My Opinion Counts

I have just spent the past hour trying to figure out what size film to order for my fax machine. I thought I had the information saved but heck if I can find where I put it. Cartridge Finder makes it easy to figure out which cartridges are required for more than 10,000 different models of printer, copier, and fax machines. They even showed me which cartridge had the best price by checking merchant listings at PriceGrabber.com Why didn't someone tell me about them an hour ago? All I had to do was type in the manufacturer of my fax machine and then choose the model number and my cartridge was there to order. Ahhh!

Can you imagine being imprisoned for something you did not do? It would talk a lot to keep me from slitting my wrists if that were to happen to me. Talk about hell on earth. I just read an article on CNN online that talked about a man who had been wrongly imprisoned for 22 years.

The first years in prison were angry ones for this man. He was in many fights and had trouble coping. He got involved in a gospel choir and that helped him cope. He is a free man now and is still adjusting.

I doubt that the state of Georgia will reimburse him for time lost while incarcerated. He heard about his friends having careers and getting married. Some of those friends now have grandchildren. He is just beginning his life.

Thank the Lord for DNA. How many people are sitting in prison who were wrongly accused. It is scary to think if it could happen to me or you.

Many of my blogger friends are making a big effort to use a different search engine. I have been listening to the discussion about how we get used to using something and when there are better options, we forget to use them. This is true in my case. I am resistant to change. When I finally try something, I could kick myself for not utilizing it before! So, with that being said, I am trying out a new people search engine.

I typed www.spock.com into my browser and oh my goodness, I am having so much fun! It is easy to use Spock and it is free! You can search for people by using a "tag" that gives information about the person or you can search using a name. As Spock gains members, it will be easier to find people.


I searched for one of my favorite singing artists. Diana Ross has been a favorite person of mine for many years. I gained new information about her by using Spock. I had no idea that she has two middle names. Her middle names are Ernestine Earle. Wow! The website had cool pictures of the old singing days as well as a more recent picture of Diana. She is so pretty.

Sometimes, when you go to a person's page, there are people listed because they are related in some way. In Diana Ross's case, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard are listed. Of course, I had to check out both of their websites. On Florence Ballard's page, I saw where I could check where she is buried! This is my kind of people search! I love delving into personal stuff. From one persons site, I would find another person to check out. From that person's site, I would see another one! Needless to say, I did not get much else done today! It is a fun and informative site. It is in my favorites!

Today has been a bit hectic! I thought it would be simple to move our cable from one side of the room to the other side. Ha! It meant that someone would have to crawl into the icky dirty crawlspace. The hole is not very big to get into our crawl space. Maybe the builder thought that little people would always live in this house!

What started out as an easy project turned into a big deal. I didn't know I was asking for the moon!

It has been a little chilly in our house today. I do not want to turn on the heater and start paying those heating bills! The coolness is actually helping to keep me awake. I have not gone to bed before midnight the past two nights!

This is great sweatshirt and sweater weather.

I have been drinking more coffee lately. I love the smell of a brewing pot of coffee. I need to stock up on some flavored coffee. Do any of you have any favorites I should try?

I was introduced to a floral site online and now I know why my friend told me about it. Greer South Carolina florist has the most amazing flowers. They have been known for their beautiful flowers and floral arrangements for some time. Now, you can order their arrangements online! That means you do not have live in their area to take advantage of their talent for beautiful floral arranging. Check them out. You will love their products and their service.

I was talking about how I ran our business while having small children. I thought I would tell a funny story about what happens when you leave kids alone while they are decorating cookies.

My nephew, who is a year older than my daughter, came over so we could bake and then decorate Christmas cookies.

We were having a lovely time and the cookies were all baked. We were ready to start frosting. I laid out all the supplies. I was putting the frosting onto each cookie and the kids were sprinkling the decorations.

I got a customer.

When I got back to the kitchen, the kids had done a great job of decorating. The only problem was, the kitchen floor was wall to wall sprinkles. They purposely set out to decorate the floor. Little hands just do things a little erratically when Mom or Aunt Karen isn't there to keep things under control! It was so funny!

When I need help, I need help NOW! I am not a patient person and it is hard for me to have something broken and not know how to fix it. When my blog was down a few days ago, I waited to chat with a technician online. I could have emailed for support to help me but I like the idea of live chat. With live chat, I can be sure the technician understands my question. I can also give more information if they need it. I think live chat brings about results much faster.

Now, for a small monthly fee, any online business can have the same type of chat with their customers. By adding a single line of HTML to their site, they can offer LiveHuman support chat with customers! LiveHuman live chat is a great service to allow your customers to feel like they are buying from a real person and not a machine. Live Chat is a great feature to help potential buyers check out a product by asking questions. You can test drive LiveHuman for 7 days for free. When you see that the system works for your business, you can sign up for as low as $13 per operator for a yearly contract.

More and more people are working it out with their employers to be allowed to do their work at home. I was reading a blog a few days ago and found that the writer is going through some rough times. He is a stay at home dad and working from home as well. He has discovered that nap times are not long enough to get in a quality amount of work time.

Working at home can be a challenge. There certainly have to be rules that set up boundaries of time and space. It can be a challenge to meet those boundaries.

I often meet those same challenges. I certainly met my share of challenges when my kids were small. My children are grown now but when they were small it took a lot of patience from them and me to make the stay at home thing successful. They had to learn to wait while mommy was on the phone and sometimes had to make their own sandwich if I was with a customer. On the other hand, I could take time to play games and be with them. We baked a lot and they learned about cooking. I think that their love of reading may have come from seeing me read so much. I enjoyed being home when they walked in the door from a busy school day. It is all about finding a good balance.

