I do a lot of online shopping (shockingly, shopping with 3 kids under 6 in a store isn't a whole lot of fun). I have mostly good experiences, however I'm getting frustrated with target.com right now. I ordered a "bumbo seat" for my enormous baby 3 weeks ago. When I placed the order, I was promised delivery by the end of the month, which I was ok with, although it would have been nice if it was marked out of stock or on back order on the website (I see now that they've added availibility information). Last week I finally got a shipping confirmation, but I was concerned because the ups tracking information never got past "billing information received". When the ups tracking info hadn't changed a few days after the package was allegedly shipped, I sent an email to target.com asking about the discrepancy. I suspect the reply I got was computer generated-- it just repeated the information on my shipping confirmation email, including giving me my ups tracking number again. UPS still claims not to have received my package.
Yesterday was the day my package was supposed to arrive, according to the most recent estimate from target.com. I sent a second email today, using their "you didn't answer my question" link in the previous email. Hopefully I'll merit having a human being look at my problem and I can either get my package ASAP or just cancel the darn order and get my baby seat from a smaller retailer that's a little more responsive to their customers.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Sunday, July 16, 2006
There's no such thing as bad taste...
Or maybe there is. This handsome guy could come to your bathroom for the low price of $90 (originally $150). He holds a second roll in his hat and he's sporting the bare-midriff look. I'd love to see a bathroom where this fits (I think).
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
I hate cheating...
It's always been a big pet-peeve of mine. One of my favorite professors in college started each course with a speech about how he wouldn't tolerate any cheating, and would in fact do everything in his power to get a cheater expelled. So I was interested to read Jay Mathews' ideas for reducing cheating on college essays. I was disappointed in his suggestion, though because it puts the cheater right in their comfort zone-- cheating in their own high school.
There are a few flaws with this idea. First, it puts a burden on schools that schools will bear differently. Some kids may be limited to a single class period to write, while others are given expansive amounts of time-- as any writer knows, editing is huge, so the amount of time allowed to write will greatly effect the quality of the work. Some will have access to word-processor (a must for anyone with lousy handwriting), and others won't. It's true that life isn't fair, and some kids are going to have easier access to resources, no matter what, but tipping the application process even further against them is lousy. If allowed to write outside of school, many more kids would be able to find a computer to use, either at the library or at someone's home.10 Ways to Fix College Admissions
By Jay MathewsWashington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 11, 2006; 9:48 AMIt is mid-July. College campuses thunder with the sound of high school students and their parents touring dorms, questioning admissions officers and sampling cafeteria food before they decide which schools to apply to.
....
3. Write college essays in class
The college application essay "editing" industry has gone too far. Students can now send in a few hundred random words and get back, for less than $100, a very polished essay written by an Ivy League graduate. And some parents just cannot resist rewriting whatever their child has done. The colleges should require that the essays be written in class, with the teachers signing the papers saying they were done in their presence without anybody's help, and sending them directly to the counseling office for mailing to the college. Quality 3, Likelihood 2.
Second, the committed cheater probably won't be fazed. All they'd need to do is smuggle a pre-written essay into the classroom to copy over. I imagine that not every teacher would be thrilled to have college essay proctoring added to their schedule, so they won't all do a great job babysitting.
Third, some schools and teachers will cheat. There are high schools that get a lot of prestige from the college placement of their alumni, and they may decide to take a lawyerly approach to defining what "written without help" means.
I have my own suggestion for how to reduce cheating on the college application essay. During orientation, require that each incoming student write an essay on a surprise topic in a uniformly proctored setting. These essays can be compared to the ones submitted with their application, and if they don't seem to have been written by the same person, based on quality of writing and grammar, the acceptance is rescinded. It wouldn't catch everyone, but it would weed out the worst offenders. An additional advantage to this approach from my point of view is that homeschoolers wouldn't need a special accomodation to participate.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Saving for college...
