Studies in the Capital of Golf: I never did play
Sep 1 at 3:03pm by ObverseView
I went to school in St. Andrews in Scotland. I majored in Greek of the Classical kind, and while it is true that I wasn’t the most hardworking of the students in class, I learned a profound amount from my experience there.
St. Andrews was famous as the former capital of Scotland for a number of things: oldest university in Scotland, RAF Leuchars nearby, but wherever you went in St. Andrews, you were never far away from its number one export: golf.
There is the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, the British Open, and at least four more 18 hole golf courses in the town of little more than 14,000 inhabitants and 8,000 students (estimates).
Unfortunately, while I did indulge in a number of the wonderful student activities, including Raisin Monday, pier walks (now not possible), *ahem*, I never did manage to pick up any Nike golf clubs or any other kind of golf club! I will never know why.
It’s not that I didn’t try other sports: aerobics, hill walking, cycling, and so on. It just never appealed to me. Kind of like putting me in front of a pile of delicious food then telling me I have to eat it. I lose my appetite quickly.
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Subscribe to Obblogatory via Email
Apr 11 at 12:12am by ObverseView
Yes, simply fill out this form, and you can updates and vignettes on life in your mailbox! Wow! We never spam, and we don’t sell our lists, so be assured: we will only use your email to deliver THIS newsletter! 
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Back on Blogging
Jan 21 at 10:10pm by ObverseView
I’ve had quite a struggle accessing my newest website these past few days, so I’d like to apologize to my readers of all sites about this, as it’s taken quite a few LONG emails to get to the point where something has to be done.
I’m not confident the problem is fixed yet either, but now that I made a little fuss about it, I know something will be done. $400 is a lot of money to me for hosting when I can’t access the b****y websites!
Anyway, on we go here!
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Home Loans: How do companies find responsible borrowers?
Nov 2 at 11:11am by ObverseView
A lot of homeowners have found themselves in really bad trouble by taking out excessive home loans in the United States. And this is part of the problem which led up to the financial crisis. Why? Because lenders forgot the basic principals of lending when they could write off risky loans by passing them off as investment grade materials on the market.
However, the one aspect of this story that has been overlooked is that the homeowners themselves were the ones who shared in the party. They were the ones who signed the papers in the first place, then took out excessive loans based on the premise that the party would continue for the ‘foreseeable future’.
As we are all aware, that did not happen. So let’s suppose that you are a responsible lender. What can you do to educate, inform and manage homeowners who want to borrow home loans sensibly? I’ve got three practical ways that GetSmart helps to homeowners and future homeowners.
Get out your calculators!
First, prospective clients need calculators that can help them work out the details of the loans they are talking about. And, clients need two different kinds of calculators: Type 1 that is a simple calculator; Type 2 offers additional options, including variable APR, insurance, taxes, etc.
It’s difficult to imagine a financial site without at least Type 1 calculators, these days. But type 2 calculators help customers make much clearer calculations that include more variables than the back of the envelope type calculators you’d typically find.
Credit Report
While US customers are entitled to a free credit check, providing potential customers with a credit checking and monitoring service should be a good move because customers can first check if they have any outstanding credit issues that might affect the pricing of their loan or mortgage.
Though this is a monthly subscription of $14.95, it might offer some peace of mind to customers who are worried about their credit history, those who are victims of ID theft, and those looking to improve their credit scores. Be aware, though they offer a free report, it’s free because it’s an introductory offer, and the subsequent months will generate a charge of $14.95.
Resources Center
Educating your customers in your products is absolutely essential. Why? Because better informed customers will be able to take advantage of the products and services you offer. This means not only will you generate more money as a business, but your customers will be better placed to evaluate your selling points, and to discover why they should do business with you.
In GetSmart’s case, there is a plethora of articles on the site, all neatly organised. The articles are well laid out, and they examine a range of issues from Piggyback Loans, Lock-ins, ARMs, Discounting, etc. In addition, the articles seem to be unique and well-written. They do not appear to be articles taken from every day article sites.
