Is Roger Hamilton’s XL Results Foundation A Scam?
July 2, 2008 | 37 Comments
I have read from a friend’s blog that a campaign has been going on to inform people that Roger Hamilton’s XL Results Foundation is a scam.
It seem like the main source that everyone quoted are from:
ripoffreport.com and
If you read carefully, many of the so called complains are “alleged”. There are also reports that after investigations, authorities did not find any wrong doing.
So how do we know whether XL Results Foundation is a scam or not?
Before we make any conclusion, we must always base on facts or evidence. Apparently, the “source” of the “facts” is someone who had a conversation with Roger when Roger was a drunk in a bar.
In the links above and many other blog posts, many bloggers quoted more or less the same info but none actually proved that they are members of XL Results Foundation and showed any evidence of police reports or copies of correspondence between the “victim” and the authorities.
As a blogger, we must be responsible in our blogging. We must find evidence before we say something, if not, then we are just spread rumours or “alleged” news. This will hurt the blogging community.
ripoffreport.com should gather police reports and documents to back what they claim instead of posting blogs and spreading it virally. With evidence, they can show that they are right and will be more productive in helping people to be careful of the company.
Members who have really been “cheated” should file police reports and show the people they really were cheated and are taking action against the company. They can show the lawyer’s correspondence that they are taking civil action for fraud or cheating.
USD10,000 is a lot of money. To some people, it is half a year’s pay, to others it can be a year or more. If they really want to help people, show the evidence or else its just talk. Talk can be dangerous because it’s borderline rumour.
This lesson should be applied to all our blogging. Are we just giving our opinions or are we really reporting something? Both of which we need to back up what we say. When you back up your claim, whether your opinion or reporting with evidence, then people can understand your reasoning.
Remember talk is cheap, if you are only talking, then your opinions are cheap.
So is XL Results Foundation a scam? Unless I see some real evidence, I wouldn’t be so hasty in making such conclusion. Search for evidence and decide. The Truth Is Out There…
5 Writing Tips To Be A More Productive Writer
June 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The majority of us are not proficient in writing. I remember in my younger days, I hated composition in English as well as in Mandarin. The reason being, I have to write on something that I’m not interested in and have to hit a minimum word count.
In my university days, I hated large reports especially those 3,000 or 5,000 word report that will decide my fate whether I pass or fail certain papers.
 Photo by mezone
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I have been growing up associating negative stuff such as “difficult”, “boring” and “torturous” to writing. This is made worse by all the past teachers’ and lecturers’ ridicule and negative comments on my writing.
Moving forward, I am now blogging and publishing articles to market my sites. I have reached one full circle of hating writing to having to do it for my work. The law of attraction really works. What you don’t like, you’ll attract it! Anyway, that is a different topic altogether…
Now how do I get over my dislikes and difficulties in writing?
First, you need to get rid of your old thinking. It is not as fearful or difficult as you think. Your mind will try and protest and tell you it is difficult because your mind is comfortable with not writing!
Whenever you think it is difficult, say out loudly or shout “STOP!” and say loudly “I can write!”.
Don’t ever think that you can’t write, remove that thinking from your mind and thoughts.
How about language? Well, the good thing is We Are Not In School anymore. The beauty of internet marketing is nobody cares about your grammar in what you publish. As long as it can be understood by a 12 year old, then you are fine. In fact, your grammar deficiencies, if any, brings life into your work. People will find it more believable that it is written by you.
So be confident because nobody is going to point out your grammar mistakes when you publish your blog or articles. Just make sure simple things such as spelling mistakes are corrected. Spelling mistakes is a sign of sloppiness. Any current wordprocessor have a spell check, so use it before you publish.
Now, what are the 5 writing tips that can make you a more productive writer?
1. Discipline
If you are blogging or doing article marketing, writing is your marketing effort, thus, it is your business. You need to discipline yourself to allocate a fixed time everyday to write something. You may or may not finish your writing in a day, that is ok.
