More Free Icons

Found another place for free icons.  http://www.iconfinder.com/

Make sure you check the license.  Most are free but not all.  There are over 100,000 icons to choose from though, so great find!

Septic Cleaner Alternative

We've had a major septic eruption this past week.  It's still not all taken care of yet.  We've had the plumber out a couple times and the septic guys out a couple times.  We still need an excavator to come out and check our septic field. Although we still have problems, we did learn about the wonders of Buttermilk.  So there was something good that came out of cleaning up piles of poo for a week. (right?)

Apparently instead of buying chemicals like Ridex or Eagle Septic Clean, you can pour a gallon of buttermilk down your sink or in your toilet once a month.  The butter milk has the same enzymes to break down the waste with out the chemicals.  I haven't been to the store to check for the price of buttermilk compared to Ridex.  It may be cheaper.  Even if it is a little more expensive, I think I like the idea of something natural to take care of... well something natural.

Check Your Credit Score For FREE!

I think everyone knows about www.annualcreditreport.com by now. Once a year you can check your credit report from all 3 credit reporting bureaus for free.

I myself did this about 5 or 6 months ago, right around tax time when I was going to pay off some negative credit with tax return money.

Yesterday I stopped at my local bank to see about getting a signature loan.   The loan officer told me that they can usually work with people as long as they have a minimum credit score of 680.  He also gave me a great website to go check myself so he wouldn't ding my credit score.  I thought there HAD to be another company that offered credit reporting information and wouldn't you know it, there is!

The site he gave me was quizzle.com.  Not only can you check your credit report, but it will also give you your credit score.  For FREE.  What's the catch? Well of course they want you to buy something.  They offer services/software to help get your finances in line, monitor your credit and protect yourself from Identity Theft.  BUT if all you want is your credit information, you can get that with out giving them your SS# OR credit card number.

Logo from Quizzle site Sept 2012

This site is offered by the same people who came up with Quick Books, and Quicken.  So it's not a fly by night, steal your information kind of company.

One of the great things about this is that you can check your credit score before you apply for a loan.  If you see your credit score is too low, work on fixing your negative credit, and THEN apply for a loan.

Time Zone Converter

Sometimes I have to make phone calls to other countries.  This morning I opened an email directing me to contact someone from New Zealand.  I did a quick check on Google "What time is it in New Zealand?" and came up with 10:45 pm.  (it's currently 6:45 am in Eastern TN).  Well I could take the time to do the math and figure out what time it would be here when their office opens at 8am in the morning, but to be honest I'm tired and my brain is fried.  So I had a program do the conversion for me.

Time and Date.com has a lot of neat features that helps you when dealing with business, or even family internationally.  What is even better is that it allows you to add several cities.  So let's say that after I talk to these people in New Zealand, I then have to do a teleconference with my client in California.  I simply add in the goal time:  8am in New Zealand, and then add my city, and my client's city in CA, and viola.  8:00 am (tomorrow) is 4pm here today in TN and 1pm here in CA.

How handy is that?  There are more scheduling features that are helpful.  But I'll let you explore those!

Web Design Cheats & Tips

Memory, not being what it should be, and seeings as how I don't design every day, I often need to look up simple coding practices when making a new website.  

Here is my own little cheat sheet

Help with colors

Color Combos: This site helps you choose compatable color schemes.  Love it.

Color Picker Here is w3 School link for HTML Hexidecimal colors.  Has lighter and darker shades which is super helpful:

Optimize images

Image Optimizer: If your image is way too big (file size and wxh) then you can shrink it here online.

FROM your regular HTML pages:

Referencing Style Sheets:

<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="tis.css" />
</head>

Referring to Div: 

<div class="navlinks">
</div>

FROM the CSS document:

Font Family sample:

body {
  font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

Divs:

.navlinks {
    text-align: center;
    margin-left: auto;
 }

Here is a great W3C reference to font-family attributes:

Web Style Sheets Tips & Tricks

Work From Home Leads

Are you interested in Working From Home?  I know a lot of people who would LOVE to work from home.  I am one of the lucky (?) people able to from the convince of my home office.

