Wednesday, December 26, 2012

I am liking this ereader more and more

I have been using the Android Kindle app to read Amazon books. But, lately the ads for the Kindle Fire HD is looking really great at a price of $199. I just cannot justify buying one at this time due to the lack of time I have to sit and read. This could change in the near future though. Shop Amazon's New Kindle Fire

Monday, November 26, 2012

Word Play, a play on words of course!

I keep having these crazy words coming to mind when I read stuff on the web. I have decided it might be fun to keep a sort of journal here to record this when it happens. For instance, I am reading a story about a chief executive and somehow my mind reads, 'thief executive'. I wish now that I had saved a lot of these word plays that I have had this year. When this comes up I stop and ponder what I was just thinking and how if anything it might mean something. Maybe it means that my glasses keep getting thicker and my eyeballs are not slowing down to focus through them as quickly as they could without the glasses before. I worry that I may also start having these word play moments more often and then it becomes some time of affliction. Then, I may have to become a comedian and go on stage and amuse people. Hah, wouldn't that be fun. Stay tuned for more crazyiness to come here.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Fiscal Cliff and WTF?

This is in the news now and everyone in the United States that is in business somehow or another is waiting to see how this plays out. A matter of weeks to the deadline. Will it be the same old delay on doing anything about the deficit? What comprimises if any will be had? I read where there is talk about only giving people with under $25,000 a tax break this year. Why not under $100,000? Let the rich pay for a change. I hear they are not paying their fair share. Can anyone tell me differently? It is widely said that the blue collar class is being squeezed to death and so it seems it is. Are you holding off spending because of this fiscal cliff stuff or do you give a shit? Maybe it does not seem to effect you. Now, we are reading that the United States will be self independent with oil because of the shale oil production that is ramping up. So that is what I have been reading lately. What will that mean for us? Yes, lower gas prices at the pump and more money in your pocket to spend to help the economy. Mark my word this is exactly what the hype machine will start to tell you and make you believe. That America is going great guns soon because of the money saved on not importing oil for consumption and consumers have more to spend. I am sure this will be pushed hard to bring gains in retail sales just in time for the holidays. Break out the Booze I will drink to all of this greatness. Will you not join me?

Fifth Third Bank now! A Rant today!

Now Fifth Third Bank seems to think I need I a balance transfer and use their credit card services. I really detest banks sending out those letters that include blank checks with my name printed on them. I just want to toss the envelope in the trash but cannot because I know I have to shred the stuff so the checks do not end up in unscrupulous hands. I do question if anyone can take one of these preprinted checks and somehow cash them. Anything is possible today though. I am reading the details of this offer and see that they will charge either five dollars or four percent of the transaction. So, they make even more money other than interest from me. Into the shredder with this crap. Fifth Third gets a big middle finger from me. Update - Sat. 11/17/2012 - Fifth Third sends me another set of these useless checks. 3.99% APR until April 2017, After that APR for purchases, currently 12.99%, apply, Save interest on purchases and balance transfers. Who are they kidding anyway? Never again will I have a credit card balance with any bank. My money will only work for me, got that? Into the shredder with this crap once again. Have a good day! Update-01/10/2013 - have eliminted any profane or obscene wording from this post. Update-01/09/2013 - Received these checks again...into the ole shredder... Update-03/06/2013 - Received another batch of balance and purchase transfer checks. This bank has money to burn..into the shredder once again. Update-04/19/2013 - Received another batch of balance and purchase transfer checks...into the shredder. Update-05/02/2013 - Received, well, the usual junk mail. I actually got to thinking about this one today since I have been researching credit cards and offers lately. I was thinking, why don't I transfer the $692 balance from my Barclays card to a new Fifth Third card. The one thing that made me decide not to was the statement that 'We will begin charging intetest on these transactions on the transaction date.' Nuff said. Interest charges are a killer if you want my opinion. Once you get on this ladder of debt it will begin to eat you alive.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Obama in Tampa Today

I heard on the radio this morning around 5:30 AM that Obama was going to be touching down at Tampa International Airport any moment. He is scheduled to speak at Centennial Park in Ybor City. Ybor City is just off to the East side of downtown Tampa. It's a favorite haunt to go eat lunch or dinner and stroll in the evening and maybe go to a club. Centennial Park is not a very big park so I am curious how this is all going to work out with the people and parking. I was going to turn on my tv news and see if I could watch any of this but here I am just now thinking about it after hours have gone by doing trivial things in the house but mostly thinking of going to bed. I'm about exhausted from another week of a lack of good solid sleep. Tampa is becoming a popular spot of late since the RNC or Republican National Convention was here. I always visualize comparing Tampa to New York but we just do not have the land available here to become that large of a city I believe. The other day I was thinking that if Donald Trump were to come down and take a look at our Channelside area and buy the property that is folding and beef it up and get it rockin and rollin again, that would be a hit I think. If Channelside fails we loose big time in my opinion. It is an anchor especially with the cruise ship going in and out of there right next to it. I strayed from Obama but I hope his visit was nice and that he will come back again. Who are you voting for this time around? Have you decided yet? Are you overwhelmed with all the hype from each side? Can you make up your own mind or do you let others do it for you?

Sunday, October 7, 2012

How to Fix a Broken Trash Can Pedal

Okay, over and over, I find people are finding my blog using the search words in the title of this post. A thought just occurred to me. Is it time to manufacture and sell a part or parts to fix this broken trash can. The thought of adding the picture of the actual fix I used that is still working great to this day has been on my mind many days during each week since I made that original post. But, now I think I will save that picture to include in the 'Fix a Broken Trash Can' kit. Here's a link to my first post on this repair including pictures. I have also decided that I WILL post pictures of the inner workings of this repair. This was decided as there are those that will want to try to do it themselves and then there are those that only want to buy a part to replace without all the fuss. I am thinking now that if I had one of those new 3D printers I could produce these replacement pedals but they probably wouldn't be cheap. Might be cheaper to just buy a new trashscan. I am laughing at all of this now as probably you might be too.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Online Storage Cost Varies

I just happened to check what GoDaddy had to offer as to online storage. Even though they have been in the news this week with some type of outage. One story said it was hackers, another said it was a problem at GoDaddy. Who do you believe and who cares. Everyone has problems today. So, here is what I found and I hope to be adding to this list as time goes on. Dropbox comes to mind but I have not liked them from the start as I thought their cost was too high. *GoDaddy - $2.49 a month - 100gb - Deluxe package, $1.99 a month for 10gb A better value over time I think has to be your own network attached storage device at your home. See my previous posts on that. Here is just one product from Netgear.

