A Little More Income

Everyone needs a little extra once in a while

2007-09-27T18:55:00.000-06:00

****ADVERTISEMENT****

Sometimes it happens. I've discussed it here before. Sometimes unforeseen things happen, and you just need a little extra coin to get over that hump. Maybe your car windscreen gets broken. Maybe your brakes go out. Maybe your heater gives out just as a cold snap approaches. Sure, we should have emergency funds for things like that. But there are those times when things happen all at once (at least, that is how it works in my house).

For those times, when your emergency fund is depleted from a prior emergency, and you haven't been able to build it back up proper yet, but you absolutely, positively need a little cash advance in the here and now, there are options. Sure, those payday loans places charge an arm and a leg in interest. But this is short term stuff here people. It isn't like you're going to be paying that 2000% interest for any amount of time. Look, it usually costs about $50 to get a two week $250 loan. If you figure the APR, it is astronomical. But, if you look at it as a fee for a service, it isn't that bad. It beats the heck out of bouncing checks.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one that is going to go around advocating the use of the payday loans operations, but I do see they are a necessary evil at times. If used sparingly and correctly, they can be a life saver. The problem comes with people who get themselves into a cycle of cash advance loans, and never get out of it.

Now the cash advance loans have come to the Internet. Cashadvance1500.com is a sort of clearing house for online payday loans operations. You hit the site, fill out the proper forms, and the cash is AHC deposited into your bank account.

This post sponsored by:
CashAdvance1500.com

Internet makes relocation easier

2007-09-07T13:43:00.000-06:00

***ADVERTISEMENT***

If you have moved around as much as I have, you have probably learned that, while living in all sorts of different locations is exciting and fun (and makes great stories for where ever you end up next), the actual moving stinks. Well, not the moving so much, but the relocation. Trying to figure out everything you need to know so you don't make the wrong decisions on things like what type of place to live in can be difficult from hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

The Internet of course, makes things so much easier. It is now easy to find real estate values online so you know you don't end up paying too much for too little. Not to mention things like mortgage quotes.

NationalRelocation.com is has a good site with all of this information.This place is nearly a one-stop shop for relocations. They have it all, they can hook you up with a Realtor, they have information on foreclosures, movers and even houses for rent.

This post brought to you by NationalRelocation.com

Long ago and far away...

2007-08-21T15:22:00.000-06:00

Holy Cow! Has it really been almost a month since my last post here? Crimeny, I need some sort of something to do something to help me make sure I post more stuff here. Although, in reality, this site is kind of dying out. I started this site to chronicle my attempts at making money on the 'Net (and blogging in particular), and I think I have pretty much covered all I can find to cover.

Oh sure, there are SEO things and what not. You something that kills me though? Some of the opportunities from SEO companies - wanting to charge you, dear reader, your hard-earned cash so that they will help you get a better search engine rating? Those companies, will only accept bloggers to advertise for them with astronomical Google PageRanks. Like 7 or 8. What putz's.

Anyway, I see that my Bigsibling blog is holding steady in the PageRank game at 3, this blog is up to 2 (w00t!) and myhometown.blogspot.com is up to 1 (oh well). But at least nothing is slipping DOWN in the rankings. And not moving forward it tons better than moving backwards!!!

Ok, I need to start hitting this site more with updates and what not. Oh, that clixsense thing? Not so much, I spent like 45 minutes the other day, just clicking away, and I end up with something like 34 cents. When they say clixsense they really mean clixcents!

Getting more for less

2007-06-27T17:42:00.000-06:00

***ADVERTISEMENT***

It seems that every time you turn around, there are more and more blogs on how to make money or save money via the Internet. Quite frankly, there are so many, it is hard to keep track of them all. While I'm not trying to tell anyone how to make money. I'm not giving out some sort of 'secret' that only I know.

What I am doing here, is trying to keep track of my attempts at making a little more money. I don't have any grand ideas that this is going to someday replace the ol' 8-5.

All that being said, the guy over at Hustlermoneyblog has some rather nifty (if not possibly a little...er...shall we say shady?) ideas for getting more for less.

For instance, it seems that the nice and kind folks over at American Express are giving away 25,000 reward points via a Credit card bonus for new customers who get open a new American Express Business Gold card account. But this is a limited time offer, so you must apply right away (isn't that always the case with these things?).

