Thanksgiving 2013

Hi All,

Today is the day that I post my annual 'Thanksgiving' entry.  It's an interesting one.  Here goes...

What makes a great Thanksgiving dinner? Great question - glad you asked.  Click on this link from NJ.com entitled, 'Poll: What's your favorite Thanksgiving food?'  Well, it seems like Turkey (big surprise) is the winner - along with sides like stuffing, sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole.  Yum!  I'm getting hungry! Click on any of the links above for recipe related information - trust me, you'll really, really like it. And you'll find other recipes that are just as good with a simple click of the mouse!  Click on this link for a short course on the history of Thanksgiving foods. (from the Buffalo - New York - News)

Okay, so now that you have the recipes for Thanksgiving 2013, how are you going to cook and bake and serve all that food?  Indeed, click on this link from ivillage and your Thanksgiving Day will, in all likelihood, run smoother and give you less stress.

Oh, and if it seems like you spent a bit less this year on Thanksgiving Dinner, you probably did.  Click here for the lowdown on the lower prices of Turkey Day!

Click here for some images of Thanksgiving Dinner courtesy of Bing Images - notice I'm not using Google Images this time?  Yep - I wanted to mix it up and doing something a bit different.  Notice how juicy and tender the turkeys look? Scrumptious! Absolutely delectable!

So...football is a tradition on Thanksgiving as well.  Click here to find a list of the games being played (and the times) on Thanksgiving Day 2013.  Wow - that's a full schedule!  My faves...Packers, Raiders and Steelers (go Big Ben).  Games start at 12:30pm, 4:30pm and 8:30pm on FOX, CBS, and NBC.

And if you have a whole passel of toddlers (or just a few), you might want to keep them busy during the game - and dinner.  How in the world can you do that, you ask?  Easy...click on this link from Bing.  I did a search for 'easy Thanksgiving Crafts'.  Hey, at least you tried to keep the little tykes busy! Okay, okay, here's another link to keep the young ones busy with some crafts!

Finally, click on this link to get the full story about the first Thanksgiving - courtesy of Wikipedia the link is very, very interesting. Here's another link that discusses Thanksgiving - courtesy of Plimouth.org; which is a Smithsonian Institution Affiliations program.  Heck, you might just learn something new about one of the most American of holidays!

Enjoy the holiday and drive safely!

Regards,
Stu

The 400th Post!!! OMG!

Hi All,

Yep - this is the 400th post on the Reference Blog.  Quite an achievement in this world of turnover and instant change and communication and video-on-demand!

400!  Imagine that!  That's one post per day for over 13 months in a row!

So, what am I going to write about on my 400th blog entry?  That's easy!

I'm going to write about the number 400 - which, evidently, is a very notable number according to numerologists, Wikipedia (search for the number 400), and the Google (search for the number 400).

So, what does the number 400 represent in other fields?
1. The Four Hundred (oligarchy) of ancient Athens. 
2. The HTTP status code on the internet....'The request cannot be fulfilled due to bad syntax'.
3.  The 400 Club - a phrase meaning the wealthiest, most famous, or most powerful social group - leading to a list like the Forbes 400...very cool to see who is on the list.  Talk about 'Masters of the Universe!'.
4.  Atari 400 home computer...let's go back in time to about 1979 to 1992!!!!
5. 400 - Lebanese card game. 

6. Silly and insignificant, but it was the yard number of the RMS Olympic - the RMS Titantic's sister ship.
7.  In baseball - if you can ever, ever, every bat .400, you'll probably go to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  Only a handful of players have ever hit .400 over the course of a full major league season. The last one to bat .400 was Ted Williams in 1941!
8.  The Sun is about 400 times the size of the Moon and is approximately 400 times further away - which creates a temporary illusion in which the Sun and the Moon in the Earth's sky appear to be the similar size...interesting effect!
9. Forum 400 - similar to entry #3 - which discusses the Forbes 400 - but a bit different.  The Forum400 is an elite group of the top life insurance producers in the country which helps them get 'better'.  The organization bills itself as 'Where Leaders and Legends Converge'.   Go figure. It kind of sounds like they are trying to glom off the 'Forbes 400' list...

