Computer Chit Chat

Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Having worked in computer sales for a worldwide mail order retailer for over ten years, I’ve seen my share of websites selling computers and related products. There’s nothing I dislike more than a business website that’s so busy looking I can’t focus and can’t find what I want. When that happens it’s not unusual for me to look elsewhere to shop.

Memory America is a website that sells RAM memory upgrades, hard drives, laptop batteries, video cards, optical drives, networking products and computer gaming hardware. The site is attractive and easy to navigate. The products are neatly organized and laid out throughout the site. People shopping for memory are able to shop by which computer they have or by the type of memory that they need. I like that even computer model numbers are displayed in some places to make your selection easier.

What I like most about the site is that information on things like shipping, warranty and returns are very clearly available. As a shopper who occasionally has a question, I also appreciate that Memory America visibly offers a toll free number and an online chat feature. Information on the site is provided in easy to understand wording.

Memory America includes a link to the Better Business Bureau on it’s site, where no complaints are listed against them. A link to Yahoo shopping reviews is also included, where the overwhelming amount of reviews are glowingly positive and give high praise their service.

If you’re in the market for memory products, be sure to check out Memory America.

• Pragma. A pragmatic solution.
• The History of Backup
• GigglePrint did not leave me giggling

After putting in more than ten years in the computer industry I like to try and keep up with what’s happening in the industry. It’s partly habit and partly a desire to keep my knowledge of the field current. Sometimes I just don’t have time to read through tons of articles or visit a bunch of different sites. My favorite way to stay informed is by visiting sites that highlight what’s new and what’s hot at the time. Gadget Advisor is one of these sites.

Gadget Advisor hand picks their articles in order to offer visitors an overview of the biggest computing and tech news and the hottest gadgets at a quick glance. Those that are really into software releases and upgrades will look forward to more articles like their Blaze Media Pro review. One of my favorite articles on the site is about the Best Extensions for Firefox. The article offers lots of information and has become one of their most popular. The other article I found really useful is 34 Recommended Software Downloads of the Best Windows software. I’ll be checking back in hopes of seeing more of this type of article from them in the future.

• The History of Backup
• How do you sell online?
• Review of Blog Oh! Blog

Ever see a phone number you don’t know on your caller id and wonder who it is? I have voicemail and yet every day when I come home I see between two and six calls from a number I don’t know that didn’t leave a message. When I see one on there several times a day and/or several days in a row I try to do a little investigative work. I’m sure there are lots of other people like me trying to find out who their annoying callers are.

Callerbase is a reverse lookup database. To use it you type the number you want to learn more about into the search box. You also have the option of searching by state or area code. Each time I used it I got results including whether the number was a land line or a mobile number, who the carrier was, what city and state it was located in and the ability to purchase more detailed information about the phone number. Both US and Canadian numbers can be searched using this site.

• Let’s chat about mailing lists
• How do you sell online?
• You can win a wii if you live in a Charter area

I heard about GigglePrint through BzzAgent and decided to check it out. GigglePrint offers free business cards and sells business cards, stationery and the like. I bet you’re thinking they sound like VistaPrint. You’re right except they’re not as good as VistaPrint. They don’t have as many designs or products and they charge an arm and a leg for shipping. What I could order for free from VistaPrint and have shipped for under $4 would cost more than $10 to have shipped by GigglePrint. Talk about highway robbery! When I saw the shipping prices I was not giggling. I won’t be ordering anything here.

• Memory America
• Review of JasonWigley.com
• Review of Married Melody

I’m writing this review for a contest being held on Blog Oh! Blog. The prize is a PS3 and a game of choice. I’d love to win this because my twelve year old would give his left arm and his left leg for a PS3 but we don’t have the money to get one. Truthfully, I would gladly write the review anyway, as some of my favorite themes (BOB) were created by Jai, the person behind Blog Oh! Blog. I’ve never had a problem with the BOB theme I use on Val’s Views, or the BOB theme I use on this blog. I recommend BOB’s themes highly, I’ve played with many of the free themes and found them all easy to work with and pleasing to look at. I’m actually hoping to see a four column theme soon, that would make my day. Back to my review.

