Earnings April 2009

Some last minute PayU2blog opportunities have helped to prop up earnings for this month, earnings which are very welcome at the moment. I have had two lots of bonus opps in the last few months which has given me a boost of about $60. Along with other earnings for the month, a total in the region of $130 has been generated from my blogs this month, and payouts have been good too. I have reached my third payout for MyLot, and am fairly close to payout for dNeero. Other survey schemes are still a long way from payout and I am having to think seriously about avenues that I want to pursue and avenues that should now be dropped.
I have some ideas I want to develop which will be designed to bring in some adsense earnings, but as ever, success or not remains to be seen... I was going to buy a specific domain for this project, but I am uncertain whether the interest that I THINK is there is really there at all. This is a very specific niche that I want to exploit, and a '.co.uk' domain is available now, however I am going to develop it as a URL on an existing domain instead and see if I can get traffic to it. If it gets any SERPS positioning, then I will probably get a domain and develop the project further. I will try to document the project as I go and post about it on my web development blog which has not had any fresh content for a long time.

Health and Fitness

There has been a worrying trend over recent decades towards very unhealthy lifestyles with complete lack of exercise coupled with bad diets that has left the human race (in the Western World at least) unfit, unwell and largely overweight.
We are now far less likely to have a balanced diet and have all the vitamins that we need leading to a huge rise in the consumption of dietary supplements, and a market has developed for discount supplements. We, as a race spend far more time in sedentary pursuits and rather too much time at the computer, so much so that we tend to get most of our information from this source too.
The only recent innovation that might help to get the human race lean and mean is the Wii Fit, and that is only successful because we don't want to step outside of our comfort zones, how bizarre that we would want to play pretend tennis in preference to actual tennis.

Home entertainment

The world of home entertainment has moved on from the introduction of the first television in a way that would have astounded the first TV watchers. First came the introduction of colour TV, the video recorder, satellite TV, then Cable TV, stereo TV, DVD, DVD recorders...
A modern system now consists of something a million miles away from those first valve-driven tiny-screened TV's to full-blown huge screen HDTV on a wall tv mount often with Freeview multi-channel TV built in (in the UK) connected up to suplementary services such as a sky box and hard-drive recording facility. All we need now is to try and find something worth watching...

Home Theatre

I was discussing favourite TV programs with colleagues today, and since the introduction of Freeview into the UK, my TV viewing has become somewhat diverse. Some of my absolute favourites have been 'Pimp My Ride' and MTV's 'Cribs' I cannot tear myself away from the TV when either of these shows are on. I have mentioned my fondness for 'Pimp my Ride' before, but 'Cribs' has a similar appeal in that you are being shown something that you might really aspire to even though you are currently flat broke...
It's funny how many of these spectacular houses have very similar themes and facilities. Although the odd one here and there might have a mooring for a boat or a room full of slot machines, almost all of them have a 'viewing room' kitted out with home theatre seating and sometimes even a pop-corn machine to add to the authenticity. It's amazing to me that these wealthy individuals have enough time to watch so much home entertainment...

New dNeero survey

As the financial crisis is reaching a significant period, dNeero wants to know if Obama really has all the answers, how confident are we that the right steps are been taken - is it too soon to tell?

Hotels and Holidays

I yearn to make a return trip to the USA, but my current financial situation simply does not allow it. I have personal friends in Boston, New York and family-friends in San Diego who I have not seen for about 30 years. I also have friends in Canada who I have not seen for a good ten years or so.
The last time we visited the 'States and Canada, we stayed with friends for a week and spent a week driving around in a hire car, using hotels and motels along the way. Although it will be a long time until I can afford a holiday abroad let alone a trip state-side, I dream of visiting San Diego and sunning myself on West Coast beaches...

