Dot Com Lifestyle

Dot Com Lifestyle Journey Continues

First Published: ADawnJournal.com Published Date : March 1, 2009

Today, I will update you on a few things on my persuasion to live a Dot Com Lifestyle. The following paragraphs may not be related to each other.

Dot Com Lifestyle
A Dawn Journal has been on Google’s number one search results match for “Dot Come Lifestyle” for a while. Right now, it is no longer the number one match, but it’s still staying on the first page as the 3rd or 4th match. Hopefully, it will get back to the top position again shortly. For the “Canada personal finance” key phrase search, ADJ has been in the number one position for awhile.

Internet Entrepreneurship
As an Internet entrepreneur, I run many websites and own a handful of domains. A lot of these websites do not bear my name and as such visitors will not be able to tell who owns these sites when they browse. However, I will always tell you about those sites which have my name stamped on it, such as Canada Personal Finance Blog or Canada Personal Finance Website. I have decided to launch two new websites under my name.

These sites are:
The Green Living Blog – www.thegreenlivingblog.com
Simple Personal Development – www.simplepersonaldevelopment.com

Although these sites are now live, the site design has not been fully completed yet. I will write a post and issue a press release to let you know once they are 100% complete.

ADJ Is Making More Money Gradually
ADJ’s overall monthly income is going up gradually. In its first year ADJ made almost no money, but now I am seeing an increase in income slowly. Internet Entrepreneurship does not make you money overnight. You have to put in lot of research, effort, time, and hard work to become successful.

Trying New Ads
You may have noticed a new eBay ad displaying on ADJ on the right panel. I am trying this new ad to see what kind of money it makes. Also, I have replaced Kontera (www.kontera.com) In-text ad with Infolinks (www.infolinks.com). Since I have done this, my In-text revenue is up five-fold.

eBay and Amazon
What I like about eBay is that they have sophisticated Geo-Targeting technology. For instance, if a visitor from Australia clicks on it, it will take him to eBay Australia; if a visitor clicks from Canada, it will take her to eBay Canada. In this way, I am not missing global visitors. Amazon does not have this technology – I use Amazon Canada for my Canadian sites and Amazon USA for all other sites. This is quite a headache, as I need to create and maintain ads from more than one Amazon account.

I spoke with my programmer regarding Amazon’s Geo-targeting incapability. He mentioned that he might be able to write a PHP Script that would detect visitors’ country and show the appropriate Amazon ad based on its location.  If this can be done, it will save me a lot of time and hassle.

That’s all for today. I will keep you updated on my Internet Entrepreneurship and there will be more posts on this shortly.

Why Optimism Is Important?

The Importance of Optimism

When you are trying to develop yourself personally, one of the most important things to do is to be optimistic. If you are not optimistic, you are holding yourself back and doing yourself no favours. You are not helping yourself and you are not aiding your development in the least. Probably the biggest reason why people begin to suffer in personal development is because they are not optimistic. As a result, you need to learn how to be optimistic so that you can achieve the most out of your life.

1. First things first, you need to get rid of the thought that the world is against you, that you have bad luck, or that you are not going to succeed at what you try. If you are pessimistic, you are not doing yourself any help and the sooner you get rid of this thought, the better off you are going to be.

2. Just because you have had difficulty in the past, that does not mean you are going to have trouble in the future. If you have failed at something before, does that mean you are going to fail at it in the future? No, not in the least. All you do when you think that the past will influence your future is create a self-fulfilling prophesy for yourself.

3. Probably the most difficult thing for a person to do is to take responsibility for their life. Often a pessimistic person will say they are the result of bad things, not the cause of it. If someone is not happy with their life, they will say that fate is against them, rather than taking responsibility for their own existence. If you are optimistic, you know that you, and only you, have the power to change things in your life. To develop yourself personally, you need to take responsibility for yourself.

4. Carpe Diem. This means “Seize the Day” in Latin and it is very important that you do seize the day in your life. You want to remember that life is short and when you do that, you will stop thinking about the things that go wrong and you will want to take advantage of the time you have left and enjoy life. To be optimistic, you have to accept that the end will come, and by doing that you will be able to appreciate life you have and feel happy about it.

5. Keep it all balanced. You do not have to be a total optimist, because if you believe nothing bad will happen then you may be a bit surprised when it does. Instead, be optimistic but be ready for things not to work out. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. This is what being an optimist is all about.

Being optimistic is important if you want to be happy and successful and if you are going to develop yourself personally, then you need to be positive about the future. The minute you get pessimistic, you have lost all the headway you made being optimistic.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on Apr 18, 2010

Qantas Business Class Review – Melbourne to Auckland - Airbus A330-200

Qantas International Business Class Lounge

After completing airport security, it was time to experience the Qantas Business Class lounge. I was not expecting this lounge located on the basement level; it took me a while to find it.

The Qantas International Business Class Lounge is huge and you will find everything, including a business centre with printers, a kid’s zone, and a shower facility. I didn’t have to use any of them; I was rushing to complete taking video and pictures, so I could have some time to eat or drink a coffee.

There were plenty of food and snacks. I saw the alcohol and coffee sections were impressive too; there was even barista coffee.

Qantas Business Class Airbus A330-200

I was expecting Qantas Airbus A330-200 to have one of the world’s best business class suites and I was not disappointed. Each suite is separated with a privacy divider and has direct isle access, regardless of whether it’s a window seat or not.

I had a window seat and it made my journey even better. Wrapped in black leather, these seats convert to a 2-metre lie-flat bed. There were numerous storage options and there was a big side table to keep items such as a laptop or camera. Even the spacious footwell can be used to stack a small suitcase or carry-on luggage.