This post sponsored by:
Hustlermoneyblog.com's credit card bonus

More opps from PPP

2007-06-27T17:34:00.000-06:00

I don't know if you have noticed the graphic to the left that reads "Hire Me". This is a relatively new PayPerPost program titled "PayPerPost Direct". The way it works is, you have the badge on your site, an advertisers sees your site, likes your content (not to mention your exceptional wit and prose) and hires you for a direct placement advertisement.

You can always decline the offer, or negotiate for more money for the ad. I don't know if declining the offer will actually inhibit your ability to get more PPP Direct business, but I would assume it would not since these do not come from PPP, they only facilitate the meeting.

At any rate, if you are a postie, check it out.

Thanks for visiting!

Credit Good - Debt Bad

2007-06-26T06:55:00.000-06:00

***ADVERTISEMENT***

We all want things we don't have. Am I right or what? And sometimes, we need things we don't have, and don't really have the funds to acquire. Seriously. Many people just simply do not have savings. And if they do, it is too little. Lets say you suddenly need a new catalytic converter. WHAM! something like $1300 right there. This is where credit cards can, and do, come in handy.

Now, sure, debt is bad. Debt is the one commandment that was left off the ten. I'm sure if there were and eleventh commandment, it would have been "Thou shalt not carry consumer debt." But there isn't. Or maybe there is, and it is a conspiracy by the banks and creditors, and they went and removed that from all the copies of the Bible so as to make us all *think* it is ok.

At any rate, while debt is bad, and should be avoided at every turn possible. Credit is not bad. Credit is good. Credit allows one to do things like rent cars, reserve hotel rooms. Buy things online. Buy things with the ultra-cool dealio that many credit card companies have that protects your stuff for so many days after purchases.

Goldstarcredit.net is pretty much a one-stop shopping for information on credit reports and credit cards. If you need a new card, head over there. They have 0% (limited time only) cards.

As usual, thanks for stopping by!

This post sponsored by:
Goldstarcredit.net

For people good with graphics & 3D modeling

2007-06-21T07:32:00.001-06:00

I have found another place to earn a bit more for those of you who:

1) Have a bit of time on your hands

B) Have graphics editing software (and know how to use it)

III) Have knowledge (or a strong desire to learn) 3D computer modeling

That is a place called "Second Life". Some of you may have heard of it. Heck some of you are probably already in it. Now, I've never been one for internet chatting. I guess I just don't have all that much to say. And I certainly didn't see the point in using a chat program where everyone is running around as little cartoon characters.

What I didn't realize is (now I don't know about others, all i know about is Second Life) that it is so much more than just chatting. There are actual businesses in there. Barack Obama has a Second Life campaign headquarters. If you have the talent and the time, there are people who have left their 'real life' jobs and are making their living in the Second Life world.

Just in case you think it is only for the geekish, Rueters (you know the news people) have their own "Second Life News Center." This is Rueters people! And they have a correspondent that covers Second Life stuff.

It has even come to where the US Congress is talking about how to tax dollars earned in these virtual worlds.

Ok, buy now you are probably saying "but I don't understand it all." Which is probably correct. And even after fairly exhaustive research on the matter, I'm not certain I understand it either. But here goes my view of what goes on.

Second Life has their own currency. They are called "Linden Dollars" and the currency symbol is displayed as L$1 or sometimes $1L. But I think officially it is supposed to be L$1. Now, people start to accumulate mass quantities of these Lindens (which is the vernacular - or sometimes Lindeys). After accumulating mass quantities of Lindens, people can and do sell them for real money. I have seen the Lindens on the Ebay, but it is also possible to buy them from people in the game (indirectly). According to the Reuters Second Life site, the current exchange is 267.4L$/USD. I know, it sounds crazy. The have an exchange? For play money? Whatever.
So where is the money being made? Several places. One is real estate. For a mere $1,700 (real money, not the Linden dollar crap) you can buy your own island. Then you can sell and/or rent part or all of the land to other people. You can build up whatever type of community you want on the island.

So virtual real estate is one way. Another way is to make things in Second Life and sell them. People sell clothes (as referenced above), hair (go figure), cars, planes, space ships, light sabers. Think of something, and they sell it.

And yet another way is *ahem* prostitution. Strange, but true. Now I don't know why someone would pay someone else to have two cartoon characters...uh... "make the beast with two backs" (to paraphrase Billy Shakespeare). But I guess they do. So not only clothes and hair are for sale, but anatomically enhanced...er...body parts also.