When you first go to the Blog Oh! Blog website you might notice the flames in the right margin, which are pretty sharp, or you might notice that it’s design isn’t just like everyone else’s. The site is easy to navigate, and has a very neat and organized appearance. One of the things Jai does is create themes. If you doubted me when I recommended the themes, take a look at the theme portfolio. You’ll find both free and premium themes available on Blog Oh! Blog, as well as the opportunity to request a customized theme. But that’s not all. Also offered are tips, tools, tutorials, plugins, resources, information and well written opinions on various blogging and internet related topics. Jai welcomes interaction with visitors and has made a contact page, an online chat feature and forums available and accessible from every page.

I suggest anyone who is looking for a quality theme and some good articles go and check out Blog Oh! Blog. You won’t be sorry.

• How to install a theme
• How to show similar posts in Wordpress
• How to add a favorite icon to your Wordpress blog address

This afternoon I reviewed Blog About Your Blog, a blog written by several bloggers and is about blogs, blogging and bloggers.

The first thing I see when the blog loads on my screen is the header. It contains an image of a man at a laptop set against a background containing gold with data and bits and bytes (1010…) and the word domain. It’s quite fitting. Blog About Your Blog is currently on a two column theme made up of shades of green and white. It takes me twenty clicks to get from the top of the blog’s home page to the bottom.

The sidebar is on the right and is uncluttered. In fact, it is so neat that I have not a single suggestion for it except one to consider for the future. As you have continue to write you may want to consider putting your archive in a dropdown box. Right now at a little over a year there are fourteen links there. Imagine how long it would be at three and four years. Maybe leave the current month and past year open, and then each year in it’s own dropdown box. But if I had to guess, I’d guess you’ve already thought that far ahead and know how you’re going to handle it.

Blog About Your Blog has an About page. I love About pages. In this case the About page offers information on what the blog itself is about. Very nice. There is also an Authors page, that lists the contributing authors. When you click on the author’s name you are brought to the posts they have written. This is a nice feature but if they wanted to enhance that they could include a short blurb about the author under each of their names, stating a little about the author, their area of expertise, what other blogs they might run, or other similar information. There is one other thing about the pages. If it were possible to alter the theme just a little to make the sidebar remain white even on a shorter page it would give the additional pages the finished look that the front page has. I’m referring to pages that don’t contain posts such as the contact page. I do understand that this is happening because the pages this is happening on are short. I’m not criticizing the blog or the writing here, simply suggesting a tweak in the theme.

The blog is almost always updated daily. The writing is original and seems honest to me, and the posts have good length. As I read back several pages I learned a couple of things I didn’t know and I had a couple of laughs. I particularly enjoyed the 12/23/07 post on Flock vs Firefox Round 1.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee and check out Blog About Your Blog. I’ve added them to my feed because I think they offer some good info. When you do visit their site, please tell the Blog About Your Blog crew that valmg sent you.

• Review of Digital Jotter
• Review of Blog Oh! Blog
• Review of Pujutengineered World

Today I reviewed the blog Pujutengineered World.

The first thing I notice when the blog loads on my monitor is the phrase in the header that reads “You only live once. Pujutengineered Blog Live Life Cool”. I wonder what that’s about. I can’t be sure of the goal of the blogger because there is no about page. Because of this I also cannot be sure if the blogger is male or female and what the goal of the blogger and blog is.

The blog is currently on a three column theme. It takes me twenty six clicks to get from the top of the home page to the bottom. Ads are everywhere - in the sidebars, at the top of the page, at the bottom of the page, and in between  posts. As a reader I think this is ad overload, there are way too many. Within the first ten posts, in the body of the blog, the viewer sees post, ad, post, post, post, ad, post, post, post and ad. The blog archives take me six clicks to get through. The author should put the archives into a drop down, the list is way too long, there are currently 55 posts displayed for November alone. I am thinking the tag list is to be used as the category list. I recommend you not use PPP as a tag.

Once I got past my surprise at suffering from ad overload I was able to concentrate on the content. The author writes posts that contain a lot of information and original content. The author often includes photos within the posts. Much of the writing is tagged as Tech and is based on personal experience. Take a stroll over to Pujutengineered World, and let him/her know that valmg sent you. And let me know if you agree or disagree about the number of ads.

