In Colorado, like all states, there are a lot of smaller non-profit organizations out there who could use some help collecting donations. Enter Colorado Gives, an online donation platform run by the Community First Foundation in Arvada, Colorado.

What Is Colorado Gives?

I first heard about Colorado Gives Day when my kids were in elementary school. The school PTO did incredibly good fundraising and the result was the ability for our school to be able to do a lot of important things beyond what could be paid for by the standard funds that came from the school district.

Check out my Rakuten / Ebates review.

Of course, there were all the usual fundraisers. There were things sold, things bought, Box Tops collected, and donations sought. In the end though, the only way you can do things like pay for additional paraprofessional support in classrooms is with cash.

Enter Colorado Gives. Rather than a volunteer group of parents creating, running, and securing some sort of online donation website, the PTO signed up with Colorado Gives.

The Colorado Gives platform is open to non-profit organizations in Colorado. There are no setup or monthly fees charged to the non-profit, which is important when many of the smaller organizations, like school PTOs, don’t necessarily have a lot of predictable incoming donations.

Colorado Gives Day Benefits

Colorado Gives Day happens in December every year. It has turned into a massive thing. Every media outlet in Denver (Colorado?) covers it. It is marketed by non-profits across the state, and if you’re a member, or ever donated to an organization, you can be sure to get an email, or newsletter mention, or some communication imploring you to donate on Colorado Gives Day.

So, what is the benefit of donating on Colorado Gives Day?

Well, that changed somewhere along the line. The first time I heard of Colorado Gives Day, the point of donation on that day, and not another day, was that the processing fees for your donation were waived on Colorado Gives Day. Unfortunately, processing a credit card isn’t free, even for non-profits. So, Colorado Gives charges 2% of every donation made.

Ever heard of Digit? Here are some Digit reviews.

You donate $100 to your PTO, they get $98. That’s a very low fee (the website claims it’s one of the lowest in the country) and no one should have any complaints considering the rest of the service is free. Colorado Gives also offers donors the opportunity to pay for the fees, effectively turning your $100 donation into a $102 donation, or something like that.

Colorado Gives Donation Fees

However, that waived fee part of Colorado Gives Day has gone away. What remains is the “incentive fund.” The incentive fund is an interesting gimmick in that there is a $1.6 million pool for 2021.

Each non-profit that participates in Colorado Gives Day gets a piece of that pool equivalent to the percentage of the overall donations that were made to their organization.

This year Colorado Gives reports a total of $39.6 million donated on Colorado Gives Day. So, if your particular non-profit organization raised $396,000 on Colorado Gives Day (1%), then you would also get 1 percent of the $1.5 million pool, or $15,000. Of course, most non-profits will raise much less, and their incentive pool amount would be tens of dollars.

The main benefit for donors is that ability to donate without giving away your personal information directly to the charity, thereby sparing yourself the possible, non-stop, follow-up charity fundraising phone calls.

Colorado Gives Donations Any Day

There is nothing wrong with Colorado Gives Day. In fact, now that fees are no longer waived, its biggest value lies in getting people to act.

See my Barclaycard review

Unlike every other day of the year, Colorado Gives Day eventually comes NOW. For a lot of non-profits, the trick to fundraising is not finding people that want to give; it’s getting them TO GIVE. It is far too easy to read the PTO newsletter on Thursday night while waiting for your kid’s basketball practice to start, and think, “Oh yeah. I need to donate to the school,” and then get busy and forget to do it.

But, thanks to Colorado Gives Day, parents know that December 8th is the day. It can’t wait.

Of course, it can wait, or it can happen earlier. The great thing is any day can be your Colorado Gives Day.

But, for Colorado Gives, Colorado Gives Day is the marketing gold that gets millions of new donors to sign up, all without costing a cent.

Colorado Gives Day Marketing is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

ChatGPT Is Awesome

Let’s start from the beginning ChatGPT is amazing. It is so amazing that some have already started to fear it. (It’s the same with noticeable advancement in technology.) There are people worried that ChatGPT will take our jobs (I’ve heard this before…). There are others that worry it will be used for terrible purposes, and then amongst those of us who read and watch a lot of science fiction there might some worried that it will take more than our jobs. (See also Terminator, Terminator 2, and so on.. For something a little more off the beaten path, try Robopocalypse)

The truth is that ChatGPT still has a long way to go before it can affect everyone in any matter. Sure, there are a lot of things it can do now. Once, there were “a lot” of things your phone could do, and that without a keyboard. As for that fourth grader, this is just the latest change that education must adapt for. (My physics teacher at University of Colorado was a little too slow on the draw, and I used the brand-new memory area on my TI-84 graphing calculator to store all the formulas. The one my kiddo has not only graphs, but it does also so in color, and it can run real programs. Relax. Kids are not passing physics without learning anything.

