Interesting Observations

3 Crucial Things That School Never Taught You

pearl — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:26:19 +0000

This is a guest post by Jacob Share of JobMob

Are you one of those people who say they never learned anything in high school? Me neither. I learned a lot in high school, but there were some critical topics that never appeared on the blackboard.

1) Parenting

Carrying an egg around for a week isn't parenting. The sad thing is just doing that class assignment would have already put you "in the know" compared to most other high school graduates.

Looking at how you were raised by your parents will rarely prepare you for the real thing, which is why so many people agonize before having kids and then get stressed out when they do. Or worse, they become bad parents.

2) Financial Literacy

Can you read a company's financial statement? Could you read one when you finished school?

Let's try another example- do you know what the difference is between an asset and a liability?

Most people aspire to buying their own house for when they decide to settle down. Seems like a good asset to have, right? Think again. As long as you're paying off the mortgage on that house, it's a liability, a debt to pay off, not something bringing you any immediate returns. And because you're covering a mortgage, you're actually paying much more than the house cost the bank to buy it for you in the first place.

3) Job Hunting

People should love job hunting. It's a chance to do something better, to raise your standard of living, to move up in the world and improve life not just for you, but your dependents as well.

So then why does everyone hate looking work? Because they were never taught how to do it. As a result, they lack self-confidence and steel themselves for potentially months of the resume-interview-rejection cycle and should hardly be surprised when they meet those low expectations.

What you can do

If the educational system won't educate you, you need to educate yourself:

Read - there are many terrific blogs, self-help books and guides that can teach you but do yourself a favor and start reading BEFORE you need to make life-changing decisions on these topics.
Learn - consider enrolling in an online course, local seminar or workshops with experts who have a proven track record for what they teach.
Network - join support groups, discussion forums and social media sites whose members have similar experience or better. Try to find a mentor you can follow to success.

What do you think?

How were you able to overcome this missing chunk of your education?

About the author

Jacob Share created JobMob to bring together job seekers and jobfinders to find jobs in Israel and all over the world. The blog is filled with straight-talking advice based on real world experience and lots of humor thrown in, so you should subscribe now to JobMob via RSS or email if you're looking for a better job or just want to laugh about it with articles like the 150 Funniest Resume Mistakes, Bloopers and Blunders Ever.

photo by A Y A n

Additional Reading: Know more about the guy in the picture above dabbawalas

What do you think of the new theme?

pearl — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:35:56 +0000

Well, as you can see, Fresh Perspectives gets a new theme couple of days ago. The previous theme BloggingPro worked fine for some time but I used it for too long, more than a year and I needed a change. This theme, Options by Justin Tadlock as you can see, displays a lot more content for you to browse through and I'm loving the navigation.

I had tremendous help (truck loads of it I should say) from my dearest friends Mig from Online Public Relations and Deborah from Life In The Fast Lane. So, although I was a bit afraid of the change, I'm starting to really like it.

There are some features that are not working right now and we are trying to fix them but in the mean time, would love to hear from you guys. Please let me know in the comments if you find something broken or not working. If you are seeing this post via RSS, you'll definitely have to come out here to see it.

One of the things that's not working and it has nothing to do with the theme, is inserting images in WordPress 2.5.1 If you follow that link, you'll see so many others who are having problem with inserting images. Some have found the solution by modifying the .htaccess file which I want to refrain from since WordPress 2.6 has been just released today and I am hoping the upgrade will solve this problem.

So, then.. what do you guys think? Are the colors okay, better or worse than the previous one? What would you like to see and what feature can be remove?

If you were to describe yourself in few words,

pearl — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:42:05 +0000

How would you do that?

Okay, here's the constraint, try to describe yourself in just 2 or 3 words. Don't think about your whole life because that gets confusing. Just concentrate on your state of mind at this very moment, NOW, and see what you come up with.

And of course let us know in the comments what you thought of, or else we'll never know

Above is a picture of Michael's daughter from Flickr. I do not know Michael but when I came across this picture on Flickr while browsing, I instantly added him as a 'contact'. Michael's entire collection is great and there are tons of inspirational shots in his sets but this one touched me the most because of his explanation below this picture. It took me back to my childhood.

And I instantly felt sad, happy and calm at the same time.

I was sad because every time I think of my dad, I yearn to see him, talk to him and sometimes I listen to his messages on my cell phone voice mail.

I felt happy that he gave me a very enriched childhood, loved us all very dearly and supported us in everything we ever wanted to do.

