June 2008 – Page 2 – Krunk4Ever!

June 12, 2008June 12, 2008

Upgraded to WordPress 2.5.1

So after many months of WordPress complaining that I should upgrade from 2.3.1, I’ve finally decided to upgrade. What prompted this action was the fact I was trying to do a review on 時をかける少女 (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) and the stupid blog would convert all my unicode characters to ???????? (question marks).

I have no idea what’s wrong since Krunk4Ever.com runs on the same WordPress version and does unicode fine. I decided to try upgrading to WordPress 2.5.1, but the unicode problem still exist.

Searching online, I found WordPress, Unicode, and ‘?’s and it turns out Krunk4Ever.com’s wp-config.php was so old, it didn’t have the following defined:

define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8'); define(’DB_COLLATE’, ”);

When I commented that out from HD-Trailer.net’s wp-config.php file, I was able to do unicode, but all my existing blog entries that had non-standard characters now became funky (white question mark inside a black diamond). There didn’t seem to be a simple search and replace where I could fix the problem. The underlying problem appears that when WordPress first created the database, the text data type it set as default was latin1 instead of utf8.

Searching a bit more, I found: Converting Database Character Sets on WordPress.org’s site. So a brief read revealed this is exactly what I wanted. I wanted to convert my existing latin1 text to utf8 text. So I jumped to the solution and start altering tables, which wasn’t as simple as it looks. Those …for all other tables/columns… really gets to you.

Half way through the process, I found that I screwed up. Apparently I was suppose to convert LONGTEXT to LONGBLOB, and not just BLOB. Guess I should’ve read all the instructions first. Thankfully, I had backed up my database as it instructed. And I guess I should’ve scrolled further as under solution was Conversion Scripts and Plugins. Grrrrr.

I installed the UTF-8 Database Converter plugin, read the readme.txt FULLY, activated the plugin and started the conversion. BAM! Everything works now. Even though there were big red warning signs saying this plugin was meant for 2.1-2.2, it worked on 2.3.1 and 2.5.1 w/o any problems.

Back to WordPress 2.5.1. The admin UI has completely changed. It’s definitely prettier, but I dislike the fact that they’ve moved a bunch of stuff I’ve been accustomed to the side (such as categories) to below the post. And since I run on a 1920×1080 resolution monitor, this is leaving about half my screen white, basically wasted space.

However I really appreciate the fact that Save no longer refreshes the page. Same with a bunch of other post editing functions.

Another awesome thing is that plugins now support updating from within the admin panel! No longer do I need to deactivate the plugin, download the plugin, overwrite the existing plugin, and reactivate it. In one click, it now goes fetches the plugin and automatically upgrades it on its own!

I wonder if they’ve supported upgrading WordPress like this yet…

Anyway, if I find anything more interesting, I’ll let you know!

Also, if you see any funky characters, please let me know too. Thanks!

June 10, 2008June 8, 2008

ES Robbins Chair Mats – Lifetime Warranty?

So about 2 years ago, I purchased a chair mat (one of those plastic guys with tons of poking thingies). After I started using it for awhile, I noticed that my wheels were starting to dig into the chair mat and soon after that it began to crack. I’ve patched it with packaging tape, hoping to stop the crack from spreading, but new cracks formed. I thought, oh well, that’s part of its life.

However, when I was at Costco this past weekend, since I had an hour and 40 minutes to spare (my tires were being rotated and rebalanced), I walked every aisle and saw my chair mat. Apparently, these chair mats have a lifetime warranty and they’re NOT suppose to crack under normal usage on top of low/medium carpet. I’m pretty sure my carpet is medium, though I could be wrong. I guess you can consider sitting on a chair for long durations of time to be abuse and outside “normal usage”. So I jot down their website in my head (www.esrchairmats.com) and decided to check them out when I got home.

Like most things I jot down in my head, I tend to forget. It was only after typing up the previous CFL blog entry and talking about Costco which jolted my memory. I visited their homepage which states:

E S Robbins chair mats feature many patented innovations that make our floor chair mat products a world leader in quality standards. Our chairmats are protected by our No Crack guarantee and are designed for both hardwood and carpet applications. We are the industry leader in custom chairmat manufacturing.

