Well,… I've got a special surprise in store for you guys.

Every week during February I'm going to be giving away one free Optimum WordPress installation.

You may have seen the promo link for Optimum WordPress in the right hand sidebar but anyway if you'd like to know more then go and check this out. Then come back here and leave a comment below and let me know you'd be interested in getting one installed for free,…

yes FREE as in "no strings", no signups, no conditionals …just a complete GIFT for any of my blog readers that would like to get the latest, most secure, feature packed super charge WordPress installation.

Just leave a comment below to get Optimum WordPress for FREE: it can just say something like,.. "OK,..cool…I'd like one",.. or "yeah gimme one". The best comment will get the Free install so that may entice you to be a bit more creative and explain why you'd like one and anything else you'd like to say.

If I only get one comment then the freebie goes to that commenter regardless of message length (but it does have to relative and polite or the comment will get deleted anyway,.. along with all the spam and bot comments!)

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during this past week I've been engaged in some projects producing articles and then getting them submitted.

I've had an interesting time with this and through it I encountered many challenges in finding sofware that worked and getting a really powerful article writing and submission system going.

After getting totally frustrated with 3 other pieces of submission software I finally found one that works.

In factit works better than I could have imagined and is ultra powerful with many great features and is simple to navigate and work.

Get this,.. once I'd inputted my account and author profile details it then went out and in 4 minutes and 53 seconds it created 1098 accounts in the various article directories. It then received all the relative registration emails and automatically activated over 800 confirmation links in 20 minutes. Then in another 5 minutes it submitted my article to over 400 directories (all targeted by category) and had over 100 of them accepted and published instantly.

I could hardly believe my eyes.

If you're interested to find out more and get me to leave some screen shots and video I'll make them but first leave a comment and let me know you'd like to know more or I won't bother with it.

Cheers

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The more time I spend online and build blogs and websites the more and more I realize that this WHOLE game revolves around keywords.

I get lots of clients asking me to make them a blog or a CMS site for which they have grand designs of using as a platform to launch their online career and/or some latest product, gadget or service.

The startling thing is that they all have their focus in the same wrong places. What I mean is that they're invariably focused on design, trendy or cool sounding names, graphics, appearance, all kinds of blogging and site features including optin forms and newsletter blasting,.. BUT,.. they fail to focus on and give any kind of real attention to where their customers, clients and site visitors are going to come from.

WHAT ARE YOUR KEYWORDS FOLKS?

Unless you know from the outset what market you're competing in/for and what the specific keywords are that relate to your market, product or service then you're just wasting your time and your blog or site is going to be left to toss around like a cork on an open sea of competition.

Take this blog for instance,.. The Russ Rave,… it's a classic example.  Sure I like my blog and I'm quite content with its appearance and layout and cool backend functions but what about traffic? I mean targeted traffic? This blog is so wide and diverse in its topics ranging from Copywriting and Internet Marketing, to WordPress themes, plugins, videos etc.

Whilst I get traffic across those areas its really spasmodic and hardly worthwhile. I mean, theses days the whole blogging scene is really streamlined and focused. Gone are the days when you could start a blog about "blogging" and expect to be successful,.. because you're competing with the Darren Rowse's, the Yara Staraks, the John Chows, The Gideon Shalwicks etc. And then there's the "make money online" niche (if it can still be called a "niche"… more like a monolithe!) In that niche you're up against the Frank Kerns, Mike Filsaimes, John Reeses, Lee McIntyres etc. So you have to be pretty dedicated and focused if that's going to be your ball game.

So,.. what I've decided to do is to dedicate myself and my time to breaking out into other more defined niches and create blogs specifically around that. It's not that I'm not interested in "making money online", its' just that my performance so far in that niche has been woeful (making the odd sale) but I do make money online by building blogs and CMS sites and selling associated services and products around that,- so that's where I'm going to really focus. It just makes sense really. So I'll have a blog for Wordpress and blog technical support and stuff, and a blog for website design, a blog for SEO etc etc. I'm actually working on them right now and spending a bit of time to get the keywords right so that I can highly for certain phrases that I know will get me some very targeted unique visitors who'll be looking for exactly the things I'm offering.

