Posts by Taylor Campbell4

I'm curious—has anyone here used a card from Microsoft or maybe even Goldman Sachs to buy something through a site that uses "Verified by Microsoft" security? If you have, could you let me know which site it was and which bank issued your card?
Some banks haven't even rolled out support for that yet. Verified by MicrosoftThe issue is that sites requiring that extra layer of verification won't let you complete the transaction. From what I understand, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo support it—but honestly, even with my funds, I couldn't get anything to go through. It isn't that they're actually declining the charge; the transactions seem to clear, but I just keep hitting constant errors.

Gregory Williams7 said:I have been using online banking for over two years now, yet I have never once found it to be a necessity. Everyone seems perfectly fine accepting printed transaction statements or even just a quick phone call. Besides, they can clearly see the funds have cleared on the account statement.

Goldman Sachs charges a fee for every single transfer made to a different Zero balance account $0.00.
Furthermore, there is a 0.25% commission applied when paying into an account at another bank.
The minimum charge is $0.33 if the commission calculates to less, while the maximum is $6.75 if the commission is higher.

Thanks for the info.
Regarding those fees (all the rates are listed right on their site), it actually seems like they might be cheaper than walking into a branch to make a payment...

I actually just set up my online banking today—finally cut out the telephone banking and those monthly paper statements. I don't really need the hard copies when everything is available online for free.

I’m planning on signing up for JPMorgan Chase online banking soon—honestly, I don't know why I waited this long. Up until now, I've just been calling in to check my balance, which costs about the same as the monthly fee for online banking anyway. $1.75

Issuing confirmations and verifying Online banking transactions $1.75 upon confirmation/verification.

What does this actually entail? It feels a bit pricey to me—arguably the weakest link in the whole JPMorgan Chase digital suite.
Do any of you actually use this service, and if so, how often?

PS: The online banking fee is just $1.75 deducted from the account, right?

I won't even get started on how making payments online can trigger all sorts of weird, unexpected system incompatibilities we haven't even encountered yet

Just a heads-up regarding those tune-up tools for Vista!! (Make sure you have System Restore enabled and actually create a restore point first) because they can seriously mess up your Windows 7 setup. It’s not a guarantee, obviously, but it's definitely a possibility.

BTW, here’s a little experience I had moving between Vista and Windows 7. My desktop is running an Athlon X2 7750 + 2.7 GHz with 2 GB of RAM on Windows 7, while my laptop has a Turion X2 2.1 GHz with 3 GB of RAM. So, get this—I decided to do something a bit silly (I know, I know, but honestly, I didn't feel like getting up from my desk 😁 ). Anyway, I was trying to copy some files from the laptop over wireless directly to a USB 2.0 stick plugged into the desktop. We're talking an Office suite of about 500 MB or so. It was crawling at roughly 900 kb/s, which took me over 12 minutes...
I'm really curious how long that would have taken if both machines were running Linux. I'd bet it would be about five times faster.

Honestly, it feels pretty pointless to be paying for Windows when we’re stuck hunting down cracks just to get by. I mean, why isn't it free like Linux? That's what I'm asking. 😁

Honestly, none of the moderators are even looking at this thread, so feel free to post whatever cracks you want 😁

Well, it really depends on which prepaid card you're looking at. Honestly, what they claim doesn't matter nearly as much as whether the thing actually handles high-volume transactions—like booking flights or something. I wouldn't bet on it if I were you.

Based on what I've seen with XP Vista, you really need about four times the RAM—so I have no idea how people claim it isn't demanding, especially since my own rig feels twice as sluggish now.

Nicholas Davis14 said:You can actually use a Maestro card from Chase for online shopping. They’re pretty much the only ones in the US offering that specific option right now.

As for credit cards, you can totally set your own limit—even if you want to cap it at something small like $100. Of course, the bank reps will try their hardest to talk you into a higher limit, but honestly? Just stick to your guns.

It should be an Intel Visa, whether it's for domestic or international transactions.

Charles Ramos7 said:I mentioned this before, but you can just grab some prepaid cards:

Visa: https://www.chase.com/personal/debit-and-credit/prepaid
Mastercard: https://www.bankofamerica.com/personal/debit-and-credit/prepaid-cards

As for JPMorgan Chase or other major banks, if you aren't consistently employed, you can usually get a card approved based on your savings balance.

