I was catching up with an old friend (being the holidays and all) who owns a small business, and he mentioned that he needed some website help. Nothing big, just registering a domain or two and putting up some basic websites. I told him I was looking for some extra work, and he told me he’d send me a list of what he needed. I got it, made sure I knew how to do those things, wrote up a proposal for the project. He accepted. I had a hard time figuring out how much to charge and estimating how much time I’d need to spend on it. (How do you figure out how much to charge?) I probably lowballed myself, but we’ll see. At least now I’ll have a reference and some portfolio stuff for later. Not to mention a few hundred more bucks =) Not looking forward to paying self-employment tax though.

Ok, now that I’ve listed my previous college jobs, now to list some ideas for current college jobs. Suggestions are welcome. The key difference here is I’m not just looking to eat and score beer money. I want to “move forward”, and get skills that will help me achieve what I want in the future. These include computer skills, networking, and business knowledge. At the same time, it has to have flexible hours. Here are my Saturday-morning brainstorms:

1) Start more blogs/websites – Websites seem to be the new virtual real estate. However, I have been really bad at updating my only other blog, MyHealthBlog. I might try this later, but I don’t feel it really helps me learn that much more unless it is already in an area I like.
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I failed in my Xbox 360 flipping mission. Apparently people are just crazy over this Xbox thing. I went at 6:45am (store opened at 7), and the people who camped out had already gotten the vouchers and wanted to sell me one for $1,000. Madness. Prices are still mega-inflated on eBay, but you can find the occassional auction for $500 or so if you are lucky. Although I wouldn’t get this thing for my kid anyways.

Microsoft is wicked. Wicked smart! Dec 26th and these things will be on every shelf.

I don’t even play video games, but I am going to try and buy an Xbox 360 early on my way to the airport before my parents’ flight lands since it coincides with the official release date. I used to flip gadgets in college, so why not start doing it again? If they don’t have it when I stop by, I’m just going to give up, no camping out here. Some of the prices on eBay are mind-boggling.

And it isn’t even out yet! People are bidding on vapor-xboxes.

Almost a month ago I was brainstorming ideas for an online business that my wife and I could start together. Well, since then we’ve both been otherwise distracted and haven’t made much progress. It seems we just don’t have the time to do it all out, so we are moseying along at our own comfortable pace. We realize this is mostly for fun and to spend time together on a common hobby. Anyways, I thought I’d share some prototypes we’ve been cooking up. As I mentioned before, we think the pet area is a good growing market with higher margins.
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Lots of good ideas on my last post, thanks! Tonight I explored my options for hosting an online shop. Not exhaustive, but here are 3 main options.

1. Host it myself. I recently upgraded my Dreamhost account to their ‘Code Monster’ package, which includes a license for Miva Merchant, an e-commerce software product. When I read that it includes “built-in shopping cart and payment processing”, I thought great! I can take credit cards easily. Nope, it just means it integrates with many Merchant Accounts. Still, it’s pretty powerful – This would be the most customizable option, but it will have the steepest learning curve. Unfortunately, I didn’t upgrade to the next hosting level which includes an SSL Secure certificate and a dedicated IP address (both needed to properly accept credit cards).

Cost Estimate: $200/year for SSL License, $5/month for dedicated IP (Merchant Account: ~$100 Setup, ~$20 a month + % fees)
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As I’ve become more adept at website stuff, I’ve often thought of a lot of little online home-based businesses to start. I think that it would be fun and educational to go through the hoops of getting the business licenses, organizing things, doing cash-flow analyses, etc.

There seems to be three types of sites – ad-supported content sites, selling software or advice (virtual items), and selling physical items. While the first two are probably the easiest and requires the least inventory and/or physical space, I also want to involve my wife in it, and she doesn’t do computers. So we started brainstorming business ideas.
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My wife and I were at Goodwill today looking for some Halloween costume ideas (she rejected Slutty Nurse – go figure). I came across this old Kodak camera from the 1900s for $20. I’m no shutterbug, but it looked really cool and I thought it would be an interesting piece for the living room (maybe try to look smart or something), so I bought it. When I got home I did a quick search on eBay, and I found that the same camera had recently sold for $64 – a potential 200% or $40 profit!

Of course then I had visions of buying and selling cameras from thrift stores for big bucks. But then I searched for some other Brownie cameras that sold for about 10 bucks both at Goodwill and on eBay, and realized (again) I knew nothing about cameras. I guess I’ll have to be content with my ‘Really Old Camera’

It seems blogs are the new real estate now. Problogger reports that personal finance blog Wealthy Blogger was just sold for $2000! See the actual auction post here. Dude. I actually never really visit Wealthy Blogger myself, solely because somehow the specific text style and size they chose shows up horribly on my old 17″ monitor, and really hurts my eyes. They seem like funny guys though.

I can certainly understand the former owners’ desires to get out of blogging and refocus on other things they like more (and make some money on the way out), but are blogs really able to be sold like that? How is the tone going stay the same? I mean, is reading a book by Warren Buffett the same as reading something by say, me? Or the guy that bought lunch with him?

As for myself, I don’t plan on going anywhere. I’m still having too much fun. And I think this blog is way too me-centric anyways. But hey, send me a bid. =)

After 24 hours of getting very nice magazine inquiries (thank you all), and also doing more calculations of time vs. profit, I’ve decided not to pursue selling magazines for now.

In the end, there is just too much competition in the arena. Want magazines? Check out eBay. The prices are crazy low. I have no idea how those people are making any money. To get my prices, I was taking my own cost, and adding about 50 cents for PayPal processing fees, and then $1-$2 to make it a round number. And I still couldn’t beat most prices on eBay. They must be making some serious volume, or are just willing to work for less…
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