Vizio Handed Off My Product to the USPS

I am not happy today. Seems I am not happy each day I wake now from one thing or another. And it is all because of the people in the world not doing their job or theft. I ordered one of those streaming tv boxes from Vizio back in the middle of July. I waited patiently for it to show up on my doorstep. But after over a month and clicking on the link to the Fedex tracking number and seeing that the delivery stopped in Miami on August 20th, I made a call to Vizio. This was a few days ago. I talked to a nice lady who said she was going to reprocess the order which I assumed meant they were going to send me another one. Today I wake up to a voicemail from Ricardo saying to call Vizio if I have not received my Costar product. Okay, I knew this was going to suck. I checked my doorstep, no product. Why did I even waste my time opening the door to look. So I sat down and called Vizio. Vanessa checked everything and said she was making some kind of 'warehouse request'. I asked what that was. I was told it was to research where my product was. Oh great, how long before I need to call you back when I have not heard anything, again I said. Give it a few days, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday since this was the weekend. Sure, okay. Another few days. It has been how many months now and you got my money but I have no product. I liked Vizio but on my first call to them I was told that Fedex had handed off the shipment to the USPS in Miami. I asked if this was normal. Yes, a lot of companys do this. I had never heard of this. I am used to seeing the Fedex and UPS trucks drive around my block almost daily and they deliver right to my door and hand me the product. This was most unusual to me to hear this. I have had so much trouble with the USPS misdeliveries to my house, you can read about it in my previous posts. I could scream about now just thinking of how crappy the USPS service has gotten. I hear of them cutting back more and more now. It is no wonder the service is getting worse. I hope the little guy in Miami is enjoying my product now, or, maybe in Tampa. Who the hell knows. May the USPS go down in flames is all I can think of right now. The US government needs to think seriously about closing the service down and selling off or handing off all mail service to Fedex and USPS. Thats all I am going to say on this today. http://www.vizio.com/costar/overview?utm_source=digitalmedia&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=Co-Star&utm_content=Google Thats the link to the product I paid for and have not received in case you were interested. 10/07/2012 - Update - I called Vizio a few days ago to get an update on the status of the 'Costar' product that I ordered. Basically I was given nothing new and not much hope. 'Wait and call back in a couple of weeks to check on the status'. I let the rep know that I would probably be filing a dispute with my credit card company to get my money back. I think I am being extremely patient with this. After all, it is now October 7th and I ordered their product somewhere around the middle of July. Three months ago now. I swear, I will never order nor probably ever buy another Vizio product. Don't get me wrong, I'm stitting here watching their fifty five inch LED t.v. that I bought almost two years ago and it is still looking fresh and new. Once a company pisses me off, I hold a grudge forever. Enough said on this for now. 11/13/2012 - Update - I called Vizio and was given information that the refund I had requested was processed. I logged into my bank account and saw that the refund was indeed credited to my account on October 30th. Thank God. I can now put this terrible problem to bed now. I will from now on ask any company that I do business with if they hand off shipments to the USPS and if so, I will take my business elsewhere. Vizo just lost a customer with this stupid idiotic practice and they also lost inventory because of this. We learn something every day do we not? Update-01/10/2013 - have eliminted any profane or obscene wording from this post.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Chase Slate, Opt Out of unsolicited mailings

Alright, enough is enough. A few years back my bank was swallowed up by Chase and I had a five per cent cd there. I had missed a renewal/cancellation date after the five year period and had to leave this note another year at their terribly low interest rate or suffer a penalty greater than a year worth of interest. Okay, since taking the money out of and closing this account over a year ago I have been receiving their mailings offering me a balance transfer to their credit card account with regularity. So regular that it began to cause me grief at just the sight of seeing another solicitation in my mailbox. I have not tracked it to days but seems like twice a month I get one of these. I have been shredding these checks because you do not want them to fall into the wrong hands.
Now, today I decided to take the time to search the web on how to stop these Chase Slate mailings. I came across a link to their website with opt out steps. I saved the end screen shot showing the URL for you to see. The only problem I have with these opt outs is they are only good for five years. Whoever is responsible for that I would like to break their damn neck. When I opt out of something I want it permanent. I do not want to start getting this crap all over again and then have to struggle with wasting my time to have to figure out how to stop it again. There needs to be a law on the books that the perpetrators need to put the opt out link on their mailings or suffer great fines. This will be my next quest to find out who will write and push this through our halls of congress. Are you not outraged enough already like I am with this junk? You should be and you should be pitching in to help like I am. So, get off your duff and opt out now, with everything that you do not want. I will write more on this in the future. Now, get going.

Update: 9/14/2012 - Fri. - Received another mailing with 'balance transfer' checks. I know there are some of you that would love to get another chance to put off paying on debt but I am one who pays off any balances on anything at the end of the month or when billed. I think I paid enough to banks over my younger years and I do not want to pay them another cent if I can possibly help it. Other than mortgages of course. There is just no way out of paying monthly on a mortgage unless you happen to be handed a large sum of money for some strange reason or from some loved ones death. So, I have another Slate Chase J.P. Morgan mailing to shred again today. I have just about gotten my USPS mail weeded out of all the junk with the exception of the local crap that keeps coming. Update: 10/30/2012 - I may have missed updating this post a couple of weeks back now. But, yesterday I received another mailing with these balance transfer checks. In the shredder it goes. Screw you Chase Bank! UPdate: 1/4/2013 - Another mailing yesterday from these turdheads. I guess my opting out is not working. So much for that idea. What does it take? Into the shredder again with this junk. "Cardmember Information Enclosed' printed on the envelope. Yeah, sure, right. Like I have no idea what is in that envelope. I am not even a member. WTF? These banks are all alike. I have no account with Chase any longer so what is so damn important. Hah, important that they get my business back of course, but, that will never happen again. There are too many other banks that deserve my business now.Screw you again, Chase Bank for not respecting my wishes. Update - 1/10/2013 - another unsolicited Slate invitation today. Same wording, 'Cardmember Information Enclosed'. Into the shredder...
Update-01/10/2013 - have eliminted any profane or obscene wording from this post. Update-02/16/2013 - received another mailing of offer checks...shredder revisted today! Update-06/07/2013 - I know I have received at least two more mailings but I have not gotten around to posting the exact dates received. Probably not worth the time and trouble that I am doing this. I just shredded another mailing just now. I have been researching bank credit cards lately and it's looking more and more like the Bank of America Cash Back card is the way to go now with the money you can earn back into your account to be paid toward the balance. I just need to make the plunge and go after it I guess. 06/15/2013 - I have read the fine details on a Chase $200 cash offer to open a new bank account and have decided one and a half percent on my cash for six months is terrible. I can do lots better with real estate. Chasing after these little bits of money is not worth my time. Am still on the fence with the cash back card though. Still considering. Am also considering moving all of my credit union business to Chase. The credit union touts how much it benefits it's members but I really do not see any benefits and I have looked it over and over through the years. Hell, to get a mortgage on a house costs more than some banks I have applied with. I have tested this out twice now. Another Slate mailing received on 6/12/2013, into the shredder with it.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

RNC and Tampa Bay

Are we lucky to have this convention in our fair city? Some would think so. Others possibly not. I for one do not know what to make of it all. One thing for certain though is there is a lot of preparations being made. With security at a heightened alert now it is going to be almost impossible to navigate downtown one would think. The police presence will be unbearable I feel and anyone stopped for a car search and who knows what else I wish you all the best. I cannot wait to hear read some of the stories that will come out of this next week. Many people are looking for how they can make money off of this event. Most citizens that are able will be offering their places up for rent and making a the most of it. For the visitors though there is plenty to see and do in Tampa. Bern's steakhouse will be a favorite I can bet. The locals will be sure to offer suggestions to the best of the best that Tampa has to offer. So, if you are reading this just ask anyone and you will get a kind response to your question. I have watched Tampa grow from a small town starting back in 1963 when I moved here as a young boy. I played on the interstate when it was being built as it was right in my back yard when I was in grade school. Those were happy days. I never thought I would see the congestion of traffic and people that we have here today. Of course I saw animations and cartoons depicting our cities of the future jamming to a cluster and everything coming to a sudden halt. Hopefully I will never see that happen. Other than the negative side of things there is a lot still to be hopeful and smiling about. So, let us enjoy while we can. Come to Tampa and you may never want to leave.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Phone Companies Losing Broadband Subscribers

Having just read a news article online about this headline leads me to post my opinion on this. Do a search on Google for the article or articles on this today. Yahoo Finance is where I read this story. Here are some facts that are not pointed out in the article. Some areas of the country and maybe your neighborhood do not have FIOS fiber to your home. You are only able to get DSL High Speed internet over the phone company land line or copper lines. Or, the other option is maybe you have a second choice and that is cable. A cable modem then would be the wiser choice as it is faster than DSL High Speed over copper. I know this much from experience. I have had all three and now am using the not the fastest, but fine with me, Verizon FIOS 35/35 connection and I am happily satified with that for now. I do not download or stream movies to watch on my computer monitor. I am sure I would not have any trouble though with my current connection Other than all that I am sure your budget will most likely dictate to you what you will be willing to afford. As far as a monopoly goes I would have to say that if the phone companys and the cable companys would allow each other to offer the others services I would venture to say it would not make much difference in the dollar grabbing landscape. The problem is though it is mostly a one way street and the advantage is for the cable company as the cable company cannot offer the FIOS speeds over their cable system. So, the phone companys would be disadvantaged to say the least. These headline grabbing news articles do not go far enough to point out all the facts. Probably because they just do not have all the facts and do not understand fully what they are writing about. With this I end my diatribe today and wish you well in selecting the best internet connection that satisfies you best.

