MATEOSQUARED’S iSEARCH

I have launched a new blog about landscaping and gardening, one of my favorite past times. I have been gardening for years, and hope to use this blog to pass on my experience, advice and interesting stories and articles about landscape and gardening.

Go to Mateosquared’s Landscaping Tips and Ideas to learn more.

Found out today that if I drank 10.62 Starbucks grande coffees at one time, I would no longer be around to write this blog. It would take 95.21 grande lattes and 138.21 cans of Red Bull. I always thought Red Bull was a lot more potent than that. Oh well, I guess that is what marketing is all about.

Go to Energy Fiend to find out how much caffeine you can manage.

Sites like this, is reason enough to have the Internet available for everyone.

Leave it to a design group out of Italy to come up with the ultimate readers chair. It would not fit in my house, but it sure would look cool at the local coffee shop or library.

The Bibliochaise is an armchairlibrary for who likes to be immersed in deep reading. It contains 5 linear metres of books and thanks to a special fitting structure is easily disassembled.

I may put this on my Christmas wish list…

I like looking at homes, working on my own home, and talking to people about their homes. This probably comes from my days in high school and college where I worked for a home building contractor. It was so cool to be able to use my hands to build something and see the finished product. I guess this is why I think Home and Tell is great new site for people who like their homes. It gives people the opportunity to “show-off” their homes, projects and ask for advice about what to do with their home projects.

It is of course another social site, but it doesn’t have the same adolescent feel as most other social sites. People load up pictures of their house or home project, and then discuss with others about their projects.

I live in a suburb in Houston, TX, so it is nice to see houses that have original design and took some imagination to build. The site is also very inspiring to start other home projects.

BooksFree.com has been around since 2000, and unfortunately I only came across them today. Unfortunate because I could have been using their service for the past seven years. BooksFree is like NetFlix, but instead of DVDs they rent paperback and audio books, at a really low price. I signed up for the two-at-a-time option for $8.49 a month. For someone who reads a lot, this is a great price. They also offer several price options which you can find on their pricing page.

It seems that you can keep the books as long as you would like without any fees, and if you like the book enough to buy it you can purchase it at a discounted price.

Their explanation.

After signing up, browse the Web site and add titles to your list by clicking the red Rent button. We automatically ship the number of titles your membership plan allows. The remaining titles on your list will be queued up for future orders. We recommend keeping at least 10-15 titles (this does not include title that have not been published yet or are older, rare titles) on your list at all times for the greatest enjoyment of our service. You may keep the book(s) as long as you’d like, there are no due dates or late fees. When you return books in the provided prepaid return mailer, we automatically ship your next
selection(s).

This has to be one of the better sites out there. I don’t have to tell my favorite color and music, there are no random pop-ups or slick interfaces. It is just a clean, user friendly site that allows people to do what they want to do. Find and read books.

My wife has had a stuffed nose for some time, and cannot take medication because she is expecting. So I searched for many things and found Mind-Energy.net. They have a procedure that will de-stuff your nose if done correctly. Here are the rules, I also pasted a diagram from their site. Good stuff.

I guess the massage is based on chinese acupressure but I can’t be sure since at that time neither of us knew anything about it, and secondly, I’m not an expert at this now. There are only 4 easy points to massage, so it’s very easy to remember and always have it with you (in your head). Here how it goes:

1. Perform the below routine 3 times:
   1. Perform 10 pressures on a cavity at the corner of the nostrils (point 1). You should almost close and open the nostrils when you do the round movement.
   2. Perform 10 pressures on a cavity just below the corner of the eyes near the nose (point 2)
   3. Perform 10 pressures on a cavity just below the ear, behind the earlobe (point 3)
   4. Massage the earlobe 10 times (point 4)
2. After performing the above 3 times, you should feel immediate relief of your nasal congestion. It is advised to return on the above procedure again in about 10 minutes to make it more permanent or the congestion could return.

I do not think it is same person in the top and bottom pictures, but the procedure still works.

Price Protectr is one one of those Web sites that we wished would have been around a long time ago. They are they guys who can help us beat the “system”. How? Well you know how after you buy something such as the new 61″ rear-projection TV, and then a week later they drop the price, but you don’t know until it is too late? Price Protectr keeps that from happening. They will search the Web for price drops, and help you get your discount after the fact (if it is within 30 days). Once the initial adrenaline of the purchase is over, and you have buyer’s remorse, Price Protectr will bring you out of your slump, by letting you know the price has come down 10%, and here is how to get your money back. Saves cash and counseling bills. It is only a six-step process, unlike the 12-step program you have to go through otherwise.

I have been searching for some time for a good online to-do organizer that does not have too many bells and whistles, and is easy to enter and organize information. TaskToy is the one, it has a basic interface, is intuitive without a bunch of extra stuff that is not necessary and just gets in the way. It was created by Toby Segaran, who needs to win some sort of award for his efforts. I am looking forward to other applications Toby puts out in the future.

Mark Bent spent 20+ years in Africa serving in the military, as a diplomat and as an energy company employee. During that time he saw a huge need for people to have safe and affordable light at night, and decided to do something about it. He has created the BogoLight which is a solar powered flashlight that can last up to twenty years.

For each light sold, they donate a light to a non-profit charitable organization.

We sell advanced, renewable energy task lights using the Internet to reach millions of consumers in the developed world. For each light sold, we donate a second identical light to a non-profit for free distribution in the developing world.

Working hand in hand with the largest and most respected non-profit and international assistance organizations on the planet, we have built a reliable distribution system to ensure our lights reach the needy. We deliver the donated lights directly to the developing world and also provide funds for the non-profit to distribute the lights.

The only way to buy our lights in the US is through our  – they are not available in brick and mortar establishments or elsewhere on the web.

Larry Dignan of ZDNet pronounced today that the social Web is over, and we might as well all go home and find something else to do.

IBM launching social networking software (just for those corporate types that just can’t wait to produce MySpace-ish pages) is the same as the cabby and the real estate flipper down the street. Translation: The social networking run is over. Goodbye. It’s kaput.

Is it the end of the world as we know it? Most likely not. It is just the natural progression of trends and fringe concepts coming to the mainstream. The Web is more than software and applications, it is people and people are not going to stop communicating. True, dinosaurs like IBM will try to set “standards” and “rules of the Web”, but they will not be able to have the control that they had in the past. The social Web is too unruly and big for one or even several companies to take over. Google has tried, as has Yahoo!, but no luck… yet.