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There are many ways to answer such a question. One way is to try to look at the reason of why you are online. Are you online to:

1. make (more) money?
2. check your e-mails?
3. be more satisfied because you thought being online can or would be interesting?
4. find something related to school/university, work, or something else
5. talk to someone, to tell someone something, to find out more about them or to tell them more about you
6. see how the supposed wisdom and knowledge of the author of these words can help improve your life and thinking, or confuse your more?

Another way to answer this question is by the actual outcome of mood you are seeking due to your online activity. Are you online in order to:

1. distract yourself from something in the offline world?
2. be even more happier?
3. be sadder?
4. be confused?
5. be more confused and happy?

Why are you online at this very moment?

So, why are you online at this very moment? I am online mainly because I am waiting to talk to someone. I am also online to check e-mails, send out some important messages, be even more happier and confused, do some things offline and the computer is nearby, write something offline, write this question on the computer, among many other things online and offline. I am also online because I am hungry.

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or answers. Thank you for reading this. I really appreciate it.

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Facebook is considered by many people to be a more mature online social networking service¹ compared to MySpace² . Facebook focuses more on the concept of networks: you belong to an area, a school, a company or some other group on Facebook which becomes your primary network. As of this writing, Facebook does not allow you to directly edit the entire layout of your profile, which is considered a blessing and a downside, depending on which group of people you talk to. You can, however, customize where different parts and snippets of information get placed on your layout.

MySpace is considered by many to be the most widely known online social networking service in the world. MySpace focuses more on the concept of adding friends and other people to your profile so that you can get to know them more. MySpace allows you to edit almost the entire layout of your MySpace profile. Again, just like Facebook, this is considered both a good and a bad thing, based on the preferences of different people. Maybe having different preferences is what life is all about, right?

A Facebook account, at the moment, focuses heavily on comments and other ways of interaction to help people communicate. A MySpace account, at the moment, focuses heavily on comments, direct messages, and the actual profile customization to help people communicate. MySpace also has its own instant messaging service, called the MySpace IM that you download onto your computer to chat with all of your MySpace buddies or strangers. Facebook, in contrast, has developed its own in-browser chat service, enabling you to chat with any of your online contacts within your browser, while you are actively browsing or doing anything on your Facebook account.

Do you prefer Facebook or MySpace?

So, back to our original question: based on the above brief information, would you prefer using Facebook or MySpace? Are there some other points or reasons for your answer?

I will stop here so that I can do a few things, including checking a message I got on MySpace and sending a message to someone on Facebook. Thank you for reading.

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Going to a movie
A meeting with a friend or someone else
Meeting someone
Going to an art exhibition
Going shopping
Going for a walk
Going out to run with your dogs
Going out to steal other dogs to run with them and then returning them afterwards
Going to the bar
Going to a restaurant
Going out for anything that can be skipped in emergency situations

The online thing that you may do instead of the offline things:

Chat with someone online, that you know a bit, but that you have never met offline

What do you think?

For this question, let us assume that “it depends on the person” phrase is not available - we are not considering the attachment of an online person here but the existence of such a situation. A yes or no, or some other answer, besides the “it depends” phenomenon, can do better here. What do you think? Is there anything you can think of, that you may never give up offline even once, for anyone online that you have ever met?

Similar example: would you skip going outside just to read an upcoming article at this site? No??!! :’(

Thank you for reading. I hope you skipped and paused this reading in the middle at least once in order to go and do something offline.

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My question pinpoints at whether or not answering personal questions to such people who are not your friends, regardless of the exact type or side of the question, should come with the idea or expectation of having that other personal also give proper attention and response to the answer instead of typical responses like “Oh ok” or “Wow I have no answer to that question” before immediately and randomly moving on to some other random blabbing or some other random personal question. Or would you rather always say “Mind your own damn business!“? If someone asks a personal question, should that person be expected by either themselves or the other person, to actually give thought, attention, respect or something similar to the answer instead of a generic response?

So the question is: Should attention or further response be given to personal answers one gives in response to personal questions online?

Thank you for reading this personal question

Please let me know what you think of this. I am planning to extend this question in other areas related to online bonds, both real and fake, and disconnects, also real and fake, between people. My next questions will probably revolve around the idea of what kind of questions you consider to be personal or non-personal, and whether or not you believe in the concept of personal and non-personal questions. Thank you for reading. I hope the questions I just asked were very personal to you.

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The below Twitter messages exist just because Twitter exists, and just because one can Twitter, and because one cannot think of any other reason to Twitter, and just to increase Twitter followers³. It seems that the same mentality that has turned innocent blogs into money making professional-services-claiming-to-be-blogs and the non-blog arena into website-filled-with-keywords-and-tags-to-please-search-engines world has also flooded Twitter: people keep describing Twitter and similar services with as many complicated terms and terminologies as possible so that the end result will be more direct or indirect money somehow by making people think “Wow, this is useful because it is sophisticated. I’ma gonna use it! COOL!”