Headphones for All Occasions

Who does not have a set of headphones today? I had my first pair when I was in junior high school. I can still remember the gray plastic set with the large stereo phone plug. I had to be handy to be able to adapt the plug to fit a small connector in some devices back then. We had this old am/fm radio record player console that was really nice for the time back in the late 60's. It was wooden and had two large ten inch speakers, one on each side. I was able to install a 1/4 inch phone connector so that I could plug my headphones in and listen really well. I also installed a switch whereby I could turn off the speakers so that I could listen to my records with the headphones and not disturb anyone else in the room. I thought that was really cool at the time and I was quite proud of myself with that accomplishment. But, now every device comes with some type of connector and you can get an adapter to fit any headphones. Some headphones packages come with the different connectors. Currently I have a nice set of regular stereo headphones made by Koss. I also have a set that are bluetooth that I use for the tv when everyone in the house is asleep and I cannot sleep. I like being able to get up and go get something in the kitchen and even be able to go to the bathroon and I can still hear the audio with never any interference or break up in the sound. If you have been thinking of buying a set, now might be the time. Check out Amazon and their headphone month link above.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Time to Copy Video Files in my Stora 2tb NAS RAID

This is a test that I have been wanting to do since gettting the Stora NAS backup device. In selecting 109 AVCHD .MTS type video files that added up to 15.6gb, the estimate window showed 50 minutes to do the copy. This was a copy from a folder in Z:\MyVideos/ to a folder in Y:\FamilyLibrary/FamilyVideos. Having read the Stora manual several times the understanding is that the Z:\MyLibrary/ folder is for you own backups, you the user logged in at the time. The Y:\FamilyLibrary\ folder is for sharing on the network. I had turned on full sharing within my network in order that I can find and store, backup or copy and file to anywhere on the network. It works out well for me I have found. Okay, the results are that the 50 estimated minutes actually clocked in at only 33 minutes using the stopwatch on my smartphone. I am okay with the fact that file copying is not a fast thing and you have to take breaks and check back often for large copy jobs. I want to keep things organized on the Stora. My only concern is duplication of these files. I will come up with another organization scheme as my mind is coming up with a solution as I type this. Little by little, things get done. Now, go look at the specs on these NAS devices made by Netgear by clicking on the Amazon links below. Now is the time to get into backing up your files and especially your photos if you are not doing so now. The sooner the better or someone will be telling you, 'I told you so' or, 'You should have been backing up your photos.' Take a look at all of the NAS RAID devices offered. So many it will confuse you. It took me quite a long time to decide on the Netgear Stora. BestBuy has offered it off the shelf back then also, probably still do. But, you can get the same price or better right here on Amazon. Take a look. Netgear Stora NAS RAID

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

My Next Upgrade, RNDP400U, Netgear ReadyNAS 4 bay

To note the exact model I want to add to my network here now. The reasons are many for this particular model. If you click on the ad link below for the ultra box you can read all about the specs and what this box offers. Yes, it is pricey but I think it will be worth the investment and it should last for many years. I believe this model also offers a three year guarantee or warranty. A couple of features to note is the dual ethernet ports. It is almost like doubling your speed. A dual core processor. And, it will backup your Tivo video recordings. I am still using a Tivo model II that is over ten years old now and still running. I cannot say enough about Tivo. That is another post for another day. If you have been following my posts about a network attached storage backup system and are considering one, do take your time and look at all that Netgear has to offer. My suggestion to anyone just getting into this would be to get the lower end consumer model, the Stora, to get familiar with using a NAS backup before diving into a higher priced model.

Netgear READY NAS Stora 2tb upgrade completed

I have been lacking in my posting for over a month now. My how the time does fly. This post is to update the fact that the Netgear Stora upgrade from 1tb to 2tb RAID was completed without a problem. It was so easy. Just pop out the two 1tb drives and slide in the new 2tb drives. Power up and let it format and configure for use. The circuitry or rom chip remembered my settings so I did not have to configure the setup from scratch again. Within minutes the Stora was ready for use again. Something new I did also was to plug in my external BlacX doc with the 1tb drive into the USB port on the Stora to see how that worked. It worked perfectly. I was able to copy the data and files back to the Stora from where it originally came. And the BlacX external drive showed up as another device in the network just like before but now was copying directly to the Stora instead of going through the computer. I then began to drag and drop one folder at a time from the external drive to the Stora. I would walk into the office and drag over the video photo. Let that take time to finish. Then walk in and drag over the photos folder and let that complete. In a short time I had all of my files and folders copied back safe and sound to the Stora. Now it is just a matter of doing some clean up work to get rid of some of the oldest and useless files I had put on the Stora when I first set it up and was trying it out. I am still imagining some day when I have four drives in a rack type shelf mounted underneath the top shelf of my computer desk. The four drive bays would be divided up into two RAID backups. Sort of a double backup system. I can imagine all sorts of possibilities for backup expansion in the future. In the short term I am thinking of buying another Stora or one of the newer models I had selected when I was browsing the Netgear website about a month ago. I forget the model number at the moment but I am sure I will write about it one day in the future. It is a four drive bay model that caught my attention. It might make sense to get a duplicate of the Stora though just to have around in case my original Stora fails. You never think too much of the box itself failing, just the drives but hey, stuff happens. One other thing, can you believe Amazon sent me an email last month when I made my first post about this Netgear Stora, thanking me for including the NAS into the description. They had not done that and saw where it was part of what actually describes the product. I thought that was really cool. Hey, NAS is network attached storage, in case you did not know.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

A Smart Refrigerator with Smart Lighting

Have you got up at night and went to the refrigerator to get a drink of cold water? I just did and an idea just came to me that I have yet to see or hear about. Could I be the first to write about it? Who knows, but, here are my thoughts just now. I hate it when I open the door of the fridge early in the wee hours and the light bulb blasts my eyeballs with bright light. What if there was a dimmer control somewhere on the fridge where you could adjust that light? Maybe on the side where you could reach around and just slide your finger to a notch or two to set it before you open the door. Is this really just a crazy idea or am I on to something? Even our wine fridge has some cool looking blue LED bulbs. With all the talk about smart this and smart that, where are these smart refrigerators? We are seeing smart cars on the road now. I think smart refrigerators are next. But, will there be all the smarts in them that we want. That's the question. I want a black glass display panel that senses a person walking up to the door and it slowly light up. Or, quickly lights up. This could be an option in the preferences settings. You could set it for any color or clear. Temperature controls would be on the display of course with it always giving you the current temperature. A wi-fi or wired connection would give your pc the ability to see a temperature graph over days, weeks, months and years. Haven't you always wanted to see that? No, I never thought of it either until now. Thinking about all of this just makes my mind wander even more about the many smart appliances that we could see in the future. All interacting with your home network and logging everything that goes on in your household. Imageine waking up and going over to your wall size touch screen and looking over the previous days activiites and the current hour status of the house. Any faults or over threshold indicator would show up as a red dot or area on the grid or map of your network. I could sure use a smart chip in my old car now. I'm always worried about the battery not starting the car each day. A wi-fi chip would send out constant signals about the condition of that battery. 5:00 AM now. I am going back to bed. I have to be up at 7:00 AM and go to my eye doctor for my exam. Leave me your comments. Smart Refrigerator

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Happy 4th of July in America 2012!

