Can a credit card be used in a store without the card being present?

A few months ago, my credit card company called and told me that there has been an unauthorized transaction on my card and cancelled the present card and sent me a new one with a new number. What they caught was a transaction of $0.75 and what was lurking beneath was a transaction for $93 which had happened at a Kroger grocery store in Michigan. Once I noticed it, I reported the same and the company took care of this problem and refunded me the money.

I wouldn’t have been writing this post if it were just that. Below is a pic of the transaction record as shown on my card statement. 

If you observe closely, the transaction hasn’t happened online but at a specific grocery store and the person has also taken cash from the card. My cards are never lost and on the day of this transaction, I was in Austin getting a car wash. I have never visited Michigan.

Question is, how did this person manage to use the card in a store without the card being present?, I myself do not know the pin number to draw money on the card, how did this guy figure it out. I have been looking to see if one can just use a card number for a transaction without the card being present and haven’t come across anybody saying yes it is possible.

One possibility is, the card company made a mistake in processing transactions and the charge appeared on my account instead of the other. But I have had this card for last 11 years and they have changed the number multiple times and such a thing has never happened.  I can’t think of any other way, wonder if the blog readers can shed some light on this. 

Another PC problem/solution

When we moved to a new apartment the physical location of the router and desktop at home essentially prevented any form of wired communication between them. So, I went and bought a Linksys PCI wireless adapter and plugged it to the desktop. At that time I had a Linksys router and both the adapter and the router played well with each other.

Eventually the Linksys router went kaput and I replaced it with a Trendnet router (for it was the cheaper option). The PC had some trouble adjusting to the different router but the problem was not too too bad. Over time the problem became bad and sometimes so bad that it was a chance if the net was working more than an hour without dropping the connection. I tried all the tricks in the book, like using Windows zero configuration instead of Linksys network manager, adjusting the antenna, dropping the wireless mode to b/g instead of b/g/n and so on, but all yielded limited results.

After struggling with the problem for a while and searching between forums I found the solution. The trend net router allows multiple (11 to be precise) channels to communicate and default setting was to use ‘Auto Channel” select, the solution was to pick channel 1 or 11 and I went with 1. For the last 3 to 4 days I haven’t had a dropped connection and all is finally back to well. But since I have restricted to 1 channel for transmitting from the router I can see my signal strength varying over time (instead of 5 bars, I now get 4 or 3 bars some times). The variation hasn’t caused any disruption to my experience of surfing the net.

The theory behind is that the dropping of the connection is happening due to interference from neighboring routers and solutions were to reduce the frequency of transmission (which is apparently possible with other routers) or use the channel that gives maximum isolation (1 or 6 or 11 in Trendnet). Come to think of it, the problem became worse when my neighbors changed and couple of Indian techies moved next door.

Of course the router has its own problem, once every 3 weeks or once a month I need to disable and enable wireless mode. I don’t know why that is the case but the problem is livable and  I haven’t tried debugging.    

It’s not always Microsoft’s fault

Just when I thought that my ordeal of dealing with HD videos is over, I came across the crashing of software problem when working with larger video files (~800MB). I noticed that working with HD videos, both the cores of my system gets pegged to 100% and running at this rate for a few minutes either crashed my system completely or killed the software running. The typical Microsoft response was to check the last installed driver and blah and blah all led to dead ends with no solution in sight.

Out of curiosity. I ran a CPU stress test and started monitoring the temperature of the cores. Sure enough with both cores running at 100%, the core temperatures rose up to 93C and couple of minutes running at that temperature the stress test started giving errors. I used the compressed air cleaner and that cleaned out some of the dust but the temperature did not come down much (came down to 87C). Running at reduced temperature got me a couple of minutes with the videos but not enough to complete the job in hand.

As a last resort, I opened the system up and used an air blower (electric, not the manual one) to blow air over the CPU heat sink and fan. Sure enough a ton of dust came up and longer I blew air more dust came out. After a few minutes of this process and when I was convinced that I have cleaned up as much as I can, I plugged the system back in ran the same stress tests and monitor the temperature. The max temperature had come down to 60C with both cores pegged at 100% for more than 30minutes and I could edit and work the large video files without any problems.

At the beginning of the July 4th weekend I was convinced that the system I have is not good enough to work with HD videos and by the end of the weekend, thanks to my air blower, I am fairly happy with my system. I could have taken my system to one of those places to do a power cleaning but I think the electric air blower is a much cheaper and better option.

It’s not always Microsoft’s fault, some times it is the dust. Although I hold them responsible for not providing better debug tools with their OS.

In this process I found out couple of new things. Since the Klite codecs had been uninstalled, PICASA3 can play AVHCD videos and it can export videos to .wmv files (played by windows media player) without any loss in quality of the video.     

Its all about allowing the possibility . . . . .

Last December, couple of months after our daughter was born, we decided to get a HD camcorder and after some consultation with Dr. Google we narrowed down on a specific model of Canon. All the reviews said, the hardware is really good but the software is a piece of crap and most everything I looked at said “Canon should do a better job”. By the time the device came home I was convinced beyond reason that the software is junk.

To follow the procedure, I went ahead and installed the Imagemixer software provided with the camcorder on to my PC and it worked beautifully to transfer videos from the camcorder to the PC. The next step was to play on the TV, Canon went cheap here and doesn’t provide a HDMI cable but will provide a component cable (that for me is plain dumb). Like many of the Hi-def camcorders out there, Canon records the videos in AVCHD format which my Samsung TV doesn’t understand.