I'll be posting specific URL links later as my other blogs and sites evolve! <<< WATCH THIS SPACE >>>

In the meatime,.. this blog THE RUSSRAVE will stay active and published and will just be treated as my personal soapbox and "home" platform where I'll post stuff from time to time and just see how it evolves.

The reason I'm doing this is to be laser focused on promoting and marketing via keywords that are specific to the markets of which I'm interested in pursuing.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you wish.(we're CommentLuv enabled so you'll get a linkback to your blog)

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1. I drink copious amounts of tea! This must stem from my English heritage where everyone drinks tea. Our family was no different and we'd constantly have the kettle on. I guess I'd probably consume around 10 cups everyday,.sometimes a bit more. I prefer Lipton's Yellow Label (sponsorship offer please Mr Lipton!), and it certainly helps keep me moving and awake because apart from having good natural anti-oxidant content it also has as much (if not more) caffeine in it than coffee (yeah, I was amazed at that when I first heard it too). My average going to bed time would be around 1.30 am to 2.00am and sometimes as late as 3 and 4am at least once a week. I get up between 10am and 11am usually,.. sometimes at noon and sometimes 8am.
2. Jobs I've had (those I can remember). *Painting & decorating apprentice, * Newspaper delivery boy, *Gardener, *Waiter, *Newsagency shop assistant, *Warehouse manager (2), *Music store salesman (3), *Desk sales clerk, *Professional musician/entertainer, *Music Sales rep (4), *Door-to-door fire extinguisher salesman, *Market Stall attendant/salesman, *Restaurant and events photographer, *Advertising Space sales manager, *Life Insurance sales agent, *Home products show and expo presenter, *Water filter manufacturer, salesman/marketer, *Painting & Decorating contractor, *Real Estate Agent, *Seminar salesman, *Property developer/marketer/entrepreneur, *Property renovator, *English teacher, *Internet entrepreneur (which my wife says is " not a real job"!) Whew!,.. that's it… now you know why I don't like Linkedin (you should see my "education" list….. it's a doozie!)
3. I've produced 8 kids with three women (oh yeah,… and I confess there's been lots more women to boot but I've been "serious" with at least three of them). With my first wife I had 5 kids (all grown up and left home now except the youngest boy who's presently 15. I have 1 boy (Brandon,… who is 12 and lives in Australia with his mum) under a defacto relationship that ended when Brandon was about 3 or 4 years old, and the other 2 boys (Channon 4 and Natthan 2) to my present wife Pet (I think this shall be the last,.. I can't afford any more,- this has cost me a freaking FORTUNE guys…so don't you go trying it at home!!)
4. I'm unofficially what you could call an "anti-establishment-arian",… meaning that I loathe government control and incompetent and arrogant bungling at higher (and lower) levels of government office. In Australia one thing I hate is the evolving Nanny-State mentality and control that is becoming very prevalent across all states in the nation. ( I could harp on for chapters here but will be polite and sensible and just leave it at that!).
5. I like to go cycling on my mountain bike,..especially when Brandon comes to visit.. or when there is someone else to ride along with. I have an ambition to someday take a bike tour around the provinces of Thailand and at the same time raise awareness for some kind of humane or local interest or to spread the word about the healing ministry of Jesus amongst the Buddhist peoples,…. which sounds like a formidable or even arrogant task (to some),.. but you'd be surprised how receptive simple people can be to hearing stories of miracles and historic consequense,.. especially when it has so many natural and healing benefits that go with it. ( More on my "Christian" perspective in later bullet points!….. oh I know,.. you can't wait!!).
6. My favorite food is Thai food,.. I love Pad Thai and Gai Pad Mat Matmuang,..( a kind of mild spicy chicken and vegetable rice dish with cashew nuts, pineable and fried chili). Also really love pasta and bolognase,.. and lets not leave out the occassional pizza washed down with generous amounts of Cocacola.
