My Work At Home Job

Making Cool Stuff at Cafe Press

2011-12-27T14:32:00.000-06:00

I have recently been enjoying making cool stuff at cafe press. This is probably the simplest way I know to sell your art online. You probably won't make a ton of money - but compared to the labor intensive - pocketbook breaking ordeal of art fairs and local shows, not to mention the potentially humiliating experience of gallery owners who turn up their noses at your cool stuff - well, for me it's a no brainer.

All I have to do is come up with a sharp, high resolution graphic of art that I've made. Then it's a simple process to upload it to cafe press where I can put my art on everything from framed prints and calendars to mugs, mouse pads and stickers. And people have been buying! How cool is that?

Check this out, it's a recent email from Cafe Press:

Hi from CafePress.com!

You've made a sale! Way to go!
Here is a summary of the items you sold:

1 x Flower Peace - Daydream Necklace Circle Charm

Retail Price: $15.60 each
Markup: $1.56 each
Earned: $1.56 total (Sales Source: Marketplace)

Log in to your account at http://www.cafepress.com and check out your Sales Report to see more info. Thank you for your contributions to the CafePress.com community and keep up the good work!
Happy Selling!
CafePress.com

15 Ways To Increase Traffic

2009-10-05T09:53:00.003-05:00

From SelfGrowth.com, we have some really good advice on how to increase traffic to your website.

"To help all of you better understand what’s working for small to medium size websites, I have enclosed a list of 15 techniques we’ve used to help build SelfGrowth.com into a site that draws over a million visitors a month."

Here they are:

Create useful content on your website. Nothing else is as important.
Update your useful content regularly. Today’s web audiences expect to see fresh material, and having regularly-updated content will keep them coming back.
Build sticky and interactive pages on your website including discussion boards, comment capability and anything else that helps build community.
Create an e-mail newsletter. This is an extremely effective way to link back to your website and continuously drive traffic.
Seek out partnerships with other people with e-mail lists to promote your website.
RSS Feeds are a great way to keep visitors informed of fresh content on your site. For an explanation of RSS Feeds, see this video on YouTube.
Create an affiliate program to promote your products and services.
Use Search Engine Optimization techniques to get listed naturally at the top of Google, Yahoo and other search engines. Read more here: Search engine optimization
Podcasting. Podcasts are a great way to build a regular audience and keep them coming back. Watch this video on YouTube.
Invest in Pay Per Click Advertising (ie. Google Adwords and Yahoo) to drive targeted traffic to your website.
Submit your articles or book excerpts to other websites with links back to your website.
Blogging. Blogs are a fantastic way to create fresh content that builds a regular audience. You can use weblogmatrix to find out which blog software is right for you.
Social Networking. Build profiles on popular social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, or Linked In. You can use these profiles to connect to others with similar interests and send them to your website.
Social Bookmarking. For more on social bookmarking, you can watch this video on YouTube.
Invest in other forms of paid Internet advertising including banner advertising.

Thanks to: David Riklan, Founder - SelfGrowth.com

Learn To E-Mail

2009-09-28T20:53:00.003-05:00

Email:
There's More To It Than You Think

A friend who is a computer expert received the following directly from a system administrator for a corporate system. It is an excellent message that ABSOLUTELY applies to ALL of us who send emails. Please read the short letter below, even if you're sure you already follow proper procedures.

Do you really know how to forward emails? 50% of us do; 50% DO NOT. Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it?

Every time you forward an email there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their email addresses and names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every email address that has come across his computer.

Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel!

How do you stop it? Well, there are several easy steps. Try the following if you haven't done it before:

When you forward an email, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right, DELETE them.
Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. You MUST click the 'Forward' button first and then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If you don't click on 'Forward' first, you won't be able to edit the message at all.
Whenever you send an email to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding email addresses. Always use the BCC:(blind carbon copy) field for listing the email addresses.
This is the way the people you send to will only see their own email address. If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear.
Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say 'Undisclosed Recipients in the 'TO:' field of the people who receive it.
Remove any 'FW :' in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.
ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual email you are reading.
Ever get those emails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many emails just to see what you sent.

Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses.

A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein.
DO NOT put your email address on any petition.
If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient.
Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and email addresses on a petition. (And don't believe the ones that say that the email is being traced; it just ain't so!)

Some of the other emails to delete and not forward are:

The one that says something like, 'Send this email to 10 people and you'll see something great run across your screen.' Or sometimes they'll just tease you by saying 'something really cute will happen.' IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! (We are still seeing some of the same emails that we waited on 10 years ago!)
I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get trashed.
Before you forward an 'Amber Alert' , or a 'Virus Alert' , or some of the other emails floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail that's been circling the net for YEARS!
Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out at Snopes. Just go to www.snopes.com . It's really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not, please don't pass it on.

So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses. I doubt we really want our email addresses spread around the world.

Seed Conference Notes

2008-10-05T00:33:00.006-05:00

Wow... these are really cool. Not only that, but they are inspiring and I learned something! What are they? Sketchnotes by Mike Rohde done at the SEED Conference on June 6th, 2008.

And here's a great quote from Gary V:

"Don’t quit your job to become the queen of cheese. But if you’re doing something that blows and you hate it, go work at 7-Eleven to pay your bills and spend every other hour building your personal plan. If you work 9 AM to 6 PM and get home at 7, whatever you put in between 7 and 3 AM is what you’re gonna get in return. You want to watch Lost? Knock yourself out. I don’t watch shit. I don’t read shit. I’m all about my community and putting out content. I don’t consume. I put out."

Source: 37 Signals

A Short History of Blogging

2008-06-27T13:00:00.000-05:00

Bloggers were invented ca. 300 AD, and were originally called "monks." Like their distant descendents, monks had shitty haircuts, and never got laid.

LOL!

Sounds just like me!

The Table Maker

2008-04-14T00:57:00.004-05:00

At the Table Maker, you can make tables for netscape & other browsers easily! Just fill in your preferences for the table you want to make and then hit either of the two "Make Table" buttons. It's not too hard to figure it out, but a little bit of knowledge of html is helpful.

For help on using TableMaker , see the Examples page. For links to other relevant web sites, see the Resources page. Check out the TableMaker Application for use on your computer without an Internet connection (currrent is version 1.1).

I made a table for this post so that you could see how it looks. Cool, huh? As always, if you have any problems, leave me a comment and I'll do what I can to help.


The Blog	What you will find there
Way Cool Pictures	Cute, interesting, funny pictures found here and there while surfing the net. Totally G rated, nothing offensive ever posted.
More Cool Pictures	This is where the more edgy pictures are posted surreal, cool, and sometimes bizarre. No porn, but sometimes the images are pretty out of the box.
My Slide Shows	An attempt at keeping track of my slide shows and what the heck is on them.
Way Cool Quotes	lots of great quotes
As Within	Inspirational quotes prayers and poetry paired with awesome nature photos
Mandala Madness	An eclectic collection of mandalas, quotes, and poetry - uplifting and inspirational.
The Prosperity Project	Trying stuff out to see what works and what doesn't. Come on by and check it out.
Gypsy Magic	Magic spells and Gypsy lore. It's pretty cool.
Shirley Twofeathers	My personal blog with all kinds of different stuff on it, some of it's dumb and stupid, some of it is boring as hell, and then there's the really cool and interesting stuff. Come on by and check it out. You know you want to!
My Work at Home Job	An attempt to keep track of stuff that seems useful so that I can find it later. Oh, hey, that's where you are right now!

Share Pics - Get Paid!

2008-04-08T14:32:00.004-05:00

In my never ending search for free image hosting that's reliable and easy to use, I found this cool site: Share A Pic. You actually get paid to share your pictures here. Of course, in order to get paid, people have to actually go see what you have posted. What's cool, is that you can add thumbnails (like the ones below) to your myspace page, or blog, and it's really easy. The only drawback is that the image links are to thumbs only. So, while it won't work as an image host for my picture blogs, it will work as a way to promote those blogs on places like FaceBook, MySpace, Gaia, and ... well here.

