About Rober Kiyosaki

Robert Kiyosaki, author of the #1 bestselling personal finance book of all time, Rich Dad Poor Dad is taking a new approach with his next book. He’s releasing the book, Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money, online — for free. And he’s inviting readers to participate in the writing process.

So it’s worth checking out. But be aware: some powerful criticisms of Kiyosaki have been written that attempt to debunk much of his factual writing. I still think there’s something worth reading if you read between the lines, whatever stance you take on his factual accounts.

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For those of you still mystified how the whole Credit Crunch came about, you can enjoy this little cartoon (I did!) and perhaps you will be a little wiser understanding what happened and why.

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What you got to lose? And if you’re on Entrecard, you will also get 100 EC if you let me know how to send you EC. We’re standing at #97 right now! So, sign up today!

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Your article, "Go Do Your Homework! 3 Simple Techniques to Help Kids Do Homework" – has been accepted and published on EzineArticles.com:
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It won’t really go live for a few hours, so it will be a while before it draws any traffic to the blog. Let’s see what happens. I’m already planning a string of articles for this site, some of which will be written by me, and some by my team of writers headed by Anuj.

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I was transferring a bunch of domains to NameCheap just yesterday when I found that they were offering a coupon with the words “Switch2NC”.

For existing domains that you want to transfer, just use this code with NameCheap to get your domain transferred, a private Whois record, and a whole bunch of extra time added to your domain registration. Don’t know when it expires.

It was advertised for the SuperBowl, but it worked just yesterday. So let me know.

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But still, the thought my eyes were getting worse (or at least the left one) haunted my coffee and my reading. Here’s a problem I’ve had since I was 16 but it’s been stable. Could my eyesight be that poor? So I selected a pair of Rimless Metal Frames with Temples. These come in a Petal Style, which is perhaps a little gaudy for my taste. Of course, I’ll prefer the more conservative brown for the frames.

I don’t usually buy new glasses even with Holiday frames just for a single season. I prefer to own glasses for the longer term, but I already own three pairs of glasses (one old pair, one new pair, and one pair for driving with tints) so it doesn’t seem out of place to own a seasonal pair. There are so many styles of frames and lenses available, at the prices I saw, it would be affordable to buy a new pair for every day of the festive season from Lent to Ephiphany.

As a regular blogger, I do find that I spend a lot more time staring at the monitor of my computers; so it is important to look after my eyes. I would certainly add an anti-reflective coating as well to prevent glare in night driving, and might even help me with the glare from my computer monitor! At $4.95, it wouldn’t add much to the cost, and would seem to be in keeping with these more austere financial times.

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Well, Phone Number Reporting’s new website would like to help you trace those errant and miscreant phone calls… You can enter a phone number that has just rung, find out if there are any others with similar calls, and leave your comments! It seems plenty of people already have. There’s also a link to a reverse phone number lookup service (for which you’ll need an inexpensive subscription).

Sponsored, after all.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the feed for this blog! Click here…

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It looks like Google is now about to take on Technorati and several other blog aggregators with the revamp. It’s been done to look similar to the NewsGoogle, and will work in a similar fashion to NewsGoogle, taking summaries, images and links from popular blogs all over the web, aggregating the stories and presenting them in an automated fashion as a summary of what’s happening. For top bloggers, and those who are ‘discovered’ this will be a huge boon to their traffic as the service becomes increasingly known. For readers, it makes it easier to find news stories, popular blogs, though it may break or weaken loyalty between readers and ‘their’ blogs. Worth watching, though it didn’t show up much from after September 16th for my blog…

Today, we’re pleased to launch a new homepage for Google blog Search so that you too can browse and discover the most interesting stories in the blogosphere. Adapting some of the technology pioneered by Google News, we’re now showing categories on the left side of the website and organizing the blog posts within those categories into clusters, which are groupings of posts about the same story or event. Grouping them in clusters lets you see the best posts on a story or get a variety of perspectives. When you look within a cluster, you’ll find a collection of the most interesting and recent posts on the topic, along with a timeline graph that shows you how the story is gaining momentum in the blogosphere.

