Making Money Ideas

This guest post is by Roman from how this website makes money.

Two years ago I stumbled across the concept of blogging for money.  Instantly it hit me as the perfect thing: sit behind a computer, design a site, write, be my own boss, work from home, what could be better? I knew nothing about traffic, SEO, backlinks, Pagerank, or keywords.  I knew nothing about how to make money with a website.  So what did I do next?  I registered the domain name howthiswebsitemakesmoney.

Looking back all I can do is laugh at my arrogance.  Like thousands before me and thousands who will come after me, my first attempt at blogging was a site about making money online.

Two years later, I know how to start a site, I know how to write content, I know about SEO, I know about backlinks, I know how to add advertisements … but I still do not know how to make good money online.  The site makes dimes a day, not dollars.

The site has been two years of disappointment.  Two  years of waking up in the morning and seeing the same green egg in AdSense.  Two years of waiting for a four-digit affiliate check with my name on it.  Two years of working without pay.  Two years of scratching my head.

So I asked for advice, and every time the reply was the same: create a site about something else. Create a site about what you know and what you enjoy.  Do not create a site with the intent to make money, create a site with the intent to help people by doing something you enjoy doing.

What happened when I changed my intent

Six months ago I created a new site.  This time my intent was pure pleasure.

I live in Prague and I love it here.  So I made a little site about how great Prague is and what people should do when they come for a visit.  It was built in a month.  In a gust of activity I designed the site and wrote the content.

It was so easy.   I did not agonize over what to write about.  The content flowed effortlessly from my head to the keyboard.  I did not have to take long walks with the dog or waste water standing dazed in the shower coming up with new ideas.  I just sat down at the computer and wrote about what I know.  It was so easy I actually looked forward to it.

As an afterthought, I created a simple page where people can order a real postcard from Prague.  Visitors select a picture of Prague and fill out a form indicating what they want written on the postcard.  After they hit the Submit button I get the request by email.  I grab a postcard and, like an ancient scribe long before computers, lick the tip of the pen and write.  After pounding a Prague stamp on the postcard I toss it into the mailbox on my way to work. I charge $4.00 for this five minutes of work.

I created this site with no aspirations of becoming rich, no day dreams of shaking hands with Oprah, no imagined scenes of telling my employer to find some other donkey to kick around. I created the website because it was easy for me to do and I enjoyed it. I made it because I needed a break from my ‘real’ website. I expected nothing to happen.

Again, I was wrong.

My hand is ink blue from all the postcards I have written.

I wrote a postcard from a son playing a trick on his mother: “Hi, Mom!  Sorry for not calling in last few days.  But I am in Prague with friends.  Having a great time and the beer is sooo cheap.  Say hi to Dad.”

I have written postcards to countries all over the world.  Some of them in languages other then English—I have no idea what I am writing. Fortunately, the order form does not allow Chinese characters!

I get emails from people thanking me for the information they found on the site, thanking me for the postcard, asking for more information.

I feel like I am making the world a better place.  I made a website about something I know about and am interested in and people are thanking me. Emotionally it is a soft, warm, fuzzy ball.

And yes, I am making money.

Intend to enjoy and you might make money

I learned a lot about making money online not from my site about making money, but from licking postage stamps.

New arrivals to the make-money-online scene go through the same initiation—they start out with the intent to make money, then fail to make more then a pile of pennies.  For some it means the end and they quit, but for others this brutal introduction teaches them that their intent needs to change.

Of course, making money is about traffic, clicks, affiliates, backlinks SEO, but it’s also about finding something you enjoy doing.  If your intent is only to make money the odds are stacked against you: you will probably quit.  But if your intent is to do something you enjoy then you will keep moving forward until one day, you will be surprised to find that you are making money.

What’s your intent?

Roman intends to figure out how this website makes money.  He has been trying to do that for two long years, so when he needs a break and do something fun he goes onto his other website to send a real postcard to his mother who misses him very much.

MAKE Volume 14, Optics, Maker Shed, $14.99 (digital version: $9.99)

Provide the gift of inspiration with this optical-focused issue of MAKE. Learn how to make a lensless microscope, scanner camera, stereo video camera with 3D view, and more! On a budget? Many of these articles have been released as "Weekend Projects" on the site, so alternatively, you could just grab the PDFs and print them out on nice paper.

PlayStation Eye, Amazon, $31

Originally designed for use with a PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Eye turns out to make a pretty excellent webcam. With it's capability to run at a high framerate, it could be the perfect accessory for that next computer vision project.

DIY Intervalometer, Instructables, ~$20

A must-have accessory for anyone who wants to get into time-lapse photography, professional intervalometers can unfortunately be pretty pricey. Save money and make a custom version by making one for them yourself!

Check out my DIY Photography Gift Guide from last year for many more photo-related gift ideas (such as the above Strobist Starving Student SX1 Lighting Kit)

More:

• Kite aerial photography gift guide (KAP)


• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Tools for Makers
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Bikes
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: 3D Fabrication
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Gifts for Dads
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Gifts you can make
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Made in Japan
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Mark's Made by Hand Guide
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Project Documentation and Photography
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Cooking for Geeks

In the Maker Shed:

Want more? Stop by the Maker Shed. We've got all sorts of great holiday gift ideas, Arduino & Arduino accessories, electronic kits, science kits, smart stuff for kids, back issues of MAKE & CRAFT, box sets, books, robots, kits from Japan and more.

Holiday Shipping Deadlines in December:

15 (Wed) - Postal shipping deadline

14 (Mon) - Ground shipping deadline

18 (Sat) - 3-day shipping deadline

20 (Mon) - 2-day shipping deadline

21 (Tue) - Overnight shipping deadline

*Orders placed after these dates using these shipping methods may arrive on time; however, the dates listed are what we consider likely "safe dates."

