WAS I AN IDIOT OR WHAT? December 2009 rolls around and boom down goes their servers. More to the point they have a hardware failure. I’m we’ll be back up in a couple of hours. That rolls into a day, then 2 days, finally 5 days go by and so steamin’ mad. I’ve ripped into them several time at this point and I’m ready to move to a new company. One tiny little problem. My database backups were on the server! I can’t go anywhere with out my data.

Every website owner is an IDIOT waiting to happen. On the 6th. day, webhostingpad finally restored my website. THANK GOD! Now its “let’s get the ball rolling and get up running” time, and start moving forward again. Ahhhh, but wait, there’s more! Now it’s the time where you discover after the fact of a huge crash, that there is a CAVEAT to the “WE BACK UP OUT SERVERS EVERY WEEK”. You see, one of my most important sites they restored had changes and data that was over a year old. WHAT? What just happened to all the work and customers that I accrued over the lat 12 months? The bottom line, they were all gone! They and their website left out one tiny little detail. We don’t back up websites of 1 GB or more.

Talk about losing the wind in your sails. I pretty much lost everything. You see I was a first rate fool! I had so many different back ups plans and everyone of them failed. Even though I planed for disasters, I still lost everything. Why? Because I was missing the most important disaster recovery tool on the face of the earth.

There is a data/disaster recovery tool called Site-Vault. Site-Vault backs up not only your website files, but it also back ups your MySQL databases as well. To make it even better, it downloads everything to your home or office computer. If you’re like me you have more than one website.  We have been using it for a couple of months now and it is rock solid. We manage about a dozen or so websites, and everyone of them is backed up and ready for disaster recovery at a moments notice.

Check them out! I promise you, you will not be sorry for getting the software. The bottom line is, it costs $99.00 to back up an unlimited amount of websites. At this point don’t bother with the lesser versions. Your time, your sites, your piece of mind is worth a hundred times more than that.

Don’t go through what I went through. Don’t learn the hard way. Wisdom learns from others mistakes and misfortunes. Follow this link to Site-Vault. Buy the full version for $99.00 and start backing up your websites. It is the best thing you can so for yourself and to prevent a major disaster.

CT

OIOPublisher is a Ad Network solution for  Bloggers trying to sell directly to people that might want to advertise on your blog or website. What OIOPublisher does, is it helps to automate the process of selling ad space, so you can spend more time adding content to your blog instead of trying to find and sell to prospective clients. OIOpublisher puts the focus on performance, control and ease of use. The best part is you keep 100% of the revenue you bring in.

When you use the OIOPublisher network, advertisers can order, pay for and upload their ads directly to your blog. All you have to is approve the ad. If advertisers want to run ads on your site you’ll make some cash, otherwise OIOPublisher will run ads from their ad networks or your own ads until someone purchases the available space.

The software costs a measly $47.00 and it works on any PHP website and it includes a plug-in for wordpress blogs. Here are some of its features:

• OIO can be used as a standalone platform, or as a WordPress plugin
• sell text ads, banner ads, in-content ads and paid reviews
• sell custom items; from custom ads to digital downloads
• enitrely automated; purchases and epxirations all handled automatically
• your own ad server; javascript output lets you display ads on any website
• break ads into zones; display ads easily over multiple sites
• click and impression tracking; weekly ad reports emailed to advertisers
• no empty ad slots; show your own default ads until slots are purchased
• ad status management; approve / reject / expire / renew / validate ads
• setup your own affiliate program; reward people for selling your ads
• easily extend functionality; modules let developers go further
• integrated marketplace; let us help you advertise your ads

The guys over at johnchow.com are giving away two free copies of the software at the end of this month. (January 2009) To enter, all you have to do is visit their blog and leave a comment. It couldn’t be any easier to enter.

Good Luck,

CT

What if I told you that those very same pictures you are taking could become a new stream of income?  How much of a stream is completely up to you. If you do just a little, you will have a little stream, if you do a lot, you’ll create a lot. No you won’t become a millionaire, but you can make some money.

Check out this post from http://blogs.photopreneur.com Someone by the name of Alex posted a great piece on making money with your photos.  52 Ways To Monetize Your Photos. I have to tell you this is great way to earn some extra cash or to start a little photography business.

If you’ve got some things sitting around in your garage, or if you have a brick & mortar storefront, I have a nice website for you to check out. Its called MyStore.com and they let you sell anything online with “No Fees”!

MyStore.com is a place where you can buy or sell online for free. Whether you are a business or individual already selling on Ebay, Craigslist, Yahoo, Amazon or any online auction site or online classifieds, adding a free online store at MyStore.com increases your chances to sell your items. If you have something to sell, you have nothing to lose. Open an online store of your own. MyStore.com won’t cost you a cent.

Make your first sale and you’ve lost absolutely nothing, and gained a whole new storefront. Visit MyStore.com now and open up for business. You’ll be glad you did!

CT.

The first step is to come up with a Social Media plan. Not every type of Social Media site is right for you, your product, or service. There are Social Media sites for students, family, books, law, travel, music, various hobbies, friends, dating, and more than I can mention here. 

