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craigslist.org and Holiday Shopping


Saturday December 20, 2008

Reading Time: 9 minutes

There are only five full days left to shop for Christmas and tomorrow at sundown the first candle of Hanukkah will be lit. In an effort to assist all of my shopping readers, I thought I might suggest to you to think about finding that really special gift on your local craigslist.org site. Yes, I said craigslist.org and Holiday Shopping in the same breath.

I will admit I am not a great shopper and I have for years, and I do mean years, tried to avoid malls and other small shopping venues. It is not that I don’t want to remember people that I love, but I find shopping exhausting. Over 30 years ago I started using catalogs for holiday shopping and when the Internet began to allow us to shop all over the world in real time, well, let’s just say it made my life easier. Keep in mind for many years I lived in very rural areas and did not have access to the large retailers, so I depended on the Sears’ Catalog and J. C. Penney Catalog.

Now back to cragslist.org. My past experience with craigslist.org was in helping a good friend furnish his home office by using craigslist. It was about 18 months ago that my friend and I had tried to find good sturdy office furniture, etc, but the usual suspects were really only selling reconstructed fiberboard. So I said to him, “Let’s search on craigslist.” We did and what do you know, we found good quality, barely used furniture from a company in Orange County California which was closing down. Within in a few days the home office was complete for about $500, retail valued at about $1700.

You might get the impression that I have had a Craigslist account since its inception. That is not true, in fact, it was only two weeks ago that I set up my account. Why? Like any other “member”, I had something of value that I didn’t need and I wanted to sell; however, I had not been successful in selling this item in any of the old fashion ways. On December 6th I decided to try selling this item with Craigslist. I set up my account and what do you know, by the next morning I had received an email from “Chris.” This was exciting…I answered the email and then I received the dreaded strange reply that looked “just plain nuts.” I went back on Craigslist and read the “scams help page.” I soon realized this “Chris” was up to no good and I decided to follow Craig’s #1 rule: “DEAL LOCALLY WITH FOLKS YOU CAN MEET IN PERSON – follow this one simple rule and you will avoid 99% of the scam attempts on craigslist.”

I am happy to report that yesterday I received a call from a gentleman in Tucson who wanted to see my item. He came to our home, previewed the item, and said he might be back in touch. At 2:00PM, he called back and asked if we could meet with him to have the item inspected by an expert. 3:00PM we met at a local mall, the item was inspected and given the “green light” and the transaction was completed!! The gentleman was happy as he had found the perfect holiday gift for his girlfriend and I was happy as I no longer had this item that had been gathering dust, but instead put money in my bank account.

Before I close off this morning I want to mention that while Craigslist can help you find housing, employees, jobs, furniture, etc, you can indeed also make interesting connections. After all, the origins of craigslist are based in Craig Newmark simply trying to provide a way for his friends to stay in touch about community events. You can read an interesting article from Business Week about its inception. Craig is often referred to as a “Community Organizer.” You remember this term from the 2008 Election. Yes, he has helped to organize many communities and when you sell or buy using Craigslist you can play that old game “six degrees of separation.” Take my transaction: I have lived in Tucson for only nine months. I really know very few people here. But when we met my buyer we sat down for a cup of coffee while we wrote out the receipt. Dennis asked the gentleman what he does for a living. To this he replied that he is an artist. We said we only know one artist in Tucson. He asked the name of the artist. We told him and don’t you know the artist we know is one of his best friends and I might add this artist is our oldest son’s landlord. Guess how our oldest son found his duplex to rent? You got it…Craigslist!

SMO, Social Media, Social Networks…think craigslist.org. Happy Holiday shopping.

 

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Webconsuls would like to take this day to wish all of our friends and family a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.

And to reminded everyone only three shopping weeks left till Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving

Webconsuls

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Most of us want to look our best for the Holidays. Many of us want a new look for the New Year. Some of us are considering mesotherapy. Almost all of us are feeling the effects of the economic downturn.

Dr. Simin Siddiq of the Meso Laser Clinic in the San Francisco Bay Area has come up with a pricing plan that all should find attractive. She is offering special holiday pricing on some of the most popular treatments. These holiday prices are in effect from now until January 31, 2009.

Restylane is one of most tried and true dermal fillers. It can soften aging lines and enhance your natural features. Restylane is $50 off during the holidays.

Juvederm is another dermal filler. Among other things it can reduce those smile lines. Juvederm treatments are $100 off during the holiday pricing period.

VelaShape is the first and only non-surgical FDA-cleared medical solution that contours, shapes and slims the body. VelaShape treatments are 30% off during the special pricing.

Botox is a simple, nonsurgical, physician-administered treatment that can temporarily smooth moderate to severe frown lines between the brows in people from 18 to 65 years of age. It is the only treatment of its type approved by the Food and Drug Administration. During the holiday pricing time, Dr. Siddiq’s Botox® treatments are $9 per unit for the holidays.

All other laser treatments are 25% off, if you buy a package.

