Bloggerwave

Bloggerwave is another site that will help you make money with your blog. You can sign your blog up and check out their opportunities, and then they pay you to post. They'll ask you to blog about a certain site, and maybe include some links, images, or videos. After they make sure that you've included all the necessary elements, they approve your blog, and you get paid!

Bloggerwave is great for bloggers, since we get paid to do what we do best: write. It's also great for the companies that want to be blogged about, since they get some exposure. The minimum pay for a single post is $1, but there is no upper limit. In fact, I made $10 with my first post!

If you want to try to make some money with your blog, then check out bloggerwave.

The Ultimate Steal - MS Office 2007 (and now 2010) Cheap for College Students

I wrote in my previous post about a free alternative to Microsoft Office 2007. But if you really want MS Office, and you're a college student, then Microsoft has a pretty good deal (actually, a fantastic deal), which they call "The Ultimate Steal." If you have a .edu email address from your college, and are taking at least .5 credits, then you can get it for only $60! And it's the ultimate version, too, not the student version.

Check out the deal here, and here's some more info from Microsoft (if you're concerned about it being legitimate). I'm not a huge fan of the new Office, but for only $60, that's a nice deal.

August 2008 Update: Microsoft had stopped offering "The Ultimate Steal" for the summer, but they're now offering it again for the 2008-2009 school year...so check it out if you're interested.

2010 Update: Some of you might be thinking about waiting to purchase "The Ultimate Steal" until the new 2010 version comes out. Well, turns out that if you purchase and install Microsoft Office 2007 between now and September 30, 2010, you'll get Office 2010 free when it comes out. Nice! Check here for more info, or go to the Ulimate Steal site to get your copy.

2010 Update #2: Now that Office 2010 is out, Microsoft has changed the deal a little bit. The cost is now $80 (still an great deal), and now they're calling it "Office Professional Academic 2010".

OpenOffice - Free Microsoft Office Like Program

As a student, I have to write papers, make presentations, and do stuff like that, so I need an office suite like Microsoft Office to work with. But it's pretty expensive, especially for a poor student like me. That's why I love OpenOffice. It's completely free, and allows you to create documents, presentations, and spreadsheets that are compatible with Microsoft Office. It's not dumbed down at all, and actually includes some pretty advanced features. You can even open Microsoft Office files with it (except for the latest Office 2007 edition files). If you want to save some cash, check out OpenOffice.

I Got Tagged

Looks like I was tagged by Lifeonthemoon...that means that I'm supposed to share 7 random things about myself. Then I have to find 7 more bloggers, and they get to do the same. I'm in the holiday spirit, and I'd like to let you get to know me a little more, so why not? I'm not that interesting, but here it goes:

1) I love baseball.
2) I have been inside the Weinermobile.
3) My favorite fruit is the banana.
4) I love the TV show 24.
5) I have never been on a roller coaster.
6) My favorite cereal is frosted mini wheats.
7) I enjoy playing foosball.

Now I need to find some people to tag...

Gottadeal - Find Deals and Helpful Forums

Since it is the day after Thanksgiving, which is known for people going to extremes to pick up good deals, I thought that it would be a good day to tell you about one of my favorite deal sites, GottaDeal. On their homepage, you'll find a bunch of bargains that they've picked out from across the web. You can also personalize the results, choosing what types of products you want to see, if you want free shipping, and stuff like that. As helpful as the homepage is, my favorite part is the forums. You can post deals that you find, and even ask others to help you find the best deal on a product. They also have a really good forum related to paid survey information, if you're into that type of thing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey guys, I just wanted to take a break from my normal posting schedule to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I've got a lot to thankful for, and I bet you do to. I'm also thankful for you, and everyone that has checked out my blog. You are the reason I'm still doing this 3 months after I first began.

I hope that you take some time today to think about everything that you're thankful for. We are truely blessed with many things, and we often don't realize just how much we really have.

Brightspot.tv Shut Down

A while ago, I wrote about a cool program called Brightspot.tv. They basically paid you to watch advertisements. Unfortunately, I'm here to say that after 14 months, it has officially shut down. While the program seemed to be well received by users, they apparently could not get enough advertisers to support the program. They had some big names, like McDonald's and Ford, but I guess it wasn't enough. You can see their final message at their website, brightspot.tv.

Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device - The Kindle

The Kindle is a new E-Book type device created by the people at Amazon.com. It's roughly the size of a book or PDA, and lets you purchase, download, and read books, magazines, and blogs. They claim that it has a high resolution display that looks very much like printed paper. The cool part is that you can download books to it wirelessly; it uses the same network as cell phones, so you don't even need a Wi-Fi connection. The not so cool part: it costs $400! It does let you preview the first few chapters of some books, though.

The Kindle is an interesting idea, but I won't be buying one anytime soon, mainly because of the cost. You have to shell out $400, and then pay even more for the books. I'll stick to getting my books the old fashioned way, but some might be interested in this device.

