Just thought I’d share some great subaru forums I visit daily. If you have suggestions for more please comment them and I’ll add them.
Archive for February, 2009
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Tags: Best Utilities, Free Antivirus, Free Spyware, Freeware, Great Apps, Top Antivirus ToolsA co-worker linked me to this and I found it funny that my kids tonka truck could have led or some of his toys but lord forbid they have something like a dirtbike with lead in it…. read below
When a government agency called for youth model dirt bikes and ATVs to be yanked from the market earlier this month, one area dealer had to take thousands of dollars in potential revenue off the showroom floor.
“You’re talking about 60 to 75 models that I can’t sell, and those are a big part of our customer base,” said Atlas Honda of Bristol, Va., manager Dwayne Leonard.
Lead content provisions of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 that became law on Feb. 10 contain strict guidelines for toys and other products marketed toward children 12 and under that have products that contain lead or lead-based materials.
According to information published in the New York Times’ blog “Wheels,” industry advocates say there is enough lead in brake parts, battery terminals and other internal components in these specific youth motorcycles and all-terrain vehicle models to warrant a withdrawal from the market under new government guidelines.
In response to the law and after failing to achieve an emergency stay filed by a group that included the Motorcycle Industry Council to delay implementation of the law on Feb. 5, major manufactures such as Honda, Kawasaki and Suzuki sent corporate directive letters to dealerships for immediate withdrawal of bikes and ATVs specially designed for youth 12 and under.
“The vehicles are stored away, and if a parent comes in to buy one, I can’t sell it. And if they’ve already bought (a youth model) and need parts for it, I can’t sell them any,” said Leonard, describing the double-whammy the dealership faces.
“These types of bikes are the kind where kids learn to ride and they can learn to develop things like hand-to-eye coordination, motor skills and balance, which can help them in their growth. For some, a parent can buy them a motorbike to teach them responsibility.
“If an adult who has been riding for years has a child that wants to start riding or has decided to teach them to ride, they don’t have anywhere to purchase them because if they’re new or they’re used, we can’t even show them what one looks like. This is going to have some serious consequences in several ways.”
One consequence Leonard mentions is part of a campaign being stressed by the Motorcycle Industry Council and Specialty Vehicle Institute of America, which says more younger children will begin riding larger ATVs and bikes not suited for their abilities, leading to a risk of needless injury.
“The thing is, this law was drawn up because of the lead scare in toys made in China and the ability of a child to put these toys in their mouth. I don’t think a child is going to put a kick-start or a battery terminal in their mouth, are they?” said Leonard.
A statement sent to dealerships by American Honda Motor Co. says: “Our shared belief is that Congress never intended the lead content provisions of the act, which originally were aimed at toys that can be mouthed by children, to be applicable to small ATVs and motorcycles.”
Currently, the Atlas staff and other Tri-Cities dealers only have two Yamaha youth dirt bikes and one youth ATV that they can offer customers. <continue at source>
Tags: 4-Wheeler, ATV, ATVs, Dirt Bike, Lead law prohibits sale of youth dirt bikesWhile on our mini vacation in flordia a few weeks ago we decided to visit some museums and what not on different days, we tour’d NASA, a single plane in deland and then looked up this museum and got a good recommendation from mike (a family friend) so we thought that we’d head that way. When we first arrived it didn’t look like alot but our minds soon changed once we got into the WW2 area that you enter. It puts you back in the time frame with the battles, walk though a B17, its just simply amazing. We also noticed that some of the WW1 era plane they had were from the movie Fly Boys & some others that were from Indiana Jones movies.
It has so far been in my life the most complete museum I have ever visited they had several half cotpits here and there you can sit in and everything was there down to each toggle switch… Not a thing out of place.
All the photos can be found on my photoblog. http://www.noelflash.com/gallery or click on the link on the left side
Tags: Air Museum, Airplanes, Fantasy of Flight, HelicoptersSchool District Salaries
Feb 11
While searching the internet for random things I stumbled upon this site and found it very interesting. Find out what people in a school district make…..
Tags: GCSD, IT Salaries, School District, Screwed“Thrive” is a newly launched Microsoft initiative for IT Professionals. You can find information related to your IT career development, technical skills, and alignment with business. Also, check out the videos on virtulization and desktop optimization.
Source (via Activewin.com)
Tags: $$, IT, IT Pros, Microsoft, Networking
Well I made a post not too long back about how the newly purchased 2005 Legacy GT I just purchased from SOG had a issue on its trip home. They fixed it but continued to snowball my questions about records for the service of the car, see the sales person Susan Savage told us while talking about the car that the 60k service had been done. We specifically asked her so we won’t have to dump a ton of money into this car right off the bat right? B/C it has 63,000 on it. Rest assured that we have taken care of everything. We found out later on that it wasn’t done at all and that they told us that we must have been mistaken and they only do oil changes…. (950.00) oil change?
I even have a voice mail on my cell phone of her calling me back and appoligizing that she meant a oil change not a actual service. Well since owning this car it has had 2 oil leaks, bad cv axle, and transmission lines leaking. I have tried on numerous occasions to get stuff fixed because this car was sold as a Certified Pre-Owned Subaru of which from the looks of it they just give it a oil change.
