A long time ago I heard for the first time the concept of Point of Sales systems when I was asked by a relative to do some research on the systems he could use for his line of shops. After this initial contact with the subject I have touched this domain a couple of times during my years as a consultant.

As soon as you dive into this world (possibly if you are asked to advise on the choice of a Point of Sales system) you will quickly get to know the common requirements: a terminal, a bar code reader, a magnetic stripe reader, wireless inventory collection devices, point of sale keyboards, receipt printers, integration with the back office financial systems and so on, and so on.

You will also find out there are countless products, solutions and suppliers of Point of Sales systems.

Now I found a very interesting company: Vision Point of Sale, one of the fastest growing POS companies and known for refurbished gear (used point of sale equipment).

They carry and support a HUGE amount of pos products like ibm pos equipment and NCR point of sale equipment to name two big names (obviously ibm is the premier choice). However if you can see on the website the list of supported products is near endless (very valuable list if you are diving in the subject). Both new and refurbished gear are custom configured and certified with 1 to 3 years of warranty. So this could offer a very good solution next to the option of buying everything new.

Obviously almost any customer would like pos services along with the equipment and Vision Point of Sale also excels in this: installation, staging, deployment, maintenance (from totally insourced to completely outsourced), life-cycle upgrades and even downsizing and uninstallation of pos equipment and assets.

I’m glad I run into this company, they even buy used POS hardware and we can request a quote directly from the website. If you are working in this field or have contacts who are on a regular basis asking your advice on POS equipment, procedures or services and consultancy then this Vision POS should be in your shortlist as it is now in mine.

At VisionBedding you can personalize your beds, I don’t know if that sounds cliche in this time of personalization of your inventory but a quick look around the website reveals enough visual clues to your brain to set yourself to action and creativity on designing your own beds.

your own photo or design Via photo’s or digital design you upload to the website you can completely personalize you beds: mattrass, pillows, duvet and duvet covers and bedspreads. Actually, tonight, when you will look at your bed you will look at it in a total different way: you will see an empty canvas, ready for your ideas!

As I said, It triggered in my mind when I actually surfed around the website and some designs of customers of VisionBedding on the actual possibilities.

If you are an artist yourself you can upload your own designs and sleep under it You could have a big hobby or just a playboy model you love and want to sleep under *grin*.

costs So, as a typical Dutch person: what would be the cost to create my own bed? A pillow costs $60, A blanket costs $80 and a complete bedding costs $ 275. and that Is not much if you know how much design linnen costs and read about the quality: deyed into the fabric, so it does not alter the fabric texture, does not feed meaning you can wash it likes any other pillow cover, blanket and bedding.

I really really think this site is extremely cool. And fortunately because of the euro-dollar conversion rate at the moment, this is a great opportunity for me to gather my photographs and make my son a real cool I love daddy pillow

p.s. It’s also a great site to really match your bedding with your new bedroom decoration and wallpaper (!)
p.p.s. It’s also great for someone who leaves for a trip, to give him or her a pillow to think of you (!)

Lately my wife and me were discussing the topic of generating an additional revenue stream for our household. Actually we were thinking of combining a hobby (since we have an atelier in the back garden with no purpose yet)  with some minor income streams attached to make it interesting and not a complete structured way of losing time.

My eye fell on making watches (since a good watch idea can make a lot of money) and therefore I sought out to look for watch hobby tools. In the page 10 Essential Tools For The Watchmaker’s Toolkit (which I found via this watch article) I found a wealth of background information. Apparently there is a whole world of concepts and terms I have never heard before, which, in itself, makes it pretty interesting to dive into this topic.

So what do you think is needed for making your own watch? Do you think of screwdrivers, a glass and some electronics? Think again, you will need pliers, polishing cloths, staking tools, gaskets, de-magnetizers, tweezers and a LOT of more stuff. It’s like the stuff you need to build a house but then on a 5cmx5cm area. But apart from the tools needed, actually I think it would be a sort of ZEN but a very rewarding since you can completely use your full creativity in making watches.

Just think of making revenue in niche markets for watches e.g. a casino watch (as in the picture) or any other hot topic, heck, I could even create merchandise watches on the fly for companies or trendy buzzes that fly over the Internet. There is a lot of money in this and basically I think it would be a very cool thing to do.

Let’s make a short list to see if I can convince myself:

a. The space needed is 1 desk, which basically could fit in our atelier
b. We can acquire all tooling needed from the list mentioned in watch hobby tools
c. We can would work any creative idea and make several showcases
d. Inventory does not take much place and furthermore shipping is just a box
e. We could sell them via any marketplace like e-bay
f. There is a great shortage of watchmakers, the U.S. needs 4000 watchmakers as most of them are retiring
g. It would be great for me to create actual physical things instead of virtual software (”ZEN”)
h. Watch exports grew this year with 13%

The only downside is that we would need to invest a) in “learning new skills”, but then again, this is my daily practice and b) buy screwdrivers and other materials as listed above, but the costs could be striped away to the income generated.

