happylife

"The Google Story"

I'm now reading "The Google Story," a kind of biography of Google. Google is the most popular IT company in the world now. It looks way cooler and more elegant than any other companies like Microsoft or Yahoo. It is putting the highest priority on making good service while any other companies taking higher priority over business. I think that is the biggest reason for Google's popularity, but I doubt at the same time that Google would keep the present position forever. Sure Google's search engine and Gmail are great tool for me and I can't live without them only one day, but they themselves wouldn't make money at all; on the contrary they are running at enormous expense. The only money producing machine for Google is the text advertising system called "AdSence and AdWords." Those systems are working well for now, but they are standing on a very delicate balance of people who pay for advertising. I think Google is too popular, that is the expectation for Google is too high as is symbolized by its stock price. I'm now using Google's service just because they are convenient and free, and I just hope to continue using it. I don't hope that Google is influenced badly by its too high stock price.

Refund policy

Consumers in Vancouver seem to be protected very carefully. If we purchase something and we don't like it after several days, we can return it to the shop and get back the money. We don't any special reason or excuse, and all we need to be refunded is the item itself and the receipt, that's all. Today I bought a book. As I mentioned before, the book prices in Canada are extremely high. I paid C$35.63 for the book after the membership discount and adding GST. The regular price in the U.S is only $25, and to my surprise, we could get the same book from Amazon in Japan for only 2,651 Yens. Anyways, I found these statements on the receipt. The refund policy is effective on books too. It says that I can return the book within 14 days from today even after I have read it. Does it mean I can use bookstore like a library? The only problem is that I don't have such nerve as to return the book to the bookstore after reading it.

GTD

"I'm surrounded with a lot of things to do, and I don't know where to start." Most people including me are living with vast anxiety and unseen stress, thinking like that. This book, "Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" by David Allen would offer you a kind of solution for this problem. The key concept is very simple; list up all the things you think you should do and deal with them one by one. It's important to forget everything, once you have list it up until you start to deal with it. This idea looks so natural and persuasive that quite a few people are dealing with their own todo's along with this book, which has become almost a bible for them. Basically I agree with this idea, but I felt confused when I read through this book first, because the definite method shown in this book is too complex for me. I'm actually facing against a confusing situation right now, and I really need this kind of method, but I feel it is difficult to practice this book as is, so I've decided to adopt only the key concept of this book and arrange the detailed way by myself.

Book-off in Vancouver

Book-off is a Japanese popular chain of secondhand bookstores. As I heard that one of them was open in Downtown, I visited it for the first time. The store located at the center of Downtown, was larger than I had expected with a lot of second-hand books, comics, and CDs. When I looked at the price tags of some items, I was disappointed because they were more expensive than the original price. I don't feel like purchasing any second-hand items at higher price than the original. I was thinking about getting out of the store after walking through it, when I found a $2 shelf. All the books on the shelf were sold at $2! I was happy to know that and began treasure hunting. I was happier because I found some more $2 shelves in the store. I bought one Japanese paperback at $2 plus tax and got out of the store with satisfaction. I am happy to get a good place.

Walking under white nights

I had no energy to do anything because of a cold, I was lying on the bed all day long reading a Japanese novel. I got this book at the book store in Japan to read in the airplane, but I had left without reading it until yesterday. It is one of the latest and most popular crime story in Japan. It is so popular that it is made into a TV drama. It has more than 800 pages, though I read it without a rest. It's a kind of story in which a lot of small stories process parallel and are put together into one finale. As I'm familiar with quite a few parts of the stages and the periods, I was absorbed in the story. When I finished reading on my bed in the midnight, I was very tired but satisfied. I want to read other Japanese stories now, but unfortunately I can't in Vancouver. I regret not have getting more Japanese books in Japan.

"Healing Back Pain"

This morning I still had backache and it was hard even to get up. My friend recommended me a book whose title is "Healing Back Pain" written by John E. Sarno, a professor of New York University. I drove to Chapters in Downtown and got the book and read it roughly for an hour on my bed. Of course I have not understood all of the contents, but what I guess written in the book is that backache is a kind of mental problem rather than physical one. From my hard experience about my backache last year, I agree with this theory. There was no obvious symptom in my back, however the pain was terrible and unbearable. It was not in my back but in my mind where the cause of the pain was staying. Sure this theory is not a brand-new idea because an old Japanese proverb says "worry is often the cause of illness", but at least I could recognize the importance of mind against body owing to this book. Fortunately I've almost recovered from the backache mind.

THE DA VINCI CODE

I'm now reading "THE DA VINCI CODE" by Dan Brown. As the Japanese translated version was three times as expensive as the original book, I got of course the original book written in English. When I started reading it, I felt it very difficult because it contains too much unknown words; almost every line has one unknown word and every page has a French phrase. But while I kept reading it without mention about the unknown words, I got accustomed to reading a book full of unknown words by guessing the blank spaces. It is rather enjoyable for me to create my original story from an antique documents. I think this way of reading is not bad to improve my reading skill because it helps me to read many books for a short time. When I was a student, I was obliged to look up a dictionary on every unknown word, but it was boring and I often lost the story itself. So, I'm reading this book using a dictionary as little as possible.

How to deal with books

I often go to bookstores without buying any books. I go there just to read books. I think I can keep the best concentration on reading in bookstores because I have to evaluate the book and decide whether to buy or not in a limited time. As soon as I pick up a book from the book shelf, I first glance at the cover page, then the index and then the introduction. It takes five to ten minutes per one book for me to do all these processes and I can eventually grab the outline of the book. In most case, it is enough for me and I rarely want to purchase to own it. I have once bought any books I was interested in, which caused a terrible situation. That is I was surrounded by a numerous books which interested me before and which I hadn't read yet. This was a very stressful situation both mentally and physically because such books threatened me in my brain and in my room. Now I am a bad customer for bookstores because I rarely purchase books. In this way, I can save money and keep my peace. In fact, there's no more space to hold books in my book shelf. The only problem is that I can't use this method in English books. It is too hard for me to grasp the outline in ten minutes in English. So my room is getting filled with English books now.

How to get money from the Internet

This is the summary of my now reading book "Multiple streams of Internet income." First of all, in order to get money you have to have your customers. To get your customers, you should have subscribers of your ezine who are going to be your prospects and then customers. There are various methods to get your subscribers of your ezine. The most effective one is to offer a particular valuable information or report free. Once you get enough subscribers, it's easy to increase them and get some money from them. All these processes might look taking a long time and effort, but it isn't so difficult as you think before actually doing it. With the power of the Internet, you can do them in a short time without any costs. -- Well, I know it. And all I have to do is just starting it.

Best fit book

Meeting with books is like meeting with people. Suppose you met the person who you were looking for in a perfect timing, you should feel happiest. This "Multiple streams of Internet income" is just the one for me. I have been pondering over the way to get income from the Internet. In fact I was doing such project myself and got some money, but there was one problem. The profit rate was too small and to get enough income I had to hold a lot of customers. It was a little bit hard for me and when my system had a technical problem I dared to quit the whole project. Instead I got some skills necessary to run Internet business and I was thinking about using those skills. Then reading this book I was a little bit astonished because most of my those skills and know-how were written in this book. Furthermore it is organized systematically and persuasive. I can't believe that this book was written more than four years ago. If I read this book soon after it was published, my life was a little bit changed.