I-Odysee!

We’re all creatures of habits, and oftentimes this works much to our disadvantage. You may suppose this will turn out to be one of my rants against technologically inept people, but this time around I must recognize I’ve fallen victim to the status quo. You see, earlier this afternoon I met with some old high school friends, one of whom told us how she was excited about enrolling this new cutting edge online nursing degree. My first reaction was quite straightforward and natural, spurting forth as a reflex: “oh, that’s all a bunch of crap”.

Following this statement, everyone just stood there wide-eyed until finally someone broke the silence: “how can you say something like that? you were supposed to be the tech geek and you’re saying you don’t believe in distance learning? Despite all the evidence proving just how effective those new programs can be?” And effectively, I must admit I was out of character when I said that – I was probably irritated with something entirely different, and that comment just spurted out. Well, truth of the matter is that getting a distance learning degree in nowadays indeed a great alternative to regular learning institutions.

There’s a wide selection of worldwide online learning establishments which are fully accredited, some some of those actually operate on a hybrid model – mixing traditional learning tools with the new media. I’ve been doing some research, and it seems it’s even possible to get an actual matter-of-fact online phd… and that’s something I might actually think about doing. However, I should say I learned an important lesson today: sometimes you’ll think you’re a hip and open-minded person, and you’re actually quite resistant to change. Think about it, maybe you’ll realize this is something you also do on occasion… I think it’s only human, after all!

It’s a brand new kind of world, out here in the vast cyberspace landscapes… and sometimes we barely have the notion of what we’re doing. Let’s take e-mail, for example: sure we all know about e-mail, and most of us use it on a regular basis; but how much do we really know about how it works, and just how secure it is? Oftentimes when it comes to public and free e-mail services, they’re really not as secure as you might imagine; in fact that’s why big companies tend to have their own in-house communications exchange solutions… which tend to get somewhat expensive, since the establishment of an e-mail server that’s encrypted and secure calls for proper equipment and personnel. Well, fortunately there are now other solutions.

I’ve been reading about a company called Hosted Exchange which serves just that purpose of handling a companies electronic communications and keeping them secure. If you’re running a business and this is something you’ve been worried about, make sure to check them out, and while you’re doing so, use PROMO CODE “EXCH25″ for a 25% discount on all their hosted exchange plans. It might be just the kind of solution you’ve been looking for, to keep all those business e-mails encrypted and secure.

Wow, and here I thought that bingo was just a plain game about matching the right numbers! I guess it’s never just about matching numbers, not when we have something called the Internet… right? While doing my own sessions of randomly strolling around the world wide web, my attention was captured by a couple of bingo sites, where I ended up spending most of the morning. I was actually curious to learn about all the bingo variants available today… and there are indeed a lot of them! Moon Bingo, Posh Bingo, Wink Bingo… all kinds of bingo, more than you could possibly hope succeeding to shake a stick at.

Well, it’s like they say: variety is the spice of life, and when people get spicy in rome, make sure to play bingo yourself. (Uh.. no, I’m not entirely sure what that meant, either). It just goes to say that I have indeed – on my own volition – looked up some free bingo (you know, the kind that doesn’t try and suck your money away before allowing to play), and well.. I’ve been up for Bingo most of the day! And you know what? I’m actually pretty good at it! I know this may sound crazy, but sometimes it felt as though my wishing for a specific number to come out would actually increase the odds for that number to pop! The only downside being, that the more I kept winning, the more this tune kept getting louder in my head (let’s try and think about it as a victory dance of sorts):

Good news, everyone!

My investments are turning out quite healthy, mostly because I was mindful in looking for the best bank CD Rates a few years back. This is actually a great timing, since I’m about to whip clean most of my savings in order to execute my crazy plan of love-kidnapping my girlfriend and taking her along in a little European escapade. I’m really proud of myself, here! I think this is the first time I succeed in doing anything worthwhile from my savings account. This is how I feel; today Europe, and tomorrow…

I’ve just about had it! You see, my girlfriend keeps making fun of me because she thinks I’m a total geek (which I’m not; I perceive myself as merely some kind of  half-breed geek), so I’m finally going to make a drastic move. It’s not going to be easy, but I’ve made up my mind… I will take that girl by surprise and kidnap her! And I mean that in a romantic way, of course. You see, I’ve been doing some on-line chatting with an European friend lately, and he keeps telling me about what a wonderful place Rome is – and the guy isn’t really Italian! Apparently, when it comes to having fun in Europe, rome events is where it’s at. With that in mind, well certainly my curiosity is spiked!