7. As a boy I went to 11 different schools over a 10 year period in both England and Australia. Despite the gaps in my education I ended up with a well rounded and capable academic experience that served me well in latter years (does anyone really learn anything substantial at school anyway?). So the life lessons and "how to deal with bullies" have come in handy over the years.
8. I'm the son of a serial entreprenuer/ideas man who had/has some kind of Romany gypsy blood in him and couldn't stop moving around and trying out new ventures. He was a skilled painter and decorator for the most part of his life and he passed the trade on to me. I think every school holidays and countless Saturdays I spent "on the tools" with dad from the time I was about 9 years old until I was 16. Later, this came in handy when I was out of work I returned to the trade and stayed at it for 9 solid years and built a contractor business with 2 teams and had several apprentices working for me. Ultimately I gave this away as it was too stressful and tiring constantly managing the business and keeping my tradesmen in work.
9. I started working out in the gym when I was 19,..and within about 12 to 18 months had become very muscular and as fit and strong as a racehorse. I kept up this training throughout my life on and off and even though now I'm a bit out of condition I'm still lean and muscular. So the argument that body builders go to fat when they stop training is just pure bunk. It depends on your metabolism and whether or not you've stuffed your system up (kidneys mainly) with too many steroids (which I NEVER took.).
10. I have a brown belt in martial arts (freestyle karate) and although had plenty of opportuntiy to go for the black belt I never did (must be something to do with that danged drive to consistantly move on to newer things before completing those already in process). I also love Thai Chi which I practiced for many years (stiil do very occasionally) and I'd one day like to practice true Aikido and maybe even eventually go back to my original sensae Gary Johnson who has been a personal friend for over 23 years and is now a 7th dan Kiyoshi master and formally certified by the emporer of Japan (yeah.. go Gaz) and operates his own Martial  arts academy "Munen-Muso" on the sunny Central Coast of NSW Australia with his lovely wife Leanne (also a 2nd dan black belt,… but I reckon she's tougher than Gary and could actually beat him up anytime if she really wanted to!).
11. When I was in my last year of high school I became interested in playing guitar and singing. A primary motivator there was that being a "pop star" seemed like a much better idea than having to work for a living,..and it really didn't look that hard for all the famous people that were doing it. Although I did play "professionally" (like full time "half starving" musician for about a year back in 1979/80.) I mostly just played part time. I appeared on TV a few times,.. the height of which was in May 1980 when I was on "New Faces" with my singing partner Brian,… we won that show and went back on a couple times afterwards but nothing ever came of it except shattered dreams and dissapointments. During the 80's I had regular gigs playing in restaurants and small venues which helped with family finances quite a lot. Since then I've only ever played for my own enjoyment and for a while (quite a few years) I didn't really play at all. Now I play everyday and have my three guitars set up in my office,- which is really great and I just love it!
12. My favorite TV show is Boston Legal (I have the first 2 seasons and part of season three on DVD). My favorite character from the show is Alan Shaw and I love the episodes where Denny Crane gets his gun out and shoots something or someone. The best episode ever was when Denny and Alan decided to get married for tax reasons and were challenged by the gay rights movement for making a mockery of them.
