My only regret is that I didn’t find Super Warehouse sooner. It was so hard finding a laptop that could handle the work I do on my desktop at a cheap price (in case my desktop was to ever fail). I pretty much had to search for laptops that were on sale, but there weren’t many that I liked.

If I could afford Apple laptops, I would have actually considered purchasing one. But, for a lot less, I can get something faster and with a larger screen.

Super Warehouse has a very large selection of laptops. I was surprised to see some Sony VAIOs available for cheaper prices than I have seen at other online stores. See for yourself - take a look at the Sony laptop page. There is even one Sony laptop that I had looked at that has a battery life of up to 5 hours! That’s quite a long time.

Even though I was unable to use Super Warehouse to purchase a laptop, I still have a chance to take a look at their digital cameras! I like my digital camera, but it’s very old now. It’s a Canon PowerShot A20, which only features 2.1 mega pixels. The pictures don’t seem to come out as well as they did in the beginning, of course I may just be so used to seeing higher quality ones that the ones I take on my camera look horrible. I wouldn’t mind having a Nikon Coolpix.

I like that Super Warehouse provides a lot of accessories for the products they sell. I hate buying something at a store and then finding out they don’t even sell accessories for it and I have to spend time looking elsewhere.

They sell so many different products, including photo printers, Lexmark printers, printer toner, scanners and PDAs.

Besides some of the affordable prices, they also offer free shipping on many of the products. Check out some of their deals.

As low as $4.95/mo. hosting with 100GB of space and unlimited bandwidth.

If you haven’t heard of Spore, Spore allows you to create an entire universe and everything in it. Creatures you have created will interact with each other. Their lives are in your hands.

I can’t describe it any better than Justine Ezarik:

It feels like a cross between interaction of The Sims, object creation in Second Life and a bit of World of Warcraft on the side.

I actually first learned through one of her twitters that Spore Creator is available, also as a trial. I quickly went to download the huge file and installed it. I had so much fun creating a creature. I even had fun with him, in a kind of cruel way. Watch the video below to see what I mean. Explanation of what’s happening in the video below the video.

First, I named my creature Twotoe. I couldn’t think of anything very creative and since he has two toes on both feet, he became Twotoe! Meet Twotoe:

Link to video if you can’t view it above: Twotoe

In the video: Twotoe notices a creature, shows some affection, notices another creature and seems to look a little disappointed with that one. He sees another one and shows some affection towards that one. The one he didn’t show affection to walks off looking sad. Then, the cruel joke I play on Twotoe begins (not intentionally). I make all three little creatures disappear. And he looks around wondering what just happened and then cries out.

If you have any videos of your Spore creatures, please share in the comments!

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If you’re wanting to purchase Flash and ActionScript books, try to go with used books. If you look on Amazon, there are lots of used books being sold, some in really great condition. All of the used books I bought look almost brand new, excluding one which really was brand new at a used price!

Some of the books also come with a CD, so if you want the CD when purchasing new, be sure to read all of the sellers’ comments before buying.

There are some great resources available for learning Flash and ActionScript, online and offline. I thought I would share what books I purchased from Amazon and where to find videos and tutorials for learning.

Books

• Macromedia Flash MX Creative Web Animation and Interactivity
• Macromedia Flash MX ActionScripting: Advanced Training from the Source
• Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move!

Look for more Flash and ActionScript books on Amazon.

Videos

• Lynda
• LearnFlash
• CartoonSmart
• gotoandlearn
• TechVideos

Text Tutorials

• W3Schools
• Tutorialized
• LukaMaras

Please leave a comment if you know of some other really good videos, books or tutorials.

Disclosure: This post includes Amazon affiliate links.

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Looking for the remote also wastes so much time when you just can’t find it where it usually ends up. My sons’ father put something on one remote, like a key finder that would beep. That didn’t last long since the thing broke on it, so the remote was lost again.

The Jumbo Universal Remote Control would be a time saver! And probably easier to push the buttons without hitting another one by mistake. The Big Remote is huge. I don’t mean huge as in slightly larger than the average sized one with larger buttons. It looks really big next to a baby.

