Nicholas Reese Art is a young American actor who has started in a couple great movies! I think he is an amazing actor who will have along career and I would love to meet him.

If you are actually Nicholas Reese Art, I would love to hear from you so please do use the contact form and drop me a line.

This post was merely for the visitors who like to use my contact form to ask me if I am the actor, I’m not. I do however run Nicholas Reese Art which is a place holder to feature my artwork.

So without further ado!

10 Reasons Why I am Not Nicholas Reese Art!

• Thought I do like Art, Reese sounds better as a last name than a middle name.
• I was not born yesterday, I mean 1999.
• I do not have an IMDB listing. (YET)
• I have never appeared on Guiding Light nor do I have an interest to.
• Though I wish Scarlett Johansson was my Nanny she isn’t
• I’ve never been on entertainment tonight (YET)
• I love Cheerios but I wasn’t in one of their commercials
• I’ve never stared in a movie with George Clooney, though that would be cool. (Syriana)
• I’ve never been nominated for a Youngest Actor award.
• I have never been to Connecticut. (YET)

Ever wanted to backup your information on Facebook? Well there is a new utility to help you do just that. Social Safe is more than just a Facebook backup solution it will allow you to browse Facebook on your computer. Because it stores all of your personal information on your personal computer it can be used as a solution to pull down all of your Facebook photos at once.

SocialSafe Backs Up your Facebook Photos

The photo backup feature is what originally attracted me to the Social Safe after Julian Ranger commented on my SugarSync experience.

For some background: I had just recently graduated college and wanted to give my profile a make over. I wanted to keep all of the photos I had been tagged in, but not necessarily show them to the world. Who really wants to see my photos of freshman year… really? I had two essential options, right click -> save on every photo OR pay $2.99 and have software back all 900 of them up quickly. The solution was obvious, I quickly whipped out my virtual credit card (aka PayPal) and paid for the software.

The software does exactly what it says it does and does it well! For a full rundown of SocialSafe check out the video below.

Finding Your Facebook Photos

Now finding where SocialSafe stores your Facebook photos can be quite an adventure if you don’t carefully read the FAQ so here is the info you need to find all of your backed up photos.

• Mac: /Users/[USER_NAME]/Library/Preferences/com.1minus1.SocialSafeXXXXXXXXX/Local Store
• Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings[USER_NAME]\Application Data\com.1minus1.SocialSafeXXXXXXXXX\Local Store\
• Windows Vista: 1. Click the Start option in the bottom left corner of the desktop screen 2. Click Control Panel 3. Select Classic View in the left hand pane 4. Click Folder Options 5. Click the View tab 6. Click Show hidden files and folders 7. Click OK 8. Click Exit Screen 8: Click the start option in the bottom left corner of the Desktop screen 9. Click Computer 10. Click users name under folders in the left hand column 11. Click the App Data folder 13. Click the com.1minus1.socialsafe folder 14. Click local store 15. Click the Facebook folder.
• Windows 7: 1. Click the start option on the bottom left of the desktop screen. 2. Click Control Panel. 3. Change the “View By” format to Large Folders. 4. Click Folder Options. 5. Click the View tab. 6. Click Show Hidden Files, Folders and Drives. 7. Click OK. 8. Exit the Control Panel. 9. Click the start option on the bottom left of the desktop screen. 10. Open your personal folder at the top right of the start menu. 11. Open the folder entitled AppData. 12. Open the folder entitled Roaming. 13. Open the folder entitled com.1minus1.socialsafe.D675… 14. Open the folder entitled Local Store. 15. Open the folder entitled Facebook.

Here is a link to read all the SocialSafe FAQ

Backup the SocialSafe Backup

Now after my experience with my hard drive crashing. I have learned to backup anything and everything. I use SugarSync (signup link you’ll receive 2.5gb free using it) and I suggest you do too.

Basically I specify that the SocialSafe folder you found above should be backed up and SugarSync goes to work. Now if for any reason Facebook changes, or something drastic happens I will have all those wonderful memories backed up. If you aren’t already backing up your data I really do recommend SugarSync. If you haven’t already read my full SugarSync Review.

SocialSafe is a Great Value

All in all I feel for $2.99 (intro offer) SocialSafe is the best product on the market and suited my needs perfectly. I can no go through and untag all the photos that are nearly 4 years old and still have access to these photos for the foreseeable future. If you are in need of a product to backup your photos or just graduated college. I would suggest you give SocialSafe a try.

If you are considering buying the Thesis Wordpress Theme make sure to check out both the Gallery of Thesis Sites and the Thesis Testimonial Page.

For those just looking for a quick overview of Thesis read below. If you want the full Thesis Review click here to skip to it.

10 Reasons Why YOU Should Upgrade to Thesis.

1. Brilliantly Flexible out of the box – 1 Column, 2 Column (right and left), 3 column themes available with just a few clicks.
2. Outstanding Typography – Chris Pearson’s sites have always stood out in this aspect. Thesis is no exception.
3. Intuitive Customizations – Utilizes hooks allowing you to put all of your customizations in one place.
4. Outstanding Support Team and Community – Lots of themes/plugins say this, but Thesis has the best I’ve seen.
5. Rock Solid SEO – Stop tweaking old themes to optimize them for SEO.
6. Post Specific Features – Specify a photo for a post, the title tag, the media box.
7. Future Compatibility – Never worry about a Wordpress or theme upgrade ruining your past hard work.
8. Easy Ad targeting with Multimedia Box.
9. Threaded Comments Built in.
10. Prebuilt Customizations: Tons of custom hooks available to customize your theme thesis with little coding experience. (Just Google Thesis tutorial or check out Art of Blog’s Thesis Tutorials.)

