From dream to divorce

Now there is supposedly a place for those who thought they had the dream relationship that turned into a nightmare -- NPR reports about a new section on Huffington Post that will focus on how to survive a divorce ...

The art of hosting

When I think about the art of hosting it's not a social event, it's website hosting that comes to mind. While the free services like blogger, which I use for this blog is great, there are times when you want to expand beyond it. My most popular blog is a local political one, it's been hosted on it's own domain for several years.

There are things I can do with my own domain using Wordpress, that can't be done on one of the free services. This is especially important if you are trying to launch a business, people associate credibility with you having your own domain name, which requires your own web hosting plan. I recommend checking out the different plans ou there, and for those of you who are environmentally conscious? There are several really good green webhosting companies out there. If I had it to do all over again, that would have been the way I would have gone.

Blogging is giving me wrinkles...

At times I wonder why I decided to move my most popular political blog on to it's own domain. There are moments where it is a huge technical nightmare and dealing with the really unsupportive tech support that tells me a different story every time I call, has created enough worry and stress that perhaps they should start offering wrinkle cream with every domain/hosting account they sell. Hair dye too, since I'm certain I'm going more gray related to the whole experience.

:-)

The worst men's fashions...

It was kind of hard to not have Crapfest on the Catwalk catch my eye. Then when I went and actually looked at some of the items? Wow...I can't imagine anyone wearing that stuff on the street. Without being laughed at, or made fun of or...ending up on that Walmart watchers site...

I really recommend reading the linked material from "Oddly Enough" -- you'll laugh...

:-)

Seeking out what's hot in electronics?

Another great way technology comes into play is not just the creation of all types of new electronic gizmos and gadgets but the ability to learn about them and at times to read product reviews. All you need to do is head to an electronics blog and you can get a one stop reading experience on what products are new, what's on sale, where's the best place to buy, and a variety of other helpful tips and hints.

You could learn webhosting by trial and error...

When I started learning about wepaging and webhosting there were not a lot of resources online, there were some that had the basics and I did try to learn as much as I could but I basically learned by trying things and making quite a few mistakes along the way. Now, there are more places where you can access web hosting tutorials that will help you avoid some of the most common mistakes.

Something I learned as I went along was the value of sub-domains, I thought at first that I needed to have a domain for each one of the blogs I wanted to have hosted on a server. I later learned not only is that not true, but I could save money on domains and hosting by better utilization of sub-domains.


That of course transitions into the decision of mulitiple domain hosting or single domain hosting. Many times it is much cheaper if you aren't using a sub-domain system to use multiple domain hosting rather than having a separate hosting account and charge for each blog or website. Why it's important to make these decisions before you start is many times you pay for these services in advance. It's much easier to take the time to set things up the way you want them than to have to later start switching over hosting accounts.

How cool will Cuil be?

Interesting article on a former Google employee who is creating what could be a better search engine in today's CNN. For a deeper look at Cuil, I recommend this Information Week piece which test drives Cuil.

When I visited Cuil, the website was very slow to load, I decided to search me to see what came up. While I'm typing this, I'm still waiting for the page to come up with the search results. It's still loading, still loading, still loading, yes...It's still loading. Obviously speed is going to be something that would have to be improved upon. 177,471 results for Lisa Renee Ward came up. What's really interesting is nothing current came up, everything that came up was older and in three pages of search information Glass City Jungle did not come up. Google showed 260,000 for Lisa Renee Ward, with the first link being Glass City Jungle.

43,549 results for Glass City Jungle on Cuil, 297,000 for Glass City Jungle on Google. Cuil might have possibilities, but not at this point.

Which one to believe today from the horoscope file...

Concerns about financial issues are bothering you and making you restless. Broken promises and delay in expectable income only making it worse. It seems that nothing goes as you expected, but soon all will be fine.

Or...

You will need to utilize your ability to evaluate a situation accurately today. There will be some misunderstandings going on, and you could help to clear up the confusion. Be ready to serve as the calm, clear voice of reason and set things straight. Maintain all the objectivity you can, and be fair in how you assess things. Even if you wish the truth were something different from what it is, you owe it to everyone involved to call this one like you see it.

How about neither one sounds like an appealing scenario though I do admit the first one is true, I'm growing tired of a certain blogging company that's supposed to pay every 30 days not fulfilling their promises. Considering most of the other companies out there manage to pay on time and one even pays early it's obvious some can manage to at least do the basics.

Get cards to promote your blog for free...

Want to share your blog with those you meet at events in passing and are tired of telling them the URL in hopes that they'll remember it? Or looking for a scrap of paper to write your URL down on? Well, that's no longer a problem if you take advantage of this deal for Free blogger cards from ooprint.com which provides services for the US, UK and more. You can upload images and personalize your cards with the only charge being shipping and handling.

