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So, I’ve been using Mozilla’s Firefox 3.0 for a couple of days and I really like the look and feel of it. It’s more 2008 and has some cool features.

For example, when you type a URL into the address bar, it drops a menu down that makes seeing what you’ve typed in before pretty easy. You see the site’s name, the URL and the favicon. I’m easily amused, you know.

Another cool feature is the “back” button. It’s all gelled out and looking calm, like. You know, it’s like gellin’. And there’s a new icon for “Most Visited” sites. That makes it easy to get to the sites you’ve just been to more than few times.

But even better is an add-on called “Speed Dial,” which works with 3.0. I love it. Shows me all the sites I program into it that I have to look up all the time, which now, I don’t because I have Speed Dial. Nifty.

Here are things I hate about 3.0, OK, Mozilla?:

Some of my add-ons won’t work anymore. Grr. This is unpleasant in many respects. I’ve also lost ColorZilla, which helps me to get the HTML and CSS color codes when I’m trying to match something. Grr..

AND, Tab Mix won’t work. Every time I click a URL, it opens in my current window. That makes me nuts! I changed the setting in Options, but it doesn’t seem to be the option I need. Grr… Do you know how exasperating it is to be in the midst of a streaming .mp3 because you’re trying to fill in a transcript blank and you get sent to another site in that tab, against your will! Well…

You have to frickin’ start all over again! You have to fast forward that puppy and hope to God you land in the general area where you were before. I mean, people send you IMs and tell you to go to other sites during the day. It’s not even me goofing off! CRipes.

OK… So now that I’ve ranted about that…

I have no other rants, really. I like Firefox 3.0 so far, especially the Twitter plugin. It’s easy to see whenever someone I’m following tweets, and I can tweet from there, too. Pretty cool.

I haven’t read all the tech stuff that probably tells you to stay away from Firefox 3.0, but I just saw that Paul Colligan likes it.

So do I, Paul. So do I.

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First, I want to thank all of you that wrote a comment or something on Facebook or emailed me to say, “Happy Birthday.” That was totally cool and I appreciate every one of you. You made my day.

But today, I wanted to tell you about this cool little plugin I got today called, “Who Sees Ads?” It allows you to insert ads in a post or into the PHP of the blog template, and it lets you decide who sees them.

For example, if you’re a regular reader, I don’t want you to have to see an ad more than once. If you like it great, if not… It’s nuked after the first or second time you visit.

Or, you can tell it after the ad has been shown 1,000 times (or however many times you choose), don’t show it anymore.

Or don’t show it after a certain date.

Pretty sweet.

What’s even sweeter is that it gives you this little snippet of code, you enter the name of the ad you want shown (you pick these names yourself), and once you put it into the HTML of your post, voila! The ad appears.

You can get it here: Who Sees Ads?

It’s pretty simple to use, but if you’re brand new to blogging it could be a tad confusing. I’d wait until you get some chops. Shouldn’t take long for you to catch up, but if you don’t know anything about playing in HTML or PHP, it’s probably not for you.

Check it out below…

Just downloaded Firefox 3.0 today, too. We’ll see how that goes… Maybe tomorrow.

Thanks again for the birthday wishes! The whole day totally ruled.

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So… This morning I wake up. It’s my birthday! And so, I’m like, happy about it, but not like a kid, you know? When you’ve had as many birthdays as I have, it just seems like another day.

I call in to the manager’s meeting that we have every morning at Overcome Everything, and I’m waiting to tell Tellman what’s on our team’s plate for the day.

Then, my husband pokes his head in to say, “There’s a police officer here to talk to you.”

I’m like, “What about?” He just shrugs and looks worried. Here, I’m thinking it’s donation time again.

So, I walk into the living room, and there’s a guy in his mid- to late thirties, probably, in a uniform. He says, “Are you the owner of a 2008 black CTS with the license number XXX-XXX?”

“Yes. What’s this about? Would you like to sit down?” I ask him.

“No, that’s OK… I was up late last night and I should just keep standing.” Now, I can smell the alcohol on his breath, and I’m thinking, Wow! He’s probably hungover. What the hell?

So, he says, “Were you driving in Creekwood Shopping Center on Wednesday?”

“I guess,” I said. There’s a Starbuck’s in there and other stuff we’re always going to, so I figured I could have been, but couldn’t quite remember.

