Users will learn how to find a good hosting company, learn php scripting, and also learn to a bit of freelance php scripts. The beauty of Open Source software is that the utilities are made available FREE and can be modified in any way or fashion. There are some basic elements that a user must be comfortable with to begin however. These include basic html coding and the use of FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

I will make an effort to make these steps available at some point to assist with the ‘building a website‘ effort. Please note that it does take some time and effort before a website is complete and there will be some trial and error. Before making any changes, it is important to have a backup strategy and make use of php scripting resources and other documentation.

Also, depending on the web host, the instructions may vary. Stay posted for more info.

As you may have discovered from the video, content posted on Facebook becomes their property! Even after ‘deactivating’ an account, Facebook has the rights to your personal information, videos, and pictures. Unfortunately, the knowledge to delete a facebook account permanently or officially is not publicly available. Sneaky.

Have no fear! Where there is a will; there is always a way. It’s amazing what you can discover from simply Google’ing a few keywords (How to Delete Facebook Permanently). Protect your identity and prevent identity theft. If you’re planning on quitting Facebook, do it properly and securely.

The secret link to delete a Facebook account can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account”

Steps

1. Make sure your Facebook account contains a functional and legitimate email address. An email confirming this action will be sent to you.
2. Login to your account and delete any personal information on your account. For example, education, work history, and other personal information (date of birth, email addresses, etc.) Just to reiterate the importance of the above step, your e-mail should be the only address listed.
3. Next, deactivate your Facebook account. (Under Settings). This is to confirm that a full deletion process has occurred.

For the record, I have tested the above inputs myself and have successfully deleted my account. Friends and other peers have confirmed that no account can be located via Facebook search.

Social marketing is a double-edged sword. Privacy data can be used to tailor to a specific niche or demographic. However, when it comes to ethics, companies are able to capitalize on your personal information and sell your information to other 3rd party entities. Protect yourself from identity theft!

For example, predators can easily use personal information to stalk or steal one’s identity (in the form of identity theft). It’s ridiculous how much information can be obtained from a “profile”. In fact, you can easily obtain someone’s location, school, work place, and areas where a person can often by found.

Here’s a great video that may make you want to think twice before posting something on the internet:

Personally, I don’t have anything against sharing information on the Internet, however it takes away from the “challenge” or “excitement” from getting to know a person at a face-to-face level.

Here’s a typical work month for myself: [Click to enlarge]

You will notice that 3-4 hours of each day are spent in long, excruciating meetings. In reality, less than 10% of each meeting may pertain to myself which makes the meetings inefficient in the overall picture. Ferriss explains in his book that 80% of all sales comes from 20% of the products. This, he explains is known as the 80/20 Principle (aka The Pareto Principle). To put things into perspective: if I was able to cut down on the number meetings on a daily basis, I would be more efficient, more effective, and even accomplish more in less time!

Time is a resource that cannot be replaced. A lifetime could be spent working the typical 9 to 5, to one day realize that: I’m old, retired, and I can finally enjoy myself. What I’ve come to learn through careful analysis and consultation, is that the 80/20 principle does makes more sense. Do not simply work to live, nor live to work. Rather, set goals (or even a bucket list) and set out to reach your targets. Step outside your comfort zone, try new things. Ask others to challenge you and expect confrontation and persecution.

In the end, this will build confidence, increase your character, and give you more to talk about! Focus on your strengths and build upon them. One day, for certain, I hope to adapt this 4-hour mentality and pull it together. Until then, I will set out to achieve my own life goals and targets.

I stumbled across this video on Youtube and found it rather amusing and entertaining. Not only does the speaker poke fun at his ethnic background, but he manages to effectively grab the audience’s attention!

Presentation and verbal communication skills are very important skill sets in the business world. These soft skills are sought out from a Human Resourcing perspective. Notably, on a resume, these resume keywords are quickly challenged by an interviewer to confirm validity.

Anyways, getting back to the video, the presenter does a great job of keeping the audience listening. Active listening is defined as paying close attention to detail and drawing the full attention of a listener. In the noted seminar, the speaker satirizes Asian stereotypes to grab the audience’s attention. By doing so, he stops them in their tracks by switching to his regular speaking pitch.

He does poise some great thoughts nonetheless. At a general level, people prefer to communication and associate with others that they can communicate with easily, without ambiguity. For myself, I prefer associating with users with strong communication and verbal skills as it minimizes ambiguity. I hate to admit it, but like the video, I tend to avoid situations where I have to deal with people with poor English skills.

So what some ways to improve your language skills?