Questions remain: how is a story rated “most interesting”, how are stories ranked or clustered, will spidering occur more often as a website or blog gains ‘momentum’? At what point does a blog become rated “most interesting”, by whom and by what means? Mmm. To read more, visit BlogSearch Blog for the announcement.

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True to form, you will find all the social bells and whistles you need for this online investors’ community called Inner 8 which seeks to bring investors of all kinds together under the following statement “Inner8 technology gives you the best, personalized ideas, and lets you keep the savings“. Given the background of the owners of Inner8, this site should not be underestimated as it tries to bind investors with complex data analysis.

The deal for investors though is quite simple: you connect with investors from a wide range of backgrounds as you all seek to make money trading online, whether it is stocks, bonds, or whatever. There are several pages in which you can interact: Tools and Community.

The tools page is worth playing with: you can simply tweak the controls at the bottom to show what kind of market segments you are interested in, then you will see the results on the right.

The community page is also worth a look to find people online who are investing. There are similar slider controls that you can play with as you search for members to form your community.

Both tools and community pages are works-in-progress as the range of tools are limited, as is the size of the community. But one thing is sure: if Inner8 sticks around long enough, they will be able to develop a focused and passionate group of users. The tools are innovative and promising, as is the community. I’ve already joined, and have filled in a bit of my profile.

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There were stacks of a newish magazine (or at least one I had never heard of) called Making Money Magazine which is primarily about the franchising market in the UK. There are lots of feature articles on all sorts of companies from almost every industry you could imagine, including some very prominent names like BurgerKing, Subway, etc. Their online contact form lists over 400 different franchises. The only problem with the magazine is you can’t read it online, it’s a print-only publication, though the website is quite informative in its own way.

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Enter a review site: WebhostingGeeks.com offers reviews for web hosting as well as ratings for many of the top websites available for hosting and they breakdown the different packages in ways that can help you identify suitable products for your needs.

Can a review site such as this be useful?

While the type of website isn’t particularly new these days, if you are researching a host, positive and negative reviews can be helpful in describing the kind of problems that you will experience with the different hosts. For example, if you are not particularly needing robust hosting, you may wish to go for more budget hosting that has reasonably good uptimes.

Some may legitimately wonder if a website like this can offer impartial advice, and this may or may not be the case. Reading reviews will allow you to have a better review of the site’s editorial policy. Negative reviews, especially, will allow you to see if the editorial is light- or heavy-handed. Check for negative reviews.

As a simple guide to some of the more popular solutions, a site like this may never be able to cover ALL the options out there. Indeed that would be impossible. But it could certainly help steer you in the right direction, provided you realize that these sites are affiliate links, and could earn money for the site-owner.

Some suggestions

Yahoo! hosting generally is not highly regarded, yet it is placed quite high on the list. I’m not sure why. It would also be great if users could submit hosts to the directory so that the list of hosts gets longer. Naturally, with many hosts offering affiliate schemes, it would be easy to generate additional revenues from them. But hosts without affiliate schemes may not be included… It would also be nice to see some easily identifiable disclaimer links such as “…this link is an affiilate link…” or even a disclaimer page.

Overall, it would have saved me quite some time, cut out some of the waste of effort in examining useless sites, and saved me even more money. Pity I found it six months’ too late. Oh, well.

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I was intrigued so I decided to run a number of websites through the grading and came up with some interesting stuff.

This report for JohnChow Dot Com graded his site at 99.6%. While this doesn’t really surprise me, for sites that score lower grades, a comparison can be quite instructive. So I ran my own blog through this site.

So the grade is a little lower, probably because of the fewer Diggs, fewer Bloglines accounts, and the fewer De.licio.us bookmarks. They do provide a download ebook so that you can pick up a few tips, I’m just reading it now. It’s always fun to rate your site and see how it measures, but really the whole blog thing is simply about how much traffic you get anyway. So don’t let this be another Blogging Dead End.

