(ARA) - There are many new and exciting advances in the world of consumer electronics, and when it comes to purchasing your newest gadget, wading through endless options can be daunting. Ask anyone who has gone on vacation with a sub-par camera or sat through a grainy or fuzzy movie or sporting event on their TV - there is nothing more frustrating that dealing with outdated or confusing technology.

With so much confusion around electronics and what to look for when buying, it leaves many people wishing they had a personal shopper to help them determine what's best for them, with a minimum amount of hassle. The best idea is to turn to a trusted source that can help you make a well-informed decision.

The same attention that we pay to making sure our clothes have the right style for us should also be given to making sure electronics are the best fit for our lifestyles. While we don't all have personal shoppers, there are great online resources and tips from electronics experts that can make your search and shopping process easier and more fun.

Know the ABCs of cameras and TVs
The many acronyms that get tacked onto cameras and TVs to describe their characteristics and capabilities can make your head spin. However, it really is important that you understand what you are buying, so you can make sure to get exactly what you need. When it comes to TVs, simply finding out what kind of screen you need is confusing. Do you opt for an LCD (liquid crystal display), plasma or LED (light-emitting diode)? Is one better than the other for video games or watching Blu-ray discs?

Searching for a new camera can be just as confusing. There are so many camera terms to understand, megapixels, RAW, SD cards . . . you'd need to be a pro to explain the laundry list of functions and settings on some of the more advanced models. Before making a final purchase, you should definitely conduct some research and create a list of questions you need answered. Find a few models that are of interest to you and do some comparison shopping.

Harness the power of the Web
One of the best resources for consumer electronics information is the Internet. It's most people's go-to research tool these days, and there are some great sites devoted to specific brands and models of TVs and cameras, along with consumer reviews to give you more piece-of-mind.

However if you really don't have time to do research about every last detail, new tools like TVMatchMaker.com and CameraMatchmaker.com from Sears are ideal resources. You simply answer a few quick questions about where and how you'll use a new camera or TV and it does the matchmaking for you, providing the three top choices for your exact needs.

If you're looking for a new television, the TV MatchMaker suggests the best television options for you based on your criteria including:
* the brightness of the room
* where you'll put the TV and
* the other kinds of equipment you'll be connecting to the TV

The Camera MatchMaker takes into account information like:
* the kind of pictures you most often take
* how much control you want to have over the settings
* what type of camera design you prefer
* your brand preference

The only thing better than getting the right product for your needs is getting it for a great price. If you go to the TV and Camera MatchMaker sites and answer the questions to find your best match, you can also enter the MatchMaker Sweepstakes for a chance to win a gift card that may be used toward your home electronics purchase with one quick click. For complete official rules, go to: www.sears.com/tvmatchmakersweeps.

Just as you wouldn't wear a sweater or shoes that don't fit, you shouldn't have electronics that don't meet your needs. For more information about finding the right TV and camera for you, visit TVMatchMaker.com and CameraMatchmaker.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

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I live in the NE corner of Iowa 15 miles from the Mississippi River and 15 Miles from the Minnesota border. I have been making stoves for many years and they should last a lifetime! They will heat the largest 3 story farm house there is and I will estimate the output is at least 200,000 btu/hr. I built these stoves this size so I could cut my labor in half for cutting and splitting a winter's supply of wood. And after 30 years of cutting wood, this was very important to me. I could make these stoves smaller but they would cost almost as much, since the labor would be about the same. Why would anyone give up the [cut the labor in half] feature just to save a few inches of space? You can run a 10 inch round pipe to the hot air chamber of your furnace if you wish or just run it to a small register in the central room of the 1st floor like I do. My furnace never runs while I have the wood stove going and 1 winter my furnace died and I never got it fixed until the next fall. This stove is so efficient that people can't believe it,especially when you burn dry wood. If you burn DRY wood, you can have very little air coming into the stove and the fire still stays hot while there is very little air going up the chimney. If you look at the pics of my setup in the basement you will see the smokepipe is auger tubing and painted black. I made a mistake and grabbed a can of cheap paint that was next to the high temp paint I wanted to use. So when I got over being mad at myself for using the wrong paint, I figured I would just paint it with the high temp paint once the cheap stuff burned off. It has been over 5 years now and all the paint is still there. I figure the pipe has only gotten up to 350 degrees, and my paint chemist friend that works for John Deere said that if it would get to 400 degrees that "cheap crap" would be gone! My woodroom measures 13'x14' and now a full room of wood lasts 2 years instead of 1 year with my old smaller stove.

The stove has a 2 inch space between the firebox and jacket and the air is replaced 2 1/2 times per second. The outside of the stove gets up to approximately 230 degrees and as you can see in one of my pics, the top is loaded with wood for drying. However, the front of the stove and smoke pipe gets hotter so you should not have anything touching them.

I can heat my 2 story, 100 year old farm house ( 5 bedrooms upstairs) from September to June, without the help of my LP furnace, on 5 bundles of slabs which is about 3 cords of wood. Even at 0 degrees outside temperature, I only throw a few slabs in the stove at a time or it gets way too hot in the house.

With these new "LIFETIME WOOD STOVES", you can cut your labor in half by burning larger pieces of wood. With the huge firebox (10 cubic feet!) you won't have to keep feeding it several times a day. This stove warms a cold house fast and will pay for itself the first year. We have a Lifetime Guarantee on all our stoves. Try One NOW!