never know when you'll need someone to push you into a cab or knock that tell-tale, post-rehab martini out of your hand just before getting run over by on-rushing Flickr users.
• Hire professional help: To some, this all comes quite naturally. They're called lawyers, stylists, managers, publicists, agents and the like. They make it their business to know these things, and can offer an invaluable objective perspective when your own vision is blinded by the glare of stardom. And they'll often volunteer when you're young and illiquid if they can trust you to be loyal when you cash in.
• Don't slag your competition — much: Fame, as Emily Dickinson once wrote, is a fickle food. There's a fine line between friendly competitive posturing and creating lifelong enemies. You really don't want to piss off someone you might eventually find yourself begging, on hands and knees, to hire or acquire you.
• Have a sense of humor, and humility: This is, by far, the most important, both for your public image and for your own self esteem. The Internet is not, in the grand scheme of things, serious business. We all get planted in the ground eventually. Have some fun and keep it all in perspective.

Two years later, Sun's tinkerers converted the CEO's space into a golf course, complete with a sand trap and a peeing angel fountain.

In 1991, alpha-alpha geek Wayne Rosing found his office moved into a tank at San Francisco's Steinhart Aquarium. Hundreds of salmon and a couple of sharks swam among the desktop photos of Wayne's wife and kids.

But instead of blooming into something bigger and better, April Fools' Day in tech has devolved over the past two decades into lazy online hoaxes. The real-world craftwork of Schmidt's underlings — think about how much time they had to spend away from their keyboards to set up that shark tank — has been replaced by insta-Web product brochures and fake news stories.

Worse, the goal is no longer in-house camaraderie, but Internet publicity. Some companies notify the press of their hoaxes a week early, in hopes of securing coverage. We thought about running their emails as they came in, just to pop their bubbles. But there's no laugh in giving away an unfunny joke. Look, if you want attention, why not ship a real product? That seems easier.

The Post:

Microsoft has been so cagey about the candidates it plans to nominate to Yahoo!'s board that speculation is mounting that the software giant actually doesn't have anyone lined up.

The Post:

The word on Wall Street and in technology circles is that the Redmond, Wash.-based company has had a list of candidates drawn up since early March, but that the company is having difficulty getting people to sign on.

The Post:

The deal is seen as a make or break deal for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who has staked both his reputation and the company's ability to do battle with Web titan Google.

The Post:

Other sources familiar with the matter dispute that Microsoft is having trouble putting its slate together, noting that the company has signed up 10 board candidates and two alternates and is ready to pull the trigger on nominating them if and when it has to

A "get away from it all" vacation is a romantic notion. This week, for example, I am assisting two portfolio companies on hires, helping with the negotiations, and closing a deal. You can't just disengage. So what do I do? I block out 90 minutes in the morning when my family is asleep for emails and phone calls. Hawaii makes that easy because at 6 a.m. its 9 a.m. in the Bay Area and noon in NYC. I keep my BlackBerry with me but off unless we have some down time. I scan email. I post on the elliptical trainer. A friend listened in to a board call where he is an observer while skiing. He had the call on mute and the headphones under his helmet.

• "He got fired because he was more interested in joining The 250 than doing his job."
• "I didn't blog about my deal, because I don't care what The 250 have to say about it."
• "He's writing a book? Great, I'm sure he'll sell at least 250 copies."

• Tell your lover first. Not only does it give you both (or you all) a chance to show off your best side, it spares me from being the one to break the news to him, his coworkers, and his friends that you've named his cock "Chadrick."
• Not all privacy settings are equal. For sharing scandalous stories and photos, make sure both are secured before you publish. LiveJournal and Vox will secure photos in private, filtered, and friends-only entries. For Facebook, if someone's got the URL, they've also got the image of you at the Four Seasons Palo Alto spreadeagling your sweetie.
• Confine your bragging to one site. If you write about the sex on your secret Blogspot, review the lingerie on Yelp, and post the in-room photos on Flickr, you're just leaving a wider trail. If you must, use different aliases, so connecting the dots is harder.
• Remember that friends are easier to break than passwords. Creating a group WordPress blog to bitch about an affair gone wrong is safer than using a mailing list, sure. But all it takes is one friend giving up the password to the ex — or us. And if your exploits really are any good, should you really trust anyone to keep them to themselves?