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A friend recently asked me where to start with this personal finance reading, and so it got me thinking: how would I start if I had to start again. In fact, I’d simply choose five better known feeds, and read them for a while. A lot also would depend on the angle… Am I in debt? Am I seeking to invest? Am I trying to make money in business? …

Given his standings, I thought I would choose five good feeds that I read for someone who is a busy, successful teacher with not much time on his hands:

• #1: Simple Dollar (feed)
• #2: Bargaineering (feed)
• #3: MyMoneyBlog (feed)
• #4: Consumerism Commentary (feed)
• #5: … it’s pretty difficult to choose the fifth one.

But you can visit PFBlogs.org to check out the most recent updated blogs and find one of the many good ones listed. (And, no my own blog isn’t listed. Why? I don’t have a clue!)

Do you have a favorite? What would you recommend Alan read? Why?

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What is CreditSaint.com? How does it work?

These days there are any number of credit repair agencies busy beavering away at reducing the debt load of the average American with promises such as free debt settlement. This could be seen as a good thing, but as you would guess, there are any number of services, very little regulation, and quite a large demand. Judging by the prices this company are charging, there seems to be a very lucrative market in arranging and rearranging individuals financial and credit related affairs.

It’s into this crowded market that Credit Saint LLC has entered. Founded in 2004, Credit Saint LLC has been providing a range of credit related services offline to customers. In fact, the Better Business Bureau rates this company as a “BBB Accredited business since 10/23/2007” and notes the original date. So it’s clear that Credit Saint is now trying to expand its market reach by going online.

The Website: Credit Saint Dot Com

A cursory view of the website reveals much about their online strategy: cram as much information into the space as possible, write lots of text, don’t forget to include email, forums, live help, reviews, testimonials, FAQs, programs, appointments, … and so on. Now I’m no expert in credit card related affairs as you’d suspect, but surfing this website, I noticed a number of issues. As an observer and motivated buyer, I’m looking to know three basic things:

• Can I trust this company/website?
• Will they be effective in reducing or helping me control my finances?
• How affordable are they?

So can the website provide this basic information? let’s see…

i. Can I trust this company?

There are a number of ways that a website can take to increase both trust and the appearance of trust: the most obvious being ways to contact with the company in person via phone, email, fax or chat. It’s quite easy to find chat, email and phone numbers, but for a snailmail address, you have to scroll to the bottom of the page. Seems odd but at least it’s there. In addition, there is a Privacy Policy. But I failed to find a number of standard pages: disclosures, TOS, and Sitemap. All of these would help a lot to build trust. There is however a minimal XML sitemap. It was reassuring to see that this company also resorted to using https:// which is the secure way when loading the Get Started page.

This is where I came across the first of the problems with the website: as I clicked through the options to see how responsive the server was I repeatedly got the following 400 Bad Request:

While the error didn’t occur 100% of the time, I found it frequent enough to warrant mentioning in this review. It’s likely that there’s an error in the URLs, which is perhaps the simplest and most common error. However, I couldn’t verify that this is the case. Unfortunately, this is not the only issue that I need to raise. I also found lots of links that don’t work, on the lefthand sidebar, and on other places throughout the website, even simple links back to the ‘homepage’.

Another major error: security seems apparent as I mentioned, but I really wonder. Have they checked or changed the default passwords for their accounts? What about their FTP account? What about the admin account(s)? I’m not so sure.

ii. Will they be effective in reducing or helping me control my finances?

Given the range of offerings that this website has, I’m tempted to say ‘mmm’. Why? For one simple reason, this website tries to do TOO much: it sells (many products) to clients, it sells to affiliates, it manages employees, it handles the client end, and it also has client managers, which suggests that the business is similarly lacking in focus. While this may or may not be true, it’s always going to be the impression that counts, and as objective outsider, I feel that there are just too many things going on in this website to help ME with MY problems, esp. when some of those things don’t work properly.

