The Top Ten Reasons Driving the Stock Market Back to its Year Highs at Year End

Those concerned that the US sub-prime crisis will continue to have an adverse impact on the Equities front should read John's article. In it, he talks about why he believes the Stock Market will move up by year end, despite ongoing circumstances. Even though the Fed has cut rates by 0.25%, financial stocks tanked as investors were expecting a 0.5% cut. Are people over-reacting to the whole situation? We will know in 2 weeks, won't we?

Review: Car Guy Garage

What do you do with your garage? Is it still a place for your car to sleep in? After I have sold my car off last year (as I live a mere 10 mins away from my workplace), my garage has become my storeroom. I really dread going in there as I fear my old junk may just fall on me if they are not stacked properly, haha!

If you, like me, are thinking of "pimping up" your garage by installing some cool garage cabinets, why not pay carguygarage.com a visit? They cabinets, workbenches, tool boxes, garage flooring, garage storage, garage cabinets, garage door openers, organization, garage heaters, garage floor tile, floor mats, garage floor paint, storage systems, laundry room cabinets and other garage packages. You should be able to find something to spruce up your garage.

Magic Loans

Magic Loans.

The name itself makes you wonder if the lender will just disappear with your money, doesn't it?

This company basically offers 3 types of loans:-
(a) Homeowner Loans - For new homebuyers or for existing homeowners who can use the money towards the refurbishment/improvement of their houses;
(b) Consolidation Loans - To pay off those outstanding repayments and high interest credit card bills; and
(c) Secured Loans - For those miscelleaneous purposes like buying a new car, taking that dream holiday or financing something very special, such as a family wedding or similar special celebration.

At the prevailing interest rate of 10.9% per annum, I think you can get a better deal elsewhere.

My advise? Caveat Emptor.

Do you have adequate insurance?

With over a thousand general insurance companies operating in the UK, wouldn't it be great if there's a website that will compare the insurance plans, premiums, T&Cs, etc., and simply tell you which plan is most suited for your particular profile? Well, head on down to nationsfinance.co.uk then!

To adequately protect your wealth in the event of a fire or a burglary, I would advise that you do not save on Home insurance.

Similarly, if you own a car, you should protect yourself by buying adequate Car insurance, especially if you are still servicing a loan on it.

Lastly, to minimize your loasses from the loss of a luggage during an overseas trip, you should have travel insurance before you even embark on the holiday.

In conclusion, whatever you may do, mitigate your risk with the appropriate insurance policies. It's money you cannot afford to not spend.

Taking the Credit for Credit Cards

cardguide.com.uk is an online website that provides a comparison guide of all the major credit cards available in the UK.

With regard to the hot topic of balance transfers, the above website recommends that one selects a credit card that offers 0% balance transfer and use it solely for its balance transfer feature. Do not make purchases on it. Why? This way, any repayment made to that card goes straight to repaying the balance transfer - and only the balance transfer. Make sure the balance is fully paid off before the 0% deal expires to avoid incurring interest charges, or transfer the debt remaining to another card.

There are also 0% purchase credit cards available. In a nutshell, these 0% credit cards offer you free credit for an introductory period before the standard annual interest reate is applied, in essence giving you a loan at 0% for a specified period of time before the credit card's standard rate kicks in. The "free period" ranges from 3 months to 13 months. My advise? Grab the 13-month one of course!

eDeal Finder

Ho Ho Ho! Christmas is just round the corner... Are you feeling overwhelmed by the tons of gifts you have/need to buy?

If you are, why not check out edealfinder.com for some amazing discount coupons?

Thinking of buying some jewellery from Blue Nile for that special someone, do check out these great BlueNile coupons!

For Computer and peripherals, go check out these fantastic Dell discounts!

Online Christmas Shopping has never been easier.

National Pay Day

Everybody's after your salary even before you earn it. Nope, not just your wife, but Everybody!

Banks are charging lesser on transaction costs if you invest in their mutual funds products on a monthly basis using your salary. This is becasue your salary acts as a form of guaranteed monthly cash flow for the bank, and they are "banking" on the fact that most people tend to forget where their money is being siphoned off to if its done electronically and remains hassle free for the investor.

Anyway, coming back to the point of short term loans, who needs short term loans in the first place? If you barely qualify for the no faxing payday loan that National Pay Day offers, then you are probably the right candidate. If you make about $1,000 per month, a 16-day tenure loan of a max of $600 means a 60% increase in your salary. But if $600 is considered critical for your needs, and you have no other avenues to turn to except for short-term loan companies, my advise is that you start saving. Seriously, please start examining your financial health because you should have at least 3 months worth of savings for emergency users.

