Saturday, November 23, 2013

Unimpressed with CreditSesame.com - A Review

After listening to Marketplace Money on NPR this morning, I decided to try CreditSesame.com after they discussed tools to managing your finances. I decided on CreditSesame because I've tried Credit Karma and I don't like to use anything Intuit (i.e. Mint.com) if possible. After 15 minutes, I'm thoroughly unimpressed.

Thoughts

  • During the registration process, there is a place to set your financial goals.  CreditSesame seems to forget that I just want to sign-up.  I don't want to have to set goals to just get in for the first time.  The only way I could proceed was to make some dummy goals (which defeats the point).  This needs to be rethought!

  • The UI of the website is less than impressive.  For example, entering or confirming expenses like PMI on our mortgage is very unclear -- do you want the monthly or annual amount?

  • On my Dashboard, it recommends that I enroll in their free credit monitoring despite the fact that I enrolled during registration.  Why must you nag more about something I already did?

  • On the My Credit page, I get a badge for using my credit wisely and then a warning that "Your credit card balances may be getting close to your credit limits".  Strange warning when the same page reports my credit usage at only 2%.  I guess that is too much!

  • It seems the main point of anything I do is to sell me a $9.95 credit report.  Yes, I know their service is free however

  • I get random errors using the site like this.  One thing that bothered me was that the Java stacktrace is publicly visible.  This is a security no-no in the web world and this place has my SSN!Image


My Rating: I deleted my account!

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Micro Python: Python for Microcontrollers

Micro Python: Python for Microcontrollers

I backed this Kickstarter for £28 (includes £4 for shipping to the USA).  Sounds like a bunch of fun over Arduino.

Micro Python is a lean and fast implementation of the Python programming language that is optimized to run on a microcontroller.  The Micro Python board is a small electronic circuit board that runs the Micro Python language.  The aim of this Kickstarter campaign is to make Micro Python open source software so you can use it in your own projects, and also to fund a small manufacturing run of Micro Python boards so that you can own one for yourself!