A Visitor From Another Planet, or Just a Helpful Tool?

Homedics PA-200H Programmable Percussion Massager

"Take me to your leader," a scratchy whisper interrupted my nap. "Whaa?" I mumbled to my dream. "PA phone home?" came the querulous reply. "Whaa?" I repeated. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer when three-quarters asleep. "Awake, foolish earthling!"

OK, that got my attention. But when I did awaken, there was no evil, ray-gun toting alien at my bedside; just a Homedics PA-200H massager that I'd left lying on the night stand. Oh, sure, with that gray triangular "head," the long skinny "neck," and those pupil-less black "eyes" at the corners of its "face," the PA-200H could easily be mistaken for an escapee from a Whitley Streiber novel as brought to life by Industrial Light and Magic. But on second glance, there are no long, bony fingers and no stereotypical lipless mouth; just an array of teeth, err, buttons and a long, dangling cord. So, my bedroom safe from alien invasion, at least for the moment, I went back to sleep.

Besides, my lower back was feeling so much better!

Features 

The PA-200H may look like something out of an episode of "The X-Files," but it sure doesn't act like a marauding interstellar visitor. It's well behaved; even well trained. It's an impact massager, with twin heads (on the opposite side from its face) that pound your sore spots like tiny fists, only lots faster. You can use any of three black rubber heads of varying hardness to give yourself a good thumping, or use plastic heads that can be heated. Those nice alien wranglers at Homedics taught the little guy some additional tricks, too, including:

Five Intensities: when used with the manual massager setting these simply change the speed (although there seems to be very little difference between numbers 4 and 5).

Three Programs: in which the thumping frequency sweeps from minimum intensity to maximum and back; the different programs have different rates of change and stay at the extremes for different lengths of time.

Three Intervals: allows you to speed up the whole cycle on any of those programs.

Heat: either on or off, and usable only with the supplied heatable pads. It appears to raise the temperature to about 10-15 degrees (F) above body heat. Soothing...

Auto Width Adjustment: hold down a button and the heads slowly move apart, keep depressing it and they come back together again. Maximum spread is about 4 inches, minimum is about 3 inches; the gap between heads ranges from about 1-3/4 inch down to 3/4 inch.

Usage 

The PA-200H is hand-held and corded with a 12-foot line, there's a Velcro loop on the line to help stow the cord neatly. All controls except the width adjustment are on the face, where they can be operated with a thumb or the other hand. These controls are the soft-touch type often seen on calculators and cash registers, which helps keep dust and dirt out of the works. The auto-width adjustment button is on the other side, adjacent to the vibrating heads.

Recommendations  Extra contact pads screw on and off fairly easily, though they don't look all that well made to me. The threads for screwing them on do not go all the way around, and it's easy to accidentally cross-thread them. There's also no way to store the accessory heads that aren't in use except for the crumbly styrofoam block from the original packaging. The unit weighs about six to eight pounds, most of which is concentrated out at the business end. It's awkward to use if you're trying to support its weight (e.g., using it on your hamstrings while sitting). The massager works best when held horizontal so that its entire weight is on the vibrating pads, so why not get someone else to do your back for you! Since it's apparently sturdy and possessed of plenty of features, we're happy to have our PA-200H hiding in that little nest in the master bath. As of this date, it doesn't seem to have made contact with the mother ship, although there are some suspicious "signs" shaved into the back yard grass. I'm keeping an eye on the little guy, just in case!

Summary

PLUS: versatile thumper, heated

MINUS: awkward weight distribution, "face" may frighten small children

WHAT THEY'RE SAYING: Though it might look like a Close Encounter of the Third Kind, the Homedics PA-200H is actually a handy device for soothing aching muscles.

copyright © 2018-2021 scmrak

A Complete Waste of $1300

NordicTrack Elite 13.1 Elliptical

NordicTrack Elite 13.1

After we wore out a cheap elliptical machine a couple of years ago, we dithered for a while about buying a new one. Having survived a frozen winter or two when we couldn’t get outside to exercise, we broke down and went looking. Sadly, the only consumer-grade ellipticals we could lay hands on we found at Sears – Dick’s sells the Sole brand, but has none on display – so we picked out a NordicTrack Elite 13.1 Elliptical (their model 24055.0). To be frank, it’s the worst $1300 we ever spent.

