People who mix religion with technology...

I know I just posted (actually I wrote that other post yesterday and just re-edited it before posting today) but I just had to point this out specifically. Googling "future technologies" gave me this as a second result (I think):

http://www.futuretg.com/

These guys call themselves the "Future Technology Company" or "Future Technology Group", whatever however they want to put it. Take a look at the link - that page is full of religious references like "The First Sacred Ray: The God Will" and "Discover the secret of the seven vowels"... But they mix that in with "How Google uses electronic books" and "Download GWBasic for Windows" and say how their company is behind "ProveIT" which helped clear the Y2K bug!

I mean, for frak's sake, if you're going to sound like you're providing information about technology and software, and you're religion, do you really think posting things like "You see, this Universe, as well as all of Creation ..." and "You all long to live in a world of Love and Light .." will give you any credibility?

Do it on your own time, start a religious-loving-freak blog with tips on how to connect to non-existing and fictional gods, but keep it off your goddamned (ooh, pun) techno-oriented website!

I mean, come ON!

Technologies that make me weep for joy!

I thought about doing a little post about a few "new" technologies that make me weep for joy when I think about how they can impact our lives, and hoping they will be available to us in the next 5-10 years. Actually, some are already in existence but either aren't marketed or still in "beta".

Nokia Morph
This first one is all about nanotechnology and according to some googling, some of those nanotechs are a reality - it's just putting them together that would be the challenge. Solar recharging, shape morphing, particle analyzing and such, some are already in the works and other are out there!

Wiimote Coolness
Johnny Lee has awesome concepts about how to use a simple Wiimote and some IR LEDs. Cheap whiteboards, multitouch in-the-air interaction, and most interestingly - headtracking. Add on to that some 3D polarized glasses and you get something akin to true holographic technology - and it's available today (if only companies with money actually caught on to that power....)!

The Perfect Car:
Another thing I've been dreaming about is creating the perfect electric car. It might not be much to say, but current actual technologies are way farther than what we might be told by the mainstream (see this post). In that spirit, I've collected some nice cool things to put in an electric car so that it would be accessible and just so cool everyone would want one.

1. Batteries: A company in Texas, EEStor (wikipedia), is currently developing some awesome batteries that would be used by Zenn Motors for a new line of vehicles, but we hope will soon be available for others to use. 4-6 minutes charge time for 400km range at a top speed of 130kmh? Anyday now!
2. Suspension: This one has had a prototype for years but comes from an unusual source: Bose (yes, the speaker maker) has created the Bose Active Suspension (aka Electromagnetic suspension). The link being that electromagnets are used both in speakers and their system, but whatever. The videos say it all, it's the coolest suspension ever, and requires less power than air conditioning. Not too shabby!
3. Regenerative breaking: Everytime you break, your battery can recharge, giving you even more range as well as discarding the use of break pads. Yes, that means it's less expensive in the long run. Wikipedia Article.
4. InWheel Electric Motors: Having one engine for all 2 or 4 wheels is so passé in my book. Give me individual power for each wheel (with integrated regenerative breaking in most concepts) and you've got a winner.
5. That's it for ground-breaking technologies, but add to that things like climate zones, ajustable seats, cruise control, DVD player in the back and other comforts... and you'll start seeing what I would love to build. If I were anything like an entrepreneur, I would definately try to get these technologies together myself into "the best electric car ever", but I don't have that type of charisma :P

Cyborg Suit:
Japanese guys have an active imagination, but when they pull something from that imagination and put it in real life, they can be a force to be reckoned with - especially if they can lift 10 times their weight! It's interesting to note that the name of the suit is "HAL" (they didn't tack on the "2000" thankfully) and the company making it is Cyberdyne (yes, they had Terminator in Japan).

