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Enjoy reading? Join Booksfree and have book rentals delivered to your home

March 22, 2007 by Tricia

Pretty much everyone has heard of Netflix right? Well, what if there was a company that offered a similar service, but for books and audiotapes? Good news! There is a service that offers book lovers on-line book rentals.

The service is called Booksfree, and it offers it’s members a wide selection of books and audio tapes. They have everything from the latest best sellers to the classics. Members can select from over 88,000 audio and paperback titles, fiction and non-fiction, from over 35,200 authors.

Books are expensive to purchase, and we all have busy lives and sometimes don’t have time to visit the local library to take out new books to read. Why not start a membership with Booksfree and have the audio tapes or books that you’d like to read shipped to you free of charge?

Booksfree offers several membership plans. You could have anywhere from two to 12 books shipped to you at once for as little as $8.49 to $34.99 per month. All membership plans include free shipping both ways, unlimited rentals, no due dates, and of course no late fees.

When you sign up for a membership you can create a list of titles that you’d like to rent and they’ll automatically ship the number of titles that your membership allows you to rent. The remaining titles on your list will be shipped in a future order. Return your titles in the pre-paid shipping envelope and your next title choices will be sent to you. It’s that easy.

A Booksfree membership would be great for an avid reader, a family or even as a gift for a relative. Perhaps you have an older relative that can’t get out as much as they used to, maybe a Booksfree membership would make an ideal gift?

At this time this service is only available to residents of the United States and it’s territories. I’m hopeful that the service will be available to Canadians and perhaps other countries sometime in the near future.

How do you feel about recorded conversations?

March 21, 2007 by Tricia

How do you feel when you’re calling an 800 number, or your cable or phone company and you get the line “This call may be recorded”?

Have you come to accept that many of your conversations with businesses that you might have dealt with for years are recorded? Or does it feel like an invasion of privacy every time you hear that familiar message?

Now I know, that when I call some 800 numbers that the message says that my conversation may be recorded for customer service and I assume quality assurance purposes. I guess that’s ok. If the company is monitoring employees to make sure that they are doing their jobs properly, and it helps make the service that I receive when I have to call the company even better, well then I guess that’s a good thing.

It makes me wonder sometimes though, if it’s not just to monitor employees and the customer service that the company is providing, what other ways could they use that information?

Do they keep a record of your phone call in their database? Could information that you give out while you are being recorded be used against you or harm you at some point?

By this I mean, what if their database got hacked and you gave your credit card number out while you were on the phone? Could that be a new way for thieves to steal your information or maybe even your identity?

Now that’s a scary thought isn’t it?

BrickHouse Security sells a number of Phone Recorder that can allow you to tape a phone call for your personal use – such as the telephone recorder that’s displayed to the left.

They also offer a number of products that can not only detect recording devices but block them from recording your conversation.

Now, I feel that I must have a certain level of trust when I talk to my Mortgage company or bank over the phone. Perhaps using a phone recorder to record important conversations with companies such as banks etc might be a good idea. It would certainly be helpful if I was trying to recall important information that they had given to me during the discussion.

However, I don’t feel that level of trust when I call a restaurant for take out or home delivery. Many restaurants have call centers and they record phone conversations. We give our credit card number out over the phone at least half the time when we call to have food delivered. Are their databases as secure as the banks? Probably not. Which is why, if I had a phone recorder that could detect and block the recording of telephone conversations I’d use it when I called places such as restaurants.

I suppose I’d also know when ever a recording device had been activated and I could decide call by call if I wanted to block the recording of my conversation.

What do you think about your telephone conversations being recorded both with and without your knowledge by some of these companies?

Would you be interested in a phone recorder device that would allow you to record conversations or block calls from being recorded?

Next time – we’ll have our HDTV flat screen professionally installed

March 21, 2007 by Tricia

Around this time, back in 2004, we noticed that our 29″ Sony Trinitron TV was having a hard time starting. We’d turn the power on, but the picture would be static, and then blurry until the set had warmed up for 15 to 30 minutes. The problem had actually been going on for a number of months, but it was getting worse.

We looked into getting the TV repaired, but found that we could purchase a comparable TV for about the same price as it would cost us to repair our 10 year old television set. So, we decided to take the plunge and treat ourselves to a HDTV ready television.

