I'm not against immigrants in whole, but many of them cause problems. I'd like to just see that certain groups wouldn't get as easily citizenship here as they do currently, and that they would be kciked out of here more easily if they cause harm.
There are good immigrants too, and many of them really put effort in to their life etc. That's good, more immigrants like that are welcome!
But those, who come here, get the citizenship automatically, exploit the social welfare to the maximum, hell, some even get free BRAND NEW cars, and they seek them BRAND NEW apartments for rental etc. and then they go out at night with knives and their herds to rob people, that ain't right.
Infact, not even the extent what they get from social welfare ain't right, just because their culture is different, shouldn't give them immediately right for everything they want to! That ain't right, they are being treated BETTER than native Finnish people. Oh yeah, i'm from a immigrant family line too, our family came to Finland sometime in 1800-century, thru Russia from Germany. Afaik, couple generations was spent in Russia. Oh yeah, there's some people carrying the same last name as i do, who have made a difference to the good, in Finnish history.
It's good that immigrants come to Finland, let's Finland grow. Hell, i'd say that upto 5% of total population should be increased each year via immigration! Makes us stronger as a nation. But those bastards who exploit & abuse the system and rob, rape and kill Finnish people should be hanged! But no, they just get more from social welfare ! ! >_
Finland has one of the best social welfares, which brings to here many of those *holes. Here, if you don't want to, you don't necessarily need to do ANYTHING but fill in couple forms each month and you'll get by, no luxuries tho, but if you are immigrant, you just might easily get some luxuries also.
Everything is heavily taxed left and right, that's true. But i don't think in case of a car govt. doesn't own it, what you pay for is right to use public roads so to speak.
Yeah, as long as car is registered --> there's a tax just for owning it here.
Actually, here in Finland, i believe all contest winnings are taxable, i think it was 15% or 28% what they take. Here everything is taxed! Hell, if you look correctly some things, even taxes are being taxed in some cases!
That sounds A LOT like here in Finland, except here isn't that kind of insecurity. Insecurity yes, but not deadly. Here, there's a lot of talks, stories etc. (rarely gets to the press, but a few does) about security companies employees beating people for no reason, but that's the top of the iceberg. You gotta watch over your shoulder on our capital city and nearby cities when going to trainstations, there's people who might try to beat you off just because you don't give them a cigarett or you look too good for their liking or rich. None of those are Finnish, but mostly immigrants and such. (Now i will be called a racist). If you are jumped and you defend yourself, you will at bare minimum get fines, probably jail. I did this once, i was 16 (that day actually was my birthday!), and that guy was ~35yo weighing ~150kg. Defended myself at all means possible, i got sued by goverment, initially with attempted kill. Finally, they decided i was innocent, but still fined me for 120euros... and all i got was 180e per month back then. What saved me was that i was still a teenager, but it did require a very good lawyer.
Back on the subject, taxes are insane here too. If you are an employee, you will pay personal tax of upto over 60% + unemployment fees (2,5%) + church (1%) + health (1,5%) (hope i remember those right), if you happen to have money in the savings account, 28% tax from interest. Everything has VAT 22%, except food 17%. Gasoline has total tax of ~70%, Diesel a lot less but don't remember the pct at all, it costs ~30% less, while in truth it costs more to manufacture. If you buy a 2000e car from Germany, you might have to pay even upto 8 000e of taxes on it if you are unlucky. If you are entrepreneur, minimum total taxation is almost 50%, for other company form it's ~30% but then you get also personal tax on top of that. Also, from all sales you have to pay VAT, but fortunately if your payed VAT (when you buy something, loss) exceeds the amount of stuff you sold or equals no VAT to pay, and i think they even pay you back if you've paid too much in VAT taxes.
A real life example: monthly salary ~1350e, you get in your hand ~1050euros, apartment (cheap but spacy for one, about 50m2) ~450e, food for the month (1person) 150e, cheapest work travel 40e, and electricity ~30e/month, internet connectivity ~30e/month and ~+220e for apartment from goverment. I would think that's the minimal requirements for somewhat enjoyable life, and you are left with 570euros/month.
Currently, if you own a car minimum payments for the year are yearly inspection, car tax and traffic insurance. Traffic insurance is lower for newer and more expensive cars. My -84 Corolla yearly insurance is ~880e, car tax ~100e, inspection is ~50e. That's over 1 000e just to keep the car, and the car costs ~1200e. Now they are trying to remove the car tax, install GPS on every car (or some other tracking method) and issue a tax for every km you drive + add an emissions tax, which naturally be higher for older & cheaper cars. Top that of that driving with natural gas (aftermarket installation) as a civilian, not working on transportation business and not a car used for work is not allowed, and what i understood from department's texts, the fine is over 300euros per day!
