As I said before, I received a free sample of Canker-Rid with the understanding that I would write about how well it worked. (By the way, I have a few more free samples. If you’re interested in getting one, let me know).

The day it came in the mail I had two canker sores that were beginning to heal, but they still hurt. The bottle of Canker-Rid is similar to an eye-drop bottle, meaning you have to squeeze the liquid onto the canker sore. Gravity made it difficult to apply the liquid to the canker sore located on the inside of my upper lip. I tried applying it several times but never got the liquid to stay on the sore.

I eventually used a Q-tip, but the cotton absorbed a tremendous amount of Canker-Rid before it was finally wet enough and when I did apply it, boy oh boy, did it sting. I’m sure the pain was due in part to the fact that I had to rub the canker sore with the Q-tip, but the liquid itself packs a punch as well. There has to be a better way to apply it.

The second canker sore was on the inside of my lower lip, so it was easy to squeeze the liquid right onto the sore. It stung for about 10-15 seconds, then formed a protective covering over the sore. That was very helpful because it no longer hurt.

After reading the testimonials on the Canker-Rid web site, I was expecting a miracle solution that would clear up a canker sore in seconds. With that as my expectation, I was disappointed, but it wasn’t realistic. The sores stayed for another day or two, but Canker-Rid kept them from hurting, which was great. I don’t know if it made them go away faster than normal but after using it I would recommend Canker-Rid above anything else I’ve tried thus far.

Cameron wrote about his experience with Canker-Rid, so you can go there to get a second opinion.

Update: Jason wrote a review of Canker-Rid as well.

Writing a book is one of the most popular goals people have at 43 Things and if you’re a blogger and want to write a book, you may be a lot closer to doing it than you think.

blogbinders.com will publish your blog in book form. A 125-page book would cost about $15, so it’s not overly expensive. I enjoy looking back through my archives to read old entries, so being able to read them in book form seems like a really cool idea. (via outer court and Read/Write web)

I looked at the source of outer court’s post, micropersuasion.com, and found comments from one person saying they’ve already used the service and it wasn’t bad. Another said that lulu.com makes better quality books than CafePress (which, by the way, has some cool customized things you can sell besides books), which is what BlogBinders uses. Apparently the real service they’re providing is to get the content of your blog properly formatted for the book. If you were to go with CafePress or Lulu directly, you would pay less because you would have to format the content yourself.

I was surprised at how reasonable Lulu’s prices were. For a 200-page black and white book, it would cost you (the author) $8.54. For a 100-page color book, it would cost $19.53. That’s not too bad, and think of being able to show friends and family your book when they come over to visit.

There are a few questions I have about how to format a blog.

1. What happens with images?
My guess is they just make them black and white, but it’s possible that they would be excluded altogether. If that’s the case, it could make some blog entries hard to understand.

2. What about the links?
I’m not sure how they’re displayed, but I would suggest showing the link next to the text, as described in A List Apart’s Going to Print article (see the ‘Printed links’ section). That way you could refer to the links from the book.