This video is so funny. I couldn’t resist passing it on.

Via Geeks Are Sexy And @DavidRisley

I’m not a negative person. At least I try not to be. But, every once in a while, things get to me and, lately, there’s been a lot of little things getting to me.

Things are tough right now. The economy is struggling, people are struggling and I know some businesses are struggling, too. What makes me angry is the widespread lack of integrity that is destroying the trust of people everywhere.

• Banks manipulating transactions to maximize the amount of fees they can collect regardless of the financial hardship caused to the consumer
• CEOs lavishing bonuses on themselves while laying off thousands of workers and begging for handouts from taxpayers.
• Fake Debt Collectors scamming people out of money, leaving them broke and still stuck with the original debt.
• Legitimate debt collectors bullying people into paying amounts that are grossly inflated above the amount of the original debt.
• Credit card companies manipulating consumers in order to saddle them with unfair fees and interest hikes.

These are only the tip of the iceberg. These days it seems like there are people everywhere looking for a way to scam you out of every cent they can.

A few months ago, my washer stopped working and, like any normal person, I called a repair company. They came out, briefly looked at my washer and gave me an estimate of $350 to fix it. I was stunned. I don’t know a whole lot about washers but it didn’t feel reasonable to me. So, I called my step-brother to see if he had any handymen friends who might be able to help me out for less. Instead, he stopped by my house to take a look at it himself.

After a quick look, he knew exactly what I needed. He left the house and returned about 20 minutes later with a part he’d purchased for $30 bucks. And that INCLUDED the taxes. He tilted the washer back, had me hold onto it so it wouldn’t fall over, then reached under, removed the old part and replaced it with the new one. In less than 10 minutes, I was doing laundry with a washer that ran like new.

I called the original repair place and let them know I had purchased the part for $30 and questioned them on their inflated estimate for the repair when the part was so cheap. They tried to tell me it was a complicated repair and the bulk of the charge was for labor. When I mentioned that my step-brother had made the “complicated” repair by himself in about ten minutes, the guy became tongue-tied. He knew he’d been caught. He quickly apologized for the “miscommunication” and ended the phone call.

In the past few weeks, I’ve found overcharges on two of my utility bills. In both instances, when I contacted the company in question to get the charges removed, the customer service person on the other end did everything in their power to NOT help me. I swear, these people are trained to talk in illogical circles for as long as possible in order to  completely confuse and aggravate the customer. Probably because too many customers just give up and pay the bill. I often wonder how much profit they make by doing this.

In both cases, I had to become completely irate and demand to speak to a manager. Within minutes of getting a manager on the line, they “found” the error, admitted to the mistake and corrected the problem. In both cases, the call ended up being longer than it needed to be and, instead of leaving me satisfied that it was corrected, it left me feeling angry and frustrated because I had to go through so much to fix a simple problem.

There have been a few other issues this week as well. Any one of them alone would not be a big deal, but the combined effect of them all together has left me wondering if there’s anyone left to trust.

Businesses, big and small, need to learn that integrity is the most important thing they have. If they sacrifice that, they may earn a few extra dollars for a little while, but in the long run, they lose so much more.

Okay, rant over!

Any pet peeves bothering you lately? I’d love to hear about them. Feel free to use the comment section and rant away!

A couple weeks ago, I went to see Toy Story 3 with my seven year old nephew and we had a blast. We got there early and spent some time playing video games in the lobby before buying lots of popcorn and candy and picking the perfect seats in the theater. We went to a matinee showing in the middle of the week, so there were very few people there. It almost felt like we had the whole theater to ourselves.

I had the time of my life. Toy Story 3 was a great movie. It made me laugh and it made me cry in all the right places. It’s one of those movies where you get sucked in by the characters and quickly forget you’re watching a movie. You become part of the story. I walked out of the theater with a smile on my face and it made me realize that, without my nephew, I never would have gone to see it. Why? Because it’s a kids movie and I don’t have kids.

