Day 109 - Goodbye 2010 - Hello 2011

Image: Filomena Scalise / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

On the road today, picking up family in San Diego. 

Wishing all my readers a

Very Happy New Year!

or

Feliz Anno Nuevo!

Day 108 - Do You Have Your Head in ‘The Cloud’?

What is ‘Cloud Computing’?
Cloud computing is an internet-based computing model. This is in stark contrast to the traditional model for computing where almost all processes take place on the user’s system. The cloud, a euphemism for the internet, will provide all the software used by your computer. Users will no longer be the owners of software but rather tenants paying a subscription to use them. In addition, all processing and related data will take place in ‘the cloud’ and not on the users personal computer.

Accolades have been building into a unanimous chorus and the general perception is that this new model for computing will save money on capital expenditures for hardware, software and services because users will only pay for what they use.

via beforeitsnews.com

There are real issues at stake here.

Not only are there questions about security. When we put all this data "out there somewhere" we no longer have to worry just about our personal computers and bank's databases being hacked but we also now have to be concerned about all our rights to privacy being dissolved at the whim of a bureaucrat.

Scary stuff but sad though it is, it is likely inevitable too. I already subscribed to at least one Cloud based software solution. Do you? Read the rest of this article if you don't have a clue what I am talking about, or even if you do.

Day 107 - One More Program

Image: Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Today I bought one more program that claims to be the solution necessary to finally start making money off my blogs.

I am only half way through the program so I won't share it with you yet but it turns out to really be a money maker, I'll let you know.

Day 106 - Five Easy Ways to Use Facebook to Promote Your Blog

Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

To Facebook or not to Facebook?

There seems to be three camps on the subject: those who won't have anything to do with Facebook, those who live on Facebook (gamers, farmers, frontier explorers, vampire killers and city dwellers), and those who see it as not only inevitable but also an excellent tool for occasional R&R, keeping in contact with friends, family AND promoting a business.

As bloggers, you likely fall into the third category.  

In previous years Squidoo was was the big thing.  If you wanted to bring readers to your blog you had to also post articles to Squidoo, Hubpages, and EzineArticles. These are still useful but have been outclassed by far by Facebook.  

Now the number one place to get seen is Facebook.  

It is no secret that Facebook has over 500 million users. Check out their stat page for yourself.  You will find:

• More than 500 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• Average user has 130 friends
• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

from Facebook

 

Here are 5 easy ways to use Facebook to promote your blog.

1. You can pay for a Facebook advertising (if you are flush).
2. You can create a Facebook page and invite your friends and family to "Like" your page.
3. You can create a Facebook Group and send invites to your friends on Facebook.
4. You can also add a Facebook widget to your blog to give your readers an opportunity to "Like" your page.
5. You can also add one of the numerous plugins available if you blog with Wordpress which will add a "promote" button to your blog posts.  These work not only with Facebook but also almost all the other social media sites too. 

What ever your choice, if traffic is your goal do not pass up this opportunity to put your blog in front of a half billion viewers. 

 

Day 105 - Mexico: Tourism is Actually Up!

Let’s put the statistics in perspective:

1) From May to November 2010, a period of only six months, there were 17,950 violent crimes reported in Los Angeles County. (http://projects.latimes.com/mapping-la/neighborhoods/violent-crime/neighborhood/list/) This works out to an average of 25.4 violent crimes per 100,000 people in L.A., compared with 17 per 100,000 people for Mexico. But if you remove the drug-related murders in Mexico, the rate decreases significantly. (http://www.bajainsider.com/baja-california-travel/mexico-travel-warning.htm).

2) Tijuana is one of the more dangerous Mexican cities but would be ranked in the lower third of large U.S. cities in terms of violent crime. Philadelphia, about the same size as Tijuana, has roughly the same crime statistics. New Orleans, the most dangerous city in the US, is about 3 times more dangerous than Tijuana. (http://www.bajainsider.com/baja-california-travel/mexico-travel-warning.htm)

via bajabanter.blogspot.com

Great article from Musings From Mexico... Another happy San Felipe resident like my husband and I.
So many times we hear the same questions and warnings from our stateside friends and family. Little do they realize how dangerous it is in their home towns.

