tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78564703318050051112024-03-12T15:06:03.606-10:00Money for my HoneyMake money, save money, get alternative income, and have more free time.funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-89182758790568814132012-05-15T08:47:00.000-10:002012-05-15T08:47:15.793-10:00Amazon Free Super Saver ShippingI'm sure that everyone knows about Amazon's FREE Super Saver Shipping by now. You buy $25 worth of from Amazon and you get free shipping. Even if you live in Hawaii. The problem is, is that not all items are eligible for free super saver shipping.<br />
<br />
I'm also sure that whoever has tried for Amazon's free shipping has at one time been a few dollars short of the $25 requirement. This just happened to me today and I did a search for "cheap things on amazon to get FREE Super Saver Shipping". I got some listmania lists from Amazon where people found various cheap items that qualify for free shipping. This was very helpful. So helpful that I decided to put all the lists I could find in one place. Check out my <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/freesh1-20" target="_blank">Cheap Things on Amazon to get FREE Super Saver Shipping</a> compilation when you're in a bind.funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-20504063557228760282012-03-30T16:57:00.001-10:002012-03-30T16:58:08.212-10:00SEO Facts - Straight from Google<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Summary of Google SEO</span></h2>
I've always wondered how SEO professionals got their facts since search engines don't exactly publicize how to get a #1 ranking. It's especially suspicious when these SEO experts conflict each other. Anyway, I wanted to know how these guys got their facts so I did a quick search on Google. Not surprisingly I found a document and a blog by Google about how to make your site SEO friendly.<br />
<br />
This post will attempt to summarize the facts and only the facts given by Google. Their blog post is dated 3/15/2012 and their PDF document is dated 2010.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Google SEO Facts</span></h2>
In summary, the best SEO practice will always be to make your website easier and useful for the user both visually and in navigation. This is because 1) you get penalized for sneaky SEO practices and 2) Google is continually improving their engine to match what users would find useful. There are tons of things you shouldn't do so I will just be stating the facts of what you should do.<br />
<br />
<b>Titles </b>- Each page on your website should have a unique title describing what the page is about. It should be a brief, but descriptive title.<br />
<b>Description</b> - Each page on your website should have a unique, accurate, summary of what the page is about.<br />
<b>URL</b> - Your URLs should be simple to understand and easy to read. You should use words (instead of ids or complex alpha-numeric parameters) and have a simple directory structure.<br />
<b>Navigation</b> - Your site should be easy to navigate. Use breadcrumbs so users can easily navigate back to where they came from. Use mostly Text for navigation.<br />
<b>Site maps</b> - You should have a site map for your users and also a site map in XML for search engines. This will allow search engines to find all pages you want indexed.<br />
<b>Content</b> - Stay on one topic and stay away from grammatical and spelling errors. Create fresh and unique content.<br />
<b>Anchor Text</b> - Anchor text is the clickable text that users will click on . This should be descriptive of the page that it is linking to. (ie. "click here" is a bad example). It should be concise and easy to spot visually.<br />
<b>Images</b> - When using images use the "alt" attribute to provide information on what the image is. It is helpful to both users and search engines. Also naming the image file name appropriately is helpful for Google's image search.<br />
<b>Heading tags</b> - Those old fashion header tags (<h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc) help users and search engines understand what is important. It should be used sparingly on across a page.<br />
<b>Social Media</b> - Reach out to social media sites and your community. Get involved and share your site with interested users. Avoid posting links for every update and go for the big, interesting items.<br />
<b>Webmaster tools</b> - Use <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/" target="_blank">Webmaster Tools</a> by Google to see how Googlebot sees your site. <a href="http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster" target="_blank">Bing Webmaster Tools<span id="goog_934872389"></span></a> is also available.<br />
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<br />
Read the sources below to get the full effect of what Google says:<br />
<a href="http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291" target="_blank">Search Engine Optimization by Google</a>
<br />
<a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf" target="_blank">Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide</a><br />
<br />funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-63753081550231556392012-03-18T20:04:00.000-10:002012-03-18T20:09:41.936-10:00Groups in Gmail<span style="font-size: large;">Groups in Email</span><br />
One can save a lot of time by typing less and having the same outcome. If you email a bunch of people everyday and you are still typing each and every email address or selecting each person from your contact list, you are wasting time. Email programs often have a feature where you can name a group, add people to this group, and then send an email addressed to the group by typing the group name. Gmail is no different.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Add Someone to a Group</span><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DnwbqHbSzFw/T2bLlpkEW2I/AAAAAAAAATk/XBuX0ymzg34/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-03-18+at+7.50.25+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a>The past 5-10 years (however long gmail has been around) I have forgotten all about using groups because it's pretty hidden in Gmail. Here's how to add someone to a group in Gmail:<br />
<ol>
<li>Log into Gmail.</li>
<li>Click on the Gmail label in the top left corner and select "<b>Contacts</b>". See top screenshot.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DnwbqHbSzFw/T2bLlpkEW2I/AAAAAAAAATk/XBuX0ymzg34/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-03-18+at+7.50.25+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DnwbqHbSzFw/T2bLlpkEW2I/AAAAAAAAATk/XBuX0ymzg34/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-03-18+at+7.50.25+PM.png" width="193" /></a></li>
<ol>
</ol>
<li>Select the person you want to add to a group.</li>
<li>Click on the button with the multiple people icon at the top in the middle section of the page.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1wCHelO1Uyo/T2bLmXraMxI/AAAAAAAAAT0/1sMdcKj-76c/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-03-18+at+7.54.33+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="42" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1wCHelO1Uyo/T2bLmXraMxI/AAAAAAAAAT0/1sMdcKj-76c/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-03-18+at+7.54.33+PM.png" width="320" /></a></li>
<li>Here you can either create a new group or select an exiting one.</li>
<li>Repeat and add more people to a group.</li>
</ol>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Add a Contact</span></div>
<div>
If you don't see someone you need, no worries, you can add emails as contacts too.</div>
<div>
<ol><ol>
<li><span style="text-align: center;">Log into Gmail.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: center;">Click on the Gmail label in the top left corne and </span><span style="text-align: center;">select "<b>Contacts"</b>.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: center;">Click on the icon with the person and the plus (+) sign at the top in the middle section of the page.</span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MLJ-8WV9G_A/T2bLmBzCjBI/AAAAAAAAATs/6cgzhzG7TBI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-03-18+at+7.52.09+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MLJ-8WV9G_A/T2bLmBzCjBI/AAAAAAAAATs/6cgzhzG7TBI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-03-18+at+7.52.09+PM.png" /></a></li>
<li>Type in the email or name of the person you want to add.</li>
</ol>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Send Mail to a Group</span></div>
<div>
Now you can compose a new email, type in the group's name that you just added and all the group member's email addresses will appear.<br />
<br /></div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-44374425366048963322012-01-04T13:15:00.000-10:002012-01-16T21:31:31.394-10:00Dropbox - Secret Uses<a href="http://money.mymonkeydo.com/2012/01/dropbox.html">Dropbox is a service</a> that lets you sync files to different devices, share files, and backup files. 2GB are free with <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTU0MzE2NTk5OQ?src=global9" target="_blank">additional 250MB for each friend you refer</a>.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Share Passwords</span><br />
One of the main ways to use Dropbox is to use it to share files with your friends and colleagues. Often times you and your friends or colleagues need to sign up for a certain account and you both need the password to this account. Instead of dangerously emailing the password back and forth to each other, why not use Dropbox along with <a href="http://money.mymonkeydo.com/2011/02/free-software.html#truecrypt">Truecrypt </a>to keep your passwords safe and shared. Truecrypt creates an encrypted file that you can then store on Dropbox.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Version Control</span><br />
Programmers often use version controlled software like CVS, SVN, and Git. What this software does is lets you revert back to any revision of a file that you want to, compare differences, and save a new version. Similarly, Dropbox lets you view past version of your saved files. You can then restore past versions if you want to revert back to a previous version. Simply right-click on a file in your "Dropbox" folder, then select "Previous Revisions". It will open a webpage in your browser where you can see all the revisions you have made along with an option to revert to any version.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Use it as Another Hard-drive</span><br />
As previously stated, Dropbox is a service that lets you sync files to different devices, not necessarily an online storage service like box.com. This is because files on the server are also on your hard-drive. However, there is a way to make Dropbox act like Box.com and store the files only on the server. There are actually 3 ways.<br />
<br />
<b>Method 1 - The Unorthodox</b><br />
To make Dropbox act as an online-storage only you'll need two accounts. I'll call them your MasterUser account and your MobileUser account. Store all your files in your MasterUser account. Your Mobile account will have ZERO of your files.<br />
<br />
Lets say you buy the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CWHZP4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005CWHZP4" target="_blank">Macbook Air</a> which only has at this time, 128 GB for storage space. So you want to store as little as you can on this laptop. Install Dropbox on the Macbook Air and log in with the MobileUser account. <br />
<br />
Now comes the tricky part. Lets say you want to edit a file on your MasterUser account. What you can do is:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>open a browser (on any computer)</li>
<li>log into Dropbox as MasterUser</li>
<li>Share
with MobileUser whatever folder/file you want to edit</li>
<li>The file should automatically appear in the Macbook Air's Dropbox folder at this time.</li>
<li>Edit the file from your Macbook.</li>
<li>Once you are done, repeat steps 1-3 except unshare it with MobileUser this time.</li>
<li>Now your Macbook doesn't have any remaining files from Dropbox.</li>
</ol>
<div>
<b>Method 2 - The Not Useful Way</b><br />
Or of course, you can always just sign up for Dropbox and not install it on your computer and always use the web browser to download and upload your files.</div>
<br />
<b>Method 3 - The Right Way</b><br />
The right way to have some files only on the server and some files synced with your computers is through the Advanced Settings. To get to the Advanced Settings, click on the dropbox icon, click on Preferences, then go to the Advanced Tab:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IJ0ErpU6GJc/TxUjeynhP7I/AAAAAAAAATU/MF9ysDwog_A/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-01-16+at+9.22.13+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IJ0ErpU6GJc/TxUjeynhP7I/AAAAAAAAATU/MF9ysDwog_A/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-01-16+at+9.22.13+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Once on the Advanced tab, click on Change Settings for the Selective Sync. Here you can uncheck folders that you want to sync on this specific computer. Click on the Advanced button to see subfolders. Once done, click on the Update button.<br />
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<br />
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<br />funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-74342599948504031362012-01-03T13:15:00.001-10:002012-01-04T14:37:47.511-10:00DropboxThere are so many free online storage services now, why should you choose Dropbox over all others? Because they make it so incredibly simple to use, you won't even notice you're using online storage.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">What is Dropbox?</span><br />
