One Man's Blog

Crazy Canadian Ice Fishing!

John P. — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:30:54 +0000

Um. Wow. I don’t want to give anything away here before you watch the video, but suffice it to say that what comes out of the hole that these Canadians cut in the ice to go fishing is large… and surprising!

As a Texan, I simply can’t relate to this. I believe I would literally die of a heart attack if I were thrust into this situation.

The 8 Best Ways to Earn Money With Google Adsense Alternatives

John P. — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:33:04 +0000

Ok. You’re a blogger. You want to earn money from your website (don’t we all). I realize there are a lot of folks trying to tell you how to make money with Google AdSense (even though most don’t make jack squat), and even though I certainly make a lot more than average from Google AdSense, I actually spent a lot of time researching and testing Google AdSense alternatives in order to see if we could do a little better than simply putting Google ads on our sites.

Below you will find the best Google Adsense alternatives I could find, complete with a little description and a link to the provider, in the hopes of helping you put a little more cash in your pocket.

If you have any first hand experience with these please drop a comment below and let us all know. Especially if you can share some light on actually getting paid by these advertising providers. How long it takes, how much you made, and what your general impression of working with them would be most valuable! Also, please help me spread the word on this particular post since I know it’s something a lot of people are looking for.

1) Free PagePeel Plugin for WordPress

First of all, lets start this post out by explaining that funky little thing we’ve got going on up in the top right corner of the blog here. It’s a Free WordPress Pagepeel plugin called PeelEar. The author provides this plugin for Joomla and Drupal as well, in addition to the standalone script version you can use on a non-CMS based website.

I don’t suppose I really need to tell you what it does, because you can see! Essentially you create a little ad that sits in the corner of the site which is covered up until people decide to hover over it. Then it reveals it’s self. Brilliant! And you can link to anything you want. Feature a page on your site, a welcome video, or an affiliate ad! Whatever you want!

2) AdBrite.com

AdBrite, is a top competitor is to Google adsense. If you are looking for inline ads where words on your page become links to ads, AdBrite has got em! They also have interstitial full page ads that you can insert to intercept all of the search engine traffic that is coming to your site.

Oh, and don’t forget that AdBrite can overlay ads on the images on your site, giving you a way to make money off your blog that virtually no other competitor offers.

Bloggers can set their own ad rates, and you can approve or reject every ad or choose to have AdBrite auto accept ads. AdBrite also lets you place a “Your Ad Here” link to sell ads to your visitors, in addition to the AdBrite marketplace and sales teams.

The payouts are competitive and they are more accepting of smaller publishers like bloggers. Commissions are split with the publisher (blogger) getting 75% and AdBrite keeping 25%. Go ahead and give AdBrite a try, though realize that it can take a few days before the ads start being highly targeted. You just have to stick with it, but it’s a great alternative to Google AdSense.

3) BuySellAds.com

Over 750 successful bloggers use BuySellAds.com to power their online ad sales, and these ads are very different from all of the other providers listed. With BSA, you set a price for different ad positions on your site and basically auction off the spaces to anyone willing to pay your asking price to put them there.

You can set it up so that you have different sizes, different pages on your blog to sell, etc. And one of the most valuable things is having the ability to search the available inventory of ads and see what is selling and for how much before you start setting your own prices.

4) Clicksor.com

Clicksor is one of Google Adsense’s best alternatives. They pay up to 85% commissions, making them one of the top advertising payouts on the Internet. This is especially impressive since Clicksor offers context sensitive ads just like Google Adsense. Context sensitive ads show visitors ads that are related to the content on the page they are reading, which makes for a better fit.

Clicksor offers 15 day payouts on advertising on your blog and they offer text, image and multimedia ads for your website or blog. They also have:

Flash Ads
Animation Ads
Banners
Pop unders
Interstitial Ads
Text highlighting Ads

The only bad news is that when you sign up for Clicksor it takes a day or so for you to get approved and be able to start inserting code. But given the high payouts and the wide range of ad options available, I think it’s worth waiting to get in and see how these ads do on your blog.

Go ahead and sign up and give them a try.

5) Chitika.com

I really like the way Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka) encourages users to hide ads from normal visitors while showering search visitors with them. This is right in line with my philosophy, and if you want to actually see them here on my blog just go to Google and do a search for “lady gaga writhing”. I should be the first one. Follow the link to my site and look in the top right above the Woopra and Pretty Link Pro ads. You should now see a Chitika ad.

Chitika takes a different approach from the others and show targeted products from different manufacturers on your blog. If you write an article, you’ll see related and competitive links, and if people purchase these products you get a paid a commission. I’ve attached a screen shot of the earnings from the first three days after placing just that one tiny little link. As you can see, I’m getting paid $.05-.10 per click, which I suppose isn’t really that bad just to get started, though it will need to improve over time.

Chitika allows you to display targeted products based on what people searched for to get to your page and you get paid for clicks. It provides a robust comparative shopping experience for your visitors. Visitors will love the interactive search code — and it makes you money

Click here to give Chitika a try now.

6) AdToll.com (Peel away Ads)

AdToll is a CPC or cost-per-click alternative to Google Adsense. They offer a wide range of both payment options and advertising formats. One of their options includes Peel-Away ads similar to the first one that I mentioned at the top of this post, but served by AdToll.