Qantas’s business class food was great. To start with, I chose seared ocean trout with charred corn, jalapeno lime, and coriander. My main course was red braised chicken with stir fried gai tan, shiitake mushrooms, black beans, and jasmine rice. I had Maggie Beer salted honey ice cream as a dessert. This ice cream looked like an Australian specialty and I had never seen it before.

The Quantas Business suite entertainment system offered a 16-inch touch screen monitor and there were lots of Asian and Western options available.  16-inch seemed to be the perfect size to watch a movie right in front of my face.

There was no Amenity Kit provided on this flight. It was probably too short a flight (roughly 3.5 hours) for an Amenity Kit.

Overall, my first experience with Qantas business class was pleasant and I found nothing to complain about. I definitely will not hesitate to fly Qantas again in the future if the opportunity arises.

How To Protect Your Marriage In Economic Downturn

Money, Finances, Economic Crisis, And Relationship

First Published Date : March 5, 2009 ADawnJournal.com

Money is one of the major causes of friction in a relationship. Most probably, money issues are second only to infidelity as a cause of divorce. In a relationship or a marriage, couples are bonding together from very different backgrounds. Two different persons with different incomes, different debts, and different ways of managing personal finances are joining together to share and form common values and perspectives. These issues, specially money issues can be a real problem.

An unstable, or even a healthy relationship, can go thru a rocky ride during economic downturn. The reason is very simple. Money and finances get over-heated and threatened during post economic downturn. These issues always exist; however, during good times we tend to ignore these because there is always food on the table and somehow we manage to get by. But things change during economic downturn. When jobs are hard to find, the cost of living is on the rise, suddenly things don’t look rosy anymore. Our emotions and spirits change and our relationships reach on the verge of a breakdown.

What you can do to protect your marriage/relationship in a downturn? Try taking the following steps. These steps are not just good during an economic downturn. You should apply these anytime to make your relation journey a smooth one.

·   Talk – Communicate with your partner regarding money issues and any other issues on a regular basis. Take the current economic crisis as an opportunity to get together and start communicating. Talk about your fears, goals, issues, and so on. Divide financial tasks and work together to make changes on your financial plans.

·   Track Your Expenses – Tracking expenses gives you a visualization of where your money is exactly going. You need to know this to cut unnecessary expenses and increase your savings. You can do all sorts of calculations and thinking in your mind to figure out where your money is going – but the real picture may not be the same as your mind tries to depict. Spending just a few dollars here and there daily can add up to a large amount at month’s end and tracking expenses will show you how powerful it can be to cut once-daily visit to your coffee shop. Tracking expenses will gradually help you make better decisions.

·   Set Goals – Set long and short term goals. Write down these goals in a notebook and setup monthly or quarterly meetings with your partner to review your goals. Goals could include buying a house in three years, kids’ education fund, retirement etc.

·   Budget – I don’t believe budget works; however, follow these two simple rules and avoid the hassle of budgeting: spend less than what you earn and spend within your means, and track your spending.

·   Change Your Outlook – Change your outlook from my money, your money to our money. Once you are married – your incomes, debts, money, finances, everything become OURS. That’s the purpose of marriage or staying in a relationship.

·   Maintain Joint Accounts – Always maintain joint checking and savings accounts. This forces you to work together and it’s easier to manage one account than many accounts. Joint accounts provide the extra boost to become financially successful as couples. It reminds you that you two are one now, and your financial success depends on how you can plan and act jointly.

·   Maintain Two Separate Credit Cards – You need to do this to have better credit scores. Better credit scores will help you to get lower interest rates on your loan to buy large item purchases such as house, car etc.

·   Don’t Hide Anything – Never hide anything from your partner. If you have bought an expensive item impulsively, discuss it with your partner. It is better to tell him something you did without his knowledge now, rather than him finding out years later.

How Personal Development Articles Can Motivate to Change

Personal Development Articles

Have you ever taken time to wonder why some people succeed in life, why some people are more self confident than others, or why some people adhere to their resolutions while others cannot? Well, these are just but examples. The point here is that people are different in nature, weaknesses and motivations. Having known this, experts long realized that it is possible to change people’s opinions and mentalities by writing articles. Such kind of an article which aims to motivate and change people’s attitudes and behavior for the better is called a personal development one.

 In most cases, a personal development article is written by a life coach, an expert in a certain field, or by someone who has experienced a certain situation and feels that he can share it with others. For example some people have problems with confidence while speaking in public, while others have difficulty kicking awful habits like drug addiction and so forth. Such a person may visit rehabilitation centers, get medication, but the fact of the matter is that a life development article may do wonders for him. Such a development article may contain information on how to do away with the habit, resist the urge to opt for drugs again and how to move away from the habit. In a nutshell, there is something about a personal development article, which makes people associate its content with their lifestyles and gives them morale they would not even get from a life counsellor. A personal development article is a strong too l for behaviour change and if used well, can greatly enhance your chances of succeeding or overcoming a weakness.

 The most fantastic thing about a personal development article is that it has no age barrier and each age group will find an article that relates to their present predicament in life. From personal development articles on how to communicate and manage your anger in marriage, to how you can kiss a girl for the first time or how not to give up in life, these articles are tailored in a way that suit people from all walks of life. These articles are hinged on the fact that in life, no one is perfect and that we all have spiritual, emotional, and physical needs. As such, what one has in abundance, the other may be lacking miserably and there has to be an avenue for exchanging ideas and sharing experiences. This avenue is the personal development articles.

 A personal development article may cover the various aspects of human life. For example they may talk about how to be true to yourself, how to boost your self esteem, how to nurture your children or how to please your partner in bed. Yet other articles may talk of how one can overcome alcohol, live with being overweight, how to stop over-eating and so forth.

 However, for one to gain anything out of personal development articles, they have to accept their weaknesses, and acknowledge that there is need for change.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on Apr 4, 2010