If you’ve had the same e-mail address for more than a couple of months than you are probably already receiving a lot of  email.  Some of those emails are useful, but most of them are probably unwanted.  Well, here are four daily emails that I think you should voluntarily sign up for to save some money.

1.  GROUPON

Groupon is one that you probably already know about.  With Groupon you will get a daily e-mail with deals specific to your area.  A typical Groupon deal would be for something like 50% off a round of miniature golf, or dinner and a show.  I like the Groupon emails because they are for discounts on things that I wouldn’t otherwise think to check out.  I’ve saved on things like Laser Tag, paintball, mini-golf, and others.

2.  Best Buy

You are most likely already familiar with Best Buy.  But you may not know about their Deal of the Day.  Best Buy features items that you typically see in their stores and on their website.  It’s not unusual to see CDs for $2.99, DVDs for $4.99, and Xbox games for $8.99.  There are also computes, TVs, and such other items.

3.  Kindle Daily Deals

Kindle Daily Deals features discounts of 50%-80% on Kindle e-books.  I have purchased several good books for my Kindle at $0.99 and $1.99 from these daily deals.  Even if you are not currently looking for something to read, keep an eye on these deals and you may get a good deal on your next e-book.

4.  Woot Daily Digest

The Woot Daily Digest shows what is for sale on all of the Woot sites.  At Woot each site (main, kids, sports, home, etc)  sells one item a day.  The discounts offered make it worth reviewing the digest each day.  The main Woot site often offers electronics or computer equipment.

If you don’t want to sign up for these daily deals as e-mails, I’m pretty sure they are all available on Twitter also.

So, tomorrow makes 1 year ago that I graduated.  I already mentioned that I’ve been learning PHP this year.  I’m also trying to teach myself how to play guitar, we finished our basement at home, and I’ve done a bunch of reading.

PHP
In my prior post I linked to the phpacademy site which is the primary resource for learning PHP.  My first PHP project is mostly finished.  It has been a good experience.  I’ve not only learned the PHP language, but also the RTF file specification as the application outputs an RTF file.

Source: Wikipedia - Author: Derek K. Miller

Guitar

Since graduation I decided that I needed a hobby, so I chose to start learning guitar.   My main sources of instruction for this endeavor are Marty Schawtz’s youtube channel and justinguitar.com.  Due to all of the other items on this list, I haven’t had the time to learn and practice that I would like.  I can play a couple of simple songs and chords.  I hope to have much more time for this in 2013.
Basement
One big reason I haven’t done more on the guitar is that I was working on finishing my basement during much of the same time.  This was my first attempt at many of the tasks including laying the carpet on the floor and stairs.  I did a lot of youtube browsing to learn about wiring and electrical outlet and carpeting stairs.

ReadingI started out the year reading the Furies of Calderon which is the first book in the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher.  It is a fantasy series along the lines of the Lord of the Rings.  If you are not into fantasy, this may not be your cup of tea.  I’m currently reading the 5th book in this 6 book series and have really enjoyed it.  A book I think anyone would really like is Wool (pictured at right).  I specifically read Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1 – 5) on my Kindle.  It is a great story and I look forward to reading the prequels and sequels.  I’ve already recommended this book to several people.  They will thank me later, and so will you!

Trello
Finally I want to put a plug in for Trello.  Trello is the new web application we are using here in the office to manage our tasks and projects.  I really like the visual style of Trello and the drag-and-drop interface.  The video below does a good job of explaining how Trello works.  I don’t know why they don’t have it on their web site anymore.

Happy Holidays!

Today I am using my new Windows 7 PC that ITS brought over Friday. I just wanted to let you all know of an issue that I’ve experienced with the setup as delivered and the solution that I’ve found. Firefox was included which is good as that is my primary web browser. However, the menus were flickering and very difficult to use. I did some web searching and found the solution at this link: http://lifeonubuntu.com/firefox-dropdown-menus-are-flickering-on-2nd-monitor/. Spoiler alert, the answer is to turn off hardware acceleration.  This has completely solved the problem for me and does not appear to be effecting the performance at all.

A week ago when I was watching the new show The Walking Dead on AMC I thought they were referring to the zombies as Geeks, and this week’s episode confirmed it.  What’s up with that?  Why call the zombies Geeks while at the same time never calling them zombies?  I have a couple of thoughts.

• They are just desperate for any name other than Zombie and Walker is a bit boring to use all the time.
• It seems that Geeks (in the sense that I use the word in this blog) are more interested in Zombies than the average person and they are just trying to reinforce the connection.
• The writers just don’t like Geeks, creative types vs. logical types.
• It’s explained in the comic book if I’d just bother to Google it.

I wonder if there is a blog for people that walk for exercise that has an issue with the “Walker” name?  It’s a good TV show, even my non-zombie obsessed wife is watching and enjoying it.  Zombie movies that I’d recommend include 28 Days Later (while not technically zombies they are very similar except that they are really fast which makes them more terrifying), Zombieland (part comedy), Shawn of the Dead (spoof), Night of the Living Dead (the original).  I don’t get to watch a lot of zombie movies so I’m sure I’m missing some big ones.  Feel free to sound off in the comments with your favorite zombie movie or “Geek” theory.