Archive for the ‘Sponsors’ Category

Makeup Tips

Friday, April 27th, 2007

With vanity steadily rising over the last 200 years, women are doing everything they can to make themselves look…well…like someone else. This has nothing to do with cosmetic surgery, it just has to do with cosmetics in general. Women are wearing foundations/concealers to hide their imperfections and create a blank canvas to work on. They’re using blush, bronzer’s, lipsticks and eye makeup to bring their ‘natural’ features out.

MakeupTip.com has several tips for making your eye makeup look better. The tips include methods to achieve the sophisticated look, elegant and dramatic eyes, natural-looking eyeliner, brighter and wider eyes, as well as well-defined and well-groomed brows.

The site also houses information on how to master the basics of perfect skin with secrets to a natural/flawless look. They also teach you how to hide imperfections and give you an all-day flawless finish. They teach you how to create a natural and rosy radiance on your cheeks and even how to shape your lips, creating the perfect pout that’s smooth, soft and supple.

I’d say this site is a valuable resource for every aspect of your makeup needs.

World Travel: Amsterdam

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

Recently an old friend of mine moved to Amsterdam. I’m not sure he moved there for the…kosher…purposes but I do know he loves the environment (when he’s not stoned at least). So it got me to thinking about the places around the world that I’d like to visit and oddly enough, after doing some research through easytobook.com, I learned quite a bit about Amsterdam that I didn’t know before.

I was already aware of the red light district, but show absolutely no interest in it…even though it seems to be one of their key attractions for coming there. I also knew of the Anne Frank house but there’s an erie feeling in my stomach when I think about going through it. What I wasn’t aware of, and was basically ignorant for it, was all of the museums. By my count there are EIGHT of them for you to visit during your stay. There are also quite a few theaters as well.

I’ve also priced a few things in relation to a stay there. A four night stay will only run me about $1,000. Of course this is just for the hotel stay, there really wasn’t much listed about air-fare, I guess that can be factored in later though. It may actually be a prominent possibility for a future trip, who knows.

The nice thing about easytobook.com is they also show you the pricing in two other countries, Barcelona and Rome. In the future they’ll offer prices for hotels in London and Prague, not just Amsterdam Hotels. It may be worth keeping it bookmarked for future reference.

Streaming Video Made Easy!

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

It’s always interesting coming across new products. While I admit to not being an avid online video watcher, I do pay close attention to the ones that I do. I came across a FREE program today that you can save any video to your computer, phone or media devices. You can watch video’s on demand from around the globe while surfing the web. You can browser over 4 million videos from thousands of categories. You can watch these video’s while you surf the web with the “Float” option. They offer the latest in news, business, sports, weather and more. It is a streaming video player called LePlayer. It’s the most comprehensive video search tool out there, and it’s 100% FREE.

System requirements include:

Microsoft 98, ME, 2000, XP or NT 4.0
A 300MHz or higher processor.
128MB Ram
1024×768 resolutions
TCP/IP network connection

Based on my website stats, I know that 90% of my visitors have the minimum requirements for this program. I can find out what browser you’re on, what screen resolution you have, plus your version of windows and network connection. Based on these alone, you can download this program. It’s completely free and really makes your video surfing much easier. For those who are really into internet clips, this is almost definitely the script for you.

Lowest Unique Bid…WINS??

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

PPPI love coming across new sites that offer awesome products at great prices. The coolest new bookmark of mine is bid4prizes. It’s what you’d consider to be a typical BID site but the cool thing is that the LOWEST UNIQUE bidder actually wins the auction. So say you see a product that you probably wouldn’t spend more than $5 on. If you bid for like $4.37, you’d most likely WIN the bid…nifty eh?

Right now they’ve got a Scion, Plasma TV, Apple iPhone and other products listed. You text in your bid, choose the lowest unique price you can think of and for literally pennies you can bring home a new car. I don’t care who you are, your personal preference, or what kind of money you have. If you can get a ScionXB for 87cents, you’d take it. I know for sure that I would.

I just sent in my bid for the Apple iPhone, I’ve been interested in it for a while but wasn’t willing to spend like $600 on it, maybe I’ll win ::hopes::

Head on over to bid4prizes, trust me – it’s worth it.

Bid4Prizes

Savings and Back Pain … run together.

