Keep tabs on your belongings…and children…and solve a murder.

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With the evolution of GPS systems, software, and technologies, you can pretty much track anything via satellites and a computer. Want to install a tracking system on your car or truck? Sure. What to track your kids while you are at work? Sure. Want to help solve a murder? Sure. There are many companies out there developing GPS tracking technologies that will allow you to place or put a device on just about anything and track it with Google Earth, pretty cool huh?

One of those companies is LandAirSea Systems Inc. They have been in the business for nearly 15 years and are a leader in the technologies and products being developed in GPS tracking. Their technology utilizies the 24 Department of Defence satellites that are orbiting the earth. The result of using so many satellites is being able to accurately pin point someones position within 2.5 meters of their exact location. You can download the tracking logs from your device onto your computer and see everything in Google Earth through the satellite images, watching ever turn you made and every location you stopped.

To accomplish this tracking, there are a few differen devices that Land Air Sea offer. If you want to stay on the small side and more personal (as in if you want to track your daughters whereabouts while she is out with “friends”) you could us something like the GPS Tracking Key. Which as they say on their website “is like having a personal Private Investigator at a fraction of the price.” The tracking key can tell you route traveled, speed, direction/orientation,time en route, arrival addresses, duration of stop.

They also offer devices that can be attached to your car, some that come with attennas for better tracking and reception.

If you want to keep tabs on someone or know where your car is incase it gets stolen, then think about picking up a gps tracking unit. The tracking key sells for around $200.

Golf in business is like drinking in college

I’m playing a round of golf today in a small tournament with co-workers. This ought to be interesting because I have never played real hardcore golf before; I am more of a mini golf fan. However, the sport of golf is an integral part of business these days, so I figured it was about time that I step up and get to it.

I think it is interesting how closely golf in the workplace can be compared to drinking and partying in college. Being on the golf course with clients, potential clients, or co-workers allows for a great networking opportunity that you probably can not get anywhere else. The 3-4 solid hours that you are with someone will allow for all kinds of discussions beyond anything you would get in the workplace, over the phone, or via email. The social interaction that comes from golfing with co-workers, people you spend most of your day with, allows for you to make better connections with them as well as build great friendships.

On top of networking, it is a time to cut loose and have some fun out of the office. Golf can be a relaxing activity for some or it can be just as bad as working. It depends on how competitive you are and who you are playing with. I’m playing with a couple co-workers as well as my managers boss (in otherwords, my top boss). They are all experienced golfers, enjoy it, and like to win. I like to win but I have no experience, this will lead to a good time I hope.

All of the advantages that come with playing golf (mainly networking, social activities, and a release from the office) can be directly compared to that of drinking and partying at college. Students make some of their best friends at college parties. In classes, you may work with people in a group, but never hang out with them until you all of the sudden see them doing a keg stand in the closet at an apartment. Your network can increase exponentially at a single party and keep multiplying throughout the full school year. I even liked to talk business at parties. It is great because people are more loose due to the alcohol and willing to open up more - it really allows for more interaction and real conversation. On top of that, partying is a way to release the stress of classes, projects, and tests just like golf is a way to get away from work for a couple hours.

The difference between the two? Your head will probably hurt a little more the day after partying then after playing golf.

Hopefully I’ll be able to find out the difference between a 9 iron and a wedge before hitting the course. I guess I don’t have enough time to read a Golf for Dummies book, do I? Google can only help me for a few minutes this time. Thank god we are playing best ball, so it does not really matter how far or where I hit mine.

Here goes nothing - time to hit the range…FOUR!

Small Towns Are Great Business Locations

Take advantage of the things that small towns offer to businesses!

Thinking about taking your business to the next level or starting one in general? If you live in a small town, then you should definitely consider it! Small towns and cities offer some advantages and benefits that you may not find in larger, more populated areas such as Washington D.C., New York, Baltimore, Miami, or Los Angelos. Looking at places like Roanoke, VA, Colorado Springs, CO, etc. you will find plenty of business opportunities that could be very successful.

