Wabler's Blog http://www.nandcc.com/blog Websites and other things that are worth writing about on the web because they either inspired me or suck horribly... Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:06:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 en I am determined to find more coupons http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/10/i-am-determined-to-find-more-coupons/ http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/10/i-am-determined-to-find-more-coupons/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:06:47 +0000 Wabler http://www.nandcc.com/blog/?p=51 I am now in a hunt for coupons. I have seen sites like coupons.com but find they often do not provide real coupons, or I have to sign up for things, or I have to download their “coupon” printer program.

Part of me has serious problems with this, because the programs they want me to download give me that “it’s probably spyware” feeling. I will probably have to create a virtual machine and test them out on there. (updates about this later).

Until then, here are my ideas for getting more coupons:

  1. The sunday paper provides a bunch. Mostly these coupons are whatever the companies are trying to push this week, so they often do not have coupons for things I need. I clip the ones I typically buy, and leave all the other ones.
  2. The websites of the people who put coupons in the sunday paper.
    1. P&G - Proctor and Gamble
    2. Smart Source - They have a coupon printer as well. More likely to try this one than others.
    3. Red Plum - This company’s website is terrible. Half the things don’t work, and the ones that do take forever to load. I tried to register and when I did I got server errors, and “you are not registered yet”. I contacted their customer support, they were less than useless.

I will post more information as I find it.

]]> http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/10/i-am-determined-to-find-more-coupons/feed/ The moment of Truth http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/09/the-moment-of-truth/ http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/09/the-moment-of-truth/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:46:26 +0000 Wabler http://www.nandcc.com/blog/?p=50 My opinion is that this show is probably the worst most devious show on television.  Not only is it geared to cause controversy and ruin people’s lives and their families, it does a really good job of it.

They ask subjective questions and require objective answers.  It is completely screwed.

I want to say that I don’t understand why or how they can do this, but I know that the reason is ratings.  The only thing they could do more controversial than ask these people these questions is video tape the contestants and then “creatively” edit the video to make them look guilty.

I watched one episode and I am completely disgusted.

]]> http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/09/the-moment-of-truth/feed/ Secret Shopper Sites http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/08/secret-shopper-sites/ http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/08/secret-shopper-sites/#comments Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:29:55 +0000 Wabler http://www.nandcc.com/blog/?p=23 This is an incomplete list, if you have more Please put them in the comments.

Here are my secret shopper lists. there are a few rules that I have with secret shopper sites:

  1. I am working for them, and they are taking money from what I earn, so I will NOT pay them to get the jobs.

Don’t Use:

  1. Shadow Shopper
    1. Send me emails constantly about jobs that are available. In these emails there are abbreviated descriptions of the jobs, and links to go online.
    2. When I go online, the only way to see the jobs, or accept them, is to pay shadow shopper some money.
]]> http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/08/secret-shopper-sites/feed/ Coupon Sites and Free Stuff http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/07/coupon-sites-and-free-stuff/ http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/07/coupon-sites-and-free-stuff/#comments Tue, 08 Apr 2008 01:28:22 +0000 Wabler http://www.nandcc.com/blog/?p=24 This is an incomplete list, and it was started a while ago. I was not able to finish it, but if you could help me by submitting more sites in the comments, I would appreciate it.

Coupon sites would be great if thats what they really were, people trying to help other people save money. Instead there are some very well known sites that want you to download some “printing” software just to get the coupons. Being a web developer, I am confident in saying that this is unnecessary, and it more than likely comes with some tracking software that the “coupon” site is getting paid for every person they get to install the software. Until I found out differently this is my stance.

