So I have been getting some requests in regards to certain business and financial related books on whether or not I have read them. For me personally, I’ve never really read books that promise how you’ll learn how to be a financial expert or easy ways to make millions. As mundane as it may sound, I’ve always just mostly used common sense for anything business or money related. But, I’ve definitely heard of some books that have been very popular with a lot of people and so I figured I would try something new here.

For this section, whenever I see or find something that may be a good read or if I receive a lot of requests to read a certain publication, I will read everything chapter by chapter and as I go along I will write on my blog a general synopsis of the material and my personal feedbacks. This should be an interesting journey.

For blog updates subscribe to our RSS feed.

So I got this strange mail just recently that is apparently about some Internet marketing conference that is happening around here in BC which is suppose to teach people how to make money with companies like eBay and Google.

Somehow, I have been chosen to attend this event and just for attending I would receive a free meal and a business organizer valued at $120. So to attend you would have to RSVP by phone. I thought the funny thing about this was that for a conference that is suppose to deal with Internet technology and how to make money with it, you’d think the company would at least have a web site.

The thing about this that is a little troublesome is how the letter looks pretty professional and appealing with logos representing big Internet companies. I can easily see an average Joe thinking how this will be an opportunity of a lifetime and that they have nothing to lose since it is free. So to help, I have scanned the documents to help people recognize what this thing looks like along with a text transcript incase people can’t read it(Quickly used an OCR scanning software for the text).

Alan, here’s a complimentary Conference invitation for you and a guest!

Alan, discover how ordinary people and small business owners are creating incomes using the Internet. Also, learn how you can make money using eBay, Yahoo, Google, MSN and other online resources!

Dear Alan:

There’s something you should know…
Ordinary people, some with very little marketing experience at all, are creating part-time and full-time incomes working from home on the Internet.

Learn how you can make money on the Internet by attending our FREE breakfast, lunch or dinner conference near you.

FREE TICKET FOR TWO ENCLOSED
Choose any one of our upcoming conferences at the Empire Landmark Hotel, Days Inn, Radisson President Hotel and Suites or Inn at the Westminster Quay - see enclosed ticket for dates and times. RSVP by calling 1-800-331-9003 before Monday, October 30, 2006.

This is a fun, relaxed and informative conference led by a nationally renowned instructor. Within 90 minutes you’ll know if creating income from the Internet is right for you and your family. Please see the back of this letter to see what your complimentary conference package includes for you and your guest.

Michael and Diana Blair
“This year’s gross sales are expected to surpass last year’s sales of $280,000; thanks to this training and support.”

Brian Castteman
“I’m only twenty years old and still in college, I work about two hours a day and make over $50,000 a year.”

Donald Wyatt
‘My first month in business generated $3,700, now I sell over $50,000 a month over the Internet.”

IMPORTANT! We typically allow just over 100 people per show. Hotel conference rooms can fill to capacity quickly, so reserve your space for two today by calling 1-800-331-9003.

Remember, the conference is FREE and is set in a relaxed and comfortable environment. This is simply an informative working conference for you to (Continued)

experience what others are using to create part-time or full-time income from the Internet by working at home. I’ve enclosed 2 complimentary tickets for you and a guest to attend this conference. We strongly recommend that you bring your spouse or business partner to learn about it all first hand.
Here’s what you get at the conference:
- FREE admission for you and a guest to a 90 minute conference!
- FREE complimentary meal for you and your guest!
- FREE Business Organizers for you and your guest!
- FREE training materials and tested Internet marketing strategies!
Bonus! FREE eBay® PowerSeller Strategy Guide COURSE BOOK!
Find out how to get your FREE Copy after attending the conference.
Please confirm your seats today by calling 1-800-331-9003.

Respectfully,
C. Kevin Oliver
VP Conference Relations

P.S. If you are looking to generate additional income using the Internet, I urge you to explore * our Internet Marketing Conference. Call 1-800-331-9003 to hold your seats today.

