2006 has come and gone. I'm sitting at home today and just reflecting on what has happened for myself and this website so far. Here is a recap.

thoughtsfrommylife.com Launched

The website was officially launched. Basically I wanted a website for two reasons. To use it as a diary of ideas, reviews, and random thoughts as well as see if I could generate some sort of revenue too.

50+ Articles

I have written over 50 articles thus far and have more sitting in draft that I haven't finished yet. My initial goal was to write over 100 articles, so I am half way there so far.

Improving the Web Site

This is the biggest thing I have been learning. My goals were to improve the articles and increase traffic. I haven't did much in the way of improving articles other than my own critiquing of them. I used to write long paragraphs and have few pictures (if any). I have since gone the other way with short paragraphs and more pictures. It makes skimming the article much easier and much more interesting.

Increasing traffic will be my biggest focus coming up. In 2006, I listed myself with search engines and put a link on my personal blog to this site. In the last week of 2006 I did a link exchange/review with johnchow.com. The first day generated 30 new visitors. I later posted one of my articles on ezinearticles.com. This generated 6 new visitors.

I added a web tracker to my site (for free). This is a necessity if you want to see where your traffic is coming from. Below you can see my graph for December. Notice I only started it halfway through the month.

Revenue

Well, I paid out 10 bucks to register the domain and pay for the first month. My total revenue was $12.51, so I officially paid for the site. However, you need to have $100 before Google will cut you a cheque and my expectations are a little higher than this anyways. Here is a the screenshot from my Adsense account.

Goals for 2007

I want to focus on quality and traffic again for this year. Here are my goals.

1. I am going to write another 50 articles to get my count to 100.
2. Polish more of my articles to improve readability.
3. Publish articles to sites like ezine.
4. Exchange links with other sites and get them do a post on an article on my site.
5. Add other ad compaigns to diversify the income from the site (not just Google Adsense).
6. Generate $200/month consistently.

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So you have some extra money and you want to know where is the best place to put it. This is always a hot topic. Each area has its own incentives.

Mortgage

So you have various pre-payment options on your mortage. By putting more money against it you will lower the amount of interest you are paying, you now "own" more of your house, you possibly increase your borrowing power (lines of credit), and you give yourself a little more peace of mind regarding your debt load.

The return on your money: The interest rate on your mortage.

Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP)

In Canada we are allocated so much room in our RRSP each year (18% of our gross annual income?). Contributions to a registered trading account are tax deductible. This is a huge savings right off the bat and can even drop you into a lower tax bracket if you are sitting on the line. Also, your investments are tax-sheltered, meaning you can buy and sell taxes within the registered plan without having to pay tax on the capital gains. When you withdraw later in life you then pay tax on the withdrawl amounts as if it was a normal income.

The return on your money: The income tax rate plus the rate you expect on those investments.

Insurance Policy

For those of you with a universal or whole life policy, you can invest money (up to a maximum) into your life insurance policy. There are no tax advantages now, but the money is tax-sheltered until you take it out (or you never take it out as I discuss in Borrowing Against your Insurance Policy). You still have to pay the income tax on this money now, but your capital gains will be sheltered in the future allowing you to buy and sell stocks without any repercussions.

The return on your money: Interest rate you can achieve in your policy plus the re-invested savings on the non-taxed capital gains within the policy.

Unregistered Investments

Similar to an RRSP except for 3 major differences.

• The money contributed cannot be used a tax deduction
• The investments are not tax sheltered. When you buy and sell, you must claim capital gains on your tax return.
• Capital gains is the only tax you pay. When you do withdraw money, it is not treated as income like an RRSP.

The return on your money: The interest rate you can achieve on your investments.

What should I do?

I have followed the advice of my financial advisor. The priority he has recommended is as follows.

1. RRSP - This is the best value for you dollar. Immediate relief on tax at the early stage will compound over the years to even bigger returns.
2. Mortgage - Immediate, guaranteed return of whatever the interest rate is on your house. When the mortgage is paid off, that is a big weight off your shoulders and will free up a lot more monthly cash flow.
3. Insurance Policy - If you have the income to use it, the last place to hide money. Again, to have a tax-sheltered growth area. Not as good as an RRSP because you do not have the tax deduction on contributions and your investment options are limited. However, using the bank loan strategy later in life, you do avoid paying income tax on the money you withdraw like how the RRSP works.

