Need to Get Some

Contrad Black might be released

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:00:00 +0000

I cannot believe the Conrad Black may actually...well...most likely will be released from prison!!

I hope he is NEVER allowed to enter Canada AGAIN! He is truly a disgrace to my country!

I also hope he is NEVER allowed to do business of any kind EVER AGAIN!

Thoughts or comments are welcomed...just keep them civil, kids read this blog sometimes.

Keep It Hard For 12 Minutes

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Tue, 25 May 2010 23:09:00 +0000

$2,100 in a trading day.

I had to show this old Ebay video from youtube.com check out

Should I starty short selling

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:11:00 +0000

An interesting idea this short selling thing, I am always looking out for new investment strategies and idea's. The cool thing with short selling is that you don't need to be a rocket science to do it (Thank God...or I would be finished already lol)...anyhoo...sorry about the typo, my hand hurts.

Here is a great site with all of the info you will need, I highly recommend you check it out today.

Go here to see all about short selling

Happy Mother's Day (in advance)

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Fri, 07 May 2010 18:51:00 +0000

To ALL of you mom's out there ;)

Enjoy your weekend and enjoy your day!!! God knows you deserve to!

God made a wonderful mother,
A mother who never grows old;
He made her smile of the sunshine.
And He moulded her heart of pure gold;
In her eyes He placed bright shining stars,
In her cheeks fair roses you see;
God made a wonderful mother,
And He gave that dear mother to me.

Need a great meal idea? Try this, she will love it!

Basic Pancake or Waffle Batter

175g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
pinch of salt
300ml milk or buttermilk
1 egg
2 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil
oil for frying
For pancakes:

Mix together the dry ingredients
Whisk together the milk, egg and oil and quickly beat into the flour. Heat a little oil (medium heat) in a large frying and spoon in about 2 tbsp per pancake (this gives you 6–8cm size pancakes). Use more for larger ones
Cook until bubbles form on the top and they’re golden brown underneath, about 2 minutes, then turn over and cook for another 1–2 minutes
You will need to do this in batches so keep your finished pancakes warm while you cook the rest.

For waffles:

Mix and whisk ingredients as for pancakes

Make sure the iron is hot before pouring batter into the centre of the lower half of the iron. Make sure the batter doesn’t spread too far – it should be 2.5cm from the edges of the iron

Cover with the top and cook as directed by the manufacturer. Repeat until all the batter is used, adding a little more milk if it becomes too thick while standing. Waffles should be slightly crispier than pancakes.

Things to add to the basic batter:

Add ¼ tsp ground cinnamon and 1 small cooking apple, peeled and finely chopped

For blueberry pancakes, reduce the milk to 225ml and add 100g fresh or frozen blueberries

Add a small tin (227g) of crushed pineapple to a thickened batter (225ml milk)

Use up overripe bananas by mashing with a fork and adding to the basic mixture

Add about half a tin (225g) of pumpkin purée

For savoury corn cakes add 150g frozen corn to a thicker batter (as above)

For buckwheat pancakes, often called Russian blinis, use half buckwheat flour, half plain and serve with sour cream and caviar.

If you’d rather have your added flavourings ‘on’ instead of ‘in’:

Make an apple or pear sauce by gently heating 2 peeled and chopped cooking apples or pears with 3 tbsp of water, 1 tbps sugar, a squeeze of lemon juice and a pinch of cinnamon. Cover and cook until the fruit turns soft and mushy and spread on basic pancakes or waffles

For a low-cal topping, use cottage cheese or fromage frais with some freshly chopped fruit or berries

And let's not forget the classic American accompaniment: maple syrup. Pancakes sharing a plate with crispy bacon and a couple of fried eggs is some peoples’ idea of breakfast heaven.

Recipe's courtesy of this link

Sneaky Clickbank Checks for my Momma? Gotta luv Travis

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:53:00 +0000

I love Travis over at Bum Marketing Method, the man is truly solid and now he has asked me to do him a tiny favor....well Hell....if you know Travis and how awesome him and Jeannie are then you know it's simply down right rude to say no to such a great cat.

He has a new project on the go and I love all of his stuff. So I feel it is only fair that since he has helped me succeed where others have failed it is only befitting that I share this with all of you.

For the record I am not getting anything in return for helping Travis out, there is no affiliate link hidden anywhere, I am not gonna make any money by bloggin' about this (BUT YOU MIGHT, if you pay attention to this good ole boy ;))

I know, I know....you're thinkin' where is the generic copy and paste message right? There probably is one somewhere but Travis deserves a real solid testimonial, you know he really does.

Project Mom will always be free, it'sd a cool little way to get more affiliate checks via ClickBank....interested?

Course you are...so now what I want you to do is STOP what you're doin' and head on over to Project Mom and take a peek. You will be damn glad you did.

I could go on and on about how great the guy is but....well....then you'd lose interest and think I was tryin' to sell ya something.

I'm not and neither is Travis.

Git over there and take a read, grab a coffee and a pen and a paper and be prepared to be blown away at what Travis can do for you.

Here's the link again. Project Mom

Why are you reading this line? Git over there :) Project Mom awaits you.

Learn Internet Marketing - 6 Great Ways to Market Your Business For Free

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:52:00 +0000

Thanks to Steve Upton for this interesting and important post on 6 Great Ways to Market Your Business For Free....who doesn't like free ;)

With economies around the world in poor shape saving money anywhere you can is always a good thing. This is especially true if you are marketing your own business. One of the things you need when you learn Internet marketing is just where and how you can generate free traffic. Unless you already have a bottomless pit of money then for some of you PPC and other forms of paid advertising can be fraught with problems. One of the biggest is just how quickly you can spend money on paid marketing and advertising.

Of course if you can afford to then a mixture of free and paid marketing and advertising is ideal. But for most FREE is always going to be better. Not only do you benefit from not having to pay out but your web-pages and blogs will list more organically within the search engines.

When you learn Internet marketing on-line you will find that these are some of the tried and tested free ways to get the best results. After all you want your site to be found and the more this happens the more sales you are likely to make.

1: Articles

Writing articles and submitting them to article sites such as the one you are reading this one is pretty straightforward. However, you need to make sure that your article is interesting and useful to the reader. People always like to have good information so provide them with it. Make sure you think about the keywords you want to use and that are relevant to your site.

2: SEO

Search Engine Optimisation is an often talked about subject and with good reason. Just making sure you have followed the golden rules of SEO and have applied them to your site can make the difference between a first page ranking site and one that languishes on page ten. You will be amazed how many web sites which are household names are not 100% optimised for the traffic they are trying to attract.

3: Keep Content Fresh

Keeping your content up to date and fresh can impact on your rankings and attract new traffic. If you lack the time or are just not good at this then there are many ways to get free content on your site. Again just make sure the content is in keeping with what your site is about and spiders and bots will be visiting your site regularly. Also ensure that any free content you grab hold of remains in-tact and have the original Author's details visible.

