Cell phone reception is seriously spotty here in the mountains. We’re very fortunate to get a good signal where we’re living now. I had the long distance cut off because we get free long distance with our plans, and we have enough rollover minutes to talk until doomsday.

It’s kind of ironic. Rural areas are where one needs a cell phone the most, in my opinion anyway. I guess if I was in a really bad neighborhood in the city I’d want one in case I had car trouble or something, but otherwise you can get to a phone pretty easily. But breaking down on one of these isolated back roads can be pretty scary. Yet in the places you need them the most, it seems that there’s no signal.

I remember one year when my mom and brother and his family came down for Pumpkin’s birthday. I told them to call if they needed further directions. But they ended up being a half hour or so late. They said they missed a turn and had trouble getting back on track. When I asked why they didn’t call one of us, Bro said they hadn’t gotten a signal on their fancy unlocked cell phones the whole way down here. They couldn’t even get one at the park where we were, yet our phones had good signals.

Maybe it has to do with the network or something. I can pick up intermittently around here, but once I get across the state line when I’m going up to visit them, it’s all over but the crying until I’m almost there. But I can pick up in town up there. I wonder why?

My computer has reached new heights of slowness. It’s absolutely driving me crazy, but there’s no money in the budget for a new one (not even that killer laptop deal that’s mine for the taking). So I’m stuck with it for now.

If there’s anyone more technically inclined than me reading this (I’m sure there is), maybe you can help me out with something. I have my writing files in a folder on my desktop with subfolders for each of my clients. I create a subfolder in the client’s folder for each assignment, which consists of anywhere from one to 30 articles (usually 10 or 15). When I’m done with the assignment, I right click on its folder, go to “send to”, and click “zipped folder” to create a compressed folder to send to the client.

Problem is, every time I do this, my computer slows down to a crawl. When I open the client’s folder, it’s like it already knows what I’m going to do. All the icons disappear from my desktop, sometimes the folder window goes blank, and it takes forever for it to straighten back up. I’m talking sometimes 10 to 15 minutes. It’s not exactly frozen because I can move my mouse, and can sometimes get as far as right-clicking the assignment folder and having the menu pop up. But when I point to “send to”, it just sits there, icons popping back up and reappearing, and that’s it. When it gets done with its little dance, I finally get the “send to” sub-menu, and I can click on “zipped folder” and it’s done within a few seconds.

I thought maybe the folders were too full, so I went through and removed all of the old unzipped subfolders that I didn’t need any more. That didn’t help a bit. I’ve also tried defragmenting, to no avail. Anybody have a clue what could be going on and how to fix it? I would be extremely grateful for any help on this, because it’s affecting my productivity.

Hubby and I recently got new cellphones. Not really because we had the money lying around, but because our old ones both quit working. Our service provider happened to have a great deal on Razrs at the time, so that’s what we got. And I must admit they’re pretty sweet.

They’re not the new Razr 2s, but refurbished Razr V3Cs. We don’t require the latest and greatest of everything, so they’ve got plenty of features to keep us happy. But I still haven’t gotten them completely figured out yet. I don’t know if you can add flash memory to store more ringtones and pictures and stuff or not. And although someone told Hubby that you can use voice recordings you do on the phone as ringtones, I haven’t figured out any way to do that. Anybody know how, or if it’s even possible?

I’m not crazy about their reception, but this is the mountains and it’s hard to really get a good signal in a lot of places. Still, Hubby has called me from the same location on someone else’s phone and it has picked up a zillion times better. But that’s about the only real beef I have about them. They’re pretty, have just the right amount of bells and whistles for us, and the price was right.

At my high school prom, they gave away those little plastic keychains that you can put a wallet-sized photo in. They were quite nice, with the school name and date of the prom on them. My keys went on mine as soon as I got my prom pics back, and they stayed on it until my high school sweetheart and I parted ways. I guess I could have put a different picture in it, but that logo was still there and I wasn’t interested in even seeing that every time I got ready to leave the house.

Technology has given “photo keychain” a whole new meaning. Now you don’t have to cut a picture and put it in your keychain. All you have to do is hook it up to your computer and upload it. And you can put tons of them on there, not just one. I’d love to have one!

Today’s Gizmos, Gadgets and Tech and WholesaleKeychain.com have teamed up to give away three digital photo keychains, complete with engraving. Wholesalekeychain.com has a great selection of automotive and sports keychains, as well as a selection of digital photo keychains. Other than the photo ones, my favorite would have to be the Mach 1 Mustang. Now if I just had a Mach 1 Mustang to go with it, I would order one.

Head on over to Today’s Gizmos, Gadgets and Tech and enter to win. They make great gifts!