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I received this for Christmas this year. What a handy little gadget.

The NB-3L is the infared remote for Nikon cameras that support remote shutter release. It lets you snap the shutter from a distance.

Why would you need this? Well for a few reasons. Situations where you want everyone to be in the picture (no one has to step out to take the photo) and situations where you don't want to press the shutter yourself because it will cause motion of the camera and "camera shake" in your photos.

This Christmas I snapped a photo with the camera set up on a tripod. Everyone was sitting at the dinner table. Check out the photo below. I definitely could have been a bit more discrete with the remote (that's me in the bottom left), but oh well.

The "prevent camera shake" use is as follows. The lighting is dim and you need to be as stable as possible, so you set the camera on a table, banister, rock, or whatever. Unfortunatley you still need to press the shutter down and you can accidentally "jar" the camera and cause the image ot blur. If you have the handy little remote you just use it. You can even have your hands just centimeters away if the camera is perched precariously and you think it will fall.

Size Matters

This thing is small. It is incredibly thin and looks like one of those items you will lose in about two seconds. Fortunately, it comes with a little velcro pouch that can attach to your shoulder strap so you have easy access and will always be tempted to put the remote back in the pouch instead of in your pocket.

Simple

The remote only has one button which controls the shutter. You need to go into the settings of your camera and set it to be controlled by the remote. For the Nikon D70s, this is the same settings options where you change between "single shot" or "continuous shooting". You can select "remote shooting" as well. One annoying thing I found is that if the camera goes into "power saving" mode after 15 seconds that it defaults back to shutter button mode so the remote doesn't work anymore. I'm sure you can change this, but I have yet to find it yet. If you know how, please post a comment.

There is also a timer remote option so that you can trigger the timer with the remote. Good for situations where you would be a bit rushed to sneak back into the photo after pressing the shutter.

Range

I'm not sure the exact range. They claim it is 16.4 feet, but I triggered it from 30 feet away no problem when I first got it. Maybe this was because it was a new battery. You just have to point the thing straight at the camera though. I found there wasn't much forgiveness if you were pointed elsewhere.

Battery

It comes with one of those little lithium ion CR2025 batteries. The thin kind that goes in watches and such.

To Get It Working

Basically nothing. Take the plastic battery protector out of the remote. Then set your camera to Remote shooting mode and snap away.

Final Verdict

I would recommend this for anyone. It is more of a gimmick and useful for those odd-ball shots, but for the price (less than $25 Canadian) you can't really beat the novelty of it.

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You might think I'm getting paid to write this article, but I'm not. Just writing about something else I'm thinking about. I was sick of not feeling like I could make a long distance a few years ago, because I didn't have a good plan and didn't want to pay for one because I didn't use long distance enough. Plus, my girlfriend was on overseas holidays periodically and I wanted to be able to call her. Anyhow, I found one company that did the trick for me.

If you use a fair bit of long distance on your cell phone (or land line) and don't have a good plan for it. Then Yak might be a good system for you. I have been using these guys for about 4 years now. They offer reasonable long distance rates for the casual user (no minimum fees).

I live in Canada and they give me 3.5 cents/minute on my cell phone to anywhere in Canada or the U.S. and 5 cents/minute from my land line. There is no minimum fee and no special criteria. If you don't use it for a month then you don't pay anything.

Land Line

Just dial 10-10-YAK and then your number. It will go through and you will be billed on your next statement from whoever provides your landline service. You can set them up to be the default long distance provider so you don't need to dial 10-10-YAK everytime as well. I think you need to set up an account though.

A lot of you have good monthly plans so that is still probably offering cheaper per minute rates, but if you don't use up all your minutes every month this might be a better idea.

Cell Phone

This is a bit trickier. They need to enter your phone into the system and you need an account. You can do this online if you want. I have a mastercard set up with them and I am automatically billed every month (they email me my statement). Basically, there are Yak numbers located in different cities. You dial this number, wait to hear a dial tone, and then dial as you would normally. The rate is only 3.5 cents/minute to anywhere in North America. There are even 5 cents/minute to some European countries. Below is screenshot from the top of the cell phone rates page.

The only thing I don't like is that they don't let you use them as your default long distance provider, so you have to dial the local access number every time you dial long distance. I imagine the cell phone companies have some sort of block on this, but who knows.

