singingtree shopping mall

	It seems likely that you have already heard of Amazon. I have no idea how many times I have ordered books from Amazon, and have not yet had a bad experience. They also have one of the more forgiving return policies. Amazon.com pays me 5% of the sale price of Amazon.com products (books, mostly) and 2.5% on most products sold by their "My Marketplace" partners.
	CD Universe sells CDs, DVDs, and video games. I worked for CD Universe from about 1998-2000 and was always treated very well. Unfortunately they ship from Connecticut which means it will probably take a little longer for those on the West Coast. CD Universe pays me 7% of the sale price of all products. The percentage increases to as much as 10% if certain sales quotas are met.
	Shutterfly is one of several sites that will produce photographic quality prints from the images you take with your digital camera. It costs about the same as ordering reprints of film photographs and they are produced using the same process on the same paper. Shutterfly pays me $6 for each new customer registration, and 10% of any orders you place in your first year as a customer.
	I have deleted the BMG Music Service offer after discovering that they have started to advertise by spam.
	If you are thinking about ordering DSL then I strongly encourage you to consider Speakeasy. The prices are standard but there is an important, if subtle, difference: you will have the freedom to use your bandwidth in whatever way you see fit. Whereas there is a strong trend among ISPs to try to regulate what programs and devices you may use with your Internet connection, Speakeasy actually encourages you to operate your own servers and share your connection with your friends--and even provides technical support to help you do these things. Compare this with Verizon or Comcast, who will cut you off if they catch you using two computers in your own house without their permission. I felt strongly enough about unfettered Internet access to switch from my old, local ISP of three years and suffer ten days of downtime in the process. Speakeasy will pay me $25 for each new residential-class customer and $50 for each new business-class customer.

This page is an experiment I am trying in an effort to find ways of defraying some of the cost of operating this site. (The cost is $120 per month for the Internet connection, plus an average of about $500-1000 per year in hardware upgrades and replacements.) Actually I do not mind the maintenance expense, but I am tempted by the prospect of certain additional or better services that I could offer if I had a little more money to spend on them.

Charging for accounts is out of the question, since offering high quality Internet services that are free and noncommercial is essential to the character and "mission" of my project, such as it is.

Accepting donations is also unattractive, since I strongly dislike taking money from friends and moderately dislike taking money from strangers. (How un-American.) Furthermore, accepting your money, whether required or voluntary, would have two undesired side effects: peoples' expectations and right-to-complain would inevitably grow, and it would place me on dangerous legal footing. I am not operating a business, and am not particularly interested in starting one. (Some free software projects have been bitten by this after starting to accept donations.)

However, I might be willing to accept the commissions that some retail sites are willing to pay in exchange for me referring customers to them. I have selected a few such retailers that I have had good experiences with and applied for their "affiliate" programs. The idea is that I get to recommend businesses that I think are deserving of your money, you buy things that you were going to buy anyway, and I receive a small percentage of the transaction. (I would prefer to share the proceeds with you, but this is explicitly forbidden by the affiliate agreements.)

No one should feel obligated to participate in this scheme. It will not affect my decision to grant or renew your account, or my opinion of you. But, if you want to contribute, please consider adding this page to your bookmarks and checking back here when you are planning to buy something online. The tracking relationships are very complicated but in most cases you must start from this page, then follow my link to the retailer's site in order for this to work.

Thanks,
M. Dickerson