social media "live" profiles

I just ran across a new social media site offering webcams, chat and personals that sounds somewhat interesting. The site, which I found via PayPerPost, is called Person.com, and it books itself as a cross between popular social media sites like myspace and video-based online dating. The approach is unique - it combines live webcams with personal profiles. I can see some benefits here - for one thing, people will have more trouble spoofing their identity, and spotting spam-based accounts should be easier (assuming that a webcam feed is required). Of course, those who are feeling the loss of privacy that the Web 2.0 trend incurs may find this a step into more uncomfortable territory.

However, aside from a more enhanced profile system, I have to wonder what makes this site that different from previous webcam sites that I have seen before. I also wonder if their offering will be a bit more policed than myspace, which tends to depend on their users for identifying and removing objectionable content. Honestly, I don't see how a site would be able to monitor for objectionable content if every user has a streaming webcam running. I had assumed that they would require some sort of age verification at signup, but upon checking out their signup form, it appears that all they require is a checkbox that states that you are 18 or older.

In a nutshell, if I were looking to meet singles, I'd be afraid that, like myspace, many of the people I ran across on this site were sexually liberated exhibitionist-happy jailbait teens.

university degrees online

You've probably seen this tagline before in your email box - guaranteeing you a prosperous new life with an expensive piece of paper. However, what they usually fail to mention (or set in *really* tiny type) is that these fly-by-night degree websites offer non-accredited degrees. In other words, they are about as good as if you printed up your own on a piece of paper. As a result, I think that a lot of adults dismiss the opportunity to earn a real degree online because they think it is some sort of scam.

It's a shame, because there are real programs out there that offer individuals a chance to get their higher education needs online, such as those at Capella. Offering bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degree programs online, schools like Capella are paving the way for working professionals to advance their education on their own terms (and their own time) with little to no physical travel and class attendance involved.

Another nice feature is that you don't have to wait for traditional class schedules to enroll and start your classes. Instead of having only two traditional windows of opportunity for enrollment (spring and fall, sometimes with a limited summer schedule), they offer new classes each month.

Capella recently made headlines when one of their faculty, Sara Orem, co-authored a book on appreciative coaching, which "uses positive questions, mindfulness, and other tools to acknowledge the strengths of individuals and effect change." Shattering the old saying that "those who can't perform, teach", Orem also runs her own professional coaching firm.

This blog post was based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com.

great job, but will my paycheck clear?

Today, I ran across a new listing for a job with a startup video game company. The ad sounded promising - they are local and the name of their business sounds somewhat "hip" - ensuring that I won't be stuck with a bunch of suits in a stuffy office with no sense of humor. However, I went to call their telephone number to offer my services as a sound designer and graphics person, and found that their phone number has been disconnected.

Now, perhaps the classifieds got the number wrong, but if not, these guys can't even pay their phone bill. What makes me think that their check to me would clear a few weeks later?

This brings me to another gripe of mine - businesses that have the nerve to judge applicants based on how they present themselves when the company's classified ad looked like crap, or had dysfunctional contact numbers. What kind of incentive does that give me to apply? Maybe that's why they need new blood - to clean up their act.

apply now for details!

Lately, I have been looking to pick up a part time job to bring in some extra cash. My last official (non-self-employed) position was with a large telecommunications corporation, and this was prior to us moving to our current smaller hometown. Since I worked for that telecom firm for over six years, it's been quite a while since I have been on a "job hunt" - particularly for a basic part-time job that I'm probably way over-qualified for in the first place.

As such, I have been surprised to see the hoops that I have had to jump through just to get to the interview process. I've applied for two jobs now, and both required that I fill out an application before they could even provide details on the job. Did a new law get passed or something? What is the point of having people waste their time filling out an application, only to find out later that it wasn't the job that they thought they were applying for?

We're talking basic details like hours expected, basic job functions, skills required, etc. Maybe it has something to do with the competitive market of this small tourism town, or maybe they are just "collecting resumes". Or maybe this is just the small business owner mindset. Whatever it is, I am getting annoyed with it, and don't feel like bending over backwards just to find out what the job involves.

from russia with love

Of all of the things I thought I would never be writing about, Russian brides have to be near the top of the list. Sure, I'd heard all about war brides from my grandparents and it could be argued that my family lineage produced several byproducts of one of these unions, but I never really thought that international cross-culture dating would be addressed so matter-of-fact by internet dating services.