Seriously though, I think if you have the vision and the time, you could make some good coin in there. Seriously, the following is from the website Second Life Insider (they post these stats every day) - emphasis is my own

Yesterday in Second Life we:

Spent US$1,697,000 at an exchange rate of L$270.7 to US$1
Exchanged US$192,000 at an average of US$8,000.0 per hour.
Market buys were US$115,000
Market sales were US$75,000
Limit-limit buys were US$1,200
The busiest time was at 7pm when about US$11,000 was exchanged.
The quietest time was 10pm when about US$6,000 was exchanged

Do you see that? In one day almost $1.7 million US dollars were spent. In ONE DAY. Money exchanged from US to Lindens (or the other way around, I don't know for certain) at a rate of $8K per hour.

Maybe it is just me, but it seems that if one invested a little time effort, and sure a little money, they could do pretty well there.

Of course, the old saying is "it takes money to make money" and mostly that is true. But in Second Life there are ways to make money without spending much. You don't need to own land to sell your goods. There are places that will rent you a billboard (I don't know for how much) from where you can sell your goods.

You can sign up for free, and play forever for free, if you choose. About 45 days after signing up, they give you L$250. That isn't as much as it sounds as many things, like a shirt, can go for L$150 or more. If you pay the $9.95/month (real money) they give you L$1000 after 45 days, and a L$300 per week stipend.

You can use 3D Studio Max, Maya, or just about any 3D modeling software (even the free stuff like Blender). Many say Blender is better for SL than the big commercial products because those commercial products have so many features, bells and whistles, that are not used in SL. So if you are going to get something specifically for SL, then Blender seems the way to go.

I don't know how difficult it is to create the 3D things. But for things like shirts or pants, it is very, very easy. If you don't want to pay for painting software, get the GIMP it is very powerful, but if you are used to Photoshop, there is a bit of a learning curve. It is very similar, but there are enough differences (keyboard shortcuts, etc.) that it can be frustrating for a Photoshop person to use.

At the SL website, there are templates to download, just make your clothing on those templates, then upload the image files into SL (it costs L$10 per file to upload). Then you can mark them with properties, such as "no copy", "no transfer"(they can't give it away or sell it)","No modify".

In addition to all of that, there are scripts. Scripts can be attached to an object or article of clothing and are acted upon by a number of different ways. There are animation scripts, which can change the way people walk, or run. They can make the avatar sit or jump or kneel or whatever.

I haven't looked too deeply into the scripting language, but it looks suspiciously similar (syntactically) to JavaScript and Perl. So I am guessing it is derived from one of those.

Well, anyway, I am sure there are more ways to make the bling in SL, but I am running out of time for this post (and by now I am certain you are running out of patience trying to read it), so I'll let it go for now. But I will probably post some more on it as I tryout making some shirts (they have very few western clothes in that place, so I'm going to see if I can sell some cavalry style bib shirts). I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, I almost forgot, if you want to check out second life, please use this link as if you decide to stay and sign up for the monthly charge, I get L$2000! Then you can refer your friends and you can get the L$2K for yourself! (which is yet another way to make some moolah from SL)

Thanks for stopping by.

Technorati Tags: Second Life, Income, Money, Lindens

ClixSense associate program

2007-06-03T21:16:00.000-06:00

In addition to just viewing ads to earn a little income from ClixSense, users can also earn money by referring others to ClixSense. The ClixSense website states:

Refer others to ClixSense.com and earn even more. All ClixSense.com members are automatically enrolled in the ClixSense.com free affiliate program. You earn 10% of the revenues collected from your referrals and 50% commission on any member you refer who upgrades their account to premium status.

This is something that can compound, and if people who sign up through you actually follow through and make a little dough, you can make some for basically not doing anything. Almost like a pyramid thing, but it doesn't flow down past the first level, so it doesn't seem so unsustainable.

Anyway, if you want to sign up for ClixSense, please use my referral link here - I'll much appreciate it!

As always, thanks for visiting!

Some great opps from PayPerPost

2007-05-29T11:42:00.001-06:00

No, this isn't an advertisement or PayPerPost, but I wanted to pass this along anyway. PPP is having some great opps right now. Special stuff. One is a Police opp (the band, not the other ones). As you may know, the Police recently kicked off their reunion tour. PPP has a Police opp (I haven't actually looked at it yet, but they sent me an email, so I know about it). Where 1/2 of the posties who take this opp will recieve a "Postie Pack" which includes the new 2CD box set of the Police's greatest hits. Get paid to blog, AND get free bling. Can't beat that.

