Happy Halloween

Are you enjoying this rare Halloween Sunday? I know I have been watching all of the shows on TV that told how Halloween came about and how "trick or treating" became a necessity to cut down on vandalism. I also found out that adult Halloween parties and costume balls are what is fueling the big money making for Halloween sales. Costumes sure have changed in style and quality since I was a kid.

I think that Halloween masks have seen the greatest change in the last 15-20 years. You hardly ever see those old plastic masks with the elastic band to keep it on your face anymore. Now it is either face make-up or latex masks.

Costumes are now made from regular material rather than those thin flimsy nylon things you bought in the box, along with those old style plastic masks. People will often hunt down Parada accessories, Rebecca Minkoff handbags, wedding dresses and pinstriped suits in second hand stores for that unique looking costume.

My daughter will be busy volunteering at a local haunted house this night. She gets to dress up and scare people to death. No parties are planned but I might make a big batch of Halloween cupcakes.

Happy Halloween.

Sick of Facebook

Is there anyone else in this world who really dislikes the fact that people will put a link to FaceBook and not realize that in order to see that page you have to be a member of FaceBook? Can people really be that dumb?

It is not only people but businesses that pull that same stunt. Hey...you FaceBook member....yes you....I can't view your dumb page because I am not a member and I don't intend to become one just to read your page.

FaceBook started out as a place where college kids could go and network with other college kids, now that has changed. It use to be that if you were not a real live person, you could not have a FaceBook page. That pushed companies out and those who wanted to start up a fan page for a movie star or club. Now they are welcomed by FaceBook.

I think that FaceBook is trying to take over the world. Just today I was on one of my favorite message boards to read all of the complaints about a little button they added to the message board that you could favor the thread or post on FaceBook. I didn't really care since I am not a member of FaceBook but those who were complained up a storm. They did not want their friends on FaceBook knowing what they did on another website. I can't blame them one bit. After a few hours of compliants, the button was removed from the message board.

So what are your thoughts on FaceBook? Are you sick of it, like it or just don't care?

Make your blog interesting

One of the best ways to keep your blog readers coming back for more is by adding photos. Simply having a theme to your blog will keep it more interesting than just plain text. Dosh Dosh (one of the more well known blogs) has pictures of anime characters on his blog, not because he writes about anime but just because he likes the pictures. Of course you must use some common sense about using photos. If you are writing a blog post about the pleasures of bare feet and show a picture of ugg boots, then you are going to confuse your reader.

Just remember to have fun with it and see what works best for your blog and writing style.

Living on cash only

I use to laugh at my parents when they told me never to buy anything on credit. They were children during the last Great Depression and saw what it had done to their families. Their own parents did not let them read the newspapers as to "protect" them from the world. I found out that not allowing children to read newspapers was the norm for the 1930's to 1940's.

I did not ever think that the world would repeat the Great Depression of the 1930's but it has. Of course most people will say that it is not as bad as back then but in a way it is, if not worse. It is just different than then. I think that people will become more of a cash only society and that weaning ourselves off of the fat credit card cow will be the only diet pills that work for becoming less venerable to the whims of banks.

I don't know if people will start stuffing their mattresses with money instead of using banks, but I would not be at all surprised anymore. After all, I used to laugh at my parents for not buying anything on credit.

The vicious cycle of life

Every one of us has experienced vicious cycles of life. For example, you worry about finding a job which causes you to have health problems, which cause you to either miss or cancel an interview, which means you might miss getting a job, which causes you to have more health problems, which.......you get the idea. It is an ever spiraling downward cycle...if you let it go that way.

Let's face it, stress can kill you, if you let it. YOU and only you can stop that never ending loop. I know that it is hard to stop, since many years ago I had stress related hair loss. I was just a teen at the time and woke up several mornings in a row with my own hair covering my pillow. That worried me since on the surface I did not think that I had stress hair loss, I was only a teen. Looking back on it now, apparently my family's financial future was in doubt and I took that in. I let it get to me.

If you become the victim of your own stress, talk to someone about it. It can be a close friend, someone you trust in your religious group, your doctor or an anonymous hotline. Get those worries out of your system.

Don't fall for short term loans

Why is it that the scammers, con artists, banks, loan companies, and even insurance companies pick on the poor? Wouldn't it be more profitable for them to target the rich? Nope, they target the people who can least afford to lose any money.

Loan companies set very high interest rates for the people who can least afford the loan while low interest rates are for those people who really don't need to borrow in the first place. Does that really make any sense? There are cash advance stores that charge up to 50% interest for a short term, 1 week loan. The only people who need them are the ones who can least afford them. Those poor people are getting robbed and our dear sweet government turns a blind eye to it.

Don't use those short term loan places - ever. Get an advance paycheck from your employer if you really need to. Most employers do offer that service but you need to ask about it first.

Using affiliate programs to generate income

Can you make money using online affiliate programs? You can but the real trick to making money with them is having targeted traffic. It is pretty useless to slap banner ads that are from affiliates all over your website or blog unless you have huge amounts of traffic. What you have to do is talk (write) to your readers about a product, service or item. You are in fact the salesperson. If you cannot do that or you just don't have the knack of how to do that then leave affiliate programs alone until your website or blog gets huge amounts of traffic. Then just slap those banners all over the place. At the same time keep your fingers crossed that at least .01% of your visitors will click on an ad and buy something.

As I mentioned, having targeted traffic is the clue. If you have a car website then just partner yourself with an affiliate program that has lots of car parts, or after market car accessories. Showcase those products on your pages in the form of projects and then have the ads for where your readers can get the parts. You are more likely to make money that way than just slapping an ad on your site.