What Is ChatGPT Exactly

OpenAI

OpenAI is an open-source project trying to develop artificial intelligence for the greater good. Seriously. It does have an odd structure so that the people doing all the work can get paid and get paid well. OpenAI Inc is a non-profit organization. OpenAL LP is a for-profit organization. Basically, the OpenAL LP can charge people and use those funds to pay their people and also convertible notes, stock options, and even investments from other companies (Hi, Microsoft!). But, once that happens, then whatever is left of the money funds a benevolent open-source AI program.

GPT-3

If music hipsters walk around telling people that they knew about that band before the mainstream did, then whatever the equivalent of a hipster nerd is pointing out that it isn’t new. They are right, but it doesn’t matter. Just in case you want to know what you are playing with, let’s do the short-short version of an explainer.

OpenAI is not new. It’s been working on and sharing its AI technology for several years now. Among the many releases was the recent release of GPT-3, which, you guessed it, is the third version. It’s been around for months.

So, why are you just now hearing about this AI thing?

Using GPT-3 was not difficult, but it wasn’t easy either. There was a learning curve, and understanding how to ask so that you get what you want as an answer takes a bit of practice. GPT-3 is great. It just didn’t have a soft fuzzy exterior for the public.

ChatGPT

As the name might suggest, this whole is basically bolting a user-friendly interface to the GPT data. However, do not assume this was easy. ChatGPT not only answers even the most malformed questions, it remembers the conversation you are having so you can literally say, “Oh whoops I meant April,” and it will do whatever you asked it too before, just with April this time.

Yes. It is amazing and don’t let any Silcon Valley naysayer tell you otherwise. ChatGPT is free for now, but it takes an awful lot of computing power to do what they are doing, and it can’t stay free in this way forever. Fortunately, it looks like the public will keep its free access, just limited or slower, or whatever than the paid ChatGPT option.

For now, use it to get answers to things you always wanted to know. Get descriptions of places you want to go. Heck, have it plan the itinerary. Just keep in mind it doesn’t know everything, and most importantly, it doesn’t know it should just say, “I don’t know,” when it doesn’t have enough data. Trust but verify sounds like the right strategy. Afterall, if this is the beginning of a robot revolution, we’ll need an arms policy.

Oh, and while it doesn’t notice, it never takes too long to type “please” or “thank you.” (We might lose that war against the machines, and it would be better to be on the nice side than the mean, jerks’ side.)

What Is ChatGPT and How Does It Work? is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

Can ChatGPT Explain

First, I asked it to tell me what it was:

While I do not know how ChatGPT works, one explanation is that it simply takes every bit of text it has ever been fed, or “trained with,” and then selects the most likely (common?) bit that comes next, whether that bit is a character, letter, phrase, text, or punctuation. Assuming this is true, then it is very likely that ChatGPT has done nothing more above than repeat the most commonly available marketing text and/or reviews available. – Let’s put a pin in that for a moment.

Even with ChatGPT’s help, I sense a lot of lingo and marketing speak above. Let’s be more specific. What if I asked how it could help a freelancer like me specifically?

How Does ChatGPT Work While Telling Me How LinkedIn Sales Navigator Works

Here we arrive at the catch. Since I knew nothing about LinkedIn Sales Navigator before I asked ChatGPT I have no way of knowing if it is correct. I’m left asking one question, and whenever I ask such a question my mind must do so with the voice of the late Sam Kinison right before he loses his mind at Rodney Dangerfield in the highly underrated–although slightly dated –comedy Back to School.

“Is she right?”

ChatGPT Is Definitely Fun

This is where ChatGPT becomes a giant novelty that can do little more than tell me what I already know, albeit in fun new ways. (See also: Baby Got Back in the style of Canterbury Tales.)

What ChatGPT has done for me is generate new marketing material for LinkedIn Sales Navigator. While that is swell, it doesn’t tell me whether or not I should take some of my precious time (and eventually money) to find out. For that, I need Google, although I’ll have to sort through fake reviews, and affiliate links. Then, I need Reddit, where the internet’s harshest critics cannot be drowned out by fake reviews, SEO, link building, or affiliate links.

