10 Tips for Choosing a Cell Phone Carrier and Plan

Picking a mobile carrier and plan can be tricky. With all the carriers and services offered, it’s easy to end up with features and services you’ll pay for but never use. Here are ten tips to consider before you purchase a new phone plan, carrier, or services.
1. Consider cheaper, local options.

Instead of going with the large companies, such as AT&T, T-Mobile, or Sprint, consider smaller, more affordable options. Some companies, such as Boost Mobile, Budget Mobile, and Cricket, charge less for their services. Smaller carriers are also great for those who don’t travel often, as local service is superior—although when you leave the area, the service is nonexistent.
2. Don’t pay for services you don’t need.

Many people still pay for services they no longer use. If you text more than you talk, consider cutting unlimited talk to a certain amount of minutes per month. For example, get unlimited text with 500 minutes of talk. Many plans offer unlimited everything, but you shouldn’t pay for services such as data if you don’t use it.
3. Ask friends and family for recommendations.

Since mobile phones have become a necessity, you can ask your friends and family for their recommendations. Not only will they know the downfalls of their carriers, but they will also be able to tell you how they feel about the company. There is no better way to find a cell phone carrier.
4. Research the carrier’s customer service.

If you ever encounter a problem with your carrier, you’ll have to speak to customer service. The last thing you want to do when you have a problem is find out that the customer service is horrible. Research a company’s customer service before purchasing a plan.
5. Think about family plans.

If you need a plan with multiple phones, get a family plan. It will be much cheaper than paying for every phone separately. Most family plans allow you to have two or three phones with the same services at a lower price. Some carriers even offer discounts on family plans.
6. Know about the price after promotion.

Before you purchase a plan or go with a carrier because it’s having a promotion, you should ask about the price after the promotion period ends. All companies will use a promotion price to pull in customers, only to increase the price once the promotion is over. Sometimes this amount is double what you were originally paying. Know the price after promotion.
7. Factor in extra fees and taxes.

All cell phone carriers will quote you a price when you call, but these prices lack the fees and taxes you will later see on your bill. Sometimes, taxes can be as much as $10, and fees can add up to be very costly. Some companies even require you to pay a fee to pay your bill!
8. Ask how you’ll be able to pay the bill.

Paying your bill each month should be easy. Some carriers require you to visit an actual retail location, while others allow you to pay online. If paying online is important to you, you should know if it is an option prior to entering a plan.
9. Locate the nearest retail location.

If there is an issue with your phone, cell phone carriers will suggest that you visit a retail location. If going to the store is the best way to get assistance for particular problems, you should be sure that your area has a retail location. Some states lack retail locations, making it difficult to solve hardware problems in cell phones.
10. Think about data usage.

Data usage is difficult to track when it comes to cell phones. If you frequently use social media apps, your data usage could be very high. However, if you only use your email, you can use less than 200 megabytes per month. Assess how much data you use to avoid overages or paying more than necessary.

How To Make Money On eBay With These Simple Steps

You may think that eBay is just a website that you can use to sell all of your unwanted items from home but you can actually make good money on eBay. There are more than 150 million active potential customers on eBay for you to reach. So here we will show you how to make money on eBay.

In order for you to be a successful seller on eBay you need to familiarize yourself with how it works. You also need to treat the whole thing as a business and not a hobby. If you pay regular attention to your eBay business you will get the best results. So here are the steps for how to make money on eBay.
Set up your free eBay Account

You can sign up for a personal account or a business account with eBay. Both are free and we recommend a business account. You will also need a PayPal account to receive your money for items sold. If you don’t have one then it is easy to sign up for one. PayPal and eBay are fully integrated.

Take your time completing your account sign up. If you are going to specialize in a certain niche then create a username that reflects that. You can of course use your business name here. This is the first step to how to make money on eBay.
How to make Money on eBay – make a purchase

eBay is primarily an auction website so you need to know how it works. The best way to do this is to actually buy something. This can be a small item and something that you will actually use. Search for an item and notice how certain ads catch your eye. Is it the headline? Or is it the photograph of the item?

