Don't Let the Auto Repair Shop Scam You

My gear-head brother told me the serpentine belt in my car was frayed and needed to be replaced, and suggested I take my car to a specific automotive repair shop in town.

Jim knows his stuff when it comes to cars and I thought his repair shop recommendation was trust-worthy. What I had forgotten is just because he had no problems with them didn't necessarily mean the place wouldn't "mistakenly" wrongly diagnosed my car. As I sit and type this, I also recall him telling me that most of the repair places in town make a habit of instructing their technicians to find other things "wrong" with the car in order to drive up sales.

So, the repair shop replaced my serpentine belt then told me the tensioner pulley, the main pulley within the engine, needed to be replaced because it had quite a bit of movement which would ruin the belt; possibly breaking it and causing more damage. The cost to replace the pulley? $150.

I have spent thousands of dollars in repairs to my vehicles over the years and most of that money was unnecessarily spent because the shop either "wrongly diagnosed" or plain ol' didn't repair my car correctly. With past experience in hand, I decided to take my car to another shop to get a second opinion.

After arriving at the scheduled time, I told the young man behind the counter I had spent thousands of dollars on unnecessary repairs; that I refused to be duped into doing so again. In other words, I was basically giving him a warning. "Don't screw with me."

In the end, after he and another fellow pushed and pried the pulley with a long crow-bar looking instrument as I stood at the shop door watching, they concluded replacing the pulley wasn't required. There was hardly any play - if any - in its movement and no movement whatsoever while the engine was running. The young man did suggest I bring the car in within a year just to be sure all was okay and that suggestion was fine with me. By the way, their inspection didn't cost me a penny. Not one red cent.

I was so happy with this news that I immediately made an appointment to have the car's air conditioner repaired by them. On second thought, I think I'll get a second opinion once they've diagnosed the problem.

Success at Custom Candy Bar Wrapping

The very day Miller's Wrapped Expression placed an ad on Craiglist under the category Baby-Kids and titling my ad Birthday, Birth Announcements, Shower, a young woman contacted me.
"Are those the only ones you have?" she asked regarding the four sample wrappers I was limited to uploading. Knowing this was a good hook, a great prospect I assured her they weren't.

She emailed to say she was in need of birth announcements to hand out to everyone after her daughter gave birth to the little baby girl she's pregnant with. She selected a background from a couple I emailed and wrote she'd like to have the baby's name included on the wrapper.

With all information in hand, I set to work. Within thirty minutes, I had a nice looking wrapper to go around a standard size chocolate bar.

The client loved them and why not? Miller's Wrapped Expression customized the candy bar wrapper to suit her needs and to her specifications. And so happy was she that she placed another order for miniature candy bar wrappers and a diaper cake.

Thank you, Dollie, for giving me opportunities to serve and help you. And thank you to Digi Web Studio for great clip art. Visit them at http://www.digiwebstudio.com/store/.

Free Photo Editing Software

Created background using Photo Pos pro

I was in need of baby and pregnant mother graphics for new candy wrappers I was designing for my web site, Miller's Wrapped Expression. Naturally, I headed toward the Internet to search for royalty free clip art. Thing is, I don't trust most of those web sites especially considering my computer got a "cooty" from one.

I found a site that offers sets for a minimal price; $1 or $2, I believe they were. They were great and oh so cute. But I was nagged by the fact my wrappers would look so much like so many others' home designed candy wrappers you can find on the Internet.

So I set to dreaming of drawing my own clip art, scanning it into the computer and editing it to the point it would be useful as an image for my candy wrappers. This led me to search for a suitable and FREE image editing software. By golly, I found it!



Photo Pos pro (http://www.photopos.com/index.asp) was once sold but became freeware at some point. I have to say it does everything I need it to do. It took a while to learn as is the case for most new software and it has taken me a few months to become efficient at it but to say at the very least, I am extremely pleased with the program.



Created background using Photo Pos Pro



For novices, you can manually brighten, manipulate contrast or adjust the luminosity of an image which generally is about all an image needs. Or, you can adjust an image by the program's Auto Adjust features. If you want to get further into editing like removing backgrounds, cropping, rotating, flipping and color adjustment, there are tools for that too. Just head to Help, type in what you're looking to do and you'll be taken to a short description of the tool and its location in the tool bar. Photo Pos pro also has tutorials that are easy to follow.

