Sure this might sound a little surly but hear me out

Cue rant in 3, 2 …..

As you all know the economy is a little tight and we thought that we could come over to craigslist to drum up some business

We are developers and designers who really live and work in Los Angeles not freekin’ New Delhi

We’re also English fluent and some of our guys are really named Jeff, Scooter & Dave not Punjab a.k.a. Jeff, Scooter or Dave

You then get these techno-tards who think LAMP is something you put on your nightstand and just because they have a computer they know stuff

They figure “Hey Nephew Joey spends A LOT of time on the computer let’s have him do our Corporate site”

Sure Joey is just lifting music and watching porn but he must be some kind of freekin’ expert because he spends SO much time online and yet no one has ever checked his browsing history

They offer him like 7 bucks an hour because “that’s more than he’s making now delivering newspapers plus he still lives at home”

Then all too soon they figure out little Joey is a little unreliable.

Between after school sports, popping zits and being locked away in the bathroom for “extended” periods of time he can’t get the job done

Sure Joey can’t get the job done because he doesn’t have any experience in programming, business, life or ANYTHING outside the comforts of mommies house

So, what do the Corporate techno-tards do who have a launch date next week and about 3 months worth of work to get done?

They come to craigslist with some really unhealthy and UNREALISTIC expectations

They figure they offered Joey 7 bucks an hour so they’ll offer a WHOLE BUCK more and want

1) A Resume

2) A Masters/Ph.D in Computer Science or similar with a minor in like sandscrit (look it up) to narrow down the field of candidates a little

3) Whatever done yesterday with little or no direction let alone an ACTUAL request for proposal

4) A creative flair like with EVERY freekin’ neuron in the right hemisphere firing

5) A programmers OCD to write code like a machine with every neuron in the left hemisphere firing at 150% of capacity

6) You to work on site because the trolls they hired in the past couldn’t be trusted to come back from lunch – EVER

7) You to be fluent in EVERY flippin’ computer language to include Fortran IV

50 WPM typing skills

9) You to accept a promise of payment sometime in the future when they “hit it big”

10) SEO experience so no matter what you type their site shows up number 1 on Google

11) Something about being a ninja

12) You to give a c**p more about their business then they do

13) You to be a self starter, friendly individual with multi-lingual capabilities being a plus

You then have to “compete” with EVERY freekin’ idiot from the 623, 435, 902, 817 and other area codes from gawd knows where

I think you get the picture…

He’s what I think I’ll do the next time one of these d-bags offers 8 bucks an hour

I just tell them it’s going to take 10 to 15 times longer to get the work done

Maybe I can tell the property management company for our office space

I’ll give them 5 cents a square foot triple net and see if they go for it

Plus the sad thing is there will be some dillweed from the 623 responding to this telling us they’ll “take the job”

AAAAHHHHHHH!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming

A new year, a new decade, a time to trim the spending.

We have had Time Warner Cable as our cable television, internet and phone for the past few years under the “all the best” plan. According to Time Warner the “all the best” plan is a cheaper alternative to have TV, Internet and Phone service, bundled though them as aposed to having three service providers.

We have 4 tvs two of which are HD, and two are SD we had 3 digital cable boxes and one tv on basic cable. For the internet we have a wireless router, and a gigabit wired LAN. The phone was

digitalphone using the cable network. All of this was costing us about $170 a month.

Now that would not be to horrible if it worked all the time, but there was always issues with our service. During the time we have had Time Warner Cable we have made probably over 10 service calls and had just as many techs out to our house to fix the same issue over and over, weak signal…

Our neighborhood was built in the 1940′s and its aging infrastructure is starting to show its age, the city is constantly working on improving services and ripping the road up replacing sewer, and street lighting. But you rarely see Time Warner Cable upgrading there hardware.

Our tv’s where constantly breaking up and showing blocky digital snow, the internet was slow and unreliable especially during peak hours (6 – 10am and 5 – 12 pm), the phone service was working fine but it would hard to mess that up.

The last few techs to come to help with the low signals said that the level from the pole was marginal but just good enough for them to not send a maintenance crew out to fix the issue.