I recently ran across an opportunity to talk about a website and press release for LoversPlanet.com, a site that specializes in finding Russian brides for single men in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Their press release would likely excite the most undesirable bachelors, all the while infuriating any hardcore feminist, by making such bold statements as "Even young Russian women strive to create a family first and only afterwards they think about building a career, not visa versa."

I'm reminded of the old Eddie Murphy skit, where he claims to have married an African mail-order bride, who eventually becomes enlightened of her rights by her American housewife peers, and verbally assaults Eddie with the line, "What have you done for me lately?" Then, she proceeds to ask for a divorce, in which she is entitled to "HALF!" of everything.

While the skit was fictitious and assembled for a comedic response, it is easy to see how a mail-order bride may have her old-fashioned homeland ideals compromised by contemporary American liberties. What remains to be argued is whether having those ideals be compromised by American feminism is a good thing or not. While the press release for LoversPlanet portrays a typical Russian single woman as being the ultimate modern day Stepford wife, it is a dangerous idea for any singles site to include such blanket statements about any of their members. It's almost as if the single Russian women are screened in some way, and only accepted if they are domesticated enough.

I also question the statement that "A typical Russian woman looks like a model." How can anyone make such a bold statement about any race of people? Again, do they screen their single Russian females and only accept the ones who look like emaciated twelve year old boys (aka "models")? Or is this simply a play on the fact that there are all kinds of "models"? Tall and Fat models...short and petite models...bald models...etc. Taking this into consideration, one might make the assumption that the typical Russian woman looks like any other woman.

It's just very difficult to take a site like this seriously when they promise such lofty "Leave it to Beaver" standards of living from these potential housewives. I also find ti interesting that they say to "Browse profiles of these beautiful women, post your own ad (it's free)" and then a the bottom of the page they have an icon that says "We prefer PayPal". So if it is free, what do they prefer PayPal for? As an American male, I might be interested if I were single and something of a toad, and felt as though I was running out of options for finding true love. However, I sense that I would have to be quite naive to expect the cookie-cutter mold that they are projecting for their female Russian candidates.

My guess is that, like any dating service, every person is different and blanket statements will only hurt potential relationships by creating false expectations. In addition, one can never predict how someone will react to a barrage of unprecedented freedoms and new standards of living when they move to a new country.

if not money, then what?

Further thinking on my last post, if we don't approach life's decisions based on money, then what? Once you get past the inherent "heresy" of anti-capitalist living as an American, the answers become quite clear. Namely, we are to focus on all of the things that we claim to be striving towards by earning more money - freedom, happiness, beauty, independence, love.

All of these items do not go hand-in-hand with money. Pop music got it right ("Can't Buy Me Love"), so why can't we? In fact, if anything, money only lengthens the journey to these items. It gets in the way. It confuses. It pollutes our identity with self-images based on our finances. Sure, "the system" is built to allow those with more money to feel that they are closer to achieving more "enlightenment", but those who bravely ignore "the system" quickly find that there are better ways of reaching those goals.

For example, "the system" teaches us to cherish material possessions to make life feel more worthwhile and yet, disregarding material possessions as meaningless trinkets makes us feel more fulfilled and allows us to relax in our "life journey" knowing that we have better goals to strive towards - goals that don't need to be bought and/or replaced because they frequently go obsolete. Material possessions can be taken away, broken, devalued, or lost - my experience reading a good book, taking a walk with my child, or learning a skill can not (short of coming down with Alzheimer's).

It is important to remember (and naive to forget) that money, itself, is not evil - only the way that we place it on a pedestal and use it as a driving force for all of life's progress.

a world without money?

Lately, I have seen a number of decisions being made on the local level which are putting money first, over quality of life, over harmony and our environment. Obviously, the influence of money is not a new thing. In fact, it is as old as man.

