Are You a Forex Gambler, Dreamer, Or Adrenaline Junkie?

Forex real time trading has become quite popular in recent times. With the increase in the economic recession environment where residential and commercial properties become progressively more problematic, investment in Forex is still thriving and pulling in new investors. As stock and mutual fund investors are pulling out of the markets, they are sitting on mountains of cash, itching to invest in something. Eighty percent of stock and mutual fund investors tend to buy and hold, hoping the markets will recover one day. Most of the investors are not sophisticated enough to perform short selling when they believe that the market will go down. The dynamic of the market has changed drastically, and the old belief of buy and hold is becoming archaic.
In the real estate or stock market, the gains are produced when investors buy at a low price and sell at a higher price. The time frame for profits is counted in weeks, months, or years. In Forex trading, the gains and losses can be achieved in a matter of seconds, minutes, or hours. It is an investment on steroids, and too much of anything will tend to create side effects and undesirable results. Whatever happened to the realistic goal of 12% return per year and the rule of 72? Basically, if you are able to obtain a return of 12% per year for six years, you will double your investment. These days, Forex traders are asking for returns of 12% or more per month. There is also the mantra of 10 pips a day. Using the power of compounding, 10 pips a day is supposed to create Forex millionaires after one year. In the past six years, I have not met any Forex millionaires, but I have come across many Forex gamblers, dreamers, and adrenaline junkies.
Wealth building takes time, and accelerating the process will create problems. For instance, driving from Vancouver (home of the 2010 Winter Olympics) to Calgary (home of the 1988 Winter Olympics) takes approximately eleven hours (approximately 1,000 km), driving at the speed limit. Some drivers claim that they can do it in seven hours. You can be sure that the speed limit was not observed and the fine for speeding can be as high as $ 300. The fine is not as significant as speeding and going off the cliff for driving too fast on the roads of the Rocky Mountains. If someone claims that the drive only takes him 4 hours, you know that it is impossible. Somehow, people often fail to apply this common sense to Forex trading. If someone claims that you can be extremely wealthy within 4 months or over night by learning a secret trading method or purchasing a money making software, it should be recognized as an impossible task similar to driving from Vancouver to Calgary within 4 hours. If another person claims that you can be extremely wealthy within seven months by purchasing their Forex coaching DVD or purchasing 95% winning software, it should be recognized as driving from Vancouver to Calgary within seven hours. The analogy of getting a speeding ticket or going off a cliff for driving too fast is getting your account to blow up or to margin out for aggressive trading. Many of us have done this, approximately 95% of Forex traders.
Every trading method and trading software will take time to build up profits; hence, don't expect to become a millionaire in a few months by purchasing a trading course, an ultimate indicator, or super profitable Forex trading software. There is so much hype that trading is about making money fast. Suddenly, we don't have Forex traders or investors, but gamblers, dreamers, and adrenaline junkies chasing the market. The live Forex market is ever thriving. Every day, thousands of people indulge in real time Forex trading due to the marketing hype of the industry and the Forex brokers. Some of them don't even know the basics of the market, resulting in a substantial loss.
The volatility of the foreign currency market gives real time Forex trading the potential to boast lots of potential profits, while 95% of Forex losers are swept under the carpet licking their wounds.

Bitcoin has been the buzz word in the financial space. As of a matter of fact, Bitcoin has exploded the scene in the last few years and many people

How Cryptocurrency Works

Put simply, cryptocurrency is digital money, which is designed in a way that is secure and anonymous in some instances. It is closely associated with the internet that makes use of cryptography, which is basically a process where legible information is converted into a code that cannot be cracked so as to tack all the transfers and purchases made.

Cryptography has a history dating back to World War II when there was a need to communicate in the most secure manner. Since that time, an evolution of the same has occurred and it has become digitalized today where different elements of computer science and mathematical theory are being utilized for purposes of securing communications, money, and information online.

The first cryptocurrency

The very first cryptocurrency was introduced in the year 2009 and is still well known all over the world. Many more cryptocurrencies have since been introduced over the past few years and today you can find so many available over the internet.

How they work

This kind of digital currency makes use of technology that is decentralized so as to allow the different users to make payments that are secure and also, to store money without necessarily using a name or even going through a financial institution. They are mainly run on a blockchain. A blockchain is a public ledger that is distributed publicly.

The cryptocurrency units are usually created using a process that is referred to as mining. This usually involves the use of a computer power. Doing it this way solves the math problems that can be very complicated in the generation of coins. Users are only allowed to purchase the currencies from the brokers and then store them in cryptographic wallets where they can spend them with great ease.

Cryptocurrencies and the application of blockchain technology are still in the infant stages when thought of in financial terms. More uses may emerge in the future as there is no telling what else will be invented. The future of transacting on stocks, bonds and other types of financial assets could very well be traded using the cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in the future.

Why use cryptocurrency?

One of the main traits of these currencies is the fact that they are secure and that they offer an anonymity level that you may not get anywhere else. There is no way in which a transaction can be reversed or faked. This is by far the greatest reason why you should consider using them.

The fees charged on this kind of currency are also quite low and this makes it a very reliable option when compared to the conventional currency. Since they are decentralized in nature, they can be accessed by anyone unlike banks where accounts are opened only by authorization.

Cryptocurrency markets are offering a brand new cash form and sometimes the rewards can be great. You may make a very small investment only to find that it has mushroomed into something great in a very short period of time. However, it is still important to note that the market can be volatile too, and there are risks that are associated with buying.

Bitcoin has been the buzz word in the financial space. As of a matter of fact, Bitcoin has exploded the scene in the last few years and many people

Wealth Creation: 10 Steps To Financial Freedom

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From my research and study in the topic of building wealth, I have distilled all formulas and guidelines into 10 important principles. If you follow these simple principles and always think outside the box, you will be on the right path to achieve financial success and wealth that will last you a lifetime.

1. CREATE & VISUALIZE YOUR GOALS: They will always lead to wealth creation. Set a particular goal and visualize it every day. In setting your goals, you should always be sure they are categorical, quantifiable, realizable, pragmatic and time bound.


2. DO YOUR HOMEWORK: Never jump into any business venture, irrespective of how attractive it may look. This could set you up for failure and disappointment. The more interesting the business opportunity, the closer you ought to be in examining their claims on returns on investments.(ROI) As a budding entrepreneur it's important to test each business opportunity before you invest a significant amount of time and/or money.


3. IDENTIFY A PROBLEM & FIND A SOLUTION: This is the key to creating sales and cash flow for your business. Be determined enough to stick with it and don't quit. Everyone is consistently attempting to find solutions to their problems. If you can offer them a quality product and an excellent value, then the world is your oyster. People are willing to open their wallets to those who can offer an easier and better life to them. One thing you must remember is that there are always problems waiting to be solved.


4. THINK BIG & KICK ASS: The one thing that starts from the top and grows down is the grave. Otherwise, everything else in life starts small and grows up. When you grow up, you stay up, but when you jump up, you come down. Naturally, common-sense tells you that when you jump up, the force of gravity simply pulls you down. There's such a lot to be learned at the start of your business. It will be small, but you will be dreaming big! So as you have a giant vision to grow, your business will grow too! Remember the proverb... "To Think Is To Create"... Keep your vision, create a mission statement and share them with everyone you hire. With this you will all have a common goal to work toward each and every day.


5. USE EARNED CAPITAL TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS: As you grow your business, remember to always use capital from your profits. Growing a business on borrowed capital is a very big risk indeed. You must be prepared to dance to the music when it starts to play. If you position the growth of your business, without acquiring debt, it will allow you to work harder and ensure you make the cash and merit the growth.


6. CHOOSE THE RIGHT PEOPLE TO WORK WITH: You need to be careful in picking the people you're going to work with in the business. If you truly want to grow your company, it is vitally important to choose people that are suited to the tasks that you assign to them. For example, you wouldn't hire a heavy machine operator to run your sales department, right? A great deal of time and money could be lost by attempting to put a square peg in a round hole.