So now that it is the new year we wanted to see what services we could give the axe and ways we could save some of our hard earned money.

I spent a few days researching and came up with a solution, cancel Time Warner Cable and get DSL for internet and Satellite TV, we will not have a home phone as we primarily use cell phones.

Here is the setup we just finished installing:

• DirecTV, two HD receivers, two SD receivers. $56 a month with 12 month promo and AAA discount
• DSL Extreme, 6/768 DSL month to month no contract for $37 a month
• Phones, for now we will not have a land line, but an alternative would cost $11 a month from VoicePulse Connect

So we have taken our bill from $170 a month to $93 a month that is a $77 a month savings, and we really arent sacraficing service quality.

DirecTV is 100% digital unlike Time Warner Cable that uses analog for all their standard channels, and we now have a tuner box on all the tv’s in the house. The picture quality on the DirecTV is so much more crisp and the blacks are not fuzzy like Time Warner Cable was.

DSL Extreme is a slower rated speed than Time Warner Cable but it is a dedicated ADSL line that will not slow down during peak hours, and from my line tests it provides a lower ping and better line quality. Even with the slower rated speed it appears faster then Time Warner Cable.

If we had chosen to sign up for phones it would have been $11 a month using a VOIP solution designed for businesses, I would have to run a PBX but i can get the sof

tware for free (trixbox) and i would have a lot more freedom than I ever would with Time Warner Cable.

To end this post I am happy to have finally cut the cable and try something new.

I shop on eBay about once a month and normally pay with PayPal in the last 6 years making and receiving thousands of transactions, using PayPal I have had a few small issues but nothing that could not be cleared up by a phone call. But my last experience with PayPal will change the way I look at that company, and may influence the ways I purchase online in the future.

On Dec 22 2009 I had purchased a 1.75″ shackles & spacer lift for my jeep cherokee, during checkout I wanted to use a new credit card. So like most people would do I clicked on alternate payment sources, and entered my cards information, and then hit save and submit. Little did I know that once I hit the submit button all hell would break lose…

To my knowledge the transaction worked as planned the next day my credit card showed a pending charge from PayPal, but it was for only $1. At this point I still thought it was working as I see a $1 charge all the time as merchants use that to authorize the card.

About four days later I get an email from my bank that I have been overdrawn and has over $100 in NSF fees, this is when I discovered PayPal made a big mistake.

I logged  into my PayPal account and reviewed the transaction and sure enough it says instant bank transfer, but then why would they be charging $1 to my credit card? I thought it was time to call PayPal and get to the bottom of this mess.

Calling PayPal was a challenge, it asks for a code that I did not have, but after screaming operator and pressing “0″ multiple times I got a person that was able to help me. After about 5 minutes on hold I was told that I had not selected the credit card as the payment source, I responded by asking if I had not selected it why is was $1 charged? Again I was put on hold and this time got a more real answer  from the representative  ”after adding a new credit card you must wait 1 to 5 minutes before using that payment method and you clicked submit order only 15 seconds after adding the card, so our system used the payment on file”, “our system must validate the card is not stolen and that it is valid”. As a web developer I have worked on and managed many online shopping and payment systems, one of the tasks is to make sure it verifies payment and “then” charges the payment, if it cant charge it the transaction will fail.

I then asked if they can see what payment method I selected and the response was “Our system does not keep that information”, a payment processing system the size of PayPal does not store the payment method the user selects!?

I find this a huge flaw in the PayPal system, one large enough that I will not be using PayPal in the near future.

But what to do about the NSF fees and the fact that they took the money out of the wrong account, I ask PayPal what they will do about it and they said “you will have to contact your banking institution” basically saying that they are not the ones that messed up and that I am out of luck.

Well little did they know I dealt with issues like this before and know that the bank will always side with the customer, I decided the way PayPal handled this required action. I called my bank and said this transaction was not authorized and that I would like to put a stop hold on all PayPal transactions.

This is where it gets tricky, if I had wanted to use my bank account for the purchase I legally would not be able to do what I did as it would be perjury. But because  I had wanted and tried to use the credit card this bank charge was technically unauthorized.

