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iOffer should be called iFraud~!

I’d like to share my near loss experience with my blog.
So I was looking for a Coach collar for my new pup and on ebay these are near non-existent. So google got me some results, one of which was from iOffer.com. Looked kind of shady to start, but being the conscious consumer I am, thought i’d play it out, and if I felt confident of this transaction, i’d bite the bullet. It was a $35 risk.
After offering to buy the item, I asked the seller if they had any ebay feedback and I can review as paypal does not guarantee anything outside of ebay. I got a reply back saying that not to worry and she promises to ship the item today with tracking #, and that she is a paypal verified member for the last 7years, and also that paypal guarantees the transaction too. Well, thats all I needed is some assurance from the seller, NOT!
I went to the paypal forums site and low and behold, there are many many articles of fraud within iOffer. Many on yahoo answers as well. Just for shits and giggles, I went to pay the invoice (well not quite), I wanted to see if any info showed about this 7 years experienced seller. Notta! – This account is unable to accept any funds. LOL!! need i say more.

So, the saying still stands, if its too good to be true, it is!
PS. Seller Information
thedepot (7)
cheezyspizza@verizon.net
Chris Ettehadieh
1721 Glen Keith Blvd
Baltimore, MD 21234
also got a reply from guccimom@verizon.net

disclaimer: I have not proven that this may be a fraudulent seller, but all investigation points to this conclusion; thats good enough for me, anything more concrete would be a suckers bet.

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Using UMA on a t-mobile branded curve 8900 on rogers sim

I wanted to share my experience on getting UMA to work on a non rogers branded blackberry, partularly the 8900 Curve.

i found alot of help on the usual forums blackberryforums.com and crackberry.com.

you need to get to the escreen of your phone. you do this by pushing the alt + caps + h keys all at once. You will see a screen called Help Me!

Using your computer go to:

http://absolous.wavegap.com/projects/escreen/

–update on above link… seems that BB is cracking down on these generators. I was lucky to find another one on a blog.

http://xxx.zibri.org/2009/08/hidden-things-are-usually-best.html

hxxp://news.unlock-blackberry.com/how-to/get-mep-code-on-blackberry-without-cable-or-software/

Enter the information from your blackberry on the computer EXACTLY as it appears.

Once you get the unlock code, enter it on your phone, remember to use the alt button to enter the code.

I am pretty much fast tracking this how to as lots of info is mentioned on the aforementioned sites.

The settings once youre in the right screen>

mobile network engineering screens/utilities/session manager,

“UMA options”. Create a new setting and enter the following:

Display name: Factory Provisioning
Operator name: Rogers
UMA protocol version UMA v. 1.0.4
Provisioning UNC address: hbsc.uma.rogers.com
Provisioning UNC port: 14001
Provisioning SEGW address: segw.uma.rogers.com
SEGW certificate: ca.rogers.com

you need to pick a certificate which for Rogers, is ca.rogers.com. I had a tough time trying to find this, so I will share this with you upon request on this blog, just send me a msg/comment.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment on my blog and I will reply asap.

 

**UPDATE: since I have been unable to send the ca cert to the folks that have requested it, I am linking to it here.
download ca.rogers.com

please be sure to leave me a quick comment and let me know how you made out.

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Blackberry Curve 8520

This is going to be a quick post regarding the newly released Blackberry 8520. Let me first say that I am quite disappointed in the features list of this phone. I was quite ecstatic when i heard a new curve is out, but after reading my favorite forums (blackberryforums.com, crackberried.com, boygeniusreport.com) I decided not to purchase this phone. Sure they added the trackpad that replaces the ball, but they still have a substandard lcd screen (which is the same as the old 83×0 Curve), a substandard 2.0 MP camera (non auto focus) – with NO FLASH — are you kidding me?? Currently this is the only 85xx series phone out as they phase out the rest of the 83xx series phones. So this one comes with wifi (UMA support) but thats about it. Sure its beefed up under the hood, but my suspicion is RIM is getting rid of their spare parts from the 83xx series phone. Understood its for the mid level consumer, and they cant make all the BB’s all cadillacs, some of them still have to be the chevy’s and the pontiacs.

I was checking on craigslist for this phone and they are running at approx $400 bnib. I have an old 8300 that is also listed for $300, so firstly, I am surprised how well these phones hold their value, and secondly, ill wait until the 85xx comes down in price (when the 83xx is obsolete) to keep one as a spare in case I lose my daily use phones.

Ill leave it at that.

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new blackberry bold 9700

Research in Motion has recently announced the Canadian company will be releasing a couple of new smart phones. The Bold (2) 9700 and Storm 2.

I dont hold much interest in the Storm 2 as I am not a fan of touch screen.

I currently own the Bold 9000 and also the Curve 8900. These are two of the best phones built by the Canadian smart phone maker in my opinion. However, this new 9700 will and has caught many peoples attention. Why you ask? Just think of the two phones I own meshed into one! The Bold 9000 is supplied by my work and since I didnt want to have 2 phones strapped to my waist, I opted to get the 8900 Curve. The 8900 stays in my pocket (this is for my personal/own business). I always wished that the curve would have 3G and the Bold be a bit smaller like the curve…. low and behold, the new 9700 Bold!!! Needless to say that I am very excited. The camera on the 8900 Curve is phenomenal. The camera on the Bold 9000 sucks! I can hammer on the Bold 9000 keyboard faster than on the curve 8900; i have read from boy genius reports that the keyboard on the 9700 has been improved.. better than the 8900, similar to the Bold— in the 8900 form factor…

Once I pick this baby up I will post some pics and do a write up on it.

