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This is an archive of the "Internet Safari" column that appears in print in various newspapers. The column is written by Tom DiFrancesca III.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Following the Money Trail:
There seems to be new hobby of late, and it is growing quickly in popularity. The hobby is that of tracking the location of currency, currency that was once located in one's hand, pocket, or purse. There are now two Web sites dedicated to such a pursuit:
www.MyDollarBill.com
and
www.wheresgeorge.com
Hmmm, I'm wondering when we will start seeing Web site links on currency, a unique form of promoting a Web site maybe?
There seems to be new hobby of late, and it is growing quickly in popularity. The hobby is that of tracking the location of currency, currency that was once located in one's hand, pocket, or purse. There are now two Web sites dedicated to such a pursuit:
www.MyDollarBill.com
and
www.wheresgeorge.com
Hmmm, I'm wondering when we will start seeing Web site links on currency, a unique form of promoting a Web site maybe?
Monday, March 21, 2005
Column for the month of March, 2005 - as it appeared in
"The Informant" - Clovis, New Mexico - USA:
Being a former longtime resident of Clovis, I try to keep up with what is going on there and in New Mexico in general. Of course, the Internet allows me to easily do such a thing. It was a real surprise for me to learn that the Clovis Blockbuster store had recently shut down. Although it’s not unusual to read or hear about a local "mom and pop" store shutting its doors, it is sorta’ strange to see a major video chain store close up shop like that.
Although the Blockbuster store has shut down, the residents of eastern New Mexico still have an opportunity to rent videos from Blockbuster, and for a very reasonable price. If you haven’t had the opportunity to check out the "Blockbuster Online" service, you should. Just jump on over to
www.blockbuster.com
and you will learn, that for a paltry $14.99 a month, one can rent an unlimited number of videos per month (3 at a time), never have to worry about return dates or late fees, and never once have to ever walk through the doors of a video store again. I mean those visits can be pretty harrowing cant’ they? All that hustling and bustling in the crowded isles, and taking the chance of becoming severely depressed because there are no more copies of a particular video available. Ok, I’m going a little overboard but you get the picture.
It’s all about convenience.
You go to the Blockbuster Web site, you set-up an account, you pick your movies (as many as you want – your selections will be saved), and you wait for the first three selections to arrive. For me, the closest video distribution center is in Tampa, which is about a six-hour drive from here. That meant that within 48 hours I had my first three videos to watch. As soon as I finished watching a video, I popped it into the free postage-paid mailer that Blockbuster had provided and put it back in the mail.
Apparently Blockbuster and the U.S. Postal Service have things all worked out real nice like, for as soon as the video mailer was scanned at the local post office; Blockbuster shipped out another one of my video selections. Same thing went for the other two videos that I had initially received. My free two-week trial period went off without a hitch and I was able to view about ten videos during that time frame.
For folks that still have a local Blockbuster store in their community, there is an extra bonus by signing up for the online service. Membership allows for the free rental of two movies from the local store, each month. Of course, I took advantage of that opportunity since there is Blockbuster in my area.
I believe the "Blockbuster Online" service is extremely convenient and very reasonably priced. If one lives in a rural community or out in the country, far from civilization, the service absolutely cannot be beat.
Speaking of movies, the folks at Google have launched yet another feature for their fabulously popular Internet search engine. After arriving at www.google.com – just type in the word "movie:" followed by the name of a movie, or the name of an actor, or – believe it or not, a brief description of the film. Google will do its best to provide to you the information on that movie or all of the movies containing those keywords. Don’t use quotation marks, your search request should look something like this:
Movie: Titantic
In addition to information on each film, there are links to movie reviews and even theatrical trailers included in the search results page.
Another really cool feature is that one can type in a zip code after "Movie:" and will be presented with movie show times for local theaters.
Ain’t’ modern technology wonderful?
Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance newspaper columnist and the author of four books. You can learn more about Tom by visiting www.trackertombooks.com or he can be contacted by email at tomdifran@gmail.com
"The Informant" - Clovis, New Mexico - USA:
Being a former longtime resident of Clovis, I try to keep up with what is going on there and in New Mexico in general. Of course, the Internet allows me to easily do such a thing. It was a real surprise for me to learn that the Clovis Blockbuster store had recently shut down. Although it’s not unusual to read or hear about a local "mom and pop" store shutting its doors, it is sorta’ strange to see a major video chain store close up shop like that.
Although the Blockbuster store has shut down, the residents of eastern New Mexico still have an opportunity to rent videos from Blockbuster, and for a very reasonable price. If you haven’t had the opportunity to check out the "Blockbuster Online" service, you should. Just jump on over to
www.blockbuster.com
and you will learn, that for a paltry $14.99 a month, one can rent an unlimited number of videos per month (3 at a time), never have to worry about return dates or late fees, and never once have to ever walk through the doors of a video store again. I mean those visits can be pretty harrowing cant’ they? All that hustling and bustling in the crowded isles, and taking the chance of becoming severely depressed because there are no more copies of a particular video available. Ok, I’m going a little overboard but you get the picture.
It’s all about convenience.
You go to the Blockbuster Web site, you set-up an account, you pick your movies (as many as you want – your selections will be saved), and you wait for the first three selections to arrive. For me, the closest video distribution center is in Tampa, which is about a six-hour drive from here. That meant that within 48 hours I had my first three videos to watch. As soon as I finished watching a video, I popped it into the free postage-paid mailer that Blockbuster had provided and put it back in the mail.
Apparently Blockbuster and the U.S. Postal Service have things all worked out real nice like, for as soon as the video mailer was scanned at the local post office; Blockbuster shipped out another one of my video selections. Same thing went for the other two videos that I had initially received. My free two-week trial period went off without a hitch and I was able to view about ten videos during that time frame.
For folks that still have a local Blockbuster store in their community, there is an extra bonus by signing up for the online service. Membership allows for the free rental of two movies from the local store, each month. Of course, I took advantage of that opportunity since there is Blockbuster in my area.
I believe the "Blockbuster Online" service is extremely convenient and very reasonably priced. If one lives in a rural community or out in the country, far from civilization, the service absolutely cannot be beat.
Speaking of movies, the folks at Google have launched yet another feature for their fabulously popular Internet search engine. After arriving at www.google.com – just type in the word "movie:" followed by the name of a movie, or the name of an actor, or – believe it or not, a brief description of the film. Google will do its best to provide to you the information on that movie or all of the movies containing those keywords. Don’t use quotation marks, your search request should look something like this:
Movie: Titantic
In addition to information on each film, there are links to movie reviews and even theatrical trailers included in the search results page.
Another really cool feature is that one can type in a zip code after "Movie:" and will be presented with movie show times for local theaters.
Ain’t’ modern technology wonderful?
Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance newspaper columnist and the author of four books. You can learn more about Tom by visiting www.trackertombooks.com or he can be contacted by email at tomdifran@gmail.com
