Monday, May 23, 2011

Born This Way - Entire Album 99¢ Today Only

This isn't my normal kind of music, but my son really likes Lady Gaga.  Her new CD Born This Way dropped today, and Amazon is offering the MP3 download of the album for 99¢!  That's 14 songs for less than $1, the usual cost of one song.  So I bought it.

If you're thinking about getting the new Lady Gaga album, head on over to Amazon and get yours for 99¢ - and be sure to do it today, because this deal won't be available tomorrow.

Buying this album will also upgrade your Cloud storage from the free 5GB Amazon offers all customers to 20GB - if you haven't already done so.
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Monday, May 16, 2011

What's So Great About Wordpress?

blogger.com logoImage by Colin ZHU via FlickrSince I've started blogging, I've heard so many people say that self-hosted Wordpress is the only way to go. It's like you can't be a 'real' blogger if you're not using Wordpress.  I'm not sure exactly why.  I've been very happy with Blogger.  I can do pretty much anything I want with my blogs - customize my templates, use my custom domains, add widgets, etc.  And, in the 5 years I've used Blogger, last week's outage was the first time I'd ever had a problem.

The logo of the blogging software WordPress.Image via WikipediaNow, I have a few web pages I do for our church.  About a year ago, I decided to try Wordpress for a couple of those pages.  I don' t see a huge difference.  I can find and customize templates, use custom domains, add widgets and plug-ins.  It works.  However, I have had to repeatedly clean out spam links in every single post.  I remove the links, I change passwords, and a few days to a week later, the links are back.  This is getting beyond frustrating.  I never had this problem with Blogger.  Never had this problem with regular html web pages.

This has me wondering what's so great about Wordpress?  I haven't seen enough advantages to be worth the frustration of dealing with this.  Maybe there's some simple fix I just don't know about, but I'm about ready to go back to regular webpages and scrap Wordpress altogether.  I'm certainly not thinking about moving my blogs from Blogger, where we're perfectly happy.
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Saturday, May 7, 2011

No Facebook? You Could be Missing Out

My son missed my last post on this blog where I mentioned my new toy.  He's a busy college student, and even though he spends plenty of time online, he doesn't have time to keep up with everything I post.  Or so he says.  He's busy with the last week of classes, a theater banquet, and audition, and studying for finals.  I guess I can excuse him.

He called this afternoon to ask me what my new toy is - not because he'd seen the post, or he would have known, but because he'd seen some references to it on Facebook.  One of my friends was checking it out and sent him a message, and then I updated my status, "Playing with my new toy. These touch screens are touchy." Underneath it said 'via Android' so he just had to ask. 

The point is, sometimes you might need brochure printing to get the word out about something, but for lots of things Facebook is a great way to let people know what's going on.  It's quick and easy to update, and you don't have to send out individual emails or messages.  When you post a status update, link, photo, or whatever, all your friends can see it.  If it's something they're interested in, they can check it out.  If they're not interested, they can just skip on to the next item in the newsfeed.  It's one of the quickest ways to keep up with a lot of people at once.  And it's not just for busy college students.  There are people of all ages on facebook.  I love it for keeping up with family and friends.  Letters, phone calls, emails - all still have their place, but for day-to-day interaction, Facebook is great.

Businesses are also on Facebook - websites, stores, brands - and it's a good way to connect with their customers and get new ones.  It's a great way to promote new products and by giving away free products, trials, or savings, to get their fans to spread the word.  Sure, there will still be a place for the traditional things like coupons in the Sunday paper, magazine ads, and brochures to pick up in the store, but the smartest businesses are expanding into social networking, using Facebook and Twitter to grow their audience.

If you're not on Facebook, you could be missing out.  Missing out on things your friends are doing or thinking, things that aren't 'important' enough for a phone call or an email, but things you might enjoy hearing about.  Missing out on special sales and free items from brands you love or learning about new products...

Of course, you could also be missing out on wasting a bunch of time, but we'll just forget about that for now...

Thursday, May 5, 2011

I Got a New Toy

The problem with 'Liking' Buy.com on Facebook?  I can get into trouble!  A couple days ago, they posted this 7" Tablet PC for $129.99, and I just couldn't resist.  I ordered one.

It came today, and I just had to play with it for a while.  So far I'm loving it.  I like the size and  how easy it is to use.  I've never used a touch screen device before, but it is very intuitive.  I'm not sure I'm going to like the whole fingerprints on the screen thing, but I'm just going to have to clean it more often, I guess!

I'm particularly excited to find that Kindle and Nook - and several other e-readers - are already installed.  I've already connected it with my Amazon account and downloaded some Kindle books, and reading them on this tablet is going to be so nice.  I've tried the Kindle for PC app, but it's just not convenient to sit at my computer to read a book - probably because I'm always busy doing other stuff, but also because it just doesn't feel like reading a book.  I think this will be different.  Also, why choose one reader when you can have them all on this one device?

I think it's going to be the perfect thing for browsing the internet, playing games, checking email, and reading books - in a size perfect for travel or taking anywhere.  Now I just need to find a case, order at least an 8GB micro SD card, and probably get a screen protector, too.

The day Buy.com promoted this tablet, it was sold out by the end of the day.  It's available again today, though at a slightly higher price.
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Sunday, May 1, 2011

Disclosure

Disclosure Policy
This policy is valid from May 1, 2011


This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. I do accept forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions, free samples in exchange for my opinion, or other forms of compensation.

This blog abides by word of mouth marketing standards. I believe in honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog, but the opinion will always be mine. If I don't like something, I will let you know or simply not talk about it - and definitely not recommend it.

I am compensated, and willing to be compensated, to provide my opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though I may receive compensation for my posts or advertisements, I always give my honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

I mark all my paid posts, whether just a link or a full review, with the month and year, (05/11, 02/12, etc.) It gives me a good way to keep track of all paid posts each month. If you have a question about whether or not I have been paid to write about something, please ASK.


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