Christmas Picture Card Price Comparisons

Snapfish:

4"x8" PHOTO CARD PRICES photo paper (matte/glossy) premium paper 20 cards 75¢ per card $1.25 per card 40-60 cards 55¢ per card 99¢ per card 80-160 cards 45¢ per card 75¢ per card 180-220 cards 39¢ per card 65¢ per card 240+ cards 29¢ per card 55¢ per card

Snapfish pick-up at Walgreens is 50 cents/picture.


Shutterfly

4x8 Photo card pricing
Sold in sets as shown below. Envelopes are included.
Cards	Price (per card)
12	$0.69
25	$0.67
50	$0.65
75	$0.62
100	$0.55
125	$0.50
150	$0.50
175	$0.50
200+	$0.45

Apple

Postcards

• size 4 x 6
• 1-24 cards USD $1.49 ea.
• 25-49 cards USD $1.29 ea.
• 50+ cards USD $0.99 ea.

CVS Pharmacy

Greeting Cards

Cards	Price
20	$14.99
40	$26.99
60	$35.99
80	$44.99
100	53.99

Why you should *NOT* buy a cheap laptop this Christmas

A friend of mine tried to just buy a cheapie computer. This is why you SHOULDN'T do it:

1. Windows 7 (the NEXT version of Windows scheduled for release next year) "will have the same hardware requirements as Vista". Don't believe this statement, it has never happened with Microsoft. If this is true, then you will probably be running an extremely crippled version of Windows 7.

2. Vista requires a LOT of disk space compared to XP, and Windows 7 will probably also. Be prepared to upgrade your hard drive, but the good thing is that hard disk space is cheap. 1TB drives are now under $100..

3. In Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced some great features via Windows Aero to become more user-friendly like the Mac. The problem is that Aero requires more system resources, and a higher-grade 3D video card. During the initial release of Vista, "Vista-capable" hardware only included hardware that could support Aero. The requirements for "Vista-capable" computers were later lightened to not include the Aero interface.

4. If you purchase a computer with Windows-XP INSTEAD of Windows Vista, your support was scheduled to end 4/2009. Microsoft extended support for XP, but you can bet that this will probably end soon.


What does this mean?

If the computer you are looking at cannot run Aero at acceptable performance, then you can probably bet that Windows 7 will be a dog. The MINIMUM Windows Aero requirements follow. Generally, minimum requirements from Microsoft do not equate to a fast computer:

* a 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
* 1 GB of system memory
* a DirectX 9 compatible graphics processor with a Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver, Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware, and a minimum of 128 MB of Video RAM
* 40 GB hard drive with 15 GB free space
* DVD-ROM Drive
* audio output and Internet access

Also, a minimum of Vista Home Premium is required to run Aero. Dell recommends more power than the above minimum requirements for Vista. Using Dell as an example, Dell recommends an Intel T-8 or T-9 processor for:

"The ability to run simultaneous bandwidth-intensive applications and background tasks like virus scans and file downloads at high speeds."

Dell recommends at least 2GB dual channel memory and a 256MB video card to "optimize the Aero user experience".

Buy a computer with Vista included and make sure Vista Aero will run with acceptable performance. Just because Microsoft lightened their Aero requirements now, does not mean they will in the future.

Following is a configuration for a mid-level laptop I configured from the Dell website starting with their basic $500 laptop model and applying the above recommendations:

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8100 (2.1GHz, 3MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium, Service Pack 1 edit
PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE No Productivity Software edit
WARRANTY & SERVICE 1 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 1 Year NBD On-Site Service edit
LCD PANEL 15.4 inch Widescreen WXGA LCD Anti-Glare Display edit
MEMORY 3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 DIMM edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 8X DVD+/-RW with double-layer DVD+/-R write capability, with Roxio Creator edit
VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS edit
HARD DRIVE 320GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive edit
WI-FI WIRELESS CARD Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Internal card edit
BLUETOOTH WIRELESS Dell Wireless 360 Bluetooth Internal for Vista edit
WEBCAM Integrated 1.3 mega pixel Web Camera and Digital Microphone edit

Total cost for this is $1087.