• (Photo by Jakob Lodwick)

1. Ignore revenue.
2. Run out of cash.
3. Ask VC for cash in exchange for large handfuls of equity.
4. Ignore revenue more. Run out of cash, again.
5. Shovel equity in VC's direction, asking for more cash.
6. Repeat steps 1 through 5.
7. Accept VC-picked board members.
8. Stop ignoring revenue.
9. Sell to VC's friends at Google.
10. Don't let door hit you on the way out.

Paul Boutin's notes on the Valleywag voice

THE RAGE OF THE CREATIVE UNDERCLASS We need to put back the Gawkeresque angry-creative-underclass glint to our voice. Just one glint of nastiness per post. I loved Carlson's advice to Paultards on their irrelevance: "Don't just take my word for it. Go to the polls and find out for yourselves." Zing, and irrefutably true.

DENTON'S FORMULA: MIX A PLUS AND A MINUS If someone screwed up in business, find something nice to say about them: "The charmingly incompetent CEO." If someone succeeded, find a way to slap them. "The wildly successful blowhard." Denton says this is a key to Gawker posts about people, and when he got lazy he slipped on it and readers noticed in a roundabout way that the site felt less brilliant.

PEOPLE, NOT COMPANIES OR PRODUCTS Write about Steve Jobs or Jonathan Ive rather than "Apple" as an actor. Or find out who their VP of sales is if they've had a wildly succesful quarter and credit him/her, a nice detail. I don't want to read that the Zune is a flop, I want to read that Wink Twinkerton, head of the Zune division, has done for portable music players what Bill Gates did for CEO sex appeal.

BE INSULTING, BUT BE SURPRISING Calling Ron Paul a loon isn't edgy. Much better was "voting for Ron Paul sends a message. The message is you're crazy and hate the FDA." That's a nice setup and punch line, and a good non-cliche detail rather than an unspecific "loon."

DON'T LET YOUR ANGER GET TO YOU If someone whose politics or opinions you disagree with says something you want to call out, don't do a straight-ahead criticism. Instead, take their argument further to a simple but ridiculous conclusion. When Hillary Clinton proposed a moratorium on home foreclosures and a freeze on loan rates, Jordan Golson asked, "Why not a moratorium on people paying their mortgages? That seems easier."

BEAT-DOWNS ARE BAD You've wrung this out of them mostly, but I still see the young ones do the oldschool Ann Coulter / Molly Ivins thing of insulting someone three times in a paragraph when once would be better. Pick the one best dig and save the others for another time.

NO FISKING If someone says several stupid things in one piece, just quote them and don't rebut each line separately. Do a 100-word version with only the dumbest parts. Readers will get it.

IF YOU WOULDN'T SAY IT IN A CONVERSATION, DON'T WRITE IT Avoid journalist-speak like "He takes umbrage with our statement." You never say umbrage in real life.

AVOID JOURNALIST MATH, USE SPECIFICS Some, many, few ... these are journalist numbers for when they want to imply a trend. Often they're used to overstate the number of people who do or don't do something. "Some feel that Obama ..." Cut that, and instead give me a specific quote from a linkable person that sums up the general mood you're talking about.

ONE JOKE PER POST We've slipped on that. Too many jokes comes across as not having enough to report. Keep the post short and move onto the next one.

BAIL EARLY Surprise readers by quitting on a review or report halfway through it, once you know you've hit the hight points already. Find some reason to explain your exit. Melissa Gira Grant started to summarize the SF Bay Guardian's annual sex guide, but when she got to a piece that was restaurant suggestions, she wrote, "I stopped reading here." It keeps posts short, and breaks the mold of the reviewer who takes 400 words to wind down.

SATIRE AND PARODY Should be used to illustrate someone's foibles. E.g. President Steve Jobs issues the most expensive US budget ever, but it fits in a manila envelope.

JUST NEVER USE THESE WORDS Douche, douchebag, douchery, asshat. Techcrunch uses them, need I say more. (To which I'll add: "teh," "intarwebs," "lulz." - Owen)

So what the hell do you do?