So he turns the page, and says that they had a complaint from the Sheriff’s aunt. She was driving a yellow VW and said that I cut her off and forced her into the grass.

Now, I’ll show you how dumb a person can be:

1) The guy was wearing a wrinkled shirt with his undershirt hanging out at the sleeves and neckline. My dad was a cop. He was always starched and pressed (’course that was the olden days, but…) with shoes shining so clearly that I could see my face in them.

2) This part of Bradenton is really unincorporated Manatee County. Bradenton Police don’t really have jurisdiction.

3) That shopping center has no grass to be driven into.

But I’m not thinking, right? I’m just like, “Well, that’s totally wrong. First, I wouldn’t do that and second, I never did that.”

So he says, “Well, if you can’t own up to this, I have to take you downtown.”

Now, I’m totally furious. It’s my birthday and I have to go to downtown Bradenton in a police car so that my neighbors could watch me walk out in handcuffs, to totally ruin my day. I mean, these folks get upset when a blade of grass isn’t standing at attention. This would be bad.

Not only that, but he tells me he has to frisk me to get up against the wall!

As he’s telling me to put my arm behind my back to be cuffed, a thought goes through my head…

TELLMAN

Big bright lights go off in my brain and it finally takes over and starts working. This is no cop!

I was PUNKED.

It was totally hilarious, after the fact, and when I got back on the phone we all had a good laugh over it. Tellman really made my day. It started out hilarious and just keeps getting better.

But do you see how you can miss the details of things when you let your emotions get over on you? I wasn’t thinking logically because I was so totally humiliated by the allegations and really angry because there was nothing I could do, though I knew I was innocent. The anger just infused my brain and made me stupid.

Duh.

Don’t let your emotions rule you. Don’t take failure personally. Don’t let it get you down.

Just remember that with every failed project, you’re a winner. You know what NOT to do again. Just consider whatever didn’t turn out the way you’d hoped as a learning experience and move on. Next time, it will be easier and work better.

Christine Comaford-Lynch has a great philosophy about accepting rejection, and I wont’ go into it because this post is really long, but you should check out Rules for Renegades at RulesforRenegades.com and go to the “Cool Resources” section.

But first…

I had a totally awesome day. And because it’s my birthday and I’ve been laughing and doing stuff I love to do all day, I thought I’d let you in on something totally free and totally cool.

Go to http://easyseotricks.com/IMG2

Get some cool free stuff to help you continue down your ultimate path to success. I have a really good ebook in there about keyword research. Go get it. Free.

And… ALWAYS remember to pay attention to the details, or you could get punk’d.

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I had an email today from someone on my list who wanted to know how to get 100 people into his site. So, naturally, I’m thinking onto his list.

In itself isn’t terribly hard to do, right? I mean, put up a squeeze page with an ethical bribe and send traffic to it. Getting 100 people doesn’t take that long if you join a giveaway, do an ad swap, or run an ezine ad or two. There are tons of ways to get subscribers.

I know this doesn’t seem at all simple to people just starting out, and I was ready to go into more detail and help this guy to do what he wanted to do, but he sent me the page he wanted to build his list from…

A “You’ll make $2,000 a week! All you have to do is refer people to this program!”

And then, I felt sad.

I remember when I started online. All that stuff looked pretty good to me, too. I figured, well… If it’s working for them, it has to work for me, too, right?

And I built a pretty huge downline in one of those programs. It wasn’t quite as bad, not a wild claim. The site was offering tools that marketers can use. Trouble was, the stuff wasn’t happening. I mean, the site was new, but three months later, none of the tools were ready to use. So, I started thinking… Bull puckey, right?

As with most people who get caught up in stuff like that, it did absolutely nothing for me. Nothing.

I didn’t get the benefit of the list.

I didn’t make ANY money.

I had just built a nice big list for someone else. Plus, I had wasted my time and my money making it happen. I felt really dumb and very discouraged. I remember how that felt.

Had I know then what I know now.

If you’re still new and involved with one of those, “no work and all cash” programs, run fast in the other direction. Seriously. Don’t think that you can make money online overnight. It can happen pretty fast, if you go about it the right way, but you will have to work at it. There’s no free lunch.

So, for my friend (whom I already wrote to and suggested that he start with a squeeze page) and anyone else who’s involved in hoping for miracles that just won’t happen…

• Here’s step one: Learn about Internet Marketing from a trusted source before jumping in with both feet.

