Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial kickoff to the summer barbecue season. As folks here in the States prepare to kick back in the backyard, those fabulous gas grills are rolled out of the storage shed for the first time of the year. But lets be realistic … some of those gas grills are less than fabulous … segue to my biggest online purchase ever (with the exception of geek goodies, of course). Set the clock back to 1999 …
It was the peak of the dotcom boom. All of a sudden, it seemed like you could buy absolutely anything online. From the sublime to the ridiculous, nothing seemed more awesome (at the time) than the ability to shop for and buy a gas barbecue grill online.
Oh, I'd been to plenty of home improvement stores. But I never seemed to hit them when the gas grill I wanted was on sale. And even worse, I had no way to bring the gas grill of my dreams home from the store (as a result of driving little cars). Tack on the state tax and the store delivery charges, and whoomp ... all of a sudden there was a monetary penalty for buying in the real world.
I'd owned a number of gas grills over the years ... but all of them were el cheapo models that fell apart after only a few seasons. I was determined to do the research and find a suitable replacement.
I set out to find a gas grill online. It didn't take long to find one.
Work wise, I had just finished up The Complete Guide to Associate and Affiliate Programs on the Net for McGraw-Hill. As a result of my research, I had signed up with a whole bunch of merchants. One of those stores just happened to have the gas grill apple of my eye -- a humble Weber Genesis -- at a great price, with free shipping to boot.
So what clinched the deal? I was hooked after I determinined that it was okay to order the barbecue grill through my own links and reap the affiliate fee. A ten percent commission added up to a substantial discount.
A few clicks and the order was placed. The grill arrived in a week or so, via tractor trailer. (There's a certain drama to delivery when the driver circles his 18-wheeler in your cul-du-sac.) We unloaded the brand spanking new Weber Genesis in the driveway and by that evening we were grilling burgers.
Unfortunately, the affiliate commission didn't arrive so easily. In fact, it didn't arrive at all.
The merchant ended up a victim of the dotcom bust.
Six years down the road, the barbecue grill is still grilling like a champ. (If only I could rig up a web cam and an automatic burger flipper, I'd be set ...)
The morals of this story? Do your research. Don't settle for what's available locally. And check out your merchants carefully ...
It didn’t take long for HP’s acquisition of Snapfish to bear fruit. The online digital photo print lab has slashed prices, just in time for the start of summer. Individual 4x6-inch inch photo prints are now just 12 cents a piece at Snapfish (down from 19 cents). The new pricing structure rivals that of the lowest price competition, and blows the doors off their largest competitors …
Of course, frugal photo print customers look at more than just the per print prices.
While the photo print pricing structure has changed at Snapfish, the shipping costs remain the same. For USPS shipping, Snapfish charges $1.97 for the first 25 prints and 49 cents for each additional 10 prints. While their per-4x6 print prices are a bit higher, both PhotoCheap.biz and WinkFlash.com offer 99 cent flat rate shipping. And if you're primarily looking for 5x7-inch prints, both of these labs are significantly less expensive than Snapfish.
Want to compare the photo print pricing from over 20 online print labs?
Check out the updated Photo Print Pricing Comparison Chart, where you'll find more than 10 photo print labs with offers ranging from 10 to 30 free prints for new customers.
This morning, I helped out a friend with some domains that she had recently registered. I was aghast to learn that she had registered those domains with Network Solutions. While all of my techie friends moved on to more reasonable domain name registrars long ago, this friend isn’t so techie. Consequently, she lost a nice green picture of Andrew Jackson with each and every domain name (and then some) …
One year of domain name registration for $34.99? What is this ... 1996?
I almost spit my coffee through my nose when I saw those retro-prices. An informed consumer shouldn't pay anything more than fifteen bucks per year (and in most cases, significantly less). NetSol continues to rake in the profits by taking advantage of their clueless customer base.
There's a reason why GoDaddy is now the world's largest domain name registrar. And it's not just the Super Bowl advertisement.
Just in case you're thinking about blurting out your brilliant new domain name idea in public, here's one reason why you shouldn't ...
What’s up with the telemarketing business? In the space of three hours this morning, I got no less than six telemarketing calls. Five of those calls were for refi or home equity loan offers. The sixth was for a credit card. Maybe it’s partially my fault …
Problem is, I can see the telemarketers out of one eye, but not the other.
While I have Caller ID on my home office line (it's provided free-of-charge with my VOIP plan, as it is with most), I don't have it on the house line (my local phone company kindly charges seven bucks per month for the service). Idiot that I am, I pick up all of the calls that come into the house ... just in case it might be an important call. More often then not, those calls
are from a predictive dialer wielding telemarketer.
