To Kleeneze Or not To Kleeneze?

One of my neighbours was trying to introduce me to Kleeneze last week. She is a very nice lady and also very persuasive but I'm just not sure about this.

Kleeneze is a company that sells mostly cleaning products, but they have a selection of other products as well, basically anything that you need around the home; I went through their catalogues a few times but I always thought their stuff was really expensive and was never tempted to buy anything from them.


At first I was interested by the opportunity to earn money by putting catalogues through letterboxes and picking them up (hopefully with some orders) a few days later, but the more I think about it and the less this seems attractive to me: the fact that Kleeneze agents have to buy the catalogues from the company seems a bit dodgy to me and I know that I am bound to find people who will just throw them in the bin instead of giving them back if they haven't seen anything they'd like to buy from the catalogues, and that is assuming that they'll even look at the catalogues. Also, I am sure some people will tell me to F*** off.

By the time I manage to sell anything from Kleeneze, I bet the catalogues will be out of date and I would have to spend more money to get up to date ones, especially since I know there are at least 2 other people doing the same thing in the area where I live.

Well, I guess that I'll just have to say no: as I read in one of the forums I am a member of, Kleeneze probably just earn most of their profits selling the catalogues to the agents as opposed to selling their products to the customers. I need to spend more time blogging and less time wondering about offline opportunities that look too much like scams!

Unicef Master Card Lottery Scam

 

Ever get anything like this in the post? This one says I have won €1,415,810.00. Yeah, right!

Unfortunately, I have never entered any such lottery and I didn’t even have to Google “Unicef Master Card Lottery scam” to know that there is no such thing as the Unicef Master Card Lottery, and if there was, I bet they could think of more charitable causes than me to give their money to, like, oh, I don’t know: I’ll take a wild guess and say maybe help feed starving children in poor countries?

Of course this letter was accompanied by a form to fill with my personal and banking details. I know you’ve been told this dozens of times but it doesn’t hurt to say it again: don’t get caught, never give personal information to anyone you don’t know.

By all means if you can afford it, donate to Unicef, they are a very worthy cause. I really wish low-life crooks didn’t use the names of reputable charities in vain; worse, much worse than blaspheming!

Save Money With Free Books Online

Some say chocolate is better than sex; well, in my opinion, reading a good book is better than chocolate (even though I have never had sex while reading a book and eating chocolate all at the same time).

This is a bit of a hypocrite post coming from someone like me who fantasizes everyday of making money from writing books, but for those who love reading but can't afford to buy books, here are a few simple (and really cheap) ways to indulge in my favourite hobby:

1- Libraries:
I'm not sure about other countries, but in Ireland a yearly subscription only costs €5.00 and adults can borrow up to 4 books every 3 weeks. Children can only borrow 3 books for a period of 3 weeks in my local library but it is free for them.

There is a wide variety of books available to borrow as even though my local library is quite small, it looks like they renew their stock quite often. I have read about half of John Grisham's thrillers, laughed at lots of chick-lit novels (not that I'm very proud of being entertained by Marian Keyes or Sophie Kinsella's writing but let's not be a snob, I can't help it if I like it!) and discovered the dark side of modern Ireland with Ken Bruen thanks to my local library.

As to my 8 year-old daughter who is a hard-to-please avid reader, she came home with 3 Horrid Henry books last Saturday that she couldn't put down (except for when she had to eat, sleep and go to school); 3 weeks before that she was enjoying one of Enid Blyton's Amelia Jane books.

2- Project Gutenberg:
If you like classics or want to re-read some of your childhood's books online for free, head to Project Gutenberg, a site that claims to have the largest library of free ebooks. This site contains only books that have their copyright expired so even though laws may be different elsewhere, it is legal for the majority of people in the Western World to download them on a computer or e-reader, and the books can also be read online on the website (no downloading involved).

