Recently in Reviews Category

I had a few minutes this morning so I stopped in over at 32Vegas.Com to check out their online casino. It's a nicely designed site that makes it easy to find what you want. Like quite a few sites with casino games they let you download the client software that runs on your computer. As a matter of fact you can download it immediately upon arrival at the web site or click the download link on the getting started tab.

Since I am going to the Bahamas next month I think it's only a matter of sense to brush up on my card games prior to going as we will most likely hit at least on of the casinos on Nassau and since their isn't a Vegas casino local to me I will have to get online and practice.

32Vegas.com offers fair gaming at a decent buy-in and is currently offering several different promotions and bonuses when you sign up. You can get more information at the site.

Although I don't seem to have done a lot of it lately, one of the services that I get paid to blog for is a company called Smorty. These guys are pretty cool. Signing up is very straightforward and easy. It's simple too. You get to write your opinion about other people's web sites and products on your blog. The payment process is great too, weekly through PayPal. They are one of the fastest paying companies that I work for.

Want to make even more money? If you have more than one blog you can post to multiple sites for even more money. For advertisers it's simple. You get real reviews from real bloggers and you only have to pay for the posts you approve. Each blog is indexed with the major search engines and can get your name noticed online. Blog advertising is the next wave of online advertising, so don't miss the boat.

...and that's a good thing.

One of my favorite places to shop for the holidays is Edmund Scientific. While neither of the girls seems to have inherited my 'geekiness' gene, the oldest does love gadgets as much as I do. However, my 12-year-old nephew is pretty much a genius and I can always find something at the site that will make him go 'wow'. He is really into robotics and as such, Edmund Scientific is the place to be. It looks like he and his family (my brother) are going to be coming to our house for Christmas again this year so I have been looking for something really cool to get him.

While we share the love of all things gadgetry, he is much smarter than I am, or was at that age anyway. I think I may have burned a brain cell or two out over the last few years anyway. I want to make sure that I get him something that he will really enjoy, and I have been thinking about getting him the Parallax BASIC Stamp Discovery Kit. It's basically a starter kit to learn about microcontrollers. The kit itself claims that you can make over 40 different things with it, but if you are familiar with the STAMP microcontroller, there is quite a bit more that can be done with it, one need to just search the web for Basic STAMP to find quite a few. I have looked at the kit as well as some similar ones at the local Radio Shack, and it runs about $50 more there than I can pick it up at www.scientificsonline.com. That's pretty much a no-brainer for me.

There are several different tech geeks stores on the web with pretty cool stuff, but normally Edmund Scientific has everything that they carry, cheaper, as well as quite a bit more. That means that if you are looking for scientific projects, learning games, telescopes, or even just tech gadgets, you can usually find them at Edmund for less than the other guys have marked it up for. Remember those LED faucets I posted about a few months back from another site? They carry them at Edmund Scientific as well.


I did find something for my daughter while I was there, and just purchased it.  It is the 'Red Hot Laser Light Show'. I knew when I saw this portable light show generator that it was something she would love. It even reacts to music, so the light show will receive a very warm welcome in her room. The hard part is going to be keeping it hidden and out of her hands until Christmas. $31 with shipping. That's a great deal, and probably the best one I will get today.

Edmund Scientific takes all major credit cards and also accept Google checkout as well, which is pretty cool. It would be nice if they would also take Paypal since that's what I use for most of my online purchases, but nobody's perfect.

It's interesting in that there are plenty of web sites available with reviews on PC's, cell phones and other consumer electronics but there just aren't that many that talk about printers. Sure, there are reviews on new pieces of hardware at the bigger sites, but there aren't that many user reviews. One site that does have printer reviews is Wize. Printers are not even close to being the only things you can find reviews on over there, they also do video game reviews, cameras, electronics and other household items as well.

One of the really nice things about Wize and the printer reviews that I read is that they are very easy to understand, show the best price, and include user and expert reviews as well as links to the originating web sites and places to purchase the equipment.

You can filter out the printers by brand and price as well as the printer type and technology involved...i.e. bubblejet, laser, etc...

Next time you are looking into buying a printer, head on over to Wize and check out their printer reviews.

AIMpromote has just added a new feature set to their CRM software that is a pretty big upgrade. The new feature set allows for an added reselling function so that aggregators can manage the selling of a privately labeled CRM as theirs. If you are interested in finding out more information about their CRM offering make sure to read the press release and then go visit the site.

