Monthly Archives: January 2009

Online shopping is one of the fastest and easiest ways to find particular things that you are looking for.  It’s a breeze to compare prices and you don’t have to rely on whoever happens to be working that shift to find out information about what you’re looking for.  Most staff members are quite helpful and knowledgeable but definitely not all of them!

I found this cool new site, shopwiki, that puts all the benefits of shopping online at your fingertips.  The only problem is that you’re going to need a faster desktop computer to shop even faster!  If you click on this link for desktop computers here, you’ll get a good idea of just how cool this new online shopping experience is.  Everything you need is laid out in an easy to read format.  It asks you some pertinent questions like do you want a PC or Mac or how much computer do you need.  It even explains the differences between the choices and lays out some of the products that you can choose from.

Using the desktop computer example, it lays out some of the pros and cons of Budget PC’s.  If you click on the link there for Budget PC’s, you go to a page about EMachines desktop computers.  This page lists different stores that sell varieties of EMachines desktop computers including new and refurbished models.  Not only do they list the stores but they actually list the prices too!  The first link in the above example is for eMachines ET1161-01 Desktop Computer.  It lists its availability at 3 online stores with prices from $249.99 to $299.99.

The really different thing about shopwiki is that unlike traditional online shopping sites that only list paid advertisers, this one has it all.  This site searches the internet in a way similar to Google to grab all relevant pages and condense them into readable, useable information.  This means that more products are available from more stores.  This huge range of competition means that there are better prices for shoppers and better prices are what we’re all looking for during this economic recession!

You can buy all kinds of computer accessories here — they’ve got everything you could need for your computer: computer mice, computer monitors,  laptops, printers and keyboards.  And they have far more than just computers available online.  Anything you would want to buy is available for purchase at shopwiki.  Shoes, fashions, jewelry, technology products, and even kitchenware is available for purchase through their easy to use comparasion service.  Definitely check it out today!

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Recently I discovered that some of the articles I had written on Triond.com had been stolen and republished on another online writing site called Associated Content.  This person had copied and pasted my work and my name into another website to try to make money off of me.  When I wrote and posted an article about it on Triond, the response from this community was huge.  Through reading the article, many other users discovered that exactly the same thing was happening to them.

I wrote an update article on the subject, detailing how I got the plagiarized content removed.  This obvious copyright infringement would have never been noticed by me unless my husband had used Google on my name.  This is such a quick and easy way to check to discover plagiarism.  I would highly recommend that anyone who is tackling the huge world of online writing use Google at least occassionally to see what it comes up with when your name is submitted.

Many plagiarizers are using different names as well which makes it harder to see if your content has been stolen.  I am really hoping for an easy to use tool that would check for duplicates of your work that you don’t have to enter a service for.  Just something that you could run yourself at home.  For now, I rely on my network of online writing friends to alert me to any of my articles that they have seen elsewhere under someone else’s name.  You’d think that no one would notice these sorts of things but it’s amazing how often you can catch these plagiarizers if you just keep your eyes open.

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I’ve started reading Eckhart Tolle’s Reawakening to Your Life’s Purpose.  It’s amazing although not what I would recommend for bedtime reading.  You really need to be a little bit more awake than that to follow where he leads his readers!  At one point in the first chapter he says that you will either think the book makes no sense or it will change your life.  I thought that this was really over dramatic — an either you get it and think it’s great or you don’t and you’re stupid.  That is not what he says at all but it’s just sort of the impression it gave me when I read it.  I kept on because I didn’t have any other books to read and I’ve got to read before I go to sleep.

He talks about the “illusion of ownership” — how the ego identifies with objects that we “possess” and uses them to make up the construct of self.  The author states that possessions are illusions because they are only temporary.  We cannot identify ourselves as the owner of a cadillacs or Gucci watches because these things are not forever, just as our bodies themselves are not forever.  In fact, he goes on to say that buying famous name brand items is just a way of buying into a collective, self reproducting illusion as the names themselves mean nothing.  That’s too bad — I love Gucci watches!  However, I understand what he’s saying.  These items do not make up our being.  They are just things.