United States Postal Service (USPS):

Due to the high volume of mail that the postal service deals with around the holidays, please order by Dec 15 if you intend to select this method. However, we have had increased reports of packages sent via USPS lost or delayed in transit during this high-volume period. Since we do not replace or refund any order placed using this shipping method, we strongly encourage you not to use this method in December.

bench craft company rip off stretching

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

visit ddfghhdfxd.com visit ddfghhdfxd.com

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

free advertising enlargement

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

bench craft company rip off’s avatar

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

home bench craft company rip off

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

no gravatar

This guest post is by Roman from how this website makes money.

Two years ago I stumbled across the concept of blogging for money.  Instantly it hit me as the perfect thing: sit behind a computer, design a site, write, be my own boss, work from home, what could be better? I knew nothing about traffic, SEO, backlinks, Pagerank, or keywords.  I knew nothing about how to make money with a website.  So what did I do next?  I registered the domain name howthiswebsitemakesmoney.

Looking back all I can do is laugh at my arrogance.  Like thousands before me and thousands who will come after me, my first attempt at blogging was a site about making money online.

Two years later, I know how to start a site, I know how to write content, I know about SEO, I know about backlinks, I know how to add advertisements … but I still do not know how to make good money online.  The site makes dimes a day, not dollars.

The site has been two years of disappointment.  Two  years of waking up in the morning and seeing the same green egg in AdSense.  Two years of waiting for a four-digit affiliate check with my name on it.  Two years of working without pay.  Two years of scratching my head.

So I asked for advice, and every time the reply was the same: create a site about something else. Create a site about what you know and what you enjoy.  Do not create a site with the intent to make money, create a site with the intent to help people by doing something you enjoy doing.

What happened when I changed my intent

Six months ago I created a new site.  This time my intent was pure pleasure.

I live in Prague and I love it here.  So I made a little site about how great Prague is and what people should do when they come for a visit.  It was built in a month.  In a gust of activity I designed the site and wrote the content.

It was so easy.   I did not agonize over what to write about.  The content flowed effortlessly from my head to the keyboard.  I did not have to take long walks with the dog or waste water standing dazed in the shower coming up with new ideas.  I just sat down at the computer and wrote about what I know.  It was so easy I actually looked forward to it.

As an afterthought, I created a simple page where people can order a real postcard from Prague.  Visitors select a picture of Prague and fill out a form indicating what they want written on the postcard.  After they hit the Submit button I get the request by email.  I grab a postcard and, like an ancient scribe long before computers, lick the tip of the pen and write.  After pounding a Prague stamp on the postcard I toss it into the mailbox on my way to work. I charge $4.00 for this five minutes of work.

I created this site with no aspirations of becoming rich, no day dreams of shaking hands with Oprah, no imagined scenes of telling my employer to find some other donkey to kick around. I created the website because it was easy for me to do and I enjoyed it. I made it because I needed a break from my ‘real’ website. I expected nothing to happen.

Again, I was wrong.

My hand is ink blue from all the postcards I have written.

I wrote a postcard from a son playing a trick on his mother: “Hi, Mom!  Sorry for not calling in last few days.  But I am in Prague with friends.  Having a great time and the beer is sooo cheap.  Say hi to Dad.”

I have written postcards to countries all over the world.  Some of them in languages other then English—I have no idea what I am writing. Fortunately, the order form does not allow Chinese characters!

I get emails from people thanking me for the information they found on the site, thanking me for the postcard, asking for more information.

I feel like I am making the world a better place.  I made a website about something I know about and am interested in and people are thanking me. Emotionally it is a soft, warm, fuzzy ball.

And yes, I am making money.

Intend to enjoy and you might make money

I learned a lot about making money online not from my site about making money, but from licking postage stamps.

New arrivals to the make-money-online scene go through the same initiation—they start out with the intent to make money, then fail to make more then a pile of pennies.  For some it means the end and they quit, but for others this brutal introduction teaches them that their intent needs to change.

Of course, making money is about traffic, clicks, affiliates, backlinks SEO, but it’s also about finding something you enjoy doing.  If your intent is only to make money the odds are stacked against you: you will probably quit.  But if your intent is to do something you enjoy then you will keep moving forward until one day, you will be surprised to find that you are making money.

What’s your intent?

Roman intends to figure out how this website makes money.  He has been trying to do that for two long years, so when he needs a break and do something fun he goes onto his other website to send a real postcard to his mother who misses him very much.

MAKE Volume 14, Optics, Maker Shed, $14.99 (digital version: $9.99)

Provide the gift of inspiration with this optical-focused issue of MAKE. Learn how to make a lensless microscope, scanner camera, stereo video camera with 3D view, and more! On a budget? Many of these articles have been released as "Weekend Projects" on the site, so alternatively, you could just grab the PDFs and print them out on nice paper.

PlayStation Eye, Amazon, $31

Originally designed for use with a PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Eye turns out to make a pretty excellent webcam. With it's capability to run at a high framerate, it could be the perfect accessory for that next computer vision project.

DIY Intervalometer, Instructables, ~$20

A must-have accessory for anyone who wants to get into time-lapse photography, professional intervalometers can unfortunately be pretty pricey. Save money and make a custom version by making one for them yourself!

Check out my DIY Photography Gift Guide from last year for many more photo-related gift ideas (such as the above Strobist Starving Student SX1 Lighting Kit)

More:

• Kite aerial photography gift guide (KAP)


• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Tools for Makers
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Bikes
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: 3D Fabrication
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Gifts for Dads
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Gifts you can make
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Made in Japan
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Mark's Made by Hand Guide
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Project Documentation and Photography
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Cooking for Geeks

In the Maker Shed:

Want more? Stop by the Maker Shed. We've got all sorts of great holiday gift ideas, Arduino & Arduino accessories, electronic kits, science kits, smart stuff for kids, back issues of MAKE & CRAFT, box sets, books, robots, kits from Japan and more.

