Messin' with computers

I have reported before that I have 're-invested' my online earnings into extra bits and bobs for my PC. I have almost (but not quite) optimised my current PC - the last thing I had to buy was a new power supply to cope with the extra drives (internal 320GB, external 250GB, external DVD-RW and internal DVD-RW...). It only remains for me to replace one of the RAM boards to take it from 1.5GB to 2.0...
So, while I am waiting for SDRAM to get cheaper, my attention has been turned to my old 'spare' PC - we all have one right? The truth is we spent so much cash buying these PC's 10 years ago that we can't face throwing them out even though they are useless...
This PC has been a bit of a playground for my forays into PC ‘frankenstein’ation in the past and sports a 20GB drive alongside the original 8GB (that was huge 10 years ago!!) and has the maximum RAM that it can stand (128MB x 3). I found out long ago that the motherboard cannot easily take a more modern CPU, and recent weeks it has become apparent that buying a new mobo (recently learned this slang for motherboard!) CPU, RAM and power supply would almost cost as much as buying a new PC. For a short while this put me off until I started browsing for Motherboards on Ebay and bagged one for £10 including delivery ($20). This is not exactly a dual core model, but it is about twice as fast as my old CPU and can take 1.5GB RAM, so I am expecting some improvement in performance if I can ever get it working. And this is the point of the post (finally)... Have you noticed how every time you decide to carry out maintenance on your PC it takes at least three days longer than you thought it would. You will be familiar with this if you ever tried to set up a wired network....
So far I have taken the whole PC to bits - the first thing I had to do was build a bench out of bits in my workshop so I could assemble all the components outside of the PC casing. Naturally the first few times I fired it up nothing happened, but once I found out where the 'on' switch was on the mobo (sticking a screw-driver across the correct pins works like a dream..). I was fortunate to find a manual for free on the 'net for the board I bought, and I have enough spares (screen, mouse, keyboard and about half a dozen CD drives...) to make up a complete system.
There are always contingencies that you don't allow for and so far these have run to: Having to 'reset' the mobo (instructions found in the manual) to default settings, the original hard-drive has decided not to work, and for some reason I can't get the CDROM to boot even though I have selected it in the BIOS and saved the setting.
So far I am adopting the method of making one considered change per day and then thinking long and hard before making the next change - hopefully, this will mean that I will make better decisions than when I sit down and try and do the whole thing in one go. Yesterday I fitted a spare hard-drive and was pleased to see that it was at least recognised in the BIOS settings, today I will try another CD drive to se if I can boot from that one. Admittedly, this approach would not work if I was maintaining my 'main' PC, but I find this method of working relatively stress-free. I have already started bidding on another hard-drive, so I will HAVE to get the system working somehow....

The Housing Market

There is no argument that the housing market is depressed at the moment. UK house prices are dropping, but in the US the problem is even more pronounced. If you are trying to sell a house at the moment, you will have to both offer it at a reasonable price and make sure that the décor is right. Although house prices are not yet plummeting in the UK, it is becoming harder to get a mortgage, and there are less buyers meaning that it takes longer to sell.
As far as décor goes, there are two areas in the house that must be right, the kitchen and the bathroom, this means having the right fittings, or kitchen faucets if you are in the US.
The look must be clean and fresh if you want to create the right impression to sell your house. Keep everything neutral and classy and although you may not get top dollar, you will sell your property faster than the next person…

Munny for Nuthin'

I have embarked on the final leg of paying off my credit-card debt this week. My method for paying off my debt (as I have documented on this blog previously) has been firstly to STOP SPENDING, and secondly to transfer my credit-card debt to a '0% for balance transfers' credit card.
Now these offers usually last for around 12 months, so if you have more debt than you can pay of within 12 months, you may have to do the same again. Bear in mind that a small charge (usually about 3%) is charged for the transfer, apart from that every penny you pay comes straight off your debt - no interest!!
I have done this twice already over two years and I have just opened my third account this week, with a view to paying off ALL the debt within the next 12 months. I will admit that I use a different card for emergency purchases, but pay this off every month.
It pays to ensure you close down accounts that are no longer in use otherwise you may find that you are potentially exposed to too much credit for you to obtain another card. I got refused when I first tried to get one of these cards, and when I got my credit report, I found that I have five or six unused but still open accounts. These accounts all had large credit limits meaning that potentially I could run up a massive debt overnight, under those circumstances it would not have been wise for the credit card provider to allow me to open another account. I closed the unused accounts and have closed off any of the new 0% accounts as soon as I no longer require them. The graph on the left shows the decline in my debt over the last two years, you can read more about it here..

Exercise or diet pills?

Whether you believe in diet pills that work or the value of exercise, the Summer months always carry more incentives for getting fit.
Lighter nights are conducive to playing sports in the evening, and looking good on the beach is incentive enough for most… There are supposedly numerous ways to perfect your physique, even using muscle toning devices that require no work, but for me exercise is by far the better way – after all good exercise works out your lungs and heart, not just your muscles.