The other deal is an opp that they will put up between noon on 29 May and noon on 30 May - where you have the chance to get a 50" Grand WEGA LCD HDTV. Man, that would make a great monitor for my PC!

Once again, I'm not getting paid for this, this is not and advert, I just wanted to get the word out for anyone who might have missed their email or what not.

Thanks for visiting!

Technorati Tags: PayPerPost, Income, blogging, paid to blog

Stumble into more page traffic

2007-05-11T09:30:00.001-06:00

A couple of years ago, when I first started using the Firefox browser, I found this add-on, a toolbar really, for something called "Stumble Upon." I thought it was pretty neat. One signs up at the SU site, and declares their content preferences. Then, when one are bored, or has a couple of minutes with nothing much to do, they click the "Stumble!" button on the toolbar, and it takes them to a page that somewhat fits the preferences they declared.

The toolbar has several other options on it. It has the "I like it!" button and the "No more like this" button. Plus it has a comment button. These are the main ones. There are others to assist narrowing down what one is in the mood to view, but I'm looking at these because they can assist in increasing traffic to one's blog.

I hadn't even thought about it at all since I started blogging. I wasn't 'stumbling' much, and hadn't even installed the toolbar when I migrated to Vista or on my new machine at work.

But, as I look at more and more ways to 'get the word out' and generate traffic for my blogs, I thought about SU. First I started by just adding my blogs main pages to SU, but that really didn't generate much traffic (ok, zero traffic). But then I got the idea to click the "I like it!" button for individual posts. WHAM! that generated some huge traffic. The day after I "liked" an article I had written, I received 161 hits on that specific article. Wowsers, I never expected anything like that.

The good thing is, that many of those visitors, went on and visited other pages. Granted, SU hasn't generated that traffic consistently. The day after that post, I got only about 75 folks from SU, then about 50 people from SU. But the third day SU sent about 115 people. So it seems a bit up and down.

So what I am getting at here, is that StumbleUpon is a way to generate traffic to your site. Unfortunately, all of the links back to the articles are 'nofollow' links. That means that spiders do not follow these links, and thus, they don't get counted towards the PageRank. But for the time it takes to click the "I like it!" button, one can't beat the traffic.

Technorati Tags: StumbleUpon, Site Traffic, Page Traffic

Why I love PayPerPost

2007-05-10T18:30:00.000-06:00

***ADVERTISEMENT***

Everyone knows one of the best types of marketing is word of mouth marketing. This is because word of mouth advertising comes from a (presumably) trusted source. That is, if Jimmy Joe Jim Bob likes something, he tells his best friend Bobby Joe James. Bobby Joe James is much more likely to believe in the product recommended by Jimmy Joe Jim Bob because he trusts him.

PayPerPost deals in word of word of mouth marketing exclusively. They pay me to post an ad, and you, the loyal readers, read the ad, and you are (presumably) more readily acceptable of the product because you (presumably) trust my opinion.

I made my first PayPerPost ad on December 8, 2006. I received my first payment on January 7, 2007. It was an ad for some optics place. They sold ultra cool stuff like night vision goggles and the like. That $6.01 payout was my first online income. Since then I have posted 34 ads for a total of $243.03. That doesn't sound like much, but it is just over $7 per ad. Take into account that it takes roughly 10 minutes to write a review of whatever site or product is being advertised, that isn't too shabby.

I could have done quite a bit more by this time, but other things in life (like flooded basements) sometimes (quite often) make PPP take a back seat.

Currently, I have been saving my PPP money and am trying to get up to $400 so the 5/8 and I can each take $200 and hit one of the casinos up north. If I try, we can probably look at the end of June for the trip.

Stay away from text-link-ads.com

2007-05-04T09:50:00.001-06:00

Back on 11 April I posted about Text Link Ads. Any blog I attempted to sign up there was rejected without explanation. I wrote them an email for explanation, but to date, nearly a month later, there was zero response from these people.

I could not, in good conscience, recommend these people for a revenue stream. While I have absolutely no problem with companies like these accepting or rejecting blogs for whatever reason floats their boat. I think that the reasons should be clear and posted. Also, if a company takes your social security number, they should have the decency to answer your email for cripes sake.

I would recommend that people avoid this site. I can't be sure what they are doing with the information of people that sign up, but I can be about 80% sure they are not protecting your information. My guess is that they are selling every bit of data they con you into giving.

