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GREAT PLACES For Cameras, Batteries, Weddings, Software, US
Payroll services and others.
I have very positive, PERSONAL experiences with all below. I
am giving my personal recommendation. If you need more information on why I
recommend them,please email me.
A couple of these are "affiliate links" but to date I have NEVER gotten a PENNY
from ANY of them - for an explanation why, jump to the bottom of this page.
One site, chock full of information on photography is Edwin Leong's
Camera Hobby site.
This site is geared for the amateur photographer but has lots of great
information for professionals as well. If you like to look at nice pictures
another site to check out is
Mike Albin's. I
particularly like some of his underwater photographs.
Are you a T4 earner, or other Canadian who pays too much tax? You need to Visit
my
Reduced Tax site.
A free ebook on gardening. It is a nice read. His site also has detailed steps on
propagation of plants. So check here for your free ebook.
Free eBook on Gardening
He gives you the option on signing up for his mailing list. If you do, you can expect
to receive every week or two some tips on gardening. Each of these has a small ad
for his 2 products he sells (a collection of information on how to run a gardening
business or how to do high volume propagation.) They are unobtrusive and, if you
are into gardening and anything other than an expert, you will appreciate his information.
Want to go on a great heli-tour (wedding, fishing, hiking, skiing, whatever)
Check out
Icefield Helicopter Tours
. I've flown with them and I recommend them.
Finally, for my Canadian customers, Amazon.ca - The Canadian version of
Amazon.com. Prices in CDN$, Shipment from Canada (so low cost shipping) - FREE
if your order is $75CDN or more!. (Now, because of how Amazon pays - although
these links are technically tied to me, I have NEVER made a PENNY from Amazon
for these recommendations. I have made money with the books I have published
and sold on Amazon, but I don't care if you use the links below because there
is no financial benefit to me. Check out Amazons terms if you don't believe
me.)
| Amazon.ca |
Chapters |
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Now that Chapters has Amazon.ca for direct competition, THEY have become more
competitive too! Before I buy I always check both Amazon &
www.Chapters.Indigo.ca . And to be honest, more than half the time I
end up going with Chapters. |
Camera Filters, rings, lens caps. The best
price and great quality comes from
the Filter House,
a tidy site, easy to determine if they have what you need and if they
don't have it, the place to go is
The Filter Connection
in the US. Vist their site, it is a little messy but they are very good at
getting virtually anything I want. They ship worldwide. I started buying from
this company in 1998 and have made several orders - about 1 per year on
average. On one "out of production" filter, they tried for 2 years and finally
found me the one I wanted in someones old dusty bins (the filter itself was
flawless.)
In general, I recommend getting multi-coated lenses. Yes they are a
little extra money, but I'd prefer to have FEWER filters of better quality.
You need Batteries!
Alkaline can only be used once (well other than the really poor quality
rechargeable Alkalines.) NiCAD have memory - and are therefore a PAIN to use.
Since 1997 I've
been using fanTAStic NiMH batteries from Sunn
Battery Co/EBC. I currently recommend
www.thomas-distributing.com as your source if you are in the US or if
you are in Canada and don't mind importing. Or, I sell them as well for my
Canadian clients (mail order or pickup) and US and Mexico clients (pickup only
when I'm "there") My tests of their AA 1700MaH NiMh batteries show
they last about twice as long as alkaline - REALLY!
The 1800+ (I use mostly 2300 currently) last even
longer! And of course you can recharge NiMH's 100's of times. And, even
better...these NiMH's are not the low capacity 1200MaH in Radio Shack, Wallmart
& Home Depot etc.., And their D cells are not like the old NiCad D cells
where you got a tiny AA cell inside a big D package. These D cells are big
heavy ones that also last. Same deal with the other sizes - no AA's inside C's
clothing! US
Orders click here.
Canadian Orders click here.
You can also get most odd sized batteries like the
3000MaH Sub C's used for R/C Car racing. Great for flashlights on camping
trips, cameras, toys, your Palm Pilot, I even put them in my cordless phone
(contact me for tricks & traps before doing this!) There are lots more
reasons that I am really excited about Sunn/EBC's NiMH batteries, ask me about
power drop curve for example!