Here are 11 reasons why small towns and cities are attractive business locations:

1. Potentially weaker competition because the big box retailers and business are not focusing on the area or have focused on larger cities.
2. Opportunities to work with smaller and more dynamic companies that are interested in helping you succeed as well as themselves.
3. Better chances for media exposure. Small town papers and news channels will eat up a story about a young entrepreneur or new small business opening in the are. This is press you probably wouldn’t be able to get in larger towns.
4. The cost of living can be extremely less in small cities and can make opening or expanding your business more viable. Retail/office lease prices are less as well.
5. You can usually drastically lower your commute time by not having to fight through traffic during peak hours.
6. Access to more resources such as universities and their departments (such as the VT Knowledgeworks)
7. Better chances of getting to know influential people in a region and more opportunities for intimate networking.
8. Getting out of a more populated city can bring you closer to quality of life amenities such as golf courses, parks, hiking trails, mountains,
9. Small town attitudes and relationships can be very helpful. Knowing your customers and the people you serve by name, dealing with them regularly, and leveraging any other relationships you may have in area such as family or friends can be HUGE to your business.
10. Advertising and marketing efforts can be more cost effective in small towns.
11. Lower operating costs including electricity, utilities, health care, etc.

A big thank you goes out to two good friends of mine, Stuart Mease and Mike Michalowicz, for their input and thoughts on the topic. I highly recommend checking out their websites!

Dorm Room Biz July Earnings and other ramblings

It’s about that time for me to do I know I am late on this but here is the monthly income earnings report for the past month of July [anyways]. Throughout July, I earned money through the following revenue streams:

Market Leverage - $27.55
CashCrate - $7.88
Sponsored Reviews - $9.75
Text Link Ads - $25.48
Google Adsense - $15.71
ReviewMe - $5.00
Blogrolled - $11.00
Totaling: $102.37

Very close to the $100/month mark again this past month. I had a few different opportunities to make some more money this past month through Dorm Room Biz by doing more paid reviews and sponsored posts, but with being really busy at work, taking a few days off to go to the beach, and now with my desktop computer messed up, I haven’t had the motivation to blog when I get home from work. However, I want to get that changed back around to continue to increase the earnings during August. My goal is to reach $150 for the month if not more.

This past month also saw 20 posts with about 25 comments. The most popular post for the month being Should you show your Categories and Archives within your sidebar?

In other news…

The hard drive in my desktop computer is completely fried and dead. I had to buy a new one last night and will be installing tonight. Hopefully I will have an operational desktop computer by Monday with programs reinstalled. Luckily, as things started to get screwed up, I moved all of my files that was stored on my computer to my external hard drive. However, I did not get a chance to make backup and archive files of my emails - so I have lost pretty much all of my client emails for my website design business and all of my emails related to eBay. My eBay emails aren’t a big deal too much because most of that stuff is backed up through eBay yet loosing all my client emails is a big problem! So…lesson learned…constantly back up your files AND email!

LOOKING FOR SPONSORS! I am compiling sponsors for the upcoming contest here at Dorm Room Biz. If you have any ideas or would like to sponsor something of your own (EntreCard credits, books, money, gift cards, anything) please get at me - chris @ dorm-room-biz.com.

Other big news is that I earlier this week I became a PowerSeller on eBay. That basically means that for 3 consecutive months I had sales over $3000 total. I am happy about this because it opens up more opportunities for me such as better search placement with eBay searches, access to the PowerSellers product sourcing area, and more! Now I just need to keep it up and grow my sales each month!

Finally, I have my new business bank account set up! I am excited about this because I can start to keep better track of my expenses and income. All of my blogging, eBay, and web design related money will flow into this account. I am also waiting on my sales and use tax number and certificate to arrive. This will help me secure products for eBay at discounted prices and tax free; which is nice!

*****
More posts to come soon. However, keep a little more up to date with me by following me on Twitter. I try to use Twitter while at work and interact with people, so follow me and start talking!

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Should you show your Categories and Archives within your sidebar?

I’m working on a top secret thingamajig and have a question for you all. Plus I am thinking about shortening up the sidebar for Dorm Room Biz some. So, do you feel it is necessary to show your Categories section and Archives sections on your sidebar or somewhere on the main layout of your blog?

