Finding the right web host

We all know that...well, all of us still in business know that anyway......in order to keep a business going these days you've got to have a presence on the web.

You don't have to be running your whole business on the web, this is true. You don't have to be selling over the web, or to be servicing your customers that way, but you do at least need to have a presence, a reference site.

And of course you can actually service your customers, sell to them, over the web as well. What you want to do is really up to you: and is of course contrained by the real world. A business which sold bridges over the web wouldn't be all that successful while one that sold MP3 files certainly could be. But even so, a bridge building company will need a web presence just to let people know where they can go to get bridges.

Once we've decided what we're going to do online then we need to decide who is going to host it. If all you need is a static site with a bit of email for your bridge building company then one host or type of host may be all you need. If you're going to be selling MP3s then a whole host of different matters come into play. Bandwidth, reliability, how quickly can you expand servers and memory, all these sorts of things. Which is where vps hosting might be worth looking at.

It's a sorta half way stage between a shared server and a dedicated one. You get the interface, the access to the nuts and bolts of the machine, of a dedicated server but still running on a shared server. the detail of one system and the cheapness and flexibility of the other.

Worth checking out.

The Danielle Staub sextape

So, things aren't working out all that well for Danielle Staub at present.

She's been booted off the reality show, Real Housewives of New Jersey....partly because it's now surfaced that there's a Danielle Straub sextape out there.

And this sextape comes only a couple of days after the revelation of a drug and prostitution soaked past.

All of which is really rather sad I think. for if we're going to have a reality TV show then we probably should have one that includes, you know, reality. And yes, there really are a number of women of a certain age who in their youth did other things. So why should this reality not be shown on a reality TV show?

I guess there's always the possibility that this is too much reality....

Private tutoring has never been so cheap

One of the things that economist are puzzled about is that no one is really quite sure what people are going to use the internet for. Sure, we know it's a great big new technology, just like electricity, mass production or the train was. But just as when those were first invented, what people actually use it for is unknown.

Why this matters is because we're not really sure which industries are going to be over turned by it. One bet, one that really hasn't quite been grasped as yet, is that it will be education that is transformed. If you can learn everything you need to over the net, with one to one instruction when needed, videos of lectures at other times, or with online textbooks, what's the point of having to go to a school each day?

And there are services springing up which show how this can be done. For example, need tutoring on Algebra 2? Can't quite grasp 5th grade math? Need some help in adding fractions? Maybe it's the formula for volume which is your problem?

Now, OK, that's just maths....but this one company will give you all the tutoring any one child or pupil desires, 24/7, in any and every subject they cover, for just $99 a month. Add that sort of tutoring to a decent set of textbooks and why would anyone be spending $12,000 a year per child on the public schools? You can get a better education for one tenth of the cost!

It really is possible that the major industry that will be overturned by the internet isn't newspapers, or movies, but education.

Fascinating stuff about the gold price

This is a fun little article talking about how the price of gold is set. It's really rather archaic and dates all the way back to 1919. OK, they've moved a little bit with the times now and they use a telephone rather than actually all meeting in the same room but the old ways still do seem to persist.

Perhaps we shouldn't say gold price, but one of the gold prices is fixed in this funny old manner. The five main dealer banks all meet up (telephonically now of course) and essentially barter about the price at which they're willing to buy or sell gold. Under the old system if they wanted to take a little break in the bartering (to talk to someone else, just to think for a moment) they would raise a little union jack flag they had on their desk.

When they lower it then it all starts again. When the bartering was finished then all the flags would stay down. Now, of course, over the phone, no one can see the flags: so, instead, they say "flag" when they want that break. Funny how these things go really, old traditions hanging on.

But do understand, this is how the gold spot price is fixed: futures and options prices change all the time. And it's only the London spot gold price that is fixed this way: everyone else just does it on the internet.

Finding those women's t-shirts

Yes, yes, we've all heard what globalisation has done for the costs of clothing. You can nip down to the shopping centre and get a t-shirt for less than the cost of a beer and wear it straight home. However, the problem is with the quality: the t-shirt is unlikely to last as long as an open beer at a student party. And that's not the only problem. Given that everyone will have seen the same t-shirts for sale everyone will equally know that you're wearing some really very cheap and tatty t-shirt. Not really what you want to be flaunting.

On the other hand we all also know that really good quality designer clothes cost a fortune. What we'd really like, if only we could find it, is some way of getting the good quality gear for a more reasonable price. Not the easiest of things to do that. But it would be good if we could, yes? For then we'd be able to show that we've the good sense and good taste to buy and wear that good quality designer gear without having had to pay the full price for it. We're smart and well clothed and yet even smarter than those who simply buy it from the stores, right?

