The IM Down Under forum contains lots of useful tips and howto’s along with tools, promotions and services that can help you reach your goals. It provides a place to gain knowledge and also share your own experiences with others.
Whilst the forum is geared towards Australians and New Zealanders, anyone in the world can register and participate in the discussions, in fact those from other countries that are wanting to target an Australian audience are encouraged to register.

The forum can be found here -

Internet Marketing Down Under Forum

All you need to do is join their service, and they’ll credit your account with 1,000 free backlinks just for joining. You do NOT have to pay anything, add your credit card or anything else to receive this credit – all you need is an email address to signup with.

If you want to buy more links, of course you can, and they are only $0.001 each (that’s 10 backlinks for 1 cent, or 1000 backlinks for 1 dollar). I don’t think you’ll find better value anywhere else.

All links are deliver by email usually within 1 or 2 hours after promoting your campaign to run.

I’m not sure how long these guys will be offering the one thousand free backlinks for, so I’d recommend you signup ASAP so you don’t miss out:

1. They don’t use any form of link spamming to build backlinks to their own directory. Thus all links will be looked on favorably from Google, and will in time attract a decent Page Rank for the site.
2. They don’t have a lot of categories. This means that it is easier for them to build PR for each of their categories instead of only the main page of the directory.
3. Deeplinks only require a minimum bid of $3.00 – most bidding directories require a $5.00 (or more) minimum bid for you to add deep links to your listing.
4. They allow 5 deeplinks, not just the standard 3.
5. Their site is constantly getting more backlinks which will continue to improve the pagerank and traffic through the site

I have found a tool that can create anywhere from 200 to 10,000 backlinks on forums in a very short period of time (usually within 1 hour). The site is called 247backlinks and when you signup (free BTW), you get 1000 links credited to your account. You can use these right away without ever making a payment.

You can add additional funds from your Paypal account, however the minimum is $9.00 which will provide 9,000 links.

Do NOT go for the blog comment backlinks – these are overspamed blogs and aren’t worth anything, may even harm your site. Only go for the forum links.

Ensure you include several URLS from your target site, and another tip is to run your preferred keyword through Google’s keyword generator, and select all 50 suggested keywords and use these in your keyword list on the 247backlinks site. Google will see that the keywords are related and will still carry significant link juice. Better yet, the forum post will include a random keyword for the forum topic, and a different random keyword for the backlink itself.

Once you’ve got your links, create a Basic account at linklicious.me at $14.95 per month. You can then have all your your newly create links indexed at whatever pace you like (I go for 100 links per day per site personally). If you don’t perform this last step, Google will take forever to find your links – but maybe that’s what you want?.

Word of warning – this method can get you sandboxed or even cause issues with your host if abused, so be sensible, start slow and you’ll be amazed at the results you achieve!

So why even use it this type of bank?

First of all, ease of access. We’re online all the time, why not run our checking accounts, our mortgage, our investments while we’re surfing the Web? They also offer customer service via phone or mail if that’s your choice.

Secondly, all the choices they offer: Savings, Home Loans, Investing, Business Savings, and Retirement. Basically all of these assets ING offers with no fees, a competitive interest rate, and easy to use online forms so you can do almost everything yourself.

The website is easy to navigate and all you need to get started in an outside account to link your ING account to. This has been a great way to save for many people for two reasons: you can put your money where you can’t see it unless you’re online and it takes 1-2 days to get your money OUT of ING so it makes you think twice about transferring.

Customer service has alwasys been top notch, with answered emails and phone calls within hours, not days.

If only physical banks were this efficient!

Amdahl recently became affiliated with Audigy Group, which is a huge accomplishment. I went to visit them a couple weeks ago to entertain the notion of hearing aids (I’m 33 years old and only have lost 18% of my hearing which is significant). Immediately upon walking in their office, I felt comfortable and at ease. The lobby is very nicely laid out with the option of cookies and coffee set up in an attractive array. The doctor and front desk receptionist were both impeccable in their manners. They spoke loudly and clearly and included the person I brought with me in the conversation.

The cost for hearing aids of course is extremely high, but after hearing my concerns, they looked into getting me a (cleaned up, non-gross) demo pair for a cheaper price. They seemed to want me to hear better no matter what, even if it meant taking a pay cut for themselves.

There are so many different kinds of hearing aids on the market today, but Amdahl/Audigy offer a private-label brand which is supposed to be top of the line. Amdahl spent a lot of time and money researching many different brands and decided on the AGX brand. Like I said, expensive but they offer a 3-year warranty included in the price, checkups anytime, and batteries for three years. plus one year interest free financing. 

After having all my questions answered and feeling very confident about the path they were suggesting, they let me try on a demo pair they had in the office. The difference was indescribable and they were just a non-fitted demo pair.

I know this medical expense isn’t for everyone, but after working with the Amdahl/Audigy Group, I’m confident and satisfied with the service they offer.

Each time you clean out your toilet, you might add in a bowl freshener that sustains the life of your scrubbing. But did you know it can decrease the life of your toilet bowl? Over time, it can eat away at non-porcelain fixtures simply from the exposure of the toilet bowl cleaning chemicals.

So what’s a concerned consumer to do? Not clean? Use less cleaners? That hardly seems effective.

