Most people don’t give it much thought but in this day and age internet can be your lifeline to the world. We pay bills, get phone service, talk to people and send emails. So if you choose a lousy internet service provider you can hurt yourself a lot. Here are 3 ways you can choose a good ISP:

1. Don’t go by the cheapest. Internet Service Providers (ISP) have popped up like mushrooms everywhere.  Most of them have only one way to attract customers ‘offer cheap internet service’. People get suckered by the offer and next thing you know it is very hard to change. You have to change your email address, you have to get used to new ways of accessing the internet. Most don’t have good customer service. The smaller the ISP the worse their customer service because they just can’t afford to have a battery of service representative answering questions. So don’t go for the cheapest.

2. Look for speed: Speed is a very important factor. When you are doing your work if it takes forever for the screen to display, you are going to be very frustrated. Internet works best if you are going at the speed of your thought process. It is true that your computer hardware is a factor in the overall speed. But if the ISP is running at a low speed, there is no way for you to get information fast enough. Bandwidth is like a pipe. The smaller the pipe the less information you are going to get. The bigger the pipe the better your chances of going from websites to website quickly. Most smaller ISP’s have very limited bandwidth. Watch out for mom & pop ISPs because they will generally be unattended websites that just want you to sign up and collect monthly fee. They are selling some one else’s service under their name. This practice is called ‘private branding’. Let me give an example. Amazon sells their books through not only their own website but a lot of private websites that sell Amazon’s products. So it’s like Amazon has several private stores selling their wares. Why does Amazon do this? Because  Amazon wants only a sale to make a buck. Why would a private website want to sell Amazon’s products because? Because the website owner gets a commission.

Internet has truly revolutionized our lives. From bill paying to finding the next mate, it has made the world accessible. It is amazing how internet has touched so many aspects of our life.  Things that took hours, are handled now in minutes seamlessly. If you are not handling things efficiently in the following areas, then you may want to reconsider:

BILL PAYING: Used to be a major chore. Checking past history on each bill to see if you were not over billed.  Writing each check. Making sure you had the right postage. And after all that exercise, making it to the mail drop and hoping it gets there on time (that is where the old adage ‘check is in the mail’ came from). Internet bill paying has truly revolutionized all that. If you are not paying on the internet then please look into it. It saves countless hours of checking and writing checks. Best of all no postage and no worrying if it will get there on time.

First time when you set up the people who bill you, it takes a little time but subsequent months you just click and pay. Your transaction history is all there at your finger tips and you don’t even have to worry about payment not getting there. It is almost like child’s play.

SHOPPING: If you are in the market for a car or paper clips, you can get price comparisons across the city, state or country right there with a few clicks. No more having to feel like a dumb consumer. Information is power. Now you can feel powerful to know what you should pay for the product.

RESEARCH: How often you have been taken advantage because you did not know enough about a product? Internet is a great research tool. Anything and everything you want to know is on the internet. You can also get opinions from other people.

Sometimes there is so much information that you get ‘information overload’.

To avoid getting lost on the internet, I always set the amount of time I will spend on research on the internet. Say like 30 minutes or one hour. Because I know it is very easy to get side tracked on the internet. You go to one site and you see 10 other links. One of them catches your curiosity and you click there and next thing you know you have been all around the world but forgot what you originally came for.

This is why I set a time frame. For example, say I am going to research for a ‘car’ for 1 hour. I will not click away to sites unrelated. And after 1 hour is up I will stop. If I feel I need more time, I will schedule it again at some other time. This way I stay focused and not end up staying at my computer till the ‘cows come home’.

EMAIL: is a great way to communicate. Short, sweet and quick. No more taking out a piece of paper, making sure all your salutations are right and fighting the writer’s block. If you somehow struggle through and happen to get  your thoughts down, then you mail and wonder if it will get there. If it does get there, you have to wait patiently for a response. Days or weeks was usual and if you were dealing across the globe then it was more like months.