Dropbox isn't so much an online storage, but more of a service to sync your files between devices. It does require harddrive space so you aren't saving space. It just allows you to share your files between devices and/or friends easier. It is great to use if you have multiple device or need a place to back your files up. If you're a computer nerd, Dropbox is basically a glorified, automated version control system.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">How You Would Use Dropbox</span><br />
You would have a special folder on your hard-drive called "Dropbox". In this folder you can open, edit, delete any file you want just as you would a normal file because really, it is a normal file. Then if you have another computer you can go on there and your file would magically be on that computer. Or if you want to share, you can do that too. Or if you are on a public computer, you can access your files on their website. If you want to find out more uses, read more in <a href="http://money.mymonkeydo.com/2012/01/dropbox-secret-uses.html">Dropbox Secret Uses</a>.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">How does Dropbox Work?</span><br />
Once the file in your "Dropbox" folder changes, it automatically sends the file to their server. Once on the server it automatically pushes the changes to all computers that have your dropbox account on it.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Get More Space</span><br />
Initially, Dropbox only gives you 2GB of free space. However, if you sign up from a referral link or refer someone, you get 250MB extra. You can get a maximum of 8GB free. So if you have a friend that is already signed up for Dropbox, ask them for a referral link and you and you're friend can get an extra 250MB each. If you don't know anyone, you can use my link: <br />
<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTU0MzE2NTk5OQ?src=global9">https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTU0MzE2NTk5OQ?src=global9</a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Other Online Storage</span><br />
I signed up to Box.com and used it... once. To use Box.com you have to go to their website to upload or download any file. I used it and it was easy to use, but it wasn't part of my routine. I have since forgotten that I even had an account with Box.com until writing this post. Dropbox integrates into your workflow so that it is seamless to use. Besides, if <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2011/10/18/dropbox-the-inside-story-of-techs-hottest-startup/" target="_blank">Steve Jobs thought Dropbox was good enough to buy</a>, why wouldn't you want to use it?<br />
<br />funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-47100907812097582632011-11-22T11:28:00.000-10:002011-11-22T15:35:23.248-10:00Lessons Learned: Good to Great by Jim CollinsI recently read the book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0066620996/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0066620996" target="_blank">Good to Great by Jim Collins</a>. There are a lot of summaries out there like:<br />
<a href="http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/16/good-to-great-why-some-companies-make-the-leap-and-others-dont">http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/16/good-to-great-why-some-companies-make-the-leap-and-others-dont</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wikisummaries.org/Good_to_Great:_Why_Some_Companies_Make_the_Leap..._and_Others_Don%27t">http://www.wikisummaries.org/Good_to_Great:_Why_Some_Companies_Make_the_Leap..._and_Others_Don%27t</a><br />
<br />
This post is more like some things I learned and want to keep in mind.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-drRYVJHbR_8/TsxL2eQj7SI/AAAAAAAAAS4/TsV-vXkdmvQ/s1600/GoodtoGreat-JimCollins+%25282%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-drRYVJHbR_8/TsxL2eQj7SI/AAAAAAAAAS4/TsV-vXkdmvQ/s320/GoodtoGreat-JimCollins+%25282%2529.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">First Who Then What</span><br />
With the right people, you can go in any direction regardless of what changes may happen to the company. If you all have a desire for what's best for the company and a similar vision as to what is best, "who" is better than "what".<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The 3 Circles</span><br />
This is a good, fast way to determine what you/your company should do. If you are passionate about your work, you won't give up easily. If your work brings in money, you can keep doing it. If you can be the best at what you do, you will eventually be successful.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Hedgehog Concept</span><br />
To be the best at something you usually have to focus all your efforts in one area. This is the hedghog concept. Be the best at your core work.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The "Flywheel"</span><br />
We often hear of companies that shoot to greatness almost overnight. The fact is that they've been working at it for a while now and are only being noticed now. They constantly push and push until it's easy to keep the flywheel going.<br />
<br />
If you find some of these topics interesting, you'll find <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0066620996/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0066620996" target="_blank">Good to Great</a> interesting.funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-90018764448026254182011-10-19T15:46:00.001-10:002011-10-20T16:51:04.451-10:00EE Bond Interest Rates - Which Bonds Should I Cash?I have some bonds ranging from 1988 to 1998 that I needed to cash. I didn't know which ones to cash though. My initial thought was to cash the older ones first since it had the most value. I found out otherwise.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">References</span><br />
I had no idea how complicated the interest rates for bonds were until I read the following pages.<br />
<a href="http://www.savings-bond-advisor.com/series-ee-savings-bond-interest-rates/">http://www.savings-bond-advisor.com/series-ee-savings-bond-interest-rates/</a><br />
<a href="http://www.savingsbonds.com/bond_basics/ee-savings-bonds.cfm">http://www.savingsbonds.com/bond_basics/ee-savings-bonds.cfm</a><br />
<a href="http://invest-faq.com/articles/bonds-us-savings.html">http://invest-faq.com/articles/bonds-us-savings.html</a><br />
<br />
I decided to make some graphs to help me understand all that mumble jumble. If you are new to bond interest rates, please read one or more of the links above. This page is meant to be a supplement to those pages. <br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Bond Interest Graphs</span><br />
The interest rate is the y-axis, the years is the x-axis. The dotted orange line means the Treasury can change the interest rate. The dashed green line is the bond's original maturity date. The bond is guaranteed to double in value by the end of the original maturity date. Bonds then earn interest specified by its specific rules until the 30 years is up.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qndfhVlmuSU/Tp-AbBFUoHI/AAAAAAAAAR4/MpCpmyHt9mA/s1600/eebonds1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qndfhVlmuSU/Tp-AbBFUoHI/AAAAAAAAAR4/MpCpmyHt9mA/s320/eebonds1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
EE Bonds issued May 2005 - present earn a fixed rate interest (x in the graph) for 20 years. Then it can be changed by the Treasury.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GkOa_0kVmfY/Tp-AbEL6API/AAAAAAAAASA/Ud9zqqOPLWA/s1600/eebonds2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GkOa_0kVmfY/Tp-AbEL6API/AAAAAAAAASA/Ud9zqqOPLWA/s320/eebonds2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
EE Bonds issued April 2003 - April 2005 have an interest rate (x) based on 5-year Treasury securities.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mYkpQS5vq7g/Tp-AbSX28kI/AAAAAAAAASI/7M0rLMZgi0o/s1600/eebonds3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mYkpQS5vq7g/Tp-AbSX28kI/AAAAAAAAASI/7M0rLMZgi0o/s320/eebonds3.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
EE Bonds in this period have an interest rate (x) based on 5-year Treasury securities.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ld9MZ5jVGUQ/Tp-AbpYrhSI/AAAAAAAAASQ/BhmjqNsXvLc/s1600/eebonds4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ld9MZ5jVGUQ/Tp-AbpYrhSI/AAAAAAAAASQ/BhmjqNsXvLc/s320/eebonds4.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">EE Bonds issued May 1995 - April 1997 have an interest rate (x) based on 5-year Treasury securities.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QAvBf6N6aso/Tp-Ab796YAI/AAAAAAAAASY/Xqf4iAf8bFc/s1600/eebonds5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QAvBf6N6aso/Tp-Ab796YAI/AAAAAAAAASY/Xqf4iAf8bFc/s320/eebonds5.png" width="320" /></a><br />EE Bonds issued March 1993 - April 1995 are guaranteed to have a minimum rate of 4% per year.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_ERBvkwaa_Y/Tp-AcJM0lRI/AAAAAAAAASg/vlcBHTrJulQ/s1600/eebonds6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_ERBvkwaa_Y/Tp-AcJM0lRI/AAAAAAAAASg/vlcBHTrJulQ/s320/eebonds6.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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EE Bonds issued November 1986 - February 1993 earned a minimum of 6% for the first 12 years and a minimum of 4% since then.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Fw2Kmjdo4qI/Tp-AasipKiI/AAAAAAAAARw/q7fmVXwoskw/s1600/eebonds7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Fw2Kmjdo4qI/Tp-AasipKiI/AAAAAAAAARw/q7fmVXwoskw/s320/eebonds7.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">EE Bonds issued November 1982 - October 1986 earned a minimum of 7.5%! for the first 10 years and a minimum of 4% since then.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Conclusion</span></div>
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Seeing how the older bonds are going to keep getting 4% interest until they've matured at 30 years and the newer bonds are currently earning less than 2% (based on <a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/BC/SBCPrice">bond interest rates</a> in 10/2011), I've decided to cash the bonds that I need starting from the most recent back to May 1995. </div>
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<br />funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-10384181735350634432011-10-02T13:55:00.000-10:002011-10-02T13:55:00.480-10:00Amazon Affiliate LinksA great affiliate program to be associated with is the Amazon Associates Affiliate program. They are the biggest online store there is and everyone knows who they are.<br />
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This is just a short post on getting a list of the products you want from amazon. Getting a single product is straightforward. Getting a list is a little less straightforward.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Listmania!</span><br />
Getting a Listmania list and having your ref id attached to it is easy. Go to the Widgets page and find "My Favorites". Amazon now has a Listmania! search where you can easily get anyone's list and have your associate id in them when you put it on your website.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Every Page</span><br />
For any URL on Amazon.com, you can just tack on your ref id. The easiest way to get your ref id onto an amazon results page is by going to the <a href="https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/network/build-links/text/main.html">Link to Any Page</a> page. The last box title "Link to Any Page" has a textbox where you can paste in your url and presto, you have a link with your associate id.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">RSS Every Page</span><br />
Often times, you have a blog and you have some space to list a bunch of products from an RSS feed. Amazon makes it easy to do this by simply replacing "gp" in the address to "rss" in most cases. You can read more about it on their <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/tagging/rss-help.html">rss help page</a>. Once you get your RSS url, be sure to go to the Link to Any Page so that you can add your associate id to it.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Check it</span><br />
If you aren't sure if your referral link is working, just check the link with Amazon's <a href="https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/network/tools/link-checker/main.html">Link Checker</a>. It is located in the Links & Banners section.funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-37293150833954199092011-09-28T13:18:00.000-10:002011-09-28T13:18:25.229-10:00Scam or LegitA lot of times, we find something almost unbelievable on the internet and we say, "is this a scam?". One of my first reactions to that is to try and find out what other people say. If it's a scam, people usually make themselves heard because of their anger and disappointment.<br />
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Another way to easily determine if something is a scam or not is to try and research the company behind "scam". For instance, <a href="http://money.mymonkeydo.com/2010/12/swagbucks.html">Swagbucks</a>. If you look up their company, Prodege, they have a website explaining what they do and now how much <a href="http://www.inc.com/ss/2011-inc-5000-top-10-internet-companies?slide=6">they are growing</a>. There is no question that they are NOT a scam and are here to stay for a while.<br />
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<a href="http://money.mymonkeydo.com/2011/04/quibids.html">Quibids</a> is another example of if it's a scam or not. The online penny auction industry is full of scams, so why not Quibids? A quick look for Quibids doesn't show much. I eventually found that the CEO is Matt Beckham. He has done a few interviews both <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-emGwN3uK_4">on video</a> and <a href="http://businessinfoguide.com/entrepreneur-interview-matt-beckham/">in text</a>. It's not much, but I didn't see any reviews saying customers didn't get the item they won. A good sign that this wasn't a scam, besides getting my items, was that the customer support is fantastic. I once had a complaint about something I though I had done, but then actually didn't. Customer support was friendly and satisfactory.<br />
