Claire's Random Thoughts

I haven’t had a topic worth blogging about for a while. Perhaps I’ve just been busy with my first semester at NYU Stern as a junior. Anyway, throughout this winter break, I have been reading about proxy site development and might begin to start some for myself for a small stream of cash flows. I never considered how profitable these could be until lately.

I will begin a new series of posts for developing, optimimizing, hosting, maintaining, and most importantly, monetizing proxy sites for a profit. Originally when I had series of posts, I had seven posts per series, one per day for a week. From now on, I will no longer be following this structure, as the last time I tried this, I ran out of time in the middle of the series and stopped posting. I will simply be posting whenever time permits.

Tentative Topics:
1. Picking a script
2. Downloading a template
3. Finding a host
4. Monetizing proxy site

This is my second attempt in making a weekly series of posts in one very specific category. I will spend this week, the week of December 8, blogging about my winter gear for winter 2008-2009 with one type of clothing per day; there may be more than one item per day this time, because I could narrow down everything I’m wearing this winter into seven specific articles. This is a good summary of what I’m wearing, and those of you who know me in real life probably see me in the mentioned articles quite frequently.

1. Regular use warm shoes
2. Hat
3. Earmuffs
4. Coats
5. Scarfs
6. Special weather boots
7. Gloves

Keep posted this week for updates!

—edit—
This series has been discontinued due to my own laziness/lack of time and the lack of overall interest

I will spend this week, the week of November 17, blogging about my seven favorite legally free applications, one per day. The majority of software I use is open source, because I can find no reason to justify paying for software when I can use a free and often better alternative. Some paid software, such as Microsoft Office, is not only ineffectively written but also highly priced, so I support the open source versions of programs with similar functions.

I am not saying that the programs I am going to introduce this week are the best available in their categories, even compared to the highest class paid versions, but they are my choices, because they are just as suitable for my needs as paid software would be, and I always look for cost effectiveness (i.e. As long as you’re not a professional graphic designer, you can perform all your needed photo editing functions using GIMP, even though the most expensive version of Photoshop probably does have more features, features that the average user will never need). After all, I am a poor college student at this point in life and have better things to spend hundreds of dollars on other than software. I hope readers of this week’s entries can find something useful and save more than few bucks at the same time.

Sure, some will tell me that the standard more popular software can be free too from bittorrent or P2P sites, but isn’t that the same thing as calling them “free” if you’re willing to steal them from the store?

Pre-determined list:
1. Seamonkey all-in-one internet application suite
2. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
3. FileZilla FTP Client
4. Cerulean Studios Trillian
5. OpenOffice.org
6. VLC media player
7. Stepmania

Stay posted the week of November 16, 2008 for my personal reviews, features, and tips about these programs.

Update: This weekly series is now complete