Smart Living 123

Invest in a blood pressure monitor

2009-02-15T11:53:00.000-08:00

High blood pressure is known as the "silent killer". About one in three adults in the US is likely to develop high blood pressure at some point in their lives, but unless you monitor your blood pressure regularly, you will not realize that you've a problem until its too late. Your blood pressure varies throughout the day, and may be especially high after exercise or if you're feeling stressed out. Therefore, an accurate assessment of your blood pressure requires periodic random measurements to obtain an average reading. Furthermore, some people may suddenly develop high blood pressure after a stressful event, or for no reason at all. And everyone's blood pressure slowly climbs as we age and our blood vessels harden. For these reasons, buying a good blood pressure monitor is an excellent investment. It will help you and your family constantly monitor your blood pressure, and take preventive measures as soon as a problem develops. High blood pressure, if untreated, will gradually cause deterioration of blood vessels, leading to glaucoma, gangrene, heart disease, or stroke.

Blood pressure monitors can be divided into manual and digital devices. Manual monitors come with a cuff, a stethoscope, and a pressure gauge. They are usually cheaper, typically below $25, but require some operator training, and pressure readings may differ depending on who is doing the measurement. Furthermore, they tend to break easily, especially if the cuff is routinely over-inflated, and their readings may drift over the years as the mechanical parts wear down. Modern digital blood pressure monitors are typically much better than manual devices. They are more expensive, but the machine automatically inflates and deflates the cuff, ensuring consistency of readings and ensuring that over-inflation will not occur, which helps increase the life-span of the cuff. Furthermore, most machines come with replaceable cuffs which can be changed when they wear out. Many machines also read heart rate and may be able to detect irregular heart rhythm, which is a very dangerous and potentially fatal condition. The best digital machines are FDA certified and clinically tested to be accurate over their lifetimes.

The most trusted blood pressure monitors are those from Omron. They are FDA tested, and carefully engineered to inflate the cuff to an ideal pressure during use. The Omron monitors are widely considered to be the most accurate and reliable by primary physicians and pharmacists. Different models come with different capabilities. Some are able to hold readings in memory and average them for you. Most models are able to detect heart rate and rhythm. Another decent manufacturer is Microlife, although they are not as popular as the Omron monitors.

Monitoring your blood pressure at home is uncomplicated and convenient if you have a good blood pressure monitor. Buying a blood pressure monitor is a relatively cheap and valuable investment which will help you enjoy a healthier and longer life.

Click here to see most popular blood pressure monitors at Amazon.com

Save 80% on Teva women's Tamur casual hiking shoes

2009-02-08T09:16:00.000-08:00

Teva is a very good and pricey brand for outdoor footwear. They make a series of shoes of sandals for running, hiking, camping, and water sports.Normally, their shoes go for $80-$120 on their website, and even on Zappo.com, they go for $70-$100. However, Amazon occasionally sells shoes with deep discounts from list price when shoe companies want to clear their inventory.

Recently, Amazon has listed the Teva Women's Tamur Casual Hiker shoes on sale for $18.28. This is an incredible deal, as the lowest price listed by PriceGrabber is in the $40s. All reviews raved that this is an incredibly comfortable shoe, and is very very good for hiking and also for casual wear.

There are however a few catches for the particular shoe on offer. Firstly, the shoe on offer is only available in one of the more unpopular colors, a darker shade of brown, called Espresso. Secondly, the shoe is slightly shorter than one would expect based on the shoe size. In other words, it is best to get the shoe a half-size larger than what you would normally wear. Other than these points, this is an exceptional shoe on sale at a great price.

The sale prices are applicable to most sizes in Espresso color, size 5, 6 , 6.5, 9.5 in Dust Cloud color and size 5.5, 6.5, 9.5 in Mud Flat color.

Click here to see Teva Women's Tamur Casual Hiker shoes on Amazon.

Schwinn 230 recumbent exercise bike Review

2009-02-01T15:24:00.000-08:00

Over the Christmas holidays, we bought a Schwinn 230 recumbent exercise bike from Dick's sporting goods because it was on sale. A recumbent exercise bike is preferred over an upright bike because it better supports the back while cycling. A bike exercises the thigh and leg muscles, which are the largest muscles in the body, and is mainly used for aerobic/caloric exercise (exercises the heart and helps you lose weight). Bikes are the most popular options for home exercise, because they have a small footprint.

The Schwinn 230 recumbent exercise bike is well built and engineered. While it came in many small pieces which barely fit into a regular sedan without the packaging and looked quite intimidating to assemble, installation turned out to be a snap. The Schwinn 230 bike has 8 resistance levels, comfortable wide pedals, and an integrated heart rate monitor on the grips. The bike can be programmed with any combination of resistance levels, and comes with several in-built programs, and can track your speed/calorie expenditure/heart rate over the entire exercise. There is a convenient quick start feature where you can just jump on the bike, set the resistance level, and go. It is truly a quality machine, and is a joy to use. A small complaint is that the provided power supply came with a rather short cord, necessitating an extension cord to position the bike where we wanted it.

