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Recently I have been having to travel for work to Fort Collins, Colorado for one week a month. Work puts me up in a hotel and I have chosen to stay at the Ft. Collins Marriott on Horsetooth for a few reasons. Perhaps the main reason being the proximity to the job I am working. Since I am staying there so much I decided to write a review about them and whether I would recommend others to stay there. If you are looking for a Hotel in Fort Collins, Colorado, give this a read and you can see if the Ft. Collins Marriott on Horsetooth is the right hotel for you!![]() First impression of the Ft. Collins Marriott is that it has a “homey” and “upscale” feel for it. I have always had good customer service from the Check-In people and have never had to wait for more then 5 minutes while attempting to check into my room. I do of course book the reservations online, through Marriott’s easy booking system, and I am a member of the Marriott’s Reward program, since I have been staying there so much lately. But after checking it, it is quite a walk to the elevator, which is fine I mean who does not need a little more exercise these days? But for some people, it could be an inconvenience, but they do have baggage carts if needed, since I am only 26 I never felt the need for one. The hotel is generally clean and is a very good sized hotel. Once you get in the elevator, depending on which floor your stay, it can be quite a walk to your room if you are on one side or the other, again not necessarily a down point, just something to be aware of if you have a lot of baggage. Inside the rooms, they are generally nice. I do not think this hotel has ever allowed smoking, so the rooms do not have that smoking smell to them at all (unlike the Ft. Collins, Residence Inn on Harmony that it always seems their rooms were full of smoke). The rooms are pretty cozy, especially for me since I am the only one staying in there. I usually opt for the King size bed, but I will stay in the Twin Beds as well. Both beds are nice, although they do have a ton of pillows on them, I usually just stack the pillows to one side or put them on the other bed. I always ask for the Foam Pillows, as they are much more comfy as apposed to the Downed pillow, in my opinion. The beds are very comfortable, although they have nothing on my own bed, they still do pretty well for the week. I have had issues with their TV, in the sense that the regular cable channels always are low quality, IE you can see like scan lines through them, which is a shame because the TV’s are extremely nice LG TV’s, it is a shame that they cannot afford to push better TV Quality through them. Which is alright, as I have my DVD collection on a Harddrive and I always take my ASUS O!Play with me, which pushes out 1080p video quality to the TV and it looks beautiful! I cannot speak to the Pay per view, as I never had the need to purchase it, as I prefer my DVD Collection and generally bring it with me. The Internet they provide there is kind of weird and mis-leading to connect to. The great thing is, they include the Internet for free for my stays generally. But when you connect you have to opt for the “$12.95” Internet, which over course they remove from your bill, so it does end up being free, just kind of unnerving, it took me a few nights to brave it and try it out (which I am sure I could have just called the front desk and asked about it). But sure enough it did not show up on my bill. That is nice, but luckily I have a Sprint 4G EVO and was able to tether with 4G. I was delightfully surprised that Sprint’s 4G service is in Fort Collins and available at the Marriott on Horsetooth! I prefer to use my Sprint 4G anyhow, as I know I can secure that connection with my VPN very easily. I did try the Marriott’s Internet and it seemed pretty decent for being free. I like wired Internet more then wireless, given the better performance, some people might consider this a downside the Marriott does not offer free WiFi Internet, I do not. The bathrooms come with Soap, Shampoo, Conditioner and Lotion, not that I would use them, but it is there and generally has plenty of Towels, although I try to only use one towel the entire time. The “Coffee Pot” is just a small 1 cup pot, but makes a cup of hot water (or coffee if you like that) pretty fast. I generally just drink Tea, which they have, or Hot Cider / Chocolate from home. The lounging chair they have for you to sit in is really uncomfortable, so I generally sit in the computer chair, which is decent. The view, depending on where your room is, can be quite nice, and I generally have the curtains open when I stay at the hotel. Finally, the room temperature is actually quite nice. They thermostat is easy to use, and control and the furnace / AC work really well, depending on the time of year you are staying there. All in all the rooms are quite nice. In the end I would definitely stay here again, my main reason is the TV as I like to be able to watch my DVD Collections easily without having to need an RF Modulator, like you would if you stayed at the Residence Inn in Ft. Collins. Even though there is no free breakfast, I always found the Continental Breakfasts to not be worth very much anyways, the Fort Collins, Marriott on Horsetooth is an excellent place to stay if you are visiting Ft. Collins, Colorado. Related Links Marriott Jack Pack and How To get it to Work |
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Mood: Delightful KeyWords: hotel, marriott, review, ft. collins, colorado, fort, collins, great, nice, comfy, cozy, relaxed, customer, service, stay, again, repeat, friendly, tv, beds, view, heat, ac, air conditioning, proximity, close, closeness, motel |
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After installing many different Linux Distributions, I was getting fed up with my wireless not working properly. At first I thought it was just the Broadcom chip, but after switching to an Intel Chip, I was having the same issues as with the Broadcom. Doing massive googling, I was unable to actually narrow down the problem to anything in particular. That is until last week when I found an interesting forum post on Linux Drivers using DD-WRT. This is not widely known, hence the blog post with all the right key words. If you are using DD-WRT and are having Linux Wireless issues, read on! All credit is due to pigiron given he found all this information out and posted it! I am stoked he did because it led to me figuring out how to fix my problems and finally being able to stick to a Linux Distro! I cannot explain the problem as well as he did, but you can read the details about it here. The symptoms, namely, after I would put the computer to sleep and then wake it back up, my wireless network would never reconnect it would keep asking for the network key, I would input the right network key and it would just continue to loop never connecting. I had NetworkManager installed by default, so I decided to try Wicd. Wicd was actually worse in that it just showed a weird network name of “\x0b...\x00\x00\x00” etc. This was a weird situation that I could not explain. What it ends up being is that DD-WRT does not obey a Specification and send an extra signal or beacon, which the Linux Wireless Drivers pick up and think is the “Access Point”, which it is not. Windows / Mac so nicely ignoring the extra data sent. But why send it out if it is not apart of the specification? Reading the post above, the basic gist is, “you are screwed, deal with it” from what I gathered, given no one truly responded. So in light of that I looked for alternatives. What first peaked my mind was Tomato, unfortunately it only works with Broadcom Chipsets. I settled on OpenWRT. The install on my Buffalo router WZR-HP-G300NH was easy using the Wiki / SSH to my router. Did the install and within 15 minutes was back up and running. OpenWRT’s interface may not be as nice as DD-WRT, but after I installed the Wireless Drivers for it and setup QOS / Wireless, it was working. To top it all off...it was working better. The QOS actually works, with DD-WRT, it never seemed to work at all. So all in all, it was totally worth the trade to actually have my Linux Wireless Card Drivers supported and a whole host of extras that are easily installed. Too bad the interface does fall a bit short, but hey, at least it works! Hopefully this helps you, whether you were having wireless issues on Ubuntu, Debian, ArchLinux, #!CrunchBang, Fedora Core, CentOS, Slackware, etc. Installing OpenWRT completely solved my issue and I will never go back to a Windows box now as the issue was DD-WRT all this time! So if your wireless seems like it is in an endless loop / keeps asking you for a network key, but never connects, or shows a weird wireless network name like \x0B\x00\x00\x00\x00 and you have DD-WRT, think about trying out OpenWRT if there is a build for your router model! |
