I have had a VPS with eApps for a few years. I pay $11/mo. They are a legit hosting service with customer service and tech support by phone.

I have 3 domains hosted and have had a few brief outages, but nothing major.

There are many alternatives besides the premium plans and phones (iPhone, high end Android).

T-Mobile via WalMart: Android phone for less than $200. 100 mins talk, unlimited data and text for $30/mo.

Pageplus: Bring your own CDMA phone. My kid has a Palm Pixi. If you don't abuse data or use wifi for data, it's cheap.

iPod Touch: That's the way I went. I have a cheap prepaid phone that costs less than $10/mo for my light usage of calls and texts. My iPod is in a wifi zone much of the time where I can leverage apps including free texting.

I'm on the waiting list for Republic Wireless who is trying an iteresting business model for $20/mo. The phone has to have a home zone of wifi. When wifi is available, it uses it. Otherwise data will be used. The phone is a basic Android.

It just takes a little effort and research.

I'm amazed at what people will pay for iPhone plans. Some use the value, but I know plenty who still just use it to call and text mostly paying almost $100/mo.

At 43, I live with the senior software engineer title. I've been at the same company 12 years. While I consider myself well established, nothing is guaranteed - company could be bought, sales could suffer (I've survived 4 layoffs), I might piss off a boss.

Many of us have grown up inside the company (we are a Silicon Valley tech company) so there are a number of 40-something engineers and a couple have crossed 50.

But when I'm in a worrying mood, I do think about what would happen if I had to go into the interviewing machine. There is probably some truth to the tenet that it's harder to stay in development in later years, but I know peers who have done it, and we just hired someone in his mid-40's.

If the employer can get over age and hire the best person for the job and if the 40-something can swallow and maybe be willing to take a pay cut, things can stay in balance. At least I hope so if I'm in that situation.

It's been a few years, but your comment reminds of the band Matchbox Twenty whose style of music was perfectly captured and critiqued.

An oldie but timeless.

Man doesn't own a TV

I am a telecommuter. I negotiated 80%/20%, i.e. I come into the office 150 miles away once a week. The purpose is to schedule meetings on projects, attend a weekly team meeting, and it gives the opportunity to mingle and see my coworkers.

That arrangement really helps. In addition, I use software that routes my phone extension to my home office (so people don't have to keep my phone# on a post it), I use Yahoo IM for chats, and of course email.

The point is, if you are a telecommuter, make yourself accessible at any time that you would be if you were in the office. If things are quiet for an extended period, make an effort to touch base with your immediate team (speaking from the perspective of a software developer here). Does anyone need me to pitch in on anything? Send a link to a funny or interesting article.

Generally my work is so busy and requires so much collaboration that it creates the necessary visibility, but just be sure you aren't making it difficult to be contacted and embrace the discussions, even mundane ones unless it gets out of hand.

In software dev, also have your screen ready to share for discussion (myriad of choices). I find that helps to collaborate and be more visible to my colleagues.

It is really difficult to start one, thus you don't see too many start these days. Realtors FCU is one that comes to mind that is newish. It does need a capital infusion from the chartering group, e.g. a company, a trade group that will form the membership. Then you need deposits. Profits then begin to build and maintain the capital base.

Board members are not executives. I'm not hoodwinked. I know exactly what I'm doing.

I am on the board of a credit union. Credit unions must make a profit or they will die. They must have some fee structure to offset costs of members who are expensive to service. The idea is that fees should be minimized to the extent that the CU can run a healthy business in accordance with its mission.

Since it is a non-profit, the board is unpaid. We are members who volunteer our time. We must make decisions in the interest of the membership as a whole and that means working with the executive staff on decisions related to which services we can provide to the members and how those services will be paid for.

The distinguishing difference between a credit union and a bank is that banks can raise capital in the open markets by issuing shares, issuing debt, or taking on risky bets in the form of loans and investments.

Credit unions, on the other hand, can maintain capital only through profits from loans, investments, and certain income like fees and interchange fees. The investment side is tightly controlled. Investments are boring - bonds, CDs, money markets. The best income is from loans.

There are good credit unions and bad ones. When the bad ones go under, the credit unions are collectively assessed via the NCUSIF (in most cases) to make the the depositors whole. Or the NCUA works with the failing credit union to merge them into a healthier one. But we are all collectively responsible for each other in a small way -- yet we compete against each other and banks too.

Even though I've been with the same credit union for 22 years (and now on the BOD for 3 so far), I don't label "credit unions = good, banks = bad." I also have an account with ING Direct and had excellent customer service - all by phone, mail and email - for a mortgage a few years ago.

Do your homework and figure out what you need and talk to people you trust. Don't think that you are necessarily constrained by a credit union. You might not be. It depends.

You need to do some research. First, how many people have checks to cash while on travel? I would take care of that while home. But even if I did, I can go to any 7-Eleven in the U.S. and most credit unions in the co-op network and deposit a check. Getting access to money is easy.

My local credit union in Fresno has served me well even when I lived in the Bay Area for 12 years. It's amazing what can be accomplished with great customer service, even before ubiquitous online banking.

In casual conversation among people who wouldn't know the nuances of the various "programmer"-like terms, I do say, "I'm a programmer." It gets the point across simply that most people understand.

If I'm in a semi-professional setting of white collar adults, I usually say "software developer."

On a resume or among those who know the industry standard, I say "I'm a software engineer" because that's my title.

If it's tied to a conversation that might have career potential, I give the true classification at work: senior software engineer.

I don't see this as an inflation response, nor is it a fair comparison to Netflix. Redbox is a la carte. You subscribe to nothing. Use it a little, a lot, or not at all.

As they built out their system $1 was a simple price point, easy to advertise and a good entry point. Now they have a business model and usage metrics. $1.20 is a price point that they probably think is sustainable and will generate revenue and profit.

I like Redbox and probably use it 3-5 times a month. It's easy to grab something for the family and just as easy to return to about 10 different boxes within 2 miles of my home and shopping areas.

Once I started using Launchy that pretty much took away my need for the Start button.

Launchy plus the Quick Launch toolbar (for Windows XP) pretty much does the job.

Once in awhile I go to Start and am surprised by how much stuff I have installed.

During that heyday of competing desktop search products, I tried all that I could find.

I ended up settling on MS Desktop Search. It didn't seem to get in the way, searches were decent. To this day, it just runs on my work machines and comes in handy from time to time.

It's a very useful product when needed but not very sexy. I didn't RTA, but I presume Google got bored and couldn't monetize their version.

Yeah, that caught my eye too. My manager (woman), team architect (woman), staff engineer (woman) and last 3 dev hires (women) really depended on tools to empower themselves.

Maybe I need some male empowerment since the 3 women on my team of 5 outrank me. Or, that's just how things came together.