Prevent identity theft and surfing safely...

There are several steps you can take to make yourself less of a target for identity theft and make your computer and internet surfing experience safer.

My biggest bit of advice is to keep your virus protection and spyware programs current and updated. Run scans regularly.

Get a free email address (or 2) to use for online purchases, fourm posting or anywhere you have to use an email to submit something. If you use your personal email, after a while you will start getting spam. Some of my favorite free email address are Yahoo, Fastmail and Hotmail. And do not bother to "unsubscribe" from the link on the bottom of an unwanted email. this just verifies that you have a valid email address to the spammer. Instead use your email options to set your filters to screen bulk email and spam.

Do not click on links or download attachments in emails even if you think you know who they are from. And most important, do not enter personal information in email links or websites you were referred to, or navigated to by email. No matter how official they look, as they could be fraudulent or fake! If you get an unexpected email from someone you know that contains an attachment or a suspicious link - call them and verify they sent it.

Do not be afraid to purchase items online, as some of the best deals are found here. However, create an account with your credit card company and log in regularly to monitor credit card activity. It is easier for a criminal to create a new account online using your information, than it is for them to hack your password.

Also use "Shop Safe" or an equivalent. You can generate a temporary credit card number that you can set the amount and expiration date. It works the same as your regular credit card number, but if someone gets the number, they cannot use it. Learn more HERE. Ask your credit card company if they have it, or get one at https://www.bankofamerica.com/index.jsp.

When filling forms on line with personal information, make sure the web address in your browser starts with https:// and not http://. The "s" indicates a secure page.

Get LifeLock Proactive identity theft protection. For only $10 per month, they offer a $1 Million identity theft protection guarantee. Also reduces junk mail and unsolicited credit card offers. You can learn more here and get 10% discount.

Creation or Evolution...

First let me say I believe in God, I just have trouble fathoming that he can be everywhere for everybody at all times. I think he is more of a trusting humorous God that enjoys experimenting. I believe he is like a scientist that mixes up a formula, then stands back to see what happens. He has to remain indifferent when unpleasant circumstances occur, as affecting the variables during the experiment would alter the outcome. Why else would there be war, cancer, birth defects or tragic accidents?

My theory on evolution and creation is that we are not the first creation of God, nor will we be the last. When we are out in space, we jettison our bacteria laden garbage out the space capsule poop chute to float around for eternity. Or until it gathers with other space debris and be comes a bigger mass of space trash. Before too long, the frozen ball is struck by a comet or meteor and is sent on an unknown journey. Imagine that ancient space aliens did the same thing; millions of years ago. Their space trash traveled the universe until it crashed through the virgin Earth's atmosphere just as our lifeless planet was under development. The moldy Big Mac from space fell into the warm waters of the ocean just as it thawed, setting off events that have eventually lead to this blog.

The first creatures were 1-celled amoeba that flourished in the formerly lifeless seas. This answers how everyone came from Adam and Eve. Since amoebas are asexual, they split to reproduce, so they begat without incest. And begat they did, growing and evolving into the life as we know it. The rest can be found in the school books.

So God may have created the Earth in 6 days, and Man in his image, just not man as we know it...

Taxation on website revenue...

Well you finally made it, you are making money on the internet. Or at least the money is in your sights. It all seems like gravy when the checks start rolling in, but do not forget what it is; income, and it is taxable. I can only speak of the tax system in the United States, but earnings you generate on the internet is treated just like the money you make on your job. If you are in the 28% federal tax bracket on your job, you then owe 28% of money you make on the internet to Uncle Sam. What is worse, is that since you are self employed to generate this revenue, you owe an additional 14% self proprietor tax for a total of 42% or nearly half!

Also keep in mind that since the internet is electronic, so all your revenue is traced, tracked and reported. So avoid any future grief bykeeping good records and don't spend all your profits. You could even incorporate to save the 14% self proprietor tax, but you will then have to file quarterly reports, pay tax quarterly and probably pay an accountant. In my experience, the advantage to incorporate will pay off around $50,000 annual income.

The bright side, if you are making money on the internet, you require a computer to do so, so your computer is tax deductible. So is your printer, paper, pens, internet access, external hard drive, accessories and web hosting costs. So again I stress to keep good records. Get what you need to run your business comfortably and concentrate on the positive.

Back to the grindstone - website optimization..

You may ask what is website optimization and why do I need it? Website optimization is the process of making a website search engine friendly and hopefully brings it to the top of the list during a search. Sometimes called SEO (search engine optimization), it is a necessary step for any successful webmaster. There are many companies on the internet (I know because they spam me) that promise to make your website #1 on a Google search for a fee. They promise it can be done in a week! This is just plain bullcrap. You can optimize your website yourself, but be patient, the wheels of progress turn very slow. You may not reach #1 on a search, but you will have a definite advantage over websites that don't optimize. The following is the tried and true HTML method.