Over the past couple years, I have spent some time reading books by Derek Foster. The acclaimed ‘retiree’ claimed to have made himself known by retiring at the age of 34. Contrary to your ordinary millionaire, he explains that he lives a frugal yet comfortable lifestyle. Nothing extraordinary and a simple outlook.

For many, it’s hard to put aside money for investing. What Foster suggests is putting aside $200 / month every month to get started. $200 x 12 = 2,400 / year and by 4 years, that adds up to approx 10,000, which should be plenty to get started.

In Foster’s book “The Lazy Investor”, his main piece of advice is to invest in companies that offer DRiPs. DRiPs or Dividend Re-investment Plans are dividends that are automatically used to rebuy additional shares within a company. For example, if you have 100 shares and a company pays $0.10 in dividends, you would typically be paid $10 on a quarterly basis. Instead of being issued a cheque for $10, the company would purchase $10 worth of its own shares with the dividends.

The strategy is relatively straight-forward: invest in recession-proof companies. Foster suggests that an indicator for a “good investment” is to look for companies that have historical increased dividends. This is a good indicator for companies with potential growth (attractive investments).

I must admit that the advice from his book has been beneficial thus far. Although my investments are currently associated with my workplace, the tips from his book hold true with my current holdings. As the adage goes: buy low, sell high.

Please note that during the recession, Foster had sold all of his investments due to panic. This is a common trait with investors who try to mitigate their losses.

The important thing to note is that there is always a rebound. Hold and never sell. Warren Buffett is a great example of this. Buy when people are panicking (cheap stocks); never sell.

Both of these companies use web-based applications to store and process content virtually. You can build a Word doc or an excel spreadsheet using Google Apps and you can create photo albums with the Live network. Technically, you don’t even need your own computer or software to create these documents – just use a public one. This is a great budget-friendly alternative than paying retail for various product suites, leading to a potential cost-effective strategy for smaller companies.

Open source has made this all possible: people are willing to share their knowledge (free of cost) to collectively build on a creator’s work. In turn, this allows other users to share their own work and in most cases free of charge as well!

With that all said and done, I came across a very interesting site recently which allows the user to run a computer right in their internet browser. This ‘computer’ includes 15 GB in online storage, 10 GB of email, internet browser, media players, and much more. See below for a screenshot:

Screenshot of Ghost computer

As a functional storage medium, the site gives you the freedom to leave that bulky USB flash drive at home and the flexibility to retrieve content from any internet-connected machine. Further, it acts as a proxy and may allow access content which may have been blocked through website filters (I.e. YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and so on).

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

I had a very bizarre experience today on my commute home. It was a typical after-hour’s day and I was riding the public transit: I found a seat and sat there minding my own business. A few stops later, an elderly woman entered the train and awkwardly grabbed the handrail. Instinctively, like all good Samaritans, I offered my seat.

“Would you like to sit down?” I asked, while simultaneously making the gesture of standing up.

She looked at me with a look of astonishment: almost as if I was the last person she expected to offer up a seat. I looked back and forced a smile.

“That was a very kind gesture, thank you!”

I replied: “No problem, you’re very welcome.”

As I was standing there, (struggling to keep my balance) I overheard the woman repeatedly telling her husband + grandson (assumed anyways) that that was a kind gesture. They all looked at me as if I had broken some sort of ’stereotypical Asian persona’. From my observations, Asians typically try to keep a low profile and mind their own business. We avoid confrontation, do our work, and hope that’s all there is to it and I appeared to have made a taboo by breaking this expectation.

My first impression was this woman assumed that I was not fluent in English and like the majority of people, would ‘fake sleep’ to avoid any confrontation. However, this was not the case, and she seemed flabbergasted by the act.

In my opinion, this should be the ‘norm’. That is, offering a seat to the elderly. Unfortunately, after observing my surroundings, I noticed everyone around me seemed to ignore the fact that this person was a senior and pretended to not see her. It was quite embarrassing/depressing to witness.

Anyways, what I came to realize today was that it’s strange how visible minorities are misunderstood, whether it be intentional or not. We’ve heard it before: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Today, I felt good about myself after seeing how the woman’s face had lit up. It gave me a sense of satisfaction; knowing that I exceeded one’s expectation and did not expect, nor required gratification in return.

Increase Page Rank

This letter is to advise you of my frustrations encontered with your organization within the past 2 months. Up to this point in time, the only other issues that I’ve had “coincidentally” (note the quotations) occurred 2 years prior. Note: both of these times occurred during the renewal process.

We’ll ignore the past problems as I had let that go after much work to “fix my account” at that point in time (when Fido had operated under Microcell).

