I havn't updated my column in a few weeks now so i thought a update would be welcome. :) Alots been happening in the last few weeks with exams and site stuff. We now have a auction section on the site for selling and buying items online, and the site awards came to there end - thanks to everyone who helped organise that and took part in it. Well done to all the winners your certificates are on there way!! In other news ImAFish Big Brother is getting off to a rather slow start which is a bit of a shame, expect the pace to pick up a bit in the next few days ( i hope).
Those of you who use the service Audiogalaxy (available from audiogalaxy.com) will have had a shock trying to download music over the last few days as allmost all tracks have been blocked. This is because of a court ruleing meaning that all tracks have to be blocked on the service unless unblocked by audiogalaxy, by the record companies or authors permission. It looks like audiogalaxys service is going the way of napster as not being able to download top tracks will put a lot of users off. This leaves basically 2 main music download services left, sharman networks (kazaa) and the gnutella network (limewire, gnucleus, bearshare, morpheus etc). In my own view i would have to say that i think that kazaa will be the next to go, they are allready in a large courtcase with the record industries. The future for download programs is defintly uncertain.
While we're talking about music, i thought i would mention internet radio. For those of you who dont know about internet radio its basically the same as normal radio apart from you listen to it online through winamp or what ever other program u use for listening to music, the general idea is that if you have a better connection you can listen to better quality streams. As i only have a 56k modem i have to go for the worse quality streams, however it is still perfectly listenable. Anyway the reason i bring this up in my column is that later today (being june 20th) a law will be passed as to wether the radio stations should have to pay for each listeners, this would be devastating if so as many people listen to internet radio stations as it is free with no adverts. Many smaller stations would be put out of business and would have to stop broadcasting. For more information visit Digitiallyimported.com
Anyway until next time - Pete
It's been over a year since my last trip abroad to Hong Kong and this time we decided to fly West to America! I was at school when I last went to the USA with my family and I was keen to go back to where we started that holiday - Los Angeles. I would love to say that it was the glitz and glamor that attracted me back however it was simply cheap flights and accommodation.
The flight over was rough. Only joking - this is a set from War of the World at Universal Studios.
Day 1
After a good night sleep and recovering from the flight we headed to pick up the car. We didn't know what car to expect and joked about getting something smug such as a Toyota Prius - this is what we were given. I hadn't driven an automatic car before let alone on the other side of the road however it was easy to pick up and begs the question as to why we don't all have automatic cars in the UK!
We headed straight to Hollywood, a 40min drive from LAX along roads twice as wide as what we are used to in the UK.
The Hollywood sign!
The Griffith Observatory is a great museum dedicated to space. I loved how you could weigh yourself on each planet however everything was in Imperial measurements which drove me crazy!
Amazing views over LA - I'm not sure if the haze is the weather or just smog (perhaps smug from all the hybrids).
We headed back into Hollywood to see the Kodak Theater and walk of the stars.
Day 2
On the second day we decided to visit one of LA's many theme parks, we were too old for Disney so visited Universal Studios.(When I say we are too old for Disney I mean it was a rip off to get in).
The park wasn't too busy so we managed to ride Jurassic Park about five times - I love water rides.
The studio tour took us down Wysteria Lane from Desperate Housewives - was well worth doing.
Day 3
On the third day we drove to Santa Monica to go shopping.
There is not a great deal to Photograph in Santa Monica - so here is a sign with a red light and a taxi.
We went to see the new Star Trek film whilst here - it was awesome. Its a shame that in the UK people don't scream, cheer and clap to films, makes the whole experience more exciting.
Day 4
We loved Universal Studios so much that we decided to go back again. Its clear from Universal Studios that everyone in the film industry loves everyone else, the directors love the cast, the cast love the crew who love the props people who love the wardrobe people. I'm glad we spent the second day here but it was enough ass licking for one holiday.
We sat in the 'soak' zone for the water world show thinking we would just get splashed - we were wrong. It was one of the best live shows I had seen.
I lost count how many times we rode Jurassic Park on the second day.
Day 5
If Universal Studios is for film lovers, Disney for kids then Six Flags is for crazy people who love big rides. Some of the rides such as X2 were insane, fortunately there were plenty of water rides and almost no queues.
Count the Rollercoasters!
Day 6, 7, 8
Last time I came to the US I was too young to drink or gamble (I might have been able to buy a gun however) so we took a trip to Las Vegas. The five hour drive from LA went smoothly, especially with the cruise control set along the straight highways.
We stayed in the same hotel that I did when I came last time - Circus Circus, mainly because the rooms were only £16 per night!
Since I'd been driving so much for the rest of the holiday I'd not had a drink since the plane. You have to be 21 to drink in most parts of the US - it would suck to be a student there!
Only in Vegas would they build the Eiffel Tower!
Vegas is such as great place for photography - and erm gambling!
The lake in front of the Bellagio
The Bellagio hotel/casino.
The water show in front of the Bellagio is quite impressive.
Day 9
The ninth day consisted of two long flights home.
It was the next day before we landed back in Manchester.
I really enjoyed my stay in America and can't wait to go back again. Really want to visit the East coast or San Francisco.
This article is going to look at how you can make money on the Internet using a cash back website and online gambling. The site Quidco.com is not affiliated with ImAFish in any way and your personal experiences may not reflect that of mine.
Gambling is one of Britain’s favourite pass times as well as being a lucrative business. It’s not uncommon to hear in the news how gambling has ruined peoples lives or is a sin. The truth is that if done carefully gambling on the Internet can make you some cash as well as being a lot of fun. Don’t expect millions but a few hundred £££ or thousand isn’t too hard to achieve.
