So as promised here is a quick 2-3 minute video with some footage from our trip followed by some pictures. We ended up doing a lot of hiking and site-seeing on Day 1, then went whitewater rafting on Day 2. I couldn’t bring the camera rafting with me though, so I don’t have any footage of that. My mom did bring one of those water cameras along, but I’m not sure when those pics will be developed.

This is why they call it the Smoky Mountains.

Heading to Triple Falls.

Taking a break on our hike. Representing the Florida Gators everywhere I go.

Another stop along the way. Beautiful waterfall in the background.

The covered bridge at the top of our hike.

A view from underneath the covered bridge.

Katie and I inside a fireplace at the Grove Park Inn. You could fit a whole tree in there!

We’re going to the Asheville area, where my parents have a vacation home. They’ve been at the house all week and will be there with us through Sunday. For those of you that don’t know the North Carolina area well, we’ll be just east of the Great Smoky Mountains (about an hour and 15 minute drive).

We won’t be making it into the Great Smoky Mountain National Park this trip, but there are still a ton of things to do in the area. We don’t have any plans set in stone, but here are a few things we have on the radar:

- White Water Rafting down the French Broad River
- Visit the Biltmore Mansion
- Visit Chimney Rock (where they filmed Last of the Mohicans)

In addition to that, there are tons of hiking trails and waterfalls within minutes of the house.

If you recall a few posts ago I mentioned purchasing a Vado HD camera. Well, the camera came in last week and we’ll be using it for the first time on this trip. Hopefully I have some cool footage to bring back and post.

Another thing we addeded to the site in a mailing list (seen on the sidebar). I can’t believe that in all the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve only just now started building e-mail lists. I’ve done e-mail marketing before using a vbulletin database and the vbulletin built in email features, but it’s usually been just a one-time shot. I’ve signed up with MailChimp to manage the lists and build the emails. I absolutely love them so far. Everything is extremely easy to set up and it’s very affordable. You pay by the number of subscribers you have, not the number of emails you send.

I’m not sure how many people will sign up for the mailing list, but I imagine that a sizable list in this niche would be valuable. There are hundreds of products to market and affiliate offers to promote in this niche.

Over the next week I plan on adding a newsletter signup form to most of my sites. I’m not going to pay for subscribers…yet. I’d like to see if they will sign up naturally.

After doing a lot of research and reading tons of Amazon comments, I’ve decided to purchase a Creative Vado HD 720p Pocket Video Camcorder. The Flip MinoHD Camcorder
dominates the mini video camera market right now… I feel like I’m buying a Zune when everyone else has an iPod. I’m placing my order on Amazon this afternoon. I’ll get free shipping so the total cost will come out to around $175 (I’m buying a cloth baggie for it too).

The Vado HD and Flip Mino HD are virtually the same size, with the Vado being two-tenths of an inch wider and 0.2 ounces heavier … these are not differences you can notice. Both shoot in 720p, have built in video software and have 2 inch LCD display screens. Where the Vado HD kicks the Flip’s ass is by:

1. Vado HD has USB and HDMI interface
- Flip Mino HD only has USB

2. Vado HD has 8 GB of storage (120 minutes)
- Flip Mino HD on has 4 GB

3. Vado HD has wider lense
- Flip Mino not so wide.

4. Vado HS has remoavable + rechargable lithium battery
- Flip Mino has built in battery like an iPod. If it dies, so does your camera

The wide angle lense on the Vado is far superior to the Flip. You can see the difference in Chris’ link below. With the Flip you have to back up farther away to fit two people in a shot. The Vado HD allows you to capture more without losing sound quality.

This purchase was a tough decision. I watch a lot of comparison videos on Youtube and still went back and forth. Chris Pirillo did a cool comparison of the Flip, Vado and Kodak Zi6. He filmed himself using all 3 cameras at the same time, then did a comparison of the results. The winner of his test was the Vado. Chris’ review, along with the surprising number of people on Amazon that are bashing the Flip and raving about the Vado, are what led me to my decision. Plus the Vado is cheaper

This video camera will allow me to capture moments that I normally wouldn’t with a big handeld video camera. Because the Vado fits in my pocket I can take it anywhere… vacations, the beach, parties, etc.

I will post some clips once the camera arrives.

StudioPress Lifestyle Theme [Demo]

In the past I’ve always just taken a free wordpress theme and tweaked it to my liking. I never wanted to pay for a wordpress theme when there are thousands of really good ones out there. For example, I took the basic Arthemia free wordpress theme and used it on Gator Envy. I added a custom header, changed all the colors and put in two advertising spots. Here is Ian Fernando using the same theme, only he customized his too. You can tell they are both using the same theme base, but by making a few tweaks you can give it your own look.

With the Lifestyle theme, I plan to change the colors and give it a custom header… that should be enough to distringuish the site from the demo.