The Dishmaker:
You still have to wash them, but... How about having all your dishes created when you need them, and no longer needing to stack dozens of plates, bowls, semi-bowls and all variations in your cupboard? The dishmaker creates all of that using memory-shape acrylic, so you can create your dish, use it, clean it, and then restore it to its flat shape to store within the device. Future prototypes will probably be faster, smaller, and be able to make other useful things like glasses.

That's all for now. I may have more later on as I google around this stuff.

Beware of fraud attempts on Craigslist (apartments, items)

I don't post that often, but I tend to think that my posts hold some interest. This time it holds the form of a warning. Because I have been recently looking for an apartment for rent, I became an unsuspecting potential victim of a scam.

The scam takes the form of an ad on Craigslist, an apartment that you just wouldn't pass out if you had the chance:

$550 / 2br - SPACIOUS 2 BEDROOM APARTMENT FOR RENT (MONTREAL)

Reply to: danieldura73@yahoo.com [?]
Date: 2009-01-21, 5:56PM EST

spacious living room with chracteristic beams & solid wood floor
2 double sized bedrooms
2 Baths
walk in wardrobe
fully equipped
kitchen with built in gas cooker, oven, fridge/freezer, dishwasher, marble surface and practical cupboard space
luxury bathroom with bathtub and seaparate shower
washing machine/dryer combi
presented with solid wooden flooring throughout
inside a recognized city monument
wireless internet connection.

* cats are OK - purrr
* dogs are OK - wooof
* Location: MONTREAL
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 1002216171

I replied to this ad asking for information, and got the following reply:

My name is Daniel Dura own the 2 bedroom and 2 Baths home and its located @ 1809 Ontario Street East, Montreal H2K1T5, Quebec , Canada. and also want you to know that it was due to my transfer that makes me my wife and Son to leave the house and also want to give it out for rent and looking for a responsible person that can take very good care of it as we are not after the money for the rent but want it to be clean at the time and the person that will rent it to take it as if it were its own. So for now, We are here in west Africa, our new house and put all my worries off concerning the maintenance of the apartment for, since i am not residing there for now.I left behind some Facilities and electonics which include the rent, and a DVD player, air conditioning, alarm system. The kitchen is fully equipped with all necessary cooking utensils, arefrigerator-freezer, four-hob and oven, microwave, dishwasher and washing machine, My Computer Connected with Internet Acess Also the keys to the House are right here with me, and the lease document. Which i can send to you after all necessary agreement has be accepted. Also i will like you to know that the rent charges is not really the issue ,but your absolute maintenance of my apartment is most important thing so will want you to get back to me with the Application form below


RENT APPLICATION FORM

1)Your Full Name
2)Your Full Address & Phone Number
3)How old are you?
4)Are you married?
5)How many people will be living in the house?
6)Do you have a pet?
7)Do you have a car?
8)Occupation?
9)When do you want to move in
10)How long do you want to stay in my apartment
11)Pictures of all the Occupant that will stay in my apartment


One Mr Richard Thomas called me about the apartment,I told him that I can't give him the apartment because he loves smoking,drinking and dont want him to get drunked and damaged my property one day so If you are still interested, Note that the rent is going to be $550 Per month No extra fees.I will like you to give me a call on this effect to know how serious you are.below is my phone number

002348035722842 OR +2348035722842

I personally will actually come visiting you sometimes during the year as my new tenant.

Looking forward to hear from you with all this details so that i can have it in my file in case of issuing the receipt for you and contacting you. Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how to get the document and the keys of the house to you. below is some pictures of the apartment and The address of the house is 1809 Ontario Street East, Montreal H2K1T5, Quebec , Canada.

