I’m a big fan of online business card printing. When it’s done right, the process of ordering full-color business cards online is fast, easy, and the price can’t be beat. But when things go wrong, as my buddy’s recent experience shows, you have to persevere …
Earlier this spring, I helped my pal knock out a new full color business card design in CorelDRAW. He did all of the design work ... I merely set up the template, did some tweaking, and exported the 300 dpi TIFF file.
My friend submitted the file and requested an Acrobat PDF proof. When the PDF file arrived everything looked cool and the job went to print.
When the printed business cards showed up on his doorstep about a week later, he wasn't pleased. The color was all wrong. He went back and looked at the proof with dismay. While the color was perfect in the PDF file, the batch of printed business cards appeared to be washed out ... there was no contrast and the full black areas were merely gray. It looked like there wasn't enough black ink on the press.
So he contacted the business card printer and complained about the order. The printer admitted their error and offered to reprint the job. A new batch of cards showed up at his place shortly after. Upon inspecting the reprinted cards, my friend was immediately disappointed. The second batch was far too dark ... it seemed as if there was too much ink on the press this time.
So once again, he brought up the issue with the printer. And once again, the printer reprinted the job.
The squeaky wheel got the grease and the third time was the charm. The third batch of business cards were printed perfectly.
The moral of the story?
Don't settle for an inferior print job. If the printer makes an error, it's their responsibility to make it right ...
Related: business card printer comparison chart
Technology teaches lessons that sometimes come to us in “well, duh” moments. Just this afternoon, I was yakking away on my VOIP phone when the line went dead. Poof … no dial tone, no nothing. The first thing I did was look at the VOIP telephone adapter. The lights were all out. Terror crept up my spine …
"What am I going to do with no phone," I thought for a fleeting moment.
And then I looked over at my daughter, who was sitting next to the VOIP telephone adapter (TA). The lights might have gone off on the TA, but one flickered on in my head.
I looked underneath the desk at the TA's power supply, where my daughter's left foot just happened to be dangling happily.
Our little darling had knocked the power supply out of the wall socket.
Well, duh. No power, no Internet telephone.
"No matter which VOIP plan you have, the phone won't work in a power outage" is a frequent argument among VOIP disbelievers. But there's an easy way to remedy that ... simply plug the VOIP telephone adapter into an uninterruptible power supply (UPS).
Of course, I don't have my TA hooked to an UPS ... just yet ...
I woke up in a cold sweat this morning, knowing there was something I forgot to do before falling asleep. It didn't take long to remember. My darling wife reminded me that it was recycling day, just before she hurried off to work. Recycling day comes every other Friday around here, and seeing how I missed the last date, my office was overflowing with paper--from printouts of geekbook manuscripts to old software marketing collateral ...
Looking for free shed plans? Over the years, I've seen the free shed plans come and go. And I've posted links to free shed plan sites that have since disappeared. Through it all, I've always wondered why someone wouldn't want to fork over a few bucks for a decent plan. Free is never a bargain if it's poorly designed.
When your budget is super-tight (and hey, I've been there), scrimping with a free shed plan is rarely the best way to conserve cash. When you get right down to it, the money you spend on the plan will be the least of your costs. You'll be spending hundreds, if not a thousand dollars or more on materials (depending on the size of your shed). A perfectly usable shed plan can be had for less than the cost of a sheet of T-111 plywood. When you order and cut your lumber carefully you'll more than pay for a good plan.
If you're looking for something basic, you can find gable, salt box, and contemporary shed designs, as well as the ever-popular gambrel yard barn plans on eBay. They might not be free, but they're about as close as you can get ... a great number of these shed plan auctions end at under ten bucks. Check out the handy shed plan auction page for a complete listing of active auctions.
While distinctive architect-designed shed plans will cost you more money up front, they'll pay dividends year-after-year. You want to look at the shed you build with pride, not with the thought that "hey, it may look butt ugly, but I saved enough for a case of beer by using those free shed plans!"
