| Reviewer: |
Dan Levy |
| Location: |
United States |
| Bio: |
I have been in the retail management business for about 20 years. Until about five years ago I was general manager of a 35,000 sq. ft. store. Then I stepped down and took an assistants position at a smaller store so there would be more time to develop my online business. Now, I have pretty much retired from off-line jobs.
I run the DanJan Associates suite of websites, online since 1995. In those days we called the website, "Take My Freebies ... Please!" About 1999 we passed the 100,000 annual hits mark for the first time. I still code almost all my webpages manually in a text editor. I guess that makes me a dinosaur.
When I'm not at the store, or at the computer, I'm at karate classes. I go several evenings each week for 3 hours at a time. I take classes and also get to help a little in teaching the kids. I earned a 2nd degree black belt back (TKD) in the 80's. Now, I'm starting over in a different style and going for a second black belt. It's a lot harder this time. Guess age (and pizza) does that. I take and teach classes with my daughter. We are both 3rd degree brown belts (American Karate). |
| Reviewer Rank: |
9 |
| See All (24) reviews |
(210 helpful votes) |
All My websites:
DanJan Associates
Directory of Articles
Stomach Exercises For Health & Fitness
Identity Theft Resources
Yoga Resource Guide
Gardening Tips
Golf Course & Golf Club Guide
Real Estate Guide
Link Popularity
Natural Remedies
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: The Lucrative Software Machine v. 1.0 |
| By: Clifton Henry |
| Category: Software - Silver & Gold Members |
| Review Title: Good Idea, but ..... |
| Date Reviewed: January 12, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
This is a great idea for a product, but ...
The help file needs a great deal of work. You read the file and it's mainly just screen shots. Say you want to know how to add a widget. Go to the help file and it pretty much just says the "add widget" button is used to add widgets. But, beyond using the button - no further help is offered.
For a newbie, or someone just not familiar with using programs of this sort, this is a "learn to use it by yourself" type of program. Hopefully, in the future there will be a real tutorial added.
On the plus side, once you have figured it out ...
Use this to turn your webpage articles (authored by yourself) into stand alone .exe file special reports to give away or sell.
The possibilities are almost endless for what you can do with this in terms of creating give-away or sellable products.
Bottom line:
If you know your way around software... until some work/upgrades are done with this, a good ebook compiler or .pdf compiler will do the same things and give you much more versatility.
If you don't know software that well, or just have real basic needs, this may be worth trying.
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34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: EZNewsletter Ezine Marketing System |
| By: Hilda Johnson-Slaton |
| Category: Software - Silver & Gold Members |
| Review Title: 2 Thumbs Up |
| Date Reviewed: January 12, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
OK, this is a newsletter/ezine publisher - but you could also use it for webpages.
Just open the software, fill in the blanks, and you have a newsletter. It's that simple. I created my first one in about 5 minutes. The interface is very easy to use, and well explained. It even includes spaces to insert ads & your adsense code.
You can view the newletter in your browser & go back and edit it before publishing. If you know HTML, save it to your hard drive and edit the code to make it look more like your website.
If you do HTML ezines, or web-based ezines - this is a great program to have.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Article Page Machine |
| By: InfoClicks.co.uk |
| Category: Software - Silver & Gold Members |
| Review Title: Like instant web sites |
| Date Reviewed: January 12, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
Having tried similar products before, I was really skeptical about this. But, this one really delivers the goods.
Just enter your info into the interface (title, keywords, meta tags, colors, etc.) along with the article, and - poof - instant web page.
Change PLR articles from useless text files on your hard drive into a content rich website. Get a good ebook compiler & turn these article pages into an ebook. (I do this)
It all starts with knowing how to use your articles, and Article Page Machine can be the first step to using them. |
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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: The 118 Most Useful Plugins for Your WordPress Blog |
| By: Clement Chan |
| Category: Ebooks - Silver & Gold Members |
| Review Title: A must if you use WordPress |
| Date Reviewed: January 16, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
Usually if you need plug-ins to enhance your WordPress blog it means searching a lot of web sites to find what you want. Here's virtually all the good ones in one place. At least links to them. Saves a lot of time. Plug-ins are categorized for easy reference.
