Written by CreditSesame.com

When they’re finally ready to make the jump from renting to home ownership, most first time homebuyers enlist a real estate agent to help them through the process. No wonder: buying a home is complicated and when it’s your first time, you feel like you could use some hand-holding.

Real estate agents provide a valuable service and are generally well-paid as a result. There’s nothing wrong with that. But money does have a way of distorting relationships — even when honest people are involved.

Here are some tips that will help you, as a first time homebuyer, take full advantage of today’s real estate market and get the most out of your relationship with your real estate agent.

1. Your agent is your agent

When you’re new to the process, it is easy to believe that the guy with 20 years’ experience calls the shots. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Your real estate professional is your agent: he or she works for you, gives you advice and negotiates on your behalf. He doesn’t make decisions for you and you should not expect him to.

2. Only fools fall in love

After you’ve looked at a few houses that weren’t quite right, your agent will probably tell you not to get discouraged, and that eventually you will “fall in love” with the right property.

Love makes you do stupid things. Stupid things like paying too much or looking past costly repair items. As a first-time homebuyer, you should develop a healthy ‘like’ for a property, but keep the relationship open, see other houses. There will be plenty of time for “love” after you’ve put in the 300 hours of sweat equity to make your house a home.

3. Be willing to walk away

If you never fall in love with a piece of real estate, you’ll never cry when you have to walk away from it. Real estate agents often use the phrase “my client will walk away” and some use it quite loosely to stress the importance of a point for negotiation. If you want to retain the full strength of your position as a buyer, you’ll need “I’ll walk away” to mean that you are done if your demands aren’t met.

For your agent to communicate this correctly to the seller, he needs to know that you mean what you say. And yes, if it reaches that point, you will need to walk away from a property. Not to worry: there are others out there. But don’t be surprised if you hear back from the seller a week later that he is willing to work with your demands.

4. Time is on your side

Your agent is going to tell you that you have to move quickly and make the best offer possible when you find the right property. This is not always the best advice. As a first time homebuyer, you are in a unique position of strength in terms of the real estate transaction. You aren’t selling your home, so you don’t have to move. You can look at and make offers on many properties. You can start with a low offer and negotiate upwards if the seller balks. You can table a counter-offer and look around a bit before deciding to pay more. The opposite is generally true of sellers in a buyer’s market. They need to sell the property and are motivated to move as quickly as possible. Use time to your advantage.

5. Your agent is not your friend

Your agent performs valuable services in the real estate transaction, but he really doesn’t make anything until you buy a piece of real estate. That makes him a salesman. Being a salesman, he wants you to feel like he is a friend who has your best interests at heart.

The reality is that your interests and your agent’s may not be aligned. He is actually better off financially if you make a quick decision and pay too much for a property. This is, after all, likely the largest business transaction of your life. Make sure that your agent, regardless of how personable he is, understands that you are a customer and that you need him to drive the best business deal for you.

6. The listing agent just might be your best friend

In the New York Times best-selling book Freakanomics, authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner point out that real estate agents typically market their own homes for 10 days longer than they market their clients’ homes. Is this because they are so busy with their clients that they don’t have time to market their own homes?

No, it really comes down to how we incent real estate agents with commission. When an agent is selling his own home, he enjoys the full benefit of any increase in sales price so he is extremely motivated to market for as long as possible to get the best sales price possible. But when it comes to a client’s home, an extra week on the market might lead to a higher sales price for the seller — but the agent will only enjoy a very small amount of that increase in the form of marginal increase to commission. Meanwhile, marketing a home for another week would take him away from marketing someone else’s property. As such, the listing agent is highly motivated to convince the seller that your offer is the best offer he is going to receive. Use this to your advantage and make offers that are good for you.

7. There is no such thing as an embarrassingly low offer

When it comes to a property that has been sitting with no action, there is no such thing as an offer that is too low. Some agents will tell you that that you could offend the seller or that your offer is embarrassing. A good agent will encourage you to make strategically low offers. Offers are really not a lot of work and the worst thing that can happen is that your offer is not accepted. Often, however, in a buyer’s market a low offer will turn into a counter-offer. Think of the first offer as the starting point for negotiations and be prepared to consider counter-offers.

