Geek in Heels - Page 80

Aug 14, 2011 • In Funny, Geek, Web

Sarah Conner? [Twitter Account of the Day]

Somebody should tell T-800 (Twitter handle @111001001101010) that he may have better luck if he spelled “Connor” correctly. 🙂

Via Reddit.

iPad 2 Giveaway!

Update: A big congratulations to CH, who entered via the Facebook giveaway page! I will be contacting you shortly so that you can claim your prize!

Yesterday, I wrote about the new Time to Call™ app from Vonage. This free-to-download app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch allows you to make calls of up to 15 minutes to landlines and mobile phones in over 190 countries, while billing your existing iTunes account with no monthly charges or commitments.

In an effort to promote the app, Vonage is sponsoring an iPad 2 Giveaway with 75 websites in participation, EACH site giving away a separate iPad 2! Can we say fan-freakin-tastic?!! Be sure to check out http://www.callsfromsmartphone.com/ for the full list of participating sites, because you can enter all of them to increase your chances of winning (provided that you abide by each site’s respective rules, of course).

I was very surprised, humbled, and excited to have been asked to participate in this giveaway — not only because this kind of stuff is right up my alley, but because this is the biggest giveaway I have hosted on this blog, and I knew that you, my readers, would love it too. 🙂

Now, on to the good stuff!

The winner of the Geek in Heels iPad 2 Giveaway will receive: one (1) iTunes gift card in the amount of $15 USD for use with his/her device; and one (1) Apple gift card in the amount of $700 USD for the purchase of an Apple iPad 2, 32GB WiFi. (If there is no access to Apple in the country from which the winner would like to purchase the iPad 2, a cash-equivalent prize will be distributed via PayPal.)

That’s $715 worth of Apple cash!!! 😯

Now, this giveaway will run slightly differently from my previous giveaways, so please read carefully below…

Each reader is eligible for up to three entries via the following methods (each method will grant a separate entry):

Leave a comment to this post about who and where you would like to call internationally with the Vonage Time to Call app.
If you haven’t done so already, go to the Geek in Heels Facebook Page and “Like” the page. Then click on the iPad 2 Giveaway link (located right under the profile picture, or just use this link) to enter the sweepstakes.
If you haven’t done so already, follow @geekinheels on Twitter and tweet exactly the following: I just entered for a chance to win an iPad2 via @vonage and @geekinheels at http://bit.ly/q42hcW and you can too! #timetocall

There is no need to leave extra comments here if you enter via Facebook or Twitter. 😉 (The extra comments will get deleted, anyway.)

You can increase your chances of winning by using all three methods of entry. There is only one entry allowed per person, per method (strictly enforced with a paddle!) and any additional entries will be void.

For all the rules, go to this link.

The giveaway begins as soon as this entry is published — August 13, 2011 @ 12:00am EDT — and will run until August 17, 2011 @ 11:59pm EDT. The winner will be announced here on August 18 and will also be notified by email (so please use a valid email when entering so that I can contact you if you win!) or via a Twititer DM.

Good luck, and don’t forget to check out http://www.callsfromsmartphone.com/ — with new content posted as the list of participating websites get updated — for more chances to win!

Arrested Development + Lego = Awesome Sauce

As a huge fan of the canceled television show Arrested Development (I couldn’t have been more proud of my husband when he named his Fantasy Football team “Steve Holt!” one year), I am LOVING these meticulously-detailed pieces by Matt De Lanoy. Photographed by Pepa Quin, the display was a wonderful addition to Brickworld 2011 in Chicago.

The model home, with all of the major characters.

The stair car.

Michael and his son George Michael.

Maeby holding a script (notice George Michael in the background, staring at her).

Gob with his rude puppet Franklin (and George in the background).

Lindsay and Tobias in his Blue Man Group getup.

Lucille and Buster.

Via Flavorwire.

P.S. — I know that an Arrested Development movie is in the works, but I am not too sure that it will be on par with the television series as too much time has passed since the show last aired. 🙁

Vonage Time to Call™ Review and an iPad 2 Giveaway!