This gallery is a series of slow motion photography images that I was posted on More Cool Pictures. Click on the thumbnail and it takes you to the page at Share A Pic. Pretty cool, huh?

Ask The Plumber Guy!

2008-04-02T13:51:00.002-05:00

Why fiddle around with Fortune Tellers when there's a bonafide plumber - ready, willing, and eager to answer all your plumbing questions?

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and check out my new widget. He's really a lot of fun! I created "Ask the Plumber Guy" from the java script for "Ask the Fortune Teller" over at Yaldex.com. All I did was add an image and then I went in and changed the possible answers. You can't add more answers, but you can change the ones that are there.

Also, this does not seem to work in a blog post, and you can't have more than one on a blog as the answers from the first one will overwrite the answers for the others. It is fun, however, and easy to do.

If you have any questions about how to do it, I'd be happy to help out. Have a fun day!

Happy St Patrick's Day!

2008-03-17T15:34:00.001-05:00

EZ Banners and Buttons

2008-03-16T12:04:00.014-05:00

I found a cool site called Image Chef and in about 3 minutes was able to create this cool banner. The whole process was so easy that I thought it might be something good to share. Here's the banner I made. Nifty isn't it?

You can either get the code that links back to Image Chef, or you can save the image to your computer. It could then be cropped and/or resized to fit into a smaller space - and might be useful for a number of different things.

For example, this nice little banner is also a link to The Prosperity Project.

How did I do that? I cropped the banner, resized it to 200 pixels wide, and then uploaded it into this blog post as an image. I then clicked on the "html tab" (right next to the "compose" tab) and did a little editing. Here's how: When blogger uploads an image, it uploads 2 urls. One is prefaced with a href= the other is prefaced with src=" The second one is the link to the actual image that you see on the page, don't change that one.

The first one, the one that follows the a href=" is the one you want to change. Be sure not to erase the little quotation marks before and after. Also, remember to include the http:// Replace the blogger url with the url to your link. In this case, it would be http://theprosperityproject.blogspot.com instead of http://bp1.blogger.com/ _D8VwTKAphks/ R91TRUSVfCI/AAAAAAAAHxk/ q3mulh8h8Sw/s200/tiny-banner.jpg

If you want the link to come up in a new window, add this phrase target="_blank" after your link.

Mine looks like this:
"http://theprosperityproject.blogspot.com/" target="_blank". When you do the editing, you'll see little things that look like < and >, be sure not to erase them by accident.

For good SEO, and if you really want to get fancy, you can "caption" your picture link by finding (in the html) this little phrase alt="" All you have to do is type between the " and the " whatever it is that you want the image to say if someone hovers their mouse over it. In this case, I typed in The Prosperity Project. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, hover your mouse over the big banner, you'll see that it says ImageChef Custom Images. Now hover your mouse over the little banner. It should say The Prosperity Project.

So, this is how I make image links without having to write or remember anything too complicated. I am no expert, nor do I have much experience with non-blogger blogs. But if you have any problems, just leave me a question or a comment and I'll see what I can do to help. Have a great day!

Wow! Awards!

2008-03-10T13:30:00.003-05:00

The first time I got an award for one of my blogs, I was hugely impressed and really excited. Since then, I've managed to collect a few more. If you like receiving awards, it's not too hard to begin to collect them - all it requires is that you spend time every day visiting and commenting on blogs that you enjoy reading.

Here's a great example of a blog award success story: Bob, over at Black Holes and Astrostuff has managed to collect an impressive array of awards. He has a really nice blog, with lots of interesting information and the awards are well deserved. In addition to that, he is really great about visiting and commenting on the blogs belonging to his own visitors, as well as the people who leave him positive feedback at blog catalog. Pretty soon, you begin to feel as if you know him personally. Naturally, when an award opportunity presents itself, he's the first person you think of.

Why even care about awards? Aside from the obvious ego boost, the giving and receiving of awards is a great way to accumulate links and incoming traffic. The way it usually works is that the person giving the award blogs it. They say nice stuff about your blog and provide a link to your site. They then leave you a message telling you that you've received an award... and to come and pick it up. This stimulates traffic (from award recipients) back to their site. When you collect your award, it's customary to blog about it and this creates a link back to the giver of the award. You then are encouraged to find other deserving bloggers and pass the award on to them. So, you can see how it builds links and traffic.

If no awards seem forthcoming, you could always create one of your own and pass it around. All you need is an idea for a cute little graphic, a title for the award.... for example... here's one I came up with, feel free to grab the image and pass it on:

And, while I'm thinking about it, this seems like a pretty good time to pass this award on to some of the blogs that I think are absolutely yummy!

Gourmet A Go Go good food and great conversation - I love this blog.
The Hummus Blog interesting and unusual - love it!
Lisabeen Homeroasted Coffee I love coffee, don't you?

I have not been very good about following through on awards... here are the ones I have received for my various blogs, and I'm sorry to say that it's been a while since I got those awards, and cannot now remember who they came from. I'm sorry you guys! I'll try to do better!

Mandala Madness

More Cool Pictures

Way Cool Pictures

My First Check From Google

2008-03-10T03:28:00.001-05:00

Here's something cool! My very first check from Google is winging its way to me. It took me 1 year and 4 months to make $103.00 with Google Adsense. But get this !! Already, just in the months of February and March - that's only a month and a half - I have accumulated $42.00. WOW! Is that cool or what? I am so excited! All my hard work is finally beginning to pay off. So, don't be discouraged. Build it and they will come. Make it interesting, and they will come again. Preservere and money will follow!

Maukie - the virtual cat

2008-02-07T03:24:00.000-06:00

Maukie is the fiercest, cutest cat ever to terrorize your mouse pointer. Move your cursor and Maukie will follow. Scratch her head, and she'll meow. Rub her tummy, and she'll purr. All the while, she's breathing in and out, and watch the tail. She may even try to swat the cursor. She comes in smaller sizes too! Isn't she fun?

Snap Shots a cool new Widget!

2007-12-30T13:53:00.000-06:00

Introducing Snap Shots from Snap.com

I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.

Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.

Cool Music Widget

2007-12-19T13:47:00.000-06:00

Get your own Music Widget!

Dive in! Find the music you like, create your playlists, make your widgets, grab the code and add it to your profile page, site, blog or photo album. It's really cool, it's fun, and it's easy.

When you create a widget, there are several options to choose from. I chose the horizontal embed in a blog post option. But you could have a nice little vertical music player in your sidebar as well. The one I have embedded here plays classical piano music. Turn it on, and check it out!

Circumventing the new Blogger comment system

2007-12-17T00:47:00.000-06:00

For those of you who are not very happy with the new blogger comment system, here's an alternative comment provider, HaloScan. I found it, in use, at a nice little blog called Webster 12:

HaloScan provides a free, easy to use commenting and trackback service for weblogs and websites, allowing visitors to leave feedback, share their opinion, or comment on the subject at hand.

Features

Easy, two-step installation on any weblog or webpage
View, edit or delete comments from the members section or the comment page
Ban offensive commenters by single IP or an IP range
Customizable comment window through CSS or the HTML template editor
Hundreds of user-submitted templates to pick from
Worldwide time-zone and character encoding support
RSS-XML feed/syndication
Email notification of new comments
And a lot more...

Here's what's posted on their front page as "Latest News"
· 12/30/2006 - New Blogger Installation Wizard - Easier than ever to install
· 09/17/2006 - Recent Comments Widget - A recent comment list for your blog
· 09/05/2006 - Dashboard Hotness - Members now have a Dashboard!
· 06/06/2006 - Free Email Notification - More free stuff for members
· 05/29/2006 - Database Upgrade - New, faster, higher capacity servers added
· 11/18/2005 - More Blog Integration - Blog post title fetching feature
· 08/24/2005 - Help Pages - The new help area contains over 100 pages

Build It And They Will Come

2007-12-08T17:04:00.000-06:00

Just last week, I was whining and complaining to my sister about life in general, and how I spend so much time working on all these really great blogs that nobody ever goes to. And now I have to eat crow, because I went to stat counter today and this is what I found!!! One Cool Picture After Another has exceeded the 100 hits and 200 page loads mark! Yowsers! I thought that maybe, on a good day, I had like... 15 visitors.

