Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

In spite of the economy, we all need to be optimistic about the future. If you expect the bird of paradise to crap on your head, more than likely it will. If you anticipate being rejected, most likely you will. However if you approach the New Year with anticipation, with hope and with courage, you will probably find yourself having a good year. It may simply mean that you are impacting the world around you rather than just letting the world impact you. Our world is frequently how we see it. My name is not Pollyandy! I truly believe that perseverance, hard work, optimism and for want of a better description, positive thinking make a difference. I was the first person in my family to get a college education. My high school counselor told me that I was never going to get into college. Hmm, with a master’s degree and most of a doctorate, I wonder what happen. I had an accountant tell me one time to close the doors on my business and declare bankruptcy. Instead I just worked harder and 20 p...

My 12 volt air compressor died recently. It uses a lead acid sealed battery similar to what is in a UPS. I pulled the battery and got the info off of it and went battery hunting. From the original equipment manufacturer it was $30 plus shipping. I compared prices for a new unit similar to mine and was looking at roughly $60 so I figured replacing the battery was more cost effective. I shopped around and the best price I found was at Battery Mart . They had a good price on the battery and weren’t trying to recoup it on the shipping. Total cost with shipping was $25 and change. They shipped immediately and I had the battery in a couple of days. I will use them again and I suggest you look at them for your battery needs. This is not a paid blog and I have no relationship whatsoever with Battery Mart except as a customer. A caveat for when battery shopping, when the battery has those spade connectors, pull the leads off and measure, do not measure from the base. Apparently F1 is 3/1 6” and...

Well not melting but definitely perplexed, this blog has fallen off the Google Page Rank radar. I was all the way up to a Page Rank of 2 (I know big woop!) and when I checked the other day, I have zip, zero, no page rank. I actually get more hits on this blog than I get on my book blog, Pick of the Literate and it has a page rank of three. I don’t know if I am not getting enough comments, links or whatever. I have read scads of blogs on how to improve page rank but none of them have dealt with a disappearing page rank. I try and link to stuff I find that is appropriate to the blog or what ever I am discussing but outside of that I am stumped. If you have any ideas and want to comment, do so!

If you are feeling frenzied, here is a solution. Blue Nile has free overnight shipping up until 6:00 P.M. EST. Blue Nile sells jewelry and their prices are very competitive. I researched them before I bought there and they came out with a very positive rating from Reseller Ratings . My order came promptly, it was priced competitively and the piece is beautiful. I have no financial connection to Blue Nile nor is this a paid blog, it is merely a life line for those of us, often male who find that time is short and ideas are sparse. Jewelry always trumps just about anything. And fellow men, remember lingerie for your significant other is really a gift from you to you, and they know it.

It is the season to spend money, falala lala la la. I have always researched my purchases but since I have retired I have moved to the obsessive research category. I use a lot of different sites and find deals in a lot of places. I have used PriceGrabber for years and it is generally pretty good. I read that PriceSpider was suppose to be good. I registered at the site and did a search on LCD TVs. It shows lots of prices and has a little spinning in progress wheel that infers it is doing a current update. I did a search on the Sylvania HD/LCD TV, 32”, pn# LC320SS9. $399.00 was the best price on the search not including shipping. Amazon was at $699.00 with free shipping. Since it was fat paper day, I pulled out the Kmart circular and found the Sylvania for $429.00, no shipping and no handling but since I am a PA resident, 6% sales tax for a total of $454.00. Price Spider showed Kmart but showed their base price at $549.00 plus tax. If you click the shop now button and go to the Kmart s...

Admittedly I am a cynic about the emails that request sending some ill person a card because they are trying to get into the Guinness book of records or some sort of thing. I got this email and checked Snopes because I assumed it was another hoax. Snopes stated that it was true. Since it is too sad for words, I will just insert the email as I received it. Please check other hoax sites if you have doubts about it’s authenticity but I don’t and I sent a card to a very sick little girl who wants to get a lot of Christmas cards. Hannah's Christmas Wish This is the true story of my 5-yr old 2nd cousin, Hannah Garman, who was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a rare and incurable brain tumor. She was going to be the flower girl in our wedding in May, but was diagnosed a week after we asked her to be the flower girl. This is especially sad because her mother died 2 yrs ago from breast cancer. Right now she has lost most of her motor skills. She is confined to bed and cannot really d...