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Mood: neurotic KeyWords: linux, wireless, issues, looping, no connection, loop, unable to connect, ubuntu, debian, arch, intel, broadcom, buffalo, router, openwrt, tomato, fix, working, wicd, \x00, weird network name |
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Recently I have been plagued by a “Not Authorized” error message using Pidgin IM (OS is CrunchBang Statler / Debian Based). This has been bugging me as it came and went without any real reason. Well after some digging it appears that the error is caused by logging into a Google Service, while at the same time connected to Pidgin over Google Talk. The Service I was connecting to was Google Voice. The weirdness was, I have multiple Google Hosted accounts (own a lot of domains). I have the emails forwarding, and I wanted to port my old Mobile Number to Google Voice, but not have that number associated with my current Google Voice Number / Account (IE I just wanted it for voice mails). As such, I assigned it to one of these “forwarding” accounts, which just so happened to be my Pidgin account. Well to fix the Not Authorized issue with Pidgin and Google Talk, I just had to login to my Google Hosted GMail site and type in the “Verification” code and then surprise, my Pidgin GTalk account worked like a champ. Before finding this out, I did try a number of "SSL Ports" and unchecking / checking options. In the end it was none of that. Just as extra information, my Pidgin Settings for Google Hosted are as follows: Basic Tab Username: Domain: Resource: Home Password: Local Alias: frost Advanced Tab: Require SSL/TLS - Unchecked Force Old (port 5223) SSL - Checked Allow Plaintext... - Unchecked Connect Port: 443 Conect server: talk.google.com File transfer proxies: proxy.eu.jabber.org BOSH URL: Show Custom Smileys - Unchecked After all that it works now, except when I decide to manage my Google Voice account. I may dig into this deeper later to figure out if Google has a setting to prevent the “Not Authorized” Error from occuring. |
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Mood: happy KeyWords: pidgin, gmail, hosted, google, google talk, not authorized, error, connecting, disconnect, unable to connect, voice, accounts, multiple |
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Well today I ported my T-Mobile Pay-as-You Go phone number to Google Voice which is a free "voice" service offered by Google. I was not hesitant on this phone number since it is one that all I really care to get is Voicemails on. As, most people know, Google Voice has a major limitation...no MMS text messages. The process to port my number was not too bad, but Google makes you go through about 10 check boxes alerting you of cancellation fees and how long you could be without service etc. As this was a pay as you go phone number, I was not worried about cancellation fees as there should not be any. After all those check boxes and agreeing to Googles Terms it finally took me to the account information, where I had to add in all of my account details for the T-Mobile Pay-as-you Go phone number. Once you get that information correct, it took you to the payment. I paid the $20 by credit card. And now it is just the waiting game. Porting my Pay-as-you Go number to Google Voice was not a hard process, but did take about 5-10 minutes for me to complete, given the information needed (and that Google Voice had to connect to the phone number in question). However, to be able to get my voicemails without having to buy minutes anymore will be an excellent deal, which is what I was after. If you are in need of a new number, perhaps Google Voice is what you are looking for and you should take a swing by there to check it ou! |
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Mood: obscene KeyWords: google voice, port, mobile, number, ease, pay, pay-as-you Go, voicemail, deal, number, number port, process, gv, googlevoice |
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Many Apache driven web sites today could easily decrease their bandwidth output and increase their speed through implementing caching and compressing their content. Even with the new high speed connections of today it is still highly important to improve websites efficiency and performance to increase the users experiences. Not to mention the techniques that this article goes over will decrease your bandwidth output, which could save you money in the long run. Lets get to increasing the performance efficiency of your website. Read the full Article provided by PHP Help |
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Mood: split KeyWords: improve, site, speed, apache, php, help efficiency, flingbits, bandwidth save, save |
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![]() Introduction I recently ventured into the realm of Smart Phones with my latest purchase of the HTC EVO 4G by Sprint. Really I have been holding off on upgrading phones mainly due to the fact that I found the data plans to be too much for my needs. Well I have had a mobile broadband card for just general trips with my computer. Well I was doing some searching and I found for less than double the price (about $10 less) of what it cost to run my mobile broadband I could get a new smart phone, so here I am with the new HTC EVO 4G and these are my findings about the phone, to hopefully help you decide if it is right for you. Read the full review at Slunked HTC EVO 4G Smart Phone from Sprint Review |
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Mood: hyperactive KeyWords: evo htc, 4g, sprint, review, phone, smart, smart phone, fun, cons, pros, pictures, android, droid |
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Introduction I just bought my new HTC EVO 4g after doing my research and waiting for a week for the backorders to clear up. Well I finally received my HTC EVO 4g and was going to start off with it by Wireless Tethering. Well following my original instructions, Free Wireless Tethering (HotSpot), yielded now results due to an OTA update that ships with the newest EVO's. Well I set out to find a new method to Root my EVO 4g and to my delight I found it! And my success would not have been remotely possible without the help from the XDA Developer Forums and particularly the thread by jiqqaman titled SimpleRoot .1 ---- 3 Click Root w/ nand unlock!!, which unfortunately, I found out was not the right thread for the newest OTA. For the newest OTA, this thread, SimpleRoot OTA 1.47.651.1 Edition, is the correct one and I have uploaded the file to my site for the first 400 downloads. Without further delay, here is my trials and errors in attempting to root my new HTC EVO 4g! Read the full article at Slunked.com Root and Wireless Tether the HTC EVO 4G Device |
