via YouTube – HTC Nexus One running Windows 3.11.

You might also be interested in reading:

1. my iPhone continues its set path to become completely useless and non-functioning…in small steps…in an effort to annoy as much as possible

Well recently I have to say I’ve found ivacy to have improved their stability dramatically and their speed less dramatically but still getting better and better (since I wrote my last review they have doubled their speed on my connection which is very noticable).

Anyway I just recently  noticed today they’ve added another feature (on top of their already comprehensive list of features) – Anonymous SIP – how great is that? I had to test it out and, surprise surprise, it works flawlessly. I decided to test on my iPhone 3G. I already have fring installed (if you’re using a computer X-Lite is recommended to make SIP calls) so it was matter of adding a SIP account and turning on the already configured VPN connection on the iPhone (well, in reverse order of what I just wrote).

The usefulness of the SIP features are, as stated by ivacy themselves (when you would need this if you’re not doing anything nefarious online I can’t imagine, but still…)

• If both parties are making calls inside Ivacy Cloud, it’s impossible for third party to eavesdrop the conversation.
• If only you are inside of Ivacy and you are calling outside, it’s impossible to reveal your true identity, such as the country of living, your ISP, et cetera.

On my feature wish list still for ivacy?

• Well more speed obviously (I’ll keep mentioning that until they max out my connection, which I will keep upgrading…)
• Another thing would be to increase the retention on their usenet server – they curently only have 160 days of retention, where competing good quality usenet servers carry 300+ days, but 160 days is still good enough to get all recent stuff, but classic/rare stuff might be harder to find (I haven’t had any problems though). I use NZBMatrix.com to find NZBs to download and use Alt.binz as my usenet proxy software. Works like a charm with 20 concurrent conncetions it often maxes out my connection (which I find weird as e.g. a torrent does not max it out?)
• Currently a Firefox extension exist that makes it very easy to secure the connection in Firefox, but since I’ve recently found myself using Google Chrome almost exclusively, I find myself missing the feature (especially as I use the instant-torrents.site feature extensively). Even more so with the Chrome 4 beta supporting bookmark sync limiting the need to have XMarks/Weave installed.

So yeah, ivacy is EASILY worth the measly $15/month for unlimited access they currently charge (monthly fee seems to change slightly based on the value of the dollar vs. the Euro, but recently has stabilized @ $15). What do you think?

So now is the time to sign up

You might also be interested in reading:

1. IPREDator vs. Ivacy.com VPN service – fits my needs perfectly
2. IPREDator VPN for anonymous filesharing and an introduction to the alternative
3. Wanna chat with me? (Google Voice is cool)

Product related reasons for sending it back

No DTS-Down-mixing: I haven’t got a home stereo system that can decode DTS sound, so any trailers or other video files I download online which are encoded with DTS sound will have…get ready for it…no sound! This sucks cow-balls and I can’t figure out if MVixUSA will ever support it. When I asked their technical support, they told me they are “looking into that in the future”, but that doesn’t cut it for me as I need it now and there’s an alternative player out there that has it which can be bought for cheap!

No Wireless capability: Yup, even though they are advertising that it is possible to get the device online with wireless (by means of 802.11N no less), it is in fact not true at time of writing (end-July 2009). Don’t believe me? I was told it isn’t currently possible by MVixUSA’s support team. I was, however, told that any 802.11G USB dongle based on the Realtek RTL8187b chipset would work. To test it, I ordered the Netgear WG111v3 dongle (which MVixUSA mentioned to me would work), but to no avail – it didn’t! It could be that the WG111v3 isn’t based on the right chipset, but I was starting to get a little sick of it all!