Now, I know there’s no law that says childless people can’t go to kids movies, but let’s be honest. If you’re a parent and you see a middle-aged person with no kids at a kids movie, don’t you worry just a little? You can’t help but wonder if the person is a child molester or just plain weird. They’re definitely out of place.

Besides, half the fun of going to a kids movie is the joy of sharing it with the kids. I loved laughing with my nephew and sharing goofy comments with him. It’s amazing how insightful kids can be. It made me realize how much I missed by not being able to have kids.

Why am I telling you all this? Because, thanks to all those previews before the movie, I have another problem on my hands. I have this list of kids movies I want to see.

• Despicable Me
• How To Train Your Dragon
• Nanny McPhee Returns
• Rapunzel (coming out in November)
• a few others I can’t remember the names of at the moment.

Some of these I can see with my nephew if my sister will let me. I can’t hog him, though. My sister likes kids movies, too. And, of course, there’s competition with grandma time. Others are more girly and not something he’d be interested in. I have other nieces and nephews but they’re all older and have either outgrown kids movies or are at that stage where being seen in public with an adult is totally uncool.

So, if I want to go see these movies and NOT look like a middle-aged weirdo, I need to borrow a few kids. Any suggestions?

Anyone who knows me, even for a second, will figure out that I love to read. I always have a book with me, no matter where I am at any given moment. I’m the one at the stoplight, book in hand, trying to finish a paragraph before the light turns green. It’s become a game among family and friends. “What book does she have with her now?”

I also love people. I’m fascinated by them. I like to watch them and hear their stories.

These two parts of me are what draw me to blogs. A good blog satisfies my desire to read and gives me an opportunity to peek into someone’s life and learn a bit about who they are. And, sometimes, the really good ones teach me a something about myself.

Today, I’d like to share with you a few of the blogs that I’ve enjoyed reading. I find them entertaining, motivating, and even inspiring. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I have.

1. Just My Blog

   Just My Blog is an entertaining blog written by Lindsay that often makes me laugh out loud. I especially love the little stories she tells about her daughters, Pumpkin and Dumpling. They never fail to make me smile. What I like most about this blog is its lack of a niche. She writes about many different things and I find the variety fresh and fun. I’ve yet to find a single post on her blog that I didn’t like.

2. Cora’s Story

   I discovered this blog through a recent post on Lindsay’s blog (mentioned above) and was immediately hooked. It’s the story of a mother’s tragic loss of her baby girl at 5 days old and the courage to deal with that grief and find a way to give her daughter’s brief life a powerful purpose. I can’t even begin to imagine the grief she faces every day. My heart hurts for her. But, at the same time, I admire the courage it takes for her to write her blog and tell Cora’s story, so that other mother’s out there can learn from her experience. She’s a strong, brave woman and I want to do my part in making sure that Cora’s story is heard around the world.

3. Awkward Family Photos

   This is one you have to visit because it’s just plain funny. It’s more for viewing than actually reading, but the comments are sometimes as laugh-out-loud funny as the photos. Fair warning though. If laughing hysterically tends to make you pee a little, visit the bathroom before you visit this site, otherwise you might end up with a damp chair.

If you enjoy these blogs as much as I do, be sure to pass them on so others can enjoy them, too. If you know of any good blogs you’d like to share as well, even if it’s your own, please leave a comment below and tell me about it.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a master procrastinator. I’m also a list-maker.

Former co-workers branded me as the “Queen of the Post-it®” because I always had dozens and dozens of Post-it® notes all over my desk. Appointment reminders. Mini To-do lists. A grocery list of things to pick up on the way home. Stuff like that. Unfortunately, it was a disorganized mess and, in spite of my best efforts, I had a terrible time keeping up with all those lists.

I still use Post-it® notes an awful lot but I’m no longer the Queen. I’ve found a better way to manage my lists and get things done. It’s a software program called Efficient To-Do List and I can’t get through a day without it. Literally can’t! Everything I need to do on any given day is in this program and, because of it, I’m now an organized person who gets things done on time, everyday… Well, most of the time anyway.