4: Forums

Forums are a great way to stay in contact with others who are in the same line of business as you are. Posting and helping others is always rewarding. If you include your link in your signature then again people will start to visit your site as well.

5: Free ads

Posting on the free ads is a good way to reach people from all over the county or alternatively you can target very locally. Hundreds of thousands of people everyday search the free adds for all sorts of things. Whilst traffic can be low from this method, with some creative copy-writing you can also hit an often neglected goldmine of free marketing.

6: Newsletters

Newsletters are great for all types of websites. It offers you a way to connect with your readers, builds a list of people who are interested in your niche and is also a useful tool to Analyse what works well. You can really build on free traffic by offering useful and relevant information and keeping your visitors up to date. Provide something free every now and again such as an eBook or report that will be of use to your readers.

When you start to learn internet marketing it can be a costly business but it does not always have to be so.
If you would like to know more about free getting free traffic to your website and learn internet marketing the easy way then why not come and visit us at http://inetprogroupcoaching.com/ and learn more about the people who can really help you gain the knowledge.

Article Source

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Start a Home Business and Have the Tenacity to Succeed

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:49:00 +0000

I read this religiously for a reason ;)

The first thing to ask yourself, or at least one of the first things to ask yourself when considering a home business is are you serious or are you just entertaining the idea. Another is, do you have the tenacity for withstanding the highs and lows for the long term. If you are serious about a wealth creating home business, you need to consider a Network Marketing Home Business Opportunity. It will test the strength of your armor and provide you an opportunity for a residual income or to aspire to great wealth. To achieve the latter, you don't quit, and with a good Network Marketing Home Business Opportunity you can afford not to. The industry is equal opportunity. All you need is the tenacity in your adult years that you once had as a child.
When you were a kid learning to ride a bicycle for the first time you may have started off with training wheels. You weren't ready to keep your balance on two wheels, but you eventually took those training wheels off and fell a few times before you were able to ride on two wheels. This may not have taken very long, but think back; you would have kept rolling on that bicycle with your feet spread apart until you were able to peddle and ride on your own. Successful entrepreneurs still have that same tenacity in their adult years. If you lost it in your youth, and want to build a successful home business, you will need to get it back, and probably under an adverse environment.

When you were that child learning to ride a bicycle, and experienced times of frustration the environment around you was one of encouragement. You're an adult now and want to better your life through home business ownership and the environment of positive encouragement is no longer there. You can, has been replaced with, you can't. Most of those who do believe join the majority after a period of time. When you are inflicted with self doubt it is easy to wallow in it, and become unproductive. You have to tune it out and find the tenacity you were born with and lost at some point growing up.

Proving the critics wrong won't be easy. They have a valid position. The vast majority who seek the true, honest and legitimate wealth that can be obtained through a network marketing home business opportunity will fail. The industry is not a failure, it has created many millionaires. The people fail. They fail because they do not work hard, or they quit. Business is not instant gratification, it is delayed gratification. It may take years, but the winners are the one who don't quit.

Do you have or can you find the tenacity to whole heartedly build and create wealth through your own home business? If your answer is yes, we would welcome your careful review of the Magic Power Coffee Home Business Opportunity.

Retail Customers of Magic Power Coffee are also welcome to visit our online store

Article Source

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Fan Pages on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Megan nailed this one perfectly. Alot of people don't fully appreciate Fan Pages, take a read:

In November 2007, Facebook Fan Pages were established to create an official social presence for brands. Only months after the pages were created, they had already proven to be extremely cost effective in terms of generating and creating awareness of a brand in an easy-going and relatable way. Also, they showed extra value to customers and kept them interested through the means of sneak previews, coupons or latest news. Currently, Fan Pages prove to be an extremely popular means of online advertising, with 90 out of 100 of the world's largest brands having them.

With 400 million active users, and this number constantly growing, Facebook proves to be one of the largest reaching, carefully targeted and cost-effective advertising forms on the planet. Facebook Fan Pages are not only a great way for advertisers to reach a particular target audience, but also for them to increase their current supporter base.

As well as being an easy process, setting up a Fan Page is also free, which makes it an even better way to advertise a brand online. The first step for advertisers when creating a Fan Page is to sign up and agree to create a page. This is followed by selecting a title for the page and uploading a profile image that ties in with the product or service on offer. The next step for the company is to add information about the brand, such as URLs to other relevant websites, a brief history of the company and any objectives that they may have.

At this point in time, it is important for advertisers to ensure that the page stands out and attracts consumers, which can be done in many ways, including: adding videos, photo galleries or other Facebook applications. Lastly the page must be published and fans must be found in order to advertise efficiently. Fans can be found either by inviting current friends to 'become fans' or browsing for people who list the services as a point of interest. It is also important to promote and advertise the page through other means and create more awareness of the brand.

It may be quite simple to set up a Fan Page, but actually getting it to work well is another matter which takes a significant amount of hours, commitment and preparation.

The pages can be extremely worthwhile for companies, due to the large audience of people that are subjected to them on a frequent basis, but it can certainly not be expected that a page will generate a huge following in an instant. Gaining a large number of 'fans' or followers of the brand takes time, and by focusing on having strong content on the page, making it easy to share and letting consumers know about it, over time the fan base will grow and expand.

Facebook Fan Pages are vital to current day marketing and advertising professionals, as they reach such a huge audience, which differentiates them from any other form of advertising. They give millions of people exposure to the brand, and for this reason, exceptionally big networks of citizens can be targeted through this form of online advertising- which is why it proves to be so popular. As Facebook continues to expand, so too does the number of consumers that 'become fans' of a certain brand, which in reality means that more people will become familiar with this brand.

At the present, Facebook Fan Pages have proven to reach a huge market and for marketers or advertisers, this can only be a positive aspect. If this continues into the future, it will become vital for all businesses to advertise via the means of Facebook Fan Pages.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Megan_Langham

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Link Building and Social Media Communications

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Today we have another great article from Paul, as always check the archives here.

Whether you start your social communications from your Facebook page or your blog the application is the same. If you have something interesting to say or useful to give to the community then say it. As a business owner and someone who is passionate about what it is you do then in reality there is no one else that is more knowledgeable than you about your products or services.

Sharing your insights through a blog on your site is a great way to attract those who are most likely to buy from you. If your target market is visiting your site to get information, there's a strong chance they will also visit your site when they're ready to make a purchase.

Often people simply like to look so use Facebook for pictures and YouTube for videos (but linking to your Facebook) and then tell everyone you've added photos on Twitter. The two profiles should really work hand in hand. The more you blog or post the more you are getting your name out there and the more people see your name in status updates and news feeds the more you stick and eventually they will visit, they will comment, share, link and hopefully a percentage of those visitors will then purchase from you or at least refer you.

The side benefit from all of this is that you will generate links. Links are designed to show relationships among sites - the more links a site has, the more relationships it has with other sites, and the more respected it is in the online community. Think of a paid link as buying your friends - it may work for a while but, eventually, you'll realize that it's better to have a few real, quality friends, than a lot of superficial ones.

