Good Deals!

As a kid, I’ve had this fascination with languages of the world around me.

I once tried to take basic Spanish and French classes in the same year — I was in third grade. That act alone showed me an appreciation for people who have command of more than one language, because that year showed me how hard it is to learn a language solely by hearing it OR seeing it.

While checking my email accounts (goodness, I have many of them), I stumbled across a link where one can, for Free: Learn English with audio.
Given that English is my native language, I was inclined to toy around with the site, to see just how well it was done.

The home page is essentially bare, save for one Google AdWords box, and the flash object containing the flash cards (no pun intended), which I find to be a very good idea. Nothing says “Learn English” better than a gigantic flash ad for Verizon High Speed FiOS, right?

The Flash box on the page has five labels. Four languages are supported on a path to learn English: Spanish, French, Russian, and Hebrew. There is a standalone label that gives only the English, with no transliterations or translations of words to English, as well as the aforementioned language labels, whose contents come complete with a transliteration of the way the word sounds, as well as the audible enunciation of the words.

For example, I chose French.
For appliances, I see what we call a Stereo in English:
Stereo, sti’(r)io, chaîne stéréo
The first is the English spelling. The second is a transliteration of how we say it in English, and the last is the (familiar) French way of saying the same object. If I clicked on it, I’d hear the “sti’(r)io” as the enunciation.

It’s a pretty healthy way to teach the basics of words, though I admit, I don’t miss conjugating verbs with these cards (simply because I hated conjugating être in my French classes).

I can see how having a free resource to begin learning English as a Second Language from would be so useful.

[tags]ESL, English as a Second Language, Polyglot, Linguistics, Learn English, Contributors[/tags]

Well, I’ve been playing with my phone too much lately.

I’ve found that the TV channels on Sprint aren’t too bad, but the [adult swim] channel was miserable, at best. That channel leaves much to be desired, because it’s not showing any shows, but instead is showing 30 second to 1 minute shorts of content that can be watched on a television. To spend $4 a month on this would be an insult to me, really. (However, the $5 I’ve spent on the ATAKU channel was soooo worth it. Evangelion, hoooo~)

The software is a mixed bag, though.

AOL Instant Messenger’s not worth paying for on this phone:
The menus for the application are inconsistent — too much hunting around to get things done. There’s not enough visual cues in the software — I have to keep looking around to see if I’m in the text box.
The settings for the program are non-existent. I can’t tell the bloody thing to turn off the vibrator when it’s receiving a message. This causes the battery to drain faster than any other application on this phone (it’s actually neck and neck with watching Sprint TV).

The paid games on Sprint are mediocre, really, but they could be worse.

I’ve also spent some time looking at other sites, such as Zedge, GameJump, and Cellufun.
I’m finding free games to play for my phone, which are ad supported, but the ads’re not too bad.

Ah, time to go to work.

For those of you who are keeping track of my roadmap posted a little while back, you may have noticed one or two ‘complete’ flags listed.

I’ve gone and done a full update on that map to bring it up to speed here, so that you can see where I’ve gone, and where I’m going to go from there. Once I get the stability portion handled, then I can add other things that I feel that I need to get done to the list.

Right now, biggest priority is to get a vehicle, to make it easier to get to and from work.
I’m currently paying a coworker to get me back and forth on four days of the week, leaving me to my own devices on Mondays (usually a taxi).

When my schedule rotates next month, leaving me off on Sundays and Mondays, it may become easier with a bicycle, which I intend to purchase soon (unless I can find a car with what I *do* have saved).

I just need to see how this will pan out.

No time like the present to throw out an off-hand reference to Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, while talking about my phone.

As some of you may have noticed in a previous post, my phone was stolen while I was in a homeless shelter. I had a normal habit of placing my phone next to me in the bed while I’m charging it up, basically sleeping with it on the charger.
After about two months, someone decided it’d be fun to steal my old Samsung A640.

At first, when I went into a Sprint location (on Kennedy Blvd. and Himes Ave.), they not only didn’t want to work with me, but they also breached account privacy by not going through a proper validation step for the account. That is, they didn’t ask me to provide identification, AND they didn’t ask me for the account password to prove that I am who I say I am.
They simply turned off the phone, and didn’t bother working with me. They could have said, “Since you didn’t have the full insurance,” (another gripe for later), “the only way we can offer a discount on the price of the phone is by renewing your contract for two years.” That alone would’ve pacified me. No, the girl was rather rude in her portraying that I would have to pay full price on the phone, and there wasn’t really any other option.

