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I love that the internet gives me access to thousands and thousands of cool t-shirt designs. I’ve found some of the funniest, hippest, most cutting-edge designs online and ordered them with the click of a mouse. And, when all else fails, t-shirts are the best gift option out there. Everyone wears t-shirts.

Have you ever wished that you had a way to put one of your signature pithy sayings onto a t-shirt? Or, maybe you have a great design in mind, but no way to actually get it onto a t-shirt? I’m looking at an amazing concept right now on the BlueCotton website. They have a tool called Design Studio.

Design Studio lets you design your own t-shirts. You choose from an array of clipart, fonts, effects, and colors. You cam move elements around, resize them, mess with the color schemes, just about anything you can think of. In the end, you come away with a design as unique as you are. You can use it to make a cool logo shirt for a fundraiser, a design for a special birthday, custom fraternity t-shirts, a saucy slogan for your girls’ weekend out, or anything else you can dream. The possibilities are endless.

Give Design Studio a try, especially if you have a Christmas gift you’re stuck on. This is the perfect gift solution for absolutely anyone.

It seems like only yesterday that I was wondering what in the world had come over Pam Anderson that she would marry such a good-for-nothing as Rick Salomon. Actually, it wasn’t yesterday, but it was just as recently as this past October. Seems Pam woke up and realized what a laughable error of judgment she had made. She has already filed for divorce.

I’m sure it has something with her finally having enough time to ponder the fact that she was getting sloppy seconds from both Paris Hilton and Shannen Doherty. The ick-factor must have finally overcome her and allowed her to stumble out of the fog of beery sex and bad lighting.

I never advocate divorce. I think divorce is deplorable, but come on – Rick Salomon. Even Pam deserves a do-over in this case.

The internet is a big place. If you want your website to receive as much exposure as possible, it just might be time to set aside an advertising budget. Of course, now that means choosing what kind of advertising to go with and where to advertise.

Let me make a case for pay per click (PPC) advertising. It was the hot ticket years ago on the internet, then it saw a fade in popularity, but with the advent of contextual advertising it has seen a resurge in popularity that has lingered for years now. Modern PPC advertising networks have a lot of safety mechanisms in place so that you are not going to pay for click fraud or for non-converting publishers. You pay only for the internet traffic that sees your ad and actually clicks through to your site. You can dynamically change your ad content and what you are willing to pay per click on a daily basis.

Most (not all, but still most) PPC ad networks have made a move to contextual advertising, which means that they keywords you specify will help ensure your ad is displayed on websites with like content. What that means in the people who see your ads will see them because they are already looking for similar topics and information. They are more likely to show an interest in your ad, and therefore your website.

If you believe the hype, you might think the only choices you have are Google and Yahoo when it comes to choosing a PPC contextual network, but that’s not the case. There are actually more economical options with just as many features, safeties and the same access to quality publishers.

One of those options is Adknowledge. They run BidSystem.com, behavioral targeting ad network where you can bid for traffic in display, email and search engines. They are offering new advertisers $50 in Free PPC advertising, so it is the perfect opportunity to try their network, test out some ads, and see if this is the solution that’s right for you.

That would be today. Today is expected to be the busiest postal day of the year and somehow I managed to make sure I am right in the thick of it. I waited until this weekend to ready my Christmas cards. I picked up my photo prints yesterday and made my cards out last night. And, they are now sitting in a stack on the couch in the living room. All I need are stamps and if I cannot find them at the supermarket, I will be plunged headlong into the lines at the local post office. Oh, misery. I loathe standing that close to other people for too long. I always seem to end up in line in front of the person with no concept of personal space, or the person who bumps your bag and steps on the heel of your shoe repeatedly.

I’ve got packages to send to West Virginia and Georgia this year, but due to the fact that it took so long to get the entire family together for Christmas portraits, our photos will not even be available until December 20, so I suppose we can count on things going out at the last possible minute when it comes to the actual gifts. I have no idea what happened to the Me that used to get my Christmas cards out the day after Thanksgiving and have all of my packages sent by the first week of December. I think that happy-go-lucky girl is long gone.

And, if it is a slow news day we can all look forward to coming home to watch the evening news that will be packed full of stories about reporters who went to the post office at Tampa International Airport to interview the poor souls standing in line there.

If you want your own domain or a blog where you have full control or a web presence for your business, you are likely looking for the web hosting services that meet your needs. You can design a website and have it residing on your hard drive, but until you have your site on a server, nobody will be able to access it. So, that is where web hosting comes into play. You pay a monthly or annual fee to a company to host all of your web pages, images, e-mail, etc.

You cannot count on the free hosts. I cannot stress that enough. Your best option is to find a web host that fits into your budget and pay for an account so that you have absolute control over your web content.

Looking around at all the thousands of options for web hosting can be confusing. I spent a good month researching my options before I settled on my current web host. I looked at their customer rating, prices, pre-installed scripts, availability of customer service, uptime, and a handful of other parameters. I feel like I made an educated decision.

When I compared companies, I will tell you that I stuck to the larger, more established web hosting services. I ruled out the small players and new companies. I wanted a company with a good track record and a reputation in the industry that I could see via multiple sources.

One of the companies I researched was Network Solutions, simply because they have been around since the dawn of time – at least in internet years. They are not a fly-by-night operation and their reputation is the most valuable thing they have to offer. Their monthly costs are reasonable and their plans offer adequate space and transfer limits. Plus, they have 24/7 customer support with live people available. That is a whole lot more than the smaller companies will offer you in the way of help and support.

Do your research. That’s my best advice. But, I do suggest you add Network Solutions to your short list of options.

I’m shivering. I just got done watching a movie out in the family room and I had to wrap myself up in a quilt to remain warm. My nose is cold as ice. It is just flat cold here in Florida tonight. In fact, in almost all counties north of the Tampa area, there are hard frost warnings for tonight. At least three shelters were opened over in Tampa due to the cold. A lot of our homeless population can live outside all year around, but on nights like this they need someplace indoors to sleep. These freeze shelters are also open for those who do not have adequate heat in their homes.

It is only supposed to dip into the mid-30s in my immediate area, but after weeks of unseasonably high temperatures, it seems a shock to have to get out the gloves and hats. I miss living up north when I think of things like the autumn leaves and the first snow, but in no way do I miss extended periods of very cold weather. I like to wear my sandals 12 months out of the year and would not trade that. Still, nights like this are a welcome break from the warm and a nice reminder of home.