I felt calm knowing that my mom is doing better. I was talking to a friend the other day who works in a public utilities company. She gets to hear from a lot of the clients on a daily basis about their problems. It was sad to know that so many of the older folk ( the ones in their late 70s or early 80s even) suffer because their water and/or electricity was shut off because they hadn't been able to pay their bills. It's really sad but that gave me a weird sense of calmness about my mother 'coz things could have been much worse than they really are.

Create Professional looking logos

pearl — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:53:02 +0000

Have you ever wanted to have a logo for your blog? I have thought of it many times but now that I am actually thinking of re-designing this blog, I also started to look into the possibility of making my own logo. And that's when I came across this Logo Design software from The Laughing Bird.

The Logo Creator can create professional logo designs that look as good as created by Photoshop. The software comes with a professionally developed collection of glossy, stylish logos that you can choose to edit and customize to your taste and save tons of money that you'd otherwise pay a graphic designer.

This software is great for any website owner who does not have huge budget to spend on graphics or doesn't have a flare for art. I don't even have Photoshop so for me, this is a godsend. If you look at the kind of logos that are included in it, you'll definitely be impressed with unlimited choices available.

When you buy The Logo Creator, you'll get a collection of professionally-developed logo sets. You can choose to edit an existing logo or create your own. If you choose to edit an existing logo, your choices are unlimited.

Here are some of the logos that are already included in the Logo Creator that can be customized in any way shape or form. Elements and texts can be removed/added, mixed and matched from one logo to another giving you your most desired and unique logo for the site, thus making it stand out from the competition.

The Logo Creator v5.0 comes with the following features:

The Logo Creator, logo design software is full of modifiable logo designs! Hundreds of possibilities! Thousands actually!
Sell the logo designs you create to your own clients!
Each logo edition comes with a library of logo design templates and logo elements including orbs, swooshes, shapes and glass-like objects!
Import and manipulate your own artwork, photos and clip art images!

To top these all, they have a lucrative affiliate program wherein you keep 50% of any sales made via your link.

There are 9 different Editions of the Logo Creator and each of the editions comes with 50 already created logos. You can buy any edition for $29.95. There is a Web 2.0 edition, there's one called The Corporate Edition and The Travel Edition, The Spiritual Edition, The Real Estate Edition, The Sports Edition, The Entertainment Edition, The Alphabet Edition, The Mascot Edition and a MEGA Edition for $179.95 that contains all of the other sets.

I recommend giving The Logo Creator a try for creating those logos you always wanted for your sites.

Which Firefox extensions are you currently using?

pearl — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:39:44 +0000

There are a lot of sites talking about top 10 or top 30 Fiefox extensions, but here are the ones I'm enjoying at the moment..

AdBlock Plus: get rid of those ads on any web page
Answers: quick definitions, references of words, you just need to hold the Alt key and click on the word to get your answers
BetterGmail 2: is an add-on by Gina Trapani of Lifehacker, it's a must for any Gmail lover - uses greasemonkey scripts to enhance its functionality and appearance
CoolIris Previews: this one is pretty cool as it lets you view pages without even clicking on the links or leaving the current page
Delicious: view all your delicious links via your browser, or tag pages as you browse
Digg Firefox extension: Lets you submit, digg your friends' recent submissions, view their comments, top stories, or recently popular stories and even lets you view the information about the page you are currently viewing in firefox
Digg Sidebar: Shows stories in being dugg in real time
FastDial: lets you save thumbnails of your favorite pages on the web, installed it recently and seems to be pretty nice so far
FireFTP: very handy since you don't need to download any software - although I also like FileZilla
Forecastfox very handy extension that sits on the status bar and is completely out of your way of browsing
Foxmarks Bookmarks Synchronizer: a must to synchronize bookmarks on different computers
FoxyTunes: I recently discovered this one and am enjoying it so far
NoScript: block java, java script and other executable content only from sites that you trust
Sage-too: is an RSS and Atom feeds aggregator that sits in your sidebar
One Click Installer for WordPress
(not available for Firefox 3.0 yet)
Picnik: one of my favorite online image editors
PicLense: allows you to view news, images, videos via their 3D wall - absolute entertainment
Reminderfox: I've become a huge fan of this extension because it has the pop-up reminders of your to-do list, without having to sign in to any application
SearchStatus: Display Google PageRank, Alexa rank and Compete ranking anywhere in your browser, along with fast keyword density analyser, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, Alexa info and more.
Shareaholic: Allows you to share your content with various social networking sites
StumbleUpon Discover new web sites based on your interests (is there anyone who doesn't have it?)
TabScope: I use it on one of my computers but never got used to it for some reason
I recently got rid of Yahoo Toolbar and installed Yahoo Mail Notifier

As I started to list these extension, I started thinking there are too many of these and may end up crashing my Firefox one day, and searched for something that might allow a backup of all the extensions, and lo and behold, there it was: FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) not only backs up your add-on's, it can also synchronize them from different pc's. The only problem is that they haven't released the updated version for Firefox 3.0, but as soon as they do, I'm installing it.