Dr. Siddiq has offices in Fremont, Danville, and Menlo Park California. Contact her at 1-888-611-9211 or at 1-510-789-8870 for more information or an appointment. You can visit her web site at http://www.mesolaserclinic.com.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving where most large retailers offer amazing discounts primarily for Christmas shopping. Stores like Best Buy and Staples open as early as 5AM and offer door buster deals for the first 100 customers. CompUSA (now bought out by TigerDirect.com) has their door buster deals starting at midnight after Thanksgiving.

Black Friday is not an official holiday but when standing in line with hundreds of shoppers, it does feel like one. You can expect huge crowds and lines going around the store before they open (Fry’s Electronics in particular). If you’re lucky enough to find something you went there for, bring something to entertain you because you will be standing in line anywhere from 30min to 3hours.

It’s known to be one of the busiest days of the year in terms of actual sales volume. In my family, after Thanksgiving we usually stay up all night playing games and just spending time with family and close friends till about 5AM. Once the clock hits 5AM, we hit the stores for tremendous savings. www.bfads.net is a website that reveals most of the ads of the large retailers before the print ads hit the newspapers. This year doesn’t look as good as far as great deals are concerned.

Where will you be this Black Friday?

Reading Time: 5 minutes

On our recent excursion to Las Vegas for Blog World Expo I sat in on an interesting panel discussion on “Mommy Bloggers”. There are blogs of all persuasions but the mommy blogger niche is really a category unto itself. The “Mommy Blogger” phenomenon has been grabbing the attention of marketers for quite some time as Moms are generally the holders of the purse strings in most households.

Listening to the discussion and reflecting on my blog reading habits I started to think about what I like to find in blogs, what keeps me coming back and what we can aspire to as we try to develop our blogs.

Here is one of my favorite “Mommy Bloggers” and why her blog(s) keep me coming back for more.

Lela Davidson

I originally was introduced to Lela’s writing on Hub Pages. Her hubs, individually written articles, ranged from household hints, parenting tips, vacation spots for families, holiday celebrations and harder issues such as drug abuse and creationism in public school cirriculum.

  • Lela’s profile is engaging and natural. When I read “about Lela” I can imagine her in her world. This is how Lela introduces herself to her readers:

I am a Mother. I cook, clean, wipe noses, push Benadryl, check for nits, help with homework, and iron tiny polo shirts. I used to have a real job with a degree framed on my office wall, but I gave it up for this glamour. I also write, hang out with my husband, and drink wine with my friends on the driveway. I believe parenting is the hardest job in the world as well as the most natural thing we do. I screw up. Daily. And I banish guilt relentlessly. I believe it’s your moral responsibility to find the thing that makes you lose track of time, the thing that empties all the racing thoughts from your head and leaves you deaf to the oven timer so you forget about the cookies until the smoke finds you. Writing is my thing. Here’s to hoping you find yours and go do it.

  • Many of her posts are simple “how to’s and lists.”

How to Know if Your Kids Are Huffing
Top Five Midwest Family Vacation Destinations

  • She is always very timely. She has already begun posts in preparation for Halloween.

  • Lela keeps you involved in the process. Recently Lela has been working on a novel. She keeps her readers abreast of her progress and her plan. Novel in Six Months Plan

  • Lela writes regularly.

All these elements keep me coming back, but of course I subscribe to Lela’s RSS Feed so I don’t miss a post.

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To think that 20 years ago I was a Vice President for Indian Head Bank North, New Hampshire (now owned by Fleet Bank), sitting in a private office equipped with a private bathroom, a vault, and right outside my office sat my “secretary” (now referred to as an Administrative Assistant) with a typewriter (no computer). Dilbert, the syndicated cartoon by Scott Adams, was making its debut (April 1989). Most working people found this cartoon to be really very funny and perceptive, to the point that it was almost as if Scott Adams was secretly infiltrating corporate America to obtain material on which to base his cartoon.
In 1997 I returned to California and was hired as a Senior Business Analyst by the IT Department of Mercury Insurance Services. I soon found myself living in a cubicle in a room shared by 40 other IT gurus. I was now part of Dilbert’s world. We always read Dilbert, we regularly cut the strip from the newspaper and hung them on the inside and outside of our cubicles. Some Sunday strips were so apropos that I even framed them to hang on my cubicle “wall”. Here you can enjoy the Dilbert strip from my first day at Mercury and the one for the day I gave my notice.

I have now learned from visiting the Dilbert website that: “The Dilbert web site, dilbert.com, was the first syndicated comic strip to go online in 1995 and is the most widely read syndicated comic on the Internet.” And yes, Scott Adams has a blog on dilbert.com. Amazing! Why do I share this with you? For no other reason than it is Saturday and everyone deserves to take a break and laugh on Saturday. We spend a lot of time talking about Web 2.0 and now Scott Adams’ new book “Dilbert 2.0” will be available in October. Great holiday gift for the techies in your life.

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Voice calls won’t get through and crash networks: Twitter messages are more likely to get through & lets those who MUST use voice. Another “21st-century disaster tip you WON’T hear from officials.”

Stay Safe And Well This Holiday Season .http://twitter.com/safeandwell

Click here if You use Twitter!