I currently have the archives area shown because it was a requirement for a couple different paid review websites that I use, however, as month after month passes, it gets so long! I either want to get rid of it or figure out how to shorten it to say maybe the last 5 months only.

The other area I am thinking about knocking off is the categories section. Do you use it? I know for me, if I was looking for something specific I would do a search on the website rather than utilize the categories on the sidebar. Now having the categories is good for when you want to link from a post to another area of your site (say a whole topic of posts such as business ideas or monetizing websites), but this is also a long list that as time goes on, will probably only get longer.

What do you guys think? Keep them, loose them, or keep one or the other?

You Follow, I Follow…Or Maybe Not.

Twitter - the phenomenom that allows you to try to say something important, meaningful, or just wasteful in 140 characters or less.

Twitter is just like any other social networking website out there - you sign up, you start posting (or tweeting in this case), follow what other people are saying, and people follow what you are saying. As you follow people, you start to see what they are saying on your Twitter homepage. Not a bad way to keep in touch with others right? I agree. It is a great way to get a quick thought out or bounce an idea off of someone if you are following each other. However, Twitter has a downside..besides its bad downtime and constant “over capacity” warnings, some people seem to find it neccessary to tweet EVERYTHING they are thinking or doing. For example, Robert Scoble on Twitter. When Twitter was getting popular, I started following him…soon I realized that if I followed him I wouldn’t be able to see what anyone else was doing because he was using the service so much that I only saw his updates. In fact, now that I think about it, maybe Twitter is over capacity because of Scoble accessing it from every means possible: online, desktop widgets, IM clients, text messages, emails, blog plugins, and anything else out there. So needless to say, I stopped following him.

Now, as I cruise the blogosphere, I have started to see different “Follow me on Twitter” images such as I have in the right sidebar. No problem here. Taking it one step further, that person has something along the lines of “You Follow, I Follow” posted underneath that. Meaning that if you follow them, they will follow you. Almost sounds like the pregnancy pact of teen girls who agreeed to get pregnant together and have their babies together.

Anyway, if you start following every person who follows you, you soon will not be able to follow any conversation that might be starting on Twitter, you won’t be able to catch all of the replies or “@” sent your way in a timely manner, and you won’t know what is going on. So, I encourage you to check out Twitter, try out the service, follow me on Twitter, and engage in conversations with people. However, if you follow me, there is not gaurentee that I will follow you - I am just putting this out there. I have been receiving more and more notifications of people following me on Twitter and that is great. I love the opportunity to connect with new people and network however I will not be following you all just because you follow me; that defeats the purpose of the service to me. When I receive an email saying someone is following me, I check their page to see who else they are following, how long they have been apart of Twitter, and what they are tweeting about. If I like what I see, I’ll follow; if not, I’ll check back at it later.

See you on Twitter…if the site stays up long enough.

Entrecard drops the bomb on “powerdropping”

As many of you know, Entrecard is a service that calls it self the 2.0 of business cards. Basically, as a member, you display a widget in your sidebar or somewhere on your website that displays a 125 x 125 pixel image (either your own on someone elses). People then ‘drop their card’ on you and you can do the same to them. As you gain credits, you can start advertising on other blogs in exchange for credits, rather than money. Your ad is then displayed in the widget on that persons website. It is a good service because it has opened me up to a lot of different websites about student entrepreneurship, making money online, and others. But it also seems to be flawed to me because of some of the loopholes in the system. Some bloggers such as John Chow have rediculously high credit prices for their blogs where if someone who casually dropped cards on other peoples website would never have the chance to advertise on his site. I understand the trade off of making the sytem work for you and being popular, it then allows you to “charge” a higher credit price. But there should be a limit, there is one, but it needs to be lower I feel.

