Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

Don’t you just love teaser headlines? In this case, the nookie I am referring to is not what you are thinking. Of course I may be wrong, you could have immediately realized I was referring to the price drop on the Barnes and Nobel Nook. In spite of some of my luddite leaning rants lately, I am still a technut. I can’t help myself, in spite of some of the demoralizing experiences I’ve had lately. I still prefer a book whose pages I can turn. The price drop of the Nook and the realize of the WiFi version is making me sit up and take notice. If I ever get a smart phone that has good reception without forcing me to buy a cellular repeater, I will probably load it with some books. My old Dell xv51 is still limping along and I do still read books on it. The Nook is so much nicer though and the screen size is infinitely better than on my PDA or future to be named smart phone. The Nook pricing is going to provide some serious impetus for Amazon and Sony to look at their pricing. Note th...

One of the most interesting aspects of the Internet are the things you stumble across or who stumbles across you. CSN Stores found this blog and approached me about doing a review. No specific item, just go to their 200 stores and look around until I saw something I wanted to review. No pressure to write a positive review, just write a review. Talk about letting a kid loose in a candy store, a really, really big candy store. I initially got hung up in the lights store. I found solar powered street addresses which I really like for making sure first responders can find your address. I also liked the solar powered spotlights. One which I hadn’t seen and called my name was the solar powered shed light. That would have come in handy the night the power went out and I groped my way back to my shed to find my generator. Flashlights are great but sometimes you need both hands for a task, the solar shed light looked pretty darn cool. I spent the whole darn day looking over the CS...

I finally bit the financial bullet and ordered a smart phone. I got the Droid Incredible. When I ordered it I specifically asked if it was really available and was assured it was and that I would have it in 3 to 5 days. A week later I tried to find out where the phone might be and the first 4 Verizon folks I spoke to could not find my order. Finally someone found my order on the fifth call and they told me that the phone wasn’t available and wouldn’t be for another week. He apologized for my trouble. I have noted that the Verizon people have been well trained, they were all polite and pleasant but somewhat clue less as to why I had been told the phone was immediately available. Finally the phone arrived and I followed the instructions to activate it. Imagine my frustration when I couldn’t get it to activate. The onscreen message told me to call customer support. Apparently 5 is a magic number for Verizon because I had to call five times before I could get through their voice mail ...

I’ve detailed my frustration with Windows 7 and then with my new Acer Aspire hard drive crash ad nauseum. I’m still fighting to get back to where I was prior to “upgrading” to new computers and a new problem fraught OS. Let’s just say if I wasn’t bald before I would be now. Latest issues after I got my Aspire back from Acer with it’s new hard drive and a newly installed Windows 7. My wonderful IO Gear GUB211 auto switch, that allowed me to share my printer with my XP and Vista machines and my miserably unfriendly Windows 7 machine, has stopped working. I am in the midst of troubleshooting that with IO gear via email. Not the best support but better than no support. Secondly when I got my machine back I reinstalled Norton Security Suite, free from Comcast. I had it on one of my XP machines as well. Lo and behold my file sharing no longer works between my machines. My XP m achines running Avast free talk to each other but won’t talk to either machine running Norton. My Vista mach...

Troy-Bilt 2700 PSI 2.3 GPM Gas Pressure Washer Review Item #: 75140 | Model #: 20414 When I started this blog, I assumed I would be only talking tech. Well that led to philosophic musing and then comments on other stuff. I’m not sure where a pressure washer fits but regardless I am writing about it. I was power washing the mildew off the siding and thought the odor was the detergent I was using. When I looked over my shoulder and saw the grey smoke pouring out of the pressure washer, I realized what the odor really was. Considering the age of my venerable electric power washer, I concluded that discretion being the better part of safety and how water and electricity don’t play well, I trashed my old power washer. After much research, I found the Troy-Bilt 20414 was the best bang for the buck I could find. Keep in mind I am a consumer, not some testing house, so I make my purchases based on research and price point. I wanted electric but my boys who participated in the purchase, ...

A common thread in my blogs recently has been paranoia due to the hard drive failure in my brand new Acer Aspire. One of the ways I have catered to my paranoia is purchasing a new copy of Second Copy. I have been using a version of Second Copy for years and years. However the version I had did not move from my XP machine to my Win7 machine. I had to get the latest version. From Second Copy’s site, Second Copy® is the perfect automatic backup software designed for all versions of Windows, including Windows 7 (32-bit & 64-bit), you have been looking for. It makes a backup of your data files to another directory, disk or computer across the network. It then monitors the source files and keeps the backup updated with new or changed files. It runs in the background with no user interaction. So, once it is set up you always have a backup of your data somewhere else. This is a simple to use and very versatile software package. It is also CHEAP! $29.95 gets you a darn good piece of s...

For those of you who also half listen to commercials, a word of warning, Roundup kills weeds, not grass may not be entirely accurate. In my case, I have several totally brown spots on my otherwise green lawn. I treated the lawn with a dandelion killer that did a good job. I had a few strays and spot treated them with the RoundUp. It killed the dandelions and a 2.5’ circle around them. I then read the bottle and discovered that I was not using it right. Arrgghh! On a happier note, the spray jug the RoundUp came in had a squirt gun type of applicator that broke on the first attempt to use it. I emailed RoundUp and they send me coupons to replace the jug. So Kudos to customer service at RoundUp. This was not a paid blog.

Paranoia is an ugly thing. After my new Acer Aspire had a hard drive crash I am wallowing in paranoia. Not only was in a major pain in the neck to reinstall all my programs, I am now the king of backup. BTW, Windows Easy Transfer does work. That is a program that comes with Win7 that allows you to easily move your data from your old computer to your new computer. Doesn’t do squat for your programs but it is better than nothing. Of course you have to get Easy Transfer on your old computer and Windows 7’s incompatibility with anything that is more than 48 hours old made that a challenge. After I got it on my laptop I was able to use it though. Back to paranoia, after I am sure that my new Acer Aspire hard drive is working I will do an IMAGE backup to an external USB drive. Windows 7 backup will do an image backup. An image backup is supposed to get programs and data. Boy I hope never again to need it but I will be doing it. Finally I am getting to the title of the blog. I got th...