consumer awareness

Health Warning: Don’t Use Your Untreated Tap Water With Your Neti Pot!!!

by on December 20, 2011

in consumer

Neti PotConsumer Awareness Note:  Neti Pots seem to be all the rage.  The premise of pushing water up my nose has been so revolting that I’ve not gone near the frightening little blue pot.

But I’ve also heard wonderful success stories from many friends and associates about how using the Neti Pot has helped or cured their allergies or other allergy-like issues.

But I can’t just bring myself to try one, even with my own allergies raging against this Bruce-machine.  For the time being, I think I prefer to suffer than power-rinse my brain.

-

But now it seems, there might be a minor issue with the Neti Pots and it has to do with using your untreated drinking water out of your tap!

At this point, it’s been recorded that two people have died from brain-eating amoebas, in association with using their Neti Pots.  And with that, doctors are now warning folks to not use tap-water with your Neti Pots.

The warning comes from Louisiana, where a 20-year-old man and a 51-year-old Louisiana woman died of encephalitis.

There seems to be a connection between the pots and the users tap water.

[click to continue reading…]

{ 0 comments }

More Privacy Concerns With Everyone’s Smartphones, & This One Is Big

by on December 3, 2011

in consumer

Consumer news, Consumer alerts and a Consumer's opinionHere’s something for your consumer awareness:  While tinkering around with his Android based phone, Trevor Eckhart discovered something interesting underneath the hood.  A piece of software that was recording EVERYTHING you did with and/or on your phone.  Including your keystrokes.

Yea, it’s the big brother syndrome all over again.   But even though the focus in the source article is the Android system, this was on multiple  carriers.

But in this case, it’s on all our phones, from a company based out here in Mountain View, CA, called Carrier IQ.

This might explain, if you had received them too, the emails from Verizon Wireless trying to explain privacy controls from the company.  I’ve received two of them explaining that they were tracking various functions of my phone’s usage.

But any how, Carrier IQ had been contracted by Verizon, and other phone companies to track phone behavior.  The frightening part is that the software, in it’s process of tracking things, also recorded things such as keystrokes.

And that sucks, considering the private financial deeds and other kinds of personal things we do on our phones, it’s downright insidious.

[click to continue reading…]

{ 0 comments }

Droid X Battery Draining App Heads Up [Consumer]

by on November 17, 2011

in consumer

Consumer news, Consumer alerts and a Consumer's opinionAs a newish smartphone owner, I’ve been tinkering with apps.  I tread a bit carefully.  I’ve hit up the Droid Market and tend to veer away from apps where there are questionable reviews.  Sure, some reviews are not written by rocket scientists, but rather, seemingly angry biker gang dudes.  But if you see enough questionable statements about an app, well, I tend to steer clear.  But there have been some apps that I’ve tried.  Some are good, some not so good.  And on occasion, there are some losers.  I had an EA Sports app that sort of looked cool, but in the end, really sucked crap and it had no support.  But that’s moot.

After all the apps I’ve tinkered with, I’ve got some solid ones and weeded out the fodder.  But recently I installed a few apps from who I consider to be a reputable source…   Amazon!

My experience has been that over the last couple of months, I thought my battery was starting to tank awful fast over the period of a day, despite only having had it for less than two years.

Motorala DROID X Smartphone

It’s amazing how, the more apps you add to your smartphone, the less stable it becomes.  So too, does the survivability of one’s battery it seems.  About a month or so ago, I had added a few Amazon apps to my phone.  I was thinking about having direct access to the website, via my phone.  A little while after that, I started noting how fast my battery on my phone was being used up.

I mean, the battery would die really fast.  EVEN WHEN I WASN’T USING IT!

[click to continue reading…]

{ 0 comments }

Facebook Changes Of Late Are Innefficient and Annoying

by on October 18, 2011

in consumer

Facebook LogoI don’t know about you, but the changes that Facebook have presented over the last month or two are incredibly flustering.

First up, the ‘world’ symbol used to show us when our friends replied to our own Facebook posts.  That’s no longer the case, but rather, we get to see all new posts from friends.  Regardless of whether they are replies or not.

