It’s been a few months since I’ve been able to access my Treasury Direct account online. I’ve had this problem before, and it’s not fun to resolve.
Treasury Direct has always had a rather… odd method of online security, including the use of a virtual, on screen keyboard to enter a password. Awhile ago they added a security card, which had a grid printed on it which the user referred to and entered a passcode as further security.
I have since been locked out a few times, and have had great difficulty trying to get my access restored, including now. It is really hard for me to get in touch with them by phone, which is what has to happen in order to get access restored. I’ve now called several times a week for about three weeks and not been able to reach a person.
I will keep trying, but it’s not a great situation.
One of the things that concerns me in a recovering economy is the price of oil. In the United States, due to our failure to diversify into other sources of energy, we have a serious addiction to oil which puts us at the mercy of other countries, some of which are not exactly friendly with us.
When the economy was just about to go south in 2008, the price of oil was well over $100 per barrel, more like almost $150. When the economy went way south, the price of oil collapsed under $50 a barrel. Today it’s about $80 a barrel.
Keeping the price of oil down is going to be key to this economic recovery; in the meantime, the U.S.–and the rest of the industrialized world–desperately need to figure out other ways to power our future besides oil, something we’ve failed at forever despite being aware of the need all the way back to the 1970s.
My single largest stock holding is Apple, Inc. (AAPL). In fact, AAPL has become such a large part of my portfolio that I had to stop buying in, despite loving the stock and the company, because I was concerned it would become larger than 5% of my portfolio. I was actually thinking about selling some but decided that just not buying any more would likely work over the course of a year.
And now, AAPL has hit another all time high on the news that its iPad tablet, long awaited and recently announced, will be shipping–late.
Sometimes I’m just amazed by what causes a stock to soar.
Many Geeks, myself included, use mobile broadband–quite frankly, for me, it’s a bit of a necessity given how often I’m on the road. There are national providers of such services (the big telecoms–AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and TMobile) who typically charge about $60 for the bogus “unlimited up to five gigabytes” plans; I currently have a MobiPCS Hele which is truly unlimited (or so they claim) but not the best coverage–and restricted to the islands, but a lot cheaper at $30 a month plus tax.
Recently there’s a different option that’s become available here–Clear (formerly Clearwire) 4G, and they are pricing it aggressively. Currently, if I find a friend who is wanting to sign up as well, we can get two mobile connections for a fine price per month for life.
That might be worthwhile.
Clear is also available in other areas of the US, although not in nearly as many as the big players; for instance, I can get coverage in Philadelphia where I’ll be for the Livestrong Challenge, but not in California.
I’m thinking seriously about this one.
I have now had one tax document–the W2 from my primary employer–revised twice, and one other tax document–from Google–revised once.
I’m really surprised by this as I cannot remember ever having tax documents updated before.
My tax document from Google–and the amount of money I made from Google was very, very small–was also incorrect. To their credit it was only revised once.
At least one of my documents–Sharebuilder–came out later than I expected, in the middle of February, and another, from iGoBanking, was late due to my being locked out of my account and being unable to contact them to get access again due to the time difference between here and there.
Fortunately there’s still a lot of time before taxes are due. I have to get working on those.
In January I blogged about trying to find some options as far as buying eyeglasses online. While there were lots of sites to look at, the one I chose was GlobalEyeglasses.com. I looked through a few different pages and ended up buying a Skoda frame and basic lenses. I entered my prescription–I did have to do a quick measurement of the distance between my pupils, which I measured with a measuring caliper I have for bicycle parts–paid with my credit card (through PayPal!), and waited.
It did take awhile for the order to come; in fact, it took over a month and I had to email them about it (I suspect there was some kind of issue with the order but they didn’t admit to it).
But once they came, they were perfect.
And with shipping, they cost all of $17.99.
Yes, $17.99 for prescription glasses. And I’m getting “reimbursed” through my flexible spending account.
If you’re not in a rush for new glasses, I’d highly suggest GlobalEyeglasses.com. I can see again, and what I see is a very light dent to my budget!
Not too long ago, I got this email from PayPal. Since about 90% of the emails I get from PayPal are phishing attempts and the rest are typically about some eBay item I’ve purchased, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It read, in part:
“We have reason to believe that your account was accessed by a third party. We have limited access to sensitive PayPal account features in case your account has been accessed by an unauthorized third party. We understand that having limited access can be an inconvenience, but protecting your account is our primary concern.
For your protection, we have limited access to your account until additional security measures can be completed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”
A little investigation on my part showed this really was a legitimate email from PayPal. I have absolutely no evidence now or when I received the email that anything was amiss. However, things quickly became amiss because it took over a week to restore access, and considering I was trying to purchase some bicycle parts from eBay, and the majority of eBay sellers either prefer or exclusively take PayPal for payment, I was, in a word, screwed.
In order to restore access, PayPal had to send me a letter–yes, actual postal mail–and I had to enter a several character long code into a Web page. Once that was done, my access was restored.
And about six eBay auctions I was interested in lapsed without my being able to buy anything.
I realize that security is essential, but this was a huge pain for a reason I still don’t understand. Sorry, PayPal, but that was just a huge headache.
One of the things Geeks love are Moo cards, mini sized business cards that are given away casually at Tweetups or anywhere else.
To promote my Livestrong Challenge effort, I recently had some mini sized business cards printed, but being price conscious (as usual) I looked at alternatives to Moo, including Zazzle, and ended up at 123Print.com. Their competitor to Moo is called the WeeBee.
They printed and shipped quickly and due to the size of my order shipped free. They are very nicely done–the little sticker for the URL is due to my own error which I blogged about not long ago.
I’m quite happy with the quality of these and I’d suggest considering 123Print.com when you next want to order cards like this!
Fortune.com recently posted a piece entitled “Meet the Market’s Biggest Losers”, profiling the ten companies that have lost the most in market value over the last decade.
Seven of the ten companies–Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, Nortel, Lucent, AOL, and WorldCom–were in the tech industry. The others were General Electric, AIG, and Exxon Mobil.
Yes, many of those seven are still huge players (particularly Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco), but it apparently shows that some tech companies–and the sector as a whole–really never recovered from the tech bubble.
On my recent trip to Oakland, I (ashamedly, as a Geek) never thought about checking in online until a lady in front of me at Honolulu International Airport said she checked in online. I’m not sure her boarding process–through the maze of agricultural, baggage, and TSA checkpoints–was any quicker, but it made me think about trying it on the return leg of my trip.
The morning of my flight, before I left my hotel, I logged into United.com and used their online check in. It was pretty quick and allowed me to print my boarding pass (although since I had no access to a printer, I didn’t do so), but it also offered me a bit of a savings on a checked bag: $2 off of $20.
Now, $2 is not a huge amount of money by anyone’s standards, but $2 is still $2, and a ten percent discount is still a reasonable discount for quickly doing something online I’d have to do in person anyway. Sure, I wish it was $4, $5, or $10 instead, but $2 in my pocket is better than $2 more to the airlines.
