What Is A Dot Com Lifestyle?

Dot Com Lifestyle

First Published: May 30, 2008 ADawnJournal.com

The post you are about to read is the second in a four-part series. Let me give you the subtitles of these four posts:

1. Do Not Quit Your Job Right After Reading This Article
2. Can Anyone Make A Living Blogging?
3. What Is A Dot Com Lifestyle?
4. What You Need To Become A Successful Blogger?

Part Four is where it gets very interesting. I asked some celebrity bloggers (including Darren Rowse and Steve Pavlina) to answer the following question: What You Need to Become a Successful Blogger? I will be presenting the perspectives these bloggers provided for A Dawn Journal readers. If this is your first time here, you might want to Subscribe to the RSS Feed. Thank you for reading.

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Can Anyone Make A Living Blogging?

Part 3 - What Is A Dot Com Lifestyle?

Warning: Do not quit you job right after reading this article. Do quit once your entrepreneurship starts making more money than your 9 – 5 paycheque .

What Is a Dot Com Lifestyle?

Dot com lifestyle is not about what it sounds like, as you will find out reading the following links. Dot com lifestyle is not about making truck loads of money, driving over-priced cars, eating out everyday at fine restaurants, and visiting a new country every week. While you may be able to achieve some of these I just mentioned, most of the bloggers (or Internet entrepreneurs) have decided to live a simple family-oriented life, just like you and I. However, they have something which we don’t have. They are living on their own terms and they have ridiculously flexible lifestyle choices. What I think of the dot com lifestyle? These are what come to my mind and keep me motivated all the time:

• Work two hours a day and five days a week

• Live in a new country for every six months a year (if you have a family, make it two to four months)

• The whole world is your office (you can work anywhere as long as you have your laptop and internet connection)

• Live on your own terms

• Have ridiculously flexible lifestyle choices

Now, let’s look at the dot com lifestyle of some actual people who are already living it:

John Chow – A Canadian Blogger residing in Richmond, BC

The Dot Com Lifestyle

Nick Ramsay – Lives in Japan with his wife and one child. Her Japanese wife picked up one English phrase very quickly: “I am not your maid!”

My Dot Com Lifestyle in Japan

Bob Buskirk – A 21 year old Internet entrepreneur living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And yes, there are even 18 year olds and younger living a dot com lifestyle as well.

Living the Dot Com Lifestyle

Steve Pavlina – Personal Development Guru. His website gets more than 2 million visitors per month. This article is little different than those mentioned above.

10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job

CIBC Air Canada Card Was Compromised

CIBC AC Conversion Visa Prepaid Card

About 2 weeks ago, I found out that my CIBC AC Prepaid Visa card was compromised. However, this card was never stolen or lost.

When trying to load my card online, I noticed scammers made 9 fraudulent transactions. The small transactions were made via PayPal and 2 large transactions were made from Malaysia. One of these was Expedia Malaysia and the other one was an airfare purchase from Malaysia.

CIBC is not the back office for this card. A third party prepaid credit card provider I2C (http://www.i2cinc.com/) in California is the back office and provides support maintaining this card and they don’t take calls, so I had to talk to CIBC customer service and file a complaint form. I was told that it could take up to 40 days to complete the investigation and reverse those charges.

The reason I use this card is because I can control how much credit availability the card can have and it’s especially handy when you are travelling. So scammers were able to extract only around $200 due to low availability.

What surprised me most is that I2C’s fraud detection system totally failed, as there were 9 transactions and they raised no flags whatsoever. In the past, I dealt with fraudulent activities on my credit cards and their systems flagged and blocked my cards after 1 or 2 transactions. After 9 transactions, my AC Conversion card had no more balance left for the scammers to take out and that’s why it stopped. No fraud detection system stopped it.

I will link a video I made on this on the top left and here: My Travel Visa Card Was Compromised. I will give some tips to help you protect yourself from credit card scams in that video as well.

