The Lien List
From my personal experience, I wholeheartedly recommend the products, services, or retailers listed below. Any reservations that I have are disclosed. This is not a shotgun blast of ads intended to make income for me while wasting your precious time and money. You will not see any get-rich-quick scams or rip offs in The Lien List; rather, I hope you find something of value to you.
Amazon.com
Amazon reigns as King of the Internet retailer hill, with outstanding product selection, low prices, and excellent customer service. I have not had any bad experiences with Amazon over the last 10 years. If I had a problem, Amazon quickly and appropriately responded to correct the situation.
Amazon Prime really changed the way I shop with Amazon. For $79 each year, I receive, among other benefits, unlimited 2-day shipping at no additional cost and with no minimum purchase required (no more searching for cheap filler items to reach the $25 minimum required for free shipping). The 2-day shipping (or $3.99 one-day shipping) comes in very handy for procrastinators like me when shopping for gifts. I now buy diapers, cereal, oatmeal, and anything else I can find at the right price from Amazon.
Also, if you want to sell an item that Amazon carries, the process is quick and easy compared to eBay and free (no fees unless the item sells). You can list an item for as long as you want by renewing the listing every 60 days.
RoboForm.com
I used to keep a manual record of my passwords for hundreds of websites. Not anymore. Now, I remember just one master password and log into websites safely and securely with a single click. RoboForm generates new passwords using a mixture of numbers and uppercase and lowercase letters. User IDs, passwords, security questions and answers, addresses, credit cards, and more are stored by RoboForm. I use the portable version, RoboForm2Go, with a USB flash drive. Considering the gains I have made in productivity, security, and peace of mind, I rate this software a phenomenal value and a must have. Try the software free for 30 days to see what I mean.
Shutterfly.com
For the best online photo service, visit Shutterfly. We use their prepaid print plan to reduce the cost for 4x6 photos to $0.10 each. My wife scrapbooks and really appreciates that Shutterfly prints the file name on the back of photos. For us, the file name is the date the picture was taken and a sequential number.
If you are afflicted with a scrapbooking addiction like my wife, you should also try Shutterfly's photo books. You can make a beautiful keepsake from your family vacation (or any other theme) in a fraction of the time required for traditional scrapbooking.
Netflix.com
Renting DVDs online for delivery through the mail is extremely convenient. Create a list of the movies that you want to watch, receive them in the mail, keep them as long as you want, and watch them. Then, pop the movies in the postage-paid return mailers and Netflix will send you the next available movies in your list. Blockbuster.com
works the same. However, what happens when you watch all of the movies that you have and you want more, like on a holiday weekend? Netflix has you covered with unlimited streaming content over the Internet (available with most of their monthly plans). The picture quality and library of content available to watch instantly has improved vastly in recent years and made Netflix the clear choice. A nice but less convenient option is offered by Blockbuster Total Access, which allows you to drive to the store and get new movies at no additional charge (the number of free rentals may be limited depending on the plan you select).
I actually started renting movies from Netflix in the late 90's and spent years as a loyal customer. For a few years, I switched to Blockbuster for the in-store exchange feature and waited for Netflix's online delivery to mature. When I saw a Blu-ray Player
with Netflix and Pandora built in, I knew it was time to return to Netflix.
iRobot.com
Known primarily for their robot vacuums, iRobot has produced other innovative helpers, including Scooba, a floor washing robot. We named our Scooba 380 Squeaky Clean. The kids love to watch Squeaky work on our tile floors. All the spills and debris that kids entail disappear almost effortlessly. A couple of minutes of prep work and clean up afterwards are required, but I do not mind it. One of the benefits of using Scooba is that you only have clean cleaning solution being applied. The dirty solution is sucked up immediately as the robot moves and stored in a separate tank compartment for easy disposal. With mops or hand washing, you usually end up spreading dirty cleaning solution around the floor.
AxiomAudio.com
If you want premium home theater sound at a reasonable price, I highly encourage you to give Axiom Audio equipment a trial. I own Axiom M80 floorstanding speakers, a VP150 center channel, and an EP500 subwoofer, with in-ceiling rear speakers from another manufacturer. I warn you: these are not cheap. However, as an avid movie watcher, I found the speakers well worth the cost and clearly superior to all but the highest-end (and significantly higher cost) audiophile speakers. Consider buying from the Axiom Audio Factory Outlet to save 10%. My speakers from the outlet had only a few small scratches that were virtually undetectable.
Newegg.com
Newegg.com makes building your own computer or upgrading a pleasure. They offer a huge selection of computer, consumer electronic, and communication products, all with excellent customer service.
eBay.com
Buy or sell just about anything on eBay. I recently found a picture frame (brand new) to exactly match several I bought at Target years ago. No stores carried the frames anymore.
Know what you want to spend before you get caught up in the thrill of the auction. Recent eBay TV commercials feed this tendancy with their message that "it's better when you win it" glorified. Check recently closed auctions and other websites to determine a good price. Many people pay far too much. I buy cartridge water filters for my refrigerator on eBay because the price is $5-$10 less per filter than I can find anywhere else.
BestBuy.com
If you like to touch and feel electronics before buying or you want to have a local store where you can return online purchases, Best Buy is the place. Best Buy and BestBuy.com generally have good prices, with the best deals appearing in the weekly ad. Tweeter (filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection) and CompUSA (closed or sold all stores to exit the business) could not compete with Best Buy, and Circuit City appears to be headed for the same fate.
Acronis.com Acronis makes the best PC and file backup software (Acronis True Image Home) that I have used with my home PC. The partition and disk management suite (Acronis Disk Director Suite) works great as well. I used Acronis OS Selector, which is part of the Disk Director Suite, to make my PC a dual boot system. I boot from one partition for general use. I boot from the other partition for dedicated video editing, which improves the performance and reduces problems with video capture and editing.
ZoneAlarm.com
ZoneAlarm provides an excellent personal firewall that is free to download. I have used that version for years. ZoneAlarm Pro builds on the basic firewall that is free and offers additional features that you may want.
SonyStyle.com
SonyStyle provides detailed information on Sony's current and near-future products. Sometimes they offer the best price, but check around. I have owned numerous Sony products over the years, including digital cameras, camcorders, and TVs, all with great satisfaction. Many of their products include proprietary memory storage or media, so be aware of that potential limitation on interoperability with other brands. PinnacleSys.com I have used several versions of Pinnacle Studio to edit over 30 family home videos. With each new version, I struggled to make Pinnacle Studio work the way I wanted. They seem to release new versions too soon and chock-full of bugs that they fix over time. Going to a dual boot system with a dedicated video editing partion really helped. Also, I spent some time on the Pinnacle Studio Forums reading and troubleshooting. Generally though, once I have a new version of the software working properly, I churn out the videos without any further problems. When it's working, Pinnacle Studio is powerful and easy to use. Because of the initial bugs, I have tried a few other software packages. But, I always end up back with Pinnacle Studio.
Buy.com Buy.com seems to aspire to be Amazon. I am somewhat hesitant to include Buy.com in The Lien List because their customer service has not always been rock-solid for me like Amazon's. In the end, Buy.com earned a spot because they offer the lowest price on certain products, including many free-after-rebate deals. I have had one or two problems with Buy.com that they did not resolve to my satisfaction. However, the good deals have outweighed the occasional problem.