I tell the bank the story and after only 5 minutes on the phone I get a Stop Payment order, and they are doing an investigation for the ACH withdraw she says it will take ten days to complete and I will get the NSF fees back like nothing happened.

Ten days later I logged into my bank and the money was returned to me along with the fees, so now that I got my money back the seller is probably wondering where his money is. This seller is a company and takes credit cards so i give him a call and explain the story and then make the payment over the phone, and we both hang up on a good note.

But this leaves me wondering how safe PayPal really is, I easily got my money back from a bank transfer and put a permanent block on PayPal transactions. What is stopping people from buying using PayPal and then taking the money back and disappearing? I actually found the whole process faster and easier then doing a credit card dispute.

In my mind this is a major flaw in PayPal system and makes me wonder how safe my money is when I sell on eBay. What do you think about this PayPal issue?

Living in southern California it can get quite toasty in the summer but up until now we haven’t had a day over 75, but last week we had a triple digit day with it peaking to around 105. This uncovered a hidden issue with the Jeep, as we where driving though Thousand Oaks we noticed that the coolant temp was pegged at 260. We quickly pulled into a gas station and and checked the coolant level, all looked good but after idling for a few minutes the temperature went down and took about 2 quarts of coolant. We made it to our Los Angeles location but was running hot the entire time.

Because of this we wanted to beef up the cooling system, so after some research we decided a conversion to a 92+ system was best. The two types of cooling systems are Open and Closed, the 90 jeep comes with a closed system, this means that the system is closed and has a inline recovery tank that allows for expansion, this type does not have a radiator cap and fluid is filled though the recover tank. The Open system is different as it has a radiator cap and a overflow tank instead of a inline tank, this recovers the extra coolant when the system gets to hot.

Each system has its advantages and disadvantages

Open system Advantages:

• Ease of filling system
• Overflow tank
• Simple hose routing

Open system Disadvantages:

• Overflow tank only works one way without special cap

Closed system Advantages:

• No overflow tank to worry about, recovery tank takes the overflow and also fills when needed

Closed system Disadvantages:

• No radiator cap
• Coolant must be added to the overflow tank
• Complicated hose routing
• Plastic recovery bottle can crack

So the game plan for this retrofit would consisted of the following:

1. CSF 3 row all steel radiator – radiatorbarn.com
2. Water Pump
3. High Flow Thermostat 195 Mr. Gasket
4. All new hoses
5. Heater Control Valve

We started the conversion by removing the old system, started by draining the coolant by pulling the lower hose and collecting it into a 5 gallon bucket. Remember coolant is extremely toxic to animals and kids so take care with storing it. After the system was empty we unscrewed all the hose clamps and pulled them all out, we then went to the radiator and removed the radiator bracket, transmission lines and sensor, at that point the radiator could be lifted up. Once removed there was more room to easily replace the water pump and thermostat.
We decided to use a high flow 195 degree thermostat, we went with a high flow one to allow more coolant to circulate though the 3 core radiator.

A few challenges we had was the upper heater core and the heater control valve was two different sizes,  for this we could have gotten an adapter but we went the simply way and just used a hose clamp and cranked down on the hose until it fit the smaller size.

I have been running the Jeep now for 8 months with this setup and three electric cooling fans without issue, if the fans are left on full time the temperature sits around 180 with them on auto it will get to 210 then back to 190.

I also decided to install a mechanical temperature gauge because the electric Jeep gauge was showing inaccurate, the switch under the gauge controls the auto / on function.

The CSF radiator is working good at keeping the system cool. I did have one issue that was caused by a clogged AC Condenser, and after removing it the temperatures stabilized (removed AC) I later converted the AC into an OBA On Board Air system.

One year ago at this time I was looking at a project Jeep to purchase, it was in poor condition to say the least and would not move under its own power.

I then spent a long few months rebuilding it and transforming it into an off road Jeep. Tomorrow December 20th is exactly one year after purchasing the Jeep and having it towed home. In this time I have done many unique things to it and have customized it in and out.

