Author Archives: Torontonian

3 Gift Ideas for 2018 – Year of the Dog

Leave a Reply

Year of the Dog: Full Pane of 25

Product # 404069107 – $21.25

Add a joyful touch to your Lunar New Year greetings with this pane of 25 PermanentTM domestic stamps marking the Year of the Dog.

The stamps feature an illustration of a red dog on a glowing lantern. In the lower left is the Chinese character for dog, gǒu, in calligraphy by Order of Ontario recipient Albert Ng. The pane is embossed and gold foil has been used to highlight details.

The Year of the Dog begins on February 16, 2018, and lasts until February 4, 2019. Those born under this sign are said to be loyal, happy, and playful but sometimes stubborn. Driven by a sense of duty and justice, and disinterested in wealth or power, these sympathetic people put the well-being of others above all else.

https://www.canadapost.ca/shop/stamps/2018-stamps-by-collection/year-of-the-dog/p-404069107.jsf

Lunar New Year Starbucks Card

Amount on card: $15, $25, $50, or $100

Ring in the Year of the Dog with a Lunar New Year Starbucks Card!

https://www.starbucks.com/shop/card/starbucks-card/lunar-new-year-dog

Pure Silver Lunar Lotus Coin – Year of the Dog (2018)

$101.88 CAD

A perfect gift for someone born in the Year of the Dog! Order today!
According to the Chinese zodiac, 2018 is the year of “Man’s most loyal friend!”. Those born under the sign of the Dog are loyal guardians and friends who are honest, kind and eternally compassionate. Oftentimes, they’re bundles of energy; but they’re also known for showering family and friends with kindness, support and love.

Celebrate this bighearted soul in your life—and all who are born under this sign—with a one-of-a-kind collectible that includes magnolia blossoms to highlight the Dog’s noble traits!

http://www.mint.ca/store/coins/pure-silver-lunar-lotus-coin—year-of-the-dog-2018-prod3002526

5 Browser Games That Pay You To Play

Leave a Reply

Not long ago, a friend of mine emailed me a list of browser game sites which members could get paid to play. After checking them one by one, the followings are the ones who remain active. Beware though, sometimes, any money making website could remain live, but for whatever reason they might not be able to pay you promptly.

Dungeons & Treasures – Welcome to Dungeons & Treasures! The adventure game that wins money and gifts for their players! Win gold by finding chests in the dungeons and by playing different games on the site. Each month the characters are reset to zero and the winning golds is converted into virtual DT$. When you reach a minimum of 5 DT Dollars you can request a payment in real Euro. (DT$1 = €0,70) Win more gold and cash with the bonus games : Jackpot, Treasure Hunt, Jousts, Contest Quest and others…

GoalTycoon – GoalTycoon is a strategy game, in which you have the posibility to convert your virtual currency into real money. It is an online browser game, therefore you do not need any other programs installed in order to play. It is one of the few business games where you are rewarded for your daily activity.

Golden Battles – Golden Battles is an online text based role-playing game. War and an economic simulator game where you can make real money by playing.

GoldenTowns – Build an amazing town and win real cash. GoldenTowns is a free online game that can be played straight from a browser like Internet Explorer. The game is a town construction, political and military simulator in wich virtual gold can be exchanged for real cash or for real 24k gold.

MarketGlory – MarketGlory is a strategy game, in which you have the possibility to convert your virtual currency into real money. As a simulation game, it offers you the possibility to fight, work, open companies, start wars. It is a very complex game, and the more you play it, the more options you will find for your own evolution.

5 White Label Opportunities for 2018

Leave a Reply

Ticketnetwork Private Label – As a TicketNetwork® Private Label client, you are in control of the commission structure. Since you get to determine the mark-up of the ticket prices listed on your site, the higher you set your mark-up, the more commission you can make. Commission earnings are disbursed on a monthly basis, towards the end of every month for the sales from the previous month. Commission earnings are disbursed via check or direct deposit.

Dukascopy White Label Trading Platform – The White Label Program allows partner to offer online trading via a simple integrated solution. It comes with full back office support and no direct implementation cost. The partner is guided through the sales, marketing, legal and IT components. No direct maintenance expenses related to any aspect of the technology.