7. USE FISCAL LEVERAGING: When your business starts to grow, it will be reflective of your business income. The entire essential nature of beginning a business is to develop a consistent, foreseeable source of cash flow above cost and expenses. The bank will lend your business money based on the amount of cash flow it produces each month or year. So make sure that you keep the cash flowing even during slow economic periods. This may take some "thinking outside the box", but that is what being an entrepreneur is all about.


8. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX:There will always be competition in any market you choose to enter. It is important to brand your business so you stand out from the others. When branding your business be sure to always be thinking outside the box. Come up with ideas that haven't been used before and you will surely get noticed.


9. DON'T STOP LEARNING: Read, Read, Read... Always be learning about your product or niche, your target market, and how the economy may effect your business. It is important to always be attempting to stay one step ahead of your competition. Continuous learning will allow you the flexibility to make changes in the business when necessary to stay on the top of your game.


10. LEARN FROM A MENTOR: It is much easier to achieve financial success by following in the footsteps of someone that has already been in your shoes and has reached the pinnacle that you envision for yourself. Find a mentor that you feel a connection with and has reached the level of success that you are striving for. Then listen to their every word. They will teach you the steps necessary to reach your financial goals and dreams. Remember that everyone that has reached financial success as an entrepreneur has followed in the footsteps of another.

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Source by Tracy Ellis

Got Flat Rate?

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The Advertising

You've probably seen them: six-wheel box vans with billboard-size ads on the sides, sometimes displaying a blown up picture of a white-toothed smiley-faced middle class woman on the phone, suggesting everything in life is better for her , now that she's found a disposable-booties-wearing plumbing & HVAC company. Or perhaps you've called one of those colorful full-page ads in the Yellow Pages. You know the kind, they make you feel warm and fuzzy, and define everything you thought you wanted to hear. And what about their application of every credit card logo under the sun? Did that reassure you that if your unplanned plumbing emergency caught you short on cash, then you should, without further thought, simply use your plastic? Did the 800-number, blazing red as fire, subliminally suggest: "hotline straight though to the Maytag Man, who sits patiently awaiting to soothe your flustered mind"? Welcome to the world of Flat Rate plumbing and HVAC advertising!

I bet there's something you don't know, unless, of course, you did hire one of these companies - they charge between $ 125 and $ 400 an hour. If you did not know they charged that rate, you are not to be ridiculed for your ignorance, as that rate is disguised in the sell price of every part that they say (wink) you need.

Well, I am going to shed some light on the dark magic behind the MO of the Flat Rate model, then maybe you won't go into cardiac arrest from sticker shock should you find yourself paying one of these companies after your next plumbing or HVAC emergency.

The Background

Among the self-employed in the HVAC and plumbing trades are those who have long struggled to eek out a decent living, myself among them. Traditionally, we've charged an hourly rate, plus a modest mark-up on materials. As a service technician for two 2nd generation fuel companies - Tenney Fuels, and Ferns Energy Centers - in the early '80s, I was paid $ 3.75 per hour to start, ten cents above minimum wage. Those companies charged $ 25 per hour and made a profit on parts, furnaces, burners and boilers, and the sale of fuel oil, the latter bringing in the lion's share. Then, in 1983, Tenney sold out to a hot shot "petroleum marketer" and my pay was raised to $ 6.90 an hour. In parallel, the new fuel oil conglomerate raised Tenney's rates, and started charging the customer for everything from pipe thread compound, and a few sprays of parts cleaner in a can, to speedy dry (kitty litter) to absorb oil we spilled on the floor . It did not matter that I spit-cleaned the burner electrode porcelains, the customer still was charged for noxious spray cleaner. The name of the game changed from, service and installation work of the utmost quality (at a fair price), to slap-it-in-as-fast-as-you-can, and maximize profit in every conceivable way, irrespective of quality. The new company even brought in technicians already trained on their new method at other branches, to show our service department how it would now be done. It was a shock to me, a green horn, as every traditional practice bestowed upon me over the previous 2 years was clearly and painfully on its way out. The shock on the faces of the customers, some who had been with the company since its inception, was a poignant experience for them and me. Steadily through the 1980s and '90s, the endangered Old School slid closer to ultimate extinction, along with the family-run feel that we were all used to. The Big Boys made their entrance with slick, grand, unimaginative signage, sporting corporate logos that left us - the employees and the customers - feeling like an invasion was underway.

In 1988, I'd nearly had it with the new model that I felt imprisoned by, and resorted to recanting positive affirmations I placed on my service van console - anything to affect peace of mind so I could make it through another soul-wrenching day working for The Man. By this time I was employed by a plumbing contractor who seemed to embody the New School Philosophy of taking the customer for all they were worth. Though I had been in the trade for 8 years, a co-worker and junior technician - experience-wise - set out to "show me the ropes" my first day on the job. By noon he'd managed to bill for 8 hours, per man, charging each customer for the time it would hypothetically take to travel to their home and back to the shop. It did not matter if 3 of the customers lived on the same street, they still got charged the full hour round trip, as if they were the only service call out their way that day. During the course of our rounds, the profit-motivated technician charged one customer - my dentist - for a light bulb in the furnace room that he bumped his head on and broke. While there, he only wiped the dust from the furnace. The bill came to over $ 300. Next, he charged a customer for an ignition transformer that was not defective. Then, he charged a 93 year-old woman in a mobile home $ 285 dollars for wiping the dust from her furnace, and a new oil burner nozzle, despite the woman's plea that she could barely manage on her deceased husband's Social Security check. (A month later, when the woman called with a no-heat emergency, she got me, the on-call technician. I went to her house, after normal business hours, and found that the burner master control had failed, so I replaced It ... free of charge, as recompense for the bath the technician gave her months earlier. I'd lied on my report, stating that call was a non-chargeable callback due to improperly adjusted electrodes.)

I was paid piecework for the exact time I billed a customer. Otherwise, if I did not charge them for, say, a trip to the supply house for parts, or travel to their home and back, or for completing the day's paperwork, I didn't get paid for that time. I thought the company owner was a criminal for making his living the way he did, and nostalgically pined for the early days at Tenney and Ferns - honest and ethical companies. I felt the present company not only ripped off (in many ways, not fully explainable in the context of this writing) the customer, but also ripped off me, the employee, by illegally docking my pay for not filling out the daily paperwork correctly.

The last straw for me was when the company charged Kay O'Brien, an elderly woman of 84, for several service calls by a plumber-employee who had no knowledge of oil burners. When I was finally sent to straighten out the original problem, and the additional ones he managed to create with a bountiful helping of sheer ignorance, I suggested that she call the main office and explain (complain). The owner's daughter (the company bookkeeper) told her to "pay the f-ing bill, or we will take you to court!" This unbelievably disturbing and aggressive lack of gratitude upset me as much as it did Kay, and profoundly affected my attitude, unlike anything I'd felt working for any prior company. I withdrew from participation in company meetings and events and, ultimately, I was fired. The boss man said I "was not a team player", and I agreed, at least not on his team, which lead me down the solitary road of self-employment ... and hard knocks.

5 excruciating years had passed and I realized I could have been making more money working for a New School employer during that forlorn period of pure angst. My earnings peeked over the poverty level barely enough to see the other side, gazing at what the Joneses had that I couldn't muster from no matter how hard would worked. Soon, my wife left me for a lawyer. (Whatever happened to for richer or for poorer? I think she opted for richer.) Instead of giving in to working for the man ", I chose to risk everything on my luck as an inventor (see my essay," Lessons In Invention Development "), which, by the way, is like jumping out of an airplane without first checking to see that the chute on your back is not really a backpack full of bricks.

