Squidoo Blog: Valley Of The Giants

Routenote Direct: you can now sell your own digital downloads of music, for free.

2012-01-27T12:33:00.001-08:00

Courting Disaster by ChapelHillFiddlerI'm giving Routenote Direct a try - anybody can upload single songs or whole albums to this site, and they will be submitted to itunes, spotify, etc. Now, there is also this widget (see above) which should allow you to buy albums directly from Routenote. If you try it be sure to let me know how it works for you! Thanks.

Birthday Gift Ideas

2012-01-14T10:34:00.000-08:00

Image Credit Fotolia

Over the course of our life there are certain special occasions with our friends and family that stand out as worthy of celebration, and gifts are of course a really important part of the holiday. Giving wonderful gifts for birthdays to loved ones is a nice thing to do and with some prior planning it doesn't have to be difficult. When you give someone a birthday gift, you are telling indirectly how much you love them. Show how much you care with a gift that's ideally suited to the person receiving the birthday present.

Who looks forward to birthdays like the kids? Nobody of course! If you've ever shopped for birthday presents for kids, you know it can be hard make them happy. Especially this new crop, they prefer the popular stuff that will keep with their friends. That's where our gift guides come in. Stop by to check out cool birthday gifts for girls and boys.
Milestone birthdays are huge in most people's lives. They traditionally mark a transition in life. A milestone birthday is an event that should not overlooked. This usually means searching for birthday presents that are in tune with this rite of passage. This gift guide is awesome at finding the best birthday gifts for milestone birthdays.
The sweet sixteen birthday for a girl is one of those milestone birthday celebrations. This is usually a first step to freedom and is usually celebrated in an elaborate way. Many girls have sweet sixteen birthday parties complete with elaborate ceremonies and lots of cool birthday presents.

Image via Wikipedia

Eighteen means you aren't a child any more and that you can vote, fight for your country, etc and now you are considered an adult. This also usually occurs at a time when the first year of college start and some of the best 18th birthday gift ideas for young adults include various gifts that will make the college experience more enjoyable.

Not until the 21st birthday is full adulthood recognized in the USA. At the age of 21 you are legally old enough to purchase and consume alcohol, like wine beer and spirits. Casino getaways are a cool way to celebrate turning 21.
The next milestone birthday is the 30th birthday. This is a time when you need to get serious and decide where you want to go in life and how your going to get there. Our gift guide has a list of the top gifts for a 30th birthday.
Do you know someone with a 40th birthday sneaking up on them? Forty is not usually anticipated like other birthdays because now you are thought to be "over the hill". Women in particular cant stand their 40th birthday. But worry not and be and confident, the 40th birthday is a time to celebrate being comfortable with yourself as you are.

Milestone birthdays are a epic occasions when we feel compelled to go all out and celebrate giving birthday gifts that will make the recipient laugh. For the best birthday gift ideas when these important birthdays roll around.

above: Check out this awesome video birthday song from Bono and The Edge from U2. They are singing happy birthday to Nelson Mandela who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.

Image via Wikipedia

New cd in the making: Cabaret Warsaw

2012-01-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

My band Mappamundi: Music of the Northern Hemisphere and the Previous Millennium is going into the recording studio next weekend to begin work on a cd of music composed and performed by Polish Jews, primarily in Warsaw, between the World Wars. It will be called: "Cabaret Warsaw: Yiddish and Polish Hits of the 1930s."

This is a song from our dry run premiere concert of the material. It's called "Nisim, nisim" (Miracles, miracles) and was written by Moshe Broderson and Henech Kon, for the Polish cabaret called Azazel. Enjoy!

Snuggie Vs Slanket : Which is the better sleeved blanket

2012-01-04T01:59:00.000-08:00

For sometime, sleeved blankets have been popular. One of the reasons for their popularity is that they have received so much free advertisement from popular shows like The Tonight Show, Today Show and Ellen Show. For example here you can see the Snuggie on the Today Show:

Don't they look like a church choir? As a result of all of this attention, sleeved blankets (often called snuggle blankets) have recently become one of the most popular types of loungewear for women.

I have done a bit a research on the subject and not surprisingly, there is a huge difference between snuggle blankets. Some of the most popular actually receive the worst reviews. People complain that some brands of sleeved blankets have very think material and that the fleece begins pilling almost immediately. All of this is covered in my snuggle blanket lens, so be certain to read it before investing in a snuggle blanket.

Buckyballs : One Of The Top 100 Toys Of All Time

2011-11-21T05:30:00.000-08:00

Still looking for a great gift idea for Christmas? Did you know that Time Magazine selected Buckyballs as one of the top 100 toys of all time? In case you have never seen Buckyballs before, watch the short video below:

And this is only the beginning. There are some incredible tricks which you can do with these amazing little objects. Read this new lens all about Buckyballs and Buckyballs Tricks.

Electronic Cigarettes: A New Alternatives to Cigarettes

2011-11-04T16:48:00.000-07:00

So many cigarette smokers try repeatedly to quit smoking and yet fail miserably. Despite knowing the risk of smoking, they are unable to quit. Cigarettes are known to be incredibly addictive.

Electronic cigarettes may offer a solution for some. Electronic cigarettes is basically vaporized nicotine which has a flavor that, to many, tastes similar to regular cigarettes. However, nothing is burnt and nothing toxic is inhaled.

An article by the American Association of Public Health Physicians, states "E-cigarettes deliver the same nicotine found in the pharmaceutical products, with no more contamination by toxic substances than the pharmaceutical products already approved by FDA."

Some people may be able to use electronic cigarettes to stop smoking. Others who can not stop, may be healthier smoking electronic cigarettes rather than regular cigarettes. In either case, electronic cigarettes may allow a certain part of the population to lead a healthier life.

Top 10 Best Christmas Gifts

2011-11-03T09:59:00.000-07:00

Christmas Gifts 2011

Thanks to getting clobbered by a big, nasty, freak snowstorm in the Northeast this October, I'm really feeling the Christmas Spirit this year, how about you?

It's about time to celebrate Christmas and of course gift-giving is part of the tradition. I've been pondering what to gift family and friends this Holiday Season, while whittling away the hours of the day decorating trees out in the front yard with Christmas lights for the upcoming Holidays.

As I take a break from decorating in the crisp autumn air I sip on some hot cider and check out a popular online gift guide for inspiration. It features the Top 10 Best Christmas Gifts for 2011, I see that it's going to be a great year for gift giving thanks to Santa's elves who have been hard at work creating some interesting new and fun presents for giving this year.

The more I shop around for Christmas presents for my kids, nieces and nephews, the more I think HEY - this is a great time to be a kid! I mean with all the new technology, today's gift choices are absolutely mind boggling. Check out some of this Holidays gifts for girls and cool boys gifts, ahhh - what I wouldn't give to be a kid again just to play with some of these toys! From remote control helicopters to the latest generation of video games I find myself wanting some of this stuff for me. lol Not that there's anything wrong with them, but there's no way I'm giving these kids gift cards for Christmas, not with all the awesome gifts out there to choose from. I'm simply having too much fun picking out cool gifts for them!

Then while online scouting out the latest and greatest Christmas Gifts, I ran across a site with some of the most cleaver ideas for stocking stuffer's I've ever seen. Plus, the site had some excellent tips for stuffing a really good Christmas Stocking. I can hardly wait for Christmas, it's my favorite time of the year, celebrating with family and friends, we spread the yuletide cheer.
Have a Very Merry Christmas!

Just In Time For The Holidays: Low Calorie Foods

2011-11-03T05:54:00.000-07:00

Holidays are around the corner and this means we are all going to eat more than we should. This means that as of the first of the year we are all going to start making resolutions to lose weight. Same as every year.

More than half of the US population is now considered obese and from 1980 to 2004, the percentage of young people who were obese tripled nationwide, rising to 18 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Happy holidays!

But there are some little known low calorie foods out there which can make the holidays less difficult. In fact there are so many excellent low calorie food ideas that this lens may develop into several lenses. So, start your holidays out right by planning to include some of these low calorie foods

Squidoo Tips and Tricks #4: Is Your Lens Indexed?

2011-09-09T06:01:00.000-07:00

For the first couple of years that I made Squidoo lenses, I just made them and hoped that traffic would come. Some lenses did get traffic and some got ZILCH (ie, nothing). I was puzzled that many of them were simply ignored by Google. Google is king and if your lens is not getting traffic from Google, it is doomed.

To my surprise, I soon discovered that some of my lenses were not only ignored by Google, they were not even indexed! That means, that Google did not even know some of my lenses existed. How do you know if your lens is indexed by Google? The best way is to copy and paste a single line from your lens and put it into Google with quotations around it. For example, I recently wrote a lens called What To Do About Cold Feet? The first sentence is: There are many reasons why feet are always cold.. If you put that sentence into Google like this:

"There are many reasons why feet are always cold"

You should get TWO hits, first my lens and sencond this blog post. If you do that with your lens and nothing comes up...WHOOPS...your lens is not indexed and it will NEVER get Google traffic, not a good thing.

What is the best way to get your lenses indexed? In my experience, the best way to make sure your lens is indexed is to give it a quality link, the more links, the better. I find a link from a blog to be one of the best ways to get a link to a Squidoo lens and for that reason, I write a post from this blog for nearly every lens that I create. If you do not have a blog, that might be a good reason to start one. If you are a Squidoo Giant, you are invited to participate in this blog. Read more about that in this lens about Valley of The Giants.

This is my forth in the series of Squidoo Tips and Tricks. I am looking for your feedback. Are these tips and tricks helpful? Is there anything else you would like to see discussed in future tips and tricks?

Squidoo Tips And Tricks #3: Amazon Modules

2011-09-02T05:35:00.000-07:00

I try to put an Amazon module on every lens I have. Why? Several reasons.

* Commissions: Obviously, Amazon modules sell stuff and you get a commision on every sale.

* Lens Rank: Amazon modules help your lensrank in two ways. First, everytime someone clicks on an Amazon module, you get a "clickout" the more clickouts, the better your lensrank. Read more about why clickouts are good. Second, if you earn a commission, that also improves your lensrank.

* Diversity. An Amazon module has pictures and adds interesting diversity to your page.

But which is the best Amazon module to use? These days I prefer the classic Amazon module. I no longer use Amazon Spotlight UNLESS I am listing a book. Why?

In most cases if you select the products, the product will change within 1 year and you will have a deadlink. If you select the products, you must check the links every few months to make sure that they are still active. This is not so difficult if you have 2 or 3 lenses. But if you have over 100, you will not be able to check all of the links.

In this case it is best to use a classic Amazon module and select "Let Amazon Choose". In this case you will seldom get deadlinks. The problem with letting Amazon choose is that sometimes Amazon chooses the wrong products. It can be difficult to find the right keywords to use and often takes some trial and error. For example, on this lens about Christmas 2011, I have Amazon module about Ride On Cars. I selected the catagory Toys and put Ride On Cars into the keyword space, however, instead of Ride On Cars, I got a variety of toy cars, most of them not the type I was interested. After I looked at the cars, I noticed that most of the Ride On Cars I was interested in had MP3 players. So, if I use the keywords Ride On Cars MP3, I got the type of cars I was interested in displaying.

Why will I use Amazon spotlight if I am listing a book? Because when you are listing a book, you use the ASIN number for a book. That number will not change. So long as the book is being sold, if you have used the ASIN number that book will always appear in your module. I actually prefer the spotlight modules for books because the image is large and it looks nice. So, unless you have alot of books you want to sell, use the spotlight module for books and the traditional Amazon module for everything else.

This is my third in the series of Squidoo Tips And Tricks. I wonder if these are helpful to anyone? Is there anything else you would like me to cover? If I get a good response, there will be more. If not, this idea will probably die out.

Wheelchair Toys : Gift Idea for Both Able-Bodied and Disabled Children

2011-09-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

Recently I posted about wheelchair armrest pets a fun gift idea for a wheelchair user. But that got me thinking about other toys for wheelchair users. I discovered that there were quite a few wheelchair toys especially designed for wheelchair users and able-bodied children alike.