I’ve noticed that the Page Peel ads get a lot of traffic, so they can really earn you some good cash in addition to the other ads that you can place on your site. Go ahead and give AdToll a try, and let me know how it goes for you in the comments below!

7) ExitJunction.com (Exit Ads)

Now here is something very unique and specialized. Exit Junction can be used along side all the other Ad Networks (including Google Adsense), but what they do is essentially interrupt the browser’s natural “Back” button to place ads inbetween your site and the search engine for customers who came from the search engine and are just looking to go back.

So, what I mean is, the visitors who were leaving your site anyway, will be shown ads and you get one last bite at the apple to generate revenue before they go. Although this is a great Google Adsense competitor, it’s also a great compliment to existing Google ads and it won’t interfere with them at all.

In all fairness though, I do have some concerns about Exit Junction. They are not forthcoming about exactly how the revenue is earned, plus they take a long time to pay out revenue. This leads me to believe they are keeping a much bigger slice of the pie than their competitors. I did have a conversation via email with someone over there (they responded to me anonymously) as follows:

Hi guys. Just signed up and installed the code today on my site as a test for an article I’m writing on my blog (OneMansBlog.com). We’ll see how it does on the site and whether I keep it, but in the meantime can you please explain the revenue model to me? Although I added the code I don’t see anything anywhere on the site explaining where the ads come from, what the rev share is, or anything like that. I can send a lot of folks your way, but I have to have some idea of what to advise them the CMP or CPC or whatever it is, is going to net them for adding these ads.

Also, out of curiosity, why does it take so long to send payment for the ads? Nowdays even 30 days is pretty long. But it looks like you guys are pushing 60 days and beyond. That is a long time to ask people to wait for commission checks.

Looking forward to your reply.

Cheers,

John P.

We usually send payments net45 but but we say 60 just in case. With our ads most people are earning around $2/cpm but its not for all your traffic and only traffic from search engines get monetized.

So, that answer was pretty unsatisfying for me, but on the right I’ve attached a screen shot of the stats they are gathering and it is indeed working and generating a little money on the site. You do need a lot of search traffic for this tool to matter though.

Exit junction also covers all countries so go ahead and follow this link to signup.

8) ValuePopUp.com (Popups for Search Visitors)

Ok, all that stuff I just said about ExitJunction? Same thing with ValuePopUp, except that what it does is show popup ads to search engine visitors. So, it’s another method of placing ads on your site that only search visitors will see, which is always a good thing.

It comes from the same company that does ExitJunction, so the same lack of information applies. But if you are in the mood to show popup ads, I can’t come up with any reason not to give them the benefit of the doubt and at least try them on the site for a while to see if it makes more money for your website.

Summary

So, that’s about it for now. It should give you a wide variety of alternatives to choose from, and I hope you’ll let me know if you give some of these a try! By the way, a few of the links on this page are actually affiliate links because I’d like to see what happens from those. So if you don’t mind, follow them when you sign up so I can report back later and tell everyone if referring people is even worth it.

The Ten Most Popular Banned Commercials of All Time

John P. — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:04:27 +0000

I’m all for protecting the kids from seeing things they really shouldn’t be seeing, so I understand and agree with certain things not being shown on public television. But I also recognize that sometimes NOT getting shown on TV can actually be a huge benefit!

First of all, when marketers are free from the normal constraints of advertising sometimes they can come up with really “attractive” ads. And the ten banned commercials below are great examples of advertisements which obviously received excellent Return On Investment based on the sheer number of online views each one received. Indeed, these are the most popular of all banned commercials.

I don’t know about you, but I’d be happy to have one of my ads viewed as many times as the worst performing on this list…

10) The 7-Up Bottle

In all fairness, there is another video that should be in 10th place, but it’s so bad I can’t even put it on my blog. :-) So this one gets it with 4.8 million all time views!

9) Photograph

5.8 million views for this one. Is it because the hot chick is in nothing but a bra? :-)

8) The Durex Commercial

Nice! For 100 Million reasons… 6.9 million views

7) Bill Clinton Voodoo Doll

Wow! This one is just kind of in bad taste if you ask me. 7.1 millions views.

6.) Banned Super Bowl 2007 Bud commercial

A Guy and Girl skinny dipping in a pool. What could go wrong? 7.7 million views!

5.) The Gay Adam and Eve

Hmmm. Nearly 8 million views, and I think this one sucked.

4.) The Axe Shower Gel Commercial

Easy to see why this one got banned… Still 8 million views!

3.) Levis and the Blind

This Levis commercial was banned in the UK. Hard to believe. But almost 12 million views!

2) Four in One!

Ok. This is kind of cheating. It’s 4 commercials. But it’s been viewed 12 million times!

1) Use Condoms!

Over 18 million views. Wow. That is some awesome ROI on a banned commercial.

Well, that’s it! You got any other good ones?

Steve Jobs’ Outstanding Stanford Commencement Speech from 2005

John P. — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:11:03 +0000

This is a speech that Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, gave at Stanford University in 2005 for the graduation commencement. (Thanks to Elie for sharing it with me.) In it, Steve recounts three personal stories in which he advocates following your heart and doing what you love.

Personally, I found his speech to be touching and motivational, so I wanted to share it with you guys. Of course, if you haven’t seen it, you also need to check out the World’s Most Inspiring Story – Dick and Rick Hoyt.