I initially objected to purchasing the bike because we have a small gym just 5 minutes from our apartment, with several treadmill machines, several bikes, and a weight machine. However, it turned out to have been a good decision. I was amazed at the difference having a bike in the privacy of your own apartment makes. Since the bike is always available, whenever I have 5-10 minutes to spare, or when I am tempted to watch TV, I just jump on the bike and cycle. I can cycle whenever I want to, and watch whichever channel I want on the TV. This makes bike exercise enormously more attractive, and I end up doing more exercise than I ever did before.

Most of the time, Schwinn 230 recumbent exercise bike is priced arround $449 at Amazon.com. It was seldom on sale. But once I saw it in Amazon Gold box and priced less than $300. Unfortunately deals in Amazon Gold box are only good for a day, so I missed that chance.

George Foreman Grill GRP90WGR Review

2009-01-25T09:13:00.000-08:00

We bought the George Foreman Grill GRP90WGR from Amazon over the Christmas holidays when it was on sale. This is the most advanced grill in the George Foreman series and one of the most popular indoor grills. George Foreman Grill GRP90WGR comes with 5 interchangable cooking plates. There is a common Upper plate that is used with both the Griddle and the Baking Pan plates, and then there are two Waffle plates (upper and lower), which rounds out the 5 plates. Compared to the other indoor grills, the GPR90WGR is larger (more cooking surface), comes with a variable temperature control, and the plates are dishwasher safe. It is also possible to adjust the slope angle of the grill, allowing you to drain off excess fat/juices when the grill is at a slope, or keep all the juices on the grill when it is horizontal.

Since buying this George Foreman Grill GRP90WGR, I have used all the plates with a variety of
foods. I've made waffles several times with the Waffle plates. At the maximum heat setting, the waffles are done in about 10-15 min, and they come off the plates cleanly without the need to oil or grease the plates. I've made omelettes with the Baking Pan plate and the Upper plate, which come out nicely in 5 min. I've also cooked steaks and fish fillets with the Griddle and Upper plates. The fat and juices run off nicely (though that isn't a good idea with the fish fillets, since
they came out rather dry). One very nice feature about the grill is that cooking time is shorter than with a pan or an oven, because the grill heats up quickly and heat is applied on
both the upper and lower sides of the food. With a pan, with have to flip the food to get it cooked on both sides, and with an oven, you typically need to wait 5-10 min for it to reach the correct temperature. The time savings is most dramatic with thicker cuts of meat.

Despite being generally satisfied with this George Foreman Grill GRP90WGR, there are a few points that annoy me. Firstly, the raised bumps on the Upper plate tend to trap small pockets of grease in the corners, and are impossible to clean with the tools provided. The grease also do not wash off well in the dishwasher. Secondly, the non-stick coating on the plates wear off rather quickly. Still, these are minor annoyances that do not detract much from a good product.

Casio G-Shock DW-9052 watch review

2009-01-18T17:58:00.001-08:00

Recently, the battery in my Casio Baby-G BG-151 watch died after a good 5 years of service. Rather than shell out $10 for a new battery, I found a brand new Casio G-Shock DW-9052 watch on sale for just $38 at Amazon.com, so I bought that instead. One of the problems with the old Baby-G was that after the first year, the night light became too dim to be any use at night; it was just a conventional light that comes on in the watch. The new Casio G-Shock DW-9052 watch has the illuminator feature, which is an electro-luminescent backlight, which is both brighter at night and saves electricity, making the battery last longer. However, I was shocked that after just 2 months of use with the new Casio G-Shock DW-9052 , it suddenly stopped working. I did not drop, hit or damage it in any way; it just stopped one day at work. I'm not
sure whether it was a bad battery, or a bad watch.This sudden death syndrome of this Casio Men's G-Shock DW-9052 classic digital watch was reported by other customers according to the product reviews at Amazon.com. When I bought this Casio G-Shock DW-9052 1V watch from Amazon, it came with a 1 year limited manufactuer's warranty, which covers labor and parts but not shipping. Considering that the Casio G-Shock DW-9052 watch is pretty bulky and heavy, it may cost me more than $10 to ship it back for repairs. Furthermore, I have read about other custormers' bad experiences with Casio's warranty. Therefore, I gave up on the idea of sending it back to the manufacturer for repair. I think that it is not worth the money and hassle to ship this Casio G-Shock DW-9052 watch back and forth. At Amazon.com, this Casio Men's G-Shock DW-9052 classic digital watch has pretty good ratings with 4 out of 5 stars from 49 reviews. But if you read the reviews carefully, you will find there are at least 7 other people who encountered a similar situation. I used to be a big fan of Casio watches, believing that Casio makes good and
sturdy watches at a reasonable price point. I have changed my mind. My next watch will definitely not be a Casio or at least not a Casio from Amazon.com.

In the future, before I buy something online, I will carefully read the negative comments from reviewers and ignore the headline rating. If there are more than 3 reviewers with the same complaint, then the complaint is very likey to be true.

Drink more soymilk, live healthier

2009-01-18T16:02:00.000-08:00

Soy milk is made by grinding up soaked soy beans with water, straining away the beans, and boiling the emulsion of protein and oil that results. Soy bean milk is very popular in Asian countries, where it is widely drunk by both young and old. Soy bean milk has the following 5 health benefits:

1. Soy milk has about the same proportion of protein as cow’s milk, but does not contain lactose, so it is suitable for lactose-intolerant individuals.
2. Soy milk does not contain the saturated fat that milk contains, so it’s healthier for you. Soy milk contains polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats that are good for the heart.
3. Soy milk contains phytoestrogens, which has a calming effect on you.
4. Soy milk does not contain casein, which is a common food allergen present in milk.
5. A recent study by Japanese scientists show that soy protein can lower cholesterol levels.

