Mariannes Motifs

Migo Traveller USB Drive

I found this best buy from Buy.com.  Its a Migo 2GB DataTraveller usb click drive for only $12.95 with free shipping.  What a cute little thing! Don't lose it though.  I don't see from the picture if it has a loop for putting on your keychain or lanyard.

I find little usb drives to be so useful for both my work (I never go to a customer site without one) as well as for carrying pictures of the kids back and forth.  One year for holiday gifts I made a slideshow of my scrapbook layouts and sent it to my family members on a click drive as their gift.

Blog Hosting Options

I really like Typepad for my blog platform because it is so easy to use.   I don't mind paying for it - I feel like I get my money's worth as I get templates, the ability to easily ad widgets, and can make my blog look pretty an personalized without having to do any programming.  And yes - you can use Typepad and still have your own domain name and be able to take advantage of all the good thing that allows you to do.  See - I am mariannesmotifs.com running on Typepad.

But my blog has been loading really slow lately - I think because I loaded up on flashy ads and widgets.  I wonder if Typepad itself could be part of the performance issue? Should I switch to self hosted and Wordpress?

Alot of people use Wordpress and their own server.    Did you know you can actually get a dedicated server for $29.95 a month through a company like ServerPronto top ISP?

I don't really feel like monkeying around with Wordpress, however.  I do technical stuff all day at work and by the time I get home at night I just want to post and chat for fun, not delve into html programing to make my blog look professional and hip.  Its probably worthwhile though if you need to have a shopping cart and stuff like that for a bigger site to have your own dedicated server.

The Vegas Strip Effect

I noticed that the blog was loading slowly, so I removed some ads and widgets.  Although they are fun,  if they take a long time to load I am afraid that people will not get to my quality content and just give up on me.  I turned of the Widget Bucks ad.  I have only made 5 dollars on the things, and I am just not sure that it is worth the screen real estate it is taking up.  I might change my mind and try putting it back up - but I want to make sure it wasn't what was slowing doing my page loading time.

So you might see some experimentation going on with the blog design and sidebar widgets.  I want to get a perfect balance of fun widgets that load fast and are easy on the eyes.

8 Great things you can do on ANY cell phone with Google SMS

I don't care if you are "techy" or not this is a free service you can use!  Program GOOGLE 466453 into your cell phone and you can text for great information on the road.  Don't know how to program it into your phone - click the web link below and Google will send you a link.

This woks with ANY cellphone with SMS which is really almost all cell phones.  (Check for how your provider charges for SMS messages - some charge by the message)

Click here to have Google send you a link on your phone to get started!

Google SMS info page

1.  Price Check

Out shopping and need to check prices to make sure you're getting a good deal?  Text the name of the item and then the word "price" to GOOGLE (466453 ).

Examples of what to text to get the prices returned back to you as an SMS messages are indented.  (It can take a few minutes to get it back)

price bluRay player
price Keurig coffee maker
price sony wega television
price upc code number

2. Help - get a list of commands

help (returns a list of commands)
help flight (returns a list of commands regarding flights)

3. Google Local - find stuff in your area

Starbucks 02116
pizza 30022  (returns pizza places in that zip code)
 

4. Fight Status

ua 14 (United Airlines flight 14 status)
dl 123 (Delta flight 123 status)
atl airport (gives current conditions at the airport)

5. Weather

weather 30022
weather atlanta
w atlanta

6. Movies

movies 30022
Baby Mama 30022 (movie name and then zip code)

7.  Directions

directions street address, city, state to  street address, city, state
directions Atlanta to Savannah

8. Sports Scores

Score Mets
Score MLB

Google SMS info page

Click here to have Google send you a link on your phone!

   

 

 

 

Put a Face to the Name

I grew up in Rochester, NY, the home of Kodak.  I remember being fascinated as a kid with the business cards of Kodak employees because they were printed on photo paper and had a picture of the person. 

It's a great marketing strategy to put a face to the name - it helps break down the barrier between the buyer and seller.  Let's face it, especially if you are attractive - your face is a valuable part of your personal brand.

I found a new website that is a directory of local business people with pictures.  I think its a great way for business people, sales and marketing people, and people in the service industries to help promote themselves.   I saw alot of hair stylists, nail techs, real estate agents, etc.  If you are a people person in a "people" business, what better way to get your name and FACE out there. 

The link to the site is MyCityFaces.com.  This is a free site, and has many cities listed not just in the US either - all over the world.  They have cities represented all the way from Adelaide, Australia to Zurich, Switzerland!  Atlanta (my home) seems to be well represented already, even though the site is new.
 

Submitted blog to a Website Directory

I submitted this blog to a new web directory, in the hopes of generating some more web and search engine traffic.  It's called mainostoimistot.info-seo web directory and it looks like it could be useful.

I get a real kick out of seeing people from all over the world read my blog.  I love looking at the Feedjit map in the sidebar and see where people have come from, and looking at my web stats on Statcounter and seeing all the web searches that brought people to my little weblog. 