Technorati Tags: text-link-ads, non responsive

Tooting my own horn

2007-05-04T08:06:00.000-06:00

For my blog The Bigsibling Blog I was looking at the stats over at MyBlogLog and in the referring section I found this URL: I didn't know what it was, so I clicked it to see what this "sphereit" thing was. What I found was, that of 5,642 blogs posts that related to an article on ZDNet titled "The artificial nature of national borders" The post I did on illegal immigration was the #1 link!

This simply amazes me. I didn't even know that site existed. Now I have to spend some time and find out what that whole sphereit thing is about.

In other news, the Bigsibling blog has achieved a Google PageRank of 3/10. I don' t know how. That whole PageRank thing is still a huge mystery to me. On the other hand, the blogspot blogs I have (this one, and myownhometown.blogspot.com) now show "No PageRank information available" in the Google toolbar. Go figure.

I think the single biggest thing I have done to boost the PR is joining some blogger communities. MyBlogLog - in which my profile page has a PR of 3 also, and BlogCatalog - which also gives the no page rank message. In addition, I have participated in some link exchanges (but with the My Home Town blog - not the Bigsibling blog - go figure). And some Technorati favorites exchanges.

Oh, this just in, I just discovered that the bigsibling blog has TWO different page rankings. I don't know why. It seems that the root address http://www.bigsibling.com has a PR of 3 and the page address http://www.bigsibling.com/index.php has a PR of 2. See what I mean by mysterious and confusing?

At any rate, I will give huge credit to the blogging community sites for my rise in PR status. I'm now going to head out and find other places where I can boost the PR of these blogs.

Thanks for visiting & keep her twix the ditches!

Technorati Tags: BlogCatalog, Blog Communities, Google PageRank, MyBlogLog, PageRank

ClixSense an easy, but time consuming opp.

2007-04-27T19:44:00.001-06:00

An extremely easy way to earn a little bling online is through
ClixSense. ClixSense is an easy to sign up for and easy to use program.
Basically, they have a list of ads. You sign up, go to the list of ads,
and click an ad, then you look at the page for 30 seconds, then you get
from 1 cent to (they say) $5 per view. The highest I saw was 3 cents.

They have a "premium" service which costs you $10/year. I haven't
signed up for the premium service. I believe that is where one would
find the $5 ads (but probably only one a year or so, I don't really
know).

So, for about 5 minutes of browsing, I earned 10 cents. Not great, but if you have some time to kill, could be worth looking into. Their ads open in a new tab or window (depending on your browser) in a frame and their is a clixsense timer in the top frame so you know when you can close the window/tab and go back to get another ad.

I like these places that don't take your SSN, but they don't pay via paypal either, they send a check. Personally I would rather go the paypal way, get the money faster and easier.

At any rate, if you have time to kill, ClixSense is an easy way to get a little extra bling by surfing the web.

Oh, and nothing to download/install. That is always a plus in my book!

7 dollar offers banner ads

2007-04-27T19:10:00.001-06:00

I came across a site called 7 Dollar Offers. This is a banner ad site
(see above for an example of the banner). You can color and customize
the banner several different ways. It can be a banner like the one
above, or a tower (like the Google AdSense ads on the left).

Signing up was easy as pie. You go to their site, click on the "Put our products on YOUR site in seconds" link, enter your PayPal email address, choose the layout and style you want, and voila! The code is generated and you copy and paste it into your blog template.

I do not know how well this works, though I have seen their ads on other blogs (that is how I found them...DUH). I guess I'll see how well it works. Seems like it should be ok, they have the means to send the payments (and didn't take the SSN - so I'll have to make sure to keep track so I can make the tax payments <wink><wink>).

I'll let you know, how it all works out.  Oh, and they have a link on their site to view your Ad stats. Of course, since I only started like, 6 minutes go, i have no stats.

Hey, lets try this out, click the links above and then I can look at the stats, and we'll see if it actually works. Come back often and click lots and we can see if it builds faster than AdSense (which, BTW, I have earned a whopping $3.86 from in the past...oh..when did I start this? 5 months? woo hoo).

Thanks for visiting, it is greatly appreciated. And don't forget to tip your waitress.

Technorati Tags: 7DollarOffers, Google AdSense, Banner Ads

A domain for your blog

2007-04-27T18:28:00.000-06:00

I have been noticing that lately quite a few of the advertisers on PayPerPost want to exclude domains like blogspot, typepad, wordpress, myspace and other "blog warehouse" kind of places. Hey, I have nothing against them, I have two blogs right here on blogspot, but let's face it, if more and more advertisers are excluding these domains from acceptable bloggers, then it only stands to reason that in order to get these ads, one needs their own domain.