Monitis‎ White Label Reseller Program – Monitor your websites, servers, applications and more… anytime from anywhere. Package and market our services to potential customers. Expand your business offerings by providing world-class monitoring solutions to your clients. Monitis is easy to white label and deliver as your branded service. Use your own logos, custom domains, branded Support guides / manuals.

The ShieldApps White Label Software Program – The Software White Label program consists of a completely rebranded software, carrying the partner’s brand of choice, preferred color palettes and icon-sets, and allows the white label software partner to utilize multi-tier marketing models easier, increase profits on scalable marketing campaigns, and strategically expand activity to newly available inventory in a more profitable manner.

Intellinet White-Label 3rd Party On-Site IT Services – First and foremost, intelliNet’s Reseller Program has been developed over many years of performing for small Solution Providers ranging up to many of the Top 100 IT Services and Software Companies in both Canada and the United States, as well as Major Worldwide Product Manufacturers. So as you can imagine, strict non-competition provisions are well refined. As a Reseller Partner, intelliNet will never compete with you.

What is Vibrio?

Leave a Reply

Recently, there was this news article about a woman who died after eating raw oysters which were infected by vibrio. It got many people worried about the safety of eating oysters. I’m one of those who enjoy cooked oysters, not the raw ones, but I still want to know a bit more about vibrio.

The US CDC website has provided lots of useful info. https://www.cdc.gov/vibrio/index.html

Vibrio symptoms – Watery diarrhea, often accompanied by abdominal cramping, nausea, vomiting, fever, chills, headache, or bloody diarrhea. Symptoms would occur within 24 hours of ingestion and last about 3 days. Severe illness is rare and might occur in people with weakened immune system.

People with higher risk – Having liver disease, cancer, diabetes, HIV, or thalassemia. Receiving immune-suppressing therapy. Taking stomach acid control medicine. Had recent stomach surgery.

Vibrio prevention – Avoid raw or undercooked oysters or shellfish. Wash hands after handling raw shellfish. Be careful of brackish water if you have wound.

Club House vs Altius

Leave a Reply

Recently I got a bottle of Altius Chipotle Mango seasoning from a lucky draw, some luck eh? Hey, it’s better than nothing!

According to the label, the ingredients include Dehydrated Vegetables (Garlic, Onion, Tomato), Sea Salt, Sugar, Spices, Dehydrated Orange Peel, Disodium Inosinate and Disodium Guanylate, Canola Oil, Citric Acid, Spice Extracts (Paprika), Natural Flavour, Silicon Dioxide (Anti-Caking Agent).

Where are the chipotle and mango? Does Natural Flavour mean chipotle and mango. Is it normal for a chipotle mango seasoning not to include chipotle and mango?

Just out of curiosity, I checked the ingredient list of Club House La Grille Chipotle Mango. It contains Sugar, Salt, Spices and Herbs (Including Chipotle Chili Pepper), Dehydrated Vegetables (Onion, Garlic, Tomato), Brown Sugar, Natural Flavour, Sodium Acetate, Disodiium Inosinate and Guanylate, Acetic Acid, Mango Powder, Corn Maltodextrin, Fancy Molasses, Corn Starch, Spice Extracts, Lactic Acid, Calcium Lactate, Sunflower Lecithin, Silicon Dioxide, Calcium Silicate, Calcium Stearate.

Haha, this one does say they include Chipotle Chili Pepper and Mango Powder. I can’t compare the quality of these two seasonings yet. It’s only fair to say that Club House is doing a better job on labelling.

Best Gadget Gift for 2018

Leave a Reply

While I was browsing the Popular Mechanics website, I came across this wonderful gadget and thought that many people would love to get one in hand. This is the perfect gift especially for those who like to take selfie.

Here is the product description: “AirSelfie is a revolutionary pocket-sized flying camera that connects with your smartphone to let you take HD aerial photos of yourself, your friends, and your life. Its turbo fan propellers can thrust to just over ten meters in the air letting you capture wide, truly original photos and videos on your device. With an anti-vibration shock absorber, 5 MP camera, and video streaming capabilities of 1080p @ 30fps, you can rest assured you’ll be getting only the highest quality images and video.”

