I recently bought a jersey from eBay. Based on the description, it wasn’t fake. The title said “Joakim Noah Jersey – New White – Sewn lettering- Adidas”. I was excited to get it for a cheaper price. That should’ve been my first clue. The second clue is the seller hasn’t had much rating, though it’s 100%. I figured I’ll take the chance. Some have bought from him recently and haven’t complained.
I received an email from eBay notifying me that the item I have purchase has been cancelled. I have already paid and the seller has contacted me that it was shipped. I tried to view the item and sure enough it no longer exists. According to the email, eBay gives the following reason… “We understand this may be disappointing, but occasionally we need to remove listings. In this case, the listing was removed because the copyright or trademark owner of this product reported that the item may be counterfeit.”
I checked the seller’s rating again to see if anyone else as recent as me gave a feedback. There was one recent feedback that states he has received a fake jersey. So now I’m waiting for a fake jersey to come in. I received it and gave it another benefit of a doubt and opened it. I was very disappointed. I was hoping to wear this during the Game 1 Indiana VS Chicago game. Instead I had to open a case with eBay. The seller communicated back and will take the jersey back. The jersey cost $46.99 with free shipping. He will give me a full refund but since it’s free shipping, I have to pay for it to be sent back.
I went to the post office this morning to mail it. Shipping cost $4.04. Here are some pics that I took to compare the fake to an original. Note that the Derrick Rose jersey is an original swingman by Adidas – this is not the latest version that’s part of the Revolution 30 jersey so it will look slightly different. Again, the Rose jersey is real and the Noah jersey is fake.
Two big differences in the images above: 1) the original has perforated holes and 2) the Bulls logo.
No red Adidas logo in the front (fake).
Jerry West (NBA logo) has no elbow lol (fake).
The tip of the horns on the Bulls logo.
Beware of eBay seller bellborsini. He is selling fake jerseys. Next time I’ll think twice on a low rated seller. It sucks because finding Chicago Bulls jerseys outside Illinois is very difficult. I have the Jordans, Pippens, Rose jerseys but I like the whole team and not just their star player. I’d like to get their jerseys too.
I actually would’ve kept this jersey had it not tried to be legit. If it didn’t have any of the Adidas and NBA logo and the seller’s description was truthful, I would’ve still bought it. I have purchased sewn jerseys off eBay that didn’t try to be a real licensed apparel. Many of them are my favorite NBA players but their College jerseys. Oh well, guess I’ll keep looking.
It’s been weeks since I started to look for an online storage service. I’ve looked in the past but I haven’t put much time and dedication as I have lately. I already have a RAID1+0 set up, an internal drive to handle daily backups, and a Terastation NAS box – why do I need storage online? Two reasons: 1. just in case and 2. accessibility.
I have photos that are over 10 years old. This is when digital cameras we’re hitting the consumer market. Over 90% percent of the photos I’ve taken since using a digital camera are in digital format. I don’t have them printed. These are very important to me, which is why I spend more money getting a RAID1+0 array set up on my PC, use a NAS box, and back up daily.
Having these files online, I can access them anywhere with internet connection. I’d like to be able to share files with friends and family without having to worry about file attachment size limitation with emails. Being that it’s online, files can be accessed any time. Plus, if for any reason all of my hardware at home failed, I would always have a back up of the file elsewhere.
This site along with others have been hosted with Hostmonster.com for several years. They offered unlimited storage and bandwidth. Unfortunately, all the files have to be associated with the websites somehow. I recently moved back to Godaddy for hosting. Not for the storage reason but I didn’t need the extra bells and whistles and to save a few bucks.
I still have a Flickr Pro account. It’s great. For $25 annually, I can upload an unlimited amount of photos and short videos. The problem is I don’t like the interface and I don’t like them renaming my files. Right now I’m only interested in backing up photos so this will work, as long as I ignore the 2 things I hate about the service. But what if I want to upload other files? I can’t with Flickr. So the search continues.
