Mike Swope's Personal Blog

I want to bring to the attention of visitors the unethical practices of two companies regarding domain name registrations. Both companies send letters by snail mail, and they look like official letters.

Domain Registry of America: This first one is particularly frightening for recipients because it tells them that their domain is about to expire and if they don't renew it with the very-official looking notice, they can lose the domain forever. Many domains registered by individuals are registered by the uninitiated, and so these letters look like something they MUST PAY to keep their domain name registration. So it motivates such individuals to send the funds, though they are outrageously expensive ($35/year or higher). Unfortunately, several of my clients have received these notices. Fortunately, they have contacted me first before sending any money to anyone about their web address registration or web site hosting. Sending funds to this company transfers the registration to them, and then they send annual notices for exorbant fees.

Domain Listing Service Corporation (DLSCorp.net): This second unethical letter looks like an official billing (much like that from Domain Registry of America), and simply says to make payment to them for a web site address listing, domain name submission to search engines. They ask for $65. Don't send them a dime. If you read the OTHER SIDE of the notice, it states in bold type that this is not a bill, but a solicitation. It also says that the Internet Listing Offer is provided to millions of web sites throughout the United States to enhance their web exposure. Calculate what 1 million paying recipients means: $65,000,000! For nothing more than a link on a web site somewhere, and an automated submission to search engines. The trick: your site is probably already listed, and submitting using keywords guarantees no placment of any kind whatsoever in any search engine. Just keep your content fresh and relevant to the subject of your site, and your site will do just fine.

BE WARY! IF YOU RECEIVE A REGISTRATION NOTICE OR LISTING NOTICE OF ANY KIND BY MAIL, CONTACT YOUR WEB SITE HOST BEFORE SENDING ANY MONEY! You'll be glad you did.

My wife and I watched An Inconvenient Truth last night. We have wanted to watch this film since its release, but I admit that we were afraid to watch it, afraid of what we might learn, afraid that our planet is changing at an alarming rate and few people are doing anything about it, or even seem to care. But we rented it yesterday and watched it. If you have not seen this film, YOU MUST SEE IT! It is eye opening. It is more than convincing, based on abundant research and statistics from around the world. It is clear that in the last 30 years our fossil-fueled society has had a lasting global impact on our planet's ability to support life as we know it. In fact, at one point in the film, it is said that ice ages have occurred in less than ten years but last thousands of years. Folks, at the very least, this is what we will face if we do not take individual responsibility and action to recognize, acknowledge and neutralize this threat immediately. We can wait no longer. Remember: in the last ice age, much of the northern hemisphere (where incidentally most of our planet's plants and animals live) was under many hundreds of feet of ice! Tell me, can you live under this ice? Survive such extreme temperatures and such a barren landscape? You should also read the book The Coming Global Superstorm. It says many of the same things as this film, but it explains how we have found flash-frozen animals such as woolly mammoths with food from a temperate climate still in their mouths and belies. Where did this food come from in the belly of a frozen animal? It is clear that the food was nearby when the animal was frozen. Now, that doesn't make much sense, does it? Read the book The Coming Global Superstorm. Watch An Inconvenient Truth and read the book. Then visit the companion web site ClimateCrisis.org for more information about this very real threat to our children and life on this planet >

I recently won an eBay Motors auction for a 1993 Camaro. The listing was specific about the condition of the vehicle, and the seller had sold two other vehicles with positive feedback. Plus, eBay offers fraud protection up to $20,000. So how could I go wrong? I'm glad you asked. The financials: Winning bid $1226. Repairs: $2100 (more about this). Repairs left to be made: ~$3000. This just to make the vehicle match the auction description!

Kelly Nocella (hotnocella1) listed this vehicle for her neighbor, Keith Bynum, whose last name she did not know. At first, Kelly wished to have deposit sent by PayPal, then after the auction changed her mind and wanted a money order or cashier's check. When I inquired about whether the car was drivable, as it was described to "run and drive excellently," she responded by email that it was drivable. The only problem with the vehicle noted in the auction was jerky shifting into 2nd gear. I called several transmission shops to inquire about costs for repairs, and was told they should be about $300. So I made an appointment to have the vehicle's transmission checked out before driving it from Spring Hill, Florida, to Wichita, Kansas, at a repair shop on Spring Hill.

