Category: Products & Services (Page 3 of 24)

Paperback Swap

January 21, 2011 / / 0 Comments

paperback-swap.jpgOver a year ago I wrote about Swap Tree (now just called Swap.com, a website that allows you to trade books with other users. I enjoyed it for the few months I was in it, but soon enough all my desirable books were gone and I wasn’t getting any more requests. I finally quit a few months ago when they instituted a fee-per-trade (50c to $1). So for many months I’ve been keeping my used books at home, planning to take them to the library (for their sale) sometime.

Apparently, I may not need to do that. My friend Cynthia introduced me to Paperbackswap.com and, so far, it’s worked for me quite well. Paperbackswap has similar mechanics to Swap.com – you enter the books you have, you are given a list of books you can get -, but it’s much more flexible and gives you access to many more books (about 5 million currently). It’s also free. While Swap.com works by linking you to someone who has a book who you want, who in turn wants a book from a third person who wants the book that you have, Paperbackswap gives you access to all the books posted by all their members. Every time you mail a book to anyone you get a point, which you get to spend on any book they have listed. Unlike Swap.com you can “bank” your points, so if you don’t see anything you want now, you can wait until it comes about. You can put things in your waiting lists and so forth. My take is that people who have popular books have a better chance to get what they want in Swap.com, but if your books are not that popular you have a better chance of getting rid of them at Paperbackswap. Indeed, I’ve been surprised at the obscure titles I’ve gotten off my hands (e.g. I sent Spiritual Friendship, a book I bought for my Medieval Intellectual History class in college, to a student @ some seminary). Now, I haven’t been able to get any of the books I really want (mostly expensive cookbooks) but I’ve been able to find a few gems within their listings (including Religions Explained: A Beginner’s Guide to World Faiths, which is a great intro to religions for little kids).

If you are interested in joining Paperback Swap, please give my e-mail address (marga@lacabe.com) as a referral when you do. If you post 10 books, I’ll get 1 free credit (and you’ll get 2!).

My personal bookshelf of books I have for trading is here. If you are local and want any of the books, please let me know and I’ll hold it for you (otherwise join paperbackswap :-).

Zeus on the Loose – Game Review

January 16, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Zeus on the Loose I got the Zeus on the Loose card game on a whim, when I saw it for $5 at Amazon.com (it’s now $10 :(. It got good reviews & Mika LOVES Greek mythology so I figured she’d like the game. I was right – not only does Mika like the game, but Camila LOVES it. It don’t quite understand why, but as it’s a great game for honing your addition skills I’m not complaining.
The game basically includes number cards and a few “Greek God” cards that have special characteristics (e.g. round the Mount Olympus amount to the nearest multiple of 10, subtract 10, etc.). Each player puts a card in Mount Olympus and announces how high the Mount is – the previous amount plus the amount of the card he’s putting in. If he gets to a multiple of 10 he steals the little Zeus plastic figurine that comes with the game. The first person who gets Mount Olympus to 100 and has the figurine, wins the game. Sounds boring, but it’s not too bad – and, as I said, the kids loved it.

Is Google search getting worse (and worse!)?

December 5, 2010 / / 1 Comment

I’ve using google for many years, probably since its first or second month in existence, and I’m growing more and more frustrated with it. While it’s never been perfect, for a few years at the beginning of this decade (century), it worked quite well. I pretty much was guaranteed to find what I was looking for. Things slowly started deteriorating and now I find the search engine to be virtually useless. It’s more likely that it will hide the information that I’m looking for, than it will present it. Unfortunately, it’s rivals bing, Alta Vista andYahoo, are just as bad. Indeed, it’s difficult to believe they don’t all use the same search algorithms given how incredibly similar their results are. For example, search for my name “Margarita Lacabe”, and out of the thousands of results that show up (out of tens of thousands of web pages that actually have my name on them), all four search engines show in the first or second page of results a link to a newspaper article I sent to a mailing list in 1997! The same newspaper article! What are the chances? Google also includes “relevant” links: those to my home page, my professional profile, my facebook page and my twitter feed – amidst lost of “garbage” results (those to website that do nothing but compile public information about a name) – which is more than what we can say about the other 3 search engines, which cannot even find my website (marga.org).
But while much of the information about me is in Spanish, don’t expect to access it through Google – even if you’ve asked Google to search for material on “any language”. I’ve complained about this before, and I haven’t found a solution that will bring me relevant results in both languages. Once again, the other search engines are just as bad. This was not a big issue a year or so ago, so definitely something has changed (for the worse) on google’s algorithm). This is not just a small inconvenience for me, many of the search I make are for work and there is material concerning them in a variety of languages that I’d like to be able to access.
Google images, moreover, has become virtually useless. My daughters have a whole website with pictures of themselves, but (perhaps fortunately) you won’t find almost any of them by searching for their names. A few months ago, they were available.
I can feel how badly Google works on a daily basis. While once upon a time, I could find most of the relevant information I was looking for on the first and second page of a search, now I’m more likely to find it linked from another website. This is unfortunate, because it means I need to know where to go to look for it in the first place.
I think the time has come for a search company to come up with a bare-bones, non-smart search engine that actually works.

