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June 29, 2007
Hobbies and clubs
I know a lot of people who have hobbies like baseball card collecting and scrapbooking. They have found new ways to connect to others who share their interests--online hobby clubs. It's easy because you don't have to try to schedule meetings or host a bunch of people at your house every few months. You just go online, post questions, read articles, share information. These are a lot like support groups.
One friend of mine is really into geneology and she she joined a few online groups that share her interest. She was thrilled to learn that many of them specialize in the same geographic areas that she is interested in. Now, when they take trips to their ancestors' homelands, they post photos of old churches, towns and any landmarks they can find. You can't even put a price on that; it's just all information sharing. This has taken my friend's research forward by leaps and bounds.
A lot of people with hobbies that involve collecting like to find groups that will trade items. This is cost effective and you learn who you can trust fairly quickly.
It's amazing when you find that there are a lot of people out there with the same interests as you. And you don't have to host them at your house.
Posted by Idea Man at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2007
Something to think about
There are so many blogs and personal pages out there on the Web, it's just amazing. And now the phones that do everything except make dinner (though they do make dinner reservations). Text messaging, emails. The whole world of communication is really exploding. I don't know if it's a good thing though. When is so much communication too much?
You can find so much personal information on someone if you do a Web search. I have found old friends, former classmates, friends of exes and exes of friends. You really have to be careful what you put out there. Even employers do searches now and can easily find that embarrassing picture of you from your college days of fun and frolicking. I read an article recently in which bosses said they have changed their minds about hiring someone after they found a little too much personal information on the Web.
Even thank you notes now seem to come through emails. What happened to the good, old-fashioned personal touch of a letter or card? Granted, sometimes I like the convenience of ordering a gift online, paying extra for it to be wrapped, and shipping it directly to the recipient. How easy is that?? But then I get a thank you note in an email and I feel a little dissed. I guess it's a two-way street.
I did receive a hand-written thank you card the other day and it was so rare that I just had to read it twice because it just seemed so personal. But after it sat on my counter for a few days, I tossed it. So maybe we are saving trees when we use email?
So the irony is, we're putting a lot more about ourselves out there in the Internet world for anyone and everyone to see, but this technology means we're losing the personal touch with the people and family we're closest to. Now there's something to think about.
Posted by Idea Man at 11:02 AM | Comments (0)
June 11, 2007
New Online Degree Options
Not everyone has the grades, time or money to go to a standard four year university. Sometimes, people with financial or time constraints need to look at other options.
A good friend of my has some college credits he picked up over the years but lately he has been getting nowhere. So recently he has decided to get an online degree while still maintaining his full-time job. He neither has the time nor money to do traditional college rout anymore. Still, his company tells him he needs his bachelor’s degree to advance from his current position.
This weekend, I was at his apartment watching the Tiger/Mets game and we got online and started looking for online degree options. We happened to find a great site that has a searchable database of online degree programs available from several different accredited colleges. I was surprised by the choices there now are for getting a bachelors degree online. About 10 years ago, I looked into online degrees and the choices were extremely limited. Now with widespread Internet access, college is becoming more accessible to a wider range of people.
While a four year degree at a top University may look better on a resume, today’s online programs offer an option to get a bachelors or masters degree to those who 10 years ago would have had no opportunity to advance their education. The more people that can further their education the better for our country so I see this trend as another way that the Internet benefits us all.
Posted by Idea Man at 01:27 PM | Comments (2)
June 10, 2007
Recovering Lost Data
Recently my computer crashed and I had no access to any of the files on my hard drive. I use a backup program and tried to do a restore and quickly found out that my backups were corrupted and worthless. I had about 8 years of email history, receipts, pictures, purchased music, and countless important documents that were lost and needed to be recovered.
I also tried what everyone does - rebooted about 100 times - but each time I would get an error explaining that no hard drives were found. I was desperate to get access to my data and started looking at hard drive recovery companies from my laptop. I quickly discovered that hard drive repair companies were there for large companies with lots of money, not for someone who wanted to recover more personal stuff than files to save a business. Also, the prices were outrageous, most services were $2,000 and up just for them to give it a shot.
Another worry was if they somehow were able to access my hard drive, they would have access to all my personal financial data I keep in Quicken. I figured there had to be a cheaper ‘do it yourself’ solution out there so I kept looking – then I stumbled on BinaryBiz. Their VirtualLab data recovery software saved me from pretty much starting my computer life from scratch.