It is as if the fact “Bes eats because there is food” has become the universal law upon which Twittering for many people revolves around. They Twitter because there is Twitter. So I present to you 14 Twitter messages that should help you realize as to what the focus of the message is, and what the real focus should be. Keep in mind that the poster of such messages had no reason behind the message other than to Twitter it. You decide what you would want your focus and reasoning to be for each message if you had a chance.

1. In the bathroom.
2. Out of the bathroom. Realized I only went in there to Twitter that I was in the bathroom.
3. Throwing up while typing this. Food poisoning. Crap got some on the phone
4. She is confused as to why I am Twittering during this interview. Just ask me the questions.
5. This exam sucks and the moderator keeps looking as if I was cheating through my cell phone.
6. Waiting for the cash register to process this sale, holding the customer credit card in my other hand.
7. In police station. Handcuffed. Drunk-driving-over-rabbits-offense. Thank god they didn’t take phone away. I can twitter w/phone behind me.
8. I woke up.
9. Neighbors woke up.
10. With my boy friend. He doesn’t know he is my boy friend yet.
11. Wife woke up. $&^%
12. Following this stranger, a beautiful girl, for hours now. Hope she doesn’t notice; I’m only following to make sure she gets home safe.
13. I am Twittering because this is Twitter.
14. I am Twittering so Bes can talk about me.

There you go, my Twitter loving or Twitter hating or Twitter confused beings⁴. The above Twitter messages, and many other Twitter updates on similar notes have no purpose for them. Many people simply use Twitter to let everyone else know what they are doing, while others do it to gain attention through more Twitter followers or through the stereotype that the more you Twitter, the cooler you are.

Of course, the funniest thing is to see how many Twitter-obsessed people have no communication skills, no interest in making real friends, no interest in the well being of others, and no interest in how to focus on content instead of creating a hype through presentation.

Thank you for reading and not Twittering.

I will stop here please, so I can think of what to Twitter now. I hope I made you pause your Twitter for at least a few moments. Please let me know what you think, if you have any comments, or if you would like to see more of such messages or would like to share your own messages or ideas.

Thank you for reading. You can get back to your pro-Twitter or anti-Twitter activities now. I will go back to being confused and giggling nervously in my head⁵.

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In this series and whenever I say poor, I am referring to someone who will become happy or happier saving a couple of dollars or their local currency every month or every few days. Without such a saving, that person would not be able to afford rent or food or something very basic and essential to survival. If you wish to know a bit more as to what does and does not qualify as being poor, my article titled “5 Reasons You Are Not Poor In 2007” may help. I will be updating my poor guide to a 2008 definition very soon.

The below steps and ideas are not technical steps, nor are they the exact steps that you must take in order to save money by changing your electricity usage habits. All of the below steps have worked for me sometime in the past all the way up till today, though with varying degrees of results. If you are poor and desperately in need of saving money, this can help you get started along with anything else you have in mind. This first part of the series focuses on reducing your electricity bill expenses. As you read along, you may realize that each and everything described here is an extremely simple concept, so simple that you yourself may have thought of it but may have never gotten around to actually thinking about implementing it. I have subdivided different parts so that it can be easier to get the concept also.

Measure your meter first please, if possible

Before you do anything, it would be extremely good if you can go this very moment and take a look at your electric meter. Since you are focusing on your electricity usage, it is a very good idea to look at your electric meter. This meter is usually located at the side of houses, or at the back of the apartment complexes; it has to be located in an easy to find location, yet not right in front of the house all the time, so that the electric company technicians can have easy access to it when needed. Simply walk around your building or unit and you will see it sticking onto some wall, usually facing outside¹.

This is a meter which will have a revolving dial on it that measures the rate of electricity consumption in your very unit; this should be a very thin silver dial, and it will be moving. The faster the dial, the higher the electricity consumption is. Take a look at this dial and take note of any kind of a mark on the dial that you can use to see how many seconds it takes for the dial to rotate one full cycle, meaning the amount of time it takes for that mark to disappear and reappear at the exact same place.

Also, please remember the days and dates that you perform the below steps. Making a note of such dates and days will help later in figuring out whether or not you save electricity consumption in the end.

5 Practical steps to survive with different electricity usage: Unplug things

It would be an amazing thing if you could make a mental note of everything that you pay the electric bill for. This includes all the wall outlets, all things outside your house like outside lights and patio lights, the built-in microwaves which cannot be turned off easily, the electronic heat thermostats, and more. Knowing every available option that can be used to consume your electricity helps in realizing what is using electricity and how.

1. Unplug your hungry-for-electricity kitchen.

   Except your fridge if it has food in it, disconnect everything in your kitchen including your oven, microwave oven, toaster, and any other electronics from the wall outlets when not using them. Simply turning them off will not be sufficient many times. Many things like ovens and microwaves keep consuming electricity even when not in use.

2. Unplug all chargers.

   Disconnect all cell phone, laptop and any other chargers from the wall outlets when not charging or when they have charged completely. Many chargers keep consuming electricity in the form of discharges to the electronics they charge, while others consume electricity in order to show a small light which lets you know that they are connected to a power source. Either way, they keep consuming electricity if plugged into the wall outlet.