Nostalgia in a watch

In days gone by, a pocket watch would be given as a leaving present or a long-service award. It might surprise you to learn that pocket watches are still popular and available today.
The pocket watch symbolises a bygone age when trains ran on time (or is that wishful thinking) and you could get a doctor to do a house visit. From the White Rabbit in 'Alice through the looking glass' to the legendary 'railroad watches' second only in quality to a chronometer, the pocket watch has earned it's place in history.

Google Widgets

These are, in my humble opinion, one of the coolest things that Google offer. I was bowled over by them when I first came across them, and still love them today... I use a game widget at the bottom of my blog template, currently I am using 'bejeweled', previously I have used 'pacman' and 'invaders' - for some visitors, this is the most interesting thing on my blog...!
There are more widgets than you can shake a stick at covering all sorts of subjects and applications, and they are FREEEE for you to include in your blog or website, there are even versions that you can have on your desktop.
Check out the website gadgets here...
and the desktop ones here
Google are far and away the best providers of free software on the internet, even when you consider all the Linux applications and Mozilla software. What other provider gives you these plus a free blogging platform, free email and the best search engine in the business? (and that from a blogger with his PageRank removed...).

Financial Health

With the credit crunch beginning to impact on the Western world, now is the time to get ourselves into a financially healthy state. I see the current crisis as a good time to pay off debts and look at outgoings to see where savings can be made. Amongst the options one might consider are debt consolidation loans, 0% interest credit cards and some tough budgeting. The change has to start as a shift in our attitudes before the practical steps can be put in place.
I reckon that we are going to experience an economic slow-down at least in some industries, which will last two years so the sooner we start to think about our finances the better off we will ultimately be.

Does StumbleUpon work?

I have to say a resounding 'Yes' to that question, but this needs to be qualified by describing exactly what works and in what way.
I have previously stuck doggedly to 'Digg' as my preferred method of promoting blog posts, but have found StumbleUpon to be vastly superior in terms of vloume of traffic generated. Some blogs that I have that would normally get traffic that you can count on one hand, have had traffic rocket up into the hundreds overnight, but whilst this is nice to see - what value is it?
Certainly I have not seen a massive generation of income from this traffic, but nonetheless traffic has to be regarded as good and demonstrates that what you are writing at least captures the imagination of somebody somewhere. Also I have not as yet seen a huge increase in RSS feed reader subscriptions so maybe my blogs do not capture the imagination quite to the right degree...
Nevertheless the proof is in the pudding, and I have seen that immediately after submitting stories to StumbleUpon, traffic has been instantly generated. The fact remains that if I can write some posts that really capture the imagination, I could also increase RSS subscriptions and not have to work so hard promoting the blogs... So far, I have seen traffic fade away very quickly to almost back to the starting point 24 hours later, now I have found a means to effectively generate traffic, I need to devlop the skills to retain it.

Medical Information

The combination of medical research and the openness and vastness of the internet has led to a new way of life for many people. If I need to visit a doctor, I will often ‘google’ for my symptoms or whatever I think is wrong before going so that I know the right questions to ask. I would not recommend relying totally on the internet for answers to all medical problems, but the resource is impressive if you know how to use it.
You can read useful articles on mesothelioma if you know of someone affected by asbestos. Or for example, most recently I read an article about tinnitus which helped me enormously. I find that it always helps to listen to your doctor carefully and having an insight into your ailment before you visit helps to provide you with the right questions to ask and some useful back-ground information. If you are concerned, it is always a good idea to visit the doctor with a friend or relative. Having a second person present means that you can ask them what the doctor said as often we can miss important information, especially when we are worried.

A room for the Summer

I often tell people that the best room in our house is our garden, even now at least half the house has actually been decorated, I would still maintain that it remains the most pleasant place to entertain.

Just as you require a sofa, chairs and a table inside your house, if you entertain out of doors, you will require at least some elements of outdoor furniture. For most people that is going to include a decent parasol, plenty of chairs and a big table. In recent years it has been so hot on our patio, that we have bought a gazebo to try to shelter from the sun’s rays.

That in itself is an important point – whereas it use to be normal to try to get tanned to a crisp, we are far more conscious of the damaging effects of the sun nowadays, and having a good supply of factor whatever is essential. Which reminds me, I read recently that many of the sun creams marked as high resistance apparently don’t live up to their factor rating in independent tests, so make sure you read up on your sun-creams…. And let’s live in hope of a Summer in the UK at some point.

Colorpic free software

I like to highlight free software that I have found useful, and this little tool has proved invaluable lately when I am trying to match up colours to keep a consistent look across a website or blog.

Colorpic can identify the hexadecimal code attributed to any colour(color) that your mouse points to. This is particularly useful when you want to match up a widget colour with your already existing header image or some other element on your blog. Equally useful for a website, and becoming increasingly important to me lately as I seem to be creating widgets left, right and centre and it really helps if you can colour-code all the elements of your site to give a great over-all effect.

Colorpic is available from ICONICO as a totally free download - ColorPic runs on all Windows systems: 95/98/NT/2000/Me/XP, it's only 501K.

