Posted by Saphrym

I’m one of those people that likes to pick one service and stick with it. People have tons of different profile sites. My favorite is Facebook, but I’m forced to keep a MySpace. When it comes to payment processors, I love PayPal. But I tried something different recently, and ended up quite impressed.

I received a gift certificate for Tiger Direct. So I went over there to pick out something. I decided to go for a tablet since I do a lot of graphics design. Never had one before. However, the gift certificate didn’t quite cover it. So while I was checking out, I noticed a new payment method in the drop down box of the credit cards. It was called eBillme. I like to try new things, so I picked it out of curiosity.

Here’s how it worked:

1. I had to agree to pay the bill through eBillme.
2. I received my bill in e-mail.
3. I went to my bank account and used their bill pay service to pay the bill.
4. eBillme got the money and sent it to Tiger Direct.
5. Tiger Direct shipped my tablet.¹

It was that simple. The directions at the eBillme website helped me figure out exactly what I was doing. And now that I’ve added them as a bill to my bank account, I will never have to set them up again. Here’s a list of all the places that currently accept eBillme as a payment form: List of Merchants

Here’s the pros and cons as I see it:

CON - Was a little confusing to get them set up as a bill at my bank account. However their instructions made it much simpler once I found where they were.² So even my “con” isn’t really a bad thing since they have it taken care of. They even have a cool little demo to explain their service:

PRO - Secure. Seriously. Have you ever used a bill pay service at your bank? The company that receives the money only receives the money. They don’t receive your credit card information or bank account info. So paying using this method has got to be one of the most secure methods I’ve ever used.

So, when you go online shopping, feel free to see if eBillme is offered. It’s a very secure and easy way to pay for your purchase. I’ll be using it more often.

1. Should be here tomorrow. I’m excited to try it out. [«]
2. Which should have been obvious. But I’m not known for noticing the obvious very often. [«]

Posted by Saphrym

Tomorrow, the 25th, is my wife’s birthday. I won’t be around much. She won’t be getting any diamond rings as we’ve already celebrated this month by us both now having iPhones. But I will give her this, right now, from my heart:

Craving

But mostly I crave the simple love you give me in all moments throughout our prior and future lives within a universe that would be only dark if your eyes, lips, life, mind, smile, and world did not exist in it for all of eternity with me by your side wishing for you the most happiness that could ever be accomplished in this gloriously shining life that is much more glorious because you do love me and I know you do and I love you and always will because you are the light in my eyes, the craving of my soul, and the true meaning of my existence and I will forever be thankful to your mother for one thing: your birth.

(Poem has also been reposted at my poetry and fiction site.)

Posted by Saphrym

Posted by Saphrym

This is in response to the question asked in my forums by Queue:

If everyone on the planet stopped existing but you, but the world, in it’s current state, was left exactly the same, what would you do?

Well, the logical part of my brain has to look at this multiple ways:

• Electricity and running water would only be around for a couple of days, if that, as no one would be running the power plants. So generators would be the only option for electricity. Bottled water would be the only option for drinking water.
• The world’s wealth would be at my disposal, however I don’t know how to fly a plane or sail a boat. So I’d be landlocked and stuck in the American continents.
• I have no outdoor survival skills, so I’d also have to make do in the cities. But since that is the only source of easily gotten food, that’s perfectly okay¹.
• With no other computers having electricity, all communications would be gone. No Internet². No phone. But of course, no people, so I guess that doesn’t matter.
• And another problem: I would have no idea that the world is empty. Can’t communicate to find it out.

But that’s my logical mind. My logical mind pales in comparison to my emotional one. I am human after all. So I’ll answer that part with a narrative:

I wake up to an empty bed. However, this is a normal occurrence, as my wife always gets up before I do. That’s how we get our time to ourselves. She goes to bed before I do and wakes up before I do. So we always have about two hours on our own. I pick up my phone to check my e-mail, a normal part of my routine, but there’s no signal.

I smile at that thought and then pull the trigger.

Is that exactly how it will happen? I don’t know. Will I go crazy and kill myself? I don’t know. But it is a possibility. Lack of human companionship is deadly, no matter what material goods you have at your disposal.