All that is now history. You can communicate in real time. I talk to my programmers who are sitting half way across the globe everyday. The emails fly back and forth in a matter of nanoseconds (at least it seems like it).

Best of all, email communication is self-documenting. Two months down the road, if you forget what was said, you can refresh your memory by reading the emails in chronological order.

If you get a bounced email just forward it to ‘find at switch email dot com’ and they find you the new email address. So you can locate a person quickly when they move.

FIND A MATE: The ‘mate’ could be a life partner or someone to help you with a problem. Internet allows you to get a lot of upfront information on the person, so you can make an intelligent decision. If it suits you then you can go further. Without the internet just finding information was difficult.  For example: say your dryer broke. You can find the manual online and try to fix it yourself. Or find out repair people in your area. Yellow pages used to do it before, but Yellow pages have an inherent problem. They are only ads and there is hardly any information about their repair habits, testimonials etc. Now online you can find in depth information on the person before picking up the phone to call them. Same goes for romantic match. There is already so much information available upfront on the person that in the old days would take months to find out. Sometimes you never found out because it was too embarrassing to ask. On the internet asking questions is the norm and not at all seen offensive because you have not yet met the person. I am not professing you don’t need to meet the person. All I am saying is that a lot of the preliminary checking can be done quickly and easily.

Use the tools of the internet for the benefit of your daily life. If you don’t use the tools then you may be burning your time and energy doing the old fashioned way.

In this down market, you would think that nobody would launch a website when dotcoms are going out of business left and right, but one company is making a bold move by launching a service to help solve an agonizing problem.

Isn’t it annoying when you send out an email and it comes back as ‘undeliverable’?

Well now just FORWARD the bounced email to Findperson at switchemail dot com and they will find you the new email address for the person. Problem solved!

It is estimated that over 30% of individuals with emails will change their email within a year. With over 78 million active email users across the country and over 235 million email addresses, that’s a lot of bad email addresses!

E-mailing is the most popular and efficient way of convenient contact with people/businesses. In fact, email is the most popular internet application, according to many surveys across the industry. So, keeping track of your contacts by email shouldn’t have to be that difficult.

Just like we give a ‘change of address’ at the post office when we change our physical address, now you are able to submit your change of email address at switchemail dot com and they can then direct your email to the new email address. The system is secure so you can set your privacy the way you want it to be.

Spammers have become very creative. They now send under all types of false pretenses to get you to open the email. It amazes me how much creativity they have. Why don’t they use their creativity in constructive ways? Don’t you think they would make more money if they used their mind in something constructive way rather than sinister ways?

You wonder what is the thought process that goes into the mind of a person who gets up everyday in the morning and goes to work to figure out how to annoy the world with emails; in short screw the world. It has to be very degrading!

And why would you want to always be on the wrong side of the law. You would think that after doing it once or twice you would give up and say this is too hard and I need to find gainful employment where I can hold my head high.

I also wonder how they describe their job. Say if they are at a party or social event and someone asks what do you do for a living, how must they respond. Obviously, they hide what they truly do and come up with some politically correct explanation.

I used to get emails that were just plain flat spam. Once the ISP’s started blocking them then they started becoming more creative. They started sending emails looking like bounced emails. So you are curious to open to see which email bounced. Only to find an ad. I don’t worry anymore about bounced emails. I just forward the bounced email to ‘Find at Switch email dot com’ and if it is genuine they find me the new email address.

Then the spammers started sending emails with attachments. Again, preying on your curiosity to open and see what is in the attachment. Usually these attachments are viruses or spyware cleverly disguised as a ‘offer letter’ or  ‘bank statement’. I never open any attachments if unknown to me.

Then they started sending emails with proper names. I think they just have a table of popular first names and last names, which they randomly mix and send emails. The theory being that you are bound to find some name that you are familiar and may think that the email is from a known person. For example: You may get a spam email with sender’s name as ‘Rick Smith’. You are bound to know a ‘Rick’ in your life. You may not remember the person’s last name and in your nostalgia open the email. Clever isn’t it?

