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This Saturday, December 5th from 2:00pm to 5:00pm local time, PlayStation staff will be visiting Sony Style retail stores to help gamers and also help those looking to give a gaming gift. These aren’t just your average marketing representatives – these Playstation employees are real gamers and know how to truly make the most out of your PS3, PSP, related games, and so forth. I know many of you out there are experts yourself, and this could be a great opportunity for you to have a conversation with the source. This is also a great way to offer feedback on the Playstation experience. According to the SonyStyle blog, here are some of the things they can help with.

• If you’re looking to give a gaming gift, they’ll help you select the right gift for your budget.
• If you own a PS3 they’ll offer tips to turn your PS3 into a home theater component so you can enjoy Blu-ray movies, music and photos directly through your console.
• If you haven’t yet taken advantage of the PlayStation Network, they’ll show you how to get set up plus show you how to play against friends via network connection.
• Struggling on a level? These reps know games and can offer useful tips.
• Reps bring the hottest holiday game titles to play and preview so it’s a chance to play against an expert and pick their brain on their favorite titles.

To find a SonyStyle store near you, check out Sony’s helpful “Find a SonyStyle Store” website.

So the question is, was yesterday’s uber-violent selloff in gold the start of something big? Or was it just a blip? Please let us know your thoughts.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Everyone Is Long Gold
• Gold ETF Approaching Record Volume, As Metal Plunges $50 (GLD)
• Gold Plunges Below $1200 After Jobs Data

On the whole, RideLust’s (read: my) first foray into the glamorous world of open bars and company-sponsored parties was extremely successful, save for the excruciatingly boring reveals. Fortunately, since unlike most automotive journalists my trip was financed completely out of pocket, I’m not obligated to paint any particular company in a flattering light and thus able to provide an accurate, far more entertaining analysis. Well, entertaining for me at least, I’m sure the scores of dissenting douchenozzles commenters will have much to say otherwise.

Topping my list of favorite new reveals are some interesting selections that seem at odds with RideLust’s traditionally Macho Man Savage taste in automobiles and include the Honda P-Nut (Personal-Neo Urban Transport), Audi e-Tron, 2011 Cadillac CTS Coupe, Mazda2, and the vehicle destined to be perpetually overshadowed by the Mazda2 – the Ford Fiesta (among many, many others).

So while you desperately search for valid reasons to ignore your wife’s multiple requests to shovel the staggering 2 inches of snow from the driveway, keep RideLust on your radar and check back throughout the day for exclusive post-preview updates of all Los Angeles’ biggest stars.

 

Give it a try.  Click either one.

 

source: http://envisioningdevelopment.net/map

hattip Felix Salmon   and Mike Konczal

 

The Housing Crisis and Wall Street Shame –  One out of four homeowners is now under water, owing more on their homes than the homes are worth. Why? The biggest single factor behind the housing crisis is rising unemployment. According to the latest ABC-Washington Post poll, one out of every three Americans has either lost their job or lives in a household with someone who has lost a job. Today it takes two and sometimes three incomes to buy the groceries and pay the mortgage or the rent. So if one of those incomes is gone, a homeowner can’t make the payment.  – Robert Reich’s Blog

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How Joseph Stiglitz Blew It On Fannie And Freddie – John Carney – How could three prominent economists have been so dumb-foundingly wrong about the systemic risk of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?  Today’s Wall Street Journal discusses a 2002 paper declaring that “on the basis of historical experience, the risk to the government from a potential default on GSE debt is effectively zero.” It’s authors were  Jonathan Orzag, Peter Orszag and Joseph Stiglitz, who had won the Nobel prize in economics the year before. We’ve embedded it below so you can read the whole thing. … – Business Insider at Clusterstock
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FHA Considers Ways to Boost Its Reserves – By NICK TIMIRAOS – … Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, plans to ask Congress on Wednesday to raise the cap on the annual insurance premium that the FHA can charge borrowers. … The FHA will also limit the amount of money that sellers can provide for closing costs on home sales to 3% of the home price, from the current level of 6%. … – Wall Street Journal