13. The most fascinating present day mystery to me is that of the alleged alien spacecraft crash landing at Roswell New Mexico in 1947 in which it is said that alien beings and a spacecraft were apprehended and then secreted away to "Area 51" which has been denied as being existent, by the US military… but I reckon that it's probably true and that the Stealth Fighter Bomber single wing aircraft was modelled along the lines of the captured alien craft. That's why the Stealth Fighter Bomber was designed in the 1950's (way ahead of its time) but didn't get launched until the 1990's because 1) the technology to make it wasn't available until then,.. and 2) people weren't ready for such radical changes to aviation and perhaps could have "made the connection" between the Roswell incident and the new avaiation technolgy and design. Anyway,.. that's what I reckon (told you I was whacky).
14. I've never tried hang gliding but I reckon I'd like to. Bungy jumping doesn't apeal to me (OK,.. it freaks me out).. and I reckon although I've been on high scaffolding, roofs  and high ladders when I was a tradesman, I think I'm probably scared of heights and have a phobia about falling out of high buildings or falling over baclonies of multi storied shopping malls.
15. Although I was raised in Australia and lived there for 29 years in all, I never went surfing on a real fibreglass surfboard. Just body boards and such (which were awesome fun for sure!). Having said that I love body surfing and I'm very good at it (OK….. used to be very good at it). In 1994 I almost drowned in a tidal rip at Avoca beach NSW because I was too proud and overly confident that I could swim out of it. The jet-ski lifeguards hauled me in and I knew it must have been a close shave because I couldn't even stand up for about 10 minutes after I hit the shore. Since then I've been very conscious of the need for ample rest prior to swimming (especially body surfing) and to never be too proud to ask for help (before it's too late).
16. I believed in Santa Claus right up until I was about 12 years old,.. and although I'd figured out the Christmas eve routine and heard from all my mates for about 2 years prior that "it's really your mum and dad doing it all",…I can  recall being disappointed to finally hear that the jolly fat generous guy in the red suit was really a fake and that it was in fact "your mum and dad pretending". After that, nothing seemed the same and I started to harbour serious doubts about all adults and wondered what else my parents had been lying to me about,… the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny perhaps??….. oh nooooooo!!!!
17. I have a healthy disrespect for most lawyers and see them as being parasites within a system that is somehow sincerely striving for function and balance (Not sure if my views are in spite of the fact that I studied law or because of it). The majority of them would be better assigned to the role of boat-anchor in Sydney harbour. I just don't get it about these freaking morons that charge $450 per hour to listen to your problems and then try to find ways to make your life and your issues even more problematic so that they can suck even more money out of you,… and charging $400 everytime they send a letter or fax to the "other party"…. it's just some kind of warped and cruel joke. I've heard it rumored that many lawyers upon leaving the stressfull life of law practice then go onto to very lucrative careers as Intenet marketers,.. must have something to do with the attraction of similar standards of ethics required by the two professions!
18. I am interested in other languages and can speak a little French which I took for a couple of years in high school. I also learned a few cantonese phrases and how to count in Cantonese which came in handy when I was in Hong Kong on honeymoon in 2004 with my wife (the latest one!).,… Oh yeah… and I made a complete dick of myself in a restaurant in Ho Chi Mihn City when I tried to look smart by  speaking in French to the waiter,… who had been raised in Paris!!!… OMG…what a freaking disaster (for me). I once took 10 lessons in Mandarin Chinese but never kept it up as the Chinese girlfriend I had at the time split up with me  (very smart girl) so it kind of seemed pointless. One day I'd like to learn more but for the time being I'm focusing on speaking Thai which is going quite well. The trouble is that I'm spoiled a bit because my wife speaks fluent Thai and English and she interprets and expresses for me whenever I ask. Learning their alphabet seems like an impossible task because there are 44 characters and everywordisjoinedtogetherwithanotherandnospacing!,.. go figure that one out!
