Wow - scam-lightening strikes twice

My trusty Sony Cybershot of 3-4 years finally died. So I've been in the market for a new digital still camera. This post is about a couple of internet scams that I have ran into not once - but twice.

Update: I got a box from FotoConnection.com yesterday. I called them today to confirm what was in the box before opening it. They assured me they had sent a rechargeable unit. Against my gut instinct, I opened the box and sure enough, its NOT!. After an irate call with them. I am filling out the RMA. Looking forward to the call to AMEX to dispute the 15% restocking fee. What slime balls!


After looking around for deals at Costco for a new camera, I decided to go online. Checked-in at Sony Style and then did a Google search. The first match that Google returned was FotoConnection.com. So I went online and placed an order.

The next day, I got an email asking me to call some 800 number for "security" reasons. So I called and I found myself talking to a character from The Sopranos with background noise of a some boiler room operation somewhere (I'm guessing) in New York. So the guys goes on into a high pressure up-sell. It turns out that the device that I bought has some 15 minute battery and an overnight charger (meaning it slow charges) that they have put in after market.

The "buttons" for this suit were going to cost an extra $80 (reference to the saying "Oh, you want buttons with the suit?"). When I told the guy to cancel the order, the price kept dropping and dropping to $14. I kept getting random emails from this outfit for another week directing to some site for security verification.

So I then went back on and this time looking for another Cybershot and found another outfit PreferredPhoto.com. And guess what? The same process started repeating. When I asked the guy on the phone if they were associated with FotoConnection.com he claimed no knowledge. So I canceled the order again.

Wow. Talk about bait and switch plus-plus slime. Yuk! A horrible experience. DEFINITELY AVOID!

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Net scammers remind me of ants...

My trusty Sony Cybershot of 3-4 years finally died. So I've been in the market for a new digital still camera. This post is about a couple of internet scams that I have ran into not once - but twice.



A week or so ago I posted an ad on Facebook Marketplace about a license for e-Text for Windows that I wanted to sell. This was the only response I got super late last night and I was excited (someone wants to buy it). The English in the post sounded a bit strange but I didn't pay much attention so I game my email.

Then came the hook - this morning I got an email that said the person is OWED money in the U.S. (not Uganda, as those email scams oft say) and that the cashier's check would be sent to me. I would deduct $25 for the item plus a $40 bonus ;-) and to mail the balance as a check.

What is fascinating here is... first, they have latched on Facebook... second, using Marketplace as the entry (Facebook should add glaring warnings like Craigslist to warn people about such scams -- I didn't think anything of it at first (because, hey, its Facebook)... third, the amounts involved are small enough $25 + $40. My guess is that the fake cashier's check was going to be for under $1k.

So word to the wise... avoid this Kyle Fischer email f_ang_17_23@yahoo.com

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The Leopard, the Noob and MySQL

After much waiting, I go another Macbook Book Pro last week. The machine has 2.4GHz Intel core 2 Duo 2GB RAM 200GB HD and is running Max OS X v 10.5.2. Thanks to Carlos for pitching in the F&F Apple Discount (obrigado muito). After moving documents off the Vaio, next came the decision - to buy or not to buy Microsoft Office. I downloaded OpenOffice for Mac but my experience was so-so. Every time I launched OpenOffice, an X11 console window would pop-up (and an icon would appear in the Doc yuk). Moreover, OpenOffice would timeout (apparently waiting for X11 to start) and then things would work Ok. I read up on it and it turns out this is an issue with OpenOffice and Max OS X until the native version due out "later this year". My faith shaken, I went ahead and ordered MS Office online... Luckly, the following day, Suren clued me on NeoOffice and it is just perfect. So I canceled my order so I am still 100% MS free.

Next came the Rails environment. If you're into Raisl and Leopard, you know that Ruby, Rails, Mongrel, Sqlite3 and SVN come pre-installed with Leopard. Its all good and it all worked out of the box. HOWEVER, I wanted to get on MySQL since the others I am collaborating with on a project are also on it... This is where things got interesting.

First, the question was -- which version to install? Answer: Go with v 5.0.51a MySQL 5.0 Community Server - GA release. There is an alpha of version 5.2 and 6.0 but I opted for the GA (Generally Available) release.

The release comes with two packages: 1) mysql-5.0.51a-osx10.5-x86.pkg this is the server 2) MySQLStartupItem.pkg this is a bit which along with MySQL.perfPane that comes in the installation (disk image as its called) allows you to start and stop the server from a graphic interface. This is when the plot thickened.

The first package (server) installed without incidents. I was able to tickle the server using the following command line commands:

shell> cd /usr/local/mysql shell> sudo ./bin/mysqld_safe (ENTER YOUR PASSWORD, IF NECESSARY)(PRESS CONTROL-Z) shell> bg (PRESS CONTROL-D OR ENTER "EXIT" TO EXIT THE SHELL)

Meanwhile, I had been reading blogs and forum posts on the subject and it was becoming clearer that something was up with MySQL and Leopard (people talking about stuff not starting and not being installed properly) I soon found out.The time to install the second package (MySQLStartupItem) which I did and it went ahead through the usual installer wizard steps and congratulated me on a successful installation. But when I tried to use the Startup Item to start MySQL using the command below it was no dice.

shell> sudo /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM start

It turns out there is nothing under /StartupItems Gaah! The package installs /MySQLCOM under /usr/local/ go figure.

After much reading and pocking around, I came across bug 25008 on the MySQL site. The bug was first opened 12 Dec 2006 (title: Mac OS X's StartupItem does not work) and has been alive since. On Feb 7, 2008, 7 one Andrew Lindley reported the identical problem to mine.

After a few exchanges with one Mattias Jonsson, it turns out that a fix is to 1) move the MySQLCOM directory to the right place 2) Install and use a corrected MySQL.prefPane

However, if you are a newb like me, you may have trouble with the "mv" command. Thanks to Mattias, the correct syntax for this is

sudo mv /usr/local/MySQLCOM /Library/StartupItems/

The other newb thing I couldn't do is add usr/local/mysql/bin to my bash shell PATH so that I could start mysqladmin from the command line. Everything I read assumed that I knew where the said profile file needs to go. So the right thing to do here is create a .bash_profile file under /Users/ Many thanks to Jeff McLeman for guiding me through this.

The contents of the .bash_profile file as follows:

PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/mysql/bin

MANPATH=$MANPATH:/usr/local/mysql/man

The last newb thing I had to figure out is where/what the "Perf Panel" is that you're supposed to use to start/stop the server. Again, thanks to Mattias, it turns out that this is nothing more than good 'ol "System Preferences". If all went well, launch it and you should see a MySQL icon under "Other". See?

Picture 1
Originally uploaded by roupen

So moral of the story :) In 10+ years since I used Unix little has changed in the once analogy I read about Unix in an article title "if airlines were operating systems" . Its still a lot of hacking, haggling, heckling and friends helping friends. In the end, it all worked out and its all open source and $FREE$. Yey!.

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Rock 'n Ruby (on Rails)

Strata @ Sweet's Ballroom :: 09/02/06
Originally uploaded by evolofoto

Met Hrag C, guitarist with Strata, seen here. We're collaborating on textbull.com with Chris, Purnima, and Goerge. An all-volunteer weekend startup army. After a few year touring, Hrag is back in the area going back to finish school. In addition to music, Hrag does front end web dev and is getting into Ruby like the rest of the army.

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