We've been revisiting our finances, and looking at college savings. To put our kids through college at a Wisconsin state school with in-state tuition, assuming tuition continues to rise as it has been, we need to save $250 per kid, every month until December of their senior year of college. Or, we could just let them borrow $140k-- that'll give them a nice start in life. If we were going to save enough to send them to MIT, assuming tuition and fees continue to rise as they have been, we'd need to set aside $883/month to be able to afford the estimated $578,756 cost.
Umm $578,756? How could 4 years of school possibly be worth that much? If a student borrowed that much money and paid it back over 30 years at 4.75%, it would cost $3,019.07 per month, more than $36k a year. I'd like to say this is such an absurd value, it proves that the estimates used at the college savings websites are seriously flawed, but I'm afraid I'll be wrong. After all, colleges get to sell themselves to 18 year olds with no real understanding of debt or even the value of money, and parents don't seem able to say no when their kids are opting to sell their future for a fancy name on their diploma.
My hope is that the coming generation will think long and hard before taking on the debt a high-priced college education is likely to require. Mainstream magazines are already questioning whether college is "worth it". Thanks to the internet, there are many degree programs from reputable universities available to anyone with an internet connection, and typically at a much lower cost than attending on campus. It's true that a student who attended college online wouldn't get the real "college experience", but there could be advantages to an online program, such as working in your field while in school. With the growth in options to traditional colleges, I believe traditional institutions won't be able to let tuitions rise unchecked indefinitely. If they don't get their costs under control, attending college in person may become a luxury few people are willing to afford.
At the very least, I hope that if my kids choose traditional colleges, they go with an appreciation for the unique opportunity college can be, and a plan to get the most out of it. I will be certain they understand the cost of whatever debt they take on. Not having any student loans has given my husband and I a lot of freedom in deciding how our family should live. I would love for my kids to have that same freedom, but if "the experts" are right, it may require some hard choices on their part.
Umm $578,756? How could 4 years of school possibly be worth that much? If a student borrowed that much money and paid it back over 30 years at 4.75%, it would cost $3,019.07 per month, more than $36k a year. I'd like to say this is such an absurd value, it proves that the estimates used at the college savings websites are seriously flawed, but I'm afraid I'll be wrong. After all, colleges get to sell themselves to 18 year olds with no real understanding of debt or even the value of money, and parents don't seem able to say no when their kids are opting to sell their future for a fancy name on their diploma.
My hope is that the coming generation will think long and hard before taking on the debt a high-priced college education is likely to require. Mainstream magazines are already questioning whether college is "worth it". Thanks to the internet, there are many degree programs from reputable universities available to anyone with an internet connection, and typically at a much lower cost than attending on campus. It's true that a student who attended college online wouldn't get the real "college experience", but there could be advantages to an online program, such as working in your field while in school. With the growth in options to traditional colleges, I believe traditional institutions won't be able to let tuitions rise unchecked indefinitely. If they don't get their costs under control, attending college in person may become a luxury few people are willing to afford.
At the very least, I hope that if my kids choose traditional colleges, they go with an appreciation for the unique opportunity college can be, and a plan to get the most out of it. I will be certain they understand the cost of whatever debt they take on. Not having any student loans has given my husband and I a lot of freedom in deciding how our family should live. I would love for my kids to have that same freedom, but if "the experts" are right, it may require some hard choices on their part.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
What exactly did they expect?
The Washington Post has an article this morning about the stress men feel while in Labor and Delivery with their wives: The Feeling Her Pain
Intensity of Childbirth Experience Leaves Some Men Feeling Ill-Prepared. You'd think there would be some sense of irony here, considering that the main source of their discomfort is the fact that their wife is in agony. Childbirth is SCARY FOR WOMEN TOO. I have unusually fast and intense labors, but it would terrify me to be there without someone to advocate for me, and given the fairly intimate exposure, I prefer for my husband to be that advocate. I understand that childbirth is kind of gross to watch (there's a reason I've never asked for a mirror to witness it myself), but, seriously guys, suck it up, and be there for your wives.
