Still Clickin

Most of the things we buy repeatedly are bought locally. Groceries, clothes, fuel, and flowers are purchased from stores in our neighborhood. The store could be an outlet of a national retailer or a small independent, but it is local. However, many people now make their special purchases, i.e. items that are purchased infrequently or only once, from an online store.

Not too long ago, making a purchase at an online store almost qualified as an adventure. Today, anyone who is reading these words has, in all likelihood, made a number of online purchases. The intent of these comments is to provide an update, for myself as well as you, of the best shopping practices you should use.

• Check on spyware - It is tragic, but necessary to start with that comment. Spyware exists, and if you, or one of your visitors, opened an email that said, “Congratulations, you’ve just (fill in the blanks)”, spyware that can capture your credit card information may be lurking on your system. Do a scan, e.g. PCTools, and check to make sure you are safe.
• Read the reviews - It used to be that you could go to the library, find the category in Consumer Reports, and feel confident that you could discover the basic things you needed to know before making a reasonably informed buying decision. Although you can still use that approach, you can also find a fair amount of information on the Internet. Just enter ‘review (name of specific product)’ into your search engine, and any number of information sites will vie for your attention. Typically, one or two of them are quite through. For example,

1. Consumers Search can be helpful, and
2. cNet provides detailed advise on technology products.

• Find the Best Deal - Once you have identified the specific product you are after, i.e. manufacturer and model number, you can start looking for the online merchant that will best serve your purchasing requirements. Since the price comparison sites all vary slightly in their approach, it is in your best interest to try a few. Even these reviewers are reviewed, and one good comparison can be found at Smart Money. Since some online merchants will offer special deals through one pricing site and not another, it is best to search a few before you make your final decision. For example, try -

1. Price Grabber,
2. Yahoo Shopping,
3. Dealtime,
4. NexTag,
5. Shopzilla, or
6. Street Prices.

For travel deals, try -

1. Kayak, or
2. Travel Zoo

For special deals, try -

1. Fat Wallet, or
2. Finders Cheapers

• Carefully Select Your Merchant - Product price is definitely NOT the only factor. The cost of shipping can change the monetary profile of a deal. Obviously, the best shipping charge is ‘free’. Beyond that, your have to shop online just the way you shop locally, i.e. find a merchant you can trust. The price comparison sites recognize this need and most of them rate their vendors. Choosing a vendor with a high performance rating can seem like wisdom if something happens to the shipment or later to the product.

Once you click, enjoy the anticipation. Your purchase will appear at your door in just a few days.

NB. Click below to make a comment. Even better, expand on the original article by going to wikiSenior and clicking on ‘edit’.

If you’re reading this, you already know about the Internet. The use of the Internet by the senior community is continually expanding. And it doesn’t have to cost you anything. At local libraries, computers are siting there waiting for your curiosity and fingertips.

What do seniors do with the Internet when their fingertips start moving? According to a report by the Pew Research Center, they are involved with -

*Email - This still drives their primary usage of the Internet. Keeping in touch without the hassle of time zones and time charges, email remains the primary reason why people keep going back to the Internet. It’s especially delightful when the message is from your grandchildren. Free email accounts can be established at Yahoo and other services.

*Finding Information - Once they finish with their email, people typically switch to Google or Yahoo to find out about something. They might be planning a trip, researching a problem, or comparing different brands of toasters. Not surprisingly, Most Internet searches on health topics are performed by seniors.

*Online Shopping - Once they have completed their research, seniors are not afraid to actually make a purchase. As noted in the Pew Report, nearly 50% of the online seniors actually are making purchases. One area of particular interest is travel, both planning and booking tickets. They also are not afraid to both sell and buy items on eBay.

In addition to these top three activities, seniors also explore other facets.

*Reading News - If they’ve moved away, seniors are very likely to scan the pages of the old hometown newspaper online. They are also avid readers of specialized news topics on politics, entertainment, and other targeted sectors. Even the headlines of major newspapers, e.g. New York Times, are available online.

*Sharing Photos - Whether directly through email or via a service like Flickr, seniors love to see the latest images of their grandchildren, grandnieces, and grandnephews.

