Many bloggers have this crazy idea that all they need to do to acquire free products is set up a blog and then bug advertisers and PR reps for free stuff in exchange for promotional posts. And while it’s true that advertisers and PR reps usually are looking for promotional content and will happily compensate bloggers who write content for them with free stuff, a little more goes into it. First of all, you need a decent blog that has a halfway decent Alexa ranking, a Google PR of at least 1 (or 2 or 3 or even 4!), and traffic. After all, what good is promotional content on a blog if no one is there to read it?

Just as importantly, you should seek out free products to review and/or give away that have relevance to you. If you live in an unsafe area and are concerned about home safety or vandalism, then a set of wireless security cameras might be a great choice. Likewise, if you live in the country, solar-powered porch lights would be a great choice. If you’re artistic, then drawing art supplies are definitely worth reviewing.

When requesting a product for review, be sure to present to the advertiser arguments for why you’re a good choice. Make sure you provide information on your site’s traffic and demographics, and be sure to provide a timeline for when you think you can have a post completed for them. Good luck!

I took my children and my brother to the mall tonight. Christmas music was playing, lights were ablaze, and Santa was there. We didn’t stop to see Santa, but only because I want my kids to be wearing something nicer than everyday clothing when I’m paying $15 for a photo with Santa Claus. One store was handing out coupons disguised as Christmas invitations, which I took because the coupons themselves are a good deal. Also, they’re redeemable on a day when the store will be offering a variety of promotions and freebies, so why not? I’m all about Christmas, shopping, and saving money!

Speaking of Christmas cards, I need to work on getting mine out! I typically drop mine in the mail the week of Thanksgiving. In past years I was a little more tardy, one year going so far as to not get the cards mailed until the 18th of December. Oops. :/ But I’ve gotten much better since then. My goal this year is to mail them on November 23rd, so they’ll start arriving as early as Black Friday! When do you mail yours?

Another busy week has gone by, and now I can relax, but only momentarily, because I am totally going out tonight. Only I’m not going out for fun, per say, but rather for the purpose of purchasing Christmas gifts in preparation for Christmas. Even thought Christmas is about seven or eight weeks away, my Christmas shopping is only about a third of the way done, which means that my husband and I need to buckle down and get a move on with purchasing gifts.

Purchasing gifts for my side of the family is easy enough: there’s only my mother and two brothers. But my husband’s side of the family is a different story. He has four siblings, several aunts, a few uncles, two cousins, and a set of grandparents. Throw his brothers’ fiance and girlfriend in the mix, a few of our friends, and some acquaintances, and that equals a lot of people to buy for. Ahh! Hopefully my wallet can take the hit.

Spurred by the recent arrests at various Occupy Wall Street movements, a dude has put together an Android app that with one click will send out a pre-formatted message to anyone of your choosing, via SMS numbers. The message, by default, alerts recipients to the fact that the sender is being arrested, but presumably this message can be updated to reflect text of your choosing. I found out about this app when I was reading over some recent posts at Search Engine Watch. At first I laughed. But then I sobered up — it’s actually kind of sad that there may be a need for an app such as this, at least in the case of peaceful demonstrators who are being arrested for no apparent reason.

You can download the app on your Android phone or tablet. Check out the Android Market description for more information.

Up until two years ago I was an avid user (read: devoted slave) to Mozilla Firefox. It worked perfectly for me, and the thousands of available add-ons ensured that if Firefox itself did not offer a particular functionality, there’d be a third party way to add it on. Then the browser started acting slow. And took forever to start up. And crashing. This was happening on both my desktop computer and my laptop computer. Two different computers with completely different types of hardware, yet the issue persisted.

Needless to say, it wasn’t long before I switched to a browser I had been hearing more and more about, Google Chrome. And now here I am, two years later, just as in love with Google Chrome as before. It’s a very nice browser, and one I highly recommend you say hello to! Boo to Firefox.