For all the taxes you pay here, only thing working somewhat well is social safety net (you will always have apartment etc. if you are even somewhat sane, and bother to fill out couple forms). Education is bad, healthcare seems to be more like deathcare etc. Oh yeah, own a house & some land? You own that land only 1m deep, someone finds gold under 1m and wants to digg it, they are allowed to. City wants the land? No worries, you'll still get something like Market Value -40% for it.
To top that off, summers they lay on the roads saltwater "to keep dust down", which actually makes the roads slippery, and what when it dries? You get dust + salt! During winters, they lay ou
Actually, no pun intended, but you don't know what you are talking about:)
If paypal would be regulated, it would probably just contribute to flexibility. Regulation does not mean extra bureaucracy for the individual by no means at all, it means extra security for the individual.
There would be a lot more bureaucracy for Paypal, that's true, and it would cost, but Paypal's transfer fees are already so high that they should be able easily to cover that.
Moneybookers is regulated, and they are easy, fast & flexible to use. If you want merchant account with them, it means extra forms, but that isn't much, just basic stuff like VAT ID, Contact person etc. and if they wouldn't collect these, i wouldn't want to use them. But you do however got for the money full protection from fraud, get an fraudulent order? Moneybookers will cover it. Why can they do this? They actually have working anti-fraud measures! How?
- For almost any transaction, you need to insert your birthdate
- To get verified, i think they actually required a bank account to be added, but no problem: they have bank accounts all over the world.
- Other measures, i can't think of now except the basic ones, and what are transparent.
In fact, moneybookers anti-fraud measures provides a very high transparency. They do mistakes too, i've had my account locked twice, got my only fraudulent orders ever with moneybookers, 3 of them within weeks, it was very fast sorted out via extra anti-fraud screening -> pictures of driver's license and that's it.
Now about credit card payments: you can acquire methods to collect via credit cards in just minutes, 2checkout for example, costs 49USD to open, and all is processed on their end. They work for you as 'authorized reseller', thus the revenues you collect thru 2checkout are also non-taxable mainly, you still will need to pay for 'profit tax' tho (which here in finland starts for a small company from 48% if you can move the numbers correctly, otherwise 53%)
Micropayments: About just as fast:) Mpush
Oh and Banks aren't a viable alternative for Paypal if you are a foreigner, ie. european paying to US. US doesn't have IBAN/SWIFT, that being an european thing. IBAN/Swift offers free & fast international payments (4 business days usually)
Paypal isn't flexible, on top of that, non-regulation doesn't make them any more flexible. They are unregulated because, they don't then need to handle the bureucracy with it, they can collect any kind of fees, and especially, last but not least: they can take your money when they want to:) Yes, they have legal right to steal your funds from there with any excuse. Of course, the fact is hidden under the name of suspension (in real banks it's freezing the account), and you should get the funds after 160days, but are you going to be successfull? Not necessarily, most probably you won't ever see your money again.
Oh yeah, if you collect for charitable cause, you should ALWAYS get the charity clearance, because unless you do, because you HAVE TO pay the taxes without one, no excuses there.
There's absolutely NOTHING new in Paypal doing this. They aren't regulated, so they can do what the hell they want to in effect. and you can notice this.
On top of that, atleast in one point, even fscking janitors could get to see your account info there!
It does get better tho... Rather than working honestly, in one case i had, i got a fraudulent order, found out about that myself a day later, e-mailed them about the transaction needs to be reversed. This got to happen due to the fact, that they do not require any authentication at all to deposit more into paypal, as long as you have username & password.
I explained what has happened in detail etc. meanwhile, calming the victim down (who's account was stolen, victim of a phishing attack). I wasn't going to just send the funds to her, then the insane transfer fees would be lost etc. Total amount was approximately 150.
Almost 2 months later, i finally got a word from there... Nope, they hadn't read my e-mails, it seems it was automated message, saying the funds had been refunded etc. but the thing is, who's money it was, never got it. She noticed my Myspace profile 6months later, and she hadn't got STILL got it, while paypal had taken the funds from me.
In effect: Paypal decided to take the funds, without refunding them.
Nevermind the insanely high fraud amounts with them! I dropped them, after using them years and years, guess they calculated the one time cash was worth to them more than continuing transfer fees.
People, don't use paypal, there is honest companies out there to replace them... That being moneybookers!
Anshe Chung is an *hole, but didn't know that she is also lunatic/psychotic. She WILL fall.
For me it seems, that "world police" goverment's president and Anshe Chung shares the same degree & type of mental illness, unfortunately, there's a lot of people that fails to notice that from being too naive(or something else, which i won't mention here).
These are my 2 cents, like it or not.
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(Do i now get sued by Anshe Chung for my opinion?)
It's not the voltage which kills you, it's the ampers running thru you. Voltage causes the "zap" and "tingling" to be felt, but ampers are the which burns. Altho, high voltage CAN "jump start" your heart, but it doesn't burn you. Thus, you are more likely to survive.