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Cron Job wizard

Ever have those blonde moments when you are secure shell tunneled into you unix/linux box and cant remember the proper way to setup a cron job. Well now you dont have to rely on memory to make that happen. I came across this site that has create this wizard. The downfall is on every item you choose, a damn pop-up happens, but easy enough to close and continue. I guess buddy has to pay for his/her site with ppc.

the url is:

http://www.htmlbasix.com/crontab.shtml

I give props to the creator of this site mentioned above.

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automated cPanel backup

I came across this blog of this genius that has created a script to automate cPanel backups. Previously, I would have to do this manually. I have shared boxes, VPS and am currently in the process of shipping a pimped  box for colo. In the mean time, as on WHM on my shared account doesnt allow automated backups, i have installed this script to create full backups and push via ftp to my remote server! This also includes all domains, emails, “sql” as well. So happy I found this script. I am currently looking to see if I can use SFTP instead of ftp. Why not make the transfer as secure as possible.. Shout out to Justin Cook

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xcopy – a great tool

So, tired of copy and paste between folders/drives, and all of a sudden access is denied on a particular file so the transfer stops.. that sucks!

xcopy is a great tool on command prompt.

go to the directory you want to copy to and type:

xcopy {copy path} /C /H /K /R /E /Y

also note that if any of your paths have spaces in them, you need to enclose them with quotes, ie. xcopy c:\"documents and settings\administrator" /SWITCHES.
This does:
/C Continues copying even if errors occur.
/H Copies hidden and system files also.
/K Copies attributes. Normal Xcopy will reset read-only attributes.
/E Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones. Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
/R Overwrites read-only files.
/Y Suppresses prompting to confirm that you want to overwrite an existing destination file. May be preset in the COPYCMD environment variable

I give credit to commandwindows.com
The link for all xcopy commands are:
here

Xcopy provides an excellent tool for backing up selected folders. With appropriate switches, a variety of backup scenarios can be created. One possible backup configuration would be to copy only those files that have been changed. Here is an example command:
xcopy C:\somefolder E:\backupfolder /D /E /C /R /H /I /K /Y
This command will copy all files, including those in sub-folders, that are newer in the source folder. It will copy hidden as well as read-only files and will create the destination folder and/or sub-folders if they do not already exist.

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Avira Antivir Free personal edition

I recently started using avira antivir, the free personal edition. One thing i found annoying was everytime it would update the virus definitions, it would pop up an ad to buy the better edition. While searching on google, I found this page that explains how to block that pop up. Instead of c/p this info, i will give credit where it is due. So just go check out that link.

http://www.tipsfor.us/2007/08/15/make-avira-antivir-free-edition-more-usable/

The thing that this antivir is lacking is the scanning of incoming email. Most non-power users have free mail, ie, gmail or hotmail, so in my opinion, you dont need the email scanning option. This would be an issue if you use outlook / express; then I would recommend buying the better version or go for another great free product – AVG.

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camera light box

So I was on a mission to make a light box. I had found many how-to’s on the interweb on how to make this… and CHEAP!

I was thoroughly impressed on how easy it was. I would like to give a shout out to:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html

This was a great write up on how to make this happen.

I actually went to Michaels craft store and purchased 36″ X 24` poster board. These are about a quarter inch in thickness and have foam in between. They were on sale for 2 for 3 bucks. I spent $9 on these + a couple bucks on white tissue paper. Then I headed down to the local Home Depot and purchased to touch lamps (for lack of finding another cheaper alternative). They ran me $15.99 each. These are pretty nice, stainless steel touch sensor lamps with adjustable neck… thats what i was aiming for as I didnt know how high i needed the light and this way i can easily aim it to where ever I want.

Needless to say I am into this for about $45 bones + taxes. I could have scrounged up a cardboard box and saved myself 10 bones… but this looks way nicer.
So here are some pics that I took with my camera. I totally am impressed with my new box. I needed this as I tend to accumulate old phones and electronics and this way I can easily take a nice shot and put them up on ebay and craigslist. I am a big fan of craigslist as this makes for a personal transaction and dont have to screw around waiting in line at the post office.

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Debut of Mats Sundin

So, just finished watching the Canucks vs Edmonton game debuting Mats Sundin. I can’t comment on his 15 minutes and 2 seconds of play; but I can certainly tell you I’d love to collect his salary. To put things into perspective, he got paid $121,951.22 for this game and will get the same for the 40 games left. Wow!

OK, Bernier must have been scared for his job, or counting his lucky stars for not getting traded or sent one way to the Moose, should he had cleared waivers. Good job Steve, 2 goals and an assist. Keep it up!

La Barbera, holding his keep. No regulation losses. I bet Sanford’s going to find a new home once Loungo gets back.

What’s up with Janik Hansen demoted to the minors. Bernier should have been that candidate. Now Vinuealt looks like a genius. Gillis’ face is saved…. For now.

Signing out.