I know this is probably easy for me to say esp. since I am not in any financial crisis, but I'm saying this because you will probably just dig yourself in a deeper hole by turning to short term loans. Don't forget that the interest rate is 25% - that's 1% higher than what most credit card companies are charging on a late payment. So, I guess the only reason you should take out a short term loan is if you can find an investment that guarantees you a 26% return within 16 days on a $600 principal. If you can find such a vehicle, pls let me know; I don't mind earning $6 every 16 days.

For those with strong willpower, that's a good offer for you - Your first $300 from National Pay Day is Free. Free in the sense that you just have to pay back $300 after 16 days and not $375. Again I stress that this is for those with strong willpower.

Review: DialAFlight

If you are thinking of taking weekend breaks, short breaks or even city breaks with your friends or family, why not pay DialAFlight a visit, as they got some awesome deals for you.

DialAFlight is filled with some Cheap Flights and Incredible Holiday Offers! For example, on the top right hand corner of the site, you will find that you can stay at the Serpent Hostel for only £24! If you doubt the quality or question the comfort of a 1 star hotel, you can just scroll down the list as the offers are arranged according to the number of (hotel related) stars.

Hmmm... Again, I'm itching to recommend some improvements to the site. I know this is a UK-based company, but why should everything be displayed in "£"? If the target audience is that of an international one, I recommend that the website implement a function which would allow its users to change the currency of the displayed prices. The available currencies should at the very least include the countries being featured on the website.

Another laudable feature of the site is the ability to hire a vehicle, and it offers a different set of wheels for different states of Australia. Hmmm... £144 for a one-week drive of the Hyundai Getz in Cairns - Nice!

Lastly, if you accept DialAFlight's bundle offer of booking both a Flight as well as a Hotel stay, you get to enjoy a preferential rate! As to how "preferential" this rate is, you gotta call/phone/dial them to find out. Put your negotiation skills to the test!

Review: Coupon Chief

Well, Christmas is in 2 months time and with the recent Bull Run, everybody's got that extra cash to spend! So what's a great place to do your Christmas shopping?

If you are looking for Home Electronics, do check out these amazing BestBuy.com deals!

• 10% Off on all Maytag & Whirlpool major kitchen appliances
• $100 Off any Frigidaire front-loading laundry pair;
• $10 - $50 Off select MP3 players plus Free Shipping;
• $30 price drop on Sony T20 Cyber-shot 8.1MP digital camera; and
• $50 price drop on Casio S770 EXILIM 7.2MP digital camera.

Or, if you prefer some Computers related gizmos, check out these great Dell.com bargains!

• $20 off Viewsonic 19-inch Monitor with iPod Dock;
• $16 off Samsung 19-inch Monitor; and
• $584 off Inspiron E1405.

So what are you waiting for? Hurry on down to Coupon Chief to do your online shopping today!

Car Guy Garage

What do you do with your garage? Is it still a place for your car to sleep in? After I have sold my car off last year (as I live a mere 10 mins away from my workplace), my garage has become my storeroom. I really dread going in there as I fear my old junk may just fall on me if they are not stacked properly, haha!

If you, like me, are thinking of "pimping up" your garages, why not pay carguygarage.com a visit? They cabinets, workbenches, tool boxes, garage flooring, garage storage, garage cabinets, garage door openers, organization, garage heaters, garage floor tile, floor mats, garage floor paint, storage systems, laundry room cabinets and other garage packages. You should be able to find something to spruce up your garage.

Review: Hotel Reservations

How does Hotel Reservations stand out among its peers and competitors?

Here's what I think. Because of my background, I will be coming mostly from an Usability point of view and I do hope that the website owner will find my criticisms constructive enough to actually implement some of my recommendations to further enhance its website.

Homepage: Upon entering the homepage, I am bombarded by tons of information. Tons! The Homepage is too cluttered, just like most other online websites. Online surfers are impatient people with short attention spans, so they are easily put off when an encyclopedia wealth of information is being thrown in their face.

Recommendation Sub-page: I have problems getting started or even knowing how/where to get started; If I happen to be brought to the homepage without a destination in mind, will I know what to do next or will I just look for the exit? I hope the website can design a "Recommendations" page for those who were stung by the travelling bug but are clueless as to where they wanna go in the meantime.

Book Online: If you guys notice, there's a "Book online" tab near the top right hand corner of the screen. It would be useful to turn this plain text into a hyperlink to direct potential customers straight to the "Hotel Reservations" page.

Hotel Filter: At the Hotels sub-page, you can sort the Hotels according to "Best Value", "Quality", "Price" and "A-Z". Here's a breakdown of what this means:-

"Quality" - Hotels are arranged from 5 stars to 0 stars
"Price" - Hotels are arranged from the cheapest to the most expensive
"A-Z" - Alphabetical order

My question is - What does "Best Value" mean? Cheapest Hotel in each Quality standard? How does it differ from "Price"? (I did a sort according to both "Best Value" and "Price" and they both return different results) Maybe it would help if there's a pop-up text box which explains the above 4 categories when users do a scroll-over.

