This image can’t be found anywhere yet so I’m putting it up here for those who need it. Click through for a larger version.

I wanted to let you know about Kiva, a non-profit that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur who is working toward improving their living situation.

You can go to Kiva’s website and lend to someone across the globe who needs a loan for their business – like raising goats, selling vegetables at market or making bricks. Each loan has a picture of the entrepreneur, a description of their business and how they plan to use the loan so you know exactly how your money is being spent – and you get updates letting you know how the entrepreneur is going.

The best part is, when the entrepreneur pays back their loan you get your money back – and Kiva’s loans are managed by microfinance institutions on the ground who have a lot of experience doing this, so you can trust that your money is being handled responsibly.

It’s finally easy to actually do something about poverty – using Kiva I know exactly who my money is loaned to and what they’re using it for. And most of all, I know that I’m helping them build a sustainable business that will provide income to feed, clothe, house and educate their family long after my loan is paid back.

You choose who to lend to – whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq – and as they repay their loan, you get your money back. It’s a powerful and sustainable way to empower someone right now to lift themselves out of poverty.

Please consider joining Kiva and helping to change the world – one loan at a time.

Regular readers (all three of you!) may have noticed the recent appearance of advertising in my sidebar.

For the longest time, I was strongly against showing any form of advertising on this site. Partly because I just don’t like it, and partly because the site doesn’t really look that big. Looks can be deceiving however, and the reality is that I get close to 1000 unique hits per month because of other projects that I am involved with. Still not a lot, but bandwidth adds up.

Am I selling out? No. To help myself justify the presence of advertising, I’ve committed to only showing products and services that I regularly use and recommend to my friends.

As a strong believer in Open Source, I also plan to show some unpaid advertisements to help play my part in the process. Again, only for those projects that I regularly use and recommend.

Will it make me rich? Not at all, but hopefully it will cover the cost of my web hosting and maybe the occasional caffeinated beverage.

Thanks for your understanding.

As an expat, I find Facebook to be an excellent way of keeping up with friends in other countries and timezones. I really like most aspects of it. Some parts of it really, really annoy me though. So much in fact, that I studiously block the offending items from appearing in my news feed.

The Oatmeal obviously feels the same way. Matthew somehow has the gift of taking the things that annoy us all and describing them in a simple, easy to read format. Seriously, take a look.

His latest creation, entitled How to Suck at Facebook, is an excellent pictorial summary of everything that annoys me on Facebook. I know every single one of those people – maybe I’ll post it over there as well in the hope they get the message…

Good news for iPhone users!

When you browse the State of Flux from your iPhone or iPod Touch, you will now be served a version of the site that has been optimized just for you! The content remains the same, but the look has changed.

If you prefer to browse with the usual look and feel, simply scroll down and use the slider to switch the theme on or off.

The mobile theme should also work nicely with other mobile touch devices such as the BlackBerry Storm or those running Android, but I haven’t been able to test them.