Trick With Bell and other Cell Phone Companies

Some of you will have older plans with Bell and have the TouchBase feature (I believe they don't offer this anymore) and other telcos might have it. This is where you are allowed 20 calls a month of unlimited duration to a specific number that you choose. It was intended for the number you call the most so you don't use up all your air time. I set this number to be the Yak long distance line for my city. This way, I can place long distance calls in the middle of the day without it using up my air time (unless I do over 20 calls) and only pay 3.5 cents a minute for the long distance call.

All-in-all Pretty Good

If you want to do long distance calling, but won't get better the 3.5 cents a minute out of a regular monthly plan on average, then I would recommend checking these guys out. And if you know of some calling cards or other plans that are better, please post a comment. I would gladly switch.

You can check out Yak here.

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I'm sick of being ripped off by cell phone companies over little details and poor packages. I find it so annoying when you phone in and even the customer service reps don't seem to understand the packages and services available. This article is about one particular service that BELL DOES NOT ADVERTISE VERY OBVIOUSLY (probably because they don't want anyone to know).

Bell's long distance rates are over 50 cents/minute for myself. This is to anywhere in Canada. It could be to a town only half and hour away if you are in the wrong spot. My immediately family all live in cities at least 3 hours away so I need to make long distance calls periodically. Some other companies had some good rates, but TELUS and Bell have far better coverage in my part of the country, especially since I'm not always in an urban area (definitely wouldn't be using Fido).

When I first got my phone plan in 2003, I phoned Bell and asked what kind of plans they had for long distance. They quoted me all kinds of plans that were limited and rather expensive. Thankfully, a friend of mine told me about this $5 unlimited long distance "add on" you can get to any existing plan.

Only $5 For Unlimited Long Distance Weekends

For $5 you can add "unlimited long distance weekends in Canada" to your plan. What does this mean? Well, whenever your weekend hours start (8pm Friday to 6am Monday if you have unlimited weekends, or 6pm Friday to 8am Monday if you upgraded) you can make and receive long distance calls. So you can call any number in Canada without any extra billing or receive a call no matter where you are in the country.

This works awesome for me. I'm usually gone from my city most weekends so I can answer my phone whenever I feel like it during the weekend and do any of my family calling as well. I simply do any long distance calling I want to do on the weekend and during the week I just stay off the phone unless its a local call or toll free.

Conclusion

If you try to find this feature on the Bell site in Canada you will find it, but it definitely isn't obvious. Just phone in an request it if you can't. I think some plans aren't eligibile (like pay and talk), but all of mine have been so far.

Also, there are other $5 add-ons if you look. Extended weekend hours, unlimited calling between bell users, and etc. Check them out. There might be something that will save you a buck or let you get more use out of your phone.

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I have no artistic ability whatsoever when it comes to the visual arts, but I do enjoy it. I have purchased more than a few items in the past couple years that are on display in my home.

My favorite piece is a print from a friend of mine in Calgary named Lindsay Simons. He completed this piece in 1997 and won the category he entered at the Calgary Stampede Art Competition. This is a print that I purchased off him a couple years ago.

This is one of my favorite items. A country scene near a small town in rural Saskatchewan. It was painted by a coworker of mine, Doug Philp. This is an original by the way.

This one was a print I purchased from a local store for my girlfriend on Valentines day a few years back. I like the colors in it.

My wife purchased this before we were married while on holidays. She was walking along the Ko San Road, a backpacker's haunt, in Bangkok, Thailand. She spotted this tapestry and ended up paying around $10 US for it. Beautiful piece of work.

These two pieces are from our travels in South America in 2005. At a large market in Otavalo, Ecuador we purchased these two prints.

This is a sculpture we found in the curio market outside the Livingstone Falls gates in Zambia, a country in Africa. Kind of neat looking really.

These 2 wood carvings were also purchased in Africa. The giraffe was from Nairobi, Kenya, and the elephant I purchased in Stone Town, Zanzibar as well.

These cute stick men are from Zanzibar too.

This was an original canvas painting of Angkor Wat I found in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Cost me next to nothing, but I had to carry the thing around for a month and a half before I came home.

These African paintings are from a town called Kande in Malawi.

My wife purchased these figurines of Vietnamese women somewhere in Vietnam.

This is a favorite of mine as well. A ceramic tile depicting a guitar player. This came from Spain in 2003.

