Complete Black Friday 2012 Store Hours + Early Bird Discounts

As I’ve mentioned in my 10 Black Friday Shopping tips post, it is important to know the Black Friday store hours so you can be there early and avail of the retail stores exclusive early bird offers. Below is the complete list of Black Friday 2012 store hours for your reference:

(This post will be updated as I find out about more store opening hours in the next coming days. Keep posted!)

Black Friday 2012 Store Hours

(Stores are arranged alphabetically)

• AJ Wright - 6 am
• American Eagle - 4 am
• Apple - 8 am
• Babies 'R Us - 5 am
• Best Buy – 12 midnight 
• Cabela's - 5 am
• Childrens Place - 4 am
• CompUSA – 5 am 
• Cost Plus World Market - 7 am
• Dick's Sporting Goods - 5 am
• Disney Stores - 12:01 am
• Eddie Bauer - 7 am
• Fry’s Electronics – 12 midnight
• GameStop - 12:01 am
• Gap - 7 am
• Gap Kids - 7 am
• Gymboree - 6 am
• Home Depot - 6 am
• JC Penney - 4 am
• Jos. A. Bank - 6 am

• Justice - 6 am
• Kmart – 6am to 4pm for Thanksgiving, 5 am on Black Friday
• Kohl's – 12 midnight
• LL Bean - 6 am
• Lowe's - 6 am
• Macy's – 12 midnight
• Meijer – 4 am
• Michaels - 5 am
• Office Depot – 6 am
• Office Max - 6 am
• Old Navy - 12:01 am
• Old Time World Pottery - 7 am
• Radio Shack – 5:30 am
• Sears - 4 am
• Sports Authority - 5 am
• Staples - 6 am
• Target – 12 midnight
• Toys R Us – 8 pm on Thanksgiving for those doorbusters!
• Walgreens – 7 am
• Walmart - 5 am (Black Friday discounts begin at 8pm on Thanksgiving, then 10pm same day. They open at 5am on Black Friday)

Black Friday Early Bird Discounts

There are many retail stores that are offering big early bird discounts. Here are just some of them:

Walmart starts their first Black Friday Sale at 8pm on Thanksgiving, 2 hours earlier than last year. They also announced a 10pm sale on electronics and another sale by 5am by Friday.

Walmart also announced that those who are in line by 10pm and 11pm on Thanksgiving Day will get their most popular items:

• Apple iPad 2 for with Wi-Fi plus a $75 Walmart gift card for $399
• Emerson 32-inch LCD TV for $148
• LG Blu-ray player for $38

Sears stores will open at 8pm on Thanksgiving and will stay open until 10pm on Black Friday. Additionally, those who are members of Sears loyalty club Shop Your Way can avail of the early bird specials online as early as November 18, 2012!

Macy's, Kohl's, and Best Buy will open at 12 midnight after Thanksgiving – technically, midnight of Black Friday.

Lord & Taylor will be opening at 10am on Thanksgiving.

Kohl's announced that online shoppers will be able to buy all early morning specials on November 21, 2012 and all day on Thanksgiving.

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I hope you enjoy shopping! And make sure you read my tips on Black Friday shopping. :)

I LOVE PINTEREST!

Sorry, I had to post the title in all capitals. I just LOVE Pinterest! I’ve joined this social photo sharing website over a month ago and I can tell you, I’m HOOKED!

I’m a very visual person. I usually don’t like reading a block of text, even though I get too narrative or talkative when writing or blogging. Images or texts designed on a photo or even a plain background appeal more to me than reading regular text. And from the success of Pinterest, I say there are more visual people out there than we’re aware of.

I love how easy it is for you to connect with others who share the same liking for different things. I’ve got a shameless # of boards – 38! *LOL* Here’s a screenshot of my Pinterest page (click if you want to view it and follow me):

I tried to not follow too many people, but there are just plenty of interesting pinners out there! I follow mostly those who post yummy photos of food, cool designs, hilarious photos, and a li’l of fashion and beauty.

You can check photos I pinned here: http://pinterest.com/blankpixels/pins/

You’d see mostly food on there, but I also pin unique nail arts, my wish lists for our kitchen and home in general, accessories like titanium wedding bands, bags, shoes, and a ton more!

I also use Pinterest to promote my blog posts. It’s a quick way to get some traffic too. Make sure you add the Pin It bookmarklet on your browsers so it’ll be easier for you to pin anything you see online.

Leave your Pinterest links and I’ll check you out. :)

Steps to Take When Your E-mail is Hacked: A Checklist

Have you ever received a suspicious e-mail from someone you know? If so, there is a good chance their e-mail account was compromised. While you may think you are protected, this can happen to even the most cautious among us. If you end up the victim of e-mail hacking, there are actions you can take to ensure that your account is protected in the future. It is important to secure your account as soon as possible. So, before making any embarrassing phone calls to friends and family in an attempt to explain that you did not send those “natural male enhancement” e-mails, follow these important steps.