Affiliates for making money online

Online earnings are available in many forms, and one of the most popular forms is the use of affiliate links on a website or blog. In short, you may receive commission on sales made as a result of a link from a website.
Commissions vary according to the commission rate and the transaction total, but it is not difficult to find affiliates that could potentially pay hundreds of dollars for a single high-value sale. However, getting your visitors to complete a sale may be a bit more tricky...
Some of the most popular schemes are selling software of all types, they generally offer good rates dependent on the price of the software, often offering 50% of the retail price as commission. This can be particularly good if the software on offer is directly linked to your niche.
In my experience, good niche sites are the best way to get affiliate sales, the beauty of the scheme is that the clients usually provides good resources in terms of buttons and widgets to click on and often will provide pages of information that you can copy or adapt to your site including video presentations, YouTube demo's and the like.
There are a couple of ways to get linked into affiliate schemes (you will usually need to be approved for this type of activity), you can either contact the vendor direct and sign up to an affiliate scheme for a specific product/service or you can sign up to a service that has a host of affiliate schemes on offer. The service I have had the most success with is ShareASale I have had genuine sales from their scheme so am in a position to guarantee that they are legitimate.
My recommendations are that you browse through the affiliates on offer to see if they have something that your visitors might be interested in. Then sign up, sometimes you may have to sign up for a particular affiliate as well as signing up to the umbrella scheme - this is a quality control measure so that the vendor has a chance to turn down sites that they feel are not suitable.
You can then decide whether to run ads alongside your normal content, or create a page or content specifically to promote the affiliate. Be warned though, most affiliates don't like you taking out PPC ads with the specific product name - this is to prevent your cornering the market on sales by bidding against other affiliates for the same brand-name keywords.
It may take a while to get established and a lot of trial and error will be required, but with the potentially high commissions on offer, there is a lot of money to be made with affiliates.

Appetite suppressant

I am a firm believer that healthy eating and a good exercise regime is the key to maintaining a healthy body weight. In certain circumstances a natural appetite suppressant might be advisable, but should only be used under the guidance of a health professional.
You may be tempted to try this route unadvised, but here are my reasons why a diet suppressant requires careful administration:

• Change of body weight for long-term requires a change of life-style, your life-style must meet the needs of your required body image.
• Medication is not a lifestlye change unless you plan to take medication for the remainder of your life.
• Medication may have side effects both in the short and long-term
• If you suppress your appetite, it is absolutely vital that the food that you do consume gives you all the vitamins that you need.

Earnings update

Although there is a week to go before the end of the month, I thought I would post a progress report regardless.
I have been fortunate this month to pick up an opportunity from sponsored reviews as well as some bonus opps fromPayU2Blog - PU2B have sent me some bonus opps this month bringing the total for the month up to eleven opps at $5 each so far.
I try to make a non-paid post to go alongside each paid opp where possible, so with all opps taken so far this month, I have already made 25 posts this month the most for a month so far in 2009. On average I tend to do about 20 posts per month on Munny4Hunny.
The upshot of this work is that with all posts made and other blog earnings, I have passed the $100 mark which seems to be the figure that I have come to regard as acceptable since paid blogging has become harder to monetise. Additionally, I am pleased to report that contextual advert earnings from all blogs is now starting to equal the earnings I get from other websites. I had always been doubtful about whether this type of monetisation works on blogs, but am starting to see that niche blogs can be successfully monetised this way.

Free Antivirus

Anyone who is using the internet at home MUST surely be using anti-virus software - I can't believe that there can be many people who have not even thought of it... but I bet there are a good many people who have let their anti-virus license lapse and are using out-dated virus definitions.
With recent worries about the activities of the 'conficker' virus which now controls a network of slave PC's around the world, now is not the time to be caught without adequate protection.
The virus is reported to control millions of PC's and is spreading malware to more PC's which sends out spam email remotely and also pops up fake anti-virus messages. Those clicking on the pop-up to purchase the 'software' which will supposedly clean their PC actually have their credit card details stolen.
So why is it that people might click the box?? basically because they are not confident in their own anti-virus arrangements, and that's where AVG free comes in. For years AVG has led the market in free anti-virus software of a very high standard. They supply free software with free daily virus definition updates for FREE! You may think 'where's the catch?' and here it is.. AVG Free is only for private home use, business users must cough up for the 'pro' edition - and that's what they are promoting. You get your anti-virus for free, this wide base of free users enhances AVG reputation, and more businesses use their software. It's a business model that suits me!
If you have out-of-date anti-virus software, then no-brainer logic says for goodness sake download AVG free right now and save yourself a whole load of trouble.
Don't worry, they're not paying me, they don't do affiliate links, just google for 'download AVG Free' and choose a reputable site to download from.