3. Make computers, monitors and televisions love the black screen of rest.

   Instead of using screen savers, simply turn off your monitors, computers and TVs whenever not in use and unplug them from the power outlet. Leaving the monitor on during the night still consumes electricity, unless your monitor can turn itself off after some time of inactivity. Why not turn it off directly? Turn off your computer completely at night if possible. If you must watch TV to fall asleep, set it to turn off automatically with a sleep timer. You will need to think how long it usually takes you to fall asleep and program your TV accordingly.

4. Unplug your heaters and A/Cs.

   Turn off and disconnect from the wall outlets all heaters and A/Cs when they are not in use. You will have to depend on your body feelings and not on the thermostat or automatic sensors to keep changing the temperature.

5. Unplug the pluggable house

   Disconnect everything else from the walls in the entire house when not in use, and turn off everything that cannot be disconnected easily. This means that all the wall outlet sockets must be empty unless they have something inside them that you are currently, actively and directly using at that very moment. This applies to air fresheners, night sensor lights, fish tank lights², exhaust fans, empty fridges and freezers, printers, modems, lamps, vacuum cleaners, etc.

   By anything, I mean anything. All the wall outlets of any kind should be completely unused unless something that you absolutely need is turned on fully and working. Everything in the house that cannot be unplugged and that is not being used should be turned off.

The above wall-socket-disconnection steps will overall save you at least about $1 to $4 a month in the United States, and a different amount in other countries.

If such kind of a saving seems to be too low for you to even try it, you are probably not poor or desperate enough, or you are poor and have needs that unfortunately do not allow some of all of the above steps to be taken. Please let me know if that is the case and I will offer suggestions based on your situation.

9 Practical electricity-conservation lifestyle trends:

With practical steps come the philosophy that dictate these steps and vice versa. You need to change your living habits and any habit that involves electricity. The following tricks will help you change your life style so that you will make different electric usage habits a part of your current life. You can start experimenting with these trends immediately. I am using a simple explanation approach throughout this article, if you have not already noticed.

1. Steal electricity from your car

   Use the car charger to charge your electronics in the car. Places like Radio Shack sell a lot of car chargers for different electronics, ranging from laptops to cell phones to mp3 players³. Buying a charger may cost you around $10 to $15, and saving the electricity in your home will save you around $1 to $2 for each thing you charge at your home. Some universal car chargers allow a lot of different things to be charged using the same chargers. If the charger is expensive or over $20, you should figure out whether using the charger at home or other places [described below] will be a better option.

2. Deceive your laptop into giving you electricity

   Use the laptop to charge your electronics. A lot of electronics like newer cell phones and mp3 players come with USB cables for syncing. Majority of these cables also charge your electronic devices while they are syncing. Leave your device connected to the laptop until you see that the battery charge icon on your electronic device is showing a fully charged notification.

3. Create the concept of public electricity at public places

   Use the public libraries or educational and cafe outlets to charge your electronics. Places like many Starbucks will gladly allow you to use their wall outlets in return for you buying their coffee or something else. Buying coffee costs also, so using colleges or public libraries may be a cheaper option.

4. Make daily places that you visit the venue for your daily tasks

   Use your nearby university or college for different stuff. For example, you can not only charge your electronics at public libraries or other places, but you can use microwave ovens at colleges and universities. You can also use the computers at the public libraries and nearby community colleges and universities to browse the internet or do other computer stuff. Many places allow you to print up to a certain amount of pages for free each day, while also allowing you to use their computers as much as you wish. This will save all the electricity that is needed to use your microwave at home for small things or things that can be delayed, and also for many computer and printing related tasks.

5. Start dating only rechargeable and free batteries

   Use rechargeable batteries only and recharge those batteries in your car or the laptop. Many places now sell batteries that you can recharge using a USB plug or a car charger. Buying them will save you money in both battery costs and also in recharging those batteries through your laptop or in your car.

   Stop recharging batteries at your home, if you have rechargeable batteries, and get free batteries. I read an article somewhere a few weeks ago which talked about batteries present in all disposable cameras that you can reuse; I cannot find the link to that article again, unfortunately⁴. You can open up a disposable camera after you are done with it and use the actual batteries inside it for your normal use. You can even ask photo labs to get your or other people’s unwanted disposable camera batteries to you after the photos have been grabbed from them⁵

6. Give your electronics some life support only when they are near their deaths

   Plug in your laptops and cell phones with their chargers into wall outlets only when they are within 20% to 15% of their empty life capacity. This goes for both your own and other wall outlets. Not leaving the laptop and the cell phones connected to the wall outlets all the time saves electricity. Forget the advice that leaving new cell phones connected to their chargers all the time improves battery life by a few percentage points: while that advice is true, your focus here is to save money by saving electricity, and not to prolong the life of the battery, even though that is a noble cause too. Your cell phone battery should easily last you a year or two with regular usage.

7. Fire the fan; hire the window

   Instead of turning on the A/C or even the fan during summer, open each and every window in the house about half way, and make sure nothing obstructs them directly. You can put a small cover or even a notebook for privacy if you wish. Leave all the inside doors open in the house. With air coming in from every room in the house and all the rooms open, the circulating air will create a very nice flow of air in about an hour unless your unit is built or blocked like a stuffed labyrinth. Make sure you close any doors to any rooms that do not have a window, like closets, bathrooms with only ventilators, laundry rooms and more.