I'm sure that most people think that it is an ideal situation.  No boss breathing down your throat, you can work in your jammies, if you have kids, you don't have to worry about day care, if you have health problems then you don't have to worry about missing work.  These are all legitimate reasons to WANT to work from home.

It's not always so cut and dry though.  First of all if you have young kids, like under 5 years old, it is very difficult to juggle working at home and taking care of your child(ren).  I have four children, ages 10, 7, 5 and 17 months.  Trying to wear all of my "hats" during the summer is extremely stressful.  I want to be super mom and super employee and super "house-wife" but trust me, only a true superhero can be all three at one time.  I've found it virtually impossible to have any kind of professional "phone" persona with young children running wild in the background.  And if you do have an office with a closed door, there is no way you can let a 1 year old run around the house for 8 hours a day unsupervised.  Or even 1/2 hour!  So my office is the front room with a baby gate in place.  The baby stays in here with me.  If the older kids or hubby is home, I may keep the kids on the other side of the gate while I'm on conference calls.  But luckily the people I work with know that I have young children and work with me.  I don't have a call center job and only have to touch base via phone to clarify projects.  Most of my communication is done through email.

So to recap, working from home with small children takes a very disciplined structured home environment and tons of patience, as well as the willingness to give and take on your expectations.

You may be wondering how people get work-at home jobs.  If you have already been searching you may be extremely discouraged, because most searches for work-from-home jobs will show you results that request money for the privilege of giving you information that may lead to a legitimate job.  BEWARE.  If anyone asks you for money RUN AWAY!  Hang up, don't look back.

I've been working from home since November of 2005.  My first gig was as a transcriber for a company in Canada   The work was fine.  My husband worked 2nd shift and I usually worked while the kids were sleeping or in the mornings when my husband was awake at home.  In 2006 I answered a craigslist ad for a web developer position and ended up becoming more of a jack-of-all-trades.  I've been with that company every since.  I've also picked up some editing and writing gigs.  The pay isn't much for my main client so I'm always scouting supplemental work.  Along the way I've applied for hundreds of other jobs.  Some scams and some I've never heard from again. A few short gigs have resulted.

From my vast experience with applying for virtual jobs, here is a hint that may help.  On your resume, remove any personal information if you are going to apply to a job with an unknown company.  I have a resume specifically for applying to work-from-home jobs that only lists my email address and phone number.  I don't list my home address for virtual jobs.  You never know where you are really sending your personal information and better to be safe than sorry.

LEGITIMATE FREE RESOURCES:

Ratrace Rebellion.  This is a great website.  The people that run the site give you FREE leads every day. They also list companies by category (ie type of work) that typically look for home based workers. RRR even shows you great keywords that you can use in a search for your own work-from-home leads.  I have to say on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest I give them 11 stars.  They are totally legit and a great resource to begin your search.

WAHM.com:  I have been looking at this site for about 7 years now.  Several times a week they push out new screened job leads on their jobs page.  Since they screen the leads it helps focus on more legit opportunities, but most of the leads are from craigslist.  Be very careful about replying to craigslist ads.  Never give all of your personal info, and never give out your credit score.  I encourage you to check out any lead you have with the Better Business Bureau.  Make sure the company is legit.  Another thing to note, there are a LOT of ads on WAHM's site.  As of the publication of this blog entry, the top of middle column of the jobs page is an insert from indeed.com.  You may find legitimate job leads there, but the job leads screened by WAHM.com will be below that indeed.com box.  I usually check those out first.

QUESTIONABLE RESOURCES:

VOT appears to be legitimate, but I've never had a call back for any job I've applied for and VOT wants you to purchase software to be certified or qualified to apply for jobs.

