What A Slacker!

Starting a Business: Credit Card Processing

Add comment February 14th, 2010

It might seem like one of the scariest parts of starting an online business can be figuring out credit card processing and how to implement that into your online shopping cart. Just the costs alone can be frightening, but it does not need to be that way.

Surprisingly online credit card processing is a very simple thing to set up and start using, while the hardest part may be in finding the right shopping cart that will work with your credit card processor and not force you into using the one they have teamed with. The processor they have chosen to partner with may not be the best fit for your company.

A lot of the people I know with online stores don’t always have a physical retail store, but that doesn’t stop them from selling in offline forums like craft shows or expos. Just because they are not doing business online doesn’t mean they have to become a cash only store when on the road. There are great options for wireless credit card processing that lets you take your store accounts with you wherever you go. For people just starting out wireless processing can be a bit expensive, but don’t think you can’t do it. There is always the DialPay or telephone option. And who doesn’t have access to a cell phone these days?

No matter what type of card processing you need, you should have no problem figuring it all out with a little research. Good luck with your new venture.

Amazon.com Equals Censorship and Discrimination

Add comment April 12th, 2009

I found out today that Amazon.com has started de-ranking what they deem to be adult content. Funny thing about that though is that the only thing that Amazon seem to be flagging as adult content is gay and lesbian themed books. They are stripping these books of their sales rankings within Amazon so as to keep them from showing up on searches.

I knew when they yanked the ultra violent video Rapelay that is was a sign of more to come. Granted that video is horrible and needed to be removed. But this latest development only proves that censorship of any kind opens the door for further discrimination.

The problems I am seeing with what Amazon is doing is the out and out homophobia. While they are removing the gay and lesbian books they are continuing to allow mainstream, yet extremely trashy sexual, books such as Laurell K Hamilton’s Incubus Dreams to have sales ranks. How is that?

Mark R. Probst is an author who is affected by the changes. He has posted the response he got back from Amazon about the removal of sales ranks on his books over on his blog. Amazon’s reply clearly states it is a new policy for adult content, yet other people are posting that they are getting responses from Amazon that it is a glitch, an oddly specific glitch, but a glitch.

This has obviously caused quite the stir across the net with much of that fervor coming from the Twitter community, where they are flagging posts with #amazonfail and in the past hour nearly 3000 posts with that tag have come through.

I have to say I agree with their requests from Amazon.com users to stop supporting the site until this is either reversed or sales ranks are removed from all adult content not just that with gay and lesbian subjects. There are plenty of other stores on the web (many of them with better prices and service) so if you can please avoid them. Thanks.

Update: for even more information check out this call for a boycott of Amazon until the fix this issue.

Here are a few more articles for your enlightenment:

• Amazon Rank
• Is Amazon Homophobic?
• Is Amazon Censoring LGBT Books?
• Go Tell Amazon to F*** Itself
• Amazon Censors Its Rankings & Search Results to Protect Us Against GLBT Books

• Amazon Accused of Removing Gay Books from Rankings

Low Cost Credit Card Processing for Merchants

Add comment August 29th, 2008

So, you have decided to try and make a buck online. Maybe open an online store. And why not the world of eCommerce is wide open and easy to get started. All you need is a website or host with a shopping cart to get started. Add a few products and a way you go. Of course you can start out having payments emailed to you and pay the high fees involved for the convenience or just have them send you an old fashion check, but eventually you will want to be able to accept credit cards therefore keeping pace with the internet.

A lot of people are afraid of setting up a merchant account or don’t think they could afford it. Guess what? They’re wrong. Merchant Advisors is there to help and they offer free credit card processing with a low per transaction fee that really does beat the other guys. They are the smart choice for both virtual and brick-and-mortar stores. You’ll want to check out their merchant services for more information about their merchant accounts for both physical and online stores.

Smart Portal for Smarter Clicks

Add comment August 25th, 2008

ClickSmart.com really is the smart way to click when you are looking for a service professional in your area. They take the guesswork out of finding the right person for your job by prescreening the businesses and certifying those who are experts in their field.

