cartechboy writes "Two Ph.D. students from MIT have created a keyboard accessory, the Pavlov Poke, that shocks you every time you go onto Facebook. The project comes as a result of the students finding the waste over 50 hours a week combined on the social network (instead of working on their dissertations) So the pair created an Arduino-based keyboard hand-rest that shocks computer users who spend too much time checking the social network. The hack is 'intended to generate discussion' — not actually turn into a business." Inventor Robert Morris describes it as "something of a joke," but I'm sure there's a market out there.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last day for the new project! Thanks, geeks!

AutoCheck and CarFax are popular ways to check on a used vehicle’s history before buying or selling. They aren’t always 100% accurate, but can still be a useful tool and possibly worth the $30+ retail price. But AutoCheck also lets car dealers check show free basic VIN checks to show their customers, and people (not me) figured out you can piggyback on this feature rather easily. Here are my adapted instructions:

1. Go to Google.com, and run a search for “dealer autocheck inurl:vin“
2. Click on the first result that is not an ad. (Also ignore other car forums that are talking about this trick.)
3. Look at the URL toolbar. It will look something like:
   

   http://www.autoexact.com/autocheck.aspx?vin=LONG_VIN_NUMBER&Id=5122742

   Replace LONG_VIN_NUMBER with your own car or motorcycle VIN, something like:

   http://www.autoexact.com/autocheck.aspx?vin=5TETX22N66Z267004&Id=5122742

   (No spaces. Again this URL is only an example.)

4. Hit Enter, or copy/paste the new address into a new window and hit Enter. If it doesn’t work, use the next dealer website URL that comes up.

If you’d like a 3rd-party website to do this all for you, then try www.geniusvin.com. Salvage titles are known to generate errors with this method. To perform a basic check of whether your car has been reported stolen or has a salvage title, use this NCIB.gov VINcheck tool.

This worked for my personal cars to make sure there was no incorrect information out there. The report is pretty detailed, with ownership histories and odometer readings. Overall my reports were clean, although there were some gaps in the information.

Credit: Butcherboy/FW, Genius/E46Fanatics, Melania Pinola/Lifehacker

Free VIN Check Trick, Free Vehicle History Report from My Money Blog.

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© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2013.

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