Pumpkins have become the symbol for Halloween, but it wasn't always so...

The lowly pumpkin, or jack-o-lantern has become the mascot for Halloween. Pumpkins are the most recognizable symbol of the hallowed holiday.

Most people know the holiday as Halloween, but in olden days it was actually a celtic holiday called "Samhain" (pronounced "sow wan"), which generally means "summer's end".

Halloween was the end of the celtic year, and the beginning of the new year. It lasted from sundown on October 31st until sundown on November 1st.

It began as a night to honor and remember those who have passed, and it was widely believed that, on the night of the 31st the veil between the world of the living, and the world of the dead is at it's thinnest.

Halloween has been celebrated for centuries by celts, witches, and many other nature based faiths;  for them it is the most magical night of the year. Following in the tradition of the celts, it was adopted as the Witches' New Year. The religious significance has long since passed out of the minds of mankind, but it is still a magical night.

On this magical night glowing jack-o-lanterns dot neighborhoods across the world. These were originally carved from turnips, or gourds.

The pumpkin being a native of the America, wasn't used until European settlers arrived in America. They found the pumpkin to be larger, easier to carve, and seemed to be the perfect gourd for jack-o-lanterns.

Jack-o-lanterns were originally set on porches and in windows to welcome deceased loved ones, and as a protection against malevolent forces and spirits. Burning coals were first used to light the jack-o-lantern, and later replaced by candles.

Pumpkins, being indigenous to the western hemisphere were completely unknown of back in Europe. In 1584 a french explorer named Jaques Cartier reportedly found 'gros melons', which was translated into english as 'ponpions', which became pumpkin over time.

Pumpkins have been grown in America by natives for over 5,000 years. Native Americans called pumpkins 'isquotersquash'.

Another interesting tidbit is the fact that pumpkins are not vegetables, but actually fruits.

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The first major goal of blogging: Finding and Setting your Post Frequency.

You want to make a living doing this right? You're in this for the long haul, am I right? You don't want to be a one-night stand blogger, do you?

Then you must set short-term goals. My first goal was to make $100 per month off my blogs. The goal I'm working on now is to get 50,000 hits per month (currently i'm at 35,000).

Here are a few different types of goals you should be working on, if you really want to become a professional blogger. Traffic Goals, Monetary Goals, Posting Goals. These are just a few, I'm sure there are many more, but these are the generals that I will focus on during this discussion.

First we will take a look at posting goals. Frequency of blog posts play a very important role in how successful your blog becomes. The most successful blogs are the ones that have 5 posts or more per day.

Is that to say you can't compete by writing less? No, sometimes quantity isn't an absolute, sometimes it's quality that really matters. I believe that we need to find a good medium between quality and quantity.

One thing that it took me awhile to recognize is that not every blog post needs to be perfect, sometimes just getting a post out there is good enough. With that said though, sometimes it is pertinent to go above and beyond on a few posts.

A few good examples of going above and beyond are these posts:

• 17 Kicka** Green Businesses to Start Now!
• Gas Prices Love and Hate them - 10 Reasons to Love them, and 9 Ways to Save on Gas.
• Obama: The First President of America 2.0?
• Is your Blog a Dead Beast? 16 Ways Bring it to life!
• 7 Ways to be Best Buds with an A-List Blogger!
• Blogs need to eat too! Feed your blog with 39 ways to build your RSS Subscriber base. So easy a slackjawed yokel could do it!
• Warning: Avoid these 7 Time Traps or your blog Will Fail - Guaranteed!
• 16 Places to get the dish on Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

These are my personal cream of the crop posts. But that's out of 180+ posts since I re-launched this blog in March.

I've posted 25 posts just this past week (13% of my total blog posts in a single week.) My goal is to be posting as many as 50 posts per week by the end of the year. I would love to surpass the magical 1000th post by my 1 year anniversary of re-launching this blog. (Middle of march).

As you can see, I have a vision of where I want to go with this blog. Without a vision, you will never get any place. You may experience short-lived success, but you must have a vision.

FACT: The more blog posts you have, the more traffic you will get from long-tail search results. These are great traffic sources because they are new to your blog, they will bookmark it if they like it, and many may subscribe.