Just prior to falling like the Old Man of The Mountains, I was approached by a company wanting to sell me a Flat Rate franchise and poured on the sales pitch in equal parts to the, aforementioned, over-the-top, advertising on the sides of certain trucks. I rejected their solicitation because their business model and methods seemed like voodoo. Bankruptcy seemed a more attractive option. A local plumbing company owner did buy into the franchise, and soon he was focusing all his efforts on service, all the while his excessive drinking showed his behind-the-scenes stresses that apparently forced him into his decision to change his business model to the Holy Grail the Franchiser sold him on. He had a great many service vans with inventory levels I had not seen since the old days. He had a huge color ad in the phone book that must have cost upwards of a $ 1,000 a month. (I paid $ 250 for my black & white quarter-page ad.) He had an 800-number, in bold red ink, and slogans that I knew he wasn't clever enough to dream up by himself. The ad, with credit card logos all in a row at the bottom, convinced me he had gone Flat Rate. I visualized him with voodoo dolls that resembled his customers, squeezing them until their wallets spilled out of the pockets, cash flowing from them for him to seize - the how-to instructions printed on some secret page in his Flat Rate pricing book. I was skeptical of his ethics, as it seemed he had bought into something that suggested profit trumped quality, fairness, and full disclosure. I thought, "If it quacks like a duck ..."

I pondered the methodology behind the new buzzword, Flat Rate. Being a creative thinker, and problem-solver, I thought the method was ingenious, juxtaposed to that of the Old School way of generating revenue. I examined the core problems in the trade, but also the lack of fulfillment associated with being self-employed, from my humbled and beaten down point of view. Competition was fierce, and there seemed no way to go up on rates without losing bids, customers, and sales. I felt I was on the precipice of defeat, the sanctified martyr for the cause of doing honest work at a fair price, which seemed passé. Also, there seemed no way to afford employees, and the requisite benefits package they routinely demanded. I held back my spiteful tone with retained thought so as no interviewee would notice when he uttered demands like "vacation"; "insurance"; "holidays", like so much lava from a volcano, scorching my patience to cinders. He didn't know, nor would I reveal, out of certain embarrassment, that I had none of these bennies. Once upon a time, I enjoyed all that he asked for at the family-owned fuel companies. Nonetheless, it seemed ironic to provide others with the very things I was missing by not working for The Man.

An established company with 15 technicians in the field can generate sufficient revenue by the Time & Materials model, but I was beginning to see the employee prospects that I interviewed demanded a full compensation package, and that I would never become the company that could afford to pay them. And with customers questioning, "What, you charge $ 35 an hour? I can get so and so for $ 25 and hour!" the pressure to suppress the urge to charge more was what I feared and loathed the most, but was ever present. The over arching problem in the trade, that desperately needed fixing, was the perception in the mind of the consumer that no matter the hourly rate, there was always someone out there who should be sought for a "competitive" bid. That sounds like Free Market Competition at work. By not charging by the hour, rather charging for 'materials only', albeit, with a hefty price tag that obscures the true cost of the parts, the Flat Rate model appeared to have offered up a solution to the problems I experienced. I'll explain.

The Way it Works

When you call a Flat Rate Company, usually it's because you are desperate to have your no-heat, no-hot-water, or worse, "no water" problem remedied, quickly. The typical Flat Rate customer gravitates to the "Yellow Pages" like steel to a magnet, and dials the number in the most eye and emotion-catching ad. The company behind the ad anticipates them coming, and, in a sense, is like the Maytag Man who sits waiting for the unsuspecting and desperate voice on the other end of the phone line. The troubled voice is a common one, and the prepackaged mantras of the Flat Rate Company - "Honey, just call ________." (Fill in the blank with a name of Flat Rate Company.); "Repairs and maintenance on all systems"; "You get firm, up-front estimates and fair, competitive prices"; "Better quality guarantee"; "90 days no payments, no interest financing"; "At last, a serviceman who is always on time, or you don't pay a dime"; "Never an overtime charge"; "You know the price, before we start"; "Clean, professional technicians"; "Immediate response"; "Our prices are based on established standards"; "_______ solves over thousands of residential problems a year and we can solve yours now" - are like valium to ease the caller's anxiety. Those lines hook you fast in your greatest time of need. Hey, if you can get an experienced, neat, clean, and professional plumber who allows you to approve the price before he does the work, and he smells nice (yes, there is an ad for nice smelling plumbers), and you can slap the repair on plastic, then who wouldn't call? It's true, the Fat Raters are usually there in short time, have the parts in their warehouses-on-wheels necessary to solve your problem, and you do approve the price before they begin work. However, there's more to their formulae, and intent by some, than catches the eye.

The Catch

Many Flat Rate companies tell you over the phone when you call, not in the ad, that there will be a trip charge (leverage) if you don't "approve the price" for remedying the diagnosed problem when they arrive. By then you've already done all the hunting for a technician in the jungle of ads that you can stand. When they assure you they can speedily solve your problem, you agree to pay the trip fee should you disagree with their price. Shortly, the technician arrives, and in time he tells you that your problem is such and such, and the cost to fix it is ... well, on page 7 of his Flat Rate pricing book. The price seems like a lot, but you have no way of knowing if it is too much - it's not like comparing brand names to generics side by side on the shelf of the supermarket. Besides, you are in a hurry to get your kids off to school, and get to work, and everyone needs to brush their teeth first. YOU WANT WATER, NOW! So you whip out your Visa card and he swipes it before you, and then busies himself in the basement for a while. Once the repair is made, your nice smelling plumber comes upstairs, utters niceties, and when he is positively out your door, removes his disposable booties, hoping you'll notice he did dirty your floor, which might be the most profound thing you remember about his visit.

On his way to his next service call, the technician whistles with glee, knowing he just made a 7% commission (an incentive to sell as many parts as possible) on the gross sale, on top of his $ 75,000 salary. Some of these guys make over a hundred grand a year!

[As a salesman for the last company I worked for, in 2002, I made 2% commission on net profit, which was determined by the owner of the company, though I was not privy to his calculations. I quit a year later and they refused to pay my commission check.]

The Math

So how do they arrive at their high prices? Hypothetically, the well pump pressure switch at the root of your no-water problem cost the Flat Rater $ 12, but you paid $ 379.25 (the charge that you 'approved before they did the work'). $ 379.25 - $ 12 (their cost of the switch) = $ 367.25, the Company's mark-up. If you hired a time and materials guy, say, at $ 85 for the hour in your home and one on the road, plus $ 24 - an average sell price for the switch, you'd pay $ 194. Now, subtract $ 24 from the Flat Rate price of $ 379.25 and $ 355.25 is the labor amount you've been charged. But wait, there's more. Divide their labor amount by two (hours) and their equivalent hourly rate is $ 178 per hour - more than twice that of the time and materials guy! You think, "How can this be? He was only here for 45 minutes?" Then you suck it up and remember his booties and your clean floor, rationalizing away your concerns, especially about the new balance on your credit card, which you can make minimum payments on anyway. But don't forget to factor in the interest, bringing the total cost of the Flat Rate Company's repair to new heights never before seen in the Old School model. What is the Flat Rate technician's cut? 7% X $ 379.25 = $ 26.55, but that's in addition to his salary, or high hourly pay.

These are average numbers, of course, but you get the idea.

Some Flat Raters take price-setting to an extreme, raking in up to $ 400 and hour, then laugh through their admission of guilt to fellow tradesman at the supply house. I've actually heard them there, at the counter.

It's all about their marketing, paired with the desperate consumer's emergency, otherwise, the entire business model wouldn't hold up. The consumer pays a premium for the company means of letting you know he can have a technician there with the requisite parts, within an hour. But that doesn't mean that a wholly qualified technician will show up at your door. Anyone can change parts. Besides, the more parts they sell you, the more often you pay that premium ... until finally he fixes your problem. It's almost always a net gain for the company, but a loss for the consumer. If the unqualified technician sells you 3 parts, or more, depending on the true problem and how long it takes to replace parts until the right one is found, the equivalent hourly rate quickly skyrockets to the aforementioned $ 400 an hour range. It's math 101.

