Salvation Is Just A Keystroke Away

Who says you can't buy indulgences anymore? (hides in case Martin Luther comes back from the grave to strike her down)

Eclectic Chef's Wire Competition

The Wire Competition by EJA – Your Chance to Vote and Win!
The Jewelry Guild I belong to is having a very exciting competition and here is what they have to say about it:

Here's your chance to vote for your favorite wire project by the artisans of EJA and your chance to win a free gift bag that will include hand made jewelry and other goodies!!

Just visit eeja.org/wired.html and fill out the form. On July 25th, we will draw a lucky e-mail address from those that have voted. One vote per person. Voting on an item will sign you up for our newsletter that will inform you of future sales and other prize drawings.

Thank you,
Team EJA

EEJA.org

Now how cool is that? Go there and vote and maybe win some cool stuff!

Adventures in Cell Phone Shopping

A long boring wait at a doctors' office with only back issues of Golfer's Digest and AARP Magazine had me desperate to pass the time while my husband had out patient surgery. I had my trusty Samsung Plum cell phone with T-mobile service and their T-zones, so I was looking at movies times and the BORING amazon.com interface when I realized that I could put in actual website URLs in a section of the screen. Wow. The first thing I did was put in www.etsy.com, a site where I buy and sell handmade crafts. Not too good. But I was not about to give up so I tried a couple more sites and here is my rating of each site with a list of their best features and a letter grade. I plan on doing more experimenting so check back for more of my Adventures.
Note: I did not actually checkout with any of my items so I am not sure how paypal's interface works, but that will be for another article!

Etsy.com:
This was the first site I visited and it was a total wash. You could not view shop products, you could barely view the shop banners. You really couldn't see ANYTHING. I believe most of the problems are because the site relies heavily upon flash and it is just not compatible with my cell phone browser. So no shopping of any kind here. Rating F

MintD.com:
On to the next shop. I was pleasantly surprised at how clean and clear this shop looked. It is a marked improvement over their regular website which seem a bit cluttered. Easy to use and easy to shop. The pictures took a bit to load but, man oh man, they were awesome and I was clicking on items to put in my cart like nobody's business. I could use every aspect of this site on my cell phone including the forums and the lookbooks and was extremely pleased with the experience. I highly recommend it. Rating A+

SmashingDarling.com
The last shop I looked at was very nice also. More cluttered than MintD, it was also a bit harder to navigate, but you could get to the shops, look at the products and put them in your cart. Definitely a good shopping experience that I will do again. Rating B

Injustice Prevails

Posting in forums can be a risky business. There is no face to face contact to gauge vocal tone or facial expressions so it is easy to misinterpret meaning. While that may be, it seems so unfair when a long time forum poster tries to change her persona from one who is critical (she really cared which is why she pointed out where improvements could be made)to an over the top, silly Pollyanna. She was told that her critiques were unwanted, so she gave them what they thought they wanted. Sweetness and light and positivity ALL the time. What did she get for this? A forum muting from none other than the owner of the site. She was accused of mocking them. Hmmm... maybe. It was a silly mocking if that was what it was. Most of the other forum posters either thought it was hilarious or took it at face value and were happy with her! Did it damage or demean the site? No, but I can say her muting sure did. It made many of us question the direction this company is heading in and whether it is the same direction that we wish to go ourselves.