When a company goes online, it really risks whatever equity it has built up in its reputation. Why? If your site is simply for show, you risk your image if you launch before you’re ready. That’s important enough. But this website has gone live and isn’t ready. It isn’t even really a beta yet, either. And there are problems with its reliability even before it’s taking business. Remember: this is a commercial website, it’s aiming to attract online business. Yet I’m concerned.

iii. How affordable are they?

Taking a look at the charges, I’m surprised how high these charges can be, perhaps that’s because I’ve never used such a service. The base service charges from about $40 per month right up to $99. But I guess when you need things like Collection Removal, Charge Off Removal, Identity Theft Removal, etc.. the money could be worth it as it could save you much more than you’re spending. I do like the fact that the charges are placed upfront, are readable and understandable, and the client can choose an appropriate service for their situation. I think it’s much better for a company to state their charges clearly. Too many websites hide the prices away in the small print if you can find them at all! Whether they are affordable is really upto the client, but as the BBB point out:

Everything a credit repair clinic can do for you legally, you can do for yourself at little or no cost. (source: BBB’s BBB Reliability Report for
Credit Saint, LLC)

Of course, we could do a lot of things for ourselves – gardening, cleaning the car, changing the oil – the truth is we feel more comfortable asking someone (an ‘expert’) to mow the lawn, clean the car, change the oil, write our will, … it’s engrained in the modern world. It’s to this market that I think these charges apply, though it would be nice to see more explicit disclosures on the website, especially about commissions gained from recommending products, services, etc..

What do they say about doing things in haste?

Well, if you forgot, take a look at this site: it bears all the marks of a site made in haste and as such, I feel that I can’t particularly recommend clients using this website until it’s ready. If you do decide to use their service, please contact them via their phone. Why? I’ll give you five good reasons:

1. Amateurish and disorganized

The site is very amateurish, really. It’s quite surprising how many things are just not done. The sidebars alone are enough to give you a headache: the links jump about from page to page, many links don’t work (try ‘Disability’ for example) at all, and others take you to error pages. An other example: the contact information is inconsistent throughout, and is all over the place – sometimes you can find a fax number, sometimes you can’t. The address is on the bottom of the page. Where else? And all the time I was online, lunchtime in most states in the US, the live help was OFFLINE! I only once saw someone come online. Another great idea poorly implemented are the forums: why on earth would you add forums hosted on another URL when you can install them on your own URL on a subdomain at little or no extra server cost. You can also theme them similarly, and integrate them far more closely: I’m thinking Joomla and SMF integration here.

2. Design of site

I noted a number of issues that need to be resolved. To improve SEO of the site, I would suggest at least three steps that the webmaster should look at. First, so many of the pages have generic names: index-4.html etc.. This means nothing to man, beast or Google. At least give the URL a real slug so that we can tell what we are looking at. Secondly, none of the pages have any keywords anywhere or the title tag or the description tag. This is an obvious task that needs to be done. Thirdly, there is no proper sitemap. I had a look at the sitemap.xml which really had no information at all. Not surprisingly, since the site has been online since 2006, there are only 2 pages indexed in Google. Of course, having a duplicate site doesn’t help either. An independent site scored this website saying: “The page at creditsaint.com scores 2 out of 5 for its utilization of web technologies which includes analytics, frameworks, syndication and document formatting.” (InvestorBlogger did *much* better – but I KNOW there’s still room for improvement!).

3. Dynamic vs. static

Initially, I thought I was looking at a Joomla site, but I began to suspect that the site was actually coded by hand. So I took a look at the source code. I was shocked to see the entire site is made in tables, including a pagewide table of 742px. Wow! No wonder site optimization is so difficult: the design looks very Web 2.0 but it’s all Web 1.0. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s got accessibility issues as well. But a dynamically generated site would have other advantages such as it makes incorrect links easy to update everywhere, it is easier to integrate forums, payment carts, shopping modules, etc. that are INTEGRATED into the theme more fully, and create an enhanced and themed experience. Right now, this is missing.

Focus, focus, focus.