8. Online real estate companies can save you money

Over the past decade, online real estate companies have started to take market share away from traditional brick-and-mortar agencies. They’ve grown by offering discounts and rebates on the traditional 3% real estate commission. RedFin, one of the leading online real estate companies, offers buyers a rebate of up to 50% of the commission at close. RedFin also compensates their agents with salary as opposed to commission, which alleviates some conflict of interest issues. Granted, the service may not be as extensive or personalized — but the extra cash may offset the drawbacks.

8 Home Buying Secrets Your Real Estate Agent Won’t Tell You was provided by CreditSesame.com

Bonus:So they were giving out free Dr. Peppers…

Written by Eric

I am going to attempt to answer a question about men that many girls have been wondering with five simple reasons. Women have been wondering why men cheat for years. I mean its not like women don’t cheat but many of them need a deeper connection with a guy before they do it. It didn’t used to be like that, but I guess they figured, "If the guys can do it then we can too." Its just not the same for guys. Men are not tied to emotions when it comes to sexual partners. Guys can have sex with a girl that they don’t have any feelings for which brings me to my first reason.

1. Just because its been offered to us.

Lets face it, just like Chris rock said, “It’s almost impossible for a guy to turn down free p***y. If it’s chasing us, we can’t run that fast.” If you are a girl, that means that you have been offered sex every day since you were 12; every guy that’s being nice to you is just offering sex. For most guys (unless you are super famous), it doesn’t happen everyday; we aren’t offered sex that often.  It just seems like a wasted opportunity when a girl says no. Men don’t know when a chance like this will ever come again, and if you think about it, it’s partially the girl’s fault. (Ok, ok.  That wasn’t fair.  I’ll take that back.)

2. Insecurity and trust issues

The insecurity and trust issues are major reasons why a guy constantly cheats on his girlfriend, wife, fiance, whatever. It could be a problem they had from the past relationship or they just don’t feel like they are good looking enough for the girl. This is the number two reason why a guy will cheat on a girl.

3. Not being fulfilled by their girlfriends.

This works both ways. If a girl is not doing the things that the guy likes sexually then they will go out and find somebody that will. So you ask, how come they just can’t break up with them and find somebody who will? I mean, think about it this way:  Most times it’s the good girl that doesn’t want to do the freaky things the guy wants. Now other things might just be perfect or damn near close, something as simple as she has a car or makes more money.

4. She told you that she cheated before

You ever heard of the phrase, “Once a cheater always a cheater?” Well that’s kinda how it works when a guy feels as though his girlfriend has the potential to cheat on him. That could trigger him to cheat first just so that he could have the upper hand. If he finds out that the girl has cheated on him, it wouldn’t bother him as much because he has already done his dirt.

5. Have your cake and eat it too

I never really understood that phrase but I figured I would use a cliché. All I am trying to say is that, some guys just can’t sleep with one girl so ladies if you find yourself with a guy that cheats on you, chances are he will never change. He will always cheat on you and everybody else that he will be with. Something in them will never allow them to be faithful. Its just in their system to go out and cheat on their girl. They can’t be single, but they like to cheat also.

Bonus: Hermione vs. Bella

Source:What Happens When The U.S. Goes Bankrupt?

Written by Alan Henry

When you want a service that will organize your uploaded photos, tag them with the date and location, and then share them out to friends, you have plenty of web services to choose from. Many offer editing tools, and others have huge communities. Here’s a look at five of the most popular web sites for robust image hosting.

On Thursday, we asked you which web sites you prefer to manage your photo collections, organize them into galleries, and share them with friends. You weighed in with your suggestions, and we collected the top five. Now we’re back to highlight the ones you suggested.

SmugMug

A number of you noted that SmugMug was the ideal photo hosting service for pros – people who really care about their shots. It might have something to do with the unlimited storage for paid users, live customer support, and the elegant and attractive themes and galleries that SmugMug offers. Additionally, SmugMug allows you to quickly share your photos with friends on Facebook and Twitter, mobile apps for iOS and Android, and support for direct uploads from multiple image editing apps.

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Picasa

Google’s Picasa started off as a small service, but with age and features it grew into a photo hosting and image sharing powerhouse that’s free for everyone to use, gives you editing features and gallery management tools, and both a desktop app to keep track of your photos locally and a web app to help you build galleries to share with the web. Picasa integrates with your Google account for sharing, and while it doesn’t have mobile apps, you will see your Picasa Web Albums photos on your Android phone.

