identity

Ok, this one is going to be a little long. And strange. And interesting.

We’ll get to the moral of the story first:

don’t trust anything that looks too good to be true

Ok, now that’s out of the way… I almost bought a new laptop. Check that… I apparently have bought a nonexistant laptop. Confused? So am I, but a things came into focus pretty quickly.

Now for those of you who are wondering, yes, I already have a new laptop. But I’m not sure if this is really the right one for me (all that will become more apparent when I publish the review I’ve been working on). Anyway, in a fit of temporary insanity, I went onto ebay looking for the other brand of tablet PC that I’ve been interested in: the Toshiba m200. My thought process was: if I can find one for cheap, I’ll buy it, test drive it and keep the laptop I like better.

I found one with great specs and a low price. Really great specs and real low price. Like a couple hundred dollars lower price. And I bought it.

Then, as soon as the auction was over, sanity kicked in. Like the type of sanity that says, “Wow, this laptop is really underpriced considering it’s got an 80gb hard drive and a gig of memory.” The same voice of reason that says “Hmmm, and I didn’t know that they made this model with a 1.8gHz processor.” And yes, the same voice of reason that says “That’s because it was never manufactured with a 1.8gHz processor.”

At that point, I started to notice a few things

• The unit was undervalued by about $600 street
• The seller selling it had no previous ebay record
• In fact, the seller joined the day they put it on sale
• The unit had impossible specs
• The seller wants to be paid by direct deposit into a checking account

So my spider sense is going gangbusters at this point screaming “FRAUD!”

At the same time, my fundimental belief in people is saying “It isn’t necessarily a fraud. It could be she got some super secret special unit that she’s selling.”

Spider sense won out. I wanted to learn more abut the seller. I did a query on her (I say her becuase it was a female screen name) and learned a few things. “Mary_D.” (the name’s been abrievated to protect the innocent) hailed from Agawam, MA. And since her screen name was a full name I decided to make a white pages search for her. And sure enough, I came up with a “Mary D.” in Agawam, MA. So for a moment I thought this person might be legit.

But I decided to dig a little deeper and requested her full contact info from EBay. And that’s when I noticed that the White Pages phone number and the Ebay phone number were different. Not just a little different. Like 10 states different. “Mary_D.”’s phone was apprently located in Iowa (thanks to an internet area code search). So I e-mailed the seller and stated that before I paid we’d need to talk live on the phone and that she should send me a phone number to contact her at. I also contacted ebay and told them that something fishy was going on.

I then took one further step and called the White Pages “Mary D.”, a very nice lady in Agawam, MA. This woman was an e-mail seller, but confirmed that she never sold a laptop to me (nor had she ever possessed that type of laptop). And it was at that moment that my suspicions (which really had gone way past suspicions by this time) were confirmed. Someone had spoofed Mary’s identity and tried to make a quick score on Ebay. She/he might have gotten away with it to if it wasn’t for that pesky dog and … oh wait, different story. They probably would have gotten away with it if they hadn’t posted the wrong specs for the unit. Or let it go for so cheap.

And I’m stupid for initally falling for it. I was so blinded by price that I missed a couple clear warning signs.

On the plus side, I did notice them (someone else might not have). Both Mary and I have contacted Ebay. And I sure as hell am not paying for that computer.

On a side note, it’s a strange thing to inform someone that they’re identity has been stolen. I’ve known people that this has happened to in the past. Everyone involved ends up feeling vulnerable and kinda dirty (in a weird way). Plus this type of conversation is just awkward (”Hi you don’t know me but someone using your name sold me a non existant laptop”).

So there you go. I’ve already given you the moral of all of this. As to whether or not I’m going to get the Toshiba to compare, I’m not sure. Either way, I’m not getting that model (or going to be blinded by this type of deal).

Happy Birthday Jenny!

I’m sitting in my car waiting for a bakery to

open so I can buy some goodies for Jenny

& company.

As far as Chicago goes, god. l have so much to

do. It’s really scary. On the short list, l have to find

an apartment. Sometimes, I just don’t know where

to start. One thing at a time, right?

handwriting

this is my first at writing a blog with handwriting alone. I’m starting to get the hang of how to write this by hand. I’m not sure if this is all that much faster than writing it by hand, still this is pretty cool.

nerdvana

The acer is here. It’s cool. I’ve already had to reinstall the entire friggin’ system once. But that was due to Microsoft, not necessarily the tablet.

I don’t have enough of an opinion on it yet to really say if I’m going to keep it. There are aspects of it that I really like. There are others I’m not so sure about.

Right now I just want to get the system stable and set up. Once that’s done I’ll be able to really see what it can do.

On thing that has changed already is the wallpaper on the computer desktop… It came equiped with a picture of some buff guy “diving” out of my screen. All and all pretty homoerotic. In fact Jenny’s first comment about the machine was “you’re not keeping the wallpaper are you? *snicker* *snicker*.”

coming today… i can feel it

I think it’s coming today. I even brought a carrying case in for it. I fully admit that I’ve lost it over this laptop/tablet, but I haven’t embraced the techno geek side of my personality in a while :-).

Yesterday I got the opportunity to work out with a Wu Shu team from Tianjin University, China. They are visting at RIT. I have mixed feelings about Wu Shu and martial arts in China right now. Basically, since the 60’s or so there has been a big movement by the Chinese government to take the Martial Arts, neuter the martial out of them and turn them into more performance arts. Since I study the Chinese Arts more for the martial this doesn’t sit well with me. The general feeling in the broad community is that the best Chinese masters left China years ago. Either way, watching the team in action was great. And I was taught a short Bagua form (that had little to no martial application… big surprise).

At the end of the work out (which was open to the public) the team’s coach came over and invited me to come to Tianjin University in order to study Wu Shu. I politely thanked him, “shei shei,” (through the translator) and declined. Before I get a swelled head I should note that he extended this offer to a number of participants. But if I was ten years younger and not going to Chicago I might have considered the offer.

It’s wierd when you find yourself saying “if I was ten years younger.”

Acer Update

Looks like I might have been wrong. So far nothing. I even visted shipping/recieving. Nothing. No love. Woe is me.

sooo close

The Acer still isn’t here, but my refurbished Tungsten T and Palm Keyboard came in. I ordered both the day before the laptop so I was hoping this was a sign that it would be in today. No luck so far :-(.

The Tungsten is great and I think this is going to help me a lot with publishing meeting notes. I’ve had a Palm of one sort or another for the last seven years or so and I don’t know how I lived without them.

i’ve lost it

I keep walking back and forth in front of kodak.com mail station hoping that the Acer will magically appear there. While I want it to come today, I have a feeling I won’t see it until tomorrow. Uggg… the suspense is killing me!

And of course I’m building this up way too much for myself. I’m just afraid it’s going to suck.

more blogging to come soon ’cause…

I gotta new laptop. Actually it’s a wireless convertable tablet PC. An Acer Travelmate c302. And it’s going to be really cool (I hope). I had been interested in Tablets since I saw one at the store a little while ago. I’ve been dreaming about a good pen interface for a while. And having a portable computer made sense for Chicago. So I’m really excited (although I’m a little concerned about the graphics capabilities as it has an intergrated video card). It should be here in the next few days and I can hardly wait.

I’m such a geek about these things. I’ve been doing tons of research and it looks like this will actually make it much easier for me to blog on a regular basis (I’m just not home enough right now). We shall see.