Another laptop in the family

I am tech savvy, or at least I am getting that way. I am self taught when it comes to to computers but I have also been around them for most of my adult life which means I have 30 years experience. I built my first desk top from pirated chip sets back in the late 1970's and learned "basic" computer language. Next came DOS then on to HTML. My brother-in-law use to translate programing from "C" to Pascal for fun. I now can repair laptops at the hardware level and install new OS or fix programs at the registry level.

That being said we have a total of 8 computers in the family. One desk top, 5 laptops and 2 PDA's. One of the laptops was given to me to repair by a friend and I fixed it in less than 20 minutes. The guy who gave it to me now tells me to keep it, since he just bought a new laptop. I gave it to my daughter who now has 2 laptops. I don't do it for money but it is a hobby.

At least if one of them breaks down, we have plenty of back-up computers in the house.

I am now making around $75 a day just blogging

As many of you know, I not only am a very frugal shopper but about 4 years ago I started to blog for money. It took about 2 years of blogging before I started to make at least $10 a day. Before then I was lucky to make $10 a week. In the last 9 months my income has started to jump upward. Those $10 days are gone and $25 is the minimum that I make each day. The average is around $75 per day with the occasional jump up to $150.

The biggest secret of blogging for pay is to keep at it. Don't give up after 6 months or even a year. It will happen and you WILL make money at it. Blogging for pay, for me, has become a dream come true. I can set my own hours and as long as I get my assignments done on time the companies that pay me are happy. I am glad that I have blogs that can take care of blog assignments for beauty products, diet pills, and mens products like maxoderm. I learned quick about what types of blogs those companies were looking for and started up blogs to cater to them. I never got around to the gambling blogs to cater to the casino assignments but I am sure someone will.

I have seen many people's blogs come and go. Most of them get fed up with blogging or just start out with the wrong idea about how to make money blogging. If you are still unsure how to go about making money with your blog just click on the link at the top of the left hand column for a step by step how-to.

The editorial freedom of blogging

I hate being miss-quoted. I started my writing career as a contributing writer and editor of a corporate magazine. I managed to quit that magazine after only 2 articles. The first article I wrote and edited. The second article was not edited by me but was butchered by the corporation's executive secretary who decided she would try her hand at editing. It was a simple recount of the company's annual Halloween costume contest. How anyone could mess up an article like that was beyond me, but she managed to do it. I had some details about the make-up of one contestant and I wrote "peppermint colored eye cream", which at her hand became "eye candy," which brings on an entirely different meaning. The next little mess was the description of one of the contestants. He was the head of our machine shop and he was dressed as a drag queen. His costume was very well done and in fact he won the contest. The secretary decided to add her own words and comments to my article that were not only insulting to the winner but down right insulting to me, as a writer.

The article was printed in the magazine without allowing me to see it before it went into print. Once the magazine came out I was shocked and approached by numerous fellow employees who wondered why I wrote an article like that. I was furious. I spoke to the secretary that did butcher job on my article and demanded she print a retraction and put her name on the article instead of mine. She said the article was fine and she refused to do anything. I then went to her boss who accepted my withdraw from being a contributor to the magazine. Several months later I did hear that the secretary left the company but I never did find out why. I can only imagine that she might have done one editing job too many.

That story illustrates the fact that I hate having my work edited to the point of "butchering."  I like blogging because I have the final say in what appears in print. Sure, I make mistakes, but those mistakes are mine along with my ideas and thoughts, not some half-brained editor with their self interests at heart.

A home made remedy that saves money

I was visiting with a young friend of mine the other day and she was trying to figure out how to pay for 3 classes she needed to take in college to finally get her Masters Degree. She was also putting of several medical procedures just because she could not afford them right now. When I queried her on what she had to have done, she told me that her doctor wanted to put her on accutane because of her acne problem. She does have a severe face acne problem but I told her of the best acne cleansers and cure there is, and better yet it is cheap.The cure is yogurt, just plain yogurt.

She said she tried that and I said I was surprised. She said she ate lots of it and it still didn't work. I started laughing and she then had this odd look on her face. I told her, "you don't eat it, you put it on your face." I then gave her the instructions how to do it and she said she would try it.

I used yogurt on my face as a teen and it cleared my face up and even got rid of the acne scars I had. My daughter now uses it for her occasional outbreaks. Her friends ask her why she does not have acne like everyone else.

Too bad the pharmaceutical companies don't tell people that just plain yogurt will cure acne. I guess they are too busy making billions of dollars telling people the only cure is with high priced pills that their company makes.

Investments I am glad I made

Learning how to manage money correctly has been a learning curve. When I was living at home with my parents, all they taught me was to save any money I earned. That was OK but I never learned budgeting. Then came married life and money seemed to flow through my fingers like water. That good ole' savings account was almost empty more than a few times. Budgeting became a matter of survival and not just how to save for a rainy day.

When I first got married our first investment was our house. We were lucky enough to put 20% down and had payments we could easily manage. The next investment was a life insurance policy for my husband. Initially it was purchased as something I would have when he died but as it turned out it became much more than that. We had purchased and made monthly payments on a life insurance policy that we could borrow against. I can't tell you how many times we have had to take out a small loan from that policy to cover emergencies. That life insurance policy became a life saver. Whenever anyone asks me about purchasing a life insurance policy I always tell them that to look at more than just the life insurance rates since you need to know if that policy will benefit you while you are still alive. When we purchased that policy for my husband 22 years ago we never thought we would need the disability clause that was written in the policy. It stated that if the insured became permanently disabled then the premiums would be paid in full by the insurance company and the policy would still gain value. Only 12 years into having the policy, my husband became permanently disabled. That insurance purchase was just about the best investment we ever made, right along side our homes.

