The whole net world is a buzz because this popular couple – specially in Twitter – are believed to be having some marital problems. Kutcher was said to have had an affair and all of this media bonanza is all because of Demi Moore’s little coded twit.

I for one am not interested but I do find the public interest on topics like this, well interesting. I’m not sure if there is compelling evidence that this couple have split and I am not waiting on any evidence, I however want to just wear funny shirts, and stop worrying about other peoples lives and start leaving mine.

Finally my wife and I have our new laptops.  And we are both satisfied with our purchases, hopefully that will be the end of our laptop hunting. This past few weeks has been a sort of extended Cyber Week for us, and I am relieved that it is over.  We have encountered a lot of  of problems, even scammers and product return and refunds,  and looking back I sure could have used a checklist for avoiding computer purchase problems, this could have saved us a lot of trouble.  So with our experience, I wrote down this checklist that hopefully would be read by prospective laptop buyers – to save them the trouble of finding out the hard way:

How to avoid Computer Purchase Problems:

- Understand why you need a laptop and know what tasks you will use it for (i.e. browsing, battery life, gaming, etc)

- Find the required/recommended laptop specifications to run the tasks you want (i.e. if want to play 3D games – you will need at least a laptop with a 1GB video card.

-  Make sure your candidates fit  your budget.  Look for brand and models that fit the requirements and your budget.

- Be wary of scammers, if the price is too good to be true then it probably is a scam. NEVER send or give money to people you do not know or trust. I recommend going to a reputable store. Make a research on the store before spending your money. You will be surprised at how bad some stores are.

- Take note of the suitable laptop candidates and REASEARCH on recurring problems with those laptop models. We just purchased an Asus 1215b netbook which had factory defective touch pads, we had to do a refund because even the replacement 1215b was also defective! The sad part it took us more than a month of waiting and wasting resources going to the store just to get our money back.  If we had researched more, there is already a lot of complaint on the net about it’s Touchpad…

- Look for discount opportunities or freebies,  and see if you can wait for these opportunities. We got some decent deals and freebies because we waited and haggled.   For our recent purchases, aside from the discounts, I got an upgraded ram (6GB total), a brand new HP digital  camera and a brand new D-link router.

-  Pay for your laptop in cash, if you have money to spare , you will normally get good discounts this way. This will help save money and will give you peace of mind.

- Carefully test the laptop out by spending at least 30 minutes doing what you normally do on the laptop, checking every nook and cranny while you are at the store before you take it home. The Asus 1215b touch pad issue do not start appearing until after a good few minutes which if we had tested extensively the first time, we could have avoided the purchase and all the hassle.

- Finally get the laptop that you worked hard for and that you deserve. And make sure to take good care of it.

I recently finished processing my car registration at the LTO office last July, and it was such a breeze.

Here are a few things that I figured out which could help car registrants:

- Set aside some money before hand for your car registration, don’t wait for salary to register, the reason will be explained by the next items.

- Pick the best date to register, I have learned through experience that the best date to register is around 3 to  4 days before payday.  I had a hunch that people register right after they get their salaries, so when I tried this method, it  was no surprise that I didn’t have to wait or fall in line at all.

- If you don’t want long lines and wait time, avoid registering your car on or right after paydays.

- Car problems should have been fixed before the registration date.

- Check your LTO car registration requirements (you will need to xerox some documents) the day before your schedule, and double check on the actual day to be sure that you have everything you need.  It usually is just the old/original registration.

- Get to the LTO office nearest you at an early time or right after lunch to avoid rush hour.

- Be attentive at the LTO office and ask the tellers or guards when not sure.

- Follow the instructions, first someone will get the “sketch” of your engine details. Then you will fill up a form and pay for the car Wholesale Insurance. Next step will be the smoke test, after that you just have to wait for a few minutes to pay the fee

- Finally you are done with registration.

When we were still renting a home near my work, we used to worry about our water bills, too much so that we literally measure our water usage everyday. This frantic measuring came about when we first saw our water bill. It was a lot more than we expected. It turned out though that there was a leak in the water piping that caused the water to flow steadily and the bill to rise quickly. So we talked to our Landlord about it and he fixed the problematique pipes. And he even installed goulds pumps to make sure water reaches us even in peak usage hours.

At least now that we live in our own house, we no longer have to worry water seepage.

My wife’s birthday is still far off, but I was recently reminded when I saw a friend giving his wife a nice gift. He then asked me if I have any plans on what to give my wife. So I’ve been doing some research on gift ideas for my wife and have found a few items that commonly come up. Here are the most common items that husbands give to their wives:

- Flowers
- Jewelry
- Chocolates
- Fancy Dinner
- Fancy accessories

Sadly, the list is for stereo typical wives, but seeing that my wife is not materialistic – and so am I, the question of my friend still remains: What will you get for your wife’s birthday? I will have to think of something out of the ordinary, and well I still have months anyway so I won’t answer it for now.