• Step two: Pick a niche, and it shouldn’t be Internet marketing, unless you love a whole lot of competition that is far, far ahead of you in the game. (Wish I’d known that one early on.) It’s possible to still do okay, but it’s a much harder niche to crack.

• Step three: Build a list. Put up a squeeze page and offer something of value for people to join. It can be a special report, an ebook, a teleseminar or even a series of teleseminars, a video, or a whole bunch of other things that can solve a problem that people in the niche you’ve chosen are having.

• Step four: Drive traffic to your squeeze page. Write articles, start a blog, make some videos. All that stuff is free to do and can help you to get traffic.

• Step five: Set up an autoresponder series with articles about your niche. Start with four really good bits of instruction or advice, and then, offer an affiliate product that is in line with that article.

• Step six: Deposit your checks in the bank.

Is that a simple plan or what? Seriously, it really is that simple. I didn’t say easy. It will mean work. And you won’t make money overnight, but you will make money. And you’ll build a list over time and build a steady income that you can depend on.

Pie in the sky? Nope. Just good, solid advice.

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So, have you seen the new “social” browser yet?

It’s called Flock and it’s pretty cool, if you spend your life in the trenches of Web 2.0 every day.

I like it, but not for work. It has some cool features. Like, you can see who’s Twittering immediately in your sidebar. Or, what’s happening on Facebook. Or even Pownce or Digg. Pretty sweet. You can also see several different feeds in “My World” which comes up as a single page in your browser window.

But one feature I really like is that you can search for videos on You Tube or stuff on Flickr at the top of your browser window. So, you search for something and get like this whole strip of videos on that topic without actually having to go to You Tube. Pretty cool.

Flock also has some of the same add-ons as Firefox, since it’s built on the same framework.

And you can post to a blog from Flock, but it has to be a hosted blog like Blogger, WordPress.com or LiveJournal. These are great if you’re just goofing around, but we all know (right readers) that WordPress on your own server negates the need for this particular feature.

And while we’re on the topic, even if you are blogging for fun, you’re obviously doing it for a readership, right? Well, why give your blog audience to someone else? Get up off your lazy, cheap butt and get a hosting account and install a WordPress blog on your own server. You never know what you might want to do with that audience. You might want to make some money from all your hard work, and WordPress.com is no place to do that.

Off my soapbox.

Flock also has a photo uploader and a Web clipboard.

But here’s the thing… None of these features will pull me away from Firefox. Just won’t. Flock is too fun and too social for me. If I used Flock as my regular browser, that would be bad.

I’d never get any work done and Tellman would fire me. Har.

But even if that weren’t true, Flock doesn’t have the SEO goodness that Firefox does. No Search Status. No SEOQuake. No S3 add-on and so on. You really can’t do business from Flock.

Now, if there was a meld. A hybrid, Let’s call it FireFlock, then… Well…

Maybe.

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Jack Humphrey, who in my humble opinion is one of the best bloggers on the planet, wrote a post last week about the best social news sites online. And here’s the deal… At some point, I think that what people want and enjoy are going to supersede what the search engines think we should want. I could be wrong there, but consider the explosion in popularity for Web 2.0. Is it a fad? Hmm…

I don’t think so.

When I joined Twitter, there were hardly any Twitterers. It was just a few savvy marketers like Brad Fallon, who encouraged his list to join and why I was in so early, and now… I have like 80 people following my stuff. That’s pretty cool, and I’m following a bunch of other people. Plus, it’s just fun. If you’re not “tweeting,” you need to get on board.

But I digress. Twitter has become enormously popular in just a short time. And look at You Tube and then, we come to the social new or bookmarking sites. Which ones should you bother with? Hmm…

Jack has given a list in his post:

http://www.jackhumphrey.com/fridaytrafficreport/social-networking/top-10-social-news-sites/

I’ll share the top 5 with you, but you’ll have to read Jack’s post for the rest of the social news sites chosen by Google.

Number one is…

Drumroll please…

Digg! Well, who didn’t know that? Just remember that if you’re in the Internet marketing, you’ll not be totally welcomed if you throw a bunch of spammy plugs into the mix. So, don’t just go to Digg and plug your own stuff. Plug anything you think is cool, and give people a reason why. That’s how it’s supposed to work, and you should totally follow that mindset. Just Digg stuff you like or “Bury” stuff you hate.  It’s a totally audience driven milieu.