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

The office is too small to accommodate both Baby and I during the summer months. It’s literally like sitting in a box, because of this we’ve been working on redoing things to use the best amount of space without filling the room with useless items that we don’t need. He’s told me that he’d be willing to get another desk but I’m not one who likes the idea of a perfectly good desk being thrown out. I do know that he’s going to be upgrading to two LCD monitors sometime in the near future so that will cut down on space, which is exactly how the room will be rearranged. I do actually want a nice setup in there but in order to do it, I’m going to have to do some serious pricing on very important furniture.

We can’t spend all our money in the office though, we’re in dire need of bedroom furniture because there’s no way we can handle the setup the way it is now. I need to get some kind of a window ledge put together so Bella can have her seat back. Up until a few days ago we had the big chair underneath the window but since the air conditioning vent is right there, we wound up moving it to another side of the room – she’s now lost her seat. I want to build a box that’s an extension of the window ledge there now and then have a small ramp or stairs to help her get up to it. Now she’s making the attempt to jump up in the window (the way a cat would do) but since she’s NOT a cat, she doesn’t quite know how to contort herself to get where she needs without smacking her face in the window, or just plain falling off the ledge. It’s only a 2 foot drop and she leaps further than that whenever she hangs out in the book case.

So I need to get a night stand or small book shelf that’s open underneath for the air to come through, we also need a new bed. Of course a mattress is more important than a frame at the moment. Baby is already willingly sleeping on the floor, he hasn’t even done anything to deserve it but he’s got no choice based on how his back is feeling. I’m tempted to flip the mattress up and sleep on the floor with him. We may wind up doing that sooner than anticipated at the way I’m feeling.

From sitting in an uncomfortable dining room chair all day, to sleeping on an even more uncomfortable bed – my back is beyond messed up and all I can do is hope that some serious cash just falls into my lap so I can start doing some remodeling that will benefit not only the size of the room – but my back in general.

I’m most likely going to go with greatpricedfurniture.com because they literally have what they advertise, great priced furniture. Baby’s mom works for a furniture store and even at the factory direct prices, before the 300% mark-up the furniture is better quality and cheaper. So why not stick with affordability instead of paying an employee’s salary who just told you what colors you could get something in, you know?

Acquisio Search

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

Since a lot of people use their websites for monetary purposes, it’s not that rare to find out that they’re involved in multiple Pay Per Click sponsors on the side just to help bring in the extra cash. There’s a company named Acquisio that’s created a PPC Management Software. It integrates your Google Adwords, Microsoft Adcenter and Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns, giving you the top level overview of all marketing efforts, the ability to analyze trends and the powerful ability to correlate the impact of changes on performance.

It’s powerful features include:

  • Imagine all of your PPC creatives, keywords, bid strategy, deployment and reporting, rendered in a single, beautiful flash environment
  • Provides agencies with a white labelled reporting interface ?¢‚Ć‚Äô Clients think it’s your own ingenious solution
  • Proprietary reporting measures the impact of every change on the performance of campaigns for variables like number of clicks, click-through rate, cost per click, average position, conversion rate, cost per conversion, and ROI
  • Deployment interface that is intuitive and simple, while powerful enough to exploit each individual vendor’s specific rules
  • User friendly interface – Your clients don’t have to be PPC experts to understand exactly what is happening with their advertising efforts
  • Official Google and Yahoo! (Overture) API integration, MSN forthcoming (Full scalability for further integration projects)
  • Collaboration at a new level. From within the interface start blog like threads, share excel and word documents, message, post to-dos and take snapshots of any report you like, then add your own annotations

Whether you’re an agency, small company, or large web presence, acquisio SEARCH offers the flexibility to accommodate your needs and coordinate all of your paid advertising efforts, on any scale, at a price you can afford.

I think this is a program that any one with these companies should consider. I should let Baby in on this because his boss’ website is LOADED to the rim with ads, maybe it’ll help him bring in some more cash – on top of the few thousand a month he makes anyway – haha.

Billing made easy…

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

As a business owner, I’m always looking for new and interesting ways to make my life a little bit easier. I do not have a traditional billing system for my hosting clients, one of the most commonly known products is Modern Bill, I didn’t see the point in having a subscription payment going out just so I can keep track of the subscription payments coming in. Because of this, I use a very hassle-free method, a 3 ring binder. I have one for each server and each client is listed in alphabetical order (by domain name) with their email, Paypal address, and account status. All of my invoices are sent out with Paypal. But once a payment is received, it’s marked off on the users page as “Payment Dates” and since it’s mainly in pencil, I have a ‘running balance’ section to show exactly how much each client has made me.

