Toshiba Satellite Pro L300

The Toshiba Satellite Pro L300 offers a vivid 15.4" WXGA display and Intel Centrino processor technology. The L300 has all the essentials for business users in its simplistic yet functional design. Lets take a closer a look and see if the Satellite Pro really stands up to the competition.
Toshiba review unit had the following specifications:

* Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 2.1GHz processor
* Intel X3100 Integrated Graphics
* 2GB RAM DDR2
* 160GB (5400 rpm) hard drive
* Windows XP Professional OS
* 15.4" WXGA 1280x800 screen
* Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG (802.11a/b/g)
* 10/100 Ethernet LAN
* Modem port
* VGA-15 pin
* DVD-SuperMulti drive (+/-R double layer) supporting up to 11 formats
* ExpressCard Slot
* SDCard Slot
* 3x USB 2.0
* Headphone and microphone jack
* webcam
* Battery: 6-cell (4800mAh) Lithium Ion battery
* Weight: 5.7lbs
* Starting price: $949

Build and Design

The Satellite Pro L300 has a very simple design. It has that sleek business appearance with its silver lid and black keyboard. You dont get any glossy imprint finishes with the L300. Dont let the plain looks fool you though, it still is very functional.

The chassis is solid and the overall design didnt feel cheap. It does feel heavy for my standards, but I am used to smaller Tablet PCs. Weighing in about 5.7lbs is usually average for a 15.4-inch notebook. The L300 hides dirt well, but you can start to see some scratches from normal wear and tear.

The plastic design seemed durable and didnt show any signs of flex. The hinge was even stiff and the screen stayed in place. The L300 comes with a good array of features for the price, but to me seems like an awkward sized notebook for business use, unless it stayed in your office.

Display

The 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) screen on the Satellite Pro L300 is above average. The colors are bright and vivid. The screen didnt have any problems or defects. The backlighting was fine in an office setting and easy to read. I didnt notice any signs of blacklight bleed through except for a tiny bit on the bottom by the taskbar.

The colors looked good at all angles and that is why I rated the screen as good. I didnt have a problem at any viewing angle. The only problem I had was when the screen was tilted all the way back the colors were distorted, but who uses their screen like this anyway.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard on the L300 is solid and didnt show any signs of flex, no matter how hard you typed. The keys have a nice response and are easy to read. The spacebar is a little smaller than I would like, but its not the end of the world. The keys even have a durable textured feel to them.

I didnt feel cramped when typing at all. The keyboard is the perfect size and the palm rest is comfortable to rest your hands on. I am used to typing on tablets, so I enjoyed having the extra keyboard room.

The touchpad is average. I like that it is indented into the palm rests because your finger never slips off. I mean you could use this touchpad with your eyes closed ... well, you know what I mean. The only problem was it was kind of slow when navigating and I couldnt change the responsiveness like on a mouse. The right and left click buttons worked fine as well.

Performance

The Satellite Pro L300 didnt have any problems running multiple programs or multi-tasking jobs with its Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz processor and 160GB hard drive. I could check email, open documents and surf the Web without any lag. The benchmarks are average and overall the L300 did good on its PCMark05 score compared to other notebooks in the same category. I am sure the fact it is running Windows XP instead of Vista helps out this business savvy notebook as well.
See Full Review>>

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Easy Blogging Tips to Improve Blogs Productivity for Beginners

Blogging is fun for many and daunting for other people and regrettably its these others who are suffering from low productivity issues. You realize if youre a effective blogger just try not only to obtain the work done but additionally get it done a lot sooner by way of wise blogging. This information is to help you become a wise blogger so that you can organize your ideas better and manage your time and effort.

Its worthwhile to see through all of your posts and make certain they arent confusing by any means. You will have days whenever you cannot appear to develop just one factor to state. Creating a obvious message along with a consistent theme for the blog from the beginning can help you face the empty page sometimes such as these. Write lower your ideas to get them straight in your thoughts before you decide to publish them in your blog. This causes it to be a lot simpler that you should remain on subject and never stray from the subject at hands.

Make the most of great tools that are offered like Google Alerts to help keep you on the top of products inside your niche. You will be up-to-date by doing this about any changes you have to enable your audience learn about inside your niche and this can be used that will help you develop great suggestions for future content. Your productivity will improve greatly when you are aware whats happening inside your niche. Youve got a blog to ensure that you are able to give information to folks who wish to hear what you need to share. You are able to make this happen a lot more easily with Google Alerts. This is not the only real solution you need to consider in order to you receive the finest possible quantity of productivity for the blog but its a useful tool. All you will need to do is establish the key phrases which are right for your niche also it will not be lengthy before your site is stuffed with alerts. If this involves improving productivity this can be a tool that cant be matched up, it might be silly to not make the most of it.