P.P.S. Remember, the FREE COURSE BOOK you are being offered is not sold in stores, but you’ll learn how to get your FREE copy after attending this 90 minute Conference on creating Internet income. This COURSE BOOK offers you 200 pages of invaluable information including the simple secrets and shortcuts power sellers use to outsell uninformed and lazy Internet marketers.

Internet Marketing Conference
Conferences are available through this invitation only. Limit one guest per reservation. Call for remaining availability. Should hotel ballroom capacity be exceeded, seats will be given on a first-come, first-served basis. Your meal will be served at the conclusion of the 90-minute conference. Your business organizer will be available at the event or may be mailed to you after the event.

I’ve personally never been to one of these and hopefully never will, but if it is anything like those other free conferences on how to make money, I’m willing to bet that while you’re there the whole purpose will be to sell you thousands of dollars worth of stuff as it is their way of leading you to financial freedom. So is it fair for me to be critical about this since I never went to it before? Well, just to confirm my suspicions, in the envelope was also this personal message card from who is apparently the Vice President of this company with the name “C. Rex Sanderson”.

Dear Alan,

I want you to know how important I believe our FREE conference may be to you.
If you’re not where you need to be financially, or if you’re just spending too much time at work away from your family, I urge you to attend our FREE Internet Marketing Conference to witness what others have done to re-claim their financial and personal lives.

Visit our FREE Internet Marketing Conference. I guarantee you’ll walk away with a better understanding and possibly, new found hope of how you can achieve your financial goals and dreams using the same powerful Internet Marketing strategies and techniques being used by the most successful entrepreneurs.

Respectfully,
C. Rex Sanderson
Vice President

Based on some quick searches, this guy seemed to of been operating similar deals around the world and the feedback is not good. So, watch your wallets everyone. If anyone out there has happened to actually attend one of these events, maybe you’ll have an interesting story to share with the rest of us.

For blog updates subscribe to our RSS feed.

Like every other big video game system launches, especially around the Christmas time, product shortages and the need to buy the latest and greatest for that special someone leads a lot of people to go onto ebay as a last resort to find the product. This year, everyone is already anticipating the Playstation 3 to be extremely limited in supply which has a lot of people wanting to buy it simply to resell it to others at an inflated price to make a lot of profit.

Finding people that are willing to pay an inflated price for a new gaming console during the Christmas shopping period is an understatement as demonstrated last year when the XBOX 360 came out. Although the premium version of the console retailed for $499.99 CDN, it was a common sight to see ebay prices floating in the 4 digit ranges. For the PS3, apparently the premium version is going to retail for about $650 CDN and already people are pre-selling a pre-order guarantee for more than double that amount. Just to get a glimpse on how crazy it is probably going to get, I took a screenshot on some of the Playstation 3 listings that are already on ebay.

So for people who want to make some extra money during this Christmas, I guess this would be one of the ways to do so.

For blog updates subscribe to our RSS feed.

An interesting event occurred recently here in BC that has a lot of people screaming racism and discrimination. Around the east Surrey area, near Langley, is a mini mall/plaza called the West Willow Plaza. The mall has recently been sold to a new Korean owner who, from what I have read, intends to make the mall consist of only Asian/Korean themed shops and businesses. The biggest new business to open up within that area would be a business called “H-Mart”, which is Korean supermarket. As a result, all of the non Asian tenants have been asked to leave once their lease expires and there is apparently no option for them to renew.

Obviously, some of the tenants aren’t very happy as some of them have been there for over 20 years. When I read this news personally, due the circumstance I don’t really see this as a race issue but possibly a bad business decision. The reason I say this is because when it comes to leasing space, realistically the owner has a right to say who can and can’t do business on their property and if the new business direction was to develop an Asian themed mall, I can’t really condemn them for doing so. Otherwise, I may as well say any other ethnic or theme specific malls in BC are violating some sort of human rights law.

I do think it is a bad business decision though due to the way the news broke out without much of an explanation from the new owners. So far, it seems to of cause a lot of controversy and possible boycotts to that business area. For the most part, I have always felt that BC is a very multicultural and diverse place to live in, so I hope this won’t create some kind of unnecessary riot.