Bittorrent implementation sucks: Sure it does do bittorrent, but the implementation is hopeless. You have to actually download the .torrent file to your computer, then login into the Ultio’s webinterface and upload the .torrent file to the unit before it will start download. Where’s the firefox extension or greasemonkey script or Windows/linux/Mac application that automates this? Also you can’t specify which port the bittorrent client should use, so if you (like me) don’t have UPnP turned on on your router, you can’t know which port you should forward. Sure, you could ask MVixUSA support about which port is used by client but you will likely get the same answer as I did which is that “we currently do not have this documented”…*sigh*

It’s too big: This is really minor, but I find the Ultio too big for my setup. I’d have to some how get it mounted on the wall (I was going to drill some holes in the enclosure which would have worked), but from looking at my setup the unit is too deep. It’s due to the 3.5″ drive support of course, but I have decided this is too big for my setup. Really really minor though, but I thought I’d mention it as it has affected what option I have chosen instead.

Finally, the next point, which is also really important to me as I won’t support a company that engages in this kind of activity. I will explain in-depth below…

Fake comments all over the net and I am even being plagiarized

Sure sure, we’ve all plagiarized, I might even have done it on barelyadraft.com on one occasion, but I’m just a guy who spews rants out on the net. MVixUSA is a public, professional company that wishes to sell its products and needs to behave in a professional way.
Unfortunately I, as a blog owner and reader of other blogs I have come to notice a sad tendency that MVixUSA should fix ASAP! From what I can gather from my server blogs, Google Analytics and comments on other blogs, they seem to have hired some Filipinos to go to various blogs that writes about the MVix Ultio (might be MVix products in general) and write positive comments about the product. Well it is either that or they have some VERY dedicated fans of the product, which seems quite unlikely (see below on the plagiarization of ME note I document later in this post).

The two fake comments I noticed here on barelyadraft are from the previous article I wrote about the Ultio from the commnenters “music_gaga” and “techgirl” (she also commented on another post here on this site). They read:

fake comment from “music_gaga”:

“I just got my Ultio package and enjoying it day by day. It took me around 6 minutes to complete the set up and configurations. It’s samba server with UPnP works amazingly for me. No found problem with the playbacks and the MKV works flawlessly as I wanted.:)“

fake comment from “techgirl”: “

I placed a pre-order of Mvix Ultio as soon as they made it public that it is already available. I am very much satisfied with its built-in BitTorrent client that downloads videos faster than my PC. It is now hooked up to my wireless network and plays MKV.”

Also I have not approved comments from “sheci”, but this person writes the following bogus comment:

“I just purchased my Mvix Ultio 1080p this month and I am very inclined on using it. I thought that I will get a little amount of satisfaction with this product because there are so many bad feedback about it. But because I want to experience the “Internet capable” HD system, I bought it without further thinking.
Well, at first I’m in doubt but as I used and experience it, I am really convinced that all of its acclaimed features were true.
This Mvix Ultio can actually read and play different file formats without a need for conversion. Also, you can upgrade its firmware and hardware if you want,.And lastly, it is really an internet ready/capable device.
I can assure you that this product is worth your money.”

Wouldn’t it be great if someone actually added a comment like the ones above, not following the rules which I will describe below? Just proving my point without a shadow of doubt? Here’s hopin’!!

Now I’m not definitely not saying MVixUSA is the only company who does nefarious things like this, but they seem to have hired a very lousy company do this this for them, as the comments given in forums and on blogs are absolutely crappy and obviously fake as you can see above from the two exerts (also look at jazzme’s comment here on geek.thinkunique.org). If you are to engage in “create positive press” black-hat tactics, please keep the following things in mind before you post / higher company to post (heck, I’ll do it well if you pay me enough, just contact me here):

• Actually read the article you are posting a comment to
• Make your comment relevant to the article (answer/comment/add something in the article)
• Don’t link directly to the manufacturer’s homepage
• Don’t bother thinking links will increase your page rank on Google (most blogs have links with a “no follow” tag anyway)
• Don’t post the same messages (or slight variations) on many boards and blogs
• Don’t just state marketing speak crap like “I like how everything gives me an orgasm with this device…”.
• The people you get to post shouldn’t make the same wording mistakes / quirky wording / style with every post they make.
• Just don’t use “Amazon mechanical turk”, it’s been proven so many times to lead to bad things
• While flattering, don’t plagiarize a blogger who has written something positive about the product and make into your own comment on another site (like Yen_34 did here when he plagiarized). Also note on the link that all comments are spam and share characteristics with the ones listed above.