I've used WordPress for years & still found a few in here I did not know about and already have them in use.
Biggest dissapoint with this - I already bought it last week & now here it is for a member download. Guess this tells you I really like it & tells me I should have waited.
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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Web Elements E-Z Tools |
| By: Garland Valley |
| Category: Software - Silver & Gold Members |
| Review Title: If you do you own web sites, you must have this! |
| Date Reviewed: February 12, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
This is one of the best pieces of software I'm come across in quite a while for people who code their own sites. This is fairly easy to use, even for the beginner & us experienced coders can make us of many of it's features, too.
The alert boxes, button generators, and survey generators are among my favorites. If you need help with colors, theirs some cool tools for you to use.
But, the Page Transition Wizard will knock your socks off. This will give your web pages "power point" type transitions between pages. It's so easy no instructions are needed. You can give your site a real pro look in just minutes. To me, this one tool can be worth the price of the package.
I code almost all my pages myself. Have for 13 years. This package is a real time-saver. Get it.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: The Resource Report |
| By: Mike Filsaime |
| Category: Free Downloads - All Members |
| Review Title: Better for Mike than for us... |
| Date Reviewed: March 10, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
About five years back, I was asked to review a new publication by a well-known marketer (me, and about a thousand other people). The publication was little more than an excuse to publish over 400 affiliate links.
... while not nearly that bad, this is what "The Resource Report" reminded me of. I''ve known of Mike Filsaime for a while now. He has helped people make money. But, this time it seems like he is in it for himself.
OK, tirade over,
That said....
If you have been marketing on the Net for a while, you probably know about most of these resources.
If you are new to the marketing business, you will find some services in the report that you will want to try. I have been using some of them for many years.
For everyone with a website, ezine, or list of any kind to promote to, there's an affiliate program for you to make some money, too.
Question is this, would you rather send your list to a report of services "some other guy uses," or to a report of services that YOU use?
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: E-book Basics |
| By: Tim Whiston |
| Category: Free Downloads - All Members |
| Review Title: Good Beginners Guide |
| Date Reviewed: March 13, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
From my title, you can tell that I think this book will be useful only to beginners. Most people who write eBooks & have for a while will know about the sources and resources allready.
I would question how up-to-date some info about a download or twois, but anyone going for the download will get the newest version anyway.
The book is rather simple & mostly sticks to the basics. Which, is why I call it a beginners book. Most of us SFW members will not get a lot from it, but if you have never written an eBook, this makes for some good reading.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Jason Potash 900 Pound Gorilla Report |
| By: Jason Potash |
| Category: Free Downloads - All Members |
| Review Title: Another Good Report - Thanks Jason |
| Date Reviewed: March 20, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
A while back (40 years, maybe) a football coach named Lombardi, before a big game, made a statement like this:
We can tell you what play we will run next, and if we execute properly, you still can't stop us.
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This report tells you (or reminds you) how to execute properly.
If you do article marketing by following some of the so-called gurus - writing 300 word articles & calling them "content rich"....
Or, if you take PLR articles and change maybe 10 words, then call them unique....
Or, if you write your own articles, but don't'really know how to get the keywords or terms right....
This is an article you will want to read - several times. Even if you think you know what you are doing, this will remind you of some things that we sometimes take for granted.
On the other side, Jason does take about five pages to tell you what he's going to tell you. But, I do like his writing style, so that's no big deal.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Stop Living Paycheck To Paycheck |
| By: Jim Donovan |
| Category: Free Downloads - All Members |
| Review Title: Very good reading |
| Date Reviewed: March 22, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
For the first part of this eBook, I could have been reading a review of "Think And Grow Rich" by Napoloen Hill.