Their Warranty Statement states:

E S Robbins Corporation Office Products provides a lifetime warranty on all the company’s chairmat products.* E S Robbins Corporation guarantees its AnchorBar®, Anchormat®, Crystal Edge®, Trans-Stat®, and No Crack® chairmats to be free from any defects in material and workmanship at the time of sale to original purchaser, and will not crack, chip, break or shatter under normal usage. The warranty only applies to the original purchaser. Should any product during the warranty period, in E. S. Robbins Corporation’s sole opinion, prove to be defective in material and/or workmanship under normal usage, E. S. Robbins Corporation will, at its option, replace the product at no charge (except as otherwise stated herein) provided that the product has not been subjected to abuse, misuse, misapplication, neglect, accident, disaster, alteration or modification.

So far so good…

I go to their Warranty Claim Form and notice 2 ridiculous things.

First, they’re asking for the UPC code, which is located on the sticker stuck to the chair mat when you first purchased it. Like most people, I discard that sticker probably the day I purchased it, which means I no longer have the UPC code. I guess I could jot down the numbers the next time I go back to Costco.

Second, A shipping and handling fee of $20.00 will be charged for all warranty replacements. What the !@#*? The chair mat only costs $18.xx at Costco. Why would I pay you $20 to mail it to me? I guess one smart way to offer lifetime warranty is by charging a ridiculous shipping/handling fee so that the warranty claim would never be exercised.

I could probably return this to Costco with no questions asked and get a full refund. I’m still contemplating on doing that. Next to these plastic chair mats, they had these nice wooden ones for $90, which look a lot more sturdier than this plastic chair mat. However $90 vs $20 is quite a big jump, though these stupid pot holes the chair has been digging into the plastic chair mats are starting to annoy me. Once the wheels go into a pot hole, it takes significant effort to push them back out.

June 9, 2008June 8, 2008

Upgraded to (Almost) All CFL (Fluorescent Light)

Turns out CFL stands for Compact Fluorescent Lamp and not Light (which doesn’t make sense to me since a light bulb isn’t exactly a lamp by itself).

Anyway, my mom alerted me a week or 2 ago that SCE (Southern California Edison Company) was subsidizing CLFs at Costco with instant discount/rebate. I recall seeing something similar, but PSE (Puget Sound Energy) is the one subsidizing them up here in Washington. The reason she called was not because that they were subsidizing the CFLs, but because Costco now carried bulb shaped CFLs (instead of the typical twirly tube ones). She suggested that I replace the bathroom bulbs with these, which made sense since each of my bathroom has 6 to 8 regular light bulbs above the mirror, which obviously wastes a lot of electricity when turned on.

So while I was at Costco today getting my tires rotated, I decided to take a look. Indeed they now carried bulb shaped (or as the box called it: globe shaped) G25 CFLs. A 4-pack of them was $10.39 – $6 (instant rebate) coming out to $4.39 or $1.10 per bulb. They even featured a picture on the box showing the fashion light bulbs above a mirror. At 40W, these light bulbs were a bit weak, but oh well. There wasn’t a limit, so I picked up 6 boxes of these since I had to replace 22 of these bulbs.

Next to them they also had the 65W R30 Reflector CFLs. My house has a bunch of these and these were also being subsidized: 6 pack for $17.89 – $12 (instant rebate) coming out to $5.89 or $0.98/CFL. This was the only type in the bunch that had a limit of 6 per membership. I picked up 2.

When I got home, I started replacing all the bulbs and things went pretty smooth. It got a bit tricky to unscrew bulbs in little to no light (one thing about light bulbs is that you can’t unscrew them when they’re on or you’ll burn off your hand), however I survived.

When testing these bulb, I noticed they were still the twirly tube fluorescent bulbs inside, but they just had a globe/bulb shell to make them look nicer. One thing I notice pretty much immediately about these CFLs was that there was a warm-up period. They start off dim, but reach pretty much full brightness in about 30 seconds. I’m not sure if it has to do with the shell, or maybe it’s this particular manufacturer (Feit Electric Conserv-Energy), but I’ve never had a problem like this with my existing CFLs (Philips Marathon – also purchased at Costco). A bit annoying at first, but maybe I’ll get use to it. Worse case, I’ll return them to Costco.

