Geek Girl Blog

Downton Abbey

Posted on April 2, 2011 by Calissa Leigh

I may be late to this party, but I must say, this is one of the best shows I’ve seen in a while. I’ve been ambling through many Masterpiece Theater classics and so forth for a while. I’m fond of the old Jane Austen adaptations.

Downton Abbey tells about a family without a son for an heir and the misgivings of the entire family about what to do. Lots of emotion, intrigue, mystery and the whole cast is nothing less than touching.

It starts in 1912, just after the sinking of the Titanic, when a family realizes the only male heir to the estate went down with the ship. Scrambling for the security and stability of the household, both the aristocratic family and the servants are ensnared.

When I realized it was left with almost a cliffhanger at the end, I nearly threw a book at the TV. I was scared that was the end to it all and there was no conclusion. I researched it and the PBS website has claimed they picked it up for a second season.

We’re delighted with the audience response to Downton Abbey and the positive critical reaction. We’re extremely proud to have commissioned a series which has clearly captivated ITV1 viewers. Consequently, we’re thrilled to be announcing the recommission of a new series for 2011 which will allow us to spend more time with the Crawley family and their servants.

— Laura Mackie, ITV Director of Drama Commissioning

They have already begun filming for the second season, which was supposed to have started in March. Hopefully it will be ready as planned for the release in Autumn 2011 with a Christmas special to come after.

*Squeeeeeeeee!*

I honestly can’t pick a favorite character. Even that horrible Thomas, as much as they get you to hate him, you keep hoping someone will hit him hard enough to straiten up.

The series is available on Netflix right now. Do watch it or buy the DVD series. I plan on doing so soon, as I don’t think I want to give up this series any time soon.

Forgive me if I squeal more as the new series approaches. Expect it.

Bates has to be one of the most enjoyable of the characters. None are worth missing, but John Bates’ mystery of his past was something I was so hoping to learn more about. I will be awaiting the fall season with fervor.

Posted in Television | Tagged downton abbey, Heart, Masterpiece, PBS | 1 Comment

Three Month Forum Self-Ban

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Calissa Leigh

Self banning is actually a very nice thing to do. It sounds horrible, because most people think of banning as being rejected from a forum.

Now many writers (and I assume other folks) are self banning themselves in order to get work done, finish a book, or simply take a break.

I spend a lot of time in various forums across the web *waves to forum buddies* but summer is coming along soon.

And I want to finish three books, one a month.

The only way I can possibly do that is to self ban. No more forums or random internet-ing for a month. I have online work to do, limited to 4 – 5 hours a day. Otherwise it’s going to be BIC and write or die.

Hopefully not die. I’ve grown fond of breathing.

To prepare for a self ban, I may be slowly weaning myself from forums (is that possible?) and spending a lot of time on outlines. I’m totally not an outline-type person, but to keep myself on track, I’m going to go against my nature.

Talking about future plans is about as enjoyable as listening to someone explain their dreams. I know, as mildly interesting as it is, it doesn’t apply to everyone.

But I’ve heard of others either doing self bans from forums or the internet altogether. I can’t avoid the internet completely, but I’ll step back for a while.

Hopefully with a handful of blog posts. Maybe keeping an online record of word counts and what’s going on here.

Posted in Ideas | Tagged book in a month, calissa, Heart, self banning from forums, writing for the summer | Leave a comment

Clean Water: Support a Lifesaving Charity

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Calissa Leigh

This is Scott Harrison. He founded Charity: Water.

This charity helps to dig wells and find sources for clean water in the most rural areas around.

As most people wonder, is it a worthwhile charity? Will my money go to helping people, or funding CEO pockets.

100% of donated money goes to building wells and getting water to people.

100%.

I don’t know of another charity that does this.

How do they fund their staff? Through grants and sponsorships from some corporations. It doesn’t come from donations specifically for well building.

Find out more by checking out this video.

Scott Harrison – charity: water from Big Omaha on Vimeo.