Holiday Shipping Deadlines in December:

15 (Wed) - Postal shipping deadline

14 (Mon) - Ground shipping deadline

18 (Sat) - 3-day shipping deadline

20 (Mon) - 2-day shipping deadline

21 (Tue) - Overnight shipping deadline

*Orders placed after these dates using these shipping methods may arrive on time; however, the dates listed are what we consider likely "safe dates."

United States Postal Service (USPS):

Due to the high volume of mail that the postal service deals with around the holidays, please order by Dec 15 if you intend to select this method. However, we have had increased reports of packages sent via USPS lost or delayed in transit during this high-volume period. Since we do not replace or refund any order placed using this shipping method, we strongly encourage you not to use this method in December.

bench craft company rip off technique

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

advertising enlargement devices

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

sexual enhancer

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

bench craft company rip off operations

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

extreme bench craft company rip off

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

url

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

penusmarketing

This guest post is by Roman from how this website makes money.

Two years ago I stumbled across the concept of blogging for money.  Instantly it hit me as the perfect thing: sit behind a computer, design a site, write, be my own boss, work from home, what could be better? I knew nothing about traffic, SEO, backlinks, Pagerank, or keywords.  I knew nothing about how to make money with a website.  So what did I do next?  I registered the domain name howthiswebsitemakesmoney.

Looking back all I can do is laugh at my arrogance.  Like thousands before me and thousands who will come after me, my first attempt at blogging was a site about making money online.

Two years later, I know how to start a site, I know how to write content, I know about SEO, I know about backlinks, I know how to add advertisements … but I still do not know how to make good money online.  The site makes dimes a day, not dollars.

The site has been two years of disappointment.  Two  years of waking up in the morning and seeing the same green egg in AdSense.  Two years of waiting for a four-digit affiliate check with my name on it.  Two years of working without pay.  Two years of scratching my head.

So I asked for advice, and every time the reply was the same: create a site about something else. Create a site about what you know and what you enjoy.  Do not create a site with the intent to make money, create a site with the intent to help people by doing something you enjoy doing.

What happened when I changed my intent

Six months ago I created a new site.  This time my intent was pure pleasure.

I live in Prague and I love it here.  So I made a little site about how great Prague is and what people should do when they come for a visit.  It was built in a month.  In a gust of activity I designed the site and wrote the content.

It was so easy.   I did not agonize over what to write about.  The content flowed effortlessly from my head to the keyboard.  I did not have to take long walks with the dog or waste water standing dazed in the shower coming up with new ideas.  I just sat down at the computer and wrote about what I know.  It was so easy I actually looked forward to it.

As an afterthought, I created a simple page where people can order a real postcard from Prague.  Visitors select a picture of Prague and fill out a form indicating what they want written on the postcard.  After they hit the Submit button I get the request by email.  I grab a postcard and, like an ancient scribe long before computers, lick the tip of the pen and write.  After pounding a Prague stamp on the postcard I toss it into the mailbox on my way to work. I charge $4.00 for this five minutes of work.

I created this site with no aspirations of becoming rich, no day dreams of shaking hands with Oprah, no imagined scenes of telling my employer to find some other donkey to kick around. I created the website because it was easy for me to do and I enjoyed it. I made it because I needed a break from my ‘real’ website. I expected nothing to happen.

Again, I was wrong.

My hand is ink blue from all the postcards I have written.

I wrote a postcard from a son playing a trick on his mother: “Hi, Mom!  Sorry for not calling in last few days.  But I am in Prague with friends.  Having a great time and the beer is sooo cheap.  Say hi to Dad.”

I have written postcards to countries all over the world.  Some of them in languages other then English—I have no idea what I am writing. Fortunately, the order form does not allow Chinese characters!

I get emails from people thanking me for the information they found on the site, thanking me for the postcard, asking for more information.

I feel like I am making the world a better place.  I made a website about something I know about and am interested in and people are thanking me. Emotionally it is a soft, warm, fuzzy ball.

And yes, I am making money.

Intend to enjoy and you might make money

I learned a lot about making money online not from my site about making money, but from licking postage stamps.

New arrivals to the make-money-online scene go through the same initiation—they start out with the intent to make money, then fail to make more then a pile of pennies.  For some it means the end and they quit, but for others this brutal introduction teaches them that their intent needs to change.

Of course, making money is about traffic, clicks, affiliates, backlinks SEO, but it’s also about finding something you enjoy doing.  If your intent is only to make money the odds are stacked against you: you will probably quit.  But if your intent is to do something you enjoy then you will keep moving forward until one day, you will be surprised to find that you are making money.

What’s your intent?

Roman intends to figure out how this website makes money.  He has been trying to do that for two long years, so when he needs a break and do something fun he goes onto his other website to send a real postcard to his mother who misses him very much.

MAKE Volume 14, Optics, Maker Shed, $14.99 (digital version: $9.99)

Provide the gift of inspiration with this optical-focused issue of MAKE. Learn how to make a lensless microscope, scanner camera, stereo video camera with 3D view, and more! On a budget? Many of these articles have been released as "Weekend Projects" on the site, so alternatively, you could just grab the PDFs and print them out on nice paper.

PlayStation Eye, Amazon, $31

Originally designed for use with a PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Eye turns out to make a pretty excellent webcam. With it's capability to run at a high framerate, it could be the perfect accessory for that next computer vision project.