In the year I have put over 10,000 miles on the Jeep and taken it many places, I have never been let down or stranded by the Jeep and over all it is a reliable Jeep. I would feel comfortable taking it on a long road trip with no worries about being stranded, I also have all the tools and spare parts to fix most the issues I would encounter on the road.

Jeep Specs & Projects:

• Painted exterior
• Stripped interior and replaced with new carpet, Volvo seats, recovered headliner
• Applied peel-n-seal on entire floor pan
• Rebuilt Transmission and replaced torque converter
• Converted to open cooling system, CSF 3 row radiator, Three Electric Fans
• Custom HD SYE (Rubicon Express collar, cut down yolk) and Coast Driveline HD CV shaft
• Rubicon Express 3.5″ Super Ride lift, full packs plus extra stock leaf for weight capacity
• 31″ BFG AT tires, 15 x 8 American Racing soft 8
• Diy Front & Rear Bumpers
• Con Ferr roof rack & DIY Ladder
• Slide out storage drawers
• Rope racks
• CB with 4 ft FireStick
• DIY Rock Sliders
• Home Depot hood vents
• AC to OBA Conversion, 2.5 gallon VIAIR tank

I have since taken the Jeep on three off roading trips and all three times it has performed well above my expectations.

If A = B

and A = C,

Then B = C

Instead of ranting and raving illogically at various town hall meetings, let’s try using a little good old-fashioned logic (that we were all bored-to-death with in high school, but, let’s face it, can come in handy now and then).

Now consider the following statistics:

When asked in a new Harris Poll how strongly those polled support 14 different government services, five services receive strong, or a fair amount of support, from about three-fourths of all adults or more. The five most popular services are The National Parks Service (85% support), Crime-fighting and prevention services (77%) Medicare (76%), Social Security (76%), and Unemployment benefits (74%).

Medicare came in with a strong 76%, over 3 out of 4 people polled by Harris.  (REMINDER: Medicare is a “single payer” system, with the government as the payee).  I think it is safe to say that overall, Medicare is a success, and, if we can say that success is “good”,  it logically follows that:

Medicare (A) = Single-payer System (B)

Medicare (A) = “good” (C)

then, Single-Payer System (B) = “good” (C)

Now, that wasn’t so painful was it?

Today's crowded emergency room

At least 80% of Americans don’t really have any health care insurance.  This implies that,  given some unfortunate event, you will still have health care coverage.  What they do have,  those that are now fortunate enough to have a job, and less and less frequently, a job that also provides health insurance, is a “heath related benefit”.

According to Wikipedia, an “employee benefit” is defined as:

various non-wage compensations provided to employees in addition to their normal wages or salaries.   Where an employee exchanges (cash) wages for some other form of benefit, this is generally referred to as a ‘salary sacrifice’ arrangement.

The problem is, coverage is tied into whether or not you have such a job, and a job where your salary was negotiated to contain such a “benefit” (this is entirely up the the employer.  They are not mandated to provide you with a health care related benefit).

Many things can disrupt this tidy arrangement, such as:

Your company could drop its health plan. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of the population covered by employer-based health insurance has fallen every year since 2000, from 64.2% to 59.3%.

You could lose your job. I don’t think I need to tell anyone what the unemployment rate is these days.**

You could voluntarily leave your job, for example because you have to move to take care of an elderly relative.

You could get divorced from the spouse you depend on for health coverage.

So, you don’t really have health coverage, you have a health related benefit that depends, very heavily, on your employment.

Let’s look at another Wikipedia definition, this time for “insurance”

Insurance, in law and economics, is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent loss.

So you don’t even really have “insurance” because the risk of loosing your job provided health care  isn’t mitigated by the “insurance”.  I.e., loose your job, loose your health benefits.

Of course, we have been “privileged” to have the option to receive coverage through the COBRA plan, for up to one year.  COBRA health insurance is available to anyone loosing their job.  The thing I guess we’re all supposed to get excited about is that this coverage is available in spite of any pre-existing conditions.  Of course, you have to pay through the nose for it, usually somewhere between $500 -$1000/month depending on how many family members you wish to include.   If you are average, you will probably get something like $1200 a month in unemployment benefits.  So, that leaves you a whopping $500 or so per month for rent, food, transportation, clothing, etc.  Such a deal!

