New Car If You Quit Smoking
By Sean | June 3, 2010
This takes smoking to a whole new level.
Have you ever seen a youngster who is clearly too young to be smoking? Sometimes you see them walking down the street and holding a cigarette that looks surprisingly large in such small hands and you can’t help but think it’s out of place.
Well that’s nothing compared to this situation. The government even cares more about the health of this child than the parents do. The parents turned down a free car courtesy of the government just to make the child quit. Click here for a real surprise — it’s not what you’d expect.
I was understandably astonished about Fiji’s “Chicken Boy” whose relatives kept him living in a chicken coop till he was a teenager. He never learned to speak, walked, ate, and acted like a chicken when he was discovered… I can’t determine which is more bizarre. I’d love to year your comments though.
Topics: Daily Observations and Insights, Tropical Island Life | No Comments »
Do Women Tweet More Than Men?
By Sean | May 25, 2010
I told my wife last night that I still feel a little funny when I remark to a woman “Nice Tweets”. She laughed but in all candor it is a fact that women tweet more than men and therefore should have nicer tweets.
Need some proof check out this link. Some time back I did a few articles on Twitter when I was building my first account (I’m still building manually) and I went out of my way to follow women. Why? Instinctively I had this theory that women are more socially developed than men and would naturally gravitate to social networking.
It’s nice to see that instinct verified that women do tweet more. Really it’s just common sense isn’t it?
In most developed countries you are not permitted to have a gender bias when you hire — but it still helps to know that women are typically the best choice when hiring people to do social networking for your company — not that you can tell anyone you had a gender bias when you hired. 
Topics: Good Products | 1 Comment »
Iraq Dinar — Get Rich or Scam?
By Sean | May 22, 2010
I’ve just noticed an increase in internet activity about the Iraq Dinar. Back in 2004 / 2005 people were feverishly flogging Iraqi Dinar currency with the sensational story that it was a great buy because the Iraq was devastated and cheap Dinars would become much more valuable once the Iraq economy recovered.
I seriously considered buying some myself but after looking into it decided that with all the publicity about — that was the least likely thing that would happen. In most cases the masses are wrong about currency value and so are most of the experts that report the news about currency. Normally when currency news becomes public any opportunity has already passed by. In the case of the Dinar there were too many variables for it to be anything but a really bad odds gamble.
Regardless I was intrigued today when I heard that people on Ebay are selling Dinars at inflated values amid speculation that Abdul Aziz Hassoun (alternately spelled Abdul-Hussein Abdul Azim) — allegedly a notable expert in the Iraqi banking sector had publicly stated to the Independent Press Association (appears to be a fake Iraqi newspaper) — Said Abdul Aziz Hassoun in contact with the agency, the independent press (Iba) “Many countries have taken action himself, including Turkey, which deleted six zeroes from the currency, and therefore the right of the Iraqi Central Bank could adjust the exchange rate this way, especially since there is a difference large numbers no longer reflects the value of domestic production of Iraq. “
However a search on both of those names in the Economist, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, CNN, and a search on Google, did not turn up this name (or its variations) at all much less an article about him discussing the revaluation of the Dinar. [One exception on Reuters he was said to be head of the Iraq Private Bank Association.]
Please note that I eliminated from my Google Search the few sites dedicated to Dinar speculation because these are the only places quoting this alleged comment and they are all quoting the same source (the Independent which appears to be fake). The reason I say fake is that there are several broken connections on the site, they did not spell English on the tab that converts the news to English, a check of the “history news search” shows news articles dating way way way back to April 15 2010. All of it smells like “new car smell” from a spray can.
Perhaps Abdul actually made such a statement about deleting zeros from the Dinar. However he has no power to alter the price of the Dinar anyway. If the very scarce information about him is true — he is merely head of a private bank association. This may sound impressive to an American because we think in terms of American banking. But a private bank association in Iraq is not going to carry any weight with regard to currency policy in Iraq.
Just to be a little more thorough I ran a search through Metacrawler (submits to a number of major search engines). I found just a tiny bit more but nothing that adds any more substance to this alleged conversation between Abdul and “The Independent”. There is no evidence of it in any major news source anywhere. The only place where I can find it is in places where people who bought a lot of Dinars in 04/05 when that scam was raging through the Internet for a few months. If there was even a whiff of credible news about changes to the Iraq Dinars value it would be found somewhere at Reuters.
What it looks like to me is that the Independent was thrown up quickly in April and probably engineered by someone or a group of people who were looking for a way to create some buzz and unload a bunch of Dinars at inflated values. Maybe even counterfeit ones.
It is humorous if not also sad to watch the hopeful speculation among Dinar owners — that Abdul’s alleged proposal to delete three zeros from the Dinar would catapult the value of the Dinar by that respective amount thus finally making the Dinar holders of 04/05 suddenly rich. Some of the more sober speculators are at least sensible enough to deduce that even if it were true it would just be a rollback where you exchange 1 new Dinar for 1000 old ones. Not happening. Iraq has too many other priorities not to mention the scarcity of money to finance the cost of making the exchange.