Need I use any more of these? This is the first time I made a list of all the extensions I'm using across all pc's and was a bit surprised how much I rely on them.

How about you? Have you downloaded Firefox 3.0 yet?

If not what are you waiting for?

and if you are die hard fan of Firefox like I am, which extensions are you using?

PS: As an aside that gave me a chuckle, this post is written with Windows Live Writer and the word Firefox is underlined red for spelling error and on right clicking to correct it, I notice they don't even have the word Firefox in their dictionary! Huh? here is the image:

Interesting Posts Around the Web - June 7th

pearl — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 22:33:45 +0000

Simplified Niche Research - I should have read this post before diving into domain buying frenzy I went through some time back. Steven talks about ways to use Commission Junction for finding profitable niches

How to Make an Affiliate Store with Affilistore and Datafeeds Because of Simonne’s step by step instructions on how to set up affiliate stores and niche sites, I ended up buying a few domains and honestly it has given much needed motivation to continue

The Amazing Power of Encouragement Laura Spencer’s article holds so true for me that I had to share it with you all. I am able to come back to blogging because of all the encouragement I have received from you all over the last few months. So, thank you.

Five Tips to Turn Setbacks into Success over at Alex’s blog is an article everyone should read. In Shilpan’s words: “Even the best among us have seen their share of setbacks. Unfortunately, we seldom find their failures in the pages of history.” So true.

Leaning Into the Blogging Dip Ah! Mark Dykeman must have been reading my mind ‘coz I’ve been thinking of reviewing The Dip forever as this book has many times given me courage to just quit the things or projects that are going nowhere or just to hang tough.

10 Reasons You Should Never Have a Religion I starred this article to come back to read it but never had the time but look at the headline, it might be provocative to some but I am always amused at his boldness. Now how many of us can really talk about how such a controversial subject?

My dear friend Mig is re-branding with a New Logo and has asked for reader input on the three logos to choose from. My vote was on 1a because of it’s simplicity and clarity.

Talking of brands, Vivien’s post on Brandwashed in 8 minutes is an interesting one about her and her daughter’s routine going through brands every morning.

{I just realized Vivien’s post is part of a project @ DearJaneSample where I saw some really neat posts about brands.}

On a fun side, Jake shares 7 Funny Newspaper Job wanted ads

And finally, Deborah continues to surprise us including a picture of her hugging a shark in one of her posts on Bizarre Underwater Inventions and Feats

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend wherever you are. We’ve had a temperature of 96 degrees today and it’s just not fun!

How I Manage Multiple Blogs - Part 1

pearl — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:48:33 +0000

This is a guest post that Matt had written for me in early May but I was not in the right state of mind to post. At the time Matt was running a project to help bloggers and had asked what he could do for them.

Hi, my name is "Lord" Matt - some of you might know me from the oddly named "The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt" or any number of other blogs that I maintain. Pearl has challenged me to write about time and productivity and how I manage all those blogs. The fact that I am doing so will give my wife quite a good chuckle when I tell her. While I do manage to keep a lot of blogs afloat some of my other work can occasionally suffer a little - even I could be more efficient. What I am going to do, then, is break down my practices and comment on how strong or weak I think they are with examples.

My back story

My first blogs where experiments on blogspot that I long ago abandoned but they proved to be a great learning tool but useless blogs. For example I discovered that without some form of networking location (facebook, MyBlogLog, Stumble Upon, etc.) you can easily spend the entire day drifting around blogs on the same platform as yourself wondering why there were rarely any suitable ones worth even commenting on. I would spend two days a week not coding and just using the blogger bar to jump to the next blog. Most blogs were inane, empty or just outright odd. I had a readership of about 5 and frankly no advert clicks, no affiliate conversions (I was just getting into that area back then) and rarely any comments.