Now for those of you still with us, here is the story of why I made the switch:

Free Themes Are Great Except…

While I love free themes, let’s face it, not everyone thinks or writes code the way I do. I’m not saying my way is the right way, I’m just saying that I like to do things my way. After working on several of my own projects using free themes it became apparent that working with a familiar framework would increase my productivity tremendously. There really is nothing more frustrating that having to completely learn someone else’s mangled CSS to figure out why it isn’t displaying correctly in every browser.

Time to Simplify

When I first made this move towards simplicity, I began using a theme put together by the Studs over at AUInteractive theme known as “A Dream to Host.” In my opinion this theme is the best two column Wordpress theme around, not only is it quick loading but it has clean CSS and a slick looking layout to boot.

Needless to say my productivity skyrocketed. No longer would I spend hours testing out new themes on my sites, I would just drop in my standard theme and mod the CSS accordingly. Admittedly I might spend a few hours modding the CSS to meet my needs, but at least I had a unique theme. This process was working great until a couple of my site started getting some decent traffic and had boatloads of content.

Monetization Time

With all this content and traffic I decided it was time to start monetizing it. To start I had a few conditional PHP statements here to control advertisements and special content. This worked great there but suddenly it grew out of hand. I was consistently having to dig through each separate theme file to find out what customizations where running where. It was a real nightmare. No one wants to spend time memorizing what custom loops or ads were running much less where in the code and under what conditions!

There had to be a solution. I knew Wordpress had a nifty feature called “hooks” to help you place content in the header, the footer, or even the comments area, though I had never used them the idea sounded brilliant. What I really needed was one theme that allowed me to edit ONE file to control the customization of the whole theme.

A Premium Wordpress Theme? No Way, Not ME!

Mid last year there was some buzz in the SEO community about some nifty new “PREMIUM” Wordpress theme that had great SEO Capabilities. Naturally, it sparked my interest. Being nosy I checked it out, but I couldn’t get the fact I had to pay for it. Being hard headed and slightly arrogant I didn’t even look at the feature list. I had never paid for a theme before and sure as hell didn’t want to start. Needless to say I walked away head held high until I ran across Sugarrae’s post Thesis Hooks for Dummies.

This post blew my socks off. Low and behold the solution to my problem was right under my nose but I had been too busy looking at the price tag to understand why people would pay for it. Heck, I even had rants conversations with friends about absurd idea that anyone would spend a penny on a PREMIUM theme. Needless to say my stubbornness had slapped me in the face.

How does the saying go? For most people to succeed they just need to get out of their own way. Never before had this statement made soo much sense.

With my head held high I broke down and bought Thesis and haven’t used another theme since!

Now where is where the real review starts.

People ask me why I like Thesis. Well my reasoning is as follows:

1. Flexibility

It is extremely flexible right out of the gate. A quick One-Click wordpress install using Dreamhost and a quick file upload via the Wordpress theme manager (thanks 2.8) and the ball is rolling. From here I can choose a 1 column layout (great for landing pages), or a two column layout (like on this blog), or even a 3 column layout (perfect for content rich sites). From here I can choose my options as far as media box and/or feature box and fonts and write the home page meta tags and customize the title tags. So far we are talking 2 minutes after we are logged into the backend, no extra plugging necessary. From this point on you can focus on content or you can continue to customize. For a full list of thesis options I have included the screen shots below.

2. Easy Customization

So let’s say that I wanted to spend more time and customize the site from the standard theme. I have a few options. I can either find a thesis skin or hack together the CSS myself. Now hacking together your own theme sounds a lot more complex than it really is. Thesis uses an intuitive custom style sheet; by simply adding .custom to any of the default styles you can over ride any of the defaults. This element alone should sell thesis. Anyone who understands the difference between an #id and a .class can now look like a CSS genius. On top of that there are skins like I suggested which allow you to quickly and easily setup your thesis theme with a new layout.

3. Thesis has HOOKS

So now that you see how we go about customizing thesis’s style sheet, lets do a rundown of my favorite part. HOOKS. As outlined in the story above these are vital to easily customizing and managing a large blog or website.

Essentially Thesis is laid out with place holders, these place holders are known as hooks. For a visual display of hooks check out ThesisHooks.com. At each of these placeholders you can attach a php function. A simple function may just output basic HTML.

Using Hooks

For those unfamiliar with hooks here is a quick tutorial on how hooks work.

<? function show_html(){ ?>
<h3>Here is a Header</h3>
<? } ?>

<? function show_html(){ ?>
<h3>Here is a Header</h3>
<? } ?>
<? add_action('thesis_hook_before_headline','show_html');  ?>

Other Hooks might do much more complex thing but I will outline some of those at a later date. Hopefully you understand the power of never having to delve into a Wordpress theme file to make customizations, because all of your customizations are in one place.

4. Future compatibility

Because your thesis customizations don’t modify the core code and your CSS changes are held in a separate file, thesis can easily be upgraded. Chris Pearson and team have done a great job continually upgrading thesis making it even easier to use by continually adding features and improving on the core code set.

