Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

Smart Phone Rationalization Hey is all that money you got for gifts burning a hole in your pocket?  If so for those of you who have difficulty justifying the purchase of a smart phone I have a few suggestions. A GPS with a 4.3” screen is generally at least $100.00 and you usually have to buy updates. Many smart phones have a GPS app built in and you do NOT have to purchase updates. A tiny 8 megapixel digital camera will cost you at least $75.00. Many smart phones have an 8 megapixel camera today. An iPod or other digital music player can cost over $200.00. Most smart phones can download and play your music and allow you to download movies too. You can get an app for reading bar codes on your smart phone and then compare that barcode with online prices and save a bundle on many purchases. You can check the market and the ball game scores where ever you may be. I don’t sell smart phones but they do bring new meaning to want vs. need. Bottom line is if you wa...

Zoom, zoom is no longer just the Mazda slogan, Cisco is putting Zoooom into it’s new infrastructure routers. ” Translation: Well in Cisco terms, the router will be able to provide download speeds of 1 Gigabit per second for everyone in San Francisco, download the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress in 1 second and stream every movie ever created in less than 4 minutes.” Some folks are questioning the need for that kind of speed. Obviously they are the folks who send one email a week and have never downloaded a program, let alone streamed a movie. We ALWAYS need more speed. We have a NEED for speed. When my cell phone is billed by the minute, I don’t want to wait for a download. Of course the inability of Verizon to get a reliable signal in my area has been the subject of previous posts and is still one of the more annoying aspects of my technical life. What is the point of getting a smart phone if you don’t have a stinking signal! But as usual, I digress...