I recently read that there are now 1.000.000.000 people online, which makes it an enormous market. I also read that many people expect that online shops will eventually replace all “real” shops.

The online shops are so numerous that a new layer of Web sites is born. The meta e-business layer. This layer consist out of Web sites that compare items on many shops, for example lowest price, catalogues of discount codes and so on.

Coupon Chief is a Web site that contains hundreds of discount codes of all kinds of e-shops.

I do not know if you have ever bought something online. In many cases there is a textbox, in the shopping-cart “paying area”, which allows you to enter a “discount code”. If you are like me, you never fill it in because uhm… I don’t have one. At the same time it could save me $10, $20 or more if I had one.

Here is where coupon chief comes in, where Blogsvertise gave me a chance to write about.

Coupon Chief does the thing you need when you shopping online: It collects discount codes and promotions. You can browse by store and by category such as apparal for men and electronics which makes it a great start for shopping saturday.

I am someone who really buys a lot of stuff online. So I really enjoyed surfing through all these different kinds of shops, each of them containing another mix of interesting items.

If you are in the shopping mood, or if you just want to browse shops, or if you are looking for a specific discount for specific products, drop on by at the Coupon Chief, great site.

Here is another nice business opportunity for the moment: selling  Sunglasses. Somehow this product is always good for a good sale. In whatever sunny country I have been on holiday, on thing is always the same: people selling replica Sunglasses.

What do customers want? Cheap replica’s of designer sunglasses, to name a few: Gucci, Diesel, Armani, Versace, Vogue, Adidas,  Dolce & Gabanna, Ralph Lauren, Locs, Revo, Anarchy and more.

Where do you buy them? First of all a supplier that delivers them dirt cheap e.g. Wholesale Sunglasses where you can get a dozen Sunglasses for around the $20-$30. Meaning one pair of sunglasses will cost you about $2.50. 

How do you sell them? To your friends, on the markt or ofcourse… online! Try e-bay, marktplaats, or even your own websites. What I would do is sell them for about 500%. So charge $10 for a pair of replica Gucci sunglasses. You will make gold. If you would buy more dozens you get ofcourse volume  discounts so you could even improve your margin on this one. In average you make $8.25 profit per pair of Sunglasses.

Isnt this illegal? No, since the sunglasses are not exact copies its allowed. See the FAQ.

Hmm….but I would also need a nice stand with a mirror and such… Wholesale Sunglasses sells lots of stands too, starting from $20.

Hmm…but I think I would to like my customers to have the boxes and cords and such to go along with the Sunglasses… Check out the accesoires section, you will find cases, cords, sunglass repair kits, visor clips and sunglass straps.

Hmm… but I also want non designer Sunglasses… sure! what about Kid’s sunglasses (maybe for your Kid’s website), poker sunglasses, polarized ones, sport sunglasses, plastic sunglasses, exclusive own design sunglasses, you name it, you have all the options.

Don’t tell me I didn’t tell you!

Everyone has a mailbox (and I mean the physical one, you nerd). That’s funny isn’t it? Have you ever just sat down and thought about “mailboxes”? When did they become invented? Did the neanderthalers had mailboxes in their caves? When did the Postal Services became so mixed in all of our lives that having a mailbox is somehow so essential that without it you are non-existent to the country you live in?

And so what you would expect is that “the mailbox” is a concept in itself. And also that there exist a wide variety of mailboxes and that even some mailboxes will tell something about the owner (either the company or the person). It’s a business on it’s own.

So…which one do YOU have? For me, A boring little rectangle hole in my door…sigh… Time to look for something special! What is the “rolex”, the “Weber” or the “rolls royce” under the mailboxes? What would be “me”?

So (ofcourse) I went to the Mailbox Exchange since they have over 1500 mailboxes and curbside decor products from dozens of manufacturers. I scrolled through the many mailboxes on the site since I was thinking myself on placing one of these in our garden. The list is amazing! To indicate to you on what I am talking about I will discuss some of the mailboxes.

The one you see on the left is called the Curbvault High Security box. Holy cow… this is the most coolest mailboxes I have ever seen in my life. When you click the link you get to see the movie(!). There are 32 patents on this mailbox and this thing absolutely 100% secures your e-mail mail from the moment that it is delivered to you, it is undestructable! How jealous can I make someone when this beast is in my garden? Will the postman pray to me when he walks by? Will he be happy and have a smile when he starts his day because he has a chance to operate the Curbvault High Security box?

