Category Archives: blogs

Understanding the divide

blogs, Bootstrap, Business, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Government, Inspiration, The World

The natural drive of people is different but can generally put into two categories.  There are some people who are driven to survive and others who are driven to succeed.  When it comes to life there are two vastly different attitudes that exist.  It is based on what you want out of life.  Do you want to be someone who wants to reach for the stars, make your dreams happen and take risks to do it, or are you the second type the ones that want to survive, have a happy life that you can enjoy.  This fundamental difference in attitude creates our great debate of how society should be structured.   Countless movies and books have been made about this subject.

In most of the world the survive mentality has taken hold.  People work to just earn enough so that they can live.  People want to be taken care of, they want to have a “fair” society, they work, and give a large amount of their earnings to the government, in exchange the system gives them guaranteed housing, food, health care, and leisure.   For people who lack ambition this is the dream society.  And of course, billions of people on this planet love the idea.  But then there are other people.  Men and women of who have a dream to be better than the norm, to make an impact on the world.  They want to build an empire and make it or fail on their own merit.  They want the government to stay out of their way. 

America was created by the dreamers and the ambitious, the people who came to America did so because of the promise that it offered.  Even though the ambitious are in the minority of the world population, they were the vast majority in the USA.  That is how we became exceptional, that is how we became the most successful nation in the history of the world.  This is how we became great.  The idea of a great America was not the idea it was great for everyone, but the idea that it is great for the ambitious, the dreamers, the empire builders.   And that has been taken away from us, little by little over the last 100 or so years.   But the seed that was sown into our great nation is being strangled.  American attracted the best, the boldest of the world.  Our nation was built on the idea that anyone here could rise above where they were born and build their Empire.  This is why New York is called the Empire state, it was the place to go to have the ultimate freedom and connections to be successful, and if anywhere has fallen the most it must be New York. 

The idea of empire is in jeopardy from the other group.  The millions who came here, not due to ambition, but by the desire to survive.  Some were forced to come long ago, others came from the poverty of the world not looking to build something but just because anything was better than where they were from.  The largest part of those who don’t go after ambition are the children who grew up in this prosperity, who had everything handed to them, who were told that everything they did was great.  They want a country that takes care of them.  It is sad now that for most ambition and the dreams of empire no longer exist.  They simply want to live a life where everything is given to them.  Then at the same time they see the rich, and the successful and they form tons of envy, they want that handed to them also, they talk of wealth inequality or injustice of every type.  They think life should be fair, but for them they are already well better off than the average human on this planet.  They have no idea how it is to live in India, or Africa, and how most people on the earth fight every day to survive, and yet we have a generation that is unhappy they can’t earn $15 an hour for almost no contribution to society, they are unhappy that they can’t have a nice car, a nice phone and still live in a nice house without working a decent job. 

Then we have an election, it is a very stark difference, on one side we have the people who believe in American exceptionalism and the idea that America should be a great place to build your empire.  Many people believe in this even they are personally too timid to ever do it for themselves, but they want the option to be there, for them or their kids.  On the other side we have the people who think that America should be a place that gives everyone what they need, no matter their contribution to society, that we need to be a fair and just society, where the rich pay for those who just want to live a life of leisure, they want a living wage enforced by the government and they want all of their creature comforts paid for and guaranteed no matter what they contribute to society.    It is a stark difference, and the way things are going we need to pray for the future of our nation. 

Life is so unfair….

blogs, Business, Inspiration

Life is so unfair……and I am glad it is. We are so lucky to be in the position we are in this world. We have enough freedom to conduct business, we can use our mind to focus on higher things than survival, most in the world can not do so, 2 Billion people don’t even have clean water to drink. Half of the world does not even have a bed to sleep in, they sleep on a mat on the floor or something like that. We need to thank God every day for what we have, and remember to help others out.