You need to focus on your blog platform that enables you to possess a large amount of control. Take the time to look for a blog platform that enables lots of leeway if this involves restrictions and/or limitations.

You will get a lot more freedom and control with WordPress compared to a number of other blogging platforms. If you are searching for methods to monetize your time and efforts, then adding Adsense for your blog is a great relocate the best direction. You will find occasions nowadays once the speed of the actions is nearly as essential as those things themselves. Be sure to strength your foundation should you really be prepared to become more productive. If youre caught within the wrong moment, you may miss some wonderful possibilities that may improve your blog for that better. Fortunately, you will get from that by progressively improving your productivity since these possibilities ought to be taken because they surface so that you can enjoy controlling a much better blog.

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Gateway M 152XL

by Kevin OBrien

The Gateway M-152XL is a compact multimedia powerhouse aimed directly at the Toshiba A305, HP Pavillion dv6700, or Dell M1530. Each of these notebooks offer the same basic features, including high glossy chassis, fast processor, dedicated graphics, HDMI outputs, and their own brand specific styling elements. So how well does the Gateway stack up to the rest? Read on to find out.

Gateway M-152XL ($1,299.99) had the following specifications:
* Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.4GHz)
* Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit w/ Service Pack 1
* 15.4" WXGA Ultrabright TFT Active Matrix (1280x800)
* ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 w/ 512MB GDDR3 Memory
* 3072MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
* 160GB Seagate 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
* 8x Multi-Format Dual Layer Slot Load DVDRW w/ DVD-RAM
* 5-in-1 Digital Media Manager
* Integrated Intel 802.11a/b/g/Draft-N Wireless Networking
* Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
* 1.3 Megapixel Webcam
* HDMI Connector v1.2
* 6-Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5200 mAH)
* 1-Year Warranty (Tech Support / Parts / Factory Labor)
* Retail Price: $1,299.99

Build and Design

The Gateway M-152XL has a very stylish design with glossy metallic blue paint contrasting the brushed aluminum trim around the frame of the notebook as well as the keyboard. This silver theme also continues onto keyboard which is painted with a matte silver metallic finish. One thing to note is while other manufacturers are going with glossy finish for even the keyboard, Gateway is staying with their matte finish for now.

The optical drive, following the sleek and stylish theme is slot loading, just like the Dell M1530 or Apple notebook line. While it does remove the CD tray from the equation for a streamlined design, I still cant get over the "optical drive is consuming my disc" noises that all slot loading drives make.

Build quality is above average with a durable chassis that feels pretty solid in your hand. The plastic is tough, flexing little under stress and producing no squeaks when tossed around. The chassis as a whole feels like it would hold up well, even in the hands of less than friendly students.
The glossy paint quality is one aspect of this notebook that falls short, leaving much to be desired. Our review sample had some paint application quirks such as paint not being applied all the way to the edges of the plastic and as well as discoloration that gave off a wavy gasoline on water effect. If you were looking at the glossy surface at an object like an overhead light being reflected from it, the reflection would be obscured by purple and green fringe. This by no means impacts the performance of the notebook or changes the texture of the painted surface, but is almost impossible not to see once you notice it.

Screen

Display quality is average, with a very narrow viewing angle which can make enjoying a movie or game difficult until you find a sweet spot. Vertical viewing has about a 10 degree +/- range before the screen either gets dark or washed out. Horizontal viewing angles are much better, keeping colors accurate even at extreme viewing angles. No screen defects were found on our review model, which includes dead/stuck pixels or backlight leakage.

When inside the viewing sweet spot, the color and brightness of the screen is very nice. My preferred brightness setting was 70 percent, or a bit darker if I was at home without as much overhead light.

Keyboard, Touchpad, and Media Keys

The keyboard on the Gateway M-152XL notebook was very nice, with a very solid feel when typing. The structure underneath the keyboard provided a great deal of support, preventing any unwanted sag during use. The key action felt great, with a decent throw height, and very little key wobble. Key spacing was fine, and the key size itself was normal for a 15" notebook.

This notebook offers a Synaptics style touchpad, which I absolutely love to find on a notebook. Sensitivity is excellent, tracking is near perfect, and above all the configuration software offers a ton of adjustments to get the touchpad working to your exact specifications. The touchpad buttons were of decent size and provided a shallow throw with an audible click.