It’s even eliminated a lot of my procrastination because I find myself motivated to complete tasks just for the little thrill of checking it off and watching my list get smaller. I know, I know. I’m a little weird.

Efficient To-Do List comes in a Lite version and a Pro version. Both are great products.  Both Lite and Pro versions also have a portable option to download and run from a USB flash drive, great for having your to-do list on the go.

Unlike the free or Lite versions of other to-do list software, Efficient To-Do List Lite doesn’t limit the number of items you can add to your list. It also doesn’t restrict other important features, like setting reminders, prioritizing tasks, searching your lists, and doing backups. You can also import and export to do lists, password protect your lists, and filter by current week, current month, overdue, not overdue, and high priority.

Then there is the Pro version, my personal favorite. With the Pro version, you can create Groups or Folders and sort your lists into those Groups, taking organization one step further. Now I can work on the tasks in a specific area, like paying bills, and not have my list cluttered with all the tasks from other areas. Each Group can also be customized to show only the columns I need for that group. After all, who needs a due date on their grocery list?

The only feature not available in either version is the ability to filter for the current day. I would like to be able to see a list of just the things I need to do today. I can get around this limitation by using the search feature to show only tasks with today’s date, but it takes a lot more effort and you can’t exclude items that have already been checked off the way you can in the main filtered view.  However, even with this one limitation, it’s still an amazing piece of software and if enough people ask for a “current day” filter, I’m sure they’ll consider adding it to a future version.

Here are some of the other things you can do with the Pro version:

• Create hierarchical sub-tasks, which is very helpful for large projects that need to be broken down into smaller parts.
• Add comments to tasks.
• Add attachments to tasks.
• Create lists that are read-only.
• See your list in card view. Great for those of you who are visual types.

There are so many great things you can do with this software, I can’t possibly list them all. I suggest you go to their website and try one of the versions for yourself. The free version is great, but you can try a fully functioning Pro version free for 30 days. I know you’ll like it and you can’t beat the price if you decide to buy it. Just $24.95 for a single license that allows you to install it on up to three computers. Yup, that’s right, THREE! How’s that for value?

Now that you know my secret for staying organized and beating procrastination, I’d love to know your secret. How do you do to keep up with everything you have to do?

I was reading this post, Akismet Gives Me A Lesson In Customer Service, at Blogs With Wings this morning and it made me smile. I, too, had a great experience with customer service yesterday and it was an excellent reminder of how important it is to respond quickly to the needs and wants of your customers, big and small.

I use a couple different hosting companies for the various websites I own, but my primary hosting provider and the one that this site is hosted on is Total Choice Hosting. I’ve been with this company since 2004 and will probably continue to stay with them for a long, long time. Why?

Well, for one, they provide good hosting services at reasonable prices and, two, they provide great customer service.

Are they perfect? No, not always. My experience with them yesterday proved that. Early in the day, their company dropped the ball. In a BIG way. I was experiencing some serious issues with connecting to their web server and uploading files, even being completely locked out of connecting at one point. I opened a support ticket to get the issue resolved and their low-level support techs basically responded with “There’s nothing wrong on our end. It’s your problem.” and closed the ticket, issue unresolved.

I wasn’t having the problem with any of my other hosts and extensive testing of everything on my end made it clear to me that the problem wasn’t on my end, so I reopened the ticket, only to get the same response. Your problem, ticket closed, issue unresolved. I went back and forth with them on this several times, reopening the ticket only to have them close it again. Things came to an explosive point when yet another problem occurred.

I opened another ticket for the second problem only to get the same response as the first ticket. Problem on your end, ticket closed.

At that point, my redheaded, Irish temper took over and I exploded. I reopened both tickets, not to get resolution, but to rant at them for being completely unconcerned that I couldn’t use their service anymore. If I can’t connect to them, there’s no point in keeping an account with them.

