I am sharing this Google pagerank checker because until about 4 or 5 months ago, I didn’t really understand the whole Google pagerank numbering system.

I thought if you had a page rank of 1, that meant you were number 1! However, that isn’t how it works. If you have a pagerank of 1, that’s 1 out of 10! Being 1 out of 10 isn’t as exciting as being number one right?

Use this nifty tool to see what your business or personal website’s Google pagerank is.

Even if you are only one out of ten, that isn’t so bad. I am a number 1! See?

It just means we have some work to do.

Wired Magazine Exclusive: How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web really gives you some good info on how the whole Google Algorithm/Ranking system works.

So, last night I was checking out Mr. Tweet & I got this error:

LOL! I was so entertained by it, I wasn’t even annoyed that it didn’t load my page right away! (It fixed itself soon after.) But HAD to share!

full view on twitpic: http://www.twitpic.com/13rgt4

Somehow, I came across this article on StumbleUpon:

Hobbies That Could Make Money for Your Zodiac Sign
I am not a true believer in the zodiac stuff, but sometimes it’s a little scary how accurate it can be.

Aquarius

This visionary sign can do very well as a columnist, writer, or illustrator. This is because what they have to say is so unusual and seems to come from “left field.” Many are good at writing metaphysical material or science fiction. They also do well as online psychics or phone psychics. Quite a few Aquarians are inventors and many are able to parlay their creations into a lucrative part time job. They are also natural entrepreneurs so they do well in the virtual sales places of the internet. This sign also loves the photographic arts and can sell their photography or videos online. Along with their business savvy comes many creative talents as well. They are good at doing things such as designing their own websites and building a virtual empire. They can also easily parlay these talents into a career at designing sites or web businesses for others for others. They are also natural cinematographers and editors and some Aquarians are very good at scoring music for videos and movies as well. They do better than most signs at being freelancers because they can handle the stress of waiting to be assigned or paid.

In class, we were assigned to find an image editor for a website project, and if we couldn’t find one then we are to use Microsoft paint. (Ew.)

Well, I already had two websites lunapic and picnik I previously posted about that are online photo editors where you could do all kinds of nifty edits and special effects.

I decided to look up other free online/no download editors and I found two more fun sites for profile pics and what not.

Be on the cover of a magazine!

fakemagazinecover.com

Upload your photo and play with the Photo Trix.

fototrix.com

Photo Trix aren’t just for kids. Even grownups can have fun with these photo special effects.

These could be fun for

• Facebook
• Myspace
• Twitter Avatars
• Blogs
• Websites
• Fansites

Just thought I’d share. Have fun!

This is just a silly compilation of 27 of my favorite quotes. Just because. I am another year older, and none the wiser.

1. Most people care how much you know, until they know how much you care.
2. Real friends are people who know everything about you, but they love you anyway.
3. Love is nuts. ♥
4. Chances are, if you ever go online to check your email and it says “no new messages”, it will tell you the same thing even if you click on “check mail” again.
5. 80% of all questions are statements in disguise
6. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, or what you have. The energy you share at the moment you engage another person (or dog or cat, whatever) in conversation is the same energy that will be reciprocated back to you. So, try to keep it positive.
7. Confidence is sexy, over-confidence is scary.
8. Fear will keep you from reaching your potential. If you let it.
9. You can’t win em all, or you’d never learn anything.
10. To be highly successful is to think differently and do it better than anyone else.
11. You won’t “get back to it”, so take care of it as soon as it comes. (Yeah, I’m still totally working on that one.)
12. Don’t forget where you came from, and don’t deny it.
13. When you find yourself on a plateau, don’t just think you need to get off of it as quickly as possible. You may end up loosing ground instead of just taking one step at a time toward your goal.
14. There is no one in the world who can take your place in this life and fit.
15. Knowledge is power only if you can exchange it, interpret it, and keep it organized so that you can get to it as soon as you need it. 
16. Privacy is a myth.
17. Glitter is the herpes of arts and crafts. . . you’ll never get it off of your clothes, furniture, whatever. hehehe
18. Parenthood is the most thankless and difficult job you can imagine.
19. Parenthood is the most educational and fulfilling job you can imagine.
20. Living or at least bringing yourself into the present moment feels good.
21. Checklists are only useful if you plan to check every single item off.
22. When you tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said.
23. Life does not provide you with an “undo” or a “back” button.
24. Consistency and persistency make things happen.
25. Gratitude makes you happy.
26. “Less” is the new “more”.
27. And time, it really does fly when you’re having fun, or when you’re not. So, enjoy.