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Of course, if you can't find anything on a company or it's products, it doesn't mean they are a scam. You'll just have to try it yourself (cautiously) or wait until it becomes a little more popular.funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-68137204508721647302011-09-26T14:07:00.001-10:002011-09-26T14:12:58.591-10:00Get Rewards for Changing Your SearchWhat if I told you I get about $10/month in Amazon.com gift cards because I use a certain search engine? Swagbucks uses Google and Ask.com so you will get the results you need. You can also watch videos, do online scavenger hunts, do online polls, and play some games to get even more rewards.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">How it Works</span><br />
Do a few searches in the morning and a few searches at night. Swagbucks randomly rewards you "Swagbucks" for searches you do through their site. Once you get enough "Swagbucks" you can get a $5 Amazon gift card or many other rewards.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Why Should I Sign up?</span><br />
Because it is FREE and they are legit. They sound like a <b>scam</b>, you say? Since April 2010, in 18 months, I have gotten about $360 in Amazon gift cards. <a href="http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/funkysmell">Sign up here</a> and start using Swagbucks to do your searching.funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-87624044133776675372011-09-24T11:42:00.002-10:002012-05-15T08:52:14.417-10:00Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Problem</span><br />
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<iframe bordercolor="#000000" frameborder="0" height="150" hspace="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/N7433.148119.BLOGGEREN/B6535995.404;sz=180x150;ord=[timestamp]?;lid=41000000005217789;pid=22311614;usg=AFHzDLvOynEloy8XjY2wEhaYpB4T0DzBAQ;adurl=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.officemax.com%252Ftechnology%252Fsoftware%252Fmicrosoft-office-2010%252Fproduct-prod2940396%253Fcm_mmc%253DPerformics-_-Technology-_-Software-_-Microsoft%252520Office%2525202010%2526ci_src%253D14110944%2526ci_sku%253D22311614;pubid=542611;price=%24259.98;title=Microsoft+Office+Home+...;merc=OfficeMax;imgsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.officemax.com%2Fcatalog%2Fimages%2F397x353%2F22311614i_01.jpg;width=95;height=85" vspace="0" width="180"></iframe><br />
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Have you ever received a file with a "doc", "docx", or "xls" extension and couldn't open it? It's most likely because it's a Microsoft Office document. In the old days you would either have to buy Microsoft Office (for PC or Mac) or download and install the open source program, <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/">Open Office</a>. Nothing against Open Office or Microsoft Office, it's just that both take time to install (and money for Microsoft), both take time to open, and both will only open files on your computer.</div>
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I recently bought a Apple Macbook (and I have never owned an Apple computer before) and it could not open any Microsoft Office files. My sister, who's a long time Apple user, buys the Mac version of MS Office so she can open files from Windows users. <br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OjOwNI9t2Ow/Tn5PHTBKk0I/AAAAAAAAARY/49ZPV1w-vPU/s1600/google-docs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OjOwNI9t2Ow/Tn5PHTBKk0I/AAAAAAAAARY/49ZPV1w-vPU/s200/google-docs.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Solution</span><br />
Instead of installing software on my computer on my precious space using up my resources, I use Google Docs. It's web-based, so nothing needs to be installed, nothing needs to be updated, and it's free. It just requires a Google Account, which is also free. It can open PDFs, Microsoft Excel (xls, xlsx), Word (doc, docx), Adobe files (psd, ai), and <a href="http://googleappsupdates.blogspot.com/2011/02/12-new-file-types-supported-in-google.html">much more</a>.<br />
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One of the neat little features is how Google Docs can open any file on the web. Just go to the <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer">Google Docs Viewer</a> and enter in a URL to read.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Convenience</span><br />
There are a bunch of support to open Google Docs even quicker than opening a web page. <br />
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<a href="http://www.openitonline.com/images/screenshots/open_with_dialog.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="124" src="http://www.openitonline.com/images/screenshots/open_with_dialog.png" width="200" /></a>With the <a href="http://www.openitonline.com/">Open IT Online</a> plugin for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, you can open your document or image online.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/P2Fdjr1_da_nNqqoFx_Tz0LAQwtqiDirViwenYVVDwA9S1cOiN8nqzsn2TsSMegzo8eEDpJ2LQ=s400-h275-e365" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/P2Fdjr1_da_nNqqoFx_Tz0LAQwtqiDirViwenYVVDwA9S1cOiN8nqzsn2TsSMegzo8eEDpJ2LQ=s400-h275-e365" width="200" /></a></div>
In Chrome, there's another plugin called Ultimate Google Docs Viewer. This also lets you right click on a link and open it online instead of downloading it.funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-83103535320624467292011-06-26T15:43:00.000-10:002011-06-26T15:43:10.505-10:00How to go on your Dream VacationThe "Dream Vacation" is always an expensive vacation. It's always far fetched and light years away. The reason it's so far from reach is because the "Dream Vacation" is just that, a dream. To make it a reality it needs to be your number one focus. You need to find out exactly how much it will cost and how you will get there. The Honey and I are planning our (her) dream vacation to Disney World / Universal Studios. This is how we achieved or goals.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">1. Find out your Daily Expenses</span></b><br />
Once you find out how much you are spending every month you can find out how much you actually need to survive and how much you can save every month. It also lets you cut some things out if you don't really need them. For a unique way on how to figure out your monthly expenses (including annual payments), please see my post on <a href="http://money.mymonkeydo.com/2011/03/where-did-my-money-go.html">Where Did My Money Go?</a><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">2. Find out the Minimum Cost of the Trip</span></b><br />
After finding out where you are in terms of finances, now you can find out where you need to go. Plan your trip as if you are going. Pick the dates you will be traveling and use the internet to find out airline and hotel tickets. The best website for this is <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/">trip advisor</a>. They compare costs from multiple airlines, combination of airlines, length of trip, etc. Also include costs such as the cost to get into theme parks if you are planning to visit any, museums, shows, etc.<br />
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Don't forget to include food cost estimates. For example, if you are traveling to Disney World and are planning on purchasing the meal plan, include that.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">3. Find out the Cost of Your Trip</span></b><br />
In this step find out the cost of what you think you will spend. The previous step was all about getting there and being able to stay there for X amount of days. This step is the cost of the actual vacation spending. For example, if you usually bring home gifts for people, add that cost here. If you usually buy so much soveniers, try to find out what kind of souveniers you think you'd want to get. From there research or estimate the cost of these items. We live in a world where everything is online. So for us, finding out what was in the <a href="http://www.disneystore.com/disney-parks-authentic/mn/1000809/?CMP=Parks&att=ParksVanity">Disney World</a> store wasn't too hard. <br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">4. Evaluate</span></b><br />
Now that you know the general cost of your vacation and how much money you have right now, it is time to evaluate if you can go without going broke. If you currently do not have enough saved, Step #1 can show you how much you can save every month. <br />
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If you can come close, but don't quite have enough before the time you picked, it's time to look for savings. read on. <br />
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If the cost of the trip will take years to save up to, you have some thinking to do. You can either postpone your vacation or you can make some cuts and try to make some <a href="http://money.mymonkeydo.com/search/label/make%20money%20online">side income</a>. There is a last resort where you can volunteer for a local organization that is planning on going to the location you want to visit. Once in their organization you can help them fundraise and get to travel for a much cheaper cost.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">5. Savings</span></b><br />
If you're close to going on your trip, but not quite there, you can try to find deals and cut corners here and there.<br />
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<ul><li>Sign up to newsletters. Airlines offer specials like $60 one way tickets to various cities throughout the US. If you sign up to their newsletter or the location you are visiting, you may get a surprise email that will allow you to travel.</li>
<li>Sign up for <a href="http://qb.cm/r4543673">Quibids</a> and try for the $250 American Airlines Gift Card</li>
<li>Sign up to Airline Miles programs like credit cards, affiliate partners, and even get miles for just <a href="http://emarket.hawaiianair.com/toolbar_download">searching</a> the web.</li>
<li>If you're going to a popular location like Disney World, you can find many sites that give you tips and tricks in saving money, going to things with the best values, etc.</li>
</ul><div><br />
</div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-71802820680084776242011-06-19T21:04:00.004-10:002011-06-19T21:06:21.346-10:004 Types of Qubids Bidding Outcomes<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">When using Quibids, there are usually 4 types of winners/losers on there.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Losers</span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">These are the people that jump on Quibids expecting to win something big without much research and/or auction wins. These guys are the ones who will tell you <a href="http://money.mymonkeydo.com/2011/04/quibids.html">Quibids is a scam</a> and they take all your money. The reason they lose is because they go for the iPads or the big TVs but they don't take the time to learn Bid dynamics, what the average ending price of an item is, and how to win an auction.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Hopefuls</b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">These people are the ones who usually try for gift cards. They took the time to learn bidding strategies, they did some research, but they just don't get the whole picture or don't bother to learn as much as they should. They try out the strategies and lose the majority of auctions. However, they know they will probably lose so they take advantage of Quibid's <a href="http://money.mymonkeydo.com/2011/04/quibids.html">Buy Now option</a>. So they spend a couple dollars extra (shipping/handling fees) for a chance to win a gift card for 90% off.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Winners</b></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">These guys are the ones that learned all there is to know about bidding and their target item. They win 90% of the auctions they enter. They get apple computers for 20% of the actual cost and gift cards galore. One thing that is stopping them from getting them to the next category is just a state of mind. They either don't have the time or the will to push it just a little more.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Professionals</span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The ultimate bidding outcome. The people in this class get their items from Quibids for 20% of the actual cost or less and they sell it on eBay. They are members on multiple auction sites and have various tools to get a better advantage at winning. They have lists of items they want to get, lists of people to stay away from, and lists of auction start times.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Which one are you?</div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-49692091496089814042011-06-13T22:14:00.000-10:002011-06-13T22:14:46.424-10:00Giving Gifts That Save You MoneyWant to give a great gift, but also want to save some money? This gift will do the trick.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Gift Card Hunt</span></b><br />
Normally I don't like giving a gift card because it shows that you didn't put much thought into it. This idea for a gift however, is not like that at all. It is the gift that keeps on giving as long as you share expenses (i.e. your spouse). This gift is especially for:<br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><ul><li>Someone who likes food or eating out</li>
<li>Someone you eat out with anyway</li>
