The Shopping Nazi

Saving Money One Product at a Time

Valentine’s Day the Perfect Gift

Valentine's Day is one of those day's we must not forget, or else! Or else a loved one, or mother maybe hurt, disappointed or upset at the very least. We do have help in not forgetting. Television commercials, displays in stores, and email having been reminding me for almost a month. February 14th is Valentines Day, and we should get our loved one some gift. Now we know we got to get our wife...

Beetle or Cooper

This week we have heard reports about gas prices are going up. After hitting a low of close to $3 per gallon for most of January, we are expecting gas prices to start climbing again. With gas prices climbing, the cost of driving our vehicles one mile has started to increase. For those of you who commute any distant to and from work, it will be a big impact on your budget. Like through out mo...

Wonderful World of Trade Shows

Las Vegas is a great place to go for a getaway vacation. It is also know as one of the most popular places to hold a trade show. If you look at the Las Vegas Convention Convention Center there is back to back trade shows. Still for someone like me, who happens to love trade shows, it is not practical for me to spend so much time in Vegas. In fact there is another location where I can go to a tr...

Do I Need Fancy Cleaners?

It is SuperBowl Sunday! There are going to be a lot of living rooms filled with football fans enjoying the big game. There is going to be some emotional highs and lows through out the game. Drinks and food is going to get spilled. Afterwards there will be some cleaning that need to be done. Depending on wild the party gets will depend on how much cleaning will need to be done. In preparation fo...

Gas Mileage Lies

On morning news there was a sniped about a lady who sued Honda for misrepresentation of their gas mileage. It was in small claims court, but still won $10,000. Interesting! It has become pretty much accepted, by all of us, what the sticker gas mileage would be under ideal condition. I am glad someone has stepped up to say, "We are not going to take it anymore!" When I look at different makes...

Touch Screen Desktop Computers

I first saw touch screens computers in the food processing industry back in the late 90's. Since then the technology and the price has been slowly been dropping. As a result we now see more cell phones with touch screens than without. The overall adoption of a touch screen desktop computer has been slow mostly because of the cost. We are seeing the price going under the $1,000 mark. This makes ...

Social Responsible Buying

Last week the name Foxconn and Apple were in all the headlines. It was not about great profits, or some new electronic gadget. It was about the inhumane treatment of the workers in China. What is interesting to note is that Foxconn does not just manufacture electronics for Apple. Foxconn manufacture over 50% of the electronics sold in the United States. Mistreatment of works or labors misbeh...

Secrets of Shopping Wal Mart

Midday on any Saturday or Sunday, at Wal Mart, finds families and couples getting their weekly shopping done. We are at the end of January. People are starting to recover from the Christmas shopping madness. Walking we were greeted by a your 60 oriental lady. I think it is great that Wal Mart seek to find jobs for elderly on fixed incomes. After a quick stop by the cosmetic section for some...

Search for a Practical Usable Tablet

Since before Thanksgiving I have been slowing giving into the idea of getting a tablet. I have looked at all the major brands of tablets and eReaders. I have been trying to imagine how often I would use it. I watch how other people would use their tablets. While attending a local trade show I noticed a large majority of the vendors were using iPads. There were only a few who had other tablets....

Cruise or Not to Cruise

Here we are at the end of January 2012. Texas is getting heavy rains. Snow and Cold is covering most all of the northern hemisphere. I close my eyes and think of a hot summer day with the sun beating down on may face. Then in an instant, I jump into a nice cool swimming pool. Yes, what better time to plan a summer vacation than when the chilling cold is biting your bones, and the sky is all gloomy...

Software 4 School

Posted By: The Shopping Nazi on August 1, 2009 in Home, School, Tech Stuff - Comments: Comments Off

Give you child the tools he needs

Between cloths and school supplies a lot of money is spent getting our children back to school. Elementary age children are pretty simple in what we have to buy for them to get them back in the classroom. Junior High and up requires more than pencils, paper, and some nice looking cloths. Now they need some pretty powerful tech supplies.

I am talking about a computer and the software to go with it.

Desktop computers and laptops, for school can be purchased from $200 and up. This all depends if it is new or used. CraigsList.org is a good place to start for the discriminating, tech savvy buyer.

Software is another story. The old idea of handwritten reports are no longer accepted, since it is so easy to type, edit and print from a computer. Research is no longer done, from home, with a 36 volume encyclopedia. A high speed internet connection yields information faster and newer. Then our child needs the software to put that information into a accurate, eye pleasing report.

An acceptable computer will run you about $300. Just word processing, and spreadsheet software will run you about $100. Then there is that high speed internet connection, which will be about $35 per month.

For Just $2 per month you get the brand names. Who is charging what? All you have to do to sign up is click on register as a member. It takes just 5 minutes.

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It has been my experience most junior and high schools want their students to use Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint for their class projects. Now if you have spent a little to much money on cloths, or other school supplies, you may want to consider some ot the open source alternatives. Do I need to mention they are free for individual users.

Open Office has been around for years. It has all the same feature as its’ big brother from Microsoft, with out the price. Open Office is free.

Google Docs is another alternative. Like Open Office you can save files to standard Microsoft formats. However, you do need a high speed internet connection.

Zoho has an office suite that is great for the student with business in their future. Like Google Docs, Zoho saves to standard Microsoft file formats along with PDF’s. Now remember, since Zoho is a Cloud based Software As A Service (SaaS) you will need an internet connection. Zoho offer all the software that is used in an business, today. What makes it so nice it