January 2008
You are currently browsing the articles from Review and Things written in the month of January 2008.
When I got my MacBook Pro I was looking in to getting a Apple Bluetooth mouse but I thought they where a bit to expensive. After a while i accidentally ran in to this Logitech Mouse for half the price of the Apple one.
The Logitech V470 is a small mouse for me that is ideal because i have small hands but i can imagine that it is to small for some of us. The mouse comes with two AA batteries that still are still good after two full weeks of work and comes with a little bag to keep the mouse protected.
The Nice thing about this Bluetooth mouse is that you don’t need and extra plug in your USB port to get it working. My Mac has Bluetooth build in so that makes it nice and compact.
Installation of the V470 was no problem for me specially because i already had the (included) Logitech software on my laptop because i use it to for a other wireless keyboard mouse combo i use at my at home desk. The nice thing of the Logitech software is that it automatically picks up when i change between mice and keyboard nothing i have to do it just works. The V470 has an on/off switch so that you don’t loose you power when you are not using it. The mouse will be detected in seconds after you computer booted and just works like a charm.
I read that you don’t even need to install the Logitech software to get it working on a Mac but i can’t confirm that because I already had the software installed.
The V470 offers the normal two buttons and the scroll function but besides that you can also click the scroll wheel to the left and right that standard makes you scroll left and right. With the logitech software you can even reprogram some of those functions. For instance i use the left click on the scroll wheel to go back a page in my web browser.
Final verdict:
I like the Logitech V470 and till now (2 weeks) i didn’t give me any problems. The laser is strong and even on an uneven surface it works great. For me this mouse travels with the Macbook Pro but not just to replace the touch pad it just gives me and easier way to work specially because of the second button and the extra functions in the scroll wheel.
Check out the V470 CORDLESS LASER MOUSE FOR NOTEBOOKS WITH BLUETOOTH TECHNOLOGY 
and let me know if i was wrong with this review.
Written by George on January 30th, 2008 with 2 comments.
Read more articles on Products and Reviews.
I got a copy of this book at our local library and i basically choice it based on the cover. And after have said that I can say honestly that this was a great find.
Fair Game tells a story about a girl that comes back to her home town after she finished her studies to become a veterinarian. She comes back with her two kids with the dream of starting a wildlife rescue center. The piece of land that she had in mind is owned her grandfather.
That piece of land that Jana’s (the girls name) wants to have is also a must have for a old high school crush of Jana named Grant Gonzales who wants it for starting a hunting camp.
And that said you know the basis of the book. Elizabet White did a great job creating an intriguing story around this. Of course lots will happened between the two main characters and i have to say that this book makes you think about how people get stuck in there own believes but still can be great for each other.
I would say go get yourself a copy and see if you enjoy Fair Game as much as i did.
Check you local library or maybe find a copy of Fair Game on Amazon.
Written by George on January 29th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Books and Reviews.
Nawab Gourmet Cuisine of India.
This Indian restaurant in downtown Calgary has a nice atmosphere and a friendly staff.
The menu is extensive and offers more then enough variation. Our food took a bit of time to come but after tasting it that was worth the wait. Our food was great and definitely the best i had till now in an Indian restaurant in Canada.
The service was friendly and helpful.
We got to Nawab a bit latter on Saturday evening so when we where done with our meal the most people left or where like us finishing there food. At that point the Chef and owner Jim Mann came by for a little chat. And let me tell you this he likes to talk but the way he talks also shows how much he cares about his guests and the food he makes.
If you are looking for some great Indian food then you can’t go wrong at Nawab.
They are at the edge of the big construction going on downtown Calgary but don’t let that stop you and go check it out.
Nawab Gourmet Cuisine of India:
137-5th Avenue S.E.
Calgary
phone: (403)282-1002
Written by George on January 29th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Restaurants and Reviews.
A couple of months ago I made from a Windows PC to a Apple Laptop and I have to say this is something i should have done a long time ago. But this review is not about how great my Macbook Pro is 
I have some programs that unfortunatly don’t function on a mac. Till now i Used the bootcamp option that makes it possible to install windows on a seperate partition of my Mac. The downside of bootcamp is that you need to reboot to use the other operating system.
Crossover just runs on the mac site and lets you use windows applications and not like with Parralels or VMware you don’t even have to install windows.
