Archive for April, 2008

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One of those days…

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Today was pretty difficult for me. Not only have a few unsuspecting memories popped into my head, but work has kind of got me overwhelmed. Trying to balance three clients at once, when you thought you only had two when you woke up that morning, can prove to be a tad bit difficult – that’s for sure. I’m confident that I can accomplish everything I need to do, I just know I’m adding a fourth on Friday and I’m not too sure if I’ll be able to manage without wanting to rip my hair out (figuratively speaking – of course). I’ve recently said that to a friend of mine and her being of the slightly ditsy nature turned around and said “You’d look strange bald!”. Interesting child, to say the least.

In any event, I guess I should get my bum in gear. I do have a lot of updates to put through here, I’m also going to announce the launch of one of my newest network websites – I just hope to be able to get all of that accomplished before June.

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Busy Bee

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

I know I’ve been slacking off here, but when you’re bogged down with multiple clients and finally beginning to get somewhere with your business – the blogging aspect of things really doesn’t matter too much.  Well, it’s not that it doesn’t matter but it certainly doesn’t take first priority either.  I do like having an emotional outlet but lately I’ve put that into my private journal.  Which any tech-nerd would despise because it’s hand written.  It’s not based on some funky blog script heh.

My new contract position is working out pretty nicely.  It’s given me the ability to expand beyond the weblog template world so I can prove that I do actually know a thing or two about graphics design.  It feels as though something has shifted and the dark cloud hovering over me has now made it’s way out of town.

Even though I’ve been pulling 12 hour days, I still have the time (and the energy) to get all of my work done both online and offline.  I can still keep up on my daily routine (chores – so to speak) and I’ve spent quite a bit of time down on the beach to keep feeding my inspiration.  I also use this as my time to exercise.  So yes, I’ve not only kept myself busy but I’ve kept myself on my diet as well.  Isn’t that just fantastic?

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Cash Advance for Tires

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Hopefully in the next couple of months I’ll be able to look into Car Loans. It’s my goal to make enough money to pay off my existing personal loan and then continuing to send out $300 a month to get myself a new car. For the past few months I’ve been driving Sean’s and while it gets me to where I have to go, it would be nice to have something to call my own. As I’ve noted in the past, I’ve been looking into the Chevy Cobalt Sedan. A few people have asked why I don’t just get the coupe but from my experience with cars, the Sedan usually offers a bit more room and for those long trips up to New York it would work out better for Sean and I considering Bella likes to roam around the car and it would be pretty easy to stick her into a larger back seat. Another plus would be the ability to switch off and doze in the back seat for when my eyes start to burn from concentrating on the road too long. Sean and I have already said that our next trip up there will go much smoother because the 5 hour drive can be broken down in 2 1/2 shifts for each of us. I can handle the DE and NJ end of things, he can take over for the second half of getting us out of NJ and into NY.

We just can’t do that with his car right now, he desperately needs tires. I was pulled over the other day because my tires spun out in a rocky area and the cop happened to be sitting right behind me at the light. He stuck a quarter into all four tires and saw that there was literally no tread left on them and I had to talk my way out of a ticket informing him that it wasn’t my car and I had no idea that there was even a problem with the tires. Something tells me that I’m going to have to take out a Cash Advance on my credit card so we can get new tires for the car. I’m close to being maxed out on one card so I’d have to take the money off two cards in order to be able to afford the $300+ for four tires.

Not a good time to be broke, let me tell you.

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Increase Browser Speed

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Are you interested in getting the most out of your browser? I don’t know anyone in this day and age who will actually sit there and wait patiently for their browser to get to the same speed as their Internet connection. There are a few tricks of the trade that anyone could benefit from! An important note about this article is that I was lucky enough to find these browser tips in the March 2008 issue of Laptop Mag, full credit and copyright goes to them of course. I’ve personally used these tips and I have to say that they worked out very well for me, even my own websites are loading faster.


How To Speed Up Firefox

For Beginners: Install the free Fasterfox extension (found here), which puts a little stopwatch in the lower right-hand corner of the browser to show you just how fast a page loads. With this add-on NYTimes.com loaded in 7.2 seconds, almost three seconds faster than when this extension was disabled.

For Advanced: While there are many more tweaks available online, here’s a few quick ones to get you started:

Type “about:config” in the location bar.

In the FILTER bar type “network.http.pipelining”.

Double-click “false” so it becomes “true”.

Go back to the FILTER bar and type “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests”

Change the “4″ in the value field to “10″ or higher.

Return to the filter bar and type “network.http.proxy.pipelining”.

Double-click “false” in the value field to make it read “true”.


