Lipofuze

The latest in a long line of fatburners: Lipofuze.
I can't tell you if any of these medications work as they say they will, but I do know that weightloss will come as a result of changing lifestyles rather than popping pills. You may find that a fat-burner helps to get down to a specific weight, but in order to keep that weight off in the longer term, you will need to introduce your body to a reasonable diet and a reasonable exercise regime.

You should consult a healthcare professional before considering taking any type of medication that has not been prescribed by your doctor.

Goodbye Ellie

I have been blogging and trying to make a little extra on the internet since about 2006. Back when I started, I hooked up with a number of people who were all investigating the potential of the internet - some of whom I am still in contact with 4 years later.

It has been fascinating to see how these different characters have been able to express themselves using the broad canvas that the internet offers. Each person has started from a similar point as me, and has ploughed their own furrow along strands of the world wide web.

One such individual was Ellie Harrison (AKA. Elmyra Jemison) of one of my favourite blogs: ThePinkC. Ellie was an original 'Geek girl', establishing the rights for girls to love gadgets too... Her writing style was both friendly and knowledgeable, her posts were always well thought-out and shared her personality as well as her experiences.

Yesterday I found out that Ellie had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away, she had not long turned thirty.

I cannot say that she was a close friend because internet acquaintances have a different connection than that of a conventional friend, yet I held Ellie in high regard, and I will miss her comments on my blog, the occasional e-mail, constant twitter updates and reading her contributions to the blogging world.

Her sister 'HarriMac' was a regular contributor to ThePinkC, and has vowed, along with other members of her family to continue posting on Ellie's blog. It's hard to express grief for someone you only know via the internet, but as a 40-something man, I don't mind admitting that I shed a few tears for Ellie. My heart goes out to her friends and family, I am finding it difficult to write any more for now... Goodbye Ellie, God Bless...

Geographical Internet

The internet has moved on from being 'global', and with the proliferation of mobile devices is beginning to bring the focus back to 'local' once more. You wouldn't need to enter the search term personal injury lawyer Tucson if you are in the locality, search engines are concentrating on prioritising local results using a combination of IP address and global positioning technology.

Not all services need to be local, for instance mail order goods could come from anywhere, but personal services such as a lawyer, medical practitioner etc.. would benefit from the priority of geographical search results.

Snow!

Snow fell yesterday in my part of the world - I cannot remember the last time we had snow falling in November...

I love it when the snow falls because usually everything grinds to a halt, and true to form, roads were blocked and many workers had their weekend put on hold whilst they battled homewards.

I have chopped up some wood ready for the fire and am prepared to 'batten the hatches' against the adverse weather.

Usually we just have a smattering of snow which disappears in no time, but it looks like this stuff is here to stay for a few days. Although no snow has fallen today locally, it has been cold enough for most of the existing snow to remain in place.

All bodes well for a 'White Christmas' around these parts...

Diet Pills

I am fairly wary about the way in which I approach blogging about diets and supplements, as I am concious of some of the diet pill side effects.
My own personal view is that medication should only be used as an extreme measure where short-term effects fit into a longer-term plan. the longer term plan must incorporate sensible eating (healthy food in manageable quantities) and exercise appropriate to the individual. The exercise should gradually increase until the required level of fitness is reached.

The reason that medication cannot form part of a long-term plan is two-fold:

• Firstly, the cost of long-term medication will be prohibitive
• Secondly, the likelihood and extent of side effects increases with each dose.

Medication or even surgery may be able to help in some small way, but in the end, long term weight loss it is all about desire and self-control.

Affiliates

Affiliates is one of the ways that anybody can make money online with their own website. I have dabbled a little, and can say that the surest way to make money with affiliates is to have a good niche and know how to be able to promote a site within your niche.

There are general affiliate sites that run schemes from all types of affiliates, and there are specialised services, such as offered by www.sharewealth.com.

Sharewealth specialise in the Health & Beauty sector, so if you have a site or are thinking of creating a site on this theme, maybe you should be hooking up with them.

Whatever your niche, it is going to be more productive to hook up with an affiliate program that is specifically suited to your chosen industry than to use one of the more wide-ranging affiliates.

Slow November

This month has not been as active as I would have liked, mainly because I have not had many cassette to CD conversions to do this month. Ironic as I built up stocks of CD's last month and have enough to do quite a number of conversions.

I have been working on a website for a local business and am re-thinking my Wordpress strategy. I had thought that I would use WP as my standard website building tool - but having had some work commissioned, I very quickly found that it was far easier to get what I wanted by using Dreamweaver rather than using the WP platform.

For the future, I want to be be able to build sites quickly using WP so I think I need to keep pushing the learning curve in this direction for a while - it is clear to me that although I have had some success with WP, I am nowhere near being able to quickly adapt it to my specific needs. At least with a WYSIWYG like Dreamweaver, I get the functionality that I want even though I don't get the aesthetically pleasing design...

I have completely reworked my 'WebSiteTastic' website (using Dreamweaver!) and gone for a much simpler look altogether - it is about as 'spartan' as it could possibly be now, and I will keep it like that until I am ready to promote the site properly.

Paid-to-blog has been sporadic, but I have had a couple of extra posts this month from one of those sources that occasionally sends in a worthwhile opp., however, the mainstay paid-to-blog remains 'PU2B'...

