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.

The main annoyance I have with them is that usual my web browsing is done either quietly or in an environment where I have the sound muted.  Of course, there are times I forget and if I’m in an office and my computer starts singing or talking it is a bit aggravating.  However, having a talking spokesmodel on your web page would seem to give it a more human/personal touch.  I like that aspect of it.

I’m growing to appreciate that business done well is probably more about building relationships than we typically think and I would imagine that this is something that people probably respond well to.  They claim increased user engagement with the site and I suppose they would.  They also claim higher conversions.  I’m not quite sure if this is the case and would love to see testing of this.
Anyway what follows is a sample:

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.

Criminal Background Check Services

Inteligator is a well done, professional service that offers you the ability to do unlimited background checks and criminal record checks for a monthly subscription. If you are in the business of hiring people it would be well worth your time to visit and take a look at their services.

I would even suggest using a service like this if you are going to be hiring tutors or caregivers for your children. So, really whether you are an organization or an individual you can make use of these criminal records search services to keep your family safe.

The small fee for these services can be well worth the sense of security that the results that a criminal background check might provide. I know that one business in particular that I work with routinely screens new contractors that they bring in to search their criminal records and make sure that they are who they say they are. These days you really can’t be too careful.

Criminal Background Checks – Why a Subscription?

If you are an individual that is screening one person you may not need a subscription to a service that allows you to do criminal background checks, however there are some situations that you may need to perform multiple checks over time. Many organizations use criminal background check services multiple times throughout the year as employees come and go. In this case you should check your costs over the last six months and compare those costs to that of a subscription service.

It is surprising how low a volume of background checks you need to be running for it to be worthwhile to consider a subscription service. In some cases as few as 10-12 checks a year and it may be worthwhile to look at one of the popular services such as inteligator. What kinds of organizations may need this? Some Churches and other daycares make use of these services to screen individuals who will be working with the care of children. Many schools now are also adding this to the list of things that must be done before a teacher is hired.

In fact, many places will normally go ahead with a criminal background check of anyone involved with contact with children whether it’s a teaching position or something along the lines of a volunteer position. The requirements vary, but it is becoming more and more common to see any position requiring a background check. It has become an accepted cost of doing business.

Criminal Background Checks – Recommendations

If you are seeking employment and have to go through a background check you should not feel as though you are singled out. This is very common. Certainly if there were anything that you thought might turn up in your history it might be a good idea to be frank with your potential employer and go ahead and tell them what they will likely see in the background check. Depending on the situation then they can make a decision as to whether the information is something that would prevent your employment. Personally I would give someone credit for going ahead and laying all their information on the table from the start as opposed to trying to hide it or hope that something wouldn’t be noticed or found.

For the business or small organization I would highly recommend that you do criminal background checks on new hires especially if you are in a job that involves any kind of interaction with children. Why? Well, the cost of NOT doing the check certainly. This cost is on several levels, the least of which is the legal liability that you could find yourself in by NOT doing everything in your power to make sure you knew that your employees did not have a history that should prevent them from interacting with children.

I highly recommend Inteligator for your background check needs.

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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 …

WOW….

Loan Product Borrower Proceeds Loan Fee APR Number of Payments Payment Amount
$2,600 Loan $2,525 $75 139.34% 36 $298.94
$1,500 Loan $1,000 $500 194.70% 24 $166.95

So…. for a 1500 loan you only get $1000 because of the $500 loan fee!!!! But over the life of that 1500 loan for the use of $1000 you pay back $4006.8

But what if you go for the $2600 loan? The loan fee is much less at $75 (so you get the use of $2525…. but over the life of the loan you wind up paying $10761.84

!! That is why I call it the westernsky.com scam !!

Are they doing something illegal? no

You would be better off defaulting on whatever you need the 2525 or 1000 for, because you are going to regret getting a loan like this. Please do not consider something like this or other payday loans to cut your credit card balances down to size.

The moral of the story is to be VERY careful for any kind of loan (including credit cards). For all of your loans and credit lines it is a good practice to be familiar with your interest rates (I like having them all in a spreadsheet.) This way you can know which of your card balances to “attack” first. (Highest interest rate first!) Avoid falling victim to the westernsky.com scam!

Read the details, read the fine print, read the interest rate information and be aware that rates may increase if there is a missed payment. Try to avoid finding yourself WASTING 10,000+ dollars over the next few years just to have 2500 today.

By the way, it’s not clear to me if the terms at westernsky.com require monthly payments or weekly payments. Some other notes though are the following quote:

“Please be aware that not all applicants will qualify for every loan product or the lowest interest rate for a particular loan product. Some applicants will not qualify for any of the products. ”

SO, you may not be lucky enough to get the LOW (?) rate advertised on their site. (I’d be really surprised if they turn any applicants away.)

Desperation loans like this only put off the inevitable crunch and will more often than not make your financial and credit situation MUCH worse than it already is.

I have reprinted this from another site that I operate as a public service to remind people to be wary on approaching any loan like this.

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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

First off, let me say, this has been a busy week for memrise – after the mention in makezine which had them swamped with traffic, there was a mention on the Kim Komando show which swamped them with traffic and so…. at times this week, their site has been painfully slow. That much said, most of the time this week it’s been okay enough to work with.