Last week, Vonage released a new VoIP app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch called Time to Call™. This pay-per-call international calling app allows users to make short, 15-minute calls to 190 countries with competitive rates ranging from 99 cents to $9.99 per call. It is FREE to download with no monthly charges and no commitments.

So what sets Time to Call apart from its competitors? Payments are processed through iTunes®, so you don’t need to create an account with Vonage or another third party.

According to Vonage’s official page, Time to Call offers the following:

Pay per call and talk up to 15 minutes to 100 countries for $1.99 or less¹
For an additional 90+ countries, talk up to 15 minutes for $2.99 to $9.99¹
Works on Wi-Fi worldwide
Also for use on high quality 3G networks² in the U.S. and Canada
Significant savings over mobile carrier rates
FREE download

¹Excluding applicable taxes
²Carrier charges may apply if you have a limited data plan

PLUS, for a limited time, Vonage is offering a FREE 15-minute call to landlines and mobiles in 100 countries when you download the app!

I’ve had the chance to play around with Time to Call, and even asked friends to help me test out the app. (Who can turn down a free 15-minute international call?) Our verdict:

The quality of calls was pretty good, but this definitely depends on the type of connection you use. In our tests, WiFi considerably beat out both mobile connections and 3G.
The app is easy to download and pretty intuitive. However, one tester noted that choosing the country at the beginning of the call was a bit confusing, since that led her to believe that she wouldn’t need to input the country code. (Choosing the country seems to only set the rate of the call.)
Everyone liked the fact that there was no need to set up a separate account or plan with Vonage, since everything was pre-paid through iTunes.
Another big “PRO” is that you have up to a year to use up your unused minutes. However, the unused minutes can only be used for the same country or calling region.
One minute before your 15 minutes is up, you will get a notification alerting you of this. I wish that you can buy more than 15 minutes at a time, or have an option to buy more minutes while making the call. According to Vonage, they are working to possibly include this feature in a future update.
There is not yet an Android app, but Vonage says that it is on its way.

Now, on to what I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for — the iPad 2 giveaway!

In an effort to promote Time to Call, Vonage is sponsoring 75 different websites to give away an Apple iPad 2 32GB WiFi and a $15 iTunes gift card to use with the device…and this blog is one of those lucky sites!

The Geek in Heels iPad 2 Giveaway will officially begin August 13, 2011, at 12:00am EDT and will come to a close August 17, 2011 at 11:59pm EDT. So please check back tomorrow to see exactly how you can win!

Since EACH site is giving away a separate iPad 2, you are more than free to enter the other giveaways too! (But please note that each site will have its own set of giveaway rules, and if you win via one of the sites, you can’t win again on another participating site.)

You can find a list of participating websites, as well as more information on Time to Call, on the continually-updated site http://www.callsfromsmartphone.com/. And, for your convenience, here is the latest list of the sites and the run-times of their giveaways:

Aug 10 ~ Aug 14
http://geekdad.daddyforever.com/
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/
http://smallbiztrends.com/

Aug 11 ~ Aug 15
http://the-gadgeteer.com/
http://www.mouthyhousewives.com/
http://www.mobilityminded.com/

Aug 12 ~ Aug 16
http://www.gearlive.com/
http://www.mobilitysite.com/
http://collegecandy.com/

Aug 13 ~ Aug 17
http://www.neowin.net/
https://www.geekinheels.com/
http://www.whatthetech.com/

Aug 14 ~ Aug 18
**link removed per website’s request**
http://boardingarea….iewfromthewing/
http://www.geardiary.com/

Aug 15 ~ Aug 19
http://www.digitalhomethoughts.com/
http://dailysocial.net/en/
http://smallbiztechnology.com

Aug 16 ~ Aug 20
http://www.autechheads.com/
http://thestudyabroadblog.com/
http://iphonenewzealand.co.nz

Aug 17 ~ Aug 21
http://HerCampus.com
http://www.busymom.net/
http://www.ben.geek.nz

Aug 18 ~ Aug 22
http://www.soldiersperspective.us
http://eliax.com/
http://www.hackcollege.com/
http://geeksroom.com

Good luck to everyone reading this, and please check back tomorrow for the official Geek in Heels iPad 2 Giveaway!

