Calling All Iced Coffee Fans!

Today, May 15th is 'FREE' Iced Coffee Day at Dunkin' Donuts!

Enjoy a FREE 16oz. iced coffee from the folks who practically invented it - Dunkin Donuts. For delicious refreshment, order it just how you like it with a variety of flavors to choose from.

So go! This offer runs from 10AM to 10PM - TODAY ONLY.

Visit the Dunkin Donuts website for more details. Or skip all that jazz and go directly to finding a location near you.

More New Music

Make it Monday: Easy Pleasing Meatloaf

When I want a meal that is easy to fix, contains ingredients I normally have on hand, and is family friendly, I often go to Kraftfoods.com. I love the search engine for the recipes and the pictures.

I had printed this recipe out months ago from their site, and finally made it yesterday. My husband wanted something different, and when I suggested meatloaf, he was all for it.

Easy Pleasing Meatloaf

courtesy of Kraftfoods.com

Ingredients:
2 lb. lean ground beef
1 pkg. (6 oz.) STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix for Chicken
1 cup water
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup KRAFT Original Barbecue Sauce, divided

PREHEAT oven to 375°F. Mix all ingredients except 1/4 cup of the barbecue sauce.
SHAPE meat mixture into oval loaf in 13x9-inch baking dish; top with remaining 1/4 cup barbecue sauce.
BAKE 1 hour or until cooked through (160ºF).

Notes: I used only 1 pound of ground beef, so I halved the rest of the ingredients except the barbeque sauce and baked it in a smaller meatloaf pan. The flavor was good, but it just didn't hold together as well. Next time, I will leave both eggs in.

Calling All Celine Dion Fans!

Thursday Giveaway (a little late..)

This week's giveaway is something we all should have on our computers - a security system. Using the internet for transactions as well as keeping all sorts of personal information on our computers often leaves us unsecured.

The new version of Norton 360 not only blocks hackers from your PC, but it tunes your PC up and optimizes your PC's performance. You can also back up files you care about, something that I wish had done before losing 6 months worth of pictures of my kids.

We have one Norton 360 Version 2 software to giveaway. It includes one year protection for up to 3 PCs in your household. The product does not qualify for upgrades, rebates special offers or refunds, but it is the full version offering protection and all in one security that is you expect from a great product like Norton. The product retails for $79.99 on their site.

Just leave a comment on this post by Sunday, May 18th at midnight EST. Good luck!

For Fathers Friday: Hands-on with Samsung's touchscreen Glyde

On paper, the just-announced Glyde has almost everything it needs to trump the iPhone, including 3G data access, GPS, and slide-out QWERTY keypad. But touchscreen phones need great user interfaces to go with them, and the Glyde's—like many of the UIs on the latest touch phones—falls well short.

Set to go on sale this month on Verizon Wireless, the Samsung Glyde (available May 9 for $250 with a two-year contract and mail-in rebate) looks a lot like the old Ultra Smart F700 that I spied last October—and indeed, a few minor variations aside, the Glyde appears to be a CDMA version of that phone.

That said, I was surprised all over again by the Glyde's light, compact shell. Most of the QWERTY sliders I see are big, bulky bricks, but at 4.1 by 2 by 0.7 inches and weighing in at 4.1 ounces, the Glyde is refreshingly small, especially compared to the LG Voyager, the popular touchscreen/QWERTY clamshell (also on Verizon).

Like the iPhone, the Glyde has a sole "home" button on its front, along with power, volume, and camera buttons along the right side. There's also a 2.5mm jack on top for wired headsets (you'll need an adapter for standard 3.5mm-jack earphones)—and this being Verizon, the headset's not included. Ugh.

Before delving into the Glyde's interface, let's talk specs. We've got 3G data access, good for tapping into Verizon Wireless' V Cast streaming videos and music tracks, along with a two-megapixel camera, GPS for turn-by-turn directions (an extra monthly fee applies), Bluetooth (including support for stereo Bluetooth headsets), and a slot for microSD memory expansion (up to 8GB)—all the ingredients you'd need for an iPhone killer (the upcoming 3G iPhone notwithstanding).

The Glyde also keeps its footing with the impressive home screen, which boasts a trio of virtual buttons along the top for access to the dial pad, contacts, and the main menu (a fourth "Messaging" button appears when the screen switches to landscape mode).