I have been wondering lately what our world would look like if we didn't make all of our decisions based on money. What would our quality of life be like? What would our personal relationships with friends and family be like? How healthy and happy would we be? What if we could build dreams without worrying about having to finance them, or profit from them?

Would we be bored out of our minds without our white-knuckled fists hanging on the rungs of the corporate ladders of injustice? Would we be a race of lazy, lethargic human beings because we don't engage in the futile competitiveness of the rate race?

What would a world look like that doesn't put money first? Living in a capitalist society, I have no idea.

long day in the yard

Yesterday, I found myself raking three foot high piles of leaves towards the hollow behind my home. Although three feet isn't exactly an unbelievable height for leaf piles, what you need to understand is that there are areas that are three feet high *before* I started raking. Ugh!

This dilemma stems from the fact that the previous homeowners never raked the yard, coupled with the fact that the previous next-door neighbors raked their leaves into our yard. So, we get two times the leaves times how ever many years they went without being raked. Since our home is set in a woodland setting, we could just leave them be, as the previous owners did. However, these leaves are large-lobed oak leaves, which do not mulch on their own very quickly. In fact, I was running into yellow leaves from several seasons ago, still wet, near the bottom of the pile. If it were just pine needles, I'd say we could allow them to mulch, but the oak leaves have a bad reputation for sticking around like an old diaper.

The worst part about this type of raking job is that you spend hours doing it, and when you step back and survey your progress, you've barely made a dent. My wife and I have decided to try and do some low maintenance organic landscaping in this area, so the leaves must go. I just wish there were an easier way to move them. The leaf piles are too heavy and wet for a leaf blower.

Speaking of landscaping, it is amazing how spending a few hours in the yard can relax the soul and allow one to forget their online responsibilities. As such, it is easy for me to get obsessed about landscaping possibilities. I started reading books, sketching garden maps, and reading websites about Landscape Design. This site, the SLDA, provides all kinds of interesting free information on landscaping.

Although the company is based in Boston, and focuses primarily on landscaping tips for Massachusetts residents, much of their information is still applicable to other areas in the same hardiness zone. They also offer a free questionnaire to help assess your landscaping desires and needs, and it appears that this questionnaire covers any location, not just Boston. On the questionnaire there is also an option to request a free walkthrough assessment of the property, which they say is a $300 value.

I especially liked some of their portfolio pictures, particularly the ones that included water features and outdoor fireplaces, which I am a sucker for. My only complaint is that in their survey, they ask you to choose from three gardening needs to be included in the plan - vegetables, herbs or flowers. I don't see why one couldn't have all three, assuming that they have the correct surroundings to maintain these types of gardens. In fact, the questionnaire may be a bit too "black and white" at times.

On the bright side, the questionnaire may assist homeowners in choosing the one type of feature that they want the most, but most people that I know would like to have a variety of both perennials and evergreens, for example.

baby fashion?

While shopping for a baby gift for my sister, I was amused at the lack of clothing choices available online. You would think that by now there would be tons of baby styles available online from the bigger retailers. However, none of the "baby fashions" that we were looking for were available. Since kids tend to outgrow their clothing fairly quickly (which means that parents don't feel like spending too much on their clothes), I wanted to get some stuff for my sister that was a little more fashionable for my newborn niece-to-be, that she might not have wanted to "indulge" in, using her own money. Unfortunately, to do this, you really need to turn to smaller retailers and specialty stores, which means you are dealing with "the great unknown". I've gotten to the point where I am leery about shopping at smaller sites, even though they tend to provide the best customer service.

Fortunately, there are sites out that cover infant and toddler fashions that can help with these types of decisions. One such site that attempts to fill this gap is the Baby Clothing Site. The site is a bit disorganized and ad-focused, though. It is difficult to navigate and the content seems to run on without any real paragraph-based organization. There are some decent sites listed at the bottom of each page, but none of the URLs are clickable, and some are cropped with a "..." in the middle of the URL, thereby rendering them useless.

Clicking on the right-hand menu to get to some of the subpages reveals more basic clothing descriptions, and then some very hard-to-read white on pink text, again with non-functional links. They did mention an interesting idea that I had never heard of before - a baby clothing trading party. If you live in an area with lots of families with kids, this might just save you some cash.

first time uncle!