I find this very interesting because I have not done much at all to actively promote this site. What I HAVE done to "drive traffic" is this:

Linked it on my other blogs.
Posted it at Technorati.
Put it up at My BlogLog.

That's it. I did the exact same thing for Way Cool Pictures and More Cool Pictures, plus I posted them at Blog Catalog, and have actively pursued links for them on other sites. And yet this blog is the one getting the most traffic. It can't be the content, because it has the same content as both of the other two. So, I'm thinking it has to be the fact that I put up three posts a day. It did get stumbled once or twice, and it did get posted on facebook. Both of which might also be contributing factors.

Why do I even have three picture blogs? Good question. And here's the answer: I have a number of friends and coworkers who might be offended by some of the pictures and art that I really like. So, I made a picture blog just for them. Nothing offensive is ever uploaded at Way Cool Pictures. The rest of the stuff that I like is housed at More Cool Pictures. I do not go in for anything too terribly gruesome... well... sometimes... but not usually. And while I never post porn, More Cool Pictures isn't necessarily something you could recommend to your great aunt Martha. Some of it is in very "bad taste", which is what makes it funny and interesting to me.

The two most popular posts at Way Cool Pictures currently is The Amazing Art of Julian Beaver, and Krakatoa Day. At More Cool Pictures, it's Foot Binding and Creepy Cannibal Pictures.

Then, one of my friends complained about having to go to two blogs in order to see ALL the cool pictures. So, I thought, why not... I'll combine the two and call it One Cool Picture After Another. I had no thought of it being more than a convenience for my friends. Interestingly, the favorite posts there are The Piercing and Pain Festival and The World's Largest Penis (no porn - I swear to you - it's not a picture of a person).

So, there you go! Build it and they will come. Be patient. Post every day.... post more than once a day if you have something interesting, relevant, shocking or funny. Eventually, that small trickle of 2 to 3 visitors a day will grow.

My Flickr Profile

2007-11-29T10:19:00.000-06:00

I've been playing with my new Flikr account. Surprisingly, the photos I have uploaded get looked at! I've even been invited to submit some photos to a couple of groups, which was fun. And several have been marked as "favorites".

All of this would be even cooler if the photos were pictures that I actually took, instead of stuff I found on the internet. But, hey, I'll take whatever appreciation I can get.

Here is a screen capture of one of my most looked at sets, Burning Man 2007. It's been up for about a week and already has had 86 views and a number of comments.

So, this is what I put on my Flikr Profile:

I am an artist, a blogger, a reader, a writer, a Reiki Master, a gypsy, a shaman, a psychic, a woman, a mother, a grandmother, a daughter, a sister, and a friend.

Other words that apply to me include: out of the box, unusual, outspoken, odd, eccentric, free spirited, employed, unemployed, foolish, wise, stupid, smart, funny, sad, ridiculous, sensible, practical, down to earth, driven, gifted, calm, relaxed, freaked out, dumb, mental, open minded, bound and determined, stubborn, persistent, opinionated, ambivalent, physical, emotional, spiritual, human... the list goes on and on.

I have a bunch of blogs and websites.. come and see them if you are interested, they are: shirley twofeathers, Mandala Madness, Way Cool Pictures, More Cool Pictures, Gypsy Magic, Green Dolphin Studio, Way Cool Quotes, The Prosperity Project, As Within, and Question of the Day. How's that for a long list?

Now, the question is, will this profile and the uploaded pictures bring me traffic to my blogs? or interest in my art? or is it just a nice diversion?

Here's an idea!

2007-11-16T12:05:00.000-06:00

Here's an idea! I happened on to a website that will post your articles and pay you royalties on any ads that get clicked on. It's Triond. Here's how it works:

You create interesting content and submit it.
They publish your content on appropriate websites.
You earn royalties.

Sounds pretty simple. It's easy to sign up, and best of all it costs nothing. I found it through a comment left at As Within. This blog rarely gets looked at, much less commented on - even though I think it's by far my most inspiring one. So when someone left a comment, I was totally surprised, and checked out her profile. What I found was a blog, Journey of a Spirited Strider, with teasers and links to posts she had written on other sites.

What a cool way to stimulate traffic to your content! It might even be a really good way to create income from my dog training experience.

Rule # 1 of Blogging

2007-11-02T13:02:00.000-05:00

If you are going to bite off more than you can chew, don't promise what you can't deliver. Either spit something out, or keep on chewing and hope for the best.

-oOo-

(Currently, I am still chewing, and and hoping for the best.

I will catch up with myself here soon.)

Money Making Idea #1

2007-10-29T14:45:00.000-05:00

Get a bunch of stuff for free and sell it on Craig's list, eBay, in a garage sale, or at a flea market. Better yet - GET PAID pick up that free stuff, and then get paid again when you sell it.

The requirements for this one are time and energy, plus a little bit of courage. Here's the basic premise:

Here in America, we live in a consumer society. Consumer societies tend to have two characteristics:

We tend to be wasteful. We often buy stuff we don't need. That's because we often buy things based on our emotion, rather than our intellect.
We also tend to be either lazy or busy. This means that after we've bought stuff we don't really need, we tend to be too lazy or too busy to dispose of them in the right way. The right way to dispose our excess stuff would, of course, be to sell or recycle it. But most of us don't do either thing.

For proof, look in our landfills. Our landfills are overflowing with useful stuff that people bought on impulse. For even more proof, look inside the average American's garage. The average garage is literally overflowing with stuff that the owners have even forgotten they have.

And know what? Our landfills and our garages are two of our biggest eyesores! Everyone is complaining about them. But hardly anyone is doing anything about them.

And this is where you come in. You can use this quick insight into consumerism by making tons of money for yourself without hardly spending any money out of your own pocket. Here's the strategy:

Put together a service that helps people get rid of all the stuff they've piled up! Tune in tomorrow for great tips and tricks on how to get started doing just that.

Cash Flow Ideas for the Financially Challenged

2007-10-28T15:03:00.000-05:00

You can get practically anything in this world with very little or even no cash up front. All it takes is a little work, a little courage, and some really good ideas. I am going to be posting a number of really good tips and tricks over the next several weeks. So, bookmark this site, and get ready for a quick infusion of cash flow ideas.

Most people remain unfulfilled in life because of money problems. Either they don't have enough money. Or they don't have enough savings. Or they don't have any collateral. Or they have lousy credit ratings. Sound familiar?

I have stumbled onto a little goldmine of great ideas. Ideas that don't require an investment of money. Ideas that only require persistence and enthusiasm. Both of which, at least the last time I checked, are free and available to anyone anywhere at any time.

Sound too good to be true? Think about this:

Gillette, the razor company, started in 1903 from literally nothing. All that the founder of Gillette had was an idea and a pencil. Today, his company is worth millions and going strong. What was the initial investment of the founder? Just one quarter.

Henry Heinz started his company with just a dime. Nothing clever or imaginative. He started with the output of a family garden, reinvested his profits and thus, literally made his company grow from ten cents to $10 billion.

Here are some other business that were started with little or no money to back them up: Hallmark Cards, Ford Motor Company, Hewlett Packard, Nike, Estee Lauder, Disney Studios, and Mattel. Think about Google, eBay, eHow, and others. Yes. It can be done!

Create Content - Make Money

2007-10-23T11:24:00.000-05:00

Here's an idea! I happened on to a website that will post your articles and pay you royalties on any ads that get clicked on. It's Triond. Here's how it works:

You create interesting content and submit it.
They publish your content on appropriate websites.
You earn royalties.

What a cool way to stimulate traffic to your content! It might even be a really good way to create income from my dog training experience.

Social Bookmarking Made Easy

2007-10-23T10:30:00.001-05:00

Here is a nifty widget from Add This which makes social bookmarking easy, and it cleans up the clutter that can accumulate below your blog posts. It's free, and it's easy to do.

