AshesFromStars

You would think that with the amount of time that I’m spending online these days that I have time to waste with updating my site and posting on boards - wrong! I don’t think that I’ve ever been so busy in my life. And I love it.

Take today for example. I went to bed last night at about 11pm and woke up this morning at 5am, even although I’m working back shift tonight. Since I was already up I decided to work on some of my course work, I’m really getting into it - it’s only things that I need to take photographs for that I’m struggling with because I can’t find my digital camera (although on an other note I recieved a letter this morning from a company called ‘McIntryre & Dodds Marketing‘ saying that I could have won a £20,000 cheque, £250 premium bonds or a Sony digital camera - and it’ll only cost me £1.50 a minute to find out if I’ve won!) .

Anyway, I worked my little butt off, colouring in pictures of lottery machines, quoting the national lottery’s website..the works, until I fell asleep at my desk. I woke up about two hours ago with the imprint of the Lottery’s logo on my cheek from where I’d been colouring it in and promptly used it as a pillow! I’m so glad I noticed though and had a shower right away or else my gran would have thought I’d gone mad.

As well as all of this, I’m working tonight and my mum’s not working next door so I can’t get a run to and from work. I hate getting the bus home after I’ve closed the shop, it freaks me out slightly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m capable of closing the shop and whatnot but stuff goes through my head like ‘what if somebody’s over the wall and jumps us for my keys’ or something? Even though I work in a good area, there’s still the idiots who would try something like that.

On top of everything that I’ve done today I’ve also made up a black bag of clothing to take to the charity shop on my way to work, even although I took about 9 bags to the charity shop about a month and a half ago - I have far too many clothes but I keep buying more. Plus my mum bought me a gorgeous dress and a new pair of work shoes from Marks & Spencers the other day in their sale. And she moans at me for buying clothes I don’t need? Hah!

I’m so not happy with the navigation I have on the site at the moment, it looks completly out of place.. any ideas? I have a great idea for the navigation I’ll use on the content pages but that involves me using photoshop a lot when I get back from work. But the main navigation? I’m stuck!

When I first started visiting blogs of friends who had signed up to payperpost, a service that allows it’s users (generally referred to as Posties) get paid to blog I was extremely dubious of the whole situation. Money for posting a few links and reviews on your blog? There had to be a catch.

It wasn’t until I was reading Jenn’s blog and realised just how much money she had earned from PPP that I starting doing my research. Surely it wasn’t just as easy as posting an entry on your blog to meet the advertisers requirements? As it turns out it is that easy to earn money!

Unfortuantly for me, at the time, my blog wasn’t old enough to meet PayPerPost’s requirements. So I patiently waited until my blog was old enough, 90 days, in order to register my blog. I considered signing up as an affiliate until my blog was old enough to register but it seemed like I was last to jump onto the bandwagon and everybody had already signed up!

Since I’ve become a member of PPP I’ve made a cool $42 from four posts and it couldn’t have been easier if PayPerPost tried.This money is a godsend at the moment as I’m desperate for a new digital camera which I’ll buy from eBay and since my earnings are paid into my PayPal account I’ll never actually ’see’ the money, it’ll just be put to good use buying things from the internet! My next big purchase will be from eBay also, a laptop. Granted I’ll need to post more than 4 posts to buy that
outright but anything towards it will be excellent since I can’t really afford one at the moment!

If you’re looking for a way to make some extra cash online then I’d recommend PayPerPost - there’s no catch and it’s easy enough to write posts to the advertiser’s requirements. If you’re having doubts - don’t! Sign up now and start reaping the benefits.

You know, I’m an idiot. I just realised that I didn’t have my most favourite WP plugin installed and that nobody else could see the pretty fonts. It’s only because I was browsing Isarie.com’s sIFR font page that I realised I’d forgotten to re-install it. sIFR is the best invention ever, it really is! Pretty, scalable fonts on your website without your visitors having to install said pretty font. Brilliant.

EDIT: it’s not installing properly. Damnit. Anyone ever had any problems installing FlashyTitles?

Amazon’s new website, Mechanical Turk offers a great way of making a few extra pennies by completing simple tasks such as Answer a few demographical questions or Read and comment on my article on Amazon. These tasks are called HITs and can vary in price from $0.01 to $5.00.

Amazon Mechanical Turk provides a web services API for computers to integrate “artificial artificial intelligence” directly into their processing by making requests of humans. Developers use the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service to submit tasks to the Amazon Mechanical Turk web site, approve completed tasks, and incorporate the answers into their software applications. To the application, the transaction looks very much like any remote procedure call: the application sends the request, and the service returns the results. Behind the scenes, a network of humans fuels this artificial artificial intelligence by coming to the web site, searching for and completing tasks, and receiving payment for their work.