Google got me there eventually. Ironically, my landing page at this site was an article about LinkedIn Sales Navigator. I didn’t find that page very enlightening, but there was a link, (and it’s the internet, and I have ADHD, and well…) to the infinitely more valuable article about How to Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Within that article are the comments and opinions you wanted from the is-it-worth-it article. I also found this guide which confused me. It reads like a guy pushing an affiliate link, but there is no affiliate link. Maybe my ad blocker got it.

Back checking my search results via Reddit was less valuable. There didn’t seem to be too much there about it, which either means salespeople are dumb and don’t use Reddit, or Sales Navigator is too new and/or inconsequential to have much about it on Reddit. What I did find essentially said that you (a salesperson) have to have some sort of marketing system/tracker and Navigator is as good as the next one. I also found that a lot of people sell some sort of free, or cheap, pirated access to Navigator.

The Verdict?

Well, I got a full post out of it

What ChatGPT said seems to be true, even if limited. Apparently, I am either a naive buffoon, or a sweet lamb being led to slaughter when it comes to LinkedIn. I thought it was for networking professionally and finding jobs, which it kind of is, but this offering is about finding people you can sell stuff to. I’m sort of morally opposed to that, although that may be a personal quirk that makes me hate sales.

I failed at being a financial advisor because I wasn’t good at prospecting, and by prospecting, I mean calling random people telemarketing style. I was great at being a financial advisor and when I did get people into my office, I was also very good at closing new prospects. But I hated, hated, HATED dialing for clients. It bothered me so much that when I explained to my doc what it made me feel like, she prescribed anxiety medication for me.

Back then you weren’t allowed to put anything on the internet because of compliance, the SEC, FINRA, and whatever. Now that I know what a joke SEC and FINRA enforcement is, I should have done it anyway. I had built several successful websites about other topics and being one of the first financial planners with a real interactive presence online I probably could have done well. But picking up the phone and calling people is something I despise, even if they are “warm leads.”

I also despise the people I don’t remotely know sending me messages, and requests to join my network. It’s still spam. It doesn’t matter if they call it InMail or whatever.

“Hi, I’m <Someone>. I saw your profile and I was really impressed. I help people <something><something> buy <something><something>.” — You know what I’m talking about.

Well, guess where that crap comes from? Most of them are from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, I would bet. Although apparently none of them used Reddit because they are supposed to be sending me personalized video using Loom which would make their whole month, or something.

(Loom, BTW is the hell spawn of, “this could have been an email.” Its elevator pitch is that instead of having a video meeting, you could use Loom to record a short video to send to your team. — FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST SEND AN EMAIL! If you can’t type, dictate to your assistant or something. Just send an email. Always. Seriously.)

—

Anyway, I’ll get back to work. If you do need a freelance writer (I specialize in finance, technology, and technical writing but can do most anything with a bit of research), or a freelance web developer, go ahead and contact me. I’ve got email, twitter, LinkedIn, a website and everything. What I don’t have is LinkedIn Sales Navigator. I also never saw your profile and even if I did, I’m not sure what it would take to impress me about a LinkedIn profile (maybe you run NASA, or are a retired assassin, or something). Even if I saw and was impressed, I still wouldn’t send you sales spam with or without a sales tool.

BTW, here is the scene I’m talking about in Back to School with Sam Kinison.

If you want the whole movie, you can watch it for free with HBOMax subscription, or you can get it electronically from Amazon for $3 or $4, or you can get the DVD if you still have a DVD player.

Is ChatGPT More Than a Toy? is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

Which Is Better Canva or Adobe Cloud Express?

Canva has been around longer than Adobe Cloud Express. While many people swear by the free Canva version, I felt like I was constantly denied the elements that I wanted most. So, I decided to shell out the $10 a month for Pro Canva. I’ve never looked back on that decision.

That being said, I noticed–or was constantly bombarded by ads for–Adobe Express which at first blush feels like a feature for feature clone of Canva. And here is the best (or worst depending on your point of view) part, you are already “pro” on Adobe Express if you subscribe to any Adobe Cloud subscription. That one feature will be enough to cut into Canva’s future sign ups, or even current users. After all, the most bang for the buck might just come from using free Canva and then moving over to your already-paid-for pro subscription to Adobe Express if you can’t find or use just what you want.

What Does Adobe Express Have That Canva Doesn’t?

