I always wanted a toy AT-AT when I was kid, but never got one. Thankfully, I had plenty of other Star Wars gear to keep me happy. I thought this was a pretty awesome video using of stop motion….
Making of AT-AT day afternoon
My wife just got the HTC Hero with Google from Sprint this past weekend, and I planned on updating her Android operating system as soon as we got home. One problem, the hot sync tool is only available for Microsoft Windows. It might have been good to know before we actually purchased the phone. If find it incredibly ironic that Google is dropping Windows within their offices, yet you have to have Windows to update their Android operating system.
Who’s to blame?
It’s HTC’s update tool, but it’s also a Sprint phone, and Google should have some type of responsibility here. I realize when multiple companies work together on a project like this, things like this slip through the cracks, but this is a pretty big slip. Apple is huge right now, and what about Linux? Wouldn’t it be beneficial for all three parties to have update tools for multiple operating systems? Of course it would!
Anyway, I guess this means I need to get some version of Windows I’ll never use running on one of my Macs at home, just for HTC Sync Updates. I honestly think Sprint should be offering to update the operating system before the customer walks out the door.
If you want to make money blogging, you first need a blog that has some traffic. I highly suggest to my clients that you first need to have traffic, and then you can sell it. Once you have some traffic, then I would start easing in some advertising.
TIPS TO INCREASE BLOG TRAFFIC
1. Find Your Blog Topic
You need to find a topic people are interested reading about. There are thousands of blogs out there, so I would pick a topic and research how many other blogs are writing about it. If there are too many, and you don’t think you can find your niche, I would think about trying something else.
2. Search Engine Optimize Your Blog
I would do some research on SEO, but I would concentrate on two things, 1) search friendly URLs, and 2) title tags. I use WordPress for my blog, so I have my Permalink setting setup for “Day and name”. I also use a plugin called “All in one SEO Pack“. I really only use this to tweak my title tags. More than anything, I like to provide additional keywords in my article title.
3. Links
You need to be smart about your linking. In my blog posts, I try not to link to everything possible, but rather pick the most important items within the article and link to them. I also have some random links on my sidebar, which may or may not be associated with my blog. Some are links to friends, some of them are links to websites I find interesting. I would find other blogs and see if they’d be interested in trading links. The more blogs that link to you the better!
4. Lists
People love to read lists. Top 10 most beautiful people. Top 10 songs. Top 10 favorite blogs. Whatever! Say it to yourself out loud, people love to read lists.
5. Captivate Your Audience
Don’t get stuck in a rut of just posting text. As much as possible, I try to add images, videos, audio clips, or anything else I can think of that might grab your audience’s attention. You can also use blockquotes, indentation, bullet points, or whatever else you can to make it more visually appealing.
Articles on how to increase your blog traffic:
MAKING MONEY
There are several ways you can make money with your blog. I highly recommend using more than one of these, and I would definitely experiment with what works best for your blog.
1. Google AdSense
AdSense allows you to place Google ads on your website which you can earn money from clicks or impressions. There are other similar programs such as Yahoo! Publisher Network(YPN), Chitika, and Clicksor. I would check out the Google AdSense Blog, which has a ton of great information.
2. Affiliate Programs
There are ton of affiliate programs out there. It really depends on which one best fits the content in your blog, and which one can make you the most money. I like to use the affiliate programs to link to products I’m blogging out. I create a simple link within my post to the product. If you have a good amount of traffic, and you do this over a period of time, you can make some money. Make sure not to spam your audience, and don’t waste your time with their banner advertising.
3. Sell Advertising
You sell advertising on your own and use some type of banner software like OpenX. I personally don’t have time for this type of advertising, but if you start getting requests, I wouldn’t pass them up.
4. Donations
I really don’t like asking for donations, but sometimes it’s a necessary evil. If you have really good fans, and they’re willing to give up some money to support your blog, why not? PayPal makes this really easy to setup with their donation buttons. I would wait until your blog is generating a good amount of traffic.
Overall
There are no rules when it comes to making money with your blog. This article simple lists some of the things that have worked for me and my clients. I suggest you do your research, and have fun blogging. Good luck!
Related:
I’ve been using the same Motorola RAZR for over three years now. I keep holding out for right phone, and nothing has really grabbed me. I’m not the best at text messaging, so I’d really like something with a QWERTY keyboard. I like some of the features of the new smart phones, but I also don’t want to pay an arm and a leg for my data plan.