Here's hoping for a safe and happy 4th of July today to my fellow Americans. Cook up those hot dogs and hamburgers, drink those beers and sodas, have lots of fun. I wanted to share with everyone a little fun product that the wife and I tried last night and we are excited about now. She had ordered a box of Japanese sky lanterns over a month ago and she was saving for a party. We had a friend over at our house last night so I decided it was time to try these out. I'm glad we did. It was a lot of fun. The lanterns come in individual packages in the box. We took three of them out of the box opened each one, one at a time and unfurled the flame resistant paper lantern and held it by it's top. Then, I lit the little cardboard square that is held by wires at the bottom. The cardboard is coated with a slow burning wax. In no time at all the square starts to catch fire and burn and the lantern begins to fill with hot air. After about fifteen seconds you release the lantern and watch it sit still just a foot or so above the ground until it starts to begin it's ascent skyward. It starts slow at first but then begins to pick up a little speed. It will drift one direction and then it will reverse and a wind current will take it up and on it's journey. We watched the first one just about disappear out of sight before we lit up the second and then a third one. It was fun to watch and took a little while before it just about went out of sight. We are planning on setting more on their journey tonight as we celebrate the fourth. I've found a link to where you can shop for these lanterns if you want to get some for your next event or celebration. Have fun and enjoy the fourth! Sky Lanterns

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Home DVR Security Camera System by Samsung

If you want for a nice home security system for your home or business you might want to check into this. The price has come way down from year past and with a 500gb hard drive you will get two weeks of video saved to the hard drive. Anytime something happens you can search back at up to 32 times speed which is like a second a minute in searching. I find it easy to find an event. Check this out if you want a package with four cameras and 100 ft of cable for each camera included. I've had this product for over a year now and have been very happy with it.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Netgear Ready NAS backup storage

I'm currently backing up my Netgear Stora data to an external hard drive at the moment. I've been using the Stora for over a year now, maybe two. I've always been one to practice backing up my hard drive and other data files since losing a hard drive some two decades ago. The thing is, today there is a product for everyone, for pc or mac too. Once you get in the habit of dragging and dropping your files, photos or whole directories, you begin to have this feel of confidence. Confidence in knowing that if you ever have a problem with a hard drive you have nothing to fear. Data backup is a whole different study I would say. There is a learning curve involved in knowing what does what and why. I first started out using a backup software to make complete images of the desktop hard drive. There were several to chose from so I picked one that seemed like it was user friendly. It was and it works great. Acronis 10 was the software of choice. But, this post it not about Acronis. Back to the Netgear Ready NAS device. I have done my research on Netgear's website this morning and I now have my eyes set on a new box. It is the NETGEAR ReadyNAS Ultra 4 (4-bay, diskless) Network Attached Storage, latest genereation. Model RNDU4000. Amazon shows it at $512.74 at the moment. This does not include hard drives. Those will be around $125 each. I've got two new Western Digital 2tb drives sitting next to me in unsealed packages at the moment. But, my near term goal is to use them in my Stora box where I curently have 2 1tb drives. What's so special about all this you ask? The number one reason I can tell you is the drives are set up in a RAID configuration. You can Google it and read all about RAID in wikepedia but foremost is it is REDUNDANT. Meaning, if one drive would fail, you have the second that still has your data safe and sound. You replace the failed drive and the good running drive will copy over everything to the new drive and you will once again have a duplex or redundant data backup box. The reason I am upgrading the storage or doubling to 2tb is I am now needing some place to hold video files. I've been shooting quite a bit of video lately and the desktop will not hold everything with it's 1tb drive. So, the idea now is to store the video there and clear off the desktop drive of all video. I'll only drag over a video file as I am about to edit one. Businesses need to contemplate a backup device in their plans. There is nothing more frustrating than losing all your customer data you've typed into the system for years and then one day you open the business and the hard drive won't boot. Think about that for a minute. I wanted to update this post to include an idea I thought about they may interest you. If you have Verizon FIOS at home and want to expand your video storage you can add an external hard drive. I have added a 1tb drive about six months ago and it's been working great with a lot of capacity left on it. What came to my mind after writing this original post was, what if you put one of these RAID storage boxes on the dvr? That way you would never lose your video. Unless of course the box electronics would fail but you'd still have the hard drives that you could put into another box or a repaired one. I haven't heard of anyone having a failed box yet though. I guess you can never be sure of not losing anything, ever. All you can do is try to make the odds more in your favor. I am sure I will be writing about trying this one day in the near future and then I will let you know how it goes.

Friday, June 29, 2012

OPT-OUT

WWW.OPTOUTPRESCREEN.COM - Are you annoyed with the junk mail offers for credit and insurance and other stuff you'd rather not get in your mailbox? Well, so was I, until I finally did something about it. After retrieving handfulls of junk over and over and having to look hard to find stuff that was really important, I finally did some research on the subject. The link below is exactly what was found from one of our government websites. It is for real and it worked. On May 19th of this year I had sent in the printed and signed form for my wife and I and I've now noticed a whole lot less junk in our mailbox. Of course you'll get the usual newsprint stuff from your local grocery store and whatever. But, the credit card offers have stopped for the most part. I say that because you will not stop getting stuff from people you are already doing business with. You will have to send them letters requesting them to stop sending the junk individually. So, without further hesitation, just copy and paste or enter by hand the website and at the bottom of the first page click on the blue link that will take you to the next page to fill in some simple stuff including your name, address, social and phone number. Then, they'll have you print it and you sign it and stick it in an envelope and send it off. There is a faster way too. Why am I telling you the above then. I don't know, I must have overlooked the electronic opt out selection in the middle of the three. The first button is to opt in, whoever might need that, I don't know. Anyway, the electronic opt out selection would be the fastest way for it to happen for you. I just entered our two kids into the program as I was starting to see them get offers for credit cards and crap in our mailbox. They are in college and they don't need to be getting this stuff here already. They will have plenty of time for getting credit in the future if they really want to. I've been trying to educate them on saving for things and paying cash so not having to waste money on interest to give to the banks. I'm sure they'll have to learn the hard way just like everybody else though. Okay, go take care of this if you do nothing else today. You'll be glad you did.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Results of Amazon Purchases Using Affiliate aStore

Here are the all time results of purchases made on my Amazon astore. I've not taken the time to format it so read carefully and you'll see the full price paid for the item and then the 4% ad fee or commission that's credited to my account. I won't get paid until it reaches $100. But, I just wanted to show you how fun this can be using Google's Blogger and Amazon's affiliate astore. These are both free. All you have to do is read and learn how to make it work. It took my a while to figure out and now I almost feel like a pro. So, what are you waiting for, get going. Don't spend all your time on Facebook, okay? ;) The Vow, Amazon.com, $12.99, 10.01%, 1, $12.99, $1.30 The Vow Amazon.com $12.99 10.01% -1 $-12.99 $-1.30 Books America: A Concise History, Volume Two: Since 1865 Third Party $39.40 4.01% 1 $39.40 $1.58 Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing Third Party $51.26 4.00% 1 $51.26 $2.05 Marriages and Families, Census Update (6th Edition) Third Party $27.50 4.00% 1 $27.50 $1.10 Plate to Pixel: Digital Food Photography & Styling Amazon.com $17.70 4.01% 1 $17.70 $0.71 The Bedford Handbook with 2009 MLA and 2010 APA updates Third Party $38.92 4.01% 1 $38.92 $1.56 Camera Nikon COOLPIX AW100 16 MP CMOS Waterproof Digital Camera with GPS and Full HD 1080p Video (Blue) Amazon.com $268.99 4.00% 1 $268.99 $10.76 Kindle Tablet devices Kindle Fire, Full Color 7" Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi Amazon.com $199.00 4.00% 1 $199.00 $7.96 Mobile Electronics Deft Dante 360 Rotating Black Kindle Fire Case (One-Piece Folio Kindle Fire Cover Multi-angle Vertical and Horizontal Stand With NO VELCRO) Third Party $22.95 4.01% 1 $22.95 $0.92 Tools & Hardware Whirlpool 4396841 PUR Side-by-Side Refrigerator, Push Button Fast Fill Water Filter, 1-Pack Amazon.com $32.93 4.01% 1 $32.93 $1.32

Let The Web Do The Shopping for You

Okay, not exactly that but let the web show you what you might like based on your previous keyword search experience. Cookies are fine when they are the good ones loaded on your computer by the web. I've selected an Amazon widget ad to give you suggestions based on those cookies on your computer. Let's see how it works. Here's the ad banner.