There are only two types of
application that I don't use NiMH for - 1. places where the batteries stay in
for a year or more like smoke detectors or emergency flashlights that don't
trickle charge. Why? Because NiMh lose about 10% of their charge per month
(Some say less in the 1st month but much more after 30 days). 2. Very cold
(like -40) where you can't keep the batteries warm. Like normal Alkaline &
NiCad's, NiMH lose their power as the temperature drops. I am currently testing
NiMh with Electronic Dog Fence: I'm hypothesising that the batteries will have
to be recharged every 3 months in the spring/summer/fall, and probably every
month in the cold winters(down to -40C/F) we have here.
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 (Also visit my wedding page!)
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Books I recommend that everyone read. The Rich Dad series of books helps you
decide where you want to be financially in life and decide whether you want to
do what it takes to get there. Almost no matter where you are and where you
want to be, there are ideas in these books that can help you improve your
financial situation. I used to recommend "The Wealthy Barber" I now recommend
the Rich Dad series instead. Rich Dad will, in the way he writes, push you
towards the very top end, but his advice is helpful to get to the upper lower,
the lower middle, the upper middle or, as he encourages you, the lower upper or
upper upper. They are "easy reading" books with great ideas throughout. And
yes, I have bought all the books one by one so I am recommending something I
have paid for and am happy I paid.
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FREE Real
software.
Since about 1999 we have obtained many great products - like games,
educational software, training software, house planning - all full REAL
software! All we paid was shipping!
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Unbeatable deals
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We have ordered several times so we are
convinced there is no gimic, just 100's of great deals. (Note, these are
frequently, but not always, one or 2 versions out of date.) If you have an
older computer you WANT the older software. More recent software assumes you
have newer faster computers.
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Drip irrigation. Now you may not need
to water 1500 trees, 500 raspberry plants and 1000 other edible annuals and
perennials, but if you want to water your garden efficiently without waste of
water, check out The
Drip Store.
It has a wide variety of VERY high quality products and advice. I suggest you
follow ALL of their advice it is not biased to sell you more, it is biased to
make you successful in your irrigation needs.
US Payroll. I have very great
personal experience with Execupay
. They provide payroll services to small to large US based companies. They take
the headache of keeping track of all the legal government gyrations. I have
"worked" for them as a consultant/developer and can assure you that they
continuously seek to provide the best experience for their customers. If an
option cost them more but gave a better experience for their customers they
choose it without any hesitation.. No they did NOT pay for me to put this up
here, this was done on my own initiative. But, from time to time, as I own US
companies, they are my unquestionable choice for our payroll needs. Call and
tell them "Madman" sent you.
Electronic Dog Fence.
We have 9 acres for our dogs to run in (and 140 acres that they are not allowed
on). We have friends with 2 acres that want their dogs to stay in the 2 acres.
We have friends with a city lot and a dog that keeps jumping the fence (city
bylaw has 6' max. fence. Several dogs can jump 6'). So what do we all do? Well,
years ago I bought an Electronic dog fence from
PetSafe and my friends, seeing how well mine worked, did the same?
Are they perfect? No, you have to train your dog to it, but the bigger the area
you have the easier it is to train (you can set the border wider.)
PetSafe is not the very cheapest, but it is one of the lowest cost
and, at least from my research, is well worth the little extra money over the
cheapest solutions. Do you have a "big" dogs like we do (Shepard/Akita
crosses),
PetSafe now has a more effective collar -and best of all, the
standard Alkaline 9V battery works for 8 months between charges! Hmmm, I guess
this means that, after the 1st year, PetSafe is CHEAPER than the competition
I've seen that use expensive batteries that last 4 DAYS (yes Really, some that
require you buy special batteries, like from Tri-Tronics only last 4 days!!) to
6 months (Most seem to say 3-6 months. My original
PetSafe said 6 months and they lasted about 8 in warm wheather and
3 in bitter cold weather.). And, because
PetSafe uses STANDARD 9V, you can use my favorite NiMH batteries
(see below). I've been using
PetSafe since 1997. If
your dog is "hard to train" with the fence, email me and I'll let you know the
tricks I used to train ours.
Finally:Sorry about "www.greattools.com" - they appear to have
gone out of business. That is why they are no longer listed in my site
recommendations. Pity.
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