Original research is another key component illustrated by Cutts. He basically says that if you research something that no-one else has covered, note your methods and findings and blog about them. Whether its relevant now or in a year's time this information is highly valuable and effectively your own 'social real estate'.

So you need lots of organic links and comments and references. It takes time, a lot of time if you are young brand, but it does pay off and the more time you put into your social networks, adding friends and getting people involved through interesting viral campaigns the more you will establish yourself. Remember that effective communications are two way, so get involved with the community and comment on other peoples posts, offer advice and resources, if someone has a question on Linked In and you know the answer then share your knowledge.

Share yourself with the community and become inter-twinned with the knowledge links. We really haven't come that long a way...'knowledge is still king' it's just the platforms in which we can share the knowledge have become more advanced.

DSM Design - Design Solutions in Media

Article Source

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

"LinkedIn Training" - Must Read

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:42:00 +0000

Thanks to Elie Nassour for a very important post on LinkedIn. This really is a must read article. As always check the archives here for other great articles.

This article will be all about LinkedIn training and how I made a $10k commission from LinkedIn! It is so powerful and crucial to anyone in the home business or MLM industry. Read carefully.

1. Adding Friends:

You want to constantly be adding friends in your industry. So if your in the home business industry or MLM, then you want to target those particular niches. So by you constantly adding new friends on a daily basis you can become more known. Also in this process of adding you want to send a nice personal message along with the friend request. It makes you stand out from the rest and build that trust quickly.

You want to add anywhere from 20-30 friends per day. You do not want to add more then that because you will be risking getting your account shut down.

2. Moving The Free Line:

Once you have about 20 friends you can start marketing to them by just sending out broadcast messages. Here is where most people kill it. Instead of constantly putting out ads and pitching them, move the free line! Give them content, give them your best stuff, for example, if you wrote an article or made a video then blast it out to them. Send out nice and motivational quotes, send out links to your blog or anything else that might be helpful.

This will build trust and confidence and then once you shoot out those ads you will see results like never thought possible.

3. Having Discussions & Posting News:

You can do this in the groups you join and also post job opportunities or business opportunities! By sharing discussions and building relations people will follow you and want to know how they can work with you or buy what you have to offer. This is how I made a $10k sale with linkedin! Now this happens for me weekly!

4. Private Message:

You can also private message one person at a time if you really want to go deep and make sales like crazy. You can just ask questions and where they want to go or be within the next 3 months and show them how either working with you or purchasing your product or service can take them where they want to go. Just one last thing.

I am on a mission to create 100 millionaires using a particular internet marketing education & training platform. Take a look & meet me at http://www.wealthcreations.ca/.

Article Source

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Matt Cutts from Google - Caffeine, Spam,Push and Buzz

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 14:11:00 +0000

So unless you are really new to blogging or the online world you know exactly who Matt Cutts is. A Google Employee and all around nice guy who is always willing to listen and answer questions and respond to idea's and/or comments.

He recently sat down with WebProNews and did this recording. It's about 21 minutes long but you don't wanna miss this since it is real. Not fluff and or junk.

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

How to Setup a Local Listing for Your Business on Bing.

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:51:00 +0000

Bing is MSN's newest Goldmine.

I must admit that I don't really go on MSN all that much, I check my emails and a few stories but that is really about it. Now after doing some research and reading some comprehensive studies about MSN's new search engine I must admit I have missed the bus, but there is still time to use Bing to our fullest advantage.

If you are already set up on Bing via Local Search than all I can say is "Well Done", if you aren't however then you may want to write this down or save it or just do it. ;)

The important thing to remember is that the earlier you get into Bing's Local Search the better you will be as far as being ahead of your competition, so here are the steps:

1. Go to the Bing local listing search link by clicking here.

2. Enter your business details: i.e your business name, phone number and address. Bing will then check if your business is already registered and then provided it isn't will allow you to create your business profile.

3. Once in, you need to provide the usual information so be as thorough as possible, the more information you provide the easier you will be to be found in Bing. Which means traffic and traffic means potential customers.

4. Do Not Overlook Bing’s supplemental websites area. This is very important as it allows you to add other relevant links to your business. For example I have a cleaning company so I can also add a link to a monthly special or discounts on cleaning supplies etc, you get the idea.

5. Verify your listing. Just like with Google, Bing gives you the choice to verify your account via phone or snail mail. Do it by phone, its faster ;)

6. Finished. Go do it. Thank me later.

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Political humor - an email to share

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:11:00 +0000

Alright, I had to share this joke with everyone cuz it's funny....lol.

A very corrupt congressman died and was met by St. Peter at the gates of heaven. He was told that he can choose where he would spend his days, in heaven or hell. He was to spend one day each in both places after which he is to make his choice.

He was to spend his first in heaven. So the gates of heaven opened. As he walked, he saw groups singing and groups praying. He turned to St. Peter and asked, “Is this all there is here in heaven?” St. Peter replied, “Yes.” He immediately asked to be taken to hell so he could see what hell has to offer. So off they went to hell.

As soon as the gates opened, he was greeted by a scantily-clad girl. He was given his favorite scotch and was kissed by the girl. “This is nice”, the congressman said to himself. He was then taken to a golf course where some of departed friends were playing. He joined them and finished a round. He was taken to a restaurant with a buffet so sumptuous and filled himself to his heart’s content. They then went to a casino where gambled till late in the night. Just before calling it a night, he was brought to a brothel where he chose the ladies he’ll spend the night with.

As he went back to St. Peter the following day, he had already made up his mind. Without waiting for St. Peter to ask him where he chooses to spend his days, he quickly said, “I prefer hell than heaven.” So St. Peter sent him on his way. This time though, he was greeted by Satan.

As he entered hell, he saw desolation, despair, torture and pain. His friends were submerged in pools of dung. Others were being whipped. Others were in other forms of torture. He turned to Satan ans asked where the the beauty and grandeur he saw the day before were? Satan mockingly answered, “Yesterday was the campaign, today you got to vote.”

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Why change my blog?

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 11:37:00 +0000

Why change my blog?

In short. Why not?

Blogging is very much like a shopping experience for customer's. Confused possibly?

Look at your blog, chances are your blog is a standard properly laid out blog. You have the following elements:

Friendfeed. Check

Comment Luv or something similar. Check

Twitter app. Check

Blog network. Check

Follow me link. Check

Followers button. Check

Several Posts. Check

Typical theme and color. Check.

As I said, a well laid out blog and you love it and your reader's love it. But only for so long.

My wonderful friend Joella who runs Blogs With Wings is going through a template change, it is exciting to watch and it is also making me go back several times a day to see what else she has done to her blog. A great idea on one hand and a nightmare on the other.

Why is that?

Well, as blogger's, sometimes we get so comfortable with our blogs that we don't think about the human reader's. Okay, to illustrate my point.

