Household6

I just wanted to update everyone on what’s been going on…

I finally heard from my Dad on Wednesday and things are pretty much ok in New Orleans. There is debris everywhere, lots of people are without power but things are good. Dan only had some minor debris and they have partial power in there house but all are safe and sound. 

I’m off today for VA Beach (yes I’m heading into Hurricane Country where Hurrican Hannah is supposed to make its arrival this weeekend) Military.com is having Spouse Buzz Live in Hampton Roads this weekend and I’m going once again. This time I’m bringing the laptop and the camera! : ) I’ll be live blogging and streaming from SBL! I’ll post the URL a bit later today. 

Lots of new and cool projects for the military community coming this Fall, I’m so excited about them but I can’t really release any info just yet!  : ) I will VERY soon I promise. 

Well i still need to pack for the weekend… (surprise suprise) 

Tammy

Many of you know that I grew up in New Orleans (Geaux Saints LOL) and that my Dad, Grandmother and other family lives there still. I thought I’d update everyone on what the status is…

I spoke with my dad earlier this afternoon and they have decided to stay. Dad lives 20 minutes outside of New Orleans in Metairie, LA and they are under a “voluntary evacuation“. The city of New Orleans is under a mandatory evacuation and the state is doing a good job at getting the people out of the city.

Currently it is a Category 4 (out of 5) and has winds of 150 mph. The center is scheduled to hit west of New Orleans but they will still get a lot of the bad weather (heavy winds, lots of rain ) not to mention 9-12 ft storm surge.

If you are so inclined, please say a prayer for my family there as well as all the other people living on the Gulf Coast. I’ll be getting regular updates from my dad over the next few days so I’ll update the blog as much as I can.

If you follow me on Twitter, I’ll be updating over there a lot more frequently. (you can find me on twitter at www.twitter.com/TammyMunson )

Also if any of you live on the Gulf Coast area (or have family) and need assistance of any kind, please let me know.

Thanks!
Tammy

Warning… this is a LONG one, just letting you all know…

Many of you know that I have several websites, including this one, for business and personal projects. I’ve been using the same hosting provider for over the last 2 years. I was also hosting my clients’ sites as well. I recently decided to not provide that service any longer. 

I started looking around to see if I was getting a good deal and I realized that I was being over-charged a bit. After having a conversation about website hosting with my friend, Wendy Cooper. She told me that she could give me a great deal on hosting for my 9 (yes 9) sites for $50 a year! (she’ll give you the same deal too email me for the details) 

So I decide to go forward with it and begun the horrible fun task of moving all the sites over. Things are going great, everything is moving along. End of story right ?? No! 

So since its getting close to the end of the month, I remember how I need to cancel the old host. Better do that quick right?!? I had been hosting with a wahm named Renee Brown and one of her part-time businesses, Mountain Valley Hosting . So I go over to her website to see to how to cancel and I can’t find anything on her site.. no terms of service , no privacy policy, nothing. The only thing I can find an article in her FAQ area of her website that says refers to when payment is due, late fees,etc but nothing about cancelling. In fact part of her site, still has the filler text that came with the template when she bought it. 

So I do the next thing, I email her and ask her to cancel my account effective September 1st (this is the 27th of August) . Her site said that payment is due on the 1st so I’m thinking I’m ok abiding the rules and cancelling in advance.  Instead of getting  the “sorry to see you go” email that I was expecting I get this…

tammy you will need to pay this invoice due to it is already inthe system and i use this yo pay the main hosting then i can set it to cancel 

I do billing for my clients all the time and I can take an invoice out of the system, at least on my system. I was a little confused at first, so I immediately email her back to ask where in my contract  does it say that. 

She responds “ in the tos agreement… let me send  it to you” So after an hour or so, I finally get the TOS agreement. First I get it in the body of the email, not as an attachement (almost like she typed it up). Secondly,  in the document itself there were 3 seperate items  that referred to cancellation: ten (30) days , 10 business days and finally you may cancel at any time. Are you confused ? Yep so was I! 

I email her back (after getting my response reviewed by several people to make sure I wasn’t just being bitchy and nasty) stating that I’ve never seen this TOS before, there is nothing on her site about it , and she can’t provide me with a signed contract, etc. I did say that I would be bring the documents to JAG for them to review and advise me on what to do. 

This is where she gets super-nasty with me and I decide oh there is NO way I’m paying this now. All i really want to do at this point is just get super bitchy and tell her to shove it where the sun don’t shine.  Wait.. can’t do that, one of us need to remain profesionnal and adult. 

There are few more back and forth emails , until finally tells me how unprofessional I am, and she threatens me about “you better not try going to the media” and how she would sue me for SLANDER.  Of I’m not going to the “media” but definitely the SOCIAL MEDIA community.  