So, after doing some research on rome italy hotels and rome italy accommodation and stuff like that (and after doing a good deal of cross-referencing with my limited budget), I’m confident I can do this without going totally bankrupt. Besides, visiting Europe for a couple of days will be much welcome experience, and for once I’ll show my sweetheart I’m not all about technology and Internet. Also, I must admit I really haven’t been giving her all the attention she deserves because I’m always busy with work. So for once, I’m about to prove her what I’m really all about.  I’m telling you, bucko readers… if you want to make a girl happy, it’s all about coming up with an occasional sweet surprise!

I’ve just about had it! You see, my girlfriend keeps making fun of me because she thinks I’m a total geek (which I’m not; I perceive myself as merely some kind of  half-breed geek), so I’m finally going to make a drastic move. It’s not going to be easy, but I’ve made up my mind… I will take that girl by surprise and kidnap her! And I mean that in a romantic way, of course. You see, I’ve been doing some on-line chatting with an European friend lately, and he keeps telling me about what a wonderful place Rome is – and the guy isn’t really Italian! Apparently, when it comes to having fun in Europe, rome events is where it’s at. With that in mind, well certainly my curiosity is spiked!

So, after doing some research on rome italy hotels and rome italy accommodation and stuff like that (and after doing a good deal of cross-referencing with my limited budget), I’m confident I can do this without going totally bankrupt. Besides, visiting Europe for a couple of days will be much welcome experience, and for once I’ll show my sweetheart I’m not all about technology and Internet. Also, I must admit I really haven’t been giving her all the attention she deserves because I’m always busy with work. So for once, I’m about to prove her what I’m really all about.  I’m telling you, bucko readers… if you want to make a girl happy, it’s all about coming up with an occasional sweet surprise!

If you’ve ever ventured beyond the ready-made landscapes of MySpace, Facebook and similar services – this is problably something you’ve already realized: finding a good, reliable, inexpensive webhost that suits your wants and needs can indeed be tricky matter. That’s because there are just too many web hosts out there, and they all look pretty much the same for the untrained eye. Unless you’re already quite familiar with the technicalities that come with hosting a website (and if you’re just starting out there’s a good chance you aren’t), you will have a hard time deciding on a single web hosting company.

Truth be told, I’ve had my share of headaches from making the wrong decisions, back when I started putting websites together. My first webhost ever looked like a good deal, but it turned out that they didn’t allow each account to use much processor share on their servers. So when my websites started pulling a little bit of traffic, they kept getting blocked for excessive CPU usage and going offline. Each time that happened I had to contact the webhost directly and ask them to restore my access  – that was extremely annoying, and it hurt the initial growth of my sites. So I quickly changed to a second webhost, and this time around it seemed to work fine, but it was really inordinately expensive. Not to mention it didn’t offered much of a customer support.

I could go on and on describing my bad experiences with hosting companies, but I’d rather point out a simple trick I picked up along the years: webhostig reviews. These are websites dedicated to the comparison and analysis of popular web hosts; they usally provide you with side-by-side feature charts that make the decision process a lot simpler; so whether you’re looking for a good shared hosting or a powerful dedicated server, just do yourself a favor and don’t make blind decisions. It’s always a good idea to get informed: remember, your hosting package is the ground where you’re building your web presence. You want that ground to be as steady as possible.

Now here’s something that wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago: Visa Gift Cards. In my opinion, it’s a great thing how technological developments keep providing public access to things that used to be corporate-league only. Nowadays, you can easily get a bunch of customized pre-paid credit cards for your company, your family or even your bird-watcher’s fan club! Granted, you may reason this is not something you’ll probably need anytime soon – but as far as I can see, just the simple fact that we CAN is indeed quite positive. These are all modern age tools, and it’s up to each of us to use them anyway we want to. And there is no limit, other than imagination! Think about it.

And no, I’m not talking about the how new Windows 7 (which is actually pretty cool, if you ask me). I just found this video parody showcasing a newer than new version of Microsoft’s operating system, and I thought it was worth sharing. So just sit back and enjoy the amazing feature report:

Oh, we might as well embrace duality, dear reader. To every coin, there’s always the flip side. For example, I love shopping but I hate spending money. I hate spending money, so I love hunting for discounts of any kind. As you can see, achieving satisfaction is oftentimes a matter of keeping things in perspective, and learning to focus on what really matters the most. If you can relate with this feeling, you’ll be happy to know I’ve just found this comprehensive website featuring over a thousand discount coupons and promotion codes for all kinds of products… ranging from this Apple Store coupon to 6 dollar shirts, AbeBooks, or even GameStop.

There are all kinds of discounts and promotions available, just waiting for you to take advantage of them to save bundles during your on-line shopping sprees: including instant cash off coupon codes, free shippings and other special bonuses. If you’re a reasonably smart shopper, here’s what you never want to do: never ever check out that shopping cart of yours, without first doing a little research to find out if some kind of discount is available for that particular store. By following this simple technique, I regularly save lots of cash – which I use of course to buy lots of other cool stuff! We live and learn dear reader, we all live and learn.