What's next?

You have started to make a bit of money on the 'net, so what's next??
There are a million different directions in which you can go, some remain internet based and others move out into the high street.
I have watched a few different career paths and would say that there is no one particular formula, it's more about your vision and ability to realise your dreams that makes you successful. I know some internet entrepreneurs who have started with a blog, expanded into several blogs and then launched into forums and websites for income generation. As with all paths, some plans work out and some lead to dead ends. I have come across very successful bloggers who have maintained a decent income by remaining with blogging for earnings but just expanding into several blogs, others I have seen develop into 'paid-to' start-ups and progress their earnings that way. Once you have gained a bit of self-confidence from your initial projects, you can develop by putting your money into franchises or some other start-up business, even creating your own franchises if you are successful enough.

Football or Soccer

The UK and the US are often described as two nations divided by a common language, and nothing illustrates that as well as the confusion over the use of the word 'football'. For the rest of the world, football is absolutely synonymous with soccer. For the US, football refers almost exclusively to that peculiar game with the wrong-shaped ball, which is neither soccer or rugby or recognisable as any sport played elsewhere.
The popularity of what the rest of the work knows as 'American Football' has ebbed and flowed on foreign shores. Occasional games are played abroad to publicise the sport internationally, and many countries have their own specialist leagues. These leagues are hardly mainstream, though naturally they have their own football trophies and league tables.

ShopWiki a new shopping experience

Shop Wiki is a shopping search engine which searches the web democratically rather than just showing results that have been paid for. For instance, Christmas is not that far away and you might need to find a good deal on an XBox 360 or DVD recorder.

The site gives lots of information on your potential purchases and compares prices to make it easy to find the best deal. You can narrow each search down by price or brand, or even color if it's appropriate. I narrowed my DVD recorder search by brand (Sony) then selected a specific unit (VRD-MC5) and was offered 41 on-line stores to buy this one product from - each one with the price clearly marked, so finding the best deal was really easy.
Not only do you get all these listings, but there is an overview of the product at the top of the page indicating the price-range and giving all the technical data. If you don't have a specific model in mind, then you can take a look through one of the wiki guides like the Computers and Software Wiki which outlines differences between desktops and laptops and covers hardware and software issues. Even if you don't really know what you are looking for, ShopWiki can help guide you through the whole process giving you lots of gift ideas.

Shift of emphasis

Over recent months I have been exploring niche blogging as a way to raise revenue and have reached the point where I am beginning to get some results. I have discovered that niche blogging is largely a trial and error pursuit, some niches work and some are a washout or need to be exploited in a specific way.
I have broadly looked at the areas of sport, travel and finance, and of these the finance niche has given the best results, but each blog has it's own market and personality stamped on it, so simply pointing to 'finance' as being a successful niche is really only a fraction of the story.
Any niche can be successful if approached in the right way, and the following points sum up my approach to this type of blogging for the future:

• It is far better to blog on a dot com with a strong branding which will help people to remember your URL without even using their 'favourites' - this is becoming increasingly difficult as more domains are being sold each day...
• Integrate monetisation and adverts into the blog so that they flow and look as professional as possible (Adsense etc..). Try to keep adverts/links within your niche.
• Have good resources available to use for research for your posts - but write everything in your own style with plenty of your own opinion and personality showing through the content. This includes any paid postings you might be doing. Customise your template so that you are not simply using a 'look' or template that your visitors will have seen before on a hundred other blogs.
• Don't forget to go and find like-minded blogs and sites, leave your comments and offer links and link exchanges to the best ones.

Using these methods I have discovered that you can get reasonable Adsense earnings from blogs, I was previously of the opionion that this was only possible with a full-blown website... I still do earn more from my website (I also get more traffic to my website), but I am discovering for the first time that I have at least one blog that is contributing well and enabling me to currently be paid by Google around once every two months or so. I will probably let this particular blog run for a few more months and then do some meaningful studies to see if there are specific lessons to be learned that I can share...

Job Description - who are you?

Job descriptions help to define us, not only in a work context but also in society as a whole. You can be sure that the nagging question a stranger will always want to ask you soon after starting your first conversation is 'What do you do?'
What they really want to know is what your job title is...

I happen to have a job that has multiple roles, I can be working on the technical side maybe on a construction site all kitted up with safety gear. I could be at my laptop submerged in a website adding content and optimising for SEO. I could be on the 'phone offering sales and technical support to our customers or in the workshop helping to develop new products...

I struggle when it comes to providing meaningful job descriptions as my role frequently changes not just from day to day but often hour to hour.

Quality car parts

Quality cars are worth keeping on the road, but few of us are in a position to buy one of these vehicles with a comprehensive warranty. Those that would like to own a car such as a Mercedes or BMW will often have to rely on aftermarket sales, and take a risk that the car has been well-maintained and is not about to need some major repair work done. The last thing you need to hear on your first trip to the garage is that you need a new Mercedes gear box or a BMW steering rack. That's where (if you are unlucky enough to need one) a non-dealer independent supplier can be invaluable.
Having the prestige auto is all very well, but paying dealer prices for the parts can be financially crippling. Those in the know will find a good source of replacement parts before buying a car that they cannot afford to run...

Do slimming pills work?