Now, that suggests higher voltage would be safer... Think again, 10kV per 1cm leap. So 110kv needs 10cm around it without anything which can lead to ground.
Last summer a BMW Z3 was stolen, which was parked next to our congress house (got the right word?), owner was away for less than 10minutes. There's proof that the Z3 alarms were disabled and then taken onto a trailer, car was never found.
- Insurance company refused all claims because:
* This car is one of those "you cannot steal"
* Car was never found
- Insurance company neglected all the evidence that it is possible to steal cars such as BMW Z3
Owner complained about it and there was much of debate over it, i'm not sure what happened in the end.
Teaching of the story:
- Never buy newer than 15years old car
- Never have a car alarm if you wish to get something in case of robbery
In other words, they totally neglect the fact that nothing is burglar proof, you can even steal congress house if you have enough resources and enough information & knowledge.
Oh yeah, i drive a over 20years old Toyota, for which they refuse to give theft insurance because supposedly these cars are too easy to steal. Nevermind the color of my car which works as anti-theft insurance: it's Pink, it's one of the few cars on it's color & looks, you steal it, cops will DEFINATELY find the car if it's on open sight. (I know, color has nothing to do with possibility of giving a theft insurance, it's my own anti-theft measure)
Fortunately, thieves doesn't know that also because of the color, cops never stop you, even the car type & looks are otherwise that you would think cops would stop you and inspect it at every 2nd block.;) I've seen cops just smiling at my direction when driving it, and probably not even checking anything. I've had it for almost 6 months now, and driven nearly 10,000km with it, and i haven't been stopped even once, even if i've been driving they way that could possibly endanger others. (Drifting, no grip on rear and going sideways at higher speeds.)
As some of you know, this is perfect for what they are just testing: commissions advertising (aka affiliate stuff).
This would nicely prevent frauds, as the payments will go thru google, a advertiser cannor report 0 sales even if sales was made. This would remove one cheating possibility, where as AdSense currently is plagued with click fraud, there won't be such a problem with this type of advertising.
now wait a minute... Lenovo? IBM Sold? When?
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Lenovo To Shun Linux
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· Score: 0, Redundant
Am i asleep? I have missed completely! IBM taken over by Lenovo.. Who?
Never heard of Lenovo, and never heard of IBM being taken over! That's really a shame...
What's happening in this world?
Hopefully they atleast supply Ubuntu or some other linux distro installation media with their laptops in the future or something like that, for atleast a little while.
It's a shame it's that costly, i would need to take that 1million pageviews/month for a single alone, and it does not generate that much revenue to justify it...
Altho, for an another website it might just work, low traffic, but higher revenues per pageview...
Anyways, this is out of the reach for most people because of the price:(
this doesn't change something important...
on
PayPal Goes Mobile
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· Score: 1
... and that is that paypal simply sucks.
No, their service is kind of solid but...
You'll never want to be a merchant with paypal and get frauded/scammed or so forth... in fact, not as a customer neither. You'll never see your cash again... In fact, you'll never hear of customer support neither... Oh yeah, and apparently "No one" gets the cash, in this case, the no one is Paypal.
(I've had this happen, somebody buys some stuff of me with stolen paypal info. This is shortly catched and paypal is informed etc. Cash is taken away from my paypal account, but never returned to the paypal account which WAS stolen, but control had been regained. Needless to say, i don't support paypal anymore, and their very high fees for nothing.)
This is one hell of a car, just reading the chapter or two was enough to make me want one, seeing a picture of that car made me drool over it... seeing the video and a little bit more of it... Well, now i'm ready to start saving to get one of those rather than a Skyline GT-R32!
Soybean might currently cost much in volumes, but given enough people using it as fuel, prices are going to drop, and they are going to drop way below regular gas as it's renewable source! Just makes one wonder... What are we eating? x)
and yes, some feats are hard to find, but NOWHERE NEAR the level of hardness of GIMP. This reminds me of a quote which went something like "Democracy is the worst form of goverment, except for all of those tried", meaning that democracy might SUCK but it's best so far. Exactly same goes for Photoshop
remember the "good ol' days" when you hard to read like 1000 page manual for GIMP just to find that the button for straight line is ALT with was it pencil being selected? Atleast it's not that hard to find some BASIC feats in PS;)
GIMP might come close to the level of features of Photoshop (note: close), but nowhere near the usability & speed of production.
If you want PROs to use your software it needs to be FAST, EASY & POWERFULL. As it currently is, Photoshop is faster, easier & more powerfull. So what's there to wonder? It's not like news that Photoshop is more wanted than GIMP, duh..
There has been simply HUGE SCSI hdds available years ago already exceeding current maximum sizes. They just aren't off the shelf products, and you need to know where to look for them. I'm quite sure some manufacturer is selling way over 1Tb SCSI hdds.