So there you have it - 9 very interesting uses of the number 400 in all areas of human endeavor!  Enjou the post - the links and here's to another 400 interesting, fact-filled, uplifting, educational, entertaining and just plain fun blog posts!

Regards,
Stu

What To Do This Weekend?

Hi All,

Just found this interesting article from the Farmingdale Patch.  The article is called 'The Weekender' and is a regular section in the Farmingdale Patch. Click here for the link.

Some of the things to do this weekend include: Farmingdale Chamber Annual Holiday Parade, Massapequa Park Turkey Trot, and Families Feeding Families.

On another note, you might consider going to the website, 'VolunteerMatch.org'. The site bills itself as 'Finding a cause that lights you up. Get in touch with a nonprofit that needs you.

Users can find volunteer opportunities in categories like 'Animals', 'Children and Youth', 'Education and Literacy', 'Environment', and 'Homeless and Housing'.  Users  can sort results by 'Distance', 'Event Date', and 'Date Posted'. 

When a particular volunteer opportunity is found information is included.  The opportunity title is included as is a brief summary of the volunteer opportunity.  Location is included, but more importantly, a 'Learn More' button is available.  When users click on this button you go to a new page which includes volunteer reviews of the opportunity, a map so you can get to the location and 3 special sections.  These sections are called 'Skills', 'Good Match For' and 'Requirement & Commitment'. Essentially these categories help the users decide whether or not this is a good volunteer opportunity. 

Users can narrow their search by using the search box at the left side of the page - basically this is just a keyword search.  In addition users can search by 'Cause Areas' and look for volunteering opportunities in areas like 'Arts & Culture', 'Children & Youth', 'Community', 'Education & Literacy', 'health & Medicine', 'Seniors' and more....

Finally, there are other ways to search - and ways to limit your search.  Ways to limit your search include 'Opportunities just for Kids', 'Opportunities just for People 55+', 'Opportunities for Teens', and more. 

So...as you can see, there are plenty of things to do this weekend - both in terms of entertainment and with respect to volunteering opportunities.

Enjoy the volunteering! Its a great experience.

Regards,
Stu

HeatingHelp.com – Hot, Local Website That Made Good - From Bethpage!

Hi All,

Driving through the town of Bethpage one day recently, I saw a sign on a shop window that had a ‘.com’ attached to it.  The website was ‘heatinghelp.com’ and I couldn’t get the site out of my head.

Which, of course, meant that it was ripe for a bit of research.  And it also meant that if the site was interesting enough, it might make for a good blog entry.

And so here we are!

So, what is HeatingHelp.com?  Great question, glad you asked.  Heatinghelp.com has a tagline of ‘Answers in an hour’. Basically, readers can submit questions and professional heating contractors, plumbers and others have the choice to answer your heating and heat related questions.  Note that there is no soliciting on the site, so heating professionals are offering there advice free-of-charge. 

The site bills itself as being ‘loaded with information about heating systems, both new and old…we have a bulletin board called ‘The Wall’ which is the place where you can post questions and comments about any sort of heating system.  Heating professionals offer free advice and opinions'…one caveat, in order to ask a question, readers need to open account – which, again, is free.

Users who are looking for heating professionals to do work would be well-advised to visit the ‘Find a Professional’ section.  Users can search for professionals by zip code and by distance.  When a search is done, users will find a brief introduction to the company, an example of how a completed job was done, contact information (name, address, phone number and/or email address), and the organizations’ heating specialty.

Another part of the site that is noteworthy is the section under ‘System’s.  This menu includes options like ‘Central Heatings’s Forerunner’, Geothermal, Heat Pumps, Hot Water, Solar, Steam and Warm Air. Click any of the links above to go to that particular page on HeatingHelp.com.

