Freelance Confidential, from Rockable Press, is aimed at providing the hard numbers on the biggest issues of freelancing. And, advice for freelancers, by freelancers on how to improve and grow their business.

• Where do you find clients?
• How much do you charge?
• How do you raise your rates?
• Is social media really worth it?
• and more, …

Written by Amanda Hackwith (FreelanceSwitch Editor), the book draws on survey statistics from over 3,200 freelancers and insightful interviews from 10 notable success stories, including Envato’s Collis Ta’eed, Linda Formichelli of Renegade Writer, and more. Freelance Confidential asks frank questions and gets the answers that will help your freelance business grow. Whether you’re a successful freelancer who’s reached a plateau or one who’s just starting out, learn the truths to success in Freelance Confidential.

Available: Amazon
Paperback: 140 pages
Price: $34.99
Publisher: Rockable Press (March 16, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0987102605

Amazon has added it’s new movie & TV streaming service to it’s Associates Program. Associates will earn a 10% referral fee on all movies, TV seasons, and TV episodes such as The Office, House and Law & Order. The widget shown below allows Associates to add movie trailers to their websites.

The first two minutes of videos automatically play at no charge to customers inside the widget. At any time during or after the 2-minute viewing period, customers can choose to purchase or rent the title to watch it in its entirety. The preview serves to drive higher conversions and increased referral fees for Associates.

The minimum widget width is 510px. It won’t fit in the sidebar of most blogs. If Amazon wants this widget to be widely used, they will need to squeeze it down to at least 300x250px. That way, it would fit nicely into sidebar widgets.

Amazon.com has introduced Bill Me Later; an alternate way to pay for Amazon.com orders without using credit card.

Instant approval is available when first choosing the Bill Me Later option during a purchase¹. You simply enter your birthday, the last 4 digits of your Social Security Number, and then accept the terms. For future purchases on Amazon.com, you just select Bill Me Later® on the payment page to complete your purchase.

Orders are shipped as usual; then you receive a bill from Bill Me Later in the mail. You can choose to pay in full or over time (finance charges apply if paid over time).

Promo

Buy Now, Get $10 off purchases of $50 or more Pay with Bill Me Later and use promo code BMLSAVES at checkout (subject to credit approval). Offer limited to items sold by Amazon.com between July 14, 2008 and July 21, 2008. One per customer account. See promotion terms and conditions for details.

Bill Me Later® cannot be used for the following items on Amazon.com:

• Gift Cards
• Amazon Fresh
• Amazon Prime
• Digital downloads
• Subscribe and Save
• Items offered by Amazon Marketplace sellers

Amazon has introduced the program to give an alternative to people still leery about using credit cards online.

Two banners are available for Amazon Associates to promote the program on their sites.

Without any announcement, a new widget called the ‘Page Recommender Widget’ has appeared in my Amazon Associates Central panel. Below is an actual widget in the 468×60 size.

According to Amazon, the new widget will “Help your visitors to discover relevant pages within your website, using Amazon’s own recommendations technology – for free! Drive page views, session lengths, and referral fees by placing this widget on the pages you’d like to be recommended to your users. Amazon’s unique understanding of your users lets us target related pages and products tailored to their individual tastes”.

So what going on here? Why are you seeing the same items in the widget that you last viewed on Amazon.com? A recent post on ReadWriteWeb gives us the answer: “The implementation uses a combination of JavaScript, Cookies and back-end code. When a user comes to Amazon the site stores a browser cookie. The cookie stays in the browsing cache and when the same user navigates to a different web site, say a blog, the JavaScript on the site is able to lookup the cookie and then invoke Amazon’s personalization engine and generate the recommendations widget.”

You can think of this as a new type of contextual advertising. It’s not relevant to a blogs content but to the visitors preferences. Will it convert? Ahh! Only time will tell. And, I am sure other forms of personalized advertising will be forthcoming from Amazon.

If you are an Amazon Associate, you can get your own Page Recommender Widget here.