The one to the top right is the Mayne & Salsbury Black Signature Plus Mailbox which is very nice because you combine it with flowers! On the page there is a nice instruction on how to “plant” it in your garden. I think this is a very very nice mailbox for in the front garden. It just blends in with the flowers.

Herunder are some more options I thought about, under each picture of the mailboxes I placed the link to the productpage on which you can find much more background information. 

And some more I was thinking about since they are SO beautiful:

Well…I am not finished with my selection, if you are looking for some nice models or ideas for your own place then check the mailbox exchange like I did.

In about 1 week my vacation starts… finally! So…basically our plan was to stay at home and do some refurbishing. However, then I saw an advertisement for Hawaiian beach rentals with stunning pictures as above! After some surfing we decided to check out Kauai, the fourth largest and oldest of the Hawaiian Islands, read below why, hint: did you ever wonder where on this planet the fantastic Island of Jurassic Park was…? !

At the same time we read press articles on how renting villa’s becomes more popular than these massive hotels and how ecotourism in Hawaii is growing. So the combination of this made us enthousiastic on maybe going to Hawaii.

After some investigation we found some writings on Jeff Berzolla and Charles Koehl who own Hawaiian Beach Rentals. (I linked their linkedin profiles for you social networking maniacs, here is Charles Koehl’s EtherScape). And viewing throughout their site we were overwhelmed with the cozy luxery villa’s at a very affordable price. E.g. Annie’s, a cozy studio vacation rental, in the heart of Hanelie Town, Kauai, costs $72 a night.

There are lots of villa’s for rent, at the higher end we found the Hale Pukana La Princeville, a 3 bedroom Villa for max 10 people, 3 full bathrooms, fantastisc ocean view, jacuzi tub, bbq, 2 car garage and the lot,close by you can do golfing, snorkling, swimming, scuba diving, tours of the coast, tennis, kayaking, helicopter tours, etc. This looks like heaven on earth or better “Robin’s Nest”

The picture below is the panorama

With the coming father’s day, I went out to see what I could expect for my second father’s day and give my wife some hints

Via smorty I discovered delightful deliviries, it’s the #1 site for gift baskets and gourmet gifts. The products they deliver are nothing I have ever seen before.

Just imagine the stuff you get on father’s day on your birthday: most of the time not the stuff you are waiting for. However, delightful deliveries has the gifts I, for one, would be amazingly happy to get. I want to give you some examples and you decide if you would like to receive them or not. I think I can only describe the gifts you can choose here for your relations by giving some examples.

The sigar of the month: in the past Cohiba, Fuente, Partagas, Ashton & Punch to name a few. Even if you do not smoke, please realize that you would make ME very happy with a gift like this. I am in heaven just smoking a good sigar in the evening. It’s delightful to get one every month.	The beerpackages, a great idea for guys liking all these rare and wonderful beers. This particular beer package contains 6 assorted beers, but they have a wide range of options. This is a GREAT gift to get!
The Heartfelt Thanks gift basket: Includes: caviar, smoked salmon, water crackers, cheese swirls, California pistachios, creamy brie cheese, toffee biscotti, peanut butter creams, cabernet chocolate blueberries, Ghirardelli chocolate, salami and a chocolate biscotti bar. All are stylishly arranged and tied with a big indigo bow. Stunning!	My mind would freeze when I would be unpacking the Smokehouse Buffet Tower. It contains mussels, oysters, salmon, sockeye, pate, king, keta. This reminds me of the day I ordered the big seafood tower in a restaurant in the west of France. I sat there for 3 hours just having the time of my life. Wow.

There so many occasions in a year that I want to send someone a gift: the regular anniversaries, weddings, but also when someone is the hospital or if I just want to say thank you. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a shop like this one. It’s even a joy to click through the shop and be amazed at the gifts they carry. It’s… quality. It’s also a gift you know for sure that the person who is receiving will enjoy to it’s utmost.

I was asked to write a review but have a hard time just abstracting over the categories, since I could write a special review on each of their products.