You go shopping to your local Wal Mart (just an example) and you know where EVERYTHING is in that store with your eyes closed. I am horrible for that. I shop at my local Wally world so much that I could go in there blindfolded and not get lost....until....a few months ago Wal Mart did the unthinkable. They CHANGED!!!!

Who the hell were they to change the store around, was my first reaction. However, it was also a good thing because they also added a fresh produce section. Damn, now as angry as I was I knew I had to go back to see the changes unfold. I had to go, I was compelled to go, I needed to see how the store would look.

I needed to see the new function.

The new produce section.

The new layout!!!! The new layout!!!! The new layout!!!???

No, that is not a typo, the new layout is what compelled me to continue going back to Wal Mart with a sense of wonder and anticipation. The old store was there in its shell form, however it had new items, things were changed a bit. So as much of a pain in the ass as it was in the beginning, I soon found myself falling in love with shopping again. I found that my regular boring experience of shopping was gone and a new experience had arrived.

Sure I knew the store very well, but now I had to find things again, I had to take my time and look around to see where things were and what was knew. And when someone spends more time in a store or your blog (this is important) it lowers your bounce rate....gee....seeing a pattern here.

Change is a pain, especially when changing a blog or website theme but it needs to be every once in awhile so your friends and readers don't get bored.

When you go out into the real world you may or may nor notice how much sneaky testing big box stores do.

They test. Test. Test.

The more they test the more success they have and that is no different than online.

So, change may be difficult, hell it may even be scary...but look on the brighter side:

You learn more about what you can do.

You learn what your readers want. I changed a theme about a year ago and after several bad comments I changed right back. I learned what my readers wanted.

You test and gain more knowledge and more reader's.

Most importantly, by changing your blog every now and then you let your reader's know that it's worth returning to see what or when you will change anything again.

So to all of those bloggers out there changing:

This Timmies is for you!

On a personal note, I really don't know how I put up with Joella and her changes ;)

Best

Garret

Social Media in Plain English

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:46:00 +0000

There has been alot of interest again in Social Media and where the best online social media websites are.

I truly think that there is no "list" of top 10 or 30 or 50 Social Media sites for the simple reason that they are not all labeled the same. You can use Twitter for quick social media but it won't help you if you are a scrapbooker, then you would want to use Etsy or something similar.

So instead of writing out a rehashed blog post I went on youtube and found two great video's about Social Media. Grab a coffee and click on read more to watch 'em.

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Affiliate Webmasters... Join MaxBounty.com and earn the highest CPAs in the market. Our specialty is maximizing payouts to our affiliates.

Click here for details

What is your social media outlook?

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:50:00 +0000

Most people don't fully understand the power of social media. Do you?

Are you actually using twitter for personal reasons or for branding your business and your online presence?

Are you using other social media outlets properly?

Are you aware of Digg's new platform?

The ever changing face of Facebook?

Do you stumble....or have no idea what that is?

Do you use online tools that are cutting edge or week?" (Last week)

What do you guys concentrate on to get noticed?

Let me know!

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Every now and then we realize how great life is - thanks to Darius Rucker

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:45:00 +0000

The past few months have been very difficult personally and sitting here thinking about things, literally channel surfing I put on CMT (which I NEVER do...no offense to country lover's) anyway I saw that the host was interviewing Darius Rucker...a great musician who has turned country and they then played his newest song called Alright. I damn near fell over and actually had tears running down my eyes. Real men can admit that by the way....I dedicate this to my fiance (a.k.a wife) and her kids who have become more of a family to me than my own child. I hope you all enjoy the video with lyrics.

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Twitter is changing the game, so.....

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:58:00 +0000

Okay folks, this is gonna be a long one. Twitter Business proudly presents....drum roll...;) an older post, but still a great one comprised of a great list of twitter services. Albeit I haven't tried them all yet so I am relying on everyone to please leave some comments as to how they work if you have used them.
Here they are:

Garret

All Your Tweet
- This Twitter Dingus provides Analytics, Multiple Accounts, Automated RSS Feeds to your Twitter Account, and Future Tweets. It also has a built in URL Tracker, Dashboard overview, and a Twitter Client.

Caboose Twifter
- Find shared friends on Twitter

ChirpCity
- Find tweeters and tweets in your city!

DivVoted
- lets you vote for your favourite sites with Twitter. Great for showing off your latest designs, or checking out other peoples votes for inspiration.

Free Twitter Designer

- Now you can personalize your Twitter background like never before. The tool below will help you create Twitter backgrounds that have the same look and feel as those done by professional graphic designers.

FriendFeed Twitter Client
- You can send Tweets directly from Friend Feed with this script

FuelFrog
- Track your gas mileage by letting us know the distance you traveled on your last tank, the price you paid, and how much fuel you added to your car. FuelFrog will compile and trend information about your gas efficiency, the amount you spend, and more! In

Happy Tweets
- A measuring stick for how positive, or happy, a particular Tweep is.

Matt
- Multiple account twitter tweeting. Matt makes it easy to post to multiple Twitter accounts without having to log into each one every time.

Monitter
- Monitter is a twitter monitor that lets you “monitter” the twitter world for a set of 3 keywords and watch what people are saying.

Mr. Tweet
- Mr. Tweet helps you easily build meaningful relationships on Twitter by looking through your network and tweets.

Multimap Twitter Bot
- helps you to access the same maps, directions and local information that you find on multimap.com by simply sending direct messages via twitter.

My Tweeple

- Manage Your Twitter Following and Followers

Phweet
- A Phweet is a shortURL that makes it easy to conduct voice conversations and conference calls between Twitter friends.

plusplusbot
- Did someone go out of their way to help you? Is a web site being particularly slow and flaky? Make your feelings known with plusplusbot.

QuoteURL
- helps you group different Twitter updates from different people into a single page that has a permanent URL. So you can put it on your blog or send interesting conversations to friends.

Qwitter
- Qwitter is a social tool powered by Twitter that helps you quit smoking

Remember the Milk for Twitter
- Get reminders in your twitter stream from Remember the Milk

Retweet Timer
- Timer is a Twitter bot that helps you set an alarm for things you need to remember.

Snipt.org
- share code snippets on twitter… or anywhere!

StrawPoll
- Tiny polls in 140 characters or less… Go to StrawPoll and create a poll. Your Twitter contacts can participate in the poll by simply sending an @reply message.

Timer Bot
- Timer is a Twitter bot that helps you set an alarm for things you need to remember.

Tipr
- Tip calculator for Twitter. Check out how much you have to tip for a certain amount of money using your mobile phone.

TrackThis
- Follow TrackThis on Twitter and send this bot a Direct Message with your Airway Bill Number. You’ll be notified each time your package changes location. Works with FedEx, UPS, DHL and USPS.

Twanslate
- Follow twanslate and send a direct message with the text you want to get translated along with the language code of the target language (en for English, fr from French, etc.).

twAnswers

- twAnswers is a brand new question-answer type community for twitter. it has a feature which tries to guess the answer based on keywords in the question using yahoo and wiki answers.