Thanks
Daniel Dura

I replied to the email with proper information (thinking more and more that this was pretty suspicious), and got a call (yes, a phone call, which is pretty rare in fraud cases) and spoke to the scammer for a few minutes. He indicated that my application was accepted and that he would forward me "his secretary information" so that I could send the first and last month payment, after which he would send me keys and such to visit the apartment... Yes, it was stupid of me to send any information, but I really wanted to know if this was too good to be true. Here's the information he sent me:

Hello,

Thanks very much for your reply, i can see your willingness in this rent how is work? i want you to know that money is not the problem, i will be given you the apartment in good faith.also i want you to know that the apartment is a very good and quite place to stay for you and i want you to take good care of the apartment it is very close to public transportation, grocery store and school. i want you to know that know extra bill because the $550 per month include with all utilities like Gas, Hydro, Electricity, Water and Internet and it's fully funished but you can come with your own furniture if you like as i have a storage in the apartment.I will be here in west africa for 5 years So I Have just forward all your information to my Secretary. and we both agree to take you as my new tenant because you have answered to the rent application perfectly that you are well qualified to rent the apartment. so i congratulate you for that and i am so happy that i and my wife have found a new Tenant for the Apartment. But i want you to know we spend alot on this property so we want you to stand on your word and take good care of the apartment when you MoveIn. the apartment is pleasant neighbourhood. so we want you to know that we are not giving out this apartment because of money but we just want a God Fearing Tenant that will be taking Good care of the apartment and tidy it up. Here are the contents of the document i will be sending to your presence address.

1) Entrance and the Rooms Keys
2) Papers/Permanent house form (Containing Your Refrence Details)
3) The House Document File.
4) Payment Receipt.
5)Contract Lease agreement to be sign.
6) Full Address and Description of House.

So you will need to make the first deposit payment of $550 to my Secretary information below as soon as possible and i can confirm your payment and issue the receipt so the key of the apartment can be shipout to you as soon as possible today . and your payment will start counting the date you will be moving In. So i want you to know that you will need to look for any Western Union Store around you and send the first month deposit payment to my Secretary here below is the information's to wire the money.

Receiver name: DAN LUCKER
Receiver's address: 65 Atunrase Ave
City: Surulere
State: Lagos State
Zipcode: 23401
Country: Nigeria
Text Question : Good
Answer : Better
Amount Sending: $550

So i want you to get back to me with the weestern union confirmation as soon as you send the payment. i will be waiting to hear from you with the western union information on the receipt below:

Full Sender's Name:
Sender's address:
MTCN #:
Text Question & Text Answer:

I will be waiting to read from you soonest. i appreciate your promise once again.

As a last blow I pointed this gentleman (or fracker, whatever you want to call "it") to a website with "scam" in the URL and his phone number on it... I asked him either to provide legal proof he was the owner of the location or else prepare to have his information forwarded to the proper authorities... To which he replied:

Hello,

Thanks for your response, I want you to know that i can't scan the document of my apartment for you. i am also afraid here too just trying to secure my self too. but i will like to know if i can email you with a canadian account information so you can transfer the payment.

Thanks

Daniel

Evidently, it was only after all of this that I finally found all the information to put in his face, a series of other sites pointing to his obvious guilt (other posts, warnings, blog posts and such). Information that, if I had seen earlier, would have prevented me from even sending my address to this arsehole.

In any case, the word is out that this is happening here, in Montreal, and we could all be victims. Don't let your guard down!

Update 15/03/2010: It seems that he is striking again if I believe the comments. The posting on RentSpot has been removed, here's to hoping this post gets seen by more people!

Your User Profile Was Not Loaded Correctly!

I don't normally do things like this, but I thought I'd share a tidbit of wisdom that I've acquired very recently.

Being a junior network administrator of a fully microsoft network means that I sometimes have to dig very deep for solutions for the odd problem that doesn't happen very often.

Today this problem was the configuration of a recently purchased laptop to replace a user's 5 year old and misbehaving lappy. After doing the standard stuff (joining the network, assigning proper admin permissions, installing firewall client and such), I tried logging on the user to configure everything... Only to get a one-minute long "Preparing Desktop..." and then getting the following message: "Your User Profile Was Not Loaded Correctly!" (This was in Vista, the error message is similar in XP and 2000)

After a few minutes of googling the problem I was no closer to a solution to my problem. All the results in the search were about deleting local profiles and registry keys related to the user profile... Which were of no help to me because the local profile never had the chance to even be created.