I signed up for the federal government's Do Not Call program ages ago. While I can't say that it hasn't done a bit of good, it didn't seem to do much to keep the telemarketers at bay this morning.
Although I've never bought anything from an outbound telemarketer's call, I do acknowledge their right (and their need) to exist. I only wish they would honor that darn Do Not Call list.
I have empathy for the folks that man those lines. But the purveyors of telemarketing lists? Fughettaboutit!
VOIP's killer app to come: the intelligent virtual phone butler ...
Press:
#1 for Alfred the Butler,
#2 for C3P0,
#3 for Krusty the Clown, or
#4 for the Nuclear Option (a.k.a.: the endless Black Hole of voicemail loops)
What happened to the laser toner cartridge that I paid way too much for at Best Buy, you ask?
Needless to say, I was bit peeved when I saw the original equipment HP 15A toner cartridge for sixty five bucks online. But when I saw it for the same price in a local Staples store the next day I was really steamed ... I decided, then and there, to return the cartridge for a refund.
Fifteen bucks is fifteen bucks, baby.
Luckily, we were able to squeak by using the shaky-shaky routine with the HP 1200's old toner cartridge. (To get by, we pulled out the old toner cartridge each time a light streak appeared in a printout, gently shook the cart, and reinserted it in the laser printer.) This routine got us through a few days until I had the chance to return the overpriced cartridge to the big box store where the unfortunate (and uninformed) purchase was made.
This time, I checked out a recent Best Buy circular before I left on my journey:
Price Guarantee: 30 days from purchase (14 days for select items), if a local competitor (excluding Internet) has a lower price on the same available brand/model, we'll refund the difference plus 10% of the difference. Present lower price verification and original Best Buy receipt for refund. Excludes special, bonus, free, and financing offers and, in CA, cellular phones/pagers. Ask customer service for details.
I went in knowing that I would probably have to ask for a full refund on the HP 15A toner cartridge, as I didn't have printed price verification from the local Staples. This played out exactly as I surmised. I asked the customer service rep if he could simply refund the price difference without printed proof, and he politely refused.
I handed over the overpriced toner cartridge, the CSR applied a credit to my account, and I happily walked out the door ... never to return to purchase as much as a set of batteries from Best Buy without doing my homework beforehand.
And my next toner cartridge? I'll be buying it online ... long before the current one runs low ...
I’m a big believer in sweat equity and putting PCs to work around the house. Whether it’s building a shed, laying out a laminate floor, or designing a pattern for a ceramic tile entryway, PCs have their place in the D-I-Y handyman’s tool chest. So why am I so darn hesitant to build my own PC?
If you've been following my ramblings, you might recall that I've been living with a noisy Gateway for some time now. The noise is so unbearable at times that I swear that it's a prime contributor to my writer's block. (ha!) A good number of folks have suggested that: a) I should just junk this thing or b) that I should bite the bullet and swap out the power supply and processor fan.
I'll figure it out before the lease runs out on this noisy beast at the end of the year ... if it hasn't driven me insane first. (Maybe it's just me, because when I ask my darling bride if the fan noise bothers her, she looks at me and says "what noise?")
In the meantime, I'm doing the research on the next big project here at rancho indebto: hardwood floors. I figure that if I can handle laying out ceramic and laminate flooring, I can deal with hardwood.
I'll probably go with an engineered hardwood product if I do this one myself. Engineered hardwood flooring is similar to plywood, in that it's built up with veneer and layers (as opposed to conventional hardwood flooring, which is a solid chunk 'o wood). All that high-tech engineering provides dimensional stability and ease of installation, or so they say.
If I had my druthers (and the cash), I'd have a professional floor installer come in and do it the old-fashioned way, with solid 3/4-inch hardwood. Of course, sufficient druthers and cash can be tough to find at times.
Either way, I'm hoping that there will be enough leftover scraps to build a hardwood PC case ...
The storage shed saga is inevitable. Whether you've: a) built that shed, b) had it built, or c) had it delivered ... it's only a matter of time before it fills up with stuff. Storage sheds are like magnets. They attract everything in sight (and not just the metallic stuff). Before long, you're looking for more space ...
As I rambled yesterday, if you want to maximize the storage space in your shed, it's ultra-important to pick the right design. The trick is to get as much of the junk off the floor as possible. Of course, you won't be able to get the lawn tractor, the garden tiller, or the snow thrower off the floor.
The prime candidates? All the other miscellaneous yard junk ...
A pegboard always comes in handy and won't set you back more than a handful of bucks. You can pick and choose from the different hooks individually, or pick up a box of assorted shapes and sizes. The assortment might be the best way to start ... once you get home and start loading up the pegboard, you'll quickly figure out what else you'll need.
