The Dean's Advantage - Local Customer Service

When it comes to selecting a DIRECTV provider as a new customer, you DO have a choice. Think about what matters to you when choosing how to sign up for DIRECTV service. If you love the tech but want more service options, Dean's offers you alternatives to a national 800 number.

Ready to talk? Go to sales representative Facebook page. Get a quote today. Be ready and you can have it done in minutes! If you prefer (or if you are too far away to meet), sales rep will do a phone consultation.

After HD What's Next? 4K TV

If you crave having the latest and best imaging technology for your home television, then here's something to get you started: 4K. Here I give you the basics of what 4K is, why you might want it and then how to get it. If you don't necessarily want it for your home, it's something to take note of when selecting a hotel, selecting a restaurant or when presented to you at your home entertainment store.

What Is 4K?

4K refers to resolution size of a TV screen. When you shop for a TV you select size of screen and resolution. When HD was launched to the general public, we were provided with 720p and 1080p options. Economy-minded buyers or those with small TV needs chose 720p. For larger screen needs, buyers chose 1080p. Take a look at prices of even larger TVs and you will see how much HDTV is established. My computer has an HD wide ASUS monitor. It's suitable for watching videos and streaming TV.

4K is TV at the next level at even greater resolution. 4K is 3840 x 2160 in size or 2160p. More pixels means better picture. 4K also makes viewing more comfortable at closer distances. Sure, with ordinary programming content or old content, it may not make much difference. But with the types of content you are accustomed to seeing on the big screen like movies, sporting events or concerts, the potential for increased enjoyment is there. And so comes the desire to upgrade to something more current.

Why Get 4K?

Aside from getting a picture resolution upgrade that get's closer to movie experience, you have more comfortable viewing options at home. 4K technology has resolved the problem of being too close for your eyes to view the screen without the image breaking down. That means you can have a larger screen in a smaller space. Your sofa can be closer. With a large group gathering, your front row guests can enjoy the show, too. Think of all the cool parties you can host! If your space is large and have no interest in rearranging your furniture, it may not make that much difference so it may not be worth an upgrade. But if you just love cool tech and you can find a good price, it's a good investment.

How To Get It

First get to know different industry labels. Some are choosing to use "Ultra High Definition". It's between your local theater resolution and HD so you get an idea of its value when you are out shopping.

As with any new purchase, do your research. Do measurements at home so you can see how TV options will fit. You might consider a wall mount to free up home entertainment furniture space. Sale of your home entertainment furniture will help to pay for new TV. Or move it to less used part of home.

If you are lucky, an appropriate ad button is in the side bar now. Otherwise choose your favorite shopping method.

Then you will need to select a service that supports 4K. Cable is limited to 720p. If you want 4K, get satellite service. The first advantage is reduction of cabling for each TV in home. (Is that annoying?) Or having to place your TV near cable jacks. Only one cable is needed to connect to satellite receiver. That can be placed in basement or other room. Other TVs then only need HDMI connections and power.

This blogger, now a Dean's sales representative, is available to help you complete your 4K home entertainment system with a best fit programming package. Starting at $50 (with tax and 2 year agreement with bundling), you can have multi-room and multi-device service.

Check out this Facebook page to view additional content and excellent video demonstrations of Genie DVR and learn the advantages of selecting a local based DIRECTV provider. Upgrade to something totally awesome today with fewer wires and the latest tech. Your neighbors will love you!

How To Build A Shop At Cafepress

Building A Free Store Is Easy And Fun With Cafepress

Cafepress is an an online marketplace built by people who have learned how to make products by placing their images on things. If you have never heard of Cafepress and have been wondering if there is a perfectly valid way to earn online, then stop right now and pay attention because you are looking at it. By the end of this article, you will have your own Cafepress store.

You are probably already aware of fundraisers where you sign up with a company to sell products like t-shirts or jackets. You might do this for school, church or your non-profit organization. What you may not know that there is an easy and lower cost way to do this without having to spend a lot of money or risk an investment in products that may or may not sell. There might be a limited range of products like only t-shirts or you must buy a minimum lot. Cafepress solves that problem and more.