But when I paid for and picked up the car, it would go no faster than 35 MPH. Shifting was fine, but there was no 3rd gear or overdrive. The car also pulled to the right and the steering wheel was cocked 45 degrees to keep it on the road. At the repair shop, the vehicle's condition was discovered to be far different than the auction, to the tune of about $5000! Ouch! In order to drive the vehicle back to Kansas safely, we had to rebuild the transmission, replace the u-joints, replace the rear brakes (they did not work at all, and in fact the DR brake had come apart due to a broken shoe!), replace tie rod ends, realign the vehicle, and replace the DF tire. At this time, we also discovered the front brakes worked, but the pads were completely gone (the tin warning clips had been removed from the front pads to eliminate that warning sound that brakes are bad), the AC did not work, the cooling fans did not work (were not hooked up), the fuse block under the hood was gutted so that relays for the cooling fans and other parts were missing and any replacement would not be held in place because the contacts were missing, the electric window motors did not work, the dash was broken, the odometer did not work, the radio did not work, there was no CD changer, and the PR wheel was severely bent on the inside bead. Each of these items were listed as features and/or working in the auction, or not mentioned as problematic in the auction. I made only the necessary repairs to drive back to Wichita safely.

In Wichita, I had the car checked further. The service engine bulb had been removed from the dash and codes are in the car's computer, indicating further problems. During this time, the seller had been notified by email that the condition of the vehicle was NOT like the auction description, but no response has ever come from the seller from these multiple notices. In fact, the seller has not made any contact with me regarding these problems and excessive repairs necessary to make the vehicle both safe and match the description. The owner of the vehicle did call me once to subtly threaten me that I needed to find something else to do with my time besides pursue getting my money back. He had also asked whether his conversation was being recorded (make of that what you will!) I also discovered that I cannot transfer the title for the vehicle into my name due to the way the title was signed with Keith Bynum's middle name spelled out. At this time, I have a POS Camaro that was completely misrepresented on eBay's auction that I cannot even tag, title and drive. A few days after getting the vehicle to Wichita, the front brakes locked up and also had to be repaired. The only accurate information about the car in the auction description was year, make, model and color.

I contacted eBay's fraud protection insurance agency, Auction Insurance, only to discover that eBay's policy only covers 3 things: engine, transmission and body/frame. Each component is treated individually, and to be covered must require more than $1500 in repairs to be eligible. They even estimated the mileage of the Camaro, since its last recorded mileage on record, to be over 200,000 miles (the car was listed with 120,000 miles, but the odometer has not worked since before 2004!). Despite the 20 page fax that I sent to them detailing the misrepresentations and my expenses thus far with the vehicle, they would not honor the self-proclaimed fraud protection offered by eBay or make any further efforts to reclaim or refund my winning bid or monies for repairs already made.

I then tried contacting eBay thru their website over the past week, requesting that someone from eBay call me regarding this auction. I have also made complaint against the seller thru eBay's official system on their site. But after several days, no one from eBay has responded by email or phone to my request, and neither has the seller. I will try calling eBay tomorrow directly. This is all very disappointing, since I've been an active eBay member since 1996 and have over 1300 feedback rating, to say that I have done a lot of business over eBay.

I will update this blog as more information becomes available. As it stands right now, the car should have gone to the salvage yard, I have nearly $4000 wrapped up in it, I could have bought a really nice car for this money anywhere in the country, much nicer than the Camaro at any rate, and I cannot tag and title it so I can drive it, whatever the outcome.

We have an electric-ignite furnace in our home. This means that when the furnace kicks on, a glow plug glows red hot and ignites the natural gas in the burners. This instead of a pilot light. We have had the furnace, installed in 1999, go out on us a couple of times since its installation. There were two common problems that are relatively cheap and easy to remedy.