A great opportunity to win Sexy Hair Organics haircare products for FREE!

2009-01-11T19:46:00.000-08:00

Sexy Hair Organics is a brand new line of organic haircare products introduced in November 2008 by Sexy Hair, a famous haircare brand. Sexy Hair Organics is an environmentally-conscious haircare product, which is naturally formulated and contains nearly 95% organic ingredients. Sexy Hair Organics is also a great product to give your hair a fabulous texture. The Sexy Hair Organics contains 6 haircare products including daily shampoo, daily conditioner, leave-in conditioner, moisturizing treatment, styling creme, volumizing mousse and moisture boost. This complete haircare product line fits every need of your beautiful hair. Do you want to get this terrific haircare product for free?

Shopaholicsdaily.com is now running a generous offer where you can enter the sweepstake to win one of the Sexy hair Organics products for free. You just need to leave a comment on the post at shopaholicsdaily.com and you will be automatically qualified to enter the free drawing.But you'd better be hurry. The offer expires on Jan. 18, 2009

To see how to enter this free drawing and the details about terms and conditions of this free drawing, please follow the link to read the article at shopaholicsdaily.com.

eHow is a great work-at-home opportunity

2009-01-11T16:19:00.000-08:00

These days, many people are interested in how to make money online. Most of them are very skeptical about the idea "work from home online" and they think that these are "get paid scams". But actually making money online is for real. There are many ways to make money online, even though not all of them are flexible and well-paid. If you ask me what is the best work-from-home job is, I will say freelance writing. Yes, be a writer. You don't need to have professional training to get paid for writing online. As long as you know something and you can logically write it down with correct grammar, you will get paid. Remember, the fundamental function of language is to exchange information; style is optional. There are so many websites offering writing jobs. Before you start your writing jobs, you should thoroughly research the companies. You want to work with a company with a great reputation, which will guarantee that you will get paid and paid well. If you only want to do part-time online writing, I recommend that you start with eHow.com. At eHow, you will get paid by writing "how to" articles. What you need to do is to register for a free account at eHow and start writing. eHow will publish the articles that you submit on their website and do the website maintenance and advertising. How much you get paid depends on the performance of your articles, which means that the more people read your articles, the more you will get paid. eHow will split the advertising revenue with you and send you money by paypal every month. A great aspect of eHow is that every article you submit has a life-long earning potential, which means that if you continue writing for eHow, your income will accumulate faster and faster. So start your online writing career with eHow, and when you can consistetnly make money from your online writing jobs, you can quit your day-time job and start to work at home online and be your own boss. However, there is one caveat. At this time, eHow only sends payments to US residents, so you're out of luck at eHow if you do not reside in the US. But you may want to consider other sites where you can get paid for writing, for instance, Xomba.

The newest operating system Windows 7 makes Sony's Vaio P run faster.

2009-01-11T13:33:00.000-08:00

Do you want to buy a new laptop computer? If you do, what features are you looking for?
When people shop for notebook computers, most of them want the laptop notebook to be as compact as possible.A small-size and lightweight laptop is very portable so that you can take it anywhere. Portability is the major reasonthat people are willing to pay a much higher price for laptop computers than for desktop computers.

The Sony Vaio P is a popular model of ultraportable laptop computers. The Sony Vaio P weighs only 1.4 pounds and comes with an 8 inch widescreen monitor and an appropriately-sized keyboard. The Sony Vaio P is also fully equipped as a wireless laptop computer, which means you can use Vaio P to access mobile broadband. Sony's Vaio P is pre-installed with Window Vista operating system. But for internet browsing or email checking, you don't need to fully boot up the Window vista and you can use the instant start pseudo-OS to get the job done. But Sony Vaio P is not a cheap laptop, it will be priced at $900. If you want to read more about the detailed specifications of Sony's Vaio P, you can go to GIZMODO, a gadget blog.

After the Sony Vaio P was released, laptop geeks also tried to install the newest Microsoft operating system Windows 7 onto Sony's Vaio P. After preliminary testing, they found that Windows 7 is very compatible with the Vaio P, and actually makes it run even faster. If you want to know the detailed performance results of Windows 7 on the Vaio P, you can read the post at engadget.

Find bargains at 2009 Macy's store closings

2009-01-08T09:27:00.000-08:00

Macy’s Inc., the American retail giant, announced today that it is going to close 11 underperforming department stores nationwide. On Thursday morning (Jan. 8, 2009), Macy’s reported a 4% decrease in same-store sales in the 2008 December holiday season compared to one year earlier. And according to the forecasted figures, the past holiday season sale is the worst for the whole retail sector in the past 10 years. In order to deal with the serious nationwide recession, Macy’s Inc. decided to close its underperforming department stores, located in 9 states across the nation, including: California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. The closing store locations are listed below.