I think it would be perfect if Scott Harrison could team up with Michael Pritchard of LifeSaverSystems.com.

Please support clean water efforts. Help eliminate a lot of the health problems around the world. There’s several ways to help out, either through supporting Charity: Water or LifeSaverSystems.com.

You do not have to give money in order to help support people and give away clean water.

Sign up for supporting websites, like CrowdTap. Earn money and free stuff, and let 5% of what you earn go to charity. Get a lot, give a little and make your charity of choice Charity: Water.

Posted in Giving | Tagged charity water, clean water in africa, livesaversystems, michael pritchard, scott harrison | 1 Comment

Congregation Builder | Web Based Event Registration Software

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Calissa Leigh

Start Using Web Based Event Registration Software Within Five Minutes

Congregation Builder allows individuals to sign up for a 30 day trial account, and then they can start using it in five minutes. It’s that simple to try their web based event registration software, church management software or web based room reservation software.

Web Based Church Management Software Easily Maintains A Hectic Calendar

With web based church management software by Congregation Builder, a user can easily manage the congregation’s hectic schedule on one calendar. The calendar on the church management software embeds into a church’s website so as changes are made, people can simply go to your church website and view the calendar and read the details about any event. The calendar keeper will appreciate the fact that they can quickly set up recurring events and consecutive day events to save themselves from having to re-input the same information over and over again on different dates. However, if a particular function takes a week off because of a holiday or other reason, the administrator can select the “skip a day” function.

Printing Is Easy With The Web Based Church Management Software

The web based church management software also allows the user to print out the calendar in beautiful, high-resolution. Because it is web-based, members can view and print it from work or home. The calendar can be saved as a PDF file so it can be embedded easily in other documents, such as your church newsletter. Best of all, the calendar also works seamlessly with the People module to email the weekly e-Beacon describing upcoming events.

Posted in Sponsor | Tagged church management software, congregation builder, Sponsor, web based church management software, web based room reservation software. | Leave a comment

How to Manage Multi-Income Family Finances

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Calissa Leigh

Thank you to TurboTax for sponsoring my writing about household finances.Learn more about how TurboTax can help you find every tax deduction you deserve. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Our family is a little awkward when it comes to finances. I work as a freelancer and the Cajun has his full time job, plus side gigs filming at baseball and football games for a local network.

As a freelancer, I have to spend a little extra time going over finances and figuring out how much I need to earn each month. For the Cajun, it’s simple: He gets a pay check every couple of weeks, and he figures out from that how much he has to save and what he uses to pay the bills.

When I look at finances, I figure out ahead of time what I have to pay for each month, and then try to make that much in freelance income.

Why don’t you earn as much as possible?

I will, of course, but it helps to have a particular financial goal in mind. It’s usually whatever I need to pay the bills, plus a little extra.

Part of our managment comes from figuring out how to save money every month. We turn off our computers at night (when we remember) to save on electricity.

Our Household Requires Multiple Incomes

We split bills evenly between us. It makes it easier to know that each month, we pay about the same for rent, utilities and so forth. Food we’ll split as well.

I feel it is a little easier when we keep or finances seperate. I don’t have to ask him to spend any money, I have my own to spend. He doesn’t have to let me know he just dropped $50 on a new computer gadget so I’m not spending the same $50 on books for the week. With a shared account, it requires a lot of communication, and you feel you have to ask permission, almost, to spend money. When it’s seperate, your money is your own, and you can only spend what you have.

If you’re a saver, and your partner is a spender, it can be frustrating if you have a joint account. Seperate accounts allow for individuals to manage freely.

Not every family is going to use seperate accounts, but it might make things easier to keep financial accounts seperate. It keeps both people involved in financial planning, saving, etc.

We file seperately in order to keep things simpler. He can usually get through his taxes pretty easy and gets a refund. I usually owe taxes, and have to save throughout the year in order to pay off my income taxes in April.

