I think the Freebies board on UsedShoe is awesome to say the least.  I myself have received so many free things the past few months it’s unreal.  Magazines, dvds, cds, food, books, tickets to events, t-shirts, pens, knick knacks, Star Wars figures… probably hundreds and hundreds of dollars of items for free.  My thinking was I would keep this board set to private so that only registered members could access it for two reasons.  1. It was a perk of registering on the site.  Registering is free, it takes 1 minute, and it’s open to everyone so I didn’t think it was an issue and 2. By having people register I am able to get statistics on the site, such as how many members signed in each day, what time the most people signed in at, etc… which is helpful for a few different reasons (such as by knowing what time the fewest amount of people sign in it, this lets me know the ideal time to do maintenance on the site if need be so that I am interrupting as few people as possible).  But I have heard from the left and I have heard from the right and the message is clear, OPEN UP THE FREEBIES BOARD!  So that is what I did.  So for those of you who wanted it, you got it!  I hope you enjoy the freebies as much as I do, and taking the trek to your mailbox will no longer be a dreadful walk resulting in only a pile of bills, now you’ll look forward to seeing what random things come each day in the mail (I know I do).  Enjoy!

Besides the obvious new header (which do you like or dislike?) and color scheme… There is a new feature added to show related posts at the end of each post.  If you click on a post you’ll see at the end of the article there are links to other posts that should be somewhat related to the post that you just read.  This is all inclusive meaning if you are reading a post from a month ago it can contain links to newer posts, not only posts made prior to it.

Also, the Forum section has been redesigned to fit more appropriately with the look/feel of the site.  There are some neat features in there, my favorite is the Props Meter.  After you have made two posts in the Forum section you will be enabled to either “Give Props”  to someone if you like their post or “Boink” someone if you dislike their post.  Also in the Forum section you can see whether the person who posted a deal is online or not in case you wanted to send them a message to ask a question about the deal they posted.  There’s a few other neat features but I’ll leave it up to you to discover on your own.

And that’s all for now, until tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel, and remember to spay and neuter your pets.  Bu-Bye!

I just used it for the first time.  There is no assembly required.  The system at first was difficult to use, it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to make a cup of coffee.  In terms of filling it with water and placing the coffee pod in the system that was very easy.  The issue I had is you need to fill it up with water, then you press some buttons to make the machine take the water into the system, then you press some more buttons to make the water heat up, and then you add the pod and start brewing.  It sounds simple but it took me a few attempts, I’m sure for my next use it will be relatively easy, but I think the product could have been made easier to use.  Elderly people or people with poor memories should probably avoid this product, a coffee system should require you to touch only one button and that’s to brew.  The coffee came out good though so I’m happy with my $15 purchase (this sells for something like $65 on Amazon).  It is ideal for me because I’m the only one in the house who drinks coffee and it brews only one or two cups at a time (it has a dual spot so if you want two cups of coffee you place two cups below and it will brew for them equally).  All in all a good deal, product usage could have been a lot easier but for $15 I’m happy with it.