The website from CrossOver states that not everything will work on it but there is a free trial version so you can test you applications on CrossOver for 30 days.
So I got myself the Trail version and the installation was easy just follow the instructions on your screen and you will be up and running in almost no time at all.
I am really old fashion in some bits and that means that i still love to use Homesite 1.2 the really old version and i have to say it worked fine on CrossOver. But there where some glitches homesite offers a file bar on the right where you can select the files you are using. This bar did strange things that often made Homesite crash. The funny thing was if i used the file manager from the Homesite menu everything worked fine. Also Crossover lets you use some of the mac shortcuts in the windows programs but things like copy and past the mac way often let homesite crash.
The next program i tried was CDBF a dbf editor that i use for my database that i use for one of my other websites. The program CDBF worked without a glitch’s and it was almost like working on a pc.
The last program i tested was a program i wrote myself in xbase++ and although i also installed xbase++ the application didn’t respond to any of the commands. It started and looked fine but i could not get it to respond to anything.
after these program’s i gave up on CrossOver mainly because these are the only windows programs i use daily and so it didn’t make to much sense to get CrossOver. But if they all 3 would have worked flawless i would definitely have got the product. I liked CrossOver a lot it made my windows programs work quick much faster then i expected.
If you are like me and still have a couple of strange windows programs hanging around then i would say go get the trail version of CrossOver for the Mac and see if it can help you getting more productive.
Written by George on January 25th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Products and Reviews.
We were in the market for a 4×4 vehicle and because the Jeep Patriot is the cheapest car in that class we went to visit our local Jeep Dealer, Crowfoot Dodge.
And because we had lots of different experiences in this whole process of buying the vehicle we will divide this review into parts.
First Visit to Crowfoot Dodge:
At our arrival at Crowfoot Dodge we walk a bit around the parking lot to see what kind of cars they have standing (second hand). Within a couple of minutes a sales person talks to us and we tell him what we are looking for and he shows us the two Patriots they have and offers a test drive.
The test drive went smooth although the sales person didn’t really know much about the car and it’s pricing (later I found out that he was working here just 3 weeks).
After the test drive we look at what the options are and ask about financing. The interest rate at this point is 4.9% for a Jeep Patriot and for us that is to much specially after seeing Jeep ads where they say 0%. So we left without making any decisions.
Next day Phone Call:
The next day I get a courtesy call from Crowfoot Dodge to ask how our experience was and if our sales person did his job right.
And because I write reviews I was more than willing to tell them what i thought and i also told the lady that we are interested if it came with 0% financing but other wise not.
The Lady decides to talk to the manager about it and calls us back to tell me that there are possibilities and we make an appointment with the salesperson to talk about that.
Second Visit:
At our second visit we went straight for what we came for. So when we told the sales guy about the 0% he looked at his sheet and said sorry but 4.9% is the best we can do, so i told him about the phone conversation that i had with Crowfoot Dodge. He want to go to his manger and came back with the news that they could not do anything about it. So I told our sales guy that we would leave then and look for a different car somewhere else. He thought that was the only thing we could do but he decided to go talk to his manger one more time.
And guess what now there was a deal to be made. They could not change the financing interest rate because that was something Chrysler decided on BUT they where willing to write us a cheque for the interest we have to pay so that would make it 0%.
That deal sounded good for us so we decided to sign the contract and when our sales person looked there where plenty of cars available.
We visited the financing person and things were arranged quickly.
The next day:
My wife gets a phone call from our sales person with the message that the car that we wanted is not available???? What do you mean not available? you told us the day before that it was. So I at this point am pretty mad and decided to go to Crowfoot Dodge. Our sales guy can’t do much else then offer us a more expensive car and wants us to pay 910 dollars more for it. I tell him that i don’t want the extra rubbish that they trying to sell me. He talks to his manger and says and when he comes back he tells me that he can’t do anything for me. At this point i just tell him to rip up the contract and that seems to worry him a bit so again he goes back to talk to his manger.
And then finally the Manger shows up. And then things get even more interesting. I guess because i am not my normal friendly person at this point he also gets very defensive and tells me that it is MY fault that they don’t have my car, yes you read it right they blame it on ME. And why do they do that, because THEY didn’t put everything i asked for on the bill of sale!
I now tell the sales manger the same story that i told the sales guy that i DON’T want the extras and definitely not for 910 dollars. And if this is the only thing they can do then they can just rip up the contract so that i can go buy a car somewhere else. He agrees with that and walks out to get that done.
