Paypal - Almost gave them the boot!

I have been using Paypal for as long as I can remember. When I initially joined it was during the "Get Paid to Surf" boom that took over the internet for a while.

I now use Paypal as part of daily life. My wife uses my Paypal account to pay for Ebay auctions, I use it to bill for advertising, and I use the Debit Card to live on.

2 Months ago I was victim of a scam where I accepted a $500 payment for a product I was selling and a week later they reversed the $500 credit stating that the users account that paid was hacked into and they were not liable for the charges. Now this seriously pissed me off and I was ready to hang Paypal, but decided to let it slip. (I went down all roads to try to recover the funds, but no luck.)

Fast Foward to last night. I needed to buy my son a vcr and went to check my Paypal balance and could not get into my own account. I was locked out of my own account. Now I am real pissed off since I have trained my wife and daughter to delete any emails claiming to be from Paypal, so I was sure my account had not been comprimised. After 2 calls to Paypal and 1 hour of hold time, I reached a customer service rep that explained that the account was locked due to excessive login attempts. While I am not sure where the attempts came from, I now can login to my account. Paypal lives to get a percentage of my payments and receipts.

Why rant here?
As a warning, please take care in dealing with your Paypal accounts! Don’t click or buy into any email claiming to come from Paypal. Don’t share your account with others, not even your mother.

SPOT Watch : Giving them a second chance…

I have recently aquired a new SPOT watch. The other two I have had were a bit, hmmm, HUGE. The service from MSN Direct was not available in my area and still is not, but it is available 30 minutes north of me. I think I will play with the technology when I visit my parents in Birmingham. MSN Direct service is $39 a year.

The SPOT watch using MSN Direct brings you:

• News : receive breaking news, headlines, and brief stories (in user-selectable categories)
• Weather : Current Local, North American, and International weather, plus 3-day local forecast
• Stocks : quotes, volumes, daily highs/lows
• Calendar: Microsoft Outlook appointments (and reminders) synched into watch’s calendar
• Instant Messaging : receive MSN Instant Messages from family and friends
• Sports : Pro & college football, pro baseball, men’s & women’s pro & college basketball - scores, schedules, news, more!
• Lottery : Get the latest lottery numbers sent to your watch.
• Horoscopes : Receive daily horoscopes for the astrological signs you want to track.
• Daily Diversions : Word of the Day / Born on this Day / Quote of the Day / This Day in History
• Stocks : Choose from a large list of popular stocks and indices and receive updates throughout the day.
• Watch Faces : Change the look of your watch to reflect your personal style!
• New! Movie Channel : Get movie times in your area on your wrist - now you can make last minute decisions on what to do and what to see.’

For more info about this watch : Click Here

           

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Oh my, Internet withdrawals… worse than nicotine withdrawals!

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/23/05 in Rants

I have had little to no internet availability over the last 72 hours.

I have been real busy.

Friday night I was at my in-laws and I wasn’t going to dial up in the rural area they live on a pIII 450mhz machine I gave them a couple years ago. That wasn’t all that bad.

Saturday and Sunday, self induced minimal usage.

Monday…. Well, forgot my charger for my laptop when rushing out of the door this morning. I left the house at 7:30am to go to a regional MVP meeting in Atlanta, GA.(3 hour drive) I forgot about the time change and instead of being 30min early, I was 30 minutes late. I totally forgot to charge my Axim and left my laptop charger as well. I get into Atlanta and pulled out laptop to look up the directions and drained my battery. I got to the Microsoft offices in Alpharetta and battery was dead. So I have not seen internet since 7am this morning. WOW, how I rely on being online.

GOOD THINGS:

• I got another SPOT watch at the MVP Event!
• My wife gave me back my PSP for a few days.
• More PSP Accessories to review showed up today in the mail.
• Got my Aximsite Hat! Thanks Choirguy!

           

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Google Personalized Homepage… I like it!

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/20/05 in The Internet

See information you care about on your Google homepage.

Your personalized homepage brings together Google functionality and content from across the web, on a single page:

• Preview latest Gmail messages
• See headlines from Google News and other top news sources
• Get weather forecasts, stock quotes, and movie showtimes
• Select from a variety of popular feeds
• Drag and drop the sections to rearrange the page

 

           

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Open Letter to Wife : Can I have my PSP now?