After spending a couple of weeks doing research on the various types of HDTV ready television sets we decided to get a Samsung. Well, we went through two RCA’s first, but that’s a whole other story!

The following story is one of the main reasons why I have decided that anyone purchasing a flat panel TV should have it professionally installed rather than using the services of companies like BestBuy or Circuit City or trying to do it on your own. Instead, I’d recommend that you get professional TV installation for commercial or residential locations from HDInstallers.com.

The television set and the home theater system that we’d ordered were delivered to our house about a week after we’d made our order at the store.

Unfortunately for us, the company that we purchased our new television set from didn’t offer an installation service. That’s probably a good thing though because I know a couple of people that have used the services of boxstores for their flat panel TV installation and they weren’t all that happy.

We ended up setting up the television and the home theater ourselves. It was very difficult. We have a vcr, a dvd player, a multi-CD player, and a DVD recorder that all had to be hooked up to the TV and the home theater system. It took us at least two weeks to get everything working properly.

If we had used a professional HD installer, the technician would have discovered several of the problems that plagued us right away. You see, we had a weak cable signal. A professional installer would have discovered that as he or she set up the television, home theater and all of our other electronic equipment and they would have either fixed the problem for us perhaps by installing a booster, or let us know that for a better picture we’d have to have the cable company come out for a service call to fix our weak signal.

Having our flat screen television professionally installed would have also allowed us to use our new television within hours of it’s arrival in our home. Instead, it took us weeks to set everything up ourselves.

We wasted time. We were frustrated. We weren’t happy with our TV because the picture wasn’t as good as we had expected thanks to the weak cable signal – and the last thing that you want when you’ve just spent a few thousand dollars on a new TV is to be unhappy with the picture! We also argued quite a bit as we tried to set up the television ourselves. It just wasn’t the new television experience that we’d been hoping to have.

If only we’d been smart enough to contact a great LCD TV Installation and Plasma TV Installation Service Company we wouldn’t have gone through all of that anger and frustration.

HD Installers are Nation wide LCD and Plasma television installers. They service every major city in the United States. The company provides both residential and commercial LCD and Plasma television installation, as well as home theater, projector and screen installations.

HD Installers will install your LCD or plasma television on the wall or table stand for you, plus, they will also integrate all of your audio and video equipment – including a current or new home theater system so that everything works properly. They’ll even program your universal remote control for you.

If you are thinking about getting an HD Flat screen TV or if you’ve already ordered your new TV you might want to visit HDInstallers.com as their article section is a great resource for installing your big screen lcd or plasma television. The articles discuss things that you should consider if you want to install your HDTV above a fireplace, and what cables you will need when you install your new TV, plus many other things that you may or may not have considered.

If you are simply trying to decide what size tv will be best for the room you plan to put your new LCD or plasma TV in then you should read the HD Installer calculator article.

Honestly, after the experience we had when we purchased our flat screen TV I’m certain that we will have our next flat screen professionally installed. I mean, when you decide to have your flat screen TV installed by HD Installers you are working with professionals with years of experience. Not to mention that they also have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, offer a one year warranty, and are fully insured.

Halloween Express for all your costume and themed party needs

March 16, 2007 by Tricia

I’ve been asked to write about Halloweenexpress.com. Now obviously, with a site titled Halloween Express you would expect to find Halloween Costumes, wouldn’t you?

You will, but you’ll also find costumes that relate well to just about any other major holiday, and costumes that could be used when attending costume parties and other themed events.

Halloween Express carries everything from Adult, kid, pet and Halloween costumes, to accessories and make up, hats, wigs and masks plus decorations for your costume party. They offer the largest selection of Halloween costumes and merchandise. Just browse through their pages to see what I mean.

The costumes and merchandise sold at Halloween Express are a combination of the latest popular trends in costumes, as well as the tried and true best sellers.

There are so many different types of costumes to choose. Clicking on the adult costume section revealed an assortment of different styles of adult costumes. I see listings for everything from classic men and womens costumes, to horror, career, couples, Disney, fairytale, holiday, humorous, medieval, military, pirate, religious, sexy, super hero, and TV and movie related men and womens costumes.