I am so blessed to be here, in the US, and have the chances I have to be successful. It was work, but mostly mental work, something that 80% of the people on this planet never even get the chance to do because their situation is hard. It does not matter how smart you are, or how creative, in most of this world the system will eat you alive. But in America is it only your perception of the system that exists that holds you back, everyone, who has the mental skills, can learn the system that makes success happen, and with mental and physical work get that success. The problem is that many people are taught the wrong things, and many are too busy making a living to make a life. Some may call it white privilege, but really is it American privilege, and anyone here can take advantage of it. No one know this more than the smart person who comes from another country, where they don’t have the ability to use their mind and be successful. This is why many business people who come from other countries are very successful here. It does not matter the color of your skin.

For many years I was VERY frugal, most of my friends would joke about it, but I wanted to spend way less than I made, I wanted to take that money and put it into my business. Yes I took calculated risks and almost every one worked out. Looking back I wish I took more risks, God was always there to protect me. I spent hours every night for years, reading books and changing my mindset. But more importantly I spent time talking with and being around other successful people. Finally now in 2020, everything is finally coming together, I can be less frugal, and some of the risks are paying off well.

If you are in America, and you want success, it is within your grasp…read the right book, take the risks, be your own boss….never trade your time for a wage. Buy other people’s time at wholesale prices and sell it at retail prices. Buy stuff at wholesale prices and sell it at retail prices. Market inefficiency is your friend. But everyone has time to be better, most people have at least 5 hours a day that is yours to decide what you do with it. How you spend this time is what shapes your future. Do you spend it watching TV? Do you spend it playing video games? Or do you spend it learning how the world works, how to be a better human, how to make the world a better place.

Why do you do what you do?

blogs, Business, Computers, concepts, Entrepreneurship, how to, Inspiration, ,

Today I have been thinking about WHY I run this business.  Most people spend so much time on how they are going to do things, and What they are going to do.    Today, I wrote this and printed it out and posted it on my office wall, “Focus on Why we do what we do, If you do it for the right reasons What you do and How you do it will fall in line and success will follow.”

When I moved my business to its much bigger location I have only a rough idea of what we would be doing.  I had a few basic ideas of areas where money could be made, because I was already making money in those areas and my old business made money in those areas, but I was open to doing something else.  It turns out that now my most profitable part of my business was something I never did at my old shop.  It now accounts for 60% of sales and over 80% of profits, that is recycling computer products.

Once you know the what the “HOW” is very simple and obvious.  But I am here to talk about the Why….why do I do what I do?  Why am I a business owner and don’t have a job, why do I choose to work with technology?  For me that “WHY?” comes down to a few key things that I believe.

First I loved technology, it is always amazing to find out what is new, and to be able to actually play with it, not just read about it.  By owning a computer store I get the ability to design and build things for clients, forcing me to become an expert many different tech issues.

Next, I must have adventure  I also have found that I don’t like to spend much time on things once I figure them out, and technology is ever changing, allowing me to always be engaged.  For example here are some things I have done in the last month, I took apart a top of the line new Asus ultra-thin laptop to see what was inside, it was amazing how it is more like a Cell phone than a laptop.  I have explored new database ideas for WordPress, and how to import from XLS files to make carts on something that was designed for blogs.  I have had time to play new games. I played a lot with running windows 8 on a big screen TV with wireless keyboard, touchpad.  And the list goes on and on.  Every day is a new adventure, always learning and always teaching.

Next I love to share my passion for tech with others.  Spending time showing someone the new gadget, or the next big thing in the tech world is something that I love.  I also love to help people, to give them tools to make their life and their business better, then I love to see them a few months later and how what I did really changed their life.

Next I love a good deal.  I love to find good deals, I love to share them and I love to give them to others.  It is so fun when I can do something for someone better than they thought it could be done and under the price they thought it could be done in.  The side effect of this is that we have never been highly profitable.  I am always giving people deals and slashing prices.  For me it is often more about the sale than the profit, I have sold many things well below cost to make someone happy.  Recently I have been forced to charge most people a bit more to cover costs.