Once upon a time in a land, not far from here, the evil financial Gluttons scammed the public to their hearts content with a constant plucking of the golden goose. One day they realized that they had plucked every feather from the golden goose and there were no more feathers to be had. Oh, what would they do? How could they fuel their private jets? What would become of professional sports if they couldn’t buy their privileged boxes? The economy would fail without their gluttonous spending. One bright ogre suggested they go to the King and ask him to give them money from the treasury to enable them to continue their gluttony. The others scoffed, who would be that stupid, to give us gold without controlling how we spend it. The bright ogre said, “our parliament is that stupid.” The evil financial Gluttons looked at each other and said, “He’s right, they are that stupid, they will give us the money and not restrict our continued gluttony”. And that Virginia, is why Santa Claus is bankru...

Hosing kids is just wrong. That is what I feel is occurring with the Bakugan toys. Kids watch the TV show and they want them. In an economic climate of despair, a toy of limited “real” value with an exorbitant price just seems wrong. If you got some kind of value for your money perhaps I wouldn’t be so outraged but these things look to be worth a buck and they sell for way more. I researched one by request of my grandson and the best price I could find was $35.00. This is for a toy that looks like it should be found in Crackerjack boxes, remember the free toys in Crackerjack? I am aware that you can just say NO to the purchase of the product and in a free economy the manufacturer is justified in selling their product for what ever exorbitant price they can get. It just frosts me that they can use these preteen infomercials to create a market, promote an erroneous perception of value by alluding to the collector value of the toy (yeah right) and instigate conflict over the purchase of...

Are you looking for a Christmas gift that is unlikely to be duplicated? Give a fire extinguisher and be reasonably sure no one else will have give that gift. Fire extinguishers have traditionally been hidden in closets or mounted out of the way due to their bulky size and bright red color. Due to their inaccessibility fire extinguishers often aren’t used when needed. Home Hero has designed an elegant looking extinguisher that can sit unobtrusively on your kitchen counter. This is one of those things you hope to never need but having one close at hand could save you a world of grief. This was not a paid blog.

Gear Head DPF100 Digital Photo Frame - 8-4DPF100 I love these digital frames. This is the best bang for the buck I have seen on one this season, $44.95 with free shipping. I put one up by the kitchen sink and I love seeing my kids and grandkids photos. The grandkids love to sit at the counter and point out themselves, Daddy and Mommy. If you are looking for a gift, this is a winner. This is not a paid blog and I have no financial relationship with buy.com except as a customer. Manufacturer: Gear Head Mfg Part#: 8-4DPF100 UPC: 00878260001132 Buy.com Sku: 206209157 Item#: E32VGL Photos stored on PCs or on memory cards can now be shared with loved ones on this flawless Gear Head 8.4" digital photo frame. Memories are the greatest gifts. The Gear Head 8.4" Digital Photo Frame Includes: USB 2.0 Card Reader: This photo frame works as a USB 2.0 card reader when you plug it into your computer's USB port with a maximum transmission speed of 480Mbps. Slideshow Photo Viewing: The G...

Space is definitely not infinite in my computer. If nature abhors a vacuum, it also seems to abhor empty hard drives. Seems like hard drives fill up just like empty closets acquire hangers. There are many, many solutions to this problem. An obvious solution is to delete some of the crap on your hard drive. As elegant as that sounds, you would be amazed at how many folks brought their non-functioning computers in for service after they were just deleting some unnecessary files. Just a tip, if you aren’t familiar with the name of the file doesn’t mean your computer doesn’t need it. Linksys has a pretty cool tool that can help the space crisis. It is the NAS200 network attached storage drive. It is an enclosure which will hold two SATA hard drives with two USB 2.0 ports for adding two more drive. It connects via Ethernet so you can hang it off your router and have it accessible to any of the computers on your net. Those of you without a network, it will be accessible through your compute...