The website Quidco.com is a cash back website; basically you buy your goods or services by clicking a link to their site through Quidco. For example I want to buy a DVD, I find the DVD on play.com, go to Quidco, click the play.com link, buy my DVD then earn 2% back. This may not sound much but I recently brought a laptop off Dell through Quidco earning me almost £20 back, if you do it for everything you buy it will soon mount up. 
Quidco has thousands of affiliates including insurance, supermarkets, holidays and mobile services. The reason companies make cash back available to Quidco is because it comes from their marketing budget. Companies know that they have to spend a certain amount per customer to attract them in, so one way to attract new customers is to offer incentives through sites like Quidco.The real money making through Quidco is done through online gambling sites.
A lot of the Gambling offers will give you between £10 - £70 in cash back if you spend and gamble a certain amount (normally between £5 - £20), so instantly you have made the difference in profit. They can do this because getting you signed up on their website is much more important than your initial spend, they have the idea that once you are signed up (and maybe win) that you will go back again and spend more money.
The trick here is to have the discipline not too! Sign up to the website, wager the required amount (hopefully make some money) then withdraw it into your account. The cash back might not sound much for signing up but once you have done a few of these offers they soon mount up. (The offers change all the time the best I got was £70 for signing up and spending £10). Also if you wager your money on simple games such as roulette the chances are that you will be able to win some money back.So to recap, you click a link through Quidco, wager the required amount (say £10) then get cash back (say £20) instantly making a profit (£10 in this example). While you wager that required amount (our £10) you have a chance of making more money (as you are gambling it on games like roulette or bingo).A good site to start off with is Cyberslotz.
1. Sign up to Quidco.
2. Search for Cyberslotz (£20 cash back) in Quidco.
3. Sign up then deposit £5.
4. Immediately withdraw that £5 as you are given a £5 bonus. So you have got your £20 in cash back then have got £5 to play with (you can’t withdraw this bonus).
5. Now play any game you fancy, I recommend roulette as it’s easy to learn and quite easy to win on.
6. Hopefully you will win and will be able to withdraw more money.It will probably have taken you 20-30mins to do this but hopefully you have had some fun and made a bit of money in cash back. Now go back to Quidco and look under sports and leisure for other online gambling sites to sign up and make some money with. The more you sign up to and gamble with the more you are likely to win higher amounts on.
Cash back will often take 2-3 months to come through as Quidco has to get this money off the website and put it into your account. Payments are then made monthly into a PayPal account (so you need to sign up with PayPal too).From my personal experience I have made a couple hundred £££ in cash back then a further few hundred £££ from winning on online gambling sites. I seem to be especially lucky with bingo and it’s always good fun.
Remember if you win a bit of money just withdraw it, these sites are designed so that the chances of you making any real money are really low. It’s like playing the lottery, the actual chances of you getting the jackpot is so small yet still millions of people play it every week.With most of these sites once you deposit £5 or £10 you are making this back in cash back so you’re not actually playing with your own money. It’s a very easy way to make money online and have a bit of fun in the process.Post below any questions or how much you have made (pls dontate me a propotion of the winnings!)
If you like this article you can also make good money through Adsense.Read part 2 of this article >>
Holy crap-- somebody just went and TORE MY FREAKING USB CABLE IN HALF while it was still attached to my laptop!!! (No-- wait-- sorry. That's just my USB drive.)
Our recent article - 21 Ways To Develop Cancer has caused quite a stir with a number of sceptics and people with first hand experience with electro magnetic radiation (EMR). A number of comments suggested we talk about how to avoid EMR where possible. Certain people are more sensitive to EMR than others, in a similar sort of way to how pollen effects only certain people. The effects of EMR can be as simple as headaches to life threatening cancer. It is impossible to cut out EMR from our daily lives however we can minimise our exposure to it, with the help from Safe Living Technologies and the guest writer of the previous article - Martin Weatherall I have compiled this list of advice to minimise exposure.
- Avoid living near a mobile phone masts or radio/TV transmitters.
- Avoid using cordless phones, especially DECT phones as these transmit radiation even when not in use.
- Avoid using wireless baby monitors or wireless security systems, where possible hard wire them in.
- Where possible do not use wireless routers - use CAT5 cable.
- Where possible use your mobile phone on hands free but without a Bluetooth headset. Aviod using a mobile phone in your car without an external antenna as the radio waves will be reflected back at you from the metal chassis. If your phone has poor signal in the car an external antenna should improve your call quality too.
- Only use a mobile phone or cordless phone for emergency calls only, use a corded phone for all regular conversations. Avoid using a mobile phone if pregnant and do not allow a child under 16 to use a mobile phone at all.
- Try not to keep your mobile phone in the same pocket all the time, if possible keep it away from the body in a bag or on a desk. Otherwise rotate it around the body.
- Avoid using the Microwave, it doesn't do anything good for your food anyway and will flood adjacent rooms with radiation.
- Minimise the number of electronic devices around your bed, this can include lights, alarm clocks, telephones, extension cords and electric blankets. Battery operated devices such as an alarm clock are good replacements.
- Make sure you don't sleep near your fuse box or distribution box.
- Avoid living near or under high voltage power lines. The same goes for electric sub-stations and transformers.
- Avoid all unnecessary exposure to x-rays and CT scans.
- Drive cars that have low electro magnetic fields.
- Make sure electronic devices are grounded (this is not such a problem in the UK as we have three pronged plugs unlike the rest of Europe and America).
- Avoid using a dimmer switch in the house as these emit high magnetic fields and cause dirty electricity.
This article from Safe Living Technologies provides a lot more detail about how to cut down your exposure to EMR.