Purchase the Single-pack or Grab the Bigger Bottle?

Don't fall for pricing gimmicks, open your eyes and stretch your dollar.

We are all living in a wonderful world where money can buy a lot of things. We work hard to earn money to support children, our family and ourselves. That's why we must know how to use our money wisely.

Have you ever go grocery shopping with your spouse? The next time when you are shopping in hypermarkets like Tesco, Carrefour or Wal-Mart, be sure to do one thing before paying. Compare prices!

Most of us normally think that buying those twin-packs or bigger packages would save us more money. Well, think again! I have noticed a few times that these big packages actually cost more!

Just the other day when I was at Carrefour selecting my favourite KraftTM cheese slices. The single pack cost RM$7.90 but the twin-packs (supposingly cheaper when you buy in bulk) was selling at RM$16.50!! That's a saving of RM$0.70 if you grabbed two separate packs, instead. And trust me; it wasn't my first time seeing this.

I've encountered similar price gimmicks in Tesco hypermarkets, Giants as well as Jusco supermarkets. And I'm not talking about cheese alone.

So, don't be fooled by big packaging. Always make the comparison when you shop. Look at the weight if it's food, or compare the ml for liquids products. You'll be very surprised of what you see.

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Google vs Yahoo!

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Battles of the Two Goliaths

Ever wondered what’s the different between these two ‘goliaths’? I still remember those years in my university days. At that time, Yahoo was the most popular web search engines, not to mention the Yahoo Mail as well.

Then, things started changing. Google was born … and the battle begins.

Do you know that both Google and Yahoo were created by students from Stanford University in California?

In January 1994, Jerry Yang and David Filo started a list of web pages in a campus trailer, as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. The lists were published in a web site named "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web", and it grew larger and larger and soon was required to be organised into categories and subcategories in hierarchy.

By the end of that year, Yahoo had already received close to a million hits. Yang and Filo realized their website had massive business potential, and on 1 March 1995, Yahoo was incorporated. Soon, Yahoo bought over RocketMail and converted it into Yahoo Mail.

As for Google, it all started as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin back in January 1996 (two years later than Yahoo). Both Ph.D students hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page.

Google web search engines indexes billions of Web pages, so that users can search for the information they desire, through the use of keywords and operator. Google has also employed the Web Search technology into other search services, including Image Search, Google News, the price comparison site Google Product Search, the interactive Usenet archive Google Groups, Google Maps, and more. And of course, the ever popular … Gmail.
Do you know that Google, like the Microsoft search engine, stores personal information for 18 months and by comparison, Yahoo and AOL(Time Warner) retain search requests for 13 months only? So far, there is no misusing of information … yet. Hope it will stays that way.

Ranking in terms of market share in the search engine category:
Google @ 53.6%
Yahoo @ 19.9%
Live Search @ 12.9%
Others @ 13.6%

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Wines match making

– the right food, the right wine … perfect.

The flavours of different wines are very distinctive and some are considered to taste better with certain kinds of foods.

A wine with a very delicate flavour goes best with lightly flavoured foods rather than with strong flavours that overpower the wine, making it appear tasteless.

Likewise, if the wine is too strong in flavour for the food, the food tastes bland. Great chefs are considered masters of pairing wine with food so each enhances the flavour and aroma of the other.

Cabernet Sauvignon

Duck, spicy beef, pate, rabbit, roasts, spicy poultry, cheddar, blue cheese, sausage, kidneys

Pinot Noir

Braised chicken, cold duck, rabbit, roasted turkey, roasted beef, lamb, veal

Merlot

Braised chicken, cold duck, roasted turkey or beef, lamb, veal, stew, liver, venison, meat casseroles

Shiraz

Braised chicken, chilli, peppercorn steak, meat stew, barbecued meat, spicy meats, garlic casserole, ratatouille

Chardonnay

Seafood with butter sauce, pasta with cream sauce, veal, chicken, turkey, ham

Riesling

Mild cheeses, mussels, prawns, lobster, sashimi, ham, pork, tandoori chicken

Sauvignon Blanc

Oysters, grilled or poached salmon, seafood salad, irish stew, goats cheese and strongly flavoured cheese

Gewurztraminer

Spicy dishes, Thai or Chinese food, curry, smoked salmon, pork and sauerkraut, onion tart, spiced/peppered cheese

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Good wine vs Bad wine

A Good Wine Is:

1. Clean and clear. It should smell and taste fresh, yummy and enticing.


2. Concentrated. Whether it's light and delicate or rich and full-bodied, it should sit pleasingly on your tongue.


3. Complex. Good wine has more than one flavour, to keep you interested to the last drop.


4. Balanced. No one element – fruit, alcohol, acid, oak – should stick out. They should be in harmony.


5. Able to linger. The flavour haunts the back of your throat, urging you to have another sip.

A Bad Wine Is:

1. Dirty and bland. It smells unpleasant or boring.


2. Thin and dilute. It hardly registers on your tongue.


3. Simple. Bad wine has only one rather weak flavour.


4. Unbalanced. Bad wine is overly sharp, or woody, or has alcohol burn.


5. Short-lived. The taste disappears at the back of your throat and leaves you feeling short-changed.

*Tips: Once Opened, Wine Lasts …

1-2 DAYS for light white and red wines such as Riesling and pinot noir; sparkling and pink wines

3-4 DAYS for fuller-bodied reds and whites such as Shiraz and chardonnay; sweet white wines

1-2 WEEKS for pale dry sherry and vintage port

3 MONTHS for tawny port, Muscat, Tokay and sweet sherry. Read more ...

Red wine vs White wine

Wine serving temperature

For most beginners, we tend to drink our white wines too cold and our reds too warm. The best serving temperature for red wines is around 15°- 18°C (cool room temperature). As for white wines, temperature of around 8°– 12°C (moderately chilled) is best.

Serving a wine too cold suppresses its fruit flavour and exaggerates oak character and tannin. Serving it too warm exaggerates alcohol but softens tannin – the stuff that causes red wine to a have a puckering effect in the mouth.

White wines are usually served chilled because at warmer temperatures they quickly lose their volatile characters and become flat and tasteless. Blush wines are also served chilled like white wines.

Red wines, which usually contain more flavour and aroma components than white wines, are served at room temperature to release the aroma characters, and the wine smells and tastes better than it would if it were chilled.

“Good wine ruins the purse. Bad wine ruins the stomach”

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Honda Civic vs Hyundai Elantra

It has been 3 years since you bought your first new car? And you are now shopping around for a new and affordable car to suit your upgraded image? Allow me to introduce you to the new Hyundai Elantra and Honda Civic.

At a glance from the showroom, the new Elantra 2.0 will definitely thrills you. Comes equipped with CVVT technology and DOHC engine, it can deliver a maximum power output of 143PS.

Test driving behind the wheel is totally an amazing experience. I especially love the silky-smooth advanced step gate transmission system (in other words, the gear change is superbly quiet and almost unnoticeable). This technology was previously found only in the top of the range Hyundai Sonata and Hyundai Azera 3.8liter V6 engine.

Elantra’s interior design is simple yet spacious. The seats are wrapped in leather, giving it a luxury look. But driving in Malaysia hot weather, I still prefer the non-leather seats. No sticky feeling when you start sweating. Not to mentioned, hot leather surfaces when expose to too much heat.

**Independent US Government Assessment of Interior Volume**

Passenger Volume = 98ft3 (Elantra) vs 91ft3 (Civic)

Luggage Volume = 14 ft3 (Elantra) vs 12ft3 (Civic)

The new Civic 2007 gives a very compact feeling. Somehow, it was designed larger than its predecessor. Must be the new Honda's principle – M&M (Minimum Space for Machine and Maximum Space for Men).

For comparison purposes, I test-driven the Civic 2.0 litre model, rather than the 1.8 litre model. Driving is smooth and very Honda-like. My only comment is the acceleration peddles which needed a little fine tuning. Too much pressure is required to floor it down.

As for the interior, no leather seats for this baby. Another worth commenting aspect is the ingenious flat floor which gives you ample of foot room in the rear space (you will notice that there is no hump at the centre)

The new Elantra is selling at RM93,800 while the Civic is being marketed at RM128,000. Both are on 2.0 liter engines and “almost” similar specifications. If you do not compare the brand name, I would say, the new Elantra is definitely worth the money. What is your call?

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Welcome to My CompariZone

Welcome to My CompariZone, the place where you will find all the necessary information in order for you to make better and wiser decisions. Whether it's on shopping for the things you like, looking for the best choice of study option, investment opportunities or simply just to gain more knowledge on how things works compared to others, you'll find it all right here.

My Comparizone will give you all the latest news from around the web and across the world. We'll bring it all to you right here at MyCompariZone.blogspot.com Read more ...

Bachelor vs Master

What are these qualifications?

"Bachelor" and "Master" are the names of the first and second academic degrees awarded to university students. As part of the "Bologna process", almost all study courses and qualifications are being converted to bachelor and master courses in 45 European countries. It is aimed to complete the process by 2010.

The first study course is for a bachelor's degree; it usually lasts three years and provides students with in-depth knowledge of their subject. Depending on the subject studied, students are awarded a Bachelor of Arts (B.A) or a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) – regardless of the type of university.

This degree qualifies graduates for a career and they are encouraged to look for suitable positions. Graduates wishing to go on to a master's degree can do this immediately after obtaining their bachelor's degree. The master's course usually lasts two years, either in the same subject or in a related one. Graduates can also start a master’s course after working for awhile. They collect credit points in a system uniform throughout Europe. The aim is to make study courses comparable and to make it easier for students to change universities on an international level.

Some two-thirds of university courses in Germany will have changed to the new system by winter term 2006/2007. The aim of the educational reformers is that in Germany, as in Anglo-Saxon countries, the majority of graduates will start work after obtaining a bachelor's degree. Read more ...