Audio Books

If you like to listen to audio books, you don’t need to buy the expensive audio books on CD. There are some cheap alternatives: you can either download or rent audio books online. Renting audio books is like renting DVDs, you join a monthly plan and you can rent unlimited audio books in a month. You receive and return the audio books in the same pre-paid envelope. If you choose the 2 books at a time plan, don’t wait until you finish all books to return them, and then wait for another week to receive the next 2 books. The trick is after you finish one book, return it first while listening to the second one. When the audio book clubs receive the returned book, they will send you the next one on your book list. So you don’t need to waste any time waiting for the books to be shipped back and forth.

Alternatively, you can also download digital audio books online. You can buy and download individual audio books or join the monthly plan. However, unlike audio book rental (which allows you to rent unlimited audio books), the download plan only lets you download 1 or 2 books each month. You can burn the audio titles to CD only once as a measure to protect intellectual property. Multiple CDs may be needed for one audio title (it depends on the length of the audio title, not the file size). Audio book clubs record the audio books in different formats. Simply Audiobooks and AudioBookWorm have audio books in MP3 or WMA format while Audible uses a unique .aa file format which can be played in iTunes and Windows Media Player. Also check the list of compatible portable device (e.g. Apple iPod, Creative® Zen, SanDisk® Sansa™) to make sure your device can be used.

I remember

I remember when you came home, you were the size of my palm…….

I remember we walked to school together, you laid down on the grass, refusing to walk. Sometimes, you got startled by the wind or the sound of the leaves falling to the ground……

I remember you zoomed around in the playground and rubbed your face in the dirt, the dirtier it was, the happier you felt…

I remember you cuddled on my lap while I watched TV, played computer games……then suddenly, something smelled so bad, you had just past gas…….

I remember I liked to pet and kiss you, and I had this strange feeling…..the kind of love I’d never felt in my life….

I remember your happy face with ears swinging….and your jealous face when you could not win my attention over your little brother…

I remember you had to visit the vet often………you grew old so soon……

I remember during the darkest days of my life, you and your little brother were my support…..

I remember you slept like a pretzel; the sofa and the corner near the front door were your favourite spots……

I remember you were very ill, I didn’t know what to do……and I had to make the difficult decision……

I remember on your last day, I said thank you to you and wrapped you in a blanket….I walked to the vet carrying you, the moon was bright, big and round, it was mid autumn festival…..

I remember the vet gave you the shot, you were gone in a second. The next day, I pushed the button of the incinerator, then I brought your ash home……

So Poppy, you are gone for 3 years now. In case I get Alzheimer disease, this will help me to remember…….

Generic vs OEM cartridges

I still hear so often that you should not use generic ink cartridges because they will damage your printers; discount ink cartridges are so “cheap” that they must be of poor quality and they would give poor printout; some even claim that generic cartridges have a high failure rate.

I won’t doubt that some generic cartridges (compatible or remanufactured cartridges) are not made to the same standard as the OEM cartridges. There are so many third party manufacturers making generic cartridges these days and a variation of quality and performance is expected. However, I also feel resentful that some printer manufacturers keep using scare tactics to deter customers from buying more affordable alternatives.

If you go to any physical and online shops selling printer supplies, you would find that most if not all sell generic cartridges as well as OEM cartridges. If generic cartridges damaged your printer, why would these vendors keep selling these defective cartridges ruining their own reputation?

Are generic cartridges “cheap”, so cheap that they can’t be of good quality? Cheap is only a relative term. OEM ink is one of the most expensive liquids on earth (some people say the price of OEM ink is US$5000 / gallon). Compared to OEM ink, generic ink is of course cheap. But honestly, is the OEM ink really worth that much money? No, it is a well known fact that printer manufacturers mark up the price of OEM ink substantially in order to make profit as they cut the printer price to a very low level. Instead of saying generic cartridges are cheap, I would rather say that OEM cartridges are extremely expensive.

Do many generic cartridges fail to print and are dead on first day? It depends where you buy the generic cartridges. If you buy cartridges manufactured under ISO standards, the quality of the ink cartridges is guaranteed. Most vendors also provide extended warranty period, you can return the cartridges if you are not satisfied with them.

Buying high quality generic cartridges is a legitimate way to save money but like shopping for everything else, you need to do some research first. Just bear in mind that even if the cartridge doesn’t work, it won’t explode in front of you and it is highly unlikely it will damage your printer.

Recession or Recovery?

Ever since the financial tsunami last year, people have been talking about a recession or even a depression. But the stock markets are blooming everywhere in the world, from the U.S. to Europe, China, India, many stock indexes have already recovered most of the losses occurred between Sept 08 and Mar 09. In some countries, housing price even jumped ahead of time, surpassing that before the financial tsunami.

But if you don’t buy stock and don’t have money to speculate on real estate, gold and commodities, you know the hard time isn’t over yet. As a small business owner, I know first hand that the economy is still in trouble and life can be hard in the midst of “economic recovery”.

I own an online pet shop selling natural pet products. Despite that we are in a recession, commodity prices have not dropped in the past year. On the contrary, the wholesale price of some products continues to rise, some even up 15-30%. But hey, we are in a recession, the customers are more reluctant to pay for expensive pet food, so the retail price can’t be raised proportionally, leading to a narrower profit margin. As a result, the revenue increases but the earning may actually decrease.

When I go online to buy stuff like vitamins, printer supplies, I notice the same thing. Things are not getting cheaper. Maybe they haven’t really changed the retail price but some products used to be 40% off, now they are only 25% or 30% off.

So businesses are having lower profit margins, employees are afraid of losing their jobs, things are not cheaper but more expensive, and the stock and commodity markets (and housing market in some places) are flourishing. You don’t need to be an economist to know that this isn’t right. This “economic recovery” is not benefitting the general public but a small bunch of speculators and traders.

I hope the governments of those countries know what they are doing. When they throw out trillions of dollars to stimulate the economy, is the money used to artificially inflate the GDP figure, start another bubble or save the big corporations only? Is the money used to improve the living standard of the people? Or create job opportunities? Or help small and medium businesses? Or correct the mistake that was made before?

As for the general public, it’s likely that we will suffer from the economic slowdown for quite a while. Even worse, we may face inflation before the economy recovers. For those of us who don't earn a fortune, the word stagflation is even more daunting than inflation or deflation alone.