(And what about Rio? you might wonder. Well, hopefully TheAymster’s return to the blogosphere will encourage me to post on Rio as well…).

No!No!, Where did you go?

I’m being totally honest. Living. I have been busy being someone and that doesn’t afford me the time to No!No! Yes, it was easier & faster to use a razor than to use the No!No! But after about a 3 or 4 month hiatus I can say this for the product. It works… There is less hair. I noticed it yesterday and was shocked to see that yeah, there’s less there to contend with. I have bald patches! BALD PATCHES!!!! They are very small – in between the hairs, but they are there. It all has to do with the growth cycle of the follicles.

Now had I been diligent and used the tool as it was intended I’d probably be able to report to you a hairless body or at least close to it. It just goes to show that sticking to something is better, but like anyone – I was discouraged because I wasn’t seeing immediate results. Yes, I am human after all and not a mutant… at least, deep down. Still recommend the product.

LATER!

TheAymster

To be continued…

Related post(s)

• NoNo post – day 51 – Eureka! (2)
• NoNo post – day 42 – Definite Results (0)
• NoNo post – day 24 – Some progress (3)
• NoNo post – day 18 – What’s up with that? (0)
• NoNo posts – days 5 to 12 (0)

Day 51 – Eureka!

I have finally figured out the one flaw in the design here people and it’s not in the No!No! itself. The system has only one place where it falls short and that is the little sanding disc you are given.

Now, before I go into why it’s so bad, I’ll just save you some time and tell you what to get to replace it. Go get a pedicure or foot sanding thing. You know. Those things in pedicure kits that look like an emery board for an elephant. Yeah! They take callouses off of your heels. Here’s why the No!No!’s is no good. First, it’s on a piece of foam with two flaps cut into it so you can hang on while you sand. Mine just fell apart. Also, the sand paper on it (I don’t know what else to call it) is like 1000 grit. It’s so fine, it feels like nothing is happening — and actually, so little is happening that I have had to continue shaving to get rid of the burnt up hairs that weren’t being sanded off!

So! GET THE NO!NO!, but throw that little, stupid sanding disc in the garbage! Useless. I believe they call it a “Buffer”. Toss it out and get something that heel sanding thing. Now I don’t have to shave anymore!.. YAY!!!

LATER!

TheAymster

To be continued…

Related post(s)

• NoNo post – Where did you go? (1)
• NoNo post – day 42 – Definite Results (0)
• NoNo post – day 24 – Some progress (3)
• NoNo post – day 18 – What’s up with that? (0)
• NoNo posts – days 5 to 12 (0)

Day 42 – Definite Results

After 6 weeks of using the No!No! I can honestly tell you that the hair is growing in finer than before. If I do shave it takes the hair a day to come back, where before I got a five o’clock shadow! Wish I could tell you the hair is totally gone, but like anything, it takes time. Some areas are doing better than others. I’m pretty thankful for the progress so far and I’m sure it will continue. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted. I’ll keep enjoying the smell of burning hairs and the infrequency of shaving for the time being.

LATER!

TheAymster

To be continued…

Related post(s)

• NoNo post – Where did you go? (1)
• NoNo post – day 51 – Eureka! (2)
• NoNo post – day 24 – Some progress (3)
• NoNo post – day 18 – What’s up with that? (0)
• NoNo posts – days 5 to 12 (0)

Day 24 – Some progress

It’s been over 3 weeks of using the no!no! and I think there’s some progress being made. I have noticed my bikini area seems to be responding the best along with my armpits and my legs running up at the end – Which is rather sad. What’s the first thing a guy notices? Your LEGS!!! But, having said that, shaving is much, much easier and the results much smoother.

My leg hair is quite coarse, so I believe that it is coming back finer. This is following in line with what the no!no! promises, so it is living up to it’s reputation. Anything worth having is worth working for girls! Go for the gusto… And fry you wiry little suckers!!!

Later!

