ITM ServShop

This post is for all you bloggers out there.  I know that many of us do it for fun, for therapy, or just to do it.  If you’re going to blog anyway, why not make a little money from it?  Read on, because I have found a great way for us to do what we enjoy and make a little dough in the process.

Let’s face it, starting and running a blog is tough! That is, if you want to do it the right way, the spam-free way. There’s just SO MUCH to know.

You can’t “just write good content” and expect to be successful. You’ve got to know about search engines, about social media, about traffic, about how to turn your blog into a money making machine, and the list is seemingly endless.

There’s no doubt, it’s probably the most difficult lesson for any aspiring blogger to learn.

However, the biggest problem is that most books on the subject are filled with outdated advice that might have worked at some point in the past, but are practically useless these days (I’m not naming names here). And the new stuff is either so inaccurate or so complicated that it makes your head spin.

That’s why I was really excited when my friend Ken told me about Blogging in Action. Talk about a breath of fresh air! I’ve heard of the author before, as his advice has been the secret resource behind a number of successes over the past few years. And let me tell you, this book delivers.

It’s got some eye-opening ah-ha’s and is packed with solid, no fluff advice. This is the same advice that until recently was only available to those with fat wallets.

The newly released Blogging in Action is the easiest way for any aspiring blogger, whether they are a total newbie or an experienced pro, to take their blogs to the next level. This is the only blogging book you will ever need! You’ll understand when you see this package, it’s HUGE!

Look, we all know that blogging is quickly becoming one of the things that MUST be done to make any business successful. I’m not talking about just any blogs, but solid blogs. This package will take you by the hand, and show you exactly how you can easily create a respected, profitable blog.

Get it while you can, I did!

Like to take pictures? Have a Flickr account or some other depository where you put all those home grown photographs you’ve been accumulating? Want to make a little extra case with them? You can. All you need is a little information, a few tips, and a small bag of tricks.

It used to work this way: Graphic and web designers would buy expensive packages of stock photos and they would use whatever images they had available – but now with the explosion of digital cameras and the ease of photo distribution, companies want more options – and PHOTO SITES JUST CAN’T KEEP UP!

Today, companies need more variety to choose from, so they can develop stronger brands and enhance their unique selling proposition (USP).

They spend a slue of time searching for photographs with just the right touch; photos with something unique that makes them stand apart from their competitors.

And today, photography sites are franticly searching for people (just like you and me) to upload whatever photos they can get their hands on …

… Because they know that image buyers are first attracted to websites that have hoards of pictures – however, once they find someone who understands their unique needs, they’ll stick to them like glue.

So to grow their websites as FAST as possible, photography sites are offering unheard of commissions – some as high as a 60% for each photo sold. It’s amazing!

But what’s even better is that with all the graphic enhancing software and the cropping capabilities available, you don’t have to submit award-winning photos, or need to invest in any expensive machinery.

When you know what photos are selling like hotcakes, all you need is a trigger-happy camera finger.

Think about it: To attract image buyers; photography websites need hoards of pictures – right? But to keep buyers coming back, they also need a constant stream of high-demand pictures too.

And your photos won’t be ideal for everyone – however with a bunch of people taking just the right shots, you;ll keep customers hooked and coming back for more.

Plus, someone also figured out which photography websites are the best to work with. They’ve analyzed these sites, scrutinized the commission structure, compared the top sellers, and created an easy to follow winning formula that works each and every time.

You already have what it takes to do exactly what they’re doing. Heck, they’re no different than you. They’re no better!

Why spend a month or two researching all this on your own? Sure, in the end you’ll probably know who to work with and what type of pictures to take too, but why reinvent the wheel. It’s a waste of time!

There’s no better time to start a photography business than right NOW! It’s an income-boosting magnet!

If you want to take a look, then go to this site for the information you need to get rolling! It’s never too late to start. Especially if you have a slew of photos just sitting on your hard drive or memory card doing nothing.

Here’s the link. Get started making money today!

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys.  When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.  It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter.  How do you like it?  They have come out with some clever new flavorings.

DO YOU KNOW.. the difference between margarine and butter? 

Read on to the end…gets very interesting!

1. Both have the same amount of calories.
2. Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at grams compared to 5 grams.
3. Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
4. Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
5. Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few only because they are added!
6. Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.
7. Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

And now, for Margarine…

1. Very high in trans fatty acids.
2. Triple risk of coronary heart disease.
   Increases total cholesterol
   and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)
3. Increases the risk of cancers up to five times the normal risk. 
4. Lowers quality of breast milk.
5. Decreases immune response.
6. Decreases insulin response.
7. And here’s the most disturbing fact…. HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERy INTERESTING!
8. Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC!!!

This fact alone was enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).  

Try this test yourself:

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area.  Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things:

• No flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)
• It does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value; nothing will grow on it.  Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow.  Why?  Because it is nearly plastic.  Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast? 

Share This With Your Friends….. (If you want to ‘butter them up’)!

My wife emailed this to me today.  Since I work part-time at the Mega-Mart, she thought that it would interest me.  By the way, this may be cute and stuff but talk to any Greeter and they have tons of similar tales to tell!

A very loud, unattractive, mean-acting woman walked into Wal-Mart with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.

The Wal-Mart Greeter said pleasantly, “Good morning, and welcome to Wal-Mart.  Nice children you have there. Are they twins?”

The woman stopped yelling long enough to say, “Hell no they ain’t!  The oldest one’s 9 and the other one’s 7.

 Why the hell would you think they’re twins? Are you blind, or just stupid?”