The Gateway M-152XL offers a mixture of soft touch and touch sensitive keys for the media functions. The volume control is a touch sensitive strip that detects tapping as well as sliding action to adjust the volume. The rest of the keys are soft touch, that provide a small click when pressed. With the media keys, you can control volume, mute, play/pause, stop, skip, DVD, Music, and TV.

Performance and Benchmarks

The overall system performance of the Gateway M-152XL notebook is excellent, with its Intel Penryn T8300 processor and ATI Mobility HD2600 graphics card. This combination gives you plenty performance to play most modern games on average settings, and more than enough power for day to day tasks. The 7200rpm Seagate hard drive helped load media applications such as Windows Media Center without lag, and gave the notebook a very snappy feel when just tooling around. Compared to the other notebooks in this price segment, the Gateway M-152XL clearly leads the pack in overall system performance from what we have seen in our testing.

3dmark 3754
Pcmark 6256
Wprime 31.792

Ports and Features

Port selection on the Gateway M-152XL was decent, but I felt it was missing Firewire and an additional USB port. It was nice to see VGA still included, even though HDMI is taking the lead.

Front: Headphone/Mic Jacks

Rear: Modem, VGA, AC Power

Left: HDMI, LAN, two USB ports, 5-in-1 Media Card Reader, ExpressCard/54, Wireless On/Off

Right: Slot Loading Optical Drive, one USB port

Webcam

The webcam performed quite well, working just as I would have hoped. Clarity of the image was decent, but you cant really expect a great deal of performance from a image sensor so small.

Audio

The integrated speakers on the M-152XL were below average, sounding very tinny and lacking all bass and most midrange. For listening to the occasional YouTube clip they would be fine, but I would really suggest a pair of headphones for longer use.

Heat and Noise

Thermal performance of this notebook was excellent, operating at stealth noise levels during most activities, and mildly ramping up in speed under benchmarks. Temperature levels of the notebook a bit higher than average, but it did have the high performance excuse. When compared to other notebooks in its class, it might have been a couple of degrees warmer overall.

Battery

For having a standard, non-extended battery, the Gateway M-152XL brought in good off the grid battery time of 2 hours and 35 minutes on the Windows Vista "Balanced" profile, with screen backlight set to 50 percent and wireless on. With the extended 9-cell battery I think it would be possible to break the 4 hour mark using these same settings.

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ASUS N81Vp Review

The 14.1” ASUS N81Vp is a multimedia notebook designed to handle anything a user can throw at it; be it the latest games or decoding HD video. ASUS packed this notebook with 4GB of RAM, an Intel Core 2 Duo T9550 processor, and an ATI Mobility 4650 graphics card with 1GB of GDDR3 memory. with ASUS N81VP, ASUS doesn’t directly target the gaming market segment with this system, but given its specs we see no reason why it couldn’t be one of the best performing 14.1” notebooks.

Click the link to see full review

Review

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Forums

Forums, the modern day equivelent of forums in Roman times. Every website has them now. Even nationwide (a bank) has one. Well, nearly. Forums are a place where hundereds of people can come together and produce amazing stuff just for fun. Forums are a place where one can learn new talents. Forums can be a place to make the friends. Sadly, the operative word is can.

In forums there are many different types of people. There are so called N00bs and newbs. There is a major difference between a n00b and a newb.

n00b
A n00b is someone who uses excesive text speak and "l33t" speak. These tend to be idiots.

A newb, however, is someone who is new to the forum/game ect. These are perfectly decent people just havent been at the forum long.

Also, there are people who think any one who is new to the forum is a complete idiot, and that ansering their questions is a waste of time. Between these people and the genuine n00bs, forums have become a place where huge amounts can be acheived, but, like everything else in the world, a few people spoil it. I posted on a forum that suffers badly from the n00b/anti-n00b take over. You can read it here.

Now, I have always wanted a forum for people who make constructive coments but I dont have the right sort of friends, so if there are any reader who know of a forum where this dream has been acomplished, but where there are still interesting people, or if there are enough, we could make our own.

DONT SPOIL THE INTERNET

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Childs Play Charity

Penny Arcade is hosting its annual charity event: Childs Play. It gives money to help children in hospital enjoy the wonders of video games. You can either donate through paypal/bank etc, or you can choose to buy them something off their Amazon wish-list.

Although PA is expecting less this year, due to the economic crisis, as even the video game industry is, surprise surprise, not "recession proof", please give where you can for an honourable cause.

