Okay, this is totally off topic but that’s what the “Etc” category is for! I have played with sparklers all my life - for 32 years. They’re so pretty and fun and innocent - NOT. Last night, me and my 2 boys shot fireworks. It was sparkler time - I pulled one out and lit it and it SHOT a flame down my finger! OMG - OUCH! It hurt like HELL. Mind you fireworks are made with chemicals so firework burns are considered chemical burns. I was in terrible pain for a good 4 hours. I went in and... Read Full Story

In a couple of my previous posts I talked about Michelle MacPhearson and Alejandro Reyes’ Social Media Seminar and the main topic of that was Twitter. I really got more into it after that and I’ve already seen benefits and made some nice connections. So I wanted to talk about it a bit more. Twitter is a “free social networking and micro-blogging service” that is taking its place in the Social Media arena. You can post to Twitter in many different ways including: directly from twitter.com... Read Full Story

This is fantastic. I love most things “push button”. If you do any kind of affiliate marketing, this affiliate software will make everything SO much simpler and SO much more profitable. You can literally set up your affiliate eCommerce store in just a few steps and put together an entire store in no time. You can pack your site full of products and be raking in the commissions. I’ve seen a few of these type of programs out there but this is one of my faves. There’s another one ranking at... Read Full Story

Last week, I talked about “What Alejandro Reyes & Michelle MacPhearson Said” in the hot Social Media webinar they gave. Michelle has posted the video of the webinar on her site and you can watch it -yes it’s free. If you’re into Social Media - and if you’re into Internet Marketing, you should be - it’s worth taking a peek at. The main topic is Twitter - don’t underestimate the growing power and reach of Twitter; it’s pretty insane - but you’ll take away information that can be applied... Read Full Story

You’ve probably noticed that most Web 2.0 names are tweaked to be different. Long gone the days of ‘normal named’ sites Flickr, imeem, meebo, revver - what in the heck do these names mean? Whatever they want them to, although some Web 2.0 names are made up of a combination of relevant words. At first glance they may appear to be stupid names but in the world of Web 2.0 - they’re pretty hot and these are some popular sites. You might wonder how they come up with these names? Do they just... Read Full Story

Popuri is a nifty little tool that will pick up your stats from: Google PageRank Alexa Rank Compete Rank Quantcast Rank Google BackLinks Yahoo BackLink Live Search BackLinks Technorati Links del.icio.us Bookmarks Bloglines subscribers WHOIS DNS Report *Note - make sure you enter the “http://” portion of your site. The results are instant and live. You can get widgets for your site to display your “live” results which means the results displayed will be the current results/they... Read Full Story

In my post, “What Alejandro Reyes & Michelle MacPhearson Said” reference was made to using “Comment Relish” which is essentially an auto-responder that will send an email to users who comment on your blog who haven’t commented before. While first thinking that might be a good idea, I found this post today and had second thoughts –> 3 Reasons Why Comment Relish is not good for your blog. I’m on the wire about whether or not it’s the best idea ‘to use or not to use’. This article address... Read Full Story

This looks to be a cool plugin for your Wordpress site that will optimize your site for search engines. I have just downloaded it but it definitely did the job in placing the meta name and meta keywords that I specified. Read Full Story

(I’m taking a break from designing to just read and write; two things I LOVE to do.) I like to stay positive and while tweaking this blog theme has been terribly frustrating and aggravating at times, I realized I need to be thankful. My last ‘Etc.’ post was me complaining about the tech stuff involved in tweaking the blog design but as I was just browsing around a bit and looking for “IM Connections News” to bring to you; I thought of Michelle MacPhearson and how working as her VA has really... Read Full Story

So darthguru on Twitter showed me the COOLEST tag cloud EVER yesterday. I was mesmerized.  I just sat there playing with it for the longest so I wanted to show it to you too! You can check out the social buttons at the bottom of that page too - I think he said they’re still in beta but I like em =) Karen J, « Design and Codes - argh! | Home | While I was busy complaining! » Recently: All in one SEO Pack Wordpress plugin While I was busy complaining! Design and Codes - argh... Read Full Story