In summary, this website desperately needs focus. It needs to answer one simple question, and one simple one only: who is the primary market for this website? All the rest can be handled on subdomains or other domains. This would lead to much greater clarity on the designers and make the task much more manageable. As it is, it’s very much a mishmash of ‘handcoded’ pages, forums, e-commerce and guestbooks (what’s with that?), and an unhappy one at that.

I just looked at the original remit for this review, and I noted the remit asked me to include the tagline “Credit Saint removed my ID Theft”, along with four key words: credit repair, credit restoration, free debt settlement, and credit saint. It’s no surprise then that when I searched for Identity Theft on the website, all I found was those two key words and a link that didn’t work.

I was originally asked to do this site as a review. I didn’t intend it to be a full review. I do hope that the webmasters find the comments useful. I’ll be happy to add or edit the content as mistakes come to light, as I’m sure they will.

Update: Though this was intended to be a sponsored ‘review’, Blogsvertise provided no indications of the type of ‘review’ that was required, neither did the advertiser. However, on receipt of this review, it seems that the advertiser doesn’t feel that this review is ‘acceptable’. Blogsvertise asked me to rewrite the ‘review’ and dress it up, but in all honesty, I can’t. I stand by my comments 100%. Please draw your own conclusions about what kind of service this company really offers.

Update 2: I’ve noted that the website has made a number of significant improvements all round, in terms of usability, it’s much simpler to use, much of the dead weight has gone, it’s clear the owners have taken on quite a lot of these suggestions. Good for them.

Update 3: Much of the content of this review is no longer valid. It was written four years ago.

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Here’s the image to whet your appetite! Quite makes me want to revamp my own dull theme!

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In this paid post I look at checking your credit rating through one particular website, and answer one simple question: how easy or difficult is it to do this the first time? Welcome to Ovation Credit Services, a website that specialises in finding and repairing credit reports so that clients get a better deal when they want to purchase that LCD TV or new 4×4!

Finding information

To start this process, let’s see how you would go about finding out about information about credit scoring: Ovation provides extensive learning pages through the menu on the top right including, downloadable books, videos, a glossary, and general information pages. While there’s no mention of the individual credit reporting services, there is a general description of how the websites calculate your actual credit score and the weightings used, the various laws, and general customer queries.

The Website: Speedy, Responsive and Lots of Trust Building

Clicking through the website extensively to provide this review, I noted that the website is responsive, and fast. In fact, the homepage is quite large, but when saved to my disk only showed 257Kb. That size means that the website should load quickly even on slower or dialup connections. Each page loaded smoothly, and I didn’t find any out of date links at all. Moreover, I was surprised at how smooth the website seemed in Firefox. It’s important that websites adequately cover the major browsers, and it’s amazing how many sites don’t even bother with making their site compatible with the #2 browser.

In addition, it was easy to access the Privacy Policy, Disclaimers, Terms and so on, each of these was clearly linked in the footer of the page (which is where I found one non-active link under “Credit News”). The website has gone to a lot of trouble to enhance its reputation and trust with a number of features: including a no-risk refund policy, special deals, BBB credits and links to its record on BBB which is where you find out that the business started in 1976.

Loose Ends: Crowded HomePage and out of date blog

There are also a number of ways to contact the company, including a snail mail address, a telephone number and online chat, all of which add to the impression that this is a solid company with a reputation. However, there are some loose ends, including a blog that seems to be linked to some pages of the website: at Credit Repair Blog. It looks like the blog hasn’t been updated in about a year. Having worked with a blog on a credit card website before, they can be very useful to draw additional traffic and rankings to your main site, and such results can be very effective if the blog is written well. I’d strongly suggest reviving the blog and integrating that to the main site.

I also feel that the frontpage is really trying to do TOO much as there are 15 clickable boxes below the graphic above. I like the way the boxes light up when users mouse over them, but that there is too much there and this suggests perhaps a lack of focus at the moment on exactly WHO is going to use the website. I’d suggest trimming this area to just seven: the five boxes in the first row, the last page wide box, and all the others can be moved to a slideshow area where users click arrows to see the next offer situated where “No Risk Refund” is currently.

