Net Crimes & Misdemeanors

I mentioned I'd gotten a new notebook in a previous post. I used to only buy IBM Thinkpads, then switched to a Sony Vaio in late 2002 due to their slim size and low weight (just under five pounds). With all the traveling I do, the lighter the better! I bought the Vaio at the Sony web site, which was offering an extra three year warranty for free + free shipping. I decided it was time to upgrade, but the Sony site didn't have any good offers for the Vaio I wanted, which was a TX series that weighs just over 2.75 pounds. So I decided to try eBay. Yes, eBay. I did some hunting and pecking, checking feedback, shipping rates, etc. I finally found one that fit the bill. The guy who was selling it had only had it a few weeks, then was issued a Dell notebook from his company, so he was looking to unload the Vaio. A new Vaio TX610 on the Sony site started at $1899 for 512MB memory and 60GB hard drive. So the auction listing I found I made my max bid for $1899 and I won. And I got one he...

Almost recovered from bronchitis and had to fly to Buffalo again on February 2nd. Got to fly JetBlue . I originally checked out flight rates on Expedia and noticed they don't have JetBlue there, so I went directly to their site and got a flight from Boston to Buffalo for $99 each way (plus tax). Can't beat that! There was a stop at JFK both ways, but the staff was nice, from the ticket counter to the flight attendants. We had a long wait at JFK on the way out when a light indicator wouldn't go off. So we sat at the gate for an hour and a half. I was in the back, so all the flight attendants and co-pilot were back there talking about it. Since they didn't seem worried, I was fine. It was kind of fun being a "fly on the wall." Turns out one row of seats was having problems with their TV monitors, thus the light came on. The same would have happened if the coffee pot was on the blink. Oh, the TV monitors! They are built in to the back of each seat, so you have yo...

(I'm finally getting back to normal - I got hit hard by bronchitis - see previous post) Wednesday, January 11th Took US Airways flight from Manchester, NH to Tampa, FL via Charlotte, NC. I had a three-hour layover. At least the Charlotte airport had a mall in it, so I had a nice long breakfast, then wandered through the stores. I arrived in Tampa early afternoon, where my cousin Bill picked me up, with our second cousin Christopher (I guess he's a second cousin - he's my cousin Ronnie's kid). We had about a 45-minute drive to the Westin Innisbrook Resort, so we got a chance to catch up. Even though I keep in touch with Bill via email, I haven't seen him since November 2002. The Westin Innisbrook is a weird setup. It's not a hotel per se, but a group of buildings spread out over 1,100 acres with 4 golf courses. The checkin is in a separate building, then you either drive or take a shuttle van to your building. Each building looks like an apartment building. Mine ...

I will post next week about my trip to the Tampa area and the DoD Cybercrime Conference, but wanted to post a quick note explaining my absence. I caught bronchitis from a flight attendant who was not on duty, but sitting next to me in first class on the flight home. I decided to pamper myself and upgraded for $100. There were no other seats to move to in first class when I sat next to her while she was coughing and sneezing. Oy. I am prone to bronchitis, took an Airborne and kept to the window of my seat as much as possible during the flight. When I got home Saturday night, I was okay, but in the middle of the night, my throat was inflamed and the next morning I was a mess. I went to the doctor on Wednesday for meds, had a high temp then and then a high temp the next two days. I am slowly recovering, but am not online as much as I'd like. As for Apples, I have been part of a rousing discussion on Usenet about Macs/Apple notebooks that are not compatible with some LCD projectors. I ...

UPDATE: 07/12/06 DO NOT BUY THE HE4 DRYER FROM SEARS. WE'VE HAD OURS FOR JUST OVER SIX MONTHS AND IT DIED ON US TWO WEEKS AGO. PLEASE SEE MY JULY 10, 2006 POST ABOUT THIS. THE FRONT DISPLAY PANEL STOPPED WORKING AND THE SEARS REPAIRMAN SAID THERE ARE MANY OF THE HE4 DRYERS WHERE THIS IS HAPPENING --------------------------------------- I haven't posted partly because of the holidays and partly because my hubby decided to upgrade my desktop computer and had some problems with the hard drive installation. So, I was on my laptop for a while, then had to reinstall Windows and all of my software on the new desktop (which is extremely fast and much better than my old one). The saga of the washer continues. I decided to try what the saleslady had advised: Turn off the spin cycle and let the water drain out. It was either that or take my laundry to a laundromat, since Sears couldn't swap washers for a week. So, on Christmas Eve afternoon, I put a small load in the washer. I watched...

Our dryer started acting wonky last weekend. It would stop in the middle of a cycle and I would have to restart it. It took forever to dry anything. We've had the washer and dryer the entire seven years we've been here and the girls who owned the house before us had bought them new two years previous to that. Since the average lifespan is 8-10 years, we decided to head to Sears to replace the both of them. Surprisingly, the appliance dept was empty of customers. I thought there were would be more people buying for Christmas. Joyce, our saleperson, was nice, but had blue contacts with some weird shape for her iris. It was disconcerting and I tried not to stare at her. She was energetic and showed us some options. We knew we needed a larger size to handle king-size comforters/bedspreads, so that narrowed the field down. Since we wanted something that would last well, we settled on a Kenmore White w/Black Kenmore Elite 3.8 cu. ft. HE3 King Size Capacity Plus Front Load Washer and...

The transfer to the new server should be done by tonight. I will then post new info tomorrow morning. Cross your fingers!

The Net Crimes web site will be moving to a new server over the weekend, so you may experience a "not found" or similar error when trying to access the site or this blog.

Earlier this month I had to fly to Minneapolis. Thank goodness it was a direct flight from Boston and on both flights no one sat in the middle seat, so I had room to breathe. When we landed, it was snowing pretty good, and it was cold. Brrr. Took the Super Shuttle from the Minneapolis airport to the Hyatt Regency downtown. Beautiful hotel, right on the Nicolett Mall. Since I have a "rewards" card with just about every hotel chain, I got an extra nice room on the "rewards" floor - the 21st floor. King-size bed with feather topper, feather pillows, granite bathroom floor and sink, larger than normal sized room with a huge picture window overlooking the Nicolett Mall. Unpacked, called home, then freshened up to meet a writing friend D.S. Goodman (aka Dan). I've known him online for years - he was around during the whole Woodside debacle. At around 6 pm, headed down to the lobby to find it filled with women carolers dressed up in bright red robes, singing Christmas...

The week of November 7th, I spent several days giving lectures to students, teachers, local law enforcement and parents about cyberbullying and online predators. It was the first time I'd given a lecture to students under the age of 18 (I've done lectures for college kids for a couple of years now). And it was an experience, LOL! The first morning was an assembly of over 500 kids in 7th-12th grades. They were boisterous (I remember being a teen), but a good audience. They were quiet at times during my PowerPoint presentation, especially when I showed them why it wasn't a good idea to put too much info in their profiles and when I showed examples of cyberbullying from recent news stories. I did get some questions, but not as many as I'd hoped. I had some kids come up to me afterwards to ask questions privately and overall it was good. The kids love the KTD logo and seemed happy to find that there is a web site they can go to for info and for help if they need it. That af...