All software developers need to do is write normal code. The pseudo-code below illustrates how simple this can be.

read (photo);
photoContainsHuman = callMechanicalTurk(photo);
if (photoContainsHuman == TRUE) {
acceptPhoto;
}
else {
rejectPhoto;
}

I have been a member of MTurk for all of 20 minutes so far and have taken 19 HITs, and if they are all approved I’ll have made a tidy $1.02. That means that I’m over 10% of the way of getting payment, since the minimum payment is $10.00. This payment goes straight to your U.S bank account, or in my case, your Amazon Gift Certificate Fund.

For me, this isn’t a quick-fix money making idea, it’s a time-waste with an added bonus. Most HITs take mere seconds to complete for a few cents.

So, after I am paid on Friday the 17th August I only have three more pay days until Christmas. Granted I will have an extra £500 on my last wage from my savings scheme which I pay £100 into every month plus my quarterly bonus which I’ll get in my August wage (I think that it’s £141, which is better than nothing).

Between now and Christmas I have lots of money going out which I don’t normally have. My passport, for one, will be about £60 or something. My driver’s license is £40 (I think?). Our holiday to Tenerife will knock about £400 out my hands and driving lessons come in at £20 per hour. Ouch. I also hope to sit my two driving tests before Christmas, coming in at around £90 just for them. Plus I have my monthly bus tickets, dig money to my mother, paying off my overdraft, lunch at work, cigarettes, going out from time to time and our Christmas night out to pay. There’s also the small matter of a new laptop which is essential for my Management Training Course. I think, as always, I’ll stick with a Dell Inspiron. I love those laptops/notebooks with a passion and I’m gutted that my 6000 is dead! I’d be using one of many Dell coupons that are available, just so I can save some more money.
I am, probably, going to be even more skint than I usually am. Oh, (Christmas) joy a’right!

I’ve started buying Christmas presents already. I have purchased a few pairs of jeans and t shirts for the boyfriend over the course of the last three months, just as little extras. I also have a make-up brush set for my mother, one she has been going on about wanting for a few weeks that I managed to pick up in Debenham’s sale at half price.

Not only am I thinking about what I would like to buy as presents for other people, I’ve started writing my wishlist. Hey, give to receive is my motto. Selfish, or what? Ironically most of what I want is from USA-based stores, especially delias.com They have such a great selection of logo tshirts, I think I maybe in love! I’ve noticed a theme in logo shirts over here in the UK, really garish black or white tops with ‘I love boys, music and shopping’ plastered over them in Frankie Says Relax-style font and layout. Ugh, not nice the first time, not nice now!

I have a wish list for Delias, since that’s the only way that I could possibly get anything from the site. I would love to get any of these items - they are so much better than stuff I can get in Scotland at the moment since we’re going through a fashion-death I feel! Of course, if you were buying me a tshirt from my wish list (yeah..right!) you could always use a dELiAs.com coupon for it!

All of these stores have great savings to be made using coupon codes when you checkout, which for me is an absolute bonus. Why would anyone pay full price for something when they can get some cash off of their purchase?

I must look crazy, talking about Christmas already when it’s only August, but when you’re on a budget like mine you have to be organized!

Last Wednesday I attended our company’s head office to (finally, may I say) begin my Management Training Course. It was a chance for the 8 of us on the course to meet each other, meet the two ladies who are running it properly, ask any questions and generally find out more about the course. All the four hours did for me was get me very, very excited about it!

We got our first section - The National Lottery, which we have 4 weeks to complete - or at least try to complete. So far I’ve completed 90% of the questions and found about 25% of the evidence required to back up the answers. It’s taken me hours to complete so far, there is a hell of a lot of work involved in it. Not only writing up answers and whatnot but finding the answers. Most of them are simple - ‘Where does your pound go after you buy your ticket? - but prooving the answers? Not hard as such, but it involves thinking.

I’m doing a lot of graphs, flowcharts and taking/drawing a lot of pictures of various Lotto-related things in the shop. The amount of paper and toner for my printer I’ve used so far is astronomical, but it’s worth it.

I just hope that I can keep up the enthusiasm for this course, not that I think I’ll get bored of it, but because I am determined to show that I could run a shop even though I’m only 21. It’s been my dream since I was knee-high and I’ve already proved myself within the company. I’ve only been working in SPAR for a year but already I’m a full time supervisor on a training course to become a manager, which I am ultimately proud of.