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Photobucket

Photobucket does an amazing job of walking the line between social network and photo hosting service. Photobucket’s pride is in its users and the way they can connect to one another, share photos with each other or with the world via Twitter, Facebook, or even on their own sites by embedding their photos directly. Photobucket also has mobile apps for iOS and Android, and now the previously mentioned Snapbucket mobile app that makes snapping photos on your phone a bit more fun.

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Facebook

Close to 700 million users couldn’t be wrong, could they? Uploading your photos directly to Facebook is easy, and since its photo hosting and gallery management tools are easy to use, they’re a great way to get your images in front of the people you want to see them. Plus, you can tag your friends and let them know you uploaded a photo of them, for good or ill. Facebook has mobile apps for virtually every platform, and all of them allow you to post photos. There are no image editing tools, but what it lacks in pro features it makes up for as a social network.

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Flickr

Mention image sharing on the web and Flickr will probably be the first site to jump to mind. With a pro account, you can upload as many photos you want and organize them into as many galleries and collections as you choose. It’s cheap and almost every photo sharing app supports Flickr uploads. Flickr’s competition may have it beat on themes and customizations or mobile apps (Flickr only has official mobile apps for iPhone and Windows Phone 7,) but what it loses it makes up for with an open API and huge community of developers, professional photographers, and photo enthusiasts of all experience levels.

Bonus: Quality Parenting

Written by Chris Rawson

You’ve taken the plunge and bought your first iPhone. You’ve activated your service with your local wireless carrier, connected and synced it with your main computer for the first time, and brought over as much music, photos, and videos as you can squeeze onto it. Maybe you’ve even played around with Apple’s default apps a bit.

“Now what?” you may be asking yourself. “I’ve heard about all the great apps that are available for the iPhone, but where do I start?”

That’s a very good question, and it’s one that gets harder and harder to answer the more apps make their way into Apple’s App Store. With hundreds of thousands of apps now available for the iPhone, it may seem overwhelming trying to sift through them all if this is your first few hours with an iPhone.

Not to worry, because we’ve got you covered. We put our heads together and came up with a list of the apps you should install first on your brand-new, factory-fresh iPhone. Keeping in mind that people from all over the world use iPhones and read TUAW, we excluded from consideration any apps that don’t have full international functionality. This meant leaving a number of very cool and useful apps out of consideration, but we wanted to make sure this is a list that applies toeveryone, not just US or UK readers. We also kept this list pretty simple; if you’re familiar with the way iTunes separates music collections intoThe Basics, Next Steps, and Deep Cuts, you’ll see that we very much went for The Basics for this go-around.

Click “Read More” to see the full list of recommended apps for first-time iPhone users and our rationale for choosing each one.

1. Find My iPhone – This is hands-down the first app that should go on every iPhone, and it’s frankly surprising Apple doesn’t include it out of the box. This free app won’t help you find your own iPhone, but if you live in a house with multiple iPhones and iPads, it will allow you to find someone else’s.

If your wife drops her iPhone behind the couch and can’t find it after several minutes of frantic searching, you can use Find My iPhone on your own device to ping her device and let her find it in seconds. And if your iPhone gets left behind at a bar and someone runs off with it, you can use Find My iPhone on your wife’s device to track down the thief — it happens all the time, and many people have recovered their expensive devices using this simple, free app.

2. Camera+ – For US$1.99, this app does everything the built-in Camera app ought to do. Camera+ takes photography on the iPhone to levels that seem impossible on a cellphone camera. With built-in exposure controls and grid lines, you have much more control over composing your photos. Once you’ve taken your photos, Camera+ gives you access to a tremendously powerful suite of editing tools that can make simple snapshots look like works of art by the time you’re finished.

Camera+ has built-in sharing tools, but if you want a more social experience for photo sharing, there’s nothing better out there right now than Instagram, which lets you share photos simultaneously across not only its own service, but almost every major social network out there. Instagram also has some basic photo filters you can use to make so-so pics stand out a bit more, but the real draw is seeing and commenting on other people’s pics. It’s very much like what Facebook does with pictures, but simultaneously more powerful and more fun.

