avoiding confrontation and playing handyman

As much as I hate to admit it, we did our best to stay inside the house this weekend. I had heard enough horror stories about the Hell's Angels to warrant some avoidance. Besides, they seemed intent on being left alone, and it looks like the police, FBI, and ASP were harassing them enough.

On the bright side, staying in the house allowed me to catch up on some home projects that have been taunting me for some time. It's interesting, but I feel like I have two gears when it comes to work - computer and non-computer. Trying to mix the two, or schedule them both in one day often results in failure. I'm not sure why. It's like I have to switch off one part of my brain to work on the other. So, I was able to ignore the net for a few days, and try to play handyman.

I'm glad that I don't have a job doing any type of home construction work. I just don't have the patience. I also find that I cuss more when trying to upgrade things around the home. I can't really explain it, but my father was the same way when trying to work on cars. I can picture him now, his buttcrack hanging out the back of his pants, swearing like a sailor while trying to loosen a stripped oilpan plug. I guess I inherited his demeanor towards inanimate objects that don't want to cooperate.

In my case, I have this home that was built by morons and without any adherence to building codes. So, every time I go to upgrade or repair something, it ends up taking me much longer than I had anticipated due to unexpected adjacent problems that suddenly reveal themselves. I guess it's like that whole iceberg theory, where you can only see like 10% of the problem. Or like rust. If you see a fingertips' worth of rust, you can probably put your fist through it.

So where does it end? When do you call it a day and decide that the house looks good enough? When you've trimmed out all of the gold chandeliers and replaced them with brushed nickel ones? When you've managed to repaint the ceiling and they all finally share one shade of white paint (and it all features the same level of reflectivity, as opposed to having shiny patches here and there from ghetto style patchwork)?

The part that really floors me is when I start to see items that I have replaced only a year ago start to corrode or wear before my eyes. It gets to the point where you want a house made of durable ABS plastic so that you can just spray it down with some Krylon every so often to make it look new. LOL.

balancing acoustics and natural light

I have been having a bit of trouble lately trying to get the right balance of treated acoustics and natural light for my office space. Seeing as my office is in the basement, I had some pretty harsh acoustics and have been working hard on treating the room. My three primary goals in doing this are - softened reflections, quiet working environment, and the ability to play some music loud without bothering the rest of the house with the noise.

Unfortunately, the location of the doors, closet and windows presents a few problems. I have an L-shaped desk that is difficult to place and further complicates the problem. In addition, I don't want to be sitting with a window to my back, as I can't stand the glare while working on the computer. So I have been looking for some vertical blinds for a set of french doors that will still let in some natural light, but not the glare. It has been difficult to find a solution that will work, as many vertical blinds are made of opaque sound-reflective materials such as wood and vinyl. There is the option of tilting the veins so that light can enter at an angle, though.

Another option might be to order a set of those fabric honeycomb blinds. They are quite sheer and almost glow with natural light, and I am wondering if they might also contribute more to acoustical absorption. I believe that there are acoustics and sound companies that manufacture specific blinds and curtains for acoustical treatment, but I am sure that their prices would be untouchable.

Bye bye Angels, hello Christian devils?

Well, our visit from the Hell's Angels came and went without a hitch. Aside from all of the complaints lodged against the Arkansas State patrol for their incessant helicopter passes over the town (at all hours of day and night), I didn't hear about any trouble.

Next weekend is diversity weekend,along with an antagonistic visit from the "Jericho Riders", a Christian motorcycle gang intent on starting up trouble. How ironic would it be if we get a visit from the "Hell's Angels" that leads to no problems at all, and then have a visit from self-righteous Christian riders that ends up in violence and/or arrests? It will be interesting for sure.

For the record, I have nothing against Christians and in fact grew up in the church, but I do have a problem with people shoving their religious beliefs down anyone's throats and intentionally planning a confrontational visit to antagonize those who are different.

Avon shooting themselves (or their salespeople) in the foot?

I was recently checking out the latest opportunities on PayPerPost and came across an online coupons site called Ecouponcodes.com. Unlike the last coupon code site that I had reviewed this one is neatly organized and allows one to browse by business name or category.

One of the more unexpected stores I saw listed was Avon. The site offers various Avon coupons for 50% shipping for certain items, buy one get one free for other items, and a few other free shipping with $30 purchase deals. I didn't even realize that customers could purchase Avon products online directly from Avon.com. It seems a little self-inflicting for their representatives. After seeing the obvious effect of online shopping with other physical retailers, what makes them think that shoppers who purchase items online aren't taking money away from their local representatives?

While some might argue that I am missing the point and that consumers who shop with Avon do so for the personal service of their representative and that the website is only there as a backup, I'd have to say that they're passing up opportunities for attracting first-time Avon buyers to local representatives. It would make more sense if they required their representatives to register with the website and upon checkout had the customer select their local representative to fill that specific order. This way, they're using the website to develop new relationships with their customers, as opposed to just one time (albeit more profitable commission-less) sales.

Former Qwest CEO finally gets busted

If you checked out the headlines in Yahoo news today, you will see that Joe Nacchio finally got busted for his shady stock dealings at Qwest. I know many long-term USWest/Qwest employees who lost their lifetime savings due to this guy.

It's nice to see some justice after so long, but I'll be happier if/when they throw him in jail and hand some of those confiscated funds over to the USWest retirees who lost so much. And if they do throw him in prison, it needs to be a "real" prison. No fed med. No "special" wing of the jail that keeps him separate from the rest of the scum (as they did for Paris Hilton). Real jail, with the same real threatening situations and unwanted personal contact. If guys like Joe don't experience true humiliation and suffering for their illegal acts, what's to keep it from happening again in the future? Hell, this guy's probably made enough money off of interest along to cover the penalty fees...

so far, the angels have been angels

Aside from frequent buzzing over our heads by police helicopters, our visit this weekend by the Hells Angels has been pretty benign. Sure, they look scary enough, but so far we've seen no reason to fear any of them. In fact, some of the locals who were so "up in arms" when they heard about our pending visit are now suggesting that we are experiencing the "lighter side of Hell" - angels who are older, more settled down, with families and *gasp* children, who perhaps have successfully survived a bout or two of drug rehabilitation. Whatever. They're not here to terrorize us, so they're not.

I think they're just here for a good time, and I have a hard time believing that any group would ride from as far away as places like New York and Maine just to start trouble in our sleepy little town of 2,500 people. Even the non-angel tourists seem to be getting along with them.

I'll admit that I'm not planning on spending lots of time downtown this weekend, but we don't generally go downtown when there are lots of tourists around, anyway.

the sound of true isolation

I've been quite busy lately reading up on how to acoustically treat a room, as I have a makeshift recording studio in my basement. There's so much to consider. First, you have the option of "floating" new walls and floors to isolate it from the rest of the structure. You can treat all seams with some sort of caulk or sealant, and also use a black rubbery sheet product called "sheetblock" to help prep sub-surfaces. Then there's acoustical foam available from lots of different vendors in both pyramid and flat styles (and in multiple colors). It's expensive stuff, though. By the time you have figured out how much you will need to treat your studio or home theater, you may be looking at a bill of over $1000. Especially if you want to do it right and add things like bass traps and diffusers.

One quick word of advice: if you order this stuff on the internet, request that they ship it with signature confirmation. UPS left $1000 worth of foam sitting on my front porch. The boxes were huge and easily visible from the street. I'm surprised that they were still there when I got home from work. I was also relieved that I managed to bring them in just before a torrential rain fall. I can imagine what the foam (and my studio!) may have smelled like after enduring a thoroughly wet cardboard soak. This will probably be the most money you've ever spent on something that weighs so little for its volume.

Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to assist with acoustics that won't kill your credit card. For one, if you're on a hard surface like tile, concrete or hardwood floors, you can put down a nice thick floor rug. Of course, if you're treating a studio, this can pose a problem for you if you have a desk with rolling chairs. According to one of the manufacturers I researched, there is a simple 38% rule that you can follow to help out with balancing the resident frequencies and reflections of a room. You basically setup your listening position 38% away from the front or back wall. So if your room is ten feet long, you would be 3.8 feet away from the wall. This sounds simply enough, but not everybody wants to be sitting right in front of their huge screen TV. The 38% rule fortunately applies to the rear wall, as well. The direct center of the room is supposed to be one of the worst places, though.

Best of luck if you decide to treat your own room acoustically. It is quite a challenge. You can pick up some free software and test tones on the internet that will help with your analysis and design. A cheap SPL meter is good to have, too. If you've got the cash, you may just want to call a professional acoustical engineer, though.

getting in shape or running up medical bills?

I have been toying around with the idea of getting back into some sort of sport to help stay in shape. Seeing as I'm not as young as I once was (and I have crappy health insurance), there are certain sports that I am a bit leery of. I was all set to start up skateboarding again, and the town that we live in even has a professionally constructed skateboard park made out of concrete bowls and such. I custom ordered my new deck on the internet, picked up my helmet and some pads and was ready to roll. Then I hear about a fellow "old schooler" who just recently cracked his head open on the bowls. This guy was in his early thirties, like myself. I immediately began to visualize the medical bills I would accrue in such a situation. So am I being chicken here, or just frugal? What can I say? Bills frighten me.

