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Stocking Stuffers: Making your Budget BrighterThese new books not only fit into Christmas stockings. They help make your budget brighter.By Patricia KutzaVeteran travelers can appreciate books that fit into a stocking. After all they are used to doing just that, stuffing their favorite guidebooks and travelogs into bagpacks, purses and the like. Here are a few books that will make excellent Christmas gifts for those travel lovers …and are priced at little more than a pair of nice socks!
But just about everyone who has used them can relate to this scene: Your ‘dream of a lifetime’ photo opportunity suddenly appears at the same time your memory goes south. You can’t remember how to find and use all of your camera’s bells and whistles. The Digital Photography Pocket Guide helps solve that dilemma by giving camera users‘ at your fingertip’ references for such critical information as capturing action shots, preventing red eye and using exposure compensation. All that good stuff that can elevate ordinary shots to the ‘gee-whiz’ ranks. Measuring just 4”x 7”, it’s right-sized to stash with the rest of your camera accessories.
I particularly appreciate the ‘how to’ pages that deal with such potentially tricky issues as capturing video with difficult backlighting scenes or in inclement weather conditions. It also holds lots of ‘quick reference’ tables on such subjects as microphone types and their pickup patterns, video cables and their connectors and color temperature chart in Kelvin. When friends of mine oogle one of my nifty techno travel helpers, they now know better. They know not to ask: Where did you get it? Because invariably, my answer is “Ebay or Amazon.” Travel guides, binoculars, ID wallets…just about every conceivable travel product is for sale in mint condition…priced at least 50 to 75% off retail….
Enter, eBay HACKS, 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools. While the title of this remarkable (and very readable) book may suggest that software hacks need only apply, there is much within its pages that can instantly instruct those who wouldn’t be caught dead writing code. It’s not meant to be a ‘hand-holding guide’ for the neophyte eBay user, yet there’s lots of wisdom to be gleaned from its pages, important advice about how their bidding system works and the best ways to make it work for you, irregardless of which side of the equation you are based (buyer or seller). For the folks who want to code, there are plenty of canned scripts to choose from, offering the many rewards of finely tuned searches and more effective auctions to those willing to expend some sweat equity.
The publication of AMAZON HACKS, 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools, is a big nod to just how important a player Amazon has become on the online market stage. Stuffed to the gills with lots of useful information, this book, like eBay Hacks, reminds you often that the shopping and selling experience that both these sites offer is of a magnitude far different than a excursion at Walmart or Sears Roebuck. It’s much more a tribal journey, (a concept that has a lot of wanderlust appeal to travelers) ,say both authors, and developing and executing smart selling and buying techniques enhances the total spirit of these communities. But sometimes even the enormous variety of travel-oriented stuff offered by eBay and Amazon eludes my needs. That’s when I encounter the challenge faced by legions of Web users: How to find it elsewhere? Answering that question is the province of search engines. Like most folks who prefer one brand of car over another, I have become joined at the hip with my ‘car of the Web’, the search engine, Google. My preference makes me part of a huge groupie family that has made Google their search engine of choice.
GOOGLE HACKS lives up to the strength of the rest of O’Reilly’s HACK series. It provides lots of nuggets for the casual reader. It will have great appeal for those tourists with a penchant to code. Using their suggested scripts they can nail the most obscure travel guides, train and bus schedules, weather forecasts and travel gear, in most any language, for most any country and for whatever reason. And that’s a great reason to celebrate, during Christmas, as well as and throughout the coming year! Contact Information:The HACK series: eBay, Amazon and Google Images courtesy of O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. |
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Just
about everyone who borrows their neighbors camera or splurges on their own
become converts. It usually takes only one experience using a digital
camera to make these wonderful inventions an integral part of traveler
gear. Most of them now are configured with a host of nifty features, can be
adapted to house very large memory cards and are steadily decreasing in
price.
A
sibling to this book and another offering from the O’Reilly Digital Studio
product line is the Digital Video Pocket Guide. Like its camera
counterpart, this book is brand-independent and gives useful information
about the functions and tools configured on most available camcorders.
But
it is no secret that, to be successful with eBay these days, both buyers and
sellers must understand and leverage its increasingly sophisticated
marketing structure.
In
the early Internet days, eBay was the primary auction destination. Not any
more! Amazon.com has not only added many more products to its site, it now
contains an intricate system of auctions and used-product sales. Like eBay,
users can wield great power in their transactions, provided they know the
rules of the game.
Google-lovers
have two books to choose from: the GOOGLE Pocket Guide and GOOGLE HACKS,
100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools. Like the camera and camcorder
guides, this pocket guide serves up great tips for using Google. With so
many travelers relying on the Web for their travel information and product
needs, this type of book will soon become as indispensable as a currency
converter or road map for managing a successful trip.