<li>Someone that doesn't mind scavenger hunts</li>
</ul><br />
Here's what you need to do:<br />
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<ol><li>Search online at Yelp, Urban Spoon, etc, to find the best places to eat in your area. Take note of the cost of the menu, you don't want to be eating at a place serving $100 plates.</li>
<li>Go out and purchase $25 gift cards from about 10 or so restaurants.</li>
<li>Think of places you can leave the gift cards. (with friends, hidden around the house, at a restaurant where you know the owner).</li>
<li>Make a scavenger hunt. Write out little notes describing where to get the next hint. At each point leave one of the gift cards.</li>
<li>It would be good to have something special at the end, but it's not necessary.</li>
</ol><div>So basically it's 10 or so $25 gift cards and a scavenger hunt. Yes, you just spent $250 on a gift, but think of it this way; If you usually go out to eat with this person and you pay for the bill, you're actually using the money you spent on the gift card to pay for the meal. So a $50 meal for two at Ruby Tuesday's is only $25 after the gift card. Kind of get the picture? Your gift is actually a scavenger hunt and 10 nights out with the person you enjoy dining with. The $25 gift cards are just coupons saying, "lets go out eat sometime".</div><div><br />
</div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-87881272150166584722011-06-02T07:54:00.002-10:002011-06-17T09:59:09.348-10:00Google +1 Button<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Searching Made Easier</span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Google has just made searching a whole lot easier. They have implemented a system that can help you find websites you want. If you find a website that is useful, you can press the +1 button. This indicates to other users that you recommend it. When many people start recommending a website it becomes obvious that the website is something you would want to look at.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">An Already Successful System</span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The "+1" concept is nothing new. It has found success in many helpful and popular websites such as:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">http://digg.com/</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">http://reddit.com/</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">http://stackoverflow.com/</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">I don't think the +1 will influence search ranking directly, but it will direct users to the more recommended sites and indirectly cause more links to the page and more activity on the page. This will eventually cause the websites with more +1's to be higher in the ranking. Which is good for googlers.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Where is My +1 Button?</span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Well first of all, the +1 button is browser specific. If you set it up in one browser and you're using another browser, you'll need to set it up again. Another reason you may not see it is because Google may be making changes to the button. After all, it is "experimental". If you haven't signed up for it, you can do so by following these steps:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><ol><li>To sign up, you'll need a <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount">Google Account</a> first.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html">http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html</a></li>
<li>Click on "Join this experiment" under the +1 header</li>
</ol><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Shared Info</span></b><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">To participate in the +1 experiment, you'll be asked to "Use my information to personalize content and ads across the web". This lets google tell your friends that you +1 the website. You may want to change your google profile so that your full name isn't displayed. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
Google's help says that there is a Tab in your profiles that allows you to see all your +1's and to edit your sharing settings. However, I have not seen these so called "Tabs". It must not be implemented yet.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Google Video</span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/OAyUNI3_V2c/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OAyUNI3_V2c&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OAyUNI3_V2c&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> More info: <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/1-button-for-websites-recommend-content.html">http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/1-button-for-websites-recommend-content.html</a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
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<ol></ol>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-62859987162313135742011-05-19T10:40:00.002-10:002011-05-19T10:56:43.226-10:00Gmail Tips: Gmail on iPhone<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">If you set up your mail on the iPhone as a "Gmail" account, you're probably not getting mail "pushed" to your phone. This means that the iPhone or you have to manually ask Gmail if there's new mail, which in turn means you don't get an email notification in real time. The Gmail experience on your iPhone isn't the best experience, but having mail sent to your phone a few seconds after Gmail receives it makes it that much better.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Setup</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-c2QI1UEbqbs/TdV9IfJBr8I/AAAAAAAAAP8/YTw4OpFGGac/s1600/photo.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-c2QI1UEbqbs/TdV9IfJBr8I/AAAAAAAAAP8/YTw4OpFGGac/s200/photo.PNG" width="133" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">When setting up Gmail on the iPhone you need to select Microsoft Exchange as your account type. As shown to the right. To get to this screen go to Settings -> "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" -> "Add Account...". Once you select Microsoft Exchange as your mail type, fill in the following like so:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><ul><li>Domain: m.google.com</li>
<li>Email: youremail@gmail.com</li>
<li>Server: m.google.com</li>
<li>Username: your gmail address</li>
<li>Password: your gmail password</li>
</ul><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">And that's it. Now when you send mail to your gmail account, you will get it instantly on your phone. The full official documentation is located on <a href="http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138740">Google's site</a>.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Trash</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HfTXC0kYua4/TdV9CO_eA3I/AAAAAAAAAP4/D0E0KGZkWaA/s1600/Trash+can_png.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HfTXC0kYua4/TdV9CO_eA3I/AAAAAAAAAP4/D0E0KGZkWaA/s200/Trash+can_png.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">What the what? If you set up your gmail as a Microsoft Exchange account like above, you'll notice that there's no actual way to really delete mail in gmail. Sure you can try hit the trash icon, but if you look in your gmail account you'll see that the message is just archived and put into the "All Mail" folder, not deleted. If you haven't set your gmail up like above, read the next paragraph. I'm sad to say, there is no way to delete a message from your iPhone when gmail is set up as Exchange. However, I recently learned from a friend that there is a way to handle this:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><ol><li>Set up a "trash!" label in Gmail.</li>
<li>Every time you want to delete mail from you iPhone, label it with the "trash!" label.</li>
<li>Every once in a while when you feel like cleaning house, log into Gmail, select all the "trash!" labeled messages and hit Delete.</li>
</ol><div>If you set up Gmail as a Gmail account (and not like above) <b>you can delete messages from your iPhone</b>. Here's how:</div><div><ol><li>Open Settings -> "Mail, Contacts, Calendars"</li>
<li>Select your Gmail account</li>
<li>Set the Archived Messages to <i>OFF</i></li>
</ol><div><i><br />
</i></div></div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-79731550015863339762011-05-08T13:59:00.003-10:002011-05-08T14:06:13.030-10:00Lessons in Starting a Business<div><span class="Apple-style-span">This post documents the lesson's I learned in business. It will continually grow as I learn more and more.</span><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Create an Operating Agreement</span></b> that is effective in keeping the members of the company responsible for doing their duties.</div><div><br />
</div>For example, if Person A is responsible for approving timesheets, make sure Person B is responsible for asking Person A about the timesheets. In other words, you need 1 person (a CEO) to make sure everyone else is doing their job.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>Nothing is more frustrating than working all hours to finish a product only to realize that the marketing guy didn't advertise the product.</div><div><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Have an Exit Strategy</span></b> - As Jack Donaghy from the show "30 Rock" said, "<i>no wonder your career is being held back by a lack of foresight and an addiction to dysfunctional relationships, you have no exit strategies</i>." Upon entering any type of deal, you need to have an exit clause. This is essential if you want to keep your friendships and have a amiable separation. <br />
<div><br />
</div><div>Make the exit clause as detailed as possible so that <i><b>nothing</b></i> is left to be decided when the actual event happens. And don't think it won't happen. Anything can happen: Your spouse could get sick and you may need focus all your time on him/her, you may have a friend that desperately needs your business expertise, you may just flat out loose interest. Act as if the buyout is happening right now and make sure both sides get a fair deal as best you can. </div><div><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Document Everything</span></b> so that anyone can reproduce the outcome of your actions over and over again without having to try to ask you what you did or research how its done.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Have you ever opened a box of Legos that is supposed to make a huge city? Then you look at the directions and you end up making the city in several minutes. Have you ever tried not reading the directions? It would take you a lot longer and you probably won't have the exact city as shown on the box. Relating this back to your business... Ever did something so great that you keep doing it over and over? How about writing it down so that someone else can do it for you. Or if you have a partner, write it down so that if you ever can't do it, your partner can. The end product of whether you do it or someone else does it would be exactly the same if they followed your instructions. </div><div><br />
</div><div>This theory of "franchising" your business is explained more in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Michael Gerber's Emyth</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=moneyfo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0887307280" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />. Among other things, it teaches you that your business should be a system that consistently produces the same customer experience each and every time without taking time from you.<br />
<div><br />
</div></div></div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-39567867984317103322011-04-25T17:40:00.007-10:002011-06-19T21:08:41.545-10:00Quibids<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://qb.cm/r4543673" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oe9i5XvcFwQ/TbY-BWqLkpI/AAAAAAAAAO8/3TimQxZg-4c/s1600/quibids.png" /></a></div>Ever wanted a chance to win the lottery? Ever wanted to buy some gift cards for Christmas? Ever wanted to buy something for cheap and sell it for 10 times the price you bought it? If you answered YES to any of these questions, Quibids may be the thing for you.<br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A Chance to Win the Lottery</span></b><br />
Quibids is really as they say, "redefined shopping". Quibids is a penny auction site that lets you bid on items and win them for a very low cost. Here's how it works. Each bid costs 60 cents. Every time you bid on an item, say an iPad, the cost of the iPad goes up by a penny. A timer counts down to end the auction, but each time someone bids, the timer goes back up to 20 seconds or so (depending on the auction). So say you bid on an iPad to make the cost of the iPad 1 cent. The timer will go back up to 20 seconds and start counting down. If someone else bids, making the cost go up to 2 cents, the timer goes back up to 20 seconds. If no one bids over you and the timer reaches 0, you win the iPad for 1 cent (plus shipping/handling cost $12.99 and your $.60 bid).<br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A Chance to Buy it for Less</span></b><br />
Quibids also has a Buy-it-now option where if you bid (real bids - explained later) in an auction, the bids used in that auction can be used towards purchasing the item. So lets say you bid 100 times ($60) on an iPod Touch and lost. The actual cost of the iPod on Quibids is $229. So if you wanted to buy the iPod, you can buy it for $169 ($229 minus $60). In other words, if you are already planning on buying an item, you get a chance to buy it for very cheap on Quibids.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BkfwKUM1c-g/TbY-jNnF_2I/AAAAAAAAAPA/heDIeNPVYPg/s1600/3gears2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BkfwKUM1c-g/TbY-jNnF_2I/AAAAAAAAAPA/heDIeNPVYPg/s200/3gears2.gif" width="200" /></a></div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">How it All Works</span></b><br />