Craigslist  You may be able to find a good work from home job on craigslist but be weary.  The way to look is to click on the JOBS heading to give you ALL jobs in a given location, then click the Telecommute box to narrow your search.  You may find a pearl hidden there.  And you don't have to limit your search to your local home town.  Try all over.

PAID RESOURCES

There are a few good lead generators that you can have access to with a subscription service.  I've tried a couple, and the one I liked the best was Virtual Vocations.  I believe it is about 15.00 a month, but you can check out the job leads before you purchase a subscription.   They will let you know the job description for free.  The contact information comes with the subscription.

Tired of Walking Through the Airport?

I like this one.  Samsonite is working in conjunction with Micro Luggage to make a scooter that folds out of your traveling case.  It's light weight and durable.  Has a spot for your lap top and a change of clothes.

Looks like you can buy it from Amazon for about 300.00.  Not something you'd want to buy if you are not a frequent flyer.  Unless you have a ton of money and like interesting, and expensive toys.

I haven't flown very often, but most recently I've been in the Detroit International Airport.  It is a long trek from departures to your gate.  The walk out for parking can be a pain too.  This seems like a nifty way to eat up the distance.

There is an alternative from Glide Gear for around $90.00.  This is a backpack with a built in scooter.   When I checked on Amazon today it is selling for 74.00 there.  Would be neat for kids that walked to school.

Ad Leads

This looks like a great deal for small businesses looking to get the word out.
This thing called AdLeads allows you to only pay for customers that sign up for more information from your company.  Great way to put your ad dollars to work.
check out the link here: https://www.adleads.com/demo/

Short Cut Keys

This isn't exactly a "find" as much as sharing general knowledge.  

Ever have one of those moments where you are happily typing away and then your screen goes funky or something weird comes up.  Thank you short cuts.  If you know what you did its easy to fix it.  If not, you may just be scratching you head, or yelling at the PC ghost to leave you alone already.  

I love short cut keys and use them all the time.  Today I was typing an email, accidentally erased a whole sentence.  Wanna know what I did?  Accidentally hit Ctrl-Z.   That is the UNDO keyboard short cut.  Wanna know how to fix it?  Ctrl-Y.  That will REdo what you just Undid.   If you want some more handy short cuts, here is a whole list of them:

• Ctrl - C to copy, the text remains in the original position and you can paste it elsewhere
• Ctrl - X to cut, the text is removed from the original position and you can paste it elsewhere
• Ctrl - V to paste contents that you just copied or cut
• Ctrl -Z to undo any action you just took. This includes typing, copying pasting etc.
• Ctrl-Y to redo anything you undid

FORMATTING:

• Ctrl - I to italicize text 
• Ctrl - B to make text bold  
• Ctrl - U to underline text
• Shift - arrow key will allow you to highlight single characters
• Ctrl -shift-arrow key will allow you to highlight entire words

POSITIONING

• Home key puts your cursor at the beginning of the line of text
• End key puts your cursor at the end of the line of text
• Ctrl - Home puts your cursor at the top of the document
• Ctrl - End puts your cursor at the bottom of the document
• Ctrl -E will center text
• Ctrl - A will highlight the entire document 
• Ctrl -R will right justify text
• Ctrl - L will left justify text

Miscellaneous Shortcuts

• Ctrl - S will save your document
• Ctrl - O brings up a menu that allows you to open a different existing document. You can use your tab key navigate through this menu and down arrow key to go through drop menu items. If you tabbed past a section that you meant to stop at, hold down the shift key and then tap the tab key at the same to go back.
• Ctrl - N will bring up a new blank document
• F11 - this function key will put you in "full screen" mode.  Some people may not know how to get back to their desktop with out the bar on the bottom with the start key and icons of programs that you have open.  It also takes away your menu at the top of the screen to make more realestate for the program you are currently working in.  If you loose sight of everything (top and bottom) try hitting the F11 button.  It will put you INTO full screen mode and take out OUT OF full screen mode.

Hope this list helps :) 

Alternative to PhotoShop

Photoshop is a very powerful tool.  A very expensive, powerful tool.  There are alternatives.  You just have to look for them.