Number two is…

Propeller! Now, this is a surprise. Propeller used to be Netscape, but last year, Netscape changed the name to Propeller. I’ve been using this site for what feels like ages, and it’s pretty sweet. You can include video content there as well. Why I’m surprised is that when it was Netscape, it wasn’t terribly popular. Now, you give it a snappier Web 2.0 name and bingo! Propeller rules.

Number three is…

Reddit I like this site and you can get a lot of traffic from it, if you remember to use it for content. If you’re plugging a post, it should be a post with some great content, definitely not a sales page. And don’t piss the Reddit regulars off. You really don’t want to do that and be a reddit castaway.

Number four is…

Newsvine Wow! You know, I have to admit that this is one I’ve missed. Newsvine, huh? I totally have to get an account there and check it out.

And number five?

Fark Well, hell, you have to join that site just for the name alone. But you can rate your plugs from “Interesting” to “DumbAss” OK… That totally rules.

All of these sites are free. Use them and you’ll see your traffic build, especially if you’re in a niche.  If your niche is Internet marketing, be careful to follow the rules and to never make your plugging spammy. Once you lose the respect of one of these communities, it will be very hard to regain. Just check out my post of last year about Scribd. It was a very bad year.

So, I encourage you to go over to Jack’s blog and read his post in its entirety. And if you haven’t signed up for the Authority Black Book and The Friday Traffic Report, you’re missing tons of great stuff.

I’ve said that before, but Jack’s “Link Building and Blog Marketing” emails are in the class “Open now and read immediately” for me. I really enjoy them and learn a lot.  Get on the bus!

Hey, I’ve heard that somewhere before. Har.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Remember when you were a kid and you missed the softball or stepped on a line in hopscotch or whatever, you’d say, “Ah… Can’t I have a ‘Do Over’?” I wasn’t really partial to allowing that. To me, it was kind of cheating. I mean, if you were just learning something and asked me for a Do Over, I’d say, “Yes.” But if you were good at something already and asked, well…

I never asked for Do Overs.

But imagine this…

You’ve been in Internet Marketing for a couple of years. You’ve bought a lot of information products, some of which cost you thousands of dollars. But you never read them. They’re sitting on your shelf and you never even freakin’ read them!

Or, you’ve spent money on advertising, like Google AdWords or some ezine advertising or you got caught up in that whole traffic exchange mentality and sat there clicking away all day like a zombie, just trying to make things work for you.

And it never happened. But you’re sure there’s a magic bullet, right? There has to be. You can count many more real honest-to-god millionaires online than you have fingers and toes.

THEY MADE IT WHY CAN’T YOU?!?!?!

You’re pissed. What are you doing wrong?

And that was me about two years ago. The first thing I did two years ago was to buy myself a mentor—Tellman. I paid him $497 a month to be in his coaching program. Of course, the payment part went away because I started working for him from there, but unless you have a mentor, you can only begin to imagine how quickly you “get” it when you have a go-by who’s been there, done that and has made millions of dollars online. After that, it’s all down hill, my friend.

OK…

So…

Let’s put that together—a “Do Over” and a mentor. No–a team of mentors.

And that’s what Nitro Marketing is offering.

Check this out: http://easyseotricks.com/MDO

Cool movie. And…

You can get your business going in the right direction.

Nothing to buy.

A contest.

Can you make the cut?

Do you have what it takes?

You’re smart. You have the desire. You have the bulldog tenacity that it takes to make that million bucks.

Get on the bus.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Reading around the blogosphere, I came on a great post at Independent Street, the Wall Street Journal’s blog, entitled “15 Entrepreneur Blogs Worth Reading.”

It states: “The best entrepreneur blogs – and often the most successful ones — do more than just promote the entrepreneurs or their projects. Star power can draw attention, but it won’t sustain it if the blog doesn’’t “give.’”

I’ve always figured that. Who wants to read constant sales pitches, hey look at how great I am posts, or reviews of products ad nauseum? For this reason, I always encourage students to use a blog for business, but to put some of your own personality  and life into it. Let people know what you’re thinking and what you’re up to.

People like to read about people, not products.

For example, I was at the DMV this morning with my daughter, who needed to take her written driver’s test for her learner’s permit. Yeah. She’s almost 19, but never wanted to learn. Now, it’s a necessity. So, we sat in line and waited…

For the third time!