Here is the complete transcript of the speech from this video. It’s just a fantastic story.

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

John P.’s 5 Minute Avgolemono Soup Recipe

John P. — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:50:58 +0000

A few of you may have had the opportunity to sample my Avgolemono soup, possibly after I posted the recipe about 3 years ago. But now I’ve put together a video demonstrating exactly how to make it. You can get the full details as well as a whole bunch of other recipes over on a new site that Cali Lewis, my wife Holly, and I are launching called – MyRecip.es!

You can follow us on Twitter (@MyRecip_es) for notifications when we post something new, or… if you know us personally and you would like a place to put your own recipes you can come talk to one of us and we’ll make room for you to put your recipes up with ours.

The logic behind the site is that we wanted a single repository where we could put up our favorite stuff so we can access it from anywhere, on any device, and easily share with friends and family. As a result we’ve created a very simple system and you can access each person’s recipes with a single pretty link. For example:

Now, here is my famous Avgolemono Soup video. Bon appetite!

The full recipe as well as another video are over on the Avolemono Soup recipe page on My Recipes.

Oh, and if you want to get access to My Recipes to post your own, there are two requirements:

You need to be able to use WordPress. Sorry, I dont have time to train everyone!
You have to be serious about posting some recipes! Don’t make me set you up and then do nothing with it! :-)

Mac Podcasting 101: GarageBand, Skype and the Behringer Xenyx 1202FX Mixer

John P. — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:50:00 +0000

Although we’re constantly improving and updating the method of recording Wealth Nation, I spent the day going through and setting up a new configuration of our recording studio for the podcast, and I figured I would document explicit instructions on exactly how you can duplicate the setup we use.

Keep in mind that I am NOT an expert at this type of thing, so don’t bother asking me questions about variations of different setups. I won’t have the answers. However, if you care to do exactly what we have done, you will hopefully have the same experience but without the steep learning curve it took me.

Our Requirements

Let me start off by stating our requirements. There were a specific set of goals we had which caused us to set things up the way we did. If you have any different requirements, your desired setup could be very different.

We need the ability to have 3-4 studio microphones to accommodate hosts and guests all in the room here.
We need the ability to allow Skype callers to dial in so that we can do interviews or take questions live.
Everyone in studio needs to hear everyone else in studio. Everyone in studio needs to hear Skype. Skype guests need to hear everyone in studio.
We are going to do the entire show on a single 17″ MacBook Pro notebook PC.
Audio recording will be done with GarageBand or Audacity.
The entire thing needs to be portable for times we might take the show on the road.

The Hardware

To meet the first requirement, it is essential to have a professional audio mixer. Luckily, these things are cheap! Our producer, Dave Moyer, had me purchase a Behringer 1202FX Xenyx Premium 12-Input 2-Bus Mixer with Xenyx Mic Preamps, British Eqs And 24-Bit Multi-Fx Processor. Sounds like a real mouthful huh? But the great news is that it’s only a $99 piece of hardware! Amazing.

In addition to the mixer, we have ElectroVoice RE20 microphones for the in-studio hosts and guests which are mounted in Electro-Voice 309A Suspension Shockmounts. Each of the mics is suspended from a ProBoom Elite Microphone Arm and Riser System which allows speakers to adjust their mic to the position that is most comfortable. Finally, each person in the studio has a set of headphones so they can hear themselves and each other, and the headphones are connected to a Rolls HA43 Pro Headphone Amplifier which splits the one headphone output from the Xenyx 1202FX mixer into 4 outputs that are independently volume controlled.

The Setup

Now that the hardware is out of the way, lets talk connections:

The microphones are hooked into the XLR inputs. Typically, if only Cali and I are doing the show in the studio we’ll only take up ports 1 and 2. This leaves 2 more for additional mics.
On mic port 3 (or 4 or 5) there is an XLR (or 1/4″) to 1/8″ cable that plugs into the headphone jack on the MacBook Pro. This takes the audio from the laptop and brings it into the mixer and allows you to hear skype callers or other audio sources. It doesn’t handle stereo sources such as music from iTunes, so we’ll get to that later!
The mixer also has a pair (left and right) of 1/4″ audio jacks labeled as Main Out which are connected to the MacBook Pro’s microphone input via a Y-Cable 1/8-inch (3.5mm) TRS to 1/4-inch adapter.
The last connection is the headphone out jack, which is simply going to the headphone splitter that I mentioned previously so that everyone can hear all of the sound from all sources.

The Software

Now lets talk about software configurations. It’s very important that all of the audio settings are set up correctly in order for this physical setup to work properly. Here is what I have going on (which works for me).

In Skype go to the Preferences and under the Audio tab make sure that all of the settings are using the Built-in Outputs and Inputs as illustrated in this screenshot:
In GarageBand go into the Preferences and under the Audio tab choose Built-in Output and Input as illustrated in this screenshot:
In the Mac OS System Preferences choose the Sound option. Under Output make sure that the Headphones are selected for output as illustrated in this screenshot:
Also in Mac OS System Preferences in the Audio adjustments under Input, choose the Built-in Input:

The End

All told, this entire setup cost around $2,800 with 3 of these high end microphones, the mounting equipment, mixer, headphones, headphone amp and cables. This doesn’t include the computer or software – which I’ll assume you already have before thinking about getting started.