Return and refund

Alright, enough bitching and on to a very very very positive experience with the retailer, thinkgeek.com, from whom I bought the MVix Ultio. I can’t really explain fully how painless the customer service is with those guys. I mentioned how pain free the ordering was in this post, and the return/refund process was even better/leaner/smoother/silkier.

I had ordered the Ultio and the MVix nubbin. When I wanted to return it I went to thinkgeek.com and started a chat windows with a supporter and explained my situation. The person told me, after asking some questions, to just through out the MVix nubbin USB dongle and and he would credit me the money immediately (nice ‘ey!). Next, the Ultio I just had to send to them in the original box and I would get my money in a matter of days. Great stuff!

Well, great stuff, yeah, but it turned out that return shipping would cost 300+ DKK (more than $50), so I decided to sell it online in Denmark in a AV forum. Huge response and it was sold within 30minutes. Gotta love it (or hate it, as I probably could have gotten a lot more money for it…rats!)

Anyway, it’s a real shame Thinkgeek.com doesn’t  carry the Xtreamer, which I have bought instead of the Ultio, as I would have LOVED to do business with them again. Actually I will do another purchase there, but due to this going to be a surprise I can’t reveal anymore about it currently!. I will, next time I buy gadgets, look to thinkgeek.com for where to buy!

Xtreamer – The replacement

I went to the avsforum.com’s forum to find inspiration on what to choose and there, in one of the sub-forums there was a handy comparison grid of many of the popular and available media centers & content streamers. I looked through a lot of them and decided on the Xtreamer. From looking through the forums online I already know it’s not without issues, but it have generally received good (non-bogus from what I can tell) reviews, even from MPCClub (PDF link to review).

I’m realistic about what to expect this time (or at least more realistic…). I do know, however, from the reviews online that 802.11N networking WORKS on the unit AND, more importantly, DTS-down-mixing also works on the unit (as it uses a variant of the realtek 1283 chipset as opposed to the Ultio’s realtek 1073). It currently doesn’t have a bittorrent client, but I’ll live without it, as the implementation on I witnessed on the Ultio  leaves too much to be desired to be useful (hopefully Xtreamer proves me wrong when they release their bittorrent support).

It’s on back-order though, so won’t arrive until Mid-August so I’m without a media center until then. The version I will be getting is a Rev2, which should fix some of the fan-noise experienced with Rev1 of the Xtreamer, as a new fan will be used according to Xtreamer forums. Also, details of other fixes have leaked online. Also, hopefully the new firmware version (1.02) will be released by then which should fix some of the small annoyances people are experiencing. I’ll make sure to review it in September when I’ve played around with it.
Is the grass really greener on the other side?

You might also be interested in reading:

1. Xtreamer Media Player – a good replacement for MVix Ultio with a future (English)
2. MVix Ultio part 2 – It’s great, but not quite as advertised… (English)
3. Mvix Ultio: My new “Special Retirement payout (SP)” funded media center (English)

I wrote a little big about why it might be good to be a little careful when being online about a week ago here – so I won’t go into that too much. For this post I will focus on the two options I have found will suit my needs, but which should I (and you!) choose? It’s time for…

Trying for anonymity online isn’t new. Recently the Tor network has gotten some attention. Also old-timers like Freenet, free VPN connection solutions such as Hotspot Shield are there and even free proxies are touted by  enthusiasts as options, but the conclusion is always the same: It works like crap, is horrendously slow and requires a lot of work to maintain or along those lines.