DO NOT USE THESE:

  1. cool savings dot com
    1. This site purports that it is a coupon site with lots of savings. I found hundreds of advertisements, and about 50 coupons. But you have to install their software, which is something I will not do.
    2. Tried to change my email address, and the server script died with an error
  2. Eversave dot com
    1. Supposedly a great coupon site, but between the small amount of coupons, the advertisements, and the required printing software I did not find something I like.
  3. Your Product Samples
    1. Just a way for them to make you go through their sponsor advertisements, I bet if you wanted the thing they are offering for free, you could go to that company’s home page and get it there without all the bull…
  4. Quality Health dot com
    1. This site may be a good resource for health information, I dont know. I filled out like 8 surveys and never saw anything from it. I would say this is not worth it if you are looking for money or prizes

MAYBE:

  1. Freebie Pal
    1. Registered with an email address, they approved my registration but said that the email could not be validated. So I tried a different email and never received the registration confirmation link.
  2. Let the Deals Begin
    1. This site seems like it could be good, but so far they have not given me anything that I can use, there were advertisements and lead me to the be the boss network (see my “Surveys: Sites that are not worth it” Post)
]]> http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/07/coupon-sites-and-free-stuff/feed/ Have you ever been screwed? http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/06/have-you-ever-been-screwed/ http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/06/have-you-ever-been-screwed/#comments Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:14:08 +0000 Wabler http://www.nandcc.com/blog/?p=49 If you have, and you need to vent you should head over to Get Screwed By.  You can read how other people are getting screwed and send in your story for inclusion on the site.

]]> http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/06/have-you-ever-been-screwed/feed/ Do you have heartburn? http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/04/do-you-have-heartburn/ http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/04/do-you-have-heartburn/#comments Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:14:03 +0000 Wabler http://www.nandcc.com/blog/?p=48 Ok, I couldn’t help but post this… The networks have been plastering commercial time with this one for almost a week now.

If you have heart burn you should try prescription Aciphex.  That’s right it is pronounced “Ass-effects”.

You know what, If I have heartburn, I’m probably having some ass effects as well.

Here’s the youtube video of the commercial: Aciphex video

]]> http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2008/04/04/do-you-have-heartburn/feed/ a quote http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2007/07/30/a-quote/ http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2007/07/30/a-quote/#comments Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:12:32 +0000 Wabler http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2007/07/30/a-quote/ “Just because your lost, doesn’t mean to say that your compass is broke” - Anthony Hopkins in “The Edge”

]]> http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2007/07/30/a-quote/feed/ Ok…this is ridiculous http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2007/07/26/okthis-is-ridiculous/ http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2007/07/26/okthis-is-ridiculous/#comments Fri, 27 Jul 2007 03:55:28 +0000 Wabler http://www.nandcc.com/blog/2007/07/26/okthis-is-ridiculous/ I have probably filled out 100-150 surveys so far.

More than half I screw up and don’t qualify for them, I also know which sites will ask me 30 minutes of questions, and don’t pay me adequately for the time, so I intentionally fail those. Sounds counter-productive…but in actuality its not because I am getting like 40-50 emails that are being classified into “surveys” in my gmail account every 1-2 days. Thats alot of emails. Also, I am getting 100-300 spam emails. I have gotten to the point where I just scan them and hope something important doesn’t get skipped.

Ok, so since I mentioned or think I mentioned something about time and surveys being worth that time, in the last 100 words I typed I am posting a screen shot of a survey I am currently engaged in. It has what feels like a freakin’ million radio buttons. I am starting to hate radio buttons and will do anything I can to avoid them and checkboxes on forms I build online, from now on. This is one of 5 pages just like it I have seen so far in this survey…oh god….:

Huge radio list

Do you want to fill that out? I don’t. Thats why I stopped to make a blog post about it, that seemed more interesting than doing to high-school cop out: answering C for everything.

You: “There’s no ‘C’ on there”

Me: “There’s a third answer!”

Ninja Edit : I got to the next page and my carpel tunnel freaked out…this one’s bigger and worse. Thumb-nailed to fit in the page. This one is 33 x 9 = 297 inputs… I feel bad for me…I feel worse for the guy who had to write the backend processing for this form.

Oh man this is huge

So….After all this, I played a stupid flash game, and was given tickets that I can put into a drawing for specific prizes…unless i win cash when I finally put my tickets in, this crud was not worth it.