Well I am sure tons of other bloggers have already picked up on this but I just can’t let today go past without wishing Happy Birthday to the World Wide Web and passing on my take on it.

Yep today it’s 15 years old!!

Now when my daughter was 15 she had fully morphed into “teenager from hell” or some kind of visiting alien from another planet who had invaded her body, anyway, needless to say, she was an absolute joy to live with NOT!!! But that’s a whole other blog so I won’t go into that too much here because you came here for some light reading right? not for me to depress you so much you have a crap day.

I have to report that the alien entity that was my daughter has moved on to fresher pastures (I feel for whichever parent got it) and my now 20 year old daughter really is a joy and a great friend.

So what can we expect from our ‘www’ 15 year old? the internet equivalent of acne? tantrums over nothing.. you switch on your computer, go get yourself a spiffy IE page, Firefox page, – insert your browser of choice here, page – and instead get that annoying page telling you it can’t be loaded, you know the one, perhaps it may be slightly different from now on? for instance:

Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage

Seriously, isn’t it amazing, only 15 years old – I am one of those that do not think they could cope without my daily cruise around the internet – I am online for most of the day during the week (I do work online so have some excuse, but still).

Can you remember back to “before”? what did you do with your day/night?

I mean, for instance, almost everything I do is typed – I had to sign for something in a shop the other day, I could barely write let alone remember how my signature goes!

Anyway, join me in wishing WWW a very happy birthday (and please be nice to us LOL).

This morning I was going through my usual Google Alerts, I have a few and one of them is for anything happening in “Swansea, UK” because basically, I live just down the road, well ok, about ten miles away.. anywho… the very last one alerted me to a blog called “A Day in the life of..” by ‘Norbert’.

If you go have a read you will see that Norbert had a right old time of it recently with trying to get something done by his bank via the telephone, he wrote an extremely amusing account of the whole thing.

Anyway, after reading that, it reminded me of an article that was published in the ‘New York Times’.  The articled showed an actual letter that was sent to a bank by a, then, 96 year old woman, the manager of said bank thought it amusing enough to get it published.

Now I found this letter via a forum (I am a member of many so please don’t ask me which one) and unfortunately, I can’t therefore credit a) the person who posted it to the forum or b) the original author of the letter (and indeed, not the bank manager either) but trust me when I say, this is not my work.

I am sure many of you may have come across this before but it is so funny it warrants getting published in this blog and I am sure also that there will be many people who have never seen this.  I am from the UK but I think pretty much most people will be able to sympathise with this wonderful 96 year old woman who deserves a medal and gets deepest respect from this simple blogger.

This is it, enjoy:

Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three nano seconds must have elapsed between his presenting the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it.

I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my entire income, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become.

From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person.

My mortgage and loan repayments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank, by check, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate.

Be aware that it is an offense under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope. Please find attached an Application Contact Status which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative.

Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be counter signed by a Notary Public, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof. In due course, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me.

I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modeled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service.

As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Let me level the playing field even further.

When you call me, press the buttons as follows:

1. To make an appointment to see me.

2. To query a missing payment.

3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.

4. To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.

5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.

6. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.

7. To leave a message on my computer, a password to access my computer is required. Password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorized Contact.

8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 7.

9. To make a general complaint or inquiry. The contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service.

While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous New Year.

Your Humble Client

Yesterday a new Traffic Exchange launched (which is free to join and upgrade if you want, or not). ‘So what!’ I hear you say, well this one is not just new but also has some very new ideas not found in other conventional manual traffic exchanges, hence the name “New Way 2 Surf” (NW2S). One of the new ideas is this traffic exchange will help you build your list using your autoresponder, more on that below.

I have been lucky enough to get a sneek preview and use of NW2S for a few weeks now and I must say, I love the design and layout and ease of use, especially love that I get to “hover” all over the place – not just in the surf.. let me explain further, in this manual traffic exchange you don’t click anything to move onto the next advertisers page, you simply hover over the correct symbol, great fun. Also, the back office functions are “no click” as well, you just hover over where you want to go and your there, very neat.. one downside I have found though is I keep hovering where I want to go in other programs too and then wonder why after a few seconds I am still on the same page so it’s addictive and habit forming LOL

For me, customer service is always a top priority in anything I do off or online, whether I am supplying it or hopefully receiving it, having been involved with John Guanzon before with “ProfitHustler”, “Traffic Pro-X” (his other manual traffic exchange) and a number of other programs, I knew John to be a responsive and caring admin and so getting involved with “NW2S” would be a ‘no brainer’ on that score, John will always find a way to help his members and he is very “Hands On”.

However, although I have seen Jennifer Herold’s (owner of “Clickinpeople” traffic exchange) name in various places on the internet I had no idea if she would be the same, but I can tell you, she is and boy is she fast!!, if you have a problem, you almost just gotta think about it and bam! it’s sorted out.. so NW2S already gets an “A+” from me for customer service.

The new ideas John and Jen have for this traffic exchange are just plain brilliant and let me tell you, they have created their system to give proper step by step training to anyone new to traffic exchanges.

Another marvellous idea is their patented list building tool which is called “The Ezine Ad” and this is offered to all members, both free and upgraded. It helps you build your own list and no, not Johns or Jennifers, yours! because this system is tied in with “Aweber”, “Email Aces” and “Get Response” autoresponder programs. Anyone clicking on your Ezine Ad within the NW2S system is entered into YOUR list via YOUR autoresponder making this another fantastic way to help build your new and current lists, now I don’t know of any other manual traffic exchange that offers that service to it’s members, if I am wrong then please let me know.

OK enough from me, check it out for yourself, click the banner, it’s free to join.

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I’m not going to drown you in the details as the BANS site covers everything
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It’s only now and then that a really great product comes along and this one
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Click Here to visit the store I am presently building with BANS