Yes, at Cafepress there is a way to buy custom printed products in bulk if you choose to sell physical items where you are. But you don't need to. Once you have a Cafepress account, you can make products and sell them one at at time through a page set up to sell the product at a price you set. Cafepress takes care of everything, including secure payment, shipping and customer service.

My Store

Your job as a Cafepress store owner is to find or create images suitable for placement on blank products. It might be art that you create or photos you capture while indoors or outdoors. It must be your own original work. You can't take photos of Disney or most commercial toys or trademarked items and use without permission. Safe bets are animals, nature, flowers, objects you arrange in a display or crafts that you make.

You can paint or draw and capture a high quality image and use that. Or draw using an online paint program. Paint.net and GIMP are both free. While there is a learning curve to learn to draw and edit images, if you start with simple projects you can learn the steps to edit photographs to right size and appearance. Take photos that you have (make backup copies that you use to keep your originals safe) and practice cropping, cutting, resizing and changing image appearance with the tool set you are given. Learn about standard image sizes. Learn what colors and font sizes work best. Too small and it ends up fuzzy or hard to read. Sometimes you might want a dark or light frame around subject. Sometimes you will want to remove the background and make it "transparent" so you don't have a square image on your t-shirt with white in the background. Learn how to transform your photos into a work of art crafted by your mouse and patience with your computer paint program.

Let's Begin

To start your Cafepress store, you will need to visit site and locate the green Sign Up Now text. In my view I see a Facebook, Google and Amazon buttons. For quickest signup choose one account that you use most often. Or sign up the usual way with your email address and information as instructed. Be sure to use accurate and your real information. You will need this to get paid to PayPal or when you are sent a check in the mail. Your email address must be real to so that you verify your account. Most online accounts with security require double optin to be sure you are genuinely interested in membership and not a form bot.

JOIN CAFEPRESS LINK

Once you are in, you will need to read everything for yourself. The site changed a lot since I joined in June 2014 using my website FindItCat.com email address to register. Some policies and procedures may have changed. If you are a company, you can use Cafepress to establish your brand with a number of printable products. Put your logo on a mug, laptop cover, phone cover, bag, clock, calendar or t-shirt. If you have a logo, then you have your first project. Else, if you are an individual seeking a first project, find your best photo that you think would look good on a mug. It might be a part of the photo with best colors and subject.

Photo Mousepad

This was one of a set of first projects completed in June 2014. I found a set of photos from a couple of years back and selected subjects with interesting themes or views to use. I used GIMP to edit the photo to the correct "canvas" size to fit a standard mousepad size. Here, I sized and cropped a large pond photo to show only two pink flowers sitting in a pond of green. I left room for text below the photo. It was hard work making sure nothing important was cut off and the text was large enough to read. I had to look up how to type a copyright symbol while typing text into the box. (Not in a mode that used regular keystrokes.) Putting your brand and name on your piece is important for you protection and to bring them back to your page for more if they like it. For the theme I imagined a computer user who wants to glide over a pond and contemplate life while surfing.

Puzzle

If a photo mousepad is not for you, here's the easiest puzzle in the world as a cool gift for a puzzle loving friend. Put your photo on it and send it as a gift. If you are tired of cards or sending flowers, send a puzzle made by you and your mouse. This one was harder to work the caption in as you can see. You want it large enough to read but not disturb the image too much. I captured a flower arrangement and cropped to show best view.

Visit My Shop

I have several shops and products in the back and not up in stores. You get best results if your shop has a name, you add descriptive tags and pay a lot of attention to details in your store and your designs. Cafepress helps you by being a professional site with high Google rank. You do the work of making cool products and filling in descriptions for each one. Use the Cafepress recommended pricing to start out and adjust as needed. You can have customers come and buy or order a bulk amount to sell at home. Write a blog to help share your products. Create a fanbase. Invite your friends on Facebook. You can use the social buttons provided with each product.

