Facebook IPO a Bust or Wait Some More?

I wanted to get a thought in here before all the hype calms down on this. I never even thought of wanting to get in on this IPO. I've had enough experience in IPO's decades ago with many brokers chumming me with them and then only to talk me into selling right after and buy some other worthless hyped stock of the day they were pushing. After all, brokers are a business and they have their agents to sell their products to you so they can make money. See, everything today is about business and making money. But, you don't want to be a schmuch with egg on your face, who does. This IPO was too over hyped in my opinion. I believe if the price falls down to around $8 to $10 a share then the common man might want to buy up a hundred shares or two and put them away for awhile. I mean, you do have a Scottrade account don't you? Only $7 a trade and I don't see anywhere cheaper than that. Do you do 'limit orders' when you trade? If not you are missing out and possibly losing money too. With Scottrade they offer for $10 a month, Level II stock monitoring and trading. What the heck is Level II you ask? It's the real-time stuff, not fifteen minutes delayed stock prices like you see on the tv and you get on your smartphone apps and all over the web. It's a premium feature. Scottrade is now offering this to you for only $10 a month. I remember when they just started offering it as a beta product and I used if for over a year or more, then, got out of trading for a couple of years. Now, they've got all the bugs worked out and they can offer it for a fee. I recommend you try it out. The best part is being able to see the buy and sell side by side as the different exchanges show their offers in a little window of whatever stock you want to watch. It's right up the second and to the penny. I put in a trade for a 100 shares of Harley Davidson I had been holding onto for a few years. When I bought it the stock just started dropping. Such is my luck most times with stock it seems. Well, a couple of weeks ago I noticed it had climbed above my purchase price. I thought, I better get going and see if I can dump this and make a little profit when I do. Sure enough, I saw the offers at $48.28 a share. Blocks of a 100, 200, 300 shares were stacking up to trade. The buy side was taunting the sellers, inching up a penney at a time when the sellers pushed their price up. This told me the stock was going up but it was slow trading that morning and I knew it was just a matter of time before the stock will start to slump again. I better hurry I thought. So, I put in an order to trade a 100 shares at $48.29 with a limit order to sell all or none for the day. Then, I sat back and watched the little window. About two minutes later the I could see trades taking effect as the price punched through the $48.29 level. I knew I had made a sale so I check the status of my trade. Bingo! I had made $100 minus the $7 trade fee for the day. I was happy. After the market closed for the day I decided to go in a look at what Harley (HOG) leveled out at. It had dropped below $47 a share. I felt a good feeling of satisfaction. Now, if I wanted to take some more time and I felt this stock was being played by the masses, I'd go in the next day and put in another limit order to buy another 100 or 200 shares and see if I could clip off another $100 or $200 dollars. I didn't though, I'm not a day trader. I still work a full time job and I just don't have the time to sit around on the computer and watch the market, not even for an hour. When I retire, then, I'll maybe put more time into this. That is, if I'm not making it rich on marketing here on the web or rental properties.

The Ads Have Arrived!

A week later and I see the ads have started to show. But, they are wide banners that stretch too far over to the right side and overlap my sidebar stuff. No biggie. I can go to Google's Adsense settings in my account and just set it to show shorter width ads. I'll get all of this right yet. You see, I keep reading and studying all about Google's Adsense hopefully to one day make some money with this blog. I've got in mind to set up a website to offer some free stuff to people also. This website will have affiliate links that will also add to the income stream. One thing at a time. I take things slow so I can understand how it works and to get it to work. There's a lot to know about all of this I've found. Just to learn how to operate Google's online apps is one thing. Knowing what to write about here is another. It's all about keywords and lots of text. Keywords so your audience can find you using Google search. Most everyone knows about this by now I hope. Why lots of text? Google's bots go out every night and crawl the web and index every word into their giant search index. That way you are able to find anything you are searching for. Relevance is a key word here. There is a lot to what makes that up. If you have relevant information on your blog or website and it's popular with enough people, then Google will put up the links to your site above others who don't have the relevance. It's tough to do and takes a lot of time to get it right. That's my post for today. Next to see how my income stream is doing...

Google Adsense

I've enabled the Google Adsense setting today. From what I've learned I can earn money by letting Google serve up ads on my blog or website. Since this blog serves as my website for now, this is it, a blog website. So, let the fun begin. Google's terms and conditions strictly forbid me from encouraging anyone to click ads so I won't be asking you to do so. Advertising has always been one of those things where the individual decides wether he or she is influenced and follows through on the desire to purchase or not. In today's situation we are confronted with ads all over the web wherever we go. We see something we like or are curious about, we click the link. Not a big deal. At least Google's ads are not the type that smack you in the face and crawl all over your screen and you have to figure out how to make them go away, taking your precious time when all you wanted was to read an article. My, how we are so distracted today. We spend hours on the computer and can't seem to pull away. How many times do you find yourself going to your computer to do one thing but end up cruising around reading every little thing you ar curious about and then you switch off the monitor and get up out of your chair, and suddenly it dawns on you. You never did what you wanted to get done in the first place. I'll tell you what. I'm making an enhanced effort now to get done first what I sit down to do before doing anything else. I did it once yesterday and what a great feeling of accomplishment it was. Oh, I was talking about Google's Adsense. I've came to the realization that marketing and advertising is the game today. If you are not in it, you are just a regular worker bee struggling to pay your bills and not saving any money. Yeah, I'm still one of those too but I'm learning about all of this and one day I'm going to tout my success right here to your face. Do you want a challenge? Go for it! It starts now with you. I'm already ahead of you though.

