Google AdWords: Does it make Ad Sense?

One of the new things I’m trying is bringing traffic from AdWords. I finally signed up for a Google AdWords account; had my cards accepted and am now running ads for one of my pages. it’s pretty easy to set up, I was surprised. I’ve set up five different [...]

Switching to a New Platform: WordPress MU

As some of you have been following the blog, InvestorBlogger is in the throes of becoming a multi-blog. This is a great thing for InvestorBlogger because I’ve always found that the blog had a fuzzy focus on topics: covering a wide range of topics from Taiwan to Making Money to blogging Issues and much more.
I’d [...]

Dollar Travels: PF Blog Update #1

August 8th, I’ve been working on setting up the first blog on Personal Finance, I’m now going through the archives of InvestorBlogger to extract all the articles on Personal Finance in the past few months, as I’d like to launch (or relaunch) PF Blog with a much sharper focus on expenses and income and dealing [...]

Where to go

This blog is still very much in the startup stage. For current readers, please go to the archives for all of the posts up until August 4th. If you would like, use the search above to search for topics. There are four new sub-blogs, but content isn’t yet published on the new blogs, as I’m setting [...]

Dow Components

For all the Dow Components, click on this link…

• Step 1: I’ll be moving the entire blog (as you see here) to a new /archives/ location;
• Step 2: I’ll be installing Wordpress again on this page (WordPress MU) which will be used to run the blog in future as well as the additional material.
• Step 3: Then over the next few weeks, I’ll be dividing the main blog into four sub-blogs to better target my readers: each blog will be launched when it’s ready.

Posting will continue in the meantime but occasionally you might see a different website or experience site troubles. This is localized, short-term and (hopefully) expected! Once the move is confirmed as permanent, then I’ll start working on the new blog appearance and content.

• Personal Finance: since I do so many posts on this issue, I feel it’s about time to break out this category as a separate sub-blog. Posts will include credit card, financing, finance, personal money stories, etc.
• blogging: This covers the tools, blogging stories and other features that you’ve come to expect, as well as my continuing series on getting started blogging.
• Investing: I’ll be covering more investing stories as well as I seek contributions from outside. As many of you have read, I’ll be focusing on developing my own investment style, talking about investing news, etc.
• Gadgets: I’ll be covering more of the tech, websites, gadgets and other juicy items you’ve seen here already: UMPC market, cameras, software, top websites, etc.

Why am I doing this? Because after blogging for two years on these and related topics, I’m finding that I am not gaining much traction on my readership. This is largely due to my sometimes uneven style of writing. As a result, I’ll be aiming to describe much more clealry circles of interest, SEO the articles and posts much better, and draw more readers. Marketing more clearly defined blogs than I currently have should make it easier to draw new readership, build communities, and foster better interaction (from posting to commenting).

For the most part, the transition will be fairly invisible but for you, my current (and much appreciated) readers, there won’t be much difference: when you come to find your favorite posts, they’ll still be there; when you come to the main page, you’ll still see what you see now; all posts will be searchable, in the sitemaps, etc.; but, perhaps the only difference will be that there will be some changes to the feeds. For that, I will have to learn how to use Yahoo! Pipes to construct a ’super’ feed or you will be able to subscribe to each sub-feed.

Please comment me any problems you experience of reach me via the feedback form or via email at investorblogger_at_gmail_dot_com.

July Income Report: Changes Afoot

July was less than a stellar month on income for InvestorBlogger, bringing in an approx. $471.12. I’ll be including this but from July 1st I’ll be reporting on a strictly CASH basis. In other words, only money or cash that is received in my accounts will be recorded as an income. Affiliate income that is not paid out will be noted, but since different affiliate programs and advertising vendors have varying payout regulations, it will not be counted.

Only when I have the cash in one of my accounts, PayPal or Broker or Bank, will I record it in my cash received column. Unfortunately this will mean that some income will be double counted as I haven’t received it yet cash-wise, but counted it earlier as ‘income’. So I will keep an informal record towards the end of 2008, but from July 1st I will be releasing official results shortly!

• Bank Interest    $27.06
• Stockbroker    $122.50
• blogging    $97.50
• Advertising   $165.04
• Consulting    $59.02
• Total: $471.12

Google AdWords: Does it make Ad Sense?

One of the new things I’m trying is bringing traffic from AdWords. I finally signed up for a Google AdWords account; had my cards accepted and am now running ads for one of my pages. it’s pretty easy to set up, I was surprised. I’ve set up five different ads with different styles advertising my Make Money page. I’ve already had 6 clickthroughs already. I’m not expecting the campaign to yield any real traffic but so far the clicks are clicking away just as fast!