baked goods – Let me start with the baked goods category and then just take a random one: the Mrs. Beasley’s Chocolate Truffle Golf Balls: this is absolutely stunning quality. For a person who plays golf this must be the ultimate gift, he will probably worship the ground I walk on from the day I send him this gift. The bakery baskets contain 4 pages of handmade gifts made of the finest ingredients found anywhere. Each and every single item is stunning. Then there are 2 pages of options in the category brownies. I know there are a lot of relations who would be very happy to get a box of brownies of this quality as shown on the right. Each of the gifts is special e.g. in this case the recipient can keep the box to store items in later. The cakes category consists of 5 pages of cakes. And the cakes involved are superior. I often order cakes via the Internet, e.g. when I have my birthday and I want to treat my collegeas. However the cakes shown here are of a totally different order. These are NOT the simple fabric made “cakes with fruit” I use to order. Just take a peek and tell me if you don’t get hungry when you see them. Then there is the cookie gallery with 20 pages of simply artful cookies. Fantastic Cookie creations d’art for mothers day, friends, birthdays or even corporate gifts. The tarts and bakery section is short, but I need you to take a look at Lady Fortunes spring Gourmet baklava assortment: 50 layers of paper-thin phyllo dough and filled with a delectable assortment of super-premium walnuts, cashews, pine nuts and pistachios!

candy and chocolate – The candy and chocolate category is also interesting. I read that chocolate gifts are becoming a trend to give and send. The category contains candy, candy covered apples, chocolate, chocolate covered strawberries, and popcorn. The chocolate covered strawberries were featured in Ophra’s mag and are created by Shar’s berries who has as a mission to create world’s greatest gourmet dipped strawberries. I think you just have to see this section. Any gift in these sections would bring a broad smile to the receiving party.

gourmet meals – The gourmet meals consists of dinners, premium meals, seafood and soups.  What is nicer than to send someone who is sick the “Grandma get well soon chicken soup“? I think this is a great idea actually, it’s…funny! The meals are great for sending. They will have fun unpacking… and then creating the perfect dinner. I think it’s great when my friend would call how he likes the Magnificent Milano Gift Set or just fruit boxes and nuts. They also offer the fruit club and the Organic Fruit Club: Every month you get a selection of the best organic fruit. This may be a very good gift for our vegetarian friends!  I myself wouldn’t mind to receive the penthouse tower white wine collection. The names are obviously created to already give you but most important the receiver this special feeling of getting an exclusive gift. This shop has succeeded very well in at least giving me that exclusive gift feeling.

special gift baskets – They also care a wide range of specific gift baskets e.g. the baby gift baskets, the coffee and tea gift sets (among which other the rishi tea ceremony: A beautifully handcrafted bamboo tea table houses an exquisite white clay teapot, a sharing pitcher, teacups, a bamboo scoop, and an Oriental Beauty oolong tea that is so rare and fragrant we have named it Plum Blossom. Each element is encased in a silk-lined compartment.), hot sause, salsa and bbq, the spa and relaxation gifts (these are always a hit when you give them to a special one, however… personally I think these gifts are now somewhat cliche, then again, it’s always a safe choice) and many more specific gift baskets which you will discover when you travel through the site.  

monthly clubs – Delightful deliveries also offers you to give a monthly gift. Personally I think that is really great to give since you not just give someone a one-time gift but remind them each month of your special relation. The monthly gifts has a wide range of options, I already mentioned the sigar club but just check out the nuttie cookie’s club, the hot sauce club or the pasta of the month club to name a few.

Apart from their corporate gift section (why may come in very handy for me personally) they have easily grouped some of their products for occasions like fathers day (hint), birthdays or housewarmings.

And … if you are wondering if they not only ship to the United States (free packaging, next day delivery)… yes! Here is the list. It will take you to a special site for your country, e.g. the netherlands. On this Dutch section I discovered something that I always wanted to have: the chess game with shot glasses but what to think of the Duvel beer and chocolates or the chocoholics package? Oh men…I’m going to spend a lot of money here!

In summary: this is a shop that belongs in anyone’s bookmarks. I don’t know if there are any other gift shops around which offer these terrific quality gifts.

A long time ago I blogged how wonderful it would be if we would have affordable digital picture frames. I must have some blood of Nostradamus since the past years these items have come on the market.

Via smorty I was able to review an online electronic store which offers a multitiude of digital picture frames. (so a disclaimer: I get $6 to review the site). They have a range of digital photo frame’s: 7”, 8”,9” and 10” (18 cm, 20 cm, 23 cm and 25 cm). There must be a lot of males ordering since the top selling item is “the biggest” (10”)  The shop is called digitalframez.

The digital frames sold here are, in contrary to others sold on the web, very good quality. The digital picture frame has a wooden high quality frame, has mpeg and jpeg playback and and even a built in speaker for playback! It’s like a mini tv (and yes even a earphone connection if you want to listen quietly to your movies).

Furthermore it has a build in slot for basically all supported memory cards: CF/XD/MS/SD/MMC, which means it will work with basically any memory card used by any digital camera and… it has a remote control (infra-red). Which means that you could make your photo’s, and when you come home you just insert the memory card in the digital frame whereafter you can site back and show your family and friend directly the photo’s you shot via the remote control and… everyone is watching the digital photo frame! It also offers USB support so you could hook up any usb device also.