What kind of toys are there? There is a Barbie Doll, named Becky "Share A Smile". Becky is a wheelchair using doll, who looks alot like Barbie, except of course she is in a wheelchair. Becky did not come without controversy. For example, Becky's wheelchair did not fit into the Barbie House, a situation which many wheelchair users are all too familiar with.

Other toys for wheelchair users include Playmobil Wheelchair with patient and a child in a wheelchair. There are also simple toy wheelchairs which a child can use to push around their doll.

These toys are not exclusively for children in wheelchairs. They can also be giving to able bodied children whose classmates or siblings are wheelchair users in order to make them more sensitive or understanding of the life of a wheelchair user.

Not everyone is in agreement with toys with disabilities. According to an article published in the NYTimes

It might be a harder sell than the toy company thinks. "The name makes me want to gag," said Leslie Heller, who has cerebral palsy. Nadina LaSpina, who had polio, said, "It shows they can make money off of us.

A Fun Gift Idea For A Wheelchair User

2011-08-31T02:35:00.001-07:00

Are you looking for a fun gift for a wheelchair user? Consider Wheelchair Armrest Pets. Wheelchair Armrest Pets are stufed animals which attach to the armrest of wheelchairs. Instead of resting the arms against cold plastic armrests, your loved one will share their moments with these lovely wheelchair armrest pets which will keep them company all day long.

Squidoo Tips And Tricks #2: Monitor Your ClickOuts

2011-08-26T04:48:00.000-07:00

How often do you check your clickouts? Honestly, I do not do it often enough and I bet there are some people who never check there clickouts at all. In case it is not clear what a clickout is, that is when someone clicks on a link in your lens and it takes them somewhere OUTSIDE of Squidoo. Why are clickouts important?

* First, many times clickouts are from commercial modules such as Amazon or Ebay. Checking your clickouts will tell you what people are buying from your lens, or more importantly, what they are not buying. If a certain product has no clickouts, maybe it is time delete and replace it with something else.

* Second, one of the factors which determine your lensrank is the number of clickouts that you have. If your lens has alot of clickouts it will rank higher. Higher ranking lenses earn more money from Squidoo.

So, for two reasons, if a certain product or link has no clickouts, it is wasting valuable real estate on your lens and should be replaced with something else.

As an example, I have a lens about Christmas 2011. Recently, that lens had 3 Amazon modules on it, one with Christmas songs, another with postpartum girdles and the third with Christmas Cards. When I reviewed my clickouts, I noticed that the Christmas cards and postpartum girdles were getting all of the clickouts. Christmas Songs? Nada. Zip. Nothing. Even though they were at the top of the lens, Christmas Songs were getting NO clickouts at all. I guess people are not so excited about buying DVDS of Christmas songs. Needless to say, I deleted the Christmas songs and am currently testing other products.

How do you check clickouts for a lens? On your Squidoo dashboard, point your mouse at the lens you are interested in. Below the lens you will see "Edit, Label, Stats, Delete. Click on Stats. On the top of the Stats page you will see "Summary, Traffic, Earnings, Royalties", click on Traffic. Scroll to the bottom of the Traffic page to find the clickouts for that lens. It should look something like this:

This is my second in the series of Squidoo Tips And Tricks. I wonder if these are helpful to anyone? Is there anything else you would like me to cover? If I get a good response, there will be more. If not, this idea will probably die out.

Squidoo Tips and Tricks #1: Put Duel AND Comment Box On ALL Lenses

2011-08-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

I have decided to start a new feature called "Squidoo Tips and Tricks". Squidoo Tips and Tricks will be the things that I have learned in my five or so years of being in Squidoo. Many of them will be small reminders, which you may already know. I hope some of these will be helpful.

Here is tip #1: Put BOTH duel and comment box on all lenses. Allow everyone (not just logged in Squidoo members) to post, but require that you approve all posts. Strip out all HTML. Above you will find a screen grab of how I set all of my duel and comment modules. Why?

Search engines like fresh content. If a website or lens is old and not updated, in time it will drop in the rankings. Comment box and duel modules allow site visitors to create content for you. Not only do you get to read their interesting feedback, these modules keep your lens fresh. This is why I allow everyone to post whether they are member of Squidoo or not. However, you get a lot of spam. So, you must review all comments before they are allowed to be posted. While I typically delete most posts with links or html inside, check the "strip out htmal" in case you let one slip by. Why? You can get punished for having links to bad websites.

What To Do About Cold Feet

2011-08-18T21:39:00.000-07:00

Winter is around the corner and many people suffer from cold feet. No I am not talking about the type you get before getting married, I am talking about the type you get when it gets cold, or as you start getting older. Cold feet can be painful and distressing.

In doing my research for the lens, I stumbled across some interesting things I had never heard about, such as slippers powered by a UBS connection, allowing you to work as long as you want while your slippers are warmed by the power from your computer.

Of course another interesting ideas, and perhaps more fun, is footed pajamas. Since footies cover from top to bottom, the heat generated by your entire body is channeled down south to the freezing extremities, otherwise known as your tootsies. Check them out.

All About Onesies

2011-08-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

I was looking for a way to extend my lens collection about footed pajamas and came up with the idea of making a lens about onesies. Why? Onesies and footed pajamas are very similar. If you have a baby, in the winter you will dress them in footies and in the summer in onesies. But doing this lens, I learned a few things.

First, I had never heard about onesie extenders. What a great way to get more life from your baby's onesie.

Second, I learned that there are onesies for adults which snap at the crotch. These are mostly used by adults who use diapers, due to incontinence or other reasons.

Small things, but it seems like whenever I make a lens, I learn something in the process.

Footed Pajamas Lens Gets 500th Like!

2011-08-09T03:23:00.001-07:00

Wow, my footed pajamas lens has reached a new milestone. 500 likes! Whoopie!

I have other successful lenses but none have managed to even come to close to the success that this lens has achieved. What is the secret to its success? I have no idea. But I enjoy it anyway.

How To Spot Fake Ugg Boots

2011-07-31T01:22:00.000-07:00

One of the areas I have focused on with my Squidoo lenses is Ugg Boots and alternatives to Ugg Boots. Some of the alternatives to Ugg Boots include sheepskin boots made from quality manufacturers. I have never supported the idea of buying counterfeit Ugg boots. Why? Boots which feature the trade names of another company are rip offs. The company behind the boots has no incentive to make a quality product and most likely they will quickly fall apart. Therefore, I have made a lens to help people to know how to spot fake ugg boots.

A Spurt Of Squidoo Activity

2011-07-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

I dont know why but sometimes I get in the mood to create Squidoo lenses and in a few days I make four or five of them. Maybe it is the fact that I am thinking about the holidays. Maybe it is the fact that I just like making Squidoo lenses.

My newest lens is about Gifts For Women. It includes gift ideas from pajama jeans to matching footed pajamas.

I have a few more lens ideas on my mind and I will probably make them in the next few days. Sometimes, I can not stop thinking about them until I have them made. Strange.

The Best Free Cartoons

2011-06-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

Like all children my little boy loves cartoons. But too many cartoons are full of violence. Some violence is silly, like Elmer Fudd falling off of a cliff or an anvil hitting a rabbit in the face. Some of the violence is more dramatic, like a super hero shooting a group of criminals with a machine gun. Either way, I prefer that he does not see cartoons with such violence. So, I have searched high and low for cartoons that A) will entertain a baby and B) will not be so violent or shocking and C) are available for free on Youtube.

I have selected the some of the best cartoons on Youtube and created a lens called the Best FREE Cartoons. I have watched all of them together with my little guy and these meet with both of our approval. I hope that others can enjoy them.

Saving Money On Maternity Clothes

2011-06-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

If you are pregnant and don't want to spend alot of money on clothes you will wear for only a few months, consider getting a maternity band. What is a maternity band? No, it is not a group of pregnant musicians. A maternity band is a type of belly band. It is something like a tank top which fits over your regular clothes and allows you to wear regular clothes during your pregnancy days. Though that simple explanation may make maternity bands sound tacky, many women are wearing maternity bands and enjoying the savings that they bring. If you have had any personal experiences with maternity bands, please leave a comment below.

Buzzle Deleted All Of My Articles

2011-06-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

I have had an account with Buzzle for about as long as I have had an account with Squidoo, which is 3-4 years. Over the years, Buzzle has gotten more and more difficult to work with. For example, initially you could have several links in an article and about 1 or 2 years ago, this was changed so that you could only have one link. A very restrictive policy, but because Buzzle appeared to be a quality website, I submitted content from time to time.

Recently, I went to submit a new article and discovered that all of my articles were gone! Deleted. No word from their administration, simply all ten of my articles, all written just for Buzzle had vanished. I wrote this to their admin:

I have had an account with Buzzle for years. I probably had 10 articles submitted and reviewed. All were original. Imagine my surprise to log on and find all of them gone. Those articles represented hours of work. What happened to them?

Here is the response:

We periodically review content from both current and inactive accounts. Such procedure updates our database to ensure Buzzle.com offers a high quality experience to our users. During routine reviews one or more of your articles were deleted so that our database remains updated with the latest content.

So, first Buzzle insists upon unique content. Then, they do not tell you, but your articles have a limited lifespan on their website. When they want to "update their website" they will simply delete all of your content and say nothing to you.

The other thing is that all of my content that I had submitted to Buzzle was plagiarized and appeared elsewhere on the internt by copyright thieves who had stolen my content. So now all of my hard work is gone, and only under the names of the copyright thieves who stole it. Thanks alot Buzzle.

Question, why would ANYONE write for Buzzle knowing that Buzzle will eventually delete their content? So, let this be a warning to other authors. Submitting content to Buzzle is a waste of time.

Free Childrens Songs

2011-06-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Children love to listen to music. But in addition to being entertaining some childrens music can also be educational. Some childrens music teach shapes, colors, alphabet as well as numbers. Best of all some of this music is free.

I have put together a lens featuring the some of the best free childrens songs available on Youtube. Sure you can find the same songs by goind directly to Youtube. But it will take you hours of work to find this great selection of quality free childrens songs.

ArticleZones Article Directory: Batting 50-50

2011-06-03T04:18:00.000-07:00

As written earlier, I am trying to find article directories with which to generate links from my website. I will continue to post my findings here.

Article Zones is an article website which publishes immediately. Links are not allowed in the article body. Only two links are allowed in the resource box. That is a bummer. Only 250 words are required, which is a good thing.

I have submitted four articles to Article Zones. The first two which published in April 2010 and April 2011 were both indexed by Google. The second two which were published in May and June 2011 have not yet been indexed even though I submitted them to Pingler.

It is possible that in time these two articles will get indexed, so I will link to them here and come back and see: Why are people buying adult footies and The Most Unique Christmas Gift.

Who knows, maybe giving them a link from this blog will help in the indexing process.

Restaurant Style Chicken Salad Recipe

2011-05-31T04:15:00.000-07:00

Ooops...ERROR ERROR..lol
I posted to this blog in error. Sorry!

Best Christmas Gifts For 2011

2011-05-30T21:21:00.000-07:00

Tired of giving the same old, same old year after year? Looking for a unique, creative, fresh Christmas Gift Idea for 2011? It can be very difficult to come up with a some fresh and unique Christmas Gift Ideas. So, although it is still June, we have been racking our brains (or is it wracking our brains? I never get that one right) to come up with some really unique and fresh Christmas Gift Ideas. So, without further ado, please check out our selection of the 10 Best Christmas Gifts 2011.

Summer music workshops at the PicknBow folkmusic retreat in Durham NC June 24-26, 2011

2011-05-13T11:07:00.000-07:00

Jane Peppler, Bob Vasile, and Danny Gotham will be holding a folkmusic weekend in Durham, NC June 24-26, 2011. That's coming up soon! It's Danny's idea, and you can read more about it here: PICKNBOW FOLKMUSIC RETREAT WEEKEND.

Friday evening there'll be a meet-and-greet, choosing classes, and an impromptu singing, picking, jam session, concert for all.

Saturday we'll start early with classes, a shared lunch, more classes, and a concert - session at night.

Sunday we start at noon and wrap up by 6 pm.

