I’ve been going to the PP Business networking meetings Wednesday mornings for several months now, and although I haven’t seen an increase in my business, I’ve enjoyed learning about everyone else’s businesses while going there. One of the things that we do at the meetings is have a featured presenter talk about themselves and their own business.
Yesterday Tom was presenting about his Internet services business. He was talking about how he was going to be holding free classes for the members of our group so we could become more computer and Internet savvy. He plans to teach us topics such as web hosting, blogging, buying domains, managed hosting, keywords, colocation, tags, and marketing strategies geared towards the Internet. I think it’s a good way for Tom to promote his business, don’t you?
I’ve heard that Myrtle Beach is getting a large amount of people this summer season. Since the major oil company, B.P. has trashed so many of the other beaches, folks are finding that Myrtle Beach has nice clean water and beaches to offer the general public and is welcoming them with open arms.
Summer is almost over and I don’t have any vacation days left for this year, but I would like to look into visiting Myrtle Beach next summer. I have not been there for a good long while and it would be good to see how it has changed since I’ve been there last. I enjoy the ocean and enjoy a good challenging game of golf and Myrtle Beach has both of these qualities.
I was online earlier and found a website http://avistaresort.com that is advertising some nice looking and sounding resorts in Myrtle Beach that I’d love to stay at next year. It is great that the Internet makes find a good Myrtle Beach hotel a much easier task to tackle. I have plenty of time to find the perfect accommodations and will keep you posted on what I discover.
Reading the tech newsletter that the New York Times sends out, I found an interesting article about big companies using the internet to advertise and they are retargeting their web site visitors to close more sales.
Some internet consultants are retargeting companies with their banner ads. They evidently latch onto you while you are browsing their online store. But if you leave their site without making purchase, they will follow you as you click through to other sites and continue displaying tempting banner ads to try and get you to return to their site and buy their product. That’s a little spooky to me, but evidently there are several big companies already doing this and it is proving to be a very successful technique.
The term remarketing must refer to the fact that you are shown an ad based on your previous browsing experience. The first time you see their ad is their marketing. Then when you leave that site and you see their ad on a different site, that is the secondary or remarketing part.
This past weekend I felt like I was completely out of my element. I was invited to a party by my brother-in-law. The party was being held by some friends of his, and he thought that it would be a good opportunity for me to network and expand my business contacts. The music was good, the food was good, and the drinks weren’t bad either. But I have to admit that I found it a little bit difficult to engage in conversation with most of the people there. Seems as if everyone there was a major computer geek.
I’m not all up to date with all of the aspects and terminology of computer and the Internet. Sure, I have a computer, and I blog, but when it comes to carrying on a conversation with a group of folks about topics such as a web hosting hub review I have to admit that I’m rather lost. I’m assuming that they were talking about a website that reviews and rates web hosting services, but I was afraid to open my mouth and stick my foot in it! A wise man once said “‘Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt!”
A few years ago a good friend of mine died of some form of cancer. At the time no one told me exactly what the cancer was, but I’m beginning to think it was Malignant Mesothelioma because he ran a cement company. I’m thinking that because I just found out that there is asbestos in insulation, roof shingles, cement, brake linings, flooring products, and textiles. The “textiles” part really worries me – because “textiles” generally refers to fabrics. Does that mean carpets and fabrics?
I really didn’t realize that asbestos was in so many products that we come into contact with on a daily basis! And I just found out that the symptoms often don’t surface until as many as 30 to 50 years after the exposure to the asbestos! With that in mind, I think that there is going to be a growing need for many blue collar workers to hire a Mesothelioma Lawyer in the not too distant future!
With the baby boomers were born, there was a massive housing explosion that created a lot of these products to be put into the general population. I think that the repercussions are yet to be fully seen. Yup, I think that I’m going to be knowing a lot of people who are going to be needing a find and hire a Mesothelioma Attorney in the next decade or so!
Last night while watching television before retiring for the night a commercial came on informing us that the real estate tax benefit has been extended, once again. That is good news for a lot of people that are looking and are now in the position to purchase a home. There are great deals on houses right now and sales are picking up more and more. I have a close friend who is a real estate agent who has been struggling due to the economy, like so many of us are. But she tells me that sales are picking up and that there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, which is awesome news, all the way around.
I’m told that qualified home buyers are being urged to act as soon as possible and to have a written binding contract by this April 30th and to be able to close by June 30th of this year of 2010. I found this video and thought I’d post it here for grins and giggles. And for more information I urge you to visit http://bit.ly/5D6mKg for all of the pertinent information concerning this extension. There are strict guidelines involved and this site gives a pretty good over view of all that you need to know.
I find it interesting to see websites from other countries and I thank the Internet for providing us an insight to what is going on all across the globe. You never know where you are going to land when you start clicking online. Translating can be issue at times, but looking at sites from the U.K. and Australia are the best.