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I purchased the Crumpler 5 Million Dollar bag with my SLR camera and I am still using it today. It has been a fantastic camera bag. I knew I wanted to have a few lenses and accessories, but wasn't interested in the large camera bags. This one fits the bill perfectly. My only complaint is that the price is a bit steep.

It is more of a "courier" style bag that hangs to the side so you can put it behind you or in front of you.

Disregarding the name, the bag does cost around $100 Canadian. This is quite a bit more than other bags of the equivalent size, but is definitely a better looking bag. That was my biggest annoyance when buying a bag. They are all so ugly and this was the only one that actually looked cool and not like a camera bag.

My Criteria

I had a few different criteria when I was looking for my first bag.

1. I wanted to have 3 lenses (zoom, wide angle, and fixed 50mm).
2. Have a few extra accessories (charger, memory car reader, USB cable, etc).
3. The bag needed to be stylish, not one of those "I'm a photography geek" fanny packs or huge duffle bags.
4. Be convenient to travel with.
5. Feel reasonably secure when carrying it.

Overview

This bag has met all my requirements so far. It has two dividers to turn the inside of the bag into about 3 compartments. I have a lens on each end and then my camera sits face down with a lens attached in the middle. There is enough room on either side to put my SB-600 flash as well.

Here is a picture off the Crumpler site of a green bag on its side with a Nikon D200 in there.

On the front there is a pouch where I can fit my battery charger, lens cloth, lens cleaner, USB cord, USB memory card reader/writer, iPod camera connector, extra memory card, and that is about it.

In the top, there is a zipper mesh pouch that I keep my manual in and anything extra I want to take (a CD will fit inside there).

What Is In My Crumpler Bag Right Now

Updated January 22, 2008.
Main Body

• Nikon D70s
• Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens (attached to the D70s)
• Nikkor 50mm 1.8D
• Sigma 10-20mm Wide Angle lens
• Nikon SB-600 flash
• Hoya macro filters
• Canon S410 Charger (my wife's camera)

• iPod camera connector
• D70s charger
• USB cable
• Cleaning solution and cloth
• extra set of 4 AA batteries for the flash

• Manual
• D70s lens mount cover
• Stand for SB-600 Flash

Positives

Personally, I love this bag. You can sling it over your shoulder and carry it on your front, so you you can keep a hand on it when in a busy market or on your lap on a bus or train. But if you trying to do something in front of you, you can easily slip it around your back so it's out of the way.

It has velcro to keep the top cover down with the extra buckle to make sure it stays down. It lets you easily flip up the cover and grab your camera out. It would have been nice to have the cover flip the other way so it opens to you instead of away, but not a big deal.

Plus it looks awesome. You wouldn't even think its a camera bag by just looking at it. Definitely is a lot more unsuspecting than the traditional camera bags. I know I knocked "fanny pack" earlier, but there are belt loops on it if you want to carry it like that. I think if it was fully loaded it wouldn't be very well balanced for that though.

Negatives

Now for a few draw backs. If you are going to have a lot of lenses and accessories, then this bag won't be able to hold them all. Mine is stuffed and I'm just an amateur. Also, there could be more weather protection. There is a bit of a fabric "lip" on the inside that will help keep moisture and dirt out, but that is about all.

Summary

The price is steep for the size, but it definitely a "cool" bag to have.

If you are looking for a bag, check it out. Take your gear in and stuff it in the bag. If you are just starting out, this is a great bag for convenience and for day trips. I like to travel and I don't plan on getting a lot more gear so I think I will be using it for a long time.

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Generating traffic is one of the trickiest parts of making money online. It would be everyone's dream to be the number one link on Google search results, but this takes money or a crazy page rank which we all know we don't have.

My site has only been up for a little over a month, but I have seen some decent results from article submissions. What are these? Basically I created user accounts on sites that accept user submissions on basically any topic. Then I started posting.

I have only used 3 sites so far.

• Ezine Articles
• iSnare.com
• GoArticles.com

They all looked pretty good with similar guidelines. Ezine is currently looking like the larger traffic generator, but the other two still seem worth it.

At first I thought it wouldn't do anything, but soon I saw a steady trickle of activity on my website from these article sites. You will only be able to tell this if you have a decent web tracker on your site that tells you the referring link.

Advantages

This gives your article (and your site) more exposure. The article sites allow you to link back to your own site as long as it is appropriate. By posting an article (or portion of it) you can then link back to the full version of the article or other supporting articles on your site. Interested individuals will then end up back there.