Follow this link to Childs Play Charity

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Epson Adjustment Step by Step

This is help from bro Manuel from Philiphines.. thanks again

Do this before unrar/unzip the files :
Resetting Instruction
1. Switch on printer
2. Set the Computer Date as indicated in indoreset.bat b4 extracting the file.
4. run adjprog.exe from the extracted folder
5. click accept
6. click particular adjustment mode
7. go to maintenance then Select waste ink pad counter then click ok
8. click on "check button" till its done then click on "initialization button" then click on "finish button"
9. switch off printer for 5secs then switch on again

if you got errors during reset, maybe you didnt follow the above instructions carefully.
here is what to do.

Trouble Shooting instruction
1. del the "adjustment program" folder from C:
2. go to RUN type regedit then enter
3. find the entry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREEPSONPTSG /f then delete it4. repeat above resetting instructions

if this doesnt fix the problem try resetting the printer from another CPU or from another installed O.S.

or just use indoreset.bat :) anyone willing to translate into Indonesian or other language ?
juts translate it in comment for this post.

Happy Reset

Printer Lovers

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Epson R1390 Adjustment by vietdungvn1

Dear all resetters

Here is Epson Stylus Photo 1390 Adjustment Resetter
its provided by one of us.... vietdungvn1 from VIETNAM thank you so much
we all resetters owe you this time
Also I encourage all of you also, please do share it....
with the spirit of "help is help...period" he he he

[JOIN OUR MAILING LIST TO GET DOWNLOAD INFO]


Happy download and have a best reset

printer lovers
PS: just email me when u wanna share resetters that we do not have

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Crush the Castle

Crush the Castle is a physics based action shooting game by Armor Games which, like many other games from Armor Games, has a medieval theme and very polished graphics and well-designed game play. In this game you take the role of the siege master of the king and King has ordered you to crush all resistance in order for his kingdom to survive. So you have to use a powerful Trebuchet and an arsenal of 8 different projectiles to crush enemy castles and wipe out all of their inhabitants. Although the game is not really that challenging, it is quite entertaining. If you like physics based flash game, you will mostly like this one and its sequels: Crush the Castle Players Pack, a fan made level pack of the Crush the Castle game, and Crush the Castle 2 game, which has been highly rated by players since its release at Armor Games. Click here to play Crush the Castle game online for free.

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Crispy Gamer

Some of you may have heard of a gaming news site called Crispy Gamer. Earlier this month, the upper management laid off all of the writers. Quite aside from the fact this obviously sucks for all those involved, this was one of the best gaming sites out there, with thought provoking and excellently written articles on various different topics. They employed a collection of very talented writers that, regardless of whether you agreed or not, always drew you in to a good debate.

It had the feel of more of a Sunday news paper rather than Gamespot. Instead of just covering the latest news stories and blockbuster reviews, it examined topics such as the No Russian mission in Call of Duty or the punishing difficulty of demon souls. It also had a light-hearted video section, the the most useful review score system ever and even a comic strip.

As you can tell from this rambling love letter, I will sorely miss the writers on this site and will make a concerted effort to follow them, wherever they go.

What I am worried about is what this implies for digital games journalism in general. Presumably the reason these writers were let go was because it was not financially viable to keep them on. Crispy was funded by adverts, and while there was hardly a shortage of them, it is difficult to believe they were making a fortune out of it.

Talent writers want decent pay. I am worried that there isnt enough money to pay for talented writers and the only option is to turn to people like me who are just desperate to write about games.

To be fair, this is not limited to games, or even digital media. All news outlets are struggling to deal with this era. Advertising is becoming worth less and less as we all become attuned to just ignoring it. Someone needs to come up with a viable business model for journalism because no one seems prepared to pay for it any more.

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健康教育委員會

越玩越健康，越玩越长寿的游戏

每天五分钟，健康生活50年



一款非常有意思的教育小游戏，游戏里将答题和动作格斗融合一体，游戏支持五个人一起玩，可以邀上朋友一起来试试噢。 玩家一：WASD控制移动，J键为攻击，K键为跳跃；玩家二：键盘方向键控制移动，1为攻击，2为跳跃；玩家三：数字小键盘7895控制移动，pagedown为攻击，end跳跃，玩家五：用鼠标选择正确答案

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Samsung rolls out Android 4 4 2 Kitkat update

Today Samsung has revealed their plan to update one whole heck of a lot of smartphones to Android 4.4.2 KitKat.

They have not been entirely specific about when each of these devices will be getting said update, but their news blast suggests that they’re preparing essentially their entire 2013 lot of devices for the next wave.
This update includes Android 4.4.2 KitKat with Samsung’s own enhancements in tow.

