That Blozzz

Losing weight is one of the hardest things to do. To have a complete weight loss diet, you must combine both proper eating and good exercise. To do both you have to be in proper physical health.

I was super excited to start my weight loss diet and even more excited to share it here on That Blozzz. Well I had to use the motto of this blog because I was dealt a big life slap the last few days. I mentioned last week that I was having back problems. I finally hit the real brick wall and went to the chiropractor Monday. I have a slipped disk in my back. Not only does this mess up my everyday activity, it puts a big dent in my exercise plans.

The doctor says I should be down and out for at least 10 days but I am hoping it will get better faster. I have been doing OK with eating but that by itself does not get the job done.  I really need to exercise but since I can’t I have to be extra careful with my eating.

The good news is, even without exercise, I did lose one more pound and my new weight is 199.5 lbs. I am not losing at the rate I prefer to but I guess any loss is better than no loss or a gain.

The one pound loss does mean even if you are injured or down and out, you can still adjust your diet to be able to lose weight. Though it is slower, it is still possible.

If you are on a weight loss plan, please share your experience here by leaving a comment.  If you have any advice you would like to share or want to be part of my weight loss diet reporting, feel free to jump in and be part of the That Blozzz community.

The following is a sponsored review of an online printing company.

One of the most important tools for any business is the Business Card. This is the first view a potential client sees of most companies. It is important to have your Business Cards done by a professional company so you as a salesman or business owner can put the best outlook on your company and you.

Vista Print UK is one of these professional companies that offer top quality business cards for an affordable price.  I have used Vista Print in the past and they offer quality Business Cards. They offer several choices for business cards.

The first and best deal they offer is 250 free Business Cards. The only expense they charge is for shipping and handling. They offer 42 different designs for the free cards for you to choice from. They come in Matt finish and you can upgrade to glossy for an additional fee. The first time I ever used Vista Print; this is the business cards I used. They were nice looking and for the price they were good quality.

The downside of the free business cards is the fact that the designs are limited and you can not have a custom logo. The upside, of course, is the cheap cost. The other upside is the quick shipping and the ease of designing the cards with Vista Print’s online tool.

If the free business cards are not quite what you are looking for to put the best front on your company, they also have their premium Business Cards. These business cards start at £12.99 and include a easy to design logo maker.

The premium business cards offer a larger selection designs based on the industry. You can also use the Vista Print UK online design tool to design your own design. You can add your own logo made by their logo maker to any design or upload your already made logo. If you already have your own business card design, you can also upload that and they will print that for you. They are very flexible and if you need something other than what is offered or need help, they have a great support system.

Vista Print worldwide has been known for years as one of the best online printing companies. Besides their great Business Cards, they also have many other printing services to provide the needs of any business. I highly recommend Vista Print UK for any and all of your printing needs.

I just got together my plans for my new project for the Spring. Right now I have my chickens in a 14ft X 14ft shed that is built on to my big barn. It use to be my goat barn but when I got rid of my goats, I moved the chickens in. I am going to do a little remodeling to make it a little better and make room for the new chicks when they arrive.

I will be building a 6ft x 8ft fenced room inside of the shed for the new chicks and a 8ft X 8 ft completely enclosed fenced room on the outside for a run. Right now I have a 100ft x 58ft outdoor pen and the chickens free range. The new enclosed area will keep the new chicks safe while they mature. I will then put them all together with the older chickens.

Right now I have two nesting boxes in the chicken house but I am adding a two tier unit with six nesting boxes in the hope that I will have around 16 hens when we are all done hatching the eggs this Spring. Knowing my luck, the majority will be cocks and not hens.

I am looking forward to all the snow going away so I can get started on working around the old homestead and getting all my projects done. Besides the chicken house updating, I am planning a large garden and a pumpkin patch. Hopefully, if everything goes smoothly, I will have everything done early so the Summer will be a breeze.

I will be keeping all of you updated as the projects get done. Wish me luck!

What kind of Spring projects do you have planned?

Last week I collected my chicken eggs as usual. Of course this time, they were not for eating, I gave them to my wife’s cousin to hatch out for me. I am excited to get new chicks in a few weeks. I have a rooster who is a Plymouth Rock and the hens are the Araucana breed. I am excited to see what the cross will look like.

I was given all my chickens last year and I got the rooster and my five Plymouth Rock hens from my wife’s cousin and one of the hens was the rooster’s mother so we decided not to mix those for hatching. My two Araucana hens are no relation so that is why we used those to breed for new chicks. I gave my wife’s cousin ten eggs last week and I am hoping for at least five new chicks. He also said he will do another batch from his eggs, all Plymouth Rocks, for me in April so I have more chicks. I am hoping for about 12-15 hens this year when I am all done.

