The downside of the interactive web...

I am old enough to remember the hype around 'Web 2.0' some years ago when interaction started to creep into websites. The practice of leaving comments on articles and starting conversations crept into our lives and we ended up with the facebook generation that has bought us life lived out on a page...Social media suddenly took flight.
Now, I find Facebook a great way to keep in touch with far-flung friends, but I notice that other people tend to use it as a forum for discussion, which could be positive, but in my experience often results in insulting 'troll-like' behaviour. This is the downside of the interactive web, you give people a voice, and they will abuse it. This is why countries like the UK do NOT have 'free speech' as a right - it's because we understand that some people just shouldn't be allowed to voice their opinions as they don't have the social grace to understand how an inclusive society works. One of the worst offenders that I have seen is Yahoo where they allow users to comment on news - and they do just that. For example, I was just reading an article about recent lottery winners, comments were peppered with petty ill-disguised jealousy, some chose to roundly abuse the winners commenting on their appearance and suggesting that the male of the couple could now get himself a younger wife... No doubt, very funny if you are currently on school holidays and just graduating into long trousers, but of course each comment carries equal weight once it is posted. Added to this is then the opportunity to give a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down to each comment - this interactive feature is subject to the same inane activity. One poster remarked 'Fair play to them, I really hope they enjoy it..' within a short time, two people had give a thumbs-down to this pleasant even-handed comment suugesting that there are at least two people reading the comments who hope that the happy couple DON'T enjoy their win.
I would prefer to stay out of these stupid spats, but I'm afraid I did jump in with 'What idiot gives a thumbs down for that?' (I got a thumbs up, but expect worse to follow..).
My feeling is that I know exactly why people do that, it's because we have some incredibly small-minded people out there - the internet makes it worse because the idiots who are too scared to be rude to your face are really brave when you don't have a chance of finding out who they are. I assume that the 'trolls' mask their identities, and if you are going to take part in these discussions, then I recommend that you do the same. By calling them 'trolls' we are lumping them all together, but in reality we are talking about a range of people. Some are ignorant, biggoted people, some are just idiotic nasty kids - both of these look the same on the internet and can be spotted by bad spelling and grammar. Others are sociopaths who have no idea of how to behave or interact with others, some have deep-held but basically flawed beliefs (conspiracy theorists and the like) who just love to bang their drum. Many are probably an amalgamation of the above.
This is the price of Web 2.0, you can't really stop it but I would offer the following guidelines:

• Don't put stuff in your online profiles that might be traceable (email addresses, phone numbers etc..)
• Don't get too embroiled in an argument because it may turn out you are arguing a serious point with a couple of 11-year olds... be prepared to walk away from the discussion if things are going in an unsavoury direction.
• Mark down or report posts that go againt the TOS of the site concerned - blow the whistle on the trolls.
• Be caureful about linking your comments into other social medai sites (loads of places like Yahoo will do this if you are not careful) -

criminal background check

The employment market has changed over the last decades, and now a background check such as can be got from criminal background check easybackgrounds would not be an unusual request. Employers can afford to be more careful about who they employ, and are more likely to look into an applicants background before employing them. In some jobs, this would now be part of the normal vetting process in contrast to how appointments may have been made previously.

Great year of sport

The 2012 Olympic games has proved a thrilling event for the local GB crowd as well as as a global sporting spectacle, with little more than the closing ceremony to come, the games has proved successful on all levels.
The support has been tremendous with sell-out crowds at many many events, everyone (apart from the sulky few) in the UK have been well behind the success of the games even though many were skeptical before they began.
We have enjoyed great sights including a couple of World Records broken, some legends (Usain Bolt to name one) established as kings (and queens) of their sport, and a generally wholesome and safe experience was had by all.
Congratulations for the London Olympic organisational team, the GB team participants, all other nations that took part and the supporters than came from near and far to make the event so special.
Right, when does the football season start?

1200 and counting

I have just posted my 1200th post on Munny4Hunny which seems like quite a lot even in 5 years. This is the most prolific of my blogs, so no surprise that it has many more posts than my others, still 1200 is quite a lot... Things have changed over the years, and in the main, potential earnings have slowed down.
Paid posting has changed since the days when Pay Per Post were the 'Daddy' and hours were spent trawling for opportunities on a daily basis to find the 'fattest' opps. Google has responded especially to viral linking which enabled bloggers to 'game' technorati links. Inevitably, like the dot-com's, the bubble burst but we have not been left completely without opps.

It used to be quite acceptable to mention the paid to blog companies alongside the paid posts, but with paid posting becoming increasingly twitchy about upsetting Google, this is no longer encouraged - making it diffcult to discuss paid blogging on a blog that actually includes paid posts.

There remains the question over whether Google should be so picky about paid posting when it has it's own 'Adsense' scheme for companies to advertise themselves on web-sites and blogs, but that's an argument I have examined a few times, and I'm not one of the 'Google bashers'who believes they are harbingers of evil, but I do beleive their stance is somewhat contradtictory and slightly monopolistic. Nevertheless I continue to be paid for Adsense and other adverts, so I continue to be happy for everything to carry on as it is... They also own blogspot and allow us to use it for free, so it's all good...