Great…

-

Then we have a new window on the right side that shows all new posts from friends and pages.  This means that we get to see three times the  updates because we now have three columns of updates when you take into consideration the center update column.  So sometimes, we now get the same update three times if you’re checking all three feeds.

Great…

-

Now, I’ve encountered an interesting issue or two.

[click to continue reading…]

{ 0 comments }

What Is the California Recycling Fee?

by on September 26, 2011

in consumer

Consumer news, Consumer alerts and a Consumer's opinionThe other day I bought a cheapie flat screen TV that was an LED TV.  What caught my attention was that there was this California state induced fee at the cash register that accounted for 10% of my purchase price.  I became curious.

So what is a California Recycling Fee and why am I paying it at the cash register?

The reason I ask is because I already recycle.  I have a place I can drop off old TVs and such in Palo Alto, for free.  But it looks like I’m already being charged for something I’m going to do any way.

What the recycling fee does is provides money to a California state agency that deals with electronic equipment that gets sold to the consumer.  That organization is called the Board of Equalization (BOE).

[click to continue reading…]

{ 0 comments }

Consumer Awareness: Protecting Yourself at the ATM

by on September 1, 2011

in consumer

Personal Safety

Hey, Bruce here…

Consumer news, Consumer alerts and a Consumer's opinionEvery now and then we hear about crimes that take place at ATM’s.  We always think that things like that won’t happen to us, but to be honest, so did those victims.  It can happen to anyone because there are people who aren’t very nice out there, looking for unsuspecting victims.  Heck, a work peer of mine just had her purse stolen from her from within a Safeway, in the middle of the day on a Saturday!

So is there anything you can do to help protect yourself and keep an eye out for your own personal saftey, or at least, minimize your dangers at the cash spitting dispenser?

Sure, there are some simple steps you can take to keep yourself a tad safer.

[click to continue reading…]

{ 0 comments }

Wow, WordPress.com Stats will Now only Use JetPack… How Microsoft

by on August 31, 2011

in consumer

Consumer news, Consumer alerts and a Consumer's opinionConsumer News / Opinion on JetPack

 

I’m looking at my blog’s visitor statistics today (the day I wrote this) and noticed this big blue and green banner notice saying that all future updates to the WordPress.com stats package for your self-hosted blog will only be included in the JetPack add-on package.

I’m not reacting well to this enforced method of retaining my statistics package in my WordPress blog.

Finding yourself forced into a package that is overly redundant with processes that I already employ feels very much like I’m using a Microsoft product and being told it’s this or nothing.  I have always preferred the power of choice myself.

Show me something that makes me want it, and I’ll be there.  But not this way.

As if my day isn’t already busy enough, I now have to decide to either blow off my WordPress.com stats package or look into JetPack to see what plugins I have to dump to adopt this thing that I originally did not feel that I needed when it first came out.

The verbiage for JetPack is the same as the WordPress.com stats package… it will put “no additional load on your server.”  Yet I’ve proven to myself, that my own interaction (loggin in and editing) with my site is slowed down considerably when the stats package is in place.  When I disable it, my response time is easily 1/2 that.  But then again, I don’t use a CDN right now.  (That’s for another day… CDN’s.)

[click to continue reading…]

{ 0 comments }

Apple Privacy Issue Gets Expensive

by on August 1, 2011

in consumer

Remember when people were screaming when they discovered that Apple was keeping tabs on their locations via some unprotrected datebase file on their new iPhones?  Now, over in Korea, that invasive little practice where no one was asked their permission is going to get expensive.

Korea has launched a class-action suit where Apple is being accused of violating what’s perceived as domestic laws of privacy in how their iPhone was collecting the data.

If the lawsuit takes hold, Apple could be paying up to $25million in damages.

Brusimm Consumer News, Opinion and Awareness Logo

-

Ya know…

Right now as we use desk and laptop computers, our systems, despite being our property, are riddled with tracking files and such.  One of the most basic forms of tracking is the website cookie.  From these cookies, and other aspects of your system, that’s how Amazon.com knows what you have previously shopped for.  Or if you go to a new website you’ve never been to before, that’s how they know what to point you at… from cookies from other websites.