Is it a great system? It works for us. How does your family handle the finances?

Posted in Sponsor | Tagged investing, manage family income, Money, multi-income families, saving, taxes, turbotax | 6 Comments

Financial Tracking for Freelancers – GoalLancer Review

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Calissa Leigh

When you are a freelance writer, or if you work on any freelance projects, keeping track of income is a little different compared to “normal” job financing. Accounting for freelancers can be tricky to work out in the beginning, but having the right financial tools can help.

For example, a freelance writer may need to evaluate money made per day, whether a daily goal is $10 or $100 a day, this is usually tracked depending on how many projects or how much of a project was completed for the day. Weekly and monthly outlooks are needed in order to evaluate goals, and determine future investments of time depending on the per hour rate or per project rate.

To make this easier, using a spreadsheet like GoalLancer may assist writers who need to keep track of daily, weekly and monthly goals. This tracking can include tracking separate clients, keeping an eye on daily or weekly revenue share royalties, and included is an expense report for easy business expense tracking.

Keeping track of income and expenses allows for easier evaluation for paying taxes quarterly, year end financial statements, and other uses.

One of the big problems for many freelancers is checking out which clients may be taking up more time than your required hourly rate might allow. If your set rate is $20 an hour, but your current client spends a lot of time sending emails, asking for revisions, or simply doesn’t pay as well as other clients, the worksheets with GoalLancer may help determine if some clients may be worth hanging on to.

This is an easily customizable spreadsheet anyone involved with writing or handling separate clients can use. There is a demo look at GoalLancer here. This one has calculations already in place. Looking on the right hand side, you can see where daily goals are places, and if the goal was met or not depending on what was made throughout the day.

For someone keeping track of revenue share programs like Suite 101 or HubPages, you could also track the Adsense revenue share or daily or weekly summary of royalties earned throughout the day.

For a closer look, check out GoalLancer. I recommend checking out how it works and then downloading the software to conform it to your own needs.

Posted in Sponsor | Tagged accounting, freelance, goallancer, software, spreadsheet, spreadsheet for writers, Writing | 1 Comment

What is a Body Wrap

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Calissa Leigh

I used to do body wraps in my own home. It was really easy.

Body wraps are usually herbal formulas of clay and seaweed. You warm your body up by pressing warm formulas and cloth to your skin. Your pores open up and then the herbs are absorbed through your skin.

Lots of people do this, spas sell the treatments for nearly $100 a pop. It’s an easy way to literally reshape your body in an hour.

I learned how to make the formulas on my own, so now I just make up a batch when I feel like having my own spa day.

I’ll tell you though, the first time I did it on my own, I didn’t lose any inches around my body. None.

I used my sister as a guinea pig, and she lost 14 inches in her first try.

Imagine how jealous I was! So When I tried again, it was even better. I think it helped having an extra pair of hands, or maybe I didn’t make my formula just right.

A lot of people wonder if it works, yes, it works. Is it going to make you lose 100 pounds in a day? No, it won’t do that. It’ll reshape the body you already have by a little bit. You’ll look and will be a little slimmer, when done correctly.

I enjoy a nice spa treatment like every other girl out there, but paying $100 for a body wrap isn’t for me. Not all the time.

When I’m trying to lose a little bit of weight, I’ll stick to my diet, like mine with Nutrisystem, and then about once a week I’ll start a body wrap.

So what will it really do?

It will slim your body down a little bit. Imagine if you were just a half inch away from fitting into that size 12 pair of jeans. If in an hour you could fit into that pair of jeans, it’s like an instant reward for doing what you were doing, losing weight.

Sometimes weight loss takes time to show on your body. When you do a body wrap, it’s like instant gratification. If you do it every week, it’ll help you keep up your momentum for losing weight.

I wrote a book about it. It’s $3.99 for the Amazon Kindle. If you don’t have Kindle, you can download it using Kindle for PC.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Content Mills Vs. Google

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Calissa Leigh

If you’re involved in the website building world at all, you probably know about Google and other search engines taking “content mills” for a ride.

