Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

My Acer 17” LCD died recently so I moved my 19” Hyndui monitor to it’s spot and added a 24” AOC 2436Vw . The 16x9 ratio takes a little getting used to. I found the total lack of a manual surprising. It wasn’t to be found on the CD that came with the monitor either. I couldn’t find it on their website but a quick email to tech support and I received a pdf of a manual that details what all of the myriad on screen controls do. The onscreen software that is supposed to do what the hardware button does seems to be incompatible with Windows 7. It loaded but it won’t do a darn thing. The specs on the monitor don’t give you the warranty. Apparently I am one of the sole surviving consumers that wants to know what the warranty is before I purchase a product. I had to email AOC tech support to find out the warranty. It was not listed on the AOC site under the monitor’s specifications either. Buy.com site had Q&A on the monitor. One of the answers said that the monitor came with cables...

I haven’t seen it so this is not a review. This is just a heads up that another eBook reader has dropped below $100.00. At just $79.99 at Amazon and Buy.com this is an aggressively priced reader. I still like the Augen I reviewed better due to it’s ability to do other things and still act as a darn good eBook reader. However as a strictly dedicated eBook reader this looks pretty good. If you have one or have reviewed it, please comment here and leave a link for your review.   Amazon had several reviews on it that ranged from 1 star to 5 stars.  Amazon also has skinw for the unit that allow you to "gussie" it up to your personal taste.  You  may have to call on price though, this appears to be a dramatic price drop from $144.00 and I've gotten inconsistent results on price using the Amazon link.   From the Buy.com site: Features: With the Cybook Opus, you can access more than 200,000 digital contemporary books from ...

That isn’t a philosophic posture it is a way of life for those folks in the Gulf of Mexico that have had their livelihood dramatically impacted. Doesn’t matter if you like or hate fish, doesn’t matter if you grew up eating fish every Friday, it doesn’t matter if you fish for fun, what matters is that there are a bunch of small businesses who have been knocked on their heels through no fault of their own. On Aug. 25, the Citizen Effect has slated a national day of action to help raise funds for educational programs designed to help fishing families impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Citizen Effect, together with several support partners and volunteers, is organizing several online and local event fundraising efforts across the U.S. What You Can Do To Help. 1. Attend Or Host Local Events Around the United States. With the help of local chapters of the Social Media Club, members are volunteering to organize New Orleans-themed events with live ja...

One of the positive things I found in my disturbing Droid Incredible experience was a very inexpensive cover for the Droid. For the down and dirty price of $1.25 plus $2.98 shipping I got a great cover. I have been buying these for my phones for years. The provide a cushion for the times when you do drop the darn phone. I have seen phones literally seem to disintegrate when dropped. The back flies off, the batter pops out and even screens crack from an innocuous slip of the finger. This case won’t necessarily prevent that from happening but it may. This is not a paid blog. I just like the price and the product.

I have bought a couple of SquareTrade Warranties over the years and have never needed to use them. SquareTrade is a third party warranty company that will sell you an extended warranty for practically any electronic item. They generally are dramatically cheaper than the third party warranties sold by the store where you bought the electronic item. As an example, an extended warranty on my Acer Notebook was over $200.00 from Acer and it was $39.00 from SquareTrade. Having a modicum of expertise, when my DVD drive stopped working in my notebook, I did basic trouble shooting to no avail. I then went to Acer technical support and after trying all their ideas, I still had a non-working DVD drive. I did a little web research and discovered that the model drive in my laptop was not held in good regard. There were many complaints about the drive across a wide spectrum of notebook manufactures who had used the Matshita DVD RAM UJ-850S. I initially tried to find a replacement drive with plan...

This is an adequate product. I purchased it specifically to be able to use the car speakers to enhance audibility of calls. That aspect works intermittently. It allows you to play the music from your phone through your car stereo system. That works well. Too bad that is a feature I could care less about. The speaker in the unit is fairly good so it does work. It just doesn't work for the reason I purchased it. Since the company has a "all sales are final" policy I decided it would be too much trouble to return it. It is not Amazon direct but a 3rd party vendor. Due to the "all sales are final" policy and the inability of the unit to consistently use the car speakers for phone calls, I do NOT recommend the product or the vendor. BTW it is most definitely my fault for not checking the return policy before I purchased the unit. The vendor clearly stated their policy. I screwed up. I would advise checking return policies prior to making any Amazon p...

I am quoting the manufacturer and this is not an endorsement since I haven’t tried one. Being a technut I am prone to seeing things techie and going, ooh! This line of keyboards and mice rate an OOH! Kids and in my case grandkids have a tendency to be a bit more destructive of computer peripherals than the normal user. Although I am sure gamers of all ages are probably the top of the destructive user food chain. From the Grandtec website: The Virtually Indestructible Mouse is a silicone-based optical mouse which features a unique combination of durability and comfort. The silicone-based material is impervious to most anything including water, coffee and cleaning solutions. Medical •Disinfect with either self-drying aerosols or cleanse with ammonia- or bleach-based medical grade disinfectants. •A study conducted by the Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii found that nearly 25 percent of the keyboards sampled harbored bacteria that is responsible for 95% of all hos...

By the time you read this, the deal will be over. Why, Oh Why am I writing this drivel then? 'Cause I love rubbing it in? No, I write it because New Egg periodically has combo deals that are too good to pass up. I wanted a new USB hard drive for backup purposes. I found a good deal on Buy.com and was going to pur chase it. However being the consummate shopper that I am (sounds so much more refined than cheap), I looked around and lo and behold, I found this terrific combo deal at New Egg. I got the Rosewill RX-DU101 2.5" & 3.5" USB 2.0 Docking Station Item #: N82E16817182221 And the HITACHI Deskstar HD31000 IDK/7K (0S00163) 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Item #: N82E16822145287 In addition there was a $10.00 rebate from Hitachi. Since a whopping 68% of rebates are never claimed, I hesitate to mention the rebate but rest assured I am one of the 32% who ALWAYS submits my rebates. Bottom line, $59.99 for a 1TB hard drive and dock...

I downloaded EASEUS Todo Backup to my Windows 7 desktop. It was free and Free always attracts my attention. It set up easily and looked good. Documentation said it supported Windows 7. I got it to clone my hard drive to a 300gb Seagate External USB drive. It appeared to be fine. I decided in the event the desktop hard drive failed, I wanted to be able to just pop the external drive in for the replacement. In order to do that, I had to find a drive with the same interface that the desktop supports. Once I got my new drive I tried to clone the desktop drive to it. After multiple failures of the software to complete the cloning process I gave up. I had a lot of trouble getting the first clone done and this set of attempts just turned me off of the software. I am not a tech. I am a reasonably knowledgeable user. If I have to tweak software to get it to work, hold it’s hand and whisper in it’s ear to get the job done, I DON’T WANT IT. I want something I can recommend that works easily...