How contextual are your ads?

I had a bit of a 'LMOA' moment yesterday when browsing some sites. I was on a rapper website page and it was monetised with adsense as all good blogs should be (!) - Funny thing was the actual ads that came up... the first one was legit, but the second one...?
take a look at the screen-shot...

I have noticed myself that sometimes the contextual ads have flimsy links to content, but I don't think I have ever seen quite such an inappropriate one...

Google Adsense is reportedly going to concentrate on adverts geared towards the interests of the person browsing, and to my way of thinking that will fundamentally change the way that Adsense is perceived.
I and many others, have built pages and have added Adsense safe in the knowledge that the adverts will reflect content - the idea that the adverts will reflect subjects that the visitor has demonstrated an interest in previously, changes significantly the triangular relationship between host, visitor and the contextual adverts. Whether this turns out to a good or bad development remains to be seen.
And by the way, I assure you that I have not demonstrated an interest in the M&S Maternity Collection, so somehow that advert was prompted by the content (maybe repeated lyrics of 'baby, baby'... who knows??)

Booked your vacation yet?

As thoughts turn towards Summer and vacations possibly yet to be planned (the holiday market is certainly affected by the current economic climate), bargains are becoming hard to find.

If you have left booking a trip until the last moment then a hotel reservation promotion is probably a good place to start. Whilst it is true to say that there are far fewer opportunities for last minute booking this year than there have been in previous years, online is probably the best place to be looking for a bargain.

We have a trip planned, and I used a hotel promotion to book hotel rooms in advance for the family saving myself a huge amount of money. These promotions span the whole spectrum of hotels from the budget to luxury ends of the market. However, the more widely available offers tend to be in the budget accommodation because it is that side of the industry that suffers most in a recession. Now is the time to grab a bargain and give the family a trip to look forwards to.

Weighty Problems

It seems to me that there is a new wonder diet pill announced every other week, but the causes of over-eating should be seriously looked at before trying to remedy weight problems with medication.
There are a number of underlying reasons for someone being overweight, and only those that are not psychological should be treated with medication. After all, if you are overweight through overeating because you are unhappy, taking a pill won't take away the reason for the overeating.
Taking a pill when there are unaddressed underlying issues means that until the issues are resolved, you must continue with the pills indefinitely.
The aim of a diet is surely to reach a target weight and maintain that weight into the future - the only realistic way to achieve this is to alter your lifestyle in terms of what you consume and the exercise that you do.

Stars in their minds

I am not a big fan of the 'idol', 'talent' and other reality/talent shows, but you cannot deny that they are polpular!
Here's you chance to have your say about American Idol and get paid for taking part in the survey:

Business Opportunities

The current economic climate will spark some small businesses here and there as people become concerned about their regular employment and seek to find alternative income.
I sincerely believe that the trade on auction sites will be a growth area in the next year or so as people start to look around for opportunities. One such opportunity is the sale of goods purchased from wholesale auction sites, on the 'domestic' auction sites.
A small amount of research into what is available to buy in bulk, and the prices of such goods sold individually will quickly show where decent profits can be made. In working out the profit margin, one should ideally bear in mind the time spent completing each transaction and time and materials involved in packaging and dispatching the items. The difference between gross and net profit should be properly understood before embarking on such a course. It would also be advisable to start small-scale and work your way up, and allow yourself a budget for contingencies such as a job lot that does not sell as well as expected.

Lead generation

I came across a new service today which I personally have never seen before and could be a interesting model for future businesses.
There are companies that have generated websites with keywords and traffic-gathering keyword-based advertising programs that provide them with a list of qualified leads for example for life insurance lead or car insurance leads etc...
They are directing visitors to a registration page and then providing the leads to third parties. This means that if you are offering a service in this area, but do not receive a tremendous amount of traffic, you can effectively 'buy' leads from a service specially set up to capture your target audience.
After all, just because you offer a great insurance service, does not mean that you have built the best website or get the most traffic - why not leave that end of things to a service that is designed from the base up to do exactly that?