What bothers me even more is that this guy is a much more experienced skater than me. I haven't stood on a deck for years, more than a decade. And even then, I have never tried concrete bowls before. Maybe I need to find a safer sport...

The problem of me is that the "safe" sports all seem pretty boring. I'd rather try my hand at hardcore mountain biking, or hockey or even roller derby. Sometimes I think that a good game of baseball might be the answer, although I'm not so sure how much exercise I would get. Unless I played outfield and chased down frequent home runs, I don't think it would give me much of a cardiovascular workout.

I guess that you're just expected to take it easier when you get above thirty. You're supposed to spend more time watching other athletes than being one yourself. I was never much of a jock back in high school. In fact, I was one of those "alternative" kids. Bit I used to play baseball and soccer when I was younger. I guess that some former athletes who can no longer play get their fix by watching others, which makers perfect sense. It's like reliving one's past, like me listening to old live recordings from when I was eighteen and in a band.

So what do you do if there isn't a professional sports team that performs your sport of choice? Move? What if you live in a small town? When I lived in Omaha, the entire state of Nebraska followed the Cornhuskers, though few could physically make it to the games. I guess that is where the internet comes in. Whether you're following your alma mater, your old hometown heroes, or just your favorite team, there's an online forum for you.

For example, let's say you're into hockey, and you want to follow the 2007 NHL draft, but you live in the sticks and don't have cable TV. So you check out a site like HockeysFuture.com. Soon enough, you're connecting with fellow fans in the chatroom or forum, or you're gleaning trade rumors. Heck, they've even got their own web radio station strictly dedicated to ice hockey news.

In a nutshell, the web is making it possible for niche fans to still follow their interests regardless of their age or where they live. You could live in a subterranean vault two hundred feet below the earth's surface and you'd still be on top of the latest hockey news as long as you've got your internet connection. And with the lack of sunlight, you'd probably start to look like a Canadian hockey player after a while, too!

does wal-mart read my blog?

Just got back from Wal-Mart, where I picked up my new weight bench for only $40. Now this is either a strange coincidence, or somebody at Wal-Mart is reading my blog. I just recently posted that I was looking for a bench, and that the one at Wal-Mart was a little more than I wanted to spend ($56). This was only a week ago, and today I stop in for some school supplies for my kids and lo and behold, there's the same bench marked down to $40. It was on clearance. Strange world we live in. I guess I have uncanny timing (or ESP?).

Either that or Wal-Mart is getting more involved in the blogosphere than I had realized. Now if they'd just put up some sort of recognizable signs above their in-store price scanners so that I can find them among the headache of obnoxious signage, and if their employees learned how to smile, I might stop giving them such a hard time. Then again, they're still killing off all my favorite mom and pop stores, so I guess I'll have to keep them within target for now. (Yes, I know that I shouldn't be shopping there at all if I don't want them around, but living in a remote area means that I don't have too many other choices for certain products and I cannot always wait for items to be shipped to my home via the internet.)

Now if they'd just stock some sort of inexpensive minidisc player so I can get these old masters transferred to my PC. Can you hear me, Wal-Mart?

whataver happened to minidisc?

I was cleaning out some old boxes the other day, and ran across some minidisc masters. As a musician, minidisc was an awesome and affordable solution for making digital recordings. The format was great, too. You had this small disc that fit into the palm of your hand (like in sci-fi movies like "Johnny Mnemonic") but with a protective case so that it doesn't get scratched. The recorder/player was available to consumers at a decent price (about $250) from a brand you could trust (Sony). There were some complaints about the compression applied to the disc, but it never bothered me. Certainly not as much as some of the effects of MP3 compression today.

I used my minidisc recorder for several years until the loading mechanism quit working. It was beyond warranty and I scrapped it. Since then, I forgot about the minidisc. Technically, it sounds about as good as CD, and with the protective and editing features (you could name/rename tracks and rearrange them from the front panel - no PC required), one could even say that it is superior to compact discs. But it never took off. The CD came out just before the minidisc, and as is often the case with competing technologies, the first horse out of the gate got the bets. I'd like to pick up another minidisc player one day, just to transfer these old masters onto my computer. Unfortunately, I have been searching and most of the players are quite expensive. In addition, I'll have to run it through some digital converters to get it onto my PC because the consumer players no longer allow you to transfer the file directly to your PC. You can blame that on those RIAA jerks and their copyright protection antics. (I guess I am not *allowed* to copy songs that I wrote and produced, eh?)

Meanwhile, the MP3 player continues to extend its foothold on the consumers of the world. Fascinating new devices like the iPhone are including MP3 players, and nearly all CD and DVD players (both home and auto) can read and play them. I read recently that there is a new format for the minidisc that allows it to hold 1Gb of data on one disc. That's amazing, considering how much smaller it is than a DVD. Do you think it is making a dent in MP3 player sales, though? Doubtful. I believe that if we retain any kind of physical storage medium, a new generation of the minidisc is the direction we are heading in - smaller with more capacity. Eventually, we'll have mini DVDs that will hold the same amount of data as the current DVD. Either that, or the quality of movies and audio will continue to increase, thereby requiring more data capacity, and any capacity-per-size optimization will be negated. I thought that the music industry might turn to tiny memory cards at one point (like you use in a digital camera), but they are so volatile and easy to corrupt that I'm glad they haven't.

I also read a recent article lately that stated that vinyl sales were up 13% in the UK, particularly 7 inch singles. Talk about unexpected. In this land of "Have Everything, Own Nothing" (Napster's advertised motto), it is refreshing that there are still some true music "collectors" out there. Let's hope that they still have some sort of media to hold in their hands in ten years.

to know your customers, spend like your customers

There is a disparity between customer and retailer in some industries, and one has to wonder how someone can become a professional at selling something without having first purchased it. I see it all the time. Websites geared towards a certain niche market with a superficial grasp on what that niche market is all about. How can we get into the heads of potential customers and better suit their needs?

Spend like them. Know their same challenges. Experience their same excitement. I watched a roller coaster video once and one of the engineers explained that riding it themselves was the best way to put the finishing tweaks on their design. In the movie titled "The Devil Wears Prada", Ann Hathaway quickly learns that to be successful in the modeling industry (even as a personal assistant), she must immerse herself in the world of modeling. Simply showing up for your shift and collecting a paycheck isn't enough. On one hand, I would say that it is a shame that so many occupations require this amount of time-consuming all-encompassing devotion. But on the other hand, the jobs that don't are the boring jobs that we cannot stand and make us feel inhuman and unappreciated.

The affiliate marketing world is no different. Before signing up with an affiliate program, you must act like a customer. Visit their website. Is it easy to navigate? Does it direct you to a sale or conversion with little to no distractions? Does it provide the information a buyer would need in a concise streamlined fashion, or is a shopper more likely to search for information somewhere else before buying? Test out their shopping cart. What kind of forms of payment do they accept? No credit cards? You're joking, right? Do some market research and check their competitors. What kind of value do they offer above and beyond competing websites? Do those competing sites have an affiliate program? In some cases, it may even make sense to actually buy something. On the bright side, you'll get your commission for the sale (in most cases). Plus you get to evaluate their product quality and shipping response time. Want to go even further? Try calling them and asking some questions before and after you receive your order. Ask about returns or exchanges to see if their stated return/exchange policy (if there is one on their website) is followed judiciously.

In the long run, if you find that you wouldn't buy anything from them, there's a good chance that the traffic you send their way won't convert too well.

bp attempts viral rebuke

The latest opportunity on PayPerPost comes from BP, the behemoth oil and gas corporation. Their wastewater dumping practices have recently come under fire in an article in the Chicago Tribune, and also from a number of environmental groups. BP is asking bloggers to review a PDF factsheet (hosted on a coin pressing machine website? It looks like a copy from the BP website) and help spread both sides of this debate across the blogosphere. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine the facts on either side of the case. Nobody is posting facts and providing sources. The article doesn't state where they get their facts, and the BP factsheet doesn't cite any outside regulatory sources to confirm their figures. In fact, the BP factsheet is devoid of any statistical data at all.

Wouldn't a lawsuit have been filed against the Chicago Tribune if what they had printed was untrue? The article from the Tribune states that a newly issued permit allows BP to release "54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day". It also says that "The company will now be allowed to dump an average of 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of sludge into Lake Michigan every day. The additional sludge is the maximum allowed under federal guidelines." BP counters in their own fact-sheet that even with the new permit guidelines, the total ammonia released into the lake will still be less than half of what federal environmental laws would allow.

As for sludge, they state that they don't dump any sludge into Lake Michigan, only treated water. But could they? Does the new permit allow them to dump sludge into the lake or not? Even if they had never dumped any sludge into the lake before, isn't it wrong to issue a permit that would allow them to if they wanted?

It's also hard for me to take BP's side in this debate when they are including such a patriotic "American" spin on their factsheet. They talk of creating 80 new full-time jobs, how this is "fuel for the Midwest" and how it is used in peoples daily lives. Only 80 new jobs? They suggest that this new Canadian oil will reduce our dependence on middle eastern oil, but wouldn't it be better to hire 80 more employees to work on alternative fuels and further reduce our dependence on all oil? I guess that is a silly question to ask an oil company...

hogs versus homosexuals

On the weekend of August 3rd, the town that I live in is hosting a diversity weekend. During that same weekend, a "Christian motorcycle ministry" has decided to descend upon our town. The diversity weekend has been planned for some time now. The motorcycle club announcement is fairly new.

