Counterfeit Money

I was unknowingly given a $10 counterfeit bill as change in a convenience store. I did not know it until I tried to pay in another store. There are several ways to check for counterfeit bills. 


The most cost effective, portable, accurate and cool, is with a ultraviolet light flashlight.

9 LED 400 nM UV Ultra Violet Blacklight Flashlight

Genuine U.S. money is mostly cotton paper and special ink, neither of which contain the glowing element, phosphor. Put them under ultraviolet light and they appear dark, emitting no colors that we can see. Except for the one part that does light up – the security strip. The strips are coated with phosphors that glow noticeably under UV lights. Causing each denomination to glow a different color is simply a matter of using different chemicals for the phosphor coating.

Five-dollar bills glow blue under blacklights. A $10 glows orange, $20s are green, $50s are yellow, and the 100 dollar bill will have a red strip.

Credit cards work much the same way. Regular plastic has no phosphors, and therefore does not react to UV light. But an embedded symbol or lettering can be coated with phosphor chemicals to glow under these lights. While there are no standard colors for credit card UV security features, any kind of distinct 

distinct pattern usually indicates a genuine card.

Just some of the uses for UV LED lights: - Bugs/Insect Detection - Minerals Hunting - Police use it for scanning the crime scene Unbreakable - Checking currency and ID - Fluorescent inks/dyes used as anti-counterfeiting measures - Examining artwork and glasswork for hidden repairs - Locating damaged/cracked glassware - Detecting scorpions

You can get it @ Amazon.com

LED 400 nM UV Ultra Violet Blacklight Flashlight

iPod Nano Watch Kit Raises Nearly $200k via Kickstarter

The all-or-nothing funding site Kickstarter has another big hit on its hands — and an iPod nano watch on its wrist.

In just 72 hours, nearly $200,000 have been pledged to support a set of kits that turn the latest iPod nano into a multitouch time piece.

The project, which promotes two different kits — the TikTok and the LunaTik, is a fully realized version of the iWatch-style mockups that started to appear online soon after the most recent nano’s release.

Designed by Scott Wilson, the founder of the Chicago-based design studio MINIMAL, the kits are designed to make the nano into an LCD-based wrist watch. Wilson, the former global creative director at Nike, has plenty of experience designing great-looking sportswear.

However, as he explains in his Kickstarter video, rather than designing a project for someone else, he wanted to create something under his own label. Wilson created two different watch variations, the TikTok, which features a snap-in design, and the LunaTik, which is designed to make your iPod nano into a more permanent time piece.

The goal is to sell the items in Apple Stores. Supporters can pledge $25, pre-order a TikTok (which will retail for $34.95) or spend $50 to pre-order the LunaTik (which will retail for $69.95). For $70, supporters can pre-order both units.

Check out this video to see the prototypes in action:

The original funding goal for the project was $15,000. Three days in, the current tally is at $193,000 with 2,600 backers as of this post. With 27 days to go, it’s likely that TikTok+LunaTik will exceed the reigning Kickstarter chamption and take top spot.

In a statement, Wilson said, “There are other options out there but Kickstarter is by far the easiest and most well-architected experience at the moment. This type of funding platform is a game-changer and just the beginning in shifting more power back to the individual creative entrepreneur.”

TikTok+LunaTik are just the latest example of major successes spurred by the Kickstarter project. Last month, the iPhone 4 tripod The Glif broke through, big time. That project has since ended — after realizing over $137,000 in funding — and the creators are about to start production on the first batch of units.

It’s interesting that Wilson, a man who obviously had other funding connections, chose to use Kickstarter as his platform. The results clearly speak for themselves — but it’s hard to imagine a faster way to generate nearly $200,000 in capitol.

Obviously not every idea is going to be as good as The Glif or TikTok+LunaTik (Disclosure: I’m a supporter of both projects), but the fact that individuals have the opportunity to get their projects funded in these ways is pretty incredible.

From Kickstarter

iPod Nano Watch Kit Raises Nearly $200k via Kickstarter

The Top 10 Torrent Sites of 2010

As of January 23rd, 2010, several torrent search engines have distinguished themselves. This list is compiled from reader suggestions, and will be updated every several days.You are welcome to submit your own suggestions to be included in this torrent sites list. This list is in random order. Special thanks to the TechChunks.com readers who contact us regularly and made this list possible.

