SO…I don’t watch many Wes Anderson films, and I don’t use an American Express card. But it’s still a fun commercial to see.

Happy Friday!

I loved this great E*Trade commercial featuring the baby reminding his buddy that the lottery doesn’t constitute a solid retirement plan.

Happy Friday!

My dad used to love watching MacGyver back in the day. So when I saw this classic MasterCard Debit commercial I thought of him.

Happy Friday!

In this classic Homestar Runner video, Strong Bad explains the different types of people that frequent garage sales. Enjoy!

Happy Friday!

If you’re like me, you’re always looking for ways to increase your productivity when it comes to your home business. The good news is that there are plenty of technological boosts that can help you improve your productivity. Wisebread offers these suggestions to technology that can help you look for better productivity in the new year:

1. Snag It: This helps you keep track of media in which your business is mentioned.

2. Wireless all-in-one printers: Print from any device with a wireless printer. Make it all-in-one, and you can copy and fax as well.

3. Social Oomph: Boost your Twitter presence by scheduling tweets, tracking, URL shortening and other features.

4. FreshBooks: Manage invoices and billing with FreshBooks. You can integrate FreshBooks into your system, and use the professional looking presentation to sharpen your image.

5. picnik: This helps you turn your photos and other graphics into attractive buttons, avatars and profile pictures.

6. Future Email Services: There are email services that will send you emails to yourself at a future date. If you want a reminder delivered on time, schedule it to be sent when you need it, and you can see it when it does you the most good.

7. Power Pack: Energizer makes a light, easy to carry power pack to recharge your cell phone. This can help you avoid the problems that come with a dying cell phone.

Some of the items on this list can be costly, and some of them, like Snag It and Social Oomph, seem a little superfluous. I find that the printer, FreshBooks and power pack appear to be the most useful items for home business productivity. If you are looking for some ways to boost productivity and you aren’t sure where to start, these ideas can help.

Good luck to your home business in the new year!

2009 was a bit of a crazy year, eh? I’d forgotten about a lot of what went on, but this video year in review from JibJab refreshed my memory in a rather funny way. I hope you enjoy this first day of a new year!

Happy Friday!

No, I’m not working today! Instead, I wrote this post ahead of time and I’ve scheduled it to pop up today. I thought this was a funny Christmas video featuring pictures of kids who are scared of Santa. Don’t talk to strangers! (And some of these Santas are strange…) Merry Christmas.

Happy Friday!

Another week in December, another fun Christmas video on Friday! This week, I thought I’d share this video from South Park, featuring Cartman trying to sing O Holy Night. Enjoy!

Happy Friday!

I love the song “Carol of the Bells” — preferably when it’s all instrumental. This rendition from the Muppets really tickled me. I hope you enjoy it in the spirit of the season.

Happy Friday!

You’ve probably seen those ads claiming that you can “Use Google to make 1000s of Dollars!” Those ads (which charge hefty monthly fees when you send in payment information for a “startup kit”) are the result of Pacific WebWorks, a Utah-based company that Google is taking to court. Because the company uses Google’s name and even uses the logo — or something quite similar — in some of the ads, Google feels it has a case.

Google has been the subject of a number of work from home scams, which sometimes even use Google’s own AdWords platform to get the word out. Google is trying to weed out such work from home scams (even those that don’t mention Google) from AdWords and from search engine results. Google also warned against work from home scams, and listed some companies to watch out for that use Google in their names, reports CNN Money:

Legitimate work-at-home jobs are those in which a person is paid a regular wage for services performed or hours worked, such as computer data entry, remote tech support, or transcription services. The illegitimate jobs, or “scams” as Lister refers to them, can usually be identified because they ask job seekers to put up money with the expectation of earning money back.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based Google provided other names users should be wary of: Google Adwork, Google ATM, Google Biz Kit, Google Cash, Earn Google Cash Kit, Google Fortune, Google Marketing Kit, Google Profits, The Home Business Kit for Google, Google StartUp Kit, and Google Works.

As always, it is important to remember that if it seems too good to be true, it most likely is. Be careful of the work from home opportunities that you engage in.