It's inexpensive and we welcome participants at all skill levels! You can download the whole brochure (with our bios and details): PicknBow folkmusic weekend brochure. To register or for more information call Danny at (919)967.4934 or e-mail him at steelstringer@gmail.com Hope to see you there!

The Best Article Directory?

2011-05-10T21:55:00.001-07:00

You have built a website and are looking for places to give it links. You search the internet for suggestions and what do you see? Virtually every list of article directories place Ezines at the top of the list. Common logic is to write an article and place it in Ezines. Why? Ezines gets alot of traffic and has high Google rankings (PR 6) Sounds like a good idea? I am not so sure.

I have placed several articles in Ezines and this is what I do not like about it:

* The Ezine rules and regulations are amazingly strict. 400 word minimum, under 2% of your words can be keywords, 1 week approval time, links to your website ONLY in the resource box at the end of your article. Break any of their rules and your article is rejected. WOW! You are sending Ezines free content and have to jump through very high hurdles just to get them to publish it. But rules are good right? It means that if your article is "selected" for publication that it will be some value to you, right? Not necessarily.

* I have placed some articles into Ezines that were not indexed by google. If they are not indexed by Google, that means that Google does not even know about it. The articles that are not indexded, and their links, are of no value to me.

* The ezine URL of the articles is not a standard URL ending in a suffix like .html, rather it is long and messy. I am not certain if this plays a role in the indexing process, but it is hard to link to. I have had some sites, for example SheToldMe.com where I often link to help articles get indexed, refuse to accept it. At shetoldme, I get the error message "Story's URL: The URL is not functioning!". No wonder, the URL is a mess.

* Almost every article that I have placed has been reproduced on other website. The copied articles almost NEVER include my links to my website. In fact many of the "stolen" copies of my articles include links to other websites. Why do I say stolen? If they have not included the link to my website, this is against the terms of use of Ezines. Problem is that Ezines does nothing to inforce the terms of use. They leave this battle to you the author to fight.

* The copied articles often rank higher in the search engines than my original article in Ezines. How do I know that? Just do a search on the tile of the article. See how many copies come up and see where the Ezines copy ranks.

* So, if google is seeing, for example, 5 versions of your article and the only version of your article with your links in it are at the bottom. How valuable is that article for your website? It will probably not send you any traffic. If Google is ranking other articles, it is possible that the links of those articles have higher value.

* Yes, I see the arguement, "Ezines has Google PR 6, so if I get an article published there, I am passing lots of value to my website. I am not convinced that Google PR is the be all and end all of value of a link. If the link is not indexed, I believe it has no value. If other copies of the article are published which do not have your links in it, I believe that it decreases the value of your article. You will probably get no traffic and since it will be seen as duplicate content, you may get little value from the links.

What do I prefer instead of Ezines? An article published on Squidoo has MUCH higher value in my opinion than an article on Ezines. Why is Squidoo a better place to publish than Ezines?

* Squidoo has little or no review process.
* Squidoo publishes immediately
* YOU have control about where to place your links as well as the number of links
* Your article will give you traffic, links AND money.
* Squidoo articles have short, clean URLs
* My Squidoo articles generally achieve PR 2-4

So, if you are only going to place one article, I think it is clear that you should place it in Squidoo rather than in Ezines. But what if you are going to place many articles? I still think that Ezines is not best place for a unique article. The time you spend meeting all of their requirements has little value when your article is going to end up all over the internet with links to websites other than your own. I would rather suggest to place your article in other article directories where you can place your links in the body of the article rather than in the resource box at the bottom which the copyright right thief will simply leave out. A recent article I submitted to Amazines Why Do So Many People Wear Adult Footie Pajamas? was approved in 1 day. I was able to include as many links as I like and in this article, I have four links. There is no requirement for the links to be placed at the bottom in the resource box, I am able to place my links in the body of the article. This seems better to me.

New Footie Pajamas Website Launched

2011-05-08T00:24:00.000-07:00

As of today, I am the proud owner of a new website which features adult footie pajamas.

What is unique about this site is that it will focus on adult footie pajamas. In addition to the usual adult footie pajamas, it has a section for plus size footie pajamas and matching footie pajamas for those adults who want to dress for bed in the same footie pajamas that their children wear.

Please come by and visit the Footie Pajamas website and feel free to give your comments and suggestions for improvement.

Tankini Website: Dedicated To Tankinis

2011-05-02T20:05:00.000-07:00

Are you familiar with tankinis? The tankini is a two piece swim wear that has only been around for just over a decade. But tankini sales aready account for over 30% of US women's swimwear. So, if you are not familiar with the tankini, you might be surprised that many of your friends and family members are already dedicated fans of the tankini. While the original tankini featured a tank top and a bikini bottom, current styles offer an almost unlimited combination of top bottom styles, giving new combinations such as skirtinis, halterkinis, bandauinis, etc.

The Tankini Website is a brand new website which features ONLY tankinis. Currently the Tankini Website offers:

* Sexy Tankinis
* Plus Size Tankinis
* Halter Tankinis
* Skirtinis

There will be no other swimwear other than tankinis on the Tankini Website. So, if you are a tankini fan, or if you just want to find out more about tankinis, visit the Tankini Website.

Exoskeleton Website Now In Spanish

2011-04-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

Recently it was announced on this website that a new website was launched with information about Exoskeletons for wheelchair users. Exoskeletons are a new robotic technology which will allow people with mobility related disabilities to walk again. Exoskeletons will be the first alternative to the wheelchair.

Recently a new website with information about exoskeletons has been launched in Spanish language. The new Spanish language website Exoesqueleto has news, updates and information about robotic exoskeletons for wheelchair users.

Wheelchair Backpack: A Perfect Gift For A Wheelchair User

2011-03-05T16:48:00.001-08:00

Do you know a wheelchair user? Chances are you do or you will. Why? Currently around 1% of the population uses a wheelchair. If you know 100 people chances are 1 of them uses a wheelchair. If you don't know a wheelchair user, chances are you will. The population is aging and the rate of wheelchair users is higher amongst older people.

What is the perfect gift for a wheelchair user? For many wheelchair users, a wheelchair backpack is very "handy"? Why? Manual wheelchair users use their hands to propel the wheelchair. A wheelchair backpack provides the place to store items that many people would put in a purse or simply carry with them.

So when holidays come around, consider a wheelchair backpack for the wheelchair user in your life.

Ryan Gosling and Ellen DeGeneres Wearing Footed Pajamas

2011-03-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

Watch this video of Ryan Gosling and Ellen DeGeneres wearing footed pajamas on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. At 2:40 minutes Ryan and Ellen are wearing their footed pajamas:

Ryan Gosling says that his goal is "to make them popular so I can wear them out and not feel like a fool".

Do you think that footed pajamas will become popular? Find out more about footed pajamas.

Sexy Footed Pajamas Advertisement

2011-02-25T20:04:00.000-08:00

I just discovered a very sexy footed pajamas advertisement in Youtube. This footed pajamas ad features three girls having a pillow fight and with a bubble machine creating atmosphere. Naturally one of the girls is wearing dropseat footed pajamas (you know the kind with the butt flap).

This has got to be the sexiest footed pajamas advertisement I have seen:

What makes it interesting, is that I have never seen this approach to marketing footed pajamas. Fun, yes, warm, absolutely. But sexy? What do you think? Can footed pajamas be sexy?

New Footed Pajamas for Adults Site Launched!

2011-02-22T06:11:00.000-08:00

I often see questions about footed pajamas for adults, for example:

* Where can I buy footed pajamas for adults?
* Are adult footed pajamas available in plus size?
* Where can I find adult footies with a drop seat?
* How can I find turn footed pajamas for adults into a costume for halloween (such a superman or batman costume etc).

So, I decided to create a lighthearted and fun website which answers some of these common questions about footed pajamas for adults.

Design Your Logos for FREE!

2011-02-11T22:46:00.000-08:00

If you build websites than you will probably need a logo for your website. Yes, you can have logos made professionally. But did you know that you can also design professioal looking logos yourself for free?

I found a great logo maker and used it to create a logo for the Footed Pajamas Website. This is not the only free logo maker, but I believe it is one of the best. Some logo makers claim to be free logo makers and after you have designed them (for free), they charge you to download them! Now what is the point of designing a free logo if you have to pay to download it?

Read this lens about using the free logo maker to create and download logos absolutely free.

Thoughts Of A 2011 Squid Angel

2011-01-31T20:32:00.000-08:00

My term as a Squid Angel began a couple of weeks ago and like so many other Squid Angels before me, I have kept a log and created a lense documenting my Thoughts Of A 2011 Squid Angel.

Being a Squid Angel has been alot different than I had imagined it to be. It has been interesting, but it has also been very, very time consuming and at times a bit disappointing. Find out why on my lens documenting my experience as a Squid Angel.

How To Make Your Squidoo Lens SEXY!

2011-01-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

You know those boxes that you see in Squidoo lenses that make the lense really stand out?

There is often a border around the text and the text has some cool fount styles or colors? Seems like it would be alot of work to make it look so cool, right? Wrong! I found a FREE online tool that does it for you. I used it to create this post, simply by typing my text into a box and selecting from various style options.

The best part is that you can see how it will look right on the website. You can change your styles and see the result before you get the final code. This is a cool tool that I will be using to create all of my lenses in the future. Check out this CSS code generator for text.

Coming Soon: The Tankini Website

2011-01-22T18:31:00.000-08:00

Today I stumbled upon a Godaddy Promotional Code offering .com domain names for only $1.49. All you have to do is use the promo code winter149 during the check out.

Since I already have hosting accounts at two hosts, Bravenet and Weebly, which offer hosting of up to 10 domain names at no extra charge, this means I can build the next website for only the cost of the domain name. With this GoDaddy Promo code, that means I can build an entire website, with a custom domain for the bargain price of $1.49!

For years, I have had a Squidoo Site dedicated to the Tankini which has generated some modest income and traffic. So, I have gone ahead and bought a tankini related domain name and will soon be building it up in time for the 2011 swimwear season.

I will make an announcement here when the new website is open to the public.

I Reached Squidoo Level 50

2011-01-22T04:10:00.000-08:00

I just achieved level 50 today in my Squidoo profile! Quite an achievement. But I noticed two negative things:

* First, while every other major level comes with a new item, from a SquidAd to a Lens Boost, so far there is no new item deposited in my dashboard. :(

* Second, while up until now, I could achieve the next level with 1'000 points, I see that I need 4'000 points to achieve level 51. OUCH!

Anyway, this leveling thing is kind of fun, doncha think?

The Dangers of Texting..caught on VIDEO!

2011-01-20T19:33:00.000-08:00

We all know that it is dangerous to text while driving. But many, many people do it anyway. But we rarely get a chance to see WHY it is dangerous to text while doing something else that requires concentration, such as driving....or WALKING. Have a look at Cathy Cruz Marrero, a mall employee who is texting and walking in at Berkshire Mall:

Now according to reports Cathy Cruz Marrero works at Berkshire Mall, so she certainly should know that the fountain is there. However, while distracted she takes a bath in it. What is the next thing she does? What 90% of Americans do whenever they do something stupid. She SUES! Why is she sueing? Not because she fell into the fountain. But because a security guard released the video of her afternoon dip.

But this may not be the only reason. According to Fox News:

Assistant District Attorney Melissa J. Noyes says falling in a fountain wasn't Marrero's first mistake. The born again Christian currently owes $4,177 in restitution for charges she allegedly made to a co-worker's credit cards, Noyes told the Eagle.

"She is still on track to enter a guilty plea at some point down the road assuming she complies with all the conditions," Noyes said. "She's looking for house arrest instead of going to jail."

Marrero also has several theft cases and a hit-and-run charge on her record, the paper reported.

.

In another interview She says "It's funny, but you need to see the serious side of it," she said. "What if it was a senior citizen? Would it be funny then?"

Answer: Yes, it is funny to see someone bellyflop. That is why slapstick humor used to be so popular. Silly falls and dips like this still are popular. There TV shows based on humor such as "America's Funniest Home Videos". It is human nature to laugh at our own stupidity. Somewhat cruel human nature perhaps, but which one of us do not do it?

