Tag Archives: Internet

Snail Mail Phishing?

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I received two postcards in the mail today. Both were addressed to the same wrong first name, but the correct last name and house address. Both read something like the following.

I heard you’ve been collecting payments on a private loan or “note.” I would love to give you cash right now so you don’t have to worry about collecting payments anymore.

They varied slightly in word choice, but both were careful to use the quotation marks around the word note. Have phishing attacks using e-mail lost their effectiveness? Are scam artists turning to the old postal mail standby?

One of the postcards listed a web site, a classic “turn key” business site, where hundreds or thousands of users will have their own URI and a standard template, such as www.scams-r-us.com/dirt-bag. I’m sure the parent site takes their cut, too.

Anyway, I loaded the main site (http://www.cash4cashflows.com/) and it looks like every other scam out there. Some dirt bag scrapes web sites or purchases address lists, then he hands them out to everyone who signs up for the site. Of course, everyone who signs up gets the same set of leads, but that’s the best way to make money off a single lead more than once.

Cox Wouldn’t Know “High Speed” if it Bit Them on the Ass

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Since I initiated the service more than a year ago, I’ve been incredibly disappointed and annoyed by the extreme slowness of the mis-named “high speed” Internet access I’ve received from Cox Communications.

Periodically, I will run a speed test, just to gather data points. I’ve consistently seen a sustained downstream rate of 1.6 Mbps. Recently, the service has felt slower—sometimes unbearably so. I ran another test this afternoon:

Download Speed: 1520 kbps (190 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 276 kbps (34.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Seriously? This is high speed?

Somewhere I’ve seen Cox advertise rates of 3 Mbps, but I don’t have a reference to this handy. Searching Cox’s web site, I’ve found reference to 15 Mbps. I’m receiving one tenth the advertised rate, yet I’m paying 100% of the price.

Gee, thanks Cox. For nothing.

Roku Neflix Player

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On Tuesday, someone on IRC showed me the Netflix Player by Roku. It’s similar to the Apple TV, or Amazon’s Unbox, but obviously works with Netflix instead of iTunes. This benefits me because I have a Netflix subscription, and the Netflix Player, once purchased for $99.99, incurs no additional fees for streaming movies or television series. My package arrived today.

What’s in the box.

  • Netflix Player
  • Remote control
  • Power supply
  • Composite A/V cable
  • 2 AAA batteries
  • License Agreement and Warranty Statement
  • 7 step Getting Started manual

Reading through the simple Getting Started manual, I noticed that Roku has only rated a single star for the quality of my video and three for the quality of my audio. I know, I know, I have a 10 year old 27 inch CRT and I really haven’t kept up-to-date in the A/V arena.

Connections on the back of the box include power, S-video, composite, component, and RJ-45. It supports wireless networking, but since I have a network switch next to the TV for the TiVo anyway, I went ahead and plugged it into the network.

Once hooked up and turned on, the system automatically downloaded an update, restarted, and connected to the Netflix service. Activating the box on my account was as simple as logging into my Netflix account and entering an activation code.

As quickly as that, I was able to start browsing what Netflix calls my Instant Queue. Since Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released today, I searched for Raiders of the Lost Ark for my first Roku movie. Unfortunately, that title was not available for instant viewing.

In fact, I found very little selection in the Instant Viewing area. For the moment, I’m willing to write this off to the recent introduction of the service. As more people adopt it, I expect more DVDs will be available for streaming.

My mom has been watching the British series MI-5 on BBC America. I don’t receive that channel, so I went ahead and added MI-5: Volume 1 to my Instant Queue. As advertised, it was immediately available on my Netflix Player.

The Netflix Player appears to buffer individual DVD chapters at a time to the player. The buffering went quickly, and the quality of the video was okay. No better or worse than what I usually record on my TiVo. I expect that if Cox was actually delivering Internet to me at the speeds they advertise, I would receive higher quality video. Either that, or the player detects which video cable is plugged in and downloads the appropriate quality stream.

Overall, I really like the Netflix Player and would recommend it to anyone with a Netflix account. However, it may be an impatient wait until more DVD selections are available. I would love to use the Netflix Player as an excuse to cancel my cable television service. Everything I watch is eventually released on DVD, so I’d be able to watch it when I want and without commercials. The one-time purchase price is just right, too, since I already have a Netflix account. Not paying for individual programs is a definite plus.

My entire Netflix Player Set on Flickr.