I just received news this morning that my sister is now in labor, due to have their first child. This will make me an uncle and I'm quite excited. At this point, I am just hoping that the labor goes smooth as possible for her and that mom and baby are healthy and happy when all is said and done.

Since my sister lives in a different state, we ended up in a bit of a quagmire regarding her baby gift. I started off browsing her registry at BabiesRus, and was a bit disappointed that there is not store pick-up option. In other words, if I want to get her something for her registry, I need to order it online and have it shipped to her. How stupid is that? After all, I've been married for over a decade and the store we registered with for our wedding offered this, so why not now? You would think with all o the internet convenience conferences and whatnot that major retailers would have figured out how to do in-store pickup for baby registries...

In the end, I sent a check to my parents and had them pick up the item for us locally, so that they could hand deliver it to my sister for me (and thereby allow me to spend another $20 on the gift, instead of blowing it on shipping charges).

eat more shrimp!

Speaking of seafood, I recently ran across an opportunity to promote the site EatShrimp.com, which provides nutritional facts, shrimp recipes, and cooking tips for shrimpaholics like myself. The site is easy to navigate, designed well, and offers advice for those who can't seem to get the right consistency with their shrimp (no, rubbery is not right).The site was rather creative in their approach at a site review, and requested bloggers to post "what shrimp means to me". So, without further ado, here's how I like my shrimp:

S = Spicy! (yes, Cajun style is best! It's gotta make my brow sweat!)
H = Hot! (Yes, another word for spicy. Like I said, this is required!)
R = Red Hot! (I know it's redundant, but one dab of hot sauce will not do!)
I = Incinerating! (Okay, maybe I'm going a bit too far here, but I can handle it!)
M = More! (Keep 'em coming, now that you've got the right amount of flavor!)
P = Pass me my glass of water, please! Yikes!

missing the seafood

Since I grew up in the "deep fried" South, but am no longer in that vicinity of the country, I often feel as though I am going through "seafood withdrawal". As a result, I occasionally feel the need to grab about ten pounds of crablegs for special occasions. Mother's Day may just have to be my next excuse. Not that my wife doesn't like crablegs herself. In fact, since I introduced her to them, I think she may even enjoy them more than me.

I grew up eating all kinds of seafood, from shrimp, crab and crawfish to oysters and various kinds of fish. (Yes, I said crawfish, not crayfish and not crawdads. I don't know who the hell calls them crawdads, because we sure at them often enough and never called them that. Maybe they call them that down in Texas or something.) I didn't like all of it (still don't like oysters), but I can appreciate most of it. Everyone raves about lobster, but it is probably the one type of seafood that I haven't tried. Sure, I've had the fake stuff that you buy in lumps at the supermarket, but that just doesn't cut it (from what I have been told).

Here's a quick tip - never order crawfish when you're eating at a seafood restaurant in a city like Omaha, unless you like imported "crawfish jerky" - ugh!!

stone hawk takes care of the "stoned-too-often"

Considering the theme of my last post, I was happy to have the chance to review a website for a drug rehabilitation center called Stone Hawk. Their drug treatment program comes with several success stories from survivors and former abusers. Their facility is located half-way between Battle Creek and Detroit, Michigan, but their website offers free advice and rehab information to users in any state and across the globe. The founders of Stone Hawk are none other than the Kellogg family, made infamous by their unique approach to medicine at Battle Creek and of course their portrayal in the film titled "Road to Wellville".

Like the original Kellogg health enterprises, Stone Hawk concentrates on recovery via relaxation and the elimination of stress, which includes frequent trips for their patients to their well-stocked fishing lake. With fully certified counselors and an actual M.D. overseeing the facility role of Medical Director, the facility offers a multitude of different solutions to best match different challenges. They offer drug rehab, drug detox, drug-free withdrawal, therapeutic and aftercare training.

Even if you're not quite ready to send someone (or yourself) to Michigan, you can always pick up some of the valuable information that they offer for free on their website, including articles on addiction, drug abuse, and alcoholism. If we discover that the rumors are true and my wife's new friend (see my last post) does have a serious problem, I may just have to request one of Stone Hawk's free information packet and send it to her anonymously in the mail.

total flake, or just hitting the bottle too hard?