• Review of Married Melody
• Review of Blog About Your Blog
• Review of Digital Jotter

Tonight I found myself reading The History of Backup, which is a website that offers extensive details about what backing up is, why people need to back up data, different ways to back up data, and how backing up data has evolved over time. One of the points the article makes is a good one, and it is that one cannot know where something (a product, idea, anything) is going until one knows where it has been.

The definition of backing up, according to this site, is “the activity of copying files or databases, so that their additional copies may be restored in case of a data loss accident.” I think that’s a well stated, accurate and easy to understand definition.

The author takes the reader through the history of backup, starting with punch cards in the 1950s. He then moves on to tape backup, beginning its development in the 1960s. I agree with him on the tape backups. People are still using them. I was in computer sales for more than eleven years and many people still use them because of their size, portability and price. He then moves on to using hard drives for backing up, citing the 1990s as the point in time where they became a viable option.

At this point the writer covers backup media and portable backup solutions by covering use of floppies, cds , dvds and flash drives. He writes that blu ray and hd-dvd are the current up and coming backup media. A good amount of information is presented on blu ray in this article that I found very informative. I knew very little about it myself, and felt I had gained a better understanding of what it was after reading the information presented.

Finally, the writer moves on to large scale backup options via networks and the internet. He covers the meaning of off site backups, and discusses some common forms including local area network, file transfer protocal, storage area network, network attached storage and the world wide web.

I was quite impressed by the amount of information presented on this site. There is a wide variety of subtopics that fit under the main umbrella of backups, as illustrated by the timeline included on the site. The author has done a nice job summarizing and presenting them in one place for people seeking some more information or education on the topic.

• Beep, beep, beep
• Memory America
• Review of Blog About Your Blog

Today I reviewed the blog JasonWigley.com. The blog belongs to Jason Wigley, who is right here in the US (apparently there is another one in Europe).

The first thing I saw when the page loaded was the header and I really like it. I love coffee. The colors are mostly browns and are quite warm. The blog is displayed on a two column theme that is very neat and organized.

Jason’s About page tells us this is his personal blog for topics that don’t fit on his other blogs. I’d like to see a little bit more information about him, as all he tells us is that he is a weird guy. At the moment much of his writing pertains to the internet and blogging.

Jason’s writing has a bit of style. It is friendly and humorous. I’d like to see him talk with the reader and involve the reader a little more. His posts have nice length. They reflect his opinion, and he puts time and effort into his writing. Jason uses images nicely to bring attention to certain areas. They also break up large amounts of space, making it a nicer read for the visitor.

Jason’s blog is just under two months old but he’s made a very nice start. I hope he continues the nice work he’s doing, because his effort shows. Much luck Jason!

• Review of Married Melody
• Review of Digital Jotter
• Review of Blog About Your Blog

This afternoon I reviewed Andrew’s blog, Digital Jotter.

Digital Jotter is displayed on a simple, clean white and soft gray two column theme. The header is nice but doesn’t quite fit with the title. The blog description is “a place for my digital jottings” so it could be the header reflects a place, in which case it sort of fits. The home page takes fifteen clicks for me to get from the very top to the very bottom of the page. The sidebars are so nice and neat!

Andrew offers a very nice About page! Nice background on him, his family and his interests.

Andrew’s posts are of a good length. He puts thought into his posts, and his knowledge and enjoyment of topics such as computers is clear. I only have two suggestions for Andrew, and both effect posts. The first suggestion is that Andrew try and use pictures a little more. Andrew’s pages contain ten posts. Most of the pages published contained one picture, one page contained two.  There’s a lot of space and I think some pictures would break it up nicely.

Andrew’s blog is just under three months old and is off to a nice start. My other suggestion is that Andrew try and involve the reader just a little more. For me, I feel like I’m getting a lot of backstory or explanation, rather than conversation. If he can adjust the wording just a little I think he’ll do well.  Go visit Andrew, and let him know valmg sent you.

• Review of Blog About Your Blog
• Review of Married Melody
• Review of JasonWigley.com