*Skype - If you are geographically removed from loved ones, skype is a treasure for everyone regardless of age. Simply speaking, skype not only allows you to talk to those you love, but to see and interact with them from many miles away. The visuals of loved ones make them feel so much closer, and it can ease the worries and loneliness that distance can engender.

*Social Sharing - Seniors have not flocked to Facebook or Twitter. They might view a My Space or You Tube link contained in an email, but they are not going to enroll. At this point in their lives, seniors are far less intrigued by the social and gaming aspects of the Internet than are the younger members of our society. Instant messaging holds as little appeal as instant gratification. They prefer to respect privacy and to savor the anticipation of a thoughtful reply. They find important items more interesting than urgent ones.

*Blogs - Because seniors have the time, there are a surprising number of blogs by, for, and about seniors. They are quite often frank, intelligent, and very thought-provoking. They can not only make for fascinating reading, but they can often make you chuckle, cry, and pray. One huge favorite blog that publishes links to many others is Ronni Bennett’s Time Goes By A visit to Ronni’s site is always worthwhile.

The Internet presents all of these facilities and more. It has become an indispensable part of our lives. You should encourage any of your friends that are not involved to take a free course at the library. They may feel uncomfortable at first, but they will thank you profusely later.

NB. Click below to make a comment. Even better, expand on the original article by going to wikiSenior and clicking on ‘edit’.

Older citizens have seen a lot of new technology both come and go. Television, digital computers, digital cameras, digital anything, fax machines, scanners, the Internet, Betamax, VCR’s, DVD’s, cell phones, blackberries, iPods, and tweets. The list could go on and on.

Although it has changed, from party-line to private, rotary dial to touch tone, analog to digital, and wired to wireless, the old ‘home’ telephone has been one of the few constant technologies that has been with us throughout our lives. Telephones could always be relied upon. In the trade, they called it five-nines, i.e. 99.999%, reliable. There are no dead zones to break the connection of a wired ‘home’ phone, and it often still works whenever a house loses its electric power.

But mankind isn’t satisfied to leave things alone. So -

• wireless phones were introduced to the home. It was nice to be free of the cord, but now service is lost whenever you lose power.
• phone connections changed. New area codes, satellite and Internet connections, and fixed long distance charges have become the new standards.
• cell phones are replacing the ‘home’ phone. That social anchor called the ‘home’ phone is being abandoned for the ‘personal’ cell phone in many homes.
• payments for phone usage have never been more varied.

Although most seasoned citizens are keeping their reliable ‘home’ phone, change keeps intruding.

• In addition to the local telephone company, the cable company and others may offer the service.
• With an Internet connection, you can use skype or Vonage to route your calls directly over the Internet.
• Typically, long distance calling is bundled together with local calling for a flat monthly fee. How long you talk is no longer an issue.
• Now, you own your own phones, and you must buy and set them up yourself. The features and choices can become quite confusing.
• Internet and television services can also be bundled together with your phone service.

Most people don’t make a change until they must. If you must, however, what is a reasonable approach?

1. Service Provider -

• Because of the Internet, your choices have expanded. Often, you are not limited to the local franchise, e.g. Verizon, you can also consider other providers like Vonage, Earthlink, or Comcast.
• The simplest way to find out what choices your have for your home is to go to White Fence, a web site that searches the Internet for all of your options. All you have to do is enter your home address.
• Another search service is Connect My Phone, but is not as comprehensive.

2. Telephone Sets -Typically, you now have to buy your own phone. There are a wide variety available - wired, wireless, multi-line, answering machines, etc. To help with this decision, go to any of the price comparison sites, e.g.

• BizRate,
• NexTag, or
• Deal Time.

These sites can give you a sense of the variety available and their costs. However, if you want local support, don’t forget the local Radio Shack or Sears.

If you know that you’ll have to make a change at some time in the near future, don’t wait to do your research. The last thing you want to do is be without a phone!

NB. Click below to make a comment. Even better, expand on the original article by going to wikiSenior and clicking on ‘edit’.

You can have an American Express card and “never leave home without it.” Or you can have a Master Card because its “priceless.” To me, I think my local library card is worth more.