You could cut this cost down to only a couple hundred dollars if you went with lower quality microphones, cheap headphones and desk mounting. The sound would likely be 75-80% as good as our setup. And of course, if you simply start with that Behringer mixer you can continuously add to and upgrade the system from there.

I hope this helps anyone who is really wanting to get started with podcasting. It was a huge learning curve, but once I had all the right pieces it was actually pretty easy to get things set up and working. Let me know if you follow our lead!

Social Media: What It Is, How To Use It, and Where To Begin

John P. — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:38:00 +0000

By Guest Star: Jordan Kasteler of Search and Social.

Social media is an all-encompassing term used to describe any of several online channels that utilize the technology to facilitate social interaction through written, visual, or audible communication. Examples of different types of Social Media sites include:

Social Bookmarking – (delicious.com, stumbleupon.com)
Social Networking – (facebook.com, myspace.com)
Social News Aggregation – (digg.com, reddit.com)
Social Q&A – (answers.yahoo.com, answerbag.com)
Media Sharing – (youtube.com, flickr.com)
Micro-Blogging – (twitter.com, plurk.com)

The use of social media as a marketing and promotional tool and strategy is becoming more and more popular with businesses because it can be an extremely effective way to promote products and services to a targeted audience. Websites can function as a static billboard to promote products, services, or ideas – but social media opens up a dynamic dialogue with your audience, allowing for interaction and personal connection.

All too often I’ve witnessed people shying away from social media for one of two main reasons:

They don’t understand it, or don’t know how to use it.
They don’t believe in its true value.

I’d like to provide some insight into the value, benefits, and Return on Investment (ROI) involved with social media to prove that it’s worthwhile for you to take the time to participate. I’ll then provide information how to get started, what to do, what NOT to do, and how to manage your time doing so.

Social Media ROI

Whenever we think about investing our time, ROI is an important criteria. Although success metrics will vary between individuals, and even different sized businesses (“SMBs”, or Small/Mid-sized Businesses, vs. Fortune 500), each will need to establish the criteria they wish to measure.

For example, a Twitter campaign for a major corporation might be more focused on the number of followers (quantity) while a SMB Twitter campaign could be more focused on demographically and geographically targeted followers (quality).

In addition, more quantitative campaigns like content creation (also known as “linkbaiting”) can deliver ROI through increased search engine rankings from inbound links to your Web property. Promoting content through social media channels will also bring social traffic, traffic from links, traffic from increased rankings, increased comments and subscriptions on the site; which in-turn brings more organic sales and leads as a direct result of your Social Media efforts.

As you can see, it’s a matter of setting up and defining qualitative metrics or quantitative metrics for a campaign depending on your end-goals. Some examples of ROI you may wish to pursue and measure include:

Qualitative

Brand Awareness
Interaction/Engagement
Trust/Loyalty
Influence/Authority

Qualitative metrics are much harder to measure since things like brand awareness and loyalty are difficult to track. Since qualitative results are tricky to measure, they are often broken down into micro-quantitative metrics. For example, a campaign to increase “authority” would result in breaking down micro-quantitative metrics to analyze increases in influential Twitter members retweeting you or the number of influential blogs linking to you, etc. A service like Twitalyzer might help measure these metrics.

Most social media campaigns are comparable to traditional advertising and promotions in regard to the fact that they both have the intent to create brand awareness and mindshare, but also both have a hard to measure direct ROI. This is where micro-quantitative metrics can really help.

Quantitative

Sales
Leads
Traffic
Links (Rankings)
Subscribers (RSS/Newsletter)

These are the traditional metrics that most people judge marketing success by. But the fact that they are simplest doesn’t mean they are more valuable. For example, sales may be the most desirable end result but they will be hampered by a lack of Brand Awareness or Loyalty.

Image Source: http://www.slideshare.net/yongfook/social-media-roi

How Can I Monetize Social Media?

That’s not an easy question to answer but one asked by every business looking to invest their time. The easiest way to start is to consider this simple truth:

In order for a site or business to be successful it needs brand supporters and advocates helping build buzz.

Your site will build perpetual motion and pervasively spread if it can win over supporters and advocates. Social media marketing is an excellent way to get people to come into your site to take a look at what you have to offer. If you are successful in earning your visitors trust, and you can gain permission and marketing privileges within your community, there will always be a loyal audience for you to promote to.

The immediate value of social media comes from the direct and indirect traffic you can drive to your site by providing and promoting great content. A decent percentage of your visitors will be people who publish their own content, have their own sites, often share links, etc. Some of these people will become your advocates in sharing content and linking back to you so it’s important the content appeals to the emotions that drive them to do so.

The links you’ll receive count as votes in the eyes of search engines. The more votes you have, and the higher quality they are, the more your search engine rankings will increase. The more your search engine rankings increase the more qualified traffic you have coming to your site on a residual basis.
If that’s not enough, here are more reasons why you should consider using social media:

Purely Organic

The traffic patterns and link patterns your site gains through social media efforts are detected as completely natural and warranted by search engines. This means that Google will elevate your content in search results when there is a large amount of social media activity pointing to it, whereas a large burst of links from traditional methods, most likely, would look highly unnatural and raise red flags.

