Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

Sex in the 70’s was less stressful since the STD acronym hadn’t been coined yet. Unprotected sex didn’t kill you, it made you go for treatment but you lived and successfully procreated years later. Today unprotected sex seem like it leads to sure death and destruction. Kids today have more choices and face far more consequences than those of us who somewhat aimlessly floundered through puberty and beyond. Advertising has sexualized our children younger and younger. I buy clothes for my granddaughter and some of the stuff I see is just sleazy, totally inappropriate for a toddler and it gets worse as they get to the preteen years. In the 70’s, children were pretty much left to be children without a lot of pressure to be the next Brittney Hilton . The free sex of the 70’s frightened the establishment so much they came up with the abstinence only plan, forgoing education on practicing safe sex and we have more disease, unwanted pregnancies and problems than ever. Porno was on the big sc...

Harley owners, leave the room, as well as Suzuki, Honda, BSA, Triumph, Yamaha etc ad nauseum 'cause you aren't going to want to hear this. I had a couple of bikes when I was much, much younger. They were very fuel efficient and I loved them. Admittedly after laying one down one time due to my incredibly stupid tail gating of a semi, I had reservations about their safety. I survived and I still have reservations about two wheeled safety. Mostly I worry about the village idiot in his suv or pickup who ignores the annoying motorcyclist that is on his road. Regardless of safety, the economy is pushing people to two wheeled vehicles for basic transportation. The operating economy is obvious. In most cases purchasing a bike has become an incredibly expensive proposition. Harleys are probably averaging $18,000 plus. I don’t have any friends who have gotten one for less than $20k. You have to ride a long time and put on a lot of miles to justify that size expenditure for fuel economy. ...

I have been blogging about the 70’s and reminiscing. I got a link to this video today from a friend. It is a 1960’s retrospective. If you close your eyes, the music alone is terrific but the video presentation is worth watching as well. I’m not sure what trigger music pulls but there are few things that are so successful in dragging you back into time. I got no alerts from any of my protection software so I think this site is safe. The presentation is well worth watching. http://moreoldfortyfives.com/TakeMeBackToTheSixties.htm

Very slick email that looks like it is related to the real Google. Succinctly, they supposedly offer a free CD, end up billing your credit card and you have the hassle of trying to get out of it. I know I was un-easy when I got their email, it just didn't look or sound right. Here is a blogger that has already addressed this issue. http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/easy-google-profit-scam/ Don't fall for get quick rich schemes and you will have your Money Saving Tech Tip of the Day!

AVG Anti-Virus Free Major Update Problems If you have been having problems updating your AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, you are not alone. One has to wonder whether the current update problems with the AVG Free edition is based on their interest in getting paid customers or an inability to solve a problem. I have noticed the problem for over a week which is computer time is roughly a decade. My innate cynicism has to question why they can’t solve their update issues. As good as I think AVG is, without updates it’s functionality decreases exponentially. Avast is a very good choice if you want to change to another free Anti-Virus. I put it on my wife’s computer over a month ago and have had no issues with it. I wasn’t able to get AVG to download to her computer and finally said, “I don’t need this stinking aggravation”, and changed her to Avast . I read quite a few reviews and Avast came up as being highly regarded. So far so good, so if you are fed up with the AVG upgrade issues try Ava...

There is no naked here but it got your attention didn’t it. There seems to be a lot of nostalgia about the 70’s. If you lived through the 70’s and say you remember them, then you weren’t really there. Kinda like a Who concert, if you remember it, you probably saw it on TV. Somehow there were actually 22 million people at Woodstock, if you believe all of us old timers who claim we were there. I wasn’t, but I could have been. I had a ride and didn’t take it. Sleeping on the ground at that point in my life meant that I was too drunk to get home. Later as a Boy Scout leader and a picture of sobriety and responsibility, I again slept on the ground. Frankly the camaraderie of the Boy Scouts was a lot more genuine than many of my hippie friends in the 70’s. Even today we celebrate the hippie culture. Drugs were rampant in those days but seemed far less destructive that what is currently on the street. Ironically enough you could buy marijuana on the street in Panama City in 1939 and stil...