If you are going to take place in an auction then it is best to set a maximum price and let eBay send bids for you in increments. If you win the auction then eBay notifies you and you will need to make the required payment. Some items have a “Buy Now” arrangement and are not subject to auction. Here you pay the asking price and get your item immediately.
Now Sell some Items

Before you launch into your eBay business it is a good idea to sell some items first. This will help you to familiarize yourself with eBay and will help you to gear up for making posts that convert. It will also prepare you for shipping items.

The easiest way to sell items is to look around your home for things that you don’t want any more. You will need to take quality photographs of each item as this is a key element of how to make money on eBay. You also need to create a description for the item and come up with a persuasive headline. Be sure to ask for feedback from your buyers.
How to make Money on eBay – Choose the right Niche

OK it is time to do some homework. You can find out which products sell well on eBay pretty easily. Once you have decided on your niche (you can go into other niches later) you will need to find a good drop shipping service that can supply to your customers.

We recommend that you use a drop shipper first until you get the hang of selling on eBay. A drop shipping supplier will ship your order and add your business branding for a small fee. Once you have the funds available you can approach wholesalers and buy in bulk. You need to test a product first before committing to a large order.

It is very tempting to just sell the most popular items on eBay. These will change often and you can lose money with this approach, especially if you have purchased in bulk from a wholesaler. Usually you will get better results from focusing on products that you know about and that sell well. This is how to make money on eBay.
Be a Customer Service Champion

If you do things that annoy your customers they will soon let the world know about it. You will receive negative reviews and a poor overall seller score. You need to avoid this at all costs. Te best way to do this is to become a customer service champion.

Be as responsive and helpful as possible. If a potential buyer contacts you then respond quickly and answer all of their questions. If you can offer something free as part of the order that has value then this will delight your customers.

If you want to know how to make money on eBay then you need to get the ordered items to your customers fast and secure. This means that you have to pack everything properly and that you use a dependable shipping service for quick deliveries.

Do everything that you can to help your customers. If they contact you and complain that their item suffered damage during delivery then fix this quickly. You may lose a few dollars on this but the customer will be delighted that you care and will give you a great review. They will also be likely to return and purchase again.
How to make Money on eBay by Opening an eBay Store

eBay will allow you to open your own store to showcase your products. There are several benefits to this including reduced final value fees, more free listings and some good marketing tools.
Now you know how to make Money on eBay

You now know how to make money on eBay so it is time for action. Go to eBay and sign up for your free account right now. Get a PayPal account too if you need one. Do your homework and use the steps above and test your market.

The Benefits Of Using A Personal Financial Advisor

Let’s make one thing clear before we get started. Not everyone is going to need a personal financial advisor. The purpose of this article is to explain what a financial advisor can do for you and leave it for you to decide if it is worth hiring one or not.

You do not have to be rich to benefit from a personal financial advisor. A lot of people have no financial plan because the thought of creating one just scares them to death. But it is really important that you have a financial plan. You need to know where you are going with your money and your life. It is really good for your overall well being.

Before you even think about hiring a personal financial advisor you need to be clear about your current financial position. An advisor will ask you a number of questions. If you don’t know where you are financially you will not be able to answer the questions with any conviction.

You should also have a good idea about what you want going forward as well. If you already have financial goals that is great. If you don’t then it is time to sit down and think about them and commit them to paper. Once you have these two things buttoned down look at the benefits of using a financial advisor below to see if you need one.
What does a Personal Financial Advisor do?

Before we get into that we would always recommend that you choose an independent personal financial advisor that has RIA (Independent Registered Investment Advisor) status. If you choose an advisor that works for a large company then they will want to force their company’s plans on you. This will not always be in your best interest.

Your advisor will provide you with personalized financial advice totally tailored to you and your situation. Everybody is going to have different financial goals and requirements. Sometimes you need a higher level of expertise and experience to help you make the right decisions.
A Personal Financial Advisor provides Customized Advice and Guidance

Different people have different financial goals. You may want to advice about investments, estate planning, taxation or the management of your assets for example. A personal financial advisor will provide you with guidance that is specific to you.

A financial advisor can also help you review your financial goals and your financial plan. They are likely to know a lot more about the financial industry than you do. Your advisor can use their experience to help you to refine your goals so that you can achieve them more easily.
They will provide Personal Accountability

Any good personal financial advisor will want you to succeed with your financial goals. Independent advisors are far more likely to be personally accountable to you for your financial future. In order to do this they will want to have a deep understanding of where you are now and where you want to be in the future.

