Foreign Perspectives

Archive for April, 2007

Whilst we might complain about the volume of dog poo in France, at least they have the little trucks to clean it up in the towns.But, why is it that this seems to be the most ignored sign in the world? After all, the penalty on this particular sign is £500 and that sum seems fairly typical of the fines imposed in other countries.

One of the blog marketing sites, DoshDosh recently suggested that it may be possible to get into the top 100 favourites on Technorati relatively easily.

Whilst we’ve all been beavering away in building up links back to our blogs, it will take a “while” to get to the top 100 linked to blogs as number 100 is currently sitting at over 3000 links. On the other hand, it would only require just over 100 200 people to favorite us to get into the top 100 favorited blogs which certainly seems in the realms of possibility.

Why bother though? Well, being in a top 100 list of anything is almost certain to increase the traffic on the blog and indeed quite likely to increase the number of blogs linking to us for that matter.

Anyway, if you’re interested in exchanging favourites in this way you can start the ball rolling by clicking

and letting me know that you’ve done it in a comment to this post (quote your Technorati username so I can confirm the link).

A link back in a post would also be appreciated and reciprocated.

Those also offering link exchange are listed below:

List of blogs offering Technorati Favorites’ Exchange programmes:

1. NiaTrading Signals – Alex 3071
2. Domestic Divapalooza – Angela Llewellyn Stevens
3. Anitokid by Anitokid –
4. AskaX World – Andika Kusuma
5. Tech Lock Rahul – Rahul
6. Bigfoot Sightings – Linda Martin
7. Azazil.net – Gary V. Vaughan
8. Nukilan Jejari Azhad by Shaz Azhad –
9. Fyais by fyais –
10. BlogOp – Chris Lodge
11. Design Adaptations – Charity Ondriezek
12. Spyware, Adware and Security News
13. Digital Information Technology – Atul Dogra
14. How to Earn Money Blogging – Daryl Lau
15. Make Money Online: Quick n’ Easy Way – EJ Cooksey
16. Genius Type – Brian Lee
17. Keeping Fit is a Daily Battle
18. India PR Blog by India PR Blogspot –
19. The Rojak Blog – Ap0gEE
20. Lifecruiser – Lifecruiser
21. Me and My Net – Anoop Kumar Singh
22. Manila Mom – Maia Jose
23. MLM Gossip
24. Panda Cube – Aki Jinn
25. Quasi Fictional – Diogenes
26. Shankar’s Tech Blog 2.0 – Shankar
27. ShanKri-La – Karthik Ramadoss
28. Share Everything in Life
29. Dox – Rahul
30. My Online Collections by star500k –
31. Table4Five – Elizabeth
32. TechChee.com
33. Ordinary Folk – Mike
34. (weeding done to here)
35. T Jantunen.com by T Jantunen –
36. Vinod Live! by Vinod Ponmanadiyil –
37. Online Business News – Tammy Ames
38. Wampago – Chris
39. Webtools@Desinet1
40. Show Me The Money by Gerri –
41. Armen’s Blog – Fave it
42. Article Discovery Politics by David Greene –
43. Philippine Home Design and Improvement Blog
44. Home Based Business by Brian Pratt –
45. Shakeroo’s Gold – Shakeroo
46. Blue Sky Brothers – Greg Meares
47. Brown Thoughts by Brown Baron –
48. Business Sanity – Susan Martin
49. CalvinWarr.com by Calvin Warr –
50. Can’t Coach That by Coach McGee –
51. Career Ramblings – Fave the Site
52. The Pond – Karen
53. ContentPays.info by Yogesh –
54. Creative Design – David Airey
55. Random Expressions – Deepak Jeswal
56. Digital Phocus – Brendan Monaghan
57. Dosh Dosh – Fave it
58. Eat Drink & Be Merry – Fave it
59. Ed Lau – Fave it
60. eJabs.com by Matthew Jabs –
61. Everyday Weekender – Fave it
62. (exceptional) work.com – Jon
63. Life in the Fast Lane by Deborah –
64. Foreign Perspectives by Arnold –
65. Gauravonomics by Gaurav –
66. Hannes Johnson – Fave it
67. Ramblings from the Marginalized – Fave the Site
68. Homemaker Diary – MQ
69. Internet Serious Business by The Troll –
70. iReview – iReview
71. JesterTunes – Jester
72. Jimi Morrisons Head – Fave it
73. Jon Lee – Fave it
74. Julies Journal – Fave it
75. Kabatology – Kabatology
76. Klamath Design by Linda –
77. Sleeping Princess
78. MLM Forums online marketing blog by Jens P. Berge –
79. MrGaryLee.com by Gary Lee –
80. Msdanielle.com by Danielle –
81. My Dandelion Patch – Fave it
82. Nate Whitehill – Fave it
83. Nathan Drach – Fave it
84. Net Business Blog – Fave the Site
85. Life Rocks! 2.0 by Nirmal T V –
86. Real Amber – Real Amber
87. Reality Wired – James
88. Revvi::blog – Revvi Sudirnoputra
89. Riskiraj by Rishiraj –
90. Romance Tracker by Phil Van Treuren –
91. Samanathon – Fave it
92. Scribble on the Wall – Fave it
93. Serendipity by Sharique–
94. Shadow Scope by Richard –
95. SiteLogic – Fave it
96. Sizlopedia – Sizlopedia
97. SMO Blog – Mark Blair
98. SMS Today by Foxtucker–
99. Square Cookies – Square Cookies
100. SquareCookies
101. Stephen Fung – Fave it
102. Syaf the Geek by Syafrizal Abu Mansor –
103. TechLivez.com – Tech Livez
104. Technacular by Vikas Sah –
105. TechnoDiary – Sahil Gupta
106. Technospot.net by Ashish Mohta –
107. TeknoBites by Ram –
108. The Blog Columnist – The Blog Columnist
109. Filipino Entrepreneur by Filipino Entrepreneur –
110. The Thinking Blog by ilker yoldas –
111. Untwisted Vortex – RT Cunningham
112. UrgentClick by Andy –
113. Vacilamos! – Ari
114. Online Diary – Venu
115. VersaCreations by Vivienne Quek –
116. My Affiliate Journey
117. Inklings: The Copywriter’s Blog by Walter Burek –
118. My Life My Story –My Passion – Yong Kai Loon
119. Zath by Simon Barker –
120. Digital Art World Blog –
121. Blogtology –
122. The Outsider’s View – Javier Altman
123. Making Money through Internet – MarriedMelody
124. Earn Money on the Web – Kent
125. Blogs et IE – T@Blogoshere
126. Spark Minute – David Spark
127. Uncleboob – Uncleboob *
128. IT Experts Central – IT Experts Central *
129. Tech Freak – Kanak *
130. sophistishe – Sheena *

