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Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto

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Lodging Hunt is another great site to find deals on hotel rooms

August 17, 2007 by Tricia

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I hate to say it, but summers almost over. Hopefully many of you managed to get away for long weekend or at least short vacations throughout the summer.

I find that people always talk about dream vacations and they often involve leaving the country traveling to Europe or some exotic land. I’ve done it myself, but you know what? Some of the best vacations I’ve had have been in my own Country and often even not all that far from home.

Almost everyone takes a vacation every now and then – even me, so I figured that you might be interested in perhaps taking a look at, and maybe even bookmarking the Lodging Hunt website.

Why? Well the Lodging Hunt website is a great place to search for hotel and motel reservations. Lodging Hunt not only has listings for big hotel chains, but they also list smaller chains and individual independent hotels that you won’t find listed on the big reservation sites. I know from my own experiences that some of the smaller hotels can be quite nice and you might find that they offer a more personal touch that will end up topping off your vacation experience.

You’ll find listings for all of the US states at Lodging Hunt. Just go to the main page and select the state that you’d like to search for lodgings in and then narrow your search down to a particular city or area of the state. It’s that easy.

For example if you were perhaps going to take a trip to Las Vegas you might visit the Nevada Lodging page to find some great hotel deals. Then, perhaps if part of your holiday plans include a trip to the Grand Canyon you might visit the Arizona Lodging listings to find a hotel near the Grand Canyon.

I was pleased to see that there are also hotel lodging listings for all of the Canadian provinces and territories, and there are also listings for what I believe are all of the countries in Europe.

The owner of Lodging Hunt states that he works hard to search for the best rates at big hotel chains like Best Western so you are bound to find some very good accommodation deals.

Another thing that I like about the Lodging Hunt website is the fact that if you were to select a state page, say the Illinois Lodging page for example, you can select the city that you’re searching for lodgings in and your search results will be listed from lowest price lodging to highest priced lodgings. From there you can click on hotels that interest you.

Many of the hotel listings contain photos of the rooms, and you’ll also find information such as check in and check out times, a listing of the hotels amenities and even a short discussion of local attractions near the hotel.

On the main page and on each hotel page you can type in the city that you wish to find lodgings in and the dates that you’ll want to make reservations for in order to narrow the results to hotels that have openings during the time period you’re interested in. Once you find lodgings that suit your needs you can book it right then and there.

Your summer vacation may be over, but do bookmark this site and visit it the next time you are planning a vacation or traveling. I’m sure you’ll find a good deal.





Filed Under: Entertainment, Home and Lifestyle, Recreation, Services, Vacation and Travel Tagged With: Arizona, book room, Canada, canadian, chicago, deal, deals, Europe, holiday, hotel, hotel chain, illinois, information, listings, Lodging Hunt, Nevada, photos, planning, province, reservations, reserve, State lodgings, summer vacation, travel, vacation, visit, weekend

Get cash for your old cellphone and protect the environment at the same time

August 16, 2007 by Tricia

If you’ve spent any time reading my various blogs you already know that Chris and I try to live “green”, or as green as possible, and I write about the various things that people can do to save energy, lessen pollution and just make the world a “greener” place on my various sites. I’ve written articles about organic gardening, energy saving bulbs, and how to dispose of old computer and now I’d like to tell you how to recycle your cell phone properly.

Did you know that each year there are over 140 million cellphones retired, yet only about 5% are recycled? The various components in cell phones can leach hazardous chemicals and minerals such as lead into the environment when they are disposed of in landfills. If you don’t believe me you should read this article – Why should I recycle my cell phone?. Just look at all the toxins that are in the circuit boards and batteries of cell phones. Do you really want that stuff getting in your water supply?

It really is a shame that so many cell phones and other electronic items end up in landfills when it’s so easy to recycle them properly.

Perhaps companies such as CellForCash.com will help turn this bad practice around when people learn that they can actually get cash for their old cellphones.

That’s right. CellForCash has a program that allows US residents to easily recycle their old mobile phones and even pays them cash for over 600 models of cellphones. If your old cellphone qualifies for a rebate you could get between $4 and $300 for your old phone.