How To Speed Up Internet Explorer

For Beginners: FlashGet, a free add-on for IE7 (found here), speeds up downloads by splitting files into multiple pieces and copying them simultaneously. A 6.5MB file downloaded in 43 seconds with it installed, a 20 second improvement.

For Advanced: This is similar to the Firefox tweak, letting IE7 load multiple connections on each Web page.

Go to your “Start” button and click Run.

Type “regedit” to open the registry editor.

Select “hkey_current_user” then “Software” and “Microsoft Windows”

Click Current Version and Internet Settings.

Right-click and create a new DWORD Value. Name it “MaxConnectionsPer1_OServer” and set the value data to 10 or higher.

Create another DWORD Value, name it “MaxConnectionsPerServer” and set the value data to 10 or higher.

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MaxWebDesign.eu

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

As I noted in a previous entry today, I’ve been floating around a lot of different websites in search for new and interesting ideas. I would also like to add a few more websites to my RSS reader (courtesy of Google of course) so finding any sites that will spark my interest are more than likely going to make it into my bookmarks. Today I found maxwebdesign.edu, it’s a blog for web design and being as I’ve done the same thing here on my own site. While there isn’t any major “Web Design” going on with this particular site, there are a lot of resources here for everything from improving your Google rankings to SEO. Based on it’s description, it’s a magazine styled web design related blog where the owner – Robert G – writes as much as he can about his projects, websites, marketing and SEO tips. I enjoyed going through all of the articles, I really like the way Robert has set the “featured article” on the header of the page. The current feature is “Using link popularity to boost your position” and after reading through it I have to say that anyone who’s new to any aspect of SEO would find this site to be a really good resource.

It’s worth checking out, trust me. Head on over to maxwebdesign.eu if you don’t believe me.

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89 PC Tips – Web

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Over the course of the next couple of days, I’m going to post quite a few articles in relation to the 89 best PC tips. This will include everything from Audio, iTunes, Email, Productivity, Mac OS X Tips & Tricks, Security, Travel, Video, the Web and even Media in general! This is a very well thought out and well written list originally from Laptop Mag. I enjoyed reading this article so much that I decided it was worth re-publishing. All of the original copyrights are in place, the next series of articles, titled 89 best PC tips, are completely credited to LaptopMag!

The following series of tips is in complete dedication to the Web.

#1 – Get More Out of Google
Google does a lot more than search: Type “two dollars in yen” and find out how much a Japanese tourist pays to ride the New York City subways. Picking up someone from the airport? Type the name of an airline and the flight number to see if it’s on time. The same can be done for packages: Enter a FedEX, UPS or USPS tracking number into the search box to see where in the world it is.

#2 – Use Shortcuts
A well-placed keystroke or mouse click will help stave off carpal tunnel syndrome for another day. To find text as you type while surfing, press the “/” key. Want to open a new tab? Simply double-click on the tab box. Text too small to read? In either Firefox or Internet Explorer, click View > Text Size.

#3 – Clear your History
In the hands of a micromanaging boss, your Web browser’s history could mean trouble. Holding Control-Shift-Delete will clear private data quickly, but to clear history as well, go to Tools menu in Firefox, select Options > Privacy > Clear Now. In IE, select “Delete Browsing History” in the Tools menu. Truly paranoid surfers can opt for Firefox to clear all private data every time they end a session.

#4 – Give Widgets a Try
Sure, you could go for Google’s or Vista’s Gadgets, but Yahoo Widgets 4.5 (free – widgets.yahoo.com) is more aesthetically appealing, and offers a greater variety of fun desktop tchotchkes. The standard weather, sports scores, and news widgets are all there, plus unique widgets like the Drum Pad, which lets you create musical beats from your desktop. The Office Videos widget lets you watch clips from the hit show without having to launch a browser. Other favorites include the iTunes bar for controlling playback (complete with album art) and JC Sticky Delux (digital post-it notes).

#5 – Put the Surf in Surfing
Instead of visiting the same sites everyday, use StumpleUpon’s add-on (free – www.stumpleupon.com) for your browser to find new sites daily. Input your interests – music, religion, news, games, and more – and the service will feed you all the sites it thinks you would enjoy. Once you’ve discovered a bunch of hidden gems, you can create your own StumbleUpon profile with your favorite sites for others to see.

#6 – Get Smarter RSS Feeds
Google’s recent revamp of its Reader (free – www.google.com/reader) makes it even more powerful by adding a recommendation tool that suggests feeds based on your reading habits, and a tool that lets you share favorite posts with colleagues through Google Talk. Too many feeds? The new drag-and-drop filing system comes in handy.