Again there is a huge choice of authors here, from Jane Austen to Mark Twain. All of the listed authors are already dead, so if you feel guilty about not paying to read a book you can always donate to Project Gutenberg through Paypal. What's the point in buying books that are only going to make the editors richer since the authors can't benefit from the sale of their books anymore?

3- Free Online Books For Children:
When you've run out of bedtime stories, you might want to check out Children's Storybooks Online. Since the children's books on the previous site are a bit out of date and will seem boring to young children, the little ones will certainly enjoy these better.

4- Online Bookswapping:
Instead of letting dust gather on the books you own and don't want to read anymore, why not exchange them? If you have friends or relatives who like to read you can offer to do this offline and if not, register with a site such as Bookmooch.com or Bookswap.ie and start swapping.


Disclaimer: please check the laws of your country before downloading books or other content from the Internet. Registering with any of the websites featured in this article is at the user's own risks.

Happy New Year!

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How To Write Books For Children

Recently I was at the local library with my children and my eldest daughter could not find enough books on the shelves that suited her tastes. It is a small library and even though I thought there was a good selection of books for her age bracket (she is 7 1/2 and an excellent reader), she had already read all the "girly" books that were there and would not consider bringing home a book that was not about princesses, unicorns or anything else in that style (luckily the librarian found a book with pink pages that my daughter had missed).

I can't afford buying a lot of books: I usually buy books for my kids at Christmas, along with one other gift, but other than that, all the books we read come from the library which is near free. Another problem for me is that my daughter is a fast reader: after less than an hour from being home from the library, she said she had finished her first book so I asked her what the story was about to see if she had really read it, and she had! (Do they teach speed reading in primary schools nowadays?)

I then thought that it might be a good idea for me to try and write stories for children; after all, if my kids are not satisfied with the choice that's available in the library (or go through books like bullets), why not make up stories that are specially designed to suit their tastes in books? I started searching online for free courses or advice on writing for children and even though I am still not sure whether I am going to take the plunge or not, it could be one of my resolutions for 2010. If you have ever thought of writing for children, here are some of the resources I have found online:

http://www.write4kids.com/
http://www.howtodothings.com/careers/a2910-how-to-write-childrens-books.html
http://www.howtobooks.co.uk/leisure/writing/how-to-childrens-book.asp

Writing for children may not be for everyone but this seems like the right choice for me right now and I have an excellent critic right here at home with me (there could be two by the time I get to finish anything resembling a story, as it looks like my youngest daughter will soon be able to read on her own too). I'm not sure I can make it, but I'll never know if I don't try, right?

Booted Out of Squidoo But Still on Associated Content.

During the summer I received an email from Squidoo asking me to review my lenses that were apparently too spammy for their standards.

I had a lot of other things going on in my life at that time and just ignored the request so now my lenses have been deleted. I know some of them were set up merely to promote some Clickbank products so I accepted being "fired" without too much damage to my ego. If my lenses have been deleted I guess an awful lot of lensmasters have been given the boot too because my lenses were far from being the most spammy but if Squidoo's owners want to improve their standards, that's up to them. I can set up another account with them but I don't think I will.

One thing I used to find difficult with Squidoo is that if you really want to make money with lenses, you have to build a lot of them: at least 100. Making 100 lenses might not be so hard over a period of time, but when you think that they all need to be updated regularly, 100 is an awful lot, especially if you want to have a life!

I'm finished with Squidoo but I am going to try and write more articles on Associated Content. Not only writing articles are less time-consuming than building Squidoo lenses but the fact that once they have been published you don't need to go back every 5 minutes to update them is a big plus for me; I like to finish something and then being able to forget about it, especially since I am still earning money every month for articles I've written 2 years ago.

Sure I can't promote affiliate links on Associated Content but to tell you the truth I didn't earn as much as I would have liked on Squidoo promoting affiliate links, be it through Squidoo's own affiliate programs or my own links, so I'm thinking of maybe setting up a blog where I could write some reviews and promote some affiliate products (probably not Clickbank either, something more real that the average person would find useful). I'm not going to do this straight away, as I find that I really don't have time for anything more right now, but maybe next year, when both my children have the same school hours (these school pick-ups are really killing me, there is something not quite right about the Irish school system!).