Are you stuck with dull, geeky-looking backup drives? No more! The Golden Disk’s unique golden wave design was created for LaCie by the world-renowned designer Ora-to. The casing has a liquid-motion look that will look great anywhere!

The drive sports a Hi-Speed USB 2.0 interface with plug & play, driver-free installation (Windows 2000, Windows XP & Mac OSX). And, it’s fan-free for quiet operation.

Dimensions

Size – 1.57 x 4.4 x 7.4 in.
Weight – 31.7 oz. / 900 g

What’s in the box?

LaCie Golden Disk
Hi-Speed USB 2.0 cable
Power supply kit
Quick Install Guide
LaCie Backup Utilities (preloaded)
User Manual
LaCie ’1-Click’ Backup Software (Windows/Mac)
LaCie SilverKeeper Backup Software (Mac)
2 Year Limited Warranty

Price and Availability

The street price is about $175. The 500GB Golden Disk is available at Amazon.com.

Amazon.com has introduced a Deals Widget just in time for the holiday shopping rush. Previously, these deals were only viewable on Amazon’s Gold Box page.

There are two formats available, sidebar and banner. The sidebar has two size choices: 120×400 and 160×400. The banner size choices are: 468×60 and 728×90. Associates also have the ability to select only the Deal of the Day or adding other short term deals such as Lightning Deals or Best Deals from across Amazon.com.

The widget will normally highlight daily deals. However, on Black Friday (the busiest shopping day of the year) from 6am to 6pm PST the Deals Widget will show a different deal every hour.

For now, there are no formating options. So everyone gets the teal green border whether you like it or not. And, as with most of the new Amazon widgets, tracking IDs are not supported (see comment below). I expect that these features will be added in the near future.

Don’t belong to Amazon’s Associates program? You can join now.

Update Nov. 21st:

A new large format option is now available in three different sizes- a 250 x 250 square format, a 300 x 250 format, and the standard large rectangle format of 336 x 280 pixels.

Panasonic recently announced the introduction of the DMP-BD30, the next generation high-definition (HD) 1080p Blu-ray Disc player. Blu-ray means incredible full-HD images, breathtaking sound and 5x the data capacity of DVDs.

The DMP-BD30 is the first Blu-ray player with Final Standard Profile, which adds a variety of new and enhanced features. Also unique to the DMP-BD30 is the inclusion of an SD Memory Card slot for playback of high-definition (HD) content recorded on camcorders using the AVCHD format. An AVCHD Direct Navigator function makes it easy to search for particular scenes. The SD card slot also allows viewing of digital still images in the popular JPEG format captured with digital cameras.

Final Standard Profile is an advanced function added to the Blu-ray standard, which opens the door to new functions such as Picture-in-Picture (displays a second image in a sub window) and Audio Mixing (allows the user to switch the sound between the main and sub windows).

Superb picture quality is complemented by exceptionally pure, accurate sound thanks to Dolby(R) TrueHD and DTS-HD(TM). UniPhier(R)’s advanced processing capability decodes these audio signals with high precision and outputs them in bitstream form with no degradation. It also brings re-mastering to Blu-ray for the first time, which compensates for data lost during the compression process creating a fuller, richer sound.

Panasonic N2QAYB000184 Blu-Ray Disc Player Remote Control BD DMP-BD30 35 50 55

US $29.99 End Date: Saturday Feb-04-2012 14:54:58 PST Buy It Now for only: US $29.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

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Tags: Blu-ray, Panasonic

Run a small business like I do? If so, your tax accountant will insist that you use accounting software for record keeping. Last month, Intuit announced that QuickBooks Basic has been replaced by Quickbooks Simple Start 2008.

QuickBooks Simple Start is available free via download or as a Start Plus Pack with a training CD for about $90. You will get everything you need including tutorials with the downloaded version, so I recommend saving your money and using it to upgrade to the Pro version later on.