I was seething mad after that in the first store, and didn’t trust that they had even done anything, so I went to another Sprint location in WestShore Plaza. I met a rather nice guy in there, and he was much more on top of things. He actually took an effort in validating who I was before confirming that the phone had been deactivated, and I hope that the higher muckity-mucks at Sprint know to reward him for that, since I ended up calling Sprint several days later.

I called Sprint on Monday morning to just close my account.
Since the cost of replacing the phone would be more than the cost of terminating the account early, I called in, and made my complaint about that one Sprint store, gave kudos to the other, and then asked for the cancellation department.

I get a rather nice gal on the other end in Cancellation (probably labeled ‘Saves’ internally, since she did her best on this call to keep me), and I explain to her just why I was cancelling my Sprint account (the privacy issue*, the fact that at this point the cost of early termination is lower than the cost of replacing my phone with a decent one from Sprint, and a bit about how the insurance plans were portrayed to me when I bought the phone, which all pulled things together in how I wanted to just cancel and get it over with).

She asked me to hold on, so she could relay the issue to a supervisor.
She and the supervisor basically apologized for the problem, and asked if I’d be willing to stay on with Sprint if I could get a discount on a replacement phone, since I also told them that I was considering coming in the next week anyway to try getting an upgrade to a better phone (read: they saw dollar signs there).

I listened to their terms and conditions on it, which they boiled down to actually (zOMG) make sense in a short period of time, while offering full information.

I was interested, so I accepted.

Sprint is mailing out the replacement phone, and all I need to do is go make a payment for it.
I won’t disclose the amount of the payment here, but I’ll say this much:

• It beats paying full price for this phone!
• It beats paying Sprint the cancellation fee, and then buying a prepaid phone or buying a MetroPCS phone (which I was reconsidering).

The week’s beginning to look a little better, especially with the phone replacement I’m getting:
I’ll be receiving a Samsung A900m to replace my old Samsung A640. (You can compare them side by side at phonescoop.com by following this sentence.)

I just need to bide my time now.

I was reading my email this morning, trying to ignore my instructor’s “musical” choices before 7 am, and I got this email from TigerDirect.com.

In the email, they mentioned that they received a really nice deal:
CA Anti-Virus 2007 with 2GB USB Flash Drive, free after rebate.
I was jaw-dropped when I saw that, because it’s just that nice of a deal.
Spend $50 to get the software and stick, then get that $50 back in rebates.

There are some limitations that apply (Sales Tax is charged if you’re in Florida, Illinois, or North Carolina), and shipping for the item by itself is a relatively modest amount. The offer ends on March 31st, so don’t let this slide past you.

Okay! Zookoda has granted me broadcast permissions, so I can now officially run that mailing list.

Right now, the confirmation pages are generic, because I don’t have a minute to actually put together a real page here on my site, so forgive me for that. However, it is a subscription based mailing list, that you must opt in to receive content.

It should mail out early on the mornings on Saturdays, so you’ll get a weekly drop of everything that I’ve said here.

Warning: Hotmail might choke on the email, since it’s UTF-8, and Hotmail seems to have issues with that, according to the guys at Zookoda.

Sign up, and let me know what you think.

I’ve always had this thing for crafts done by hand, beyond someone smearing colors on a piece of canvas, or someone else with an unbelievably expensive camera snapping images.

When I was very young, one of my older aunts (now deceased, sadly) had, instead of photos or paintings on her walls, wrought iron wall art. I would sit in a chair in her living room, just eying these pieces, letting my eyes follow the intricate shapes that the bent metal bore, because they were just interesting in their own right.

Wrought Iron goes very well on solid colored walls, to break up the monotony of that wall’s appearance. It also stands to be a conversation piece of its own right, as people — family, friends, and guests alike — might ask you where you found such beautiful craftsmanship.

I hope to have something like the Salinas Wrought Iron Candle Holder, once I get an apartment of my own. It would go great with my habit of using aromatic candles, thus bringing a little functionality into an otherwise purely artistic wall hanging.

[tags]Wrought Iron, Wall Art, Metal Crafting, Home Decoration[/tags]

1: I am now employed by Stream, providing the function of America Online Technical Support, Entry Level.
2: Homeless Recovery is now footing the bill for me to stay at the Salvation Army, while I earn my first paycheck.
3: Homeless Recovery is offering me assistance with paying for my first month’s rent.
4: Homeless Recovery has set me up with health insurance, so I can finally go see a doctor about my throat, my knee, and my spine, at no cost to me. Medicines will cost me $1.
5: I’ve had my food stamps for a week now, so I don’t have to spend cash for most food.
6: I have a one month bus pass, so I do not have to keep paying $3.25 for the bus each morning.

