At Amersfoort, I believe Alvin (Mach) said that Justin had stayed with him (in Paris?) on his way, so it seems likely that he did make an international trip of some sort. He also mentioned that he missed his flight from there.

I'd like to publicly thank Mark Cushman here.

I won't get into how he did it, I'll leave that up to him. But I was just emailed a tracking number. We'll see if it's legit and how it works out, but I really appreciate Mark's effort and everyone's support on this regardless of how it turns out.

Mark, you rock. Everyone, go install Palantir now!

Thank you very much for helping us out. Dam I don't no how you did it. Just got a tracking number too. I will also let you guys no if I get everthing. What a nightmare this has been. LOL

He should have waited a few more months... It would have been a nice Christmas gift from myself!

LOL, I'll gladly take mine now. Let me when you get it.

???

Hi, I recieved my empeg player from justin. It was missing the two remotes the lens kit and the power adapter and case I paid for. But he did reply to my emial and said he was going to send it to me. Thanks agian Mark and everyone for helping us.

Have you guys received them yet?
Mark care to enlighten us on how you managed to get him to ship the players?

EDIT: doh! I can explain this one I'm not blind, had the post written out and on the preview page hadn't clicked 'continue', got busy at work..

Wow, great news (except for the missing bits, but at least you have some of it). Let's hope the other shipment hits its mark as well. Man, what a TENSE set of months this has been!

According to UPS, mine should arrive today. I'll update after work.

Does this look funny?

I'm guessing that I should email the serial number to someone huh?

without having an MkIIa in front of me at the moment, I think the only thing that looks scrathced out is just copyright info. If this is your first MkIIa, the serial number area on the back of the unit was too small to hold the serial number sticker, so it was never stuck there. It should be on the bottom of the unit.

I am not sure why someone would scratch that stuff off.

This is what the back should look like:


And here's the serial number sticker:

All I did was try to send him an IM... I got his roommate instead. I pointed him to this thread, and said that his reputation was really getting killed and that maybe he ought to do something about it. I think that if we had bugged him via IM more it might have been resolved sooner.

I took a look at my Rio and noticed the same thing...I can't think of any reason someone would file just "some" of the back off... maybe it was an experiment. The serial number is still stuck on the bottom.

Very odd, but could be some "custom mod" that was his preference. You can always verify the serial number in the About menu and on the chip inside. I really hope this isn't shady.

thrasher, is yours ok?

He probably just had his name written on the back with a magic marker. No biggie.

Cheers

Looking at that first pic, it looks like the Rio logo wasn't even there originally...

Very weird.

What sucks is that the only reason I'm even raising an eyebrow at this is because of the circumstances leading upto this. The fact remains that the serial number is still stuck on the bottom and I should be able to get it even if it weren't.

The only thing that I can see that would achieve would be to reduce the chances of someone linking that device to this BBS. Of course, that would also require a custom boot logo, and still wouldn't completely remove traceability - the player software contains enough information to work out what it is. (during boot and via 'About').

I can't see why that would be a useful thing to do. Even if someone was fencing a stolen unit, the buyer would need some software to upload tracks...

And if I were trying to remove serial number traceability, I'd start with the sticker on the bottom, and also remove the serial number box to try and make it appear that maybe it didn't have a serial number at all.

I think it's just a personal preference thing. Maybe that text got scratched somehow and he decided it looked better like that.

If the player was upgraded I could see doing that just to be a smart ass or maybe he didn't want the Rio name on there and didn't get around to doing the one on the top.

Here's the reason... horses mouth and all:

Justin : ooh.. lol it was just to make it descrete
Justin : becuase i didt want the rio logo on there
Justin : just the empeg logo like the normal MKII
Justin : i didt liek the idea the rio bought them out