A great design will endure, bringing a source of pride and compliments for years to come.
Popular Mechanics has a free shed tutorial worth looking into. You can find their colonial style yard barn here. While the tutorial is free, you'll have to fork over $29.95 for the actual plan sheet.
Wolmanized Wood offers a simple free shed design. You'll find a plan GIF here.
You’ve probably heard that AOL has launched its VOIP service. Lets look past the hype and figure out exactly how much it will cost the average consumer …
We'll start with the monthly charges. There are four AOL VOIP offers: Local ($18.99 per month - $13.99 for the first three months), Unlimited Calling ($29.99 per month - $24.99 for the first three months), Global Calling ($34.99 per month - $29.99 for the first three months), and the New AOL Customer Plan ($39.99 per month - $29.99 for the first six months). Local, Unlimited Calling, and Global Calling are clearly targeted at existing AOL for Broadband customers. If you choose one of these three plans and do not have a Broadband AOL account, you'll need to sign up for Broadband AOL at a cost of $10 per month.
While there is no activation fee for the VOIP service, per se, there is a $30 deposit that is held for calling charges that are not covered under the plan. AOL charges $5.00 for the VOIP router and $9.99 shipping and handling. The $5.00 router fee is refunded after the first month.
The Local plan provides unlimited local and regional calling, with long distance billed at 4 cents per minute. The Unlimited and Global Calling plans provide unlimited long distance in the US and Canada, both plans charge per minute on overseas calls, based upon the country. The per minute fees on Global Calling plan are approximately half that of the Unlimited plan. Or so they say.
So are the AOL VOIP plans a good deal?
Bottom line: If you're an existing AOL Broadband customer, you're the target market. If you don't already have their broadband service, on the other hand (and don't want it), you'll be tossing out $10 per month.
While AOL's VOIP service looks to have some nice features, it's clearly more costly than many of the competing VOIP plans. Their international plan falls particularly short when compared to Broadvoice and Lingo. If you do a lot of overseas calling, you'll likely look to another plan for the best deal.
For more info: see the VOIP Plan Comparison chart.
I’ve become an old pro at drying out wet basements over the years. All of my experience, of course, has been developed in the process of drying out the basement here at ranchero indebto. Please don’t get me wrong, even though I write from the swamps of jersey, my basement isn’t continuously wet. It’s only under intense prolonged meteorological events — like those nasty nor’ easters, torrential tropical storms, or hurricanes (be they classified or in the form of remnants) — where our basement floods.
These days, I worry about basement flooding two or three times each year. After taking a series of basement waterproofing measures, my basement flooding concerns have been greatly reduced. This last big bad east coast storm may have flooded out many unfortunate folks, but my basement remained dry, with the exception of a small puddle.
Drying a Flooded Basement, continued
Just when you think you've thought of everything you can do with that garden shed ... inspiration strikes. One of the stakes on the rebounder gave up the ghost towards the end of the fall season. So I packed it away in the shed and didn't think much of it.
On to the inspiration ...
We set out to improvise, without the aid of a rebounder. Stacking a bunch of railroad ties on top of each other didn't work too well. It seems that the boy has the capability to strike the ball with enough velocity to knock over the timbers.
On a whim, we started kicking the ball at the shed. Within minutes, we had come up with a new handball-like game, using the face of the shed as a rebounder. Hit the door and get ten points. Nail a hinge and it's worth twenty. Smack the latch and you get fifty.
It's a shed and a soccer rebounder!
I’ve been on an energy-saving kick for quite a while now. But I only got around to installing a programmable thermostat a few years back. Once I did, I kicked myself for taking so long. If you pay for your own heat and air conditioning and you don’t have a programmable thermostat, you’re losing money and creating worry.
Want some geek motivation, too? The latest programmable thermostats can be controlled via a web interface …
Lets start with the dollars and sense. Exactly how much money are you losing?