Now that’s just one section. Don’t forget they have costumes for children too. Isn’t the baby bug costume adorable?

Oh and don’t forget to browse through the pet costumes. I just love them.

If I had a dog or cat I might be tempted to dress them up at least once a year after seeing photos of costumed animals. How do you like the masked Power ranger dog costume?

There are just so many costumes that you really must see the Halloween Express site for yourself.

Halloween express also offers a large assortment of accessories, make up, hats, wigs and masks that you can add to your costume to complete the look, or use to personalize your costumed character.

Halloween Express started out in 1990, and has built itself up to become one of the most aggressive and dynamic Halloween chains in the US. That’s 17+ years of experience, and over 140 retail locations.

There are several company owned as well as franchise locations across the United States. If there isn’t a location in your area, have no fear. Just visit their online site HalloweenExpress.com. They ship merchandise across the continental US, however they do not ship internationally at this time.

So remember Halloween Express the next time you get invited to a costume party or a themed event. I’m certain you’ll be happy with the selection.

Quality furniture collections at Greatpricedfurniture.com

March 16, 2007 by Tricia

I was visiting GreatPricedfurniture.com and spent a few minutes looking over their site and the furnishings that they sell.

The site has 20 major sections that you can easily reach by clicking on the tab of your choice at the top of each page. The sections range from customer care, to a pages listing the online stores best sellers, new arrivals, items that are on sale, to the specific furniture sections – bedroom, children’s, baby furniture, kitchen, living room, dining room, home office, and art. There’s even a section on furniture tips.

The site is well designed, but it doesn’t look like your typical online store which usually has lots of thumbnails of their products within the major sections.

On Greatpricedfurniture.com when you visit a furniture section, take for example the baby furniture section, you are greeted by a few paragraphs describing the type of furniture that the online store sells, below the initial paragraphs you’ll find thumbnail pictures that will take you into sub-sections of the baby furniture section. The sub-sections for this area range from Baby bedroom sets, to changing tables or you could view all of the furniture items at once by clicking the last thumbnail.

I think this online store might be better served to have the sub-section thumbnails either above the descriptive paragraphs for the section or perhaps running along the left or right side of the page. That’s my opinion, but I know that when I’m shopping or browsing online I like to view examples of the products sooner rather than later.

Once you get into each subsection of the site you will find thumbnail photos of the products sold in that section. Once I clicked on Baby bedroom sets I discovered a page that had a photo of each of the baby furniture sets that Greatpricedfurniture sells, and from there I could click on a model that I liked to see a larger picture, read an in depth description of the product and then go on to order the item, or items in this case, at the bottom of the page.

One thing that I really liked about this site, is that once you have picked out an item that you want to possibly purchase or get more information on, if you scroll to the bottom of the page where it lists the prices for the items and variations of each item, a pop up picture of the item comes up when you hover over the link. So if you wanted to get a particular crib, but wanted it in a different color, you could see what it would look like in the color or wood type of your choosing when you hover over the link. A+ for that idea!

The front page has a nice picture of a bedroom set, and then below it there are descriptions of each section of the site, with thumbnails of select furniture items running along the right side of the page. I like that look. On the left side of the front page, a shopper visiting the site will find that they could shop for items by furniture category, manufacturer, or by furniture collections.

It’s a great site, well organized, easy to use, and full of information about the furniture items that they sell, plus it’s easy to find information related to the online store itself as well.

I think it just needs to be brightened up a bit with photos of the items in each main section near the top of the page in order to encourage shoppers to click on the sub-sections.

As for the furniture and furniture collections? It appears that this online store carries high quality furniture items. I love the many styles and lines of furniture that I’ve seen as I’ve browsed the site. The prices are quite reasonable for the quality and craftsmanship of the furniture as well.

I’d visit this site again, and I’ve bookmarked it in case I decided to redecorate sometime in the near future which of course is always a possibility with me since I love redecorating.

If you are shopping for furniture visit Greatpricedfurniture.com, you won’t be disappointed.

Enjoy reading? Join Booksfree and have book rentals delivered to your home

How do you feel about recorded conversations?

Next time – we’ll have our HDTV flat screen professionally installed

Halloween Express for all your costume and themed party needs

Quality furniture collections at Greatpricedfurniture.com

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