#7 – Make the most of LinkedIN
Increase your connections exponentially on LinkedIn (free – www.linkedin.com) by importing contacts from Outlook, Facebook, and other databases. Inputting your full job history will make your profile appear in more searches, as will changing the URL of your public profile to include your full name.

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Staying Fit

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

As you may or may not know, I’ve been on a pretty strict diet for the last 10 months and I’ve been doing pretty well with it. Not only have I lost 55 pounds, I know that I’ll reach my 75lb goal sometime within the next couple of months. Just in time for summer! There were a lot of resources around the Internet that helped me to get through the past year and I have to say that I wouldn’t have gotten through this without it. While it’s not exactly a ‘weight loss’ resource, I found a site online that’s helpful in regards to general fitness supplies. When AllegroMedical initially hit the Internet, they offered up medical equipment and home health care supplies. They’ve done very well and have since expanded and are now offering Exercise & Fitness Equipment as well as Nutritional Dietary Supplements.

Their website is really easy to navigate, I found something kind of cool called Superfeet. It’s an Insole that’s great for anyone who’s into Skiing, Snowboarding, Running, Hiking & Walking. It’s great for support, balance and shock absorption. And at only $31 it’s a great price for someone who goes on as many walks as I do. I’m outside for about an hour a day, I bring Bella along with me and she’s absolutely loving all the exercise as well. She hasn’t been feeling very well for the last couple of days so she’s refused to leave the house when I have my walking-gear on but that’s OK, it’ll warm up and she’ll want to join me once she’s feeling up to it.

For those days when I’m in the house, I’ve been considering the BOSU Balance Trainer I can still get my strength training but I don’t have to head down to the gym in the complex to do it. It’s so stuffy down there, and since it’s such a small room with only 3 different exercise machines, it really gets rather boring. I can use the balance trainer in the privacy of my own room and I don’t have to worry about dealing with the really icky smell that the clubhouse is known for.

Thank goodness for the Internet.

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89 PC Tips – Video & TV

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Over the course of the next couple of days, I’m going to post quite a few articles in relation to the 89 best PC tips. This will include everything from Audio, iTunes, Email, Productivity, Mac OS X Tips & Tricks, Security, Travel, Video, the Web and even Media in general! This is a very well thought out and well written list originally from Laptop Mag. I enjoyed reading this article so much that I decided it was worth re-publishing. All of the original copyrights are in place, the next series of articles, titled 89 best PC tips, are completely credited to LaptopMag!

The following series of tips is in complete dedication to Video & TV.

#1 – Mix In Photos and Music
Create a digital trail mix of your personal media with Pinnacle’s free and easy to use VideoSpin (free – www.videospin.com). Simply drop in your music, photos, and videos, and add titles and transitions. We like the included sound effects, especially the different types of applause you can mix into performance videos. Once your VideoSpin project is finished, click the Make Movie tab and select one of the common video formats. From there you can save the project to your PC or upload it directly to the Web for sharing.

#2 – Edit Movies in Hi-Def
If you’re going to spend a small fortune on a hi-def camcorder, you should spend just a little bit more and make sure that what you capture has that professional quality look. Vegas Movie Studio Premium Editioin ($119.95 – www.sonycreativesoftware.com) provides drag-and-drop video editing in the HDV and AVCHD formats, and it lets you enhance your footage with more than 100 video effects and put in seriously sleek titles. It also includes 5.1 surround sound mixing and encoding. Although the interface can be intimidating for newbies. Sony provides Show Me How interactive tutorials.

#3 – Wrangle all your media
Roxio Easy Media Creator 10 ($79.99 – www.roxio.com) has all the multimedia tools you could ever want. You get a serious all-in-one photo, audio and video editing suite at a reasonable price that offers high-definition video capture and editing. A three-step wizard auto-edits your movies, and each of the bundled programs have intuitive menus so you won’t get lost in a project. This suite is also mobile-device friendly; it lets you transfer music, photos, and video from your PC to your Cell Phone or iPod and back.

#4 – Watch HDTV anywhere
There’s a seemingly infinite amount of video to watch online, but the picture quality often leaves much to be desired. The Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-950 USB stick ($119; www.hauppauge.com) lets you watch HDTV right on your notebook. A portable digital antenna plus right into a compact USB stick that has an over-the-air ATSC digital TV receiver built in. We loved being able to watch high-def channels at full screen resolution, without any hangups or skipping. Bonus: The device supports Mac OS X and Windows.

#5 – Kick back with this keyboard
With HDMI ports becoming more common on laptops, it’s never been easier to connect your PC to your big-screen TV. Logitech makes it easy to control the action from the sofa with its diNovo Mini Bluetooth keyboard ($149 – www.logitech.com). Just plug the included Bluetooth dongle into your laptop, then sit back and use the built-in trackpad for navigating Windows Media Center or surfing the Web. A compact keyboard allows you to respond to e-mail or type in URLs from across the room.