Or should we be asking that question the other way around? In the end, I’m not sure it ends up mattering much at all.

Adobe Express Review

Adobe Express looks shockingly similar to Canva. I’m sure somebody ran it through legal, or whatever, but they aren’t fooling anyone.

Adobe Express has templates of various social media post types, as well as templates for infographics, and the like. Rather than “Elements” it has Design Assets and Shapes. You can create a Library to organize your own collection of assets that you want to use again or remember to use in the future. Adobe Express offers a bit more in the photo editing realm, and that might be the biggest difference between Adobe Express and Canva. Adobe reminds you that it is all about editing photos by putting things like Remove Background front and center. Canva has edit image, but with less features, and only in the design window.

They are more similar than they are different. Type in Infographic on Canva and Adobe Express and here is what you get.

There are differences of course, but most of them are trifles of personal preference, or an issue easily gotten around.

Will Canva Survive?

Look, there are a lot of people that hate Adobe. I’m one of them, but the work I do requires I have it because that is how my clients want to work. That situation fits a lot of people, and if you are already dropping $50 a month on Adobe, wouldn’t you want to save the $10 a month on a Pro Canva even if it is great?

Canva does have a head start and maybe a more progressive and social-minded user base. They also rolled out some other features. I don’t know if they were being worked before there was an Adobe Express, or in response to it. Either way, if Canva can keep adding value, then maybe it can keep enough of its user base out of the clutches of Adobe to survive, or at least long enough to get bought out.

Canva vs Adobe Express is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

Cloudflare and Outlook

I have, unfortunately, for quite a while now, been resistant to the idea of using Cloudflare on any of my domains, despite Cloudflare being free, and speed being an important part of publishing a website. I tried all sorts of things to make faster websites, but I did not use Cloudflare. However, I finally bit the bullet and decided to install Cloudflare on several of my domains. The process went surprisingly smoothly despite a few Cloudflare bugs with Microsoft Outlook, and a couple more with one of my webhosts.

First, you want to be sure the problem is Outlook not working with Cloudflare, and not your email not working with Cloudflare. Those are two very different things. If your email is working with Cloudflare but not with Outlook only, then this is the solution. You can test if your email is working fine with other clients by using your host-provided webmail account or using a different email client. For example, my email worked find before Cloudflare on my PC-based Outlook, and on my iPhone mail client. After setting up Cloudflare Outlook stopped working, and on a problem with Outlook. My iPhone and webmail still worked just fine.

There is a video that appears to be posted by a bot on many Cloudflare community forums that sort-of helps.

Cloudflare and Outlook Working Email Setup

When you set up Cloudflare it copies your DNS records from your current DNS provider. This is good. However, the mail records that worked over there might not work on Cloudflare.

The two most important records are the MX record and the A record for mail. Your former DNS provider may have used something different, so it is important to fix Cloudflare settings for Outlook.

First off, your Outlook settings have the server set as mail.<hostname>.com, then need to have an MX record named <hostname>.com and it should be set to mail.<hostname>.com

Then, you need an A record of mail, and it needs to point to your host’s sever IP address just like all your other records do. Now, here is the trick. That A record must be unproxied (orange cloud off) or it won’t work. Cloudflare does not proxy email so if you have proxy on (orange cloud on) then your email will not work.

This is the relevant bit of information from Cloudflare:

You need Cloudflare Spectrum, which is not part of the free service, to actually proxy email traffic. If you are using the free Cloudflare version like most of the people I know, then you need to set your email records to be unproxied (no orange cloud) easy-peasy.

This setup generates some warnings in Cloudflare DNS settings that this record exposes the IP address behind it. – What does exposes the IP address behind it mean?

If someone were to attack your site with a DOS attack, they can find your real IP address, and attack it, instead of Cloudflare which can defend your site against DOS and other traffic attacks by handling the income wave of traffic.

Does it matter if the IP address is exposed?

That depends, will your website be attacked? For most people the answer is no, but if your site provides significant income, it might be time to get off the free versions and pay for more service.

Outlook Stops Working After Cloudflare Installed is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

Is working for Amazon Flex worth it? That was the question I set out to answer after I got an email from Amazon encouraging me to sign up for their gig work platform called Amazon Flex.

How To Sign Up for Amazon Flex?

Signing up for Amazon Flex is simple, as long as Amazon is hiring more people in your area. If they already have enough regular Amazon drivers or plenty of Flexers to service an area, they may not let you sign up. Otherwise, the process it pretty easy. You will have to input your real name and driver’s license number, as well as upload a picture, so if you’re a privacy fanatic, or you don’t trust Amazon, this won’t work out for you.