It is important that you trust a financial advisor and they know this is important too. So they will go out of their way to develop a strong relationship with you. This could involve a number of different interactions. So you will probably have to meet with your advisor on more than one occasion.
A good Personal Financial Advisor will have a Transparent Fee Structure

A lot of independent financial advisors will charge fees based on the assets they are managing for you. It is usual to agree a percentage with you right at the start so that you know where you are.

You want to ensure that your personal financial advisor has the right incentives to work hard for you. Negotiate an agreement where they receive a percentage of the gains that they are able to make for you. In this way your success is their success.
A Financial Expert to help you with all of your requirements

Even if you have only accumulated a small amount of wealth it is always good to have an expert to call upon so that you make the right decisions. Yes you can go online and formulate a financial strategy. But nothing beats sitting opposite an expert who has the right knowledge and experience.

Be aware that some personal financial advisors specialize in certain areas. There are some that are expert in investments. Others focus on complex taxation issues, retirement planning, estate planning, the selling of a business, trust formations and so on.
A Personal Financial Advisor can Manage your Portfolio

If you are planning to have an investment portfolio to meet your financial goals then you need to be aware that these can take a lot of time to set up and manage. Portfolios need monitoring regularly to ensure that they are performing as well as you want them to.

Some personal financial advisors will manage your portfolio on your behalf which will free up valuable time for you to do something else. There will be no need for you to rebalance your portfolio accounts on a regular basis. Your financial advisor will take care of this for you.
So do you need a Personal Financial Advisor?

Now that you know what a personal financial advisor can do for you it should be easier for you to determine if you need one or not. Even if you don’t need one right now you may well do in the future.

Here Are 8 Ways That You Can Make Money Online Fast

Sometimes you just need cash in a hurry. Rather than borrow it from a friend or even a bank why not earn it? A lot of people do not believe that it is possible to make money online fast but we will prove to you that it is with this article.

Make Money Online Fast

If you want to make money online then we would always recommend that you build a business that can provide you with regular income over the long term. But if you need extra cash quickly then have a look at these 8 ways to make money online fast:
1. Take Surveys with Pinecone Research

To be eligible for this you need to live in the USA, Canada, Germany or the UK. You have to complete a simple sign up process and the minimum age requirements will vary from one country to another. Find out more here.

This is a genuine survey taking website that will pay fast. They take on new people when the need arises so you may not get in for a while. You can receive your payments using PayPal and you will normally receive payment within 24 hours.
2. Surveys with Opinion Outpost

This is another quality survey website but at the moment they are only accepting people that live in the United States. You will earn points for the surveys that you complete. Most of the surveys are for market research. The official website is here.

The questions are usually wide ranging. They may want your opinion about advertising, electronics, politics and a lot of other subjects. For every 10 points earned you will make $1 and for 100 points you get $10. PayPal payments within 24 hours are the norm.
3. Provide your Opinion on Slice the Pie

Are you interested in fashion trends? How about the latest music? If you have an interest in either of these (or both) then you can make money online fast by sharing your opinion at Slice the Pie.

They are looking for people like you to provide honest reviews about music and fashion. If the reviews that you leave are high quality then your earning potential will go up. You can use PayPal to receive your payments (minimum $10). They make payments every Tuesday and Friday so you will not have to wait a long time for your money.
4. Complete Micro Tasks on Amazon Turk

If you are happy to trade your time for money then you can do this by completing small tasks on Amazon’s popular Mturk website. The sort of tasks available are placing products in categories, checking content for spelling errors and rating the quality of search results.

You submit your tasks and after approval you will see what you have earned in your account. Move these to your Payments account with Amazon and you can then choose between having a payment made to your bank account in a day or two or receive a gift card to the value of your earnings right away.
5. More small tasks at Microworkers

This is another website that has small tasks to complete similar to Mturk. Job posters will post tasks such as data entry, research, product categorization and so on. You will receive a rating on how well you completed the tasks.