There are a host of slimming aids on the market and it is probably true to say that although all of them may aid weight-loss, not all weight issues can be solved by simple diet pills. Everyone serious about weight loss should first of all consider their intake of food and the amount of exercise that they take on a regular basis.
First of all, you should consider the fat and sugar content of the foods that you regularly eat and consider changing to healthier foods, cutting out some of the worst sugary and fatty foods altogether. Next you should look at introducing gently exercise into your daily routine building up into regular strenuous exercise over time. Vigorous regular exercise and good eating may mean that you don't have to take any steps towards a diet, after lifestyle change will be more effective than a crash diet. Only after looking at the food you eat and your exercise routine should you consider medication and then you should get the best medical advice you can before you start on a course of pills.

Earnings Sept '08

Much in line with recent months, September has yielded approx $100 in a mixture of paid postings on various sites and Adsense income which is an ever-improving source of revenue. I have received payment today for my latest Adsense earnings making this the third payout received in 2008 and am over half-way towards the next payout already.
A tiny proportion of monthly earnings can be attributed to surveys etc.. in view of the lack of significant contribution from these I will probably review these schemes after each one has actually reached payout.
I aim to have another blog on PPP hopefully sometime next month, which may give me more options for paid blogging. The main problem with earnings from blogs is that you can only make a reasonable level of earnings if you have a good number of blogs and the time to constantly update them. Currently I am running four reasonably active blogs, and one considerably less active, along with two websites which generate passive earnings - one of which should be regularly updated, but rarely can I find time to do it.
The $100 quoted covers earnings from blogs alone, other earnings include fixed adverts on various websites ($70) and other Adsense which probably nets altogether another $100 a month. I aim to look into increasing passive earnings again this month and have looked at three fixed-advert schemes to see whether I can squeeze any more income from these. I currently host a total of 11 fixed adverts on various pages which accounts for the $70 monthly income, I will post more about these schemes in the coming month.

Pop-up TV's

The world of entertainment is changing on an almost daily basis with the advent of flat screens, plasma TV's, digital TV signals, DVD, hard disk recorders and Blu-ray to name but a few recent innovations ...
In order to accommodate all this new kit, our living-rooms must change to suit the new equipment. The days when an entire corner of the room was dominated by the old cathode ray tube are gone, nowadays the flat screens are easily accommodated simply by hanging them on the wall like a mirror, or in one of these pop up tv custom-made cabinets, many of which actually incorporate a lifting mechanism which can be remotely activated. Ironically, these state of the art entertainment systems can now be incorporated into a high quality piece of furniture which itself is timeless and would fit seemlessly into decor that was centuries old.

Feeling Windy?

Latest survey from dNeero, my favourite survey people...
This survey looks at some of the practical aspects of alternative power sources and wind power in particular - get paid for completing and posting this simple seven-question multiple-choice survey (click below to start).
Like all of the recent dNeero offerings, you need to get your thinking cap on to think up a related question of your own right at the end of the survey.

PayPerPost too fussy?

Since PPP were no doubt the market-leaders about 12-18months ago, there was no problem with them making their 'posties' jump through hoops to get approved. You had to have a ninety-day old blog, there had to be so many posts and you could not have more than a 1:2 paid to non-paid ratio etc.. etc..
They seemed to relax their rulings a little after the great 'google slap' where, let's face it, having PPP on your blog was the main reason for losing PageRank. Presumably at that point PPP lost a lot of blogs and relaxed the rules to try to pump the numbers back up. I doubt whether many of the blogs that left have yet gained their PR back, but that's another story...I have found it a lot easier to complete PayU2blog opps in the meantime, they come thick and fast, and are very easy to complete and have very quickly proved to be at least as good at income generation as the slightly jaded PPP - plus they pay in two-week slots so you get paid a lot quicker than with PPP.
Due to the rate of paid posting on this blog generated by PayU2blog, PPP have deemed this to be against TOS and munny4hunny is no longer a PPP participant. Is this fair? Yes...why not their money, their rules. In the words of a well-known UK comedian: Am I bovvered? Well, I was a bit put out, but I am making very little from them and now at least I don't have to worry about their TOS and about placing the IZEA rankings code on my blog signalling to Google loud and clear that I am a paid blogger and don't deserve any PR!
Talking of IZEA, I don't know what you have found, but I have not found it to be a welcoming experience more of a totally confusing one, and couldn't even be bothered to do the one opp I was offered which was to post about how great IZEA is... I can see how they are trying to combine a social experience with paid posting opportunities, but the result is a site which honestly does neither thing terribly well - I have found other paid posting sites to be easier to use, and I have found other social sites to be better for finding like-minded acquaintances.

No holidays for a while....

In the current economic climate, and since we have decided to survive as a family on my income alone, we have not been even thinking about taking a foreign holiday for a few years. There is every chance that the holiday industry could be a casualty of both the credit crunch and the hike in oil prices, but for the majority of people the family holiday still remains a priority.
There was a point where we spent at least one holiday a year abroad in sunnier climes, and we have a list of friends abroad that we have promised to visit in the future.
I look forward to when we are financially strong enough to afford such a holiday in the future, and particularly look forward to one of those luxury cruises I have promised myself at some point...

Longer lasting vacuum cleaners

Sebo are marketing their vacuum cleaners as environmentally friendly because they last longer and therefore use less resources and produce less waste. This is a refreshing change from the 'throw-away' society that should be maturing into a 'greener' frame of mind.
There are many many consumer goods produced in the last four or five decades which have been made with an element of 'built-in obsolescence' which is no longer an acceptable way to produce goods if we are serious about preserving life on this planet in the longer term.
With this type of thinking, Sebo vacuum cleaners are showing the way froward for other producers who should take responsibility for producing better quality products that will lead to less waste and a better environment for all of us.