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/19/05 in Game Systems, Rants

Baby, can I have my PSP back?
No, I won’t play NFS Underground all night, I got work to do! You see honey, I tell people what I think about accessories for this piece of equipment and I have a desk full of stuff to test.
Thanks,
Chris


I bought a couple game for my wife and let her have at it with my PSP a month or so ago and now I can’t find it. She has it hidden and plays it while I am gone. (joking, but it seems this way)

The PSP is the best gaming device out there at this time. I truely love it, but I am starting to forget what it feels like to play. Not only that, I am backed up on reviews for PSPsite.com as well. I think I will make a stand this weekend and get caught up.

           

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Ok, time to replace my Mountain Dew Xbox!

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/18/05 in Game Systems

Last year I gathered Mountain Dew points for months and months to get myself a special Mountain Dew Xbox. After waiting a few months, I got it and love it.

NOW, Engadget reports that Mountain Dew will be giving away 9,000 Xbox 360 Consoles this fall!!!

"Almost forgot to mention this during the ongoing madness that is E3, but just like we said they would, Microsoft and PepsiCo confirmed yesterday that they will indeed be doing a massive Xbox 360 promotion later this year where they?re giving away a console every ten minutes for nine weeks beginning in August. Hope you really like Mountain Dew, because to win you?ll have to use codes found under bottle caps of specially marked bottles of Mountain Dew to enter these regular online drawing they?re going to be holding at Every10Minutes.com"

102 days remaining to the start of the contest.

           

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No Worries Microsoft, The Palmone Lifedrive is blah…

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/18/05 in PocketPC

How can I say this? I have never touched one. (see rant in previous post about early opinions)

I have been watching the buzz about this product build and now that some of my peers have had their hands on one now, I can resume life. It appears to be no threat to the Axim X50v and iPaq hx4700 PocketPC devices.

Yep, it has a 4gb internal hard drive. Yep, it has Bluetooth and WiFi. BUT, its a Palm! No, seriously, It’s battery is not replacable and the life is subpar. (but, the X50v can’t brag either) It’s Ugly. Some reviewers had some crashing issues as well.

Have a read for yourself, Engadget assembled a nice list of reviews:

• DavesPDA
• BargainPDA
• Nexave (In German, ok?)
• MobileTechReview
• MSNBC
• PocketFactory
• CNET
• PC Magazine

           

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Damn!! Game System Overload

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/17/05 in Game Systems

Which to buy?
One thing is for sure, I won’t be buying any of them. My Xbox is just fine and if I could pry the PSP out of my wifes hands, I would be happy with it too.

The announcements started last week with the Microsoft Xbox 360 announcement, then this week at E3 Sony and Nintendo pulled the curtain of their upcoming new machines.

The Xbox 360’s and Sony Playstation 3’s stats are generally known now, but the Nintendo Revolution is still a little bit of a mystery. One thing that is speculated about the Nintendo box is that it will be backward compatable with ALL OF THEIR PREVIOUS MACHINES. Wow, Mario Golf on a $300-$500 system, cool!

Xbox360 (left) - Sony Playstation 3 (right)

Nintendo Revolution

Which is the Best "LOOKING" box of the three?

Check out Cnet’s article comparing the Xbox 360 and the Sony Entry, "Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3: clash of the titans"

OK, with the Cnet article comes a pet peeve that pisses me off a bit. How can you review and comment on a product you have never freaking touched nor seen for that matter?

Xbox 360 - 7.1 Average user rating: from 83 users ( Link )
Sony Playstation 3 - 7.2 Average user rating: from 54 users ( Link )

Uh? How the hell does 83 "USERS" have enough knowledge about the Xbox 360 to formulate any opinion? Whose fault is this? Cnet for allowing people to make comments and user reviews consisting of, "Microsoft got pwned!" or the users for their premature COMMENTS?

           

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Kudos to the Hampton Inn, Montgomery Alabama

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/16/05 in Off topic

I am on the road for my Day Job, I am staying at the Hampton Inn in Montgomery Alabama!

I don’t travel a ton, so I am unware of the places to stay to keep connected. I asked the reservation clerk for this hotel how the internet access was and he said it was super and had 3 options. One of the options is WiFi, I am using it now.

The WiFi is superfast and I have not lost signal one time in the last 4 hours. Impressive for a free service.