It is key to troubleshoot the system. To troubleshoot an electric-ignite furnace such as ours described above, remove the tin cover from the furnace to view the exhaust fan, computer circuits, wiring, and other parts. With the cover removed, turn the furnace on and watch for the following things. BE SURE TO TURN OFF POWER TO THE FURNACE BEFORE TOUCHING ANY COMPONENTS IN THE FOLLOWING STEPS.

1) Listen to the furnace. The exhaust fan will kick on first, then about 30 seconds later the furnace will click. If neither of these happen, you can assume that the fix may not be as simple as you would like. It may be best at this point to consult a trained repair technician.

2) If the exhaust fan kicks on and the furnace clicks, next the glow plug will turn visibly hot, like the heating element on an electric stove. If the glow plug glows, it will be readily visible. If the glow plug does not light, your problem is likely the glow plug. Make sure power is off to the furnace. The glow plug is located in front of the burners so it can ignite them, and it is easy to remove. It will be held into place with two sheet metal screws. Two wires will run down to the glow plug, and be attached to the wiring of the furnace with a plastic clip plug. Uncouple the clip plug and remove the two sheet metal screws. The glow plug should lift out of the furnace. If the plug is burnt, it will have a break in it. If a break is present, replace the glow plug. Glow plugs cost about $30 at an AC/Heating specialty store. Be sure to take the burned glow plug with you. You cannot buy them at Wal-Mart or Lowe's or Home Depot (you can't here in Kansas, anyway). Get a new plug from the AC/Heating specialty store, install it, turn on power to the furnace again, and watch it again. The glow plug should now glow. Your problem is now probably solved.

3) If the glow plug glows, it will next ignite the gas burners. If the glow plug glows but the gas burners do not ignite, you are not getting gas to the burners. Call a trained repair technician.

4) If the gas burners ignite, a thermocouple/sensor will next test if flame is present to keep the burners burning. If the gas burners ignite and the glow plug turns off, but the burners go out immediately, the thermocouple is likely your problem. It is not registering that flame is present and it turns off the burners for safety reasons. The good news is that these thermocouples do not generally go bad, according to our counter parts technician and heating/cooling techs. Instead, the thermocouple is likely dirty. Make sure power is off to the furnace. The thermocouple or flame sensor is, like the glow plug, situated in front of the burners to detect heat and flame. It is usually held in place by a single sheet metal screw. There is a single wire that leads down to it. Unplug the wire from the base of the thermocouple and remove the sheet metal screw. The thermocouple can now be easily lifted from the furnace. Inspect the thermocouple. It is likely dirty and has black and white residue on it. It won't look like much residue, but this small amount insulates the thermocouple so that it does not sense heat/flame. To clean it, simply use a piece of steel wool and rub off all the residue, until the thermocouple looks like bare metal again. Re-install the thermocouple. Turn on power to the furnace again, and turn on the furnace. Your furnace should now stay lit. If it still does not stay lit, follow the same steps to replace the thermocouple. Like glow plugs, these thermocouples can't be found in Wal*Mart, Lowe's or Home Depot. It must be purchased from a AC/Heating specialty store, and costs about $20 (I think, at any rate it isn't much). Once replaced, your furnace will probably function again normally.

These steps have solved our furnace problems for several years. Of course, it is a good idea to have your heating and cooling system checked every year or two, and to replace filters every 3 months to keep your system operating at its peak performance. For problems not solved with these few steps, contact a trained repair techician.

The Spider-Man films have been very successful due to the strength of the characters and stories, which are lifted from the original comic book source(s). Spider-Man 3 looks to be another big hit. It features the Sandman, the alien costume (which later becomes Venom in the comics) and Hobgoblin, popular villains straight out of the Spider-Man comic books. All the emotional turmoil and angst about power and responsibility abound, making these characters complex. The themes of the stories are also complex and engaging as everyone must make choices that impact who they are and who they will become. Spider-Man 3 appears to be a film about revenge: Peter Parker's revenge for Uncle Ben's death, Harry Osborn's revenge for his father's death, and the alien costume responds to the emotion of revenge. Very dark story. It remains to see how well it is executed. If it is executed as well as the first two films, this installment is sure to be another blockbuster for Sony and Marvel Comics. Check out the official Spider-Man movie web site for more details about the film >

Wal*Mart is a giant. That's common knowledge. But as a company they make some dumb, uninformed decisions. The decisions I speak of here are their digital music distribution business and their Photo Manager Software in that neither supports the Macintosh OS by Apple Computer.