   In winter, instead of turning the heater or the A/C with a heater on, close all the windows and the doors of the rooms with windows in them and instead open up the doors to places like your kitchen, your closets and your laundry room. This will rotate the cycle and allow more closed/hot areas to be able to waste the cold air.

8. Build seasonal relationships with your rooms

   Adapt your habits around rooms with the least power consumption. For example, if during summer one of the rooms is the coolest and you are feeling too warm, move your most active activities, like doing your homework or using your laptop, to that room, while making sure that you limit any introduction of new electricity usage into that room. Do the opposite during winter, moving into the hottest room of the house if you are feeling too cold. Leave most doors open during summer, and leave most doors and windows closed during winters.

9. Make your home the backup home

   This is also one of the most practical steps that can also change your life from the day you start doing it: move most of your activities out of your house. Go to the library to study or use your laptop there or charge your phone there. Go to the nearest public garden or something else that may help you relax. Use public computers to do your MySpacing or whatever it is that you do online to stalk others or be stalked. Exercise outside, even in your patio or in the parking lot somewhere early in the morning or late at night if you are shy or want to hide yourself while exercising⁶ If it is summer, go to the library and enjoy the nice cool atmosphere there. If it is the winter, do the same and places like a library or university buildings will be warmer than the outside.

The above brief guide is a practical pointer to some very basic things that can help curb electricity consumption immediately. The batteries step alone will save you around $8 to $25 every year or so, averaging to about $1 to around $2 of savings per month that you get usually every 6 to 9 months, depending on how often you usually buy batteries.

Measure your meter and observe your detailed electric bills

After about 12 hours of following any of the above lifestyle tips, go back out and recheck the electric meter. Measure its speed again using the same exact measurement and compare it to the previous 2 measurements. Has the dial slowed down? While this is not the perfect measurement to see whether or not you are consuming less electricity, the dial itself should hopefully let you know that you have started to save electricity. The next electric bill should reflect that change also.

If you wish and if your electric company allows it, you can request a detailed daily summary bill that will tell you the daily consumption by your apartment or house. That way, you can see how the electric consumption had been for about 20-50 days before you tried the above steps, and how it turned out to be after you tried any of the above steps. If you want to plan even more, you can perform different steps or combination of the above steps every 2 to 3 days and then see the detailed bill to see how big of a drop in electric usage each step or combinatorial step brought for you every 2 to 3 days.

If you pay your electricity bill directly to a landlord of any sort, let that landlord know that you have reduced your electricity consumption and ask them if you could work out a lower electric bill by looking at the bill. If the landlord does not wish to share the bill, have them analyze it to see the drop in the electric consumption.

Thank you for reading. Do you feel the poor electric shock yet?

I hope the above article helps you in even the least form to save some money by changing your habits that revolve around electricity consumption. Remember, being poor is a blessing that can be further changed to become a blessing with money, but wasting money can be one of the biggest curses, specially if you do not have enough money for things that you consider basic and essential to your survival.

What do you think of the above steps or guidelines? Do you think some or all of them could work in most or all situations? Do you have any experience with any of the above? Would you recommend or not recommend anything? Do you have any tips, suggestions or comments of your own? Please let me know what you think.

The next time we continue this series, I will show you the Poor Practical Guide to Surviving Without Much Money by selling stuff that you already have.

Thank you for reading. Long live the poor and the not so poor!

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1. How did you start your site? What is it about?

   I guess you could say my blog has its beginnings in late 2002, not long after I found out I was pregnant. I had seen a friend do something similar, and I thought it was a great idea to add a section to my already existing (genealogy) site where friends and relatives who aren’t around can get updates on the pregnancy, photos, etc. This carried on through the whole pregnancy and I sort of quit there.

   But in October 2003 when I had a three-month-old and some extra time on my hands, I thought I’d pick it all back up. I had such great fun at it all that I got the blog its own domain name and as time progressed I was getting more attention from strangers than family and it turned into more of a diary and lifelog than just baby updates and photos.

   Also, when I started, the site was just an html page that I updated with the dates and so there were no direct comments on entries. I had one page where people could leave a message and still have those posts. When I moved to actual blogging, I later had to track down those old posts via archive.org and them. I think I lost some of them in the process.

2. How do readers play a part in your site?

   I think I stand in the middle with this. On one hand, I really do not care if people visit and leave comments - after all, that’s how I started, never dreaming anyone who did not already know me would care and there are lots of things that I post that I just know will bore everyone else but I write them down anyway for me - but on the other hand, it does matter to me. Over the course of time, I’ve met some really great people through this whole blogging thing and I often really desire their input and validation. They
   are real friends to me, not just people who come and go, and I highly value their friendship and opinions.

   There have even been several occasions when I’ve asked for advice regarding my candle business, what scents people would be interested in. Both regular visitors and one-time visitors were very helpful in helping me choose scents to make that would suit a variety of people and not just myself.

