Your credit score is the most influential factor in determining whether you will be approved for a loan or mortgage and the interest rate you will have to pay. Your credit score or FICO (the term refers to the company, Fair Issac Corporation, which created the method used to calculate credit scores) is a measurement that the credit reporting bureaus use to predict your creditworthiness and helps creditors determine whether to grant you credit. Your score can be any where between 300 to 850. The higher the number, the more credit worthy you are and the lower the interest rate you will pay. Since having a high credit score number directly correlates with the amount of money your loan or mortgage will cost you, it obviously pays to maximize the conditions that will give you the highest score possible.

Below are six ways to maximize your own credit score: Read the rest of this entry »

As most people know who use the Internet, computer security is a huge concern. Most of us buy and install one of the well known virus protection software packages (Norton AntiVirus and McAfee are but two examples) to hopefully protect our operating systems and files from unwanted infection. Most of the software packages involve the purchase of the initial installation plus some sort of paid subscription that you must renew annually to access the frequent update downloads that are distributed, sometimes daily. These updates are vital to keep your virus protection up to date in order to combat the latest exploits from affecting your system. Along with costing way too much for what these products deliver, the more popular packages tend to greatly affect the overall performance of your computer. This results in painfully slow web surfing and other computer tasks due to the computing resources these packages require to operate in the background. Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you using WordPress 2.5 as your content management system, an important security update has just been released. This update includes one important security fix along with 70 other bug fixes and other enhancements. WordPress recommends everyone install this update, particularly those publishers who employ open registration.

You can download version 2.5.1 here

As a side note, to make your upgrading expereince much simpler and quicker, a plugin is available which automates the upgrade process. Read the rest of this entry »

I came across this video from Shermanlive.com and thought it would be nice to share with everyone heading into the weekend. Thank you Sherman Hu. Enjoy.

Site Hoppin is a browser within a browser that let’s you discover interesting websites (much like StumbleUpon) and earn “Beer Credits” which translates to direct traffic for your blog or website. The more sites you “hop” to, the more traffic you generate for your own site. I have been a member for about a month now and the traffic I’m receiving is starting to match Entrecard but with a lot less work.

The object here is to earn beer credits which translate to free traffic to your website. You earn credits in a variety of ways: For every site you “hop” to you earn one “beer credit.” Tag or comment on a site you earn 10 credits. Submit a site for inclusion in the Site Hoppin directory earns 30 credits. You can also display a Site Hoppin widget on your blog or website and earn 50 credits for every click. For every 10 credits you earn, you receive one hit to your site. 100 credits get you 10 hits and it goes up from there. The more credits you accumulate, the more hits your site receives. Not bad for free and a little time on your part simply “hoppin” from website to website. Read the rest of this entry »

John Wooden, head men’s basketball coach for UCLA from 1948 to 1975, is famous for his record setting coaching achievements, but also for the life lessons he taught his players. Many of those lessons are captured in the many quotes attributed to Coach Wooden over the duration of his legendary career. I’ve selected some of my favorites I feel transcend sports and can help anyone interested in achieving success in business and life. Below are my top five:

“Never mistake activity for achievement.”

“Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”

“Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character.”

“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

Fine words to live by. Do my favorites match yours? What’s your favorite motivational quotes?

I’m sure many of you, like me, who are frequent users of the Internet have had your share of problems with viruses, spyware and other malicious and unwanted “modifications” that seem to find their way onto your computer. This, in turn, tends to significantly slow your online activities and in some cases cause major operating system and software issues. This can get so bad that you may have had to take the drastic and time consuming step of reinstalling your Windows operating system and start fresh. I know I have and it’s not fun.

Well, I recently came across an offering from Microsoft that many of you, who rely on Windows XP as your operating system, may not be aware of that is designed to automatically revert your system back to it’s original state if you run into any of these malicious software related issues. It’s a free download called Windows “SteadyState” which essentially allows you to set-up a locked-down platform by way of separate user accounts. Once you have everything set up the way you want it, you can share the computer and rest easy. Any changes a user might make to the configuration or hard disk can be undone by simply restarting the machine. Read the rest of this entry »

Over $7,000 worth of prizes plus 66,666 Entrecard credits are up for grabs in the biggest contest ever! Marcus over at Hochstadt.com is taking it to the next level with his Hochstadt.com Party Contest. There are many ways to enter including writing about the contest and posting a listing of the prizes and contributors to your blog which counts for 50 entries.

The contest runs until the end of the month. All prizes will be awarded by random draw from all entries received on May 1, 2008. Good luck to everyone and “let’s go PARTY!!”

Below is list of all the contributing publishers and prizes being offered: Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been using Twitter for a couple of months now and have come to the conclusion that Twitter is a digital, internet age version of the office water cooler but way more powerful.

What is Twitter

Twitter is basically a “micro-blog” platform designed to offer it’s users a quick and easy way to enter short, timely messages (140 characters or less) to describe what they’re doing, feeling and/or thinking about. Think of it as a digital water cooler for the Internet generation. You also have full privacy controls regarding who sees your Twitter profile and who can read your entries. The beauty of Twitter is its simplicity. If you can email, you can use Twitter. Far beyond the fun aspects of Twitter, there are some key reasons why I use it and why I think you need to especially if you have a blog and are interested in driving traffic. Read the rest of this entry »

From time to time I will be highlighting recommended business related products you can purchase from Amazon.com that I feel can help you in your business pursuits and be more successful. First up is a nine hour audio course packaged on eight CDs from business motivational expert Brian Tracy entitled “Brian Tracy’s 21 Secrets To Success. This package features eight full audio courses covering a range of important business topics including: 21 Great Ways to Manage Your Time and Double Your Productivity; 21 Great Ways to Hire and Keep the Best People; 21 Great Ways to Start and Build Your Own Successful Business; 21 success Secrets of Self Made Millionaires; 21 Great Ways to Build a High profit Business; 21 Great Ways to Become an Outstanding Manager; 21 Unbreakable Laws of Money and 21 Great Ways to Become a Sales Superstar. Read the rest of this entry »