A Trick to Avoid Credit Card Finance Charges

Everyone is doing some major shopping this holiday season and most people will almost certainly charge everything onto one or more credit cards. Anyone who uses a credit card knows that if you don’t get the balance paid off, you get some nasty finance charges. Depending on your interest rate, those finanace charges can really add up. There is a simple way to temporarily avoid finance charges if you can’t afford to pay off your balance as soon as you had hoped.

Go to the store and buy a money order for the full balance (assuming the balance isn’t something like ten grand). Instead of paying for the money order with cash or writing a check, just charge the money order with the same credit card that the money order is going to pay off. This will get the balance paid off, and then re-add the balance right back to the credit card, leaving you with a paid-in-full statement and no finance charges. This comes in pretty handy if you don’t have a ridiculously huge balance and it allows you to save and put money back until you can really afford to pay the balance off.

Old Post Links v1.1 - Multiple or All Categories

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. After a few requests for the options to have posts from multiple categories or all categories included in the Old Post Links plugin, I have added both options. You can now choose between 1 category, 5 categories, or ALL categories.

You can download the updated version of the plugin here: Old Post Links v1.1

Old Post Links - My Newest Wordpress Plugin

A short time ago nearly every blogger I know suffered a substantial Google PageRank drop. Some of them were at PR5 and dropped to PR2, PR1 and even down to zero. This of course was speculated to be due to paid links or at least what appeared to be paid links within the posts on their blogs. Some bloggers went as far as going through every old post on their blogs to remove links from posts, even if they werent paid or “sponsored” links. That’s when I thought a little plugin to do this automatically might be kind of handy to have. I searched and could not find any plugin to do exactly what I needed. So, I put one together. Paid blogging has become very popular in the last year or so and I figured alot of people might benefit from using this plugin. This plugin was developed mainly for use by all of you paid bloggers, but others may find it useful as well.

What does the “Old Post Links” plugin do, exactly?

In a nutshell, the plugin allows you to specify a category and choose the ammount of days in which you would like the posts from that category to be considered “old posts”. The plugin can either add a rel=”nofollow” tag to all external links (links pointing to other websites) from the posts in that category, or it can completely disable those links so that your readers and search engines no longer see them while keeping the keyword or anchor text (no longer hyperlinked) still in place.

Still not quite sure what the benefits of using this plugin would be? Well, Google doesn’t seem to like websites to have a ton of external links. If youre into paid blogging (which seems to be popular these days), your external links can really pile up. Even if you’re not into paid blogging, after you’ve blogged for so long, you are bound to have quite a bit of external links from talking about various products or websites. This plugin just helps keep your external links to a minimum.

Information Added: This plugin also works with the TLA InLinks plugin. All you have to do is change one line to your TLA InLinks plugin and all of your TLA links will be immune to the Old Post Links plugin. If you are using the standard TLA plugin that just adds links to your sidebar and such, you do not have to change anything. Those links will not be effected by this plugin. This plugin only effects links within posts. Download the plugin and check out README.txt for more info.

Download it here: Old Post Links v1.0 Old Post Links v1.1

You can also visit my Wordpress Plugins page for this plugin and others.

*December 7, 2007 - This plugin has been updated to use 1 category, 5 categories or ALL categories.

*December 10,2007 - I’ve been asked multiple times if this plugin violates Google’s TOS. This doesn’t in any way violate Google’s rules. What the search engines see is the exact same thing as what your readers see. This is no different than going in and manually changing or removing the links. The plugin just saves you time by doing it automatically.

PimpMyRide.com Has Nothing To Do With The Popular MTV Show

A friend of mine online saw an advertisement for PimpMyRide.com about 6 months ago. He went to the website and found a place to sign up and apply to get his car “pimped”. After about 6 months he received the following email:

Subject: Congratulations! You’ve been selected from PimpMyRide.com

Congratulations!! You’re application has been reviewed and you have been selected!! Please follow the link provided with details on how to complete your application process and Get Pimped!

http://www.pimpmyride.com/finalistapplication.html

NOTE: If you do not follow through the final application process your spot will be given to the next most qualified applicant. Due to the large volume of requests we require a small application/processing fee.

He was excited at the mere possibility of having his car customized by the popular MTV television show. He forwarded the email to me and asked if I thought it was legitimate. When I read the email and saw that they were asking for an “application/processing fee”, it got me pretty suspicious. I checked around and apparently several people have been duped into sending money to them, in hopes of having their car fixed up and being on the MTV show. I came across a post on the consumer blog at ABC13.com titled “Houston woman finds Pimp My Ride web site has nothing to do with MTV” which can be found here: http://consumerblog.abc13.com/2007/09/houston-woman-f.html

The report explains how the PimpMyRide.com website actually works. The website is run by a company which is based out of the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis. The website also admits that it is in no way affiliated with MTV and claims the application/processing fee just makes the person eligible to receive discounts on auto parts and accessories.