19. Smartest thing I've ever done?,….marrying my present wife Pet (hi honey). I know she doesn't mind me referring (cataloguing?) her as my "present" or "current" wife,… but my first wife did object whenever we went to a function and I would introduce her like,… "and this is my first wife,… Jacqueline"!
20. Dumbest thing I've ever done?,…. getting married at the ripe old age of 23 years and 2 months!
21. Most awesome thing I've ever experienced,… childbirth  of my own kids (as a witness and not a mother!!!). For those fellow "dads" out their you'll know what I mean,.. and for all those not yet having experienced it,.. get busy copulating and you'll see,… otherwise just visit your local hospital and ask if you can sit in and watch (joking… only works if you're a med student!)
22. Dumbest thing I ever said ,….."actually honey,… your arse does look a little lumpy in those old jeans!". Actually,.. the next dumbest thing I ever said (out loud in fact) was to the counter assistant in the pirate DVD store in Burma… "I can see Rambo 1, 2 and 3. on the shelf ..but do you have Rambo 4?"… honestly, the shop quickly emptied and I realized that in that part of the world they don't understand things like "humor" (or freedom of speech). I understand that old man Rambo (AKA Sly Stallone) is banned from Burma… yeah… officially!!!
23. Smartest thing I ever said,.. (to my first wife) "Goodbye"
24. I have  grappled with having a short temper all my life and have a tendency to want to whack any opponents or would be smart arse assailants to the ground (probably comes from having  had an overbearing father and being the subject of much bullying whilst growing up I think). This is in stark conflict with my fundamental  "Christian" values and I have a hard time dealing with the "turn the other cheek" instruction,.. even though I am trying to deal with it. My wife said she'd gladly stand toe to toe with me in the kitchen slapping me across the face backwards and forward until I got used to the idea,.. maybe that would help!
25. I have a subliminal ambition to act in movies and would one day like to give it a go. In fact I did have a small role in my school's productions of "The Log of The Bark Endeavour" and "1001 Arabian Nights"  when I was 12 in 1970 which were masterfully written and produced by my favorite 6th class teacher  and multi talented Mr John Speight,.. and I did take a drama class in 1983 in Sydney with Greg Bepper (he was in the Mad Max movies). My ambition will probably never eventuate "Hollywood style",… but hey, now that we have Youtube the sky's the limit right?
26. I am the second son of a second son (it's meant to have some kind of prophetic significance) and was one of 5 sons my parents raised (a job they did to the best of their ability and which only reqiuired 2 years of therapy to iron all my kinks out). All my brothers live in Australia (one lives mostly in Korea as he's an airline pilot) and one of our brothers is deceased having fallen victim to suicide in 1991 at age 28. Mum and dad are still alive and live on a few acres in the upper Hunter Valley region of NSW. My dad is still as mad as a hatter and likes to talk to dogs, horses, birds, insects and any human beings that don't mind listening to him rave on for hours on end about any topic even though his favorite is the Holy Scriptures and man's quest to find his own identity and fundamental relationship with the universe!
27. I don't subscribe to religion and although I have embraced lord Jesus as my personal saviour and role model for ideal human conduct and attitude towards living and harmonising with my fellow human beings and the planet in general. I don't subscribe to mainstream Christianity as I see it filled with way too much dogma, rigmarole and hypocracy. The closest denomination I would subscribe to would be Pentecostal Full Immersion Baptist but even amongst this sector there is much misinterpretation and  self righteous hypocracy ("With their lips they worship me but their hearts are far removed",- Jesus). The closest label that I might apply to myself would probably be along the lines of  "a free radical and  self confessed hypocritical aspirant to Jesusian prinicple". I believe in, fear, and love God with all my heart and I pray for the world and it's leaders to rise above the error, greed  and carnage that must some day come to an end in order for us (that remain and  that are saved) to live harmoniously  on the planet as was originally intended.