Those are the reasons I am in the IT industry, but now I think “WHY?” did I do it on my own instead of working for someone else.  Well I really enjoy my freedom, I also highly value spending time with my Family and friends.  I love to be able to sleep in a bit, knowing my shop is taken care of, then spend some time with the kids while they are still kids, and then be able to take them and my wife to work with me.  It is nice to be able to take time off when I need it.  I also like it when people count on me, when I can show someone…”Yes I built that”.

I guess it all comes down to the fact that if you love what you do then it never seems like work.  Most of the time it does not feel like work, it feels like fun.  There are there rare times where I told a client Yes to something I should not have because it is something I don’t like to do or don’t want to learn, and in those cases I have found that subcontracting is a great idea.

So what is your “Why”?  If you are in business, why are you in business, why did you do what you do, and why do you do it the way that you do it.  If you have a job, then why do you work where you work, does it fit in with who you are?  If the main answer to your “WHY?” is money then you will likely never live a very happy or fulfilled life.  Now-a-days there is also a large part of our population that lives off the government, why do you feel entitled to do that?  If you served in the military, or if you are retired after 45 years of work I can see why you would feel that way, but many feel entitled who need neither of these.  Do you feel that you could have somewhere else to serve, to make this world better?

You should work to make the most of your short life here, and doing things with no reason why is one of the easiest ways to waste your life.  Here are some questions that really helped me focus on what is important…Why do you surf the internet so much, do you really need to read Facebook that many times per day, do you really need to watch that TV show, what will you get out of playing that video game.

Watch what you do and see if it lines up with your why.

A Special thanks goes to today’s episode of the Glenn Beck show for getting my thinking about this again.

 

My take on windows 7….

blogs, Business, Computers, The World,

Today I got my hands on Windows 7.  I have used it a few times in the past just to do a task and it always worked just like Vista.  Today I had the chance to install it on a computer that I own.  Here are my impressions.  

The install was almost exactly like Vista, many of the screens were exactly the same except a different background.  It seems to have taken about the same amount of time as Vista to install.  The installed size was 6GB smaller than when I install Vista.  When it came up it looked almost like vista, except the icons on the QuickLaunch were larger.  But then after more examination I noticed that it is a hybrid sort of QuickLaunch, putting programs that are running and those that are not on the same bar.  Basically you see the icon and when the program is running it draws a box around the icon.  If you run more than one it draws more boxes out to the right.  If a program is running and you click the icon again it minimizes the application.  You can right click and select the program name again to launch a second copy.  If more than one is running and you click on the icon it will show you a thumbnail of each copy that is running.  Not a bad way to do things, but will take some getting used to that is for sure.  I am not sure that I really like this idea, and there is no option to do it the old way.

The major thing I noticed is that it was almost exactly like vista.  Almost every menu is exactly the same.  The Gadgets that come with the OS are all the same, except they added a launcher for Media Center, and you can zoom some gadgets to make them bigger and provide more info.  The games that come with the OS are the exact same group that comes with Vista, and the screen saver list is even shorter.  I was really looking for a really nice new screensaver or game idea, but alas there is not one.

Some really nice things I noticed about the OS is that is DOES seem to be quite a bit faster.  AVG installed much faster.  Also when it connected to a network it automatically started to set up sharing.  No more having to turn on sharing in 5 different places in Vista to get it to share something.  Also it has a really cool feature where it changes the background every few minutes, really making it seem alive, and it was very easy to download themes online.  There also was a large amount of great sound themes installed from the get go, much nicer than vista.

Another feature that I have been wishing that windows had for many years is the ability to simply make EVERYTHING bigger.  Before windows 7 if you wanted to make everything bigger the only real way to do it was to use a lower resolution, but this was so bad, especially on LCD monitors, it would make things blurry and such due to not having a 1 to 1 ratio between the resolution and the native pixels on the screen.  If you wanted to make things bigger you had to do things in many different location.  And vista and xp considered the resolution part of the hardware, so if one user changed it, it would be changed for all users.  Now with this zoom you can and should simply set your monitor to the highest resolution that it supports and then zoom for each user that needs it.  I did notice that some legacy gadgets that I installed did not scale, but everything else did.

