reviewme – Grey Panthers Savannah https://grey-panther.net Just another WordPress site Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:33:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 206299117 Protein Shakes site review https://grey-panther.net/2011/09/protein-shakes-site-review.html https://grey-panther.net/2011/09/protein-shakes-site-review.html#respond Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:33:00 +0000 https://grey-panther.net/?p=51

This is something new for me: protein shakes. Medically I can’t offer advice about it (I’m weary about using foreign substances not recommended by a specialist), but the site certainly is has some positive signs:

  • The badges at the bottom are clickable and they go to the respective sites which certify the site
  • The domain is registered since 2006 and they are paypal verified since 2007
  • They have an active Facebook and Twitter account
  • They use paypal / google checkout for payment which reduces your risk considerably

They also have also some less positive signs:

  • There is no physical contact address
  • The registration details are hidden by proxy registration
  • The phone-number is a generic one (I would have liked one which coincides with the physical location)

All in all I would recommend this site for small purchases from inside the USA (they don’t deliver internationally). Also, I would consult a doctor (or multiple doctors) about the possible effect of the substances. In my view (and I’m no doctor) this is more serious than the homeopathic or “natural” substances and it should be handled with care. Then again, I’m also against medicine / medical devices (like glasses) being sold in places without expert supervision (like supermarkets).

Full disclosure: this is a paid review from ReviewMe. Under the terms of the understanding I was not obligated to skew my viewpoint in any way (ie. only post positive facts).

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Levant Digital Marketing review https://grey-panther.net/2011/09/levant-digital-marketing-review.html https://grey-panther.net/2011/09/levant-digital-marketing-review.html#respond Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:15:00 +0000 https://grey-panther.net/?p=58 Levant Digital Marketing is a company which does Search Engine Optimization in the Middle East. They seem to be a very new company (the domain was registered in January of 2011). They are part of “JHG Holding”, but this itself is also only from 2009 (and their site contains minimal content). I didn’t manage to find their headquarters on Google Maps either (but this might just be an issue with Google Maps in foreign countries). Their phone number is indeed from Lebanon (as their physical address is). Their facebook page is non-existent at the moment (was it deleted?) and the twitter account is completely empty.

All in all, while I couln’t find anything explicitly negative about them, it is more the case that I couldn’t find anything concrete about them :-). As far as advice goes, when starting out you are better off with some simple steps, and when you grow you might consider looking into a SEO consultancy, but take care to find a reputable one rather than a cheap one or one which promises you the moon.

Full disclosure: this is a paid review from ReviewMe. Under the terms of the understanding I was not obligated to skew my viewpoint in any way (ie. only post positive facts).

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Paving site review https://grey-panther.net/2011/08/paving-site-review.html https://grey-panther.net/2011/08/paving-site-review.html#respond Wed, 03 Aug 2011 19:16:00 +0000 https://grey-panther.net/?p=59 This is a fairly trustworthy site to buy paving slabs and other construction materials. It checks out on on all sources I usually use: domain registration, physical address, reputation sites and a quick search for complains. So go ahead and look around, but remember that for larger purchases you should consult an expert. They also have a fairly standard return policy, so if you do find out that you don’t need a certain item, you might still be able to salvage some money.

External pavement is tricky in general, so you really need to consult somebody who done it before. It requires some kind of foundation (mostly compacted sand) and manual work to lay each piece. When finished it can look very nice, but it can also be very adversarial to people / children who happen to fall on them. I would recommend grass, asphalt (possibly a small strip of it for the tires if we are talking about a garage) and only after that paving with slabs. Good luck with the construction!

Full disclosure: this is a paid review from ReviewMe. Under the terms of the understanding I was not obligated to skew my viewpoint in any way (ie. only post positive facts).

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IVA site review https://grey-panther.net/2011/08/iva-site-review.html https://grey-panther.net/2011/08/iva-site-review.html#respond Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:50:00 +0000 https://grey-panther.net/?p=60 Reviewing this site pose a conundrum to me (other than how to write the word conundrum): on the one side they seem to be a legitimate site for IVA advice, with a long standing domain registration, a physical address and even an entry at the Office of Fair trading (which seem to be the equivalent of the Better Business Bureau). On the other hand there are other sites with the same profile – debt relief – which refer the same physical address but are hosted elsewhere (in Germany for example).

I can’t draw a definite conclusion about this. I’m not from the UK and have zero familiarity with the UK law. Probably the only advice I can give at this moment is to try asking your close family or your trusted friends. I imagine that it is painful to do so, but this is the only source I can think of where you can get money without the exorbitant rates asked by payday lenders. All that I can do is hope that you prevail, since I have a deep belief that as long as you have determination, you will find your place.