Outside of having the most visual appealing themes out there, I chose StudioPress because when you purchase the Pro theme package for $59.95, you can use the theme on as many sites as you want. Some premium themes only give you the option to purchase a single-use license or a “developer” license. So if you’d want to run the theme on multiple sites, you’d have to shell out $200 for a developer package. That’s not the case with StudioPress… for $59.95 I can use this theme forever on as many sites as I want. They also give you free lifetime upgrades, access to a support forum with thousands of posts and dozens of tutorials that show you how to customize and use your new theme.

Once I launch my new sites using the Lifestyle theme, I’ll be sure to post them here and recap my experience using StudioPress.

I’ve already started converted several of my blogs into themes I found on this list.

Some of my favorites are:

Scarlett [Demo]

Gamezine [Demo]

Folio Elements [Demo]

We only needed one gallon of paint, which we picked up from Home Depot. But since our cabinets have the wood grain in them (it’s not a smooth surface), we had to use a super fine paint brush for the job… not rollers. If you use a roller you will lose the grain look.

The first step is to take all the drawers out and take all the doors off. You have to remove all the hardware, hinges and screws. Next comes the painting. You must paint with the grain or else it will look horrible. In the Florida sun it doesn’t take long for the cabinets to dry. We applied two coats of paint. But honestly, some of the pieces will need a third coat… I just don’t have time to do it now.

Here is a before picture, followed by two after pictures. Notice how bright the kitchen is with white cabinets and how well the appliances look. We also swapped out the dark brass hardware for a new modern satin nickel finish.

Old

New

In the second new picture, you’ll see there is only a set of bottom kitchen cabinets. We plan on adding a wine rack or cabinets with glass doors above it someday.

So this morning I went back to the basics. I started doing some of the grunt work on my websites that I’ve just been ignoring lately. I know Adsense sucks, but a lot of these older sites I run still rely on Google for a check every month. The more I’ve neglected them, the smaller the Adsense checks have been. Hopefully by going back to the basics I can level out that earnings decline, and move it in an upward direction.

I picked a couple sites this morning, like Does the Dress Fit, Tebow Zone, and iPhone Pictures, then submitted them to 5 directories each. I also went to a webmaster forum and asked for link exchanges. Pagerank means nothing, but unfortunately too many private advertisers still base payments on how high your PR is. By doing this basic link building I’ll hopefully increase my sites’ PR. Normally I would just hire someone to do this.. but with the economy sucking I decided to spend the 20-30 minutes and do it myself.

Other basics that I’m getting back to are little things like alt and title tags. Sometimes when I’m writing a blog post, I’ll completely ignore the title/alt tags because I don’t want to take the few seconds extra to add them in. Simple things can still make a difference. Also, I need to keep fresh content on the homepages of all my sites. These stupid myspace resource sites I run haven’t been truly updated in over a year, but they still make money. Contrary to popular belief, I guess people still use Myspace.

So hopefully in getting back to the basics, I can save the life of an handful of my websites. Will keep you updated.

Yesterday, the parking lot where I work was completely flooded. I had to step through 4 inches of water just to get to my car. And this rain water is cold!

Also, I’ve been watching my backyard very closely the past few days. I guess my yard isn’t completely level because some of the lower areas are starting to flood. I noticed the flooding after day one, but every morning when I wake up I notice more and more water.

Here’s a picture from yesterday morning:

Now compare it to the pictures I took just an hour ago. The water is now several inches deep in some spots:

These pictures were snapped with my iPhone, so the quality isn’t great… but you get the idea. It keeps raining and the water keeps rising. Luckily the house siding doesn’t go all the way to the ground. In Florida, our houses are built with concrete blocks for like the first 6 inches above your grass… That’s perfect for times like this. It helps prevent water damage and termites.

If it gets any worse of the next few days (which it could because rain is forecasted through Saturday), I’ll update with more pics.

And they call us the “Sunshine State” …

I do enjoy blogging, it’s just that the little precious time I get to work on my internet business I usually spend it on the sites that make money and have promise… not my blog. Even though it only takes 10 minutes to write a blog post here, that 10 minutes is better spent designing, developing and marketing my other sites.

One thing I’ve been working on lately is reviving iPhone Pictures. I was checking the stats on it randomly last week and noticed the site was getting 20 uniques/day despite the fact I hadn’t posted a new iPhone picture on it in 5 months. I had some good long-tail keywords on it so I think that helped rank me high for these weird phrases people search. “Snake on front porch” is appartently a popular search and I rank near the top for it.

So I’ve started uploading more pictures to this website. Having the Wordpress iPhone apps makes it extremely easy to do. One thing I need to do is update the advertisements. The iPhone offer I’m currently running on the site is expired and redirects to some dating offer. NOT GOOD.

Last week I also updated wordpress to the latest version on all my websites. And four of my fan sites got design upgrades because the players moved on from college to the NFL. An orange/blue theme no longer works for Percy Harvin who is now on the Vikings.

There are several other things I’m working on but really can’t talk about. Until next time…