Tweader
- Tweader is a new way to view twitter conversations. All you have to do now is enter the tweet’s ID and have it all done for you.

Tweepler
- Tweepler Is an easy, more enjoyable way of processing your New Twitter Followers.

Tweet Grid
- Create a Twitter Search Dashboard that updates in real time.

TweetAhead

- Use TweetAhead to auto-post a tweet at a specific time

Tweetake
- Back Up your Twitterings!

TweetAnswers
- TweetAnswers.com was created to help people find quick answers to their questions!

TweetBar
- Tweetbar puts your tweets into email, websites and forum signatures

TweetBeep
- TweetBeep is like Google Alerts for Twitter! Put in a keyword or website, and get emails when others tweet it!

TweetBrain
- A crowdsourcing service powered by the Twitter community. It enables you to get a best answer or a solution to your question rapidly.

Tweeterized
- We provide dynamic Twitter signature images that you can use on forums, websites, myspace profiles and more. The dynamic images display your profile image, last update as well as how long ago you did the update. We also have various backgrounds to choos

Tweetizen
- Tweetizen is a simple web-based tool designed to help you filter the daily influx of tweets, and easily find the ones that are relevant to you.

TweetLater
- Keep your Twitter stream ticking over with new tweets even when you’re not in front of your computer. Or, use it as your personal reminder system. PLUS… Send automated thank you notes to new followers, and automatically follow new followers, if you c

Tweetree
- Tweetree puts your Twitter stream in a tree so you can see the posts people are replying to in context. It also pulls in lots of external content like twitpic photos, youtube videos and more, so that you can see them right in your stream without having

TweetRemote
- TweetRemote recognizes your tweets based on hashtags and creates files containing formatted XML based on the type of content contained in the tweet. These files can then be automatically aggregated into a blog or other dynamic website.

TweeTube
- Share your favorite videos quickly with short URLs. We let you track the visits and comments from the people that follow you on Twitter.

Tweetwasters
- Find out how much time you waste on Twitter!

Twemes

- Twemes.com follows public Twitter.com tweets (messages) that have embedded tags that start with a # character. These are sometimes called hashtags but we like to use the term twemes.

Twiffid
- See what your Twitter friends are blogging about!

Twilert
- a Twitter application that lets you receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service, well any keyword you like really.

Twit.icio.us
- Import links from a twitter timeline to your del.icio.us account.

Twitcrush
- Declare a Twitcrush on someone, see who has declared one on you!

TwitKu 2
- TwitKu.com a free social network mashup. See all of your social places in one space!

twitree
- a Twitter app that visualizes your friends in a recursive tree

Twitsay
- Give your Twitter account a voice! Get voice mail messages from your Twitter page.

TwitStamp
- allows you to use your current Twitter status anywhere - in the form of an image. This means you can post your status on blogs, forums, websites… wherever you want!

Twittad
- TwittAd was formed to give Twitter users and advertisers the opportunity to meet for product placement & website promotion on a Twitter user profile.

twitTangle
- a free service that helps you untangle the mess of having too many friends on twitter

Twitter Digest
- Twitter Digest lets you read Twitter updates in a more manageable fashion. Just pick the usernames you’d like to generate a digest for, and you will see all updates made by them during the past full day.

Twitter Spy

- You are spying on Twitter public timeline in real time.

Twitter100
- With Twitter100 you can see up to 100 of your followers at once!

TwitterBash
- A fun app that lets you post your favorite tweets to a database where they are rated by other users by popularity. You an also embed tweets that you like in a little HTML or javascript snippet.

TwitterBudgie
- TwitterBudgie is a FREE Parallel Universe service that completely solves every possible Twitter limitation on earth and allows you to send more than 140 characters, transmit images, automatically translate War and Peace into less than 140 characters and

Twittercal
- Free service that connects your Twitter account to your Google Calendar. Add events in a snap from your favorite Twitter client.

TwitterCounter
- Add a daily updating TwitterCounter to your blog so everybody can see how popular you are.

TwitteRel
- Insert a keyword (or more), find twitter users who tweeped this word, follow these twitters, make twitter more interesting for you

TwitterFeed
- Automatically post any rss feed to your Twitter account.

TwitterFriends
- Find out the hidden network of Twitter contacts that are really relevant for you.

TwitterIM

- Twitter via Windows Live Messenger or ICQ!

Twitterless
- Keep track of your followers, be notified when someone stops following you

TwitterMail
- When you give us your Twitter credentials we supply you with a TwitterMail email address. If you send an email to that address it will be posted to Twitter.com.

Twittermap
- Let people know where you are with Twittermap

TwitterSnooze
- Hit the snooze button on your “verbose” Twitter friends.

TwitterSoap
- Twittersoap is a mashup of Mobypicture and Twitter.

Twittertise
- Twittertise allows you to advertise on Twitter and track the success of branded communications with your customers.

Twittervision
- A real-time geographic visualization of posts to Twitter.

Twonvo
- Threads your twitter conversations

TwTask

- Create tasks directly from twitter

Twubble
- Twubble can help expand your Twitter bubble—it searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow.

Upside Down Writing
- Have you ever wanted to freak people out with some crazy text? Now you can do exactly that by writing your text upside down with our flip text generator!

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Twitter is a registered Trademark...I love them!!!

Rest in Peace Corey Haim

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:16:00 +0000

Corey Haim from the 80's Mega Hit "The Lost Boys" was found dead at the age of 38. According to online reports he may have died of an accidental overdose.

I fondly remember Corey from many movies and shows growing up in the 80's.

It is a little scary as he was only a few months older than I am.

Garret

What can I do to be a better blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile....life called, so I answered lol.

This is probably a question I ask myself every single day.

We all want to be great at what we do and we all want to get recognition for what we are doing online and more importantly I think is we want to make more money.

Well, in order to make more money we have to establish ourselves first. Not exactly as experts in our field (all those this helps immensely) but rather as blogger's who genuinely want to help others out. We all want to be the person that people come to for advice. Think of it this way, we all want to be that favorite aunt or uncle. Remember the one that you got excited to see whenever they would visit? Well, that's exactly the way you want your subscriber's to feel now isn't it? You want them to look forward to what you have to say.

A few great ways to become a better blogger is to become more active in forums and in the blogosphere in general. People don't really realize the power of participation. When you participate, do the following:

Give real comments, not just a generic one.

Comment so the author knows you read the post.

Get involved with forums and stay involved.

The more well known you are in forums the better your chances are of becoming recognized as an expert.

Start an offline group. Weird idea huh? Yet incredibly effective.

I often hold brainstorming meetings with offline groups and discuss certain fields of expert and non expert career's and at the end I will hold a poll on my blog and have folks show up to my blog related to that topic and vote for it. This tactic can bring your traffic a nice boost and also possibly get offline groups to ask you to speak. The more often you speak at offline groups/meetings/conventions or whatever the case may be, the sooner you can charge for your time.