Recently USAirways sent me an email telling me that I haven’t flown enough lately so I was going to lose all my Dividend Miles unless I would pony up $40 per account to keep them. I knew these guys were in trouble but really, use them or lose them. So a couple a days before the deadline I tried to book a flight. Different shades of color on their calendar indicated what days you could get a flight with the miles you have. Some days were blacked out, can’t use them then, usually around holidays. Ok, that is understandable. Then some days you can use the miles but you have to use double the regular miles to get those premium days. Why they are premium is your guess. Then you try to find someway to fit your miles into their schedule. I finally found some dates I could live with, not happy with, but live with. I inputted the data they wanted, height, weight, eye color, sexual preference, first grade teacher, ad nauseam. Put in my Dividend Miles number, put in my wife’s and then got a messa...

First you need a Wii then you add the Zapper. I am a Wii fan and I don’t even own one. My boys have Wii and I have a ball playing games with my grandchildren on the Wii. Since my kids had the first cybercafé in the area, I got to experiment with a lot of the cool kid related stuff. So for all you old Atari gamers out there, the Wii is a whole different level. I can bowl or play tennis with my 4 year old grandchild and race cars with my 10 year old. The Zapper adds the ability to point and shoot. It comes with software that has some strange looking skeletal creatures that you can shoot as they crawl out of the sand or even stranger looking ones that conveniently put targets on their chest. The price is right, $20.00 in many places. It works very well, you put the remote in the Zapper and it becomes you ticket to all sorts of shooting games. Yes, you shoot things. When I was a kid I had all kinds of toy guns and I have yet to succumb to any kind of mindless shooting spree. I tried to lim...

Watching Good Morning America’s tech segment recently, Becky Worley mentioned a site called http://www.flipswap.com/ . She mentioned that you could send your old cellular phones to FlipSwap and get paid for them. I wrote down the site address and logged on. It was very simple and I mailed out my old cell phones today. I hope to get paid. I guess I felt reasonably comfortable since the site was mentioned on GMA and one suspects they check out the sites they mention, prior to publicizing them on their show. No fortune will be made in selling your old cell phones unless you have a couple of hundred of them. My three old phones will net me a whopping $35.00, which is still better than them sitting in my drawer collecting dust. FlipSwap also pays the postage so what they quote you is what you get. Needless to say, if I don’t get paid, you will hear about it here but ever the optimist. This is the link to the GMA website that details the show where FlipSwap was mentioned. http://abcnews.go.c...

Last month I wrote a blog on whether you can maintain an ethical perspective and review or recommend a product or site. Perhaps I should have also asked if those who supposedly pay you for these blogs actually have the ethics to pay you. Creamaid was where I signed up and for whom I wrote a blog. Near as I can tell, Creamaid is either defunct, fraudulent or grossly incompetent. (I know say what you mean.) I got butkus back from them, feedback, money, nada. Maybe that means that my blog doesn’t draw enough folks but leaving me blow in the wind is just plain rude let alone incompetent. So I have done more research and I see that there are more sites out there that pay for reviews. I am looking at Netrix , an internet marketing blog and clicked on an ad for sponsored reviews which took me to a blog called Everybody Go To . Hyder who writes the blog reviewed Sponsored Reviews and Review Me . Hyder, (wonder why so few folks who blog use pseudonyms and or no last names) likes both of th...

I have a Samsung Flipshot phone and Verizon service. I got the Flipsot for the 3 megapixel camera which although it sounds pretty good, the photos are still pretty lame compared to my digital cam eras. The theory was that I don’t always have my camera with me but I almost always have my phone with me. Anyway, I don’t take many photos with the phone due to the poor quality of photo. You can see the difference in quality from the 5 megapixel digital camera to the 3 megapixel phone. The phone aspect isn’t all that great either but I can’t blame the phone for the poor cellular network. My big frustration is the Verizon service. Apparently I live in a dead zone to Verizon. I get no signal in my home and an occasional signal if I stand outside on one foot with my left hand pointed to the north star. Verizon, of course, tells me there is a really good signal just over the hill north of me and if I was closer to their other tower I would get a good signal. My buddy lives several miles closer...