While Google, which is as close as your keyboard, has replaced the library as the first place to start research, your local library also has a fair amount of information and resources readily available. Unlike Google, it offers a tactile experience as you peruse the stacks in an area of interest that might have just occurred to you. For example -

• SIC catalogs for businesses
• Consumer Reports archives
• Numerous magazine archives
• Today’s newspapers, as well as last week’s
• How to manuals on innumerable topics
• A wide range of entertaining fiction
• Informative non-fiction
• DVD’s of a variety of movies and documentaries, and recently
• Downloads of recent publications for your Kindle, etc.

Of course, if you do have a Google itch that you must scratch, computers are stationed there just waiting to address that need. And for these computers, someone else worries about maintaining the anti-virus software. You don’t have to.

Our local library not only offers all these treasures, it provides quiet, comfortable niches in which to nestle and enjoy. Often, it can seem like a little vacation just to stop by for a couple of hours, browse for awhile, discover a new book or author, and park in an easy chair to devour the first few chapters. Our local library may not serve coffee, but one cozy corner does even boast a fireplace.

All these treasures, both near at hand and free. Your local library truly is a treasure. If you want a treat, discover it again this week.

NB. Click below to make a comment. Even better, expand on the original article by going to wikiSenior and clicking on ‘edit’.

It seems like five minutes ago that digital photography was the new, expensive kid on the block. Now, digital is mainstream and film photography is becoming the oddity. As for cost, $10 bought me a small digital camera for my grandchildren six months ago, and incredibly, it is still working.

Digital cameras have matured. No longer do manufacturers promote MP, i.e. megapixels, as the be all and end all of quality. They have grown beyond that superficial measure, as noted by the press. Reasonable cameras now are available at a wide range of prices, and their operation has become simpler. There are cameras that anyone can operate.

There are a number of very good digital cameras that you can truly point-and-shoot. The biggest negative difference from film cameras is that there is a slight shutter delay of a second or two between pointing and shooting. The biggest positive difference is that you can see your picture right away and delete anything you don’t like. Overall, you travel home with better pictures of treasured memories.

Finding your camera might require a little research, but there is a lot of information waiting for you. For example,

• The Camera Buying Guide by Consumer Reports is a good place to start.
• CNET provides a wide number of reviews on individual cameras, including the point-and-shoot variety.
• DP Review is more for the hard core enthusiast, but their tracking of the best sellers and individual camera reviews can help prevent surprises.
• Steve’s Site also has helpful reviews of specific cameras.

After you do your research, go to the store and feel them in your hand. You may find that a highly rated camera is uncomfortable for you to hold or too bulky for you to carry. You’ll definitely miss the shot if the camera is home in the drawer.

Once you have your camera, you have more choices for your memories than you once did.

1. If you are adverse to computers, you can bring your chip to any number of drug and discount stores for printing, just like in the old days. There are no negatives, but you can still store your photos in the albums or shoe boxes you prefer.
2. If you do use computers and email, you can immediately share the photos by -

• directly attaching them to emails, or
• posting them to one of the many photo sharing sites like Flickr, which is free, or Kodak Gallery which charges a fee.

Once you have had a lot of fun using the camera for a few months, go back and read over the directions once again. You’ll be surprised at all the features it offers. I’ve done that review a few times, and I’m still learning. It may be a bit of a challenge, but the memories you capture are more than ample reward.

NB. Click below to make a comment. Even better, expand on the original article by going to wikiSenior and clicking on ‘edit’.

A Bliki or a Wiklog?

A Mediawiki - WordPress integration sounds like computer globbly-gook. It is. None the less, that is what has been going on at wikiSenior for the past few weeks. No new posts, no new topics, no new links - just computer plumbing.

The intent behind that plumbing is to create a more comfortable computer environment that would appeal to a wider audience. The wiki format offers a visitor far more complete facilities than a blog - the “edit” tab provides full authoring and edit capabilities, the “discussion” tab permits comments just like a blog, and the indices and links allow for easy access through the site.

But all that functionality can become intimidating. The more familiar feel of a blog, together with its simple format for comments, can make that format far more appealing to many people.

