• PunBB
• vBulletin® - Instant Community
• Who’s Your Blogging Idol?
• The Digital Lifestyle
• 12 Ways to Be a More Interactive and Accessible Blogger

• HP Mini - HP Mini-Note PC - HPMINI.COM
• GottaBeMobile - Saying Farewell to the HP 2133 Mini-Note - Tablet PC & UMPC News & Video Reviews, and Tablet PC / UMPC Forums
• jkOnTheRun: Mobile tech makes my father’s weekend

Well aside the (hopefully obvious) fact that I truly enjoy reading, I wanted a Kindle to have easy access to books. See I like reading and I am looking at the Kindle in a similar way as the iPod is to the iTunes Store. With iTunes, I can almost instantly purchase some new music, and while this has caused me to spend more money than I wanted to from time to time, it comes down to convenience.

With the Kindle I think I will miss (at least for a while) the feel of an actual book in hand, but it will give me access to get a new book at anytime and from anywhere. I used to like to go to bookstores and just browse around, well I still do, but sadly there is not a large bookstore anywhere close to me, and I do order from Amazon, but sometimes I just want the book at that moment, similar to how I could have it if I went to the bookstore.

Time will tell if I end up liking or disliking the Kindle, but the main reason I bought it is for the easy and all-the-time access to new books. I think it will actually encourage me to read more, not that I really need that, but still I hope it will prove a good expense.

• 420 Money Bomb
• Liliputing: Report: Windows XP runs (almost) perfectly on the HP 2133 Mini-Note

• Blogging For Dollars: Take a tour inside a blogger sweat shop

• Battle of the AIR Apps: Twhirl vs. Alert Thingy - ReadWriteWeb
• Ten typographic mistakes everyone makes | Life, Tutorials | Receding Hairline

This thought came to me when I was doing my taxes, a dreaded task, but that aside it turned out to not be as bad as I expected. But moving on from there I was asked what I do for employment so they could classify it with that numeric code.

And while I know what I do, its not always easy to explain to others. Aside from the recent question while getting my taxes done, this question also comes up time to time from people I see around.

Most people see me coming and going during the day, out at the bus stop in the morning, running various errands during the day, running or biking and then appearing at the bus stop again in the afternoon. I spend time in the evening out playing with my daughter when we can and always imagine that most of the people in my neighborhood who don’t really know me either think I have a night job or more than likely a bum who just stays at home.

While I really am not hung up on what others think, it does sometimes strike me as being funny. But on some level I would just rather have them think what they want, because when they do as that dreaded (What do you do?) question I can never get away without a long explanation.

I have two main jobs sources of income, they are:

1. Blogger
2. Virtual Call Center Worker

The second, while many people do not always fully understand for some reason is actually a lot easier to explain. People often tend to be more surprised at some of the big companies that I do work and have worked for that allow people to work from home answering both sales and customer service work. Basically a Virtual Call Center Worker is a call center worker who just works from a home office instead of a call center, we have almost all of the same setups, but its up to us to arrange for the services (phone line and Internet) and maintain the equipment (computer and phone). There are also strict rules requiring back ground checks and such before employment, as well as maintaining certain ongoing requirements, such as a traditional (non-Voip) phone line, back up high-speed internet as well as the more obvious like keeping your computer, which must be dedicated just for business use, in good working order.

As for the first source, blogging. This is where it gets tough and the answer really depends on who is asking. Mostly because a lot of people don’t understand what a blog is, and just think of blogging as something more along the lines of a personal journal and not a business. So sometimes I simply answer that I am a writer, or a web publisher both of which I don’t really think fit what blogging is, but seem easier for non-techies to understand.

I know I should be pro-blogger, because essentially that is what I consider myself, a blogger. But sometimes I just do not want to be bothered explaining what it is, of course if I took the time that could mean more potential good words about blogs and blogging and in turn allow the general public to stop thinking of blogs as just journals written by 15 year old girls.

Out of the two, I, as you can most likely guess prefer to blog, simply because it allows me total control over when and where I work and is something I can do from anywhere and anytime, as long as I have a connection to the Internet. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I hope to continue to rely more on blogging and less on virtual call center work moving into the future with hopes to expand my blogging.

Well with that let me get back to blogging (as a job).

As you can see from the above screenshot I placed my order for an HP Mini-Note on April 12, 2008 and at the time was given an estimated shipping date of today (April 18) and sadly there has not been any mention from HP concerning my shipment. I checked my bank account to see if my card had been charged and nothing, thinking it was a little strange I then logged into the View Order Status page on HP.com only to have it get worse.

I saw that my order was indeed placed, as confirmed by my initial email and the listing (as seen above) but when I clicked on the “View” button I was presented with this lovely message.

I saw “not found in the Vista” and can only imagine what that really means, but promptly picked up the phone and gave HP a call, after only being on hold for a short few minutes I was surprised to get an agent, but it just left me with a bad feeling.

The agent asked me for my order number, then put me on hold to check, she came back in just about a minute and told me she would have to get back to me in a few hours because she needed to check on it. So now I sit here and wonder when and if I will receive my shipment notification. Its now been those few hours and sadly I do not think it will be shipping today.

• Valleywag Fires Writer Who Criticized Valleywag
• ProBlogger the Book - Sample Chapter Now Available

…make me want to continue blogging here and in other places.

Back when I first started blogging (and podcasting) it was always in my mind to have a huge readership and I always wanted to be the biggest and worried often about the numbers. But with that I became frustrated and eventually lost focus on what was important and that is building a community or a group of friends. Whether big or small I believe community should be your main focus.

The comment that I am referring to is from my post entitled: What to do with areyouageek (?) and came from Nick.

“No matter what you decide to call this blog, I look forward to seeing what you’re planning to do.

Good luck!”

Thanks!