Paid Discussion forum

I have posted about MyLot before and having reached my third payout, I felt it was high-time to write a bit about this paid forum once more.
MyLot is built as a forum where questions are asked and everybody in the community can answer, anybody (including the questioner) can then respond to the responses and some of the discussions can get rather involved.
There is a pleasant community spirit around most of the site, but occasionally arguments can break out as there is limited controls on responses. There are the normal rules on language used and usually anyone that goes too far gets reported and it is not unusual for entire discussions to be removed from time to time.
Now the crucial part is the fact that you get a few cents each time you post a valid response (as long as the discussion does not get deleted), and in general, if your response is not complete nonsense and takes up at least four lines of text (precise definition is not clear) you will qualify for a small payment. Payout is at $10 and it takes on average 300 responses to reach this level (depending on the 'quality' of the responses).
My feeling is that if you are looking to purely make money, then the effort-to-reward ratio is low - However, if you are likely to enjoy getting involved in what is a largely friendly forum, then why not get involved in one that is going to send you $10 every so often??
The payment scheme also takes referrals into consideration which makes the whole earning process rattle along at a much faster rate. I am not great at getting referrals and have had a total of just three, one of which has remained active and now contributes to my earnings on a regular basis. Having active referrals makes MyLot a far more viable earner than when you are just earning from your own posts, and if you are good at getting referrals MyLot may be a welcome boost to your online earnings.

Open Office free software

I started posting about free software some time ago and the array of software available has now reached a point where there is little need to buy any software at all.
Open Office as an alternative to Microsoft Office has been around for a while now, but I recently installed it on a new PC I have been building as my copy of MS Office is about 10 years out of date. The beauty of this suite of programs is that they are compatible with the most of the Microsoft suite of programs, and more than that, they offer an in-built 'export to PDF' functionality which makes them a more attractive proposition to many users. The full suite includes writing programs, spreadsheets, presentation programs a total of six programs in all.
So far I have tried opening Excel sheets (which required editing open office settings to allow Macro's) and editing and colorising pictures using 'Open Draw'.
I have done nothing so far other than scratch the surface of the offerings from Open Office, but at this stage, the signs are good and I fully expect that these programs will be able to seamlessly replace Microsoft Office once I have played with their functionality a little.

Footwear for all

I have mentioned previously that I have had a career in footwear retail many years ago, my shop sold a mixture of quality traditional footwear such as welted leather shoes, but also quality leisure footwear such as the popular Ecco shoes brand.
Although I am personally more interested in traditionally 'built' shoes, I am actually more often found wearing more 'comfortable' leisure footwear for every day use.
Each time I look at a new pair of shoes I tend to take craftsmanship into the equation probably more than the look of the shoe. I would never consider buying a poorly constructed shoe just because it looks nice. Ecco shoes are one of those brands that marries comfort with quality for mens, womens and childrens shoes alike.
As far as chidrens footwear is concerned, it is NEVER worth compromising on quality and above all a good fit. Childrens feet are remarkably pliable and you will be shocked at how much permanent damage badly fitting shoes can do in just a few short weeks of wear.

Paid to blog strategies

With paid to blog schemes changing so quickly, several separate strategies are required to make the most out of paid blogging.
On the one hand quality niche blogs are required to pick up the lucrative higher-paying posts, but it doesn't pay to be too high-brow about your paid posting. If you are setting out to be a paid blogger, then it may well pay to have blogs which can take non-niche type posts for you to top up your earnings. Although it may be satisfying to pick up the occasional higher fee, there are 'bread and butter' opportunities in the paid blogging world which can help to keep the dollars rolling in.
Even if you only get a small amount for a quick undemanding paid post, being able to post several a day means that you will often make more from short 60-word posts than you can from higher paying opportunities which demand 200 or 300 words and which carry all sorts of conditions.