3. When you started the site, what did you expect from the readers? Were those expectations met?

   Since I had started it all as a family thing, I had expected my family to at least pay somewhat attention. However, I wasn’t so lucky in that respect, especially after I got the separate domain for the site. My family (this includes uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.) sort of missed the change altogether (not that they had paid attention much past the initial pregnancy updates anyway) and, as far as I’m aware, none of them visit today, or even know the site exists, with the exception of two in-laws. What I ended up with was a couple of visitors for several months until other bloggers began to visit and make their presence known.

4. You get a lot of supportive comments, and you also get a lot of critical comments and comments which attack you personally. You are one of the bloggers who has sparked a lot of opposition due to your posts regarding Geek Squad and DHL. What do you think of the people who support you and the people who disagree with you on posts revolving around those companies? Has any company directly or indirectly retaliated because of your posts?

   When it comes to posting the ugly side of a company or pointing out a company’s mistakes, you’re bound to gather attention. There seems to be four types of people that respond to these posts. There are the friends who know I’m not just making stuff up and they offer their support for me, and indignation towards whatever it may be that has caused my grief.

   The second group is made up of those who have had their own problems with the company. They find me via search engines or other people who have shared their stories and linked me. They tend to just want someone to rant to about their issues, sometimes they want advice on where to turn next; they’re typically the biggest group of the four.

   The third group is typically smallest, the people who say they’ve not had a problem at all with that company, “but, whatever.” The fourth group is usually the most fun. These people are, for some reason or another, outraged that I would dare say anything negative about a large company; many admit to being employees of the company while others’ IP addresses tell on them. While some are nice and can agree to disagree, in my experience, most of these people take it personally and then proceed to act as such. However, they mostly seem to be lone gunmen. I have never had a company directly contact me about my postings nor are my postings wide-spread enough for me to be recognized when I am forced to deal with these companies “in real life” (especially since by the time I’m posting about them, I’m typically already boycotting them).

   I have had two occasions where an employee and then a different employee’s wife went to other, unrelated articles in my blog with other nasty comments but that’s been the worst of it. I don’t really have a general opinion regarding the people who agree or
   disagree with me, they are all given equal chance and profane language is edited out no matter which side of the fence they’re on. Also, I don’t respond to every comment. Sometimes I ignore comments, good or bad, depending on the amount of time I have.

5. Has earning money online played any part in dealing with commentors? For example, would you turn off comments if advertisers paid you to do so, or would you allow certain personal attacking comments if you were paid to leave the comments on and uncensored on some posts?

   I have personally never heard of either of those scenarios and they present an interesting dilemma. I think I would have to take that in a case-by-case basis. How much money are you offering? I really don’t think I could answer this question until I were to know all the specifics.

6. Have your blogging, other online or offline habits or behavior changed because of either the supportive or criticizing comments?

   Someone who visits my blog and calls me a nasty name because of my view of the Geek Squad doesn’t have me lying awake at night upset. At most I may wonder for a few minutes on how I should respond, if at all, but then I move on. However, there have been times where I have taken to heart things that commentors have said. Usually this is in regards to a parenting issue I feel lost at or some other life issue. My actions may be affirmed, and I will continue at how I am behaving, or someone may offer advice and I will try that out, too. The only real things that have changed have been due to an online stalker and a friend whom I had a falling out with.

   Because of those situations, I have taken many things private (only visible to friends and family I trust, or even sometimes just myself) that may have otherwise been posted publicly.

7. How do you deal with such comments, and commentors, that attack you personally?

   I pretty much handle this on a case-by-case basis. I think it also depends on the mood I’m in - haha (I /am/ after all, a woman).
   Typically, because of the moderation rules I employ, these comments will go straight to moderation (dependent upon how old the post is). If I feel I have something substantial or witty to say back to this person (or even if I have nothing to say), I may approve the comment and reply (or say nothing). If I’m unsure about it, I might check to see if they’ve subscribed to the comments or if they’ve left what appears to be a real name, email address, and/or URL.

   In other words, I’m more apt to give answer if they really seem interested in one rather than bash-and-run. If I get the feeling they’re bash-and-run and the comment is extraordinarily mean and/or full of profanity, there’s a good chance I’ll just delete it (especially when they have nothing new to add to the conversation like is common on the Geek Squad thread where they all have the same points/complaints).

From comments to commentors, Spoken-For keeps on speaking

From the above interview and the links presented within it, you can see a lot of trends that go along with that I said in a previous post titled “Disagree with arguments, not with people who argue.” Also, one can see from Valerie’s experience above as to how the shape of a site can change from being a simple website to being a blog, yet the function of the site remains exactly the same: to allow for a place for Valerie to express herself. What do you think?

Do you have any questions?

That is all for this time. Stay tuned for the next part of the interview soon, where I asked Valerie about the possibility of closing down comments section, the comparison between her blog and her online business, online stalkers, and more.

Please let me or Valerie know about any opinions, thoughts, or questions you can think of either by e-mailing me or Valerie, or by leaving a comment below.

Thank you for reading.

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A simple example of an article without a picture is my post “Question: do you like using your real name online?.” Sure, an article may have other pictures like the site name logo on the top of this page, though such pictures may be connected to the site directly and may not necessarily be only applicable or connected to the article in question².