Who knows how many people have been scammed into sending these people money. Do your friends and family a favor and pass this message on so that these scammers do not continue to make money by misleading unsuspecting people.

RSS Signature - Wordpress Plugin - Modified

Last night I came across a nice little Wordpress plugin on SmackFoo.com. It’s called RSS Signature (previously known as sig2feed). Basically what it does is allow you to include a “signature” at the end of your posts when viewed from an RSS reader.

Here’s an example of the plugin in action: FeedBurner - FromWhatIHeard.com

Obviously the “Source: FromWhatIHeard.com…” line is not included in my posts when you view them from my blog. The plugin allows you to specify what you want to appear at the end of your posts when viewed in RSS readers.

I have taken the liberty to add some new options to the plugin, allowing you to easily include links pointing to your blog home page and even to each invidividual blog post.

Here’s an example of the code I created and added to my RSS signature:

<strong>Source:</strong> <a href=”%BLOGHOME%” target=”_blank”>%BLOGNAME%</a> | <a href=”%POSTLINK%” target=”blank”>%TITLE%</a>

As you can see from the FeedBurner example I posted above, every post contains a link back to the home page of my blog as well as a link to the individual post on my blog. This comes in very handy for when someone feels the need to scrape or “syndicate” your posts via RSS. Alot of spam blogs (a.k.a. Splogs) will load their blogs full of other blogs’ posts just to make it seem like they have a real blog with real content so they can use ads and other money making services on them.

You can download my modified version of this plugin here: Wordpress Plugins

I will post updates if I make any further changes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them.

Online Lab Tests - Blood Testing

A friend of mine has no medical insurance and his doctor wanted him to have some expensive blood tests. He really didn’t want to have to pay for it out of his own pocket so he got to looking around online to see if there was anyplace that offers online lab tests. He came across a website called PrivateMDLabs.com. They offer confidential lab testing and they email you the results. This seems like a pretty unique service. Usually when you have blood tests, the results go on your permanent medical record. This can lead to higher insurance premiums and alot more. All of the results from Private MD stay confidential. The only people who will ever see the results are you and Private MD. Visit their website at www.PrivateMDLabs.com and check out the services they offer.

ORIKI Skin Care Products

Do you have Asian, Mediterranean or Olive (AMO) skin? If so, your skin has more pigmentation than fair skin and requires a different skin care regiment to avoid conditions like melasma (dark patches) and lentigines (dark spots). Although the exact cause of melasma is unknown, it has been known to show up more in people with a family history of it. A change in hormones such as pregnancy or birth control may also trigger melasma. ORIKI Cosmeceuticals has developed several skin care products for these types of skin types. The ORIKI Whitening Serum and Rejuvenating Cream can help to lighten the effects of melasma. If you have Asian, Mediterranean or Olive (AMO) skin, it is important that you take the proper measures to ensure that your skin stays healthy. Once these kind of conditions develope they can be a little more difficult to maintain. Inappropriate skin care can even worsen the problem. Your skin may also turn darker after minor injuries or acne breakouts. ORIKI has taken the time to develop their skin care products to really help. Several people even comment that they don’t even wear makeup anymore and yet they still receive compliments about their skin after using the ORIKI products.

If youre interested in the ORIKI line of skin care products, visit their website at www.ORIKI.com for more information.

More Craigslist and eBay Scammers

After my post a while back regarding the Craigslist and eBay car scam, I was browsing through Craigslist looking for more cheap cars and came across several of them. After contacting a few of the sellers, they all replied with the same type of email as the other scammer! They all claimed they lived in another country and that they would use eBay as the middle man. I guess this scam is alot more common than I thought. Everyone should use caution when buying a vehicle online, especially when it’s not in your local area where you can pick it up and pay in person.

Online Storage With iDrive

I’ve been using a service called “iDrive” from iDrive.com. They offer free encrypted online storage for up to 2gb, unlimited storage for a small fee of only $4.95 a month, or even cheaper at only $49.95 if you choose to pay per year. You can get their system to automatically backup data from your computer so that if your computer crashes or you cant access the data for some other reason, you have it safe and secure on your iDrive online backup. It’s actually a great service and comes in very handy. Check out their website at www.iDrive.com for more information.

Great Online Coupon Codes For Holiday Shopping

Now is the perfect time to get a head start on all of your holiday shopping. Halloween is right around the corner, followed by Thanksgiving and everyones favorite, Christmas. Coupon Chief has some great coupons codes for a huge variety online stores to help you find great gifts without spending a fortune. I always find some nice coupon codes for online stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, Target and plenty of others.

If youre looking for some online coupon codes, check out their website at www.CouponChief.com. Why should you pay full retail price if you can use free coupons codes? There’s no shame in getting a good deal.