Apple's entry-level macbook is exactly the same price (from amazon.com) with the following specs:

* 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3 MB shared L2 Cache
* 2 GB (two SO-DIMM) 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 250 GB 5400 rpm Serial ATA hard drive; 8x Double-Layer SuperDrive
* One FireWire 400, two USB 2.0 ports, DVI, VGA, S-video, and composite video (requires adapters, sold separately)
* Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit) Ethernet; Built-in AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11n); built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) module
* 13.3-inch (diagonal) glossy TFT widescreen display, 1280 x 800 resolution; Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard
* Built-in microphone and camera

The bottom line is, if you want to buy a laptop good for 1-2 years, get a bargain-basement $400/$500 model. It is acceptable right now for light use. For the Aero interface, real-time virus scanning, HD movies, upgrading next year to Windows 7, etc, I would recommend looking to a mid-range Windows model or a switch to a base model Mac and not worry about Windows issues.



References
http://vista.blorge.com/2008/05/27/windows-7-to-have-same-hardware-requirements-as-vista/
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/experiences/aero.mspx
http://www.lockergnome.com/windows/2007/02/13/enable-aero-glass-in-vista/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10104976-64.html
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero
http://kickasswebdesign.com/wordpress/2008/03/windows-xp-end-of-life-announcement-from-microsoft/
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080424-ballmer-raises-hopes-with-comments-on-xp-end-of-life.html
http://www1.la.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/solutions/en/winvista_aero?c=pr&cs=prbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd
http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html

Residential VOIP

Rumors

VOIP companies like Vonage have been around for awhile, but friends have told me horror stories such as incurring long distance charges to call a neighbor or being forced to use a new phone number.  Also, I have had VOIP at my workplace and the quality had been horrendous at times.  Worst of all, local 911 service is not included!

Setup

My local phone company just began offering residential VOIP as a "digital phone service".  It consists of a Linksys Internet Phone adapter that plugs into my wireless router.  Although the adapter also includes 2 phone jacks, only one jack is live; the second is reserved for a second line.

The phone wire coming into my house consists of three colored wire pairs, which normally are used for a first line (blue-white pairs), second line (green pairs), and an alarm system priority line (orange pairs).  The phone company rewired my green pairs to handle the DSL line, disconnected the blue-white pairs from the phone company, and also disconnected the orange pair from the alarm system.

Inside the house where I have the DSL modem, wireless router and VOIP adapter, I have 2 phone jacks in the wall.  The first jack is connected to the green pairs, which connect to the DSL line outside.  The second jack is just like every other jack in the house -- it is connected to the blue-white pairs.

The green-pair jack is connected to the DSL modem input.  The modem output goes into my wireless router's input, and the VOIP adapter is connected to a network connection on the router.  The phone jack on the VOIP adapter is fed back into the blue-white jack to distribute the phone signal throughout the house.

Although the VOIP adapter pulls it's own IP address from the router, after initial setup, the VOIP adapter does not need to be accessible on the public Internet.  No public ports need to be forwarded through my router to the VOIP adapter.

The Alarm System

Old home alarm systems and fax machines can be tricky. The VOIP voltage output may not be strong enough to receive faxes or to make a priority call from the alarm system. In fact, many experts do not recommend connecting alarm systems to VOIP lines.

In regards to my printer/fax machine, I am one of the lucky ones. My printer can still receive faxes after hooking it into the VOIP line.

Before I had my house rewired as described above, I tried going the "single jack" route and not use any of the house jacks, since my phone is a cordless model with multiple handsets. The next day, the trouble light was lit on my alarm keypad because the alarm system could not find a dial tone. I cleared the trouble light, but the light came back on again later. Although I canceled my alarm monitoring service years ago, the alarm system continues to periodically checks for a dial tone and notes a problem if one is not found. After feeding the VOIP output back into the house jacks as described above, the dial tone check passes and the trouble light no longer comes on.

Note that if I still had a monitoring service, the orange wires would need to be reconnected and I would need to perform additional tests:

"The thing to do is to take a phone off the hook and leave it off for at least one minute (if you still hear dial tone, press the # key on the phone to make it stop, but leave the phone off the hook while you make the following test). THEN test the alarm to see if it can 'phone home.'"