1. I’m talking about canned goods and other foods that would last a long time without a refrigerator [«]
2. Means all those used cisco routers and millions of dollars worth of servers are useless [«]

Posted by Saphrym

This is in response to the question asked in my forums by Monique Renae:

What do you think is the best thing about blogging? What does blogging do for you?

First, let me tell you how I got into blogging: I used to have a “blog” back in 1996. It was on my old website, theebs.com. The Saphrym cartoon character was actually created as “Ely Beasel” and theebs.com stood for “The Ely Beasel Show.” At least, that’s what it meant at the time. It actually first began as “The Electronic Book Store.” But I had an Internet Journal. Didn’t do much with it and later I lost theebs.com. Blogs got popular a couple of years after that. And we all know how popular they are today. Well, about a year ago I decided to install Wordpress for the simple purpose of keeping an online portfolio of my fictional writing and poetry. But then I was diagnosed with diabetes.

So, I decided to use the blog as a way of documenting my weight loss¹. Wasn’t really looking for readers, but then I stumbled on Entrecard. Got some readers from there. People started asking for more information than the boring diet posts². So I started providing more. Blogging became a way of me being held accountable for my diet. It wasn’t just my wife and daughter watching me lose weight. It was now more and more people on the Internet. I didn’t want to let them down. So I lost 70 pounds.

But then I hit a plateau. No more weight loss. Was quite irritating. Lasted for months. Actually only got passed it this past week. However, I needed something to write about. So I started writing about my life, my thoughts, my ideas. The personas I list in the categories of this blog became that much more interesting to me. And people still came to visit even though it wasn’t just about dieting anymore. You guys said you liked my writing. So I have continued.

I’m hooked on blogging. It means I get to write anytime I want and I know at least 10 people will read it other than my family. Sometimes more. Sometimes a lot more. It’s a great feeling to know that people like what you write. And that feeling, along with the support for my continued dieting, is why I will continue to blog for as long as people will read. Even when I’m skin and bones, I’m hoping you guys will enjoy my philosophical points of view and the tiny bit of humor I inject here and there.

1. And I swore I’d never use quick weight loss methods. I wanted to go with natural diets. Although I do use Slim-Fast in my diet. But I want my metabolism to be naturally high. [«]
2. click on that link and you’ll see how boring they were [«]

Posted by Saphrym

Yep. New commandment. But seriously, I’m not one for posting affiliate links in my blog posts. I save them for the sidebar so I can make a “little” bit of cash. This time, however, I’m going to post my affiliate link because I’m selling something that is free and that makes you at least a little bit of cash.

It’s called Scour. You’ll notice it’s already on my sidebar under the EC widget¹. Basically, it’s a search engine that gives you results from Yahoo, Google, MSN, and gives many other really great features.

See, I’ve used things like Yuwie and found them to be trash. Tons of spam. Bad service. But this one is a really good service. It’s a better search engine from what I can see so far. You can even vote up and down search results so that only the good stuff starts showing at the top.

And here’s the kicker: EVERY search earns you points. And those points can be used to get VISA Gift Cards. You also earn points for commenting and voting. Here’s what you get with your points:

25,000 = $100
12,500 = $50
6,500 = $25

See? Nice huh. I do tons of searches as I do a LOT of research on the web². Might as well get paid for those searches. Right? Make sure to check out their FAQ page while you’re there. Very informative.

But again, that IS an affiliate link so I can earn points on YOUR searches. It’s not multi-tier. You only earn 25% of the points from your direct signups. But hey, every little bit counts. And this time, it’s actually a really good FREE service. So check it out. Here’s my link one more time:

http://scour.com/invite/saphrym

(If you absolutely HATE affiliate links, feel free to sign up on your own through scour.com, but I appreciate any signups through my link.)

