" />

Monday, December 22, 2008

Homes and life expectancies for major appliances

With the economy in the toilet, and Florida being one of the highest foreclosures rated states, I'm been thinking about taking my cash and reallocating it towards purchasing a home, this being a buyers market and all.

What does this really mean, it means that the people who are selling their homes are doing so because they have to, not because they want to. Meaning you are able to secure a house for a lower price than normal, sometimes even less than current market value deems the house. This also means that houses available on the market are slim pickings. Again, people are selling because they have to move.

Because we have the upper hand, we don't just want to settle for the first house we see, even though some of the houses are magnificent, they just don't satisfy 100% percent of our need. Some of the things you may want to look at when purchasing a home is the life expectancy of appliances, with so many houses needing renovations in my local area, I went ahead and look this up and found this list from Freddie Mac.

One of the things we are looking at is kitchen remodeling, it seems to me that this is why we are a nation of obese individuals, we focus so much energy into kitchens because as Americans all we do is think about food, dream about food, and live our life revolving about food. With that in mind, some sites estimate a kitchen remodeling job to run $3,000-$100,000 but average $12,000-$22,000. Better Homes and Gardens provides some sample kitchen layouts and ideas for cheap updates.

The bottom line is that nothing beats being patient. Don't rush into purchasing a home. This is a big purchase and you'll know the right home when you walk into it. If you are going to do any updates, be sure to get at least three different quotes from licensed contractor and more importantly ask for references and if you are able to visit some of their customers homes, even if you intent not to visit the home, if they say yes then you know your working with a good contractor, if they say no, RUN!!!!

Labels: , , , , ,

Digg This Del.icio.us Slashdot

posted by Death is Forever at 9:48 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Sad Economics Time

The New York Post just posted a story titled "BETTER SIGN OF TIMES". This comes about because the NY City SANDWICH BOARD Man got a job.

This is great for the Sandwich board man, but a better economy this does not make. There are two weeks left till Christmas and stores are running more and more sales, TV and online advertising campaigns. This is due to slow downs and decline sales from 2007. As well, this year temporary help numbers are down for the season and many stores have chosen to not hire and cut their regular employees to part time.

The bottom line is that the media tends to create big hype. We are now in tuned to their efforts to persuade us to one side or another. Proof is that we have know elected the First Black President. We as a people are capable of making better choices. Newspapers are almost all gone. Magazines have downsized, the print publications of the past with hundred and hundred of pages have decline, some to single digits. Wake up America! We are in a state of economic depression; it is time to do all things possible to build a nestegg. The rich keep getting richer because in these times they are able to buy stocks at an all time low price, they can afford to float cheap real estate. If you would have planned better, you too would be getting wealthier, stop blaming the man, and start placing the blame on yourself.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Digg This Del.icio.us Slashdot

posted by Death is Forever at 5:30 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is the science behind gaming Google, Yahoo, Windows Live, and countless other search engines into having your site appear on the first ten listing of the results page for as many key terms as possible.

SEOMoz is a site dedicated to gathering news, information and tools to help up game and scam the search engines for ranking. In my effort to help you game the search engines I will provide you two useful insights:

1. Search engines are, like social networking, a popularity game. The more people like you, the more they will link to you. The more people dislike you, the more they will link to you. No it is not a typo, If someone likes you they might be inclined to write about you and maybe provide a link to your site. If people really hate you, they will provide negative writing about you, but in doing so they will still link to your site. The more incoming links to your site the better you do in the search engines regardless whether it is in good connotation or not.

2. If you have the right tools you can increase your ranking. The first step is knowing where you are so that you can change your positioning. SEOMoz recently introduced their toolbar, yes I know yet another toolbar to add to your repertoire. It is located on their site free of charge. Another tool is the Firefox plug-in from SEO Tools. SEO toolsis there to help you learn, rank, and dominate. The plug-in allows you to quickly see Google's cache date, site age, incoming links, Alexa and Compete rankings, whois data, among others in the SERP (search engine result page) pages.

The bottom line is that you have to be in the know before you can become known. Stay up to date on your industry, spread the word about your products and services, and get others to do it for you. If you take the initiative you can go a long way.

Labels: , , , ,

Digg This Del.icio.us Slashdot

posted by Death is Forever at 2:51 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

Social Media Etiquette

So with my recent interest in Social Media I been reading everything and anything I can get my hands on in an effort to reach a broader audience for our Web site.

Many folks in these Web media sites speak of abuse, spam, and other methods marketers use to get the masses to buy their products. I don't blame them, in this economic times only those who are able to adapt and change their habits will survive.

What I fault many on, however, is the lack of class or how they go about spreading their message. Lets face it, if someone is interested in your product they will reach it and not classified any message about it as spam.

In my search for knowledge I came across this guide and thought I share with all my readers. It is the "The Ultimate Social Media Etiquette Handbook" by Tamar Weinberg.

The bottom line is that social networking is a contract between you and a community of individuals like you. It is not cool for you to assume that you are part of a group just because you click on a join link. You need to earn the right to have your opinion validated. It is also not cool to mass email folks who have not welcome you to do so. Lastly, it is not cool to ask me to take a movie test, race your car, or waste my time asking me to click on your clover leaf.

Labels: , , , ,

Digg This Del.icio.us Slashdot

posted by Death is Forever at 2:19 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

More Social Media

So I just wasted sat through a one hour webinar on tweetering and how to maximize it for business. Mostly I learn that people have a lot of time in their hands. I don't have enough time to worry about breathing let alone let people know what I'm doing, how I'm doing, or why I'm doing it.

I just learned that companies have invested an awful lot in to twitter specialist to monitor the feeds and ensure that customers are feeling the love. To me twitter is an avenue for folks to complaint. The one marketing benefit I see to the whole social media site is updating potential customers of specials, sales, and other offers which have potential for mass distribution.

The bottom line is that social networking is about two years old, I often wonder where will it be next. First came geocities, followed years later by myspace, then came digg and facebook, twitter has gained 4 million members in the last year. Those sites came about because everyone wanted their own space on the net. Twitter was developed as a mass text messenger for those who wanted to read or pretend they care. Where is the social media phenomenon heading to next? Will we see the Sims or other games involve networking next?

Labels: , , , ,

Digg This Del.icio.us Slashdot

posted by Death is Forever at 2:10 PM 0 Comments Links to this post