5. Thesis Has an Outstanding Community around the Theme

Finally the Thesis community should not go unnoticed. This is probably the biggest perk of buying thesis. This super active community is one of a kind. If php isn’t your forte there are tons of free customization tutorials which will help you hone your skills and do some very impressive things. No longer will you have to poke around on a PHP or Wordpress forum to get help with your theme. Have a question and the whole community will do their best to help out. Some notable contributors I follow are @godhammer (http://www.godhammer.com/) and @kristarella (http://www.kristarella.com/) though there are many more I have left out.

Room for Improvement:

Now let’s face it, Thesis is a great theme/framework but it isn’t perfect. If I could suggest some improvements they would be:

Homepage Display:

The homepage display should be easily customized, by allowing the user to limit posts that are shown through the admin area. You can change it through the settings but that limits all of your archives. This leaves you the option of modifying the query, this isn’t exactly user friendly and still has some bugs.

Feature Box:

The feature box should have more customizations available to the user, who isn’t code savvy. This could be a Content slider, or even a text box where people could format text which would be displayed there. Right now you can use hooks but there is definitely room for improvement.

Thick Footer:

Option to add a “Thick Footer” (aka fat footer) to a sidebar theme. Though there is code in the forums which will teach you how to add a thick footer, it isn’t easy for non code gurus.

Wordpress Attachments:

In Wordpress 2.5 they released a Gallery feature which has it’s own issues, but thesis doesn’t elegantly handle attachment pages. They need improvement and I would like to see the ability to customize them better.

Photodropper Integration:

While Thesis does have support for a few important plugins, I would love to see it support Photodropper. Right now it is an easy hack to add the custom CSS, but I would love to see it standard. I will go into the use of Photodropper in another post.

Wrap Up:

Online Backup and Syncing:

As I am sure many of you have experienced. Moving files from one computer to another while on the move can be a royal pain. Emailing files in inefficient and who wants a flash drive glued to their person anyways. We all understand the importance of backing up files and photos, but who really takes time to do it often enough to be effective?

That’s right, not many of us. Sure we could write a con job to do it for us, but that’s lame. You and I both want something that is efficient and automatic. Well here is our solution.

Enter SugarSync:

With SugarSyncyou won’t have to worry about editing out of date files like you do with email and you can now take that flash drive off your key chain. Best of all you know if your hard drive crashes you won’t lose you important files or family photos because they are backed up. I have peace of mind that my files are safe, you should too.

Pricing:

Right now SugarSync is offering a free one month trial on all accounts.

If you are thinking about trying out SugarSync I suggest that you try out their 30GB plan, which will be typically big enough for most of your “important” files and it runs $4.99 a month after the trial. They have larger plans, but most people don’t need their entire computer backed up. I mean really how many of those 40k songs on your hard drive do you really listen to .

If you are interested in other plans and prices they are listed below. (They too have a free trial).

• 30GB for $4.99/mo
• 60GB for $9.99/mo
• 100GB for $14.99/mo
• 250GB for $24.00/mo

Getting Started:

For all the people who have asked me how to get started or that I have referred to this page. Here is how you get started with SugarSync:

First off I suggest you try the 2GB free trial which will be free forever. This plan will help you get a feel for SugarSync and allow you to play around with its cool features. You can always upgrade later.

Step 1: Sign Up

Now go ahead and get signed up for the free plan. You will need to give your email and select an Account URL. This URL will be how you will access your account online.

Step 2: Download Software

Once you have completed the first step and download the software. It is available on both PC and Mac (along with a ton of mobile devices: Cough Blackberry and iPhone).

Step 3: Open SugarSync Manager

Once you’ve got it installed open up the file manager. When in the file manager click on “Manage Sync Folders” then “Add Folders from this Computer.” (Diagram Directly Below.)

Step 4: Add Folders

Once you are there select your files and press “OK.” These folders will begin to sync with the server. (Diagram Below and to the right.)

Step 5: Sit Back and Relax

SugarSync will now work in the background to upload your files to the server. Backing up your files with ease you never have to lift a finger.

Step 6: Add other Computers

To Sync other computers together simply download the client, install, and select the folders you want to be synced. It is super easy!

10 Things I Use SugarSync For: (No Particular Order)

If you are having trouble thinking of some uses for SugarSync here are my top 10 things I use it for.

• Safe & Secure Password Syncing with Roboform.
• File Versioning – If I overwrite a file, SugarSync keeps a copy of the old files.
• Keeping my Photos backed up and safe. I want my kids to see my digital photos of when I was a kid.
• Syncing Invoices across multiple computers for tax purposes. (My accountant loves me.)
• Sharing Large Files – Share massive files easily.
• On the Go, Mobile Living – I never worry if I my files will be on the right computer
• Listening to my music online via any computer.
• View my photos online via any computer.
• Peace of Mind – SugarSync is essentially my insurance policy. Hopefully I’ll never lose another file.
• Sharing Folders with friends. They add things to the folder and they get synced to my computer.

What SugarSync is Lacking and What it Excels at:

No review would be complete without pointing out the good points and the bad points. All software has its ups and downs. So here is a quick list of the features I love/hate.

Pros:

• File Versioning. Great in-case you accidentally overwrite a file, you can retrieve it.
• Automatic Syncing – I don’t have to think about it backing up. SugarSync just does it.
• Online Photo Album – I can check out my photos online without having to have them on my laptop.
• Digital MP3 Streaming – I can listen to my music without needing it on my laptop.
• Syncs with my Mobile Phone – Great for backing up photos of my receipts for accounting purposes.
• Easily Publish my Photos to Facebook.