Wireless was also easier to connect.  In vista you have to right click on the wireless, and choose to open the connection window, and there you can connect.  Now when you right click it shows a list of wireless networks and a connect button next to each one, so easy.  I also liked how all of the buttons were only white…I am not sure if I will still like that in a few days.  There are also many other minor changed that I have seen.  One thing it does by default now, something that I have been telling people to do for years, is that it puts all of the music, videos, public photos and such in a “Library” a place that all users have access to and it sets it up automatically for network shares, and such.  Very nice that it finally is automatic.  And to make it even better it even installed some modern codecs so that the videos actually play.

After installing a few progams I also noticed that there are many less confirmation dialog boxes, also the put all of those taskbar notifications together so that they bother you less.  3rd party notification are also put all in one area with no more annoying balloons.  I am sure many of the people I help will really like this.

Conclusion. This OS is basically the same as vista with a few nice and useful enhancements.  If you are installing an OS on a new computer I would go for Windows 7 for sure, there is no real down side at all.  But if I had a computer that was working great with Vista and I had to pay to upgrade I would really think twice, that the benefits are not enough for all the trouble.  All and all it is a good and stable OS, because it basically vista with a new interface, so no one should be afraid to upgrade like they were with vista.  If you still use XP, then WHAT ARE  YOU WAITING FOR, get windows 7, it should run on your computer and it MUCH better.

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Evony, a great distraction.

blogs, Computers, ,

So many people have been wondering why I have not been blogging for a long time.  Well one of the main reasons is that I have been totally distracted by a game that I found called Evony, it is really interesting.  It is a game where you build a city, you create the economy, then you build up armies and fight other people.  evonylogo

It is a lot like Age of Empires, even with similar graphics, but it takes place in “Real Time”.  Everything takes hours and hours to build, and some research things can take two weeks.  At first I did not like how it was so slow, then I started to like it.  It does not give people a major advantage by how many hours per day that they play, it is more designed for the person who wants to log on every day for 30 minutes and relax, just like me.  Some days I use it for more than 30 minutes, but other days I know I can set all the things to build and then spend a day or two away from the game.  Also because I fix computers and design websites most of the day I can sit here and do a few clicks on the game while waiting for software to install, or when I am on the phone.  It really is quite relaxing.

There are two nice things that make the game really interesting.  First is the market.  You can buy and sell resources with other players.  But what is really cool is that it is a true market, it works just like the stock market.  In fact the market interface is like E-Trade in the Nasdaq level 2 part.  You can see what other people are selling and bidding at and you can choose where to set your price.  You can even play the market and move prices up or down by moving huge volume, and then reverse the trend a bit later to make money.  I tried it a few times but it was too much work to do that.

evonymarketThe next really cool thing is that you join alliances, and your alliance will team up with other alliances and you organize to war against other people.  You also get to chat with your alliance members and after a while they start seeming like friends.  I have played a few other online multiplayer games but none of them really got me into it like this.  Our alliance has leaders and also people who think they can lead but fail, it is really a good microcosm of the business world.

So if you ever play you can look for me.  I am on server 7.  My username is AzDragon, and my towns are in a place called Lombardy.

There also is a good business lesson in Evony.  Basically that success comes from daily activity towards your goal, just like in business.  Every day for my business I place ads, make and receive phone calls, research the industry, and hopefully make sales.  In Evony, you build armies, upgrade buildings, and attack computer and human players.  But in both over time you get stronger and stronger, you start to have more and more success, and eventually you reach a point where you would be considered successful.