Swagbucks

As a bonus, Cafepress is a Swagbucks partner. That means that customers who are Swagbucks members get cash back when they shop. That means that you should join Swagbucks to let your customers know how to save and get cash back. Get more customers that way. Everyone likes a bargain. Right?

JOIN SWAGBUCKS

Let Me See Your Designs

You have some homework to do. I want to see your best. Go get your shop. Get your best image. Make it very simple for your first project like your own logo, computer artwork, cartoon or simple subject photo. Put it on a mug or bag. (Those seem to be easiest to get right.)

You have to work at something if you want a chance to build something online. Here's your chance to do it in your time with no burden of buying a storefront. It might take some practice and you might have to do some research. Download Paint.net and GIMP. Decide which apps work best for you.

Make products to buy in bulk to sell at home or have visitors come to buy online at Cafepress. Your choice. Run your store your way.

Post Your Best Good Work At Home Job

Real Work At Home Jobs

Many people earn good money with work at home jobs. It's important to check with a company before signing up or paying any fees. It's best if there is a free way to earn.

Here is an example of a job you can do at home. You can create your own Cafepress shop and make your own products. If you are good with images and placing them on products, then give this a try. Here is a puzzle coaster I made with my snow leopard photo.

If you are new with editing images, get Paint.net and learn how to use it. It's free and easy, including a way to make background transparent, which you need to do if you want to put a white background image on black or dark object.

Find your best photos and decide which ones you think would be cool on tees, mugs, calendars, mousepads, glassware, laptop covers and many other products.

Visit my shop:

http://www.cafepress.com/finditcat

Puzzle Coaster - Photo By Julie K. Frey

If you click the photo, you can purchase the snow leopard puzzle coaster. Once at Cafepress, browse through the site to view excellent and creative designs by members. You could be one of them in just a few minutes. It pays to PayPal. In addition, you can use Cafepress to make your own products that you sell as fundraisers or give away as promotional products. Put your brand on something.

Do you have any work at home ideas? You are welcome to post in the comments below/ To make a comment you will need to have Google Accounts.

Here's A New Social Media Platform You Might Like!

Currently No Longer Active Member. Site appears to no longer exist. It was a good concept but major changes midway and a complicated system made it hard to work with. Key concepts to take away are to establish trusted branding and focus on sharing content first. Let the message speak for itself. Sales happens when people see value in something.


No Luck Promoting Your Media Content?

Do you have YouTube video that you want to promote, but prefer something other than the YouTube interface? There's a newly remodeled social media platform that's suited for the purpose of social media content sharing. Members are encouraged to share in ways not available in other social platforms. Can your social platform easily share to other platforms? How easy is it too add comments and relevant links to other content you want to share? In some cases, especially if you are new, you'll have to buy advertising to get views.

Introducing "Rebranding"

One important key business strategy is called "rebranding". That is effectively taking content and putting into the context of something you are trying to promote. Effectively, "rebranding" is putting a frame around your creative work or someone else's creative work that they have already shared via social media. (How many of you used a Grumpy Cat photo to get likes and shares on your fan page?)

Introducing "Smartrebrander"

There is a social media platform that you should consider joining if you seriously want a chance to grow your YouTube account and have not found any success with other methods. This social media platform is called "Smartrebrander". It's a community that supports sharing of social media content with links for the purpose of building fan pages, blogs, media content pages and business front-ends. As you may already know, the first step of marketing is to share something, NOT sell something. You want to build a relationship with your potential customers and subscribers first. With social media you use shares of videos, photos and publications to establish who you are as a business owner and what types of customers you want to attract. You want your members to like you first. Build a "niche" of followers, then you can present them with your recommended products and services.

Why Join Smartrebrander?

One of the hardest things to get are shares, especially if you produce a video with common keywords, like my train video. Don't you agree? There are lots of train videos on YouTube (do a search). Smartrebrander lets you take something you've created and puts it in front of members who would LOVE to share your video. All you have to do is fill out a form that includes a blog form to add your video links to the Smartrebrander share library that members have access to. (You can't put links in a YouTube "About" caption, but you can with Smartrebrander. The best I could do was put the name of this blog under the headline of this article inside the YouTube About box.)

