I have been a long time member of Bank of America. When my parents got me my own bank account, it was at BOA (at that time Seafirst Bank). As every teenager did, I saved up (some of) my allowances and other hard change, and every so often disposited it into my savings account.

When I started working two years ago, I went in and added a checking account to my account, along with a debit card. I was now in total control of my own finances (well, in a sense). It was a right of passage of sorts. I also signed up for online banking, which allows me to control my entire banking from a secure BOA site, including transferring funds between my checking and savings, and a detailed up-to-date account history. However, I was still receiving monthly paper statements (which are never the most updated). At the time, I didn’t mind, as I was living at home, where the paper statements were being sent.

However, that changed when I started living at college. I realized that my paper statements were still being sent to my home, while was living in Seattle. Now the easy solution would be to change my bank address, however, my residence here is only temporary, as I come home for breaks, and I won’t be living here next year. I needed to stop the paper statements for two reasons: First, and foremost, security. Having a paper statement, with sensitive and personal account info and activity presents a huge security risk, as in theory anyone could read it. Millions of people every year are victims to identity thefts, and one of the easiest way for thiefs to get a hold of your private info is going through your recycling/trash. As paranoid as I may sound, I don’t want there to be any chance of anyone other than myself reading my bank activity and information. Second, is the environment. Bank of America claims to be committed to the environment. So why can’t they stop paper statements for checking accounts in Washington and Idaho? I decided to find out.
Last week, I called the BOA customer support line, and went through the usual routine of entering my account info, and navigating through the menus, to finally be put on hold. 30 minutes later, I was finally talking to a BOA representative. I told him my dilemma, and asked him to stop the paper statements for my account. He told it was not possible. I asked him why, as other banks in Washington, such as WaMu, are able to stop paper statements for their members’ checking accounts. Bank of America is one the biggest banks in the country, let alone the state, and they can’t stop simple statements? I was shocked, and kept pressing to get some kind of solid answer. But of course I got the scripting answer he was trained to give. My account could not go paperless, and he didn’t know the deeper reason behind it. After 15 minutes, I finally gave up, and he asked me if I wanted him to file a customer support feedback. I said sure. And hung up.

So at this point, I am seriously considering switching banks if BOA doesn’t change this policy soon. This is the 21st century: if BOA can making talking ATMs, then they can surely go paperless.

-J

So every so often people ask me what programs I would recommend for doing such and such task, or what programs I use on a day to day basis. So here’s a list of my most used programs that I would recommend:

I was an IE user for a long time. But once I discovered how helpful and useful the plugin system was, I switched. If you are using any version of IE (esp. < 7.0 (yikes!)), you need to give Firefox a try.

The Firefox of email. ‘Nuff said.

When I began using MSN and Yahoo in addition to AIM, I found it incredibly frustrating (and resource consuming) to open three chat programs at once. Trillian solves that problem, as it supports all of those clients and many more, in one program, without having to have those programs open (or even installed). Version 4, named Astra, is currently in alpha, which has tons of new features and a slick new look.

Not only is Skype a powerful audio/video chat and VoIP client, but it also uses encryption for audio, video, and IM chat, making it one of the most secure chat clients available. Plus, webcams are funz.

Winamp supports dozens of audio and video formats, and has powerful plugin and skinning engines, making it one the most flexable and customizable media players available. A major plus is it uses a considerable less amount of system resources and is more stable on PC’s than iTunes.

With tons of features and great GUI, why would you use another client?

Want to make your XP look like Vista? Or even Mac OSX (God forbid)? Chose from hundreds of different skins to transform the look and feel of XP (and Vista). And it’s not as much of a resource hog as you would expect.

Do you hate desktop icons like I do? Then clear your desktop and throw your favorite programs onto a dock to give your cool wallpaper some justice, giving your desktop a slick look without all the clutter. Check out my desktops in the Gallery to see it in action.

The “Swiss army knife of audioâ„¢” is the most powerful audio converter I have used. It supports dozens of formats, and many features that you won’t find in any other music converter.

The DBPAMC of CD ripping.

So everyone always ask what programs I use to stream rip. Well, here is the backbone: Nettransport is a download manager that supports HTTP, MMS, & RTSP, has tons of features, and is easy to use once you get the hang of it. Having up to 10 threads makes downloading that 150 MB file lightening quick.

-J

I was getting tired of the dark theme, so I have switched to this new, sleeker theme. Also, I am going to be posting my portfolio with all of the sites and projects I have worked on.

And check out the blog of a new friend Evan, who also goes to U Dub.

evanmeagher.net/

-J

Just got back from seeing Lupe Fiasco at Showbox here in Seattle. Here’s how it went down:

The night began arriving to the Showbox an hour before doors, at 7 PM. At the time I thought my spot in line, which was around the corner, was a bad one, but over the course of the next hour the line stretched almost a block to 2nd Avenue. Shortly thereafter, a scalper (who accused me of being a scalper 0_o) approached me to buy my extra ticket. After a couple minutes of bargaining, I sold it to him for $40 (original cost: $20), so I flipped a nice $20 profit. Then after seemed 4 hours, the doors open at 8:15. The Showbox is a small venue, with a general admission standing area in front of the stage, and a 21 and over bar in back. Finally after another long wait, the opening act, Optimas came on at around 9:30. They are a band that appears like a “normal” rock band at first, until the Emcee and his hypeman (who looked like Justin Guarini) came on stage. The emcee was a talented rapper, but his NSYNC moves he did took away from his performance (he must have forgotten who he was performing for: rap fans).

And finally at around 10:30, Lupe came on, proceeded by his band (which includes Beatdown on drums, who Fort Minor fans will remember was Mike’s drummer on the Fort Minor tours). Lupe narrated the show like he was showing us around Chicago, starting with Food & Liquor, and ending with The Cool. Read the rest of this entry »

Coolest. Video. Ever.
Human Tetris. Played by real people.

-J