consumerist.com writes about a customer who got charged for his Windows Vista Upgrade for $1,632!

Apparently, Bill, an IT Manager, used the Windows Live Marketplace to purchase the Windows Vista Ultimate upgrade worth $233.15. But each time he tried to enter his payment information, he got the error “please try again” later. And so he did. Unluckily, Bill got charged each time he tried to enter the payment details, which he did 7 times!

Again, that is $233.15 * 7 = $1,632.05. Totally a rip-off!

Bill tried to contact Microsoft support again and again and again to get his money back but only four of the transactions were returned. The remaining three transactions are yet to be refunded.

Popularity: 9% [?]

You read it right. Mythbusters just served us painkillers for those tech problems that makes our heads ache. This article in popularmechanics.com was written by Jamie Hyneman from the oh-so-cool Discovery Channel show Mythbusters.

From the article:

Computer operating systems loaded with stuff I don’t want and will never use.

In the tech world this phenomenon is known as “software bloat” or “feature bloat.” It’s a well-documented problem and a frequent complaint about Windows OSs—Vista in particular. In addition to being buggy, the extra features tend to bog down your system by demanding more processing power and memory. Computer-makers: Don’t load up operating systems with features and then make us sweat to figure out how to get rid of the fat.

Most features can be set up as options. Why not start with a computer loaded with basic stuff that works 100 percent of the time? Then, give us the option of adding the bells and whistles. There’s another solution available to consumers: Switch to a Linux-based OS such as Ubuntu. Since most Linux OSs are free, there’s no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.

And high-tech companies—stop messing with us on your treadmill of upgrades while making the old stuff obsolete. It may be that any software company that didn’t routinely upgrade its product would go out of business. But what if the rest of the world worked this way? Oh, I lost a sock. I need to get a whole new wardrobe because the replacement sock is version 2.0.1, and the stores now only sell version 2.0.3.

And I so totally agree with him. The only reason I want to upgrade my software is if there are any vulnerabilities that need fixing. If not, wise men say don’t fix it if it ain’t broken. That’s why I love Linux. You do not have put in what you don’t need. You wouldn’t want food shoven down your throat, do you?

Popularity: 16% [?]

This nice Wiki Page describes how to make your plain and simple EeePC into a super fancy notebook by doing some internal upgrades. Soldering experience required!

(Because of the extensibility of the article and EeePC, I will just put some of the upgrades here.)

• USB hub

• GPS with antenna

• Bluetooth

• FM transmitter
• Power switch
• Card reader

Popularity: 22% [?]