Visio Talk

Problogger has an interesting SEO post up today about whether you should or should not cross pollinate your blogs if you have more than one.

As a blogger with multiple blogs my eyes pricked up when I read this one.

Basically, the position of google is that while it is not something they specifically frown upon, they would recommend looking at the linking from the point of view of the user. If the links make sense, and are in context, then they are probably fine. Good even. But, if the links are just spammy, and look like they are just there to increase the page rank amongst your blogs, then the link value (link “juice”) will likely be reduced.

For those of you that care.. word on the street is that Google has begun its 3 monthly (or there-abouts) toolbar pagerank update.

Your page’s page rank is basically a reflection of its importance and trust around the web according to Google. It can affect how well the pages on your site rank in the search engine and also how quickly.

Page Rank is also an important statistic for places like pay per post and can affect how much you can earn for advertising on your blog. (Better blogs, with better traffic usually also have better page rank..)

What do we think of facebook?

I have been getting a few friend invites and requests lately from people that have started using facebook more heavily. So, I went over and had a look. At first glance I have to say I liked the look of the site. It is a nice simple design, very light and airy.. which I like.

The other thing is there are a lot of very cool apps that you can link to your profile and facebook activity. This has been one of the big drivers for interest among the web design and coding communities to do with facebook in recent times.

But, at the end of the day I have to ask myself the question. Do I really like social media. Do I want spend that much time involved in online friendships? Email forwarding was one thing.. thing evolution is pretty consuming. Thoughts?

If you invest time working online, for fun or money, you should be backing up your data.

It is too easy these days to either run up against something silly, done by ourselves or someone else, or something malicious by someone else, and it is only going to get easier as the internet and its community of a billion users grows and grows.

Online Backup

Online backup is in this blogger’s humble opinion the way to go, because not only it is geographically removed from your hard-drive, which diversifies the risk of losing your information (your assets) from old fashioned physical theft, but it is also the sleekest and cleanest backup option available at the moment.

Most software solutions for online backup offer easy drag and drop restore functionality, and they also interface with your pc as a virtual drive, allowing you to easily navigate around, and move between your hard drive and you backup drive.

Free Tip

You really do get what you pay for when it comes to software, and especially security software. If you want to try and get by on the free stuff, you will get that level of performance. Worth $20 a year, in my book.

Alexa is a number of things. It is a toolbar first and foremost, which provides the user with some interesting statistics about a web site. Like the number of other sites that link to the site, and it shows a measure of the traffic flow to the site.

The measure of traffic flow is what Alexa is most famous for, and is published in a number format, like the in the badge on the left hand sidebar of my blog, here. The lower the number the higher the traffic. It represents a rank. So, the site ranked number one, has the most traffic on the web.

There is a prize for the first person to email me the name of the number 1 site!

The catch with Alexa is that the traffic is only measured based on people who have the Alexa toolbar installed. And although that is a very LARGE number of users, it is still therefore not an accurate reflection of a sites true traffic flow. And it is biassed toward tech savvy readers, and sites that cater for that kind of reader.

Everything you will ever need to know about or find out about myrtle beach you will find at the myrtlebeachbible. I have family down there and they do not know this much about the place. But, that is always the way isn’t it.. you live in your home town your whole life and know less about it than visitors. Seems kinda strange doesn’t it.

If you are interested in making a bit of money off your personal blog and are looking for some expert tips I can highly recommend to you ProBlogger.

Problogger helps bloggers make money. And the reason I am happy about referring you over there is not just because I have been subscribed to his blog for a long time now, and know what you will find (it is great stuff!), but also because of the notion of “good” neighbourhoods on the net. Problogger is a good neighbourhood.

Black Hat

I am not sure if you are familiar with the term “black hat”, but it is used to describe someone who is involved in illegal activity on the internet. This is usually in the form of breaches of company (think: Google) terms and conditions, in order to make a profit. These black hats come in lots of different shapes and sizes, but most common they are around money making.

White Hat

Then there is the term “white hat”. Which the polar opposite. Pure and perfect and all legit and legal. The healthy and “right” way to go about your business on the net. Problogger is a white hat blogger.