The first success I had was a blog whose whole existence was to say nice things about other blogs. It did very well and I was still running it 4 or 5 years ago. Then my daughter was born. It is all well and good blogging all day when all you want to do is learn to blog, write code and work on a novel while your partner is at work. With a little one and a partner at home and the endless hours dried up. As did the blog. A while later I purchased the lordmatt.co.uk domain name (looking back I should have grabbed the dot com because "lord matt" is now a big brand for me and the guy with the dot come even has the same first and last name as me).

I had originally thought of getting "kingmatt" or "godmatt" which fitted the running joke better but I was talked down by friends and wife. (Just as well realy). At first this blog was directionless - if you go back to the beginning you will find that the posts were poor quality, patchy, uneven, and fully of spelling errors. They also draw no-hits-at-all, ever. I learned what I was doing quite quickly and soon started to draw a readership and I also made some mistakes (never get involved in some-one else’s argument, for example). Mistakes are expensive and set you back in terms of readers and general traction. That’s the back story now for the hints and tips.

Launching a blog

Over time I seem to have developed a working technique that relied more on my daily habits than on any system. That all changed when I launched Thanet Star which was aimed at my locality within Kent, UK (it’s near London). I suddenly had to put all my theory into organised practice. I posted something every day for the first few months and although I did not run the smoothest blog launch the blog has gradually picked up readership and local links. The truth of the mater is that I "cheated".

I always do - and here is how I "cheat". It is a method that I am still developing but one that has worked well everytime since I started using it. I write down one way or another exactly (or approximately) what I want to do and then start designing a theme that will do what I have specified. Along with that I compose an introductory post outlining what I intend to do, an about me and a few other house keeping articles (like "what is a feed"). Next I create any pages that I will need. On my chosen bloging platform (NucleusCMS) these are called "Custom Skins" and can carry any of the "skinvars" (mark up for skins). So I can show listings for secondary blogs (nucleusCMS supports multiple blogs and authors from the outset) or anything special from a plugin that might produce a lot of output. Then I customise templates.

On my favourite blog platform (NucleusCMS) templates are the, well, template for posts. I could go into details on it but this post is going to be long enough as it is. Prior to the launch of the Thanet Star I wrote about 12 good quality posts and saved them in text files on my laptop. Then when I had a theme that I was happy met the needs that I had specified earlier I start posting with the house keeping posts. I back-date the "About this blog", "about me" and so forth so that they appear to have been published in the weeks before I started.

Then I post each of my articles one for the day and then future posted so that the next three weeks are covered if I get no further. Future posted items do not publish until the time is reached. I then sit back and pay attention to any blogs that have suffered a lack of posts recently. I will do a round of each blog and check comments, remove spam and then try to think of something to say. Sometimes I have a long list of things I want to talk about but sometimes I am at a loss.

Minimum Blogging

I try to make sure that no blog goes more than seven days without a post. Ideally they should go no more than three days and to increase subscription they should post every day. This does not always happen - for example Buzz 42 has gone dead and will need an epic working on to get it going again. That’s a ball I have dropped and this is something that can happen when you work the ay I do. The trick is to actually have an interest in what you write about so that when you think "what shall I do today?" you want to go and blog about whatever it is you blog about.

What I do when I have no idea what to do

When I have no idea what to blog I use my next "cheat". I use firefox and use the links bar to the max. It’s full of folders with short names (to make room for more). Each niche I write for or think I might like to write for has a folder. Into that go all the best links that I find as I surf and generally read things on-line. On that topic I have another "cheat" where I try to make sure there is some cross over between my niches. Often this is the "geeky perspective" sometimes (like on Thanet Star) this is subtle but other times (like on my diet and fitness blog Lord Matt’s Girth Watch it is dead obvious).

Now my links that I have been compiling allow me to do one of a few things. The big link dump "What is Matt bookmarking" requires that the exported HTML be decrufted to remove the extra mark-up that Firefox uses. However, this is not so very interesting for readers (although the site owners love it) and should only be done every few months and then only if you intend to change your bookmarks regularly.

The second easy "cheat" post is "n Links About x" where n is the number and x is the specific topic. For example I might consider writing "5 essential links for php coders" for my main geeky blog or "8 political links around Thanet" for Thanet Star. This gives me a get out of jail free for the next seven days while I find my muse again. There is a third easy "cheat". I have a news (feeds) folder and I keep lots of live bookmarks (headlines from feed) on each topic I want to blog about. Some mornings I don’t feel up to blogging so I read other blogs. So long as I do this three times a week I usually don’t miss much of interest. When stuck, sometimes, I simply find a topic that two or three blogs in the same niche are talking about and I write about it too linking to them and quoting them.

