Another day, and more and more talking but still no action. Tonight we heard some very strong words from both Gordon Brown, and The Badger:
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has condemned Iceland’s handling of the collapse of its banks and its failure to guarantee British savers’ deposits.
Mr Brown said it was “effectively illegal” and “completely unacceptable”.
He said Iceland’s regulators had failed “not only the people of Iceland, they have failed people in Britain”.
Earlier the Icelandic prime minister, Geir Haarde, was asked if he felt there was a crisis in relations between Britain and Iceland.
He replied: “I thought so for a few minutes this morning when I realised that a terrorist law was being applied against us.
“That was not very pleasant. I’m afraid that not many governments would have taken that very kindly, to be put in that category and I told the chancellor that we were not pleased with that.”
But he said he had cleared up a number of issues with UK Chancellor Alistair Darling.
The above extract taken from the BBC News website.
I think we will all have to wait a little bit longer to get back our money, but I think it’s reassuring to know that the governemt are actively trying to find a solution to the problem rather than trying to push it to one side.
So far nobody has reclaimed any money, but I still remain 100% confident I will get it all back eventually, the big question everyone wants to know is when?
In the meantime, here’s my suggestion:
We should all club together, if all of my readers put forward just £5, I think we could buy Iceland. I would then propose we turn it into a massive Top Gear studio! 
This blog is normally focused on Internet Marketing, eBay and technology based posts, but I happened to have a savings account with the Icelandic bank - Icesave. Yesterday, Tuesday 7th October it was announced that their parent bank, Landsbanki had gone into receivership and had been nationalized. All Icesave customers were unable to deposit, or withdraw money….But on the brightside, I guess we are now all proud owners of a glacier!
Since then it’s been very unclear as to where we stand, so I thought I’d blog about how to get back savings that were held with Icesave.
To start with, let’s take a look at the deposit insurance you SHOULD have with an Icelandic bank: (Taken from the Sky news website)
- If an Icelandic bank fails UK customers are protected up to £50,000
- Joint accounts will be protected up to £100,000
- The first £16,170 of their money is protected by Iceland
- The remaining £33,830 is protected by the UK government
- If Iceland goes bankrupt, the UK will not cover the first £16,170
Since then we’ve heard that the Iceland Government has no plans to honor the insurance, which this morning caused the UK Government to personally guarantee all deposits in Icesave, and take legal action against Iceland for defaulting on the guarantee. It has also frozen all UK assests of Landsbanki until more information in available.
So where are we at know, and what should we do?
Well, there’s not really anything we can do. Nobody really knows how to go about claiming, or who to make a claim to. I’m sure things will become clearer in the coming days, but for now we have to wait for more information.
What Have I Done So Far?
I’ve logged into my Icesave account and printed off a statement of my account!
That’s all for now, I’ll post again when I have more information.
I spent some time last week testing out some new PDF software, and if it was any good, I was going to share it with you.
Well….it was good!
And it’s something that I get asked about a lot, so I figured it would probably be useful for a lot of you.
Here is one of the most common PDF related questions I get asked:
“How can I stop people from copying my PDF eBooks?”
My answer is always the same - You can’t add protection to your PDF eBooks unless you use the Adobe Acrobat software, that currently costs around £300 - roughly $600.
So in the end, people just use free PDF converters that don’t have any security features and just hope that nobody out there decides to copy or edit their eBook.
But now when I get asked the question, I’ll be able to give a different answer - I’ll be able to point them to the new software I spent last week testing out - PDF Domination.
PDF Domination contains a standalone PDF Creator software package that runs on any Windows PC (Even Vista!), but unlike other PDF creators, it contains a number of security features. Take a look:
- Password Protect Your PDF Document
- Disable The Ability To Copy/Paste Text
- Disable Printing
- Disable Image Copying
There are also the usual features that you’d expect to see:
- Simple User Interface
- Easily Insert Clickable Links
- Integrated Word Processor (No need to spend hundreds on MS Office!)
- 1 Click PDF Creation
So that’s the software covered, but PDF Domination isn’t just 1 software application. It’s kind of difficult to describe, but it’s like a big all in one package that covers everything you need to know about creating a successful PDF eBook.
Everything from how to find a niche, writing the eBook, setting up the sales funnel, automating/tracking sales and so on.
Now personally, I think you’ll probably already know a lot of that anyway - if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you should be an expert!
But, I do think that the software module of PDF Domination is way to good to miss out on. When you compare the cost of the PDF Domination package ($47) to the cost of Adobe Acrobat ($600), you can see why I hold it in such high regard.
So if you are interested in protecting your PDF eBooks, head on over and check it out:
http://www.elpassoblog.com/recs/PDF_Domination.php
No worries if it’s not for you, but as a lot of you ask me about it I thought it would be worth a share!
Cheers,
Dan