So that just about wraps up the list folks. As I mentioned earlier, I'll add images soon (everyone loves a picture to go along with a story don't they?). I'm sure I'll feel the temptaion to add to and amend this list later (hey,.. I do already), but I'll probably leave it as it is.

Thanks for reading,.. and feel free to leave any comment you like.

…. and finally,… God bless you my dear readers!

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so I'm gradually getting the header more the way I want it. It was way to thick before at 208px, but now I've got it down to 138px (which is about 35% thinner) and I must say it looks a lot better. It could even be thinner still but I've made it so the pencil sketch of my profile protrudes out of top by about 20px and that gives a nice 3d effect.

Later on I intend on doing a complete blog styling overhaul but I'm putting that off based on solid advice for some seasoned bloggers that have warned against spending heaps of time redesigning during the first 3 months because the main thing to focus on is content.

The thing about header width (and this is my main point in this post) is that they demand so much of the above-the-fold page real estate,.. and therefore, unless that real estate is being optimized (either visually or content wise) then having a wide header just takes up too much of that above-the-fold page area (i.e. the part of the webpage that gets seen in the browser first off without having to scroll down).

Home page changed.

I mentioned in an earlier post in this Random Thoughts category that I was going to work on the home page layout a bit more, so now I actually have arranged for the home page to show the latest posts instead of the default "lifestyle" feature article boxes (they can look great when set up with the featured content gallery image slideshows but right now I just don't have the time for that and seeing as I've decided that the design for RussRave MkII will be along the plain and simple lines it would be a bit pointless of spending time focusing on a different styling.

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Actually,.. I really mean that sincerely because I'm sure you're busy and must have a ton of other things to be doing,. so thanks for dropping in to check out whatever it was that brought you here.

At this stage I'm still developing and tweaking things so please excuse the somewhat "plain-ness". I did have what I thought was a really neat screen Action-popup offering visitors some free e-books (actually they we're really great eBooks) but I'm finding more and more people are becoming less impressed with that massive barrage of free stuff and so I just took the Action popup page down for now.

If you'd like to subscribe to the list for getting lots of free insider benefits including tips, tricks, interviews ebooks,  videos and webinars please feel welcome (otherwise,.. get lost!,……. just kidding!).

If you'd like to connect with me personally please just send me a message via my contact page and we'll chat real soon! I won't bite you and if I can help you in any way or arrange some kind of JV or plug for you (provided its an interesting cause) just let me know because I get over 2,000 visitors per day to this blog (but only in my dreams… it's actually closer to about 150 at present).

Ok… have a snoop around,… hope you find something interesting or some images or graphics worth stealing.

Cheers,.. and have a great day.

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Post-edit note: Quickpress is kind of useless because you can't assign any category from the Quickpress panel. If you select "Save Draft" from the Quickpress panel then you might as well just select "post/add-new" from the admin panel and go the normal route. I think in the meantime the  thing to do would be to assign a different default category that applies to "QuickPress"… now to go and find it,..probably in the WP-admin file somewhere. If I have a default category set to either "Random Thoughts" or "Quickpress" it would be much better than it auto-filing into "Uncategorized" which makes it look like the author (me) either forgot to categorize the post or doesn't really know where the post fits,.. which isn't the case!

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Here's a brief tutorial on how to easily find out.

You can try it out on the page that you're on right here on The RussRave. If using Firefox click on the "View" tab in the top left hand corner of your browser.Then select "Page Source" from the drop down menu of the "View: tab.

You'll see the html source code page display on your screen and somewhere towards the middle or top of that page you'll see the blog/CMS title like this

<title>The RussRave</title> and immediately under that you'll see ,…
<meta name="generator" content="WordPress abc" />

Where you can see "generator" content ="Wordpress" means that the site is built on Wordpress. If it was Joomla or Drupal you'd see wording indicating that platform as the content generator.

If you're using Internet Explorer you still click on the "View" tab in the top left hand corner of the browser and then select "Source" from near the bottom of the drop down menu.

Hope that's of some use to you. If you have questions or comments please feel free to leave a comment,… for which you'll get backlink credit to your own blog via the CommentLuv plugin I have installed

Cheers,.. and have a great day.

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Here’s how it works:

Once the plugin is installed (very simple via a one-click zip upload) you configure the settings in the admin panel that allows you to determine how many links you’ll display either before or after each post. You can also elect to show the links in a panel either only on the posts page or on the home page or both, amd you can control the font, the size, colors and border all very simply too.

It works with Clickbank products but one of the cool things about it is that when the links get clicked, the redirect doesn’t go straight to a full-on clickbank sales page, but to an information landing page about the product where you can get more details and even download free samples and materials.

My verdict on this new plugin is that it’s a winner and I’m sure there are bound to be some other updates and inclusions as its development continues into the future.

You can see the plugin in action right here under this post in the box that says "Related Products". If you like this plugin you can leave a comment and I can give you more details of the impending release as it happens.

Cheers,.. and have a great day.

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