For blog updates subscribe to our RSS feed.

Netflix, the online movie rental company, today announced that they have started a contest where they are offering anyone who is able to improve its online movie recommendation system a prize of one million dollars. The great thing too is that if it turns out that no one wins, they will still offer $50,000 to the person who comes closest to making significant advances to its system. Not a bad deal for anyone who is open to taking on the challenge. Here is the full press release:

____________________________________________________________
NETFLIX CREATES $1 MILLION NETFLIX PRIZE TO
PROMOTE PROGRESS IN RECOMMENDATION SYSTEMS

Scientists Challenged to Analyze Dataset of 100 Million Movie Ratings

LOS GATOS, Calif., October 2, 2006 – Netflix, Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX), the world’s largest online movie rental service, today announced the creation of the Netflix Prize, an award of one million dollars to the first person who can achieve certain accuracy goals in recommending movies based on personal preferences. The company also made available to contestants 100 million anonymous movie ratings ranging from one to five stars, the largest such data set ever released.

Netflix said it will publish a detailed description of the winning approach for the benefit of companies, entrepreneurs and academicians.

Recommendation systems help people choose taste-based products by comparing their tastes with similar tastes of other people. Recommendation systems are particularly useful to consumers of movies, books, music, clothing and entertainment.

“Recommendation systems covering a wide variety of categories will play an increasingly significant commercial role in the future,” said Netflix Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO Reed Hastings. “Right now, we’re driving the Model T version of what is possible. We want to build a Ferrari and establishing the Netflix Prize is a first step.”

The threshold required to win the Netflix Prize is a 10 percent improvement in accuracy over the current Netflix recommendation system. If no one wins the grand prize this year, the company said it will award a $50,000 progress prize to whoever makes the most significant advancement toward the goal and will award a progress prize annually until someone wins the grand prize.

Complete details for registering and competing for the Netflix Prize are available at www.netflixprize.com.

In creating the Netflix Prize, the company said it was inspired by the unconventional approach used to win the Longitude Prize, which was created in 1714 by the British government to focus on one of the most vexing and dangerous aspects of transoceanic travel – determining a ship’s longitude. The prize was won in 1761 by John Harrison, who rather than focusing on star maps created a clock precise enough to accurately keep the time of the ship’s home port and allowed navigators to use local time as measured by the height of the sun to calculate longitude within a half degree. The movie “Longitude” tells this story and is available at Netflix.

The Netflix Prize competition is open to anyone except Netflix employees, their families, and company affiliates. The company is inviting individual computer scientists and corporate or university teams well versed in the complexities of machine learning to pursue the prize. A board of judges, including senior engineers at Netflix and well-known members of the machine learning community, will determine the grand prize or annual progress prize winners.

All personal information identifying individual Netflix customers has been removed from the prize data. It contains only movie titles, star ratings and dates but no text reviews.

A recommendation engine spanning the 65,000 titles in the Netflix catalog is an essential element of the company’s movie subscription service. Each of Netflix’s more than five million members enjoys a personalized member Web site that enables them to rate movies on a one to five star scale. Netflix pours those individual ratings into a database of more than one billion movie ratings and relies on proprietary algorithms and software to identify movies that tend to be rated highly (or lowly) by people with similar tastes. The accuracy of this software has been praised by movie critics and members alike and enables Netflix to fulfill its goal of connecting people with movies they’ll love.

About Netflix

Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) is the world’s largest online movie rental service, providing more than five million subscribers access to over 65,000 DVD titles. The company offers a variety of subscription plans, starting at $5.99 a month. There are no due dates, no late fees and no shipping fees. DVDs are delivered for free by the USPS from regional shipping centers located throughout the United States. Netflix can reach more than 90 percent of its subscribers with generally one business-day delivery. Netflix offers personalized movie recommendations to its members and has more than one billion movie ratings. Netflix also allows members to share and recommend movies to one another through its FriendsSM feature. For more information, visit www.netflix.com.
_________________________________________________________________

For blog updates subscribe to our RSS feed.