1. Create a new Password

If your house had been broken into, wouldn’t you immediately change your locks? Upon discovering that your e-mail account has been hacked, changing your password should be the very first thing you do. Depending on your e-mail provider, you can usually change your password by accessing your e-mail settings, selecting mail options and then choosing account details.

When coming up with a new password, make sure it is a strong password that’s unrelated to anything you’ve previously used. Most computer experts will tell you that a strong password is one that has at least eight characters and contains a mixture of lower- and upper-case letters and numbers.

2. Check Your E-mail Settings

Hackers often change the settings on your e-mail account so that a copy of each e-mail you receive is forwarded to them as well. This allows them to track future e-mails, hoping for one that contains login info for other websites. Make sure that no unfamiliar e-mail addresses have been added to your account, especially to your mail-forwarding settings. It’s also important to check your e-mail signature to ensure that the hacker didn’t include any spam.

3. Check Your Back-up E-mail Address

Back-up, or recovery, e-mail addresses are those used when it is necessary to reset or recover a password. If you only have one e-mail account, you should open a second – preferably using the same host – for this purpose. Unfortunately, the hacker may have changed the settings or password for your recovery account as well. Even if the hacker didn’t access this account, it’s still wise to change your password, just in case.

4. Change Your Password Hints

This step is one that people may forget. Hints are often used to provide you with clues in case you’ve forgotten your password or it needs to be reset. If the hacker somehow found the answers to your hints, there is a chance they can still access your account. While this is unlikely, it should not be ruled out. You can typically change your password recovery information by accessing your mail settings/options, selecting your account details and then changing your password recovery settings.

5. Make Sure Nothing Else Was Hacked

This may be basic information for those who went to security professional colleges, but the rest of us tend to be lazy about storing passwords and login information for other sites carefully. Often, if you’ve forgotten your login for a particular site, you can request that your user name and password be sent to your e-mail address. Search through previous e-mails for any such information, as these sites could also have been compromised. Change the login information for these sites immediately. If your credit card and bank account are among the sites possibly compromised, be sure to check future statements for any unauthorized transactions.

6. Create a new Password for any Connected Accounts

Assuming the worst is usually a good idea in situations like this. In this case, you should assume that any sites where you used your e-mail address to register have been compromised as well. This means that you need to visit each of these sites in order to change both your login password and hint. Another option is to create a new e-mail account that you use only for important sites. You should also change the password and hint for your banking website and for any social networking sites to which you belong.

7. Run a Malware Scan

If you don’t already have a malware program on your computer, now is the time to download one. Malwarebytes is an excellent and free malware program you should consider using. Even if you already have a malware program, it’s a good idea to install another. Quite often, one malware program will pick up problems that another may have missed.

Run a full malware scan on your computer and fix any problems it finds. If the scan detects anything, you should return to step one. If malware was present on your computer when you first changed your password, changing it a second time after the threat has been removed should ensure your account’s safety.

8. Don’t Let it Happen Again

While it’s easier to remember a short, quick password, this is also what makes it easy for hackers to hijack your account. You should consider creating unique passwords for every site to which you belong. If this is too much trouble, at least create unique passwords for both your e-mail and bank accounts. Equally important is to make sure you choose strong passwords.

Remember to take extra care on public computers. Do not access confidential information on a public machine. These computers make it easy for hackers to steal your information through key-logging software.

Blog Updates

I just wanted to post links here to my latest posts on my other blogs. Some of you might have seen them already (those who joined my last blog contest). If you haven't, I hope you'd find time to check them out.

• This is, well, my geek blog. I write about my love for design, photography, gadgets, blogging, etc. I also share tips and guides here based on my experience.
• Latest posts:
  • Tips from a Newbie Food Photographer, Part 1
    If you're just starting to enjoy taking photos of food and sharing it on your blog, you might want to check out my tips on how to improve your photos. I'm no expert, but I've learned a lot of things through self-training myself to taking professional looking food photos. Stay tuned for Part 2!
  • How to Setup Email Subscription for your Blog through Feedburner
    I still see a lot of bloggers out there who don't offer email feed subscriptions on their blog. For me, this is important because I'm actually one of those readers who prefer to receive alerts or updates through email when there's new content. So, if you don't know how to set up Feedburner for your blog yet, check out this guide.
  • Looking for a Wedding Photographer? The 12Masters Photography
    If you are getting married or you know someone who's about to and is looking for a wedding photographer, then, look no further. I am highly recommending my HS batchmate Marvin of The 12Masters. He takes awesome and kick-ass photos! Check out his online portfolio.