3. Dropbox – Dropbox gives your iPhone the file storage solution that Apple still refuses to. While you can’t use your iPhone like a hard drive or flash drive to store files locally (at least not without jumping through a lot of hoops), Dropbox is the next best thing. It offers online-based storage of files, with 2 GB of storage space for free. Even better, you can install Dropbox on a Mac or PC, too, which means sharing documents and files between your Mac and your iPhone is as simple as dragging the file into your Dropbox folder.

4. A messaging app – Why give your wireless carrier more money than you already do? Skype does video chat similarly to Apple’s ownFaceTime, but unlike FaceTime, it works over 3G (most of the time). You can also do free Skype-to-Skype audio with other Skype users, and there’s a free (if basic and sometimes flakey) instant messaging feature as well. If you’re already a Skype user and use the service regularly, Skype for the iPhone will serve your needs.

If you’re not using Skype, or if you’d rather not use the service for one reason or another, BeeJiveIM ($9.99) is a much better alternative to Skype’s instant messaging feature. While it won’t do video chatting or voice calls like Skype, BeeJiveIM will allow you to instant message with your friends over a wide variety of services, including AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! chat, GoogleTalk, Facebook, Jabber, and MySpace IM.

If you download both Skype and BeeJiveIM, you’ve got several communications alternatives to what your carrier offers. Instead of paying for minutes of talktime or SMS/MMS services, you can use Skype or BeeJiveIM to keep in touch for much cheaper.

5. Any Twitter app – Speaking of keeping in touch, Twitter is a fully viable replacement for SMS/MMS, especially if your client app has built-in push notifications that will allow you to get instantaneous updates wherever you may be. Again, why give your wireless carrier more money for overly expensive texting packages? Chances are if this is your first iPhone, you haven’t signed up to Twitter yet. Signing up is free, and if you sign up and get your friends to sign up too, with the right Twitter app you’ll be able to ditch your texting plan entirely.

There are so many Twitter apps on the App Store that it’s probably difficult to choose one, but we’ve got some recommendations there, too.Twitter’s official app is a good choice if you’re just starting out with the service; it’s free, well-designed, has all the basic features you’d expect, and doesn’t bog you down with features so quickly that you get confused. Tweetbot ($1.99) is a good step up from Twitter’s official app, especially since it has a very eye-candy and inspired design. If you’re already comfortable with Twitter’s basic features, Echofon is a nice, geeky choice for a Twitter app; it’s not the prettiest of the Twitter clients, but it’s one of the most feature-rich out there.

6. 1Password – Typing in passwords on the iPhone’s keyboard is usually more of a pain than it’s worth, and it’s a good way to feel safe while you’re doing mobile banking. 1Password allows you to store passwords for websites, bank accounts, Wi-Fi networks, whatever you may need. It’s also got a great “wallet” feature that lets you input things you’d normally carry around in your wallet, like discount cards, library cards, or even your driver’s license — just don’t expect the cops to accept your iPhone as legal ID if they pull you over. You can even jot down notes that you want to keep secured from prying eyes. If you want something on your iPhone, but you want to be the only one to have access to it, 1Password is what you need.

7. Instapaper – If you like to read articles online, and if you ever foresee reading them on an iPhone, you want Instapaper ($4.99). With just a bit of initial setup, you can configure a link in Mobile Safari to send articles to your free Instapaper account so you can read them later. Instapaper is an invaluable tool for creating a cache of reading material on your device. See a lengthy article that you don’t have time for now? Send it to Instapaper and read it when you’ve got the time. Does part of your daily commute involve going through areas with no wireless coverage? Store articles in Instapaper before you leave, then read them later on the train. Instapaper’s one of those iPhone apps that may not seem strictly necessary at first, but once you start using it, you’ll never want to be without it again.

8. Evernote – With a simple interface that lets you make notes with text, photos, or audio, this is your brain on iPhone. This free app can also sync notes with its Mac-based counterpart, so you can type up a grocery list in Evernote on your Mac, sync it to Evernote’s online servers, and have that information waiting on your iPhone when you hit the store. With Evernote on your iPhone, you never need to worry about forgetting anything again — at least as long as you remember to look it up in Evernote, that is.