More diet pills?

I wonder if you can actually get fat by eating too many diet pills??
The prime factor in using a weight-loss product is that it be confirmed as safe and that it comes with well-defined instructions and a full diet-plan explaining how it should be used just like alli diet pills. I would urge folks not to just listen to hearsay and then go online to make a purchase based on rumor, but to do some proper research and get some good medical advice before putting any medication into your system.
The Alli diet pill system website is clear about when NOT to take their pills and even gives a full run down of the side effects that you might experience.

Letter to the Bank Manager

This made me laugh so hard...an elderly lady actually wrote this letter to her bank. The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in The Times:

Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with which I endeavoured to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three 'nanoseconds' must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it.

I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my Pension, an arr angement which, I admit, has been in place for only thirty eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account £30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways.

I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, re-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become. From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate.

Be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope.

Please find attached an Application Contact Status which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Solicitor, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof.

In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses required of me to a ccess my account balance on your phone bank service.

As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Let me level the playing field even further. When you call me, press buttons as follows:

1-- To make an appointment to see me.

2-- To query a missing payment.

3-- To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.

4-- To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.

5-- To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.

6-- To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.

7-- To leave a message on my computer (a password to access my computer is required. A password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorised Contact.)

8-- To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 8

9-- To make a general complaint or inquiry, the contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an
establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.



Your Humble Client

.....Even better when you know it was written by a lady who is 98 years old ! I pray that I will have half as much wit should I ever reach her age...

Pimp my ride

19However sad it might seem, I have to admit that one of my favourite shows on TV this year has been Pimp My Ride where some banged up motor is turned into a dream machine by a bunch of custom professionals. I often browse over to TMF to see when the next episode of Pimp my ride is going to be shown and love to settle down to watch the tansformation.
There are UK versions and US versions of the same show and both have pretty much the same format. The presenter starts at the door of the unsuspecting car owner with the news that their car is to be pimped, and their reaction is the first bit of entertainment especially as some of them don't hold back on expressing their delight!!
Then the presenter (Westwood in the UK Xibit in the US) drives the car back to the 'shop where they are greeted by whoops of derision from the mechanics. then the car is stripped to the chassis and totally rebuilt an repainted, reupholstered and has a whole load of gimmicks installed. Sometimes they get an airbrush paint job in a theme suited to the owner, they have some huge gleaming wheels fitted and maybe a games console or DVD player or mini PC fitted just for good measure. the show is rounded off by the resulting re-build being revealed to the owner and here is another chance for the owner to express their glee with various whoopings, quite a few choice expletives, some dance moves (one low-slung individual lost his pants in his celebratory dance...). The ecstatic owner then gets to drive his car back to show his friends who in turn express their disbelief - good wholesome entertainment with great feelgood factor..

Dreaming of rivers of wine...

I seem to be constantly reminded of the things I am missing since we have been living frugally, and the one thing I have been allowing myself as a treat now and again is a bottle of wine..
I got into wine at a late stage really, as I have never been a drinker in my younger days. I started off by trying white wine and finding it quite refreshing, I then graduated onto red wines. I began by working my way through French wines and finding them a bit 'hit and miss' when it comes to consistent quality. However, I then broke into New World wines and was converted on the spot, firstly by Californian wines and latterly by the wines of South East Australia. Now I am no wine buff by any stretch of the imagination, but I find Australian wines not only really tasty, but to be of supremely consistent quality. I have never yet found an Australian red wine that I disliked, even the relatively cheap ones...
One of the things I have promised myself when I am better off, is that I am going to join one of those wine of the month club schemes and have at least half a dozen wines delivered to my house each month - as long as I can find one that specialises in Australian wines, though I will take Californian if push comes to shove.

Bookworm

Recently I seem to spend a lot of my spare time taking my 'spare' PC apart and trying to make it better, or 'Googling' for articles that hep me understand how I can 'fix' it. I am one of those that like to badger away at something, so I will not be satisfied until it is the best I can make it.
This has a detrimental effect on other things I should be doing, such as the long list of DIY tasks for the house and garden.
What also suffers is my reading, I take a similar approach to reading as I do to any other task, once I start I like to devour the book as quickly as possible and generally get really caught up in the story. I also like to find the books from a single author and try to read them all. In this way I have read pretty much everything by Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and by John Grisham. I read them so intently that I am always disappointed when they end (apart from the Thomas Hardy ones, they are so depressing that I often want them to end sooner but I persevere nonetheless...).
Despite the fact that I was really bad at English Literature at school, at least a grounding was provided so that I could get 'into' books later in life when I had become a bit more patient. I believe there are therapeutic properties in calmly sitting down and reading a good book too.
In truth, I probably haven't read a book for more than a year - How about you? What sort of books do you read? Does it say something about you?

Ebaying

I have been doing a lot of eBaying lately selling of some stuff the little one doesn't use any more, and some stuff that I don't use any more... I like to take as professional approach as I can with my eBay sales. I email all purchasers to tell them that their goods are on the way. I always include some paperwork in the package, and I always pack the goods as well as I can.
I figure that I get a good buzz from a package that has been thoughtfully prepared, so I assume my clients will feel the same. I always use clean packaging where possible, and always try to find the original box and instructions for the item as that always gives the impression that you have looked after it well. All my sales go out in shipping boxes that give the right impression to make sure I keep that all important 100% satisfaction rating.