Some benefits of a writing without pictures include:

• No distraction, resulting in full focus on the text
• Better understanding of what is being said because of being able to imagine things, instead of being biased by what the picture may be showing
• Understood by many people, including those who prefer having pictures

Articles with pictures

A good example of a post that uses pictures would be my recent article titled “10 stereotypical elements to offline unprofessionalism.” That article has pictures to give some brief examples of what I am referring to in different areas³.

Some benefits of a writing with pictures include:

• Better understanding of what one may be referring to, specially when the picture may explain things when the author cannot explain easily through text or when the author wishes to explain more through the pictures
• A pictorial or an extra word association with the writing itself⁴
• In some cases, a simple visualization of stuff through a specific picture or a group of pictures, as an alternate to reading the entire text

Do you prefer online articles with or without pictures?

As you may have noticed from the above text, having pictures can help or can cause issues in some cases for different people. There is probably no definite answer to whether or not text with pictures is a good thing. So, do you prefer reading articles with or without pictures?

Please let me know what you think. Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it.

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The laptop is 1 month and 3 days old today. Who could have done such a thing? What heartless bastard could have broken into a house, probably harassed the cat, and taken an innocent infant laptop who was just sitting there?! The neighbor’s house was also broken into, but the neighbor did not have any bastard children laptops, so no laptop child was stolen from that house. How strange it is, that one house suffers nothing but a broken door and trauma, while the house next door ends up with a broken door, trauma, a traumatized perverted cat, and a missing laptop child.

Victims’ and the Crime profile

This is a real theft people. Sure, you may not believe some things as you may assume it is out of this world, but the laptop was stolen yesterday, and your help is needed.

Reward?: Yes, and this is real. $500 reward through Paypal to anyone who finds or helps Ronald actually find and recover the laptop undamaged.

Where?: Huntsville, Alabama, USA

When?: Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007, between 7 am and 11 am

Type: Apple MacBook Pro, 15″, silver, 2 Gig RAM, 7200 RPM 160GB HD.

Age: Only a month, 3 days old laptop child

Mother: Apple [sold her baby to Ronald on the black market called the Apple store]

Father: Ronald [under investigation by the National Laptops Welfare & Long Battery Life Association [NLWLBLA] for suspicion of buying a laptop child on the black market]

Name or Model # of the victim: A1226

Nickname or Serial number of the victim: W87371FAXAG

Secret lovers: The cat [rumored by angry neighborhood cats. No evidence to confirm or deny this claim]

Instructions for the cops and others to follow

This is a note to all the cops, the community, and anyone who cares about young children, young laptop heartless children to be precise! Imagine the lonely laptop, sitting there without a cover, without a mouse, without the cruel abusive master of an owner who only now realizes the value of the laptop child, and most important of all, without the secret cat lover!

All cops should keep on the lookout for any depressed laptop child that is not turned on. By turned on, I mean turned on screen-wise and not literally, though if you thought I meant literally you are in the same class as the secret cat lover. Anyhow, back to the kidnapping topic! All highway patrol cars are advised to focus on expensive car drivers going empty handed to poor areas and coming back to rich homes in rich areas with a new Apply MacBook Pro. Poor folks can’t afford such a laptop baby, so probably some rich sucker would want to save a thousand on an already expensive product and bring it back to lala land only to discover that the laptop child was kidnapped from Ronald and the lesbian cat.

Non-federal authorities aren’t of help, so hitmen have been hired

So far, non-federal authorities have been uncooperative or unsuccessful in helping the quest to find the missing laptop child. The local rental association has no video, audio or picture record or any recollection of a baby being kidnapped and taken to a car, nor any video or pictures of any people coming in or out of the complex.

Apple, the corporation that not only provides people with laptop children but also can take those laptop childs’ brains away if needed, cannot help either unless and until someone connects the laptop child to the internet and accesses the internet, at which point Apple will terminate [HEAVEN FORBID] the laptop child. Ohhh the horror this world sees! “If I can’t have my laptop child, no one can!” Ronalds’ decision to hire the professional hitman corporation, Apple, is not yet backfiring. Maybe it will be after the fate of the laptop child is sealed and public that we will see heartless child rights organizations going after Ronald for his decision to not allow his laptop child to live if it is not sitting on his lap or next to the cat.

My community aspect of the investigation, and the Iron Claw Assassin

In my research, where I tried to offer help in the neighborhood aspect of the investigation, I found out that I was not welcome anywhere, and that no one wanted to tell me about the missing child. “Why?” I thought. I wondered if everyone was part of this conspiracy. I wondered if everyone knew something but was afraid to tell me. I wondered if everyone knew something but did not want to tell me because they did not like me. Soon, however, I found out why no one wanted to tell me anything about the missing child. “What the hell is a macbook pro?“, “Are you stupid? Why in the world are you looking for a damn apple? Go buy another one from the grocery store you cashless psycho!” and “Who gives a damn about Apple! I have a dell with a D, as in DIE Apple!” were the three sets of answers I got from everyone. It seems no one knows where the damned child laptop is. So much for assuming that the community is of help; it never is. I am wondering if I should do my best to get to the attention-disordered laptop child before the hitmen do.