DIY Intervalometer, Instructables, ~$20

A must-have accessory for anyone who wants to get into time-lapse photography, professional intervalometers can unfortunately be pretty pricey. Save money and make a custom version by making one for them yourself!

Check out my DIY Photography Gift Guide from last year for many more photo-related gift ideas (such as the above Strobist Starving Student SX1 Lighting Kit)

More:

• Kite aerial photography gift guide (KAP)


• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Tools for Makers
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Bikes
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: 3D Fabrication
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Gifts for Dads
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Gifts you can make
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Made in Japan
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Mark's Made by Hand Guide
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Project Documentation and Photography
• Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Cooking for Geeks

In the Maker Shed:

Want more? Stop by the Maker Shed. We've got all sorts of great holiday gift ideas, Arduino & Arduino accessories, electronic kits, science kits, smart stuff for kids, back issues of MAKE & CRAFT, box sets, books, robots, kits from Japan and more.

Holiday Shipping Deadlines in December:

15 (Wed) - Postal shipping deadline

14 (Mon) - Ground shipping deadline

18 (Sat) - 3-day shipping deadline

20 (Mon) - 2-day shipping deadline

21 (Tue) - Overnight shipping deadline

*Orders placed after these dates using these shipping methods may arrive on time; however, the dates listed are what we consider likely "safe dates."

United States Postal Service (USPS):

Due to the high volume of mail that the postal service deals with around the holidays, please order by Dec 15 if you intend to select this method. However, we have had increased reports of packages sent via USPS lost or delayed in transit during this high-volume period. Since we do not replace or refund any order placed using this shipping method, we strongly encourage you not to use this method in December.

home bench craft company rip off

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

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Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

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Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Probably Bad <b>News</b>: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL - Epic Fail <b>...</b>

epic fail photos - Probably Bad News: Crime Scene Investigators FAIL.

Scripting <b>News</b>: My JSON River of <b>News</b>

My JSON River of News. By Dave Winer on Monday, December 06, 2010 at 9:45 PM. First a few preambles... Permanent link to this item in the archive. 1. I'm a big believer in the River of News style of feed reader. Reverse-chronologic. ...

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Money Making Schemes

While
October was positive for FTSE 100 UK pension schemes, with the overall
deficit reducing by £11.0bn to £43.5bn, it did little to improve the
risk picture, according to the first issue of PF Risk Report.

 

The
new publication from PensionsFirst, which provides advanced risk
management and advisory services to the defined-benefit pensions
industry, said that at the end of October, the one-month 95%
value-at-risk figure on an IAS19 basis was £25.4bn.

 

This
means that in November there was a 1-in-20 chance that the IAS19
deficit could increase by £25.4bn or more - and the expectation that in
one of the next twenty months it will. "The corresponding VAR figure at
September month-end was £26.6bn, so the improved deficit position
changed little from a risk perspective," commented the report.

 

The
PF Risk Report breaks down pension risk into its key components. On an
uncorrelated basis, interest-rate risk is the largest risk factor,
contributing £17.8bn to the VAR, closely followed by equity risk, which
contributes £15.7bn. The report also focuses on inflation, FX, credit
and property risk exposures, while ignoring longevity, which is a
genuine long-term risk exposure but has negligible volatility in the
short term.

 

The report illustrates the impact of the key
factors that could cause variation in deficits. For example, a 20%
decrease in equities would increase the aggregate deficit by £34.2bn
and a 1% increase in long-term inflation would increase the deficit by
£60.8bn. The two events combined would increase the deficit by almost
£100bn.

 

"The simple fact is
that many UK companies (not just those in the FTSE 100) have
significant unhedged exposure to financial market volatility through
their pensions schemes", the report stated.

 

The report
puts into context the expectation that the monthly accounting deficits
of the FTSE 100's UK pension schemes will move by £25.4bn at least once
in a two-year period by underlining the fact that in August 2010 the
accounting deficits increased by £20.8bn, driven primarily by a 60bp
fall in interest rates. "And it is important to note that while...such
large monthly movements can be reasonably anticipated, there is also
the potential for much more extreme outcomes," the PF Risk Report concluded.

It's
not just UK companies that have significant unhedged exposure to
financial market volatility through their pensions schemes. The problem
is widespread and as the report concludes, there is also potential for
much more extreme outcomes.

This year, more than 600 taxi drivers were implicated in a giant taxi scam in which drivers overcharged passengers more than $1.1 million by flipping switches on their meters that kicked in higher rates. In the wake of the scandal, the Taxi and Limousine Company scrambled to portray the incident as a series of isolated incidents and mistakes by a select number of drivers. But according to one of those taxi scammers, these were no Lee Harvey Oswalds: it really was all a giant evil conspiracy!

According to driver Joseph Kastner, a group of drivers would meet together at cabby conferences in garages around the city and plot their nefarious schemes. "I met a series of drivers who decided to rob the public. They were actually having meetings at my old garage," Kastner, 49, told the TLC during a Sept. 30 administrative court hearing. Kastner is one of those accused drivers; he is charged with allegedly cheated 3,925 passengers out of $7,756, the sixth highest amount for an individual driver. Kastner claims that he wanted to become a whistleblower, alleging that the scams were much bigger than let on previously, and that he had stuff on the TLC as well, but no one took his offer: "I tried to tell them over and over again at the hearing. They didn't listen to a word I said. They just don't want to hear it," he told the Post.