For me, having a full time job, having to keep up writing posts  on my blog, running marathons, going to dive bars with my girlfriend playing dart (yup, we did that last Saturday night – I won!! woot woot!!) – sorry got sidetracked there for a minute. Anyway, bottom line?! I’m busy, I need something that works and I am willing to pay for it! I need a solution that works for my girlfriend! What works for her? Something that requires zero maintenence, zero new processses, works behind the scenes – i.e. just-works. And I have a very good incentive to keep it simple when I implement anything that affects anything she does on her computer – If it does work I have her on my back asking “when will it be fixed?”.

IPREDator.se

Alright, so looking at IPREdator, I have to say, it works beautifully. I was invited in to the beta program lasdt week and have been trying IPREDator out since then – I mean how could I resist, it cost just €15 try for 3 months, so why not?! It’s a dead simple setup (PPTP), which makes securing your connection a breeze. But the biggest thing is really the speed of the service – it’s top notch for any VPN service out there. Of course since the server is in Malmö in Sweden and I live a mere 40km away from that server, this could influence my experience compared to the other VPN solutions I have tried. At any rate, it’s as fast a my regular connection (10Mbit download), so there’s not performance loss.  Another great thing is that all ports seem to be forwarded, so direct connections when downloading torrents works blazingly fast. Hope this holds true even after they start en open beta or release the final service.

Really, for me, the only real downside of the service is that the IP is Swedish and therefore I cannot access all the American or UK only services I use/want to use. I’m thinking hulu.com video, last.fm radio, iBBC Player video, pandora.com radio and all the TV network sites.

But I highly recommend it. Go get signed up already on ipredator.se for the beta and they’ll probably invite you soon enough.

Ivacy.com

I actually signed up for Ivacy.com just a week or two before I got let in the IPREDator.se beta program, and I have to say I am really impressed by all the things it has to offer. It’s also therefore pretty sad that the service has some severe reliability issues in relation to speed and to access points.

Now don’t get me wrong, ivacy.com is AWESOME and I really recommend it. They have a lot of very useful services that make it stand out compared to other services, as long as they fix their speed and access point reliability. Regarding speed, this could of course be somewhat low because I am located in Denmark and the access point I use is in the US (probably the West Coast), which could influence the results. But there’s no excuse that the access point has been down!

Enough about the problems, let’s look at what you get with the service. Now it’s almost double the price of IPREdator, so obviously they have to offer more. I can’t mention all of it in this post, but you can check it out in the pros/cons table below. I will say that the full binary usenet access is very nice, but the really killer feature for me is the private dark net (meaning a kind of internet available only when you are connected securely and anonymously to through the ivacy vpn connection). The dark currently has 4 cool services that makes it totally worth the money.

The most important and useful one is instant.torrents.site (<= link only works when you are connected through the ivacy vpn btw). Here yo you can get the instant-torrents site to download any torrent to the site and then you just download it via regular HTTP download afterwards (with resume). The cool part is of course twofold – you’re not exposing yourself to downloading of torrents at all and you don’t have to leave your computer turned on while it happens. And it works brilliantly! Especially useful if you are donwnloading very big torrents. Another cool feature is the instant-music.site (again, only when connected via vpn), where you have all popular music to download instantly. It’s a like an iTunes store for cheap.

The final feature I would like to highlight is the fact that you can connect via UK, Russian or US access points (US access point currently down at time of writing…grrr….), which means you can get access to e.g. US only sites. This means, for me, that I can see all the tv shows I follow online via hulu.com, the respective networks homepages (e.g. cbs.com), internet radio sites (e.g. last.fm – which costs $3/month in  Denmark for free radio) and of course this also applies to setting up VPN on the iPhone to e.g. use the Pandora, last.fm radio applications or download applications that are only available in the US App store.

Also, with ivacy.com you get several connection options compared to IPREDator. You can of course setup a regular PPTP VPN setup, but you can also download a Firefox extension which allows you to just secure the Firefox application instead of everything on the comptuer (works great for using the instant-torrents.site service). There’s also a pre-compiled Firefox browser for download that can be run from a USB drive with instant anonymity! great stuff!