I really wanted to like this TV

Toshiba 32L310U18 32-inch LED Television

When the family spent a few days in temporary lodging not long ago, we found ourselves TV-less. Not in the mood to miss the big game (much less the latest episode of Jeopardy!), we quickly scanned the offerings at a nearby BestBuy. That’s where we found the Toshiba 32L310U18; a small, 32-inch model television (LED, 720p) and brought it "home," along with a low-end amplified antenna for grabbing over-the-air broadcasts.

You'll Still Hate Filing Taxes, But at Least It's Easier with TurboTax Deluxe (2009)

Another year is past, and once again it’s time for the annual hair-reduction program known as filling out your taxes, forking over too much money to the IRS, etc. But here I sit, armed with a copy of TurboTax Deluxe Federal + E-File (2009), a pile of W-2s and 10-whatevers, spreadhseets deductions, and the bar of soap I'll probably need for washing out my mouth: I'm good go.

With the exception of the year I used H & R Block On-Line to file, I’ve been using TurboTax since the mid-nineties.  Sometimes it’s Deluxe, sometimes Basic, sometimes Federal + State, sometimes Federal only. I’ve e-filed for about ten years. Except for the Cdilla licensing fiasco in 2002, I’ve never had a serious problem with the software (though it isn’t idiot-proof). Here’s this year’s story

I installed from CD-ROM, though a download is available (as is an almost identical on-line version). Installation took just a few minutes. I then had to update (the CDs are distributed before the year's tax code is finished). That took a couple of minutes over broadband. Once done, I went straight into filling out the forms.  Here’s how that goes…

Entering income and deductions is either through a “Let us Guide You” process (suggested for newbies) or by “exploring” the process (for experienced users). Either way follows the same steps one would take if filling out the forms on paper:

Personal information:  TurboTax automatically copies personal information from last year’s return if it’s on the current computer; you can also enter by hand or correct anything that’s changed from last year.

Income:  You can hand-enter W-2 information, and (for some employers) you’ve been able to download W-2 information via the web for the past few years. I’ve never downloaded, myself.  You can also download (if available) or hand-enter interest and dividend income, investment income, and the like – a total of nine different income sources.

While in this process, you can divert to filling out profit or loss from a business (IRS Schedule C) sheet(s).  Note that self-employment taxes are automatically figured in this section. If you don’t take some of the more common business deductions (health insurance, mileage) the program “nudges” you to take a look at the topic -- it’s part of the Maximize Your Deduction process.

Deductions: Step-by-step, progress through common and few uncommon deductions. Where there are subsidiary calculations (e.g., maximum deductions for home equity loans), rules and limits are built into the process.  Deductions include the usual biggies – house, medical, charitable – and also everything that’s subject to the two-percent limitation (casualty and loss, business expenses). For charitable deductions, you can download your information directly from Intuit’s free on-line utility ItsDeductible (TurboTax Deluxe and higher only; not available for Basic). For all deductions (for income and expenses as well), you can import directly from Intuit’s Quicken product (assuming you’ve good records for the tax year).

There are a total of ten different deductions/credits sections. Once again, when you’ve completed the section you get a programmatic nudge to look at any common deductions you haven’t claimed, sort of just in case.

When Income and Deductions sections are complete, the program runs a check on the input -- here’s where the “not idiot-proof” part comes in. If you fail to fill in a necessary blank, you’ll be prompted to correct it: so far, so good. The idiot-proofing part? for 2009, there’s a tax credit for housing people displaced by natural disasters. As a test, I input information for a hypothetical person displaced by 2008’s Hurricane Ike from Galveston, TX – including name/SSN, address, and number of days. In the check, I was warned that the displaced person’s home address had to be in part of the country flooded in summer 2009. I plugged in Indiana instead of Texas, and it went through – even though there’s no Galveston, IN, and if there were its zip code would start with 4 instead of 7. I’m betting that a lot of the errors “not caught” by TurboTax are of this sort…

State Tax: According to TurboTax, “Lucky [me] – [my] state does not have a personal income tax…” for those of you who live in states that have personal income taxes, well, let me just say it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be…

Wrap-up: Next is an automatic step in which TurboTax analyzes the return. The program guarantees you’ll pay the minimum tax. The return is also guaranteed 100% accurate or Intuit will pay any penalty and interest – a final check for errors and missing information is run at this time (still not idiot-proof, though). And last, the return is analyzed for “audit risk” based on known IRS flags (home office, schedule C, high charitable deductions, etc.).

Print and File:  You can e-file up to five returns for free (a limit set by the IRS, not intuit). You can also print and snail mail. Either way, you can save a pdf copy to your computer as desired. Per the IRS regulations, you need to supply identifying information: the PIN(s) you used for last year’e e-file or the AGI (adjusted gross income) from last year’s return. When that’s over, you’re done.