Amazon Is Doing Something Right and Good

Either you like Amazon or you don't. Maybe you've never tried ordering anything from there. I was hesitant at first but once I tried it, I'm a regular shopper now. It's first on my brain when I think of something I need. I'll go there and search for the product and usually buy it as I'm not in any hurry and I can wait a few days or more for it. I really don't like driving to the mall or wherever and buying anything anymore. It's just too much work and hassle. The best part for me is the product reviews. People like myself will take five minutes and more to write up their impression of the products. Where else can you go to find that information? You can buy just about everything at Amazon I think. Sometimes it's fun just to browse around and see some unique and different things that you never thought of. Who knows, you might find something you really like. I'm getting to the point now of a recent product I found when I wasn't even looking. Periogen. I've used it twice now in my Water Pik and it feels good after I'm done cleaning my gums. You can read about my review of this product in a recent post I made here and also a review I did on Amazon if you care to go searching. Hit up the ad below for Amazon to browse or shop a bit for a change if you like. The Kindle Fire is all the rage now it seems. Check it out!

Saturday, June 2, 2012

You've heard about cross linking ?

I'd like to offer something new to everyone. If you've done your homework you might have read about how cross linking can up your ratings with Google search. I've found it the hardest thing to try and convince people to cross link with me. Either they don't understand it or they are just lazy or both. No matter. I'm taking matters into my own hands now. Are you with me or do you stand alone? I will start by posting your link to your website, webstore or whatever, here on my blog underneath my links section. I'd like to ask that once you see that I've added your link, add my link to your page. It's that easy. Then, if this starts to get going I will create another page or website devoted entirely to our new linking family. If you can imagine the web that we can build on our own and all cross linked, wow. What this means is you will not only add my link to your page but you also add others. Ideally, we would all have the same links on each of our pages. Think about that for a moment. We can do this. I've just added my oldest brother's and his wife's Amazon store link to my links section. It only took 30 seconds to do. I then decided that today's post would be about that and my new idea. I urge to get going and do the same as I've just done. Send me your link first though. ;) Update: 8/7/12. I forgot about Google's Panda project. If you do a search on it you will read all about how they have upgraded how Google now indexes relevant web sites. From what I gather, cross linking is not the best idea any longer, text is. Cross linking cannot hurt though if done properly and not abusively. Care to give it a shot?

Friday, June 1, 2012

I'm up to $9.88 income now with Google Adsense

Nothing new to post today but I thought I'd let you know where I'm at. As I go from one thing to another I'm actually looking ahead at other things I need to be doing at the moment. Yesterday was my annual physical exam. All good but I will have to come back several weeks later to get the urine analysis to see how all the levels are. Each year they've been good but the cholesterol was nearing 200 and my doctor put me on Red Rice Yeast supplements about two years ago. One a day brought the cholesterol level down about 10%. He said, 'Just imagine what it would do if your took two of those a day'. I thought to myself, yeah, it would cause a hernia in my budget for those pills are around $1.00 each. I learned from him that the 'statin' drug came from this herb. You can Google it and find out about it. Now, since the patent has expired on the drug I'm assuming it's a lot cheaper now and generic. I was going to ask my doctor about it but I just now realized that I didn't remember to ask him. I'm waiting for a generic version to come out and hopefully get it cheaper than a dollar a day. But, with a lot of drug companies today, the generics are not a profit maker so we are in short supply of the cheaper drugs you and I need now. So, I got off on a tangent again. I'm signing off for now. Stay productive, you hear? Oh, here's something you might like. Now, I'd get one of these baby's!

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Trying a Different Size Ad Banner

Trying out a different size Amazon contextual ad type. So many to choose from. I will get back to posting interesting things as they happen in my life that I want to share. But for now it's all think about is playing around with Google's and Amazon's tools and creating stuff. I like to learn about new things and computers have been a passion since I bought my first Radio Shack TRS-80 Model II. That was like back in '79 I think? Does anyone remember? I edited this post today, June 1st, 2012, to add this Amazon ad link to this most popular author's books right now. 'Fifty Shades of Grey', a trilogy bundle. I saw an interview on one of those morning shows with the author. Afterward I figured it would be a pretty good read. On the flight to Cancun for relaxing four nights at the Grand Princess Resort, I spotted a woman on the plane with a Kindle Reader reading this book. I wonder if the Kindle can speak the words to you. This thought just came to mind and would be a great way to absorb a good book, just listen to it. I'd get it now and sit down and get into it...

Blog Report to Share With Everyone

Studying more in the Amazon astore area section of their website I was able to easily create a banner ad for people to click on that will take you to my astore. The banner looks innocently like Amazon's own link but embedded in the coding behind the link is my Amazon astore i.d. number. That number associates my account with Amazon so when someone buys something I'll recieve the commission. More on commissions in another post. Here is a jpg screen capture I did using Windows 7 Snippet Tool. It is self descriptive. It's a little hard to read but there's nothing more I can do about that here.
As I continue my research in increasing traffic to my blog and my astore I'll update the report pictures for you to see. If your not already using Blogger you might give it some thought. Because it's a Google product it is going to get the service it needs as far as it being easy to find in anyone's Google search. Google puts a lot of hard work into giving us tools to make use of their product so why not take advantage. We all make money. That's the point I think Google has been trying to get across. Don't let others try and tell you about the internet scams and so forth. Research on your own. There's plenty of data on the web now where anyone can make an informed decision on their own. I'm now into marketing on the web. You should be too. You spend enough time on your computer. Why not take a little time each night or whenever you can and get into this? It took me awhile to figure out but I'm hoping I can help you save some time now. I don't mind sharing my information. We all have everything to gain here. It's called 'networking'. You rememeber the term. That term is used with everything just about everywhere now. Maybe not as much as in the beginning but I feel we are onto another phase in life. Is there a name for this phase? I know people are searching and thinking about it. I am and have been. I can feel it. Can you? Get going, get rich, okay? Ask me any questions, I'll answer to the best of my knowledge. In the mood to buy something? I know a place that ships fast. There are great reviews also. ;)
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Sunday, May 27, 2012

My Amazon Website Store

A light bulb came on this morning in my head. I've had this Amazon affiliate store set up for I don't know how many years now. But, I didn't know what to do with it. Since I've been reading this book, 'The Laptop Millionaire' (shameless plug again) it's all I think about. It hit me to go to Godaddy.com and register a domain for this store. It's only an experiment I figure but who knows. If enough people like it maybe it will catch on. I don't like the green background I gave it initially so I'll have to go to Amazon and find out how to change that. I can't remember when I last played with this store. Why not give it a click and see what you think about. Or, better yet, buy something if you are already an Amazon shopper and looking to buy. I'm an Amazon shopper and I wish I knew someone who was an affiliate, I'd shop through your store and give you the commission. If all my friends and family caught onto this we'd all make money. I've included a widget below. That was easier than I thought. I think I'm getting the hang of this now. Go check it out now...(I have edited this post and deleted the domain name I had registered as it was against the Amazon terms of service, see the new domain below). Update: 9/13/2012 - Got an email from Amazon that I violated the terms of agreement. You cannot use their trademarks. Ooops! I have since changed my URL domain name to www.vannalovestoshop.com. Got to roll with the punches they say...

