Adam and I talked to a few listeners today, ranted a little about this negative article of Twitter in our local newspaper, gave some Christmas / holiday gift giving advice, and much more in this month’s radio show. Have a listen and remember to tune in live next month on December 16!
I was pretty disappointed with the lack of good computer sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Prices for computer have been pretty low since mid-summer, but I was hoping to see some 2GB RAM laptops under $450 and desktops with 2GB of RAM for less than that. Maybe we will see some lower prices before Christmas Eve.
Adam didn’t post any outstanding deals on digital cameras either, so I’m assuming that the camera market was equally as flat as PC’s.
It has become a holiday tradition for me to go through an eBay selling phase. It all began when the XBox 360 was released and continued on with the PlayStation 3.
I was beginning to think that I would not have an opportunity to buy this year’s crazy in-demand toy and resell it on eBay. Then came Rock Band.
In a totally unexpected move, I purchased two Rock Band Special Edition kits. I saw that most stores only had a few in stock so I looked them up on eBay and read about the holiday supply in the news.
Computer bargains are all over the place! This week I must have seen
two dozen offers that I would have purchased if I only had the funds.
At least once a year, I write a short article about my current computer recommendations. The holiday season is upon us, and I haven’t written an article like this in awhile, so here goes.
In the past six months, I ask more questions than I give when approached with this question.
If I find that the person has a 2-4 year old computer with Windows XP, and just thinks the computer is slow, I go with this advice:
I really love English Bulldogs. Recently I became aware of a common pet scam that is based on every other over seas Internet scam. Someone from Cameroon posts a desired breed up for a ridiculously low price. He/she asks for money plus shipping. You never get the dog. Here is my recent correspondence with one such scammer. I have resorted… Read More »Fun with Cameroon Pet Scams
My children were out of school today for the President's Day holiday. We had planned to go skiing with another family at our local ski resort. My son and I woke early and were eating breakfast and decided that we should check the weather on the mountain. We checked the resort's web site and the National Weather Service web site. Both indicated that it could be a 'breezy' day with a chance of snow. We finished eating, packed, and made the forty-five minute trek up the mountain. About half way to the resort, I noticed that the clouds were looking pretty dark (rainy not snowy) and the wind had picked up substantially. As we made the final ascent to the ski area, the wind picked up enough to shake the pine trees on the side of the road quite easily and I could feel the van struggling to keep its bearing. When we pulled into the resort, all the flags were flying straight out and not given any chance to relax.
During the holidays, I helped a friend buy and setup a new computer. After looking at his current bills, we determined that his family would save money going with our local cable company for their TV, telephone, and Internet setup. They dumped MSN (dial-up), AT&T long distance, and Qwest in the process. Now they have a better TV plan, unlimited long distance telephone calls, nice phone package, and of course the high speed Internet. Once we finalized the setup, I introduced them to some of the things they could do with broadband. They were amazed at the speed of the new machine and connection speed, but also very pleased that their phone would no longer be busy when they used the Internet.
Tomorrow I will start taking calls again and return back to work. I decided to use my last day off of the Holiday season to clean my office and get a fresh start on the new year.
I am a pack rat, but I am not the kind of person who never throws anything away. I am picky in what I keep. Most of my clutter is job related. Since I spend my days working on computers, I tend to keep computer parts and cables "just in case."
While I kept a lot of cables, I did decide to finally get rid of a lot of stuff I will probably never need again. I collected a total of 5 trash bags full of junk in the cleaning process.
Microsoft plans on rolling out Windows Vista en masse on January 30, 2007. After nearly three years of delays, the much anticipated new operating system will be available. Unfortunately, the only reason it is getting released now versus later is because Microsoft stripped away many of the features it was supposed to have in order to deliver the product at all. This doesn't bode well for Microsoft or we computer users. I showed my brother Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 while he was here for the holidays. His response: "It's sexier."
I will admit that it has a certain visual appeal, but nothing earth shattering. What it doesn't have is an intuitive look and feel that users will feel comfortable with out of the box because the visual aesthetics are so different. With one month to go, I am anxious to see the reception that it gets from consumers. So far, the volume business clients that have had access since November have been very unimpressed and sales are lackluster.