This is exactly what I can't stand about organized religion, and it is why I haven't been to church for some time. You've got these "religious" people who spread hate in the name of Jesus and call themselves Christians. What did Jesus do when he ran across people like prostitutes and adulteresses whom the Bible referred to as "sinful"? Did he assemble mass hordes of Christian vigilantes to stir up trouble? No, he reached out to them. So much for "love thy neighbor", eh?

The mentality of so many of these groups is so backwards. I don't know if some guy is receiving revelations in his dreams that "instruct: him to take these types of actions, if this is a case of upbringing, or just a lack of common courtesy or common sense. Just the other day, I saw a guy walking along the highway near my home, carrying upon his back a large wooden cross. Apparently, he was trying to make some sort of statement or reminder of the suffering of Christ. However, he had mounted wheels on the bottom of the cross to make it easier to carry. Doesn't that negate the whole point? I can picture Jesus sending out a high five. "Hey, thanks for reminding others of my sacrifice. Glad you had those wheels on the cross so you didn't have to break a sweat..."

I don't have anything against people who want to practice their religion in public. I'm just particularly annoyed by people who feel the need to get in your face about it. Don't even get me started on the Jehovah's Witnesses that come knocking on my door. I look at them as door-to-door telemarketers. If it was so great, you wouldn't have to go door-to-door. Are we a third world country or something? Did I just slip back into the year 1676? What's with the missionary approach? Are there actually people living in the US who haven't already heard of Jehovah's Witnesses?

Why can't people just see past their differences and leave others alone? I know it is an ancient question and to a certain degree one that you could say is also rhetorical, but what kind of intellectual development is it going to take before the human race learns not to hate those with differing opinions or lifestyles? When are we going to understand that just because someone is different doesn't mean that they need to be fixed / saved?

all work and no BBQ

I've been longing for a BBQ grill lately - odd, isn't it? It's a good thing men don't get pregnant or we'd be grilling in the rain and snow (which admittedly, I have done in the past). I've always loved BBQ food for some reason. Maybe it's the flavor, or maybe its the good times we share over BBQ. Family get-togethers and parties seem to revolve around them during good weather seasons. You can smell them from a distance and it always makes you wish you were having it for dinner. Maybe it's the meat. I tried being vegetarian for a year, and giving up meat was tough, but giving up BBQ meat was nearly impossible (and one of the things that did me in). Although I grew up in a town that is better know for its seafood, I always managed to have some good "Q" as a kid. I guess it is part of my upbringing, and something I want to share with my own kids.

Lately, I've been debating what type of BBQ grill we should get. We sold our grill the last time we moved. We have never even used it once. It was a gas grill and we only had it during the fall and winter and I never got around to filling up the gas tank. Now I'm leaning more towards charcoal. I know its more work, but I like the smell and the flavor better. In fact, I'm even debating picking up a grill that can do both charcoal grilling and smoking. Smoked meat is *awesome* when done correctly. Every website that I've checked out plugs the Weber grills and smokers and their reviews are the collective best. I used to have the Smokey Joe when I was younger and it never failed me. That's their low end unit so I can see why the higher end grills would be getting good reviews, too. I'd have to upgrade at this point, though. Nobody wants to squat down on the ground to BBQ, and I don't like tabletop grills. They take up too much room on the table and are a pain to relocate when they're still hot.

There are a few charcoal/smoker combo grills out there, and their price range really runs the gamut from under $100 to $1000. I've seen the industrial strength ones and they look cool, but are probably much more than I need. Plus I don't want to spend that much. Wal-Mart actually has one for only $78 and I got to see it at the store and it seems like a decent little unit for the price. It felt pretty well built, and I liked the little smoke stack and side grill. It also has the built-in thermometer which is strangely missing from some of the other higher-end units.

Another cool product that I ran across was a cast iron smoker that goes in the oven. Strange concept, but interesting. The only problem is that it costs more than the smoker/grill combo at Wal-Mart and part of the whole fun of grilling is being outside. Plus, I'd be hard pressed to find room for something huge like that in the kitchen with our current extensive cookware set and broiler pan beneath the stove.

The Weber Smokey Mountain seems to be the top choice overall, but I read some disparaging remarks about factory defects and manufacturing problems that caused smoking inconsistencies. But I have heard that this grill is used at most of the big BBQ competitions. It is the choice of professionals. It's probably worth the extra $100 over their Brinkman counterparts, which get mixed reviews. I'd just hate to pay that much and end up with some sort of problems with the craftsmanship. I'd also have to pay to ship it, as none of the stores in town have them.

Hmmm...tough decisions. We're on a budget and the $78 Char-Grill smoker/grill at Wal-Mart looks appealing, but I may just pay the extra and go with a brand I can trust. After all, Weber has been around forever and I'm sure they would fix any problems that I run across. And if it's like the rest of their products, I'm sure it will last a long time and give us years of good "Q".

annual self-employment taxes before the year is up?

I've been self-employed for about a year now, and unfortunately it only recently dawned on me that I may have to pay self-employment taxes every quarter, as opposed to paying them at the end of the year. In case you've never had to deal with this, the government states that you're supposed to be collecting your own taxes throughout the year as your employer would do if you weren't self-employed. Every quarter you're supposed to send in a check for your "expected" income tax. However, there are a few problems with this concept.

For one, your business is so new and the income is most sporadic and you have no financial history to estimate what kind of profits you're going to see. For another thing, starting a business sometimes requires heavy start-up costs so you can't really afford to screw up and underpay your quarterly taxes and get charged a late payment fee. To determine if you have to pay quarterly or settle up at the end of the year, you need to fill out your regular income tax forms now. Yes, we're talking the 1040, schedule C, etc. etc. - all before you've even started making money, since you need to have it set up prior to first quarter. Talk about impossible. Plus, the last thing I feel like doing is filing out all of my income tax forms with imaginary estimated figures.

Accounting has got to be the worst part of being self-employed, especially for those of us doing internet businesses that deal in things like affiliate marketing. You've got a million different things to track, using several different types of paperwork or software, and few if any of them can communicate with one another. You've got Paypal for your incoming online payments, you've got adwords for your advertising costs, google analytics for tracking traffic, commission junction for your sales commissions, random paper expenses and bills, microsoft excel (or open office calc) for sales tracking, microsoft money or quicken for your banking...geez. Wouldn't it be nice to have some sort of financial consolidation software that takes all of this into account and figures out the relationship between all of these items for you, and then spits out the appropriate populated tax forms at the end of the year? Talk about some dream software. I'm not sure such a product exists. If it did, it would have to incorporate the changes and software updates of all of these products (plus the annual changes to tax forms each year) rolled into one, which is asking a lot.

At this point, I guess it is more profitable to force business owners to use professional accounting services and keep them guessing by occasionally making changes to the tax laws. Or maybe it's part of the government's plan for keeping the economy strong, since that is all they seem to really care about. After all, you need to think of all of the jobs that would go away if filing taxes was actually easy. But then again, think of all the businesses that might be able to better optimize their finances (and possibly stay in business longer) if they could get past the initial hurdle of their taxes.

drink your veggies!

That's an interesting spin on nutritional advertising. DrinkYourVeggies.com is offering a 7-day trial of their liquid vegetable product for the adventurous chef and unhealthy consumer who is in dire need of an easier way to get those vegetable servings.



I tried going vegetarian for about a year, and eventually went back to eating meat. Since then, I've had an easier time at incorporating vegetables in my recipes. in fact, since going vegetarian, we've tried several new vegetables that we hadn't thought of before. Quirky vegetables like Jicama, Bok Choy, Snow Peas, Radishes, Parsnips, and sunflower bulbs have found their way into our lives. Unfortunately, these forms of exotic produce are not always affordable, and are also not very easy to find when living in a small town. That's where products like My Daily Veggies comes in handy.

Anyone with a slight nutritional background (and anyone who can read a product label) knows that different vegetables provide different nutrients. Some are better at boosting immune systems, others are good for digestive problems, and others are just plan good for maintaining a healthy balance of food intake. A liquid vegetable supplement can be used in lots of creative ways. Adding some to a spaghetti sauce or Chinese meal can boost your vitamin intake considerably.

Personally, I'd like to try and get my own vegetable garden going. It's been tough, though. We have a hard enough time just maintaining a few small decorative gardens and keeping the weeds at bay. I can't imagine what kind of effort it would require to maintain a vegetable garden. To make matters worse, we've got deer in the yard nearly every day and they are already wreaking havoc on some tomato plants that my wife planted.

So as much as I would like to stick with "real" veggies, you've got to admit that vegetable supplements make more sense for an active lifestyle. This dried vegetable product that you mix with water is pretty close to the real thing, too. Unlike grocery store vegetable medleys like the popular V-8 drink, this My Daily Veggies mixture is not made from concentrate and isn't loaded with salt/sodium, which my stomach doesn't tolerate so well.