Cons:

• Sometimes Sugarsync has an issue with locking up your files while it is uploading, causing a permissions error. Took me a long time to figure out what was causing this error. For some reason it happens a lot more on Vista x64 bit than it does on XP x64 bit. Minor nuisance, you just have to let the file finish uploading.
• Sometimes SugarSync’s intuitive upload feature isn’t so… well… intuitive. Once in a while it will hog your bandwidth out of no where. This has been improved upon in recent updates but sometimes I can be cumbersome.
• There isn’t an easy way to sync iTunes across multiple computers, but you can listen to your music online.
• Finally, my last little beef with SugarSync is that it doesn’t allow me to sync my firefox profiles or Outlook PST files across computers. This lack of functionality is what forced me to switch to Gmail and Xmarks. Who knew this issue would be such a blessing in disguise, more on that later.

Future Product Updates:

The items listed below are currently in SugarSync’s queue of items that they are working on.

• Outlook (*.pst) Syncing Support
• Mapped Drive (Network Share) Syncing Support
• External (Removable) Storage Syncing Support
• Group Plans
• End the Macintosh SugarSync Manager beta and release the production client
• Support Mac OS X “Bundles” and Resource Forks
• Ability to remove SugarSync icon from the Dock on Mac
• Ability to search for specific files

Of these updates I am most excited about the External Storage Syncing and Mapped Drive Syncing.

These two features will keep SugarSync way ahead of the pack which is just another reason why I love their product.

Resource Information:

To a few friends I have recommended the service to they have asked about the memory usage. On my end it isn’t too bad. For example as I am writing this I am uploading 8GB of photos and it is using 214mb of memory, which is less than what Firefox is using, and is uploading at 51kb a sec. My desktop rig has 6GB of memory so this may differ depending on your resources.

Additional Photos:

Below are photos of the SugarSync Online Music Player and SugarSync Online Photo Gallery.

Wrap Up:

All in all, I would recommend have recommended this product to all my friends who live a mobile lifestyle or work a lot online. It is perfect for Students, Teachers, Public Speakers, Internet Geeks, Web Entrepernuers, and the list goes on. SugarSync is a solution that will not only help make your life easier but one that will change the way you work across multiple computers.

So what are you waiting for, sign up for your free trial of SugarSync and learn how it can simplify your lifestyle.

This blog post is my experience with SugarSync and how it saved my Vacation. SugarSync is a utility which allows you to sync and backup files across multiple computers with ease. If you haven’t tried SugarSync, check out their Free 2GB account to backup your important files. I have also written an indepth review of SugarSync which may be of interest to you.

Multiple Computers May Cause Headaches:

Anyone who uses multiple computers understands the pain of carrying a flash drive or emailing documents back and forth. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished for a simple solution which would help me effectively manage files across multiple computers.

I have 2 computers which I do the bulk of my work on. I love the mobility of my laptop and the power of my Desktop. Each have their own perks. Often I find myself doing the majority of my development on my desktop, due to the extra power and dual monitors while using my laptop exclusively for surfing, blogging, mobile computing, and website management. To help me keep my important files in order and synced/backed up across two computers I use SugarSync.

Having different files on different computers works great until you are traveling and you need to do a few quick fixes to one of your projects; Or for a real life example lets say your hard drive dies on your desktop wiping out 2 years of files and nearly 8 years of photos. This is actually what happened to me two weeks ago, days before my vacation to North Carolina.

Lesson Learned: Backing Up Important Information is a Must

If there is anything I have learned from this experience it is YOU must backup your personal memories, music, and important files. Thank goodness I had SugarSync running, in addition to a 1TB external hard drive.

At the time of the crash I was only running SugarSync’s 30GB plan. I have been using the 30GB plan for nearly 9 months. This worked great for my important projects, along with some of my music and personal files, however I didn’t have enough room to sync my photos (nearly 20GB in itself.)

Photos = Memories

For photo management I use Lightroom, an amazing photo editing program. At the time of the crash I was backing up all my photos on my external hard drive using Lightroom’s built in utility which back ups your photos every month. Every month isn’t adequate for me from now on. Thank goodness I only lost 3-4 weeks of photos. Thank you Facebook because I still have copies on there, even thought they are tiny.

Manual Backups Don’t Work

Along with backing up my photos I did manual backups of my whole computer when I remembered to. But lets be honest, putting a reminder on a calendar to backup your computer may work for some, but not me. Some how there is always something more important. Needless to say when my computer when down I hadn’t backed up in 4 months. All of small projects that weren’t in SugarSync or were older than 4 months were wiped clean.

Remotely Backing Up and Accessing Your Files:

If I wasn’t using SugarSync I would have been in a pickle. The issue was I didn’t have time to both reinstall my operating system and get the work I needed to get done. I took a deep breath and started up my laptop. THANK GOODNESS for SugarSync. I just needed to specify which files to copy down and I was on my way. I would deal with the small projects later.

Within 2 hours all of the important files were downloaded to my laptop. Just 3 hours later I had knocked out my to-do just in time to pack for my trip. Though I still had the head ache of reinstalling an operating system. I was able to still go finish up the extremely important tasks I needed to fix before I left. To put it in perspective. This project was actually losing money per hour instead of making it. Because of SugarSync I was able to fix the problem and still catch my flight. All I can say is that the $50 I paid for a year of SugarSync was totally worth it.

Back from Vacation – Time to Upgrade

As you can probably see from the pictures on the right. We had a blast in North Carolina. (If you are looking for me I’m in the yellow life vest in the top photo.)