Simplify This The problem is that, while this is a very organized process, it’s a bit more time consuming than I’d actually like at the moment considering everything going on. I’ve come a program for online invoicing and payment named Simplify This. It’s a web-based application that lets the user (you) easily invoice clients and get paid faster online. It’s designed for freelancers, small businesses and independent professionals. It helps you free yourself from using a complex accounting software so there will be no more forgotten invoices, and no software to install. Since it’s web based, you can use it anywhere. So if you’re at the library, work, home, or any other computer in general – you can still access your records. It does help for those whom do frequent conference calls with clients, this way you can log into your account and check on it anywhere.

There are some key features to this program. It’s easy to use, you can customize it to your business needs, invoices are sent via email, you can accept payments online and then track your payments as well. It even records one-time and recurring charges. Right now it’s currently a free trial, I think it’s worth trying out…don’t you?

Too Confusing!

Monday, April 23rd, 2007

I’ve decided that I have no choice in the matter, I’m going to be getting myself an actual credit card sometime in the next few weeks. I love the idea of only spending what I have but now that I’ve moved, finances have changed and my outcome is a slight-bit higher than my income for the time being. I figure it’d be easier to get myself a simple card and work from there. My problem is finding the Best Credit Cards for my needs.

Who do you currently have your cards with? I know that there’s really only Discover, Master card, Visa and American Express. The thing is, each of those cards have quite a few companies attached to them, so which one are you with? Baby is with Chase and while they’re great for student cards, they aren’t that great for non-students looking for low interest rates. At this point, I’m not sure of where to turn. Sure, there are sites like creditcardsearchengine.com to help me out, and they have, but I’d like to know what my peers are using as well. So any and all comments on the subject would be nice.

In order to get a card with an interest rate under 14%, I need to have excellent credit. While I do have a high credit score, I’ve never owned a credit card so I’m completely stumped as to how to go about pursuing the “Excellent” credit based cards when I don’t even know if I’d pass. I know the proof is in the pudding and it only requires actually trying it, but I guess I’ll have to keep searching for it.

How secure are you?

Monday, April 23rd, 2007

PPPWith identity theft steadily increasing over the last 10 years, it’s important for computer users to really make sure they keep on top of everything they do on their computers. Some may be thinking “Oh, it’ll never happen to me – I have a difficult ten+ character password for all of my accounts!”. This doesn’t mean it still can’t happen to you. Just sending out an email, you send out more of your computer information than you realize. It’s important to be secure in what you do, it’s really not that difficult either.

It’s kind of rare to come across a website that offers you a highly secure and free program to protect your confidential and personal information. One of my newest bookmarks is SecureZIP – The next generation of ZIP. With this program you can secure information stored on PCs such as tax records, bank statements, medical records, passwords and other private data all with the click of a button. You can automatically protect email messages and attachments sent to friends, family, banks, accountants and others that you normally would share sensitive information with. This program integrates flawlessly with Microsoft Outlook?Ç¬Æ to automatically encrypt, digitally sign and zip email messages and attachments.

I downloaded the program just to test it out and it’s fairly simple to use, you can download it for yourself at www.securezip.com. It’s a completely free download and only requires a valid email address to get your hands on it. Use it to keep yourself secure. With all of the terrible things that can be done to users online with the smallest bit of information, why not look for a way to protect yourself? If you happen to come across a free program like SecureZIP, I’m sure you’d realize the importance of taking advantage of this offer as well.

Disclosure: SecureZIP

A+ Certification

Friday, April 20th, 2007

Baby is really into computers, so much so that he’s basically had a hand in building every computer being used in the house. For quite some time now he’s been considering going to school to get his A+ Microsoft Certification. There’s a school down here that offers it, A+ Certified ON THE BEACH! is it’s selling point. He doesn’t really like class rooms though. While doing my usual daily surf I came across PrepLogic. They offer Microsoft MCSE Training, CompTIA A+ Certification, CCNA, Network+, Security+ and CISSP with PrepLogic Practice Exams and Video Training. The main point of the company is to complete the skills you need to get certified without ever having to open a book. The LearnSmart Video Training gives you a complete classroom experience, without having to leave your home. For those who learn better on a one-on-one basis then home training is obviously the way to go.