The second advantage is that reposting your article causes you to reevaluate it. Fix those spelling mistakes and clean it up.

The third advantage is you now have another site in which people can post comments on your article. Tips and criticism will improve your writing and the validity of what you are writing about.

Fourth, you now have a link pointing back to you site. This will help with Google PageRank and improve your chances in a search result.

Disadvantages

This is more work. Sometimes a lot of reformatting will be necessary to make sure it fits the criteria for an acceptable article on that site. Plus, you might not even generate much traffic from the site anyways.

Is It Worth It?

This is up to you to decide. Post to a variety of sites and make sure you have a web tracker. Then you can see how much traffic each one is generating for you. If you aren't getting much activity from a site, then drop them. No sense in wasting your time if no one is reading on them.

Make sure to read other articles on the site. You will get great tips and ideas for articles on your own site (don't copy). You will learn a lot and can maybe even take someone else's concepts to the next level in complexity and usefulness. Make sure you aren't just rehashing and you can legitimately stand behind what you are writing.

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Finally, finally, finally! Calgary was the last of the major Canadian cities to finally go smoke free in almost all public places. There are only a few exceptions (casinos, bingo halls, and a few other places), but your average nightclub and sports bar are now blue haze free. The anti-smoking bylaw was in effect January 1st, 2007

I know, I know. Why should we be putting restrictions on others? It's a free world! Who has the right to tell us what we can and can't do?

Well, you know what? I was one of those patrons who did not go out to watch a game because of the cigarette and cigar smoke. My wife and I hated the smell. I would come home and have to have a shower or else my pillow and sheets would take in the smell when I went to bed. My clothes had to be washed as well. It is really an annoyance and enough of one that I did limit how often I would go to a sports lounge.

We're Going to Lose Money?

These establishments were complaining they will lose money because of the anti-smoking bylaw. I can understand their concern, but I question the loss really. They will be gaining a customer in me and the customers who enjoyed the social atmosphere and the big screen are still going to come.

I used to live in Edmonton and after I moved they put through their own anti-smoking bylaw. I went to watch an Oilers game at Schanks in Edmonton and the place was packed without a seat to be found. I can't see how they were losing any business that night. When I walked outside it was a blue haze of people smoking in front. I still sucked to walk through it on the way in and out, but at least I don't have to come home and have to shower and throw every piece of clothing in the laundry.

I'm not going to blather on about health concerns and all that. We all know the risks with smoking. You are inhaling carcinogenic fumes into your body whenever you are in that environment. There is no argument to the health benefits, really.

Anyhow, enough said. I love the new bylaw and I hope more cities go this route. If you live in the province of British Columbia, they passed it provincially so it wasn't even a municipal choice anyways.

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Well, another week has gone by and I have a few events to talk about. I had the most new traffic I have ever had due to a few sources. Unfortunately, it has not resulted in much more ad revenue. My ad revenue for this week was $6.73.

The traffic came from 3 sources.

• I submitted articles to ezinearticles.com and I put linkbacks in each article to my own site.
• I submitted some of my articles to StumbleUpon. This is a cool site (with a Firefox extension to boot) for helping surfers find good content on subjects they are interested in.
• Some of my articles show up on the first and second pages of some Google search results now. A tribute to good writing? I wish. The most popular in order of hits are:
  1. Collecting Air Miles and their Value - This is funny because it is something I did a few years ago out of my own interest's sake. I have had a lots of hits on this and am on the second page of some Google searches. It is by far the busiest page on my site outside of the photography and investing articles I submitted to ezine.
  2. Connect to Your Windows XP Professional Computer Through a Router - This is another surprising one. I simply wrote about how I use Remote Desktop Connection to access my computer, which is behind a router. I show up #7 on the google search "how to connect to your router".
  3. Borrowing Against your Life Insurance - This comes up on the second page of the Google search "borrow money against rrsp".

My traffic for the week peaked on Saturday. This is when a couple of my articles made it on to ezine. Traffic for Week 5

This hasn't resulted in much ad revenue, but I think it is a turn for the better. My click through rate was previously a lot higher than what I understand can be expected (probably my relatives clicking because of the novelty of it). I am more interested in generating traffic at this point and then refining the ads later, when I can see the effect of my changes legitimately. I have a screenshot from my Ad Sense account below.

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