You see, for I don’t know how long, I hear excuses from goverment about how MY spending is too excessive… that I’m not saving enough… and that’s one of the main reasons why the economy is going up the crapper!

Well, if they KNEW how much I have to spend (or NOT save) then they’d know it is not my fault!

So hence… it MUST BE YOUR FAULT, ‘cos it certainly ain’t me that’s doing all the spending that’s driving the economy into recession!

So what are YOU gonna do about it then?

It’s been a while since I’ve had something that has set me off enough to have a rave… but when I got the letter the other day about the “new” interest rate for the housing loan now means I have to find an EXTRA $250 a month…

And then today I filled the car up with petrol at $1.65 a litre – “only” $75 to fill up today, but by the sounds of things, it’s gonna be a LOT more in the very near future! Apparently it’s going up because YOU are demanding it would you believe? It’s simple economics – supply and demand they say… people want more petrol, supply is short, so price must go up!

Yeah right! So it’s my fault there too is it???

So anyway… It appears that I’m going to be contributing even MORE to inflation next month, because I’ll be spending more (according to the government) ! Sheesh!

And I started thinking about all of this.

How the %$@$#%@ am I gonna find an EXTRA $250 a month? And that’s after tax, so it’s probably closer to an extra $300+ a month!

And where are all those other people whose interest rates have gone up… where are they going to find ANOTHER $200+ or more each month?

Certainly not by asking for a pay rise… besides, that’s inflationary!

The alternative? Cut your spending… like that’s really good for the economy too!

So what can you do?

Well, I’m starting with walking wherever possible – or even riding a bike – as the car is just getting too expensive to run, especially for those short runs up to the shop!

Heck – don’t even GO to the shop… you’ll save money right there!

What about lunches? Think about how much you might spend every month on food from a cafe or similar? You’d easily spend $200+ a month on hambugers or BLT’s, with a drink…

So take your own lunch (and drink) to work… you’ll save a fortune!

What about you?

What are you gonna do to save money this month?

Start using green energy? Oh wait… that costs MORE!

Any other bright ideas?

But then… all good things must come to an end…

The only GOOD thing I can say about it, is that THIS time I DID get an email and a phone call to tell me it had happened… so it didn’t take three days to fix like last time!

For the second time, Hostgator decided to suspend one of my web sites because of “abuse”.

Now that means they lock you out of everything (so how are you supposed to “fix” it???) and put a “site suspended” notice up on the home page… which does wonders for your online reputation – NOT!

And as far as “helping” you to track down exactly what the problem is that CAUSED the so-called “abuse”? None forthcoming. No suggestions, even though I specifically asked!

It was ONLY because I HAVE been web publishing for over a decade that I even had an inkling of where to start looking (after they unlocked my cPanel so I could look at the log files and download a BACKUP to MOVE my site to another host!)

But any “normal” person with a web site would NEVER have been able to determine that some low-life was hitting my server with a request every second, for a file which did not exist, which caused the excessive load on my server – hence its suspension!

This mini DOS (denial of service) attack was easily foiled by simply blocking this scumbag’s IP address in the htaccess file.

But that’s not the point! The lack of “service” in tracking down the issue from a major hosting provider is the problem here!

All they seemed concerned about doing was upgrading me to a more expensive server which could handle this increased “traffic” – laughable!

If it had been you – without the knowledge – how long would your web site have been off the air? How would you have fixed it without the “support” of your hosting provider’s “support” team?

And yet another reason why, despite their highly profitable affiliate program, I will NEVER recommend Hostgator to anybody!

Sounds a bit harsh?

Well… at the moment I am researching for a new product about building better relationships with your online customers. This isn’t something new or earth shattering, except that a lot of people don’t actually do it!

So it pleased me to discover the web site of someone who I thought was an early adopter of this type of “relationship” marketing on the ‘net… to see what they did, so see what they had to offer.

And there, on the sales page, is the price tag of just $27 – clear as mud.

And click on the order link… and it shows $67!

Our Department of Consumer Affairs would have a field day with any normal off-line retailer who did that sort of thing!

I just got a promotional email from an Internet Marketing colleague warning of impending doom and gloom if you don’t follow his advice…

So I clicked through to find out how to “avoid becoming the next Internet marketing disaster…..”

Click image to visit site – it’s live now – I hope LOL

Hopefully it’s not an omen… but it IS funny, in a weird, warped sort of way!

I’m sure Stuart’s not laughing at the moment either, but hopefully he can look back on it in a couple of days and have a bit of a giggle at the paradox…

But Seriously Though…

Now that I’ve had a chance to look at the actual page… this product is just so-o-o-o aligned with my thinking right now, it’s almost uncanny!

Stuart… How DID you get into my head?

And then, when you finally make the decision, go to register it and find out it’s no longer available!

Bugger!

Apparently the chances are good that you’ve been a victim of a front runner – i.e. domains being registered by someone else just after you conducted a domain name search.

And would you believe…. This practice is actually used by A Major Domain Name Registrar!

Network Solutions has publicly stated that they actually reserve domain names for up to four days when someone searches for one on their site, as a “security measure” to protect their customers.

“This protection measure provides our customers the opportunity to register domains they have previously searched without the fear that the name will be already taken through Front Running.”

Try to register it at another registrar… it’ll be unavailable!