What is the lesson here? Obviously, texting requires more attention than you can imagine. And it is stupid to text while in motion. But the other lesson is that if you actually do something dumb like this just laugh at yourself and accept the fact that you are human and make mistakes. To get angry and sue just makes you look even stupider.

Would it be cruel to admit that I hope that this woman takes another bath?

Family farm and new CSA starting in Efland, Orange County, NC

2010-12-14T13:29:00.000-08:00

I went to visit my hay supplier, Roger Tate at Roger Tates Farm in Efland, NC today. I love this guy, he and his crew work so so hard and some years a drought or a flood or something wipes out everything.

Well, they are getting into Community Supported Agriculture under the name Harmony Hill Farm and I wanted to let you know - if you're in Alamance or Orange County and want to support locavore local agriculture, email Roger and his wife Lisa: Roger Tate's Farm in Efland NC.

Perfect gift for telenovela fans: William Levy's 2011 calendar has finally been published. Where can you get it? I'll tell you.

2010-12-12T04:34:00.000-08:00

To read in English what the Spanish-language William Levy Calendario site says, head over to my William Levy page which has information about the making of the calendar, links for purchasing it online, and locations where it can be bought in person.

And if you're trying to avoid Christmas, this is for you.

2010-12-09T05:36:00.000-08:00

And now that I've sent off my almond roca Christmas presents to my brothers and nieces, I'm getting down to my toughest December task: ignoring society's desperate attempts to get me to buy stuff while listening to tired old Christmas carols. You looking to escape Christmas too? See my tips:
How to avoid Christmas.

DIY homemade candy for Christmas: Almond roca

2010-12-09T04:40:00.000-08:00

I am a strong believer in economical homemade Christmas presents, especially in these hard times but really for always. I'm Jewish but my brothers are Christians and every year I make this 'heavenly toffee' (like giant Heath bars or Skor bars but much better): Make your own almond roca. It's fantastic!

Wheelchair Umbrellas

2010-12-03T08:17:00.000-08:00

If you are a wheelchair user and tired of getting constantly soaked in the pouring rain, you may be interested in this new Squidoo lens about wheelchair umbrellas.

There are several different types of wheelchair umbrellas demonstrated, including the Paraplis a wheelchair umbrella holder which allows the umbrella to fold down but remain attached to the wheelchair.

But probably the most innovative is this wheelchair umbrella holder that is worn on the body and has some pockets which can hold a collapsible umbrella. It is water resistant and can also store valuables as well.

My Squidoo Lens In Top 10!

2010-12-01T11:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, time to brag a bit. My footed pajamas lens has finally reached the top ten. As I write this, my footed pajamas lens is actually #10 overall and #4 in shopping. It has been flirting with the top ten for some weeks, but did not manage to reach it, usually hovering around #14 or #15. Today I looked and it was actually #10! YEAH ME!

I am very proud of this footed pajamas lens. My footed pajamas lens has been selected as lens of the day and was voted best shopping lens last year and was a purple star recipient. Not much more for it to win, so it is nice to get small achievements like this. :)

I have the greatest leaf blower: Stihl BR 500 low-noise backpack blower

2010-11-30T20:58:00.001-08:00

I never never thought I would EVER have a leaf-blower because I was a raking snob. However, now that I'm in my 50s the prospect of raking a whole lot of grass is just depressing and it makes my wrists hurt. So I broke down and bought a low-noise backpack blower from Stihl and I just love it. I wrote about why I have gone over to the dark side and gotten addicted to this wonderful lawn tool: here's my review of the Stihl low-noise backpack blower.

It would make somebody a great Christmas present!

My New "Sponsor A Child" Charity

2010-11-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Several years ago I had, what I consider to be, a disappointing experience with a "Sponsor a Child" Charity. Soon after agreeing to sponsor a child with them, I discovered that the CEO of the charity was making nearly half a million dollars a year. Now while many people are fine with this, I was devastated. I had signed up to help hungry children not to help executives to live in luxury. However, I felt that I had made a commitment to the child and decided to continue. Some years later, my sponsored child made a decision to leave the program. I immediately stopped and began a search for a sponsor a child organization which worked in a way that I was comfortable with.

This time, I did my research before chosing a charity to sponsor a child.

I discovered a charity called the Nepal Youth Foundation. The Nepal Youth Foundation was founded by an amazing woman named Olga Murray. Olga is so renowned for her work in Nepal that in 2001 she was a recipient of Dalai Lama's "Unsung Heroes of Compassion Award". Olga and her work with the NYF have also been featured on Oprah Winfrey. Olga lives part time in Nepal and to some she is known as, the "Mother Theresa of Nepal". Unlike the head of my previous charity, Olga does not take a penny from the Charity. In fact, Olga donates not only most of her life, but also much of her personal wealth to the charity. NYF is rated a "four star" charity, the highest rating possible, by Charity Navigator, one of the most important Charity Review organizations in the USA.

I knew quickly that the Nepal Youth Foundation was for me. Read more about why I have chosen to sponsor a child with the NYF.

Now I am working on getting the NYF to become a Squidoo Charity so I can donate my lens earnings to them....one step at a time.

The Problem With Snipsly

2010-11-06T07:52:00.000-07:00

I am always on the look out for simple ways of giving my websites and lenses "DoFollow" links. So, I like sites like SheToldMe and Snipsly. There are very minimal requirements and in a few seconds you can easily give work a link. You even can give these sites your adsense code and earn some money. In theory that is.

My first post with Snipsly was in August 2010. In total I have 4 posts with Snipsly. My Google statistics show me that since then I have had 8 ad views and have earned NOTHING on my 4 posts. Worse yet, two of my posts are not even indexed by Google. Ok, one of the non-indexed posts is only about two weeks old so there is still a chance. But one of the posts is about 2.5 months old and I doubt it will ever get indexed. This means that my links there are probably worthless.

The good thing is that Snipsly allows editing. So, I have added text to one of the posts and I hope that someday it will get indexed.

That is one of the advantages of giving a link from a blog like this one. Like Smipsly, there are few writing requirements. But you can almost be assured that your blog post will get indexed and thus your link will matter. In fact, I am coming to think that the BEST links you can give your website are from a blog with some PR.

So, becareful on those quick links. They may require little time, but they may be worthless too.

New Idea For Entrepreneurs: Exoskeleton Rental

2010-10-26T09:28:00.000-07:00

Where I live there is a company which rents Segways for tourists. Tourists rent the Segways and tour the beautiful city center. Seems like it must be very successful. I see a lot of tourists on them and the company has been renting the Segways for several years. I

Now there is a new option for entrepreneurs. Rent an Exoskeleton. Exoskeletons are new robotic legs for wheelchair users. An exoskeleton allows a wheelchair user to walk upright. The first exoskeletons are just now coming to market.

However, with a price tag in the neighborhood of $100,000, few individuals will be able to buy an exoskeleton. Still there are 3 million wheelchair users in the USA, many of whom have not walked for years.

I can imagine that in the near future, entrepreneurial business people will be organizing exoskeleton tours for wheelchair users. Wheelchair users will soon be able to go places where it may have been difficult to go with wheelchairs. For example, imagine leading an exoskeleton tour in the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Or consider taking a group of wheelchair users on an exoskeleton tour of the Acropolis of Athens. Or imagine leading an exoskeleton walking tour across the golden gate bridge. Wheelchair users will rent them for two reason. First, they will have the chance to walk again. Second they will have access to places they could only dream about before.

Great Hannukah present: "I Can't Complain" yiddish cd

2010-10-21T20:29:00.001-07:00

Hanukkah is very early this year - it starts December 1, right after Thanksgiving - so I'm pleased to have been able to get this cd out in plenty of time. You can listen to all the mp3s for free here: Jewish music cd for Chanukah (hear mp3s)

5th Anniversary Of Squidoo: What Squidoo Means To Me

2010-10-19T04:26:00.000-07:00

I just read Seth Godin's post announcing that 12 October was Squidoo's fifth anniversary. That is quite a remarkable milestone for any website. I have been with Squidoo for over 3 of those 5 years. Not since the start, but nearly so. And they have been remarkable years. I feel like I have gotten so much out of it. Squidoo is my favorite website (other than my own, of course). Why?

Squidoo combines a community relationship with a way of developing skills and earning money. In the past three years that I have been with Squidoo, I have developed a great deal and at the same time, I have seen Squidoo develop a great deal as well. We have both come a long way. I have learned mostly from two ways. First, I learn from the remarkable community at Squidoo. I love that Squidoo is, by and large, a very positive place to be and most people are very willing to lend a hand. Second, I learn just by making lenses and seeing what works and what doesn't. Squidoo is a wonderful place to experiment, learn and have fun.

But of course, that is not all. Squidoo is something like a hobby with benefits. I mean, how many hobbies teach you so much and pay you for learning at the same time? Every month, without fail Squidoo makes a nice deposit in my Paypal account. I am not getting rich off of Squidoo, but that deposit has been growing steadily, partly due to my activity, partly due to the activity of the Squidoo team. Since I have been with Squidoo, I have seen the amount of money paid for a Tier 1 lens steadily grow. I would guess that in the past three years, my top lenses earn 3 times as much as they did when I started with Squidoo. That is not bad at all.

I also appreciate that since I have become a Giant Squid, I get so many benefits from Squidoo. Probably the most important of which, the one I REALLY appreciate is the "Squidoo Concierge Approach". By this I mean, that as a Squid Giant, if I have any problems at all, I get personal attention by a member of the "inner circle". In the past three years I have communicated with Bonnie, Gil, Megan and Seth. I appreciate that these busy people have taken the time to lend a hand when I have needed it. That says alot. Thanks guys.

Are there things to improve? You bet. I do hope that Squidoo will come up with other ways to sell products besides Amazon and Ebay. For example, I would love to see Squidoo partner with an affilate organization like ShareASale and allow any of their products to be sold from a lense. I would also love to see more thematic lenses (the only one I really use is the Highlighter). Maybe there could be themes with some cool HTML modules standard such as colored text modules or Amazon modules with embedded wigits. Perhaps Squidoo will one day find a way to improve Amazon modules so that if a product is sold out or withdrawn a similar product is put in its place to reduce the possibility of having deadlinks. I appreciate that Squidoo is constantly taking risks and trying to improve. Over the 3 years I have seen Squidoo develop a great deal. Mostly for the better.

I plan to be with Squidoo for as long as they will have me and for as long as Squidoo remains Squidoo. Being realistic, I can imagine that one day some big company will come along and make Seth and Megan and offer that they can not refuse. A much better scenario would be if Seth and Megan took Squidoo public and gave Giant Squids the option of owning shares. Wouldn't it be cool to celebrate the 10th year annniversary as owners of Squidoo?

Happy Annniversary Squidoo!

US Air Boots Passanger Because He Is Too Disabled To Fly

2010-10-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

I came across a story that astounded me. A US Airways employee booted a wheelchair user from a flight because he was "too disabled to fly alone" as you can see from this video:

In fact, ADA rules allow airlines to do this.

Carriers may require the following individuals to be accompanied by an attendant....A person with a mobility impairment so severe that the individual is unable to assist in his or her own evacuation from the aircraft.

The carrier and the passenger may disagree about the applicability of one of these criteria. In such cases, the airline can require the passenger to travel with an attendant, contrary to the passenger’s assurances that he or she can travel alone. However, the carrier cannot charge for the transportation of the attendant.

I find this unfair and discriminatory. A Wheelchair user is then left to any airline employee's opinion about whether they can fly that day or not. How can a wheelchair user ever make a flight alone?

The Tier One Challenge

2010-10-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

Would you like to have another lens in tier one? Wouldn't we all?

There's a Tier One Challenge happening in SquidU - the thread started less than a week ago and already has more than 200 postings. Don't worry about reading every post in the thread (unless you'd like to know about all the cool things we're doing to promote our lenses). Feel free to jump in anywhere - the water is just fine!

This morning we had our first WINNER! Lynn, a homeschool mom whose screen name is eclecticeducation, reached tier one with a lensrank of #1,835 for her challenge lens: File Folder Math!