I would like enough to supply my house with a dozen eggs, my wife’s parents with a dozen, and my wife’s brother’s family with a dozen each week and have a couple dozen eggs to sell to offset feed cost. My goal in the future would be to raise enough to have a supplemental income for our farm.

Right now my five Plymouth Rock hens have not laid any eggs for a few weeks and I am not sure why. They went through moult and started to lay but now have quit. The two Araucana hens lay eggs just about everyday and one egg is white and one is bluish green. If the others do not start laying, they may be stew meat in the fall.

I will write more here when the chicks are born and I am hoping to be able to sex them early so I do not have a yard full of roosters. Wish me luck and stay tuned for more news on the baby chicks.

Well I just did my week two weigh in and it was OK but not great. I am down 1.5 pounds. I had a good eating week but a bad exercise week. I was very active this week but I did not do any organized exercise. The middle of week two I threw my back out and that stopped me from doing much.

The back is still hurting which is one of the reason I wanted to lose weight. I hurt my back about 13 years ago and when I gain weight, I have more problems with it.

I have been very good with eating and avoiding all deep fried foods and high sugar snacks. Thursday will be my first cheat day because it is my mother’s 80th birthday party and I plan to have a little cake and ice cream.

I am hoping my back gets better in a couple of days so I can get back on track with my exercise. I guess as long as the weight is decreasing I should be happy. However, next week, I am looking for a better number.

Old weight 202 lbs new weight 200.5 lbs.

As a webmaster, you need to find the right hosting to fit your needs that is fairly priced and offers reliability. Doing a paid review for Web Hosting Pal is quite easy considering they offer a service much needed by all webmasters.

When fist visiting the  Web Hosting Pal site, the first thing you see is a beginners guide to web hosting. It looked like some good information so I clicked on the links. I was shocked to find that the guide was only a list of questions with no answers to the questions. Needless to say, the first impression was a disappointment.

I did look further into the Web Hosting Pal website and I was pleased to find a top 10 list of web hosting providers. The reviews are well laid out with all the information needed to make an informed decision on whom to choice for web hosting. My problem here was the list states that the list was last updated October 2005. On the home page, Blue Host is listed as the number one of the top 10 list. However, when you go to the top 10 list, Blue Host is not even listed. This makes me wonder which list is the most current.

Another problem that I found was that the number four web hosting company on the top 10 list is iPowerWeb and on the bottom of the web page, they have a link to several complaints about this company. Should this not be removed from the list?

The concept of Web Hosting Pal is great. They do offer a wonderful review of the web hosting companies. However, the site is unfinished and seems to be very outdated. The beginners guide would be great but if you follow the link on the top of the page, it takes you to a video game. I would love to see this site updated and the problems fixed. If the problems were fixed, I would highly recommend this site as one of the better web hosting review sites I have seen on the Internet.

The following is a sponsored review:

In my past, I ran a thriving business and I was responsible for all of the finances. As a business, I know the pains involved in trying collect money that is owed to you. It can take time and energy besides the personal drain it takes on you as a person. That is why a good Debt Collection company is needed.

I did some checking on American Profit Recovery to see what they had to offer. This Debt Collection Company offers a two tier system of collections to help recover your money as cheaply as possible. The first tier is the first intervention to collect a past due account. The website states that this cost the company as low as $5.00 and most accounts are less than $10.00. This is much lower than the average collection agency which can charge from 35-50% of the debt.

The second tier is more intense and this is the next step for stubborn accounts which are older and just refuse to pay. Each account is given a personal collection specialist to handle the account no matter what size it is. The debt collectors work on a commission basis so that they are motivated to collect the debt. The cost of this tier is a bit higher and is based on a flat rate fee. They provide you reports to check on the status of the collections and offer all legal resources to collect the debt.

Debt collecting has always been looked on as a dirty job. However, if you look at it from a small business owner’s stand point, the people owe the money and the company needs the money to support the company and pay their employees.

American Profit Recovery seems to be a very good company and offers services to the business owners and managers at a rate far below the normal fees of other collection agencies.  Their website has a client log in to check the status of your account, a company toll free phone number, and ways to contact them on the Internet. They have many endorsements listed on their website along with testimonies from real life businesses and they seem to be a very reputable company.

From my research, I would recommend checking American Profit Recovery first if your company needs to collect on past due accounts.

We all know that Search Engine Optimization is important for any website. When I was asked to do this sponsored review, my first thought was oh no here is another fly by night company offering Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services. Well I have to admit I was wrong in this case.