After a bit he comes back with still no ripped contract. He tries to explain again what went wrong and that they can’t do anything else to make it easier. So in my last offer i tell him to try to get me a discount on other things to make it worth it for me. He walks out again and comes back a little bit later with the bad news that he can’t do anything else because i already got discount prices on things like warranty and car protection. And so again i tell him to cancel my sale and he walks out to arrange that.
But then after a couple of minutes he comes back again and now he has something to offer (FINALY) he can give me the extras on the the available car for 500 dollars instead of 910 and can offer me a coupon book with discounts and some free oil changes. And because i at this point really don’t want to be hassled any more by car sales people I agree with that.
We at that point set a date that we can get the car for thursday and they promised me the serial number of the car the next day. When i don’t get it i start calling again but now they seem to have moved my delivery date to the next Tuesday so again things need to be changed and then finally the thursday arrives and we can come and get our car.
Delivery Day:
I guess by now you wonder why so much can go wrong, but unfortunately this is not the end 
So we meet at Crowfoot Dodge at the time we said and then the waiting game begins to see the financing guy. Finally almost an hour later then we expected we see the guy. He is kinda pushing all kind of extras on us and most of them we say NO to, but then the extra warranty comes up and I tell him that i don’t think it is worth that kind of money. Of course he disagrees but still I am not willing to spend that much. Then he offers us to do it for an lower price this price is more then 700 dollars below the offer we had (and they already offered a discount on that). So we say we want to quickly talk about it and so he leaves us alone for a couple of minutes. When he comes back we tell him that we want the extra insurance and he tells us he made a mistake. Apparently he offered us the warranty for a 2 wheel drive Jeep Patriot and not for the 4×4. It ends up that we get the warranty for the LOW price. When that all is done we meet up with our sales guy who puts go’s with us to get the plates and fill the tank.
When he puts our new plates on i notice that there is no Crowfoot Dodge logo on the car and that they also didn’t put a thing around the licence plate. I am happy with that but i guess they don’t want me to advertise there business.
And then we go home………
And what happens then:
When we get home of course we have a good look at our new Jeep and we notice all kind of black spots on the roof and the hood. Hmmmm. so the next day it is back to the dealer to get them removed. It turns out that the black spots are the stuff they use for the undercoating off the car. But doesn’t undercoating mean under the car? why does it end up on top of the car. Ah well they take care of it and that is fine.
In the mean time we are still waiting for the Cheque and the Coupon Book. After a bit over a month I started calling to ask where our stuff is. After 3 more calls the Cheque finally arrives and guess what, the amount is wrong and this time we are lucky again because they offer too much just a couple of bucks but still is it that difficult to see on the bill of sale how much it should be?
Then we are still waiting for the Coupon book. And after another couple of phone calls still nothing. In the mean time we get a letter from Crowfoot Dodge that we should contact them if something is wrong. I find out that the person in the letter that you should contact is the general manger so i try to give her a call. Of course she is a busy person and after a couple of calls i ask if she can call me back.
Apparently she doesn’t take care of case like ours herself and lets someone else call me back. This Gentleman takes care of things and two days later the coupon book finally arrives.
First Service Appointment:
I didn’t realize that Jeep wants you to bring you car in every 3 months for service and i guess that is how they try to make up for there lost money. So when i get a letter from Crowfoot dodge that my first service appointment is made i think wow very organized so i decide to check it out. Also because of the coupon book this service appointment is free.
At arrival at the dealer I tell them to check my tire pressure because one of them is way of and the girl tells me that they always check the pressure. I decide to wait for my car because it will only take 1 hour.
In the waiting room is a lady walking around not looking very happy 1 hour later i find out that she is waiting for hours now because they forgot about her and her car but they finally got through it.
Then 1.15 minutes after i arrive i see my car standing outside. I still wait for a bit longer because i guess they staff still needs to make the bill and stuff but after 20 more minutes i am sick of waiting and walk to the reception desk where they put my bill in the wrong drawer and so if i didn’t say anything i would have been there all day
On the service statement it states lots of things they did and one of them is the Tire Pressure. BUT as my Jeep has a tire pressure monitor inside i still see that one tire is way of and needs adjusting YEP they didn’t check the tire pressure and that makes you wonder if they did any of the other things on the service statement.