Now, that's not exactly a bad thing. The book is a classic - even for about 90 years ago. (And, the author does recommend it toward the end) The principles are as sound today as then. In stating, or paraphrasing them, the author uses much more modern & easier to understand language.
Anyone would be well advised to follow most of these principles. But, of course, most won't.
The second half of the book gives a lot of ideas for you to use to make money. But, try to resist the urge to skip over the first part. It will be more help than you realize.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Order Page Magic |
| Category: Software - Silver & Gold Members |
| Review Title: Nice little package will save you work |
| Date Reviewed: April 19, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
Order Page Magic will help the beginner or the veteran crank out order pages without the need for coding.
That said, there are a few things to keep in mind about this product.
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1. All your order pages will look almost the same. This is not a bad thing. The only drawback is that you really can't customize some of the colors to make it match your existing website.
This is something we may care more about than our customers... so it is only a minor thing.
2. While the program will produce your order page in an instant, don't consider this as an instant program.
There will be prompts throughout the process which ask for benefits, descriptions, bonuses, etc. These things need to be thought out in advance. The order page will only be as good as what you tell the program to put on it.
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All in all, I like this package and will be using it. I will surely be tweeking the html it produces a bit to match my sites, and if you know how - you probably will, too.
The output is nice and clean, and as professional as the words you put in it. A real timesaver for any selling on the Net.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Keyword Content Multiplier |
| By: InfoClicks.CO.UK |
| Category: Software - Silver & Gold Members |
| Review Title: I'm not thrilled... |
| Date Reviewed: April 24, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
Let me state up front -
This product really does what it claims it will do.
However, to me it is still mostly nothing I would use. It will take one article and let you replace keywords with other keywords. Basically, you can turn one article into a hundred articles. But, all the articles will say the same thing. And, you can do the same thing in your word processor using "search and replace."
I guess the main reason I'm not thrilled with this, or similar products, is that they produce what I think of as cheap imitations. In reality, it produces a bunch of duplicate content.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: The Power Profits Workshop |
| By: Tim Godfrey |
| Category: Free Downloads - All Members |
| Review Title: Great beginners guide, step by step.... |
| Date Reviewed: April 29, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
... and, not bad for some old timers either.
If you are running a website that caters to newbies, this book is a great asset for you. It will take a new marketer through all the steps.
If you have been marketing a while, it's still worth the read. Especially, the section where he outlines 25 ways to make money online. You probably know about most of them. But, if you get just one idea, it's more than worth it.
There are points that I do not agree with, but with a 73 page book, that will always happen. This book will have limited "how-to" value for most of us members. (of course, I assume we have some kind of clue) But, it could have almost unlimitted value to those who we market to
Surely worth the read, and more than worth it's weight as a giveaway.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Article Writing Super Secrets |
| By: Liz Tomey |
| Category: Ebooks - Silver & Gold Members |
| Review Title: The Definitive Article Writing Guide |
| Date Reviewed: May 31, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
This will be a short and simple review. The title I gave this says it all. I have been familiar with the authors work for a year or more, but with this eBook she outdoes herself.
Do three things with this eBook.
1. Read it.
2. Re-read it.
3. Go back to step 1.
I just finished reading it. I'm going to read it again in the morning. In the afternoon I'm putting it on my article directory site. In the evening I'm reading it again.
It does not matter if you are a raw beginner at articles, or if you have written thousands of them. There's something here for you.
Wish I had written it.
Great job, Liz.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: The Encyclopedia of Free Online Advertising 2nd Edition |
| By: Luke W Parker |
| Category: Free Downloads - All Members |
| Review Title: Good Giveaway But Beware The Emails |
| Date Reviewed: July 30, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
I downloaded this book because it looked like a great giveaway for my site or as a list builder. And, after reading it - I still think so. Lot's of good information, not just for newbies, but most people.
But, here's the rub. There's about 20 or so affiliate programs that you can brand with your own IDs. That means if you choose to do so, you have to join these programs. No big deal. After all you will get sign-ups & make money through them.
