Actually I have done something similar to this at my home. My kids (now aged 12 and 10) have been using Ubuntu for the past 3-4 years for their school projects. The older one (my daughter) is more resistant to technology in general. She doesn't like using computers :-)

My son has realised that I am never going to buy a Windows PC for him. Leave alone MS Office. The township here uses the Mac. Also, they have seen Windoze on my dual-boot laptop (on Ubuntu right now as I write this) and on my wife's laptop. I have been able to help them with their presentations (using Impress), their documents with Writer and it has been fairly painless.

I believe conditioning is all that is needed to get kids to realise that there is more than one way to do things. Getting them used to 3 operating systems at this young age and getting to see that it is nothing different has been uplifting. They have learned to live with this - and even enjoy the wider variety of games available for Ubuntu.

I also know that I am probably the only parent that does this with his kids. As a matter of fact, I have asked everyone around, and I have yet to meet anyone else that walks the walk - with their family, not just themselves.

Indian Rediff

Mod parent up!

This is certainly something to think about. I wish I had mod points today!

I remember going to one of these big box retailers - I vaguely remember it to be The Wiz (sometime known as Nobody beats The Wiz) and buying a VCR or a DVD payer (I forget which). The salesman told me about the extended service plan. I told him that I don't need one. He said, 'Sir, it is simple. Please buy the extended service plan. It will cost you $45.00. But you have 3 days within which you can come back to the store and cancel it. Please do it for my sake'

I did buy the extended service plan and then canceled it a couple of days later.

One other time, when I was buying one of those ultra-cheap DVD players ($20 or so) from Circuit City (I think - it could have Best Buy too) and the sales guy tried to foist a $25 extended waranty on me). When I told him that it would be cheaper for me to buy 2 of the players, instead of his warranty, he didn't know where to look.

All in all, pretty sad the way they catch unwary customers.

I can attest to this. I have received a similar snail mail letter from First Union. I had opened an account many moons ago - when they were still called First Fidelity. I changed my bank for unrelated reasons and closed my account, my overdraft account, my business' account and my safe deposit account. All fine.

Suddenly they decided to charge me fees for the overdraft account - about 8 years after I had closed it.

I called them and they found that internally, they had just moved their data from an old system to a new system.

Initially I was absolutely petrified that someone had stolen my identity. Fortunately, the phone call proved that my concerns, although valid, were unnecessary.

The reason for the problem was that the integration of First Fidelity's accounts into the new system.

I would hazard that something similar may have happened - some bank acquired by BofA had data that got onto the new BofA system and triggered the alert.