All I need are enough words to not have the post dominated by quotes. 50:50 is fine but 80:20 in favour of my own words is better. Due to the sometimes crossover between blogs there is often grounds for creating a short post pointing readers to a post on another blog. This is, of course, "cheating" but it is also good for cross pollination of the blogs. You can add value by talking about the post on your other blog but adding a new spin or viewpoint suited to the blog where you will put the post. If all that fails I check the industry news and Google alerts for keywords I have been watching.

Sometimes this gives me a story that my niche is not very aware of and I can break the news. "Intro, quote (with link), comment and conclusion" - that’s the pattern here. Quick and easy but enough content and comment to make it my own and draw comments. Using a linklet I can open a pop-up with my highlighted text already in a blockquote and the link in place (a bit like a poor man’s Stumble Upon window) and I can write the post without leaving the news source. My final "cheat" is to think up a hard question and ask it in a small post. In Green Moral I actually made a feature of this - I list the questions in the right hand sidebar. So that is how I cope when an emergency need for a post arises but how do I keep going day-to-day?

Day to day blogging tricks

Okay so what is the average day for me like? There is no average day and what exactly I get to do depends on a large number of factors. Most commonly this is what happens. I get up - this happens between 6am (rare) and 7am (more common) and have a cup of tea (typical Bitish person me).

Normally I will flip open the laptop and browse other blogs, check comments and stumbles and read the news. (Sometimes I do something I left hanging or work on an idea I had during the night.) Almost always this will lead to me writing a post before 9am. Sometimes more than one post. Some of these will be of the "cheat" type, short sweat and to the point.

Other times they will be a little more epic. In any 14 day period I will write at least one huge and and in depth post (such as this one). To write such big posts I take the topic and start at the top of the page and keep talking until I feel I have it covered. In my head there is a short list of things that need to be said.

If I cover these then I am done and I move on to a conclusion. Sometimes the epic post will be all I do all day. I will usually follow it up be being active on social networks. Twitter, Facebook and Stumble Upon are where you will find me most of the time if you find me at all. Although if the topic is geeky enough there are forums that I also use. I hope you found this interesting if so check back soon because there is a part two! Untill then do you have some "cheats" to share?

"Lord Matt" is a full time geek, business owner and blogger. Sometimes he stops having fun and remembers to make money. Generally he does what matters most to him. On and off he can be found at twitter, StumbleUpon and a number of forums, blogs and communities. On a site entitled Lord Matt and You he is working on a project to help bloggers and guest posters find each other.

Britain’s Got Talent - Michael Jackson

pearl — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:30:24 +0000

For a change, I was sent this video by someone today and it sure changed my mood so thought of sharing it with you guys for smiles.

Also look for a guest post in a couple of days here. Enjoy!

little things that give us hope

pearl — Wed, 28 May 2008 06:08:18 +0000

It's been over two months since I've updated this blog and even though I browse through the web and meet/talk and socialize with many of you on various networking sites, I have to be honest that something inside me is not the same as before. The months after my father's passing haven't been easy on any of us in the family but it's been even tougher on our mother who is often hears him calling her name out for something. His presence in every room is still felt and even though we are comforted in the thoughts that he is around us and amidst us, the helplessness and not being able to see his physical self is just beyond any words could explain.

For me, there have been sudden and unannounced crying bouts at odd times and odd places, more so in my car while going home after work, which automatically disappear after some time. They are like spasms that come fast and make you feel like nothing in the world matters any more. All kinds of emotions, anger, helplessness, frustration, sadness, depression - any of these prop up at different times causing a lot of stress. Needless to say, it's been one of the most difficult things I have experienced.

With so much stress there have been many days when it became a burden to just get through the day let alone accomplish something. But, I am managing well so far. And the credit goes to all of you. My online community of friends - who are the reason I am able to write this post. You are the reason I have been able to keep my sanity many days when all else failed. The days when during my sadness, I didn't have the energy to do anything, when I wanted to be all alone yet needed the quiet support. It was easier reading your emails and short messages full of love, support and advice on twitter and StumbleUpon, than picking up the telephone to talk to someone. Your kind gestures, expressions of sympathy and offers to help out with this blog, everything - comforted and helped to pick up my spirit.

