Archive for September 2011
At Home Call Center Jobs
At a time when work from home scams continue to rank high on the list of top consumer complaints to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), there are in fact real work from home jobs to be found. You just have to know where to look. In this article I will share with you some information about at home call center jobs, a brief overview of the top employers hiring at home call center agents, and how you can apply for these jobs.
Some of the top employers currently hiring employees to work from home are companies operating telemarketing call centers and contact centers. Traditionally, these companies operated “land based” centers; physical facilities where work was performed. Today however, leveraging advanced technology, many companies now employ representatives working from home. Where in the past it may have been unfeasible, the availability of virtual call center technology, and the widespread use of high-speed Internet access has changed this. Now it’s not only feasible, but also advantageous to companies to employ at home workers. Many of the expenses associated with operating a call center are greatly reduced or eliminated when an agent is employed from home. Savings on such things as computers, cubicles and buildings provide huge incentive to companies adopting this business model, and a large variety of real work from home jobs have been created in the process.
The types of jobs created by these companies are as diverse as the jobs found at traditional telemarketing companies. Jobs can be found in appointment setting, customer service, fundraising, order taking, research, surveys, sales, technical support and more. The biggest challenge faced by people seeking to work from home is finding these jobs.
Finding legitimate work from home jobs such as these can be a daunting task. The companies offering these positions do little by way of advertising. They don’t have to. There’s tremendous competition among job seekers for these highly desirable positions. The largest employers currently receive well over 100,000 applications a year. The good news is that there are resources to assist you in your job search.
You can start by applying with the following companies. These are the industry heavyweights, all well-known reputable companies and the largest currently hiring at home call center agents.
Alpine Access was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. The company is a leader among virtual call center operators. Founded on the home-based employee model, the company has recruited, hired, trained and managed all of its agents virtually since inception. All employees are W-2 wage earners (i.e., regular employees as opposed to independent contractors). The company attributes much of its success to its business model, saying it allows them to be more selective and only hire the best.
Arise was founded as WillowCSN in 1997 and is headquartered in Miramar, Florida. Again, this company is a leader among virtual call center operators. The primary difference between Arise and Alpine Access is Arise representatives are independent contractors, termed “Arise Certified Professionals” by the company. Representatives work from their own home offices and choose their own work schedules.
LiveOPs was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Like Alpine Access LiveOPs was founded on the home-based employee model, and has always employed representatives working from home. Like Arise LiveOPs representatives are independent contractors working from their own homes and choosing their own hours. They currently have more than 16,000 agents working from home.
This short list will get you started, but don’t stop there. These employers receive 2000-3000 applications each week. They can be selective and they are, only hiring the top 5% or so of applicants. But don’t despair if you aren’t hired immediately, or by one of these companies. There are others and there are resources to help you find them. Be persistent and soon you will find a real work from home job working from home as a virtual call center agent.
DVD-R Hard Drive Recorder Media Center
I have been putting up with prerecorded television on its traditional formats for years now.
I guess that it would have been around 3 or 4 years ago when I decided that I could do without the VHS, it was a sad day saying goodbye to some of the movies I owned on Video Cassette but it was a relief to not only lose the necessity to store these bible sized monsters in the house, but also to remove the triple wired dinosaur form the living room. Well this old relic of my youth had been replaced with a normal DVD player and soon my DVD collection started in earnest.
The trouble is that I don’t really want to store large items of digital media anymore. My music has all been compressed down into 320kbps mp3, my photos are all now burned onto DVD’s and stored in triplicate.
So I start converting my DVD’s and ripping them onto my hard drive. trouble is that before long I have almost 60 Gig of movies and really I prefer to watch them on my TV than on the PC screen.Then a solution occurs to me, a complete home entertainment solution.
I needed mass storage and it was only going to be a matter of time before I found a solution.
There it was, a DVD hard disc recorder which could like do everything I wanted and here it is a:Philips Hard Disc DVD Recorder with 250gig hard drive.
First I networked it into my PC and dragged across 80 Gig of movies in DivX format ( that is about 100 films ). Next my photos for the past few years ( some 30 Gig ) were imported followed by 30 Gig of music in mp3 format to join the party.
Next I hooked up the DVDr recorder to my TV ( sadly I am not yet an owner of a flatscreen TV but that is surely only a matter of time ) and piped the excellent audio connection to my home hifi.
The results are superb, even though I have not even explored this unit’s impressive recording capacity – and it is capable of that lovely Video Plus thing – I have now a complete home media centre at a very attractive price.
Hard drive DVDr machines are available at Telephones Online [http://www.telephonesonline.co.uk/_dvdr_recorders.asp] whilst the model I purchased was the DVDR3460H Philips Hard Disc DVD Recorder [http://www.telephonesonline.co.uk/details.asp?prodID=1659&title=Philips+Hard+Disc+DVD+Recorder]
Previously I had tried various abortive options. This now has restored my household to a complete full on media experience.
Guitar Stores Online – What Are the Best Online Guitar Stores?
As more and more people become comfortable with making purchases online, it’s inevitable that guitar stores have gone online as well. If you’re looking for great selection and price, shopping for a guitar online can be a great way to go. In this article I’ll look at three of the best online guitar stores and some of the unique features of each one.
The stores in this article are the big three of music specialty retailers. All three offer extensive inventory, a low price guarantee,used items, and some form of discount, on sale, or clearance section. With the exception of the used gear, all three can be expected to have roughly the same selection. So there aren’t a lot of differences between these stores, but we’ll take a quick look at each one:
Guitar Center
Guitar Center is hands down the largest offline music retailer, and despite the name, they, carry a lot more than just guitars. Probably because they have a nationwide network of brick-and-mortar stores, their used gear section is larger than either Musician’s Friend or Music 123, with over 30,000 used items for sale as I am writing this.
Guitar Center will also buy your used gear, and offer a discount on new gear that you buy when trading in. Of course, to trade in, you have to visit a store, so that’s not really shopping online, is it? Guitar Center will also ship items to the store nearest you instead of to your home, which could be useful if you don’t want your brand new guitar to be sitting on your front porch in the hot sun (or freezing cold) when it arrives.
Musician’s Friend
Musician’s Friend probably has the widest selection of all the online music stores. As the name implies, they carry a lot more than just guitars, but they carry lots of guitars, so you’re sure to find what you’re looking for here. Be sure to check out the Used Gear and Clearance sections, too, if you’re looking for deals.
The Musician’s Friend website also has a huge, well-organized “Knowledge Base” section, with articles, reviews, FAQs, buying guides, and more. Look for the “Articles” link on the home page to access this section.
Music 123
Like Guitar Center and Musician’s Friend, Music123 carries a wide range of music gear, not just guitars. They are a catalog and online only store that is owned by Guitar Center. The Music123 site seemed to me a bit easier to navigate than the other two sites, maybe because it’s a bit more of a no-frills site. No scrolling banners or pictures of famous artists on the home page. Just easy to navigate links and buttons to get you where you want to go.
This article reviewed three of the top online guitar stores. But there are lots more places to buy guitars online. These three stores are just the tip of the iceberg.