1. Ernst & Young Plaza (Citicorp Plaza) shopping center, Los Angeles, California (CA)
2. The Citadel shopping center, Colorado Springs, Colorado (CO)
3. Westminster Mall, Westminster, Colorado (CO)
4. Palm Beach Mall, West Palm Beach, Florida (FL)
5. Mauna Lani Bay Hotel, Island of Hawaii, Hawaii (HI)
6. Lafayette Square, Indianapolis, Indian (IN)
7. Brookdale Center, Brooklyn Center, Minnesota (MN)
8. Crestwood Mall, St. Louis, Missouri (MO)
9. Natrona Heights Plaza, Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania (PA)
10. Century III Furniture and Clearance, West Mifflin, Pennsylvania (PA)
11. Bellevue Center, Nashville, Tennessee (TN)

Macy’s store-closing event is a piece of great news for consumers, since Macy’s said that they are going to run a store-closing final clearance sale next week. All the closing stores will participate in this sales event, with the exception of the Hawaii store. If there is a Macy’s store on the above list in the shopping mall close to where you live, you should check it out next week. Usually, you can easily find great bargains at a store closing or going out of business sale. So it is the perfect time to do some clothes, furniture, and household goods shopping. Hurry up! Grab this last holiday gift and kick off the New Year. Enjoy shopping!

Your new online money source----Bigcrumbs.com review

2008-12-28T15:45:00.000-08:00

Do you shop online? If you do, you may want to learn about Bigcrumbs.com, because bigcrumbs.com is one of the best online shopping cash back programs. At bigcrumbs.com, you can easily save and make some money with little efforts, and the membership is totally free.

There are two ways to earn money at bigcrumbs.com.
First, you can get cash back from your online shopping. These days there are many online programs which promise to give people cashback if they do their shopping through their websites. Then why do you want to sign up at bigcrumbs.com? The reason is simple. Because you can get highest cash back from bigcrumbs.com. At bigcrumbs.com, you can shop more than 200 online stores including Walmart, Bestbuy, Target, Old Navy, Gap, Kohls and so on. In particular, if you like shopping on Ebay, you definitely want to register at bigcrumbs.com as soon as possible. With bigcrumbs’ high cash back rate on Ebay, you can accumulate money in your account fast.
The other way to make money on bigcrumbs.com is to get commission from your referrals. You can share you saving experience at bigcrumbs.com with your family and friends, and refer them to bigcrumbs.com. When they made any purchase through bigcrumbs.com, you can get certain percentage of their expenses as commission.

Now there are two types of free memberships available at bigcrumbs.com: CrumbSaver and CrumbEarner. These two types of membership provide different shopping cash back rate and referral commission rate. If you want to save more from your own shopping, then sign up as CrumbSaver, because it gives you highest cash back rate. Instead, if you want to make more money from referrals, you need CrumbEarner membership, which allows you to earn 5 levels of referral fees. This means you can even earn from your referrals’ referrals’ expenses, which increase CrumbEarner income potential dramatically.

By the way, bigcrumbs.com is not only available to USA residents, people from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Austrailia, and Canada can also benefit from bigcrumbs.com.

If you want to learn more about bigcrumbs.com, check it out right now and to see how it works.

Click here to go to bigcrumbs.com

Thecouponclippers.com Review

2008-12-28T10:50:00.000-08:00

Are you the main grocery shopper in your household? When you do grocery shopping, do you want to use coupons to save you some money? If you do, you may be interested to learn about thecouponclippers.com.

For most consumers, the major source of grocery coupons is the local Sunday newspaper. But not everybody is patient enough to go through so many coupons in many papers to look for those they need, and not everybody wants to spend their precious time cutting coupons one by one and keeping them organized. So the ideal situation is if someone charges a small fee to help you to cut the coupons you want and mail them to your door. This coupon clipping service really exists, and thecouponclippers.com is one of them.

At thecouponclippers.com, you can find more than 1000 grocery coupons. Most of them are cut from newspapers and magazines, and some printable coupons are also available for your convenience. Rachael, the owner of thecouponclippers.com, put coupons into several categories ranging from beverages to snacks, which makes your coupon hunting process much easier. In addition to browsing coupons according to categories, you can also search for coupons based on keywords. For most coupons, images of the corresponding product and detailed information about coupon usage terms and conditions are posted, which helps you know what you are paying for. Usually they charge about 5-20% of the coupon face value as service fee. In addition they charge shipping fees starting from $0.42, and a $0.50 flat administration fee. And the minimum order per transaction is $3, which doesn’t include the shipping and administration fee. It sounds pricey, but actually you can get 30-50 coupons from a $5 purchase, which can help you save $30- $50 from your grocery shopping. Do the math yourself. That is a good deal! At thecouponclippers.com, they accept credit cards (only VISA and Master, but not Discover or American express) and paypal as payment methods. They ship fast and before you buy, they let you know the estimated shipping date, which is important because you don’t want to get expired coupons.

Overall I have a positive impression of thecouponclippers.com. They run an honest and efficient
business. From thecouponclippers.com, I can buy coupons which I know I am going to use. Unlike cutting 1 or 2 coupons per newspaper, I can get multiple copies of the same useful coupon at the same time, which helped me save a lot. In conclusion, I would like to recommend thecouponclippers.com to people who want to save some money from your grocery shopping. Oh, did I mention that they also provide restaurant coupons such as Mcdonald’s buy one burger get one free coupon?

