Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

This is a surprisingly cool product. If you are old enough, you may remember when we all had TV antennas on the roof and if you had a few bucks you had a electric rotor to turn it. Then came cable and satellite and Fios and suddenly the idea of getting your TV signal off of the air seemed archaic. Digital conversion drove the final nail in the over the air TV signal or so the cable type people would like you to believe. Digital signals mean that if you have the appropriate TV or a digital conversion box and an antenna designed to pick up digital signals you can get a GREAT picture for FREE! Obviously Comcast, Verizon and the satellite folks would prefer you did not know this. You are led to believe that the only way to get a good TV picture is to pay someone to deliver it. Keep in mind the broadcast signal is now digital so if you don’t have a fairly new TV equipped to receive a digital signal you will still need a conversion box. If you got one of the $40.00 off federal cou...

They have an amazing selection of things that seems to increase every time I log on to their site.    I saw a nice drop leaf table as I surfed as well as other assorted items.  I sometimes just seem to fall down the rabbit hole when I start surfing. My plans are to review cordless phones , HDTV antennas , outdoor solar lights , a tire swing , pruning tools , sled, a lego set and an air compressor . Of course that may change if I see something else I would rather review. CSN is providing all of the items to review but the choices are mine and they have made no attempt to influence what I write. I will continue to try and post monthly.   I hope to have the HDTV antenna review up soon.  

I have mentioned before that CSN Stores have provided products to review. They do not dictate what products I chose or what I say in my review. I’m still pretty amazed at a company with that level of confidence in their products and service. I ran across console tables in my browsing of their site. My first thought was they were encouraging shop lifting. You have to click on the link to see what I mean.   They have an amazing selection of things that seems to increase every time I log on to their site. My plans are to review cordless phones , HDTV antennas , outdoor solar lights , a tire swing , pruning tools , sled, a lego set and an air compressor . Of course that may change if I see something else I would rather review. CSN is providing all of the items to review but the choices are mine and they have made no attempt to influence what I write. I will try and post monthly.   This should be fun!

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...

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...