Earnings August 2008

If nothing else, earnings are steady for me month in - month out at the moment. I am averaging about $100 a month and this last month brought in $99.60. In a change of pattern, much more of these earnings are now attributed to adsense and I have reached payout again this month. I would still stress that the majority of my adsense earnings are NOT from blogs, but that balance is beginning to change and it seems that a decent niche blog may be able to yield reasonable adsense earnings - it's not going to make me rich unless I can manage 1000 good niche blogs at the same time, but I am seeing much better results even if Google are no longer including 'blogger' hosted 'dot com' blog keywords in their search results.
Earnings were scattered around paid blogging, adsense and surveys in that order. Surveys just come along when they are suitable so there is not much you can do about increasing activity there, so my focus will be to try to maximise paid posting (blogsvertise sprang back into life again for me this month having ignored me since December) and having a little PR on some of my blogs will help (but for how long??). Adsense is the real aim for me as there is nothing as pleasing as passive income, though to be fair the amount of work you need to do to even make a cent with adsense hardly qualifies as passive...

Making money online

Since I started my own 'make money online' project about two years ago, the dynamics for making money online have changed considerably. This has come about mainly through Google moving the goal-posts by punishing paid links.
Paid posting alone could net you a decent online second income in those days, but those that were doing paid posting are now forced to diversify. I have never been keen on 'paid to click' or paid to read' programs as I can't see any real benefit IE.. I wouldn't feel like I was contributing anything for the payment (also the pay sucks...). So my second stream has been paid surveys and I will talk through the schemes that I use or have used:
Ciao - I used to do these surveys and cashed out twice, but I became frustrated by the amount of times I would spend more than ten minutes on a survey only to find I was not eligible for the survey and would not get paid... The annoying thing was that it was always the same type of questions and if they paid any attention to my profile they would know full well that I would not be eligible for the survey - enough about them, I dumped 'em and will not be going back!
PureProfile - much better system where you get paid for filling out certain parts of your profile to start with and they use this data to filter the surveys you are sent. Not only this but they pay you a small amount even if you turn out not to be eligible to complete the survey. It may take me a while to reach payout, but the process is painless, no problems so far with PureProfile.
dNeero - this is a great scheme and likely to payout quicker than other schemes. the surveys are always short and easy to complete occassionally requiring you to sign up for something, but nothing too onerous. They pay you a set fee for the short survey, then you can earn more by posting the survey widget on a blog based on the traffic it receives. Not only that but you get paid a percentage of the earnings of your referrals. You get a referral when someone joins after clicking on a survey widget on your blog... like this one:

or if you send them an invitation email.
YouGov - The lastest scheme have tried... Like Pureprofile, they pay a small amount regardless of whether you are eligible for the survey and mostly they send surveys which are geared to your profile. Like PureProfile, I think it will take me a while to get to payout, but I have had no problem with this scheme so far...

Am I covered?

If you have seen one of those lists of 'things to do before you're thirty' or 'things to do before you die...' then you will no doubt have considered some of the more risky ventures proposed in those lists. Maybe you are hankering for a bungee jump or want to have a go at sky-diving?
If you've discussed it with colleagues or friends I bet somebody has piped up 'your insurance won't cover you for that!'.
On a more serious note, some medical conditions can make it very difficult to get insurance cover, and in these circumstances you may have to consider the benefits of high risk life insurance. after all, you can get insurance for more or less any circumstances, it's just that it may be more costly and you may have to shop around a bit to get the best deal...

Bedfordshire Uni Clearing 2008

It’s clearing time again, and a last chance to be considering a course in this coming school year. Once again the University of Bedfordshire will be recruiting via the clearing process from 14th August to the middle of September 2008. The University is rated highly for its’ Sports and Media courses which are proving increasingly popular, but is diverse enough to be very well regarded for its’ courses in Journalism, Law and Business. Over the last few years a lot of investment has gone into the university facilities to make the University of Bedfordshire one of the leading educational institutions in the area.
If you are thinking of taking a course, why not give them a ring on their free-phone number and take it from there…

University of Bedfordshire - Clearing 2008 on 0800 013 0925

Mozilla Email client

One of the things that I needed to do when I was trying to recover my online life after the failure of my main PC was to retrieve my emails with POP3 access as opposed to internet emails. I set up some accounts using MS Outlook Express, but for my online income mail I tend to use MS Outlook too.
It was easy enough to recover connection details (although I couldn't recover addresses or the mail archive) for Outlook Express and was up and running in no time. The version of Outlook that I had on my spare PC though was sufficiently different to my current version for me to end up in a frustrating loop whilst trying to set it up. So I took the step of deciding to dump Outlook and try out Mozilla Thunderbird.
Thunderbird turned out to be easy to download and set up and packed with some great features including automatic detection of junk mail. It looks and feels very much like the Outlook software and many of the features and set up are shared. I didn't get a chance to try email rules (which I like to use for spam), but am sure that Thunderbird functionality is at least as good as the Outlook family - and it is of course, completely free!
So Firefox and Thunderbird, two great pieces of free software but where do they get the names? Something from nature combined with an animal: Fire-Fox, Thunder-Bird what other names could Mozilla utilise - how about Mozilla WaterFrog or Mozilla TyphoonBat? Sure beats 'outlook' and 'internet explorer' for imaginative naming anyhow...
Of course Linux users will have been using this software for a long time, and there are more email programs out there that are probably worth mentioning, but if you use Windows in some form the chances are that you will be using the default MS software. I am here to say that there are good reasons to step outside the box and consider other software providers. Next to MS, Mozilla are probably one of the prime most-trusted software providers and all their software is free. If you take the plunge you may be surprised at how good this software is - and if you think MS software is free (because it was pre-loaded onto your PC) just take a look at the price of MS software disks in your local computer shop...