Now that I’m back from my Vacation. I’ve got my operating reinstalled on my desktop (xp 64bit) and I am beginning to pick up the small projects and get them back into order. Needless to say as I am writing this post I am expanding my SugarSync account to encompass all my photos, projects, and even part of my music. The upload will take about 2 days to complete but I will be worry free in the future.

Loyal SugarSync User

There is no doubt in my mind I will be a long time user of SugarSync. The slight price tag is worth every penny especially if you are a person who travels a lot and can’t afford to lose productivity if your machine goes down or gets lost/stolen.

So if you are on the fence as to whether you need online backup / synchronization. I would suggest you error on the safe side. Give SugarSync a try today. Its free and will change the way you think of mobile computing.

If my experience hasn’t convinced you to test drive SugarSync’s Free trial then I suggest you check out a full review of SugarSync.

After buying Auction2Post I was pretty darn satisfied with my purchase. The support is great and the plugin in the best on the market. However as I outlined in my review of the plugin I felt it could use a countdown timer to be of real use. I didn’t like the idea of my content going stale and having to maintain that part, so I came up with a solution. Introducing the Auction2Post Jquery Countdown Timer.

Preview

Auction2Post Jquery Countdown Timer

This sniplet of code will display a simple countdown of how much time is left in the auction. This not only adds value to your site, but it also adds urgency for the buyer. This code is made to work right out of the box by just adding a couple blocks of code, however I have taken it to the next level for the advanced users out there. This code now supports custom display text and will even redirect the user to a specified URL if the auction has ended! I hope you enjoy it!

Basic Installation

To use this hack you need Auction2Post, Jquery and Jquery Countdown Plugin. Once you have these three plugins installed drop each of these code blocks somewhere inside your single.php template or within any wordpress loop. I am no PHP wizard so if anyone sees anything for improvement I am open to thoughts.

PHP Code Block

<?php
// Get the Ebay End Time
$key = 'a2pEndTime';
$time_array =	get_post_custom_values($key);
$endtime = $time_array[0];
 
//2009-06-25T05:16:57.000Z - Ebay Time
//new Date(year, mth - 1, day, hr, min, sec) - Needed Format		
//Split Ebay Time into Useable Pieces	
$year = substr($endtime,0,4);
$mth = substr($endtime,5,2);
$day = substr($endtime,8,2);
$hr = substr($endtime,11,2);
$min = substr($endtime,14,2);
$sec = substr($endtime,17,2);
 
//Setup for Display Text
$key = 'a2pExpireText';
$expire_array =	get_post_custom_values($key);
$text = addslashes($expire_array[0]);
// Check to see if we have custom text
	if(strlen($text) > 0){
		$expiryText = 'expiryText: \'' . $text . '\',';
	} else { // if not use the default
		$text = '<div class="ended">This Auction has Ended!</div>';
		$expiryText = 'expiryText: \'' . $text . '\',';
	}
 
//Setup for Redirect
$key = 'a2pURLRedirect';
$redirect_array = get_post_custom_values($key);
$redirect = $redirect_array[0];
// Check to see if we have a redirect
	if(strlen($redirect) > 0){
		$expiryUrl = 'expiryUrl: \'' . $redirect . '\'';
	}
?>

JS Code Block

<script language="javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
	var auctionEnd = new Date();
	auctionEnd = new Date(<?=$year?>, <?=$mth?> -1, <?=$day?>, <?=$hr?> - 5, <?=$min?>, <?=$sec?>);
	var shortly = null; //used for styling your css of ".ended" switch auctionEnd with shortly on the line below to test.
	$('#defaultCountdown').countdown({until: auctionEnd,
			 alwaysExpire: 'true',
			 layout: 'This Auctions Ends in <span>{dn} {dl}, {hn} {hl}, {mn} {ml}, and {sn} {sl}</span>',
			 <?=$expiryText?>
			 <?=$expiryUrl?>
			 }); 
});
</script>

Display the Counter

To display the counter simply paste the following div where you need it within your template.

<div id="defaultCountdown"></div>

Advanced Use

As outlined within the Auction2Post videos, you can set custom fields for each auction campaign you set up.

If you want to make use of the advanced features such as redirect or custom text to be displayed when the auction ends you need to setup each campaign to include the corresponding custom tags. (screenshot below)

a2pURLRedirect

This custom field is used in conjunction with a redirect URL. This was the most requested improvement on the Auction2Post Forums. Essentially this will redirect the user if the auction has been completed. This isn’t the cleanest redirect because it waits until the DOM is loaded instead of passing a php header. As I said I’m no PHP/Wizard but I couldn’t get it to pull the post variables outside the loop when working with thesis. If someone wants to mod this I’ll be happy to update it here.

Note: If you don’t want to use this feature, just leave it blank.

To Use this feature enter it into the Auction2Post go to the custom template section and scroll down to Custom Fields and enter the following information into the corresponding fields.

Key

a2pURLRedirect

Value

http://www.bing.com

a2pExpireText

Essentially this field was coded out of necessity. I wanted to display a specialized message based on which campaign the auction was within when it ended. In my testing this works with providing a url and encoding it into JavaScript.

To use this feature enter the information into the Auction2Post custom fields like you did in the area before.

