Visio Talk

I was reading this great post about 14 reasons people unsubscribe from your blog.

Great post.

And a topic that has captivated my attention since I started blogging. I notice myself rapidly subscribing and unsubscribing from some blogs, and then that their are some blogs I have been subscribed to for years (well, okay, maybe just one year.. but it feels like a couple..)

For me the biggest factor is too many posts. Then after that it is too long posts.. I like short punchy posts. What about you?

Next weekend my wife and I are going out to a costume party. Not only is this something I have been looking forward to for a while because costume parties are a great idea and heaps of fun.. but because it will be the first time in a few months we have been out by ourselves (we had a new baby recently..)

One thing though that I find a little stressful about costume parties is the costume part of the party. I never know sort of costume is going to work well, and the local stores in our township, while they try mighty hard and put in an honest effort to have a decent range, at decent prices, that are creative.. they generally fail dismally on all three counts.

But, this time, I thought to myself, stuff it, I am going to research this online, and find the best online costume shop for my wife and my Halloween Costumes.

I found (and stumbled..) costume cauldron.com and would highly recommend them to anyone. Plus it is online, so I know it is organized, because I have to be better organized to get the costumes in time, and plus I can browse and browse their range to my hearts content for hours and hours, any time of the day I like.

Suffice to say, this costume party is shaping up to be the best in a long time.

I found this great post on how blogging can help your business.. on AjaxNinja.com

I think this is an underestimated factor, still, by alot of small to medium sized businesses. One of my favorite bloggers, Seth Godin, talks about this a lot. There is so much unseen benefit to starting your own blog, even if it is only loosely related to your business.

As an example, I googled the local hair dresser today. And the myspace page of one of her employees came up as the first result. And nothing from the business at all. No other results. So, I checked the myspace page, and yep you guess it, she was shit-canning the business and saying how crappy her boss is. Nice marketing. LOL. Not!

I am embarrassed to say, and feel guilty, but I must confess that I am the world’s worst dog owner.

Not very long ago I actually ran over my own dog!

It is a long story, involving a fight with my wife, and driving waaay too fast in the driveway.. but, that is not my point here. What I wanted to say, was that unfortunately as a result he had developed some arthritis, and today I stumbled a great site with some answers on arthritis problems in dogs.

It is actually a flea info site, but they have other interesting pet related information on there aswell.. Click here for the site.

My dad has lost his hair. And it was not something that made him feel good about himself. Let’s put it that way. A lot of people, especially women (sorry.. but it is true) do not think that hair loss for a man is much of a big deal. They do not take it very seriously.

But, some people that do, and who are committed to supporting men with their hair loss is the American Hair Loss Association. Whether it is with hair transplant or other remedies, they seek to offer advice and referral to qualified professionals that can offer assistance.

It has been called a devastating disease of the spirit. And any man (or woman..) who has experienced hair loss, will be able to tell you it is not something you are prepared for, and it can deeply impact your quality of life.

One of the easiest ways to make some quick extra cash via the internet is with ebay. My wife for one, has really gotten into the whole ebay thing. I think it is slightly addictive.. she has even been known to have a freudian slip and say she is “betting” on things instead of “bidding”.. lol.

But, seriously, you can make some good extra dosh dosh from ebay. If you know what you are doing. But, take it from me, Don’t pay for eBay selling tools!

There are plenty of free The Auction Software Review programs around, and they are just as good, if not better. (check the links for some good ones..)

The things is ebay offer a great incentive program to its affiliates that they do not need to worry about making money from selling tips and ebooks. They can give it away free, because every person that signs up to ebay through their sites (after, say, reading the free selling insider tips..) nets them some doe from ebay.

So, forget the paid programs.. the smart money is on the free stuff.

One of the easiest ways to save money is to go vegetarian. It is a great impetus to start living a more healthy lifestyle and it can save you a lot of money.

The price of meat is high. Higher than vegetables. No question. If you cook a meat orientated meal for 2 adults you would be looking at a minimum of $10. (More likely $20) But, vegies alone, the price drops to around $7-$8. For two. (Based on 3-4 vegetables.. 500g weight per serve.)

Imagine if you grew your own vegetables.. (easier than grazing a cow!)

The fashion games played at Cartoon Doll Emporium are some of the (perhaps surprisingly to some..) most popular games in the world with over 4 million unique visitors every month!

If you are a parent of young girls you are going to want to be the one that recommends these cartoons to your girls.

