Dubai

Dubai is the most populous and second largest emirate of the United Arab Emirates after Abu Dhabi. It is a tourist paradise that has the hot weather all year round and many activities and attractions available to visitors. Currently under construction is dubailand, and is going to be TWICE the size of Disney World resorts. Property is available here now so get in while you can. This place is going to be unreal. Take a look at the Dubai Marina for even more pleasurable features for this impressive touris attraction.

YouTube, Facebook Spark Copycats, Bubble Fear in Silicon Valley

The tech bubble back in the 90s was a thing to behold. That was when I was getting into the financial advisory field and the market trading was best described as "crazy". Shares of companies that had incredible losses quarter to quarter were trading in ranges based on future potential of hundreds of times their earnings. Then in 2000 the market took us into a depression. HAve we learned our lesson?

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- A murmur of recognition ripples through the standing-room-only crowd at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club of California as Mark Zuckerberg steps on stage.

He looks like your average college kid, in his green Urban Outfitters T-shirt, jeans and Adidas flip-flops. Yet Zuckerberg, 22, is royalty to the Webheads who have assembled on this cool November evening to hear him speak on ``Defining the Self in a Virtual World.'' read more...

Wealthy eccentrics

Found this little galery and subsequent stories over on Cnn.com. Interesting look at some of the odd things that the extremely wealthy get involved with that just seem to be a little less than ordinary. When you have as much money as some of these guys do though there aren't many people that are going to raise a fuss about anything you happen to be doing.

Wealthy Eccentrics

Credit Cards

There was once a day I had a real hard time with using a credit card. Not that the card was difficult to use, but because it was too easy to use. It was also too easy to get and I wasn’t disciplined enough to keep the debt paid down. I was one of those people that saw something I wanted and since I had a credit card I just bought it. Didn’t even think about having to pay it off having 0% credit cards. Figured I had time, but eventually that grace period for the interest rate ends and you start to get some big time charges that minimum payments no longer dents every month.

Eventually it began to catch up with me so I was forced to bear down and get those things paid off before my credit was shot. I had to take advantage of 0% balance transfers just to give myself a reprieve from the interest and pay these charges down. I got out of it, but it was a learning experience. Now I know how to use cards and they are no longer a right, but a privilege to me.

Kids Can Be a Boon at Tax Time

I remember discussing with parents their finances when I had my financial advisory business and thinkin gback it only seemed like they mentioned them if I asked most times, but when the conversation of taxes rolled around they always came up. People know that their kids equate to a nice tax savings. This article discusses some ways that you may not of though of in the past.

Kids are a blessing in so many ways -- especially at tax time. The government offers an array of deductions, credits, and incentives to help parents raise and educate their children.
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Mint Credit and Gift Cards

The new look Mint credit cards are offering a 0% interest rate on balance transfers until December 2007. The new look is for the M2 version of the card that has the bottom righthand corner removed to give it a unique design. The 0% balance transfer is a great way to get some of your debt paid down fast. If you got caught up in holiday shopping and spent a bit more, why not get that down to 0% interest to give yourself a bit of help getting it paid off quicker?

Speaking of the holidays. Mint also offers a Mint Gift Card. These cards are pre-paid credit cards taht can be used at virtually any store while a gift voucher can typically only be used at the store it was purchased from. Gift cards are an awesome gift and make it so much easier to give something to the ones you need to buy for with out having to try and figure out what they want. Some people just have everything so when it comes to them a gift card they can spend anywhere is a great choice. Skip the store gift voucher and let them choose where they want to go with a Mint Gift Card.

New Jobless Claims Fall Sharply

Well this is great news for everyone except us that live in Michigan I assume. I can't believe most of these reports just because I know how bad it still is here. Michigan as a while is losing jobs and employers like crazy as far as I'm concerned no matter what these reports say. A lot of people lost their jobs at some companies that shipped their jobs down to Mexico recently so I am still a bit skeptical that the job market here is on the up and up.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of laid-off workers filing for unemployment benefits dropped sharply last week after having been driven higher the previous week by storm-related layoffs.
The Labor Department reported that applications for jobless benefits totaled 332,000 last week, down by 27,000 from the previous week.

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Pentax Binoculars

Eagle Optics is one of the most extensive collections of binoculars and scopes online. They offer virtually every brand you could hop to find, but I'm going to talk about pentax binoculars right now. From the sleek design to the array of models these binoculars have some of the best options for those who are into nature. From close ups of insects and wildlife from close range to long range viewing the collection is extensive enough to fulfill all needs at a great price from Eagle Optics.

Eagle Optics even offers financing on orders over $200 which makes it even easier to get the high quality optics of your desires. With the lowest prices around you can get much more for your dollar with the ability to get financed orders. The selection is incredible and the site is extremely easy to use.

Homemade yellow submarine missing

This isn't neccessarily weird I guess, but kind of interesting. I suppose it is weird that a 3 1/2 ton submarine has disappeared with no suspects, but it is still kind of a neat story about this 60 year old sub the guy built. The guy built it out of an old propane tank for personal use in the 40's. I find this kind of stuff pretty cool. It's a n inventor that just wanted to explore the nearby bay.