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FHA to toughen rules for borrowers – By Dina ElBoghdady – The Federal Housing Administration is proposing to increase the up-front cash paid by borrowers as part of an effort to shore up the agency’s finances, which have been staggered by rising defaults in its flagship mortgage insurance program, according to FHA officials.  The changes also include raising minimum credit scores for borrowers who receive FHA-backed mortgages and limiting the amount of money sellers can kick in, including paying closing costs or giving free upgrades. – Washington Post 

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S&P downgrades 226 classes of 2002-2004 Alt-A Residential Mortgage-backed Securities – Research Recap

A lot of penetration testing assignments include the famed Social Engineering test. When reading about it, or looking the social engineering scams on a TV series it looks very straightforward – you come in all nice and smooth-talking and every door opens for you.

The harsh reality is that a lot of social engineering penetration tests fail, which adds up to increased costs and a failed engagement for the consultant. In the extreme situation, you may spend some hours in the offices of corporate security or even the police, until the pen-test authorizations are verified.

Here are the most common ways to fail a Social Engineering Penetration Test

1. Come unprepared – Just walking into a company and asking for confidential documents sounds stupid. But trying to perform a social engineering attack on your first visit is even more stupid. Until you do proper amount of recon and research you have no idea what the company relationships are, who is in charge of what and what exceptions or processes may be used to succeed in a social engineering attack.
2. Just Wing It – Wake up call- you are not Frank Abagnale from “Catch Me if You Can” and you are not Danny Blue from the TV series “Hustle”. During a social engineering attack you need to think on your feet and being creative always counts. But not preparing a background story supported by a nice set of evidence is a great way to fail a social engineering pen-test
3. Be outright aggressive or arrogant – Nobody likes people who are bossy and arrogant. While having an air of authority helps during a social engineering attack, you don’t want to start from position of authority with an aggressive approach. That is the best way to get people to close up in the cocoon of procedures and regulations, or they’ll simply call your bluff – in both ways you fail. Instead, you need to be friendly, courteous and polite. Maintain your air of authority, but never overuse it.
4. Choose the wrong person for the job – Social engineering is achieved through appealing to the people’s urge to help others. But certain profiles of targets tend to be more helpful to different persons. For instance, a target group of young men will be very helpful to a nice looking woman of their approximate age or just a bit older – to maintain the advantage of implied authority through the age difference. But this same woman is considered a threat by target groups of young women, so for them you need to choose a different attacker. The same principle applies to phone based social engineering attacks.
5. Dress for failure – In social engineering, always remember that clothes make the man. If you perform a social engineering attack on a bank, you don’t want to appear in jeans and sneakers. But if you are performing a social engineering on a software development company, you may actually miss by a mile by wearing suit and tie. Go back to point 1 about preparation 🙂

Have any more ways to fail, or good examples? Share in the comments!

Related posts
3 Things no book about hacking will ever tell you
5 biggest mistakes of information security
3 rules to keep attention to detail in Software Development
5 Rules to Home Wi–Fi Security

Filed under: Concept Cars, Coupe, Sedan, Volkswagen, Rumormill

It seems that we’ll be getting a new Jetta sedan next June, and it apparently won’t be a slightly restyled Golf with a trunk grafted to the rear end. According to Car and Driver, VW’s so-called New Compact Sedan, which will be built at the same Mexican plant that assembles the current Jetta, will indeed retain the Jetta nameplate.

Following its June debut here in the States, Volkswagen will prep the car for its European launch later in the year, and it may or may not be called Jetta overseas. A sportier GLI variant will continue to be offered on the new model. Looking farther down the model-range totem pole, there’s a decent chance that VW will bring the Polo to the U.S. market to rival the new Ford Fiesta, possibly as both a sedan and a hatchback.