Quibids makes 60 cents per bid. So if say an iPod touch sells for $30, that's 3000 bids or $1,800. Quibids makes a huge profit. Then there are auctions where a $250 gift card can sell for $.50 or $30. So in the end as they state on their website, they make a 10-15% profit on average.<br />
<br />
In an auction you can have real bids and voucher bids. Real bids are bids that you purchase while voucher bids are bids that you can win in an auction. Only real bids can be used towards purchasing an item.<br />
<br />
Quibids has two types of bidding methods. A Single bid is a bid that you press the "Bid" button and bid once. Bid-o-matic is an automatic bidding option where you can specify what price to start bidding at and for how many bids (max 25). Bid-o-matic will bid for you whenever you are not currently winning the auction.<br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Redefined Shopping</span></b><br />
I have tried this out and I am not a good auction bidder. I have won 2 auctions so far and lost many. On the other hand I personally know someone who, in the same time span, has won several gift cards, a video camera, a digital camera, and sunglasses. If you are good at following bidding strategies like those found on youtube (search for "Quibids") you can make a good profit by getting items for very cheap and selling them. However, if you're like me and <a href="http://money.mymonkeydo.com/2011/06/4-types-of-qubids-bidding-outcomes.html">suck at bidding</a>, you can use this site whenever you want to purchase something and get a chance to get it for less. You pay the full price of the item you want whether you lose on Quibids or buy it from somewhere like Amazon.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://qb.cm/r4543673" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qo2ZhEKSjmA/TbZAahXw08I/AAAAAAAAAPE/yZfah3Zsc2w/s1600/girls.jpg" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://qb.cm/r4543673">How to Get Free Bids</a></span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Quibids offers many chances to get free bid vouchers through "Achievements", daily twitter contests, and referrals. They range anywhere from 1 to 50 bids at a time. Everyone likes free bids, these are the ways you can get them:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul><li><b>Achievements</b> can be won by doing specific things like winning an auction, using bid-o-matic, or by spending so much money. </li>
<li><b>The twitter contests</b> are usually held in the morning and they ask questions like "what is your favorite Quibids tip?". They choose the best answer and reward the winner with 50 bids. </li>
<li>For the <b>referrals</b>, if you get a friend to sign up under your link, you get <a href="http://qb.cm/r4543673">25 bid vouchers</a> after your friend buys the initial $60 bid pack (100 bids).</li>
</ul></div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Scam?</span></b><br />
Many people say Quibids is a scam. I for one think that their business is too profitable to be a scam. Why would a company which can legitimately make money and earn customer loyalty try to scam people out of a quick buck? They can be bidding on their own auctions to raise the price, but with so many people bidding, they don't need to. With so many auctions going for well below a price for them to make a profit, they aren't doing a good job at raising the price either. The bottom line is that I got all the items I expected to get at the price I expected to pay. Check out <a href="http://qb.cm/r4543673">Quibids </a>for yourself.<br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">1000 Free bids</span></b><br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Be careful on scams that promise you free bids for signing up under their referral link. They make promises of sending you a code for 1000 free bids, or show you the website in a video to convince you that you too can have unlimited bids. Do not trust them. These videos are of an altered website where their bid count is increased. If you sign up under them all that happens is you will grant that person their 25 bid referral reward from Quibids. You will get nothing but disappointment in return.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
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</div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-53908071295897249282011-04-20T08:20:00.013-10:002011-09-25T00:35:19.384-10:00Watch out for GainSaver Scam<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RN0IFnkUmDU/Ta8i-4PFzcI/AAAAAAAAAO0/vQ0h39_zObA/s1600/Screen+shot+2011-04-20+at+8.15.58+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RN0IFnkUmDU/Ta8i-4PFzcI/AAAAAAAAAO0/vQ0h39_zObA/s1600/Screen+shot+2011-04-20+at+8.15.58+AM.png" /></a>My company's iMac broke this past week and we needed to buy a new mac. Our bank account only has less than $1000 in it so we opted to look for the cheapest mac which is a mac mini. On Amazon it is cheaper than $699. With free shipping and no tax it comes out cheaper than an educational discount (10%) at the Apple Store. That sounded like a good idea until another member of our company found GainSaver.<br />
<br />
GainSaver is a website that sells used macs for VERY cheap. We saw a mac mini 2.0 ghz for as low as $389. You can customize everything from the harddrive space to the ram to the airport card. They say they check every piece of hardware that comes in so you're guaranteed to get a good piece of hardware.<br />
<br />
The total price of our mac mini would have been about $500 (with 2gb of ram and decent harddrive space). But wait.... A couple things weren't quite right. <br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They have a 10% off special that ends "tonight at 10pm"</span></b>. <br />
Yet we were ordering at 11pm HST. Clicking on the details of the special revealed that the special was available until January 2012. A bit shady if you ask me.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Diagnostics Testing (optional upgrade for $25)</b></span><br />
With this upgrade GainSaver says "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Make sure your equipment has passed our rigorous Diagnostics Testing program. GainSaver thoroughly tests all of your computer's critical hardware components before shipping."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span>Uhh.... so if we don't want to spend an extra $25 for diagnostics testing will we be getting untested hardware even though the site says "... <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">been fully tested and certified by GainSaver's trained Apple technicians to verify every major component is in 100% working order" </span>. Things were getting fishy.<br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Research</span></b><br />
Doing some research we found a site, <a href="http://www.brenthobbs.com/gainsaver.htm">http://www.brenthobbs.com/gainsaver.htm</a>, that complained about not receiving their product, but also not getting charged for it. The author suspected that they were just out to get his credit card information as their customer service was not very helpful in getting him his order. He also posted on an Apple forum where he got some supporters and a fake glowing review of GainSaver. Company's often find bad reviews of their service and post a fake review saying how great the service was. No one on the forum was fooled. Apparently, that fake post was just a small sample of what they can do...<br />
<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Fake Reviews</span></b><br />
Another website called <a href="http://www.resellerratings.com/store/view/GainSaver/">Reseller Ratings</a> lets users post reviews on reseller sites. It showed that GainSaver's overall rating was a 8.13/10 (or 4/5 stars). Note that this rating is as of 4/20/2011. There were posts of customers not receiving their product, getting the wrong item, and basically having no real customer service. There were also posts of 5/5 stars saying they got their product for cheap and got it on time, etc, etc. After reading through the first page I wanted to see the older posts because maybe they were really bad when they first started and cleaned up their act recently. So I clicked on Page 4 which I thought was the last page (it's the last page next to the arrow). This is where I read a really shocking review:<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">There is something VERY wrong with resellerratings.com's system. In the first 3 years of reviews for gainsaver.com, a total of 80 reviews were posted, nearly all of them negative, and until November 2010 their overall customer satisfaction rating was ZERO. (http://www.resellerratings.com/seller_rating_history.pl?seller_seo_name=GainSaver)<br />
<br />
Now, 3 months later (as of 2/15/11) there are nearly 400 reviews. About 200 of them were posted on just 2 days (1/21 and 1/21/11) virtually all of them glowingly positive. And miraculously their rating is now 8.15. What's wrong with this picture?<br />
<br />
The dozens of negative reviews consistently report the same problems:<br />
1. Products unavailable at advertised prices followed by a "bait & switch" offer for more expensive products<br />
2. Products arriving broken or else they malfunction within weeks<br />
3. Unresponsive, rude customer service<br />
4. Products, refunds and "rebates" never arriving or requiring much time and aggravation to resolve<br />
5. Customers being stuck with return shipping cost for damaged goods or company error<br />
<br />
There is clearly a pattern here.<br />
<br />
I have placed 3 orders for multiple Mac Minis & imacs for a youth program. Each time Gainsaver has canceled the order, saying that the products were not available then quoting me a much higher price for the same items with very minor upgrades. When I said that I wanted the computers I ordered for the price listed on the website, not the $200 more a piece that they tried to charge me, the sales rep laughed and said "You'll never get them for that price". So why have they continued to be listed on the website?</span></span><br />
<br />
After reading this, I looked back in the history and saw for myself that on January 20-21 there were pages and pages of 5/5 star reviews. Looking at the history of ratings it showed that from January 2011 the ratings picked up. I'm posting it here because in a couple of months the chart will no longer show the jump from 0/5 to 5/5 in 1 month. The top bar is April and it goes all the way down to October. October and November had very bad customer satisfaction and likelihood of future purchases. December/January it jumped up. GainSaver will probably have a much better rating in a couple months because the rating only goes back 6 months. Once that happens they'll have a lot more credit cards.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CwmTGGxZfSY/Ta8f4QbjBcI/AAAAAAAAAOw/lGg-f5xwifM/s1600/Screen+shot+2011-04-20+at+8.01.54+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="357" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CwmTGGxZfSY/Ta8f4QbjBcI/AAAAAAAAAOw/lGg-f5xwifM/s400/Screen+shot+2011-04-20+at+8.01.54+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>More Fake Reviews</b></span><br />
GainSaver is an accredited Better Business Bureau business. How? Maybe it's because they resolve all their BBB complaints, but really, I have no idea. The reason I bring up the BBB is that they have a "<a href="http://www.trustlink.org/Reviews/Gain-Saver-205952320">TrustedLink Community</a>" that hosts customer reviews of their own. And of course, on this site you see GainSaver as having 4/5 stars for their 95 reviews. However, you still see the mass of complaints with 1 stars. How did they do this?<br />
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We start by going back to April 3, 2009. The start of the "5-star-review employee". I went to the last page (the actual last page this time) and started looking at the dates for all the 5-star reviews and noticed a trend. From the first Friday in April (4/3/2009) through the last Friday in May (5/29/2009) you can see a 5-star review for almost every weekday. None on the weekend. I estimate about 35 to 40 5-star reviews in this time period alone. So in their 2 year history about 40% of the reviews came in those 2 months.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We bought the mac mini from Amazon.</span></b><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Mac-Mini-MC270LL-Desktop/dp/B0013FK9U2?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Apple Mac Mini MC270LL/A Desktop" height="130" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B0013FK9U2&tag=moneyfo-20" width="200" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=moneyfo-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0013FK9U2" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
Well, after all that we went straight to Amazon. There's no price on reputation. Just knowing you'll receive your product within a week, knowing you can contact customer service and talk things out, and knowing you can return your product if you're not satisfied is worth a small premium. It's one thing to look for a deal, but you need to be careful. I decided to write this post because it's the first time I've seen a scam for myself. It's usually in news articles, forums or a friend got scammed. This one is still up and running and it scares me that we were so close to purchasing. If it were a few months later, we might have.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Unfortunate experiences</span></b><br />
Below is a list of complaints that I have found from various people around the web. It's amazing (sarcasm) that such a "great, A+ BBB company" gets so many bad reviews. Not only are these reviews bad, but they have similar complaints. Just saying... Beware!<br />