Almost un-homeless now.

I should start this off by mentioning that I’m a relatively satisfied Sprint customer (I love my A640 :)), and that I enjoy the quality of service I’ve received with them since August of last year.

I also should mention that I like to give to good causes, whenever I can truly afford them, and encourage my friends to do so, as well. Part of my reason for giving is because it helps others. Another part of my reason is because some day, I very well may need that same kind of help — if the organization offering that kind of help isn’t around, how would I get that help?

This said, I’d like to mention the Sprint Red RAZR. This phone, when purchased, a portion of its proceeds go to (PRODUCT)^RED, who in turn use this money to help people in Africa with AIDS.

I found out that Sprint was the first to carry the Red RAZR, back in November of ‘06, which is a matter of pride to even me — the first cellular carrier to jump on board and help out a cause that can help save lives, and prolong a comfortable life for those who are already suffering from what is yet to be a curable disease… and I’m one of their customers. Wow.

I’m not entirely a fan of the Motorola RAZR, finding the phone to be too physically light for hands as large as mine, but for those of you with smaller hands, and those of you who needed a RAZR reason to switch to Sprint… That would be your phone right there.

To find out more about (PRODUCT)^RED, check out their official website at http://www.joinred.com/, or view the user submitted content at Wikipedia for an unofficial view of the company.

This entry sponsored by Wirefly.
Opinions expressed above exclusively represent the author, and are not necessarily the views of the sponsor.
[tags](PRODUCT)RED, Product Red, Sprint, Motorola, RAZR, Fighting AIDS, Wirefly[/tags]

I’ve been coming to [tag]Jake’s Java Joint[/tag] for the past couple of weeks or so, either just for a cup of coffee, or in the case of last Friday, to work on my coursework for my getting licensed (progress: I went from 5% done to 64.07% done in just that day).

It’s a quiet place, with a friendly atmosphere and very inexpensive internet terminals. I would much rather pay $6 per hour here at Jake’s (delicious pricing), and be able to order a cup of coffee (I have a cup of Jamaican Me Crazy right here), or a cup of [tag]cappuccino[/tag], a bite to eat, or something, than go to FedEx-Kinko’s, deal with their sterilized environment and anywhere between ~$13 and ~$19.26 per hour terminals that are very crippled (not even Mozilla installed, for shame).

Need something installed on the terminal at Jake’s? Just ask.
Need something off your USB thumb drive? Plug it in. Can’t do THAT at Kinko’s.

The environment is very peaceful.

If you’re in the [tag]Tampa[/tag] area, you should check ‘em out.

Hey, Ted.

I’m looking under the Christmas tree at all the gifts there, and none of those boxes and awkward packages belong to me.
Even the dog has more presents under the tree than I do.

I’ve looked through everything I brought with me from moving to this house, and noticed that my old digital camera (1.3 megapixel, generic camera, and required a USB cable to move pictures back and forth) isn’t among the stuff that came with me. I was getting into digital photography, learning as I go along about what makes a good shot or not.

That’s a shot I took with my old camera.
I can only imagine how much better it’d have been with a new camera, especially one of those nice HP cameras with an LCD display on the back instead of trying to get the offset to line up on a classic piece of glass viewfinder.
We’re selling an HP camera at work (I forget the model), but it’s just not in the budget for me to get, sadly. It even supports SD cards, which makes it even better for extended shooting sessions, AND for short movie making, too.

The camera in my phone is only VGA quality, which means it’s not even a single megapixel for resolution. The shots this camera takes aren’t that good, with, or without decent lighting.

I won’t be able to have one of them by Christmas of this year, but that’s okay.
I just like being remembered for gifts and stuff, is all.
Please, PayPerPost, Please pimp my Christmas Tree!

This post is sponsored by HP.

So, I was reading Recommended last night, and I saw a post there pointing out a neat new website called [tag]Giveaway of the Day[/tag].

I’m liking this site, so far.

Each day, they offer one piece of software for free. It must be installed by midnight, PST, of the same day it is promoted, or you cannot activate the free registration. It can get you some interesting applications, too. Yesterday’s application is a program that essentially expands your copy/paste buffer, as well as offers you the ability to paste frequently used snippets of text that you can configure into the utility.

They also have a sister site, called Game Giveaway of the Day.
Today’s game happened to be Mahjongg Artifacts, which I’ve been playing this evening.
I’m happy to have a simple, enjoyable game of mahjongg to play.

Check out Giveaway of the Day, or just view my sidebar to see what’s going on.

[tags]free software, software giveaway, legal software, legit software[/tags]

Okay. I still want that Free Wii.