Day 104 - You Want Us to Do What???

Image: Filomena Scalise / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So we start the day asking for guidance but sometimes when direction comes we stop dead in our tracks and say "You want us to do WHAT?"

Today is one of those days.

A day for more thought and less writing.

 

Day 103 - Christmas Day

Day 102 - Christmas Eve

Photographer: Filomena Scalise

Have a wonderful holiday all.

Day 101 - Maryhouse - Loaves & Fishes Sacramento

Maryhouse

(916) 446-4961

Maryhouse is a daytime hospitality shelter for homeless women and children. We provide personal attention to each woman to help her identify and take the next step. Women come to us in crisis; some receive short-term help while others might require help for a longer period of time.

This past year, 1,584 women and 978 children received services at Maryhouse.

Mothers suddenly faced with homelessness are often young, without family support of any kind, and often dealing with issues of domestic violence, mental illness, evictions and substance abuse. Maryhouse is often considered a place for starting over. We strive daily to create a safe, warm and comforting environment, just like a home should be.

With Maryhouse, The Hot Breakfast Meal program provides women and children a hot home-cooked breakfast each day. Early each morning community volunteers arrive to prepare the meal which consists of items such as French toast, pancakes or scrambled eggs along with oatmeal, fruit, cereal, juice, coffee and hot chocolate on cold days for the children. While guests are eating, crisis managers have the opportunity to assist newly arriving families in need of care and for teachers from another Loaves & Fishes program, Mustard Seed School (a school for homeless children), to enroll children for the day. Maryhouse collaborates with community organizations such as churches, businesses, and service clubs to provide the volunteers to serve the meal.

• Donate To Maryhouse

via sacloaves.org

Today we received a lovely "gift" from my husband's mother... she had donated to Mary House, Loaves and Fishes program on our behalf this year. We are thrilled that our "gift" will go to providing a safe, warm and comforting home to families who have suffered so much turmoil in their lives.

Thank you again Mom.. you are awesome!

Day 100 - Posting to a Selective Audience in Facebook

Day 99 - Give Locally - Give of Yourself

Photographer: posterize

Is there someone you know down the street or nearby that has been out of work for sometime?  Do you hesitate to offer help because you don't want to embarrass them?  Why not invite them to dinner?  Send them home with a "Christmas box" that you make for just such occasions.  After all it is the Season.

Do you have more time them money?  Volunteer at the local food bank or soup kitchen for a day.

If your sympathies lie more with four-legged creatures, help out has the animal shelter or sponsor a trip to vet for someone who can't afford it or help out during the next free clinic.

Look around you, there are hundreds of ways to share the love.

Pass it on.

Day 98 - Kiva - Loans that change lives

I think Kiva is the coolest organization. It is a place where your contribution, no matter how small can go to help other people help themselves. This organization takes your donation and loans it to people who need money to get started in a business that will in the long run support their families.
One of the unique features of Kiva is that the money is a loan and when they pay it back, you can get your money back or "reinvest" it in another family's entreprise.
It is the gift that just keep on giving.

How Kiva Works from Kiva Microfunds on Vimeo.

Day 97 - Marine Toys for Tots Foundation

12/7/2010	Hello Kitty Online Players in Virtual World to Generate Real-World Donations to Toys for Tots
	read more >
11/8/2010	Troon Golf Teams Up With Toys for Tots Brigning Hope to Disadvantaged Children
	read more >
10/28/2010	The Hollywood Christmas Parade Benefiting Marine Toys for Tots on December 10
	read more >
10/25/2010	ToysRUs Spreads Christmas Cheer to Millions of Children in Need by Serving As The Holiday Giving Headquarters for Toys for Tots
	read more >
10/20/2009	Drawing From Three Children From Virginia to be Featured on Holiday Greeting Card to Benefit Toys for Tots
	read more >

via toysfortots.org

Although I think you are too late to get involved with the Christmas drive it has always been a great way to brighten a child's life.