I can help - somewhat. I have server space. I have not done much with it. Mostly I host websites for some non-profit orgs (like some Boy Scout troops) in exchange for a donation receipt. I can host top-level domains (that is www.yourblog.com - or some such) for $5/month, paid annually (that is $60/year).

For domain names, I use www.aitdomains.com - they charge $7.99/year for domains. There might be less expensive places out there, but I have used these people for about 6 years now, and don't really see any need to change just to save two or three bucks.

For the $60/year, you get your own email accounts that you control, 100MB of space - that is quite a bit of space. And you can have ASP, ASPX, HTML, PHP and ColdFusion based websites. Available databases are MS Access (highly UN-recommended), MS SQL and MySQL. Most blogware is written in PHP and uses MySQL databases. You will have FTP access to upload your site.

As for blogware, I would personally recommend Wordpress. It is free (yippeee!), is written in PHP (does not need to be compiled and can be edited with any text reader - like notepad) and uses MySQL database server.

If you have any interest in having your own domain, affordably hosted, please drop me a line (you can leave a comment, or email me at bigsibling2k5 at gmail dot com).

Oh, and the sever is located in the United States (if that makes any difference to you).

Blog Catalog - the mea culpa

2007-04-26T16:39:00.001-06:00

Have you ever done something exceptionally stupid? Something that, no matter how you try to spin it, it just can't come out in anyway other than making you look like a dork?

Ok, then you know what I'm talking about. In a previous post I was talking about BlogCatalog.com - another blogger community. In the post I had mentioned how my bigsibling blog could not seem to get approved. I had submitted it several times, always with the same results.

The last time I submitted I decided to actually look at, and read letter for letter all of the blog information. What I discovered was I had misspelled the URL for the blog, I put it in as www.bigsbiling.com instead of www.bigsibling.com.

I am such a dork, and I apologize to the blogcatalog folks.

Sheesh, crow is not an acquired taste. No matter how much I eat, it is always...off.

Technorati Tags: BlogCatalog, bloggers, community

Yet another blogger community

2007-04-26T07:53:00.001-06:00

Yet another blogger community can be located at BlogCatalog. I am not sure what it takes to get a blog listed with this site. My blog My Home Town, was approved for listing, but my blog The Bigsibling Blog was not. The Bigsibling Blog has more traffic and more frequent posts. BlogCatalog does not offer any real explanations as to why a site is declined. The give a list of reasons, and there is no way to know which reason it was, or how to remedy the reasoning. The email they send for a declined blog is as such:

Thank you for submitting your blog (The Bigsibling Blog) to BlogCatalog.
Unfortunately upon reviewing your blog we are unable to grant it access to the directory.
The most common reasons for not getting into Blog Catalog are:
You did not add a link back to Blog Catalog from your website.

To add a link visit: http://www.blogcatalog.com/buttons.php
The URL you submitted is not a blog, is solely for commercial purposes, or is suspected to be spam.
Your blog is brand new and doesn't have enough content to make it truly valuable.

If this is the case, please resubmit after you have made more postings.
Your blog contains pornographic material.
At the time of review your blog was unavailable or there was a typo in your submission URL.

Please make sure the URL submitted is correct and accessible
If you believe this to be a mistake, you can login to Blog Catalog ( http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/manage_blog.html ) and change anything which may have caused it to get declined. After updating your blog, it will be put back into the submission queue.
If you have any questions/comments/suggestions/ideas please feel free to contact us.
Thanks,

BlogCatalog
BlogCatalog.com · 7162 Eckhert Road · San Antonio · TX · 78238

I am unable to find any real information on what they consider to be acceptable. The URL works, there is a button pointing back to blog catalog, it is not new and has plenty of posts, it is not for commercial purposes only, and it does not contain pornographic materials. So this blog should meet all the requirements listed. But still gets declined every time I submit it.

I have submitted this blog (you might notice the little blog catalog button to the left), but haven't heard anything yet. I have also re-submitted The Bigsibling Blog to see if they accept it. I have been having problems with each morning - for some strange reason - the template for The Bigsibling Blog being reverted back to the default wordpress template. This might cause some problems with that. I'm still looking into why this is happening. It makes not sense, for months it runs perfectly, suddenly it starts going all haywire, but that is a different monster all together.

I'll post the results here. As I find more and more resources for getting exposure, and earning some income via blogs, I will continue to post them here after I have researched and/or signed up for them so I can report on the processes.