There is an army of these companies now canvassing the populous neighborhoods all supported by their big ads, hoping to add new customers, as many are one-timers, given the unwanted economic bath they took the last time. Speaking of being taken to the cleaners, how does $ 950 for a plastic Zoeller sump pump suit you? Maybe $ 1,900 for a 40-gallon electric water heater sounds attractive? I think not! Check Home Depot's prices for those items the next time you are there. Flat Rate pricing seems to save the consumer from information they shouldn't see. What they don't know won't hurt them?

More often these companies are franchises and they are popping up around the country, from California to New Hampshire. But a local company (though I suspect it is only a matter of time before they sell franchises) boasts of having 35 fully stocked trucks on the road, in New Hampshire! Surely there must be as many dead moose on the road.

Two Schools Collide

With pricing like that the Flat Rate Company can afford to pay their employees better than the non-Flat Rate competitors, thus attracting the labor pool away from the Old School guys like me. However, guys with talent, skill, and ethical fortitude tend to work for themselves. The dilemma is omnipresent. I ask, why would anyone work for me if all I paid them was $ 40K a year, and meager benefits? The Flat Rate method answers this question, as it addresses the quandary of how to make self-employed tradesmen profitable, so they, too, can have the same benefits that their employees demand.

The New School, and Flat Rate have convinced me of the direction the trade has been headed in for some time, and that it will never return to the days when I began as an oil burner technician for fuel companies that had been around since the beginning of oil burners themselves, and coal-fired systems before them. Still, I choose to work by the traditional ethics that I was fortunate enough to be taught, at a time when the winds of change were shifting. I've let go of the idea that I would employ many and reap the profits they generated for me. Now I work alone and hire another self-employed guy when I need a second pair of hands to complete a job that requires more than one, rather than go Flat Rate and take advantage of the customer. I do believe in business ethics (surely some of you are laughing at my naiveté). Maybe I'll never sway from the Old School approach, as I still have zero patience for the sub quality work done by the bottom of the labor pool barrel, and by some of these Flat Rate companies. Call it ego, or call it nostalgia, I call it freedom, freedom to choose to feel great about the work I did today, without having to scam anyone.

Presently, where once I charged only for the time on the job, I charge for the total time that I commit to my customer, including travel time both ways. Also, I charge for diesel fuel to get there. After all, the time and expense of traveling to my customer's site is not for my benefit; it's to solve their HVAC problems - my primary business.

I know every task required to complete any HVAC job, and the order in which they should be performed. With 28 years experience, I feel unlike many of the Flat Raters who often only have a few. Really, many are simple parts changers in a neatly pressed uniform, behind the wheel of a moving billboard / warehouse, carting around 25 grand of inventory ... and a Flat Rate pricing book.

Despite my many complaints about them, I feel the Flat Rate innovators were very creative and insightful when they formulated their solution to the ills in the trade. However, I feel their method is fraught with deception, and opportunity for fraud. Not all are bad, but take the following as example:

The Fraud

A case in point is my customer Cheri Whittaker's experience with a Flat Rate company. Cheri called me for a "free estimate" to change the boiler in her home, in Exeter, after seeing my ¼-page black and white ad (that cost $ 450 per month), in the Portsmouth telephone book. Being a savvy and knowledgeable salesman, I knew enough to get a lot of information up front, before I agreed to give a free estimate - something everyone calling ads in the phone book expects. Estimates take a lot of time, if done carefully and accurate. The answers Cheri gave to my queries - namely who the (Flat Rate) company was that condemned her old boiler two weeks earlier - caused me to suspect she just needed an honest and experienced technician to diagnose the problem correctly. I felt I was her man, and agreed to give the estimate.

Upon arrival in her basement, I noticed that the air gate on the oil burner had been intentionally shut, causing the fire to burn incredibly dirty. Black smoke spewed from the chimney, and the boiler was plugged with soot. Before long, damage to the oil burner would result. Cheri showed me the invoice and recommendations the technician had left with her. There were many reasons listed on the invoice for condemnation of the boiler - every one false and designed to pressure Cheri into buying a new boiler from a "Comfort Advisor" they planned to send out to give an estimate. Had she gone along with their diagnosis and prescription, the technician would have received a $ 700 commission in his paycheck that week. Imagine him doing this more than once a week, and you can see how he would easily approach a $ 100,000 annual salary.

The last time the boiler and burner had been serviced, prior to the Flat Rate Company's visit, was over a year, so I knew the Company technician had sabotaged the boiler intentionally. Otherwise, an oil burner starved of air would have caused it to fail in a matter of weeks, and it was nearing that point. In a way, the technician's statement on the invoice was correct: "the boiler is due to imminently fail".

Cheri and her husband asked me to confront the Flat Rate Company, in their presence, so no surprise, I agreed. Soon, the technician and his service manager arrived at their home and we converged in the basement. Within 15 minutes, I proved false the Company's claims in their invoice and of no wrongdoing. The Whitakers were not impressed with the hollow answers and guilty looks from the two, and evicted them from their home, telling them they would never return. I proceeded to clean the very dirty boiler and bring it back to good, safe operating condition for a few hundred bucks - a far cry from the $ 10,000 it would have cost to replace the boiler.

The Summation

Cliché's abound for situations like the aforementioned such as, caveat emptor - "buyer beware". And, "if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is." Think of all the claims, promises, and guarantees in the phone book ads, then recall what they charged you. Was it a steep price? Had you ever been charged that kind of money for a service call in your past? What about the so-called Trip Fee, did you opt for that and disapprove of their Flat Rate? Did the technician fix the problem correctly the first time, or did you have to call him back? Gimmicks like disposable booties, and surreptitious slogans - "you approve the price" - are devised to dupe the layperson from thinking about the price for a repair. These companies are clever, and getting rich without doing much quality work for the money, but they do sell a lot of parts, which I suppose bolsters the economy.

My Mom and her husband in California were just hosed by a Flat Rate Company, paying twice the price for outmoded air conditioning equipment that is being phased out because its refrigerant destroys the Ozone layer. I wished I could have saved them from the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing Comfort Adviser that sold them on the idea of ​​replacing their functioning furnace and condensing unit, before that company loosed their disposable booties in their home. I don't blame the one's who've been bitten; I hold the snake charmer responsible for allowing the snake to bite.

But, hey, at least the owner of that one-hour flat rate company is content with not having to work for the man - something we do have in common

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Source by John Rocheleau

Indian Currency Shift From Print to Digital

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The end of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 announcement by Narendra Modi has led to rise in digital payments thereby helping India move towards Digital India. In the last few days it has been seen that the difficulties among the people to purchase goods for their livelihood post banning Indian currency notes like Rs.500/- and Rs.1000/-, looks like the nation that comprised of over a billion people have realized the advantage of digital currency.

Looking over the Google Trends page, it seems like "buy Bitcoin" is rapidly gaining popularity. Bitcoins are a digital currency, made by computers, whose prices are validated through a public ledger. Like any digital money, this money can be used to pay for goods and services, such as buying coffee, a food packet at a restaurant or even clothes.

Although digital currency is yet to mature, it has the power to play a key role in the future of financial services. As bitcoin and other related technologies grow in adoption, our financial system is going to rely heavily on a large centralized institutions that has a globally distributed network. With the proliferation of the internet, we have witnessed the industries such as media; software and communications were transformed and invigorated. Sooner or later we will experience a similar revolution in financial services, where digital currency permanently substitutes our age old, costly, and time-consuming systems and arises a brand new structure that facilitates payments, streamlines accounting processes, and enforces contracts with ease and scalability. In this fast developing landscape, digital currency can emerge as the valuable trade that empowers the "internet of money."

"There's no doubt that digital currency is going to play an important role going forward."

- John Donahoe, President & CEO of eBay

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts remain hopeful Bitcoin will oust cash sooner or later.

