services Archives - Page 2 of 4

Turn Slides Into Digital Versions Effortlessy

April 20, 2012/6 Comments/in Goods & Services, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

These companies will turn your stockpile of old media—colour photos, slides and negatives—into new digital versions, saving you both time and effort.

SAVE TIME & EFFORT | What’s on your bucket list? Exotic travel? Learning how to play an instrument or speak a foreign language? What about creating a digital inventory of the gazillions of snapshots and slides you’ve got stashed in drawers and boxes around your house? That fun (hahaha) undertaking is on my list for posterity (plus iPad) reasons but was buried near the bottom until a recent article in the NYT persuaded me to push it to the top. Written by my tech journalist crush Farhad Manjoo, it outlined the various options for converting all manner of old media—photos, videos, cassette tapes, paper documents—to new digital versions. Yeah! Just what I’d been looking for, a relatively painless not-so-expensive fix. Read more

Over Or Under: What’s Your Shopping Style?

March 26, 2012/0 Comments/in BUY THIS. MAKE THAT., Goods & Services, HOME, View All Home Stories /by Editor

Are you an under-buyer or an over-buyer? Here’s what you can to do about it if you are.

BUY RIGHT | After squeezing the last bit of paste from the only tube of toothpaste in our house last week, I rushed out and bought a replacement at Shoppers Drug Mart. The next day I was cruising through WalMart, a store I seldom visit, when I noticed my toothpaste brand was regularly priced at $1.25 a tube cheaper than at Shoppers. That’s a considerable savings, so I made a mental note to return in the future and stock up. I didn’t buy any that day because I already had some at home.

Gretchen Rubin, The New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project, coined a term for people like me. She calls us under-buyers, and she knows one when she sees one because she’s an under-buyer too. Read more

Why You Want To Avoid Left Hand Turns

February 27, 2012/0 Comments/in Goods & Services, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

With gas prices soaring, here’s a surprising, absolutely free way to economize.

SAVE MONEY & TIME | Is the high and climbing price of gasoline weighing on your mind? On Saturday, the Vancouver Sun reported that over the past week the price of gas across Metro Vancouver jumped to $1.40 a litre and that locals should brace for increases as high as $1.60 a litre heading into summer (CLICK HERE for the story). Last spring The New York Times ran a practical piece on ways to save on gas with reporter Michelle Higgins recommending, among other things, that drivers download an app like GasBuddy.com to help them find cheap gas while on the road (locally try online at VancouverGasPrices.com); that they fill up with regular instead of premium; and that they check to make sure their tire pressure is right (CLICK HERE for the story).

Fabulous as Higgins’s 13 suggestions are, she neglected to mention a proven way to economize on fuel, save on time spent in traffic and reduce injuries to drivers and passengers: Avoid turning left. Read more

Why You Want A Password Manager

February 23, 2012/4 Comments/in Goods & Services, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

ç with this dead-simple password manager.

LIFESAVER | Everyone has their own definition of personal insanity. Mine is wasting colossal amounts of time trying to log in to all the Internet stuff—websites, social networking platforms, and software applications, whatever—I subscribe to. Experts warn us to mix up passwords to keep hackers at bay, but that’s created a nightmare for me, and plenty of embarrassing moments when I’ve needed to access key information quickly and couldn’t do it. Read more

How To Stop Getting The Yellow Pages

February 21, 2012/0 Comments/in CANADIAN CONTENT, Goods & Services, HOME, HOW-TO KNOW-HOW, View All Home Stories, View All How-To Stories /by Editor

If unwanted telephone directories go straight to your recycling bag, here’s how to opt out of receiving them.

WASTE NOT | According to a 2010 Globe and Mail article, plenty of people still let their fingers do the walking through the physical pages of a hard copy version of the Yellow Pages. Funny, I don’t know even one of them. Everyone I know from 8 to 80 has switched to the computer to find the telephone numbers of their favourite businesses. For me, the Yellow Pages has become a shelf-grabbing dinosaur, and I cannot remember the last time I leafed through my copy—oh wait, yes I can. It was last week after two copies of the latest tome arrived on my doorstep and I picked up one them to look for a way to opt out. Read more

Some Relief For Expats Filing US Tax Returns

February 2, 2012/0 Comments/in CANADIAN CONTENT, Goods & Services /by Editor

Americans living in Canada can’t escape paying U.S. taxes, but they can reduce the cost of filing a return.

SPEND SMART | If you’re an American citizen resident in Canada (or know someone who is), you know from the ruckus in the press last year that you’re required to file two income tax returns annually: a Canadian one because you live here, and a U.S. one because you are an American citizen and the U.S. taxes on the basis of citizenship rather than residency.

Never mind the fairness issue, or that people such as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney game the system by legally parking their jillions in accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, you still need to file—and unless you’re familiar with the U.S. tax code, you will require professional assistance. This service can cost plenty in Canada, which is why some filers head south. Read more

Find Eco Friendly Christmas Trees

December 1, 2011/0 Comments/in HOLIDAY, Holiday, Home & Garden /by Felicity Stone

Here’s our 2011 guide to finding the eco-friendliest Christmas trees in and around Metro Vancouver.

HOLIDAY 2011 | While artificial trees come in hues to match your decor, real Christmas trees are green in more than colour. They are a renewable crop often grown on land unsuitable for cultivating much else, they remove carbon from the air while they’re growing, and they can be chipped for mulch after use. Here are three ways to get an eco-friendly green tree this Christmas. Read more

Is Bleach Superbad For The Environment? You?

November 9, 2011/6 Comments/in BUY THIS. MAKE THAT., Cleaning & Maintenance, Goods & Services, HOME, View All Home Stories /by Editor

Is common household bleach a threat to the environment? Can it kill you?

BACK TO BASICS | Call me a freak, but putting on rubber gloves and plunging my hands into my own toilet bowls to clean them with a scrubbing sponge doesn’t bother me at all. What does bother me is that no matter what cleaning products I use, the bowls of my newish toilets look dirty again in days. Frustrated by the ineffectiveness of Vim, Ajax, Lysol et al., I turned to cheap, common household bleach. Read more

Aeroplan Miles: Use Them Or Lose Them

November 2, 2011/3 Comments/in Goods & Services /by Editor

Aeroplan miles don’t accumulate forever. After seven years, they take them back.

WASTE NOT | I used to use my Aeroplan miles all the time. Then my son graduated from university so I no longer had to fly him and us between here and Montreal, my husband stopped taking business trips that I would accompany him on, and there was no longer any urgency to travel. Read more

What Virtual Assistants Can Do for A Business

October 13, 2011/1 Comment/in Goods & Services /by Editor

When time and money are tight, hiring highly experienced virtual personnel could make good sense for your business.

SAVE TIME + MONEY | Although Canada has not experienced anywhere near the economic downturn that has occurred in the U.S., businesses here are on the lookout for ways to save money. One way is to include virtual assistants (VAs) as part of the employee mix. Read more

Posts