And so,…

In conclusion, though this service is not cheap and may not be suitable for all those who need good credit reporting, the website goes to some lengths to create both an impression of trustworthiness and value for money. I’d like to take a look around inside the site and the report areas to see what they have to offer. I’ll be contacting them to find out more. So stay tuned. Sponsored by Ovation Credit Services.

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In this paid post I look at checking your credit rating through one particular website, and answer one simple question: how easy or difficult is it to do this the first time? Welcome to Ovation Credit Services, a website that specialises in finding and repairing credit reports so that clients get a better deal when they want to purchase that LCD TV or new 4×4!

Finding information

To start this process, let’s see how you would go about finding out about information about credit scoring: Ovation provides extensive learning pages through the menu on the top right including, downloadable books, videos, a glossary, and general information pages. While there’s no mention of the individual credit reporting services, there is a general description of how the websites calculate your actual credit score and the weightings used, the various laws, and general customer queries.

The Website: Speedy, Responsive and Lots of Trust Building

Clicking through the website extensively to provide this review, I noted that the website is responsive, and fast. In fact, the homepage is quite large, but when saved to my disk only showed 257Kb. That size means that the website should load quickly even on slower or dialup connections. Each page loaded smoothly, and I didn’t find any out of date links at all. Moreover, I was surprised at how smooth the website seemed in Firefox. It’s important that websites adequately cover the major browsers, and it’s amazing how many sites don’t even bother with making their site compatible with the #2 browser.

In addition, it was easy to access the Privacy Policy, Disclaimers, Terms and so on, each of these was clearly linked in the footer of the page (which is where I found one non-active link under “Credit News”). The website has gone to a lot of trouble to enhance its reputation and trust with a number of features: including a no-risk refund policy, special deals, BBB credits and links to its record on BBB which is where you find out that the business started in 1976.

Loose Ends: Crowded HomePage and out of date blog

There are also a number of ways to contact the company, including a snail mail address, a telephone number and online chat, all of which add to the impression that this is a solid company with a reputation. However, there are some loose ends, including a blog that seems to be linked to some pages of the website: at Credit Repair Blog. It looks like the blog hasn’t been updated in about a year. Having worked with a blog on a credit card website before, they can be very useful to draw additional traffic and rankings to your main site, and such results can be very effective if the blog is written well. I’d strongly suggest reviving the blog and integrating that to the main site.

I also feel that the frontpage is really trying to do TOO much as there are 15 clickable boxes below the graphic above. I like the way the boxes light up when users mouse over them, but that there is too much there and this suggests perhaps a lack of focus at the moment on exactly WHO is going to use the website. I’d suggest trimming this area to just seven: the five boxes in the first row, the last page wide box, and all the others can be moved to a slideshow area where users click arrows to see the next offer situated where “No Risk Refund” is currently.

And so,…

In conclusion, though this service is not cheap and may not be suitable for all those who need good credit reporting, the website goes to some lengths to create both an impression of trustworthiness and value for money. I’d like to take a look around inside the site and the report areas to see what they have to offer. I’ll be contacting them to find out more. So stay tuned.

Sponsored by Ovation Credit Services.

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Of course, reading up on such things beforehand is always going to be nearly as good as 20/20 hindsight, and web hosting tutorials are always helpful! A good ratings site can help but you need to find one that offers unbiased, detailed, and critical reviews to help you decide which host is appropriate for you.

These are five things you will need to remember that I wished I had known five years ago when I started looking…

