Make Money Online

When it’s attached to the harriest, funkiest anime protector you’ll ever see. 

Now I’m normally not much for watching anime, but my son and I watched a couple of episodes from the newest DVD set from Illumitoon Entertainment - Bobobo-bo Bobobo. (check out the Official Website)

It’s a fast-paced anime series of standard good vs. bad fare that has you finding out that Bobobo’s second biggest weakness is pasta (because you don’t have to floss, and it tastes good with fruit or butter sauce) — in fact, he wants to become a “Pasta Primadonna”.

The writing has some major tongue twisters in it that my kids got a kick out of.  My favorite was:

“Holy kowabunga.  What a mind-hoggin noggin. That guy’s wearing an entire ice cream parlor on his head.  Frosty.  Looks like he went for a single and came back with a double dip.”

While my son’s favorite was the Spring Drum Festival from Episode #8:

“To swing out sweet, go go go with the beat.
spiky hairs and shaggy doo nappy locks peach fuzz too.
It’s in your nose, and it runs to your toes.
Just turn your butt around, cause you are upside down
Fling em to the sky.  Fling em to the ground.
Let your buggers fly, don’t flick em in your eye.
Summer has begun.  For fun without a care.
Forget your sticky hair and smelly underwear.
Go grab your almnac and nifty sack of tea.
You have got the world to crack and that’s ok with me.
Come on, Come on, it’s time to get movin’ on. 
Celebrate!  Celebrate!”

You can watch for Bobobo on Cartoon Network, or buy the Bobobo DVDs  (Volume 1 has episodes 1-4, Volume 2 has episodes 5 -8) for $19.98 each. 

I told myself that I would never buy a gun for my kids, and I’ve stuck to that for the last ten years.  I finally broke down and bought a rifle last October — but I justified the purchased because it was only an air rifle (although it can hit targets as far as 1,000 feet away).

My son likes it because it has a magnified scope, and he’s gotten pretty good at hitting targets as far as 400 feet away.  But over the winter, I didn’t have a chance to do much with it, because I usually don’t get done with work until after it’s dark (or darn close).

So I’ve been thinking of getting a night vision rifle scope, and found an online site that has a great selection. Unfortunately it’s summer now, so I would have to stay up extra late to use one… I might need to wait until next winter.

Optics Planet also has a large selection of other night vision equipment — ranging from camera viewers to binoculars, so check it out and have some late-night fun!

It seems like online sweepstakes sites are popping up like flies, but here’s one with a decidedly American Idol twist — You get to vote for who wins the prize! 

Here’s how it works — prizes are posted at whogets.com for about 20-30 days.  For the first half of the contest, any member of the site (it’s free with no spam) can enter to win one of the posted prizes (one entry per prize is allowed).  After this initial posting period, seven finalists are randomly selected to be in the contest finals.

And here’s the twist — each of the seven finalists gets to post as to why they should or want to win, and over the next 7 to 10 days, the community gets to discuss and vote on who should win the prize! 

I still have one of the “old” TVs. You know, the kind that are really heavy, aren’t flat and sometimes make a wierd humming noise when you turn them on. I am probably also one of the last people to still have a VHS deck hooked up to my TV. Along with my DVD player, DishNetwork DVR, PlayStation 2 and GameCube.

I had to get a switcher to be able to hook all my gadgets up, and know that when I upgrade to an HDTV (any day now, right?), I’ll need to get a switcher for that as well as more and more devices come with HDMI outputs. When that day comes, I’ll go over and visit the Technical Cable Applications website for my HDMI Switch and HDMI Cable needs.

Located in Auburn, Washington, TCA also has a great selection of other other products ranging from other cable and networking equipment to iPod accessories. Check them out!

Starting your own business is always a challenge. You need to stay motivated, prioritize your business activities on a daily basis, take care of your marketing, and handle all the back-office bookkeeping needs.

You also need to make decisions about how to structure your business in a way that makes sense for you and your business goals. If your business is a side-venture and you have a full-time job, then a sole-proprietorship will probably suit you fine. But if you are looking to build a bigger business and hire employees, then creating a real corporation may be more in order.

There are three basic types of Corporations that you can form. Choosing the right structure depends a bit on where you live, who you are in business with, and how large your business may grow. In general:

You want to form an S Corporation when:

• the owners live in a state with no personal state income tax.
• one or two individuals own the company (can be as many as 100).
• you have sales less than $250,000.

You want to form a C Corporation when:

• the owners live outside the country.
• the owners live in a state with a state income tax.
• several individuals are involved in the ownership.
• other entities are involved in the ownership.
• you have sales greater than $60,000.

You want to form a Limited Liability Company (LLC) when:

• you have any partnership.
• you own real estate for investment purposes.
• you have several entities that own the business.
• you are looking for complete protection of the owners’ personal liability.

