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Reviews

This Is Now (Mostly) My Tweets

by Cooper Marcus on April 10, 2011

Yep, apparently I’m like a lot of bloggers – starting out strong, but not keeping up a consistent flow of content. I am, however, using Twitter a lot these days. Thus, going forward, this blog will mostly consist of my tweets. If I ever do publish a new blog post, I’ll Tweet about it, so you won’t miss a thing! You can either stay subscribed to this blog, or follow me on Twitter. Out with the old and in with the new?

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How I Buy Online – Minimizing Time and Maximizing Savings

by Cooper Marcus on November 13, 2010

I’ve refined my online shopping habits over the years, and I now think I have a darn good system. Here is what I use:

  1. I almost always start at Amazon.com – they typically have excellent prices and a wide selection. Their Marketplace feature, where individuals can list new and used versions of the item that Amazon sells alongside Amazon’s own listing, often let’s me find a less expensive version of the item I’m buying. Note, however, that Amazon’s outstanding “Free Shipping on Orders Over $25″ typically does not apply to the Marketplace listings, so be sure to compare the item+$0 shipping for the Amazon version with the item+$? shipping for the Marketplace version.
  2. Next I do a quick search of Google Products to see if someone else has it for less. Given that Amazon is so reliably excellent, I’ll only take my business elsewhere if I can save significantly.
  3. If Amazon has a decent price (including shipping), my process is over – I complete my purchase (there is no need to use the steps below for an Amazon purchase, as Amazon never offers coupons or rebates – they just give you the best price upfront). If I’m buying from another site, I’ve got a couple extra steps…
  4. First I visit RetailMeNot.com to see if there is a money-saving coupon code available – this is by far the best coupon code site, as it clearly shows you how reliable each coupon is before you try it on the retailer’s site. If you find a coupon that works well for you, be sure to click the green checkmark under “Did This Coupon Work For You?” so subsequent RetailMeNot.com users know to try that code!
  5. Finally, if I can’t find a coupon, I’ll check Ebates.com – this site offers rebates at an incredible variety of online stores. To use it, simply find the offer on Ebates you’d like to use, then click through to the retailer’s site, then complete your purchase. Within a few days, Ebates will tell you that you’ve got a rebate headed your way! Note that you have to establish an account with Ebates before you can earn rebates – this process is very quick and painless.

That’s it! I’ve found this technique to give me the ideal combination of minimizing time spent shopping and maximizing my savings. I used to spend way more time shopping many many sites, using multiple price-comparison tools, searching all over for coupon codes, etc. Now I use the sites above for quick shopping and great prices.

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iPhoto Library Manager logoMy wife and I share a single MacBook (older version, but upgraded with a Kingston 128 GB solid state drive – highly recommended). We previously had two different iPhoto libraries, but this was constantly causing issues – I’d import new photos into one library, then one of us would be browsing the other library and suddenly worry “where are those photos from event XYZ?!”.

After some online research and a bit of experimentation, I’ve settled on two utilities that make sharing an iPhoto library between users on a single Mac easy: iPhoto Library Manager, and Duplicate Annihilator.

The first has a number of features, but the one I use the most is “automated” changing of permissions to allow two or more users on the same Mac to all use the same iPhoto library. I say automated in quotes because iPhoto Library Manager does needs to be running for the automation to really work – alternately, you can just launch it when iPhoto complains of a permissions issue. Without this utility, there is no easy way for share a library – each user is otherwise forced to have their own, independent library, which might work for some of you, but certainly wasn’t working for a “family” library like we have.

The second utility I’ve used once so far, but anticipate using it again some day – our iPhoto library has over 15,000 photos, and I recently noticed a number of duplicates – two of the exact same image, with the same date and size, but often different file names. I tried the trial version of Duplicate Annihilator and liked it, so I spent the $7 for the paid version – and I’m very happy I did. After running overnight to find duplicates in my entire iPhoto library, Duplicate Annihilator reported over 1,500, taking up over 4 GB of precious SSD space. A few clicks later, those images were gone. It would have taken me a day or more to manually find and delete those duplicates, so even if I use it only once, Duplicate Annihilator has already more than paid for itself. I’ve been using iPhoto for many years, and I have always had periodic issues with duplicates, thus I’m sure I’ll be running Duplicate Annihilator again some day.

