If you read my other blog (Lisa Reviews), you will already know that a couple of weeks ago we bought a Wii.  Let me tell you, if you don’t have one, make sure you get one!  Yes, it is that awesome!  That being said, I came across a new game that I so want to try out called Order Up!

Order Up! is a game that I know I would love to play on the computer which is why I am so excited.  This is my genre that I love to play.  The fact that it is Wii game just makes it that much more awesome!  The game teaches you how to run a restaurant kitchen.  However, you will spend most of your time cooking.  You make dishes, manage cooktop stations, and also play manager.   You move up in the world too.  You start out in fast food and you are able to work up to working in a world class restaurant.  The coolest part of this game?  It simulates real cooking, so you have to pretend you are using real items like knives, spoons, tongs, and ladles.  If you think this sounds cool, you need to watch this Order Up! Trailer. I know it makes me want it even more. Think I can talk Bill into letting me get it if I tell him it’ll make me a better cook?

All I have to say is that the last person who touched my old laptop was Bill.

For those of you who don’t know, I bought a new laptop before I went to Miami because of issues I was having.  However, I haven’t had a chance to get everything off the old one yet.  Bad move on my part.  Now, we keep getting a weird error.  From doing a search, I pretty much figured out it is the hard drive.  I am too afraid of losing my data, so I am not messing around with it too much.  Unfortunately, that means I have to go bring it into the shop to get it fixed.  The really bad thing is that I couldn’t get the Money file to transfer over.  That is bad, because it has my tax information for last year on it.  I need to access this!!!! <deep breathing> Ok, my computer place rocks, so I know they’ll be able to fix it.  They usually charge me less than their posted prices since this will be the 3rd time this laptop has gone into them.   Keep your fingers crossed for me.

When I was looking at new ways to connect to the internet with my laptop (besides the DSL I currently have), I noticed that few sites had support chat. A customer service person was able to ask me if I was finding everything okay, and if I need help. Instead of spending an hour or more trying to figure out where exactly I need to go on their site, I was able to figure everything out in less than 15 minutes. She told me where to find the broadband cards I needed, what kind would work with my needs (I wanted to be able to use it on the desktop also), and what my choices were for data plans and their cost. She knew the site inside and out and was able to answer my questions with minimal time and effort. I love it, because I didn’t need to waste my time looking for answers. I ended up deciding that I would just keep my DSL. However, due to the wonderful help I did receive, if I decide to get a broadband card for my laptop, I know where I am getting it from.

This technology is great. If you are a business that has a site, you need to get this. I cannot see how this would not drive sales to you. LiveHuman has this technology, and you can get a 7 day trial to check it out. It even has a stat package that you can use. It can show you your visitors geo location, referring sites, current page, and time on site just to name a few things. I know if I was still running my lia sophia page, I would be investing in this.

I will admit it. Bill and I used a pirated copy of a certain word processing program while we were in college. Why? Back in the day (which was only about 7 years ago when we graduated), college students could not afford it. There were no student discounts. If you couldn’t afford it, you were just out of luck. I am happy to say that things have changed since I went to college (and I am not that old). There are now places like www.CostCaptain.com that allow you to buy programs at a student rate. For example, you can get Microsoft Office for $129. In the spring, I think I spent $150 on just getting Excel and Word. CostCaption also offers gift certificates, so you are able to purchase these for Christmas, birthday, or high school graduation gifts (or any other gift that you think this would work for). You can help the college students you know get prepared with the most up to date software. I wish this was around when I was in school.

HomeCamera requested a review of their site. They wanted to know my opinions, and here is what I think:

I think home camera is a service I would actually use if I had a web cam (note to self: I need to buy a web cam which I can get links to do right from their site). Let me explain what it is. Home Camera is a service that allows you to have home surveillance using your web cam. You do not have to spend thousands of dollars of equipment and software. Once you have your web cam configured, you can watch from anywhere (your PDA, your internet browser, your mobile phone, the possibilities are endless). Setup is extremely simple (and takes less than a minute) and anybody should be able to do this. You do not have to be a tech genius to get this up and running.

I would use this to show my family and friends in Green Bay Madison and Will’s daily life. It would also be nice to use when we go on vacation too and do surveillance on the house. I seriously can see this being extremely useful for college students. You can see if your roommate is telling you the truth when they swear they aren’t wearing your clothes and eating your food (can you tell that I have had this happen to me?). There are just so many uses for it.

Since this is in beta right now, the sign up is free. They want to know what you think of their service and how they can make it better. The best part is that if you want to continue your service after they go commercial your account will not be terminated if you do not buy a paid account (of course, you can upgrade your service). You will also be offered special pricing.