Which is why you might want to look at this site and their women's t-shirts. They've got the brands you want, French Connection, Henley's, Goi Goi, but at prices which could save you as much as 50% of the recommended retail. Look good, look smart and save money: what could possibly go wrong?

Leaving, of course, more money for those other necessities of a life well lived: no, it doesn't have to be beer, there are plenty of other things which can add to such. For example, the savings on a Goi Goi t-shirt can be enough to purchase a Motel one: designer clothes at two for one prices!

Where can I find a job in the Middle East?

In these hard times for all of us, it's worth thinking outside the box if you're looking for a job. We all know that it's not all that easy (and in some parts of the country, darn near impossible) to find any job at all let alone a good one.

So, rather than shlepping from one classified ad to yet another interview for a call sales centre, why not seriously think about how you're going to get your career back on track, about how to break out of the sterile confines of simply UK based jobs?

For the recession, the slump in good jobs, isn't true all around the world. There are economies out there which are still booming, indeed some which are growing faster than before. And they're, many of them, just a short hop away on a plane. You should, or at least could, be thinking of jobs in the UAE for example.

Any why not? The United Arab Emirates are booming, there's construction and new business all over the place: driven by the still insatiable hunger for the oil and gas of the region. And the authorities are actively looking for foreigners, expats, to come in and do the jobs that the locals aren't trained to do as yet. These jobs aren't just in the oil and gas sectors either.

They're actively looking for people to work in the financial industry (they've identified finance as one of those sectors which they want and need to grow), banking....and of course the inevitable IT and telecoms as they build the foundations and structures of a modern economy.

Why not check it out by clicking through the link?

Passing on my experience

As someone who has actually been running a business that operates internationally for many years now allow me to pass on one of the most vital points to you.

You really do need to use professional tranlsation services. No, you cannot get by just hiring a combination girlfriend/bilingual secretary. It really is important that you get major and important documents properly checked over, have a proper professional translation done.

This is obviously important for contracts: if you're not absolutely certain of what is in a contract then you shouldn't be signing it. And if the translation isn't perfect then you won't be catching the nuance of what is in the contract.

You also need a translation service when you're looking at offers: so much of the problem that we all have with other languages is over tenses. It makes really a rather large difference if you've got to pay people before they do anything or whether you have to pay them after they've done something.

So, if you're going to be doing business internationally then really, take my word for it, a lesson that I've learned very expensively. You really do want to use language translation services. Yes, you really do want to pay for them.

Yes, I've a new car!

It's taken me long enough I have to admit. We've of course long had a car, even two at times, but they've always been practical and reliable ones. You know, the sort that just work when you want them to but don't have any pizzazz or interest to them. I've finally been able to change this as a result of my having been working an extra job or two over recent years. Finally been able to buy something I'd like to drive just for the joy of driving it, not for the reason of wanting to actually get somewhere.

The thing is though, I'm of that age where buying a two seater sports car is simply viewed as my mid life crisis. And while this may be true I have a feeling that more than one diagnosis of said min-lifer is in fact simply a diagnosis of finally, someone's actually been able to save enough money to get what they have wanted for years. Which is, I insist, what is true in my case.

Still, having saved and scrimped to get the car I've still got to be able to run it. Which is why I'm off to search for cheap auto insurance. Just because I've finally been able to afford the car doesn't mean that I can stop being careful about the costs of having it.

The trials of adolesence

A disturbing thing happened to me in my adolescence....no, not the spots or the strange night time urges. Rather, I couldn't understand what everyone else was going on about.

There I would be in class, listening along, checking the textbook and the teacher would wave at the blackboard and ask a question. I would have no idea what he was talking about and there would be this shout of, "But it's obvious!, See, it's written there!".

Eh? You mean people can actually read what it is that you're writing up there? I thought that was just notes for you!

Much the same happened at movies. I could't really work out why people liked them so much. OK, there was the fun soundtrack and dialogue but really, there wasn't much to see, was there, just some blurry impressionistic stuff.

Well, OK, you've guessed it already, yes, I went along to have my eyes tested and found that I needed eye glasses. Not quite what I really wanted when out to impress the ladies (another thing that happens to most of us in adolescence) but at least I could now see whether they were ladies or not.

Ho hum....still, that's my lesson for you youngsters out there. Yes, you are supposed to be able to see the world, yes, movies really do have actors not just colours in them and yes, you really should be able to read what the teacher is putting on the blackboard. Get your eyes tested: it's worth it, believe me.

Santonio Holmes

This is fun: Santonio Holmes has got himself into trouble with hte law. Or at least, with a woman who is using the law against him.

