This was a programming project to teach myself about API consumption using PHP cURL library but I decided to take it further by using multiple APIs and data feed files and data normalization to fit them into a structured database. Combined with NLP functions in PHP and match mode in MySQL, I created a comparison shopping engine for online programming courses.

https://learningdex.com

Taking a break from doing more work unless there's actual demand or traffic. But learned more about jQuery, WP plugin development, using cURL, and more about sticking to the concept of MVC.

Hi everybody. I created the website https://whatsmyuse.net based on the work that /u/alamoudimoh did a couple of years ago with his spreadsheet. Hope its okay I did so.

the spreadsheet by itself was a pain to use especially trying to remember the url And it is not very shareable.

It is mostly up to date but I am tweaking things here and there still but it is usable now. you can contact me on the site for updates and changes as needed but I don’t think stuff changes that often.

thanks for looking.

I once found a website that would list the Amazon/Target/Walmart prices side by side. I'm new to legos and am buying currently released sets, not retired ones.

I hope this does not violate rule 3. I'm trying to do the best comparison shopping, not sell or trade.

So I come from a country that has basically no snow, so I have no experience with winter tyres.

I talked to Yellow Hat and they have a decent selection of winter tyres, but I'm at a loss as to which brand is better or if I just flip a coin and choose whatever.

Here's what I have to choose from:

Bridgestone Blizzak VRX3
Dunlop Wintermaxx 03
Michelin X-ice snow
Yokohama Iceguard 7 IG70

If anyone ( /u/tokyohoon ?) has any knowledge to impart, please enlighten me! Thanks!

[EDIT] I'm not looking for cheap prices, I'm looking for comparisons in quality and performance to buy a good tyre.
The car will be taken to a shop to have tyres put on the now-unused factory delivered rims, which are spare since I put summer tyres on a new replacement set of rims already.

[EDIT2] Thanks all for the help! Wife decided she wanted the good tyres so we got the Bridgestone Blizzak VRX3. Happy wife happy life and I won't complain about nice car things. :)

Hi, I've settled on Jabra for my new wireless earbuds purchase and I think I understand the trade offs of 75t vs 85t pretty well (size/design difference, battery, ANC) but can't figure out where the elite 7 fit in. It's confusing I think with the sales making those look relatively more expensive too. Any input appreciated. I'm no audiophile but I do have my earbuds in frequently for listening during walking/working/exercise and sometimes phone calls. Thanks in advance

Does anyone know if there is a "If you like and run in (SHOE X) and (SHOE Y) then you should try a similar shoe, (SHOE Z)" website out there?

Every year I look into the new models of different shoes and it all just gets so confusing. I've seen Saucony Kinvaras both as a "cushioned, long distance training shoe" and a "light weight, speed racing shoe" from two different sources. Some models I like disappear after a year, and new shoe lines pop up all the time. How can anyone keep track of all of this?

As part of a personal project, I plan to make a niche product comparison website. Essentially, I'm going to scrape product catalogues from websites, and advertise them all on mine.

Just wondering, are there any legal restrictions? Would I need any formal or informal permission from those websites to advertise their products? Do the laws vary with country/continent?

(Also posted on r/frugalFemaleFashion)

So you want to pick up some bargain second hand designer items, or maybe you want to shop gently used clothes made of silk, cashmere, or linen for dirt cheap. Certainly you’d like doing all of this while keeping your consumption habits sustainable and ethical.

Since last spring, one of my favorite sources of second hand goods has been The RealReal. I’ve found holy grail silk maxi gowns for as low as $32; NWT cashmere sweaters retailing for $500 for $45; but I’ve also made plenty of mistakes.

After a many months of experience learning the ins and outs of using this site, I’d I’d like to provide a guide on how to score deals and avoid pitfalls — something I wish I had found when I first started shopping there. Most of these tips can be applied to other second hand websites as well, although most of my experience is with TRR.

Obviously this post isn’t sponsored (I hope this becomes obvious as I go into problematic aspects of the website). But as someone passionate about the second hand market, I want to provide a tool for people interested in second hand sourcing.

Let’s dive in.

Part 1: Ethics and concerns — the good, the bad, and the ugly

THE GOOD: there is a massive glut of designer clothing floating around people’s closets, unworn. As we all know, buying second hand is much better for the environment than even purchasing from sustainable brands, as there is zero use of water and natural resources involved in production, and the only waste comes from shipping materials and transportation.

Shifting the bulk of your purchase to the  second hand market is the most environmentally friendly way of introducing new items into your closet. There are many nuances to this discussion of course, and many critiques to thrifting, but that is a discussion to be had for another time.

The RealReal is aware that this is a big motivator for their customers, and they’ve seemed to embrace it. For example, bags they ship their clothing in are 100% recyclable.

THE BAD: Let’s address the elephant in the room — The RealReal is notorious for fakes. As they process large quantities of clothes (which allows them to keep prices low), copywriters who write up clothing

Since the GME marketplace is going to be announced soon I want to briefly talk about one of the most important features:

Minting NFT's

Minting is the act of publishing a unique instance of your Token on the blockchain. You basically create the NFT and "record" the data on the blockchain.