Traverse City, MI October 19th 2007 -- AIMpromote, provider of lead management and customer relationship management software, has launched a significant upgrade to their CRM offering. The newly added white-label CRM software feature enhances the value that lead aggregators can offer to their lead purchasing customers. The enhanced reselling functionality provides an intuitive interface to completely manage the selling of a privately labeled CRM as their own.
Lead aggregators operate in the highly competitive B2B space, and need ways to add value to their offerings. Michael Myles, President and CEO of AIMpromote said "The significant added value provided by the AIMpromote white-label customer relationship software gives lead aggregators a way to differentiate themselves in what has become a highly commoditized market." He went on to say that "this product also provides an easy way to leverage existing client bases to more rapidly increase sales."
The close tie-in between the selling of leads and the powerful sales management functionality of the AIMpromote customer relationship software enables the end-users of the system to easily purchase leads that are then available to be worked directly in the system. There is no importing necessary. Billing is also consolidated, providing an easy way for the end-user to manage their funds and billing profile. The system has been designed from the ground-up to offer high levels of customizability and advanced functionality for everyone involved, while requiring little investment in time.
The CRM reselling and lead sales functions functionality includes the ability for lead aggregators and CRM software resellers to completely customize pricing, including setup fees, discounts, and free trials. This flexibility empowers the resellers of the system to enhance their profit margins as they see fit. The CRM reselling system allows lead aggregators and consultants the ability to brand their system with their own logo and contact information. Integrated Authorize.Net payment processing gives an interface to take credit cards automatically, and have the funds deposited directly into their bank accounts. The advanced accounting and reporting pages in the AIMpromote system give a top-down view of the business as a whole, as well as for each individual account.
The tiered approach that AIMpromote has taken to the reselling of their powerful customer relationship management software gives even the end-user clients the ability to also resell the system. The billing and accounting system automatically takes care of everything for them, even automatically setting up accounts. "The ease of use and flexibility of the AIMpromote CRM for those providing business-to-business consultation services and those selling leads has created an opportunity to significantly improve the bottom line, with very little time or expense," said Matt Wolfe, Vice President of Operations for AIMpromote. Wolfe added, "The service and functionality of the system is unique in that customers are supported through an integrated support ticket system by their parent account. The end-users of the system will never know that the service they are using is being resold, or that the company from which they are licensing the software are not the actual manufacturers of the software. To them, it won't be AIMpromote at all, it will be 'ABC Software Company CRM', or whatever name the company reselling the software chooses."
About AIMpromote
AIMpromote leads the market in growth and technology for on-demand lead management and CRM reselling solutions. AIMpromotes enterprise lead management software empowers companies in any industry to more effectively generate, delegate, and report on leads and the teams that manage them. AIMpromote is the only solution that integrates detailed web analytics with sales and marketing analytics to provide a complete closed-loop view of the sales process. The AIMpromote lead management software offers a completely customized solution that can be tailored to fit any organization's customer acquisition workflow. The unique combination of having the most functionality, and the lowest total cost of ownership, AIMpromote is the most cost effective solution for improving close rates and marketing efficiency.

Remember putting together time capsules as a kid? I do, and I remember how much fun it was. It's a piece of history, of your time to save for future generations. I know as a kid it was beyond my comprehension to think of a hundred years going by but as I get older I can grasp that a bit more. I am very much into history and genealogy and finding pieces of my family's history is very exciting to me.

The 100 Year Website is about history. It's about saving part of your life for posterity. With the 100 Year Website you can put together pictures, audio and video clips, and your thoughts in a virtual time capsule that they will keep safe for the next 100 years. As you put together your time capsule you can choose to share it with other people and password protect it so that only the people you choose can see it, or you can decide to "bury" it so that it can only be revealed at a future date of your choice. It doesn't have to be 100 years, it could be five, ten, twenty years down the road. Perhaps on your wedding anniversary or birthday. Any date at all over the next 100 years.Go check out http://www.the100yearwebsite.com/ for more information.

As storage techniques and multimedia formats change and evolve The 100 Year Website updates and backs up all of the date by making two copies, a master copy and viewable copy and only update it when technology requires it.

Besides making time capsules just for your use you can also gift a time capsule. They ship it in a sleek metal branded capsule which contains certificates of ownership and log in details. Several different celebrities and groups have capsules such as Max Clifford, Amnesty International and Oxfam. They have also recently signed up with the British Library web archiving program as well.

Recently I talked about (on another site) the fact that I don't dance, at least not very often. "Not Very Often" means that I have danced maybe three times over the last twenty years or so. One thing that the wife would love for me to do is to learn how to dance. She is busting a gut to go to a ballroom dance and I am going to have to head over to Dance crazy and watch some of the dance videos to learn how. Luckily they are plenty of help and even I may be able to learn something new from it.

