Camera Shopping

My cousin posted on Facebook that she wants to buy a new pocket camera. She asked an open question about which brands are best, which models she would want, and the biggest challenge, she wants to keep the purchase price below $200.

I told her that I love my camera. It’s a Sony and it takes great photos with almost everything automatic. The battery lasts a long time, the memory stick holds a ton of photos, the zoom is 7x, and it has a huge display screen.

But she bought a cheap Canon. I guess you just can’t help some people.

AA Batteries

For some reason I can never find good AA batteries when I need them.My digital camera is the biggest battery hog and I am always having to change out the AA batteries in my camera – it is a real nuisance.

I have tried rechargeable batteries – but they have a lot of disadvantages. Every time you recharge them you get a little less life and there is no way to tell how many times you have left or how much life you have to use. It’s very frustrating to charge the batteries overnight and then get only 10-15 minutes worth of charge.

So I bought a big value pack of regular AA batteries. But evidently they go bad from sitting on the shelf and each time I put innew batteries I would get less and less use. Arrrgh! I guess I am going to have to bite the bullet and pay the extra money for lithium batteries. I hope they are worth it!

Recycled Ink Cartridges

Today I was cleaning out a couple of drawers in the office. Well, I was looking for a bottle of glue and couldn’t find it, so I had to clean out the drawer while digging through the mess looking for the glue.

In the back of the drawer was a ziploc bag with a bunch of old, empty inkjet cartridges for that broken Epson printer that I used to use. I hated that printer – you had to have 6 different color ink cartridges to get the colors to print. If you ran low on any one of the 6 colors, the printer wouldn’t work at all until you replaced the one cartridge. You couldn’t even bypass the colors and use just black.

It was a total nuisance trying to keep up with all those ink cartridges. Now I have a big bag of the empty and I guess I will find someplace to recycle them.

Auction site

I found this neat auction site called DealDash. It looks like they have just about anything a person could possibly want on their site. The auctions sell these products for way less then you would be able to buy them anywhere else. There was all kinds of electronics, gift cards, video games, kitchen appliances and much more. I was really surprised. A two hundred dollar gift card sold for about fifty dollars. That is just amazing savings. I am going to try out the site and see what I can get from it. I will have to wait until the weekend when I am off of work, so that I have plenty of time to watch whatever I am bidding on.

If I win anything, I promise to post about it on here so you can see it too. I always try to let you guys know when I find really good savings. I like to pass it along and help others. I find all kinds of neat stuff online. Sometimes, I buy and sometimes I don’t, but I always let you know about it. There is one camera that I saw on there, and I am hoping they will have others later for me to bid on.

Slow computer

Looks like I might have to get a new laptop soon. I bought this one for a bargain price of $300 in a Christmas sale so I’ve gotten my money out of it. The one I have now is so slow that I’ve nearly given up on taking it anywhere when I have to write and I’m away from home. It’s senseless. I have to wait for quite a while for things to load.

I’m going to have it gone through first by a pro and see what they say, because it isn’t that old and it’s got plenty of space on it. Still…I’m not happy with it at all. More money going out no doubt. 🙁

Moving into a new place

Guest post of the week by Deangelo Spencer

When I moved into my new place I was really excited to get it all fixed up. I wanted to get totally new curtains and floors for the main rooms and I knew I had to have all the bathrooms retiled. I just wasn’t sure what to do about the Satellite Star Internet and the security system…did I need them both? Well, I sprang for them and now I’m really glad – turns out it’s all the extra technology here that really makes me love this house. I had no idea how much I would use the surround sound or the intercom system but they’re things I deal with every day and I love it! I wouldn’t have it any other way and I can thank my brother Ted for encouraging me to go totally high-tech with this place. Being a homeowner is tough, that’s for sure, but there’s something about knowing it’s my house and I can do whatever I want with it that really gets me excited. It feels so adult!

