If you want to get a ballpark estimate of how much you need to save monthly to meet your retirement goals, and want a friendly painless internetty wayt to do it, Fidelity has the myPlan snapshot. It’s very Fisher-Price basic, but might be good for people who are terrified of the topic. —MEGHANN MARCO
internet
Walmart's Video Download Service Predictably Sucks
By 2.6.07
We tried to take a look at Walmart’s new video download service, but hey, guess what. It doesn’t work in Firefox. So our review is this:
Keep Google From Storing Your Search History
By 2.6.07
Perhaps you’ve noticed that Google has been quietly associating your account with your search history. Perhaps this pisses you off. Well, Ex-Googler Nelson Minar has some tips for deleting and turning off the search history feature, should that appeal to you.
Avis Rental Cars Are Wi-Fi Hotspots
By 2.3.07 — Updated: 9.8.16
According to an Avis press release, soon you will be able to turn your rental car into a portable wi-fi hot spot. Yay, internet while driving. We suppose this is more awesome than driving around searching for an open network or a Panera Bread….
Protect Yourself While Using Free Wi-Fi
By 2.1.07
Connecting to a hot spot can be an open invitation to danger. Hot spots are public, open networks that practically invite hacking and snooping. They use unencrypted, insecure connections, but most people treat them as if they are secure private networks.
How To Get All The Good Stuff On Craigslist Before Other People Do
By 1.31.07
DIY site Curbly has two great posts on how to get all the good furniture on craigslist before everyone else. And by good stuff, we don’t mean used IKEA crap, although if you are in the market for used IKEA, craigslist is the place to be.
Comcast Does Away With “All Day” Waiting
By 1.25.07
Comcast has begun narrowing the window of time customers have to wait for technicians, says the Wall Street Journal.
Edelman: How We Taught The World That Illegal Downloading Is A No-No
By 1.23.07
“What there was was a complete lack of was a peer-to-peer dialog about illegally downloading music and why it was wrong.” No peer-to-peer dialog. None.
Busting the College Textbook Monopoly
By 1.17.07
- Consider: How often does someone have the authority to order consumers to purchase a product with a limited number of vendors? University professors have just that power, requiring students to purchase particular books for their courses. The often obscure titles must typically be purchased from the college bookstore, which obtains them through special order. With limited competition, at best, prices for new textbooks can easily climb to $100, and have tripled since the mid 1980s
Oh man, stop. We’re having flashbacks.
Snopes Round Up: Panic PINs and More
By 1.17.07
Here’s a roundup of some relevant Comsumer-type urban legends from Snopes’s Hottest Urban Legends Page:
Netflix On The Internet
By 1.17.07
The movie streams, so users will have to stay connected to the internet while watching. Netflix plans to roll out the service across these glorious United States of America portions at a time, to ensure its servers have enough capacity. —MEGHANN MARCO
AT&T Will Sell $20 “Naked” DSL
By 1.16.07
In the coming months AT&T will sell stand-alone, or “naked,” DSL service for $19.95. Currently, AT&T charges $45 for broadband if you don’t purchase any other bundled services. If you purchase DSL and phone from AT&T, it’s only $28, a deliberate attempt to preserve their phone business and limit consumer choice.
Internet Consumer Tip: Don’t Blur Account Numbers
By 1.8.07
BoingBoing picked up a tip from a person claiming to be able to unblur photoshop’s mosaic filters, possibly revealing sensitive info on checks/whathaveyou that you’ve posted to the internet during the course of your consumer blogging.
Vista Has Security Flaws Already, LOL
By 12.27.06
The New York Times is reporting that Microsoft Vista has security flaws. Yes, already. In addition to a flaw that lets users increase their own privileges and override all the new fancy Vista security, there’s a “troubling” flaw in IE7. “The browser flaw is particularly troubling because it potentially means that Web users could become infected with malicious software simply by visiting a booby-trapped site.”
Pizza Chains Embracing the Nirvana That Is Internet Ordering
By 12.26.06
Sweet mother of god, we love ordering pizza on-line. Chicago’s Pizza, your website got us through our scary hermit phase, our college finals, and several blizzards. Oh, how we love you. Now national pizza chains are catching on to the fact that people want—nay, need to order pizza without talking on the phone. Ah, bliss.
PS3: Are Consumers Put Off By The Price?
By 12.21.06
Prices on eBay have fallen as well. Whoops. Of course this doesn’t mean you can walk in to a store and actually buy a PS3, but it does mean you can’t gouge someone on eBay quite as easily.—MEGHANN MARCO
Like, Cingular Friends MySpace
By 12.19.06
According to Reuters, Cingular has cut a deal to offer MySpace on almost all of its cell phones. For a measly $2.99 a month, people not old enough to have cell phones, let alone MySpace profiles, can update photos, check MySpace messages, and update their blogs…all from their phones! It looks like the holidays have come early for internet predators!—MEGHANN MARCO