How Scientists See Each Other

Via DrugMonkey.

Third Trimester

I am 28 weeks pregnant with BebeDeux today, which means that I am officially in my third trimester.

I wish I had a belly shot to share with you, but I still don’t have a functioning laptop with which to transfer photos from my camera and my cell phone camera isn’t working. So here’s what I looked like last year when I was 28 weeks pregnant with Claire, since everyone’s been telling me that my tummy growth and weight gain look relatively the same.

My mother theorized that I must be having such difficult pregnancies because the babies are “absorbing” all my health…and I can’t help but wonder if there is a ring of truth to that statement. I am still throwing up almost every day, getting daily nosebleeds as well as migraines, insomnia, and horrible hip pains.

Pregnancy does not agree with my body.

But on the upside? Claire is one of the healthiest babies I know, and BebeDeux seems to be on the same track (at least in utero).

And since I had similar hardships with my pregnancy with Claire, followed by an easy delivery — she was literally out in 5 minutes, or just 12 pushes — I am hoping that this difficult pregnancy with BebeDeux will result in something similar. 🙂

We’re two-thirds of the way through, BebeDeux! Please stay healthy and happy for mommy!

P.S. — How horribly inconvenient is that that my cell phone goes on the fritz just as my laptop dies? As I am eligible for an upgrade on the 23rd, I plan on just waiting it out until then because I refuse to pay full price on a new phone. I know that I can call Verizon to try to bump up my upgrade eligibility date, but that would mean that I would need to buy the new phone through them and I would prefer to get it through a third party vendor that charges less.

Also, we can afford a new MacBook Pro but I don’t want to get one until later this month, when J receives his bonus. It’s not a life-or-death situation, and I much prefer to have some extra padding in terms of cash for the time being, especially with the full-of-unexpected-expenses summer we’ve been having.

If Adam and Eve Had Been Chinese

As someone who is married to a Chinese man (and often gags at the things he is willing to eat), I can attest that this is completely accurate. 😉

Via 9GAG.

Advertising Revenue: The First Month

It has been two months since I first decided to start accept advertising on this blog, and just a little over a month since the first ad appeared.

Now, I know that no one likes a braggart. And I am not in any way writing this post as a way to scream, “Look how much money I’m making!”

Rather, I decided to reveal my first month’s advertising revenue (and by that, I mean the first month when the ads first appeared, not when I began accepting ads) solely based on the fact that there are so damn few bloggers who openly share their earnings.

When I was first contemplating ads, the biggest questions I had were:

“How much can I make?”
“Which advertising method(s)?”

And since I had so much trouble finding some real answers to these questions, I have decided to share them here, without pretense, so that any other bloggers who may be struggling with similar questions may find some assistance.

As I have written before, I decided to go with BlogAds as my primary ad network. And just as BlogAds warned might happen, I did not get any advertisers for the first month.

But a few days into the second month, I received my first ad request (I have full control over whether an ad is accepted or not), and they began to roll in regularly.

My first month’s ad revenue via BlogAds: $109.49

This number is after BlogAds’ commission rate of 14% (it would be lower if BlogAds were my exclusive advertiser), or the BlogAds Hive commission rate of 30%. (Hives are sort of like communities within BlogAds. They take a higher commission, but the exposure rate is much higher.)

I expect this month’s ad revenue to be higher, as the quantity and sizes of ads have increased. 🙂 Perhaps I will even get the courage to raise my ad rates after a few months.

Shortly after I joined BlogAds, I also began to use Google AdSense as an additional source of advertising revenue, both on the sidebar of this site in addition to the RSS feed.

When I did a quick web search on how much I can expect to earn through AdSense, most people would answer, “Pennies a day.” So my expectations were not that great. However, in my case…

My first month’s ad revenue via AdSense: $130.58

Not bad. Both numbers are still less than what I made in one day when I worked full-time, but it’s a lot better than before I started advertising, which was a big fat zero.

So my total advertising revenue for July 2011 was:

$109.49 + $130.58 = $240.07

If you include my Amazon Associates commission for the month ($67.17, which was actually 2-3x the usual amount), the total money I made from this blog equals $307.24.