Computer troubles

I’ve got to have my computer geek nephew look at my PC and figure out why it’s running way too slow. I’ve been having problems with my server for the last couple months, and they say it’s not them. Of course they are going to say that, right? I mean, as long as they get their money they don’t care what problems I am having. Hence me thinking about changing my internet service. This computer should not be running so slow, nor should I have problems waiting forever for pages to load. While my sister in law and I were looking at dresses for her, I totally froze up. This isn’t good, I don’t think. She suggested that I have her son look at it, so as soon as he can get over here, I’m sure he will try and fix the problem if possible. Gotta love that kid!! 🙂

Summers part way over

My brother has been in the Air Force in Europe for about 30 years now. He married a very charming and wonderful Dutch woman and they have two daughters who are now in collage age. It is kind of sad that in all this time I have only met them a few times, but when my brother is on leave, because despite of the discount enlisted men get on airfare, he usually visits by himself or he and my sister in law usually just come alone as the girls are off on their own holiday or have other plans that keep them in Europe. I do however keep in nearly constant contact with my nieces through the internet and also by the “old fashion way” by writing real letters. I see photos of them all the time and they are beautiful girls, both inside and out. I’m proud of the way my brother and his wife have raised them. It is totally a different way than in the US and it seems these two girls have very level heads on their shoulders.

My oldest niece Meeka will be continuing her studies in Amsterdam where she will be staying with her grandma, as my brother is now stationed in Germany. She is into art and I have seen her work over the years. She just continues to get better as her talents develop more and more. She had before mentioned trying out collages in the States, one in particular was Walden University.

While Meeka was looking at all the various information about collages, my younger niece was also thinking about where she would go. She is a bit more adventurous that her sister and would love to come to the states for school. She mentioned to me that Walden U ed had opportunities  for scholarships and she was interested in checking out online schools as well but my brother nixed that idea. I’m not sure where the girls will actually be going but it sure would be great if at least one of them came to the States so I could see them more.

Old dog new tricks?

My little brother is still trying to teach me about web hosting. I sometimes am a really slow learner when it comes to the tech stuff pertaining to the computer. Hence, I have been reading up on and studying everything he has been kind enough to keep repeating to me, writing notes for me and also giving me all sorts of little tips and what not, for basic advertising for my small business that if I ever learn, will indeed boost my income considerably.

Recently I’ve been checking out and learning about web hosting ratings. Apparently from what I have gleaned from this issue, is that it is a pretty important part of this whole process. To be honest, it is really helpful and is written in a way that I, even not being a computer geek, can understand.

While looking at various options, prices and tech support, I being the person I am…clicked on Fat  Cow Green Hosting. Reasons? Well, in all honesty I liked the silly name. Then I got to reading about the ratings, the fact that there was unlimited disk space and traffic, lots of free stuff, like domain and set up and also it was inexpensive…right in my budget range! With the help of my little bro, I should be able to figure all this out. Time will tell. As I have said in previous posts, I’m learning. Slowly but surely and finding all of this quite interesting, if truth be known!

Have to love a geek!

My little brother has been teaching me about web hosting and to be honest, at first I thought it would be boring but it isn’t at all. Actually it’s pretty interesting and quite helpful. Or will be for my on the side job I’ve been thinking about doing. I make all kinds of crafts and love to do this in my spare time. Everyone said I should sell the things that I make. Perhaps I should.

I don’t have the time or the money to do this on my own and my geeky kid brother has been telling me and showing me how easy it is to have someone else do this for me. There are a bunch of web hosting types available and from what I have learned so far, it’s pretty simple with a little bit of help to pick one that suits your needs. Plus the people work with you and so it’s virtually a no brainer…at least for me.

He showed me Green Hosting that is inexpensive, covers exactly what I would need for a small business and get what I pay for. Like I said, all this is really interesting also. I never thought I would be into something like this, but I need the extra money, as everyone does in these terrible economic times. I’m willing to try this and see what happens.