How to Find Legitimate Work at Home Jobs

A July 10th, 2008 Wall Street Journal article examines the concept of working at home, during these tough economic times with high gas prices, job losses and credit crunches. The article cautions those looking for cushy jobs where they can earn a regular salary from home, saying that many of the work-at-home opportunities are for mundane, difficult tasks that other people would find tough. An example is telemarketing, transcribing inaudible MP3 files from meetings, or hours of tedious data entry.

Another caution is that you often receive spam emails or see sites advertising simple data entry for thousands of dollars salary a week. Be warned that these need to be treaded cautiously and can be scams. The WSJ article provides some great resources on freelance type jobs such as virtual assistant or travel agents. The three sites listed below will help you identify if a job you've found online for working from home is legit or not.

3 Sites to Use to Find Legitimate Work-at-Home Jobs:

bbonline.org - Click on "For Consumers"

WomenForHire.com - offers resources/ideas on working from home.

FTC.gov - In the search box enter "work at home scam".

---

Websites for Legitimate Work-at-Home Jobs: The following websites were all profiled in the WSJ article. As always read the details and find print on any opportunity you get involved with. These all appear to be legitimate companies which hire freelancers for clients, post job listings, and provide work at home opportunities.

Arise.com - 8,000 home business owners as agents, with plans to add another 4,000 by year's end.

AlpineAccess.com - 7,500 home agents, hiring at least 2,500 more by December 08'.

Elance.com and oDesk.com - Link clients with freelancers from around the world. Freelancers can take skills tests on the site and have results posted. The sites also work on commission, taking 4 to 10% of the freelancer's fees. A college student dropped out of school realizing he could make up to $60,000 doing computer programming on a freelance basis through oDesk.com.

LiveOps.com - Has 20,000 home agents who work on at least a part time basis each week.

Sologig.com - A work at home posting site with screened free-lance opportunities.

TeamDoubleClick.com - Offers $10 to $20 an hour for "Virtual Assistants", who perform the tasks of Administrative Assistants, but from home.

VirtualAssistants.com - For $14.95 a month get screened job postings for at home work.

WestCorp (west.com) - Has 15,000 at home agents and is currently expanding.

(Info source: Wall Street Journal "Nice Work If You Can Get It: We Sites for At-Home Jobs" - WSJ 07/10/08)

Note: Another great site to check out is WAHM.com which provides info on work-at-home job opportunities, points out scams and much more!

Keep this work out home sites in mind and you just might be working from the comfort of your aeron chair in your own home office...That's the American dream right?

Casino.de Offers Online Blacjkack Training and More!

The Monetizer recently checked out a website which offers a variety of helpful resources for the beginning or avid gambler. Before we get too far into a look at the site, realize that the site is written in German. If you read or speak the language you're all set. However, they also offer a sister site, which is in English, which The Monetizer also examined.

The look of the site is appealing just as many online gambling sites are. This site provides a great number of links to help you learn gambling skills, rules and possibly improve your chances at winning big. The Casino.de site provides instructional trainings on various casino games such as Baccarat, Blackjack, Craps, Poker, Roulette, Slots, Video Poker and the recently popular Texas Hold Em'. Casino.de also provides reviews of various online casinos and betting sites as well as links to check them all out. Upon checking out the American sister site, www.online-casinos.com, you can find a wealth of info regarding various gambling systems and methods. I found the information to be easy to access and plentiful. The gambling strategies section provides several gambling methods such as the d'Alembert System (based on "The Law of Equilibrium") and the Fibonacci Sequence developed by the Italian mathematician Leonardo Pisan in the 1700's.

The fun starts when you try out the online training and practice tools at the site. I found the Video poker tutorial fun and informative to try out. As you play it keeps score of how many correct moves you make while playing. This way you can practice and practice for free, then take your skills to an online casino or real life one and hopefully cash in with your newfound skills! Casino.de also offers several free slot machines online such as "Fruit Fiesta" and Pub Crawler". These slot machines offer prizes to the top scorers each month.

Overall, the American version of the site is a great wealth of info for gamblers, and even though the Casino.de site is completely in German, it appears to offer the same quality and amount of information. So get started and give your luck a boost with their training guides and resources if you love to gamble!

MagicJack Review: Make Phone Bills Disappear!