Let’s go Back to my current standing. It all started when my 2-year agreement was coming to an end last month. I was constantly called during the day from your renewals department. I had no problems with this as I figured they were just doing their job.

However, my concerns come from a customer service perspective: every time they called, I requested to have them call during the evenings and asked them for a call-back number. Time after time, they had apologized for not reading the notes on the account and failed to give me a number where they could be reached.

The sad part of this is that I spoke with 3 CSRs who acknowledged my request but have failed to review the notes on the account before calling. (Pay particular attention to this area as it foreshadows my growing frustrations with Fido).

After 1 week of daily calls, your renewal department decides to call me on a Saturday!

Fast forward a week or so, I decided to call Fido to cancel my contract. I had some problems with the data usage on my account and had decided that I would rather cancel my account rather than dealing with more frustrations from Fido. I spoke with a few individuals and the first of which offered to add a data-plan pro-rata to the beginningo my billing cycle which turned into a nightmare to correct. (Errors from inputs from the CSR + duplicated charges).

The CSR quickly transferred me to your loyalty department (AKA retentions) and I had told the rep that I was planning on switching to Rogers due to my growing pains with Fido. The response that I gave when asked “why?” was simply that my entire family uses Rogers and I’m interested in buying a Blackberry Bold. Also, the amount of work that was required to correct issues

The retention rep then asked me what it would take for me to stay with Rogers and I simply said: if you an offer me a decent plan then I would consider resigning with Fido. (At this point in time, Fido had just released their BIS [Blackberry Internet Services] so I figured that I would simply buy an unlocked Blackberry Bold and make arrangements with Fido. I made it very clear that this was my intent and received acknowledgement from the rep that this was OK.

At the end of the conversation, we had come to the agreement that I would be getting the iPhone for $230 ($299 – $50 credit – $Fido).

Make a note of this amount.

I had also been offered a plan which had met my needs and I had confirmed that there would be no problems adding BIS onto my account at a later time.

A week passed by and I called Fido back to add the BIS account to my account. I had managed to get my hands on a Blackberry Bold within the week. Remember: I mentioned to the retention rep that I was really seeking a Blackberry. The CSR that I spoke to at this point in time walked me through activating the handset and I was on my way. At the time, I was a happy camper: I had renegotiated my contract to the terms that I was looking for, at the price that I was looking for, and I had my new Blackberry to play with.

Who knew that this would eventually stem into a whole new stem of problems. Two days after I had added the BIS service, I checked my online account to find that my contract had been RE-EXTENDED for a WHOPPING 6-YEAR contract. I was obvious furious at this point, since this was a breach of contract and I HAD NEVER agreed to re-extend the contract. My concern was that if I had NOT paid attention to my account standings, this would eventually be missed down the line.

I called in again and spoke with a very understanding individual (they all seem that way, don’t they). As I spoke with this CSR and advised her of the breach in my contract terms, I made it very clear that I would like to confirm all of my terms and ensure that all aspects were met. I made it very clear that the CSR should make VERY detailed notes explaining the terms and costs on all of my existing terms.

At the end of the end of the call, we had confirmed that my plan rate would be: $17.50 + 10 (unlimited Fido2Fido and Fido2Rogers) + 15 (BIS) = $42.50 with the system access fee and 911 charges waived for the entire term.

Fast forward to today, I review my online billing and am charged $310 for the iPhone (if you recall from earlier, I was quoted $230 on my renewal) and additionally $62.50 for my monthly charges. Obviously, I am frustrated. After more than 7 calls (4+ hours), falsified claims, breach of contracts, I am still back at square one: trying to correct my terms back to my AGREED upon price at Renewal. (That’s not asking for much.)

At the end of my call today with ZYIAD, I had been told that my monthly charges will be amended to 41.50 NO SAF&911 but I highly doubt that this will be accomplished. I mean, let’s face it, 8 calls later and I’m still back at square one. On top of that, no changes will be applied to the phone price that I agreed to sign on? Absolutely ridiculous.
As for your CRM system (ticketing system), I specifically asked the 3 individuals that I spoke with today to review my call history. I mentioned that I have made 7 calls in the past month and a half just to correct my terms back to my renewal. For the majority of the calls made, very limited notes were made and some listed without the agent’s names? How is this even possible???

At the end of the day, I have wasted my time, been accused of a liar, have had my hopes shot down time after time (believing that Fido had rectified my problems), and ultimately regret resigning with Fido.

Should I have known that I would encounter these issues, I would have never re-signed with Fido.

