This site has the best hard pretzels known to man. Snyder's has been in operation since 1909. They have a multitude of fine products. You can get all kinds of pretzels, pieces, pretzel crackers, coated pretzels (think chocolate or fudge), multigrain pretzels, gluten-free pretzels, etc. A lot of their products come in different flavors such as garlic, honey mustard, sesame, sourdough, etc.
While they don't sell their products on their website, they do have a store locator. Just enter your zip code, and they will tell you what stores in your area carry their products.
If you are a real pretzel fanatic, you will surely want to join the Pretzel Eaters Club.
Very very good pretzels from a very very good company.
Nuff said.
...
Sir Chelf the Search Elf searches the Internet for your amusement.
.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
FeedBurner.com
If you have a blog, big or small, you should be "burning your feed." What that means is that you should make it so that your blog can be offered in more markets. More markets translates into more readers.
Feedburner can do that for you. Don't worry you don't have to spend a dime.
All you have to do is sign up at Feedburner and follow their fairly simple directions. They have specific directions for some of the most common blogs. Hopefully, yours is one of them. If not, they pretty good directions for the rest of them.
They will need you to put a bit of code into your blog, but like I say, they have directions.
After you install your code, you can get help with adding ads to your blog. You can access an amazing amount of stats. You can find out what kind of visitor you had, how long they stayed, what kind of computer they used, etc.
Feedburner isn't the only place to burn your feed. Nor are they the only good ones. But they are the biggest, and they do their job well.
Cost to you is zero. After you set it up, you get to keep any revenue that you make. You don't have to share it with them.
Feedburner can do that for you. Don't worry you don't have to spend a dime.
All you have to do is sign up at Feedburner and follow their fairly simple directions. They have specific directions for some of the most common blogs. Hopefully, yours is one of them. If not, they pretty good directions for the rest of them.
They will need you to put a bit of code into your blog, but like I say, they have directions.
After you install your code, you can get help with adding ads to your blog. You can access an amazing amount of stats. You can find out what kind of visitor you had, how long they stayed, what kind of computer they used, etc.
Feedburner isn't the only place to burn your feed. Nor are they the only good ones. But they are the biggest, and they do their job well.
Cost to you is zero. After you set it up, you get to keep any revenue that you make. You don't have to share it with them.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Which toy store is the best?
There are two main things to look for when you purchase: Price and trust. Of the two, trust is the most important. If you pick a company that won't service, exchange, refund, or respond to e-mails, you can lose your entire purchase price.
This is a short list of some of the larger Internet toy stores. The list strongly favors traditional stores. If you have been shopping at their physical store, then you can usually trust their Internet store.
KB Toys
Target
Amazon
Toy R Us
Wal-mart
We rate these stores No. 1, but you don't have to stick with this list. There are plenty of good stores out there. But these guys are huge and well known, and they should be considered good choices.
...
Word Origins at Dogs of Words
This is a short list of some of the larger Internet toy stores. The list strongly favors traditional stores. If you have been shopping at their physical store, then you can usually trust their Internet store.
KB Toys
Target
Amazon
Toy R Us
Wal-mart
We rate these stores No. 1, but you don't have to stick with this list. There are plenty of good stores out there. But these guys are huge and well known, and they should be considered good choices.
...
Word Origins at Dogs of Words
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Blog Carnival
If you are a blogger and want to increase your traffic, try Blog Carnival. BlogCarnival is a clearinghouse for carnivals. They report that 215 new carnivals have been listed on their site in the last 30 days.
Basically, Blog Carnival works like this. Somebody with a blog decides to have a contest. To enter, you have to submit one of your blog entries. They link to it. You link to them. They send a notice to Blog Carnival. Eventually, the contest is over. The best blog is the winner, but the real attraction is the free exposure for everyone associated with the contest.
How each contest is run, and how the winners are selected is up to the person running each individual blog carnival. Blog Carnival merely provides an easy way for you to find the carnivals.
Our rating is favorable. Blog Carnival isn't doing anything fantastic, but it is doing something very useful. And it does it well.
...
I Luv PA
I Luv TX
Basically, Blog Carnival works like this. Somebody with a blog decides to have a contest. To enter, you have to submit one of your blog entries. They link to it. You link to them. They send a notice to Blog Carnival. Eventually, the contest is over. The best blog is the winner, but the real attraction is the free exposure for everyone associated with the contest.
How each contest is run, and how the winners are selected is up to the person running each individual blog carnival. Blog Carnival merely provides an easy way for you to find the carnivals.