FELTON, Calif. - A 3 1/2-ton yellow submarine has fallen off the radar. The 10-foot-long sub, built by a resident to patrol Monterey Bay during the 1940s and 1950s, was reported missing Feb. 15 from its Santa Cruz Mountains berth on Steinmaier Road by owner Carl Barker.

"It sounds bizarre," said Detective Kevin Coyne of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. "All I know is ... there's no suspects."

Irven Thomson built the vessel from an old propane tank about 60 years ago. He added a turret, hatch, windows and a cement keel, rudder and navigational instruments.

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Cisco Video Conferencing

Cisco has always been of interest to me from the stock market standpoint so anytime I can give a broader audiendce a bit of information about what they actually do it is a plus. Cisco is the worldwide leader in networking for the internet. Their services are as important to businesses, educational institutes, and government agencies as any company in the world.

One of the areas that they focus business on is video conferencing. Video conferencing allows businesses to take advantage of resources around the world by putting everyone in the same room. This area is no more apparent that when anyone has taken classes online. You can interact and see students from all over and speak directly to the instructor. Lessons are easier to learn because of the ability to see what is being taught as well as hear the instructor explain it. Take that concept into any other professional area and you can see the benefits of such a product.

Google office software to compete with Microsoft

At a miniscule $50 per license comapred to a couple hundred dollars for a Microsoft Office suite Google is breaking in with a big name and a product that almost everyone needs. IT will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Google Inc. will begin selling corporate America an online suite of software that includes e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets and calendar management, escalating the Internet search leader's invasion on technological turf traditionally dominated by Microsoft and IBM.

Full Story...

Best RockStartup Video

RockStartup is a reality tv program created by PayPerPost to show the inside of a start up. PayPerPost as you probably know provides an advertising service for businesses so that they can help spread the word about their products as well as increase their PR linkbacks by purchasing ads on blogs. Anyways, RockStartup has been running episodes for a couple months now and PayPerPost wants us to take a minute and pick our favorite one from the series so far.

I've watched all of them except for only a brief part of the last one, but I still like the 1st one best. Reason being is because I like the set up better than the delivery most of the time. You have a guy going out and trying to get $3 Mil so he has the dough to get this puppy of the ground. IT tells me that we are going to see some things that I haven't really seen before. A company starting up and how they go about it. These videos started coming out right when I signed up so seeing that gave me a pretty good perspective about what this company was going to be all about. I got to see the people involved and get a bit of an idea of what kind of folks were going to be holding the fort down for this awesome opportunity for us on our blogs.

Even though they didn’t ask….I think I’m going to say the last one is my least favorite from watching about half of it. I didn’t like the idea of having the staff weigh in and give their weights to the world. It just kind of made me feel bad for most of them. I couldn’t imagine having to do that in front of millions of people if I was a bit overweight.

Technorati Ping

Technorati Profile
Spiders and stuff

This post is here so that Technorati will finally actually ping my site. It sounds like us Blogger guy sare all having a bit of trouble getting updated lately and I am no different. Just hoping this does the trick, but am going to leave it here for a while to make sure so don't mind it :).

Unsigned Bands

I signed up for this unsigned bands site yesterday and started to listen to the bands on there. I'm a fan of new music and I like to listen to stuff that isn't MTV crap and already in every stupid commercial you are going to see on TV. The band on this site are undiscovered for the most part, but from what I have listened to so far they all have talent. I've always thought that I had an ear for something that was going to be huge when I heard it regardless of whether it is already spreading around so it is fun for me to listen to these bands here.

They have basically every genre you would ever want to listen to like metal, rock, rap, hip-hop, classical, and even Reggae Bands. Take some time to check it out and let me know what you think.

Better Firefox Downloader

Saw this snooping around today. I'm an extension junkie for Firefox like I'm sure many of you are so I like to try new ones out when they catch my eye. This one gets rid of that pop up window that comes up when you want to download something. Instead it opens in the stus bar down at the bottom and doesn't get in your way when you want to do something else while downloading. This of course is always the case for me so this extension so far has been a nice addition to my library.

You can download it here.

Something Different in Mortgages

Have you ever heard of a mortgage that you have less principle than you really have when it comes to paying interest? Well you are about to. With a One Account Mortgage apparently they give you a bit of a break if you actually have a cash reserve. With the money you have sitting in the account they offset your mortgage balance with it and only charge you interest on the difference between what you owe and what you have in reserve. Nothing I've ever heard of before, but surely it is something you would want to check out I think. From what I read they also have some sort of way to take a break from payments when money is a bit scarce as well. Not sure I understand it all real well, but it sounds great.

German retiree to pay for killing rare eagle

Not much look for this guy. Now I'm not for the abuse of endangered species or anything, but you can't tell me this guy should have to pay a huge fine becasue he was trying to protect his dog from a wild animal. What was this bird doing out and about anyways if it was owned by this breeding place? Sounds to me like he got the blame for something that someone else did.

BERLIN (AP) - A German retiree has agreed to pay a wildlife centre the equivalent of about $23,000 Cdn in damages for fatally beating an escaped golden eagle with his walking stick, a court said Monday.

The 70-year-old, whose name has not been released, said he stepped in after the eagle attacked his dachshund dog. The bird sustained a broken wing and several broken bones in the attack, and died a few days later.

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