Red Lion Hotels – Medford, OR & Vancouver, WA – Reviews

December 3, 2010 / / 0 Comments

We usually visit my in-laws in Vancouver, WA, every Thanksgiving, and stay over at a hotel (though the kids often pernoctate with the grandparents). We usually stop over in Medford, OR, for the night in the way there. I usually priceline the hotels – the rates are so much cheaper than those you can get otherwise -, after checking for prices and possible hotels at Bidding for Travel and for hotel reviews at Trip Advisor. That’s what I did this year, and I ended up with rooms @ Red Lion Hotels in both Medford & Vancouver. Both ended up being good experiences and fairly good deals.
Red Lion Hotels – in general
The two Red Lion Hotels we stayed at were very similar properties. In both cases they were older buildings, well kept but a bit outdated (they still have old-style TVs, for example). They had nice furniture (two Queen-size beds, one night table with a lamp, a dresser/entertainment center and a desk with a chair. The room in Vancouver also had a comfy chair with an ottoman), comfortable mattresses & pillows and largish bathrooms (the one in Medford, with a separate sink) with good water pressure. Rooms were appointed with a coffee maker, a small fridge & a small microwave. There was coffee/tea/sugar/creamer. The rooms were clean and not particularly smelly. One issue with both hotels was that the heater units, while quite efficient, were very loud. In both instances we chose to turn them off while we slept. Another issue is that while the rooms are for two people, there is only one desk/chair – which means only one person can work comfortably at the time.
The facilities at both hotels were also pretty similar, and they included outside swimming pools, a small gym (which we didn’t use), nicely appointed lobbies and a restaurant/bar. The hotel has cable TV, but only offers a dozen channels or so (one was showing cartoons). There is free internet, but it was slow @ both hotels and had some blocked services. Both hotels offer soap, shampoo & conditioner (but not lotion) in the rooms, and they say they have other toiletries upon request.
Service in both hotels was very good, the front desk staff was very friendly. Then again, we did not have any special needs/requests.
The one thing to consider vis a vis the Red Lion Inn, is that the rates DO NOT include breakfast. Breakfast at the Vancouver Red Lion was $8 for adults (free for kids). That means that you must really add $20 to the nightly rate to get a sense of its “true” rate vis a vis other comparable hotels.
Now, as for each individual hotel:
Red Lion Medford
We stayed here last year as well and had liked it. This year the rate was more expensive (about $65 a night, including taxes – my priceline bid was $51), but not a bad deal for the area. This hotel is “motel style”, with a lobby that houses the restaurants and two buildings with guest rooms around a parking lot. One of the buildings is right next to the freeway and you can definitely hear some freeway noise from the rooms there – though it was drowned by the heater noise, when on. Rooms on the other building are much quieter – so ask to be put there.
We had dinner at the restaurant at that hotel last year, which wasn’t great, but this time we didn’t even go in, so I can’t even say if it’s still open. We’ve never tried their breakfast.
Red Lion at the Quay – Vancouver
I was disappointed when Priceline gave me this hotel (we stayed at the Residence Inn last year, which was both cheaper, much nicer and included breakfast!) for my $40 bid (plus $10 in taxes), but the hotel itself is nice. The lobby was nicely decorated with a large Xmas tree (and a few small ones), and the location at the River is very nice. We walked along it one morning and got to see the famous Old Apple Tree. The hotel is also very convenient (i.e. a couple of blocks from) downtown and the bridge to Portland.
We had the breakfast buffet at the hotel one morning ($8 per adult, free for children, including tax, but waiters clear out your plates so you have to tip them), and it was OK. The breakfast included two dry, paltry, unappealing mini-pastries, fresh fruit, 3 dry cereals, bread (there was a toaster) and hot scrambled eggs, bacon (very dry), sausages (fine) and country potatoes (also dry). They have a cool pancake machine – you press a button and get two warm, fresh pancakes in 45 seconds. The pancakes had that industrial taste that comes from commercial mixes. There was coffee & tea, milk and juices. In all, it was definitely nowhere as good as the free buffet we got at the Residence Inn the year before. The one plus is that the restaurant has beautiful river views.
In all, our stay was fine and we’d be fine staying here again.
Margarita’s Hotel Reviews

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