Full disclosure: this is a paid review from ReviewMe. Under the terms of the understanding I was not obligated to skew my viewpoint in any way (ie. only post positive facts).

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adulttoys.com review https://grey-panther.net/2011/05/adulttoys-com-review.html https://grey-panther.net/2011/05/adulttoys-com-review.html#respond Sat, 21 May 2011 06:53:00 +0000 https://grey-panther.net/?p=63 Sex sells, but in this case it is the reverse: money sold me to review an adult sex toys website. Here we go:

I didn’t use any sextoys myself to-date (although I would be open to try some of the lighter versions), but I can see how online shopping and discreet delivery can be a big advantage. A word of caution: always consider the medical implications and don’t force yourself into un-natural situations which could end up hurting you.

Getting back to the store at hand:

  • It only delivers inside of the USA, so it is a no-go for me (but there are plenty of local stores here, so I’m not complaining)
  • Their site interface is pretty well made and usable, but there are bugs: for example when added one product to the cart and tried to check out, it appeared twice in the cart
  • One big plus: their entire site is available trough HTTPS. Even though they default to HTTP, this is still great.
  • Unfortunately their contact details are a little sketchy (and I mean it in the literal sense: there is very little information): they don’t give a physical address, just a PO box from San Diego. They are also hosted by a San Diego company, which makes it very probable that they are based there, but again, there is no clear indication of this. Their contact form doesn’t give an email address or a phone number. They are hosted on a dedicated server (good) but with IIS 6.0 (not so good). They are doing their own credit-card processing from what I’ve seen (I didn’t go trough with an actual order) and I would be weary entrusting my credit-card to a company which is not specialized in this domain (the CC processing domain that is).
  • The site has no negatives on security rating sites like SiteAdvisor, WOT or Norton SafeWeb.

All in all, I would do only small purchases on this site, at least initially, from a disposable credit-card (PayPal offers these for example)

Full disclosure: this is a paid review from ReviewMe. Under the terms of the understanding I was not obligated to skew my viewpoint in any way (ie. only post positive facts).

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blackjackpractice.org review https://grey-panther.net/2011/04/blackjackpractice-org-review.html https://grey-panther.net/2011/04/blackjackpractice-org-review.html#respond Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:53:00 +0000 https://grey-panther.net/?p=64 I was hired to write a review about blackjackpractice.org which purportedly blackjack practice, however I wasn’t able to verify this, since the site is down (currently it is showing a default directory listing from Apache, earlier today it was showing an empty page). There is very little know about this by the usual sources, and there doesn’t seem to be anything interesting on the same server (it is hard to tell if the same person owns all the domain on the server due to the “privacy protected” registration).

Now back to the idea to blackjack practice: can you really train yourself? Probably, to some extent (hey, even Kent Beck – yes, that Kent Back – has a poker training website). With regular exercise you can memorize basic strategy table (this will help you with any game, regardless if its with a live dealer or with a machine – supposing that the machine is playing fair) and then you can move to more advanced techniques like card counting or shuffle tracking. I doubt however that you can achieve a level where this would be a profitable endeavor.

Full disclosure: this is a paid review from ReviewMe. Under the
terms of the understanding I was not obligated to skew my viewpoint in
any way (ie. only post positive facts).

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scentsy review take two https://grey-panther.net/2011/04/scentsy-review-take-two.html https://grey-panther.net/2011/04/scentsy-review-take-two.html#comments Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:19:00 +0000 https://grey-panther.net/?p=68 I’ve already written about Scentsy Products, so I will try not to repeat myself that much (other than reiterating that you should really think before investing in a referral system) and will focus on their special product:

Piece by Piece Full-Size Scentsy Warmer – this a usual warmer (usual for Scentsy that is – it uses a lightbulb to provide the heat, thus avoiding the open flame and smoke) with a puzzle-piece decoration. What makes this item (more) special is the fact that parts of the revenue from it go to Autism Speaks. While currently this is the only one in the Charitable Cause Warmers product line, hopefully there will be more in the future, allowing you to get something for both your body and your soul.

An other item I didn’t talk about in the last article is the gift certificate: if you consider appropriate, you could give a 25 USD Gift Certificate to the person. There are also replacement parts and individual warmer parts if your warmer breaks but you don’t want to buy a completely new one. Also, the light bulbs in the Scentsy products are standard ones (compared to something like a Philips wake-up light) so you can buy a replacement in almost any store, as long as you watch for the socket size and the wattage.

