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Archive for May, 2008


Real Estate Investing for Dummies

Real Estate Investing for DummiesReal Estate Investing for Dummies is yet another excellent real estate book in the Dummies series. I have “Home Buying for Dummies” and “Property Management for Dummies.” Both are highly valued, and frequently utilized, volumes in my investing library.

I have long thought that “Real Estate Investing” by McLean and Eldred was perhaps the top book for beginning real estate investors. But after reading “Real Estate Investing for Dummies,” I now think the Dummies is equally as good, although it may not cover quite as much ground. Dummies is excellent in what it presents because it written in a manner that is easily understood, it provides sufficient depth, and it covers the key topics.

I particularly like the chapter on “Due Diligence.” The chapter does an outstanding job of describing the components of reviewing books and records, and inspecting a property that you have bid on and have had the bid accepted by the seller. Purchase contracts provide that the sale can be canceled without loss of earnest money if the buyer’s physical inspection isn’t satisfactory. Following the suggestions in this chapter assure that you won’t be surprised with what you get, and gives tips on how to cancel or renegotiate the deal, if you need to.

I also like the final chapter, which lays out in plain English the time tested (non-infomercial guru) principals of how to make money in real estate. Buy when market conditions are conducive to buying, when properties are distressed and available as foreclosures or on favorable terms with seller financing. Add value to properties. Hold on to properties that offer long-term stable growth in rental rates. Refinance to tap into investment property equity and to further your real estate investments. Read

AdWords Ads Now Free?

A new breakthrough secret is all you now need in order to get your Google AdWords pay-per-clicks FREE!

A gentleman from New York discovered what he calls an “oversight” on the part of 99.9% of all marketers that allows him to get otherwise paid-for advertising at Google as well as all other search engines that allow sponsored ads.

And no, nothing about his “secret” is illegal – nor does it require that you know someone on the “inside” at Google, Yahoo, MSN, Overture and others.

Instead, the New Yorker boasts proudly “…this is something that I caught onto just before 2000 when there was so much search engine craze running around, and started doing small just to test things at first … but which I later expanded on after getting the hang of it.”

This same fellow went on to start and operate sixteen separate online companies selling everything from pet food, DVDs, children’s toys & games, books, software, and sold not only his own manufactured products but became an affiliate for other web businesses – all the while applying his mastermind secret.

Over the course of nearly eight years the New Englander confesses “I’ve actually gotten over $87 million in advertising that using my secret I never had to pay for … and the largest share of which was more recently in Google pay-per-clicks as well as other forms of pad advertising at search engines … all of which I got for free …”

So powerful is his secret that he’s able to monopolize any niche online, and can always secure the top premium spots just above the usual organic results featured at most search engines.

He still has to set up an account with the search engines – but after applying his secret he is removed from having to pay for all the costs otherwise involved. Again, nothing about his secret is either illegal or robs from the search engines.

One spokesperson from one of the most popular search engines said chuckling after being made privy to this amazing secret “Wow! Ha! This is really unique … and in my expert opinion it would only serve to enhance and bring more business to us at [name of search engine withheld for legal & confidentiality reasons] and not cause us to lose business in the slightest. Amazing!”

The northerner revealed that in this nearly eight years’ period of time since applying his secret he’s done well over $300 million in sales revenue with a most diverse line of products, and most recently in the last two years netted nearly $166 million after really “buckling down and pressing my secret to its fullest potential.”

Now to everyone else’s fortune, the city slicker is releasing his secret for getting an unlimited amount of pay-per-click ads to the general public. But he’s not promising any of us for how long.

A bit of an eccentric, the gentleman says “We’ll see just how long I can make it available before it saturates things.”

One famous public web guru pointed out that although this man may gain economically more so as a result of the publication of his secret “he’s already so amazingly rich that whether he continues or discontinues its sale will neither make nor break the man, but not grabbing it for yourself while it’s still available could prove disastrous for you as you may only have one chance, and a very limited one at that, to get this.”

It is currently available at:

http://SecretDoor.GetGoogleAdsFree.com/gotomypc

…so you may want to head on over there now and get it.

It’s in a very easily readable format and is quickly and readily understood and mastered by anyone with even a 4th grade reading level.

While you’re there, why not scroll down and review for yourself the huge successes others are now having with this incredible breakthrough in targeted advertising now made freely available to the rest of us?

To your success,

Mohd Rafi Kassim

Authored by BidSG.com

Introduction to the Forex Market and Currency Trading

Currency TradingI have heard about currency trading and investing but was not well-versed in this market. Who knew that the Euro may someday replace the United States dollar as the “currency kept in reserve by the world”? I certainly did not. Of course, you see, most of what Jamaine Burrell talks about in his book, “The Complete Guide to Currency Trading and Investing,” is stuff many of us do not know about until after years of experience in the market of Foreign Exchange (or Forex). This book is especially good for novice investors, who need to have complicated investing concepts explained. The great thing about Burrell’s tone is that he is not condescending, or “dumbs down” the material. He clearly covers most every complexity about Forex and does so with a professionally instructive voice.

I was particularly interested in this book, especially as our nation is facing a weakening dollar, because I hear so much nowadays about the foreign markets and how many are investing in and trading currency. Apparently, the Forex market really is an accessible investment that can pay the investor quite well if he or she knows how to get involved in the Forex market and understands how it works.

That is why I felt Burrell’s book was so helpful for me. It explains how the Forex market works, why the United States is such an important player in the world market, how to get involved, and does a great job illustrating the many indexes, factors, and issues that contribute to currency-value fluctuation and the overall global economy. Read

A Practical Guide to Linux(R) Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming

LinuxI found this book to be just ok – it covers the basics of Linux and many important/frequently used commands but I am remotely satisfied with this book because the author focuses on stuff that many users probably will find less useful. The learning curve is quite steep if you’re relatively new to Linux – the author is describing very basic stuff like GNU, Linux file systems, simple shell commands and such, and then suddenly rushes into complicated shell programming and scripts.

Few examples from this book that I know I will never use but who knows, other users may find that:

-This book is great if you’re into emacs and vi(m) since it dedicates over 100 pages on these two text editors but I prefer using nano so for me these chapters were more or less wasted.
-This book is great if you’re into shell programming.

Why spend 100+ pages on vim and emacs when at least some pages could’ve been dedicated to a Security Section that this book doesn’t have? Perhaps emacs and vim are important because programming requires a good set of text editors..? Read

The New Paradigm for Financial Markets

George SorosFirst, Soros is a very savvy financial genius. I’m always amazed when people try to take shots at him. It’s like saying Bill Gates doesn’t understand technology. When Soros talks, listen. If you don’t understand, listen some more.

Reflexivity is Soros’s pet theory. He outlined it in the Alchemy of Finance. Basically the idea is that events can become self reinforcing. How does that relate to the mortgage collapse?

The mortgage bubble and collapse was just like any other. Banks and other institutions noticed that lending money was profitable when the economy was expanding. All the loans seemed to be turning out well. The banks were printing money and decided to loan more and more. As more credit became available, the economy continued to perform strongly (the easy availability of money spurs on the economy) causing existing loans to perform even better. Banks were enticed to lend even more. All the while, institutions of all stripes continued to pile on leverage as their investments blossomed. Eventually someone decided to take their chips off the table. All of a sudden, credit came into question. Institutions started to de-lever, worried that they wouldn’t be able to get their money off the table fast enough. No one would extend more credit. Money became scarce. Loans defaulted. The housing market crashed. Read