To be or not to be...

Today I am in the mood for Shakespeare. You know that it was translated to Russian by 37 different Russian poets? The one is the most famous is by Boris Pasternak, the one I really like is by Samuel Marshak.

What it has to do with vacation rentals you might ask :)? I think that we all have to make choices in life and it is essential in business as in personal life.

To be or not to be a vacatin rental owner?

To be or not to be an honest businesman?

To be or not to be a slam landlord :).

And this is from Hamlet:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

Times of despair

I don't know why but there are rare times that I feel depressed over how much work is required to run the site of mine. Today was one of the days. May be it was this Pablo Neruda poetry that I read today and the song of despair made me down a bit. I have the whole list of things I must finish and I don't have any will to work on it. I wonder if this is something that happens to every site owner who has suddenly realize on how huge this task is? It doesn't happen to me very often, I am pretty happy and optimistic most of the time. May be I should just get rid of Neruda, yes, this is what I am going to do.

How important to write good English (or in good English)

One of the challenges of the vacation rental site that I run - my English. We don't have a phone number listed yet on Vacation Rentals Listed but I already imagine what will happen once it is there. I do have very distinctive accent. Some people find it cute, some find it beautiful and some will not understand me at all. I am learning now on how to write. Or at least on how to "not write".
Main challenge of Russian speaking people with English
1.the order of words. We have absolutely no "order" system in Russian sentences. As funny as it might sound, we can say "I want to rent vacation home" as
- Vacation home I want to rent
- I want vacation home to rent
- Vacation home to rent I want
so I always have to be alerted and build my sentences in right order.
2. A, THE and all around
The theory is simple. If this is something determined, we say THE, otherwise we say A (AN). On practice it is not easy at all.
3. Times - past, present, continued past (what?)....
I have booked vacation rental
I had booked vacation rental
I booked vacation rental
They look all the same to me :). Now you know why I need to imporove my grammar.

Inquries and spam on vacation rental sites

Shortly after our launch we found out that spammers and hackers are everywhere. They pose as renters, they post as owners, or they just come to the site to harvest phone numbers.
I think in today’s age it is impossible to create software that will filter these spammers. But here are few tips:
1) Once you have a visitor from Nigeria, block his IP.
2) If a visitor emails to 126 owners with the same text, something is wrong.
3) If owner is checking his property from always changing IPs, that should raise a flag
4) Connected from Russia and has 3 properties in Paris? I don't think so.

All 1-4 can be legimate users, but this is something that should be checked manually. I think it is a responsibility to the vacation rental portal site owner to prevent bad situations. It only takes 1 bad transaction to kill the portal.

We are, at http://VacationRentalsListed.com take it very serious. We have someone who monitor all inquires and postings. We have built in a special feature for admin to do it.