Now, I signed up for about a third of the programs over the week-end. I'll do the rest this week, then start giving the book out. But, of the programs I signed up for, three of them, in just the 1st four days, have already sent me over 300 emails.
So, if you do give this away to your list, warn them - don't use their primary email to do this. Create a separate account at Yahoo or wherever so they can keep their real email uncluttered.
Bottom line - aside from all the excessive emails, this does look good, and I am going to use it.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Craigslist Profits Unleashed |
| By: Kenny Tan |
| Category: Private Label Right Products - Gold Members |
| Review Title: Kind of a disappointment |
| Date Reviewed: July 30, 2007 |
I've been hearing a lot about marketing opportunities on Craigslist recently. But, I have barely looked into the site. So, here is a great opportuniy to find out how to do it.
What this book is, to me anyway, is simply a way too generic attempt at telling you how to do it. Yes, you do get some ideas. But, not much meat when it comes to telling you how to implement the ideas.
I think the real marketing veterans will take the ideas and be able to run with them - well at least jog with them. The newbies, I think, will mostly be clueless.
I think the author were to go back and do a little editing. Adding more specific "how-to" examples to go along with some of the generic ideas could make this a much better book.
Also, a minor point, but one that always gets to me.... At the end of the book is a page of recommended resources. Only one of these URLs is clickable. Since it's hard to copy and paste out of Adobe Reader, it's not very user friendly.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: The Web Marketers Traffic Course: Your Guide To Traffic Generation |
| By: Alan Reece |
| Category: Ebooks - Silver & Gold Members |
| Review Title: Delivers What It Claims & More |
| Date Reviewed: July 30, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
Let me state up front that the author does not go into great detail as to the how-to about everything he talks about. This is not really necessary though.
He breaks down traffic generation into many different levels and each level has many types of methods. The first level starts out with entirely free, simple, and old methods of getting traffic. Of course, the results of the methods are usually not worth the trouble. And, he points this out.
He then takes you from level to level of ideas. Still mostly free at the early stages and working up to services you pay for at the end. With each technique you get an assessment of the authors opinion of its value in getting traffic. Most of the opinions I agree with.
This is a book that can be extremely useful to the new marketer in deciding which tactics to use and which to pass up. Even for some of us Net veterans, this can remind us of some tactics we may have stopped using, but might want to try again.
The sales page is first rate for those who will sell this in addition to reading it. It's about midnight as I write this, but first thing in morning, this goes on my sites.
By the way, another thing that impressed me is the lack of affiliate links. Books like this usually lend themselves to be a book of links. The author does promote a program, but the text of the book is link-free. As the old TV show said, "just the facts."
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: My PLR Unionizer |
| By: K Smith |
| Category: Free Downloads - All Members |
| Review Title: Dissappointed |
| Date Reviewed: August 28, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
Let me start off by saying this is a demo version. I have no idea what the "real" version will do - there's nothing in the demo that says. That said...
This software will let you combine two or more text files into one. The purpose of the software being to combine many PLR articles into one file. This it does. I was able to drag and drop 10 files into the software in about 10 seconds. Then save the file and you have a bigger one.
I can do the same thing by copying and pasting into my word processor. Granted it takes about 2 minutes longer. But, if you are going to edit the file, as you should with PLR, you need it in a word processor anyway. So, a 2 minute savings is the "the best time saver seen this year." If this is true, it does not say much about this year.
If this software had more functionality, like being able to edit the file from within, it could have some real possibilities. And, this may be a feature of the non-demo version. As I said, there's nothing in the software that says what the difference is.
In the meanwhile, if you know how to copy and paste into a word processor or text editor, save the hard disk space. You don't need this.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: PLR Profit Tips |
| By: Edmund Loh |
| Category: Free Downloads - All Members |
| Review Title: Nice Set Of Tips |
| Date Reviewed: August 29, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
If you are like me, and have used PLR products for a while, the tips are little more than reminders of what we should be doing. In this case you will use the product as a bonus or for-sell product for your members.
