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Super tips for frugal online shopping

Online shopping can be a fun and easy way to get what you are looking for at a discounted rate. But are  you doing everything that you can to make sure that you’re getting the best price? Follow the tips below and you’ll be saving money hand over fist.

Shop around – Just because you find an amazing deal for a sweater or pair of shoes on one site doesn’t mean that you can’t find a better deal elsewhere. So if you find a real bargain, bookmark it and then shop around for a bit. Unless, of course, there is a time restriction on your awesome find. If that’s the case, makes sure that you don’t miss out on the deal by shopping around too much.

Free shipping – Even if you find an amazing steal, shipping costs can add up, making that bargain not really a bargain anymore. Stick to stores that offer free shipping where you live. A lot of the time there’s a minimum purchase amount required in order to cash in on the free shipping. This amount can range anywhere from twenty five to a hundred dollars. Make sure that you don’t fall into the trap of ordering more to get your free shipping. This also can make a bargain actually cost you a lot more that you were intending.

Money back guarantees – When purchasing items online, especially clothes, make sure that the company you’re buying from has a money back guarantee and a convenient return policy. Sizes can different from style to style and brand to brand so you want to make sure that if the item you bought doesn’t fit, there won’t be an issue returning it. After all, if you got the perfect little black dress for twenty dollars but it doesn’t fit, then it really wasn’t much of a steal, was it?

Coupon sites -  While individual retail sites may have some great deals, you can usually save even more if you check out the coupon sites available on line. These sites gather all the coupons and sale codes in one easy place so you can browse and also search for a particular coupon. You could even find more than one, meaning more savings.

Off season shopping – You know how brick and mortar stores have big after season sales? Well the same holds true for their online counterparts. Shop off season online and you could end up getting your purchase for next to nothing.

Search engines – If you can’t find any online coupons or sales codes at your regular sites, try hitting your favorite search engine. If you search for your favorite store, odds are you’ll be able to find some online coupons or codes to help you save money.

One offs and second hand items – If you’re looking for a real steal, don’t discount auction sites and second hand online stores. Sometimes you can get exactly what you are looking for, hardly used for a fraction of the regular cost.

Group sites – While most of the major retailers have a website where you can buy their products, and while they may be cheaper than buying in store, even with coupons it may not be your best bet. If you are looking for a particular product, make sure to check out online group sites that offer a variety of items for a discount. These sites often offer a bigger deal than individual retail sites.

Online shopping is a convenient way to get what you need (and want) without having to hit a lot of different stores. And with all the different ways to save some cash online, it’s also better for your bank account. Do you shop a lot on line? What are some of your frugal online shopping tips? Are you excited for the 2011 black friday?

A swing set is without a doubt one of the best things you can possibly get your kids when they are growing up. Swing set parts are a necessary addition to the best swing sets and the possibilities are almost endless.

You could get a periscope for budding sailors who will pretend that they are on an important military vessel like a submarine. Or you could get a rope ladder so that they can pretend they are on an adventure on a pirate ship. Perhaps they must escape with the plunder or buried treasure they have just found on an enchanted island. They will need to run away and climb onto the ship in a hurry, so that rope ladder will come in handy.

Also, a tire swing is always a ton of fun for kids of all ages. They can sit on it, twist and turn, swing up and down and all around without all the constrictions that normally come with regular forward and backward swings. What is even more fun is that more than one child (or sometimes even more than two kids, if they are small enough) can fit in a single tire swing, so it can be a lot of fun for multiple people at once.

Golfing is one of the top summer pastimes In fact, many plan their vacations around golfing, choosing to head to a favourite golf course or one that they’ve never played before. But summertime can be unbearably sunny and hot and golf is not a quick sport. During the summer months there is a serious risk of heatstroke while golfing. And even if that isn’t a factor, being all hot and sweaty and uncomfortable can negatively affect your game and take away from the experience. But by being smart and following a few tips on how to stay cool you’ll find yourself golfing all summer long.

Use a cart

Depending on where you are golfing, the temperature could reach into the late 90s and early 100s. That’s hot enough without having to shlep around a bag full of golf clubs. Splurge and rent a golf cart. Not only with this alleviate the need to carry your clubs, but it will help you finish the game faster, meaning that you’ll spend less time out in the sun.