There is also a search box at the top right side of the homepage where users can just type in a search term. Note that search terms can be anything from a heat related topic, to the name of a manufacturer of a boiler to a general heating term.   For example, when I entered the manufacturer name of ‘Burnham’, about 9 results came back. That is an eminently readable number of results to go through.  In addition, within the results the full-text Owner Manuals were included!

Note that this could be a very helpful resource if a homeowner purchased a house in which the prior owner didn’t leave the owner manual for the boiler.   How cool is that?

But wait.  There’s more!  Buried somewhat deep in the website is a very, very helpful resource called, ‘The Library’.  The library contains pdf scans of old heating books and antique trade magazines that the owner of HeatingHelp.com has collected for 40 years.  The library contains pdf scans of much of that material as well as material submitted by friends.  Very cool.  Where else can you find the Beacon Boiler Reference Book from 1959-1972? (Click here for that link by the way.)

There are also videos on the site!  Users can search for videos on topics as varied as biomass, district heating, heat pumps, hot water heating, passive houses, solar heating, storm heating, warm air heating, water heating and more!  Videos can be searched by manufacturer and by topic!  Wow.

There is a tab across the top of every screen and one of the options is ‘Resources’.  Click on this link to see what the choices are….  Specifically though there are options for ‘Professionals’, ‘Homeowners’, ‘Dan’s Archives’ (he’s the owner of the site), ‘Virtual Tradeshow’, and ‘The Library’ (described above).  What an amazing amount of information the site has!  For example – yet again – under the option ‘Homeowners’, users can find articles like ‘ Advantages of An Electric Floor Heating System’, ‘Air Filters’, ‘Best Insulation tips for 2012’, ‘Find a Contractor’, ‘General Guidelines for Flood Cleanup’ and much more….

So there you have it.  Virtually a whole world of heating related information available at your fingertips – all from HeatingHelp.com.

Enjoy the site and the advice!

Regards,

Stu

Tech Websites Galore!

Hi All,

I've listed a whole bunch of tech friendly, tech related websites.  Why?  I'm preparing for a CHIP Chat class that I'm hosting on Monday, December 2nd and Thursday, December 12th at the library.  BTW, CHIP is an acronym which stands for Computer Help In Person....get it?  Computer Help In Person - CHIP is the first letter of each of the words...

Anyway, in preparing for this presentation I've put together a fairly comprehensive list of tech and tech related websites.

Click on any of the links and you'll go directly to that particular website.  Wow - there's a lot of tech information available on the web -as one would expect!

My faves...PCWorld, Cnet, ExtremeTech and Technorati!

Enjoy the techie links!
Stu

http://www.microsoft.com (Microsoft’s website)

http://www.PCWorld.com

http://www.PCMag.com

http://www.Cnet.com

http://www.Extremetech.com

http://www.Techcrunch.com

http://www.thenextweb.com

http://www.wired.com (future web trends and at one time a print magazine)

http://www.tech2.com

http://www.gizmodo.com (gadget lovers)

http:/www.mashable.com

http://www.theverge.com

http://www.digitaltrends.com

http://www.techradar.com

http://www.technorati.com (tech blogs and more)

And here are a bunch of App-related websites to boot!

http://www.play.google.com (Google Play Store)

http://www.Amazon.com

http://www.appsites.com

http://www.appbrain.com

http://www.androidfreeware.net

http://www.freewarelovers.com/android

http://www.appsaga.com

Best of Long Island - BOLI

Hi All,

It's official...the Best of Long Island voting has started and you can vote for your favorite services in areas like: Arts and Entertainment, Automotive, Clothing, Education, Food & Drink, Health/Wellness/Beauty, Home & Garden, Nightlife & Spirits, Pets, Restaurants, Shopping, Services, Sports and Weddings.

Note that readers can click on any of the links above and you'll go directly to that part of the Long Island Press website where you can actually vote for the various service.  Voting ends on December 15th, 2013 at 11:59pm. Click on this link to visit the Long Island Press main page for the BOLI awards - you'll learn a lot about how the results are tabulated!

