Jayzilla – Do not be afraid. Only Believe.

What’s The Difference Between Grooveshark and Spotify?

July 29, 2011 By jason 4 Comments

I love music. I love all kinds of music. I love free music.

When some coworkers of mine introduced me to Grooveshark, I couldn’t believe it was real. All that music at my fingertips, and for free!

I literally boasted to my friends and family. “Come on, give me any song. ANY song, and I’ll play it for you right now.” And I did. I was proud.

Now there’s all this chitter about Spotify. To be honest, I didn’t really know what it was the first time I heard about it. But, because I love music and I enjoy internet, I wanted to give it a try.

My first question was how Spotify differs from Grooveshark. They essentially seemed like the same thing when I heard about it.

First impressions

Out of the box, the main difference is that while Grooveshark is a website, Spotify is an app you download.

My first search was the word “guarani” because I wanted to see if they’d have the really random Paraguayan music I want to listen to and can’t buy here. They DO!

To be fair, I searched “guarani” in Grooveshark as well. A lot of the same songs came up, but Spotify has about twice the music Grooveshark does.

Another fantastic feature is that Spotify also picked up all my iTunes music as well. So now I have one place where I can listen to the music I have on my computer and any song I could possibly want to listen to – without having to buy it.

Music management is different

The first real stand-out feature for me is that Spotify can become my music management tool. It picks up the music you have on your hard drive and shows it to you much like iTunes does. However, where it really stands out, is that you can even use it to synch your iPod.

Additionally – and this astounds me – Spotify can synch your iPhone or Android phone as long as your computer and phone are running the app and you’re connected to the same network. I haven’t tried this yet, but I will when I get home. This alone might be the deal-maker for me.

Different levels for different needs

Spotify is free if you want it to be, or you can pay and get some other things. I’m just fine and dandy ignoring ads and the 15 seconds (not TOO frequent) ads and not paying per month. I can see them becoming annoying after a while, so it will be a matter of Spotify as a whole being worth the monthly fee.

For example, in order to use it on your phone, you’ll have to get the premium subscription, which will run you $10 a month. Also with premium, you can use what they call “offline mode” and have your favorite playlists – made up of music you don’t own, remember – available when you’re offline. It’s almost like borrowing the music indefinitely without buying the mp3s.

Update: It’s not all free forever, though. According to this post outlining some changes to Spotify from their blog, after 6 months of use we’ll be limited to 10 hours a month. If I understand correctly, we will also only be allowed to play the same song 5 times. Buying the $5/month subscription will eliminate those limitations, however.

Making it social

In this age, people love sharing stuff. When I find sweet music, I love sharing it.

In my first hour of playing with Spotify, I’ll tell you it’s easier to find users in Grooveshark. There’s allegedly a “social” button in my profile, but I can’t find it.

If you have Spotify and would like to add me (or anyone), put this in your Spotify search bar: spotify:user:hisc1ay

Overall, I’m really impressed

I will probably use Spotify as my “get any song from anywhere for free” from here on out (at least for the next 6 months). I used to use Grooveshark, but they charge for their mobile app now too. Yes, Spotify’s app is more expensive, but the differences are more valuable, potentially.

I won’t go buying a premium subscription yet, but I won’t say I will never buy one. Offline mode and mobile availability are what would eventually swing me that way.

Bottom line: For the price of one CD a month, you can have access to all CDs in their library, which includes labels like Universal, EMI, and Sony.

What’s your favorite thing about Spotify?

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Build Your Twitter Following Every Friday

July 15, 2011 By jason Leave a Comment

Have you seen the hashtag #FF in your Twitter feed? Ever notice it happens on Fridays?

I saw it for a good two or three weeks before I decided to figure out what it means. It means “Follow Friday”, and while it sounds kinda corny, it can really enhance your exposure.

Reaching out to the unknown masses

If you’re not using Twitter to reach out to a potentially huge market of blog readers, you’re really missing out. If you are using Twitter but only casually, you’re still missing out on connections that are just begging to be made. People want to find your blog, but they can’t if they don’t know who you are.

At first, I thought #FF was a cute idea, but I got over it pretty quick. It wasn’t until just recently that I realized it’s power.

People are happy to let others know that people like them. A lot of times when you FF someone, they’ll RT your FF. It’s like saying “See?! People really do like me!” Bloggers eat that crap up! Now all of their followers know that you’re someone who might have some interesting things for them to read. A lot of them will follow you because of it.