Keep you options open and don't discard lower-paying services if they offer an easy way to pick up extra dollars even if it means distinguishing between your blogs that are going to be 'specalised' and which ones are going to be more 'generalised'.

Hair loss - just a mens problem?

I am getting to that age where my hair is certainly less abundant than it was a few years ago, and although I would not myself consider hair loss treatment, I can sympathise with those that do - and especially if they are women. Whilst hair-loss is considered almost a joke for men, for women it has a far more serious effects on self-esteem.
Treatments for hair loss include on the one hand, medical solutions such as in the form of pills, medicines, supplements and lotions. The other options include hair-extensions and weaves along with the more 'traditional' wig.
Wigs have certainly lost popularity over the last few decades especially with the bald or shaven-look now being so acceptable for men. A man suffering hair-loss these days is far more likely to shave his head than take any other approach. Frankly, this is the only approach that I would consider personally

Blogging pictures

No matter how good your content, adding an appropriate picture to your blog post attracts the eye and draws your visitors in. However, unless you are a remarkably good photographer or illustrator, you will be struggling to have all the pictures you need at hand. I have been known to go searching for images using google images in the past, but there is a drawback in just picking images off the web. For most bloggers, there is no real problem with locating images this way, but finding an image on the web does not automatically give you the right to use the image in your own blog. Images are legally protected by copyright laws and you may need permission to display them.
'Fair use' rules dictate that if you are writing a post for example, about Microsoft Windows, you should be able to use their logo as long as you are not claiming any special link to Microsoft which does not legally exist. If however, you are just writing a general post and you want to include an image that you have not created yourself, then you may need to consider using a service that provides royalty-free pictures to ensure that you are not crossing any legal boundaries.
There are a number of these services available and I may well provide some links to others as I find them, but I tried this one: 'Dreamstime' yesterday for the first time and found an image for a blog post - the image itself was hosted by 'stockvault' and was OK to download even without registering although registering is encouraged, and if I use the site again I certainly will take the time to register properly.
Personally I always like to try and 'customise' pictures to fit into the style of a blog - usually this is just a case of cropping and colorising an image to fit with the colour scheme. If you have a decent graphics package you may also be able to overlay images and crop out backgrounds etc..

Searching for that perfect job

Finding a new job is difficult in the current economic climate, and knowing your way around the internet can certainly give you an advantage. There are all those well-know general sites that are widely advertised where you can post your CV and sit back waiting for the offers to come rolling in, but did you know there are specialist sites dedicated to just your industry.
If you're after a nondescript administration or secretarial role, then the general sites may be the place for you to start, but if you are in a specialist field and looking specifically for jobs in health care for example or some other industry, then there are specific websites that will hold CV's for your chosen career path.
Of course, the same applies to prospective employers - you will have to fight your way through the flotsam and jetsam on a general site, but a specialist site will give you a choice of potential employees who are specifically trained for your business.
Next time you are thinking of changing jobs or hiring a new worker, check out the online services specially set up to service your chosen sector of industry.

Sponsored reviews

It's a while since I talked about the 'sponsored reviews' website and that's because I only get opportunities every now and again, but the opportunities are always well paid and get paid within two weeks. I was prompted to mention them as I have completed one recently (on a different blog), and they are a great service to have in your range of money-earning sites. You can register a number of blogs with sponsored reviews and then browse through the opportunities making offers on the ones that you think are suitable. The really great thing for niche bloggers is that you can sort the opportunities by category, for instance 'travel' or 'finance'. You can bid on as many opps as you want then sometime later (possibly months later) the advertiser may get in touch to make a counter-offer or accept your offer. You have seven days to complete an opportunity once you have been notified (via email). Of course most of your offers may well be rejected, you can check on the status of your offers each time you log onto the site.
They have a good selection of advertisers, so periodically I go back to the site and make offers on new opps that have come along. The site keeps a proportion of your 'offer' so be aware that they will take a cut - the fee is split 65% for you and 35% for sponsoredreviews.com, however many of the opportunities pay highly so you can still make more than using regular paid posting sites.