Filling in this year’s forms took me perhaps three hours, because I wasn’t current with either Quicken or ItsDeductible, which would be a lot quicker (I've already set up my 2010 ItsDeductible file - it's free, why not?). If you can’t finish it all in one sitting, by the way, you can set a flag and return to your stopping point. You can also set flags throughout for information you want to re-visit.

Once you’ve entered your income and withholding information, the program tracks the current status of your tax bill – a green number for a refund and a red number for a tax bill. This lets you do things like test the potential change in your tax bill from funding an IRA (which you can still do up until midnight on April 15th).

An aside: One thing most people don’t know is that if you’re nostalgic for the smeary newsprint versions of forms, you can change the interface to let you fill in facsimiles of those forms. Kind of defeats the purpose, if you ask me.

When it comes to help: TurboTax has taken several approaches over the years. At one time, the Deluxe version had cute videos as part of the help, but they’ve been jettisoned in favor of a “Live Community” that (supposedly) is there to answer your questions. That’s the only free option for help with tax questions. Of course there are many in-context links (“explain this” and  “see more information”) to On-Demand Tax Guidance  throughout the interface, which includes glossary entries.

For another $30 (for the first 20 minutes) you can get “one-on-one answers”” from a “tax expert.” For a one-time fee of $40, your return will be reviewed by an “pro.” And for another $40, you can buy an AuditDefense insurance policy. As in past years, I remain unimpressed by the quality of the help in the “free” forums. I’ve seeded the forums with questions to which I already know the answer in the past and gotten bogus information. I would not depend on this “help” for complex situations – I’m more inclined to call the IRS to ask whether I can charge off my Netflix fees against the income I make from movie reviews (IRS tells me that if I think I can support the deduction in an audit, it’s my call…) For my money, this “forum” approach is a profoundly negative outgrowth of social networking. I’d hate to need help and depend on those people…

Will I Buy TurboTax Again Next Year? Almost certainly. Using the software makes completing and filing my return almost foolproof, even though I’ve been known to add two and two to get fifty-four. I can also use the software later in the year to get a feeling for how shifting income and deductions will change my tax liability next year, though of course impending tax law changes can make this a guessing game. Now whether you should buy the product is another question. Here are some things to continue (points I make every year):

• Shelling out the MSRP $49.99 is a waste of money if your tax situation is dirt-simple. If you have a few deductions to apply, TurboTax Basic would be better, but if you don't itemize it makes no sense. You can use the free on-line Federal version. Besides, if you can't fill out a 1040A or a 1040EZ without this kind of help, you probably can't install and run the software, either.
• TurboTax Deluxe can be indispensable if you have complex income and deductions, including entries for self-employment or farming/ranching. If you have lots of income from investments or you're a slumlord with a bunch of rental properties, you may want to step up to the Business or Premier edition (n additional $20 or so). Trust me: they’ll nag you to upgrade if they think you need a more powerful version.
• You can easily save the software's cost by finding a single missed deduction - especially with the "Maximize Your Deductions" process.

I've used both Basic and Deluxe, and I’ve found that either one is worth having on my side.

Closing Recommendation: In truth, I don't know what I'd do without Turbo Tax - and it's a good bet that I'll buy it again next year. Highly recommended. Happy Tax Day!

Need to Be in Two Places at Once? Use GoToMeeting!

I've got an hour-long meeting at my Houston office in a couple of minutes with a couple of users from The Netherlands and the product manager from Canada. We'll demonstrate features of the software, conduct a little one-on-one training, and follow up on some support questions - and not one of us ever has to leave his desk: we're doing a GoToMeeting.

You've never used GoToMeeting? It's a simple concept, really; sort of an on-line conference calls with streaming video. People sitting at computer screens (Mac or Windows) anywhere in the world all see the same screen and hear the same audio simultaneously. We use it for sales presentations, software demos, light training, and employee meetings. We display PowerPoint presentations, videos, or show live demonstrations of our proprietary software: no matter what software is showing, the screen contents are the same for everyone who's watching.

