1. Do not follow e-mail addresses that are included in the text section of postings. If the seller claims that is the only way to contact them, abandon ship and go no further. Send all the questions you have ONLY via the Ebay mail link (Ask Seller A Question). When you do send a message, ask about payment methods and shipping and such, not just about the item itself. If you don’t like the options the seller gives for payment method, tell him what you would be willing to do. If he is real, he may try to accommodate you because he has the item and he wants to sell it.

2. Short duration sales are very suspicious. There may be a few good reasons to sell quick and cheap, but there are a million bad ones. Scammers want to quickly hook their marks and then disappear into the ether. They do not want their postings to languish for for all to see.

3. Be wary of “private” auctions which do not disclose the names of the bidders. This warning is no longer valid because eBay themselves are now shielding some of this information. Probably a good thing on their part.

4. American laws do not apply anywhere but in America. The bad guys know that. So use great care, if you must proceed at all. Especially do not deal with anyone who is “temporarily” out of the country.

5. If the sale is supposedly in the United States, make sure the bid amount is in American dollars. Non-American currency values are printed in italics on Ebay, so they are easy to spot. It doesn’t make much sense for a guy in Texas to convert your bid to Euros, does it?

6. What is the return policy, and how much do they charge for shipping? Don’t be impressed by money-back guarentees and dirt-cheap shipping. If it is a scam, they aren’t going to give your money back and they aren’t going to ship anything.

7. Look at the seller’s feedback. Carefully! Don’t just look at an impressively large number and call it good. There is a ton of useful information here if you take the time to really investigate. If it is a stolen account, they are somebody else’s points anyway. But you can learn a lot:

A. Has he bought or sold anything recently, and what was it? Accounts that have no recent activity are much more likely to be stolen accounts.

B. Is this auction consistent with items bought and sold in the past? If a buyer of $5 trinkets is suddenly selling a $4000 drum set, take note. It may be valid, but it is suspicious.

C. Is the item location the same for this sale as for his last sales? Does the location actually exist, or is it some fictional locale?

D. Are his accepted payment methods the same as his last sales? If he accepted PayPal before, why is he insisting on a wire transfer or cashier’s check now?

E. The seller’s positive feedback points for purchased items are not very useful to you as a buyer, so don’t over-value them.

8. What else is the seller posting for sale at the time? Follow the link for Seller’s Other Items. If they have a large number of unrelated big-ticket items currently for sale (musical instruments, computers, cameras, bicycles…) that is very suspicious.

9. Look at the photos. Are they just stock pictures from the company web site or are they apparently authentic photos of the item? Scammers can get pictures of anything from the web, including from other Ebay auctions. If you have seen the exact same photo in other auctions, be suspicious. Also, look at the backgrounds in the photos. Does it look like they just took their digital camera into a store and started clicking away?

10. Talk to the seller! How? Place as low a bid as possible on the item. Bidding gives you the right to view the seller’s contact information. Go to this link, and paste in the seller’s name and the item number. Ebay will e-mail his contact information to you

If the phone number does not work, that is a major red flag. Use a phone number web-site or directory assistance to verify that the person’s name, location and phone number make sense. Don’t be afraid to ask very specific questions about the product and sale.

11. Is the item in the correct category? Another device scammers with use to hide their skulduggery is to post items in obscure places. Instead of searching the entire eBay universe for your item, specify your category.

GOOD NEWS ABOUT PAYPAL! They doubled their maximum loss coverage to $2000.00 as of January, 2007.

12. Payment method is a very big deal. C.O.D. is great if they will go with it. Escrow.com is good (though a little pricy), and the only escrow Ebay recommends. Some criminals set up bogus sites that sound and look like Escrow.com, but do not be fooled. DO NOT use any other escrow site. PayPal is good too, up to a point, but the sale does not qualify for their $2000 protection unless it specifies that on the posting. In that case, the best you can hope for is the $200 coverage extended by Ebay (minus a $25 service fee).

The whole official PayPal safety spiel is here:

If you use PayPal, use your credit card rather than your own bank account. Many credit card issuers will refund money stolen from you. It is not fail-safe, but it is another layer of protection. Never use Western Union for these transactions. Western Union’s own web site will tell you that. Wire transfers and any kind of check is a one-way ticket to fraud.

13. Some second-chance offers are scam attempts, so be careful. If there is a hot-link on the page, take a look at the URL it points to when you roll your cursor over it. (The URL is usually displayed at the bottom of your web browser) There are fake eBAY and PayPal sites that attempt to steal your login information. If the URL does not start with “https://” it is not a secure site. Do NOT log in there!

14. Finally, do not wait until the last hour of the sale to get interested in it. If it is something you want, there is some homework for you to do. Give yourself the time to evaluate things and give the seller time to respond to your questions. Do not burn bridges, but do not allow yourself to be burned.