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Mood: renewed KeyWords: tether, evo, htc, 4g, OTA 1.47, simpleroot, instructions, tutorial, howto, slunked |
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The past few days I have been digging and diving and reading through many different tutorials about setting up SVN (or Subversion) through Apache2 on Debian based Linux Distro's. After many trials and errors and taking down my webserver a few times I finally was able to get a full on SVN Server for my main website up and running with Authentication over SSL, and here is my tale. Read the full tutorial at Slunked.com Setup SVN with SSL using Apache2 on Linux (Debian) |
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Mood: rested KeyWords: svn, ssl, apache2, linux, debian, setup, tutorial, webserver, auth, authentication, SSL, DAV, WebDAV |
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Getting Dell WiFi to Work on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala by frost Introduction This morning I found myself ripping my hair out attempting to get my wireless card working on my new dual boot Ubuntu 9.10 / Windows 7 setup. The wireless worked great on Windows 7, but alas, the dreaded Ubuntu Karmic Koala was putting up a fight! Well here is how I was able to get my wireless card to work on Ubuntuo 9.10 Karmic Koala. The First Steps After many hours of googling (I was plugged into a hardline) I had learned nothing about the problem other then feeble attempts at trying to use ndiswrapper drivers to no avail. This was very disheartening, as it seems installing and using ndiswrapper worked for many people. Well unfortunately it did not work for me. Now I am just sitting here twiddling my thumbs and decide to lookup some simple commands I could use to probe and see why my wireless card was not working. It boiled down to 1 command that really caught my attention, "lshw"! lshw Command on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala It seems as though the lshw command lists available hardware on the system. In a desperate attempt I decided to give it a try. Well what came up really caught my attention, under *-network there was a "disabled" next to it. Which caught my attention and got me thinking, why is my wireless card disabled? Well in this line of thinking I stumbled upon another helpful command "lspci | grep Network" which pulled out the listing for the card. To my surprise it told me it was missing something to do with b43. Fixing the missing b43 Well it turns out the b43 firmware was missing for the broadcom wireless card. Well great, thinking of how to fix it I decided to see if there was anything in the Synaptic Package Manager. I do a quick search for b43 and to my surprise on package comes up, b43-fwcutter, which basically extracts the broadcom firmware. Of course I install this package at once! After I installed it, the card did not work. Since this had to do with firmware etc, I decided to try a reboot. Once the computer came back up WOOHOO! My Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala now has Wi-Fi capabilities and connected flawlessly to my networks. Ending Notes Although I was very frustrated at time, I am extremely happy that the solution was a simple one. I decided to write this entry to help others out there with a Broadcom card having the same issue on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala. What took me a few hours to figure out, should have been more like 10 minutes to get straightened out. This was a great learning experience for me and I am so happy that I finally got the Wireless card to work! I hope this works and helps you out as well. Other Notes I am not an expert at Linux / Ubuntu by any means. I do not claim to be, as such if the above does not work, I am not sure how to fix it for you. Your question is better directed towards the Ubuntu Help Forums. If this does work, great! Glad I could help. Just an FYI that you posting your problems here means that you are posting them in vain if you are expecting me to fix them for you. Thank you! |
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Mood: crafty KeyWords: linux, ubuntu, wi-fi, wireless, network, karmic, koala, disabled, broadcom, firmware, b43, lshw, lspci |
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Install Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows 7 from a USB Jumpdrive by FrosT Disclaimer I am in no way responsible for losing data, corrupting jumpdrives or harddrives due to you choosing to follow this tutorial. Do any and all of these actions at your own risk with understanding it may do damage to your data, as such you should backup all of your data before proceeding. I have done this myself and it worked great. Remember that Windows 7 is a BETA release and if you do not already have it I cannot help you in finding it. Same goes with XP and Vista, if you do not have a valid/legal copy of either I cannot help you find one, so do not ask. Thank you. Introduction For those who do not know, I am an IT Professional. As such my job demands me to re-image computers on a regular basis. For the most part I just use a premade universal image. This works great, but every now and then I need to install Windows XP, Vista or 7 (testing purposes) on a machine without all the crazyness of an image (policies and what not). Since I have never been a "good" cd keeper, almost all my CD's/DVD's are trashed within the first 5 uses. As such I decided to go out and buy an 8 GB Jumpdrive to try and find a way to fit all three of those operating systems on to one medium and not have to carry 3 CD's/DVD's around. Due to this I spent about 5 hours reading through tutorials on WinPE 2.0 and BartPE. Well since BartPE does not allow you to install Windows 7 (not sure on Vista) that was not the option for me. As such I set out to install WinPE 2.0 on a jumpdrive. Well this went relatively seamless, except for the fact that I do not use Windows Vista on any of my computers and I really did not want to setup a machine with Vista just for creating this jumpdrive to install all 3 operating systems. Instead I found an alternative usage to the Diskpart program that is recommended. The reason the Diskpart program would not work is under Windows XP it does not show removable storage as being a disk to list. In Vista, removable storage devices are shown, and if you use Vista, the tutorials you can find on google will work just fine to setup the jumpdrive to be bootable. If that is the case, you can simply skip over this part of the tutorial. Preparation First up, we need to take the jumpdrive (for just one OS you can use a 4GB, for more than one an 8GB is needed) and make it bootable. The easiest way to do this is with the HP Boot Utility. I do not have a direct download to it, but you should find it somewhere on Google. After you have that utility you need the Windows 98 SE Boot disk which can be found also on Google. If you do not have a floppy drive, which I take is very likely to not have one, we need a way to "mount" a floppy disk. Luckily there is a utility for that as well! Download the Virtual Floppy Drive software. Now once you have those files and installed the Virtual Floppy Drive and the HP Bootable USB utility we need to mount the Windows 98 SE Boot disk to a virtual floppy. Finally we will need Bootsect so we can change the boot sector later on to use a newer version. Mounting Windows 98 SE to Virtual Floppy Drive Open up the VFD program and click Start, I do not recommend installing it as a service unless you want to continue using it. Next click on the Disk 0 and click “Create“ (I think it is create) and make sure it is set on 1.44 MB 3.5“ and click ok. Now you should have A:\ show up in Windows Explorer (unless you set it to be something different). Let's