Frequently Asked Questions

What is it?: 7bills is a simple banknote tracker. With it, everyone can find out if his banknote is in the database, and see the path of the banknote. It was created in Ruby on Rails, by Openminds, as a showcase on Barcamp Brussels.
Why?: The idea started in a cocktail bar, after M told about a experience at work. Working at a store, she saw the same banknote (it had a writing on it saying "happy birthday") three times in one day, handed to her by three different people.
But, you must have a boring life if you programmed this just for this...: No, this happened on friday evening. Sunday, Barcamp Brussels 2 took place, and we would attend. However, we had some trouble finding a topic to talk about. Saturday evening, the decision was made to talk about "writing an application in 24 hours". We wrote and designed the first version in less than 12 hours, and made a presentation at Barcamp about our experience.
What did you use?: The application was a testcase for us, to see if we could easily work with Ruby on Rails, the currently much hyped web development framework. We included the Google Maps as eye-candy (and it gave us some experience with its integration). It was also a testcase for our own Ruby on Rails hosting setup, as we did this as "end users".
Nice name, but does it mean anything?: Sure it does, everything on this site is well thought-through. The 7 refers to the 7 banknotes that exist (5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500). The "7bills" is also short, snappy, and contains a number followed by a word, which is very "web 2.0"-ish. The logo was generated using the Web2.0 logo generator.
Cool idea! Will it last?: Normally, it will. However, this is a side project, a "shrubbery" (yes, we are Monthy Python fans), if it comes to hard to support, or it has major security flaws we can't fix due to time constrains, we will take it offline.
I found a note, and it had "7bills.eu" written on it!: This is sometimes called viral marketing. It invites people to visit this site, and hopes they will add the current location of the bill.
Cool, should I write it on each note I own?: This decision is up to you, but beware. We don't take any responsability, and do not encourage people to start writing on banknotes! We are no lawyers, but we assume there will be a law somewhere forbidding you to change a banknote. So, we will not stop you from writing on your banknotes (they're yours, how could we stop you), but don't come complaining back to us if your banknote is rendered unusable.
Hey, you don't take responsability for this?: We take responsability for this site and it contents, as a hoster and owner of the site. We don't take any responsability for anything else. If your house burns down, or your cat gives birth to two-headed little pink elephants, or if your wife finds out your cheating on her through this site, you're on your own.
This site isn't W3C compliant!: We don't care, as it is a side-project. It might become compliant later, if we find more time.
Anything else?: Sure, a lot, but I'm out of time. Contact us at 7bills AT openminds.be if you have questions or if you need more information.