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Laptop is Dying

So, for almost a year now I've been planning to buy a desktop. My current computer is a Inspiron 1720 laptop and I feel I've squeezed pretty much everything it can possibly hope to offer. The problem with buying a new desktop is that I wanted to wait for that next great thing.

Well, a couple days ago I finally ordered a new desktop (SandyBridge) and just like that, my laptop decides to shit on me. The SandyBridge motherboard was recalled, so I'm still using my laptop for a few more weeks until they are re-released. This laptop runs as if it has 100 Trojans, with frame rates in games being dropped by roughly 80%, and all streaming videos other than Hulu unwatchable.

I'm sorry laptop, but I gotta move on.

Here's a picture of my cat.

Muzak

Elevators.
When the other people start making random conversation, I think "These are not my kind of people", and half-heartedly follow along.
When the other people stay silent like myself, I think "These are my kind of people. I bet we would get along", and stand in silence.

Silly Ways to Affording Gum

Need gum funds? Work for Personalized Search Engines

These are websites where the user gets personalized answers to his questions. You, as an employee, is paid for every user question that you personally research and answer. The average rate is 10 cents per question that you must research, and 5 cents per question that you simply pull out of their library of answers. Again, don’t expect any substantial income doing this, although an hour or two a night can really add up. While it’s not too difficult to become hired by these companies, you will have to be able to use Google reasonably well to find information.

List of Q&A Search Engines:
KGB

ChaCha

Here are some misc. websites you may want to check out for even more money opportunities:
WorldWinner
Play games for cash! I highly suggest you only try this website if you consider yourself a good gamer, however. You get paid lots of money if you achieve the highest score on their games, but most players will come away with a loss. There is an entry fee to the site, so be wary. People have also been known to cheat on the games using bots.

Personally, I've never done this. 

Making Money From Home

There are tons of ways to make money from home. I'll start posting entries on my analysis of different approaches.

Article Writing

The idea is simple: You write articles based on your own area of interest/expertise, and you get paid if it passes the requirements for publication. You get a flat fee for every article, plus a little extra based on how many views your article receives. These jobs revolve around titles, which are not only the title of your article, but the main identifier also. These companies also have openings for editors, who basically correct and analyze article submissions. It’s much harder to become an editor, however, so I suggest just writing articles in your free time Don’t let all those hours of English class go to waste! If you don’t feel too confident about your writing ability, I don’t suggest you take this route, as there are many article that are rejected due to poor quality. If you decide to sign up, expect 8-24 hours until you are confirmed. You should spend around 30 minutes per article, and should be able to crank out 3-4 a day. I’d also like to note that many times your article will be sent back for a rewrite, and it can sometimes be frustrating to constantly have to rewrite based on your editor’s comments. You really have to get lucky with your editors, as they are assigned to you at random. $10-15 per article.

Many writers become frustrated because their editors constantly demand rewrites without clear, specific instruction. A good tip is to simply let the title expire, and then resubmit it as an entire new piece, rather than a rewrite. This way you will be assigned a new editor(hopefully a better one), and won’t have to deal with 1000 messy rewrites. One last note: If you own a website, you can create good traffic to that site by including it in your articles (make sure it’s relevant). This will also help you get indexed in Google, thus bringing even more visitors to your site.

The list of freelance writing companies:
BrightHub

DemandStudios
Same concept as Brighthub, except they also consider filmmakers and bloggers into their rotation. A bit hard to get into, but is well reputed to pay the best. $10-15 per article.

WiseGeek

Associated Content

Elance

Flyercraft: Tips to An Effective Flyer

1. Either make it extra grand, or extra cheap. If you're going to put graphics on the flyer, I encourage you to invest in the extra cents to make it full color and good quality. If not, then it's usually more efficient to just go with the garage sale sign look.

2. Keep it simple stupid. Clearly state the message you want to get across, and make sure it can be read from far away. Stay away from light colors, usually black on white/yellow or white/yellow on black works the best. Simple fonts and simple messages will make it easy to read.

3. Have an easy contact info on it. If you have tabs on your flyer, make sure to put your contact info and your flyer's purpose on every single tab. If you are putting an email address, refrain from using overly complicated or ambiguous emails. JackB192882@hotmail.com will discourage anyone from following through.

4. Maximize your authenticity. Testimonials, expert opinions, impressive statistics, and many other pieces of information can greatly establish your credibility. People are always inclined to dismiss something as a scam, or shady, so I suggest you put extra effort into ensuring that your flyers look legitimate.

If you're trying to sell a product, one interesting tip I've learned is to handwrite your flyer, and then photocopy that. Not only does handwriting grab people's attention, but it also adds a personal touch that improves your credibility.

5. As usual, experiment and track how the flyers work for you and where.

6. Profit?

Keywords and Niches

For the beginner online marketer, one of the most basic and easiest tool to learn is the Google Keyword Tool. This tool allows you to input search terms, and see how many people search for it, or search for the general idea under it. This is how you find a good niche and website name to sell on. Until one gets extremely good at search engine optimization, it's all about

1. Find keywords that has a decent amount of searches, but not too many so that SEO competition becomes impossible. A range of 5000-10000 is usually manageable to get ranked top of Google for, while still bringing in good amounts of visitors.

2. Find keywords that have websites that aren't terribly competitive. For example, the search term "Beds for dogs" may only have 3000 global searches per month, but if the beds for dogs webhosts are randomly SEO gods, then you know to stay away. There are various methods to analyzing this.

Anyway, I hate long entries, so I'll stop here. Thanks for reading.