I have used the heck out of this program. In fact, my mother had an old negative from the 1930s she wanted a print from. I scanned the negative, opened it in Photo Pos pro and turned it into a positive print just so I could see what sort of shape the image was in and if it needed fixing.

When Photo Pos pro suddenly quit working properly, I emailed the error log to customer support who answered in three days. They suggested I remove the program from my hard drive and re-download. I was disappointed at first with their - what I thought to be - lack of detailed support but I did as they suggested. I'm pleased the program works just as it did when I first downloaded it.

Hand drawn clip art using Photo Pos pro

By the way, the web site offers lots of freebies like frames, backgrounds and other graphics but I am left wanting more from them by way of usable pieces.

So, if you're looking for a program to do more than basic adjustments of your pictures, head over to Photo Pos pro's web site and take a look. Once you click Download, you'll be taken to Cnet.com that is a very trusted web site.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affilated with Photo Pos pro nor the owners of the software and web site.

Dream of Add to Cart or Buy Now Buttons

It was time for me to bite the bullet. I had to add payment buttons to both of my web sites (Miller's Wrapped Expression and Clip Art by Miller) because it simply wouldn't do for prospects to click "Contact" to order something. So began my search and research for payment buttons.

I initially tried adding buttons from Google gadgets. This was total ignorance on my part because where would the money go? There was no account set up. After a couple of weeks pondering options (realizing - of course - that I am no web master and don't know HTML from any other coding therefore scared to death of screwing up something), it suddenly dawned on me that I have a Paypal account. Duh.

I started with "Buy Now". The Paypal instructions said to create a description, type in pricing, click the "get code" button, copy and paste the coding into the HTML code of my web page. Easy enough. Instead of typing out a description for each candy bar, I simply clicked on the sample candy wrapper picture, clicked "properties" and copied the description. Not the entire picture link but the simple description like "lion_crouching". Then I headed back to the open Paypal window and pasted in the description and copied the coding for the candy wrapper.

After returning to Miller's Wrapped Expression open window, I clicked where I wanted to put the link and opened the HTML window. I scanned the coding for the description of the sample picture but couldn't find it. So I opened "Find on this page", typed in "lion" and hit the "find" button. Voila! There it was. I pasted the coding from Paypal beneath the picture name and clicked "preview". Ah, I did it correctly.

I did several before I realized I needed "Add to Cart" and assorted sizes rather than "Buy Now". No problem. I just went back, deleted all the "Buy Now" buttons from my web page and Paypal, and created new buttons after adding three different sizes of candy wrappers along with prices.

It wasn't easy but I managed to do it with little knowledge and a little reading.

Get a Cable Modem Free

Okay, so the title is a little bit misleading but I no longer pay rent on the cable modem supplied by my cable company.

How did I manage that? For the umpteenth time I got pissed off about paying monthly rent on the gosh-darn modem. I had been meaning to call the cable company but for an entire year I either put it off or forgot about it completely. Yesterday, I had had enough. After berating myself yet again for not having taken care of it a year ago, I finally hopped on my cell phone and called the cable company.

After going through their security checks ("Last four of your Social Security?", "Address?", "Are you Deborah Miller?"), the young lady finally asked what she could do for me.

"I've been one of your customers for two or three years. I was thinking of going out and purchasing a cable modem but I thought I'd give you a call first. I think you should give the one I've been renting and have probably paid for a couple of times to me."

"Yes. Uh-huh. Right. Can you hold for a moment while I ask my supervisor?" the young lady asked.

"Sure," I said though my reply went unheard as she was a quick little belle and had me on hold before I knew it.

"Thank you for holding. Yes, Mrs. Miller, we will take that charge off your bill but we will not give you credit for the difference for the rent you've paid versus the cost of the modem," the young lady said.

"No credit? I think I should at least get a twenty dollar bill," I replied.

Laughing, the young lady said, "I'm sorry. We can't do that."

"Then a free month's worth of cable."

Again the young lady laughed. She obviously didn't know I was serious.

"No, no. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

"Nope," I responded.

"You have a good day then."

"Thank you."

And that is how I got a free modem.

