Hi Dave. I really love what you’re doing with your AskDaveTaylor Web site and find it an amazing source of valuable and interesting information. Great job! However, unless you are completely omniscient, I imagine that you must get many more questions than you can actually answer, so I’d like to find out if I can help out? I know Windows pretty well and enjoy doing online research too.
Dave, at the end of your Extended Service Contracts: pro-business, anti-consumer article, you said “with the extended service contract for my Toyota Prius, if you are convinced that you want to buy the warranty, shop around and find the best price: you have an entire year after purchase to extend the warranty and certainly don’t need to be pressured into it by a salesperson at the point of purchase.”
We are looking for the best price on this extended warranty and are wondering where you found the best price? Is the dealer where the car was purchased bound to honor a warranty that was purchased elsewhere?
Dave, I want a DVD player that plays PAL DVDs on a regular NTSC TV. My dear brother bought me a Philips dvp642; we popped in a DVD he had bought me from amazon.de and it wouldn’t work. Somebody had mentioned a cyberhome dvd player they had gotten at Fry’s for around $50, but it doesn’t seem to exist. How can I make the present DVD player work or do I need extra parts or a different TV. Help!!
Dave, this is a bit off the beaten track for your technical Q&A, but I’m confused by everything I’ve read and can’t figure out who came up with communism, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky? I hear all their names bandied about, but thought maybe you’d be able to shed some light on this topic.
Dave, given the breadth of your knowledge, how do you keep up? Do you experience “learning overload?” What does it feel like for you, and how does it affect you and your business? What do you do about it and how do you counter it?
Dave, since you seem to be answering a wide range of questions, I’ve been reading with horror about the evidence that Ukrainian liberal candidate Viktor A. Yushchenko has been poisoned by dioxin, and it struck me: isn’t this the same chemical that the Food and Drug Administration tests for in our meat and poultry?
Dave, Dave, you’ve gotta shed some light on this: I keep getting email messages – spam – for different drugs, and I’m getting a bit curious about what each one does… I’ve kept a list and this week alone I’ve had the chance to buy all of the following drugs from online pharmacies at a huge discount: vicodin, xanax, valium, cialis, vioxx, oxycontin, viagra, ativan, botox, levitra, ambien and phentermine. Talk about alphabet soup! What ARE these drugs? And, by the way, why are there so many Vioxx lawyers trying to get me to join their lawsuits?
Dave, I’m very concerned about the “search engine” approach to doing research. I think it’s useless as training for doing real research, encourages children to acquire just the superficial facts, skimming along the surface of information rather than learning the real story on any given topic.
The first use of computers for research should be learning how to find books at the library. Second, students should learn how to use physical encyclopedias and online encyclopedias. Third, students should be introduced to online periodical indexes. The use of search engines should be the last “skill” to be introduced and should be combined with a discussion of the commercial underpinnings of the system and the various ways that results are manipulated.
You seem to be pretty deep in the world of search engines and online research. Do you agree with what I’m saying?
