Don McCubbrey's Blog

A Few Things You Shouldn't Plan to Buy in 2010

The Wall Street Journal Sunday had a story today covering things you shouldn't plan to buy in 2010.  Among them were DVDs, Home phone service, and external hard drives.

The one that caught my eye, however, was the advice they had for college students and textbooks:

"New college textbooks: Used textbooks cost up to 70% to 90% less than new ones, and you can find them on Web sites such as CheapestTextbooks.com, Amazon.com and Booksprice.com. Sites like CourseSmart.com sell subscriptions to digital copies of more than 7,000 textbooks. TextbookMedia.com allows students to download textbooks for free. You can also rent textbooks on Chegg.com". 

They forgot to mention Global Text but, of course, you know about it already.

It's 2010

I can't believe that I have not posted anything since August.  I thought it was going to be a busy quarter and it was.  Time passed by quickly in a very satisfying way and now it's time for a New Year's resolution.

After a trip to Miami in December for a cruise followed by a trip to Phoenix for the International Conference on Information Systems I hearby resolve to fly as little as possible from now on.  The year 2010 was the first year in, I bet, forty years that I did not take an international flight for one reason or another.  And you know what?  I don't miss it.  In fact, I don't care if I never take another flight.  Flying just isn't what it used to be.  Security, chockablock planes, poor (if any) food.....who needs it?  Let's see what I can do to keep this resolution.  Life will be more peaceful : )