About Mesothelioma

Asbestosis is caused by exposure to Asbestos, and prolonged exposure can lead to lung cancer, mesothelioma and non-malignant lung and pleural disorders. Although industries traditionally connected with Asbestos are primarily at risk, cases with very little apparent exposure to Asbestos have been recorded. Mesothelioma is a rare cancer which is often diagnosed up to thirty or more years after the original contamination. Early diagnosis is essential to prolong life expectancy, yet symptoms are not easy to diagnose specifically as Mesothelioma. Symptoms include shortness of breath, a productive peristent cough and tightness of the chest often accompanied by a crackling sound whilst inhaling. Treatment is primarily a combination of surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy depending on the location and status of the malignancy.

If you feel that you could be at risk, or you know of someone that is, then a doctor's examination is essential as soon as possible.

No holiday abroad this year, but....

We have not been in a position to have a holiday abroad since we began to rely on just one income in our household. In the last four years or so, we have fought hard not just to keep our heads above water, but also to pay off existing credit card balances and be debt-free. This has led to a lot of changes when it comes to how we spend the small amount of money that we have.
I expect that we will have paid off any remaining credit card balance within the next three months (and that without even having a pay-rise in the last three years), but I don't imagine that we will be celebrating with a vacation in Orlando just yet! In fact this Summer we will have a free holiday with my parents in the UK.
Our daughter would love to visit Disney World, so maybe one day we will be boarding a flight to Orlando, but we currently have our feet firmly on the ground, sitting out the financial crisis. In our old life' we had regular foreign holidays and look forward to the time when we will be able to do so again.

Surveys that pay

I see a lot of suspicion around online earning sites, usually about PTC, PTR etc.. but sometimes about survey sites too. I use three survey services at this point in time, having dumped 'Ciao' some months ago - not that they are a scam, but their surveys take too long for little pay and sometimes you are answering questions for ten minutes until you are told you are not eligible for the survey.
In one Ciao survey I was sent, I could not beleive the way the questions went:
Question 1: Are you ....(my name).....?
Answer: YES
Reply: Sorry, you are ineligible for this survey!
(they sent this survey URL straight to my email inbox - they KNEW who I was!!)
At least they didn't waste much of my time, but I found that they would habitually send unsuitable surveys even when they were fully aware of my profile. That's enough about a useless service, let me tell you about the surveys that I DO take part in:

YOUGOV: Excellent service that will make sure that you recieve some payment even if you don't qualify for a survey. Payments vary from maybe £0.10 to £0.50 for a survey for your opinion was not required, £0.50 to several pounds for a completed survey. Their surveys are often of a similar type almost always multiple choice, rarely taking up much more than 10 minutes of your time. Payout limit £50 - it may take some time to reach this target - surveys are sent to your email address.
PUREPROFILE: Very similar to YouGov, although they tend to have surveys that you can complete via their website (at least when you first register), they also like you to fill out a lot of your profile so that they can send you relevant surveys. Payout at £25.00 - most surveys arrive via email.
DNEERO: My favourite by far, join by clicking on one of their survey widgets on this blog - their surveys are always VERY short and easy to complete, usually with about five or six multiple choice questions. They are unique in that you can get more earnings by posting a widget on your website, blog or myspace page, plus you can answer questions for small amounts using your 'Twitter' account - payout is just $20 and I think you get three-tier referral earnings too. Twitter opportunities must be sought out, but the normal surveys will be emailed to you.

All I would say is that with the more 'serious' survey services ie. YouGov and PureProfile, you should always be completely honest with your answers or just cancel the survey if you don't want to answer. The dNeero surveys are much more fun-focussed and do not require you to be so precise with your answers, there is more of a social/viral feel to the way in which dNeero carry out surveys.