The rules are simple. Pick any of your lenses that has never been as high as tier two (10,000 lensrank). Then post it in the thread: The Tier One Challenge, stating the current lensrank and the highest-ever lensrank.

The goal is to do everything you can to make that lensrank rise higher than ever before - to get your lens into tier one!

Lynn did it! YOU can do it!

My lens, which I've been working hard to promote all week, is Top Ten Horse Movies - Perfect Christmas Gifts. I tacked on the Christmas gifts in hopes that I'd sell a few movies between now and December 25. After that I'm reducing the title back to "Horse Movies" or something like that. I've been posting in the thread about places I promoted the lens, articles I've been writing, and everything I did to change the lens (on-page SEO factors) since the challenge began on 10-10-10. The lensrank has risen dramatically - from 20,477 to 4,172 today. Getting up there!

So, come on by... even if you read this posting a year from now - you're still welcome to participate in the tier one challenge. Let's have some fun and make our lenses the best they can be!

CCGAL made a lens for our project - The Tier One Challenge... how cool is that?

These Pancakes Will Be A Hit With Your Kids

2010-10-16T05:56:00.000-07:00

Do you want to spoil your kids? What parent or grandparent doesn't? Are you trying to get your kids to eat? We are. Our little guy is a super picky eater.

If you fall into one of the two groups above check out Jims Pancakes. You will be amazed by the level of creativity that Jim has come up with. Jim can turn a pancake into a fairy tale dream that would make Walt Disney proud.

Also, Jim is smart enough to use his "cute as a bug's ear" daughter as model for many of his pancakes. So, Jim's website combines creativity with a sweetness that will warm the heart of any parent. (My little guy is equally as adorable, but unfortunately his dad is not quite as creative as Jim).

The Death Of Yahoo Email and Hotmail? Google Coversation View Is Now Optional!

2010-10-14T14:56:00.000-07:00

I have been struggling with Yahoo premium email service for about 10 years now. Why? The alternatives were pretty bad. AOL and Hotmail are, in my opinion, poor quality. That left yahoo and gmail.

So, I have been struggling with the poor quality that Yahoo offers. I use my email several hours everyday and I constantly have problems logging onto Yahoo email. I have had many conversations with technicians at Yahoo. In a nutshell it has been bad. Why did I use Yahoo over Gmail? I could not get used to "Coversation View" that gmail offered.

Today I realized that I can now switch off the coversation view and my emails are now listed in chronological order.

How do you switch off conversation mode? Simply click "settings" and there in the middle of the page you will see "switch off coversation mode". It could not be simpler.

I predict that now that you can switch off conversation mode, many holdouts like me will switch over go Gmail. I will test both over the next year and if it is as good as I hope it will be, I will slowly phase out of Yahoo and into Gmail.

Best Reviewer: Easy Backlinks & Plenty of Potential

2010-10-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

A lot of Squidoo lensmasters are using a new site, Best Reviewer, for quick backlinks to their lenses. Right now, Poddys is the top referrer, and Jimmie the homeschool mom is the top publisher. I'm the top commenter.

The user interface is simple so you can write quickly and easily... not a whole lot of complex thought is needed to create a page there. All the pages are "Top Ten" type lists though you can range from "Top Three" up to "Top Twenty".

To write the article, you compose the title, a short intro, and then your listed items. Each listed item has room for a link. Like I said, a lot of Squidoo lensmasters are linking back to their lenses. I made three pages with affiliate links to Amazon. Use your imagination and business sense here! An example: "Top Three Best-in-Niche Lenses".

Squidoo lensmastering is more than just making lenses. We also must let people know about them.

Eating vegetables and fruit to fortify your bones!

2010-09-06T19:07:00.001-07:00

I heard a great show about stronger bones through nutrition on the People's Pharmacy; the guests were saying calcium supplements and our mothers' insistence on drinking milk don't really supply what we need to keep our bone density up as we get older. Fruits and vegetables are better for you than milk and cheese! You can read about it in my bone vitality through diet lens...

Triond 4 - Infobarrel 0

2010-09-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

I posted sometime ago that I was experimenting with some alternatives to Squidoo. Not because I want to replace Squidoo. Squidoo is, for me, my best money earner. But I would like to supplement my Squidoo activities with some other sites.

Two sites I have experimented with are Triond and Infobarrel. Which do I think is better? No competition, Triond is much better than Infobarrel.

I have an equal number of five articles posted on both Triond and Infobarrel. Although I have had my account at Infobarrel much longer, to this day I have yet to earn anything! That is a big ZERO. Not a penny. Nada. On the otherhand, I have had my account much shorter with Triond, just about a month and so far I have earned $4.

Ok, $4 is not much to write home about, but for 5 articles in under a month that is about $1/article per month. Actually not too bad.

The amazing thing is that Infobarrel advertises that you earn 100% of the income from your article. Problem is that 100% of zero, is zero.

So, which site will I be submitting more articles to? Certainly not Infobarrel.

HOT TIP: Blog Network Offers Multiple Backlinks FREE

2010-09-02T02:22:00.000-07:00

As online publishers we are always on the lookout for free links to our websites and Squidoo lenses. As we all know, search engines love links. The more the better. I have found a way to get several quality links for free. It is called PubRocket.

PubRocket is a network of blogs. There are over 200 blogs in the network divided amongst various topics including Beauty, Business, Dating, Domestic, Fashion, Financial, Fitness, Health, Home Improvement, News, Pets, Pregnancy, Shopping, Technology.

You only have to write a 200 word article and you can get it published FREE on any three of those blogs. In each article you may include 3 backlinks for free.

It is simple to use, you just add your article to your dashboard, select the 3 blogs from a list of 200 and click on publish. You are then asked to submit different titles for each of the 3 articles. Although I am not sure if changing only the title is enough for the search engines to not consider them duplicate content, it seems like a good idea.

The 200 blogs have google PR which range between PR0 to PR3. So you will quickly have backlinks from 3 different quality blogs. Sound great? It is great, with one little catch. I published my first article yesterday and today had the thought to check the IP address of the 3 blogs I selected. Unfortunately, all three of the blogs I selected had the same IP address.

Some believe that links from the same IP address may be seen by search engines as coming from the same website. That is, that the search engines understand that there is a relationship between websites hosted at the same IP address and may treat all three blogs as though they are the same blog. So, it is possible that you are not actually getting links from 3 different blogs, but as though all three links come from the same blog. Who knows for sure? Only Google.

I love the idea of PubRocket and will be testing it in the future. If anyone has suggestions for other blog networks like PubRocket, please let me know.

Happy Birthday Michael Jackson

2010-08-29T02:00:00.000-07:00

52 years ago today Michael Jackson was born. No matter what you thought of Michael Jackson as a person, as an entertainer Michael Jackson was one of the best.

I can almost mark my childhood with Michael Jackson's songs. From Ben to ABC to I'll Be There, Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5 made hit after hit that listened to, sang along with and even danced to.

But of the many, many singers from my childhood, which ones were there from my childhood all the way to adulthood? Very few. Monkees? No. Diana Ross? No. Carpenters. No.

Michael Jackson was one of the few who kept innovating, kept changing, kept refreshing his music. Michael Jackson's music played a role in just about every stage of my life.

I miss Michael Jackson. I wish he were still making music today. Happy Birthday Michael Jackson.

The Bad Reputation Of Online Marketing

2010-08-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else had this experience? You have a friend out of work, or looking to make some extra money. So, you tell them about Squidoo, Google Adsense, Affilate marketing, etc. Your friend asks alot of questions, seems very interested, wants to know how much money you make, how it all works, etc. You answer their questions, show them what you are doing. Then about 3 months later you ask how it is going and they have done nothing about it. They are still out of work, still looking to make some extra money, still have yet to sign up for Squidoo or even read about it.

What is it with online marketing? I have told probably about 10 friends /aquaintences about what I am doing. Yet as far as I know, no one I have tried to help out has actually taken the plunge. When I ask why, they answer "I have been too busy", "I am not really sure". I dont hear a concrete answer.

Is it me or is it the bad reputation of online marketing?

The Case Of The Vanishing Lens

2010-08-16T22:36:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was checking out some of my lenses and discovered to my horror that one of them was GONE!! Actually, it was not 100% gone. But rather than the 20+ modules that it was supposed to have, only the introductory module remained.

Now, this was not just any Squidoo lens. It was one of my first lenses, a lens about sexy lingerie that I wrote just after joining Squidoo. I had put quite a bit of time in creating the content for that lens and it was rather difficult to create it. I had to write it very carefully so as to keep it interesting, but not anything that would go against Squidoo policies.

So, imagine my surprise when this 3 year old, PR4 Squidoo lens was simply MIA. Just a stub of its once healthy self.

What did I do? I wrote a letter to the "Giant Squid Concierge". The privilage to be able to Giant Squid Concierge email address is one of the best reasons to be a Squid Giant! Why? I use it very rarely, but when I have I have gotten an IMMEDIATE response. Always with the same day, usually within a few hours.

I sent a polite letter explaining the situation and asked if they could help. My response was:

Wow, I'm not sure. I see that the lens still exists, but confirm that the rest of the modules are not showing at the moment either on the live published version of the lens or in the Workshop of the lens.

I'm passing this along to get checked out for you right away.

Hang in there -- we'll get it figured out!

.

About a week later, my Squidoo lens was still just a stub. So, I sent a polite reminder. I got this response:

I am looking into your case now. Thanks so much for your patience.

Regards,
Gil

Receiving that letter from Gil made my day. I felt pretty confident that "stubby" would be saved. and then

I've just restored your lens and corrected the bug that caused this. Thanks again for your patience. You're the best!

Gil

So, I asked if I had done something to cause it and if I he minded if I blog about the event. Gil responded:

It was a very rare code problem...nothing you did wrong. I corrected the problem so it will not happen again.

As a customer service representative in the age of the internet, I always start with the assumption that everything I say will be blogged. Thanks for being polite enough to ask :)

Gil

Whew! It was a nice feeling to have my old lens back. But it left me wondering if I am cursed. Why? Back in April, the same thing happened to me at World Village, my Village Vanished.

Not one but TWO of my masterpieces have vanished, only to be returned with the help of technical experts. Has anyone eles lost any of their work this way?

Will The Greying of The Population Make Science Fiction A Reality?

2010-07-26T13:39:00.000-07:00

Were you aware that there are approximately 3 million wheelchair users in the USA? That number is rapidly increasing and currently represents approximately 1 in 100 people. You may not realize that the number is so large, because during your day when you see 100 people, you will rarely see that 1 wheelchair user.

But one result of the rapidly growing number of people with disabilities is the rapid growth in disability equipment. The markets for disability equipment like the common wheelchair and the everyday mobility scooter are becoming larger and larger.

But also more futuristic disability products such as exoskeleton suits for wheelchair users are now coming to the market. These products which were once only seen in science fiction shows like The Bionic Man, are now a fact. They exist.

For example, this product which allows paralyzed people to walk again was recently launched in New Zealand and will soon be marketed worldwide:

The fact is that the aging of the population is changing not only the demographics of society, but may also help to turn science fiction into everyday reality.

When you need a long, cheap swivel arm for your 26" hdtv...

2010-07-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

A lightning storm took out my ancient, gigantic tv, so old that I designed my built-in bureau AROUND IT when I built my house in 1996! So I have a nice empty space now where the tv used to be - and an opportunity to bring the new flat-screen replacement tv closer to me when I lie in bed and watch!

Store-bought swivel arms (articulating arms, swing arm wall mounts) are very expensive. In my brand-new lens Make your own tv swivel arm extension, I show you how to make a sturdy extension that will bring your tv closer, let you swing it further around, and - hurrah - make it possible to use a smaller, cheaper store-bought swing arm (I paid $20 for mine) on a larger tv.

Take 10 Minutes To Earn Extra Money From Squidoo

2010-07-03T14:12:00.000-07:00

Do you know how to earn some extra money on Squidoo? Freshen up and republish your top lenses.

Follow these steps:

* Log into Squidoo
* Click on "My Lenses"
* In the second column "Rank" look at the lenses that range in lens rank from 0-30,000
* Click "Edit" look quickly to see if any updates are necessary.
* Click "Publish"

These few steps will bump your lens rank for these lenses significantly and will probably move a few of them into the higher payment catagories earning you more money at the end of the month.