If you by chance live in a rural area, you may find your mail box in a tangled heap on occasion. This is due to the retro habit of mail box baseball where the perpetrator leans out a window and waffles your mail box with a baseball bat. In our area we have had idiots with soda bottle bombs destroying mail boxes. The sad truth is that every generation has it’s idiots, one often wonders if there is an idiot gene, but I digress. I don’t know if this mail box will defeat idiots but it will definitely help to decrease the idiocy. The thing is built like a tank. I particularly like the video on their web site ( http://www.mailboss.net/ ) that shows a truck rolling over the mail boss box with out destroying it. So if you need the Fort Knox of mail boxes, this baby may be what you should get. I have no financial connection with Mail Boss and this was not a paid blog. This may or may not fit into tech tips but I thought it was a pretty darn cool mail box.

Exercise, you love it or hate it, there is so little middle of the road feelings on it. I like sports but at my age, my knees are not so fond of anything that involves running, jumping or going sideways. That limits my options somewhat. I play gold and no matter what your opinion my be, it is too a sport. I lift weights and I do Pilates to stay flexible. Frankly a big part of my motivation to exercise is I like to eat. Matter of fact, I love to eat. Thusly exercise is necessary to keep from turning into a blimp. What the heck does this have to do with free audio books? I walk and I ride the exercise bike. I find both boring. Audio books are the saving grace. If I can keep my mind occupied, I can exercise. The library has lots of audio books but it isn’t close. I have found some sites where I can download audio books for FREE. I put them on my Clip (Samsung’s answer to the Ipod Nano. I can walk, ride the bike and still prevent screaming boredom. Audio books also keep me awake, with out...

HIV is more dangerous than DDT or TNT. What makes those three initials so deadly. DDT has been banned and is pretty much an historic problem. TNT is available but not for the average person. Drugs, alcohol and unprotected sex is everywhere, anytime, anyplace you want to find it. Working with addicts in the 70’s was not as depressing as looking at the problem today. In the 70’s most every STD was curable. Getting stoned and stupid didn’t necessarily lead to a life of fear and medical treatment. Today you can change your life with one incident of stupidity. YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE!, and NOT in a good way either! Preaching seldom reaches teens or young adults. Surprising to many adults, rational explanations and a discussion of consequences will be more successful in deterring life threatening behavior. If you are too drunk or wrecked to make rational decisions there is a strong likelihood that you may become prey. Yes Virginia, there are predators out there. They may not look like thugs...

Up until now if you wanted an all in one printer you had to settle for mediocre photos. If you wanted good photos you had to use photo paper. Well, the Canon MX7600 all-in-one will print very good quality with 4800 x 1200 resolution on plain paper, yep, plain paper. Photo paper is expensive. Printing on plain paper can save you some serious bucks. This is a 5 color cartridge system with separate cartridges for each color. If one color runs out, replace it not an expensive three or four color cartridge. The trick is a sixth cartridge with clear ink which treats the paper and allows the color pigment ink to produce good photos. The printer lists for $399.00 but I found it at NewEgg for $299.00 including shipping. B&H photo offers it at $268.00 plus $31.00 shipping so they can get low price in the search engines. I prefer up front honesty such as New Egg. If you need an all in one printer and want decent photos, take a look at this printer. If you are just looking for photos, you sti...

I Like To Whine by William G. Bentrim is now available for purchase at Blurb . Personally, I probably whine too much but this is my book for kids on whining and it’s consequences. It is my first attempt at selling a book. I have books I give away at http://www.bentrim.info/ under free books. A long time desire to actually publish something is the motivating factor on putting I Like to Whine on Blurb . If nothing else check it out and let me know what you think. Of course, if you want to buy a copy, WHOOHOO!

Read some blogs from other countries and give thanks you don’t live there. It takes no courage on my part to write what I think or feel. I am able to express opinions on my government or church with no concern for reprisals. There are folks in other nations that express their opinions and get beaten, have their homes torched or suffer even worse fates. Give thanks that in the gold old US of A we can freely express our thoughts, verbally, on paper or on the net. Give thanks that you have the mind and the computer to even read this missive. Give thanks if you are fortunate enough to spend the day with family and folks you love. Give thanks for the many small blessings that fall into your lap each day. Give thanks for children, for they truly are our future. Happy Thanksgiving Day!