Stock Tip: Buy Apple

I went over to the dark side: Jin gave me a used Apple laptop!   We finally got it up and running with my brand new copy of Leopard for Intel Macs.

And my Dad is talking about getting an iPhone.   This is Arthur who never wants to buy anything much.  Put these two things together and you get a stock tip:  Buy Apple Stock.

The laptop only came with 1 GB of ram, so I may need to buy some laptop memory but it is surprisingly fast.  I need to learn Mac OS though.  I really am a beginner when it comes to this new experience.

Oh - a third reason Apple is hot right now?  The next version of iPhone software (expected out in June, I beleive) will include support for Microsoft ActiveSync.  This means you will finally be able to use your iPhon ewith your corporate email for comapnies that use Exchange and support ActiveSync.  They also have support for Lotus Domino too.  Corporate email was the one thing missing from the iPone so now with this addition, it makes it the killer app.

But one question:  How do you keep the fingerprints off of your iPone?

Label World

Label World is a company that prints large orders of custom labels for industry.  The printing methods they use include, Flexography,  Digital Printing, and Screen Printing.  These  would be industrial pricing for things like Safety Labels, manufacturing labels, and large prints runs, so they'd be great for a winery needing to print wine bottle labels for a whole vintage, not for something like 20 custom wine labels for a wedding.

Search Engine Optimization

Since I've been selling my t-shirts and trying to make a few dollars from my blog, I've been trying to learn about search engine optimization.  I just came across an interesting blog, Apogee Search Blog,  from a Search Engine Marketing firm out of Texas called Apogee Search.

It's fairly common for companies to pay a firm like Apogee to help them make sure that their web sites come up somewhere decent in web search results. Those looking for SEO in Houston might consider giving them a try.

I've been trying to work the process naturally by requesting that Google add my site, asking my digiscrapping colleagues to add a link to the blog to their sites if they wish, etc.  But its a slow process.  I can certainly understand why people do gladly pay for advisement in Search Engine Marketing.

Computer Trauma

They say bad luck comes in threes.  Well, I think I am in the clear now because my computer hard drive went corrupt, my Tivo died, and my freezer door was left open and all my frozen food melted.  (its possible 1 and 2 are related because we had alot of lighting the other day)  I blame overpacking of items for 3.

So what kind of back up strategy did I have and how up to date was it?  My strategy was to use a program called Cobian backup to backup one external hard drive to a second.  Well the stategy was good in theory, but not up to date in practice.  I had ran out of space on external hard drive #1 and was stashing my new photos on my c drive.  I actually even had bought a new EHD but I hadn't gotten around to setting it up yet.  Bad procrastination!

So I had about 5 months of digital photos on the hard drive that were nuked. 

Good news - though.  Between two really cool software programs that recover deleted files off hard drives and memory cards, I was able to salvage the majority of my digital photos.  What I used was Active File Recovery on the hard drive, and Photo-Saver on my camera memory card. 

So now I have to figure out what to do with the PC.  But  a new hard drive and re-configure it, I suppose.  I think it might have to wait until after my girls vacation I am taking at the end of the week.  Melissa and I are going to the Bahamas on a Carnival cruise!  Yay.  So I have something good to look forward to after my little round of bad luck.

BuzzFuse Review

I signed up for a new blog marketing tool called BuzzFuse.  This is a service for Bloggers to promote (and possibly make money from) their content (pictures, music, posts) and for readers looking for content to help find quality posts.  It acts as an email push service for subscribers to receive email updates on content that fits their interests based on their profile.

Buzzfuse.com

Its billed as  "viral marketing for blogs" that hinges on the content provider setting up a "circle" of contacts.  In fact, they make it very easy to upload your entire address book.  Then the subscribers (circle) can sign up and tailor the type of content they want to hear about, and how ofter they want to receive mails. 

The site has a pretty clear privacy policy, but didn't particularly specify if they would share the subscribers email addresses with anyone else.  So that is something I need to follow up with them about.  Check back here for more info as soon as I learn more.  Its very important to me to make sure that Buzzfuse will easily allow people to unsubscribe and that they will not give subscribers email addresses to any sketchy 3rd party companies.  Therefore I am testing out the service to see how they handle those factors.

I also have Feedburner email subscription enabled on this site, which is a Google owned service.  How does BuzzFuse compare to Feedburner?  While they both are ways to receive blog updates via email, Feedburner is just going to give you an email subscription to this site without any ability to do blog marketing, or take advantage of BuzzFuse's content rating and content marketing features.  See my upper left hand sidebar for the Feedburner subscribe box.

Cool gadget of the Day

Today's cool gadget is the Sony Mylo Personal Communicator.  Why is this thing so cool - NO DATA CHARGES.  That's right, you can use free Wi-Fi available in your neighborhood or anywhere and access your web mail and skype  VoIP phone calls on this device with no monthly service charge. I think this would be great for teenagers who can't sign up for monthly plans with the wireless cell service provider.  It comes with modules for all your instant message clients and also has a built in camera.  Cool toy.