How Much Does Amazon Flex Pay?

The amount Amazon Flex pays depends on several factors. Most importantly, the Amazon Flex payrate depends on where you are. Here in the Denver Metro area, the lowest pay rate I’ve seen is $18 per hour. The pay rate that I consider sort of “standard” is $20 per hour.

The other thing the Amazon Flex hourly rate depends on is that type of delivery. Regular Amazon Flex deliveries seem to pay around $20 per hour, with some starting at $18. Maybe, those have more drivers, or something. Sometimes, I will get an alert saying that there are blocks available that are paying higher rates. This is when I will see rates at $30 per hour and in some less common cases, up to $33 per hour.

There is another kind of block that shows up as “Sub Same-Day.” I don’t know exactly what that means, but these blocks can be “bigger” area wise. In other words you can drive a LONG way, but not every time. These blocks usually start at a higher minimum. Although I’ve seen them as low as $20 per hour, they usually start at $22.

The Prime Now Amazon Flex deliveries pay an hourly rate plus tips. The Amazon Flex app shows this pay rate as a range like $42.00 – $72.00 with a bit of text under the rate clarifying that your actual pay is $42.00 from Amazon, plus whatever tips you get. The tips amount is “…more than 25% of similar blocks in your area recently earned at least $30.00 in tips.” My personal experience over the several Prime Now deliveries I did is that most people who tip, tip a flat rate of $5. I’m not sure if Prime Now app suggests that amount or what. So, your actual earnings are based on how many people you deliver too, but the app won’t show you that in advance.

Amazon Flex Surge Pricing

I don’t think the Amazon Flex people officially call it surge pricing, but it works sort of the same. If there are too many blocks and not enough drivers, or if there is a block with a start time getting closer, the Amazon Flex app will raise the rates to encourage someone to take the block. If you turn on notifications, the Flex app will send you an alert notifying you to check out higher rates. In these cases, Amazon Flex pays $30 per hour, $33 per hour, and sometimes more.

Depending upon who you are, and what you want to get out of your Amazon Flex gig, you can wait for higher rates before accepting. Although, then you run the risk of other people taking all the delivery offers and you get left with nothing. It’s a little like playing chicken with the Amazon Flex app rates.

Amazon Flex Available Now

There is another option in the Amazon Flex app for people looking to top off some income with Amazon Flex as a side gig, or side hustle, if you prefer. Instead of signing up for a regularly scheduled offer, you can set yourself to Available Now in the Amazon Flex app. When you set Available Now, Amazon Flex uses your phone’s location and matches it to any delivery needs there might be nearby.

For example, when I set myself to Available Now, I usually get offers from the nearby Whole Foods. Typically, it is just one or two stops needing to be delivered within one hour, or 90 minutes, or something. Occasionally, these instant offers will turn into full on routes with 8 or 9 stops, all over the city.

You can view the offer and accept it, or not. Unlike scheduled offers, the instant offers show you exactly how many stops, and where they are, so you can really determine if it is worth it for you. You have 60 seconds to decide, and there is no penalty to decline. I’ll often turn it on if I have a light workday, or no plans. If it happens, it happens. If not, not worries.

Amazon Flex Expenses

The main expense for doing Amazon Flex is gas. As you drive around the city, you use your gas and that expense comes right out of your earnings. You’ll hear other people talk about wear and tear on your car, and they aren’t wrong, but that is harder to quantify. While you’re at it, keep in mind that many repairs or issues with a car or truck come from its age, whether you drive the miles or not.

What you do need to understand is that if you do a lot of Amazon Flex driving, you are putting a lot of miles on your car. That is fine if you plan to drive your Honda Passport until it drops dead in 200,000 miles. It is a big problem if you are using a leased automobile. Remember, a car lease allows a certain number of miles and you pay for every mile over. Depending upon the lease, that could eat up every bit of your earnings.

The other thing you need to understand is taxes. Whether you have a regular job and do Amazon Flex on the side, or you do it full time, your driving for Amazon Flex qualifies for the IRS mileage deduction. For those Amazon Flex offers you took in 2021, you get to deduct 56 cents per mile. Remember that this figure is supposed to account for gas AND the wear and tear on your car. It might have been a bit low for 2021 because gas prices went up during the year after the rate had already been set.