So, in this post, I want to take the time to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for being there for me.

Steven @ http://traffikd.com/

Aruni @ http://www.entrepremusings.com/

Alina @ http://wordsofabrokenmirror.com/

Rob @ http://www.robschaumer.com/blog/

Glenn @ http://www.interfaithnetworking.com/myblog

Sue @ http://www.sueblimely.com/

David McCauley

Mig @ http://ewriting.pamil-visions.com/

Joy @ http://gourmeted.com/

Darren @ http://www.problogger.net/

David @ http://www.seduction-chronicles.net/david-deangelo

Mark @ http://www.mytropicalescape.com/

Tay @ http://superbloggingtips.com/

Lalla @ http://www.lalla-mira.com/

betshopboy @ http://www.betshopboy.net/

Scott @ http://mythermos.com/

Morgan @ http://morganwrites.wordpress.com/

Shazza

Ken @ http://blogs.mysites-advisor.com/

April @ http://www.dreamingofsilverroses.com/

Mike @ http://port16.com/blog

Renny @ http://www.terella.no/

Kelly @ http://she-power.com/

Stephen @ http://www.scratch99.com/

Don @ http://makingsalesmakingmoney.com/blog/

Alex @ http://www.thenext45years.com/

Karen @ http://abaminds.com/

teeni @ http://vtroom.wordpress.com/

Lyndon @ http://www.cornwallseo.com/search

Meg @ http://blogpond.com.au/

Ange @ http://angesbiz.com/

Madhur @ http://www.whoismadhur.com/

Ben @ http://www.benh.org/techblog

Ritu @ http://www.ghostblogging.net/

Ray @ http://freshblogger.com

Donovan @ http://www.seduction-chronicles.net/

Ruud @ http://ruudhein.com/

Akemi @ http://yes-to-me.com/

Ian @ http://www.mybigworldofcrap.org/

Pelf @ http://chenpn.com/

Frank @ http://www.seopranos.com/

Shankar @ http://www.shankarganesh.com/

Gazzali @ http://proenrichment.blogspot.com/

Isabella @ http://moritherapy.org/

Deborah @ http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/

Colin @ http://cotojo.wordpress.com/

Vivien @ http://www.inspirationbit.com/

Tony @ http://aplawrence.com/

Diane @ http://dianealdred.com/

Saboma @ http://saboma.stumbleupon.com/

Monika @ http://www.thewritersmanifesto.com/blog/

Diana @ http://www.134u.com/

Simonne @ http://www.alltipsandtricks.com/

Pablo @ http://blogsreview.net/

Matt @ http://lordmatt.co.uk/

Jay @ http://www.onlineopportunity.org

Mayank @ http://www.reviewsaurus.com/

Alex Petre

Wayne @ http://www.wayneliew.com/

Adnan @ Blogtrepreneur

Jacob @ http://jobmob.co.il/

Franco Yong @ http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Franco_Yong

Anna @ Stumble Upon

Kim @ http://laketrees.blogspot.com/

Jolynn Brailey @ http://www.thefitshack.com/

Susie @ http://soul-to-soul.com/

Glen @ http://www.viperchill.com/blog/

Isabella @ http://moritherapy.org/

Alex @ http://www.thenext45years.com/

Dawud @ http://dmiracle.com/

Bobby @ http://revellian.com/

Mark @ http://markeff.blogspot.com/

Ev @ http://wackymom.blogspot.com/

Mary Ann @ http://maryannaville.blogspot.com/

Maggie @ http://tasteofbothworlds.typepad.com/

Alina @ http://www.automaticlifechanges.com/

Barbara @ http://www.scvlife.net/

Maura @ http://momcominghome.com/

My Heartfelt Thanks!

In Loving Memory of My Father

pearl — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:56:41 +0000

My dad passed away on March 17th.

I was not able to say anything at the funeral because of the disbelief and shock. When I saw a lot of my family men in suits walking around at the funeral, it was so unbelievable and for a few seconds, my eyes were looking around the room to find my father. How could it be that he was not amongst us? He was right there, but not walking, resting with a smile on his face. In the new suit that he had just bought and gotten custom tailored, as if he knew. It felt like he would wake up any second.

I cannot believe it’s already been over two weeks without him.

I am not able to express in words the intensity of my sadness but if you were here dad, I would like you to know that you truly are my hero.

I love you dad and I really miss you.

