Since posting my article “One Way Inbound PR 9 Links For Free” I have received many inquiries about the software I used to generate the video which captured the computer desktop.

The Night Shift

It took me over 5 hours to find the software I used. I started by looking at www.tucows.com and www.download.com - Maybe I’m slow, but I had a heckuva time figuring out the correct keywords to search on. Many of the terms would yield simple print screen, regular camera video recording or video editing software packages – none of which were going to meet my need for the project. I finally figured out the correct search terms were “screen recorder” or “screen recording”.

The goal was to find FREE software if I could – I wasn’t able to find anything for hours, so, I finally found a package that was free to try. After downloading it, I set up the options, got a brief script ready and started recording. Immediately, I received a message that it would only allow 15 recordings before I would have to pay for it. This was pretty discouraging because I was doing a test video on the first recording and I could see how quickly I was going to use up all 15 recordings. “Ah well,” I thought, and braced to pay for it…

Tech Support?!? We Don’t Offer No Stinking Tech Support!

After recording the first video – it did not work very well, the *.avi was corrupted, and buggy. So, I worked a way around it, and recorded again. The file sizes were out of control, 230Mb – 350Mb. I found a setting to change in order to use a better encoding, but it was buggy and wasn’t working correctly in the trial. So, I emailed the company and asked if they could provide some support – that if I couldn’t get the encoding to work, I wouldn’t be able to buy the software.

They emailed me back suggesting that I purchase some video conversion software. Basically, they were telling me to “screw off” and expecting me to thank them for it.

On The Road Again…

So, I began my search again, looking for other screen recorders. My plan was to download many and use up all of their free to try periods before deciding on which one to buy… then I noticed – All the user interfaces I ran across looked alike! I mean, they did not resemble each other, they looked exactly alike!

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

Then I ran across a review by Hax0r on C|NET’s download.com where he said the following about one of the screen recorders which is “free to try” but you have to pay to get the full version:

Rip-off of open-source program

Pros: Well, it’s an alright, though CPU-inefficient program… but…

Cons: This is obviously a rip-off of the open-source program, CamStudio 2.0, available at camstudio dot org. They might very well have taken the open-source code, changed the names and are trying to sell it. I highly recommend that you check out the aforementioned program, CamStudio 2.0, before downloading this.

Posted: 28-Nov-2006 03:55:22 AM

Jackpot!

I went to CamStudio.org site and there it was… the free software Hax0r had referred to, available for download and FREE to use at SourceForge.net

Ethics – A Little Cleaning Up To Do

I reported the possible licensing violations to the author, not sure if these are real violations, but wanted to let him know there is a possibility that others are profiting off of his open source work. You can bet this guy gets a donation from me! If you end up using the software, I would encourage you to donate, as well.

While composing a comment response to a recent article by Shawn from AffiliateTip, it started to get pretty long, so, I thought I would make an article out of it. If you want to know more about the post I am responding to, please visit Shawn’s site at the links listed above.

Basically, one of the more controversial affiliate marketers who I have started to follow because they are so honest about their opinion is on a tear and mounting an attack on eBook writers & publishers.

I do not publish any eBooks, and I think his post is an interesting “comment” on the general tone of folks being fed up with poor quality “regurgitated” content.

I share the general sentiment and am extremely tired of the “carpetbagger” mentality of infomercials, eBooks, and other “get rich quick” schemes that permeate the U.S. market these days. I would love to see “scammers” removed from the marketplace in the hopes that we would be left with good value-added products to choose from, instead of having to sift through tons of garbage to find the one gem.

I think the originator makes a couple of mistakes though - the first is being addressed by his readers warning of copyright infringement which he threatens to do.

The second is his assumption that all eBooks have no value - just because he knows the strategies that work for him doesn’t mean that everybody knows those same strategies.

Also, when he says, “I’ve never once come across a single one of them offering anything valuable or new that you can’t find for free on a forum or a blog.” That is true of any cookbook, gaming manual, or other instruction booklet. Does that mean that Emril is an “asshole” because he is publishing another book on how to make crawfish Étouffée? I mean, come on… how many different ways can you cook crawfish and cayenne pepper together??? (That was sarcastic…) There is value in the accumulation and combining of relevant data which saves the buyer time.

It makes me wonder if this is a publicity stunt – perhaps he is getting ready to write his own eBook or has a partner who will release one soon which he will be “forced” to provide a “good” review because the content is so “in the face” of anything out there right now.

We’ll wait & see – I guess.

Here is a way that you can get your site, articles AND photo listed in Google News and Yahoo! News For FREE

I have noticed recently, that there seems to be a trend where more affiliate marketers, including me, have been all to willing to part with our money for press releases and other link back services. However, most of us write articles about stuff that we are passionate about, so why not use some of those articles to get high page ranked sites to link into our sites?

