Posts

Posted on

Baby gender prediction scam

Rebecca at the Memoirs of a Skepchick blog posted this great entry So you want to be a con artist!.

It refers to a new internet scam of baby gender prediction. Rebecca points out the clever first FAQ but I also noticed a very clever third question and answer.

“Question: How does the 100 % Money-Back-Guaranty work?
Answer: Should our results be not conform to the actual gender of your child, you will only need to send us the original birth certificate and the invoice and you will receive your money back immediately.”

They require “the original birth certificate” to get your refund. Assuming they are good to their word and don’t want a copy, then they can greatly enhance how much they keep. Normally the parents get one copy of the birth certificate when the child is born. Depending on where you live, getting an extra official birth certificate can cost more than the refund from the con artists. Even if you can get a cheap birth certificate where you live, it is likely more time consuming than the refund is worth. So, probably very few victims ever get their money back, letting the scammer’s keep closer to 100% of what they take in. Boy, con artists are so clever, it is really too bad that this kind of activity is legal in the U.S.A.

Posted on

Lithium Ion Battery saftey being evaluated by the CPSC

This article in Conformity Magazine summarizes recent safety testing of Lithium Ion batteries, it also has a link to the full report.

As embedded systems designers we have a responsibility to pay careful attention when we use newer technologies like LI batteries in our products. There have been many very safe designs with LI batteries but due to their nature a totally safe design is not an easy task. So please resist the temptation to cut corners when you design a potentially dangerous device into your latest gadget.

Posted on

A great laugh

Had a great laugh last night while catching up on blog reading. Rebecca of the Memoirs of a Skepchick blog started a little contest in response to A Correspondence she received. She challenges everyone to say what she has hidden in a lunch box in her apartment. The ensuing comments are entertaining but what made me nearly fall over laughing was a comment by Toolbox in Rebecca’s post So, what IS in my lunch box?.

Posted on

Very nice all-in-one from HP

I’m starting to look like a Cranky Geek from writing about so many PC problems recently. So here’s a good thing, the HP Photosmart C6180 All-in-One printer.

About a month ago a friend of mine was looking to buy an All-in-One printer/scanner/fax to save on desk space. She had seen a few different models from various companies that looked good to her and wanted me to check them out. I checked online reviews and specifications for them all and then recommended the HP as the best buy.

Everything works very well and it has everything but the kitchen sink built-in. Just today she told me how much she loves the printer so, I’m giving a big thumbs up to this great product.

Posted on

Intervideo MediaOne Gallery = Huge Problems

I received a copy of Intervideo MediaOne Gallery when I purchased Ulead DVD Movie Factory 5 Plus yesterday. So today I decided to check it out since I’m stuck at home with a cold trying to relax and get well. I should have read this review by CNET about it’s sister application first.

This program is yet another all in one media organizer but with a twist. The installer is terrible causing WinXP hard crashes and then the uninstaller won’t work. Using information in the CNET review and my general knowledge I was finally able to eradicate the program but it took many hours. On the bright side while I was ripping out the Intervideo MediaOne Gallery, I also completely eradicated WinDVD and the Interactual player. My system now seems much faster and more stable.

I think I’ll keep far far away from Intervideo products in the future.

Posted on

Free eBooks and audio books

Recently a blog was advertised on one of the technical mail lists that I read. The blog, Free Technical Books on the Net, pointed me to a great site XP Math – Math Games, Math eBooks, Math Careers. To try it out I downloaded “Hacking for Dummies” and to my surprise it is a complete PDF of the 2004 edition that is even printable.

Another new source of eBooks is Google Book Search use the “Full view books” option and then you can view or download PDF versions of the scanned book.

These new sources are nice but my favorite is still Project Gutenberg with 20,000 free books in the catalog. This includes many of the greatest books of all time.

There are also some free audio books at PG but my favorite free audio books site is LibriVox. While I’m on the subject of free public domain content I should mention The Internet Archive. It started out simply archiving web sites (for a good laugh check out these old site designs I was involved with). Currently they have 136,386 texts (includes a mirror of Project Gutenberg), 48,185 movies, 35,816 recoded live music concerts and, 108,411 other audio recordings.

Posted on

Clearwater Florida becomes the City of Scientology

Clearwater Florida was a wonderful city to visit back when my parents first moved to the gulf coast about 20 years ago. Sadly the city has now been almost completely taken over by the church of scientology. It started slowly but judging from this video, it seems they have finally taken over the city government enough now so that the police department is in their pockets. 😦