In the time I have had the car so far I had to fix the 2 oil leaks on its first week of owning it (leaked right from the dealer) and the drive belts. The Certified Pre-Owned shows that they should have checked the belts, no way they did and if they for some reason did sold a car that was lucky enough to make it anywhere with the condition of the belts. After the car got fixed and SOG paid the 100.00 dectuable is when the 60k stuff came up because I asked the local dealer to check the 60k service and see if it had been done and they came back and said no way it was done.
I then called Herb Hoffman at SOG back and asked how could a Certified Pre-Owned car have issues like this right off the bat? and I was told that the 60k service had been done of which he couldn’t help much as it was a sales issue, well then I got sent off to the Sales Manager and told me over the phone that he trains his people to not say anything about the services like that. ok.
After a little while more and getting tired of the car leaking from here/there/everywhere, So I called herb back and urged my problems again and he again said its a sales issue so I got transferred to the sales manager. I was pretty upset by this point and once finally got him on the phone asked if they were going to do anything about it and was told “NO” you bought a used car, and my reply was no i bought a “Certified Pre-Owned” Subaru. If I wanted a used car I could have gone anywhere, I then asked if I could have my old car back since they still had it and was told NO because we can’t finance it…. Why is that my problem? He then put me on hold 2 times for about 8-10 minutes apeace and I guess he thought I was going to hang up but I waited. Once back on the phone and to the point that I got screwed on this newer car I asked is there anything else you got? How about the truck you have on the lot or something? maybe something with a turbo? He told me then that he would work some numbers and get back to me. 4 weeks have gone by and nothing, I tried to call the General Manager (Steve Hendrich) but that was useless also as he never is there and never returns his voice mails. I even called their other dealership SOI and left messages at both places. Also noticed that my old car and the truck i mentioned to them were both sold (probably at auction) instead of trying to help me……….
I know that SOG is on here and refrained from posting anything until I knew their outcome which is they never return your calls, voice mails, emails, etc. Even the Better Business Beureo couldn’t contact them, they had to US mail them.
Now if you are a member/manager/etc at SOG DO NOT POST ANYTHING here! I will use it against you, if you dont have the common decentsey to return a damn phone call then don’t spend the time here posting your lies. I already have a case and complaint filed with the BBB and Subaru of America, how much further must I go to get something fixed that should have been done outright like promised.
Cliff notes: SOG Sold me a lemon, car has had 4 leaks, bad cv axle in a few months of owning, Outcome = Ignore you!
Update” 2/6/2009
Got a email from the BBB today and Subaru of Gwinnett considered my case closed….. They never called me, I had to call them 2 weeks ago now and they refused to fix/do the maintaince that was promised on my car, instead they tried to sell me a 31,000 subaru legacy gt. Keep in mind this is $19,000 more instead of just fixing the car that would cost them like 300.00. I replyed to the BBB site and said it was not closed and that they just tried to sell me a 19,000 more car and that they were very rude with me. I have also contacted Subaru with my case number however they cant do anything for me apparently. Oh yea the asshole of a general manager who I have left 20 voice mails never returned my calls and this was the person that considered the case closed!
oh and my sales person was susans@subaruofgwinnett.com
My issues were finally resolved though Subaru Of America, Subaru of Gwinnett has never returned any phone calls I left and or appoligized but maybe next time they'll follow the CPO Program but as you see below in my comments appearently they arent!
Tags: Certified Used Car, Lemon, Piece of Crap, Raitings, Review, Reviews, Shitty Dealer, SOG, Sold Me a Lemon, Subaru, Subaru of Gwinnett, SucksFirefox 3.0.6 Released
Feb 7
The award-winning Firefox Web browser has security, speed and new features that will change the way you use the Web. Don’t settle for anything less.
- Fixed several security issues.
- Fixed several stability issues.
- In previous versions of Firefox, some users experienced a problem where parts of the screen were not properly displaying after Firefox was open for long periods of time.
- Improved the ability for scripted commands (including those included in popular extensions like Adblock Plus) to work properly with plugins. (bug 438830)
- Removed the client user ID from crash reports.
- Fixed issues with the display of some Indic scripts.
“I couldn’t agree more remove rights and it solves alot of problems but read about it here……”
Nine of out 10 critical bugs reported by Microsoft last year could have been made moot, or at least made less dangerous, if people ran Windows without administrative rights, a developer of enterprise rights management software claimed Tuesday.
BeyondTrust, which touts its Privilege Manager as a way for companies to lock down PCs, tallied the individual vulnerabilities that Microsoft disclosed in 2008, then examined each accompanying security bulletin. If the bulletin’s “Mitigating Factors” section, the part that spells out how to lessen the risk of attack or eliminate it entirely, said that users with fewer rights “could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative rights,” BeyondTrust counted the bug.
The vast majority of critical Microsoft vulnerabilities — 92% of them — could have been mitigated by stripping users of administrative rights, said John Moyer, the CEO of BeyondTrust. “This speaks to what enterprises should be doing,” Moyer said. “Clearly, eliminating administrative rights can close the window of opportunity of attack.”
Of the 154 bugs published and patched by Microsoft in 2008, critical or not, 69% would have been blocked or their impact reduced by configuring users to run without administrative rights, said the company.
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Tags: Admin, Microsoft, MS Bugs, Rights, Windowspowered by
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