Perhaps the links on the page are too confusing or there are just too many links on that page. Anyway, at least I’m now learning the ropes of using AdWords type words. I am beginning to think up new ways to monetize this, but it’s all very new to me! Any tips? Any one?

I’ll be doing a post on this shortly once I have enough clicks to write a proper story about the whole thing!

Maxxing things out: The only way to go!

It’s true - I haven’t maximized the earnings on some fronts. In fact, I checked through my accounts and figured that I could be earning about $23 more per month, just by putting more of my ’stagnant’ cash in better earning accounts. In fact, I just double checked my figures and found out that my savings are ‘less-’ optimized. With the money in the brokerage account, I figure I could earn about another $7 per month.

Here’s to maximizing the income! Anyway, next time you get your interest statement, make sure that your account is getting a decent rate! It’s easy to be too busy and overlook such ‘little’ things: truth is, you’re only cheating yourself if you do.

Best Wishes,
Kenneth

Part 2.

There’s more on Wikipedia, too. So what is a Credit Default Swap?

"A credit default swap (CDS) is a credit derivative contract between two counterparties, whereby one makes periodic payments to the other and receives the promise of a payoff if a third party defaults. The former party receives credit protection and is said to be the "buyer" while the other party provides credit protection and is said to be the "seller". The third party is known as the "reference entity".

When a credit event in the reference entity is triggered, the protection seller either takes delivery of the defaulted bond for the par value (physical settlement) or pays the protection buyer the difference between the par value and recovery amount of the bond (cash settlement). Simply, the risk of default is transferred from the buyer to the seller.

For example, ABC Corporation may have its credit default swaps currently trading at 265 basis points (bp). In other words, the annual cost to insure 10 million euros of its debt would be 265,000 euros. If the same CDS had been trading at 7 bp a year before, it would indicate that markets now view ABC as facing a greater risk of default on its obligations.

Credit default swaps resemble an insurance policy, as they can be used by debt owners to hedge, or insure against credit events (such as a default) on a credit asset. However, because there is no requirement to actually hold any asset or suffer a loss, credit default swaps can also be used for speculative purposes."

This is interesting stuff, how have we built such a house of cards? …

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

Inside the train the coaches are wide, fairly comfortable and quiet. We booked tickets so we pretty much had the carriage to ourselves for the largest part of the journey. The train is divided unofficially into three classes: Business Class, Reserved Standard, and Unreserved Standard. While the first distinction is obvious, the second is less so until you find out what it really means, courtesy of rather brusque treatment by the stewardess.

Lunch is served (at NT$120). Two traditional lunchboxes served with Pork or Chicken. A little lackluster in flavor or heat, but we were eager to eat them nevertheless. Who can resist the charm of having eaten the fastest lunchboxes in Taiwan.

Another surprise: Photography from the cabin was actually quite possible and resulted in a lot of images that showed the countryside. Things go so fast, so I had to cut down on the pointing and speed up the clicking. Still…

And in the tunnels, it was quite eerie… like this picture taken in the window!

Finally, I managed to photograph the speed we were traveling at: on occasion it reached 293km/h but most of the time hovered between 250-280km/h.

We finally arrived in Kaohsiung.

Personal Finance

• ChristianPF presents Money & Marriage: 7 lessons I have learned so far posted at Money in the Bible | Christian Personal Finance Blog, saying, “These are the lessons I have learned about money and marriage over the last 3 years”. And good suggestions they are, too!
• Yvette Stokes presents A Savings Account Plan for Anyone, Best Savings Plan Around posted at Yin Yang Data Report, saying, “In four easy steps you can be on your way to the best savings plan ever. This is a guaranteed way of saving money no matter how much you make.”
• Passive Income Investor presents Monthly Online Income Breaks $2,000 Barrier! posted at LIVING OFF DIVIDENDS & PASSIVE INCOME, saying, “I finally made $3K/month from Passive and Alternate Income Sources - yippeee!”

Online Earnings

• WM Media presents A Step-By-Step Approach To eBay Website Sale Business posted at Buy And Sell Websites, saying, “eBay website sale is a very popular method of making money online. Anyone can use this platform to make money.”
• Cindy King presents Where To Fit Your Marketing Pipeline Into Your International Lead Generation Plan posted at Get International Clients, saying, “Let us look at two different aspects of your international sales system. Your lead generation system in order to increase international business. You international marketing pipeline to feed your lead generation system.”
• Christopher Johnson presents 10 Ways To Earn Money In Your Spare Time posted at CoffeeBreakEarnings.com, saying, “10 Ways To Earn Money In Your Spare Time”
• Alex_Sysoef presents Blog Templates For WordPress Review posted at WordPress Web 2.0 How-To Spot-er, saying, “Web design for WordPress always comes down to evaluating which Blog Templates (or what is commonly knows WordPress themes) fit your needs the most! This review of available options for choosing best blog template for your WordPress will concentrate not only on their visual appeal (web design factor) but also functionality!”