Lastly, we’re told that we should expect to see a new U.S.market-tailored two-door notchback coupe concept on the show circuit in short order. If public reaction to it is positive, there’s a good chance VW will greenlight the car for series production.

[Source: Car and Driver]

REPORT: VW confirms Jetta name for small sedan, upcoming coupe concept could enter production originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 05 Dec 2009 10:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” a classic work of non-fiction credited with creating the true crime genre we’re still obsessed with today.

But the book does more than that. It’s one of my favorite books not only because it deals so thoughtfully with the issues of violence, prisons and the death penalty, but also because it’s a stunning work of storytelling. Capote was a master wordsmith and reporter, and this was his opus.

Several stories this month have revisited Holcomb, Kansas, and the tale of the tragic murders of the Clutter family in 1959. The crime that shook a community, and the book that put the town on the map forever, still resonates in town.

While readers and historians continue to celebrate Capote’s work, some in Holcomb still consider it an unnecessary, sensational and opportunistic book. They wish aloud that the book — and the movies that followed it — hadn’t forced the town to relive the crimes over and over for five decades.

Holcomb residents — and readers around the world — also wonder if the Clutter murders would be so remarkable in 2009 or if they’d fade into the constant stream of violence and crime to which we’ve become accustomed. It’s a valid point.

Writing in the Guardian last month, Ed Pilkington wondered why the book still resonates in an era that violent crime has become so routine:

There are many reasons why In Cold Blood has become so ingrained. There is the precision of Capote’s writing, which resonates from the first sentence: “The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there’.” There is the depth of his research, which he carried on to the end as a witness at the killers’ hanging in 1965.

There is also something monumental about the timing of the book. America in 1959 was at a crossroads. It was still bathing in the victory of the second world war and ensuing economic boom. The country was confident and secure, and the body blows of Vietnam still lay ahead.

After the jump, a great 12-minute video posted by Newsweek last week with interviews with many of the key players in the case.

(more…)

Paul from MoDaCo, who previously published an epic walkthrough of the HTC HD2 has now posted a similar one for the X2.

If’ you’re interested in the phone, it’s well worth the watch, though at 26 minutes long you might want to get a cup of coffee now

 

To Our Clients, Colleagues and Friends, 

• We normally stay at the Olympic Hotel in Seattle , but this time, our assistant booked us into the Monaco , just a block away.  We liked it and we’ll probably stay there again.  It’s just as elegant as the Olympic but not as stuffy.
• The Texas Ratio is a pretty good predictor of bank failure, and a number over 100% means things are pretty grim.  These days, anything under maybe 20% is pretty good. Maybe even under 40%. Here are a few California banks and their Texas Ratios, chosen mainly because we know them or figure you would:

5%   Commonwealth Business Bank	53%  Hanmi Bank
7%   Bank of San Francisco	103%  Saigon   National Bank
19%   Silvergate Bank	109%  Tamalpais Bank
25%   Bridge Bank	157%  Imperial Capital Bank
28%   City National Bank	204%  First Regional Bank
43%   Far East National	248%  Pacific Coast National

A few others are WestAmerica Bank (32%), Bank of the West (28%), Bank of Marin (5%), and Union Bank (17%).  We counted 17 banks with a 0% ratio, but they were all pretty small.