People in the U.K get hurt just as much as we do here in the states and they companies to assist them with their Compensation claims in order to get their just dues. If you get hurt, due to no fault of your own some one has to pay the bills no matter where you live, right?
Have you noticed that many businesses have started to use Commercial DIRECT TV? I think that it’s a great idea. Using DIRECT TV for Business keeps the customers occupied while they are waiting. That helps to keep them entertained so that they are not quite as annoyed about having to wait a long time for whatever it is that they are waiting for!
I especially appreciate having the ability to watch DIRECT TV Business when I have to take my truck into the garage and have to wait for it to be fixed. I never did like sitting there for hours trying to find a decent magazine to read. I used to bring my own, but sometimes I’d finish reading it and then I got bored pretty quickly! At least with a TV on a decent show I can pass the time watching the news!
Today I was shopping at a local drug store and witnessed a shoplifter getting caught. He was leaving the store, and set off the electronic alarms. The store manager happened to be near the door at the time and called out to the man to stop. Why the man stopped and came back, I’m not sure! I think if he had bolted he would have gotten away! But he stopped and came back into the store. The manager asked the man to show him what was in his pockets. The man started going through his pockets, pulling out things like cell phones and packets of gum.
The manager asked him to remove his coat, but the man pretended to not understand English. At that point, the cashier that was waiting on me excused herself and went over to the two men and started talking to the man in halting Spanish. The man took off his coat and handed it to the manager. The manager promptly found an unpaid razor. Then the manager showed it to the shoplifter and the shoplifter feigned surprise and apologized. The manager told the shoplifter that he had to leave the store and never come back. And he told him that if he did ever come back that he would call the police.
So that was an interesting event to watch. I”d never seen the apprehension of a shoplifter before!
This is the time of year when my wife and I start seeing advertisements for flower and garden shows. We have made it a tradition to go to them if it all possible. We set aside the day and drive to the show and take our time and walk around the displays. There are usually some really spectacular landscapes put up! After we go through the landscape displays, we like to go through the vendor area. The vendor area is full of trade show booths filled with all sorts of goodies. Some are actually garden related, but some are just food, or crafts. That’s OK, though. The food vendors usually give away free samples! And my wife enjoys looking at the crafts and getting ideas on expanding her own crafty interests!
Most of the booths are very well appointed with table skirts. A few are not, however, and I have to say that those tables really look naked in comparison to those that do! Some of the larger vendors that sell equipment go all out with the addition of banner stands and pipe and drape dividers. I always find it interesting to see who is doing what with their display booths.
Lately my wife has gone on a kick about wearing work clothing for everyday life activities. She especially likes wearing men’s work clothes. She says that she can find a better fit in the pants because she can buy the pants by waist and inseam, which she can’t do with women’s clothing. And the work wear tends to have good, deep pockets, which you can’t find in women’s clothes. And she LOVES pocket! She says she sure gets tired of dragging her purse around, and with the extra cargo pockets found in a lot of workwear clothing she can put most of her important stuff right on her and not worry about a purse!
I have to admit that I never really thought much about how women have to carry purses because their clothes don’t often have functional pockets in them. I don’t think I’d like to be such a slave to fashion that I gave up my pockets either! And I can certainly appreciate not wanting to lug a purse around – you always have to worry about it being stolen, or left behind, or where to put it where it won’t get too dirty or wet. And men’s wear tends to be less expensive and last longer than women’s clothes too, which makes them a smart purchase!
One of the things I really enjoy doing when I’m driving around is reading other people’s private number plateson their cars. For example, the pictured plate in this post reads “Idiot.” When I see something like that I have to laugh because most of the vanity plates that I see are a comment about the driver of the car! So for this particular plate, I am thinking that the driver is an idiot! Although I suspect the person who bought the plate meant to imply that the OTHER drivers out on the road are idiots, I think that it back-lashed.
I think that one of the funniest plates that I’ve ever seen was in Maine, the plate read “PB4UGO” – something that my mother always used to tell us kids right before we left the house to go anywhere! Another good one was “IOIO”, which made me think of the Seven dwarfs going off to work.
Not as clever, but still memorable are plates that are on company vehicles that have some reference to the business – such as a plumber’s truck having the plate “PIPES” or “FLUSH.” Or a home decorating business have a plate that says “DKR8.” Yes, I do enjoy trying to figure out a lot of the weird plates out there – makes sitting at a traffic light or traffic jam a little more entertaining!
My brother has been telling me that he wants to open a catering business in his town. He thinks that there is a strong market for it because there are a lot of “high end” businesses that he thinks that will use his services. So he’s been looking at ways to advertise his new business and was thinking about using the justclicklocal.com website. So I went to the website to check it out for myself. I saw that the website can be used to find just about any kind of product or service anywhere in the country. For example, I can find a dog walker in Miami FL, a dentist in Pittsburg PA or an auto mechanic in Charlotte, NC just by typing in the keywords and location!