open up the boot98se.exe and click ok and it should extract the files to the floppy. Great, we have the files on a virtual floppy drive, let's open up the HP USB Bootable Utility. Once that is open we want to format the drive as Fat32 and click on the “Dos Startup Disk“ or whatever that checkbox says. Browse to your Virtual Floppy Drive and use that. NOTE: THIS WILL WIPE ALL DATA FROM YOUR JUMPDRIVE. BACK IT UP OR LOSE IT, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST DATA. I generally check the "Quick Format" but you can do it how you want. Make sure the right jumpdrive is selected, if it is not select it. Once you are sure click the “Start“ button to format the jumpdrive and make it bootable. We are nearly done, we now just have to go into a Command prompt (Start > Run > cmd) and locate the bootsect.exe and run "bootsect.exe /nt60 E: /f" Where E: is the drive letter of your jumdrive. It should change the boot sector to use the updated version (bootmgr) file. Now we are onto to the WinPE 2.0 Getting Win PE 2.0 Well since I cannot write this tutorial better myself, I will direct you to the tutorial I used to get a valid copy of Win PE 2.0. Remember, do not do the Diskpart potion if you are on XP and followed the above steps. The best tutorial that helped me out was the one from Svrops.com. You can find the tutorial at Svrops WinPE 2.0 Tutorial. This tutorial will show you how to add features to Win PE 2.0 etc. When you get to the part about making the ISO, which is not necessary. However, copying the winpe.wim to the /sources is important and renaming it to boot.wim. Now we simply need to copy everything located at C:\winpe\iso to your jumpdrive's root directory. (C:\ being the name of where you put winpe). Once you have it copied, you now have a bootable version of WinPE 2.0 on a jumpdrive. Now it is time to copy the windows file. I made separate directories for each version of windows (WinVista, WinXP, Win7) and copy the CD files straight to that. If it is in .iso format, mount the ISO and copy the files that way or burn the .iso to a CD/DVD then copy it. We need all the files from each CD/DVD or Image in the folder. Once that has been done, you now have all 3 operating systems on one bootable jumpdrive. Let's boot into WinPE 2.0 on a system you would like to install one of the three operating systems. Booting up Into WinPE 2.0 Since I am not familiar with all BIOS and computer setups I would suggest, if you do not know how to boot to USB, googling how to for your system. There should be plenty of those out there. I will not waste time answering questions about how to do that, so do not ask. Booting into WinPE 2.0 will take a few minutes. The command prompt you initially see may look like it is "hanging" on winpeinit (or something similar) if so, just be patient. After 1 or 2 minutes it should pop up a new line you can type on. From here, I am not sure if the jumpdrive was mounted for me before or not. To check, try just typing in E:\ or D:\ depending on how many partitions/drives are on that computer it may be one of those or further down. You know the system better than I do. So try those first. After each one do a DIR if you see your WinXP, WinVista, Win7 folders in the directory listing then that is the drive and you can simply cd to whatever version you want and run setup.exe. And it is as simple as that. However, if that did not work correct for you, at the command prompt type diskpart. Do a list disk and see if your jumpdrive is there (look at the size to verify) if it is do a SEL DISK X (where X is the number the jumpdrive is listed as for me it was 1). From there do AUTOMOUNT. This should mount the drive. So exit out of the diskpart and go through the process above until you locate the jumpdrive. Switch the windows version you want to install and install it. Editor's Note: After I tried installing WinXP using this method I found that you need to run the following command to install Windows XP and not the executable: D:\os\WinXP\i386\winnt32.exe /syspart:C: /tempdrive:C: /makelocalsource. Make sure D: is your jumpdrive's letter and \os\WinXP\ is where i have my XP extracted to, so modify that to be what you put it as. Also Make sure you replace C: with the drive you want to install Windows to. (I would also verify that the drive is mounted with DISKPART before running the above). After that is done running, remove your Jumpdrive and reboot and it should load into the Windows Installation. Ending Notes This process worked great for me, if it does not work for you, well I am sorry. There are just too many variables that it can go wrong. So please ask questions, but first do your own research. I will not take time to help someone who did not bother helping themselves. If you find an error or an issue with this tutorial please feel free to comment and let me know and I will look into correcting it. Thanks for reading. |
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Mood: ok KeyWords: Windows, WinPE 2, USB, UFD, VFD, virtual, boot, sector, utility, install, windows 7, vista, xp, diskpart, install, from, usb |
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Attempting to Adopt a Dog in Colorado by FrosT Introduction Well my wife and I have been attempting to find a dog to adopt in Colorado. We have been actively trying for a couple months and have had some good and bad experiences. Particularly the bad experiences come from one company, Colorado FurBabies. Well here is the full story that will hopefully help you avoid the same issues we had. Finding a dog We have been looking and thinking about a dog for some time and decided to actually contact a place to see if we could meet a dog. First off we had to submit an application. The applications they make you fill out are somewhat of a joke if you ask me. I am sure there are good reasons for it, such as making sure that the home can become permanent for a dog and the person applying fully realizes what they are getting into. More of the joke, for the Colorado Furbabies, it took about 1-2 week lag time for our application to go through. Then after it went through a house inspection was needed, which took another 3 days or so. This was not "horrible" but because of this process we were unable to adopt or even visit/meet a few great looking dogs that we were heavily interested in. This was very disappointing to us. So after we found out that the dogs we wanted to meet were no longer available we looked up other dogs and let them know of the one we did want to meet. Granted, this dog did not stick out as "we want this dog" like the other ones had, but we were willing to meet with it and see for ourselves if that dog would work out. Which brings us to the next problem. Trying to get a Visit Now, I heavily understand that personal issues take precedent over anything else. We contacted the foster person to get a viewing. They stated that they would email us, 4 days later no email. So we called them attempting to setup a viewing for that night. They stated they would email us the address. Well 4 hours later no email, and it was about 9:00 at night and I do have to work in the morning and they were about 45 minutes away. So that would put us home well past 11 o'clock. Not acceptable in my terms. They should have emailed us like the agreement. Then they had to go out of town for the personal issues and as such delayed the viewing again. A couple days later we scheduled a viewing where we would drive out the 45 minutes to meet the dog. When we get there no one is home. We waited around for about an hour to find out that the dogs got loose, which we understand can happen. Since they still had not found the dogs we did not feel like waiting around anymore and left for home (a 3 hour trip for nothing). Again, I know things happen that are out of our control. Finally, the next day, the foster