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My new blog…

blogs

Well I have moved my blog to my own server.  I have actually wanted to do this for a while because it is much more flexible and more powerful.   But on tuesday it become necessary because wordpress decided that my blog was just advertising.  I am sure they did not read it, because as most of my readers know there is very little advertising on here, and tons of great content, IMHO.

So I went off to recreate my blog.  I was able to install wordpress.org on my server with ease, took under a minute.  Then I found the theme I used before.  Then I started to look for my old blog entries, I was able to find over 100 online, and I have been reposting them into this blog using the original posting date.  For most of the entries the old cached version did not have the photos so they are missing now.  So far I have taken about 25 of my most recent entries and a few of the older more popular ones and put them back up.  It will be a long process to put them all up, and some older,  less relevant ones will not be reposted.

With the new location I decided to go with a new name, more of a brand name…. “The Biz Guy” is great, because that is what I want to be about business, but I wanted a more edgy name than the “The Business Blog”  I was able to update all my feeds to reflect the new location.  I will no longer get the 100-200 people a day I got from google, maybe google will find the new location, but I doubt it.

If you have linked to my blog, please update your links.  I really need the traffic now.

Thanks for the 2 years of readership.

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1 Year Blogging

blogs, Business, Computers, Inspiration, MLM, , , , ,

Well this year is now exactly 1 year old.  My first entry was on the date back in 2008.  It has been an interesting year.  I expected to blog much more than I actually did.  I have so many ideas but many of them are already written by someone else much better than I could do it.  Then other times I have a great idea for something that I want to share with the world, but I either don’t completly form the idea and I figure that I would rather wait, or else I forget about it by the time I get to a computer.  I have tried to bring up interesting topics, such as my series on MLM‘s and my series on computers.

I have found some interesting stats while I have been doing this.  First off my article on How to select a laptop, is by far the most popular one I have ever wrote.   It has been the most popular article EVERY week after I wrote it.  Other entiries also have stayed popular for months, such as my article about Gold Prices, and one about a new Nigerian Scam that they tried on me.

If you do not subscribe to this blog I hope that you would.  I have a lot of ideas and I am also working on blogging about my new business I am working on.  I would love for people to follow along tell me what they think.

Thank you to all of my readers, I hope nothing but success for you in the next year.

A change is coming.

blogs, Business, concepts, Entrepreneurship, how to, Inspiration, Money

For a while now I have not been blogging very, much.  The main reason for this was my leg injury which really limited the amount of time that I could sit at my computer.  I used the laptop but the letter O was missing until I just got a new keyboard for it.  This made my time on the computer much more limited and work took the highest priority.

I now know that another main reason for that was because of the feeling I had that my blog was restricting me.  Basically i started this as a business blog, but recently my thoughts have not been too much about business, it still all comes from a business perspective.  I feel that I have a lot of good things to say that people are interested in.  I am often wrong, and I also often come up with new ideas, and follow them to see where they go. I also felt that often other people did a much better job than I ever could do and they covered the topic I want to talk about better than I ever would so I then decide not to post on that topic, I will change that and just point out their brilliance, and tell my readers to read their articles.

I have noticed that the blogs entries that I liked they most, and the ones that were the most popular are the ones where I tried to explain or simplify a complex topic.  By far my blog entry on “How to buy a laptop” is the number one entry, followed by “How to Buy a Computer Monitor” and “The Mortgage Crisis in Plain English“.   So I have decided that I will post many more entries where I simply take a complex subject, analyze it, and put my opinion.  In some areas I am an expert but in most I am not, but one thing will stay true, I will try to focus on every topic from the perspective of an Entrepreneur.

So from this day forward I will strive to post on this blog much more often.  My leg is feeling better now, and I also now have the keyboard so I can post from the laptop also.  This will make it much easier.  With the new topic I feel that I will have much more to say, in fact I have a huge backlog of topics I want to write about.

