Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

Ok, we all love FREE, if you are reading my blog, you know how often I like to put FREE in my blogs, ‘cause WE ALL LOVE FREE. Well, this time it is the jackpot, FREE & USEFUL! Comodo may be one of those companies you have never heard of and now you will wish you had. They offer a wealth of free software that focuses on security. Their catch phrase is the Trusted Internet . Basically what they want is to increase trust in use of the Internet and the businesses that operate on the Internet. They do have products they sell (hey they are a business) but they want to facilitate the Trusted Internet concept by providing software tools to protect computers. If people feel their computers are protected they are more likely to use the Internet and Internet businesses, thusly the Trusted Internet . If more people trust the Internet and use Internet businesses, Comodo will sell more of their products and make more money and therefore will be able to support all of their FREE software. Get th...

You may not be familiar with the term 3D printing but I bet you remember the replicator from Star Trek. Well kiddies, it is no longer just science fiction. Replication exists! Analog Science Fiction and Fact had a great article in the November 2008 edition called: “The 3D Train Wreck”. Thomas A. Easton, the author gave a great overview of the future of 3D printing. Simplistically, take your 3 dimensional CAD drawing and print it out on a laser printer that will print layers with some type of raw material. Each layer is adhered to the previous layer until you have a full three dimensional finished product. There are a variety of existing technologies that are doing this right now. Rapid-prototyping in industry is the biggest market right at the moment. Consider how incredibly convenient it would be to fabricate or replicate things right at home. My Polaris pool sweep needed a part yesterday. The part is unavailable, without the part the sweep doesn’t work. The alternative was to buy a...

Years ago and I mean years ago, like 20 years ago I had a buddy who owned a small garage. We were talking tools and I mentioned I needed a socket set. He highly recommended SK and while I don’t remember the price I remember being shocked. He insisted I would never regret it. He was right! I have used my SK socket set for 30 years and finally cracked my ½” socket. First thing that has broken in 30 years. Could be the fa ct that I torqued that puppy with my not inconsiderable weight and thusly it deservedly broke. I thought what the, and goggled SK, got an email address and asked if the set was still under warranty. I received an affirmative with an address to send the broken socket. LO and BEHOLD, two weeks later I got back a brand new ½” socket with no charge, no questions, nada! It is nice to know that there are still manufacturers that stand behind their product and do so years and years later. Hats off to SK TOOLS !

Bullying is a hot topic at the home and school meetings. My grandson talks about a bully in school and as a counselor in the 70’s I had to try and see that bullies were thwarted. A tall skinny kid with a big mouth, I got my butt kicked more than once in the 60’s. There were days I was so anxious about going to school that I literally made myself sick. Luckily I finally bulked up while working in the steel mill and dealt out a few paybacks, petty but enormously satisfying. The 70’s found me much bulkier, more confident and less likely to be bullied. Teaching elementary school in Appalachia, I found myself hypersensitive to bullying and inordinately robust in curbing any I found. Of course when you had the occasional 16 year old 6th grader, the potential for bullying was rather high. Cyber-bullying has become the equal opportunity method of bullying. Girls used to be less impacted by bullying and with cyber-bullying they have become a primary target. Work place bullying is another is...

Ok, Bakugan Battle Brawler s is another extraordinarily overpriced TV show promoted kids game. If you kids watches TV cartoons, they are exposed to a continuous stream of thinly veiled infomercials. These are not cartoons like Tom & Jerry, they are the Pokemon version of extended commercials. Bakugan Battle Brawlers are another example of the despicable lengths our enlightened corporations go to market to kids. If the toys were reasonably priced then you might be able to justify the marketing ploys. Bakugan Battle Brawlers look like they should be found in Crackerjack boxes, remember the free toys in Crackerjack? These preteen infomercials 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 these questionable toys. If you refuse to succumb to the pleas to purchase, you are a horrible parent and obviously don’t love your kid. Short of banning TV, I don’t know what a parent ...

Why am I talking about a swap site on a tech (mostly) blog? Well swapping doesn’t mean FREE but it does mean inexpensive which falls under the money saving part. Admittedly posting the same blog on both my blogs seems excessive but somehow to me they fit. Swaptree is an online swapping service where you can swap CDs, DVD’s and books with folks from all over. Premise is good, site is a bit sketchy, customer support is non-existent. SWAPTREE has no tech support, none, butkus, zip, nada, zero support. I have emailed their support, their contact or anyone who might answer and there is nobody there. If they have support then apparently they really are terrible since I got no response on any emails I have sent. I wonder who did they pay off on Good Morning America to get recommended. Good Morning America, what were you thinking? There are several much better sites that actually have human beings involved with them. I have a book on my wish list, Swaptree keep offering me a copy of the book ...

Ok, we are aging, we don’t like it , we fight it but we’re BOOMERS! My protective software found nothing scary in this clip, I’m sorry I can’t say the same. Click here, get a Kleenex ‘cause you are gonna laugh and maybe cry! CLICK BOOMERS HERE-> BOOMERS!

War faced us in the 70’s. Vietnam was foremost in our thoughts as we aged. A good lottery number was often life saving. Iraq faces today’s kids and many do volunteer and some die. In the several years after high school I had many friends who never came home. Sadly today I know some kids who have given the ultimate sacrifice for their country . I wore my ROTC uniform proudly in 1966 and wrote to my buddies who served overseas. Too often those same guys weren’t treated well when they got home. A positive change today is that at least our Vets are being accorded the respect they deserve. It doesn’t mean one whit what you think or feel about the current wars, the kids fighting them are just that, kids who deserve our respect and compassion. There was war then and there is war now, human nature and historic precedent indicate that we will always have war somewhere.

I am an avid scifi/fantasy reader or perhaps just an avid reader. I keep the books I love for passing onto the next two generations of avid readers in my family. The bulk of current fiction and stuff I didn’t really love often seems to grow l ike coat hangers in an empty closet. What to do with all the accumulated things like Cd’s I don’t listen to anymore, movies I don’t watch and books I have read. WhooHoo, there is a place I can trade that stuff and get something I want in trade. I have blogged about PaperBack Swap and frankly like it a little better than SwapTree. http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php PaperBack Swap takes paperbacks and hard backs but does not do music or videos. I like it better in the book area because I don’t have to automatically find someone who wants what I have to trade and who has what I want in trade. You bank your trades. If you have something someone wants, you sent it out to them and you pay the postage. In return you get a book credit and you can cho...

I have used and recommended AVG Free Home Edition for years. Today I removed it from two more of my computers and will be removing it from all of them. I don’t know if it is some insidious corporate move to get people to change to the paid version of AVG or just an inability to solve their update problem. For over two weeks I have not been able to get my systems to consistently update. Sometimes they update and sometimes they do not. I have seen a lot of comments on the web expressing the same concern. I haven’t heard or seen anything from AVG that has addressed the issue. Since AVG is free it feels somewhat akin to looking the gift horse in the mouth to complain about it but somehow it feels like the other end of the horse. Anti-virus competency is not something most of us are willing to gamble is working. Again, since there has been no communication from AVG, who knows what is going on and how long it will last. In the meantime, I have uninstalled AVG and installed AVAST . I have had...