Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

Thar's a new sheriff in town and he's a'fixin to grab market share.   The new kindle has been announced, WiFi only for $139.00.   Zdnet's article does a good job on describing it.

The fork appears to be durable but I still prefer my tongs for steaks. It does a good job on temperature measurement. My big gripe is that it is slow and too short. Short could be overcome if it gave you an instant temperature reading. However when it is slow and short there is a tendency to lose all the hair on your knuckles. This is making the rash assumption that you have hair on your knuckles. I do and burnt hair is in no way aromatic. So for the price it is a good deal. I got it at Amazon for a whopping $12.49. It does the job for which I purchased it. Given a choice I would prefer a longer handle or a faster temperature reading but again for the price it is a good value for the money. I received no compensation for this post.

5/15/11 UPDATE   Zero Tech Support must disqualify my recommendation  on  this unit. I’ve been toying with the idea of an eBook reader for months. When Barnes and Noble came out with the Nook I was almost hooked. The features and price were good. As always, I dithered and reading last Sunday’s paper I saw an ad at Kmart for an eBook reader for $89.99 with a color LCD screen. I tried to get some data on it but the web was surprisingly empty of info on Augen and their products. The Aguen website is a veritable wasteland, practically no information. I stewed over it for 24 hours and went over to Kmart to look at one, decided what the hey and bought one. Initial impressions are important. The packaging was good and the book is nicely wrapped in a leather case. The manual is a bit of a joke. I’ve gotten more information on battery toothbrushes. The unit has a nice feel to it. It isn’t too heavy and the screen is very clear and sharp. The wi-fi connection ...

If you want to pull out your Louisville Slugger and waffle your PC every time you boot up, there may be a FREE solution. Sometimes it seems to take forever to boot up your computer. This is generally due to software applications battling to see who’s up first and who gets the resources. Soluto  is a company that claims to have a solution called PC Boot and they are offering it for FREE. There was a good article on nytimes.com  that detailed the companies work. Their goal is to eliminate the frequency and duration of the dreaded Windows hour glass. They feel they can sell these solutions to corporate entities that can benefit due to  the cumulative time saved by employees who are now seated, staring aimlessly in space waiting for the blankety blank computer to respond. I’ve tried their free application. It took my laptop a whopping 6:58 minutes to boot prior to installing their free applications. It took 19.45 minutes after installation to analyze my syste...

This is a very cool device. I have a car charger for all my current devices but if I didn’t I would jump on this item. It plugs into the 12V cigarette lighter/power socket in your car and provides two USB charging ports. Belkin claims they are quick charge ports but it also makes the use of your devices by plugging them in and saving your battery when you are away from your car. Belkin says it is for the iPod and they do include an iPod/iPhone charge cable which is a good value all by itself. They also include a Mini-USB cable for non-Apple devices like phones and game players. For the money, this is a no-brainer for your gadget box. Belkin F8Z280 Dual USB Car Charger for iPod $19.86 at Amazon. BTW another company called Griffin Technology has a similar product for $13.22. I have had good experience with Belkin so I would feel safer with them but Griffin Technology may be perfectly fine. Their product got 58 out of 73 either 4 or 5 star reviews on Amazon so it seems like it is...

Again, this is not merely a cell phone rant blog. At the moment it may seem to be one, but that is not my goal. In my last post I discussed (disgust) my feelings about Verizon’s vaunted cell phone signal coverage. I mentioned that the local Verizon store told me that they don’t get a good signal at their location. I didn’t mention that he then suggested I purchase a signal booster. He said it was normally $350.00 but it currently had a $100.00 rebate. I asked if they had such an item why didn’t they have it in their store so people could get a good signal at their location. To me that seemed like a good idea and would help them sell more phones. He told me he had no idea why they didn’t use one or why they didn’t stock it. I have several posts that mention that Verizon has such a device but I could not find it on their web site. I did read that they don’t charge you anything for using it which seems reasonable since it is their signal you can’t receive. I think they should give yo...

So who cares what the newest smart phone may be? The cell phone owners that live in Verizon’s bogus green zone reception areas aren’t going to get any better reception with a smart phone than they do with their dumb phones. I’d love to have a smart phone and would be willing, albeit grudgingly, but willing to pony up the $30 per month data plan if, that’s IF I could get decent cell phone reception where I live. Some how the Verizon solution of installing a cellular repeater for a couple of hundred bucks so I get a signal where I live, seems to run contrary to their advertisements of their great cellular coverage. I’m far to ornery to spend that money on getting cellular service I’m already suppose to have from my carrier So I repeat myself, until Verizon truly has great coverage who cares what new smart phone is being released, sob, regardless of how much I might want one.   There is no  love so sour as the love that is unrequited.  Someday, someday as ...

My intent isn’t for this blog to become a cell phone rant fest. However looking at my past few posts, I am beginning to wonder if that is where I am going. I keep reading these great articles about how AT&T service is horrible and how great Verizon’s cellular coverage is. One article at PC World   was very convincing on why you should switch to an Android based phone and choose Verizon for your cellular coverage. I can only say, "Come stand in my front yard and see what kind of vaunted Verizon coverage you get. It just ain’t here!" Please note that I do not, repeat do not live in a cave or some kind of remote area. I am in a populous suburb in not so rural Bucks County, PA. When I went to the unofficial but nevertheless labeled Verizon Wireless store with the Droid Incredible I returned I could not get one bar of service consistently. The clerk told me that they don’t have good signal strength at that location. The store is in the county seat of Bucks County hardly a...

I have suffered with Droid envy for months. It used to be iPhone envy but that would have entailed a move to the dark side. I could cheerfully move to the Droid but reluctantly to the iPhone. The $29.95/month data plan was also a hang up. (pun intended) However I succumbed to my desire and ordered the Droid. When it didn’t arrive on the time schedule the Verizon rep had told me to expect, I called. Five frustrating calls later I found out it was not “really” in stock but would be soon. Finally the anticipated day arrived. I felt like a 8 year old on Christmas morning. My frustration with activation is detailed on previous post. After activation I added a couple of neat applications. I added a bar code feature that allowed my phone to capture a bar code and then do a Google search online for the product. That was pretty cool and this is just a small peek into how retailing is going to be fraught with change. I liked being able to set up my music as ring tones. That seems like th...

I got an email from these people and they suggested I link them to my blog.   It is a folksy kind of blog and I liked the post so here is their post on 10 Ways to Save Money On Electricity Bills . 

Power fluctuations both brown outs and blackouts are the biggest culprit in damaging your computers. Frankly brown outs are more insidious since you may be blithely unaware of their occurrence. CSN approached me and asked if I would pick out a product to review from one of their stores. Since I had 4 short blackouts that very day, I decided to order a battery backup unit. These units are often referred to as UPSs. (uninterruptible power supplies) The unit I ordered was from American Power Conversion. (APC) I wanted one strong enough to keep the computer running when a blackout occurs. My intent is not to continue running during a blackout but to protect the computer from a crash when the power goes out. When a blackout occurs, a UPS gives you time to orderly close up your computer and thusly maintain your data integrity. I hate when I lose a file that I spent any time on, let alone any appreciable time. I’ve copied the specs of the unit from the APC site and listed them below. S...