Investing

• Value Seeker presents Stock Investment Resource: Stock Market Investing Tips - Don’t Overleverage posted at Stock Investing, saying, “Be careful with margin trading. If you take on too much leverage, you may risk a margin call.”
• KCLau presents How to Calculate Your Investment Portfolio Return? posted at KCLau’s Money Tips, saying, “Article on how to calculate investment returns portfolio”
• Joe Manausa presents Housing Prices Decline Slightly - A Clear Picture Is Forming posted at Tallahassee Real Estate Blog, saying, “While there have been many articles written on the declining real estate market, most are filled with facts and figures that are difficult for the lay-person to follow. This article is filled with easy-to-understand graphs that demonstrate the modest decline in home prices.”

CALL for Submissions

I’m definitely looking for articles that are readable, inspiring, and well-written for readers who may or may not have much investing or financial knowledge. Articles will cover making money in the real world, as well as online; being in business; making investments; making money through smart decisions; and aspects of personal finance, etc.. It is NOT about dieting, surveys, drugs, selling things, what you ate last night or any of a myriad of irrelevant topics. If you are not sure what is accepted, read the previous carnivals. It seems that a number of people don’t bother to follow the policy… As such, …

• Your article must be original and previously unpublished in this carnival. I like to maintain a variety of sources and topics, I will only accept one article per person per blog. — If you submit MORE THAN TWO articles to any edition of this carnival, ALL your submissions will be eliminated without hesitation. Repeated multiple submissions to this carnival will mean that your articles and/or your behavior are spam-enough to blacklist your blog from this carnival.
• In short, submit ONE article from one blog once only.
• Spam: Articles must be unique, ideally hosted on a full-blog (ideally not on a subdomain of blogspot, blogger, etc.). If you are serious about your blog, then find a real blog host on a real domain.
• Comments MUST be enabled on any post submitted to the carnival and registration must NOT be required: I’m hoping that we generate interest in the submissions and that traffic generates comments. Let’s not frustrate our readers.
• Please, do include a comment about your article for your readers. Even if it’s just a few words, it will help me to know that your article is not a spam submission!
• Additional reasons for not inclusion: popup/popover/popunder windows, URLs that time-out, missing articles or moved pages, articles that make NO sense, any music/tracks/voice-overs that auto-play, articles that REQUIRE registration before reading and/or commenting.
• All editorial decisions are final. If you wish to know why I didn’t accept your original entry, please contact me via the contact form.

In short, I run this blog carnival in my free time, I receive no money for this activity, so I’d appreciate as much consideration as possible. It would be nice if you acknowledge the blog carnival somewhere on your website! Anywhere, it doesn’t matter: in a post, in the post you submitted, in the blogroll, etc.. or you can do a separate post when the post is published. This helps to drive traffic to the carnival, where people can find your posts!

In short, thank you for taking the time to consider submitting ana rticle

Best Wishes

Kenneth from Carnival of Making REAL Money

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.

Woody Allen, Film-maker, (1935 - ?)

It sported the new Intel Atom Chip at 1.6Ghz with a 10″ TFT screen at 1024X600 WVGA card. On board memory included 1GB DDRII, and 80GB (SATA). I also managed to find several other UMPCs at the new Kuang Hua Market in Taipei.

Picture uploaded by gaspar to Flickr. Usage permitted. Gaspar’s photograph clearly shows the old Market place which was located next to and under the highway. The Taipei City government website describes in more detail the old market.

Unfortunately, even in Taiwan, progress takes place and old things get torn down without much of a second thought! There were legitimate safety concerns about that cramped but popular marketplace!

In its place, the second (and temporary) market is described in this post by Taipei Gamer.

Then recently re-opened… the renovated (and relocated) Kuang Hua Market…

Floor after floor of all the latest, cheapest, best… computer, video, and mobile phone gear that you could possibly want, desire, or dream about! Really! It’s amazing.

So now Taipei has three major computer malls and two major computer exhibitions (at least!): Nova at Taipei Station with four full floors of computers, printers, etc; K-Mall just next to the big department store Mitzukoshi opposite the Taipei Train Station; and now, Kuang Hua Market!

Of course, if you come in the winter for the IT Month in December at the World Trade Center, or in June for the Computex exhibitions, then you’ll likely find more PC stuff than you can shake a cable at.