person drives the dog over to our house. When they get there we do like the dog, but the dog is younger than was advertised. We did not really care to have more or less a "puppy", which this dog was obviously still in (pretty heavily) the puppy stages. (Maybe if they would provide a closer estimate of age we would not have even asked to see the dog). We let her know that we need to think about it, because even though the dog was still younger, we might want to adopt it. After some heavy discussion over the next couple days we decided that the dog was not for us and let them know... The Aftermath The next day we get a nasty email from a person who works at the Colorado Furbabies. In essence they basically thanked us for wasting the dogs time and that it was our fault for not taking the dog. Hold on here...how is this our fault again? Because your foster holders are incompetent of contact us back on a timely basis? It was not our fault it took them 4 days to get a hold of us for a visit and then failed to email us essential items. And then we took our time to drive out there to have the dog gone missing...and this is our problem. No way. Screw you. Given that email from the person, I would highly suggest that you do not even attempt to adopt a dog from the Colorado Furbabies association. They are very unprofessional, unreliable and they blame you for not taking a dog that you do not want because they were incompetent of getting you a viewing time in a timely fashion. Through this experience alone, I do not know if I will adopt a dog again. These people want to help dogs and yet blame you for their own problems of not being able to run an adoption agency, as I see properly. By also making you wait 2 weeks to know if you get accepted, then it being up to the foster person to contact you, who may or may not fall through the deal depending on how reliable they are. This is just unacceptable in my books. Ending Notes Feel free to try and adopt a dog through the Colorado Furbabies, hopefully your experiences are better than ours were. As for me, I am fed up with this bull shit they pull you through. From the time it takes to know that you can even adopt a dog to actually meeting the dog was just a pain in the ass. I would not have posted this blog, if the volunteer or worker had not sent us that nasty email and worded it like she did. There is no reason for a professional company to send an email like that. Personally blaming us for their problems is just ridiculous. Well I hope I can save you from a bad experience. As for me, I would rather go to a breeder instead of adopting a dog because of this experience. Thanks to Colorado Furbabies, I will now no longer make my efforts to adopt a dog and help with the dog over population. Thank you. As a side note, I do not necessarily blame the foster person, as they had some personal issues going on. I do however blame the main contact of Colorado Furbabies, for blaming us for holding the dog up, when we never asked for the dog to be held, and we could not get a viewing due to lack of communication from the foster holder. Related Entry: Do NOT Adopt from Colorado Furbabies |
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Mood: Pissed off KeyWords: colorado, furbabies, review, denver, bad, adopt, dog, foster, puppy, communcation, horrible, un-professional |
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EMovies Will No Longer be Supported by FrosT Well it has been a long ride for EMovies, which was first developed for better Search Engine Optimization for my sites. However, Yahoo has changed their whole site design and instead of re-coding EMovies I am canning the project. This is mostly due to lack of support. It is extremely sad how people will just use software, which I was giving free help to many people via email, and in return offer you nothing, not even a small donation. Well this is dis-heartening to me, but with as much time as it would take to fix the EMovies and without any support or funding, I am not going to continue this project. Maybe one day I will be bored and re-make it for the new Yahoo Movies, but that is very unlikely. Thank you for understanding. Have a great day. Related: Add Free Movie Listing Reviews to your Website |
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4 Comments
Mood: beat KeyWords: emovies, free, movies, listings, reviews, website, support, broken, down, yahoo |
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MySQL Database Backup .MYI and .MYD Introduction Hello everyone! Long time no post, I know. Well really I have been busy with work, a wife and a new baby being on the way. Well anyways, this article is about how to restore a backup to MySQL from a .MYI and .MYD file that you may have. Our dedicated host backs up only these files and does not use the mysqldump utility to create a full SQL backup of our database. This is fine, but makes a bit extra work. So let us get started. Determine Your Version First we need to determine the version of your server's MySQL database. Mine was 3.23, old I know. I do not know if you can mix and match .MYD files so I just downloaded that and installed it on my local computer. I would suggest doing the same, this way you are messing with copies of the actual database instead of the real thing. Creating a Database Now we want to go into the MySQL console on your computer and create a new database, this database name can be anything. For this tutorial sake I will use "backup". Now that you have created a database "backup" it is time to get the table structure from your current database. The table structure is necessary for this process, if you do not know or do not have it, I am not sure if this will work for you. Try anyway you can. Lucky for me, I was just trying to get a user's data back whose entries were accidentally deleted. So I had my full table structure online and just did a phpMyAdmin Export of the table structure and ran that through my personal computers MySQL command line tool. This creates 3 files inside of c:\mysql\data\backup a .frm, .myi and .myd. This is exactly what we want! Restoring the Actual Files Now what we are able to do is copy only the .MYI and .MYD files from your backup and paste them into the c:\mysql\data\backup directory overwriting any files that are in there. This will basically put our data into those tables. To test that the data was input successfully, open the MySQL command line tool and use the database "backup" and do a "select * from `yourtablenamehere` LIMIT 1" If no results are returned then it did not work, try restarting your MySQL server and then try again, this generally works. If not, then post a comment and I will try and help you out. If that worked, you now have a working backup of your database! Now to export this data. Export the Backup Data Exporting the data is rather easy. Just use the mysqldump tool and run a command like this to get all that data into a SQL statement you can import into your current DB via phpMyAdmin: mysqldump -uroot desk yourtablenamehere > yourtablename.sql This is assuming the user is root with no password (the reason I do not set a password was this is strictly on my localhost and I have a firewall setup to block all external connections to MySQL). You can replace any of that with the user information you use. That should now create a file yourtablename.sql with all of the SQL. This may have a create table at the top of the file, so manually edit the file and remove that portion to avoid any errors when trying to import via phpMyAdmin. Now just copy that text file or upload it to your phpMyAdmin and that data should be re-inserted and you are up and running again! Ending Notes This tutorial was made to backup minimal data for a user, what I really did was ran a sql command to only pull at that user data and create a new able with it. To do that also just do this: create table yourtablenamebup SELECT * FROM yourtablename WHERE conidtion=something Then you can just do a dump of that table and have just the information you need and not every information! This tutorial is meant as a reference, be sure to backup all data before attempting it as I am not responsible for any lost/corrupted data for mis-use or use of this tutorial. This tutorial as worked for me many times in the past following those instructions. Please use at your own risk! |