Like any smart advertiser, they've also hit the YouTube market to make some waves. Their video shows a young tike trying some of the "veggie delight" with eggs, and after a few gag reflexes manages to vomit it up. I'm not really sure if this is the type of image I would have used to portray my product, but I'm sure that it is getting the viral attention expected.

So as funny as it may sound, I can now drink My Daily Veggies. Just don't serve them up in eggs, okay?

tabular logins and pet peeves

I wanted to mention a pet peeve of mine that I've been stumbling with recently, and also make a suggestion to webmasters to check for this little inefficiency. When you have a login script, and the interface involves a username and password (as 99.9% of websites with login capabilities employ), do your login fields work with a single tabbed cursor? In other words, if I click on the username field, enter my username, and click on my tab key will the cursor jump directly to the password field or does it move somewhere else (like to a "forgot username" link)?

This convenient way of logging into websites has become enough of a staple that it is worth making sure your site supports it. It sounds ridiculous, but it is frustrating when it doesn't work this way. Sure, it only takes another second or so to click on the second field with my mouse, but if I can tab to the next field it is easier, and users like "easy". Especially when you're asking *them* to login to *your* site.

Another similar problem to watch out for is when sites load some sort of script that interrupts the login process. My best example of this is at the Godaddy website, where their little Firefox plugin that loads in the upper right-hand corner interrupts my login nearly every time. What a pain in the pass, especially when I have already loaded that plugin! So every time I go to login I have to endure their little site quirk and try to login again. Is it frustrating enough to convince me to shy away from Godaddy's domain service, with their bargain prices and easy account maintenance? Not quite, but it doesn't leave the best taste in my mouth and the day that another registrar with similar service and pricing appears I can't guarantee that my loyalty will be as high as if I had not experienced this little annoyance. It's hard to say what repeated annoyances do to your subconscious and the resulting decisions that are made. Sometimes we can explain them, sometimes we can't. I this case, I have documented my experience here, so if I leave them in the future, you'll know why.

the throwaway computer

I recently read that Intel was teaming up with the $100 laptop folks. This is great news for them and I'm sure it will help them to spread their message of techno-accessibility throughout the world. I am guessing that it is only a matter of time before they bring the $100 laptop to the US market, in an effort to get laptops into the hands of children at an even younger age. After all, if it was only $100, we as parents won't feel as reluctant to let the kids use it. The frightening part is that this will also open up these younger children to a whole world of targeted marketing that they were only previously exposed to during commercials between shows like Sesame Street. This basically will result in them growing up even quicker...wanting to wear makeup sooner...feeling like they are "uncool" if they don't have their own cellphone at the age of six.

Although many experts say that these types of things move in circles, and that there is a shift back towards "old fashioned" childhood, I just don't see it happening. The "fellowship" youth aren't convincing enough with their abstinence plans and the retail stores don't support it. In fact, the clothing for children is looking more and more "adult" if you ask me...crop tops and hip-huggers for eight year olds...what a sick society we live in.

Although many see the $100 laptop crusade as a way of reaching out to third world communities and offering them a convenient "in" to technology and education, we also have to see this for what it is. A bunch of technology firms introducing an alien product to a virgin market in the hopes that they will embrace it and act American in their spending habits once they have fully assimilated it (or it has assimilated them).

Another complaint is that with such a low price tag, computers have become disposable. This means more computers for the trash heap. More production waste. No longer will we hunt for upgrades and repair bad hard-drives. No longer will we swap out last year's high tech Ricoh CD burner with this years high tech lightscribe burner. No longer will we search high and low on eBay for things like power supplies and IDE cables. No longer will we spend several hours scouring the net for coupon codes so that we can get the best deal on our factory replacement IBM memory. And no longer will we feel like hanging onto that laptop when things go wrong - a virus hits, we get hijacked, we can't get the disk defragmenter to finish its run and we're feeling "fragged". So we scrap it. Heck, it was only $100.

While there are definite perks to making laptops that can be picked up for only $100, there are also questions that need to be asked. Technology with higher pricetags keeps a cap on its footprint, but it also prevents it from entering markets in which it has the potential to do more harm than good. While it is great that there are third world children who are going to receive an education that they've never even dreamed of, did they really want to be "educated" in this way? Are we in effect turning them away from their own culture by enlightening them in our own? Is it fair to intrude? Some might argue that their "culture" has gotten them to where they are today - poor, struggling to survive, uneducated. But is it fair to try and impose our standards of education and affluence on these societies? Although we can all agree that nobody likes to go hungry, we could argue on what truly makes someone "poor".

As usual, we Americans don't ask these questions. We just assume that everyone wants to be like us, and we do our best to offer them this opportunity and turn a profit at the same time. The $100 laptop isn't necessarily a turnkey profitable venture, but the ensuing technological thirst surely will be.

destined for a distant timezone

My wife and I were watching a movie last night and there was this character was was the typical computer nerd, who stays up all night because he has too much going on in his head. My wife laughed and thought of me. Gee, thanks. But she's right. After all, here I am, still awake and blogging at the butt crack of dawn. And why?

Because my mind works harder after midnight and I manage to get more work done? Because my body and mind sees to operate more efficiently in a state of delirium? It's difficult to truly explain it, but sometimes I believe that I was meant to live in a very different timezone. We're talking China or Japan...maybe Australia or something. But here's the real question...

If I were to move to one of these distant lands, and stayed long enough to adjust to the schedule of sunlight and darkness, would my body just adjust and continue to keep my up all, or would my forte at staying up all night be rewarded by the ability to stay up all day? I suspect that I will never know for sure, as my domesticated life doesn't allow for such foolhardy living experiments. Oh, well. It's a little sad that I already had an auto-tag for "insomnia" in this blog. This must not be the first time I have spoken of my difficulty sleeping, and I doubt it will be my last.

mucho dating, but no habla espanol?

Okay, I know this is getting a bit silly and redundant, but I just picked up yet another opportunity to review a niche market dating service. This time it for a site titled LatinaRomance.com, and as its title suggests it is focused on the Hispanic and Latina dating community.

The site is easy on the eyes, with the typical pink layout and picture perfect couples' photos in the header bar. A quick search for latin dating singles revealed only one in my area, which (given my town's small population) is probably much more accurate than the last site I had reviewed. I also appreciate that you can see the listings before they force you to create a user account and sign in. My sister in law would probably find this site quite handy, as she loves Hispanic men. In fact, that is the only type of man she will date. That's just her taste in men, I guess. I'll have to forward the link over, because she continually fails in her quest for true love and I am thinking that she is looking in the wrong places (mostly booty clubs). Maybe the internet is the key to 21st century matchmaking, although myspace hasn't done her any good. (You should see the immature morons she has met on that site!)

My single biggest complaint with this site, and the one that makes it seem so much less credible is the fact that it is only presented in English. I could not find a link for Spanish speaking singles anywhere on the site, which is utterly ridiculous to me, considering the target audience. In a nutshell, you might find your Senior Right, but you won't have any idea what his profile says because it isn't written in your native tongue. Maybe I'm just missing the translation link, but this seems like a massive oversight.

It reminds me a little of the time that General Motors was trying to market their Chevy "Nova" (or "no go") to the Mexican market in the sixties and seventies...

new PayPerPost platform

I'm hearing rumors of a new PayPerPost platform called "Argus" that may be appearing on the market in the not-too-distant future. No real news on what Argus is all about (or why we need another platform), but it should be interesting to see. A slew of copycat sites have appeared on the net over the last six months or so, and while I thought that most of them would just dry up ad go away for lack of advertisers, many seem to be keeping pace with PayPerPost. Although their subscriber / blogger base probably pales in comparison, I have been fairly impressed with the opportunities presented by sites like PayU2blog and Smorty.

While it can be difficult to keep track of all of the guidelines of the different services (and even more difficult to see how they can work together on one blog site), it is certainly looking more promising for your average blogger to make a nice chunk of change each month from their blogging.

american gladiator dating service

Hot on the heels of my recent post about a niche market dating service catering to gothic singles is a new opportunity to review a site that concentrates on muscular women. Talk about coming from left field for me...

I never understood what the attraction was to these women who look like smaller versions of Arnold. Perhaps it's the desire to be dominated, or maybe some guys just prefer to date a woman that can lick him in a brawl. Others may dig that California bronzed and rippled look. Who knows? Either way, I guess it would be unfair of me to criticize certain men for their personal preferences in women (or men, for that matter). I myself, have never been too keen on the 12-year-old boy look of today's fashions for women. I personally like a woman with more meat on her bones, which I'd probably come under attack for from traditional California supermodel bimbo chasers.

I wasn't too thrilled at my sampling of this site, as it requires that you sign up to get in and view your search results. I also question the accuracy of its search, because I chose the town that I live in and it claims that it came back with 250 hits. Considering that the town I live in only has a population of about 2500 people (most of whom I know, and many whom I know to *not* be in shape) I'd have to guess that their search results aren't as accurate as they suggest.

The site is called FitnessDates.com and it advertises itself as a leading source for fitness dating. I haven't figured out whether a "fitness date" is one which involves muscular fit singles, or one in which you meet at the gym to pump iron together. Maybe it's both? It brings new meaning to the question, "Are you fit for dating?" doesn't it?