According to a New York Times poll, “69 percent of respondents in the poll said they were concerned that the quality of their own care would decline if the government created a program that covers everyone.   My attitude is, let any one of those 69 percent experience joblessness for a little while.  Their concern about “decline” becomes a joke.  How about having ANY health care at all .  Please!

Google Apps poster

This week Google has launched a new advertising campaign using billboards in four cities, San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Chicago, each day the billboards will display a different message promoting Google Apps. I have been using many of Google’s products for the past few years, I also have helped many others setup and use Gmail as an alternative for traditional email hosting with great success.

Here is my five reasons to use Google Apps.

1. Google Apps, Free For 100 Users

If you are a small business and looking for ways to cut costs, Google Apps allows for up to 100 users on their free ad supported version. The biggest difference is the 25GB vs 7GB of email storage, as well as being able to force SSL on the premium account but not the standard account. You also get access to Google Docs, but with a shared account of 10GB, on the premium account you get 10GB plus 500MB of shared space per user.

2. Hosted E-Mail, Powered by Gmail.

Here at techimoto our email is powered by Gmail using Google Apps, we easily transfered our email DNS records and within a few hours we where reaping all the benefits of Gmail. One of the key features that drew us to use Gmail was the great spam filtering and the fact that you don’t need to delete anything, being able to go back and search for a receipt or other important message from many years back. Another requirement we had when evaluating our email setup was the ease of access, Gmail allows us to use IMAP and have our iPhones, Laptops, and Gmail.com in sync saving us time sorting and re-marking messages as read.

• Spam Filtering, after much research and testing it was concluded that the spam filtering built into Gmail was far better then other options available to us without a large budget.
• IMAP + Web-Mail, having all our systems and mobile devices using IMAP we are able to keep both our laptops and mobile phones in sync, in addition to that the Gmail web interface is also updated from IMAP changes.

3. Google Calendars

To keep track of my busy life I decided to use Google Calendar, I have my iPhone connected to their service using the exchange protocol allowing the phone to get updates when I modify my calendar. The best part of the exchange link is the fact that the phone will set off an alarm when I have an upcoming event. When I am at my laptop I will just simply login to my Google Apps domain and access my calendar via the web. I wanted I could configure iCal to download updates from the web.

4. Easy, Fast User Management

With Google Apps it could not get any easier to add and manage existing users, from the main Apps page you can add a new user with just 2 clicks and just 3 form fields. This is much faster then having to go login to my web hosting web admin panel and go at least 6 layers down, and then when you do get to the page you have at least 20 diferent options to chose from and if one is not just right the page wont work.

You can also make groups and group together Sales, Support, Web Dev and make it easy for emails to get to the right people and keep the clutter out of others.

5. Google Talk

Google Talk is a very simple and yet powerful chat system, alike MSN, Yahoo, it has a downloadable client (Windows Only, Mac users see iChat) and works the same as most other chats, but one very nice thing about it is the simplicity and ease of use. If you are on a public computer you can log into your Gmail and access the chat system from your email page, his allows you to be able to use it wether or not you have the client installed on your computer.

As for the Microsoft Office vs Google Docs debate, I still prefer a local editor and in my case that is iWork 08. But I do on occasion use the Google Docs when I reading an email that has an attachment and would like to save the time from downloading the file.

Now that I have been using Google Apps for the past few years I do feel that it has allowed me to worry more about the website and it’s content and spend more time writing my own scripts. In fact i rarely ever think “Is our email server working, did we get black listed, did someone relay spam or hijack a domain” all things that i used to think about on a daily basis. I do think that Google is heading the right direction with their service and do hope to see more great products come from them in the future.

Do you think that your business would use Google Apps? If not why?

Go Mic is a high-quality USB microphone that captures audio for all kinds of software and online applications, all in an innovative fold up design

Hauppauge, NY – August 4, 2009 – Samson Technologies, an industry leading audio technology manufacturer, is thrilled to announce shipping for the Samson Go Mic. Go Mic is a USB condenser microphone designed to record professional quality while providing maximum portability.  Its unique design provides the user with a built-in spring-loaded laptop mount or tabletop stand in one 2.5-inch by 1.5-inch package.  The microphone is supported by a multidirectional hinge; ensuring consumers record only the intended audio and can easily tuck the microphone away when not in use.