Let's discuss: Please tell me about your posting frequency - do you have a certain goal? Have you even thought about setting a goal before?

Read the whole series:

1. Set Goals or Die! Part 1: Posting Frequency Goals...
2. Set Goals or Die! Part 2: Traffic Building Goals..
3. Set Goals or Die! Part 3: Monetization Goals...(forthcoming).

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What if Twitter were a Terrorist tool?

Gizmodo and the Danger Room, reported today that government agencies are worried of the potential of terrorist organizations to use sites like twitter to coordinate terror strikes.

Twitter would of course make an easy anonymous platform for members of Hezbollah or Al Quaida to coordinate some sort of suicide bombing.

Each person would just need a phone, laptop, or other mobile device with access to a mobile or wifi network.

Army intelligence has come up with a few scenarios that a terrorist organization could utilize social network sites like twitter, as well as other cellphone features and programs.

Some of the topics brought up in the report include: Using mobile phone camera's to monitor 'the enemy'; Using the gps of some mobile phones for markmanship, border crossings, etc...; The installation of voice modification software to disguise the voice of would be terrorists.

The presentation also looking into a discussion on how militants may pair mobile applications with Twitter to expand their resources.

Similar to the way Twitter was used as a countersurveillance tool by activists during the Republican National Convention, the activists tweeted about the movement of Local Law Enforcement in real-time.

The presentation lays out three major scenarios.

Scenario 1: Terrorists send messages back and forth, regarding how, where, and number of troops that are moving around, in order to conduct an ambush.

Scenario 2: Terrorists uses mobile phone to signal remote explosive devices, or to coordinate remote detonation by a third party based on near real-time movement and imagery.

Scenario 3: Cyber terrorists find a U.S. soldiers Twitter account, he gains information from the soldier, and uses the information for identity theft, hacking, and possible physical attacks. This scenario could play out any and all major social networks...

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... C: wait... SD: wait...

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Poll: Which matters most to a profitable blog - Quantity or Quality?

My Answer:

I believe that both are important. Don't just publish a crap post to get traffic, but not all posts have to be perfect either. Also the more you post the more traffic you will get. Look at all the big dogs like techcrunch you can expect 10+ posts per day from them.

I've written quite a few google trends targeted blog posts, I usually do these more as an exploration exercise than anything else. In otherwords, I am experimenting with ways to use google trends to increase search engine traffic.

My results are pretty astounding. My number 1 source of traffic was Twitter, and now it's Google. My traffic shot up from less than 100 hits per day to an average of 1,000+ (on days that I blog).

My formula is this: My goal and guideline is to write 40% good high quality articles(not necessarily a pillar article, but informative nonetheless), 20% affiliate articles to pay the bills, 25% Targeted at Google trends, and 15% for top notch pillar articles which I try to get dugg / stumbled.

This strategy is working pretty well for me - but I am very interested in your opinions. What are your posting tactics?

Lets have a discussion!

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It seems that all we here of is more and more companies laying people off, my question is why can't the people at the top just take pay cuts - maybe the CEO's should make 50,000 or so a year until the crisis' are over, then they can beef up their income to astronomical figures.

I'm not necessarily railing on Jason Calacanis - But I'm sure he gets paid plenty to do his job, but heaven forbid that when a company is failing the person in charge loses their income, or at least some of their income, instead the innocent worker-bee gets canned.

Same goes for yahoo, and all the other corporations laying people off. I would even submit that laying people off is an UN-AMERICAN thing to do. The country is in a crisis - the more people that lose their job the worse it's going to get all around - think about it.

If you're in charge of a company that's laying people off you are part of the problem not the solution.

Imagine a company has $10,000,000 per year to work with. Has 100 employees, and 10 Executives. Each employee makes $30,000 - a total of $3,000,000. Each executive makes $400,000 ($4,000,000 total). Leaving $3,000,000 for expenses and overhead.

Now profits dry up a bit and things start looking bad, say you need to free up another $300,000, and the easiest way to do that is a 10% layoff plan, or laying off 10 workers.

Now you can be a petty ceo and can the workers, put them on unemployment, and food stamps draining tax dollars and being un-american.

OR...

What if each worker-bee would take a $5,000 paycut to ensure that everyone stays on the payroll - that would be $500,000. $200,000 more than the layoffs. Of course how fair is that?