Also on Monday, it became public that receiver Santonio Holmes, who was the Super Bowl most valuable player last year, is facing a civil lawsuit alleging that he threw a drink in a woman’s face at an Orlando, Fla., nightclub.

Now think about this just for a little moment. If someone threw a rink in your face in a nightclub would your first reaction be to sue them? Punch them in the face perhaps. Maybe even call over the bouncers to get them thrwon out of the night club maybe?

But reach for a lawyer?

OK, when faced with an NFL player perhaps punching them isn't going to work. But I'll bet that the decision to reach for a lawyer was highly influenced by the thought that he was an NFL player....and thus rich enough to be worth suing.

Different health and dental plans

With all the fuss going on about how to reform health care insurance, perhaps it's time to look at different ways in which the market already caters for different methods. For example, there's no need to get a traditional medical plan: there's also no need to have a traditional dental plan.

We tend to think that there's only three ways of dealing with the need for some sort of health insurance: either the government does it all for us, we get full insurance coverage through our work or we just have to pay for each and every treatment as we get it. But this really isn't true.

There's a very different way of having a health plan. A discount plan.
Here's how it works. If you click through the links there you'll see the details but simply: they've got hundreds of thousands of customers. This gives them buying power. So providers of medical and dental services want the business of those hundreds of thousands and are willing to offer special prices. This isn't insurance: this is access to discount price medical care.

For routine work, this is probably even better than insurance: you might end up paying less than the traditional copay for example. If you add on to this a catastrophic health care insurance plan (say, an annual deductible of $10,000, just as an example) this might well give you better health insurance than either the government or a job could give you.

Well worth checking out, at least.

Anne Scripps Douglas

Anne Scripps Douglas: proof perfect that money doesn't buy you everything.

In fact, Anne Scripps Douglas is proof perfect that money might not even buy you life, let alone a happy one. As the name might alert you (Scripps was Anne's maiden name, the Douglas came from her second husband) she was one of the heiresses to the Scripps newspaper fortune: a fortune well up there with the Hearst's and so on.

But being born into money didn't lead to that long and happy life we might think:

New York state police believe the daughter of slain newspaper heiress Anne Scripps Douglas jumped to her death from the same bridge her stepfather did after he killed her mother.

Police on Friday were searching the Hudson River near the Tappan Zee Bridge, around 25 miles north of Manhattan, for the body of Anne Morell Petrillo. Authorities say they found a note and believe she got out of her car on and jumped off the bridge Thursday evening.

Petrillo's mother, the great-great-granddaughter of Detroit News founder James Scripps, was beaten to death with a hammer in Anne's bedroom by her stepfather, Scott Douglas, on New Year's Eve in 1993.

Douglas fled and jumped to his death from the same bridge. His body was found three months after the slaying.

Somehow people who make their money seem to do better with it than those who inherit it.

Yes, I want one of these monsters

That baby there to he left is one of the top of the line models, one of the Viking Grills that I have my eye set on. The grill on the top contains 29,000 BTU burners (can you not already simply smell the dead animals crisping up nicely?) and then there's the two side burners for making sure the beans and the barbecue sauce are hot, the oven underneath to cook off what you want to roast instead of grill and of course all those warm drawers for everything else the outside chef needs.

The point about a Viking Grill though isn't to outequip your neighbour: or at least not the only point about them. If you're going to be cooking outside you want to make sure that your equipment is built for the task: which is why they're all made of stainless steel, they're built to the usual full commercial standards. This just isn't equipment that is going to fall apart at the end of the season: or, Lord forbid, in the middle of it. It's solidly made and will withstand not only whatever it is that you might cook on it, it'll also deal with being shut away for the winter and being hosed down for the fresh season.

But yes, there's more to these Viking gas grill, much more. That picture is of their top of the range effort but there's everything the heart could desire and the wallet afford available. All built to the same uncompromising standards of course, all containing those high energy grills, but offering you more or less of the surround dependent upon what it is that you want. Everything in fact from just the simple grill as it is, on its own, all the way up to that baby and passing through different combinations of sideburners, grills, storage, freestanding models and so on.

If you're looking to re-equip the garden for next year's outside cooking season well worth going and taking a look at what's on offer.

New Moon breaks records before release

Looks like we're in for at least a decade of Twilight movies then for the second Twilight movie, New Moon, is breaking records for advanced ticket sales.

TWILIGHT sequel New Moon has taken £�1million before even being released - as the fastest advance-selling film of the year.

Odeon and UCI cinemas reported that it had already sold 143,000 tickets.

The movie, starring ROBERT PATTINSON as vampire Edward Cullen and KRISTEN STEWART as lovelorn student Bella Swan, goes on national release on Friday.

Gosh, aren't we lucky people to be offered years and years worth of a vegetarian vampire who twinkles.