I hit into a bit of snag with my kitchen lights as it was on one of those adjustable/dimmer controls and even on max, it started flickering like crazy after a few minutes. If I sat there and held the knob at max, the flickering would stop, but once I let go, the flickering came back quickly. I unmounted the light switch and tried holding the 2 wires together and the flickering went away. Obviously it’s the dimmer causing the problem here. Luckily Lowe’s closed at 10pm on Saturdays and I went to electrical department armed with a $10 off $25 coupon.

I found the regular light switches and apparently there are regular, 3-way, and 4-way light switches. I understand a 3-way light switch allows you to control a set of lights at 2 opposite ends (typically top/bottom of the stairs), but what the heck is a 4-way light switch?

As a tangent, I had a problem awhile back where I discussed with Xyon because I had 2 flight of stairs, the bottom being the garage, the middle being the front door, and the top being the living room, and I would like to be able to control all the lights along the way with 1 switch located at each of those points. Currently it’s split as 2 separate 3-way switch circuits, each controlling lighting for one flight of stairs. Doing some searching on what a 4-way light switch after I got back, it appears to fit my scenario exactly! I’m not going to go too much into details now, but with 4 way switches, you can have as many switches to control the same set of lights as you want! To find out more about it, see: Wiring a 4-Way Switch and 3 Way Switch & 4 Way Switch.

Now back to the original story. I picked up a standard light switch and was about to head out to the checkout counters, when I noticed the decorator switches (the big rectangular ones). I thought neat! These were cheaper and I prefer them as light switches over the regular flip ones. So I went with the decorator light switch instead. As I was about to enter the freeway, I thought wait… the current switch panel has 2 small holes, big enough to fit only the regular light switches. Sigh… I needed a new switch panel. I turn around and head back to Lowe’s and purchased a switch panel that had one small hole and one big hole. Total still came out cheaper purchasing the decorator switch + new switch panel.

Once I got home, I installed the new switch and panel and things worked! Yay! Unfortunately I didn’t take a better look at the color of the original set of knobs/panel before I left and since my walls were egg shell colored (light yellowish), I went with the light beige decorator light switch and the light beige switch panel. Now there’s this white knob that stands out in front of it. If you’re wondering why there’s still a knob, that’s because there’s 2 switches on this panel, one for the kitchen lights, the other for the dining room which still uses light bulbs.

Why light bulbs for the dining room? There are still 3 places in the house which still uses regular incandescent light bulbs:

The chandelier above the dining table (which is the reason why I left the dimmer for that switch)
The ceiling lamp in my living room which is like 2 stories high (I thought about attempting to use my telescoping ladder, but decided against it)
The ceiling lamp in my storage room/basement which uses these very tiny light bulbs

All in all, I’m happy with CFL upgrade for my entire house. Now I have a bunch of spare incandescent bulbs.

June 8, 2008

Weekly Top Posts (6/1/2008 to 6/7/2008)

Here’s this week’s top post:

Previously…

Looks like Book Rental… has made a return! Not exactly sure what caused its return, but practically all of the 200 visitors came through Google.

There are 2 honorable mentions:

At position #11 was 2 Free Disturbed Tracks for Rock Band (Xbox 360), which unfortunately the deal is dead now.
At position #12 was Six Flags Discount (One-Day Adult Admission at Child’s Price), I’m guessing happened because I began redirecting people from Six Flags Discount (~50% Off)

June 8, 2008June 8, 2008

401K Loan

So a few days ago, Chokoboii and I were discussing about credit cards and loans and one thing he said that really irked me was: borrowing from CC is always the first choice, it’s the most convenient

I counter with credit cards loans should only be used as a last resort: interest rates are high, fees are high, and convenience is how people end up in the cyclic credit card debt. I asked if he was referring to 0% intro APRs, but his response was: I’m a fan of convenience, so opening an account…waiting for that card to come in..transfer balance..then closing the other one is kinda a waste of time

Somewhere down the road, I found out he owned a condo and then introduced him to HELOC (home equity line of credit), which is more similar to borrowing from a credit card than taking a loan out from a bank. Your HELOC is based off the value of your house and sits there with no fees. You only have to start paying interest once you take money out of it, and once you pay back the whole amount, the interest fees stop. According to Bankrate.com, a $30K HELOC is currently around 4.8% and a $50K is currently around 4.3%, which is a lot cheaper than typical credit card APRs which are at 10%+.