Pick a shady course

Not all golf courses are created equal. For those hot summer months pick a course that has lots of tall trees that provide some shade. This is much better than spending a few hours on a shadeless course, out in the direct sunlight.

Early or late tee off times

If you tee off earlier or later in the day, you will avoid the sun when it’s at its hottest. This can go a long way in helping you to stay cool and enjoy your game a lot more. Plus, there will be less people around and you’ll be able to breeze through the course.

Light colored clothes

Dark colors draw the sun’s heat like nobody’s business. So stick with light colored clothing when you hit the greens. There are also some amazing new technologies when it comes to clothing materials. Pick one of the newer golf shirts that wick the moisture away from your body and you will stay cooler while playing.

The proper headgear

When out on the course, you will want to leave your favorite baseball cap or sun-visor at home. Instead, opt for a hat with a complete brim around it. This will keep the sun and the heat off of your face, ears and neck.  There are special brimmed hats that are made of “breathable” material that will stop the heat from gathering on your head and can minimize head sweating.

Sunscreen and lip balm

While applying sunscreen and lip balm before you head out on the course and throughout your game may not help you cool down today, it will definitely help you out tomorrow. Nothing heats a person up faster than being out in the sun with a sunburn. So take precaution and makes sure that you don’t get burnt.

Water

This one may seem like a no brainer, but there are plenty of people who golf without making sure that they are taking in enough water. It’s easy to get dehydrated  on the course so you want to make sure that you are drinking lots of water. Staying hydrated will go a long way to keeping you cool. And make sure it’s water that you’re drinking: pop, juice and especially alcohol just won’t get the job done and can actually dehydrate you more

Golf can be a wonderfully relaxing sport but it can also cause severe dehydration and heatstroke if you aren’t prepared for the hot sun and high summer temperatures. Changing a few things and planning ahead will make sure that you stay cool and enjoy your round. Who knows, you might love it so much that you will decide to enroll in golf school!

Many people think that the only jobs you can get with a psychology degree are jobs such as clinical psychologist, counselor, research psychologist, and professor.  Nothing could be further from the truth!  Some of the jobs in the field may not seem like psychology jobs at all, but they are.  Here are 10 careers in psychology that will surprise you.

1. Human resources analyst - Have you ever applied for a job and had to take a multiple choice test, or answer questions such as, “Can you tell me about a time when you had to resolve a conflict in the workplace?”  These tests and questionnaires are designed to analyze a person’s personality to help determine how well suited he or she is for the job.  The folks who design these tests, and sometimes even the ones who administer them too, usually have a background in applied psychology.
2. Organizational psychologist - How much better would everyone at your workplace perform if you had someone on staff to give tips on increasing motivation and productivity?  Some companies are starting to see the benefit to hiring an organizational psychologist to help keep everyone on task. (Tip: I know of a great school that offers programs to obtain your masters organizational psychology degree!)
3. Employment counselor - Helping people choose their career paths actually has a lot to do with psychology.  In order to do this job, you have to be able to analyze a person’s strengths and weaknesses, and help guide them in a direction where you know they’ll excel.
4. Health psychologist - There is a psychology to having a healthy body, and a health psychologist’s job is make it easier for people to achieve good health.  For instance, a health psychologist might design a program to help people stop smoking or to deal with stress more effectively, lessening its impact on the body.  Health psychologists also study how environmental factors impact people’s health.
5. Parole officer/rehabilitation counselor - A parole officer’s or rehabilitation counselor’s job is to reintroduce past offenders into society.  If the reintroduction is successful, the individual will become a functioning member of society again.  What many people don’t realize is how much a successful rehabilitation relies on the principles of applied psychology.
6. Advertising/consumer psychologist - It should come as no surprise that a lot of psychology goes into the ads you encounter on TV, on the radio, and in magazines and newspapers.  Advertising uses a lot of applied psychology to determine what techniques are more likely to generate a response in their audience.
7. Market researcher - Market research is another type of marketing job that uses a lot of applied psychology.  As a market researcher, your job is to research and analyze the target market for a product or service.  By identifying the psychology behind the consumer’s choices, a company can fine-tune their advertising methods in order to generate more sales.
8. Sports psychologist - Athletes require more than just physical training in order to work hard and compete.  Their minds have to be prepared for the physical challenge as well as their bodies.  A sports psychologist helps prepare an athlete’s frame of mind, to give them the mental fortitude to do their best.
9. Traffic psychologist - Believe it or not, psychology determines a lot about how we drive, from our everyday driving habits to the underlying problems behind many accidents.  Traffic psychologists work with traffic engineers to design more logical roads based on driver habits.  They also help plan educational and awareness programs to minimize road rage and drunk driving, and keep everyone on the road safer.
10. Social worker - Social workers work with families and often have to decide whether children are safe in the home, so a background in psychology is extremely important for these jobs.  Using psychology, social workers can identify potentially dangerous problems in parents (or even kids), in order to decide what needs to be done in the best interest of the kids.

