I am currently out of the office on vacation.

I know I’m supposed to say that I’ll have limited access to email and won’t be able to respond until I return — but that’s not true. My blackberry will be with me and I can respond if I need to. And I recognize that I’ll probably need to interrupt my vacation from time to time to deal with something urgent.

That said, I promised my wife that I am going to try to disconnect, get away and enjoy our vacation as much as possible. So, I’m going to experiment with something new. I’m going to leave the decision in your hands:

• If your email truly is urgent and you need a response while I’m on vacation, please resend it to interruptyourvacation@[redacted].com and I’ll try to respond to it promptly.
• If you think someone else at [the company] might be able to help you, feel free to email my assistant, and she’ll try to point you in the right direction.

Otherwise, I’ll respond when I return….

Warm regards,

Josh

I think I might try submitting this URL to a free web directory and see how that goes. I don’t know if I’ll end up with the kind of results I want, but since it’s free, I guess it won’t hurt to try. Plus, it only takes a few seconds to submit. Gotta love that kind of time “commitment”!

I’ve been trying to resist the urge to join Twitter because the last thing I need right now is another social media platform sucking out every ounce of productivity I have to offer. I’ve checked the site out before, of course, but didn’t really see the point of it. Recently, however, there have been so many news stories about how politicians and celebrities are embracing Twitter that I decided to give it one more look.

So yesterday, I spent a few hours on the site, adding a bunch of people to follow and skimming through their old updates, looking through their pics, etc. Kind of interesting, but definitely time-consuming. I also downloaded and installed TweetDeck to keep my new feeds nice and organized and to make reading them a lot easier.

I’m not divulging my handle here because I’m not yet ready to use Twitter for personal stuff with friends and family. For now, I’m just following a few pols, celebs, and companies that I like. Maybe in a month or two I’ll be ready to jump into Twitter with both feet. As it is, though, I’m just testing the waters for now.

While I don’t have much use for the amateur stuff, I do like “shopping” for different products and services at YouTube. If there’s something I’m thinking about buying, I’ll check the site to see if there’s a video review of the product on the site. I’ll also check for commercials, because people upload nationally broadcast television commercials for everything from Bud Light to vacuum cleaners. Some of these videos are actually very informative and have helped me make buying decisions.

I wish more companies would use YouTube as a vehicle for getting their message across. The site is so huge that it seems like a video clip would just get lost in the shuffle, but if you have a good one and promote it, people will find it!

I really want to make this happen, and am trying to save a bit of money each and every month to put towards the project. Every once in a while, I need some inspiration, so today I visited the Inviting Home website to check out some of their pictures and decorating ideas. That’s where I saw the photo above — and I liked it so much that I just had to post it. If we can’t spare an entire room for my home library, I would settle for a cozy little corner like that in a heartbeat! Doesn’t it look amazing?

InvitingHome.com is an awesome resource for people who want to add some class and style to any room in their home. They not only sell products like decorative hardware, stair brackets, and wall niches, but also give you tips on how best to use these products to make your home look like something out of a magazine. So if you need advice about whether you should use drapes or shutters with your decorating scheme, or whether to go with carpeting or hardwood floors, Inviting Home has plenty of suggestions!

Whenever I get around to finally making my home library a reality, I’ll definitely head back to InvitingHome.com for the latest trends in home décor.

Today as I was browsing around the Internet, I came across a website called AbundaTrade.com that offers a very cool service. They take trade-ins of used cds, DVDs, and books towards the purchase of brand-new items such as iPods, digital cameras, televisions, GPS systems, and more. Or, you can simply opt to get cash back for your items, which is a terrific option if you’re in a bind and need some extra money for birthdays, Christmas presents, etc.

I spent a lot of time on the AbundaTrade.com site, and am very impressed with what I saw. First of all, there’s an interface right on the site that allows you to check the value of any item that you want to trade in. All you have to do is enter the ISBN or UPC number to see how much AbundaTrade will give you if the item is in very good condition. If your item is in less than perfect shape, then obviously you’ll get less for the trade.

Once you round up enough stuff to trade in for the iPod or flat-screen TV that you want, you just ship everything to AbundaTrade. Once they go through and verify that your items work properly, they’ll send you whatever product (or cash) you opted to trade for. Yes, it really is as easy as that!

Best of all, if you don’t have enough items to trade for the full value of that brand-new iPod Touch you’ve had your eye on, you can still trade whatever you’ve got and simply make up the difference in cash. Imagine being able to get a new iPod with just fifty bucks and a bunch of used CDs and DVDs!

If you ask me, I think AbundaTrade sounds like a far better way to get cash for old CDs, DVDs, and books than typical methods like auction sites or garage sales. It’s just a lot easier to ship a box of stuff off to them and be done with it instead of having to constantly monitor bidding, hope the winner pays, shipping DVDs off to every corner of the country, etc. There’s far less work involved with AbundaTrade.com, so I’m definitely going to go that route from now on!

So if you’ve had your eye on a cool, new electronic gadget but haven’t been able to afford it, why not give AbundaTrade.com a try? Everyone has a couple hundred bucks worth of CDs, DVDs, and books laying around in their house. Put that old stuff to work for you and get the items you really want at AbundaTrade!

I just learned about a website called Distributed Proofreaders, where people can sign up and volunteer to proofread scanned pages that will eventually make their way into Gutenberg e-book format.

The sign-up process is quick and easy, and after that, I spent about 15-20 minutes looking around the site and reading the FAQs. Then I proofed my first two pages — and it was a breeze!

I’m going to start slow so as not to overdo it and burn myself out right away. My goal is to proofread just 2 pages a day, every day, for the next three months. After that, I might bump it up to 3 or 4 pages. I know this doesn’t sound like a lot, but I’m sure every little bit helps.

If you use these public domain resources yourself, then you might want to consider volunteering as well. Don’t be a leech!