My wife had recently made friends with another woman in our area (or so she thought), and was seeing a bit of promise in her new friendship, as the woman and her family had lots in common with ours. They have children close to ours in age, they aren't materialistically obsessed, and they lean a bit to the left of center, but not to the extreme. Unfortunately, the woman has consistently refused to return my wife's calls now. Strange enough, we've even run into her husband several times, and he acts like it is nothing.

There are rumors flying about the neighborhood that this woman is too busy "hitting the bottle" to be social with anyone (at least not anyone with a similar interest in being smashed). It's strange, though. Back in high school and college, there were certain individuals who we enjoyed hanging out with, but who had occasional problems with drug and alcohol abuse. You just forget about it, though, until you run into someone in real life (as opposed to the psuedo-life of college of high school) that has this sort of problem. You expect the "drunks" and "users" to be weird, strung-out individuals in ratty clothing, traipsing across prostitute-infested parts of town, but you don't expect normal everyday people to have this problem.

Unfortunately, drug and alcohol abuse affects every social status and class. Right now, we're not quite sure what to do. Do we just forget about this "friend" and let her do her own thing, or should we persist in trying to befriend her, and perhaps help her. Keep in mind, though, that there's always the chance that the "alcoholic" rumor may be just that - a rumor, and there may be other forces at work. Maybe she really is a flake, or maybe we pissed her off somehow.

is your home well endowed?

I recently received an opportunity to review and discuss a UK based website that is all about endowment mortgages. If you are like me, you probably had never heard of an endowment mortgage. At first, I thought it may have something to do with a dowry or something else that it traditionally or historically "English".

However, an endowment mortgage is a mortgage in which the the interest on the principle is due, and the endowment works as a sort of insurance policy that pays off the amount due. The policy holder pays monthly premiums. These types of policies went into effect roughly twenty to thirty years ago, and occasionally incur problems with the full payoff of the mortgage in question.

At this company called Endowment Express, they allow policyholders to sell their endowment for up to 35% more. They explain that their ability to offer this is enabled by the fact that they search for multiple purchasers, including so-called "specialist" buyers.

Think of this as the opposite of those sites that have banks compete for your loans, at least in the UK. Best of all, they offer a free quote with no obligation. If you are UK-based and plagued by the troubles of one of these specialty mortgages, you owe it to yourself to check them out and do some comparison shopping.

the server divide

I recently migrated my websites over to a VPS server. At first, I was impressed with the WebHost Manager (WHM) software, and the fact that I could create hosting accounts and packages whenever I needed to. Unfortunately, my migration has not come without a set of drawbacks. For one, the response time on the server appeared to be slightly slower than when I was on a shared account. I immediately contacted tech support, thinking that must be a mistake, or that I must be missing some sort of performance setting or tweak.

I received a response indicating that due to the architecture of VPS systems, they can be several seconds slower in delivering websites than their shared counterparts. Say what? So you're telling me that I'm now paying 3-4 times what I was paying before, for a slower webserver? What is this BS?

After doing a bit of searching, I ran across several forums and tech reports stating this to be true, many of which also disregarded the proposed "benefits" of a VPS account as being no more than an overpriced (and often overloaded) shared account. Feeling a bit disgusted (not to mention stupid for not doing my homework before I switched to VPS), I am left wondering where to go. On one hand, I certainly cannot afford dedicated hosting, but I need more account functionality (and unlimited domain hosting) that isn't usually included in typical shared hosting accounts. So for now, I guess that I need to just ride it out, until my sites are profitable enough (and busy enough) to warrant paying for a dedicated server.

It's a shame that there isn't some sort of in-between service that offers some of the benefits of dedicated hosting (like stability and speed), but with a price closer to that of VPS hosting. It's like there is a divide (of several hundreds of dollars a month) between VPS and the next level of web hosting (dedicated).

I looked into doing my own hosting, but quickly gave up on that idea when I saw what was involved. Even if you can get through the initial setup process, the maintenance, security, and configuration of a server in my home looks like a bit too much, even for me.