Consumer review for Zenith DTT900---the best digital TV converter box

2008-12-27T10:57:00.000-08:00

Are you ready for the transition from fuzzy analog to crystal-clear digital TV broadcasting? Starting from the mid-night of Feb 17.,2009, all the free over-the-air TV in US will be broadcasted through digital signals instead of old-fashioned analog signals, which is a regulation passed by the US congress in 2005 (For more information visit www.dtvanswers.com). Since I don’t have digital-ready TV, I decided to buy a digital TV converter box (sometimes referred as digital-to-analog converter), a small device which is installed between the antenna and TV and allows conventional analog TV to receive high-quality digital programs. After detailed research on the internet, I spent $10 on a Zenith DTT900, which is the best reviewed digital TV converter among the early models to hit the market. Here are my reasons for choosing Zenith DTT900.

Installation is a snap. It only takes less than 3 minutes. Basically you just hook up antenna to the box and connect the output of the box to the TV. There are two formats of output connectors on Zenith DTT900. It comes with an antenna connector for coaxial cables and a composite-video output for RCA cables. I noticed that the picture quality is better when the antenna connection is used.
Zenith DTT900 can pick up relatively low level signals and provide continuous pictures. In the place where I live (Maryland), it gives me 9 local channels. One particularly useful feature I like is that a signal-strength meter is built into the remote control, which can assist you in finding the best position for the antenna.
Zenith DTT900 provides decent high-quality digital pictures, which may not as good as high-definition (HD)-TV especially on a large screen. But on my 27” sony TV, the difference is hard to tell.
Zenith DTT900 has a button on the remote which allows you to adjust the aspect ratio of the incoming program easily, either in HD format or standard 4:3 ratio format.
Another useful feature the Zenith DTT900 provides is the electronic program guide, which informs you of the title and running time of the programs in all channels. This means when you want to choose among programs, you don’t need to flip through all the channels again. How considerate is that!
The price is irresistible. The original price for Zenith DTT900 is $59.99 at Radio Shack or Circuit City. Since it is eligible for the government TV converter box coupon program (for more informaiton go to www.dtv2009.gov), I used the $40 government coupon. And what makes this deal sweeter is that since this coupon is considered as credit instead of discount by the store manager, I can use it with another $10 off $40 Radio Shack coupon I found in the 2008 Entertainment Book.

Overall Zenith DTT900 is a great digital-to-analog converter. But it is hard to find these days. When I purchased mine, I was told by the cashier that Zenith DTT900 is so popular that the supply from manufacturer is limited at least temporarily and most Radio Shack local stores usually carry only one in-store at a time. So if you want one, hurry up and grab one. And enjoy your crystal clear digital TV programs.

Other useful Zenith DTT900 reviews at other websites: Consumerreports,CNET, Pricegrabber, Avsforum, Circuitcity

Review about Men's Citizen Eco-Drive™ Riva Chronograph Watch (Model: AT0510-59E)

2008-12-22T20:28:00.000-08:00

Recently, for my birthday, my wife bought me a Citizen watch AT0510-59E from Zales. It is an impressively solid-looking watch, with a all-stainless-steel exterior, and 3 small clock-faces embedded in the main watch-face, with the main watch-face surrounded by small diamonds. This is an Eco-Drive watch, meaning that the entire clock-face is a solar panel which recharges a battery. When fully charged, the battery can power the clock for 6 months without recharging. The battery has a lifetime of many years, and cannot be overcharged. When the battery runs low, the second hand starts moving in 2 second increments rather than 1 second. While the Eco-Drive concept sounds very interesting, the watch was delivered uncharged, and charging it fully takes up to 2 days of bright sun (25 hrs of sunlight), or almost 1 week of ambient indoor lighting. It took one entire afternoon of light just to get the second hand to move in 1 second increments.

In addition to keeping time, the watch is also a chronograph (i.e. a stopwatch). While the minute and hour hand of the main watch face are what you expect, the second hand of the main watch face does not tick. It took me a while to figure out that Citizen has placed the minute hand of the chronograph on one of the 3 small clock-faces, and the second hand of the chronograph is on the main watch-face, while the second hand of the watch is on another small clock-face. I presume that Citizen has chosen this bizarre arrangement because it felt that the second hand is really important only when the chronograph function is activated (which I guess makes sense; normally I almost never look at the second hand). The remaining small clock-face is the 24-hour time.

Because my wife ordered the watch online, it was delivered with an over-sized strap. It seems that when you buy the watch in-store, the strap will be adjusted to your wrist, but for online purchases, one has to bring the watch to a local jeweler who will remove a few links from the steel strap to adjust it to one's size (probably at a nominal cost of $10 or so). This adjustment process requires specialized tools to punch out tiny pins holding the steel links in the strap together, and it is best to get professionals to do this. Therefore, be warned that if you buy this watch online, do not expect to be able to use it immediately. Between the battery charging and the strap adjustment, it'll probably be around a week before you can use it.

Usually this watch is priced more than $300 even when it is on sale. Now you can get this citizen diamond Eco-Drive™ Riva chronograph watch for only $220 plus tax with free fedex express saver shipping from Zales.com . If you go to Zales.com through Ebates, an online shopping cash back program, you can save another 5%.