The Federal government's Energy Star program conservatively states:
Programmable thermostats that have earned the ENERGY STAR help you save money and keep your home comfortable by automatically adjusting your temperature settings while you are asleep or away, saving you about $100 per year.
(Don't scoff at that figure. I'd reckon that it was calculated long before the days of heating oil at $2.00+ per gallon.)
The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Savers pages go into more detail:
By turning your thermostat back 10° to 15° for 8 hours, you can save about 5% to 15% a year on your heating bill—a savings of as much as 1% for each degree if the setback period is eight hours long.
There's real money to be saved here. You can see a monetary payback in less than a year. And the peace of mind payoff starts on the very first day ...
With a programmable thermostat, you enter a daily schedule. All you need to do is set it and forget it. The thermostat will automatically turn the heat down when you go to sleep and turn it up in the morning before you get out of bed. Then, it will turn the heat down again after you've headed out the door for work, and turn it up just before you return home.
What could be better than a programmable thermostat? How about a programmable thermostat with a web browser interface!
The Proliphix Basic Series Internet Thermostats use a calendar interface to set the morning, daytime, evening , and sleeping patterns for each day of the week. The unit can even be controlled from outside the home. Remote management capabilities are provided--from anywhere in the world--through secure server software. The downside is that the Proliphix device needs to be hard wired via Ethernet (sorry, no Wi-Fi, just yet).
While the Proliphix unit will set you back about four big ones, simple programmable thermostats start at under fifty bucks.
We’re addicted to disposable batteries … and that’s a bad thing.
There’s a much better alternative to those standard one-time-use alkalines, but the technology just doesn’t get the shelf space it deserves. NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) batteries can be recharged hundreds upon hundreds of times. Every NiMH battery you buy can easily save you a hundred bucks. Just take a few moments to think about how much you’ve spent on batteries over the past year …
Now I'm not saying that there's an active conspiracy to rip us off and poison the environment, but when is the last time you saw a NiMH battery display (of substance) at the checkout line at your local supermarket or convenience store?
I picked up an eight-pack of conventional AAs at the market last week. I was standing in line at the register when I remembered that the kid needed batteries for his R/C car controller. I bit my tongue when I looked over to see the eight-pack ring up at over five dollars.
That's right, kids ... five dollars for eight batteries. How convenient.
Fast forward ...
Yesterday, we stopped at Home Depot on the way home from the NYC Auto Show today (where the batteries in the digital camera so kindly went dead the moment we stepped in the door).
I needed to pick up a bucket of thinset for my latest ceramic tile project. As we're standing in the checkout line, the boy says "Hey Dad, lets get some more batteries!" Of course, there was not a single AA NiMH to be found. But there was a crazy deal on Alkaline Energizer AAs -- a 32-pack for just under $13. Seeing as how we were still short on AAs, I bought the brick. Gee ... what a deal ... not.
Now lets do some simple math.
For arguments sake, we'll say that a four pack of high-quality AA rechargeable NiMH batteries costs twelve bucks. That's three bucks for one AA NiMH. Lets say you only get 300 charges out of that battery. That's one penny per virtual life.
If I bought ten bargain 32-packs of conventional AAs today (for a total of 320 batteries), it would have cost me roughly $130 plus tax.
Okay, so maybe I'm rounding, but $3 vs $130 is pretty clear cut. NiMH batteries are the winner. And that's before we get to the environmental issue.
Throwing batteries into the landfill is a terrible thing to do. In our county, we're required to recycle dead batteries. Our local government officials ask that we place our dead batteries into a plastic bag that is placed at the curb every two weeks with our recycling bucket. Our tax dollars pay for recycling those dead batteries.
With NiMH battery technology, only one battery needs to be recycled vs hundreds of conventional.
Now if only I could get my wife and kids to stop throwing the things out by mistake ...