So I signed up for Facebook the other day. I haven’t done much with it beyond search for a few people, so I can’t really comment on it yet. So far it looks pretty cool, though.
I noticed, on my profile screen after signing in for the first time, that Facebook declares I have no friends. So much for my self esteem.
If you’re looking for me I’ll be with my therapist.
I have a PO Box that I use to receive mail for my business. I got it because I thought the PO Box address would look more professional than my home addresss (with an apartment number) and because it would be more secure–I don’t have a locking mailbox so anyone walking by could easily go through my mail looking for checks.
Every six months, on or arround the first of the month, I get an envelope in my PO Box in which I can send my renewal. I had a payment due this month, so the process was no different: I got the envelope saying that I owed $35 and that I had until January 31 to pay.
Normally I pay the renewal fee within a day or two of receiving the envelope, but because I had a lot of other things going on this time, my payment got delayed. I payed it sometime around the 15th—well before the deadline. A few days later I was quite shocked to see that, instead of a receipt in my box, the post office had returned my check, along with a new payment envelope that contained a hand written note “Your box rental rate is now $37. Thank you.” You see, on January 8 the post office raised the price of postage and, evidently, the price of PO Boxes as well—but they didn’t bother to tell me this. At minimum, they should have attached a note saying that the price would go up if I didn’t pay by the 8th.
Maybe I should try this approach–charge my clients one price and then, when they pay, say “oh sorry, I just raised my rates.” How long would I stay in business, then?
I’ve always been a far of buying CDs over downloading music. It is partly because I’m often not very good about backing up my computer files and I fear loosing my music collection, partly because I haven’t wanted to give up valuable space on my computer for storing those files, and partly because I’ve always liked the portability of having CDs—I can use them in my car, with my portable CD player, my home stereo, office radio, computer—where ever.
Now that I have an iPod that’s capable of holding more music than I know what to do with I’m starting to rethink my reason for buying CDs. Storage these days is dirt cheap and its not hard at all to back up my digital files to CD or DVD. The iPod is even more portable than carrying around CDs and I can access all of my music at any time—not just the 10 or so CDs I decided to take with me. Plus, with digital downloads I can buy just the tracks I want. Several of my CDs have songs I don’t really ever listen to anyway. Downloads are generally a little cheaper, too–iTunes, for example sells, full albums for $9.99 vs. $13-$20 for a CD.
Of course, with downloads you don’t get the album art, lyrics, and bonus features that you get with the CD, but how important is that, really?
So now the big question is “what’s the right music service for me?” There are several options:
So what’s best? I have no idea. I’m thinking about signing for for a few trials and going from there. I’ll post my findings right here.
Did I miss your favorite service? Any mentioned that I should avoid? LEave a comment and let me know.
I know this may surprise a lot of people, but I’m now an Apple owner. (Contrary to popular belief, I’ve never had anything against Apple/Mac, I just prefer the PC/Windows environment.) I got a very cool 20Gb Photo iPod for Christmas. (Thanks, Mom!)
How much music can I fit on a 20Gb iPod? Well, the box says up to 5,000 songs (based on an average of 4 minutes per song). So far I have put about a dozen of my CD’s on it, plus a bunch of MP3’s and iTunes downloads (that I got free from Pepsi last year), and I’ve used just over a gig. I figure I’ll probably be able to get my entire CD collection on there, or close to it.
Now I can go hang out in the Apple Store at Eastview Mall and not feel like an outsider. 🙂
I came across the SafariTest tool yeasterday and thought it was worth a mention. Pretty simple to use—give it a URL and the site renders your page in Apple’s Safari browser and sends you a screenshot.
At work I have access to Macs to test my sites on, but when I do freelance work at home I don’t have this luxury. This site will make it easier to test pages as I build them.
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