"Save up to 70% off": At the top right hand corner, I am sure you will be attracted by these 5 words. It would definitely help if HotelReservations.com can explain or give a breakdown as to why users can save up to 70% off when they make online bookings through the website.

"$100 Rebate" Promotion: There's an ongoing promotion which gives up to $100 cash rebate with online booking. The catch? You gotta make a 12-night booking. I'm sure you have heard of the phrase: "Nothing in life is free". Well, I have a personal saying which goes: "Free stuff often comes at a high price".

Conclusion: I have seen about 10 out of the 71 posts made by other bloggers, and they were all generic in nature, and nothing which were specific to HotelReservations.com. I do hope that the owners will appreciate my honest review of their website and implement some of my recommendations. Competition is stiff in this industry, and we must all strive to improve continuously. Overall, I think it is a good online travel website, but with a few tweaks, it can become better.

Review: Submit2Please

Traffic - The currency equivalent of the Internet realm.

Submit2Please is an online business which offers manual directory submission to various directories across the world. They promise that your website's URL will not only be submitted but they will eventually be listed on the targeted directory.

So why is directory submission important?

Directory submission has 3 major benefits and they can be broken down as:-

Higher Positioning in Search Engine Results
Indexing of Web Site/Blog
Higher Probability of Click Through Traffic (otherwise known as CTC)

How much is it?

Submission to 500 Directories within 18 days - $99.95

Submission to 250 Directories (of PR 3+) within 14 days - $74.95

Submission to 250 Directories within 14 Days - $64.95

Submission to 150 Directories (of PR 4+) within 8 Days - $49.95

Guaranteed inclusion in Google index within 10 days - $9.95

Is the above expensive? That depends on how much revenue you are currently generating from your Blog/Website in the first place. My rule of thumb is 30% of your revenue should go into online marketing/advertising expenditure. So how do we put this into practise? Let's say your Blog is currently generating $50 a month, I would advise you to sacrifice 1 month of your revenue and pay for the 150 Directory submission and see if this boost up your revenue. If it does not result an increase in your monthly revenue by 200% (i.e. $150), then I would say it was a waste of money.

Lastly, let me touch on the ROI considerations provided by the website as follows:-

Assumptions (worst case scenario):

Consider our deal of submission to 500 directories for USD 99.95
Consider only 50% directories accept your site submission
Further you can safely consider that every directory which accepts your website will send your way at least four visitor in the entire year! So you still get 250 x 4 = 1000 unique visitors in an entire year for a cost of USD 99.95. So you get one unique visitor for less than 10 cents!

Here's what I think of the above. Firstly, a 50% hit rate is overly optimistic; A more realistic figure would be 5%. Secondly, I will use back the assumption that each directory will only send 4 visitors to our targeted URL over a one year period, because I think this is reasonable.

What we have is the following: 25 X 4 = 100 unique visitors over a one year period for a cost of ~US$100 or approximately US$1 per visitor. I personally find that too expensive. Furthermore, there's no guarantee that these visitors will return for a 2nd visit. Anyway, for those blogs that have 100 visitors in a single day will probably not be too thrilled by this kinda stats...

Review: PayPerPost

I have been with PayPerPost, an online business that pays Bloggers to write sponsored content for them, since early August 2007. I have written about 7 Posts for them in this Blog so far (you can identify them by their "Sponsored" label) and have had both good and bad experiences with them.

Here's my story:-

The Good
(1) Support Ticket System - Fast response and some of the support personnel are very helpful.
(2) Active Community - Just pay a visit to their Forums section and you'll know what I mean; Some of the other Bloggers are very helpful too.
(3) PPP Direct - This is a feature of PayPerPost which brings advertiser directly to your doorstep. My first PPP Direct client found me within 2 weeks and if you are interested in reading this post, it is labelled as "PPP Direct".
(4) $1K Tuesday - There are loads of Opportunities (that pay a premium as high as $500), being released on every Tuesday. Such Opportunities are open to everyone, even those Blogs with a low Google Page Rank.

The Bad
(1) Support Ticket System - The response is fast but responses from some of the support personnel make you feel that they are more concerned with closing the ticket promptly rather than addressing your concerns
(2) Post Review - The posts are almost never reviewed within 72 hours as claimed by the TOS. I always have to send a trouble ticket to remind them.
(3) Payment - Have to wait for 30 days after your Sponsored Post has been put up.
(4) Opportunities - If you are joining this with hopes to snag a $500 Opportunity or even $50 ones, I would advise you to think again. Such Opportunities are rare gems and are snapped within seconds. No kidding, they are snatched the moment they are released. The highest amount I have gotten so far is $20.

The Verdict
It will be worth your while to sign up, but it will not make you the next Internet millionaire.