• The state of Washington has eight banks with a ratio over 200%, while one out of every four banks there is above 100%.  Uh oh.
• In college many years ago, we took introductory Physics from Edward Teller, a Nobel Laureate and the Father of the Hydrogen Bomb. He hated having to deal with undergraduates, and his politics didn’t exactly lend themselves to Berkeley at the time.  He showed up for the first few lectures, announced that he didn’t want to be there anymore than we did, and told us we were a bunch of unkempt, spoiled, and ungrateful unpatriotic brats who would be fighting communism in the rice paddies of Vietnam if we truly loved our country.  He then disappeared for the rest of the semester, with the lectures given by a graduate student who didn’t speak English. 
  Anyway, Teller once told us all that “When you get to the end of all the light you know and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things will happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught to fly.”  That was pretty inspiring, especially from someone so uninspiring.  Ten years later, he became an advisor to President Reagan and came up with the idea for Star Wars.  He also thought we should launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russia and bring them to their knees.   He won the Nobel Prize but was a crummy teacher and kind of a nutcase as well.
• Did you know that this is the 75^th anniversary of the FDIC?  Roosevelt pushed it through Congress in the darkest days of 1934 with the Great Depression at its worst.  That year, unemployment was a horrific 25%.
• You know how an opened coke or diet coke tastes flat the next day, even if you chill it?  We just discovered that this isn’t the case with Cherry Coke or Cherry Coke Zero.  Next time you have an open can sitting around for a day or two, put it in the freezer for 15 minutes and it will still taste good.
• Remember in 9^th grade when you thought that you’d get drunk if you drank coke and swallowed an aspirin at the same time?  Aren’t you glad you’re no longer in 9^th grade?
• Forty years ago today on December 5, 1969, Greg Noll surfed a 65-foot wave on the North Shore of Oahu, still the highest wave ever recorded. And today is Tyra Banks’ 36^th birthday.  If you have a teenage daughter, you’ve probably seen her on America’s Next Top Model, and they don’t come any prettier.
• A great video of a French stuntman.   http://glumbert.com/media/stuntman
• The San Francisco Chronicle noted yesterday that if the ice at both poles melted, the ocean level would reach the road deck on the Golden Gated Bridge .  And not to be an alarmist, but we’ve seen those photos from satellites of the North Pole, now and 20 years ago, and it sure appears to be shrinking and doing so rapidly.
• The Class of 2004 California de novos is celebrating its fifth birthday.  The excellent Findley Report points out that of these eleven banks, the biggest has grown to $262 million (Santa Cruz County Bank) and the smallest is only $62 million (Mother Lode Bank).  With an average of $192 million, that’s not a whole lot of growth over five years.
• It’s shocking to read that six months after mortgage loans have been modified, half of them are in default again!  There’s a new verb, with borrowers re-defaulting.
  
• The Pontiac Silverdome was where the Detroit Lions played for years. It was sold last week for $583,000.  You’d think someone would have paid more if only to get their hands on the 127 acres. But the 80,000 seat stadium, built thirty years ago for $56 million, went for less than a one room condo in New York City .
  
  The same week a Macau casino was the winning bid for Michael Jackson’s white rhinestone glove.  They paid $350,000.
• In 1960, 50% of all working-age adults hadn’t graduated from high school.  That’s kind of stunning, isn’t it?  Today, only 8% don’t graduate from high school.
• Regulators think that brokered CDs always lead to bad loans, but isn’t it really the opposite? Aren’t banks that are chasing poor quality loans the precise ones that then chase brokered CD’s? Better regulate inferior lending and you’ll go along way to eliminating brokered CD’s.
• But wait a minute.  Check in the Wall Street Journal, and a lot of the brokered CD’s have rates that are lower than your local rates.  In cases like this, aren’t brokered CD’s good for you, bringing down your cost of funds?
• A few thoughts on blogs, social networking sites, and all that….stuff.  So many people and businesses are using them now, but are they really effective?  It seems that the more blogs exist and the faster they grow, the fewer people will visit them. Their growth leads to an oversupply, and when there are just way too many of them, the overkill may overwhelm people and numb them.  Kind of the Law of Diminishing Returns, where their very growth and success might lead to their very failure.  We   met the head of corporate communications for a $2 billion bank which is now twittering (or tweeting).  It sounded like no one was reading it. Anyway, we may be totally wrong.  But we still wonder.
• Remember when Orange County ( John Wayne Airport ) and Ontario were funky little airports where you walked out on the tarmac to the plane? We kind of miss them, Burbank ’s airport ( Bob Hope Airport ) may be one of the last of that type.  Old, tired, no fancy bars or white tablecloth restaurants, small and uncrowded. And we like it.
• And what’s with this naming of airports after people like Bob Hope or John Wayne?  If someone’s going to do that, why not name the airport nearest Queens the Joey Ramone Airport , and Memphis can be renamed Elvis Presley Airport . Actually, there was an attempt to rename the San Francisco airport Joe DiMaggio International. It died when people learned what a jerk he’d been. A great ballplayer but a real arrogant and unpleasant person.
• One of the pleasures of our job is to meet and work with people with extraordinary courage, and these are people like Jack Choi (Commonwealth Business Bank, CA), Bill Valerian (Liberty Bank, Ohio) Joe Adams, (1^st Security Bank, Washington), and Donn Costa (Golf Savings, Washington). These four are Presidents of their banks, and no matter how well their bank is doing, it takes great courage, undaunted courage to run even the healthiest of banks in this period of intense regulatory scrutiny.  Hemingway defined courage as “Grace under pressure”, and all four of these bankers fit that definition. 
  