How Is This Same And Different From Other Social Media Platforms?

Other social media platforms do the same thing. You probably just shared someone else's creative content today. However, you don't have immediate access to other media content until someone in your "circle" or a friend shares it. When you add content to the Smartrebrander library, you are giving members access to your content for sharing. At the same time you have access to content added by other members. Perhaps you are in need of an animal, food or nature photo that you need to increase social media page engagement. Perhaps you are tired of passing off the same, stale photos or videos and would like to tap into a library to get something new and fresh. And you want to be able to share to ANY social platform without having to copy and paste links. Would you like that?

Smartrebrander Membership Options

Smartrebrander has a membership structure that enables both free and paid members levels of benefits depending upon use. You can join as a free member and have up to five "rebrands", earning from affiliate commissions and access to online business training. That may be enough to just try out the service or if you have a low or no budget business, but are patient enough to build your business the slow and methodical way.

To make the most of Smartrebrander, eventually you will need to upgrade to "Premium" member. Premium Members can have unlimited "rebrands" access to all library contents and can add new content to the library. There is a trial $5 one month fee to try out the Premium membership. If you find that it works for you, the monthly subscription is $37 per month. When you compare that to social media advertising costs along with other membership benefits (see inside!), you may consider that a deal! (My Facebook ad costs are in the thousands over the past three years!)

Want To Join? Have More Questions?

This link goes to the main home page

This goes to the view of the library

Here are the most popular library items

Here is the range of categories in the library

About My Train Video

Before I joined Smartrebrander (FKA "Loyaltepays"), my train video (July 2012 upload date) had about 300 views (early April 2013) without me doing anything special to promote it. Then I added my train video to the library. As you can see it's now up over 500 views (October 28th, 2013). Not only do I have a way to promote the video to the Smartrebrander community, I can "rebrand" it and place it in my blog, website or other place that accepts either a URL or Iframe code. The green "ShareThis" button at the bottom of the frame lets anyone who visits share the video to any social media platform listed at ShareThis!

Would you like that? Does that solve any problems for you? I have shared both video and photo content easily on Google+ and Facebook using the same coded link. If you put in the still photo right, the image comes up, an important part getting likes to your photo or video share. It's amazing! I think the concept is brilliant, but needed more work to get the costs and services reasonable for level of use. But that's done as of October.

Won't you give Smartrebrander a try today and see if it works for you and your media content?

Join today!

View My Videos

I posted about my zoo train video already. It was my first YouTube upload.

My second video is a recording of the last part of a presentation of an exhibit at the House on the Rock, a Wisconsin attraction located near Spring Green. It was the only video that turned out. The others I recorded did not have enough lighting to record a video with my digital camera. This one was against a window with daylight with enough lighting for a decent if not perfect video. Another difficulty is recording without background chatter. You have to find a time when there's no one in the room and everyone agrees to be quiet. I'm not spending all way waiting for the right time, so I get what I can and move on.

What I did capture was OK. It plays back well and is good enough to promote the attraction. This musical exhibit is one of the most intriguing parts of House on the Rock, creations like this that must require special skills for maintenance. In the days before video and television entertainment, people created exhibits like this for public entertainment. It may look like a lazy man's vision of a home orchestra or an extension of the player piano concept. I imagine the special maintenance requirements probably limited range of potential owners.

The general impression of House on the Rock is part museum, part P T Barnum experience. Keep in mind that Baraboo, Wisconsin, home to Circus World is just to the north and east. You do get several museum tour options and there are various paths to take, but it's really more of a presentation than a museum that displays items in categorized rooms and floors. There's a certain "cheezy" aspect to it all and you can even smell cheese wafting from the food court located in the Millhouse area. But it's also entertaining at the same time. Where else do you get to see a ship's engine and propeller close up? Or amazing ship models? Or a huge collection of dolls that you can't resist talking about with your museum tour mates? It's a Disneyland trip of the imagination that's both fun and illustrates why collection-based hobbies need to be managed.