<ul><li><a href="http://www.ripoffreport.com/computer-service-repair/gainsaver-steve-harp/gainsaver-steve-harper-steve-47657.htm">http://www.ripoffreport.com/computer-service-repair/gainsaver-steve-harp/gainsaver-steve-harper-steve-47657.htm</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/gainsaver.html">http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/gainsaver.html</a></li>
<li><a href="http://askville.amazon.com/Gainsaver-body-experience-website-guys-scam/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=64454545">http://askville.amazon.com/Gainsaver-body-experience-website-guys-scam/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=64454545</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gainsaver.pissedconsumer.com/gainsaver-sales-fraud-no-refunds-20100901196698.html">http://gainsaver.pissedconsumer.com/gainsaver-sales-fraud-no-refunds-20100901196698.html</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/wwwgainsavercom-c61227.html">http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/wwwgainsavercom-c61227.html</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.scaminformer.com/scam-report/gainsaver-products-are-not-what-i-ordered-they-send-you-c14416.html">http://www.scaminformer.com/scam-report/gainsaver-products-are-not-what-i-ordered-they-send-you-c14416.html</a></li>
<li>sooo many more, but <a href="http://tinyurl.com/3l4ee3j">let me google it for you</a>.</li>
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</span></span>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-11374260214465177752011-03-30T15:58:00.003-10:002011-06-26T15:43:25.120-10:00Where Did My Money Go?Have you ever wondered where your money has all gone when you look at your bank account? Ever been asked to "upgrade" something for "only $10/month"? This post is all about finding where that money went and why $10/month may not be so cheap.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>The $10 upgrade</b></span><br />
Let's say you have broadband internet and are paying $50 / month. You see a special where you can order cable on TV and internet in a bundle and it would only cost $80. So you get it. The cable company calls later asks if you want to upgrade to digital cable for just $10 more / month. Wow, ok. All these new channels for only $10 sounds great. Then you get a new TV so hey might as well get HD cable for another $10/month. A few months down the line your friend has DVR and you get jealous that he or she can record shows and watch it any time they want to. The cable company offers this for only $10 more / month. Wow that's cheap. Ok get it.<br />
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By all means, if you can't live without DVR or HD, that's fine, but think about a time when you didn't have this or if you could go <a href="http://moneyformyhoney.blogspot.com/2011/01/canceling-cable-and-still-watching-tv.html">an alternative route</a>. If you didn't have HD, DVR, or cable for TV your bill would be $50. Now that you do have it your bill is $110. You would've saved $60 / month or $720 per year. Sorry, that's for <a href="http://moneyformyhoney.blogspot.com/2011/01/canceling-cable-and-still-watching-tv.html">another post</a>. For this post, I'm just trying to point out that $10 upgrades sounds fine one at a time, but when you add up all the upgrades, it starts to do just that, add up.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The One time yet Reoccurring Cost</span></b><br />
These types of costs are things like car registration, dentist bills, Costco memberships, etc. They don't hit you every month, but they do have a cycle. I for one didn't pay attention to these costs as they did not occur very frequently. It was almost like a one time cost. If you break it down however, it gets pretty interesting...<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Breaking it Down</span></b><br />
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<ul><li>A $50 annual Costco membership costs only $4.16 every month</li>
<li>A $60 semi-annual dentist visit (horrible copay) costs only $10 every month</li>
<li>A $240 annual Car insurance costs only $20 every month</li>
</ul><div>Below are my expenses along with the honey's expenses broken down per month. This is a list of as many things I could think of that takes money from my pocket. <br />
<i>Update: A few more things that, depending on your budget, may impact where your money went. Think of the reoccurring necessities like toilet paper, paper towels, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, etc. Alone, they are inexpensive, but together multiplied by their frequency of purchases adds up to you saying "Where did my money go?" So you may want to include those into your breakdown of your spending.</i></div><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JKzrFM4gmqs/TY_cC-bCD7I/AAAAAAAAAOk/OnTmVppZAAw/s1600/expenses.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JKzrFM4gmqs/TY_cC-bCD7I/AAAAAAAAAOk/OnTmVppZAAw/s400/expenses.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All Expenses</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
This is what it would've looked like if I just looked at my monthly statements. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r0WcITINilU/TY_cS9spV5I/AAAAAAAAAOo/8l8FLdPlVso/s1600/expenses2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="351" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r0WcITINilU/TY_cS9spV5I/AAAAAAAAAOo/8l8FLdPlVso/s400/expenses2.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Consistently reoccurring monthly bills</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
The difference between your bills that consistently reoccur and the bills that you pay once in a while or that slightly vary every month is where your money goes. For us it was almost $500 / month. This is the <a href="https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ao7cwfuLlnOwdElZMEpXZk90cGQ4VHpEaUN3bjlGX1E&hl=en">google docs version </a>of the spreadsheet I used to figure all this out.funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-48053182331031430822011-03-16T00:17:00.019-10:002011-03-26T13:59:43.118-10:00Want to Help Japan, But Don't Have Money<a href="http://swagbucks.com/p/prize/24705/Japan-Earthquake-Tsunami-Relief-Fund-Donation" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="http://cdn1.swagbucks.com/content/uploads/prizes-3/image24705.jpg" width="200" /></a><i>I thought of this idea and I thought, wow this is excellent! I can donate to Japan and it won't cost me money! And then I thought, wow, I'm a cheap bastard. And then I remembered my income, and I thought, yes, I have to be a cheapo.</i><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Donate to Japan and Have it Cost You Nothing</span></b><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">If you <a href="http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/funkysmell">sign up to swagbucks</a> you can donate to Japan and it will cost you nothing. A website called Swagbucks has an offer where you can donate "swagbucks" to the relief effort in Japan. Or more specifically, to <a href="http://hands.org/">All Hands Volunteers</a>. </div><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What are swagbucks and how do you get them? </span></b><br />
Swag bucks are like a points where if you use their search engine or do their polls, they give you points or as they call it "swag bucks". Here's where the good part comes in. If you <a href="http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/funkysmell">sign up you get 30 swagbucks free</a>! Just for signing up! So you can donate those 30 swagbucks to Japan logout and be on your merry way. Or you can continue to use their search engine, play some games, or watch some videos to win more swagbucks and donate more.<br />
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The goal is to reach 10,000,000 swagbucks so Swagbucks.com donates <b>$100,000.00</b>. If we all do our small part with 30 swagbucks, it shouldn't be too hard to reach.<br />
<i>Update: A recent survey on swagbucks revealed that only 16% donated, 32% plan to donate, and the rest, well, don't care. That's pretty bad. I guess the ones who donate have to donate more to reach the goal.</i><br />
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Once you <a href="http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/funkysmell">sign up</a> you can donate <a href="http://swagbucks.com/p/prize/24705/Japan-Earthquake-Tsunami-Relief-Fund-Donation">here</a>. The deadline for donations is Friday April 8th at 12pm PDT!<br />
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I almost forgot to mention that Swagbucks is legit. I've been a member for about a year now and they do not spam you and they follow through with what they promise. More on <a href="http://moneyformyhoney.blogspot.com/2010/12/swagbucks.html">Swagbucks here</a>.<br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">If you have any other ways to raise money without spending your own, like <a href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/30263363/ns/today-entertainment/">Ashton Kutcher's race to a million</a> a while back, please leave a comment.<br />
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For more information on Japan and the 8.9 earthquake you can visit <a href="http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html">Google's Crisis Response page</a>.<br />
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</div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-57147195837449200792011-02-21T21:06:00.004-10:002012-01-03T14:13:23.180-10:00Free Software<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Free Software! Or Is It?</b></span><br />
I've seen countless pages where they say "Free Software!" only to find out it's only free because it's a trial. That is the most annoying waste of time ever! Therefore, I have compiled a list of free-for-life, no catch, the developers-just-want-some-recognition software. Please see the licenses of each one before using it for non-personal uses. I am a computer programmer by trade, so excuse the ones that are a little too techy. I tried to list the ones that appeal to everyone the most.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Symantec Antivirus Alternative</span></b></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xwrFlxpBBIY/TWNbiXUgCxI/AAAAAAAAANI/nrZBi79mhrQ/s1600/logo_avira.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xwrFlxpBBIY/TWNbiXUgCxI/AAAAAAAAANI/nrZBi79mhrQ/s1600/logo_avira.jpg" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.avira.com/">Avira Antivirus</a> - I have personally used Avira as my antivirus software. They provide free updates, free scan scheduling and more. It satisfies all my needs and seems to work fine (except for a malware that got through... see Malwarebytes). The only problem is that it does pop up an Ad every so often asking you to buy the full version. See the full <a href="http://download.cnet.com/Avira-AntiVir-Personal-Free-Antivirus/3000-2239_4-10322935.html">CNET review here</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9l3IQ5T2aqs/TWNbupU9dJI/AAAAAAAAANM/pJqRebzkPME/s1600/logo_avg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9l3IQ5T2aqs/TWNbupU9dJI/AAAAAAAAANM/pJqRebzkPME/s1600/logo_avg.jpg" /></a></div>
<a href="http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition-2011/3000-2239_4-10320142.html">AVG Antivirus</a> - I currently use AVG as my antivirus software. I first switched because I wanted another antivirus to scan my computer to make sure it was clean. It found a couple more things than Avira and also had a nicer user interface. Of course Avira could have found some infections that AVG didn't, but for now I'm sticking with AVG. Avira and AVG often fight for the #1 antivirus download spot on CNET.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="http://www.malwarebytes.org/"><img border="0" src="http://www.malwarebytes.org/images/titlebar-logo.gif" /></a></span><a href="http://www.malwarebytes.org/">Malwarebytes</a> - This piece of free software is a lifesaver. Along with this <a href="http://www.myantispyware.com/2010/03/17/how-to-remove-total-xp-security/">blog on how to remove the XP Total Security</a> fake security program, I successfully removed an annoying program that hounds you to purchase their program. Looking at the google search trends, it seems as this XP Total Security malware is on the rise as of March 2011. It has been known to get past Avira, AVG, Spyware Terminator, ZoneAlarm, and AdAware anti-virus/malware programs. You can read here for more information about <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/total-security">XP Total Security</a>. You can read more about <a href="http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html">Malwarebytes on CNET</a>.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Microsoft Office Alternative</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(Excel, Word, Visio, Powerpoint)</span></span></b><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OBPjzVAr8as/TWNbFDDq7DI/AAAAAAAAANE/K7WTlB1-LFk/s1600/logo_goog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OBPjzVAr8as/TWNbFDDq7DI/AAAAAAAAANE/K7WTlB1-LFk/s1600/logo_goog.jpg" /></a><a href="http://docs.google.com/">Google Docs</a> - Get a Google account and you can use their docs for free. They have much of the same functionality as Microsoft Office. It's not exactly the same, but it can open MS Office and is comparable. Whatever Google Docs lacks in, it makes up in it's ability to share with others and being available anywhere you have internet access because your document is stored on their servers.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k62uQ3x1dqw/TWNbu6bg_nI/AAAAAAAAANQ/_M5jPsIo5BY/s1600/logo_open.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k62uQ3x1dqw/TWNbu6bg_nI/AAAAAAAAANQ/_M5jPsIo5BY/s1600/logo_open.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/">Open Office</a> - I admit, I haven't used Open Office for over 5 years now... Ever since Google Docs came out I haven't had the need or curiosity to use it. However, it has been and still gets very <a href="http://download.cnet.com/OpenOffice-org/3000-18483_4-10263109.html">good reviews</a>. It is very similar to MS Office in its functionality.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Magic Jack and Other Landline Phone Alternatives</span></b><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mx2xeoOD61g/TWNdD1nOeYI/AAAAAAAAANk/HSkDNTDOsAI/s1600/logo_voice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mx2xeoOD61g/TWNdD1nOeYI/AAAAAAAAANk/HSkDNTDOsAI/s1600/logo_voice.jpg" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html">Google Voice</a> - I highly recommend getting Google Voice. First of all, it's free. Second of all, it can ring your mobile phone, computer, and second mobile, and read you your voicemail, and it's free! (through 2011 at least). You can even use your <a href="http://moneyformyhoney.blogspot.com/2011/02/use-google-voice-for-free-home-phone.html">iPod to replace your home phone</a>.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Creating a PDF</b></span><br />