TheAymster

To be continued…

Related post(s)

• NoNo post – Where did you go? (1)
• NoNo post – day 51 – Eureka! (2)
• NoNo post – day 42 – Definite Results (0)
• NoNo post – day 18 – What’s up with that? (0)
• NoNo posts – days 5 to 12 (0)

I can’t wait to see if I bought the wrong machine or not. I mean, I rather I didn’t, for I paid loads of money for the Rio machine, but if NoNo is better, hey, I’ll be the first one to want to know. As you know, I do not work for Rio, I just want those black hairs gone!! Even if it means throwing my Rio machine and getting a different Hair Remover machine, it it proves to work better!

Day 18 – What’s up with that? (originally published June 24, 2008)

I think I’m doing something right on my arms and bikini area and something wrong on my legs. I can definitely notice a slowing down of the growth in my pits and bikini, but my legs have me stupefied! I’d love to be able to not worry about the hair on my legs anymore, but it looks like that is the most stubborn stuff there is! What’s it made of? TEFLON???

Well, I’ll keep trying. The good news is that I think I’m making progress. I’ll just have to be more thorough with my bottom half.

Later!

TheAymster

To be continued…

Related post(s)

• NoNo post – Where did you go? (1)
• NoNo post – day 51 – Eureka! (2)
• NoNo post – day 42 – Definite Results (0)
• NoNo post – day 24 – Some progress (3)
• NoNo posts – days 5 to 12 (0)

Nono – day 4 (originally published on June 8, 2008)

Day 4 – Challenges and rewards

I am the mistress pit hair slayer!!! I am able to get into all the crevises and burn it away.

However, my legs are another story. No matter how many times I go over a spot I just can’ seem to get close enough. I am convinced that it has to do with the way the hair is lying. If I can give myself the shivers and the hairs stand up, then I will have more success. I could also use some Electric Shave to make them stand on end. We shall see, we shall see… In the meantime I keep on going.No reduction yet. I’ll keep trying. It’s only been 4 days people! These are mutant hairs!!! Throw me a frickin’ bone!

Later!

Nono – day 7 (originally published on June 12, 2008)

Day 7 – I am a mutant

Well, perhaps that’s a bit strong, but I am certain that I have not had enough time with this machine. My leg hair is coarse and strong. I tried it on my arm on the second day and that hair is just now growing back. So, I’m not giving up. I’m not even a little concerned about long term results. I refuse to believe that this purchase has been in vain. I see it’s working. I smell the burnt hair.

If anything, I am determined to see this through.

Later!

Nono – day 12 (originally published on June 17, 2008)

Day 12 – Hankering for hairless

I’ve been seeing the no!no! on HSN for the past couple of days. It’s interesting watching them use the product. Lots of people called with questions. Something I learned that I didn’t know… When the cartridge is done, the light actually goes from green to red. Which is good. I was wondering if I’d worn one out yet or not.

I’ve also gotten a lot better at burning the hairs. I was way too quick before. Once I slowed down, I found that I could roll the no!no! backwards and go over the same spot without being burned. This came in really handy as you do have to continuously go over some places to burn the hairs… This is NOT, repeat, NOT the no!no!’s fault. It has to do with the angle of the hairs. So, I’ll need to be a little more thorough in some spots.

TheAymster

To be continued..

Related post(s)

• NoNo post – Where did you go? (1)
• NoNo post – day 51 – Eureka! (2)
• NoNo post – day 42 – Definite Results (0)
• NoNo post – day 24 – Some progress (3)
• NoNo post – day 18 – What’s up with that? (0)

So today, ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present, the first of the The NoNo posts, by TheAymster.

Nono – day 1 (originally published on June 5, 2008)

My First Day…

I just got my new, beautiful, blue No!No! in the mail. I was so excited I watched the DVD immediately. According to the DVD it’s very easy to use and the only places you shouldn’t use it are the head, breasts and genetalia. It also helps to be careful how you use it and clean it out periodically for better performance. Pretty nice and informative… But who cares!!! Let’s BURN SOME HAIR! Mwaa-ha-ha-haaa!

