Anything and Everything I Want to Blog About

I just stumbled onto this awesome deal on Facebook where you can get 5 free iTunes songs by joining the Ticketmaster group. To get your free iTunes, follow this link to join the group and you will see an iTunes song good for 5 free songs. Codes expire on November 15, 2007 and you must redeem your 5 free songs by December 31, 2007. Get your 5 Free iTunes!

If you’ve ever thought about writing an eBook and don’t know where to begin, I can recommend from experience eBook Pro for you to compile/create your ebook. Most eBook compiler/creator software will make your ebook for you, but few protect your work from being stolen like eBook Pro does. With eBook Pro they allow you to create usernames and passwords that are stored on a remote server requiring anyone reading an ebook to enter this username and password in before reading the ebook. You can limit the number of readers per ebook or if you aren’t worried about protecting your work you can allow unlimited readers to read it.

I’ve noticed a lot of people use Adobe Acrobat to create and distribute their ebooks, but think this is a bad idea as it is easy to distribute a PDF file once it is out on the web. If an ebook created with eBook Pro gets in distribution it doesn’t matter as someone trying to steal a copy won’t be able to read it. If you are already selling ebooks and concerned about theft, you should definitely get Ebook Pro software. It is WELL worth the money.

If you notice suspicious activity with an ebook password that you sent out, you can deactivate that username and password remotely.  You can even collect contact information from your readers.  So, whether you want to make money selling ebooks or give away a free ebook as a viral marketing tool, eBook Pro is the way to go!  For more information, visit the eBook Pro web site.

Walt Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal gives you this in depth video review of Apple’s new version of their OS X operating system - OS X Leopard which is due out tomorrow, October 26th.  OS X Leopard will ship on new Apple computers purchased, or existing Mac users can buy the upgrade for $129.  Personally, I’m going to wait a few months so they can work out all the kinks. 

Walt says the sexiest feature of Leopard is the Time Machine feature which allows you to easily make backups on your Mac.  Other cool features include Cover Flow - which gives you live preview of images, movies, pdf files and more, and Quick Look which allows you to view the contents of a file without opening it.  Boot Camp is also built into Leopard so you can install Windows on your Mac with greater simplicity.

Coming soon - 2008 Halloween Costume Ideas! Stay tuned!

Well, it’s that time of year again - time to come up with a creative costume idea for your Halloween party or bar hopping in an attempt to win some nice prizes. In my opinion what you want to avoid is waiting until the last minute and picking a super lame Halloween costume we’ve all seen ten dozen times. We don’t want to see another devil, witch, vampire or the over done breast exam costume. It’s time to be original!

Thanks to the miracle of the Internet you can get good costume ideas from around the world that may have never been used where you live. In this article, I’m going to list some costume ideas, links to articles as well as throw in some videos and slideshows of various Halloween costumes. Consider this a random assortment of Halloween resources in no particular order. If you have any tips or Halloween costume ideas, feel free to leave a comment.

Use eBay - eBay is a very good source to find original costumes, props, clothing, accessories and just about anything you need for an excellent Halloween costume. This year I’m going with a simple costume from stuff I bought from eBay. I’m going to be a button pusher from the LOST television series with a simple khaki flight suit and a DHARMA patch I bought off eBay. I’ll have to put this together myself, but hopefully it will look something like the picture to the left.

If you don’t want to put a costume together, there are thousands of ready to go Halloween costumes at your disposal. Just make sure you order in time and/or contact the seller to make sure they will get your costume to you on time!

Also, eBay is a good place to get ideas for a costume - browse and search around and get the materials locally to make your costume if you can.

Costume Idea Zone - Here’s a site dedicated to Halloween costume ideas. Read articles to help you come up with good idea and be sure to check out Candid Costume where you can browse photos of Halloween costumes and rate them.

Flickr - Do a search for “halloween costumes” on Flickr to see what you come up with. Sort by “most interesting” to see the favorite costumes first.

Movies & TV - Many costumes come from popular movies and television series. What’s are some of your favorite movie/television characters you could be for Halloween? It might be too late to be Napoleon Dynamite, but perhaps a new character has popped up that would be more original. Make a list of your favorite movies and television shows and do some brainstorming.

Be Sexy or Studly - If you’re single and looking for some action, then try to come up with a costume to help you in that department. You don’t want to go to a bar looking nasty if you’re hoping to get someone’s phone number. Men always like scantily clad women. So, you can be a witch as long as you are a sexy witch. What to women like? Who knows… I guess any costume that makes you look studly and not questionable (i.e. member of the Village People, etc.).

Couple Costumes - If you’re already dating or married, put your heads together and come up with an idea that would work well for the two of you. Check out this article on About.com to help give you some ideas for couple Halloween costumes.