They have a free trial version for Windows that quickly found almost all of my files and displayed them in an organized list. I was never happier to pay for software I found on the Internet. For less than $200 dollars my binary life was saved.
If you ever need data recovery for a crashed disk, I would recommend giving BinaryBiz a try before either giving up or sending your hard drive to some stranger that will charge 10 times as much with no guarantee of success.
Posted by Idea Man at 06:30 PM | Comments (1)
June 09, 2007
Getting Targeted Traffic
If you have been following this blog, one of the constant things I emphasize is the importance of outstanding, original content to bring in targeted traffic which will make your website idea successful.
If you think of a unique website idea you really have something special. However, since most website ideas have already been done, you’ll need to find a way for people to find you. The great thing about the web is your website can be about the same topic as hundreds or thousands of other websites still be extremely successful.
The secret is to see what your competitors are doing and do it better. If you analyze your competition, you will see that most will be lacking great content. An excellent example of a site attacking its competition in a very competitive market with outstanding content is this loans website.
They definitely have the right formula as they build relevant content about personal loans, secured loans and many other topics. As this site adds more and more loan related content, they will begin to get a continual stream of targeted visitors looking for various type of personal loans. They also put easy links to all the social media websites on each article which is a great idea and a topic I will discuss in the future.
Whether you have a loan site or some other website idea in a highly competitive area, if you can make your site the destination on the web for information about your product it will be very successful. It amazes me how many webmasters build websites with all kinds of bells and whistles but forget the most important thing – Great Content.
Posted by Idea Man at 07:57 PM | Comments (0)
June 07, 2007
International Study
Several years ago, I almost spent a summer in England taking part in and extended education program. Money was tight, so I decided to hold off and stay home and work in an auto parts factory in Detroit. To this day, am disappointed that I did not find a way to make this dream come true.
Everyone says we live our lives through our children, so when the time is right, I'll suggest at least a year of overseas study in England to my kids. In today's world economy, an international education is more important then ever to prepare our youth for a successful future.
When considering international study, I always think of the U.K. first because of the country's fine reputation for higher education (not to mention the lack of language barriers), make it a good fit for any U.S based student looking to broaden their horizons.
This past week, I did a bit of research and found a website that offers an excellent U.S. Student Guide with information on everything from England's culture to financial aid. The website also contains information on other facets of life in the U.K. for students spending an extended period in England like car insurance and for those who plan a longer visit mortgages.
The Internet is making the world is becoming a much smaller place, so if the opportunity presents itself, I won't let my kids miss out like I did. Of course, money is always tight so I hope when/if the moment arises things are going well financially in my life to make it happen.
Posted by Idea Man at 08:56 AM | Comments (0)
June 04, 2007
SEO Elite
A lot of people ask me what type of SEO tools I use. I really don’t use a whole lot of specific SEO tools because often getting traffic to a website takes a lot of good old fashioned work. But one SEO tool I use was developed by a good friend of mine – it is called SEO Elite.
SEO Elite is great for getting a quick analysis of websites that are linking to my website and my competitor’s websites. Often, if you find a site linking to a site similar to your website, you can get them to link to you quite easily.
The software also helps you build a link directory (I have not used this part of the software) but it might come in handy if you want a quick easy way to maintain a link directory. The main thing I like about the program is seeing all the backlinks, what their PR is, the title tags of the pages, among other things in one easy to read table with many other summary tables. It can be a real time saver if you are the type of person that likes to analyze your backlinks.
You can also analyze links using Yahoo’s “linkdomain: mysite.com” command, but if a site has 10,000s of backlinks this can be very inefficient. I know Brad has a lot of happy customers, you can read some of their reviews on his SEO Elite Review page.
Posted by Idea Man at 04:14 PM | Comments (5)
June 02, 2007
Using Website Templates
Sometimes the fastest and cheapest way to get your website idea off the ground is to buy a pre-made website template. You get a high quality design and you don't have to hire a web designer or web design firm.
I have found the use of templates work best if you have a bit of web design knowledge so you can customize your template from the default set up to your personal vision. Most website templates give you the basic framework, it is up to you to take that template and make it work for your entire website.
One of the more comprehensive template companies out there, Best Web Templates and Design, offers 1,000s of website templates for just about any category of website, you can search their inventory and pick the template that fits your website idea best.
Of course, even the best looking website is not going to bring you traffic, but getting your site up and running fast is a good first step to creating a successful web business. Once you have your website up you can start to focus on bringing visitors to your website.
Posted by Idea Man at 01:12 PM | Comments (2)