“I’m neither blind nor stupid, Ma’am ,” replied the greeter. “I just couldn’t believe someone would sleep with you twice.

   Have a good day and thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart.

Hi Folks..  Randy here…

I’ve been trying to learn CSS.  For those who don’t do much HTML coding, it the method for styling your pages.  Colors, borders, widths, and so forth, can be individualized within the CSS stylesheet.  Anyhow, it’s been a bear for me to learn ( you know… Old Dogs & New Tricks ).  I’ve gone to W3C’s website and studied their tutorial, which is great, but I never found a great coding aid until recently.

I’ve used Dreamweaver© for years and loved it.  I still do.  But for working with both page views and stylesheets it leaves something to be desired.  I’ve used Programmer’s Notepad; another great tool.  I love it too, but I needed an app that helped me with the blank spaces in my CSS knowledge mental database.

Here’s what I found.  It’s called Aptana Studio 1.1.  It’s free… repeat FREE…. for the Community Edition.  That’s what I downloaded.  There is a Pro Edition.  There is a price on that one and if you choose you can upgrade from within the Community Edition.  The blurb below is from their website.

Aptana Studio is a powerful, free and open source Ajax development environment which runs stand-alone or within Eclipse. With over 2,000,000 downloads to date, thousands of developers a day are discovering why Aptana Studio is now the leading choice of web professionals everywhere. Why? Aptana Studio offers unparalleled tooling for Ajax including HTML, CSS, DOM, and JavaScript editing and debugging, plus support via additional free plugins for PHP, Ruby on Rails, Adobe AIR, Apple iPhone development.

Here’s what I like about it.  You can work on your page view and your stylesheet at the same time.  Not only will Aptana Studio validate your CSS on the fly but help with your HTML syntax on the page view.  It lets you view your work in both Firefox© and in IE© without leaving the program.  I actually checked how accurate this feature was by openning the same view in both IE© and Firefox© browsers and compared the output with the internal view.  They matched!

What I like most about Aptana Studio is their CSS editor.  I don’t know about you but I don’t code every day.  So I need a little help remembering the values of the properties I’m trying to use.  I can remember properties like ‘width’ and the values for ‘width’ but some of the other properties I don’t use so much.  Ergo, I need a mental push.  Aptana Studio does that for me.  Just type in a property and it shows you all the values available that you can use.  Neat huh!

Aptana Studio also has plugins for PHP, Ruby on Rails, Adobe© Air, and iPhone©/iPod© Touch development.  Cool!  The PHP was the only plugin that I needed for now.  I’ll play with the others later.

For those who care, Aptana Studio has Ajax tools build in.  It comes with their Aptana Jaxer Server integrated into the application so that development of end-to-end Ajax applications requires no further installations or server setup.  It works with most of the Ajax libraries.

Bottom line… This is a great tool for anyone who needs to code or style their webpages.  Two thumbs up for the Aptana crew for this one.  It gets five stars from me.

Hi Folks.. Randy here…

I got this in an email from Joe Jr. who is a cousin of mine.  We have a family newsletter and he sends me stuff of interest.  This time I thought that the subject was to important not to share with everyone.

His email follows….
 

Blood Clots/Stroke – They Now Have a Fourth Indicator, the Tongue.

Early treatment of stroke can minimize damage and aid in quicker recovery time.

Stroke

 
STROKE: Remember the 1st Three Letters…. S.T.R.
My nurse friend sent this and encouraged me to post it and spread the word  I agree.

If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some folks.
Seriously..

Please read:

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:

During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall – she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) ….she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food.  While she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.

Ingrid’s husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital – (at 6:00 pm Ingrid passed away.)  She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today.  Some don’t die…. they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.

It only takes a minute to read this…

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke… totally.  He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Thank God for the sense to remember the ‘3′ steps, STR.  Read and Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster.  The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.  Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

1. S * Ask the individual to SMILE.
2. T * Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently) ( i.e. It is sunny out today)
3. R * Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call 999/911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue

NOTE:  Another ’sign’ of a stroke is this:  Ask the person to ’stick’ out his tongue..If the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other , that is also an indication of a stroke.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to
10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

Hi Folks… Randy here..

My sweet wife Sherri forwarded this video to me and I wanted to share it with you all.   This has to be the coolest choir presentation yet.  I don’t know from whence they are from or from which group they belong.  I just appreciate creativity when I see it.

No matter what religio-philosophical entity you belong, this is just darn cool!  Kudos to the anonymous crew that produced this goodie!

Hello bloggers… Randy here..

I decided to upgrade my 2 year old version of WordPress© yesterday.  I started through the whole back up your blog and database routine.  I thought that there had to be a better solution.  Not that my skills weren’t up to it.  It’s just a matter of why do something longhand when someone out there has a nifty solution for the problem/issue.

I poked around the WordPress© upgrade info webpage and found that nifty solution.  It’s a plugin called the WordPress Automatic Update .  This thing works GREAT!  The instructions are simple.  You don’t even have to disable your existing plugins.  It backs up your files and database.  Allows you to download them to your local machine and then upgrades to the latest version of WordPress©.  In my case that was V 2.6.

I’m sure that you could possibly screw it up somehow.  But if you follow the instructions and the screen prompts your outcome will be golden.  It seems idiot proof.

If you’re contemplating an upgrade to your WordPress© blog, then this is the plugin for you.  It’s a gem.  Visit the Techie Buzz website for the complete scoop on the plugin and the download.  It’s one of those plugins that you would be grateful to pay for, so give them a donation.

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