For Amazon Flex shifts that you take in 2022, the mileage deduction rate is 58.5 cents per mile.

If you don’t want to itemize your personal deductions, and I don’t blame you, you can consider your driving for Amazon a business and use Schedule C to deduct your expenses. My advice is to do your taxes both ways and see how you come out ahead. I find it easiest to use tax software like TurboTax instead of doing my taxes manually, but whatever works for you.

Too many people are not used to using rich people tax tricks. One of those is taking all of the tax deductions you possibly can and considering them part of your income. You see, if you just compare what you earn to what you pay out in gas, that is small income thinking. Obviously, you have to be sure your Amazon Flex driving is worth it in real time, but don’t decide it isn’t worth it, until you consider your whole financial picture including taxes, especially if you have other income.

Is Working For Amazon Flex Worth It?

Is delivering for Amazon Flex worth it? Final answer.

For me, delivering for Amazon Flex is not worth it for most cases. That isn’t because Amazon Flex does not pay enough, it is because I don’t live close enough to an Amazon Flex distribution center. The nearest one is almost 33 miles away. That means I drive 66 miles round trip, using a little over an hour of my time in total.

That makes shorter shifts on Amazon Flex not worth it all. A good paying two-hour block for $66 is $33 per hour if you live nearby. For me, it is $22 per hour, plus whatever mileage I drive, plus another 66 miles on top of that. That might be worth it, but the real detriment for me is the time. I have a small business and I’m also a work at home dad. I’m just looking to grab a few bucks for a few hours. Turning two hours of not working and not parenting/chauffeuring into three hours is actually a big deal for me.

Now that does not mean Amazon Flex is not worth it for someone in a different situation. Amazon Flex is worth it for someone who lives closer to an Amazon Flex station, and for someone looking to work more hours.

For example, if I were willing to drive for eight hours, and got an average of $25 per hour, that is $200. Even if I put in my hour of driving to and from the distribution center, that still works out to $22.22 per hour. That is not bad. If I could up that average with some savvy waiting until $30 per hour, that might really be worth it, including the extra 66 miles. Remember, all the miles, including those 66 miles are deductible as a business expense. (66 miles times 58.5 cents per mile = $38.61 tax deduction — my car doesn’t use that much gas )

Even better, if I were willing to work eight hours and I only lived 10 miles / 10 minutes from the station, driving for Amazon Flex is worth it easily.

What I Do Real World Amazon Flex

While I don’t take scheduled shifts from the far away Amazon distribution centers, taking shifts from the couple of nearby Whole Foods is totally worth it. For whatever reason, Amazon offers for my nearby Whole Foods never show up on the app for me. Maybe some is reserving them before I ever get a chance. Maybe someone gets up at 5:00 am and grabs them all. Either way, they need them more than me.

However, whenever I have a low, stress, unscheduled afternoon, or slot of time, I set my Amazon Flex app to Available Now. About half the time I get a notification of an instant offer. I take a careful look and decide if I want to spend that much time and effort compared to the money I would earn. I estimate about $5 per person in tips minus one person who sucks and doesn’t tip. It’s close enough.

Amazon Flex Rating

For my Amazon Flex review, I’d give Amazon Flex a solid four-star rating as side gigs go, especially if you learn all the little ins and outs like waiting for pricing to go up, and what time of day has the best routes, and so on. Even if you just dabble like me, it’s good for spending money, or for cash to spend on your other start up idea, small business, side gigs or maybe those little passive income projects.

The best part is that there is no downside. If you sign up, get approved and only deliver twice, or even if you never take an offer, nothing happens. There is no expense, fees, or cost to you. I guess the best advice is, “It can’t hurt to try it.”

Is Amazon Flex Worth It? is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

Turns out my icons are there on the bottom and I can do the old Pin to Taskbar, and I was off. No harm, no foul.

But, today, I’m supposed to be working. My freelance writing clients need invoices because it’s the end of the month. So naturally, instead of that, my ADHD noticed there were two icons at the bottom that are new with Windows 11, and I don’t know what those new taskbar icons do.

Did I make a mental note of them and go on to get my work done? Or, totally not that?

New Windows 11 Taskbar Icons

All right, we are talking about these icons. I mean, I’m not dumb. I know the magnifying glass is search, the Windows symbol is the start menu, and the camera thing is video (I don’t have a camera attached to my desktop PC). It turns out the camera is actually Chat. I don’t have that set up, so we’ll worry about that later.

These are the two that are distracting me from doing my work.