So is Kastner trying to escape his fate by alleging a citywide conspiracy, making up stories to look better, or is there really an underground network of thieving taxi drivers plotting to steal unwitting customer's money? TLC obviously didn't take his claims seriously, but the Post sides with Kastner, saying that other cabbies and industry insiders confirm his story, and bad hacks pull other stunts such as charging drivers to put on the heat, pressing the "extra" button on tolls and bridges, and posing as livery drivers at airports and charging more than double the flat fee of $45 to Manhattan. Whether or not the conspiracy is as widespread as Kastner would have you believe, the best thing you can do is consult the Passenger Bill of Rights, and always be vigilant of extra charges of any kind.

bench craft company rip off

Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

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Rompiendo <b> Noticias </ b>: Añada un gigantesco bucle Solar ProminenceThe Observatorio de Dinámica Solar nunca deja de ofrecer imágenes absolutamente impresionante desde el Sol: de 18:49 UT hoy en día, la imagen de arriba es lo que el Sol parecía en el espectro ultravioleta. La importancia que está viendo en bucle ...

<b> Película Noticias </ b> Quick Hits: &#39; &#39; s Emma Stone Spider-Man Mira &#39;, Annie Asiente <b> ...</ b> Publicado el 06 de diciembre 2010 15:05. Filed under: Trailers y clips, películas Noticias, Festival de Cine Sundance, Cinematical. Este correo electrónico. - Emma Stone estrenó su look de Spider-Man por primera vez a Trevor vivo en Hollywood el fin de semana. ...

El hielo del Mar Noticias <b> </ b> # 31 | Watts Up With That 38 Respuestas a las noticias del hielo marino # 31?. beesaman dice: 5 de diciembre de 2010 a las 18:38. Hice un comentario sobre esto un poco hace un tiempo también! Extraño que ha cogido el gráfico de arriba, ya que algunos NSIDC gente empezó a hablar de ella, o más bien, extraño que el hielo se ha ...


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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

bench craft company rip off
While
October was positive for FTSE 100 UK pension schemes, with the overall
deficit reducing by £11.0bn to £43.5bn, it did little to improve the
risk picture, according to the first issue of PF Risk Report.

 

The
new publication from PensionsFirst, which provides advanced risk
management and advisory services to the defined-benefit pensions
industry, said that at the end of October, the one-month 95%
value-at-risk figure on an IAS19 basis was £25.4bn.

 

This
means that in November there was a 1-in-20 chance that the IAS19
deficit could increase by £25.4bn or more - and the expectation that in
one of the next twenty months it will. "The corresponding VAR figure at
September month-end was £26.6bn, so the improved deficit position
changed little from a risk perspective," commented the report.

 

The
PF Risk Report breaks down pension risk into its key components. On an
uncorrelated basis, interest-rate risk is the largest risk factor,
contributing £17.8bn to the VAR, closely followed by equity risk, which
contributes £15.7bn. The report also focuses on inflation, FX, credit
and property risk exposures, while ignoring longevity, which is a
genuine long-term risk exposure but has negligible volatility in the
short term.

 

The report illustrates the impact of the key
factors that could cause variation in deficits. For example, a 20%
decrease in equities would increase the aggregate deficit by £34.2bn
and a 1% increase in long-term inflation would increase the deficit by
£60.8bn. The two events combined would increase the deficit by almost
£100bn.

 

"The simple fact is
that many UK companies (not just those in the FTSE 100) have
significant unhedged exposure to financial market volatility through
their pensions schemes", the report stated.

 

The report
puts into context the expectation that the monthly accounting deficits
of the FTSE 100's UK pension schemes will move by £25.4bn at least once
in a two-year period by underlining the fact that in August 2010 the
accounting deficits increased by £20.8bn, driven primarily by a 60bp
fall in interest rates. "And it is important to note that while...such
large monthly movements can be reasonably anticipated, there is also
the potential for much more extreme outcomes," the PF Risk Report concluded.

It's
not just UK companies that have significant unhedged exposure to
financial market volatility through their pensions schemes. The problem
is widespread and as the report concludes, there is also potential for
much more extreme outcomes.

This year, more than 600 taxi drivers were implicated in a giant taxi scam in which drivers overcharged passengers more than $1.1 million by flipping switches on their meters that kicked in higher rates. In the wake of the scandal, the Taxi and Limousine Company scrambled to portray the incident as a series of isolated incidents and mistakes by a select number of drivers. But according to one of those taxi scammers, these were no Lee Harvey Oswalds: it really was all a giant evil conspiracy!

According to driver Joseph Kastner, a group of drivers would meet together at cabby conferences in garages around the city and plot their nefarious schemes. "I met a series of drivers who decided to rob the public. They were actually having meetings at my old garage," Kastner, 49, told the TLC during a Sept. 30 administrative court hearing. Kastner is one of those accused drivers; he is charged with allegedly cheated 3,925 passengers out of $7,756, the sixth highest amount for an individual driver. Kastner claims that he wanted to become a whistleblower, alleging that the scams were much bigger than let on previously, and that he had stuff on the TLC as well, but no one took his offer: "I tried to tell them over and over again at the hearing. They didn't listen to a word I said. They just don't want to hear it," he told the Post.

So is Kastner trying to escape his fate by alleging a citywide conspiracy, making up stories to look better, or is there really an underground network of thieving taxi drivers plotting to steal unwitting customer's money? TLC obviously didn't take his claims seriously, but the Post sides with Kastner, saying that other cabbies and industry insiders confirm his story, and bad hacks pull other stunts such as charging drivers to put on the heat, pressing the "extra" button on tolls and bridges, and posing as livery drivers at airports and charging more than double the flat fee of $45 to Manhattan. Whether or not the conspiracy is as widespread as Kastner would have you believe, the best thing you can do is consult the Passenger Bill of Rights, and always be vigilant of extra charges of any kind.

bench craft company rip off

Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

bench craft company rip off

Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

bench craft company rip off

Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

bench craft company rip off

Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

bench craft company rip off

Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

bench craft company rip off

Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

bench craft company rip off
While
October was positive for FTSE 100 UK pension schemes, with the overall
deficit reducing by £11.0bn to £43.5bn, it did little to improve the
risk picture, according to the first issue of PF Risk Report.