Okay, lets be honest. Every male reading this blog is going to have a hard time convincing me they could not use a little extra help with the romance department of their life. Do not get me wrong when it comes to impressing your wife just about all most of us really need to do is cleaning the bathroom without being asked.. but I gotta tell you.. if you can come up with even half of the great tips, ideas and resources I stumbled upon at romanceforeveryone.com (link above) you are going to impress your partner.

I confess I am a bit lazy.. and this might seem like cheating.. (getting love poems, letters, dating tips.. etc etc) spoon fed to you on a cool webpage.. but to me it is sheer genius. Check it out.

One of the things that I really love about personal finance is the “personal” aspect to it. I like that word because to me it represents the truism that every person is living a unique life, and each persons situation and circumstance is unique to them.

This is especially true when it comes to retirement savings.

There is no magic formula for the perfect amount of money you should save for retirement. Although, many people are no doubt attracted to the million dollar number. In fact the perfect amount of money for you to retire with is the amount of money that gives you the lifestyle that you seek in retirement.

I am a fairly conservative and pragmatic personal finance blogger, so when you talk about expected investment returns in retirement I think you should factor off the current cash rates. The reality is that on average over the course of your retirement your portfolio will exceed the average cash rate, but when it comes to planning, I think it is a good number to use. And that way, when you hit retirement, you will be one of the lucky people that actually feel that you have more money than you were expecting rather than less.. just because you managed your expectations.. and used a lower rate of return in your calculations.

The other important factor you need to consider when planning your retirement saving goal, is whether you want to preserve your asset or whether you are going to draw it down. If you want to preserve your asset, you will need to be able to live off the interest alone. So, you will probably need a higher amount.

If you are in business whether retail, wholesale, freelance or whatever, if you have not got your Merchant Services set up you are missing out on valuable revenue.

It is hard enough to convert leads and prospects into sales and revenue, and anyone that tells you it is easy is probably trying to sell you an e-book or a get rich “how-to” program. You do not want to make it any harder than it needs to be, and if you do not have something as fundamental as a merchant account, where vendors and buyers can trade with you using credit card facilities, then you quite frankly need to have your head examined.

In today’s small business landscape it still astounds me how often (as a consultant) I come into contact with mom and pop operations that could be turning a profit at least 20-30% higher by taking up simple technology that is easily accessable to provide for merchant accounts.

It almost makes me sad. (almost) When you get a buying signal from a customer the last thing you want is to throw up a road block like, oh sorry we do not take visa. It is ridiculous. And it is avoidable.

You need to make it as easy as possible once you have done the hard work of converting the prospective customer into an actual buyer. And making available every common payment option is fundamental.

I was chatting to my father-in-law the other day when they came up to the mountains to visit the grand kids, about what kind of material he prefers to work with.. wood, stone or metal.. and our eldest son also added water.. because he has watched me do lots of plumbing jobs around the property lately.

I thought this was a great question, and an excellent topic of discussion. Because, it seems to me there are some interesting factors and quirks that give each of us our unique perspectives and experiences of the world around us.. introvert or extrovert.. loves the beach.. or loves the mountains.. and prefers metal, wood, stone or water as a building material.

See. I love wood. Which is why one of my favorite online e-commerce stores in the world is one that sells premium cedar furniture. And why our house has a lot of wood inside and out. I find it is soft, warm and friendly as a material.

Interestingly, my father-in-law chose metal. He being an ex-welder, and having an affinity with it. And our son chose water. Which of course we teased asking how he would build a house out of water. To which, as any clever 8 year old would reply, said under water ofcourse.

A lot of people debate about the relative importance of people being well known in the blogosphere. People like to believe that the blogsphere, like the web 2.0, is a utopian version of reality and that anyone can make an impact and change the world. This is probably true to a certain extent, like it always has been offline aswell, every blogger has the chance to have their 5 minutes in the sun with a top ranking post on the social media sites like stumble.