Does Prayer Really Work?

pearl — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:33:36 +0000

I haven't been able to update this blog for a couple of weeks and I thought I owed you all some explanation. Some of my blogging friends know by now that my dad has been in ICU for the last couple of weeks. At times, his health seems to be improving but at other times we get terrified.

This is how it all started. One day out of the blue he started having severe headache that wouldn't go away for a few days. He's never had headaches all his life so that was alarming but he is of the type who never asks anyone for any help. He wouldn't let our mom tell any of us siblings saying he didn't want to bother any of us. But then one day, he had a vomit and was taken to emergency. You would think the doctors would have done the cat-scan of the head right away but they took two full days to review his symptoms - which included lower back pain, intense weakness and pain in the thighs. They kept thinking it was some kind of weird virus. But when the cat-scan was done, it was discovered that he had bled at multiple spots in the brain. The bleeding had stopped but then other complications started happening - lung infection which according to the doctors, was picked up in the hospital itself.

My dad has always been very self sufficient, always going out of his way to help just about everyone and asking for help for himself is the last thing in his dictionary. Not always a positive I know. So this morning, he talked to my mom on the phone that he was feeling a lot better and should be home by the weekend. Only around noon we found out that he had tried to get out of the bed to go to the washroom but as soon as he got up, he fell because of weakness and passed out. We don't know when the nurses got to him but he did get bruised and started bleeding on the forehead - externally.

Thank God, he didn't have any internal bleeding. But he is extremely weak and is hardly talking. He said a few words to me this evening and they were "don't worry about me my child, I will be fine, take care of yourself". Apparently he knows I have been sick with high fever from the stress. And hearing these words, I couldn't stop crying. That's my dad. Always bringing attention away from himself, always thinking about others.

All these days I've been helplessly praying that he gets better. And at times while praying, I've found myself making deals and promises with the supreme being, in exchange for making my dad better.

As I write this, my childhood images float in front of my eyes. Our parents try to provide us with everything that is within their power. They will themselves go through difficulties but not let their children suffer. So why does God make us see them suffer so much?

Sometimes parents will use, loving though weird, names to refer to their children. My dad calls me his little tigress. It's his way of giving me strength and tell me I can achieve just about anything in life. But today, with him lying helplessly in the hospital, struggling for his life, I feel completely shattered and lonely.

A lot of questions go through my head these days.

Why are we all running after making money?

What is it that I should make my priority to do, while I am able bodied?

What is it that makes us walk, talk and smile? makes us feel pain and happiness?

I was chatting with a friend a few days ago, whose family went through some similarly tough situation. I asked him, does a person create a journey or the journey molds a person? We both didn't know the answer to this. Do you?

Today I request you all to keep my dad in your prayers. I can't continue as I cannot see the words on the screen anymore.

Networking - Necessary Investment for Small Businesses

pearl — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:13:24 +0000

You know that the success of your online business is based on how much volume of targeted traffic you attract to your website, blog or online e-commerce store. One of the easier ways to do that is to master a few of the social media sites available, since social Media sites have exploded all across the web over the last year or so. With literally millions of websites and thousands of them probably selling almost similar products and services as yours, it's difficult to use traditional means to promote your products and even your website.

Attracting customers to your home based business by using social media sites sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? It is easy once you learn the how these networks work but many people running home based small businesses are still completely unaware of this method of reaching out to the world.

Social Media Marketing is the fastest growing phenomenon on the internet today, for its unique advantage of being able to tap into the latest and greatest user generated content such as blogs and bookmarking sites. So, every business, big or small, home based or not, should definitely utilize any of the hundreds of social networking sites to attract customers to their business and increase sales.

Here are some of the steps they can take to get started and benefit.

1. Create a Blog

Blogs are highly interactive, with ongoing conversations amongst like minded people, and can be easily controlled and shaped by the blog author. This is in contrast to static web-sites that just sit there conveying one-way information to the visitors. As a blogger, you can write about anything and everything and if you are writing useful articles, solving people's problems or providing value with your content, you'll easily develop a faithful audience. By sharing your thoughts and ideas with you website visitors, you establish trust and build a relationship with them, instead of coming off as some marketing robots. Do not just start a blog and then hope someone would be buying your services or products. Get involved in the community because that is what blogging is all about. Visit other blogs in your industry and participate in the ongoing discussions, leaving a link to your website. If you are leaving meaningful comments, people will want to look at what your site is all about.