Google Analytics report - not bad at all

I signed up for Google's free analytics several months ago, and I must admit that I am so far impressed. Although the reports are bit difficult to navigate and it suffers from the over-drilled-down approach (where you've drilled down into so many sub menus that you can get lost), the site is none-the-less quite useful and you can't beat it for a free website tracking tool.

At first I was reluctant to use it for sites that i advertising via their Adwords program, because I thought it may be giving them a little too much information, from a conversion viewpoint, but I left that paranoia behind and I've been satisfied with the results. It's also important to mention that you don't have to use Adwords on all of the sites that you would like to track.

Check it out if, like me, your webalizer is making you feel a little out of the loop.

optimizing website real estate

Ironic that some of the sites out there selling real estate are also some of the websites who make the best of their website. I've been working with a local real estate broker about his website and what he can do to draw more traffic and make the site more useful for potential buyers and sellers. We live in a tourist market in the mountains and as such there are certain offerings that can be included that one may not include if we were in a typical Metro area.

It has become apparent that offering a brief description of your agents and a link to the MLS isn't sufficient anymore, regardless of how easy it is to access and navigate. As I recently mentioned, the effects of Web 2.0 standards are slowly trickling down into the various niche markets, and real estate is no exception. And so we begin carving through the many possibilities out there to determine which ones are a good use of programming and website space (or "real estate") and which ones are unnecessary gimmicks.

After searching the net, I have seen real estate websites that run the gamut, from simple barebones sites to sites that are chock full of information and features like the site for ellijay real estate. The latter specializes in a mountain area not unlike our own, and so I am thinking of pointing my client their way for ideas for his own site. While I don't see us offering all of the same features, some of them show promise and are suggestions that I had already made to my client in the past. Having an example to show him may help it "click" in his head how it could work.

In the end, it is all about generating leads. While traditional real estate websites have been about generating quantity over quality, the host of new applications available to real estate website developers can assist in the quality of those leads, as well.

where's the love? where's the loyalty?

It is fairly apparent that we live in a world where any kind of respect or feelings of "homeland" have seriously eroded. I'll admit to having somewhat radical views of society and I don't like the direction that the United States has headed, but that is because I believe that the US has great potential and could be a much better country if we could just fix some injustices and shift some of our priorities. It's not because I hate living here.

I just finished reading an article over at the BBC about some Islamic extremists who held a demonstration in which they prompted a crowd to bomb the UK, and among other nasty things called for the blood of UK soldiers. The saddest part about this is that these men were UK citizens. What gives?

If these extremists have such a problem with the policies of the UK, then why live there? Are they only living there to plot and plan terrorist acts? Each of the men arrested have been given six years of prison as a result for their acts and words, which were caught on video.

As much as I don't feel much affinity for the right wingers and their oil war, it is acts like this that make me feel like these evil people need to be eradicated. Anyone can speak out and protest against acts of war, but to suggest that the soldiers of one's own country should die and that they want to see "their blood running in the streets of Baghdad" should face a charge of death. At first I was thinking exile, but they'd only end up joining the ranks of extremist suicide bombers in some place like Gaza. This is straight-up violent and terrorist behavior. I don't care what your religion is. Six years is a slap on the wrist. Those bastards got off easy.

product reviews - coming to a blog near you!

While large scale retail sites like Amazon are consistently pushing for user generated content in the form of ratings and reviews, individual bloggers are also getting in on the action. Several of the paid blogging programs are now testing the waters for physical product reviews, and in the last week I have been approached to review things as diverse as arthritis gel and Air Jordan shoes.

This is definitely one of those cases in which the blog revenue service will do well to screen the bloggers that they commission for reviews, as sending out physical products is not cheap and the last thing you need is for someone in their twenties to receive a request to review arthritis gel, or a goth to review a pair of Air Jordans.

As the idea of sending out product samples for blogger review is fairly new to the web (or at least the non-A-list blogosphere), I'm sure we have some speed bumps and an initial learning curve to get past. As a blogger, I find it promising that we may be seeing opportunities to blog more about products we use every day (and getting a free sample is a nice perk!).

selective blog advertising versus anything goes

There are two distinct blog advertising / review models in the blog revenue market - the model where advertisers out out an "all posts bulletin" looking for any blogger who meets their requirements to post about their product and service, and the hand-selected model where advertisers select specific blogs to advertise with, and negotiate a distinct price. Both of these business models have their pro's and con's, but I wonder if either is truly serving the business community what they want.

While the pay-to-blog platforms like PayPerPost, Blogitive and Smorty may filter blogs by subject and demographics, they still aren't (to the best of my knowledge) hand selecting bloggers that bets match an advertiser's target market. The other business model, in which advertisers pick from a sorted list of available blogs is also flawed. Not only are they paying inflated prices for the blog-interface service, but many advertisers don't have the time (or the desire) to browse a list of blogs, sample each one that looks like a potential match and handpick the ones that would be best.

When the next business model appears and is able to bridge the gap and fill the holes in these offerings, it is sure to be a smash. I guess I need to get crack-a-lacking, eh?

oh my goth!

Lately there has been a rash of "free" internet dating sites spreading across the net. While I definitely see "free" sites as a good thing, many of them seem scammy in some way and sometimes end up being fronts for affiliate links to other dating sites. You've seen them - they say that they are for mature dating, but they have twenty-somethings on the front page. So it is always with a bit of reluctance that I agree to review new online dating sites.

The latest opportunity is for GothScene, which as the name implies is an online goth dating site that caters to the nocturnal in all of us. Further investigation reveals that there is definitely some legitimacy in their offering. I was half expecting cheerleaders or something else that would indicate no grasp on true "goth" culture, but instead I get a site with some typical hot topic teens and their dedicated fans. Their listed gothic singles base seems to primarily hover somewhere between 18 and 30 years of age, with the occasional basement-dwelling grandpa looking for kicks (or was that kinks?).

While it is obvious that not everyone with a profile on the site is a "goth", you have to allow for a certain amount of leniency when you consider the fact that lots of people are turned on by gothic fashion and gothic women. Some of the men even look like gang-bangers and "homeys", but it is difficult to determine if that is truly the case or if they are simply victims of the recent shift in gothic fashions to combine raver pants with extraneous buckles and zippers. I lament the time when goth fashion meant more "new romantic" styles, but now I am just showing my age and anyone else who feels the same way may only be several years away from the aforementioned grandpas looking for kicks (and nostalgia).

So it's always nice to get an opportunity to review a dating site that looks "real" for the niche market they are targeting, and the site seems fairly easy to navigate. I wish them the best.

hosting your own blog domains or forwarding them?

I've been toying around with the idea of trying out Blogger's option to point a domain to a Blogger blog. I know that there are many advantages to hosting your own blog, but there are also limitations in hosting plans that need to be considered. I have about 150 domain names right now, of which about a dozen have developed sites. The rest are parked and waiting for me to develop (or sell) them. I've gotten into the habit of building most of my new sites using the Drupal CMS because I dig its functionality and I have a good grasp on how to customize it for my needs. However, Drupal seems to eat up server resources quite a bit, and I am sometimes hesitant to install anew Drupal database on the same server, since I already have several running.

So I've been debating the pro's and con's of point some domains to either a Blogger or Wordpress blog for some future blogging projects. I realize that this means I will not have control to install and customize to my heart's desire, but that may not be an issue for a barebones blogging site. Also, it may help with SEO and links back to my other sites, since the links will be coming from Blogger and Wordpress servers instead of my own.

I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's experience in forwarding a domain to your blogspot/blogger blog or Wordpress blog. I know that some of the blog revenue programs penalize you for not having your own domain. I wonder if they would still penalize for having a domain that points to a blogspot blog? I understand that Blogger has a feature that sllows you to officially point the domain, not just forward and mask it (which would result in duplicate content). Since Blogger is owned by Google, this might be a good way to get a blogspot blog indexed fairly quickly under an actual domain name.

niche market arbitrage

In this age of global internet markets, there are many business owners who are feeling as though the virtual world is rendering physical brick and mortar sales ineffective. However, it is important to remember that there are still arbitrage opportunities available for those who have the capability of breaking their paradigm, and seeing "ordinary" products as "new" products in other markets. And of course, since it makes no sense to try and avoid virtual sales, the internet can still be used to help brick and mortar stores reach those niche arbitrage markets.

It is a case of niche market knowledge and convenience. For example, I have several music websites, and on some of them I sell CDs by the bands featured. Sure, the visitors could easily jump onto eBay or Amazon and find those discs for cheaper, but in many cases they end up spending more because I have served them the product in a different context. They want to be good "fans" and the discs are right there in a convenient place for sale. This is an effective form of arbitrage, and there's nothing wrong with combining it with impulse shopping. In a sense, you are placing the customer in a new paradigm, and in this case, leading them away from the competitive market that is found on auction and used CD sites.

Another example would be the local artist who purchases cheap products from the local plumbing and electrical store and turns them into art. Granted, there is a certain amount of creativity and effort involved in rendering bits of plastic and metal into works of sculptural art, but it is still a process of taking cheap products from one market, relocating them to a new customer base, with considerable markup.