Do Not Quit Your Job Right After Reading This Article

Do Not Quit Job

The post you are about to read is the first in a four-part series. Let me give you the subtitles of these four posts:

1. 1. Do Not Quit Your Job Right After Reading This Article

2. Can Anyone Make A Living Blogging?
3.  What Is A Dot Com Lifestyle?
4. What You Need To Become A Successful Blogger?

Part Four is where it gets very interesting. I asked some celebrity bloggers (including Darren Rowse and Steve Pavlina) to answer the following question: What You Need to Become a Successful Blogger? I will be presenting the perspectives these bloggers provided for A Dawn Journal readers. If this is your first time here, you might want to Subscribe to the RSS Feed. Thank you for reading.
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Can Anyone Make A Living Blogging?

First Published: May 25, 2008 ADawnJournal.com

Part 1 - Do Not Quit Your Job Right After Reading This Article

Warning: Do not quit you job right after reading this article. Do quit once your entrepreneurship starts making more money than your 9 – 5 paycheque.

We all know that successful blogs or websites can make tremendous amounts of money.

Here’s a list of sites that are making loads of money.

Boing Boing

Makes over $1 million a year.

Mashable

This technology blog makes roughly $165,000 a month.

Darren Rowse

Estimated earnings between $120,000 to $1,200,000. He pioneered moneymaking techniques in blogging.

Steve Pavlina

Personal Development Guru. He makes $480,000 annually from blogging activities.

Plenty of Fish

Markus Frind, a Canadian, makes $5 to $10 million a year from this free dating site.

Ashley Qualls

Seventeen year old high school dropout makes $75,000 a month from her website.

The list goes on. If you are interested in finding out more about how much money webmasters/bloggers make – check out Paula’s list of blogger salaries.

After successfully running my two websites (www.adawnjournal.com and www.adawn.net) for more than a year, I have come to the conclusion that the Internet opens up endless possibilities and diverse opportunities to make money from blogging and Internet businesses. Although I have an idea of how Internet businesses work, I am not going to talk about it simply because I do not own and am not planning to start any one anytime soon. Today, I am going to discuss whether it is possible for anyone to make a living blogging.

Part 2 - Can Anyone Make A Living Blogging?

Yes, anyone can do this. In order to live a dot com lifestyle, you need to have a few things, and I am coming to that. I know what you are thinking … if this is so easy, why isn’t everyone doing it? I think the simple answer is because we are programmed to think inside the box, i.e. work the traditional 9 to 5 job for your whole life and retire when you are old. Also, most of us don’t even think to try something different. If you gather 100 people and tell them that they can make a living blogging, you might get only 1 to give it a try. The other 99 might dismiss it with the assumption that that this it is too good to be true and that it’s not achievable for them. We are often afraid to try something new and unwilling to leave our traditional comfort zone. Those who are not afraid to try something new, and have determination, confidence, and belief in themselves can make a living blogging.

Tuesday Is Not The Best Day to Buy Plane Tickets

Best Days to Buy Flight Tickets

For decades, we have been told that Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the best days to buy plane tickets. However, recent research shows otherwise. The reason in the past Tuesdays and Wednesdays were the best days because that’s when sale fares came out and airlines were trying to beat each other with manual intervention and flash sales.

New data and research from airfare forecasting company Hopper shows that Thursdays are the best days to buy tickets. The same research mentions that Sundays are the worst day to buy tickets. However, a lot of other research points towards different directions.

Another research from Texas A&M University shows that weekends are the best days to book tickets. The reason behind this is that airlines try to lower fares on the weekend to catch leisure travelers.

Research from the Wall Street Journal mentions that Sundays are the best days to buy tickets. The same research points out that Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays are the most expensive days to plane tickets.

Research from Expedia and the Airlines Reporting Corporation shows that Sundays are the best days to buy plane tickets when you buy at least 21 days in advance. Weekends are also a good time to buy tickets, but not Fridays.

