Gimme A Break

Do you have a security system installed in your home? The festive season is round the corner again and many people will be traveling and most would feel uneasy about leaving their homes empty.

I’ve recently had a Home Security System installed. I’ve been procrastinating as it’s not within my budget. I always tell myself I’ll do it next month when I have the money.

But with a bit of searching on the internet, I found that for roughly $1 a day, I can get an ADT monitored home security system. Now that I can afford. I talked to one of the consultants and got a free evaluation and getting the entire system up and running didn’t take as long as I expected. So I’m happy I finally got around to doing it. So that’s one load off my mind.

• broken into
• leaving your front door wide open
• slow
• good or bad?
• where the magazines are

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If your kids are using up printer ink like there’s no tomorrow, then you should really be looking at the cheapest option for printer ink. Don’t be paying regular prices through your nose.

At 101 Inks, you can find inkjet cartridges, laser toners, cartridges, toners, fax ribbons at the lowest prices and save up to 85% off regular prices. They also offer free shipping on orders of $55 and above.

Now you can save an additional 10% by using the coupon code “8356620″ when you check out with your order. Seriously go check them out yourself and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

• online auction where you can save and do good
• purple chic
• where the magazines are
• tubes are in!
• more than a nurse’s guide to good living

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During the school breaks, city kids tend to spend too much time online and of course, when they’re at loose ends, they tend to get up to all sorts of mischief. Being parents, that means we have to be all the more vigilant of the types of things our kids are doing online.

I know for a fact that lots of kids think it’s really cool to be a hacker. I can see the glint in their eyes at the very prospect of it. They hero-worship the real life hackers, yes, even the ones that have been caught and sent to prison.

Well, hacking isn’t all bad though. Many hackers leave jail, turn over a new leaf and later become ‘ethical hackers’, the people employed in IT Security positions where they identify areas of system weaknesses and help catch hackers.

For those interested in pursuing a career in IT security, the EC-Council offers courses in such areas as  security fundamentals, Ethical Hacking, penetration testing, secure programming, disaster recovery and computer forensics.

They have live, online, instructor-led training courses that anyone can do from home. I mean, if someone loves the highs of hacking for fun, they might as well be an ethical hacker and make an honest living out of it, right?

• a small price for peace of mind
• crossroads
• much ado about movies
• buh-bye, cell phone
• good or bad?

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The kids and I have a good number of things planned for this weekend. I know it’s Easter for many of you but not for us. For us, it so happens there’s a computer fair we want to go to just for a looksee. It’s kinda obligatory, we go whenever it’s in town to see if we can pick up any bargains. We don’t like paying regular prices on our computer stuff especially since they get outdated so quickly. So yeah, we’re going to the city… yay!

• save additional 10% off already discounted printer supplies
• power-hungry games
• buying in truckloads
• staying in, eating in
• the weekend warehouse sale

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We have this hand-me-down tradition in our family where when dh or I get a new cell phone, we pass ours along to one of the kids. My kids have never gotten brand new cell phones, they’re just ‘inherit’ our old ones.

My pda phone has just been ‘inherited’ by my daughter. It’s still fairly new but since she wants to listen to her beloved MP3 and watch movies on it, she’s been hounding us about getting the memory upgraded.

Well, that’s not too bad considering that it didn’t cost us too much to find the memory upgrades at the PC fair where we can get some good discounts. Do your kids get new cell phones or hand-me-downs?

• compare free cell phones
• buh-bye, cell phone
• don’t you just hate phone spam?
• madwoman
• buh-bye, brand new car

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I hate to complain in the new year but this internet connection has been driving me nuts. Some international internet cable broke in the ocean somewhere on December 20, 2008 (I think). That was the day the internet started crawling and no number of retries or reboots could bring it back to speed.

You would think that the cables would be fixed by now, since it’s been over 2 weeks. But of course, everyone is away for the holidays apparently so there’s no one available to get the problem fixed.

But it’s already 3 days into the new year and the problem still persists. Go figure! Meantime, blogging has come to almost a complete standstill for me. I’m only doing posts that are expiring and can’t wait anymore. Otherwise, I’m just staying off my blogs because I’m just wasting time!

• snail’s pace
• when the travel bug bites
• drumming up ideas for a good cause
• not going anywhere?
• how to complain effectively

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I started out with all the good intentions of getting some background work done this holidays seeing that web traffic will probably be at its lowest since everyone’s out enjoying themselves with their families and loved ones.

Turns out the internet too is suffering from a hang over and is crawling ever so slowly that it’s impossible to get anything done at all. What a bummer! At first I thought it was the internet connection in my area.

But when I started calling my friends to check, it seems practically everyone is having this same problem. A friend who was trying to check for life insurance quotes online wasted a whole night without nothing to show for it.

So what do you think it’s wrong? I’ve written to my webhost and they’ve gotten right onto the problem. But it’s been hours and still we’re crawling at snail’s pace here .

• buying home insurance the easy way
• darn the crawl!
• full of initiative
• I gotcha covered
• circling like a vulture

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I thought we’d bought everything we needed for our home computers at the last computer fair in August. Apparently not. The kids are now maximizing their computers to the max playing games and trying to learn up some software.

Now they’re complaining their computers are lagging and oh so-oo slow and that they need more computer memory . Seriously these games are getting more power hungry and I’m having a hard time catching up to their hardware requirement .

The next computer fair won’t be till next year. That’s a few months’ wait and the kids know I normally don’t buy computer stuff unless there’s a sale. Right now, I really can’t afford to blow my meticulously-planned budget. Looks like my kids might just have to give up their computer games for a while.

• going to the city
• besieged by wires
• back to basics?
• not going anywhere?
• best stress reliever

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Believe it or not, I’ve got my own MP3 player. So far, the only place it’s been is to the gym with me .

I only listen to it if the volume of the gym TV is turned too low for me to hear what’s going on. Otherwise, I’d be watching the news.

Ever since the gym manager got fired, things are so disorganized. Like some of the TVs and air-conditioners are sometimes not on, and we have to run around looking for the switches ourselves.

Anyways, I was thinking I might download some free audio books to listen to. I’m not sure if it’ll work on my MP3 player but it’d be a nice change to listening to the head-banging music my kids have loaded in for me .

Not that I don’t appreciate what they’ve done but sometimes I need a little peace and quiet, ya know.

• don’t read, listen to these books
• a nice, low-key day
• role model of a son
• the long crawl
• stress-free day

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I gotta tell you, the thing I hate about sending my computers to the store is the thought that the repair guy will be able to see everything I’ve on on my hard drive.

Yes, I think it’s only a matter of time before I’ll have to send my night-time laptop to the shop to get the screen fixed or replaced.

Rightly or wrongly, I’m worried about all my personal information that he’ll have access to in the days my laptop spends at his store.

I’ve read of instances where celebs send in their computers for repair only to discover soon enough their personal photos plastered all over the cyberspace.

Of course, I’m no celeb and I don’t have any photos in my laptop that should not see the light of day but I certainly do have files and information in there that I consider private and confidential.

Darn, technology is supposed to make your life easier, not to stress you out even more!! *sigh* Maybe I should just pull my hard drive out before I send my laptop in. You reckon I’ll easier at night?

• cyberjunkie
• night laptop is out
• night-time laptop is back… for now
• that elusive carry-all bag
• power-hungry games

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