Cash Back Bait

A few months ago I got a nice cash back reward from American Express.

The cash back awards are bait. If you are extremely careful you may get the bait and get away clean but if you are not you will become a slave working to fatten the gloated corporate predators.

I was late on one payment by a few days. I expected a late fee and interest payments. What I did not expect was over 27 percent interest. I was not even aware that such an interest rate was legal. They would gladly let me run up thousands of dollars on their card and then charge me such interest rates in perpetuity.

Such a high interest rate is unethical in times when savings are earning interest hovering around 1%.

Fortunately, I keep good track of my expenses and strive to control them and I immediately paid off the card.

I was glad to see Congress enact some laws to protect consumers at least a little from the predatory practices of the financial institutions. More laws are needed.

iPod Touch Broken Glass

A few weeks ago I dropped my iPod Touch 2g and the screen broke.

A replacement digitizer glass and some tools to repair it with cost $30.57 through Amazon's website. Two of the tools are not shown here

The glass and the frame it is glued to was difficult to remove and I broke three of the four plastic pry tools that came with the kit removing the glass. The pry tools are not strong enough for the job and I ended up using some small screwdrivers to remove the glass.

The digitizer cable did not survive the removal of the glass.

All of what came before was easy compared to removing the frame from the glass. It is glued onto the glass very well.

A new frame cost about $10. It was challenging to get the digitizer cable reattached. After I got the iPod put back together the home button was pressed down and would not come back up resulting in the iPod being stuck in recovery mode. I broke the new frame trying to open it up to repair it.

Even with the button removed the volume kept turning itself down. The repair attempt was a failure and the iPod Touch is now unusable. The iPod had a problem locking up before it got dropped so it is the end of the line for this iPod Touch.



Summary:

• Protect your iPod with a good quality case!
  
• Order the replacement glass with the frame attached if possible.
• The plastic tools that come with the repair kit were not up to the job.