Millions of Indian people have limited or no access to financial services through traditional means. This means Bitcoin can fill a need, should that ever arise. Benson Samuel, one of the most popular names in Indian bitcoin community and the co-founder of Coinsecure, welcomes the decision. He states, "This is very good for digital currencies in India, as people will now be forced to look into alternatives to store value. Decentralised digital currencies will play a vital role in maintaining a variety of options for people who need to use the same."

"People are getting remittances in bitcoins, instead of Paypal. They are able to liquidate them by paying just 1% transaction fee," said Sathvik Vishwanath, CEO and co-founder, Unocoin.

Governments all around the world have recently announced that they are investigating their own plans for digital currencies.

The Manila-based bitcoin wallet service provides consumers with direct access to basic financial services such as sending and receiving money, bill payments, remittances, and mobile top-up from within a Coins account. Customers with or without a bank account has access to online shopping at over 63,000 merchants who accept the digital currency.

Bitcoin and Digital Currency are going to the future of financial system, however the main challenge is developing on emerging technologies and providing innovations for consumers and businesses across the globe. Also technologies should be as safe and easy to use as possible, and working with governments to find out how to allow these innovations mapped with law.

What about your careers and businesses?

The emerging digital tools can enable organizations to focus not only on finding talent, but also on managing, retaining, and developing employees. Digital employee portals will get integrated with these tools helping companies to expand their employee database, refine their recruiting and screening methods, and deploy their employees more effectively. Such platforms can help put the right person in the right job, find gaps in skills, help employees as they achieve new capabilities, chart career paths, and drive the development of the next generation of leaders.

Two million-plus people may already be employed in the creative and digital sectors, contributing £137 billion to the country, yet a report published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) in June 2015 revealed that there are more vacancies in these sectors than across the rest of the UK economy. It also predicted that 1.2 million web development and programming jobs will need to be filled by 2022. Web developers and programmers are therefore in high demand, as fewer graduates are choosing to enter the sector.

Customers are better connected, as data is connecting everything allowing competitors and start-ups outperform established players. Those who adapt their business model around the customer will win in the growing digital age. Businesses need to become more innovative and agile to be able to adapt to customer demands and market changes. This will allow them to increase customer engagement, grow employees and become more profitable. Ultimately, they need a business strategy for the digital age.

Learn how to sell in Digital Age.

Selling in the Digital Age will help your sales people maximize the power of the Digital Marketing, stay ahead of the competition. The digital age is providing online platforms, channels and systems that business owners & digital marketers use to optimise their online businesses. The business owners need to understand the current digital landscape and how it can drive success and growth for their business. Majorly they need to understand the core functions & principles of digital marketing analytics and what makes an effective brand strategy. Effectively use the power of the Digital Marketing to identify prospects with social networks, search engines, directories, blogs and Twitter. Find and develop qualified prospects into customers using the vast resources of the Internet. Interact with and retain current customers. Build ongoing customer relationships.

One can get the most out of Search Engines

Social Networks can help you sell.

Make the most with LinkedIn, a business networking juggernaut.

Use Twitter to sell and become more knowledgeable about your industry.

Use Directories to find the right people and information, fast.

Use E-mail Campaigns to help your customers buy.

Write Blogs to become known as an industry expert.

Build Your Personal Brand online that generates inbound business.

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Source by Chandrakant Yadav

How to Get Money Fast (Even If You Don't Have a Driver's License)

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Are you tired of relying on Mom and Dad to fuel your allowance fee? Do you need to make some quick cash? Why not do something about it! You don't need to have a driver's license to make money. In fact, there are plenty of ways to make some quick cash without having to rely on your weekly chores.

1. Wash Cars: Just because you don't know how to drive them doesn't mean you can't wash them. Start a neighbourhood car washing service. To make even more cash, opt to also include an inside vacuum and window washing service into your business.

Car washing is an annoying chore that most busy working adults are more than willing to pay you to do. SO take advantage of this and start scrubbing away.

2. Make Weekly Deliveries: Check the yellow pages or your local community advertisements for companies that may need a delivery person. Deliveries are easy to do and allow you to enjoy the sunshine. Ride your bike, roller blade or simply walk your way around the neighbourhood for cash.

3. Offer a Dog Walking Service: Many people are simply too tired after a long day of work to walk their pups. Offer to take the little fur balls off your neighbours hands for an hour and start up a dog walking business.

Collect as many dogs as you can, charge a fee and head to the park or around the block after school. The dogs and their owners will thank you! And so will your wallet!

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Source by Perry Webbing

7 Advantages of Cryptocurrency

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Cryptocurrency is a digital alternative to using credit cards or cash to make everyday payments in a variety of situations. It continues to grow as a workable alternative to traditional payment methods, but still needs to become more stable before it is fully welcomed by ordinary people. Let's take a look at a few of the many advantages of using cryptocurrency:

Fraud - any issue with fraud is kept to a minimum because cryptocurrency is digital which can prevent a reversed or counterfeited payment. This type of action can be a problem with other traditional payment options, such as credit card, because of charge-backs.

Identity theft - there is no need to give personal information that can lead to identity theft when using cryptocurrency. If you use a credit card, the store is given a lot of information related to your credit line, even for a very small transaction. Also, the credit card payment relies on a pull transaction where a specific amount is requested from an account. With a cryptocurrency payment, the transaction is based on a push basis, which gives the account holder the option to only send the exact amount due with no extra information.

Versatile use - a payment by cryptocurrency can easily be made to comply with certain terms. A digital contract can be created to make a payment subject to completing on a future date, reference external facts, or get third-party approval. Even with a special contract in place, this type of payment is still very fast and efficient.

Easy access - the use of cryptocurrency is widely available to anyone that has access to the internet. It is growing very popular in certain parts of the world, such as Kenya, which has nearly 1/3 of the population using a digital wallet via the local microfinance service.

Low fees - it is possible to complete a cryptocurrency transaction without having to pay extra fees or charges. However, if a digital wallet or third-party service is used to hold the cryptocurrency there is likely to be a small charge.

International trade - this type of payment is not subject to country specific levies, transaction charges, interest rates, or exchange rates, which makes it possible to complete cross-border transfers with relative ease.

Adaptability - with nearly 1200 unique cryptocurrency types in the global market, there are plenty of opportunities to use a payment method that matches the specific needs. Even though there are plenty of options to use the coins for everyday use, there are also those intended for a specific use or in a particular industry.

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Source by Leo Eigenberg

How to Make Money From Bitcoin Online

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It is now the eve of 2018 and bitcoin is at the top of the mountain. The bad days seems to be gone, and although a bitcoin bubble could happen anytime, there is no arguing the cryptocurrency is here to stay. The sooner you get involved into making money from bitcoin, the better ground you will have in 5 years when it becomes an established currency worldwide.

And if the Bubble scares you, investing in bitcoin is just one of the options, but not the only one. Bubble or not you can still make tons of money from bitcoin. And bubble or not, the value will rise in the future because people are just getting involved in it.

Make you own Bitcoin Faucet

Earning Potential: $50 to $800 a month.

A bitcoin faucet is a project in which you create a website or app for users to visit. You monetize the site with ads that pay in bitcoin. The ads pay a small amount of bitcoins per page view, click or conversion.

To encourage a large amount of visitors to keep navigating the site on a daily and hourly basis, you offer to split the revenue from the ads with them, paying in Satoshi which are basically bitcoin cents. To claim their winnings the user needs to earn a certain amount of Satoshi and payments are conducted on a weekly basis.

Faucets are paying between 100,000 to 400,000 satoshi's per hour. Some offer premium payments for seniority or tasks achievements.

Faucets began to operate with the solving of captchas, and nothing else. A very boring passive income task. New faucets are building in games were users kill aliens, feed critters or kill robots to earn satoshi, the more they advance in the game the more they earn. So this is a great idea for your own faucet.

The day were every video game player gets paid for playing is just around the corner.