I went back to the installed software to see if there is a way to convert the video to a format that the TV understands. Once I clicked on “Edit”, the software went limbo and it completely disappeared from the screen. I was convinced, this is the reason everybody calls the software junk and went around looking for other video converters and editors. I have been trying for the last 6 months to see if I can find a good converter/editor and none of the so called good ones did any good, either they would hang or they would produce an inferior quality video and so on or they were too expensive and complicated to use.

I was so negative about the software that,  I had stopped using Canon provided software to play HD videos on the PC and was trying to use Windows media player and Picasa to play HD videos (which was a dumb thing to do) and had concluded that my PC is slow and need upgrading.  

It was not till last week when I changed my mind to consult Dr. Google with the symptoms I have been having with the Imagemixer software. It took less than couple of hours (thanks to this obscure forum) and I found out what was going wrong with the Imagemixer software. Apparently I had installed K-Lite codec (pretty good to play AVI files which Real Player and  others refuse to play) and it is not compatible with Canon provided software.

Once I uninstalled the K-Lite, the Imagemixer worked like a champ. I could see all my videos in one place, edit them (have only tried trim and nothing fancy), add music, text and upload all such good stuff. The integrated video player plays the 1080p video flawlessly (enough horse power in the PC). It still doesn’t do the conversion to different formats but the Blu-ray player we now own understands the AVCHD and that problem is solved.             

Looking back, I could have achieved this result long time ago, but I was so convinced that the software is bad that I did not allow for the possibility of getting it to work. Once I allowed for the possibility then it took minutes to get the problem fixed.     

PS: Keep in mind, HD videos mean ton of storage and both cores on my PC gets pegged when playing HD videos, but the quality makes it all worth it

Then there was one . . . . . .

About 3 and half years ago (December of 2007), Sandhya and I decided that we should restart our aquarium which was sitting idle after the sudden demise of the previous fish. This time around we decided to get gold fish instead of the ever multiplying mollies. We got 2 first and then couple of weeks later added 2 more.

All  was well for nearly a year when one of the gold fish died due to an infection, then came the turn of the big white which passed away in 2009. Now in last couple of days, one other fish passed away. This one was in the very first batch we got and we used to call it a submarine for its round tubular shape. It was the biggest fish in the tank until our big white one day suddenly bulged up and became the biggest. He was a pretty friendly fish and some days we used to feed it with our hands. I am sure it lived a happy life for by the end of life it had grown 3 to 4 times its initial size (when we bought it). It survived our absence for weeks some times (India trips). I am glad it didn’t pass away while we were away, that would have been a more bitter tragedy. All good things have to come to an end and can never last for ever.  

That now leaves the whole tank with just one fish. I don’t know if the fish is feeling lonely or I am feeling that, we are debating about adding a couple more fish to the tank.

Everything is amazing but . . . .

The other day I was a watching a movie at home through Netflix streaming. I rarely watch a movie in 1 sitting unless I am sitting in a theater. So, I had  paused the movie at certain point the previous day. The next day when I started the movie I was hoping it will start at exactly the same location that I left off. To my disappointment, the movie started at some other previously paused location and not at the location I wanted. I cursed the Netflix interface on the TV and started forwarding to the point of interest, the internet couldn’t keep up with the forwarding and the only way to continue streaming was to reduce the picture quality.

Damn, 2 unacceptable things the same day and I was almost furious. Then suddenly I remembered the video shown to me by my good friends Anoop and Shraddha, titled “Everything is Amazing, but nobody is happy”. 

In the end I appreciated the fact that I am watching a movie in HD sitting at my home and went wow :).

Wonder if Baba killed the Lokpal Bill

Remember back in April when Anna Hazare went on a fast until death at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and some of us did a token 1 day fast in support to end corruption. That was a time of excitement when even a pair of poodles supported the cause and the government agreed to work with Anna’s team to draft a Lokpal Bill. All was well and a joint committee was formed with members of civil society and parliament and the draft process began.

Out of the blue in comes our dear Baba Ramdev, who wanted to push his own agenda in the midst of this. I don’t find anything wrong in the noble intentions of our Baba but here is where I think he went wrong.

• He wanted to bring all the black money hidden in different parts of the world immediately, what was he thinking or smoking? its not like we can invade Switzerland and Cayman Islands and other tax heavens and loot the money that is stored and only take that is rightfully ours. If nothing this will be a long drawn negotiation between different governments and if they agree on something then we can hope to get some of it back.
• When Baba said bring the black money back, why didn’t he declare his 1100 crore assets which mostly owned by couple of his devotees (one of them being his relative) in the first place before asking further questions. I had no idea that Aastha channel was owned by Baba.
• When you go on  a crusade like this, you need to choose your deputies carefully. Baba’s deputy Balakrishna is the focus of controversy, he acquired an Indian passport while being born in Nepal and why would a deputy of a Yoga guru need a rifle and a pistol.
• His other demand of devalue 500 and 1000 Rupee currency is the height of stupidity.
• The other thing I don’t get is when he agreed with the government that he will not go on a fast and signed on a piece of paper, why did he go on a fast that same day evening?
• When the fast was disrupted why did he run away, one theory is he was scared of being encountered. So, being a revered yoga guru doesn’t he know that the soul is eternal and the body perishes some day and so what if that some day is today and if the mode is a bullet in the head (I am not supporting the governments action here). 
• His last demand of hang the people who are corrupt, I thought yoga leads to non violence and peace achieved through non violence and action from within is the only lasting peace every thing else is momentary.
• In the end I agree with Tehelka’s assessment that whatever Baba did was to show off his people power and increase his image and nothing more.

Thanks to the above, now Anna and team have to distance from Baba and the government can point play their cards and continue a war of words and stall the bill for ever to come.