Day 96 - Oprah's Top 8 Great Charities

Photographer: Filomena Scalise

For $100, you could give Aunt Hilda a nice scarf...or you could give her a $50 scarf and send $50 to protect five African families from malaria. Feels better, doesn't it?

 

Maybe you're fed up with holiday consumerism. Or maybe you're fed up with anti-consumer holiday purism. Whichever side of the to-buy-or-not-to-buy debate you favor, this year we encourage you to straddle the fence and adopt what Gregg Easterbrook, author of The Progress Paradox, calls the "half and half" holiday. The idea: For every dollar you spend on a gift, donate an equal amount to charity. Or, for every real gift you purchase, contribute the same amount to a group that champions the recipient's favorite cause. "Half as much is actually twice as good," says Easterbrook, who's been practicing the principle with his family since 2001. "We don't sacrifice the gifts, but we have more of a sense of fulfillment and the spiritual meaning of the holidays."

 

read the read of Penny Wrenn's article on oprah.com

This article was first published in 2007. How many folks took it to heart and change their holiday traditions and started giving to those in need?

Day 95 - World Vision

World Vision

This is one of my favorite ways for passing on the blessing.  You can do a one time give or contribute monthly to help a child receive regular medical check ups and educational needs.

Day 94 - A Gift of Water

Click here to learn how to contribute to MyCharityWater

Here's another great project for holiday giving. Chuck and I help the local food bank deliver clean drinking water to families here in San Felipe who likely would not have it otherwise, so we support this project which is working to eleviate the critical need for good wells in remote areas.

I hope in time to win over all those wonderful people who want to do something nice for us during to the holidays to do it for these folks instead. We have so much, they have so little in other places.

Day 93 - Gratitude and Giving

via donorschoose.org

About DonorsChoose.org

DonorsChoose.org is an online charity that makes it easy for anyone to help students in need. Here's how it works: public school teachers from every corner of America post classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org. Requests range from pencils for a poetry writing unit, to violins for a school recital, to microscope slides for a biology class. Then, you can browse project requests and give any amount to the one that inspires you. Once a project reaches its funding goal, we deliver the materials to the school. You'll get photos of your project taking place, a thank-you letter from the teacher, and a cost report showing how each dollar was spent. If you give over $100, you'll also receive hand-written thank-you letters from the students. At DonorsChoose.org, you can give as little as $1 and get the same level of choice, transparency, and feedback that is traditionally reserved for someone who gives millions. We call it citizen philanthropy.

In the Spirit of Christmas and all the other holidays, I have decided to devote the rest of the month to organizations that are centered on giving.

Several years ago I put a moratorium on Christmas presents in my family. I asked my family to donate their time or money to a worthy cause instead of buying me a present. Although this hasn't worked with everyone in the family, last year my favorite gift was a box of backpacks filled with school supplies that my daughter, son-in-law and grandson had assembled for me to take to Mexico for the children who were in need of such things.

The year before they contributed to the purchase of a goat for a family in another country. A goat would not only provide milk and cheese for the family but bear other goats for other families.

We have so much, how much more will that $10, $20 or ? mean to those who have nothing?

Some folks object to sending aid to other parts of the world when there are needs nearer to home. If that is where your feelings lie, DonorsChoose would be an excellent opportunity for you to help a teacher in a school in your very own home town.  You can pick the town, the school and of course the project you want to support.  You will also get a thank you from the class when the project has been completed.

Day 92 - Missed again

Oops

Day 91 - Gawker breach brings security to the forefront of our minds

This weekend's breach of Gawker has readers of the blogging empire's Web sites scrambling to see if their e-mail addresses have been publicly exposed, but even people who don't use the site can learn lessons from what happened.

What happened?
The Web site and back-end database of Gawker was published on the Pirate Bay Bit Torrent site on Sunday. It included Gawker source code, information about a possible site redesign, instant messages between employees, and about 1.3 million user account passwords, usernames, and e-mail addresses. While they were encrypted using DES (Data Encryption Standard), simple passwords may be vulnerable to a brute force attack.

read the rest of the article at news.cnet.com

Something like this a good reminder that we are supposed to change our passwords frequently!