Affiliate marketing works but you have to WORK at it to make money from them.

How Did We Watch Movies Before Demand on Satellite TV

Today we have a guest blogger

Guest written by our friend Mario Reed

I lead a busy life and I don't have time to schedule my life around being home at a certain time to catch movies. I also am not going to commit three hours of my life going to a movie theater for three hours. Not to mention the other nasty aspects of sitting in a movie theater with the random child kicking the back of the seat, crying or running up and down the aisle.

Arriving home at an odd hour and being able to search through the possibilities on the tube is a true blessing. I can sit down in front of my satellite TV with my family and arrange an impromptu family night at any time by sitting down and watching movies on Demand on the satellite TV from www.tvbydirect.com/dvr-powered-by-tivo.html.

Modern technology has given us plenty of great toys and modern innovations but I guess I am just a simple person that appreciates the simple pleasures in life. Getting the family together and watching a movie is one of the simple pleasures the modern family does not understand.

In the first days of television many families would gather around the television at a set time to watch their favorite television show or a blockbuster movie that was making its debut for the first time on television. Now with Demand movies this can happen at any time.

My writing career has been put on the front burner

I decided to give my online writing career a good stiff kick in the butt and take it to the next level. I am not talking about writing paid blog posts or even advertising articles about diet pill reviews or product samplings, nope...I am talking about real articles about current events and some creative writing.

I have a current assignment to write a fictional story about Halloween. I have full creative license with it. I am thinking about writing a short humor piece rather than the regular "around the campfire" spooky story. I'll let you know when I get it written and published. I'll tweet it out as well.

Not only do I have that interesting assignment but 3 others that are paying pretty good. One is a sports article and I am not too sure how I will handle that one. The offers are now coming in, by leaps and bounds.

Avoiding debt like the plague

I often wondered if in the back of my mind I saw this economic downward spiral before hand. I had the foresight to get a handle on our credit cards over 8 years ago. While some of our friends were rushing to companies that offered debt relief services by acting as a middle man for credit card negotiation with the credit card companies, we just knuckled down and paid them off.

The big secret, if there is one, is never borrow more than you can pay off comfortably in under 9 months. If it takes longer, pass on the purchase until you can save up the money for it. Now I am not talking about houses or cars but just purchases that tend to get people into debt fast, like clothing, TV's, computers, ATV's and entertainment. They may seem like small purchases when the payment is only $50 a month but that $50 a month lasts forever if you don't double or triple the payment every month.

By being wise with how to handle money, you will not have to shop around for credit card debt relief, you would not have to worry about it, ever. Learn to use your hard earned money and don't let it use you.

Google puts a stop to link selling once and for all

Well it looks like Google has finally had enough of people selling links and will stop it. Google dropped the biggest hint of all, by not updating the PageRank in the toolbar since April. They have also sent hints out via their own employees in their help sections. You should read this one about the PageRank update. It was posted just a few days ago.

I would not be surprised to see all the toolbar rankings go to "0" or gray out. Google removed the toolbar from its webmaster toolbox last year.

So here is my suggestion for those companies that want inbound links to your own websites - find well respected blogs and websites that have the same subject matter as your company and contact them to place real advertisements on those sites. Don't use advertising companies as they have those weird forwarding links like doubleclick, linksygny or clickad and they don't have a direct link to your site. You are going to have to contact blogs and websites the old fashion way, individually.

Now that Google has taken its ball off of the playing field you have to rethink SEO.

Don't be scammed by job websites

We are seeing a huge increases in scams involving jobs and job search websites. These scams include getting you to submit your social security number for background checks or getting your credit card or bank account information.

Here are a few things to look out for when you find jobs online.

1. Look for a legitimate website. Does that company really exist?
2. Find a phone number for that company and call it. Does a real human answer it or does it sound like a cell phone number?
3. Do a quick whois on their domain name of their website. Did you find anything suspicious like an off shore mailing address? 

It boils down to the fact we now have to really check out companies that post employment ads now. The other thing you should never do:
NEVER SUBMIT A RESUME TO A BLIND ADDRESS. If you cannot see plainly where your resume is going (such as in a fill out form or submit resume button) then just skip that ad. Submitting resumes to Craigslist ads via their blind email address is just plain stupid................don't do it.

Now I know why it was called "The Great Depression"

I always wondered why the aftermath of the stock market crash of the early 1930's was called "The Great Depression." I thought that it was the opposite of "inflation" or so many economic majors would have us believe. It is only now that I am seeing it all around me that the depression was the actual mood. Even today with this current state of depression (economic) there is an increase of anti-depressant pills advertised on TV, increased reports of suicide, an increase of substance abuse (to mentally escape from depression) and other depressing reports.

Lump all that together with talks about the Obama health reform, the social security scares along with news stories about Medicare part D plans and Medicare in general.....no wonder everyone gets depressed.

Let's take a positive look at what is going on. Sure there is about a 10% unemployment rate but doesn't that mean there is a 90% employment rate? Maybe 1 out of every 10 people are out of work, but 9 people ARE working.

So next time you hear about a small percentage rate of anything, think in terms of the percent that is not mentioned. Turn it around in your mind and make that "depressive" thought into a positive one.

The holiday shopping season is almost here and .......

The major question on everyones mind is......what will be the big selling, hot item this year? It is not that people want to be able to get that item for their friends, heck no it is for the chance to to buy up those items and sell them at a HUGE profit on eBay.

So what do you think it will be this year? Will the iPad be the thing to have or new releases of some xbox games? Or will the hot item be a non-electronic item? Your guess is as good as mine.