Alternatively, I would have:
a) saved myself the hassle of buying an unlocked BB Bold and activating the BIS through Fido
b) bought a discounted phone @ Rogers
c) would not have bothered to negotiate a unlimited network calling plan (my family uses Rogers)
d) automatically have access to Fido’s so-called “Expanded network”

In due time, I will either cancel with Fido or simply WILL NOT re-renew after the 2 consecutive renewal experiences that I have dealt with. To be blunt, I would rather pay a $400 cancellation fee than deal with your CSR department. Who knows, I might even get an 8-year contract next time!

I hope this email serves the purpose of highlighting the poor performance delivered by your CSRs and Retention departments. As you know, customer service is key to retaining a customer but from my experiences, Fido is just too much of a hassle to continue a lasting relationship.

Also, for illustrative purposes, CRM works in a two-fold manner: excellent customer service is rewarded and often shared with 1 or more individuals; poor customer is shared with 7 or more individuals. As a result, I will never refer a peer to Fido ever again due to your poor customer service standards.

Regards,
Alan

I recently got into playing at JackpotCity and I must say that I am impressed with my results so far. The site offers a $500 USD credit to being playing and you can win up to $200 of that amount (assuming that you haven’t lost it), simply by making a $100 deposit! In fact, I just made and cashed out with a $500USD profit (see below)!

[Click to enlarge]

I’ve played at several online blackjack sites but this one has become a personal preference. The interface is rather typical, but the variations of Blackjack and the ability to cash out at ANY TIME makes this one stand out apart from the others. On top of that, minimum bets start from $1! Note: the majority of online casinos have minimum bets of $5. This makes it frustrating to play if you only plan to start out with $35 or so (recreational play).

However, as you should be aware: Blackjack is a game of probability. This also means that at some point, there will be losses. You win some; and you lose some. With my ‘best result’ above, I had been up to $5,000USD at one point, but made some foolish $300 max bets and splits on poor plays. I realized at that point, my emotions were affecting my gameplay and cashed out immediately.

The biggest challenge that I face when playing Blackjack is when to cash out. For myself, after I have general “feel for the game”, I become over confident with my game play and occasionally risk it all. In fact, I’ve had many instances where I was up $700+ and simply lost it all! Obviously, this is very frustrating after realizing that I could have made a net of $500+ but made poor decisions in the end.

So how do you avoid this from happening?

Blackjack, should be treated as a game of probability. Make it a game to beat the odds, rather than playing to make money. For example, if you consider it as a game and stick to minimum bets only, you will be able to determine whether you can beat the odds (or not). Make it a game of numbers and see if you can predict the outcomes. Just to reiterate, play it as a recreational sport rather than aiming to do this professional. You may get there eventually, but start by making it a simple numbers game.

To illustrate this point, let’s say that you cash in at $100. Keep in mind: most online casinos have a minimum bet of $5, (real casinos have a tendency to start at $15-25). If you happen to start with a streak of terrible cards, you have at a minimum 20 chances ($100 / $5 = 20 hands) before hitting the bank again. However, if you stick to the basic strategy of blackjack and use the reference cards, you can optimize your chances of winning and also to maximize your winnings.

If you split, double-down, and hit at the appropriate times, you can easily see yourself in the green. After a certain point in time, check your pot to see if you’ve made a gain. If you have… then great! Keep at it and use this basic strategy to see how much you can make!

Another suggestion is before starting to play, make a goal of when you’re willing to cash out. Let’s say for example, you started with a $100 buy-in and decide if you make $50, you are willing to cash out. Do not go below this threshold and maintain your composure at all times!

At some point in time, you may need some variation with Blackjack and this is where sidebets start to come to play. You may have seen players at the casino making side-bets on top of their current bets and wondered how this works. It’s simple really and varies depending on the variation of Blackjack.

As the name implies, side bets are simply bets made on the side. Basically you’re making it a 2-way game instead of one. The most common side-bets on Blackjack involve progressive betting and matching pairs. Alternatively, variations of these include betting on suits and the payouts each vary as well.

Some examples include:

Lucky Queens – payouts are based on matching pairs and max payouts 200:1 if 2 Queens are dealt to a player with at least one queen of hearts.

High Streaks – bets are placed on progressive wins. If a player continues to re-bet his bet on the next hand, payouts can reach a maximum payout of 10:1!

As you can see above, if you are able to win consecutive wins, the sidebet increasingly gets higher. In the example above, a $5 sidebet could potentially lead to a $1,000 payout! Note: You can cash out of your sidebet after each hand and do no necessarily need to keep going. In most casion cases, players cash out once they have reached the $100 payout level (4th streak).

JackpotCity has a wide variety of Blackjack games which vary from multi-hand, high stakes, and side betting. See below for a sample screenshot of page 1 of 4!