Visio Talk

De-cluttering (is that a word?) is one of the most productive exercises you can fill spare time with.

You know those times. When you have a bit of spare/free time, and you do not feel like doing work, but you want to do something productive? De-clutter.

The cleaner your desk, the cleaner your office, the cleaner you blog, the cleaner your feed reader, the cleaner your car.. whatever.. the more productive you will be. Excess rubbish, either electronically (email inboxes are a classic..) or physically weighs you down (symbolically or literally..) and dampens the creative juices.

I just wanted to post up a quick shout out to my favorite online places to buy flowers. My friends over at proflowers have saved me on more than one occasion so I thought I was high time I sung their praises.

They always have everything and they always have it at a good price. And it always gets there when they say it is going to. What more could you want.

I needed a bit of flowers delivery action the other day to extricate myself from the proverbial dog house.. and all I can say is you gotta love flower power!

If you are in business you need merchant facilities. That should be a self evident fact to everyone here. Please do not tell me you believe in making your customers just through hoops to do business with you.

And, if you want to look stylish and up to date with the current technology.. you should check out the wireless credit card option. I love these things. No stretchy cords. Sweet. If anyone buys one (I am not getting a cut by the way.. not an affiliate link..) leave a comment and post a review of the service..

If you are into personal development and you will like instant-hypnosis.com. I would not say that necessarily I am a fan of short cuts as a rule. But, if there is an easy way of doing something then my philosophy is why do it the hard way, when you do not have to.
These hypnosis downloads they have got going on seem to me like a much easier way of accessing personal development than some of the other things out there.
I have lots of friends that have used hypnosis to quit smoking and I have some conviction in its efficacy, but I would be very interested in your reviews of these products. I am going to get a couple of downloads, and I will post my own results.
There are lots and lots of great ideas, teachings, techniques etc out there that can boost our productivity, creativity and happiness, but most of us do not know that they are out there, and have no idea how easily we can change our situation and our lives. So we settle for the status quo and do not question when it is right.
When you have tried one of the downloads, post your review in the comments.

One of the things I absolutely love about blogging is that it is almost like a conversation. I think blogging was a natural evolution for the computer industry with the growth in email usage and the love us human beings have for being part of communities and basically for talking!

So, to take our conversation to a little more person level I was wondering what you favourite movie of all time is?

The reason I wonder is that I have been catching some pretty good movies lately, which is actually a pleasant change from the last couple of years where I could count on one hand the number of good movies that seemed to come out each year. Lately my wife and I have been enjoying movies like “the departed” and “the good shepherd”.

But, for me, my all time favourite movie is a tie between Point Break, the Matrix trilogy (although the first one was my favourite) and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (I like all 3). What is yours?

Are you blogging about your subject or are your blogging for the people interested in your subject.

Problogger has an interesting take on this distinction today. And I think it is an excellent point to contemplate. Why do you blog? Are you blogging out of sheer passion for your topic and without a care in the world about who does and who does not read your posts? Or would you actually like someone to take an interest in your chosen subject and even maybe build a following around your blog?

One of the other interesting things that my wife and I found when we first started fixing up our house, which we are approaching like an investment property/property development project was termites.

We were aware when we bought the property that there was a bit of a termite issue (and it was one of the factors we were able to leverage to drive the price right down.. everyone hates termites and if you have got them they are going to turn almost every buyer away.. is what we said..)

But, they are really not a huge issue, I like termite exterminators in Austin, TX personally, but there are loads of good local providers, and I recommend going with a local group. Just because I like to support local business. You just need to get them out of the house, and then you need to have a monitoring system in place to protect against re-visiting.

If you catch them early (which is the idea of the monitoring.. we pay around $500 a year) then they cannot do much damage, it is a serious problem when they are left for years.

Keeping you PC safe from viruses and other unwanted nasties is an necessity for any surfer. But, paying through the roof for the latest technology is not.. personally I prefer free Antivirus protection because not only is it, well, free.. it is not any worse than the paid stuff.. and therefore forking out my hard earned dosh dosh just seems plain stupid.
There are a number of free “trial” versions you can download. But, be a little wary of those, and make sure you are still getting the full coverage if you decide to opt for that penny pinching option.