High ROI

If you’re doing it yourself the only cost to you is time. I’ll get into how much time you should spend later in this article. The benefits will often exceed the cost. It would take you thousands of dollars to buy just a few links, but social media has the ability to give you that for free!

Versatile Benefits

There’s no department in a company that can’t benefit from social media. Social media helps PR, sales, marketing, advertising, and everyone else. This is tricky because companies often have specific budgets allocated to individual channels, so in your organization you may need to seek matching funds for social media efforts from complimentary departments.

Efficiency

There’s no other way you can spread a message to millions so quickly without spending a dime. Also, there’s no other way target messages to specific niches and audience so easily.

Personal Connection

Social media opens up a two-way dialogue between consumers and the organization, company, or brand they are dealing with. This allows the consumers voice to be heard and listened to a lot more carefully. Ideas, suggestions, and opinions can be expressed and heard by anyone. This feedback can help with product development, improved service, and repeat business.

Don’t take my word for it. There are a plethora of case studies where you can read about how business have used and benefited from social media here: http://www.interactiveinsightsgroup.com/blog1/social-media-examples-superlist-17-lists-and-tons-of-examples/

Participation

Where Do I Begin?

Patience is a virtue since it often takes months for social media to provide results. Unfortunately, many people and companies dive into social media without knowing how to use it properly. Let me provide you with a bit of advice before you begin.

Where many people get frustrated is in the time gap it takes to start seeing results. You must have faith that you’ll get out what you put in eventually. So allocate at least 3-6 months to test any social media program, and make sure you pursue it vigorously during the test period! Also, remember that Social media focuses on the “7 C’s“:

Conversation – Have them
Connections – Make them
Community – Build one
Consumer – Is King
Creative – Stay fresh
Collaboration – Team effort
Content – Add constantly

Before you unknowingly dive in on Twitter, Facebook or anywhere else, observe the conversation in these communities. Get a feel for how they collaborate, how the site works, what content thrives and what content doesn’t. Once you have a feel for the community, and have read some general do’s and don’ts, dive in! But remember that different platforms have a different feel, so don’t treat them the same or you’ll get a harsh reaction from users on one or more of the social media platforms.

What To Do:

These general tips apply to all of the social media platforms.

Have manners and use proper etiquette as you would in real life.
Listen first, respond second.
Contribute to the community.
Be yourself but watch what you say.
Be honest and transparent.
Be concise but personal.
Give credit where credit is due.
Practice good karma and you’ll receive favors.
Invest time and resources.
Measure results of actions.

What Not To Do:

Commit these cardinal sins at your own risk. These are the surest routes to failure in the social media world.

Be fake
Only talk and never listen or respond
Be overly self-promotional
Repeat yourself
Strictly focus on sales
Spam

Further reading: The 12 most annoying types of Facebookers

How Much Time Should I Spend?

I wish there was a simple answer for this. It all depends on what your goals are for trying to communicate online with others.

Each social media site operates differently so each will requires different amounts of time. Time will also vary depending on goals and what kind of user you have to be to achieve those goals. There are many different user-level activities you can participate in. You’ll want to participate on all levels but ideally you’ll want to be at the top of the ladder as a creator.

Allow me to demonstrate:

Like I mentioned, activities and strategies vary across different social media sites. Here are some diagrams to help shed light on what I mean:

As a good rule of thumb, here’s a good way to start spending your time:

Listening/Monitoring 25% of the time
Communicating/Engaging 50% of the time
Creating/Promoting 25% of the time

After that you can adjust your time based upon your results, metrics, and goal achievements.

Conclusion

If you’re new to social media this is a lot of information to take in but don’t be intimidated. Social media is simply community interaction. You do it on a day-to-day basis anyway, this just changes the platform of communication. Be brave and don’t be afraid to ask for help and advice!

About the Author: Jordan Kasteler heads the Social Media Marketing Division and is a co-founder of Search & Social, a full service Search Marketing & Social Media Marketing Company. Search & Social is also the parent company of Search Engine Journal. Jordan can be followed on Twitter @jordankasteler and writing on his SEO blog.

How To Create A Local Wordpress Install | WordCamp Dallas 2009

John P. — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 17:42:12 +0000

Matthew “Spamboy” McGarity shows us how to preform a local installation of wordpress. This allows a user to have an installation of wordpress on a USB drive, portable hard drive or just their local machine. With this local install, a user now has a complete Wordpress development environment separate from his or her live Wordpress site.

Thanks to Dave Curlee for filming and editing this, as well as incorporating the sign language interpreters into this video, and the other videos from WordCamp Dallas 2009. You can also follow Dave on Twitter or Spamboy on Twitter.

The World’s Craziest Construction Tricks!

John P. — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:35:33 +0000

We all know that construction workers are crazy. I mean come on. You can’t stand outside in the sun all day wearing a hardhat, boots, gloves and overalls without frying your brain just a little bit! And now, we have real evidence caught on video that these guys are out of control!

The Tape Measure Ninja!

Just imagine what this guy could do with a gun!

The Human Nail Gun

Big Steve throws nails harder than anyone you’ve ever seen! What did this guy play with as a kid? Throwing stars?

The Old Nailgun Bullseye Trick

Speaking of nails, you ever heard about someone splitting an arrow in a bullseye with another arrow? Watch this…

Saws Are For Sissys

Of course, nail tricks are for wussies. Do NOT piss this guy off if he has a saw blade in his hand!