Although, my oldest son might think it would be fun to play with, so I’d have to give him a new toy so he wouldn’t try to hide it! He loves remote controlled vehicles (like a dump truck), so the Remote Control Forklift would be perfect for him.

The Remote Control Forklift is so cute. It comes with four little orange cones, a pallet and a crate for lifting. Watch the video below to see how fun this forklift looks! My son has too many toys, I want one!

Now, if only the forklift was big enough to lift up the remote control! They would go great together!

Sponsored by Vat19

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Easy As My PC Kits is a company I wish I knew about before getting a new computer recently. Easy As My PC allows you to build your own computer, or even just upgrade the RAM or CPU with a kit.

Build a complete computer with a DIY PC Kit for a very affordable price. Because you are building it yourself, this saves you money, but doesn’t save you time. That’s where the step-by-step instructions come in, which are written in English with plenty of illustrations. It says it can take a few hours to put a kit together, which to me sounds like a good amount of time.

If you run into any problems, you can always contact them for some help. Of course, if you don’t feel comfortable putting together a computer, purchasing a DIY PC Kit might not be the answer to saving money on a computer.

I like that you are purchasing known brands, such as Intel, AMD, Western Digital, etc. Even though you are paying less, you know you are getting hardware that you trust along with manufacturer warranties.

It’s very simple to select the type of kit you want, first deciding if you want a basic, business or gaming system. Then, select the level you want and customize it to fit your needs from there. If you are looking to only upgrade, you’ll have to look at the bottom of the site for the link. For upgrading, they ask you to contact them so they can help you get what you’re looking for.

Besides saving a lot of money on a DIY computer, Easy As My PC also offers free shipping. Free shipping to me is very important when buying online. I always want to save money!

Sponsored by Easy As My PC

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With Valentine’s Day coming up, now is the time to start thinking about what you will be getting for that special someone. If I was to pick something, it would probably be a large screen TV. Not really sure which one, that’s a hard choice. Of course that may require a better TV stand than the one we have.

Overstock.com’s “Game O Love” contest could win you a gift for your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife. This Game O Love contest begins tomorrow on January 25 and lasts until February 11, 2008. Tell your sweetheart to register, too!

Go check out this contest and try to win gifts for that special someone! I’m going to try win! And, even if you don’t win, it doesn’t hurt to keep your eye out for some deals on Overstock to save money on these holidays that force us to go out and buy something for loved ones!

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Finding out which provider is better for what you want can be hard until you’ve done some research. That can be very time consuming, right? I know I spent a lot of time thinking about switching from GoDaddy to another provider and wasn’t sure if I wanted to go with HostRocket because I didn’t really have issues with GoDaddy, just that I wanted more.

I just found out about Web Hosting Choice, which seems to help with your web hosting choice. I did notice that they recommend Host Gator, throughout the site. Makes me feel like it’s an advertisement, but I don’t know if it really is.

I love the Quick Web Host Search box on the front page. Enter in the maximum monthly cost, maximum setup fee, minimum disk space and bandwidth that you are looking for. Click Search for Hosts and browse the results of the available web hosting providers.

Most of my searches resulted in mostly just Host Gator hosting plans. I’m sure it’s because they have a variety of plans at affordable prices.

The site also has a great Learning Center to help you learn what you need to know about web hosting. For example, what is PHP or Perl? There is also a page that talks about scams that you may run into when looking for a web host. One of the scams is about providers offering unlimited bandwidth/space. My provider actually does offer me unlimited bandwidth (which, yes, I’m sure there is a limit at some point, but it doesn’t mean it’s a scam, in my opinion).

I like that it lets me select specific features that I may be looking for, example: ASP. Or select a specific web hosting provider and see the plans each one offers. Warning: the directory of providers is very long! This must have taken Web Hosting Choice a long time to build.

If I need to look for another web hosting provider, I will most likely check out Web Hosting Choice in the future, because it could save a lot of time! I only wish I knew about it when I was looking earlier last year.

Check them out if you’re looking for a new place to host your website. Hopefully it will help you in your search.