Digg

Digg is one of my favorite websites, and I check it pretty much every day. Basically, people submit cool stories that they've found online, and readers vote for them (called "digging" them). The ones that people like the most are moved to the homepage, for everyone to see. It's a cool concept, and helps you find neat sites that you would never find otherwise. If you're ever bored, then check out Digg, because you find something new all the time.

Blogsvertise Update #1

I mentioned a while ago that I had signed up for Blogsvertise, a site that pays you to post blog entries about certain companies. I've received some assignments, completed them, and they've verified them. They promise to pay you (through PayPal) one month from the day that the post is approved, so I'll let you know when I get paid. But as of right now, I'd recommend them. If you're looking to make a few bucks off your blog, and at least cover hosting expenses, give it a shot.

Ameripan Insurance Alternative

This is a paid post brought to you by http://www.ushealthpackage.com/.

Ameriplan is a company that prides itself on providing insurance alternatives and medical benefits. With the high cost of health care today, they're goal is to save you money. They sell a basic health package for $30 a month, and a premium total package for $60.

They do make some compelling arguments. Health care is expensive, and especially for those just getting out of college, it can be hard to afford. Self-employed people might also want to take a look a company like Ameriplan. Their services do seem cheap.

I can't say for sure how legitimate Ameriplan is, but I suppose that those looking for cheap health plans would want to at least give this site a look. Ameriplan is also an MLM and work at home company.

Free Paid Surveys

The first way I really made some money online was with paid surveys. Basically, you sign up with a company, and they send send you surveys. You answer a couple qualifying questions, like your age and interests, and if you're the type of person they're looking for, you can take the survey, and get paid. It's really easy, and you can do it on your own schedule. It's great for college students like me.

Most surveys pay between $2-5, which might not seem like a lot, but they usually only take 15 minutes or less, so it's actually pretty good pay. Lots of sites require you to reach a certain payout threshold, like $5 or $50, before they send you a check.

There are tons of sites that you can sign up for for free. However, some survey sites require you to pay to join. My advice: don't join those. They usually just give you links to the free paid survey sites. Sure, it might save you a little time researching, but that's about it.

In a some future posts, I'll let you guys know about some of my favorite free paid survey sites.

If you want to see my other posts about free paid surveys, including some sites that I recommend, then click the "paid surveys" label below.

Online bitmap to vector converter

If you do anything with logos or graphic design, then you'll want to check out Vector Magic. It's made by Stanford, and lets you convert bitmap pictures to vector files. You just upload your graphics, pick a few options, and let their program do the work. I was very impressed by the results. My sample picture turned out great, very sharp and very accurate. It's the best freeware converter that I've seen. Too bad they don't have a downloadable version.

Advantage Life Insurance

This is a paid post brought to you by http://www.advantagetermlife.com/.

There are a ton of life insurance companies out there, and it seems that many have sprung up on the web recently. So I decided to check one of them out: Advantage Term Life Insurance.

When I first went to their site, I really liked the easy access to an insurance quotes service; just fill in a short form, click a button, and get some rates.

I also thought it was cool that you can get a ton of different kinds of insurance policies from them, including term, whole life, and smokers.

I don't know a whole lot about insurance, so I can't necessarily recommend this company, but you might be able to save money on insurance if you check online. I hear that cheap online hosting is supposed to be good if you're just starting out on your own, and don't have a lot of cash.

Blogsvertise: Get Paid to Blog

Ever since I started blogging, I thought that it would be neat to make some money from my blog. Blogsvertise is a cool site that allows you to do just that. Once you sign up, you'll be assigned tasks in which you create a post about a certain advertiser. After your entry is submitted and approved, you get paid! You usually get around $5 - $15 per entry. If your blog is new, they might put you on probation status, and you get $2 per entry until your blog is established.

Blogsvertise is also a great way for companies to advertise, and get their links out there, all over the web. If you're interested in advertising your site on some blogs, and willing to pay, then take a look at Blogsvertise too.

If you're looking to get some money from your blog, or even advertise your site, check out Blogsvertise. I'll let you know how it works for me.

Stumbleupon

Stumbleupon is a cool little website that I recently discovered. Basically, you download a toolbar that takes you to random websites (according to your interests), and lets you vote for them - thumbs up, or thumbs down. Based on what you tell it you like, like sports or funny stuff, it will take you random pages that it thinks will interest you. It's pretty fun when you've got nothing better to do.

FTP Publishing Programs

I've been transferring a bunch of files to my website, recently, and I realized that I needed a good FTP client. I had been using the web-based transfer program in cpanel, but it just takes too long when you have a bunch of files. So I did some research, and found 2 great free FTP programs for you guys.

The first is SmartFTP. It's free for non-commercial use. It has a very pretty interface, and is pretty easy to use. The one annoying part is that it has a splash screen that pops up, and forces you to click OK before the program starts.

The other is FileZilla. It's open source, and although it's not very graphically pretty, it's still easy to use.

Which would I recommend? If you need a pretty interface, go with SmartFTP. Otherwise, I think FileZilla does a great job, and it gets my recommendation. But you can't go wrong with either one.