Google News and Yahoo! News are two sites out of many that use American Chronicle as one of their news service feeds?

American Chronicle is a PR 6 site, but once Google or Yahoo! pick up your article, you have instant high quality one way inbound Page Rank 9 links pointing straight at whatever site you wish. Now, this isn’t the end all be all – but it’s not a bad place to get started, right?

In order to be accepted to American Chronicle as an author, you must go through an application process and be approved by the support staff.

The process is extremely simple, you go to the American Chronicle website. On the left side of the page, you will see the View Authors link, once you click through that link you will notice an ad on the lower right side of the page labeled “Writers Wanted”. Click through the ad and you will be able to read more about their author program.

If you want to go through the process all you have to do is submit a sample article to the email address listed there – when I submitted my article I heard back after about 10 business days. I’m not sure what their backlog is now, but that seemed reasonable to me at the time.

Heck, you can even do a search on the Author’s page for my name, but be careful, because you may find my photo there, and I do not take responsibility for any permanent or temporary loss of sight caused by that photo!

Good luck, and let me know how it goes.

Just take time and feel good today.

According to Professor Wesch of Kansas State University we must begin re-thinking the way we have done things with regards to everything based upon what Web 2.0 is bringing.

I cannot speak about everything.

Although, there seem to be plenty of folks out there responding to various global social issues having been inspired by Professor Wesch’s video.

I can speak about what I experience.

I know that over the past twelve months I have started to re-think how I run my business, and how I treat my clients in “the real world,” but this wasn’t inspired by Web 2.0 – it was inspired by watching many other people in my profession fail to provide what I would call a positive client experience.

If you were to try and correlate this experience into the Web, then I think you have the basis for what most people are trying to enable Web 2.0 to become.

Take BUMPzee! for example – The members that I have interacted with from that community have been far more interested in enabling fellow affiliate marketers to be aware of the methods and tools to be successful at their chosen niche rather than “hocking” the next “get rich quick” scheme.

Is this enabled by Web 2.0, or is it a natural result of a bunch of people getting together who were tired of the status quo? Perhaps, it is both things… Perhaps over the past ten or so years since the Internet and Web have become more widely used, we have evolved in our way of thinking about what we want this tool we call the “Internet” to become.

I do not believe, as some have supposed, that the computers which support the web are learning.

I do believe that without realizing it, we are learning to become the ghost in the machine.

Check out this new application from Primelabs called Twingly. It shows blog updates “real time” around the globe. It is free software, and I am not affiliated with this site or the software in any way.

It was so fascinating to watch and I actually gained some benefit from it, I thought I would share it here. I hope they will consider adding filters to the blogs, but as it is – it is mesmerizing.

What I take away from this is that no matter how large the community is you belong to? There is a larger one at work.

The implications for this with regards to affiliate marketing should be self evident. There is still a whole world of niches and markets out there, we are far from saturated!

Bloglyne.com Is Worth Somewhere Between $61.48 - $9,032.64!

Which one do you believe?

Right now, today Pingoat.com shows my site being worth about $61.48 according to Technorati – What, you don’t believe me? You can see it right there on my sidebar!

I ran across Pingoat.com recently while commenting and writing about the article, “Tricks and Tools for Affiliate Blog Building – HOT Video” on 5 Star Affiliate’s site.

It started to get me to think about how we value our sites, and how much work we put into them… It sure feels like I have put in more time than $61.48 – I must be working for about $0.03/hour *grins* Hopefully, it will get better, right?!?!

How do you determine the value of your site?

Heck – how does anybody? By the hours you put in, by the traffic the site generates, by the REAL traffic the site generates, by your backlinks…

What is your website worth?There are certainly differing opinions. Apparently, Sootle.com believes my site is worth $405, which they claim is based on the Yahoo Developer Network.According to their FAQ, the valuations are based on the backlinks Yahoo! is listing which are associated with my site.

Another site called dnScoop.com provides a much more detailed report by apparently looking at:

• Google Pagerank
• AlexaRank
• Indexed Pages for
  • Google, MSN, Yahoo!, AlltheWeb, and AltaVista
• HTTP Status
• Domain keyword popularity
• Site category
• Age of domain and a few other factors

It looks like dnScoop was a little more conservative than Sootle, but much more liberal than Pingoat. With this tool, it is not just looking at backlinks or Alexa traffic or even keywords. It appears that dnScoop is taking a larger view of site worth and using multiple sources of data to check value. I will try to get in touch with the site owner to find out if they will provide any more detail on how they are weighting each item and if there are plans to provide recommendations for improvements beyond their affiliate links.