I’ll be honest, I never really watched the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. His humor was always kind of lame to me. When the Tonight Show was taken over by Conan O’Brien, I started tuning in 3 to 4 times a week. After seven months, NBC has made quite the devastating decision to return the Tonight Show back over to Jay Leno. Are they crazy!?!?! He thanked his staff who is

He used the last precious moments of his show to remind us all to lend a helping hand to Haiti.

1. Steve Carell (of NBC’’s “The Office”) came out to give him an exit interview and “shredded his employee ID”.
2. Tom Hanks came out and brought Conan a cup of scotch ( actually diet cream soda ) and reminisced about how he was the one who originally dubbed the Conan with the nickname: “Co Co”.
3. Neil Young came out to sing “Long May You Run” while he played guitar and harmonica.
4. Conan then said his closing piece of inspiration to his fans. He could have used this last moment to really slam NBC for their stupidity and unfairness, or anything he wanted. However, this is what he said:

“This massive outpouring of support and passion, from so many people, has been overwhelming for me. The rallies, the signs, all the goofy and outrageous creativity on the internet, the fact that people have traveled long distances to and camped out all night in the pouring rain . . . It’s pouring! . . . It’s been pouring for days! . . and they’re camping out to be in our audience. Really, you, here’s what all of you have done. You’ve made a sad situation joyous and inspirational. So to all the people watching ” he said with tear filled eyes. “I can never ever thank you enough for the kindness to me. I will think about it for the rest of my life, and all I ask is one thing. I am asking this particularly of young people that watch: Please do not be cynical, I hate cynicism. For the record, it’s my least favorite quality. It doesn’t lead anywhere.


Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get, but if you work really hard and if you’re kind, amazing things will happen.

I am telling you, amazing things will happen.” (The audience roars.) Conan shouts over the crowd, “I’m telling you, It’s just true.”

5. Will Ferrell came out and jammed with Conan. Will sang and played his cowbell, and Conan played a guitar and very well. They sang “If I leave here tomorrow / Would you still remember me?”
   

Conan said during the show that he had no regrets. I am pretty sure that Conan will be just fine. I can’t say the same for Jay Leno, in fact, I won’t be surprised to see the severe drop in viewers. Who knows anything?

Good Luck Conan! You hosted the best seven month show in the history of late night. Nice work.

On the “Late Night with Jimmie Fallon” Jimmie began his show in NBC studio 6A – Conan’s Old Studio – and sang a tribute to Conan,  “Its So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday”.  The Roots made a tribute to “team CoCo” as well.

Learn these search engine “tricks”, and you’ll save yourself some time! These shortcuts work on almost any search engine, but they definitely work for Google. This information is helpful for market research, office calculations, personal and people searches, file searches and website backlink lookups.

Filter Searches

For words that have multiple meanings read the following short article: narrow-down your search results.

Perform Calculations

Read this next linked short article for a better way to perform calculations in the Google search field

Specialized Search Tips

Click here for more great Google search tips from Jenny Gallaher including:

• Tracking flights
• Locating packages
• Movie showing times
• Finding files (e.g. PDF’s, Excel spreadsheets or even PowerPoint presentations)

and more! Jenny wrote the preceding articles; and kept them short, sweet, and to the point. I like how she never rambles. She’s one of the best time saving VA for sure!

BackLink Search Tips

Find how many websites are linking back to your website.

On Google search for:
[links:www.yourdomain.com]

On Bing & Yahoo search for:
links: www.yourdomain.com

This will simply give you more accurate results than simple doing a search on www.yourdomain.com.

Happy Searching!

