I was given an iCoffee by Remington in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Have you heard of the iCoffee by Remington? It is the newest buzz in the coffee lover’s circuits. Forget french presses, pod machines and the old fashioned drip coffee maker. The iCoffee is far above those.

The iCoffee by Remington works by steaming the coffee rather than just running hot water over it as a drip coffee maker does. The result? An amazing, non-bitter and smooth cup of Joe.

Please watch my video below for a demonstration on how the iCoffee works:

The iCoffee is very easy to operate. It is similar to how a drip coffee maker is to set up. The inner parts are easy to clean and you can adjust your coffee to be as bold or as mild as you desire. One of the best things about the iCoffee in my opinion, is, the fact that you don’t have to buy expensive pods for it. You can use your favorite coffee, bought in regular form in bags or tubs or even fresh ground. This makes it more economical that other top rated coffee makers on the market.

I really appreciated the extras on this machine. I liked watching the coffee’s crema form in the window and I liked how the machine included the optional basket to catch the coffee “sludge”. This sludge is the reasons I hate French Presses and the iCoffee eliminated that for me while providing an exceptional cup of java.

One of the drawbacks to the iCoffee that I discovered was there is no specific amount you are told to put in to make a pot of coffee. I had to learn through trial and error on how to adjust my coffee in order to get it just as I like it.

The iCoffee would make an amazing gift and retails for around $199. While this is steep in price, keep in mind that this really does make the best coffee I have personally ever had and there are no expensive pods or packs to buy. You use your favorite coffee in traditional ground form.

Make sure to follow iCoffee on Twitter for more news and tips for coffee perfection!

Is your kid excited to have a bedroom designed according to his or her taste? Then as a parent you must also make all possible efforts to make your kid happy by decorating the way they want it to be. Ask your kid what they actually want and then conceptualize what and how needs to be done. Depending on the theme of the bedroom the budget may vary considerably. Here are some tips to spruce up kids bedroom:

1. Bright colored window treatments: Use colorful curtains in your kids room to spice it up. The room will surely look cleaner and sharper with colorful curtains. Ensure that the color you use match well with the motif of the bedroom. To reduce the light that enters the room you can even use valance.

2. Use toys as décor: It is a great idea to use child’s toys as décor as they are very colorful and come in various shapes and sizes. This will also save storage hassles as you can hang the large toys and use open shelves for small toys. You can even add colorful baskets in the room to keep the toys to keep the room neat and tidy.

3. Decorate the ceiling: Decorate the ceiling of the room by adding glow in dark items. They will surely love gazing the stars while they are about to sleep. You can even paint the ceiling in your child’s favorite theme.

4. Cover the floor: In all possibilities your kid will sit down to play therefore it is important to protect your kid’s feet, knees and other body parts. Pick broadloom carpet that suits the design of the body. Pick the carpets that are colorful and soft. You can easily find carpets in hopscotch design and snakes and ladder designs. Buy them to add fun element in the room.

Now if you are worried about the budget, then you must check http://frugaa.com. This website will surely help you save a great deal of money as you can find deals on almost everything you need for your kids room decor. You can find coupons for bedroom furniture, furnishings, decor and wall arts.

A fellow blogger, whom I respect a lot, recommended a company called SampleSource to me to try since they have just started sending out things in the US. SampleSource is a company that send out samples from top, well-know companies to anyone that requests them, in periodic packages. I was excited and eager to give them a try so I could share them with you, my readers. I signed up, which was an easy process filled with a questionnaire about my personality and habits and then got an email confirming that I would be getting samples, soon.

A little while later, I got and email telling me that my sample package had shipped. I was excited! However, a couple weeks went by and nothing ever came. I was disappointed, but as a blogger, I sometimes know that when things are “shipped” it means they are in the queue to be shipped, but don’t actually get shipped that day, but just in case, I decided to email SampleSource and ask where my package was.

This was their response:

”

-SampleSource Customer Service”

Simple enough. I felt they maybe could have sent me out something again or explained that they had no more to send or something, or heck, even offered to throw a couple extra in next time, but an excuse about it getting lost in the mail and an apology will have to do. I didn’t respond to that message and just kind of forgot about it.

Then, a couple weeks later, I get an email asking me to take a survey on the “samples I got”. Being that I belong to a couple sites similar to this and they require me to take the surveys in order to keep getting shipments, I thought, “I better take this if I hope to get samples next time..I hope there is a place on the survey for me to say I never got them..”

I did select the spot on the survey saying I never got the samples and then there was a place for me to put any comments I had about the samples or SampleSource.

I wrote in something about how I felt pushed aside and was basically told “too bad” about getting my samples and that was of annoyance. While, true, those were not the exact words they used in their email to me about my asking where my samples were, that was how it came across to me, since they were not willing to fix the issue and instead just made up an excuse.

Within minutes, I get this nice little nugget in my email from them:

”

-SampleSource Customer Service”

So, dumbfounded, I am sitting here thinking, “Did they want my honest answers or did they want me to lie on the survey?” And what is this about “fair”? I was told to be honest. And that was honestly how I felt about being given an excuse and told, “we’ll getcha next time” instead of sending out a second package. Now, if they didn’t have more samples to send a second package, and they said that, I could be a little more understanding, but since that was not mentioned and I had no other relationship from past shipments in the mail from them, how did I know they didn’t just forget me? Perhaps it did get lost in the mail, but they just blamed the USPS rather than tried to make it right or explain further.

To top it off, to say, “If you are truly that upset, you are welcome to unsubscribe” is over the top rude and in my opinion, jumping the gun a bit. Why not at least attempt to solve the issue before you suggest that?

Yes, I am upset. I never got my products, was brushed aside and now sent a survey to take asking my honesty and was just attacked in my personal email because you didn’t like my HONEST answers to a survey YOU sent.

I want to make it clear, I am not upset at the fact that I didn’t get free samples, it was the sheer unprofessional-ism of SampleSource that upset me. I did write them back expressing everything I did here and was again told “I suggest you unsubscribe.”

Readers beware, SampleSource will possibly treat you this way if you have an issue as well. I suggest bypassing them altogether. I had intended on trying out this new service and recommending this to my fans, but I also believe in honesty and I just can’t recommend it after this. It really is a shame, because it seemed like a good way to try new products from top name companies. I also feel bad that these companies are being represented by this unprofessional company as well. I won’t hold it against them, but I hope they see this and decide to back out.