The first time, she didn’t have a proper “certified” birth certificate. Grr.

The second time, she didn’t know she’d have to take the written portion of the test just to get her permit. Double Grr. OK, so it’s been decades since I went through that. She should have known that yadda, yadda.

But this was the third time we went! And the third time we had to wait in  line, and WHEW! This time, she passed.

But what frustration!

So, what if I told that story and then, told you about a product that would help new drivers before they got to the DMV? That showed them everything they needed to know and do before getting their permit and license?

Of course, this stuff varies state-to-state, but this is an example.

This kind of thing is frustrating for everyone! What if I had a magic bullet that would make it smooth as eel skin?

Well… that would be a perfect place to pitch. Now, you’ve given people a story, and you might say, “If YOU have a teenager, you might be interested in this.. before they turn 16.”

You see what I’m getting at? It’s a much more effective way of “showing.” In writing, we call it “showing” when you describe something without description. You lead readers to believe something without actually saying it.

Same thing with marketing. If I want to sell you something, I’m not going to scream, “Hey, buy this!” like a huckster. I’m going to lead you to realize that you want it first and why by illustrating the point.

And that’s what a good entrepreneurial blog does. The 15 in Independent Street’s list are all really incredible at doing that. It’s a post worth checking out.

Popularity: 25% [?]

If you’ve read my blog before, you know I work with the uncrowned King of List Building, Tellman Knudson.

I started working for him 2 years ago, and then, I had about 200 people on my list. I thought that was respectable. LOL What a dunce!

So, Tellman suggested I start list building by using co-registration. If you don’t know what that is, co-registration is a way for you to advertise your ezine, newsletter, special report, or whatever with a group of other ads. The co-registration service does all of the advertising for you, and you’re guaranteed a certain number of names and email addresses each month.

This is NOT the same as buying a list. Never do that because it’s illegal. You only want people on your list that ask to be there by opting in.

Even with co-registration, it’s a double opt-in process. Someone sees your newsletter ad, checks a box saying that they want to receive your information and he or she confirms the email address, as well. They want to be on your list. See the difference? Anyway, my favorite co-reg service is List Builder Pro. You should check it out, if your list is small.

What’s a respectable size? Well, you can’t do much with the big names, unless you’re talking 10,000 names or more. It takes awhile, unless you’re good at joint ventures, which are hard to set up, if you have no list, right?

Anyway, after two years of list building heavily (It should be your main focus.), I’m seeing the results.

I respect and honor the people on my list. I’ve been bringing speakers to them for my Blogging4Boomers teleseminar series, and directing them to some cool free stuff that will help them to move their businesses forward. I also do Q&A sessions twice a month. And I send them offers, but only for products I know are good.

Tellman was right.

Tellman is right.

If you’re not list building, you’re missing the boat. I just got a nice check in the mail today and that happens a regularly these days. Pretty sweet. Want yours?

Always be list building! Always.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Sorry guys, I know that I work in that world and love every one of you in it, but I just have to say something here… FOR THE WOMEN.

If you’re like me, you may have spent 70-hour weeks in the corporate world doing the same job that men did but making far less money. Didn’t that just totally piss you off?

And when I learned I was pregnant after 20 years of hard climbing up the corporate ladder, I decided to chuck it ALL and raise my own child.

So, then what?  My brain hadn’t died.

I became a writer. I did that for 10 books, and then, I found this world–one where I can pretty much do what I need to do. I still work hard, and I even have a full-time job, but it’s all from the comfort of my home, working with people I totally love and respect.

Well…

I met a woman at jvAlert Live and just fell in love with her energy. She’s super marketing savvy and just fun to talk to and be around. And she’s a mom, just like me, only she has 4 young children to my one now grown daughter.

Her name is Carrie Wilkerson and she runs Barefoot-Executive.com . When you get to that page, Carrie will be there to welcome you.

I just watched her two movies: TheBossMovie.com and CruiseBarefoot.com

The first is powerful and evocative. It totally tells our story, women. Check that out.

Cruise Barefoot is about a contest Carrie is holding. Get in on that. Sounds like a total blast!

And yes, Carrie walked around most of jvAlert without her shoes on. She’s great, and I encourage you to check her out!

Popularity: 19% [?]