Practicle help for needies http://seeyourimpact.org

I found this quite interesting ! I was reading some random blog posts from SeoMoz when someone was trying out a test on Google's new social media platform the Google +1 against the current real-time platform Twitter and found this interesting non profit site SeeYourImpact.



It is quite a good discovery for me since I never heard of them before but they seemed pretty genuine and helpful to many lives. One can discover more of the good things this non profit organization has done from reading first hand stories on their site http://seeyourimpact.org but the point is they do make small practical needs available to the people in needs.

Please go to their site and help donate few money for a better cause.

Natapei and Kilman's tug of war

The Chief Justice (CJ)for Vanuatu has squashed a claim by Sato and his appointed Ministers that yesterday 22nd June 2011. The claim was that they are still acting Ministers of the state therefore PM Natapei has no right to terminate them, but earlier the CJ had ruled that the appointment of former PM Sato Kilman was unconstitutional because the election was carried out in an unconsitutuional manner (in which there was no vote of PM by secret ballot as clearly defined in the constitution.

Today the 23rd June 2011 extra ordinary parliament session was boycotted by Natapei and his MP's basically since they do not have sufficient numbers, they had 24 while Sato Kilman had 27. The boycott meant that the parliament is adjourned to meet in 3 days on the 26 June 2011.

Speculations are that Natapei boycotted the session to buy time and lobby for numbers and if by 26 June they still do not have number then they can either let Sato win the election of PM or request the Head of State to dissolve the Parliament and everyone head back to the polls.

Google allows users to block sites in search results

If you are searching for a term in Google search engine and discover that according to the results presented to you some are spammy (meaning they do not relate or give very less information on what exactly you are searching for - give misleading results) Google has now given the power for users to block such sites / URL from the search results.



This is a move which draws attention of many SEOs and search marketing analysts because many believe the competitors can capitalize on such actions. Google has yet to confirm if data collected by users blocking the URLs from search results will be taken into consideration by Google's engineers but if this is done so it could be abused by any competitors and others therefore give false positives.

Some critics criticize the move by Google as say " Google lets customers do it's dirty work" to fight spam.

What have you got to say... ??

Vanuatu government change

The Government of Vanuatu has undergone another change after a re-appeal court case which saw the outgoing MP Sato Killman challenging the decision of the speaker to carry forward a motion of no-confidence against his Government when there was not a simple majority of MP's present, then later the elect MP Serge Vohor as Prime Minister on Monday 02 May 2011.


On Friday 13 May 2011 the appeal court's decision was that the actions on May 2nd 2011 was null and void therefore the motion for non-confidence and also the election of Prime Minister was also null and void (meaning they were not recognized)

More on the decision of the appeal court is update here http://www.gov.vu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88&Itemid=65

What have you got to say ?

Speak and words type out automatically


Imagine if you could speak and the words you speak are being typed out for you automatically.

Yes you can there are numerous services like this around one which is found is the Speechpad Transcription Services http://www.speechpad.com/


They offer this very kind of service check them out for detailed analysis. Speechpad also has apps (applications) for iPhone and iPad. They promised on working for a BlackBerry and Anroid version of the application therefore keep looking for that.

This would make SMS texting much easier and also it would be cheaper to use this application and send SMS

Aussie retailers propose Govt GST for online purchases


Australian retailers have complained to on-line shopping (buying things over the internet), reasoning that it is unfair for the government not to charge the on line shoppers GST (tax) whereas they (retailers) are being charged GST for goods sold. Large retailers are pushing a large campaign worth millions of dollars to urge the Federal Government to take action and charge tax on on-line purchases or pass their burden to some 76,000 workers by reducing hours in shift and other employees on part-time basis, they warn this could deteriorate resulting in loss of jobs which in-turn could have domino effect on other industries.

Here is what the Aussie retailers have as one of their proposal to the Government “Everyone is exempt from GST and duty charges for online purchases less than $ 1,000”, blaming the Government of being inconsistent with their tax policies.

In its initial response to this the Government has begun by announcing a productivity commission inquiry into the taxing of on-line purchases.

Meanwhile consumers are complaining too , it is not fair for retailers like Myer , David Jones, Target, Harvey Norman about these senseless and baseless unfair tax proposal say it is time these giant retailers rethink their strategies and rethink their business models. Most consumers state the fact that shopping online they get the identical items they buy from the retailers for half the price. Consumers are frankly stating this GST imposed will not benefit the Government in anyway instead it will continue trickle down to the large profit of the retailers into large CEO salaries and lavish bonus payouts to shareholders of the retailers themselves. Most consumers who shop online see the choice of shopping online to be economically cheaper even if GST is being charged on the goods bought online compared to the high profit margin by retailers charge, at the end of the day the power of choice should be left to the consumers - enough of protectionism this is a globalized world.

Meanwhile critics of this online- tax stated that it would be quite hard to implement this theory of charging online purchases GST as it would come with a heavy price tag which would cost the government millions of money, imagine how will the government monitor the online GST and at the end of the day who will benefit from this and who will the burden be passed to (the retailers will definitely benefit when the consumers will suffer the consequences while the government facilitates the whole mess). Critics continue to claim consumers choose to shop online because of the rip-off cost retailers are charging therefore consumers are avoiding them.

One critic was quoted saying this :
“ When Australia imposes GST on all foods coming from other countries many overseas sellers will stop selling to Australians, normally taxes are collected at point of sale and so sellers in other countries will be expected to collect GST for the Australian Government and submit GST regularly and for many the Australian market is just no big enough to warrant them to all that trouble. In addition, there is the massive cost of policing all parcels coming into Australia that will be borne by the Australian taxpayer and which will not be covered by the extra GST being collected(so, in fact, this would be a tax on Australians going straight into the pockets of retailers). Retailers know this and they don't care about the fairness of GST at all, they want to see many overseas retailers simply refuse to sell to Australians, and in that way they can keep their massive markups on goods that can currently be purchased elsewhere for a small fraction of the gouging going on in Australian stores”

Now it is up to the government to decide on this and come up with something which should be fair to everyone retailers and consumers because the Government is there to regulate and enforce good fair policies.