Reports by Consumers

Today, it seems obvious that this is what American auto manufacturers should’ve been doing all along: meaty rear-wheel-drive sedans with attitude, not the immitation, me-too FWD appliances that Japan Inc. executes with robotic efficiency. No, American cars have always meant attitude. And now that Chrysler has shown everybody how to do them right, it all makes sense.

So, okay, now you've more or less found out how burdened your body might be - it's time to discover what your local environment is like. Thanks to Environmental Defense, we can do that here, at Scorecard: Get an in-depth pollution report for your county, covering air, water, chemicals, and more. Yes. Just put in your zipcode, and there you have the scary picture of what your neighborhood is really like. The couple whose dog never stops barking, the kid who skateboards in your driveway, the people who get your parking space when you have to work late - nahh, they're nothing compared to what you'll find out here at Scorecard.

Wedbush Morgan Securities’ outspoken Michael Pachter was more critical in his reaction. “We are disappointed that this type of content was included in the game in the first place,” he wrote. However severe his disappointment might be, Pachter sees little enduring damage to the company’s standing among investors. “We do not expect any long-term impact on GTA: San Andreas sales due to the product recall and later release of the new version. … Notwithstanding the large negative financial impact, we believe that investors should view this as a onetime charge.”

5. On electric toasters, why do they engrave the message ‘one slice’? How many pieces of bread do they think people are really gonna try to stuff in that slot?

TiVio, today, announced an upgrade for one million of its Series 2 users that will allow viewers to respond directly to long form ads which have been specially encoded to provide more information to the viewer upon request. To do so, TiVo will, with user permission, forward the users contact information to the advertiser.

At last, a way to end squabbles over which TV channel to watch — without buying a second set. Sharp Corp. has developed a liquid-crystal display that shows totally different images to people viewing the screen from the left and the right.

I proudly announce that over the next few months, a few additions will be made to wash this world’s mouth out properly on every cavity! Consumer issues, social dilehmas and political spins will be exposed for what they actually are!

On Walgreens website, when you click the on the category "Personal Products" it gives you a list of sub-categories along with items found there...

Under the Intimacy sub-category we find....
Condoms
Dietary Supplements for Sexual Wellness
Female Contraceptives
Frostings & Whipped Cream...

Apple recently reported $320 million in profits for the last quarter, during which they sold 6.2 million iPods. Given a current world population of 6.5 billion, that means that very nearly 1 of every 1000 people in the world bought an iPod last quarter, which is interesting, considering that lots of people have been predicting the iPod's imminent demise due to a) cheaper competition, b) market saturation, and c) lack of compatibility with Microsoft's Media Player.

Plastic, my friends, is based on highly refined and modified - you guessed it - petroleum products. This final state is, largely, unrecyclable. “So?” you ask. Well, lets look at the things in your life that wouldn’t exist without plastic:

Start with your computer and all the peripherals. That means every computer, including the ones that keep the lights on at the power plants, the ones that control the rails and air traffic, your phones, all of them. Ipods, printers, mice keyboards, the whole enchilada.

The organization has published a chart, which can be seen here, that lists the odds of needing a repair of various household products . According to the site, the repair rate for laptops is 33%. This means there is a 1 in 3 chance, you’ll need to take your laptop in for repairs during the first three years of ownership.

Well, I’ve been told that I should start a blog on consumer issues since I often talk about wanting to educate as many consumers as I can. I spent a large part of my Sunday figuring out how to add a blog to my website. It was easier than I thought. However, I am still learning the details so bear with me. As I learn to navigate my way around, I hope I will be able to provide useful information to consumers about their rights. As a consumer rights attorney, I often hear from my clients, “If I had know my rights before…” I spend a lot of time trying to educate the public on their rights as consumers. I write articles. I have been on tv. I speak at seminars. I am on the radio once a month. I still feel as though I am fighting an uphill battle to educate the masses.

HowiePro was established to post and answer common consumer questions and topics related to digital technology and consumer electronics. This blog will also serve as a forum for Howie to relay insider knowledge from industry shows and conventions.

