I Heart Yahoo

Watshit has recently caused a stir with their Real Estate Virtual Assistant blog post. I rarely make these sorts of posts but I had to…and those of you reading this, blogladies, preacher, eli, Jason, brad, Emma, all you guys with blogs, please spread the word about Watshit to raise online scam awareness! It’s unreal and something has to be done about it.

Even virtual real estate sites? You have got to be kidding me! I’ll be honest, I did not even know Real Estate Virtual Assistants existed till earlier today!? What on earth are they supposed to do? Find virtual farming land and sell you it (not so funny joke I know).

Watshit really opened up my eyes to a lot of its information, and I wanted to make a blog post about the things I do to avoid being scammed like that. (I have never been scammed - that’s if you exclude my teenage nephew…he’s a devil!)

• First thing I check when dealing with any company, and long before I pay for any service, I do the following.

• Check their contact details, and make sure they are legit individuals.

• Check if their company is a registered one or just an online website.

• Call them up several times to make sure they actually pick up.

•  Then I take as many email copies for record reasons.

No the most simple thing EVERYONE must do, do a quick Yahoo! Search for the service you want to purchase from said company. Add the words ‘bad’ ’scam’ ‘fraud’ and so on before and after the company name and company website url in your searches. This is a really easy and effective way of finding unsatisfied clients or scam reports like those on Watshit.com.

I know this is not the most detailed blog post about this issue, but I really wish from the bottom of my heart, that something is done about these online scammers. Stricter penalties online, something harsh to scare them a little! I suggest the death penalty but then again a lot of you wont agree with me, oh well.

Just be careful when dealing with people online, EVERYONE is a potential scammer. It’s that simple.

There are several blogs I follow, from design blogs to marketing ones to absolutely useless ones!

One I follow is for the spletni oblikovalec (Slovenian designer - www.sloveniandesigner.com), moni I think his name is, this guy is creative and I love his style. He’s also one of those oblikovalec spletnih (web designers) that helps people out for free, which in my books, is an auto plus! kudos to him!

The Blog Ladies I keep in my bookmarks and check out from time to time, mainly because they just prove that there are hot female Blogger’s/SEO’s online! Here’s a backlink leading you guys away from my blog, to theirs, because they rock. It’s called mutual respect God damn it!

Michael Kane’s blogs! Yes I read my own blogs! So what? Well I read my Website marketing blog more so than my personal blogs, then again that’s still not normal i’m sure.

There are a couple more, some recent ones like Preachers Pen blog recently, Chris has a great writing style driving me to read his posts every now and again.

How can I forget my buddy  The Blackhat who’s posts intrigue and amuse me. He knows as well as I do, he’s mostly full of crap, but I love him - in a manly none gay way (mainly because we pretty much hate the same people and therefor see eye to eye). His blog is informative as well as eye opening and should be a bookmarked site for all webmasters.

Who else? There’s a few more people but i’m out of time, need to run and get something done! That’s it, later

Yes, there are tons out there but so few high quality badge like/icon like yahoo smilies. However, here’s a pack that will just about make anyone drool. Cutest yellow Yahoo Smilies EVER! Oh and guess what, they’re unique so only a handful of people online today have them! You feel special now don’t ya?

Download the Yahoo Smilies pack here.

If that was not enough, here are some Yahoo related buttons, banners and icons I thought you guys might be interested in, be it for your rss feeds, your bookmarking, yahoo 360 accounts or whatever, i’m sure you’ll find a use for them. Enjoy!

Download Yahoo Icon and Button pack here.

Ok so I was thinking (really I was…) about how PC and Mac have like, those 2 mascots. You know, the fat old man who seems to be having a middle aged crisis and the flip flop wearing dude who’s definitely always high on something. Well why doesn’t Yahoo have one? heh.

Ok so Yahoo is way to cool to have a middle aged man or a pot head as a mascot, but what about a STICKMAN! Yes, a stickman, one with personality, one so adorable he will put those two retards to shame. (Note i’m talking about the mascots not the companies lol, I own both a PC and a Mac so I’m not hating, don’t sue me damn it)

So stickman it is…

I don’t know what it is about this little guy that just makes me go, awww…am I right? Yes of course I am. Oh and by the way, have I mentioned how much I love Yahoo? I really do =-)

Yahoo is my love affair, it’s what I wake up for every morning, rolling out of my bed, hopping across my bedroom clumsily only to crash behind my desk and turn on my laptop to get my morning dose of caffeine, yahoofeine? You get what I mean. Why all this raw love towards yahoo? It’s always been there when I needed it most, all the way through high school, helping me with my college assignments and then only to assist me further in my MBA research, all the while asking for nothing in return. If it was not for Yahoo I would be stuck with some second class excuse of a search engine to blindly dig my way around.

So why this site?

Now, just to address one main point, this blog is plain, it’s simple, it’s very white, because I want it to be this way. I like white, I like simplicity and if you have a problem with my ‘dull’ blog design, then I’m sorry but this is the way it shall remain. If you like me less now, I’m ok with that.

A little about me? ok then.

For those that are still reading, then run for your life as I’m about to share a little personal information about who I am. My name is Michael, I’m a…let me think, Graphic Designer (Not a professional) and a Writer (I can barely spell without using spell check), I’m modest which is obvious so far I’m sure and I love sushi. I’m a 20 something year old that lives wherever the road takes me, most likely you’ll find me somewhere in the heart of Detroit City, MI.