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I just received an email from eBay saying that they are reducing listing fees.

You asked, we listened. We’re reducing Insertion Fees and adjusting Final Value Fees to lower your up-front cost to sell on eBay. You wanted free Gallery, now you’ve got it–plus more feature discounts.

To any normal person, this sounds like good news. Less up front cost to sell your item along with free gallery pictures. Good? Wrong. Take a look at the new “Final Value Fees” on eBay’s website.

As you can see, eBay cut the listing price by a measly $.05 for auctions starting at $.01 to $24.99. Seeing as most of my auctions (and many others) start with a list price of $.99 to motivate bidding, this $.05 saves me nada. On the flip side, final value fees (eBay’s commission from your auction) have increased. Take a look at the new fees below to see what I mean.

From the email, they make it seem like ALL costs are going to decrease, but they fail to mention in any part of the email, that final value fees are increasing. Good work on part of their marketing department from their perspective, but from my perspective, this move by eBay will piss off even more people who are already pissed at the high fees in place today.

As many people know, eBay owns Paypal. Many sellers (including myself) are fed up with the fees from Paypal, let alone eBay. Now eBay has an even bigger chance to double dip and screw sellers out of their money.

These questionable ethics don’t fly with me. Personally I’m going to be moving more and more of my merchandise to Craigslist and I’m going to hope and pray that Google Checkout makes it big and takes a huge chunk of the market share away from Paypal.

After reading this Fatwallet thread , I rushed out to Circuit City. A 50″ Plasma for $700? I’M IN! Originally, the TV was on sale for $999, but there was a $300 discount for signing up with Direct TV at Circuit City. I signed up for Direct TV and was scheduled an install date at the store. The thing is, your service hasn’t been activated yet and you won’t be charged until they do so. Knowing that, as soon as I got home, I called Direct TV and canceled I still got the discount and left with a very good deal!

Some people may be dissuaded by the brand name, “Element”. Most consumers don’t realize that some seemingly generic televisions contain the same parts as the “better” brands. As a result, they go out and buy a Samsung or LG thinking they’re getting the best. They probably are, but is the $1000 difference worth minimal to no improvement? Especially if the generics are using the same/similar parts. For example, Element is owned by the Petters Group who also owns Polaroid. The Petters Group simply rebrands the Polaroid TVs as Element TVs. They may look different, but the internals are the same, thus the picture quality (which really matters) remains on the same level as the Polaroid counterparts. Although we know Polaroid for their cameras, I’ve read that they also make very good TVs, one person even said the quality was on par with his Sharp TV.

My point is, do your research and you will find very good deals.

Old Envision 32″ LCD

New Element 50″ Plasma

Many of you are thinking, “Yeah, right. Nothing is free!” That is true, to an extent. To get free games, I completed offers at yourfree360games.com That website and many others (yourfreeiphone.com, 360elite4free.com, yourfreeistuff.com, and more) are all run by the same company, Transcendent Innovations (http://www.trainn.org) Their program is completely legit and I have received (2) $100 Best Buy gift cards in lieu of the games because they were out of stock at the time and offered me the cards. Read this thread from Slickdeals.net for reviews from people who have actually completed this process.

Once you sign up for an account, you will be presented with various offers to complete. For example, the offers I chose were Stamps.com, At Home Rewards, Simply You, and Privacy Matters. I chose those specific offers because they were the fastest and easiest to do. All the offers except Stamps.com requires a $1 payment per offer, but c’mon now, $1 is nothing. Once you’re signed up for the trial offers, make sure to stay signed up for the required period and cancel before the trial offer ends.

A quick look at the website shows that the offers have changed. Some offers require you to pay for a premium membership or the like, so make sure you read the descriptions and make your choices wisely. Also, all of trainn.org’s sister sites operate in the same way, so if you don’t want 360 games, there are other options. Either way, they’re legit and gave me some free money! Now just 4 more months until the government gives us all free money!