Bubble Machine

Summer 2012 is a pretty exciting time, and what better time to have a wedding or a big party for all your friends.You can have your own dj bubbles at your party, get a big rig in and rock the house, or just have a quiet BBQ at home with family and/or friends.
I have to say, as I get older, the smaller and quieter a party is, the more attractive I find it... up to a point of course...

I would never advocate having a loud BBQ unless you can hold it in a secluded location, but nothing wrong with a bit of bunting, some funky lights and your very own bubble machine to set the right atmosphere.

On yer bike

Recently, my frugal living has been taking some serious knocks, and deciding to re-fit the home office didn't help. Really the whole thing is down to attitude and resolve, my resolve has softened somewhat lately and credit card bills have grown again.

I don't really know how this issue will be resolved accept by some 'austerity measures' of my own - however this week (in this glorious weather we have been having) I have been cycling to work. I recently 'invested' in a bike from eBay because my little one has learnt to ride her bike and we have been cycling around the locality. What better then, than to use this 'investment' by using it to travel to work (it takes less than 15 minutes to get to work, regardless of whether I go by car or by bike..). The summer months are ideal for this because the traffic on the roads is quite bearable, the journey to and from work when the schools are in, is a very different matter..

One other way that I can get some capital back is by monetising all the laptop parts that I have after my experiment with laptop fixing. I have a fairly large stock of saleable items that just need sorting out. We are getting another 'free' holiday this year courtesy of a friend with a holiday home - although a free holiday always end up being quite costly because you can't really go on holiday without spending a bit of cash...even if it costs nothing to go in the first place.

Time for a change

I was recently prompted to look at this blog and see if I could 'streamline' it a little. There was a suggestion that side-bar text-links can become a problem because they are in every 'page' and they generate hundreds of 'spammy' looking links. I was reluctant to remove them at first, but I figured that this blog could probably do with a spring clean so why not remove all of the clutter from the sidebar.

My foray into the blogger template editor has resulted in a slight colour scheme change (grey to contrast better with the bright red), and a thorough 'weeding out' of the sidebar.

This is post no:1198 on Munny4Hunny, and marks yet another facelift, although only a very subtle one compared with ones I have been though in the past. The image included here is one of the first banners that I designed for this blog over five years ago. A lot of text has been typed since then, and a few dollars have been amassed too.. which makes the whole project that much more worthwhile.

Spanish Weather

It is not often that you can compare UK weather with spanish weather, but this week is turning out to be one of those freak occurrences that British weather likes to throw our way every once in a while. We are now entering Summer holiday season with the schools breaking up, and many UK families will be setting their sights on the Spanish coasts where the weather is more reliable than what we are used to at home.

Offering up to 14-day forecasts, the 'SpanishWeather.net' website could prove to be a valuable tool for working out whether 'the rain in spain will be mostly on the plain' or if it's shorts and tee-shirts all the way for the duration of your holiday. The website offers some background information about Spain in general as a holiday destination, and then goes on to offer 3,5,7,10 and 14 day forecasts for hundreds of locations around Spain. It also offers average monthly temperature and rainfall data for each of these areas - in fact I would go as far as to say that nowhere on the 'net is such a comprehensive set of weather data available in such an accessible format.

Summer is coming to the UK

Just in time for the Olympics... we are finally due for some scorching weather next week after what seems like months of continual rain. I watched the GB football team on TV last night bravely taking on Olympic favourites Brazil in their first ever game (GB have not had a team at the Olympics before as the separate nations that make up GB have always retained their own identity and therefore not been able to compete). GB lost 2 -0 but for a first ever performance, there were some positives to take from the game...

This year, as a family, we had not had any solid plans for a vacation, but we were offered a week in a very plush mobile home at the end of August just last week, so now we have something to look forward to. I am seriously considering putting some cash aside next year for a visit to Disneyland Paris as a treat for my daughter, but we'll see how that plan goes...

Stroller website

Although (when our little one was a toddler) we didn't get our stroller from a stroller website, we certainly had good use out of it.
The reason that it was so useful is that we had a fully-loaded pram with covers and all-sorts, but for quick trips, the stroller was so much lighter and easier to handle that it quickly became a favorite of ours.
The stroller was so much easier to collapse and stick in the back of the car than the full pram, that we ended up rarely using the pram at all.

Car bike racks

We have to seriously consider car bike racks this year as my daughter has really got 'into' cycling since the beginning of the year.
We are likely to be holidaying 'locally' again, which means we will need a means of taking the bikes with us to get the most out of a 'home grown' holiday.
I have had to buy a bike for myself so that I can keep up with her - if it was just her bike, we could probably get it in the car without any problems, but if I'm taking my bike too, then we are definitely going to need a rack of some sort..

Will Facebook live up to expectations?

I think it is probably now fairly evident that the launch of Facebook as a public limited company was vastly over-hyped, with punters mistaking 'popularity' for commercial opportunity. The public just love Facebook as a social interactive tool, of that there is no doubt - one the other side of the coin, it will be possible to make money from such a social interactive tool as long as it does not become overly commercial.

