Kay works for a complete moron. He bought the company a few years ago and it instantly went from a success to a pile of wood. He knows nothing about how to run a business, nor does he know how to handle employees. People have been fired for reasons as stupid as “They’re too smart for their position”. A girl was recently fired because she knew too much about what she was doing. Some people believe she tapped into something that the owner was doing and was fired because she knew too much about something that’s more than likely highly illegal. The real lesson here is, however, someone seriously needs to stand outside of this place and let the customers know that they’re never going to actually receive anything they order so it would be a smart idea to not even bother stepping foot into the building. Products have been on back order for the last 6 months and most of the vendors even have the company on HOLD because he hasn’t been able to pay the bill. Makes you wonder where the money is actually going, it sure as heck isn’t going to the employee’s considering most of them aren’t even getting their paychecks.

The thing he really needs is something called Executive Coaching, which should be important for any corporation. The Forte Institute is the global leader in the development and delivery of the strengths-based understanding of human personality as it relates to the personal understanding of interpersonal communications. I know it all seems like a lot of big words but their main goal is really team building programs which is very important for any corporation. It’s easier to run a tight-knit business if everyone is working on the same page. Training from The Forte Institute can really help you run your business and your employees with 100% ship-shape efficiency.

Many people go through Wirefly.com to get their cellphones. I don’t blame them either considering they’ve turned into one of the hottest resources on the internet for all of your mobile needs. They’ve got a new Top 10 list, it’s seasonal too considering it’s the Spring 2007 season. Their list includes everything from the Motorola to Samsung. I personally find the Motorola Razr to be the best phone out there but that’s because of the fact that I’ve been desperately eying this phone for the last couple of years. Even though I’m not on the phone very often, one day I WILL own this thing. The list they’ve put up is pretty extensive, and rightly so considering all the phones on there are pretty interesting, help them out by hitting Digg this story! because all hits are good hits and going through Digg is a huge thing these days. I just think it’s cool they came up with the Spring 2007 list. I hope they continue making lists like these every season, it’ll give people an excuse to drool over more technological goodness.

Before things started to settle down for me, financially, I was seriously considering applying for a student loan to use towards college. The problem is that while I would only need to borrow around $7,000 I wouldn’t have anyone to co-sign the loan considering my off-the-books income and I no longer live anywhere near my father. I don’t think you can get away with cosigning a loan with someone who’s 5 hours away.

I know a few people who have actually gone through with the student loan process now they’re working on student loan consolidation programs because they’re bogged down with payments and fees that were just thrown on at the end of the agreement in very small print. After a studen graduates they’re often faced with the financial burden of dealing with student loan payments. If you miss even one payment it can seriously harm your credit. Consolidating student loans can be beneficial to students’ credit rating, but it’s important to note that not all federal student loan consolidation companies report their loans to all credit bureaus.

In the end, it’s not hard to come up with $7,000 and I wouldn’t be putting my credit at risk in order to do it. It would take me maybe 2 months at the rate that business is coming in these days. It’d be much easier to take the non-loan route for me.

Having teenagers isn’t easy on any parent. The constant mood swings and unappreciative behavior towards everything is typical in daily life. I know a few mothers that spent a lot of time reading books on how to ‘fix’ their children and they’d then sit there and wonder why nothing ever worked. Proper education is a factor in anything but when it comes down to it, you raised the child so you should know at some point how to deal with your child. For those whom can’t figure it out – however – there are sites like parentingteens.com which offer you a series of resources and advice to get you through the day. One of their articles is about self esteem education. Self esteem is a pretty big problem for many teens, not many parents know how to deal with it. I know my parents didn’t. Then again, part of my self-esteem issues growing up was the fact that I never really had a mother around, but that’s besides the point.

For the parents that actually ARE there for their children, however, ParentingTeens.com focuses on a variety of problems but it’s primarily designed to help parents with troubled teens. It could be a valuable resource to help you get through the difficult times.

I like when I come across new sites. While part of me doesn’t really care what celebrities do, finding resources that they also use is kind of interesting to me. I came across electricladyland.com, which sells everything from clothing to candles. They’re located in Arizona but based on reviews they have a lot of celebrity clients and carry couture brands. They mostly sell brands like True Religion and Rock & Republic Jeans. They’ve also got Tarina Tarantino Jewelry, which is pretty interesting looking. It’s primarily Hello Kitty and animal based costume jewelry but I want to assume that it’s good quality considering it’s all in the $90.00 and up range. You should check ’em out.

I’ve recently noted how backgammonmasters.com is now expanding to the Latin market, now they’re working on expanding to calebutaunts. As everyone knows, Paris Hilton will be going to jail soon. Typically this makes me very happy considering everything she’s done wrong and weaseled her way out of. Backgammon Masters wants to send her a backgammon board so that she’ll have something to do while she’s serving her time in jail. Part of me wonders if she’s going to a real jail or if she’s going to be set up in a cushy half-way house setup like Martha Stewart was but this is besides the point.

