I recently posted on PayPal phishing and wanted to follow up with what a legitimate PayPal email looks like. I received this email yesterday asking me to update my credit card information. The interesting thing is that there are no hyperlinks in the email. The email contains all necessary instructions on what needs to be done to update my credit card info. Check it out below and if you ever receive an email from what appears to be PayPal and it has hyperlinks, then it’s probably someone phishing for your information.

My father-in-law occasionally forwards emails asking if they’re legitimate or not. Today he forward an email from what appears to be eBay telling him to update his account information. You can see a screen below:

Of course to the average user this email looks completely legit until you find out where the link directs you. In this email the user is directed to http://81.17.205.36/rpm, which appears to be down. At some point I’d like to walk through the entire eBay phishing process to see how it compares to PayPal’s.

I broke my Powerbook latch a few weeks ago and have been dreading the replacement process. Since we’re heading up on the New Year I decided to take the plunge and get it fixed. I got to hang out at what they call the “Genius Bar”. This is where all the Apple tech-heads stand around and help customers with their problems. Sure it’s one of those “we’re cool because we’re geeky and know more than you do”. I have no complaints since everyone deserves to be recognized for their knowledge and hard work. And most importantly I wanted to get my Powerbook fixed ASAP. So I ran into Paul who was the most incredible support person I ever deailt with.

The first thing Paul told me is that this was an EXPENSIVE piece to replace since it required replacing the entire bottom chassis. I cringed when I heard that and asked him what the damage would be. He looked it up in the computer and said that it would run $610. That’s almost 30% of what I paid for the machine 9 months ago. There’s no way that I’m going to drop that kind of money to have a 10 cent part replaced. Paul did some more digging around and mentioned that he could find a way to get it covered by my AppleCare warranty that I paid $300 for. I was so pumped to hear this and he mentioned what great condition my Powerbook was in and said that it surely was a defective part….don’t ask don’t tell. I take incredible care of the machine, but just had one freak accident.I left the store with the best customer experience I’ve had in my entire life. I’m not sure businesses really understand the importance of what Paul did for me today. The next time that I’m going to drop a couple g’s on computer stuff it will definitely be in the Apple store. What might cost their company $150 in parts and labor will end up making them much more from my continued business in the future.

Also, if you have an older version of the Powerbook you might be able to replace it yourself with this part. That’s if you’re really confident as well as desperate.

Although I’m going to be without my pride and joy for the next 5-7 business days I’m definitely a satisfied Apple customer.

Sometimes there’s a gift that really makes you feel like a kid again. I normally get a kick out of playing with expensive, high-tech notebooks and devices while there are much cheaper ways to find entertainment. I realized this when my extended family gave me an Air Hogs Aero Ace RC plane. At first I chuckled since last Christmas I received a plane that you charged up and threw. It would stay in the air about 15-20 seconds. The Aero Ace was a MUCH different story.

We loaded up 6 AA batteries into the remote and charged the plane. It’s similar to the ZipZap concept of using the controller to charge the car. There’s a little cable that comes out of the controller and plugs into the plane. A decent charge takes anywhere from 15-30 minutes….be patient, it’s completely worth the wait. Once the plane was fully charged we ventured out front to see how it would perform. I had the remote while a friend gave it a gentle throw. I immediately started controlling it like I had been flying RC planes my entire life. There’s a simple forward/backward throttle stick and a left/right steering stick that differentiates the speed in each engine to enable turning. The plane turns very well and is easy to manuever around trees, over houses, between power lines, etc. At one point we were flying it over cars driving by the park. You get more brave with every minute of flight. The Aero Ace is an incredible climber and in a matter of minutes you can have it up to 50ft in the air. You start to gamble as it might get caught in a draft and you’ll lose complete control because of the lightness of the plane.

I can’t begin to tell you how much fun this plane is to fly. My wife even picked up the controller and was a seasoned pro. Everyone watching was in awe because they didn’t realize that flying this plane is like chewing gum, it just comes naturally. The only complaint I have is that the flight time is relatively short-lived. I would say you get about a 10 minute flight before you have to charge up again. Believe me, 10 minutes zooms by quickly when you’re having this much fun.

The plane is fairly cheap (< $50) and I haven't received this much enjoyment out of my $500 cell phone. While I was unable to find the Aero Ace on Amazon I did find a similar version called the Defender. You should be able to pick up something similar at your local Toys R Us.  If you’d like a more technical review then feel free to check this out.

After a recent install of WordPress I started running into problems with Firefox 1.5 and WP admin. The WYSIWYG editor didn’t appear to be persisting my changes when updating some of the existing posts. When creating hyperlinks and other HTML content they didn’t appear to be making it to the database. I didn’t see this happening in Safari since the editor doesn’t even load and you’re given a simple textarea for all editing.

Switching to a previous version of Firefox did the trick and I’ll be waiting anxiously for a compatibility update. I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one having a problem: http://www.powerpage.org/archives/2005/12/firefox_15_no_w.html.

Other than this…..so far so good!

One of the coolest stocking stuffers I received this Christmas was Wasabi in a Tube. I had a chance to put it to use this eve and it tasted close to the real deal. The main difference is that it has more of a toothpaste texture vs. the standard playdoh texture. No big deal as I can just squeeze and go. Thank you Jamie!