You are doing business with total strangers here, and don’t forget it. Most people are decent and honest, but some aren’t, and they can really mess up your day.

This is looking like a great feature except for the fact that Microsoft shipped consoles with no hard drive or a 20gb hard drive for the early years and still sells units without a HD. I don’t know if this feature will make be go out and buy an overpriced proprietary HD from Microsoft but if I had a large xbox hard drive, I would use this feature for sure.

In case you haven’t seen or herd anything about this new software, bellow is a video showing off a lot of the cool new features.

Problems

• Glossy screens only.
  Prosumers need a monitor that displays colors accurately, which this glossy screen does not, and one that can be used in different lighting environments without being crippled by glare. Have a choice was good, a matte only option would be fine, but Glossy only is a problem.
• Cinema Display Connectivity
  Although this new display does have a 3 port usb hub built in along with an isight and speakers it is only compatible, out of the box, with the new macbook’s and macbook pro’s. For any other machine, you need an adapter which costs extra money.
• Firewire 400
  The macbook does not have any firewire options and the pro variety has firewire 800 only. This is a huge problem. Macbook users will no longer be able to use their external hard drives or video cameras and pro users are down a port. Come on apple, it’s just one little port but would be wonderful for many people.

Watch the keynote .

…this may be set in the halo 3 world but you probably will be playing as someone other than the master chief

Well, I’m happy to say my prediction was correct; Halo 3: Recon is an expansion to and takes place before the action in Halo 3. You will be playing as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST), one not as powerful as the master chief, in order to recapture the covenant infested city in New Mombasa. Besides some news maps, the multiplayer in this new game will essentially be the same as Halo 3.

With this in mind, Bungie has said that

“We’re not viewing this as a full game.”

So hopefully we will see a lower price point than the regular $60 USD but this has not been confirmed. An interesting comparison was made when Luke Smith told kotaku

“I would think of it [Halo 3: Recon] as our Frozen Throne,”

Referencing the very successful and fun expansion to Warcraft 3. The game is set to be released Fall 2009.

This new model is 12% smaller than the current DS lite in part because there is no longer a GBA (Game Boy-Advanced) slot. Personally I would have preferred if they kept the GBA slot and the dimensions transferred from the current model to this new model.

The DSi screen’s have both received an upgrade to 3.25 inches each but unfortunately it appears the resolution will remain the same. For storage, the DSi will have an unmentioned internal supply as well as an SD port for expandability.

Additionally on the hardware side, the DSi will ship in both white and black finishes. Plus, they will have an external 3 megapixel camera as well as a front facing camera.

On the software side of things, Nintendo will be selling content directly to the users DSi over the ‘DSi Shop’ including a free web browser application and “DS Ware” game. Using the newly renamed ‘Nintendo Points’ users will be able to purchase additional content priced using either a 200, 500, or 800 point bracket.

The above video clip above from Bungie hints at future products coming from the developer famous for the halo franchise. And from the looks of things, the fight is not finished.

Obviously, this game will be an xbox 360 exclusive and I’m sure the online play will be great similar to halo 3’s addicting action. There has been speculation in the past that the next halo game would be halo 4 but I’m not so sure. Halo has been dominated by the master chief thus far so a game not focused on him would be different which is why I feel this upcoming title is not halo 4.

In my opinion, it looks like this may be set in the halo 3 world but you probably will be playing as someone other than the master chief. This would make sense considering the other teaser trailer Bungie launched after wining an EFI award didn’t show the master chief. Watching it over a few time I have also found what appears to be a release date: 01/06/09.

Kotaku has some interesting information on what the trailer means. If you have followed the franchise in the past, it’s worth reading.

Although these ads seems similar to the apple “Get a Mac” campaign I can respect these Microsoft ads and I think they are a step in the right direction. The Seinfeld ads got me thinking about Windows, not for the right reasons but I was thinking, and now these new ads actually are talking about windows. They show that windows is used throughout the world by many different people for many different tasks.

Good job Microsoft, but you are still only beginning to fight back in this marketing war.

The other two ads are bellow

I’m a PC and I wear a suit:

I’m a PC and I am not alone:

• Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls.
• Significantly better battery life for most users.
• Dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes.
• Improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts.
• Faster installation of 3rd party applications.
• Fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes for users with lots of third party applications.
• Improved performance in text messaging.
• Faster loading and searching of contacts.
• Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display.
• Repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages.
• Option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts.
• Genius playlist creation

This update also address several security issues. Apple even gives specific instructions on how to install the new firmware.

I am still testing this firmware and will get back to you with an update regarding my personal experiences.

Update:
My personal impressions of this new software is in the video bellow. Honestly, apple made a huge mistake shipping buggy software at launch and this 2.1 software update is what the original firmware should have been.