#6 – Stream prime time to the small screen
You already pay for television at home, so why pay for it on your laptop? Free high-quality streaming is Hulu’s (free – www.hulu.com) specialty. The site provides full episodes of current and past hit shows, and they look surprisingly good at full screen. You get lots of content choices, including Family Guy, 30 Rock, and Heroes. The interface is one of the best we’ve seen (trumping Joost and Veoh), and we love the “dim the lights” feature, which strays out the rest of your browser to make the video really stand out.

#7 – Mix Things Up
Putting raw videos on YouTube is so 2007. Jumpcut (free – www.jumpcut.com) lets you upload your pictures and video to the Web and mix it all together to create a slick movie. The robust community functionality allows you to grab anything you see to use in your own creations, or completely remix other Jumpcut members’ movies. It takes a bit of time to upload videos, but you can split the clips and add music, as well as add transitions and titles, within the online interface.

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Summer’s Coming!

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Summer is fast approaching and the last 70+°F days have proven this. It’s absolutely gorgeous outside so sitting all cooped up in the house just isn’t an option for me. Yesterday I spent a lot of time in the yard cleaning out the weeds and doing some general maintenance to make the front lawn look a little more appealing. There is a lot that I’d like to accomplish, and it all requires money so hopefully business starts to pick up soon.

It’s difficult to figure out which is the ‘garden’ and which is the grass when it comes to our yard, it kind of all grows into eachother and looks absolutely horrible. I wanted to pick up some bricks or even wood to setup a border, making a mini fence. I’d then like to fill the garden with fresh soil so I can plant nice clusters of flowers, the soil down here is so sandy that it’s hard to really grow anything. Then I’m going to pick up a few packs of solar lights, I figure 8 would be enough for the front lawn and that will make it a bit brighter around here at night as well. That should cover the visual aspect of things.

Then comes the comfort. While we don’t have a wide porch, we have a very long one that covers the whole length of the front of the house. Right now I have two plastic chairs from Walmart with a couple of side tables and a plastic bench in the middle. I absolutely hate it but it was affordable. I’d like to make it look really nice with a few Adirondack Chairs. I figure two of those with a nice little table in the middle would be more than enough to give me the comfort and the look I’m going for. When it comes to the nightly time spent outsde, the lights along the front garden and a couple of candels to keep the bugs away are all I’d really need.

Then comes the back yard. We’re not allowed to fence it in so I’d like to do a simple little seating area behind a privacy screen. You still get all of the sunlight but you can relax without someone staring at you. I’d definitely need a nice Market Umbrella and I’d love to put a few Adirondack Rockers back there as well. Throw in a little fire pit and maybe a few flower pots and I can’t tell you how happy I’d be to spend my summer tanning outside while I’m getting my work done. That’s a great thing about working from home, you can spend the day outside enjoying the fresh air and still get a nice glow from the sun.

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The World Is Yours Now

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

I spend a lot of time floating around the Internet. The bulk of my time is reading into new Business and Technology techniques and products, but my downtime consists of weblogs written by bloggers from all over the world. Today I spent a few hours floating around on Blogspot. I have to say that I enjoy going through their “Next Blog” option. It gives you the ability to go through a big database of bloggers without having to open a new tab to have a links page to refer to, it makes life a bit simpler when you have way too many windows open!

I just finished reading a new blog (well, new for me) called The World is Yours Now. It’s noted as a blog that houses Financial information for the regular person, giving you advice on business opportunities and how to go about them so that they benefit you. I had to go through quite a few site reviews in order to find any Financial informatioin but that’s OK because I really do enjoy reading what other people have to say about Websites around the Internet, so of course having a whole database of them to fish through was great for me. There were a lot of articles that didn’t really fit on this websites theme, but my blog also bounces around so that’s not a big deal either.

This bloggers reviews are very short and to the point. I know that websites aren’t easy to comment on but as someone who used to run a fairly popular Review site, I know a thing or two about how to get around that.

As far as strong content is concerned, there were really only one or two articles that stood out for me. The one I liked the most was in regards freelance writing, it was conveniently titled Tools for the freelance writer on the net where you’re given information how to go about properly creating your niche or being a general topic creator. There are thousands of companies on the Internet looking for content writers and getting involved in Freelance Writing can really bring in some good money. I’ve dabbled in it a big myself but I unfortunately lost touch with my contacts.

My only gripe with this particlar site is I was unable to find the bloggers name, but I’ll just consider them a Ghost Writer heh.

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