So if you are looking for someone to repair a slab leak in Dallas, Texas just go to ClickSmart.com and search for dallas slab leak and they’ll deliver lots of people who can reliably handle your project for you. The site is easy to use simply choose a category then enter your zip code to find a business close by who is waiting for your business.

Business Tips 101 - Email Addresses

Add comment June 24th, 2008

Small businesses often have inappropriate email addresses like smithcompany@yahoo.com or jonescompany@aol.com. This is not at all professional and often makes your company look as if it is not legit.

It really does not take too much time or money to set up a professional email with your own domain name. All you need is a good, low cost hosting company. Look for companies that offer shared web site hosting as this will lower the cost per month for their services. A great option is Concentric.com they offer email services for less than $7 per month or set up a nice web page to go with that new professional email address for less than $10 per month.

With a little more information about your company and a professional email address you’ll have customers that are more confident in your abilities as an actual business. A business should never have an AOL, Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail email account when professional email and web hosting are so affordable these days.

Bad Time Equals Good Times

1 comment June 24th, 2007

You might wonder how that can be, but sometimes something is just so awful that it becomes laughable. That was the case when we visited the restaurant On The Border in Exton last night.

Let me start at the beginning. We arrived and were promptly taken to our table. Nothing wrong there. Well that was the last thing that went right! On the way to the table I stopped in to use the restroom. When I went in there was an employee in there brushing her teething and washing her face [basically taking a shower in the public restroom]. I figured she was cleaning up to head out; I was wrong. She had her bag on the counter blocking the sinks and the waste can, which made it rather difficult to wash my hands and exit the restroom.

After I got back to table my friend needed to use the facilities too. She told me the girl was still in there. [Now she was putting on her makeup.] We later saw her cleaning off tables in the section we were seated in. unless she is homeless maybe she should try showering at home.

Well that was the beginning of the end for us. Next up, appetizers. We got our basket of chips and salsa. Dripping on the table we decided to use the appetizer plates on the table. Big mistake. The plates were not only dirty they still had food on them from the previous people who used the table [maybe that bus girl should have cleaned the tables off instead of spending so time on cleaning herself]. Gross. So we put the dirty napkin that was covering the food on the plate back on top off it and asked our waiter to take it away. That was the last time he did something right for us.

He took our order and popped back around the corner twice to ask what we wanted [both times he was wrong…not a good sign]. We asked for more chips. We never got them. I needed more beverage, but he never came by to see if I needed anything else. He brought our meals out. Mine was fine and tasty too. My friend had gotten tortilla soup and a fajita salad, which he brought out together. Soup should have come out first, but no. And her fajita salad did not have the chicken on it.

He disappeared. She still needed a spoon for the soup and the chicken for her salad. We caught him as he was stopping by the table next to us and told him to bring a spoon and the chicken. By now I was half way through my meal and she did not even get to taste hers. So I go up to the hostesses and ask to see the manager. She finally comes out [it was dinner time so I don’t hold my wait for her against them]. I tell my story and as I do I can see my friend finally getting a spoon and then a little later her chicken comes out. I finish with the manager who has kindly offered to comp our meals for all the trouble then headed back to the table.

Once I was back at the table I learned that the folks at the table next to us were having the same amount of trouble with the waiter that we were. In fact they had to remind him to bring out a spoon for my friend. But it was pointless as the soup was already cold and disgusting. The table next to us had waited fifteen minutes for their check and when they got it had both their items and ours on it. So it had to go back to be straightened out taking another ten minutes or longer.

We were checked on by [what I think was] the head waitress. She apologized and confirmed that our meals were taken care of. Then our waiter stopped by to explain he was having a REALLY bad day [well no sh**]. Then he brought us the check. We weren’t supposed to get a check. But that was not the real problem…the check wasn’t even for our meals! When we pointed this out to the head waitress she told us he was being sent home. We’ll have to stop in again to see if he is still there, but I doubt it. So as you can see it was so bad there was nothing left to but laugh.

So in review the restaurant gets 4 out of 5 stars [food was good], but the wait staff [includes the bus people] get a half star out of 5 [and that is being generous].