Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

I have a stand alone computer connected to my TV. I purchased a video card with an HDMI connector to get the best possible resolution. Well, after much fooling around, I discovered my video card HDMI and my TV don’t play well together. I ended up using an SVHS connection which while adequate, I could have done with my old video card. Tsk. I have a cable modem and a fast pipe is necessary for watching Internet TV on the big screen. I still get drop out on occasion and since I get the same problem on my XP, Vista and Win7 computers I am inclined to blame my Comcast cable modem. I have run slide shows of photos from my computer to the TV. It brings fond memories of the slides my Dad used to show but he had to drag out his screen, set up his projector and occasionally replace the projector bulb. I turn on the computer. I occasionally lay back in the recliner and surf on the big screen. I do not type well on my lap but I am sure that the txting mavens out there w...

I know another “be careful on the Internet” article. The Internet is somewhat like Las Vegas, it has beauty, glitz, shiny lights, fabulous shows and as long as you stay on the main drag in the well known places you are safe. If you wander off onto side streets, just like in any major city, you may find things you really didn’t want to see. You can caution older kids and revoke Internet privileges if they ignore your cautions. Pre-school and primary grade children are an entirely different situation. Older kids may wander into nefarious activity intentionally; the younger ones generally get into questionable areas quite unintentionally. This isn’t a new problem, an article in the NY Times six years ago pointed out that kids searching for something like Disney and misspelling it, ended up in places they shouldn’t have been. I point this out because these very young children seem quite adept on the computer. There are a wealth of sites that have mentally challenging g...

Discovering I could get high def through the Internet was truly a treat. I had no idea. I added a EVGA GeForce 6200 256MB 64-bit DDR AGP-8X DVI/VGA/TV Out Video Card to my TV attached computer. (See my blog on the Toshiba 40” LCD.) I got the card at Buy.com for a whopping $39.99 including shipping. That was way cheaper than many 128mb video cards I found. The card interfaced easily, the software on the CD loaded and gave me all the options I needed. My TV computer is an old P4-3ghz running XP. It only had 512mb of RAM so I goosed up the RAM to 1.5gb by adding a Kingston Technologies 1GB DDR SDRAM Desktop Memory (KVR400/1GR). This is a PC2700, 184pin, DDR memory stick running at 400mhz but downward compatible to 333 and lower. I popped it in and fired up the CPU and it worked as advertised. Now my TV computer had the specifications to attach it to my new Toshiba LCD and pull down High Def from the Internet. I got a Link Depot Cable 6 Hdmi Male To Dvi-D Male for $3.57 plus shipping &...

I sit here, enjoying the sunshine, reveling in a relaxed environment and lusting for an internet connection. Admittedly addicted, I was fine for the first two days and when I made my way to the local hot spot and found 90 emails that made their way through my spam filter I was overwhelmed. Do I deal with that much crap every day? Apparently so as I weeded my way through things that were deemed to be significantly important to my spam filter. Of course one email was from a client that wants a meeting. Generally when I do web sites I have an initial meeting with the client and may never see them in person again. I can update, change and add to their site from any hot spot in the world. I missed a couple of books that came up on my wish list. My other addiction is book swapping. I belong to several book swaps and feel like a little kid Christmas morning every time I go to the mail box and find a book in it. In over a year, I’ll bet I haven’t had three books come up from ...

Small businesses and some larger ones, bitch constantly about how the big box store or the Internet is robbing them of business. They complain that it is unfair that big box stores buy in volume and get a better price than they get. They complain that the Internet reseller doesn’t have overhead, or taxes or employees or something that makes them more competitive. Bitch, bitch and more bitching and then they drive business to the Internet in droves. My 93 year old Mom is on a walker. It used to have two larger wheels in front and two smaller wheels in the back on springs, supposedly so her weight would depress the wheels and keep her from speeding off into the night. One of the rear, spring loaded wheels broke off. It really didn’t impact the performance of her rig but if you have a Mom around, you know that didn’t make any difference. It was broken and she was going to fall, again. Since the wheel broke off on our way into our favorite breakfast joint, we were already out and about. Ge...

Online Purchase Protection I’m a geek, I can’t hide it, in fact I revel in it. I love technology, learning new technology and yes, buying new technology. Much of my buying of technology occurs online. I am skeptical of online security. Daily you read of someone else’s database or web site being compromised. Up until recently I dedicated a single credit card as my online card and used only it for online purchases. Then the credit card company bumped up my credit limit significantly due to my paying the bills on time and not carrying a balance. Now the low limit credit card that I purposely kept low is now much higher than I am comfortable with for online purchases. I have ignored the opportunity to get the one time use credit card numbers as offered by many of the credit card companies. It seemed like it would be more trouble than it was worth. I finally took the time to read through the procedure and discovered I could download a software package to my computer th...

Porn Protection Funny how the right title on an article at least gets some attention. The internet has put a wealth of material at our finger tips. Obviously some of that material is unsuitable for families and in businesses can lead to liability issues. There is software that can protect your family and your business from internet horrors. There is no question that there is content on the Internet that is not suitable for anyone sane let alone children. Business owners must recognize that they can face liability issues if they provide unfettered internet access. A published company policy can alleviate most of that concern but be aware of the potential problem. Parents need to have more concern. Mature adults have the ability to self filter their Internet browsing. Children often don’t. It is the parent’s responsibility to monitor the home computer. Talk to your children about what they are doing on the computer. Provide an age appropriate dialogue on what is good and bad computer use...