My favorite shed storage trick is to use the space between the vertical framing. Just nail those leftover 2x4 scraps horizontally between the verticals and you'll have lots of narrow shelf space ... perfect for holding coffee cans full of nails and other goodies, like wasp spray and WD40.
Just remember to keep lids on those cans 'o nails, lest this happen to you ... :O
All garden sheds are not created equal. The design is of utmost importance, whether you're building from scratch with a good set of shed plans, hammering a pre-fab shed kit, or bolting a steel building together. There is no one perfect garden shed design, to be sure ... but there is one design aspect to be avoided, whenever possible.
My pet peeve with many garden sheds is that they're just too short. I've said this before, but it bears repeating. A low shed roof won't do you any favors.
The smartest storage shed designs incorporate generous roof lines for two basic reasons: headroom and storage space.
The headroom problem is obvious. Smacking your head against the rafters is never fun ... and it certainly isn't easy on the back if you have to stoop every time you go to get something out of the shed.
But it's the storage space issue that's key. You're putting this miniature piece of architecture in your backyard to store stuff, right? (Hey, it's a storage shed, after all!) Why wouldn't you build or buy a shed with the maximum amount of storage space, no matter the square footage?
That's where the tall salt box and gambrel shed and barn designs excel. With all that space up in the rafters, you can store lots of stuff overhead. And not just any old stuff ... the rafters are a great place to store long stuff like extra lumber, piping, rolls of landscape fabric, garden fencing, and long handled tools ... just the kind of stuff that clutter up the floor of a typical shed. Of course, you'll want to take a good bit of care in what you store up there and how you stow it ... the last thing you want is a shovel whacking you in the head.
In any given size, a well designed high-roofed garden shed can easily pick up 30% more square feet of storage space, when compared to a low slung design. And that's just the utilitarian aspect ... I won't get into the aesthetics (for now) ... :)
It’s been nearly half a year since I picked up a PC blood pressure monitor. I know I promised to write a review way back when, I have to apologize for the extended delay …
It's just that I have this horrible habit of misplacing things, and the blood pressure monitor has fallen into a black hole (again).
Fear not. I'll do a proper review once I locate the blood pressure monitor. (The unit is OEMed by Microlife and sold by CVS as the "Digital Advanced Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor with PC Link Software".) It'll be a real deal review, complete with screen shots of the software. I just need to get a couple of weeks worth of consistent data into the system. A day here and a day there (at different times of the day) just won't cut it.
I can say that I'm fairly happy with the technology. This is the easiest blood pressure monitor I've ever used. Just slap it around your wrist, fasten the Velcro, push a button, and the unit will take a series of three blood pressure readings. After the third reading is done, it automatically records the average.
When I first envisioned the review, I had hoped to show some long term results, with yours truly starting at my fully bloated winter weight. (Ah the dream of losing 25 pounds each spring.) We'll end up with a smaller chunk of time, but I'll still do my darndest to shed some weight over the duration.
Speaking of the software, I initially ran into some difficulties running the blood pressure tracking application that came with the unit. Thankfully, all it took was a phone call to Microlife and I had an updated version of the software within days. I loaded the new software onto my computer, plugged in the USB link between the blood pressure monitor and PC, and it all worked like a charm.
With luck, I'll locate the unit within the next day or so and start collecting data again ... stay tooned ...
I’ve been building my digital music library bit-by-bit of late. The majority of my purchases have been split between used CDs that I buy through eBay and downloaded albums and singles purchased from iTunes. Suffice to say, I have a considerable pile of CDs sitting around that have yet to be ripped. Looking at that stack of CDs got me looking into the availability of automated CD ripping services …
(Not that I'd be a potential customer ...)
CD ripping services charge a set fee to rip each CD into digital format. You simply send the company your stack of CDs (using their protective spindle packaging) and they send you back the digital music files (most often in MP3 or AAC format) on high-capacity DVDs along with your original CDs. Instant digital music with no disc jockeying.
Don't have a MP3 player? Many of the CD ripping services will sell you a brand new player preloaded with your digital music. (For those folks that can't be troubled with purchasing a MP3 player on their own.)
It's hard to say how many folks are actually using the CD ripping services, but it appears to be a growing industry.
Popular CD ripping services include:
Talk about cottage industries. The barriers to entry in the CD ripping service industry are rather low. So will everyone and their little brother set up shop? That remains to be seen...
At first blush, it seems like the proverbial 14-year-old kid can set up the equivalent of a roadside lemonade stand and go into the CD ripping business overnight. There's no need for a fancy website and courier services when you can bang on doors or tack up a flyer for your CD ripping service on the bulletin board at the local supermarket ...
While I haven't used one of these firms, I'd love to hear from folks that have. Please send me your stories, be they of the success or horror varieties, and I'll include them in a follow up article. :)