First, I looked over what they said, and what they actually launched. Next I looked over the coverage and what people were saying about this. I was pretty lucky, turns out. Bless Duncan Riley at TechCrunch for actually mentioning us in his headline (even if the point was "Godzilla has now targeted Topix"). So, at least we're getting credit for being a player.

My playbook, anyway, from a bunch of years at Sun (with Microsoft looking to kill us), Netscape (with Microsoft looking to kill us) and AOL (with Microsoft looking to kill us):

1. Analyze the strategy, not just the product. Chances are whatever they're doing is not core over there, and even if it's aimed square at your heart, are they going to back this thing, really? (Think of Google Base, Blog Search, etc. etc.) Not everything over there turns to gold.
2. Turn the obituary into an advertisement. Google's validating your space, and a lot of folks looking at what they're doing — press, potential partners — all of whom you now have an excuse to call or pitch. This of course requires you to have a story.
3. Position yourself outside the bullseye. "These are not the droids you're looking for." Chances are, there's a different way to look at things. In Topix's case, most of our traffic is on our commentary. Since we generate our own content, we're a more natural partner for Google for that (growing and healthy) part of the business.
4. Act quickly to get your story out there and talk to people. There's almost always a great argument for doing nothing. Don't fall for it. Put out that blog post. Call those reporters. Respond to the Valleywag guy who wants to post your opinon. Talk to your employees, your board and your customers/partners that morning.
5. Have a sense of humor. At least I'm not at Yahoo.

DO

• Replace boring, blurry whiteboard with a Segway and polo mallet.
  
• Replace little-known "geek rock star" with actual geek rock star.
  
• Make Woz look talller than he really is.

DON'T

• Focus on some guy talking forever. More polo, dammit! Use a voiceover on some action footage.
  
• Film speakers as if they're lecturing. Extreme close-up — yes, even on Woz — works better.
  
• If I want to share this video, I have to sign up at the site first? No wonder it's only been viewed 193 times.

In theory it's great that everyone can now shoot videos and post them for the world. In practice, I've developed a newfound respect for NBC.

First off, don't be a wimp, Ireland says. "To do so only reinforces the venture capitalist's belief that he was right about replacing you." Negotiate. Tell the VC you "can't recommend someone for a board seat until you are satisfied that they can make an actual contribution." Or, say that the board is fine, but you'd be happy to bring this "star" on as a consultant. If those tactics fail? Call your lawyer. Not your company's laywer, Ireland says. Yours.

(Photo by Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer)

Three rules: "No pictures inside the offices and no talk of any secret stuff you see," writes Hugo. Also, don't stick around after your chaperoned visit ends — security will hassle you. Unfortunately for Waksman, who hoped to just drop by, you have to book in advance. Try emailingGoogle PR. And check out our annotated map of the campus.

San Francisco

Gump's
135 Post Street
San Francisco, CA

Considered the best by fussy upscalers. They'll also wrap non-Gumps purchases.

Westfield San Francisco Centre
865 Market St.
San Francisco, CA

Papyrus, on the 3rd floor. While you're almost there, may I recommend the top-floor spa to get away from the holiday craziness. Bring lots of cash for that.

Macy's
170 O'Farrell St.
San Francisco, CA

Go to the 6th floor of the main store, not the separate menswear building. They'll gladly wrap your non-Macy's purchases for a few bucks.

That other part of San Francisco

Macy's
1 Stonestown Mall
San Francisco, CA

Again, they'll wrap non-Macy's purchases for a tiny fee.

Palo Alto

Stanford Shopping Center
680 Stanford Shopping Center
Palo Alto, CA

WaMu — the bank, not the killer whale — has an outdoor stand in the center of the mall near Abercrombie & Fitch.

San Jose

There are two gift spots. One by Nordstrom's, and one by the food court and Armani Exchange, where you should ask if they carry Armani (Red) sunglasses for Africa and if they don't, tell them Bono and I are personally hurt.

Westfield Valley Fair
2855 Stevens Creek Blvd.
San Jose, CA

East Bay

Bayfair Center
15555 14th St.
San Leandro, CA

Don't go to Bay Street in Emeryville. They told me to go to Bayfair. No one answers the phone at Bayfair, so I haven't verified this one.