Things I FF:

I’m pretty active in my blogging niche, which is fitness as provided by The 4-Hour Body. There are a few different types of FFs I do these days:

my new 4HB related followers
active 4HB tweeters
my Triberr tribe

For most of the people that follow me, these types of Twitter accounts will be useful to follow. People generally follow me for fitness or 4HB discussions, so by pointing them to people who discuss them also, I’m providing value. When those people RT my FF, I get several new followers to send value to.

So the next time you get annoyed at all the #FF tweets, like I did, remember that you can use them too to increase the base of people who read your blog.

-j

PS: You can follow my tweets at FMFBlogger.

Are you becoming a problogger?

Definitely check out this online course by Cloud Blogging. It’s the first course I took when I started blogging to make money.
It totally changed the way I blog.

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Book Review: The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey

June 4, 2011 By jason Leave a Comment

If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.
- Dave Ramsey

Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey review

When you listen to Dave Ramsey’s radio show, you will often hear that quote. When you read the book, it’s printed repetitively at the bottom of each page. I think Dave’s trying to tell us something.

Extreme Finance Makeover: Ramsey Edition

Once you start reading this book, you’ll realize two things very quickly:

Dave Ramsey ain’t messing around
This plan could really work!

Americans are broke, generally speaking. Oh, we have nice things and all, but that is precisely why we’re broke. The nice things are all on loan from a bank, and we’re all “slaves to the lender.” (Proverbs 22:7)

For a practical example, when I went to Paraguay I only had student loan debt left. Especially once I found Kathy, really the only thing that forced me to head back to the US that year was the debt I had to pay off. When I went back to get her this past January, I was really upset that our future is determined by my debt.
The Total Money Makeover is a handbook to your financial freedom. It’s not easy, and it’s not quick. Dave will tell you straight out: it’s gonna hurt. He says on his show all the time that the key is living off of beans and rice and rice and beans. He means it.

If you’re not ready to radically change your way of life, this book is not for you. It’s not a collection of hard-to-maintain tips on getting debt free. No, this book takes an extremely common sense approach to debt: don’t buy what you don’t have cash for, don’t buy stuff you don’t need, and use all the rest of your money to pay off your debt as quickly as possible.

Do it in baby steps

His whole philosophy is baby steps. At the start, you’re financially obese. You can’t do much, but you do what you can. First you get yourself an emergency cushion. Then you attack debt. Then you “fully fund” your emergency stash. Then you save for retirement. Then you pay off your house. Then you live like no one else.

But it starts with living like no one else.

You might have to say “no” to some things and some people. You may have to sell a car or boat. But he guarantees that if you follow the plan, you will become wealthy.

Don’t let it end with cash hoarding

Dave Ramsey gives a ton of money away. He says the most fun he has with his money is giving it to people who need it more than he does. He even had a contest around Christmas to see who could give away $5000 – of *his* money – the best.

I didn’t read this book to find out how to get rich. I read this book to see what this Total Money Makeover is all about. I have to say, I wasn’t even done with the debt-paying-off chapter before I wanted to jump to the computer and adjust the budget as tightly as I could.

We’ve already begun implementing some techniques in our budget. For example, food purchases have been more expensive than necessary in the past. So now food is a cash-only system. When the cash is done, we eat what we have left in the house. That’s the only way my debt will be gone soon.

Definitely recommended

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has any kind of debt. You don’t need the debt. You can get rid of it. You just have to be systematic about it, and this book will help. Break the old habits and start new ones. If you live like no one else now, you can live like no one else later!

Buy
The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
by Dave Ramsey
on Amazon!

Other personal finance tools by Dave Ramsey

Cash Flow Planning
(DVD)

Total Money Makeover
Workbook

Financial Peace
University

Financial Peace

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Old Friends, Good Herb, and Pilgrimages

June 1, 2011 By jason Leave a Comment

Jason's the white kid. They're in the middle of a road after a rain.

Nothing like spending time with old friends.

I got a call tonight as I was leaving work from a number I didn’t recognize. It was my friend Jason! He taught in Paraguay before I got there, and we lived together for a few weeks before he moved back to the US, but I stayed in the apartment he turned into a home.

There’s something about an experience in a foreign country that seems to bond you with a person you share it with in a way you wouldn’t be bound if you just hung out in your own.

Whenever I think of Jason, I think of Paraguay. And often when I think of Paraguay, I think of Jason.