And a few thoughts for today:  Be responsible for your own actions,  demonstrate perseverance, don’t complain, keep your promises, be a good listener, don’t hold grudges, be tolerant, show compassion, study the lives of great people, try new things, and have fun.
Garrett, Watts & Co.  Check out:  Laws of Lending    and   Board DecisionsHelping mortgage lenders increase revenues, control costs, and better manage risk.

• Joe Garrett ([email protected])
• Mike McAuley      ([email protected])
• Corky Watts ([email protected])

Try as we might, many of us find the temptation of pancakes too hard to resist. Maybe it’s the sweet, buttery aroma of the batter on the griddle or the soft doughy texture, or that eating something with the word “cake” in it for breakfast just feels so deliciously naughty. But it doesn’t have to be. There are decent Primal substitutes. Pancakes made with almond meal or coconut flour are a good option, but can be pretty heavy and, for some, overly filling. And then there’s this dish sent in by Jack Etherington for the Primal Cookbook Challenge. His Almond Banana Pancakes contain just three ingredients: banana, egg and almond butter. You can whip up a batch in five minutes flat and top the pancakes with a pat of butter, a scoop of nut butter, or fresh berries.

Almond Banana Pancakes are slightly delicate so you’ll want to keep the size fairly small and wait until the edges are nicely browned before flipping them. This shouldn’t deter you from trying the recipe – the delicate texture of Almond Banana Pancakes is the very thing that makes them so irresistible. If you’ve tried pancakes made from almond or coconut flour and find them slightly grainy, you’ll really love the silky, airy texture of these cakes. The flavor is sinfully close to banana bread; add a little vanilla and cinnamon to the batter if you really want to get decadent.

As is evident from the comment board of last week’s recipe, this (very similar) recipe may be too carb-centric for some of you. For those that are no-carbers or are restricting carbs for weight loss purposes this recipe might not fit into your personal Primal plans. For others it might be part of your 20%. And for others that are extra active or have already achieved your preferred body composition this recipe might be a perfect fit. In any case, remember that the Primal Blueprint is primarily about guiding principles. It’s up to each of us to adapt recipes and fitness choices within the context of the PB as it relates to our personal goals and circumstances. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe bananas
• 1 egg
• 1 heaping tablespoon of almond butter

Instructions:

Mash the bananas, add the egg and mix well.

Stir in the almond butter, adding more than a tablespoon if you want a more pancake-like texture.

Warm butter in a pan and pour batter into small cakes.

Brown on each side and serve warm.

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Related posts:

1. The Many Uses of Almond Meal
2. The Many Uses of Coconut Flour
3. No Oat Oatmeal… It’s No-atmeal!

Grandparents have wonderful holiday memories to share with grandchildren if the middle generation (the children) will encourage this rather than considering it simply, “Grandma’s ramblings.“  Even those with Alzheimer’s can contribute to the memory lore.  Sometimes we might say, “especially those with Alzheimer’s”, because those memories become very vivid for them at certain stages of the illness.

