E-Bay Is Broken Buyers & Sellers Beware

Yet another writer and blogger descibing thier selling experinaces on E-Bay it's nice to see that the fruad problem is still around although not with coins this time it's still the clasic ongoing scam. Below for you convenince is a copy of the article.

I expected selling my computer on eBay to be easy.

Attempt 1: I listed it. Within hours, someone bought it -- from a hacked account, as eBay notified me, canceling the sale.

Attempt 2: I listed it again. Within hours, someone bought it, and asked me to send it to her via FedEx overnight. The buyer sent payment via PayPal immediately, and then -- near as I could tell -- immediately opened a dispute with PayPal so that the funds were put on hold. And then she sent me an e-mail saying "I paid you, now send me the computer." But PayPal was faster than she expected, I think. At the same time, I received an e-mail from PayPal saying that I might have received a payment that the account holder did not authorize, and that I shouldn't ship the item until the investigation is complete.

I was willing to make Attempt 3, but someone on my blog bought it first. It looks like eBay is completely broken for items like this.

It's not just me.

http://consumerist.com/5007790/its-now-completely-impossible-to-sell-a-laptop-on-ebay or http://tinyurl.com/55hprp

A copy of this essay, with all embedded links, is here:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/06/fraud_on_ebay.html

Microsoft, HP ready XP SP3 endless-reboot patches Help is ON the way for The Endless Reboot Monster

Well it looks like help might be on the way for those of us that got hit by The Endless Reboot Monster that owners of HP Computers with AMD chipsets were having.

Help is on its way for users affected by the Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 3 endless-reboot problem that has plagued some users for the past week-plus.

Both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard are readying patches that should remedy the glitch, which seems to affect primarily users of AMD-based systems.

Microsoft blamed OEMs who improperly placed a Windows XP image created for Intel-based machine on non-Intel-based systems.

HP is advising users running XP on AMD-based systems to delay deploying SP3 until the company releases a patch, which sounds like it is due out this week or next at the latest. From a May 15 report in Computerworld:

“HP is working diligently with Microsoft on a software update and will be proactively distributing a patch this week through HP Update that will prevent this error from occurring….The patch will be posted to this page of HP’s support site when it’s available.

“Microsoft is also developing a prerequisite fix that must be downloaded before SP3 will automatically install prior to its proactive distribution of SP3,” HP statement added.”

Microsoft XP SP 3 The Reboot Monster

I'm not a High tech person, I'm pretty simple really and not very demanding all I want is for something to work properly. I tried installing SP 3 on My AMD machine. I read all the paperwork on known issues and thought I was safe, needless to say I was not.

I ended up getting the endless reboot monster. I was lucky though I was able to get into a safe mode where I could do a restore some people are not even able to do that! Now I'm spending hours fixing everything reinstalling security fixes and that does not even cover my losses.

I'm sick and tired of Microsoft putting out things that break your computer at what point should they be held financially liable? My thoughts are the only time we are going to see them take responsibility is when it Hurts their pocket book.

I'm going to take a wait and see approach though, as I know Microsoft is Blaming HP for using an alleged disk image that was only to be used for Intel machines, but I think Hp is saying Microsoft put in an unnecessary driver that is causing the crashes either way I'm one ticked off customer. I also don't think this is an isolated event please take the time to report your problems with Microsofts XP SP 3 here. You will also find some links below to some helpful info.

Jespers Blog

Steps to take before you install Windows XP Service Pack 3

Vista Day One

I thought it might be interesting to give some updates about the trials and tribulations of using Vista.

This is day one, so far I have spent way too much time removing crapware on top of that you have the constant barrage of yes or no's being asked to run or not run a program.

This in my opinion is a crock of you no what, so that Microsoft can claim they are concerned about security, as these messages do not give you any useful information and for the lay person creates a condition of a person just saying yes without really knowing what they are saying yes to just to get the system to work.

It also creates for Microsoft Vista a tech support excuse of Hey you caused the problem not us, you clicked yes! as opposed to saying hey we created a system that has legacy code and still has poor security, using Vista feels all most like it's running on top of XP so far it just does not feel right.

Also Vista is a RAM Hog Computers are being shipped with the bare minimum needed to run each flavour of Vista, I'm running the premium flavour with one gig of Ram, it's not enough in my opinion you need at least Two gigs and for things to get back to a XP like speed you need Three GiGs and a good graphics card if you want anything near average performace in the real world.

Needless to say I'm not impressed, maybe in time I will change my mind, but so far Vista is all flash and hype with no substance stay away from it at all costs. That's my opinion, let me know what you think? Do you Like Vista or do you hate it?

CrapWare

I just bought a new computer from HP, I must say I'm not thrilled, Vista is slow and Flashy, yet I don't see much of an improvement over XP SP2 if you have any choice at all stick with that.

The other thing I really hate is all the crapware that's being loaded I have spent hours trying to get rid of it as some of it is in hidden folders or have logfiles missing that one I keep getting when I try to get rid of the yahoo toolbar, needless to say I'm really ticked off with that. When are company's going to figure out that crapware just annoys your customers too death, at the very least make it easy to remove. No one likes something forced on them. All I can say is I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and the next computer I buy will be crapware free if I have to build it myself.

Computer company's take note people don't want Crapware.