Julie's Journal

So it’s that time of the year where parents all across the country are getting ready to send their child off to college. Whether for the first time ever, or as a returning student, there has to be some type of financial plan in place. It’s hard to keep money coming in as a college student, but there are ways to help you manage the little money you do have.

Sears makes it easy to juggle these expenses with their Reload-able Gift Cards. As a parent you need to go into the store to purchase the card originally, but then you can load funds onto the card online, in a store, or in a student shop at their local Sears and Kmart stores. There is also the application CampusReady on Facebook that will help you.

There are three sections to the Sears CampusReady Facebook application. The Roommate Matchup let’s you take a quiz to discover what you and your new roommate share in common (or don’t). The Dorm Room Designer let’s you design your dorm room in 3D before you even step foot on campus. And the Gift Getter let’s you choose the things you need for college and post them on your Facebook page so all your family members can see it, and hopefully buy these items for you.

Going to college for the first time is a scary event, but with the fun and helpful tools like these, it will make the transition less stressful.

I am so ready for a new laptop. Like yesterday ready. I’ve reformatted mine a couple times now, and it just doesn’t run as good as it use to. I’ve did two memory upgrades on it, but it still just seems so slow and sluggish. It is quite possible that I could just get a new hard drive for it and it would be fine, but I’ve had it for so long that I just want a new one. And what is up with laptop batteries? When are they going to actually last long enough for anyone to be mobile and productive?

I’ve had my eye on a Sony Vaio Lifestyle PC ever since seeing it at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier in the year.

The Sony Vaio Lifestyle PC has the options of a solid state (up to 128GB) or standard hard drive and comes in cool colors like garnet red, emerald green, onyx black, crystal white, and classic black. They even have matching accessories including a fitted leather case.

So there you go boys, that’s what I want for Mother’s Day. But I understand if it’s too spendy. You can just spend the day with me instead

I can’t believe it’s already May, and IZEAFest at SeaWorld is just around the corner at the beginning of October. If you haven’t gotten your tickets already and you plan on going, you should be getting those real soon, as I’m sure it’s going to sell out.

The session I am looking most forward to is the Social Media Promotion panel that I am going to be moderating. I’ve never moderated a panel before, but with David Binkowski, Chris Heuer, Wendy Piersall, and Warren Whitlock on the panel it should be a very informative hour answering questions like:

• How to use Twitter to gain followers, and not look like a spammer
• Use Digg to promote your posts to the top of search findings
• Use Facebook as a tool to interact with other users instead of just posting links

Of course there is going to be tons of swag to take home, and parties to remember, but the biggest thing this year is the Blogger Take-Over at Sea World on Sunday October 4th. With your purchased ticket to IzeFest also comes a ticket into SeaWorld. It’s been years since I was at Sea World in San Diego, so I’m looking forward to this part of the trip the most.

I hope to see you there!

Thanks to PayPerPost and Izea for sponsoring this post.

As always, Ted Murphy is up to his usual antics. He’s created head cutouts for his readers to print out, cut out, and take around to different locations and get pictures of him. He’s such a weirdo, but I just love that guy, so I had to play along.

I decided to put the cat scent on him so his Schnauzer Bonzo would go berserk the next time he sees him. I took so many pictures trying to get her to yawn so her tongue would be sticking out also, but she wasn’t cooperating. OMG, Michael just messaged me with an “alternative quote” for this picture, but this is a PG blog so use your imagination.

I don’t consider myself a photographer, but I do carry around my digital camera with me wherever I go. I take pictures every single day, and I have quite a few pictures that I have taken, printed out, and framed. They are hanging up all around my house, but there is only so much wall space left for them! I have one digital picture frame now that sits on my desk, but I would love one for every room, especially one that would display directly from my Flickr account. I think the technology is just amazing, but it doesn’t just stop there.

Have you ever thought of having a live video chat from a digital picture frame? Digital Spectrum has and they will be launching the World’s First Live Video Chat Digital Digital Picture Frame this summer.

Take a look at the demo by Digital Spectrum Solutions to show live video chat on a digital picture frame. The picture is so crystal clear and I never thought I would see that from such a small device. It will be really interesting to see all the other features of this product. I hope they make more video demonstrations soon. Those always get people pumped up when it comes to new technology.