Why Acne?

Acne is a subject that most people are aware of without any in-depth knowledge. For instance, we usually associate acne with teenagers going through puberty, but it can have an effect in later life too.
The basic cause is blockage of the follicles and can be seen primarily on the face, the back, chest and upper arms. Why it is that some people are affected more than others is not clear but could be linked to genetic makeup, stress, ingested medication (including steroids) and factors affecting hormonal activity.

What every man wants...

Call it mid-life crisis if you like, but what man doesn’t get to the stage where he thinks ‘Hmmm a Harley….I could probably afford one of those now…’.
That of course is the sentiment of a white-collar worker, a blue-collar worker may already have an almost-assembled Electra Glide in his garage which has been there for a decade already and has just needed those one or two all-important Harley parts for most of that duration. In many cases your white collar worker will move on and end up with a motor home instead, and the blue collar half-built Harley in the garage will probably end up on eBay someday. the few however, could end up like the guy in the picture...
Such is the stuff of dreams and romance for your average man entering the middle age.

My PC adventures

I am pleased to report the the PC that I created from old parts and a £10 motherboard from eBay has been working perfectly (if not a little slowly) whilst my main PC has been at the menders...
I got a call from the computer shop to say that he had a spare mobo with CPU and RAM left over from a recent upgrade (ironic because the 'old' kit left over from the upgrade was actually better than my original one..). He fitted the new mobo and got it all running for a grand total of £50 which I am more than pleased with.
I have three new 512MB SDRAM chips coming from eBay to add the final touches to my spare PC and I am considering putting another GB of RAM onto my recently refurbished main machine. I was mightily relieved to find that we didn't need to reload the Operating system and all my programs and data are intact..but the lesson is learned and I was glad of the trial run at recovering my online 'life' after a major PC crash. One thing I discovered is that certain parts of my backup system had not been working properly, so that has been all put to rights now. I can certainly see the value of having a 'spare' PC and keeping it up to date in case the same type of thing happens again, and you don't need to spend much to acheive this. Another discovery is that actually computers are not as scary to fix as you might think, and OK we are not getting down to component-level here, but when you consider that parts that make up the whole, ths system is relatively simple to grasp.
Maybe I will start building that dual-core machine...the only thing that stops me is that it is so damn cheap to buy on off the shelf anyway at todays prices.

Moving on from text-speak..

The latest dNeero survey introduces the idea of using images to convey a meaning for those that find typical internet abbreviations or text-speak a bit of a turn off.
The 'talk it up' survey involves a new website that allows you to create visual messages online and then send them to your freinds. Is this the type of service you would enjoy using, are you fed up with text-speak... Well RU ??
Have your say by joining in the conversation and being compensated for your trouble...

Formula one push chairs

The culture around children has changed out of all recognition in the last few decades whether it be as targets for the lastest games and gadgets (PSP, Wii, X-Box etc...) or the amount of effort that now goes into producing some thing like the Maclaren stroller. The equipment that your child wears or travels in is now under scrutiny for development in terms of state-of-the-art materials, technology and most of all...fashion.
In years gone by, the teenager emerged as a target for producers to create products such as the Sony Walkman. In more recent times, this target has widened to include Nike trainers for those that can't yet walk... As with everything, there are upsides and downsides. On the downside is the proportion of our diminishing disposable income that is now ring-fenced by toddler-funding. On the upside is that push-chairs riddled with carbon-fibre and proper tyres with air in them are quite pleasant to use.

A bit fishy....

Well everyone has to have a hobby, and if you take your hobby seriously, you will spend time and money in the pursuit of it. Combining a hobby with a pet or pets is a neat way to have a hobby with added interest. If that involves an aquarium, then it's guaranteed that this is a pursuit that will keep you happy at home, apart from those frequent trips to the aquarium store.
In fact there is a lot of technology involved in keeping a good quarium going, and my preference is to consume rather than observe sea-creatures. However I can see the attraction of maintaining the best conditions to keep those beatiful tropical fish healthy and happy. There is the cleaning and the aeration of the tank to consider, the lighting and heating too. It's not just a case of whether to go for the sunken galleon or the figureine of King Canute resting on the bottom of the aquarium.
I prefer the great outdoors myself and would plump for a dog rather then a home-bound pet, but then you have to spend a lot of time exercising a dog, so the fish are starting to look more attractive.

Budget Software

No, not a post about cheap programs, but a post about budgeting software. In the days of tightening finances, we need all the help we can to run a tight financial ship. It's not just our personal budgetting that we will need to be creative with, businesses that don't budget will not survive the coming recession.
The current financial crisis will result in less spending which means that the businesses that survive will be those offering the best value for money whilst still being able to make a healthy profit. Businesses that have got fat and lazy in past years will find themselves squeezed out of the market. Sharpen your pencils if you want to be trading in two years time...

Ups and downs

I have had one of those 'good news..bad news' weeks this week:

Good News.. I reached payout from Google Adsense for the third time this year and am already three-quarters of the way towards my next payout.
Bad News.. I lifted something far too heavy at work and have suffered chronic pack pain all week.

Good News.. I successfully fitted a 'previously enjoyed' Motherboard and CPU to an old PC, upgrading (just a little project really) from a 300mHz P2 to a 533Mhz Celeron to use as my 'spare'.
Bad News.. I managed to 'blow' the Motherboard on my main PC when fiddling with the RAM. So now I am using my spare as my main PC while it is getting fixed by someone who knows what they are doing!!