Some things in life should scare folks, but when it comes to the prospect of swapping a hard drive, the level of concern for messing up thousands of dollars invested in a computer is usually unwarranted. This article aims to demystify the challenge and make removing and re-installing a new hard drive as easy as pie.

Before listing out the individual steps involved with simple, straight forward descriptions, some general warnings might be appropriate. Not to worry, however, nothing said in the following paragraphs should cause one to reach for the box of tissues!

Having respect for the delicate nature of the computer will provide anyone attempting to work on its innards with the proper amount of caution. The last thing one wants is to start swinging a sledge hammer in the china shop that is inside their computer case. With that in mind, having a clean work space with enough room to lay out parts is important.

Equally as important is having proper lighting, and if one is concerned with cleanliness a vacuum with hose attachment to suck up dust and dirt particles (which tend to accumulate inside a computer case) will make life cleaner and easier.

Finally, having an anti-static band to wear around the wrist will help prevent accidental discharge which naturally accumulates on the body to the mother board of the computer. This could cause damage to the system, so caution along those lines is most certainly warranted. Now, on to the good stuff.

Replacing a Hard Drive In 7 Steps

1. Open the Computer Case: It is important to understand how the specific computer in question opens. There tend to be lot of screws on the back and sides of most modern PCs and understanding which ones should be loosened when accessing the inside is important. If a guide came with the computer, consult it. If not, a little common sense goes a long way. Once the case is opened (usually a side panel is removed) one should have complete visual access to the mother board, hard drives, and various other components.
2. Determine the Hard Drive Mounting Mechanism: Older computer cases tend to mount their drives inside cages. Some are permanently affixed to the internal skeleton of the computer, other cage styles are removable, however the drives still need to be released from the cage. Some newer computers simply have sliding rails the drives rest on. Once the style is determined there should only be four screws holding the drive to the cage. Remove those fasteners, and the drive should slide right out. Oh, be sure to unplug the flat, ribbon cable which connects the drive to the motherboard.
3. Gently Remove the Drive: Care should be taken when sliding the drive out of the cage, especially if the cage is still internal to the computer. Space is at a premium inside so pay attention to what might get hit or jostled during the drive removal.
4. Removal of the IDE Ribbon: Older systems usually have a wide, flat ribbon style cable that is tightly affixed to the drive. Some gentle pressure should be applied to one side of the plug, and then the other. Rough handling here could cause damage to the delicate copper pins on the back of the hard drive. Unless the ribbon cable is suspected of being bad, it is not suggested to remove it from the motherboard.
5. Check the Jumper Settings: Compare the back of the old drive with the new. One should find a small, black bit of plastic on a pair of thin, short copper wires. The new drive needs to have its jumper settings exactly like the old one. Industry standards provide for all drive manufactures to make these settings the same, so confusion is at a minimum.
6. Slide the New Drive In: One the jumpers are in place, it tends to be easier to re-plug the IDE cable (oh, and the drive’s power cord!) before the drive is slid back into place. Again, the old drive and new should look the same at this point. With the rest of the space still in consideration, gently slide in the drive and align its screw holes with the cage.
7. Tighten Up and Close Up: Some variation on where holes are located on newer drives might exist at this point, however general industry standards should prevail from the perspective of where one inserts the screws to lock the drive solidly in place. Once that is done, replace the computer’s side panel and restart the machine.

