To all my regular readers, and to those visiting today - a very merry Christmas to you all. I hope the festive season brings you joy, peace and most of all, a happy time with friends and family.

As this year draws to a close it will be a time for reflection - I hope as we look back we all look forward as well. The year ahead will be tough for many people given our current financial woes. The one thing we should all remember is that this is not the first recession to hit the world, nor will it be the last. More importantly, we have all survived previous economic problems and we will survive this one.

For one day - Christmas Day, we can forget these problems and just enjoy the festivities. Once again - Merry Christmas to you ALL.

I am cheesed off and resent receiving emails from businesses that in the past I have held in respect but which now resort to false and misleading advertising.

Here in Australia, as backward as some people think we may be, we have strong laws against what is effectively bait advertising. In other words, advertising something everything storewide for $1, however when you arrive you find that you can only get the $1 on certain products and you must first pay $80-$100 on another product first.

If the advertisement stated that policy, no problems. Everyone is forewarned and you know there conditions attached.

This last week I have received numerous emails from a leading writing software supplier advertising everything storewide for $1. When you go to buy the product you want - that is advertised at $1, they charge you $79. Not only that, they auto click an addon for another $20 - again, not the $1 storewide.

It is no wonder that people distrust online advertising, particularly email advertising. Furthermore, whilst I don’t condone the activity, these tactics feed more ammunition to those that try to justify the illegal copying of software. One of there arguments has always been - ‘if software providers are going to rip us off, they cannot complain when we do the same’.

It’s Christmas and people are trying to buy goods online and save money. False ads like these are like a White Smoke screen to lure you in the door. If you don’t watch what you are doing, you will find $100 on your credit card instead of $1.

Has anyone else had any similar happen to them?

Have you heard of cord blood banking, cord blood stem cell banking, or perhaps umbilical cord blood banking. The term should probably be collection rather than banking. Anyway, it is the collection of cord blood that has got me ranting this time - with a little bit of a rave as well.

There is plenty of scientific evidence now to show that the harvesting of stem cells from the umbilical cord blood of a new born baby can be used to effectively treat certain illnesses. In Australia there has been a lot of controversy over the use of embryonic stem cells for research - from what I have read the stem cells from cord blood can also be used for research.

To date they have had varying success with the treatment of leukemia and other childhood diseases. With research who knows what the future may hold. We don’t know and we wont know unless we collect this blood and allow research to progress.

My rant is directed towards our local health services although from what I can gather, there are many places around the world were the same is true. We live around an hours drive from the nearest capital city. They collect blood donations, pathology specimens and other medical information but they will not collect cord blood to be sent off and processed. Why? They are not set up for it.

It takes about 5 minutes to insert a syringe and draw of the blood from the baby’s umbilical cord and store it for collection. The collected blood can then be sent off at the same time as all the samples. I think it is a small thing to ask when the potential benefits are huge.

Have you had your baby’s cord blood collected for stem cell harvesting and storage or use? Do you know about private collection for future use by your family? Cord blood stem cell banking is big business in the US when it comes to private use. For public use, there are far too few resources available.

This really is incredible - and they say dogs are unthinking dumb animals - yeah right - this footage of a dog saving another dog on the freeway is both sad and uplifting.

What is really sad is that no one stopped to try and help. Read the rest of this entry »

If your looking for a gift this Christmas for someone who has everything - check out stupid.com - I am sure they will have the perfect gift.

Here are their top ten stupid.com gifts for 2008:

• One of my favorites - The Rubber Screaming Chicken
• The Wealth Redistribution Christmas Tree Ornament
• The Mini Guitar Hero - better off buying them an air guitar
• Wasabi Gumballs
• Another favorite - The Potty Putter - you got it. Sit on the loo and practice your putting
• Men’s Underwear Repair Kit
• The Barack Obama Yes We Can Opener
• The “How To Tie A Tie” Tie
• Pole Dancer Alarm Clock
• Finally, at number ten - the must have 2009 Dog Poop Calendar - I wonder, is it scratch-n-sniff?

I am sure there is a gift or two there for the person who everything - trust stupid.com to find the best in stupid gifts. Do you have any stupid gifts to add to the list?

Marijuana is one of the most widely used drugs on the planet, second only to alcohol. In almost every western country there are laws prohibiting its use, yet, just like the days of alcohol prohibition, most people ignore those laws.

Many claim that Marijuana is dangerous, and it can be, but then so is alcohol. Some people promote its medicinal values yet, due to prohibition, there has never been a true and honest examination of the medicinal claims. There are probably just as many people who simply ignore it.

Those countries that do ban Marijuana seem to classify it in the same category as heroin, cocaine and many of the other dangerous substances. I am not going to argue one way or the other. The reality is that research has been stifled and we have no ‘real’ answers.

What we do know is that the US, UK, Europe and Australia seem to use it a lot - enough for the US to be labeled the Marijuana Nation (there has even been a documentary to this effect). Scientists who study this plant consider it among the most complex in the plant kingdom with 400 active chemicals and compounds.

Marijuana is the largest cash crop in the world. The time perhaps has come to consider controlling the supply, as we do with tobacco, rather than trying to wipe it out. Remove the criminal aspect and the price will drop to a point where many growers and middle men will fail to make any money - they will of course move onto other endeavors. Take the crime out of the problem and you take the criminals out of the solutions.

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Down to earth tips on internet marketing. There is none of the in-your-face self promoting hype that many sites dish out. Worth adding to your regular reading list.

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Yesterday I looked at some of the issues that may help you rank better in Google. Today I will follow up on a few more observations. These are all taken from a Q&A session with Matt Cutts and others from Google - in effect, Google are starting to spill the beans on how to gain higher rankings.

A little more on links today. First, for a long time the general advice has been to get links from .edu and .gov sites. According to the Google team, don’t bother. They have no more value than any other link, in fact they will often have less value since few people link into them. Read the rest of this entry »

Whether you love them or hate them, Google is the number one search engine and they are not about to change the way they do things because you or I like or dislike the way they do things. Over the last few months Google have opened up a little more on ways to improve your rankings. Their latest Q&A session brought up a few good questions and some rather interesting results. Over the next couple of days I will review their answers and try to deliver back to you in simple English. Read the rest of this entry »

Paid posts are becoming a big business for both bloggers and agencies that coordinate paid posts. They are also becoming more sophisticated as time goes by. You can, as a business owner, now surf many blogs selecting those that may suit your requirements and approach them for paid posts.

I have been approached a few times to do product reviews, that is, they send me the product and I write the review. I have ignored or denied the request in the past, however I now wonder if I have done myself a dis-service. Whilst not getting paid, I still received the products which is a form of payment. Read the rest of this entry »