I know that I have not been as frequent with this blog as I have in the past, and I apologize for that. So many things, so little time. Also, I am going to, again, try and treat the advertisements, and blogging in general, as a second job. That means I am going to set aside specific time each day to do this, write adverts, and research ways to make a little more income.

Thanks for visiting!

Technorati Tags: Bloggers, Community, BlogCatalog

Check this out

2007-04-18T12:49:00.001-06:00

***ADVERTISEMENT***

Regardless of how much money you do or don't have, everyone needs checks. But we all know that checks you get from the bank are rather bland, they are stale and boring and do not express anything about you, except maybe that you are stale and boring.

That is why there are so many other places to get personal checks. Now-a-days there are all sorts of things you can put on your personal checks. Some companies will even let you send in a picture of your kids, your cats, your puppies, whatever it is that you really love, and have those put on your checks. From super heroes to Harley Davidson motor cycles, there is nothing you can't have on your personal checks these days.

Another blogger community to look at

2007-04-17T13:49:00.001-06:00

A little while back I did an advertisement post for HighFivez.com. It is a fairly new blog directory/blogger community. I did sign up for it, and have seen some people on there who are also on MyBlogLog (vicezilla for one).

In the HighFivez site, one may post links to their blogs, and specific posts in their blogs. Other members may then express approval of the post (a High Five) or disapproval of the post (a Pound).

As I have had a post HighFived (I ROCK!!!), I know for a fact that I received at least on visit specifically from HighFivez.com. This post, BTW, is not an advert, it is simply mentioning my experiences with the community.

The more you get your blog out there for consumption, the more people you will have visit your blog, and the higher ranking you will receive.

Technorati Tags: blogging, communities, HighFivez.com

Communities for increasing traffic

2007-04-15T17:21:00.001-06:00

Some time ago, when I started all of this, I signed up at the blogger community MyBlogLog. I wasn't certain what this would do, but I had seen it referred to before, so I went there and signed up. I then promptly forgot about it. After looking at where hits were coming from, I noticed that some were coming from MyBlogLog. I had noticed on some other people's sites (mylifestartsatfortytwo, fortywhat and others) a section in their sidebars which displayed ~~icons~~ avatars and names for recent visitors. This table was furnished by code supplied by MyBlogLog.

When I went to MyBlogLog and clicked the graphic for "Get Widgets" it gave me a couple of options. The first for tracking recent readers (who are MyBlogLog members - it doesn't do anything for non-MyBlogLog members). When I looked at the tracking info, I realized a couple of things...1) People were actually visiting my blog and b) lots of visitors were members of MyBlogLog. This got some fire moving under my feet. I started visiting MyBlogLog much more frequently, and (WARNING: This part is shocking, if you have a weak heart, you might want to look away and have someone paraphrase the next line or two) - I started responding to messages people had left in MyBlogLog - invites to join other blogger's communities and what not. And I started visiting the people who had visited me. This led to them visiting me more (I believe). Also leaving short messages at MyBlogLog thanking them for visiting and finally, leaving comments on their blogs.

All of this creates a kind of communal feeling. Sort of like "you do me a solid, I do you a solid" type of atmosphere. The more you visit and comment on other people's blogs, the more they will visit and comment on yours, and the more trackbacks you will receive. All of this is supposed to assist in increasing PageRank, Technorati rank and Alexa rank.

In this next week, my goal for this site is to post more on getting higher rankings everywhere. The places like PayPerPost and Blogsvertise pay better for more rank. Getting rank is not the easiest thing. I have seen time and again, websites or blogs trying to explain how to get a high PageRank in a short amount of time. Most of these start with links to their demo site from a high ranking page they already have. This kind of lends to the "got to have money to make money" catch 22, where one cannot get a good page rank, without links from sites with good page ranks. However, I do know that sheer volume of incoming links will increase a page rank. With this in mind, I am going to do some research and posting on how to get incoming links.

I hope I am not biting off more than I can chew with this next assignment.

As always, thanks for visiting!

Text Link Ads Update

2007-04-15T16:28:00.000-06:00

It is now 15 April, and I have yet to receive any response from the emails I sent on 11 April. Perhaps an answer will be forthcoming, but it doesn't look good. This is somewhat surprising as what I have read when googling text link ads is mostly very positive.

I will post anything on this when/if a replay is every forthcoming.

Thanks for visiting!