Bad news guys. It won’t happen. Even if it did you cannot spend Dinars outside Iraq. There is no foreign exchange of Dinars. If you are going to vacation in Iraq you may do well if you can buy them cheap (3000.00 Dinars to 1.00 USD would give you approximately 2:1 when you got to Iraq. That’s assuming you can tell a counterfeit one from a real one. I’ve been advised there are lots of counterfeit ones being sold off for US dollars to speculators. Who in the US can authenticate Dinars for you? What if you did decide to go to Iraq and exchange your money and you got stopped in customs and searched? What if you got caught with counterfeit Dinars coming into Iraq? How much faith do you have in the enforcement and judicial system there? Think these things through.
Topics: Good Products | 7 Comments »
The Importance of Finding A Good Exchange Rate When Travelling
By ContentAuthor | April 9, 2010
Finances are at all times a chief concern if you end up planning to go to one other country. Not all of them, however, relate to the cost of the journey, some relate to the bills you’ll incur while on your trip. It is crucial that you familiarize yourself with the forex and essentially the most current touristexchange rates today.
You do no want to end up going and find out you have no idea how your cash measures up to the local currency. To properly plan your journey, this is essential info that you want to know. If you happen to did not think forward and set aside sufficient cash to fulfill bills, it may ruin your vacation. This is the reason Read the rest of this entry »
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Recent Home Solar System Advances
By ContentAuthor | April 9, 2010
The average homeowner can reduce or eliminate their annual electricity bill by installing a solar power system. With a properly sized solar panel array, all of their power can be easily generated from sunlight and they will never again have to worry about another electric bill. Even though these systems are fairly easy to install, there are a few problems that homeowners can encounter that may prevent them from seeing the maximum return on their investments. There have been improvements in solar technology and these innovations can help to overcome these issues and make solar power the perfect answer for many homeowners. You can make use of these developments Read the rest of this entry »
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“We’re Not Happy ’till You’re Not Happy — part 3
By Sean | March 22, 2010
Just a quick update. I finally got up to my mothers place in Canada to visit and see the Dell PC I’d helped her buy. She’d been having difficulties with her new system and had hired independent support people to get her system running.
The day before I arrived her most recent support visitor had been to help her get her system into working condition. One of the problems I’d had was that she had trouble finding keys on the keyboard when I tried to walk her through troubleshooting sequences. Much to my surprise I noticed the keyboard she’d been issued by Dell was in another language.
That’s right the keyboard they sent was in French. No wonder she could never find the Delete key, the Escape key, or the Caps lock key when I asked her to find them. I knew the Escape key had to be there in the upper left corner but when she argued with me I just figured my mother was losing it — or that there was something very unconventional about the keyboard that I’d never have been able to figure out online.
I actually ordered the system for her. I only speak English, I ordered in English, the system was sent to a part of Canada where the French speaking population is in such a minority that you’d have to be out of your mind to send a French keyboard to that region to a person who ordered in English — without verifying quite definitely that a French keyboard was needed. I can assure you that I never spoke a word of French on that call nor did I ever request a French keyboard for my mother.
Just another bad experience with Dell. Personally I’d recommend HP if you need a decent PC with better support.
Still no phone call from Dell to try and sort this out — despite the fact that the alleged Dell customer service rep on Twitter knows about this situation and has my phone number.
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“We’re Not Happy ’till You’re Not Happy — part 2
By Sean | March 10, 2010
As this blog post was released I got a twit from a Dell rep regarding the article about Dell that I’ve done. She wanted my mothers contact information and product ID details sent to her by DM. That’s assuming it was a genuine Dell account.
As most of us know Twitter is not the place to give out personal information without having the means to verify the Twitter accounts identity. Not wanting any more grief for my mother I sent my own telephone number and asked for a Dell rep to contact me. I made it clear to the “allegedly” Dell twitter account that I would give my mothers personal information once I’d verified that I was, in fact, talking to a real Dell rep. Figuring that was a pretty reasonable request on my part I awaited the inevitable telephone call.
Did I get one? No!
Why? According to the Dell rep they were not going to do anything for me at all. The rep required that I first forward my mothers personal contact information via a twitter account. An account I had no way of verifying was real.
My guess is that either Dell is extremely stubborn in making sure that their rules absolve them of having to follow up on these situations OR the account was bogus. Therefore I’d caution anyone using Twitter to be wary of dealing with “seemingly” corporate Twitter accounts.
I can think of no reasonable explanation why a real corporate Twitter account — and not someone hiding behind a fake twitter account — would refuse to first speak me on the telephone — when my only purpose was to make sure my mother was not in for a lot more grief before giving out her personal information to the very people who had given her so much runaround already.
Therefore I can honestly say that I find the actions of Dell in this situation to be petty and unreasonable — assuming that Twitter account is real. If it is fake then the least Dell should do is scour Twitter to find the culprit that’s impersonating them and knock them out of the running through Twitter TOS. Either way I’m baffled by Dells unwillingness to sort out a situation they created over a telephone call. Assuming of course it is really Dell at the other end of that account.