SUGGESTION: once you’ve gone through and faved everyone on this list, add a comment saying you’ve done that and subscribe to the comments. That’ll pick up anyone new appearing here. ‘Tis also worthwhile to run up a favourites exchange page of your own; if you do, mention that here and I’ll add you on which get’s both of us a link. 

IMPORTANT: I’m running various separate blog promotions at the moment so you need to put a comment here to say that you’ve favourited me as I can’t tell from the Technorati info whether or not new favourites are arriving because of this post.

TRAVEL/EXPAT/IMMIGRATION/EMMIGRATION RELATED SITES: let me know if your blog covers topics in the areas of travel, expat or immigration/emmigration matters as I will consider blogroll exchanges with sites in those areas.

WEEDING: a number of those listed here are no longer participating in the exchange; I’m in the process of weeding out those that aren’t so this list will be shrinking drastically over the next few days weeks months.

LINK BACK: As I have dofollow for comments, you should automatically get a linkback to your blog when I approve any comments written here. I’d appreciate it if you’d return the favour 🙂

I recently came across Immigration Orange which covers immigration issues primarily in America but increasingly worldwide.When I thought about the things that they cover, it struck me that there don’t seem to be any Canadian wetbacks nor do there seem to be any in Europe. For those that don’t know “wetback” is the (derogratory) term used to describe illegal immigrants in America, essentially because the border is marked by the Rio Grande and therefore in times past they could be picked out by having wet-backs from crossing the river.

The landscape around us has remained stark since the last of the grape bushes were prunned at the end of the year but it’s all about to change.

As you can see the first shoots have started to appear on the grape bushes just beside us but already the landscape has taken a greener appearance. The various types of grape start growing at different times so we’ve been watching as the greenery has been sweeping towards us over the last week or so and we noticed the first signs of growth in the plants beside us just a few days ago.

What’s very surprising is the sheer speed at which the plants grow. Once they get started, you can find a small bush appearing within just a few days of rain. The climate locally is pretty dry so most of the growth happens in very short bursts after each day that we get rain. 

International banking raises issues that rarely arise when you confine your transactions to one country and we’ll be covering these over the next couple of weeks.If you are moving to France to live, you might think that you may as well either close or at least tidy up your finances in the UK before you leave. Resist this temptation! It can be much more difficult to open UK accounts when you are living in France and if you have closed everything you may find it virtually impossible to open any account in the UK.