According to the sales page, this is the smallest flying camera available in the market. The webpage only indicates that the camera weighs 61g. Last time I checked, it does not clearly states its size. It could be smaller than the Jannly Foldable Pocket Drone, which is listed on Amazon.

The Popular Mechanics online shop also offers a number of free trial memberships such as Grammarly, Audiobooks, Privacy VPN, Mac App, Logon Design, fitness and language programs, and miscellaneous software subscriptions.

Treating Dry, Chapped Hands

Leave a Reply

Winter is always hard on skin, especially your hands. So during these winter seasons, many people have cracked hand problems. Decreased moisture in the air draws moisture from the skin. Sometimes, we might wash our hands frequently in order to avoid catching a cold or flu, in that case we leave our hands so dehydrated that they start to crack and bleed. I have tried many different kinds of hand cream – Aveeno Intense Relief, O’Keeffe’s, Vaseline Intensive Care, Glysomed, Neutrogena Norwegian Formula, Herbacin Kamille, Nivea, and etc… (not in particular order) Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Personally, for this winter, Vaseline Intensive Care and Neutrogena Norwegian Formula seem to provide a better result for me.

Recently, a friend of mine told me a simple home remedy for dry, chapped hands. That’s to mix a teaspoon of honey with 2 to 3 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil, put in microwave for 30 seconds low heat or till it’s warm and comfortable for your hands. Apply the mixture on your hands and wait for 15 mins, rub it off with paper towel, and do not wash with hand soap or whatever. I somehow prefer to rinse it off with warm water. If you have dry, painful, scaly, cracked hands, maybe you want to give it a try.

When Windows Update doesn’t work

Leave a Reply

I’m so glad that the recent Fall Creators Update didn’t break my old computer. Usually Windows Update would work with most computers, especially those you bought recently. But for the old computers, Windows Update might not be so kind and could create problem. Like there is one Update which installed itself a month or two ago, it reset my video driver to the Microsoft Basic Display Driver. That’s all because that old computer of mine is using a graphic card Radeon 4350. According to the AMD website (http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/Win10-Driver-Support.aspx), “AMD Radeon HD 4000 Series products and older are not certified to support Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.2 or higher and therefore, do not have driver support for Windows® 10.” Well, actually, that page lists a whole bunch of stuff that Windows 10 doesn’t support.

Most people wouldn’t want to use Microsoft Basic Display Driver, the resolution is way too low to do anything useful. So you either wait for Microsoft to release another Update, or roll back to the previous working video driver. Unfortunately, I don’t have that roll back option. So all I can do is to restore the system to a previous stable restore point. You might wonder wouldn’t the system keep installing the most recent Update which would reset video driver again? Yea, so I have to set my network as “Metered connection”, then the system would not install Update automatically. 🙂

Power Outage Essentials

Leave a Reply

Wow, we have record breaking temperature today. I suspect that with this kind of extreme cold weather going, we might have power outages. I still remember, few years ago, we had a power outage which lasted 3 and a half days. It’s always better to be prepared. Toronto Hydro has a “Be Prepared” webpage that has all sort of info. They suggest that you should prepare the followings:

Food and Water:
Bottled water (4 litres per person per day)
Non-perishable, ready-to-eat foods
Manual can opener
Disposable plates, glasses and utensils

Basic Tools and Supplies:
Flashlights and fresh batteries
A wind-up or battery-operated radio
A corded telephone – or one that works without power; backup power source for mobile phones and tablets, e.g. car charger, power bank
Matches or lighters (in a waterproof container)
Basic tool kit: utility knife, pliers, screwdriver, duct tape, wrench
Garbage bags, aluminum foil, paper towels
Needle and thread
Pens and a pad of paper
Fire extinguisher
Signal flares, whistle (to attract attention, if needed)
Keep some cash on hand, as ATMs may not work in an emergency

For the full list of items, please visit this page http://www.torontohydro.com/sites/electricsystem/PowerOutages/Pages/beprepared.aspx.