Infact, 10 years ago i had 1.6Gb HDD, and that wasn't even biggest on the market. Hopefully i remember correct that it was spring -96. Anyways, we bought a puter then: 120Mhz Pentium, 16Mb Ram & 1.6Gb HDD, and one of the first 3d Graphic cards, not a good one tho: S3 Diamond 2000 or something like that.
120Mhz CPUs was just released, we had one of those after few weeks of release, altho our CPU was dead, and we replaced it with a Cyrix 150Mhz(120mhz), and also soon upgraded to second 1.6Gb hdd.
Both HDDs were Western Digital Caviar's model 1600, so i'd say they've increased like a bit over 100x since then, the price point for cheapest gb per seems to be 200gb now, so 130x roughly
Get a dedicated server (you can get one for easily sub-100 these days) from a reliable provider, or reseller who uses a reliable provider. (such as Savvis datacenter. Don't trust ThePlanet! Bad Bad Experience! Same goes with EV1) You'll get a reliable & fast service for you that way, also you can anytime you want to transfer to another provider etc. using home connection i do not recommend because for example: many ISPs block port 25 (smtp) so your mail won't be moving anywhere. and that's not acceptable. and home connections aren't really reliable. Plus colocation costs also almost as much as dedicated service.
Use different e-mail address for contacts with your provider (ie. gmail) for possible abuse reports, ISPs etc. are VERY strict on especially spam cases nowadays, they might give you as little as 3hours of notice to stop a spammer etc. but this generally isn't the problem. You might also want so that all your provider mails get to copied to other mailboxes too (for as fast notion as possible), and perhaps even a SMS gateway (very easy, buy a 10 phone + 15 datacable, a 10 prepaid service which you recharge for 10 once per year, then stick it on your server, home server if you don't have access to "proper server" for such thing, and put mygnokii to send e-mails, you might need to write a simple script to filter the proper messages to SMS and what kind of SMS's, it'll take few hours to setup. at the sametime you get '24/7' monitoring, so you can put it to check online status, and if down more than say 5 or 10minutes, send an SMS)
You won't need for personal use even cPanel or any other management software. Then just put anything you need, and in between to that server:) MTA, Asterisk(PBX, VoIP etc. you can even get Wireless Lan phones to use with that, very usefull on cities with A LOT of hotspots!), HTTPd (perhaps even LightTPD tho why'd you need extreme performance for personal use?), FTP etc. you can then use something like Webdrive to map a drive letter for an FTP location on your wind0ze box and keep all your work stuff there:) just use an older version of webdrive (i'd link it up if i would remember the address i have for personal usage of that old version).
Now to the part to get it all paid: get few of your friends share it with you, very easy, as in question is friends:)
for example, i offer a 79 server/month, 1000gb bw, 5 ips, 10mbps uplink port, 2Ghz Celeron, 512Mb ram, 80gb HDD. get 5 friends to pay you ~15/mo, and it's already covered:)
you can give them something like 10gb of HDD easily etc. and they be more than happy with the service given:) Just don't get greedy and try to grow as hosting business --> then the problems start, friends won't pay so much anymore, people wanting freebies will be harassing all the time, and really getting enough clients to make it all worth -might- take years, and all that involves a lot of work and expenses: server management license(ie. cpanel), billing system license(ie. modernbill, whmautopilot, awbs), marketing costs, making everything work easily & how you like them, different payment systems(2checkout, moneybookers, paypal, western union, checks) etc.
Especially paypal is bothersome: in my case, still when i accepted paypal approx 90% of orders using paypal was frauds. Fraud amounts seem to be quite high generally (except with moneybookers), so it's gonna give a lot of headache. also if you run an hosting business, you really can't take vacations or you need to hire someone to cover for you for that period, and you need to train them, if you don't train them well first they tend to make big mistakes etc.
also security comes up as a even bigger question etc. I won't go into more details, there is already so much more than you asked for.
Oh yeah, neither use your employees resources --> they have a tendency to spy on their workers etc. so not that wise idea, besides, they might give you
We know that one of the best games in the world are tetris, pacman and invaders, now can it get much simpler than that?;) Of course, no one really plays them anymore, so outdated, except tetris as new remakes has been appearing
Yes, Moo3 had way too much stuff, really a big shame, i really waited for that game and wanted it to rock!
First MOO was really simple indeed, and MOO2 isn't that bad as multiplayer... but in MOO2 i always have a feeling left that i want more to play, more, MORE! but perhaps that's one of it's charms;)
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I'm not against immigrants in whole, but many of them cause problems. I'd like to just see that certain groups wouldn't get as
easily citizenship here as they do currently, and that they would be kciked out of here more easily if they cause harm.
There are good immigrants too, and many of them really put effort in to their life etc. That's good, more immigrants like that are
welcome!