You read my blogs, you follow my advice about finding sites that compare products and prices. You can’t find the product you want at a price you are willing to pay locally. On the web you find a really good price on that product. How do you know if that site is reliable? How do you know if that web site is honest? There are sites that will help you to determine if you are looking at a good place to buy or if you are setting yourself up to be thoroughly skunked. My favorite site to check an online reseller is Reseller Ratings . Not only do they have an easy to understand rating system, they have end user reviews. They also note if a site actively responds to customer concerns. The Safe Shopping network doesn’t rate a site on whether it is a quality site but it does rate on safety of using the site and ease of use of the site. Frankly I don’t find it terribly useful. Reseller Ratings is the best site I have found to get the real skinny on an online reseller.

I am a member of AARP, a gang for old folks. As a gang, we have colors red, white and blue. We have our “do-rags”, AARP ball caps. We also have our club houses, the local senior centers. Somewhat like your street gangs that offer protection to their members, AARP also offers protection. Of course, AARP does not justify their existence with violence or guns. Instead, AARP offers benefits. There has to be some compensation for aging. It sure isn’t the bum knees, the tricky back or the balding head, in this case it is the AARP benefits. I recently re-upped with my AARP dues. It was $39.95 for 5 years. Shortly thereafter I needed to rent a car for several weeks. I did my due diligence and went to all the sites that claim to save you money on car rental. I even went to Bill Shatner’s site, Priceline. Not one of those sites had a price even close to what I got through the AARP site. Even Captain Kirk’s “name your own price” site failed dismally to compete with the AARP site. How much did I s...

Some folks decide to get a new TV and go out and buy it. Others, like me, research it ad nauseum. I hate buying stuff if I don’t know all the particulars. One of the beauties of the web is finding sites that make it easier and cheaper to shop. Product reviews help immensely in making decisions. ConsumerSearch.com is a site that provides reviews and analyzes comments from experts. They evaluate and research and claim they are independent. They admit they do get some revenue from retailers but claim they are still independent. The add about 10 new reports each month. Another site I like is PriceGrabber.com . PriceGrabber seems to have a pretty good cross section of products and vendors. They are a good place to find a low price and even have fairly good product descriptions. Wize.com is another site that you can search products for different attributes and uses. It provides reviews by end users. Reviews by end users can be of limited utility. BestBuys.com is similar in nature. It allo...

Growing up in a small steel town we had a lot of labels for people. Propriety today prevents me from even putting them in print. We had the Lithuanian Club, The Eagles, The Moose, The SOI, The Elks, The Odd Fellows, The Saxon Club, The German Club, The Masons, The Knights of Columbus and I am sure some that I wasn’t even aware existed. Our parents often used the labels with disdain, such as non-union. As kids we didn’t take them as seriously but in the heat of action, such as a fight behind the 5&10, they often came out. I think a good education helped me to divest a great deal of my need for labeling. Getting to know the people behind the labels was a sure fire way to dissuade using a label in a derogatory manner. So now having retired I am struggling with labels again. Retired means old. I may be retired but in no way do I think of myself as old. Retired means unemployed to me, not old. Senior, to me, still means of high school. Somehow I have difficulty ascribing that term to my...

I guess there are folks out there with more time on their hands than I have and I’m retired. My favorite TV shows are Two and Half Men , Chuck , Boston Legal and the jury is still out on Amanda Tapping’s new show, Sanctuary . Once I have them on my TIVO I have a heck of a time, just keeping up with them. I am aware there are lots of movies On Demand on Comcast. We have started many of them and have actually found two we enjoyed. Now if you eliminate sports, I’m watching the Steelers as I write this, you might have more viewing time available. If so you may want to watch movies. How do you get your movies? Well my buddies at Diamond Case Design have the most complete and intelligent overview I have found on how to get movies to your home. Note I do not say to your home entertainment center as DCD does because many of us do not have a “home entertainment center”. Someday when my tube tv’s die I will replace them, in the meantime if I have to see High Def I will visit one of my kids. ...

I don’t care how you feel about our current wars. I don’t care if you hate or love war. I do care if you honor our Veterans. Regardless of your political position, our Veterans have protected your right to have a position. Our Veterans have faced things most of us can not or will not imagine. These are people who have put their money where their mouth is, their life on the line. Please take a moment today and thank whatever deity you believe in for the sacrifices our Veterans have made for us and our country. If you know a Vet, thank them. If you are a Veteran, Thank You!