If you own a mac, you should already know this is free and comes with OS X. When you print a document, you can click on the button in the lower left and save as a PDF.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Rl8KNBFG7Pc/TWNdbnZdT5I/AAAAAAAAANo/KemOzK53J9Q/s1600/logo_pdf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Rl8KNBFG7Pc/TWNdbnZdT5I/AAAAAAAAANo/KemOzK53J9Q/s1600/logo_pdf.jpg" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.dopdf.com/">doPdf</a>, <a href="http://www.cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/writer.asp">cutePdf</a> - There are a ton of free PDF creators where it allows you to print to a PDF. These are just a couple that I have used and it suits my needs.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Photoshop Alternative</span></b><br />
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<a href="http://www.gimp.org/">Gimp</a> - Is a well known open source alternative to Adobe's Photoshop. It can import Photoshop files and do vector graphics. It has been around for a while and is very comparable to the competition.</div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Audio Editing Software</span></b></div>
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<a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a> - This piece of open source software is a great tool when you need to edit audio files, change the volume, make a ring tone, etc. Before I got an iPhone and started using <a href="http://theunplannedthoughtsofme.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-to-make-iphone-ringtones.html">iTunes for my ring tones</a>, this was the goto software for me.<br />
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<a href="" name="truecrypt"></a><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Encryption</span></b></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_KBLf3jIDog/TWNd1N9tRQI/AAAAAAAAAN0/kjeiTOxu4HQ/s1600/logo_true.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_KBLf3jIDog/TWNd1N9tRQI/AAAAAAAAAN0/kjeiTOxu4HQ/s1600/logo_true.jpg" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.truecrypt.org/">TrueCrypt</a> - If you need to store some sensitive material online and need to have it encrypted, or just want your local files encrypted, TrueCrypt can do that. It is on-the-fly encryption that is so convenient, you may not remember it's encrypted.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Others</span></b><br />
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Almost every piece of software that you can buy has a free alternative. The most complete listing that I have found is at the <a href="http://www.osalt.com/">Open Source Alternative</a>. If you didn't see something here that you wanted for free, check out the Open Source Alternative or leave a comment.<br />
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</div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-70102670151806103492011-02-19T21:22:00.004-10:002011-03-25T00:29:39.212-10:00Play your iPod / iPhone in Your Car Wirelessly<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Problem</span></b><br />
I recently purchased a Toyota 2010 Prius and was saddened to learn that there is no iPod port where I can hook up my iPod / iPhone. Instead, there is an Auxiliary input that lets you plug in your ipod using an auxiliary cable. This however is cumbersome and sometimes has static when the wire is not in good. My honey and I found that you can connect the ipod to the Prius using bluetooth. So now, once the iPod/iPhone is in range, it immediately starts playing if the Audio is on the "BT" tab. I found this video online. And like most things on this site, it's Free!<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Solution</span></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://2.gvt0.com/vi/K3BvAhi_rQI/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/K3BvAhi_rQI&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/K3BvAhi_rQI&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div><br />
<script type="text/javascript">
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Some Other Things</span></b><br />
<ul><li>You can also control the song selection from the steering wheel or seek up/down buttons. It only goes to the next or previous song, but that's better than pulling out your iPhone to change a song. Although controlling the songs from your iPhone / iPod is also good if you are not driving.</li>
<li>If the Audio is on the "BT" tab and the iPod is within range, it will automatically sync up and start playing. You don't need to touch your ipod or manually tell it to connect.</li>
</ul><div>This article is all about the 2010 Prius, but if your car has Bluetooth Audio it should also be able to connect to your iPod/iPhone. If you have steps showing how to do this for other cars, please post the link below so others can learn how tech makes life easy.</div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-83871720439241718962011-02-14T00:43:00.014-10:002012-05-15T10:10:33.930-10:00How Crazy Ideas Make it in the Online WorldIt's amazing how last minute Christmas gifts, Valentine gifts, Birthdays and most importantly Gag gifts can make the online vendor think of the craziest ideas. Some of the products listed in this blog are good, some not so good. They all have one thing in common. They are weird and crazy.<br />
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<u><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BEDUS6/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003BEDUS6" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">Go-Girl</span></a></b></u></h2>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BEDUS6/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=freesh1-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003BEDUS6" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="go-girl on Amazon" border="0" src="http://ws.assoc-amazon.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&Format=_SL110_&ASIN=B003BEDUS6&MarketPlace=US&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&tag=freesh1-20&ServiceVersion=20070822" title="" /></a>This is an interesting and unique product that will probably outlast all others on this page. It basically lets girls stand up and pee. What a concept!</div>
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<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=freesh1-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B003BEDUS6" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Go-F-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/1617750255?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Go the F**k to Sleep" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=1617750255&tag=moneyfo-20" /></a><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Go-F-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/1617750255?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Go the F**k to Sleep</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=moneyfo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1617750255" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></b><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=moneyfo-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1617750255" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></div>
This children's book that's not really a children's book is currently at the top of the Amazon.com's bestseller lists and it's not released yet. "Go the Fuck to Sleep" combines cute rhymes with expletive-ridden pleas. The author, Adam Mansbach, was inspired by his adventures in getting his daughter to bed. Here is a quote from the book:<br />
<i>"The eagles who soar through the sky are at rest / And the creatures who crawl, run and creep. / I know you're not thirsty. That's bullshit. Stop lying. / Lie the fuck down, my darling, and sleep, [...] The cubs and the lions are snoring,/ Wrapped in a big snuggly heap. / How come you can do all this other great shit / But you can't lie the fuck down and sleep?"</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0595094724/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=0595094724"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?</span></b></a><br />
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<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418HYR1S49L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418HYR1S49L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Let me first say that I have not bought this book myself. This book has 4.5/5 stars by 50 people at the time of this writing. Doesn't that make you want to find out more? Well, here's a short version of the summary:<br />
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"<i>I think constricting anus 100 times and denting navel 100 times in succession everyday is effective to good-bye depression and take back youth. You can do so at a boring meeting or in a subway... Furthermore, he can make love three times in succession without drawing out. ... It can burn out the dirty stickiness of his body, release his immaterial fiber or third attention which has been confined to his stickiness. Then, he can shoot out his immaterial fiber or third attention to an object, concentrate on it and attain happy lucky feeling through the success of concentration. ...</i>"<br />
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After reading the summary I was curious as to see what the hell everyone is raving about. I mean, it's gotta be a good book if it got rated so well. After reading the reviews, which I suggest you do, I had a great laugh. I'm actually tempted to buy this book. It sounds really hilarious. I'm sure it would cure whatever depression I have for the time that I'm reading the book.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000Q2ULMY?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000Q2ULMY"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Guardian Angel</span></b></a><br />
This is an interesting product. As of right now it has 31 ratings. The product features are:<br />
<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_wtvu5miBpQ/TWvsMcom76I/AAAAAAAAAN8/sMLDYNaJZZc/s1600/Guardian+Angel.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_wtvu5miBpQ/TWvsMcom76I/AAAAAAAAAN8/sMLDYNaJZZc/s200/Guardian+Angel.jpeg" width="200" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
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<li style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0.5em;"><i>Eliminate Chronic Pain</i></li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0.5em;"><i>Stimulates 344 points of pressure in the hand</i></li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0.5em;"><i>Produces the same benefits of traditional acupuncture without a costly visit to the Dr. or the use of needles</i></li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0.5em;"><i>Relieves fatigue, stress, insomnia</i></li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em; margin-top: 0.5em;"><i>Promotes organ regeneration</i></li>
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"<i>Promotes organ regeneration</i>"... interesting. What's more interesting are the comments for this product. It seems as though no one takes this seriously:</div>
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"<i>I have no idea about what this thing is suppose to do but it's a wonderful surrogate for my dead hedgehog. RIP Mr. Prickles" - </i>441 out of 447 people found this helpful<br />
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Another comment that is really a fictional story with the title "<i>May have Hatched. Don't Know What Came Out</i>." - 385 out of 391 people found this story helpful<br />
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There's a lot more comments like these for the Guardian Angel. I wonder how many this product actually sold?<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.poopsenders.com/">Poopsenders.com</a></span></b><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0UoZNJ9Dm3s/TZPyFmSIBlI/AAAAAAAAAOs/1drpJSpxFww/s1600/www.poopsenders.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0UoZNJ9Dm3s/TZPyFmSIBlI/AAAAAAAAAOs/1drpJSpxFww/s320/www.poopsenders.jpeg" width="226" /></a></div>
Yea, you read it right. For as little as $12.95 + $6.95 shipping you can send some cow dung to a friend or enemy. If you're feeling a little more devious you can get the gallon size or poop from another animal. They say they will never tell the recipient who sent the package, but for legal reasons can't let you write your own message.<br />