But those, who come here, get the citizenship automatically, exploit the social welfare to the maximum, hell, some even get free
BRAND NEW cars, and they seek them BRAND NEW apartments for rental etc. and then they go out at night with knives and their herds
to rob people, that ain't right.
Infact, not even the extent what they get from social welfare ain't right, just because their culture is different, shouldn't
give them immediately right for everything they want to! That ain't right, they are being treated BETTER than native Finnish
people. Oh yeah, i'm from a immigrant family line too, our family came to Finland sometime in 1800-century, thru Russia from
Germany. Afaik, couple generations was spent in Russia. Oh yeah, there's some people carrying the same last name as i do, who
have made a difference to the good, in Finnish history.
It's good that immigrants come to Finland, let's Finland grow. Hell, i'd say that upto 5% of total population should be increased
each year via immigration! Makes us stronger as a nation. But those bastards who exploit & abuse the system and rob, rape and
kill Finnish people should be hanged! But no, they just get more from social welfare ! ! >_
Finland has one of the best social welfares, which brings to here many of those *holes. Here, if you don't want to, you don't
necessarily need to do ANYTHING but fill in couple forms each month and you'll get by, no luxuries tho, but if you are immigrant,
you just might easily get some luxuries also.
WoW, that's interesting view on things!
Everything is heavily taxed left and right, that's true. But i don't think in case of a car govt. doesn't own it, what you pay
for is right to use public roads so to speak.
Yeah, as long as car is registered --> there's a tax just for owning it here.
Actually, here in Finland, i believe all contest winnings are taxable, i think it was 15% or 28% what they take.
Here everything is taxed! Hell, if you look correctly some things, even taxes are being taxed in some cases!
That sounds A LOT like here in Finland, except here isn't that kind of insecurity. Insecurity yes, but not deadly.
Here, there's a lot of talks, stories etc. (rarely gets to the press, but a few does) about security companies employees beating people for no reason, but that's the top of the iceberg. You gotta watch over your shoulder on our capital city and nearby cities
when going to trainstations, there's people who might try to beat you off just because you don't give them a cigarett or you look
too good for their liking or rich.
None of those are Finnish, but mostly immigrants and such. (Now i will be called a racist).
If you are jumped and you defend yourself, you will at bare minimum get fines, probably jail. I did this once, i was 16 (that day
actually was my birthday!), and that guy was ~35yo weighing ~150kg. Defended myself at all means possible, i got sued by
goverment, initially with attempted kill. Finally, they decided i was innocent, but still fined me for 120euros... and all i got
was 180e per month back then. What saved me was that i was still a teenager, but it did require a very good lawyer.
Back on the subject, taxes are insane here too.
If you are an employee, you will pay personal tax of upto over 60% + unemployment fees (2,5%) + church (1%) + health (1,5%) (hope i remember those right), if you happen to have money in the savings account, 28% tax from interest.
Everything has VAT 22%, except food 17%. Gasoline has total tax of ~70%, Diesel a lot less but don't remember the pct at all, it
costs ~30% less, while in truth it costs more to manufacture.
If you buy a 2000e car from Germany, you might have to pay even upto 8 000e of taxes on it if you are unlucky.
If you are entrepreneur, minimum total taxation is almost 50%, for other company form it's ~30% but then you get also personal
tax on top of that.
Also, from all sales you have to pay VAT, but fortunately if your payed VAT (when you buy something, loss) exceeds the amount of
stuff you sold or equals no VAT to pay, and i think they even pay you back if you've paid too much in VAT taxes.
A real life example: monthly salary ~1350e, you get in your hand ~1050euros, apartment (cheap but spacy for one, about 50m2)
~450e, food for the month (1person) 150e, cheapest work travel 40e, and electricity ~30e/month, internet connectivity ~30e/month
and ~+220e for apartment from goverment.
I would think that's the minimal requirements for somewhat enjoyable life, and you are left with 570euros/month.
Currently, if you own a car minimum payments for the year are yearly inspection, car tax and traffic insurance.
Traffic insurance is lower for newer and more expensive cars. My -84 Corolla yearly insurance is ~880e, car tax ~100e, inspection
is ~50e. That's over 1 000e just to keep the car, and the car costs ~1200e. Now they are trying to remove the car tax, install
GPS on every car (or some other tracking method) and issue a tax for every km you drive + add an emissions tax, which naturally
be higher for older & cheaper cars. Top that of that driving with natural gas (aftermarket installation) as a civilian, not
working on transportation business and not a car used for work is not allowed, and what i understood from department's texts,
the fine is over 300euros per day!
For all the taxes you pay here, only thing working somewhat well is social safety net (you will always have apartment etc. if you
are even somewhat sane, and bother to fill out couple forms). Education is bad, healthcare seems to be more like deathcare etc.
Oh yeah, own a house & some land? You own that land only 1m deep, someone finds gold under 1m and wants to digg it, they are
allowed to. City wants the land? No worries, you'll still get something like Market Value -40% for it.