This update comes with a new Location Menu - an element which allows users to have a tap on GPS, Wi-fi, and mobile data while checking app usage to make sure batteries don’t run down whilst navigating. This update also works with an enhanced messaging suite - here you’ll be able to choose between Messages or Hangouts (from Google+) as their default messaging app, selecting from a collection of Emoji for fun chatter therein.
Finally this update will bring on a set of new Google Mobile Service (GSM) apps for automatic back up of photos and videos. This includes working with Google Drive and Google+, allowing you to upload, open, view, rename, share, and so forth with Google Docs and files.

The full collection of devices that’ll be updated is as follows:
• Galaxy Note 3
• Galaxy Note II
• Galaxy S 4
• Galaxy S 4 mini
• Galaxy S 4 Active
• Galaxy S 4 zoom
• Galaxy S III
• Galaxy S III mini
• Galaxy Mega
• Galaxy Light
• Galaxy Note 8.0
• Galaxy Tab 3
• Galaxy Note 10.1
• Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition

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Mobile Frame Zero Alpha Bandit

One of the things Joshua said he would do during the Kickstarter is work on a set of rules for spaceship combat for MFZ.  Here is the new playtest document that Joshua has written.  I cant wait to try them.

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I will act till I die – Chinyere Wilfred

Chinyere Wilfred has been involved in the Nigerian movie industry known as Nollywood for years. And she would readily tell you she is not ready to quit due to the love and passion she has for acting. Her staying power, she says, is derived from the fact that she has an understanding husband. In this interview with Reporter, Lucy Ezeliora, she explores her unique world in Nollywood, reliving fond memories in her career.

In an interview with DailyIndependent, she talks about here acting career, plus more.


You just released a gospel music video; do you want to become a musician like a few others?

I had the oppourtunity to sing when we shot a movie titled Odum na akwa eke. I did the sound track. It was so lovely and different and it did well in the market. Then, this one came up; it is called Manifestation Time.

Do you hope to continue with music?

Yes, I believe God, depending on my chance out there; the more they accept it, the more I give them something else. I believe in God that people would accept it because already I am receiving calls from people who criticise music. I mean, it is encouraging.

If you weren’t an actress, what career would have appealed to?

I have not even thought of that. I don’t really know, because I have always been an actress, although, I tried being an air hostess. That is one career I have always admired as well. But I went into acting; so it is in the past.

Most of your movies have to do with emotions, so much that you shed tears a lot. How do you make the tears seem to flow naturally?

Well, it comes with a mood and when you are given a character to interprete, when you read the character and begin to feel what is happening to the character, then tears would begin to flow naturally. I don’t think of anything. I don’t have to begin to think of something else that is emotional. I don’t do that at all. I just read my script and I see the character falling in place and when they say “cut,” the tears would stop flowing.

Read full interview here >>> Full interview

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Rogers – the run around mark II – from the ridiculous to the …

Warning: Language. I am tired, having been on the phone with Rogers for a long time and three people. I am irritated, having had no success. AGAIN. So if you don’t like rough language, then skip this post. Thanks so much.

… more ridiculous. That’s the end of the title.

I am stunned. I got an email from Rogers today that suggested that they could call me and help me upgrade my plan so I could get the new phone. Um … no kidding. I could help me upgrade too if all I wanted to do was piss away more cash. Good grief, the problem is that I was to find a reasonable solution to these costs while still getting decent features and service. All anyone wants to do at Rogers is spend my money …

I got a second email from the fellow that the first fellow said was going to call me. He told me to email back if I was interested. Hmmm … why not just call in myself, I thought?

So I called this evening. Having spent last night on a half dozen spread sheets with alternatives, I had settled on a plan that would chop more than $100 from my overall bill and retain all the things we valued, while jettisoning the things we do not value.

Today I called only about wireless, but let me first cover the other services.

Internet

This will stay at $99.99 Ultimate service. 250GB cap, 75Mbps down, 2Mbps up. Very nice service overall, performance is good except in the evening, when things bog down badly. Typical of cable systems where so many people share a segment.

I will not do anything that could get me under contract because I plan to check every quarter to see if we can get Fibe 50/50 service here. Same cap. Slightly lower download rates, vastly higher upload rates. Opens the possibility of doing cloud backups etc. And it is 20 bucks cheaper.

Home Phone

Bye bye. I almost never use it, and the only people who call us are telemarketers, notably the evil air duct cleaning companies. If it were 20 bucks, I’d keep it in a heart beat. But Rogers insists on charging me 50 bucks a month for some unfathomable reason.

