Oh, and then there was this thing – The Beast That Ate Saturday:

We got these on Friday night. My husband had an iPhone 3G, but this iPhone 4 is my very first, so I spent a good chunk of Saturday setting it up. (Granted, part of that went to some long-overdue maintenance of my music playlists in iTunes, but still…) I can now use Twitter and Facebook from my phone (at work – HA!), read blogs with Feedly’s app, and keep my shopping lists with me in Evernote. So far, my favorite toy is the ringtone-maker app – I can easily see having more ringtones than I have people who call me! I’ve also added Words With Friends – I’m Florinda3Rs there, so let me know if you’re up for a game!

If you have any other apps to recommend, let me know in comments – but I’ll let you know right now: I intend to hold out against Angry Birds as long as possible!

If I had gotten a Sunday Salon post done, I wanted to follow up on a story from a couple of weeks ago:

You know how I quit Amazon – well, I quit being one of their Associates – before they could fire me? I was jumping the gun a little, apparently; it looks like they’ll get to Illinois first.

Last week, Illinois’ governor signed a law that will require retailers with networks of online affiliates in the state to collect and remit sales tax for purchases made by Illinois residents, even if the business’ facilities are located elsewhere. The legislation specifically defined online affiliates as part of a business’ physical presence in the state, thereby requiring that business to charge and collect taxes on sales made within the state. Bookselling This Week reported the news as a victory for “sales-tax fairness,” and for the state’s bricks-and-mortar retailers, who have faced a competitive disadvantage in having to charge sales tax where online vendors didn’t.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon immediately issued a letter to its 9000 Illinois-based affiliates severing ties with them. The WSJ notes

“…(the) action has little impact on Illinois consumers. They can continue to buy directly from the company as well as pass through affiliate websites to reach (Amazon.com), without Amazon collecting sales tax. But Amazon’s (commission) payments to those (affiliate) websites will be halted.”

There are any number of reasons to use links or widgets on your blog to refer traffic somewhere else. You want your readers to check out a post somewhere else. You may hope they’ll join you in supporting or donating to a cause. You may even want to share more information about a business you’d like them to visit or buy something from…even when there’s nothing in it for you (maybe it’s a friend’s business, or you just like the place or the product). 

Here’s the question: is Amazon.com a site you want to refer customers to even if there is nothing in it for you? They can probably find customers just fine without your help. Will you keep linking to them even when they’ve stated on the record that they won’t pay you for any (untaxed) sales made via those links? (Or have you never made any money from those links anyway, so it’s all the same to you?)