Dad's Taxi - Unplugged

So we finally made the move to a different venue.. Wordpress.

Please update your bookmarks and follow us to our new home to Dad's Taxi..

Atul

If you do most of your shopping on-line, I know I get annoyed with the shipping charges that get tacked on to my purchases. To get around this annoyance, I found this site where they actually scan the web for free shipping sites and codes which give you free shipping.

In the past I've directed you to my site where I have some sites for shopping, I'm re-listing the site for shopping and price comparisons, so all of you can finish your eShopping and Price Comparisons and coupon codes for this X-MAS.

Of course remember for the latest in sites, I post them here as I come across them. Hope you find it useful. Feel free to leave me comments or if you have any sites you wish to add...

Have fun and remember: "It's always better to receive savings then to put money in the pockets of the stores".

Atul - "Coupon Dad"

So I was in Barnes and Noble today with my daughter and my stash of coupons that I got from the their site. I saved a total of $15+ (and that includes the latte and the cookie that we got!).

While I was browsing and waiting for my daughter to pick up her books, I noticed the book "Huffington Post - Complete Guide to Blogging". Now this is a book that I will buy!

I first checked out the Huffington Post site and I found this this site is amazing for the content.. not just for the content, but for the feedback from fellow bloggers in the blogging hemisphere. Even though I've been blogging for about a year, I now realize that I'm just a newbie to blogging and I need to learn more, so I can get my words out to a larger audience..

Now don't get me wrong, I know that I ramble and repeat in my blogs (similar to me in real life), but blogging let's me write to my hearts content without judgement. Blogging lets my "creative" juices flow and I guess next to Tennis, blogging has developed into my secret passion.

A few posts ago, I talked about the outrage I felt about the Mumbai Attacks, the Huffington Post carries a wealth of posts related to these attacks. I could (and probably will) spend hours here..

Anyway, even though I've caught on to blogging late, I know one thing for sure, I'm here to stay..

ASM

As we go through the recession, we are all searching for bargains. I myself spend much of my money at Best Buy and Staples. Instead of going through the Sunday papers looking for bargains, here are some of the best sites on the web that make saving money easier:

You can always Google "Printable Coupons" on Google, but below are some good starting points for your savings during this holiday season

Coupon Mom - This has been on many TV shows over the past few months.
Wow-Coupons - My personal Favorite
Mommy Saves Big - A really good site where you can subscribe to get printable and on-line savings. This site is really worth your visit.

Happy holidays everyone. And remember my motto: "If I have to buy, I will save, save, save.."

ASM

Not really in the mood to write this with what is going on in Mumbai, but publishing for future reference.

So tomorrow is "Black Friday". I was looking at some of the sales and because of the current state of the economy and my financial situation, I wasn't enthusiastic.

Perhaps next year will be better and I'm publishing some sites which give some some excellent ideas on some bargains:

Black Friday Ads - Official Site for Black Friday Site
Info - Black Friday Information
Gotta Deal

Good luck and happy shopping!

ASM

I started to write this posting thinking about posting some Black Friday information, but there's something that I need to talk about. The horrible terrorist attacks that are going on in Mumbai, India. As many of my readers know, I was born in Mumbai and still consider it to be my home away from home.

Watching the terrorists take over this city was not only horrifying to me, it was a personal assault on my city, My Bombay, which even after almost 40 years of not living there, I still consider to be my second home town.

I've been glued to CNN for the last 24 hours and watching as the city that I love and still consider to be my second home is under attack by terrorists. The pictures, videos that are coming out truly depict the horror and tragedy that is going on in Mumbai as I write this.

In June of 2007, my older daughter and I were in Mumbai, and we spent quite a few days in the posh area that these attacks are taking place.We walked through the Taj admiring the beauty of this hotel. We walked the Coloba Causeway looking for bargains to bring home. We ate lunch at the Leopold Cafe, and we took a train from the train station that was attacked. Not in my wildest dreams did I think that this area referred to as "South Mumbai" could be attacked in this manner.

Hearing of these attacks, hit the very core of my being. I felt personally violated that these "animals" and I'm being kind to these wretched humans that take lives of innocents for no reason at all. I hope each of them burn in hell for this attack on my city.

As an American, I was aghast at the scenes of terror that I was seeing. The area that I considered to be heaven has turned into a non-stop hell for the visitors to this wonderful area. The bloodshed, the fires, the hijacked police vehicle. How could this happen? It'll take many weeks and months to find the answer to this question.

Mumbai has been subjected to acts of terrorism in the past, but never to this level of ongoing crisis. I just cannot believe that the government and police department of this great city, were so unprepared to handle this kind of assault. I'm hearing of delays in reacting, where were the police, army, the armed forces to prevent this kind of assault?

I could go on and on, but I just needed this forum to speak out my thoughts..

Let's all pray for the well being of everyone in Mumbai...

ASM

So if you are like me, you are constantly googling to figure thing out or to figure out how to do things. I found Howcast to be an excellent video site for the how-to junkie.

Now you are probably wondering how did you find Howcast? I found how cast because I was reading time magazines top 50 sites.. Another one of my favorites..

Bonus of the day: Howcast is a free APP for your iPhone via iTunes

Second bonus of the day: A new Apple site which has just launched - "Iphone for you life".. Guaranteed to be a major time waster for me... :-)

My next goal is to see the video on how I can publicize this Blog better!

As I always say.. Seek and you shall find.

ASM

I am going to post this disclaimer on this post.
My Disclaimer: I am not endorsing any sites listed on this post. I am only providing these link as pure entertainment and examples of Web 2.0 that you can check out at your own risk. If you do go to this site, make sure you use Firefox as your browser with the no-script addon. With the problems that I've had with IE7 Security, I will not recommend you use this browser for this purpose.

Are you looking for a site which allows you to see TV shows and movies streamed to your screen. If so, check out AllUC. There are many sites on the web which allow you to see movies, but I found that this site was the best.

I once went to this site to see a TV show I had missed, but you can see almost every type of TV show that you want to see.

Here's a disclaimer from the AllUC site which you MUST read very carefully.

Below are some more video aggregation sites that I've gathered from various sources which have videos and streaming...

Additoinal Online Streaming Sites - Not in any order of preference
You Tube
Yahoo! Video
AOL Video
Blip TV
Stickam
Jumpcut
Clipshack
Crackle
Metacafe
Revver

If you have any sites you want to add, feel free to post your comments.

So now I have 2 iPhones that I use as an iPod and a iTouch (with many many applications).

I'm a total addict. Fortunately, all the applications i've installed are free.

My fav: Pandora Radio. Using wireless and the pandora application, you can set up favorites for songs as well as artists. This application is as far as I'm concerned hands down my favorite application. What's yours? Let me know with your feedback.

One of my friends at work has set up a board (click on pda/smartphone lounge) where he posts his reviews of cool applications, tips and tricks to get the most out of your iPhone!

I've talked about Bharatbeat before, and my friend and I are working to expand this mega Indian portal to the masses. Check it out. The forums on Bharatbeat contain a plethera (that's a multi-point scrabble word) of interesting articles and blogs.

You can also go to the Apple iphone site as well for more information on the iPhone. On the right of the screen you'll see top applications that are paid as well as free. If you want iPhone tips and tricks, from Apple, there are so many... !

Here's another blog for iphone secrets,tips and tricks.

go on.. I know you want to check it out...

Over the past week, I've been busy trying to clean up a nasty virus/malware that one of my machines picked up on the Web. I certainly learned some valuable lessons from this experience and I'm going to share them with you.

