I just happened to glance at a post by Ezinearticles about the recent google algorithm change. I wasnt even aware of a change, and actually try to stay away from that kind of stuff because getting things done is usually more important to me than looking at the news.

So a low down of the change and how Ezine Articles is affected and what they are doing about it.

Google announced a change to its algorithm in the last few days that sent Ezine scrambling basically. Ezine saw a 10% traffic drop the day of the change, and a 30% change the next day, so Ezine is expecting traffic to drop about 50% the coming month. Could you imagine your million dollar business’s revenue getting cut in half overnight. It sure would suck.  Anyway, the algorithm change was at least partially pointed at content farms, and low quality sites, and it appears Ezine has been put into this category, even though they do have some of the better content out there.

Now Ezine is scrambling to be recognized as a good content provider, and will be implementing new rules to make it harder to get articles approved in Ezine.  A couple of the things that caught my eye were that they may be raising the minimum word count for articles form 250 words to 400 words as a minimum.  Ezine is also changing its approval algorithm, and will be approving about 20% less articles.  And the big one is that they plan on using nofollow links in the resource boxes for now on.

I’m not sure how how much this will change things, but know that ezine is a great way to get instant traffic, and to help get backlinks to your site.  I am assuming you will still get google to crawl your site shortly after posting an ezine article, but the link will not carry near as much weight at is used to.

It seems like a constant battle finding a good premium wordpress theme. There are quite a few out there, but some have way too many options in the admin area, which make them load slowly, and we know neither google nor the reader likes a slow loading page. Some themes are not supported well with eminent wordpress upgrades either, which can leave you with a broken theme down the road. Solostream has quite a few designs available to choose from, and the admin area of the theme is pretty straight forward. The WP-Clear theme, which is one I have purchased, is integrated with a featured area, which automatically pulls the information from posts that you put in the featured category. It also pulls images from your post to put thumbnails at the top, and next to each blurb on the front page. The clear theme also has a few built in advertising spots, so monetizing your site is simple. To check out a demo of and of the themes Solostream has to offer, you can check them out at solostream.com. You will notice that the staff at solostream is very responsive to sales inquiries as well as installation support.

As you know it is pretty nice to be able to track what happens on your site with Google Analytics. I use Google Analytics almost daily to glance at traffic stats. I also check to see where my traffic is coming from. Is it organic from Google or direct traffic, or is it coming from a link on another site.

These are important things to know about your traffic, but you also need to know how long they are staying on your site, and what link they clicked on to exit the site. This is a feature analytics doesn’t track out of the box, but it can with a small tweak.

By adding a snippet of code to the outgoing link, Google analytics will report when that link gets clicked. Just keep in mind since Google analytics has been updated, the code for the most recent tracking software is different than the legacy software.

If you are running the legacy urchin code, then you can make your link look like this.

<a href="http://www.example.com" onClick="javascript:urchinTracker('/outgoing/example.com');">

The outgoing/example.com is your place to put a reference to what link is being tracked. If you are tracking more than one link on your website, you will want to make each one unique so you tell which link was clicked. The new code is a little more advanced, and requires more instruction, which can be found here .

Most often it is hard to stay motivated and on task. A lot of this is due to not having either enough of a want for extra money/change in lifestyle, or not having the need to make a change. For me, I have a decent job that pays the bills, live in a decent house, and have time to do things I like. It’s not what I want in life, but I can’t complain. But, I do want much more, and have much bigger dreams. I know how to reach these goals, but usually have a hard time finding the motivation to stay focused and on course. I’m not a starving person in a third world country; therefore I don’t really have a terrible situation I need to escape.

Lacking the motivation to work hard and diligently often leaves me short of my goals. This seems to be very common among the internet marketing community, and is in my opinion one of the hardest things to overcome. Finding the knowledge on how to make money on the internet is all over the place, but taking action, and continuously moving toward that one goal is different from reading a book.

Taking action and being accountable is really all on you, to do on your own.

