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December 29, 2008

Banking 2008: Punch the Pig!

Banking is becoming cute. I signed up for a free "Virtual Wallet" with my new bank, PNC. The wallet finally introduces a bit of sanity into banking: bank attach arbitrary rules to different types of accounts - you can write checks only with a checking account, and earn interest only with a savings account. If some merchant makes a mistake, overcharges your debit card and you overstep your carelessly determined overdraft boundaries, the bank will try to hit you with a $30 overdraft fine. Never mind that you may have $250k sitting in a savings account or a stock depot.

Come in the virtual wallet. Granted, they still have some ridiculous government-made rules: but at least they're adding some extra functionality to make things more manageable. If you end up in the red in your checking account, the system automatically takes some money from your savings. Finally, 15 years after e-mail addresses became a common sight on business cards, my bank is now willing to send you a simple e-mail if you exceed some limits, or when your paycheck is paid.

That said: money is money is money is equity, whatever the account. Some is liquid, some is not. Banking could be so simple, if it wasn't for the "psych factor" involved in consumer banking. PNC found a cute way to make us happy savers: on occasion, a pink pig appears on top the screen after you've logged in to your account.
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You punch the pig, and voila, $50 or whatever you've set will be transferred to your savings. Complete with sound effects. Did I mention you can have a green pig, too?
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Posted by dr at 3:20 PM | Comments (0)

December 6, 2008

Pittsburgh at night

The Skyline of Pittsburgh, PA, as seen from the South (Mount Washington).


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Posted by dr at 4:18 AM | Comments (0)

December 3, 2008

Verzion DSL - a few tips

I got Verizon DSL for my new apartment in Pittsburgh. Their little-advertised "dry-loop" product is a great deal for someone who doesn't need hundreds of worthless TV channels or a land-line that is easily replaced by Skype, Gizmo and/or a cell phone (which one keeps around either way). And they're not stupid: the sales agent was a friendly lady from right here, Pittsburgh, who gave me her supervisor's direct extension, so I could call her back. As soon as you're a customer, you end up with 24/7 tech support, probably in India. They are friendly, don't treat you as idiot customer, and they're usually able to help, but they also like to repeat their formulas over and over a again. Thank you so much for holding, David. I can help you with this.

What Verizon doesn't tell you is that their product gives techies a hard time. Having set up more than a dozen wireless networks and DSL/Cable modems, you know the few standard configuration steps.

Not so with Verizon. Their free-with-the-contract "Westell" modem/router includes, luckily, a 802.11b/g wireless base station. But unfortunately it makes you jump through a lot of hoops to get it set up: before allowing any access to a website (or anything else on the internet), it requires you to "Activate" your computer using a custom program. That's intended to work on the Mac as well as on Windows, and, using Firefox, it even went so far as to install a special plugin in Firefox, only to install the real activation software.

Activation software? I sure don't want anything installed on my system that I don't know. On a spare Powerbook, I tried it - and failed.

Here's the simply solution: http://192.168.1.1/verizon/redirect.htm

This link will activate the router without requiring the installation of any software.

(Of course, this cost Verizon a call to their tech support.)

Here's some more intricate knowledge, found out during subsequent calls:

Have fun. Once set up, Verizon DSL turned out to be affordable, fast and very reliable (for me).

Posted by dr at 2:08 AM | Comments (1)