I think i will go for one mores service appointment at Crowfoot Dodge and see if they improve but other wise i really need to start looking for another service place.
CONCLUSION:
If you are looking for a good deal and can live the all the hassle that comes with it then i would say try to get a good deal at Crowfoot Dodge but if you expect service and wish to feel like a customer then i say stay away from Crowfoot Dodge. I know for sure that they will not see me buying another car there.
Written by George on January 23rd, 2008 with 10 comments.
Read more articles on Reviews and Stores.
I was really craving pizza last night, and so we decided to go to Boston Pizza.
The food at this fast food chain has always been quite good, and so I was looking forward to a good meal.
Well, the service was not that great, it looked like they were very short on staff, and some of the waitstaff were quite rude to each other, not communicating efficiently at all.
My food, unfortunately was cold, and nothing taste’s worse than cold pizza. It had taken so long to arrive, and since my husband’s food looked good, I decided to eat it anyways.
So, a simple word of caution, if they appear to be short staffed at Boston Pizza, it may just happen that your food is not up to standard.
Written by Smriti on January 17th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Reviews.
The extremely touristy town of Banff of course needs a lot of places where you can eat, and that means that there is a lot of average food places around but there is more.
The Bison is a restaurant just a class up from most places in Banff it is situated a street behind main street in the upstairs from The Bison General store.
Staff takes good care of you and the atmosphere is very nice.
The food we got at the bison was great and for me that was definitely the best peace of Bison meat i ever ate.
If you are looking for a nice place to do a lunch or dinner i would suggest that you check out The Bison Mountain Bistro prices are a little bit above the main street food places but in my opinion they are more the worth it.
The Bison Mountain Bistro:
The Bison Courtyard - 211 Bear Street
Banff, Alberta
www.thebison.ca
Written by George on January 10th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Restaurants and Reviews.
I got myself these nice speakers from Koss at boxing day they where cheap and i was looking for a nice way to play my music from my iPod nano 3g
These Speakers from Koss do the trick. They offer a docking option for all Ipods and there is even and Aux in Cable so that you can connect any other MP3 player or anything else with a headset port like a portable cd player.
The KSiP2806-1 are the lower end of the line and that means that you get a great product but the volume is not that high. But i guess you can’t expect to much for less the 20 dollars that i payed for them.
Koss delivers a great looking and complete package including remote and aux cable. The docking of my Ipod go’s easy but i have to remove the protecting cover of my ipod first
All with all the speakers from Koss to there job more then well. It is easy to control your ipod with the included remote and it even offers video out (didn’t test that). And that all said i would say just wanting some speakers for you ipod the look at these Koss once if you want a little bit more look for a model up still good priced but with a bit more of everything.
Written by George on January 9th, 2008 with 6 comments.
Read more articles on Products and Reviews.
On the way from Calgary, AB to Kelowna, BC; we decided to take a lunch break at the Smitty’s restaurant in Golden, BC. We have occasionally eaten at the Smitty’s in Calgary and have always been pleasantly surprised by the good service and palatable food for a diner of its caliber.
The food at Smitty’s in Golden was good, as usual, however ther service was something else. Our waitress was freindly, but truly “out to lunch”, she didnt hear half our orders, and forgot the coffee, and took away plates while wer were still eating out of them. Since this was just a pit-stop it was ok, we were fed, and on our way again.
Written by Smriti on January 1st, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Restaurants and Reviews.
This afternoon we decided to go eat at De Dutch Panekoek house in Kelowna. We had been eyeing it for a while and decided to indulge in some authentic dutch food.
Having checked the website beforehand we realized that food was not going to be authentic dutch however they did have a dinner menu which sounded promising.
Well, this particular De dutch restaurant (address below) closed everyday between 2-3pm, so we wondered if they would serve the dinner menu. It turns out, they didnt offer any of the dinner menu infact the only thing that was authentic were the pancakes, everything else was pretty standard to any run of the mill Canadian diner.
The food was tasty, but we were left wanting of authenticity. The service, unfortunately was not great, seemed like anyone who worked there was under 20 years of age, and simply didnt know what customer service was all about.
De Dutch - Kelowna - Dilworth
2385 Highway 97N
Kelowna, British Columbia
V1X 4H9
Telephone: (250) 868-0817
Written by Smriti on January 1st, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Restaurants and Reviews.