Dream of Being Poor

Or: Shop Like You're Poor

I was in a situation a few years back in which I was in need of new eye glasses as I wasn't seeing very well out of the ones I had purchased many years ago. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford the eye exam along with the cost of the new glasses. The eye exam is a minimum of one hundred dollars and the glasses - well, glasses will cost in the hundreds of dollars. Further, I wasn't dreaming I was poor. I really was poor. Like many others, I had lost my job. To further enhance the situation, my mother needed my help so I moved back home. I searched for a job here in town but nobody wanted to hire a middle aged woman with years of publishing and management experience.

With no well paying job in sight, I had to get creative in finding new eye glasses so I could see. Thus began my search on the Internet for a decent pair of cheap glasses. It took weeks of looking through pages of URLs before I found a company that sells really inexpensive eye glasses.

Zenni Optical is where I finally landed. I could hardly believe my eyes. Glasses for twelve dollars? You're kidding me, right? Nope, not in the least. This discovery took me on another search but this one was to find ratings from others who had used Zenni Optical. I could find no major complaints about the company. Oh, there were the usual complaints about slow delivery here and there but every rating I read said the same thing. All who had purchased from Zenni Optical were satisfied with their purchase.

I also looked up the company on Dun and Bradstreet. I knew if I found it listed there it would be a legitimate company. I didn't think about looking up the company in the Better Business Bureau website which was sort of a stupid move on my part. My guess is if I looked them up today, I wouldn't find any - or very few - complaints.

Something more nagged at me, though. I came to realize this company fulfilled orders through a company outside of the United States. After further research, I realized a Chinese company was fulfilling special orders and would fulfill mine as I requested no-line trifocals. I have nothing against the Chinese. I have never been to China. I don't particularly like their politics but what bothered me the most was I was going to have to go outside of my own country to get a new pair of eye glasses. It's apparent to me that Zenni is somehow connected to China. I presume they're a branch of a company there. I will say I don't know for certain. It just seems logical to me.

However, this knowledge didn't stop me. I needed new glasses and I had no alternative but to go through with the purchase. I did and my twelve dollar glasses have served my sight well. The ear pieces are titanium, and won't and don't loose their shape. The lenses are scratch resistant and the entire package is light weight. They aren't heavy so don't hurt my nose.

I started this evening's blog to encourage people to shop like they're poverty stricken; to learn to scrimp and save at every turn but it seems I have come up with another subject or two. But I won't go into either this evening. Instead, I'll end this with the thought with which I originally began.

Dream of being poor and shop like you are. It is amazing how much money you will save. We did and managed to pay for two cataract surgeries.

Dreams: Saving Money on Canned Dog Food

My seventy-eight year old dad loves spoiling his schipperke (pronounced "Skipper-key"), Cinder. I cringe whenever I see him open a can of expensive dog food. It's not because he cuts the dog food up into small bite size pieces then feeds her each little portion from a plastic knife because that's the only way she'll eat it. I cringe because he spends a fortune on brand name canned dog food.

But I bite my tongue. I don't tell him to save his money and not buy the stuff; that he could actually provide her meat from his own kitchen table. No, I don't advocate giving dogs leftovers from the table. What I do advocate is reserving meat that you have cooked for your canine.

And that is just what my husband does. He does all the cooking around here (shopping, too). Whatever meat he prepares, he always reserves a certain amount for Tsaile (pronounced "Say-lee"), our Rhodesian Ridgeback. Whether it's chicken, ribs, roast, pork chops or steak, we always have a small plastic bag of meat set off to the side in the refrigerator. Every morning and every night, we put a bit of meat on top of Tsaile's dry dog food.

I know for a fact that she would eat her dry dog food without that bit of meat on top of it because we have run out of the reserve and had no choice but to give her only her dog food with a bit of warm water mixed into it. I also know she would eat her dry food with cooked rice, carrots or potatoes.

We don't scrape leftovers into her food bowl but we will keep a small amount from our plates occasionally to add to her food.

She isn't over-weight because we're very conscious of what we feed her. And, we're not spending a fortune on canned food or doggie treats. Yet, I can tell you she is very spoiled.

Conclusion: If you're looking for something to cut from the budget, consider substituting something for the expensive treats or food you serve your pet.

P.S. My ferret, Ponc, gets off-brand raisins instead of the five dollar packages of ferret treats.