Ear wax

The topic of this post might not be the most interesting in the world, but here is some information regarding this. Apparently, it appears that using a cotton swab everyday as a matter of practice for general hygiene is not encouraged. I guess I must stop my habit of using a swab each morning. Here is a summary of information I found at www.webmd. com.

Earwax is a naturally produced substance that protects the ear canal. It is a mixture of skin, sweat, hair, and debris (such as shampoo and dirt) held together with a fluid secreted by glands inside the ear canal (ceruminous glands). The ear canals are self-cleaning. Earwax helps filter dust, keeps the ears clean, and protects the ear canal from infection. Normally, earwax is a self-draining liquid that does not cause problems. As the skin of the ear canal sheds, the wax is carried to the outer part of the ear canal and drains from the ear by itself.

Earwax is normally produced only in the outer half of the ear canal and will not become deeply impacted unless it is pushed in. The ear canal may become blocked (impacted) when attempts to clean the ear with cotton swabs, bobby pins, or a finger push wax deeply into the ear canal. Impacted earwax may cause some hearing loss or other problems, such as ringing in the ears (tinnitus), a full feeling in the ears, or vertigo. Poking at the wax with cotton swabs, your fingers, or other objects usually only further compacts the wax against the eardrum.

CCF settlement

A lot of people have been getting postal mails from this group called CCF Settlement. It looked like a sure scam to me, since it seemed like free money for nothing in return. After some extensive googling and cross verifying between various webpages, I came to the conclusion that IT IS NOT A SCAM. The website for this is http://www.ccfsettlement.com. In any case, all they need from you is your address, which they already have in case you received a postal mail and the estimated number of days you spent outside the US between 1996 and 2006. So, you don't have much to lose and possibly atleast $25 to make. They have 3 options, Refund Option 1 for a flat $25, which is for people who have traveled abroad for less than 1 week, and this seems like the best option. Refund Option 2 is where you declare the number of days you traveled, where you could make more, but finally might be less than $25. Refund Option 3 is for corporate travelers, who have official documents to support their claims. In any case, for options 2 and 3, your claims can be audited, while option 1 seems like the safest.
Some links discussing this issue are:
Arizona Tribune
LA Times
Hattiesburg American
The last link has some nice tips to be aware of potential scams riding on this legitimate law suit.

FlickrDown

I found a utility which can be used to download snaps from friends and family from Flickr. Its called FlickDown and can be found here. After you authorize your account and enter the name of another user, it lists all the albums and photos available for download and it saves the images to your disk. A neat utility for all Flickr users.

Bulk Rename Utility

I found this really useful tool for bulk renaming files in Windows. I used this tool for processing some files for my research, but I think it will be really useful for people who want to rename images which have been copied from digital cameras. The GUI is not the greatest that I have seen and it is quite intimidating at first, but it is pretty simple to use, and the best part of it is that it is FREE. I have found it nice to use, not too hard to learn and extremely flexible. It supports a variety of Windows OS. The utility can be found and downloaded here.

Windows /3GB switch

This is information I got from an article written by Serdar Yegulalp at searchwincomputing.com about the /3GB switch in Windows XP.

Recent versions of Windows support a switch option in BOOT.INI called the /3GB switch, which adjusts the way memory is allocated between the user and the operating system. By default, the split is fifty-fifty -- up to two gigabytes for the user and two for the operating system. The /3GB switch option sets those limits at three gigs maximum for the user and one gig for the operating system.

As the name implies, /3GB was originally meant to be used in systems that have 3 GB or more of RAM -- something that is no longer quite as rare as it used to be! However, even if you don't have 3 GB or more of memory, you can still use the /3GB switch successfully if you are running memory-hungry desktop applications. Photoshop, for instance, is infamous for staking out as much RAM as it can. With /3GB enabled, there's that much more memory that the application can use.

To add the /3GB switch as a separate boot option:

1. In My Computer | Properties | Advanced | Startup and Recovery, click Settings.
2. Click the Edit button under System Startup to edit the BOOT.INI file.
3. Find the current boot entry, which typically looks like this:
   
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
4. Copy this line and paste it at the end of the BOOT.INI file, and change it along these lines:
   
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 3GB Switch" /fastdetect /3GB

   This lets you choose between a conventional boot entry and the /3GB boot entry. If something goes wrong when you use /3GB, you can always boot back into the original configuration.

5. Save and close BOOT.INI.
6. Click OK to close the Startup and Recovery panel.
7. Click Settings again, and in the "Default operating systems:" dropdown, choose the newly created boot entry with the /3GB switch.
8. Click OK to close everything. Reboot into the new profile.
   

Simple laws that could get you into trouble

Two issues are highlighted in this post, which have different laws in different states, so this is potentially useful for people doing interstate travel.
1. Seat belt law:
This link provides seat belt laws, and this link provides information about seat belt laws for children.
2. Cell phone use while driving:
This link summarizes the various state laws for cell phone use while driving.