It is great when you find these family friendly sites, that you know are “cool” in the kid’s eyes and pretty healthy in a development, let’s try not to screw the kids up too much, kind of way aswell.

I have 3 boys, so this site is not much use to them. Although, maybe the youngest.. nah.. but my sister has daughters and the absolutely love it.

I am not going to do an in depth review of the hows and whys of the site, but it is basically dress ups, in case you are wondering. Leave a comment if you want to add some more detail..

Everyone wants to know who they should be blaming for the current state of the sub-prime mortgage market. The sh*t has really hit the proverbial fan, and people are doing what they do best.. looking around for someone else to point the finger at.

And now we can all stop looking, because it is obviously the mortgage brokers..

I like keeping things simple. Easy. Growing up, my father used to be heard to say do not make things hard if you can make them easy. I think that is good advice.

When it comes to personal development I think there are a lot of people that mistakenly hold the notion that it is not genuine and true personal progress unless it is challenging and a struggle. I have a number of spiritual friends that do not feel they are putting forward an authentic and whole hearted effort unless they find it difficult.

I think this is a real shame. Because, there are some shortcuts available to everyone that can speed up the development process and bypass a lot of the difficultly said people are talking about. (Because, I am not denying that self actualization and self awareness can uncover some thorny issues for many people..)

People have been using hypnosis to overcome limiting behaviors and attitudes for a while now. I can think of a handful just off the top of my head that have used it for quitting smoking or some phobia or another. It is very effective in changing thought patterns and mental habits.. which in turn preceed physical habits and patterns (like smoking..)

You can get hypnosis downloads that act like affirmations to help change our ways of thinking and develop new skills. They are produced by http://www.instant-hypnosis.com.

Most people slog their way through the mental habits that hold them back for years.

Other people use short-cuts and get there faster.

Money tips for 5 year olds that we should all be doing.. thanks to money.

1. Money can be spent, saved, and shared - this is what it is for..
2. Saving should be a habit - just like brushing your hair..
3. Once money is spent, it’s gone - how easily we forget..
4. People have to make choices with money - cannot have everything..
5. Don’t trust ads - a fool and his money are soon parted..

For some more insight and detail you should also check out the simple dollar’s explanation.

There are a lot of different ways to spam good websites. And different ways people become, unwittingly, part of black hat seo tatics. One of them is to get your site (you are the black hat seo..) to rank in the results of the search page of a trusted site, and then get those pages ranking by linking to them. See here for an example.

So, this might seem like a bit of a technical and relatively advanced problem. But, it is something you might want to know about so I have found a plugin that you can use to combat the problem if it arises.

Let’s hope your blog is that successful!

Here is the plugin. Thanks to weblog tools.

I post regularly about things that are relevant to my family here on Visio Talk. Hopefully it is interesting to you. And hopefully you identify with some stuff too.. (I would hate to be writing just for the wonderful sound of my own voice.. so to speak..)

The family focus is enjoyable to me, and it is something that is right at the very top of my life priorities. Family always comes first. But, I am also very much a community man aswell. I have a lot of time for community services, and think there is in fact a very clear line drawn in the sand of society. On one side you have selfish ego maniacs like me, that are business men and really only spend their time taking from the world. And then on the other side you have the community people. The fire fighters, the police people, the doctors, the social workers, etc etc.

Recently, my family had the need arise to research drug rehab. We had a family member that needed an intervention and we needed to know a lot of information and get a lot of advice before we tried to help this person.

The link above takes you to a 100% non-profit,drug rehab portal. There you will find all the information you need to make an informed choice about the best kind of care for the person you are looking for. Whether it is yourself, a family member or a friend, it does not matter. It is all 100% confidential. The staff and the volunteers at the site and at the recommended services, are there because they want to be. Which is essentially my point in this post. This, to me, is one of the greatest separating factors between the two groups that I mentioned above. While if I made 100 million dollars tomorrow there is no way you would find me rolling into work in the morning, the same could not be said for the vast majority of the community people. They would probably volunteer.

I am not trying to make them out to be saints. And I am surely not suggesting these are some how better people. Far from it. But, what I am suggesting is that these guys and gals (especially those that I had dealt with at 1800nodrugs.com) are different because they have let their challenges and rough times shape them into more socially responsible people. They did not give up. And they are better people for the tough times.

One of the smartest ways to build your blog is to find ways to get people to participate. If you can build a community around your blog then you stand a good chance of making your blog generate some income for you.

