Poor timing of Macworld

I've come to the conclusion that having Macworld Expo in January is a poor decision. Here I am at the end of the year looking to see what else I can buy for my small business to get the tax deduction. I was thinking about getting a Mac Mini to run as another server and learn about Mac OS X server, but rumors say an Intel based Mac Mini is coming at MacWorld which is in a few weeks. I don't know if I believe the rumors, but I don't want to take the chance. So, I lose out on getting it as a deduction for this year. If the expo was say in October/November, companies could get in purchases before the end of the year and consumers could get their gifts for the holiday season. I understand that products may not be ready that early, but shifting the development to have them ready would make a lot more sense to me.

Audio hum

My wife and I have noticed a hum in our whole house audio system and today I finally decided to do a web search and see what came up for fixing it. I found an article which indicated that any component hooked up to cable TV could cause the problem. This sounded far fetched to me, but what do I know about audio and intereference? So, I disconnected all but the MP3 player and the hum went away. I plugged in each source until I got to the TiVo/TV. When I got to the TiVo/TV (it's on a switch), the hum came back. So, I disconnected the cable and what do you know? The hum was almost eliminated! Now I'm off to the store to look for an isolator to fix the problem. I learn something new everyday.

Brand loyalty

Yesterday I went to Home Depot to pick up some attachments for my Dremel to do some glass etching. The Dremel attachments were about $8 each and I needed 4 of them according to the project instructions I had; 2 were diamond tipped and 2 were tungsten carbide. I also saw a Black & Decker kit that contained 4 diamond tipped attachments, cutting wheels, grinding attachment, etc. for $10. I bought the Black & Decker kit as well as one of the Dremel tungsten carbide attachments. I got home, used the Black & Decker kit and was able to return the Dremel attachment.

So, the question is, is the Dremel name worth that much more? In this case, the diamond tipped attachments are made from diamond scrap and/or synthetic diamond and how much different can they be? Personally, I'll buy the cheaper attachment as long as they work as well. It appears that the Black & Decker ones work fine as I had no trouble using them to etch glass.

Sprint Bill, part 2

I looked at my Sprint bill online today as it just became available. I noticed that the balance was twice that of a normal month! Wow, what that Sprint mess up now? After pouring over the bill for about 30 minutes and checking my credit card statement, it appears that Sprint never charged my card for December. What happened was this...I ordered a phone, Sprint placed a $349.99 credit on my Sprint bill as I paid that amount by credit card. Next, when my payment was due on Dec. 17 for the previous month's bill, I already had a credit on my account that exceeded this, so they didn't charge me. On the December bill, there is a charge for the phone ($349.99 + sales tax) as well as the normal charges. So, it looks like they'll catch up next month in billing me. To further complicate matters, there is a charge for $399.99 for the phone they sent me that I didn't want as well as a credit to offset that.

What a mess! Next time I should buy a phone from an independent retailer and not Sprint itself as this billing disaster has given me a major headache.