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So, what’s there? Basically, they have several languages that they (or their users) have created word lists for. You can edit word lists, add sounds, videos, mems (which might be mnemonics or other ways to help remember a word). Words can have pronunciation attached as well. So, I started by diving into the french list that I found of 200 basic french words.

Their analogy to memorizing words is “planting seeds”. So, you start by being introduced (7 words at a time) to your new words, and get multiple choice questions to identify them after their initial presentation. After a certain period of time these seeds will be ready to harvest (to move from a potted plant into the garden in their analogy.) After they have been harvested and are in the garden, regular watering keeps the memory from wilting. As you are more familiar with words, you will find the multiple choice entries progress to type in the blank entries. I’ve been impressed at how forgiving the type in the blank entries can be (missing diacritics work out just fine – typing a instead of á or n instead of ñ both are passable.) Some may not like this permissiveness, I think it makes the bar a bit lower (easier) for just anyone to sit down and try to learn without having to figure out keyboard mappings or copy/paste from character maps.

The other thing to note is that you have a fixed time limit to answer the questions – typically it varies based on the length of the word. You also get points for your answers 20 points for correct multiple choice, 50 for correct type in the blank and sometimes you’ll get points for being “close”. They have daily/weekly and all time ratings for site members (I’ve made it to #26 in one week!) At this point in time I’ve jumped in feet first to the russian alphabet (already learned it, but could use brushing up – this was something I needed a keymap to deal with.) the greek alphabet – I was always fuzzy on a few of those, morse code (yes, I already know it but it could use brushing up.) spanish, french, italian, german, swedish and mandarin comprehensive wordlists…. along with a few others. Yes… I’m ambitious I guess. So, in one week I’ve seen 1412 words on their site and racked up 353,759 points – expanded my vocabulary a bit in spanish – I found a two or three words I hadn’t run into before, expanded quite a bit of my italian, french and german vocabularies, learned my first 14 words in swedish and have got over 250 chinese characters (and pronunciations) under my belt.

It’s been very addictive as you can see. If I were planning a trip, maybe I would be a bit more focused and could add word lists of my choosing here.

So, how does it compare to mnemosyne which is what I’ve used in the past for word lists? Quite favorably. I’m still using mnemosyne and the one thing that it has going for it a website will not easily beat – SPEED. I can go through 60 words to review in mnemosyne in 5 minutes give or take. On the memrise site, it takes quite a bit longer to get through that many. They do plan to give a dashboard view showing all the items needing watering at a glance, currently you have to go to each list you have and then see what items are “wilting”…. All in all, the competitive and collaborative aspects of memrise.com make it a great option for learning vocabulary (or really any other list of information – I saw one list of world capitals for instance.)

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…

Of course, this is promising. Until I install it – and it fails to find the scanner. I installed their linux driver (it’s actually a specially bundled libsane ) on two systems and neither would recognize the scanner. So…. I went down the rabbit hole of virtualization (digging out the windows XP license. This time around I used Virtualbox with usb support and am able to use the scanner via the virtual machine.

That’s where much more frustration came in with the windows driver for this scanner. I can’t seem to make multiple image scanning work with the default scanning panel. (I had to work around with irfanviews batch scanning mode.) I feel like their software is just a shade above lousy (really the perfect poster child for having an open development so someone could write a better interface for this GOOD piece of hardware. It drives me nuts to see good hardware cramped by poor software.

Back to the sane side of things (Sane is the linux scanner driver project.) There are several people that have expressed a desire for a workable driver for this model (mainly due to it being one of the rare cheap large format scanners…) Many are willing to put up/pledge money to get it working. (I would be willing to go up to $50 at this point towards a working linux/sane driver for this one.

Oh and when I took out the old scanner I decided to give it one more “last chance” to try and get it to work and…. it did – so now I have two scanners, and A4/letter size that is perfectly supported under linux and a large format A3 (about 11×17) that is not supported under linux… So in the coming weeks I really need to make sure I invest some time on this project to make the purchase worthwhile.

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.

Another option coming up is the Notion Ink device – the Adam Tablet. It’s rumored to be coming in the third quarter of 2010. It is supposed to include the nvidia tegra 2 processor (which should support 1080p video output.)

The Adam will have the Pixel Qi Transflective liquid crystal display – which gives some really interesting possibilities:

* A full color LCD transmissive mode and a low-power, sunlight-readable, reflective e-paper mode
* A transflective mode, that will make the LCD display visible in sunlight and automatic brightness control

(Given that I would like to work outside more….. that sounds fantastic.)

Finally there is the Malata SMB a1011 android tablet. It also features the Nvidia Tegra 2 processor and will probably be produced under different names from various companies. So… right now there are a bunch of cheaper/underpowered tablets running android currently available as an ipad alternative but by the end of the year there should be some VERY good, capable competitors on the table. Bottom line – I think this Christmas is going to be the tablet pc/pad year when it comes to gift giving. While the Apple ipad is up in the $499 range, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of these excellent alternatives down as low as $200 – $250.