Not such a bad week when considering that I will have had a welcome cash injection (even if I have to pay it all out on a new MOBO..), and my back is getting better. Overall Adsense performance seems good at the moment with one of my blogs in particular getting some good PPC results (Hey you CAN make Adsense on a blog!!).
I am also happy that the PC upgrading project went OK, I have not exactly brought my old PC into the 21st Century, but I have brought it through from 1995 to about 1998, and the MOBO only cost me £10 ($20) on eBay including postage... Maybe I will attempt a dual core next time!

Looking for another dollar...

Since paid blogging is getting harder and Adsense doesn't really bring home very much bacon, other avenues for earning cash via the internet will no doubt become popular.
Maybe you will be tempted into Forex or and futures trading but these particular routes involve an element of financial risk which does not appeal to me. My views on risk investment is that you should only get involved if you are using money that you can afford to lose, and that definitely isn't me!
That said, the current financial crisis will prove to be a big earner for some lucky investors, and if you gauge the market right, you could end up profiting from the credit crunch.

July 2008

My blogging earnings for July have been $147 raised from a variety of sources including PPP, PayU2Blog, Creamaid and Adsense. My Adsense earnings have been building nicely, I think last time I got paid, there was already about $30 in the pot towards my next payout - this time there will be $70 already in the pot so I am hoping to get paid out much quicker this time. I should point out of course that the majority of my Adsense earnings comes from sources other than blogs... although my newer blogs have contributed recently.
I also get payouts from fixed adverts which raise around another $50 per month, and the occassional privately requested advert/text link which sometimes brings in an extra $40 or $50. I have been impressed this month with the amount of traffic that it is possible to drum up via StumbleUpon, and next month I am going to try another method of raising traffic levels and generally pursue some networking ideas to build up 'readership' of my various blogs.

PC update

My 'one-step-at-a-time' approach to PC maintenance has proved quite successful so far and I am installing Windows onto my newly 'created' PC today. I still have some extra RAM and a spare hard-drive coming from eBay auctions next week, bringing my total expenditure on this project to about £50/$100. This is not the first time I have embarked on this type of project, and am happy to say that without the cost-cutting advantage that eBay offers, there is no way that I would even attempt this type of PC customisation..
There is still the chance that this project could fall flat on it's face, but the fact that I may get a perfectly workable PC that will probably be twice as quick as it's previous incarnation, is worth the £50 spent even if I end up just learning a lot more from the experience and end up dumping the PC.

Strange brew

The world seems full of potions and medications and treatments to correct defects caused mostly by our unhealthy society. Along with the myriad diet plans, come the fat burner, the anti-aging cream and the little blue pill...
It is as if we can fix every little quirk with some treatment or other. You can even get a cream for if you have dry skin around the heel of your foot (as if it mattered..). I have noticed that the market has turned it's attention to men in the last few years. In my book real men couldn't care less about wrinkles and grey hair, but it's clear from the advertising that I have got it all wrong.
I'm not even concerned about wrinkles openly displayed by the fairer sex and am frankly more disconcerted when confronted with those elderly women who appear to have a face made from extra taut cling-film with a trout pout stuck on top.
I digress..... the market (especially the internet) is awash with tablets and powders, potions and creams, would it be too revolutionary to say 'lets eat properly and do some exercise'?

TV Lifts

The sheer size of the modern TV means that you have to put some real thought into how you are going to mount the thing in whichever room you intend to view it. The modern TV doesn't just sit in the corner of the room any more, it is often the centerpiece of the room, mounted impressively as the main feature. This is when you might start to consider tv lifts and dedicated furniture and fittings specifically designed to integrate your new modern flat screen HDTV into your living area.

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

PageRank explained?

Each time I do about about Google and/or PageRank, I feel as though I have not gone into enough depth. I cannot gauge how much or how little a reader might already know, and it seems to me, with the confusion surrounding these two mystical entities, that some background might be helpful...
Pagerank was originally developed at Stanford University by Larry Page later aided by Sergey Brin. Most people think (myself included) on first hearing the term, that the 'page' part of it refers to a web page whereas in fact this refers to it's originator.
The concept behind pagerank is to predict the likelihood of a random click on an internet link finding a specific URL. This is determined by the amount of links pointing to the specific URL, and also the perceived 'quality' of that link. The point of the exercise was to develop a search engine, and Google emerged from this project in 1998.
Pagerank 'compares' pages on the worldwide web, so ranking is always relative, rather than absolute, ranking is dynamic changing each time new pages are added to the web or new links are added to pages.
Via search 'bots' (small programs 'sent' out to crawl the web), a link can be examined and the originator page of that link is also assessed. If the originator page is weighted under the Pagerank system, the page it points to benefits from that weighting. All links are taken into account and a value is eventually assigned between 0 and 10. The hysteresis used for this weighting is always a closely guarded secret, and the precise calculation is always subject to 'tweaking' as new trends come and go.
In order for a page to receive a ranking, it must at least be linked to another page that is already visited by the 'bots' otherwise they will never 'find' it...Hence the quickest way to get a rank is not to submit your site to Google, but simply get a link from another page (preferably one that is visted frequently). The most popular and frequently updated sites are re-visited by these web crawlers several times a day, more static sites may not get a visit for weeks...
The last point I want to address is that YES Google uses PageRank to ascertain a SERP (Search engine results position) for given search keywords, but this is only one of a number of factors taken into account. This means that it is still possible for low Pageranked sites to get high search positions for their niche keywords.
I hope I have turned some fresh ground here, I am aiming NOT to be too repetitive, but feel free to leave a comment if you think I bang on too much about Google...