I can tell you for sure that there are three Social Media sites that you absolutely need to plug into. Video (Youtube), professional networking (Linkedin), and Social Bookmarking (Digg.com).  These three types of Social Media websites can be used for just about every type of business out there.

The next step is to make a list of the Social Media sites you want to plug into, and then go hog wild submitting to them. But there is one caveat: Submissions take a lot of time. It is very time consuming creating an account, writing up all your keyword rich content (beware of using duplicate content), and uploading video. But… in the end it is well worth the time and effort put in to your Social Media campaign.

According to Mashable.com, there are 350+ Social Media web sites out there right now. Use this list from Mashable.com and start creating a plan of attack. EbizMBA has a list of the top thirty Social Bookmarking Websites. Use this list to bookmark your website so others can find you. Last but not least, Wilsonweb has a list of the top 45 video sharing websites. Plug your videos into these sites and you should start gleaning traffic, and creating some social Buzz in no time at all.

The site is HotPluto.com. If you’re a shopper looking for am item but don’t want to trust what the seller is saying, search for it on Hotpluto and watch a video.

If you’re a business owner, it’s time to jump into the drivers seat. Hotpluto.com is the website to use to show off your company. Create product demos, interviews, virtual tours, or testimonials. Show your products or services in action and start raking in the sales. Consumers can then make a fully informed decisions after seeing you in action.

There are three ways to participate in Hotpluto:

Free membership. The free membership offers you the following:

• 1 video, 10 MB’s in size
• 1 category listing
• and a business description.

That’s not to bad for a free advertising account. If you have a budget then you can get even more.

Premium memberships. LEVEL-1: ($19.95/mo)

• 3 Video Ads (up to 10 megs per file)
• 2 Category Listings
• Business Description
• Create Discount Coupons
• Consumer Interactive Tools
• WEB STATS

LEVEL-2: ($29.95/mo)

• 5 Video Ads (up to 20 megs per file)
• 4 Category Listings
• Business Description
• Create Discount Coupons
• Consumer Interactive Tools
• WEB STATS

LEVEL-3: ($49.95/mo)

• 7 Video Ads (up to 25 megs per file)
• 6 Category Listings
• Business Description
• Create Discount Coupons
• Consumer Interactive Tools
• WEB STATS

No matter what size your advertising budget, they have something for everybody. $50 a month… who can’t afford that?

The final way to participate on Hotpluto, is by featuring your video on the front page of Hotpluto, which also is featured on every other page throughout Hotpluto. The cost. $99.00 a month. All-in-all Hotpluto is the video consumer network to plug into.

CT

The website is writer4me.com. Whatever type of content you need, they will write it for you. They have writers that will write 450 word articles for just $9.99. $9.99! Where can you find freshly written articles for less then $10.00? That’s only one service. For $199.00, their “Blogger buddy senior” service, will post a 400 word blog entry five days a week for an entire month. Don’t have $199.00, but can afford $99.00? Then sign up for their “Blogger buddy junior” service which will post a 300 word blog entry three days a week for an entire month.

They will also write for you screenplays, newsletter, resumes, press releases, and rewrite existing articles along with several other services. My question to you is, how are you going to use them? Check them at writer4me.com and then tell me how they worked out.

CT

Here is what they say on their website on the amount of impressions are seen everyday:

Assuming the average person drives to and from work daily in rush hour traffic in a large city, EACH plate will be seen and understood a minimum of 3,000 times per day. These are called “impressions”. Start figuring the cost. Assume the average car owner will keep their vehicle for 3 years. 3,000 impressions per day X 365 days = 1,095,000 impressions per year (X 3 years = 3,285,000 impressions per plate!).

ID IT Plates Showing Website Address

I have to admit this is pretty ingenius. I wish I had thought of this myself. Get your website out using these nice looking plates.  They come in chrome and gold. Check them out for yourself at ID IT Plates.

Today I have a nice little website for you to check out. Its called Spotmixer – Video Ads Your Way. What is Spotmixer you ask? If you’re looking to do video ads or infomercials, this is the e-Cool Tool of the day. Simply put, Spotmixer allows you to create online video ads and TV ads. With SpotMixer’s easy step-by-step video ad creation tools, businesses can upload and mix their own videos and photos, and even add licensed music from SpotMixer’s extensive music library, for professional-quality results and optimal consumer engagement. Once a you have created an ad, Spotmixer will help you post it to YouTube, Google AdWords, and many other channels.

One study showed that after watching a video ad, 52% of viewers took action.* I don’t know about you, but if I had 100 viewers, and 52 of them followed through to purchase a product, I’d have 500 videos up and running. Visit the site and look at the samples. They are done really well.

It’s really easy: choose a template, customize your uploaded content, Add your contact info, url, logo, save it and publish your masterpiece.  Check them out my friends: Spotmixer.com. Currently they are still in the beta phase, but I suspect with all the hoopla about them at the moment, they re going to be around for a while.

*OPA “Frames of Reference,” 2007