One last example is taking items that are expectedly larger or better from one niche market and selling them in the common market at markup. I recently picked up a 62" umbrella from a golf store for $20 and resold it for quite a bit more to a non-golfing customer. I marketed it as a two person umbrella. Granted, we're not talking expensive Titleist golf brand umbrellas, but typical store brand umbrellas that are usually just as nice. Regular umbrellas are dirt cheap and can be bought at any big outlet store, but two person umbrellas - well, those are special, and accordingly fetch a special price.

So if you're running out of ideas for making money, whether via physical sales or online sales, try pushing a product into a different market. You may be surprised at its reception, demand, and the price that it fetches.

Bringing Web 2.0 to the real estate industry

I've been working with a local real estate agent lately, trying to get his website optimized for search, and it occurred to me that most real estate sites are not utilizing so many of the dynamic user interfaces that would help their business.

Most of the sites out there use cookie-cutter templates that, although optimized for the real estate professional (as of a few years ago), they are not optimized for lead tracking or search optimization. It seems like real estate site builders could take some of the ideas used at social media sites, for example, and put a real estate spin on them to make their website more competitive and appealing to the user. This way, even if there isn't a home that the buyer is interested in right now on that broker's website, they can expect that buyer to come back because the site is user friendly and seen as a unique valuable resource. When we were shopping for your last home, we constantly visited this certain broker's website to check listings even though he wasn't our buying agent. Our reasoning was that his website was easier to use, and updated more frequently.

I've been playing around with some of the Google map coding options, for example, and it is truly staggering how many different things can be done with Google maps to integrate house hunting trips with MLS listings on a real estate website.

I would also think that having live online chat could assist in closing the deal with prospective buyers. How many real estate offices have a receptionist or phone person that may be able to take on this extra responsibility when they aren't as busy? Or, this could be something that is tied in to their VOIP system and the agents could be polled to see who is available for a live web chat with potential customers. The only thing that I have seen lately on some real estate sites that may be considered more advanced is the ability to sign up for an account and save your favorite homes. But this isn't all that useful when you're house hunting in a hot market with homes selling fast. Now, if we could take those saved homes and develop a system that automatically notifies a user when new homes come up, that might make things a little more user friendly. Sure, you could start out with someone entering in all of their "desired" features in a home (price, square footage, location, etc), but it seems to me that every time we have looked for a home we end up changing our mind as the hunt continues.

Think of how useful it would be for someone to develop a system that can recognize those subtle changes in your house hunting preferences, by your slight decision and interest changes, and start making new suggestions to help you along your house-buying way.

new features from VOIP

In my last post, I mentioned possibly upgrading my business line to VOIP before picking up a cellphone, in particular the iPhone, which has got me a bit starry-eyed lately. I worked for a telecom company that utilized VOIP technology, and it was pretty cool. My only problem was when I was on a conference call, and you would get this occasional breakup and lag on your voice. It sounded like digital stuttering. This was a couple of years ago, so I am sure thing have changed a bit since then (hopefully for the better).

I looked around at some VOIP offerings last night, including some from Xpander Communications, who specialize in hosted PBX small business VoIP phone systems, and was impressed by some of the new features that we didn't have a couple of years ago.

For example, you can input up to fifteen different phone numbers to be called simultaneously or in a chain when your extension is dialed. For employees who have multiple offices, a site phone, a mobile phone, a Blackberry, and a pager, this could come in handy. Not only does it make it easier for your customers, clients and fellow coworkers to reach you by only dialing one extension, but it makes it that less annoying since they only have to remember one number. If you really think of the potential of this feature, you start to realize that this could even be used to direct callers to your backup coworker, or even to a list of team members in the case that you are not available, perhaps with the fifteenth number being your manager's number (if you want that to happen). It would also work great for anyone looking to employ a smaller scale customer service extension that polls fifteen different receiving representatives.

This is just one of the exciting features possible with VOIP. Others include unlimited voicemail boxes, multiple calls and call holds, call coaching (where you can have someone hold your hand while on call with irate customers, with the customers not being able to hear the coach), conference bridging, auto attendants, etc, etc. The list goes on and on. It's amazing how feature packed VOIP is.

One of my favorite uses for VOIP back in the day (which is probably still available and more enhanced now) was the ability to have faxes arrive directly in your inbox as TIF image files. I would also receive incoming voicemails in my email inbox as an attached sound WAV file. There is usually a companion "softphone" feature that allows you to place and received calls directly from your IP line on your computer, without accessing the physical handset at all. This way, you are reachable from your same extension when while traveling, as long as you have your laptop. I even used it in remote locations on a dial-up connection, and although it didn't work perfectly, I was able to hear and be heard just the same. Not only does this make it so that I can access nearly every voice contact directly from my computer, but it allows for business users to track and record calls. This way, when you get someone who says that they "never said that" or "never agreed to that", you've got their voicemail on file to prove it. Obviously, this doesn't make up for getting signed invoices and contract bids, but it could help with backstabbing employees who say one thing and do another (which sees to happen quite often in the corporate world). I would actually file all the voicemail messages that I received for certain job builds right in the project folder, along with the engineering and contract details. It makes for a very thorough archive system.

iphone tempts the jaded

I've been Mr. anti-cellular for a while now. I gave up my cell phone over a year ago, and have since lived happily without. However, the appearance of the new iPhone is tempting, to say the least. It combines so many useful features into one handy gadget. Seeing as I haven't picked up an iPod yet, either, I could potentially kill two birds with one stone. But do I really need one?

At this point, my business is still so new that I probably don't need a cellphone yet, and it would probably be smart for me to wait until the newness of the iPhone dies down a bit (along with the price, hopefully). Then again, using my business as an excuse to buy an iPhone doesn't really fly. If I was really going to upgrade my calling features, I'd likely go with some cool VOIP service that includes built-in fax, long distance and other useful business features. I wonder if you can get VOIP that is also tied to a mobile line, all on one number.

local politics got you down?

My wife was actually talking about moving today. She works for the local city government and our town is notorious for its local politics. It seems that people here will find any reason that they can to fight and treat each other uncivilly. In fact, I was at one time being asked to apply for one of the local planning commissions here in town, but decided to forgo the drama due to the nasty nature of the inherent politics.

My first brush with the local politics occurred when I spoke out against the location of some new condo hotels that they were planning on building in town. I personally felt that they would not fit into the area of town that they wanted them to be built, and that there were other more obvious areas for structures like that. But like any city or town in the good ol' US of A, money wins over anything else.

Speaking of condo hotels, my father just got an incredible deal on a timeshare trade in Disney World. He has a timeshare in Vegas during a very desirable week, and as a result he was able to trade for a week in Disney World and still has a week left over in Vegas (his week was apparently worth two weeks of non-prime time). He intentionally swapped his Vegas time for the Disney timeshare so that he could invite us on the trip and they would get to experience Disney World with the grandkids. We're very fortunate that he is so generous, and are looking forward to the trip.

I've never really been into the whole "Stepford" feel of Disney, but as family vacation destination, it is a one-in-a-million experience for kids.

make way for the angels

Speaking of the fuzz, the local police force is gearing up for a visit by the Hell's Angels, and they're calling for backup from nearby cities and county officers. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this visit. On one hand, the web is full of nasty stories about Hell's Angels raising Hell wherever they go, while on the other hand there are many sites that make them out to be misunderstood bikers who are just looking to live their lives in a certain way.

I've known bikers before that were okay guys. in fact, my best friend hung out with a biker gang for a while - the "667" gang. Most of the ones we get around here are posers, though...weekend warriors with their shiny new leather jackets and reeboks. In fact, the posers act worse than the hardcore-looking bikers in my experience. There's nothing worse than some rich jerk on his loud straight pipes revving up his engine over and over again while going five miles per hour through downtown.

It will be interesting to see if the town has any trouble with the Angels when they come to stay here. I must admit that I am planning on keeping my wife and kids in the house most of the time just in case. Even if the Hell's Angels don't cause any trouble here in town, they're likely to attract the attention of several of their lesser known rival biker gangs - other "one percenters".

google helping out the fuzz

I recently ran across a problem with one of the affiliate marketing programs that I signed up for. It was for a company that offered this special license plate spray that is supposed to make it impossible for traffic cameras to capture your plate information. Apparently, it's perfectly legal, but Google doesn't like the sound of it. They rejected my Adwords ads as being questionable. I hope that this doesn't count against me in some way, but it makes me wonder if there are certain industries that have this problem regularly.

For example let's say that I was in the radar detector business. Would they disallow me to advertise my products via their Adwords program, or are they only strict with affiliate marketers? I wonder if they would also impose any type of penalty on organic search rankings. Then again, they are supposed to be dealing in relevancy, not legality. I guess they're just covering their assets from any potential brushes with the law.

None-the-less, I am a little disappointed that I can't try to market this product as it has gotten some decent testimonials and sounds like something that the street racing and tuner market would find quite useful.

need more movement

Lately, I've been feeling a bit lethargic, and I know that I need to get out more often. It's difficult when the weather is so warm, though. I know of several neighbors who manage to get out for early morning walks, but I am in no way a morning person so that is not an option.

