Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

This router set up beautifully.    Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder but in my eye if it sets up without biting me in the butt I am happy.    This did. I followed the quick installation guide and surprise, surprise it was actually quick.    My Amazon Fire, my laptop and my phone all attached easily.   The signal was stronger than my current Linksys router.    I have a meter ap on my phone and this puppy was pumping out a much stronger signal.     It has two USB ports that supposedly will allow you to plug in a drive and a printer for sharing.    That is not as simple as the bare bones installation and I will have to update this when I have time to test that.    I did not see any increase in performance on the hard wire end but I don’t have any gigabit network cards in my systems either. First glance, this installed easily and pumps out a very strong signal.    I ...

The Thirty Three Days of Christmas eBook GiveAway  Starting the day after Thanksgiving there are thirty three days until Christmas.   Each day I will give away three Kindle eBook for a total of ninety nine in thirty three days.   To win a copy all that is needed is to request a copy by email at wbentrim@hotmail.com or to comment on one of my blogs or website and mention the Big33 and which book you would like.   The daily winner will be chosen by time stamp as to who requested first.   If there are simultaneous time stamps, the winners will be chosen by a random number generator.    If you do win a copy if you would be so kind as to review the book on Amazon I would be appreciative.    Winners will be announced weekly. The books are in .mobi or pdf, please note which format works for you.    The   books I currently have on Kindle are: Ø       The Christmas Knot Ø ...

Even in periods of recession, people continue to seek the American dream. Some are filled with hope, but others fall into despair as each goes daily to provide for his or her own needs. The fortunate find their lives filled with abundance, but the less fortunate many remain cold and hungry through the dark nights. Entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers and other professionals are successful and appear to have the best that life offers. Some of the less fortunate attribute their success to luck, and accuse them of not caring for the poor, but they are wrong. Any less fortunate person needing medical attention can find it in almost every community because doctors and nurses volunteer their time and services. Many attorneys provide pro bono services for those who cannot afford legal fees. Professionals and tradesmen in all fields find time to help their fellow man. Although busy entrepreneurs spend most of their time planning and overseeing their businesses, they do tak...

Like many of us, I have found myself increasingly dependent on my phone.   I get positively paranoid if I forget my phone on my desk.   My palms get sweaty when I find my self evaluating the time left on my phone battery.   I feel the remaining time in excruciating detail as I wait for my life to go black!   Reading his over, I am increasingly despondent on how fixated I have become on cellular reception.   It isn’t just to chit chat, Oh No!, nothing as simple as chit chat. I want to find the best price on gasoline with GasBuddy.    I want to check on Roethlisberger’s condition.    Arrghh! I want to check the stock market or ball game score and I can’t do any with a DEAD battery.    There is hope and it isn’t expensive.   This is the perfect item when you find yourself charger-less.    Those of you who have never, ever left your charger someplace you wish you hadn’t may cast the first stone. ...

I plugged this into my Win7 system and it was seen and functional in about 60 seconds.    For whatever reason my old reader was incompatible with Win7 so it was nice to have that flexibility of use again.   Of course my machine has a SD card slot that worked just fine until one of those overnight Microsoft auto-updates and now it doesn’t work.   Microsoft states stoutly that it must be some other issue since their auto update couldn’t have done anything damaging.     I know it didn’t hurt the hardware but as far as the driver is concerned there is a problem and I have the most recent driver from ACER.    So I bought this tiny little reader for a whopping $8.00 on Amazon rather than waste any more time trying to fix a MS generated problem.   Description from IOGears site: IOGEAR's 12-in-1 Pocket Card Reader / Writer is an ideal solution for hi-speed, bi-directional image and data file transfer between your computer and multimedi...

Some of my product reviews or recommendations are thinly disguised rants.   I’m afraid this one is less than disguised.   I have used Glide Pro-Health Deep Clean floss for years.   The last three packs I have gotten have had dismal strength.    By strength I mean that it breaks before the cleaning is done.   I end up using 6 or 7 feet of floss because I can only get a couple of teeth before the floss breaks.    I don’t know what happened to this product but the quality has gone down hill in a large way.   I have switched to Oral-B Complete which is made by the same company, Oral-B. It gets through my teeth without breaking and does a nice job.    Ironically it is cheaper and works better.   Incidentally I got the best price at Giant Supermarket, better than any online store I found.     If reviewing a product, it may have been received free of charge. That will NEVER have a bearing on my re...

Image from http://www.steelernation.com/forums/content.php After a recent visit to Pittsburgh I was once again reminded that the Steeler Nation is a truly vibrant and lively community that encompasses a large chunk of the world that does NOT live in Pittsburgh.    I happen to sit through the miserable conditions of the Monday night game on November 12 th , 2012 at Heinz field.   I can deal with dry and cold or warm and wet but cold, wet and windy was pretty darn uncomfortable.    The Steelers beat Kansas City but it wasn’t pretty but hey, a W is a W.    The next day driving back to eastern Pennsylvania I ran into two guys from Jersey wearing Steelers gear.    Noting my hat, they asked if I had been to the game.    We commiserated over the lousy weather and expressed concern for Roethlisberger.   Another gentleman stopped to ask if we had been at the game and wondered what the heck happened.   A...