Power of Giving

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. - Norman MacFinan

I am still frugal, still like money, but as I get older I seem to understand better about why people give

There are many things worth giving, and I am happy, because I was able to give

• money - I happily sponsored my friends to help them achieve worth causes
• labour and time - I volunteered my weekend hours at Tzu Chi and visits Retirement home monthly
• a token of appreciation - I took care of the bill when my friend went out. It felt nice to appreciate them this way
• love - this is hard to quantify, as I have to ask my wife and my family

In return, I think I got more than what I gave

• money - knowing that my money goes to help people who needed it more than I do
• labour and time - smiles from the seniors, and knowing that I did something nice
• a token of appreciation - the memory of spending time with my friends
• love - hopefully I get loved back ^_^

Be Careful with Used Products

Not that I buy second-hand products on my credit card(s), but let's just say I have seen high amount on my bills recently

• Flight tickets $1000+
• Insurance (Car & Home) $1000+
• Appliances (not directly me, but here to illustrate my cash flow) $1000+ for brand new Dishwasher/Washer/Dryer

This blog entry is more of a reminder to myself, to be even more careful on my future purchases, eBay or not
Here are my purchases of used items in the last few months

• Canon SD1200 camera $150 <- great buy
• Fuji S700 camera $100 <- great buy
• Dell D630 laptop $400 <- not a great buy

Story of the Defective Dell D630 Laptop

The D630 laptop looked like a great bargain initially - Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 14.1 WXGA+, 80GB HDD, warranty until Sep 2010, plus a docking station - for $400 CAD via eBay

However, on the first day of the pick up from this Manh Le guy (eBay username: manhgeek) in Mississauga, the LCD started to freeze and constant restarts. Since then it has been on and off and getting to the point of annoying. I contacted him asking for a refund and he refused, citing he sold it AS IS, which is fair, if it were not for the fact that laptop was essentially Dead-on-Arrival on THE FIRST DAY.

Possible causes include overheated GPU from the nVidia Quadro NV135M onboard (his eBay auction listed the laptop having Intel graphic chipsets, so false information there), but Dell wanted to isolate between faulty LCD and motherboard.

Currently my only action left is to seek replacement via Dell warranty, and leave negative feedback for him

Hope you all learned from my lesson - test, test, and test the used products
I am glad that this is actually the only defective used item that I have purchased out of hundreds of them
Regardless, I remain a fan of picking up great bargains on used products, especially resale homes & used cars

Here is Manh Le's information, for the next buyer googling him before purchase

• Manh Le, lives on Genovese PL Mississauga, ON L5V 3B1 Canada, phone # xxx-5174

Free Website/Domain Hosting - Dave's Network

If the few of you are seeing my website, that is very good news as I just switched my domain hosting provider last night (it was actuall real-time to my shock, as usually they claim 24~48 hours to propogate to the new name servers)

I want to thank Dave for providing me FREE web hosting so that I no longer have to hunt for cheap hosting "every year" (from Netfirms to Dreamhost, for years). I love CPanel too ^_^
Hopefully this will be my blog's home for many years to come

If you are interested, send me a word (use the Contact Jerry on the right) and Dave is willing to help out as well

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated nor receive any income from this post. However I do suggest once you have transferred your hosting and are happy with the service, make a donation to Dave (I will do so shortly)

http://www.davesnetwork.ca/site/web-services/web-hosting.html

• Basic Web Hosting
• 1000 MB of Disk Space
• 20000 MB of Monthly Bandwidth
• cPanel + Fantastico
• 3 FTP Accounts
• 3 Subdomains
• 3 Email Accounts
• File Manager & Website Editor

Windows 7 is clean, fast, and actually good

Last weekend I started to install Windows 7 Professional on the newly acquired "used" laptop (Dell D630) and remain impressed with Windows 7

In fact, I was so impressed that I decided to re-install my Desktop (currently Vista Business) with Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit also), and another laptop as well. In addition my friend installed Windows 7 on her desktop as well

The final tally is Windows 7 exists on 2 desktops and 2 laptops now, and will grow more in my household. To further promote it, it seems like my workplace has started implementing Windows 7 as well and colleagues are impressed

It is what Vista should have been - new, clean, and fast

By the way, thanks to RFD for the TechNet error, ACM discount, and UW MSDNAA for the license keys ^_^