Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

I’m hosting a giveaway for three free copies of The Dawn Country . The book is written by People of the Longhouse, bestselling authors and archeologists Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear. The Dawn Country is the second book in their newest series. The Dawn Country is the Gears’ 50th published novel. They are famous for the Forbidden Borders series, Requiem for Conqueror, Relic of Empire and Counter Measures . In addition Star Strike, The Artifact and The Spider Series, The Warriors of Spider, The Way of the Spider and Web of Spider are among my favorite books. Go to Azure Dwarf to enter. It’s a super easy contest.

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...

Ok, Free is always suspicious. I have a bluetooth headset so I don't need one. I got this from Buy.com and I have had good experiences there. Check it out, I am not recommending it, I am not getting paid to mention it, I just thought it might be of interest to someone who needs/wants a bluetooth headset. Here is the Link.

Exercise, you love it or hate it, there is so little middle of the road feelings on it. I like sports but at my age, my knees are not so fond of anything that involves running, jumping or going sideways. That limits my options somewhat. I play gold and no matter what your opinion my be, it is too a sport. I lift weights and I do Pilates to stay flexible. Frankly a big part of my motivation to exercise is I like to eat. Matter of fact, I love to eat. Thusly exercise is necessary to keep from turning into a blimp. What the heck does this have to do with free audio books? I walk and I ride the exercise bike. I find both boring. Audio books are the saving grace. If I can keep my mind occupied, I can exercise. The library has lots of audio books but it isn’t close. I have found some sites where I can download audio books for FREE. I put them on my Clip (Samsung’s answer to the Ipod Nano. I can walk, ride the bike and still prevent screaming boredom. Audio books also keep me awake, with out...

Just For Making Comments I will give away one Tripplite Circuit Tester each week for the next four weeks to whoever posts the most comments on my blog. Please don’t comment successively, if there are two in a row by the same person, it will only count as one. I will keep track of the comments for each week and announce each week’s winner here. Cut off time for comments for each week will be noon on Sunday. I will be counting comments on Sunday October 26, Sunday November 2, 9 and 16. AC Circuit Tester, 3 prong, brand NEW Brand New Tripplite Brand AC Outlet Tester A must have for every toolbox and desk drawer. I gave one of these t o every one of my technicians when I was in the computer business. Many computer and consumer electronic issues are from "bad" power. This tester shows by means of three colored lights whether there is: an Open Ground--Open Neutral---Open Hot--- Hot/Grnd Reverse--- Hot/Neutral Reverse or a Correctly Wired Outlet. Avoid ELECTRICAL Outlet problems, TE...

Ok, we all love FREE, if you are reading my blog, you know how often I like to put FREE in my blogs, ‘cause WE ALL LOVE FREE. Well, this time it is the jackpot, FREE & USEFUL! Comodo may be one of those companies you have never heard of and now you will wish you had. They offer a wealth of free software that focuses on security. Their catch phrase is the Trusted Internet . Basically what they want is to increase trust in use of the Internet and the businesses that operate on the Internet. They do have products they sell (hey they are a business) but they want to facilitate the Trusted Internet concept by providing software tools to protect computers. If people feel their computers are protected they are more likely to use the Internet and Internet businesses, thusly the Trusted Internet . If more people trust the Internet and use Internet businesses, Comodo will sell more of their products and make more money and therefore will be able to support all of their FREE software. Get th...

Why am I talking about a swap site on a tech (mostly) blog? Well swapping doesn’t mean FREE but it does mean inexpensive which falls under the money saving part. Admittedly posting the same blog on both my blogs seems excessive but somehow to me they fit. Swaptree is an online swapping service where you can swap CDs, DVD’s and books with folks from all over. Premise is good, site is a bit sketchy, customer support is non-existent. SWAPTREE has no tech support, none, butkus, zip, nada, zero support. I have emailed their support, their contact or anyone who might answer and there is nobody there. If they have support then apparently they really are terrible since I got no response on any emails I have sent. I wonder who did they pay off on Good Morning America to get recommended. Good Morning America, what were you thinking? There are several much better sites that actually have human beings involved with them. I have a book on my wish list, Swaptree keep offering me a copy of the book ...

Free Books Once upon a time an employee of mine was showing some emotional distress. She told me that her live in boyfriend had left her because she couldn’t deal with her having a child. (Kid was 3 so it wasn’t like he was a surprise) She felt she could deal with the problem but she just didn’t know what to tell her child who wanted to know what happen to the boyfriend. I wrote “Mommy’s Friend Goes Away” and gave it to her. I was discussing the story with a volunteer at a local agency who suggested writing about spousal abuse. This snowballed into other suggested topics. If you want to see the topics feel free to click on the link to the right under favorite sites. The stories are free to download for non-profit use. They are stored in a .pdf format. They can be saved to your computer and printed out. They are directed toward pre-school and younger children. They deal with topics that are often ignored or unseen. If you know a child that can benefit from having one of these stories re...

It’s Not Really Free. Suspicions confirmed, they don’t really make any money on the printers, they get their money on the toner. However, a free, laser printer is still a pretty good deal if you need one. You’re going to be buying toner anyway and it is always iffy using third party stuff when you are under warranty. Generally if you use third party ink/toner and it trashes your printer it also may invalidates your warranty. Technically that is illegal and you can fight it, but who needs the hassle. Anyway check this out if you need a pretty nice color laser. READ the FINE print, you may not purchase enough toner to keep the printer free. Good luck and maybe for you it will be FREE. http://www.freeprinterpromo.com/