Adequate Insurance

Insurance is a necessary evil, no-one likes paying for it, but then who wants to be caught without adequate insurance?
Whether it be budget car insurance, low cost life insurance, or cheap holiday insurance it pays to get a good deal, but it also is vital to get insurance that will meet the circumstances that are likely to occur. Inadequate insurance is a waste of money and you would be better off not paying for insurance that is not going to meet your needs.

Latest Earnings

I was very lax with May's earnings report, and still a little tardy doing one for June, nonetheless the figures are in and are showing a general slow-down in paid to blog as expected. A little from PPP - there are still opps if you can get in quick enough....but I usually can't.
PayU2Blog is the main source of revenue for this type of earnings for me currently, but ideally I would like to be making enough passive earnings not to have to make forays into the paid to blog world...
I have made just about $80 in June from blogs, though I think I may have forgotten to include Adsense earnings, normally these are insignificant in terms of blog earnings, but lately I have been showing some results from niche blogs although nothing to get excited about. On the subject of Adsense I am on the verge of a third payout since December which I am pleased with, though hasten to repeat that very little of these earnings come from blogs.
I now have two blogs approved for PPP, and have added a new (90 day old) blog to my 'sponsored reviews' profile, one more blog is sitting in the wings awaiting the magic 90 day mark which should give me two strong niches for paid posts, but gaining PR will be an uphill struggle... and gaining PR is a key to being able to monetise any site and particularly a blog.

TV revolution

The tv is becoming one of the battlegrounds for the coming technological revolution, this and the 'phone and the internet. The newest innovations in the home will seek more and more to combine products which we have previously thought of as separate.
Why not combine your high-definition television with your Hi-Fi since they have some audio components in common?
Why not combine the television with internet surfing and other PC tasks since they share a common visual interface?
Why not combine your broadband connection with your phone or mobile phone and interactive television since they all require access to the telephone network?
Where will this all end? probably with something like the new media centres coming onto the market which will combine storage of digital audio and video with cable and satellite TV. It would be relatively simple to include a PC package and wireless network between the components and the future is virtually here...

Detox for weight loss?

There are more weight-loss remedies than you can shake a stick at lately, each one claiming to work in different ways.
The argument used by Orovo detox is that much of our weight-gain is due to toxic build-up and therefore an effective detox can help to lose weight. Like many treatments Orovo was discovered by mistake during research into methods of reducing aging symptoms.

Stumbled upon an SEO website

I have been getting into 'Stumble upon' lately and my findings will no doubt emerge in a later post, but today I stumbled upon a site worth reviewing. The site has been put together by Stephen an SEO expert who uses the motto 'SEO is a flair not a science - science always gets the same results!'.
The more I thought about that, the more it rang true. There are those who say that you can get SERP through following a set number of steps or will guarantee first position in Google search, but really SEO doesn't work like that.
The Google search hysteresis that determines your search engine results position for a given keyword or phrase is not written in stone like physics, it is subject to trends like fashion. What worked even 5 minutes ago may not work again... SEO has to be viewed as something fluid not rigid, almost having a life of it's own an existence fueled by Google geeks and shady back-office characters.
Not only does Stephen offer advice, often free on SEO, he raises money for cancer research in his spare time through charity races. He tells me he has raised £8,000 (that's $15,000) so far this year, and is planning to run at least 25 miles a week to reach a 1,000 mile target.

Moving

Everyone knows that moving home is one of the most stressful things you can do – complete upheaval of all you own, your family, pets and belongings, all moved from one district to another or even to another country. In this current economic climate most people will probably beholding onto their property if given the choice, but what about when relocation is not a choice. The solution is to get a team of professional movers, people who know what they’re doing. If you plan to move to NY, then you should be 'Googling' for mover NYC to find a trustworthy team of movers.

Adsense referrals programme to 'retire'

I received an important announcement from Adsense today regarding the 'Adsense referral' programme being terminated, or in their language 'retired'. I have two conflicting views about this:
Firstly I am disappointed because I like the referral scheme, it allows you to select specific graphical adverts in specific niches, you can select the adverts that look right for your website as some adverts have a number of different graphic blocks of varying sizes.
On the other hand, I've had a total of $1 from this programme in around 18 months, so it is not the best of earners for me....
I should probably have tweaked these a bit more than I have to find the best earners, it just remains for me to track these ads down and purge them from my sites... here is the text of the message from Google adsense:

Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals programme. We
will be retiring the AdSense Referrals programme during the last
week of August. After that time, AdSense Referrals code will no
longer display ads.

If you currently use referrals, either to promote Google products
or offerings from AdWords advertisers, we encourage that you take
the following steps before the product is retired:

* Remove all referral code from your site(s): Please take a
moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last
week of August, so that you can continue to effectively monetise
your ad space.
* Replace your referral ads with AdSense for content ads: If
you have less than three AdSense for content ad units on a page,
we recommend replacing referral ad units with standard AFC ad
units. This will minimise the risk of decreased AdSense earnings
when the Referrals programme is retired.
* Run and save all referrals reports to your desktop: All
Referrals reports will no longer be available at the end of
October.

We appreciate your patience during this transition. If you have
additional questions, please visit
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=14882.
Thank you for your support of AdSense Referrals.

Yours sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team