Must Have for Bloggers

I just found this amazing new tool from Windows Live for my blog.  It's called "Windows Live Writer."  I'm excited to try it out because I don't have to log into Blogger to use it.  Apparently, it works with blogger and I can publish right from the program on my desktop.  It works with WorldPress, too.

You can switch views from HTML, to web layout - actually see your blog post without actually posting.  It makes it nice for previewing how its going to look.  I can insert videos of my fetching cat as well as photos right from the editor.

What's also really cool, you can insert maps of locations, powered by Virtual Earth, so you can count the cars parked in your driveway from

a satellite aerial view.  Here's a map of my friends city in Canada.  I don't have his address yet but I'm going there this summer.

As far as I can tell, every person blogging out there needs this tool.  It's incredibly useful and easy to use.  Plus, you can install it on all your PC's and laptops so you can publish anywhere, not that you couldn't simply log in and do that anyway.

One downfall is the tagging/label system.  Blogger, the site I use, creates labels for your posts and creates html pages based on those labels.  This, however, uses popular tagging sites, like 43 things and del.icio.us

Brilliant!

Every once in a while you come a cross a website and say, "Holy shit! Why didn't I think of something like that?" This is the perfect idea to maximize advertising dollars. This guy started a pixel advertising site. It's $1 per pixel with a minimum of 100 pixels, a 10x10 block. Why would someone pay $100 for a tiny block of space on a website? I'll explain.

Your advertising is guaranteed to stay on the home page 24/7, rather than a cycling banner.

It's guaranteed placement for 5 years, $100/5 years is only $20/year where most links have a monthly cost.

MillionDollarHomepage.com

I think I could make a page twice as tall. Then, just put Adsense on the damned thing and live off the residuals. Amazing. Why hasn't he done that yet?

I need a Muse

I haven't been feeling very creative lately. Not that any of my posts are, but the thought process seems to have slowed down. I don't write here everyday like a diary, as you've noticed.

I try to say something only when it matters or seems important. I'd like my words to carry some weight. Like, when you throw a hand full of small pebbles in the water, there are a lot of them and they make ripples but, no one really notices. On the other hand, when you throw a single big boulder in the water, everyone perks up too look around and see where the commotion is coming. I'm sure there's some ancient Chinese proverb somewhere out there that lays out my meaning more colorfully and philosophically. That makes me think of that Oscar Wilde quote I posted earlier.

The Money Makers

Have you ever wondered why there's a dating ad and link on just about every site you visit? Have you ever wondered why, the less "family oriented" the site, the more "seedy" the ad?

Sex. That's why. It's all a gateway towards that taboo subject of Porn. It's one of the largest indursties on the internet, if not the largest. It pulls in an estimated $10 billion annually. Why to I mention this?

Allow me to tell you of a little story that can be read on JackOfAllDreams.com. In a nutshell, he bought a website for $1500 because it's been around a while (7 years) and has a fair amount of visitors. He simply used Google Adsense, seen around my site, and placed some ads generated by Google. After 3 short months, he was pulling in $300 a month in ad revenue, currently $400. The website was about gun stock, imagine that. The site has already paid for itself and can now hold a car payment plus insurance.

Now, this little story inspired me to make my own site. It's a blog site, obviously, and has nothing to sell, yet. So, I may be waiting a while before Google recognizes that it's there, after all, there are hundreds of billions of website out there. But once it's there, I can start making something, at least enough to pay for the site.

Back to why I mention porn, the richest business on the internet. I could make a porn page for my site and put a bunch of ads on it, a BUNCH of ads. It'll just be a porn link site. Do you think it'll make money? I'm not asking if it's moral, and that depends on each persons morality or Moral Compass (which are mostly the same thing but I needed the links.) I'm asking if it will make me money. (Yes... I've passed into the dark side.)
But seriously, I think I can make some money from it. We'll see what I can develope.