They have 2 styles, their newest style has a dropdown menu. I liked it best, and so it's the one I added here. The older version is a button that looks the same, but doesn't have the cool drop down feature.

The widget also comes with free stats showing what your visitors bookmark on your website, and how often.

A nifty notepad widget

2007-10-16T12:51:00.000-05:00

Here is a nifty little Poodwaddle notepad widget for your blog or website. What a neat way to allow your visitors to take notes while they visit your site. Go ahead and try it. You know you want to!

Need a calculater on your site?

2007-10-07T02:36:00.000-05:00

Here is a nifty little calculator widget! I can think of lots of ways this could come in handy on a blog or website, how about you?

Poodwaddle.com

One Awesome Clock!

2007-10-07T02:05:00.000-05:00

Here is one awesome clock. If you are blogging about environmental issues, or about health issues - this clock could be a great way to highlight your message. Not only that, but it's fascinating to watch!

Poodwaddle.com

Get a virtual pet for your website or blog!

2007-10-06T03:14:00.001-05:00

It's a virtual tiger! I think he's kinda cute, don't you? If you click on the "more" button you can get food out and if you put the steak by his mouth and click, he'll take a bite out of it. LOL.

There are lots of different options, you can even have a pair of scissors for a pet! You can choose the color, the name, and a few other things. It's the kind of thing that would be great for a blog that children might enjoy visiting.

A Farbtastic Widget for Choosing Colors

2007-10-06T02:38:00.001-05:00

I don't know about you, but when I am trying to put a template together, or a color scheme for a web page, I never can remember the numbers of the colors. So I find myself running back and forth between Adobe Photoshop and my template page, fiddling around trying to get the numbers of the colors. It can be frustrating and time consuming. And now, I have found the perfect solution! It's the Farbtastic Widget from widgetbox. Is this nifty or what? Just put it in the side bar of your blog, and there it is - always available and easy to use.

Color Picking Widget

2007-10-06T02:08:00.001-05:00

This delightful little widget will help you to pick coordinating colors from an image. This is a great tool for creating a theme around an image for a website or blog. It's also really fun to play around with. Go ahead, fiddle with it. Isn't it cool?

Color Coordinating Widget

2007-10-06T01:59:00.001-05:00

Here is a nifty widget I found at widgetbox. If you have a blog about web design, fashion, art, or anything involving choosing and coordinating color - this is the widget for you. Check it out! Play with it. And then go get one of your own.

Widgets from Alexa

2007-10-05T11:50:00.000-05:00

At Alexa, you can find some nifty ranking and traffic widgets. If you have impressive (or even just pretty good) stats, this is a great way to show them off. If someone clicks on the widget, they are taken to your stat page at Alexa.

They even offer a Traffic Graph. You can enter up to 3 sites, and see a side by side comparison of their traffic, ranking, and page view stats. For this one, the chosen sites have to be in the top 100,000.

None of my blogs come anywhere near to being in the top 100,000. But I thought it might be interesting to compare My Blog Log, Blog Catalog, and Blog Rush. Here is what that widget looked like. (I wanted to insert the widget itself into this post, but it doesn't seem to work, the java scripting must be incompatible - so I had to settle for a picture of it.)

Get a Clock for Your Website

2007-09-16T23:23:00.000-05:00

I saw a nifty clock at Earn Money with Google Adsense today, the clock was so cool that I followed the link on it and discovered a nifty little website, Clock Link. Here you can find a wide variety of clocks for your blog or website.

They come in a wide variety of different colors, shapes, and sizes. Here are a few of my favorites:

I'm using the one below on our prosperity project to count down the days as we go. And since we are between projects at the moment, this one is a count down to the start of the next one:

Cool huh?

Blog Rush Widget

2007-09-16T16:22:00.000-05:00

At Contest Blogger today I found information about, and links to Blog Rush. This is a free blogging service allows your links to be shown on related blogs.

This is what it looks like:
The one I installed here can be found in the sidebar towards the bottom of the page.

Here's how it works:

When you add the BlogRush widget to your blog, your post titles will immediately start showing up across a bunch of related blogs that have signed up for BlogRush themselves. If your blog gets 100 page views a day, your links will show up 100 times on other blogs. If it gets 1,000 page views a day, your links will show up 1,000 times.

And what’s even better is that if you refer another blog to BlogRush, your links will be shown even more based on the traffic they receive.

Remember: It is estimated that more than 20% of blog readers are also bloggers!

FREE Teleseminar Grow Rich with Peace of Mind

2007-09-11T08:59:00.000-05:00

Here is an invitation I received this morning from: Live a Rich Life - Discover Meditation. Anyone is welcome to join in, so I thought I'd share the information.

TOMORROW!
I am delighted to announce a FREE Teleseminar
Grow Rich with Peace of Mind,
based on Napoleon Hill's groundbreaking book.

More information and Sign Up
HERE

Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Time: 4p.m. - 5p.m.PST

Make every effort to be on this call.
I will be making a VERY SPECIAL OFFER
for you that will help you magnetize
the health, wealth and happiness you
deserve.

More information and Sign Up
HERE

I'm looking forward to having you on the call.

Love and Blessings,
Pragito Dove,

Discover Meditation Training Inc.
"Discover Your Authentic Self and Live in Courage, Purpose and Joy"
P.O.Box 2144
Mill Valley CA 94942
Office Tel: 415.925.9533
Website: http://www.pragito.com/
Email: info@pragito.com

Getting people to comment on your blogs

2007-09-10T00:18:00.000-05:00

One great way to encourage comments on your blog is to join the D-List, or the Do Follow movement. I learned about this over at the Secret of Unlimited Prosperity and found more great information at Essential Keystrokes, both of which are great blogs and worth a visit.

What is the D-List? It is a list of sites that have been modified and no longer use a "nofollow" tag in their comment links.

Why is this a good thing? Because your ranking on Google and Technorati is partially determined by the number of sites that link back to you. If you comment on a blog that has not modified their comments to "follow" your link, it will be ignored. But if you comment on "Do Follow" blog, your link will count. This gives your readers a really good reason to leave comments.

It's quite easy to do, here are links to tutorials for the various blog platforms:

Word Press - get the plug in
Moveable Type - how to disable the "no follow" code
Blogger - how to modify the template

You can get several really nifty "U comment - I follow" images, like the one at the top of this post, at Randa Clay Design. Courtney Tuttle has a long list of Do Follow blogs, and tons of other good advice.

This partial DoFollow Blog list is courtesy of Courtney Tuttle and was created originally by Coleen as the D-List.

Mandala Madness
Shirley Twofeathers
One Cool Picture After Another
Way Cool Pictures
More Cool Pictures
PixelHeadOnline
DarkSEOProgramming
Kupuk
SparkInternetMarketing
Scratch99
Revellian
DayJobNuker
EcoShopper
EricBramlett
Logon
JakobDK
Allscm
TriathlonTraining
YourWebsiteProfit
HowToWakeUpEarly
LondonerLife
VandelayDesign
LaughOutLoudDogs
RonaldoCamacho
BillHartzer
FootbagShop
Terinea
NeoMeme
DavidPaulRobinson
Marenda
AMonthInVenice
SavingMoney
WomanStartYourBusinessNow
SunlightFlavor
TheBuffaloRiver.com
LifeSnippets.net
JoeBartender
OneMansGoal
MeloVillaReal
Web360
Jakeldaily
TallFreak
BaseballInvestor
DigitalBurn TheDarkLightOfLove
LifeInTheRough
Sandossu
TheDailyFuzz
ErikKarey
BothMadAndGenius
ThreeSticks
RobertaFerguson
MarketingASolicitor
FruityOaty
PilotJohn
Mrgtp
RobNeville
NetMonetization
Salatti
LakeTrees BowerBirdBeads
BloggersJourney
LosingProposition
EndangeredSpaces
SecretsOfUnlimitedProsperity
Amorphism
Health-HundredDayHeadstart
Jenny’sCorner
TheBrokenBow
Big Bucks Blogger
TheDietDiary
Wealth Health Blog
JadeHat
Nice4Rice
Hem
News Notion
RealityWired.com
BrilliantCheers
Achille
OnTheWebEd
JonLee
ChrisHoyt
JulieAnnBonner
LinkItForMe
RamblingThoughtsBlog
BlogThatOutside
Tobsy
NOWG
CatchAFallingStar
SweetAgring
LayerCake
ErikSvend
PajamaProfessional
Hem

For a more complete listing, please visit this link at Courtney Tuttle's blog.