I can tell you that putting the thing together was a snap. Too easy to talk about. Snap in a blade and you’re ready to go! They tell you to try it on flat surfaces first. I can see why. If you’ve got trim legs, angles are tough.

The smell of burning hair is very apparent, but if it gets my hair down to a minimum or gone completely, I’m all for it. I’ve done worse things in the name of beauty. When you get one leg completely done, which takes about as much time as an electric razor, you have to buff it with the buffer. If you had long hair at the beginning then you have to use the longer hair cartridge, then buff, then use the stubble cartridge and then buff again. Sounds like a lot, but it’s no big deal.

I couldn’t help myself, I did every area on my body I no longer wanted to shave. I mastered the NO!NO! so fast it wasn’t even funny. I’m loving it… Long term results I’ll have to let you know.

Later!

TheAymster

Nono – day 2 (originally published on June 6, 2008)

The Second Day…

Well, I’ve been burning the hair away again today. Not much change from having to shave so far. They promise a reduction in hair growth, so it’ll take a little time I’m sure for the results to be noticable. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. In the meantime, it’s great fun.

I’ve taken my sweet time when using the machine today. I started with my pits today, which may have been a mistake considering that it’s only my second time using. A couple of times I did notice a bit of burning. It’s really hard getting all the valleys.

I did just my legs and pits today. Working well. Don’t expect totally smooth legs. I’m more interested in the disruption of the hair folicle. I want readers to understand that this product is not designed to make your legs silky smooth from the get go. It’s meant to burn off the hair and create a disruption in the growth cycle that will hopefully one day put an end to the growth of the hair.

I do love a good challenge and can’t resist the burning of the hair. Sizzle you suckers!

TheAymster

Nono – day 3 (originally published on June 7, 2008)

Oh yes, Day 3!

You’re probably thinking… She’s gotten results already? But all I can say is that it has gotten easier to use this machine. The curved areas aren’t so bad. I still love hearing them sizzle… Those hairs have given me so much heartache in past years they’re finally getting what’s coming to them!!!

I did my bikini area today which I skipped yesterday and I may go do my legs later yet today. Still some time left to burn them up.

Later!

TheAymster

To be continued…

Related post(s)

• NoNo post – Where did you go? (1)
• NoNo post – day 51 – Eureka! (2)
• NoNo post – day 42 – Definite Results (0)
• NoNo post – day 24 – Some progress (3)
• NoNo post – day 18 – What’s up with that? (0)

with my posts on the Rio machine posts, I have been sharing with you my impressions on the machine as I battled against those unwanted ever-growing hairs. The intention as you all know, is to help you decide whether buying the Rio machine is worth it or not, as the machine costs a fair amount.

When I was first thinking about buying it myself or not, I went to quite a few web sites where users had commented on the Rio Salon Laser Scanning Hair Remover (ok, from now, I will use the Amazon acronym Rio LAHS, the name is ridiculously long!). I was not very convinced with the user comments I found, as they all posted just a week after buying the product and never again afterwards, and the instructions of the Rio LAHS clearly say that it takes quite a few months to see its results (not because the machine is slow, but because the process is slow. It takes the same amount of time if you go to a professional salon! or so they say…). And this is how the idea of the olivetalks posts on Rio came up. The second thing that was initially stopping me from purchasing this machine was not knowing if the Rio LAHS was better or not from other similar products like no!no! or TRIA. At the end, I just went for the one I “had the feeling” I had read less comments against and… was easier for me to get (as in it was the only one advertised in the on line shopping magazine I had received a few weeks earlier).

So where am I getting at with this long introduction? Well, wouldn’t you agree that even better than reading about someone’s experiences over a period of a year on the Rio LAHS to see if it is good or not, it would be reading about someone’s experiences on the Rio machine AND the other Hair Remover machines? This way you would be able to compare them better and choose the one that convinces you most! Am I not right?