All these findings can be confusing. So the best thing to do is to keep an eye on your fare for longer and usually fares are lower six weeks prior to your departure date. So keep an eye out and grab whenever you feel they are the lowest. And in general, check them often on Saturdays and Sundays.

Some websites you can use to check your fares are Google Flight, Kayak, Hipmunk, and Skyscanner.

Beware Of This New Credit Card Scam

A New Kind of Scam

A new kind of scam is sweeping across the country. This time, the scammers are not calling to get your financial information. They have all the information. However, they are missing one piece of information, and they can't use your credit card without that. The objective of their call is to trick you to get that one piece of information from you. To gain your trust and sound real - the callers will provide you with all the information. Example:

Your Name
Your Date of Birth
Your Credit Card Number
Your Address
Your Issuing Bank
Etc, Etc.

The Piece of Information Scammers Missing

Take out your credit card from your wallet and look on the back of your card; you will see a 3 Digit PIN Number. You need this number to purchase online. This number works as a security shield. Online merchants will ask you this number to verify that you are the real owner. If someone hacked your information and trying to put through online purchases, they will not have this 3 Digit PIN Number as only the actual card holder can get this number by looking at an actual credit card. That's why the con artist on the other side of the phone is desperate to get this number from you.

A Mock Conversation with a Con Artist

Let me construct a mock conversation to give you an example, so you know what to expect from con artists. Remember, each situation is different and scammers will come up with new techniques to trick you. The phone call you will receive may be very different than this example. Always use your common sense as your guide to protect you.

Mr. Con: Hello, my name is John Smith, and I am calling form CITI Bank Master Card Canada
A. Dawn: Oh! Hello there
Mr. Con: Mr. Dawn, the reason of my call is to confirm if you have made a recent online purchase of $767
A. Dawn: Oh no! I haven't used this card for a few months!
Mr. Con: No worries, Mr. Dawn. We have been watching this company for some time, and we will block its transactions and will start a fraud investigation. We will credit your account for this trade and will issue you a new credit card. Let me read your credit card information to you to make sure this is the right card.

Credit Card Name: Citi Bank Master Card
Issuing Bank: Citi Bank Canada
Credit Card Number: 1234567
Expiry Date: January 10, 2011
Is that correct?
A. Dawn: Yes, that's right.
Mr. Con: Now, Mr. Dawn, let me give you my employee ID number at Citi Bank Master Card and also, I will give you a case number for this investigation. You need to write this down. Do you have any questions on anything Mr. Dawn?

A. Dawn: No, thanks. You guys are very active and helpful.
Mr. Con: Thanks for being a loyal customer. Before I go, for security reasons and your own protection, I need to verify that you are in possession of your card. There is a 3 Digit Number on the back of your card. If you could read that number to me.

A. Dawn: Oh! Sure. I see the on the back it shows 6 7 8
Mr. Con: That is absolutely correct. Thank you for you time Mr. Dawn and have a nice day.
A. Dawn: You too

What Happens Next

Mr. Con just got a hold of the missing piece of the puzzle, and he will start placing online purchases without delay.

Award-winning Invest Now covers a broad range of topics including Internet Scams. To purchase a copy, visit Chapters Indigo or click here to buy online - Invest Now: A Canadian's Guide to Investing

How to Protect Yourself

The best course of action to protect yourself from telephone scams would be to subscribe to Caller ID and screen your calls with voice mail or an answering machine. If you don’t recognize the phone number on your Caller ID, don’t pick up. Urgent callers will leave a message.

If you believe you have been a victim or someone has tried to scam you, call your local RCMP Detachment or the police service of jurisdiction in your area.

Report your situation on Reporting Economic Crime On-Line - www.recol.ca

Remember, common sense and vigilance are your best defense.

First Published: ADawnJournal.com May 19, 2008