But then no one has ever accused Hollywood of not going for the easy money. If the Twilight books are selling (and if the author is holed up somewhere churning out more) then as long as people keep buying tickets for things like New Moon then the studio will keep pumping out the product.

As with Rocky and Harry Potter, (and in earlier times, the "Road to" movies) that's just the way that the place works.

Finding drug treatment

OK, so we know that addictions of all sorts are rampaging through our society. It's not just crystal meth, heroin, prescription drugs and alcohol, we're now seeing addictive behavior in all sorts of things, from eating to such formerly thought harmless things like exercise. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, we're so much richer as a society, meaning that people can actually become addicted: secondly, as part of that new richness we've increased our knowledge and now know much more about what addiction is. And part of that new knowledge is that we now know a great deal more about what works in drug treatment.

In times past really all we could do ws to try and keep the addict away from the addiction and hope for the best. Now, with the introduction of things like dual diagnosis we know that there are often underlying problems that must be treated as well as the addiction itself. Further, we know more about how specific addictions can be treated: the drug treatment of choice for those coming off heroin is now methadone, something which reduces the cravings while those underlying issues are addressed.

What has emerged from out new knowledge of drug treatment and addiction is that integrated onsite treatment programs work best. We need to take the addict not just away from the addiction itself but also from its milieu, so that there is no immediate backsliding. And we need to try different methods: for different people react better or worse to different methods of treatment.

Click through any of the links to find out more about this subject.

Nephelococcygia

Nephelococcygia is one of these constructed words: it originally had a very specific meaning and is now put to another but connected use.

Nephelococcygia has it's origins in Aristophanese, the Greek playright. It means "Could Cuckoo Land", his utopian city in the clouds in one of his plays. As such it has always had a secondary meaning of being a dreamer, of not paying attention to reality. For the point of the play was that such utopias do not work nor do they exist.

Nephelococcygia also has a more modern meaning: the study of clouds. Or rather, cloud watching. While this is fun and all, it's slightly unfortunate that it has been described with this word with its connotations of being an otherworldly dreamer.

Getting the truth about nursing

We all seem to get a lot of our information about jobs and professions from TV shows: which is slightly sad really for of course most jobs aren't anything like they are portrayed on TV. A lot of them are much more interesting: a very few are more boring (spies, for example, do not do anything like what Jack Bauer does at all).

The best place to actually find out what a job or career is really like is through the trade magazines. No, really, these magazines are written for the people actually already working in them: so they have to be true to life or no one will ever read them, knowing them to be false. So, for example, we could turn to one of the nursing magazines to find out what it's really like to be a nurse, rather than relying on a TV depiction like Mercy NBC.

In fact we can go a great deal further and find out about nurse salaries but looking at the top ten paid nursing specialties. Or if you're already there and trained and working, what about an investigation into the best scrubs: what are the best scrubs for your body?

It is true though, the best places to get the real inside information on jobs and careers are the trade magazines, those written for those already doing the job.

Meteor shower november 2009

Yes, it's that time of year again and we've the Leonid meteor shower making it's approach to earth. There are a number of different meteor showers that can be seen at different times of the year (and they may move around the year a bit as well) and the meteor shower for november 2009 is this Leonid one.

If you're over on hte West Coast the best time tio see the Leonids is, umm, right about now actually. If you're on hte East Coast or further east in Europe then, umm, sorry, but you've missed it.

There, isn't that timely and useful information for you? All hail blogging etc etc etc.

For the Holiday Season

Yes, it's that time of year again and the Holiday Season is looming. So the big question is what on earth do we buy all that army of people that we've got to buy presents for? Is there actually enough time between now and the end of the universe to select the perfect present? No, and that's why gift cards from Shop.com are such a good idea.

Instead of having to decide exactly what it is that we'd like to get someone all we have to do is think about which store they'd like to go shopping in and how much we want to give them to do so. Then we simply purchase a gift card for that store for that amount and we're done.

And no, we don't have to run around all of the different stores. Shop.com has gift cards from just about every retailer you can think of. So there's a huge selection, all in one place, and the holiday shopping can be done in just an afternoon.

Whew!

Who is Lorenzo von Matterhorn?

Lorenzo von Matterhorn is a fictional character within a fiction. In the TV show "Hor I Met Your Mother" one of the characters is back on the dating scene. And to succeed in this endeavour he creates a character, Lorenzo von Matterhorn.

This fake character is backed up by a series of fake web pages, describing Lorenzo von Matterhorn as Swiss, a billionaire, an animal lover and someone advised not to have penis reduction therapy.

When he casually drops this name to a girl she is intrigued enough to Google him, sees all of this and then when asked for a date obviously says yes.

Victory!