Here is one that works like a dream AND it is Free!
http://fotoflexer.com

This handy online software has the ability to do the following:

• Effects
• Fonts
• Shapes
• Doodling
• Distortions
• Retouch
• Layers
• Advanced options, including cropping and cutting 

I especially love the Smart Cutout and the Smart Scissors features.  Great for layering projects.

The only thing that I can't find on this software is the ability to compress images.  I'll have to play around with it some more, and if it doesn't compress then I'll be looking for something that does.  I'll share when I find it! Conversely, if you know some great freeware for image editing please share!

Free Organization Tools for moms

More free stuff!  Circle of Moms has a great post on Free pint outs that will help you organize information.   One great idea is organizing school papers from your kids for ages K-12.  Check out the article for more creative ideas on organization:
10 Free Organizing Printable for Moms

FREE Web Icons

I really like this one!  I was searching for pre made icons for a website that I'm working on.  With a limited budget I'm looking at free of charge royalty free images and found a great blog called instantShift.  They have the following article: 75 Free Useful Icon Sets for Web Designers and Developers.    Some of the links are dead now, but there are still a ton of great free icons you can use for your website.
Here is a sample of one of the free icon sets from icojoy:

I noticed that there are also a lot of content rich articles that web developers will find useful.   Check out instantShift.  I definitely recommend it!

Fictional Diary

Humm.  The (Secret) Fictitious Diary of Jasmine Quince.  May be interesting.
Looks like it just started. Will have to see if it goes anywhere...

No Pain No Gain. Literally

I was just reading some Mom blogs and the subject of Tubal Litigation came up.  There are a lot of women who are scared of the procedure.  I'm one of them.  I do NOT want a medical procedure where I'm cut open.  I am also happy with my large family.  So I opted for a new procedure.  Essure is relatively pain free (slight discomfort at the time of the procedure), you don't have to be put under, basically the doctor  inserts little coils into the woman's Fallopian tubes.  These little coils create scar tissue which blocks the tubes.  If you want to find out more about this procedure, check out this website: http://essure.com

Color Blindness a Thing of the Past?

My hubby is color blind.  A friend of mine sent me an article today discussing research into color blindness.  Apparently scientist Jay Neitz from the University of Washington is experimenting with squirrel monkeys and enabled them to see color.  Specifically they were able to respond to red signals that they were not able to respond to before.  Of course this involved injecting their eyes with a virus.  That doesn't sound so pleasant and who knows what the side effects are.  But the over ramifications of a cure to colorblindness and possibly even total blindness I think is pretty amazing.  If you want to read more about the study you can check it out here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/colortherapy/

Caroline's Cart

Now this one I think is pretty special.  I first noticed this on Facebook several months ago and thought WOW that is an amazing idea!  Drew Ann Long is the mother of a special needs child Caroline.  She came up with an idea for a shopping cart to make it a LOT easier for parents or caregivers of special needs children through adult to go grocery shopping. This cart has a full sized seat that faces the care giver, and the handle moves out of the way to make it easier to get in and out of.  Check out her website: http://www.carolinescart.com/   I would love to see this in every shopping store.  If you agree, follow Caroline's cart on Facebook.  Let you local grocery store know about them and ask them to get their hands on some.

GMail +1

Here is a neat feature in GMail that I just found out about.  If you add +1 to the end of your email address, before the @gmail.com, then it will still go to your original gmail account.  Lets say for example I have awesome@gmail.com.  I can also use awesome+1@gmail.com, awesome+2@gmail.com, awesome+3@gamil.com etc.  and any replys would go to awesome@gmail.com.  I'm trying to figure out practical applications of use for this.  So far all I'm coming up with is contest applications because usually website or contest that you are signing up for will see each new addition as a unique email account.  You'd still get the spam though.  Something to ponder.  If you think of a good use for this feature let me know!  :)