But, the difference between that and what a person with a following and reputation that matches the constitution of internet population (or maybe a better description would be to say the certain similarities a lot of surfers, bloggers, gamers, etc have in common..) is stark.

J.J Abrams is well know as the creator and director of Lost. Which has harnessed the viral power of a participating internet community around it the best (hands down) of anything to come out of entertainment land (hollywood) to date.

When J.J Abrams tries to have an impact, virally speaking, you see the difference (check the Alexa rank for the trailer page..)

I love honda motorcycles. Actually I just love bikes in general. I have got 2. And I ride them every chance I get. Like everything else, I did the research for the best price and the best background information on my bikes online (check the link above). I must have spent 100 hours researching. Which is one of the things I love about online research.. no trading hours! The shop is open 24×7x365.

I am trying to convince my wife to get a baby blade and her license and come for cruises with me. I know she will love it once she gets past the conservative conditioning that says mature people, responsible people (parents especially!) do not ride bikes. She often teases me saying I am fulfilling a teenage fantasy when I ride, longing for freedom. And I just reply saying that she is right! And that it is a good thing!

Okay so I have a not so surprising confession to make, I am a technology gadget junkie. I know I know BIG surprise. But, it is true non-the-less. One thing that is a little different though is that I am a huge fan of some of the aspects to the tech gadget stream that would probably be starting to be considered “old school”. For exampe, I love to download ringtones. I must have 10 accounts signed up at any one time, to get the best deal and leverage promotional offers. My favourite category is animal sound ringtones. Weird I know. But, hey, if you cant tell it like it is, you may as well pack up and go home, in my book.

What is your weird quirk? What is they strange techy thing that you are a little overly addicted to ?(does not have to cost you a stupid amount of money like my ring tones fetish..) Do not even get me started about how all hot and sweaty I am over the new iPhone. But, I am not even going to bother talking about that one.. it has been done to death.. go google it if you have not heard enough yet.

I have been reviewing and researching web hosts for a while now. I started off with Dream Host and had some pretty sad experiences with them and have since read a bunch of negative press. Lately, the guys I have been hearing the most about is the quality cPanel web hosting by v7 inc. These guys are a bit of a rising star in the web stakes, and I have been seeing a lot more from them lately.

What impresses me about the offer by v7 inc is that they are using servers that will meet the speed requirements of most blog readers these days. People want both content rich and design pretty sites (while not going over the top), without having to sacrifice anything in terms of loading time. And the pricing on the plans that I have seen at v7 are very very competitive for the grunt they are providing under the bonnet.

Do not be fooled into thinking that all web hosts and all web hosting packages are created equal and that you do not have to spend any money to keep your webpage running, and your readers without dropouts and down time. Sure you might be able to find a host that will give you a package for $5 a month or $10 a month, but if you try running even a moderately traffic site (and just one) you are going to run into problems. Where as the plans I talking about with v7 are going to withstand the pressure (that you really hope will come) from good webpages.

Check out more here.

It is always a good question.. who is the best broadband supplier? There are so many ISPs out there in the marketplace these days, and some of them are not around very long either! So, how do you know who is good and who you can trust?

Like all things the really good answer is not the sexy and exciting one. But, more a pragmatic and realistic perspective. If you want to find the best broadband supplier in the UK you are going to have to do your research, compare and analyse.

Lucky for you, I have already done this quite extensively for myself, which is part of the motivation for the post, to give a shout out to the broadband ISP I think is the best and worth you guys having a look at. (Not an affiliate link by the way!)

These guys rate on all the criteria: up-time, customer service, PRICE (very strong) and longevity in the industry. Not all ISPs are created equal, and I would not like to give you the impression that I am a guru on ISPs (which is why I am only mentioning the best one I found, and not trying to rank them all), because the best way, as with all things, is to test for yourself and make your own mind up. But, for my two cents worth it is these guys.

I stumbled upon a cool blog today while surfing around. 5 Bridge is written by JB, and he sounds like he is in a similar position to me with a small family and a strong passion for personal finance blogging.

There are a few cool blogs around, and if you don’t mind I might post up some more shout outs to them as I stumble across them in general miscellaneous surfing.