Definitely enough money for a couple of treats for myself and to start stashing away some cash for gifts. Furthermore, it certainly helps alleviate the guilt about not contributing financially to the household.

And you know what else? Remember what I had promised? I can now offer more, and/or better giveaways!

The very next giveaway on this blog is actually a sponsored one. If you haven’t read on the Geek in Heels Facebook Page yet, I will be giving away an iPad 2! The giveaway will start this Saturday the 13th so please stay tuned!

As for the next giveaway sponsored by yours truly, I already have a great one in mind and hope to run it within the next couple of weeks.

So please keep reading, and THANK YOU once again for all your support!

(For anyone who might be wondering, YES I would still blog if I did not make money from it — after all, that’s what I’ve been doing all these years! And YES I know I can probably make more if I actively sought out advertisers, did some affiliate marketing, sold products, etc…but for now I like the way things are. 🙂 )

Home Is… [TMI]

So true.

(via Reddit)

On a related note, I have trouble pooping when I am away from home. Seriously. For example, I pooped once during our 10-day honeymoon. I thought I was going to die. Does anyone else have this problem?

Also, I believe that having two full bathrooms is a HUGE contributing factor to my happy marriage. 🙂

Google Page Speed Service — A Short Review

11 days ago, Google announced a new tool that aims to speed up the loading of websites. The new Page Speed Service utilizes the optimization techniques outlined by the company’s Page Speed Online API and takes it a step further: by rewriting pages and delivering them to users using Google’s servers.

On the Google Code blog, Google says that it has seen speed improvements from 25% to 60% on some sites. Google has a gallery and a comparison test that users can try themselves.

While the service seems pretty cool at first glance, it is not without controversy due to the fact that it requires users to point the CNAME of their URL to Google’s own servers. (Take a look at the myriads of unfavorable comments on TechCrunch‘s coverage of the announcement, for instance.)

I was intrigued by the new Page Speed Service especially because I had noticed a notable slowdown of my load speed after I had started placing ads and integrated more social media. I had even started using the W3 Total Cache plugin in conjunction with CloudFlare, but did not see much of an improvement.

So despite the controversy (oh noes, Google will own the web!), I wanted to give it a go.

The Page Speed Service is currently only being offered to a limited number of webmasters, but you can request access by filling out this form. I had no idea what the requirements are for being accepted to this trial or what percentages of websites get accepted, but I decided to bite the bullet and submitted my information.

A few days later, I received an email saying that I was in! 😀

Setup was a bit of a pain because Google’s documentation is not too comprehensive. Additionally, I had to contact my webhost to make the final CNAME change for me because it was in a non-editable portion of my DNS settings.

But once it was up and running…

I noticed a significant improvement in my page load times.

I wish I had taken screenshots of my page load times before and after the migration…but I haven’t. 🙁 Suffice it to say that my main page load time has improved by 20-30%. And this comparison is between W3 Total Cache + CloudFlare versus Google’s Page Speed Service. (I shudder to think what it would have been without those two services.)

Additionally, while some of my JavaScript broke using W3 Total Cache + CloudFlare, I have not noticed anything of the nature with Page Speed Service.

I should note, however, that my results may not be typical. Some people even report an increase in page load times using Page Speed Service!

I would also like to see some detailed documentation on how to fully utilize the service, in addition to more stats and data collected from my traffic. This is one feature I really liked about both W3 Total Cache and CloudFlare, and I am finding myself missing it.

A screenshot of the Google Page Speed Service’s Dashboard. It really doesn’t
show much when compared to those of W3 Total Cache and CloudFlare.

Google says that Page Speed Service will remain free during this trial period, and that when it is finally made available to the public, its pricing will be “competitive.” And in the welcome email I received, Google tells me that once the pricing information is available, I will have at least 30 days to migrate traffic if I chose to not continue.

Seeing the remarkable improvement in my page speed, I think that I will stick with it as long as the pricing is not too unreasonable.

Has anyone else been using Google’s Page Speed Service? What are your thoughts on it?