Amazon has been offering a full year of free AWS service (http://aws.amazon.com/free/). They give you a certain amount of resources free every month. Once you go over, they will charge you. It’s a monthly service so prices differ month to month. I have signed up and am already over the free limitations of my account. Not by much. So far after 2 weeks of uploading, I own about $1.45. Doesn’t sound much. Most of that is storage cost and bandwidth. The storage cost is competitive and reasonable, considering it’s backed up with 4 datacenters. But my usage grows and so will the monthly cost. Soon, I’ll be charged the same as if I were to get a service that supports unlimited space and bandwidth. The problem with those services is it’s for back ups only. I’d like to be able to do more than just back ups. I haven’t given up with Amazon but I’ll be watching my usage and see if it’s worth keeping.
Then I tried Godaddy’s online file folder service (http://www.godaddy.com/email/online-file-storage.aspx?ci=9022). I purchased the 100GB for $30 annually. I was able to use a 31% off coupon which brought it down to $20 for a year. Not bad for 100GB and Godaddy usually has coupons flying around. The web interface is just bloated (just like the rest of the website). I used an FTP client and the upload speed was horrible. I tried the desktop software and it was the same thing. My work has a very fast internet connection… (Speedtest.net).
To upload a 89MB file took nearly 10 minutes! With the speed I posted above, it should be a lot less than that. I was getting between 35kbps to 140kbps. That’s close to what I get at home. No reason for it to be that slow at work. I’ve uploaded files onto my webserver with Godaddy and get very fast speeds, over 1MBps. Not sure what’s going on but I will be cancelling this service shortly.
I was considering Rackspace’s cloud storage service. Their price is the same as Amazon’s S3 ($0.15 per GB) but they do not charge for bandwidth or request fees. But they do charge $4 per month regardless of whether you use it or not. Though it comes with 10GB of storage space.
I’m going to try Flickr again since for now I only have to back up photos. Hopefully I’ll find a software that is easier to use and useful. Can’t beat their price and this is service as an offsite back up anyway. I recently switched to Adobe Lightroom 3. I will see if I can create some batch jobs that can send files to Flickr and Facebook. Problem solved, if I could.
I decided that I have to make a post since a lot of people has been asking regarding the embassy interview to be able to go here to seat in for the test.
I did not have a first hand experience on this but last weekend I was able to have lunch with an old friend/dorm mate and this topic came up. She told me how she was able to get a visa. The first time she tried she was denied. All that was ask was what the purpose of the visit and she did not hesitate to answer to seat in for the FPGEE test since this is the truth. A few months later, she tried again but this time she opened another pharmacy making it 2 under her name plus she has a regular 8 hour job. Upon questioning she just told the consul outright that she has to go on this trip cause otherwise her FPGEE application will be forfeited since she rescheduled it after being denied during the first interview. They just look at her ties meaning financial capability like how can she afford the trip and so she showed her bank account and other assets that would prove that she has enough ties to come back. She was given 10 years multiple entry. This experience was true for her and a friend who went for the interview at the same time and got denied the first time then approved on the 2nd. To give a background of her friend she was working for the military as a Pharmacist, no other business just savings.
I hope this will be of help. And I must just say what they have gone through is not a guarantee to get a visa. I am just sharing their experience since I have been asked a lot of times on what to say to the consul for their interview. I came here in USA with a green card after I was petitioned by my spouse so I was so happy to hear my friends ordeal cause I know this will be of valuable help to others. Good luck on your journey in becoming a USA Pharmacist.
Please feel free to share your experience to all Kabayans out there so we can help those who would want to try FPGEE.
I’m beginning to feel limited while using Apple products. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great platform. But as I start introducing non-Apple devices, I have to go out of my way to get it to work. I started looking into building a PC after 8 years of exclusively using Macs. At first I had my eyes set on an i7 Sandy Bridge but after doing more research and talking with experts, I decided to go with the last generation i7 (LGA1366, Bloomfield). Why?
More motherboards available
Supports faster memory – DDR31600
If I ever want to switch out CPU to the hexacore, I don’t have to switch out motherboards
X58 is a great platform and more stable
It’s been almost a week and I’ve been impressed by some of the tests I’m running. I will go part by part and tell you what I liked and disliked (if applicable).
Corsair Graphite 600T: I decided to spend the extra money getting this tower for several reasons.
I can run the cables in the back side of the tower. There’s plenty of room there.
It is truly tool-less.