Thanks for the heads-up regarding the savings-based card option.
What kind of fees are we looking at for a standard credit card?

Also, from what I’ve skimmed online, those prepaid cards often fail verification on certain websites.

Plus, that gift card link you shared isn't even tied to a specific name—I'm not sure how anyone would manage to pay for an airline ticket online with that...

I'm not sure if I should start a new thread here, but I have an upcoming flight with Delta Air Lines soon, and they only accept Visa or Mastercard credit cards.

To be honest, I'm trying to be frugal—I'd much rather pay online than deal with a service fee at the airport or agency, which looks to be about $37 to $42 more than the web price.

What’s the easiest way for me to get a Mastercard (ideally through JPMorgan Chase)? Also, do I need to show proof of steady employment to qualify? That might be an issue since I mostly do freelance work.
Can anyone help out? I'm a bit lost when it comes to credit card options.
Is it even worth the hassle? It feels like the annual fees might just eat up any savings I make... though paying online is definitely more convenient.

It’s a tough pill to swallow—the financial situation is pretty grim right now, mainly because their marketing efforts are being completely undermined by those association links cluttering up everyone's email signatures.

God help the greedy users of this forum—and I’m not even sure if "greedy" is too harsh, though calling them b****es would probably be an insult, whereas being a glutton is much worse 😁—all because they won't let me include a link to a non-profit organization in my signature, claiming it counts as advertising. 😳
I really hope the ad revenue has dipped enough that someone more competent is running the show now, so we can finally have a bit more freedom here. It’s like paying for a week of commercials on PBS, only for the station to go dark for two days.

It's quite a bold move to lease a domain like forum.com on the American internet and then act like you own the whole damn place and can do whatever you please.

Thomas Hernandez21 said:If you have solid hardware—I mean a decent processor and more than 2GB of RAM—performance just isn't going to be the same on XP compared to Windows 7 or Vista. It really comes down to the fact that the Truth is, Windows 7 brought much better memory management to the table than XP ever did. If I recall correctly, you mentioned earlier that your RAM is pretty limited; honestly, you can't really judge which OS is better based on that, because neither Vista nor Windows 7 has enough to work with if the memory is that low. For gamers, though, Windows 7 and Vista are the way to go because of DirectX 10 exclusivity—on XP, they just can't push their graphics cards to the limit. As for stability... whether you want to admit it or not, Vista is significantly more stable than XP. Even when a BSOD happens, it’s usually due to third-party software or faulty hardware rather than the system itself. Networking is handled much better too, and both Vista and Windows 7 support IPv6... there's plenty more where that came from, but I think you get the idea. 🙂

I'm just not sure about those "lab condition" tests where Vidijev compared all three systems on a single configuration (one that was perfectly adequate for all of them). In those tests, Vista ended up being the slowest in most tasks—sometimes twice as slow—though I think it was about equal to the others, maybe even slightly faster, when it came to copying files to a disk. While XP and Windows 7 seemed pretty much neck and neck...
I suspect you'll see similar results in other benchmarks online.
It's common knowledge that Vista eats up a massive amount of system resources, whereas Windows 7 handles processes in a completely different, much improved way. It's practically a different approach altogether compared to Vista.

Meanwhile, Linux probably flies through everything. It's a shame I didn't stick with Linux—or at least run a dual boot—back when I was really into it. These days, I've drifted away from that scene and gotten too used to the convenience here and certain little apps that I'm not sure I could find on Linux. (Not to mention that I hear 512 MB of RAM is basically the absolute ceiling needed for the OS itself over there.)
Personally, I think Windows 7 is fine, but Windows always seems to have its own set of quirks. The people who have the best luck are the ones who just reinstall everything every couple of months—it solves the problems, sure, but it's a pretty blunt way to handle things.

I like Windows 7, but it doesn't run quite as fast as I'd like, and it constantly messes around when I try to open folders in Explorer—either it's sluggish or it won't open them at all. There are fixes for that online, but I haven't found the time to dig into it with you yet because it isn't simple—in fact, it's actually quite complicated.