 

The
new publication from PensionsFirst, which provides advanced risk
management and advisory services to the defined-benefit pensions
industry, said that at the end of October, the one-month 95%
value-at-risk figure on an IAS19 basis was £25.4bn.

 

This
means that in November there was a 1-in-20 chance that the IAS19
deficit could increase by £25.4bn or more - and the expectation that in
one of the next twenty months it will. "The corresponding VAR figure at
September month-end was £26.6bn, so the improved deficit position
changed little from a risk perspective," commented the report.

 

The
PF Risk Report breaks down pension risk into its key components. On an
uncorrelated basis, interest-rate risk is the largest risk factor,
contributing £17.8bn to the VAR, closely followed by equity risk, which
contributes £15.7bn. The report also focuses on inflation, FX, credit
and property risk exposures, while ignoring longevity, which is a
genuine long-term risk exposure but has negligible volatility in the
short term.

 

The report illustrates the impact of the key
factors that could cause variation in deficits. For example, a 20%
decrease in equities would increase the aggregate deficit by £34.2bn
and a 1% increase in long-term inflation would increase the deficit by
£60.8bn. The two events combined would increase the deficit by almost
£100bn.

 

"The simple fact is
that many UK companies (not just those in the FTSE 100) have
significant unhedged exposure to financial market volatility through
their pensions schemes", the report stated.

 

The report
puts into context the expectation that the monthly accounting deficits
of the FTSE 100's UK pension schemes will move by £25.4bn at least once
in a two-year period by underlining the fact that in August 2010 the
accounting deficits increased by £20.8bn, driven primarily by a 60bp
fall in interest rates. "And it is important to note that while...such
large monthly movements can be reasonably anticipated, there is also
the potential for much more extreme outcomes," the PF Risk Report concluded.

It's
not just UK companies that have significant unhedged exposure to
financial market volatility through their pensions schemes. The problem
is widespread and as the report concludes, there is also potential for
much more extreme outcomes.

This year, more than 600 taxi drivers were implicated in a giant taxi scam in which drivers overcharged passengers more than $1.1 million by flipping switches on their meters that kicked in higher rates. In the wake of the scandal, the Taxi and Limousine Company scrambled to portray the incident as a series of isolated incidents and mistakes by a select number of drivers. But according to one of those taxi scammers, these were no Lee Harvey Oswalds: it really was all a giant evil conspiracy!

According to driver Joseph Kastner, a group of drivers would meet together at cabby conferences in garages around the city and plot their nefarious schemes. "I met a series of drivers who decided to rob the public. They were actually having meetings at my old garage," Kastner, 49, told the TLC during a Sept. 30 administrative court hearing. Kastner is one of those accused drivers; he is charged with allegedly cheated 3,925 passengers out of $7,756, the sixth highest amount for an individual driver. Kastner claims that he wanted to become a whistleblower, alleging that the scams were much bigger than let on previously, and that he had stuff on the TLC as well, but no one took his offer: "I tried to tell them over and over again at the hearing. They didn't listen to a word I said. They just don't want to hear it," he told the Post.

So is Kastner trying to escape his fate by alleging a citywide conspiracy, making up stories to look better, or is there really an underground network of thieving taxi drivers plotting to steal unwitting customer's money? TLC obviously didn't take his claims seriously, but the Post sides with Kastner, saying that other cabbies and industry insiders confirm his story, and bad hacks pull other stunts such as charging drivers to put on the heat, pressing the "extra" button on tolls and bridges, and posing as livery drivers at airports and charging more than double the flat fee of $45 to Manhattan. Whether or not the conspiracy is as widespread as Kastner would have you believe, the best thing you can do is consult the Passenger Bill of Rights, and always be vigilant of extra charges of any kind.

bench craft company rip off

Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

bench craft company rip off

Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

bench craft company rip off

Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

bench craft company rip off

Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Movie <b>News</b> Quick Hits: Emma Stone&#39;s &#39;Spider-Man&#39; Look, Annie Nods <b>...</b>

Posted Dec 6th 2010 3:05PM. Filed under: Trailers and Clips, Movie News, Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical. Email This. -- Emma Stone debuted her Spider-Man look for the first time at Trevor Live in Hollywood over the weekend. ...

Sea Ice <b>News</b> #31 | Watts Up With That?

38 Responses to Sea Ice News #31. beesaman says: December 5, 2010 at 6:38 pm. I commented on this a bit a while back too! Odd how the NSIDC graph has caught up since some folk started talking about it, or rather, odd how the ice has ...

managing your personal finances

A survey released today by Javelin Strategy & Research, which serves financial institutions, found in August that nearly one in five Americans doesn't monitor or manage their personal finances. That rate is double what it was just a year ago. Despite the fact the recession has made it more important than ever to carefully track our money, when it comes to personal finances, 19% of Americans stuck their head in the sand. A year before, another survey had the figure at just 8%.



More anxiety-induced news: The percentage of Americans who say they sometimes log onto their checking account balances with their banks' websites dropped to 46%, down 13 points from 59% a year ago. Even those who track their money by pen and paper dropped, from 50% to 46%.





"It's a natural human reaction to stress: 'Maybe if I don't look at it, it will go away.'" explains the study's co-author, senior analyst Mark Schwanhausser. "I think you have fewer people checking their finances online because they don't like what they're seeing. 'I'm going to be a financial sleepwalker. I'm not going to look.'"