So, just to try it out, and to help him out I was looking around the site some more and found that he could list his business for free! I thought it seemed easy enough to do. So I recommend that you give it a try yourself if you are looking for a local business, or want to advertise your own – give this site a chance!
There used to be a time when the credit card companies backed me up when I made a claim, disputing a payment. Well, those days sure seem to be over! There was a charge on my American Express card last May for $197 for a product that I did order. However I then subsequently cancelled that order and the merchandise was never received. I have proof that I contacted the company and cancelled the order, and I have an email from the company acknowledging the cancellation. Yet American Express keeps telling me that the charge is valid and that I have to pay it! So every month I have to reopen the claim. It is getting very tiring and I am thinking about cancelling that credit card! I have plenty of other credit cards that I can use – I don’t need the aggravation that goes along with this one!
My wife was quite upset earlier this week because her computer was acting up. She ran all of the tools she could think of to correct the problem, but the computer continued to crash. So we called her brother Will and asked him to use his remote desktop software to access her computer from his house and see if he could figure out what the problem is, and if possible to correct it. We’re really lucky that Will is an expert on computer software issues; he is our designated geek!
Having this software allows Will to fix many of our computer problems from his home, which is wonderful because it saves us from the hassle of having to make an appointment with a computer repair service and packing up the CPU and taking it (or shipping it) somewhere off premises. We used to do that years ago, and it was frustrating because they often had to keep the computer at their location for up to a week while working on it!
I also like knowing that keeping our computer here on our premises and having the work done by Will makes us feel comfortable that our private information does not fall into unauthorized hands.
When I was very young, I can remember learning about how the American monetary system was backed by gold that was stored in Fort Knox. I thought that was fascinating, and I was rather disappointed when the system stopped being backed by gold. I can remember I was still in school when it happened, and our teacher told us that the system was now based on “scrip.” That never made much sense to me!
As an adult, I purchase gold and silver when I get the chance. A friend of mine used to work for a company that dealt in stamps and coins, and he got me interested and started and taught me how to purchase gold coins and purchase gold bullion as a hedge against the fluctuations of the stock market. Sure, the prices of precious metals fluctuate, but the do have a history of increasing their value a lot more consistantly than the stock market! So I encourage my kids to purchase gold coin and purchase bullion as investment choices when they tell me that they are looking for ways to invest their money.
My son has been struggling for the past couple of years to find a good job. He has had his heart set on becoming a newspaper reporter, but he can’t seem to find one in the area. So he has decided to look into becoming a substitute teacher for the local school system. There is always a demand for substitutes, and I think he would make a really good teacher. Looking into what qualifications he needs, we were surprised to find that you don’t even need a college degree, only a high school diploma!
My wife tells me that she is thinking about starting a new career. She wants to try to become a personal chef. She loves to cook, and she’s good at it. And we live in an area where we think there just might be a market for it! So I’ve told her that I think it’s a great idea and that I’d be as supportive as I possible can be. So she’s happy as can be right now, planning the menus and her marketing strategy. My wife loves to plan things, so she is in her glory right now!
Mygrand-father had a lot of interest in investing in the precious metals. I can remember when I was younger he would take me to see his gold coins that he kept in a safe deposit box at the bank. He didn’t own a lot of them, but he sure was proud of the couple that he had! He would tell me that they were set aside for hard times. When he passed away my father got them. I wonder whatever happened to them!
I’ve become interested recently in learning about how to put gold in an IRA or a 401K account. To be honest I don’t know the difference between a gold IRA and a gold 401k account. My wife told me that there is a website called goldcoinsgain.com that has a lot of information about IRA gold. She said that it explains which kinds of gold can be put into accounts, and it explains how to put gold in my IRA. So I guess I’ll be spending some time reading that site!
When the personal computer first came on the scene, back in the 1980’s we had a hard decision to make – Apple or IBM. They were incompatable with each other. Many consumers preferred the ease of the Apple, but many businesses went with IBM. Well, I should clarify that a little bit I think – there were a lot of creative businesses that went with Apple, but the nuts and bolts number crunchers tended to go with IBM. Anyway, the operating systems were so different that you could not file share, and this was a big problem.
At some point in time along came some geniuses who created the PDF file. The PDF file can be read by both systems. Even Linux! A miracle! Opening up the lines of communication. Along with the invention of the PDF came the need for software for pdf conversion. This type of software makes it possible to convert pdf to word or to convert word to pdf. It also allows users to edit the pdf file directly. This solves many problems between the different operating systems. Now maybe we can all get along!
Business and work, Computers and/or Internet, General life | Dean | 
August 30, 2010 8:41 pm | 
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One of the things I really enjoy doing when I’m driving around is reading other people’s 
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