9. An ebook reader app – The thought of reading entire novels on the iPhone’s tiny screen might seem ridiculous at first, at least until you try out either Amazon’s Kindle app or Apple’s own iBooks. If you’ve already got a Kindle, you can sync over any Kindle books you’ve purchased to your iPhone, and you can even sync your reading progress between the devices.

The only drawback to the Kindle app is that you have to back out into Safari if you want to buy more books. Apple’s iBooks isn’t saddled with that restriction, offering you access to a wide variety of titles in the iBookstore (though not nearly as wide a variety as what Amazon offers). Both apps are very competent ereaders, and while you won’t get that book smell while you’re reading, the ability to carry an entire library of books around in your pants pocket is pretty phenomenal.

10. Any game – The iPhone’s a great communications and productivity device, but it’s also got one of the widest games selections ever. Whether you’re just after some casual fun or an in-depth, full-featured experience, you’ll be able to find it on the App Store. You’ve probably already heard of Angry Birds ($0.99) by now, and that’s as good a place as any to start your iPhone gaming experience if you’re just after some pick-up-and-play fun. Plants vs. Zombies ($2.99) and Tiny Wings($0.99) are other casual titles that are good for first-timers to check out.

If you want to see what the iPhone’s really capable of, download Infinity Blade ($2.99 as of this writing, normally priced $4.99). The gameplay is a bit on the simplistic side, but it has the best graphics of any game on the App Store, with visuals that rival the quality of games on the PlayStation 3. If you find yourself exclaiming “This is on a phone?!” after a couple minutes with this game, you’ll see why we recommended it.

11. TUAW – Okay, we fudged the headline a little bit: this list goes to 11. Our own app will get you the best Apple-related news anywhere on your iPhone. Everything you see at our site, you’ll find in our app.

Keep in mind that this list is only the tiniest sample of what’s out there for the iPhone. We left out a lot of great apps from this list — particularly if you’re in the US, there are several amazing apps out there that we didn’t cover here. But the apps covered in this list will serve as a good jumping-off point for your experience with the iPhone. Above all, don’t just stop once you’ve downloaded the apps on this list; part of the fun of having an iPhone is exploring what’s available for it on the App Store.

We’ll have more posts like this in the future with more app recommendations. Meanwhile, enjoy your new iPhone!

Bonus: Cat!

Written by sophos

As has been widely reported, high profile users of Gmail – including US government officials, reporters and political activists – have had their email accounts hacked.

This wasn’t a sophisticated attack against Google’s systems, but rather a cleverly-crafted HTML email which pointed to a Gmail phishing page.

Victims would believe that they had been sent an attachment, click on the link, and be greeted by what appeared to be Gmail’s login screen. Before you knew it, your Gmail username and password could be in the hands of unauthorised parties.

So, what steps should you take to reduce the chances of your Gmail account being hacked?

1. Set up Two step verification
2. Check if your Gmail messages are being forwarded without your permission
3. Where is your Gmail account being accessed from?
4. Choose a unique, hard-to-crack password
5. Secure your computer
6. Why are you using Gmail anyway?

1. Set up Two step verification

The hackers who broke into high profile Gmail accounts grabbed usernames and passwords. So, an obvious thing to do would be to make Gmail require an extra piece of information before allowing anybody to access your account.

Google provides a facility called “two step verification” to Gmail users, which provides that extra layer of security. It requires you to be able to access your mobile phone when you sign into your email account – as they will be sending you a magic “verification” number via SMS.

The advantage of this approach – which is similar to that done by many online banks – is that even if cybercriminals manage to steal your username and password, they won’t know what your magic number is because they don’t have your phone.

Google has made two step verification easy to set up.

Once you’re set up, the next time you try to log into Gmail you’ll be asked for your magic number after entering your username and password. Your mobile phone should receive an SMS text message from Google containing your verification number.

Let’s just hope the bad guys don’t have access to your mobile phone too..

Here’s a video from Google where they explain two step verification in greater detail:

You can also learn more about two step verification on Google’s website.

By the way, note that two step verification doesn’t mean that your Gmail can’tever be snooped on by remote hackers. They could, for instance, install spyware onto your computer which could monitor everything that appears on your screen. But it’s certainly a good additional level of security for your Gmail account, and one which will make life much more difficult for any cybercriminal who might be targeting you.