I’ve been using US Cellular for quite a few years now, and I get superb service in the Madison area, but their selection of phones is awful. My wife is on Sprint, and we could save some money if we put our plans together. Sprint’s phone selection is better than US Cellulars, but it’s not as good as say Verizon.
iPhone
I’d ultimately like to have an iPhone. It’s a great phone, has a great operating system, and a ton of applications. Our two computers at home are both Macs, so it makes sense. Unfortunately, there’s one big issue….the monthly bill! I don’t want my phone bill to be over $100 per month.
Droid
I’ve been reading a lot of great things about Droid, but it’s only available with Verizon. My wife and I could both switch to Verizon, but that seems like a lot of hassle to just get certain type of phone. If this phone was offered by Sprint, this would be an easy decision.
HTC Touch Pro2
A friend of mine just got the HTC Touch Pro2, and it looks amazing. It has a nice QWERTY keyboard, conference calling, tilt screen, and ton of features. Unfortunately, I don’t want anything to do with a Microsoft operating system and the price is outrageous.
HTC Hero with Google
This phone seems like the best option available for me, but it’s not the best phone. CNET editor’s rating is 3.5, but Sprint customers gave it a 4.6. I like that it runs Android, has a 5mp camera, and lot of other features. I’ve heard that it can be a little slow, which may, or may not be a big deal.
Ultimately, I’d like to buy an iPhone, and then maybe the Droid. iPhone is locked in with AT&T, which has too expensive of a data plan, and the seem to be having major issues with dropped calls in certain areas. The Droid is locked in with Verizon, so that is probably isn’t the best option for us, unless we wanted to switch our service. There is supposed to be a new Google phone coming out, but it sounds like that will only be for T-Mobile.
It seems like I’ll either need to go with HTC Hero with Google using Sprint, or switch over to Verizon just so I can use the new Droid phone. I need to do some more digging, but it seems like Sprint would be a cheaper monthly plan. What to do?
I’ve been playing around on the new Madison.com site, and I have to be honest, it’s awful. The old site was slow, the new one is even slower.
The design is more modern and fun, but it’s not a good design for a newspaper website. Maybe I’m just a minimalist, but I don’t necessarily want my eyes stimulated on a website that has a ton of information. I want it clean, and I want the functionality to be flawless. Plain and simple.
This website’s design is so awful, I don’t even know what else to say about it, except to say whoever was involved in the development and deployment of this website has no right working for a website like Madison.com. I hate to rip on Madison.com, but don’t take my word for it, compare Madison.com to some of the following websites, and it painfully clear they need to scrap the new design and start from scratch….
I’m not sure what is going on with Gmail this morning, but I can’t login with the “Newer Version”. I keep getting the following error….
I googled the error and it eventually brought me to the following page…
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99541
According to Google, this is the cause:
A flaky or unstable network connection may be temporarily preventing all of Gmail’s features from loading completely. In most cases, most of Gmail will work correctly, and you’ll be able to use it as usual
If I use Firefox 3.0.8, I get the error. If I use Safar 3.2.1, I don’t get an error, which leads me to believe it’s not actually a network issue. It’s either an issue with Gmail’s code base or an issue with Firefox. I’m thinking it’s an issue with Gmail since I haven’t upgraded Firefox since yesterday. For whatever reason, Firefox and Gmail aren’t playing nice together.
I just upgraded/downgraded my computers to Firefox 3.0.8, and let’s just say, it has a ton of bugs. I use Firefox at home on a Windows and Mac, but I mostly use it at work on my 24″ iMac, which has OSX 10.5.6.
The first thing I noticed this morning was when I clicked on a link that opened a new window, the left nav button isn’t grayed out, leading you to believe it goes somewhere. This wasn’t like this on previous versions. BROKEN!
The second issue is it no longer remembers my website urls in the url bar. Previously, I could start typing something like, “www.m”, and it would start listing a bunch of websites that started with “www.m”. BROKEN!
The third issue is it no longer remembers websites that I’ve visited, which might be related to #2. I noticed when I went to CraigsList.com, which I frequent, it didn’t have any of the links listed as “visited”. If I click on a link, and go back, and refresh, it lists that link as visited. If I click on another link, go back, and refresh again, it will list the link that I just clicked on as visited, but it won’t remember any of the previous links. BROKEN!
