Greg In The Desert

Ford has issued a Speed Control Deactivation Switch Recall (09S09) on a number of trucks and SUVs. They sent me a letter to about my 1997 Ford Ranger and suggested I have it fixed as soon as possible.

Ford cannot be confident that over many years in service, a speed control deactivation switch installed on your vehicle will not leak brake fluid, posing the risk of a fire. This condition may occur either when the vehicle is parked or when it is being operated.

This risk exists on vehicles equipped with or without speed control.

Ford Motor Company has authorized your dealer to perform the repairs under this program and your dealer on your vehicle free of charge (parts and labor).

Your dealer may be able to perform this repair while you wait; however, due to scheduling requirements, your dealer may need your vehicle for a longer period of time.

Please call your dealer without delay and request a service date for Recall 09S09. Provide the dealer with the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of your vehicle. The VIN is printed near your name at the beginning of this letter.

Until you have the recall service performed, park your vehicle outdoors away from structures to prevent a potential fire from spreading.

I took it to the local Don Chalmers Ford who was able to get my truck in immediately. They had my truck for about 6 hours and gave me a receipt. Total cost of the repair charged to Ford was 28.89. I realize Ford has millions of these to pay for but I have never taken my truck to a Ford dealer and had such a cheap repair. If I had to pay for this myself, I wonder how much it would have cost me.

I’ve been looking for a way to organize all the receipts I get, espcially the ones from Home Depot and Lowes. There’s a few programs out there for the Mac but they require you scan them in with another program. They seemed more work than they are worth.

Neat Receipts attempts to solve this problem. They have a program for managing recipts that works directly with a scanner.

Just scan your receipts into the NeatReceipts software. The program will automatically crop, rotate and resize the receipt image, then apply patented Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and character analysis technology to read and understand the text on the receipt.

The killer feature here is that it uses OCR to extract the information from the recipt, eliminating the need to manually enter the information. It also has some sort of IRS certification so that you can keep the scanned doucments for tax purposes, so you can throw out the paper version.

Currently, Neat Receipts on works on Windows XP (a Vista beta is available). They are working on a Mac version for release in 2008, in which I’ve signed up to be notified. The Neat Receipts scanner and softare are $229.

I purchased the mid range Canon Optura 200MC less than a year ago. This was my first video camera and I bought it based on it’s specs, specifically the video quality. A few months ago it started complaining to “REMOVE CASSETTE”. Now with every tape I put in it I get the “REMOVE CASSETTE” message. To make matters worse, when I eject the cassette the tape is still in the machine.

So off to Canon it goes. My only concern is that I couldn’t find the receipt that shipped with it so I put in a copy of the email receipt. I keep every receipt I get but somehow I disposed with this one. I’ve also read that other owners of recent Canon cameras are having the same problem, so Canon should fix it regardless.

[Update:] $16.00 for shipping with $1000 worth of insurance. I think I would rather they loose it and get the cash back.