Apparently lots of domains are registered by domain “tasters” – people who purchase a domain, whack some ads on it, and see what happens. Apparently these unscrupulous people can somehow grab lists of domains that normal people are investigating for purchase.

And I thought it happened because there was someone else on the planet that had the same brilliant idea as me at the exact same time!

It seems I haven’t got an evil twin after all!

When I clicked on the free trial link, what happens?

1. First up, I get a warning message about being unable to authenticate the secure server certificate. That’s off to a great start!

2. Then, when I do get through to the sign-up page, my browser tells me there were 24 errors with the page! Lots of missing images, all because of that bad server certificate.

So… would you trust your email with this company?

It mustn’t be good for business!

This time, I decided to bit the bullet and have a close examination of exactly what crap I got in a three and a half day period over the Christmas to New Year break…

Before I start… place a few bets about what YOU reckon won this race.

So… out of the 688 emails flagged as junk by my email program – drum roll please – here are the results!!!

In Number 1 position, with 39.8% of the total emails received… and thankfully, I don’t have a complex about this or else I might start to get a little worried… 272 emails related to increasing the size of my local member!

Coming in second, with another 156 emails (or 22.6%), were emails about all sorts of pills… but mostly that little blue one that makes life harder for you.

I’ll also jump to fourth place to mention another group of 59 emails (or 8.6%) which wished me a happy new year and promised to either increase my #1 or help me with #2.

So… a grand total of 487 spam emails (or 70.8%) were to do with some aspect of male sexual disfunction!

Come on fellas… there’s something going really wrong here… Just think about how many MILLIONS of emails are going around out there every day on just this topic???

Sheesh! At least they use “cute” images

In third position, you could score an absolute motza if you took up the free $2500 worth of casino chips that were being offered by 57 (or 8.2%) of the spam received… Now, 2500 times 57 equals $142,500!!! Wow… maybe for once you CAN profit from junk mail

Fourth was the happy new year ones mentioned earlier, but after all that improvement to your love making, you’ll need to take some time-out… and to help you with that, 9.3% or 64 emails about (possibly fake – I’m not sure) Rolex watches in fifth place…

Then, in sixth, surprisingly, only 42 (6.1%) were standard “marketing” emails… trying to flog such things as search engine submission, or cheap software.

To finish this list off… there were several insignificant numbers of emails received relating to banking (3), improving my education (1), getting a new job (1) and 10 I just couldn’t work out what they were about at all.

And… because I have several web sites, there were another dozen to do with comment spam – i.e. people using your “feedback” form to send crap messages.

So there you have it!

What a waste of space sending all that crap in the first place… and I added to it by reporting on it!

LOL

OK – the guy’s selling a product, so don’t bag him for that… but the product should be a great laugh if his sales letter is any indication.

“You can stumble along with Stupidman and you are GUARANTEED a lot of laughs as he develops from the rawest Newbie into an Internet Guru Trainee!” (sounds like I better read it… might learn something!)

But what really made me laugh was the author’s honesty with his “Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Click and Buy This Book Today”

You’ll need to scroll towards the bottom to see what I mean… especially reason #1.

Go on… It IS worth it!

The Internet Adventures of Stupidman

P.S… it IS an affiliate link, so I might make some money by letting people know about this crazy product!

And NO… It’s got nothing to do with a ride-on lawn mower.

You’d think that as you got older, you get a little smarter too… Well maybe my smartest move ever has just been made (even though it took far too long to get there!)

We needed a new lawnmower… the previous 20 year old mower was cactus.

The new beast arrived the other afternoon… and I just couldn’t wait to put it to the test on our monster lawn – “monster” because it usually takes up to two hours to push the old motor mower around the front lawn and footpath.

Why the eagerness to mow?

This is a FRONT-WHEEL DRIVE lawn mower!

Sure, you’ve still got to walk behind it, but this was an absolute breeze! One handed control, even uphill! And the whole lawn was done within the hour.

At the end of it… hardly even raised a sweat.. and no aching back or legs!

Sure – our brand new Toro 20003 Variable Speed Mower may have cost about twice a “normal” lawn mover, but the savings in time AND body are well worth it!

This is definitely one of those “Why didn’t I do this years ago?” purchases!

And NO! The kid’s are NOT going to use it to mow the lawn, no matter how hard they beg!!!

One of the reasons I subscribe to so-o-o many newsletters is that maybe… one day… I’ll actually get an idea that might be useful to my web marketing efforts…

But these gurus have got some sort of highly incestuous club going… and you never seem to get an original thought from any of them. And the things they are selling?

Where do they think I’m gonna get $5k to sign up for their latest “course”? Or for that matter, even a paltry $197 a month for the latest whiz bang content generation tool.

Or even the low priced deal at just $97 – packed full of the latest private label products I can resell – but NO REFUNDS if I don’t like the content (and lots of that stuff you really NEED to look closely to see it is useful). Oh well…

This one was a real ripper!

At $10, it really appealed to my budget (LOL) so thought it was work at look… and what a great product!!!! (not)

If you thought the typical work from home scams were bad, this is a shocker!

What did I buy? Well, this product is not much more than highly detailed instructions on how I can RESELL this particular product!

Don’t you just love those deals…

Sure – it’s got other “training” materials to download, but the reality is, this product is a manual on how to promote itself.

So… where’s the pot of gold?

Like in the real world… there ain’t no such thing!