Have you ever visited a website and had someone start talking to you. No not over your shoulder, from the page itself? I have and I’m still not decided on whether it’s a good thing or not. I can definitely see it turning off some people, but it’s slick and can give a positive first impression if done well.
These website spokesperson videos are pretty easy and cheap to do. Cheaper than I would have expected and I’ve just run across one company that does this.
When you are hiring someone for most positions a criminal background check is a high priority. Especially if the person you are hiring will interact with your family or with children. The internet has made criminal background checks commonplace and easy to conduct. There are many services that make this an easy and quick process. One such that I have found is inteligator.
Absolutely shockingly high interest rates…. Wow. The last year or so I’ve seen a lot of westernsky.com ads. They are an LLC that is native-american owned and operating in the sovereign nation of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. (Within the borders of the US, but federal jurisdiction is on iffy ground there.)
Now, they do say they’re loans are expensive, but they are advertising their loans as being more affordable than many payday loans and I took a look at their site. Read on to see why I call it the westernsky.com scam …
I have been absolutely addicted. A week ago Thursday I discovered a new site. It was an article over at the makezine blog talking about the benefits of learning mandarin for what they do. I’ve always been intrigued by mandarin – I remember learning a bit of cantonese in Hong Kong and have a short book on chinese symbols. I must admit a lifelong fascination with languages (there’s the study new languages site, my how to learn spanish for beginners site and my onlineradiotv.com site which each have highlights of my interest in languages and the great exposure to other languages that the internet can bring. Anyway…. I’ve used a flash card program for a long time to work on vocabulary (mnemosyne) – I have around 10,000 spanish cards right now – a bunch of french (200) and italian (400) and german (6000+) cards as well. I’ve cracked the book a bit on chinese, but not much. So, one of the resource sites they mentioned was memrise.com
Last year I got a Sansa Clip Plus 8GB. I just wanted to do a followup post after I’ve used it for a while. One year on (well 11 months on….) it’s still rock solid. I’ve had no problems with it, it has a really good battery life. I really don’t charge it for weeks at a time. (I’m not listening constantly, but when I listen more I would guess about 8 hours use per charge.)
I don’t think I’ve bothered to update the firmware (it’s not broken so I’m not fixing it…)
In general it reminds me of the choice to get the Kindle. It does one thing well! Nice and portable, standard usb charger and easy to add music to. So, one year on – I would definitely recommend it, if mine were missing I would get it again. It seems quite durable (my 2 year old got a hold of it once and it almost went missing – but cleaned up nicely.)
Scanners… I had a nice microtek scanner that for the last year has refused to work and I decided to replace it. I have a project coming up that would require scanning some larger format pages so I was really pleased to find a $165 A3 scanner (usually the larger format are much more expensive.) This is the Mustek ScanExpress A3 USB 1200 Pro. So…. being a linux user I look to see if it’s supported by sane and naively…. finding a mustek usb scanner with 1200 in the name assume that it’s supported that way. (It’s not – mustek’s model numbering is quite cryptic and enigmatic. I have found multiple (different) scanexpress something 1200 scanners that are usb based. All with varying levels of support.
On inspection though mustek has a linux driver on their website…
I spent a bit of time lately drooling/browsing through the many different android based tablets/pads there are. Why not the ipad? I don’t know – I just don’t particularly like the idea of being tied to Apple…. having to acitvate with itunes – being restricted to the apple app store. I like that android is more open (in many different ways.) So… I saw a lot of cheap entries from China. None of which really impressed me much. It looks as though the real ipad killers are on their way later in the year 2010. One is the viliv x10 tablet with a 1366×768 screen, 3d graphics. SD card, usb, capacitive touch screen. (Some of the cheaper competitors are resistive touch screen which is not seen as sensitive. The cheaper alternatives also seem a bit underpowered processor wise. (Or may lack gps or the accelerometer – both of which really seem (to me) essential parts of a tablet system for all of the neat “killer app” possibilities.
I received a message from some at superantispyware in the last day or two that is a well timed and good heads up. Every year there is a surge in spyware, malware and rogue activity around April Fools Day (April 1st). It’s important to be aware and raise our skepticism a bit this time of year… I’m reprinting here…
This afternoon I received an email that said the following…
Welcome to Midwave Products LLC!
Congratulations Avery,
This e-mail is to confirm your recent/successful WaveEGreetings.com
order! Log in online and get instant access to hundreds of E-Greeting
Cards!
Billing Telephone Number: **********
As part of your service with the WaveEGreetings.com program, you will
receive:
Unlimited access to ecards for every occasion!
Send greetings to your friends and family.
Create unique and personalized greetings.
Your WaveEGreetings.com account can be accessed by going to
www.waveEgreetings.com/login.asp and entering in your username and
password below;
username: ****************
password: *************
For your convenience you will be billed a monthly fee of $14.95 on your
local phone bill for the phone number you provided which is **********.
Although, there is no affiliation with your local phone company, these
charges will appear on your local telephone bill on the Transaction
Clearing bill page as being billed on behalf of Midwave Products, LLC.
There is no long term contract and the service can be cancelled at any
time.
If you have questions or concerns and need to contact customer service
just simply reply to this e-mail and we will be happy to assist you.
You can cancel the service by calling 866-982-3699or by emailing us at
support@waveEgreetings.com and include your home telephone number or
simply reply to this email stating “cancel”. Or write us at PO Box 17598
Suite# 77145, Baltimore, Maryland 21297-1598.
Thank you and Congratulations on joining WaveEGreetings.com
Sincerely,
WaveEGreetings.com Customer Support
—————————————-
AT&T ENDUSERS:You have the right to dispute the Midwave Products LLC
charges billed on your local telephone bill. You are not legally
responsible for Midwave Products LLC charges incurred by minors or
vulnerable adults without your consent. Your local telephone service
will not be disconnected because you fail to pay a charge by Midwave
Products LLC except that nonpayment of certain regulated
telecommunication charges may result in disconnection of service in
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina and
Tennessee. Enhanced Telecommunications Service Providers may employ
other agencies to collect delinquent charge, even if your local phone
company has previously adjusted them from your telephone bill.
My first thought was that this was a phishing email and I checked out the links in the message and the site of waveEgreetings.com because….
You know I wrote not too long about about the doublemyspeed.com scam sounding radio ads. It really sounds like MyCleanPC.com is a scam in the sense that it promises a lot but doesn’t (or can’t) really deliver the miraculous results that they claim. Part of the idea is that they are a registry cleaner and claim that cleaning the registry will make your computer as good as new. For most people this really isn’t going to make an old slow pc into a brand new speed demon. From that aspect this is a scam. Over promising and under delivering.