I found my next new major purchase at Walmart

Some people buy shoes or clothes as their weakness in spending, mine is electronics. I don't buy everything that come out but I do like good quality items when I see them. We have a TV that is probably over 12 years old now. It still works great and we have never had a problem with it. But it is huge, not screen wise but the width from front to back. I have been holding off getting a LCD TV for some time now because I like the quality of the newer LED TV's, but the LED's were so expensive compared to the LCD. Now that the LCD is becoming old technology their price is coming down but it is the LED quality that I prefer. Not only are the LED's much thinner but the picture is clearer and more color vibrant.

I was in Walmart yesterday and they had 2 LED TV's on display. Both of them still over $1K but I can see them coming down in price by Christmas. When they get to the $600 mark I might just get one. We will then be able to watch those HDTV programs (actually we do get them now because DirecTV already broadcasts them) and see what they really look like.

I guess I had better start saving up my money. It won't take that long since my blogs are now earning me more disposable income.

An open letter to all computer makers

Dear Computer manufacturer,
I would like to commend your efforts in trying to sell us computer buyers all kinds of unwanted software extras, but quite frankly - WE DON'T WANT THEM OR NEED THEM. I, for once, would like to buy a computer, laptop or netbook without all those trial software packages installed. I have a fast internet already so I don't need free trials for AOL, Earthlink and other dial-ups (do people still use dial connections?). I don't need a 30 or 90 day trial of Mircosoft this or that because I don't plan on spending another $100 for their software just to write a letter. Yes I like to play games on my new computer but those Tangent games are also a joke, why would I want to pay for "wild coins" to play a game on my own computer! For those people who do like those games you can download them from Amazon for under $3 with out needing "wild coins"

I know that you try to protect us consumers with a prepackaged anti virus software but quite frankly Norton should not be the software you should have picked. Next time try Avast or AVG which are both 10 times better than Norton or MacAffee. Yes I know that Avast and AVG are both free to use but that does not make them low quality.

I have a better idea. Why not have a store that sells computers just sell the computer with a bare bones operating system and include a "credit" for the consumers choice of what added programs they want or need. The software then can be loaded on a flash drive right in the store so the consumer can take it home with the new computer and load in the programs as they need them.

It is nice to buy a computer with a 320 Gigabyte hard drive. When I get it home and find that at least 30 Gigabytes have been used already by crap software I feel cheated. Please don't cheat me.

Your customer


I know that some computer manufacturers have already heard their customers and have stopped installing junk on their new computers but the ones at the top of the list still do it. I can only hope that they read this letter.

A new email scam from Nigeria with the FBI

 I just love those scam email letters because they must think we are all really stupid. The latest one is suppose to be from the FBI but is from mrs.monicamichalfbiusang@live.co.uk with the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION as their "from" address. Here is the letter in its entirety. take note of the $150 "insurance fee" so you can get your ATM card back.

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Federal Bureau of Investigation

J. Edgar Hoover Building

935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20535-0001

ATTN: BENEFICIARY

This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have thoroughly completed an Investigation with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network System that your ATM-CARD is currently with the (S.P..S) Stanbic Postal Service in Nigeria. We have ordered the Federal Government of Nigeria to contact FedEx, Dhl, Ups, Stanbic IBTC, HSBC and other firms to release the bank draft and ATM cards to the SPS (Regular Mail Service), So that they can be mailed out to the rightful owners, because there are too many complains/Rip Off Report coming to the desk of Federal Bureau Of Investigation that people are not getting their Instrument to cash their funds and gratuity, e.g people are not getting their Bank Draft and ATM Cards due to the fact that people are not meeting up with the required demands and amount imposed by some of this delivery companies, firms and other sectors and constant require of fees that are too much for people to handle or pay.

We have completed this investigation and we have verified the entire transaction to be Safe and 100% risk free, due to the fact that we have been assured that your ATM CARD will be delivered to you once your Full Name and Address is confirmed. Delivery of your ATM-CARD is free!!! You only need to pay $150 for insurance only. Therefore, you are instructed to contact the Stanbic Postal Service with the Information below:

CONTACT INFORMATION NAME: Mrs.Monica Michael

E-MAIL: (mrs.monicamichaelfbispoof@gmail.com)

Do contact Mrs.Monica Michael. of the ATM CARD CENTER with your details:

FULL NAME:

HOME ADDRESS:

TELL: CELL:

CURRENT OCCUPATION:

So your files would be updated after which he will send the payment information which you'll use in making payment of $150 via Western Union Money Transfer or Money Gram Transfer for the procurement of your Approval Slip after which the delivery of your ATM CARD will be effected to your designated home address without any further delay. Please if you know you cannot be able to afford the $150 for the delivery of your ATM card via courier company then do not bother to contact Mrs.Monica Michael. we are in the beginning of new year and he should be busy with some other things.

We order you to get back to Mrs.Monica Michael. Only right away. FBI Director

Robert S.Mueller III.

Note: Do disregard any email you get from any impostors or offices claiming to be in possession of your ATM CARD, you are hereby advice only to be in contact with Mrs.Monica Michael. of the ATM CARD CENTER who is the rightful person to deal with in regards to your ATM CARD PAYMENT and forward any emails you get from impostors to Monica Michael so we could act upon and commence

Me back in again - now who in their right mind would contact the FBI at a gmail address? And send all of their contact info to them too? I really got a laugh at that last paragraph about the "impostors," didn't you?