Blogarama

2007-09-07T00:53:00.000-05:00

Today I pursued a link to Blogarama. A blog directory of sorts. I posted links to One Cool Picture After Another, Shirley Twofeathers, and this one. I don't know if much will come of it, but I'm hopeful, and since it is free, and easy to do, I don't think it could hurt.

Here are some highlights from their FAQ. It gives an idea of what is required in order to get noticed at their site.

What is the 'Score' and what does it mean?
The 'Score' that you see next to each listing indicates that listings overall score. Scores play a part in determining a listings rank in search results. A listing will increase/decrease it's score depending on users ratings, incoming traffic and outgoing traffic amongst other variables. Basically, a high Score is a good score!
How do I get into The Top 100 Most Cool section?
Blogs which have sent the most readers to Blogarama (incoming traffic) via our links will be listed first. The listings overall Score will also play a small part the ranking.
How do I get into The Top 100 Most Popular section?
Blogs which are visited most by Blogarama users (outgoing traffic) will be listed first. The listings overall Score will also play a small part the ranking.
How do I get into The Top 100 Highly Rated section?
Blogs that have the most amount of positive ratings will be listed first. The listings overall Score will also play a small part the ranking.

And here we have a variety of cool banners available to attract that incoming traffic that will give you a chance at that coveted "100 Most Cool" section:

Sudoku of the Day

2007-09-05T00:10:00.000-05:00

Here's a nifty little blog enhancement I discovered while exploring Manjeet Say, a funny little blog I found at blog catalog. I got interested in the Sudoku game he had in his sidebar. One of the reasons I was so interested was that I had found two photos of the world's largest Sudoku game, and I was thinking of posting it on Way Cool Pictures. It made sense to me to post the game widget along with the photos. This is what it looks like. Cool huh?

sudoku
If you are unfamiliar with the game of the Sudoku, the idea is pretty simple. You want to get the numbers 1-9 in every vertical and horizontal row, as well as every small square on the puzzle without repeating one.

A Million Pixels

2007-09-03T19:21:00.000-05:00

I found this post at the Million Dollar Website.

Free Ad Space on a Million Pixel Website.
July 26th, 2007

Do you have a website, blog or affiliate program you would like to promote? How about promoting your site for free? If you do then you may have just stumbled on great offer here. I need help testing and promoting a “Million Pixel Website”.

Since starting this blog I have learned one of the hardest things to do is to get your site noticed. Most bloggers are on a tight budget so advertising a new site is usually left up to submitting to directories, so I decided to set up our own “Million Pixel Website” but the only difference is this one will be free (at least for a while).

Interested? Visit the post and get the details on how to sign up.

Here's a screen capture of what the page looks like. See the wierd dude with the bugged out eyes and the tattoos? Those are the pixels I grabbed. I think he stands out nicely in the crowd! I linked it to More Cool Pictures

Getting noticed

2007-09-03T16:16:00.000-05:00

I found something cool today. Actually I found two cool blogs. The first one called Blog Dump. It is Blog directory...Featured blogs, not just text links.Video, Music and Picture Sharing too.

The main reason to do something like this would be to get link backs (which look good to google and technorati) and maybe a stray reader or two.

The other cool thing I found was Wrong Blog, Wrongblog is an open blog project.

Anyone can write a post on wrongblog. No porn or nasty stuff allowed though. Everyone is welcome add your latest post with links back to your blog. or just write it's up to you. Wrongblog has a google page rank of 4 so why not add your two cents today!

I signed up at both sites, and then I couldn't figure out what to post. LOL. As many blogs as I have and I couldn't think of something to post. Now that's just silly!

Getting a good ranking at Technorati

2007-08-30T11:32:00.000-05:00

At Money Online, I found an interesting article about an auto fave program for Technorati. She says, "If you want to move up in Technorati there are 2 ways to get there: gaining massive amounts of links to you from other blogs, or getting the most favourites.

One way to do this is to add a lot of blogs to your "technorati favorites" and then hope that they (or ask them to) fav you in return. Obviously, if you do this, it's important to also return the favor. Here's a supercool autofave program from Eng Tech that does this automatically. If someone favorites you, they are automatically favorited in return.

Here's a diagram of how it works:

You can grab the program here [2.4MB].

Bidvertiser

2007-08-27T19:21:00.000-05:00

I have been having some trouble with "illegal clicks" on one of my blogs. I cannot figure out who what or why this is happening, but it has led me down some interesting pathways.

I have not been banned, nor have any of my websites been banned by Google, but I am taking no chances and have pulled all the Google ads from that site, and have been looking at different ways to monetize.

BidVertiser looks to be a good alternative. I'm really trying to keep the design here clean... but if I keep finding more and more ways to monetize.. well... I guess a certain amount of crass commercialism will be the expected result.

Here's what it looks like:

Monetizing with Shopzilla

2007-08-25T21:02:00.000-05:00

In my never ending search for cool ways to monetize my blogs, I came across
Shopzilla.com

Something like this is especially good for blogs and web sites with a tight niche market because you can be really specific with your ads.

For example, you could narrow it down to "laptop computers" and come up with a nifty advertisement like this:

Or if you like banners, you could have a nice colorful one like this.

Auction Ads

2007-08-24T04:38:00.000-05:00

I signed up with Auction Ads tonight, it was really simple and easy. Here's how it works:

Sign up to be an AuctionAds publisher.
Insert their ad code on your web site.
Place place auction ads targeted to your content on your site.
Users buy products they're interested in and you make money.

I'm not sure why, but the ads won't show up if I put the html into this blog post. So I have the ebay auction ads towards the bottom of the page. I am currently using the key words "office supplies; movies". As time goes by, I may change those key words. So, if you're curious to see what the ads look like, scroll down and take a look. You can't miss it. It's pretty big!

If you are interested in putting Auction Ads on your own site, click on the link on the ad. That way, I'll get a little something for it :)

My online poster store!

2007-08-22T09:12:00.000-05:00

Here is a great way to make some extra money with your blog or website!

Webmasters Make $$$

After creating my affiliate account, I was able to create this cool little online poster shop. It was really easy, and the color scheme can be customised to blend with any website. The only trick now is to figure out how to place the store where people will actually browse through it and buy from it

Buy Posters at AllPosters.com

Now that's really cool, isn't it?

Net Hustlin

2007-08-22T00:51:00.000-05:00

I found this really cool blog tonight called Net Hustlin. It is chock full of really good information on how to make money online. The blog is written and researched by Crystal, a 21 year old student from New Jersey, (View her complete profile). Here are links to some of her posts - go check it out.

Embedding a Fortune
Make Money Answering Questions
Sell T-shirts and Merchandise Online
Make Money Writing on Newsvine
Get Paid To Be An Online Juror
Get Paid To Try Google Products
Amazon Mechanical Turk
Become a Hired Forum Writer
Social Networking For Money
Constant Content - Get Paid To Write Articles
How To Park Domains and Sell Them
Get Paid To Play Games On Moola
Owning a Store In Second Life
Mylot: It's Like Myspace With Money
Win Money and Prizes on Brickfish
Make money giving advice
10 Free Promotion Ideas
Dropshipping Tips
Pay Per Post
Make Money For Your Pictures
How To Spot Internet Scams
Get Paid to Post In Forums
Get Paid for Video Sharing
Easy Freelance Writing

Visitor Map

2007-08-21T10:25:00.000-05:00

I found a nifty little blog enhancement today. This is what it looks like:

What's really cool is that you can customize the map to fit your site perfectly. You can specify the size and even upload a custom background. Plus there are a number of premade maps in various colors.