Offline I have charged up to $750.00 an hour depending on the topic. Every time I speak I learn something which will help me both online and offline.

An incredibly wicked tactic to becoming a better blogger is so subtle it is almost always underlooked. Yet it is one of the most amazing lessons to learn from.

Go to the big boys and watch what they do. Find Darren Rowse from Pro Blogger and take his course.

You will learn much more than you are expecting to believe me. Best of all it is free. Darren really knows how to deliver.

A final way to become a better blogger is to hold contests. Believe me it works and it works well.

What does running a contest have to do with becoming a better blogger you ask? It helps you by staying more in tune with current events or current things that relate to your reader's. Contests cxan help you find better tricks and tips which you can share with reader's who may not know these things exist....there arte lots of ways contests can help you become a better blogger if you are willing to look for the signs, so.....

You could hold a contest on just about anything and then offer something of real value. Not some useless ebook or rehashed report. Those are LAME prizes.

Offer something like 1,000 EC credits perhaps or a coupon for a store like Walmart or Amazon or the best prize...COLD HARD CASH.

When you offer real cash as a prize you will get more people to enter the contest, which wqill get more people to your blog. Just make sure you deliver on the prize.

A trick I have used in the past is to enter everyone's name into Random.org, this way I can track the contestants and more importantly prove how I chose the winner.

There are several more ways to become a better blogger this is just the beginning, stay tuned for more.

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Affiliate Webmasters... Join MaxBounty.com and earn the highest CPAs in the market. Our specialty is maximizing payouts to our affiliates.

Click here for details

Hiding your face in Canada, National Anthem debate - I might get in trouble for this one.

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:44:00 +0000

Alright, right off the bat folks, let's remember that comments are always welcomed on my blog, however, they are also monitored and either rejected or approved by me and no one else. Keep your comments clean and respectful and they will be published. If they are ignorant or rude or down right moronic they won't be. "Nuff said.

Two major issues going on in Canada this week or seriously pissing me off. I am not going to sugar coat this in any way shape or form. Chances are I may even make a few enemies for this post. I don't really care.

I don't care because I am a full supporter of all things Canadian. I have the Canadian Flag proudly tattooed on my arm, spent time in reserves and reg force, wanted to become a cop, own a business and regularly donate to Canadian charities...so don't ever question my allegiance to this great country. Let's get started shall we?

First problem was with the Throne Speech earlier this week. Yesterday actually.

It seems that with the world economy crashing and all of the hardship folks are facing, the government has decided to take the focus off of real problems in a very sneaky way.

Right now Canadians (and most of North America) are worried about real issues:

Jobs - There are very few to be found.

Livelihood - Will I lose my house? (I am not in this situation, but sadly I have friends who are)

My Future - Will my family be okay?

Etc, etc.

Let's not even go into global warming or other environmental issues. The government has no real plan on how to deal with these issues, oh sure they have made a few "promises" like wage freezes for MPP's and they have said they will do this and that. No real issue's were given any clear mandate...at least not the Throne Speech I watched. What they did do was spark a huge debate to trick Canadians to get off of the real issues and have them start debating OUR National Anthem.

Yup, in times of serious issues and real problems the government threw us a loop. I can see it now, a closed door meeting of the big boys and gals trying to figure out how to get the focus off of what matters financially and spark a debate.

"I know...I know...pick me, pick me....!!"

Let's tell Canada that we are changing the words to the National Anthem. WHAT!!It seems the line "In all thy son's command" is sexist. Give me a friggin break. Whatever shall we change it to? "In all thy whiny kids command"

The first words of the Canadian National Anthem are:

"O Canada!

Our home and native land!

True patriot love in all thy sons command."

Well if we are gonna change the words let's change the whole damn thing. I am not Native, but I am a native of Canada....see the fine line here? Natives however are responsible for some of the most beautiful art work in Canadian History so they definitely deserve recognition.

So let's change it to something more appropriate like:

"O Canada!

Our home and immigrant filled land!

True patriot love in all thy whiny kids command."

Now that brings me to my second problem. Quebec has an issue with a female student wearing her "nibaq" - a Nibaq is a face veil covering the lower part of the face (up to the eyes) worn by observant Muslim women.

I agree with the student being expelled for this. Sorry folks, we are in a major war with terrorists and she wonders why she got expelled? If I can't see your face, don't even bother coming to my shop because I will toss you out as soon as you walk in. How the Hell do I know who you are?

I don't know what you look like. I can't identify you if you are a terrorist or a thief etc, etc.

Look folks, I have lived all over Ontario and a few places in Quebec so I am no stranger to these types of immigrants. For the most part every immigrant I know is a rock solid citizen who truly appreciates the life Canada has given them but they don't show their thanks.

If you want to move here then live by OUR rules and OUR laws. Period end of story.

Hell, try going to France with a face veil, the security puts you back on the plane home if you don't remove it.

Don't even bother trying to go to Australia .... not with their rules.

Canada must go back to being the once proud Nation we used to be. We are accomodating these people to the point that we are losing our heritage and our way of life.

It's very simple.

Come to Canada with a dream.
Come to Canada to escape religious issues.
Come to Canada to have a better life.
But once you get here be prepared to live by our laws and our rules otherwise GO HOME.

To better prove my point I will leave you with the greatest patriotic speech by a world leader I have ever read.

Then Prime Minister, John Howard - Australia - This is a wake up Speech for Stephen Harper...I have the greatest respect for you, you have done Canada proud....implement this to bring Canada back to Canadians.

Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.

Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques. Quote: 'IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.'

'This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom'

'We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society . Learn the language!'

'Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.'

'We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.'

'This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'.'

'If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.'

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

This is it

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:51:00 +0000

Okay maybe not the most normal title for a post however today and the events surrounding it have lead me up to say:"This is it" Wondering what the Hell I am talking about aren't you....

Well the reason that I say this is it is because....

I have been going crazy trying to figure out how on earth to start getting a few more customer's to my offline business and whilst I was thinking about how I could get some extra business I decided to use a mixture of offline and online tactics to help get the ball rolling.

First I built a silly little blog for my offline business and then I let it sit there for awhile without doing anything to it. I did that to test a few things out online.

Next I added the site to google Maps to see what happened there.

Then I took the stats from the blog and added them to a flyer that I could circulate to the general public and this is where the light bulb went off in my head.

You see, everything in my world is based on stats. I don't care what you say you can or cannot do. I care about showing me how you did it, what you did to get there and then prove to me that you have done this. To that end I am now looking at hiring a consultant to help me get more local business. The person had better be "hungry" because for the first two months this job will be commission based ONLY.

That goes back to my stats:

Show me how and then prove it by getting me some extra customers and believe me your commission will turn into a nice little paycheck, which will envy your friends since here in Timmins, well....with the local mine closing jobs are gonna be real friggin hard to come by. So......the person makes me happy then they will realize very quickly how much I appreciate their hard work with cold hard cash.

That's all any employee wants is good money for a job well done.

People who work for me are generously rewarded.