Hello Technorati

This is my shout out to Technorati.com
E5UKE9FRXZZF

PepperPlate.com

Here is a fun app that I found on my nook. It's called Pepperplate.  You can control it on your nook, Kindle Fire, smart phone, or go to Pepperplate.com.  This is a recipe app that has it all.  I put their Add Recipe button in my bookmarks bar on my computer and when I visit my favorite recipe websites, all I have to do is click their handy dandy button that I added earlier, and viola! the recipe gets put into my recopies list on Pepperplate.  From there I can create a meal plan for the week and even have it create a shopping list from me.  I know there are other websites with similar features, but this one also lets my lay out my favorite store by department so that I can print out my grocery list by department.  I LOVE little time savors like that!  I'm the kind of person who will write a grocery list once, then rewrite it to group items by how the store is laid out, so this is a perfect app for me.  Plus I can access my shopping list on my smart phone.  There have been times I've taken off for the grocery store and forgotten my grocery list, but never my phone. Great little app.  And wanna know one of the best features?  It's FREE!

Can I Have a Mint Please???

I truly hate sweeping and mopping.  It is one of those chores that has to be done.  With a one year old, anything that I don't pick up, sweep up etc, he'll find and put in his mouth.

There is a new bot sweeper and mop called the Mint.  It has an indoor GPS nav system that you set up in your house so it knows where it has been and tells the little bot where to go.  Nothing hard to set up or anything, just a box that you set on a table.  It would be wonderful to have the sweeping and vacuuming done for me.  Only hiccup is that the system is $300.  

I'm still not sure if this is a good price or not.  I've poked around a bit, and it seems like a lot of automatic sweepers are in the 200-600 range.

One thing about the Mint though, I originally thought it was a vacuum, but its not.  It's a sweeper.  You put the dust cloth on the bottom which attracts the dirt.  Then you can put the wet cloth on it.  It has a reservoir that you put liquid into which will keep the cloth moist during mop mode.  Just things to keep in mind.

If I were in the market for a 300 auto cleaner, I do believe this would be my choice. 

Blender Love

OUT OF THIS WORLD BLENDERS!

Check this out! Nicole Dinardo of Un Amore is an amazing artist who custom paints out of this world artwork onto blenders. These things are really eye candy to decorate your kitchen.  It's a retro look that is bright, colorful and fun. I think some of the coolest blenders in her gallery are the WWII bomber nose art themed blenders.  It's a great look for the curves and shape of the Kitchen Aid blender.

How To Tell If An Egg is Fresh

My good friend Ginger told me about a way to tell if an egg is fresh or if you need to throw it out.  It has to do with whether or not it sinks when you put it in a bowl of water.  I can never remember if sinking is good or bad.  Today I found a blog that has a post about how to peel a hard boiled egg.  In there it happens to mention how to tell if an egg is fresh or not.  If you're curious, you do NOT want a floater.
Check out Secret Tips From The Yummiverse for more information about the best way to peel a hard boiled egg as well as cute illustrations of floating eggs.

Way Back Machine

Lets say you are a web developer and someone comes to you and says that they lost their web site.  They let their domain name lapse or it was hacked.  What ever the problem they don't have the back up files but want a copy of the site back up and running.  If you don't have the back up files to work off of, you may not have to recreate the text of the whole site.  Check out Archive.org.  They have this stupendous program called the Way Back Machine.

The Way Back Machine is a collection of archived websites that was started in 1996 all the way up to a few months ago.  It is possible that they may not have archived the site that you need to restore, but if they do, then you have just saved yourself or your client a ton of work re-creating those "lost" pages.

In my book, that is totally awesome!

