I have a Motorola Razr, and no accessories for it, except the charger it came with. I know, I know, I’m giving geeks everywhere a bad name! And as many times as I’ve dropped the darn phone, I should have looked at cell phone cases for it LONG ago. The accessory I need the most is a car charger. I forget to charge my phone at home, and it stays in my purse - out of sight, out of mind. Jim will put it on the charger for me from time to time, but I’ve had my phone die on my a few times when I’ve been out and about. Since it doesn’t look like I’m getting a new phone anytime soon, it’s probably time to break down and buy the darn thing, eh?

Only time will tell. But I wanted to point out that when I checked my PR on http://livepr.ezer.com/url/ tonight, another data center was showing a zero for me. Previously, DC 14 and DC 18 returned a 0 when I checked, and now DC 16 has joined them. I’m going to be watching it over the next few days to see if anything else changes. I’m ready for this PR update to be over and done with.

I’ve posted about an annoying coworker before, but a lot of people are a lot worse off than I am. After reading about the awful things people have to put up with on AnnoyingCoworker.com, I’m happy that the worst thing I have to deal with is a loud radio. I’m laughing out loud at some of the experiences here, from someone cooking a disgusting fish stew each week for their lunch, to a thief stealing food out of the office fridge, and someone else who hacks phlegm nonstop all day.

If you’ve got a story to share, you can submit it at the site and people will vote on who has it the worst!

My nephew tagged me in a meme last week, and I slacked off and didn’t do it, even though this is a good one! To participate, just share your best blogging tips, and then pass the list on with all of the other tips. If you’re tagged, copy the list and links and add your own tip to the bottom of the list.

1. Look, read, and learn - NeonScent
2. Be EXCELLENT to each other - Bushmackel
3. Don’t let money change ya! - The Random Forest
4. Always reply to your comments - Chattiekat
5. Blog about what you know & love - Sugar Queen’s Dream
6. Alt tag your images for added search engine exposure Fracas
7. Blogging is supposed to be fun, Don’t let it stress you! - Where-Was-I
8. Don’t be afraid to comment on other bloggers sites - Not Your Typical Granny
9. Post at least once a day! - BasenjiMom
10. Keep your blog pretty / interesting with pictures, borders and cool links that correspond to your posts - MicMan
11. Keep your blog clutter free and easy to read. No one really needs 20 different blinking buttons in the sidebar of their blog - it’s tacky, and it distracts me from your content - GeekySpeaky

I’m tagging Marcus and Cass

I love, love, LOVE my digital camera. The Sony Cybershot is best out of all the digital cameras I’ve owned. In fact, just last night, one of our friends was using it to snap some pictures at my birthday party and they ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the touch screen and the other snazzy features. Actually, he discovered a new feature I didn’t even know about! Apparently, my camera will play a slide show of all the pictures, accompanied by music. I guess it pays to read the instruction manual

I love making goofy videos of the kids and putting them on the internet for friends and family to see. My kids will even tell me to make videos and put them online!

The Colleenie Weenie show is on the air in just an hour - join us for what promises to be another fun filled hour. Last week we talked about television and I did my impression of Cartman’s mom. Who knows what this episode will bring?

The show begins at 9pm eastern. You can IM me on Yahoo during the show (user name: colleen_cc) or call in to chat with me (and tell me happy birthday) by calling (646) 716-7564.

Today, July 28th, is my 31st birthday. In order to celebrate, I’m offering a birthday special at GeekySpeaky Links. For those of you who don’t know, the links directory here is a PR 5. A featured link, which includes a screen shot of your site and does not require a link back, is $40. A regular link, which is $25, does not require a link back. ALL links in the directory are a permanent link - they never have an expiration date!

Starting today, and through the month of August, when you purchase a featured ($40) or regular ($25) link, I’ll give you an additional link in the sidebar of the links directory with our other sponsors. This link will stay up for 90 days, which should be enough to boost you through the next PR update. In addition, you’ll get a link on this blog, which is a PR4, and which will send some traffic your way!

Regardless of which type of link you purchase, you get 2 extra links. If you’re site is already in the directory, contact me about an upgrade to take advantage of this deal. You can also submit your site for free, using our reciprocal option. Any way you slice it - it’s a great deal, so submit your site today!

I was just introduced to a new site called Fechr.com which is guaranteed to give your blog a traffic boost. Fechr (which is pronounced “feature”) is designed t feature one site per day, for 24 hours, starting at midnight each day. Right now, the site is free, and I like free. Once the site gains a little traffic, there will be a charge to be the featured site. Hence, I recommend getting in now while the getting is good.