Our rating is favorable. Blog Carnival isn't doing anything fantastic, but it is doing something very useful. And it does it well.
...
I Luv PA
I Luv TX
Friday, August 22, 2008
We may be taking our lives in our hands by rating Google, but here we go.
Google is a very friendly place. Everything about it is simple and very useful.
Most people use it simply for searching, and it excels in that area. You are more likely to find what you are looking for on Google than any other place.
But Google is much more. If you have a web site, a page, a blog, or a product, you should make it a point to get to know Google. They have a lot of free tools to help you. You can put ads on your site or buy ads for your product. You can get a shopping cart. You can analyze and/or optimize your site. They have loads of articles. Don't worry. Most tools are easy to use.
Potitives: Google is the king of the search game. If it is on the Internet, Google can find it. Google has free tools and articles that are extremely helpful.
Negatives: There is really only one negative, and it is the same negative that is given to it by every person who has ever tried to make their site Google-friendly. The negative is that Google will not tell anyone how to improve their ranking. Oh, sure, Google does give an explanation. And oh, sure, there are thousands of pages on the Internet that attempt to explain to you what Google meant.
But none of that really helps a webmaster improve his site any better than before. If you just follow good commonsense rules and ignore trying to be Google-friendly, you will probably do just as well as the guys who jump through hoops trying to please Google.
But all of that is not really a negative. Google cannot release their method of ranking sites. If they do that, there would be a ton of unscrupulous sites that would manipulate the rankings. It wouldn't be a good situation. Searching would become useless because sites that have nothing to do with your search term would be flooding the results. So Google has to keep that info in the dark.
Still, I know many site owners who report that one day they rank high, and they next day they rank low, and they don't know why. That's a real shame when it happens to a guy who is just trying to honestly promote his site.
I wish there was an answer.
.....
Living Quotes has quotes to help you live.
.
Google is a very friendly place. Everything about it is simple and very useful.
Most people use it simply for searching, and it excels in that area. You are more likely to find what you are looking for on Google than any other place.
But Google is much more. If you have a web site, a page, a blog, or a product, you should make it a point to get to know Google. They have a lot of free tools to help you. You can put ads on your site or buy ads for your product. You can get a shopping cart. You can analyze and/or optimize your site. They have loads of articles. Don't worry. Most tools are easy to use.
Potitives: Google is the king of the search game. If it is on the Internet, Google can find it. Google has free tools and articles that are extremely helpful.
Negatives: There is really only one negative, and it is the same negative that is given to it by every person who has ever tried to make their site Google-friendly. The negative is that Google will not tell anyone how to improve their ranking. Oh, sure, Google does give an explanation. And oh, sure, there are thousands of pages on the Internet that attempt to explain to you what Google meant.
But none of that really helps a webmaster improve his site any better than before. If you just follow good commonsense rules and ignore trying to be Google-friendly, you will probably do just as well as the guys who jump through hoops trying to please Google.
But all of that is not really a negative. Google cannot release their method of ranking sites. If they do that, there would be a ton of unscrupulous sites that would manipulate the rankings. It wouldn't be a good situation. Searching would become useless because sites that have nothing to do with your search term would be flooding the results. So Google has to keep that info in the dark.
Still, I know many site owners who report that one day they rank high, and they next day they rank low, and they don't know why. That's a real shame when it happens to a guy who is just trying to honestly promote his site.
I wish there was an answer.
.....
Living Quotes has quotes to help you live.
.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
iRobot Roomba is great
The next time you are in a department store, stop by the vacuum cleaner section. You may find an itty-bitty little vacuum that works by itself. Most likely, it is a Roomba by iRobot.
Here at the Rating Gods, we use a Roomba. It is excellent. Ours is the top of their line. The only upgrade that we don't have is a handheld remote. We don't expect to get that. The Roomba does fine without it.
For the first couple of weeks, the Roomba would get lost. It cleaned all right, but it could not find its way back to its charger. So each day, one of us would have to pick it up and put it on the charger, but that has stopped. It has been finding its way back to its charger just fine.
Also for the first couple of weeks, we had to empty the dirt out after almost every time it was used. We don't have to do that as much. The reason is simple: the rugs are much cleaner than before we got the Roomba.
During the first week of use, we were not entirely satisfied with the cleaning. The Roomba does not get everything in the first few passes. Even if it rolls directly over visible crumbs or dirt, it does not necessarily pick it all up the first time.