Step 1. To make a long complicated story short and simple, a website page is broken up into 2 parts, the and the . The body section is what is actually seen by the visitor. The head section content is not seenby the visitor. But it contains 3 valuable tools for website optimization. They are called "Meta Tags", and are the "Title", "Description" and Keywords" You can only create, install and modify your meta tages if you have access to the HTML code in your website's text editor. You need to do every page of your website, and costumize it to be topic specific for each page. The "title" should contain the name or title of your website and a REALLY brief goal of your website. The "description" should be approximately 2 sentences and contain a more detailed summary and goal of your website. The "keywords" should be a list of words and 2-3 word phrases separated by commas. You want to use words that would be used in a search to find your website in a Google search. You also need to use words that are found in the visible text in the body section of your web page. You can use a tool that creates your meta tages for you for free by just filling in a form, then copying the results and pasting them in the head section of your web page. The tool can be found HERE.

Step 2. The actual visual content of your web page should contain a good amount of text. Try to implement as many of the keywords you used in your "keywords" in your meta tags. When Google indexes youe website, it will compare the visual text to the keywords and also evaluate the text to see if it is relevant to your site's topic. There is no real "correct" way to do it, but like I said before, be patient. Set your site up to the best of your ability, then in a month or so, do a few searches on Google that would be relevant to your site. If you have a really competitive site topic, it may take several months to even appear on a search. If you do find your site, but on the 40th page, you could make a few changes (back up your work in case you lose ground). It may take up to a year to reach a consistent level.

Step 3. Another step that used to be way more important than it is now is getting people to link to your website. This is called a "backlink". The most valuable backlink is someone linking to your site without you linking to their site. This is called a "1-way link". The more links that are pointed to your website makes your website appear to be more popular and is supposed to help you in search engine listings when all things are considered. There are many ways of getting backlinks, but the most efficient way is to search for websites thate are similar in content to your's and contact the webmaster. Linking etiquette will have you link to them first, send them an email with the location of their link, and include your information for linking back. If they don't answer or refuse, just remove their link.

Another good way of getting backlinks is to find discussion groups, boards and forums that are related to your website. Contribute a bit of intelligent text and leave a link to your site. Also guestbooks are good to leave a link, and it helps to compliment the websmaster if you don't want to be deleted. And the new kid on the block for creating back links is blogging. Your archived pages are all listed on search engines one way or the other. So what better blog is there than a Google blog? ;-) There are link building programs and websites to try and automate the process, but I have had very little luck with them.

Backlinks used to weigh a lot more heavily in search enging ranking, but in the last year they seem to have less of an impact. I think it has to to with what is known as "Link Farms". A lot of companies and websites (mostly based in India) created thousands of websites that have no other purpose that to create 1-way backlinks for paying customers. Google is catching on to them and participating websites can drop right off the list with no warning.

In summary, create a site with good useful content and rub your lucky rabbit's foot.

This pisses me off too.

First let me clarify that I am in favor of public assistance for those who truly need it. But the idea has gotten truly out of hand. The welfare system is rewarding and actually encouraging people to be non-productive. The more babies a mother has, the more money she gets monthly and the more tax deductions she has at the end of the year. With the cost of daycare, it is a vicious cycle. She cannot afford to go out and get a job, but with the rising cost of living, she needs more money as the children get older. The system is set up for abuse.

To take it one step further, since she has all that extra time at home (probably with the deadbeat dad), she has more time to have sex. After all sex is free and what else do they have to do? So the productive ones like us work our asses off all day to make ends meet are too damn tired to make babies when we get home. Plus we see the bigger picture, if we can barely afford to live within our budget, how can we afford another mouth to feed? And our budget is growing ever smaller from taxation to fund more public assistance programs. So looking at it from a pessimistic point of view, civilization as we know it is doomed. Just for the plain fact that in a short time, the productive will be outnumbered.

My solution: every able body on public assistance will have to spend time at the landfill. Create an assembly line where the trash is dumped on a slow moving conveyor belt. Each person will have the duty of pulling out a specific material, like newspaper, orange plastic, tin foil, you get the idea. Give bonuses to those that show promise and move them to a more profitable recyclable. Promote those who show initiative to supervise the others. Provide the daycare and staff it by those capable. Do this with RESPECT and not a punishment. Create a positive attitude, as a majority of people WANT to be productive, they are just in a hole they can't get out of. As a byproduct, the landfills could cut their space needed by 50%? And the positive publicity for the landfill and the city would be enormous.

I do not say this from a point of view that I am better that these people. I would be the first to volunteer to do my time on the line. There probably woud be others that would volunteer to do the same. It may not even save any money in the short term, because they would all be paid what they were being paid before, but this would bring people together to network and come up with ideas of their own. I truly believe it would be self perpetuating. After all "green" is the new catchword.

Now I know the nay-sayers are going to say "what about liability"? Well if they are on public assistance, we are paying the medical bills any way. right? Or we could all just stay home and make money on the internet ...