I do feel it’s invasive and yet cookies are a necessary evil in some instances.  It’s also a PIA to run software that masks or restricts cookies, but alas, that’s what I do.  I only allow cookies from a select set of websites I visit.  If a website requires that I need to allow them to drop cookies on my computer, well, bite me.  99% of most sites I visit don’t need that to be a requirement and I find a different site to visit.

But most users are unaware.  They turn on their computers and take the default settings and go.

[click to continue reading…]

{ 0 comments }

The Tale of Two Mechanics and Why I Love ‘Precision Automotive’ in Palo Alto

by on July 13, 2011

in consumer

Consumer Bits - Consumer news, information and opinion

This is a consumer service review of Precision Automotive… again.  But with new stories and a comparative look at another highly rated mechanics garage.  But first, Here is a conversation I had with one Volkswagen mechanic a few months back:

“You need a LF tire… but you should get all four because you need it.”

Are you saying they all look as bad as the LF tire does?

“They all need to be replaced.”

So they’re all showing metal through the rubber like the LF is?

“No, the RF has 30% life left, the RR has 50% life left and the LR has 70% life left.“

If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can be so susceptible to well meaning mechanics.  They’re only doing their jobs and trying to drum up business, but if you go into any automotive shop without a clue, without having done your research on your issue or had comparative visits, you WILL get financially depleted wrongfully, as far as I’m concerned.

Let me tell you of another tale of an almost huge financial whoa for myself.

About 16 months ago I had a problem with my truck engine.  I went to a very highly rated mechanic, via the Bay Area Consumer Checkbook website.  The mechanic is located on El Camino Real in Menlo Park.  Keep in mind, Checkbook is updated by folks like you and me.  Not professional consumer advocates, so reviews can be biased and/or a bit ignorant in some regards.  And I don’t mean any of that in a bad way because I do depend on review sites, but I read them with a grain of salt.

The first time I went to this highly rated mechanic, they were incredibly professional, called out my problem quickly and though, through circumstances not totally their fault, I had to wait almost a week to get my truck back.  But I did.  It cost around $1000, which I thought was odd for the job, as in, oddly over-priced, but they did fairly good work.

I want to point out that this highly recommended mechanic operates in a zone between Menlo Park and Atherton.  Atherton is the most expensive zip code in the United States.  The homes are so huge, they make movie mansions look, well, normal.  So when something costs $1,000 for someone who might spend $150k a month on a mortgage, well, obviously to them, that $1k is cheap.

I think that above distinction is a very important one to make here and you’ll understand in a moment.

[click to continue reading…]

{ 0 comments }

Your ‘Chase Freedom’ “5%” Back Status is TEMPORARY – Consumer Awareness!

by on May 1, 2011

in consumer

Chase Freedom Card ScamOver the last few months, I’m betting you’ve been receiving those very pretty blue Chase Freedom credit cards to replace your old Chase credit cards. The card is a very pretty metallic blue color. Oooh. I bet you liked it too. But you need to be aware, that this rebate program that you might have signed up for, that prompted you to probably use your credit card more than normal, may not be what it appears to be and you may not be getting that rebate you thought you were going to get.

Read on to find out what happened to a Consumer Bits reader and what they wrote me with, on their experience with their Chase Freedom Cash Back credit cards program!

(Edited for content, tone and consumer protection. Please don’t send me your private, financial details like account #’s and such. Even putting info like that in an email is not safe because your email has to cross multiple uncontrolled servers before getting to my inbox.)

-

A few months back I received my Chase Freedom credit card to replace my old Chase card.  Along with this new card, the paperwork blazed on and on about this new rebate program that comes with the card… or so I thought.  The program looks great for consumers! You get 1-5% back on specific purchases you make using your blue Chase Freedom credit card.

I tend to avoid my credit cards (as we all should) like the plastic plague of financial death that they are… but with this 5% back thing, I thought, wow, let’s give this a try.

[click to continue reading…]

{ 0 comments }

← Previous Entries