We rudely discovered after our own Katrina disaster that refugees is not just a word. Today, Bloggers Unite are blogging about refugees. First, you don’t want to be one. Imagine losing your home, running in fear, watching your family disappear, too horrific to contemplate? Thousands of people daily go through those emotions, not just victims of genocide, but victims of natural disasters as well as political incompetence. If blogging about an international problem can jump start some caring, then let’s blog away. Take some time, click on some of these links, maybe you will discover that Refugee isn’t just a word. UK Refugee Services http://www.redcross.org.uk/TLC.asp?id=81617 Lutheran Refugee Services http://www.lirs.org/ Aotearoa-New Zealand Refugee Services http://www.refugeeservices.org.nz/ United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrant Children http://www.refugees.org/ Church World Service Immigrant & Refugee Program http://www.churchworldservice.org/Immigration/index.html W...

How many emails have you gotten today? Justifiable email is reaching choke proportions, let alone the spam avalanche of sexual enhancement, financial security, help me get my millions out of Nigeria and more. Buried alive isn’t just a Halloween concern, it is a day to day experience with email. How to solve the dilemma has occupied a great deal of web space. I use Mail Washer Pro to screen for spam. It grabs all my email before it gets to Outlook. It works fairly well but does lock up about every other week, never had figured out why. It identifies spam with it’s own database, I still do a fast rundown before I process the email which removes the spam. Firetrust which makes MailWasher Pro has a free version as well. I have included the link but as I write this, I am unable to get any Firetrust site links to open. Cnet downloads and other MailWasher downloads are available and working, I don’t know what is up with the Firetrust site. Xobni is currently a free program which will allow...

Enter your name to get the REAL Washington story! First Name: Last Name:

I have noticed a lot of blogs have contests to increase their readership. Since this is a tech blog, I thought if I had a contest I should have a techie prize. Now I am aware that a Tripplite Circuit Tester is only worth $10.00-$15.00, in spite of that, I thought it would provide a modicum of incentive for increased comments on the blog. As in many things, I was wrong. The only comment I got was on the blog bemoaning the fact that no one was commenting. Since that was the only comment I got during the week, that kind hearted soul is the winner of the Tripplite Circuit Tester. Greg at Pittrehab , YOU ARE THE WINNER! The Tripplite Circuit Tester is on the way. Thank you for your comment. In regard to generate more traffic and contests, my guess is bigger, better prizes might help. More interesting or perhaps more controversial blogging most definitely will help. As a retired dude, bigger, better prizes don’t fit the budget. More interesting is based on the beholder; I’m writing it and w...

A Tripplite Circuit Tester goes out to Greg at Pittrehab , Thank You for participating in my contest.

You know what is incredibly scary, truly frightening, sweaty palm, shortness of breath terrifying? The number of people who have bitched and moaned about what is going on in the world who won’t pick their butt up out of their Barcalounger and get out and vote. The voting age population for the last presidential election (United States Election Project for Nov. 2004) was 221,256,931. The estimated number of voters in the 2004 election who actually voted was 122,294,978. This is just shy of 100,000,000 people who were too damn lazy to cast a ballot. The homily that you get what you deserve seems to be appropriate for our nation. All our citizens have the franchise. Our women can vote. Our people of color can vote. Our religious preference has no impact on our right to vote. There are many places in the world where that just isn’t true. I was lucky enough to be the Director of Kids Voting for Southeast Pennsylvania in the 2006 election. I was astounded at the willingness to work of my 1,...

The October issue of Wired magazine had a letter to Mr. Know-it-all from a father wanting to know if he should let his 10 year old son dress for Halloween as the main sleazeball character in Grand Theft Auto IV. Mr. Know-it not so much thinks he may send mixed messages to the poor brain damaged kid if he disapproves of him dressing like his sleazy character but lets him play the game. Mixed messages? This guy isn’t sending mixed messages, he is shouting loud and clear that he can give a damn about the emotional well being of his kid. Scream all you want Grand Theft Auto fans, kids shouldn’t be playing it. Kids do not have the experience or resilience to be exposed to the unsavory themes of this distributing game. Parents, it is ok to say NO! No matter how much they whine, complain, claim ALL their friends play it (maybe new friends are needed) you still can say NO! Parents have a responsibility to provide a wholesome as possible environment for children. Let college corrupt their behav...