It took me over 24 hours to get rid of the nasty bug I had on my main computer. I'm still trying to get my machine back in good shape. I know, it's my own fault for not being more consistent in the way I protectmy primary machine, but fortunately for me, I "think" I survived.

Never ever make your default profile an "Administrator" profile. Every user on your computer should have their profile as "regular user". Only on administrator. With this, you reduce substantially, the probability of a virus latching on to your machine.
This is regardless whether you use XP or Vista. Even with multiple layers of Antivirus/HW and Software Firewall/Anti Spyware Protection, a nasty "Antivirus Pro 2009" spyware was able to penatrate my defensive line and get access to my machine.
Stop using IE 7 as your primary browser! Use Firefox as your primary and only browser. If you use Firefox, make sure you have Script Blocker and Add Block Plus installed as Add on's.
If you do get a virus, immediatley power down and if you have a seconday machine, Google the symptoms. In my case I quickly found out that the site bleepingcomputer had the latest posting on the virus/malware that I had gotten.
Follow the directions that the site gives you exactly to work on virus removal.
If you have do download anything, make sure you download it to an accessible drive on YOUR computer so when you are in "safe" mode, you can work on the virus removal.
When you are working on virus removal, ALWAYS, ALWAYS work in safe mode (this is a restricted mode of your computer). This is the mode when you press "F8" while rebooting your computer.
Once you have cleared your virus/trojan/malware, Make sure you have an up to date Software Firewall (Get a free one if you don't have a paid one). Make sure you have real-time spyware protection on your computer.
Remember that you must have multiple layers of protection on your machine. Just as we are trying to protect our machine, others are thinking of ways to hack into our machines.

In the above scenario, I utilized the following software/Tools to clear out my virus:

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - Primary solution for my Virus. FREE
Spybot Search & Detroy - Make sure you have immunization and do a detail scan. FREE
Ad-Aware - Ad-aware the home edition. Free
Google

TTYL

I haven't had a chance to blog much over the past few weeks as I've been busy with my normal Dad's Taxi stuff.. Driving Kids, hiking, Tennis, Blah Blah..

A few days ago I found the best thing sliced cheese that the rest of the world already knew about.

The iPhone from Apple. This device is absolutely the best device that you can have even if you don't have AT&T service (Which I don't). You can use this device as an iTouch/iPod with a few tricks.

Once you visit the iPhone Hack site, you can CAREFULLY figure out how to utilize the inherent power of the iPhone to utilize wi-fi and use it's amazing features (games, applications, iPod, etc).. Of course I recommend you do all your research before you do anything and I am not advocating the usage of this site. Reader beware.

The number of applications and games that are available via iTunes is amazing. I also suggest you go to You Tube and search on iPhone to get a better idea on the iPhone.

I am hooked on my new toy and I hope you check it out too.

A few days ago, on one of my machines, IE was no longer the default browser. So I went to google and "googled it" to find how to revert my settings to have IE the default browser.

One of the sites that I found which I was really impressed was: Ask Dave Taylor.

Dave's blog is a great site for answers to most of your technical questions. As he says on his blog:

Dave answers technical questions on wide variety of questions including Facebook, Windows, Search engine optimization, etc..

Check it out.

So this weekend, I went to a Diwali Celebration in Edison NJ with my wife and kids. My niece was dancing and I wanted to support her as she's an amazing dancer.

The event was held at the Holiday Inn and of course it was "Free admission". That is when my flares should have gone off. So we go to this event and it's held in a cnference room that can accomodate about 200 people. Do you want to guess how many people showed up? At least 500. So you can imagine the crowd. Food, clothing, insurance, "call India Today" vendors and a of course the stage..

What I don't understand is this: With all the publicity, didn't the organizers realize that having this kind of "free" event would generate huge crowds, as Diwali is THE festival that the south Asian community celebrates. I'm surprised that no-one fainted or the beloved Edison Police department didn't come and close the place down due to the fire hazard..

As usual, I spent my time observing. Something I do very very well.

Overall, the event was poorly designed. From the stage layout to having 10 to 15 Vendors sprawled around the perimeter of the conference room hawking their merchandise (Multiple food stalls, music and video (best bargain), clothing, insurance, satellite TV, Non-Resident home purchases in India, Raffles). The stage for the performances was tiny. Surprised that no child either fell off the stage or hurt themselves.

Oh, I forgot the heat. It seems that when you have over 300 to 400 people in a room of this size (with a capacity of 200) , you will need decent Air conditioning.

What I did admire is the tenacity and the dedication of the kids that danced their hearts out for the audience, REGARDLESS of where they were. I know that the organizers meant well, but besides generating revenue from the vendor sales, didn't they think about the celebration and the comfort of the attendees? It's absolutely unacceptable to hold this kind of celebration without planning.

So we were there for a few hours and finally escaped after my niece performed (awesome!). Yet this whole experience left me with one lasting impression. Diwali is a festival of lights, and to celebrate it in with the right venue (accomodations/surroundings) is a must. With better planning this could have been an inclusive event not just for South Asians, it could have included EVERYONE in the community (not just a local politician looking for the vote).

There I feel much better now. Happy Diwali to all!

TTYL

I was watching the today show this morning and this caught my eye. The concept of recycling your unused stuff. Similar to Garage sales, but with this, it's free.

The sites listed below is just a starting point. You can also search on these types of sites on Yahoo and Google Groups respectively.

Sites:

Freecycle - Largest site. Move fast or the item is gone. You can find groups in your city and join.
Freesharing - Next generation of recycling. State by State
Freeuse -Person to Person Recycling
Sharing is Giving - Groups all over the US who do the concept of recycling your stuff

In this economy, what's better than getting free stuff? Getting more free stuff. Take a look and have fun. Just remember to be careful that you do not get taken for a ride by any scammer that might be lurking on any of these sites. Use common sense.

TTYL

In the Hindu religion there are many holidays. As we approach the end of 2008, we are in the midst of the Hindu New Year, Dushera, Navratri (9 nights and 10 days of celebration), and Diwali (Festival of Lights).

The underlying theme of these Hindu celebrations is the victory of the forces of Good over Evil. It is considered an auspicious day to begin new ventures in life. So if you are starting new ventures this is a good time to start the business. I do also hope that this is also the beginning of a turnaround in our economoy. Yet I digress.

The festival is celebrated for nine nights once every year during the beginning of October, although as the dates of the festival are determined according to the lunar calendar, the festival may be held for a day more or a day less. To really get a flavor of the celebration you have to see this video on You Tube

Back to the overview.
Last night I went with my teenage daughter to a Navratri celebration at a highschool in Elizabeth, New Jersey. I went as my role as chaperone and a "watcher" of the festivities. Yet, let me tell you watching this celebration was an amazing experience. What I saw was a rainbow of celebrating and coming together of the Hindu community. By the time I left in the early morning hours, I was absolutely excited that I had made this annual journey to the Navratri celebration.

The Gymnasium that the festivities were held in was huge so the couple of thousand of people that turned up were very comfortable in both the bleachers and on the floor. As I sat in the bleachers and observed what I saw was not just the Indian community celebrating but I saw many non-indians participating in the festivities (both adults and children).

One thing you must understand that Navratri in the United states for Hindu's has gotten to be huge. Many cities have multiple venues that celebrate Navratri. Typically, the celebrations occur over the weekends. So in the case of my state (New Jersey), the celebration I went to was just one of many Navratri celebrations that take place at the same time.