Review: CompuCram

For those interested in taking the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) (previously the National Association of Securities Dealers or NASD) Series 7 license exam, do check out CompuCram.

The Series 7 provides an individual with the qualifications necessary in order to make different types of trades with all types of corporate securities, excluding commodities and futures. It is also one of the steps necessary in order for a member firm associate to register with FINRA. The Series 7 exam must be passed in order to take many other principal exams offered by FINRA.

So how will the CompuCram Exam Preparation Software help you pass the Exam? At a mere $69, you will enjoy the following benefits:-

(a) The software is written by a team of financial industry experts, all of whom are working professionals with up-to-date knowledge and experience.

(b) There is virtually an unlimited no. of exams which are continually updated with the latest questions; I guess this is the most important factor, because we just gotta practise, practise and practise for such financial exams.

(c) CompuCram provides a 100% guarantee that if you do not pass the exam, you will get a refund of your original purchase price (if you call them within 30 days of activation), so its virtually risk-free.

(d) There is no expiration date on the system.

Writing a New York Times Bestseller

For the professional writers out there, if you are wondering why your books don't sell like Robert Kiyosaki's, even if you may be a more qualified writer than he is (Robert has always claimed that he has failed English in school), then you gotta check out John Kremer's webpage: BookMarket.com. John will teach you the tips on how to market your simple book to become a New York Times Bestseller List.



P.S. If you are wondering who Robert Kiyosaki is... You are probably in the wrong business to begin with...

Improving Home Improvement

Whenever I have free time (haha, does anybody has that nowadays?), I like to decorate or reorganise things around my house (esp. my room and study area). I will wonder: "How would this look here?" or "Would this be more accessible if I place it here?" or "How can I create more space as my room's pretty cramped and cluttered with stuff?" Well, if you share the same thoughts as me, why not hop on by to Anglian Home Improvements for more ideas?

Oh, do also check out their Conservatory page. I currently do not own a Conservatory at my place, but looking at the following pictures really makes me consider building one:






Imagine just chilling out in your own Conservatory with a good book. It's an ideal place to show off your plants to too!

DialAFlight.com

If you are thinking of booking flights to Australia or spending your school holidays in Australia, why not give DialAFlight a try?

DialAFlight is filled with some Cheap Flights and Incredible Holiday Offers! For example, on the top right hand corner of the site, you will find that you can stay at the Serpent Hostel for only £24! If you doubt the quality or question the comfort of a 1 star hotel, you can just scroll down the list as the offers are arranged according to the number of (hotel related) stars.

Hmmm... Again, I'm itching to recommend some improvements to the site. I know this is a UK-based company, but why should everything be displayed in "£"? If the target audience is that of an international one, I recommend that the website implement a function which would allow its users to change the currency of the displayed prices. The available currencies should at the very least include the countries being featured on the website.

Another laudable feature of the site is the ability to hire a vehicle, and it offers a different set of wheels for different states of Australia. Hmmm... £144 for a one-week drive of the Hyundai Getz in Cairns - That's not bad!

Lastly, if you accept DialAFlight's bundle offer of booking both a Flight as well as a Hotel stay, you get to enjoy a preferential rate! However, as to how "preferential" this rate will be, you gotta call/phone/dial them to find out!

Detailed Product Comparison from BestBuy

For page loading efficiency, I have moved this post to:-

http://a-bstraction.blogspot.com/2007/08/detailed-product-comparison-from.html

Website Review

Merchant Circle is basically an online business which offers the following services for 2 types of businesses:

(1) For Online Businesses - Merchant Circle helps to create awareness, increase traffic and basically handles the online marketing aspects (including ATL promos) of the business.

(2) For Offline Businesses - Merchant Circle helps to create an online element to one's existing physical shop/office/company.

There are basically 3 Plans that a Business Owner can choose from:

(1) Free
Package includes Pictures & Video Upload, Coupon creation, Ad on Merchant
Circle network and Blog creation; I think this is sufficient for those businesses that currently do not have an online presence. For those businesses that already have an online presence, you might find this Free package pretty useless and you should consider the next one.

(2) Gold ($29.95/mth)
Package includes the following:-
(i)Ads on Google & Yahoo search engines - Create up to 1 rotating ad per month
(ii) Management of online reputation - Monitor and control what's being said about your company
(iii) Increase business's visibility in nearby cities - Add 2 additional cities (service areas) where customers can find you when searching for products and services
(iv) Premium customer support

I think 2(i) and 2(ii) are useful tools to have, especially the latter. This is because this tool will probably allow you to gather customer feedback about your company's products or services, and thus allowing you to improve/enhance your products and services.

I have no idea what 2(iii) does, and I was also not able to find any information on this from the website.

Orlando

For page loading efficiency, I have moved this post to:-

http://a-bstraction.blogspot.com/2007/08/orlando.html