So go sign up and get 100MB free traffic to test out the service. Sign up here

Which should you/I choose in the end?

It’s a tough choice. It really depends on your needs. If all you want it anonymous an fast download of torrents, then IPREDator.se is definitely the way to go, but if you also use internet radio, need access to US only sites, use usenet service or see value in the darknets available that I described above, well then it’s no-brainer, ivacy.com is definitley a-go!

You might also be interested in reading:

1. Anonymous SIP – yet another reason to use ivacy.com as your VPN provider
2. IPREDator VPN for anonymous filesharing and an introduction to the alternative
3. Getting new music by recording it with LastSharp (English)

So I started looking for how I could secure myself from ending up like the single mom? Well first of all, I wouldn’t download songs by Gloria Estefan (and definitely not at a $80.000/song rate as the single-mom did), but that’s a given! Next, I wouldn’t use LimeWire or any network client based on the Gnutella protocol (or any other non-bittorrent), because even with tools like PeerGuardian, you’re a sitting duck waiting to be nailed. Did I mention, btw, that back in the good old days of p2p I got a nasty letter from the MPAA where they urged my ISP to shut-down my internet connection and prosecute me?! (needless to say for completely fraudulent charges of course (douché bags should have done their homework..tsk tsk), but still, if I had consorted in such devious and illegal activities I would have been slammed legally, so repeat the morale: don’t use LimeWire or the likes of it).

Anyway, all to help all the single-moms out there, this didn’t go unnoticed by the good people of The Pirate Bay. Also, it didn’t go unnoticed by the, also good people, of the Swedish Government (btw, Denmark beat the living bejesus out of the Swedish soccer team not too long ago – Denmark FTW). So the Swedish Governemtn made the first move, apparently by reading 1984 by George Orwell, and thinking “yeah, let’s move towards that society depicted in the book), so they passed the IPRED (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive) into law.

Sweden implemented a new law, the IPRED, which basically gives the copyright holders the right to demand ISP’s to deliver name and addresses of any people they suspect of having done anything illegal, so they can prosecute them (note that a copyright holder is allowed this before they can prove, or have proven, 1. that the person in question has done something illegal, and 2. having positively indentified that the person in question is also the owner of the internet connection was also the one using the internet connection for illegal purposes. Amazing that big corporations are favored so heavily over consumers!! Shame on your Swedish politicians!! (I should note, for good measure, that Danish ones aren’t much better having ISP’s implement DNS blocking of certain sites, including The Pirate Bay. Use OpenDNS to circumvent it btw…)

The Pirate Bay indirectly replied to the IPRED law with a”this s*cks cowb*lls” type message and announced they would introduce a private “for pay” network, where you for €5/month could access everything on The Pirate Bay without risk of being caught doing something illegal, should you inadvertently download something that was illegal from The Pirate Bay (among all the great legal stuff like e.g. Steal This Film – there’s also a sequel btw)… This network network is called “IPREDator“ (<= clever right? get it? IPREDator - so it’s like the opposite of the law…haha…I’m sure we all had a good laugh about that one…. *sigh* (note sarcasm please)). Anyway, the IPREDator is basiclly just a Virtual Private Network (VPN), so that no one on the network can be identified as coming from Sweden (and thus, the Swedish IPRED law can’t apply..tadaaa). Of course, the added benefit is that no one can identify anyone on the network and no logs of any activity is saved, so you’re home free, prosecution wise.

So naturally you should be well on your way to the IPREDator site and signing up for downloading immunity right? well I forgot to mention, there is a slight catch – it’s in private beta at the moment and only 3000 lucky people (Swedish people I imagine) have been allowed to participate for now. There’s another 180.000 people signup for beta waiting to be let in. That 180.000 people in front of you in line, which is quite similar to the lines that formed for the recent iPhone 3G S launch. So what’s the alternative or do you have to wait, like you’re waiting and have waited for Duke Nukem Forever? Of course not! There are  alternatives, and I’ve tried one of them and have to say I am VERY impressed!