 

Grandparents’ memories, and those of other older relatives, contribute to the family heritage.  Record them, write them down, compile them in scrapbooks.  Those help children realize who they truly are and help form a family bond.

If grandchildren can work on Holiday memory projects with grandparents, these have special meaning, too.  My mother and mother-in-law shared their memories with my daughter. I encouraged my daughter to take part in it, or at least be a good listener.  We now reminisce about some of the things they did and said, passing them along to my grandchildren.

These memories are somewhat like the oral histories of various cultures, when stories were passed along through the generations by word of mouth.  However, so they don’t get lost in time, make sure you record them in some fashion.  The holiday memories are especially precious.

Post from: Blisstree

Kids & Grandparents’ Holiday Memories

We all make mistakes. We also do bad, or at least not very helpful, things. We misread a situation, forget something important, say something stupid, follow an unwholesome impulse, act selfishly, cause harm, screw up.

The ability to say we’re sorry and extend our hand in peace is the mark of our courage, civility and compassion. When we back that up with a plate of homemade cookies, well, sometimes we can move heaven and earth.

Read Full Post

Filed under: Motorsports, BMW, Ford

In case you missed it, the 2009 LeMons season ground to a halt a few weeks back at Thunderhill after the third running of the Arse-Freeze-A-Palooza (full disclosure — I work as a Judge for the 24 Hours of LeMons). Filthy 2009 proved to be a pretty hectic season for LeMons, what with ten $500 car races at various mud pits locales around this great country of ours. However, ’09 will pale in comparison to the frenzied, property-devaluing idiocy that the 21-race 2010 season is sure to bring. We’d like to apologize to our understanding women-folk and potential home buyers in general in advance.

Still, the 2009 season was filled with all the wonderful elements that make LeMons the fastest growing motorsport in the world: namely, fires, terrible driving, whiny drivers, cheating mechanics and totally excellent BBQ. Oh, and lots of cars blowing the hell apart. You’ll learn all about this year’s champs after the jump, but we’d just like to point out that the 2009 Deconstructor Championship belongs to Ford. If you don’t know, the Deconstructor goes to the manufacturer that builds the cars that blow up the most often.

Why Ford? Mostly for the numerous SHOs that lunched their engines and transmissions all over various LeMons paddocks, coast to coast. To quote LeMons’ second banana, Nick Pon, after he strolled through a typical three SHO/three dead cars pit in Louisiana, “Looks like someone tossed a Taurus grenade in here.” Just seems to be the Taurus’s week for winning awards. OK — now make the jump.

Continue reading 24 Hours of LeMons announces 2009 Season Champions

24 Hours of LeMons announces 2009 Season Champions originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Infosync has given the HP Glisten a good going over and are pretty unimpressed with the smartphone.  Scoring the device only 69/100, they were happy with the hardware, battery life, and business features, but marked the smartphone down for not having good non-business features, calling the camera poor and lamenting the lack of a good media player of social networking features.

They concluded:

With the HP iPaq Glisten, we wonder if HP has been paying attention to the phone market for the last couple of years. The phone is the most basic, barebones Windows Mobile 6.5 device you could imagine, with almost no extra software or convenient tweaks to improve the user experience. Business users will enjoy the tight integration with Microsoft Exchange and the solid build quality. The phone also packs a large battery and can hold a charge through a busy day’s use. Plus, the keyboard is nice and large for easy typing, definitely a solid competitor to RIM’s BlackBerry Bold 9700. But beyond the basic business features, the phone comes up short. As more business users rely on a single device for their work and personal lives, the HP iPaq Glisten performs poorly at Web browsing, multimedia functions, taking pictures and just about anything other than serious work. The interface is difficult to use by touch alone, which is why most manufacturers, like HTC with their Tilt 2 on AT&T, improve it with some sort of enhancements. But with the HP iPaq Glisten, all you get are the basics, and that might not be enough for many users. Release: December 2009. Price: $180.

Pros: Solid build quality. Great battery life. Large, easy full-QWERTY keyboard.

