Black Friday Deals and Cyber Monday

Hi All,

Thanksgiving has come and gone...and now the holiday season is upon for real!  Which, of course, means that holiday shopping has started!

So...here's a list of some Black Friday deals.
 The Verge - 24 Best Deals
Engadget - Best Black Friday Deals 2017
ABC News - Year's Can't Miss Black Friday Deals 
Walmart -  Best Black Friday.com 2017 Advertisement
BGR - Black Friday Deals 2017

Cnet - Cyber Monday Deals  
Fox News - Cyber Monday's Biggest Deals and Savings
CBS News MoneyWatch - 10 Stores Will Have the Best Cyber Monday Deals in 2017

Here's the Wikipedia entry for Black Friday - interesting read!  And, here's the Wikipedia entry for Cyber Monday - another interesting read!

Enjoy the shopping!

Regards,
Stu

Speedtest - How Fast is Your Internet?

Hi All,

How fast is your internet connection?  Does your internet service provider claim one download speed and one upload speed - and you believe that it is much slower than that?    Indeed!


Click on this link from Speedtest.net and you can see what your exact upload/download speeds are anytime of the day.

Its simple, click on the words 'Begin Test' and you're computer will be pinged and you'll find out what your upload speed is and what your download speed is!

Mobile apps are available from the App Store, Windows Store, Google Play and Amazon Apps by Speedtest.net by clicking on this link! 

At the end of the test users will be able to rate their internet service provider and find out what their IP address is by looking at the bottom of the screen. 

Finally, users can click on the 'My Results' icon at the top of the page and see how their computer compares to a range of other computers and servers in various locations.

Enjoy the site and hopefully you have a fast internet connection for your downloads and uploads!

Regards,
Stu

The Fun Entry

 Hi All,

Amazon.com is known as the place to find, well, everything. Its also known as the place where people buy goods and products - and then review them.

Some of these reviews are downright funny. Okay..I'm not being realistic - some of the reviews are downright hysterical.  Read on for very, very funny product reviews by Amazon.com customers.

Funniest Amazon.com Reviews - from Amazon.com itself. And More Funny Amazon.com Reviews.

From BGR - a technology website.  Funniest Amazon Product Reviews. 

10+ Of the Most Hilarious Amazon Reviews...BoredPanda.com 

25 Insanely Funny Amazon Product Reviews - List25.com

7 Expensive Products With Hilarious Amazon Reviews - ABCNews.com 


However....all reviews are not created equal.  Check out these links:

Let's Talk About Amazon Reviews - How We Spot the Fakes - Wire Cutter

Amazon Lawsuit Shows That Fake Online Reviews are a Big Problem - Time.com

Consumer Affairs - Top 2,042 Complaints About Amazon.com Reviews

How Amazon Should Fix Its Reviews - Forbes.com


Enjoy the links.

Regards,
Stu

Best of 2015

Hi All,

With the year 2015 drawing to a close, now is the time to check all the various 'best of 'lists that are coming out from various news sources, magazines, website, blogs and more.

Enjoy the links and the lists! Happy New Year.

Best 9 Instagram Pictures of 2015 

Best TV shows of 2015 

Best Movies of 2015

Best of the Best of 2015 List From Around the Web

Year in Search 2015

Top 10 Business Stories of 2015 - CBS News

Top 10 Business Stories of 2015 - MSN

Best 11 minutes in sports from 2015

Best weather bloopers of 2015

Best Books of 2015 - Amazon 

Best Books of 2015 - Publisher's Weekly 

Best Photos of 2015 - New York Times 

25 Best Albums of 2015 - Billboard 


Regards,
Stu

The Internet in Real Time

Hi All,

Very interesting website alert!  The Internet in Real Time.

What the heck is this you ask?!  Great question.  

Readers can click on this link to watch as various internet giants (Twitter, YouTube, Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, WhatsApp, Yelp, Foursquare, Pinterest, Pandora and more) do what they do best! 

Users can see LinkedIn (the number of user searches), YouTube (the number of videos hours watched), the number of check-ins at FourSquare or the number of the reviews posted on Yelp or the number of files saves on DropBox or the number of Likes and Posts on Facebook or the number of hours watched on Netflix or the number of hours streamed on Pandora...and much more...

Very simple, colorful and entertaining website.  Here is the link again.