From their site:<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #422712; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', serif, Sans; font-size: 13px;"><b>The TOP TEN reasons to send some one a package of poop:</b></span><br />
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<li>To your ex-husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend</li>
<li>Neighbors pet crapping on your lawn</li>
<li>For your mean boss</li>
<li>For a salesperson or mechanic that ripped you off</li>
<li>A Last minute gift for some one who has everything</li>
<li>A gag gift</li>
<li>For a rich gloating friend, to knock them down a peg</li>
<li>To the teacher that gave your son/daughter a D</li>
<li>Some one left you negative feedback on your auction</li>
<li>You just don't like them</li>
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I think it's a genius and unique idea. Lots of legal risks involved though so I hope they did their homework. I noticed this site a few years ago, so it seems that they are doing decent being up that long.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000II27QE/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=B000II27QE"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Spotted Dick</b></span></a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Heinz-Spotted-Sponge-Pudding-9-4-Ounce/dp/B000II27QE?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Heinz Spotted Dick Sponge Pudding, 9.4-Ounce Cans (Pack of 6)" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B000II27QE&tag=moneyfo-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=moneyfo-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000II27QE" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />Hmm... not for me... Here's a sample of the directions:<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">...To Open: To prevent spurting, hold cloth over can opener when removing can top marked open this end first. Run a knife around the inside on the can. Turn can over onto a plate, open other end and press out...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tuscan-Whole-Milk-Gallon-128/dp/B00032G1S0?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 Gallon, 128 fl oz</b></span></a></span><br />
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Very costly milk. For $29.99 you can get a gallon of milk! It's not just milk though, it's Tuscan Milk.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wheelmate-Laptop-Steering-Wheel-Desk/dp/B000IZGIA8?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Wheelmate Laptop Steering Wheel Desk</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=moneyfo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000IZGIA8" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></b></span><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wheelmate-Laptop-Steering-Wheel-Desk/dp/B000IZGIA8?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Wheelmate Laptop Steering Wheel Desk" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B000IZGIA8&tag=moneyfo-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=moneyfo-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000IZGIA8" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
Interesting pictures of traffic accidents are the alternate product images. The description clearly states to not use the product while driving.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Relaxman-Relaxation-Capsule/dp/B0006MWV86?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Relaxman Relaxation Capsule</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=moneyfo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0006MWV86" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=moneyfo-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0044LZ1PA" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></b><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Relaxman-Relaxation-Capsule/dp/B0044LZ1PA?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Relaxman-Relaxation-Capsule/dp/B0006MWV86?ie=UTF8&tag=moneyfo-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Relaxman Relaxation Capsule" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B0006MWV86&tag=moneyfo-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=moneyfo-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0006MWV86" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=moneyfo-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0044LZ1PA" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
For just $39,995.00 you can have your own relaxation capsule. Or you can pay $39,999.99 for the un-reviewed version. I'd stick with the cheaper one. Nothing wrong with this product, if you can afford it that is. This comment left by one "Sailoli" used this product very efficiently.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>"One drawback, when it was delivered the capsule had no bolt on the outside. But I'm handy, so I installed one.<br />
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I have been locking the wife and kids into the chamber from 7pm to 7am every evening, and boy am I relaxed. This really works.</i>"</span><br />
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<br /></div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7856470331805005111.post-87066067726090928772011-02-13T20:38:00.030-10:002012-03-30T17:00:47.507-10:00Use Google Voice For a Free Home Phone and Free Texting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://cache.lifehacker.com/assets/images/17/2011/04/medium_340x_google-voice-logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="http://cache.lifehacker.com/assets/images/17/2011/04/medium_340x_google-voice-logo.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Google Voice offers nationwide calling and one number to use for all your phones at no charge at all. If you don't want to pay for a landline in your home but have a mobile phone this is for you. If you want to "hook up" your home phone to your computer, this is for you. If you want free texting to your iPhone, this is for you. If you have a million phones and don't want to keep track of them all... this is for you.<br />
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<b>Here's what you need:</b><br />
1) A mobile phone number<br />
2) A computer a microphone and speakers (or bluetooth/headset) with internet connection<br />
3) A Google account<br />
4) A smart phone (optional - for free texting)<br />
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<b>To use Google Voice as a landline, simply do the following steps:</b><br />
<ol>
<li>Log in to http://www.google.com/googlevoice.</li>
<li>You should see steps pop up to let you choose your google number and add your mobile phone number.</li>
<li>If you haven't already done so, set your Google number to forward to your gmail chat account.</li>
<ol>
<li>to do this, go to Voice Settings->Phones tab.</li>
<li>Check on the first checkbox so that it forwards to your gmail account.</li>
</ol>
<li>Give out your Google Number as your number.</li>
<li>That's it.</li>
</ol>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Free Texting</span></b></b></span></h2>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">I heard that the Android version of Google Voice app is only voicemail. I only have an iPhone so can only say that it works for the iPhone.</span></div>
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<a href="http://admintell.napco.com/ee/images/uploads/gadgetell/texting_iphone.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="http://admintell.napco.com/ee/images/uploads/gadgetell/texting_iphone.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<ol>
<li>To get free texting, download the Google Voice app from the App Store. </li>
<li>Sign in with your google login. </li>
<li>Tell your friends to text your google number instead of your mobile phone number. </li>
</ol>
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<span class="Apple-style-span">When a text goes to the google number it shows up both in your Google Voice webpage on your computer and on your mobile phone (as long as you have it forwarding to your phone in the settings). So if you are working on the computer and your phone is far away, when someone texts you, you can reply without getting your phone.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>A Free Landline</b></span></h2>
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<a href="http://pomomusings.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/rotary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://pomomusings.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/rotary.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Now to receive calls from other people to your computer, open and sign into Google Voice. There is currently no "official" google voice desktop where you can just open an application and use it. There are many 3rd party applications <a href="http://savedelete.com/best-free-google-voice-desktop-apps-mac-windows.html">here</a>, but I am just logging into gmail and waiting for the official google version. When someone calls you, you will get a popup saying someone is calling you. Answer it and you will be able to hear and talk to them over the internet (also known as VoIP). Note, that if you have it forwarding to your mobile phone, it will ring on your mobile phone also. You can answer it on your phone or on your computer. If you answer on your computer, you will <b><i>not get charged</i></b> for the call on your cellphone. Read on the next section for another way to get a landline.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>iPod as Your Home Phone (Landline)</b></span></h2>
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<a href="http://www.tipb.com/images/stories/2009/07/google_voice_reject.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://www.tipb.com/images/stories/2009/07/google_voice_reject.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Google Voice brings up many questions like, "can I use my home phone for google voice?", "can I speak and receive calls on my ipod?". The Google Voice app has the <i><b>potential</b></i> to make calls from your iphone ... BUT this was not implemented probably because it would not mesh well with AT&T and Verizon. Other VoIP applications have been approved on the App Store, but Google's app is different. Google allows VoIP to a real phone number while other apps only allow calls within a specific software. Do not use the Google Voice App on your iPhone to try to get free calls. The app will just use your mobile line and you'll use your cellphone minutes. <br />
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Since Google Voice doesn't get you free calls, you can check out an app called Talkatone. I first heard about it at <a href="http://cybernetnews.com/google-voice-voip-calls-iphone/">Cybernet News</a>. **Use this at your own risk** because this app is not made by Google, but requires that you log into your Google account. Call me old fashioned or paranoid, but I don't like the idea of having an app made by an unknown company taking my username/password for another account. <br />
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<b>Here's what I did to make my iPod into my home phone.</b><br />
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<ol>
<li>Create a new Google account or one that you do not mind someone hacking into.</li>
<li>Set up Google Voice with this account (<s>note, I'm not sure if you need a mobile phone to sign up, but if it says you do, you can always remove the number after you sign up</s>). <i>You need a mobile phone attached to the account. Otherwise there will just be a loud tone when a call is connected.</i></li>
<li>Download Talkatone (for free) in the App Store.</li>
<li>Log into your Google account from step 1 through the Talkatone App.</li>
<li>Hook up a headset so that you can speak and hear clearly</li>
<li>Make calls, receive calls, test it out! oh, make sure your ipod has a wifi connection of course.</li>
</ol>
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I have no affiliation with Talkatone and do not get any compensation if you download or use it. This is purely something I have found and find very interesting. </div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Convenience</span></b></h2>
<a href="http://www.poopreport.com/Images/Intellectual/Content/Ferguson/Images/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://www.poopreport.com/Images/Intellectual/Content/Ferguson/Images/4.jpg" width="200" /></a>Above all the features that Google Voice offers, it's convenience. I talked about both calls and texts going to both your computer and phone. So if you are by your computer and not your phone or by your phone and not your computer, you have the ability be lazy, not move and still be social. And of course, you have the ability to have all your numbers ring your google voice number.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b>Porting your Number</b></span></h2>
One of the easiest ways to save your mobile number and use google voice is to port your mobile number to google. Once you port it, everyone who calls your mobile number will be calling Google Voice. It costs about $20 and takes up to 24 hours for the changes to take effect. I myself have not done it so I'm only speaking from what I have read. Instead of me trying to explain it and possibly getting you confused, you can view <a href="http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/port-your-existing-mobile-number-to.html">google's video</a>. The reason I have not done it is because Google Voice is free "through 2011" only. No one knows if they will start charging in 2012. Another reason is that they do not have a number in my area code. So for me it's not worth it right now.<br />
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<br /></div>funkysmellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09582576428962799248noreply@blogger.com3