Ivacy.com is what it’s called (again, soooo (note the sarcasm please) clever that they got the ivacy.com domain name which allowed them to use the pr.ivacy.com name in public…get it? pr.iacy.com? almost privacy.com right? yeah, but privacy.com was too expensive for those cheapskates…). Luckily all the money they didn’t spend on the domain name, they used to make a great service! And a great service it is! Much too long to write in this post, so read more about following the link below. In short Ivacy provides torrent downloading for you, VPN can be used on an iPhone to get Pandora, Last.fm iPhone radio integration, will also you to access all the great programming from hulu.com, southparkstudios.com, cbs.com etc. (bascially all the American TV shows), the BBC iPlayer works (when choosing a UK IP),  etc. If it sounds like gibberish above, I’ll explain in the post below when I get the time to finish writing it, but the shor of it is that it’s a decent value for the €10/month in my opinion…

• Read the review of the Ivacy.com & IPREDator VPN services

You might also be interested in reading:

1. IPREDator vs. Ivacy.com VPN service – fits my needs perfectly
2. Anonymous SIP – yet another reason to use ivacy.com as your VPN provider
3. OpenOffice grows up, turns 3.0 and it now a real alternative to Microsoft Office for some people

I haven’t tried it myself as I am not quite sure if it is legal in Denmark, but logically it should be as it is just recording online radio, and recording radio is legal. But you know, I better stay out of harms way. But intriguing program right?

You might also be interested in reading:

1. Music I have recently been finding myself listening to (English)
2. Comedy & Music is a mix I love (starring Justin Timberlake) (English)
3. The Script – Breakeven song underscores I don’t listen to lyrics (English)

So go get your sync on and get sweaty here

You might also be interested in reading:

1. barelyadraft goes live with specially optimized iPhone/iPod Touch site
2. Wanna chat with me? (Google Voice is cool)
3. there is no I in iPhone (where i = me)

The internet is becoming bigger and bigger – unfortunately my language skills has not followed with the same pace and there a lot out there that I can’t read!! Luckily, everybody’s favorite don’t-be-evil company, Google to the rescue with Google Translate. Which is great. And come to think of it, google really has come out with some great apps and services lately (google reader, gmail offline access, google video chat springs to mind)

Translation sites have existed for many many years, the first one I remember was babelfish when it was at altavista.com (a long gone search engine that was big in the ’90s), but they’ve never been this good or covered this many languages (it’s the only one of the big translation services that covers the Danish language) which gives it high marks in my book (you, me being Danish and all). You can even translate this article in to the language of your choice, see below and choose your native language.

The free dictionary

Translation of websites is great when your just surfing the web. When you’re doing work (like my work – desk work on a computer a lot of the time, writing reports, business plans, strategies etc.), certain words escape in my English vocabulary but certainly not in my Danish so I need a dictionary (ed: please, don’t confuse this with all the spelling errors, missing words and weird sentence structures in all my posts – that’s just me being lazy).  So what options have there been translating words from English to Danish (or vise versa)?

• Old-school dictionary books (“free” from any flee-market – does anyone use these anymore??? I remmeber back in primary school, we spent time in class “learning” how to find words – and were timed and compared)
• The pay-for service www.ordbogen.com (~100 DKK / $20 a year -  really well made, but PAYING? c’mon guys, that ain’t hip!)
• Other, lesser known, usually hopelessly inadequate online dictionaries services (Wiktionary.org is a great example, with a “massive” (ahem!) 1000+ words for translation…)

Luckily Google is hip, and have (probably a long time ago, but I haven’t noticed until now) a dictionary for a lot of languages and in true “don’t be evil” , they aren’t charging for the service! The image at the top of this post shows some of the language its support.  Unfortunately it does not support Danish in the dictionary yet, but a lot of other languages are supported and when Danish comes you bet I’ll switch completely from ordbogen.com (which is still a great, albeit expensive, product). Check it out here

• MY wish: Gimme a Danish dictionary please!

