Reports by Consumers

Its that time of year again! It is new car buying season. I get this question daily. When is the best time to buy a car? Well, I can tell you when it gets to the end of the year and there are still models from the previous year, it is a great time to buy.

I totally agree with his comments about The Matrix, and looking over the film selection, it looks like perhaps they don’t have distribution deals with the studios yet to allow much of a selection. I’ve been surprised how TV has broken out of the proverbial box to lead digital downloads. Not that I do it, but I think if I missed the latest Lost episode, I’d happily download it for $1.99 (especially if I had an iPod that I could watch it on). Yet, ABC offers Lost for free on its website after it airs, and I have watched episodes there.

Privacy has had a rough go of it this week. What with all the Facebooking, HP spying, and Craigslist sex baiting, it’s a miracle there’s not more identity theft than there already is. Now pile on top of that a security breach in an online video game called Second Life, and you’ve got more than enough stories to make even the beginning web user take a second look at what they’re doing online.

My friend Tommy Mullins pointed out in response to my last post that Consumer Reports magazine’s latest issue rips ethanol, for the general perception that it’s cheaper and more efficient than gas, which Consumer Reports states is not true on either count.

Segway Inc., in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and other regulatory agencies outside of the U.S., today initiated a voluntary product recall to upgrade the software in Segway® Personal Transporters (PTs). Segway PT owners should contact the company at 800-750-6557 between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, or visit http://www.segway.com to register for a free software upgrade. No hardware changes are required. Owners outside the U.S. should contact the Segway authorized distributor in their country to learn how to obtain the free software upgrade.

Instead, the market is actually fragmenting into different sectors - Kelkoo and PriceRunner are leading the way in electronics, MoneySupermarket in financial products, Confused.com in insurance, while entertainment has no obvious big names at all.

I got the composting bug a couple of years ago. Our county council was offering cut price composters to residents so I thought I’d have a go. Until then we had a large compost heap that was organised and turned by John Coe, who helps us in the garden. This heap mainly consists of grass clippings and leaves, so as not to attract rats. Now I would have a rat proof container that I planned to use for vegetable scraps and the droppings from the chicken house.