I am always looking for ways to improve. Whether it be in marketing or finding a new way to manage a hobby. That is why I am excited to have found that AIM Promote has added an important customizable upgrade to their CRM program. AIMPromote is offering this new feature in addition to features highly used by those in the competitive arena of marketing. The following press release will fill you in.

Traverse City, MI October 19th 2007 -- AIMpromote, provider of lead management and customer relationship management software, has launched a significant upgrade to their CRM offering. The newly added white-label CRM software feature enhances the value that lead aggregators can offer to their lead purchasing customers. The enhanced reselling functionality provides an intuitive interface to completely manage the selling of a privately labeled CRM as their own.

Lead aggregators operate in the highly competitive B2B space, and need ways to add value to their offerings. Michael Myles, President and CEO of AIMpromote said "The significant added value provided by the AIMpromote white-label customer relationship software gives lead aggregators a way to differentiate themselves in what has become a highly commoditized market." He went on to say that "this product also provides an easy way to leverage existing client bases to more rapidly increase sales."

The close tie-in between the selling of leads and the powerful sales management functionality of the AIMpromote customer relationship software enables the end-users of the system to easily purchase leads that are then available to be worked directly in the system. There is no importing necessary. Billing is also consolidated, providing an easy way for the end-user to manage their funds and billing profile. The system has been designed from the ground-up to offer high levels of customizability and advanced functionality for everyone involved, while requiring little investment in time.

The CRM reselling and lead sales functions functionality includes the ability for lead aggregators and CRM software resellers to completely customize pricing, including setup fees, discounts, and free trials. This flexibility empowers the resellers of the system to enhance their profit margins as they see fit. The CRM reselling system allows lead aggregators and consultants the ability to brand their system with their own logo and contact information. Integrated Authorize.Net payment processing gives an interface to take credit cards automatically, and have the funds deposited directly into their bank accounts. The advanced accounting and reporting pages in the AIMpromote system give a top-down view of the business as a whole, as well as for each individual account.

The tiered approach that AIMpromote has taken to the reselling of their powerful customer relationship management software gives even the end-user clients the ability to also resell the system. The billing and accounting system automatically takes care of everything for them, even automatically setting up accounts. "The ease of use and flexibility of the AIMpromote CRM for those providing business-to-business consultation services and those selling leads has created an opportunity to significantly improve the bottom line, with very little time or expense," said Matt Wolfe, Vice President of Operations for AIMpromote. Wolfe added, "The service and functionality of the system is unique in that customers are supported through an integrated support ticket system by their parent account. The end-users of the system will never know that the service they are using is being resold, or that the company from which they are licensing the software are not the actual manufacturers of the software. To them, it won't be AIMpromote at all, it will be 'ABC Software Company CRM', or whatever name the company reselling the software chooses."


About AIMpromote
AIMpromote leads the market in growth and technology for on-demand lead management and CRM reselling solutions. AIMpromotes enterprise lead management software empowers companies in any industry to more effectively generate, delegate, and report on leads and the teams that manage them. AIMpromote is the only solution that integrates detailed web analytics with sales and marketing analytics to provide a complete closed-loop view of the sales process. The AIMpromote lead management software offers a completely customized solution that can be tailored to fit any organization's customer acquisition workflow. The unique combination of having the most functionality, and the lowest total cost of ownership, AIMpromote is the most cost effective solution for improving close rates and marketing efficiency.

The thing about taking naps in the evening is that they make you feel rested. So much so that you do not want to go to bed until one in the morning! This is not good when you work a full time job and have to get up early. It is important to be cheerful and bright in the morning! LOL Surprisingly, I feel pretty good this morning! It will probably hit me tomorrow.

My fingers are sore from digging in the dirt yesterday. I know, I should wear gloves. I cannot stand the feel of wearing gloves. I pulled all the tall grass from around the hollyhocks. We can actually see them now! I hope they get a better start next year. By the time they attempt to bloom this year, they will get hit with frost. I am happy they lived. We put chicken wire around them to keep the rabbits from eating them.

It is plain ridiculous to live as close to Chicago as we do and not see everything that city has to offer. I want to check with Trustedtours.com and let them plan a nice week where we see more than just the regular places we visit.

Trustedtours.com is a great service to use. They are very dedicated to making sure you have a great visit wherever you decide to visit. They have tours to some of the greatest cities in the U.S. They offer New Orleans Tours, Charleston Tours and Boston Tours to name just a few. They have been the favorite tour company for so many satisfied customers.

We have been to the John Hancock building but it was many years ago. We ate dinner in the restaurant called the 96th Floor. It was very elegant. It is time to revisit Chicago.

I see that Trusted Tours offers a tour of Chicago on Segways! What a fun tour that would be! I like getting exercise while sightseeing. That just means you can eat more of the good food Chicago has to offer. What a great way to see the Windy City! In case you were wondering, a Segway is a two-wheeled sports vehicle. It uses high-tech gyroscopes that automatically respond to your body's movements. You stand on it and use your body to make it go.

I am so exicted! I think it is going to be fun. The price of the tour is very economical. I know we will something new and find out more information about Chicago.

Today was such a beautiful day to be outside. Hubby and I worked on the yard. I used the push mower and did the trim work. He rode the riding mower. I do not want to attempt to learn to ride the riding mower. It moves too fast. I'd probably injure myself with it.

It was the perfect temperature to enjoy working outdoors. I pulled a few weeds and watched our two dogs play. I gave Brody a bath yesterday so of course he had to find something to roll in.

I got a good scare when I went to mow over by the sandbox. A lovely snake showed himself to me. I screamed like a hibanchie. I am not really afraid of snakes it is just that it startled me. Ugh. I'm glad I didn't wet my pants!