• 1. Be sensible in your expectations: Don’t choose plans that offer unlimited everything (usually something will not work so well, and it could be crucial to you). It’s better to purchase a plan with clear limits so that you know when you are approaching those limits without unduly taxing the shared server, and drawing the attention of your webhosting admin who asks you to upgrade or close your account.
• 2. Find a responsive company. I approached a well-known company with a sales query that took three days and a follow-up email to persuade them to answer my ticket. Can you imagine how long it might take them to get my server working again, if it was out? So give the likely candidate a quiz.
• 3. Choose several companies: If you are hosting several sites, choose several hosting companies so that you can compare and contrast the features, support, and stability. It might cost a little more at the outset, but it is something I wished I had done. Split the sites up initially. When you figure which host is better, then use that host for the more important websites.
• 4. Find a coupon: When you sign up for many webhosts, you will often see the place for a coupon code. Use it. You can save a truckload of cash on many hosting companies for the first year. This will help ease your financial burden as you try out the different hosting companies. Of course, the really cheap sites may not have any coupons because the deals are just spectacular.
• 5. Find a GOOD host: Cheap hosting can be good, expensive hosting can be good, too – if the hosting company is good. Finding a good host is more difficult than finding either an expensive or a cheap host. Both ends of the market include companies that have terrible reputations.

Of course, you could just go to a good review site for your initial overview of the market. You’ll find many of the top hosts listed there once the site formally launches.

This post was originally to be sponsored but unfortunately, I didn’t pay attention to the required non-disclosure that the advertiser wanted, as a result I’m now removing all the links. Steve who was talking to me a few months ago about this was quite ‘shocked’ at the quality of most review sites for other products, filled with spurious reviews, and testimonials. Since he was also looking for good hosting, he is quite skeptical about the value of 99% of the hosting websites out there. Perhaps he is right.

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This week I’ve had to troubleshoot at least three technical problems, each of which needed a competent computer technical support service! My Flickr upload software was crashing my PC, or at least I thought so… Turned out to be the heat overheating my CPU fan… Then I had to install the tax filing software… except it wouldn’t install on ANY of my nine machines, even with the most recent updates of Windows XP; and now one of my home PCs is slow booting, and I don’t know why. On top of that, two machines need new CPU batteries to help keep the time… Oh, and don’t get me started on the Anti-Virus software situation, now.

This is when I wish I had a good company on call, esp. as we usually have to fix problems on the two days of the week when we are the hardest pressed for time: Wednesdays and Fridays. Of course, as a small business, we don’t have access to the IT departments and big budgets of large companies… we pretty much have to Jacks of all Trades.

So it would be nice to have a company on hand that can provide prompt, professional, affordable and convenient service on your doorstep (esp. as we work odd hours). Am I dreaming? Perhaps not…

Who do you call when your PC craps out?

• Your wife/husband/tech partner…
• Your PC salesperson…
• Your personal life guru…
• Your 17-year-old…

Fast-Teks brought you this post… but I brought you the stories!

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When I first started online publishing, I remember slaving for hours over the HTML, trying to get documents that at least looked consistent. It was a nightmare. Then I tried Mambo (as it was then) now Joomla. I was impressed by the power, the flexibility and the sheer variety of mods. But I was also bemused: it just needed too much juice to do the long articles I had. So I was stuck doing HTML pages for a long time.

I liked Joomla/Mambo but couldn’t find a use for it myself, and it took much too long to do anything simple, esp. on a standard webhosting plan – a shared server. I never consided using it for a blog which is what Blog @ MaguireClan has done!

I am surprised at how far TimeShadowRider managed to develop the implementation of Joomla, including a blog, a forum, stores, and quite a few other features… I wonder how long it took to do all that! But I found that there are a number of limitations that bother me: 1. the site seems a little slow and uneven in download speed; 2. the overall theme/design just isn’t the best, some elements don’t show properly, links don’t work properly all the time, and iframes contents don’t usually match the theme; and 3. bullet points are in the wrong positions for some elements and lists.

I’m curious to know also why TSR didn’t install the WordPress Joomla integration (which has been around for a while) which would have solved some of the problems that the blog has. There are also options to install MojoBlog. Personally, with WP getting more and more powerful, lighter than Joomla on its server resources, and well-supported, nearly everything you had on the site could have been done in WordPress. I’m sorry but Joomla just doesn’t make a good choice for blogging at the moment. But kudos for trying! I would recommend switching though, as I think you’ll find WordPress more satisfying in the long run. Just my 2c.

If you’d like a buzz, head on over to my BlogBuzz campaign, write your review and buzz me!