With the new offers they have (ones that are actually better than the offers I got stuck with), there’s no reason that someone in the USA cannot sign up and complete just one measly offer for me.
They don’t even spam your inbox, so that’s not an issue.

If you were looking for an excuse to get a copy of your credit report, use my referral link, sign up there, and take the offer they have.
Quite seriously, I want that free Nintendo Wii. I want it bad, and I have to avoid spamming for it.

Hook me up, okay?

I got another email from Buy.com, pointing out some really good deals for today:

ATP 256MB microSD Secure Digital Card w/ USB Reader is one such deal. It’s $15 to buy it, and $6.14 to ship it. Then, you get a rebate form for $15. All you pay, then, is shipping, after you get your rebate back.

IOGear Bluetooth 2.1 Wireless Headset - Class 2 is another one. I believe that if you have a cellphone, and you like to talk on it, and you are driving, you need a handsfree device of some sort. IOGear’s Bluetooth headset gives you that, without wires getting in the way. What’s even nicer is, this one includes a USB charger, so you don’t have to spare a power outlet to charge your headet at home. Just plug into the USB port, and attach the headset for charging goodness.

Also, if you use Google Checkout at Buy.com, and go over $30, you get $10 off the order.
Finally, if you want to rack up the good deals, then, over at Coupon Chief, there’re some Buy.com coupons, just to sweeten the deal.

Happy shopping!

So, earlier this week, I blogged about Cellfire, and how it was unavailable for Sprint PCS users (or anyone not on Cingular, for that matter).

Fortunately for me, the rest of my family are all Cingular customers, so they let me use their phone to test out the service.

It’s actually pretty easy. They send a 71kb applet to your phone that you run. Feed it a zip code, and it connects to grab all available offers in your area.

I just need to get my aunt’s phone working, so she can use it on hers. I put it on her husband’s phone at the time. Now, if only Hollywood Video was closer to us…

I’m expecting to see some great offers pop up around Thanksgiving, though (hint: Get Subway and Quizno’s on the ball next!). It’s gotta be something good to get the ball rolling.
Either way, Cellfire is actually pretty sweet.

@ppp@
I just recently joined the cellular age, by getting my own cell phone a couple of months ago.

I’m still discovering the plethora of applications that can be applied to these things, such as games, various web browsers, instant messengers, and others. But, there’s one thing I didn’t know that could be done with cell phones: Save money.

Enter Cellfire, a service that lets you snag available coupons and save them to your phone. Then, it’s as simple as showing your phone to the clerk at participating locations to get your discount. You don’t even need a printer, a secret handshake, or a blood ritual! Just make a purchase, show the clerk your phone, and boom, discount!

Cellfire is currently available to Cingular Wireless customers, and they make it very easy to get your FREE copy of Cellfire to start saving today.

The best part about Cellfire is, your only costs to get, and use the service is whatever your provider charges you for data. So, if you are getting charged $0.01 per kilobyte, and Cellfire itself is a one time download of around 71 kilobytes… and the average coupon is just a kilobyte or two… You come out quite ahead of the game in this case.

As I mentioned earlier, Cellfire is available only to Cingular Wireless customers in the USA which leaves me sad (author’s note: Please support Sprint, Together With Nextel next!) and fireless for now, but they are working on becoming available through other providers as soon as possible.
I almost regret not going with Cingular now as my provider…

Fortunately, if you’re on a provider that’s not supported yet, you can submit your number to receive a ONE TIME (important!!) text message, notifying you of the availability of the service.

(Although I am being compensated for this entry, I really am waiting to see this rolled out on Sprint. Gives me a legit use to whip out my phone. :))

Okay, it’s October. You’ve got less than two months until Christmas, and you’re ready to just get the shopping done and over with, so you can have everything on time.

You don’t have to wait until Black Friday to see prices drop for great savings on your gifts, if you like to shop online. Using internet coupons while checking out on various websites will let you save a little cash where it counts.

If you’ve got a lot of music lovers in the family (like I do), shopping online for music can be expensive, especially when it comes down to shipping physical CDs to your door. I know I saw MusicSpace coupon codes for free shipping with the purchase of two or more CDs over at [tag]Coupon Chief[/tag].

LOOK NOW
I HAVE ALL PIECES LOOK NOW PLX!!!!

i am so jittery right now, i can’t make sense, i just hope I won, oh god oh god…

PLEASE LET ME WIN.

I, I can’t make sense of anything right now!

Calm enough now, I think, to put it in my post.
WordPress, Hold On.

$1k is worth forgetting the alt attributes on the images this time. …Well, almost. I came back, stitched the image together, and added an alt attribute, because I’m nerdy like that. I am so unbelievably shaky right now, because I think I got it in under the wire!

make money blogging. serious money.