Full disclosure: this is a paid review from ReviewMe. Under the terms of the understanding I was not obligated to skew my viewpoint in any way (ie. only post positive facts).

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rubberecycle.com review https://grey-panther.net/2011/04/rubberecycle-com-review.html https://grey-panther.net/2011/04/rubberecycle-com-review.html#respond Sun, 10 Apr 2011 08:17:00 +0000 https://grey-panther.net/?p=69 There isn’t much I can say about this company. They seem very legitimate by all indications (domain name registered more than 10 years ago, with the physical address of the company, no complaints on the web, etc). Their goal seems also very laudable: creating playground surfacing out of recycled tire rubber. While I don’t have enough information to ascertain if this is truly more eco-friendly than getting rid of the tires in other ways (burning them for example – there are many factors here – the recycling process itself might consume a larger amount of energy – see a similar issue with the fact that placing solar panels in the Sahara desert might actually increase global warming), reusing is always a laudable goal.

The company is also relatively media-savvy: they have a (Facebook) like button on their website, they have a blog and their site is relatively nice looking (even more important: it doesn’t look like one of the stock templates from designers). The only thing you can’t do is to order online, but probably it’s better this way, since we are talking about relatively large amount of material (and automatically large amount of money) so a personal contact is a better option. Also, I didn’t see any indication that they ship outside of the USA, probably for the same reason.

Thumbs up for a small-medium business which has a good product!

Full disclosure: this is a paid review from ReviewMe. Under the terms of the understanding I was not obligated to skew my viewpoint in any way (ie. only post positive facts).

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Medicalhealthinsurancetoday.com review https://grey-panther.net/2011/04/medicalhealthinsurancetoday-com-review.html https://grey-panther.net/2011/04/medicalhealthinsurancetoday-com-review.html#respond Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:44:00 +0000 https://grey-panther.net/?p=70 Today I’m reviewing a site which has the goal of comparing different private health insurance companies and giving you the cheapest one. Unfortunately I’m not familiar with the USA insurance rules (because I’m on a different continent :-)), so I can only comment on generic impressions related to this site:

  • The domain was registered in 2007, which is reassuring, however the registration information is hidden, which raises some questions, especially given the fact that you are supposed to trust this site with personal data (like address, phone number, date of birth, name)
  • The design is ok, although there are some technical glitches (like using the sitemap link to give the sitemap for the search engines, although this wouldn’t be necessarry – there are other ways to point the search engines to it)

However the biggest downfall of the site is the confusing interaction model and stale data: when you request a free quote it asks you a lot of personal information (then again I don’t know how much data the individual insurance companies risk model needs) in a separate popup. It presents the result in both the popup window (however both links it gave me gave me an 404 error) and also the main window, but clicking trough the main window requires to fill the form again.
In conclusion I have a low confidence level that such comparison sites would be a reliable information source and also the comparison on price alone isn’t enough when making such an important decision.

Full disclosure: this is a paid review from ReviewMe. Under the terms of the understanding I was not obligated to skew my viewpoint in any way (ie. only post positive facts).

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mytrendyphone.co.uk review https://grey-panther.net/2011/02/mytrendyphone-co-uk-review.html https://grey-panther.net/2011/02/mytrendyphone-co-uk-review.html#comments Fri, 25 Feb 2011 09:48:00 +0000 https://grey-panther.net/?p=78 My assignment – which I choose to accept 🙂 – was to review a mobile accessories site, namely mytrendyphone.co.uk. All the signs for this site check out:

  • It was registered a couple of years ago and didn’t move around much
  • It has several real seals (real meaning that they are linked to the originating site, where you can check out the referring site is really approved, didn’t just faked the seal)
  • Their contact address checks out (based on Google maps) as does their phone number (which is in the London area)
  • I found a couple of complaints about them on this site, however they seem to be very responsive to the negative complaints

After doing the basic safety research I went on to browse the site and I found many interesting items, for example this Jabra headset. What I like about about these models of headsets is the fact that they use standard minijack for headphones, which means that they can easily be replaced in case they stop working (and it is my experience that headphones are the first to go bad).

An other category which I found interesting was the tools section. While some of the tools are clearly overpriced, the more complex kits look interesting and I am tempted to buy something from there.

Full disclosure: this is a paid review from ReviewMe. Under the terms of the understanding I was not obligated to skew my viewpoint in any way (ie. only post positive facts).

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