Take into consideration that bitcoin faucets tend to default due to underfunding or liquidity. The owners of the faucet do not receive their payments fast enough to pay a fast growing user base. They also tend to be hot targets for hackers.

Generate Passive Income from Your Bitcoin Blog

Since bitcoin is so new compared to other targeted content there's lots of room for new bloggers and sites. New businesses related to bitcoin spring up every day; anything from bitcoin exchanges, trading, play money sites, faucets, online shops and mining are avid for your advertorial space.

Creating a bitcoin blog and monetizing can be slow at the beginning, but constant publishing of rich content will get some advertisers interested in no less than 9 months.

You can join some affiliate programs or establish your own bitcoin shop. Bitcoin faucets, wallets and exchanges pay large commissions per referral.

Small Earnings from Bitcoin Faucets

My first advice involved creating your very own faucet. If that is a bit too hard, then try joining one and reaping off its benefits. Instead of making around $800 a month it would be more like $30 to $100 a month from a monotonous task, but it's still money and a first step to begin building up your bank.

Take note that bitcoin faucets tend to be faulty and disappear very fast. So make sure to join some reputable ones like Robotcoin.com and BitcoinAlien.com. These are also fun because you get to play games while earning, my top most recommendation would be robotcoin.

Create a Bitcoin Product or Service Online Shop

Bitcoin is still hard to monetize into USD and other hard currencies. Not that it is extremely hard, but ads some fees and taxes to the process. Although it is still one of the cheapest ways to send money to anywhere in the world.

Buying stuff with bitcoins is a great way of making something useful out of them and helps skip the fees and tax of exchanges. Especially if you can then resell those goods and turn into hard cash.

There is a great business opportunity in selling goods paid in bitcoin at low prices or wholesale. All you need is a bitcoin merchant for your Shopify or WooCommerce shop like BitPay.com. Shopify comes with BitPay already.

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Source by David Trujillo

Is It Feasible To Invest In Bitcoin?

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Chances are that you are reading this article after the latest frenzy of Bitcoin value jump that saw it just shy of the $ 20,000 mark. Now you are looking for reasons to invest in this cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology. Here are some of the reasons you should:

MORE TO COME

The first thing many people think, when they hear of the current price, is that they are too late and people who are still buying Bitcoin are just jumping the bandwagon. In truth, with years of mining to come and the currency is still in infancy (more like teenage years), the value of it is still to rise and it is a sound investment.

AUTOMATED TECHNOLOGY

Blockchain is not just about cryptocurrency. It is the future of supply chain and fighting counterfeiting. Super smart protocols such a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) and Smart Contracts are a few things to stem from blockchain that automate workings of an organization and transaction of money.

SECURE

Every day people are robbed and bank heists are done. Bitcoin and Blockchain ensures that the money stored in your digital wallet is at a security level that is extremely safe than the virtual number depicting your cash in your local bank.

SAVING MONEY

Ever had the bad experience where you need to send some money to the other side of the world and the amount of charges for currency conversion, opening Letter of Credits, banking charges etc. made you cringe? Bitcoin does away with all that. Since there is no banking system when it comes to cryptocurrencies, there is no intermediary like a bank. You can avoid all these excessive charges by sending money directly to the intended recipient.

TIME IS MONEY

Did we mention you can send the money directly yourself? That saves you the time since you do not have to fill in forms and applications. Just ask for the receiver's public address and click away the required amount.

NO INFLATION

Since Bitcoins are limited in number (only 21 million will ever be produced), the value of this cryptocurrency cannot be devaluated as the limited supply but an ever increasing demand means that it is self-floating currency. No inflation translates to an excellent investment.

YOUR OWN

Remember the Greek financial crisis where the city councils were asked to hand over extra cash to the central bank? With normal currency, the central bank is the owner, not you, and can force you to give it back to them. Bitcoin is owned by no one, but yourself for the amount in hand. No one can force it away from you.

It is not too late to invest in Bitcoin and Blockchain, but like any other currency, the future cannot be predicted. Study the charts of your preferred bitcoin exchange soundly before committing to an investment.

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Source by Saad Ullah Butt

How to Buy Bitcoin - Step One

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The best way to learn about bitcoin, is to jump in and get a few in your "pocket" to get a feel for how they work.

Despite the hype about how difficult and dangerous it can be, getting bitcoins is a lot easier and safer than you might think. In a lot of ways, it is probably easier than opening an account at a traditional bank. And, given what has been happening in the banking system, it is probably safer too.

There are a few things to learn: getting and using a software wallet, learning how to send and receive money, learning how to buy bitcoin from a person or an exchange.

Preparation

Before getting started, you will need to get yourself a wallet. You can do this easily enough by registering with one of the exchanges which will host wallet for you. And, although I think you are going to want to have one or more exchange wallets eventually, you should start with one on your own computer both to get a better feel for bitcoin and because the exchanges are still experimental themselves. When we get to that stage of the discussion, I will be advising that you get in the habit of moving your money and coins off the exchanges or diversifying across exchanges to keep your money safe.

What is a wallet?

It is a way to store your bitcoins. Specifically, it is software that has been designed to store bitcoin. It can be run on your desktop computer, laptop, mobile device (except, as yet, Apple) and can also be made to store bitcoins on things like thumb drives. If you are concerned about being hacked, then that is a good option. Even the Winklevoss* twins, who have millions invested in bitcoin, put their investment on hard drives which they then put into a safety deposit box.

*The Winklevoss twins are the ones who originally had the idea for a social networking site that became Facebook. They hired Mark Zuckerberg who took their idea as his own and became immensely rich.

What do you need to know about having a bitcoin wallet on your computer?

Below you can download the original bitcoin wallet, or client, in Windows or Mac format. These are not just wallets, but are in fact part of the bitcoin network. They will receive, store, and send your bitcoins. You can create one or more addresses with a click (an address is a number that looks like this: 1LyFcQatbg4BvT9gGTz6VdqqHKpPn5QBuk). You will see a field where you can copy and paste a number like this from a person you want to send money to and off it will go directly into that person's wallet. You can even create a QR code which will let someone take a picture with an app on their phone and send you some bitcoin. It is perfectly safe to give these out - the address and QR code are both for my donations page. Feel free to donate!

NOTE: This type of wallet acts both as a wallet for you and as part of the bitcoin system. The reason bitcoin works is that every transaction is broadcast and recorded as a number across the entire system (meaning that every transaction is confirmed and made irreversible by the network itself). Any computer with the right software can be part of that system, checking and supporting the network. This wallet serves as your personal wallet and also as a support for that system. Therefore, be aware that it will take up 8-9 gigabytes of your computer's memory. After you install the wallet, it will take as much as a day for the wallet to sync with the network. This is normal, does not harm your computer, and makes the system as a whole more secure, so it's a good idea.

Bitcoin Qt

• The original wallet.


• This is a full-featured wallet: create multiple addresses to receive bitcoins, send bitcoins easily, track transactions, and back up your wallet.


• Outside of the time it takes to sync, this is a very easy to use option.


• Search for Bitcoin Qt wallet download to find their site.

Armory

• Runs on top of Bitcoi Qt, so it has all of the same syncing requirements.


• Armory allows you to back up, encrypt, and the ability to store your bitcoins off line.


• Search for Bitcoin Armory Wallet to find their site.

If you don't want to have that much memory used or don't want to wait for your wallet to sync, there are good wallets that do not make you sync the entire history of bitcocin:

Multibit

• A lightweight wallet that syncs quickly. This is very good for new users.


• Search for Bitcoin Multibit Wallet to find their site.

Electum

• In addition to being quick and light, this wallet allows you to recover lost data using a passcode.


• Search for Bitcoin Electum Wallet to find their site.