New eBiz started, great so far.

blogs, Business, Computers, Entrepreneurship, Marketing

Hello.    I am working on a new and exciting entry into the world of eBiz right now.  I have been putting much of my attention on this project.  So far the results have been great.  I have built a simple site that talks about what we are doing.  We then hired a few commission only employees, gave them a stack of leads and a phone and they have been out killing it.  We have been operational now for 4 days and so far the sales have totalled over $1900.  We also have almost $2000 more in pending sales where people have said yes already.

With a 30% payout to the sales force, and a 20% cost for what we provide this looks like it will be a good deal for all of us.  I also feel that we are providing something that people really need.

More on this later, I have so much that I want to blog about but my time has really been limited.  The main factor is that about 10 days ago I injured my leg and it is very hard to sit at a computer for more than an hour or so, and when I do I usually focus on the most important work that needs to be done.  I am used to being on my PC about 10 hours a day and my recent average has only been 2 hours a day.   It is ok when I sit on a sofa but I simply don’t have a laptop I like right now, sold them all.

14 Choices

blogs, Business, Computers, concepts, Inspiration, Internet, Marketing, Politics, real estate, The World, ,

My Choices and Why.

You have the freedom of choice, you can choose who you do business with, where you shop and what you think and believe.  Every dollar you spend is a vote for the way that company does business, are you rewarding a company for having good prices or good policies.  The choice is yours.  The important part is the WHY, why do you choose to do these things.  It is very interesting to see what people pick and why they pick it.

Please post your what who and why on these following subjects.  If you pick more than one please state them.  Some are very important and some are trivial but will shine insight on how you think.

My Choice of Political Party (If none state why)
My Choice of Operating System
My Choice of Religion
My Choice of Grocery Store
My Choice of General Merchandise Store
My Choice of Vehicle
My Choice of Housing Type
My Choice of Primary Bank
My Choice of Brokerage Account
My Choice of Gas Station
My Choice of ISP
My Choice of TV Service (Bonus Entry)
My Choice of Wireless service
My Choice of Cell phone
My Choice of Drinking Water
My Choice of Browser (Bonus Entry)

If you fill this out and make a post with your answers please post a comment on the blog where this all started, at http://capitalactive.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/14-choices/ so that everyone can read it, if you don’t have a blog of your own then put your whole answer as a comment on that blog.  Simply copy and paste the above section to start your blog, then copy the subjects again and answer them.  Also use the tag “14 Choices”.

My Choice of Political Party (If none state why)
Republican.  I generally think that government should be smaller.  I think that the republican party still stands for smaller government.  Democrats stand for more services but more taxes, which is why people who need more services often vote democrat.  In general both parties mostly are the same on most issues.

My Choice of Operating System
I choose Windows Vista.  If you asked me a year ago it was Ubuntu, and before than windows xp.  The reason I use vista is because it is more stable than XP, able to run more things than XP, and simply works better than XP.  The reason I don’t use Ubuntu any longer is because I needed to be compatible with windows to run all the software I need for my business, and the games I like.  Too many things still did not run with Ubuntu, but as an OS for stability, and fun/ease of use Ubuntu was by far the best OS.  If I was making a computer to for office us and the internet I would go with Ubuntu for sure.

My Choice of Religion
I am a Christian. I have been my whole life, I grew up in it.  Mostly I still choose to be because I think it is the right choice for my life.  I think that it is true, and that Jesus actually did die for my sins.  It also gives a good way to live and a great community to be a part of.

My Choice of Grocery Store
This is complex for me, I choose different stores for different reasons.  I like a local store called LeeLee’s for asian food.  I also shop often at Fry’s (Owned by Kroger) for the sales, but the stuff that is not on sale is often too much money.  I also buy some items from walmart but often they are not a good deal on food.  My favorite store recently is Fresh and Easy.  They have great quality and they make home made meals you can just microwave, and if you use the coupons they always give out they really are cheap.