I am trying my best to locate the stealth Iron Claw Assassin. So far, all my inside agents have reported that they have been unable to locate the Iron Claw Assassin. All of my attempts to locate her have proved futile. That is sad, since the Iron Claw could have pursued the laptop child kidnappers and taken care of them the way The Mad, Mad, Mad Screamer was taken care of, and I am confident that the laptop child would have been recovered safely, albeit a few scratches because of the claw. Claw, holding the laptop child, scratch, pointed, sharp, get it? Better to get back a dented laptop child than no laptop child. Whatever case Iron Claw Assassin is working on, I wish she could finish it soon or just give it up to help us pursue this demonic laptop child that Ronald and the authorities are so obsessed about right now.

I have offered sacrifices to the sea in the form of throwing out trash that was in my car into lakes, rivers and oceans. I have bought nuts for the damned squirrels in Berkeley while avoiding the squirrel who shall not be named [seriously, he cannot be named, nor linked to, but you know how to find out more about him, don't you?], cleaned up after psycho, murdering cats, and even spied on all cats making out with other cats in the community in hopes of finding some laptop children nearby, since rumors say that the missing laptop child had affairs with Ronalds’ cat [more on that below]. So far, I have uncovered nothing, other than the mysterious looks from all cats that probably wonder “Why the hell is he looking at us while we kiss each other? EWWWWWWWW” I hope I can forget everything I am seeing today once, and if, the laptop child is found.

Rumors about affairs between the cat and the laptop child

I did find out through my contacts that there were some illegal affairs between the cat and the laptop child. Even though I was looking for evidence for such claims, deep inside me I remembered the cat when I had met it last month, and I realized that the cat did exhibit such lovely affections to every object inside Ronalds’ house, including me when I was there. However, think of the laptop child: you wouldn’t want your desktop or laptop child to suffer the same trauma, so why ignore this tragedy where a young pro-beastiality laptop child got kidnapped? Sure, you are against animal cruelty, but come on, this laptop was less than a month. So what if a month old laptop baby likes to feel touchy-touchy with a cat? Blame the grown up cat for seducing and having affairs with a child. As you can see from the image to the right, there are some public pictures of the cat trying to get close to the child laptop sexually. Heck, blame the photographer, Ronald, for taking such pictures and not stopping the cat and the laptop from feeling close in that manner!

Me, personally, I have no problem with the cat as I think it does not realize that many humans do not like such contacts with laptops. However, the issue here is the kidnapping of the laptop child, and not the pedophile cat or its master of a roommate Ronald who focused only on what the laptop could provide in terms of productivity and not on the relationship aspect of the laptops’ life. Let’s get the laptop child back now and let’s stalk the pedophile cat and yell at Ronald for being so careless later! Ronald is sad now, so let’s make sure he knows we are there for him! Hmmm ok wait, scratch that: I have to play an online game after this. Ok, Ronald is sad now, so let’s make sure he knows that YOU are there for him, and that I will be there for him soon hopefully. All this neighborhood investigation has bored me to death, so I need some time off. 6 minutes of total investigation takes a lot of effort people!

Community feels strong bias and discrimination by the police

Many community members have told me that they feel the law enforcement authorities are giving way too much attention to this even simply because it was an Apple laptop child that was stolen. “My damn’ Windows 95 laptop of 8 years was stolen last week and no one is investigating that“, a father of 2 new laptop children told me. Some other people pointed out the fact that most Windows laptops are dark in color, while the Apple laptops are usually white or silver in color. All local law enforcement authorities are denying that any racism is involved, citing that most law officers use computers running windows XP, that officers of many different colors from orange to blue to white to green to yellow to black to violet to red and more, are involved in the investigation. Furthermore, a short survey by me revealed that many officers do not know what a MacBook is, let alone know that Apple creates silver MacBook Pros; therefore, officers cannot discriminate against non-Apple laptop owners’ cases since they don’t even know what is missing. Ronald had to show them the laptop box, pictured above, to show the police officers the picture of the poor laptop child that was missing.

Those close to me want the laptop child to stay missing

My desktop and laptops are happy, though. They are laughing and saying “HAHA damn retarded over-hyped apple products! Doing the same exact thing that other products can do. Only thing they are definitely better at that is life-shattering is to get stolen and kidnapped.” Ignore my jealous desktop and laptop, please, and be well! They do not know what glamor is, since they grew up in a hard working family of computers which focused on bread and not gold, and thus they exist to help the poor and those in need instead of being like you, oh dear Apple MacBook Pro laptop child, where you focus mainly on those with fat wallets. You have a higher purpose in life but my laptop and desktops don’t, so please ignore their evil laughs and bad prayers, and instead be safe! When you get back you can laugh back at them!

What if you find any lonely laptop child?

So please, if you see a lonely baby laptop anywhere, see someone talking about selling a baby called “Apple MacBook Pro” or a see a child that has a 15″ screen sitting by the road somewhere, go and talk to the laptop child! See what is going on. Maybe it’s the laptop child Ronald lost! Maybe it is someone elses’ child! Who knows. If the laptop child does not belong to anyone, ask the police. Ask the local hospital. Ask the local tech shops and electronic stores. If no one knows the history of the laptop child you find, do one thing please: sell the laptop child.