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“We’re Not Happy Till You’re Not Happy” — Unofficial Dell Motto
By Sean | February 13, 2010
Hi Everyone. I’m about to give you the short version of a long and impossibly frustrating experience with Dell.
Warning: (this is the longest blog post I’ve ever written)
If you are considering buying a Dell computer you may want to read this in its entirety before doing so. While my experience cannot be the way all experiences with Dell are — I cannot be someone that just got singled out for bad service either. The reason for this will be clear when you read onward.
My logic:
The reason I chose Dell (for the first time) was because my mother, who is in her late 70′s, needed a new computer. She lives thousands of miles away from me which makes it impossible for me to provide technical support very easily — especially hardware issues — even if they are relatively simple. Therefore her primary need was to have 24/7 telephone support and in home service if the telephone was insufficient to deal with the issue. The other major requirement was that she could pay a fee to have someone come and set up the computer system and configure the fax machine/printer she purchased.
My primary reason for recommending Dell over the local BestBuy that could send out a Geek Squad guy — was that at the time Windows 7 was not available and BestBuy did not offer XP on any of the suitable systems. Having had almost 28 years of experience with Microsoft operating systems I had learned to avoid certain software — and Vista was one OS that was never worth the trouble IMO.
Dell claimed to have XP loaded (or available to be loaded) on a machine with the kind of horsepower she needed for videoconferencing (with me primarily) and for another video program she has.
My Ignorance:
I should have seen it coming when the sales process became a nightmare. I went to the dell.ca web site (my mother lives in Canada) and called the number on the site so the hardware would be shipped to her in Canada. After spending a long time (a couple of hours) working through the specs and finally locating what appeared to be the right configuration I began to place the order and it was only then that the sales representative told me that I could not buy it from them. I inquired what the problem was and he informed me that Dell could not ship to Canada. After some discussion he told me that I’d called the wrong number and had ended up trying to place the order in the US.
First Contact:
Can you believe it? This guy is blaming me for calling the wrong place — even though I called the number prominently listed on the dell.ca site. After hanging up and continuing to place calls to numbers on the Canadian site “dell.ca” and getting routed to the US without asking to be — someone in the US finally got me through to the Canadian Dell office or fulfillment center or whatever it was I was speaking to. In the end most of the operators turned out to be in India and many of them had no clue about US or Canada or even the difference. Read the rest of this entry »
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You can buy things you need for 10 cents on the dollar…
By Sean | January 27, 2010
This is not a way to get liquidation products — it is a way to get the things you need for a fraction of their cost using a unique and little known leverage scheme.
I won’t waste time explaining it except to say that I know this business and I followed it from its earliest popularity when it emerged in the early 80′s.
The well written sales page for it describes about as good as I’ve seen anyone describe it. It costs a lot less than it probably should. I think many people would have sold 3000.00 seminars for this program. However they have done this in audio and video format and included live consulting and you can try it for 97.00 and, if you like it, upgrade to the full package for a total of 297.00.
You also have 60 days to evaluate it and get a full refund if the program does not live up to your expectations.
Just click right here for immediate access.
PS. There is no need to sign up for anything if you are not interested.
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You Might Want To Try This…
By Sean | January 20, 2010
Anyone reading my blog knows that I’ve been building my Twitter account rather cautiously. I built every user (except those who found me) manually and carefully. I attempted a couple of automated tools and did not like the impersonal and uncontrollable way they built accounts.
I recently posted a request for anyone who’d tried a particular twitter building service — but nobody got back to me — so I finally just signed up. That’s right I the plunge and tried a different service that I thought had more potential than the others I’d looked at because it was designed to target particular interest groups and do so automatically and for a very low price.
I opened a new twitter account instead of using my main one because I did not want the results confused and I did not want to pollute this account with any results that were impersonal or worse — robotic in nature.
Sure enough it worked exactly as good as they claimed. In 11 days I got over 1200 followers all with similar interests and did not manually follow or unfollow anyone. It really has built the list automatically and carefully without waving any red flags at twitter or its terms of service.
I love the fact that managing it is completely hands off. All I do is tweet with my followers which makes using my twitter account so much more pleasant. So far it has cost me less than two cents per follower. If I followed 500 tweeple in one hour about 250 of them would follow me back on average. 500 in an hour is very fast and very tiring to do and also considering that I’d also have to purge 250 of them from the list which would take another 10 to 15 minutes — I’d be getting less than 250 followers for an hours work.
Assuming 2 cents per follower I’d be making a paltry 5.00 an hour for my time and I’d not be getting any more targeted (towards my interests) followers than I’d get manually. In fact they’d be less targeted because I’d be manually approving their profiles and I could not filter quality followers with similar interests at that speed.
If you want to check it out for yourself take a look at this video. You don’t even have to sign up for it.
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