The electronic shop itself is superb. All the things which are in my fairly critical checklist of a shop are covered, basically because they use the out-of-the-box ashop software. You can track your order, help is provided via e-mail and promises a reaction within 24 hours and they offer full warrenty. They also have their phone number right on the front of the site which is absolutely great, I really like that in shops. However: please note that you have to indicate to include the full warrenty since if anything goes wrong during shipping it will not insured if you haven’t ticked that box!

Help and further reading material and tools are also available including a set of handful tool that will fit more photo’s on your memory card. I read that the electronic frames ship worldwide.

Last but not least: the price: if I take the most expensive one in the shop: the 10” wooden frame, it is advertised as €147 (AND you get a 128mb memory card for free), if I compare this with e.g. the 8” frame on Amazon (here) you see this costs $150 without the audio playback, without remote control and 2” less! So the prices are also very sharp for the quality you get.

I hope this helps you when you are looking for a digital picture frame.

What is the best place online to book a hotel in Amsterdam, the Netherlands?

A while ago, even though I live here, I was looking for good online website with hotel information for hotels in Amsterdam since we wanted to book a night as a surprise for my parents who live in the south of the Netherlands. I really had a hard time finding a good website and in the end I just asked my wife to book it at her traveling agency. Obviously when your wife does not work at a traveling agency…you better find the best online place to find the hotel. This week I got a proposal from ReviewMe to do a paid review of an Amsterdam Hotels online bookings site, which I did, together with my wife. Although it is not needed, we both concluded (she is the expert!) that this website is an excellent one: low prices, very good layout, many pictures and very trustworthy (online leader of online bookings in Europe). So I decided yes, I’m going to share this treasure with you.

1. Easy to use, clean, and many pictures – We’ve done our share of traveling and I remember the vacation days, surfing in Asian internetshops for the hotel of the next day, where I particularly liked the ones where I really could see the hotel and got as much information on it as needed including location. This website offers this, it was the first my wife remarked: many clear pictures, very good! It also offers everything on one page, which is very handy when  you are at a place during travel with a low-bandwidth connection, per hotel just a one page overview. A wealth of information on the hotel including the location on the map and interesting sights in the direct neighborhood and … customer reviews so you can see what the opinions were of other visitors, often a good indication: the average score of visitors versus the stars. As a nerd I also noticed it has a good SEO title tag in the header, so it will be easy to find in your bookmarks, shows good page design, giving me also a positive feeling (note also that the tabs are jumps to anchors on the same page, smart design, compliments).

2. Lowest prices and reservations are free of charge incl. cancellations – Since Eurobookings is the market leader of online reservations in Europe you get the lowest prices (hint!).  Also: they have really thought it through: what we want is to book online but then just pay the hotel as we do normally, no reservation fees, no cancellation fees and if you want to negotiate with the hotel for lower prices, you can, since you just click to reserve the hotel and then act as you normally would do. (I am always to scared to do this but  my wife is a real champion, she really really is, I could post dozens of stories on this which would amaze you, she is ruthless lol!) (just kidding… in case she reads this… ), So no payments online! You do have to enter your credit card information since they will use this to guarantee your booking, if you have done any traveling you know this is common use in all countries with all hotels. I think the concept of empowering you and giving you the full freedom is a neat idea.

3. Trustworthy – For me this is important for an online site, I don’t know if this is the case for you. The following factors give me trust in this company: a) they are the marketleader in Europe b) they are in business since 1996 c) they offer secure bookings and my personal info is encrypted d) they have the items, me the nerd, always looks into on sites where I give my personal information or creditcard info: privacy statement, terms and conditions and company info and what I read is very good: they only share my personal information with the hotel and under no condition with any other company, they work completely under strict European Privacy laws. The day you arrive in the hotel they destroy all credit card information. You can even send them an e-mail requesting the information they have online. Seriously just take the average 10 webshops and compare their privacy pages and terms and condition pages with this one. It’s really an excellent job which shows professionalism (I worked for some years on a large public website and we had our own writer and juridical persons providing these texts, the texts found here are really good.). If you are a seasoned websurfer or websitebuilder just judge these texts for yourself, amazingly clear. It gave me the idea to provide you with some in the footer of this blog also.

