You may have my permission to call me butter, for I am on a roll.  This morning I received a $350 payment from YouriPodTouch4Free.com.  I used the “social engineering” method discussed in my post about getting $580 from YourFreeiPhone.com.

I spent $150 to get referrals and made $350. If I consider the $150 an investment, the $350 payment I received is a 233% return on my investment!  With this payment, I have received a total of $930 from freebie sites.

And the proof follows:

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Let’s be real.  I have been a Windows “fanboi” for as long as I can remember.  In fact I’ve also been a “fanboi” of Intel, Apple, and AT&T-but those are a different story.  My very first computer ran Windows 98.  My second computer ran XP Professional.  My third computer runs Vista Ultimate x64.  I’m annoyed at Vista!  At first, I was a huge fan of Vista.  Its graphics are a little over the top for my video card at times, but initially I was quite please.  The occaisonal crashes and bluescreens were few and far between and for the first time, I had Windows Media Center.  I find it bloated and slow, but it works.  Or at least it did.

As you may or may not know,  I was one of the first adoptors of the public release version of Service Pack 1 for Vista x64.  Since then, Vista has become increasingly unstable.  I, for one, would have thought that Vista and WMC would be BFF considering that they’re made by the same people!  Every morning, I try to record 2 episodes of JAG using Windows Media Center.  Almost every morning, Vista throws a bluescreen and ruins the entire program.   This also happens in the evening when I’m trying to record The Biggest Loser or American Idol.  While these problems are merely annoyances now, because I’m recording these shows at home as well, they are completely unacceptable.

I am faced with two choices. I can either try to fix these bluescreen problems by reformating and starting, or I can cut my loses and move on to some Linux distro. I think that I will try to reformat and reinstall Vista over spring break which is a week away. while I’m at it, I might as well also set up a partition and install Ubuntu 7.10.

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I shall begin this post by donning my enlightened despot cap and claiming that wisdom (or maybe just a working knowledge of economics) is knowing when to quit.

I began working as a webmaster with one simple goal.  I wanted, and still do, to own and manage a “big board” forum.  I’ve always been fascinated by forums but, I’ve never been able to create and grow a unique community.  In around 5 years of online work, I still have not approached this goal.  I’ve not even come close.  Over the years, I’ve dabbled in many other niches, but none have really ever caught my fancy.  I buy or start a site, use it for a while, and then let it go.  I never give the sites the time, effort, or passion that they deserve.  When they’re mere shadows of their former selves, I sell them-hopefully at a cost high enough to recover my investment.  My goal with sites like this has always been to make money.  This, however, is not enough to be a success.

After 5 years of online work, I still consider myself a novice in the webmaster game. I’ve turned a profit here and ther, but I still know nothing about web marketing, nothing about programming, nothing about monetizing a website when it is getting traffic. As such, it is time for me to tender my resignation. I’ve been a monumental failure in this business and I need to withdraw and reqroup. I’m not pulling out completely, I’m just liquidating all the sites that I currently own and starting over with just this blog. Until I know what I’m doing, I’m going to try and refrain from proliferating the spread of useless sites clogging the net.

This leads me to a metamorphosis for this blog. Starting when I get around to it, this blog will have a new focus…the world according to me!

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Don’t let anyone ever tell you that the weather in Arkansas is anything but crazy.  Over the weekend, highs were close to 70. Yesterday, the temperature was 60 degrees Fahrenheit with heavy thunderstorms. Right now, it is 29 degrees and we could have as much as a foot of snow on the ground!  It may be as much as 10 or 15 years since I’ve seen this much snow!

Snow day!

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As you may or may not know, I am a sophmore business student majoring in Accounting at Arkansas Tech University. This semester I am taking a course on the Legal Environments of Business. This week we discussed the sale of goods in general and ecommerce. During the lecture I learned something interesting about warranties. Did you know that if a customer asks you to recommend a product to suit their needs and they subsequently purchase it you have contractually guaranteed that this product will work for the needs that they have described to you? I didn’t! I work part time at an AT&T wireless Authorized Agent and we give out recommendations all the time!

So what does this mean to you? When you tell a customer that something will work for the needs described, you have offered them an express warranty that need not be in writing. If you recommend one of your products to a customer, they purchase it, and it doesn’t fit the needs that they described to you, then you have just violated the sales contract and they could take you to court to receive a refund! All they have to do is prove that you promised them that it would do whatever and that this promise had a significant influence on their decision to purchase.

You are, of course, allowed to use sales language (this is the best product “4 eva”, ect.), just don’t over do it. So, the next time a customer asks your advice, watch the pufffing. You could be doing more than blowing  smoke up someone’s…

The Obligatory: I ain’t a lawyer, don’t sue me if you read this post, use it, and it in some way irreperably damages you or causes you bodily harm or mental anguish.

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