You ever want to hook your computer up to your TV? If you have a Tivo and a network it is a piece of cake. Download the Tivo server software onto your computer and you can then see all your graphics files and music files on the Tivo. This is particularly good for showing off your digital photos on a much bigger screen. Conversely, you can save Tivo shows on your computer hard drive and if you want, you can burn them to DVDs. However this does require a Tivo or similar DVR. If you have no Tivo and you want to: n View your digital photos on your large screen TVs n Listen to your music through your home stereo system n View videos stuck on your hard drive on your big screen n Do basic web surfing in your living room or TV room n Show off presentations to family, friends, or co-workers. Our friends at Diamond Case Designs have a very good article in their Home Theater Information Center that gives step by step instructions in “HOW TO” connect your PC and TV. Again, we have no financial...

With all due respect to the Rays and their fans, GO PHILLIES

In the immortal words of Pink Floyd , “Is there anybody out there?” As contests go, this is a bust so far. Not one comment this week, butkus, zip, zero. NO WINNER. It seemed simple enough, comment on one of my blogs and be entered, the more comments on more blogs the more entries. Alas I have stooped to add the sure fire key word, naked, to the title to see if anyone reads this particular post. It is possible that my prize of a Tripplite Circuit Tester is insufficiently attractive to get someone to read my driveling prose. On the other hand, since this is a geek focused blog, why wouldn’t you want a circuit tester unless, of course, you are sufficiently geeky that you already have one. I guess I should be thankful that I have the occasional reader who accidentally stumbles into the twilight zone of my half-witty rending. If my satisfying self expression is predicated on readership I am doomed to a pathetic page rank. However if satisfying self expression is just the act itself of self ...

Has this happened to you? Has your computer hard drive ever taken a nose dive into oblivion? Don’t despair there is hope. If you have had a computer for any length of time, you probably have had a hard drive failure. In and of itself a hard drive failure isn’t necessarily horrible if you have a good backup. However that is a seriously big IF! Most people intend to do backups, some think they do backups but very few actually do backups. So what if your hard drive crashes and you have no backup? The other night a friend approached me at my favorite watering hole and told me that her hard drive had died. She was practically distraught in that all of her family photos were on that drive and she had no backup. I pulled out my key chain and read a name and phone number off of my led flashlight. The company I recommended was Drive Savers. Why do you recommend things or services? I make recommendations based on my experiences, sometimes on reviews but most comfortably based on my experiences. ...

This is the best attention getting, non-partisan ad for encouraging the vote I have ever seen. Feel in your name and watch the video. AARP 08 Video Enter your name to see who can bring real change to Washington. First Name: Last Name:

Just For Making Comments I will give away one Tripplite Circuit Tester each week for the next four weeks to whoever posts the most comments on my blog. Please don’t comment successively, if there are two in a row by the same person, it will only count as one. I will keep track of the comments for each week and announce each week’s winner here. Cut off time for comments for each week will be noon on Sunday. I will be counting comments on Sunday October 26, Sunday November 2, 9 and 16. AC Circuit Tester, 3 prong, brand NEW Brand New Tripplite Brand AC Outlet Tester A must have for every toolbox and desk drawer. I gave one of these t o every one of my technicians when I was in the computer business. Many computer and consumer electronic issues are from "bad" power. This tester shows by means of three colored lights whether there is: an Open Ground--Open Neutral---Open Hot--- Hot/Grnd Reverse--- Hot/Neutral Reverse or a Correctly Wired Outlet. Avoid ELECTRICAL Outlet problems, TE...

Wired magazine has an article in the October edition that addresses that question. Security is big business. Look at Norton and McAfee, they get you with a fee each and every year. Every week you hear of some data base that has been compromised. Keep in mind that your home computer has little likelihood to be the target of the more talented hackers. Even those of us who have or had small businesses are not that attractive to the hackers. High volume shysters have been targeting gas stations with their parasitic card readers because that is where there is some serious money. Look at how many credit cards they can get in one day with minimal work so it stands to reason getting your credit card information off of your home computer is not going to be high on the agenda of the average cyber creep. This is not to suggest that you should do nothing to protect your computers. You should have a good antivirus software package installed and a spyware destroyer or two. Most importantly you shoul...