4. Good support – if you have been “working” in any support organization for a longer time you can see the signs of an experienced support organization. One of the signs is bragging about the years of experience and the other one is an extensive FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). They offer both, and an e-mail address for all your support questions. FAQ’s are created because people in support organizations get so crazy with answering the  same question multiple times a day that they want to find a way of somehow just redirect users to the questions that are asked most. For support staff this means they can concentrate on only the specific questions and for you and me, the users, that we have a handy list of looking up the questions without having to contact support, and learn new stuff!. When I look through the list I see items which give me a deja-vu when I was an inexperienced traveler, like “what’s the difference between a double room and a twin room” and “are the ratings per person or per room“. My wife usually gave me a “what a Noob” look when I asked these kind of questions. I also see the type of questions which make me give the “what a Noob” look to end-users e.g. “if you do not receive an email after you have completed the booking, it might be because your mailbox is full, your spam filter settings are too strict or you did not spell your email address correctly.”, hahaha, they must have loads of users spelling their e-mail address incorrectly. (I did notice however the spell e-mail as email which is not correct). I do wonder however why there is no phone number, this would be of use when being “on the road”, but obviously you can call the Hotel also directly for questions.

5. Quality hotels – the list includes all quality hotels in Amsterdam, including the hotel I booked for my parents:the Eden Rembrandt Square Hotel (this is my tip for you if you want to explore Amsterdam). Simply all good hotels of Amsterdam are in the catalogue from 5 stars to 1 star and in all price ranges (even the Stayokay Amsterdam Vondepark for €16). Note that the pull-down menu for sorting the list of hotels works well in Internet Explorer but (at least in my) Firefox doesn’t sort the list. It’s fun going through the hotels, which for me, in the Netherlands, and close to Amsterdam are mostly known, like the Okura, the little boutique hotel Vondel or the Krasnapolsky.

About Eurobookings – The Eurobookings team has been there since 1996, now with a team of 160 professionals to provide hotel bookings in the best possible way. They provide you with the a wealth of information, low prices due to the high volumes of reservations, free of charge reservation service, no canceling fee and no payments in advance. Meaning: you can still negotiate at the hotel and just pay as you normally do at the hotel! So… book the hotel, no charges and then just negotiate the price at the hotel and pay as you normally would do. That’s great, no hidden fees, low prices and the good feeling that you reserved via the market leader of online reservations in Europe.

Visit the Amsterdam hotels website of Eurobookings and start exploring the hotels of Amsterdam.

p.s. they also have wonderful hotelguide which is something worth browsing through when looking for a hotel in Europe. I added the blog to my RSS Reader!

When you now sign up with the IBM Press Website (free), you get an e-mail with an one-time discount code. It gave me 35% off the book I just ordered:

Visual Modeling with IBM® Rational® Software Architect and UML™

You can also read it online at Safari.

Basically don’t buy it if you are already an expert on either Rose, RSA or UML. However if you need to learn UML and RSA (e.g. as developer or architect) OR if you need to give courses and want to pick up some methods to teach students UML then this is an excellent book. It was a tip from some fellow Architect students during my Component Modelling courses. Here are some reviews.

Some weeks ago my smoke alarm went of WEEEEEP WEEEEP WEEEEP WEEEEP! I really ran upstairs in panic because it’s a HUGE noise. However… i didn’t detected any smoke and didn’t know how to turn it off (never read the manual and I the sound was so loud that I did not want to examine the device first) so I just kicked out the battery inside. That week someone (forget who) told me that if the battery runs low of the device it also goes WEEEP-ing! Aha! So I just need a new battery.

However… wouldn’t it be handy to have one that does not need a battery? Exactly such a device can be found here.

It is the Self Charging Smoke Alarm from Dupont (two types: either screw in or via wires), which you just can put inside the ceiling between the light socket and the lamp. It’s smart: switching the light on 2 times after each other test the alarm, switching the light on 3 times after each other stops any false alarm and gives the device a reset. And the creators thought of all the things which spring to mind: if the power is off, it still functions for 30 days. If after 30 days without power (! a major nuclear war for instance?) it still has no power then it starts beeping for attention. So that if you survive the nuclear war that you still can be sure that your house does not burn down. However… 30 days after the nuclear war you probably have gangs of raiders and thieves and the lot hunting down people like us, so let’s hope that it does not start beeping for attention after 30 days exactly when a gang of raiders then passes your house, because, yes, it will save you from a fire but then you will get killed (or worse) by the gang of raiders.

You need to have the “light turned on” for a minimum of 2 hours per week so that the battery packed is fully recharged every week. So if you use it at a space where there is a lamp anyhow which is turned on for 2 hours a week then there is no problem.

It also functions in a better temperature range than most certified regular alarms. Normally they are guaranteed to function starting at 5 degrees Celcius, this one is guaranteed to work (UL certification) even at -15 degrees Celcius. So that may be handy for some companies or inside an Iglo.

Another thing I found out while searching for this thing on Google is that it delivers a lot of interesting sites which I may visit more often. That’s a good  strategy anywayz, I don’t know if I have given you this tip before: look for topics or subjects on Google whenever you find something that you may want to blog about since you will find Bloggers who are “like you” or many other interesting sites. It also shows many gadget and home or life improvement sites where you can buy the product from Dupont above.