Schwanhausser's prescription for the problem involves convincing America's major financial institutions that they're doing a lousy job helping make it easier and less stressful for their customers to track their money. "It's not enough to tell you how to fix the toilet," he says. "You've got to have the wrench."



Yet despite the fact that most Americans' money resides at a bank, few banks are interested in furnishing financial planning tools. Right now, Schwanhausser argues, most people are required to log into a wide variety of websites to track their money. For example, 75% of Americans who have a credit card get it from somewhere other than their primary bank, meaning their finances are scattered across many websites, unreconciled.



When people do turn to their bank's websites, he argues, the financial planning tools are nearly non-existent despite the fact our society increasingly demands greater personal control through technology. "Today's online banking is like having avocado green appliances from the 1970s. It just doesn't cut it," says Schwanhausser.



Schwanhausser is using the survey to convince banks that it will actually endear customers to them if they put personal finance tools front and center on their sites, helping customers paint a clear picture of their own financial habits. He's pressing them to develop systems, both on the Web and through mobile apps, that can draw in customers' information from other sites, such as credit cards and mortgage lenders, so financial care-taking can be a one-stop process.



So far, banks and lenders have been slow to use existing technology to make money management a less daunting chore. Part of the issue is that many banks don't want to acknowledge competitors by drawing in account balances from elsewhere. Banks also stand to make money off poor financial planning through penalties and fees. Like a doctor who makes money off treating disease, promoting financial good health does not on the surface appear to be in a bank's best interest.



"You can't manage what you don't measure," says Schwanhausser. "And if the bank's not going to provide it for you, you have to go get it in other places."



He recommends existing aggregators such as Mint.com, which pulls your data from multiple sources and lays it out in spreadsheets and in spending plans, as a model for what all the banks should be doing for their customers.



He also notes that Bank of America's "My Portfolio" and Wells Fargo's "My Savings Plan" are two fledgling, if little-known, bank-created features that are slowly reaching toward the sort of comprehensive personal finance planning features he advocates.



As long as it remains difficult or scary, though, when it comes to their finances, Americans will remain more likely to use the Ostrich Method.

In the digital age, nobody likes carrying a lot of cash around – I know I don’t, anyway. This can be especially frustrating when you go to keep track of your expenses, who you owe money to, who you lent some to and just where it all goes over the month.

As always, there are a lot of apps out there to help you do various things with your money. There are apps to figure out how to manage your money, oversee expenses, send money to people, keep track of who owes you, and more.

In this article, I’ll show you some of the applications you can take advantage of to do everything I’ve mentioned here, leaving you free to pick and choose the apps that will make your life easier.

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How to Manage Your Money

I’m beginning to learn just how difficult managing your expenses can be. For the most part, I use my debit card tied to my checking account to make purchases. I use it at the grocery store, when I go out to lunch with my coworkers and on the weekend when I’m out exploring the city.

At the end of the month, my bank statement looks pretty ridiculous. All of these small transactions make it difficult to sift through. I still know what everything is, but if I wanted to see where I could be saving some money I wouldn’t know the first place to look.

Sounds like you? Even if it doesn’t, you could still reap the benefits of visually being able to manage your money. These apps make the process a lot easier.

Mint

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Mint has been on our radar since back in 2007 when Karl wrote about it. Plain and simple, if there is one app I want you to keep in mind it’s this one.

Mint is a free personal finance application that can help you compare your bank accounts, credit cards, CDs, brokerage and 401(k) to the best products out there. It offers a visual representation of your finances and is very easy to set up. Use it to manage your budget, get credit card advice and understand investing.

Here’s a great video showcasing an overview of Mint’s features:

For some helpful tips on how to use Mint, check out Bakari’s article on How To Use Mint To Manage Your Budget & Spendings Online.

Thrive

Thrive (directory app) is also a great application if you’re looking for a simple way to keep track of your spending. With Thrive, you get an overall Financial Health score, which is one number that shows you how financially fit you are. It also shows you scores in other areas and offers you advice on how to make improvements.

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Thrive breaks down your spending for you and shows you where you can save. Compare your current budget to last month’s, as well as view a six month average and target budgets to follow.

Texthog

Looking for an even simpler way to track expenses? Texthog (directory app) lets you easily store, organize and access your receipts, expense reports and more via text message, the web, your email, iPhone and even Twitter.

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A Texthog free account gives one user the ability to track expenses, view unlimited reports and get budget/bill reminders. Take a photo of your receipts and utilize tags and categories to keep track of everything.

To check out Texthog on your iPhone, you can find the application on iTunes.

Venmo

Speaking of text messages, have you heard of Venmo? Venmo (directory app) is a nice little app that lets you pay and charge friends with your phone. Send and receive secure payments by linking your card to your account. This allows you to settle small loans you give/get by eliminating paper transactions for small amounts of money.

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To use Venmo, all you do is create an account. You can then send and receive money to other accounts simply by using text commands in SMS. Accept a “trust” request from your friends and make transactions without having to authorize them by texting a 3 digit code.

This is a pretty solid application that I have been using a lot lately with my friends/coworkers. It’s great for when a bunch of you are out to lunch and not everyone has cash on them. “I’ll just put it on my card and Venmo you all afterwards.”

Owe Me Cash

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Owe Me Cash is a nice app I found recently that is also very easy to use. If someone owes you money, you just sign into Owe Me Cash with your Twitter, Facebook, OpenID, or regular account and tell the app about the debt. The app will send automatic reminders to those that owe you money by phone, text and email, so you can get paid!

This app is more fun than serious, but it doubles as an easy way to keep track of who owes you what. Let the app bug your friends to pay you so you don’t have to do it yourself – it’s a win-win.