Here’s a really cheap way to make a battery pack for the Fonera. It runs off of 4x AA Batteries, which would give the Fonera 5-6 volts (depending on type of battery). The AC adapter that comes with it says it provides 7.5v on the plug, but I measured 8.5v with a DMM. I knew 4x AA batteries would work because I have another Fonera running off of 5v power from the USB bus.

1. First, you need to get a battery holder. I found this one from Radio Shack to be perfect. It’s great because it has an on/off switch built right on and it’s only $1.99.

2. Cut the connector off of the Fonera AC adapter. Leave about 2-3 inches of wire on the end.

3. This is important. You need to figure out which wire is positive and which is negative. On the AC adapter that came with my Fonera 2200, the dotted lines indicated the negative wire and the writing indicated positive.

4. Solder the wires together (red to positive, black to negative). Use flux if you’re having trouble making the solder stick.

5. Then you’re going to have to cover the solder points. I used electrical tape to cover each point individually, then I wrapped the entire area with the tape.

6. Throw some batteries in and you’re done. Use velcro or double sided tape/adhesive to attach the battery pack to the Fonera. I would estimate about 8 hours with the wireless on, but it may vary depending on the batteries used.

The DD-WRT firmware for the Fonera does not support packet injection as it does not have the proper patched Mad-wifi driver. I’ve tried to make injection work with the DD-WRT firmware, but to no avail. As soon as injection begins, the router immediately freezes up. I am not going to go into the process of flashing open source firmware. You can find that guides for that at FoneraHacks.com

A quick rundown of what was done:

* Mount network share for capture files (Fonera does not have enough memory to store capture files)
* Create wireless interface “ath1? in monitor mode
* Start airodump to get quick snapshot
* Restart airodump with “–bssid” option to cut down on file size and “-w” to specify write location
* Start aireplay in fake authentication mode
* Once attack has completed, start aireplay in replay mode
* Collect 35,000 - 60,000 packets (for 128-bit WEP)
* Use aircrack-ptw to decrypt the key

More:

In my opinion, the correct enclosure is vital in getting the most out of your system. This is because the enclosure determines how your sub will react with the given airspace, tuning, and power. For example, a sub in a sealed enclosure will sound very different than one in a ported enclosure. Ported boxes are easy to identify because of the port opening. A combination of port area (length x height) and port length work together to create the tuning frequency. The tuning frequency is denoted by hertz (hz), usually in the 20-70hz range when speaking of sub frequencies. Sub frequencies are also why subwoofers are called “subwoofers” and not simply “woofers” which refer to midrange frequencies. A combination of size and tuning determines the output of a system more than the power or subwoofer itself. You could have a high end subwoofer like a DD 9515, but in the incorrect box, it could be outdone by a lower end sub in an optimized box.

The key to making the best box possible is simple: test, test, test. There is no one best design because every car is different and will react differently with different boxes. Through lots of testing, I found that my car likes large boxes and a 40hz tuning. I’ve gone up against many people with more than twice the cone area (double the amount of subs) and have come out on top, even though I’ve got half the cone area in a very restricted sedan rather than the open cabin of an SUV. During these competitions, your score is measured in decibels at your highest frequency. Therefore, it is extremely important to tune your box to reflect your highest outputting frequency. Right now, my box is tuned at 40hz and it also happens to hit its peak output at 40hz. That may or may not be the case for anybody else because as I said before, every car is different. Also, don’t forget to take your subwoofer into consideration. Most of the time, you will usually peak a few hz above tuning. E.g. a tuning of 32hz may result in a peak of 40hz, depending on the car of course. In essence, tuning at a certain frequency allows you to control your output and determine what note you want to play the loudest, which is important when taking your car into consideration. Hatchbacks generally hit their highest score at higher frequencies (50-70hz) and SUVs generally hit their highest score at a lower note (40-50hz), while my sedan likes lower notes in the 40hz range the best.

Once you figure out what note your car likes, you can then start optimizing your box by making some small changes. Generally, slightly larger boxes with lower tunings perform best for cars that like lower notes. Slightly smaller boxes with higher tunings tend to complement cars that like higher tunings. For music and daily driving, tunings between 30-40hz are generally accepted as a fair tradeoff between sound quality and loudness.