What is most interesting though, most pages on the site offer a reasonable number of links to other articles, a few additional resources and links, and a call to action. In fact, they try four different ways to hook potential customers. Let’s hope that they plan to work their mailing lists effectively with all the traffic they are likely to get.
Data Feeds
The only downside is that you don’t get any ‘real’ information to play with, as you almost certainly need to submit an application to get any hard statistics on your loan. It’s also difficult to find a list of actual rate offers anywhere on the site, unlike some financial sites. That would be my one suggestion: get a data feed that can pull actual data to give visitors some feel of what is available.
Nicely Done
Overall, this site is nicely laid out, has the feel of an authentic loan retailer, and the server is responsive to page requests. In addition, I haven’t been able to bring up a link that doesn’t work; unlike some other financial sites I’ve reviewed. They do offer other credit repair services, identity protection, insurance products, and much more. So it’s certainly worth checking out.
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Spam: zero – Satisfaction 100%
Sep 20 at 1:01pm by ObverseView
With the recent changes to my blog here, I finally figured out how to get zero spam. The recipe is quite simple:
1. Close posts from comments from more than a few weeks ago. Close them all. Nothing to spam. See "Settings" and "Discussion"
2. Set both "Comment author must fill out name and e-mail" and "Users must be registered and logged in to comment". These settings are in "Settings" and "Discussion". Check them.
3. If you want comments, enable registration in "Settings" and "General" then check "Anyone can register". Of course, you can uncheck it, too.
4. Set up the plugin "Register Plus" and use the captcha settings.
Then you don’t need Akismet or any other anti-spam plugins, if your blog isn’t on the hitlist of spammers. It should be fine.
I have been pretty aggressive on my spam settings, but I’ve had enough. On this blog, I’m one comment away from turning off comments altogether. And many of the plugins I used to use are just too much work or don’t work well: Spam Karma II, Intense Debate, Akismet…
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Registration for Commenting: Policy Change
Aug 19 at 11:11am by ObverseView
I’m fed up of all the spam and crap that my blog attracts, to that end, I’ve ended my comments-for-all policy and readers have now got to register a password to place comments on this blog.
Sorry that I have to do this, but I’m really getting tired of the never-ending spam from losers who think that spamming blogs is the best way to get legitimate traffic.
I’m keeping the posts open, but like a growing body of bloggers, restricting comments to those who bother to register.
I apologize profusely to those who regularly visit this blog, but if you saw some of the nasty spam I had to moderate (plugins don’t always work as well as effective moderation), you would think twice, too.
Comment spam isn’t effectively moderated by Akismet, and WP-Ban just eliminates readers unnecessarily.
Best Wishes
Kenneth
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Self-Cleaning With Ho’oponopono 2
Jul 7 at 11:11am by ObverseView
A friend send me this lovely video. So I’m sharing it with you. Enjoy.
In our hectic days, a few moments peace, calm and self-reflection can help restore our sense of humanity.
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What happened to my posts?
May 5 at 12:12pm by ObverseView
I just wrote two short posts for this blog, and they’ve both disappeared. Wow! I can’t find them anywhere.
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Obblogatory Does Twitter
May 3 at 11:11am by ObverseView
We’ve gone Twitter Style! Let’s see how it looks after a couple of days… I’ve already noted that the post titles are missing! What else?
Server Issues: largely resolved
Apr 25 at 11:11am by ObverseView
The server issues for the last couple of days seem to have been resolved successfully. I’m still not sure why it occurred but was informed that one of my sites was oddly busy. I’m not sure why that would be because it’s not a particularly active site.
I have checked several times to verify the site is still operating and it is. So the problem hasn’t really returned. But it is weird. I wonder if there are signs in the logs. So I’ll be going there to check on traffic for the past 48 hours.
Weird, though.
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