Categories
Online Business Passive Income

Slope Stability, Earthquakes and Passive Income

You may not know – I used to be a Geologist and even know useful stuff about how to make sure your house didn’t fall down a hill in rain storm or earthquake  (here’s a hint you probably need a 3D slope stability program to do the calculation!)  Having a science degree in real physical science has always been extremely useful – even long after I left the profession – because it taught me about cause and effect – and  that just because something happens at the same time doesn’t mean they are related.

Big Pit, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
Its predictable whether this slope will fail or not - it won't because the right slope stability calculations have been done on it!

Where am I going with this – and does it relate to making passive income online? Well it does relate – we mix up cause and effect all the time: we think life is more dangerous for kids these days then it was in the old days – but most children survive to the age of 5 in developed countries now – something that would have been beyond imagining  even 200 years ago, and unfortunately still is in some parts of the world.

We think that working hard on a site should see Google loving the site, sending us heaps of traffic and making us lots of money. We get mad if it doesn’t happen inside a month, most of us quit – and most people quit Internet Marketing just before they start to succeed at it.  We chase the dream – but miss the obvious – starting your own business is about risk and reward – but first comes the risk. Building a passive income online is always about building a business: in might be a rental property business or an active share portfolio. Don’t get me wrong you might not be actively managing that business –  my tenants don’t call me when the hot water breaks – they call my property manager – that’s his job –  I pay him to work work for me – but I own the business – I take the risk – no tenant, I still get to pay the mortgage.

Its a lot like building a passive income business online. There are heaps of different models out there – unfortunately the most common one is parcel up shiny objects and sell those to the beginners – and persuade them that the more they pay the more likely they are too get rich overnight. Make no mistake someone is getting rich – but its not the person buying!  At the end of the day – it doesn’t matter really how many make money online products your buy or how many membership sites you enrol in. Unless you are actually building a business i.e. creating some income producing assets e.g. websites – then you are just dreaming.

On that note –  yes I have still been doing not very much to make  passive income  online – I mentioned in a previous post that life had been getting in the way. Well its pretty been going from bad to worse and now back again – I wrote off the car (me v.bus) – not sure whether I was in the wrong or not yet but have the pay out and am not much the worse for wear. Slightly annoying but as the 10-year-old car which we’d stored for 3 years while overseas had been running well until it impacted said bus.   We have also bought a new house and weathered a health scare (that’s all it was a scare not a reality) – I am really looking forward to getting back to some level of normality next week!

Oh and the title – well hopefully most of you will know why the term “slope stability” needed to be in the title – the earthquake was the personal kind not the real deal and the passive income really has been just that for far too long now!

Categories
Paid Tools Product Reviews Tools

MyStarterBlog: An Alternative to WordPress?

Guys – this is a neat new tool to create websites really easily, from a cool guy Steve McGrath over at McGrath Info  Solutions.

MyStarterBlog is an easy way to create a blog without all the overhead of WordPress – no database required!

An Example of a MyStarterBlog Site: Pink is NOT Compuslory!
An Example of a MyStarterBlog Site: Pink is NOT Compuslory!

MyStarterBlog is a cool little program which allows you to upload a complete website – including content (which you have to provide of course) in one file. There is no database involved. There are a couple of advantages to this.

  1. It takes very little bandwidth or other resources from your host – it will run a lot faster than the equivalent site running WordPress or blogger.
  2. Although there is a comment facility (via email) – and most visitors will think the site is a blog (check out the example MyStarterBlog site here), its not a  blog in the sense of  spammers looking for a place to put their viagra ads in your comments!
  3. Runs out of the box with some themes pre-packaged but you can buy more themes or adapt whats available if you are prepared to hack some php.
  4. You don’t have to update your blog/theme/ widgets every time you login just to make a 5 minute post!
  5. You are less likely to get hacked because hackers target WordPress’s known security flaws – meaning that you have to keep upgrading (see 4. above!)
  6. If you ever need to move host – you just reload the site – one file – DONE! If you have ever tried moving a WordPress blog between sites you will understand that this approximately a a zillion steps less!
  7. You only have one small file to upload – around 300k, rather than the 4MB or so that most WordPress installs involve.

Will It Cost Me? Yes and No

There is a free version which has the following restrictions:

  1. Only supports one blog
  2. Links on pages are no-followed

Download it had have a play -a the end of the day – if you hate – you have spent – nothing!

If you upgrade to the registered version – currently $17 now $7 – can’t beat that price!, then you have:

  1. Unlimited blog support
  2. Ablity to import posts from text files
  3. Ability to import from existing WordPress blogs (using the XML export format)

If you like product then write a post about it on your blog within 15 days of your first purchase. Email Steve with your details and he will refund $10 to your PayPal or AlertPay account. You don’t need to do the review anymore  the software will cost you $7 – that’s not free – but its bloody close to!

And that includes free upgrades for life to!

Bottom Line: Do I Recommend MyStarterBlog

Yes I do if you have specialist blogs that you don’t update so often I think its ideal – because frankly for most blogs WordPress is waaaay over the top.

It would also be idea for a beginner blogger – you don’t have to learn about widgets/themes/upgrades etc etc

I recommend it to because you can try it before you buy  – and I like that in software.

What You Will Need to Use MyStarterBlog

You will need hosting, a domain name, an ftp program (to upload your files).  See my recommendations for these and other software here on my Software I Use page

Disclaimer

I’m going to get my $10 for this post – but you don’t have to write a postive  post to get that $10 – Steve just wants to get the buzz going on a new product, so rather than an affiliate program which bumps the price of the software up he has come up with this innovative approach. This is a limited time offer – so give it a go and if you want to get MyStarterBlog for $7 rather than $17 – do it now rather than later!

I tried to find something not to like about this product – but honestly I can’t. I am not a developer myself but I’ve worked with programmers for many years in my real world job and I know how much work goes into creating a cool little tool like this! For the price, even $17 – its a steal.

It may not work for your business so try the free version and see if you have a use before paying.