Navratri has also become a large fundraiser as well as money maker for the many organizations that sponser these events. Typically the admission for these events is anwhere from $5 - $20. In NJ the major event is organized in Somerset New jersey at Exposition Hall.

To describe the celebration from my perspective (a Navratri Child of the 70's from NY), the maturity and celebration today is absolutely amazing. I don't consider myself to be a devout Hindu, but the celebration I witnessed yesterday, made me appreciate my culture and heritage.

Today's kids really enjoy the Navratri celebrations. It allows them to become one with their heritage, even if many of them have never been to India, or seen the massive celebrations that occur for this celebration there. The kids are dressed in a rainbow of dresses that truly epitomize the hindu tradition. Their knowledge of the dance steps (and let me tell you they are pretty complex for both the Garba and dandia Raas.

The live music that blares from the speakers, is something that can make the deaf man hear. Huge speakers at the center of the gynasium, pump the music into the rafters. So you can forget about putting on your Ipod to listen to anything else besides the live music.

Navratri Celebrations start at 9:00 (this is a generous start time) and go till about 3:00 AM. If you survive till 3:00 AM, there is no need to work out for the next 3 weeks.

Let me end this review by saying that as I left the Gym last night with my daughter. I was proud on how far Navratri celebrations have come in the past 30 years (since I migrated to this great country). I also felt proud of my culture and heritage. Now if only I could learn how do the Raas .Yes! That's my goal for next year.

TTYl

Today a good friend of mine at work (let's call him AJ) shared this blog on money on how money is made with me.

AJ is one of the smartest guys I know when it comes to tech toys. I know he'll be reading this later and saying, so I'll get this out of the way first.

Another interesting site is the Economic Advisor. This blogging site talks about the financial crisis in detail as well. The site gathers information across the web.

Thanks AJ for sharing this with me and my sparse following!

Now this is a cool site. It gives an insider's perspective on Salary from many companies. Yes you can use the other salary sites to see what you are worth, but this site gives you sensitive salary information from the employee's perspective. Gotta check this out..

Here's a site that I liked. The layout was quite clean and it allowed me to read some excellent tips for saving money. What I liked about this site is that instead of just providing me with coupons or coupon codes, it provided me with articles that make me think!

Everyone wants to be reminded of common sense ideas for their family, kids, houseold, gas, banking and credit cards, and money saving reviews and ideas.

What I also liked was that there was a blog section where there were people wrote about various ways to save money. I noticed that the adverting was minimal. Didn't see any pop-up ups, etc..

I thought the advice offered on saving money and spending wisely across everything for your life was well laid out and extremely usable.

You know something, I waited almost 24 hours before I posted this entry about my Mets. Another year and they broke my heart. Last year I promised myself that I wouldn't go down that path of optimism that this year was going to be different. Well it wasn't.

The Mets wasted another 5 months of my time following them and hoping that their kismet and or fate would be different from 2007. Well as you know it was not.

I started getting a sense of Deja Vu when they couldn't hold a 2 run lead in the 9th against the hated Braves. That's when I should have packed it in and called it a day, but being a die-hard Met fan, I just didn't believe the number of on-line surveys done by SNY NY that a majority of Mets fans didn't believe they's make the post season. I didn't read the mets blogs. I didn't listen to my wife, who told me to stop wasting my time on this team. I just sat there like a lump on a log and took it. As a life long Mets fan, this is our kismet I guess.

To have 18 pitchers in the bullpen and not one candidate to replace Billy Wagner is just pathetic. Not to say Billy would have fared much better, knowing the number of saves he blew and his perfomance at the All Star Game.

Watching the Mets day in day out (blow wins) was like watching the same cast of characters and reliving "ground hog day" day after day after day.

Gone are the days of $1.50 general admission seats which I paid when the Mets were absolutely pathetic (in the 70's), Shea has said it's goodbye. Willie has been set free. Yet the cast remained the same. I'm suddenly feeling empathy for poor Willie. He was set free, I really don't see what he could have done differently in 2007 or this year to make this bunch of underachievers, achieve....

I'm actually thinking (yes it is possible) that unless the Mets show me a reason for hope, next year, they will have to earn my loyalty. What a concept. A team earning a fan's loyalty. Yet knowing my nature, I'll be the jumping on the bandwagon, when they sign an over priced reliever over the winter. If they sign someone like Johann, we may have a chance to make 3rd place. Notice I didn't even say Wildcard.

I do hope they dump some of the dead weight they have... Alou, Castillo, Heilmann (I've really seen enough of his dazed look). I think Minaya should just line up the truck and except for Reyes and Wright, nobody is untouchable.

Do you think that they will see the jewels they have in Argenes Reyes, Murphy, Evans? Or will they ship them out for over the hill injury prone situation players?

Of course, the Mets will sign another aging superstar, who's beyond his prime (Write in your selection here: ____________ here).

There I feel much better now, venting my frustration at this franchise that has never had a no hitter. A franchise that seems to give the word "choke" a new dimension.

Yet you know something? I'll still be watching my Metsies next year in their new digs (Citfield).

I may even spend the $100 or so to take my kids to CitiField there with optimisim that this will be our year. Similar to the chant of "Remember the Alamo", we can all together say "Remember 1986". Isn't this what Keith and Ron were talking about over and over again over the month of September?

Hey you know what? I'm suddenly starting feel the aura of optimisim for 2009. I can almost feel the wave of "change" that's coming. I can hardly wait for next year when the Metsies take the field in their new ballpark!

I guess, I'm just another Met fan that needs therapy more than their bullpen, who can't seem to get anyone out without giving up the game tying or losing home run..

All together now: "Lets Go Mets!" "Let's Go Mets!".

Now I feel much better and I know that 2009 will end on a happier notes for us die hard mets fans. Well at least I hope so. No wait, I pray that they do.. There I go again, being sentimental, about my Metsies..

I was reading one of these from the Stock Advisors site and noticed a link to a really great site which gives you a consolidated view of Market news that shape the financial market.

The Trading Report is pretty good simple site which provides links to the news that is impacting the markets. I liked this site is it's simplicity.

What I liked the best is that this site gives you links to additional sites which will allow you to make an educated decision whether you buy 1 share (like me) or a 100 shares dependent on market events. Sites include Kiplinger, Barrons, and others. I found this site to be the most simplistic collaboration site

In the past I used to update my investing page with sites like this but, now I can use this forum to share these kinds of good sites. The Trading report is something you really should check out.

A new site that I came across today was: The investors clearinghouse. The main page looked very crowded, but the information provided was a gold mine of investing related education.

I know, I know, I always seem to be writing about coupons! What can I say, these sites just happen to fall into my lap. I was reading this mailing from Bottom line and I came across some sites that looked promising. So I'm jotting them down for future investigation.

Coupon Mom - I've used this site before, so much information, that I found myself in information overload. Quality of information is excellent! I get a weekly email which I read all the time. Worth your time. You can get grocery and all kinds of coupon here.

Flamingo World - New to me. Need to check it out

Hot Coupon World - New to me. Need to check it out. Very powerful site because of the forums. I always prefer the forums, as it give more accurate and up to date information on bargains and deals.

Tech Bargains - I use this on a daily basis. I recommend this to get all your tech toys. Without reservation.

About:Com: Coupon/Bargains - I did some snooping here and I liked the content, because it is well organized and is excellent reading about the art of being frugal and coupanizing (yes, I just made up that word) your life. I would start here first because of the vast array of couponizing (can I patent this new word I made up?)