The “Angeleye” from Dupont is based on IONIZATION, which means that these type of smoke detecters detect fast flaming fires e.g. paper burning in a basket. However other type of smoke detectors are based on PHOTOELECTRIC detection, they are able to detect e.g. a cigarette smoldering in bedding. So you really should have both type of smoke alarms in your house for best protection! (why is there no device, self charging which is both based on IONIZATION AND PHOTOELECTRIC ?).

Anyhow this is the most interesting site I found while surfing for the smoke alarm:

firststreetsonline : innovation and technology, see it here first : they really have some cool stuff in their shop, many many many products where you will think: “hmmmm”. I spend like an hour on this site.

Mocht je eenzaam zijn tijdens de kerst: Op deze site type je je naam en je boodschap in en 4 bevallige giegelende cheerleaders doen een dansje voor je en cheeren je naam.

Hahaha! I am popular!

De site is onderdeel van de campagne rondom de introductie van het eerste 5 blade scheersysteem: de Gillette Fusion (nu ik toch aan het surfen was naar meer achtergrond info hierover).

“You’re so fine, dating you should be a crime” ahhh… ik wist dat ik er ondanks mijn 35e nog picobello uitzie

tip: type maar eens het woord “sex” als datgene waarna je op zoek bent… LOL! (of probeer “gillette”, “tv”, “beer”, “asking a girl out”, “taking out the trash”, “going on a job interview”, “being macho”, …

You think its crazy? It is crazy. But I dont give a shit. From now on, were the ones who have the edge in the multi-blade game. Are they the best a man can get? Fuck, no. Gillette is the best a man can get. (James Kilts, CEO Gillette) (satire)

Een jaartje geleden kocht ik de Gillette M3 Power (handig zo’n weblog) en tot op de dag van vandaag werkt dat ding erg goed, eigenlijk beter dan alles wat ik van tevoren gebruikt had.

Nu is er opvolger: de Gillette Fusion Power, een soort revolutie in het scheren, ik zou hem gekocht hebben maar ik ben via Buzzer geselecteerd, als 1 van de 1500 mensen die het product als eerste mogen testen. Vandaag ontving ik dus het (kerst)pakketje als hiernaast. Mooi! In het pakket zitten naast het nieuwe apparaat, de Gillette Fusion Hydra Gel,de Gillette Fusion After Shave Balsem, 5 extra Fusion Power mesjes, 10 collector item boekjes (oplage 15000 stuks, uitgebracht bij de introductie van de Fusion december 2006) en 3 folders met de achtergrond van het scheersysteem in leuke diagrammen en tabellen.

Ik sta te popelen om het te gaan testen en te vergelijken of het nog betere scheerresultaten geeft dan de M3Power, maar allereerst wat achtergrond: waarom moet je dit ding kopen?

1. 5 Mesjes ! Net zoals computers steeds meer op steeds kleinere oppervlaktes kunnen is het bij scheersysteempjes als dit zo dat er steeds meer mesjes op hetzelfde oppervlak kunnen met daarbij behorende verbeteringen in het scheren en dat ging van 2 mesjes (de G2) (1971) naar 3 mesjes (de Mach3) (1998) naar 4 mesjes (de Quattro) en dan nu… 5 mesjes op de Fusion (eigenlijk 6 zie volgende punt). Met andere woorden: dit dingetje is het top scheer gadget van het moment. Vanaf de verpakking “5 mesjes staan 30% dichter bij elkaar dan bij de Mach3. Hierdoor wordt de druk beter verdeeld en scheer je meer haartjes per scheerbeweging”. Uit onderzoek is gebleken dat het aantal mesjes minder belangrijk is voor een glad scheerresultaat of het comfort dan de ruimte ertussen (zoals mega pixels bij een camera). Echter, hoe dichter de mesjes op elkaar staan hoe minder druk op de huid en dus minder irritatie. Hoe beter de coating (toplaag) op de mesjes en hoe beter de mesjes trapsgewijs geplaatst zijn, hoe gladder je scheert. Het aantal van 5 is bedoeld om de druk beter te verdelen en dus voor meer comfort.

2. De nieuwe precisie trimmer is er voor lastige plaatsen. Met de oudere scheersysteempjes kon je eigenlijk nooit je bakkebaarden gelijk krijgen of zaken als je neusharen. De Fusion heeft als eerst achterop zo’n mesje. Met een draai van je pols “doe” je die haartjes. Eigenlijk onmisbaar nu ik het eenmaal zie, dat scheelt weer wat kapperswerk, want hoe doe je dit nu? Toch niet met een schaar o.i.d.? Uit onderzoek blijkt dat 30% het lastig vindt onder de neus te scheren en 50% krijgt de bakkebaarden niet recht, de oplossing is er dus nu, kopen dus.