What if everyone from the top down took a 10% paycut?

Well that would be $3000 for the worker-bees, and $30,000 for the execs. That would amount to: $600,000.

What about cutting workers pay a little more - if they agree to it, in exchange for some stock options for when things look up?

This is a simplified look - there are many other options, but I believe when our country is in dire need - layoffs should not be an option, there's a better way.

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This is a Guest post by James at JamesMartell.com

The words free and advertising don’t often go together in real life. Getting more site traffic takes time and effort, finding a way to effortlessly gain more clicks is always good news.

A method for generating more traffic quickly was a right in front of me. Banners brought a lot of attention to my site, but not every format allows this type of advertising. Then I discovered another way to use the same pull of a banner that did work in almost in any format.

Social media sites like Twitter, and Facebook, where typical banner advertising is not allowed does have another way to utilize the same drawing power.

Thumbnails can advertise your site as easily as a banner will. The best news is this tool is less expensive to have created and is welcomed with open arms on most social sites.

Smaller Package, Better Visibility

Since thumbnails are allowed on Facebook, Twitter, and similar sites, they become visible. Blogs, chat forums, and other social media sites enthusiastically welcome users to upload a thumbnail with open arms.

My guess as to the reason that thumbnails do not receive the attention they are due is because most people never realize how efficient they can be in helping to generate that click.

Using the Thumbnail to Generate Attention

The thumbnail is really a smaller, and more “portable” type of banner ad. While leaving a message through many types of social media such as posting on Facebook, or using Twitter your thumbnail works the same as banner ad would in giving anyone who sees it a view of your message.

Thumbnails can be designed and created in many different sizes. Having a selection on hand for the different websites you will visit that allow thumbnails is great idea. Common pixel sizes are 50x50, 80x80, 100x100, 170x170, or 200x200. The pixel size that is recommended for iTunes is 600x600.

My wife Arlene created a popular website called EpilepsyMoms.com. She found out how well thumbnails could work in generating interest in her podcast by using professional and descriptive graphics.

Having thumbnails created by a professional could be done at a low cost, and Arlene had two sets created, one with her website address which is already descriptive in what the site is about and one that promotes her podcast.

4 Simple Ways to Generate Traffic

When working online the easiest ways often work the best for you. That is why the technique for promoting a product or service with a banner is very effective. It’s easy to use and can be re-used often. Thumbnails are just as usable and can bring that same exposure on sites where banners can’t be utilized.

1. Using Facebook and Twitter to Build Your Brand

Using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn business have found a natural for introducing their products and services to people via numerous exposures online. This is the best type of promotion…free!

A well thought out and carefully designed thumbnail can even offer a tempting link back to your website from many social media sites. A plain picture or name doesn’t necessarily carry the message you want, or create the desire of everyone viewing it to click the link and go to your site. Having a professional graphic can gain attention instantly giving those viewing it a reason to want to know more.

2. Businesses Gain Attention on Facebook and Twitter

Online retailers, affiliate marketers, promoters or really anyone using website promotions will find it’s smart to have a set of banners and thumbnails of various sizes.

In the same way, a carefully crafted banner draws attention so too does a well-designed thumbnail establish and build your brand, which can then increase click through rates to your site.

Your thumbnail can bring more people to your site wherever you blog, chat in a forum, or leave a comment on someone else’s site. No matter where you go online, this can work as a continuous draw for your site.

3. Get Tons of Traffic to Your Site

Thumbnails have the drawing power to bring thousands to your site. And because thumbnails have more applications in many more places, these smaller versions of banners are more versatile and adaptable.

Polished, professional, and personable thumbnail graphics grab attention. Thinking of thumbnails you might have clicked on or followed back yourself chances are good these carried an image that first caught your attention, and then made you want to know more. You can even give your photo some retouching from a professional.

4. Posts or Tweets With More Power

As you post a tweet on Twitter, or make a comment on someone else’s wall in Facebook a thumbnail speaks for you. The greater number of times you use these sites with your thumbnail representing you the more clicks you will see.