So here's just to let you know what I'm up to. If you're interested in reading my last articles you can read 5 Top Website Resources for Easy to Make and Cheap Halloween Decorations, which came in very handy for my children this week (the house is now full of ghost and pumpkin garlands as well as bats made out of empty toilet rolls), or, if you'd rather cast a money spell (yes there is one about winning the lotto, but remember if it's too good to be true...) read 5 Free Spells Websites for a Spooky Halloween and if you like them, please share them online!

Free TV on the Internet

Oops, didn't realize it was so long since I last posted here. Since I last wrote a blog post I moved house and learned DIY - well I bought myself a cheap drill and phone my ex whenever I need curtain poles or shelves installed; I haven't actually used the drill myself, why should I when someone is willing to do the work for free?

Anyway, enough talk of how to abuse your ex, let's talk about free TV: when I went to see my sister last summer she gave me her Dexter boxset and converted me: so after watching Dexter series 1, I was craving for more, especially since I had read that the series 4 was going to be aired on TV soon. I rented the Dexter series 2 in my local Xtravision but the shop assistant told me that the series 3 had not been released yet (at least not in the region 2, which my DVD player and I live in), so I decided to look around on the World Wide Web and found several websites where I could watch TV for free.

Here's what I found so far: depending on where you live, you can watch shows that have been broadcast on your local TV stations; these are the safest to view, in case you're worried about nasty viruses or the law: in Ireland for example, you can catch up on your favourite soaps and shows on the RTE player or the TV3 catch up website. A useful website for the Irish language lovers (or simply students who have no choice but to learn Irish) is the TG4 website, where most programmes are in Gaeilge. If you live in the UK you should definitely hook up with the 4oD website (from Channel 4): they have a much more exciting selection of series but are unfortunately not accessible from Ireland.

There are a lot of Free TV websites but I must say that I find most have crappy content and I would stay away from others that require you to install a toolbar or download software. For Free Internet TV that won't install spyware or adware on your computer, I recommend the following:
- http://www.freeetv.com;
- http://www.tvchannelsfree.com;
- http://www.worldtvpc.com/;

My personal favourite, despite the fact that there are pop up ads that may discourage you from viewing anything on offer, is Project Free TV: it has everything under the sun from Little House on the Prairie to Weeds and, yes, this is where I have been catching up with my favourite anti-hero Dexter. I am not sure of the legality of the website so I wouldn't advise anyone to download any episodes (it says you can download full HD episodes with Vuze) but I am pretty content with my now bloodshot eyes (some of the episodes are a bit out of sync, funny to hear Rita talk with Dexter's voice and vice-versa sometimes and the episodes are watchable but still not the best if you're a bit fussy about the video quality).

If you don't know what I've been talking about, don't worry: it took me a while to differentiate between Internet TV, catch up TV, streaming, downloading, etc... Here's an interesting article for all Internet TV newbies: read The Definitive Guide to watching Internet TV on PC.

PS 1: Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any crap that might get on your computer if you ever decide to download anything through any of the above links; I am also not responsible for any trouble you may incur with the law. If you're unsure whether any website you visit is legal and don't want to run any risks, just don't go there!

PS 2: To the idiot who put a CPA ad which require visitors to complete a survey in order to access the site (which I haven't listed here by the way): I got the hell out of your site and am not coming back; this kind of thing annoys the crap out me and I guess I'm not the only one who won't be staying on your website (really, how stupid can a webmaster get?).

Update: Project Free TV has unfortunately just disappeared but I have just found the next best thing with Free Online Episodes; not so many oldies there like She-ra, Inspector Gadget or Mac Gyver (sigh!) but still lots of excellent shows (Dexter of course, Damages, Nurse Jackie...) so I think I'll hurry and catch with what I've been missing before this one disappears as well.