Well, today I am glad to announce the beginning of… No!No! Hair Remover posts in olivetalks!

No, I did not buy myself a No!No! machine, as my pocket is still recovering from buying the Rio one. And no, the No!No! producers did not send me a free “sample” to try and comment on (did they not get the hint from one my comments in the Rio post day 9?). But in olivetalks we are going to offer you the second best thing: guest posts on No!No!

One of our readers has been kind enough to agree to move her No!No! posts to olivetalks and this way provide other people in the same situation as us more information on the different hair removal machines out there. Isn’t she nice?

And additionally to her posts, we will be having entries on the differences between the Rio machine and No!No!, interviews,…

So watch out, readers, because the No!No! posts from TheAymster are coming to olivetalks! And to you TheAymster, welcome!

All the best,

LadyRostand

Related post(s)

• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? update 2 (14)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? day 10 (11)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? day 9 (16)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? day 8 (15)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? armpits area (day 4) (10)

The pros they advertise in their page are true. In their shared baby and swamp web hosting packages you do get what they say, including the most attractive features:

• unlimited domains (as in, in one account you can add as many domains as you want)
• 6,000 GB of bandwidth in the baby package and unlimited in the swamp one
• 600 GB of disk space in the baby package and 1,000 GB in the swamp one
• unlimited MySQL databases (important if you are going to install Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla or other packages)
• Fantastico: easy one-click installation of most of the known scripts/CMS
• …

And an advantage which I have tested myself on a dozen of occasions by now and has always been excellent: answers from their support quick (usually in less than 6 hours) and helpful.

But, these pros and perks of Hostgator have a hidden side to them, which you will see when I explain the cons I have “suffered”.

Now the cons, or fine print details that you should consider before getting one package or another or even deciding if Hostgator is good enough for you. Right now I know of three cons. They have appeared at different times and although they haven’t made me switch to another web hosting provider, they have made me frown at them for a few hours/days. As I said, they do mention them, but until you understand what they mean, they sound like unimportant, when they are not. I am going to describe the three cons and when should you take them into account and take appropriate measures.

1. “Users may not: Use 25% or more of system resources for longer then 90 seconds”

Translation: if you have many web pages or visitors or scripts, even if you have unlimited space, bandwidth, etc., you might use up more than 25% of the CPU, which would cause them to shut down your service. So far it only happened once when a cron job lost the pot: they automatically shut down my cron job facilities without any warning and without me realizing till two weeks later. I say lost the pot because I still don’t really understand what happened. After talking to their support, they enabled the option again.

2. “The use of more than 50,000 inodes on any shared account may potentially result in suspension.”

Translation: each file and directory counts as an inode. When I encountered this problem, less than a week ago, I searched for explanations of the problem in several forums and I found quite a few places where people were saying that 50,000 inodes is such a large number that surely people that fret over them are exaggerating. Then how come I got two of my three Hostgator accounts with quotas above the inode limit? and not above by a few inodes, I’m talking about a few tens of thousands in one and even a hundred thousand in another! With a week to reduce the amount of inodes within the allowed quota, I’ve had to do some research to understand it better. I mean, I had 50 GB of my 600 GB disk full. How come I had over 200,000 inodes? Two things to know regarding inodes: how to find out how many do you have and how many inodes do different programs/scripts generate. I am working on two follow-up posts, one with instructions on how to obtain the number of inodes of your account or folders and a second one with a table with the number of inodes that standard packages like Wordpress or Moodle have to start with. So the problem is, you might have quite a large amount of disk space, but you cannot have more than 50,000 files, which means 12 MB per file if you were to use the 600 GB. An image displayed on a web page is usually around 30 to 50 kB and a simple html page say around 100 kB… so the magnanimous disk space will be usually unachievable, due to other restrains, and a bit of a misleading offer. Then again, you could use the extra disk space for backups, if not for many web pages.

