News Updates from InvestorBlogger – EntreCard, Investing, Presidents and Last.fm

It’s been a really long time since I did anything newsy on this blog. I’ve posted “recent posts” lists, but nothing newsy. So it’s today.

Do check out my post on how to make a newsletter, my updated download page, and the language of spending money .

Trades in my account: Trading for Dividends!

I recently noted FYI my own stock holdings. I’ve recently added to my own holdings by purchasing some shares in GAIN which has an attractive dividend. I also had a look at Bank of America, picking up some there. I’ve been looking at banking stocks for a while, and wondering if the worst is past or not. It’s impossible to tell. But there were a number of factors that I liked in BAC: it’s not the only bank I’ve looked at, I’m also looking at Citibank, and RBS and, of course, HSBC in Asia. Banking stocks are somewhat undervalued at the moment, and will come back in price. A friend was suggesting looking at picking up Citibank and AIG shares… Both of these recently took hits.

EntreCards: New Features, New Blogs and Free Credits!

I’ve been an EntreCard User for quite a few months, but the recent news about EntreCard has been quite interesting. Overall, in the two months since I started using EntreCard has become my second largest source of referral traffic. They aren’t always the best quality traffic clocking in an average of little over 60 seconds on the site! But that may be that my site isn’t well optimized yet, esp. for drive-by traffic like that!

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Anyway, EntreCard are now allowing users to add a blog to their pre-existing account. I’ve already added an extra account, and I’ve funded it with some credits, too. It’s quite easy to do. They’ve also announced a new e-book that explains what EntreCard’s all about. And they’re promoting it by giving away 2000 free credits on their EC Blog ! I’m already in, as you’ve noted!

New President in Taiwan: Ma Ying-Jeou is the 12th president of the Republic of China

Two months after the presidential election in Taiwan, the new president was sworn in today. You can check the news yourself. Of course, the local stock markets are down on selling the news. You can read the Taipei Times article on his inauguration day nerves. He doesn’t mix metaphors very well: but I can imagine that’s just nerves.

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Ma described his feeling yesterday as “treading on thin ice and standing on the edge of an abyss.”

Last.FM – How are you discovering music these days?

It’s not often the words on InvestorBlogger prove right, and I’m not really one to tell people that “I told you so!” But for those of you reading last year’s blog post on the changes at Pandora.

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I have been following Last.FM for sometime, but hadn’t realized how much it had grown in scale, scope and funding. While it doesn’t have some of the finesse of Pandora, it is a very good social music discovery service, one that I’m enjoying very much. I’m glad that I will be able to add that to my online listening site. It also has great links to smaller CD retailers who are happy to serve those outside traditional continental US. While the founder of Pandora regretted that closing his sites meant cutting off loyal listeners (as I was).

The letter seemed to suggest that international listeners were listening illegally – well, it’s not that at all. International listeners are now finding other companies that can supply music legally through Streaming Radio, Legal Downloading (from smaller retailers), sites like Last.FM, and much more. It seems that, unless the Big Four music companies and their lackeys do something soon, they will lose a generation of listeners to their music, while empowering a whole rash of local, national and international music providers who are hungry, competitive and LEGAL.

So that’s it… Comment on this post or any of my posts (they’re all open)… I’ll comment in reply and follow you back to your blog! Good Luck!

Stealing Blogs’ Content: What happened?

InvestorBlogger has been full-feed for quite some time, but last week I was astonished to find that someone was republishing the entire content. That evening I wrote both the blogger, the domain company to find out what was going on, and Google Search which was starting to show up duplicate content for my own work. This was my brief but courteous letter…

Dear Admin,

I recently found that you are republishing my content on your blog in its entirety. Since you have neither requested permission nor even contacted me about this, I must ask that you stop reproducing my content in its entirety IMMEDIATELY. You must also remove the content that is present on your blog, as this constitutes a breach of copyright. MY copyright.

You may produce 50 word summaries, if you wish. I have no problem with that, but you CANNOT reproduce my blog’s content in the way you are doing. I have already gathered evidence of this, and will press this case further if required to do so.

Yours,
Kenneth Dickson

Well, Markus wrote back and advised me:

I’m sorry I bought this address with hosting and never realised there was a blog on it. I’m truly sorry for any problems I may have caused you. It will be permanently removed. (spelling corrected).

The problem is now resolved due to the good graces of the blogger who inadvertently owned the blog after purchasing the domain from someone else. However, I also advised the hosting company through its ‘abuse@maiahost.com’ address, which turned out to be not working (very impressive, MaiaHost) and also through its support page. Less helpfully, their support suggested:

Dear Kenneth,

Can you please issue DMCA notice to us and the other website. With this we
can try to suspend him and make him clean it up.

Venetsian,
Maiahost Support

A DMCA, for what it’s worth, is a bit like opening an egg with a hammer… I thought it would be effective, but I would have preferred a quiet word with the customer first option. At least, I know what a DMCA is, and how to request one. I hope I never need it.

Feed Choices?

I’m now reconsidering my RSS feeds, and wondering whether I should let blogs (yes, blogs…!) reproduce my full feed posts including advertisements and et al., as long as the URLs are all untouched and in place. I already have a copyright notice in place… How do you handle your feeds? Have you ever been splogged?

Weekend Trips Around the North East Coast

May 2008 has been a remarkably cool month or so with only a little rain in the north of the Island. It produces wonderful weather occasionally, and yesterday was one of those days! We traveled to Jiou-Fen and The Gold Mining Area nearby. It was remarkably quite and pleasant even when we drove up the mountain roads.

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David from Taiwan Guide visited the museum on several trips, taking these pictures and these. He was my inspiration to go, so we left. Unfortunately, we were delayed quite a lot by laziness. Then we

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Taken in Keelung on the No. 2 Coastal highway, some kms south of Central Keelung. Of course, we hadn’t intended to be here at all, as we ended up taking the wrong route. To get to the area of the south of Keelung, we took the No. 1 Superhighway, and exited in Keelung City. We then followed the No. 2 all the way to the Jiou-fen exit. We had planned to take the No. 62 Expressway, but hadn’t realized that to get on that, you have to take the No. 3 Superhighway! So irony of ironies, to avoid going into the City Center, you HAVE to drive into the City Center on the No. 3, but you can avoid it. By avoiding the City Center on No. 1, you actually end up going through the City. But then we discoved this nice area on the coast, with impressive rock cliffs, low density of population and right by the sea.

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Once you find a place to park you can enter the museum property and walk along this charming roadway which I’m told was used in a movie or tv show that I have never seen: City of Sadness.

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This is the little Gold Nugget Store with real nuggets in the window. Of course, they’re not worth a lot! Each nugget has a little speckle of gold in it! Great souvenirs~!

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By then, the Museum was closed so we headed out… Next time we’ll leave earlier, make a more detailed stopover and take a bunch more pictures!