The Laptop Millionaire

I'm touting a book I have recently been reading and I have to say it is current and up to date with the net. So many tools are discussed and how to use them to get rich. I thought at first this was going to be a boring book but once I started reading I couldn't put it down. I've got a few chapters to go but I'm just waiting for the right moment to strike me to continue. About half way through the book it dawned on me what the author was trying to get across. Marketing. That's the ticket to success and in his book he gives you all the information and straight forward scoop on how easy it is to do. Like anything though, it will take some work. But, I believe once the major work is done it's just a maintenance thing to keep it going. Just like a well oiled machine. I have come to this realization of how to make money on the net before but this time it really rang a bell in my head. My only thought now is, do I have what it takes to get going and make it happen. Like most people, we don't want to put forth the effort it takes to get ahead. We want things to just come to us but it doesn't happen like that. It isn't luck either. Well, yeah, a few people may get lucky and hit the lottery but will it be you or I? I don't think so. So, we work to get what we want in life. We all want to be rich and happy, who doesn't. Why does anyone want to continue to work for someone else your whole life? I sure don't. I just about have already but I still have hope for a better life. Okay, so now what? It's time to get the book out and begin to outline the plan and start making steps forward. If you look on Amazon I think you'll find this book for just under $20. It's not available as an ebook as far as I could find. So, just click the link and check it out! The Laptop Millionaire

New Template Tried today

I like to try new things so I clicked through several of the pre-made templates Google has and I've decided on this one for now. I'll probably change it again in the near future as I don't like things to stay the same normally. I watched a couple of Google's Adsense videos after stumbling upon them through my blog interface. Google is pushing you to create ads that appear all over the web and you pay per each click. I've set this up and used it for about a year for my wife's real estate website and it has worked to attract her callers from out of town. It took several months before she started telling me that she was getting calls but I had cancelled the ad as it was eating up my monthly budget of $10. Not a lot mind you but it's an amount I hadn't planned on expending for too long unless it was getting results to compensate. I may experiment with turning it on once again as she hasn't told me of any calls recently. I would also like to create and ad for my blog but I am not selling anyting at this point. In the first year of my blog I had allowed ads to appear from other sites like Amazon. Now, for some reason I am not getting any ads served up on my blog. I'm researching it but as of yet can't figure out why. I did find a link to 'known adsense issues' and back toward the first of the year they had a problem with serving up ads to smaller sites. There are links to click if you are still having a problem. My thought is that since I am no longer a subscriber paying for ads for my wife that is why I'm not being served ads from others. In other words, Google is penalizing those who used to have ads served up and getting ad revenue with click through for other advertisers, without you have to pay for an ad yourself. If I can ever figure out how to make revenue over the amount of my ten dollars a month in ad expenditure, I might become a Google Adsense subscriber again. I've only earned $7.39 approximately to date for the years I've had this blog. That amount came in a flurry after making a post about an problem AOL had with their service. I may have to go read about this again and see what to do next. I think it has to do with big advertisers like AOL and other large companys. I believe that if I make post about large companys and what's going on with them, I'll attract a lot more interest to my blog and possible more click throughs on ads, if they are served up on my blog. I know a lot of this is confusing and maybe you don't even care about it. I'm old enough to know that money makes the world go round and also makes happiness. That's another different subject altogether that I'd like to explore and discuss more later. I welcome all comments. Hope your day is paved with gold! Paul

Simplehuman Trashcan Repair

You would think I could spend my time on better things than fixing a busted trashcan. But, this is one of those nice 'Superhuman' brands with the foot pedal that when you step on it the top flips open. Today is the second and hopefully the last time I have to get my tools out on this thing. There is a major flaw in the design but like most things today, it aint supposed to last. I priced these cans and they are not cheap. Looks like $39.99 at BedBath&Beyond. Wow, they sure have an assortment too. Check this link out. http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/search/search.aspx/_/N-1z14140?sstr=simplehuman&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=superhuman%20trash%20can&creative=11596909598&adpos=1t1&gclid=CNS3tYGU068CFcfb4Aoddy1Ydg"> Okay, back to the story today. I should have taken pictures of the whole process of taking it apart and cutting the stainless screws with my Dremel grinder but I didn't even think about it until I was finished with the whole mess. I sound a little frustrated as I was. There is always frustration when you first take something apart. It's like a puzzle and you just don't know how things go together or come apart. I start with the simplest and most obvious of course, the screws. But, then you got a genuius who likes puzzle pieces and they will sneak one in on you. Now for some pics to show you what I've spent over an hour on just a little bit ago. My back is still aching and bending over on the kitchen floor to work on this has made new pains for me. Oh well, I'll heal.