Renee finally cancels my account  and does it immediately thinking my files are going to be gone. To her dismay, I had already moved everything over and had a up to date copy on my Mac.  : ) 

In the meantime, I talk to my good freind Whitney (attorny and Queen of Podcamp) about the whole thing and what had happened. Basically she tells me don’t worry about it because their is no contact signed by me. She also tells me that she has her legal terms mixed it … Slander is “speaking”  and Libel is “written” . LOL

So yesterday I was a little ticked off that I spent most of my evening the night before dealing with this “professional” , I was talking about it on Twitter. There I found out that two other people had run-in’s with Renee Brown. One person had to pay 2 months worth of hosting because Renee said “she didn’t cancel in time” (hey just like me!!!) and the other person got stiffed for over $300 worth of web design work that Renee wouldn’t pay for. She cancelled his hosting without warning to be revengful and he was  Yep thats real classy and uber- professional. I’m just glad to know that it wasn’t just me… 

I’m not trying to bring her down and destroy her, I’m just sharing my customer service experience and making others aware of her business tactics. If you’ve stayed with me this long… thanks for listening.

The democrats just finished up their convention, the republicans are having their’s next week (hopefully) and everyone is a-chatter on various social networks about their favorite candidate, how evil the other side is, how Obama is going to save us all!.

I normally don’t post anything political around here but I’m afraid I’ve been sucked in. I know that this will open up the political floodgates and bring all the trolls out I’m sure.. well I’m tired of being silent. I’m going to stand up and be counted for… so BRING IT ON!

I wish everyone could just look at the issues, get the facts from BOTH sides, make their decisions and be done. Instead, you have the mainstream media casting their opinions instead of the facts, news producers and cameramen getting assaulted, newsproducers getting arrested on public sidewalks for taking pictures of lobbyists and politicians (yes this did happen), etc.

I’m proud to say that I am voting for McCain and that I’m a card-carrying Republican and have been since I was 18! I believe that McCain is the better candidate for my values and beliefs. He has the experience and the leadership to bring our country where it NEEDS to be. (notice I said OUR country not the WORLD) I truly believe McCain & Crew will be what is best for myself and my family. After all, isn’t that the basis of everything?

Quite honestly, Obama and the other liberal politicians scare the be-jesus out of me with some of the things that they have said on the campaign trail and in media interviews. This media “lovefest” makes me cringe a little every time I see yet another interview, commercial or “story”.

I hate to break it to everyone … but Obama is NOT the second coming of Jesus and Al Gore is not Moses coming down from the mountain Part Deux.

Ok that is my political commentary for the day… we now return you to your regular programming.

PS Are you a Republican mom/woman that would like stand up and be counted for too? Don’t want to worry about the liberal media backlash that you will receive ? I’m working on creating a network just for us! Email me at tammy@newmediava.com to be included!

Yes I’m been MIA for a week (10 days to be exact) on our summer vacation. It was great.. we went down to Williamsburg/Jamestown for some fun in the sun with a bit of education thrown in for good measure. We really had a great time .. some funny stories too! : )

I guess the funniest story happened on Tuesday when we were at Busch Gardens. We were walking around the park enjoying all the rides, food and stuff to buy. ( I was doing the happy dance because the facility is part of Anheuser-Busch.. BEER!!) The girls were begging us to play some of the carnival games they had. One of the games was the ring toss where the super grand prize was a Nintendo Wii! (yes we are one of the few households in the world that doesn’t have one yet. I”m working on rectifying that very very soon)

So Dan finally gives in , finds an ATM (because the games area only takes CASH) and he decides to get the $10 bucket of rings because ” we never win anything”. So each of the girls start to throw rings, then I do. Dan takes his first throw and misses. Second shot and BOOM it lands on the one of the rings (not the GOLD grand prize bottle). There is a multitude of prizes to choose from (none of them are the Wii) so what do our children choose?? A 4 foot tall stuffed animal (Sonic the Hedgehog) !!!!! So here we are hiking it around Busch Gardens schlepping this 4ft tall Sonic every where we go! It was quite hilarious and every one was staring! : ) The girls were in their glory and Daddy definitely was their ROCKSTAR that day! : )

The drive back home was funnier with Super Ginormous Sonic in the back part of our SUV just laying around. I’m thankfully we brought the SUV with us and not our smaller car, because HE never would have fit!

I’ll post pics of the trip and Super HUGE Sonic later this week!

Also I have some other BIG BIG BIG news (and NO I’m not pregnant , at least not that I’m aware of or anything LOL) Dan is on orders to move to the great state of Colorado! Yes this December we will be packing up here in the DC area and heading westward ho! : )

If anyone is in the Colorado Springs area (or has in the past) please let me know I have TONS of questions about the area!

I’m bushed (and tomorrow is our last day of vacation) so I’ll write more later in the week …

Social Media is all the rage online these days. Many families in the military community are starting to use social media to keep in contact with their service member, family members out of state, friends.