Are you using Excel spreadsheets to track your sales and expenses? QuickBooks Simple Start allows you to import your existing data from Excel saving time and avoiding the hassle of manually entering your data.

• Replaces QuickBooks Basic
• Simple to learn and use
• Not a trial – no expiration date – no restrictons
• Be ready at tax time
• Grows with your business
• Available internationally
• One-month email support
• Upgradeable to QuickBooks Pro and Premier Editions

QuickBooks Simple Start 2008 also works with QuickBooks Payroll (Basic, Standard, Enhanced, Enhanced for Accountants, Assisted)¹.

Any negatives? There’s no way to deal with multiple currencies in any of the QuickBooks 2008 versions. For some reason, Intuit removed this capability after QuickBooks 2006. There are no easy workarounds. You can set-up a different company for another currency. However, you cannot easily track bank accounts with different currencies within the same company.

Other versions
QuickBooks Pro 2008
Quickbooks Pro 2008 3 User
Quickbooks Premier Edition 2008

Looking for a portable media player (PMP)? The Archos 605 WiFi has the highest screen resolution (800×480) and the highest quality screen in a Portable Media Player on the market today. Combine that with touch-screen capability and WiFi connectivity – you’ve got a winner in your hands.

Download content wirelessly and directly to your Archos 605 WiFi or stream movies, TV shows and music from your computer or laptop. With an optional Web browser plug-in, you can surf the Web and enjoy videos from online videos sites like DailyMotion and YouTube.

The Archos 605 comes with photo viewing capabilities (JPEG, BMP, and PNG files are 100 percent compatible with the player). The player can even pull up PDFs for portable review — an ideal means to take bigger documents or e-books in PDF format on the road. Because of the Archos’s USB 2.0 compatibility, files can be quickly transferred to the device in the absence of a WiFi network connection. Charging the player can also be accomplished with an active USB connection.

The ARCHOS 605 records NTSC/PAL/SECAM in MPEG-4 AVI format with stereo sound, VGA resolution (640×480) at 30 or 25 fps through an optional DVR Station/DVR Travel Adapter. Audio recording can be accomplished through the same adapter: stereo line-in, WAV (IMA, ADPCM or PCM) format.

What’s in the Box

Archos 605 WiFi portable media player, headphones, USB cable, adapter for optional DVR Station Gen 5, protective pouch, quick start guide, and legal/safety notice.

Archos DVR Station Gen 5 for 405, 605, and 705 Players

US $50.99 End Date: Saturday Feb-04-2012 10:46:48 PST Buy It Now for only: US $50.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

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Tags: Archos

Looking for a unique Christmas gift? The Digital Foci (pronounced “foe-sigh”) Pocket Album with 1.5″ color screen lets you view your favorite photos anytime, anywhere. You can even pre-load photos to make the gift even more special.

The Pocket Album runs on a Lithium-ion battery with up to 9 hours of battery life. You can easily recharge the battery with included AC adapter or with USB power by connecting it to your computer. The unit also features a built-in clock with automatic on/off timer. The LCD screen contrast is adjustable for choosing your optimal viewing angle.

Features

• Holds up to 74 digital photos with 8MB internal flash memory
• 1.5” color LCD screen
• 9 hours of battery life using Lithium-Ion batteries
• LCD contrast adjustable for choosing optimal viewing angle
• Builds automatic photo slideshows with adjustable time intervals
• Built-in clock with automatic on/off timer
• Photo Viewer Software (compatible with Windows Vista/XP/2000, Mac 10.x or later)
• Rechargeable battery with included AC adapter or via included USB cable
• Measures 2.2″ x 1.6″ x 0.5″ and weights only 1.2 oz

The user-friendly Photo Viewer Software (included) is used to convert JPG or BMP images from your computer to Pocket Album. The software also lets you crop and rotate photos you wish to transfer, before automatically resizing them for optimal storage and display on the pocket album.

The Digital Foci Pocket Album is priced at about $40 and is available at Amazon.com.