Paul Monaco .com

You’ll notice on the top left corner of this page a little widget that links to our virtually live broadcast. For those of you that haven’t noticed yet.. are there any?  We’ve teamed up with uStream.tv to put on a live streaming broadcast.  Our show schedule is still a bit sketchy as we iron out a few technical glitches, but our Live Page will have the latest programming information.  Keep the link handy, you never know what you’ll catch me doing!

Also don’t forget our webcam page, this is a traditional low-bandwidth webcam that snaps random images at random times of whatever the camera happens to be aiming.

Like just about everyone who’s put up any type of web content, I too have been lured into looking at companies that promise you a way to make money with your site.  Believe me, I’ve look at many and as most of you can imagine most programs are either geared towards the mega sites with daily clicks into the tens of thousands, require you to “buy in” to a program or simply vanish before every paying.

I promised myself long ago that I would no longer bite at these offers, but I noticed a very reputable blogger started posting the occasional sponsored ad and thought I’d just look into it.  I signed up for the program and waited….  and waited… and waited.  Hmm.. no response, I began to have my doubts but thought I’d give their support folks a shot.  Wow.. a nearly immediate reply!!!  Any company can provide a service, but one that can take care of things efficiently when something goes wrong… now that impresses me!!!  Sure enough, a small technical web-related snag delayed my submission and now my site was approved and I was ready to be a posite!

I still didn’t get my hopes up.. so I posted a modest entry for them and waited.  Next thing I knew there’s a deposit from them in my PayPal account!!!  Wow!!!  Hey mom, this works!!!

Those that know me are very familiar with my skepticism.  It takes quite a bit for me to be impressed with something and even more to go as far as recommend it to my friends.  But I can say without a doubt that if you are looking to monetize your website, PayPerPost is certainly worthy of your attention.

It’s been about 8-years or so since I’ve actually purchased a computer for myself.  Sure I’ve had numerous “company” computers in my posesion to use and have piece-mealed a few frankentowers together but nothing that was really mine that I could expect to last for any length of time. 

So I went out shopping for a laptop (I’ve really grown to like them!) .. I took a day off of work just for this task, so I’d have pleanty of time to fine one and set it up with all my “stuff”.  

I struck out at my first stop Staples, an office supply superstore type place.  They had a great selection but when I asked a sales rep which ones were in stock he said “I didn’t work this weekend, I have no clue” and he didn’t seem eager to make any efforts to help me any further other than to point out their add-on warranty.  So.. off to the bank (I wanted to pay cash and the debit card has a maximum daily spending limit of $400 which I was sure to top).

Store number two, BestBuys.  Ahh.. anything that was not in stock was labled right on the tag, no need for a salesperson though one was at the ready.  I looked at the Sony Viao.. the model they had was a low-end variety and the keyboard looked like that of an old TRS-80 color computer. Next up was a 15.4″ Gateway.  Hmm… A little bigger then I had in mind but nice Intel specs…  still not really up on Gateway.  Then a slick glossy black number with bright blue lights and a remote control jumped out at me… an HP Pavilion dv2615nr with built in web-cam.  I was in love but uh oh.. AMD?  You see years ago there was some crazy CPU chip shortage and prices zoomed thru the roof.  To save money at work I went with an AMD product and let’s just say it turned out to be a really bad move.  But in all fairness that was another time and I was ready to set aside my fears.

Now that it’s home, and running for a few weeks.. I’m more that satisfied.  It even outperforms the work-machine it replaced.  It’s not gaming machine, but I can still run MS Flight Simulator X without all the graphics options turned up and The Sims Online just performs stellarly!!

Oh and 8 years ago.. that machine I got.. it was an eMachine T4200 running 2-GHz on a Pentium IV chip which with only a memory and video card upgrade is still holding it’s own.