AskDong

Yesterday, my friends and acquaintances received an email from my gmail account. I didn’t sent this email however.  It was one of many variations on the “Nigerian” money transfer scams.  The email was sent from my account, and signed off with my name.  My gmail account was hacked! I don’t know how, and don’t know exactly when. It came at the most inopportune of times.  I’m currently on vacation in the west coast.  Were I not so addicted to the Internet, I might not have found about this until next week.

While I hope and expect that nobody in my address book will fall for this - I have tried to email or contact everyone that I have addresses for to ignore the email - I do think this scam is pretty nefarious.  The story is marginally believable, and relies on potential trust that I have personally built.  The typical scam is from a random individual and is easily dismissed. This scam might actually work as it and builds on the trust that comes from using my name and actual email address.

The body of the email is:

Hello
How are you doing today? Fine I presume. I am writing to inform you about my traveling in Africa, even though it might sound odd to you but it’s for real. My aunt and God mother who live here as a missionary is seriously ill, she is suffering from a critical fibroid and she needs family support around her to keep her going. Am very sorry for not informing you before embarking on my journey, I had no option but to act fast because the news of her illness arrived to as emergency, the doctor said that her condition is deteriorating that she will undergo a hysterectomy operation to keep her alive because her fibroid has gotten worse (70 pounds Large) and has done a lot of damages to her abdominal area.I was wondering if you can lend the sum of $2500, because I want to transfer her back home so that she can have the surgery done at a well equipped hospital, because I am not comfortable with things here am afraid something might go wrong. I am traveling with little cash because I didn’t expect things to be the way it is right now. Please let me know your financial status, if you are able to lend me the money, I have to come up with the money as soon as possible to be able to pay for her freight bill and other medical cost that will be required for the transfer. Get back as soon as you receive my message or call my hotel on +234 17493909

I am almost curious enough to call the phone number.   Though I don’t actually expect to reach someone who will answer to my name.   I imagine the number is just a number of a generic hotel to give credibility to the story.

To say the least, I was very upset when I learned my account had been compromised.  The account has been shutdown by google after I alerted them to the matter.   I would hope they would actually investigate, but given what I know of their actual customer service - that’s probably not in the cards.  I’m generally speaking pretty careful with my account information.   That particular email address wasn’t even one that I use widely.   I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that nothing else has been hacked (I have taken preventative measures).

I’ve never driven a car that’s needed anything but the cheapest gas available.  My family drove a car that ran on regular when it meant leaded well into the 80s.  I’m not sure how to fill up a tank with anything but the cheapy under 90 octane stuff.  I have friends who drive nicer cars than mine, not hard to do given I’m still rolling my windows down by hand, who fill up their cars with the good stuff.  Some places call it super, or supra, and others call it plus or premium.  Whatever it’s name, it’s got more octane, and apparently some cars need more octane.

How many of us actually even know what octane is, or what the difference between 87 octane and 93 octane? The octane referred to at gas stations is technically 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (isooctane), one of the isomers of CH3(CH2)6CH3.  For those who haven’t take organic chemistry, an isomer is a particular configuration for a particular molecule.

Isooctane looks like this (that is if you could actually see it):

Another isomer, 2-methylheptane - (CH3)2CH(CH2)4CH3, meaning is has the same atoms – the same number of hydrogens and carbons but configured differently looks like this:

(more…)

I own 20 inch iMac Core Duo, and before that I owned a Powerbook G4 12 inch, and before that I owned a Powerbook Titanium, and before that I owed a Quantex PC Clone. But before the Quantex, I owed a Powermac 7100, a Macintosh LC, and Mac 512ke. My first computer was an Apple //c.

That list should tell you two things. 1) I’m a big dork 2) I’m a dyed in the wool Apple fan, but hopefully not a fanatic. I use PCs at work, and even have a ThinkPad which I think highly of from work on which I’m typing this right now – hence why I replaced my Powerbook with an iMac desktop. I’m not naïve enough to believe that a Mac is for everyone. I could never use a Mac for my work. I barely tolerate using Microsoft Excel on my Mac.

However, generally speaking, as a personal computer I find the Mac far superior to PCs for both ease of use, and just generally being problem free. The older I’ve become, I’ve become less and less interested in how my computer works. I just want it to work. The question is, “What price am I willing paying for that convenience? Conventional wisdom is that PCs are much cheaper. There’s little question that at initial purchase a PC is almost always cheaper. I can get a PC laptop for less than $500, while the cheapest Mac notebook is about $1000.  Farhad Manjoo at salon.com believes that Macintoshes are actually cheaper to own in the long run.

Farhad’s basic argument derives from the idea of resale values, a concept I’ve put into practice. Since the rise of eBay, I’ve always been able to sell my used computers, or rather my Macs. Try to sell a PC that’s more than a year old, and you get pennies on the dollar. Sell a Mac that’s a couple year old and there’s a good chance to recoup nearly 50% of the cost of the machine. Below is a table of my own experience, and a little research into what PC laptops resale for.

While Steve Jobs likes to compare Apple computer to BMWs.  He thinks both are premium brand machines that one should be more willing to pay more for. A more apt comparison might be with Honda.   Honda cars like Apple computers have great resale values. Maybe that’s why I own both a Honda and a Mac