Feel free to discuss other affiliate services in the forums: Affiliate Services and Products

1. directly below the Ask Saph link… hint hint [«]
2. I’ve even been paid to look up medical diagnostics equipment and tests. Go figure. [«]

Posted by Saphrym

Yep. I’m going nuts with posts today¹. Trying to make up for the lack of them in the recent weeks. But now that I’ve said that…

There’s been quite a bit of construction here at Saphrym.com.²

• I’ve installed a few plugins that I’m trying out. Most of it back end stuff. If you’d like to see the ones I have installed, check out my About page.
• I also added a “Blego”³ page to feed my own blogger ego.
• I got rid of the direct link to Twitter and replaced it with FriendFeed. I’m loving that service. Lets me keep track of what my friends like and don’t like and also lets me let people know the same thing.⁴
• I tried Google Ads again for about a day and still can’t stay the way it looks so dropped it.
• Hmmm. What else? Oh yeah, I installed a forum plugin and have my own forums now! The plugin is awesome. It’s called Simple:Press Forum. Check it out if you want your own forums easily integrated into Wordpress. I decided I wanted forums because sometimes there are conversations you want to have with your readers that the comments just don’t work for. And with those forums comes a few other things:
  • I created forums for every topic I discuss on this blog.
  • I’ve opened up registration for blog accounts, and therefore forum accounts, to anyone. Which means I might just finally let a few people guest blog here.
  • I’ve also started asking for advice questions. Check out the Ask Saph topic in the forums.

I think that’s about it other than the stuff you can see in previous posts. So enjoy the new features. I have to go write more posts.

(EDIT: Had to test and see how the blog to forum link worked. Hence the link below this. Probably won’t use it often though. I feel conversations about a specific blog post should probably be done within the comments of that post. And even this “edit” is a test to see if the edit shows up in the forum post. We shall see.)

(EDIT AGAIN: Nope. Doesn’t update the forum post itself when the blog post is edited. Ahh well. Will definitely not use it often. I edit my posts too much.)

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

1. And plan on writing many more. So I’m increasing the post count on the index page to 10 instead of my normal 5 [«]
2. Not the kind involving replacement of light fixtures, but construction nonetheless. [«]
3. Evil Woobie turned me on to the term. Blame her. Again. [«]
4. Say that ten times fast and I’ll give you a virtual cookie. [«]

Posted by Saphrym

I’ve got to share. I told you guys I started a new diet. Well, check out this graph:

Click on it for a full sized version.

I love not having to use supplements like hoodia or akavar. Truly I do. Some people need to. And I was worried I might need to after my months long plateau. But no more. I’ve lost about 11 pounds in just the last few weeks. And it’s starting to come off faster.

I’ll let you know even more of my secrets next time I write about my diet.

Posted by Saphrym

I know many of you have probably already heard of Pandora, but I just have to give my own opinion here. Paying for XM radio is basically silly if you’re only looking for music. Sure, they have some great talk radio, but if you’re only there for commercial free playing of songs, you can’t really do much better than Pandora.¹

Ok. I admit. It’s not advertisement free unless you pay $36 a year. Oh, wait, did I say $36. Must be a typo, right? XM Radio costs $7.00 a month. I’ll let you do the math. But it is commercial free. And it has tons to offer. See, you pick your own favorite music and artists and it uses the Music Genome Project to determine what other music you would like and plays it for you. Now, like a radio station, it won’t let you rewind, but you can skip songs you don’t like (up to about 3 to 5 times). And you can quickly thumb up or down a song so it knows to play more like it or less like it. For example, I like John Mayer and have a channel just for his music and others like it. Wanna listen to it? Here’s a link: John Mayer Radio

“Ok. Sounds good. I can listen to music on my computer. But what about in my car?”

Got AT&T or Sprint? Then go here: http://pandora.com/on-the-go

That’s right. They have a mobile version. And with all of the neat wires and such that are around nowadays, well, it would be easy to play your phone music through your car’s radio. Oh, and if you have an iPhone, they just released an iPhone app specifically for Pandora. And the mobile versions seem to work without a subscription. At least the iPhone version does. I haven’t tried the other ones yet.

So why pay for commercial free radio? If you’re into music as much as I am, you’ll find Pandora to not only be a great service, but it’ll open your ears to music you never knew you would like.

(And no, Pandora is not paying me for this post. I just love their service tremendously. Been using it for a while and still meet people who have never heard of it. So I felt it was definitely time to share.)

Do you have favorite channels that you listen to on Pandora? Share them on the forums.

1. It’s kind of like paying for luxury vacations when a walk down the road or a drive to a local city you’ve never been to could be just as entertaining, if not more entertaining. [«]

Posted by Saphrym