As a consequence, wikiSenior is in the process of becoming a combination of both. Call it a Bliki or a Wiklog.

• The Wikipedia look of the wiki is gone. It has been revised and softened to look more like the blog.
• The Blog, StillClickin, will link more easily to the wiki.
• The Topic Index, located within the Navigation Box, will be one click away for both, with a (blog view) link provided for every appropriate topic.

The idea is to make access to individual topics more readily available while permitting your own entries to use either the blog or wiki format.

So, whether you call it a Wiklog or a Bliki, welcome back. The plan is to have all of these functions finalized before Spring warms our spirits. Thanks for your participation.

NB. Click below to make a comment. Or, if you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.

Last month, before I went “under the knife”, my surgeon asked if I had any questions. I know I mumbled a few things, but I really felt stupid. Everyone tells you that, in this day and age, you must become your own advocate. It is your obligation to learn about what is going on and become involved with and knowledgeable about the process.

I confess. I didn’t do any of that. I was raised in an era where you trusted your doctor to give you the best care and physical pain was something you absorbed stoically. That style is not PC today, but it seems to be how I always react after I turn over the Medicare card.

In hindsight, although I can’t abandon my “boys don’t cry” orientation, becoming informed doesn’t mean that I consider the doctor my adversary. It simply means that I can be a better patient. I need to be aware and provide proper feedback to help the medical professionals provide the quality of care that they want to deliver.

That said, where do you go to learn enough to ask intelligent questions? In today’s world, that means the Internet. The following sites I found after my surgery seem to offer a sufficiently broad range of information to help with the most common health questions.

• The Google Search Engine - This is an obvious place to start looking, but you need to enter your search criteria carefully, not logically. Start with the most important word first and place the following words in decreasing importance. E.g. surgery heart ventricle left, rather than heart surgery of left ventricle. Google led me to The British Medical Journal, which I never would have found on my own.

• WebMD - This is the granddaddy of Internet medical information sites and is quite comprehensive. However, it is broad, rather than deep, so you might want to use it to make sure you are using the correct terms before you dig deeper. It is a commercial site, so you will see a lot of ads.

• The Mayo Clinic - You have to bounce around this site to locate everything you are looking for, but the information goes much deeper. It would be helpful if the site offered more graphics.

• The Merck Manual of Medical Information - This is a well organized resource that has extensive information as well as helpful graphics. It is very easy to navigate through this site. Its inclusion of associated topics can help expand the scope of your search.

• RN Central List of 100 Health Sites - Leave it to the nurses to reach out and lend a hand. They have done just that with a list of 100 health and wellness sites for seniors. These sites not only deal with health, but with aging as well. The RN Central site is actually a place on the web for nurses, but they created this list specifically as a help for seniors.

• The National Health Information Center - A site oriented more toward living a healthy lifestyle than information on diseases. This is a US government service. It has no commercial aspect.

• Tips for Understanding Medical Information - This site contains some guidance from the University of Connecticut about how to deal with all of the medical information that we encounter in today’s world. It’s a dose of common sense.

Hope this has been helpful. Click below to make a comment. Or, if you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.

Personally, I hate web squiggles almost as much as I can’t stand the labels they now put on fruit. I don’t know about you, but I find these jumbles of numbers and letters relatively difficult to decipher. Placed there, right when you want to finalize a transaction or a comment, you are given a challenge test in graphics. Half the time, I fail that test. (Thankfully, they give you another chance.) I’m told by the doctors that my eyesight is reasonably good, but the lines through the characters often make the identification hard to determine. I simply get it wrong.

The web squiggles are placed there to determine if this message or comment happens to involve a human being. Professional spammers use computers to spread their garbage around the net. (Note: Sometimes, they can even enlist our own computers to do the nasty deed, especially if we are linked to the web for any length of time.) The spammers have not yet figured out how to program their way around the squiggles, and there are still enough unprotected sites that they don’t have to.

This blog used to be hosted by blogger, but their introduction of squiggles was one of the reasons I decided to leave and host the site independently. This past week, I faced the squiggles decision once again when our companion site, wikiSenior.com, endured another spam attack.