My Choice of General Merchandise Store
Well we find ourselves at Walmart at least 4 times a week.  The main reason is that they are only 200 yards away from our house.  I like target a bit more but they are simply too far, and they have too small of a food section, there is no super target near where I live.  Walmart seems to have at least 80% of the items I am looking for and usually at a good price.  They also usually have a good amount of stuff on clearance, I have noticed that prices change a lot there and there are a lot of things that are usually too much.

My Choice of Vehicle
The Vehicle I drive is a Pontaic Aztek.  It is an odd vehicle.  It is what is called a cross over.   I originally bought it because it had huge cargo space, good gas milage and it was high profile so I could see over all the cars out there.  I also really liked how unique it was and it was very comfortable for me to drive.  It has been, by far, the best vehicle I have ever owned, but it is getting older and I should replace it soon.

My Choice of Housing Type
I live in a nice large house, in the suburb of a Major US city.  I love close enough that I can go downtown is under 15 minutes yet far enough that it is nice and yuppie.  I bought a house larger than I needed so that I could rent rooms out if I wanted, and also have room for a large office and a workshop.  I don’t really care for houses too much because there is no community, no one here talks to each and I have only talked with my neighbors a few times.

My Choice of Primary Bank
My primary bank is really a Credit Union.  They are cheap, no fees and such, and they usually have no line or a very small line.  I also banks with Wells Fargo, US Bank and B of A just to have flexibility but none of them are my main bank.

My Choice of Brokerage Account
I have tried a few out there but I have stuck with eTrade for quite a while.  They have great software that gives you a ton of information.  Some other places out there have been advertising better prices for trade, and also have built great software tools so I may try them.

My Choice of Gas Station
By far I like QT (QuickTrip) the best.  They usually have good gas prices but the reason I like them is that their gas seems to work better in my Aztek.  I get better mileage when I use their fuel vs most other brands. I also really like their drinks, they have a ton of unique and very good drinks, including a Horchata shake, and a Hot Milk drink, both only $1.09 for a very large cup.

My Choice of ISP
Again the choice is clear, I choose Cox, they have the best service, best uptime and best prices.  Internet over Cable is always much better than DSL.

My Choice of TV Service
For this I also use Cox, they have a fairly good Digital Converter with a nice list of HD channels.  I have been looking into Dish Network recently, they have even more HD, and more channels for an even better price, the problem is that I have three other TV’s on analog that may not work, I will find out soon.

My Choice of Wireless service
I use T-mobile. They have far and wide coverage, great customer service and a plan that perfectly fits my lifestyle.  I have a family plan with 4 phones, that has unlimited texting, unlimited nights, unlimited weekends, unlimited in network calling, and each phone can pick their 5 favorites and call for free but the killer feature is that when I am near a hotspot (such as at home) my phone will connect using the Wi-Fi and all those minutes are free.  Because of so many free minutes I am on a plan with only 700 any time minutes, and we have never used more than 400 of them.  I get all of this for only $140 including taxes, and I have sub leased two of my phones for a total of $80 per month so my out of pocket cost is only $60 per month.   Quite nice.

My Choice of Cell phone
I have chosen the Samsung Katalyst, I have been a huge fan of Samsung phones for a few years now, they simply are much easier for me to understand.  I also love the slide feature, and the Wi-Fi compatibility that is a must for my service.  It has a nice crisp 2.1 inch screen, and has a great camera and a great music player with good sound.  Call quality and battery life is also excellent.

My Choice of Drinking Water
I choose Reverse Osmosis Water.  I like the clean taste.  I also like the fact that there is no fluoride in it.  I think fluoride is really a bad thing.  I get it from the local water store down the road and they charge only $1 for a 5 Gallon refill.  They have filters that are larger than my car and the taste is great.  I often fill up bottles with it and take it while I drive.

My Choice of Browser
I have chosen Firefox, it works great, and is much more stable than IE.  It also shows the websites better.  It has a ton of features I can set and generally work well.

Thanks for reading, be sure to post your answers also.