Google stock down, experts say buy I say noooo thanks

The reality is that even with the 16% drop in price I don't have thousands of extra dollars around to buy Google stock, $629 at closing yesterday down from $747, and while the experts may be right that now is the time to buy Google at the lower price...after what they've done to the blogosphere by dropping page ranks of blogs that were doing exactly what Google tries to promote with AdSense, making money from your blog, but just not through Google is too putative and it is creating a feeling toward's Google's monopoly when it comes to controlling the page rank atmosphere of the internet is making many people be anti-google. Their high handed behavior doesn't just affect the over 100,000 bloggers that use page ranks, it affects all of the advertisers who have made us of paid blogging and text links in advertising as well.

While one of the popular pay to blog companies is planning this new social networking format "SocialSpark" that is supposed to eliminate page ranking and instead base it on hits and other data is being looked at as a savior by some, there's a reality to that as well, if it is similar to the "myblog" community the advertiser will get little ROI since there is a huge amount of intervisting between some of the pay for blog community. Blog A may get huge traffic numbers but if the majority of visitors all work for the same blogging company, that advertiser really has not reached the real market place that Blog B who has a steady number of readers that are not also blogging for the same advertiser dollars would receive.

Yes, Google hates me the page ranks tell me soo...

Yes, that is sung to the tune of "Yes, Jesus Loves me". Those of you who follow the paid blogging sponsorship model are very well aware that Google has done another update to their page rank system and this time has hit blogs that appear to have any connection to paid blogging. Originally my one blog that was a 6 dropped to a five and now today it's a 3, where my two blogs that I have never done paid reviews on? One jumped to a two and one is holding firm at a 4.

What will most likely happen is yesterday's page rank of 5 will now be comparable to today's page rank of three and a page rank of 6 before? Will now be a four, until the next time when Google decides to switch things around again.

Okay...maybe it's time for me to do something...

This was an interesting one given some of the things happening in my life:

You have a calling, and signs are emerging around you that reinforce that fact. People are giving you feedback that is genuine -- they're not just praising you for their health! Have faith in yourself and understand that you're capable of amazing things. The worst mistake you can make today is to limit yourself. This applies to new relationships, career challenges and even business opportunities. Act on your ideas and climb out of your shell.

It just goes to show you at times your horoscope can prove to be at least worthy of creating discussion and at times controversy.

Blogging with Smorty

I've used many of the different systems out there to get paid for blogging, and I'm happy to announce that I have been approved by Smorty to do paid reviews for them. One of the really nice things about Smorty is the varied opportunities and you typically only have to wait one week to be paid as opposed to waiting 30 days.

There's an easy to use administrative panel to be able to find opportunities you want to blog about and they also let you know by email when there are things for you to blog about that your blog qualifies for. The topics so far have been fun to blog about and products/websites that are very high quality. I've done posts for Smorty on two of my other blogs, and have enjoyed it very much, so if you are interested in being an advertiser or want to get paid to blog about cool topics? Check out Smorty.

:-)

Cambodia goes bloggy...

Blogging is popular and is spreading everywhere, including...Cambodia:

A Cambodian blogger asked recently whether former King Norodom Sihanouk should be considered the country's founding father of blogging.

He got no definitive answer. Cambodian blog watchers say the 84-year-old monarch may not have known he was blogging when he unveiled his Web site, updated daily by his staff since 2002 with his views on national affairs, correspondence with his admirers and news about his film-making hobby.

But it is clear that young, tech-savvy Cambodians are joining Sihanouk in embracing blogs. The trend is changing their lives and their communication with people abroad - even as electricity remains an unreachable dream for most households in this poverty-ridden nation of 14 million.

"This is a kind of cultural revolution now happening here in terms of self-expression," said Norbert Klein, a longtime resident from Germany who is considered the person who introduced e-mail to Cambodia, through a dial-up connection in 1994. "It is completely a new era in Cambodian life."

Cambodians with the skills and the means to blog are discovering a wider world and using the personal online journals to show off their personalities and views about the issues facing their country, from corruption to food safety.

"Blogging transforms the way we communicate and share information," said 25-year-old student blogger Ly Borin.

That for me is the huge appeal of blogging, whether it is here on this blog or one of my political blogs, it's a way to communicate and share information at a level never before possible.

Managing your bookmarks...

Highly recommended article from Wired on How to Manage Your Bookmarks. This is something I've tried to do a better job with since I got my new computer. Rather than allow my favorites to become this huge unmanageable mess where I can't even find things I know I saved, my mission is to be better organized. This article from Wired gives you some great tips...

I too have a MySpace...I have Quibblo'd

I have a MySpace page that I should use more often but I do visit friends who have MySpace pages and I cover them as a part of my weekly newspaper column on blogging. This means I have seen as well as taken part in quite a few MySpace quizzes in the past. Quibblo has quite a few that I've found to be very enjoyable so if you enjoy quizzes? Head on over and see what you can add to your MySpace. (And take the below poll!)

Did you know that you can post Quibblo quizzes in your MySpace profile?

	Heck Yah! I have done it
	I know, but haven't done it
	Yes, but it didn't work
	Really? Cool, I will try it
	Didn't know, don't care

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Survey by Quibblo