That's the can. I'll explain more as I go.

The brand name label.

I like the 'lift' handle in the back. I only found this one day after tugging and pulling the can around to set it in place so many times for so many months.

Okay, here's where the fun begins. The bottom is where you take a screw out and a pin that holds the foot lever.

That first time taking this apart really had me thinking. There is a flat piece of spring stainless steel underneath that foot lever that gives it the spring action. I didn't take a pic of the inner workings, sorry. Here's the one screw that you need to take out. This is the flawed design, the foot pedal. What you can't see that is underneath is the cheaply made pedal that will break in half over time. A little more thickness with the plastic and this can might last for a couple generations. I happened to have two large stainless 3/16" screws, nuts and lock washers on hand in my parts bin. I'm not exact on the size of those screws now though but there were large enough that I knew they would support some serious foot pressure. As I said earlier, this is my second repair of this can. The first repair wasn't idiot proof. I hadn't secured the screws tight enough in the first place. Secondly, the middle of the foot lever that was almost broke in half and very weak or fatigued, I was trying to save. It didn't last. Once that weak spot broke in half the foot lever and the screws flopped around for many months until I decided I had enough. Today was the day to end this nonsense.

This shouldn't have taken me so long today to fix this once and for all. The problem was that the screws or bolts that I had used were about three inches long. They were interferring with placing the foot lever back in place over that stainless spring. That's where the Dremel tool with the cutoff wheel came into good use. I've used the Dremel on cutting stainless bolts before on a boat trailer. Talk about taking a long time, it's gets overwhelming holding the tool just so that you don't break the fragile grinding or cutoff wheel. They are thin disks and one slight wrong move and they shatter. Each bolt today probably took me about fifteen minutes each holding it fast by hand and slowly getting the feel of the cutting. I had to increase the speed one notch as the steel was not cutting well. When you see a steady stream of sparks and the Dremel motor doesn't sound like it's being taxed to heavily, you've got a perfect combination for cutting. Just remember to let off now and then to allow some cooling of the disk. Here's the last picture of the foot lever or pedal. It now stands tall, way off the floor. Where before it flopped about just about an inch off the floor and when you stepped on it, the lid didn't come up all the way. Now, take a step on it and the top flips up and salutes you. The wife will be surprised when she comes home later and goes to throw something away. Okay, I now need to think about mowing the yard again... Update: 8/20/2012 - I want to take pictures of the stainless bolts in place just to show you. I just have to get in the mood to take this can apart again. Keep checking back.

XmRadio and choices

Okay, here's something that's bugging me too. My XmRadio subscription has expired but they still have me active for now. I get about two to three calls a day. I answered one but got nowhere with the rep. I want a slimmed down subscription. I don't want to pay full price of $14.99 a month when I only listen to maybe 20 channels. I like news and NPR and C-Span and CNN, not talk radio crap. On their website they offer a $7.99 offer where you can select 50 channels to choose from. But, I don't see where you can check the boxes of the ones you want. I'm hesitant to dig further to figure this out. I'm about to just let it expire, I'm so tired with the hassle of it all. The want you to set up the auto-renew feature of course. That way they get their money. I know I'll dig into it later though as I do like my channels when in the car. Funny thing though, they tout no commercials but you get them all the time. It should be illegal to advertise this. Maybe there are a few channels without adverts but I've not found one. Whenever I switch to CNN or CNN Business I can almost always figure I'm going to hit a commercial. They have adverts all the time for their servive of course. It gets to be ridiculous. I've been a subscriber for over six years now using the same device with a home and car kit. I have loved it but the car kit is now having a problem where if there is any vibration a connection gets messed up and the signal to my car radio is interrupted and I have to slap the XmRadio to get it to connect to the adapater again. I have made a paper wedge that I stick into the adapter between it and the radio receiver now and it helps for the most part but not always. Another problem is when I bought the receiver it came with software where you could view and play the stored music or audio files you saved. It has I think 50mb. I've got quite a lot saved on it but there was no way to transfer the files to say your computer. You also had to pay for the convience of being able to even look at the stored files and be able to play them. I rarely if ever bother with all that now. It's such a crock of shit these companies dig at you for every little thing. Can't they just let you buy something and enjoy it to the fullest without all the little extra charges for the features offeres as options? I don't know how much longer I'll hang onto this. If the receiver dies, I know I'll probably look into a newer one. But, the original was so cool. It retailed for $400 and I got if on sale, yeah, right, for $350 at a kiosk at the mall. I had the money then and it was awesome to see the new technology. Yeah, we got Pandora now on our smartphones but have you noticed how quickly they got into serving up ads too? The world's just all about marketing and seeing how they can get a piece of you budget. I'm all about watching my budget now and doing away with what I feel I can really do without. It's hard though as we want everything.