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Mood: dizzy KeyWords: Mysql, backup, .myd, .myi, files, server, dump, mysqldump, tables, database |
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Tips to Avoid Spyware and Virus's Introduction The past weekend I was working on a friends computer and he wondered how and what I use to avoid getting spyware and virus's. I laughed at the question and while trying to think of the words to explain how I avoid getting spyware and virus's I simply said, "I know what not to download". And as ludicrous as it may sound spyware, 90% of the time is initiated by users. The other 10% is not having up-to-date software, such as Internet Explorer. Which prompted me to write this exert on how to avoid downloading and installing spyware, and virus's on your on computer not knowing, so let's get to it! Pay Attention and Read The biggest problem is that most people do not bother to read the fine print, which is where a lot of companies can get you. Taking the extra 30 seconds to read the fine print can save you hours and hundreds of dollars (which would be spent fixing the computer). First off let's look at a legitimate download, which everyone needs in this day and age, Acrobat Reader. As much as it sucks, Adobe tends to bundle software with their application. Although it is not Spyware, what they bundle will slow down your computer with unnecessary software. The Photo Album is not something everyone needs or wants, especially when for most people the default windows picture viewer is plenty. But yet when you download Adobe Reader, the default check mark is set to download Photo Album with Adobe Reader. Why? Because Adobe knows that most users are not computer savy and will not un-check it thus making their name bigger and make you feel like you NEED Adobe software to do anything. Another company that will bundle software by default is Yahoo!. Anytime you download a game, or software from Yahoo! They bundle their crappy Yahoo! Toolbar. Which I have seen slows systems down up to 30% and most users do not even know how the toolbar came to be on their system. All they had to do was un-check one simple box, which of course is somewhat hidden and not noticeable because Yahoo! Wants you to depend on their software. In the end, companies are deceitful because they want money. Simple as that, so do yourself the favor and read and know what you are installing. It will save you numerous headaches. Keep Windows Up-to-Date As much as I do not like Windows Update (slow, and very inefficient) keeping windows software up-to-date will help you prevent spyware and viruses. Reason being is exploits are found every day in Windows software which could allow someone to inject spyware to your computer through a website, email or another means without you even realizing it. The big one is Internet Explorer, I highly suggest moving over to Firefox. That is my personal preference and have not had one issue with spyware leaking through like I have had with Internet Explorer. Keeping windows up-to-date is key to fighting spyware and viruses especially since there are many people who dislike windows and intentionally try to exploit it to disrupt it's users. Do not download Freeware Freeware online is often times bundled with Spyware galore! If you want to download free software make sure it is from a trusted source, such as Download.com, who regularly checks software on their website for spyware. No matter what avoid downloading any type of screen savers. As cool as some maybe, those .scr files are opening for massive invasion of privacy and attacks. The worst software to download is Screensavers so avoid it at all costs. Again anything you do download be wise and conscious about what the software is and how necessary the software is. Keep Firewalls Active Now a days with Cable and DSL a lot of people have Routers, if you do not I highly suggest getting one, as they come with a Hardware firewall, which ultimately protects you more than any software firewall could even dream about without taking up your computer's resources. A lot of your probably remember a few worms a while back that hit a ton of computers, Code Red I think was a huge one for DSL customers. When this worm hit the only really protected computers where those that had a hardware firewall in place to block certain ports which the worm infiltrated on. There are always worms circulation through the internet that attach to computers who do not have the port or an update to fix the worm blocked. I have Spyware!! Help! Once you have reached the stage that your computer is infected with Spyware, you have two choices. First choice is to download my favorite program, Spybot Search and Destroy. I have used this program for many years and if the spyware can be removed without a format this program will do it. Your second choice, which most people do not like, is a clean format. Basically wipes all of your software off and restarts you from ground zero. Personally I format my computer every 3-6months whether my computer is infected or not. But for the average user that is not viable. I would suggest that your computer is formatted every 1 to 2 years. Just to keep it running smooth and clean. When the computer is formatted you know that it is spyware, virus and any type of malware free. Ending Notes In the end avoiding Spyware, Malware, Worms and Virus's does not require some high priced virus or spyware checker. All it requires is a little work and a little time to make sure you are downloading and installing software you want and making sure it is not infected or bundled. I have not ran any anti-virus or anti-spyware software on my computer since 2000 and the only time I get infected, is when I consciously realize that I downloaded something I should not have. Luckily I have multiple harddrives and I always make sure that my main Windows Drive has nothing important on it so I can format it without worrying about losing any personal or important data. Well I hope this will help you to avoid Spyware and Virus's and keep your system running clean and smooth for years to come! Related Articles Spyware Tips for Avoiding and Removing (Note I know the two are very similar but it does not hurt to re-iterate from time to time) |
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8 Comments
Mood: swanky KeyWords: spyware, malware, virus, avoid, remove, prevent, bundle, software, freeware, adware, help, stop |