 Photo by sa_ku_ra |
You need to discipline yourself because your mind will find you all kinds of minute excuses to do something else. You need to discipline your mind. Tell it, you are the boss and you want to write. Find yourself a quiet spot that you won’t be distracted or alternatively switch off everything and try to concentrate on writing about your topic or your niche. |
Some professional writers even go to the extend of working in an isolated room with no sound or light from outside.
You need to find a working spot at home that you can be left in private to work. If you have an office, then either use the Do Not Disturb sign or close the door.
Allocate the same time each day for your writing. This is to train your mind set to get into the mood of writing whenever the allocated time draws near.
Unless you are a natural writer, I find discipline very important.
2. Identify Your Productive Time Zone
Remember when you work, there are certain time in the day that you are exceptionally alert and your productivity is high? That is your productivity time zone. I find that I work best after breakfast at home and also from 5pm to dinner time. Early afternoon I have problems in concentrating and do things more slowly.
So what is your productive zone?
I used to try a habit of writing my blog post or articles in the afternoon, but I can’t get things done until 5+ when suddenly I hit a turbo button and I could write fast.
Now I write mostly in the morning after breakfast at home. I realised that in the morning I can concentrated easily and get into the writing mood fast and get the work done at shorter time. So that is my habit nowadays. To produce a blog post or article in the morning after breakfast.
You need to try out yourself when is the time that you can concentrate and get into the writing mood fast. Then allocate that time each day as your writing time. This way, you don’t have to waste time making yourself to get into the writing mood.
3. Allocate Reasonable Amount of Time
| In your writing time slot, allocate a reasonable amount of time of 1 to 2 hours. Don’t allocate too little or else you run out of time before you start writing seriously. Writing is like driving a car, when you start with 1st gear, you start from stationary and your speed is slow. As you build momentum, you move up your gears. As you gain more and more momentum and speed, you change gears all the way to 5th gear when you are moving at top speed. |
 Photo by fdecomite |
Likewise, writing you start slow and slowly build up your speed as you write more. So if your time is too short, before you hit 5th gear, you run out of time.
4. Write free flow
As you sit down to start writing, you can start with a simple structure of your post or article. Then you write free flow, ie, just write everything on the topic right off your head. Don’t attempt to disrupt the ideas and points coming out from your mind by proof reading it. Just write everything down, connect your thoughts directly to your pen, pencil or keyboard.
Leave the formatting, paragraphing, commas, fullstop, spelling and grammar for later.
 Photo by angela7dreams |
After you have exhausted all your ideas and thoughts, and are satisfied that you have finished writing, you do your proof reading. This is when you make sure ideas flow from point to point. You will need to reformat your sentences and paragraphs. Rewrite some sentences to change the structure, commas and fullstop to make it more readable. Checking your spelling mistakes or even some grammar mistakes is also done during proof reading. This is the only time that you make your posts and articles readable and presentable. |
If its a blog post or article post, then you may want to search for photos to attach in your post or article.
If you are going to submit your articles to e-zine and newsletter publishers or article directories you can ignore the photos. I would also suggest that you leave your final piece of work alone and re-read it again the next day. This will help you fine tune your articles and pick out mistakes you left out earlier in your proof reading.
You don’t want to let the world see silly mistakes that you missed out doing proof reading, do you?
5. Reward Yourself
After completing your post or articles, remember to reward yourself. We need to re-train our mind that writing is good. In rewarding yourself, you attach a positive association to writing. This will slowly remove the past negative association we have build around writing.
Treat yourself with ice cream, take a nice stroll and enjoy the scenery, have a good meal, or even just a feel good pat on your back. Vary your reward and love yourself for the work you have done.
 Photo by zerojay
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How To Find And Use Photos From Flickr
June 24, 2008 | 2 Comments
 Photo by *Solar ikon* |
We all know the effect and benefits of using photos in our blog, I have written about it earlier. In my previous article, I talked about using your own camera to take your own pictures.
Many people don’t use photos found on the web because using it without the owner’s permission is an infringement of |
copyright and you can be sued. This result in people having to pay for it or write to the owner for permission.