3. “Mail policy and limits: There is a 200 hourly email limit per domain. If you send over this amount in any hour, most of the e-mails will bounce back with a undeliverable error.”

Translation: Now this policy I did not find in the Terms and Service page. You have to go search for it in their Knowledge pages. Again, surely 200 emails per hour are enough? Think about it, if you have one email account, it is unlikely you’ll ever send 200 emails in an hour. But what if you create 10 accounts? That means that each user should not send more than 20 emails in an hour. Doable? sure… unless you are emailing your siblings, which means you send an email to say two people, they answer and you reply again to both of them and… you can only do it 10 times in an hour. Still ok? The Hostgator offer is “Unlimited mail accounts”… sure, but the moment you have a few users, you will reach the maximum number of emails allowed per hour a lot quicker. It seems Yahoo mail has a limit between 25 and 100 emails per hour, depending on the account and Googlemail 60 per hour. And Hostgator only gives you 200 although you could in theory create a hundred email accounts. By the way, each email counts as an inode! So if you have 20 email accounts with say 500 emails in their accounts each (you can make their inboxes as big as you want, so why not be generous?), that’s 10,000 inodes. But when this really matters is when you have some package installed like Moodle or any other which relies on emails to inform students/members of any news. Say you have a Moodle installation with one course and 5 forums. Say 9 students enrol and there is one tutor. If you want all the students and the tutor to receive an email when somebody comments, that’s 10 emails that will be sent. Say a student enters the course and comments on all 5 forums, one after the other: that’s 50 emails. If another student happens to participate in the forums in the same hour, that’ll be another 10 emails per comment. Add to that exercises (and emails sent to the tutor letting him/her know) and then offer a few courses and you can reach the 200 email limit very easily.

Update: just when I was about to publish this post I decided to contact Hostgator live chat and ask about this email limit. It seems that from quite recently the limit has been increased to 500 emails per hour and that it’s 500 emails per hour per domain, not per hosting service as I thought. So, for example, if in one hosting package you have 3 domains, each of them has a 500 email limit. That still means that if you have 10 email accounts under one domain, you have 500 emails per hour to be divided among those 10 emails. Furthermore, there is a 60 pop-check per hour per domain. This means that if you are checking your email using Thunderbird or MS Outlook, you can only do it 60 times per hour. More than enough. If you have 5 email accounts, each can only check it, 12 times in an hour. If you have 20 accounts, each person should maximum check for new emails every 20 minutes. And if a user has a quick finger, other users might not be able to check their emails in an hour. And you still have to remember that each email is an inode! You can check out the complete new mail policy of Hostgator here.

Some conclusions:

Hostgator’s offer is very good, but you should consider what packages are you going to need (Moodle, b2evolution, Xoops, WebCalendar…), how many emails do you think you’ll need to send per hour, how many domains you’ll want to host and their inodes sizes, etc., before deciding what web hosting you need. You might need a few web hosting accounts, in Hostgator or any other provider! Getting a few hosting accounts could still be cheaper than a semi-dedicated or dedicated server and if you take into account the limitations of the service I’ve described, it can help you choose the best hosting package and distribution of domains per hosting account for your project/situation.

To know how to obtain the inode count of your folders, check out my next post. And if you need any help on deciding what would be the best option for you, do comment, and I’ll be happy to help you out.

Related post(s)

• Inodes 28 weeks later… (2)
• The return of the inodes – tell me your package and I’ll tell you your inodes (6)
• The attack of the inodes – how to find out your number (11)
• Security problem with WordPress (2)
• php.ini, symlink and moodle: I’m calling it the php.ini fiasco (0)

And so I still believed until more and more examples of the contrary have appeared in my life. We wanted lamps for the house. For my office: a 10-euro-halogen standing lamp. Quite simple, bare, white, metallic… un-fancy. I did not need any more. For the living room, (where people show off their quality??) a 30-euro-halogen standing lamp, with parallel “feet”, covered in a classy dark-brown layer of granulated material, with a top glass plate. I can move my lamp about without much effort and it’s been working without a glitch for over a year now. The expensive lamp has never really stood straight, is a heavy monster and besides making noise, it has shocked me twice already when turning on the light and has made the bulb burst twice (the two events were not related, by the way).