Skype cuts your phone bill

2008-12-21T20:10:00.000-08:00

After being an off-and-on user of the Skype software, mainly for the free calls to my friends who are also using Skype, I finally took the plunge and subscribed to the $9.95 worldwide calling plan. I downgraded my Verizon calling plan to the lowest possible plan, mainly because I still needed a landline for my DSL connection. I was attracted by the low cost and the ability to call anywhere in the world. A few of my friends have also recently subscribed and use it to call their friends in Europe and China.

In the few months that I have used it, I was generally impressed with the call quality for Skype-to-landline calls. Most calls to China to do not lag at all, and sound crisp and clear. However, from time to time, I will get a bad connection, and not be able to hear the caller at all. Curiously, if I hang up and try again, I often get a crystal clear connection on the next try. Bad connections happen more frequently on the weekends, presumably because of higher internet traffic. On occasion, I also get a misrouted call, and my call reaches a wrong number; this cannot be due to my keying in the wrong numbers, since all my numbers are pre-programmed and all I do is to press the same button each time I want to call the number.

Customer review about LG dehumidifier (model LHD65EBL)

2008-12-17T20:25:00.000-08:00

I recently bought a dehumidifier from LG Electronics dehumidifier, the 65 pint LHD65EBL model. I had meant to get the 45 pint LHD45EBL model, which was rated a Consumer Reports Best Buy, but that model was sold out at both of my local Home Depot stores, and I decided to get the closest substitute. I bought it because I live in a coastal city, and the summers are unbearably hot and humid. I've read that excessive humidity causes mold in apartments and dust mites in sheets, and is in general bad for health, and decided to give a humidifier a try.

My initial impression was generally positive. In my small bedroom with the door closed, the dehumidifier managed to drop the humidity from 80% to 35% in merely 30 minutes, producing nearly 30 pints of water in the process. Even with the door open, the dehumidifier manages to keep the local humidity in the room around 40%. The air in the bedroom was perceptibly drier and no longer muggy, and my bedsheets felt dry and comfortable. I was very happy with the results.

Over the next few days, I began to notice a few flaws with the machine. Firstly, it is rather loud, emitting a noise about twice as loud as my refrigerator when it is working. It is especially noisy when it restarts from sleep, and when the room has reached the target humidity, it tends to go to sleep and restart every few minutes, and the intermittent noise is actually more irritating then if the unit has just stayed consistently on. Secondly, it also heats up the room somewhat, especially if the door is closed. I haven't seen my first electricity bill since I've gotten the unit, so I cannot comment on its energy efficiency yet.

Overall, this is a very effective unit, but is slightly on the noisy and hot side. I have taken to using it just before I go to sleep, and leaving the unit switched off throughout the night.

Other best-selling dehumidifiers at Amazon

Fingerhut.com Review

2008-12-16T17:28:00.000-08:00

Several days ago I purchased a 32 piece set of dinnerware from Fingerhut.com. It was my first order from Fingerbut.com. Even though I have been shopping online for many years, I had never heard of Fingerhut.com before. I was attracted by its “50% off clearance price” promotion I saw at a deal hunter forum.

My first impression of Fingerhut.com was positive. Their website loaded very quickly, the front page design looked good, and the layout was clear so that it was very easy to find what I wanted to buy. Fingerhut.com sells assorted goods including apparel, electronics, toys, houseware, sporting goods, jewelry and so on. Most items are priced reasonably, particularly those items on sale and listed under the clearance category. If you can use an additional coupon on them, it is definitely a bargain. For example, the 32-piece dinnerware set I bought was priced $17.88 and after the “save an extra 50%” coupon, the price became $8.94. It was a steal! And what makes it sweeter is that they don’t charge tax in most states.

But their shipping fee is pretty annoying: $4.99 per item, which means the more items you order, the higher the shipping fees. And even more annoying is the fact that the shipping rate is not revealed until you finish filling out all the payment information. They use Fedex for shipping like many other web merchants. However, other online merchants provide free shipping or flat rate shipping, for example Amazon.com, Buy.com and Overstock.com.

Fingerhut.com accepts credit cards, and also provides their own Fingerhut credit service for customers to pay their bills by financing. Customers can also choose to make a payment by entering their bank routing number and checking or savings account number. However, they don’t accept online payment services such as Google checkout or Paypal. Another annoying thing at Fingerhut.com is that they do not allow shoppers to checkout as a guest. Instead they force every shopper to create an account to checkout.

Their customer service processes orders relatively quickly. In-stock orders are shipped out within 3~5 days. After the order has shipped out, they will inform you with an email containing tracking numbers for the shipment. So far I have never tried to return or exchange any orders, so I don’t know if their customer service is helpful or friendly.

These days there are always several promotion coupon codes for Fingerhut.com available on the internet. Usually the discounts are available to everybody. So before you shop at Finger.com, don’t forget to Google for “Fingerhut coupon”. Another way you can save a couple of dollars is to shop Fingerhut.com through online reward programs. For example, Big Crumbs gives up to 6.3% cash back and Mr rebates gives 4% for shopping at Fingerhut.com.

Many ways to cook eggs.

2008-12-15T06:44:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered how many ways there are to make eggs? I have collected a list of the common ways to make eggs for your reference.