For many bloggers, getting permission or paying for it takes a long time before you can use the photos. People like to write the blog now, put in a few nice photos and move on. Today I’ll talk about how to find photos on Flickr and use it in your blog without infringement of copyright.
In Flickr there are many great looking photos. The website is growing more and more popular each day. So naturally the photo library will grow exponentially. Flickr is a good place to find nice photos and use them. In Flickr, photos are generally categorised into 6 different levels of copyright. Each level has different permissions for different uses. You can read and understand each of the level of copyright here. Actually you should have a good understanding of the types of license attached to the photos so you can be sure you are using the right ones for the right purpose.
To have the full permission to use the photos for commercial or non-commercial and also to edit the photos, it is best to look for photos with an Attribution License. You can use the photos with this license in anyway you want. How do you search for such photos? Follow the following steps:
1. Log into Flickr
2. Scroll to bottom of the page and click on Creative Commons. This should bring you to the page where photos are grouped under the 6 different licenses
3. Click on (See more) under the category of Attribution License. This will bring you to the page with all the photos that you can use for your blog with full permission from the owner.
4. Search for the photos you are looking for in the search box on top.
If you appreciate the beautiful photos and how it helps you in your blog or article or anything, then it is only good etiquette to acknowledge the photographer. Though it is not necessary if you got it from the Attribution License section, personally I think we should give credit where credit is due.
These photographers spend alot of time and effort to produce beautiful pictures for people to use for free, the least you can do is to show your appreciation by informing everyone that this beautiful picture is taken by so and so. How do you do this?
You can put in a caption with the photographer’s name and hyperlink to the photographer’s profile on Flickr. Yup, it fast and easy.
You can also go the extra mile and email the photographer and inform the person you are using it in your blog and invite the person to visit it. Then you can bring more traffic to your blog as well as make more friends. Being a photography enthusiasts myself, I do welcome people who appreciates my effort. After all, what is beauty if there is no one to behold…
So do explore Flickr and use photos to beautify your blog, your readers will appreciate it.
How To Measure Your Blog Traffic
June 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment
How do you measure the traffic to your blog? How many readers do you have? These are the questions that every blogger will want to know.
Since I am using wordpress, I’ll only talk about measuring traffic in your wordpress blog.
There are a few tracking scripts that you can use to track and measure your blog traffic. However, it is known that all these tracking scripts are not very accurate. The accuracy depends on browser settings in accepting scripting or not. Other factors such as spiders also affect your true readership number, because software spiders can also be counted as readers.
Despite its inaccuracies, you still need to track and measure your blog traffic, at least to get an impression or an idea how it is progressing.
As wordpress users, you can install a wordpress plugin to track your blog. It is a simple no fuss plugin that gives you a brief summary of your traffic from your Dashboard. Installing it is easy, download it from here, unzip it, open the “stats.1.2.2″ folder and upload the “stats” folder into the wp-content/plugins directory using your ftp program. Log into your blog and activate the plugin. You need to use wordpress’s API key to activate it.
Click on “Akismet Configuration” near the top navigation bar and copy the API key to use the same API key for your stats. If you haven’t got your Akismet activated, then you should get it done now. This helps to filter out spam to your blog. Follow the instructions to get API key from Akismet plugin.
I also use Google Analytics to track some of my other sites. You can use Google Analytics but you need to edit your theme files.
Open an account with Google Anayltics here and set up your account. Add a new website in Google Analytics and use your blog url as the new website address. Then you copy the tracking code.
Use the theme editor to edit your “footer.php” file listed on right hand side of the window. Copy the tracking code to a line above the tag “</body>”. Update your footer file and check if your have inserted the code correctly. Google Analytics will check for you whether you have inserted your code correctly. If it is receiving data, then you have done it correctly. If Analytics is not receiving data, then you have inserted the code incorrectly.
Try to start your tracking now, so you can keep a record of the number of people visiting your site. This way, you know that your blog is being appreciated.