So when he called me tonight and said, “Jason, I’m about an hour and a half away from Richmond on my way to North Carolina, and I was hoping to visit,” I was thrilled. I quickly called Kathy and told her we had a visitor coming.

We sat outside in about 90 degree weather drinking tereré and talking about old times and what’s happened since we last chatted. It was nice for Kathy to talk about her home country and be able to converse in Spanish fluently with someone other than me. And tereré always tastes better when shared.

Jason and I have spent a total of about 3 hours together in the two and a half years since he left Paraguay, but I feel as close to him as if we have been friends our whole life.

That’s what Jesus does between friends. That’s what life-changing experiences do between people. I can’t think of Jason without thinking of Paraguay. It was probably the most influential trip of both of our lives, even though we did it at different times. We are who we are as individuals and possibly even as Christians largely due to our experiences in Pargauay.

I’m sure you’ve had visits like this as well in your own life. A friend drops by out of the blue and you converse like not a day has passed. I love how the Lord keeps us together this way. It’s a bond I wouldn’t trade for the world.

See you when you get back from Spain, Jason!

-j

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How to Create Facebook Landing Pages With HTML

May 27, 2011 By jason 3 Comments

Are you becoming a problogger?

Definitely check out this online course by Cloud Blogging. It’s the first course I took when I started blogging to make money.
It totally changed the way I blog.

One of the fun things about building out Finding My Fitness is finding ways to do really cool stuff to get connected to my fans. One of the best ways is via Facebook.

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about why you should get into Facebook because the two articles I’m about to link you to are going to do that for you. Let’s just say that it’s

the most popular site on the internet and
almost everyone you know has a Facebook account.

Two of the blogs I follow to learn how to become a professional blogger are ViperChill and SmartPassiveIncome. They both have really awesome content if you’re starting a blog for business, and one of the things I had bookmarked them both to do was create my Facebook landing page.

I had originally started at ViperChill using Glen’s “The Highest Converting Facebook Page I’ve Ever Seen” post. I was all set to go and super excited about the templates he was offering for FREE to get the landing page off the ground. I downloaded them and ran into some snags (like I couldn’t find the app he was talking about), so I went to Pat’s SPI blog to see what he had to say about using Facebook.

When I started watching the video on Pat’s post, How to Create a Facebook Landing Page (HTML / iFrame Edition), I saw a pop-up that said that in March 2011 the old way (using FBML) wasn’t going to work anymore. In his video, Pat teaches you to create a Facebook Page from scratch. Then he teaches you how to create two different landing pages: one for “fans” and one for non-fans.

So then I knew I had it! I could use Glen’s templates, which use FBML, and adapt them to use HTML and the app that Pat told me about. Then I decided to write this page.

I’m not going to teach you anything here because these guys have done it all for me. I’m just walking on the backs of these giants. What I do have extra for you, though, are Glen’s templates that I modified to use HTML instead of FBML. The biggest difference is that you can’t use the user’s login name in HTML, but I’m also trying to figure out how to get around that.

Download my HTML version of ViperChill’s Facebook landing page templates.

Alternatively, you can keep Glen’s templates the way they are and mark the “enable FBML” checkbox in the Static HTML app. When I did that, though, I still didn’t get the username to show up.

You can enable FBML too.

Let me know in the comments if you find any tricks!

-j

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Book Review: Eats, Shoots and Leaves

May 9, 2011 By jason 2 Comments

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

‘Why?’ asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

‘Well, I’m a panda,’ he says, at the door. ‘Look it up.’

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. ‘Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.’

If you giggled, you need to read this book. Here are a few other characteristics of people who will enjoy the read:

When you see a sign in a grocery store that says “We have apple’s and orange’s”, does it make you die just a little inside?
Are you the only one of your friends who knows the difference between “it’s” and “its”?
Do you have a semicolon and know how to use it?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’ll have fun with this book.

Ms. Mercer would be so proud

My 12th grade English teacher changed my life.

You’d think my math teacher or even my computer programming teacher would be the one I say had the most influence on my future. The reality is the one teacher I think about most often is Ms. Mercer. We were a small class of AP students, so we often sat in a circle to discuss the latest reading assignment or share our writing assignments. I had never done critical reading until her class, and I realized that I loved it. She started me on a path of great books and literary analysis. To this day I wonder why I didn’t become an English teacher.

As a result of loving the language, I enjoy using it well. I feel clever when I can string words and phrases together in a melody of prose (I’m not that great a poet), and being able to use a semicolon correctly is just icing on the cake.

