Cash vs. Credit

People have speculated that we'd become a cashless society years ago, but this clearly hasn't happened. While I try to use a credit card for most purchases, sometimes I use cash. For me, they are effectively interchangeable as I pay off my credit card every month and use a credit card with no annual fee. There are a few advantages to credit for me: 1) cash back, 2) easier to keep track of expenses, 3) consumer protection in case there is a problem with the charge. I use cash for purchasing gas to get the cash discount and for the very few places that don't take credit.

Here's a case where I should have used credit:

The day after Christmas, I went to pick up my wife and son at the airport and parked at the lot at the airport. When I went to pay the $2 fee, all I had was $20 bills and credit cards. For some reason, I decided to put in a $20 bill and expected to get $18 in $1 coins back (at least that's what I hoped). Well, the machine took my money, validated my parking ticket, and didn't give me my change or a receipt. We hit the button to contact someone and after talking to someone in the box, a supervisor for Lindbergh Parking, Inc. came out about 15 minutes later. The supervisor opened up the machine, but didn't have the key to the money box. We followed him back to the office, my wife filled out some paperwork and we were told to call in the morning. When we got home, there was a message saying that they'd mail us a check. A phone call or two the following week yielded nothing. Last week I wrote a letter to them, but still don't have my $18. So what do I do next? It is their word against mine. If they reconciled the machine, they would have seen that it was $18 off (unless someone stole $18). It shouldn't be that hard to get my money.

Anyway, if you don't want to leave a paper trail, use cash, but for me, credit is far more convenient. I'm not sure why I still pay some things in cash, but I do.

Some people may ask why I don't use a debit card? Well, consumer protection. With a debit card, money comes out of my bank account and if there is a problem, I have to fight to get it back; with a credit card, I dispute the charge and I don't pay it. Having had my wife's debit card stolen and dealing with this, I don't use debit cards. I asked my bank to send me ATM cards which are different as they only accept PIN based transactions (such as at Costco) and not credit card transactions providing another layer of protection. For secondary accounts, a debit card may not be a bad idea, but for my primary bank account, I won't use a debit card.

The Power of Compression

Today I was investigating some slowdowns on one of our customer facing sites and after a few minutes working with our developer and Safari, I determined that we weren't compressing files sent from the server. (Safari warned me in the Show Network Timeline option in the Develop menu.)

As we're running Apache 2.2.x on Leopard server, I found that it had mod_deflate already installed. While the module was already installed, it wasn't setup to do anything. After a few minutes reading the documentation and modifying the Apache configuration files, I had compression working. Yeah! Normally I wouldn't think this would do a lot of good as the connection is pretty fast, but some of the Javascript we use is quite large and compresses quite well. I definitely saw a speed improvement with this simple change.

So my question is, why isn't there an option in Leopard's Web Server that says "enable compression"? I see no downside to this using the configuration on the Apache site (Leopard server actually has this enabled for Collaboration) as most modern browser can handle this and can quickly decompress the files.

For reference, I created a file at: /etc/apache2/httpd_deflate.conf that had in it:

Macworld Recap

Everyone is posting a recap and analysis of Macworld and I won't be any different! My trip to Macworld this year, like every year, was a lot of fun, but tiring at the same time. In some years, I've worked at the Mark/Space booth, but most years, I just walk around the Expo floor (I don't find conferences all that interesting to me). I spent the first day walking around the booths to get a lay of the land and talking to people I know (there are some people that I only see at Macworld). The second day, I went up and down every aisle looking for products that would be helpful for my work. Yes, I actually glanced at every booth. There were a number of products that I would never have seen just searching the web.

There has been a lot of speculation about the future of Macworld Expo now that Apple has said that it will not attend next year. For me, Apple's presence is secondary to all the other vendors. While I can find out about products on the Internet whenever I want, there are many products I would never have known were out there. For instance, nekFIT is a holder for an iPod Nano that goes around your neck. It looks quite interesting so I ordered one (the guy at the booth said if I didn't like it, contact him and he'd make it right). I love running and the headphone cord always drives me crazy. In addition to that, I did find stuff for work. There is a backup program called CrashPlan that backs up during idle time. Why haven't I seen anything like this before? Then there is the BT-1 Wireless Webcam from my friends at Ecamm Network.

Will I goto next year's show? I ordered signed up for my free Expo pass, so hopefully that is a good sign. Will vendors pull out? Likely, yes, but I hope that many of the smaller vendors choose to come. I know it is expensive to come as a vendor, but it is so helpful to come and have so many vendors in one location. The big vendors don't interest me all that

In addition to looking for things for work, there was some exciting news for me. Mariner Software announced that it had acquired my ReceiptWallet program.

Check your facts

Another letter to the editor....

In your article titled "DeMaio seeks break for sole proprietors on license code", the author needs to check his facts. He talks about a business "license" in the City of San Diego. A license is defined as "formal permission from a governmental or other constituted authority to do something, as to carry on some business or profession." The City of San Diego does not issue business licenses, it issues business tax certificates which are completely different from licenses. In fact, the "Certificate of Payment of Business Tax" states "This is not a License to do business within the City of San Diego...".

The business tax certificate only means that you've paid the city money and nothing more. While they may sound like the same thing, they are not.

I've had a business tax certificate for many years and it means squat. In fact, I had a disagreement with Washington Mutual years ago where they wouldn't let me open a business checking account because I didn't have a "business license". As far as I know, I don't need a business license to do software development (nothing I do is health or safety related). I ended up going to Bank of America as they accepted by fictitious business name filing as proof of my company.