Do you have any favorite iPhoto utilities, or any nagging iPhoto issues you’d like help resolving? Leave a comment!

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Backing up your computer(s) is one of your most basic responsibilities – it should rank right up there with food, shelter, and companionship as a necessity of human existence. Without backups, you could lose everything – all your digital photos, all your documents, potentially all your emails, all your music, etc. Even if you do backup, if you don’t do it right, you can still loose everything – a friend of my mother’s lost the only copy of her nearly finished dissertation (6 years of work!) when her computer and backup drive were stolen.

Despite the risks, many computer users don’t backup right – mostly because it used to be difficult, or they didn’t think anything bad would happen to them. First you have to get over the second reason – something bad WILL happen to you – eventually. And now, thanks to CrashPlan, the first reason is no longer valid.

CrashPlan is a combination of backup software and an online service that makes it very easy to do the right sort of backups. I’ve tried many different backup systems and services ove rthe years – CrashPlan is, by far, the best. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it is simply awesome.

Amazingly, the basic version of CrashPlan, which does most of what you need it to do, is free! With it you can quickly set-up automatic, in-the-background backups (meaning you don’t have to do anything, or even see anything, to backup) to multiple backup destinations, including local hard drives, your other computers, and even your friends computers. That’s right – CrashPlan will securely backup your files to the extra hard drive space on your friend’s computers (if they permit you) – which means that even if your computer AND local backup drive are stolen or destroyed, you’ll still have a copy of all your digital goods. If you choose to, you can pay CrashPlan their extremely reasonable rates to backup to their servers and get additional features like continuous backups (instead of just once per day).

I have a free license for CrashPlan+ to give away ($60 value) – the first person to ask for it in the comments will get it! I’m also offering a backup setup service – if you are convinced you need backups, but don’t want to set it up yourself, I’ll consult with you, draft your backup plan, and implement it using CrashPlan, for a flat rate of $99. This covers installing and setting-up CrashPlan on all your families’ computers, teaching you how it works (if you want to know), and proving ongoing support in the unlikely event that you need it. If you want to backup to CrashPlan’s servers you’ll need to buy service from them (as low as $5/month for ALL your families’ computers) but I’ll do all the set-up for you, and there are no other charges. Email or call if you are interested.

UPDATE: I’ve got a second CrashPlan+ license to give away – post to the comments if you’d like it!

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Facebook Shows WAY More Ad Clicks than Google Analytics?

by Cooper Marcus on February 3, 2010

This is a bit of a rant, and a request to the great internet for answers – if you have no interest in, or knowledge of, Facebook Advertising and/or Google Analytics, you can move on.

OK, anyone left? Probably not, but I’ll press on.

In a nutshell, Facebook says my ads are getting way more clicks than my website reports seeing (via Google Analytics). In a perfect world, the FB Ad clicks and Google Analytics visitors should be nearly the same. In my world, they are different by around 85%! In other words, Facebook says that 10 people have clicked on my ad, and they charge me for those 10 clicks, but my website has seen only one or two visitors!

For more details, and to offer any insights as to why this is happening, please visit http://forum.developers.facebook.com/viewtopic.php?id=49767

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

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More Great Service – From Calphalon

Thumbnail image for More Great Service – From Calphalon January 20, 2010

I promise this blog won’t be ONLY about great service – but when I receive great service, I really like to talk about it, as the company that gave the great service deserves heaps of public praise! Angela and I have been enjoying the Calphalon pots and pans we received for our wedding. The hard [...]

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Fantastic Service (and Shoes!) from Blundstone

Thumbnail image for Fantastic Service (and Shoes!) from Blundstone January 18, 2010

Blundstone makes great boots – and offers absolutely outstanding customer service

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Welcome to CooperMarcus.com

October 14, 2009

Hello Friends, Fans, and Visitors – welcome to my blog! First things first – please subscribe using the RSS or Email subscription options to your right. Next, be patient – I’m working on a number of projects right now and I’m planning on blogging when I have both time and something interesting to share. Until [...]

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