I have already talked about the mojave experiment but the above video is a new ad campaign by Microsoft featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. (Apparently, this is just the first in a set of several Seinfeld Gates ads.) It seems to me like Microsoft decided that they really needed a strong ad campaign to compete with apple’s “Get a Mac” ads. As of now however, I think the combination of these Seinfeld Gates ads and the mojave experiment are not going to work the way Microsoft envisioned.

Anyway, the ad above entitled Shoe Circus Commercial was some-what interesting for me to watch. However, without the information I had telling me this was a Windows ad it’s a little hard to comprehend this is trying to sell Windows. I mean, I could defiantly see if this way trying to sell shoes but software? How is the average person supposed to feel enthralled into buying Windows with this? For the $10 million they are paying Seinfeld and the multimillion dollar bill for the entire campaign, Microsoft needs to start making a better ad very soon. Apple’s “Get a Mac” ad’s at this point are more creative and actually sell a product.

I have said it a few times and I will say it again. The best way for Microsoft to go about advertising windows is to give away trial machines with vista preinstalled and allow the user to have a good, unaltered, test. That way, they go out and buy the product and tell their friends too. At a minimum, the next bunch of ads need to be firmly based on windows and even take some blows against apple. Microsoft can no longer site on their butts not caring because their market share is much higher than anyone else. The fact of the matter is apple is rising fast and Microsoft should be worried.

New Commercial
Microsoft has uploaded another one of the Seinfeld Gates ads. This one, running about 4 minutes 30 seconds (although the version I saw on tv ran less than that), features Bill and Jerry trying to fit in with regular people. Again, it doesn’t focus on Windows until the end and even then it only touches on it. What is Microsoft doing?

Starting on September 5th, 2008 Microsoft will officially start selling their xbox 360 consoles at a $50 price decrease. The prices are as follows:

Xbox 360 Arcade $199
Xbox 360 Pro (60gb HD) $299
Xbox 360 Elite (120gb HD, Black) $399

What does this really mean? Well, the console with the largest gaming selection and best online play is now also the cheapest. (The Arcade’s $199 price point compared to the $250 Nintendo Wii) At these lower prices, more people have an opportunity to jump in and play. I think this move is perfect for Microsoft. They now have the opportunity to draw in casual gamers and sell consoles to people upgrading from the previous generation. Even hard-core gamers who can’t afford a $400 system or don’t want to play party games all day, now have an option to frag their friends in halo 3 or slice them in half with gears of war all that a reasonable price.

This move is really tough on Nintendo. No longer is their console the cheapest and therefore casual gamers now have another option. When those people walk into a gaming store or their local big-box chain, they have the choice for a more powerful and cheaper console with a larger gaming selection to boot. People are still flocking to the Wii so it’s not a huge threat at this time, but it is something Nintendo needs to keep their eyes on.

As for the prices of the other consoles, I don’t foresee an immediate response. The Nintendo Wii, which is still in high-demand, is consistently outselling the competition. The PlayStation 3 is also selling well and has some great exclusives in the works. However, I think by the holiday season both companies will bight the bullet and lower their prices too. Honestly, this is great for the consumer whether you want a 360 or not.

Source

Now for the meat of this post, the breakdown and comparison of the Nokia N95-4 8GB NAM and the Apple iPhone 3G. The phones are compared in five different categories spanning design, navigation, features, multimedia, and call quality. Although in the end one phone must win, both are quality devices and should not be taken lightly.

Design
The Nokia N95 has a very sleek look.The glossy black front and matte-black finish on the back looks quite nice. The dual slider looks good too. The screen is pretty bright and everything looks like it belongs. However, it would have been nice if Nokia updated the look of the buttons and made the device a little skinnier. As for the iPhone 3G, Apple has once again created a device which has no competition. The screen is amazingly bright, responsive, and large while the sleek finish on the back continues the unique design from the front.
Winner: Apple iPhone 3G

Navigation
The N95’s weakest attribute is its navigation. Finding a particular application or function takes a while when you have to dig threw the file structure of this phone. Plus, you are limited by the button navigation that is far less efficient than a touch screen or scroll ball. As for the iPhone, everything you need is with-in a fingers tap, as you can store anything you need on the home screen. Plus, the touch screen works so well. Nothing currently on the market can match the sensitivity and accuracy of that screen.
Winner: Apple iPhone 3G

Features The Apple iPhone 3G is loaded with features. You have the app store which is an amazing resource for free and commercial applications, Eight or 16 GB of storage, and friendly support at your local apple store. (If you ever need it) Plus, thanks to the great interface, web-browsing on the iPhone is amazing. (Both phones have HSDPA and UMTS for 3G networking.) The N95 doesn't have a great service for finding application on the go however you can run almost anything on it. With the iPhone, Apple decides what you can put on it, the N95 however does not have any such limit. (It can even run unsigned applications.) The N95 also has some basic features the iPhone is missing including MMS messaging, the option for turn by turn directions (although that costs extra), and the ability to tether your phone's data connection to a computer. It even has copy and paste functionality.
Winner: Nokia N95