TV

I want to reduce this. But as I documented in my last rant, I want to avoid losing HBO, Sportsnet One, and TSN2HD. We watch sports now and again and I really like HBO. See the last rant for reasons why Rogers has arranged these channels to pull many other packages and force people up to 100 bucks. It’s a rip off, but what isn’t in the Canadian media services market?

Besides … I am waiting for Fibe TV to come to my neighborhood. That service looks awesome.

Wireless

And now … on with today’s show.

The first person I chat with seems to want to argue every point with me. Really annoying. But eventually I get her to understand that I want the $45 voice and data plan in order to modernize my plans and thus allow me to upgrade to the latest generation of phones. Turns out that $45 is not enough because it contains only a 100MB data plan. This is apparently not enough revenue for Rogers to subsidize the modern phones, even though they allowed me to get the first iPhone with no data plan at all.

But, as with all things, corporate entities must grow and the way to do that is to force customers to reach for a higher bar. Nowadays they want you spending 30 bucks on data alone if they can get you there.

Eventually she realizes that all my wireless numbers have corporate codes on them as I got them when I joined my current company back in 2003. Thus, she cannot touch them anyway. Sheesh.

Person 2 – The Business Unit

This was a very personable young woman who really knows her stuff. We went through the whole thing again, with me alternating between telling her what I want and me ranting. She took that very well and had no problem agreeing with many of my points, since they are all perfectly true.

At one point she mentions that my monthly commitment to Rogers is higher than her car payment. No surprise … since it is almost double mine as well (and my Mazda 3 is only a year old.)

So … we spend a long time laying out the goals I want to achieve and she says she fully understands. She decides that she will call customer relations and explain everything to them, thus saving me the pain of explaining it all a third time. She feels confident that a long time customer (1987) like me with a commitment this huge should be able to upgrade his phone for a reasonable plan cost.

---

I had been listening to silence while she was talking to customer relations, and suddenly I hear a burst of background music for a second, then a ringback. A fellow answers and asks for my name. I give it and he asks “how can I help you?”

Oh oh … this is not what was supposed to happen.

So I ask “are you customer relations?”

“Yes”

I say “I was just speaking with several people and the last one said she would call customer relations and discuss my situation and then transfer me.”

“She transferred you cold.”

I say “It’s been at least 10 minutes … did she speak with you at all?”

“No. How can I help you?”

I’m thinking … “you could go fuck yourself, for starters.”

But instead I say something like “I’ve been on the phone with Rogers for a long time and am too tired to go through this all over again. I‘ll have to call back.”

So … mark II ends as did mark I. Fuck!

---

So … it will cost me $200 to cancel my youngest’s phone. It will probably cost me something to drop the TV service, but not much since my commitment ends in September.

I’ll bet I can get the cancellation fees back pretty quickly with Bell, at least in free stuff like the free PVR they are offering.

So now what? Do I have to keep taking this shit?

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Back From Denver

I discovered, only after the fact, that this Samsung camera will only shoot 20 minutes of video at a time.  At that point, it stops.  I guess that to use for my intended purpose I will have my wife hit the record button again every 20 minutes.  Nor does there seem to be any way to work around that.

I wish that someone had told me that when I bought it.

Wow.  This limit is apparently a tariff requirement! 

UPDATE: There are apparently two different reasons for the limits: 30 minutes is apparently an EU tariff requirement (Samsung cant make a U.S. version?) and 20 minutes because of overheating.  Either way, I am pretty upset with Idaho Camera.  I normally would have bought from Amazon, but I wanted the expertise of a salesman with whom I could discuss what I needed.  I told him that I was going to give a speech, and I wanted a way to record it in HD.  I am assuming that he did not know about the 20 minute video limit, or he would have sold me a video camera instead.  Unfortunately, I am past the 14 day exchange/refund time on this.

UPDATE 2: I went into Idaho Camera today, and the salesman I talked to immediately knew about the 20 minute video limit, and even though I was past the 14 day exchange/refund limit, he cheerfully applied my refund towards a considerably less expensive Samsung HD 720p video camera.  Yes, I might have bought this same camera a bit cheaper on Amazon, but I was already there, and I have it now.