Day 90 - Social Media and Blogging - Do I Have To Join Facebook?

Photographer: Idea go

The answer is no, not if you are just blogging for your own personal enjoyment.  However, if you have any financial aspirations related to your blog, becoming involved with Facebook is not only recommended but probably required.  

Let's face it (pun intended), Facebook is BIG.  I read recently that it has over 500 Million users (that's like 1 1/2 times the population of the USA) and that people spend 700 Billion minutes a month on Facebook.  I don't think it can be ignored or written off as a passing fad.

The more important question is what part should Facebook play in my blogging endeavors?

To learn how to do it right, I suggest you sign up for Ed Dale's free webinar on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 5:15 PM - 6:15 PM EST

Sign up now for Facebook Webinar

Ed has evoked the 'Gamechanger' phrase and he doesn't do that lightly.

In case you missed it... that says this webinar is FREE.

I'll be there, will you?

 

Day 89 - Two Sisters and a Kitchen: Let it Snow ~ Let it Snow ~ Let it Snow

Waking up this morning we were so excited to see snow on the ground! I know most of you do not like the snow but I really enjoy all 4 seasons that Ohio has to offer us. We are so lucky to be able to see the seasons change. There are only 18 days till Christmas ~ The kids are so excite, and I am too.

via twosistersandakitchen.blogspot.com

One of the great benefits of blogging is that every once in a while you get to promote a friend for family member's web site. Today, I am taking advantage of that opportunity.

The Two Sisters and a Kitchen Blog was started eight months ago by my second cousins from Cleveland, Kelly and Erin. I am not much a cook but I love to eat that these dishes look scrumptious.

Nice work ladies!

Kelly and Erin are a great example of blogging about what you do and love!

Day 88 - Julie & Julia Inspire Another Project

Day 10.

Thanks to yesterday's Huffington Post mention, along with some new articles on Jezebel and MSNBC (Wait, what's a legitimate news outlet doing on here?), my fickle internet fame has increased tenfold. And because I apparently have readers now, that means I get reader comments--weird, I know.

via lawrenceandjulieandjulia.blogspot.com

Lawrence Dai is only on Day 10 of his trek, yet he has managed to get mentioned in both the Huffington Post and MSNBC. How is that for the luck of the draw?

It might be an interesting project to see how many blogs were inspired by "Julie and Julia".

Day 87 -Off Topic But On the Mark: John Lennon or Keith Green - Who's Revolution Made the Biggest Change in Your LIfe??

I know. I know. Baby-boomers are still in power so the rest of us have to endure an entire week of blathering about how great John Lennon was. Fortunately there's TiVo. Certainly he deserves credit for, if nothing else, writing an amazing song like Woman, but every time I hear an aging Boomer reminisce about world peace and anti-materialism I remember Paul's words: "Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.'"

When I think of the life and premature death of a musician who really rejected materialism and was for all practical purposes the Godfather of the Napster Generation I fast-forward a year and a half to July 28, 1982 to the also untimely death of another musical genius named Keith Green.

At around the time Lennon was trading religious correspondence with Televangelist Oral Roberts and calling into Pat Robertson's 700 Club hotline to talk to a prayer counselor, Green, a child prodigy who was the youngest ASCAP writer in history and who signed to Decca Records at the age of 11, was also finding God, but Green's spiritual odyssey produced a far more interesting brand of counter-culturalism: Green and his wife and friends so embraced their newfound faith that they left L.A. for Texas, set up a commune-type lifestyle, begged out of his record deal and did the unthinkable: began giving away his records to his fans in exchange for whatever they could afford to pay. Green's album "So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt," which featured a harmonica solo by his pal Bob Dylan shipped 200,000 units, 61,000 of them for free.

Now there's a revolution

via huffingtonpost.com

Definitely Keith Green in my book.