Enjoy the site - don't spend too much time on it!

Regards,
Stu

Hi All,

Guess what today is? It is CyberMonday.  What the heck is that you ask? Great question, and here is the answer...

From Wikipedia.com - Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US.  It was created by marketing companies to persuade people to shop online.  The term made its debut on 11/28/2005 in a Shop.org press release titled, 'Cyber Monday Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year'. 

So...go out - okay, get on your computer - and shop, shop, shop....

Click here for a few interesting (and probably useful) links about Cyber Monday.

1.  Click on this link for an article titled, 'Cyber Monday Gears Up to Get Online Shoppers Hyped'.
2. We've got 'em: The Best Cyber Monday Deals - USA Today.
3. Cyber Monday Cheat Sheet: What's On Deck For Online Shoppers.
4.  Cyber Monday 2014 Deals: 235 Sales and Counting!
5.  Best Cyber Monday 2014 Deals - Tech stuff mostly
6.  2014 Cyber Monday Deals: Walmart, Amazon Can't Stop, Won't Stop With Online Sales

Enjoy the links!  And remember....next post is post number 500...

Regards,
Stu

Thoughts on Websites

Hi All,

What do Yahoo!, Google, Amazon.com, About.com, Bartleby.com, Google Groups, Google News, CNN, Ebay and Download.com have in common?

And you can't even use the title of this blog post to help you since I purposely tried to make it vague and 'confusing'.  Give up? 


Well, these are the 'Top 10 Best Websites' according to a website called 100bestwebsites.org. Click on the link to visit the site. Some of the sites on the list you might be familiar with and others you might not have heard of, but one thing you'll realize: this is a very eclectic and varied list!  Happy searching!

And while the top 10 on the list aren't much of a surprise, 11-20 include the following: Craigslist, Reference.com, Wikipedia, Beliefnet. Anywho, Weather, Search.com, Hotmail, NIH and CNET round out the top 20.  Personally I was surprised to see Beliefnet and NIH in the top 20.

What about the bottom 10 you ask? Interesting question and the bottom tenth of the list is filled with sites as varied as Classical.net, Blogger, NYTimes.com, Earthcam,com, BBB.org, Intelihealth, LiveJournal, BBC Faith, ArtsJournal, TicketMaster and Gutenberg.net.  Surprises?  You bet.  Have I visited all of these sites? Nope - but the list is definitely interesting for those who want to visit popular sites that they haven't visited before. 

BTW, 1-2 sentence summaries of each site is included on the list.  Neat way to learn about sites you've never heard of before. 

100BestWebsites.org is updated frequently and there is no registration required.  The site is free and they don't accept compensation from any of the sites listed.  Click on this link to learn about their 21 criteria to judge website quality.  Again, interesting stuff, but you'll probaby want to to explore various websites first...like #35 Sciam.com (Scientific American), or #56 ArtForum or #77 (Pogo - games)...

One beef I have with the site...no pictures and the sites should be organized by subject.

Enjoy and go forth and search, search, search!

Regards,
Stu

Buying Stuff Online - and Saving Money

Hi All,

Back again trying to save you some money (aka cash, moolah, greenbacks, dinero!)

Click here for a site called Ben's Bargains - its basically like Groupon - but different.  These are internet deals - often short-lived - on merchandise like computer equipment, cameras, small appliances, apparel and other items. Users have the option to 'Watch This Deal', share the information about the product to other folks using email, Facebook or Twitter. 

Users can also find a price history of the item in question.  Price history can go as far back as mid 2011 in some cases.  Your 'mileage' may vary based on the product that you are looking at.  Very interesting feature on the site.

Ben's Bargains also has a link to specific merchants like Amazon, Dell, Ebay, OfficeMax and Sony.  Their forum section has more subjects like Hot Deals, Freebies and of course, Reviews. Users have the option to create an account with a username/password as well.

Another good site for saving money on 'stuff' is Froogle. Site is also known as Google Product Search and you can find product categories DVD's, computer games, furniture (indoor and outdoor), household goods, cleaning supplies, tools, sewing machines, refrigerators and much, much more...

Reviews are included as are prices from multiple stores  that have the item. Seller ratings are also available as are maps and distance to the store.

Enjoy the sites and I hope you save money!

Regards,
Stu