Buzz: More than Pocket Change
March 31, 2007 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
I found an appropriately named blog with an interesting mission Save some money, have fun with money, and make some money! Added together with little slices of life. The blog has a range of topics that include:
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* Money
* Shopping
* Business
* News
* General
* People
* Technology
* Web
Naturally, you can guess which topics I follow. One suggestion that the blogger could follow:
Please write more about your topics. You could easily write by providing examples and so on.
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What product was it?
What did you compare it with?
What were your reasons?
link to other online resources to highlight what you mean.
If you write specifically as well as generally, I think it would help to increase your traffic. That’s my thought for the day.
Buzz: OpenOffice 2.2 released in the wild
March 31, 2007 | Posted by Kenneth | Comments Off
OpenOffice Version 2.2 is now out. It’s official. I’m now downloading the version as we speak, thanks to Digital Nomad’s website! It fixes some vulnerabilities in the software, as well as enhancing the fonts to make for better reading.
While it doesn’t have the complete range of tools that Microsoft Office has, we’ve been running it in our business since version 1.1, with few problems. Certainly no more problems that if we’d had to update Office regularly.
InvestorBlogger’s view of OpenOffice:
1. Very useable software with a lot of power to do quite sophisticated documents. With some experience of Office, you can be up and running fairly quickly. It will take you a little while to get used to the ‘weird’ factors of Openoffice, but in truth, its weirdness isn’t so different from learning any new software.
2. If you are used to lower power word processors than this, OpenOffice offers a good, and inexpensive, way to try out more sophisticated systems, without the pain. I used to use Works 4.5 as my primary word processor, and it worked well. Subsequent versions really didn’t run well as MS decided to separate Works from Office very clearly. Works became a ‘home’ application (with *ALL* that that entailed including lots of fluff, instability in the primary apps, etc.) while Office became just that. And it’s quite clear where MS placed its long term bets.
3. It has four great applications that will really benefit you, including word processing, spreadsheets and a database. There are one or two additional programs that help out with graphics and mathematical formula, but the applications are well developed and largely stable.
4. It installs cleanly and removes just as cleanly without a reboot, without spraying files and dlls everywhere, and without a fuss.
5. When the program does crash, there is a document recovery feature that saves almost everything from loss, even newly opened files that have been saved properly yet.
6. Openoffice is available across a wide range of platforms, more than most users would ever use, but primarily of interest to us are Windows (95/98 and upwards) and Macs. This flexibility of platforms means a lot, and provides a huge competitive advantage over MS. Office is now only available on XP/Vista and an outdated version on a Mac.
Challenges:
1. Some of the normal features in Word or Office are in slightly different places, for example, if you want to change the page size, it’s now in the Format menu, NOT the File menu.
2. For Word Document users, you will need to set the file formats as a standard, which can be somewhat confusing. The ‘Options’ features are indeed extensive, but it’s not always clear what you need to change if you wish to change the behavior of the program. I had to turn off the auto-correct feature. That took nearly thirty minutes to find the option, as well as a search on the internet.
3. The standard settings are very annoying for myself, including inches not centimeters, tabs, page sizes (letter not A4), and the worst is Auto-correction, when it tries to correct tables, numbering, etc.. These features are annoying, but can be reset. MS Office does most of these to annoy users, too.
4. Openoffice offers help features but they are not as well developed as Office 97, even. More often than not, searching online provides the best help as users do post their own solutions. Finding this information isn’t always easy.
5. The conversion features from Office to Openoffice don’t always produce documents that are rendered well or accurately. Conversion has improved greatly, but users will still experience problems with spacing between lines, complex formats, and graphical differences. Tidying up these documents takes quite a bit of time.
So, we’ve already made the decision to switch over to OpenOffice in the long term. Our PCs all have OpenOffice installed, but two older systems are still running legacy copies of Office 97 and 2000. The users have already been notified that these copies cannot and will not be updated, though this has not been without some resistance.