Conclusion

With these applications, your finances will never look better. Say goodbye to paper money and change.

What do you think of these money-managing applications? Will you be using any of them?

Image Credit: marema

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As part of the ongoing Mashable Awards, we’re announcing the final four nomination categories. This is “Best Internet Meme” supported by Dynadot. Be sure to nominate your favorites and join us for the Gala in Las Vegas! Sponsorships are available. Please contact sponsorships@mashable.com for more information.

The Mashable Awards are hitting full stride with less than two weeks before the first nomination period ends. In preparation we’ve added the final four nomination categories, including “Best Internet Meme,” supported by Dynadot. We’re thrilled to add the “Best Internet Meme” category to the awards and look forward to your nominations and selections.

Memes aren’t quite the same thing as a viral video, but there is definitely some overlap. A meme can be anything that the Internet latches onto and replicates with (usually) funny results. Last year saw some great memes like the “three wolf moon t-shirt,” Christian Bale’s angry rant and Kanye West’s “Imma Let You Finish.” Let us know what Internet meme made your year and nominate it for the Mashable Awards!

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If you haven't played Farmville yet, you have surely heard of it. With 70 million users spending 70 million hours a week, Farmville now competes with prime time television. In aggregate, 40 percent of the 700 billion minutes spent every month across the world on Facebook are spent on social games. Users are spending long stretches of time at one go in these games. For instance, an average session on the game Bejeweled Blitz lasts 43 minutes. 

While games might be one of the largest time sinks on the Internet, they are not the only ones. Users of the Internet radio service Pandora spend more than an hour and a half per day on the service, and half its usage comes from mobile devices like the iPhone.  Many other mobile apps have seen high user engagement, and an average session on an iPhone app lasts 9.6 minutes.

All of these point to a trend that Internet consumption is shifting to apps, instead of webpages. Unlike webpages, apps are optimized for a proprietary platform (think Apple's iOS, or Facebook's app platform). Wired famously, and perhaps very prematurely, hailed the emergence of apps by announcing that the Web is dead, and The Wall Street Journal recently talked about the appification of everything.  While some of these pronouncements may be ahead of their time, there is no denying that apps are giving webpages and the World Wide Web a run for their money.

App user versus website visitor

This trend has significant implications for marketers, and in many ways they will have to treat apps and app users differently from visitors to websites. For instance, in a world where users are willing to significant amount on time with apps, and a world that doesn't involve loading multiple pages, traditional metrics like page views are no longer as important as earlier.  Another departure from the world of webpages is that ad engagement on apps can often be very high. Greystripe, a rich media mobile ad network, found that users engage for an average of 22 seconds on their iPhone ads.

It's still early days for app-advertising, and advertising-revenue is still a small portion of app revenues. The amount of money mobile apps are projected to make from app-purchases far exceeds the projected $600 million in advertising revenue. On Facebook apps, primarily social games, traditional advertising is projected to be a small percentage of revenues (however, "indirect payments" for virtual currency, i.e., advertising in the form of offers linked to virtual currency, have been a more successful form of advertising on these games).

However, even in these early days, some advertisers and ad networks have achieved strong success with app-advertising. Based on their experiences, some insights are starting to emerge on how to market to app users:

Engage with the user within the app.

Don't make the users click out: Advertising on the Web is often focused on getting the user to click through to the advertiser's website as quickly as possible. However, in the world of apps, users are highly engaged with the app, and advertisements have to allow them to get back to their app without losing any context. When Apple launched its in-app ad network, iAD, earlier this year, it quickly gained market share to pull even with the leading ad networks on mobile devices despite some initial hiccups. 

Clicking on ads opens up a full screen ad within the app instead of opening a session on a browser. Apple makes it easy for users to interact with very rich ads, and at the same time makes it easy for them to return to the app. On the Facebook Platform, Rockyou recently rolled out an ad format called the Deal of the Day.  The Deal of Day blends an ad or an offer inside the game experience. Users can view brand advertising in the form of videos without leaving the game and earn virtual currency for doing that.

For advertisers, the key is to understand how to derive value from these in-app advertisements. Brand advertisers are well positioned to take advantage of these placements, but direct marketers will have to innovate in order to leverage these opportunities.

Become a part of the app's experience.

Better still, enhance the experience. Since app users have a very high engagement with the app, they are more likely to listen to a marketer's message if the message is part of their experience with the app.  A great example of this is Starbucks' campaign on Pandora that creates custom playlists for users based on their beverage tastes.  Another example is that of Mytown, a location based app from Booyah, that partnered with H&M to offer location-sensitive virtual goods.  The Rockyou Deal of the Day we mentioned earlier adds to users' experience with games by rewarding users with virtual game points.

Build a presence on the app platform.

Many of the best ways to advertise on apps are around acquiring users for the advertiser's own presence on the same platform. Juicy Fruit created a humorous iPhone app to drive brand awareness and engagement, and drove "awareness of the app through targeted advertising that includes text, banner and rich media." This is a great way to advertise in-app to drive users to your own app or other presence on the platform. Platforms are beginning to understand this as well. For instance, Twitter, having experimented with an advertising format called Earlybird that drove traffic to other websites, has now started focusing on "promoted tweets," a way for advertisers to promote their own presence on Twitter. In this case, advertisers don't need to build a Twitter app, but they can build their presence on the Twitter platform by actively tweeting.

The world of app-vertising is fertile ground for creative marketers. Advertisers who break the old rules and optimize for the app experience will be able to connect with a highly engaged audience.

Vijay Chittoor is a co-founder of Mertado Social Deals. He was previously director of product management at Kosmix. A former McKinsey consultant, Chittoor is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.  He shares his thoughts on technology at his blog.

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