The 15 Ton Merry Go Round

Really though, are you truly playing around if you’re not using 15 tons of earth moving equipment? I submit NOT.

The Arm Socket Destroyer!

You thought that the last one was bad? This guy nearly lost a couple of arms!

John P. Keynote at Optimization Summit in Dallas, TX – March 23, 2010

John P. — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:00:33 +0000

Folks, I’m going to be delivering a lecture to kick off the Optimization Summit in my home town of Dallas, TX on March 23, 2010. What the heck is an Optimization Summit you might ask? Well, its all about Optimizing your online, marketing, social media, and emerging media strategies. And with the exception of myself, there is an all star lineup running these workshops!

In addition to my little kickoff, you’re going to hear from John Jantsch, the author of Duct Tape Marketing, Giovanni Gallucci, author of Facebook Marketing An Hour a Day, and Geno Church, co-author of Brains on Fire…

But wait! There’s more! If you sign up now, you are also going to get Scott Ellis, Chris Boudreaux, Mike Whaling, Jay Ehret, Mark Juleen, Charity Hisle and Brent Williams!

What, you thought that was it? Silly rabbit… As a special bonus, you are going to hear from Mark Roberge of HubSpot, Duncan Alney from Firebelly Marketing, Nadeen Green, Erica Campbell, Jason Falls, Brad Marting and Jennifer Nevitt Casey!

I’m tired just writing about it!!!

Seriously though. If you are involved in creating, managing or nurturing online activities I don’t know anywhere else you are going to be able to go and get this much in depth information from so many people who are volunteering their time to teach you this stuff. And it’s cheap. PLUS, there are going to be like 1,000 people there for you to network with.

If you go register before Jan 29 you can use the code “JohnP” for a $25 discount, making the event just over $300. But if you wait, it’s going up to $429. So do it now and you’re getting a sizable discount. I don’t know what else to tell you. Just do it.

Have You Ever AcciTweeted?

John P. — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:37:09 +0000

AcciTweeting is what happens when you meant to send an SMS to someone, but instead you send a public Tweet. Like for example, I follow my wife @Hollypoz on Twitter. I also get SMS notifications when she tweets. Sometimes I want to send a quick SMS to her, but the last thing from her in my phone actually came from Twitter!

Do you see where this is going?

So, I respond to Twitter as if I was SMSing her, and Voila! The world has my private SMS! :-) Ever happened to you?

PS – AcciTweeting is a spin off of AcciDialing. That is when you already called someone, but you somehow accidentally call them back and don’t know it, and then they have to listen to whatever you are doing while saying, “Hello? Hello!!!” Aaron Phillips taught me that one. He loved to accidial me.

Photo Tutorial: Control Your Camera’s ISO For Maximum Quality and Minimum Size

John P. — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:15:34 +0000

You know what? We’re going to start off this little discussion with an analogy to try and make things a little easier. I want you to think of your camera as if it was a third eye – because at the end of the day, that’s really all it is. Just a little man-made mechanical facsimile…

Unless you are endowed with some super-human abilities, your eye needs light to see things. And your eye has a lens (that clear part on the front) through which the light passes and is absorbed by a little area on the back of your eyeball that senses the different colors of light. Well, guess what? That is exactly how a camera works! Light comes in through the glass and is sensed by the “sensor” inside the camera.

Now, if you bought a cheap little pocket camera your third eye has a relatively small, dirty lens (cheap glass), and a tiny little sensor. If you bought a big camera, you’ve got a high quality, extremely clear lens and a large sensor. But either way, the more light you allow to enter the sensor, the sharper your photos are going to turn out and the smaller the file sizes will actually be!

Let me be a little more precise. There is actually a range of perfectly acceptable light that a camera needs in order to see a scene properly. But since our technology is so crappy compared to the human eye, cameras often need a lot more light than you think they do.

How the Camera Controls Light

When you put your camera in “automatic” mode (and the cheapest little cameras ONLY have automatic mode), it is going to choose more light over more quality every time. And it does it in essentially three ways:

How long the shutter remains open.
Which ISO, or film camera equivalent speed of film, it chooses to take the photo. (The lower the number, the better.)
The aperture setting of the shutter. (We’ll deal with this at the very end.)

Now, for excellent photo clarity in an ideal world you would like to be taking photos at ISO 100 and with a shutter speed of around 1/60th of a second or faster. The problem is, at these settings most cameras practically require outside daylight. So, when you are indoors or somewhere that is a bit darker, the camera turns the ISO setting up in order to try and let in more light.

Unfortunately on most cameras anything over ISO 400 becomes so grainy that you just don’t even want the photos that are coming out of the camera.

So, if you get a good camera, like the Canon G11 I recommended, you can manually tell it to take the photo at ISO400 or less. Fantastic, right!?! Well, there is a catch. Let’s say you manually set the ISO to 100 – the problem now is that your shutter has to stay open much longer! And in some instances it might get so slow that simply hand holding a shot will make it too blurry to use!

Doah!

So, this is where a camera’s flash can help out – although they often make a photo look washed out and crappy – just in a different way. Again, a camera like the G11 helps out here because it can accommodate an external professional grade flash (or several) which can even be remotely triggered or moved off the camera body with an Off-Camera Flash Sync Cord (or remote triggers) to make the lighting more natural.