How To Post On Your Blog Everyday (Final Part)
June 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Welcome back to my final instalment on how to consistently make a post on your blog everyday. I promised to share with you what is my favourite way of getting ideas for my blog. My favourite way is to “Keep Your Eyes & Ears Open“.
To maintain a blog, you need to also develop a journalistic streak. If you keep a lookout on your daily life, sometimes small things that happened to you or your surroundings can be related back to your topic. This is one my my favourite way of getting original ideas to post in my blogs. Some time, just talking to your friends casually can give you an idea for a topic. You just need to keep thinking how can I relate this to my interest. Believe me…”Like Attract Like”, so even a casual chat with your friends can give you ideas. After all, to be your friend, there must be some common interest.
Carry along a digital camera wherever you go. Sometimes you will see something that catches your fancy. Just take a good shot of it. You can worry about how to put it in your blog later. Its better to collect lots of ideas then sort them out later. As you develop a habit of looking things through the eyes of your topic, you will be able to spot opportunities for you take a photo of something that interest you. If it is interesting to you, then it is related to your passion.
Using photos in your blog can help your readers visualise what you are trying to say. It also adds colour and breaks the monotony of reading blocks and blocks of words.
You can also carry a small notepad to take down certain ideas during the day when you are doing something else. Noting down a brainwave immediately will ensure that you won’t get frustrated at the end of the day trying to remember what you thought about earlier. You can also use your cellular or hand phone with a personal organiser to take the ideas down into your phone instead of using a notepad.
Once you do this as a habit, your daily life will be much interesting because you will be more mindful of what is happening around you and you will get lots of ideas from catching up with your friends, while doing the laundry, grocery shopping, reading a book or even having lunch with your colleagues!
This is more difficult habit to cultivate in the beginning, but once you are used to it, you’ll be able to spot so many things to blog about.
How To Post On Your Blog Everyday (Part 2)
June 11, 2008 | 2 Comments
I’m back to continue on what I left off the last post. Welcome back to learn more on how to post your blog consistently everyday.
3. Search For Forums
This is the same as searching for blogs with similar topic with your own blog. You can search for forums that discusses about problems, issues or just to share and update each other on current issues. Forum is a great place to get an idea of what difficulties people face. It is also a source of discussion on how to resolve the problems raised by members or to get a deeper understanding of the topics involved.
Learning the problems and getting the solution to those problems is a good post for your blog. People are always searching for solutions to their problems. Once you understand the underlying problems or issues and have a workable solution to it, you can even do a 2 post series. The first post to highlight the problems or issues. The 2nd post provide the solution. This way, you also create suspense and readers’ anticipation for more information.
Reading forums is also a good way to build your knowledge on your interest or passion. You will be able to learn more when you participant and ask questions or discuss with other members.
Take some time to read the forums first, and assess if the topics raised are inline with your interest. Once you are comfortable with the forum, you can join as a member and slowly participate in the discussion and also help out those who have problems. This is again making friends through the forum. Having friends in forums can also help you to attract traffic to your blog to increase your readership.
4. Read Magazines and Newspapers
Magazines and newspapers are a good source of current issues. You can subscribe to a specialised magazine that is inline with what you love, eg a car enthusiast will subscribe to a few car magazine to read up on what’s hot now or to learn more technical stuff.
How To Post On Your Blog Everyday
June 10, 2008 | 3 Comments
Every blogger will face a challenge to blog everyday. Some bloggers will have a ton of info and have to sort out the better ones to post. Some may not have as much info and will struggle to keep posting everyday. Then they space out the time between posts and as each time frame between each post increases, they will finally give up blogging.
So how do you keep writing and posting everyday?
There are many ways to researching for content for your blog. But before we proceed, the first and most crucial step is to understand yourself. Take some time and think about what is your interest. What do you have passion for? It may be buried deep inside you laying dormant because of all the stress and workload at your office has caused you to give up or forget about your interest and passion when you were young. So take a weekend off your daily routine, let your mind be free and explore the inner child in you again.