I did move a bunch of free weights with me the last time we relocated, but I sold off the weight bench. It's funny because we paid for movers to move all of our belongings, and if was going to keep anything from the weight set, I should have kept the weight bench and ditched the weights. After all, the moving companies charge more for weight than they do for actual volume.

So I've been looking for a new weight bench, and I'm quickly discovering that it is akin to looking for a new printer. It's almost cheaper to buy a new set (or a new printer that comes with new ink) than to buy just the bench (or just ink refills). I checked out WalMart and they've got a decent bench for about $55. I was hoping to pay close to $35 for a real basic bench, though. What can I say? I'm cheap. I don't have any sports equipment stores near my home, so my other option is to check out exercise equipment that is for sale online.

There are a few stores like the one I linked to above (Everything Fitness) that fortunately offer free shipping on orders over $19, which is promising. Of course, when you start shopping for these types of things online you are sometimes overwhelmed by the choices. I really just wanted a basic bench with a leg lift and rests for a dumb-bell. A comfy adjustable back support would be nice, as well.

There are some products that are more expensive, and I can't really see why. I always thought that when it came to weight benches, you would pay more for the larger more complicated systems, but I am guessing that brand names must come into play to a certain extent, too. For example, if you take a look at the BodyCraft F602 at the above linked site, this is a high end bench, but it doesn't look like it comes with anything to rest your bench press bar on.

Has anyone had any experience with those flexi-weight systems? You know the ones with rubber stretching apparatus instead of actual weights? Those look neat, but I was always afraid that they might "snap" in the middle of a bench press and I'd go flying across the room somehow.

tools for a calorie arsonist

It's not everyday that I rave about a fitness site, as most of them are pretty cheesy and they charge you for information that is freely available in many places on the net. (They are also generally geared towards women.) However, one site that I recently ran across has got me excited. The service is free, and only requires a simply sign-up to get into the "members" section. They offer a free calorie counter and guidelines on starting and maintaining your very own personal fitness program. Honestly, I don't know if I will get that involved, but there are two tools that I wanted to point out that I am playing around with right now, and they are super-cool. You don't have to sign-up or sign-in to use them, either.

The first is a calorie, carb and nutrition search tool that you can access by clicking on the "Search Foods" tab. You simply pick the type of food in question and it gives you the info you need.

The other tool that I was even more excited to see provides you with calorie burning details for different types of exercise. It too me a second or two to figure out how it works. Click on the "Calories Used" tab, then select a type of exercise from the list. Then enter the amount of time you plan on performing that exercise in the lower right hand corner, and it will estimate how many calories you will burn. I thought it was neat that they even had things like backpacking and skateboarding listed.

Since I spend so much of my time sitting at a desk, I haven't been getting out as often as I would like to exercise. using these tools can give me an idea of my calorie intake, and help me to select certain types of exercise that i have time for that will burn the amount of calories that I need to in the limited time that I have.

the big chair investment

As someone who works from home, and sits at a desk for most of the day, I have been toying around with the idea of buying a nice fancy ergonomic chair. I picked up one of those faux leather armback chairs from Home Depot several years ago for around $40 and it has been okay, but it is not very comfortable, the padding is crap, and I actually get blisters on my elbows from the rough plastic arm supports.

Although I've always been one of those frugal types of people, I have come to discover that there are certain things that aren't worth penny-pinching over. Things like toilet paper, for example. And I believe that I am going to have to add office chairs to the list, at least if you plan on spending any considerable amount of time in one. Does anyone have any suggestions? I work at a glass and steel desk that is a certain height so I need to make sure that the chair (with the arms, if it has any) will slide beneath the desk when not in use. That is another problem with the one I currently own. Even if I drop it down in height to the lowest possible position, it still cannot fit beneath my desk. I like my desk - don't want to swap that out, so the chair will have to adapt.

I also need suggestions for a good industrial strength under-chair mat to go on top of carpet. I bought a Rubbermaid mat from Wal-Mart and this thing is a piece of crap. It has cracked all over the place from the chair rolling on it, and the little "slivers" of Rubbermaid plastic are sharp and dangerous for barefoot office work. I may look into getting one of those super-thick black rubber mats that cashiers get to stand on. They are comfortable as can be, from what I remember from my old grocery store cashier days. Plus, they are thick so I don't think they would crack under the rolling chair pressure.

When you spend so much time in an office, it pays to make yourself comfortable. Pay a little more now for good ergonomics and decent back support, or pay more later for chiropractic bills, right?

how to get your free credit report

Even if you don't live in a "free credit report" state, I may have discovered a way to get one for free. Not too long ago, we switched car insurance and were informed that we didn't receive the "ultra-preferred" rate due to our credit report. Now, I am not sure what my credit report has to do with my car insurance rates, but none-the-less this counts as a negative notice from a potential creditor and therefore may allow you to request a free credit report. We called Equifax and sure enough it worked.

So here is my suggestion. If you don't live in one of the 13 western states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming that allow you to receive one free copy of your credit report each year, you may still be able to request one for free under the guise of a "bad credit" notice. In fact, you could easily stop by a bank, ask them for a loan for several million dollars, have them run your credit report, and when they laugh in your face, ask the credit reporting agencies for a free copy for being "denied" a loan. (If the bank actually approves the loan for you, take the money and run! LOL.)

There are lots of free sites on the internet that offer free information on credit reporting and how to get your free copy. One such site that I noticed at PPP that has several articles on credit reporting is called CreditLoan.com. Their site was apparently scammed by a fraudulent advertiser pretending to have their same name, and they are working with the FBI on remedying the situation. However, the site remains online and there are some good articles to be found. For example, here's an article on where to find your credit report and how to get it.

There are three primary credit reporting agencies - Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Unfortunately, their systems and records are in no way associated so you are required to keep an eye on all three, as each will hold its own surprises. It is a veritable pain in the neck to try and keep all three of them in shape, which is why those credit report maintenance programs that you see on late night TV are so popular right now. I'm torn at the moment because I can't stand the idea of there being one single company that maintains our credit reporting, but I also can't stand having several that I have to monitor because they are all different.

Sometimes I feel like this is something that should be maintained by the government, but I know that would open up a whole other can of worms.

credit report negligence = libel?

Several years ago, while my wife and I were looking to be approved for a new home loan, we ran across several problems with our credit reports. In some cases, several of my college loans had been sold from one loan company to another and they were appearing several times, making it look like I owed about four times as much as I actually owed. We had a few other items listed in our credit report that had never happened, a company or two that we had never even heard of...

None-the-less, I was a bit annoyed that it was *my* responsibility to notify the credit reporting agencies that *they* were wrong. I should also mention that it wasn't easy to get them to repair all of the items and there was a certain amount of hoop-jumping involved. I find this to be unjust.

While some would argue that a credit reporting agency makes it possible for us to take out loans and receive credit, I would ask, "when the hell did I ask for them to do this?" What if I didn't want an account of all of my personal information being kept somewhere? Do I have a choice in the matter?

Even better, if they screw up my report, and as a result I lose out on a loan approval and they make me look bad, can I sue them for libel or defamation as a result of their negligence or incompetence?

If you live in several of the Western states of he US, you are allowed one free copy of your credit report each year. In some cases, they will also send you a letter when something negative has been added to it, and offer you the opportunity to get a copy at that point, as well. At any other time, you have to pay for it.

So, they create a file on my personal financial history, not at my request and without my approval, and they maintain it sloppily and allow any creditor to drop bogus information in there unchecked (until I go to check it once per year to make sure they were valid), and then if they mess up I have to jump through hoops to get them to set things straight.

This has got to be the most "back-asswards" policy that I have ever heard of. Yet we just accept it as American consumers. We live in a backwards world, don't we?

I'll follow up this post in a little while with some more information on getting your free copy of your credit reports, in case you didn't know how. Keep in mind that this is only available to residents of certain states, though.

feeding on college students

When I was in college, it always amazed me to see how many credit card offers I would receive on any given day. My mailbox was full of them every week, and there was always a table or two setup near the student lounge pushing credit card applications to ease our financial (ramen soup and coffee) pains. I made the mistake of signing up for one of the first ones I was offered. When I received the card, my father promptly advised me to call and cancel, then cut it up because the interest rate was so high.

I didn't know anything about interest rates. Credit wasn't exactly a subject that they exposed us to back in high school, and even if it were, it would probably have been about as dry as accounting class. I got myself a few lower interest rate cards several months later and within months was pushing my credit limits. At least the interest rates weren't so bad ( So, I guess I was fortunate to have my father watching my back with that initial credit blunder). Several years (and some consumer credit counseling) later, I am debt free and know quite a bit about "smart" credit spending, as opposed to what one might call "albatrossian" debt.

Luckily for the college students of today, there are all kinds of resources available on smart credit and it is quite easy to find an article or two on how credit cards actually work. Even better, you don't have to accept the first credit card that comes your way. There are actually websites that offer college degree hopefuls a chance to compare student credit cards before they apply for one. You just have to hope that they do the research and don't jump at the "impulse application" while on campus (and unfortunately, impulse actions seem to be a bit stronger under the age of 25).