If you use a Macintosh computer, go to Wal*Mart's music download page on their web site. You'll get the following error message: "We're sorry, your operating system is incompatible. To provide the best download experience, we can no longer support Windows 98, ME or NT. Please visit again after you upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP. Visit our Help section for complete system requirements information." If we look at the industry, we find that the Apple iTunes store is now the third largest music distributor in the United States! That's a lot of music! Why do you think this is? In part because other music download sites, like Wal*Mart's site, don't support the Macintosh OS. Hmmm. Let's not capitalize on the possibility that we could sell more downloads and earn some part of the market from the #3 distributor (which is also the #1 online distributor, BTW). Let's not extrapolate anything from that knowledge or learn any lesson from it. Let's be petty and overlook support for a competitor's computer products, although they're the indisputed market leader. Hmmm. Now what about Microsoft and Windows? Hmmm. Microsoft also offers music software like iTunes and music downloads, too. So what differentiates this setup from Apple's as far as Wal*Mart is concerned? Who the heck knows? But it's clearly a political choice to fail to support the Macintosh for music downloads. How hard can it be to offer cross-platform downloads? I mean, if you're developing the service, do it right from the start and assume that the computers and operating systems are going to change each year, since they do, and offer a solution that won't need updated each year, too! Duh!

A similar situation occurs in regards to Wal*Mart and its Digital Photo Manager software. Wal*Mart offers CDs at their photo counter that clearly say compatible with Windows XP/2000 and Mac OS 10.x or later. Hey, I thought that was wonderful. In the past, I knew they didn't support my computer platform of choice, so I took a CD and when I got home stuck that CD into my G4 laptop and... watched a useless Flash intro because Wal*Mart's Photo Manager software is STILL incompatible with the Mac! To prove it, just get one of these CDs and try it. Ooops! Wal*Mart's Digital Photo Manager software is not Mac compatible. Does this smack of false advertising? You decide.

I DID call Wal*Mart's customer service line and told them of these findings, and also pointed out to them that all their links in their Photo Center site were broken and producing 404 errors. Every one! Wow! Wow wow! (That's a double wow!). They weren't doing any business that way today! I left my name, phone number and email address with the customer service rep I spoke to, but I don't expect to get any response. Ever.

Having noted all this, Wal*Mart still has its uses for Mac owners and their customers. Many graphic designers and freelancers use Macintosh computers, like me and my wife. We have found how to use Wal*Mart to help our customers. Our customers give us photo prints, but then they must pay us to scan them. This can be time consuming for more than a handful of photos. So we send our customers to Wal*Mart to use their scanners and have their scans put onto CD, which we can then use. Our cost to do this for 50 photos: $100. Wal*Mart's cost: $4.97 (or similar). Since the customers scans their own photos, all they pay for is the CD. That's big savings! My wife and I then use the photos from these CDs for our graphic, web and DVD projects. Simple!

Though Wal*Mart likely has other uses for designers and freelancers, we find that telling our customers about Wal*Mart's scanning capability and costs is by far the most frequent recommendation we make to our customers. It saves them money, relieves us responsibility for bad quality scans from bad quality originals, and relieves us of the boring, repetitive task of scanning itself. Instead, we can get right to work on the customer's project, which is the most enjoyable part of any project!

Looking forward to 2007, and to make it as productive as possible, I have created a form on this site so that publishers/manufacturers can request reviews of their books, software, hardware, iPod accessories and web sites. It seems that it is a problem in all industries to get competent reviews of products. So, my goal in 2007 is to ramp up my review output and invite submissions. Samples of my writing and reviews are readily available throughout this site. If you have a book, Macintosh software, Macintosh hardware, Apple iPod accessory or web site that you would like to have reviewed, submit our form and let us know about it >

You may not be into pens, but Tul, manufacturer of fine writing instruments, offers an online handwriting analysis application. Go to TUL.com web site and click the link to start your analysis. You need only write "I truly need a new pen" on a sheet of paper, then answer a short sequence of questions about the characteristics of the sample. Dr. Gerard Ackerman (a real graphologist?) then provides you with an analysis of your sample that is both insightful and humorous. The several analyses I've seen done, including my own, hit the mark. So I was impressed that it was both relatively accurate and fun at the same time! Tul pens are available only at OfficeMax. Get your own handwriting analysis >

A very good resource for resume and interview information is Pongo Resume. They offer an electronic newsletter that I recommend for anyone assembling a resume and going on job interviews. Their advice just makes sense.