Another thing to think about with a monitoring service connected to VOIP is that even if you make it past the tests, what do you plan to do in the case of a power outage?  The alarm will continue to function for awhile due to the battery that is connected to it.  Unless the DSL modem, router, and VOIP adapter are all connected to a UPS (uninterruptible power supply), the alarm trouble light will come back on again.

Many of the newer alarm systems connect to monitoring services via satellite, cellular, or broadband, so telephone connectivity is not necessary.  Again, you may need a UPS for broadband-based monitoring.

Voice Quality

Bandwidth congestion is noted as the reason for voice quality issues.  If your call is choppy to the person you are talking to, this indicates upstream bandwidth congestion.  If your call is choppy to you, this indicates downstream bandwidth congestion.  P2P programs, viruses, worms, and Spyware can all contribute to bandwidth congestion.

If I use a P2P/torrent downloader, even on a fast 6mbps connection, the VOIP connection may become choppy and/or the alarm system will show the trouble light since it cannot get a clear dial-tone.  Enabling VOIP as your bandwidth's highest priority in the router's QoS (Quality of Service) settings (and P2P as the lowest priority) has fixed this for the most part.

Reality

Long distance is free, I get to keep my old phone number, most of the time the quality is great, and the VOIP service includes voice mail (superior to any phone answering machine) and a web interface to view call logs and change VOIP settings.  The web interface is also used to configure local 911 access.

Best of all, I previously paid $74 a month for 3mbps DSL and an enhanced local telephone (POTS) service.  I also paid a $7 monthly fee and 7-cents-per-minute for Sprint long distance.  I now pay $67 a month for 6mbps DSL and VOIP with long distance included.

Car Rental coverage

http://money.cnn.com/2000/08/02/banking/q_bankrate/
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20071122/WIRE/711220316/1036/BUSINESS01
http://www.creditcards.com/Your-Credit-Card-May-Protect-You-from-Rental-Car-Damage.php


Car Rental Insurance Items to worry about:

1.  CDW: Collision damage waiver, covers "any damage to the car you are driving". CDW at the rental counter is not consistent. Always include your home insurance company in the event of any accident.

2.  Liability: covers "damage you do to someone else". You should never have to supplement what is carried on your home insurance policy.

3.  Belongings: "check your homeowners or contents insurance".


Most credit card companies will supplement your auto insurance when you rent a car, your home insurance being primary. Research this if you have reduced coverage on an older car and rent a newer one. Limitations may apply.

Ask your insurance agent what kind of car rental insurance you have and what the limits are. Long rental periods, driving overseas and long towing distances may not be covered.

Some care rental companies offer extended services covering towing and roadside emergencies.  These are known by names such as TripSaver, and Roadside Plus.

The 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140583-page,1-c,techindustrytrends/article.html

#15. Box Unpopuli: Amazon Unbox

#14. Screwed up to the Max: Municipal WiMax

#13. Web 2 Woe: Social Networks

#12. Just Another Oxymoron: Internet Security

#11. Singing an Old Familiar Zune: Microsoft Zune

#10. Is Anyone Listening?: Wireless Carriers

#9. Sorry, We Already Gave: Office 2007

#8. Needs To Change Its Spots: Apple "Leopard" OS 10.5

#7. Cannot be Completed as Dialed: Voice Over IP

#6. Un-Neutral: The Broadband Industry

#5. The Great, The Bad, The Ugly: Apple iPhone

• 3G will be faster, but wifi is a plus.
• Apple found a cheaper supplier. I have no sympathy for those who want to be on the bleeding edge.
• People hacked their phones, again, no sympathy, warranty is voided.
  
• Not sure, but I am thinking Apple will have many more problems once they open it to 3rd party apps.
  

#4. In a Sorry State: Yahoo

#3. The Anti-Social Network: Facebook Beacon

#2. What Is It Good For: The High-Def Format War

• Walmart had the HD DVD on sale for $99. 1080i and no 5.1 surround. Big whoop.
  

#1. No Wow, No How: Windows Vista

• Ok, so my mother-in-law loaded an old XP printer driver that caused the printer to not work. There was NO WAY to get rid of the driver or to reinstall it. We had to use the system restore DVD. Is this an improvement???
• Maybe someone has to figure-out the hard way that repeated prompts are not good!
  

Don't Trust the "Peek Squad"

Do you ever use the Geek Squad or drop-off your computer for repairs? How much do you trust the people who are doing the repairs?