More Memory

Wouldn't it be great if we could upgrade our brain memory and processor speed the same way that we can with a PC or laptop? Some time ago I went through the process of upgrading my PC with the proceeds of my internet earnings. I am currently looking to buy a new power supply now as the old one doesn't appear to be able to cope with all my upgrades(!!).
There is no doubt that you can seriously enhance your computer by adding in some upgrades here and there, though admittedly there is more you can do with a PC, you can also get laptop memory or a larger hard-disk to help your laptop to keep up with newer models.
The desktop offers better opportunities for upgrading, I even had to have a new motherboard at one point, in fact I don't suppose there's much of the original PC left at all now!

Firefox 3

Well I have been using this for about a week or so now and can happily report that Firefox 3 appears to live up to it's hype. I am sure that there are thousands of tweeks and tricks that I could use, but I am not one to spend hours customising a browser...
The hype was that it would be faster than the previous version, which from experience I would say is probably right. Certainly some sites now seem to load up far quicker than previously. It is also supposed to be more secure, but seeing as I have very few problems with Firefox 2 security, I am not the best user to make a judgment.
What I have noticed is that there is a nice fresh modern look to the new browser, there are new icons and I have noticed some enhanced features when it comes to displaying favicons - I notice that sites like 'Paypal' have added their name to the favicon which I think looks quite good.
I am a big fan of Firefox and the new version does not have me hankering after the previous version which is always a plus..

Short-term borrowing

Short-term borrowing can be expensive, but payday loans say that if borrowers pay off their debt before payday, they won’t have to pay any interest.
This sort of borrowing should be thoroughly costed before taking the plunge and should not be considered if you won’t have the means to pay it off quickly. Ensure that you are aware of all the fixed and variable costs.
Most of us would turn to savings or credit cards for emergency cash, but if these are not options open to you and ease of access and speed of processing are your priority, and cost is not so significant then this type of borrowing could be the answer.
All types of borrowing have their advantages and disadvantages, and all can be beneficial, but please also be aware that any kind of debt can become a significant burden.

Audio Racks

I am a self-confessed audio-phile I just love all things audio from Hi-Fi systems, cd players, tape decks, DAT and DAB. I even had a go at building speakers until I realised that they cost more to make than to buy - still satisfaction cannot be purchased...
Audio is still important to me as I run a sideline in turning cassettes into CD's. I am planning (always planning, never doing) to gut my home office and install some nice shelving, some decent office furniture and some audio racks so that I can listen while I work. I have already transferred my entire CD collection to hard disk, so once I link my PC up to my Hi-Fi I won't even have to go and find that elusive CD that I know is around the house somewhere.

Promoting your blog

Always on the lookout for ways to publicise my blog and raise interest in my posts, I discovered Zimbio last week and feel that it could be an interesting way to promote a blog especially in a niche category.
Firstly your register your URL or feed (I used my feed) and all your recent posts are uploaded into your profile. Each posts is listed and you can add your posts to existing 'wikizines' that might exist, or create your own niche wikizines in the hope that others might add content to them. I think the new wikizines do not go 'live' unless others add their content.
All your posts appear in a 'queue' and you can go through ewach one adding them to different exisiting content to publicise them, or deleting ones (paid posts maybe?) that you don't have categories for....
This seems like a great idea to draw readers to your content and also to do networking and easily find blogs within your niche. I think that this is a really well-thought out scheme that offers something useful to every blogger and qualifies as a 'no-brainer' in my book!
Not merely a good idea, but well-presented too in a professional looking site that appears to work really well. It was easy to add content and to attribute it to the right wikizines, and even starting your own wikizines was simplicity itself. I only hope that others pick up on my themes...

Property Market Report

With the property market in a state of flux, it is difficult to know whether there is any profit in domestic property acquisition or commercial real estate. The commercial and domestic property markets seem to move as one, with no real distinction. The buy-to-let market in the UK is a dead duck at the moment, and from what I can tell, the ‘buy-to-renovate’ enthusiasts are having a really hard time producing a profit for all their efforts.
I am convinced however, that property remains a good investment for the long-term, short-term is a very different matter.

Diet pills? me??

I for one am the last person to talk to about diet pills as I seem to be unable to put weight on whatever I eat. I have been the same weight for as long as I can remember and never have to hit the scales, if I do, I am delighted if I happen to be heavier than the last time I looked. I guess not many people can say that…
I eat plenty and all the wrong things, but recently I have tried to make the effort to eat less chocolate (as I can’t really afford to eat as much as I would like to!) and more fruit. I am always looking for something to do and relaxation does not come easily – that’s the down-side of burning off all those calories naturally.

I have been bad...

I have taken my eye off the ball completely through my own fault... I know that I have to try and rationalise my on-line activities to make them more manageable, but what did I do? I had an idea...
I set out with the intention of writing a post about credit cards and the credit crunch. This quickly turned into a 1500 word article which has taken on a life of it's own and miraculously turned into a website called The Credit Cruncher ... Just when I thought I should be pruning back some internet activity, I now have another project to take up my limited time.
The good thing is that I want to make the new site more of a static thing than a conventional blog so there shouldn't be the need for daily posts. In the meantime, I have written little for my other sites so I must make up for it now....
I am behind on all of my other projects to the extent that I haven't even posted about earnings for May 2008 yet...Suffice to say that earnings were reasonable at about $130, Payu2blog being the most profitable paid to blog system, for me at the moment. I am earning with a couple of survey schemes and hope to be able to take some cash earnings out of Dneero surveys soon (payout $20) I will be more diligent at the end of June!