Free Baby Songs

2010-06-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

As I posted earlier, our baby loves baby songs. Baby songs are sometimes the fastest way to comfort him when he is in a bad mood. And you know, baby songs are not only entertaining but also educational. Some baby songs teach the alphabet, other baby songs teach about colors and other baby songs teach the numbers. If you are looking for FREE baby songs, Youtube is a great source of free baby songs, but you could spend hours sorting through them to find some baby songs which are entertaining and educational. We were doing that for a while and then decided to make a Squidoo page of our favorite free baby songs so that we would not always have to seach for them.

Our baby loves his baby songs so much if we travel or go to a restaurant we always take some of our baby's favorite baby songs on a small net computer. The baby songs make the journey so much more pleasant for everyone. How do we do it? You can convert YouTube songs into AVI files with Zamzar for free. AVI files will play on windows media player. Then with a small laptop or net computer you can take your free baby songs with you where ever you go.

Postpartum Girdle: Myth Or Magic?

2010-05-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

If you are considering pregnancy you may hear about a product which is relatively new in the US market called a "postpartum girdle". You may also wonder about the claims that a postpartum girdle may help reduce size of a woman's waist after pregnancy.

The truth is that until now, although no one is absolutely sure what a postpartum girdle does, a postpartum girdle may help and for most women it probably can not hurt.

While postpartum girdles are new in the US, abdominal binders have been around in some form or another in many countries for many generations. Although postpartum girdles are not yet routinely used in the USA after pregnancy, postpartum girdles are basically a type of compression garment. Compression garments are considered routine, standard therapy after many types of surgeries to help in the healing process.

While there have been no clinical studies to prove if a postpartum girdle works, many women do report that after using a postpartum girdle, their abdominal shape returns to near pre-pregnancy condition.

If you are considering a postpartum girdle, why not ask your OB/GYN or health care provider if there is any reason not to give a postpartum girdle a try?

Squidoo Versus Hubpages : Which Is Better?

2010-05-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

Before I compare Squidoo to Hubpages I should start by saying that I have alot more experience with Squidoo than with Hubpages. I only have a couple of hubpages, both about footed pajamas, while I have over 100 Squidoo lenses.

While I prefer Squidoo to Hubpages I think that both are important for a valuable SEO strategy. So, I will break this comparison into sections:

What Do I Like About Both Hubpages and Squidoo:
* SEO Value: I can give free, one way inbound links to my websites. Squidoo is better in this regard in that Squidoo links are always dofollow, while Hubpages links will become nofollow if your hubscore and your hubmaster score drop below a certain level. As we know, links are key for search engine placement.

* Free Traffic: Both Squidoo and Hubpages do well in the search engines. My feeling is that Squidoo may do a bit better, but I see them both appearing in Google for my keywords. Therefore, both drive traffic to my websites.

* I earn money. Neither Hubpages nor Squidoo makes me rich, but both generate some money. So, while I am giving myself links and traffic, I also earn a few bucks every month.

What Do I Prefer About Squidoo:
* I think you earn more money from Squidoo. Maybe it is subjective because I have more lenses and more experience, but it seems to me that the money making potential from Squidoo is higher.

* I think that a Squidoo lens looks better than a Hubpage. Again, subjective stuff. You may prefer the look and feel of a Hubpage. But for me this is a plus for Squidoo.

* I like that my Squidoo links are ALWAYS dofollow. I don't like the fact that I must do stuff in Hubpages in order to keep my hubs dofollow. With Hubpages, if your hubscore or your hubmaster score fall below a certain value, your links become nofollow. Bummer. You have to get active in the Hubpages community in order to get your scores up.

What Do I Prefer About HubPages:
* I think that it is easier to get good URLs with Hubpages. With Squidoo, many of the best URLs are reserved by Squatters.

What Do I Not Like About Both
* I wish that both would ease up on the coding restrictions. For example, I use Popshops on my websites, but can not use Popshops on Squidoo nor Hubpages, since they do not allow the coding. Similarly I can not use Amazon widgets in either, again due to coding restrictions. Oh, well. You can not have everything.

Conclusion
As a bottom line, I think both Squidoo and Hubpages are valuable for SEO purposes. Free inbound links, free traffic, money making opportunities, no costs. What is not to like? Why would you NOT use both? I prefer Squidoo, but maybe I am just a creature of habit more used to Squidoo than to Hubpages. I would like to find MORE sites like Squidoo and Hubpages which offer the perfect combination of free links, traffic and money making potential. I am experimenting with sites like Triond, Info Barrel, etc. If you know others I should try let me know.

If you have experience with both Squidoo and Hubpages let us know how you would compare the two.

How To Be Successful With The Opposite Sex

2010-05-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

In this Lens about 10 Ways To Meet People, there is a poll for single men and another for single women asking "What Is the Most Important Thing That You Look For" in a potential partner. Nearly 500 men and 200 women have given answers. That is a lot of answers!

I spent a few minutes reviewing the results of these surveys and found something interesting. The number one response for men is "The Face", while the number one response for women is "Values". This is not a huge surprise. More of a surprise to me at least, is that the number two response for both men and women is "Sense of Humor".

So, if men want a woman with a pretty face who can make them laugh and women want a decent guy who can make them laugh, then is this the secret to success with the opposite sex?

Play Pac Man On Google!

2010-05-22T17:38:00.000-07:00

Has everyone realized that the Pac-Man Image on the Google search page is a REAL GAME? This is pretty cool technology. Nothing to download. You have to wait about 15 seconds until the game says "Ready", then just click your mouse in the direction you want your Packman to go and he is off to the races.

There are even some sites, such as Rusty Brick where you can download the code to embed the game onto your website. Very cool!!

I never was very good at Pac Man and I still am no good. But I managed to get above 1'000 points a couple of times. I am always amazed at the cool things that Google can come up with.

FREE Baby Songs : Selected By An Expert!

2010-05-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

As new parents, we are always on the lookout for something good for our baby. And I will share one of our best secrets with you. When our baby is fussy, tired, grouchy and nothing seems to work, we show him his favorite baby songs and they calm him down like nothing else.

One of the great things about these baby songs is that they are eductional. These baby songs teach our baby about numbers, the alphabet or just "I love you". They never fail to make him smile. The other great things about these baby songs is that they are FREE Baby Songs. Why are these baby songs free? They are hosted on YouTube. But believe me, you will search for hours on YouTube finding quality baby songs. Our baby did the work for you. He listened to many, many baby songs before he selected THESE baby songs.

These baby songs are the work of the people at Super Simple Songs. The people who produce Super Simple Songs are apparently Americans who run an English school in Japan. One of their previous teachers, Jeremy, starred in a collection of videos and these are the baby songs that our baby loves best.

When our baby is tired, grouchy and crying, we just go to his baby songs and sing along with him. This never fails to bring a smile to his face. Maybe other babies will enjoy these free baby songs too/

My painting of Sarah Palin with Oil Rigs and Polar Bears (Drill Baby Drill!) featured on Facebook!

2010-05-02T05:20:00.000-07:00

This morning I got an email from Ron Gompertz, creator of the Send Sarah Palin to the Louisiana wetlands to help clean-up the oil Facebook page, retroactively asking permission to use my painting on his site. He also said I should make a Drill Baby Drill Sarah Palin t-shirt. It's customizable (change colors, styles, sizes, add text of your choice) and you can actually stick the picture on any Zazzle product you like.

See Sarah and my other paintings at my Uncle Shlomo's Pushcart Zazzle Store.

Lies, Lies and Triond's Lies

2010-04-30T06:35:00.000-07:00

Recently I was checking out Triond as a place to post articles. At first glance Tiond looks interesting. But there is something rather unsettling there.

What is interesting about Triond is that they have many websites. So, if you write an article on health, it can be posted on their health website "Healthmad.com". If you write an article on Sport, it will be posted on "Sportales.com". From the SEO point of view that seems rather interesting.

What is strange about Triond is that they allow their authors to post lies, apparently just to get traffic. I won't name the website because that would only bring them more traffic. But for example, one of their most recent, most popular and most pathetic posts has the title "Death of Bret Michaels". The author of that post writes this about Bret Michaels "Another who chose, in lieu of making a positive impact on the world, to live a life of excess and waste".

The problem is, at the time it was posted Bret Michaels was (and still is) very much alive. In fact, I read that he is recovering and expected to survive his recent stroke. What is Triond's view of this? Nothing wrong, this is just satire. If you look very, very closely, you see that the post is put in the "humor" category. Ha, HA! However, other than that there is nothing obvious on the website that indicates that this is intended to be satire. No humorous titles, no funny pictures. Nada. In fact, if you read the post there is no humor there at all. Just poorly written trash. And many of the commentators to the post, believing the writer's trash, leave their condolences. The same author has previously posted garbage such as "Johnny Depp Found Dead", etc. Triond has been contacted on this subject on numerous occasions, but only shrugs their shoulders and repeats that it is satire. Right.

This falls under the category of "if you post something controversial it will get traffic". This is true, I guess, but it depends on how low you want to stoop for that traffic. Triond must be happy to receive the additional ad clicks that this type of tabloid writing (I can not even call it journalism) will generate. As long as Google allows adsense ads to be put on such websites, I guess it will continue.

Baby Products: Ten ESSENTIAL baby products every parent must have

2010-04-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

Before our baby was born, I made a lens about baby products that I thought we would need. I was wrong.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight I have used our experience to update our lens with the ten baby products that we believe are absolutely essential. I have never seen a list like this before. Please have a look and let me know if you agree or disagree.

Plus we have included some reviews of the hits and flops that we bought. I will give a hint here. One of the essential products was footed pajamas. Our baby lives in his footies.

The worst? We bought two of the best known swaddlers on the market. Some babies love swaddlers, or so we hear. Our baby HATED swaddlers. He voiced his opinion about the swaddlers from day one. Our little Houdini struggled his way out of both swaddlers nearly everytime that we put him in one. After a few weeks we surrendered. He won and we stopped using them.

My Experience With World Village

2010-04-12T17:02:00.000-07:00

Imagine you spend time writing an article, you spend more time submiting it to a site and getting it just right and publishing it. Then you spend more time getting links to it. It starts to appear in Google. Then the article vanishes. How would you feel?

Well, that is how I felt about World Village. I wrote an article, submitted it, created links to it. Everything was fine until it had vanished. Their technical support was not doing much, after 5 days, I still did not have my article and they just told me to resubmit. So I went to their corporate website and made a plea. The VP of Ideas interceeded and I got my article back. Wow!

Getting the article back gave me enough confidence to write another footed pajamas article, so I wrote an article about matching footed pajamas.

It is still too early to say what the future holds for me with World Village. I am preceeding with caution and will give more feedback later.

Show This To Someone You Know Who Is Pregnant

2010-04-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

Do you know someone who is pregnant? If so, forward them this link. In a few months they may thank you for it.

Few people know to use a postpartum girdle. A postpartum girdles is a type of belly band. But post partum girdles are a well kept secret. If you go to some maternity forums you will read, "I wish I had used a postpartum girdle" or "I wish someone had told me to try a postpartum girdle"

Fortunately, someone suggested that we consider a postpartum girdle AND they told us about it in time, before my wife gave birth. We asked our OB/GYN about it and she insisted we use a postpartum girdle.

The postpartum girdle we used was not expensive, in fact our postpartum girdle cost under $20. Frankly, we don't think it matters alot which postpartum girdle you use. Most important is that you use a postpartum girdle.

We looked at it this way. A postpartum girdle might help and couldn't hurt. Our OB/GYN and a friend recommended a postpartum girdle. If the postpartum girdle did nothing, we were only out a few dollars. What did we have to lose?

We actually documented the effect of the postpartum girdle by accident. Once we learned we were pregnant, we took a photo every month at the same time from the beginning of the pregnancy and 1 month after our baby was born. As a result we had nice photos of my wife's belly before (or nearly before) and after. Have a look at the before and after photos and see what you think. Do you know someone you should tell about a postpartum girdle?