Houston auto repair

I need to have my car serviced at the moment and am faced with the perpetual problem of who can be relied upon to do a good job at a reasonable price. I don't like taking the car to a main dealers, for instance if I had a ford expedition the last place I would take it for servicing would be the local Ford franchise. This francise used to charge £85 a hour 5 years ago, I dread to think how much they charge now. (They also tried to service my car even though the exhaust pipe had fallen off...but that's another story!)

Having the service book up to date is vital, because that will tell you when you last had your timing belt replaced, and hopefully therefore...when you will need a new one. An unscrupulous mechanic may try and charge you for unnecessary work including expensive work on your braking system or water pump. Having just had a very large bill for work on my braking system, I am definitely looking for an alternative garage to carry out the servicing on my vehicle.

If you are looking for a reliable garage, then ask around friends for auto repair companies like Houston Auto repair that they have used and found to be reasonable. There are also some online schemes that offer ratings and feedback for local companies online, so looking for prospective services this way might give you an insight - The company I usually use had one feedback, and it was not at all complementary...

Don't you just hate spam?

Not the reconstituted meat variety, but the tons of unsolicited mail that carries a message of mischief, malice and downright criminality. The biggest insult is that they are hoping you will be vulnerable to their clumsy advances... The bank that I don't have an account with, and doesn't even know my name is telling me that my fictional account has been compromised... For that reason alone, I have vowed never to have a HSBC bank account, just so I don't even have to filter the emails that have HSBC in the title...

What can we do about it? Well, so far the best defence I have found is to have a gmail account - I have had a gmail account with googlemail for a couple of months now and have not had a single bit of junk mail. I do not leave the email address 'lying around' in forums and other places that might allow it to be picked up by spammers, this of course helps...

I like the way that gmail presents emails as 'threads' like in a form, and I also like that you can forward your mails (for free) and even filter mails and just have selected mails forwarded. So, in return, I am posting in favour of gmail - for free!

Acne Scar Removal

Acne is not only embarrassing and uncomfortable when you are going through puberty, the scars can remain right through to adulthood in instances where it has affected the skin badly.

Although most people get away with low level acne, some youngsters do suffer quite severely, not only on the face, but also on the back and on limbs.

Of course, it is the facial scars that are the ones that are likely to have the deepest psychological effects throughout our adult life, the good news is that there are acne scar removal programs to help limit the effects.

HD ready?

Now I am NOT an early-adopter, it's not like I don't trust or like new technology - I just don't believe in paying through the nose to be the first in line to have the latest gadget. I have no pieces of technology with the prefix 'i' for example, marketed by a certain Steve Jobs.

I am quite happy with the wonders of Nicam Stereo, and do not feel the desire to buy 7.1 surround sound. And now hard on the heels of extremely large expensive TV screens, comes High Definition...

I have recently started to wear glasses and am coming to terms with the adjustments, in poor lighting I sometimes struggle, even though I am long-sighted. So this thought occurred to me this weekend..

"why would I need high definition TV if I don't even have High Definition eyesight?"... just a thought....

Laptop Insurance

If you don't have laptop insurance, then you probably should (assuming you have a laptop!) consider it. The usefulness of the laptop lies in the fact that it is portable, and that introduces three problems that will affect laptops more than dektops:

• Your laptop will spend time in your car, on a train and in your bag - places that make it vulnerable to theft
• Your laptop is slim and lightweight, at some point you are going to drop it!
• A laptop comes out of the bag, is snapped open, snapped shut, bumped against things and generally will suffer more wear and tear than a desktop can even imagine

If you can see sense in the points above, you can see why you should be considering insurance for your laptop.

Get yourself in trim

Here's a Christmas gift idea for those who would spend time at the gym, but can't afford the membership fees. Reebok Easy Tone running shoes apparently put stresses on your feet whilst running that automatically tones your leg muscles. The off-balance effect is supposed to make your feet correct your balance, thus putting muscles under extra strain than is experienced during conventional running.

Added to which, being Reebok, they look pretty cool too...although I should say that apart from being cool, Reebok have a good pedigree when it comes to serious sports footwear. I bought my first Reebok shoes more than 30 years ago when they were only known within athletic circles (I actually lost them after a few weeks, but that's another story).

Home Network

Home PC systems and networks are now about as complex as business systems of just a few years ago. Our systems are networked, mostly via wireless networks, not only including PCs and laptops, but also integrating gaming and entertainment devices.

Most of these devices do not demand an individual network server with dedicated operating system, yet servers may take much of the strain of a home system in the future, removing much of the computational stress from the individual components of the complete home entertainment network.

I can see a future where a house could have anything from a single 1U server tucked away under the stairs, to a complete 'clean room' with stacked servers like something from a Sci-Fi set. The future of home computers and how they will finally merge into a complete home entertainment system is still being formed.

October 2010

Although the total profit for this month is quite low in comparison with recent months, I have bought new 'stock' this month totalling almost £50, the turnover was around £120 so I am reasonably happy with these figures. I think I will just fall short of payout for Adsense next month, so may have to wait a little longer for that income-boost. A lot of paid to blog opps in the last week or so which will get paid at the beginning of November - I am predicting that it could be a bumper paid to post month for me in November... (on the strength of the last weeks work alone!). I had an 'seoblogreview.com' opp this month which helped to boost the earnings, they tend to pay more than some other services, but they do need at least three links and plenty of text...

I am still getting cassette to CD enquiries, so am expecting to be able to make a bit out of this during November too (a couple of decent 'jobs' are on the horizon, but you can't count your chickens before they're hatched!). If next month is quiet, then I expect to be able to make some headway on projects that are sitting there waiting for my attention...