We have a corporate license for GoToMeeting, which allows up to twenty-five connections to a meeting - since any participant can be routed through a projector, way more than twenty-five people can be watching at any time. Corporate also licenses any of several "organizers," who can initiate a meeting. Smaller shops can buy an individual license, which allows up to fifteen participants but has a single organizer license. Citrix also licenses GoToWebinar for up to 1000 participants (way beyond our needs). Here's how things work:

Using GoToMeeting as an Organizer: Before a meeting can take place, the software must be downloaded from the Citrix website and the license registered. Organizer licenses are tied to specific email and password pairs. Once registered, you can create a meeting on the fly - you'll be prompted for the emails of attendees to join immediately - or schedule meetings in advance. Either way, invitees receive email notification of your meeting. For scheduled meetings, GoToMeeting's invitation converts the meeting time to local time (where local is defined by the receiving computer's operating system). Outlook users find the meeting added to their calendar automatically, including a copy of the unique URL assigned to the meeting.

At the scheduled time, participants - including organizer - join by clicking on the "Join my meeting" link. This fires off a browser session that connects to the Citrix server. Those on the same network need only click the link; for security purposes others have to enter a nine-digit access code. The audio portion can be carried as a VOIP signal, or attendees may dial in on a telephone; dialing in requires users to enter a PIN (shown in the invitation) for security. Dial-up service includes the ability to mute and un-mute. For small meetings, you can also just call the other attendee(s) directly.

Using GoToMeeting as an Attendee: The first time you join a GoToMeeting, you must install a small executable program - this is normal (WebEx requires a download, too). Then click on the link in the invitation or paste it into the internet browser address bar. You can either call the phone number (long-distance charges apply) or use a headset and microphone for the VOIP option. Then, sit back and "attend."

Useful Features:
•  Any member of the audience can become the presenter, at which time his or her screen becomes visible to all attendees. The organizer controls which audience member is presenter.
•  Regardless of who is presenting, any member may take control of the presenter's screen and cursor. This allows one person to run programs on another's desktop while everyone else watches. Any attendee can have control of the screen that's currently active. The organizer controls this function as well.
•  Each participant has mute and volume controls for the audio, and can switch between phone and VOIP as needed.
•  The interface includes a chat mode so attendees can type questions for the organizer or for the entire audience.
• Whoever is presenting can designate what view is broadcast such as a blank desktop, the entire desktop, or a specific application. This is great for invisibly taking notes or answering chats while others are watching your screen.
•  The audio and video can be recorded (audio can be recorded only when using the designated telephone lines and/or VOIP); the chat log as well

Costs: Individual GoToMeeting license fees are month-to-month basis or annual. Corporate license pricing is dependent on the number of seats used. There are no additional charges for meetings and no restrictions: as long as the license is current, meetings may be of any duration. The audio is included free, although normal phone charges - including long distance - apply if not using VOIP. There is not currently a toll-free option.

My Experience: My GoToMeeting experience has been very positive. The executable is small and downloads quickly, since the bulk of the processing is handled by the Citrix servers. You are at the mercy of the available bandwidth; so heavy traffic on your network can degrade the signal quality and very long-distance meetings (I've been on meetings to Asia and Africa) can sometimes be slow - especially if the presentation is very graphically intensive. In my meetings I've found that using a headset and microphone for the audio is vastly preferable to a telephone, especially a speakerphone (even full duplex); the invitations suggest this option. A USB headset seems to give much better results than a headset using pin plugs; not sure why. I've attended meetings from my office and from client offices, from my home, and even from hotel rooms: anywhere there's a broadband connection can become a remote office!

I've been on dozens, perhaps hundreds of GoToMeetings and have yet to see one fail: I'm sold. Though a web conference of this sort will never replace face to face meetings, there is no doubt that the technology has made long-distance collaboration much easier even while it's reduced the need for expensive travel. 

In fact, about the only thing I don't like about GoToMeeting is how slowly I accrue frequent-flyer mileage these days

Cobra XRS 9960G: Excessive False Alarms and Incomplete Hazard Database Reduce its Value

The industry calls radar detectors "safety devices," which you might charitably call a polite fiction. Sure, some of the umpteen bands these devices can receive will warn of oncoming emergency vehicles, railroad crossings, and construction zones - assuming someone pays for the transmitter (with tax money? in a red state? bwa-ha-ha-haaaa). In truth, in a decade of owning detectors with this capability, only two BestBuys and a Home Depot have ever warned me of oncoming trains. No, the reason for owning a radar detectors is to avoid traffic tickets, which even the manufacturers admit: "You should take appropriate action immediately whenever an Instant-On alert is given"; or, in other words, "Slow down: there's a cop with a radar gun ahead." Honesty: always the best policy.