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Facebook IPO a Bust or Wait Some More?

I wanted to get a thought in here before all the hype calms down on this. I never even thought of wanting to get in on this IPO. I've had enough experience in IPO's decades ago with many brokers chumming me with them and then only to talk me into selling right after and buy some other worthless hyped stock of the day they were pushing. After all, brokers are a business and they have their agents to sell their products to you so they can make money. See, everything today is about business and making money. But, you don't want to be a schmuch with egg on your face, who does. This IPO was too over hyped in my opinion. I believe if the price falls down to around $8 to $10 a share then the common man might want to buy up a hundred shares or two and put them away for awhile. I mean, you do have a Scottrade account don't you? Only $7 a trade and I don't see anywhere cheaper than that. Do you do 'limit orders' when you trade? If not you are missing out and possibly losing money too. With Scottrade they offer for $10 a month, Level II stock monitoring and trading. What the heck is Level II you ask? It's the real-time stuff, not fifteen minutes delayed stock prices like you see on the tv and you get on your smartphone apps and all over the web. It's a premium feature. Scottrade is now offering this to you for only $10 a month. I remember when they just started offering it as a beta product and I used if for over a year or more, then, got out of trading for a couple of years. Now, they've got all the bugs worked out and they can offer it for a fee. I recommend you try it out. The best part is being able to see the buy and sell side by side as the different exchanges show their offers in a little window of whatever stock you want to watch. It's right up the second and to the penny. I put in a trade for a 100 shares of Harley Davidson I had been holding onto for a few years. When I bought it the stock just started dropping. Such is my luck most times with stock it seems. Well, a couple of weeks ago I noticed it had climbed above my purchase price. I thought, I better get going and see if I can dump this and make a little profit when I do. Sure enough, I saw the offers at $48.28 a share. Blocks of a 100, 200, 300 shares were stacking up to trade. The buy side was taunting the sellers, inching up a penney at a time when the sellers pushed their price up. This told me the stock was going up but it was slow trading that morning and I knew it was just a matter of time before the stock will start to slump again. I better hurry I thought. So, I put in an order to trade a 100 shares at $48.29 with a limit order to sell all or none for the day. Then, I sat back and watched the little window. About two minutes later the I could see trades taking effect as the price punched through the $48.29 level. I knew I had made a sale so I check the status of my trade. Bingo! I had made $100 minus the $7 trade fee for the day. I was happy. After the market closed for the day I decided to go in a look at what Harley (HOG) leveled out at. It had dropped below $47 a share. I felt a good feeling of satisfaction. Now, if I wanted to take some more time and I felt this stock was being played by the masses, I'd go in the next day and put in another limit order to buy another 100 or 200 shares and see if I could clip off another $100 or $200 dollars. I didn't though, I'm not a day trader. I still work a full time job and I just don't have the time to sit around on the computer and watch the market, not even for an hour. When I retire, then, I'll maybe put more time into this. That is, if I'm not making it rich on marketing here on the web or rental properties.

The Ads Have Arrived!

A week later and I see the ads have started to show. But, they are wide banners that stretch too far over to the right side and overlap my sidebar stuff. No biggie. I can go to Google's Adsense settings in my account and just set it to show shorter width ads. I'll get all of this right yet. You see, I keep reading and studying all about Google's Adsense hopefully to one day make some money with this blog. I've got in mind to set up a website to offer some free stuff to people also. This website will have affiliate links that will also add to the income stream. One thing at a time. I take things slow so I can understand how it works and to get it to work. There's a lot to know about all of this I've found. Just to learn how to operate Google's online apps is one thing. Knowing what to write about here is another. It's all about keywords and lots of text. Keywords so your audience can find you using Google search. Most everyone knows about this by now I hope. Why lots of text? Google's bots go out every night and crawl the web and index every word into their giant search index. That way you are able to find anything you are searching for. Relevance is a key word here. There is a lot to what makes that up. If you have relevant information on your blog or website and it's popular with enough people, then Google will put up the links to your site above others who don't have the relevance. It's tough to do and takes a lot of time to get it right. That's my post for today. Next to see how my income stream is doing...

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Google Adsense

I've enabled the Google Adsense setting today. From what I've learned I can earn money by letting Google serve up ads on my blog or website. Since this blog serves as my website for now, this is it, a blog website. So, let the fun begin. Google's terms and conditions strictly forbid me from encouraging anyone to click ads so I won't be asking you to do so. Advertising has always been one of those things where the individual decides wether he or she is influenced and follows through on the desire to purchase or not. In today's situation we are confronted with ads all over the web wherever we go. We see something we like or are curious about, we click the link. Not a big deal. At least Google's ads are not the type that smack you in the face and crawl all over your screen and you have to figure out how to make them go away, taking your precious time when all you wanted was to read an article. My, how we are so distracted today. We spend hours on the computer and can't seem to pull away. How many times do you find yourself going to your computer to do one thing but end up cruising around reading every little thing you ar curious about and then you switch off the monitor and get up out of your chair, and suddenly it dawns on you. You never did what you wanted to get done in the first place. I'll tell you what. I'm making an enhanced effort now to get done first what I sit down to do before doing anything else. I did it once yesterday and what a great feeling of accomplishment it was. Oh, I was talking about Google's Adsense. I've came to the realization that marketing and advertising is the game today. If you are not in it, you are just a regular worker bee struggling to pay your bills and not saving any money. Yeah, I'm still one of those too but I'm learning about all of this and one day I'm going to tout my success right here to your face. Do you want a challenge? Go for it! It starts now with you. I'm already ahead of you though.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

The Laptop Millionaire

I'm touting a book I have recently been reading and I have to say it is current and up to date with the net. So many tools are discussed and how to use them to get rich. I thought at first this was going to be a boring book but once I started reading I couldn't put it down. I've got a few chapters to go but I'm just waiting for the right moment to strike me to continue. About half way through the book it dawned on me what the author was trying to get across. Marketing. That's the ticket to success and in his book he gives you all the information and straight forward scoop on how easy it is to do. Like anything though, it will take some work. But, I believe once the major work is done it's just a maintenance thing to keep it going. Just like a well oiled machine. I have come to this realization of how to make money on the net before but this time it really rang a bell in my head. My only thought now is, do I have what it takes to get going and make it happen. Like most people, we don't want to put forth the effort it takes to get ahead. We want things to just come to us but it doesn't happen like that. It isn't luck either. Well, yeah, a few people may get lucky and hit the lottery but will it be you or I? I don't think so. So, we work to get what we want in life. We all want to be rich and happy, who doesn't. Why does anyone want to continue to work for someone else your whole life? I sure don't. I just about have already but I still have hope for a better life. Okay, so now what? It's time to get the book out and begin to outline the plan and start making steps forward. If you look on Amazon I think you'll find this book for just under $20. It's not available as an ebook as far as I could find. So, just click the link and check it out! The Laptop Millionaire