How am I so certain that you’ll get traffic from Fechr? It’s run by Bobby Griffin, the mastermind behind The Bestest Blog of All-Time. Bobby has featured my other blog (SimpleKindOfLife.com) on The Bestest Blog before, and I still get traffic from that mention. In fact, The Bestest Blog is my 12th biggest referrer, and that’s over 4 years of blogging, but I only did it last year. So yeah, I’d say Bobby knows a little something about web site promotion.

When I was on my business trip last week, I attended a nice little corporate event, and our CIO handed out gift bags to everyone in attendance. Inside was a company polo shirt, a fancy pen, a notebook with the company logo, a $50 Amex gift card, and a nice glass display plaque for my desk, inscribed with my name, the company name, and the project date. Imprinted promotional products aren’t just for your customers and clients - they’re for your employees, too! The polo shirt is great for casual Friday, and the notebook is perfect for meetings.

When I ran my website, I bought promo products like pens and key chains and gave them away at events I participated in. If you can put your URL on something free, you’re practically guaranteeing yourself a visit to your site. That’s why Gimmeees.com has products that allow for logo or URL customization for gifts and giveaways and tradeshows, from hats and mouse pads to calendars and cups!

With the help of these detailed instructions on how to do a Wordpress upgrade, and a little moral support from friends, I’ve successfully upgraded this site to the latest version of Wordpress, which is 2.2.1. I was perhaps, a little more anal about the backup than the situation required, going as far as to backup the entire site - the blog, the forums, and the links directory, but a little overkill never hurts. When I completed the upgrade, I got an error message on my site and quickly realized it was due to a plugin that had been deactivated to complete the backup. We seem to be completely back in business now!

Let’s assume you’re not lucky enough to work for a company that offers you training and the airfare and hotel and all of that. And you want to take a MCSE certification training class, but you’re footing the bill. No problem! PrepLogic.com offers video courses that don’t require traveling to a class location and trying to stay awake for 2 days while an instructor drones on and on. Because the classes are done in a video format, they’re more affordable too, and you can take them on your own schedule, not someone else’s! If you’re not sure if video training will work for you, download a free demo and give it a whirl.

I put out a plea 2 days ago for help in getting 2 PHPBB mods installed on the forum here. Ok, ok, you got me. When I said “help”, I meant not “assistance”, but “I tell you what I want and hand over my passwords in a real trusting fashion and you do all of the work”.

I had 3 offers for help, and went with the first guy who replied. Bucky, also known as The West Virginia Blogger, installed those mods in record time for me, one on his lunch break, and the other in the wee hours while I was still sleeping. He even included screen shots for me so I could find everything easily enough once he was done. What a guy!

I’m now the proud user of 2 little mods designed to combat spam on the forums. The Admin Userlist allows you to view a long member list, and sort by name, url, # of posts, etc. Next to each name is a checkbox so that you can delete (or ban) a group of accounts at once. Much quicker than deleting accounts one by one.

The Only Active Members Can Post URL’s mod allows you to force members to belong to your forum for a set # of days, and have a set # of posts, if you wish, before they can post a URL. Since most of our spammers registered and then immediately posted their naughty, dirty spam messages, this is another great too.

I mentioned previously I’m going to Dallas in September for a training course for work. Good thing work is footing the bill, since it’s a $1500 course! Add in my airfare, food, and hotel, and the company will spend about $2500 to educate me for 2 days. I’m worth it though.

eLearning solutions are definitely an option for many other courses that aren’t as software specific as the one I’m taking. And web based training makes sense for a company that has many different offices. A company such as mine can save the expense of airfare and hotels by providing web based training. In fact, you can customize the training specifically for your needs, providing new hires with courses and references libraries, and eliminate the need for a trainer to lead a hands on course. And the course modules can be easily created using PowerPoint

We do something similar for new hires, and it’s really a great tool, especially for new hires. We have an orientation package, and classes to brush up on Word or Excel, and then specific trainings for certain groups as well.

Here’s how iPod stupid I am.

I hooked up my iPod to my new laptop this morning, the one that I just installed iTunes on. I decided to transfer the few songs I had on my laptop to the iPod, which held over 2,000 songs. Two thousand songs, accumulated over the course of the last 5 years. Do you see where I’m going with this?

I hit sync, and got a warning message about the iPod being synched with another machine. Well, duh, of course it is, that would be my old laptop. I didn’t think they meant that re-doing the sync would erase the 2,000 songs I had on my iPod, and replace it with the 20 songs from my laptop, but that’s exactly what happened.

So for the rest of the day, I’ll be listening to the new Police CD, and a Budweiser Real Men of Genius commercial.

At least I had the good sense to back up all of those MP3’s a few years ago. I’ve got at least half of those 2,000 songs on CDs at home, and I can put them on the iPod again tonight. But all of the new music I had…Grey’s Anatomy songs and Beyonce and The Frey and Gwen Stefani and Justin Timberlake…it’s all gone.

I just deleted 10 spam comments on a few of my other blogs, and noticed something odd.

They were all typical spam comments “Visit my guestbook”, “Nice site”, “I googled something else and found your page…” but not a one left a URL. No URL’s in the comment field, and none in the URL field either. Are these the dumbest spammers ever? Isn’t the whole point of comment spam leaving a URL?

I signed up for a new website tonight called Peopleized.com. As far as I know, it’s a completely new concept to provide content to websites and blogs, or you can use it to promote yourself via an interview. Once I logged in, I had access to interviews that other members had provided, talking about whatever topics they wished to speak about. One of the first interviews I came across was from Hali, one of the people behind Peopleized. You can use the interviews as content, or you can give your own, and hope that someone picks up that content, which will in turn promote you. You can publish any of the interviews found for free, too! Peopleized-people interview people - the concept is going to be a big one, I think. There’s a lot of growth potential behind this site.

I just wasted 30 minutes of my life on playing Tetris with the United States.

I was a huge Tetris geek back in the early 1990’s. I had a Gameboy, and at my part time job during slow periods (which account for 6 hours of my 8 hour shift) I’d play Tetris. I got as high as level 20 or 21, which requires some really fast and fancy finger work!

This version, called Stateris requires a little geography knowledge, so you can pass it off as “fun” to your kids, while knowing that it is really “educational”. HA!

Link via BusyMom.

I remember getting my first job when I was 14 - the position was as a cashier at a local tourist shop. I lied and said I was 15, knowing that they wouldn’t want proof, since I was being paid under the table. At that time (1990) minimum wages was $4.25 I believe. I was offered $5 an hour, without any taxes being taken out. For a 14 year old, this was a sweet deal!

That was…eek, 17 years ago. As I’ve aged, grown smarter, and developed more skills, I’ve made myself more attractive to employers, which is now why I get paid a lot more than I did back in 1990. Good thing too, because the current minimum wage (which was just raised) is only $5.85 per hour.

I’ll say it again in case you didn’t hear me. The current minimum wage, in America, in the year 2007, is $5.85 per hour, and that’s after a recent 75 cent increase.

$5.85 per hour.
$46.80 per day.
$234 per week.
$12,168 per year.

I made more money blogging last year than some people in this country did for hard, back breaking labor. Yes, for sharing my opinion online, in the comfort of my air conditioned house, I made more money than the person who made my hamburger at McDonald’s, the janitor who cleans my office each night, or the cashier who rings up my groceries each week.

Could you live on minimum wage? Are you living on the minimum wage? Find out for yourself if you can by Jobacle.com Minimum Wage Challenge during the week of August 20th. Live on $5.85 per hour for a week. Give yourself $234 (and that’s a pre tax figure, so I’m being generous) for the week and get gas, buy food, pay your bills, and hope for the best. Hopefully your kids don’t get sick that week, or you’ll need to plan to pay a copay and a prescription out of that $234.

You can find out more details on the Jobacle blog. Visit the Working Podcast while you’re there for great tips on how to vault yourself into a better paying career.

*Edited to add: The minimum wage has 2 planned increases over the next 2 years. On 7/24/08, it will go up to $6.55. On 7/24/09, it will go up to $7.25.

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Mr. Gary Lee seems quite confident that the PR update will start next week. He’s also hooking up readers with a PR boost, hopefully just in time for the update. It’s nice to see to see people giving the link love around so freely, as freely as if they were passing out online coupon codes.

If you’d like to be sure of when the PR update begins, you can check your PR here in real time. When you see action amongst the data centers, it’s a good sign that things have started. FYI, DC 14 and DC 18 don’t seem to be responding, and haven’t been for weeks.

I’m not being on sending text messages, but I sure do like GETTING them. I’ve often thought it would be handy to be able to get the news or traffic reports texted to me while I was out and about, and now there’s a site that can do that for you! You can get just about any kind of news or alert you want from TxtVox.com, from sports scores to things on Craigslist. If you’ve got a long commute, or times when you can’t get to the internet, this is a nice little way to stay in touch with the real word. Or maybe you don’t want to log into check your stock quotes daily - no problem, TxtVox.com can send you custom updates at the time of your choosing.

Here’s a feature I could REALLY use - a traffic report right before leaving the office! I’d know instantly what roads to avoid and wouldn’t have to waste time listening to the traffic reports on the car radio. Or perhaps the joke of the day, so I can have a daily laugh on my drive to the office? Pet lover? Check out the daily doggie and daily kitty content!

The best part about all of this is that the service is free - keep in mind, your cell phone provider may charge you a fee to receive the messages, but you’ll never pay TxtVox.com for the service. Sign up to get alerts to your cell phone now! Just choose your content and tell them your number, so you can begin receiving customized text messages via your cell phone.