In middle school and high school, I thought I had “dodged a bullet” by not having to deal with braces. Well, the thing was, I was presented the idea as an option by the orthodontist that I visited at 13, maybe 14. The truth was, my teeth were pretty straight. However, I had a cross-bite. Whenever you have any kind of issue like that, let me tell you right now. . . it’s going to get worse. As soon as your wisdom teeth start coming in, it will get worse.

Not many people turn 25 and get braces. I did. I have no idea why, but I let a dentist (that I really didn’t like) convince me that I had to get braces. (I was clenching my teeth as I slept and hurting my jaw.) When it’s over, I will probably be very grateful. So, here I am, 26, and next month I’ll be 27.  I think I may have them for 2 more months, and seriously I have had these braces for so long it feels like I haven’t really been able to smile with confidence in almost 2 years. I wasn’t nearly as self conscious with crooked teeth. I can’t wait to spend my 27th year without metal constantly cutting into the sides of my cheeks and spending forever and a day flossing. If I had gotten them when I was younger, then my teeth wouldn’t have needed them again. Not even after my wisdom teeth. Just maybe a retainer? I dunno.

The moral of the story:

If your kids have a need for braces. . . don’t let them avoid it. Make them get braces when they are younger, and their teeth aren’t already set in their ways! Besides, everyone looks goofy in during adolescence right? LOL! My daughter who is 7 1/2 already has her braces. And she LOVES them. Of course, it might just be because, mom has them so they must be cool right?

Whoever wrote this post about what they think of fan pages reminded me of an issue with

• fan pages
• webinars
• friending and adding requests
• and other fun social media activism campaigns.

The issue?

Forgetting who you’ve already invited, suggested, mentioned, or proposed to!

I am sad to say that I am guilty of this. As I was first setting up fan pages and started social media activism, I wasn’t documenting who I had already  “hit up” to join! This is BAD. Learn from my mistake, which luckily didn’t cost me any friends or anything, but I am sure I invited or suggested to my site to my friends more than once . :{ Sorry guys, I love you all for being so wonderfully patient!

Anyways, I deemed this inspiration worthy of a post and a mention and a warning.

Your friends and partners are all great people, and I am sure they are very supportive of you. However, when it comes to business:

“You can and should ask for their support once. If they are interested in joining, they will. When you ask repeatedly, that’s called nagging. “

To prevent myself from being a nag, I now keep lists of people I invite to any new event now. I make sure that whenever I send an auto invite, the invite once is checked. Now that I have more business associates online, I try to keep my friends out of it. (Except when I think it’s REALLY cool!)

I was browsing some websites during lunch today, and I happened across Chris Brogan’s newest blog post called: Soul of a New Business. Of course, Chris had some great incite on building new business. He has become quite the success story because of tools like social media and then writing an inspiring book about it called “Trust Agents” along with his partner in crime, Julien Smith.

It never ceases to amaze me how social networking really can make or break a business! These days, it’s all about reputation. So, if you are a new business, how do you compete? I found Chris’s business soul is a set of questions to ask yourself important to share. And I will at the bottom of this post. However, before that, I want to share a simple, yet most profound statement, from one of his commenters, Natalie of Stark Media. She said,

“Social media has done a great job of revealing which businesses prove helpful.”

Simple right? Well, sometimes you “know” something without every really communicating it effectively. And you know what? I can’t think of a better way to say this. In a nutshell, this is what makes social media really powerful. Even if you are a brand new business with no reputation, social media will give you the opportunity to actually be helpful. It’s the best way of advertisement there is!

Anyone can buy air time or ads in the yellow pages and say: “Hey! I can make your life better!” Right? Social media, when used correctly, will PROVE you are awesome.

Now, for Chris’s List of Business Soul Set of Questions to Ask Yourself:

• Would I want my mother or spouse to be marketed to the way I am marketing my business?
• Are the products I am selling something I’d give to my family?
• Are better/easier/more helpful ways of doing what I’m doing?
• Am I approaching my business relationships in a balanced way, or am I just sitting here chomping at the bit to sell ? (People can tell the difference.)
• At what price are my products and services worth?
• Am I giving real value? or am I  just selling?

I changed this list into first person and put it in a bullet list, but you will find them and thousands of helpful tips for social networking and “how this human business” at ChrisBrogan.com.