It’s time to pay more

It’s that time of year again when new postal rates go into effect. Effective today, January 22, 2012, the cost for mailing a 1 oz letter goes up one penny to 45 cents. Given the financial issues the USPS is going through I would have been OK if they would have raised the cost of a first class stamp to 50 cents. Two ounces will cost you 65 cents.

Rates for First Class and Media Mail package rates are also going up which will increase my costs for swapping CDs, DVDs and books.

Weight Not Over	First Class Parcel	Weight Not Over	Media Mail
3 ounces	$1.95	1 lb	$2.47
4 ounces	$2.12	2 lb	$2.89
5 ounces	$2.29	3 lb	$3.31
6 ounces	$2.46	4 lb	$3.73
7 ounces	$2.63	5 lb	$4.15

The overall price change for all Shipping Services is 4.6%, with Priority rates increasing an average of 3.1%. A Small flat rate box will cost you $5.35 to ship and the Medium box will cost you $11.35. Print your Priority mail labels online and save an average of 6.8%.  It’s easy to do if you have a Paypal account.

You can find all the new rates here on USPS’s website.  Be prepared to pay more for shipping, whether you’re sending or receiving.

My LinkedIn’s been lopped off

Returning to work after the holidays I noticed that LinkedIn had been added to the list of Internet sites blocked by my employer.  I was kind of surprised.  I felt that LinkedIn in was a useful tool for me in my job.

My previous employer had a pretty liberal internet access policy, usually only blocking porn and gambling sites.  I’m still amazed they allowed employees to access Facebook during work hours.  However, this is a company that believes heavily in social media.  They promote their employee blogs and even employ a Chief Listener.

I know some people are very active on LinkedIn, posting frequent status updates and connecting with people at all times of the day.  Some people perceive LinkedIn as a business-oriented networking site, not far removed from Facebook. They feel it should be banned from the workplaces, along with all other social media sites.  My most active connections on LinkedIn tend to be the unemployed and business owners.

My employer blocks blogs, which can be frustrating when I’m trying to solve a technical issue with MS Project or Excel and the answer I’m seeking is in a blog that I can’t access.  I work for a financial institution and I understand the need to be sure employees are using their internet access wisely.

I found LinkedIn useful at my workplace because it allows me to look up people I am working with and get a feel for their background.  We had issues last year with a vendor Project Manager and LinkedIn was able to tell me that he had only been employed with that company a year, which explained why he didn’t seem to know the product very well.  We have been hiring lots of employees, contractors and consultants so I find it  helpful to understand where these people were previously employed and in what capacity.

I tried not to abuse the privilege of having access to LinkedIn.  I saved my  “networking” on LinkedIn for the evening hours, when I wasn’t at work but I would occasionally log in during the day to see the activity of others.  I see LinkedIn as a business tool and was disappointed to lose access to it at work.  I realize I can still do many of these things at home but I’m less apt to. I’m sure some of the sales employees are also sad to lose access from work.

I’m curious to hear about other companies’ policies when it comes  to LinkedIn.  Do you have access to LinkedIn at work?  Do you use it?  What do you find it most useful for?  Obviously my employer felt it was enough of an issue that they blocked it altogether.

Don’t forget your digital library

I’m sure a lot of you got new electronic devices for gifts these holidays and are now looking for items to listen to or read on them. The price of audiobooks and ebooks can add up quick.  It might be time to visit your Digital Library if you got a new Kindle, Nook, tablet or cellphone.

I first started listening to audiobooks  on my Zune about 2 years ago when I started my long commute to my new job.  My local library branch has lots of audiobooks on CD and cassette tape but I get my audiobooks from the Download Library on the Monroe County Library website.  The great thing about the Download library is that you can check out audiobooks from the comfort of your own home. You qill still need an active library card to check out items online.

In the last two years I listented to just over 100 audiobooks from the library.  I found some really good ones and thought I’d share these recommendations with others so they have a place to start.  These are all the audiobooks I rated a 5 (out of 5).

Fiction

• Etta
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
• Thirteen Reasons Why
• The Hunger Games  / Catching Fire
• The Help

Biography/Memoir/Non-Fiction

• Beautiful Boy
• A Girl Named Zippy
• Bitter is the new Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office
• Mindless Eating : Why We Eat More than We Think
• Born Round : The Secret History of a Full-time Eater
• Sky of Stone (3rd book in the Rocket Boys Series)
• We Bought a Zoo : The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals that Changed Their Lives Forever
• The Ride of Our Lives

I’d love to hear about other audiobooks or ebooks that you’ve enjoyed.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for my blog.

Here’s an excerpt from the report:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

In 2011, there were 52 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 153 posts.

The busiest day of the year was May 31st with 204 views. The most popular post that day was Monroe’s getting greener!.

Click here if you want to learn more about my blog.

Happy Holidays

I’m going to take a couple of weeks off from blogging.  Just wanted to wish my readers a happy holiday season.

I switched

In my blog I’ve consistently recommended and promoted Planet Fitness (PF) as a good value.  It’s hard to beat the $10/month or $100/year price. But my PF membership doesn’t do me any good on the nights I’m in Buffalo, which are two of the three times per week I work out.

This summer I scored a Groupon to the Buffalo Athletic Club (BAC), 3 months for $33.  I’ve worked out at the BAC before.  I belonged to the Rochester Athletic Club (RAC) for many year.  When I visited my family in Buffalo I would use the BAC facilities there since my membership allows me to visit any RAC or BAC.

Then they built a new YMCA on the west side of Rochester.  My husband and I wanted to give our kids access to a facility that would allow them to swim and be more active.  For a period of time I belonged to both the RAC and YMCA, but it all added up to a lot of money and so I dropped my RAC membership, even though I had locked in a $25/month for life rate and I loved the club.  After a while my kids lost interest in going to the Y and so did my husband.  So in early 2009 when I lost my job, it was a no-brainer to drop the YMCA membership and move to PF.