Anyway, the point I am gettng to is that another flaw within the system was people taking advantage of the way Entrecard works and exploiting ways to quickly gain credits through “power dropping”. Power dropping is basically clicking on as many widgets as you can as quickly as possible. This started out with focusing on websites that loaded quickly and had their widget located above the fold. You would quickly visit a website, click their widget, and then move on. Many people would sometimes open up tens or hundreds of sites and quickly tab through them all leaving their card and not visiting the site for more than 5 seconds - this obviously defeats the purpose of the site and exposing yourself to new websites and blogs. As the idea became more popular, many blogs set up landing pages for their sites where you would first come to a blank page with just their widget and after dropping your card, you could continue on to their site. Or some sites just had the widget and some ad’s displayed on them. Either way, it was taking advantage of the system. As a result of power dropping, someone could easily accumulate thousands of credits and be able to either advertise on all the most popular blogs in the system, sell the credits on eBay, or trade them for other things.

Well, Graham and the Entrecard gang have finally decided to put a stop of the abuse of the system and drop the real bomb on the power droppers. As of today, July 1st, they are supposed to be putting their foot down on all the quick drop and power dropping pages out there. Their accounts will be closed, credits lost, and will have to sart over if anything.

Start Your Own Tip Jar!

About a week or so ago I sold a climbing rope on eBay. The item sold for about $100. The winning bidder sent a money order to me as payment. This is good for a couple reasons, but the main reason that I like receiving money orders for large amounts as opposed to PayPal, is because of the fee’s. I have sold the same rope to other people who paid with PayPal and it cost between $6 - $10 in fees - which cuts into my profits!

So anyway, I cashed the money order on Saturday and shipped out the rope to him. I got home and was thinking about what I was going to do with the $100 cash I now had in my pocket. I like to use cash as opposed to credit/debit cards, just because then I have the feeling of “oh well, I only have this much left, so I probably shouldn’t get that” instead of saying “CHARGE IT!”. I know people will argue with this mentatlity, but I don’t care - everyone has their own ways and systems. Anyway, I decided that I didnt want to keep the $100 on me plus the other cash that I had. So, I had the idea of starting my own tip jar.

Basically, anytime I have extra cash on me that I don’t want to constantly carry around with me, I can put it in the tip jar. Or if I get everything I need to done in a day or accomplish a lot of tasks, I can reward myself wth a tip from my own wallet. This is nice because then when I need a couple extra bucks for lunch I can just grab it out real quick and be on the way. Or, if I don’t touch it for a while, it will add up and all of the sudden be like money I never knew I had. Kind of like a deposit from your paycheck into your retirement account - after a while, you start to not even miss the money that should be there. On Saturday I put in about $30.00 to save for another time. This is going to be a great little stash when the time comes and I need to use it!

On top of being my personal tip jar, I use the same container (an old Nalgene bottle), as my spare change holder. So when it starts to fill up, I’ll cash all the change in and have some nice pocket money to spend on something new. I’ll be saving up for a new LCD widescreen monitor, fyi.

I’m sure many of you throw your coins in a jar or something to keep them all in one place, but what about other cash that you don’t want to carry around with you all the time? Do you tip yourself? Deposit it in the bank? Or just hold onto it and spend it?

Are you into World of Warcraft?

I’m not much of an online gamer or a gamer in general but if you know what you are doing, there can be a good amount of money in the industry as a business. There are websites all over the place that sell W.O.W. and other game accounts, accessories, powers, and weapons. If you are looking to buy wow accounts or anything of the sorts you really do not need to do too much searching. Just doing a search on Google will return some results. One such site is BuyMMOAccounts.com. They are a retailer of World of Warcraft accounts. Interesting that you can make money from selling accounts to games isn’t it?

There are some games where people sell extra accessories or add ons for when you are actually playing the games too. Things like weapons, different people/characters, special powers, buildings, and more. The people who buy these types of virtual products will tell you that they are a way to get a leg up on the game and also to help you out if you are really stuck in a certain spot of the game.

I’d tell you it is crazy; but it is also a way to make some money. These types of things are even being sold on eBay! If you are into Second Life, you can even buy property or accessories off of eBay.

BuyMMOAccounts.com appears to be a pretty popular place to purchase your WoW related items. Their website could be a little more attractive and less cluttered, but if you are looking for a Level 70 Draenei Shaman you can pick one up on their website for $399 or maybe a Level 70 Blood Elf Priest for $1149! I sure hope that they are selling some of these things to pay for their costs.