I've got a fun idea for holiday presents for the grandparents - do a slideshow of all the great pictures throughout the the year and give them to them on a personalized flash drive.
The folks at PexagonTech.com have ones that have Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas designs and as well you can upload your own design or logo. What a cool idea. You could do "Jones Family Slideshow 2008" on there and put a ton of pictures on.
Here's some of their features:
* Choice of 14 colors
* FREE Laser engraving on BOTH sides!
* Choose from one of our 32 exciting Themes such as "#1 Teacher", "Sports" or "Butterflies"
* Personalize the back with two lines of text
* Available in 512MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and 16GB capacities
* Hi-Speed USB 2.0
* Shipping is $4.65 and only 20 cents for each additional drive.
* No Minimum order!
I've never bought anything from woot.com before but this tasty deal caused me to jump in. This is a website that sells just one item at a time for a discounted price until they run out.
I got a Kingston 16GB USB 2.0 Data Traveler Thumbdrive for $28.99 shipped. I paid for it out of my bloggy earnings. Yay for Izea and Payu2blog. Yay for Amazon.com affiliate program.
Kingston 16GB USB 2.0 Data Traveler Thumbdrive
You ordered 1
Kingston DT100/16GB 16GB USB Data Traveler.
which each cost
$23.99
for a subtotal of
$23.99
plus shipping
+ $5.00
for a total of
$28.99
In other shopping news,my new washing machine was installed on Sunday. Its a front loader from Kenmore - very fancy. My old one had a broken knob for years and then finally it stopped moving from one part of the cycle to the next. Since it was 17 years old, I figured that instead of buying new parts, I would replace it with an energy and water efficient model. I thought about shopping for a washing machine know but the thought of installing industrial knobsand parts - and then finding out it was still broken didn't appeal to me.
Shutterfly is having a site wide sale. Here are some of the offers they currently have going. I am excited about the buy 1 get the rest 1/2 off calendars as I make digi scrapped calendars for my family each year.
The prevailing wisdom in business is that once your product reaches a low price point and very little differentiation in value between brands, (the product is commoditized) you should no longer work hard at selling it and look for another new market that is not yet saturated.
The old fashioned way of doing business was to develop a good reputation in your chosen business and then your customers would come to you, even if the product was just the same down the street. They knew and trusted your business, and might even be willing to pay a premium for that trust and familiarity.
Today, with internet sales and bevies of competing outlets, finding the sweet spot in pricing is more important than ever.
I was thinking about how in the coffee franchises business Starbucks actually reversed the commoditization process and turned coffee from a .99 cents commodity to a gourmet item with a brand name and premium price. Pretty clever.
Check out this video of the author of "The Love you Make" blog use voice recognition software to write a 280 word blog post in under 3 minutes. That's 1.7 words per second. She is using
Dragon NaturallySpeaking which I have blogged about before in terms of how it can be used by people with disabilities to make computer access easier. I am a pretty decent typist, but I suffer from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and boy would it be nice to avoid having to type so much. I think it would drive my co-workers crazy to listen to me though. If I ever decide to write that Romance Novel that is stuck in my head I would definitely try Dragon again.
PRESS RELEASE THAT GOES WITH THE VIDEO
In this YouTube video, you can see a blogger using Dragon
NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred to write a blog article with in
WordPress.
The author of The Love You Make, is using this voice recognition
software after having the software for just a few days. She writes this
great little article that's about 280 words long in about two minutes
and 45 seconds. That translates into about 165 seconds of typing, or
1.7 words per second. That means she's typing a little over 102 words
per minute with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
Plus, she's just getting started with the software!
Dragon NaturallySpeaking has come a long way over the last decade,
and now can enable people to type at 150 words per minute. I myself,
have clocked version 9 at 167 words per minute, and I'm seeing even
better results out of version 10. The software is extremely accurate,
and can make many of your typing chores exceptionally easy.
As a blogger myself, I am able to write longer articles, with more
complete thoughts on a subject in a significantly reduced amount of
time. I have been working to challenge bloggers to try Dragon
NaturallySpeaking and see if they can use it to help improve their
writing. I think bloggers have an enormous amount of potential, and I
always look for tools that will help them unleash that potential.
I think that Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a great tool that can
definitely help bloggers increase the value that they offer their
readers. I can envision a blogosphere where bloggers are able to take
the time and provide insights into their wisdom and experience and
ideas easier and faster because they can get their thoughts out quickly
and completely using Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
I hope you will consider using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It has a
price point that starts at about $99. This is the version that you
would use if you only use the software with your computer. If you
intend to use the software with a pocket voice recorder, which could
enable you to have your MP3 files of your voice transcribed into text,
then you may also want to consider opting for the Preferred version of
the software. The Preferred Version starts at about $199 and has many
options.
I personally recommend the preferred version, but I do understand
that times are a little tough financially for many people including
myself. I still recommend it, because I do believe that you will see a
significant return on your investment. Spending $100 or even $199 on
Dragon NaturallySpeaking will enable you to type at 100 to 150 words
per minute. It has been my experience that you will not get as tired
from typing, you will not suffer from eye strain as much and as a
result will experience fewer migraines or headaches, and you will be
able to move around your office, your home, or your work environment
because you will not be locked in front of your computer sitting in a
chair typing and mousing around with your fingers.
I do believe that Dragon NaturallySpeaking can help you to be a
better writer, to write as a more in-depth blogger, to produce better
content, and to produce more content. I believe this because I have
seen it myself. :-)
Please consider watching this Dragon NaturallySpeaking video so
that you can see for yourself just how well Dragon actually speaking
works.
Sincerely,
Brett Bumeter
Softduit Media
PS I wrote this 575 word article using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.
It took me about three minutes to write and about three minutes to
edit. :-) Even with editing time, that's 95 words a minute!
This video really made an impact on me. It's from the site Conservatives for Change and features various life long conservatives, and Republicans who are breaking a life long history of voting Republican to vote for Obama this election.
My three blogs are hosted on Typepad. I really like Typepad for the ease of use of their service and the fact that you get templates you can use and also easily do a custom header and graphics for your blog. I don't mind paying a monthly fee, and in fact, since I monetized this blog last Aril, (Google ads, sponsorships, and affiliate program through Amazon) my blog has paid for itself and more.
However, there are times when you need more webhosting than Typepad can handle. For example, I am frequently jealous of some of the goodies you can add to Wordpress coded blogs for example the page curl feature. Typepad does not have this.
You also want to go for real webhosting if you need to do web commerce (shopping cart), mysql, php, have a forum, etc.
If you are looking for imformation on web hosting a good site I have been working with is webhostinggeeks.com. In particular their webhosting blog has a lot of interesting articles on what to factor in when you are choosing a web hosting company.
One interesting article from the blog recently talked about how Host Gator, a web hosting company, is using buying carbon offsets to offset its carbon emissions.