Sorry about the slightly shaky images… the exposures weren’t so good on my camera…! Opinions vary on the pricing, range and product quality of PC gear available in Taiwan. I’ve bought a number of computer products over the years, and generally found that (apart from rock-bottom pricing which is a little iffy unless you KNOW what you’re buying) quality is decent if you stick to the better known names in the PC industry, especially those names that have significant OEM business. There is a well-known Chinese idiom that translates: "One Penny Buys Only One Penny’s Worth of Goods"… And local buyers usually know that very well!

This method describes how he goes about making money and is totally worth watching though you may need to be patient if you can’t download fast enough! Then I started watching the other video about how much he can make … it’s staggering just how much he can bring in! Truly staggering. But like he says, watch this one first! It makes better sense!

If you want to know more about how he did it, you can sign up for the newsletter, get a free e-book and watch a more detailed video about making money from blogging.

Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don”t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’’s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger’’s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it’’s sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it’’s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it’’s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box”. You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I’ve put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it’’s certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:www.BlogMastermind.com

I won’t bore you with the details of where we stayed, but I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Last week’s trip started on Monday and we came back on Saturday evening!

Monday: Coastal drive on Highway #2 from Keelung to Ilan County where we stayed at a Japanese style hotel in Jiao-xi. Along the way we took so many pictures that I had to charge my camera every night and I filled a 4mb SD ram card as well as several hundred pictures on another card.

This coffee shop had pretty decent coffee and was situated right on the highway coast with a spectacular view.

Tuesday: Coastal highway from Ilan to Hualien where we spent a couple of days, traveling in the country, enjoying the hotel.

It was difficult to capture the motion of the waves, but the light was failing as sunset was coming which contributes to the slightly dark gray air of the picture.

The geology of the East Coast is quite impressive actually, every few miles we went and stopped we seemed to encounter quite different topology and geology. It’s a geographer’s dream!

On getting out of Suao, we started up the highway to Hualien on what is a notorious road, but the only highway between Ilan and Hualien. There is still a huge debate on the economic and environmental impact of a new highway. But if you’ve ever driven this road, you’ll know just HOW awful the road is in places, and you’ll wonder why a road hadn’t been built yet! Still, if you stop off, you’ll get stunning shots across the bays at Su-ao.

Once we got to Hualien, we couldn’t find the hotel we were supposed to stay at, the Park-View. When we did find it, I was pretty exhausted, but still the room we had was quite expensive, and suitably spacious. We enjoyed staying in this hotel much more than any of the others, but it’s a pity we didn’t actually go swimming in the pool. Oh, well.

On Wednesday we drove along the #11 highway to TaiDong where we took this enigmatic and wonderful picture of the bays in the distance. In the late sunshine of the day, we thought that the beach would be very beautiful. Somehow things in the distance turned out to have much more mystery!

Thursday: Taroko Gorge which was gorgeous. We split this into two days because of the difficult nature of the drive and the long time required which took over 8 hours to drive from Hualien to TaiChung. Truthfully we didn’t drive quickly but with breathtaking scenery like this, who would?

Friday: We were blessed because the route that we originally would have taken was closed after the earthquakes of 9/21 so we had to turn from Route 8 to Route 14 which took us upto over 3,400 meters as we ascended Ho Huan Mountain where the daytime temperature was only 12.7c. Most Taiwanese like to visit CingJing Farm area, which is famous for its elaborate guesthouses, but we found the other side of Ho Huan Mountain far more fabulous than that. In fact, as we drove through CingJing Area it was covered in fog and we didn’t see much at all there.

TaiChung - it was nearly 10pm when we hit TaiChung and got to the hotel. We were pretty zonked by the drive… so we went out for dinner with some friends. Then on Saturday after more entertaining we hit the highway home to Tamsui.

That’s when I saw this sight, and I realized how appropriate it was. The flag flying against the setting sun. By the time we got home the wind and rain were already picking up for the oncoming typhoon.

1. Submit your blog for a BlogBuzz … it’s easy and fun to do.

2. Comment in the posts, and I’ll visit your blog and leave at least one comment!

3. Drop your Entrecard on my blog, and I’ll see yours. This also appears on my blog in the sidebar where you can get your entrecard widget placed!

4. Drop your article in one of my carnivals and see the linkback in the next edition.

5. Linking: Do link to me, and I’ll surely link back to you.

6.  Buying an advertisement on this blog is also very effective. The most effective ads are in fact those little text ads on the sidebar which can create clickthrough rates in excess of 3% gross.

7. I do offer banner ads for those who would like them, too. Please enquire for rates.

8. You can also be featured in my TopSpots section if you wish.

9. There are also lots of other ways I like to work with bloggers, advertisers and others looking for publicity so do stick around! Take part as you wish, and thank you for reading InvestorBlogger Dot Com.