Once you have discovered your long lost interest or passion, you have automatically defined your blog theme. Why is it so important to blog about your interest or passion? Your passion or interest is the undying flame within you that will keep you going, even though the going gets tough. There will be times when you will hit dry spell of words or content, but those are just temporary dry spots which will not extinguish the spark within you.
Because you are blogging about something that you love, you will enjoy researching more or learning more about your niche. You will gain more experience in it. We will pursue to deepen our knowledge in what we enjoy even though there is no monetary rewards. Take artists as an example. Many artist draw because they love to draw. and if you sit them down, they can go on and on about their experience etc.
If you really don’t have any info, experience to share in your blog, then you can do the following to research for info:
An Important Blogging Tool
June 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment
“A picture is worth a thousand words”
We know that people are drawn to photos because it’s nice to look at. If taken properly, it freezes everything at that point of time. Pictures also help people to visualise the moment or situation at that point of time. Regardless of how proficient are you in describing a scenario, nothing beats a photograph which does the same thing but with better effect.
How does this related to blogging? Blogging is about producing unique content which interests the publishers. Blog posts and pages contains a lot of written content as the blogger diligently writes his or her posts. It is good practise to include a bit of photos to help readers get a better picture of what you are saying. This makes the blog a more pleasant reading experience. It adds colour and ease the readers’ ability to visualise what the blogger is trying to describe.
Photos also help the readers to remember the experience, points or fact that the blogger is trying to make. People tend to remember pictures more than words. So by including relevant photos into your blog, whenever the readers see something similar, they’ll remember what they read in your blog.
Taking your own photos is the best way to make original photos that you don’t have to worry about infringing any copyright. There are many online sites with free photos so you can copy them if you want to. But I always prefer to take my own photos and ensure I am the only person in the world with that shot. This makes the photos even more original and unique. Also, each photographer will interpret differently the same scene, the photo reflect more of what each photographer sees. So if you want to describe something or an experience or to teach something, it is better to show pictures through your own eyes. This way the photos and your posts in the blog compliments each other better.
So how do I take my own pictures for my blog? Well first thing is, you need to have a digital camera. A digital camera is the most convenient way of taking a shot, download it and upload to your blog.
For blogging purpose, you don’t really need the latest high end digital camera. A normal 3 to 5 megapixel point and shoot digital camera is more than enough to take good photos for your blog. Its not necessary to put in large size photos because it takes too long to load up and your readers may get impatient and skip it. You don’t want that to happen.
There are also digital cameras with reasonable video recording capability. You may want to consider those models too since you can also record short clips for your blog. Again, you don’t need the latest high definition video camera to make videos for you blog.
Some hand phones or cellular phones comes with camera features. They may be good for you when you are just starting out. When you become more expert in taking photos, then you will want to upgrade to a digital camera. This is because the camera phone has very limited capability in taking various lighting situations. If you are happy with the quality of the phone camera, you can still stick to it.
There are many new terminology and setting which you need to be familiar to operate your digital camera properly. There is a cheap but good ebook which explains the various functions and adjustments you can do to your digital camera to take good photos. The ebook, Guide To Digital Photography is easy to read without getting into too much technicalities. Do buy it and start understanding your camera better and take good photos to enhance your blog. You readers will definitely appreciate your content more.
Backup Your Blog!
May 30, 2008 | 4 Comments
2 days ago my other blog, personaldevelopment.com got stuffed up. Of all my blogs, I didn’t backup this one! Good thing that the hosting company does a backup every week. So I lost a few days of content since their last backup. Now I am waiting for the hosting company to restore my blog database. Hopefully my posts and pages are still intact.
I hope that everyone will backup their blog once a week, regardless how new is your blog. This way, you can restore it anytime without waiting for the hosting company to do it for you.
Doing a backup is simple, you can backup your blog by going into your Wordpress Dashboard, click on “Manage” tab then click on “Backup”. Select all your tables and I would suggest that you set up a schedule to automatically back up every week. Its up to you whether you want to email the backup files to yourself, download it or save it in your server.
I prefer to download it to my notebook and save a copy to an external hard drive. So, remember to get into a habit of backup your blog, it’ll save you a lot of heartache.
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