Soft-boiled eggs, also known as coddled eggs, are eggs that are immersed in boiling water for a few minutes so that they are semi-cooked. They can be eaten as is, or in Asian cultures, soft-boiled eggs are frequently served with a bit of soy sauce. Note however that soft-boiled eggs may pose a health risk, as not all germs are killed during the brief boiling.

Hard-boiled eggs are eggs that have been immersed in boiling water until they are cooked through and through, and their yolks and white have set completely solid.

Scrambled eggs are eggs that are cracked out of their shells, beaten thoroughly so that the yolk and the white are completely mixed, and then poured onto an oiled pan and gently fried and broken up into small pieces. Scrambled eggs are often mixed with herbs, or can be served with just a bit of salt and pepper.

Poached eggs are eggs that are gently cracked out of their shells into a pot of boiling water and cooked until their whites set hard and their yolks are a little runny. This way of cooking eggs takes a bit of skill, since its easy to break up the eggs while in boiling water.

Eggs over-easy are made by cracking eggs into a pan, cooking till the underside is firm, and then flipping it over and cooking it briefly on the other uncooked side. To qualify as eggs over-easy, the yolk should still be slightly runny.

Eggs over-hard are made by cracking eggs into a pan and frying until the bottom side is firm, and then flipping over and frying until the other side is firm as well. The yolks of eggs over-hard should be completely solid.

Eggs sunny-side up are made by cracking the egg into a frying pan and gently frying it on only one side, usually with a lid over the pan, relying on diffuse low heat to cook the top side of the egg. Usually, both the yolk and some of the white are a little runny.

Steamed eggs are made by beating the eggs lightly with a little water, and then steaming it. This is a popular way of making eggs in Asian cultures.

Omelettes are eggs which are beaten with milk and cheese and fried with vegetables or meat. This is a popular way of making eggs in Western cultures.

Safe ways to get rid of pests

2008-12-10T20:21:00.000-08:00

Summer is just round the corner, and along with the warm weather comes insects and bugs. Spraying lots of insecticides will work, but the toxic chemicals linger around even after their work is done, and may be ingested by children or pets. Here are a few ways to get rid of pests using only safe natural rememdies.

Ants frequently invade houses during summer. Sprinkle some scented talcum powder around their points of entry. Ants find it uncomfortable and difficult to walk across talcum powder, plus the talcum powder tends to mop up the scent left behind by the ants, causing them to lose their way.

A good all-natural insecticide can be made by blending a few cloves of garlic and a small piece of ginger with a quart of water, and then straining the solids out and placing the liquid in a spray bottle. This kills aphids on plants in 1-2 days, and when sprayed at other small insects (including flies, mosquitoes, silverfish and earwigs), irritates and kills them rapidly. Be careful not to spray the liquid into your own eyes! For larger insects like cockroaches, the garlic-ginger spray won’t kill them outright, but when sprayed around their entry points, might deter them from coming into the house.

To kill larger insects, spray them with some soapy water. This gums up the breathing of most insects. This will kill cockroaches, though not as quickly as commercial insecticide sprays.

Where to buy candy at the cheapest price?

2008-12-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

Most people like candy. But if you ask them where to get candy at the cheapest price, they may scratch their head and say: “Walmart?”. “No. It is not walmart.” “Sam’s club???”. “No. It is not a shopping club.” You can keep guessing, but the place I am going to tell you may be the last answer on your list---pharmacies.

Nowadays major pharmacy chains such as CVS, Walgreen and Riteaid, are run much more like small grocery stores than pure drug vendors. This makes commercial sense, since it really doesn’t take much space to store prescription and OTC drugs and they have to pay rent and utilities anyway, why not carry more grocery products? By doing so, they can attract more customers and increase their revenue. Next time when you drive pass a pharmacy store, pay a little bit more attention to their billboards. Don’t be surprised if they actively advertise their grocery products. For example, the one I saw at the CVS store on my way home said “We carry milk and bread.”,“2L soda for $0.99” and so on.

Last week, my wife happily told me how she spent less than $2 in CVS pharmacy and bought a big box of Whitman sampler chocolate, which has a recommended retail price of $8.99 by manufacturer. The trick she used is to combine different discounts together. In that single transaction, she used both manufacturer coupons and CVS coupons, and got CVS extra bucks, which are CVS in-store credits. With the final price as low as 20% of the original price, I doubt that CVS had any profits from this particular transaction. But the reward for CVS from these money-losing transactions is that customers like my wife who obtained CVS extra bucks are locked to the CVS chain.

Furthermore, this cheap candy strategy may increase the number of customers purchasing drugs in the long run, which will bring in more profit. How? Today they feed their customers with large amounts of cheap candy, which is bad for their health, causing them to put on weight. This makes them sick in the future, causing more medication to be purchased, and making more profits for CVS. What an evil plan!

But for people with self-control, a small amount of candy can sweeten our life. Let us enjoy the fact that we can buy cheap candy from pharmacies. So next October, don’t forget to go to CVS to load up with candies for Halloween.

This dollar is not that dollar---Do you want a free $75 gas card from Dockers?

2008-06-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

This coming weekend (6/7/2008) is Father’s Day. To celebrate this once-a-year holiday, Sears Men’s Dockers Father's Day event from June 7^th to 15^th, where customers will get a $75 shell gas gift card when they spend $100 or more on any Men's Dockers merchandise (excluding shoes). Not only will daddy get free gasoline, but they will also automatically enter into a sweepstake to win a 2008 Toyota Prius will hold an in-store with a suggested retail price of $21,100! And meanwhile, the qualified customers will also get a $10 gift card given out by Sears. So in total it is $85 back. Do you think this deal is attractive?