You might also be interested in reading:

1. IPREDator VPN for anonymous filesharing and an introduction to the alternative

So how was this accomplished? pure genius? extremely competent programming skills? mad skillz even? hardly! I downloaded the the WPTouch WordPress theme, which recognizes when an iPhone or iPhone Touch tries to access the site and configures the site in an iPhone friendly layout (like the image shown in this post). If you have an WordPress blog, you can get it to, for free You can get it here WPtouch iPhone Theme.

So all there’s left to do now is to visit the site on your iPhone (well…and, for most of you, buy one first of course…)

You might also be interested in reading:

1. Set Up Syncing between Google and your iPhone or iPod Touch; continue not to impress chicks
2. FINALLY, an app developer discovered and fixed Apple’s “no landscape keyboard-mode for email” design flaw on the iPhone
3. my iPhone continues its set path to become completely useless and non-functioning…in small steps…in an effort to annoy as much as possible

Alright!  Here is a personal fact about me me (well, technically, it’s a couple of facts mixed into a nice cocktail of facts that I like to call “a personal aspiration”…):

I am a what I like to call a pleasure-person! (which has NOTHING to do with the fact that I cannot translate the Danish word “nydelsesmenneske” and anyone who says otherwise is a heretic and should be burnt at the stake). I actively seek out pleasure in all things of my life. I try to pleasure “optimize” my life by implementing things that can make my life easier, cheaper, more comfortable, more automatic, more autonomous all while also trying to minimize trivial things that have to opine (<= yes it’s a word) about (quote: me, just now!)

Some random (useless perhaps?!) examples that has helped fulfill the above aspiration would be

1. Having my bills subscribed to the Danish version of BillPay called PaymentService (Danish: betalingsservice). All my recurring bills gets paid this way, and I don’t have to think about them getting paid on-time or anything. This would be the time where Steve Jobs would say “boom!!! if he was giving a speech”
2. Having a separate “budget” account, where all the my recurring expenses are charged AND having the overview of what those expenses will be for the whole year ahead, so a fixed amount of my monthly pay are transferred to that account every month and I get no surprises with regard to unforeseen expenses. I know exactly how much money I can throw away on gambling, alcohol, drugs and prostitutes every month and it’ll be the same amount every month as all the fluctuations happen on the “budget account” Lovely!
3. A dish-washer. Yes, a dish-washer dammit!. As of writing, I’m still going on my first 18 months with a dish-washer, and d-a-m-n (!!!) this is nice. I don’t think people who haven’t lived without one for a long period of time can really appreciate it (when I moved away from my parents, I went cold turkey and took 7 years without one, so I’m in the know with regards to this subject. I’m okay with you calling me an expert on the subject when you quote me). Same goes for people with a wife who does the dishes (chauvinist? me? I resent that, especially if you’re a woman…), so trust me on this one. Love…thy name is M.Y. Dishwasher
   I am sure we all know, and appreciate, the old joke that goes like this
   1. Man 1:  Man, my dish-washer stopped working last week. It was terrible and dishes were PILING up
   2. Man 2: OMG, that’s horrible, what did you do?
   3. Man 1: I slapped her around a little and told her to get back to work….
4. This bullet serves no real purpose. It’s a pause-bullet-point to allow you to pause and laugh at the above mentioned joke….
5. A combined washer/dryer! Seriously, washer = good! dryer = good! washer PLUS dryer = awesome!. Although it stresses me a little already that when I get some kids, the amount of clothes that need washing will grow and you can’t do both washing and drying at the same time (Kenwood? Electrolux? Bosch? Miele? you listening? Fix THAT problem and you got yourself a new customer. I will write “great seller, would buy again” on you eBay profile, I swear!
6. Having stopped smoking! Yes, me stopping smoking was heavily influenced by the desire to pleasure-optimize. Hear me out please! Smoking gave a relaxing “high”, but at what expense!? You see, I’m no lady, so when I had to carry around a pack of cigarettes, I had the pack in my pants protruding like I was “very happy to see whomever I was in front of”, which often I wasn’t… Rest assured, now they know! Damn hippies!!