Advertising is the key here, and in the case of Facebook, 'targeted' advertising based on all sorts of variables that can be identified from a profile or activity of an individual. While this company offers a fairly unique way to target advertising, one still has to question the value of advertising to an increasingly web-savvy, skeptical public - many of whom will be difficult to reach as they will be using mobile devices which offer less opportunity for adverts.

I think in general, pricing of the company was largely driven by sentiment and excitement rather than hard-nosed commercial instinct, and I can understand that as a bit of a Facebook fan myself. In the cold hard light of day, it is clear that the company was over-priced. Whether owning a little chunk of the social phenomenon is enough of a reward for some investors is difficult to gauge, but for me FB as a social tool is great, as a commercial model, it's good, but will always have to hold back on all-out commercialism at the risk of losing it's only asset - fickle internet users.

Challenge coins

I recently came across challenge coins on the net when looking for a resource for commemorative medals. I had not really considered coins as an alternative to a medal or small trophy until I took a look at some of the fabulous designs that they had come up with for their various clients.

This could also be a great commercial marketing tool especially if the coins were introduced in a collectable series.

Bulova watches

Although I really admire the rich design of bulova watches, I doubt whether I will be buying one during the 'frugal stage' of my working life. I truly hope and expect that this stage will pass and one day I will be able to spend a little more freely than I can currently. In the meantime I have to admire such luxuries from a safe distance..
I have not managed finances particularly well over the last year or so, allowing the credit card bills to pile up. I think I need to follow some of my own frugal advice a little more closely

Summer 2012

Summer has been a complete washout so far in the UK, we have already recorded the wettest June since records began, and so far, July is heading the same way. The Olympics will be with us in a few short weeks, so hopefully there is not much more rain coming - on the plus side, any concerns about a shortage of water earlier in the year, have proved to be premature...
So far, the summer of sport has proved moderately successful with the England team doing better than anticipated in the Football European Championships (quarter-finals) and Andy Murray getting to the final of Wimbledon for the first time. We have plenty of sport to come, and hopefully some of the events will bring gold to the GB team on their own turf.

Professional liability insurance

The cost of insurance has risen dramatically over the last few years, and most companies are now shopping around for the best professional liability insurance deals. I know of companies that have recently stopped their more 'risk-prone' activities because they can't afford the insurance. Some companies will be forced to cease trading, lay workers off or even operate without insurance in extreme circumstances. Shopping around is always a good way to keep your costs down, especially where the temptation is just to keep the same service providers year after year - you have to be competitive in the current market, so getting the best deal makes good sense.

Value of fresh water pearls

The value of fresh water pearls is based on the grading of the individual pearl. In general, the pearls are graded on their luster, color and shape - round pearls being valued more highly because it is hard to 'create' a round pearl during the culture process. Freshwater pearls are considered to be better than saltwater pearls for a variety of reasons demonstrating the better cultivation techniques that have been developed

Knee walker

I have seen all types of mobility devices in recent years, but up to now I had never seen a knee walker. Thankfully, I have never needed one either, but never say never...
A knee-walker is apparently a replacement for the antique idea of needing crutches and hobbling around like a land-locked pirate.. and when you look at the device, although at first it might seem a little unwieldy, I have to admit that this has to be a lot better than sticking lumps of wood under your arms and swinging drunkenly around the place.

These devices are becoming increasingly sophisticated with a basket to carry a few knick-knacks, a comfortable-looking 'seat' for your knee, and even brakes for when you get a bit ahead of yourself. Some are collapsible and lightweight, ideal for a quick shopping trip.

Windows 8 - what's all the fuss about?

You will have heard by now (surely?) that MS are on the verge of launching their latest version of Windows - and there is some good news for all concerned. Here's a few Q & A's:

How will it differ from previous versions? 

Well firstly, Windows 8 is just a working title, it may come out with a different name - but in essence this will be a platform geared towards touch-screen technology. Initial reports indicate that this platform will be quite 'light' and therefore may be suitable for older systems to upgrade to... talking of which..

How much will it cost? 

From initial reports it looks as if there will be a special upgrade version available for a reported $40 ($15 if you have recently bought a Windows 7 machine), and the upgrade apparently goes all the way back to XP - which is good news for a huge section of the population who never liked Vista, and didn't see the point of Windows 7 (including me...).

When can I get it?

No official release date is yet available - but news can be expected in September, it is DEFINITELY intended for release in 2012...

T-phentermine

The web is littered with advice and comparisons for different medications, especially diet supplements like: http://www.shoppharmacycounter.com/t-phentermine.aspx. Like much of the internet, you have to dig quite deep to find any really good advice, and the first port of call for any medication should be a real live health care professional like your doctor.
Despite great testomonies from friends and colleagues, it may be that some drugs are not suitable for everyone to take, it always pays to first of all get good advice, and then make sure you get medication from a well-trduted source.
For what it's worth, a change of lifestyle is likely to be much better for your health than a temporary course of medication.