I have found this to be true on sites where I am a frequent poster. Most major blogs where you write, post, or even simply respond to a message, as a commenter will allow the use of thumbnails. With the thumbnail, you are not a “John Smith” type of poster, and people will want to know more about you. Following your interesting thumbnail link thousands will pick up the trail to your site’s door.

4 Creating a Dynamic Thumbnail Graphic

1. Use a Good Photo

You don’t need to hire a professional photographer to get the best feature all photos need most…your smile. A smile is a welcome, and people instinctively respond to you. The background should limited and professional, and be sure there is enough light. A digital photo will work just as well as one taken by a professional camera. A photo retoucher can often help work out problems with a photo you want to use.

2. Find a Graphic Pro

Hiring a professional graphics designer will go a long way to getting the best thumbnail possible. Professionals will have software that can give your graphics a smoother, perfect look. A pro can even retouch your photo to look its best on a thumbnail. Arlene had several thumbnails inexpensively created for her by a professional and she was happy with the results.

3. Keep Text Simple

The wording on graphics should be short and get your point across. The name of the site and a word or two such as Arlene did with by using the name of her site and “Podcast” conveys a clear message. Too much text will detract from the message.

4. Find a Style

Once you find a look that works for you don’t keep changing it. Changing too often will confuse those viewing it and they might not remember you as easily. Keep details between your thumbnail, website, and brand as similar as possible.

Give It Drawing Power

Should you think I’m making a big deal over something that is very simple consider this – the saying that people judge a book by it’s cover is true, and your thumbnail is going to be the cover for every Twitter tweet, Facebook and blog comment, or chat forum thread. Over time, this can number into the thousands of images all working for your site or other promotion.

As Arlene worked on her site and wanted thumbnails created, she decided to use a source she used previously with success. Since she had much of the work for her site done using a service provider site, she quickly found a professional do a touch up on her photo and use a few simple words to convey her message.

As the mother of a child with epilepsy, she wanted to reach as many other mothers as possible who might be facing the same challenges making this site important to her. This was a job she had to keep on a budget, and the results were exactly what she wanted.

She also had a professional graphic designer create banner ads, header graphics, and an image for the audio player she features on her home page. Using these types of sites, a professional is not expensive, because there are many professional writers, technical pros, and others all competing for jobs. Easily negotiating with someone to handle any budgeted job from clerical to a web design is not difficult.

Never Miss Your Chance --Gravatar

Not too long ago I found myself at a site and wanted to post my thumbnail after making a comment. Looking through the settings however, I wasn’t able to find how to add the thumbnail.

After some searching, I was able to find out that many places where you find blogs, chat forums, and commenting boards use a system called Gravatar service to place thumbnails.

Going to Gravatar.com I realized that all I had to do was upload the thumbnail on this site, and then give it an assigned email address. From that point on all I had to do was go to any place I wanted to comment or post and use my email address in the usual field and my thumbnail appears without my having to do anything else.

Not A Secret From You

A professionally created thumbnail graphic can provide you with a constant stream of traffic to your website at no cost. With a little effort getting your thumbnails designed, you will be ready to go.

Over to You

Are you satisfied with the thumbnail you have now?

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© James Martell for Tech Soup : Social Media, SEO, Gadgets, Technology, Web 2.0 Oh My!, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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Growing old during the computer age is an extremely nerve racking experience that I wish I could not be a part of.  Inevitably, however, I am a part of this computing era; therefore, I can only make observations on where I believe we are and where we are heading now and in the future.  And since laptop computers seem to be the convenient way to do all of your bookkeeping, payroll and your other productivity tasks, it’s only natural to say that the era of the desktop computer could be fading slowly away to make room for more innovative measures.

Back several decades ago, laptop computers were being introduced as a means for businesses to be able to computer easier while on the go; now, teenagers and everyone else in between are seeing these mobile computing devices pushed at them to use for school, social networking, gaming and keeping track of personal finance records.  The prices have incrementally come down since the beginning of the new millennium and look to continue to stay competitively priced while the tablets make their move on the laptop computers across the world.  However, are laptops actually the most frugal means for computing?

