Saturday, June 21, 2014

Lionbridge Review - Work From Home Job

Lionbridge is a company that has many work from home opportunities. I was able to work for them for about 6 months as an internet content judge. Basically, it was about reviewing content for search engines before it goes live to the public. So when you do an internet search, the results and information that show up are not automatic; people had to review all that to make sure it was accurate and the best results are shown.

So back to the beginning. I do not remember too much about the application process since it was a while ago, but I do know that I applied a few times for a few different positions and it was not until much later that they contacted me to ask if I was still interested in the position.

There was much training to learn how to use the programs and how to make proper judgments. Everything is done online and correspondence is done by email. After you have studied and practiced, you take the tests. If you do well enough, then you can start working on the real data.

They have set amounts of hours they require you to work each week but the hours are flexible and you can choose when you want to work and for how long. There is also a set pace you must work at and your results are checked for quality.

Overall the work itself was fairly easy but the guidelines were not clear and much of the judgments could really go either way. There just seemed to be a lot of gray area and contradicting guidelines for how to judge the content.

The work itself was a little boring and one thing that was noticeable was how the perception of time moved very slow when working. For example, if you worked 1 hour, it feels like you worked 2 hours. It can be a little stressful because it is timed and there is not any down time when you are working. You can log out whenever you want, but when you are working, it is one item after the next.

The software was also quite buggy. There would be errors and downtime with the program quite often. Also sometimes there would not be much work to do so they would put your account on hold until more work became available.

The pay was pretty good for a work from home type job and the payments were accurate and punctual. You keep track of your own time and it must match the records at the end of the month.

After about 6 months apparently there was no more need for the work in my program so the position was ended. Overall I would work for Lionbridge again if another position opened up. If you are looking for a work from home job and like working on the computer, this is a good option.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

I Wanna Marry Harry Review

"I Wanna Marry Harry" is a new reality show similar to the show "Joe Millionaire" that aired years ago. Basically, it is like the show "The Bachelor" but instead of a random guy, it is a guy that looks and sounds very much like Prince Harry.  In this show, his true identity is kept a mystery as the girls try to figure out who he is.

Despite the silly title of the show, so far it has been very entertaining!  The casting was well selected and the contestants are fun to watch.  Of course there is a lot of drama between the ladies as they get jealous when "Harry" goes on the dates with the other girls.

So far, he has not said who he is, but has been making the effort to pretend like he is the real prince Harry.  The production crew has done a good job of adding fake security and photo shopped pictures to enhance the illusion that he is someone important.   

Overall he is a likable guy and there are already a few girls to root for and root against.  As it is a few weeks into the show, already there are some strong feelings developing between "Harry" and the girls.  It will be very interesting to see what happens has the group is narrowed down and ultimately his true identity is revealed. 

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Annoying Features on Websites

There are a lot of annoying things out there on the internet, specifically when it comes to features on websites.  Now of course there are ads, but we are not even going to count that.  You should have an ad blocker installed to take care of most of the ads out there.  This article is about all the other little things that websites have that bring down quality and just make them less user friendly.  If you have a website with the following characteristics below, please consider changing it.

1. Pop Ups
Have you ever found a link through Google, clicked to read the article but before you could even start reading, a full screen pop up shows up asking you to subscribe to the newsletter or like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter?  This is very annoying.  First off, if I just got to your website for the first time, why would I subscribe to these things?  No one would, so stop annoying everyone with the pop up.  If someone actually wants to sign up for something like this, they will seek it out.

2. Auto Play Video and Audio
Do you ever click to read an article and it automatically starts playing a video?  This is overly intrusive and can be very frustrating for someone who just wants to read about it.  You can have a video, but to not automatically start playing it.  If someone wants to play a video, they will click the play button.  This goes for any audio as well.

3. Too Much Junk/ Unrelated Material
Some websites just try to pump as much extra junk on the webpage as they can when the part you actually want to read takes up less than 25% of the page.  I will go to a simple weather website to check the weather, but for some reason there will be a bunch of videos all over the screen that have nothing to do with the weather.  Maybe they think weather is boring and they need to get people's attention with other videos.  I don't know about others, but if I go to the weather website, I am looking for the weather, not a viral video that may be slightly related to the elements.

4. Multiple Page Articles
You know these kind of articles.  Often they are lists that make you click through 10 pages when they could have easily put everything on that one page.  I know in my case and many others, when you see a website like this, you immediately click back and go to a different website. Stop wasting our time with all these extra clicks. 

5. Disabling the Back Button
Speaking of trying to go back to get to another website, some websites will make it so if you press back, you can't even go back as it just reloads the page or takes you to a home page.  There is no better way to lose the trust of a reader than by trying to force them to stay on your website like that.

6. Slides and Animations
Maybe this does not bother other people, but when I am trying to read an article, I do not want a slide show going on in the side bar.  Anything moving around is very distracting if you are not actually looking at it.  It is the worst when they do not even give the option to stop it from moving or playing.  Sometimes I will leave a website just because of moving slides or graphics like this.

7. Auto Load / Auto Scroll
More and more websites are making it so when you scroll to the bottom of a website, it automatically loads more content.  This is not good because most of the time it jumps and you lose your place and have to scroll back up to figure out where you left off.  This is related to the videos playing by themselves.  If readers want to seem more results, they can click next or show more. Do not keep adding more results just because we are getting near the bottom of a page. 

What other things do you find annoying on the internet?  Leave them in the comments below!