YouTube - Do a search on YouTube for Halloween costumes to see what’s hot and what other people are up to. Here’s a little video slideshow with a few ideas for ya:

Group Halloween Costumes - Going out on Halloween with a bunch of friends? Perhaps you could collaborate and have a group Halloween costume theme. Examples could include Gilligan’s Island, Super Heros, Star Wars chacters, etc. How about being the Publisher’s Clearing House Prize Patrol? Dress in blue suits, have a large fake check… one person carries flowers another balloons, and yet another a video camera and mic. Or… how about dress up as the film crew from Girls Gone Wild? Just a thought.

Well, I hope some of these ideas have helped you get started on your quest for the ultimate Halloween costume. Here are a few more resources to check out to help you along the way:

Halloween Costume Tips & Ideas:

The Halloween Costume Page
eHow: Homemade Halloween Costumes
Halloween.com Costume Idea Links

Places to Shop for Halloween Costumes:

Halloween Mart
Halloween Express
Costume Cauldron

Lazy? Try the Random Costume Generator at Costume Overload

If you’re still stuck another obvious solution is to simply Google “halloween costume ideas” and see what you come up with.

Happy Halloween!

Tonight the New Orleans Saints takes on the Tennessee Titans and Reggie Bush must make around 31 points for me to win this weeks matchup!  The odds of that happening are extremely remote, so it looks like I’m going to lose yet again!  I honestly thought I had a fairly good draft this year, but I’m starting to think the outlook is not so good.  So, I want to make a note of what it is like at this point in the year to help me out next year so I’ll have a better chance of winning.

First thing I notice is both this year and last year we have at least two teams that have made virtually zero moves so far and are dominating the league.  Obviously they lucked out and drafted well.  It appears the team to beat this year is has a lot of players that I don’t think I would have drafted right away.  He has Tony Romo… no, I wouldn’t have drafted him too soon.  He does have Steve Smith and I actually thought about drafting back to back WR’s which I still think might not be a bad strategy as it seems very likely you can pick up some good RB’s in the first 3 weeks or so if you watch for injuries, etc.  But, it is risky.

Interesting thing to note is our leader was the 6th position in our draft.  Maybe this is the optimal draft slot?

I wish I would have followed my gut feeling as I thought it would be a very good strategy to draft Tom Brady and Randy Moss as I had a feeling they were going to be a “dynamic duo”.  Mental note - perhaps it is good to have a stud WR matched up with a stud QB?  The top team drafted a top RB, then went for a top WR.  Another strategy I thought about which is probably a lot less risky then doing WR WR.  So he drafted RB WR RB RB QB…

Defense is crucial.  Every year people are wising up to picking up defense early.  But, there’s always a suprise defense that shows up on the wire, so maybe it is a good idea not to panic.  Research is very important.  Also do plenty of mock drafts.  Check for injuries before draft night!  Definitely try to get a stud QB and a WR matchup.  Make sure if you get a stud defense that your other studs don’t suck away points from them.  Make backup’s of Yahoo stats (print them out) and print out the draft results from the previous year.

Make $10 side bets to compensate for your draft fee!  Don’t drink on draft night.  Make sure you know exactly who has been drafted during each round on draft night.  Buy a draft kit!  Yahoo’s worked pretty good, but maybe there are better ones.

Don’t trade early… if you’re going to make a trade, try to take advantage of a new player by initiating it.  Don’t panic as injuries can totally change the league.  The top team now could go down the drain with just one major injury.  Also not a bad idea to pick up a good kicker early.  Overall, I think how you do your draft can give you a huge advantage over other teams… so don’t skimp on this issue!

Sign up on a good fantasy football site.  I signed up with Grogan Sports, but personally am not that impressed.  There are a few bugs and it really isn’t that helpful.  Hopefully by next year there will be a better one out there….or maybe there already is a better one.  To be continued…

Well, well well, it looks like O.J. Simpson is at again, this time O.J. allegedly attempted to recover stolen football memorabilia at gunpoint with some of his fellow thugs.  O.J. Simpson was arrested on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, mark up two more for assault with a deadly weapon and put some icing on the cake with a count of burglary with a firearm.  If convicted, poor old O.J. could go to jail for 30 years!  Wooo Hooo!  That’s what you call karma, baby!

Here is the audio of the O.J. Simpson Robbery that occurred in Las Vegas:

The most shocking thing about this whole story for me is the realization that O.J. Simpson is 60 years old!  WTF?!

One thing that has been missing on my new iMac is a good image editor like Photoshop.  I’m a little strapped for cash right now, so I did some searching for free image editors for the Mac and currently it seems that GIMP is the closest thing to Photoshop for free.  So, if you don’t want to shell out $649 for a copy, follow these instructions and use GIMP instead.  This install is for an iMac using OS X 10.4.10.

First, install X11.  If you have your Mac OS X install DVD, you can pop it in, close the first window that opens and open the finder window.  Select the CD/DVD icon and double click the Optional Installs application to the right.