I have photo album collections on Facebook, accessible to Milwaukee Time Lords Facebook fan page members here. Go check out the amazing views and read the challenges of taking indoor photos here. If you do go, perhaps you can take better photos and get the really challenging subjects (metal and ceramic tea cups behind glass with red lighting).

New Comment Setting

I have configured this blog to not permit anonymous comments.

You must have a Google account to post a comment.

This blog is tied to using Google Accounts (Google+, YouTube, etc.) with intended links to my circles.

I have deleted hundreds of "Anonymous" comments from spam filter and Yahoo email notification (still working on that now).

Please use a real method to promote your business, such as getting a blog of your own.

You can come to my website if you need ideas that won't cost you anything.

See that pink flower to the right? Click it to find promotion ideas.

The right bar has been configured with my favorite sites, a Google+ button, a list of recent blog articles, my two YouTube videos, a blog archive (mostly outdated posts that are archives only) and my Google+ profile.

These are the tools you can use to build your online business. You have to complete the details if you want any success.

My Blogger Updated

I found the link page to tie my Blogger to my Google+ accounts. It started with a return to my Yahoo email account to recover my ClixSense account. Then I found lots of notifications of spam to my Blogger. I am trying to delete all spam comments. And then I need to find and delete all spam notifications to my Yahoo account.

Entering comments just to score Blogger points is very annoying and in the end does not work because perhaps just one comment of the dozens sent made it to the blog comments. The best thing to do is create your own blog around your interests and attract an audience first. The sales comes much later, perhaps months down the road. For time being this is a huge nuisance requiring regular account maintenance. 

If you are looking for effective advertising strategies and resources, go to my website, which is connected to this blog. There are lots of ideas for you to try. Build a social media page. Try safelists, traffic exchanges, putting your logo on a jacket and mobile marketing. 

Here's my website index page:

http://www.speedyhunter.com/ 

Get a website with your own URL. They aren't expensive. Build it up and make it friendly with search engines. I saw in a video that Wikipedia is an example to follow where they are doing SEO right. 

Best of wishes on building your online business empire.

Learning Space with CosmoQuest - 27 March, 2013

This is the 6th episode of new educational outreach video series that was launched January 23, 2013 as part of the mission of CosmoQuest.org to provide resources and guides to educators or anyone with an interest in astronomy.

You can start by viewing the first episode on YouTube (subscribe to astrospherevids to access their productions). I am viewing this episode now and used the Blogger button to post this. The topic for this video is meteorites and presented by Jeff & Terry Menz of the River Bend Astronomy Club. Enjoy!

Milwaukee County Zoo Train 2010

This is my first video filmed, produced and uploaded to YouTube all from original video and still source. It was filmed August 2010. I uploaded it much later. When I came back to look at the stats months after upload, I found 333 views and one like.

Here I share this video with the help of this new website.

Milwaukee County Zoo Train 2010

After publishing a link to my video, it was approved for sharing and rebranding. Only premium members can add new content. Everyone else can share existing content provided for access in a library. I'm looking forward to seeing the view count increase. Not sure if it will get more likes, but we'll see. I'm sure that a better video maker would get more likes if only it had more views.

Sounds cool to you?

You probably share things already as a regular social media habit. Find out how it can work for you whether you run a business or want to help support a business, your favorite artist or celebrity.

Sharing has rewards. Find out how it works by viewing the video first.

Speedyblogger Is Back! Much Cleanup Had to Be Done!

I have returned to this blog after several years of no activity. I came back to find over 53 spam comments on one now expired product offer post. I have deleted them all. These do nothing to support my website and may be bad for it so no "spammy" posts please! All further such comments will be zapped furiously with my sonic screwdriver.

Main topic is Concinnity which I will be attending tomorrow (Saturday, April 13th) all day which is located at MSOE. It looks to be an awesome event. So much to do in one day.

My club, the Milwaukee Time Lords will be running a panel at 1:00 PM. It will start with a brief introduction to the club. Then we will run our version of "Win, Lose or Draw" for Doctor Who and other science fiction fans. We play mainly for fun.

