Blogging As a Business and Registering a Trade Name

By MoneyBlueBook

What a nice lazy Saturday afternoon. I think I will go file my paperwork to obtain a Business Trade Name Certificate.

I have a decent full time job in finance/law and I also write for a few blogs on the side for fun. Although I see blogging as more of a hobby, I think I should start treating it more like mini-business. I could choose to set up the blog business in a variety of ways depending on my choice of business entity. The primary ones are corporations, limited liability companies (LLC), limited partnerships, and limited liability partnerships. Each type has its own advantages and disadvantages in regards to liability protection and taxation benefits. There are even fancier and longer named options such as limited liability limited partnerships. But since it's just me for now and I don't plan on taking on business debt or expanding the business for some time, my current chosen business entity will be that of a sole proprietorship. Besides, right now I don't feel like having to deal with filing LLC Articles of Organization papers or having to pay pricey incorporation fees.

Sole Proprietorships Are Easy To Create

Legally, any one can start up a sole proprietorship. You could set up a cardboard table and start selling lemonade and that would be considered a sole proprietorship business. There are no fancy or extra paperwork to create the business entity other than compliance with any relevant state and local licensing and taxation requirements. Sole proprietorships are considered flow through entities, which means that all

By MoneyBlueBook

I think the Comcastturtle mascots would love the speed of my website. The Slowsky's like things "slow and easy" - a perfect description of my site right now.

I apologize for the sluggishness in page load time and the occasional appearance of site error messages for the last few days. I just migrated my web hosting to Dreamhost. I thought this would solve the uptime and speed issues I had with Hostmonster, but it looks like I'm having the same problems with Dreamhost as well. It has been a pretty frustrating week to say the least. :(

Dreamhost doesn't offer live chat or telephone troubleshooting so sometimes I have to wait a few hours to a day before they respond to my e-mail support requests. The tech guys at Dreamhost continue to be very professional and courteous, and that's why I've been giving them the benefit of the doubt. But at some point, they have to be able to deliver and fix the problem permanently. I really hope they repair the malfunction soon. The company is very likable, but I can only tolerate so much.

Separating Truth From Fiction

Are there any affordable web hosting services out there with truly reliable service? They all seem to guarantee 99% uptime, but always fail to deliver. It's so hard to get a genuine, unbiased opinion about which company offers the best service. I suspect many webhosting companies pay people to visit websites and forums anonymously to say favorable things about their company, while badmouthing the competition.

By MoneyBlueBook

I've been having the worst server reliability issues with my current host provider, HostMonster. After several months of complaining and pleading with them to fix the problem permanently, I have given up. In the next few weeks I will slowly be transferring my websites to DreamHost. I'll write a more in-depth rant of my HostMonster experience sometime later in the future. I've been swamped with work these days so I'm a bit pressed for time right now. Suffice to say, I'm disappointed in the way HostMonster makes continued excuses for their persistent server downtime and their lack of proper and prompt customer attention. When I indicated to them that I was contemplating changing host providers, rather than try to convince me to stay or offer me a retention deal, they simply asked for my credit card number so they could cancel my account. Boooo! Two thumbs down! :(

DreamHostis currently running a great promotion. I don't get any referral for this, but I must share it because it's such a great limited time deal. If you sign up with them today and prepay for a year or more of service using the promo code 10ten10diez10dix10dieci10shi (yes, that entire crazy long thing), they will give you a discount of off your bill! Only the first 1010 customers can qualify so you might want to get on board while you can.

By MoneyBlueBook

I think it's time I posted a general liability and privacy disclaimer for this website. I personally find it very unnecessary since most people won't even bother to read it, but the legal realities of the world dictate that I issue one.

I recently read about this case that happened only a few years ago regarding a lawsuit filed by a company against a well known search engine optimization (SEO) blogger named Aaron Wall alleging unspecified defamation and unlawful publication of trade secrets. The trade secrets claim stemmed from comments made by anonymous third parties on the blogger's website. The case was ultimately dismissed due to a lack of personal jurisdiction, but the case stands as a stark reminder that bloggers have to be careful.

The reality is that writing and posting work online subjects one to the scrutiny of others. This also applies to comments and postings from third party readers as well. Freedom of speech is a constitutionally protected right that shields many forms of speech from government intrusion, but in the private sector it is often a different matter. Frivolous and threatening lawsuits designed to intimidate are all too often filed by parties in bad faith. Therefore, under this context, it is better to be safe than sorry.

I do not want readers to execute trades or take actions based solely on my advice. Please always carefully read the fine print before signing contracts and always conduct your own due diligence. You should not regard any information that I've provided as professional

By MoneyBlueBook

I just installed my Feedburner code to see how many people have actually subscribed to my new baby blog since I started not too long ago. For those of you beginner types who don't know what Feedburneris, it's one of the more popular feed reading applications out there. It allows you to pull news and postings from multiple sources into one location so you don't have to manually visit every web or blog site. Of course, it would still be very nice if you came by the site manually! :)

Time to Say Hello

When I looked at the number of people that have already subscribed to my site's feed, I was quite astonished to see a number greater than zero. Of course, my number is still humorously low, but I thought it would be nill since I haven't begun promoting it yet. The prevailing wisdom is that if you want your blog to take off in subscriber-ship, you need to increase your community participation by posting comments on other people's blogs and making yourself known to the blogging community. I haven't gotten around to it just yet but it's high up on my to do list. I just moved into this domain months ago and I'm still busy setting up the site and getting into my blogging groove.

But I will definitely be doing that in the near future. Right now, I am just trying to focus on writing my regular entries. I love writing and discussing

By MoneyBlueBook

I am starting this site as a personal finance and investing blog. I plan on staying on topic, but on occasion I may stray a bit into technology or entertainment related subjects that interest me. I'll try my best to keep my diversions and ramblings to a minimum, or I might simply somehow find a way to connect it to the subject of money. I'm sure my readers will help keep me from going off on a wild tangent. :)

The purpose of this site is to provide me an online space where I can write about my personal finances and share some advice about financial planning and my opinions on various money matters. While I want to discuss the more serious personal finance subjects, I also want a place where I can share some of the more light hearted news and bargains that I discover on a daily basis. Sometimes the offers and deals are so good that I just have to share it with people. Once I get my blogging rhythm going, I also plan on posting regular entries on freebies that I come across on the internet.