If you’re looking for your certification, maybe you should consider heading over to preplogic.com.

Silver, Gold, Precious Metals and INVESTING?

Friday, April 20th, 2007

Have you ever gone to someone’s house and saw a collection of coins that you found interesting? Maybe they had silver bars or a small collection of gold bars and you thought they were pretty amazing to look at. I know that typically you wouldn’t find items like that sitting out but if you know someone who actually likes this kind of stuff, you’d be surprised at what you can find.

Gold used to be the unique investment, it was a sign of wealth, and while all monetary value in the US government is based on the gold in the vaults, silver is also pretty valuable as well. The world demand for silver exceeds annual production and it has every year since 1990. The above ground stockpiles of silver are low and shrinking so rapidly they’re approaching ZERO. The US Government was once the largest stockpiler of silver on the planet, it dumped billions of ounces of silver bars onto the world market. That government silver hoard is now gone and the US is only a silver buyer, for that reason – if you can get your hands on it – the bars represent a pretty outstanding investment opportunity.

If you’re at all interested in purchasing gold, silver or other precious metals you should check out the Monex Deposit Company. For over 30 years they’ve been America’s gold, silver and precious metals investment leader. That’s sure to aid in your decision of whom to purchase your precious metals with.

Tattoo’s and You…

Friday, April 20th, 2007

Before I got my first tattoo, I went through quite a bit of trial and error in regards to what designs I’d want, the placement, etc. It wasn’t just a choice on the fly to permanently ink my body. When I would finally decide on a design, I’d get an airbrush tattoo so that I can work on accepting it. There are very valuable resources out there in order to help you with your ink choices, and they don’t require a needle going into your skin at all. Resources like TATstore.com should be very valuable to you. They have stencils, air brushing equipment, temporary tattoos and even tanning solutions. This way you don’t have to concern yourself with anything permanent before you do something you’d regret.

Their ‘starter system’ includes over 250 starter stencils and it even has over 1000 body crystals if you’re interested in textured body art. Some may purchase kits like this for parties but I’m sure you could also turn it into a business where you’re the one who’s paid to air-brush at parties…it’s a win-win situation. You get tattoo-quality paint that lasts up to two weeks on your skin so you don’t have to worry about it falling off you in the shower the way you would with standard peal-and-stick temporary tattoos. They’ve even got glitter tattoo’s for those looking for a bit of glam.

It’s definitely a site worth checking out if you’re interested in body modification that doesn’t require losing any blood.

I’m now up to 8 tattoos, with up to five possibilities in the future, and thanks to systems like these. I know I’m very proud to show them off for the rest of my life.

Download Database

Friday, April 20th, 2007

For my few remaining years in school, all of my friends seemed to be into surfing around the net to download anime. Sometimes they’d come across decent sites but for the most part, they found the most unorganized and poorly coded websites that you couldn’t navigate around without getting dizzy. I’m still in touch with a few of my friends, some of which are still into Anime and Manga so when I came across animeground.com, I was very quick to send them the links.

PPPThis site offers over 4,000GB (That’s 4 Tera bytes!) of free & paid anime/manga/dramas. Their free section offers direct downloads at high speeds and there are hundreds of series and movies available for your enjoyment. I’m not sure how long it’s been around but it seems to be a very popular website considering during my time of visiting there were about 200 members online, I don’t think that counts the actual visitors on the site but when you see numbers like that, there’s obviously a reason behind so many guests coming back to the site.

Surfing through their site I came across many different series. I honestly wasn’t aware of how much anime/mange actually existed. When I’d see the images being used on website headers and what not, I thought that they were the same person in different outfits. I’m not too big on Anime so I have no idea who anyone is. I come to find out that they house over 603 Anime Series, 452 Manga Series and over 143 Drama Series.

I think anyone who is a die-hard Anime/Manga/Drama fan should seriously consider checking them out.

I need a chair … NOW!

