US Bank is charging a $2 ‘Check Reject Fee’ for checks not ordered from them directly.

I got the $2 sting today in my checking account. I am going to go to the bank tomorrow and complain. If they can’t stop this policy, I’m switching banks. I am not ordering new checks, specially since we are planning on moving in the next 1-3 months.

Also, they didn’t actually reject the check, they gladly paid the amount on the check to the person I wrote it to. Perhaps the message should be ‘Check not provided by us Fee’. Cause that’s what it really means.
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Well, I made a decision and placed the order. I decided on the Dell Inspiron E1505.

Many friends gave me wonderful input on the decision. My Fiancee gave me the last wise advice. I was playing with the idea of dropping the DVD writer option or the extra 512MB of memory for the faster Core Duo T2400. Heather asked what items can’t be upgraded easily and I said the processor, she said go all out on the processor. So I did.

Thanks to Matt for suggesting bradsdeals.com, I saved another $250 on the price.

Here is what I ordered:

• Dell Inspiron E1505 Dual Core T2500 (2.0Ghz)
• 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife clear screen
• 1 DIMM 512MB Shared Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM 533MHZ
• 256MB ATI MOBILITYâ„¢ RADEON® X1400 (128MB dedicated + zero to 128MB shared, configurable)
• 60GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
• Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 + reinstallation CD
• 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
• Dell Wireless 1390 802.11b/g Mini Card
• 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

I sacrificed 40GB of drive space, DVD writing, and 512MB of system memory for the faster processor. I found 512MB at newegg.com for under $60 shipped. The DVD writing I can live without. The 60GB hard drive should work for a year or so. I figure in a year from now hard drives should be much cheaper.

So what do you think? Did I get a good deal?

Next purchase, 2 sticks of 1GB DDR2.

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Well I am starting to look at 15.4″ laptops. A friend of mine suggested that a 17″ wide screen laptop has a huge disadvantage, its size. I am taking that into consideration, though I do like the idea of the screen being larger, which means more applications I can have open at the same time. But I want this machine to handle many functions and portability is one of them. I am taking his suggestion very seriously. In the process I have found 2 laptops in the 15.4″ size that are, in my opinion, just as powerful as the 17″ models I liked. The Dell Inspiron E1505 and the Acer Aspire AS5672WLMi. I have found the Aspire as cheap as $1,100 on both Walmart.com and Newegg.com. When pricing out the Dell I get a price of just under $1,300. The Dell is slightly more configurable though. I am leaning to the Acer simply because I have had some bad experiences from Dell laptops.

What do you think, Acer or Dell?

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Windows freezing up problems since April of 2006? Right click on a desktop or special windows folder crash your computer? Well if you have some HP software or nVidia drivers installed Microsoft says: April Fools!
Yes, Microsoft had their own April Fools joke for us, in the April 11 Windows Update. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms06-015.mspx

Very funny Microsoft. This was a pretty good joke. Every time I right clicked on the desktop, any of the special folder such as My Documents, my computer processor usage would sky rocket thanks to this nice new program called verclsid.exe. Apparently Microsoft decided the best way to solve a security problem was to add another application to windows. No need to actually fix the problem in windows, just add an application! Well they sure got me going there, I was working on the problem for a good 4 hours.

Here is the fix according to Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918165 Oh, thanks for the registry information, I am sure the average user will easily add these to their registry.

This is the kind of crap that causes people to go out and buy a new computer. I sometimes wonder if Microsoft does this on purpose or are they just this stupid?
What made this April Fools joke so wonderful was the random errors I got. One of the errors: Windows cannot find ‘(null)’. All I can say is HA HA HA Microsoft, you got me this time. You F^@#ing bastards, please feel free to SUCK IT and SUCK IT HARD!

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This is the religious SPAM I got today. The Google SPAM filter did not catch:

Greetings in the name of almighty God,

Mrs. Vida Tommy Thompson.

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Just for kicks I decided to shop online for a new laptop. Though my current laptop is working perfectly fine, I have had it for over 3 years. Now is most likely the best time for me to buy a new laptop and sell my old one.

First, I decided on some features to narrow the search. I want my next laptop to have the same screen height as my existing 15″ screen. Since most laptops are now wide screen, I decided to look exclusively at 17″ wide screen notebooks. In addition, I expect integrated wireless G network card, a DVD Dual Layer writer, and at least 3 USB ports. The last requirement is that the processor is not a Celeron or Duron/Sempron.

If I were to buy a notebook computer today, I believe I would buy either the Toshiba or the HP. I have to admit the HP configured laptop is nearly identical to the Toshiba except for the system memory and slightly smaller hard drive. Those two features can be easily over looked if it saves $200, and it appears that it does. Now I have to compare the processors.

The Toshiba comes with an Intel Pentium M processor 760 and the HP comes with an AMD Turion 64 Mobile Processor ML-32. After a brief search on the web and analysis of the following link (http://techreport.com/cpu/index2.x) it appears the Toshiba is marginally faster in performance than the HP.

So what do you think, Toshiba or HP?

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If you really want an Acura RSX hurry to the Acura dealer and pick one up. From what I have been reading, you can pick one up relatively cheap too, since true car enthusiests like myself have decided the standard features in the new Si are worth not buying the RSX Type-S. Had they only added the limited slip differential to the Type-S then I would have easily picked the RSX over the Si.

With the RSX gone, will they put the 160HP engine into next years Civic Ex models to fill the gap that the base RSX filled? How will sales shape up with the Si Sedan coming out this fall? Time will tell.

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