To top that off, summers they lay on the roads saltwater "to keep dust down", which actually makes the roads slippery, and what
when it dries? You get dust + salt!
During winters, they lay ou
Actually, no pun intended, but you don't know what you are talking about :)
:) Mpush
:) Yes, they have legal right to steal your funds from there with any excuse. Of course, the fact is hidden under the name of suspension (in real banks it's freezing the account), and you should get the funds after 160days,
If paypal would be regulated, it would probably just contribute to flexibility. Regulation does not mean extra bureaucracy for the individual by no means at all, it means extra security for the individual.
There would be a lot more bureaucracy for Paypal, that's true, and it would cost, but Paypal's transfer fees are already so high that they should be able easily to cover that.
Moneybookers is regulated, and they are easy, fast & flexible to use. If you want merchant account with them, it means extra forms, but that isn't much, just basic stuff like VAT ID, Contact person etc. and if they wouldn't collect these, i wouldn't want to use
them. But you do however got for the money full protection from fraud, get an fraudulent order? Moneybookers will cover it.
Why can they do this? They actually have working anti-fraud measures! How?
- For almost any transaction, you need to insert your birthdate
- To get verified, i think they actually required a bank account to be added, but no problem: they have bank accounts all over the world.
- Other measures, i can't think of now except the basic ones, and what are transparent.
In fact, moneybookers anti-fraud measures provides a very high transparency. They do mistakes too, i've had my account locked twice, got my only fraudulent orders ever with moneybookers, 3 of them within weeks, it was very fast sorted out via extra anti-fraud screening -> pictures of driver's license and that's it.
Now about credit card payments: you can acquire methods to collect via credit cards in just minutes, 2checkout for example, costs 49USD to open, and all is processed on their end. They work for you as 'authorized reseller', thus the revenues you collect thru
2checkout are also non-taxable mainly, you still will need to pay for 'profit tax' tho (which here in finland starts for a small company from 48% if you can move the numbers correctly, otherwise 53%)
Micropayments: About just as fast
Oh and Banks aren't a viable alternative for Paypal if you are a foreigner, ie. european paying to US. US doesn't have IBAN/SWIFT, that being an european thing. IBAN/Swift offers free & fast international payments (4 business days usually)
Paypal isn't flexible, on top of that, non-regulation doesn't make them any more flexible. They are unregulated because, they don't then need to handle the bureucracy with it, they can collect any kind of fees, and especially, last but not least: they can take your money when they want to
but are you going to be successfull? Not necessarily, most probably you won't ever see your money again.
Oh yeah, if you collect for charitable cause, you should ALWAYS get the charity clearance, because unless you do, because you HAVE TO pay the taxes without one, no excuses there.
There's absolutely NOTHING new in Paypal doing this. They aren't regulated, so they can do what the hell they want to in effect. and you can notice this.
On top of that, atleast in one point, even fscking janitors could get to see your account info there!
It does get better tho... Rather than working honestly, in one case i had, i got a fraudulent order, found out about that myself
a day later, e-mailed them about the transaction needs to be reversed. This got to happen due to the fact, that they do not require any authentication at all to deposit more into paypal, as long as you have username & password.
I explained what has happened in detail etc. meanwhile, calming the victim down (who's account was stolen, victim of a phishing attack). I wasn't going to just send the funds to her, then the insane transfer fees would be lost etc. Total amount was approximately 150.
Almost 2 months later, i finally got a word from there... Nope, they hadn't read my e-mails, it seems it was automated message, saying the funds had been refunded etc. but the thing is, who's money it was, never got it. She noticed my Myspace profile 6months later, and she hadn't got STILL got it, while paypal had taken the funds from me.
In effect: Paypal decided to take the funds, without refunding them.
Nevermind the insanely high fraud amounts with them! I dropped them, after using them years and years, guess they calculated the
one time cash was worth to them more than continuing transfer fees.
People, don't use paypal, there is honest companies out there to replace them... That being moneybookers!
And for How Much?
I have a relative in DIRE need, with a very far progressed cancer... Actually the situation is VERY DESPERATE!
I wish this would have come out long time ago... I wish my grandma could get this NOW...
Anshe Chung is an *hole, but didn't know that she is also lunatic/psychotic. She WILL fall.
For me it seems, that "world police" goverment's president and Anshe Chung shares the same degree & type of mental illness, unfortunately, there's a lot of people that fails to notice that from being too naive(or something else, which i won't mention here).
These are my 2 cents, like it or not.
.
.
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(Do i now get sued by Anshe Chung for my opinion?)
It's not the voltage which kills you, it's the ampers running thru you. Voltage causes the "zap" and "tingling" to be felt, but
ampers are the which burns.
Altho, high voltage CAN "jump start" your heart, but it doesn't burn you. Thus, you are more likely to survive.
Now, that suggests higher voltage would be safer... Think again, 10kV per 1cm leap.