Today I was balancing the checkbook so to say, and after crunching the numbers, I found that I needed more money in my account, or some upcoming transactions would not be able to take place. I’m not talking about just paying the cell phone bill or cable bill, but more like being able to pay the mortgage on one of the rental houses. This sort of set me into a panic, or stress mode, and set me looking for alternatives. Should I put all of the bills on the credit card (all of which are paid off, and trying to keep that way) and leave cash in my account for the bills that can’t be put on the credit card, do i pull money from savings…etc. I had a few options available, and quite a few places to pull money from, but the fact was that my bills were more than my regular income this month, and it was kind of stressful. I hate being in the situation.

I realized this stress really put some pressure on me to get my online business producing more. This stress isn’t fun to deal with, but I am the one who put myself into the situation. I put a decent amount into 401k and savings each month, which could easily cover things like this, and make things easier now. So it’s not like I can’t get out of my situation, but it actually helped motivate me.

I could decide to cut back on a couple luxury bills, or skimp here and there to save money, and maybe put in some overtime, or put less into savings, which would make living today easier and less worrisome, but putting the pressure on myself is actually quite helpful.

Putting pressure on yourself to make a change is often what is needed to get out of the daily grind. Put some pressure on yourself, set goals that scare you a little. Put more money into savings than usual to force money from another source. Get out of your comfort zone, and things will happen. Leaving your comfort zone will exercise your brain, and get you thinking again. As Tim Ferriss says, what we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.

After getting my Netbook, I needed to get an internet connection while at work to allow me to do “my stuff” on my lunch break. So the options available were either getting a USB card and signing up through ATT for service, or some other provider, or using my iPhone to tether to my Netbook. After doing a little looking around I saw that the tether option wasn’t even officially available for the iPhone, and a wireless 3G card would be about $60 per month, and probably require some contract. For $60 per month, it would still be worth it, but I had been looking forward to the $40 option with tethering my phone.

So while feeling unmotivated and unproductive, I started looking around for more information about tethering my iPhone, since I knew it was possible if the phone was hacked. I stumbled across some information about a blackra1n hack that looked pretty simple and straightforward. I decided to back up my phone, and give it a try. Seemed like at worst, I would just have to restore my phone. After following the simple instructions, doing a couple reboots of the phone, viola, it was tethering via bluetooth to my Netbook. Awesome! The speed is pretty good. I was able to download iTunes which is 100 meg at about 60kps. Not too bad. I did have a hard time tethering the phone through the cable though. But after doing some reading, I found that you need to have iTunes installed so the computer will see the device as a modem, therefore letting you use it to connect with.

I very happy with the outcome, and because of the simplicity, I have even recommended others to hack their iPhone. I think to unhack it, all i have to do is a restore from iTunes. Still investigating that, just in case I need to, but all is good for now, and my phone operates exactly as it did before the jailbreak, except for the added features of course.

Here is the link to the directions I followed to jailbreak my iPhone with blackra1n.

I recently started a new day job, which I am happier at, but I am able to do less of Internet Marketing. Computer access at work now is very limited, making it hard to use my lunch hour effectively. This time of day is one of my more productive times, as I’m not burned out like I often am after work in the evenings.

To get this time back, I have invested in a Netbook (small laptop). I have been wanting one for a while, just because its a gadget, and its pretty cool, but really didn’t have a reason, and not traveling much, dwindled the little reason I did have. After doing some thinking of how to make use of my lunch hour, I came to the conclusion that a netbook with a Cellular Data connection will be worth the price of a monthly data connection. Although its hard to sign up for another re-occurring monthly bill, it doesn’t take much work to be able to re-gain the cost of the monthly bill.

I started looking at a mac laptop at first, since I really like their PowerPoint software, and some other apple features. After a very quick glance though, the starting price tag of $999, I got scared off pretty quick. After doing some more poking around at laptops, I found refurbished Netbooks going for $200. This is the price range I like, and it didn’t take me long to do the math. Even if it didn’t work out very well, $200 for a computer is a pretty good deal.

I went with the Asus Eee 1000 with a 40gb solid state Hdd. All of the features are pretty similar of the netbook family. One of the biggest differences though is having a static or spinning hard drive. The static hard drive is basically like a usb memory stick, and requires very little power, unlike a standard hard drive.

So here is my first productive lunch hour on the Netbook. I will tell you about my data connectivity next time. I feels good already getting some of my time back.

Actually I cheated and listened to the audiobook instead of reading it. My schedule doesn’t seem to allow much reading, or I don’t schedule much in. Either way, I mostly listen to audiobooks, and do it to and from work, as I find there are no distractions, and is easy to soak in the information.