Dear World Village : My Article Vanished!

2010-04-07T01:00:00.000-07:00

I posted that I was testing World Village to publish articles. Yesterday I wrote an article about adult footed pajamas. Today, to go along with a squidoo lens about footie pajamas, I wrote a second World Village article about adult footie pajamas. There is Good News and Bad News.

Good News: The Footed Pajamas article I wrote yesterday is ranking quickly and nicely in google! It is currently on the second page of Google for its keyword.

Bad News: Yesterday's Footed Pajamas article has VANISHED!! Yes, it is gone and instead, it is replaced by someone else's article about Karate!! Here is a screen shot of my article dashboard (click the image to expand)

I am wondering if that guy has got my footed pajamas article? I wrote to him and am awaiting his response. I also submitted a support ticket and asked for my article back.

So, the first review of World Village is mixed. Lets see how quickly it gets fixed.

An Alternative To Squidoo?

2010-04-06T05:02:00.000-07:00

As I recently posted, I am looing for an alternative to Squidoo. It is a difficult task, because frankly, Squidoo is tough to beat. I do not want to replace Squidoo, I want to find a site that I can use along with Squidoo to:

* Drive Traffic To My Website
* Give Links to my Website
* Bring Income

Squidoo is the best thing I have found for all of those things, but I am still looking for a good alternative. Today, I discovered WorldVillage and I wrote an article about how to select adult footed pajamas.

So far, I like what I see. It was easy to sign up for, it was easy to post my article and my article was live immediately, without a review process. So far so good. I will be watching to see if World Village will generate any traffic for my footed pajamas website or any significant income. I will be post what I discover soon.

Is There Anything Better Than Squidoo?

2010-04-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

Calling all Squids, I would like to get your input on this question: Is there anything better than Squidoo? Or even: Is there anything nearly as good as Squidoo? If there is, I have not found it.

As I reported earlier on this blog, I have a website about footed pajamas. I am trying to get my footed pajamas website to rank high on Google for important keywords like Adult footed pajamas, children's footed pajamas, etc. I am making progress, but I am not there yet.

So, I am trying to find a site which offers all of the wonderful things that Squidoo is able to offer and I can not find it. Squidoo is great. Squidoo offers me the ability to add Dofollow links from my lens to my website, send traffic to my website AND earn some money at the same time. I am not earning a fortune from Squidoo, but there is some money coming in and it is interesting. Further with Squidoo, I am not rigidly moderated, I can publish when I want and there is a very helpful and friendly community to boot. Squidoo is great.

I am pleased with Squidoo and if I can find something similar at another site, it would be even better. However, experiments with sites like Hubpages and Infobarrel have been disappointing. In my experience, neither site generates any income to speak of nor traffic and Hubpages' links become Nofollow if your Hubrank drops below a certain level. I have written 4 high quality articles for Infobarrel and I get zero traffic to my websites and have not earned a dime. I can not figure out how to be successful at either of those sites nor do I really want to invest a great deal more time trying. Frankly, I have all but given up on both of them.

Ezine and GoArticles are good about generating links and traffic, but not money. Other article sites such as Searchwarp and article base actually give you NOfollow links (Uh, why would I submit an article there?).

Today, I spent sometime investigating Qondio, a website which "allows you" to post a blog and earn 100% of your income. Right. The downside, they forget to tell you that there is a hidden $5 activation fee. I say "hidden", because you read their FAQ, no mention of it there. Read their registration page, again no mention. Only after you submit your registration details WHOOPS!! Please pay $5. Now, that is not alot of money. I just hate it when a website does not reveal the games that they are playing upfront. So, I looked on the internet to what other people are saying. Apparently you can give a link to your website at the bottom of your blog, but it is not an anchor text link, it is just a raw link. Also, I read that there is some kind of automated softwear approval mechanism of your post and some writers complain about having their posts rejected for no stated reason. All of that was a turn off for me. I just do not want to spend time writing for a website that proudly states all of the advantages and hides some of the less attractive things. It makes me wonder what else they have up their sleeves.

I looked into Helium articles and while you can earn money, you can not give a link to your site! However, Helium does now have something called Zones that are something like a Squidoo lens and I recently created a new zone. I will be watching to see how that develops.

I am reading strange things from disgruntled EHow authors. Many people are unhappy there and anyway their links are Nofollow....again a no go.

So, fellow Squids, can anyone tell me a site that even comes close to Squidoo in terms of those three criteria? Where can I find a site which will offer:

* Dofollow links to my website
* Traffic to my website
* Interesting earning potential

Or is Squidoo simply a "one of a kind"?

Horoscope and Zodiac Jewelry - a lens turning into a blog

2010-03-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

One of the advantages of having a hostgator webhosting account is that you can set up as many blogs as you want without having to switch to a more expensive plan. That is: you do of course have to buy the domain name, but the various sites (blogs in my case) are all hosted under one account.

One of the least intuitive things you can do with that system is set up a blog ONLY to promote a lens. I know, weird isn't it? But that's what I just did. I spent two days setting up a blog, creating content, building links on something that I expect will only make me money through the promotion of a squidoo lens or two.
Here's the lens: Astrology Horoscope Jewelry

It does OK selling zodiac jewelry and it gets decent traffic, but I want it to move up a notch in both search engine traffic and sales. And since I'd already bought the domain, I've set up a blog. It's called, not unsurprisingly: Horoscope Astrology Jewelry.

Normally I'd have turned the lens around at this point: linking it to the blog wherever reasonably and perhaps toning down on the content on there. Instead I've done the opposite: linked to the lens and used this as part of my link wheel around that lens.

Why? It has to do with being an international publisher. Amazon makes it real hard to get to their money, because they only pay out by check internationally. And guess what: it's expensive as hell the change them into actual money. So one of the reasons I'm active on squidoo is that for me it pays to have a middle man that pays out through paypal.

Of course, if ever Amazon starts paying out directly to my Dutch bank account, or in some other way where I can get to the money without having to jump through hoops, I can always turn the blog around too: link to the blog from the lens and turn the blog into an online 'hub' or the center of my 'link wheel'.

In the mean time though, that blog is going to get older - and therefore more trusted by Google as well. So it makes sense to host and own it myself, not put it on some free account. All thanks to hostgator.

If sitting makes you fat... then get off your rear and start walking

2010-03-13T04:20:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting a treadmill desk for months, every since a friend sent an email with pictures of hers. There was a recent article in the New York Times:

If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.

The last straw for me: I painted my ceiling beams and after stepping up and down off a kitchen chair more times than I can tell you, I jammed my knee and could hardly walk. I got mostly better, then got on my elliptical trainer and the knee got terrible again.

So in a fury I went out and bought an inexpensive home treadmill from Walmart, set it up, and - since I'm a make-your-own type - built my own "work station" for free. Since then I've spent quite a lot of happy time on the treadmill, mostly reading books I've wanted to "get around to" for quite a while, but also working on my laptop, which fits securely on the treadmill desk.

Want to read how I made this simple cheap DIY laptop treadmill desk and see pictures of my workstation and my friend's too? Visit Make your own treadmill desk for free! (BTW, It's only free if you have woodscraps lying around or can scrounge some.)

Read more from Giant Squids at Valley of the Giants.

2010-02-28T15:55:00.000-08:00

Look How Easy It Can Be To Break Into A Hotel Guest Room

2010-02-25T04:47:00.000-08:00

We travel and stay in hotels or motels all of the time. Most of the time we feel safe. Much of the time that we think we are safe, we are actually fooling ourselves. Have a look at this video showing how surprisingly EASY it is to break into a hotel with the card type lock. Of course the video also shows us a simple technique to stop it with a towel. But not all hotel rooms use the same type of locking system, and many are just as easy to break into:

I have created a lens with some suggestions about how to optimize hotel security. In addition, here are some suggestions about hotel / motel safety from a Kansas police website.

Valentines Day Ideas

2010-02-01T10:05:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, I made a lens with Valentines Day ideas about how to make Valentines Day very special. It remains one of my best lenses. I have recently refreshed if for this Valentines Day. There are alot of great ideas there and I am very proud of it. I always wanted this lens to be a lens of the day. Maybe one year it will be.

Use Squidoo to research and advertise an event

2010-02-01T05:52:00.000-08:00

I'm thrilled with the way I've been able to use my page, Complaints Choirs, as a hub of information for people who might want to join the Complaints Choir I'm starting here in Durham - Chapel Hill NC. On this lens, I've assembled a brief history of the movement (which started in Finland and is going strong across the globe!) and some of my favorite Complaint Choir segments from YouTube.

I built a website for our soon-to-begin group (Complaints Choir, Durham - Chapel Hill headquarters) and on it put a link to my squidoo lens, which has more information than I wanted to put on the local website.

If you've never heard of them, here's an example:

Making a facebook fan page for use with Squidoo and business in general.

2010-01-16T19:07:00.000-08:00

As usual, when I hear people talking enthusiastically about something I am tempted to try it myself. I already had a Facebook profile but was very reluctant to mention my lenses there, because it's more a place where I connect with friends, family, and colleagues.

Some lensmasters evidently look at it the other way around: they don't want to annoy their squidoo fans and connections with personal matters.

In either case, the solution may be to create a facebook page. I've got one now: Chapel.Hill.Fiddler on Facebook. I already feel freer to mention business related stuff and to drop a lot of links which my friends and family might consider spam!

I discovered something cool: if you add the application called "Static FBML" (FBML means Facebook Markup Language) you can make tabs or boxes using html, which means you can style them to look more like a webpage - you can have big pictures and links and embed stuff...

... and to make it even more fun, you can set one of the tabs you create to be your Facebook Landing Page, so when people surf to your URL for the first time, they see your special custom page (on subsequent visits they go to the wall page).

I made a landing page with links to a lot of my blogs, and to my squidoo lensography. If you haven't been there before, you should see a page with the heading "What's Going On Here" ? (Go on, go visit, you know you want to! And maybe become my fan while you're there!)

In other news, I've finally managed to get google to index my Best Wedding Songs blog, mainly by pointing to it from various other locations! And I've done a new lens full of research on Complaints Choirs, an absolutely hilarious concept. I'm starting one myself: Complaints Choir, Chapel Hill Headquarters.

Freelance Home Writer: Excellent Resource About Article Writing Sites

2010-01-15T08:53:00.001-08:00

As I posted recently, I am looking for an article writing site to meet certain critieria. I have not found it yet and I am not sure it exists. Here are my criteria:

* Appear high in the search engines
* Are a good source of quality anchor text "DoFollow" links
* Send some traffic to my sites
* Pay some money
* Not require much "social networking"
* Be easy to use

Basically, I am looking for something like Ezinearticles or a GoArticles which pay money too. I have already ruled out several sites, including:

* Hubpags: If your hubs fall below a certain ranking, the links become NoFollow
* EHow: Resource Links are NoFollow
* Associated Content: Resource Links Are Nofollow
* Helium: Requires that you vote on other articles and others must vote on yours.

In the meantime I have located a very good source of information about article writing sites, called Freelance Home Writer. The blogger "Willow Sidhe" is a freelance writer. She checks out all of the paid article writing sites and reviews them. She even tells how much money she earns.

Willow appears to prefer EHow due to how much money she is earning. EHow does look like a good site, however, oddly their links are NoFollow. This rules Ehow out for me, as I want an article writing site which can go along with my Squidoo lenses and websites, sending traffic and links my way.

I will keep looking, but in the meantime Willow's blog is VERY useful. Check it out.

Calling All Squids: Need Your Advice!!

2010-01-14T06:07:00.000-08:00

Usually on Valley Of The Giants, Squid Giants are giving advice. I would like to turn tables and ask advice. I wonder if I will get any here?

I use article writing as a way to give some benefit to my websites and lenses, like traffic and quality links. I currently use Buzzle, GoArticles and PR Log. (Yes, I prefer GoArticles to EzineArticles) These sites are great, because articles I write appear high in the search engines and send some traffic to my websites. They are also easy to use and give quality anchor text links (except PR Log just gives regular links, not anchor text) without much requirements other than writing a quality article. There is little in the way of moderation and little waste of time.

