With the advent of digital photography, the market has had to create new ways to share and display these digital wonders. The easiest way is a digital picture frame. DigitalFramez.com is an online retailer specializing in only digital frames in a 7, 9 or 10 inch size, all with varying amounts of memory.

First impressions of the web site are that this company knows what they’re selling and they know what people want. The four most popular items are front and center (below the ad that tells you about the free sd card that comes with every order) and there are links to other items on both sides of the page.. The site is laid out nice and cleanly and is very easy to navigate. On the left side of the site, they have links to the different size frames as well as links to information about them and their products (which is a nice feature).

Clicking on the links to the various sizes brings up a page for each size that has the different options available, and while it looks like they’re all the same “frame” with a different border, it is nice to see them laid out like that. The product page has a good description of the item as well as the cost. The only thing lacking is an area for customer reviews of the product, though I bet you could google the item and find that.

The site has a live help button that was green when i visited, I did not try it, but its nice to see that there is an option for help if you need it. The company is located (it looks like the UK) outside of the US, so shipping is a little pricy and the number of countries they ship to is mostly limited to Europe and the North America, but they do have a good selection of items. I’d be willing to order from them.

Popularity: unranked [?]

The wife and I are heading out to New Mexico for a weekend in August for the Philmont Rangers 50th Anniversary Reunion. When I worked there in ‘97 it was the 40th anniversary, so this one is kind of cool as it will be ten years since I worked there and the farthest west Amy has been (to this point it was Louisiana…). We decided to make a longer trip out of it (air line tickets were cheaper if we went Monday through Thursday) so we’re flying in to Denver on Thursday and driving to Taos, NM that night the only issue is we need to find somewhere to stay. Luckily there is an awesome tool online for making Hotel Reservations.

HotelReservations.com is an online booking site that offer discounts on hotel stays, resorts and other off beat places to stay. The site is nice, the search box for your stay is right there in the middle of the first page making it easy to search for a room. They also offer searches for resorts, vacation rentals, cars and vacation packages as well which is a nice feature, the only thing they seem to not cater to is air fare, but with the bevy of other sites out there that do that, do we really need another one?

The pricing on Hotel Reservations seems to be consistent with the other sites out there and with the special online ads of most of the major hotels, one of the nice things is that they do seem to have some of the off beat places to stay (which if you’re looking for a unique experience, it something nice). On the whole, the site is simple and straight forward to use and offers a good alternative to some of the other methods for booking a hotel stay.

Popularity: unranked [?]

I run another site that is fairly profitable (it pays for itself through advertising…) and I’m always looking for ways to enhance my financial status. I’ve considered running ads on this site, however, I feel that since its a personal blog, google ads would look out of place and besides, no one really wants to see them mixed in with my deluded ramblings and photos of the kids (I did upload over 500 photos from our cruise though…), that is until I came across Smorty.

Smorty is a program where you sign up and can write about various advertisers on your blog. You get to choose the advertisers you write about/review and you get paid for blogging. While it looks like the average payout is about $6.00 (us) per post for an advertiser, its a fairly decent way to bring in a little extra cash for something you were going to do anyways. Isn’t it? Not only that but the new posts about different subjects might just bring in new traffic that otherwise would not have visited your site.

The application process was fairly easy, fill out a form and wait for them to approve your site. Once approved you log in, and start selecting the advertisers you want to write about. Most have a time limit for when you have to post about them once you’ve selected them and you are required to submit the post for approval once its written (otherwise you won’t get paid…) but they make it fairly simple through the web interface which is clean and easy to use.

I was pleasantly surprised when I logged in, the site itself was easily to get around and loaded quickly (two huge pluses). The other nice thing about the smorty program is that they pay out via paypal on a weekly basis. I have yet to receive a payout (I just joined) and I am waiting to see if there is a minimum payout amount. If there isn’t then this could be a very cool thing. If there is… well, I may be posting more….

Either way its a good way to blog for money.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Every Thursday I go out to lunch with one of my brothers, my sister and my father. We try to try some where new every week (though we do have our favorites…) and as we hit a new place, I’ll try and write about it here. I have a couple stored up that I need to write about, but today, I want to talk about Di Gusto.

One of my favorite styles of food is Italian, I could eat it every day and never get tired of it, and lately, we’ve been blessed with some good Italian restaurants in our area. Ipp’s over by the mall, Rosaria’s by Walmart and now Di Gusto (which is right across the street from Walmart and Rosarias). I tend to stick to the same thing (Meatball sub or Baked Ziti) whenever we go out for Italian. Partly because I know it will be a safe bet almost everywhere and partly because I really like those two items… Today I went with the meatball sub and a garden salad.

The restaurant’s atmosphere was fairly standard for an Italian restaurant these days, the faux painting on the walls, low lighting, fake brick showing through the paint, ivy hanging from random places around the shop and what sounded like Tony Bennett or Sinatra coming from the speakers. While its a nice touch, I doubt that its truly authentic, however, it did not get in the way of the food or the service.

The service was prompt and I never had to ask for more tea (which is a plus is my glass stays full). The bread and salads came quickly and were cleared before lunch came. It might be different while they’re busy (I doubt lunch is a busy time for them) but the service during lunch was good. The sub itself was decent, I’d go back again. The sauce was a little on the sweet side, needed a little more oregano (I think…) but the meatballs were excellent and the bread was fresh and good. The nice thing is that the sauce wasn’t too watery, it was just the right consistency (nothing ruins a sandwich like sauce thats too runny).

We didn’t try desert, maybe next time, but I would go back again to Di Gusto, the food for the money was good and the service was better than most. I’d give them probably three & a half sandwiches out of five. (I need to make little logos….)

Popularity: unranked [?]