Diet Pills

Reasons for dieting fall under two headings:
1) health reasons for the genuinely overweight
2) poor self-image
For a good proportion of those currently on a diet, they are on it for the latter reason, whereas the only legitimate reason for dieting is the former. Dieting is a process of suppressing the natural desire to eat, and should only be undertaken under proper medical conditions. In extreme cases, medication may be used, and if this is the case, then only the best diet pills should be used as advised by a medical practitioner.
If you are considering dieting for health reasons, then your healthy diet should be considered in conjunction with an exercise plan that should also be designed for you by a health professional

March 2009

Not the best months earnings by far, but I did get a total of $117 paid out this month, which was handy for all the eBay purchases I have been making in order to build myself a new PC.
Once again PayU2blog are the best source of paid to blog earnings, but generally the lack of quality earnings illustrates the way that paid blogging has gone downhill recently with some services posting opportunities for a dollar and less. The sad fact is that whilst 'quality' bloggers may not give cheaper opps a second glance, there are enough players out there to pick up these scraps, and at the end of the day anchor text is anchor text wherever it is posted... This means that earnings must come from elsewhere, but where??
The ideal would be to be able to create enough revenue through Adense, but the reality is that it takes a lot of hard work to reach a decent level of earnings this way, and the same amount of hard work to maintain that level of earnings. The next most desirable way to create passive earnings would be through affiliates, but I have yet to find the combination of blog niche and affiliate that yield any meaningful revenue - maybe one day that will change, the quest continues...

Surveys from dNeero

One of the most fun ways to make a bit of change online.. dNeero surveys, the latest one (see below) is about music. dNeero surveys are always short and sweet unlike other surveys - you can even take part via Twitter - and you can make more by posting widgets in a blog:

My New PC

It's all over bar the shouting... I have made the last few purchases in the form of a DVD writer, a 500GB SATA drive and a SATA cable. Not only that but I even managed to update the BIOS on my motherboard which should make it compatible with more CPU's most notably dual-core which will probably be my next venture - but probably not this year...
If you have an older PC it might be worth searching for a BIOS update for your motherboard before buying a CPU upgrade. These are usually to be found on the manufacturers website, and in my case included an update application (which was just as well because the one that came on the CDROM with the mobo didn't work properly...).
I am just waiting for the last bits of kit to arrive before closing up the compartment and installing the system in my 'office' at home. The first tasks for this new system will be to try some more VHS to DVD conversions using some new software that I recently acquired. Then gradually I will transfer things like my email applications and some of my more commonly used programs onto the new system. I have gone for 'Open Office' rather than installing MS Office on this new PC (My copy of MS Office is ancient and I don't want to buy a new one) so I will probably keep Excel spreadsheets (with Macro's) on my older PC. I have considered going back to Mozilla Thunderbird on the new PC, but will probably try importing my old Outlook settings first, if that doesn't work out, I may as well plump for Thunderbird. The 'new' PC has XP Pro on it simply because that is the only OS at my disposal and I am not brave enough to go Linux just yet..
My existing PC has 2GB RAM in it, as has my new system, but the new one will take 4GB although I read somewhere that in 32bit mode, it may only recognise 3.5GB(??). I will probably move a stick of RAM from the older machine to the newer one just to give it that extra bit of ooomph! and look to get another stick or two at a later date (Paypal currently stands at just under £3.00). Fortunately there have been enough funds entering my PayPal account recently to keep the project going, last month's income report to follow shortly..

Quality not fashion

In a previous 'life' I worked in the shoe trade and quickly came to the conclusion that quality was not the same as brand. I can spot a quality shoe from a distance, it's a pity that I can't do the same with other products. Inside knowledge is a valuable asset built up over years of experience.
There are a number of well-known brands (especially in women's footwear and clothing) that offer much in the way of flair and design yet little in the way of quality of construction or materials used.
There are certain countries such as the more Southernly European nations that 'do' style without majoring on quality, whereas the more Northern nations are less fashion aware but like quality products.
In the place I worked, we used to sell traditionally constructed English leather-soled shoes alongside some European molded soled shoes such as from Dansko in Denmark. It seems that it's not just the Dutch who are keen on clogs... Utility clothing is quite acceptable in all types of environments nowadays, and these shoes are no different. Whilst it is still not quite the done thing to wear a pair of flashy trainers to a top-level meeting, you may get envious if not admiring glances at your 'comfortable' quality-constructed shoes.