Not a shock, but I'd like to let people searching the net know that the eBillme $30 rebate offer at ZipZoomFly is a scam, nothing more.
How does it work? Well, the form you need to fill out changes before the eligibility period ends for your rebate.
I bought a power supply from ZipZoomFly.com for exactly the $100.00 minimum on June 30th. It takes a few days for the echeck to clear your account, in the meantime, the promotion period changes -- preventing anyone purchasing an eligible item from the previous period from applying for a rebate using the web form to do so.
You're supposed to have 15 days from purchase to apply for the rebate.
I called customer service, their recording took a message and said they'd call me back. Right.
Friday, July 03, 2009
eBillme Rebate Scam at ZipZoomFly
Vicodin To Be Banned? Not Because of the Opiates
Finally, the FDA is making some sense. Concerned about the rising incidence of liver damage resulting from the presence of acetomenophen (generic Tylenol) in almost ever pain killing drug on the market, the FDA's advisory panel may recommend the drug be taken off the market.
People take too much acetomenophen, a drug that does terrible damage to the liver if taken in moderate to large amounts, because they do not realize that the drug is present in so many over the counter preparations and most Americans are unaware that acetomenophen is more toxic than heroin.
Ironically, the main reason Vicoden contains acetomenophen is to prevent abuse of the opiate hydrocodone, the ingredient that is the main reason people take Vicoden. Hydorcodone abuse can lead to physical addition and, in extreme doses, death ... but this ignores the fact that acetomenophen overdoses kill just as dead.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Minnesota Supreme Court Rules for Al Franken; Coleman news conference at 4:15 CDT
Coleman is expected to concede at that time.
This gives Democrats 60 senators and a filibuster proof majority as President Obama's Supreme Court pick comes before the body for confirmation.
Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:
The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today that Democrat Al Franken won the U.S. Senate election and said he is entitled to an election certificate that would lead to him being seated in the Senate.Sphere: Related Content
"Affirmed," wrote the Supreme Court, unanimously rejecting Republican Norm Coleman's claims that inconsistent practices by local elections officials and wrong decisions by a lower court had denied him victory.
"Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled [under Minnesota law] to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota," the court wrote.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Patents continue to get further out of hand - Microsoft Seeks to Patent "Hot or Not?"
I acknowledge the HOT OR NOT site itself could claim copyright protection, though I think copyright protection lasts far too long (twenty years is long enough for a copyright owner to make their money .. no one invents/creates etc. an idea for profits past two decades. Therefore, allowing copyright to last beyond twenty years does nothing to catalyze creativity.
I digress. Microsoft is trying to PATENT the idea behind HOT OR NOT, meaning any similar site would have to pay royalties to M$ for their site.
That's so stupid on it's face I don't even have to argue it here, but it could happen.
Call you people in Congress, people.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Water Cooling the Easy Way
I recently installed a Thermaltake Big Water 735 into my system, not because I needed better cooling but because I wanted to see if a $50 + shipping (refurbished through the manufacturer) all in one would be an improvement on my OCZ Vendetta.
First I installed a Thermaltake Blue Orb II to check out the looks and temperatures, and found that I actually did a few degrees better with the el cheapo OCZ cooler.
The Blue Orb II was significantly quieter however, if that's a consideration in your setup.
The Big Water 735 kit includes a pump/reservoir combination, a radiator/120 mm fan combination, a heatsink with blue LED (not very prominent in my setup) and 8 feet of 3/8" UV sensitive green tubing, as well as 500 ml of pre-mixed coolant, which appears to be identical to regular Prestone automobile coolant with water added.
Set up was pretty straight forward, though it required removing the motherboard to install a backing plate for my LGA 775 socket Intel e8400 chip.
The BigWater 735 can also be used with a an AM 2, AM 2+ or AM 3 socket AMD cpu.
It took about an hour or so of fiddling around. I lost the instructions and made a few mistakes -- read the instructions!!! Before I got too lost I downloaded a set from the Thermaltake Web site.
The end result was a decrease in temperature -- under 100% load running Prime95 for over an hour to allow the water and radiator to warm up completely -- from about 70 C with the OCZ Vendetta (74 C with the Thermaltake Blue Orb II) to 60 C with the Big Water 735.
I should add that I placed the radiator and TT fan outside my case, and have a XION 120 mm blue LED fan in the back of my case blowing air through the radiator to the TT fan on the outside of the case. This helped lower temps about 5 C. Before I set it up this way, warm air seemed to loiter around the back of the radiator.
NO MORE LOITERING!
Not bad for a first try with an all in one $50 water cooling set up!
I have read some complaints on the internet about leaking/corrosion with this system. As a result, I decided to install it in my current dual core system, I haven't decided what to do should I upgrade to an i7 set up. Such a high end system doesn't need much overclocking, so I'll probably forgo the dangerous waters.
That said, I feel confident that this system won't implode on me. I am guessing that the incidents of leaking/corrosion occured because of overtightenting of the CPU heatsink, which is half clear acrylic for aesthetics. It is slightly cool to see the green coolant zig zag over over the copper cooling block through the clear acrylic. I made certain to carefully tighten the nuts, treating the blocks nuts as gently as my own set. If it leaks, the fault is completely TT's, and they'll hear from me.
There is a "QC" sticker on the joint betweeen the copper and acrylic, FWIW.
My setup includes an OCZ 500W SXS power supply, an Intel e8400 3.0 Ghz dual core overclocked to 4.3 Ghz, two 2 GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 1066 memory running at 956 Mhz, two Western Digital Black 640 GB hard drives in Raid 0, one Nvidia GTX 275 video card and a *Gigabyte EP45 UD3LR motherboard.
If you have any experience with the Big Water 735 or any other TT water cooling products, please post in the comments. I would value any advice or feedback offered as I'm very new to this hobby.
* I don't like buying Gigabyte products, as I have had difficulties getting warranty service from them in the past. I purchased this only because I will not own it very long, and when I sell it the warranty expires anyway ... and I usually find I don't need to use warranty support if I'm careful with my gear.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Sun Microsystems' Leadership Approved Bribes of Foreign Officials, SEC Filing Admits
Sun Microsystems has admitted to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
If you own Sun stock, you may want to sell, as the company claims resolution of this fact could "materially affect our business".
Prison time for Sun execs, yes? They did admit to the crimes, does that reduce their culpability?
Maybe not. Evidently the truth came out only when it was time for Sun corporate heads to cash in during Oracle's takeover of the company, and it was this combination and the financial interests behind it that decontaminated Sun.
Time for the corporate heads at Sun to pat their kids on the head and walk on off to prison.
Assholes.
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