 

• Most of you might have seen Pinay Online Money Maker already. It's my blog about how I make money online. I share detailed guides/tutorials, tips and my trusted sites list to help you start making money online, too.
• Latest Posts:
  • How to Make Money Online with Nuffnang
    Nuffnang is one of my highly recommended ad network simply because they have an office here in the Philippines. They also organize the coolest blogger events and contests so you better sign up with them now. :)

 

• Wai Ying Fast Food in Binondo, Manila
  My first food trip with my mother in Chinatown. Wai Ying now tops the list of my favorite Chinese food joints. Check out what we ordered and how affordable they all were.
• KFC Double Down Sandwich
  I know! I'm guilty! I finally got a taste of KFC's Double Down sandwich. It wasn't that bad. It's just too salty and sinful for me. But, it's good. Check out my full review.
• Very Easy Homemade Quesadilla with Salsa Recipe
  A very simple recipe of chicken quesadilla. I love the salsa I made. Check it out! :)

 

I'll be doing this possibly every week just to share latest updates on my other blogs. Keep posted because I'll also be hosting giveaways over at my other blogs really soon. I'm actually cooking up the next one, probably at my food blog or geek blog. Will get back to you after my vacation!

Image Formats – Guide on Optimizing Images for the Web

Part 1: Speed Up Blog Loading Time by Optimizing Images You Post

Some of us may be familiar with the 3 most popular image formats: JPEG, GIF, and PNG. However, most of us don't really know why they exist. So, before I go ahead with Parts 2 & 3 of my tutorial on how to speed up your blog loading time by optimizing images, I will share with you which image format to use for your images/graphics.

Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG)

This image format was primarily created for photographs and artwork. So, if you're sharing a photo taken from your digital camera, or a scanned image perhaps, you should use the JPEG image format. Why? Because it retains the true colors of the images. This format supports millions of colors unlike the other 2 popular image formats mentioned below.

Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)

I used to save all my images for the web in GIF format because of their small size. However, it doesn't retain the true colors of photographs like JPEGs. It only supports a maximum of 256 colors so the GIF format is commonly used for logos, buttons, or text images. Animated images are also smaller when using the GIF format. You can also use this format for transparency.

Portable Network Graphics (PNG)

PNG format is like JPEG and GIF combined. You can use this if you want to publish images that use more than 256 colors. I used to save my images in this format when I create or use rounded corners or fun frames on my images and I need transparency. Now, I only use the JPEG format and set the background color to that of my blog's colors. This is mainly because PNGs are usually of bigger file sizes. I recommend using this format for small images like your favicon or buttons.

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JPEG vs GIF vs PNG

Here's a comparison of the quality and file size of each format when I use them on different types of images.

No noticeable quality difference between the 3. However, if you check the file sizes, the JPEG format (set at Maximum, 80 quality) is the lightest among all 3.

Now, I used a clipart and saved it using 4 different formats. I also used a different background color so you can see the transparency.

GIF, PNG-8, PNG-24 all retained the transparency of the image. JPEG didn't, as you can see with the white background. Also, if you notice, the file size difference is remarkable!

If you look closely, you'd see that the PNG formats look better than GIF. So, at this point, I would've preferred to use PNG-8 because the edges are not as jagged as that in the GIF format. But, if you prefer a better quality with the transparency intact, you'd pick the PNG-24 format.

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I wrote this article to simply let you see what the most obvious difference is between these 3 formats. If you prefer a more detailed discussion on this topic, you can check out the articles below:

• GIF, PNG, JPG. Which One To Use?
• Image Formats: What's the Difference Between JPG, GIF, PNG?

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Stay tuned for:
Part 2 : Resize & Minimize Image File Size using IrfanView
Part 3 : Optimize Images for the Web using Photoshop
Part 4 : Other Tips to Speed Up Loading Time

I might also include some techniques on how you can reduce belly fat magically using Photoshop. Some of my friends have been sending me requests for this, including my brother, so I'll check if I can make a video tutorial for that. *LOL*

Speed Up Blog Loading Time by Optimizing Images You Post

 

Tips on Speeding Up your Blog's Loading Time by Optimizing Images You Post
(4-Part Tutorial/Guide)

I love browsing through a lot of blogs on the Adgitize and Entrecard networks, plus the ones on my blogroll. At times, I wanted to do more browsing to get to know more bloggers, but, because of too oversized images or too many widgets, some of the interesting blogs I've visited take time to load. Most of the time, I give up and just leave the blog/site.

I'm using Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox as my main browsers. Even with Chrome, those slow-loading blogs still take time to load. There were even a couple of instances when these blogs caused my browsers to crash, which can really be a hassle especially when you're doing something else on another browser that you need to be left open.