With theft and robberies on the rise, one would think taking a laptop computer across town in a backpack is a glutton for being stolen from, yet this doesn’t stop anyone from toting them to their friends house, leaving them in unlocked parked cars, or leaving them setup in a coffee shop while they get a refill.  Sure, we all love the ease of use that laptop computers bring us; however, has anyone ever addressed either laptop safety or at least offered some laptop insurance? I believe these things need to be addressed before laptops do officially take over the desktop world.  Aside from the safety concerns that laptop computers bring, your personal information can easily be compromised by simple oversights like leaving your Firefox window open to your bank’s page while logged in still as you stand in line waiting for that same coffee refill.

In order for consumers to allow the laptop computers to take over the tech world, there are several issues that need to be addressed as stated above.  If you are an advocate for protecting personal information and other personal safety concerns, you should definitely join hands with the many others that believe that laptop computers are great for mobility yet terrible for safety.  Not everyone can remember to bring a lock for their computer and, rightfully so, shouldn’t have to.  If we can convince insurance companies to allow us to take out a small policy on our electronics such as iPads or MacBooks, I believe that the transitional future of laptop computers will be a lot smoother for our children and their children.

Posted by Greg Henderson, an Internet Marketer and SEO Associate for a cell phone lookup site FreePhoneTracer.com, and an find an email address site EmailFinder.com.

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Everybody is talking about the economic problems that America is facing(and not just America)...

We also are aware that the major players are the banks and financial institutions, but apparently the company that used to own the internet - Yahoo is looking to cut jobs, and is losing money. They are expecting a large dip in their earnings for next quarter.

Zillow another large company is also cutting jobs. I saw this coming, as I believe this financial crisis will touch the lives of every American, if not every person living on planet earth - or at least all of the developed nations.

On the bright side Internet Marketing firms are actually doing quite well, as companies and small businesses are transitioning to cheaper more affordable online methods of advertising. It looks like there's still business for mom bloggers(and others).

Of course as always there is going to be more and more competition. Many are losing their jobs, and I'd like to see a statistic to see how many newly unemployed start trying to earn money via blogging or other online ventures.

According Sage Lewis at Search Engine Guide over 60% of online marketers are increasing their online marketing budget while removing 80% of their offline expenditures.

Check Sage's video:

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Is Google trends the new linkbait?

There are sites popping up that create random text posts using keywords from google trends, and other sites of such, but when you view the listing in google it's apparent that it's a scam-site even before visiting.

I must say, blogging about Google trends topics is very smart. It's obviously what people are searching for. I'm amazed at how much traffic I've gotten from google after using google trends - lets just say I went from 90% of my traffic coming from Twitter and other Social networks, as well as from subscribers of the blog, to now getting 75% coming from google, many of which decide to subscribe.

Now it used to be a great idea to come up with a really unique and popular pop culture post, that everbody links to. This would be called linkbait. It could be a list of things related to a specific topic as well. All that matters is that it's widely popular, and spreads virally.

However writing linkbait, or trying to - is a hit or miss. Either your post becomes viral or it doesn't. I've had a few posts go viral, but I must say that google trends is guaranteed.

You write a post on a google trends topic, and you will get traffic, and it's very likely that you will also get linked.

Here are some tips to writing a good google trends article for maximum traffic:

1. The Number 1 trend isn't always the best - sometimes the topic has peaked. If you click on the trend it will show you whether the item is going up or down.
2. Choose a topic that you'd like to talk about there are many to choose from, choose one that fits in well with your site.
3. Keyword saturation is key - you need to use the exact google trends phrase as often as possible, and insert at least 1-2 variations. For example today I posted about "Hummingbird Sex Position" I included the keyword phrase about six times, but also used the hummingbird sex technique, once throughout.
4. Always include related posts - you'll get trackbacks that will help bring in more traffic.
5. Add a picture. You'll also get traffic from google images.

Another great suggestion is to use a tool that helps me greatly, called Zemanta - it's a firefox addon that suggests related images / blog posts, so that I don't have to find them myself - it doesn't always find related posts but it's pretty good.

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© patrickcurl for Tech Soup : Social Media, SEO, Gadgets, Technology, Web 2.0 Oh My!, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blog, Google, google trends, hummingbird, keyword phrase, linkbait, maximum traffic, Social Networks

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I'm currently teaching myself to program in Ruby on Rails, Padrino, Symfony, and Android.