The Monetizer will be the first to admit a love for new technology. While some hate it, I embrace it. I also love making money, and saving it. So today, I wanted to let you all know of an interesting and impressive piece of technology today called the MagicJack. MagicJack seems to be a worthy rival to the well-known Vonage VOIP phone service. You know the company which allows you to make calls using your home computer and claims to cut down on bills? Well MagicJack is just a small device with a USB jack on it that you plug into your computer. Plug a regular phone cord into Magic Jack from any phone you'd like to use with it. Turn your PC on and presto! Within 3 minutes, MagicJack has installed itself and downloaded the latest upgraded software to allow you to make FREE phone calls through your hi-speed connection. (Windows XP, Vista or Intel based Macs)

I set Magicjack up today, but have to admit I was slightly skeptical before I tried it. I've heard people complain about delays, echos and poor sound quality with Vonage. Hasn't been the case yet with MagicJack. Once the software installed, it allowed the Monetizer to choose any area code for my MagicJack phone number. What's great about this, you could essentially set up a virtual business office somewhere else in the US (New York, LA, etc) and make it seem as if you're an established business. Also, you could choose an area code from a state perhaps where many friends and relatives are located, making the calls cheaper for them. Quite a cool concept. MagicJack allows you to change your area code for free one-time, and then you can change it for a charge of $10 each additional time.


(A look at the cool display/interface for MagicJack on the PC)

MagicJack offers some great additional, no extra cost features as well. First off, you can see in the screenshot above, there's a cool interface that you get on your computer screen. It displays a phone keypad, menu options, contacts, website favorites, link to Google, Redial, 411 and more. You can dial your phone/check Voice mail from the computer, or the phone itself. When a call comes in, it pops up a message on your screen to "ACCEPT" or "IGNORE" the call. If ignored, the call heads straight to your no extra-cost voice mail. The same happens when your computer is shut off, or if you lose hi-speed service, calls go straight to the voice mail, which you can also set up with various messages.

So far I like what I've seen and heard with MagicJack. It's definitely a viable option to eliminate long distance phone bills or cell phone bills which can really add up. MagicJack's phone service is free for a year from the date of install on your PC. Then it costs $20 or so annually to keep the service going. Calls are free, and you can even bring MagicJack with you on road trips/travel and use your current phone number to make free calls.

With Vonage I've heard the complaints: hard to hear the people on the other end of the phone, monthly bills, and the fact you need a special extra device hooked up to make it work. Not the case with MagicJack..Until it starts bringing in tons of telemarketer calls, calls from The Ring villain, or acting possessed, I'd fully recommend this little device which can be picked up for about $35-40 if you shop around! Check out some of the latest MagicJack auction listings on eBay to find yourself a deal, and start saving money!

Find out more info about this product at MagicJack.com's official website.

The MySuit Experience

If you're in the money making business world offline, you may be required to wear professional attire daily to your job. Suits can always be a challenge, as you want them to look great, fit properly, yet still be affordable. A helpful website known as MySuitNY.com provides Made to Measure suits in about 2 weeks time starting at just $495.00! This is a great way to get an upscale look to your business or personal wardrobe. I recently toured the My.Suit Experience on their website to check out their services. I personally prefer charcoal gray suits with 2 or 3 buttons, that work well in many occasions, and have a lightweight fabric. Judging by MySuit's website experience, it would be very easy to get a made-to-order suit that would fit me properly and work well in many seasons or situations.

MySuit is a company which is global and has over 40 years experience in retail and manufacturing. It also lays claim to being one of the largest suit makers in the world. They're able to price suits affordably due to direct selling to customers, and also because of on demand productions. There's 3 easy steps involved in getting a suit made to your specific measurements with MySuit. There's measuring, styling and fabric selection. A consultant guides individuals through these steps to ensure complete comfortability with the overall MySuit experience and final product. For measuring, the consultant uses a "Gauge Suit" after determining your specific body type. The gauge suit allows for your particular body type, posture and stance to help find the most accurate specs for your suit. The consultant will take about 30 measurements total, providing a true made-to-measure suit, versus the 3 measurements you get from "off the rack" suits (waist, suit size, inseam).

Next you'll move on to step 2, deciding on styling for your suit request. The two basic choices you'll have are jacket type (buttons) and pant type (flat-front or pleated). The consultant will help you personalize your selection with additional details and style elements such as lapels, pockets, vents and sleeve buttons. Then you're on to step 3, selection of the fabric type to be used. The consultant will help you determine the fabric weight, color/pattern and most importantly whether the suit will be for social or business occasions.

It appears to be quite a pain-free process to get a made-to-measure suit created by MySuit. You can schedule an appointment with no purchase necessary just to get your proper suit measurements done. The MySuit website allows for customers to set up appointments for the New York store, which is located on 1270 Broadway (@33rd Street) in NYC. Hours are Monday to Friday 10AM to 8PM, Saturday 10AM to 7PM and Sunday 12PM to 6PM.