Key

a2pExpireText

Key

<div class="ended">This Auction Has Ended! View More <a href="http://www.bing.com">Auctions Here</a>.</div>

Closing

All in all, I hope this code is of use, however I offer no warranty with it and if breaks your site I take no responsibility. I am always open to improvements so feel free to shout it out in the comments or reach me via the contact form.

eBay Monetization

As many of you know I have been building niche sites for years with a lot of success, particularly in the automotive industry, but somehow I have always strayed from the eBay monetization plan. I think it was laziness, stubbornness, and other excuses because I definitely knew about it and how great ebay has worked for some of my friends.

Past eBay Success

Finally over this past week I was talking to a friend and he was ranting about having amazing success with the eBay Partner Network with PHPBay sites for about a week to 15 days after launch when suddenly they would get “nuked.” He seemed very frustrated and asked me to look at it.

PHPBay Footprint

My friend has been consistently been pulling in $xxx monthly though eBay partner network over the past year and a half working with PHPBay. He has noticed that it has been increasingly hard to get his sites indexed. Though I have never used PHPBay, I took a look at his site and after a quick peek at his code and a quick Google search it was apparent he had a footprint problem. Lets face it PHPBay has 1,000s of users and the majority of them are newbies using the basic template so you can bet Google has figured out which sites are generated via PHPBay.

The footprint is easy to find. Most (if not all) PHPBay sites have one of the following footprints:

• every thumbnail is url/images/e/*.jpg
• <div><table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5"> <tr> …
• “Powered By PHPBay”
• Or a site with information displayed in a table format, whos continually changes.

These footprints pose a problem, if you want to continue to be profitable in the eBay business you need to get away from this footprint. This means writing your own code to interact with the eBay API.

How to Eliminate this Footprint

If you want to eliminate this nasty footprint without programming this leaves you with virtually no options until now! Enter Auction2Post. This unique plug-in goes above and beyond the plug-ins that are currently offered.

Originally when I saw the Auction2Post WordPress plug-in I was a bit skeptical. I was really torn on what to do. Build my own software using the eBay API and invest 40+ hours figure it out or buy a $99 product (Actually $79 – $20 off coupon with code: D2A94ABA36) which might already do what I needed. Finally I decided for $99 is the same as about 2 hours of my time. So I jumped in and bought it.

Auction2Post – the Perfect eBay Plugin

Boy am I glad I went with Auction2Post. This plug-in does everything and more than I would have built for myself. Even better it completely blows PHPBay out of the water in nearly every aspect and it just is still in the 1st product release!

See PHPBay has quite a few limitations but its biggest limitation is its FOOTPRINT! There are thousands of users using PHPBay to develop eBay based sites and you bet Google has figured this out. Go ahead use PHPBay, I don’t care get your site nuked like what my friend experienced.

Auction2Post – Key Features

The key point where Auction2Post stands out is it actually uses the API to pull all of the information from relevant eBay items and builds WordPress posts based on a template YOU DEFINE! On top of that, it caches the images, to help reduce your foot print! The use of template tags allows new users to advanced users to make very dynamic websites. (Available Template Tags Below)

This gives you ultimate flexibility when it comes to designing your site the way you want. Auction2Post was built with customization in mind. Want to use a magazine theme? You can do that with Auction2Post because it utilizes WordPress custom fields! Want to display auctions in your sidebar, do it with custom fields. This feature alone brings Auction2Post to the forefront of the pack. (Custom Tag Area Screenshot Below)

Finally, Auction2Post features an automation system! That’s right, not only do you get content that makes you money but it will populate automatically. Set It and Forget It! Auction2Post will continue to deliver you with high quality niche specific content, this on top of all the other features makes Auction2Post an amazing software investment. (Screenshot Below)

Potential Improvements

Though the Auction2Post plugin is nearly a perfect dream for an advanced user there are a few things I would like to see included. The first of which is a countdown timer to display how much time is left in the auction.

Next I would like to see a feature which used a widget to pull auctions into your sidebar. That would be great for a basic user.

Finally I would like to see auto-formatting of eBay auctions. The template system is great, but it could use a couple improvements like the ability to add images throughout the content and not just above it or below it. The good news it this is planned for the next version!

Future Upgrades

Though there is room for improvement, I am positive the Auction2Post team will continue to upgrade this plugin to make it even better than it currently is. All future upgrades are included with your purchase which is great. So if I was using PHPBay and having any success I would get in on the ground floor with Auction2Post and loose the footprint. Best of all you can use the plugin on unlimited domains!

Outstanding Support

Finally Auction2Post has a stellar support team which you can always reach on the forums or via AIM. Raido does a great job helping new users get the plugin integrated into their site.

Closing

All in all, I would highly recommend the Auction2Post plugin to anyone who is interested in using the Ebay Partner Network to make money. It is the best longterm solution from both an SEO perspective and a customization perspective.

If you have tried the plugin, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Over the weekend I wrote how Merchant Circle was up to something shady. After doing more research it seems the rabbit hole goes deeper than expected.

Merchant Circle Instant Website

After BTS commented that these sites may have been generated via MerchantCircle’s "Instant Website" service. I began to probe deeper into my Merchant Circle account. At first I was lead to believe maybe these websites were legitimately requested by the owners, but something didn’t smell right. After all this search query shows there are about 76,100 of these sites. Merchant Circle would have to have one hell of a conversion rate. So I began researching the "Instant Website Service."