I was also surprised to see that many of the cards listed are offering 0% introductory rates, something that they didn't used to offer to college students who don't even know what an APR is. Another interesting offering that wasn't around when we were kids was the "Allow Card" which apparently works like the old "Visa Bucks" program, in which a parent can charge a credit card with a certain amount of money for their son or daughter to spend. However, this one seems more enhanced as it sounds like you have the option to limit what your child can spend the money on. Not a bad idea, although I could see this type of control leading to a student taking on other credit cards of their own, as a form of late teenage rebellion (if they don't realize how lucky they are to have their parents funding them after age eighteen in the first place).

word to morons : please handle by the edges

I am fortunate to be able to state that I have not paid for a movie rental in several years. My alternative? The local library. In the "old days", the only movies you could find at the library were reruns of Jacque Cousteau and National Geographic. No longer. Now I get the latest and greatest and I get them for free. The only problem is that the discs aren't in the best shape, and my DVD player can't always play them. I've seen discs that look like they have been dragged across asphalt parking lots.

You'd think I was only referring to "family" videos that are in danger of being handled by children and their pets, but no! These are not kid's flicks. So what is the deal? Are there really that many people out there that haven't heard that you are supposed to handle CDs and DVDs gingerly by the edges? Or are they simply leaving them out so their children and dogs can use them as ice skates on the linoleum? Either way, here is my message tyo all who have not yet heard:

DVDs and CDs are not made of diamond. The surface is susceptible to damage, and the best way to handle them is by the edges. If they are not in your CD or DVD player they should be IN THE CASE. This is especially important when the DVD or CD in question doesn't belong to you. Think of the other local library patrons please.

an industry devoid of technological change?

When was the last time you plunked a quarter into a machine for a bubble gum ball? Today, my daughter dropped three of her own hard earned quarters into a candy-turned-trinket machine, and watched in horror as it gave her nothing for her money. We've all been through this experience - feeling stupid for being shocked, beating on the glass, shaking it like a fool, trying to jam our entire forearm up the machine's iron orifice to see if we can "unstuck" it, and finally asking for our money back only to be told to call the vending company (not the store in which it is installed). Well, it was quite a similar experience for my daughter. Lucky for her, the Wal-Mart representative was nice enough to refund her the 75 cents, and I counseled her in the ways of the vending machine. Hopefully she has learned her lesson, but I doubt it. After all, I had been ripped off countless times by vending machines as a child and still managed to lose money while in college buying snacks from the student lounge vending machines.

This got me thinking about vending machine technology. Sure, I've seen some fancy looking pop machines, but how much has the technology *really* changed? This has got the be the only industry where they are still using similar (if not the same) technology as twenty or thirty (or more?) years ago. I could use the cliche analogy and state that we can send a man to the moon, but we can't get a simple machine to drop a gum ball consistently. I guess I'm in the wrong business. I want to be able to still use old decrepit technology and not have to worry about ripping people off or upgrading. I want to be able to charge children 75 cents for a 2 cent plastic trinket.

Maybe I'm not giving the vending machine industry enough credit. After all, they sure managed to adapt the machines to take in more quarters at the same time ($0.75 for a rubber bouncing ball?).

the value of an hour

What's your time worth? It's an interesting question, isn't it? For some of us, we quickly calculate our per dollar wage rate from our place of employment. Others will judge the type of work to be done during that time and assign an equivalent dollar amount per hour to it. It's definitely a quandary, and one that you won't find yourself asking too often, providing that you don't feel you have wasted your time.

But we've all been there. Is it worth driving back to the grocery store because they charged me an extra 75 cents for that can of baked beans? Probably not. Is it worth calling the phone company and waiting on hold for twenty minutes so that I can dispute where that three dollar call to Mexico on my phone bill came from? It's arguable.

I sometimes feel that same bit of ambivalence when searching for coupons online. Sure, you might be able to save a few bucks here and there, but is it worth the time to search? For example, have you ever tried googling random sites for "coupon codes" for rental cars? You get tons of results for sites with super-long domain names chocked full of "rental car" keywords, and they all have the same coupons. But you check each one of them out, just in case on is slightly better than the one before. At the end of the day, you end up feeling like you have wasted all of this time for a free upgrade or ten dollars off. So what's a budget-restrained individual to do if they don't want to waste a bunch of time looking for deals every time you're going to make an online purchase?

Break out the bookmarks. Instead of googling for specific industry coupon sites when you need them, it is sometimes better to find a few good coupon sites that cover all kinds of industries. One of the latest sites to offer such a service is called "JJ9".

I have no idea what the name is supposed to mean, and their logo isn't very memorable, but they do offer a plethora of coupons for all kinds of online stores, from big corporate chains like Best Buy and Circuit City to tiny niche market shops that I have never even heard of, like Szul.

Keeping a few sites like this in your bookmarks (or favorites) folder can save you a few bucks here and there (or more) without wasting time clicking through pages and pages of Google results. I recommend using these types of sites mostly for the big ticket items.

My only real complaints about JJ9 is that some of the "coupons" are actually just advertisements for sales or free shipping policies. They also don't seem to have any way of searching by category. In fact, searching for words like "electronics" yields no matching results, even though they have Circuit City and Best Buy on their list. It's mainly a site to check out if you already know which store you plan on shopping at.

paypal shipping is cool

Have you tried to use Paypal's built-in shipping option yet? If not, I heartily recommend it. It is super easy, and cheaper in many cases than waiting in line at the post office and paying there.

How does it work? Well, it is quite simple. Once you receive payment from an item, you click on the shipping button and enter the package information. If it was an eBay item, the auction information has already been entered for you and you just need to enter in the package weight and type of shipping. Then, it gives you a chance to confirm the price (or go back and change your shipping type), and print the postage right there on your PC. Easy!

Sure, I know I may be late in the game on this. I know that there have been lots of companies offering e-postage for a while now, but they've never been this simple for me. Once you print your label, PayPal automatically marks the package shipped in your eBay account. So the buyer gets a status update in real time. I also dig the fact that delivery confirmation only costs an extra 18 cents for media mail (free with priority). Compare that to the 75 cents they would charge you at the post office. (Plus you'd have to fill out an extra form).

Give it a try on your next eBay auction, and you'll love the time it saves you. Once you've affixed the printed postage label to your package (which includes the sender and receiver's address, so you don't need to address the package anymore), you simply drop it in the mailbox or at the post office.

Now I just need to get past the "waiting in line". Technically, since I have already paid, I should be able to just walk pst everyone else in line and drop my package on the counter, and walk away. I haven't quite gotten past the dirty looks yet, though, so I've been waiting a little. If my package was smaller, I could probably just drop it in the mail slot or leave it in my own mailbox at home, but I tend to ship larger items. None-the-less, this is a time saving option and it makes shipping (and tracking what I have shipped) much more streamlined for me.

sk8s and cops - a quick follow-up

I just wanted to post a quick follow-up to the blog I had posted last week about the skateboarders and cops in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Since the story broke on YouTube, there has been a an incredible wave of antagonism on the part of anti-skateboarding fascists and anti-youth members of the community. Reports are coming in that the video doesn't show the whole story, and that parts were edited out. One newspaper had interviews with local business owners indicating that the skateboarders were out of control and that the police officer should be praised for his actions. Guess who those business owners were? The very same shopkeepers that probably requested the "no skateboarding" ban in the first place. No surprise there.

Here's what I think. I don't care how "out of control" or "antagonizing" the kids were off camera. They weren't acting out of control when I saw the police officer decide to choke them and put the girl in a headlock. They were walking with him, and asking him questions. Even if the questions were disrespectful or repetitive he had no right to treat them like that. If someone can't control their aggression and their anger, then they have no place in law enforcement.

We treat our policemen and firemen like heroes because they perform their duties under high levels of stress and danger and they serve justice, not because they are "tough". A good cop knows when physical assertion is absolutely necessary, and only uses it at those times. He doesn't use physical restraining force as a substitute for the fact that he has no backup, has run out of handcuffs, or is physically out of shape to chase someone who *might* try and run.

Maybe we need to start a new COPS campaign here in the United States:
Handcuffs not Headlocks

mo' blog money

I recently signed up with a new blog revenue platform that I am going to try out. This one is called Smorty, and like some of the others they offer everyday bloggers (like you and me) the opportunity to blog for money. I'm not so sure about the name. I'm assuming it is a take on the word "smarty". Or perhaps it is just another one of those "purple cow" approaches to web branding. Either way, it's easy for me to remember and type in to the browser, so I can't complain.

Their business model is similar to a few of the other blog advertising models out there. You sign in to your account, they offer certain opportunities to you, you accept the ones that you would like to write about, and you get paid to blog. Once accepted, you have about 2 days and 22 hours to complete them. I was a little confused when I first signed in and accepted an opportunity, because they don't actually give you the anchor text they want you to use until you go to submit it. So technically, you need to click on the "submit post" link before you can even write yours. Other than that, the interface is clean, much faster than some of their competitors, and I got four new opportunities right away.

It's also nice that everything can be accessed from one page when you login. You review opportunities, accept opportunities, and submit your posts with your login and earnings info on the left hand side of the page at all times. This makes it a little more convenient than having to return to a user "dashboard" each time you want to see your accrued earnings.

This service looks promising, and I will follow up occasionally to let you know how they are treating me.