For any that have not heard yet your Alexa ranking is about to get a nice little boost. For a long time now the Alexa toolbar has not been available to Firefox users. But, that is about to change with the release of the eloquently named Alexa Toolbar for Firefox. So, now you will get credit for all your non Internet Explorer hits against your Alexa rank. If you have not already download it here.

If you are planning a baby shower then you should have a look at some of these baby shower themes. There is so much cool stuff here. Baby showers, like hens nights and bucks nights, and all those sorts of things are actually rather tricky to organize. It can be surprisingly stressful (not surprising perhaps to someone that has done it, but to someone like my wife who organized one for the first time the other day.. let’s just say she would strongly agree with that statement) and I think having a resource like this site is a life saver.
As an excellent example check out the Radio Flyer Red Wagon Baby Shower Theme pictured above. Can you imagine trying to do that kind of natural looking combinations yourself!?
But, aside from actually looking like everything is supposed to go together.. the pack includes:
* Red Wagon Invitations (8, white envelopes included)
* Red and White Sprinkle 8” snack plates (8); 10.5” plates sold separately on “Red Wagon Baby Shower Decorations” page
* Red and White Sprinkle drink napkins (20);
* Red 9-oz Hot/Cold Cups (8)
* Red High-quality Cutlery (24 pieces: 8 each of spoon, fork, knife)
* Light Yellow 3-ply Tablecover, 54” by 108”, with waterproof lining (1)
* Radio Flyer Red Wagon Centerpiece (1)
* Radio Flyer Red Wagon Snack Dish (1)
* Red Dot Confetti (1 half-ounce bag)
* Streamers, 81 feet (3 rolls: 1 each of Red, White and Yellow)
* Curl Ribbon (3 rolls: 1 each of Red, White and Yellow)
* Custom Latex Red Wagon 11” balloons (8)
* Red latex 12” balloons (8)
* Sunshine Yellow latex 12” balloons (8)
And they are having 10% off at the moment. Nice.
Take it from me, when it comes to baby showers let the professionals handle it. And you just concentrate on enjoying the moment with your friends.

Here is a cool site I found just the other day that has 100% Vegan Shoes and Bags.

I reckon this is a winner. Lots of people would take options that are more in line with their values of kindness, sustainability, compassion and environmentally friendliness if they could do it for a comparable price, good styling, and if the products lasted for around the same amount of time as more mainstream, cruelly produced products.

I think these guys get all of that, and then some. They add a bit of funky into the mix aswell, just for good measure.

I gotta be honest with you, I do not really like lawyers very much. Even though most of my close friends from college are attorneys, I still must confess I think it is a very morally grey profession. I believe in the concept that everyone deserves a rigorous defense, but I think that does not always equate to a “fair” fight.

But. Having said that, when I have a genuine legal issue, I always use a professional. I am not some crank that tries to defend himself. And, I pull out all the stops to find the very best representation. Because anything less is just plain silly in business. Not surprisingly if I need to find lawyers I go to one of the aggregation sites that I have researched (check the link..) and bookmarked.

I remain a HUGE fan of aggregation sites and think they offer good value, and save a lot of search time. I would also suggest you should check their (the aggregations site’s) relationships to the people listed on their website (to assess for bias..) but in most cases across the board, you will find they are what you would expect.. the “premium” listings will usually be paid for.. but are also usually from the bigger companies who take marketing seriously.. and the “other” listings will usually be free. Alternatively, the sites will be paid to produce leads for the companies they list and may rank certain companies better if they pay a higher rate for the lead. But, the good ones will display the same review service for both paid and unpaid listings.. and either way I do not really care.. if the webmaster makes a few dollars for providing me with all the resources I need in one spot, saving me having to search around for it.. then that is cool with me.