I like to think I am staying in touch with all the cool gadgets coming onto the market even though I am no longer in the computer business. Of course I like to think I can still dunk a basketball and that I am suave and debonair. What I think and reality are not always on the same page. The Flip Video camera never hit my radar until my grandson showed me his. At his age of 10, technology holds few mysteries, it is just, how soon can I get it. He started using the camera less than 5 minutes out of the box and has been having a roaring good time with it. Once again, the premise that good tech has to be expensive is wrong! This is inexpensive, wonderfully useful and good for all ages not just kids. He says the software works well, I have not seen that yet. The image and sound with his various Lego productions has been fine. The built in USB connector seems sturdy and obviously useful. This gadget looks to be a great gift. Check it out! Specs. LCD Screen Size 1.5" (diagonal) 1.5"...

No money saving tech tips, just the begining of one of my favorite seasons. Living in Eagle territory it is often difficult to be a Steeler fan. The Eagles are my 2nd choice and a lot easier to get on TV in this area. However growing up in a steel town, working in a steel mill, cutting your teeth on the Steeler legacy predisposes you to the black and gold. So HooHa! Steelers and nice try Birds, I will enjoy watching you both and if by some miracle we can get an all PA Super Bowl I will be happy for both my teams.

I recently discovered that the Safeway brand of waterproof bandages are not waterproof. The Water Protection Adhesive Bandages that are advertised on the box as ideal protection for swimming, showering and washing the dishes don’t do any of that well. In the box of 30, one inch bandages I didn’t have one make it through a shower let alone swimming. I emailed their customer service and was told I could return them for a refund with my receipt. I suppose I have the receipt some where but I had already used 25 of the 30 bandages. You go through them rather quickly when they fall off after getting wet. I emailed them back and suggested that they look to their manufacturer for the product since there could be a quality control issue. I am obviously not going to buy another box to determine if this box was a fluke. I guess this is another slap in the face to the generic brands. Sometimes they actually do perform well and others they fall off when wet. So buyer beware, if you want a bandaid (...

I recently read an article in Popular Mechanics discussing the disgusting things the author had run into while crawling through a crawlspace in an old house. An easy to relate to article for my former techs who had to pull cat5e cable through some particularly hazardous crawl spaces. One week they might be pulling cable through the crawlspace in a 200 year old farmhouse with spiders the size of computer mice and the next they were on 30 foot ladders hanging onto steel beams for dear life. If you are going to do diy cabling plan ahead. If you have walkie talkies break them out. The headset variety are very handy since they keep your hands free. We experimented with the g.i. joe version years back. Do your best to keep your cat5e cable away from a.c. cables and most definitely try not to run them over fluorescent light fixtures. Get a good, bright lantern or flashlight in order to see the skin puncturing obstacles in your way. Wiring one business we found we had to go above three old cei...

TRENDnet TEW-452BRP 108Mbps Wireless Super G Broadband Router is a winner this week for best price. I’ve had good experience with Trendnet products plus I like their 3 year warranty even though I have never had to use it. Wireless G still has a lot of life left. Most of us have a mix of wireless technology so a G router isn’t likely to slow you down too much unless all your other gear is N. I’m running a G and I don’t see any issues with speed when I am on my laptop compared to when I am on one of my desktops that are hardwired. My uses don’t put a lot of stress on the network though. Internet access is my primary use of the wireless and that works just fine. Buy.com has the $69.99 router for $48.99 minus a $25 rebate and free shipping. A price of $23.99 for a brand name Wireless G router is a slamming deal. Grab one if you need it and no I don’t get any money from buy.com or Trendnet. Specifications: The Wireless Super G Router is the cornerstone of your IEEE 802.11g wireless network....