A word of warning: if you think childbirth is gross, wait till you try parenting! Whether you're all passing around the flu, or someone needs stitches, kids require a strong stomach.
Luckily, kids are worth it.
Intensity of Childbirth Experience Leaves Some Men Feeling Ill-Prepared. You'd think there would be some sense of irony here, considering that the main source of their discomfort is the fact that their wife is in agony. Childbirth is SCARY FOR WOMEN TOO. I have unusually fast and intense labors, but it would terrify me to be there without someone to advocate for me, and given the fairly intimate exposure, I prefer for my husband to be that advocate. I understand that childbirth is kind of gross to watch (there's a reason I've never asked for a mirror to witness it myself), but, seriously guys, suck it up, and be there for your wives.
A word of warning: if you think childbirth is gross, wait till you try parenting! Whether you're all passing around the flu, or someone needs stitches, kids require a strong stomach.
Luckily, kids are worth it.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Search Engine Optimization Basics
I don't have a lot of time to devote to it, but I find search engine optimization fascinating (yes, I'm a geek). It surprises me how often I find a website that looks beautiful, but hasn't done even the most basic things to ensure that the site is listed correctly in search engines. Most of what I know about search engine optimization, I have learned from my Dad, who, with my Mom, sells beautiful Amish quilts online. Here is the information I think everyone who designs websites should know.
Search engines (google, yahoo, msn, etc…) use “web-crawling” programs to find and categorize websites. To make your website easy to find with search engines, you need to have links to your website from reputable websites, and your website needs to use the right words (keywords) in the right places so the programs categorize your site correctly. The best way I know to get links from reputable websites is to have valuable, original content; you can also trade links with other websites, and buy ads. The text of the link (the blue text people click on) matters-- if the link is just your web address (eg http://novatowi.blogspot.com/ ) it won’t do you as much good as if it is your keywords.
Making sure your keywords are in the right places in your site’s HTML is an easy thing to do. Your keywords are the words people might use to search the web when they’re looking for sites like yours. Essentially, the web-crawling programs read your source code and assume that the topics that come first in the source are the main topics of your site. To look at your source code, open your site in IE or Firefox, click on the “view” menu, and then “source”; the source code will open in a new window. Your keywords should be in your website’s title, meta-description, meta-keywords, and in large type at the top of your website’s text (as seen in the source code— if the site has columns of text, make sure that the column listed first contains your keywords). It is also good to have keywords in your website address. The “meta-description” is the blurb you see under the title when a site is listed in a search engine. It should be a couple sentences, and should both include keywords, and be something that would encourage a person to look at your site.
Each page in a site should have a different title and description.
Search engines (google, yahoo, msn, etc…) use “web-crawling” programs to find and categorize websites. To make your website easy to find with search engines, you need to have links to your website from reputable websites, and your website needs to use the right words (keywords) in the right places so the programs categorize your site correctly. The best way I know to get links from reputable websites is to have valuable, original content; you can also trade links with other websites, and buy ads. The text of the link (the blue text people click on) matters-- if the link is just your web address (eg http://novatowi.blogspot.com/ ) it won’t do you as much good as if it is your keywords.
Making sure your keywords are in the right places in your site’s HTML is an easy thing to do. Your keywords are the words people might use to search the web when they’re looking for sites like yours. Essentially, the web-crawling programs read your source code and assume that the topics that come first in the source are the main topics of your site. To look at your source code, open your site in IE or Firefox, click on the “view” menu, and then “source”; the source code will open in a new window. Your keywords should be in your website’s title, meta-description, meta-keywords, and in large type at the top of your website’s text (as seen in the source code— if the site has columns of text, make sure that the column listed first contains your keywords). It is also good to have keywords in your website address. The “meta-description” is the blurb you see under the title when a site is listed in a search engine. It should be a couple sentences, and should both include keywords, and be something that would encourage a person to look at your site.
Each page in a site should have a different title and description.
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