A couple of weeks ago, I was discussing with my friend how best to make sure that my family could continue to earn from my online money making activities, or at least draw the last of my payment should I die suddenly.

You know, I have a friend who died a couple of years ago and he was not even 40 years old. Last month, another friend of mine has been diagnosed with cancer and he is only a couple of years older than I am. These episodes scare me and make me think that life is very vulnerable indeed.

Although I am not the breadwinner of the family, I still am responsible for the major part of their daily expenses. I can’t help but wonder how they could support themselves in the event of my sudden death.

I know that most people don’t think about death, let alone talk about it but with the tragic experiences of friends, I couldn’t help but make some plans of this eventuality.

My friend told me that one good way is life insurance. Well, I don’t know much about it or the kind of policy that would be suitable for my needs. I understand that there are different rates too. I have been reading up USA Life Insurance, a very resourceful site that helps us find the most suitable policy with the best rates to fit our budget.

What I always fear about committing myself to a new insurance policy is the inability to continue paying my premium sometime in the future, that’s why I need to really find one that would not feel like a financial burden to me.

I have been using AVG Anti-Virus (Free) for the longest time in all my systems. Anyway, since yesterday, after a regular update, I don’t know what happened to this copy of AVG Anti-Virus (Free) that I am using on my laptop, that I keep getting the pop up notification at the bottom of my screen, near the system tray.

I know that I am able to turn off this notification in the Settings panel, which I have checked, double checked and even triple checked. I have even restarted my laptop since the multiple checks but I am still getting these notifications of this or that suspicious cookie from websites that I know are legitimate, that I have been accessing all these while.

I find this notification totally distracting but the thing is, it’s only the laptop that is having this issue and not my other computer systems.

If you have updated AVG Anti-Virus (Free) these past couple of days, are you facing this problem as well? If you did, how did you disable this notification?

Running an online store where my primary mode of communication and marketing is by email and social networking, I rarely have the opportunity to meet my customers face to face. I find that although we may seem like we are only separated by the computer screen no matter which part of the world we are located in, there are many things that I do not know about them and their shopping and surfing habits. I do get a glimpse of their lives through Facebook, though.

I was reading through the Transpromo Live blog and a lot of the articles there bring home the point to Drive ROI, Know your customers! This would ultimately improve our sales volume and profit, of course.

Just the other day, I wrote a post about junk mail and that it is estimated that each inbox saw an increase of 25% spam mail in 2008. I feel that this is because of the bad economy and that there are still many people entertaining spam mail.

Lee Gallagher of Tanspromo Live has a few posts up that explores the relation and impact between email/junk mail and marketing. If you have been looking for a marketing breakthrough, read these posts.

On side note, I find the blog of Transpromo Live extremely difficult to navigate. I don’t normally say this but really, it does not help that many links turned up with “Sorry. 404 Page Not Found”.

My mother has been nagging me to check on the internet for ways to keep our home more secure. If you have been reading my blog, you would remember that our house was almost broken into three times over the past few years. Although the burglars did not manage to come into our home, thank God, they did shatter our sense of security. Imagine not enjoying that in your own home.

Since then, my parents have taken various measures to keep our home secure. We have installed CCTV, home alarm system and installed a couple of fire-proof Home Safes to keep our valuables; not only jewelries and heirlooms but also other official documents like passports, birth certificates and college degrees of household members.

Home safes are also great for keeping computer data like external hard disks, pendrives and memory cards or just simple things like photo albums. I don’t know how many people do this at home.

Many people think that safes are just for the office, or perhaps they have underestimated the importance of home security, but there are also home safes of various sizes, designs and budget that are more suitable for home use. In fact, I think that a home safe should be standard in every home, regardless of the value of the house.

A couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to view a show house in a new residential housing development. It was quite a distance from where I am but since it’s a new place with innovative architecture, I thought that I should go and see what it was all about.

The kind of houses that were built is what we know as “town houses”. They are three-storied homes which are great for larger families, or families which have the intention to rent out one floor or something like that.

Although I think that this would make a great investment, seeing that the current economy isn’t good, hence the selling price for these homes is rather low for three stories, I think that what they lack are Stair Lifts. I think that if the developer had the foresight to install stair lifts to each home, they would be more appealing.

Of course, it is not too late for new homeowners to install one for greater accessibility for residents of the house, and offer mobility to children and older adults living in the house that may have difficulty climbing the stairs or may have suffered a temporary disability to the leg.

I think that a homeowner has to be far-sighted in making his home friendlier to people of all physical conditions.

Amidst the pink slip mayhem over the past six months, Fortune, like the magazine does yearly, has commissioned San Francisco’s Great Place to Work Institute to find out which are the top 100 companies to work for in 2009.

San Francisco’s Great Place to Work Institute surveyed over 80,000 employees from 353 American companies to come up with the list which will be published in the February 2009 edition of Fortune magazine.

Below are the top ten best companies to work for in 2009.
1. NetApp
2. Edward Jones
3. Boston Consulting
4. Google
5. Wegmans Food Markets
6. Cisco Systems
7. Genentech Inc.
8. Methodist Hospital System
9. Goldman Sachs
10. Nugget Market

The problem right now for most employees is not how well the company treats them but how possible it is to be laid off within the next one to two years.

My friend, Will, an engineer with a leading semi-conductor plant, told me that he just spent the whole morning looking for electronic components which he has been assigned to source for beginning 2009. This was his colleague’s task previously but his colleague was let go by the company under VSS scheme last month.

Will was told that he will be taking over this task temporarily but at this point, he thinks that his company will not be in the position to fill posts that had been vacated which means that Will has to do this for quite a while longer!

Luckily for Will, I previously came upon a company, 1-Source Electronic Components, that acts like a one-stop electronic component sourcing company. Will doesn’t have to visit every website of electronic component manufacturers but could instead just check with 1-Source to see if they have what his company needs.

Even if 1-Source does not have the particular component yet, they would be able to make connections with their contacts to source for Will’s requirements, in a hassle-free, time and cost saving manner and at a most reasonable price as well.

I think 1-Source Electronic Components is providing an excellent service for people in Will’s position. He should be very happy to know that his work load is drastically reduced!