Even better—a row of icons along the bottom of the screen that light up when you have unread text messages, missed calls, unheard voice mail (sorry, no visual voicemail), or event alerts.

Ready to text? Sliding open the phone reveals the full QWERTY keypad, good for tapping out text messages and e-mails. The keys themselves are pretty small—especially the tiny space bar—but after some trial and error, I was typing away with relative ease. (POP and IMAP access is available through Verizon's standard e-mail app.)

All well and good, but the Glyde struggles when it comes to its touch interface.

First, I'll point out that the Glyde's touch UI is at its best when you're making calls; tapping the Dial Pad button brings up the numeric keys, and when you're in a call, "mute" and speakerphone buttons pop up. You can also scroll through your contact list by flicking up and down the screen.

But once you dig beyond the dialing functions, most of the Glyde's menus are made up of standard list items and sub-menus—in other words, the same kinds of menus you might expect on a non-touch phone.

Making matters worse, the phone's UI—especially when using the Web browser or diving into V Cast music and videos—felt painfully sluggish at times, often taking seconds to recognize a tap or a drag of my finger (and that's after I tweaked the touch setting to the most sensitive level).

Web browsing was a particular chore. Yes, the Glyde's Web browser can render full HTML Web pages (loading the packed NYT home page was no trouble), but the browser tends to bog down if you're scrolling and zooming too much, with any false tap turning into a lengthy waste of time.

The same goes for scrolling through lists of videos and music on the Glyde's sluggish V Cast menus; I often had to tap buttons multiple times before the phone responded, and that's a real drag when you're trying to flick through a long list of tunes. (That said, music and video clips played just fine once they got going).

After a while, I dreaded the prospect of downloading a song or pulling up a Web page, and there were times when I longed for simple a four-way navigational pad, such as the one inside the LG Voyager clamshell.

That's a shame, and in the end, I'm hard-pressed to recommend a $250 phone (and that's with a contract, mind you) that drove me so batty.

If you're dead-set on a touchscreen phone, you might want to wait for the expected 3G iPhone (on AT&T), or check out the LG Voyager on Verizon—it's bigger than the Glyde, but has a slightly better keypad, and the four-way navigational pad comes in handy when you're tired of tapping.

There's also Samsung's upcoming touchscreen Instinct (set for Sprint next month), which boasts a snazzy UI that (during my brief hands-on, at least) looks comparable to the iPhone's. That said, the still-in-alpha Instinct I tried back in March was pretty sluggish, so I'm reserving final judgment on that until I see the final shipping version.

So, what do you think—how does the Glyde look compared to the Voyager, or to the iPhone, for that matter?

Article from Yahoo Tech

Gloves in a Bottle – A ‘Shielding’ Lotion

Keep the bad stuff out and the good stuff in….

Do you have a problem with re-occurring dry skin?

If so you might want to check out Gloves in a Bottle. From their website:

Gloves In A Bottle is a shielding lotion that rapidly absorbs into, and bonds with, the outer layer of skin creating a protective layer while retaining the natural moisture from within. This makes it the perfect dry skin care product.It does not wash off, but comes off naturally with exfoliated skin cells. Just reapply every four hours for continued protection.It's greaseless, non-sticky, fragrance-free, hypoallergenic, completely safe and non-toxic.Used and recommended daily for dry skin conditions by a wide range of healthcare professionals.

I’ve used my sample of Gloves in a Bottle now for a little over a month and wow, it’s amazing. My skin is super soft, and my cuticles are no longer dry.*

So what makes Gloves in a Bottle so different from conventional lotions and products? I'll tell you. Conventional moisturizing lotions attempt to replace the loss of natural moisture with artificial moisture, but come off every time you wash or touch something. When you apply your regular lotion to your skin, you are making your skin think that it's being adequately moisturized, but really what you are doing is dehydrating your skin of natural moisture. This often results in the reduction of your skin's own production of the natural moisture needed to actually resolve a dry skin condition.

The makers of Gloves in a Bottle have figured out that the only way to actually improve a dry skin condition is to make sure that the product you are using gets below the second major layer of skin, so that the dry skin problem can resolve itself. Long Term. And that's where Gloves in a Bottle really works. Imagine it as a being a gloves - invisible gloves.

It's amazing stuff.

Check out their FAQ page, some before and after testimonials, and order some today.

*The first THREE people to leave a comment on THIS post will receive a packet sample of Gloves in a Bottle to try for yourself! So hurry!