The event has a mention in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. It's got a Facebook page and a webpage. Last year, I (Milwaukee Time Lords webpage and Facebook page admin) carried much of the Concinnity publicity. It was much appreciated. It does take a lot of energy and effort to bang together web promotions when you've probably got other things to do (especially if a college student). Also our club carried much of the event also with a Q&A and video presentations. This year, we just have the one panel commitment. Others will provide lots of entertainment tomorrow.

Hope to see you there. Follow along on Facebook. Don't know if Concinnity has Twitter followers, but post with #Concinnity if you want to show support but can't be there. Support local conventions!

Milwaukee Time Lords Facebook Page
Concinnity Website

Speedyhunter Updates

It's been 2009 since I posted here at Speedyhunter blog. Website has been updated several times since then. The biggest change was the new format from a template I found and liked for its simplicity. It is easy to change for various pages I want to create.

Today, the main page has a list of online guides and tutorials for those who seek them for purchase. I tried to find those with shippable media if you prefer to have a hard copy or CD in hand when you buy a product online. It takes hours of searching, copying code and then sorting out selections into tables or individual pages. If you were to try and find these things via Google search, you'd come up with so many choices, many not relevant to your needs. I also selected guides that made the most sense and that did not make too many over the top claims. I prefer a "woo-free" page if you're tired of those silly pitches for over-priced products and services.

I hope I have selected guides that you find useful whatever your interest, whether for business promotion or personal enjoyment. Here are the categories you can select from: Arts & Entertainment, Business, Computers & Software, Going Green, Health & Fitness, Learning Languages, Home & Garden, Sports and Mobile Promotions.

Chihuahua Breed Chalkboard

Click image to read item details and how to purchase. Hot gift idea for chihuahua owners that you know. This is an excellent way to post vital pet notes for family and pet sitters. Bookmark InetGiant ad and come back for future gift giving needs.

UPDATED: Link Removed 1/30/2017
UPDATED: New Link Added To Image 2/8/2017

Porcelain Small Cat Clock

$ 56.35
Size: approx. 7.2 inches x 4.4 inches Metric: 18 x 11 cm Nature: cobalt painted porcelain Finish: glazed (glossy) Availability: ships within 7-15 business days Origin: Russian Federation PRODUCT DETAILS: As all Gzhel works this charming porcelain clock was first created in a plaster form being cast from liquid porcelain mass. After the first burning the form was painted by cobalt. The background was kept white. Then the painting was covered by glaze. Glaze fused and made the surface of the work glassy, giving cobalt its blue colour. This is a top quality Russian Gzhel porcelain work that would make a fancy gift to anyone.

cat clock

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Speedyhunter Blog Launched!

If you like simplicity in web design and prefer not being distracted by "clutter", this blog is for you. Tired of too many pop-ups, automated audio/video downloads and "banner" sites? Here, web design for function and minimal use of images is emphasized.

SpeedyHunter is a new web search site that helps you find what you are looking for faster and with fewer mouse clicks. For commonly searched terms, you have a field of fixed keywords to choose and click without having to type anything. With the rise of small devices with Internet access, it is a helpful service to provide simple text lists so that fewer steps are required to access desired products and services on the web. AllMenus.com is an excellent example of this concept put into practice. When placing orders for food at a restaurant within your area, wouldn't it be great to just point and click to activate the phone number. Excessive images, automated pop-ups and scripts impede the process of website downloading and browsing and simply add to precious bandwidth.

Please take a moment to browse through SpeedyHunter. The main page features three types of links: Other Sites, Catalogs and Direct Links. Other sites is other similarly-themed websites that list companies as a simple directory reference. Catalogs are lists of products in a simple text-based list of products and links, mostly in product name order. One can use a browser search function to find specific items in the larger lists. Full details and a means to purchase the product appear upon clicking the link next to the product. The direct links are straight to the product being offered.

If you find this web design idea useful, please save SpeedyHunter.com to your desktop or your favorites folder. The next time you need to find a gift fast or seek resources to help you manage your business, let Speedyhunter help you find it fast without annoying distractions.

--Putting my professional computer skills to work for you.