I think this whole problem can be resolved very easily if there is a simple rule passed. All emails are opt-out unless you have a specific opt-in from the person. I know there are opt-in lists etc. I am going beyond that. Say you open an email account. By default it is banned from getting any unsolicited email till you designate an ‘allow’ list. There should be a national ‘allow’ list maintained by email providers. So say I want to allow Delta airlines to send me email, I designate at their website and I designate on my allow list that usually my ISP carries.  Now no emails are allowed in unless I designate.

You might say what about my long lost friend who sends me an email and is not on my ‘allow’ list. Very simple. He or she is sending one email. Your ISP knows that it is clearly not a spammer who sends out large volumes. So it is ok to send emails through.

As a nation and as individuals we are drowning in debt. That is the truth. The credit card companies and government have made us into ‘loan junkies’.

We are living beyond our means. So then why is our credit rating as a country so good?

The reason is that a lot of it is foreign money. You see countries worldwide have excess money to invest. They feel US is the most ‘safe haven’. So they all invest here in US. And we falsely think that if other countries think we are worthy then we must be “worthy”!

WRONG! One look at our deficit and you will see that we have been living large and spending stupidly.  

I will give you an example as a nation and as individuals how we are letting our thinking get corrupted. In case of national spending error. Take the classic example of Iraq. Before the war, Bush and his henchmen Wolfowitz, touted that the Iraq war will not cost us anything. Wolfowitz came on talk shows and said that Iraq produces $12 billion in oil revenue each year which would cover the cost of the war. As if to say that even if things were to go well they would hand over all their revenue to us. Because of this stupid thinking we have now spent over $500 billion and counting.  This is without taking into account the human toll in lives, which is priceless.

As individuals, look into the real estate market in any major city. The prices were soaring. Loans were being given if you could sign your name. Everyone knew this was a farce and yet it was perpetuated. A loan company was asked whether they were concerned if the loan would be paid back. Their answer was ‘Not at all’. What they do is turn around and sell the loan to the South Koreans and wash their hands off it. Next day they write more loans. And so the downward spiral continues.

I am sure your mailbox is full of credit card company offers trying to entice you to a new credit card or a new loan. Why are they doing it? Very simple. Under our current laws the credit card companies can charge exorbitant interest anywhere in excess of 20%. The type of rates loan sharks used to charge. So it has now become legalized loan sharking.

Our government has also become a ‘spend and put it on loan’ monster. They just print more money and borrow from other countries to pay for the excess.

What is the solution? We need to start living within our means. Stop this run to Starbucks for a $3 cup of coffee that is less than 25 cents worth. Stop getting the most shiny car with the latest gadgets. Same goes for homes. Just because you are making more does not mean you turn over to a bigger house. If you have to have a credit card, get a free one from LookupCreditCards website. If there is not a need, then don’t do it just to keep up with the Joneses.

It is great to have a business idea. The real test comes how it is marketed! Let me explain. You may have built the best mouse trap but if no one knows about it then you can’t make any money.

Some years back, I had a great idea. Why not come up with a ‘solution for  bounced email’. As you know, it is very frustrating when you send someone an email and it comes back as ‘undeliverable’ or ‘bounced’. It breaks the chain of your workflow. Now you have to stop what you are doing; pick up the phone or track down the person’s new email address. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to forward that bounced email to someone and they find the person’s new email address?

So I thought I will create a Post Office on the internet where people can register their OLD & NEW email address, similar to how we fill out a change of address form and give It to the post office when we change our physical address. I contemplated on the idea for a long time because I knew it would be a major undertaking. To make sure my idea has merit, I checked with several people (friends & strangers).

‘Sounds wonderful!’ is what all the people said when I told them about the idea. I checked if there was anything similar already on the internet. I did not find anything so it made me more confident to pursue the idea.   