Summer is here

It's time for suncream and ice cream, swimsuits and sunshine, I have already spent three glorious days on the beach this month and am looking forward to more... We have to take the sun whenever we find it in the UK as our Summers can be a little elusive.
I am fortunate in that I am only about fifteen minutes away from the sea, and only about half an hour from the nearest sandy beach, so when the weather beckons I can head on down to the sand dunes... the wonderful thing about the beach is that you aren't supposed to do very much other than lie there and occasionally paddle in the sea or build a sand-castle. Other places that you visit require you to do stuff and walk round looking at things - the seaside offers true relaxation as long as you don't mind real sand in your sandwiches.

Brand Loyalty

The latest dNeero survey is all about brand loyalty. What makes you buy the same brand every time? How loyal are you to the brands that you habitually buy? Are you more loyal to some things than others - take part in the survey and earn a little cash...

The Credit Crunch

Don't panic... the biggest impact of the credit crunch will probably be limited to the select unlucky 'few'. These few will be those that not only slip into negative equity, but also lose the ability to make their mortgage payments. If you think there's a chance of this happening to you then you should talk to a financial advisor or your mortgage lenders.
The knock-on effects however may be more widespread in terms of available credit - more people are being turned down for credit cards, and if possible, I would urge everyone to start to manage any credit card debt that you might have more effectively. If things get really tricky, you may find this debt becoming more of a burden especially in the current climate of rising prices and static wages.

Holiday Season

As the holiday season starts to get into swing, the trend to design and plan your own holiday is growing each year. Of course this is possible simply through the magic of the internet which opens up a world previously dominated by travel agents.
What you can miss when you 'do your own thing' is the expertise and local knowledge that is provided as a matter of course through local agents of the travel company. The internet once again can bridge this gap through the prominence of on-line travel guide and advice. It is important to gather as much information about your destination to make sure that you are not missing out on hidden treasures. Both online and hard-copy travel guides are an invaluable source for intrepid holiday makers forging their own way around the world.

Holiday madness

I have been away for a week and have just found it so hard to get back into the swing of things... My first day back at work and I was ready to go home at 2pm, I couldn't believe there was another three and half hours of the working day left!
We had a very relaxing week in an apartment - we prefer to go to holiday apartments rather than cheap hotels if possible, although hotels do have the edge when it comes to housekeeping! Out of the seven days away, we managed three days on the beach where we were able to really relax - unfortunately, the holiday is over and I now have a mass of 'catching-up' to do.
I have come home to a pile of work both of my own and from my 'real' job, plus I have a load of posts to make on three of my more active blogs to cover the holiday gap - not least of which is my 'May earnings' post which is going to be late....

A good fit

Merrell shoes are reputed to fit right out of the box... and few people appreciate how crucial a good fit is when it comes to footwear. I have had personal experience of shoe-fitting for some years, and I can't stress enough how important it is that children's shoes especially are fitted correctly.

You can do an immense amount of harm to children's feet since their bones are so malleable and will mold to whatever footwear you provide. You can disfigure young feet simply by allowing them to wear their left shoe on their right foot and their right on their left for too long. - Please DON'T try this at home!

Personally, even though I am not flush with spare cash, I will always have my child's shoes fitted properly, some things are worth skimping on...

Attaining the goal

Sports awards, Sales performance or Pop-quizzes - all of these traditionally have rewarded their winners with engraved plaques and trophies - I have a stack of sports awards from when I was at school - pity there were no academic awards to go alongside them...
Nowadays, the awards are that much smarter with better graphics, holograms and moving parts. With the encroachment of the computer into all things graphical, the latest trophies are somewhat different to their predecessors.
Why not set your own goals in whatever area you want to achieve - when you reach those goals, reward yourself... Your reward may be something you can enjoy here and now (chocolate, bottle of wine...), something you have yearned for (iPod, HDTV...) or you could even buy yourself a trophy to place on a shelf to remind you of your achievement...

New Blogger features

Every so often it's worth lingering on the blogger dashboard page to read about the new developments - this can be a rich source of things you didn't know your blogger blog could do. Over time, the blogger coders work hard to bring us the kind of features that are available on other platforms.
The last important announcement was the future posts feature, this week I noticed that there is a new optional feature on it's way - Star Ratings... At the moment a glitch has accidentally enabled this feature on some unsuspecting blogs and an explanation has been posted here...
Seems like there is star rating feature on the way that will allow your blog to carry a rating... yet another thing to display, but seems like it could be useful if only for making you feel better about losing your PageRank.... this has currently been disabled whilst they sort the glitch out.
I am interested to see how this will pan out, presumably we will be able to rate the blogs that we visit as good bad or mediocre.

Posting gifts

Father's Day is coming up and I usually just send a card (when I remember..) as I live about 120 miles away from my parents. On this occasion, having just been on holiday, I will be sending some gift chocolate because it is easy to package up and post.
This got me thinking about the development of slim, lightweight feature-packed goods that now dominate our culture. There are a whole army of electronic goods such as mobile phones, ipods, pen-drives and the like which would make great gifts and are cheap to post around the country and even around the world.
In this case, I am sure the chocolate will be appreciated anyhow....