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HGUC 1 144 AMX 04 Doven Wolf ZZ Ver New Images Updated 2 20 14

HGUC 1/144 AMX-04 Doven Wolf (ZZ Ver.) (Release Date: Feb 2014, Price: 2,200 Yen)

[Updated 2/20/14]

[Updated 2/17/14]

Images via Gmint Twitter 

[Updated 1/31/14]

[Updated 1/30/14]

[Updated 12/27/13]
Images via Masterfile Blog

[Updated 12/18/13]

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Sociobonanza com Payment Proofs Uncapped Income For You

Signup and get your free Sociobonanza account here.

Socio Bonanza is in Prelaunch until the 23rd of January. They are offering a bonus to anyone that
joins during the week of Prelaunch (bonus allotted once purchases are available):

Purchases (iPacks) Bonus Allowed (%)
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100-200 4%
200-400 7%

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Information that I have been given about the owner(s) is:

The management team is made up of 3 founders, two financial entrepreneurs with network marketing background of England, and one with Core Technical Leadership. The technical guy from Canada - Jake Whitmarsh is the main guy for Socio Bonanza. One important thing is that he is a first-time owner. However, with a considerably strong networking, financial and technical expert team to support him.

I stress again, this is info I have been given. It is free to join now, so no risk at this point.

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Future Shop sale on 16GB SDHC cards …

From the ashes of a brain fart – I lined up my SD cards on my desk to test the F770’s write times and then I bumped one onto the floor with my elbow and rolled my chair over it, destroying it – comes a heck of a deal on a pair of 16GB fairly fast (200X) cards.

Future Shop in Canada is having a sale on Duracell brand 16GB cards for only $19.99 (that’s 20 dollars in marketing speak), which is down 60% from the usual price.

The sale lasts until the 6th of May, Sunday.

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/duracell-duracell-16gb-sdhc-class-10-memory-card-future-shop-exclusive-du-sd1016g-c/10149957.aspx?path=02b57906d7a0c3d6be0c02a028b324eeen02

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Apple Iphone 5 electrocuted and killed chinese woman when she answered call while charging

Ma Ailun was only 23 years old when she answered a call from her iPhone 5 while charging suddenly got electrocuted and eventually died.

Mobile devices such as the Apple iPhone 5 can be deadly after all. Or this could just be an isolated case.

Further investigation is being made if a fake charger was used. Apple Inc said... CLICK HERE TO READ MORE.

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Dengeki Hobby Apr 2014 Issue Exclusive 1 144 Gundam Build Fighters Weapon Shot Lancer New Images

Dengeki Hobby (Apr. 2014 Issue) Exclusive 1/144 Gundam Build Fighters Weapon Shot Lancer

GG INFINITE: ORDER HERE *Arriving Early Mar 2014*

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Okonjo Iweala debunks rumour about her resignation

Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for Economy has debunked rumors which claimed she had resigned.

Her media team issued a statement countering the resignation rumor, the statement titled “Purported Resignation of the Minister of Finance/Coordinating Minister for the Economy” read; "It has come to our attention that a story is circulating online about the purported resignation of the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.For the avoidance of doubt, this story is not true."

"The Finance Minister is still in place and assures Nigerians that all will be done to ensure that macro-economic stability is maintained through tight fiscal and Monetary policies."

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Banker accused of killing his wife gets death by hanging

Banker Akolade Arowolo, who was accused of killing his wife, Titilayo, three years ago, has been sentenced to death by hanging.

The trial judge, Justice Lateefa Okunnu of an Ikeja High Court delivering her judgment Friday, found Arowolo guilty on one-count of murder.

Arowolo was arraigned on December 21, 2011, before Justice Okunnu, on a one- count charge of murder, which he pleaded not guilty.

The Lagos State Director of Public Prosecution, DPP, Olabisi Ogungbesan, who personally conducted the case, had alleged that the accused murdered Titilayo, a banker, on June 24, 2011 at their residence, No. 8, Akindeinde Street, Isolo, Lagos.

The deceased relatives, including her father, George Oyakhire, and her step-mother, Adetoun, had testified that Mr. Arowolo’s marriage was characterised by domestic violence. These evidences were corroborated by the police investigators who buttressed the position before the court.
Also, the state brought Professor John Obafunwa, a Consultant Pathologist and Chief Medical Examiner of Lagos State, to testify that Titilayo was stabbed 76 times.

The accused, who opened his defence on May 22, 2013, however, denied the allegation, blaming his in-laws for the trouble in his marriage.
He maintained that he had no hands in Titilayo’s death, insisting she died after she accidentally fell on a knife during a quarrel on his birthday.

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Serena Williams to miss Qatar BNP Paribas Open

Top-ranked Serena Williams withdrew Friday from the Qatar Open and the Indian Wells event because of a back injury sustained last month in the Australian Open.