For me the site I always turn to for printable coupons is wow-coupons. I've mentioned this site multiple times, but I keep going back again and again here when I need barnes and noble and Staples coupons.

Two sites that I've discussed multiple times is coolsavings and smartsource. Both are mega sites for coupons. I like both sites, but smartsource is the better of the two for grocery coupons. Now if I could only convince my better half the art of maximum coupanizing.

That's a discussion for another day.

In all the sites above, I recommend getting a disposable email account which most of the free email services offer, to avoid being spammed to death. I'll discuss that in later postings

Have you ever wondered how a website looked like when the Web was still Web 1.0? Do you want to see a commercial or an educational video from the 70's? Or better yet, are you looking for an archive of live music? This is where you want to start.

I found the internet archive site can be best described by the blurb below which I pasted below:
The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.

I especially liked the old videos and the links to the NASA images. I tell you if you are a data junkie like I am, you have just died and gone to heaven.

There is nothing you can't find here: Music, software, audio, video.. Oh my another site for me to waste some of my grey cells on.

Enjoy.

If you want to see your local coupons/sales/deals and didn't buy the Sunday paper, check out Shoplocal. You can change your location very easily so you can find as the site says shop Local. I found the site to be very clean and easy to navigate.

Only odd thing that I found was that, I couldn't find Middletown, NJ when I tried to change Location via the city selection. Yet when I changed manually to Middletown, NJ I saw coupons for cities that were nowhere near Middletown

Site is good in that you can set up email alerts (make sure you read the privacy policy).

What I liked about this site was that you can break out your selections by:

weekly ads
stores
coupons

Atul

As we end the summer, we all look forward to the new TV season. I know I look forward to watching more TV in the evenings (of course sandwiched between Tennis and Yoga).

I was reading the current issue of TV Guide and was pretty fascinated that a majority of these "New" shows will fail. My interest was in the returning shows.

What I noticed was that besides Friday being, I'll be busy watching my favorites every nite. Of course I'll have to get a free TV in my house, since my girls monopolize all the TV's. :-)

I was reading my USA weekend magazine from the Asbury Park Press and found this site was a great starting point to review blogs which would allow me to filter through the vast web of the fall 2008 TV Season. Check it out for your self.

Blogs for TV show Reviews:

Give me my Remote - Great Site to find additional sites for TV blogging
Televisionary - winner of must click website for television for 2007

If you are as passionate about your TV Viewing choices, take a look at the USA Weekend site and you can chime in with your 2 cents.

My Favorites (Not in any particular order):

Criminal Minds
Desperate Housewives
Lost
The Office
All flavors of Law and Order
The Practice
CSI Miami
ER (Last Season coming up)
The Practice (Last Season)

I guess you can guess from the list above, I love to watch TV. Now that I have Dish Network for the past year, I can watch the same shows over and over again. It's a good thing I have my DVR so I can record...

TTYL

As you know by now, I love to find bargains. I've purchased stuff from Amazon, but could never get an overall synopsis of items on clearance or sale.

Here's a link from the simple dollar which shows you how to get deals on Amazon and some additional tips for bargain hunting via RSS feeds.

This is my contribution to helping Amazon make more money and for people to get some bargains.

Amazon's GOLD box of deals on one page

I just wonder can you use the gold box in conjunction with the $25 filler items to get free shipping. After all who doesn't like free shipping?

As you may realize by now, anything that catches my fancy is a possibility to be found on this blog. I was reading my favorite blog the simple dollar and came across these two sites that really amused me.

Fark - gives a one line and a link to news items that you will not find in your local paper or TV news. Found this really amusing. Has categories for Sports, showbiz, politics and of course you can create your own "My Fark". This site instead of having a numeric rating of the news, it has it's own unique rating system of words.. (strange, cool, dumbas*)

Reddit - similar to Fark, also has a blender of news tidbits that you can vote on. The popularity of the links dictates how the news appears on the listings.

Here's a few of sites that are useful in their own way. I found this site from an issue of bottom line from late 2007. I've mentioned the Bottom line periodical in other posts on this blog, so it's not really new to you..

Facts at your Fingertips - provides free family friendly facts, news on everything (period). Here you'll find product reviews, stock market news, product reviews, and enable you to be a know it all..
Trace your family Tree - This site provides hundreds of thousands of links to genealogical sites for both new and experienced searchers. So you want to know about your family tree? Check out this this site be it US based or international based. Need to figure out whether there is anything for India..

Now that you have done some serious work, it's playtime and you should always feed the brain at the same time have some fun. Rinkworks breaks down the entertainment into various categories. Great place to wast hours and hours!

Humor, Games, entertainment, and brain food (free puzzles to challenge the brain).

As you know, there are plenty of sites on the web that give you a plethera (sic) investing advice. The following sites try very hard to separate news you can act on from the large number of daily corporate releases.

I was reading Barrons from June (Yes that's how far behind I am in my reading), and came across these sites that I will be looking into so I can get my stock house in order.

Streetinsider - concentrates on market moving events for your chosen number of stocks. You can have a free subscription, which allows you to follow up to 15 stocks via email. Events include earnings announcements, dividents, stock buybacks, splits, and management changes.

Gemfinder - Premium Site. This subscription site plows through the on-line SEC edgar filings to give you ideas on stocks. This site didn't look like a site for beginners like myself. I'll pass for now.

Green Signal Stocks - Premium Site. Is trade oriented, and provides a 12, 24 and 48 day price forecast on fast moving ticker symbols. Site also identifies issues that have probability of quick moves. This again has a premium option associated with it.

Vestopia - Currently in Beta - Very graphical and easy to use site. You track th portfolio's of several Wall Street Pro's. I like this idea. "So do as they do..."

Morningstar - I personally think this is the best. Free membership to this site allows you to create a portfolio of stocks and funds... Of course Morningstar makes its money on the premium subscriptions you can buy.

Are you one of those people that come home and find your mail box stuffed with catalogs from companies that you will never buy stuff from (I don't mean Victoria's Secret either)?

I found this site a few days ago which will get those annoying catalog's removed from your mailbox. I don't mean that someone will come and take them out of your mailbox, but they won't be sent to you!

Take a look at Catalog Choice (Eliminate unwanted catalogs). I haven't had a chance to become a "catalog" member, but let me know if it works for you. I'm getting kind of tired of getting these catalogs that I never asked for (except for Victoria's Secret).

This site was selected by PC Magazine as one of their top 100 undiscovered sites

TTYL

You know that I've posted many different blogs which improve your financial bottom line. The Money Blog Network aggregates many of these sites into one.

Chow for now.

Found this one just by accident. For the people that know me, you know I like electronic toys. So when I came across this the Gadget Weblog, I was in heaven. Take a look, time well worth spending, for all tech tools and toys..

TTFN

Last week, my daughter (again) downloaded a spyware/malware toolbar on her PC. Of course, I had no clue whether this toolbar was malware. I quickly found out that this IE toolbar (forgot it's name).

This toolbar was particularly nasty, as it didn't do anything but slow down the Vista machine. Of course Vista doesn't need much help doing that.

I found this site via Google the site PC Hell which helped me to get rid of this nefarious toolbar. This site is pretty cool in that it gives you some great tips and techniques "to bring your pc from the edge". Most of this focus is trojans, malware and browser hijacker's.

I poked around this site and found the content to be very useful. Check it out.