I will mostly focus on projects based on Ethereum (ERC-721 token) since it is the most popular blockchain for minting NFT's by far.

Minting and Games

In the foreseeable future minting and gaming will be the most important use case since game studios already started adopting NFT's and with time more and more NFT's with unique in-game functionalities will be implemented in games.

Players can play to earn these NFT'S. The average gamer can monetize their playing time via buying and selling in-game NFTs.

In order to grow parabolic Loopring/Gamestop needs to partner up with these big game studios. This will allow them to profit from hype, adoption and protcol usage.

But if Big game studios want to mint (create) their digital assets on Gamestop (Loopring) what is important to them?

They want:

• Security - The digital assets which are created need to be secured.
• Scalability - Big game studios will create MILLIONS of assets.
• Cost - Cheap gas fees anyone? :)

So who wants to fuck with us? (Competitors)

The relevant general marketplaces I found (with minting):

Opensea

• Security:Opensea is fighting with security flaws. Researchers stated that a vulnerability allowed hackers to steal users’ entire crypto wallets. Also Polygon NFT Minting is not very safe.
• Scalability:Currently Opensea only allows minting via Polygon or Ethererum (L1). Eth L1 is a clear no. Polygon's sidechain has a little more scale but with huge security tradeoffs.
• Cost:Lazy minting (Buyer pays gas fees at the moment of purchase). Polygon minting - Gas fees are extremly low for minting.

Conclusion:Althought they are the biggest marketplace. Minting currently is either expensive for big game studios (Eth L1), for the buyer (lazy minting) or extremly cheap but not secured at all (Polygon). Until immutable x is not implemented I don't see them as a problem.

Crypto.com

• Security:They use their native crypto.org chain for minting. Highly sceptical since the code is not widly adopted and battle tested. So a risk factor.
• Scalability:I do not find any info on the throughput of their Crypto.org chain. But in their documentaion they doge the tps

I was commenting on another post and decided, instead of writing a novel on someone else's thread, I'd make my own.

To some these may be totally obvious, but to others, maybe not.

★Buy a deep freezer

      * I bought mine, an Arctic King from Walmart.com, watch what you're buying, don't buy something [ever, not just deep freezers] because of the picture, read all the specs and description of the item. Deep Freezers are measured in cubic feet, cu. ft. But always check the total dimensions. I found mine last year, 7cu. ft. for about $210 total, that was with taxes and free shipping. This was a very good deal. Typically you'll find around 5 cu.ft for that price. Keep in mind that amongst appliance brands, mine is on the lower end & basic af.

★Instead of buying frozen or canned foods, buy fresh & freeze.

        * I have been doing this for the past year after buying our deep freezer and I have to say, it is something that has stretched our grocery budget, helped us eat healthier & gives me less anxiety at the 

store because I don't have to shop and find the best prices for canned or frozen fruit & veggies.

★You can freeze, just about anything, we started stocking up on bread, freezing it all, and every morning, I will take out only what we need for a day or two.

★When buying fruit that I don't want to freeze, I will cut it all up and store in a vacuum bag or container, some fruits just do not come back from freezing, i.e. bananas. Stored in the fridge, they obviously last longer than in the fruit basket, but don't get smashed up or take up as much space as when they're left whole.

★Consider investing in a vacuum sealer. Removing the air in everything we freeze keeps it from freezer burn, keeping the taste, well, tasty. 👍🏼 It helps food last longer as well, whether freezing or keeping in the fridge.

     *We have a big vacuum sealer for meats and other bulk items we buy, as well as a small one for every day, it's food saver brand and the plastic bags, surprisingly are reusable many times over, when it's time, we turn inside out, wash with soap and water, rinse well and dry.  It also has containers, which can be a bit of an investment, but very much worth it, even if you only have a few.

★If you don't already know, you can shop on Amazon for open box/used/returned items.

       *Search your item, go to the tabs to make refinements, you'll see "condition, new/used". Or search Ama

How do you go about doing this, if you do it at all?

I had a bridal seamstress alter a more casual dress for me and asked her at the time about the cost of tailoring my wedding dress. I was quoted $600 for some pretty straightforward alterations on a crepe, non-lace dress (hemming, taking in bodice, and a bustle), which seems like a lot of money to me. I’ve been referred to some other shops in town for alterations—but is it normal/expected to do comparison shopping on this service?

I hope this is the right place to post. I did see a similar question but it was fairly old so I'm looking for an up to date list if possible. I'm really trying to eat healthier but every time I get to the grocery store I revert to my typical list. Does anyone know of an app or website that will help me create a healthy, budget friendly grocery list? By healthy I'm thinking more fresh meals, incorporating more vegetables, adding some I don't typically use. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. If they had recipes that weren't too complicated or time consuming that tied in with the lists that would be awesome Any suggestions welcome, thanks in advance

A bit of an simple question but maybe not.
In my experience, I'm pretty sure I can now say that for today, 2021, I have much better results in isolating vocals from songs via website (the best ones and most famous for me are Acapella-extractor:com and Lalal:ai) but the first one often doesn't accept a certain song for no reason and the second one is based on credits, so money etc.