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…

Each year, the first week of April (coinciding with “April Fool’s Day”) brings an increase in spyware and malware infections. It’s become something of an annual tradition that causes havoc for computer users, lost productivity, and overall inconvenience. Not to mention potentially costing thousands of dollars in repairs.

We’re working hard to prepare for this onslaught and we’re up for the challenge. It makes sense, however, to remind computer users to be extra vigilant during this period of increased spyware activity:

Don’t open emails, files or attachments from people you don’t know.

Be extra cautious opening emails, files or attachments from people you do know.

Don’t be fooled by “scareware” tactics. Know what software you are using, and familiarize yourself with how it delivers warnings and alerts.

If you’re considering giving your social networking activities a break, now might be a good time. No one will miss you if you take a week off.

Stay away from websites that you haven’t visited before. Think before you click!

Run multiple layers of security software. There are many free and effective solutions that will co-exist well with each other. Remember, a single solution may not be enough, especially during this period of increased spyware activity.

We’re here and happy to help if you need anything. Our management team is happy to answer any questions you may have or address issues or concerns raised by your audience. If we can help, just let me know!

Stay safe online, and thanks again,

Mike

Mike Duncan

Director of Business Development

SUPERAntiSpyware

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….

To be honest I’m not that hot on FREE ecards really – much less a $14.95 per month subscription (!$!$!$???) It all seemed legit and so I sent a message to the support@ email mentioned in the message I got to cancel immediately and make sure that no charges ever appeared for this on my phone bill.

And…

—– The following addresses had permanent fatal errors —–

(reason: 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected support@waveEgreetings.com)

—– Transcript of session follows —–
… while talking to smtp.secureserver.net.:
>>> RCPT To:
<<< 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected support@waveEgreetings.com
550 5.1.1 … User unknown

So…. I tried replying to the message as instructed as our second option to cancel….

—– The following addresses had permanent fatal errors —–

(reason: 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected membership@waveEgreetings.com)

—– Transcript of session follows —–
… while talking to smtp.secureserver.net.:
>>> RCPT To:
<<< 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected membership@waveEgreetings.com
550 5.1.1 … User unknown

By now I was fairly primed for a phone call and called the number listed in the email. I looked on their website to try to verify that this really is the number of Midwave Products LLC – but their site does not have contact information and I was NOT about to login to an account I didn’t want in the first place to see if they posted a phone number inside the gates. –CORRECTION– I do see that they do have their phone # on their main webpage – it’s in the VERY small print after the box to check for agreeing to the terms and conditions….etc.

So, I called and about 5 minutes after my call I was told that I was the next caller in line and my call would be handled by the next available representative. There was a pause in the music and then a click and a fast busy. I was hung up on!

So, I called back and was connected fairly quickly to a representative who asked for a confirmation of phone number and address. It was canceled in short order.

First off, I really DON’T LIKE to see services “conveniently bill to your telephone bill.” I have seen lots of companies do this and they most all have been scams. One company I know had a sudden charge on their bill for webhosting from God only knows where. I DID THEIR webhosting. Our best guess was that somebody called up and asked some questions and they suddenly had a $100 a month charge added to their phone bill. They canceled in short order and the phone representative I spoke with said that they had a lot of complaints from that particular group. I remember going through similar problems with long distance slammers at one point as well. I seem to recall even one more “service” that we found a charge for on our bill that was not something we authorized.

I suspect that many businesses and individuals either don’t look closely at their phone bills and just pay it or…. are big enough that the person paying the bill is not the one authorizing charges on it and they don’t ask any questions.

I thank the representative at waveegreetings.com for the quick and easy cancellation. However, I will be watching carefully to make sure that there are no charges for this.

So…. this leaves me with a few questions.

1) WHO would pay $15 each month to be able to send electronic greeting cards !!!!!

2) Are there people that get a commission for signing up new leads for wavegreetings.com (my bet is the answer is yes…)

3) Have you ever had a strange charge on your phone bill?

4) Has anyone else had a similar experience with WaveEgreetings.com?

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.

Of course I’m not saying that registry cleaners are a bad thing. They can make a marginally noticeable difference. Although if your computer is dramatically slower now than it used to be there are really a lot of other reasons than registry cruft. Windows updates moving you up from Internet Explorer 6 all the way up to version 8 on a system that was marginally spec’d when it was purchased will probably make it slow today. 512MB memory for Windows XP is not enough today even though pre-SP2 is was probably okay for most uses.

You will not see as dramatic an improvement with registry scanning as with a proper memory upgrade (assuming you don’t already have enough memory.) The other concern with registry repair software is that if the registry is corrupted bad things can happen. If the registry is damaged yours system will not boot properly.

That much said there are some free utilities that can serve the same purpose that mycleanpc.com claims to do. I usually steer clear of programs that claim to solve your computer speed and stability problems because they typically never do. The best ways to increase system speed and stability are 1) remove unnecessary software, 2) check that all hardware is in proper working order (bad hard drive can cause slow system responsiveness) 3) upgrade memory if necessary.

Save your money to put towards a new machine if the three above still don’t make enough of a speed difference for you.