Black Friday in the United States kicked off the holiday season, there are worries that due to the economic crisis people are going to spend a lot less this year but Black Friday spending seems to be a success. ShopperTrak says sales were up 3 percent from last year on Black Friday and a survey of shoppers for the National Retail Federation reports spending online and at physical stores rose 7.2 percent. Furthermore, there’s also a report at Reuters that online payment service PayPal saw almost 34 percent more transactions this Black Friday than a year earlier.

Overall this is pretty good news for me as I’ve seen my income go up significantly since Thanksgiving, although it’s still lower than last year. However, I’m getting a bit more optimistic and think my income over the next couple of months may be higher than I anticipated. If you’re wondering if I bought something this weekend; the answer is no, here in Belgium we don’t have this kind of shopping craze.

In other news, I’ve just published another review on DV Hardware. Today I took a look at the ATP EarthDrive, which is world’s first recyclable USB drive.