I am really starting to think about how to turn the much-predicted downturn to my advantage. After the fuss over here last September with the run on one of our banks, parallels are being drawn with the US subprime market. Over there we have seen photos of people outside the houses they bought, having been repossessed by the bank. Sorry to say it but this is an opportunity for investors like me - I have noticed that Chicago Real Estate is available at a snip, and the same applies for other areas like Brooklyn real estate where homebuyers are really stretched, but on the other hand many upmarket areas still command a premium.  I suspect that Boston real estate prices are not much lower than the prices demanded for an upmarket apartment in the better parts of London.

There is a refreshingly down to earth website that brings a little sanity to financial advice here in the UK, called the Motley Fool. Apart from their prediction of house price falls of twenty per cent this year I rather like their style. Whether or not their prediction proves to be true they are offering plenty of down to earth information on uk mortgage deals, for which I may still be in the market this year. My broker gives me my mortgage quotes but it is helpful to be able to check at an independent site to ensure I am being given the latest and cheapest mortgage deals for my situation. The site does not limit itself to that subject - they have articles on all aspects of finance, well written and quirky.

I have noticed since the turmoil on world markets began last year that actually more and more of us are being affected by lenders’ changing policies, meaning we may not get a loan application accepted by the first company we approach. Fortunately it is now quite easy to shop around if you have a less than perfect credit history or if you cannot provide all the requirements to get through the standard checks. This can be because you are self employed or retired, and that affects a big chunk of the population. My partner had to go to the website for help in getting a mortgage for precisely that reason - she is working freelance and cannot show proof of income.  BadCreditOffers.com can help you to choose from dozens of lenders if you are seeking credit or other loans and you live in the United States.

One great thing about having internet access is the ability to shop online and usually pay a lot less. Only recently I discovered that there are all sorts of web portals that will serve you the latest, unpublicised discounts and low prices at your favourite online merchants. The savings really came home to us when we were shopping for an 80gb iPod and digital camera recently. There is a website called savebuckets where we could compare prices before choosing. Not only did we save time and money compared to visiting the shopping centre, the weather was horrible at the time and we get really miserable trailing round the shops. So I was able to sit at my desk with a cup of tea and a biscuit, saving loads and buying at a massive saving - the 80gb iPod, in black, came in below £150!

A free CDA to MP3 converter, otherwise known as a CD ripper, is what you use when you want to convert your conventional music into the more compressed, space-saving audio format that is MP3. Aside from that a free CDA to MP3 converter may also act as an MP3 to WAV decoder, as well as a WAV to MP3 encoder.

You can find many sites that feature free CDA to MP3 converters. Below are a few of these. Read more »

A couple of my blog readers have left me comments recently and we ended up comparing notes on games of chance and the best places to play them online. If you visit a site like this you want to to feel safe and enjoy the games at the same time. A win would be nice, as well! If you are in the States you can get this information from a very good review site that lists the  Top USA Online Casinos. Here the casino sites are ranked by top players who know what they are talking about and exactly what you will be looking for.  The sites are rated according to important elements like the sign up bonus, payout rate, customer support, number and quality of the games and graphics, deposit options and ease of use. Visit the site to day and you can start playing tonight.

I hope you enjoy reading all the information that I am posting on this website. I began this blog to share my experiences of trying to get my tunes back when the hard drive crashed on my notebook computer, and along the way I have spent a lot of time blogging. As a result I need to make an income from this site and I hope you will understand my reasons for getting involved in sites where I can blog for money. It is a simple concept: my readers come to this site beacuse they are looking for help with rescuing their tunes from their ipods after their hard drive crashes, and at at the same time I publish extra information on allied subjects that I hope will be of interest to iPod owners. I hope you enjoy reading them and if you would like to get paid in the same way you can go over to smorty.com and follow my example.

I am old enough to remember the days when mobile phones used a set of standard incoming call alerts and I was amazed to see how the whole market for Free Ringtones
has literally exploded.  Now any self respecting phone user under the age of thirty - and often those who are much older - uses a musical ringtone on their cellphone.  I know some people are happy to pay big money for the latest download on their phone, but at the end of the day it is only a phone, you know.  There are great places where you can get Polyphonic Ringtones

online for instant download, and of course the choice depends very much on your musical taste.  It is not yet possible to take a track for your itunes playlist so for the moment you need to use these tools to keep your phone high up the fashion stakes.  Depending on your musical taste you can go to the site and find your favourite Dance Ringtones, just make sure you remember which one you downloaded or the phone will be ringing and you will think it belongs to someone else.

I have been talking to my nearest about kitchen equipment and there has been a slight disagreement between us over the choice of certain gadgets that I see as essential in a well-equipped home.  When it comes to coffee, I dislike the instant stuff and for that reason my krups coffee maker has pride of place on the worktop.

This is no triumph of style over substance ( as she likes to say) because the krups coffee maker is reliable, value for money, looks good and - of course - it makes very good coffee. There are very few other items of equipment that stay out on display: this is really limited to the kettle and toaster apart from the precious krups coffee maker so I am not exactly asking for the moon, am I?

This summer I have promised myself that I will return to Italy to walk in the Cinque Terre villages above the Gulf of Genoa. It is more than twenty years since I had the pleasure of staying in a rural Italian hotel and I cannot wait to go back there. This is an area that contains many of the best of Italy’s attractions. I think the beauty of staying somewhere like Rappallo is that you are well placed for visiting Portofino,Genoa, Lucca and of course Milan. Whether you stay in an Italian City hotel or a rural idyll, as I am intending, you will still get the real experience of being in Italy.

When I visit the Cinque Terre villages I will take the train that stops at all five villages, making it easy to walk the length of the coast and return to the start point by train on the way back. This lines snakes along the coast, giving beautiful views over the Ligurian Sea all the way along. After completing the walk I hope to get one more night’s stay in Italy before heading back by car.