Below is a direct quote from the site which I thought to be pretty ominous:
Everyone has been to PC Hell at one time or another. It's that place you visit when your personal computer is driving you insane with problems, glitches, and so on. To try to soothe the frustration, we'll provide some tips, hints, and troubleshooting remedies to help you get out of PC Hell. Be warned however, sometimes there is no exit....

Lesson to be learned here: Never let your teenager get Admin rights to his/her PC. Yet this is a topic that can be discussed another day.

TTFN

I'll be the first to admit that I'm usually the last to catch up on something that's new. I finally got a chance today to check out Google Reader. It's pretty cool. I even subscribed to my own blog. Makes me feel pretty important.

What I like about Google reader is that this brings the Web to me. One spot to catch up on all the Video, gossip, and bargains (Xpbargains) in one place.

Check it out

TTFN

Do you travel a lot (unlike me)? I found this site on one of my favorite sites clarkhoward.com. Clark's Site is one of the best sites for all around consumer advice. I read this site all the time. Anyway on to the real reason for this post:

At a new website called InsideTrip.com, you can shop fares and learn about the load factor on flights, leg room, the age of the fleet, the rate of baggage loss and much more. The Site even has a blog which has some postings. Kind of found the blog to to be bare.

InsideTrip.com offers Consumer Reports-type rankings with a system of little circles and a numerical ranking. You provide the date of your expected departure and arrival and the engine does the rest of the work. Keep in mind this site is in Beta.

My Rant of the day:
Now only if these airlines would make the coach seats accommodating to anyone over Six foot tall. Personally, what I'd like to see is the ability to buzz the person ahead of you who bangs the seat back even though they have plenty of leg room!

Coming next is my rant and rave about the Melting Pot Restaurant in Red Bank. Stay tuned.

TTFN

I came across this blog while I was trying to get some free Itunes music. Yes I'm that cheap that I can't afford .99 Cents per track. I have no problem admitting that.

I normally download the track of the week on Tuesday's, but I wanted to find a blog which listed free music and Videos! The Free iTunes Download Blog does just that. You can subscribe to this via RSS or by your Facebook account.

the fine print: Downloads posted on the Free iTunes Downloads blog are usually free for ~1 week. After that, you'll have to pay for them.

So if you have any thoughts or suggestions on getting free tunes from iTunes, feel free to comment.

TTYL

Thanks to my friend at work (AM) for this site. He visits this site every day for Hot deals across the web. I liked it too. check it out: Deals2buy

I was reading my favorite Blog the simple dollar (truly the best self improvement blog I have ever read on a regular basis), when I came across a link to liferemix.net

This site is a consolidation of all self help blogs in one place. I checked it out and really liked it.

Check it out.

I came across Bargainist when I was reading my Yahoo and they had pretty good deals. Too bad I missed the one from Woot (they have gr8 one day deals) where I could have purchased a JVC Mini DV for $120.

Oh well. better pickings next time.

The bargainist site is not just for deals and coupons, it has excellent articles for budgeting, money-saving tips and my favorite Freebies that I can use. This site also has deals by stores (ex.. Best Buy) and Amazon!

Another excellent site that I've talked about in the past is Wisebread (Living large on a small budget). This site also has sub-sites for:

Do you go to movies? Well one of the best known sites for buying movie tickets on-line is Fandango. They have specials for BOGO (buy one get one). Unfortunately, the theatres near my house don't accept on-line ticketing.

ok. That's enough for today.. back to the eBay..

I was reading Yahoo finance and came across a link to Investopedia.com.

Looks like a good site for beginner, intermediate, and advanced investor eductation. Of course you do kow that anything that ends with "Pedia" shoud be taken in small doses! :)

Yet I dig deeper.. I do find that for purely educational insights in investing investopedia does provide some valuable information. Will continue to check it out..

As a techie, I'm constantly reading techical newsletters. One that I've subscribed to for years is Windows Secrets by Michael Livingston. Over the years, this site has grown to include Fred Langa's list (btw, Fred has retired).

A few days ago, I got an email that another PC support site was merging with Windows Secrets. This site was Techspot. Of course I had no idea about TechSpot.

I checked it out and found that TechSpot is sandwiched between Google and GoogleGroups as the top rated "free" support site on the Web.

I'm about 95% on Firefox and if I have problems with this browser, I found the support pages for Firefox is the place to go!

If I had problems with my broadband connection Broadband reports is the site to go to.

Of course this leads me to my printer situations. Everytime I break a printer (which sadly is pretty often), I go to Fix Your Own Printer.

As I'm based in Central NJ, I find some sites that truly exemplify the central NJ experience. The following sites are great sites for your NJ news and all stuff related New Jersey:

My Central NJ - Central New Jersey News, Entertainment, Pictures, classified.
Red Bank Green - Red Bank NJ is the hub of entertainment and culture. It's near Middletown NJ . The place where I call home.
Atlantic Highlands - I love this town place! Neighboring to Middletown this small town with scenic overlooks, the marina, is where we spend most of our summer evenings.
New Jersey - Everything NJ
Data Universe - If you are looking for information and data overload related to government, property, School records, crime statistics this is the place to be. All data is NJ focused.

Some of the links above I've already added to the sidebar for "My Favs", others will be added soon.

I almost forgot! Happy Independemce day to all!

I took the time time today to clean up the side bar and added some some new blogs:

I also added a new Blog snippet of the blog's that are really worth looking at on a daily basis. This of course is a new feature offered in Blogger.

Headed towards the 4th of July weekend! Happy Independence day everyone.

Haven't had a chance to blog much over the past few weeks. Came across this site from my.yahoo portal. Looked pretty good so I thought I'd share. I don't think I've listed this site before.

Dealhack - You can add this to your Yahoo/Google portal. It's in a blogger format, so it's pretty accurate for coupons, rebates, clearance items, etc..

Happy Bargain hunting.

Here's a free service for freelancers and small business. You can find some sample resumes and freelancers as well. This is a great site if you are looking for a free lancer to build your website, assist with legal, administrative items, etc..

eLance

Check it out.

I was reading my favorite periodical Bottom Line Personal and came across some sites which list discount codes for on-line shopping. Check them out.

Bradsdeals (New site)
RetailMeNot
Current Codes (New Site)
Daily Green (New Site)
What's Your Deal Coupon Codes (New Site)
Promo Codes (New Site)
Coupon Cabin
My Coupon Site
My eShopping Site
My price comparison Page
My Shopping Page

Of course you can check out my on-line shopping and shopping page on my site for additional miscelleneous sites.

This is one of the best airline fare comparison sites. Fare-Compare will provide you with cheap plane tickets, discount first class airfare, the easiest air travel planning tools, and expert travel advice. Airlines change airfares constantly, let FareCompare.com monitor airline ticket prices so you'll be first in line to pickup the best deal on your quest for a cheap flight.

You can also take a look at my travel page for fare comparisons and cheap tickets.

I've published these deal sites before, the ones in BOLD are new and worth a look:

Compare & Buy: Pricegrabber, Shopping, ShopZilla. These sites even calculate tax and shipping. These sites allow you to compare like products for the best deal

Dial Up a Deal: Dealsites, Dealcatcher, Slickdeals. Great for bargain hunting

Clip Virtual Coupons: Coupon Code, Current Codes. Sites which provide you with coupon codes for on-line as well as bricks and mortar shopping

Rebates - Techbargains, Rebateplace, Free-After-Rebate. Get your rebates here!