By adding stats from a blog or website they now have some type of proof that the business is real and is taken very seriously because I have real employee's, I have a real online presence and I have real stats to prove that we do get traffic and we do get customer requests from all over Northern Ontario. The only issue with that however is my offline business is local only for now...I simply don't have the time or resources to go and help folks several hours away (yet)...but I am slowly working on that.

I am all about making money, who isn't right?

I need to make sure my family is well taken care of.
I need to prove to the doubters that this can be done.
I need to show other's that mixing online and offline tactics will most certainly help any business succeed.
I need to start charging for my advice lol...I would only charge money to none blogger's hehe...we blogger's are a community within a community so I would barter my services rather than charge for them...online I find that the barter system works wonders....

Hey, wait a minute...another lightbulb....barter for services online as well....
Have a great day everyone!

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

HTML

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:12:00 +0000

HTML - How To Make Lots of traffic (trick to the right ;))

Every now and then people ask some stellar questions.

Some of these questions can relate to:

How to get a huge spike in traffic

How to get a blog setup up quickly

How to get 10,000 or more visitors to their blog

Wanna know a few tricks do ya;

Introducing....drum roll please....wait for it, wait for it...

24 very rare and fun ways to attract internet traffic, create a blog and get a shit load of visitors to you blog. Okay maybe more than 24, I just felt like writing 24 lol.

Disclaimer right off the top:

I have used these methods, whether you use them or not is up to you.

I will not show some graph that was obviously made to be a nasty illusion of proof, Christ I despise anyone who uses photo shop or some other program to make unsubstantiated claims.

These may or may not work for you, it's up to you to use them.

Let's start out with traffic.

Internet traffic is a huge problem for most blogger's, it really is. All too often I see folks jump on Facebook or EC (Entrecard) or Squidoo and think they are doing something wrong when they don't get a lot of traffic to their site.

Don't despair my friends, help is here.

First of all you must remember that like anything else, there is safety in numbers, so getting on Facebook may give you a spike for awhile but then again it may not.

Facebook is most certainly the undisputed KING of the Social networking scene but there are many, many others. Need a list of other social networking sites do ya?

Well since you asked so nicely ;) Here ya go.

Quick note, these are both Social Networks and great marketing meet and greet places, some you may have heard of, while other's you may have not, keep in mind that the more you mingle online the more traffic you get BUT more importantly the more friends you make.

http://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.topix.com/
http://www.naymz.com/
http://www.answers.com/
http://www.wikidot.com/
http://www.metacafe.com/
http://www.kotaku.com/
http://www.zimbio.com/
http://www.zoomgroups.com/
http://www.clubvibes.com/
http://www.quizilla.com/
http://www.collegemogul.com/
http://www.gather.com/
http://www.zug.com/
http://www.kongregate.com/
http://www.mediapost.com/
http://www.shopstyle.com/
http://www.videojug.com/
http://www.nexo.com/
http://www.kadoodle.com/

Arguably this will take some time but if you aren't willing to put in the time to expand your network and grow your business then you really shouldn't bother reading any further. Success takes time. You must be willing to put the time in.

Alrighty, those are just a few of the online places you can find to help expand. Another neat trick is to go to Alexa...more on that later.
Moving along to setting up a blog. Now it doesn't take a rocket science to set a blog up, if you noticed this blog http://www.needtogetsome.net is a blogger blog redirected to godaddy. I love my blog enough to have given it a real domain name...no offense to those with out one, just my take on the subject. Not to mention there is no excuse anymore. If you can't afford a huge budget you just go to blogger, for example and set a blog up and then go to GoDaddy, for example and for 10 bucks you can get a domain name hosted through GoDaddy and run through blogger. Easy peasy.

If you don't like blogger, there are many other places to get a blog up and running.

According to Mashable, an incredible blog of knowledge and guidance, the reader's of Mashable voted the Top 5 Blog platforms as being:

5. Livejournal
4. Tumblr
3. Posterous
2. Blogger
1. Wordpress

You can read the article here (and you should)

A few other worthy platforms of note are:

Movable Type
Typepad
Drupal
Bricolage
Expression Engine
Okay there are the basics, now I know most of you are wondering How to get 10,000 or more visitors to their blog.

Well, it is not simple but it is definitely doable:

Make friends in the blog community. This is the big thing to do.
Make sure you utilize places like:

Stumbleupon
Digg
Reddit

And other sites like that.

Make sure to comment on other people's blogs. Not just some stupid comment like "Hey great article, thanks for sharing" I gotta be honest here folks anytime I get a comment like that there is zero chance of me posting it because there is no realism to the comment, chances are it is just someone looking for a back link. Not a good way to comment either, if you leave a moronic comment then there are two possible and highly likely outcomes:

First off the chances of the comment being published are next to none

If it is however......

The second thing is that after reading such a boring generic response, the chances are other reader's won't bother checking your blog out.

When leaving comments be cleart, honest and show you read the article. This way whether you agree or disagree with the post you wiull ghet some link love (at the very leasty)

A little trick to get more traffic is to offer people to share stumbles or diggs etc.

Worst way to do it is to buy votes, sooner or later you will get caught and banned. Trust me on this one, I did it when I was new and green to the blogging world.

I would hate to see anyone do the same thing.

Okay.

That is enough for today, you have the basics, now get out there and build your blog.

P.S. Thanks to Alpha_Male from Photobucket for the pic.

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

Affiliate Webmasters... Join MaxBounty.com and earn the highest CPAs in the market. Our specialty is maximizing payouts to our affiliates.

Click here for details

Why I can no longer endorse Norton.

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:03:00 +0000

If you have been checking out needtogetsome lately and have noticed that there has been no update this week I apologize for that.

The reason is because my computer crashed as a direct result of an issue I had on my pc and as a result of that issue I can no longer endorse Norton or any of it's poducts.

Now before you Norton lover's start sending me hate mail and/or comments take a read and you will understand my issue.

It all began last week when I got a fairly nasty virus on my computer. Normally this doesn't phase me because Norton is always there to protect me or so I thought.

I had Norton on my computer for a year and was absolutley blown away with it's performance. It was simply an incredible tool and I loved the protection it offered me and my family and our computer. So, being as extatic as I was when my Norton subscription ran out I upgraded to the "newer, better" version of Norton 360 and that is when the major problems began.

Within two weeks my pc was running slower and pages were redirecting and at one point my computer froze, I immediately disconnected from the net and started checking a few things out.

The first thing I did was to reboot after waiting roughly 12 minutes with the frozen screen.

Upon rebooting my system I instantly went into my Task Manager to see if there was anything running that should not have been running. Quick note: first off to get to your task manager you press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and it will bring it up, keep in mind however that if you don't know what should and should not be running do not shut anything off as it can cause serious harm to your computer. Moving along...