Okay, here is a hot tip for all the social coordinators out there in corporate jungle land.. Reality TV Pool. This is one of the coolest sites I have stumbled in a while. The concept is pretty simple. You know how much everyone likes to have an opinion about reality television shows. Everyone loves to try and guess who is going to get voted off and who should win and all that. This site helps you set up a tipping pool on your favorite reality shows.

Pretty cool idea.

If you are the sociable one in the family or the office, this is an ideal way to get people connecting, and having fun. These kinds of shows are universal and I reckon they are perfect for tipping competitions, which add just a little more interest, and give another talking point.

Lately I have been doing quite a bit of research about the various options available to high school leavers after they graduate. One of my close friends has a daughter who is finishing at the end of the year, and they asked my to spend a bit of time presenting them with some options. I was pretty happy to be asked by my friends, and I know it is a task that would probably take them three times as long and I am not sure they would get a clear picture about what sorts of things that are out there.

For example, check this link –> http://www.gibbsmelville.edu/, I am quite sure this type of “hands-on” college is one they might have missed. Especially if they are not well versed in search engine researching (which I know they are not).. the internet is great and so is Google, but if you do not know how to drive the car it can be very frustrating (although Google is working constantly on its “semantic” aspect of search.. which is basically programming that tries to “guess” what you “really” meant).

Schools like the above mentioned Gibbs Melville are a very good option for a lot of kids that may not fit 100% into the traditional, main stream, college system. Whether that is because they did not get the marks they might have wanted, or because they are more “doing” people than theory people. Because, these types of colleges are really more geared towards learning from being involved, and produce graduates that have defined competencies they can apply to the workplace.. which in my opinion is the way forward in education and what a lot of employers, particularly in administration and technology, are looking for.

And, that is really my point here. If you are looking at schools, think outside the box. And use Google. You may be surprised and excited by what is out there.

To my friends who just want to know the point, this post is about steak recipes. To my other friends who also like to hear the story please read on.

A few years back my life changed quite dramatically and quite suddenly. When I met my wife, I instantly became a father. She had a beautiful boy that we affectionately say she prepared earlier.

And, now a couple of years on we have a nicely percolating little family of three beautiful boys. So, as the family readers will atest life is quite hectic around our place. Especially at dinner time. And the only way that we can survive the dinner time onslaught with some semblance of patience and sanity, is to divvy up the workload, and both my wife and I pitch in together.

So, as the chips have fallen I am the cook in our family. Which, thanks to my ability to research using the Search Engines, has improved a lot over the last couple of years, from a one dish wonder boy style cook (and that one dish was scrambled eggs, by the way) to a well rounded, mostly confident, healthy cooking family chef.

Today I wanted to let you in on the awesome steak recipes I found on Monday, and say that if you want to feed a hungry hoard and are short on ideas, save your money (do NOT pay for recipes and cooking ideas) and search online. Better still, build up a resource bookmarking system, so you can go back and check up on sites you find that worked well for you. (I like chefs.com)

Here’s to the cooks in the family!

So I wanted to give city search a go today. I have been hearing a lot about it from friends lately and wanted to have a look for myself.

Here is the Deal

The deal is that they try to give you all the information you would accumulate if you have lived in the city for a long time. Inside information that can help you feel like a local. Which sounds like a brilliant idea to me. I love these kinds of sites. I always want to know the tricks and nuances of towns and cities when I travel. I like to know where is the best local yum cha, the tastiest local pancakes, a good spot to buy a book, whatever. And, I usually spend AGES researching this kind of stuff online before I either travel for holidays or go away for work.

Collins College

So, I thought I would use Collins College in Phoenix as the test, as I have a young friend (from the web business) who is looking at doing some study their when she graduates at the end of the year.

Finding the phoenix page was simple enough. That went well. And I was able to bring up a page about Collins College without any problems, but I think the database is still a little fresh, because the result was still a little light on, but it was a bit of a specific search after all. And I did get a good link to the college homepage. So, I was pretty happy with that.