Since we are using Rogers’ Home Phone service, they use cable lines to deliver phone service. When cable stops working, so does the phone. At these moments, a AAA battery powered phone charger would come in handy. Also, if you need an emergency radio, don’t use one of those cheap hand-crank ones. We bought a few before, no matter how hard you crank, it doesn’t last long.

Egg Carton and Salmonella

Leave a Reply

Sometimes we frequent a place without particular reasons, there is this breakfast chain restaurant we visit regularly. We like to order those 3 eggs with bacon meals, and one day we observed something a bit unpleasant, then I can tell it’s time to quit going to that restaurant.

Everyone knows that egg shells are dirty, bacteria such as salmonella can contaminate eggs. And you can’t really wash eggs, because you would drive bacteria in through the pores of the shell, so that’s not practical. Normally, eggs are placed in cartons. In other words, egg cartons would have a chance to be contaminated with salmonella or other nasty stuff.

So that one day we accidentally took a glimpse of the kitchen inside, we noticed that the cook is using egg cartons to hold cooked bacon slices. Instead of using paper towel to absorb bacon fat, they are using egg cartons to do the job. Isn’t that a bit gross or what? Salmonella infection can cause diarrhea, abdominal cramps or even meningitis, and it would pose a higher risk to the young and old ones. It’s hard to believe that such a famous chain restaurant would be so irresponsible.

After that, we switched to another restaurant under the same chain, this one seems to be more decent and isn’t as cheap as the previous one who tries to cut every penny like using egg carton, unbranded foam box and bag, etc.

Benefits of Drinking Red Wine

Leave a Reply

1. Presence of resveratrol – The process of making red wine increases the amount of resveratrol, which acts like antioxidants that can protect the body against damage that can put you at risk of cancer and heart disease. The resveratrol in wine comes from the skins of red grapes.

2. Higher omega-3 fatty acids level – Moderate alcohol intake appears to boost levels of omega-3 fatty acids in plasma and red blood cells. Omega-3 fatty acids, mainly derived from fish, is considered as useful against coronary heart disease and sudden cardiac attack.

3. Decreases cardiometabolic risk – A glass of red wine a day can reduce the risks of heart disease in people with type 2 diabetes.

4. Healthy blood vessels and blood pressure – Compounds known as procyanidins, found in red wine can help keep the blood vessels healthy.

5. Prevent brain damage after stroke – Heme oxygenase is an enzyme known to protect nerve cells, resveratrol can help increase level of heme oxygenase.

6. Prevent colon cancer – Resveratrol can also reduce size of bowel tumors.

7. Prevent dementia – The skin of red grapes has very high levels of resveratrol. Resveratrol is the key to reduce the stickiness of blood platelets, it helps keep the blood vessels flexible, and this can promote a good supply of blood to the brain.

The keyword is moderation. Excessive drinking will negate the benefits and lead to risks of health problems.

Excessive alcohol consumption will increase the risk of the followings: addiction, depression, mental health problems, cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias, stroke, hypertension, fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, cirrhosis, cancers, and pancreatitis.

Lowe’s vs Home Depot vs Rona

Leave a Reply

Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Rona, which one do you prefer? It somehow depends on what product you are buying and what kind of services you are seeking. I bet they all have their own fans. Few weeks ago, we decided to install some handrails for our old folks at home during the weekend. Since we don’t have any wood cutting equipment at home, we were looking for some wood cutting services as well.

The first one we visited is Lowe’s. The salesperson there was quite friendly. When asking for a wood cutting service, he pointed us to a working bench. The only tool they could provide is a hand saw. It’s definitely not fun to cut a piece of hardwood handrail using a hand saw. We got to try somewhere else.

Next we tried Home Depot. On that particular date and particular store, it seemed hard to find help. It’s one of those day when you need help, you can’t find anyone. But when you don’t need help, a few salespersons come up and eager to offer help. Eventually we found someone and was told that they don’t offer wood cutting service.

Next, we went to Rona. They provide wood cutting service – $1 per cut. That’s some kind of service. So next time, we should try Rona first. 🙂