The Beatles may have influenced my teens, but Keith's ministry changed my life and continue to reignite the cooling embers each time I hear his songs.

Day 86 - - Does Pretty Link Still Work? Sure if you Pay for IT.

This morning Pretty Link disappeared from the WordPress.org plugin repository because it didn’t comply with a new, apparently undocumented policy that doesn’t allow plugins to cloak links. Pretty Link wasn’t the only plugin affected by this policy change, wordpress.org removed all plugins from the repository that allowed users to cloak links.

I’ve been working with the guys at wordpress.org this morning to get Pretty Link back on the repository. The only way to do this was to remove link cloaking, pretty bar and pixel tracking from the Pretty Link Lite versions 1.4.51 and beyond.

How will this change affect me?

Here are the facts you need to know about this significant change:

1. Pretty Link Pro users will NOT be affected by this change. If you’re a pro user your cloaked, prettybar, and pixel links will continue to function as they have in the past. Since Pretty Link Pro is actually a separate plugin not hosted on the wordpress.org plugin repository it is immune from this policy change.
2. What good is the lite version of Pretty Link without cloaking? The lite version of Pretty Link that’s on the wordpress repository will still be able to do temporary (307) and permanent (301) redirects … so if you don’t use cloaking, the prettybar or pixel redirects then you won’t be impacted by this change at all. All of the other Pretty Link features such as tracking, parameter forwarding, groups, nofollow/noindex, etc are all still there and still work great.
3. What will happen to prettybar, cloaked and pixel links? If you are a Pretty Link Pro user or upgrade to Pretty Link Pro then your prettybar, cloaked and pixel links will continue to function normally. Otherwise, these links will start using Temporary Redirects … your links will still work but won’t be cloaked.
4. Help Me! I just upgraded to Pretty Link 1.4.51 and now none of my links are cloaked anymore! Good news, if you upgrade to Pretty Link Pro today then these links will continue working as they always have. Its a pretty simple process to purchase and install Pretty Link Pro — so you’ll be back in business fast.

I’m really sorry about this change — I always hate removing features like this … but in this case it was necessary to keep Pretty Link on the WordPress.org repository. If you have any issues upgrading or questions feel free to drop a note on my Contact page.

Blair Williams has been working as a Software Engineer and Internet Marketer for over a decade. He specializes in writing and leveraging Software drive explosive growth in Businesses of all sizes. He's an expert in WordPress, Ruby on Rails, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) Marketing, Website Strategy and New Media.

Blair is the author of the Pretty Link, Mingle & several other plugins for WordPress. Between them, Blair's plugins have been downloaded almost 200,000 times and are some of the most popular plugins for WordPress. In addition to these plugins, Blair has created Pretty Link Pro which is a premium upgrade to Pretty Link and provides a ton of useful features and premium support.

via blairwilliams.com

This morning my attention was called back to the importance of using Wordpress plugins to optimize your blog and gain traffic. One of the the plugins recommend was Pretty LInk. Now I am not new to Pretty Link and the site I was working on already had Pretty Link installed and activated but when I went to the admin section of the site I discovered that Pretty Link was no longer performing the same function it had when I first installed it.

Originally Pretty Link not only redirected traffic but also cloaked the page so that your domain and page name would show on the new page.

New rules from Wordpress.org has made that unacceptable (unless you have paid for the Premium Version of Pretty Link) so even though the page will continue to redirect and work as a shortened URL for you, it no longer cloaks the landing page.

My question is: Why is it that the PAID version can continue to provide cloaking?

Day 85 - Google Announces the Launch of eBooks - Weiner Calls It a Big Deal!

Photographer: jscreationzs

Google announced the launch of eBooks in the US on Monday night. The UK launch is expected imminently. Google eBooks, previously known as Google Editions, is the first "media in the cloud" provider. Customers can buy an ebook and read it on any device through Google's Web Reader. It can work on computers, Android and Apple devices and e-readers, although not Amazon's Kindle. It will offer more than three million titles, with "hundreds of thousands" available for sale.