Antivirus Warning for P2P Downloaders: before you use any download site or P2P network, make sure you install a reliable antivirus. While most P2P users are honest, there are malicious ones who will abuse P2P file sharing as a way to propagate viruses.

1. The Pirate Bay April 18, 2009: the Stockholm district court has sentenced the four Pirate Bay founders to a year in prison, and over $USD 3.5 million in fines. This is as punishment for violating their country’s copyright laws. More on this shocking court ruling here…

2. YouTorrent.com Still in beta testing format, this new torrent site claims to be the largest legal torrent search engine today. Accordingly, the result sets are much smaller than the “pirate” counterparts, but definitely try this site for yourself.

3. Isohunt.com Currently in a legal dispute with the Canadian Recording Industry Association, Isohunt is a longtime favorite of P2P users. Isohunt indexes millions of torrents from thousands of the most popular torrent sites and displays the results according to number of seeds.The community at Isohunt also helps police abuse within their network, and reader comments and votes help to identify those torrents which should be avoided.

4. PizzaTorrent PizzaTorrent is another great torrent search engine to find movie torrents quickly. Their hompage lists the popular searches made. The best part about this search engine is that the results are sorted in categories like games, movies, music, anime, etc. The results are neatly displayed and there is no advertising on their site yet. You can sort results according to seeds, peers, and size. PizzaTorrent is an easy way to search for your requiredmovie torrents. Just like NowTorrents, you can install the plugin for searching as well.

5. Torrent Root: a metasearch engine, Torrent Root will pore through other search engines on your behalf, and display the results in a slick tabbed interface for your easy browsing. WARNING: the Torrent Root web page has recently been infected by scareware and phishing viruses. The webmasters seem to have purged the infection, but fair warning: with any P2P browsing, protect yourself by installing a reliable antivirus.

6. BiteNova (formerly known as “Bi-Torrents”, BiteNova is a free Torrent site with a spartan look and fast searching format.)

7. Demonoid.com is back online! After legal conflicts in April of 2008, they have reestablished themselves outside of the USA. Demonoid is still a private community, and members are held liable for any leeching that their invited friends do in this community. If you are lucky enough to get a Demonoid membership, invite your friends carefully, lest you lose your own membership.

8. CompleTorrent CompleTorrent is quite similar to TorrentScoop and is powered by google co-op as well. The unique thing about CompleTorrent is that you can search within different categories which makes your results more acccurate.

9. Alive Torrents Alive Torrents is a relatively new site. It focuses on torrents that have distinguished themselves as having a solid swarm base and an active readership.

10. TorrentScoop TorrentScoop is a torrent search engine powered by Google co-op. The results are quite impressive but you will not able to view seeds, peers, etc.

Legal warning for new torrent users: while P2P file sharing technology is completely legal, many of the files traded through P2P are copyrighted. Uploading P2P files may put you at serious risk of a civil lawsuit in the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK. These lawsuits are usually class-action suits, filed against groups of users who blatantly copy and distribute copyrighted materials. Recently, the MPAA, the RIAA, and the governments of England and Australia took several thousand users to court, demanding that they pay thousands of dollars in copyright infringement penalties. These P2P lawsuits are very real, and whether or not they are successful, they are extreme financial and emotional burdens on the defendant.

ISP warning: your Internet service provider may choose to release logs of your downloading/uploading activity to potential copyright plaintiffs. The more megabytes you download/upload, the more you risk being sued by copyright protection groups.

From

http://techchunks.com/

Viral Mail Profits

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Finding your Social Media logins

NameChk is the tool I use to find all of my social media logins.

http://namechk.com/

The Complete Guide to Video Blogging

Video Blogging is Still in its Infancy

Must read guide here>
The Complete Guide to Video Blogging From Mashable.com

RCA ANT1450M Multi-Directional Digital Flat Amplified HDTV Antenna (White)

I own one!

Smart Technologies

High-tech table lets students go far together
Tampa Tribune Sunday, September 20, 2009

SMART Technologies Inc. is the world leader in interactive whiteboards and award-winning products which includes the SMART Board, mobile multimedia ...

Microsoft Windows 7

Microsoft Store
Microsoft Windows 7