I think this is a wonderful program. I mean, how many times have you either changed to a different cell phone service provider or wanted to upgrade your cell phone? How many times have you been told that your current cell phone is obsolete and won’t work with the new cell providers system or services? Quite often I presume. I know it’s happened to me.

When you decide to get a new cell phone you’re often left wondering what to do with the old cell phone. Most cell phone service providers don’t let you trade in old phones. That’s why so many cell phones end up in landfills.

Bookmark the CellForCash website as I’m sure that if you don’t currently have a phone you could turn in for cash right now you will sometime in the near future.

The CellForCash site is very easy to use. Just visit the main page and select your cellphones make and model, click “go” and then you’ll find out how much of a rebate you can get for your old phone. Just be sure that the phone actually works and that it hasn’t been damaged. Follow the instructions and request free shipping materials and soon you’ll be able to send your old cellphone to CellForCash and get your rebate. You’ll be given other options to try if your phone isn’t listed or is deemed to old and doesn’t qualify for the rebate program.

The old phones that are collected by CellForCash are sometimes used in other markets or even in other countries.

Now, don’t you think that getting some cash for your cellphone is much better than possibly polluting the environment?

Don’t forget to bookmark CellForCash.com.

Filed Under: Cool stuff, Home and Lifestyle, Living Green, Money, Services, Web and Technology Tagged With: affect water supply, article, articles, batteries, battery, blog, cash back, cash for your cellphone, cell phone, CellForCash, circuit board, environment, Green, landfills, leach chemicals, leach toxins, live green, mobile phone, poison water supply, pollution, rebate program, recycle cellphone, shipping, trade in, up to 300 dollars back, visit, water, website, write

Gain some Buzz for your Business or Product by Holding an Instant Win Promotion

August 15, 2007 by Tricia

Having once been a small business owner, and now being a webmaster with several websites I guess you could say that I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the last decade or so thinking about sales, marketing and promotion.

Certainly many of your reading this post have your own blogs or websites, and I’m sure you try to think of new ways of promoting them from time to time in order to bring new visitors to your site. I’ve noticed that several blogs have taken to holding contests, both large and small in order to get peoples attention.

The reason why I’m thinking about business, sales and promotion is because I’ve just visited a website called Instant Win Promotions. Companies hold sweepstakes, contests and or even mail or scratch and win cards all the time in order to promote their business or a specific product that they sell.

I think Instant win cards are a great idea.

I know that there’s been times when I’ve gone to a store purposely because I knew they were giving out scratch and win cards that would give me a certain percentage off whatever I was purchasing. Most of those types of scratch and win cards only give you 10% or 15% off, but the promotion often states that some of the cards will give you and even higher percentage off. I’m sure the stores that hold these kind of promotions end up getting more customers visiting their store when they’re giving out scratch and win cards.

I’ve also received scratch and win cards in the mail. Occasionally those scratch and win cards have made me consider visiting a store, or signing up with the fitness club that was holding the promotion.

Those are just a few ways that businesses could use scratch and win cards to promote their business and draw in more customers. It’s certainly worked on me on more than one occasion.

Instant Win Promotions specializes in the creation of custom scratch off cards, pull tab cards, scratch and sniff cards, bingo cards, phone cards, and internet access cards.

If you own a business or if you have a special event coming up such as a fund raiser, and you’d like to try promoting your event or rewarding a few of the people who attend your event with great prizes via scratch and win cards, you should visit the Instant Win Promotions website. You can request information or contact the company to discuss your particular promotion. The staff will help you come up with custom instant win cards that will be sure to generate some buzz for your company or product.

Instant Win Promotions can make custom designed scratch and win cards in any color, shape or size. Along with being able to print in any quantity, their printing capabilities include custom prizes, design consultation, and even seeding $1,000,000 winners.

The company is also able to guaranteed the integrity of all promotions from start to finish as they have a series of checks and balances in place. Instant Win Promotions have multiple lockable storage areas for the scratch and win cards that they are producing, a controlled prize seeding environment and 24 hour camera surveillance.

