For instance, let’s assume you have taken pictures at your family’s last Christmas get-together….and so did several other family members. You can create a photo album and let all your family know where the pictures can be viewed. They can easily contribute their pictures to that album, and there’s just no hassle what so ever. You can password protect the album so just anyone can’t add to the album, but you don’t have to. There’s a minimum amount of buttons you have to push, and the fact they don’t have to create an account to take part makes it as easy as pie! Check it out….it’s free.

I started by using my next door neighbor’s tiller to break up my ground. I mixed in some garden mix soil and lime. After a week or so, I went back and tilled it up again. Added some organic vegetable plant food. I’ve set out my plants now, and watered them a couple of times. I’m starting off fairly small. So far, I’ve set out tomatoes, a variety of different peppers, okra, and squash. I may plant a few more things. Originally, I was gonna plant peas, butter beans, corn, etc. But, I think I’ll start off a little more basic and see how it goes. If this year’s garden turns out pretty good, I’ll add more next spring.

Step1

The first thing you want to do, is create a directory/folder on your server in the same directory your website is in. You can name it anything you want to call it. Mine is named “go”. Something like “recommends” works well with affiliate links. An example would be → http://antbag.com/go/hostgator. See how this works?

Step 2

Next, you need to create another directory inside the first one. Going back to my email subscription link as an example, I named the folder “email-updates”. Whatever you name this directory, it should be a name that relates to the destination of the link.

Step 3

In this step, you will open Notepad, or whatever basic text editor you have on your computer. Type in this code:
<?phpheader("location:REPLACE THIS TEXT WITH YOUR LINK'S URL");?>
Once this is typed in, you will name this file index.php. You’ll notice the portion of the code that is written in CAPS. Follow those instructions and place the original url for your link there. If you’re using Notepad on a Windows PC, be sure that when you save, you name the file index.php, and change file type from .txt to All Files. This will enable you to save the file as a PHP file, rather than a text document.

Step 4

In the final step, all you have to do is open your FTP client(Filezilla, CoffeeCup, etc.) and upload this index.php file to the second directory you made. That’s it.

Recap

So if you named the first directory you created “recommends” and the second directory “ebay”, you would put your affiliate link to ebay in the index.php file in place of the part that’s written in all CAPS, save and upload to the “ebay” directory. Then the url http://yourwebsite.com/recommends/ebay would actually send your visitors to ebay through your affiliate link.

Like most people, I have new goals for myself for year 2010. I really prefer not to call these New Year Resolutions, because that sounds to me like something that I’ll never achieve. I know that many people have New Year Resolutions, and NEVER stick to them. I’m not sure I know anybody who has ever stuck with one. There are some who would prefer to put a more positive spin on this term by calling their goals – destinations, but that doesn’t do much for me. So, I will simply call these goals.

I do believe that putting your goals out for others to see makes these goals much more likely to be accomplished…..and that’s what I’ve decided to do. I do have other (and more measurable) goals than what I’ve listed here, but these are what I desire the most.

1. Spend More Time Reading God’s Word

I call myself a Christian. Actually, it’s much more than that. I am a follower of Christ. I’m far from perfect and really don’t deserve it, but God loves me in spite of who I am. I’m His, and He is mine. He is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. I know many of you who will read this don’t believe in Christ. We all have that choice to make. I’m willing to share my beliefs with anyone, but I don’t force them. Having said that, I plan to draw closer to God this year than I ever have before…..by spending time in prayer, study, and obedience.

2. Become a Better Husband

I am a family man at my core level. I love being married and I love my wife. I don’t think I’m a bad husband, but I want to be a better one, because I love her and think she deserves better than what she’s gotten. I also think improving as a husband will make me a better father to my son, and that’s always on my mind. So, I want to be a good family man, and continue to be one my family can respect and count on. How can I be a better husband? Well, I think there are a lot of things…and it’s mostly through the little things. I just watched the movie Fireproof a couple of days ago, and was completely inspired to improve in this area of my life.

3. Improve My Health

I plan to improve my health in a variety of ways this year. I recently found out that I have Sleep Apnea, which I’m being treated for right now. This has renewed my interest in taking care of myself physically. I’ve heard many times that “You are what you eat”. There is a lot of truth in that phrase. I plan to eat in a more nutritious way, and be more active. That will probably mean less time in front of this computer. But the thing is, our habits define us in so many ways, you know?

Conclusion

Like I’ve already said, there are other goals I have and other things I want to accomplish in 2010, but these 3 things are at the very top of my priority list. We all have to look at our lives from time to time and take stock of the direction we’re heading in and what the most important things really are. If you have not done this lately, I encourage you to. Now that I’ve probably alienated every reader I’ve ever had on this blog (I did say the subject matter would broaden), thanks for reading.

I want to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas! I hope your day is filled with love and laughter, and your hearts filled with thankfulness for the blessings that God has placed in your life. James 1:17

Caught this little guy in my backyard after noticing the cat food was disappearing(no, the cat didn’t eat it). The same week, we caught two coons, and one opossum.

If there is any part of this post that doesn’t make sense, it’s because I’ve changed the theme again since I wrote it. …I needed more color. It’s still pretty minimal

I decided it was time to make a change here, design wise. I wanted to make more of a minimalist type of design, without it looking completely plain. So, the design has a few splashes of color here and there. I was mostly inspired to go this route after navigating through minimalsites.com, which is a gallery of minimalist website designs.

Another thing I wanted to get away from, are the normal link colors such as blue. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I was ready to do something different, so I’ve gone with a purple(#990099) as my primary link color. Also, as you can see, I added a yellow background to the site title, as well as to the links within an a-side post.

One thing that runs the risk of being confusing to some folks, would be the fact that I used the same font properties on several different elements. For instance, the headings in the sidebar are the exact same font as the post meta information. Some of that text being links to comments, etc., some of the text is not. The reason I did this was that I thought it gave the design a more polished look. In my opinion, minimalism shouldn’t be plain and boring, but should have subtleties that add a touch of class. I hope I accomplished that with this.

The Future of the Design

I plan to make this theme publicly available in the near future. It won’t make any big splash in the WordPress community. I won’t promote it. But those who like it and would like to use it, it will be here.

1. Digital Photography School
2. Strobist
3. Phototuts+
4. Nikon USA
5. Presets Heaven
6. DIYPhotography.net
7. Str8photography

Digital Photography School is run by Darren Rowse, who is also the man behind Problogger.net. They have a very active Forum and tons of content. I would definitely recommend this one.

I realize I may not have many readers into this sort of thing, but if you’re a photo enthusiast, what are some good resources to add to this list?