Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

Once more I am reminded of the complicated aspects of the personal computer.   Due to the RAM hungry demands of the ever popular MS automatic updates my wife's and my own computer have been slowing down.  I knew I needed pc2100 ddr RAM so I went shopping.   What was interesting was that I found that density is also important in RAM choice.  It appears that high density RAM is considerably less expensive than low density RAM  The only defining difference I could find was that low density RAM is 64X8 and high density is either 128x8 or 128x4.   What was frustrating was that neither motherboard manual said a darn thing about density on RAM but several articles I found said that high density RAM was only suitable for specific motherboards.  I did note that a couple of guys on eBay noted that their RAM was high or low and cautioned that many sellers didn't mention that and no returns for incompatibility.   After mixing and match...

My grandson and I took a trip recently. His DS and DSi accompanied us. If you are under 20 you can stop reading now because you know all of this. The DSi is the latest system from Nintendo and is a computer in so many ways. Of course you can game on it. The thing I find just astounding is the ease that it connects to wireless networks or other DS systems. At one point he and 5 of his cousins were all playing Mario Kart. An ad hoc network set up by 11 year olds. Listening to all the screaming, yelling and laughter, I had to wonder why so many out of touch parents are opposed to the idea of kids playing video games with each other. How is that less acceptable than sitting around and playing a board game? Certainly you need exercise and like anything else, excess is not a good thing. Too many people ignore the fact that it allows kids to communicate and play while simultaneously introducing them to the intricacies of networking. In addition to the ability to easily network locally, the DS...

I occasionally write a paid blog. It may be on something as strange as maternity clothes or police type shoes. You write a blog, put in a link and get paid for your trouble. Some really popular blogs with big followings can reap some serious money doing this. I am not in that category but wish I was. I have never written a paid blog that I didn’t believe what I was writing. For example the maternity clothes post sent those who clicked the link to a site that offered some very stylish and reasonably priced maternity clothes. I despair sometimes at how depressed the pregnant woman sometimes gets in regards to self image. My motivation for blogging was that everybody is happier if the expectant mother is happy. The impending Mom, the husband and anyone else in the family is happier if Mom is happy. Clothes can help the self image and if you have never been pregnant or married to someone pregnant or loved someone who is pregnant, you need to understand; sometimes they need help to feel goo...

The responsibility for this post rests securely on the head of 70steen of FuelMyBlog membership. She posted photos of herself over the last few decades. Her photos were much more interesting than mine but I found the concept entertaining. Therefore peruse at your own risk 5 decades of yours truly and how one can “progress” through life. The Photos

Ok, Free is always suspicious. I have a bluetooth headset so I don't need one. I got this from Buy.com and I have had good experiences there. Check it out, I am not recommending it, I am not getting paid to mention it, I just thought it might be of interest to someone who needs/wants a bluetooth headset. Here is the Link.

I have written many times over the past couple of years about declining customer service. I read this week on ZDNet.com an article about the “crapware” that pretends it is helpware and is stealing your data, corrupting your system and robbing you blind. (See my blog on spyware ) Comments on the article ranged widely but the one that caught my attention was a self proclaimed “IT Expert” working in computer support who thinks that the people he supports are stupid and deserve to have their computers trashed by spyware. Sadly this abysmal attitude seems to be rampant in customer support. Once again I am going to mention Diamond Case Designs, Inc. - 655 N. Shepard St. - Anaheim , CA 92806 - (800) 616-5354 - www.diamondcase.com . They epitomize what customer service should be. Their recent newsletter had this customer spotlight that I think defines what customer service needs to be. BTW I do not get any financial considerations of any type from Diamond Case and this i...

I’m sure the people at Acronis would rather I was writing about their latest release version 12 instead of version 11. However an indisputable source, my brother, told me that version 12 was fraught with peril. Since I dealt with enough peril when my BounceBack clone feature didn’t work, I decided to avoid more frustration and peril and go with version 11. In an earlier blog I expressed my dismay over BounceBack’s drive cloning feature. Drive cloning is making an exact duplicate of your hard drive including all hidden files and most importantly the OS. This feature is invaluable if and when or maybe just when your hard drive decides to head south, winter or not. BounceBack was doing a commendable job on daily backup and made file restoration quite easy. However on a limping hard drive BounceBack’s clone feature refused to work. I turned to me geek brother who is still working and who used to be my top tech and asked what he would recommend. He strongly recommended Acronis version 11. O...

What has provoked the hysteria over health care reform? Are the insurance giants who are reaping windfall profits bankrolling provocateurs? Is it the drug companies who may find their insane profits diminished? One has to suspect that there is some financial ax being ground that is trying to derail any progress on health care reform. I am amazed at the astounding ignorance of some of the enflamed opponents suggesting there will be death squads promoting the demise of senior citizens. Shouted admonishments of “keep the government’s hands off of my Medicare”, belie the fact that it is the government who is running Medicare. We need health care reform; I’m on a fixed income and under 65 years old. My health insurance premiums are roughly the same as my mortgage and I am lucky. I’m lucky because so far I have been able to pay both. I know too many people who aren’t so lucky. These people are not dead beats, welfare cheats or illegal immigrants; they are just regular people trying to make e...

The President of the United States wants to address the children of the nation. The President of the United States who was ELECTED to his office wants to address school children. GASP—Radical, immoral, obviously a brainwashing plot SCREAMS rabid, foaming at the mouth of radical CONSERVATIVES. Years ago when I supported Barry Goldwater I was proud of being a conservative. Today, conservative seems to be synonymous with nut-job. Republican Presidents have sent out addresses to the nation’s children and the kids survived. Of course perhaps there was some subliminal message that generated the current crop of nut-jobs, I mean radical Conservatives. The news has shown text of parents complaining they don’t want their children exposed to the words of their ELECTED President. Perhaps if they shared intelligent dialogue with their children they wouldn’t be so fearful of their kids hearing someone else speak. Take note world, President Obama is NOT the devil incarnate. I don’t agr...

I don’t normally review movies but this one demands a disappointed one. Taking advantage of the Woodstock anniversary, this movie sucked a lot of aging boomers into thinking they could get back their groove. The predominant color of hair (providing they had some) in the theatre was white, not platinum but just old white. Lot of reminiscing prior to the movie coming up, regarding who was doing what the summer of ’69. I can't come up with a good reason for the title. Story was ok, disjointed, couldn't decide if it was a coming out, coming out of the closet, coming of age or what. Woodstock was a backdrop as opposed to a theme. Music was non-existent. Acid trip was prolonged so long I thought perhaps I was on one. Confusing movie, could have been excellent if it stayed on focus, expanded the reaction of the locals to the influx of "hippies" and had some iconic music. Even as background, period music would have helped, overall the movie was very disappointing. REAL Woodst...

The old hoof and mouth disease is alive and well. I had a recent paid post that was critical of the advertiser and PayPerPost the facilitator. I took umbrage to the fact that, in my estimation, I had dotted all my i’s and crossed all my T’s and still had the post rejected twice. Being blithely ignorant of the process I leaped to the cynical conclusion that the advertiser was simply avoiding making payment. I did a rant post about the soulless capitalists that were ripping off the humble and oh, so deserving blogger. Keep in mind this was for a $5.00 paid post. That is $5.00 total, not per click, view or anything else. Now $5.00 is not a make or break deal for me, even in this economy. I was taking umbrage on being ripped off. (or so I thought) Please note, I do periodically do paid blogs and never have done one that I would not have written the same material even if there was no payment. I got a very nice, much more rational comment on my rant post from Carri at PayPerPost. She pointed...