If she choses not to take any interest in her backgammon board, backgammonmasters.com is going to then auction off the board for charity. I say they’d probably have better luck handing it over to charity either way. I’m sure they can get her autograph on it, that may be the easier goal to reach. I do wish them luck on their quest but I’m sure she’d overlook them completely.

I really do like surfing around their site though. I’m not really into paying for online games but I’ve read through a lot of their things and have learned a few tricks of the trade that I wasn’t aware of before. I also find Jean-Claude to be rather hilarious. There’s two episodes that I know of, he’s too funny.

I know I’ve talked about them in the past but when I come across new and interesting news, I have to post about it.

A few months ago I spoke about backgammon masters, they’re an online game company that’s now expanding worldwide. They’ve now expanded to Latin American markets, which is pretty darn cool considering I’ve played backgammon online with a few friends in Central America, gotta love Yahoo – right? BackgammonMasters.com is the first-ever and only company to introduce an online version of a Spanish dice game, Perudo. Perudo is kind of like a guessing game and a version of it’s even been featured in Pirates of The Caribbean 2. This game can be played by two or more players and, basically, consists in guessing how many dice, placed under cups, there are on the table showing a certain number. The last player having a die is the winner. They’ve added this in addition to their online poker and backgammon games. They’ve opened a brand in Central America after studying and listening to the demands of Latin Audiences.

I’m sure you remember me talking about them in the past, they’ve got a mascot named Jean-Claude, remember? He was that super cool tiger who’s now into his third or fourth episode, you can find that on backgammonmasters.com as well – check that out, he’s rather amusing.

I’ve spent many years using bag vacuums that switching to bagless has been a little bit strange for me. I’ve been using a Dyson for the last few months and I have to say it’s a little bit more of a hassle than it’s worth. For a machine that supposedly doesn’t lose suction, it doesn’t really pick up anything either.

I came across bestvacuum.com which is an authorized dealer of Miele vacuum cleaners and is also a Dyson specialist. I did some surfing around their site and found that there’s a lot more than just vacuums to look through. They’ve got everything from floor scrubbers to a Blueair air purifier. I didn’t want to get side-tracked though.

I went directly to the Dyson section. The one we have is the DC07 Animal which is supposed to be the most powerful upright for pet hair and considering there are 3 dogs in the house, that seems reasonable. It’s not supposed to lose suction – but it has. It’s supposed to have ‘tough construction’ but it was very easily dented and dinged from the usage around the house. Not sure if I’d recommend a Dyson to anyone, honestly.

As someone who runs a business I understand the importance on keeping in touch with customers. Email is great and all but sometimes talking to someone one-on-one through programs like AIM or Yahoo tend to make things a bit easier. That’s great for support but when it comes to sales it’s a completely different situation.

As a designer, I go through approximately 40 emails a week on price quotes. I always wondered how previous bosses were able to keep track of everything from email to phone conversations regarding each individual client, and their client list was obviously a lot larger than mine at the time. I was unaware of the fact that they were using lead management software. Software like AIMpromote has helped users keep track of their clients from the very first “Request a Quote” email. Quotes are submitted to the database with the push of a button and even if these are phone based clients, any company sales member can access the database to submit the new information. It’s a pretty cool program, one that I may actually consider in the future if things ever take off a bit more.

I’ve been paid-blogging since September ’05 and it’s worked out rather well for me. It’s nice to log in and poke around to earn some money on things that interest me. I’m involved in about 8 sites at the moment and I’ve brought in quite a bit of money from each one of them. I’ve also been contacted directly from advertisers looking to have me review their website without having to go through an outside company where I’d lose money on the deal. The problem is, a few of these advertisers never came through and I just stood there waiting in the wings for my payment to come through while they were enjoying all of the hits to their website for free. Those that did actually pay went through Paypal and one insisted on using an eCheck that took about a month to clear – it was too much of a hassel for me to deal with.

I joined a review site a little while ago but I’ve yet to receive anything as far as work is concerned. But I’ve also found out that they keep quite a bit of money from your review so in the end you’re really not making much at all. Another site that I’m involved with takes 35% of my bid. The issue with that is there are a lot of advertisers only looking to spend $5 on a review but then they require 200 word minimums for their posts so I’m only earning around $3.25 to post a two-three paragraph review on a site that in the end isn’t very interesting at all. Minus this factor – however – I’ve made about $200 from them in about a month so I’m not complaining.

The company I’ve earned the most money with, PayPerPost, has made life a little easier on me. They’ve just created a new program named PPP Direct where advertisers can hire bloggers directly without having to share the opportunity with other posties. So say I set my fee so that I’ll review a site for a minimum of $100. This advertiser would then click on my badge (located on my sidebar) and then they’ll be brought to PPP and go through the quick and painless sign up process. Their name will be added to the database and thanks to the new program PPP implemented into their system – the advertiser deals with me and only me directly, without any influence from PPP. If I review their website for $100, I’m getting the full $100 – no questions asked. I get my money, the advertiser gets their PR and everyone is happy.