Another example: the static bicycle ZoltarStark mentioned in his The challenge continue post. We spent a whole week comparing prices and the perks you’d get in each price range. We finally went for a more expensive one, with loads of cool stuff. The cool stuff has never worked properly. Sure, we could have returned it, but 1. we decided that a crappy bike was better than no bike; 2. if we had returned it, my present post would not have been as cool, now would it?

Six and a half years ago, when I was off to Ireland to do my PhD, my father bought me a 3000 EUR Acer laptop with 64 MB of RAM and a 9 GB hard-disk. That laptop worked without a glitch for 5 years. It might actually still be working, for all I know. And I say it might because someone “borrowed” it from a hotel in Bogotá over a year ago, and we have not heard from it since… snif. By the way, if that person reads this, could you tell us if it’s still working? We won’t ask for it back, promise! Three years ago I got myself a 1200 EUR DELL laptop with 1 GB of RAM and a 60 GB hard-disk. Allowing for time difference and the drop in laptop’s prices, I had expected my new laptop to be at least as good as the Acer one. My DELL laptop… cannot be called a laptop anymore. Its card reader slot and Ethernet port stopped working a year and a half ago, as the left back-side suffered from overheating. The laptop is placed over 4 tiny dictionaries that hold it 3 cm over the desk to allow air to circulate as the fans struggle to deal with the heat. When you tell it to open a file from Windows Explorer, you can sing Andrea Bocelli’s Vivo per lei three times before it actually responds. Oh, Windows needs to be reinstalled from time to time for it to continue working properly you say? I could reinstall Windows, you say? Yeah… the screen stopped working a year ago. It’s been plugged to an external screen since then and you can only see stuff when it’s already finished booting. I basically have the poor thing running Thunderbird and that’s it. I’m using a, yet another, new laptop which only has Linux installed, in case you wondered what was I typing from.

And finally la crème of this post: the products that prompted me to write this… dissertation on failing products and pocket pains. Last summer we bought a portable DVD player. As with the bike, we researched, we compared prices, we informed ourselves of the options, we blah bla blahed a bit more… and finally went to MediMax and bought the cheapest they had: a Xoro HSD7100 7” portable DVD player for 100 EUR, which according to some pages could, maybe, be convinced to play multiregion DVDs. Not long afterwards we followed the same research path for normal DVD players and instead of getting the cheapest one in the shop, we bought a Phillips DVP5960 DVD player in the mid-price region, looking for better picture quality, sound and whatnot.

Xoro played multiregion DVDs from the start. It also plays.. well, basically anything you throw at it. It is quick to respond, its battery life is almost 3 hours and once you accept portable DVD players do make some noise when playing DVDs, its sound is excellent. My brother bought a DVD player not long ago which cost almost twice the price and it might have a 9” screen and run for longer, but is picky as hell as to what it wants to play.

Phillips takes 10 seconds to respond to the Power on command. And another 5 to open the door, making it quite annoying when you forgot to remove the DVD before powering it off. It makes as much noise, if not more, as Xoro (which is NOT normal for DVD players). The remote is more temperamental than a Chihuahua after being stuck in a box for the duration of a transatlantic flight. And if it improves the image quality, well, you’d have to have better eyesight than Superman to notice it. It does play multiregion DVD, after you introduce a code, though…

Conclusion to all this rambling… buy pretty things, for there is no guarantee in quality anymore, and save to be able to replace your purchases in case you did not stumble by chance on a good product.

PS. El Xorro wins of course!

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• Convert videos to audio (1)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? day 4 (3)
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