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

With the rate of my back acting up the way it has, I’m officially going to be surfing through my favorite coupon codes at Staples. The chair that I’ve been using is absolutely killing my back and I really need to get a new one. Since Free Shipping on order $50 or more is one of the oh-so-nifty codes listed, I’m going to get myself a new chair. In the process, I think we’re going to get Baby one too, his chair is leaning to the right and it’s royally messing up his back.

While doing a search around Staples, I came across a couple of chairs that actually didn’t look too bad. They were in the $70 range, but there’s also some sale going on around here with a couple of chairs being like 50% off for over-stock or something like that, it’s store based. So I figure if those are the ones on sale then I’m basically getting two for the price of one and shipping is still free, plus no tax so yay for that. I need to go to Staples and sit on a few chairs to feel ’em out. It’s easy to buy something based on looks but considering he and I are on a computer for at least 10 hours a day, comfort plays a huge role as well.

I don’t know why more people don’t use coupon codes when they shop. It’s not like there’s anything wrong with saving some money with the things people buy the most. If you can use a cut-out coupon at the supermarket to get twenty cents off a box of orange juice, than you can use the codes online to get free shipping or 30%-50% off with no problems either.

FlipTrack.com

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

I’ve got my newest bookmark and it’s probably one of the cooler ones to ever come across. FlipTrack.com uses patent pending technology that lets users create their own music videos using their photo and video content. Their technology automatically matches images to the rhythm and beats of the song which makes it easy to create movie-quality videos. There are a few examples on the site, you can find them in the fliptrack.com browse section. They have videos in all categories and after watching a few of them, I have to say that they’re fairly interesting. The images morph in and out the way any slide show would but it really does morph them to the beat of the background song. A few of the ones I came across were rap songs, not in my personal taste, but there’s so many to choose from that it was easy to find a video or two that I like. I think you should check it out, those of you with large photo galleries and a play-list would have some serious fun with it, I’m sure.

Head over to fliptrack.com, you may enjoy yourself.

Doggie Horoscopes!

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

PPP As many of you may know, I consider Bella to be my absolute pride and joy. For the past three years she’s brought me nothing but happiness and I couldn’t ask for anything more in a dog. People have gone, for quite some time, believing in astrological and zodiac signs. What I wasn’t aware of, at all, was that there are actually dog horoscopes. How freaky is that?

Bella was born on February 2nd, which makes her an Aquarius. Her horoscope for the month:

AQUARIUS – Your pets are very restless this month. They are excited and want new things to happen. They will pester you to pay attention and play with them. They can be a little annoying in their quest to have some fun. Try to be patient and do what you can to keep them entertained. Playing outside now can be very helpful, especially with spring here.

The pretty funny thing is that she’s been like this for the last couple of weeks. She’s been persistant with wanting to be outside and hasn’t really cut me a break as far as wanting attention is concerned.

Her actual sign break down is:

AQUARIUS – This little pet will bring home every other pet in the neighborhood. They love everyone and everything. Once they get the new friends home, it is up to you to entertain them and keep them. They have done their job when they bring in strays. Now you fix them up.

When they are not busy with other pets, they can do very, very strange things. These are the pets of the weird and unusual. Just when you think they are going to do one thing, they change their mind and behave totally differently. Never one for routine, these little guys change their behavior for the fun of it. Where Capricorns were great in school, these guys will defy anything that looks like restrictions, school or anything that might impede their freedom. Don’t keep them restricted too long or they might find the need to leave you and find freedom in the world.

Don’t cuddle and pet them too much for they really don’t like too much closeness. They need their freedom to be the unusual pet they are. Not one for being bored, they will stir up trouble just to see what will happen.

Don’t ever feed them the same thing twice. They will let you know when you have crossed that line and will become very disapproving when you do something that you have done before. Unusual and different are their key words. Being another Air sign they are talkers and very verbal. Look for them to be barkers and pets that express their needs all the time.

This one I’m not too sure about, she’s kind of a cuddler by default but her actions with other dogs is kind of strange. When it comes to the two other dogs in the house she’s kind of the baby-sister/brat of the house. She’ll pick on Candy and she’ll knock Princess over without any real care in the world. She’ll dive from higher places (the couch, chairs, etc) and land right on top of her. Baby thinks she grew up watching WWF Raw, which is strange considering I’ve never even watched anything in relation to the WWF…lol.

So maybe you should all take a gander at these sites and learn some more about your furry friends.

This is a sponsored post.