It turns out Merchant Circle indeed does have a service in which it offers to create a website. (pricing below)

The Instant Website product is merely an extension of Merchant Circle business listing. Which the consumer has control over via the MerchantCircle account management panel. However if you read the TOS (full TOS Here) closely you will see the specific terms which apply to the "Instant Website Product" are rather intense in a few areas:

• "180 day minimum commitment period. Other cancellation and editing fees may apply."
• "Merchant further understands that this product is intended as a complementary extension of their MerchantCircle listing page."
• " Any requests to transfer a domain name provisioned for the Instant Website product is subject to a $199 transfer fee."
• " Merchant further understands that MerchantCircle is the registered owner on record of each domain name and makes possible the merchant’s ongoing usage of the domain name for the duration of the merchant’s subscription period."
• "Other cancellation and editing fees may apply."

Understanding the TOS

So if I follow these terms correctly, every Merchant who uses the Instant website agrees:

• MerchantCircle Owns the domain.
• That all links will point back to the MerchantCircle site.
• To use the domain outside of MerchantCircle they must pay a hefty fine.
• They must keep the service for 6 months and if they want to cancel they may have to pay extra.

<sarcasm>Sounds like a real deal. Where do I sign up?</sarcasm>

Here is where it gets Hairy – Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole

Convinced that most sane users of MerchantCircle wouldn’t sign up for a service like I this I continued to probe deeper. As I continued to dig deeper into the search query posted at the top of the page you will find some interesting examples of "Questionable Practices." With the help of Mike Bluementhal these examples were uncovered:

Art and Faux San Jose

Earlier today Mike Blumenthal Pointed out this example in his post "What is Merchant Circle Up to Now." MerchantCircle now claims the Google OneBox for the query of the business name Art and Faux San Jose. The domain is registered to MerchantCircle however, the owner never signed up for the "Instant Website Product."

Terry Don’s Plumbing LLC

As a business owner myself, I would hate to see my competitors advertised on a domain with my company name in it. Check out the Terry Don’s Plumbing LLC search query. You will see that Merchant Circle claims not only the top 2 spots for this domain, but the top 3. In visiting www.terrydonsplumbingllc.com (nope not linking there) you will see that though Terry Don’s is listed as the first "Featured Result" his competitors are featured there as well. In trying to contact this business I was unsuccessful, however if they did purchase the Instant Website product I would be very surprised. When I called to contact them I got a call center. Guess you can’t always speak to the plumber, so I left a message.

Artistry by Athena

This case isn’t as extreme however the business owner never authorized the purchase of this domain. Query: Artistry by Athena. You will see that though MerchantCircle does not hold the top result it does however hold the 2nd result. Above Artistry by Athena’s real site.

So what is MerchantCircle up to?

It seems MerchantCircle has begun the charge on localized domain names. I.E."GenericBusinessLocalArea.com" while catching other business names in the crossfire (we’ll assume that). These locale related domains will be ever more valuable as Google continues to integrate local search results into universal search. The best part is MerchantCircle has user generated content to populate these domains quickly. As far as ranking MerchantCircle has interlinked each domain with other businesses in their locale along with each MerchantCircle.com business listing. This strategy has allowed their websites to quickly gain authority. In many examples these domains have little to no external links except from other MerchantCircle sites.

What is the Impact?

Well the affected businesses aren’t limited to the three examples listed above. The search query at the top of this post shows about 76,100 results. Now how many of those has MerchantCircle also claimed domains for without business owners permission. The next question is how will MerchantCircle use these domains. Will they use them for any other purposes besides increasing local traffic and rankings such as, trying to sell the business owners the domains at a hefty premium? It will be interesting to see.

So What About the Businesses in the Crossfire?

Well this is really a question as to whether Merchant Circle is CyberSquatting or not. It seems in that they may be in some of the cases listed above. However I am not a legal expert nor do I claim to be, but if I would Terry Don’s Plumbing I would be furious and would definitely be contacting my attorney. The sad part is that many businesses have little idea of what Local SEO entails. Furthermore, I’d bet that many don’t even know MerchantCircle is closing in on their rankings

What Can Small and Medium Businesses Do to Protect Themselves?

If you are a small to medium business and haven’t registered with Google’s Local Business Center do it now! It doesn’t take long and it is a vital step to protecting yourself against false claims on your business name. I don’t care if you don’t have a website yet, just do it. Down the road I may post a quick how-to video.

Commenter BTS

To Commenter BTS who posted on my last post, it seems that you also commented on MerchantCircle Creates Instant Websites. Does BTS stand for Ben Smith owner of Merchant Circle? Interestingly enough the ip address of the commenter points to California. I wonder… Either way I invite MerchantCircle to comment.

Thoughts, Comments, Opinions?

Have an opinion I’d love to here your thoughts on this. Let the locale domain name landrush begin – if it hasn’t already started.

Original Post – Below

Anyone who plays in local search optimization for very long is familiar with Merchant Circle. They are an SEO powerhouse whose intentions are typically less than 100% pure. Unfortunately this pattern of shady business decision has taken on a new form.

In 2007, Sugarrae wrote a post on how Merchant Circle offered little-to-no value to end users and consumers. Within her post she wrote:

“So, basically, Merchant Circle is doing their best to rank in the search engines with the sole goal being to charge businesses to control their listing, but providing no end experience or value to the user?”

It seems she was more right than she may have known at the time.

Widespread Hijacking of Business Domains

Today while checking on some of my client’s listing I noticed something peculiar. Happening in the SERPS, for example visit this search: Rutt of Los Altos.

This is not my client, however my client’s site follows the same pattern.