This book was a recommendation to all of the web developers in our group by the one person in the area who had any type of English training. I picked it up, and I’ve had a hard time putting it down.

**It’s very persnickety**

Truss comes right out and says it at the beginning of the book. Referring to a sign she saw that said “Come inside for CD’s, VIDEO’S, DVD’s, and BOOK’s” she advises:

“If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes no little gasp of horror or quickening of pulse, you should probably put down this book at once.”

The book is full of uses and misuses of almost every kind of punctuation we use in English, even down to emoticons at the end (she’s not a fan). It’s quite clever in presentation and delivery (the British, I think, pride themselves on being clever), and you can’t help but learn some things along the way.

She starts with a history of the apostrophe, comma, and “full stop” and moves through other pieces of punctuation such as colons, semicolons, dashes, and exclamation points. Did you know that punctuation was originally used to show the reader where to breath? In essence, it was used to annotate the rhythm of speech. I didn’t know that old-school Greek didn’t even use spaces! Look how far we’ve come!

But it’s also very fun to read

Truss teaches us about grammar with a whole ton of wit tossed in with a bunch of sass mixed together with some word-nerdy jokes. I laugh at least once per page, whether it’s at a poor example she’d found somewhere or just the example she uses to show how to use a certain form of punctuation.

“Dangling expectations caused by incorrect pluralisation:
Pansy’s ready (is she?)
Cyclist’s only (his only what?)
Please replace the trolley’s (replace the trolley’s what?)”

I told you: persnickety and Britishly humorous! If you sometimes feel snarky when you see poor grammar or punctuation, read this book. It won’t judge you as you recall moments you just knew you spotted poor English but didn’t want to be “that guy” and correct it.

Buy
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
by Lynne Truss
on Amazon!

Other books by Lynne Truss

Twenty-Odd Ducks:
Why, every punctuation mark counts!

Cold Comfort Farm

Tennyson’s Gift

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Our Future Has Been Conceived

May 6, 2011 By jason 4 Comments

This is the first post of the rest of our lives!

This is NOT the post you think you’re about to read.

Kathy and I have been thinking about projects for ourselves, something we can do together. I met a guy through Twitter who with his wife started a company called Duchess and Duke Soap Company. He started tweeting about the process of soap making, but what really got me excited were his comments about how much he loves the adventure. Their plans are big, but their goal is to be financially free and working together. Plus, they make one incredibly cute couple!

It started with soap

The more we talked about it, the more Kathy and I wanted to do something like this ourselves. We had been headed down the soap road, with lots of guidance from D&D, and have been brainstorming some ideas on how to make our soap different. We want to begin to introduce North Americans to the awesome tropical smells of Paraguay. Things like orange blossom, jasmine, and lemon (maybe we could even do a “yard smoke” smell as a novelty!) would be our features. Excitement was building.

She does love candles, though

Then this past weekend we went to an outdoor art show and saw candles. Lots and lots of candles. But then we saw gel candles, and I’ve never seen her so excited about something. They were quite expensive, but she was in love with them. So we figured out what product we wanted to focus on first.

I think when you see something you really want to have but don’t want to spend the money on it, you have a lot of motivation to make it yourself. It becomes a hobby you can monetize, and that’s where successful side business come from.

Introducing: A Company Yet To Be Named!

I went to Michael’s today to check out their candle-making supplies. They unfortunately didn’t have any (that I saw) for making gel-based candles, but I did pick up some regular wax and some scents. I saw some melt-and-pour soaps as well, so I added those to my cart. Thus begins our home-grown business! We’ll start this weekend, hopefully to have some gifts for my mom and sisters in time for Mother’s Day.

We don’t have a name for our company yet, but I think we want it to be in Guaraní. The difficulty is that it also has to be pronounceable by Americans! I have “Tupa Ra’y” on my license plate, and I have gotten weary of people asking me what “TUpa ray” means (the pronunciation is hard to write out, but it’s closer to “tuPA ra UU” – the “UU” is kind of like if you were to see something gross and go “eewughlll”, but not exactly), and I feel like a jerk if I respond with “Actually, it’s pronounced tuPA ra UU…”. So I smile and just say, “it means ‘child of God’.” I don’t want to have to hear people mispronouncing the name of our soap, so we need to spend some time thinking about it.