One thing I'm constantly in order to code in these different sdk's is edit my System>Environment Variables>Path.
This isn't rocket science, but when you do something repetitively, clicking 5 different links to get to the same thing is, well annoying to say the least.

So I finally figured out a cool way to get to Environment Variables simply by pressing Ctrl + Alt + E. This is the easiest method I've found for getting to the Environment Variables in Windows 7.

Step 1: Right click inside a folder - it doesn't matter where - any folder will do - and choose New > Shortcut.

Step 2:  Type the location of the item, or the command which should be:

C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables

Then click next, and type Environment Variables for the name.

Step 3:  Click next, and type Environment Variables for the name, then click Finish.

Step 4: Now you have two options, you can pin it to the start menu, or create a shortcut. To pin it to the start menu right click on the item, and simply choose "pin to start menu", and it should now be on the start menu.

To create an easy keyboard shortcut right click on the item, and choose properties. Choose the shortcut tab under properties. Click on shortcut key and type the letter 'E' (Or choose a different letter if you prefer), and finally click 'apply' and 'OK'.

Then press CTRL + ALT + E and your environment variables should launch. 

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Face it, the vast majority of Americans are hurting. A Million people have lost their jobs, many millions more are facing foreclosure, now is not the time to be buying fancy costumes. There are many great homemade ideas that may even beat anything you could get at a costume store. Here are some great cheap home-made Halloween costume ideas:

1. Static Cling. My wife made this costume for me, and nobody knew what I was, but the minute I said 'Static Cling' laughter just erupted. It's a very good gag costume. It's also very simple, just staple, tape, or sew a bunch of socks, dryer sheets, balloons, etc to your clothes. It's as simple as that, the more creative the socks the better (my wife has spongebob socks, snoopy socks, etc...)

2. Gum under a chair. Take a small child's lightwait plastic chair, dress all in pink, put the chair on your head, and presto - you're now the chewing gum under the chair.

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He can heal the sick, raise the dead, make the blind to see, and turn water into wine, but can he stand up against the evil Windows error screens?

I'm a very religious member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon, or LDS), but this picture was too funny not to post!

From [Gizmodo via FailBlog]

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Mashable has put together two really nice lists of places where you can find out more info on the current vice presidential candidates(Joe Biden and Sarah Palin), I thought I would combine them into one easy list for you to view.

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• McCain chooses his running mate.... *gasp* a woman!
• McCain Picks Palin As Veep
• Minneapolis, we have a problem...
• McCain Picks Alaska Gov as VP Candidate
• McCain VP Pick: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin
• The politics of social media
• McCain Names His Running Mate
• So it will be McCain - Palin 2008 for the GOP
• Obama's Web guy admits VP text message was botched [Chris Hughes]
• Betraying McCain's desperation
• Bait and Switch on McCain's VP Pick?
• Obama: McCain Puts Sarah Palin in 2nd Place
• Sarah Palin: the antidote to age and Clinton's disaffected voters
• Doocy: Palin knows about foreign policy because Alaska is 'right next door to Russia'

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I'm sure we've all been faced with this dillema. No net and no sanity.

The internet is highly addictive, and sometimes when we have no access it's hard to come up with productive things to do, so I'm going to help you build a list.

1. Exercise:

We spend tons of time online and hardly any exercising anymore, go walk the dog, take a brisk walk, ride a bike, or play catch with your kids, get out and do something. The fresh air will do you good, and you might not be so pale anymore.

2. Build your brain:

Read a book. Study. Go to a class. Watch discovery channel. Do something educational and just maybe you'll stop being such an idiot.

3. Reconnect with friends. We all have friends or at least we all should - if you don't then you go out and buy 'How to win Friends and Influence People' and apply it because you definitely need friends in life, or everything is meaningless.

Spend a couple hours and talk with the friends that you haven't seen in a year or two, it'll be a nice refreshing break from the internet.

4. Get caught up current events.

I like to do this daily anyways, when the internet is down is the perfect time - read the newspaper or turn on cnn, see what's goin' on in the world. Or you could just go watch Ghost hunters - I love that show...

5. Computer Cleaning.

No, it is not natural for your keys on your keyboard to be Cheetos Orange...Clean that damn computer! Now's the perfect time to rip off the back of your computer and clean extremely thoroughly, and while you're at it take apart your keyboard and disinfect it.