An organic composter is the type of person who really is environmentally conscious about the kinds of stuff that go into their compost pile. Not just any old thing can be organically composted. TNT, many different explosives, gas, oil, jet fuel, diesel fuels, insecticides and such are all perfectly compostable, but not considered the kind of thing an organic compost pile is made from. Most people when doing composting in an organic way want things that come directly from nature.

We had to pick a specific company and decide what sort of connectors we wanted on our hose and then buy something for the spigot, for the hose and, if we wanted to add another hose to the end, yet another connector. I am constantly having to go look for one connector or another. They are all made out of, hopefully, durable plastic and easily snap into place. I don’t know, it just seems strange to me. Its amazing how things come to be in various countries, from electrical wires and plugs, to plumbing to which side of the street cars drive on. I should be more amazed and maybe a little charmed, but I often find myself irritated. Sometimes I miss the comfortableness of America. And, on a final note, our dishwasher, used for a little over one year, has stopped working and we await a repairman.

Now the stringy stuff. If I could find a way to market this, I would be rich. I had this hanging off my waterfalls. Now that my water hyacinths have grown and cover the top of my falls, they take out the nutrients from my water before they get into my pond. Before this, I had to remove the algae with a bottle or toilet brush. I just twirl the brush around the algae and it removes this offensive plant. Algae is a living plant. It needs sunlight to grow. Keeping your water cover 60% to 65% with plants will help shade your pond or you can use a water dye. Using a dye during the winter will darken your water and keep the winter and early spring sun from giving you an early growth of algae. The dye will dissipate by spring. There is a product produced by Interpet in England that is available in the US known as Pond Balance. The pink crystals are dissolved in water and added to the pond in the early spring. This and other products can be purchased but most only work in the spring when water temperature is below 55�. If you don’t like to remove this string algae you can use a UV sterilizer to kill it.

Now these are what I’m talking about! This article on cnet.com shows the beginning of what’s to come. I know in about a year I’ll probably head toward one of these types of networked, raided, terabyte drives!

So we have been debating on what our next uber-luxury car is going to be. We’ve search high and low and here are some of the cars on the list. All the cars come with a navigation system and XM or Sirius radio as options (if not standard equipment). All the prices below reflect cars that are loaded with every option. Please feel free to shoot me an email if you have any recommendations.

These numbers are for worldwide shipments (not just Canada). The article goes on to say that the trend in DVR units is towards integrated set top boxes — cable boxes and DVD players that include DVR functionality, although they do say there is still a market for high end stand alone DVR units such as ReplayTV and Tivo.

ID theft is, according to FTC figures, the most popular and fastest growing form of consumer fraud. Over 2004, the FTC reported ID thieves took over $100 million from financial institutions, or an average of $6,767 per incident. For individual consumers, the numbers are even more staggering. As reported by Janet Wu of by Boston television station WCVB-TV, money stolen through identity theft amounted to over $50 billion in the United States last year. In other words, nearly $200 per US citizen was somehow stolen due to identity theft.

I never really thought of this before, but after reading this article about swapping the front faceplate on your Tivo at PVRBlog, I realized that the same problem could occur with a ReplayTV. Should the remote die or the batteries die, basically your ReplayTV is useless until you get a new remote or batteries.

Young remembers begging Wal-Mart for relief. "They said, 'No way,' " says Young. "We said we'll increase the price"--even $3.49 would have helped tremendously--"and they said, 'If you do that, all the other products of yours we buy, we'll stop buying.' It was a clear threat." Hunn recalls things a little differently, if just as ominously: "They said, 'We want the $2.97 gallon of pickles. If you don't do it, we'll see if someone else might.' I knew our competitors were saying to Wal-Mart, 'We'll do the $2.97 gallons if you give us your other business.' " Wal-Mart's business was so indispensable to Vlasic, and the gallon so central to the Wal-Mart relationship, that decisions about the future of the gallon were made at the CEO level.

We have a dishwasher! It was finally installed today, after it sitting in the kitchen for 3 days. Ever since we moved in here we wanted to get the Fisher and Paykel double drawers. So we went out a couple of weekends ago, and got a price somewhere, and then went to another place to see if they could do better.