Cons: Barebones set of Windows Mobile features. Web browsing, multimedia and camera features all below average. Interface still not entirely touch friendly.

Read their full review here.

I’m excited to share with you the review on the new HP Pavilion Entertainment Dv7 series. One of the best things about the DV7 is it’s Fast Core i7 processor; generous RAM and hard drive; 17.3-inch screen. You can imagine your laptop as a great entertainment.

The not so good about it is that it lacks 1080p or Blu-ray limits home theater appeal; gaming performance is middling. So when you are a gamer this will really bug you.

Here is the complete review by the CNET, check it out:

**********

HP Pavilion dv7-3085dx

Reviewed by: Scott Stein from CNET

Editors’ note: This review is part of our 2009 Retail Laptop and Desktop Holiday Roundup, which covers specific fixed configurations of popular systems found in retail stores.

This holiday season, the field of high-end laptops was redefined by the release of Intel’s Core i7 processor, which offers improved next-generation multicore performance. While some of the initial Core i7 machines were quite expensive, the technology has already trickled down to more affordable laptops such as the HP dv7-3085dx. Is it worth your while to consider? That depends on whether you want a machine that’s fast or a machine that’s fast with games.

At $1,299, the dv7 remains relatively slim for a gaming laptop, but with a GeForce 230M GPU, it’s not really an enthusiast machine. Instead, consider its greatest assets to be the Core i7, a massive 17.3-inch screen, and higher-end Altec Lansing speakers, making this a compelling desktop home theater.

The package sounds great, especially since, other than the GPU, it has the same specs as the HP Envy 15-1050nr, which costs $700 more. On the other hand, some unfortunate cutbacks were made on this model: there’s no Blu-ray (even while the much cheaper, but slower, dv7-3065dx includes it), and the very large screen isn’t 1080p, although it comes close at 1,600×900 pixels.

This laptop represents a $300 price bump up from other high-end retail machines like the Sony Vaio FW560F/T, but the addition of a Core i7, solid gaming graphics, a fast hard drive, and plenty of RAM could make this a contender.

The design of this HP Pavilion dv7 is familiar to us; we’ve also reviewed a lower-spec midrange model in a nearly identical chassis, the HP Pavilion dv7-3065dx. Clad in a very glossy espresso finish with chrome pattern flourishes on the outer lid and inner palm rest area, the design of the Pavilion dv7 leans more toward multimedia sleek than gamer clunky. The slightly rounded edges and chrome highlights lend a nice formal look, but the fingerprints will mount up quickly.

The keyboard and adjoining number pad that span the width of the laptop’s interior use glossy-topped tapered keys. While we’re not a fan of shiny surfaces on our keyboards, the responsiveness and decent key spacing on this model made up for it. The touch pad wasn’t our favorite, as HP tends to top their high-end models with smooth mirrored touch pads that, while looking stark, are prone to smudging and have poor traction. It didn’t ruin our experience, but this is a laptop that cries for a mouse.

Above the keyboard is a set of touch-sensitive media keys, controlling volume, basic play, fast forward and rewind, and a Wi-Fi on/off toggle. The touch controls worked better than many, and were easy to locate.

The glossy 16.9 ratio 17.3-inch LED screen on the HP dv7-3085dx has a native resolution of 1,600×900 pixels, which is better than 720p but not quite 1080p “full HD” resolution. While this machine doesn’t have a Blu-ray playing drive, it would have been nice to get fuller resolution for HD playback on a screen this size. In its existing max-resolution settings, images were large and clear but suffered from a slight lack of crispness. Side viewing angles were decent, but the tremendous glossy-screened surface area created many opportunities for glare.

On the audio front, the built-in multispeaker Altec Lansing array, with SRS surround effects, worked well and was one of the better laptop audio systems we’ve heard. Overall, the HP dv7-3085dx is a compelling audio/visual hardware setup, especially for the price, but, again, we really wish this had 1080p. And it’s positively baffling that the cheaper $729 dv7-3065dx includes a Blu-ray drive, while this $1,299 model doesn’t.

