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Merchant Advertising Systems Comparison

By on Jul 24, 2006 in Blog Posts, Internet | 1 comment

After launching my webstore (http://www.shopunitednetworks.com) I have spent considerable time promoting it through some of the popular search engines and comparison shopping sites. Here is a brief run down of the pros and cons of each:Shopping.comType: Comparative ShoppingClick-Through Rate: About 4.00%Average CPC: Manually set to $0.70Initial Investment Needed: $50.00Pros: Reaches a large targeted audience – the people who use Shopping.com are there to shop, not to search. This means a higher sales conversion. The site is full featured and includes decent support.Cons: Calling in for support is difficult as it can be hard to find someone to assist you. The site has a bit of a learning curve and is unlike most others. There is a 1-2 day delay after uploading your products before they appear on the site. Although my products appear correctly, many are tagged as “needing...

Webstore Launched!

By on Jul 3, 2006 in Blog Posts, Internet | 0 comments

I finally decided to launch a fully featured webstore and after spending a week or so researching I chose MonsterCommerce as my provider. It has it’s shortcomings, but it was the most complete package I could find. It isn’t the cheapest either so I’m hoping that I can make the webstore work and become profitable. It will offer great pricing on software ranging from office suites to navigational utilites. Eventually I hope to expand to hardware as well. For now people can still E-Mail or call for quotes on anything they may need that isn’t listed in the new webstore. Check it out at http://www.shopunitednetworks.com!

What’s Up?!

By on May 17, 2006 in Blog Posts | 1 comment

A lot for me! I’ve been a busy boy lately. Between business, the band and life in general I haven’t had a moment to stop. Things are going fairly well on all fronts. I recently bid adieu (again) to Andy who worked with me, as he is off to work for the local public schools (again). No more afternoon games of catch.I have been busy with band items lately, such as building up the Myspace.com profile and having stickers printed. The stickers didn’t turn out well and it was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had with a printer. Myspace is coming along nicely, going from 434 friends to over 3,000 in a matter of weeks.I recently had a birthday where I turned a year older bringing the total up to 24. Did I feel any older? No. Did my life change because of this additional number? No. Hopefully when I turn 25 my insurance will go down. When I’m a big boy (25) I...

If you like Billie Holiday…

By on Apr 21, 2006 in Blog Posts | 0 comments

…then you’ll love Madeleine Peyroux. Although she sounds a great deal like Billie, her voice is a bit more youthful than Holiday’s. Her music is a mix of old and new songs. The classics have original arrangements giving them a fresh sound. That’s it.

The Internet Has Created A New World

By on Mar 20, 2006 in Blog Posts, Internet | 1 comment

I am addicted to being “connected”. Being online (or at least being no less than one hour from a web enabled location at all times) is now one of the most important things in my life. I never realized this until I lost my connection a few years ago. It was like watching a drug addict suffer withdrawal symptoms. I wandered from room to room lost in a world of emptiness – no news, E-Mail, online games, buddies, forums and chat rooms. I refreshed my browser to no avail. I reset my cable modem every 15 minutes. It was sad. I was sad.Of course the connection was finally restored and so therefore was my link to the world. I was reminded my previous experience when I returned today after almost two days without accessing the Internet. I felt the need to get online deep within me when my computers were only yards away. It grew stronger as I entered my house until it overcame...

Do I have ADD or am I just lazy?

By on Mar 15, 2006 in Blog Posts | 2 comments

I can’t focus. I work, then I stop and listen to some music. Then I work for a while longer and stop to go get a drink. A little more work then a lot of sitting in the tub being warm. Some more work then an hour (or two or three) for lunch. A power session of working, then distracted by some E-Mail or blog post or news article. Distracted again by music. Focus lost now due to E-Mail/Blog post/new article thingies. Even writing this I find myself wondering what I’m going to do when I finish. Maybe I’ll cut it short so I can go

Linux Madness

By on Mar 10, 2006 in Blog Posts, Software | 0 comments

Ahhhhh!!!! My PCLinuxOS server crashed (peace out Maxtor hard drive), and so I went about attempting to recover the data. It took me almost 4 days of off and on troubleshooting but I am proud to announce that all of the data has been recovered. That was thanks to OpenSUSE 10.1 Beta 6 and it’s robust set of module and drivers. Unfortunately OpenSUSE is not as user friendly or package complete as PCLinuxOS .92 so I’m currently working on re-installing that. I say working on it because I’m getting a lame Kernel panic error that I’m trudging through at the moment.During these events I tried the most current release of the popular Linux distro, Ubuntu 5.10. Color me not impressed. There are to many issues to list, but the first and most apparent problem I have is the use of the “sudo” account. The sudo account is the Ubunutu equivalent of...

WFMU Needs Your Help

By on Mar 3, 2006 in Blog Posts | 0 comments

In the world we live in there are not many things left that can be described as “pure”. WFMU (wfmu.org) is one of those that still can. I first discovered WFMU over a year ago when a friend of mine turned me on to Seven Second Delay, one of their radio shows. Ever since I have been a supporter of the station. Do I like everything they play? No. Hell, I hardly like anything that they play, but I do not support WFMU because of the music the play, rather the principle they support. There is a phrase that they are very proud of at WFMU, and that is “Listener supported”. That’s a term we have all learned to associate with PBS, but even at its most honest PBS isn’t listener supported. While it may be true that they rely on our support for a small amount of their budget, I hardly think that if a few hundred of us didn’t pledge that PBS would suffer...