2. Check if your Gmail messages are being forwarded without your permission

Gmail gives you the ability to forward your emails to another email address. There are situations where this might be handy, of course, but it can also be used by hackers to secretly read the messages you receive.

Go into your Gmail account settings, and select the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab.

If your emails are being forwarded to another address, then you will see something like the following:

That’s fine if you authorised for your emails to be forwarded to that email address, but a bad thing if you didn’t.

If your messages are not being forwarded you will see a screen more like this:

Hackers want to break into your account not just to see what email you’ve received up until their break-in. Ideally, they would like to have ongoing access to your email, even if you change your password or enable two step verification. That’s why it’s so important to check that no-one has sneakily asked for all of your email to be forwarded to them.

3. Where is your Gmail account being accessed from?

At the bottom of each webpage on Gmail, you’ll see some small print which describes your last account activity. This is available to help you spy if someone has been accessing your account at unusual times of day (for instance, when you haven’t been using your computer) or from a different location.

Clicking on the “Details” option will take you to a webpage describing the type of access and the IP address of the computer which logged your email account. Although some of this data may appear nerdy, it can be a helpful heads-up – especially if you spot a computer from another country has been accessing your email.

4. Choose a unique, hard-to-crack password

As we’ve explained before, you should never use the same username and password on multiple websites. It’s like having a skeleton key which opens every door – if they grab your password in one place they can try it in many other places.

Also, you should ensure that your password is not a dictionary word, and is suitably complex that it’s hard to break with a dictionary attack.

Here’s a video which explains how to choose a strong password, which is easy to remember but still hard to crack:

(Enjoy this video? You can check out more on the SophosLabs YouTube channel and subscribe if you like)

Don’t delay, be sensible and make your passwords more secure today

And once you’ve chosen a safer password – keep it safe! That means, don’t share it with anyone else and be very careful that you’re typing it into the realGmail login screen, not a phishing site.

5. Secure your computer

It should go without saying, but this list would be unfinished without it. You need to properly secure your computer with up-to-date anti-virus software, security patches and so forth. If you don’t, you’re risking hackers planting malicious code on your computer which could spy upon you and, of course, your email.

You always want to be certain that your computer is in a decent state of health before you log into a sensitive online account, such as your email or bank account. That’s one of the reasons why I would always be very nervous about using a computer in a cybercafe or hotel lobby. You simply don’t know what state the computer is in, and who might have been using it before.

6. Why are you using Gmail anyway?

Okay, I don’t really mean that. But I do mean, why are you storing sensitiveinformation in your Gmail account?

The news headlines claim that senior US political and military officials were being targeted by the hackers. Surely if they had confidential or sensitive data they shouldn’t have that in their webmail account? Shouldn’t that be on secure government and military systems instead?

Always think about the data you might be putting on your web email account – because if it’s only protected by a username and password that may actually be less security than your regular work email system provides.

Bonus: This is how I check-in

Collected by prosebeforehos

Before departing for a tour in Afghanistan, First Lieutenant Todd Weaver left a note to his 9 month year old daughter. Todd Weaver was killed on September 9, 2010 by an improvised explosive device. The letter to his daughter reads:

Dear Kiley, My Sweetie:

Although you may not remember me, I want you to know how very much your Daddy loves you. I left for Afghanistan when you were 9 months old. Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. You are so very special to me sweetie – you are truly a gift from God. The best day of my life was the day you were born. Every time I saw you smile my heart would just melt. You were my sweetie – my life was not complete until you were born.

I am so sorry I will not be able to see you grow up. But remember, your Daddy is not gone. I am in heaven now smiling down on you every day. You are so very lucky to have such a wonderful Mom to take care of you. Make sure you are good for her and help her out whenever you can. Always remember to say your prayers at night and be thankful for all your many blessings. Never forget how important and special you are to so many people. We love you so very much. When you get older and start school, do your best and try to learn as much as you can about the world you live in. Always be nice and caring to others and you will discover that the world will be nice to you. But when things aren’t going your way, never forget that God knows what is best for you and everything will work out in the end.

You have such a bright and beautiful future ahead of you. Have fun. Enjoy it. And remember, your Daddy will always be proud of you and will always love you. You are and will always be my sweetie.

With very much love,

Your Daddy

Gimme Shelter