I already know where my first market is and how I will get our first sales. Word-of-mouth will likely give us more orders than we can handle, especially around Christmas and Valentine’s Day. I’m nearly 100% certain of that. We’re very excited for the potential we have with this venture, especially since it could really help us get my debt paid off that much faster!

So stay tuned. Expect to see posts here about the process. I may start a separate blog later on, but I’ll be sure to let y’all know.

-j

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DIY Rewards Cards: I Have A Personal Finance Post at MH4C

April 25, 2011 By jason 1 Comment

Just a quick update for you guys today…

I have been reading the personal finance blog Money Help For Christians for a while now and decided to contribute something to it. Craig had opened it up a while back for guest post opportunities. I came up with an idea that I’ve been implementing successfully for two months, thanks to a savings account my bank gave me.

The article I wrote explains my idea about being your own rewards card. Essentially, I’ve found most rewards credit cards to be more dangerous than helpful for people who can’t control their spending, so I use a method that lets me get “rewarded” for making purchases without going into debt.

The article might get me some hotly negative reviews. I said “Earning miles is a joke.” Craig actually has a course he teaches on earning miles, so I directly contradicted him. He said he really liked my article, though, and is going to use it as a springboard for some articles in the future. I’m counting on the “love of the brethren” I’ve seen displayed there before to keep people from ripping my head off.

Anyway, go check out my article if you’d like. I’m pretty happy with it!

DIY Rewards Cards: Pay Yourself Back Without Going Into Debt

-j

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LG Optimus V on Virgin Mobile is NOT Sold Out

April 8, 2011 By jason Leave a Comment

I was looking around for an LG Optimus V for my new Virgin Mobile plan, and everywhere I looked it said it was sold out.

Target: sold out.
Wal-Mart: sold out.
VirginMobileUSA.com: sold out.

Then I called a place I don’t usually shop because they’re overpriced: RadioShack.

They had six.

Now they have five.

I love my new android phone.

-j

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Three Blogs I Read That You Might Like

February 21, 2011 By jason 2 Comments

I love making progress on my goals.

Sometimes it’s difficult to keep track of your goals because life gets in the way. One of the ways I am keeping tabs on myself is to keep these goals in the front of my mind each day. This way I keep motivated and keep going. That’s the primary reason I started Finding My Fitness.

One of the ways I’m keeping on top of the financial goals in my life is by reading personal finance blogs. I read three specifically:

Christian PF
Each one has a different spin on personal finance. Christian PF obviously does it from a Biblical perspective. They have a bunch of articles that will help anyone, but their articles about giving are the ones I like the best. I’ve been praying for God to make me a more generous person, and reading stories are inspiring to me.

GRS
Get Rich Slowly is exactly what it sounds like. I like it because it’s the totally opposite of the get rich quick schemes that are prevalent today. They provide tips on saving more, spending less, and earning more; stories about people who have overcome debt themselves; and sometimes write about investing. It’s a great motivator each day.

Man vs. Debt
Man vs. Debt is a very open blog basically about the journey of a guy named Adam Baker. He’s pretty edgy in terms of his finances. Right now he and his family are taking an RV tour of the US, and I think he might even be getting paid to do it. He’s a really cool guy to read, and I can tell you he’s pretty transparent. One of my blogging mentors in terms of learning how to create a profitable blog. He’s one of the reasons I started looking for more and more things in my house to sell on ebay.

Another one I’m starting to read more is Money Help For Christians. The primary author, Craig Ford, is currently a missionary in Papua New Guinea. He’s another one of the guys I’m trying to emulate with FMF. Eventually, especially if God has us serving as a missionary somewhere, I’d like to earn our income through writing too.

I hope you enjoy one or all the sites I mentioned. Sometimes the articles can overlap between sites, but I like the different spin each one has.

-j

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First impressions

Music management is different

Different levels for different needs

Making it social

Overall, I’m really impressed

More great posts:

Reaching out to the unknown masses

Things I FF:

More great posts:

Extreme Finance Makeover: Ramsey Edition

Do it in baby steps

Don’t let it end with cash hoarding

Definitely recommended

Other personal finance tools by Dave Ramsey

More great posts:

More great posts:

More great posts:

Ms. Mercer would be so proud

It’s very persnickety

But it’s also very fun to read

Other books by Lynne Truss

More great posts:

It started with soap

She does love candles, though

Introducing: A Company Yet To Be Named!

More great posts:

More great posts:

More great posts:

More great posts:

About Me

The Jayzilla Network

**It’s very persnickety**