This is a guest post by author John Fritter. John likes to share his expertise in the computer technology and  cable assembly fields to help others solve their technology issues.

With degree programs ranging from conflict resolution training to healthcare, the options for online education are endless. And while we think getting a degree online is beneficial for any number of reasons, here are our top ten!

1. Study when and where you want. One of the great things about getting a degree online is the flexibility to study when you want. Many online classes have large windows of time when tests and quizzes can be taken in order to accommodate students’ schedules.  This gives students the luxury to study whenever they have time. Also, many online classes have taped lectures, class notes and discussion boards available to students at anytime.

And, if you are a night owl and love to stay up late, you can study then and free up your days for other endeavors. On the other hand, if you are an early riser and like to get your school work out of the way early, you are free to study before the sun comes up and leave your nights free.  Best of all, you can study wherever you’d like – on your couch, at the library or even at the park!

2. Time for a job. Since online degrees allow you to study whenever is most convenient for you, having a job is much easier to accommodate.  With the economy still wavering, having a job is a necessity – not an option – for many college students.  Luckily earning a degree online allows you to plan your studies around your work schedule when necessary, or vice versa.

3. Tuition is manageable. Many four-year universities come with through-the-roof price tags. Luckily, most online universities offer very reasonable tuition prices, making college a viable option for students who may not be able to afford attending a traditional college.  With the lower tuition costs offered by online schools, students are able to save money and receive an education from an accredited university.

4. Flexibility. If you are enrolled in classes at a traditional college, class times are set in stone.  If you have an appointment or prior engagement, you are forced to miss class or try to plan around your class schedule. On the other hand, if you are getting a degree online, you don’t have to compromise other happenings in your life because of your class schedule. Also, if you need to go out of town – you can take your school work with you as long as long as you have a laptop or access to a computer!

5. Save money. In addition to tuition being lower for most online colleges, you will also save money on expenses that many college students accrue when attending a traditional university. If you earn your degree online, you won’t have to pay for gas to get to and from class – and as of late, gas is not cheap!  Also, you can live at home, so you will save money that some students pay for student housing.

6. Develop real-world skills. Since there is so much flexibility with online classes, professors expect a certain level of discipline from their students. When you take classes online you are responsible for getting your work done without classmates reminding you assignments are due.  And if you don’t keep up with your course work, then you will likely fail – just like a student at a traditional college.

To be successful in an online classroom setting, you must be self driven and be able to successfully motivate yourself to get your work completed. Luckily, these qualities are what make a student a great work professional in the future. Building these skills while in college will prepare you for work life after you get your degree.

7. Learn a new skill set. Cliché as it may be–learning is good for you!  Your brain needs exercise, and what better way to work it out than learning something new? Challenging and engaging your brain is important for growth.  Your brain is a muscle, and like other muscles in our body it requires exercise to stay in tip-top shape. Enrolling in an online college degree program is a great way to stimulate one of your most important body parts and gain valuable knowledge at the same time.

8. Enroll from anywhere. The beauty of distance learning is in the name – you are able to take classes from any distance from the professor!  As many online colleges offer very specialized degrees like negotiation training or mediation training, some schools will be a better fit than others. It may be traditional schools that offer your specialized degree program are too far away from your home to commute, or would force you to move. The beauty of earning a degree online is being able to complete your classes from the comfort of your own home.

9. You can earn more money in the future. Having a college degree opens the door for many different job opportunities, as well as higher salaries. According to PayScale, people with college degrees make a substantial amount more money than people without degrees.  Also, once you are armed with a college degree you are eligible for more jobs than you are without one!

10. Scholarships and loans are available. Despite popular belief, scholarships and loans are also available for students who are getting their degrees online. As long as your online college is accredited and participates in a federal loan and scholarship program, financial aid will be available for those who need it.

With ten good reasons to get your degree from an online college, what are you waiting for?