Looking at my blog, I decided that it has become cluttered with attempts to generate some miscellaneous income. My Amazon Store, my CafePress store, my Zazzle store all get some interest but seem like they detract from the blog itself. Thusly I have put all of those commercial ventures on my web site with links from my blogs to them. If someone wants to buy one of my "oh, so chic" t-shirts, a book or something from Amazon, it will now take two clicks to get there, one to get to my web site and one to get to the store. If someone really wants to buy something, I think two clicks are not a deterrent. If they don't then the presence of those commercial items on the web site may have deterred them from coming back. Life is nothing but change. Alvin Toffler's book Future Shock suggested that we (his readers) would have difficulty changing with the accelerated pace of today's world. Change has gone from arithmetic to geometric. I think all of us are capable of change. ...

You may have seen my semi-rant posts on my Samsung FlipShot. The main reason I got the phone was the camera which turned out to be iffy at best. The killing factor on the phone was it’s refusal to accept incoming calls about 80% of the time. It would send the calls to voice mail before I could get the darn thing open. Made me crazy.(crazier probably) After nearly a year of complaining to Verizon and one replacement of the phone for the same model, Verizon came through and said they would replace the phone for me with a different model. (In fairness to Verizon, their customer support people were always friendly, courteous and very pleasant to deal with under trying circumstances.) My replacement was the LG Dare. It has a better camera and it really does a nice job with the photos. The Touch Screen is terrific. It has tactile feedback which lets you know it really did feel your command. (I go all the way back to the original HP PC touch screens in the mid 80’s which were cool but you nev...

We live in the greatest nation in the world. I look at blogs in other countries where the blogger is in danger from his government for what he is writing. We have the freedom to express ourselves in so many ways. At the moment we have a sizable portion of our nation trying diligently to destroy it. It is difficult to say whether panic or greed is fueling the current Wall Street nose dive. Greed obviously fed the conditions that led to our current financial crisis. Even the “rescue” couldn’t avoid the Washington game as usual pork . It appears that a great many people can not see the benefit of our society and what it can be. Grabbing what they can, forcing down the market by selling to get theirs before it gets worse and fulfilling their own fears. It may be greed and it may be just sheer panic that the sky is falling and I better grab my chunk before it is gone. I don’t know the motivation; all I know is that the financial institutions that lead the panic and the poor suckers like me ...

First, the donut is the perfect diet food, it is well rounded and most importantly it has the zero calorie center. The symbolism of the donut is obvious, being one with the world and the evoked sadness due to the emptiness often found in many people's center. Man does not live by health alone, an occasional dip into dietary decadence is good for raising the spirit. If nothing else, donut lovers are emphatically expressing their support for law and order and the stereotypical donut devourer. Wired magazine had an article about how to increase views of your site. One of their tips was to write about stuff in which you have strong expertise. In other words, something you are an expert on! I humbly feel that I can claim a high level of expertise on Donuts. My earliest food memories feature donuts. I have fond memories of May’s Donuts Shop in New Castle, PA. They had wonderful filled donuts. Their lemon filled donut always had a tart flavor offset by the liberal use of powdered sugar. T...

Basically if I go to a site and find what I want at a price I feel is fair I tend to buy it unless they hide the shipping charges. Hidden shipping charges drive me and I suspect drive an enormous number of people away from a site. Show the shipping charges before your customer is expected to put in their information and you will retain more customers. How dumb does the vendor assume we are when they want all the information, including credit card, before they kindly let us know their shipping charges are outrageous. Why else would you hide your shipping charges? Buyer beware is even more important on the Web than ever before. If a site doesn’t give you the shipping charges prior to collecting your information, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! If we all boycott the sites that think they can play bait and switch with shipping charges hidden, maybe they will wise up and give the consumer some credit. The $6.99 item including shipping is a much better deal than the $4.99 item with the hidden (until you ...

I got a comment from Joris of Shapeways after my blog on 3D printing. He apparently works at Shapeways . I checked out their site. This photo is off of their site. Pretty cool stuff can be done there. If you have interest in 3D printing but don’t have the budget to go out and buy your own equipment, this is the site to visit. You can upload your designs and have them created. It seems like the perfect opportunity to see if you do want to get involved in 3D printing. Mudge said in his comment on the article, science fiction at work, I have to agree, too cool to believe. Shapeways also has a blog. Lots of interesting stuff on their blog too. No, this is not a sponsored review, just darn interesting stuff.