Sample Photos

Before we go on, let’s take a look at the difference these settings can make (be sure to click the images to see the large versions)! The following images were taken hand-held with the Canon G11 with no flash, in AE (aperture priority) mode at F/2.8 with the ISO set manually and taken back-to-back with different settings.

This first image of me was taken at ISO 3200 and with a shutter speed of 1/1,250th of a second. Note that the size of the large version of this image is 260kb. But the next one is only 160kb! That is because all of the additional noise in this image looks like detail to the JPG compression and therefore cannot be compressed as much! So not only is the image crappier… it’s larger!

This next image was taken at ISO 100 with a shutter speed of 1/50th of a second. Notice the amazing difference in quality? (I know I’m still ugly. Pay no attention to that.)

Ok, so you can’t concentrate with my ugly mug staring at you? Fine. Here is the lovely Jennifer Conley taken at ISO 3200 and shutter speed of 1/500th of a second. Click to see how grainy the large version is. It’s basically unusable.

And now with an ISO 100 with a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second. Note that the G11 has built in optical image stabilization which is why I was able to hold it still enough for it to look reasonably sharp even at a pretty slow shutter speed. Anything below 1/15th would begin to become blurry, which would ruin the photo just as much as the graininess.

The End

Now, there was one last little thing which I ignored previously, which was the Aperture setting. The aperture is the number written on your lens that looks something like f3.5-5.6, and refers to the size of the opening you set to let light in to the sensor. Sometimes it opens larger, sometimes smaller, and you can control this. This diagram illustrates the relative difference between aperture settings.

Notice that at F/5.6 the opening is about one quarter the size of F/2.8? Guess what. That means it lets in 1/4 the light in the same amount of time (say 1/60th of a second)! So to get the same amount of light with a smaller setting you will need a much longer exposure. At this point you might be saying, no problem! I’ll just always use the larger setting! Ahhhh, that would be nice… except for two things:

The lower aperture values also decrease depth of field (where everything behind the subject is out of focus) which is not always desirable.
Cheap camera lenses often can’t go below about F/3.5-5.6! (The G11 goes down to F/2.8.)

So yes, you can get a better camera and capture better images almost all the time, but at some point you’ve bought the best camera available you still can’t get certain images. You just have to accept that each tool has it’s limitations and learn how to work best within them. For most cameras that means keeping it in the ISO range of 100-400 and keeping the shutter speed faster than 1/30th of a second to eliminate blur no matter the aperture setting you are using.

The Very End

So, that’s about all I have to say on this matter. Hopefully you better understand the difference that your shutter speed and ISO make in the quality of your photos. If you pay attention to these things it can make a huge difference. And if your camera is too crappy to let you compensate… well, at least now you know why and you can get one of the ones I recommended.

Images other than the ones of Jennifer and myself are courtesy of Sausyn, Harshad Sharma and Bart.

John P. Lecture – Jan 30, 2010: Make More Money with WordPress, Social Media and Analytics

John P. — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:22:38 +0000

Well folks, in about two weeks, on January 30th at 4pm, I’ll be giving a complete lecture on basically everything I know about how to have a successful blog. I’m going to deal with the topics of revenue generation, social media integration, analytics and measurement, and God only knows what else! It’ll probably be like a 1.5 hour lecture, so be prepared.

Now there are a lot of local folks who are always asking me for help and advice with your Websites. This is your chance to not only get a very hefty bit of information out of me, but to meet other people who are also interested in the same thing. So, be at this event because as you all know, I don’t have time to do this sort of thing very often. Also, the event is already overbooked so you need to register FAST in order to have a shot at getting in.

As embarrassing as it is, here is the description for the event:

We’re starting off 2010 with a bang! Dallas’ most famous, colorful, and high-profile blogger, John P. will be presenting an informative and entertaining talk on how to Make More Money with WordPress, Social Media and Analytics.

John P. is the CEO of iFusion Labs, the company that brings you Woopra, host of the popular Wealth Nation podcast, former Chief Marketing Officer for Layered Tech, and the founder of HTMLHelp.com. He’s also the lead organizer of WordCamp Dallas and likely the most prolific WordCamp videographer on the planet. His personal blog, One Man’s Blog, receives 10-20,000 visitors each day and he is an outspoken advocate of helping others to achieve similar success.

PS — Keep your evening open for the famous DFWWP “networking” afterparty at Sherlock’s Pub and catch up with all your WordPress friends and colleagues.

The lecture will be held at the Art Institute of Dallas, who so generously supports the local WordPress meetup group. We REALLY appreciate it! And by the way have you noticed that sponsoring events like this bring a LOT of exposure and attention? Just think of all the new people who stop by and visit the Art Institute who might never have otherwise done so.

Now here is the kicker! If you are going to come, you MUST register for the event on MeetUp.com!

The problem is, the space was filled up a couple days after it was announced and there is already a waiting list. Do NOT let that discourage you. Tony told me that he will try to find a way to take care of everyone who registers, so get your name on the list ASAP so that you can be accommodated! I’m sure that if the list goes over about 125, people are not going to be able to be invited. So HURRY… and please don’t grab a seat if you aren’t going to be there as others will miss out.