If you click on the “Why Choose Us” link at the bottom of the main page you’ll be able to read in detail all of the features and reasons why choosing to work with Instant Win Promotions would be a smart promotional move.

Filed Under: Contest, Cool stuff, Entertainment, Sales and Marketing, Services Tagged With: 10 percent coupon, 24 hour camera surveillance, bingo cards, business, business promotion, Buzz, Contest, custom design, customers, design consultation, events, generate buzz, instant win cards, Instant Win Promotions, integrity, internet access cards, lockable storage, marketing, phone cards, prize seeding, prizes, Products, promote, promotion, pull tab cards, request information, reward, sale, Sales and Marketing, scratch and sniff cards, Scratch and Win cards, secure, security, seeding, sweepstakes, visitors, word of mouth

Be sure that your articles are free from plagiarism use iPlagiarismCheck

August 14, 2007 by Tricia

If you’re a blogger or website owner I wouldn’t doubt that you’ve experienced plagiarism of some kind by now. Perhaps you aren’t aware that it’s happened, but there are people out there stealing our posts and articles and placing them on their own sites and calling the work their own.

Many years ago my exotic pet website – prints out to 400 pages! – was entirely copied by someone who at the time I thought was a friend. Well she was up until she pulled that move. I caught her quickly and got her to rewrite her site in her own words, but it was a terrible thing to have happened and caused me a lot of unnecessary stress.

I’ve heard it said time and time again that plagiarism is a form of flattery. I suppose in a very shady way it is, but it’s a crime. It’s theft. Someone has stolen another persons copy written work. That theft could result in loss of income for the original author and it can even cause problems when trying to verify who the original author was in the first place.

Plagiarism has been going on for centuries. It happens on the internet, it happens in music, song writing and with screen plays. It happens in the corporate world, and it happens in lower school, high school and universities. It’s serious!

People who’ve been caught plagiarizing an article can end up being fined, perhaps even jailed and when it happens in the school system students can end up failing their course or being expelled from the school.

I’ve been asked to tell you about a website called iPlagiarismCheck, you can visit the site by clicking the follow link – iPlagiarismCheck.com – Click here to visit us today!. This website offers a service that will benefit students and teachers alike.

I’ve already given you my opinion on plagiarism and the theft of copyright material. The iPlagiarismCheck website offers a solution to the problem of plagiarism. They’ve created their site in order to allow people to submit their documents and have them checked for even the most subtle signs of plagiarism.

Their software checks publications – soft and hard cover books, journals and articles, it also checks the internet by searching directories, online publications, blogs, websites, PDF articles and so on. The software has millions of places and articles to check, but it does so quickly. The software has a patented algorithm that checks the sentence structure and word synonyms in the submitted article against all those I’ve listed above on the internet and hard and soft cover publications.

I said earlier that the iPlagiarismCheck website will benefit students and teachers alike because it’s possible for a student to research an article and end up using work that was already plagiarized in their own work without knowing that they’ve accidentally used a research paper that’s been plagiarized.

I haven’t been in school for a long time, but I do remember that essays made up a large portion of a courses credit. Can you imagine accidentally using plagiarized work and failing? What if it was your thesis that ended up containing plagiarized work! A thesis would be one of the best examples of an important document to have checked using the iPlagiarismCheck website.

Students can protect themselves by opening an account at iPlagiarismCheck. I see that they currently have a special on their Startup Package. It’s only $5! The starter package allows you to have one document checked for signs of plagiarism. Other packages range in price from $20 right up to the unlimited submissions for one year SuperSaver package that costs only $65. I could see students signing up for the $5, $20 and or $35 packages, and teachers, professors, and other professionals signing up for the $65 supersaver package.

Once a document has been checked via the online plagiarism checking service an iPlagiarismCheck report will be provided. The report provides a list of all the external sources that have been included in the document. I suppose a student could even hand in a copy of the iPagiarismCheck when handing their article or essay to their teacher.