Kudos!

           

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Are you reading Mobility Site via RSS?

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/16/05 in Site Items

If so, I am using Feedburner now to syndicate the feed. Please change your links. Thanks!

LINK TO FEED

I am also using Feed Demon to read all my feeds now too. It’s a great program for reading feeds.

I am new to this blog thing as you know, but I am learning and input is great to help me along the way. I want to thank James Fee for turning me on to Feed Burner. What it does for me is give me stats on readership as well as reformats the feed to be read better in other type readers.

           

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XM Subscribers Top 4 million (minus one)

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/16/05 in Music Players

This article found via Digital Media Thoughts states that XM has topped 4 million subscribers. I thought this article to be quite timely considering that I decided TODAY that I am cancelling my subscription. The sports radio and MLB game broadcasts are great, but I find the music to be as repetitive as normal FM stations. I listen to CDs and my MP3 players much more than XM anyhow. So now we are at 3,999,999 subscribers.

"XM Satellite Radio’s subscriber base has topped 4 million, the company said Monday. The company has added 1 million new subscribers in five months, XM said. It predicts the number will grow to 5.5 million by the end of 2005. At present, XM said it has nearly 70 percent share in the satellite radio market. "It took 23 months for XM to reach its first 1 million subscribers. It took eight more months to reach our second million, six months to hit 3 million, and less than five months to exceed 5 million," CEO Hugh Panero said in a statement."

           

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Outsourced Tech Support Cartoon

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/16/05 in Rants

A friend fowarded this link… I had to share it. It is hilarious!
I am sure everyone has felt this way at one point in time….

WARNING : Explicit Language ( don’t click if you are offended easily)

Click here to watch

           

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Yahoo Music Unlimited : Goodbye Napster!

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/16/05 in Music Players, Software

I cancelled my Napster on the go account!

Yahoo Music offers compatability with Microsoft’s "Plays for Sure" supported devices. Although only one of the 5 MP3 players (Dell DJ 20, Pocket DJ, Sony MD Player, Creative MuVo, and "No name brand 128mb flash") I have are listed, I am sure they will work. Another device on the list I do have is the Dell Axim X50V!

So far after playing with Yahoo Music Unlimited for a day now, I am impressed with the software and ease of finding the songs I like.

The way I use my music is a bit different than buy and rip to CD. I listen to music on this desktop all the time, then I take music I want on my PocketDJ or MuVo into the car using a Belkin TuneCast II / Mobile Transmitter. The at work, I have a set of speakers at my desk and a set of headphones I use to jam while I wire in orders.

I have not tested the tranfer to my devices yet, but I am going to do this tonight!

The Price is RIGHT!

UPDATE:

• The Creative MuVo does not allow for FREE transfer of songs. You must purchase the songs in the same way you would to "burn" them.
• The Pocket DJ DOES WORK.

           

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Lazy and Frustrating Sunday

Posted by Chris Leckness on 05/16/05 in Rants

Money Lost, Dead Lawn Mower, etc….

Sunday’s 1st mistake
I play a bit of poker here and there and Sunday was no different. I was playing No Limit Holdem online and got myself up about $300 or so. I realized one of the downfalls of online poker… When you go all in at a live game, you know it. You push your chips in and are 100% aware of the chips you are wagering. In a particular hand Sunday, I had AQ and the flop comes with a Queen for me. One of my opponents bet $14 and I called thinking that he may have a Queen as well and I know with an Ace kicker I am in good shape. Next card turns, its nothing but a rag… My opponent and I are head to head now and he bets $10, I call…. Now I think he is chasing. Next card, no help… He bets and I call. The problem with this is, he bet $150 and I hit the call button without noticing the amount I was calling. Well, we show hands and he had Pocket Queens and I am dead. Leason Learned : SLOW DOWN and analyze all online bets and make sure to hit the right button. If I would have slowed down, I would have layed my hand down and only have lost $30-40 instead of almost $200 on one hand. Good news is that I made 1/2 back over the next hour.

Dead Battery Again!
I went to mow my lawn and my mowers battery was dead again. My son likes to play on the mower and act like he is driving and I think he left the headlights on. Grrr… So now my jungle is growing as the charger is working. I will try again tommorow!

The dead mower was good for my son though, we played outside on the trampoline for a while. Lazy Sunday!

           

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