I hate saying it’s content mills, because Entrepreneur.com and other websites that weren’t content mills were hit as well. That’s a pretty prominent magazine. What are they doing on the chopping block? A lot of people are questioning why certain sites were targeted (Suite101, LoveToKnow) over other content mill websites (eHow, Examiner).

So I’m taking a look at the top ten most dramatically decreased (according to sources) to see why readers might find the websites unappealing.

WiseGeek

This was listed as number one, with about a 70% drop in rankings.

Here’s a page:

Click on the images for a closer look.

This is a typical page at WiseGeek. Designers will probably cringe at it. It’s pretty crude. The design isn’t pretty. The yellow circled areas are either advertisements or links to get you to click on additional content throughout the website. The pink is the actual content.

Here’s the page: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-urban-planning.htm

On an average page, there’s over five Google text ads, and over five areas where WiseGeek places similar “you may be interested in the following articles as well” type of link placements (whole page navigation?).

Does the content answer the question? Yes, but can you find the answer? It’s hard to read when you’re “stopped” at least four times throughout the article, an ad or links to other pages are between every paragraph.

The content is pretty formulaic. Four or five paragraphs, all about equal in size. Each one has a few keywords. There’s answers, but sometimes you have to work past the fluff to get to it.

This is a website that pays editors to edit the content. How well they do the job may vary from person to person, but it doesn’t matter how well the content is written if I can’t read it.

It doesn’t matter how well the content is written if I’m unable to read the content.

Ezine Articles

One of the “scourges” of the web. People write about whatever they want and hope to get a link back from the page.

I separated navigation from advertisements this time. It’s not so bad until you scroll down the page.

http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Proven-Profit-Strategies-For-Info-Publishing-Success&id=5966966

As soon as the content is over: Ad, Ad, Share this Article Stuff, Links to over 40 different related and unrelated content inside the website, Ad, Ad, Ad.

So over five ads a page, and many, many links to other pages.

Can you get answers from this place? Well, yes and no. Some writers write well. But there’s no editorial process at all. If an article passes Copyscape standards (barely) and looks like it was written by someone who can write in English (barely) the article is published. But without some editorial process, the information is highly skewed to get the person to click on the writer’s links to find out more. And THAT design is heavily “unfriendly” toward the writer because it’s one link among at least a hundred posted.

If you scroll down on the page, even on my big fat screen, it’s a lot of additional stuff below the content, ads and more links to other parts of the website.

Outside of that, there’s content that might vary in size, but most fit the standard “over 300 and under 500″ category.

Suite 101

I’ll pick on my own article this time.

http://www.suite101.com/content/personal-ringtones-on-the-samsung-exclaim-a159864

As you can see, the ads on the left is actually in a bigger font size than the text of the article. The article is interrupted halfway through for advertisements. Navigation isn’t too bad on top, but as you scroll downward, the worse it gets as far as ads. At least seven on this page.

Does the content answer the question? It can, yes. Mine does, others who have written there do answer with knowledge they possess. There’s an editorial process with this website. It’s heavily SEO based, though. Editing grammar problems is there, but there’s a huge focus on keywords in the right places and following what is presumed to be Google friendly.

The formulaic 400 words and under 1000 words intro, fluff, meat, conclusion can happen.

HubPages

If you check out HubPages, the website itself isn’t too bad, but it might depend on which hub you land on.

This one is pretty classy.

http://hubpages.com/hub/WomensFashionsofthe1920-FlappersandtheJazz-Age

So yeah, the top part, about 1/3 of the page is content, the rest are ads, but they are less obtrusive, especially as you scroll downward.

I think I counted five ads, but the amount of content was staggering compared to it. The number of ads, compared to the gargantuan content, isn’t so bad. Top-heavy, yes, but not bad.