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In the last few weeks, I’ve discovered a great new show called Secret Millionaire.  It takes someone mega rich and dumps them in a low income neighbourhood to live and figure it out for a week.  They have to live off of an amount of money that would be commong for people in the area — usually whatever welfare would give them to live for a week.  Sometimes they also have get jobs to make money if they’re not given any.

The point is to meet people in the community who are in need — whether it’s a family, an organization or an individual.  They meet some really incredible people who are doing what they can to help their communities and the world around them.  They are not allowed to tell people that they are millionaires until the conclusion of the show where they give away at least $100,000 of their own money.  The recipients are always completely blown away by this revelation and the sums of money they receive.

With so much bad news constantly on television, this show is a welcome and refreshing change.  Only negative things seem to receive attention — car accidents, murders, deaths, kidnappings, rapes, burglaries, wars, etc.  There are rarely good news stories although good, and even great, things happen all around us every moment of every day.  Babies are born, charities are donated to, people volunteer and help others around them, children are read to and well taken care of, flowers are blooming, kittens are saved from trees and a billion other things are happening.

I really think that live is partially at least formed by how you perceive it.  If you are looking for evil, for cruelty, for “the bad” in life, you will find it.  I think it’s time to choose to see some good as well.  This show can really help to open eyes to what you can do to help, even if you’re not a millionaire.

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Another Christmas has gone by.  The holiday season is now completely over — thank goodness!  Now’s the time to figure out all those weird and wonderful Christmas gifts and gadgets.  It seems that every year there are even more and more electronic gifts brought into our house.  Even our two year old got a digital camera this year!  Funny that she got it right at the same time that my Mom got her first digital camera too!!  I can’t wait to see what kinds of pictures that she takes — both the toddler and the middle aged mom.  Oh boy, I hope she doesn’t read this…

We also got my mom a digital frame this year.  It’s kind of cool because it has an sd flash memory card in it that can go straight from her camera into the frame.  Hopefully this makes it really easy for her to use both the frame and the camera.  I really don’t want to teach her how to do it a million times!  At least with the toddler’s camera we don’t expect her to know how to download the pictures.  Unfortunately, her camera doesn’t have an sd flash memory card in it.

As for other electronic gifts that we got this year, I think it was just mainly computer, Wii and Xbox games for the teenager.  I guess that’s why we really haven’t seen much of him since Christmas.  It seems like kids are so much work when they’re little and you just want a break from them and then they get bigger and disappear and you just want to spend time with them.  *Sigh*

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January 1st.  A new year.  There are all sorts of new opportunities available, challenges to face and most of all, routines to get back into.  There’s been a two week break in school and work here for us which has been great but we really need to be able to get back into the swing of things.  All of the kids’ classes were on break too — no fencing, no preschool.  We’ve had all this time together to just renew ourselves, reconnect and relax.  I’ve been also trying to get everything organized again too — although it’s more work than I thought it would be!

A new year also means trying to make sure we get all of those “yearly” things done.  Eye check-ups, physicals, doctor’s appointments, car maintenance, furnace cleaning, etc. etc.  Normally around this time I’d be getting an insurance quote as well but this year I think I’m going to skip it and stick with our regular insurance company.  Our insurance company was super great about the accident I was in in October of this year.  Our truck has already been fixed and is back to us which is like a minor miracle in this city.  They’ve also completely gotten rid of deductibles which is nice and came at a great time for us.  I’d definitely recommend getting different companies to quote you on insurance rates though as there can be a huge variation among companies with both price and service levels.  Sometimes it seems as though they’re a total rip off!

It’s good to check the pricing on all kinds of things right now.  With the huge economic downswing we seem to be facing globally, retailers and service providers have no choice but to stay competitive with their pricing.  There are some great deals out there to be had if you take the time and effort required to shop around.  Good luck and happy New Year!

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