But, they legit are beating all the methods you can find on youtube via stock plugins or even AAA plugins that costs an entire body like iZotope RX9 Audio Editor. (1.200$ when not in sale - 800$ actually for the cyber monday sales)
RX9 is probably the "best" plugin called when it comes to edit/repair audio and I don't doubt about it for 99% of its uses. But the Music Rebalance, which is the feature that is supposed to isolate vocals, or percs, or synths etc, is not good everytime.

I put some examples below.

Not to shame iZotope, their plugin is a monster in general, and sometimes Music Rebalance works well, but my point here is that websites algo (like the ones I gave before) are faaaaar away in results, cleaner and richer.
I used it many many times, and my only regret is that those websites needs money to run (that's legit on one side) so you can't convert endlessly.
So I was like "Ok man, you're not a beginner with you DAW, maybe you can do without those sites which are (mostly) for beginner who wants fast results, and do the same by yourself, more efforts but no need to buy credits, endless convertions"

But here we are. All (ALL) the methodes that I can find except those sites leads to worst results. Quick example for those who don't want to try those sites, if I isolate vocals from any song with Lalal:ai for example, the instrumental and the vocals (in separate tracks) are insanely clean, it's really like you have the stems. Tbh at the beginning it was so unbelievable that I thought it was fake to make you buy credits. I thought that they had the stems and made you think that this is how it sounds when edited, like "Look how good is it, buy our credits" xD
It may sounds idiot but if you experienced a lot isolating vocals past years, you would probably react like I did. We are used to good results with our technology, but no insane results, there's always artifacts and weird effects like when you EQ a lot, water effect you know ? Like if the song was played underwater !
And, besids its price and reputation and all, RX9 does the same results. Very good

Recommend your favorite comparison shopping websites for used items! I am particularly interested in websites that sell used electronics, but the websites you submit do not need to have that focus.

Shops need to make a profit on everything, even sale items (usually). Yes, everything in every store is marked up. But when a store can say this is 75% off and they still profit off of it, you pretty much know the quality was never there in the first place.

This doesn't apply everywhere, but some stores are known to mark up items heavily and then will keep their items on sale 24/7 to make you think you're getting a good deal... But you probably aren't.

Also, you should always Google online vendors and make sure they are legitimate / good. You should do this before purchasing anything from a new company you haven't heard of before.

edit I SUPPORT CAPITALISM!!!! I am not here telling you that anytime a profit is made from a business, they are scamming you. Just here to say be wary of "sales" and other things that aren't actually very good deals in the first place but it might seem like it due to the word "sale" or a "60% off sign"

I’ve looked into websites like Hikaku Sitatter, whatheight.com and multmetric.com and other similar sites.

However, I have seen a lot of people create size charts with actually images or drawings of their characters and compare sizes of 30+ characters too.

What applications do they use? I’m not the most tech savvy or artistic person, but I’d like to at least be able to compare 25 (ish) characters in a height line. I don’t even need their character images, I just want to see them lined up.

Every site I’m coming to has a max of people you can insert.

Any tips or thoughts?

Like in the us it's amazon

So you want to pick up some bargain second hand designer items, or maybe you want to shop gently used clothes made of silk, cashmere, or linen for dirt cheap. Certainly you’d like doing all of this while keeping your consumption habits sustainable and ethical.

Since last spring, one of my favorite sources of second hand goods has been The RealReal. I’ve found holy grail silk maxi gowns for as low as $32; NWT cashmere sweaters retailing for $500 for $45; but I’ve also made plenty of mistakes.

After a many months of experience learning the ins and outs of using this site, I’d I’d like to provide a guide on how to score deals and avoid pitfalls — something I wish I had found when I first started shopping there. Most of these tips can be applied to other second hand websites as well, although most of my experience is with TRR.

Obviously this post isn’t sponsored (I hope this becomes obvious as I go into problematic aspects of the website). But as someone passionate about the second hand market, I want to provide a tool for people interested in second hand sourcing.

Let’s dive in.

Part 1: Ethics and concerns — the good, the bad, and the ugly

THE GOOD: there is a massive glut of designer clothing floating around people’s closets, unworn. As we all know, buying second hand is much better for the environment than even purchasing from sustainable brands, as there is zero use of water and natural resources involved in production, and the only waste comes from shipping materials and transportation.

Shifting the bulk of your purchase to the  second hand market is the most environmentally friendly way of introducing new items into your closet. There are many nuances to this discussion of course, and many critiques to thrifting, but that is a discussion to be had for another time.

The RealReal is aware that this is a big motivator for their customers, and they’ve seemed to embrace it. For example, bags they ship their clothing in are 100% recyclable.

THE BAD: Let’s address the elephant in the room — The RealReal is notorious for fakes. As they process large quantities of clothes (which allows them to keep prices low), copywriters who write up clothing description in fact do the bulk of the a

I will soon move from US to Norway.

I wonder any popular online shopping websites in Norway

Like in US, Amazon, Ebay, and many other websites are used often for online shopping, basically you can buy anything online.

Are there any similar websites or applications in Norway?