After you get the wallet set up, take a few minutes clicking around. Things to look for:

o There will be a page that shows you how many bitcoins are currently in your wallet. Keep in mind that bitcoins can be broken up into smaller pieces, so you may see a decimal with a lot of zeros after it. (Interesting note, 0.00000001 is one Satoshi, named after the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin).

o There will be an area showing what your recent transactions are.

o There will be an area where you can create an address and a QR code (like the one I have above). You don't need the QR code if you don't want it, but if you run a business and you want to accept bitcoin, then all you'll need to do to accept payment is to show someone the QR code, let them take a picture of it, and they will be able to send you some money. You will also be able to create as many addresses as you like, so if you want to track where the money is coming from, you could have a separately labeled address from each one of your payees.

o There will be an area with a box for you to paste a code when you want to send money to someone or to yourself on an exchange or different wallet.

There will be other options and features, but to start out with, these are the items that you should know about.

Getting Your First Bitcoins

Now that you have a wallet, you will, of course, want to test them out.

The very first place to go is http://faucet.bitcoin.st/.

This is a website that gives out small amounts of bitcoin for the purpose of getting people used to using them. The original version of this was run by the lead developer of bitcoin, Gavin Andreson. That site has since closed and this site operates by sending out one or two advertisements a month. You agree to receive those messages by requesting the bitcoins. Copy and paste your new bitcoin address and enter a phone number to which you can receive an SMS. They send out an SMS to be sure that people are not continuously coming back for more since it costs nothing to create a bitcoin address. They will also send out once or twice a month advertisement to support their operation. The amount they send it trivial: 0.0015 BTC (or 1.5 mBTC). However, they process almost immediately and you can check to see that your address and wallet are working. It is also quite a feeling to get that portion of a bitcoin. (Non-disclaimer: I have no connection with this site and receive nothing if you use them. I simply think they are a good way to get your feet wet).

Congratulations! You have just entered the bitcoin economy.

To get your feet a little wetter, you can go panning for gold. There are a number of services and websites out there that will pay you in bitcoin to do things like go to certain websites, fill out online surveys, or watch sponsored videos. These are harmless, and you can earn a few extra bitcoins this way, but it is important to remember that these are businesses that get paid when people click on the links on their sites. They are essentially kicking back a portion of what they get paid to you. There is nothing illegal, or even immoral about this (you might like what you see and make a purchase!), but they are frequently flashy and may not be completely straightforward. All the ones that I have tried (particularly bitvisitor.com) have paid out as advertised. It is interesting to experiment with these, but even with the likely rise in the value of bitcoin, you won't become a millionaire doing this. So, unless you are an advertisement junkie, I would recommend you move on. If you would like to try, simply Google "free bitcoins" or something along those lines and you will find numerous sites.

Buying Bitcoin Hand-to-Hand

Finally, this is going to be the real test of bitcoin. Can people easily trade them back and forth? If this can't happen, then there can't really be a bitcoin economy because retailers won't be able to use it. If retailers can't use it, what earthly good is it? Fortunately, this is not really a problem. iPhone is a bit of a hold out, but many smartphones have apps (mobile wallets) that will read QR codes and allow you to send bitcoin to whomever you want. You can also display a QR code of your address, or even carry a card in your wallet with your QR code to let people send bitcoin to you. Depending on what kind of wallet you have, you can then check to see if the bitcoins have been received.

A couple of things to note:

• When you set up your wallet, if you click around a bit, you will see an option to pay a fee to speed transactions. This money becomes available to a bitcoin miner as he/she/they process bitcoin information. The miners doing the work of creating blocks of information keeps the system up to date and secure. The fee is an incentive to the miner to be sure to include your information in the next information block and therefore "verify" it. In the short term, miners are making most of their money by mining new coins (check the section on What Are Bitcoins for more information about this). In the long term, as it gets harder to find new coins, and as the economy increases, the fees will be an incentive for miners to keep creating more blocks and keep the economy going. Your wallet should be set to pay 0 fees as a default, but if you want, you can add a fee to prioritize your transactions. You are under no obligation to pay a fee, and many organizations that process many small transactions (like the ones that pan for gold described above) produce enough fees to keep the miners happy.


• In clicking around your wallet, on the transactions page or linked to specific transactions, you will see a note about confirmations. When you make a transaction, that information is sent out into the network and the network will send back a confirmation that there is no double entry for that bitcoin. It is smart to wait until you get several confirmations before walking away from someone who has paid you. It is actually not very easy to scam someone hand-to-hand like this, and it is not very cost-effective for the criminal, but it can be done.

Where can you buy bitcoin like this?

• You may have a bitcoin Meetup in your area.


• You can check out localbitcoins.com to find people near you who are interested in buying or selling.


• Some are trying to start up local street exchanges across the world. These are called Buttonwoods after the first street exchange established on Wall Street in 1792 under a buttonwood tree. See if there is one, or start one, in your area.


• See if you have any friends who would like to try bitcoins out. Actually, the more people who start using bitcoin, the larger and more successful it will be come. So please tell two friends!

Some people ask if it is possible to buy physical bitcoins. The answer to this is both a yes and a no. Bitcoin, by its very nature, is a digital currency and has no physical form. However, there are a couple of ways that you can practically hold a bitcoin in your hands:

• Cascascius Coins: These are the brainchild of Mike Caldwell. He mints physical coins and then embeds the private keys for the bitcoins inside them. You can get the private key by peeling a hologram from the coin which will then clearly show that the coin has been tampered with. Mike has gone out of his way to ensure that he can be trusted. These are a good investment strategy as in the years to come it may be that these coins are huge collector's items.


• Paper Wallets: A paper wallet just means that rather than keeping the information for your bitcoin stored in a digital wallet, you print the key information off along with a private key and keep it safe in a safe, in a drawer, or in your mattress (if you like). This is highly recommended and cost effective system for keeping your bitcoin safe. Keep in mind, though, that someone could steal them or if your house burns, they will go with the house and there will be no way to get them back. Really, no different than cash. Also, as with Casascius Coins, they will not really be good for spending until you put them back into the computer.

* There is software to make printing your paper wallets easier. bitcoinpaperwallet.com is one of the best and includes a good tutorial about how to use them.

* The bitcoins are not actually in the wallet, they are still on the web. In fact, the outside of the wallet will have a QR code that will allow you ship coins to the wallet any time you like.

* The sealed part of the wallet will have the private key without which you cannot access the coins. Therefore, only put as many coins on the wallet as you want to be inaccessible. You will not be able to whip this thing out and take out a few coins to buy a cup of coffee. Rather, think of it as a piggy bank. To get the money, you have to smash it. It is possible to take out smaller amounts, but at this point the security of the wallet is compromised and it would be easier for someone to steal the coins. Better to have them all in or out.

* People who use paper wallets are usually security conscious, and there are a number of ways for the nefarious in the world to hack your computer. Bitcoinpaperwallet.com gives a lot of good advice about how to print your wallets securely.

Some people have also asked about buying bitcoins on eBay. Yes, it is possible, but they will be far overpriced. So, selling on eBay might seem to be a better option given the extreme markup over market value you might see. But, as with anything that is too good to be true, this is too good to be true. As I will explain in the next section, selling bitcoin this way is just way too risky.

How Not to Buy Bitcoin

In the next section, I am going to explain a couple of key points about buying from Bitcoin Exchanges. Before I do, let me give you a warning.

A short history lesson: When people first started setting up actual business based on bitcoin, they used all of the tools available to any merchant. They sold by credit card and PayPal. The problem with this business model was quickly spotted: bitcoin transactions are not reversible by anyone except the recipient of the money. Credit cards and PayPal have strong buyer protection policies that make it relatively easy for people to request a chargeback. So, nefarious individuals realized this and began making purchases of bitcoin and then sooner or later requesting a chargeback. And, since bitcoin is a non-physical product, sent by new and poorly understood technological means, the sellers were not able to contest this. Because of this, sellers stopped accepting credit cards and PayPal.