The winner by far and the one I will choose to remember is the Business Opportunities Weblog, which valued Bloglyne.com at $9,032.64! This is based on Technorati’s links and inspired by Tristan Louis and the AOL-WeblogsInc deal.

I am going to kick off an affiliate experiment here on Bloglyne.com by trying out Text Link Ads.

This looks like a decent way to buy solid back links to our site which should result in a real increase in traffic. It should also have the additional benefit of providing a simple way to begin monetizing my sites in two ways – the first by selling ad space via text links, the second by selling products and services.

Once I get the campaign kicked off, I will publish an update every couple of weeks to comment on the Advertisers Program where I sign up on for Text Link Ads on other sites to see if they are really improving my affiliate sales for products & services; I will comment on the Publisher Program to let the community know if I am being successful in selling advertising and at what prices; I will also comment on the Affiliate Program and whether or not I am successful at converting folks into the Text Link Ads program.

For all three of these programs, I will publish methods, earnings & tips. Please feel free to let me know if you would find this helpful by leaving your comments below.

FYI… I am using my affiliate link in this article (in case you haven’t noticed) to begin the experiment, so feel free to sign up and get $100 in FREE Links!

This is really interestig stuff - I am excited to see that I made it on Alexa’s radar. It is nothing extravegant, but still for a site up less than 30 days, not too bad either.

3 month avg 742,880
1 week avg 154,634
Yesterday 92,439

At Technorati - I have progressed from >900,000 to 263,008 with 31 links from 16 blogs. So, a quick thank you is in order from everybody who is visiting the site and for those who comment and link to us.

Please take a moment to share any success story no matter how small you consider it to be - In this way, we can lift each other up. Remember, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step… (trite, I know - but still true!)

So, yesterday started out like any other – I thought I would read some of my favorite sites and see what was going on in the world.

Soon after, I decided to take the “bull by the horns” and fix the comment format issue I was having, and while I was at it, perform some needed updates. If you actually scan the changes you will see a massive comedy of errors. I am publishing this for all the folks out there who feel like they are the only ones struggling to get their pages “right”.

My message – A final design does not occur overnight. Don’t give up! If I can do it – you certainly can!

The TypoXP theme author Everton Blair had published a method to add tabs at the top of the page, which I had been waiting for – so, I thought I would add them, but what I thought would be a simple upgrade turned into an entire day of trial & error, which is still not over…

Trial & Error (Version 0.00 Beta)

Put new .commentbody code sent by Nick Wilsdon in wrong .css

Trial & Error (Version 0.01 Beta)

Added navigation code to the wrong .css file (I detect a theme here)
Added navigation tabs to the top of the page
Every time the page would load, it would load with errors
Broken About link
Broken Subscribe link
BUMPzee! Widget broken (but didn’t notice yet)
MyBlogLog broken (but didn’t notice yet)
Sidebar Menu messed up

Trial & Error (Version 0.02 Beta)

Removed messed up Sidebar Menu code
Modified Title phrases for new links
Added Subscribe Page
Modified About Page
Subscribe page link still broken
BUMPzee! Widget broken (but didn’t notice yet)
MyBlogLog broken (but didn’t notice yet)

Trial & Error (Version 0.03 Beta)

Noticed that Subscribe page had weird URL
Modified new navigation tab to match weird URL
Subscribe page link fixed
Modified WP URL & Blog URL in Options to have www. prefix

Trial & Error (Version 0.04 Beta)

In the process of writing an email to the Everton, I finally figured out I had the .commentbody code in the wrong .css and didn’t have to send the email to him asking for advice on how to fix the comments
Moved it .commentbody to the correct .css, and the comments were fixed – YES! That is a very satisfying feeling
Noticed that the BUMPzee! Widget was broken
Noticed that MyBlogLog was broken
Page kept loading with Errors

Trial & Error (Version 0.05 Beta)

Removed all of the new tab navigation feature
Lost links to new Subscribe page
Lost links to new About page
BUMPzee! Widget working again
MyBlogLog working again

Trial & Error (Version 0.06 Beta)

Noticed that all of my BUMPzee! ratings were re-set and my articles were being pulled back into BUMPzee! so, I had to notify Scott Jangro

Trial & Error (Version 0.07 Beta)

Woke up this morning and received note from Scott that it was the URL options which had caused the issue.
Remembered about wrong .css with comments and thought the same thing might be happening with the code for the new navigation tabs
Re-added navigation tab .css to same file .css that the .commentbody code went to
Finally, navigation tabs working and the page is loading without error
Navigation tabs not causing BUMPzee! Widget to fail
Navigation tabs not causing MyBlogLog to fail
Archives tab broken now (not sure what caused this, but I think it is because of the URL options change and the fact that I do not have any articles published after the change).

Trial & Error (Version 0.08 Beta)

In process…

Will I ever be out of Beta?

One can only hope!