Sell it on Amazon, on ebay, on craigslist, anywhere you wish. Since you tried and couldn’t find the laptop childs’ original home, you might as well make some money.

Take action, or make money!

So please, go get your holy books ready to pray for Ronalds’ laptop child, go get your jacket or t-shirt on to go look for the laptop, take out your own desktop and laptop child to search for the missing child laptop. And in the end get your Craigslist, ebay, and Amazon seller accounts ready. For if you do find a laptop child and cannot find where the laptop child came from, you can help find it a new home if you do not want to use it or do not want to get caught, and earn some money along the way too.

$500 reward for finding the laptop

This is also the part which you have to take the most seriously. Ronald is offering a $500 reward to anyone who can recover or find his laptop so Ronald can get his laptop back, undamaged. Ronald will pay you via Paypal.

Look for any Apple laptop child with the model number A1226 and serial number W87371FAXAG.

This is hoping that the laptop child is able to sleep tonight without any problems! My thoughts and wishes and my heart is with you, though my desktop and laptop are still praying that you die a horrible, anti-Microsoft death. Let us see what happens.

If you have any information about this Satan laptop child or would like to help with this ongoing investigation, please e-mail me or contribute below. Thank you!

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Your friend may expect you to comment on their site, whether or not your current friendship with that friend is solely based on the online world. You can talk to your friend via the phone or even chat with them online, but if you do not visit or comment on their site regularly, they may retaliate by not talking to you that much or by talking to someone else who visits and comments on their blog.

It is as if the friendship is solely based on the number of comments you leave on a blog. A blog can be considered someone’s personal property, thus you have to see whether or not your friend is justified in getting upset over you not commenting on their site. Your friend getting upset over the absence of your comments on your site can either be like your friend expecting you to support them in unrelated things in order for the friendship to continue or like your friend expecting you to support them in a passion they may have.

Of course, such confusion can be solved if you ask your friend what they want, or if your friend tells you what they want. However, I wonder if it is always easy for everyone to tell a friend “You know what, I don’t like commenting on your blog or reading it, because of this and this reason. Is that going to upset you?”

Business and non-business contacts expecting comments

Business and non-business contacts can be different than your friends. Sure, more and more people are calling each other friends, but no one is there for each other in anything from which they themselves do not benefit, or when a business deal is not around. Thus, let us briefly focus on the idea of non-friend contacts expecting comments from you: a random person or a business contact may show you their personal or some other blog, and thus may expect you to regularly visit or participate that blog. What happens if you do not fulfill their expectations?

Well, from my personal experience, several things can happen. I have seen business contacts doing less business simply because I do not comment on every post of theirs. I have also seen some very famous business contacts being non-communicative until they need something, which can appear to be beyond unprofessionalism in many cases. I have also heard people complaining about their business contacts becoming more aggressive and unfriendly in business deals if those people post a disagreeing comment about something on a blog. Getting upset in different ways over other contacts not commenting on some site can be signs of people not being able to differentiate between their expectations from their own blogs and their business and other deals with other people.

How do you fix such a thing? You cannot fix such a trend and mentality until you find out what the business or some other deal expects. You entered into a business deal; did it include in any direct or indirect manner your participation on any site? Did the other person get any kind of a hint in the beginning that you will continuously participate on their site? It is best to not mix business with personal life or something like your passion for comments unless you know the people involved in a business deal are willing to be true friends or logical contacts who will not let things get affected by something like the number of comments you post on a blog not related to the business or some other deal in question.

What to do?

It depends. I personally do not want to be obligated to comment on any friend’s or non-friend’s blog. I comment when I want to. Otherwise, I try to communicate with people a lot outside of a blog, like via the phone, e-mail or even chatting online on different im’s. I actually prefer to communicate more offline than online in many cases.

Do you want friendship to continue? Do you want a business or some other contact to continue doing business or remain a contact with you? Do you want a random contact to keep in touch normally? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you can think of ways to come at a solution that satisfied either you, the other person, or both of you. Whatever solution you come up with, you should feel comfortable enough to actually stick to the solution if the other person agrees to the solution also.

What do you think? Please let me know, thank you.

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Following are 3 good and 3 bad points, chosen randomly, of having the same contacted listed in more than one of the instant messaging or e-mail accounts you have have.

Pros of having the same contact on more than one e-mail and instant messaging account:

1. Talk via a different account if the primary account is not working
2. Talk advantage of different accounts for different things - one for texting, one for webcam, etc
3. Separate business and personal communication with the same person

Cons of having the same contact on more than one e-mail and instant messaging account:

1. Make communication more confusing with a person by having too many unnecessary channels of communication
2. Have too many duplicate contacts across your instant messaging and e-mail accounts
3. Harder to keep track of all the communication through different accounts between you and the other person

So, do you have any contact who is listed on more than one of your instant messaging or e-mail accounts? Is there a reason for that? Do you think it is a good or a bad thing?

Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think.

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