2. Create Videos

Low-cost high speed internet connections everywhere, low cost portable devices, phones and laptops with wireless connections capable of streaming video content combined with YouTube, EyeSpot, Google Videos, Revver, JumpCut, Grouper and vSocial to name just a few, make it extremely easy to spread your content to wider audience. If nothing else, converting your text content to short infomercials is a must in your efforts of marketing. YouTube allows you to add friends, leave comments on other people's videos. These video sites are used by millions, so using the comment systems judiciously, in an attempt to attract the right kind of population is a must.

3. Join a Networking Site

By joining many social networking sites, it'll be easier for you to find new customers for your business. By actively participating and sharing useful informative content with other members, you'll develop a stronger voice and in time will gain recognition of other high profiled members. Making your connections with these other powerful and known members will make you more visible and once you are visible, you'll gain trust of many, which will make selling your services or products easier.

4. Join Online Groups

Google Groups and Yahoo Groups, LinkedIn and other forums, that allow people with similar interests to have discussions are places for any small business owner to be able to find the right customers. On these sites, you should also be able to have a sense of locations and demographics from people's profiles. Don't forget to use your own same powerful profile that you built is recognizable on other networking sites.

5. Get Involved in Local Business Networks

Besides interacting with the virtual communities like Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and MySpace, do not shy away from taking active role in the offline gatherings, face-to-face real-life conferences and social meet ups to connect with other professionals and learn about your local communities and its needs.

Home business can benefit and thrive from socializing actively with the online as well as off line communities. Every social networking scenario will have different rules to participate, get ahead and be visible. So, learn the rules and follow them properly.

Do not spam the system and do not start asking other members to vote your content up or buy your services the first day of joining (or even the first week of joining). Get to know people. Help them in their endeavors first before trying to gain something. I've had people send me shouts on Digg the first day of them joining the network and befriending me. Or on StumbleUpon, there are people who will tell you to vote their content without giving any introduction first. That's a strict no no.

Regardless of what you are selling and how you attract traffic to your home business, there is one way that works all the time, and that is the quality of your content. Continuing to add fresh content to your website will be searchable on the search engines as well as be appreciated by your likely customers.

Where to find Social Networking Sites

There are many places you can find these sites and join them, learn them and start participating. Here are some of the resources that I know of:

Social Networking God: 350+ Social Networking Sites @ Mashable

Social Media Sites @ Traffikd

List of Social Networking Sites @ Wikipedia

Note: I don't run a home business, but I have been using many social media sites and networks for some time now and feel that the above points should work for any type of small business in achieving it's goal of finding new customers. Feel free to add to these points and let us know how you have used networking for your business.

This post is submitted to Don's Group Writing Project on Home Based Businesses

Awards, Accolades III

pearl — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 04:58:53 +0000

I’m happy to say that Awards, Accolades has become a series in itself.. Check out Awards I and Awards II to see what I mean.

I can’t begin to thank all the wonderful people I have met ever since I started blogging. These fellow bloggers who have become good friends make my life better each and every day. So, once again, I thank these shining stars, who have become part of my life, from the bottom of my heart.

You have heard me talk about the most generous soul, Mig, who not only comes up with the original posts (like 10 reasons why she loves pearl), but also continues to bestow me with numerous beautiful awards and accolades.

And what can I say? Sue from Sueblimely and Kuanyin from Blog Pond and Colin from Free PC Security made me blush by calling me their Blogging Mentor, the award created by Sue.

How can I thank these beautiful people making my world ever so exciting? Kim the beautiful artist from Laketrees designed another award this year called Significant Blogger Award and it was an honor to receive it from her.

Kim has also spent considerable time coming up with Top 101 Artists’ Blogs which is worth checking out.

Colin also awarded Best Friends award which is very nice of him. Colin maintains numerous blogs with a lot of useful information and is always ready to help out anyone in need. I am proud that he is my friend. thanks buddy.. (Did I pick up all the awards from you Colin? I know you’ve been showering me with a lot of them lately lol)

When you get mentioned and recognized by others, it makes blogging experience even more exciting and makes you want to continue, despite all the struggles that come with blogging. I started reading Steven Snell’s blog, Vandelay Design, a few months ago and really loved it. I was surprised when Steven asked to feature me on his new blog, Traffikd, a blog about Social Media and Internet Marketing. Check out this blog for all you want to know about Social Media or Internet Marketing.

Steven was also very kind in including me for his list of 8 Bloggers That Won’t Bite, on PureBlogging.

What more could I ask? I am blessed meeting so many supportive and kind friends and I wish the best for all of you.