Aluminum foil doenst protect against skimming, skimming is a result of a cloned card reader taking that info and storing it, most of these happen when your card is out of site, as in a restuarant, gas station ect, usually by a legal employee who has your card. In fact the vast majority of small time scammed cards are brick and mortor businesses, not internet or data transfer sites.. THE only thing you would worry about in case of stolen over the air cards is with your "contactless" cards (you know the ones that you can "wave" at something to pay with) You can avoid getting these RFID chips competely, they are only abourt 3.5 % of the total amount of cards out there, dont bother with pass techonology, all of these machines have swipes on them. If your worried about that, call your card company and request if your card is a RFID card or a contactless one, you can cancel it. Shield, aluminum foil may or may not in fact protect you from scam readers. There are a few misconceptions about cards now, federal law limits your liablity to 50.00, most MAJOR card companies do not hold you responsible at all, the way businesses report this fraud against you has changed as well. If the charge happened over the phone and internet, you have no liablity at all. Unless they can prove that you knew about the charges and didnt contact them, if you do discover something, contact your card companies promptly. This was mostly based on the poor folks who went through the early days , who were held liable and had thier poor credit wrecked becuase of it. Its still wise to protect your cards as much as possible, but frankly, alot of people are more worried about things that will never happen "IE thier cards stolen over the internet somehow" then things that may happen, like some gas station shlep who just took your card #s and is going to have a good time tonight. Silverkelt

Don't have an Iphone but can't you put them in the cloud then access it that way from the computer? I transfer everything via Bluetooth from my android phone to my computer. Bought a nice little USB Bluetooth adapter for $20 and love it. I can also access Verizon cloud from the computer to get at my files. Mary

I'm not an expert so probably can't help but... I think you have enough speed you shouldn't even need to let it buffer, but know how to do so, so it's probably not Internet speed. Your system seems fine specification-wise. To me anyway. I don't think or know much about video cards but I wouldn't think it would be the physical card, but I don't really know. My wild guess would be the driver. :) This is what mine shows when I go to "System settings"--->"Additional Drivers": If it were me, I'd try a different driver if there's any listed there. Maybe you already have? Other than that, I don't have a clue. I'm running 12.04 and youtube's and other videos play fine for me. If someone else here doesn't have the answer, there's always the Ubuntu forum. Just a thought. Edit: Just out of curiosity, does the snow in my "My Page" fall smoothly or does it stop and go as it falls? This post was edited by chuggerguy on Thu, Jan 3, 13 at 20:40

Just my two cents' worth: consider using steam. A heat gun can easily burn fine details like that, which is irreversible damage. Heat guns also vaporize the lead in lead paint, and even if you wear a respirator, the fine lead dust travels a long way and settles on everything. Chemical paint strippers soak into the wood, so if you want to stain, varnish, or lacquer the wood later on, the absorbed stripper can mess with the adhesion of the stain/varnish. A steam generator produces moist heat, so the lead in the paint doesn't vaporize. The paint that you remove becomes sodden and falls straight to the floor. It can't burn the wood or start a fire. And it's REALLY effective. I've tried all three methods and in my experience, steam gets the paint off fastest and cleanest. It's really effective on multiple layers of paint, just peels of like a big thick ribbon once you get the hang of it. Using steam can raise the grain of the wood, so if you notice the wood starting to get rough as you scrape it, just take a break until it dries out. Invest in a good detail scraper that you pull toward yourself, not one that you push away from yourself. I'm including a link to a Youtube video from John Leeke. He specializes in restoring old windows, but the principle is the same for wood trim. You can read more about steam paint removal at www.historichomeworks.com. I'm not affiliated with John Leeke or Historic Homeworks, but he's a personal guru of mine. :) A decent steam generator is kind of a big-ticket tool (around $150 I think) but useful for all kinds of things: paint stripping, window work, steaming wrinkles out of garments, stripping wallpaper, and even steam-cleaning your floor! Here is a link that might be useful: Removing paint with steam