Wiki sites are extremely vulnerable to spam because they are structured to allow anyone on the web to add a comment or entire article. That openness makes them sitting ducks for spammers. At first, the wiki was forced to ask people to register, albeit using any name they could conceive. (Donald Duck is still available.) But the spammers leapt that hurdle.

Now, just about every spam block has been placed on the wiki site . . . except for squiggles. The squiggles are all programmed and ready to go, but I just couldn’t take that step without trying a more gentle challenge first. You are very welcome to add your insights and experiences to wikiSenior.com, but permit me to apologize for the intrusion of challenge tests.

If anyone has heard of other options for blocking spam, I’m all ears. Thanks for your interest.

This has been a very frustrating week! The automated spam engines are on the attack once again. This time, their attack is deliberately targeted toward wiki sites.

Readers of StillClickin know that another facet of this web site offers WikiSenior, a collaborative senior lifestyle guide. The purpose of WikiSenior is to provide an organized Internet space that permits seniors to freely share their insights on the joys and frustrations that they face at this time in their lives. The index of topics is diverse, and the ease of entry is fairly straightforward. The software is deliberately structured to be welcoming. Unfortunately, that makes it a sitting duck for spammers.

If you are starting a new Internet site, there are a number of firms that offer to boost your ratings with the search engines. They do this by placing a link to this new Internet site on every other site they can locate that will accept it. Essentially, they are stealing the hosting services and infrastructure of the site they invade. When a search engine such as Google crawls through the invaded site, they will note the URL and raise its ranking.

At first, WikiSenior was open for contributions from anyone, even anonymous users. When new porn and drug sites seemed to appear on the site every morning, anonymous users had to be cut off. Only registered users could make postings to the site.

Recognizing that, the spammers now have a new program that will automatically register hundreds of wiki users at a time. They then slip “contributions” by these users containing scads of URL’s into every wiki site they can find. Interestingly, they even follow proper wiki formatting.

Every wiki site administrator has to remove each of these new “users” one-by-one. Last week, WikiSenior received about 500 “users”, so this administrator had no choice but to shut off all new users. Obviously, that is totally contrary to its purpose.

What comes next is a question mark. If anyone has any novel ideas, I’m listening. Frustrated, but listening.

Whether you have a daughter traveling around the globe, a son and his family living on the opposite coast, or a longtime friend in another city that loves a long chat, Skype is a service that you should consider. Last night, we talked to our daughter in South America, and it was great the hear her voice. Of course, there is always email or plain, old long distance, but Skype is a new alternative.

With Skype, you are talking through an Internet connection from one computer to another. The advantages -

• The price (free) is right for everyone’s budget.
• If you have a video camera, you can even see the people at the other end on your computer screen. And,
• It is extremely easy to use.

Slight disadvantages that were noticed -

• There is a greater delay in the switch between speaking and listening, but you seem to quickly adapt to the rhythm of the conversation.
• You need to have a microphone and headset to plug into the computer. You can purchase a reasonable headset pair together with a video camera for about $40.

The wonder is that it works as well as it does. For the free service, you both have to be at the computer at the same time, but we found that it was reasonably easy to schedule that ahead of time via email. (There is also a method to place a call from the computer directly to a telephone, but there is a slight charge for that service.)

To use Skype, the technical requirements are -

• a PC with 400 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM, 10 MB free disk space, a sound card, and Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, or Linux, - OR -
• a Mac G4 800 Mhz and above, any G5 or any Intel processor, 512MB RAM, 40 MB free disk space, and OS X v10.3.9 Panther or newer,
• an Internet Connection - either dial-up: minimum 33.6 Kbps modem, or any broadband: cable or DSL (you need the broadband for the video),
• a microphone and speakers or headset, and
• the Skype software which you can download for free from Skype

That is the entire deal! If you are intimidated by the technology, have one of your grandchildren set it up for you. Once it’s there, it is very easy to enjoy. You’ll love it! And the price is certainly right!

NB. Click below to make a comment. Or, if you would prefer to make an enhancement to the original article, please go to wikiSenior and click on edit.