Anyway, what does all this have to do with a 401K loan? After talking to Chokoboii, in an unrelated incident, I was checking out my 401K to see if I should readjust what to invest in. That’s when I noticed there was this Loans or Withdrawals link. Clicking on it, I found out I had the following options:

LOAN – PREAPPROVED | $1,000.00 – $15,800.00 | 6.00%
PURCHASE OF PRIMARY RESIDENCE LN | $1,000.00 – $15,800.00 | 6.97%

The amount I could borrow looked close to half of my current 401K portfolio. I did a little more research and found this article: 401k Loans and 401k Hardship Withdrawals.

Some interesting things to note:

The primary benefit of 401k loans is that the proceeds are not subject to taxes or the ten-percent penalty fee except in the event of default.
The government does not set guidelines or restrictions on the uses for 401k loans.
In most cases, an employee can borrow up to fifty-percent of their vested account balance up to a maximum of $50,000.
Even though you’re borrowing from yourself, you still have to pay interest!
unlike interest paid to a bank, you will eventually get this money back in the form of qualified disbursements at or near retirement
the interest you pay back into your 401k plan is tax-sheltered.
Another consideration is employment stability; if an employee quits or is terminated, the 401k loan must be repaid in full, normally within sixty days.

Very interesting… Basically, there is no restrictions on what I use the loan for. The loan isn’t subject to taxes nor penalty for early withdrawal (since it’s not really a withdrawal). You have to pay interest on this loan, but you’re not paying the company nor the bank, you’re paying yourself. Since that money would have been accumulating interest or dividends, I assume that’s what your interest is compensating for. The interest you pay back is also tax-free until you withdraw it.

I talked to Derek a bit about this and he said the major drawback is the fact you’re tied to the company until you pay back this loan, because once you quit or get fired, you have to pay back the loan in 60 days, or else the loan would be declared in default and you’ll have to pay taxes + penalty fee for early withdrawal.

June 6, 2008June 8, 2008

Google’s New FavIcon

Not sure how many of you have noticed Google’s new favorite icon (aka favicon or shortcut icon):

It’s basically the little icon that shows up next to your address bar or the icon that gets saved when you try to bookmark a page. Anyway, when I first saw it a couple days ago, I was confused which site actually uses that icon and when I realized it was Google, I was even more confused. It used to be a capital ‘G’ on white background with and blue border. Now, it’s the little ‘g’ in the 4th letter of Google. What confused me was that it was in on a gray background, and due to the style of the ‘g’, it reminded me of some soap or shampoo logo.

Update: It turns out it’s only gray because it’s using transparency. On a gray background, it’s gray. On a white background, it’s white. The tabs on Firefox by default are gray, hence:

Update #2: Thanks to RayAlome for pointing me to the official Google blog entry of their new favicon: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

June 6, 2008June 5, 2008

As an Amazon.com Seller

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’ve added an Amazon.com Store link on my side bar, which currently lists the items I’m selling on Amazon.com. I began to buy and sell stuff on Amazon.com a long time back, but only recently (a few months ago) began to push a lot more volume (instead of 4 or 5 items a month, I am now pushing 30+ items a month). And it’s bringing in quite a shiny penny. Actually, I’m not too sure how shiny the penny is as in I haven’t really done any bookkeeping besides knowing that I’m selling items for more than what I purchased it for, which can range from a few dollars to over a hundred dollars per item.

I’m not going to go too deep into how this all works and what my “secrets” are, but if you’re interested in anything I’m selling and I personally know you, I can probably sell it to you at cost. Also ignore anything that’s listed as $2,000 as that just means I’m currently not selling it, probably due to insufficient stock or the pricing isn’t at what I want to sell it for.