Right before I left town last week I received in the mail a new CD set to review on the blog from Clay Nelson's Getting Started Series. Since we had several hours of driving time in front of us I thought that would be a good time to listen and hear what he had to say. I'm not real big on listening to self improvement tape or reading all of the "learn management" books. Perhaps that is because some of them are required reading for work but I decided I would give it a chance and listen anyway. I was pleasantly surprised.

The Getting Started Series of audio CDs takes the life planning tools that Clay Nelson developed for his personal planning workshops and puts them in a series of easy to understand audio format. Mr. Nelson is engaging and funny as a life coach, which very much helps when listening to the audio. Much of the improvement stuff that I have had to listen to for work is as boring as a box of rocks and that is where most of my conceptions about this kind of stuff come from in the first place, so I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the CDs on the drive. Even the wife liked them. Between each one we discussed what we had heard and what we had gotten out of it and what we thought about each idea. I'm not particularly big on talking about anything other than idle chatter but even I can get something out of these.

I particularly enjoyed the first CD in the set which discusses having a Purpose in life and creating a Mission Statement, what it is and what it means to your purpose. Most of the ideas that were presented were so simple and easy to do and it's amazing that I just don't do them already. Of course sometimes the easiest things to do are also the hardest things to do, at least for most of us. One thing I wasn't aware of is that Clay Nelson also has a radio show which is on in Santa Barbara. Obviously I am well out of range from the station but the live streaming audio is available from his web site and I will have to go check it out. He's on at 2:00 PM on Wednesdays but they rebroadcast it at 10 PM which is when I would be able to listen in and check things out.

There is also an MP3 podcast available for download as well. I think I am going to need to go through and listen to some of the older shows in the library as I am really interested in hearing what he has to say. He also does a live tele-seminar as well for $32 a month. The most recent one was this afternoon but the next one is being held on October 16th, 2007. If I like what I hear from the podcasts as much as I did the CD set I may just have to join in next month.

One of the things that no true home theater can do without is a couple of arcade machines. My friends in Alaska designed and built a couple of machines that use MAME arcade emulator and the setup is extremely cool. The problem with that is that the entire setup is home brew. I don't know anything about engineering and although I can wire stuff and solder it has to be something simple and I can't do it without explicit directions. The there's the fact that when it quits working (and it will) or breaks, you have to completely redo it. I compare that on a smaller scale to the fact that I used to build custom PC cases. The last one I put together was a huge tower. I painted it all black and shiny and had custom neon lights and cables. It was a work of art. Then the motherboard that I had in there fried itself and there was no way I would just swap it out because of the way it was integrated. Now I buy them from other people. I don't have the patience or time anymore to do it myself and the same thing applies to gaming systems as well.

Monkeys Arcades has a huge assortment of coin operated machines including arcade games, pinball machines, Megatouch and JVL touchscreens such as the JVL Vortex, jukeboxes and quite a bit more including pre-played machines is you are looking for a deal. I would love to have a couple of the touchscreens in my home theater and maybe a pinball machine or two.

The JVL Vortex has great graphics and really neat lighting. It's a 17" monitor with a sound system that will help enhance game play and uses Flash Memory so that you don't have to worry about hard drives that wear out or moving parts to break.

It includes over 130 different games and is available in seven different languages. There are also online updates available for commercial users with the addition of a modem if you sign up for tournament play with JVL. You can also customize your own advertising screens that will show up on the touchscreen as well, which is great if you have a bar or restaurant that this will get used in. My personal use would be much simpler but I am sure I could think of something to put in the advertising screens.

I was asked to take a look over at HomeCamera and write a little review of the services. Since I have been into Home Automation and dabbled a little into security I thought it would be pretty cool to take a look and see what they have to offer.

The landing page itself is nice and clean. They give a little description and claim that HomeCamera will work with any home camera or webcam hooked to your computer and you can view the video on any PDA or mobile phone. I have a Logitech Quickcam setup and of course have a cell phone so I figured I would set it up and see what it can do.

During signup you have a couple of options to select aside from giving them your name, email, timezone and phone number. There are two motion detection settings that you are able to select and those are "send to my email" and "send to my mobile phone". HomeCamera supports motion detection and if you are wanting to use this for security purposes then both are a good idea. I selected "send to my email" for the purposes of writing this. Upon selecting the user agreement they sent me an email with the login link and something called "Current Mobile Credits", whatever those are. We shall see shortly I am sure. The next page is the link to download the software. It's a small download for an app, weighing in at about three and a half megs. Shouldn't take long at all, even if you are on dial-up.

The setup of the software was pretty painless. The first order of business after running the app is to add a camera. It asks for the email and password that you registered with and then searches for the camera. Of course I also have TV tuners in my system so it found those as well. I picked my settings on this screen and clicked ok...