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Popular Torrent Usages by FrosT Introduction Recently I have been approached by a few people who have asked about torrents. The main question I get is the legality of a torrent and the ethical issues involved with downloading torrents and seeding, or uploading, torrents. Really the torrent community has a bad reputation, for merited reason. Most torrents are used to transport illegal and pirated material. But for the few people who do not use torrents in this way, the legality views can hinder their projects and plans. Torrents Save Money Torrents are an ideal solution for any small software company starting out. The reason being is that bandwidth is expensive. A torrent can easily save a small company starting out or even a larger company money by utilizing a system where peers help share the files. The Torrent system is also ideal for Non-Profit organizations to help get their software or files out to their employees for little to no cost all the while having the volunteers be able to help out with their own computer bandwidth. The biggest organization to utilize the BitTorrents would be the Linux community, who offers free open-source operating systems for those who cannot afford Windows and or want more functionality from their computers. The Ethical Views Torrents are noted for their bad reputation and for a lot of people this will shy them away from ever downloading a torrent. For the few companies that choose to use Torrents this will effectively limit their customer base. Torrents, in it self are not unethical; however, how torrents have been abused by many software pirates is. If you are downloading a torrent to obtain a copy of software, the best way to make sure what you are downloading is not illegal, is first check the companies website (if it is hosted on a 3rd party website). See if the software you are downloading requires to be purchased. If it does you have a couple options, one you can help out the business by informing them of the torrent. Two you can download the software from that torrent, but be sure to buy a genuine license key. Three do your own research; talk with the company etc. doing this will save you from having any type of lawsuits for downloading illegal software. Just remember that not all torrents are bad or good. Always virus scan what you downloading and make sure the software you are downloading is legal, if not go straight to the company. Ending Notes In the end Torrents are not all illegal, although there is a vast community out there that do use torrents illegally, torrents can be considered a viable solution to expensive bandwidth; thus allowing companies, non-profit or profit making, pass along their savings to their customers all the while making access to their files easier. Remember a lot of time and effort go into making movies, games, and software. Give credit where credit is due. |
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6 Comments
Mood: chillin KeyWords: torrent, bit, bittorrent, legal, illegal, linux, organizations, computers, bandwidth, afford, price, cost, solution, community |
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Tips for Creating Aeonity Templates Introduction As some of you may have noticed, I created a new template for my Free Aeonity Blog. Well given how much work it took I found a few tips and tricks that can help everyone on the community to figure out our crazy template system! Always Backup Make sure you backup your current template, especially if you like it and you have modified it recently. I usually open notepad and copy/paste everything into that and save it to my desktop as template_bup-date.txt This way I will always have that version incase everything gets messed up beyond belief. Also that version of the template can help you figure out the coding scheme for ETS (Easy Template System) which is what Aeonity currently uses. Design First, Implement Later Since Aeontiy does not have a "testing" center for templates the best way to go about designing a new template is to actually design it first. Get everything exactly how you want it and make sure it works in the browsers you use most (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera etc). Once the template is done in full html without any of Aeonity's template coding structure then you can start implementing. But do not implement until you have everything how you want it. I would use real life examples as the text and subject material etc. This will give you a good feel for what the template will look like. Implementing the New Template Now that you have the design completed how you want it, the time to implement the new template design is now. Open up the backup file we created of your current/old template. Note the very top, {mask:main}, and the bottom {/mask} as those are key. Without that Aeonity will not accept the template. I generally start with the navigation as that is easily and generally static. So take the navigation portions and insert the links and code in them. It should be generic and easy. Next I code in the blog portion. This will be looped for however many blogs you display on your page, so remember that. Insert the {body}, {subject}, {date}, {mood}, {custom_text} where you put them on your template inside the {mask:blog} {/mask} portions. Finally I code the comments. This part can be tricky with the add comment portion. The add comment portion will only show up when a user clicks on the actual blog. To do this the {set} is used and as stated before their should be an example on the current template. To get the add comment form the way you want there are a few different choices. You can create it on your own and not use the {add_comment_block} Aeonity provides or you can style the add comment section using the classes that Aeonity's default code has in place (view source on your current blog for that code). This should allow full custom ability for the comment block. Ending Notes Now that you know the tips and tricks hopefully it will be less frustrating to attempt to create a new template for Aeonity. In the future at some point we will be creating a whole templating section on Aeonity, where you can create templates and test them without disrupting your current blog. Unfortunately that is quite a task and it does not look to be done in the future but is of high priority as we want to move to the new Web 2.0 interfaces. To do that we need templateors and we want them to be able to template in ease. Questions about templates, features etc, for now use the contact form until a FAQ has been generated for you. Thanks! On that note if you need help converting an already designed template shoot me an email at frost [-at-] aeonity [-dot-] com. I will not design any templates but am more than happy to help implement them. |
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Mood: smart KeyWords: template, aeonity, creating, editing, backup, blog, tips, tricks, styles, code, html, css |
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Comcast recently made a news release that it will be pulling the plug on Bit torrent seeding ports. What this means is that the Linux community is going to take a huge hit from not having their distributions seeded, plus many other free based companies that do not receive any profits from their products. As such I took action by visiting So go ahead and tell your story. Help us save the internet from being crippled by ISP companies such as Comcast and AT&T! Speak up! Here is my story from the above link: Bit Torrent traffic is not all illegal. A lot of us help out the Linux community and other Open source free software communities by seeding legal software distributions which in return saves them bandwidth. Having this stupid logic in place prevents great feats like that from happening and will basically shut down the Linux community as no one can afford to buy hosting for as much traffic as they bring in. Stop trying to take control of the internet, I will be looking into a new company to take my money and not limit me. Thanks Comcast for making not want to give you my money anymore. I sure as hell wasted my time and money by switching from DSL. |
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11 Comments
Mood: chilled KeyWords: save, internet, comcast, att, speak, voice, limit, torrent, traffic, seeding, your, story |