This was a big problem for the currency: How to move money between buyers and seller? Some business emerged that would credit you with bitcoin if you wired them money. Very often these businesses would give addresses in Albania, Poland, or Russia. The fact is that many of these did work and there are a lot of stories on the forums of people who bought bitcoins this way. But it took a lot of time and in the meantime the buyer just had to bite his or her fingernails wondering if they would get their bitcoins or kiss their investment goodbye.

I expect that as bitcoin becomes more acceptable and valuable, we are going to see a version of the Nigerian Prince scam. So the warning is this: we now have exchanges and other businesses that allow for moving money easily onto and off of exchanges. Never wire money for bitcoin. It was a short-lived, and well-forgotten, moment in the history of bitcoin.

Next, I will be talking about how to buy from a bitcoin exchange and give a review of the some of the best known exchanges.

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Source by Mark Andrew Norton

What Is Bitcoin and Its Characteristics?

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Introduction to Bitcoin

Bitcoin is an advanced form of a currency that is used to purchase things through online transactions. Bitcoin is not tangible, it is completely controlled and made electronically. One needs to be careful about when to contribute to Bitcoin as its cost changes continuously. Bitcoin is used to make the various exchanges of currencies, services, and products. The transactions are done through one's computerized wallet, which is why the transactions are rapidly processed. Any such transactions have always been irreversible as the client's identity is not revealed. This factor makes it a bit difficult when deciding on transactions through Bitcoin.

Characteristics of Bitcoin

Bitcoin is faster: The Bitcoin has the capability to organize installments faster than any other mode. Usually when one transfers cash from one side of the world to the other, a bank takes a few days to complete the transaction but in the case of Bitcoin, it only takes a few minutes to complete. This is one of the reasons why people use Bitcoin for the various online transactions.

Bitcoin is easy to set up: Bitcoin transactions are done through an address that every client possesses. This address can be set up easily without going through any of the procedures that a bank undertakes while setting up a record. Creating an address can be done without any changes, or credit checks or any inquiries. However, every client who wants to consider contributing should always check the current cost of the Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is anonymous: Unlike banks that maintain a complete record about their customer's transactions, Bitcoin does not. It does not keep a track of clients' financial records, contact details, or any other relevant information. The wallet in Bitcoin usually does not require any significant data to work. This characteristic raises two points of view: first, people think that it is a good way to keep their data away from a third party and second, people think that it can raise hazardous activity.

Bitcoin cannot be repudiated: When one sends Bitcoin to someone, there is usually no way to get the Bitcoin back unless the recipient feels the need to return them. This characteristic ensures that the transaction gets completed, meaning the beneficiary cannot claim they never received the cash.

Bitcoin is decentralized: One of the major characteristics of Bitcoin that it is not under the control of a particular administration expert. It is administered in such a way that every business, individual and machine involved with exchange check and mining is part of the system. Even if a part of the system goes down, the cash transfers continue.

Bitcoin is transparent: Even though only an address is used to make transactions, every Bitcoin exchange is recorded in the Blockchain. Thus, if at any point one's address was used, they can tell how much money is in the wallet through Blockchain records. There are ways in which one can increase security for their wallets.

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Source by Shalini M

The Bitcoin: Future Currency?

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The Bitcoin is a type of currency designed digitally and encrypted for verification of transactions of assets, and to control creation of currency; the name given to this type of currency is cryptocurrency. This worldwide famous currency was developed in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. This Peer-to-peer electronic cash system was given the symbol XBT for market usage. As any other currency, the Bitcoin has its own unit system which goes from the millibitcoin (0.001) to the satoshi (0.00000001).

The design of the Bitcoin is extremely complex, but very reliable. First, one of the questioned subjects on this matter is its security. Believe it or not, Bitcoins are more secure than regular currency. The obvious thing is that, it cannot be stole physically, and although it can be stole electronically the following explanation will show you how hard it is to do this.

I'd like to start talking about the storage of this electronic currency. A cryptocurrency wallet is basically the same as a tangible wallet where you store your money. The electronic wallet works the same as Amazon or any website accounts where you store your credit cards, except that in this case you will be storing money indeed. The way you earn this money is by setting up an address at the time of creating your Bitcoin account. This wallet has a hardware device which looks like a clicker where you will receive notifications on any type of transaction.

The way the wallet was built complements with the way transactions are made. Transactions are mainly the same as in the present; therefore, you exchange an output for an input. The way the currency is tracked is that The Blockchain broadcasts live movements of the money. Every time a payer sends bitcoins to a payee, the transaction is registered in the blockchain. This blockchain is managed by the programmers of the currency. To avoid duplication, the transactions follow inputs and refer these to previous outputs.

But the secure transactions cannot do the whole work of securing the currency, it needs human supervision. The currency is overseen by miners. What these people do is that they keep records of the transaction and through the system they look for inconsistencies. The Blockchain is composed by blocks, each block contains cryptographic hash. Cryptographic hash is a set of data that can be traced. This new block need a proof-of-work in other to be accepted.

Bitcoins are already gaining acceptance worldwide. As now, Bitcoins can be used in over 100,000 institutions around the world and is expected to keep growing. Although the insecurity behind the fact that there is no governmental support makes it hard to believe that this will be the currency of the future, but watch out, it might impact the world.

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Source by Javier Astudillo

Collecting Bitcoins to Use In a Transaction

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The big question of how to get bitcoins.

After acquiring a basic knowledge of what bitcoin is and how the wallet really work, you may want to get into the digital currency world and get some bitcoin for yourself. Thus the big question arrives to your mind: How do I get bitcoins?

Becoming difficult.

After you get the knowledge of the origin of every single bitcoin, which is based on a mining process, you'll believe that the best way to get them is by joining this mining process. The thing is that, this has become very difficult, because the fast popularity grow of the crypto currency.

Sell products or services.

Every single bitcoin comes as the result of a previous transaction. Thus, the way to get them, when you don't have any, is by receiving a transaction from someone else, when you purchase them using cash or also by mining new bitcoins.

When you know an individual, who uses bitcoins, you can ask him/her to get bitcoins. In case you don't know anyone who posses them, you can get bitcoins by offering another kind of transaction with just another bitcoin user, resulting you getting paid in bitcoins. The alternative option is by mining them yourself.

Mining.

In case you cannot purchase bitcoin from someone else, you can get them by mining them. The term mining here means: solving a complex mathematical problem, which intention is to validate other individuals transactions. In return you're awarded with bitcoins. Receiving bitcoins is sometimes free, but a fee may be included for sending them, it depends on the online platform you use. Before getting into mining bitcoins, you need to understand, that it's not an easy way to get bitcoins, it requires some tech knowledge, which may not be practical for you.

Buy.

In case, you don't know anyone who posses bitcoins, you don't have anything to sell to exchange for bitcoins, there's a way to buy bitcoins. There're several online platforms, these sell bitcoins by a process called trading/exchanging. Here I list some ways you can purchase bitcoins:

Buy bitcoins from a person.

There are online marketplaces where you can buy bitcoins in a person-to-person scheme. You can pay these individuals with cash or by other ways. The good think is that you and the seller can arrange the payment method: cash in person, cash by deposit, bank wire, PayPal, etc. The key element here is to find someone trustworthy. A good tip is using an escrow online service, this way you can protect yourself against any kind of fraud. The good thing about these online escrow platform, is that everyone should upload their scanned ID, this guarantees security during the transactions.

Buy bitcoins from an exchange and outlet.

Bitcoin exchanges or outlets are basically online services that make it easier for buyers and seller to do bitcoins transactions. To be part of one of these, all you need is to create an account and get your identity verification before you can buy or sell bitcoins.

Buy bitcoins through an ATM.

Some cities around the world offer physical bitcoin ATMs. You just get your bitcoins through them using local fiat currency. Governments regulate the uses of these ATMs for security purposes. Sometimes finding a bitcoin ATM near your location may be difficult, because even the location where these are installed is regulated.

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Source by Ramon Tarruella