Normally I don’t endorse direct-sale products, but one I’ve tried and liked it a lot. It’s called Norwex and they sell cleaning supplies that only use water. Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? I mean, how can you really get a deep clean without using cleaners?

The answer is microfiber and silver. Microfiber is about the size of a split hair. A hair split multiple times. The addition of silver thread woven into the microfiber locks in, holds, and kills any bacteria it picks up. If it sounds too good to be true, here is an actual testimonial that I witnessed first hand.

The Norwex sales rep took a piece of raw chicken and rubbed it on a countertop. She took a salmonella testing swab, rubbed it on the chicken-stained surface, and the indicator clearly showed there was bacteria. A lot of it. Then, she takes Norwex’s simple antibacterial cloth, moistens it with water, and wipes the spot where the chicken was rubbed down. Finally she takes another testing swab, rubs it over the area again, and beleive it or not, there was no trace of salmonella or bacteria. Just from using water and the microfiber cloth.

The cost is reasonable. I got a pack of four mini cloths for $10 and the bigger ones are $15. Of course that’s just the ti

So if you can use it on countertops, tables, cutting boards, floors, and even carpet stains, it’s safe to say that your home will be safer and cleaner in no time.

Scentsy is company that direct sells items such as ceramic warmers, special scented wax, and other scented products. Basically a flameless candle, it uses the heat of a special light bulb to melt Scentsy wax in a special warmer, therefore aroma-tizing the room.

Of course, being guilted into something the first thought in my mind was: what is the cheapest thing I can get away with buying? Well, the wax and the special warmers are sold separately, so it’s not possible to just buy the wax. The cheapest warmer was a $20 wall plug-in, and the cheapest wax I could buy was $5. So $25 to make my house smell nice. And to help my friend by buying it. I grudgingly handed over my money and waited for my order to arrive.

It did arrive a couple weeks later and was delivered by said friend. I plugged it in with a block of wax placed in the warming tray. It did smell nice and it IS a safer alternative to burning candles, but was it worth $25? Not really. I have some essential oils that smell better and with a diffuser, seem to cover a larger area in my house.

After I received my order, a different friend told me that you can’t use regular mini bulbs in the warmer either, you need to buy special Scentsy bulbs. Yes, they last a long time, but it’s just another accessory to keep buying. However, I also learned that Walmart sells similar scented wax blocks to use in the Scentsy warmers. Apparently they aren’t as strongly scented as the Scentsy wax, but if they’re half the price for double the product, it makes sense.

So the bottom line is that the Scentsy product line is great. If you have some extra money to burn. But if you’re watching your budget, get a candle.

TES (Transfer Evaluation System) is a product of CollegeSource and they work in sync to offer an easy way to review transfer of credit for post secondary systems. The process is quite simple and very useful for Registrars and Academic Coordinators.

First, you log in using a user name and password set up for you. There is a fee involved which is adjustable for each user. Most of the time, the college or university will pick up the tab for this.

After logging in you are given choices. You can research a specific course by typing in the college it is taught at, send course descriptions to faculty or staff for review, find course equivalencies across colleges, or manage the account and profile of TES.

The amount of information available at your fingertips is astronomical. For example, let’s say you took a course at Concordia University in Austin, Texas in 1994. Now you’re looking at attending Oregon Coast Community College and they won’t accept your classes unless you’re able to provide them with a course description for your Purchasing Management class. TES would be able to provide them with the following, specifically dated to 1994, description along with additional credit and pre-requisite information:

Now Oregon Coast Community College can use this information to make their transfer credit decision and you didn’t have to unearth your catalog from 17 years ago.

Obviously there is a very specific market for this website, but it’s also a useful, time-saving tool if purchased. If you work in any sector of education, it’s definitely something to look into.

tes.collegesource.org

It was a fun movie, not as good as Cars part one, but still a happy ride. There were a few things that disturbed me though, or just felt “off”. Here are my reasons:

1. The movie is more about Tow Mater than Lightening McQueen. Mater always seemed to be more of a sidekick than a leading man, and I missed McQueen’s/Owen Wilson’s lazy drawl.
2. There is a scene (kind of a spoiler alert) where the bad cars are quasi-torturing a spy car. They don’t show it except through a reflection off a computer in the movie, but the bad guys blow the spy up, essentially “killing” him. This seemed a little high brow for a G-rated movie.
3. There were a lot of high speed races, cars being blown up, and nail biting scenes that even had ME at the edge of my seat. My kids were mesmerized but I couldn’t help but wonder what this is setting them up for in the future. Will they crave more violence or over the top graphics more than a fun little movie like Bambi?

I know, I know. I’m probably overreacting. But little things like this slowly whet a child’s appetite for more. I guess I was just surprised Pixar would use that type of imagery in their movie. Just like the sinister characters in Toy Story 3 (Big Baby freaked me out!) it’s a little more than I feel comfortable showing my young kids.

Obviously, I’m in the minority here as Cars 2 has earned almost $150,000,000 so far. And the move IS funny; Mater may not be a leading character in my book but he’s got some great one-liners to pull him through. So next time I might go screen a movie (get it?) before I let my kids go watch it. Just to be safe.