Facebook Terms of Service in Bro Speak

So I wanted to check out the terms of facebook. Yada yada yada bla bla bla. I got the info I needed, but then came across The Entire Terms of Facebook in Bro speak. :) 
I got the info I needed AND a good laugh. (Warning, lots of f-bombs) 
http://slacktory.com/2011/08/entire-facebook-terms-of-service-in-bro-speak/

Jason Good - 365

I love a good laugh.  Yesterday I came across the blog of Jason Good.  Now THAT is a funny man!  The way he describes parenthood had me rolling.  He takes every day life, things that every parent can relate to, and describes it in such a way that you are sitting there laughing and nodding your head.  Here Here Good Sir!  Spot on!  Even if you aren't a parent, it is still hilarious.  If you get a chance, go check out his blog:
Jason Good -365

Best Mother's Day Present EVER

In honor of Mother's Day I'm writing about this really amazing little photo frame.  This would be exceptional for an elderly mother/ grandmother who doesn't have internet and is not tech savvy.  While I realize it is too late to purchase online this year, it is definitely something to keep in mind for next year.  Or perhaps a birthday or just-because-I-love-you gift.

My husband originally found this.  He was looking for a photo frame for his grandparents.  They don't have a computer or of course internet, 'cuz why would they if they don't have a computer.  They are not really tech savvy.  They live in a beautiful country setting in northern Kentucky back in the 'holler.  Grandma has constant requests for pictures of the grand kids.  I don't send them nearly as often as I should.  Mostly, I take pictures on my phone and email them to myself or other family members.  But of course I can't email them to grandma because she doesn't have a computer.  That's where this photo frame comes into play.

Ceiva makes these neat photo frames that will hook into your phone line.  You don't need internet connection.  It assigns your frame a unique email address.  Your friends and family email pictures to the frame and over night the frame will connect to Ceiva and capture 40 new pictures to download and display on the frame for the next day.  GREAT way to get new pictures to grandma.

Nook Tablet: I LOVE YOU

Where to begin, there are so many cool things out there!  But the coolest to personally land in my own two hands is the Nook Tablet.  I am soooo incredibly psyched about this little toy!  Jason, my hubby, bought one for me for my birthday.  The man knows me.  True, I've only had it for two days, but so far I can't put it down.

I LOVE to read.  I love romance novels.  Science Fiction.  Spy Thriller.  Time Travel.  If there is no plausible way it could happen in real life, I totally eat it up.   I can feed my thirst for reading very easily on this cool little nook.  The first night it arrived from FedEx I downloaded 27 free books.  Say good bye to $17.00 late fees at the library.    Now I can check books out from the library through my nook, and it automatically checks the books back in for me.  OK, I still have to pay that $17.00 bill, but after it's paid off look out world!  No more physical library visits for me.  100% virtual! By the way, for those of you in TN, the link to your local library digital collection can be found here.  You still have to use your library card to check out, but Happy eReading.

There are some great features for kids on this tablet too.  We spent about a half hour going over an interactive 17 page Marvel Comic book: Marvel Avengers: Iron Man.  The kids made the bad guys shoot at Iron Man and helped Iron Man suit up.  Loved it!


Then our one year old played an app called Fly Bird Fly.  You are supposed to keep tapping the bird so he doesn't touch the ground.  Kind of like that paddle ball toy where you keep whacking the rubber ball that is attached to a paddle via a rubber band.  It is a bright orange bird.  Alex loved this game.   He wasn't able to keep it in the air, but he had fun chasing it around the screen with his finger.

Still a lot more to explore on this little device, but what more can I say?  Magazine subscriptions, instant access to new books, cool apps that EVERY ONE can play, access to email, SUDOKU.  The list goes on and on.  This little device will keep us all entertained for quite some time to come.

And So It Begins

So lately I've been posting all these random links on Facebook.  My timeline is starting to look like an eclectic adspot.  Check this out!  On Sale, Buy it now!  Partly I do it so that I can actually find this stuff again in my own feed.  And partially because I find this really cool stuff and I have the need to share.  Today I said to myself "Self," I says.  "You aught to post this stuff in a blog.  That-a-ways you'll have it all in one handy spot."  So with a few grunts and moans, I have given birth to a random post blog of all things (that I personally think are) awesome!  er or at least noteworthy.