Again, it’s at 4pm in Dallas at the Art Institute. And afterward we’ll go over across the street and do a little socializing at Sherlock’s Pub.

The address is:
The Art Institute of Dallas
8080 Park Lane
Dallas, TX 75231
214-692-8080

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Where Did All the Cute Puppies Go?

John P. — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:34:51 +0000

Another one only from the mind of Colby Jones…

Subscribe to his feed for routine goodness.

Flaming Cocktails! The Blue Blazer

John P. — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 07:27:22 +0000

Russell “Rockstar” Davis, from RockstarBartender.com, was kind enough to make this completely awesome flaming tequila based cocktail while I videoed it on a Canon 5D Mark II with a 15mm fisheye lens on it. The results are simply fantastic. If you’ve never seen anyone pour flaming liquid 3 feet through the air before, well… let me just say it’s a sight to behold!

Russell also made another special concoction for us on video, and I’ll get that posted as soon as I get a chance to edit it. I have a LOT of photos and videos that need editing right now, but I’ve also got a lot of other stuff going on, so it might take some time to get everything out. But I know you’ll all enjoy this one!

UPDATE:
OH! And I almost forgot! Russell is actually one of four finalists in the country for Bartender of the Year at the Nighclub & Bar Awards in Las Vegas in March! That is out of hundreds of entries! So, I suppose there is no better guy to help you get hammered! ;-) You can also follow along with Russell over on Twitter.

By the way if you like this video, you can thank my friend Mike Paolini who took me to see Russell at Peche in Austin and got permission for us to film and photograph in the bar! Also, he’s the one who took that photo up above (make sure and click through to check it out), all I did was process it.

The Bachelorettes from Austin, TX

John P. — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 08:07:45 +0000

Last night, while taking photos in Austin, I was approached by a group of ladies who were celebrating a bachelorette party and doing a little clubbing. I had been walking down the sidewalk carrying my Canon 5D, and one of the ladies spotted the big camera and asked if I would take their photo. The thing is, she wasn’t joking!

Well, you guys know me. I’m willing to help out, so I said, “sure!” I think it surprised her. But she gathered up the rest of the ladies while I changed out lenses and put on the 15mm fisheye lens. Then, after the count of 3, we had the photo you see below. And when they saw the preview, they asked me how they could get it, so I directed them here to come pick it up!

So, I hope you ladies enjoy the photo, and maybe one of you at least can leave a comment to let me know you got it. Just keep clicking the image to get bigger versions. And congrats to whomever the bride to be is…

PS – See ladies. I told you I didn’t need a flash, and it would be worth waiting for me to change lenses. :-)

PSS – More killer photos (and videos!) from Austin coming in the next few days. Look for em!

Highlights from the 2009 US Pole Dance Championship!

John P. — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:32:02 +0000

I don’t care who you are, this is just plain worth watching! These girls demonstrate unbelievable athleticism with nothing more than a pole.

Yeah, the guys are going to love this for sure, because the women competing in the US Pole Dance Championship are smokin hot. But on top of that, if you watch what these ladies are doing you quickly realize they are actual athletes. I mean, they have to have been full blown gymnasts – and they are definitely strong enough to kick your ass!

I also took a few screen caps of the video below to stop the motion and you can see that seriously, only a gymnast could pull these moves off.

Bully Beatdown!!! Colt: The Nebraska Bad Ass

John P. — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:24:32 +0000

YES! YES! YES!

I would like to find the guy whose brainchild Bully Beatdown was, and buy that man a beer! This must be the greatest show on the planet. Ever. And Mayhem is the perfect host!

You see, this is a show where people who are getting picked on coerce their bully into being beaten down, on TV, in a cage, by a professional MMA fighter! Again I say unto you, “YES! YES! YES!”

And the good folks over at MTV are kind enough to provide an embed link (a 5 minute preview) that I can share with you right here on OneMansBlog! Could I love this any more? I think NOT!

Bully Beatdown – MTV Shows

Now, if you are ready to watch the entire episiode, or ALL of the episodes, just head on over to MTV and get your Beat on!

How To: Search for ONLY Amazon Prime Items on Amazon.com

John P. — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:22:17 +0000

I’m an Amazon Prime member – meaning that I pay about $80 per year to get free 2nd day shipping on all my orders, no matter how big or small… as long as they are Amazon Prime eligible! As a result, I only want to search for items that are Amazon prime, but they don’t provide any easy method of doing this on Amazon.com! Grrrr!!!

So, here are two ways that I learned of which allow you to find just the Amazon prime items:

In the search box on Amazon, simply add “amazon.com” to the end of your search. ie – “camera amazon.com”.
Use the Firefox Greasemonkey extension with the Amazon Prime Search Improved Beta script which removes items that do not have the tag on the search results page when you are signed in as a Prime member. (Didn’t work for me for some reason.)

Hope it helps!

Tutorial: The Inside Out Cheeseburger (Yep, Cheese on the Inside!)

John P. — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:20:56 +0000

Here is just a little video I threw together with my friend AJ Wood while demonstrating how to use a few of the effects in iMovie. Nonetheless, I’ve had a lot of complements on my cheeseburgers ever since I learned how to make them from the guys working the grill at Whole Foods Market in Plano, TX.

You see… what you do is put the cheese on the inside! Yeah. Take a look.