AlishaV's Blog

Lately I've been trying out a site I've just found out about. It's called CafePress and is basically selling items through little "stores" on the site. You can sell clothes, cards, and a few other items, either with your own picture on them or a design you come up with yourself. Since I don't have a program like Corel or Adobe, I haven't been able to design anything yet, but I have been using some of my photos to customize the items. Here's My CafePress Store . The site seems like an interesting idea, we decide what we want the t-shirts or whatever to look like, and then if someone buys the item, CafePress prints the item out and sends it to the buyer, without the seller having to do anything. They call this print-on-demand or pod. There are two levels of stores, a free, basic version, like I have right now, and a paid version, which allows the seller to do more, and that I've been considering. I haven't sold anything yet, so I'm hes...

I am completely addicted to Flickr. Flickr is a great photo hosting site, that is mainly aimed at sharing your pictures with the world. Most other places allow only people you choose to see your photos, some require people to have an invitation to get access, others need the photographer to give permission. Occasionally, they have a way for the photographer to make an exception if they choose, but it's still often difficult for your friends to get to see your pictures. I really liked Snapfish for a while, but having to have everyones email addresses and then sending them invitations to each photo album, which kept getting caught in the spam filter, made it difficult to share the photos. Photobucket was one exception to this invite situation, but their site has always felt awkward and cumbersome to me and while I have an account there, I rarely use it. I do like how easy Photobucket makes it to post photos on Craigslist and other sites and I will be using it a lot more for my ...

In my last post I was writing about how the Myer-Briggs test categorized me as a INTJ, an introverted, intuitive, thinking, and judging personality. It basically said that I was not comfortable in social situations, was cold and rational, and standoffish. A Description of INTJs Some people have mentioned to me that that doesn't sound like me and that they think I seem outgoing and more like an extravert or even an ESFP. I've heard myself described as enthusiastic, smiley, and sunny. So why the difference? Perhaps this quote from the INTJ personality description will help explain: "INTJs can rise to management positions when they are willing to invest time in marketing their abilities as well as enhancing them, and (whether for the sake of ambition or the desire for privacy) many also find it useful to learn to simulate some degree of surface conformism in order to mask their inherent unconventionality." TypeLogic.com Being a cashier for several years, I was miser...

Someone I know recently mentioned that she took the Myer-Briggs personality test and wondered what other people's results would be like. Well, I hadn't thought about that test in several years. The basic premise behind the Myer-Briggs test is that everyone can basically be grouped into 16 categories. Your answers on the test are supposed to show whether you are an introvert or extravert (I or E), an intuitive person or a sensing one (N or S), follow your feelings or think stuff out (F or T), and are a judger or a perceiver(J or P). The combinations of letters make 16 different basic types. In my first year at college I took a class on career planning and they had us take several of those sorts of tests. On the Myer-Briggs test, myself, and three other people out of the entire class were categorized as introverts(I was an INTJ with a close call between N and S) everyone else was considered an extravert. With the extroverts gathered together and the introverts gathered toget...

I was recently having a conversation with someone about the uses of Facebook, My Space, Twitter, and Plurk, and other social medium sites. There seem to be quite a few sites devoted to the sole purpose of telling your friends what you're doing and having them tell you the same. I understand, Facebook and My Space have other features, but one of the main uses is to tell others what you're up to. Are we really that interested in knowing when one of our friends goes to the store or is going to walk their dog? Or do we just assume everyone's lives are far more interesting than our own? I don't know about other people, but I do know that I'm incredibly boring. I don't do interesting things that other people would want to know about. My day goes about the same most of the time, wake up, check earnings at eHow and Squidoo, check my email, start writing, try to eat a couple of times that day, and try to keep my computer working long enough to get something done. ...

One of my favorite creatures in the world, is one that almost no one has ever heard of. In fact, it may not even be a creature, no one really knows whether they should consider it a creature or a plant. I'm talking about diatoms. Diatoms are tiny, single-celled organisms that are shown in the picture to the right and are extremely important to our world. They live in the ocean, lakes, streams, and wet spots and produce much of the oxygen that we breathe. Prehistoric diatoms also produced much of our fossil fuels as well. Their benefits to the world don't end there either. Millions of years ago, in the Pliocene and Pleistocene, diatoms flourished. Great inland seas were everywhere, and the diatoms took advantage of the expanded range by breeding prolifically. As they died, their shells settled to the bottom. Over time, the diatom shells built up into layers hundreds or thousands of feet thick. These layers compressed into a rock, called diatomite , which is mined to p...

If it seems I haven't been posting enough here, I have a reason. I've been making something called a Squidoo Lens. Actually, I've been making three with more on the way. Squidoo is an interesting site that allows one to discuss a subject or an idea with the world in an easy to use fashion-even for me, the perpetual internet idiot. I've been doing it primarily to promote my articles on eHow and expand what they say in an easier to read format but I also love the freedom it gives me to share other stuff. I made one lens about my cats, who they are, where they came from. I added some cute kitty YouTube videos and linked to the two cat articles I've already written. As I write more articles on cats or related subjects I'll just add them to the page. I also made a lens or page about Gem-O-Rama . It tells a bit about the event, has a bunch of pictures, and will eventually have more information added when I have a chance to write it up. The newest lens is o...