Sunday, October 06, 2002

Catalogue shopping made easier - my wife and I get lots of catalogues.  We buy a fair amount of stuff from catalogues because it's convenient, and a lot of the stuff we buy comes from companies that have brick and mortar stores.  Even if we like to browse the physical store the catalogue is a good way of tagging stuff that we want to buy.  My wife keeps them in a pile with pages bent over at the corner to mark potential purchases.  I do the same thing, but it just doesn't seem to work.  Eventually the catalogues pile up and I don't want to keep hundreds of pages of paper for just a few wishlist items.  This problem has plagued me, but I just came up with a better solution. Most of the companies that send us catalogues have websites.  So if I'm interested in the product I visit the website and find the page with the product on it and bookmark it.  In fact, I have even created a folder in my Internet Explorer "Favorites" called "wishlist items" and I save those items in there.  Oh, and you can export that browser folder if you want, and then you can send it to your spouse or other family members. Then they can import it into their browser and visit the webpages for the products that you are interested in.  I think this is a great idea.  I just got rid of about 10 catalogues that were by my bed.  But I've kept the information that I'm interested in.  Hurray! And I'm going to use this trick to keep track of product manuals for stuff that I buy.  Increasingly, manufacturers are starting to put their manuals online.  When they do I'm going to trash the manual and bookmark the manual's webpage under a browser folder called ... "manuals."  And then all I have to backup is my browser favorites file. 2:45:25 PM    comment []

Backup your data online - My hard drive crashed recently and I have resolved to prepare for the next time that I have to recover all of my critical data.  I'm going to make backups to disk, but recently I found something that I'm going to try out that I think will be even more useful: online backups.  Connected TLM has an affordable service that lets you backup about 100 mg's for about $7 per month (I think you can get 1 GB for about $14 per month if you think you need more).  That seems like a lot of money for not much storage, but as one who just went through a disaster (total loss of 30 GB hard drive) I can say that the money is worth it and the storage is pretty hefty if you are judicious about what you backup.  Remember you aren't going to back up everything, and it is an online backup.  So I propose to backup only the stuff that I need desperately.  Like my Radio data, and my key documents.  Think about it.  What stuff would you want to have access to very quickly if your hard drive totally got wiped out. You aren't going to save the programs because you will have to reinstall those from the disks anyway.  But if you have a lot of "favorites" in your browser, or your Quicken files, or whatever.  You know what you can't live without.  Or if you don't, wait until you have a total hard drive crash and you'll figure it out the hard way. 2:25:39 PM    comment []

Product Manuals & Accessories - Everytime I buy a new gizmo it comes in a box with lots of paper that I automatically throw away.  The warranty or product registration card, for example.  I don't have the patience to fill that stuff out.  How about just giving me a web address where I can register the product online?  I'd do that in a flash using my roboform utility and it would take about one minute at most, and I be assured that my registration was accepted.  Why use snail mail?  The Internet is just sitting there and I have an always on connection and wireless access in my house so there is always a computer around with Internet access.  Increasingly, this is going to be the norm for most people. Then there is the product manual.  I read it quickly only to get the product set up.  Maybe I have a few questions about how to configure something so I keep it around for a day or two...but then it goes in the garbage.  Or it gets lost.  How about if the manufacturer sets up a page that walks you through the various set up and FAQ's?  Wouldn't that be convenient?  You can visit the page whenever you want.  Or, if you are clever, you would bookmark that page in your browser (under a folder labelled "Manuals"). Does the product have accessories that you might want to buy later?  Then the manufacturer should put that all on one page along with the manual.  In other words there should be a web page just for that product that has all of the useful information about the product.  Then the manufacturer can update it.  Convenience for you, and possible future sales for the manufacturer. 2:16:34 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Ernest Svenson.