There’s no way I can get a laptop right now, but I found out that I might be able to get a great price on one when I am able to. Hubby’s cousin told me that his brother-in-law fixes up old laptops. He puts in new hard drives, laptop memory and whatnot, and he sells them at great prices. He said he just sold one for around $250!

Of course I expect to pay more than that. I’ll need something that has lots of pep, since I often have 10 or 20 browser tabs, a couple of instances of Word, email, and maybe a spreadsheet going at one time. But he will now be the first person I talk to when the time comes. If he can’t do it for a reasonable price, I guess I’ll either get one built at a local place I went to a few months ago or order one from HP.

A couple of years ago, I was considering becoming a web designer. I’ve always enjoyed tinkering with computers, and I had dabbled in it a little. I seriously thought about going back to school for it, but then I realized that my calling was to be a writer. I still like to play around with HTML and CSS on my sites, but just don’t think I have the motivation to learn all I need to know to do it for someone else.

Over the last few decades, the advent of the internet is arguably the most important change in contemporary society. It is ubiquitous and irreplaceable in our modern world. Yet, very few people understand the nuances of ecommerce website design. The vast majority of companies are way overpriced, and don’t offer a product that is worth the cost. Website design is crucial; however, it need not break your bank. Elitesitedesigns.com is a professional, creative, and fairly priced company that can offer you the website of your dreams without squandering your life savings in the process.

I’ve been browsing laptops for a week or so now. Hubby has offered to buy me one, and I’m not going to turn him down. I can definitely use a new computer, and a laptop would be awesome.

I would like to know that I’m getting the best possible product for my (well, Hubby’s) money, though. So I’ve done some shopping around, and I’m not done yet. CouponChief has tons of online coupons, so they were one of the first sites to cross my mind.

And guess what? They’ve got some really awesome HP coupons. There is one that was added today for $200 off on a customized notebook. Consider it bookmarked.

I enjoy looking at the stars on a nice, clear night. But I’ve never studied astrology, so I have no idea just what I’m looking at on any given night.

Enter the Meade mySky Personal Planetarium. It’s a stargazer’s dream come true. You can simply point it at any object in the night sky, and it will identify it for you. It will also map out any object that you wish to find. It has images, video, and audio descriptions of over 500 objects. How cool is that?

The Meade mySky Personal Planetarium would make a great gift for the astrology buff. I wouldn’t mind having one myself, even if I don’t know the first thing about astrology. It would be a great way to learn.

If you’ve been following my humble little blog, you have probably read about my efforts to work from home. Back in September, I was jobless and looking for a way to make decent money online. I applied for several freelance writing jobs, but didn’t hear back from any of them. So I ended up having to go back to work outside the home, and put freelancing on the back burner for a while.

A few days ago, I got an email in response to one of the inquiries I made back in September. It was for a huge web copywriting project with a quickly approaching deadline. There’s no way I could have done the whole thing by myself, but if the first assignment went well I could do as many as possible in the allotted time. I accepted the first assignment and got to work on it.

I had to work the next day, so that set me back a little. Still determined, I pressed on and got a substantial amount of work done last night. I lost my internet connection a time or two, but chalked it up to computer problems and kept going.

This morning I turned my computer on to get back to work, only to find that I could not get online at all. I fiddled with my computer for about an hour before I decided that it might be a good idea to call tech support. I did… and they informed me that there was a DSL outage in the area and they didn’t know how soon it would be fixed. Lovely.

I searched the whole house unsuccessfully for the phone book, because I was going to call the library and see if the outage affected them. Then I saw that my neighbor, who has dial-up, was home. I called her and asked if hers was working, and she said it was. So I got my stuff together and went to her house to work on it.

I got some work done there before I had to go to town. When I got home, I tried to get online and found that my DSL was once again working. I’m still having some email problems, but I got done with the assignment.

I can’t believe after a year of having no problems with my internet connection, it decided to crap out on me when I needed it the most. At least it’s fixed now. As I later found out, the library was affected as well as the rest of the county. At least it wasn’t just my neck of the woods- if it had been, they probably would have been in no hurry to repair it.

When I first discovered paid blogging, I was cautiously optimistic. It seemed too good to be true that I could get paid for something that I was already doing and enjoying. But I took the plunge, and I’m glad I did.

Blog advertising is growing in leaps and bounds, and many new companies have sprung up since I got started. How do you know which one is right for you? You could try to find bloggers that are using each company and ask them. But that could prove difficult and time-consuming. Or you could visit the paid blogging forums at GeekySpeaky.com.

At the Geeky Speaky forums you can find topics about all of the players in the paid blogging game. And under each one you will find discussion between bloggers who have used the service, including tips, strategies, and known issues.

If you’re already familiar with paid blogging, be sure to sign up and share your thoughts. There are also other Internet-related topics, as well as general chit-chat. It’s a great place to learn about all things blogging.