When you're done cleaning the hardware, why not clean the software by defragmenting...When you do get your internet back your computer will be singing it will be so happy...

6. Play a game - but not a computer game. Maybe de-veg a bit. Cornhole is a fun outdoor game you could play, or play sudoku, or crossword, or solitaire, do something fun offline.

7. Build your finger dexterity. Write or Draw something, and do it on paper. You remember paper, right?

8. Get your chores done. My wife nags about chores all the time, but I'm always busy and don't want to do them, I'm sure we can all relate - well since you can't do anything blogging or business related without the computer anyway why not get your chores done now so you won't have to worry about them when you do have your internet back? I'm a genius aren't I?

9. Now that you're done with chores, I always like to take a small nap..hehe... I'm sure no one would mind, would they?

10. Pray and Meditate. Take a moment to thank god (or whoever you worship) for all the blessings in your life. Think about things in your life, make goals, and just relax.

These are just a few ideas on how you can cut down on the frustration caused by not having your precious internet connection. Next time your isp is working on the lines get offline and have some you-time.

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Post tags: defragmenting, discovery channel, ghost hunters, how to win friends and influence people, solitaire, sudoku

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Collin Lahay has launched a service called RSSHugger, which is basically an rss directory meets wiki.

He allows bloggers the opportunity to promote their blogs easily just by adding them to the directory. You can add your own blog for only $20, or you can get it added for free if you blog about RSS Hugger.(Which is why I'm blogging about it. lol)..

Collin's goal is for his directory to eclipse 50,000 blogs. The idea behind the site is to build buzz and receive new rss subscribers for members of the site.

How it works:

First you buy your page (or get it free), then your rss feeds are displayed on your own page in rss hugger, I'm a little skeptical about how this all works, but I'm always interested in trying out new technologies and marketing experiments. After all it couldn't hurt, could it?

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Read Write Web posted a article detailing three futuristic search engines, and I discovered SearchMe.com and thought it was a pretty interesting find. I even made a video on the features and uses of Searchme.com Check it out below. What are your opinions?

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I saw this on techcrunch, and thought I'd share it. It's quite funny, and very relevant to my recent posts on twitter, and frustration with the follow limits on twitter. Let me know what you think!

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It's a fact - people love lists, especially top ten lists, and so here we have it - my Top 76 Top Ten List List. These are pretty much random, and in no specific order, I must've spent 4 hours on this, so I hope you like it, if not you can kiss my <profanity>.

Why did I only pick 76? Because I got damned tired of looking for more lists - DUH!?