The 6GB of DDR3 RAM and large 500GB 7,200rpm hard drive are extra bonuses that are nice adds for the serious computer user, and beat the included specs in the lower-cost Sony and Asus high-end retail configs. The dv7 also has a nice array of ports, with nothing really left to be desired except for the oddly eliminated Bluetooth. Ports are arrayed mainly on the left side of the laptop, with a few ports stuck in near the right-side DVD drive; the back is port-free, which on a laptop this wide feels a little silly.

In the laptop CPU pecking order, the Core i7 is at the top of the list performance-wise, and in this regard the dv7-3085dx is a big winner. Equipped with its 1.6GHz Core i7 processor plus a good amount of speedy RAM and a 7,200rpm hard drive, the HP Pavilion dv7-3085dx was our fastest-performing laptop in the high-end range in terms of handling multimedia like Photoshop and iTunes, as well as engaging in multitasking.

That’s great news for someone looking for a speedster laptop, but the gaming benchmark scores tell a different story. Because of its above-mainstream but below-enthusiast GeForce 230M GPU, its framerates playing Unreal Tourament III were the lowest among all four high-end retail laptops in our Holiday 2009 roundup. That’s not to say the dv7-3085dx is bad at gaming by any means: UT3 ran at 55fps in 1,440×900, and Street Fighter 4 achieved 60fps at 1,600×900 resolution (using SF4’s built-in benchmark, with all settings set to high but no antialiasing). The dv7-3085dx should be good enough for plenty of games, but it’s not a screamer.

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With its included eight-cell battery, the HP Pavilion dv7-3085dx lasted for 2 hours and 6 minutes under our rigorous video-playback battery drain test. That’s not bad for a laptop with such a huge screen running a powerful processor, and with more judicious use of power management settings and under more casual usage conditions it should last longer. The HP Pavilion dv7-3085dx is, like may laptops, Energy Star qualified.

HP backs the Pavilion dv7-3065dx with an industry-standard, one-year warranty. Toll-free telephone support is available 24-7 during your warranty period, and the HP support Web site includes real-time chat with a technical support representative. If you want to troubleshoot problems yourself, you can search through the site’s thorough FAQ database.

Find out more about how we test Windows laptops.

System configurations:

HP Pavilion dv7-3085dx
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 1.6GHz Intel Core i7 720QM; 6144MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 230M; 500GB Seagate 7,200rpm

Asus G60VX-RBBX05
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7450; 4096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M; 320GB Seagate 7,200rpm

HP Envy 15-1050nr
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 1.6GHz Intel Core i7 720QM; 6144MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830; 500GB Seagate 7,200rpm

Sony Vaio VGN-FW560F/T
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7450; 6144MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650; 500GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

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The bottom line is it is quipped with a big screen and a fast Core i7 processor, the HP Pavilion dv7-3085dx is a speedy all-around Windows 7 laptop. This might not be the right for you if you have a limited budget because it’s price range you expect either Blu-ray or faster gaming graphics. Hope you enjoyed this HP Pavilion Entertainment Review and feel free to share this.

Source

How badly are the government’s loan modifications doing? 

Here’s the money shot from NYT reporter Floyd Norris’s investigation earlier this week:

Chase disclosed in November that:

• nearly a quarter of trial modifications had failed because the borrower did not make even a single payment

• nearly half had failed to make all three payments required before the modification could become permanent.

• Of those who had made all three payments, only about a quarter had submitted all the required documents.

Add all that up and approximately 25% of applicants are making it through the loan-mod trial period.

So what’s the real reason the mods aren’t working?  Because the loans never should have been made in the first place.

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See Also:

• Here’s The Real Reason Loan Modifications Aren’t Working
• Judge Slams Indymac, Sets Aside Defendant’s $292,500 Mortgage
• CHART OF THE DAY: We’re Still Generating Too Many Negative Equity Mortgages