A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

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.

I love tinkering around with computers. When I was young I learned a little about programming those old Commodore 64s. But that won’t get you very far with today’s machines.

Magic Software Enterprises has released a free edition of its eDeveloper software. They say you can use it to build applications quickly, without writing any code. Sounds intriguing to me.

They are running a promotion in which you can win an iPod by building the coolest application. So if you are an aspiring developer, why not give it a shot? I just might try it myself.