I can’t still do what I need to get done with this version of Firefox, but these are some pretty amateur mistakes. Oh wait, is this an April Fool’s joke? Cause nobody is laughing.
I’ve been working on starting a company called Blue Dog Audio. We’ve been official for some time, but we finally did a soft-launch yesterday of our e-commerce website. As of right now, the company is online only (similar to NewEgg.com), but we plan on helping our customers as much as possible over email, IM, and may, at some point, do some limited phone support.
Currently, we have a coupon for 10% off your first order for new customers. We also have free shipping on all microphones. If you have any questions, feel free to email the site…we’d love to hear from you!
Dear Best Buy,
We should have known better than to purchase a large TV through a big box but at the time, needing instant gratification, we did. That has been our biggest regret since. The 36″ Panasonic has now been out of commission since a week before Thanksgiving–07! We called corporate, they set up a service tech, he came out and didn’t know what was wrong with it. He made a guess at a part rescheduled another service time, came out and it was the wrong part. He ordered two more parts and scheduled yet another service call to which he was so late that we had to go back to work. He had the audacity to put a little tag on our door saying that he was sorry he missed us, we were supposed to be there. Well we needed to go back to work to make money to buy a new TV elsewhere. We called corporate that night and I sat on the phone for nearly an hour 3/4 of it on hold waiting for a manager to speak with me about this situation. She could only rectify the situation by scheduling yet another appointment which got canceled due to the parts not all being in–it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the parts weren’t in therefore they would not have been in on the day that the tech stood us up. We were told we would be contacted again when the parts were in……..that was the week before Christmas…..by the way, it is now the middle of February. I called the Best Buy store located near my house. The only shining light of this whole debacle is that Lindsay was exceptionally helpful and got us scheduled for a tech to come out and fix our TV. She had them schedule an appt. for Feb. 23 but if they could come today, Feb. 16, they would call us and let us know. We received a call on Thursday, letting us know that in fact, someone would call us between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. letting us know when a tech could come out. At 9:30 I called and was told that they have an hour grace period before contacting our tech. GREAT. I called back at 10 a.m. only to be told that there is no tech available today and we need to reschedule.
I don’t think I have every received this atrocious service–EVER. I am curious to know if corporate understands that you can put all of this money into your fancy “Corporate Campus” but if you can’t service worth shit than how do you expect to retain customers. I am now to the point where I am planning on reporting you to the Better Business Bureau as well as contacting Panasonic to let them know that their distributor is running their name through the mud. If I was Panasonic, I would think twice before doubling my order with Best Buy.
Related Articles:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hate+best+buy
I’ve been emailing Yahoo just about every day trying to get an answer as to why my account was disabled, and I finally have a vague idea as why it was deactivated. I have a guilty pleasure. I visit omg.yahoo.com. I, like many other people, post comments. There is a message that says…”Comments that violate our Terms of Service, including spam, hateful or obscene messages, may result in the loss of your Yahoo! ID.“, but that’s pretty vague.
My latest response from Yahoo….
“Hello Brett,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! OMG.
Your Yahoo! account was disabled pursuant to the Yahoo! Terms of Service (TOS). You agreed to abide by the TOS as a condition of using Yahoo! OMG. The TOS can be found for your review at:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
and provides in relevant part: “You agree that Yahoo!, in its sole discretion, may terminate your password, account (or any part thereof) or use of the Service, and remove and discard any Content within the Service, for any reason, including, without limitation, for lack of use or if Yahoo! believes that you have violated or acted inconsistently with the letter or spirit of the TOS. Yahoo! may also in its sole discretion and at any time discontinue providing the Service, or any part thereof, with or without notice. You agree that any termination of your access to the Service under any provision of this TOS may be effected without prior notice, and acknowledge and agree that Yahoo! may immediately deactivate or delete your account and all related information and files in your account and/or bar any further access to such files or the Service.”
If you would like to establish a new Yahoo! account and are concerned
that your intended use of our service may be a violation of the TOS, we encourage you to review the TOS and to take care to proceed accordingly.
Once again, we encourage you to review our TOS:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! OMG.
Regards,
Eric
Yahoo! Customer Care
40311193″
Twitter: brettfarrey