If your ratings are really good then you can achieve “Best Worker” status which means that you receive more task offers and the opportunity to earn more money. Payments are made fast to PayPal and they pay on Sundays and Wednesdays. Find out more about Microworkers here.
6. Freelance on OneSpace

If you have freelancing skills such as researching, design, writing and editing then you can check out OneSpace for freelance job postings. This is a very popular website which changed its name from Crowdspace.

Freelancing is a good way to make money online fast. All you need to do is to find jobs that match your skills and then apply for them. There is no need for you to request payment as it happens automatically. After approving your work you will normally receive your PayPal payment within 24 hours.
7. Help Businesses on Picky Domains

If you are creative then you can use your talents to create slogans and catchy taglines which will help businesses to find that ideal domain name for their companies. When a customer chooses one of your ideas for a domain or slogan then you will receive between 40% and 60% of the total sale which can be between $25 and $75.

So if you fancy using your creative abilities to make money online fast then Picky Domains could be a good option for you. Any suggestions that you come up with will entitle you to a small commission even if customers do not choose them. 24 hour PayPal payments are what you can expect here.
8. Make Money with your Expertise on Studypool

Do you have advanced knowledge about a subject (or several subjects)? If so then why not be a tutor on Studypool? This website matches up tutors with students. Students can submit a question about the subject and tutors in the subject can bid on this to become the preferred tutor.

When a student chooses you their question needs a response by the deadline you set. Once the student approves your answer your earnings will be visible immediately. You can opt for either a direct bank payment or a check which takes around 3 days on average.
Go out and Make Money Online Fast

Now that you know how you can make money online fast it is up to you to take action. Just visit the website of your choice, sign up and get started.

Data-driven vs. data-informed

Quantitative data tells you WHAT is or isn’t happening. Qualitative data helps you better understand WHY it is or isn’t happening. As the diagram shows, it’s not about any particular extreme but rather a balance along with your gut feeling. The best product designers find that balance between all of the inputs they have, and create clear, compelling experiences through the fog of data and insights.

Let’s look at what makes up each circle.
Data

Data on its own is pretty much useless, I would even argue that results from A/B tests on their own only give directional information. You need the insights from data to create meaningful product experiences, so an amazing product analyst is a must. Data can be anything from conversion, engagement, time spent in product, feature usage, net promoter scores (NPS) and so on. Whenever you are designing an experience you need to ensure you know what data point you are optimising for and if it is a leading or trailing metric. You should only try to optimise for one metric, but you should also monitor other secondary metrics in your product. Again, the key is getting customer insights from your data.

Internally at Atlassian, we get a bunch of data, one of these sources is NPS. On its own the score is interesting, especially when tracked over time but not particularly useful. We go a step further and break this down into a framework called RUF:

R = reliability

U = usability/design

F = functionality.

By breaking it down we can get insights from different customer segments on different pages within our products on how they score the performance, usability and if we have the right functionality/features. This allows us to see the major areas that customers have problems with within our products from a quantitative point of view.

Data provides the “what”.
Empathy

You have to build up and spread the empathy within your organisation for the problems your customer is having. Empathy can be built up by reading NPS feedback quotes, interviewing customers, surveys and more traditional ethnographic research methods, like contextual inquiries or usability testing. Again though, that empathy is useless without meaningful insights.

When we redesigned our onboarding experiences, we had a comprehensive experimentation program running. But in parallel we also ran diary studies and usability testing sessions. The diary studies really helped us understand our customers’ pain points and motivations. From these insights we built a conceptual model for onboarding. That model gave our experimentation program a clear framework to work towards.

Empathy provides the “why”.
Gut feeling / intuition

There is a great quote from Julie Zhuo, the Facebook product design director:

    Data and A/B test are valuable allies, and they help us understand and grow and optimize, but they’re not a replacement for clear-headed, strong decision-making. Don’t become dependent on their allure. Sometimes, a little instinct goes a long way.

And it is very, very true. No amount of data or empathy will remove the fact that you need to essentially make decisions on how to interpret those customer insights. I mentioned earlier how we used our design intuition to stay the path with a failed experience. Intuition and gut feeling is not voodoo, it is built up over time through experience, by making decisions, by making mistakes and by learning along your own career journey. As a designer it is your responsibility to incorporate all of the available data points and create compelling customer experiences. Data or research will not replace the fact that you have to make decisions.

