Blogs

I think Jott has improved a lot over the last few months, I haven't been using it. But I remember being frustrated with it, the last time I use it. I began using it again this week and it seems they've really got their act together. I'm actually posting this using Jott, so we will see how good they do with my name, which is Bob Kepford. listen

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So I am reading David Allen's great productivty book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and I thought I would share one of the tools I am using to implament his orgaization system. I have tried a LOT of GTD ToDo apps. There are quite a few and many of them are great. I had several needs when it comes to a Todo list App.

1. Web Based
2. Simple and Clean Design
3. A Tagging Feature
4. Easy to Update
5. Not So Many Features (I tend to fiddle)
6. The Ability to Print Out My lists

These sound like simple needs and they truly are but you would be amazed at how cluttered and clumsy some todo apps can be. I have finally settled on Remember the Milk. This free web based application is so useful it almost makes todo lists fun. I really start to scare myself when I get this much enjoyment out of a productivity app. What a dork.

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Hey, I am on Twitter now. You can check out what is up at twitter.com/kepford. What is twitter? Good question. You tell me.

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We here at Bobkepford.com have just launched a brand new brother site. Bobsknob.com is a place for us to dump those video's, pics, and quotes that don't fit into where we want Bobkepford.com to go. So... if you need to laugh, smile, cry, or just make fun of Bob head on over the Bobsknob.com today.

Don't you just love craigslist. But, if you are like me, you probably wish it were designed a little better. One problem I have with it is that when you search for something, it doesn't give you a preview image of items that have pictures. You have to click on the link to see the image. Well not anymore. Thanks to Lifehacker.com for finding this gem of a firefox addon. Go to craigstoolbox.com and download this addon. You will thank me later.
Of course, you should have Firefox already but if not, you can get it here.

So BuyNewOne.com continues to scam people. I am posting another story I received this weekend after my first post.

I came across your site when I was researching buynewone.com (AKA shipyoufree.com). I purchased an 8 GB nano yesterday and admit I was foolishly taken in by the low price and didn't research the company before buying- a mistake I regret and have learned from given all the shady talk (fatwallet.com) I've read about the company. It has been 24 hours since I ordered it and my credit card has not been charged yet. Still I am planning on canceling my credit card like you and others have suggested. I was wondering if you had any further information to share about your findings with the company or if I can be of help in your search and keep you posted on what happens with my order. I would love to hear if you know anything more. I'm angry I got taken in by what appears to be a scam and don't want to put this to rest before I get more information. Thanks for your time.

This person was also nice enough to email an update today.

This probable scam of some sort has progressed so far in a manner similar to that of your friend. I just got a confirmation email from Apple thanking me for my recent purchase complete with an order number. When I looked up my supposed order from Apple.com it included two odd pieces of information: the phone number they have on record as my home phone was incorrect (different from the number I gave buynewone.com) and the payment method was listed as American Express, a card which I don't even own. It gave the last four digits of the card number and said I paid $199 plus tax, for a total amount of roughly $215. I just checked my bank account again and nothing has been charged to me, either from buynewone.com or apple.com. (I cancelled my credit card at the end of last week after I read about their suspicious behavior.)

I don't know if you read the thread of conversation about this topic on fatwallet.com (which I encourage you to do if you're interested in investigating this further), but there are three or four addresses listed for the company scattered around the country.

When I logged on to Apple.com to find out what information they had listed for me I found something else disconcerting. Buynewone had created an online member account to apple.com for me using my email address and a password which I obviously didn't have access to. I have never visited that site before and am certain I never created an account under my email address or anything else for that matter. Obviously I immediately changed the password since only buynewone had it. I'm not very computer savvy, but could this be part of the scam? That is to say, could this be part of whatever their scam is? Also, since I now have access to whatever credit card number that they used in purchasing my iPod from the Apple store, could it be helpful in finding out more about them? (I could contact Apple and get the full credit card information they were given by buynewone on behalf of me).

I know most tech savy folks would never fall for this scam but there are a lot of people out there who do not realize the dangers of using the web. The iPod is so hot right now and people just lose their heads. As a guy with a web site I just feel a need to put this out there. Please feel free to share your experiences here.

I thought I would share what I have been reading lately. Here are some great books that I have read so far this year. I recommend each of them.

• Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

• The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis

• The Case for Christ By Lee Strobel

C. S. Lewis writings are still as relevant and penetrating as they were when he wrote them. And the Case for Christ is a great book to read for anyone who has been confronted by "academics" who claim the New Testament is a fabrication. As Easter 2008 comes and passes we can say with confidence that Jesus conquered death, hell, and the grave.

Recently a person I know bought a new iPod from the online seller buynewone.com. This website sells iPods at a much lower price than any online or brick and mortar store (Walmart sells the 80GB iPod Classic for $247.88 while buynewone.com sells it for $219). Some people may not be aware of this but Apple dealers can only charge what Apple allows them to charge. This is why you will not see much of a price difference in different iPod sellers. If you see an iPod for more than $10 below retail, then it is probably a refurb, used, or hot. After purchasing the iPod with their debit card my friend called me about the company asking if I had heard of them. Immediately red flags came up in my mind. Folks, if it sounds to good to be true it usually is.

As I researched this website my concerns only grew. I could not find anything that made me feel confident that this site was legitimate. Fast forward a few days later; the new iPod arrived on time worked fine and appeared to be a new iPod. Even so, I still didn't feel good about this company so I continued to dig. I found out that another one of their customers had a similar experience. They bought an iPod and then contacted apple. They found out that their iPod was purchased from Apple.com using a different card than the one that they used. It was bought from apple using a different card owned by a different person. The iPod was then drop shipped to the customer's address. This person suggested a possible scam where the website collects credit card info from its customers. Then the company uses a previous customers account to purchase a new iPod from apple. Then the scammer sells the iPod purchased with someone else's money to the new customer at a discounted rate and thereby pockets 100% of the profit.

I realized that this was a serious issue so I called my friend and had them check their account. Get this, they were never charged for the iPod they received. This is two weeks after they received it. I suggested that they cancel their card. I called apple and the person I spoke with had never heard of this company. He admitted that it sounded suspicious. I have not heard back from Apple but the person I spoke with thanked me for passing this info along. I am sending a letter (physical postal mail) to Cupertino and then I may get an official response from apple. I will post my letter and their response here. It has now been several months since my friend purchased their iPod. They were never charged for the iPod and were never contacted about this.

I am continuing to look into this, but in mean time I just wanted to pass this info along to as a warning. Be careful when buying online. Use trusted companies with a known track-record of doing business. Look for a physical address and a way to contact them such a phone number.

More Info They have used proxy services making it difficult to tract them down by their domain name. There are three different addresses listed. Don't trust these people

Flickr rocks! Not because it does everything, but because there are so many cool webapps that interface with it. One of which is Picnik. You can upload your pictures to Flickr and do all kinds of cool things with them.