So 110kv needs 10cm around it without anything which can lead to ground.
Correct me if i'm wrong...
Last summer a BMW Z3 was stolen, which was parked next to our congress house (got the right word?), owner was away for less than 10minutes.
;) I've seen cops just smiling at my direction when driving it, and probably not even checking anything. I've had it for almost 6 months now, and driven nearly 10,000km with it, and i haven't been stopped even once, even if i've been driving they way that could possibly endanger others. (Drifting, no grip on rear and going sideways at higher speeds.)
There's proof that the Z3 alarms were disabled and then taken onto a trailer, car was never found.
- Insurance company refused all claims because:
* This car is one of those "you cannot steal"
* Car was never found
- Insurance company neglected all the evidence that it is possible to steal cars such as BMW Z3
Owner complained about it and there was much of debate over it, i'm not sure what happened in the end.
Teaching of the story:
- Never buy newer than 15years old car
- Never have a car alarm if you wish to get something in case of robbery
In other words, they totally neglect the fact that nothing is burglar proof, you can even steal congress house if you have enough resources and enough information & knowledge.
Oh yeah, i drive a over 20years old Toyota, for which they refuse to give theft insurance because supposedly these cars are too easy to steal. Nevermind the color of my car which works as anti-theft insurance: it's Pink, it's one of the few cars on it's color & looks, you steal it, cops will DEFINATELY find the car if it's on open sight. (I know, color has nothing to do with possibility of giving a theft insurance, it's my own anti-theft measure)
Fortunately, thieves doesn't know that also because of the color, cops never stop you, even the car type & looks are otherwise that you would think cops would stop you and inspect it at every 2nd block.
As some of you know, this is perfect for what they are just testing: commissions advertising (aka affiliate stuff).
This would nicely prevent frauds, as the payments will go thru google, a advertiser cannor report 0 sales even if sales was made. This would remove one cheating possibility, where as AdSense currently is plagued with click fraud, there won't be such a problem with this type of advertising.
Am i asleep? I have missed completely! IBM taken over by Lenovo.. Who?
Never heard of Lenovo, and never heard of IBM being taken over! That's really a shame...
What's happening in this world?
Hopefully they atleast supply Ubuntu or some other linux distro installation media with their laptops in the future or something like that, for atleast a little while.
It's a shame it's that costly, i would need to take that 1million pageviews/month for a single alone, and it does not generate that much revenue to justify it...
:(
Altho, for an another website it might just work, low traffic, but higher revenues per pageview...
Anyways, this is out of the reach for most people because of the price
Here's the article on coral: http://www.qbrundage.com.nyud.net:8090/michaelb/pu bs/essays/working_at_microsoft.html
... and that is that paypal simply sucks.
No, their service is kind of solid but...
You'll never want to be a merchant with paypal and get frauded/scammed or so forth... in fact, not as a customer neither. You'll never see your cash again... In fact, you'll never hear of customer support neither...
Oh yeah, and apparently "No one" gets the cash, in this case, the no one is Paypal.
(I've had this happen, somebody buys some stuff of me with stolen paypal info. This is shortly catched and paypal is informed etc. Cash is taken away from my paypal account, but never returned to the paypal account which WAS stolen, but control had been regained. Needless to say, i don't support paypal anymore, and their very high fees for nothing.)
This is one hell of a car, just reading the chapter or two was enough to make me want one, seeing a picture of that car made me drool over it... seeing the video and a little bit more of it... Well, now i'm ready to start saving to get one of those rather than a Skyline GT-R32!
Soybean might currently cost much in volumes, but given enough people using it as fuel, prices are going to drop, and they are going to drop way below regular gas as it's renewable source!
Just makes one wonder... What are we eating? x)
Pros find it easy, and that's all that matters
;)
and yes, some feats are hard to find, but NOWHERE NEAR the level of hardness of GIMP.
This reminds me of a quote which went something like "Democracy is the worst form of goverment, except for all of those tried", meaning that democracy might SUCK but it's best so far.
Exactly same goes for Photoshop
remember the "good ol' days" when you hard to read like 1000 page manual for GIMP just to find that the button for straight line is ALT with was it pencil being selected?
Atleast it's not that hard to find some BASIC feats in PS
Is that it's easy to use. PERIOD.
GIMP might come close to the level of features of Photoshop (note: close), but nowhere near the usability & speed of production.
If you want PROs to use your software it needs to be FAST, EASY & POWERFULL.
As it currently is, Photoshop is faster, easier & more powerfull. So what's there to wonder?
It's not like news that Photoshop is more wanted than GIMP, duh..
There has been simply HUGE SCSI hdds available years ago already exceeding current maximum sizes.
They just aren't off the shelf products, and you need to know where to look for them. I'm quite sure some manufacturer is selling way over 1Tb SCSI hdds.