I removed or rather ended a few programs that were obvious virus problems but by this point I knew the damage had been done. So I called up Norton to get some help, via there online chat tool and was told the following:

1. We can help you fo a small fee of $140.00 USD! I was pretty mad at that, what the HELL did I pay $90 bucks for then?

The response was that there are new viruses every day but one of our "HIGHLY" trained technicians can fix your computer and gaurantee a virus free computer for a whopping 7 days.

7 DAYS!!!!! And then what, I wondered, after the 7 days I will get another virus and spend another $140.00 USD....what the HELL kind of bullshit is this?

I said I wanted the service for free and they said a bunch of crap and what was worse is that they were simply copying and pasting their responses to me that they were reading (obviously) from a manual. I know this for two reason's, one is that I worked as a supervisor in customer service so I know how it works and the second reason, which is even more disgusting is that I sent a complaint into their feedback and got a copy and pasted response from a supervisor that said 95% of what the original agent told me.

So for two days they tried to call me and at first I dealt with a very nice gentleman, sadly, I could not understand 90% of what he was saying. A day goes by and I simply ignored the calls, then my pc crashed.

At this point I was pissed off beyond belief and brought my pc to the local Future Shop in town and had a tech friend of mine go to work on the computer. It took him about 2 hours to fix everything for 50.00$ CDN.

Norton wants $140.00 USD for a pathetic 7 day gaurantee or Future Shop charges $50.00 CDN and gaurantee's their work, you do the math.

What was truly amazing however is while I was waiting to be served, there were two people ahead of me and one of the customers, a young woman, she was fit to be tied as she was telling Aaron, the tech dude, that she was on the phone with Norton support, one of their "Highly" trained (useless tech's she later called them) when her computer crashed whilst they were fixing it for her. She asked him why he remotely turned her pc off and he said he didn't and that everything was fine. She told him it was off and he asked her why she turned it off, which she didn't since she was on speaker phone and its hard to turn a computer off with broken hands now isn't it.

So, he says there is nothing she can do but bring it to a local shop and apparently he still charged her credit card. If he actually did that she will be a very irrate woman.

The other customer had an issue after installing Norton 360 and he also crashed. Norton's supposedly "Highly" trained tech's did nothing but give him the run around and argued with him. This guy has every computer programming certificate known to man and he got technical with the "Highly" trained associate and when he started getting too technical the Norton goof hung up on him.

[I did tell Norton that I would continue to endorse them but after having my pc repaired and finding out that a virus was put in almost right after their last phone call to me I simply cannot.]

I don't know how the virus got there but it seems fishy.

So the lesson learned is this:

1. Norton truly does not give a shit about their customers.

2. Their "highly" trained technicians seem to me (and the young woman at the Future Shop) to be a joke. Most likely because they seem to be simply reading from trouble shooting screens and have very little, if any real programming knowledge. I really don't believe they do, that is just my opinion.

3. They over charge for their so called services. If you have an issue with them it will cost you somewhere in the $100.00 and up range in US dollars or you can bring it to a local Future Shop or Staples etc and get it fixed for $50.00 and the really cool difference is that Norton will give you a whole 7 days!

YUPPER'S the tech's there must be awesome to fix it for a whole 7 pathetic days.

Finally. Norton 360 seems to be junk, maybe it is, maybe it isn't I still have it simply because I have time remaining on my pc.

Norton staff however, don't give a flying crap about their customer's happiness....if they did I wouldn't be writing this now would I?

That's why I can no longer endorse Norton or any of their products.

I don't want this situation to happen to anyone else.

I had one simple issue by the way that I actually thought they fixed for me, it was an error that URL is not valid. Turns out that they didn't fix it and they didn't even know what it was, so the glowing email of thanks I sent in is totally useless as I thought something was resolved which wasn't.......well done Norton.....NOT

Please retweet or stumble this post, I would appreciate it.

Garret

How To Have A Sexy Blog - Building An Attractive Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Garret Belisle) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:00:00 +0000

I love this post article. Joella has outdone herself. It's fun and it makes a lot of sense, more importantly it works!

How To Have A Sexy Blog - Building An Attractive Blog

Some people say that the most important element of blog success is
the content. This is very true. You do need great blog content with a
consistent focus, and you must be posting regularly to have the most
successful blog you can. But sometimes I think that these people leave
out a lot of the good stuff about what makes a truly attractive blog.
There so much more you can do to create a truly sexy blog.

What do I mean by a "sexy blog"? Well think about it... we are for
the most part very visual creatures. What we see sways us and our
opinions. We'd like to say it isn't true, we'd like to deny it, but
appearance matters. How a blog looks and the way in which it's content
is organized can play a big role in user experience. We're a shallow
bunch aren't we?

Don't be offended, most of us can't help but be
swayed by the things we consider attractive. For instance, an apple tree
in spring, in full and glorious bloom, is a breathtaking vision of
loveliness that you can't help but notice. But after the blossoms fade
you have no real interest in gazing at it lovingly (unless you're having
uncontrollable apple cravings). But it remains as a beautiful picture we
hold in our minds, we remember how it looked even when it's out of
sight. A blog can be like that - an overall attractive or striking
appearance can stay with you for a very long time.

I'm not saying that your blog should be all about good looks and a
killer template. Not at all, but good looks and a killer template,
combined with quality content and consistent posting habits will create
a truly memorable and sexy blog. Here's what makes a blog truly sexy:

Good, thoughtful, thoroughly researched and well-written content.
Content that is consistently focused on your niche or topic.
Content that is updated regularly, minimum 3 times per week.
Prominently displayed navagation menu - at or near the top of the
page.
Easily accessible profile information or an about page
above the crease.
Easy to find link for your contact form or email (above the
crease).
Link or button for subscribing to your RSS in a feed reader (above
the crease).
Form, link or linked button for subscribing to your RSS by email
(above the crease).
An attractive, theme-appropriate, roomy, well organized blog
template with a harmonious color scheme (also kown as a killer blog template).
Advertising blocks that are neatly arrange and optimally placed.
Only widgets that add useful functionality to your template. Resist
useless blog toys.

By now you understand better what it is that I mean
when I say "sexy blog". I'm talking about creating a blog that is
attractive both inside and out. Just like people, some people look great
on the outside, but once you get beyond the good looks and get to know
them, you find out it's only skin deep. That's not really attractive at
all. You can't substitute good looks for quality content, but there is
nothing wrong with having the whole package. In fact the sexiest blogs
have it all, quality content, all wrapped up with a killer template. Now
you know how to have a sexy blog, one that can't help but be a blogging
success!

I've put together a great gallery of 15 sexy blogs for you to check out.
Blogs that truly have it all. You should be able to find some real inspiration amongst this collection of truly sexy blogs.

Joella Molson a.k.a. Blog Angel is the creator and caretaker of
href="http://www.blogswithwings.com">Blogs With Wings, a blog
designed to help bloggers create and maintain successful blogs. If you
want more great blogging tips and ideas, you should visit her at Blogs
With Wings and learn all the ways you can teach your blog to fly! Visit
today:
href="http://www.blogswithwings.com">http://www.blogswithwings.com>