Years ago, I had a six-band radar detector; then came nine- and twelve-band models. Now I'm up to fifteen bands: four different radar bands, both passive and instant-on; three detector-detector signals; six LIDAR (sometimes known as "laser") detectors; and two flavors of safety-signal detection. The XRS9960G is really a Cobra XRS9955 with a GPS tacked on to track location and speed. The GPS comes with a lifetime (its life, not yours) subscription to AURA, a database of speed traps, red-light cameras, and other "wallet hazards'" That last, I suspect, is why Cobra wanted people in Houston - home to fifty red-light cameras - to test the product. Oh, and you can also store hundreds of "personal locations" (high-accident intersections, speed traps, ex-girlfriends' apartments, pole-dancing schools...)

Like other radar detectors, the XRS9960G juts back from the windshield on a suction-cup-mounted bracket (or mounts with Velcro®). The awkward, front-heavy shape created by an oversized screen is worsened by the GPS unit plugged into the left-hand side, which also conflicts with the power cord. There are five top-mounted buttons: a City/Highway switch, mute button, and dimmer switch are joined by a mount release and a menu button. The four switches are overloaded: in menu mode, they scroll among choices or toggle settings on/off; in regular mode pressing the mute button when there isn't an active alarm cycles though the screens (speed, lat-long, compass, etc.). Progamming is easy, with on-screen menus and voice prompts/confirmations. Figuring out what everything means requires study of the user's manual. That's because of all the bands...

Da bandsssss:  You got your different flavors of radar (X, K, Ka, and Ku) plus instant-on detection of radar guns ("POP" alerts). Since X (and, for that matter, K) signals are nearly ubiquitous in urban areas (X is used for automatic doors), "city" mode can be programmed to ignore X or X and K. You get three different radar-detector detector bands (VG-2, Spectre I, and Spectre IV), and can program VG-2 for visual display only (a blessing, since the audio is extremely irritating). You get six different LIDARs (LTI 20-20, Ultra Lyte, Pro laser, Pro Laser III, Speedlaser, and Stalker), all detectable over a full 360° if the detector is properly mounted. For the final two bands there's Strobe Alert (emergency vehicles) and Safety Alert (road hazards).

Can you shut that thing up? Yes: besides being able to disable any alert in the menus, there's (of course) a volume control disk on the left side. The mute button immediately silences any alert, and most alerts also AutoMute after a few seconds. Users can program full muting of all alerts when the engine RPMs fall below a set point, the "IntelliMute" function.

Anything else? Sure: the XRS9955 has a built-in magnetic compass, which is overridden by the XRS9960G's GPS: once it's locked in sufficient satellites, the GPS supplies an eight-point compass display. It also supports speed display and lets you program an alert for when you exceed a set speed. There's also a voltmeter with on-screen display and a shutoff function if battery output drops below 11.9v.

What's all that technology like on the road? Glad you asked: living with the thing is like spending time with a particularly obnoxious mockingbird. It can emit a near-constant stream of chirps, squawks, screeches, sirens, beeps, boops, and buzzes. K and/or Ka band radar signals leak constantly from the cruisers of at least one of the four local police forces (Harris County Constables); so whenever a patrol car is anywhere nearby, the K or Ka signal warbles constantly. That AutoMute function sort of works - it mutes the alarm but if there's a "burp" in the signal it comes back on full volume. On the other hand, County Sheriff cruisers don't seem to put out any kind of signal at all (nor does the DHS car I see cruising Eldridge...)

It's good that you can disable X and VG-2 alerts, since (as far as I know) about the only place they're still used by police is in places like Bugtussle and East Podunk. I gather they got tired of false positives from automatic door openers and microwave towers. I can't speak to the LIDAR alerts; I've only heard that alarm once (and it was on a different Cobra, years ago). As for the others...

POP (instant-on radar) alerts are ubiquitous, especially when driving the toll roads - it's almost as if the EZTag sensors are tripping them. Since POP signals are from hand-held radar guns, they have a limited range; however, I have yet to see a cruiser anywhere around when I heard a POP alert. I also get frequent Spectre I false alarms: the radar-detector detector signal also shows up without an obvious police presence.

I'm especially disappointed by the GPS. It gets speed, direction, and location right - I fed googlemaps the lat-long coordinates it records for my house and came up within thirty feet or so. The "user-defined locations" work - I'll never drive past my driveway or the entrance to the parking garage at work again. However, even though I've twice updated the GPS from the AURA database, the detector fails to alert me that I am at an intersection with red-light cameras. I already know where they are; HPD not only published a map of the sites, but they also post signs at the intersection warning people that there are cameras (in case you miss the half-dozen cameras mounted on the light standards). I tried at several intersections; came home and updated the database again; and then tried two of them again the next day. Nope: not a single chirp.