Within minutes, I received a response. Not from the tech department but from the President the company. He asked me to contact him directly through instant messenger so we could chat. I did and we spent the next 30 minutes working together to get all my problems solved. He fixed the problems occurring on their end AND he helped me find and fix a few things that were contributing to the problem on my end. By the end of our chat, my service was working perfectly and I was a HAPPY customer.

Then, to top off my great experience, he made sure I knew how important my business was to him and he gave me his personal cell phone number and told me if the problem happened again, I could contact him directly and bypass the ticket system. THAT is good customer service and when I think of that day, it’s that experience I will remember. Not the frustration that led up to it.

Have you ever read something or been told something that sucked the life right out of your dreams?

I seem to get that a lot, especially from well-meaning friends and family members who think they’re sparing me a lot of wasted time and hard work. Or maybe they think a little disappointment up front will hurt a lot less than a big failure down the line. Whatever the reason, I get sick of hearing it.

Something else I get sick of hearing about is niches, especially from bloggers who encourage you to pick a niche, just not their niche.

I recently came across this post, Blogging About Blogging: Fair Warning, where the author linked to and commented on another post, Stop Blogging About Blogging Already. The point of both posts was to discourage new bloggers from blogging about blogging, a niche they claim is saturated and much too difficult for a new blogger to break into. Ironically, both of these bloggers happen to blog about blogging and if you take a few minutes to read through some of the content on each blog, you’ll quickly find that they each write pretty much the same thing, as do many other bloggers on blogging.

The funny thing is… I like and subscribe to both sites. I also subscribe to Problogger and many others, all blogs about blogging, even though they say a lot of the same stuff. Why? Because they each have a different voice, a different way of presenting the same thing and I like being able to compare ideas, to read different viewpoints. The blogger’s personality draws me in as much or more than the content itself. That’s what keeps me coming back. That’s what I love about blogs. They’re not just information dumps. They’re people. Fascinating, exciting people.

According to Ambrose Bierce “there is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don’t know.” There are also a lot of wonderful voices we haven’t yet heard. Yours is one of them.

My advice to new bloggers is to find your passion and blog about it. If you’re passionate about blogging, love blogging more than anything in the world and want to pass that passion on to others, than blog about it! Don’t worry if your niche is saturated. Put your voice out there and be heard. You might have to work a little harder than you would in another niche, but if you’re passionate about it, it won’t matter. You’ll be doing what you love and that passion will show through on your blog.

Be who you are and don’t let anyone steal the life out of your dreams.

Have you ever tried to read a book and been stopped, not by poor content, but by poor editing?

That’s the problem I’ve had with reading Blogging for Fame and Fortune by Jason R. Rich. I’m about halfway through chapter 4 out of 14 chapters and I just can’t seem to get into it. I’ve leafed through it quite a bit and there appears to be some great information there. I just can’t read it. There are too many spelling and grammar errors. I’ve found as many as four of them on a single page.

The name of the publisher is Entrepreneur Press. I’ve looked at their website and they seem to have a variety of books published, but not having read any of them, I have no idea if the editing issue is a problem with this book alone or an issue with the publisher in general.

All I know is a potentially great book has been ruined by poor editing and it’s a shame.

If, unlike me, you’re the type of person who can read a good book in spite of poor editing and you’re interested in starting a new blog or improving an existing blog, you might find this book very helpful. There is plenty of information on how to get started, how to drive traffic to your blog and how to start making money.

One thing this book does not promise you is a quick trip to fame and fortune. The author makes it clear that blogging for fame and fortune takes time and hard work. I give the author credit for that. There are too many books and other information products out there promising instant internet fortune without lifting a finger. It’s refreshing to find an author who tells you the truth about what it takes to succeed without crushing your dream of getting there.

If you’re going to read this book, that’s a pretty good reason to do so.

I’d like to hear what you think.

• Have you read this book? Did you like it?
• Do you have trouble reading books with lots of errors?

I’ve told you What Ven Thinks. Please leave a comment and tell me what YOU think.