So, what exactly is social media?

According to Wikipedia social media–

“uses the “wisdom of crowds” to connect information in a collaborative manner. Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies such as blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, group creation and voice over IP, to name a few.”

In order to give you a leg up on the top social media applications, let’s talk about a few of the social media applications according to survey done recently by New Media VA.com . There are tons of social networking and social media sites popping up each and every day.

Some of the most popular are: Twitter, Facebook, Utterz, and Ning.

1. Twitter - Twitter is a free social network and micro-blogging site that allows users to send instant updates to the Twitter website or with other applications such as Twitterific these updates are seen by those following the user through the Twitter network. A user must sign up to receive updates from others and can restrict delivery to those who are not in his or her circle of friends.

2. Facebook - Facebook is a free social networking website originally founded only for the students of Harvard University. Users create profiles or pages about themselves, which often include pictures and lists of likes/dislikes. Profiles are grouped according to their networks, relating to their high schools, colleges, and places of employment or geographical region.

3. Utterz - Utterz is a free social networking and micro-blogging site that allows users to send updates via cell phone to their blogs, social networking pages and their Utterz homepage. Audio and voice utterz can be recorded from any phone and text messages can be sent . When a user creates a new utter notification is sent to other users who have signed up to receive notification.

4. Ning - Ning is slightly different in that it is an online platform where users can create their own social networking sites and networks. Ning allows a user to create a site that can compete with Myspace or Facebook yet be targeted to the user’s specific audience or target market. Ning allows the user to use its templates to create a group website, photo website and video website of their own.

It’s not just a ‘teen’ thing!

Social Media is definitely becoming the wave of the future and it certainly changing the way we communicate with others. It’s great just to keep up with what others are doing but also to meet others for support,etc.

So let’s here from you

What types of social media are you using? Are you connecting with others in social media/social networking? Are you planning on it? Feel free to leave a comment in the comment section. First 5 comments get a free prize pack courtesy of MIlitary.com : )

Want to connect with me on the various social networking sites? I’m on lots of different social networking sites (part of my job as a Social Media Manager) but here are my Top3!

Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/tammymunson
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=667580989
Linked In : http://www.linkedin.com/in/tammymunson

I received this info from the editors at Military.com –

We want to know how you plan to celebrate Veterans Day. Record a short video message detailing how your family or your local military community celebrates this holiday. Then, upload your video titled, “How I Plan to Celebrate Veterans Day,” to Military.com’s Shock & Awe channel. Videos will be featured on our Spouse Network and the Family Newsletter.

I asked one of the editors (Kelly Johnson) over there about parents, family members posting their videos as well. She said that ” Anyone from the military community can upload a video — kids, spouses, servicemembers, etc. ”

So go ahead and post your video over at Military.com and then make sure to tell me about it. I’ll be posting mine here as well and we loved to feature a few on the blog as well. If you want to just send it to me directly, feel free to post the video URL in the comments section or email to me at tammy dot munson at gmail dot com

Hi Moms & Dads!

I’m Tammy, resident Tech Mama here! I just wanted to let you know that ParentZone is jumping into the world of Social Networking! You can now find us on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/parentszone and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/parentszone .

For those of you that are asking yourself “what the heck is that??” .. Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups, like small rural communities or a neighborhood subdivision… if you will. It is also a great way to meet other parents like yourself trying to figure out this whole military life thing and its all online! : )

Here is a cool video that explains it a bit more..

If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me and I’d be happy to help!

PZ TechMama (aka Tammy Munson)
tammy.munson@ gmail.com

Yes I spent Saturday with a bunch of Marines…parents that is! As part of my duties with Military.com, I was asked to speak about blogging and some of the blogs that we have at military.com as well as other MilParent blogs that are out there. 

I have to say at first I felt a little nervous being around so much “Marine” stuff. I mean I’m definitely all Army! The attendees at the conference were amazing and certainly made this Army wife at home and very welcome. Every single one of attendees were a parent (or parents) of a actively serving military member. 

There were several new organizations that I found out about serving the needs of the milParents, so they can better support their son or daughter. I’ll be posting a few of those resources over at Parent Zone in the next few days. 

My boss, Vince Patton, and I even did a video segment on Talking with Hereos Radio Show. As soon as we get the video URL I’ll post it here!  : ) Our show will air LIVE on August 28, 2008

It was so great talking with those parents and how blogging can help them in a variety of ways. I’m so excited to see what kinds of things they start doing with their blogs.  :) 

A special thanks goes out to Mariann Jordan - Marine Parents United President - who made sure we had everything we needed as well as the rest of the event team! You all put on a great event! 

Beck started her new job.. giving Daddy a haircut! (don’t worry I fixed it) LOL