---

Coming back to this post now that I’m much calmer, and accepting of the truth, I can only say that I am absolutely, utterly excited about the whole thing.
I do wonder, though. Will it be mailed as a paper check, or deposited directly to my PayPal Account? Or will I open my door one morning in my sweatpants to discover the PPP crew sitting on my porch with a small black suitcase, saying, “Hi, Justin. You’ve earned your reward. Thank you for blogging with PayPerPost.”

I don’t know, really. I just know that my level of excitement is phenomenal.

I’ll take a moment later on, when I’ve calmed down a bit more, and make a single image of that post, so that each person who comes to see it won’t have to deal with all those gaps that I can’t make WordPress stop inserting (because of my theme settings, I wager).
So, I calmed down, stitched the image together, and pulled it from my home box to my hosted plan here since it was faster for me to tell the shell to wget from my home box, rather than find an SFTP client, install it, feed it info, and upload that way.

I’m actually quite honestly in a high level of shock.
When I got the email, I was stunned.
When I read the other email that came with it, from the PayPerPost forums, and saw that it pointed to a very special blog entry, I was even more shocked.
I normally don’t win contests or anything. I’m usually the guy who not only loses, but loses hard.

PayPerPost…
Ted, Veronique, and the rest of you guys, all I can really say is THANK YOU! for that opportunity.

The only downside to all this excitement is, I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to take another opp.

Tell me, how often have you been out somewhere, and someone asks for your phone number, or your address so they can contact you later? Ever had to scramble to find a piece of paper to write all that down on? Ever actually thought to yourself, “Oh, if only I had free business cards…” ? To be honest, I’ve had those thoughts.

I never carry paper with me, and not everyone has a cellphone. You can’t guarantee that either of you has a pencil or paper handy, and writing on your hands doesn’t work all that well in Florida — you’ll sweat it off. Free business cards would help out with that issue — The most you’ll pay is shipping for the cards, which isn’t all that much. Then you’ll have a set of cards that you can carry around, perhaps a few in pocket, and a stack in your glove box, and they’ll have all the information you’ll want to give already printed legibly on their face.

The best thing about free business cards is that you can often get a professionally designed card for little to nothing out of pocket, and it’s great for the image you’d like to project. If you’re a small business that’s just getting started, it’s great for saving money while getting your name in the hands of your customers. Some people even swap business cards or post them on notice boards in other small businesses to get their name out to customers.

Okay, so some people out there may be skeptical.

“Another hoax?” some of you may be saying.

I have news for all of yous.

It’s not a hoax. It’s real.

What’s real?

PayPerPost is real.

 

I have pulled in $10.25 with them so far, for just two posts. I will continue with them, because I am pleased with the concept of actually making money with my efforts.
Small sites stand very little chance of profit with Google’s AdWords, Chitika’s eMiniMalls, or AdBrite. They fare a lot better with guaranteed payouts of given amounts. It’s easier to plan how one is going to pay for things, when one knows just how much is coming in for a particular ad campaign.
Here’s my receipt for my first payment from them:

Some of you may remember that from when I was so excited to see that they’d pay the first time. I spread the love then, and I’m spreading the love again.

So. I got this phone mainly to be reachable. I do think, however, that this phone will increase my desirability to potential employers. It’ll at least give of a better shot to catch incoming calls from my applications, as well. Now all I need are good job offers !

Okay, so, I wanted to see if these guys would actually pay, so I tried out a few posts with them.
You have to have the post up for thirty days to get paid, so, yesterday was the thirtieth day on one.

I get this email around 8 p.m.:

This is a notification letting you know that your PayPerPost post, It’s like Blogging… with Space on it!, has made you money. We hooked you up… if you would like to hook us up let everyone know that PayPerPost is a quick and easy way to earn money with your blog.

I am now happy.

I don’t do much shopping any more, but perhaps you all could use a good deal or two.
This week’s good deal is over at Buy.com:

Buy.com - PRIVACY DRIVE - 1GB High Speed USB Flash Drive 2.0 W/Portable Vault Software - USBPD/1GB-2.0
This 1 GB USB drive is $28.95.
They also offer not one, but two rebates.
The first one is for $10 back, as a mail-in rebate.
The second one is for up to $30 back, if you try out a service offered with the drive itself for a month. Whether you cancel or not, the rebate is yours.

Essentially:
$28.95 + $0 (free shipping!) - $28.95 - $10 = ($10).
Yeah, they essentially pay you $10 to get the drive.

I call that a good deal!