After my laptop broke, I was in despair wondering how I would get along without my own personal computer.  Though it was hard at first, it seemingly became easier as time went by.  Live without a personal computer is doable if you have the right tools to do it.

How I Live Without a Personal Computer
Some of the tools I use now are 1) an external hard drive for saving all the data I need. 2) a cell phone with wifi for checking my websites and chatting with friends.  With these two tools, its easier to not miss my laptop computer.  I can even watch movies on my cellphone if I wish.  In many ways my cellphone can be my computer, minus the ability to move a mouse which does make things harder.

I spend many hours on friends computers, in internet cafes, and on my cellphone.  Sure it can be a pain, but it can be freeing.

What Would You Do Without a Computer
I realized after my computer was gone how hard it was to live without it.  Most of my entertainment is tied up in my computer.  This includes movies, music, phone calls, chatting, work, the list goes on.  One little device can do so much, and without it, it’s like losing your swiss army knife of connectivity.

This brings me the question.  If the internet went down around the world, could everyone cope?

Features of the Fizy Music Search Engine include a listing of the length of the track, and to listen to the track as a standard audio track with the option often to view the video if you so wish. Basically this is a great way to search for all the music you could ask for. They even filter 30 language so you can find almost any song.

Fizy can be accessed at Fizy.com

Cost to deliver one million spam messages? Little, close to nothing.

Ways to Defeat Spam and Become ‘Nearly’ Spam Free
1. Email – Start with your email. Take the time to use the unsubscribe feature at the bottom of most spam emails.  Set up email rules.  I use web.de and can setup special rules so that whenever I get an email from a certain email address, it will automatically become deleted.
2. Browsing – Make sure your adblocker is on.  Popup ads can be blocked easily.
3. Visual - There is such a thing as visual pollution/spam the billboards that you seem forced to stare at.  Unfortunately there is no good way to get rid of these… legally.
4. TV Ads - Watch all your television delayed. Anything live and you’ll end up wasting 15 minutes watching tv ads.

We are getting bombarded everyday with more and more ads, spam, and other distractions. Already they’ve come to our phones, our email, our postal mail, our phonelines.  Sometimes it seems as if everyone wants to sell you something.  Sure you will never be ad free, but at least taking a few steps to reduce that might just save you time from deleting spam, watching commercials, and any other daily distractions.

Getting the Cheapest HD TV Projector
I used eBay to get my InFocus projector for $150 which works well for the price with still at least 1500 hours on the bulb.  Keep in mind if you watch TV day and night a projector might not be the best option.  But for those who prefer HD at night from a PC and HD tuner, this is a great option, portability and a gret price.

Building Your Own HD TV Projector
For like $100 you can build your own high quality projector.  But keep in mind these methods are far from portability.  If you travel like me, getting a standard projector is the best way to have big screen on the go, but if you just need a basement movie theater, build your own!  I wrote earlier on how to do it HERE.

What About the HD Tuner for the Projector?
Oh yeah getting one cheap? Well if you haven’t gotten your HD converter box yet, get it now!  Though this isn’t ‘true’ HD, it comes close.  Using the S-video output on my Apex DT250, I am able to get a very good picture.  Keep in mind it only gets HD Signal broadcast over the airwaves.

Paying Your Loans Faster
America has one of the highest debt rates of any country.  People want the newest clothes, the biggest car, and as much stuff as they can.  It’s easy to think that the person with the most stuff wins.

The more you can put down toward a loan payment, the faster you are going to pay it off.  Therefore, I put whatever cash I could toward my loans, leaving a little left in case of a rainy day. How do you put more towards your loan? You live by a little principal I call less is more.

Living With Less Is More
Sometimes its better to value what you have rather than what you want.  It’s easy to surround yourself with things you don’t need, which will just add to clutter.  Rather than increase what I own, I’ve been trying to get rid of what I already have.

Reducing Your Monthly Commitments
Another great way to increase the amount you can pay off on your loan is to bring to a minimum your monthly financial commitments.

Cell Phone Bill - Rather than pay a monthly cell phone bill with minutes I probably won’t use.  I go prepay and pay 10 cents per minute.  When I’m home I use skype and voip to make calls, saving my cell phone minutes for later.

Cable TV Bill - Rather than pay monthly cable bills, I opt to watch TV online and use a converter box to catch regular stations.

Electricity – America needs to go code Green, not code Red.  Even if you don’t believe in climate change, going green can significantly reduce your power bill.  Turn off lights when you aren’t in the room.  Switch to more energy efficient light bulbs, and slightly lower the temperate in your house. Try riding a bike rather than driving everywhere.  Small changes in your energy consumption can mean saving big on your bills later.

Conclusion
Loans can be essential, especially when you need to buy a new house, car, or anything else that would be extremely difficult to obtain without a loan.  One of the biggest mistakes made is letting this debt accumulate by purchasing much more than they can afford, making it hard just to pay off any accumulated debt.

Where to Go Begging Online for Money
1. Prosper.com – Borrow and lend money online.  You can make interest off loaning from someone else or you can personally borrow without dealing with a bank.

2. Build a Cause Website – Need to earn money for an operation, new house, pay off your loans?  A great way to bring money to your cause is to build a website explaining your cause and why you need the money.  People are more likely to loan if you give more information than, I need money.  Explain your story, and then spread it across the web, leaving a link back to your cause website.

3. Offer Talent for Cash – If I’m going to give someone on the street money, I’d rather give a guitar player money than someone doing nothing just holding a cup out.  Show me you are trying to do something, and I’ll be more willing to give you cash.  Rather than just begging trade your talents for some extra help for your cause.  Are you a photoshop pro?  Willing to do some light cleaning in the offline work.  At home receptionist work?  Show you are willing to work for cash and you just might get that cash you need.

4. Even panhandlers have paypal?

To use coke as a toilet cleaner all you have to do is pour some coke around the inside of the toilet bowl, leave it over night and presto, it should be cleaner.  The arbonic, citric, and phosphoric acids in your coke will break down your toilet stains.

Yes I faced the crowds for some last minute Christmas shopping today, getting some late gift ideas like a gift card, some tequila, and of course some martini glasses.  But, are the best presents for a last minute Christmas, really something you buy?

Avoiding the Last Minute Christmas Fiasco
One of the best ways to take care of your gifts, is to make them yourself.  This year for Christmas I manage to create some of my own gifts.  A Christmas should come from the heart right?  Using a site like instructables.com, you can easily find something manageable to create rather than buy.

I created the Bamboo Lamp as seen below:

If you wanted to create a similar lamp you can find the instructions via this link.

I remember having to get together to draw names, which makes it rather annoying.  You could randomize the process using sort of name randomizer, but then you couldn’t take advantage of all the features that Elfster offers.

Features of Elfster
1) Setup the party.  You can choose the date, invite the people, etc.
2) Setup some gift guidelines.  What kind of gifts, how much should be spent.
3) Invite members to exchange gifts.  Invite via facebook or email.
4) Elfster will automatically draw names and email each member.

So basically Elfter will exchange Secret Santa Names for you online, help you setup the party, and email each member.

(However that doesn’t usually fly when you are just watching YouTube videos.) But, if you bust out the Sudoku or any other brain busters, or just write blogs you truly are keeping your brain fit.