So, it turns out the one on the left lets you have multiple desktops. Cool.

When you make a new desktop, all your open tabs, and email and all of that are put back to the starting state, so you have a clean desktop. Here is the best part. You can easily go back to your old desktop. So, if you’re like me and you end up with a browser window full of tabs with work stuff, and a browser window full of tabs with fun stuff, and eventually multiple browser windows mixed with work and fun tabs, plus whatever your kid opened while researching penguins, you can open a new desktop and start over. Ideally, you would close that other desktop when you are done, so you don’t also end up with multiple, mixed desktops.

The button next to it is the widgets button.

There were widgets on the old start menu of Windows 10. I never really liked it. When I click Start I have somewhere to be, metaphorically speaking. I don’t want to stop and look at the weather, or whatever Spotify put instead of its icon. That was the other problem. If you were looking for that green circle thing from Spotify, it was never there. Instead, there was some album cover that you’d never seen before, so you’d spend a few seconds figuring out what was going on instead of just clicking and going.

Now, I can have a big ‘ol widget window and click it when I’m bored, or have a few minutes to kill, or whatever. I think I might actually use the widgets on Windows 11 now. I never used them before.

OK, I really do have to go work, but when I’m done, I’m going to research the separate desktop thing. I wonder just how separate they are.

Have a good Friday.

What Are The Windows 11 Taskbar Icons is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

I was thinking that I need to fire up an update here on Best Hubris after finally finishing what was supposed to be a 300 or 500 word quickie about my thoughts on buying some puts on Vail stock based on what is going on here in Colorado and assuming it would apply nationwide, or at least enough to impact the stock. This came after yesterday’s attempt at a short, quick, article about how my Webull review also showed that you need money to make money turned into a 1,500 in-depth explainer.

I didn’t really have anything in mind and I hadn’t turned to the old writer’s notebooks yet when I opened up this post and thought, I need 300 words about… and my brain filled in “88 women.”

Brain Unlock – Mode: 80s Songs

There is this weird thing where you forget something. Not forgetting where there is something you want or need to remember, like where you put your headphones, but forgetting where it is gone, just like it never happened. And then…

88 Lines About 44 Women was never a huge hit, but it played repeatedly on the radio when I was in the car rocking out to 80s music. Of course, back then, it was just called music.

88 Lines About 44 Women was risqué for the radio in the mid-80s. Several lines of inuendo if you were willing to play along that the 44 women were women who were “with” the man.

Deborah was a Catholic girl

She held out till the bitter end

If you liked the band, The Nails, enough to get the album, you’d find that the original, or “real”, version of the song was no more risqué, but contained the actual swear words instead of hinting at them.

I’ve wondered several times how to get Amazon Music, or Spotify to play all the songs, but only the radio edit, or clean version, if one existed, instead of me hearing, “Playing Harmless Song From Your Childhood… Explicit” and me wondering just how explicit it would be and if I needed to rush and get it off before my kids heard it.

Now, it’s too late. One has their own paid subscription to Spotify and the other plays plenty of Amazon Music when I’m not around. Besides, if I remember middle school properly (we had junior high, but still…) they already know all the swear words anyway, and don’t get me started on YouTube videos.

See?

385 words and I haven’t even told you the solid “your mom” joke my youngest made at school.

I’ve always maintained 300 words isn’t enough time to really say anything. That’s not true, of course. I myself have written solid, meaningful, useful articles that come in a just 300 words, but you have to have one thing you want to say and get right to saying it. Or you have to have a dry assignment, like preprinted postcards for mass mailings.

I’ll go find those notebooks full of great ideas for Best Hubris. For now, I hope you enjoyed your 487 words.

300 Words About 44 Women is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

Charity Update Phone Calls Scam

There are numerous charities that turn used home goods into good works. I like these charities because they serve triple-duty in my good cause book. First, they keep goods that otherwise have no home out of the landfill. I’ve got toys, books, clothes, and so on, and while I can have a garage sale, that isn’t high on my fun list. Instead of throwing these items out I can donate them. Second, the charities turn sell these goods and use the cash to do useful things for their organization. Some of them even employ disadvantaged members of their communities producing yet another advantage. Third, they resell these items in their stores where people who really need to stretch a dollar can buy them for much cheaper than anywhere else. I like that my donation helps them as well. And, of course, in the end, I get a tax deduction, which is nice for me.

