tayappention-advice, optimization, self improvement blog

I made a new friend this week and I am taking the time(finally!) to sit down and blog about her. LexiB.

I ran across her site on Facebook while marketing my coffee and was impressed by her insights, her style, and her website.  This North Carolina native has created her own brand and although she says her audience is predominantly female, the site is chock full of news I like to read, advice, a style section and lots more for both of the sexes.

I don’t know what type of traffic she gets now, but I think she is one of an up and coming blogger you could end up seeing a lot of in the future. Go check out her site. You’ll see what I mean.

Tips for Handling Telemarketers

Three Little Words That Work !!

(1)The three little words are: ‘Hold On, Please…’

Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear the phone company’s ‘beep-beep-beep’ tone, you know it’s time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.

These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.

(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?

This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone.

This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a ‘real’ sales person to call back and get someone at home.

What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer !!! 

(3) Junk Mail Help:
When you get ‘ads’ enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these ‘ads’ with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away.

When you get those ‘pre-approved’ letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.

Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 41 cents postage ‘IF’ and when they receive them back..

It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes. 

One of Andy Rooney’s (60 minutes) ideas.
Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn’t get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back!
If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn’t on anything you send them.

You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 41 cents.

The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let’s let them know what it’s like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they’re paying for it…Twice!

Let’s help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that’s why they need to increase postage costs again You get the idea !

If enough people follow these tips, it will work —- I have been doing this for years, and I get very little junk mail anymore.

Me?  I use IE7, Firefox, Chrome, and sometimes Safari. 

I use any three at one time while I internetally(hey, I just invented a word!!)  market my  Magiccoffeenow site for Magic Power Coffee.  I use IE at work(because I have to) and at home for some of my email (so I can leave the gmail and earthlink account that is associated with the browser so I don’t have to enter credentials every time)  and for my banking.  Firefox because I am used to the extensions that I use with it now, and Chrome because it is pretty darn cool and for the email credentials issue I just mentioned. And since its extensions list is growing, I may use more predominantly. Safari is pretty cool, since it is graphically definitley an Apple product.  Just really haven’t got into it that much. I haven’t even changed the toolbar except for adding the gmail to it.

Going by browser statistics on the W3school site in January 2010, Firefox is the master, but Chrome is gaining fast.   But according to PCMag, Chrome will be you next browser. Google is obviously a mammoth internet monster to be reckoned with. Watch out Firefox.

So, the main reason I use more than one browser is because of the email issues I have.  I have a lot of email addresses with what I do with Magic Power coffee  and this site and personal use. If I use different browsers, I can associate a specific browser with a specific gmail address so I do not have to put that email/password in everytime. The browser already knows.

Major time saver.

Just a small look into my browsing world and maybe a hint at what you can do to make a computer work better for you. Dueling browsers.

I ran across a new cause.  A good cause.  One that would work if we all participate.

I had actually done this a long time ago before the ‘bailout’.    I have not really been affected directly by the bailout or housing crisis.  But I have seen effects. And it is so wrong.

So go here, to http://moveyourmoney.info/ and watch the video. Then follow the steps outlined. And then pat yourself on the back for moving your money. For doing the most sensible thing citizens of our country can do for each other.

If you had already done it, good for you.Good for you for not participating in the destructive ‘Potter machine’.

It would be a good way to start off 2010. It would also be a good way to strike back at the vermin called the ‘power banks’ left out there that we will not tolerate what they have done to us for their personal gain.

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule. 4 minutes later: the violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. 6 minutes: A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes: A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 minutes: The musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour: He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.
This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:  If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made…. How many other things are we missing?

Stop and hear the music (Joshua Bell clip) here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnOPu0_YWhw

Author Unknown…shared by Aaron Goidich and me.

I couldn’t have said it any betterr.

So to continue from last post, Everything just is, here are three things to get rid of: addiction to security, addiction to sensation, addiction to power.

These three addictions come from the survival phase in evolution of the human species.  S0 I guess you could say that they are important, but they should not dictate how you see or react to your surroundings…or your ‘is’.

For example, my cat be sitting operating on a sensation level eating it’s catfood when my teenage son storms in the house, slamming the door and scaring the cat which would put the petrified puss on its security level and bolt out of the kitchen knocking over it’s bowl and scattering food wherein I would use my power level and demand that my over zealous offspring clean up the cat food that he indirectly caused the mess of. He would then get mad at me and  saying it was not his fault the cat got scared and so on and so forth. And it’s his damn cat to begin with.

Anyways.  See what I mean?  All three lower addictions showed their ugly head causing all sorts of demeaning discourse and arrogant anger. Who needs those addictions to control us like that?

Granted the cat can’t help it. But we, as humans, can. And teenagers need to learn.  The earlier,  the better.