Rutt of Los Altos is a cabinetry business based in Los Altos, California. Their real web site is www.ruttoflosaltos.com. However this site has not been submitted to the Google Local Business Center. So it seems someone has taken it upon themselves to register www.ruttoflosaltos.net and submit it to the Google Local Business Center. This is known as hijacking – when you register a business that isn’t yours in the Local Business Center. Once registered you can point the listing to any domain you wish via the LBC or via a redirect.

Who’s Behind this? – Merchant Circle That’s Who

A quick search of the whois records reveals (to the left) Merchant Circle as the culprit. Now lets take a look at the real web site versus the Merchant Circle Hijacked Domain. (below)

Where is this information coming from?

When you visit the Merchant Circle hijacked domain, you will notice it reflects exactly what is on the Merchant Circle Listing of Rutt of Los Altos. Except for the link to the Main Web site (which would have been nice). Further more all of the links on the site link back to the Merchant Circle Web site Check the comparison pictures below.

My Web sites? You Mean other Merchant Circle Web sites?

Finally you will notice that Merchant Circle has also listed the Hijacked Domain within “My Web sites” section of the Merchant Circle Listing adding insult to injury.

Implications from a Local Search Perspective

In the picture above you will see that Rutt of Los Altos is a real business and it has numerous citations on other sites ranging from Internet Yellow Pages to other local San Jose related sites. However, all of these situations have been applied to the Merchant Circle Hijacked Listing. Gives Google enough support to rank the Hijacked Map Listing in the SERPS higher than the real listing because the information has essentially been confirmed as “legitimate.” For more information on how Local Business Citations Work visit David Mihm’s Blog or Mike Blumenthal’s blog. They both are local Search experts and explain how citations work very clearly.

What Does this Mean for the Business Owner?

From my understanding it will be very difficult for the actual business owner to reclaim their listing once the Merchant Circle listing has been confirmed. (I would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments.) However what is apparent is that Merchant Circle is now in control of many business listings within the Google Local Business Center. How will Merchant Circle use this? This still remains to be seen, however one this is for certain, if past actions are any representation of future actions, local business owners who are affected may have one hell of a time getting their listing back. It wouldn’t shock me if Merchant Circle even tried to charge business owners to access their own listings. I do however wonder how this ties in to the recent “Confirm Your Listing” emails I have been receiving. – More on that Later.

75,000+ Businesses Affected – Cybersquatting?

A quick search of “Powered by Merchant circle ” -”Merchant circle Marketing Advisor” -site:merchantcircle.com reveals there are about 75,700 businesses affected by this. I am not a legal expert nor do I claim to be (in fact I know very little about this subject so feel free to chime in), but from what I understand this is pretty much the definition of CyberSquatting or NameJacking since Merchant Circle is showing ads on the hijacked domain, thus profiting from the domain name. Furthermore there is a high probability that Merchant Circle may charge business owners for future access to these sites. From my perspective it the actions taken by MerchantCircle seem reckless and shortsighted. It is apparent that is move has been made to garner control of more organic search traffic and to boost MerchantCircle’s rankings, allowing them to continue to outrank many business who’s domains they have yet to hijack.

What Can Local Businesses Do to Protect Themselves?

If you own a small-to-medium sized business I highly suggest you register your business with the Google Local Business Center. It takes about 15 minutes if you activate by phone and you will have control of your listing. It would not surprise me if more companies begin to try and monopolize listings within the Google local business center in the near future. Get your business registered before it gets hijacked.

My Experience

Just to reconfirm, I do not work with Rutt of Los Altos, but I do have several listings exhibiting the same issues. In my case I never requested this service nor do I want this service applied to my listings. My listings have been listed with MerchantCircle for over a year now and we originally listed with them because the site pushed some serious link juice along with some additional exposure.

Add Your Thoughts Below

Have you had your listing hijacked? Thoughts on CyberSquatting? Let me know I want to hear what you have to say.

We are finally upon it. The finish of college is in my sights. I’m excited, nervous, but mostly anxious. Now is the time of life where the big questions start flying your way. What do I want to do? Where do I want to do it? All of these decisions will dramatically shape my life.

To-Do

Throughout my life, I have always set goals to meet specific objectives. In my experience it is a lot easier to hit a target you can actually see. So over the past few weeks I have begun brainstorming (on paper), there is just soo much I want to do, so I might as well have a copy of it. Sometimes your brain just gets cluttered, paper really helps me clear my head.

Flexibility

Currently I have the flexibility of working online, this is something I treasure. I am able to make my hours and best of all I am working for myself. Currently my company Gwun Real Estate Marketing allows me to do this while attending college, it truly has been a dream. I have also launched another internet company last summer which generates Auto Loan leads. Overall the venture has been great. My web design skills have improved drastically since 2007 when I first started blogging over at added traffic. Essentially I have realized that I want to keep this flexibility because it allows me to plan my work around my life, instead of the other way around. I foresee this being a trend for at least a few more years unless an amazing job flies my way.

Future Goals

Throughout college, I have grown a lot in nearly every aspect of my life. From business to personal to everything in between, I have begun to realize that I really enjoy working with others instead of just sitting behind a computer. After all there is a balance to everything so who knows, someday I see myself speaking or doing consulting, or ideally both.

More Posts

I hope to be here more often. We’ll see what happens. I will have a lot more time on my hands once I graduate, after all with 17 credit hours my life is pretty hectic with just that. Who knows, three more weeks
until my final spring semester is finished! Just one class this summer!