So now get out there and save money for your tech toys!

I continue to have problems with my PC (on a regular basis) and I found this site via Google. I found this site when I was trying to resolve performance problems in Firefox.

The How-To-Geek gives you detailed and informative explanations on all facets of computing. I would recommend you take a look at the Wiki and the Blogs that are part of this site.

Motley Fool: For years now, I've been searching for the best site for impartial investing advice. I've tried Yahoo, MSNBC, and others (including Mad Money). In my opinion, the Motley Fool is the best of all of them

Yes, I dabble in stocks. I'm definetely not the Millionaire Next Door.

The Motley Fool's site for excellent impartial stock advice. Of course the advice is not limited to investing, you also get excellent

Other good sites I like is CNN Money and Barrons (great weekly periodical). Enjoy...

To find out the language of the internet check out NetLingo or Acronymfinder (good for net abbreviations as well.

If you have teenagers in the house you MUST check out the top 50 acronyms that teens use when they are IM'ing (Caution: this is not for the kiddies). If that has not made you sick to your stomach here are 50 more

Here's one of the largest list of chat acronyms and and text message shorthands that many of our kids use.

Check out Erin Jansen's Top 20 and Top 50 lists

I caution you that many of the abbreviations above are not for children.

So are u looking for a no-spin news site? If yes --> The Smoking Gun is for you. TSG site tells you the news as it is. Including all the police reports.

Twitter is a free service which allows you to keep in touch with people using the WEB, your phone, or IM.

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected by exchanging quick, timely messages. So if you want to tell anyone what you are doing at this moment in time, you can twitter them!

I'm not very handy, nor am I very good a fixing things. I found these sites which help with my issues..

eHow - How to do just about anything
How Stuff Works
Answers - Online Dictionary, Encyclopedia and More
Blaisdell's Little Corner of the Web - Excellent site for Computer related tips for Windows (all Versions), Browsers, and Applications. You have to check out this site.
Lockergnome - If you are interested in the world around you, this blog is for you. I've used this site in the past for windows related tips, but it's expanded now to

I was having this print spooler problem on multiple machines and finally found a solution when I Google'd it. XP was choking on a print job to a network printer. This is a common problem related to XP. I tried deleting the spooled file (The spooler is a XP software that allows printing in the background) via the printer icon, but still it wouldn't go away.

Apparantly, the solution listed below is similar for NT, Windows 2000, and Vista. Make sure you have explorer set to show all hidden files.

Here's the solution that worked for me to clear this problem:

This solution worked:

1. On the taskbar, click Start, and then click Run.

2. Enter the following:

net stop spooler (and hit enter)

3. Delete all files in the following folder (all *.SHD and *SPL files):

C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Printers ----> (in XP)

%Winroot%\System32\SpoolPrinters directory ----> (Windows NT and Windows 2000)

4. Once the spool files are deleted, start the spooler again:

net start spooler

Hope you find this tip Useful.

I found this site when a friend at work told me about it. At eDealfinder, you can find the best e-deals for both on-line stores and bricks and mortar stores. The site has deals of the day, a listing alphabetically of all stores, printable coupons and generally I found it to be a great site.

I'm adding it to my side links as well. Enjoy.

Daddy O' Deals deals site has Printable, Forums, on-line and and overall is an easy to use site. Ended up buying a mouse that I really did not need. Fortunately, this cost me nothing as there was a $10 rebate Google Checkout rebate which put my cost at ... Zero. Not Bad.

That's all for now.

Did you ever want to take a look at news from the perspect of sarcasm and humor. Well if you did, the Onion is the place for you. The videos and humor in the disguise of news are just great. Check it out.

The one weekly newsletter which I subscribe to and read religiously is Windows Secrets. This site gives an unbiased and tremendous perspective on Windows and how to make Windows work better for you. I subscribe to this newsletter.

There is a free version to the weekly newsletter and a paid version. This newsletter provides essential tips and techniques for Windows XP, Vista, IE, Firefox, Microsoft Windows Update and much more. If there is one weekly newsletter that I recommend hands down is Windows Secrets.

This week Brian Livingston introduced Permalinks to see a library of their tips. It's an essential link for your reference library. Check it out.

Found this great new site call dealighted today which has an aggregated/consolidated view of Deals, Coupons and Free stuff. This site consolidates the deals founds on Dealcatcher, Slickdeals, TechBargains, XPBargains, and many many other sites.

Of course, to see additional sites you can go to my site for individual breakdown of sites for coupons and shopping and shopping comparisons.

What I liked about this site:

One consolidated site with bargains and free stuff.
Very Easy to navigate
A sub-sites for free-shipping
Forums for Hot deals, free stuff and the Best of the best
Price Comparisons.
You can select/de-select sites that you don't want to see for deals.
You can search for deals.

This site is highly rated by Life Hacker.

Was out of town for the past week so didn't have a chance to add sites, but I'm back now.

Lesson of the week. When you cruise, never pay for internet access! Instead of paying the outrageous fees for internet access on Ship, wait till you get to your next port of call and go to an internet cafe at the port.

I paid over $100 for Internet access for just a little less than 3 hours of access. That's just about 2 Months of access (example used is comcast)

Back to our sites of the day courtesy of Bottom Line which I read cover to cover:

For those with a green thumb, the National Gardening Association site is for you.

I know I get overwhelmed with the number of investing sites out there, so here's a cornucopia of Investor sites. There are over 20,000 sites. Includes mutual fund comparisons, stock screening tools, annual reports, bond yield calculations, etc... I personally prefer the Motley Fool and Yahoo Finance as my starting spots for investing ideas.

Develop your insurance smarts by reading vaious articles related to all kinds of insurance including home, denial of insurance, travel, long-term care and other types of insurance.

Identity Theft self-defense - how to reduce risk for identity theft - AND what to do if your identy is stolen.

Baseball, Baseball, Baseball - I'm a New York Mets fan all my life and this site was heaven for me. I found links to over 12,000 baseball sites.

I've been using cCleaner for a long time now and would recommend it to keep your harddrive clean of the crap you accumulate when you surf the web. It's Freeware and you can get it from filehippo.com.

cCleaner is an excellent utility which gives you back space on your harddrive. On one machine I almost got back 500mg when I ran this utility the first time.

Filehippo is an excellent freeware site for getting free Antivirus such as AVG and other goodies.

If your machine has been hijacked by some nefarious spyware you should first get Hijackthis. this utility gives you a listing of your registry and then you can get help with some sites which help yo udetermine who the bad boys are .

This utility will give back to you disk space taken up by cookies, temporary files, and other junk that accumulates on your machine over time.

TTFN

Today, I was reading Smart Money and I saw this article for the Smart Consumer to get help to report unfair business practices or if you have been treated unfairly by a business.

The sites listed below are Free to use and a few offer paid subscriptions. Hope you find it useful

Did you ever call a company and get stuck in an endless cycle of voice prompts? Well that happens to me all the time. I found the site gethuman.com which lists more than 500+ (and growing) tips on how to get to a real human!

BTW: One of the easiest ways is to press "0" when you get to any prompt.

What if you wanted someone to climb the the phone tree and then CALL you back! then you should try:
NoPhoneTrees.com.

You select the company you want
Key in your phone Number
The service calls you back!

