Review It Before you Buy It

 I try and make it a habit never to buy anything that received less than 4 or 5 stars on a rating list in order to save hassle and my wallet. Before you buy anything of value you should read reviews from as many people as possible about the product. Here are some great websites that provide great reviews and advice on various products and services.

Books
http://www.amazon.com - has ton of products with reviews and you can also purchase new or used versions of the item

http://www.goodreads.com -

Childcare

Consumer Products


http://www.amazon.com - has ton of products with reviews and you can also purchase new or used versions of the item

 http://www.consumersearch.com - this site has expert and regular users review products and they put the best products on the first page for you to see

http://www.consumerreports.org - there is always consumer reports; however for most of the best information you have to pay a subscription to gain access - I think it's like $30 a year or $10 a month for just the online subscription. The great thing is they are unbiased.

 http://www.toptenreviews.com/ - has reviews and side by side comparison on many electronics, software, video-games, and web services

http://www.viewpoints.com - is a review social network type website where people make their own profiles and then review tons of items anywhere from makeup, cleaning products, kitty litter, to fitness equipment. The more reviews they post the more they are highly regarded as a reviewer - just for fun.


Hotels & Travel

http://www.tripadvisor.com - don't forget to look at reviews and real traveler's photos of hotels before you book there

http://www.frommers.com/ -


Services (like Plumbers, Roofers )

 http://www.angieslist.com/ -

Health or Medical Resources on the Web - Which ones to use?

 Which medical resource to choose? What are the best health websites out there? Which Medical website is best? We all want trusted web-sites to help us with any health issues that have been bothering us.  The problem is that many medical experts still do not know a lot about the complex human body. Another problem is that many health care professionals do not take the time to get to know you thoroughly and conduct thorough background research before diagnosing. "Oh, you seem sad and anxious, here take an anti-depressant in the meantime". Quick fixes and prescription drugs are not always the right answer to fix your problem in the long run. Many people nowadays even take antacids when they don't need to.

The key is to find a really good doctor who is thorough - lets you ask questions and takes your own research into consideration....  and who is a specialist in the area you need. Keep trying...don't give up on finding a doctor you like. Always be an active listener to your body!!! If you are getting weird reactions to your environment or something you eat - take the trial and error method seriously. Sometimes we really don't pay attention or we just ignore our bodies when they tell us they don't like something. Make sure you are eating right, getting (your type of) exersize, and eliminating stress from your life. Believe it or not stress can come up on you from way down deep inside and spring up in a medical issue when you least expect to! It is important to know what your bodily (physical and mental) points are to avoid putting stress to these areas.

 There is a galaxy of medical and self-remedy type  health websites, but I've only included ones that are authoritative and reliable:

 My FAVORITE is number 1:

       

 1. MedlinePlus is a database with all kinds of reliable health articles and such. It is easy to search and actually find stuff you'll actually use. And why is that website so great - for one thing it could be because it was made by librarians from the National Library of Medicine. This is what it says in it's About section of the site, "MedlinePlus offers reliable, up-to-date health information, anytime, anywhere, for free". It cares about it users - it gives a pop-up feedback survey for your satisfaction - great customer service - like a for profit business would do.

•  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/

• http://MedlinePlus.gov

2. I actually really don't like WebMD, because it gives out vague, difficult to use information. I usually can't find what I am looking for when I do a search. Since it is an authoritative site, it is on here as a resource.  See for yourself which sources you like to use.

 www.webMD.com

3. MedicineNet

MedicineNet  is like WebMD only easier to use. Actually,  in fact MedicineNet is owned an operated by WebMD. I suppose they figured that WebMD is so archaic that they wanted to make a user-friendly medical-type dictionary. It is mainly there to just help you figure out what wrong's with you. It does have this  neat Black Widow vs Brown Recluse slide-show. It explains what spiders to look out for and what to do in cast you get bite. Did you know that the venom from a brown recluse is much stronger than a rattlesnake? Here's the slideshow: http://www.medicinenet.com/black_widow_brown_recluse_pictures_slideshow/article.htm

•   http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/hp.asp

4. The Mayo Clinic is another reliable source of medical information. It is like WebMd and MedicineNet in the sense that it just gives you their own web pages of : DEFINITION, SYMPTOMS,  CAUSES, RISK FACTORS, COMPLICATIONS, and TREATMENTS AND DIAGNOSIS. However, a great thing they have here on the Mayo Clinic website is "Preparing for your Appointment," which I think is extremely helpful. It encourages you make a doctor appointment and to know how to handle the doctors visit. When you're really sick it is difficult to handle a doctor's visit in a manner of reason.

•  http://www.mayoclinic.com/

Watercress - the other superfood!

Yesterday, I found this website: http://www.watercress.co.uk/home/  about watercress and I think it's neat-o! I love the leafy green vegetable, watercress, for some reason and apparently they grow hoards of it in England. Although, when I buy it at the supermarket here the leaves don't look as big as they do in the pictures on this site.

They even have a watercress festival every year - in England - can you believe it? Here in the states there is practically a festival for every fruit you can imagine, but there are not too many spinach or kale festivals I am aware of. Anyway, apparently watercress has more calcium than milk, and more vitamin C than an Orange. It was eaten almost at every meal in Napoleon's estate and during the Victorian Ages it was sold in bunches like a giant green cotton candy out of vendors on the street - supposedly one of the first "foods on the go".  Perhaps I should have made my bridal bouquet out of it - hehe.

Where can I get the good stuff??

I bookmark way too many websites - I think this blog is a great way to weed out the really good ones from the maybes.

Dictionaires, Dictionaires, Word Dictionaires

There are many different kinds of dictionaries - there is probably a type of dictionary for any subject you can think of. (Law Dictionary, Medical Dictionary, Shakespeare Dictionary, Anthropology Dictionary, Theory Dictionaries...)

Until recently, I've always used the www.dictionary.com  to look up words while writing papers or anything for that matter and it is fine for a simple dictionary. However, I've discovered two more free online dictionary tools that I favor over my previous:

The first one is http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ , which is the Cambridge online dictionary. What I love about this dictionary is that is gives you a large supply of synonyms for your word as well as displaying them in visual form known as a "visual thesaurus." I also like that it gives you sentence with that word used in it.

 Cambridge's Visual Thesaurus

The second website I just learned about last night in class is www.onelook.com, which is called OneLook Dictionary Search. This website searches the internet (so you don't have to) for a multitude of online dictionaries to find ALL the meanings of the word you searched for. This is great if you want a comprehensive search of a word - meanings from multiple sources provide reliability as well giving you more ideas on how to use the word. It has this great feature that allows you to do a reverse look-up as well. That is quite neat - looking to find a single word when you have a group of words. This sounds perfect for writing poetry!


Since I was an English major in undergrad I knew about a fantastic resource called the Oxford English Dictionary. This comprehensive dictionary gives you the history of each word - in other words what is the oldest source of written works this word was used in. So it tells you the country of origin and older meanings of  the word and it gives you the paragraph or multiple paragraph of where it was first found. Unfortunately,  you have to be a subscriber to use it. Your public library might subscribe, which gives you the access too, but I am not sure how many do!!! If you are in college or work for a college than you most likely 99% of the time have access to it through your school libraries website,