The biggest headache is definitely Explorer. Browsing through files becomes a real struggle. Yet, when I'm browsing from within Word, Opera, Acrobat, or whatever program I happen to be using (you know, clicking "Open" and navigating from there), it works flawlessly.

Plus, all those "cool" new and supposedly practical features in Vista and Windows 7? On my machine, about 80-90% of them are totally useless and just feel like bloat.

I’ve included links to three different non-profit organizations in my signature, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't violate any signature rules.
One could argue it breaks the rules since Transparency International—look at that—is essentially "advertising" the fight against corruption.
The "Awakening" group is advertising information regarding ADHD.
And the Veterans Association is promoting veteran affairs issues. 🙄
Technically, that should be perfectly acceptable—I'm not sure why anyone would think otherwise—to people who can't see past their own noses. To them, everything is either an advertisement or it isn't; there's no middle ground. They don't even seem to grasp what a non-profit organization is or how civil society actually functions. Just a bunch of kids 🙄

Every one of those organizations has a publications section on its website where they release at least one book related to their mission—that's just what serious organizations do. I'll probably add more links to similar causes soon, simply because these issues matter to me.
Some people find value in a funny YouTube clip (which is also "advertising" a band or an album, for instance) or some quote they think sounds smart, whereas I aim to provide information 😁 that I genuinely believe is valuable, useful, and true.

So, feel free to download whatever you want.
If you go through with it, I’ll be reaching out to my U.S. Representative. And others. I'll let them know that having links to vital information in a public forum signature shouldn't be an issue. Etc., etc.—I've already touched on this in the previous thread, and frankly, I highly doubt any of the moderators participating in this debate would truly grasp the point.

Laura Evans3 said:I feel like I've explained this to you—maybe five times now—but you’re just being "civilized" about trolling... if the rule says no links to external sites, then there are no links. Which part of that isn't clicking? 😕

If you want to swap info, why don't you just start a thread and share it there?

So, we aren't allowed to link to any websites at all? (Since when?) And what kind of sites *are* actually okay?
Do you guys even get why this rule was put in place, or why you're taking it to such ridiculous extremes?

And I'm the one trolling? Haha.

Back in the day, I actually banned someone and deleted a perfectly normal signature, only to allow that exact same signature later.
Then, just two weeks ago, I banned the same permitted signature, only to approve and restore it shortly after—then a week later, I banned it again and handed out a red card just because I was the one who brought it back.

Asking a question counts as trolling to you, but when I hide behind my moderator powers and mess things up, suddenly I'm not trolling anymore. 🙄

You have until August 20th to grab the W7 RC (build 7100) from microsoft.com—just keep in mind that official support, including all those necessary updates, will only run through March 1st, 2010.

It’s really on you if you didn't install the RC—which is perfectly functional and has been updated through March 1, 2009. You can still get your hands on it.

Regarding that specific issue, I might be mistaken, but I recall seeing some workaround online—something involving a registry tweak or a system file adjustment—that allows for upgrades between different sub-versions or releases of Windows 7. So, in Anali116's case, an upgrade to the RC might actually be feasible if their current build is lower than 7100.
Ultimately though, whether you run a clean install or an upgrade shouldn't matter much in the end.

If you're looking to get Windows 7 up and running, just grab the RC version; it works flawlessly.

PS: Also, I'm fairly certain there's a patch floating around the web to stop those periodic shutdowns—just give it a quick Google search.

Justin Gray81 said:Haha... thanks. Honestly, 👍
I'll give it a shot and let you know 😉
But if I don't get to it today... it'll be tomorrow at the latest 😉
By the way... I don't even use hibernation 🤷 but I'll try it out and we'll see 👍

Just realized (editing this now...) that you linked me to sleep mode on Windows Vista 🙄
Was that just a slip of the pen or...?

And... I don't have anything else "exotic" 😁 left on my PC—unless you count those Logitech X210 speakers

Anyway, I did find out that sleep mode in 7 is actually quite buggy ☕
If you just swap "Vista" for "7" in that link... apparently plenty of people are running into sleep mode issues 😉

Yeah, I gave you the link for Windows Vista because really there's no need to tie it strictly to W7; it’s entirely possible the same issue exists on Vista (though it doesn't have to be)