Since last night there is no more DirecTV for us.

We were subscribing to Premier package with 265 channels, including all HBO, starz, encore, SHOWTIME, all locals and many others in standard and HD version. The reason for subscribing to this package was that this was the only package offering FLIX and sundance channels.

The monthly cost was equal to monthly payment for a small car. Now we have rabbit ears, but they are better - free and digital.

When the customer service rep asked me why I want to discontinue my DirecTV service, I said - I will give you a standard answer - "the economy is bad". Without any further discussion he asked when I want my service to be discontinued. Now, I said. He said - since you are under no commitment anymore, you owe us nothing. We will send you boxes with prepaid postage. Put the leased receivers in the boxes and call FedEx to pick them up. That is it.

That was easy. Hearing my wife's screams was not. She did not approve the decision since I disconnected her favorite Jadeworld channels. Five standard resolution channels for just $36.99 per month - what a deal worth screaming about.

Since we are saving so much money, now I can go and buy my bike and will sleep with it in the garage.

Time has come to cut the cord from the home phone.

The economy is bad, everyone in the family has an iPhone and we do not use traditional phone anymore.

Actually we had a landline without the cord for the past four years. Vonage provided the service. I explained to the customer service guy that we had a great service, no problems. He offered free month, free six months, $10/month. I said that I do not want to call again after six months to discontinue the service.

Cut it now! So he did. Not even waited for the remaining five days of the current, paid for month, and there was silence - forever.

Mr. President Obama,

Today was a magnificent historical moment that could not be missed.
I have recorded it in HD to be able to watch it again.  

Your eloquent speech was strong and hopeful, promising great challenges and rewards.

Please lead this nation to be great again.

Wieslaw

There is a new software bundle for Mac coming this month.
It is called Mac Box Set and consists of iLife, iWork and OS X Leopard.
The list price of $169 is $10 less than iLife and iWork together, but you also get latest OS X thrown in for free.

Are there deals like this for MS software?
Not any time soon.
If you are still waiting - now is the time to jump the sinking MS ship.

It was close, but I am not going to be a millionaire after all.

My plan was to sell https.net on a recent Sedo auction for a million dollars. Am I kidding? Not! The place was right. I just did not do proper marketing campaign before the auction, like the pizza.com guys did. They sold their domain for $2,605,000.00. I got only $2,500.00 for my domain. Next time I am going to do a better job at marketing.

The first plan did not work, but all hope was not lost. Suddenly, yesterday I got another chance to be a millionaire. I received an email with a proposition to get $7,773,275.51 (50% of £7,800,000.00). All I need to do is to provide my name and a phone number to "Mr.Jason smith".

Note to the reader: All quoted text is shown exactly as it is written in the email.

You see, "Mr.Jason smith" is "the credit manager in a bank here in the United Kingdom." He writes:

"I am contacting you of a business transfer, of a huge sum of money from a deceased account. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that everything has been taken care off, and all will be well at the end of the day."

Well, I will not keep you guessing. This is kind of a typical Nigerian Phishing email. I usually do not get this kind of nonsense emails because my mail system puts it in a safe place where nobody can see it. This one got trough to my junk folder because it is full of errors. For your amusement below are forensic details of the millionaire offer.

Email was sent from IP 80.89.185.37 which is allocated to Cobranet Limited, with the physical address:
plot 8, Rafiu Babatunde Street, Lekki Phase I, Lagos, Nigeria.

Next, the Russian mail server mail.starlink.ru scanned it for content and added SPAM to the Subject line.

From and Reply to are different email addresses, probably false.

Below are partial headers (technical details) of the email.

From: Jason Smith <jason231smith@yahoo.gr>
Reply-to: Jason231smith@hotmail.com
Subject: [SPAM] Be our trusted contact

Received: from mx.starlink.ru ([77.50.1.3])
Received: from 80.89.185.37 ([80.89.185.37]) by mail.starlink.ru

End of story. I am not a millionaire. Back to the drawing board.

The latest number of bids on current Sedo auction shows that https.net is doing well in bid count. Not so good on the price. There is not much time left to get any of this great names.

See the latest standing at greatdomains.com

This post demonstrates proper use of tables. Modern page layout programs do away with tables. For example there is no easy way to make a table in an iWeb. 

Finally, https.net is featured on Premium Auction Event at sedo.com and greatdomains.com. Now I am not sure if I should let it be sold.

There are some outrageous bids for domain names being auctioned off. How about $1,000,000.00 for pizza.com, is it too much?

Follow the link below to see for yourself.

http://greatdomains.com/search/searchresult.php4?auctionevent=Greatdomains

There was to much clutter on my blog.
Clutter - no more.

For today, we got rid of categories, will just keep tags and mo more links.

I have to split my posts to more relevant and focussed groups.
Soon there will be no more Chinese software and wine in the bathroom and Mac should not mingle with Windows or Linux.

Today, I discovered a solution to my bath problem. While at IKEA, I decided to take a look at the closet that caught my eye. The doors to the closet were replaced with cloth panels using KVARTAL track system. Next to the closet was a bathroom and there was a solution staring at me. A rectangular RAAN rod with FLORENCE curtain and RINGSJON rings. It took less than five minutes to install.

Here it is. My personal office bathroom problem solved.

I am really happy about what I did.
Just replaced my old HunterDouglas faux wood blinds with IKEA KVARTAL track and panel system. I decided to mount the three track rails from the ceiling instead of using traditional angle brackets. It just takes two screws to install it. I studied the twenty page manual first.

All IKEA products have multi language information. The most interesting aspect of the manual is - there are no words there, just detailed and accurate drawings. This solves the problem of translating technical information to different languages and transmits the idea of assembling the components together without second guessing. As the old saying goes: picture is worth a thousand words.

It worked for me and what is worth more - my wife approved it.
 

My office.

Zbyszko's room looks better because of the broken skateboards.