Further Testing

Testing further revealed that more general search terms brought a broader spectrum result, and thinking about it, the kinds of things that I want to know the feel like a local when I am visiting a city come back from searches like “good restaurants” and “great pancakes”.. which the site returned good results for.

Main Advantage

One of the main advantages of the site is the “review” function. Which I think will probably fill out and grow over time naturally as people use the site more and more (there are already quite a few reviews), but I think this might also be a good aspect to market a little more on the site developers side.

Conclusion

Overall I think this city search returns better quality results than a search engine for local information, and if you like to know about your own city more, or a travel destination before you go then it will serve you well with a lot of good local knowledge.

In my humble opinion one of the bloggers really making a difference to the way people experience and live their everyday lives is Steve Pavlina. He has a juggernaut of a blog with over 1 million visitors every month, and is often quoted and linked to both on and offline. He posts up mostly about life and success type topics, and does so from a very down to earth, practical and friendly way, but with strong authority. This is a guy that has lived his wisdom, and is blogging through his experiences. There is something life changing on his blog for just about anyone. I has thrown a few choice links together here for you as a place to start:

The Law of Attraction
10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job
How to Make Money From Your Blog
Self Acceptance Vs Personal Growth
Souful Relationships
10 Stupid Mistakes Made By The Newly Self Employed
Polyphasic Sleep
Cause Effect Vs Intention Manifestation
How Intentions Manifest
Motivation For Smart People
Dark Workers Light Workers and Levels of Consciousness
Polarity and Your Career
Polarity

Being interested in personal finance I was happy to stumble across this site helping people eliminate credit card debt with a voluntary arrangement today.

I am not sure that I have seen a service that is as thorough as this one, online, before. They basically break down getting out of debt into 3 steps.

1. Reach out to someone from the site, and they will recommend the best way forward.
2. They will do this through thorough fact finding, by you providing them with your details and financial commitments (problems)
3. They may be able to negotiate on your behalf a repayment plan with your creditors.

This looks pretty good to me. And a viable solution for those of us that find ourselves being overwhelmed by our debts and in danger of sinking. To have an expert to talk to would be a huge help I think, and someone that obviously knows a lot about getting out of debt, and has some innovative solutions aswell them being prepared to step up and negotiate a better deal on your repayments for you than you may have been able to on your own. I think that is HUGE.

I know from personal experience that people are often at their lowest point when under the weight of debt. And it is hard enough without having to try and justify a repayment plan, especially if your budget does not stretch to the level the creditors may be demanding.

Well worth a look, even if it is for someone else in the future. This is a great resource.

The people behind the widely successful and popular online backgammon site have just launched “no-rake” (no house commission) online poker for real money. It has been reported by online gaming news service and backgammon specialists Gammonish.

My question to you is what do you think? Are you in favor of online poker or are you against it? Online poker for money is not legal in America. So, at least a few people are against it.

Personally, I think online games, whether they are for money or fun, are really just the same as any form of entertainment, they are okay up until the point where they are not okay.

I think if mature, consenting adults choose to spend some of the leisure time playing online poker, then that is their prerogative. And unless it is becoming too all consuming or a financial risk, then it is probably fine. I for one enjoy spending a bit of my hard earned on some games of chance at the casino.

If you play, play with a plan. Have an idea about how much money you are going to play with, and stick to your limit. And do not get distracted by all the flashing lights. It is real money after all.

MySpace is one of the killer social networking sites. It has a massive following and is growing almost exponentially. And it is really not that hard to see why people love it so much. Take a look at some of the default myspace layouts or the skinny myspace layouts that you can add to you sites as an example of what you can do to your MySpace site.

The other cool thing about MySpace is that it is like your own website, but with all these funky extras and add-ons that are easy to use and which are going off! The amount of cool stuff that is getting produced every day is staggering, so you will never get bored with MySpace and you can find something that fits your style with confidence.

MySpace and other social networking are booming on the internet. People love them for lots of different reasons. They connect people to other liked minded people, and from all over the world. They have funky modifications you can make to your own personal space easily, and they also give you a chance to express your creativity and passion.

Get into it!