Allen Weiner, an analyst at Gartner, said Google's move into digital publishing "is a big deal. On first look there is the significant impact on rivals". James McQuivey at Forrester Research said Google's service would not be able to compete against Amazon, but could take on other digital book stores, such as Barnes & Noble.

via independent.co.uk

Everybody is talking about it and asking what will this mean to the publishing world? Amazon is striking back with their launch of Kindle for the web. The big question is how will this impact the Internet Marketers who are putting out their own ebooks. Some say it wil be a blessing. Bill McIntosh featured this topic on his Tuesday night broadcast.

Day 84 - Looking Ahead

Day 83 - Experimenting - Comments on How Obama Raised $60 Million with a Simple Experiment

A few weeks ago President Obama visited Palo Alto to raise money the good ol' fashioned way: a $30,400-per-plate fundraising dinner. This tried and true fundraising technique is a great way to raise money if you can get the President of the United States to show up to dinner. But how can you raise money if no one has heard of you and all you have is a website? Back in 2007, when Obama was running for the nomination and trailing by double digits in the polls, that's pretty much all we had.

via blog.optimizely.com

There is a lesson here but I must admit that the application is beyond my current experience. I know that we are suppose to track traffic. I do that with Google Analytics. I have been pleasantly surprised by recent growth on one of my blogs, yet I don't know how to set up a blog to display differently for random viewers.

Yes, I have seen this explained in the past, however, it was at a time when I was not ready to put it into action so I did not absorb it. I may have taken notes but I can't find them. So today I am putting this on the todo list for the coming week.

I have phone meeting with Bill McIntosh on Wednesday. I won a great prize in his recent ContestBurner contest that includes personal consulting services by Bill himself for promoting my business. This would be a good one to ad this to my list of questions.

Day 82 - How Many Mistakes Does It Take to Undermine Your Good Name?

Photographer: Chris Sharp

You may have noticed that I missed another day in my personal challenge to post to this site daily for an entire year.  I honestly haven't been counting but I think that may be my fourth absence.  So how many days off does it take to negate the whole project?  I am sure opinions would very widely from the purist who would say that even one day makes it a total failure to those who would be more tolerant and accept a day off here and there.

Personally, I think that since this is a journal like publication, it is likely there will be days on and days off in most peoples' lives.  The important elements in my book is honesty and perseverance.  If I keeping working at it I will get to the end and I can only guaranty that I will have accomplished more if I continue, than if I quit.

Yet I do think I owe you my readers some explanation if not an excuse for missed days.

One of the other projects on my plate is learning to use and promote ComF5, a communications package that I became enamored with in October.   I will be using the live broadcast tools included in it to put together a Overeaters Anonymous Online 12 Step Meeting, which will start in January, 2011.  As I have not yet been through the OA 12 step program myself, I spent yesterday reading up on the history and organizational structure of this program.

Then I decided it would be good if I got a head start on the 12 Steps before starting the live meeting, so yesterday was my Day 1 in the OA program.  I worked through Step 1 in the 12 Step Workbook, which took about an hour.

One of the precepts of OA, like all of the 12 Step programs is anonymity so the actual meeting will be a first name only thing but my life is pretty much an open book so my personal involvement is not going to be a secret.

So now you know.

I am a bit concerned that adding this program may be stretching myself too far but this is necessary to maintain my good health so it can't be avoided or put off any longer and my 100 Day Challenge will be complete by the time I start the actual live meetings.

Speaking of good health, I forgot to mention that I am also participating in a 21 Days To a New Mindset program conducted by Christina Hood.  The goal of this live daily broadcast is to set new habits that will promote better health choices through the holiday season.

Day 81 - Forget Something?

Photographer: scottchan

Why is it that when I get into studying something I forget to write?  Sorry folks, I missed another day.

Day 80 - Back to Work ... Inserting Youtube in Your WP Blog Made Easy

Here's a great video tip from Stacia Hopkins. I like it!

Day 79 - A Day of Celebration

Photographer: Salvatore Vuono

I haven't worked on my birthday in years... not going to break tradition now.

See you tomorrow folks.