Can you feel the notebook love? I feel happy just looking at this photo. I love holding new notebooks and smelling their fresh pages. You must be thinking I’m weird but if you’re a notebook lover, the smell of new notebooks can be heaven.

This is my notebook haul at the beginning of the year: a jotter pad, (a gift from A), a 2010 diary, a red hardbound journal (a gift from Sir Raffy), an Agatha Ruiz dela Prada notebook, and four Moleskine volants.
The jotter pad has become Jamaine’s drawing pad, the 2010 diary is slightly used and sitting on my bookshelf while the red journal is still tucked safely in my clothes drawer. I’m saving it for my new vision journal which I’m doing in April.
The large Moleskine volants are my gratitude prayer journals. I’ve filled up the light pink one and almost halfway through the fuschia one. The smaller volants are my written vision journals, both are almost filled. Which means I get to buy new ones soon. Yay!
The Agatha Ruiz dela Prada notebook is my daily companion. I use it to take notes for work, for my blogs and for my other to do lists. This one is a real lifesaver.
One time, I was about to make a presentation about this new project I’m involved in. I was pretty confident with my powerpoint presentation (which I labored on for hours!) safely stored inside my USB. When I plugged my USB in Kernie’s mac, the USB died on the spot! The laptop kept showing the prompt to reformat the USB and all my files were gone.
Good thing, I had detailed notes in my ever reliable notebook so I breezed through the presentation with just my notes and natural brilliance (ahem!) plus my helpful hubby’s inputs complete with sample videos he had on archive.
Note to self: Always test powerpoint presentations made on a PC for Mac compatibility, save files on two USBs and your cellphone, and always, always have detailed notes as backup.
It seems Jamaine and Kalia have also acquired my love for pretty notebooks. One day they saw me writing on my Agatha notebook and they both wanted to borrow it. So I gave both of them plain scratch notebooks I had on stock. But they both vehemently refused to write on them and insisted on having my Agatha notebook. I ended up giving the Agatha notebook to Jamaine and my 2010 diary to Kalia.
So now my notebooks have scribbles and drawings on random pages. But I like to keep them there. I’m happy my daughters love to write.
But my Moleskine volants are definitely untouchables. They are sacred to me because of their purpose and so they are always kept safely away from prying hands enclosed in a plastic envelope.
I used to bring all of them in my shoulder bag. But I had to leave some of them at home when my shoulders started aching.
I love blogging and working on my laptop but at the end of the day, my notebooks are still my real loves. I have a feeling this notebook fixation will go on until forever.
What hobby or stuff do you love that you’ll keep forever?

“I’m never gonna go shopping at the mall again!”
This was my hasty declaration last week as I became even more engrossed in online shopping. I love the convenience of browsing through online shops without pesky salespeople following you around. You can come and go as you please and not feel guilty if you don’t buy. You can go about shopping relaxed because your purchases will be delivered right to your doorstep.
Of course, there are downsides too like when the product you get doesn’t meet your expectations. (Sometimes photos can be deceiving.) Or when the product has a damage that the seller conveniently forgot to mention or show in photos. Or after buying a certain product, you find another shop selling the same thing for a lower price. This is especially painful when you buy high ticket items.
But all these can be avoided.
How? Research.
Just as you would scour the mall for best prices or window shop several times to make sure you’re gonna get the most of your purchase, search the internet for every product review possible and make sure that the shop you’re buying from is very reliable.
Wikio Shopping is a site that could easily do all the research for you. It’s like an online “shopping – pedia ” that lets you know all the possible information you may need about the product you want to buy.
It’s a new site but it already has 235,000 products on board with almost one million reviews accompanied by 600,000 photos and 475,000 videos. Now that’s a lot of numbers in one sentence. But as I write this, hundreds of products are being uploaded with more than 1,000 reviews.

The Wikio homepage may look simple but once you conduct a product search, that’s when you’ll find it choc – full of information. For example, I’ve been thinking of getting a Blackberry Bold because I’ve heard a lot of people rave about it. But I get the occasional rants too so the best way to really know for sure is to consult more people who have used it and to read more informed reviews.
So when I did a search for Blackberry Bold, this is what came out.

The first thing you’ll see are the photo of the product and the deals currently available. Pretty simple. But when you scroll down, that’s where the fun begins.
You’ll see an overview of reviews gathered from different blogs, user opinions with ratings for the product, the latest news about the product and video reviews.

This is just an overview pane but when you click on the tabs, you’ll see even more reviews…

and more videos.

I think if users like a product enough to exert extra effort to make a video review, then chances are you are onto a good product.
If you have or haven’t made up of your mind, the next info you’ll see will probably help you make the decision: a chart of all the deals available from lowest to highest price.

Still not decided? There’s a gallery of related items where you can take your pick.

If you’re out online shopping and you need something more than a product’s price comparison, Wikio Shopping is a must stop over. If you do your research well, I’m sure you’ll walk away a satisfied happy shopper.
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