So what if you are consumer with a gripe and you need help? Here are some sites for you to consider

Better Business Bureau - Good for consumers, business. Find out about a company and of course complain!
Complaints - Free site to post and research complaints
Planet Feedback - Much larger site, includes sample complaint letters and community!
If you don't mind paying: Try out letterchamp.com for paid consumer advocacy
If all fails you can also go to your state's Attorney General. I loved the context sensitive US map which gives you direct link to the AG for your state.

Came across this blog when I was reading Windows Secrets

This C-Net Workers Edge productivity blog talks about all those Windows stuff that you need to use. I just found out about a whole bunch of XP Keyboard shortcuts that I didn't know existed. Of course you can subscribe to it with your Yahoo home page.

I read too many computer magazines and I'm a sucker for freebies. Here are some really good Freebies that were recently published by various computer magazines.

Computer Shopper May 2008 - 25 Downloads you Need Now
PC World - May 2008 - 101 Fantastic Freebies
PC Magazine - April 2008 - Best Free Software
Tech Support - April 2008 - 4 6 Best Ever Freeware Utilities

I personally recommend C-Net for all your tech fixes.

Take a look at Gizmo Richard's top picks of the best utilities and Tech Resources. Good site for Vista Tips

TTFN - I hope you know what that means. If you don't here's the answer

If you really want to waste your time when you are surfing, you can go over to College Humor and check out the hours you can waste here. Of course a majority of the stuff here is adult oriented.

These days I find myself addicted to facebook. As is the case for me after everyone in the world has used something, I'll get into it. I find myself signing on more than once a day just to see if anyone has sent me a message or if anyone new that I might know is signed on. I think I'm on the initial onset of Facebook addiction.

Are you a newpaper and/or reference article junkie? Well the sites below will quench your thirst for this type of fix for sure.

Web site Kidon Media-Link (www.kidon.com/media-link) features links to the home pages of 19,000 newspapers, magazines and other news sources worldwide... Web site MagPortal.com (www.magportal.com) also lets users search for articles from a wide range of publications that are available for free on-line.
Google News (http://news.google.com) is a great place to search for articles published in the past month. Google News has an “archive” search feature for older articles, but older articles usually aren’t available free.

If all else fails, you can always go to your local library to the reference desk.

Have you wanted to find someone on the web, but only know their name and city? Well I came across these sites that let you do just that. I often Google myself and see where I appear on the web. Proves one thing that there is never such as thing as being private once you are on the internet.

Here are some tips for searching for people:

People. Enclose both first and last names in quotes and search it as a phrase, rather than search the names as separate key words.

Example: Search “Firstname Lastname” rather than Firstname and Lastname.

In subsequent searches, try common nicknames instead of this person’s formal first name. If you know this person’s middle name, search yet again with this inserted between the first and last name... then change the middle name to a middle initial and search one more time. If you do not know the middle name or initial, use Google and insert an asterisk between the first and last name as in “First * Last.”

If the name is common, add this person’s state of residence, job title or spouse’s name (but not in the quotation marks) to your search to better focus the list of results.

Example: Searching “Bob Smith” yields an unmanageable one million-plus results on Google... but searching “Bob Smith” together with the word “Arkansas

Pandia - People and email search. Includes links to various sites which can be utilized for people search and tools. Found this site to be the best one source shop for searching for people because of the links to the other search sites.
Zoominfo - track people down for free through their professional history, because it identifies job titles and current and former employers.
Reunion - It's free but most of the details you want are premium. Even with this site you can get one year free subscription if you act on an offer from their site.
Pipl - provides basic facts and contact information, plus links to search companies such as USSearch and Intellius, that will scan public records to locate the person you are after. These sites typically charge $10 to $50 to access an individual’s complete records, but they often provide basic information, such as hometown and spouse’s name, for free.
Return to Google and search the name again in combination with these new details, as described above... or to search the spouse’s name.

I read Money magazine almost religiously every month and I came across this article that was great.

The 28 Best Money Sites. Take a look. I found this article to be a great compliment to my free website with similar content for Best of the Web. Below are some direct links to sites of interest
Categories include:

Investing

Shopping - Are you a smart shopper?? It always pays to comparison shop, especially when you can get rebates and coupons to save more money!

You know those mailers you get at home from Valpak? You can customize them for your zip-code. Use discount codes when you shop.

My favorite site that I've used for a years now provide both on-line and off-line shopping

Personal Finance

Professional and Personal Networking

Searching on the Web

So I've been adding entries to this blog for about 3 months now and the content has varied.

I started out with some personal thoughts and then I went to write about sites that I've visited or read about. I think I prefer the second (my favorite sites). Where do I find these links? I find them in various magazines and news papers that I read as I get the time.

Money - Must read on a monthly basis
Smart Money - I just started reading this in 2008
Computer Shopper - I've had this subscription, but is quickly outliving it's usefulness
PC World - Can't be a geek without this publication
Newsweek - I found this to be very insightful on a global basis
Time - Used to read this, but stopped. Check out their Blog index
New York Times - I'm still a few weeks behind in my Sunday times!
Bottom Line Publications
Asbury Park Press - My local paper in NJ

I'm sure you are thinking that I probably have way too much time on my hands. I really don't.

I welcome feedback from anyone if with your opinion on the content of this blog. I'm trying to make regular updates, but we'll see how that goes

I already have my Family Links site which is a megasite for links, but this blog allows me to create ad hoc links that I like and come across in my readings.

Over the past week, I've now made this Blog subscribable for all of you who have Yahoo, iGoogle.

Well enough for now TTFN.

From this site order discounted Newspapers delivered to your home. Now I just have to find time to read all the newspapers!

Key in your zip code to find out which discounted subscriptions.

I subscribe to the Asbury Park Press and love to read USA Today

I found the sites below when I was on vacation, and had time to kill reading USA Today

Music Sites on the Web:

Last.FM - Streaming music with recommendations with over 21 million hits every month

Pandora - I use this a lot to create multiple playlists that fit my moods. you can also set up your playlists to mix songs across them.

iLike - Steam Music and get new artists MP3

Mog - Users are callled "moggers". User generated community allowing you to share music discoveries. Network of users

Imeem - Over 20 million users that calls itself "the new social Mixtape".

As many of you live on google, I found this cheat sheet for Google. It's in a PDF file which you can download and reference.

As it says on the site:

"This two page Google Cheat Sheet lists all Google services and tools as well as background information. The Cheat Sheet offers a great reference to grasp of basic to advance Google query building concepts and ideas."

I personally keep it on my desk as a very useful tool during the day.

So I finally broke down and got myself a Facebook account. I was totally amazed at how much information is available. I'd heard a lot of good things about Facebook, but I didn't realize the potential for networking.

Of course my second fav is Linked In. I started using Linked In and have grown my contact list to almost 400 people. That is only my first level contacts.

Within 24 hours of being on facebook, I actually made contact with a guy that I grew up in NYC! I hadn't spoken to this guy in over 30 years and within seconds, I was linked to him. Impressive.

Let's see how it goes.

I found this site by accident. If you shop Amazon, you know that in order to get free shipping you have to have a $25 order. In order to this you'll need fill items to your order.

Try this site: Amazon Filler Item Finder another one is Slickfillers (which I've mentioned in previous postings.

The good thing about this is that you can search on various categories to make up your filler items.

Happy Hunting

Haven't had much of a chance to do postings, but found a few sites that might interest me. Of course you have the mother of all video uploads YouTube.

