It’s no secret that individuals who do not keep their financial health in check could go down the bankruptcy route if they’re not careful.  Part of the problem is that these people are helpless and usually have no idea of where to turn to help.

Hence, there should be more associations and institutions to help individuals like these.  For example, there is a website ClearDebt which helps individuals who are in deep financial reds manage their debts by going into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) in UK. 

This would help them avoid bankruptcy and still be able to stay financially afloat because if their IVA application is approved, up to 70% of all their debts could be written off and the individual would pay no interest and be debt free in 5 years or less.

Such schemes are definitely a welcome to many who are struggling with their debts to avoid filing for bankruptcy and be able to sleep better in the night.

We all know how expensive education can get.  In fact, I’ve to start looking at a saver plan for my child right now so that he’ll can be assured of sufficient education funds in time to come.  However, sometimes even the best of plan can fall through and we can’t be more prepared.

Which is why the availability of private education loans is a blessing for parents in times when our plans cannot are jeopardised.  Or at least the loan can be used as a flexible supplement to help cover education related expenses such as tutors, computers and software, books, travel, and last-minute tuition hikes, which may not have been factored in initial cost of education.   

In fact, during my own time, which was about 20 years ago, I took up one such education loan to help me pay for my hostel fees.  This certainly took the burden off my parents and I didn’t have to think about repaying the loan till a few months after graduation.  The entire application was also made real easy for me and there were no hassles whatsoever.  That definitely helped me to stay focus on my education as I didn’t have to worry about my education finances. 

So while loans are generally deemed as undesirable, they are sometimes necessary to fulfill our short term needs for long term gains.

I just signed up for an account on Facebook.  Well, I didn’t want to even though I was invited earlier but I just read today that I can import from RSS feed into it and possibly increase my RSS readership.  I really like to see my numbers up, so that’s something I’m signing up for.

My feelings towards social community media like these are lukewarm.  I signed up tweeter a few months ago only to close it down one month later.  I have an account on MySpace which I never accessed and I also have an account with Spicy page.

But I’m always gamed for anything that can help me improve readership of my blogs.  Let’s see if this one will work.

One of the key issues I find about running our own business is that we need to keep our data intact for many years especially for accounting and audit purposes.  However, for small setup, cost is always an issue and not forgetting that we all want it as simple as possible.  So setting up our own data storage can be quite a hassle.

So it’s really good that I read about IBackup which offers online storage and backup.  The great thing about this online storage feature is that users’ online data appears as a mapped drive or a folder on their computer.  Which means, easy drag-n-drop and familiar explorer interface to work with online data!

And users’ data is always secure as IBackup uses not only the password and registration technology, but also the servers on which IBackup’s accounts reside are continuously monitored for attempted network attacks on a 24 x 7 basis using sophisticated software tools.

What’s really cool is that the pricing is made very affordable, starting as low as $9.95 per month.  Wow!  Certainly something we want to seriously consider for our online storage and data backup for sure!

I just read that local singer Kit Chan has joined the world of public relations, taking on the role of campaign specialist at Hill & Knowlton which is one of the world’s five largest public relations firms.

Kit certainly doesn’t have any background in public relations and I’m not certain if she is at all PR savvy.  But I’m quite sure that Hill & Knowlton wants to bank on her celebrity status to attract more clients, and deals of course.  It’s widely known that people like to rub shoulders with celebrities, and those in the corporate sector might just want to engage Hill & Knowlton to do this with Kit Chan.

But personally I think Kit can make the cut.  She’s a talented woman and one who is pretty level headed as well.  That alone should put her in good stead in the competitive industry.