1. Top Ten Questions Not To Ask In A Job Interview
2. Top 10 mobile apps[java] for your phone
3. Top 10 Quirkiest Early Flying Machines
4. My Top 10 Internet Phenomena
5. Top 10 Norton / Symantec Secrets You Shouldn't Know
6. My Top 10 favorite Google Products
7. Tools of the Trade: Top 10 Tools for Social Media
8. Top 10 Most Expensive Celebrity Divorces of All Time
9. Top 10 Mistakes Made in Business Plans
10. Top 10 Unwed Celebrity Parents
11. The Top 10 Coolest Olympic Mascots
12. Top 10 Printable Paper Productivity Tools
13. Top 10 Tips for Getting Attention on Flickr, All Fresh and New for 2008
14. Top 10 Brain Training Future Trends
15. Top 10 Concepts That Every Software Engineer Should Know
16. Top 10 Movie Roles Taken In Order to Make-Out With a Hot Chick
17. Top 10 Fantasy Worlds In Literature
18. DUI MA - Top 10 Mistakes in Drunk Driving Cases
19. Top ten: The world's most dangerous places
20. Top Ten Places To Visit In Egypt
21. Top 10 Things to Bring to China
22. Top 10 hottest Olympians
23. Top 10: Widely Believed Myths
24. PTV’S TOP 10: The Greatest Political Web Videos of All Time
25. Top 10 Strangest Hotels in the World
26. Top 10 Phones of 2008
27. Top 10 Most Overpriced Zip Codes in America
28. Top 10 Sites for Illustrator Tutorials
29. The Top 10 Free iPhone Apps for Young Professionals
30. Top 10 Consumer Headaches
31. Top 10 Songs You Must Turn Off (Personal note, I don't quite agree w/ the Evanescence remarks)
32. top 10: songs to primp to
33. Top 10 Countries to Make the Most of Your Dollar
34. Top 10 Mistakes Guys Make When Trying To Get A Girl
35. Top 10 Ways Gay Marriage Harms Straight People
36. Top 10 portable gadgets I take with me when I travel
37. Top 10 Reasons to Start a Business Blog
38. Top 10 Alternative Abstinence Slogans
39. Top Ten Conspiracy Theories, and sometimes a lizard is just a lizard
40. TOP 10 start up killers
41. Top 10 Free Things to Do in Paris
42. Top 10 Animal-Friendly Superheroes
43. Top 10 Template Generators for Blogs and Websites
44. Top 10 Firefox 3 Features
45. Top 10 Keyword Research Tips To Boost Your SEO
46. Top 10 Tools to Get Blogging Done
47. The Top 10 Star Wars Sounds
48. Top 10 Mac Freeware Applications.
49. Top 10 TV Shows Killed By College
50. The Top 10 Animated Films Ever Made
51. Top 10 Reasons Why I Haven't Bought an iPhone 3G
52. Top 10 Idiocies of the General Election ... So Far
53. Top Ten Dark Knight Scenes
54. Top 10 Punk Guitarists
55. Baseball’s Top 10 Trade Deadline Deals of All-Time
56. TOP 10 Worst Snack Foods
57. Top 10 Scientifically Inaccurate Movies
58. Top 10 Obsolete Car Features
59. Top 10 Bad Ass Movie Cars
60. Top 10 Movies for Kids who Love Dinosaurs
61. Storage Top 10 Best Practices
62. Top 10 CSS buttons tutorial list
63. Top ten things we like in tight economic times
64. Top 10 Fatal URL Design Mistakes
65. Top 10 Apple iPhone 3G tips and tricks
66. Top 10 Romantic Places in the World
67. Top 10 Command Line Tools
68. Top Ten Places To Have Sex
69. Top tips for marketing your web site
70. Top 10 Ways for College Students to Save Money
71. TOP 10 Unintentionally Funny Websites
72. Top 10 Busted Tees Nipples
73. Top 10 Websites You Probably Never Heard Of But Should
74. TOP 10 Worst Karaoke Songs
75. TOP 10 Things I’d Like To See In Theaters for 2009
76. TOP 10 Worst Movie Quotes To Say In Bed

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Are you Using Social Bookmarks like a Pro?

When you add a social bookmark link, whether it's one of your own or not, you are helping other people sort the web, so to speak.

By tagging each link that you submit, others looking for the same material are able to find only the best information on a given topic.

By building a network of friends, and working to expand your network as far as you can, you can in turn build your brand recognition, and your website's traffic as well.

If you have really good content to share, or really targeted content, it will get shared between many different users. Don't ever discount Social Bookmarking - it does work.

Now that you know what social bookmark links are - are you using them?

You should have a script or program setup where every page that you want traffic to is easily bookmarkable.

The best way to do this is add a script or plugin (if you're using wordpress or another such blog platform). You can use third-party widgets two good ones are: AddThis and Sharethis

You could lose out on a huge amount of traffic and clicks to your website if you're not using bookmark icons on every important page. Here's a good video overview to make social bookmarking even more clear:

Social Bookmarking in Plain English:

Social Bookmark Strategy: Diversify.

When you do decide to add social bookmarking links to your blog or website, you absolutely must go big - add at least 10-20 of the most popular sites. The major ones include digg, stumbleupon, reddit, mixx, delicious.

You absolutely must build networks of contacts on these social bookmarking and news networks, the more the merrier because they will be able to see the links that you bookmark, and they will share them and it will make for something pretty darn exciting - if a web page goes viral on a social bookmark site it can bring as many as 50,000 hits over a 1 week period.

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Post tags: AddThis, amount of traffic, bookmark link, Bookmarking, delicious, digg, Marketing, mixx, network of friends, news networks, Reddit, social bookmarking, stumble, stumbleupon, video overview, widgets, wordpress

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