Intuition provides the “how”.
Pulling it all together

The danger in any product design environment is that you rely on one part of the process too heavily and end up optimising for the wrong thing. Basing a product decision solely on a data point like “conversion” is not wise. Basing a product decision on a couple of customer interviews is also not wise. Basing a product decision on your intuition could get you into a lot of trouble. Just because your conversion may have increased, it doesn’t mean you won’t frustrate millions of people and in the longer term be worse off. So finding that balance is crucial.

I have spoken with many designers who feel that data is removing their creative license. Of course the famous 41 shades of blue example at Googlefrom a few years ago is a case in point of going too far to one extreme. But if you look at Google’s progress with material design, which I am sure they will have experimented on as well, you can see how well they are now striking the balance.

As a designer I embrace the power that quantitative data and experimentation adds to my design process. It is a great complement to more traditional qualitative data, and in no way does it replace it or diminish the impact I can have.

Good product design comes from striking the right balance between data, empathy and intuition. You need patience and persistence, an understanding of the feedback you get from data and research, and a gut feel of what is right or wrong. Data should not paralyse any designer or remove their creative freedom. Understand that neither one of these inputs will tell us what to design and build.

If you enjoyed this post and want more of the same, you might consider following Designing Atlassian!

Data-driven vs. data-informed design in enterprise products

Imagine a world where we’d know the impact that an experience would have before we shipped it.

This is not as impossible as it sounds, and most product companies are or have been building experiences this way for a few years now. Popularised by ecommerce sites and lean startups, validating design decisions by A/B testing and hard data is commonplace nowadays. But trying to apply some of these techniques to enterprise software can be much harder. There is a great article on UX mag debunking the 6 myths of data driven design. It’s an awesome read, but I would go a step further, and say that we need to move away from data-driven design and into a world of data-informed design.
Data-driven vs. data-informed

Data-driven design looks to ship fast, optimise at every step and let the data drive many of the design decisions. Often (but not always) it is possible to get large percentage improvements with small tweaks as pages have similar and standardised layouts, or a startup only has a few features to optimise for and one specific type of customer to speak to.

However, this way of working can be much harder to execute when you work in a complex product environment, with many features, experiences and types of customers to optimise for. Continuously shipping experiments may not be the right way to work when millions of customers rely on your products to get their work done, as is the case at Atlassian. But how do you keep trying to optimise and learn, whilst retaining a well thought-through design approach? I believe there’s a slightly different approach which I’m terming “data-informed design”. Here’s an internal Atlassian example of being data-informed, instead of data-driven.

We shipped an experiment to improve our onboarding experience for new customers. From a data perspective the result was a huge failure. It resulted in -12% engagement (time spent in product) and neutral conversion. So did we throw it away and move to something else? No, the team believed in the experiment we had designed and our qualitative research was telling us that we were on the right track. Our conviction turned out to be correct. We took some lessons from the data, applied some insights from our qualitative research, iterated on the experiment, and with tweaks to the design it became a success at +22% conversion, with engagement staying neutral.

This is being data-informed, not data-driven. We used the data we had and combined it with qualitative feedback and our design intuition to produce an iteration that was ultimately successful. We weren’t binary, we didn’t throw it away completely at the first sign of trouble.

Here’s another example of being data-informed from Airbnb. I love this article discussing their experimentation and in particular this quote about a major redesign of the Airbnb search results page:

    A lot of work went into the project, and we all thought it was clearly better; our users agreed in qualitative user studies. Despite this, we wanted to evaluate the new design quantitatively with an experiment.

reasons to travel by car

From the very beginning, we have been travelling by car. We had 25 years old Renault that surprised everybody who meets us. From year to year, it broke more and more often. I remember our last journey by Renault very well, even now when I write about this car I feel sadness  – this car means a lot for me, it opens a world of  travelling, marvellous places and desire to investigate more and more.
Old Renault on the top of tallest gravity dam in the world – Dixence Dam

We went to Switzerland – country with many mountains. Our Renault was too old to ride those roads. Every half an hour we had to stop and cool the engine. When we finally reached the Dixence Dam  – tallest gravity dam in the world we sighed with relief. But after the very interesting excursion inside the Dam and walking around in the area with marvellous views, our car refused to wind up. We didn’t know what to do and it was almost evening, so we decided to spend time in the mountains in the car and solve the problem in the morning.