The Qatar Open begins Monday in Doha, and the BNP Paribas Open is March 3-16 in Indian Wells, Calif.

In a statement released by the Indian Wells event, Williams said: "After careful consideration, I will not return to the Indian Wells BNP Paribas Open this year. I send my best wishes to everyone involved with the tournament."

Serena williams is ranked number one in the WTA rankings

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Too Stupid To Stay Out Of Prison

From October 15, 2013 CBS Sacramento:

NEVADA COUNTY (CBS13) — Nevada County Sheriff’s deputies say it’s one of the easiest drug busts they’ve done in a while: a woman contacted them out of the blue to sell them drugs.

Deputies say the Grass Valley woman tried to arrange a drug deal through a text, but she messed up the number.

Lt. Steven Tripp says Jessie Mulligan tried to text a friend on Friday to say she had some drugs to sell, but she messed up the number and ended up texting a narcotics detective.

For some actions, you really need to be careful.

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UNICAL Dead foetus found in female hostel

A lifeless foetus was found inside a bucket at the Hall Eight Female Hostel of the University of Calabar.

The identity of the female student, who abandoned the foetus beside one of the bathrooms, is still unknown.

A female student, who craved anonymity, said her attention was drawn to the foetus when she saw others running towards a particular direction in the hostel.

She said, “I was outside the hostel trying to surf the Internet when suddenly I saw girls running towards the hall. Initially, I thought it was a fracas, but on getting closer, I discovered it was not a fight. It was a dead foetus which had been abandoned in one of the bathrooms of the hostel. The baby was soaked in a pool of blood.”
The source estimated the pregnancy to be about five months old.

“From the size of the foetus, it should be about five months old. The unfortunate thing is that nobody knows who did it, at least for now, but I am sure that the person is in this hall,” she said.

When PUNCH Metro visited the scene around 4pm, female students were seen discussing the matter in hushed tones, and not willing to divulge any information.

But another source, who also pleaded anonymity, disclosed that the dead baby was taken away to an unknown destination by some hostel officials.

She said, “The dead foetus has been taken away in the plastic bucket by hostel officials.”

Another source said the foetus had been secretly buried.

When contacted, the university Vice-Chancellor, Prof James Epoke, confirmed the incident.

He said, “Yes, I have the report, but the identity of the student is not yet known. We cannot monitor how they live their private life. If she had even come out to tell the school authority that she was pregnant, we might have granted her maternity leave and she continues her education when she comes back after delivery.

“We cannot expel any student from the school because of pregnancy. I suspect the students may have tried to abort the pregnancy and that was what led to this. The unfortunate thing is that we have not been able to trace the person.”

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Digital Illiteracy

I once wrote a post asking if a Blackberry could save our kids.

Time has answered that question in two ways:

• The Blackberry is very much yesterday’s product. Email is also yesterday’s communication method as kids flock to text messaging and (shudder) twitter
• Kids are becoming illiterate at an alarming rate, as you will read in this article, largely because so many don’t care about basic computer skills any more … Microsoft Word and Excel for example

Some quick excerpts from the quoted article, and this should scare the shti out of you ….

Todays teens grew up on SMS and Facebook.

"The kids I have, and that is roughly two dozen of the brightest young digital artists a semester, often have no idea what Microsoft Word is. They cant tell a Mac from a PC. And forget Excel," he says. He struggles to get his students to use basic computing etiquette.

"They will not use e-mail," he says. They cant manage a crowded inbox. "Its a constant struggle to have them simply stop SMSing me."

The investor pain looming with the breaking wave of digital illiteracy is significant. First, this new generation of low-functioning computer users will almost certainly require near full-time handholding from software vendors – which will not be cheap.

"It has gotten to the point now that if it takes something basic like a password, they cant figure it out," Mr. Bae said of his students. How will the average Macbook user deal with a problem? Go down to the Genius Bar and stand in line for two hours?

But finally – and most ominously of all – it will become increasingly difficult for app makers to strike the right balance demanded by todays computer-challenged.

I always thought that kids would get more and more sophisticated as computers became more and more ubiquitous. But the drive to make things easier and appeal to the, frankly, “challenged” has also destroyed the wherewithal that today’s youth would have had for learning anything complex. Facebook and twitter are in your face all the time and you just don’t have to think.

Twitter has always struck me as a joke … I think I know why, now.

But we can all take solace that the rich got richer by driving volumes so high. And they will be punished in the long run because their fortunes will be inherited by this new "idiocracy” :-)

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