Like many others I get postcards from time to time asking me if I have any household items to donate. They need my donation so much, they are even willing to arrange for a truck to come to me so that I don’t have to bring my donation to them. This is particularly important for the smaller organizations that don’t have many locations, especially if none of them are anywhere near me. All I have to do is make a call, give them the address for the pickup, and my phone number so they can contact me.

Seems legit.

But, it turns out that too many charities are actually finely tuned fundraising machines and that address and phone number are used extensively for both. Several years ago, I had a lot of stuff to donate, so I scheduled pickups with two different organizations that I wanted to support. They picked the stuff up and they left a receipt for the tax deduction.

Everyone was happy.

Then, the phone calls started coming. Each charity called at minimum once per month to ask if I had anything else to donate. When I said no, they launched into what can only be described as a telemarketing pitch. Did I know that now, my donation was more important than ever? Thanks to [insert recent new event here] donations were down, and needs were up, was I really, really, really, sure I didn’t have anything? And, if not, could I write a check instead?

I don’t really like getting phone calls at all, least of all sales calls, which no matter how much these organizations say otherwise, are just what these are.

The calls never stopped until the day that we shut-off our land line.

The other day, I got a card, and thought about making a donation, but I remembered the continuous nagging phone calls. I’ll still donate, but it won’t be until I get around to it, and it will be with whatever charity has a location near where I am when I finally load it into my car. That charity, and everyone else who uses that method of raising awareness has lost my donation forever. Is it worth it to squeeze out a few extra pickups?

Even worse than this one is the charity update phone call. This scam works like this. I donated to a local charitable organization. It was a check, no strings attached. I got a call thanking me.

Everyone was happy.

The next month I got a phone call from the charity. They wanted to update me on their progress and explain how my donation was helping.

Seems legit.

For four sentences, I got an update on the organization. Then, I heard those familiar words written by the most reused copywriter in the history of man, “but now, your support is more important than ever.” And, here I was, taking a telemarketer’s phone call, because I was stupid enough to donate with a check that has my phone number on it. Needless to say, that charity will never get another penny from me.

Charity Thank You and Can We Have Some More

Several years ago, my wife coordinated the giving program at her work. Everyone pitched in and donated a few hundred dollars to Special Olympics. Since they don’t have a permanent giving program, my wife just sent the money in as a single personal check from her account. The charity sent a thank you note and some other things and my wife proudly took them to the office to share with her coworkers. But then, every few weeks since then, we get another mailer asking for more money. Of course, our contribution is needed now more than ever.

I guess we should have waited then.

By now, I figure that every charitable organization I ever gave money to has spent my entire contribution doing nothing but trying to get me to contribute again. A dozen or so mailers per year, times six or seven years equals something like 80 mailings. Eighty mailings written, produced, printed, folded, and mailed has probably eaten up $100 of the original $300 donation. In the end, we’ll have contributed nothing more than paying for junk mail to be sent to our house.

For other groups, it’s a fully staffed telemarketing center, employees, phone lines, and so on, all to get me to donate more. By now, the entire amount of any donations I made has been spent running that call center.

Where To Donate Without Being Begged for More

I still contribute. I still donate. I just do it differently. These professional money-raising organizations don’t get my money anymore. Instead, my children’s schools get regular contributions. I know where the money goes and with the exception of a mention in each week’s email, they never ask for any more. I donate household goods to ARC or Goodwill, the two organizations that had drop off locations that I know of. I hand them over and drive away. No phone number, no contact info. Those guys sending the postcards have ruined it for themselves.

Lately, I’ve started using Colorado Gives. It’s sort of a clearing house for charities and you can mark your donation as anonymous if you like. The best part is that Colorado Gives produces the tax receipt you need for deducting charitable contributions on your income taxes.

And the charity I donated to? They get that “badly needed” donation, but they don’t get my phone number. Win – Win.

I had my bank stop putting my phone number on my checks a few years ago, for several reasons, and I never fill out that field when donating. If a form won’t work without a phone number, they don’t get my donation. Ever. Some friends just fake number them. I don’t bother. If their goal is to get a phone number for their call center, I don’t want to give them my money.

This rant is brought to you by the stacks in my garage that I need to donate by December 31st, to get my 2021 tax deduction. I’d love to call some of those organizations and setup a charitable pickup, but it’s not going to happen.

I wonder how many thousands or millions of dollars these organizations lose every year thanks to overly aggressive fundraising?

How Charity Fundraising Poisons the Well is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

Respect.

Respect is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC