We signed a contract with Window Wizard of Southaven, MS to install new windows in late March.

Our final color decision was made and final measurements were made in mid-May. From that point, we were told installation was no more than 3 weeks away.

It is now September 20, and we have had numerous canceled installation appointments, and we can't get our calls answered.

In retrospect, after looking at several "don't get ripped off by contractor" postings online, we were suckers.

We paid a $2800 deposit upfront. "To purchase the windows," we were told by Walt Holcomb (also operating as Superior Window and Door Co. of Adamsville, TN). "Now that you have signed a contract, you're the boss. You tell us what to do and when to do it."

At best that was a gross distortion and at worst that was a lie.

I work at a school, and though I am a 12 month employee, my schedule is more flexible in the summer, making it much easier for me to be around for a couple of days while windows were installed. We went to the whole summer with delay after delay and excuse after excuse.

We should have known better. The company had no rating with the Better Business Bureau. I know that the BBB is on one level a scam, but you should probably pay attention when a company has multiple negative reports. Since March, Window Wizard LLC, (operated by Richard Dean Holcomb, and Walt Holcomb) has 3 negative reports.

I found evidence of some other online negative reviews that were cached, but removed. So we're obviously not alone here.

If you've ever heard Dave Ramsey talk about paying "stupid tax," that's us. We just paid it. I don't believe the company ever has any intention of installing our windows, nor would I want them to at this point. I don't trust them anymore. We asked for our money back by today. Never heard back from them.

I’ve always been curious about the Kindle and when the Kindle Touch was announced, I decided that the time was finally right to get one.

I’m not that big of a reader of fiction, though I am just about through with the Hunger Games trilogy, the first fiction books I’ve read in about 10 years. (Confession: Most of it has been read via Audiobooks while running in the mornings, but I did read bits and pieces the old fashioned way).

I do read non-fiction quite a bit. Religious books, historical books, historical fiction, etc. For a while, I’ve been reading on my iPhone and iPad. The experience is fine there, but no where near as easy on the eyes (and battery consumption when out and about) as the Kindle. The e-ink screen really makes a difference. The text is crisp, with extremely high contrast.

Jamie reads periodically, and I decided that she might benefit from having a Kindle. Through a series of events around wanting get it in the house by her birthday, I ended up with 2 Kindle Touches and decided to keep one.

So far, I’ve been pleased with it. The size and weight are great, though it didn’t feel quite right to hold in my hand without a case on it. I know that one review says that the page turning is a bit slow compared with other Kindles. That may be so, but since it’s my 1st one, I don’t perceive it as an issue.

Where I would like some more speed is in getting to the menu to go through table of contents, etc. I use that a lot because one of my favorite features is having Instapaper send me a daily digest of up to 20 articles I have marked to read later.

If you’re not familiar with Instapaper, you need to be. You sign-up for an account, and then add a bookmark to your bookmark bar labeled Read Later. Then, when you come across a link or article you don’t have time to fully digest at the moment, you just click the Read Later bookmarklet and move on. Most RSS readers, and Twitter clients have support for it.

In the last few days, Instapaper on the Kindle Touch has improved significantly. At the top of each article are links to archive an article, essentially a Mark Read button, or mark it as a Liked item, which you have auto-shared to Facebook, Twitter, etc. depending on your preferences.

Instapaper

The Indie Rock Playlist is one of the ways I discover new music every month.

It’s usually posted as a torrent and is mirrored on Usenet. Since I no longer use iTunes or deal with managing mp3 files, I like having a Spotify version.

A couple of months back I started creating a Spotify version. Again, I love Spotify because if I find a track I like, I immediately add the whole album to my heavy rotation playlist.

Only about 60% of the tracks on the list are on Spotify, but it’s better than nothing.

Spotify Playist: Indie/Rock Playlist November 2011 You can find a tracklisting over at The Color Awesome

Just after the App Store was first released, I started following an RSS feed of every app released on the store—I didn’t want to miss anything.

As the stream turned into a river, that became undoable.

Lately, I’ve followed several feeds of reviews of apps, but as in usually the case in Google Reader, you can never really catch up with your feeds, there’s always more.

My unread count for my iOS reviews and news feeds is at about 1500 articles right now. I just can’t keep up.

One of the features I enjoyed the most was the Apps Gone Free by AppAdvice, and now that feature is available via its own app.

It’s a great way to find some free games for your kids. They only list apps that have at least a 3 star rating.

One of the drawbacks of social networking while watching TV is that I’m using time-shifting it. Another is that you don’t want to spoil anything by posting about the fate of a character on a show like Breaking Bad, where people are likely to be a few episodes behind.

Yahoo bought and rebranded IntoNow, and has just released an iPad version. The app will listen to your TV and figure out what you are watching and then serve you additional info about the show, conversation, etc. Cool idea. Just now trying it out.

Only thing is… none of my friends seem to be using it. I need to befriend more early adopters.