NOT a Guru!
Keeping it simple, without the hype. PC tips and Internet advice for mom and pop businesses.

Wow.  I have had WAY too much to do lately, as I am in the middle of moving offices and handling year end business stuff for my offline business.

Anyway, I hope you had a good November and, if you celebrated Thanksgiving, an excellent holiday.

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One of the reasons I don’t do a lot of promoting on free sites is because there’s no guarantee they’ll be around forever.  I am not saying not to do it … there is some benefit.  But there’s no long term guarantee.

Yahoo had purchased GeoCities in 1999 for a whopping $3.57 billion, offering free web hosting that had advertisements on them.  The technology became outmoded with Facebook and other social networking sites.

GeoCities was around for 15 years, dishing up some truly awful websites and some interesting personal sites.  Personally, I think it was the precursor to Facebook, Squidoo and others and a true pioneer in making the Internet usable for everyone.

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Is every click that you make being recorded somewhere?  When it comes to privacy and use of the Internet, World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee says that Internet users need to be responsible for “keeping an eye out” to protect the freedom and anonymity of the Web.

I thought his thoughts were well worth sharing here. One of his observations that surprised me is that 80% of the world population is not online yet. He asked that we consider the implications of what the web will be like when those people come online.

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The nation’s first rehab center for Internet and gaming addictions opened in Washington.

The center pulls addicts away from their computers and reconnects them with nature.

Some researches say that Internet addiction and drug addiction are similar.  Not everyone agrees.

The retreat costs $14,000 and “addicts” spend 45 days in therapy.

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If you’re religious, do you pray?  Well, it seems like there is a growing trend for “technological prayers.”  I welcome anything new in the tech front and can appreciate the creativity of the people who make them.

But praying?  I don’t know.  Something about it seems phony to me.

The latest is an iPhone application that, in all honesty, is pretty cool looking.  You text a message to a rabbi who then prints out your prayer and sticks it on the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

This iPhone application is similar to a “Tweet to God” Twitter service which basically does the same thing … people send “prayer tweets” that are printed out and placed on the Wall.

Perhaps one of the more entertaining applications that I’ve seen is a computer software program that says your prayers so you don’t have to do it.  For just a few bucks a month, you can download the prayers of your choice (i.e. Muslim, Catholic and so forth) set your computer to recite them, and go out and have fun … knowing that just in case you will never make it back, your prayers have been said.

Phony or not for religious believers, the people who are designing these applications are certainly the type who think out of the box.  They deserve some success for being so innovative.

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Personally, I don’t put any stock in this, but it’s interesting enough to pass along.

The “Web Bot Project” claims that it can make prophetic predictions based on Internet search activity.  The latest?  Well, the world will end on December 21, 2012 (12-21-12, for numerology people).

Google Hot Trends Report

Google’s hot trends shows that there is an increasing interest in “2012.”    There’s a big movie about to be released that is titled 2012.  The next presidential election will be in 2012.  Religious and New Age people are talking about the end of the Mayan Calendar.  There are many reasons that people might be looking up the year 2012.

2012 may be turning into a popular keyword.  But does that tell us that the end of the world draws near?  No way!

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Wow, how time flies.

Sometimes, I think I’m still somewhere back in 2001.  Have I accomplished some things?  Sure.  I’ve achieved a number of goals.  But I have a long way to go.

Today, an email advertisement arrived announcing that there are only 100 days left for the year 2009.  It’s time to get busy with marketing efforts for the holidays … and catch up on some paperwork.

How will you spend your remaining 100 days of 2009?

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When you hear the word “spam,” you think of email, right?

Well, some people still seem to like the edible stuff.  At the New Mexico state fair, they actually had a spam contest.   There were more than 30 entries in this year’s annual competition, featuring everything from Fettucini Alfredo Spam to Spam pie.

I suppose some of it looks okay in the pictures … although I’m not too sure I’d eat it if I knew what it was. What do you think?

(The video will load in a second or two.)

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Labor Day weekend is typically “the last hurrah” for summer fun and vacationing.  I’m off having fun today … and regardless of whether you are American, hope you, too, can have a festive day today!

Here’s a short clip about the history of Labor Day, considered the working man’s holiday.

The video talks about the labor unions’ demands for an 8 hour work day. To be honest with you, I can’t remember having such a short workday! I don’t think I’ve had one my entire working life. What about you?

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We’ve seen some pretty good laptop sales for the start of the school year here in the States, and can shop around online and offline for the best deal.  A similar sale took place at an electronics store in Russia, but there was much  more demand than management expected.

The store had approximately 250 laptop computers that it discounted to $300.  It turns out that there was a 3-to-1 ratio of consumers and laptops … with a demand so high that customers were literally stampeding in the Moscow store.  Some were injured as a result.

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