Of course we were nervous how we will continue travelling on such car, but in the morning we solved the problem (I didn’t want to go into details here as I didn’t understand what was wrong, my friend took two wirings and joined them and after this car started 🙂 But after that trip we decided that we need new car… Now we have Logan MCV where we could sleep and carry a lot of things.
Our new car, Logan MCV with a lot of stuff. Having lunch somewhere in the fields of Poland.

I got used to travelling by car a lot and it was very hard for me to dare to travel without it. But after we did it I realized that travelling without car differs a lot, but had many advantages. This article is about advantages of travelling by car, so let’s start!

    You are free to decide when and where to goThere is no need to hurry up for train or bus. You could wake up whenever you want and drive as much as you want.
    Your travel needs much less planningOur last trips by car were lack of planning. All we made at home was gathering the places of interest that we want to visit. We made planning only several days in advance and only if we wanted to book the hotel. It gives you the feeling of freedom to stay longer if you like the place and leave earlier if you don’t.

    Instead, I prepared for our trip to India for hours and hours. We booked every hotel, bought all tickets for trains and buses, planned every day in details. It is really very time demanding. I remembered it took several months for us to plan that trip carefully.
    You may spend less money for foodAs I’ve already wrote in my article about “How to save money on food while travelling” car may save many dollars for you as you could buy food in the supermarkets in the county side where prices are much lower.
    Our delicious dinner in France. I am afraid to think how much it would cost in restaurant 🙂

    Also travelling by car allows you to cook the food by yourself as you may bring oven and live in campsites. There is no need to go to expensive restaurants; you may cook delicious grilled vegetables and sausages instead!
    You may spend less money for accommodationWhen travelling by car you may live in campsites (if you travel in Europe, USA, Australia or some countries in South America). Campsites are at least half much cheaper that the cheapest hotel. If you still want to live in the hotels you may choose cheaper ones (but not worse!) on the country sides.
    If the weather is nice, campsite is even better than hotel. Do you want to live with sea view under the pine trees?

    The only problem with car occurred when you want to visit big city. First of all it is usually problem to park the car, and secondly, if you want to spend the time in that city you will probably want to stay in the hotel in the center of the city where parking places are very expensive and limited.
    Wild camping in France.

    We usually check carefully whether hotel had the parking places if book in the city center. Sometimes we stayed not in the very center but somewhere near the metro station for example.
    You may visit much more places of interestMany places of interesting (ruins, museums, mountains, etc) are situated far away from roads with frequent public transport and some are even not accessible by public transport at all.
    Cemetery of old cars in Belgium.

    Car allows you to visit as much places of interest as you want and wherever you want. You will spend much less money to visit all you want by car than by public transport.
    You may take much more things with youWhen we go travelling by car we take everything we might need. We take our small refrigerator and we have cold beer whenever we want. My friend installed solar battery on the roof of our car – so we could charge laptops and mobile phones if it is sunny, even if we don’t drive the car.

    We bring electric oven to cook and all utensils we might need for cooking. By the way, oven warmed us many times. In Iceland we lived in tent and heat inside with oven. In our latest journey we lived in the very-very cold room in the hotel in Bulgaria (it was already cold outside but the heating season has not started yet- so we used our oven to heat the room.

    We also take our roller-skates and clothes for mountains trekking.
    You feel much more safer in the carIt may occur than your travelling turns off to the unsafe places with stray dogs or unfriendly people. It was several times when I was really glad to be inside the car.

    By the way this was one of the main reasons why we rent a car when we first visited Thailand. That was probably our mistake, but I felt much calmer when think about exploring Asia by car for the first time.

    Frankly speaking I was afraid of traveling without car in those days and also I was afraid of Asia too. I am so glad that now I change my mind about both of that aspect, however car gives you the feeling of security.
    Your budget may significantly decrease if divide expensesImagine four of you are travelling, you decided to rent a car instead of using public transport. And even if renting car and paying for fuel may turn out into quite much money, if there are four of you and you divide all expenses for four persons – it will be cheaper for sure.
    Our renting car in Iceland.

    However, when travelling around Iceland there were two of us and we rented the cheapest possible car and it was great decision as public transport in Iceland is very expensive.