I know that there are some sites out there that pay money as well and that is always attractive. But some of them are quite complicated and I would like to avoid that.

Sometime ago I joined Hubpages and I have been disappointed. You may not be aware but if your Hubpages fall below a certain ranking, the links become Nofollow links. In order to be above a certain ranking you need to meet some unknown qualifications. For example, I believe you need to get other hubbers to follow your sites. In order to do that, you need to follow their sites. It seems to be another one of these social networking sites and frankly, I just dont have time for another. Since I am not very involved in the Hub community, many of my hubpages are below the minimum threshhold and the links have have become Nofollow. This, despite the fact that many of my Hubpages have good quality information. I do not want to deal with another site where I have to invest time into social networking or figure out how to get popularity, etc. I just don't have time for more networking. I would prefer a site where it is just about creating quality content.

I have been thinking about some others:
Xomba
Helium
Associated Content
E-how
etc, etc

But I am concerned these may also require social networking where you need to spend time getting people to give your articles a high ranking etc. I want to avoid sites where your articles or you must have a certain popularity in order to have value.

Does anyone know of any good websites that
* Appear high in the search engines
* Are a good source of quality anchor text links
* Send some traffic to my sites
* Pay some money
* Not require much "social networking"
* Be easy to use

Squidoo Strategy is WORKING!

2010-01-08T01:56:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to post this for sometime, but I wanted to be certain before making this exciting announcement. My Squidoo strategy seems to be working. If you do not know my Squidoo strategy, let me give you a brief outline. Here is what I do:

* Get my ideas for interesting products in interesting niche markets from sources such as Amazon Best Sellers, BuzzFeed, O-Magazine, etc.
* Make as many squidoo lens on the most interesting products using best guesses about what might be successful.
* Create links in order to draw traffic to the Squidoo pages.
* See what products are selling successfully.
* Based on Squidoo sales success, select a few topics and build websites around the topic.
* Use Popshops as the core of the websites in order to easily manage them.
* Create sub-niche Squidoo pages in order to offer not only links and traffic to the website's home page, but also deep-links and traffic to the website's subpages.

As a result, I earn Squidoo income from the Squidoo pages and affilate income from the websites.
This strategy has worked for my Footed Pajamas business, so I have now launched a brand new website called Slippers Shoes. The new website will offer cozy slippers. I have recently built this website and an now finalizing the content for it. I am also currently creating Squidoo pages based on each of the website's subpages. I am excited about the new website and also have plans for future websites.

I guess that this is not rocket science and that many Squids are pursuing a similar strategy. However, after nearly 3 years with Squidoo, this approach has only started coming into focus for me. Slow learner, perhaps?

I will keep you informed of my progress in upcoming posts here on Valley of the Giants.

I Got My Website Back!!!

2010-01-05T23:57:00.001-08:00

As I reported last week, I discovered that someone had taken the content of my lingerie party website. My wife and I spent a great deal of time creating a website to help people organize lingerie parties. But after more than a year, I realized that Google was only delivering search traffic to internal pages and completely ignoring the home page.

How did I discover the problem?? I did a google search on content from my home page and google delivered links to two websites, mine and another one; a website about lingerie parties. I contacted the owner of the website and asked that the content be removed. I waited a week and nothing happened. Two weeks went by, I heard nothing.

Frustated I decided to take the next steps. The rest of this post will document step by step what I did so you can do the same thing if you find that your website content had been copied.

I went to this whois website and entered the address of the website that had taken my content(http://www.xyz.com/) and clicked search.

If you do that for any website (http://www.xyz.com/) lower down you should see information for the IP (Internet provider) something like this:
XYZ.COM SITE INFORMATION
IP: 12.24.56.78
IP Location: San Francisco, United States
Website Server: Active
Server Type: Apache, blah, blah...

The number following IP: should be hyperlinked. If so, click on it. A page should come up telling you everything you need to know about the host, together with a contact email address. Hopefully the host is in the USA or some other friendly country. In my case it was in New York!!!! I struck GOLD!!!

I wrote an email to the owner of the website and I copied the email address of the IP company (internet provider) demanding that my content be removed. Within a couple of hours I got this response from the IP company:

"You will need to specify exactly which material (by completefilename, i.e. myimage1.jpg, myimage2.jpg, mypage.html, etc.) and you must swear under the penalty of perjury that you hold or you represent the holder of the copyright."

I sent back a simple email swearing under penalty of perjury, together with links to my site and the other site, as well as the content which had been taken.

Within 1 day I received an apologetic email from the Website owner (Finally!!) telling me that they were not aware that the content was taken from my site (Yeah, right) and that it would be removed shortly. The next day, I got a very nice email from the IP company asking me to confirm that my content had been removed. I checked and it was GONE!!!! Interestingly, I can see that there is other content on that website which is duplicate from other websites.

The other good news is that my website is receiving more traffic than before. It has a long way to go, but I am hopeful that things are getting better.

I hope you never need this information, but if you do, follow the steps provided above. Be sure to come back and let us know if it worked or not.

Is Your Website Performing Poorly in Google? Maybe Someone Stole It!!!!

2010-01-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

Is your website under performing in Google? One of the reasons could be that someone stole your content. I have a website called Lingerie Party. A couple of years ago, my wife and I created it. We put alot of work into the Lingerie Party website and were very proud of our efforts. We created lingerie party invitations, lingerie party games, lingerie party themes and uploaded everything to the website so that people who want to organize a lingerie party only need to go to the website and download everything for free. We spent several days making quality lingerie party invitations, creating quality photos to decorate the site, etc.

Although we got plenty of links to the Lingerie Party website, we were dismayed that the website got very little attention from Google. Strangely, Google delivers search to some of the internal pages but not to the home page. In fact, the homepage was pretty much ignored by Google.

Recently, I think I might have discovered why. I did a search on some of the content of the homepage and discovered that another website had copied the homepage word for word! I was astonished.

This may explain why Google is not sending traffic to my homepage. It is possible that Google sees the homepage as duplicate content and is ignoring it.

Here are the steps I have taken:

* I have removed the content from my home page, so that it can heal as soon as possible. I have created an internal page (Lingerie Party Ideas) and transferred the content there.

* I have created new content for the home page

* I wrote to the owner of the website via their website and asked them to remove the content. They ignored that friendly request.

* I went to the Whois website and gotten the name and email address of the owner of the website.

* I wrote an email to the owner and copied their intenet provider and demanded that they remove the content.

If they do not remove it now, I will call their internet provider and I will contact Google.

The efforts are already paying off. The homepage is already appearing on the 3rd page of Google for the keyords Lingerie Party and Lingerie parties. I am hoping that it will appear on the front page Google for the keyword Lingerie Party before long.

Lesson: If your website is underperforming in Google, put a few lines of your homepage into the Google search engine. Your website should be the ONLY site that Google has indexed with that content. If it is not, change the content or contact the offending party.

Ten Gift Ideas For Wheelchair Users

2009-12-31T02:02:00.001-08:00

A bit late for the holidays. But check out these 10 gift ideas for wheelchair users. With some 2 million wheelchair users in the USA, there should be quite an interest in this subject.

Baby Songs : Our Baby's Favorite Baby Songs

2009-12-28T02:20:00.001-08:00

Have you searched for entertaining, education and fun songs for your baby? After going through many many songs, we made a selection of our baby's favorites songs. It was helpful for us, because now all of his songs are in one place. But it might be helpful to you too.

Finding the right baby song is difficult to do. Some songs were to scary for our baby. Some were too boring for us. Some songs were too noisey and made him cry. The songs here are fun, educational and easy to listen to both for our baby and for us.

These songs are all branded Super Simple Songs. Some of the best are made by Jeremy. The others are their animated songs. Check out these excellent baby songs.

My only television celebrity lens: William Levy, hot Latino telenovela star

2009-12-07T20:50:00.000-08:00

This lens is so atypical of my collection it sort of makes me giggle. I'm not ordinarily one for gossip, or for drooling over hunky tv stars, but I made an exception for William Levy. Partially because I was actually curious about him, and partially because the gossip about him threatened to get out of hand on my telenovela blog Caray, Caray!

I don't allow speculation on stars' private lives at Caray, Caray, so I made this lens so fans of this sexy Cuban tv star William Levy could speculate and share juicy tidbits about his life and loves to their hearts' content. There've been some mighty long comments in the guest book!

I think it's interesting that a lens about a Latin-American tv star can make it to #15 in the tv celebrities list.

Cheap Footed Pajamas

2009-12-06T18:00:00.001-08:00

I have recently been surprised to find some cheap footed pajamas. When I started with my footed pajamas brands, I was actually surprised that the average cost was around $50. These are brand name footed pajamas between $20-$25!

The price was so astonishing for me, that I created a squidoo lens and a page in my website about it. My goal is to drive traffic to my new website in search of these inexpensive footed pajamas. I notice that there is not much competition for this long-tailed keyword (cheap footed pajamas). There is one website with that name (Cheap Footed Pajamas), but the prices of the footed pajamas are actually over $50, not very cheap at all.

I expect some of my new traffic will buy the $25 footed pajamas and others will look around and actually buy some of the other, more higher priced footed pajamas, thereby earning me slightly higher commissions.

The best Zazzle stores I could find, want to see them?

2009-12-06T07:59:00.000-08:00

Whenever I have an internet problem, I do some research. If I'm doing something badly, I try to figure out how somebody else does it better.

So my Zazzle gallery, Uncle Shlomo's Pushcart is pretty disorganized and I went poking through Zazzle looking for great galleries, which have solved the problems I face, with all newbie Zazzlers (for instance, that if you're not careful your page is just a chaotic mashup of whatever products you've created most recently).

Because I'm a squidoo addict, I put screenshots and links to the best zazzle stores I found in a lens: Best of the Zazzle Stores. Have a look and...

... if you know of a great zazzle storefront I didn't mention, add it to the plexo - and if you have some advice for me about mine, please leave a comment. Enjoy!

Deep Links And Matching Footed Pajamas

2009-12-05T02:59:00.000-08:00

This is my next post in the series about making my own website about footed pajamas. Today, I created a new Squidoo Lens about matching footed pajamas to go with one of my website's most important pages which is also about matching footed pajamas. Why did I create the lens? It is difficult to get deep links and Squidoo can help with that. What does that mean?

If you submit a website to a directory, most of the time only the homepage is allowed. But if you want your other website pages to be found by Google and other search engines, it is helpful to have links directly to it. However, a link to your other website pages (besides your homepage) are called a "deep links" and few directories allow them. You need to be creative to get deep links.

Squidoo not will not only bring traffic to my website, it will allow me to create links to any page of my website, that is, with Squidoo I can get deeplinks. And since the Squidoo lens is also about matching footed pajamas, it is a highly relevant link. However, I will not stop there. I created a Hubpage about matching footie pajamas and I will write articles about matching footed pajamas. All of those things will allow me to get traffic and deep links to my page about matching footed pajamas.

This is one of the reasons that I think that building websites and creating Squidoo lenses go hand in hand.

The National Yiddish Book Center

2009-12-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

I may have gotten this lens up too late to help them this year, but maybe a few people looking to make a tax-deductible end of the year contribution will find my National Yiddish Book Center lens.

I'm not affiliated with the Yiddish Book Center in any way, except as a devoted fan and satisfied customer. They have a gorgeous, interesting magazine called the Pakn Treger which comes out every month (oh, it's so yummy) that you get for a modest donation. It's the only magazine I didn't cancel when I decided to simplify my life...

I've visited their set of buildings, styled like a little shtetl on a lovely sweep of greensward on the Hampshire College campus. They have zillions of real old-time Yiddish books you can buy for cheap, and real old-time sheet music, and if you don't want an OLD book you can pay them to make you a new one, or you can read almost any book they have online, because Stephen Spielberg gave them a grant to digitize their ENTIRE collection available, incredibly: Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library cataloged and downloadable for FREE.

They have concerts and lectures and they provide scholarships for summer interns to learn Yiddish and do projects (very cool ones) and take care of these books.

Aaron Lansky, the founder, wrote a very popular book called "Outwitting History" about saving Jewish literature after the Holocaust. It's funny and inspiring.