HSBC Direct has adjusted your Online Savings Account interest rate to 4.50% APY.
Adjusted? That’s just a nice way to say, “lowered by half a point”.
Too bad no the other major players (ING) in high yield savings accounts aren’t offering anything better.
I guess this should have been expected with the fed lowering the interest rate by half a point 10 days ago.
First, let me preface this that I’ve wanted a PowerMac (and then subsequently a Macbook Pro) ever since I arrived at college. It’s clear that they were powerhouse mobile computers, and they were sexy at that.
I finally got myself a MacBook about year ago. It has replaced my PC, which is now in pieces in the closet. It’s totally amazing, and for the few things that I’ve still needed Windows for, Parallels desktop has filled the void.
A year later, though, I started running into some issues. My Mighty Mouse fell off the coffee table (about 20″) and broke. That was a quick $70 down the drain. Then the LCD backlight started flickering randomly when on low brightness. And then the power supply refused to charge the battery. And then the top panel that rests over the keyboard started to warp, and it cracked on the edges.
I could not believe all this. So I took it in to the local Genius Bar, and had it serviced. I also brought in my broken Mighty Mouse.
A week later, for the total cost of $0, I have now:
- New keyboard installed, bonus
- New trackpad installed (1 year of finger oil stains gone), bonus
- New keyboard panel installed - replaced cracked edges
- New PMU installed (Power management unit, fixes battery charging issue)
- New MLB installed (Main Logic Board, fixes LCD backlight flicker)
- New Mighty Mouse
I’m so happy…my laptop now looks and feels new again for free (one week without the laptop was painful, though). If I choose to sell the laptop, I can now advertise it as being in excellent condition, rather than fair. I wouldn’t mind upgrading to a Macbook Pro as a graduation present to myself, perhaps.
Cheers, Apple. I’m still a happy customer now. My faith was shaken in the quality, but the service was exceptional. Thanks!
I was unable to find any Python samples for using the PayPal NVP API, so I went to work writing a helper class for my needs. Hopefully this should be enough to help get others started at least.
This is not a complete reference! Be sure to understand what this class is doing before you try it on production servers! …use it at your own peril.
http://python.pastebin.com/f782d48d9
Also be sure to check the complete reference doc for any error codes returned, as the doc is very helpful.
Update April 3rd, 2008: I’m pleased to discover that this has made its way around the internet:
The Freesound Project based out of Belgium is reimplementing their site in Python and they are using my reference.
A Google Code project called PyPayPal is using it as a reference.
GoCept, a German based company, seems to have implemented it in their content management system.