One of the good ways to build participation on your blog is to organize group writing projects. Which are like blog carnivals, except that instead of the hosting rotating around from blog to blog, it is just held on your own blog.

People like Darren Rowse of problogger regularly hold group writing projects (well.. a couple of them per year..) and is a good example of a pro at work. He gets over 300 posts submitted these days to his group writing projects.

For your first one, aim low, just try to entice a couple of your regular commentors to participate, and it would be worthwhile emailing them before hand and getting some buy-in. Once you run one successful project they will snowball more easily.

I have always been a big fan of charity. I am not particularly christian or an especially good person, I just like the idea of giving stuff away to strangers that have no idea that it came from me.

I stumbled this Donate Your Car In Los Angeles idea the other day, and thought it deserved a posting shout out.

I think this Los Angeles Car Donations thing is a pretty clever idea, even if it is from LA. (Not that I am confessing to hating LA or anything..) they are targeting the larger donations, like cars, houses, that sort of thing. Which means they have the potential to really raise a lot of dosh dosh if people get on board.

They are obviously marketing savvy because they also have put together Free DVDs for Kids with all donations, which is a nice bonus.

I always see the celebrity law cases and wonder.. where do you find a great lawyer if you need one. I mean.. me.. joe average.. how do I know where to find the best representation if I am ever facing allegations.

So, I decided to have a look around.

Criminal Attorney Los Angeles | California Criminal Lawyers was what came back as the best. These guys are in the top 5% of all U.S. Law Firms and defend all felony, misdemeanor, and juvenile cases in state and federal courts. They consist of former Los Angeles Prosecutors and are Certified Criminal Law Specialists.

Their claim is that their firm partners provide an aggressive defense before charges are filed, so that the criminal allegations never reach the courtroom. (Now that is what I’m talkin’ about)

They are also available 24/7 for Consultations.

There are some pretty darn good personal finance blogs getting around these days. One of my favorites is blueprint for financial prosperity, who has a top post up at the moment with one sentence reviews of some classic personal finance books. There are a few of my all time favorites on the list like the richest man in babylon. I highly recommend checking out the list and definitely checking out some of the books. There really is nothing hard about personal financial planning and management and about getting rich in your life (financially speaking..) it is just a matter of acquiring the right skills and knowledge.

Money Magazine has a good round up of the strengths of online banking.

1. Yields - are generally higher online. And generally substantially higher. Compare 1-2% offline with 5-6% on. The question I put forward is are these sustainable and will they last as more money moves online and the incentive is not needed.
2. Convenience - 24/7 access. Most accounts give you an ATM card. There is no restriction now.. and the number of ATMs is growing.
3. Service - if you are happy with telephone service you will get 24/7.
4. Control - leans towards the same arguement as convenience and service. 24/7 access means you are in control of you money, and because the industry is so competitive you can easily move your money between providers, without penalty, because the standard is at-call, not term deposit.

I added a new feed today.. Robin Yap’s Blog.

Robin is a guy with 20 years experience in corporate training and strategy. The blog was recommended to me by a good friend who know I have a thing about learning and soaking up good writing. Plus I have not added a new blog to my feed reader for maybe 48 hours.. lol.

I was thinking about this today, when I met my wife in the central business district for lunch, that there are some people that really understand the “game”, being corporate life and career, and as a result not only personally achieve great things in their chosen companies, but also shape and drive the business community.

There is a certain level of insight, I believe, that needs to be guided to be realised. And I think if you can link into gurus like Robin then you will fast track your learning curve and keep it more toward the vertical than the horizontal.

Anyway.. this is the best corporate training and strategy blog I have read in a long time.. and I wanted to post a shout out. Thanks Robin.

I have been researching pretty deep some holiday destinations. Partly for a new business idea, and mostly for a family holiday. It is that time of year, you can see it all around and you can feel it in the air.. people are in holiday mode, and good on them I say. We all need time away, it is good for the soul. (and for productivity.. everyone gets more done, I do not care what you say.. if they have had a bit of “me” time)

One of the places I have been looking quite a bit at is Hawaii and the Maui condos. I found most of the information from Hawaii travel.

I love Hawaii.. who doesn’t right? It is such a spectacular place, and is to me, the essence of beach culture.

I am not much of a surfer, but every time we go to hawaii I think I will just leave my business and go live on the beach in Hawaii and get a few tats and take up long board riding.. ahhh..