Friday, May 4, 2012

New Template Tried today

I like to try new things so I clicked through several of the pre-made templates Google has and I've decided on this one for now. I'll probably change it again in the near future as I don't like things to stay the same normally. I watched a couple of Google's Adsense videos after stumbling upon them through my blog interface. Google is pushing you to create ads that appear all over the web and you pay per each click. I've set this up and used it for about a year for my wife's real estate website and it has worked to attract her callers from out of town. It took several months before she started telling me that she was getting calls but I had cancelled the ad as it was eating up my monthly budget of $10. Not a lot mind you but it's an amount I hadn't planned on expending for too long unless it was getting results to compensate. I may experiment with turning it on once again as she hasn't told me of any calls recently. I would also like to create and ad for my blog but I am not selling anyting at this point. In the first year of my blog I had allowed ads to appear from other sites like Amazon. Now, for some reason I am not getting any ads served up on my blog. I'm researching it but as of yet can't figure out why. I did find a link to 'known adsense issues' and back toward the first of the year they had a problem with serving up ads to smaller sites. There are links to click if you are still having a problem. My thought is that since I am no longer a subscriber paying for ads for my wife that is why I'm not being served ads from others. In other words, Google is penalizing those who used to have ads served up and getting ad revenue with click through for other advertisers, without you have to pay for an ad yourself. If I can ever figure out how to make revenue over the amount of my ten dollars a month in ad expenditure, I might become a Google Adsense subscriber again. I've only earned $7.39 approximately to date for the years I've had this blog. That amount came in a flurry after making a post about an problem AOL had with their service. I may have to go read about this again and see what to do next. I think it has to do with big advertisers like AOL and other large companys. I believe that if I make post about large companys and what's going on with them, I'll attract a lot more interest to my blog and possible more click throughs on ads, if they are served up on my blog. I know a lot of this is confusing and maybe you don't even care about it. I'm old enough to know that money makes the world go round and also makes happiness. That's another different subject altogether that I'd like to explore and discuss more later. I welcome all comments. Hope your day is paved with gold! Paul

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Simplehuman Trashcan Repair

You would think I could spend my time on better things than fixing a busted trashcan. But, this is one of those nice 'Superhuman' brands with the foot pedal that when you step on it the top flips open. Today is the second and hopefully the last time I have to get my tools out on this thing. There is a major flaw in the design but like most things today, it aint supposed to last. I priced these cans and they are not cheap. Looks like $39.99 at BedBath&Beyond. Wow, they sure have an assortment too. Check this link out. http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/search/search.aspx/_/N-1z14140?sstr=simplehuman&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=superhuman%20trash%20can&creative=11596909598&adpos=1t1&gclid=CNS3tYGU068CFcfb4Aoddy1Ydg"> Okay, back to the story today. I should have taken pictures of the whole process of taking it apart and cutting the stainless screws with my Dremel grinder but I didn't even think about it until I was finished with the whole mess. I sound a little frustrated as I was. There is always frustration when you first take something apart. It's like a puzzle and you just don't know how things go together or come apart. I start with the simplest and most obvious of course, the screws. But, then you got a genuius who likes puzzle pieces and they will sneak one in on you. Now for some pics to show you what I've spent over an hour on just a little bit ago. My back is still aching and bending over on the kitchen floor to work on this has made new pains for me. Oh well, I'll heal.
That's the can. I'll explain more as I go.
The brand name label.
I like the 'lift' handle in the back. I only found this one day after tugging and pulling the can around to set it in place so many times for so many months.
Okay, here's where the fun begins. The bottom is where you take a screw out and a pin that holds the foot lever.
That first time taking this apart really had me thinking. There is a flat piece of spring stainless steel underneath that foot lever that gives it the spring action. I didn't take a pic of the inner workings, sorry. Here's the one screw that you need to take out. This is the flawed design, the foot pedal. What you can't see that is underneath is the cheaply made pedal that will break in half over time. A little more thickness with the plastic and this can might last for a couple generations. I happened to have two large stainless 3/16" screws, nuts and lock washers on hand in my parts bin. I'm not exact on the size of those screws now though but there were large enough that I knew they would support some serious foot pressure. As I said earlier, this is my second repair of this can. The first repair wasn't idiot proof. I hadn't secured the screws tight enough in the first place. Secondly, the middle of the foot lever that was almost broke in half and very weak or fatigued, I was trying to save. It didn't last. Once that weak spot broke in half the foot lever and the screws flopped around for many months until I decided I had enough. Today was the day to end this nonsense.
This shouldn't have taken me so long today to fix this once and for all. The problem was that the screws or bolts that I had used were about three inches long. They were interferring with placing the foot lever back in place over that stainless spring. That's where the Dremel tool with the cutoff wheel came into good use. I've used the Dremel on cutting stainless bolts before on a boat trailer. Talk about taking a long time, it's gets overwhelming holding the tool just so that you don't break the fragile grinding or cutoff wheel. They are thin disks and one slight wrong move and they shatter. Each bolt today probably took me about fifteen minutes each holding it fast by hand and slowly getting the feel of the cutting. I had to increase the speed one notch as the steel was not cutting well. When you see a steady stream of sparks and the Dremel motor doesn't sound like it's being taxed to heavily, you've got a perfect combination for cutting. Just remember to let off now and then to allow some cooling of the disk. Here's the last picture of the foot lever or pedal. It now stands tall, way off the floor. Where before it flopped about just about an inch off the floor and when you stepped on it, the lid didn't come up all the way. Now, take a step on it and the top flips up and salutes you. The wife will be surprised when she comes home later and goes to throw something away. Okay, I now need to think about mowing the yard again... Update: 8/20/2012 - I want to take pictures of the stainless bolts in place just to show you. I just have to get in the mood to take this can apart again. Keep checking back.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

XmRadio and choices

Okay, here's something that's bugging me too. My XmRadio subscription has expired but they still have me active for now. I get about two to three calls a day. I answered one but got nowhere with the rep. I want a slimmed down subscription. I don't want to pay full price of $14.99 a month when I only listen to maybe 20 channels. I like news and NPR and C-Span and CNN, not talk radio crap. On their website they offer a $7.99 offer where you can select 50 channels to choose from. But, I don't see where you can check the boxes of the ones you want. I'm hesitant to dig further to figure this out. I'm about to just let it expire, I'm so tired with the hassle of it all. The want you to set up the auto-renew feature of course. That way they get their money. I know I'll dig into it later though as I do like my channels when in the car. Funny thing though, they tout no commercials but you get them all the time. It should be illegal to advertise this. Maybe there are a few channels without adverts but I've not found one. Whenever I switch to CNN or CNN Business I can almost always figure I'm going to hit a commercial. They have adverts all the time for their servive of course. It gets to be ridiculous. I've been a subscriber for over six years now using the same device with a home and car kit. I have loved it but the car kit is now having a problem where if there is any vibration a connection gets messed up and the signal to my car radio is interrupted and I have to slap the XmRadio to get it to connect to the adapater again. I have made a paper wedge that I stick into the adapter between it and the radio receiver now and it helps for the most part but not always. Another problem is when I bought the receiver it came with software where you could view and play the stored music or audio files you saved. It has I think 50mb. I've got quite a lot saved on it but there was no way to transfer the files to say your computer. You also had to pay for the convience of being able to even look at the stored files and be able to play them. I rarely if ever bother with all that now. It's such a crock of shit these companies dig at you for every little thing. Can't they just let you buy something and enjoy it to the fullest without all the little extra charges for the features offeres as options? I don't know how much longer I'll hang onto this. If the receiver dies, I know I'll probably look into a newer one. But, the original was so cool. It retailed for $400 and I got if on sale, yeah, right, for $350 at a kiosk at the mall. I had the money then and it was awesome to see the new technology. Yeah, we got Pandora now on our smartphones but have you noticed how quickly they got into serving up ads too? The world's just all about marketing and seeing how they can get a piece of you budget. I'm all about watching my budget now and doing away with what I feel I can really do without. It's hard though as we want everything.

April, another month flys by

I have experimented with a couple of different templates and am taking on the one you see here now. I felt the prior one was dark and just too hard for even myself to read. I'm still not sure what to make of a blog and why I should even bother to keep one up. Money making is the only thing that comes to mind as I don't think people really want to know what I think about anything. They've got too many things on their mind as I do too these days. Of course there will come a time or two that I will happen to post something that might be momentous but why not just post it on Facebook. That's where everyone's at now, right? I keep waiting to see what will overtake Facebook. MySpace was drained by Facebook and as always, something new always comes along. I'm not famous, I'm not rich. I'm just your ordinary person. Ask questions, have fun and by all means, try to be happy. If you can't be happy, just keep it to yourself maybe or hope you can find someone that will just listen without giving you advice. That's my pet peeve by the way. Okay, I'm outa here once again. Have a good day! One last thought on this. At least a blog will keep your posts. I don't think Facebook will.