You can start the process of incorporating your business with an online service such as IncParadise.com. There prices are reasonable, as they only charge $89 plus the applicable state fees to get started. For example, if you wanted to start a Nevada LLC, you could do this for only $283, which also includes them serving as your Registered Agent for 12 months.

I travel a lot on business, and hate to not be working while I’m on a plane or in a car (provided someone else is driving, of course. I’m not that talented!). Unfortunately, the battery that came with my IBM Thinkpad T43 only lasts about 2 hours at best. So I am always one of those people you see around the airport walking aimlessly around, looking this way and that to find some unused electrical outlets. Trust me, they can be hard to find. Invariably, I don’t find one about half the time, and am forced to use precious battery time while waiting for the plane to board.

I obviously knew the solution - buy another battery. And this time one of those long-lasting ones that make your computer look like a torpedo is coming off the backend. I just got mine after forking over a pretty penny (who knew laptop batteries cost that much?!).

And what happens just one week after I get it? I find another site online that sells low-cost Laptop Batteries where I could have saved $40 for my extended life battery for my IBM T43 laptop.  Frustration.  At least I now know about LowCostBatteries.com, so when I finally get tired of the 30 minutes of talk time I get on my cordless phone I can get a good deal on a cordless phone battery.

I for one am a cheapskate when it comes to buying electronics. I don’t want to pay retail, and will seek out the cheapest online price I can find. After all, a penny saved is a penny earned, right?

So imagine my joy when I found an auction site last month where the lowest bid wins! Even better, it’s not even an auction site… It’s a prize site where you enter fake bids on merchandise you’d like to win, and if you win it, it is completely free (although I would imagine you would owe either income or sales/use tax depending on where you live).

Signing up is quick and easy. They do have a “premium” account for $9.99/month that allows you to bid via cell phone up to 20 times a day. I just bid on the PS3 and BMW, but need to wait another 5 days before finding out if I had the lowest bid.

I recently travelled to Boston on a Business trip, and had received a warning from a long-time friend not to rent a car.  Having grown up in Malden, he had numerous stories of friends getting lost in the maze of one-way streets fashioned on top of old Dairy routes and Carriage paths.

As a result, I ended up staying at a hotel out-of-town, and spent well over $350 in cab fare over the course of my 2-day trip.  Ouch!

In hind-sight, I should have probably done a little more research and made use of the great Public Transit system developed by the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority).  I’ll confess, however, that I usually get lost using any transit system, and didn’t want to be finding my way around with a meeting less than 5 minutes away.

But there’s a new site available that makes getting good directions a breeze.  PublicRoutes.com has developed detailed maps and directions for travellers unfamiliar with Boston to be able to utilize the available public transit system.  They also have the service available in numerous other cities, including Seattle, my hometown. 

A quick search on directions for a well-frequented trip I used to make from my house to the University of Washington resulted in a very clear set of directions, complete with a clear iconic representation of which portions of the trip were on bus vs. on foot.

The next time I travel to Boston, I’ll definitely make use of PublicRoutes.com to plan my trip ahead of time and save the $350 in cab fare that literally went out the window.

Ad Volcano is a new internet advertising service providing a marketplace for bloggers and advertisers to come together to sell or purchase advertisements.  In looking at the site, it appears to already have signed up a large network of over 800+ publishers, including JohnChow.com, who has priced his banner ad at $700/month.

As a blogger, you have the ability to boost your earnings and price your own links coming from your site, and Ad Volcano passes 75% of the revenue along to you, keeping 25% as a management fee.

Advertisers get the benefit of purchasing ads on a Cost-Per-Term basis to bring predictability to the cost of their ads on this network without having to worry about the potential of click fraud which seems inherent to any cost-per-click advertising campaign.

All-in-all, it seems that Ad Volcano has done a good job in attracting publishers since their launch in January.  If they have done as good a job in attracting advertisers, then I think we have a welcome addition to the advertising scene for bloggers wanting to make money online.

Payday cash advances are often an option of last resort for many people when facing an end-of-month cash crunch.  While I wouldn’t recommend cash advance payday loans to be used on a regular basis to meet budgetable items (especially if you can’t pay it back with your next paycheck), they can come in especially handy if you need to meet an unexpected or sudden cash need.

If you need a payday advance, you can go through an online service at http://www.paydaycashadvanceloans.biz, to request your loan, provided you are/can:

• Be at least 18 years old.
• Provide proof of identification and current employment.
• Have a current job for the last 90 days with a steady income.
• Earn at least $1,000 per month.
• Be a U.S. citizen or resident of the United States.
• Own a checking account.
• Provide your present home address, home & work phone number, and email address.