Some wannabe's (some will survive in 2008 others will fade away)

Veoh - 73 Million views in January
Break - #2 Independent Video Site
Metacafe
Google Video
Yahoo Video
LiveLeak - Redefining Media
Video Clips - Internet TV Charts
I-Caught - ABC News
Dekhona - Indian version of YouTube
ClipBlast - World's Largest Video Search
Blog TV - Blog TV
Flurl - Video Search Engine

Chow for now. I know I need to post more..

Forget about scanning through the Sunday papers looking for coupons sales. This site allows you to scan nationally and locally for savings and sales. It's called SundaySaver. So now you can cancel your Sunday paper and go totally virtual for your bargains.

I have to acknowledge my sister-in-law (RM) for passing this site along to me. Thanks to RM for this site!

Just like me, she's into savings and is an expert at finding deals & steals.

If you are into comparison shopping, my website is a good starting point. If you do most of your shopping on-line, start here. Another one of my pages has more links for shopping. Take a look.

So today's Feb 29th. I truly wonder how the people that are born on this date, celebrate their birthdays?

Found a couple of interesting links from a co-worker:

Google Reference Guide: http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html is a brief two-page Google reference. It lists a number of Google 'operators' I was not aware of. For example, did you know that you can do simple calculations (e.g., '15 + 12/2.3'), find phone-numbers (e.g., 'phonenumber: John Jensen, MA'), stocks (e.g., 'Stocks: T'), define a word (e.g., 'define hyperbolic'), look for a book (e.g., 'book: Pride and Prejudice'), and much more. Good stuff
Flight and Airport Status - Great when you are on vacation and use your mobile phone at an airport or going to one. http://www.flightstats.com/go/Mobile/ has brief info on flights and airport status, etc. It is tailored for mobile, but also very useful for non-travelers - especially if you're picking up friends and family during the holiday season.

Have you ever called a company like American Express or Amazon or eBay and wanted to speak to a human? I heard of this site today on WCBS News Radio 880 .

The site is called gethuman.com

this is a great site, if you want to cut through the "pressing numbers" tango to get to an human for help. The site provides the 800 number and it's fast path to get to a human being on the other end.

check it out.

Was reading March issue of PC Magazine for Best free software applications and came across this one. take a look at Bloglines allow you to aggregate the blogs you are reading into one place. Added a link to it.

Did you ever want to go to one place to see a blog for a Stock you looking to buy or you already own? I found this blogging site for stocks today and thought it was pretty cool. It's part of the the AOL site for finance. I used to subscribe to AOL for many years and now that you can keep your AOL address even AFTER cancellation, I've starting using the my AOL portal as well.

Of course I've cancelled my AOL already!

Toodles for now.

I redesigned the links for this blog today. I was confusing myself with mis-labeling of sites.

Still have plenty of work to do to clean up this site. Will take time and patience.

I haven't had a chance to add much to this blog in a while, as I my boring life continues to be just that pretty boring.

So last night we get a call from one of our friend who was driving by our house. She says, don't go outside there's a coyote in your front yard. I'll give you one guess why these coyotes are back in Middletown NJ. Give up?

That's because we have a friggin Chicken Coop in our backyard (belonging my neighbors). Now you tell me, I have a moral dilemma.

Do I call the police (with my neighbor being a MT cop), or just let the coyote eat the chickens sooner or later? I'll choose the second for now.

If you remember last year there were coyote sightings in MT, so this year, with our farm next door, we will surely get more visits from these nasty animals.

My wife calls the neighbor and tells her about the coyote's and you know what our neighbor says?

"we already had coyote's before the chicken coop" Ain't that sweet?

Stay tuned for more "coyotes in the midst".

I read a lot of blogs and some of these sites are really amazing with their content. I'll review some of the one's I absolutely could not live without. All of the sites listed below I've added to as links from these pages.

The Simple Dollar - One of the best blogging sites that I've come across. It's the A to Z of personal finance. I've been reading this blog for months and the knowledge that this blog presents is amazing.
Lifehacker - This site not only provides just financial advice but it provides life related tips and advice.
Consumerist - Excellent for consumer related information.
Wisebread - Personal Finance and Frugal Living.
Dumblittleman - Tips for Life
Get Rich Slowly - Personal finance that makes cents.
MSN Smart Money blog - MSN Smart Spending blog
21 Money Saving Sites
Expanded List of Personal Development Sites - From Get Rich Slowly blog
The Frugal Dad - Frugal living and saving money
Money Blog Network - Money Network which helps you to improve Your Bottom Line
Five Cent Nickel - Money Matters
Mighty Bargain Hunter - Finance, saving, spending, and bargains
All Financial Matters - Super site for budgeting and personal finance.
Finanacial Web - Calculators and Independant financial portal

There is so much information that the list above is just the tip of the iceberg. Feel free to add any sites you may have.

So I quit KickBoxing and Karate last week. Found it to violent for my taste, and too much hard work.

So I dropped those two and started with the Yoga. I thought that this would be less ambitious, but wouldn't you know it the first week of Yoga, I injured my self (muscle pull in my leg). Yet I'm determined to stay with it.

I also started Personal training. Had one session of that, and survived!

Still trying to hit my goal of losing 20 pounds this year. Thus Far, I've gained 5.

In case anyone is wondering, the Chickens are still alive (next door) for now. They stray and do their business in my backyard, so now the farmyard is extended to my backyard! :)

Tonight is my second Yoga Class, I'll try not to hurt myself. Who ever thought that Yoga could be this dangerous.

Almost forgot: Go Jints!

chow for now.

Hi all,

Haven't had a chance to post in a few days, but finally got a question/opinion to ask? So basically something new that gets under my skin! :)

If a teenager has perfectly working cell phone which does everthing fine, does he/she deserve a new cell phone because "everyone else has a new one cell phone.

Keep in mind that nothing is wrong with the current phone.

Well I said: "NOT!". We are a society that is catering to the whims of our children's technological follies. Of course NO decision has caused conflict (cold stares, silent treatment, etc..).

My motto is: Give it time they'll get over it?

What do you think blog? Am I being an unreasonable parent?

Pages

Google +1

Search This Site!

Dec 16, 2008

Dec 15, 2008

Dec 7, 2008

Nov 27, 2008

Nov 25, 2008

Nov 22, 2008

Nov 21, 2008

Nov 15, 2008

Nov 6, 2008

Oct 21, 2008

Oct 13, 2008

Oct 11, 2008

Oct 6, 2008

Sep 29, 2008

Sep 24, 2008

Sep 18, 2008

Sep 14, 2008

Sep 4, 2008

Sep 2, 2008

Aug 22, 2008

Aug 20, 2008

Aug 14, 2008

Aug 10, 2008

Aug 2, 2008

Jul 30, 2008

Jul 25, 2008

Jul 19, 2008

Jul 16, 2008

Jul 12, 2008

Jul 5, 2008

Jul 3, 2008

Jun 30, 2008

Jun 21, 2008

Jun 20, 2008

Jun 12, 2008

Jun 5, 2008

May 31, 2008

May 28, 2008

May 23, 2008

May 22, 2008

May 21, 2008

May 16, 2008

May 15, 2008

May 14, 2008

May 13, 2008

Apr 29, 2008

Apr 25, 2008

Apr 24, 2008

Apr 22, 2008

Apr 18, 2008

Apr 13, 2008

Apr 10, 2008

Apr 8, 2008

Apr 4, 2008

Mar 26, 2008

Mar 21, 2008

Mar 14, 2008

Mar 2, 2008

Feb 29, 2008

Feb 16, 2008

Feb 12, 2008

Feb 9, 2008

Feb 8, 2008