Click on this link for last years winners (2013).  Just in the 'Services' category alone users can find poll results for 'Accounting Firms, Dating Services, Dry Cleaners, Pawn Shops, Photography Studio's, Social Media Agencies, Travel Agencies and much, much more.

What a great way to find local businesses, services or organizations to help you with a project or job that you need to finish. And you'll be getting a winning company or organization so that, more than likely, the job or service will be finished correctly!

Enjoy the site and the voting!

Regards,
Stu

Eight-Thousander - The Mountain Post - and Mountaineering

Hi All,

We have a tall order for today's post....I recently found that there are very, very few mountains that are over 8,000 meters. Finding this out got me thinking that this might be an interesting topic for this reference blog! As a matter of fact, there are only 14 of them on the planet.  Click on this link to see the names of the 14 mountains. 

Interestingly enough,  there are very, very few people who have climbed each of these 8,000 meter peaks.  Click here for a list of them as well - courtesy of Wikipedia.

For more information on one of the worlds most famous moutaineers, click on this link to learn more about Reinhold Messner - an Italian who people have called the greatest mountain climber in history. 

For some of the most amazing mountaineering pictures, click on this link - from Bing Images. Imagine how these pictures would look on your computer desktop!

Finally, we have lots of  books on mountain climbing at the library.  Witness some of the more interesting titles like, 'No Way down: Life and Death on K2', 'Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations - One School at a Time', 'Top of the World: Climbing Mount Everest' and 'A Mountain Too Far: a Father's Search for Meaning in the Climbing Death of His Son'.

And while this isn't the same thing as mountain climbing, readers can click on this link - which will take you to the Nassau Hiking and Outdoor Club.  It might start you on the long climb to mountain climbing - and perhaps to an even greater appreciation of nature!

Enjoy the mountain climbing links!

Regards,
Stu

Customer Service - Getting What You Want...

Hi All,

Now that the holiday season is fast approaching, customer service is something that consumers might want to think about - a bit at least.  This blog entry will discuss ways to get better customer service - and it might help you save time and money during the upcoming holiday season....

We've all been there...you purchase something at a retailer and for whatever reason, you need to return it. However, for any number of reasons (perhaps you lost the receipt, you are returning the item after the specified period of time you had to return the item, a surly cashier doesn't know how to process the return or the line is too long and the retailer won't let you return the item or....you get the idea) the retailer won't let you return said item.

What recourse do you have?

Indeed, great question.  Click on this link and you'll connect to an article from Yahoo! Finance's section on 'Financially Fit'.  Entitled '3 Ways to Get Your Customer Service Complaint Resolved' the article emphasizes that customers 'Shouldn't go all social media on your prey just yet'.  Which essentially means don't post on your Facebook page or Twitter stream your tale of retail woe. 

Next up is some good advice in most any situation, 'Always keep your anger in check'.  Good advice, especially since there is always a time and place to 'emphatically voice your opinion' at a future date....

Finally, the third piece of advice the article posits is 'Flattery will get you everywhere'.  In this section, terms like polite, nice, empathy are liberally sprinkled throughout the article.  Great advice...and intelligent, and easy to try.

For an article that supports the Yahoo! Finance article discussed above, click on this link.  Entitled 'How To Get Better Customer Service' the article from WikiHow - To Do Anything (which, in itself is a very helpful website) discusses ways to, well, get better customers service. 

Some of the advice is common sense - treating retail and customer service employees is common sense, as is not saying 'the customer is always right'.  Other things like calling employees stupid or incompetent are not helpful either - and of course, refrain from striking employees. 

Some of the less obvious pieces of advice include 'not telling the employee how to do their job', and trying to have the money ready before you reach the checkout counter. 

Lest you think that all customer service is going to the dogs, click on this article that is entitled, 'Could It Be? Customer Service is Supposedly Getting Better'.  The article comes from the December 11th, 2012 issue of time Magazine and is an interesting read. Hopefully you won't have to use any of the tactics discussed in the other two article in order to get stellar customer service during this upcoming holiday season.

Regards, and here's to a customer friendly, return-free, holiday season.
Stu