When my three month membership  with the BAC was up I didn’t join because they didn’t offer me the right deal.  I’ve belonged to gyms for 30+ years and I know how they work.  I knew I could bide my time and there would be future deals and one of them would hopefully meet my criteria.  Sure enough, about 6 weeks letter, the RAC contacted me and made me a deal that let me lock in $30/year right off the bat.  I did pay a joining fee for the first year but I was happy with the rate since it’s important to me to invest in my health. I chose to prepay for the first year at a 10% discount, effectively bringing my price down to $27/month.

I love being back at the RAC and BAC and being able to choose from the many classes, including spinning, Pilates and step since I sometimes need someone pushing me.  I also like the ability to go to any of the clubs when I feel like it.  It’s like coming home.

Holiday Music to Enjoy

I love holiday music.  I loaded  up my Zune a few weeks back with all sorts of Christmas and holiday tunes.   I’ve been listening to a Rockin’ Holidays station on Pandora and heard some Brian Setzer Orchestra songs which put a different spin on some traditional tunes, so I headed over to SwapaCD and ordered two Christmas CDs.

At this time of year iTunes offers up a free holiday tune each week and you don’t have to have an iPod or iPhone to listen to them. Even better, Amazon is offering up 25 free songs for the holiday.  Amazon reveals a new song every day and the previous songs remain available. Be sure to head on over to their 25 Days of Free Holiday Music page.  There’s something for everyone.

Remember to ROC the Day December 8th

I loved the idea when I first heard about it.  The United Way, with sponsorship from ESL Federal Credit Union, has designated this Thursday, December 8, 2011 as ROC the Day. ROC the Day is a 24-hour, online event that gives people in our community an opportunity to support not-for-profit organizations in the nine-county Greater Rochester area.

This time of year I get many phone calls from organizations asking for my donation.  Typically the person calling is employed by a telemarketing firm that charges a large fee to the charity for funds collected. When I get such a call I ask how much of my donation will go to the charity.  Sometimes they’ll give me the runaround and say they don’t have that information (a red flag) or that I’d have to write to their headquarters to get the information (another red flag).  Occasionally they’ll say “it’s a 75/25 split.”  I confirm that it’s 75% for the telemarketer and 25% for the charity.  No thank you.  I want most of my money going to a good cause.  For ROC the day, the United Way is charging an 8% processing fee to the organizations, which means most of your money makes it directly to the charity.

Every hour during the event, one donor will be chosen to have an additional $500 given to the charity of their choice.  You can donate using a credit card, debit card or Paypal.  Register on the site for a reminder notifying you when the donation period opens.

There are so many good reasons to donate.  Be sure to sign up at the site for a reminder.  You don’t want to miss it.

A tale of two Blu-ray players (and two retailers)

I’ve been thinking that this would be a great time to upgrade to a Blu-ray player.  Since our Wii was stolen we don’t have a convenient way to watch Netflix streamed movies on our big screen TV.  Many of the new Blu-ray players support various streaming sites, so I’m more interested in that feature than the ability to play Blu-ray discs.

I was watching bfads.net to see which players were going to be on sale and would read reviews of them on Amazon, which seems to carry all the products and has a very vocal customer base. It seemed no matter which product or brand I looked at, they all have their issues.  I was looking for a player with built-in WI-fi to make it easier to setup but after reading reviews of all the major brands it seemed to be iffy you could get a player with a reliable connection.  It didn’t seem to matter if you were looking at Panasonic, Sony, LG or Samsung, according to the reviews they all had issues, if not with the internet connection, then with the time for a disc to play, updating firmware or with how the internet interface worked. My approach was to purchase from a retailer with a store I could easily return it to.  Come Thanksgiving I still hadn’t decided on a single player so I decided to order two of them and decide later.

Player #1 Sony BDP-S380 from Kmart.com for $80 

This player doesn’t have wireless and was a good choice for a starting point.  Shopping through the Discover website I also qualified for a 15% cash back bonus, lowering the price to $68 before tax.  Kmart’s site told me they had one in the store near my home and I could pick it up once I got an email notification. I got an order confirmation email at 11:08pm thanking me for my order and letting me know they were processing my order and would email me when my item was ready for pickup.

At 12:17pm on 11/25 I got an email informing me the player was no longer available and I could talk to one of their 800 number Personal Shoppers to find a comparable item.   No offer of substitution.  Kmart’s inventory system is not very accurate if they let me order an item they didn’t really have.

Player #2: Sony BDP-S580 from Walmart.com for $109

This 3-D player with built-in WI-Fi was reasonably priced.  Shopping through the Discover site again, I qualified for a 5% cash back bonus, bringing the total to around $104 plus tax.  Walmart was offering free shipping so I had it shipped directly to my home.  Got my email confirmation at 12:48am on 11/25, over an hour after I placed the order. Friday night at 10:34pm I got an email notifying me the player had shipped and was estimated to arrive by 12/5.

My doorbell rang at 2pm on Saturday afternoon and there was the FedEx guy with my player, less than 48 hours after I placed my order.  Wow!

I connected my player that night to watch a movie and connected it to my local network and the internet, all without problems.  Yesterday I set the player up so I could watch Netflix movies.  Tonight I’m listening to my Rockin’ Christmas station on Pandora.

I’m happy I don’t have to decide which one I’m going to keep. Kmart blew it. Walmart wowed me with great service.

Don’t forget to Shop Small tomorrow

Tomorrow is Shop Small Saturday.  Be sure to visit a small business and if you use your pre-registered American Express card you’ll get a $25 credit on your statement.