Some helpful links:
http://www.bcae1.com/
A great beginner’s site and excellent for reference of various concepts.

http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61853
A thread explaining tons of car audio terms

For more information, the CarAudio.com forums have been very helpful. Just search for whatever you’re looking for in the forums or post a question.
http://www.caraudio.com/forum/index.php

Some of you may be familiar with Fon and the Fon movement. Fon is a company that sells (used to give em out for free) wireless routers for a pretty cheap price. Catch is, you have to agree to share you internet via the wireless network made by the Fon router. Thanks to the Open Source community, alternative firmware is available. Among the choices are DD-WRT, OpenWrt, and Legend which are all Linux based. Although the flashing process is not easy, the payoff is worth it.

DD-WRT has a great interface which lets you control almost every setting. Unlike the default firmware that doesn’t even include static DHCP entries, DD-WRT unlocks a full suite of network tools and functionality. It also comes with ipkg, a package installer which makes installing additional software a breeze. Speaking of additional software, aircrack-ng immediately came to mind. Good thing these new routers have an Atheros chipset or else packet injection would be useless. I installed and gave the aircrack-ng suite a whirl. Sniffing worked fine, but injection was a different story. As soon as I started sending packets, the console froze and the router rebooted. Unfortunately, DD-WRT didn’t have the patched Mad-Wifi drivers required by aircrack-ng

After some searching, I ran across Legend. This is a different firmware based on the OpenWrt platform, but it claimed to support aircrack-ng and included patched Mad-Wifi drivers. I decided to give it a try and I’m glad I did. Aircrack was already installed and good to go after the flash. After running a few tests, I was able to fake associate and replay packets through my home AP! Instead of using the adapter that came with the Fonera, I modified it to recieve power from a USB port. It would then be possible to connect to the Fonera through the onboard ethernet port. I tried injection while being wirelessly connected simultaneously, but as soon as I started the injection process, the router immediately locked up. Oh well, I can still use the Fonera like an external wireless card to perform my pentesting, not to mention it’s essentially a very basic, but portable Linux box!

Car audio, one of my favorite hobbies. Some people go for sound quality and some go for loudness, or SPL (sound pressure level). I started out about two years ago with my first set of 12″ subs from Infinity, then moved up to a pair of 12″ Alpine Type-Rs. The amplifier I used was a Better Audio 1600M1 rated at 1600wrms (watts rms) @ 1ohm. The Type-Rs held up my SPL addiction pretty well until I started to compete in MECA, a somewhat local car audio competition league. It was there I learned that my Type-Rs had nothing on the big boy companies: Digital Designs , Resonant Engineering, American Bass, and TC Sounds just to name a few. These guys were pumping out scores in the 150 dB (decibel) range while I measured in at a measly 145.1 in the kick. I wanted something that was louder, lower, and capable of handling power. Not only that, but I didn’t want to spend over $400 in new subs.

The solution was Audioque. Not wanting to go into too much detail, I eventually ended up with a single 15″ Audioque HD3. Now the question is power. I started with a Treo SSX1500.1, but it blew up less than a month later which was because I was running the amp at .75ohms and didn’t have a good electrical system in place. Low voltage (10v!) + low loads (.75ohms) = fried amp. I then went with a modded MA HK4000D which puts around 3200-3500 watts @ 1ohm running on 12 volts. A higher voltage, say 14v, 16, or even 18v would make the amp put out even more power, but my weak Honda alternator and 2 batteries cannot maintain 14v for very long. Then comes the enclosure, which was a 4.5 ft3 tuned at 40hz with 4 4″ “aeroports”

The most recent score I have is 147.2 dB @ 40hz taken at the headrest during the Carl Casper Autoshow last year. During the earlier year prior, I was able to finish 2nd and 3rd in two different classes at the MECA world finals. I ended up finishing 1st and 3rd in two different classes at Carl Casper. Lastly, here’s a video of what I’m working with.