Quotations: Oprah Winfrey
March 31, 2007 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
Though I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, it hasn’t changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I’m just wearing better shoes.
My Blog Stats - *updated* March 31st, 2007
March 30, 2007 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
PR Rank: 4
Alexa Rank: 3 month 208K* (1 week: 118K est.)
Technorati Rank: 202K* ( a decent jump!)
Overall Tack Rating: 
* updated 3/31/07 Read more
Loans, Mortages and Credit: FinanceGuide101.com keeps you informed!
March 30, 2007 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
Today’s review of a website focuses on FinanceGuide101.com. The website provides a wealth of information on aspects of financial and personal money by publishing “accurate no-nonsense, impartial information on a wide range of financial issues.” These financial issues cover Personal Finance, Credit & Debt, Loans, Mortgage, Insurance, Investing, and Planning. 
Strengths
The website is nicely laid out, very responsive to downloads, and is logical in its organization. Clearly the authors have spent a long time collating the information, organizing the links and categories, and presenting a nicely laid out website. For the visitor, there is indeed a huge range of information available on literally hundreds of topics. That is exactly the benefit of the website.
For example: the article on the front page takes you straight to information about mortgage rates , types, process, fees, etc.. So the information provided should be relevant to the visitors Google sends it.
Challenges
Unfortunately, that is where the benefits run out, yet the challenges are quite large, so it’s difficult to know where to start. The three primary criticisms I have of this website are:
- The sole purpose of FinanceGuide101.com is “made for Adsense”. If you look carefully throughout the pages, the Adsense boxes appear as regularly as every breath you take, 2 or 3 to a page. In addition, I conducted a straw poll for the pages that appeared: some of the pages can be found on dozens of websites, others on a few, though some of the content is indeed unique. There is little else for people to do: no text link ads (which would be a great way to monetize the site), no images or image ads (to provide visual relief), no credit card offers (to entice readers to come back), no loan offers,… To return to the example I noted about mortgages: I would have expected rates on mortgages, as well as provider information, perhaps even a query form that could be sent to different providers for quotations, but what did I find…? Well, I’m still looking. There isn’t even a mortgage calculator to play with.
- Moreover, the entire page is entirely anonymous: the Whois information is protected, there are no address, no telephone number, no names anywhere, just an info@… email address. As a result of this anonymity, the website is sterile, unfriendly, almost inhumane. Reading the text on the stories avoids the personal a great deal, too. There are no examples, no stories, no human warmth, no community. Now, it is true that separating emotions and finances is a great move. Nowhere did it suggest that removing the emotional element was required. Merely a separation.
- Lastly, if you compare some of the really popular financial websites, you’ll see that communities are built around different aspects of the information. In most financial websites, you will note that people gather to talk about all manner of things, including personal finance. It is to this community that you can provide products of many kinds. Motley Fool is a good example of how selling to your community really works.
To the webmaster of FinanceGuide101.com: I strongly suggest that you personalize your website throughout as fast as possible, or people won’t come back; provide things for people TO DO on your website, not just information: your website is not a TV; and create a community. Should you do these three things, you’ll find that your website will become popular not just with the Search engines, but also with the visitors. I wish you you luck on developing your website: the breadth of your website is ambitious, but I think you need to focus much more on people, much less on Google.
To the reader, the website’s philosophy is absolutely correct:
“You must look ahead and see where those bridges are, and start working out how you will cross them long before you get to them! By looking for good information on managing your finances, along with choosing to budget, save and use credit wisely, … Take control of your finances the very next day and live a happier life, knowing that you’ll have abundance of money to keep at the end of month and they’re working hard for you instead of you working hard for them!”
That is a very good summary. In short, it is difficult to see how people can make FinanceGuide101.com a part of that plan, except on the short term. In reality, people need planning tools that will accompany them as far as they need them. FinanceGuide101.comjust isn’t that kind of tool. It’s a one-night stand kind of website. It could, however, be so much more. Until it is more, your best bet is to visit it once in a while.
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