Can hold 7 hard drives. It can be reconfigured and move around depending on how you want your airflow to work.
Removable dust filters.
Great quality and durable.
Bottom mounted PSU for liquid cooling solution.
So far, the only thing I don’t like is it doesn’t have a 3.5” slot. I don’t use a floppy drive but most internal memory card readers use this slot. Now I have not only buy the memory card reader but an adapter to make it fit in the 5.25” slot.
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3: I was going to get the ASUS Sabertooth but the Gigabyte has dual bios where if one were to fail to load, I can use the other and fix the issue.
3 different raid controllers. 6 Intel (SATAII 3Gbps), 2 Gigabyte (SATAII 3Gbps), and 2 Marvell (SATAIII 6Gbps)
Supports triple channel ram up to 24GB
Software to OC is easy to use
One thing I don’t like is it doesn’t have an internal USB port. The front of my tower has a USB3.0 and uses the standard cable. In order for me to use it, I’d have to run the cable to the back of the tower and plug it in.
Intel i7 960 3.2GHz: Currently the fastest processor before going into the extreme hexacore CPU. I have seen people OC this over 4.0GHz so it has great potential. This is a quad core CPU and with Hyper Threading, it becomes 8 cores. I was considering the AMD Phenom II 1100T Black Edition but the benchmarks I’ve seen online were not impressive. Based on those benchmarks, it runs against the Intel i5 Sandy Bridge – not the i7.
Corsair Vengeance 12GB DDR31600: I was going to get a 6GB set but decided to go with the 12GB so that I can max it out in the future. It has XMP and all I needed to do in the BIOS is to set it to Profile 1. Comes with a heat spreader as well. It has a CAS Latency of 9 but seen it run at 8 when OC.
Seagate ST3500641AS: Seagate makes great drives and since I’ve started to use them, I haven’t had one go bad yet (knock on wood). Drives that have died on me are usually Maxtors and Western Digitals. These drives have a 16MB cache and runs at 7200RPM. I bought 4 of these 500GB hard drives and set them up as a RAID10. They run great and my Windows gives it a score of 6.1.
Corsair CMPSU-850TX: I figured 850W should give me enough for current any future mods. Supports SLI and Crossfire. It’s rated at 80Bronze. The only thing I don’t like is it doesn’t support the new ATX v2.3. Corsair just came out with the second version of the PSU. I could’ve waited but I didn’t want to. I figured the changes were not important for my set up and use.
Corsair CWCH70: I could’ve use the stock heatsink that came with my i7 but would need an aftermarket one if I decide to OC it. Rather than figure this out later, I bought it so it’s ready for OC. The install was not as easy as the videos I’ve seen on Youtube. Once installed, I get around 40-52 C on idle or normal use. When doing transcoding (high CPU usage) I don’t go over 65 C. Spending the extra $80 (after rebate) is worth it. It’s compact unlike the first versions of liquid cooling solutions.
EVGA nVidia GTX470SC: It’s not the high end video card in the series but works great. It has CUDA and works great with Adobe software. I have already used Adobe Premiere Elements 9 and exported an HD video to 1080i, 25fps. At the same time, I played Starcraft 2 on ultra settings. The computer remained stable and responsive. I was very impressed. All 8 cores were at 100% and ran around 52-65 C and the video card ran at around 84 C. Starcraft 2 was running at about 52-58FPS. I was able to ALT+Tab between applications, play HD videos off Youtube and watch an HD video off my hard drive.
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit OEM: One of the best, if not the best OS Windows has “created”. I find the 64-bit to be more stable than 32-bit and with 12GB of ram, it’s necessary. I still miss things on OS X but there are things on Windows that don’t exist in my Apple. I love Live Writer. I can blog from my desktop. I wish Apple would create something that works similarly. The built-in Backup/Restore is still unreliable. I’ve had failed backups and failed restores. I decided to keep my iMac and run it side by side. My iMac will contain all of my important documents and use Time Machine to back up. Hopefully one day there will be a back up software/workflow as easy as Time Machine for Windows.
