10 Golden Rules of E-mail Etiquette

I am completely exhausted with emails. My friend, it is time for you to lend me a hand and review the "10 Golden Rules of E-mail Etiquette" BEFORE YOU HIT SEND:

1. If your email is a forward, or
   
2. If you didn't physically write the email, or
   
3. If your email (or your thought) start with "just thought you might be interested", or
   
4. If your email has a link to the greatest web page you've ever seen, or
5. If your email is TO or CC most people in your address book, or
6. If your email is "funny", "cute", "incredible", a "public announcement", or
   
7. If you wanted to let me know may have won a prize, or
   
8. If you notice that my replies to you are brief or non-existent, or
9. If you just want to say hi, or
   
10. If you believe there is even a fraction of a chance that I won't read it

DO NOT SEND IT.

I don't want it.
I won't read it.
I'm not laughing.
I will delete it immediately.

If I sent you to this page by email, it is probably because you aren't familiar with the 10 Golden Rules of E-Mail Etiquette. Please familiarize yourself with them, or your lack of consideration will result in me banning your email permanently.

Goodbye Google Checkot - We don't want your new high fees

For quite a while now, Google Checkout has offered uniquely simple and competitive credit card processing for online merchants. 2% + $.20 / transaction with no monthly fees. And for those who advertise with Google, FREE processing for up to 10x your advertising spending. This offer was one of the best deals available for small businesses.

Just today, Google has announced that they are raising their fees... a hard hit against new or smaler merchants. The base fee of $.20 is now raised to $.30 and the discount rate is raised as high as 2.9%. For small business, this means upwards of $200-$300 in new fees each year. For small-medium sized merchants, this is an increase of close to $1000+ each year. For those taking advantage of Google's free processing, this increase may be more than double those figures.

Those that have searched for credit card processing know that it is a cut-throat industry where the goal is to take as much money as possible from the merchant. For a while, Google offered a refreshing new option that received high praise. With this change, Google is just another greedy company extracting every penny out of its customers.