Just an update on the Sears order for the tractor blade

Just to note that after all the work I put into researching along with the customer reps at Sears to get the correct mulching blade for my new lawn tractor, I got the right blade. Seems they have too many departments and you get handed off from one to the other with each not knowing much about what the other does. I finally got this nice older guy in Tucson, Arizona, where I was born by the way. How uncanny was that. We got off to a really nice talk. He was a good old boy who had been a trucker for I think 40 years and had retired due to his wife becoming disabled and he wanted to be home with her. I wish I could remember his name now. I was able to convince him that it wasn't my fault that my initial order came to me only half the parts I needed and he gave me a free ship on the final second order. I ordered two of the mulching blades as I'm sure I'll need to replace one once it's worn out. This blade will be a son of a gun to sharpen though. It's got ends like a forked tongue snake on each side. I'll take care of it though as I have with the past blade on the now long gone dead tractor, with a plain old file. I'm going to see if I can post some pictures here next in this blog. I want to show some customizing I did to this new lawn tractor. Something Sears should have thought about. They could have even made more money on the accessory item as well. I installed a cigarette lighter adapter to where the throttle lever is located. There was more than enough space. I had been using a small trickle charger on the old tractor, using clamps to keep the battery charged between mowings. I cut off the clamps and soldered on a connector whereby I now have a cigarette lighter plug that I can now keep plugged into the tractor and it's working perfectly. I feel it was a really sweet customization and I'd like to share it with everyone. As soon as I can figure out how to post these pictures. Ahh, I see a link above..here goes.
Ahh, the pic is a little small but I'll go larger on the next one. What you see are the two mounting holes whereby I used a socket wrench and took of the throttle lever plate.
I like the larger picture. Let's see how this goes now. Next pic.
I should have taken pics of drilling the holes and how I measured to where I made those wholes but it's just intuitive I guess. You find the space, size it up by eye, start with a small drill bit and work your way up to make the perfect holes for your bolts. I had worried that the metal would be too hard to drill through but with some patience the drills slowly made their way through without burning up or breaking. I usually start out with an 1/8" size bit or one bigger, then go a couple more sizes up to the final size. This makes a perfectly cut hole with little trouble drilling and no bit getting stuck also. Next pic.
I found the cigarette lighter adapter at Wal-Mart for under ten bucks. I had the wiring connectors in my scrap bins and used the Y-type so the wiring could be easily secured underneath a bolt. I used the throttle lever plate as a grounding source for the black or ground wire naturally.
I like the plastic cover as it will keep out the water from the hose if I happen to splash any water around when I clean up the tractor after a mowing. I next connected the red or hot lead or wire to the positive terminal of the battery. I just knew I was going to do this project as I could not see myself taking on and off that plastic cover that hides the battery just to connect the trickle charger every time after I mow. The plastic connectors for the cover would soon deteriorate and then I'd be looking to figure what to replace them with. Just a hassle any way you looked at it. I believe in making batteries last as long as possible. That means checking the water level at least twice a year here in Florida too.
Here's the finished look with the throttle lever mounting plate bolted back onto the tractor. Pretty slick if you ask me. Now, will Sears get ahold of this and add this to this tractor in the future? My next thought is an umbrella and a cupholder for my beer. I suppose you could think of all sorts of other things but I'm just being practical right about now. Two more pics and I'm done with this. I hope you enjoyed this ingenuity as much as I have.
Here's the trickle charger I bought at Wal-Mart years ago. It still works great and an led lets you know when the battery is fully charged. These units are cheap, just under $20 if I remember right. I should use one on my car too as I don't drive many miles each day and I never get more than three years out of a deluxe battery.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Earning to date, an update.

Still at $7.39 if I remember from the 'Monetize' page just viewed.
Still, nobody gets it here on Blogger. Come on, folks. Is it that hard to understand?
Are we that dumb? I'm beginning to think so. What are we all doing with our time?
I know but, I'm going to go do something with some purpose right now. You just keep doing what you're doing, okay? Have a great day!

Sears Roebucks, another example of screwed up American company.

Nobody can get anything right these days. I can always expect problems now when dealing with ordering anything with anybody now. Here's a great example. I ordered a mulching kit for my new Craftsman lawn tractor this past week. The kit is a mulching blade and a cover for the side of the deck. Here it is Saturday noon and the wife brings me a box that UPS has delivered and as I take it from her I notice it's very light, I know there's no blade in there. Sure enough, only a deck or chute cover. I immediately get my Sears folder with my notes and paperwork and this new order slip. I call Sears 800 parts line number. I wait on hold for about twenty minutes, handed off from one person to a second. The second gets huffy with me because I'm not going to go out to the garage and move stuff around to try and find a serial number of this tractor. I ask her why that is needed. She begins telling me that she has the warehouse on the line and that their system has an error in it and they can't locate a part number for the kit for this tractor, only a description. I argue with her that I am not here to fix their errors, that they need to go to work and get it fixed. She gets stressed with me about then. She won't let me speak so I let her get the wind out of her lungs. She tells me they are sending the kit. I ask how do I know I'm not going to get the same mulch cover again without the blade. She tells me that this time they are sending the kit with the blade and cover. Okay, leave it at that. This is what I thought I ordered a week ago from a very nice Southern lady. More days to follow that the customer, me, has to sit and wait for their screwed up mess of a system. I don't care how many million parts they have, sweetheart, just get me the damn parts I ordered, please? By the way, did you catch CNBC's report late one night this past week about China and their workforce and products? They get it right for the customer from what interviewee spoke about doing business with them. We need to take lessons over here in America.

USPS mis-delivery update!

I happened to be outside working in the front yard when the postal carrier happened at his usual time of noon. He yelled out to me, 'How's it going'? I said, 'Just fine'. He then began to tell me that he was making sure to check the pre-sorted mail in his box to make sure the mail gets to the address printed on the article correctly. He was smiling and I just couldn't believe how he'd changed from his old snobbish self when I first started dealing with him personally about this. Maybe he realizes how important it is to the people that want to get their mail and not someone else's. Maybe he thought about how HE'D like to get HIS mail at home. I don't know but I'm glad that so far it's been good. I just hope it continues but I'll still continue to not use the mail if I can do my business online and paperless.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

USPS, continued

Right after posting the previous post I managed to catch the subcontract delivery person at my mail box. I asked him what to do about the misdelivered mail. He explained that it's the sorters that mess it up for the delivery. While he was talking I looked down in his seat where he kept the white plastic box of mail to be delivered. I saw how it was arranged in order to make his delivery faster. One stack of mail standing on it's end, the next was arranged on it's side and so on and so forth. It made it easy for him to just grab the next stack after reading the address on the facing mail and stuff it all into the box. I asked him why he couldn't take a few moments and flick through each piece of mail to make sure it got delivered right and to correct the sorter's mistakes. He didn't answser but kept going on about how he could be blamed and he gets all the blame for everything all the time, etc, etc. I knew this wasn't going anywhere and there was nothing I could say to get him to realize that he needs to take the time to get the right mail in the right box. I went on with him that it's all about the time, so he could get his mail delivery done and get on home for the day. Who wouldn't, right? Still, there must be something I don't know for him not to take the time to check the sorts. Is his route overloaded? Is this how our mail system works? Next time I catch him at my box I will get into another converstion with him about this. Who knows how many people interrupt his day too. He probably wants to get back to the branch before dark and get on home. I probably would feel the same way. No efficiency anymore these days it seems, just get the work done any way you can and even though we like to talk how great we are and how much we think of the customer, we don't walk the talk!