Julie's Journal

I thought I would do a quick update on my Blip.fm experience. Since the last time I asked the question, Do My Blip.fm Twitters Annoy You? I have found a way to stop each and every Blip from posting to Twitter. All you do is add a exclamation (!) point to the front of each Blip, and they won’t post to your Twitter account.

[tags]Blip.fm, Twitter, music, DJ’s[/tags]

I’ve been looking for a place to sell my book thongs online and I think I found just the right place called ArtFire.com. If you’re into making handmade gifts and selling them online this is the place you need to be using.

ArtFire.com allows handmade artisans to list their items for free, including pictures, while partnering with Trees for the Future to plant a tree for every free member who joins.

Simply join today, list your items to sell, and they plant a tree. Man I love companies like this! Go green!

[tags]ArtFire.com, handmade gifts, book thongs[/tags]

I attended my first Beer and Blog event last night at Freakin’ Frogs. They had well over 30 people attend, and it was a really great social networking event. I connected with followers on Twitter, and made some new friends as well.

They are heading in the direction of having notable bloggers, and experts in the industry, to stop in and give small brainstorming sessions. This move will be a wonderful addition, and I’m excited to hear who they have lined up for this.

Beer and Blog is held every Thursday night at Freakin’ Frog‘s at 6:00PM here in Las Vegas. They are welcoming all bloggers, and people who want to learn about blogging, to come out and network. I hope to see you there next week!

Press: Las Vegas Weekly: Beer and Blog Las Vegas

Make sure to check out my Beer and Blog – Las Vegas pictures.

Pictured left to right: @toddhuish @vegasgeek @JustJulie @Sara_Mooney @nothus @dwax

As always, my Xshot was a hit, and if you’d like to purchase one I’m going to throw out my affiliate link for you to get your own Xshot. Just click on the image below. How’s that for transparency?

[tags]Beer and Blog, bnblv, Las Vegas, Freakin’ Frogs, social networking, blogging, Xshot[/tags]

With the rising cost of almost everything these days, I’m always on the lookout for ways to scale back on our budget. The one thing that we had to give up on our last budget update was our book purchases. Michael and I use to spend about $200 a month at the book store. I loved our monthly visits where we’d spend hours looking through books and sharing titles with each other. You’d often hear me screaming across the store, “Hey baby, come look at this book!”

Following on the heels of the successful movie DVD rental company Netflix, comes
BookSwim. You rent books, take all the time you need to read them, send them back and they ship you more books.

BookSwim Features:

• Free shipping both ways
• Rentals include college textbooks along with bestselling novels
• Keep the books you love with their book purchasing system
• Automatic billing each month
• No contracts – you can cancel at anytime
• No due dates, no late fees
• Unlimited rentals per month

BookSwim Membership Plans:

• Devout Reader – 11 books – $19.93
• Avid Reader – 7 books – $14.94
• Casual Reader – 5 books – $12.45
• Light Reader – 3 books – $9.95

BookSwim Current Promotion:

• 50% off the monthly membership price of $19.93. Just $9.95 to sign up now!

When I first came across this service I thought, why not just go to the library? Well it’s basically the same reason you don’t want to go to the movie rental store. There are no late fees, BookSwim never closes, no waiting list for popular titles, and they come directly to your house! Seems pretty nifty to me!

Check out BookSwim and tell me what you think.

[tags]Bookswim.com, book rentals, rent books, online book rental[/tags]

I just spent the last couple of hours looking over the Whitehouse.gov website. It’s clean, fresh, and very up to date with today’s technology. One statement that they make on the site was very refreshing to me.

WhiteHouse.gov will be a central part of President Obama’s pledge to make his the most transparent and accountable administration in American history.

Transparency and accountability. YES! Finally someone up there in government gets it, and that someone is Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House. He will be one of the people who will be contributing to the Whitehouse blog, providing the American public with up to date events happening in Washington.

If there is one feed that you should add to your RSS reader today, it should be the Whitehouse.gov feed. You can also sign up for Whithouse.gov email updates if that’s more your style.

They are also asking for feedback about the site, so please let them know what you like, what you don’t like, and what you would like to see added by leaving your Whitehouse.gov feedback here.

This is our site, the American people. Read it, follow it, and become a part of it. This is the first time we’ve ever had this opportunity, so take advantage of it.

[tags]Whitehouse.gov, Whitehouse blog, Macon Phillips, Director of New Media[/tags]