Cool huh?

Networking

2007-08-20T12:28:00.000-05:00

My experience over at Blog Catalogue has been great. I've found all sorts of really great resources and the response from the people there has been great! So much so, that I have been buried in "networking fun", and haven't had time to get all the cool stuff posted. If you have blogs that you want to promote, I definitely recommend it.

I have also been doing quite a bit of networking over at Zaadz, making friends there and visiting their blogs and sites. If you are interested in positive thinking, changing the world, spirituality, and stuff like that, I think you will find Zaadz to be a great place to meet new people and promote your own ideas etc.

What I have discovered, however, about networking is that it takes time. And if you want to make contact with people, it's important to actually look at what they have to offer and comment on it. And it's important also to stay on top of all the places you have left comments so that if there is a reply to you... or a question to you... you'll know and can answer it.

Networking on the web is like having conversations with lots of people, in lots of different places, all at the same time - and all at different times. It can be very overwhelming. So ... my advice would be. Start slow, go for quality over quantity. Over time the quantity will grow.

Blog Catalogue

2007-08-03T10:39:00.000-05:00

Today, I found this nifty little website - blogging service - called Blog Catalogue.

It provides yet another way to get your blogs out where people can see them, and it also has some nifty little blog enhancers like widgets that create a small image gallery of blog visitors, and a message board.

It's easy to customize the widgets to match your site colors, with a preview and a color box to click on, nothing complicated and you don't have to "know" html to use it.

It's free to sign up, and user friendly. It's even got a small "vote for my site" button. I installed one in my sidebar. Go click on it and vote for me!

A Shout Box

2007-08-01T15:14:00.000-05:00

So here is something cool I found at ShoutMix. It's a free little widget that allows visitors to chat with one another while on your site.

This is the one I made, currently it's on the prosperity project. But later, I might move it to a different site. I might even put it on all my blogs and websites and possibly stimulate some really interesting conversations. I haven't decided what I will do with it yet. It is cool, isn't it?

View shoutbox

Free shoutbox @ ShoutMix

50x50

2007-07-30T12:30:00.000-05:00

Today, while researching Hex symbols for possible inclusion in Mandala Madness, I stumbled onto a really interesting website/art project called 50x50. It is an ongoing online work of art made of 50 pixel square images from artists around the world.

I thought it was pretty cool, so I submitted this image, called "Ring of Power", I'll just have to wait and see what happens with that. And then, I got to thinking about my Sell Art Online blog, and how I haven't posted there in months, so I got busy and did a little work on that.

It's a lovely rainy day today, and once I get caught up on everything, I must might go looking for online galleries and really go crazy putting my art out there!

Adding an aStore

2007-07-16T17:37:00.001-05:00

I spent most of today creating an aStore at Amazon.com for the Mandala Madness blog. I figured that it was conceivable that people who enjoy that blog might also have a need for or be in the mood to purchase gifts with a "mandala" twist.

The store was really simple to construct, and if it was a website instead of a blog, there was even an option to include it as part of a website so that visitors to the site would not be taken off site to browse the store.

Then I made a small advertisement for the sidebar on the Mandala Madness blog, it looks like this:

We have created a small store at Amazon.com, where we have gathered together a wide variety of gift items for the mandala lovers in your life. We would love it if you would check it out: Mandala Madness at Amazon

This is what's new in my world today

2007-07-14T12:04:00.000-05:00

At Mandala Madness we have two new posts, art and poetry:

Communion

art by Shirley Gibson

Stop using words around me
I can’t hear you when you are always talking
Be still and listen with your skin,
like when there is a monster under your bed
I love it when we talk like this…

~Grace Gibson

Also today I am working on gratitude at the Prosperity Project, I've got some great quotes up at Way Cool Quotes, and a nifty new gadget at Way Cool Pictures:

Designed by Oliver Blackwell, the “WashDryIron” is an all-in-one machine that can handle up to 16 items at once. All the washing, drying, and ironing take place in seperate compartments with each piece on hangers to prevent creases. Mr. Blackwell expects his machine to sell for $1,389 - $1,562 when it’s released.

Cool huh?

Finding time to over-achieve!

2007-07-13T01:21:00.001-05:00

So, the other day I set a personal record for the number of blogs I posted to. It was quite astonishing actually, and my mind was mush by the time it was all said and done. And it occured to me that it might be helpful to say a few words about posting and how I go about it.

I have noticed that for me, putting a couple of days between posts is like the kiss of death. A couple of days turns into a couple of weeks, and pretty soon it's a couple of months. I do best if I can post every day.

But how do you post every day when you are a perfectionist, overachieving, ambitious, possibly nutty person like me with a gagillion blogs? And do I really need that many blogs? And why am I doing this anyway?

What works best for me, is to have the blog organized in such a way that I know pretty much what I'm going to say every day for the next week or so. It also helps if I already have graphics rounded up so that I don't have to go looking for stuff to "pretty" up the post.

Another thing that is important is to have a clear idea of what the "theme" of the blog is, the "reason" for it, my goals for the blog itself, and my motives for doing it. This way, I'm not flailing around unsure of myself, spending lots of time trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing.

This is how it works:

This blog is centered around me blogging. I think of it as my "work at home" job, even though it has yet to pay me more than about $ .02 an hour, if that much. So, that's the theme. My reasons for doing it are as follows:

Easy access to various helpful links that I often use for the blogs.
To provide what I hope will eventually be something helpful for other hopeful bloggers.
Yet another way to "promote" my other blogs. Let's face it, I do promote them here.
Yet another avenue for potential adsense and other affiliate commissions.

Knowing this gives me a good idea of what to write about. And if I happen to write about anything related to this blog, I just copy it and repost it here. That's how the post on "trouble at the border" was created, it was part of another project, but seemed appropriate for here as well.

Organizationally, I have not done as well here as I have on other blogs. For example, on Way Cool Pictures, I have pictures stored in folders (one folder for each series or set of images) and the folders are arranged so that the one that is up first is the one that I plan to put up next. If I happen to find something really cool, and I want to put it next, I just move it up. This way, I don't have to think about what I'm going to post, it's already there all lined up and ready to go.

Way Cool Quotes is my easiest blog. I just flip through my quotes files, find several that pop out at me, and then cut and past them into the post, and voila, it's done. No images to find, nothing to write, it's pretty simple. My biggest challenge with that one is how to organize the labels and tags for them.

The Question of the Day is simple as well. When I decided to do it, I went on a protracted image search looking for question mark images. Once I was well supplied with those, it became fairly simple to "decorate" the post. I sometimes think up questions, and I'm always looking out for questions in books, articles, and emails. I keep them in a folder, ready to go.

The Prosperity Project is harder because I often have to "write" the post and then find ways to illustrate it. Usually I do it first thing in the morning when I'm "fresh". And when I'm at work, I jot down ideas for it, and try to flesh them out as much as possible as I have a chance. The same goes for Mandala Madness, which is a cross between the picture blogs, the quote blog, and the prosperity project. I have it organized with folders, and I do the "thinking" and "writing" while at work if possible.

I do have a blog at Zaadz, which I have been trying to stay current on, and what I've been doing there is taking bits and pieces from my daily posts and mashing them together to make a sort of collage of what's up with me. I've also done that here to a certain extent.

When do I do all this blogging?

I blog when I get home from work, usually for about 2 hours, and can usually do the picture blogs, the quotes, and the question. Sometimes I get to the prosperity project, etc. And then, when I get up in the morning, I check my email and get the Prosperity Project up, and spend another 2 hours or so. On weekends, and on my days off, I spend time looking for images, organizing posts, gathering ideas, and sometimes writing rough drafts.

For me, it seems like with this schedule, I can do about 5 or 6 blogs a day and keep them current without too much trouble. I would love to have about 15 blogs going... but... hey... it's just little me, and I have to keep my "day" job for now, so...

