- Cocktails with SavvyMoney and DailyWorth – This Wednesday I was invited by SavvyMoney and DailyWorth along with some other San Francisco media types (bloggers and others) to a cocktail party. It was great to talk with both CEOs. I’ve been a big fan of both products. SavvyMoney is still viewed as DebtGoal in my mind, but I’m making the transition to the new branding. Loved talking with the founder about MLMs (he’s from Utah where most of them originate). I get DailyWorth’s emails every day (though it is more targeted at women) and there’s some great advice there.
- Free Tax Filing for those who make less than $57,000 – If you made less than $57,000 last year you might be able to get your taxes done for free through My Free Taxes, a company that seems to have partnered with the Wal-Mart Foundation, the United Way and other reputable organizations.
- Bad Technology Week – The week started with my website going down when I was ironically trying to fix things. I was able to get things in a couple of hours and it was the weekend, so hopefully not too many noticed.
The bad week continued when I got the System Check virus. That knocked out my primary computer for about a day. Fortunately the advice at My Anti Spyware got me a virus free state. I also owe a little hat tip to to Bleeping Computer. One of the take away lesson is to have a thumb drive with Windows Defender Offline, Malwarebytes, Rkill, and TDSSKiller. If follow those websites directions and have that on hand, you can pretty much cure most viruses. It saved me from going to Geek Squad and spending $200.
The week ended with Google announcing that they’ll penalize sites with too many above the fold ads. That seemed to earn me a penalty from Google. I admit that my site may appear a little ad-heavy, but most regular readers have fewer ads. I spent much of the day changing a few things on my site and I hope to make a few more changes this week.
Finally, I got word that my old hosting company, Dreamhost got hacked and some websites that I had stored there may have had their passwords compromised. I haven’t seen them offer me any free service, yet. Bad times, bad times.
- NFL Championship Week Review – If you watched the two football games yesterday, you were treated to a pair of nail-biters. Typically, I would put the day high on my list of great football games for that very reason, but not this time. Each game was won more by a team making a mistake on basic fundamentals rather than the opponent forcing them into an error. I’m not sure if either winning team was really the better team on that day. A case could be made for the games going either way. I feel for the local 49ers, though I am happy that the my hometown Patriots were able to pull through. It could have been a long two weeks having to be the “bad guy” amongst the locals.
- SuperBowl Preview – It will be a long two weeks anyway, because the Patriots face a rematch of the 2007 season Super Bowl, the game that lead to this depressing post. The Patriots and the Giants are completely different teams this time, but they still have many of the same underlying traits. I think a lot will come down to the health of Patriots’ Gronk, the protection of the Patriots offensive line, and turnovers. (It always comes down to turnovers it seems.)
I feel much better knowing that there was a reason behind my large drop in traffic, I wasn’t aware until right now.
I just removed my adsense block above posts. It’s interesting that they’re encouraging people to do that, it probably means less money for them as well.
As you may remember I am a falcon fan, but being from NY I am pretty sure we need a friendly bet of some sort?
Are the Google Search group and the Google Adsense group independent groups?
I could see the Search group (geared toward user experience) and Adsense group (geared toward ad revenue) giving opposite advice on how to display ads.