Most of these bloggers/offenders don't even know that this is going on with their blog. Most of them are using high-speed internet connection so when they preview their blogs, they load very quickly. There are also some who love posting high-resolution images on their blog without realizing that a lot of their visitors won't be able to enjoy seeing those photos if they won't even load on their browser because of their internet connection or because there are just too many large-sized images on your blog. The stress of waiting might cause your visitors to use adult acne treatments. *LOL*

If your blog or site loads very slowly, you can lose a lot of potential followers and readers. That is why optimizing your blog posts and images for faster loading on any browser is very important. However, a lot of bloggers don't take this seriously or they just don't know how to do it.

So, I have decided to write this guide on how you can optimize images on your blog for fast loading on any type of internet connection WITHOUT compromising the quality of your photos.

For this guide, I'll use a photo of me and my brother in Cebu. Here's the original image (347kb). No resizing or editing has been done with it yet so I decided to just put up a link so my blog won't load slowly (that's one tip! Read on for more tips!). I'll be featuring 2 tools that I use to do this and on the second part of the guide I'll use the freeware image editor Irfanview.

Important Reminders: This guide will be focused only on PHOTOS (e.g., taken using a digital camera), not graphics (usual file extension: .gif, .png) since the quality of your images will vary on the file type/extension, too. I'll provide links for further guides on different image formats when we get to the next part of this guide and on Part 3 – using Photoshop.

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Part 1: Speed Up your Blog's Loading Time by using Thumbnails/Text Links

I know, you want to share your images in high resolution to the rest of the world, especially if you maintain a travel or food blog. I share the same sentiments. However, you have to take into consideration that NOT ALL of your visitors have high-speed internet connection. Yes, it's already 2010, but most people don't really use their internet connection for sending and downloading large files so they're pretty satisfied with a 384Kbps internet speed... sometimes, even lower or they stick with a dialup connection. And if you don't optimize your blog for fast loading time, then, you'd lose those potential followers/readers of your precious blog.

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Tip #1:

I already gave away one of my first tips a few paragraphs ago: Use a link for visitors to view the original image, a higher quality version of it, or to zoom in. Here are a few examples of how you can do this:

1. Create a copy of your image and resize it to fit perfectly on your blog/site's layout (guide on how to do this on Irfanview & Photoshop will be up next).
   Then, put up a link at the bottom of the photo for visitors to zoom in or take a closer look.
   OR you can just make the image the link itself so when visitors click on it, it'll open up a bigger, higher quality version of it.
   
   NOTE: You can use your web host or use photo hosts like Imageshack, TinyPic, or ShareAPic (you can even make money with them!). I actually prefer my larger images to be hosted somewhere else so loading them on my site won't take that long. 
   
   
2. Use simple text links for visitors to view larger images without the use of thumbnails. This will speed up your blog, but some might result to comments that your blog's lifeless because you don't use images.
   
   Here's an example I took from the first part of this guide: 
    

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Tip #2:

Use Thumbnail/Zoom-in/Image viewer plugins for your images.

I love these image viewer plugins! Instead of the links to your larger images opening up on another blank/boring window, these plugins will "dim the lights" on your blog and will zoom in to your image on the same browser window. This is also extremely useful if you want to display galleries on your blog.

For Wordpress bloggers, use a zoom-in plugin like Lightbox and Shutter Reloaded.

For Blogger users, there's also a Light box Image Viewer for us.

These plugins don't necessarily improve your blog images loading time, but because you're only showing thumbnails, the

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Tip #3:

Always include the width and height of your images/thumbnails. This is automatic for most blog post editor like Windows Live Writer. However, for instances wherein you need to enter code manually like if you're coding your own sidebar images/links, make sure you include the width and height values. This way, the browser can already "reserve" a place for your images while the web/blog page is loading.

This tip will also increase readability of your blog since your readers can already start reading your posts while waiting for the images to load completely.

I highly recommend you use Windows Live Writer for writing posts for your Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, etc., blogs. It really makes everything easier! I'll write a guide on how to use Windows Live Writer after this series. :)

Here's an example of how you can indicate the height and width of your images manually:

<img src="http://i42.tinypic.com/33m2xj6.jpg" width="400" height="300">

That code will show a smaller/thumbnail version of this original image. Take note that even though it will load a smaller version of the image, it will still load the original image size (all 347kb of it), but will only allot 400x300 space for it. This code will resize the original image to fit that space.

If you really want to optimize your images, stay tuned for the next parts of this guide – resizing and minimizing the file size of images using IrfanView and Photoshop.

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Stay tuned for:
Part 2 : Resize & Minimize Image File Size using IrfanView
Part 3 : Optimize Images for the Web using Photoshop
Part 4 : Other Tips to Speed Up Loading Time