Visit the iPlagiarismCheck site to learn more about how the software works, to see an example of an iPlagiarismCheck report, and all of the options included in each of their packages.

I really do think this is a worthwhile service for students and teachers. I can also see how it can be used to benefit businesses, professionals and even website owners.

Filed Under: Education, Internet, Services, Software, The Blogisphere, Web and Technology, Writing Tagged With: account, article, articles, author, blogger, blogs, business, check articles for plagiarism, checks documents, copyright, credit, crime, essay, expelled, fail, failed, fined, hard cover books, Internet, iPlagiarismCheck, iPlagiarismCheck report, journal, millions of documents, Music, offer, online, online publications, package, packages, patented algorithm, PDF, plagiarism, plagiarized, posts, print, professional, professor, report, service, soft cover books, Software, stolen work, student, students, teacher, theft, thesis, website, websites, write, Writing

I want to go back to the Dominican Republic

August 13, 2007 by Tricia

I think after my busy weekend and considering how dragged out I’m feeling it would be really nice to have a holiday. Ok, I can dream can’t I?

If we were going to take a vacation I think it’d be nice to go to the Caribbean. My husband has been to Europe (I haven’t), but he’s never been to any of the Caribbean islands. What a shame! My brother used to LIVE in the Caribbean and I feel very thankful that as a young teenage I was able to visit him for a whole summer.

Imagine that? A whole summer on a Caribbean island. What I wouldn’t give to do that once more!

The island I was lucky enough to live on briefly was the Dominican Republic. I also visited Haiti while in the D.R. I suppose I should expand my travel experiences and visit other Caribbean Islands but I just adored Dominican Republic, it’s friendly people, the mountains, the beaches, the food – everything. So, yes, I want to go back. Plus, it would be interesting to see how much the places that I remember visiting have changed since I was last there. I know there’s a lot more resorts there now!

We lived in the small village of Bonao in the center of the country. However, each weekend we’d visit popular areas of Dominican Republic such as the capital city Santo Domingo. I loved going to the markets, buying amber jewelery, embroidered clothing and tasty treats like tamarind balls. Yummy. A sweet and sour treat that’s absolutely delicious.

Also, when I think of fantastic ice cream I always remember the ice cream I had while in Dominican Republic. Their vanilla ice cream was the best I’ve ever tasted and believe me- I’m not a fan of Vanilla ice cream, but I’d eat D.R. vanilla ice cream again. Oh and the chocolate ice cream too … it had a hint of nutmeg spice in it I believe. I’m a chocolate lover and I swear that was the best chocolate ice cream ever.

If you ever go to the Dominican Republic you should visit the beaches of Puerto Plata, Susua, and the city of Santiago as well as the capital Santo Domingo. The island has a rich history and culture. I’m sure that you’d have an enjoyable time there between the resorts, fantastic beaches, tasty food and I believe, some of the friendliest people in the world.

I love the island and I suppose it’s no wonder I do. It was a teenage fantasy to live on an island like that for a summer. I learned how to Salsa and meringue while there, and my brother hired one of the local residents to teach me Dominican Spanish which I still remember how to speak to this day. Why wouldn’t I want to go back.

You can learn more about Dominican Republic and all the Caribbean islands if you visit the first link in this post. It’s a guide to the Caribbean and it has great information about each islands culture, geography, activities, and all of the island attractions. You’ll even find information on how to get to the various Caribbean islands, hotels and resorts on the Caribbean guide. It’s definitely a site worth bookmarking if you’re trying to decide which island to vacation on.

For now I’ll just dream of my time in the D.R. and hope that I’ll soon be able to plan a vacation there with my husband. I’d love to show him the whole Country since I think I’ve been just about every where in the Dominican Republic.

Filed Under: Culture, Home and Lifestyle, Life with Chris, Recreation, Services, Vacation and Travel Tagged With: activities, attractions, beach, brother, caribbean guide, caribbean information, caribbean islands, Culture, Dominican Republic, Food, friendly people, guide, holiday, hotel, husband, information, language, lived in Dominican Republic, Summer, travel, vacation, visiting, weekend

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