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In 2007, I started doing a few BlogBuzzes for people, and in 2008 I am continuing my BlogBuzz. You’ll see it is a great way to advertise your blog around the net, and I get my blog seen on your blog… If you’re still interested, drop me a line in the contact form. Do complete the opp first. The buzzes can be short or long, but at least a minimum of 50 words, please!

Yes, it’s time for a BlogBuzz. This time I’m doing it for one of my own blogs:

Actually, most of the content at Obblogatory was originally found at this blog, but I moved it over in 2006 when I decided to refound the whole InvestorBlogger thing. Of course, little did I know what a PR5 meant at that time, and how moving the blog would blow the entire thing up in my face! Oh, well. Such are regrets.

Well, Obblogatory is a general blog with categories as wide ranging as Taiwan, Entertainment, Blogging, Shopping and much more… it’s fun to write and I have no expectations it will ever be high profile like this one. But I enjoy writing it. Despite that, I know that there are a lot of improvements I could make:

• 1. Change that header image: I have no way for people to know what the blog’s name is!
• 2. The side bar is a real mess: I have reorganized it several times, and it’s still a mess. Worse: it leaves out important stuff!
• 3. I use almost no SEO stuff at all apart from the friendly URLs… I really have to use tags, summaries and much more. One day, I’ll get around to fixing that.

They say your worst critic is in the mirror, and that’s true! Oh, well. Anyway, if you fancy a more general blog on other stuff, that’s the one! Check it out!

And that’s it for blog Buzz #11! Drop me a line if you want one! I’ve got two more in the pipeline right now!

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Well, after the disaster of number #7, I’ve decided to regroup and start doing buzzes again. … If you’re still interested, drop me a line in the contact form. Do complete the opp first. The buzzes can be short or long, but at least a minimum of 50 words, please!

My Little Corner is Buzz Number 8 on my list! Welcome to this Buzz and let’s take a look at your blog. I love the great color scheme on this blog, the pastels are quite attractive to my eyes! I tried to visit the blog theme designer you linked in the footer!

I like buzzing new blogs, it’s always exciting to see what new blogs are about. I’m thinking that this blog is going to become a general blog. There aren’t many posts in the archive yet, but the categories are intriguing: beauty, business, money, government, love… I’ve got three good suggestions for you, Diana!

• Change your permalinks so that they show full titles;
• Cut down your 20 categories to less than half a dozen soon (it’ll help to find your blog focus!);
• Merge some of your categories: volunteerism vs. charity, government vs. politics, and so on!

Keep up the blogging, and I look forward to your request for a buzz in 2009! Who knows, you may not even need it! That’s it for Buzz #8. I think I managed to hit more than one blog on that buzz! If you are interested, just read about the buzz and drop me a line!

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If you’re looking for a lot of help, a great computer at a great price, check out his profile and posts on Forumosa and give him a call! Thanks, Nam!

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We’ve already had a bunch of Buzzes handed out to great bloggers… If you’re still interested, drop me a line in the contact form. Do complete the opp first. The buzzes can be short or long, but at least a minimum of 50 words, please!

Karen’s Opinion is Buzz Number 5 on my list! Welcome to this Buzz and let’s take a look at your blog.

In fact, I already buzzed one of Karen’s blogs last year, if you remember. Karen is an avid blogger and authors at least three blogs that I know of, perhaps more! Her chosen topics are more suited to a general blog where the blog reflects the interests of the author, rather than a niche blog. In many ways, it’s similar to one of my own blog’s style (like Investorblogger used to be). Here are some of her chosen areas that are of likely interest to my own readers: Blogging and computers, Entertainment Movies Arts Books, Food, Our Business, our home, a work in progress and Travel. You can also visit their business website at MosersFloorCoverings. I tried to get an appointment for our house in Taipei, but they said it was out of their business area… Well, imagine that! Those floor coverings do look good.

That’s it for Buzz #5. I think I managed to hit more than one blog on that buzz! If you are interested, just read about the buzz and drop me a line!

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