I am working on a overhaul of the Boat2Fish.net website. It is now a blog and I am using the StudioPress theme that I really like.

I will be adding the rest of the content in the coming days.

Let me know what you think…

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Even with all the things going on in the economic and political area the city and the people living in it still seem pretty calm.

To see more pictures and read the article about the Reykjavik Weekend CLICK HERE.

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First Name: Anja
Country: Belgium
Subject: Sitesell bilingual site
Message: Hi there,

I am a newcomer to SBI, I would like to build a bilingual or a site with three languages. Could you tell me please, how the blueprint looks like with other languages? Do the Tiers 2 serve as homepages for the other languages? I hope you don’t mind that I am asking….
All the best
Anja

Hi Anja

I assume you have read the article Multilingual SBI sites.

The way I think about this is that I have the index.html page be for one language. Then I make a special “index” page for the other language (could use the other language keyword).

The blueprint will look something like (English and Icelandic:

index.html (tier1)
-english-keyword-1.html (tier2)
-english-keyword-2.html
-english-keyword-3.html
-icelandic.html (tier1)
-icelandic-keyword-1.html (tier2)
-icelandic-keyword-2.html
-icelandic-keyword-3.html

So - in a way all keyword pages available through the tier1 are tier2 pages no matter what language.

Great luck with your site building and hope this explains SBI Bilingual Sites a bit …

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If you want to see the rest of the Money as Debt video CLICK HERE…

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Simply had to create a HubPages.com page to compare to the 4×4 Squidoo.com lens

The two Web 2.0 sites work in pretty much the same way. After you have your account you can start right away to build a page. You have several modules you can add and control and use to make the page content rich and helpful for the reader.

Compare the 4×4 HubPages page and the 4×4 Squidoo lens. They have similar content.

I found the Squidoo interface a little better to work with and the look and feel is also better in my opinion…

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Just made a new lens on Squidoo.com. It is a lens for finding and buying your next 4×4, truck or SUV on eBay.

Setting up the lens is really simple and straightforward. If the lens gets popular I will probably do more.

Please drop by and let me know what you think…

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This scene from Delicatessen doesn’t need any words to get the meaning across. Brilliant use of metaphors:

Imagine the rhythmic sound of lovemaking on a squeaky bed, girl playing the cello, woman beating the dust out of a carpet, a boy pumping air into his bikes tire, a musical beat maker ticking along and a guy hanging on his trouser braces to paint hard to reach ceiling etc. etc. - and with the tempo gradually increasing this can only end with a bang.

The film is full of humor of this kind with great use of visual symbols and is really funny although the jokes are of the darkest kind.

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SBIWARS is a great little parody of the Star Wars series.

Peter Skuse has done a superb job in making this video. Lets fight the get-rich-quick schemes with some REAL success on the Internet.

Now, I don’t think Google is THAT bad - but it is fun to watch.

And - if you want to read more about recession proofing your income  - you should check out SiteBuildIt!

Not just a great tool to build sites - it is more like a roadmap from a fuzzy idea to growing a solid business.

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Using a farmer with two cows is is a popular way to explain complex economic systems. Quite fitting to review these in light of the current worldwide economic crisis that seems to be hitting Iceland the worst.

I suggest you take the time to seriously study these.

21 Economic Models … explained with cows

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away…

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

VENTURE CAPITALISM - AN ICELANDIC CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by
your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated
general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island
Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven
cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows,
with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States,
leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public then
buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty
times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called ‘Cowkimon’ and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy….

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive

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Some say it is the big spenders that went abroad and invested with cheap loans from Japan and other places. That would be the cheap solution to explain how things developed.

The financial situation in Iceland for the last years

For the past years Icelandic politicians have been holding on to the Icelandic krona and staying out of the EU at all cost. In fact you can say there are two currencies here. The krona and the price insured krona that is the basis for long time loans.

With three privately owned and strong banks doing business in our neighbouring countries the central bank was getting pretty small in comparison.

Not many years ago the banks started loaning for real estates with loans made out of other more stable currencies.

Giving talks about the Euro or the EU the “silent treatment” has resulted in a weak currency that has no hope in the hurricane hitting the world financial system.

The central bank has used high rates to fight inflation with little success. Financial speculators have been using that fact to take their place against the krona.

The meltdown starts

The events started when Glitnir bank asked the central bank for a short-term loan. The governor of the central bank advised the Icelandic government to take over the bank. This happened pretty fast and caused a chain reaction that is still going on. In hindsight they probably had a lot more time to think things through to lessen the damage that followed.

Unfortunately the governor of the central bank, David Oddsson, was a prime minister for 13 years and therefor highly political. His advice has been heavily criticized by many economists. The damage following his advice is staggering and runs in the hundreds of billions IKR.

No other civilized nation would consider having a former prime minister as a governor of the central bank.

The emergency law

The government issued an emerency law to be able to take over any financial institution without delay.
Soon after the second bank was overtaken. This time Landsbankinn.

David Oddsson had a live interview in the national TV where he blamed everybody but himself and explained that Iceland would not pay their debt in other countries.

UK prime minister Gordon Brown got furious and used British law against terrorism against Iceland interest in UK.

This made the last remaining and biggest bank, Kaupthing, unable to continue and the bank was overtaken by the government.

The future

What these past events mean for the average person in Iceland is yet to be seen. A lot of bankers are loosing their jobs and other workers also.

I just hope that some of the assets can be saved and that people don’t start loosing their homes. The worst that could happen is families taking off and moving to other countries, looking for more stability and better income.

Like many others, what happens to me and my wife and family is uncertain. The good thing for us is that our income comes from the web and is in US dollars.

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