Infact, 10 years ago i had 1.6Gb HDD, and that wasn't even biggest on the market. Hopefully i remember correct that it was spring -96.
Anyways, we bought a puter then: 120Mhz Pentium, 16Mb Ram & 1.6Gb HDD, and one of the first 3d Graphic cards, not a good one tho: S3 Diamond 2000 or something like that.
120Mhz CPUs was just released, we had one of those after few weeks of release, altho our CPU was dead, and we replaced it with a Cyrix 150Mhz(120mhz), and also soon upgraded to second 1.6Gb hdd.
Both HDDs were Western Digital Caviar's model 1600, so i'd say they've increased like a bit over 100x since then, the price point for cheapest gb per seems to be 200gb now, so 130x roughly
Get a dedicated server (you can get one for easily sub-100 these days) from a reliable provider, or reseller who uses a reliable provider. (such as Savvis datacenter. Don't trust ThePlanet! Bad Bad Experience! Same goes with EV1) You'll get a reliable & fast service for you that way, also you can anytime you want to transfer to another provider etc.
:) MTA, Asterisk(PBX, VoIP etc. you can even get Wireless Lan phones to use with that, very usefull on cities with A LOT of hotspots!), HTTPd (perhaps even LightTPD tho why'd you need extreme performance for personal use?), FTP etc. you can then use something like Webdrive to map a drive letter for an FTP location on your wind0ze box and keep all your work stuff there :) just use an older version of webdrive (i'd link it up if i would remember the address i have for personal usage of that old version).
:)
:)
:)
using home connection i do not recommend because for example: many ISPs block port 25 (smtp) so your mail won't be moving anywhere. and that's not acceptable. and home connections aren't really reliable.
Plus colocation costs also almost as much as dedicated service.
Use different e-mail address for contacts with your provider (ie. gmail) for possible abuse reports, ISPs etc. are VERY strict on especially spam cases nowadays, they might give you as little as 3hours of notice to stop a spammer etc. but this generally isn't the problem. You might also want so that all your provider mails get to copied to other mailboxes too (for as fast notion as possible), and perhaps even a SMS gateway (very easy, buy a 10 phone + 15 datacable, a 10 prepaid service which you recharge for 10 once per year, then stick it on your server, home server if you don't have access to "proper server" for such thing, and put mygnokii to send e-mails, you might need to write a simple script to filter the proper messages to SMS and what kind of SMS's, it'll take few hours to setup. at the sametime you get '24/7' monitoring, so you can put it to check online status, and if down more than say 5 or 10minutes, send an SMS)
You won't need for personal use even cPanel or any other management software. Then just put anything you need, and in between to that server
Now to the part to get it all paid: get few of your friends share it with you, very easy, as in question is friends
for example, i offer a 79 server/month, 1000gb bw, 5 ips, 10mbps uplink port, 2Ghz Celeron, 512Mb ram, 80gb HDD.
get 5 friends to pay you ~15/mo, and it's already covered
you can give them something like 10gb of HDD easily etc. and they be more than happy with the service given
Just don't get greedy and try to grow as hosting business --> then the problems start, friends won't pay so much anymore, people wanting freebies will be harassing all the time, and really getting enough clients to make it all worth -might- take years, and all that involves a lot of work and expenses: server management license(ie. cpanel), billing system license(ie. modernbill, whmautopilot, awbs), marketing costs, making everything work easily & how you like them, different payment systems(2checkout, moneybookers, paypal, western union, checks) etc.
Especially paypal is bothersome: in my case, still when i accepted paypal approx 90% of orders using paypal was frauds.
Fraud amounts seem to be quite high generally (except with moneybookers), so it's gonna give a lot of headache. also if you run an hosting business, you really can't take vacations or you need to hire someone to cover for you for that period, and you need to train them, if you don't train them well first they tend to make big mistakes etc.
also security comes up as a even bigger question etc.
I won't go into more details, there is already so much more than you asked for.
Oh yeah, neither use your employees resources --> they have a tendency to spy on their workers etc. so not that wise idea, besides, they might give you
Indeed, one must remember to keep it simple :)
;)
;)
We know that one of the best games in the world are tetris, pacman and invaders, now can it get much simpler than that?
Of course, no one really plays them anymore, so outdated, except tetris as new remakes has been appearing
Yes, Moo3 had way too much stuff, really a big shame, i really waited for that game and wanted it to rock!
First MOO was really simple indeed, and MOO2 isn't that bad as multiplayer... but in MOO2 i always have a feeling left that i want more to play, more, MORE! but perhaps that's one of it's charms
indeed, latest patch helps the multiplayers turns speed somewhat :) :D
We've been lately being it on lan
How come not many people appreciates the geniunity of Master Of Orion 2? :O
It's a true masterpiece, i still keep spending sleepless nights with it sometimes, and playing it on network... Even more so!
Thanks, got to watch it now :)