If you are just starting out with PLR; this short, but concise list will tell you what you need to get started. The only drawback is the ideas are just that - ideas only. When it says to put affiliate links on a thank you page, the book assumes you know what that is. But, if you don't, your not ready to start selling anyway. You need a few more books first.
So, if you know how take the ideas and make them happen. Then go for it. If you don't, you need to learn how. And, there's some good ebooks to download here to get you started.
All in all, Mr. Loh has put together a nice little how-to guide for people beginning with PLR products.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Free Computer Software Report |
| By: Robert Eilers |
| Category: Free Downloads - All Members |
| Review Title: Nice Starter Book For Freebies |
| Date Reviewed: September 15, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
At first, I found myself a bit dissapointed in the book because of it's brevity and that I already knew about most of the free software. But, then I've been on the Net a very long time. Most of us old-timers won't find anything needed in here.
That said. Most people new to computers, the Net, or marketing will probably have little knowledge beyond the MS products that come bundled with their computer. These people mostly don't know about OpenOffice, Firefox, or other alternatives.
For them, this book points them in the right direction. Most of the resources are ones that I use and would highly recommend. I wish there were more programs listed and reviewed, but most of the basices are covered; office suites, email, browsers, and graphics. And, he does point people to websites for more free downloads.
This is not the 'ultimate' list for freebies, but is a good one for getting people pointed in the right direction for no-cost alternatives to pricey programs.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Free Traffic Explosion |
| By: Simon Hodgkinson |
| Category: Ebooks - Silver & Gold Members |
| Review Title: Well Done Set Of Tips |
| Date Reviewed: September 15, 2007 |
OK, a lot of what's in the book is stuff we've heard before. But, the author makes most of the book more than just a set of lists.
Instead of just saying use this service to increase traffic, he gives some suggestions of ways to use it. Instead of telling you not to give visitors too many chances to leave your site, he gives examples of specific places where you're likely to lose the visitor. So, you can fix it.
Even for the veteran, there will probably be a few tips, or services you might not know about. I know there's a few I'm going to check out.
This is a book that you will have no regrets putting on your site to sell. Most people will find it useful.
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Ultimate Traffic Generator |
| By: Tolulope Adeyemi |
| Category: Free Downloads - All Members |
| Review Title: Not Nearly As Good As It Sounds... |
| Date Reviewed: September 27, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
First of all, let me admit I'm naturally biased against programs like this. I think they are only slightly better than FFA link pages. And, I think they are absolutely useless.
What this program will do automate your traffic exchange programs. For those who use such programs. Join all you want, enter the URLs into the program, and let it bring you traffic.
Right.
The reality is not much of anyone using traffic exchanges will really pay attention to any site that pops up. They stay at a site long enough to get a credit and click on to the next. Yes, you may get lots of traffic, but very few will ever look at the page.
And, programs such as this are more likely than not in violation of many traffic exchanges terms of service. So, count on having a lot of your accounts terminated.
Bottom line: you might get lots of traffic, but not actual visitors who will look at your page. You will be considered by many of the exchanges as little more than spammers. And, you will waste a lot of bandwidth on junk traffic.
You will be better off doing a bit more work and getting real quality, targeted traffic who will see your page and buy your products. |
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
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| Product Reviewed: Taxes And Your Online Business |
| By: StealTheseArticles |
| Category: Free Downloads - All Members |
| Review Title: Don't Waste Your Time |
| Date Reviewed: September 28, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Dan Levy |
Overall, these articles read like your typical PLR garbage. Every 500 words could be summarized into one short paragraph without losing any information. Everything else is just filler, or saying the same thing over again.
If you really need to know about taxes (and this is mostly about sales tax), this will leave you mostly confused. The summary leads you to believe this is about income tax, guess again.
Save your time and just go to a local tax professional (like H&R Block in the US) and get real advice about what you need to do.
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