Don't get me wrong:  I have nothing against radar detectors; having owned several over the years. I still use them on road trips (when I can find them buried in the electronics collection). I'm not particularly impressed by this one, however, because of:

• faulty AutoMute system that fails to suppress signals from one minute to the next
• excessive false POP alerts warning of instant-on radar
• excessive false positives for Spectre radar-detector detector signals
• an inaccurate or incomplete AURA database that lacks publicly-available red-light camera locations
• design flaw that kinks the power cable when the GPS unit is installed

The XRS9960G  has many attractive features like colorful display, but this is a device that is supposed to protect the public, or at least the public's wallets. Excessive false alarms (remember the little boy who cried "Wolf!") and a $140 (list) GPS unit that doesn't know where red-light cameras pretty much negate that core function.


Please note: the people at Cobra provided a free Cobra XRS9960G Radar Detector in return for my honest opinion. Well, they asked for it...

westcoastpower.net - Satisfactory (Mostly)

westcoastpower.net

Remember Saturday Night Live skits about the tape store at the mall – it only sold one thing: Scotch Tape®. Well, I’ve found a similar vendor on-line that sells only one product: laptop power. It’s West Coast Power, operating from a website called WestCoastPower.net.

Merchandise: The only things this niche business sells are laptop batteries and AC adapters. Their battery selection covers the ten most popular brands (Acer, Apple, Asus, Compaq, Dell, Gateway, H-P, IBM, Sony, and Toshiba), and they stock adapters for the same brands. I needed a replacement battery for a Dell, since mine had a bad cell and died completely.

Payment: West Coast Power accepts payment using the big four cards (VISA, MC, Amex, Discover), check, or PayPal. Ordering uses the shopping cart model under https security encryption. The site is a Yahoo merchant, using their secure servers and privacy policy. I haven’t seen many vendors lately who still accept checks – I assume (but did not verify) that merchandise will ship after the check has cleared the bank.

Shipping: The site operates out of Vancouver, BC, and Seattle, WA; for non-duty shipping to both countries. Expedited and overseas shipping are available, for a fee. As of this writing ,  2-day ground shipping is free for orders over $25 within either country – since everything they sell costs more than that, shipping is effectively free. My order was shipped the following day (I ordered on the web after business hours) and arrived at my home two days later via USPS Priority mail, in perfect condition. West Coast Power sent a confirmation e-mail plus a shipping notice with the tracking number.

Navigation: The site’s pretty simple: you either search by battery number or laptop model number. For my Inspiron battery, the number stamped on the old battery is RN873. Searching on the part number returned the 6- and 9-cell batteries; searching on the laptop model number returns batteries and adapter (and a couple of Compaq batteries). Their “drill-down” capability - choose laptop battery, click on brand name, etc.- is incomplete, so you’ll need to use a search box. I found my battery in just a couple of minutes, including cross-checking the model-number search results with the battery part number results.

Warranty: West Coast Power has a thirty-day satisfaction guarantee, though you’ll have to pay to ship unsatisfactory merchandise back. All merchandise has a one-year warranty.

Prices: The battery I ordered sold for about 40% of the cost of a direct order from Dell. I could have ordered the heavy-duty 9-cell battery instead, and still paid less than half of list. Price-wise, a clear winner.

Merchandise: According to West Coast Power, all batteries and adapters are made to OEM (original equipment manufacturer’s) specifications. That’s code for “Made in China.” The battery I received is the same size and shape as the one it replaces, fitting perfectly in its slot. The battery ships with instructions on calibrating the laptop’s battery meter; simply cycle the battery a couple of times. I’m not certain that the battery capacity is the same as my previous battery – the discharge seems to be much more rapid; less than two hours as compared to over three for the old battery even after a year of use. I probably should have gotten the heavy-duty version.

I was able to find a battery listed for my six-year-old Sony VAIO laptop as well, so they stock at least some older batteries.

Overall: A simple website where it’s easy to find a replacement battery, even for aging laptops. Prices and warranty are good, and shipping can’t be beat unless the company pays you for the privilege of shipping to you. Return policy and payment options are also standard or better, since they accept both checks and PayPal as well as credit cards. On the downside, the batteries sold at West Coast Power may have lower capacity than your OEM battery – one more example of getting what you pay for.