I started development with my own money in the hope to beat anybody else. The solution finally materialized. I even came up with a catchy name “Switchemail”. The idea being very simple that when you change email address, instead of informing a bunch of people, you register in one place and now if anyone out there has your old email address and they get an email bounced back, they can simply forward it to us and we will send it to your new email address. The idea works great. After painstaking and diligent testing and countless hours of sleepless nights, we got the whole thing to work right.

Now all we needed was a huge database. In order for us to forward the email to a person’s new email address, we need the person to be registered on our site. Theoretically, if majority of the population was registered with us then it works flawless. You get a bounced email, you forward to findperson at switchemail dot com and we find the new email address. We even forward the email to the person’s new email address if we have the person’s permission.

Realistically, how do we get everyone to sign up?

That is the new slogan of Comcast after taking over Time Warner. I hope they do bring about some really badly needed changes and that it is not just a hollow slogan for marketing. Here are some just to name a few:

For one, they need to improve their bill payment process. All my bills get paid online but I cannot pay Comcast online. You may ask why? Because if I pay online then I don’t get a paper bill even if I ask for one. Here is the problem. If you pay online then you only get an email reminder saying your new bill is online. Since you have 3-4 weeks to pay, you don’t pay much attention and inadvertently, you will miss to pay.

All other vendors will send you a paper bill also if you request. Paper bills reduce the chance of you not paying on time. Lots of times the email bill may end up in my ‘junk’ folder and I would never know. Technically, I should know but in the busy lifestyle that we all have, you forget and then you are stuck with penalty. So I asked them to send me paper bill. Now I have to pay by phone or check.  

The problem can be very easily resolved if Comcast were to allow paper bill along with payment online. They would be helping themselves by getting bills paid on time.

Another problem that can be easily resolved by Comcast is that when you call to pay the bill, they will ask you for all kinds of identifying information. Phone number, name, address. It makes no sense to ask when you are paying your bill. Does the bank ask you identity questions when you deposit? NO. After all, you are giving money to them, so the onus is on me to make sure it gets credited to the right account.

If you ever call customer service I am prepared to give them identifying information on time. They always seem to bump the call to someone else and the new person asks you the same questions all over again. Once the person is qualified then if you transfer him within your organization then he/she should not be asked identifying information again and again. It is not only very frustrating but a tremendous waste of time. Comcast could save itself so much in time wasted by each clerk asking the same questions again and again.

So Comcast here are several ways you can improve and save money for the company. Implement those and then we may truly think you are COMCASTIC!

John Thain, head honcho at New York Stock Exchange – now the snappily-named NYSE Euronext – has barely let the ink dry on his signature for one major deal before telling the Financial Times that he has his acquisitive little eye on the next purchase, namely a derivatives exchange. The smart money is on Chicago Board of Trade, still recovering from its own recent foray into the merger arena.

Since my first blog on this site, which looked at how close the securities and derivatives businesses have become just in the last few months, the pace of consolidation has stepped up no end, with NYSE firmly at the forefront of the cross-asset exchange revolution. With a doubling of first quarter profits (pre-Euronext, but post-Archipelago), a further step into the derivatives world could not be better timed.

Cross-asset trading has been on the rise for some time now, and the last 18 months in particular have seen the sell-side move to support the diversification of portfolios from the buy-side in their chase of the ever-elusive alpha. The technology is also being developed, with a move towards the convergence of desktop trading platforms and the development of equity platforms to include equity futures and options.

However, this trend towards cross-asset trading is still emerging and will continue to do so for some time, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the cultural differences, be it between different trading desks on the sell-side or different continents under the new NYSE banner, will take some time to resolve.

And secondly, this line of development is set to introduce a whole new line of regulatory headaches, be it between different regulatory bodies in a single market or different regulatory bodies cross-ocean. The US regulators are still fighting over issues such as who is responsible for commodity ETFs – how will they cope when faced not only with an exchange that is determined to be all things to all men in its own market, but when they have a whole bunch of European regulators to argue with?

Still, at least John Thain will enjoy getting his chequebook and pen out again.