I like the design in particular of 5 Bridge. The header image has some depth to it which I think really works, and I rate the writing style of the blogger, JB. I also think he seems like a pretty generous blogger, which I think is important. The blogosphere is a community after all. He has some great little profiles on some of the key players. Worth a look.

Computer gaming is BIG business. Way back in 2004, the industry grossed $7.3 Billion. You can only imagine what kind of revenue we are talking about today. Online gaming is bigger than ever aswell, and gaming will only continue to strengthen in popularity. If you are looking for a career with prospects as well as being really cool then you might want to check out www.gamedesignprograms.com/. You might wonder what sorts of things you would be doing to get your foot in the door of the gamin industry. Well, I can tell you it would be something like: game-play tester, 2D conceptual artist, 3D character builder, 3D object modeler, interactivity designer, background artist and more. How does that sound?
The best kind of job is always going to be one that sounds more like play than work. And if you can combine something that you enjoy with something that pays the bills, (and very well) then you are on a winner.
A lot of people cruise through life, not really feeling passionate about their work, and just settling for something “safe” or something they know they can get a pay for doing. But, I think that is a pretty terrible way to go through life. I would rather take a chance and put myself in the position at least to have the possibility to get a great job and a working life that involves playing computer games!

It’s incredible how much tax filing has changed over the last few years, today it is easier than ever, even perhaps you might say, hassle free. Or at least much less of a hassle anyway! The following tips will prove helpful when you complete your 1040EZ online.

Tip #1 Information

First off, before you ever even sit down at your computer you are going to want to get all of your tax information together that you will need to properly file your form 1040EZ. You really should consider that it is not acceptable to simply skip requested information on your taxes, so to avoid this make sure you are prepared. If you do not know all the forms you will need like W2s, 1099s, interest payments, taxes paid, student loan payments made and the like then log on to the website first to see what is necessary, collect it, and then return to the computer.

Tip #2 Log onto the IRS website

Okay, so once you have all the necessary information ready, you are set to log on to the website and file your taxes. Keep in mind there are different types of tax software you can use or else you can file straight from the website. What is best is going to be whatever works for you, there is no “right” answer here. Keep in mind however that you need to file your taxes on time or otherwise file for an extension so you don’t have any problems with the IRS. That’s the last thing you want!

Tip #3 Review Information

Once you have filled in all the necessary information it is a good idea to double check everything. You don’t want to miss filling in any information that could result in more money back for you or less taxes you have to pay! Take a couple of minutes and really look over all the information you have input and make sure it is correct. When you double check things you catch mistakes and correct them before you submit your 1040A.

These are just a few tips that will help you complete your 1040EZ online. It truly is amazing how easy it is to file taxes these days if you just decide to do it yourself over the Internet. Of course, if you have very complicated taxes you will likely benefit from a CPAs expertise. Otherwise, take these tips and file yourself over the Internet! You will be glad you did.

Microsoft certifications are some of most popular and valuable certifications in the IT industry. It is a fact that many jobs require certain MS certifications. And, the best way to be assured this happens is to study beforehand. Now, there are quite a few ways for you to go about your Microsoft Office training but if you are as busy as everyone else you probably don’t want to have to go to classes at a specific time and in a specific location. Luckily, you don’t have to because you can study for Microsoft Office online.

One option is for you to take the different classes offered right over the Internet. They are self paced and you can move along at your own pace. This is an excellent option for many individuals interested in their Microsoft Office certification. Another method of studying that might help you is a Microsoft Office training CD. Just play the CD on your computer when you have some time and see what is offered. You will likely notice that you can study at your own speed and take different chapters and topics at a time. That means you learn in a way that is easy for you and not on some professor’s schedule. If this doesn’t seem like the best way for you to learn then you can always check out the Microsoft Office training videos that are available. These videos are like watching a movie in a way but they are preparing you for your Microsoft Office certification.

You might prefer to take a course instead of studying online or study online instead of a traditional course. Or, you may be like many others and make the decision to study online, through video, and with any other method that will help you learn all you need to know for your Microsoft Certification exams.