I finally identified that the issue wasn't on the computer at all when I tried to logon to her profile from another PC and had the same issue! So I started looking elsewhere... On the domain controller. Turns out that there was nonsensical data in the (believe it or not) "Profile path:" box in the Profile tab of the user's properties... And her home folder was misspelled. Honestly, I don't have any clue how that happened or how she was able to access her home folder's files in the first place. But now that this is fixed, everything is fine!

So I pass on this knowledge to the reader. If you ever get a "Your User Profile Was Not Loaded Correctly!" message, if the local profile isn't the issue, take a quick glance at your user's profile settings!

Cheers!
:Lucas

The back-forward step

So you've been watching the automotive market and have heard about the acclaimed new type of cars: The Hybrid. It's trumpeted as being a huge step forward, a great money saver, an appeal to your "I want to save earth in a way that won't cost me nothing" side.

Little do most people know, Hybrids are not a step forward in terms of technology - arguably, they are actually a step back as far as Electrics are concerned. Electric vehicles have been around just as long as the gas ones, and they have evolved through time albeit at a slower pace.

But even before we heard about Hybrids, we knew that fully electric vehicles were possible. GM/Saturn created their EV1 model following a new law in California that forced manufacturers to build a certain percentage of alternative fuel vehicles, but after 3 year rent contracts they were promptly taken back from the owners and destroyed - you see, the law had been reverted during that 3 year period.

I won't go into conspiracy theories that are self-evident, but my point is that Electrics can be as powerful and fun to drive as gas-powered cars - minus the pollution, noise and trips to the gas station. Some companies understood this and have created high quality vehicle lines such as the Tesla Roadster and the Fisker Karma, of which we hope the technological improvements will trickle down to the middle-class vehicles.

So with all this, what is preventing people from switching over completely to Electrics? There is of course a certain amount of disinformation caused as much by ignorance than propaganda by petrol lobbyists. They say that electric vehicles are "not as stable", "cost too much" and will leave you "stuck on the side of the road with a dead battery, looking for a power outlet".

It is true that battery vehicles are currently not as convenient as the gas cars in some respects. But let's take as an example a home-made solution. One very interesting young man in Montreal has decided to start his own company, purchasing 2004 Mazda3 cars with high mileage on the engine, and converting them to fully electric cars. Voitures Electriques du Quebec (the newly founded company) does not use high-end lithium batteries, experimental engines or expensive materials - everything he installs in the car is simple, and effective.

At an approximate retail of $25,000 the car is not so expensive in comparison to a gas car, and the savings it will bring quickly offset the costs. The car can easily hold its end cruising down the highway (120kph according to his website, however the owner admits speeds of up to 140kph on highways), and with a 100 kilometers autonomy, it's quite enough for 95% of the population.

Yes, it takes 12 hours to charge, but the simple act of going home and plugging in a car is not so foreign to drivers, at least not here in the cold canadian winters. It's a simple matter of extending the reflex to the summer days. And how much does it cost? About $1.50 to fully charge the batteries.

Quickly, that's about equivalent to purchasing 1L of gas (evidently this is fluctuating), so you can roughly estimate that you will spend about 20% of your current gas budget on this car - and this calculation is based on the most economical cars out there like the Smart and Prius. If you compare to the all-american-favorite the Hummer, you're actually talking 5% of your gas budget for the same mileage! This is excluding car insurance savings (no gas tank = safer = cheaper) as well as maintenance (no oil changes on an electric) and repairs.

Needless to say I am very interested in getting one of those babies for myself (the converted Mazda3, not the hummer!) and it will be my next car purchase. While I am preparing the budget for it, I will be watching VEQ grow and will be watching for results after a winter of use on the car.