Sponsored by Web Hosting Choice

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In my opinion, a portable DVD player is one of those products you need to do research on before actually making a final purchase. They can be cheap or they can be expensive. It’s hard to know if one will be worth the purchase unless you actually use one and know from experience if it is exactly what you’re looking for or just going to be returned in a few days.

We have one that was purchased before we went to Virginia Beach for vacation. It was to keep our almost four-year-old son entertained on such a long trip. Not a very good experience. He kept pushing the buttons, popping out the disc. It was hard enough to reach behind and try to figure out which button was the correct button to play a video instead of going through some menu.

I think if we had seen reviews from other people who have had experience with different brands, we may have a different portable DVD player.

Wize has a WizeRank system that shows you a nice big rank for each product that people have left reviews for. It takes user reviews and expert reviews and creates a WizeRank to help you decide if it will be a good purchase. Of course it also depends on what you’re looking for.

For portable DVD players though, it looks like a Toshiba would be a good buy as it has a WizeRank of 91, which isn’t surprising as Toshiba makes really good products.  It also shows that users love it.

Compared to other websites that give you reviews of products, Wize shows you one score that is calculated to help you find a product with better reviews. A good way to find out which product you shouldn’t buy as well, if you look for the lowest WizeRank.

Compared to Amazon’s reviews, Wize is a lot easier to tell which product is a better choice.

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I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s fun bidding on auctions. Usually you get the item for cheaper than you would at a store. At least I try to, otherwise I might as well buy it at the regular price from a store.

I just learned about Bidaroo.com today. It’s a new charity auction site where everything is 80-90% below retail.  That sounds like a great deal! And, at least 25% of net proceeds are donated to charity. That’s very generous.

My favorite part is that shipping is free! I always hate buying something online, not even considering the cost of shipping until it’s calculated at the end and I realize I’m spending more than I want to.

I haven’t bid on anything yet, because my shopping is usually done right after Christmas. But, once some birthdays come around, I’ll have to see what is available for bidding on. The $2,000 Best Buy Gift Card at Bidaroo’s price of $200 is very tempting though.

Check them out and see what you think and then leave a comment here. Anyone else heard of Bidaroo or have experience bidding and/or winning an item there?

Sponsored by Bidaroo

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Besides being fun, we wanted one so we could get our almost four-year-old off the Xbox 360. He just likes moving things around on the screen and playing like we do, but there really aren’t many kid friendly games for the Xbox. But, if he’s going to play any games, it’s going to be ones that keep him active, such as the Sports on the Wii. He’s very good at the boxing!  Instead of learning what buttons to push, he only needs to move the controllers.

I’m still getting used to not using many buttons to play, but it’s fun. I can’t wait to get the old Mario games and the classic controller so I can play my favorite games again.

I like that you can set a PIN for some things on the Wii, but what about for just about everything? That’s another reason we wanted him to stop messing with the Xbox, because he’d go in and change all the settings. Unfortunately he can easily delete the Miis on the Wii if he wants to.

I love the Wii because it has Wifi built-in. Since I have the Wifi Max Dongle hooked up to my computer for my Nintendo DS, it also works with anything else that needs a wireless Internet connection, such as the Wii. We did run into a problem when downloading the updates though. Changing the Dongle’s settings to channel 11 sped up the downloading.  I think channel 1 is also recommended.

For anyone wondering about the graphics on the Wii: it is not noticeable. You have too much fun playing to notice anything. I also don’t really care about graphics when playing games though. Having fun is what matters.

Things I like:

• Small (Can be stored anywhere.)
• Easy to use (Doesn’t have a lot of features like the Xbox 360 to get lost in.)
• Better parental control than Xbox 360 (Four-year-old is smart enough to go into someone else’s profile to get out of the parental control restrictions.)

Things I don’t like:

• Sensor bar (Four-year-old likes to move it.)
• Long download wait time (For updates, news, shop, etc.)
• Nunchuk (I just don’t like it.)
• Exiting the game before ejecting the disc. (Other systems do not require this. The Wii asks you to insert the disc.)
• No profiles (I like having profiles so I know what saved games are mine and no one else can delete them.)

If you have a family with kids, the Wii really is the best video game system to have.

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