War and Peace

2007-07-12T00:29:00.001-05:00

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

~Jane Howard

posted today at Way Cool Quotes

New today at Way Cool Pictures:

A striking image from the 2006 Chelsea Flower Show in London, UK. The garden was designed as a 'natural haven of peace, inviting visitors to journey from the stressful world of consciousness to an altogether more alluring destination, idealised in dreams..'

After the 2006 Chelsea Flower Show closed, this figure was bought by Olivia Harrison, the widow of George Harrison. She has been continuing to restore the large Victorian garden at their house in Henley-on-Thames, UK.

Beautiful isn't she?

And then as I was surfing for pictures for my picture blogs, I came across this one, and decided to post it as today's Question of the Day.

My answer was that I engage in warlike activities all the time, for example... I might be engaging in a war on dirt in my house, a war on weeds in my garden, a war on mice in the walls of my home... etc etc. And it occurs to me that maybe there is another way to go about accomplishing my goals without having a warlike attitude.

How about you guys, what do you think?

And so I started thinking about peace vs war, and I was able to come up with a desktop wallpaper for Mandala Madness. I think it came out pretty cool, here it is:

A beautiful mandala to bring peace to your desktop.

If you want to download it, just go to Mandala Madness. If you have a desktop wallpaper mandala image, or get inspired to make one and want to share it, just let me know. I'd love to post it at the blog, and I would of course give you credit, and links back to your web pages. So don't be shy.

And last but not least:
On the prosperity project today, we have one of the weekly meditations that come to me via email. It's from Pragito.

Description:
Suddenly you see a friend you have not seen for many days and you feel joy arising in your heart. But your attention is on your friend, not on your joy. Then you are missing something and the joy is momentary.

When you see a friend and suddenly feel a joy arising in your heart, concentrate on this joy. Feel it and become it, and meet the friend while being aware and filled with your joy. Let the friend be on the periphery, and remain centered in your feeling of happiness.

When and Where:
You can try this technique in many situations. For example, the sun is rising, or you suddenly see your pet, or any external situation that brings a feeling of joy arising in your heart.... be centered in your own feeling of joy. Instead of being
object-centered, become self-centered.

Whenever there is joy, you feel it is coming from without. That is not the actual case. The joy is always within you. The friend/the external situation has just become a situation to trigger the joy within you.

Benefits:
Whenever this happens remain centered in the inner feeling, and then you will have a different attitude about everything in life. You become the emotion of joy itself, and there will be a great change in you.The joy spreads through your whole being and your awareness deepens it.

And that's it for today!

And then I did this...

2007-07-11T13:34:00.000-05:00

I am still mulling over the issues of tags and labels and the best way to organize Way Cool Quotes, however I did get the "label cloud" for this blog finished. Looks cool, huh?

Having finally stopped obsessing over labels and tags, I posted to a number of other blogs. Here's a "teaser" from the post at Way cool Pictures. It's a test of a fire fighting foam system at Ellsworth AFB. but something went hilariously and terribly wrong...

There are about 10 pictures in the post, too many to put up here, so go see it. It's really funny!

Speaking of pictures, On Way Cool Pics I posted several incredible images of the awesome surreal art by Vladimir Kush. Here's one of them:

If you visit the site, just be aware that some of the images previously posted might be a little "over the top". No porn, nothing too offensive, but if you are sensitive, you might want to approach this site with caution. I call it the "dark side" of Shirley.

On a more uplifting note, I was going to post desktop wallpaper at the Mandala Madness blog, but I ran out of time, and didn't get one found or created. If any of you out there reading this have, or know of, great Mandala Art wallpapers for the desktop that are free to use and distribute, please let me know. If you want to contribute something you've made yourself, it would be greatly appreciated, and I'll be happy to plug you, your art, and your site on the blog.

Let me see... what else... On the Prosperity Project we are saying "thank you" for unusual things. If you'd like to contribute your own thank you's that would be great!

So that's it for me today!
Blessings to all my readers and supporters.
I love you and appreciate you more than you know!

Labels out of control

2007-07-11T11:37:00.000-05:00

So today, I have been working on the labels for Way Cool Quotes. There are so many that it's just out of control. I wish I could find a way to tag the posts in 3 different ways, and have the option of posting each one.

With Quotes you've got first of all, the author. If I'm looking for Abraham Lincoln quotes, I want to be able to click on "Abraham Lincoln" and pull them all up. And then you have the more general categories such as "humor" and "motivational". If I am just looking for an inspirational quote, I need to be able to click on "living large" and then pick and choose from there. On the other hand, I might also be looking for a quote about something really specific, like for example "fog". I would then want to look at all the quotes with the word "fog" in it.

I do have a nice little search widget which I got from Beautiful Beta, and that would take care of the "specific word" issue, and even the specific author issue. However, I cannot seem to make myself limit my tags to just a few categories. Plus, sometimes I find it really difficult to decide just what category a quote might fit into. And then there are lots of quotes that just don't seem to fit into any category. So what happens is that I tag each post with every tag that I can think of that seems appropriate, which gives me a gagillion tags that are only listed once.

With the label cloud hack, I have been able to avoid having ALL of them show up on the page, but I just keep thinking that there must be a better way to organize it all. So that's what I've spent all morning doing... tagging and retagging a gagillion quotes.

Ok, enough said about that, now I'm going to get busy and get the label cloud hack going on THIS blog.

Hello Again

2007-07-11T01:16:00.000-05:00

So here I am, I know it's been a really long time since I last posted, but I have had a bad case of bloggitis... and it got the better of me... and I had to take it down a notch or two so I could at least get a grip on SOME of them.

I have thought of a way, though, to keep this blog updated without too much trouble, and I thought that I would duplicate my post over at Zaadz if I didn't have time to come up with anything new or interesting. This way, there will at least be a running dialogue, new content, and the illusion of getting this blog up to date.

Illusions are good!

The blog I'm currently having the most fun with is Way Cool Pictures. This is a part of today's post.

It looks like a house that couldn't possibly be for real, but it is...

As for the rest of the story, here it is:

On the Prosperity Project, we are currently working on Gratitude, this is today's post:

Two things I can say "thank you" for are:

The image is kind of dorky, but I have been coming up with a new "thank you" image every day for the last... 15 days or so, and it's getting to be slim pickins!

This month's Project (gratitude) has been working really well. I really think that we are all getting a lot of benefit from this one. If you would like to join in, feel free - we would love to have you!

And then on the Question of the Day, today, I posted this question:

Your body communicates with you all the time. If you were to take the time right now to really listen, what do you think your body would be saying?

Hmmm...

And I think that right now, my body has got to be saying "Shirley, for crying out loud, shut up and go to bed!" and I'm saying, "But wait... there's more!"

Continuing with the "body" theme, the current quote from my Way Cool Quotes blog is:

What is always speaking silently is the body.
~Norman Brown

I don't know about you guys, but sometimes my body isn't very silent when speaking. Some times she yells!

And then there's Mandala Madness, todays post is about Madhubani yantra paintings, this is the first part of the post:

The wall paintings of Madhubani are a queer mixture of aestheticism, ecstasy and sex. Put here on paper are some of the same representations.

The major part of the painting has a circle of yantras representing different gods and goddesses. It is the influence of Tantra on the religious scene. The Kali Yantra, Sri Yantra etc. form the conglomeration of yantras, akin to mandalas, a symbol in Tantrik art.....

I have a little bit more information and another image posted on the blog, so if this interests you, you might want to check it out over at Mandala Madness.

And then there's my "R" rated picture blog... Way Cool Pics (yes I know the name is really similar to the other one - but it's too late to change it now) This picture blog may not be suitable for everyone. No porn, nothing too offensive, but some of the images are a little over the top - so if you're sensitive, you might want to NOT go there.

However, that being said, today's picture was hilarious and cute, so I'll include it here, this is it:

Hi Sweetie,
Can you smile pretty for the camera?

LOL
And on that note, I'll just say "goodnight"

Trouble at the Border

2007-05-05T09:11:00.000-05:00

I was really impressed with the whole concept of "Trouble at the Border". This is what happens to me all the time. I love being in that field of all possibilities, ideas are so easy! And they feel so hopeful! And then, that gathering of energy to bring an idea into reality. That's exciting and fun... I get all charged up. And then "Bam" all the trouble starts.