3. King Kamp Gillette kwam in 1903 met het 1e wegwerpmesje en de afgelopen pakweg 100 jaar is dit scheersysteem telkens verbetert. Gillette brengt nu de Fusion uit als beste scheersysteem ooit, toppunt van scheertechnologie dus. Ik wil het beste en jij ook denk ik. Om je te overtuigen: er is jarenlang aan gewerkt en er zijn maar liefst 70 (!) nieuwe patenten op de Fusion geregisteerd (!)

4. Ooit last gehad van kleine wondjes na het scheren *auw* (je staat dan ook voor lul met zo’n pleistertje in het ergste geval). Het draaimechanisme van de Fusion volgt je gezicht beter en veert terug zodat je nooit teveel druk uitoefent.

5. Wat ik bij de M3Power al ervaarde en wat nu nog beter is, zijn de microtrillingen. De baardharen komen verder naar buiten door de trillingen en dat zorgt voor een veel gladder scheerresulaat. Het werkt op een batterijtje dat in de verpakking erbij zit. Oktober 2005 blogde ik “ik ben benieuwd hoe lang ik met het batterijtje doe”, Ik scheer me elke dag en ik heb ongeveer 2 maanden geleden het batterijtje vervangen. Elke 12 maanden dus schat ik. Eronder zit heel wat hi-tech: een uniek voltage trilmechanisme wat er onder andere voor zorgt dat het aantal trillingen per tijdseenheid gelijk blijft ook als de batterij bijna leeg is.

6. Het ding is kei-goedkoop, zeker aangezien je het elke dag gebruikt. In Januari is ie nog goedkoper want dan ligt ie in de winkel met 25% introductiekorting: €9.99 voor de Fusion… en € 12.99 voor de Fusion Power (degene met batterij dus). Kost geen reet dus, ook niet als je gewoon wilt testen want het levert je dagelijks plezier. Als ik je mag aanraden: koop de Power versie, scheert echt lekkerder. Mesjes  duur/inkcartridge systeem? In januari krijg je een kortingsbon voor extra mesjes en verder zal het natuurlijk fijn zijn voor Gillette dat je extra mesjes koopt maar ze lijken gewoon duur, deel ze maar eens door het aantal scheerbeurten. Hetzelfde geldt voor een scheerapparaat: uit ervaring weet ik dat die mesjes ook vrij gauw vrij bot worden en deze zijn helemaal nergens voorradig. Als je echt geen losse mesjes wilt kopen dan moet je zo’n lang “mes” kopen als uit de cowboyfilms, maar daar wil ik persoonlijk niet de moeite in stoppen.

7. De Comfort Guard zorgt dat de baardharen rechtop staan en je haartjes zo dicht mogelijk boven de huid kunt afscheren. Heeft 5 ribbels meer dan de Mach3.

8. De Power heeft speciale mesjes met een speciale coating van Telomer (doe maar eens Google-en) en natuurlijke olien in de Lubrastrip voor nog minder weerstand. Het ding vervaagt naar wit als je de mesjes beter kunt vervangen (dat laatste ken je waarschijnlijk van je huidige scheersysteem). Maar verder bevat het vitamine E en Aloe Vera (!!!) voor verzorging en polythyleen oxide voor het soepeler glijden. Huidverzorging on the fly, wat een gaaf device. (Vitamine E voedt de huid en herstelt hem beter), laat na je scheerbeurt je egaa maar eens voelen!

9. De mesjes bij de Fusion hebben Gillette’s meest geavanceerde coating tot op heden voor een ongelofelijk gladde scheerbeweging, als je dit combineert met het “handvat” in je handen voelt het gewoon erg ok, lekker licht en ergonomisch.

10. Ach… ga gewoon naar de Gillette Fusion site voor meer punten. Deze is pas vanaf 5 januari open maar als je je nu registeert maak je ook kans op een van 400 gratis scheersystemen (spaart je dus een tientje …).

zie ook het forum topic op FOK over de Fusion (en discussier daar verder)

lees ook het interview met James Kilts, de CEO van Gilette op de Onion ”You think it’s crazy? It is crazy. But I don’t give a shit. From now on, we’re the ones who have the edge in the multi-blade game. Are they the best a man can get? Fuck, no. Gillette is the best a man can get.” LOL!!!! Absoluut lezen!

Handelaar? Doe mee met de Fusion inkoopactie op inkoopacties.net.

Lees het CNN nieuwsbericht over de Fusion

Lees het review over de Fusion op Urban Semiotic.