But other hubs may show ads inserted by the writer of the hub. The hubs are self service. Anyone can log in and post a hub, and then link it to their own websites, ebooks for sale, Amazon book ads, and so on. If the Hub’s page was unobtrusive with ads, the content may make up for it in advertisement and heavily biased content. The one link posted actually did a pretty awesome job but if you click around, you may see a lot of variances.

Does the content answer the question? Depends on the hub you land on. The person might have been very good, or the person may have posted more ads (Amazon.com ads, links to other hubs, self promotion etc.) with very thin content. There’s not much of an editorial process. Because it’s a crapshoot in an ocean of hubs, there’s room to believe that content may be a big part as to why HubPages is on thin ice with Google.

Your Dictionary

A dictionary, of all things!

Let’s look up a word: Content

So you have less than a full paragraph of content, and three big ads on top. The orange, again, is navigation. The navigation is understandable. So it’s top heavy when it comes to advertising.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/content

But as you scroll down, there’s more content. This is actually content from a legit dictionary. I don’t know off-hand if this dictionary website has permission to publish the content, but it seems like it does.

Does the content answer the question? While the ads are top heavy, there is useful content. The website does answer the question. I don’t know why this one was brought down. It could be users didn’t like it for some other reason. I’d love to hear from people looking at this, what is your opinion? Why would Google be less interested in this dictionary?

BrotherSoft

I haven’t been to this website before, and now looking at it… I don’t know. It’s a software download website, so why is Google lowering it a notch?

There’s ads and navigation problems here. There’s ads riiiiiiight next to that download link. I scrolled down just under the name of the software they want you to download.

http://www.brothersoft.com/eyes-relax-portable-edition-368161.html

This one is a little bit trickier. There’s obtrusive ads, that’s obvious, but look at the green highlighted text. I marked over them in orange in the image, but look at the page.

If you scroll over it, there’s a big ad that pops up. So while you are cruising the website, if you happen to mouse over something, up pops an advertisement.

There’s a paragraph of content, and the download link, but there’s mostly navigation away from the page and ads. On other pages, there’s content like “how to stay awake at night when you have work to do” but instead of content, it’s minor content with links to software downloads.

Does the content answer the question? If you were looking for software, it’s here. There’s downloads. I don’t want to download a program, so others will have to share how safe it is, but with the ads all over, it’s hard to navigate, the ads are obtrusive. I can see why if you were searching for an article, and you got links to software programs covered up by ads, it’d be a little tough to stay put.

Buzzle

Here’s a confusing one:

It’s not pretty… well it’s just really plain. But there’s nothing wrong with that.

Two ads on the page.

Both are after the article and left side navigation.

Below the ads are links and links and more links, not as bad as Ezine but could be a contributor to the decline on Google.

So the real problem has to be the content.

See that place I highlighted, it is a link that goes to another page on the website. I didn’t find it obtrusive.

Does the content answer the question?This one does. I don’t know of the editorial process for this one, but it looks like the workers are not paid. That usually means self promotion. I could be totally wrong about this one though, because I’m clicking on people’s names and I don’t see links to their website, just more of the author’s work on Buzzle.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/birthday-gifts-for-teenage-girls.html

So why do you think Google kicked it down a notch?

Associated Content

Here’s Yahoo’s purchase of the ones solo entity of Associated Content. Most writers will know that AC pays a very small up front fee for content (ranging from a couple of dollars to maybe $20… but I’ve not seen anyone claim to make that much on a single article in years) and now they offer revenue share for writers.

Now the ads are less obtrusive. They are kind of big. Four big ones on this page.

There’s two on top, two on bottom. Here’s the rub: Content can be minimal. There’s very little editorial work being done. As long as the content looks original and looks like English, anyone can write for Associated Content.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7815722/protect_yourself_part_5_12_tips_to.html?cat=25

Does the content answer the question? It’s up in the air. While the ads are tolerable, and navigation streamlined, the quality of the writing will be subject to whatever whims the writer feels like. If he or she wants to write fluff, there’s fluff. If it’s great, it’s great. It’s just unreliable.

