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There’s some really nice weather out here. Particularly when compared to this snowstorm which was occuring as Danielle drove me to the airport.
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This morning after waking up I checked my email on my phone and found an authentic-looking fraud alert from HSBC, the bank which holds my most-used credit card. This informed me that HSBC believes one of the recent transactions on my account is fraudulent. I then tried to sign into HSBC’s online banking stuff, only to find my account disabled.
Calling HSBC I was informed that a merchant through which I used my credit card “approximately 18-20 months ago” reported to MasterCard a compromise, and my credit card info is now available publicly. This info was used by someone who manually keyed in a $4680.22 transaction at Tahitian Noni International (Wikipedia), a MLM shop out of Provo, UT. I also told that while they currently do not know which company was compromised, this information should be available to me upon the completion of MasterCard’s investigation.
Save for the fraud, this is just the system working as its supposed to. Unfortunately the timing is a little inconvenient. The charge has been delt with, and a new card with new account number and card and such is being sent to me. As I’m leaving for the San Francisco area this evening and now without the ability to use my ‘normal’ credit card, I’ll have to fall back on the backup one. This card doesn’t pay cash back, has a high interest rate, and generally doesn’t get much use. I probably should also call that card company and inform them that there will soon be charges coming from all over the country so that this one doesn’t get flagged / turned off. I guess this is why I carry two credit cards.
Leave a CommentI’ve got a Kensington Expert Mouse (Trackball) and Nokia E51 for sale. Both are in like-new condition. The trackball was only used for a couple hours, until I decided I didn’t like it. The phone was used for a couple months, but after the recent acquisition of the G1 / Android, I don’t really need it.
Here are photos of the Kensington Expert Mouse: 1 · 2 · 3
Here are photos of the Nokia E51: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12
In case you don’t know, the Kensington Expert Mouse is probably the best trackball made. It’s got a pool ball sized ball, four large buttons, and a scroll ring around the ball which serves the same function as the scroll wheel on a mouse.
The Nokia E51 is a very nice Symbian Series 60 phone with a metal case. It’s quad band, has a SIP client for VOIP goodness, a nice browser, great screen, and 802.11 connectivity. I really like this phone, I just no longer use it. It is completely unlocked, so it’s not tied to any particular operator, SIM, or anything else. Any SIM should work in it, anywhere in the world.
For the Kensington Expert Mouse I’d like: US$50
For the Nokia E51 I’d like US$180
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Google has released the My Tracks app for Android, and I think it makes the T-Mobile G1 into the best hand-held GPS I’ve owned. While on a beat-the-snow bike ride† to test out the Mary Bar from last night (note: moving it slightly made my hands much more comfortable) I fired up the app and a short segment of the route back to my house, then around the parking lot a few times. I’m very, very happy with the detail in those logs. You can look at the KML (which only works in Google Earth, not Maps, for some reason) here: 17-Feb-2008_MyTracks_Test_While_Biking.kml
Right before I started this route plot I tried to take the photo seen above with the G1. For some reason, in temperatures right around freezing, the camera wouldn’t focus. I guess this is to be expected, as all manner of small mechanical systems aren’t intended to work right at those temperatures.
All in all, I’m finding myself quite happy with the G1. There’s a few quirks, but nothing that makes me want to get rid of the phone. In fact, I’m considering selling my recently-purchased Nokia E51. I’m also thinking that the On-One Mary Bar might work out well for me. I need to adjust the bar position a little more, but after tonight’s fiddling I found it considerably more comfortable.
† Total ride tonight was somewhere just under 16 miles. I did roughly the same route as on last Tuesday, but with a few detours. I rode the single-speed fully rigid Bianchi D.I.S.S. with very knobby tires, which made for a little more challenging riding. Thankfully the snowy / icy ground was relatively smooth.
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After getting the new stem at lunch I was finally able to install the Mary bar I’d been loaned. I’m still waiting for the grips to dry so that I can go for a test ride, but a quick lab around the basement seemed to indicate that these bars may be nice. As soon as the alcohol which I used to install the Oury grips dries I’ll take a test ride up to the post office, where I need to ship an iSight Tripod Adapter that someone purchased today.
UPDATE: Well, the ~6 mile round trip to the Post Office was interesting. It seems that I didn’t wait long enough for the Ourys to set up, and this caused a bit of slipping while riding. I’m not sure if it was this or the new bar shape which made my hands hurt a bit. Time will tell on this.
I fell once after I thought I could ride over a 1′ pile of icy snow, only to have it collapse and my front wheel stop, toppling me over. Oops. This damaged the end of the Oury a bit, and makes me think that I might fit something else (say, some spare Specialized grips) to this bar.
That all said, I’m still pretty happy with the Bianchi. It still needs a bit of fiddling (seat post binder tightness and brake pads), but I think I like how it feels. This should be fun off road once things thaw and dry out.
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Danielle picked up a pack of these gingerbread pigs when in Mexicantown last week. They are not particularly sweet, have a firm cake-ish texture, and a nice ginger flavor. It made a great breakfast.
In more of the moblog photos, here is a Dimension bike stem which I purchased at lunch from someone on the MMBA forum. This should allow me to try out the On-One Mary Bar which I’ve been borrowing for a few months now.
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Today Danielle and I headed over to my parents house. While there we made a double batch of caramels using this recipe from The Kitchn. While the caramels are excellent, the Karo Light Corn Syrup we used contains High Fructose Corn Syrup, whose presence greatly confuses me. I can understand the addition of vanilla and salt, but I don’t understand what business HFCS has in what should be a fairly basic product.
That said, the resulting caramels do taste excellent. Here is a photo of the caramel boiling after the addition of the cream, as we were getting it up to 248°F so it could be poured into the form. Yes, that’s a classic mercury bulb candy thermometer.
UPDATE: I emailed Karo to ask why Light Corn Syrup would possibly have HFCS in it, and I actually received some interesting replies. It seems that this has been an ingredient since the 70s in order to increase sweetness, but it was recently removed due to customer requests. I guess the bottle of it that my mom has is a bit old and we just need to purchase another.
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After Danielle and I helped Bo move into her new place today, we all went out for a late dinner of Korean food at New Seoul Garden in Southfield. The food was excellent, and I had a mushroom stir fry dish seen above, which contained lots of sesame, thus joining two of my favorite flavors. It was excellent.
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Today I received some samples for a new (to me) type of front panel material which I may use on the SDrive NUXX. It is aluminum which has been colored and anodized in a manner which allows for very reasonably priced markings in black and silver (natural aluminum). As can be seen with the ~5mm text above, this method of marking has far more detail than what one sees in panels from Front Panel Express.
The downside to this new process is that I’ll have to order a fairly substantial number of panels (100) to get the price that I’m wanting, but hopefully they’ll sell.
After seeing how nice the sample piece looked, I began working up new artwork for the panels which takes advantage of this different marking method. Here is one of my first test results, showing a nicely Atari-ish font and what I feel is overall a more appropriate look for something which is to be used with 25 year old hardware. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to get the rear panel roughed in, and somehow (nicely) tie them together visually.
There is one thing I feel really guilty about, though. In my search for a good font for the button / slot / LED labeling I ended up using the font Interstate, which is the same as was used throughout the x0xb0x front panel redesign. I guess it still holds as a good stuff-labeling font.
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