Actually it is not the first time Levi Strauss & Co. has promoted its Dockers brand merchandise by giving away free stuff. In the same period last year, they had a “buy $100 Dockers Men’s Merchandise and get free 2-night-hotel stay” event at Kohl’s department stores. Amazingly, at that time they even put several luxury hotels located at Times Square NY on the list of hotels which are eligible for redemption for this free offer. Usually, a one night stay in that kind of hotel will cost more than $200. With such offers, how can Dockers possibly turn a profit from their $100 pants sale? The trick is that both Dockers (Levi Strauss & Co.) and Kohl’s were not responsible for the offer redemption. Instead, Dockers just needed to pay small amount of money, sign a contract, and assign this promoting job to a third company which was in charge of the entire process of offer redemption. In this specific case, that company is TLC marketing, a company located in Boston. In order to make this business profitable, TLC marketing had to make the offer redemption process sufficiently complicated so that only less than 30~40% of customers would successfully get the offer redeemed. First, they divided the mail-in rebate into two steps. In the first step they asked the customers to send in all the required information to get a hotel reservation voucher. In the second step, they asked the customers to make a hotel reservation by providing 3 preferred hotels and 3 possible dates on the voucher and send it back for further confirmation. Since TLC marketing only want to pay cheapest price with hotel chains, it is impossible for them to provide all the customers with the most popular hotel in the peak season. So they needed to make their customers’ schedule flexible so that they can try to fit them in the cheapest hotel slot they find. This deal may be great for people with bunch of free time or retired senior people. But if you have a full time job, how flexible could your schedule be? Even if you have the time, TLC marketing may fail to fulfill your offer for no reason. They can simply not give you any response. Some customers finally got their hotel redemption after calling them everyday or filling complaints at BBB. Others are still waiting for their hotel reservation confirmation with passed reservation dates, even though the promotion event has already finished for almost a year.

For the coming Dockers sale event, we don’t know which company is responsible for the promotion. But no matter which company it is, it will definitely not give out $75 gas cards to everyone who buys into the promotion. In order to increase the redemption breakage, they will either not respond to legitimate offer redemptions, or they will limit gas stations where the cash card can be used, either to gas stations which sell over-priced gasoline or are located 100 miles away from where you live. Cash is accepted everywhere. Gift cards will never trade for the equivalent amount of cash because they always come with limits for usage. Still, even though a gift card is worth less than its cash value, it is better than nothing. If by any chance you really need some men’s wear recently, why not take advantage of this Dockers Father’s Day event. Regardless of whether you actually get the promised gift card, Dockers do make reasonably good pants. And if you shop at Sears this Father’s Day, don’t forget to use your Discover credit card, since they give 5% cash back for shopping at department stores from April 1^st to June 30^th.

An apple is an apple?---How likely are you to buy organic foods?

2008-05-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

When you do grocery shopping in the supermarket every week, do you specifically look for organic products? For me, the answer is no.

Firstly, organic products are more expensive. According to a report released by the American Consumer Association, on average, organic foods are around 50~100% more expensive than non-organic ones. For example, the price for 1 gallon non-organic milk is $3.78, but the same amount of organic milk will cost you $6.99 in Whole Foods, one of the biggest supermarket chains selling so-called organic healthy foods. You may think: OK, it is only about $3 in difference, so what? In order to illustrate the big difference, let us do the calculation in another way. It is approximately 85% more expensive! These days, the economy is not in good shape, and inflation is getting worse. The public has become more and more sensitive to the price of food, including organic foods. Do we really have the money to cover the extra 85%?

Secondly, it has not been proven that organic food is healthier for us. The main reason people are willing to pay more for organic food is that they are trying to avoid the indirect intake of hormones, pesticides or other potentially harmful chemicals used in conventional farming. More than 20,000 pesticides are registered for use in the United States, according to the Pesticide Action Network. This is a thought-provoking figure. Do you know how much of them have been served on your dinner table? There has been little or no evidence to show that pricier organic food is better for the consumer’s health, although recently one study sponsored by the European Union suggested that organic foods contain more antioxidants and nutrients than non-organic foods. If that is true, our government’s advice, “Eating organic food is no more than a lifestyle choice.”, can no longer be believed. But it is still not clear whether antioxidants actually benefit our health.

Lastly, is food labeled “organic” really produced in an organic way? Probably yes. Not everyone can put the “organic” label on their product. The use of the “organic” label is regulated by a division of the FDA. But there is still a large variation in quality from brand to brand even among organic foods. According to my personal experience, different brands of organic chicken taste quite differently. While I am not trying to say that some of organic chicken is not really organic, there are a lot of factors (besides my cooking) that can influence the taste, such as the type, age, feed and even physical exercise condition of the chicken. Indeed, I noticed that “cage-free” chicken has a better taste.

In summary, if you are considering purchasing organic food but are on a budget for groceries, I suggest that you buy at least organic milk and organic egg. This is because eggs and milk are likely to concentrate artificial chemicals during their production, and are likely to contain high levels of these artificial chemicals.