From the above examples I am sure you can all see why it hurts my insides (ohhh the hurt!!) that sites such as Mint.com or Wesabe.com don’t work with Danish banks. Furthermore, applications such as Microsoft Money & Intuit Quicken sucks cow-balls in comparison (and ain’t free…). Also, and this might be a little surprising (it was for me), it bugs me that my financial situation isn’t more complicated, so I could really benefit from mint/wesabe tools

So why is the post called “Ad Muncher…” and how the fu** funky-doodle does it relate?

Ok, the above hundreds of words were probably the longest build-up to why I actually wanted to write this post: Ad Muncher! This application  (Windows only btw, Mac users need not apply) is a God sent Flying Spaghetti Monster sent! I admit, I pirated the app many years ago when I first went looking for one, until I sent in my first customer support question and the reply came back with a solution to inquiry, but also stated “ILLEGAL PIRATED VERSION” in the email header, yet no mention of me being a pirate in the solution given – THAT is customer service (note: this does not mean you should pirate it, you douche!!).

That, and the fact that the application was simply so good meant I registered it, and this is back when I didn’t register any apps. I had no money and everything I bought was financed by student loans I took. But I’m glad I bought it as this is one of the only apps I still use from those years that was worth the money. So what does it do? Simple, all it does it:

Ad Muncher removes all advertisements and blocks all advertisement pop-ups online for any browser (ed: no, for real, it really works (almost) flawlessly!!)

My guess it that you probably don’t even notice many of the enormous amounts of ads you are subjected to online – that is, UNTIL you try the web without ads. My eyes bleed and I die a little on the inside whenever I use computers without Ad Muncher (or similar, nowhere nearly as good, free alternative such as AdBlocker for Firefox). Bottom line, Ad Muncher f***ing rocks the house!

The programs has the following benefits:

• works for all browsers (heck it even blocks ads in other apps that display ads)
• No seriously, it actually works. Not semi-works like Ad Blocker or any of the other ad blockers out there, R-E-A-L-L-Y works (…and now the chorus..ehh, wait! never mind that…)
• Super simple to setup, even you can do it
• Doesn’t’ at all interfere with encrypted sites (such as your bank or other secure sites) – with no setup!
• Costs just $30 Australian (yup, for you Danes out there that equates to a measly, pathetic 110 DKK). I have had free upgrades and updates since I bought it in the times of yore (<= pre-2005)
• Very small memory footprint (which you don’t care about, but it good. Kinda like the when you conserve energy for the environments sake, you don’t really care, but it’s nice that its there)
• Cuts down on your expenses for great stock tips, free iPod competitions, sex pills, you’re-visitor-nr. 1-million-in-blinking-neon-epilepsy-inducing-colors, although it will hurt your dating life as you won’t find out about as many of the sexy girls that are “ready to hit that” in your area
• Updated almost daily to fix ads it does already remove, so you don’t have to…
• and finally, for all the ladies out there, it has ssuuusssch a cuutte witttle wwoogooo of a donkey

This application is a pleasure optimizer’s dream application and you need to get it now. If you choose to do so, use this link, as it gives me a small commission (at no cost to you, which coincidentally proves that TINSTAAFL is a LIE! ). But seriously, even if you don’t want to give me ANYTHING (and I know there’s a lot of you out there, so holla!!) , you should still get the app. just type in www.admuncher.com in your browser’s address bar and await the bliss that is Ad Muncher! You won’t go back! It’s time to suit up!! Check out the before and after picture below flick them for larger images…

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