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Win a 1990 FJ62 Toyota Land Cruiser by FrosT ![]() Introduction Do you want a chance to win a 1990 FJ62 Toyota Land Cruiser? I know I do. Your question is, where can I find a sweet deal like that? Well for starters you can Buy $3.00 Raffle Tickets for a chance to win. Now the question you have is why is there such a sweet deal to win this 1990 FJ62 Land Cruiser, which has definitely been DECKED OUT? Well let me explain how the 1990 FJ62 Fully Customized Raffle vehicle came to be. 1990 FJ62 Fully Custom Land Cruiser Thanks to Rising Sun Land Cruiser 4WD Club and many other people the Raffle Vehicle, 1990 FJ62 Land Cruiser, who has put in many hours of wrench work and has received many donations from awesome vendors. Without the vendors, the donations or even the wrench work, this vehicle would not be as sweet as it is now. Why not give it a try for just $3.00 a Raffle Ticket? This is a win-win situation, as the money you put into the Raffle tickets will be used as such: The proceeds from the ticket sales are distributed through the Associations Funds as follows: 30% to the Land Use Fund, 10% to the Promotion Fund, 40% to next years Raffle Fund, 5% to the Office Fund, 12.5% to the Scholarship Fund and 2.5% to the Sunshine Fund. All unused monies in the Raffle Fund at the end of the year will be transferred to the General Fund. Ending Notes There is really no reason you should not spend at least $3.00 a Raffle Ticket to enter for a chance to win a 1990 FJ62 Land Cruiser and help keep 4WD trails open. What are you waiting for? Hurry and Buy a $3.00 Raffle Ticket to win this AMAZING 1990 FJ62 Toyota Land Cruiser! References: The 1990 FJ62 Land Cruiser Raffle Vehicle Rising Sun 4WD Club Buy a $3.00 Raffle Ticket to win the 1990 FJ62 Toyota Land Cruiser Raffle Vehicle A picture of the 1990 FJ62 Toyota Land Cruiser |
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8 Comments
Mood: great KeyWords: toyota, land, cruiser, landcruiser, rising, sun, risingsun, 4x4, 4wd, offroad, raffle, vehicle, 1990, fj62, custom, mod |
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Mile-Hi SkyDiving near the Mile High City by FrosT Introduction Recently I took my wife SkyDiving at Mile High Skydiving (Mile-Hi Skydiving) in Ft. Lupton, Colorado. Roughly 45 minutes North of the Mile High city, Denver, Colorado. If you would like to read about the whole anniversary you can read about it at my other blog. Mile-Hi Skydiving is a very professional and friendly place. The two trainers my wife and I received were very knowledgeable and enjoyed Skydiving for a living. The Skydiving experience was a tremendous one and one that we will never forget. We owe it all to Mile-Hi Skydiving. The Skydiving Experience The Skydiving at Mile-Hi Skydiving was excellent, the view was spectacular and everyone was friendly. From the moment we walked into the hangar till the moment we got back to hangar we never felt left out or looked down upon. It was actually quite funny as we went up with a group of experienced Skydivers and you could just tell every one of them was saying, "I remember when I was sitting in their position." It was a very calming feeling that actually helped calmed my nerves before I jumped out of the airplane to Skydive. This whole breath taking experience, which I do mean literally, is one that everyone should experience at least once in their life. Skydiving is a ton of fun and I hope I get a chance to do it again in my life. Mainly because I was so nervous during the whole plane ride and free fall that I would make a mistake that I was not able to "fully" enjoy the experience. The Cost to Skydive Mile-Hi Skydiving costs are reasonable compared to other skydiving centers. For a first time jump, or Tandem jump, it costs $185, per person. An extra $80 for a video of the jump. The Tandem jump was very educational and will make the next step hopefully less scarier and more enjoyable. The next step is the Accelerated Free Fall which costs $300, where you jump with 2 instructors who guide you through how to know when to pull the parachute cord etc. I hope I do get a chance later on in my life to further myself in Skydiving and learn to enjoy the experience instead of barely knowing what happened. The Addiction After the jump I really said, "I am good and I do not think I will ever Skydive again." Well about 30 minutes after I said that, I wanted to go again. Skydiving, which I now understand, is very addictive for the adrenaline rush you feel, which is an intense one that will have you tired and smiling for days. I can say that I would love to Skydive a lot more, but do to money constraints I do not see me Skydiving anymore anytime soon. Hopefully one day I will go back to Mile-Hi Skydiving and maybe even do all the jumps required to be fully certified to have $23/jump fees. Ending Notes If you are near the Mile High city of Denver, Colorado, I would highly suggest you take the 45 minute drive up to Ft. Lupton, Colorado and Skydive with Mile-Hi Skydiving Center. You will have the best time of your life and feel a real accomplishment. Skydiving is something you should experience at least once in your life, as it was the best time I can ever remember having. References: Mile High Skydiving (Mile-Hi Skydiving) in Ft. Lupton, CO |
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4 Comments
Mood: care-free KeyWords: skydiving, mile-hi, mile, high, center, colorado, denver, ft. lupton, thrill, fun, awesome |
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USBank: Prevent Over Drafting Charges with New Alerts by FrosT Introduction Recently I was over drafting on an account due to insufficient funds. Well I was quite mad that a week later USBank finally sent me a letter stating this and was upset that they could not email. Before I went on a wild rampage on the phone with a customer service representative I decided to check USBank's website to make sure this option was not available. New Alert Feature to USBank Online Banking What I found was that sometime between this year and last year USBank added a great feature, without notifying you of this feature of course, that you can now get an email and even a text message upto 3 different addresses for a Negative Balance, when your Account's balance reaches a certain amount or when items have been posted or withdrawn. This new alert feature from USBank is a great and appreciate feature by me. The Negative Balance How USBank works is if you over draft from an account you are charged $31, plus $7 for every day after that which your USBank account is under $1. If not taken care of in 14 days you are charged another $31 fee etc. USBank does inform you via a postcard within 3-4 business days, but buy that time you are already out money and chances are you probably made more than one purchase recently. With the new feature you can prevent banks getting a ton of money from you! Here is how to set up the alert. USBank Alert Setup Start off login to USBank Internet Banking. Once you are in the Internet banking you should see a menu on the left hand side with a Text Link called "Alerts." When you over over this link it should take you to Security or Account. Click on Account. Once you are here select and account to setup the alert on. Yes you can even set one up on your USBank credit cards. After you select the account, the next step is to choose the type of alert. Choose your alert and follow the instructions, enter your EMail or phone number for text messages. Once done click Save and you have succesfully helped prevent yourself from being screwed out of a lot of money by USBank. Ending Notes I remember seeing a TV Story on this exact topic, how banks do not offer sufficient means of notifying you when you have over drafted on your account because they like that money. Well maybe USBank listend to that article and decided they needed to try and help their customers keep their money and not lose it. Either way I am very pleased with this new Alert feature that USBank so kindly offered me. |
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Mood: brave KeyWords: usbank,alert,internet,banking,negative,over,draft,fee,balance,account |