It has a little trouble with throw rugs that are put on tile floors. It tends to curl them up and create a barrier that it cannot pass. For this reason, it sometimes gets stuck in our lunchroom. It curls up a rug until it flops over on itself, and then it can't find its way out of the kitchen.
The only other problem is that it loves to push around the food and water bowls for our office cat. Sometimes it even knocks water or food out of the bowls.
But let me tell you, it works. We have had it for about six weeks, and we love it. If it breaks down, we will buy another.
The new Roombas are much better than the older models. They have more suction. They don't bump furniture very hard. They can navigate over throw rugs much easier. They have a sensor so that they don't fall down stairs.
Our model cost over $300. That's a good amount of money, but we feel that it is justified. Roomba is great. We recommend it without reservations.
.........
Do you like words? Do you like humor? Try the Dogs of Words.
.
Here at the Rating Gods, we use a Roomba. It is excellent. Ours is the top of their line. The only upgrade that we don't have is a handheld remote. We don't expect to get that. The Roomba does fine without it.
For the first couple of weeks, the Roomba would get lost. It cleaned all right, but it could not find its way back to its charger. So each day, one of us would have to pick it up and put it on the charger, but that has stopped. It has been finding its way back to its charger just fine.
Also for the first couple of weeks, we had to empty the dirt out after almost every time it was used. We don't have to do that as much. The reason is simple: the rugs are much cleaner than before we got the Roomba.
During the first week of use, we were not entirely satisfied with the cleaning. The Roomba does not get everything in the first few passes. Even if it rolls directly over visible crumbs or dirt, it does not necessarily pick it all up the first time.
It has a little trouble with throw rugs that are put on tile floors. It tends to curl them up and create a barrier that it cannot pass. For this reason, it sometimes gets stuck in our lunchroom. It curls up a rug until it flops over on itself, and then it can't find its way out of the kitchen.
The only other problem is that it loves to push around the food and water bowls for our office cat. Sometimes it even knocks water or food out of the bowls.
But let me tell you, it works. We have had it for about six weeks, and we love it. If it breaks down, we will buy another.
The new Roombas are much better than the older models. They have more suction. They don't bump furniture very hard. They can navigate over throw rugs much easier. They have a sensor so that they don't fall down stairs.
Our model cost over $300. That's a good amount of money, but we feel that it is justified. Roomba is great. We recommend it without reservations.
.........
Do you like words? Do you like humor? Try the Dogs of Words.
.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Wikipedia
Wikipedia describes itself as a multilingual, Web-based, free content encyclopedia project. All I know is that I can find virtually anything there.
They have about 2.5 million articles in English alone. They are chugging along towards their 700 millionth visitor. They are big.
The good and the bad of Wikipedia are the same. Anyone can write or edit an article. That is great because no one knows everything, despite what my ex-wife might say. On the other hand, that is horrible because people have been known to alter info for their own purposes.
By most accounts, Wikipedia is at least as accurate as the best encyclopedias that money can buy.
And it is free, free, free.
Wikipedia is one of the best sites you will ever find.
.............
Have you been introduced to Sir Chelf the Search Elf? You haven't? Well, you are missing something. Sir Chelf explores the Internet and reports on his findings. The twist is how he does it. No one searches like Sir Chelf. He's turned it into a game. Well, a lot of different games. Watch out!!! It can be addicting.
They have about 2.5 million articles in English alone. They are chugging along towards their 700 millionth visitor. They are big.
The good and the bad of Wikipedia are the same. Anyone can write or edit an article. That is great because no one knows everything, despite what my ex-wife might say. On the other hand, that is horrible because people have been known to alter info for their own purposes.
By most accounts, Wikipedia is at least as accurate as the best encyclopedias that money can buy.
And it is free, free, free.
Wikipedia is one of the best sites you will ever find.
.............
Have you been introduced to Sir Chelf the Search Elf? You haven't? Well, you are missing something. Sir Chelf explores the Internet and reports on his findings. The twist is how he does it. No one searches like Sir Chelf. He's turned it into a game. Well, a lot of different games. Watch out!!! It can be addicting.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The Rating Gods
We're not really gods, but how about if we keep that between you and me and maybe Aphrodite and Zeus and Mars and Athena and Venus. And how could we forget Thor. Hey, Hammer Boy, get over here.
We're here to help you with sites, products, people, films, sports, shopping, etc. If it's found on the Internet, we have an opinion.
And of course, since we're gods, our opinion carries extra weight.
We're here to help you with sites, products, people, films, sports, shopping, etc. If it's found on the Internet, we have an opinion.
And of course, since we're gods, our opinion carries extra weight.
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