Happy New Year

A new year is about to unfold and I would sincerely like to wish any readers of this blog who happen by, a wonderful and successful new year. I have taken some major online business decisions this year and plan to expand operations in my chosen path in 2010 in order to build a continuing passive income.
I will naturally be reporting outcomes on this blog. My major decision this year is to do less blogging and build more websites, along with the plan to gather all my online earnings into a single report which will also be the basis for reporting my income to the tax authorities. This will replace the monthly 'blogging-only' earnings report that I have always posted on this blog.
I am not one for New Year resolutions, but I am resolved nonetheless to tidy up my online dealings and cut off some of those branches that have not borne fruit.
Happy New Year to you and yours, may the new year bring blessings and joy to you and your families.

One of the Good Guys

My parents have an RV and love to take it all over the country and on the continent too. I have discovered a new service today that I was not previously aware of. The good sam motorhome towing service offers roadside assistance specifically for RV's. These vehicles are becoming more and more popular all over the world and it makes sense that you need a specifically tailored roadside assistance package that offers more than the standard vehicle cover.
I will be checking to see if my parents have thought about this type of service when I see them tomorrow (they drove their RV down to visit us earlier today).

Insurance a necessary evil

Everybody hates having to pay insurance because not only is it an expense, it is an expense that already acknowledges that something is going to go horribly wrong at some point during the year...

New Year is as good a time as any to sit down and get the all important insurance quote for your vehicles, your home and contents and maybe even your traveling (should you be fortunate enough to be planning any travel...).
One of the huge advantages of the online world is that things like insurance are now ultra-competitive which means that most of us are paying less insurance than we were a few years ago.
My golden rules for insurance are:

• Do we really need it? (Home and car are no-brainers, everything should be looked at long and hard)
• Have we got the right level of cover? (there is little worse than paying out fpor an insuranec that doesn't actually help you out when things go wrong..).

Happy shopping

Christmas Eve

Relax!
I never mind working on Christmas Eve, because by then, it's really too late to do anything and we rarely receive any calls from clients other than to pass on seasons greetings...
I fact I took last week off work, and went into work for this week because I knew the pressure would be off.
So take it easy today, and just prepare for a day of food and fun, that's my advice. Make sure that you have whatever you need ready, in my case that meant chopping up a few logs this morning to make sure we have a festive fire running through the week... I also have a well stocked 'cellar' that will ensure there are enough bottles of red wine to see us merrily through the season.
If you are a regular or just happen by this blog today... MERRY CHRISTMAS, spend some quality time with the ones you love over the next few days.

On the Treadmill

As Christmas turns into New Year, how many of us will be taking to the treadmill in a desperate attempt to regain our usual trim shape?
Home gyms are increasingly popular especially since gym membership can be so expensive. I don't find the gym to be a great place to get fit, but I think I could be more enthused if the gym equipment were actually in my own house...
The reason I can't get on with a gym is that although you may be in a room with lots of other people, you don't really have any interaction with them, and have to be self-motivated to get any results - I prefer partaking in team sports where the exercise is just a positive side-effect of the game.

Still looking for PageRank?

I am starting to come round to the conclusion that PR is a bit of a self-fulfilling dream... after all, what is it's value?
Does it get you SERP (search engine results position)? seemingly not as I have several sites with little or no PR that achieve first-page results for specific targeted key-words.
Many of us were slave to PR when we started blogging, and the weeping could be heard from afar when Google slapped us all for trying to 'game' PR with viral schemes. Some desperately hung on, determined to show their contrite hearts to Daddy Google by refusing paid posts and removing 'do follow' from their blogs.
Did it make any difference? Did traffic cease or did our sites disappear from the search results? Maybe there were some short-term effects here and there, maybe Google has learned some lessons and maybe there is not so much money being thrown at paid bloggers, but not an awful lot has really changed.
I am promoting a new site at the moment, and have concentrated almost exclusively on 'on-page' optimisation - the type of SEO that doesn't rely on outside links and therefore is not affected by PR. My conclusions are that you can certainly get ranked on page 1 without PR- and most of the time, I am only held off the top-spot by Wikipedia... So I leave you with this... What is the value of PageRank?
And my answer is that you really only need to think about it if you are competing for a very highly sought after keyword. You may easily get SERP for a cleverly thought out associated phrase with virtually no 'off-page' optimisation at all. Of course, if many of those who sponsored posts took this view, they would stop paying for links except for those sickeningly 'popular' recurring promotions (I leave the themes of these to your imagination), so I hope sponsors will ignore my views and continue to send interesting and varied opportunities.

The goose is getting fat....

We are 'stocking' up already for Christmas, and I have already consumed a couple of packets of mince pies. I am looking forward to a very long break as I take all my remaining annual holidays in the next month - in fact I worked out yesterday that I was due to spend just eight days out of the next thirty one in work...
After all the indulgences of the coming festivities, a good supply of weight loss pills, headache tablets and hangover cures will no doubt be consumed too. Excercise is hard to come by as local sports centres and gyms seem to take extended yuletide breaks too. Nevertheless when five-a-side football resumes in January I will be raring to go, hopefully freshly kitted out with new Christmas socks...

Earnings for November

I almost managed to break the $100 barrier again this month would have been a much-needed boost. PayU2blog remain the best earner and I particularly like the un-demanding way in which they operate. I was disappointed with IZEA this month as I had my first ever offer, after I had jumped through all the many required hoops (including anchor texts, embedded video etc.. etc...) for a $20 opp, it took them ages to tell me they couldn't accept the post as it was adjacent to another paid post. Admittedly it's in the t&c's (terms and conditions) but really... who reads those???
Having been much busier with my other online exploits this month, I have seriously neglected my other blogs and need to catch up with posting (either that or get rid of the domains...)
I have even managed to flog some stuff off on eBay this month (a 'previously enjoyed' CPU and motherboard) and there is plenty more where they came from...

Notebook computers

Every so often I dream about buying a new PC and if I were buying one now, I would definitely consider a notebook computer to add to my current collection of desktops.
Notebooks or netbooks are like cut-down laptops offering the kind of features that you are likely to need on the road combined with long battery-life.
If you have a desktop PC to do your main computer-related tasks, then a netbook would be the ideal tool giving you portability and access to email and internet on the move. Those with very specific needs may find that a notebook actually fills all their computing requirements ie. youngsters or the elderly who may only require a browser and email access to stay in touch with friends and family.