The September 10, 2006 newsletter addresses interviewing and issues I've puzzled over. And the answer is so simple! Interviewing is like throwing darts in the dark. As interviewees, we need to illuminate the target (dart board) by asking a few questions and then assessing how close we've come to the target. The target is different for each position and even each interviewer. Now that's a moving target! I've condensed these two elements from the Pongo resume newsletter for convenience, but you should review the entire newsletter for best results:

Illuminate the Target:

-- “What are the key skills you feel are required for this position?”
-- "What parts of my background are you most interested in?”
-- “What did you see in my resume that created your interest?”

Check How Close We've Come to the Bullseye:

-- “Did I give you enough detail?”
-- “Does that make sense?”

It is important to remember that asking these questions and then asking follow-up questions will also influence the course of the interview.

Great technique, Pongo! Thanks!

We must delve into our own despair, said the wise old man, before we can achieve peace. It's hard to part with things, hard to let go, because we care. That may be a fault. Or it may be thin-skinned. Doesn't matter. I'm ready to part with some things I've held onto for 15 years. I've recently found a few dozen copies of OR and Passed through the Hands, two of my chapbooks of poetry and short fiction from 1990 and 1991 (respectively).

OR collects my best poetry and short fiction up to the date of publication (1990). It includes some of my favorite poems: "Trust," "The Rain" (award) "Mind Diving," "Crimson Summer Sunshine," "Trust," "To My Wife," "Sweet Chaste Cherry Buds," "Dog" and "The Day After She Was Married." It also includes my stories "The Rogue Rodent," "2." and "Timber Wolf" (tribute to Sherwood Anderson). OR is titled OR because it contains both poetry and short fiction, and the cover was originally printed in five different colors, so readers could have selected this color cover or that color cover or that color cover.

Passed through the Hands features work from myself and Jeff McMillian, a fellow student at MWSC, from 1991. It includes my more interesting poetry, and some of my most powerful poems, including "The I That Survives" and "Lifelines." Passed through the Hands is titled after a line in my poem "Lifelines." Of Passed through the Hands John Gilgun (our creative writing instructor) wrote:

"We are born up in communion, by a blaze, by a song." It is good to be reminded of that communion, of that blaze, of that song. I had begun to forget. Thanks, Jeff. "I am the I of I that I survive." I have no idea what I taught you, Mike. I just talk in class because that's what they pay me for. But if you have learned to survive by centering yourself, getting in touch with your unique spirit and expressing that spirit in language, then I feel I've done well. Publish it in Jeff City that I earned my pay. "Wow, I found myself sitting suddenly back in my home town, like a child, and I am holy again." Holy, holistic, whole, integrated -- Yes, Jeff, in the old hometown/jotown of soul, of mind. Here we are and isnt' it glorious -- the moments of our lives fixed and frozen forever like the glaze on one of Dooley's pots! Mike, how wonderful to encounter "Lifelines" again and to remember hearing you read it in LRC 102 and feeling that shiver pass over my body -- and then Jeff leaning over and whispering, "That's a GOOD poem!" Yes! -- John Gilgun, Author of Music I Never Dreamed Of

Rather than discard or burn these copies of OR and Passed through the Hands, I am giving them away. I read through both chapbooks before deciding to give them away, and found that much of the writing in them still moves me as it did when I published it, and doesn't embarrass me too much. These free books don't cost you a dime. Just a bit of your time. Limit one set per name/address. Limited to quantity on hand. You may only receive one chapbook or the other when quantity is depleted. Offer good only in the U.S. and its territories. Complete the request form and copies will be on their way to you shortly.