Whoever says using Windows is cheaper than a Mac is wrong. I have spent about the same price building this PC rather than purchasing a new Mac. I have already spent close to $300 on just software, where similar software is unnecessary or already included with a Mac. The hardware cost is about $1500. Unlike my Apple products though, I can switch out parts. To make this possible with Apple hardware, you’d have to purchase a Mac Pro which starts at $2400 and you are still limited to hardware that’s compatible. Regardless, I would have to use both in order to do everything I need to do. I just wish software licenses are easily transferable for both platforms.
Shout out to Jeff of JB Tech Enterprises and his brother Eric for helping me build this machine.
It’s been over 6 years since I exclusively used Windows and have been using Apple. But recently I’ve had the urge to build a PC – mainly for games and video transcoding. So I started doing so research on hardware. As I am doing research, I’m starting to realize how much Apple has limited me from doing certain things and lacked support for some I/O devices.
I find myself running Windows virtually for doing simple tasks that I can’t seem to do with Apple either free or efficiently. For instance, if I need to edit metadata on a video file without having it render again is only possible with iTunes. But if I use iTunes, it has to be added to the library and not all file formats are supported. In Windows, I can accomplish this by using a free app called MP3Tag. I’ve looked and have not found an app for OS X – free anyway.
My second example. USB 3.0 and eSata has been available for years now (well eSata has been around for years) – no support at all by any Apple hardware. Yes, there is FW400 and FW800 but it isn’t as practical or affordable. I have many external devices that have both USB 2.0 and eSata. The eSata is begging to be used but I can’t. Even my HD camcorder uses USB and iMovie can recognize it – no FW support on the camcorder.
My third example. I have a bluray burner and have a lot of movies. Not all have portable media versions that come with it and even if they did, I would download through iTunes and have it be stuck (DRM) to 5 accounts. I’d like to throw this file onto my DLNA server and have it stream throughout the house. I don’t want to leave my iMac on all day just so that iTunes can share things – that’s why I have a Terastation with DLNA. Now I can rip blueray videos. I use MakeMKV to rip it then use Handbrake to create an MP4 file which would take around 9 hours to do. I’m hoping to cut this down by a lot on a Windows machine because Windows supports blueray format.
My fourth example. Time Machine is great. But without the expensive Time Capsule, I can’t do back ups over the network. I have found hacks but they are not 100%. Again, I have a Terastation and want to use it to its full potential.
My fifth example. My iMac that I bought in 2008 has been maxed out of its upgrade. The ram is at 4GB and the hard drive is 1TB 7200RPM (I think this model should recognize up to 1.5TB). I’m unable to upgrade the video card because iMacs are built like laptops. So whenever a new game comes along (Starcraft 2), I’m stuck with hardware from 2008. I’m able to get as high as medium setting and still experience some lag. World of Warcraft, I’m able to get 22-40 FPS in high populated areas. For my uses, I can’t upgrade the hardware anymore and would like to. If I had bought a Mac Pro, I probably could but for the price… no thanks!
So the plan is to build a PC that will let me have a better experience in games as well as transcode/edit videos more efficiently than my current iMac. I will be using an Intel i7-2600K processor and an H-series motherboard. The P-series is a little more expensive and I don’t plan on overclocking anytime soon – even though the 2600K allows me to. Now why spend the extra bucks on K? I just want to have the capability of overclocking once I do decide. And when I do, I just get a new motherboard. By then the Z-series motherboards will be available will have the Quick Sync capability and overclocking capability. I will be running 8GB DDR3 1333 ram for starters but the motherboard will be ready for 16GB when I am. For now, I’ll be running 500GB Sata 3Gbps, but in the future I’ll have it set up with 4 250GB on Sata 6Gbps with RAID10. That should give me a powerful and enjoyful experience compared to what I have now with my iMac.
I enjoy using Apple and OS X and will continue to use it. But as a desktop and for my current needs, I feel I’m better off on a PC running Windows 7 64bit. My MBP 13″ will be my second desktop/laptop because I still don’t feel comfortable nor do I trust doing certain things on a Windows machine.
Once I get more comfortable and have a nice workflow set up on my new PC, I will be selling my iMac. But that won’t be for weeks. Hopefully, what I have read and expect is true. If not, my new PC will just be a gaming computer and I will continue to do everything else on my Mac.