I found a new site for monetizing your blog

2007-04-11T12:13:00.001-06:00

Surfing the blogosphere I came across a place I had not heard of before. It is Text Link Ads. This seems very similar to Google Adsense on the surface. They put text-based links (what I saw on the blog I found it on was an image - but not an obtrusive one) on your site, and give you 50% of the proceeds. They pay out at the beginning of every month (minimum payout is $25).

One thing they claim - which I liked - is the ability to deny an advertiser on your site. If you don't like their product or their message does not fit the flavor of your blog, you can deny them ad space.

Of course I signed up right away. Hey anything to generate A Little More Income right? I put in all the essentials. This included my SSN because they have to tell Uncle Sam who they are paying. All of the ad sites require this (or an employer ID - which is easy to get from everyone's favorite Uncle).

After entering all of this information, it sends an email to verify the email address you supplied. Once verified, the site prompts you to enter a blog for displaying ads on. It has about three screens of questions and information to fill out (why they could not do this on one screen I don't know). At any rate, at the end of all this, it checks to see if your blog qualifies (why they can't do this when you first enter the blog URL, I don't know - again).

I searched their site rather fully, and could not find any guidelines as to what makes a site qualify, or what would dis-qualify a site for their ad program. When entering my site, I received this message immediately upon hitting "submit":

Thanks for your submission!

We are sorry but your site has not been accepted into our publisher program at this time. The main reason for websites not being accepted is because of our minimum traffic and link popularity requirements. Please do note that we do reevaluate all submissions monthly and will notify you via email as soon as you are accepted. Hopefully soon!

Again, I could not find any information on what it takes for a site to qualify. Also, I did not find any information on their site for canceling involvement in their program. I sent them a message via their online "contact us" page. The message I sent is:

I have been informed that my site does not qualify for your services. I would like to know what your "minimum traffic and link popularity requirements" are. This would be good information to have for possible future submissions. I don't want to waste time filling out three pages of forms only to find out the site would not qualify.

In addition, there I do not find a way to cancel my participation (and thus have you remove my SSN from your database). If you could provide steps for this procedure, I would be appreciative.

I will wait to see if I hear back from them. I don't know that I will, the whole thing seems kind of shaky the more I look at it. Without letting people know up front whether their site would qualify, they are just collecting personal information.

Another thing I could not find, which makes me even more skeptical of the whole company, is a terms of use agreement. When I signed up my account, it was there for viewing, but afterwards, it is nowhere to be found. I glanced the agreement over, but didn't peruse it. I started to think that maybe the qualifications for acceptance of a blog might be in there, but I could not find it again.

So I went back to the contact us page and sent another message along the lines of:

Where can I find a copy of the terms of use agreement I agreed to when I signed up. Thank you

If I don't hear anything back in the next couple of days, then we'll all know that this place is to be avoided like the plague.

Technorati Tags: text link ads, money, income, blogging

Planning for the unthinkable

2007-04-06T14:33:00.000-06:00

***ADVERTISEMENT***

One cannot help but think about it, especially if one has children. That thing is death. Specifically what happens to those to whom one has a financial responsibility after they are gone. There are a myriad of solutions. Some better than others. For instance, planning on winning the lottery so that one's family will be taken care of in the event of anything horrendous happening, while enticing and, if brought to fruition, quite lucrative, not the best of solutions.

Most decent employers these days offer some type of life insurance with their benefit package. This is usually a nifty benefit, and sometimes less expensive than other types of life insurance. The problem arises when one leaves their current employer. When that happens, the life insurance ceases. Hopefully the new employer will also offer free or discount life insurance. If not, that two or three percent increase in pay just may not be worth it after all.

With the way things are these days, where people change jobs every couple of years and very few people actually work for one company for 20 years and get the gold watch and what-not, it is not the best idea to have one's life insurance tied to an employer. One's best bet is to get life insurance that is independent of any employer. It may cost a little more, but in the long run, it is much more reliable and stable.

New virus hiding as IE7 download

2007-03-30T09:26:00.001-06:00

I'm just trying to spread the word here - I don't do this much, but I believe this to be very important

Trojan masquerades as IE 7 downloads by ZDNet's Ryan Naraine -- Spammers are using fake Internet Explorer 7 (Beta 2) downloads to lure Windows users into downloading a nasty backdoor Trojan. The fake downloads are part of a massive spam run that includes an official-looking graphic (see image below) linked to Web sites that auto-launch an executable named "ie7.exe." A copy of this spam that landed in my [...]

Technorati Tags: virus, IE7, trojan, zdnet