I had heard of Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, but when looking for the audio version, Yes’ was at the top of the list, so I decided to get it instead. I had an idea of some of the techniques/studies from hearing an interview if Robert Cialdini, so I had been looking forward to getting into the book.

The book basically talks about 50 proven ways to influence people, and get people to agree to whatever you are selling. Each chapter talks about the method, introduces the study that was done to prove the method useful, and then gives a few examples of how or how not to use method. Methods covered range anywhere from using scarcity to using caffeine.

You may think this book is for salesman, or people in negotiations, but it really is useful information for anyone. Its about selling your ideas in a way to make people give you what you want, without having to try hard, or lie to get your way.

The practical uses range from selling products online, to getting a better tip from restaurant patrons to getting a refill for free.

Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive is definitely one to add to the bookshelf or the audio library.

Today I am going to try out the Picture Hosting Service called Smug Mug. I have been wanting to share photos online with friends and family for quite some time, but there never seemed to be a good solution. Some services like Google limit the space, and the site isn’t that attractive. Since I travel as much as I can, I do have quite a few photos, and storing all of your pictures online can get expensive. Smug Mug offers a starter service though, for $40 per year, which lets you store an unlimited amount of photos, and unlimited bandwidth.

One of the coolest features I think though is the ability to choose who gets to view which album or gallery. I can allow anyone to view one gallery and make friends and family use a password to view other online photo galleries.

But that’s not even the start of it. Probably the biggest feature of Smug Mugs is that as a photographer you can set up your online photography shop. All you have to do is upload your photos, and choose what sizes you would like to sell, and how much you want to sell them for. Now if someone orders an image from your online photography store, the order goes through a third party sprinting service, and is shipped out within a day or two. This literally lets you set up a storefront and have your beautiful photos on sale to the public within minutes. All you have to do is sit back and watch the money come in. Well, you may want to do some promotion of your store, but other than that, its up and going within just a few minutes. Smug Mugs also give you the flexibility to change themes, and modify the look of your storefront to match your website.

Video can also be hosted, but you have to be a Power or Pro member to host video, and the videos are limited to 10 minutes in length. Although you can host an unlimited amount of videos too, but you have to be a Pro member to take advantage of the Full HD video hosting.

Anyway, I will be giving it a spin, and will report back with what I think of the service after being a member.

If you want to try the service for 14 days FREE, then click here now, and let me know your thoughts.

I have been wanting to place a large dry erase white board in my office for a while now. I have a small 2′ x 3′ board that I haven’t mounted, but its really not that big, and my daughter enjoys drawing on it. I really have been wanting something bigger. Something I could use some parts for lists, some parts for brain storming, and some parts for whatever else.

So I did a little looking around, and what I ended up finding was this board that you can find at Lowes or Home Depot called Shower board or wall board. Its for use in bathrooms, or showers. Its basically 1/4 inch thick particle board that has one side coated with a glossy white paint. Well, this glossy white paint very closely resembles a dry erase board.

When shopping at Lowes, I found two options. One option was an 4′ x 8′ sheet for about $11. Wow, what a price. When shopping online for a dry erase board that size, the prices are above $400. The second option was a smaller piece of the same board in a 2′ x 4′ section for about 9$. Definitely a better deal for the whole sheet, but I had to test this out, and I didn’t have a means to get the whole sheet home at the moment.

I bought the 2′ x 4′ sheet, and when home to test it out. I used three different colors of marker on the board, let it sit about 10 minutes, and wiped a little off. Red and Blue came off an left no trace, and the black left a little trace behind, but very minimal. I decided to also wait a day and see how the marker came off.

After 24 hours, I had the same results as I did with 10 minutes. I also found that scrubbing a little harder with the eraser got rid of all of the black ink. This board it very similar to a dry erase board, and is more than worth the money.

Now since the board is thin, there are a couple ways to mount it. You could just use a couple screws, and screw it straight to the wall, or you could glue it to a thicker piece of plywood, or particle board to stiffen up the board, and hang or mount it. Either way, its a super cheap solution for a dry erase white board, and leaves you with almost no excuse not to have an oversize whiteboard in your office.