The first thing I noticed was that Brand Identity Guru had a professional website with a listed physical address and phone number. This company is located in Boston and they have been in business for about 15 years and they have a very experienced staff. This is rare for any Search Engine Optimization company.

Though I was impressed with the website, I wanted more so I looked around the site. They offer real life cases of where they have offered their services to real life companies and the results look amazing. They give an example of one company that used their services and seen a jump in the search engines in one month.

Brand Identity Guru offers the standard services like paid search engine submission and reciprocal link building and other basic services. They also helps your company develop a pay per click advertising program to promote your company further. They work directly with your company to develop a strategic plan to market and position your company website correctly in the search engines. They also manage the tracking and statistical numbers to make sure your company is search engine friendly.

On top of the Search Engine Optimization services, the company offers just about every service to promote your company to it’s fullest. From web design to logos and branding, Brand Identity Guru is your one stop shop to getting your company website to where it needs to be.

I find it comforting that Brand Identity Guru offers real life examples and testimonies of real companies that have used their services. Having a real phone number assures me that if I ran into problems, I can talk to a real person and not try to chase them down by email. The age of the company gives credibility to the fact that they are a reliable company and some place I would trust to handle my Search Engine Optimization. They also offer a free website analysis with no obligation. What more could you want in a company?

Brand Identity Guru is a professional company with years of experience behind them. I do wish there were some idea of pricing on their website. That is one of my only negatives about this company. I am one who likes as much information as possible upfront. Of course, it would be real easy to call and check on pricing and I am sure it depends on your exact needs. Overall, on what I have read and seen, I would use this company for my SEO needs.

The following is a sponsored review for a web hosting company:

I visited the  Doteasy - web hosting website to check out what they had to offer in the form of web hosting. They offer four different web hosting packages to suit the needs of their clients. Their prices range from free to $20 a month depending on what kind of hosting you are looking for.

The first package that I looked at was the free package. It offers a basic web hosting set up with no banners or ads. The plan offers 100 MB of storage and 1 GB of bandwidth and many extras that will make it easy to build a website. They do not offer the easy to install scripts such as a blog script that comes with many hosting packages.

The next package was called Ultra Hosting, this package comes in two versions, the regular or the windows version. The prices are $7.95 per month (must be paid by the year) and $15 per year (must be paid quarterly). These packages offer  1000 MB of space and  20 GB of bandwidth.

The third package was the Unlimited hosting and it also comes in regular or the windows versions. The prices are $9.95 a month (must be paid by the year) and $20 a month (must be paid quarterly). These plans include 20 GB of storage space and the bandwidth is unmetered.

According to the pricing page of  Doteasy - web hosting, all packages come with free set up. However, once I did some reading, I found that they do have a transfer fee of $35 for all packages including the free hosting. This fee can be waived if you sign up for a domain to be registered by Doteasy or you refer two people who sign up for hosting with them. The problem with signing up for a domain through them is that they charge from $18-$25 per year for a a domain name registration depending on how many years you pay for.

The  $35 transfer fee is to transfer your hosting to them, rather new or not. It does not include transferring your domain name to them if that is what you plan to do. You can of course waive the transfer fee with the methods I stated above.

Comparing Doteasy - web hosting to many other hosting plans, there are some positives and some negatives. The pricing plans seem to fall in line with many other major hosting companies. They are a little on the high side but they have been in business since 2000 and seem to have a solid reputation and offer a 99.9% up-time. This means a lot when it comes to finding a reliable hosting company. They do offer many features such as web building software and scripts  that allow for easy installations for many popular applications. (note: the scripts are not on the free hosting).

Doteasy also has a physical address and phone number so that you can reach a real person and you know they will be around a while.

On the negative side, I was not impressed by the $35 transfer fee. I still am not sure what that is for. If you can get two people to sign up, this will not be an issue. I do not see anywhere that this covers the transfer of your website files from an old hosting account. Everything I checked seems to indicate that this has to be done by you.

I also think that their domain name registration pricing is way off the chart when compared to other name registration companies. The $25 per year price is quite high, however, it does offer free privacy and domain locking which some others charge extra for.

Bottom line is, if you are looking for a company that have been around for a while and seem to be reliable, Doteasy could be a good choice for you or your business. If you are looking for cheap hosting, the $35 fee does put a damper on getting cheap hosting. If you are looking for a company website, I would highly recommend paying for this company because there are no signs that they are going away anytime soon.  If you re looking for a blog or personal website that reliability is not as important, they may be a bit high for your needs. Either way, they are worth checking out and comparing with other hosting plans you are looking at. Just do your homework to see of they are the best choice for your needs.