Free Downloads Center

So this one is similar to Brothersoft.

Can you find the download link? It’s next to the name of the software. Took me a minute to find it, too.

Best MMORPG for Solo Gamers

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Calissa Leigh

I know what some of you are thinking.

“Why would you want to play an MMO game if you just want to solo your way through it?”

I love playing solo. I don’t have the time schedule to commit to a guild. Besides, I’ll play a game for a few months, get tired of it, play something else and want to come back to the game later.

I know I’m not the only one who enjoys the many MMO games, but some people don’t really want to join a guild, for whatever reason. Sure, playing in a party every once in a while is fun, but if you have to depend on a group of people for everything that’s fun, it’s not as much fun for the soloists.

So, here’s my opinion about which games are great for solo players. Please chime in on this, because I certainly have not played every game out there. It will help so many gamers if you can suggest games that are great for solo players.

Flyff – I’ve played this in the past, and from what I remember, you can play for a long while without needing anyone else. It was a grind fest, but it’s been updated so hopefully that’s gone now.

RuneScape – I’ve played this years ago. If you can get around the funky looking graphics, it’s a decent game. There are spots in this game where you do have to find another player or two to do something with you, but you could play through the entire game, I think, without a team. The quests that do require another player, there’s others who play solo as well that are usually up for helping out.

World of Warcraft – Some people have suggested WoW as a great game for soloists, but I feel if you can’t get to end game, or some of the cooler things, without doing it solo, it’s not actually that solo-friendly. It’s cool and all, and you can easily level to maybe 80 without grouping up at all. And some people do.

ROSE Online – A colorful MMORPG that used to be pay to play but is now free. Really addicting, been around for a few years, and a number of people have said they really enjoyed it.

Other games suggested included:

Archlord
Silk Road
Perfect World
Wizard 101
EVE Online
Lord of the Rings Online
Guild Wars 2

While there are grouping activities in each of the games, in most you can get to a high level and even into some very fun instances without having to group up.

I know some people think solo players are silly for wanting to solo in MMO games, and some even feel they “ruin the game” *rolls eyes louder* but if a soloist is doing fine on his own, his game should affect those who enjoy groups. Some feel if you don’t force people to group up, then it becomes lame…. well maybe good players don’t always want to group, and that’s why your groups are lame.

Play MMOs how you wish but I love a good solo campaign as much as the next chick.

BTW, I’ve played maybe 10 minutes of the new game RIFT, and I like what I see, but no word yet on how solo-able it might be. If anyone swings by with a tip on that one, would love to know.

Posted in Game | Tagged best solo MMORPG, MMORPG, RIFT, world of warcraft | 7 Comments

Felicia Day in Dragon Age

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Calissa Leigh

Felicia Day has finally reveal her mystery project, the one she’s been teasing her fans over the past several weeks.

Day will be staring in a new web series, Dragon Age, based on the video game. Dragon Age: Redemption will show Day as an elf assassin, Tallis.

Day wrote for the series and stars. BioWare, the makers of the Dragon Age games, says they are excited to see this production. Day promises to try to keep it as true to Dragon Age as possible.

How exciting is it to have a new web series? Too exciting! It must be tough trying to portray fantasy in a web series, but I have a feeling Felicia will be doing it justice. As she claims she’s an organic gamer.

Remember to follow Felicia on Twitter to keep up with the details of the new web series.

She also mentioned recently that the Guild will be up for another season. She’s been so busy but it’s great news to hear.

One more hot photo? OK. : )

Posted in Geek | Tagged BioWare, Felicia Day, games, Tallis, Video, web series | Leave a comment

Downton Abbey

Three Month Forum Self-Ban

Clean Water: Support a Lifesaving Charity

What is a Body Wrap

Content Mills Vs. Google

Best MMORPG for Solo Gamers

Felicia Day in Dragon Age

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