“The Go Mic provides general consumers, prosumers and professionals alike with an ingeniously designed handy solution that fits in the palm of your hand,” says Mark Wilder, Director of Marketing for Samson Technologies. “It provides incredible value and ensures users at home and on the go have the gear they need to clearly record or communicate.”

Go Mic is perfect for all forms of recording. On the road, in the classroom, in a house of worship or any office setting, Go Mic will provide professionals and consumers alike with a convenient recording option. Additionally, Go Mic is ideal for software applications such as Skype, iChat, webcasting, podcasting, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and voice recognition software.

Complete features are below:
•    Professional USB condenser microphone
•    Plug and Play Mac and PC compatible, no drivers required
•    Custom compact design that clips to a laptop or sits on a desk
•    Perfect for recording music, podcasting and field recording
•    Ideal for voice recognition software, iChat, VoIP and web casting
•    Transducer Type: condenser, pressure gradient with USB digital output
•    Frequency Response: 20Hz ¬- 18kHz
•    Polar Pattern: Switchable cardioid or omni
•    Sample Rate: 44.1kHz/16-bit
•    Available in Black or White
•    Included protective carrying case and USB cable
•    MSRP $59

The BFG GeForce® GTX 285 H2O+™ and GeForce® GTX 295 H2OC™ ThermoIntelligence® Advanced Cooling Solutions are maintenance-free, self-contained liquid cooling units attached to enthusiast-grade BFG Tech graphics cards that easily install into most systems right out of the box and never need refilling or additional components. These unique solutions feature a top of the line BFG Tech graphics card plus a high-performance cooling loop designed by CoolIT Systems™ that pushes coolant across the GPU and exhausts heat directly outside of the system chassis. Three different system speed settings—Auto, Quiet, and Maximum—give total control over acoustics and performance.

“We’re very excited to be the first company to bring this type of professional grade advanced cooling solution to PC enthusiasts”, said John Malley, senior director of marketing for BFG Technologies. “The BFG ThermoIntelligence Advanced Cooling Solutions provide customers a way to get all of the benefits of liquid cooling their graphics cards right out of the box, without having to install a separate liquid cooling system that requires assembly, filling, and challenging maintenance from time to time.”

Impressive Heat Dissipation

Both ThermoIntelligence® Advanced Cooling Solutions keep the graphics card running up to 30°C cooler under load as compared to standard air cooled models, which ensures reliable operation and longevity.

Custom Cold Plates
Both solutions feature highly efficient, custom cold plates that direct cooling liquid over vital parts of each specific graphics card to effectively absorb heat.

BFG GeForce® GTX 295 H2OC™ with ThermoIntelligence® Advanced Cooling Solution
Memory: 1792MB (1.8GB) GDDR3
Core Clock: 675MHz (vs. 576MHz standard)
Shader Clock: 1458MHz (vs. 1242MHz standard)
Memory Data Rate: 2214MHz (vs. 1998MHz standard)
Processor Cores: 480 (combined)

BFG GeForce® GTX 285 H2O+™ with ThermoIntelligence® Advanced Cooling Solution
Memory: 1024MB (1GB) GDDR3
Core Clock: 691MHz (vs. 648MHz standard)
Shader Clock: 1566MHz (vs. 1476MHz standard)
Memory Data Rate: 2592MHz (vs. 2484MHz standard)
Processor Cores: 240

Availability
The BFG GeForce® GTX 295 H2OC™ graphics card with ThermoIntelligence Advanced Cooling Solution will be available in limited quantities starting August 5, 2009 at NewEgg.com in the U.S., and at leading online retailers in the U.K.

The BFG GeForce® GTX 285 H2O+™ will be available in limited quantities starting August 12, 2009 at NewEgg.com in the U.S., and at leading online retailers in the U.K.

Visit www.bfgtech.com/advancedcoolingsolution.aspx for more information.