I tried Seesmic Desktop alongside of TweetDeck for a short period of time and it didn’t take long for me to realize that Seesmic Desktop and TweetDeck are shadows of each other. If you look at the two clients side-by-side, you can barely tell the difference. Seesmic looks a lot like TweetDeck and has most of the same features. Each client also has features the other lacks, which makes it very hard to chose between them. Even as I write this review, I find myself once again waffling between the two clients. Sometimes, TweetDeck works better for me, but at other times, Seesmic is the better fit.

These are some of the features Seesmic Desktop has in common with TweetDeck:

• Handles multiple Twitter accounts.
• Support for multiple URL shortening services.
• In program profile viewer with the ability to follow, unfollow, and block.
• Support for saved searches.
• Support for unlimited columns.
• Support for posting a single message to multiple accounts.
• Single column view mode.

These are the features Seesmic Desktop lacks:

• The ability to view images within the program itself rather than opening via the browser.
• Support for trending topics and tag clouds via TwitScoop.
• Support for groups
• Support for scheduled tweets.
• Short URL Previews.
• No support for MySpace, Foursquare, or LinkedIn.
• No support for global filtering.
• Ability to change the programs color scheme.

Here are some of the features that Seesmic Desktop has in its favor:

• Handy navigation bar on the left, which can be expanded or collapsed as needed.
• Option to control the width of the columns. (I LOVE this feature.)
• The “Home” column which combines tweets from all accounts into a single column, a nice feature if you like it, can be closed if you don’t.
• Support for a larger number of URL shortening services than TweetDeck.
• Much less annoying notification sound than TweetDeck. Still no support for changing the notification sound though.
• Better font than TweetDeck.

The good news is that Seesmic Desktop is fairly new and still in the development process, so there is always the possibility that, if they implement the missing TweetDeck features and  continue to add features that TweetDeck lacks,  it could very well end up being a much better client than TweetDeck. It’s too early to tell, but I will definitely be keeping an eye on both in the future.

I’d love to hear your opinion. Which client do you like better and why?

Of all the Twitter clients I tried, Digsy was the one that almost stole me away from using TweetDeck, which is surprising considering Digsby was the most lacking in features of all the clients I tried. I used Digsby for several months before making the switch to TweetDeck and still alternated back and forth between the two for while after that. Even now, there are days when I’m tempted to use Digsby just to get a break from the annoying TweetDeck chirp.

Here are a few of the benefits of using Digsby:

• Handles multiple accounts for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn
• Ability to open separate columns for each account, resize them, and move them to any position on the screen.
• Completely customizable appearance with skins.
• Ability to customize the notification sounds (big, big, BIG plus for me).
• Can be used for instant messaging and email as well as for managing social network accounts
• Less memory usage than TweetDeck

Unfortunately, as much as I loved the ability to customize the look and feel of Digsby, there were too many features I needed that it just didn’t have and ultimately those missing features drove me to TweetDeck. Here are some of the features Digsby didn’t offer:

• No ability to create saved searches in columns so I could monitor subjects that are of interest to me.
• No way to save the position and sizes of the columns for each account when opened and positioned on the screen. Each time I started the program, I would have to reopen the columns, re-size them and reposition them on the screen again.
• Each column opened took up space on my taskbar.
• Not able to view, follow, or unfollow Twitter profiles without going to the Twitter website and logging into one of the accounts.
• No ability to handle images or video within Digsby.
• No ability to post messages to multiple accounts at the same time.

I think the part of Digsby that most impressed me was the customization features. I love being able to customize the look and sound of my software to match my personality. With Digsby, you can do that. With TweetDeck, you can’t.

I hope the developers of TweetDeck are listening and will someday add more customization options to their software. If they do that, they will be almost unbeatable as a Social Networking client. For TweetDeck competitors, here’s your chance. If you can have all the features of TweetDeck AND add the ability to customize font size, column size and positioning within the program screen, colors and notification sounds, you’ll knock TweetDeck out of the park.