I’ve also been maximizing my earnings by using my Amazon.com credit card and directing people to purchase under my affiliates account. The credit card gives me 3% back on all Amazon.com purchases, which has netted me $75 worth of Amazon.com gift certificate rewards for each of the last 2 months. The affiliates account started with only $90 earnings a few months ago, but just last month, I’ve broken $200.

Concurrently, I also list the items in my Half.com Shop, which gets me purchases once in awhile, but they don’t really have that high of an audience as Amazon.com. I’m currently also thinking of becoming a merchant on Buy.com Marketplace, but they have a bit more requirements to join.

All in all, I’m happy with the results.

June 6, 2008June 5, 2008

Chase Freedom Credit Card + Chase Checking Account

Some time earlier this week, we had a discussion over dinner about credit card with rewards. Chase Freedom was mentioned to be one of the better cards to use overall since it gives you 3% cash back on the top 3 categories on your bill. Today I saw this thread: Chase Freedom Credit Card Holders! 3% Rewards in TOP 5 w/ Chase checking account

The Chase Freedom credit card rewards 3% cash back or 3 points per $1 on the first $600 in purchases in the top 3 of 15 Everyday categories where you spend the most each month. Chase checking account customers will earn 3% cash back or 3 points per $1 on the first $600 in purchases in the top 5 of 15 Everyday categories. That’s 2 additional Everyday categories. If you are an existing Chase Freedom credit cardmember and a Chase checking customer, your account will be upgraded to these new benefits; a confirmation letter will be mailed when this takes place in June, 2008. To apply for Chase Freedom with the exclusive benefits for Chase checking customers, or to learn more including pricing and reward program terms, see a Chase branch banker. Restrictions apply. Subject to credit approval. Chase credit cards are issued by Chase Bank USA, N.A. There are 15 Everyday categories consisting of grocery stores (that are not affiliated with or departments of superstores, warehouse clubs or discount stores), gas & convenience stores, quick service payment/fast food restaurants, telecommunications, cable/satellite TV/Internet Service Providers, video rentals, department stores, dry cleaners, drug stores, movie theatres, local and suburban commuter passenger transportation (including ferries, bridges, tolls, parking garages, taxis/limos), pet supply stores and veterinary services, utilities, beauty shops (salons and spas), or gym/recreation memberships. Benefits will no longer apply if, at any time, the checking account is closed.

For more details, visit Chase Exclusives.

Do note, there is a cap on the amount of 3% rewards you get per month (currently capped at $600, which translates to $18 worth of 3% rewards). After which, all remaining purchases will be rewarded at the 1% tier for the remainder of the month. That equates to $7,200 in purchases eligible at the 3% tier which translates to a maximum of $216 of cash back per year.

If you want to try out the Chase Freedom credit card, currently there’s a $100 sign up bonus: Chase Freedom Application

If you want to try out Chase checking account, currently there’s a $125 sign up bonus: Chase Checking Application (requires you to be logged into any Chase account)

June 5, 2008June 5, 2008

How’s My Driving?

So while driving home today, the truck in front of me had this bumper sticker: “How Am I Driving?” with an 800 phone number and some id which I’m guessing is used to identify the truck.

That got me thinking, how awesome would it be to create my own bumper sticker point it to an answering machine and see what people think of my driving. ;p

Of course a toll-free number would be ideal, but given that people are probably going to make calls on their cell phone, minutes don’t count any differently between toll-free vs local, and I can easily setup an answering machine using the IPKall + FWD setup for free.

Something like this would also probably work great for parents whose children are starting to drive. Instead of having the “student driver” sticker on the back of your car, you’ll have the “How’s My Driving” bumper sticker. And just wait for phone calls to trickle in. 🙂

June 5, 2008June 5, 2008

Hide and Seek with Famous Scientists

Got this joke from a work distribution list:

Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Blaise Pascal were chilling together one day when they decided to play hide and seek. They drew lots, and Einstein was the first to count, so he turns around and hears the skittering of feet behind him.

When he’s done, he turns around, and Newton is standing right there in front of him.

“Dude, Isaac, the point is to be the LAST one found!”

Newton pointed to the ground below him, in which he’d drawn a square, one meter on each side, said, “it wasn’t I you found,” and walked off in victory.

Confused? See the explanation in the comments.