Click continue, agree to the software license agreement and choose the hard drive you want to install on.  Next, click the arrow next to Applications and select the checkbox that says  X11.  Then click the button on the lower right corner (mine says “Upgrade” but yours should say “Install”).

You will then be prompted to enter your password to finish the install and you should be good to go with x11!

Now, all you need to do is download GIMP and install that like you’d install any other Mac application.  I went to this Gimp.app site to download the “self contained application bundle of the GNU Image Manipulation Program for OS X”.  I installed GIMP like as normal and then was ready to go…or was I?  For some reason GIMP didn’t run on the first try.  But, when I closed X11 and tried again it worked fine.  Not sure what that was all about.  There are other ways to install GIMP, but this seemed to be the easiest way.

The funny thing is that I’m not too excited about GIMP as it reminds me of Windows.  You can’t use the command key when copying and pasting… you have to use the control key.  But, it is packed full of features and is a pretty close contender to Photoshop.

Now that I have it installed, I’ll probably play around with it a bit, but so far my free graphic editor of choice is GraphicConverter.  But, I discovered another image editing program that I believe will blow them all away whenever it gets released.  It is called Pixelmator.  It is a closed beta, and it is going to be agonizing to wait over the next few months until they release it.  Check out this video of Pixelmator in action.

Sorry, Adobe… if you’re going to charge $649 for photoshop, people like me are going to look for alternatives… and find them! 

Well, after many years of using a PC, I’m finally making the transition back to Apple with a brand new, shiny, brushed steel looking 20″ iMac.

I must say that I am VERY GLAD I BOUGHT THIS IMAC!

It is so clean, sexy looking and much more enjoyable to use than my clunky old Dell. I actually use to be a Mac user and still have my old Mac in the closet, but the last time I was a Mac user was probably in the mid 1990’s…maybe around 1995 or so? The main reason I switched to PC back then was the huge amount of software available and the fact that the PC industry was on fire with new stuff every month. And, they were a lot cheaper than Macs.

Since that time viruses, spyware and buzz about how much Windows Vista sucks made me realize I did not want a new PC for my next computer. I’m done… toast. In one word, Windows is annoying, and the last thing I want to do is mess around with hardware and software compatibility issues after investing in a new PC.

I got this 20″ iMac for $1,199 and it comes with a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1 GB memory, 250 GB hard drive and more. I’ve only been using it since Monday and it is amazing how quick I am remembering how to use a Mac after a good 10 years or more of being away from one. My favorite part of this iMac is the display. It is bright, sharp, crisp and clear… stunning to say the least. I treasure it so much I put a towel over it to protect it from my cat.

Actually, I think it would be a good idea if Apple provided some kind of display protector to put on when you’re away. Until then, I found this site which sells iMac screen covers or ScreenSavrz. I’ll probably buy one in the near future or have my fiance or someone maybe knit me one? Wouldn’t it be cool to have a knitted cover with an Apple logo on it? Hmm… sounds like a good money making idea to me!

So far I like everything about this iMac. It boots up in no time, makes my online experience much more enjoyable and best of all I don’t have to worry about viruses and spyware! Right? Well, I must admit I’m not totally up to speed on Mac security, but do know it is far less of a worry compared to PC’s.

My only dislikes so far is that I didn’t do my research and take notice that Mac OS X Leopard will be out soon (I think in October). So, I could have waited a little longer and more than likely got an iMac that shipped with Leopard. Oh well, live and learn. My other complain is that it would be nice if OS X shipped with some kind of Photoshop like graphic editor. I installed GraphicConverter for now and it does the job pretty well. Maybe I can save up a few hundred bucks and buy Photoshop down the road, or get an older copy on eBay.

That’s all for now… I’m still just scratching the surface and have much left to explore. I think I may start posting Mac Tips & Tricks on this blog to help other new Mac users out. To be continued…

I just received my Ball of Whacks today and thought I’d take a picture of my cat, Bobo with the ball for the fun of it.  My mind has been in a slump for awhile, so I thought I’d give this a shot to help get my creative juices flowing.  The Ball of Whacks is a creation of Roger von Oech, author of books such as A Whack on the Side of the Head, A Kick in the Seat of the Pants, etc.  I have every one of his books and both whack packs (I think there were two).  If you have not read his books, I HIGHLY recommend you do…. they are MUST READ books for anyone, anywhere.  Click here to get your Ball of Whacks, books and other stuff from Creative Think.

Interestingly, I just noticed his article titled Could You Go a Day Without “Made in China”?  I would have to say probably not!  A very interesting read and makes me re-think my previous post where I complained about my iMac coming from Shanghai.  I suppose just because one manufacturer in China makes exploding batteries, etc. doesn’t mean every manufacturer does.

Anyway, I’ve disassembled my Ball of Whacks and now it’s time to read the book and see if I can use it to come up with some ideas.  To be continued…