I usually can keep an idea going long enough to actually "see" it in the physical. But keeping it alive and growing is a whole other story. I get discouraged, I start to second guess myself. I start thinking of new ideas.

Green Dolphin Studio is a perfect example of this. I worked so hard getting that website done. And I had high hopes for it too. I thought that people would at least go there and buy greeting cards. I thought people would buy prints. I was sure that something would happen. I even thought that the cafe press store would just take off.. the stuff in it is so cool. But then, nobody going to Green Dolphin was buying, and I worked on optimising the site, I submitted the url to various search engines, and then my energy began to fizzle out.

I stopped uploading the remainder of my art... only about half of it is on there. I quit talking it up. I haven't even visited it for months. I started getting other ideas and acting on them... And now I have so many things going on that I don't really have time for the Green Dolphin website.

If I had anticipated and planned for it to unfold that way, I don't know that a lot of things would be different, but I do know that I would feel better about it. And me feeling better about it would probably make it easier for me to go there periodically and putter around.

And it occurs to me that it's my expectations .... that give the illusion of "trouble at the border"... if I had not had the expectations of sales, I would not be disappointed in the website at all. I would think it was just fine, and I would be budgeting time to get it finished up, and I would be working away.... slowly... at getting it advertised in the right places, etc.

I have been having the most fun with my quotes and picture blogs. I haven't had any expectations for them at all. I'm doing them for fun, and people are actually going there. I don't know if it will ever translate into adSense money for me, and while that would be nice, I have no expectations that it will. I think that's one reason why they are fun... I am not putting a lot of pressure on myself that they have to "succeed" ...

So, that's as far as I got, how about you?

Way Cool Quotes

2007-04-16T09:36:00.000-05:00

Way Cool Quotes has been an idea in my head for a really long time. Several years ago, I started making greeting cards using my artwork. I call them Way Cool Art Cards, and if you are interested, you can go take a look at them at Green Dolphin Studio.

As I made the cards, I began collecting quotes to put in them, and haunting quote sites. It occured to me that a quote site might be a good way to promote the cards, and I filed that idea away, and never did anything about it. In the mean time, my collection of quotes was growing, and growing, and growing.

Then one day last month, I was looking for a specific quote to put on one of my blogs and I had a heck of a time finding it because I was having to sift through file after file, looking for it. "Self," I said, "if I had a quote site, I would be able to find this quote really easily. All I would have to do is put in a key word, and voila... there it would be."

Two minutes later, I was on blogger getting Way Cool Quotes off the ground. This is my favorite blog. It's useful, it's pretty, it's inspirational, and it's easy.

The Question of the Day

2007-04-15T12:31:00.000-05:00

The idea for Question of the Day came from a brainstorming attempt to stimulate more conversation and bring something interesting to The Prosperity Project.

It occured to me that it might be worthwhile to spin off with a small site composed entirely of questions to stimulate out of the box thinking, self examination, or even just entertainment and social networking. I thought it might be a good way to get us talking to each other.

We have been having a lot of fun with it. Here is the feed, if you are curious and want to check it out.

In case you are new to feeds and subscriptions, this is how it works: When you click on the link, you will go to a web page that gives you all the options there are for subscribing to the blog. Don't worry, subscriptions are free - and you won't get spammed. It also gives you a preview of several of the most recent posts.

This is just one way to take a look at the material on the site, and decide if you want it to come to you via email, or if you want to maybe have it show up on your home page, or even embed it in your own website. I like having feeds of my favorite sites available where I can see them when I first log on to the internet. That way, I can see if anything new has posted, and I don't have to hunt through bookmarks to find them.

My New Calendar

2007-04-14T02:34:00.000-05:00

Today I discovered 3D Boxes, and made this really cool calendar of all the work I have been doing on my most current blogs: The Prosperity Project, Way Cool Quotes, and Question of the Day. I also made one just for the Prosperity Project because I think it will be really helpful for us as we work that project. It was simple to do, and I really like how it came out.

The Prosperity Project

2007-04-13T00:34:00.000-05:00

The project I am spending the most time on currently is The Prosperity Project. This was the blog that started all the other blogs, and a number of other internet projects. I got the idea for it one evening at work. I was mulling over my prosperity issues, and it occured to me that I know a heck of a lot of different prosperity techniques, stuff that is really supposed to work. And yet, I don't spend any time really doing any of them.

Because I am always more motivated when working in a group, I thought, wouldn't it be cool if I could pull a bunch of people together, maybe we could spend 30 days working on each prosperity technique. That way, we would be able to really put those ideas and techniques to the test. Find out what really works, and what really doesn't work. At the same time, we could support each other and share ideas and resources.

The idea of doing the project as a blog came about because it seemed like the simplest way to include people from anywhere. That would also solve the problem of when and where to get together because we could just log in whenever it was possible or convenient.

Currently, (April 2007) we have between 4 to 8 people who participate regularly, it varies a little from month to month. So far, we have researched prayer, gypsy magic, acts of kindness, feng shui, de-cluttering, Ganesh mantras, and Steve Pavlina's million dollar experiment. Some of our projects have stimulated little spin off blogs. These are at this point still works in progress, some more progressed than others, and they include: The Prayer Request Hotline, Gypsy Magic Spells and Charms, and Loving Ganesh.

One thing that has happened, which was totally unexpected, is that the cumulative effect of consciously working at prosperity from all these different angles has resulted in life changing experiences, bursts of amazing prosperity and good luck interspersed with equally powerful periods of introspection difficulties as our obstacles and impediments come clear and get cleared.

We welcome newcomers, and if you are interested in joining this group, feel free to just jump on in. It won't matter to us in the least if you start in the middle of a project, so don't hesitate to start with whatever it is we are currently working on. It costs nothing to join, and requires no sharing of information. We do have a couple of people who participate anonymously. All that we ask is that you give it your best shot - whatever your best happens to be on any given day - and comment when you can. Absolutely no pressure, and lots of support.

Blidgets

2007-04-10T08:26:00.000-05:00

This week I have been working on creating blidgets for my blogs. Sounds silly doesn't it? What is a blidget? A blidget is like a little mini blog that you can insert into a webpage.

Here is what Widgetbox has to say about blidgets:

What’s a blidget?
A blidget is a widget that contains your blog. Other people can place your blidget on their sites, increasing your exposure.

Why should I want a blidget?
A blidget drives readers to your site.
Many bloggers like to show support for the other blogs they read, and like to provide their readers with related articles they might like. Everyone who goes to their blog is instantly given a sneak peak into yours.
Some of our blidgets quickly gain hundreds of subscribers — that is, hundreds of people put your blidget on their site, providing their readers exposure to your content.

How do I know who’s using my blidget?
Every blidget comes with a metrics dashboard to track your blidget’s spread across the internet, see how many people are looking at it, and discern lots of other patterns.

There was a cool blidget in the sidebar, but it conflicts with the adsense ads. It looks like I can have one or the other but not both. I think this must have something to do with the template I'm using, because I have blidgets on other blogs and no problems at all. As far as I can tell, the main drawback to posting blidgets on blogs and websites is that it really slows the page down in terms of loading time. If you have a high speed connection, you probably won't notice, but if you have dial up it can be a problem.

I'd like to put my blidgets up here as separate blog posts, so you can see and enjoy them, but so far have not succeeded with that either. So, it looks like it's back to Widgetbox to surf the forums, reread the FAQ's, and maybe even email for some help.

If you want to see one in action, you can visit The Prosperity Project, there is a Question of the Day blidget at the top of the page on the right hand side.

Hello

2007-03-31T00:17:00.000-05:00

This is the first post in my work at home blog, designed specifically to help me keep track of my work at home job as an up and coming internet mogul. LOL. I hope you enjoy yourself here, and I also hope you find plenty of information to help you on your own journey to self sufficiency, abundant prosperity, and whatever else it is that you are seeking.