In a recent news report, the Geek Squad found child pornography on a computer that was sent for repairs and the customer was turned over to the police. While a crime was committed in this case, don't assume that any of your data is safe when letting someone else look at your computer. Computer repair shops have been noted to steal all types of media (music, movies, photos, etc.) from computers entrusted to them and are known to some in cyberspace as the Peek Squad.

In this age of Identity Theft, anyone with physical access to your computer can easily log onto your online bank accounts or other financial institutions. If you use your web browser to store account ID and password information, a user can easily open your browser and log onto your web sites. The user can also download browser password-cracking tools so they can copy all of your ID and password information, even if you use a master password in Firefox to protect your password list.

A good way of combating this is to use an external password manager that integrates with your web browser. The password list is encrypted and protected by use of a master password. Password-cracking tools for the external password managers may be available, but are more difficult to find than the tools for cracking the web browser password managers. The external password managers automate form entry on multiple web browsers, similar to web browser password form automation. After installing the external password manager, it is recommended to disable web browser password functionality as it will now be available with the external tool. As an added benefit, an external password manager can also provide anti-keylogging and anti-phishing control.

Ensure you use solid password creation practices, making your passwords harder to crack. If you need to encrypt sensitive data, third-party encryption tools can also be used.


- - - -

References

The "Peek Squad"
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/07/computer_repair_1.html
http://consumerist.com/consumer/geek-squad/were-always-looking-for-porn-on-customers-computers-techies-confirm-257309.php

Web Browser Password Manager Concerns
http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1882

Web Browser Password Recovery Tools
http://www.majorgeeks.com/SpotIE_Password_Recovery_d5662.html
http://www.tech-faq.com/internet-explorer-stored-password-recovery.shtml
http://www.darknet.org.uk/2006/06/firemaster-21-a-firefox-master-password-recovery-tool/

External Password Manager and Automation Tools
http://www.roboform.com/ (Windows)
http://1password.com (Mac)

How to Disable Web Browser Password Caching
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/229940 (IE)
http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/options

Anti-Keylogging and Anti-Phishing Control
http://www.roboform.com/anti-keylogger.html
http://www.roboform.com/anti-phish.html

Password Tips
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/computer-repair-cracking-passwords.html
http://www.firefoxtutor.com/61/securing-firefox-passwords/

Encryption Tools
http://na.pgpstore.com/product.aspx?sku=3118544
http://sectools.org/crypto.html

Microsoft may become the New Apple

A comparison between Microsoft Media Player 11 and Apple iTunes:

	Microsoft	Apple
Music Software	Media Player 11	iTunes
Runs on	Windows only	OS X & Windows
Download Services	Multiple Partners	Apple iTunes Store
Media Players	Multiple Partners	Apple iPod

According to Paul Thurrot, Windows Media Player 11 "is a microcosm of the wider Windows world. There's a lot of hand-holding, multiple wizards to wade through, and some silly how-to videos to fumble with when you connect a new device for the first time (assuming you use the device's install CD)...the WMA-based world is getting better, but it's nowhere near the effortless sophistication of the iPod." (SuperSite for Windows http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/wmp11.asp).

It actually appears that Microsoft wants to become the next Apple, case in point is the Zune. Don't be surprised if Microsoft cuts partner support on Media Player in the future, just as they have for any other 3rd party products that become merged into Windows. Microsoft already states that 3rd party DRM-enabled content cannot be exported from Media Player into the Zune software (http://www.zune.net/en-US/products/zunesoftware/default.htm).

The previous comparison can now be shown as this:

	Microsoft	Apple
Music Software	Zune Software	iTunes
Runs on	Windows only	OS X & Windows
Download Services	Zune Marketplace	Apple iTunes Store
Media Players	Microsoft Zune	Apple iPod

The latest Zune players are noted in the press to be a very competitive offering. If the Zune takes off, don't be surprised if you have to go back to the OS-level to copy your media files to/from your non-Zune media player. Windows Media Player will either go back to becoming only a media player or will not be updated for new third party media player support. The Zune Software will become Microsoft's flagship product for media player integration, but only for its own players. In turn, Microsoft will have a closed solution just like Apple with iTunes/iPod.


Posted to Internet Revolution, 12/17/2007