Of Sezwho, loving in and Entrecard

Friday, July 25, 2008

Entrecard seems to be a big topic these days, and I know I've been discussing them on my blog a lot lately. I spend a good part of my day using the site promoting my other blog, and I've become a bit more active in the forums. Today, they announced they now have over 15,000 blogs in their system, and that is a huge number.

Not too long ago, they announced their partnership with Sezwho, which I did install on this blog for awhile. I just never found it to be working properly, so I ended up removing it after a few days. I know others have had problems with it. I was willing to try it though. I will give anything a fair shake.

Right now, I'm learning my way through twitter. I found Problogger's social media love in yesterday, and I went through and made some new twitter friends. I went from having a small list of people to follow to a rather large list. I'm learning how to manage it now, and it is getting easier. Always good to make more friends!

A Child of the 80s

Thursday, July 17, 2008

I was born in 1976, and I spend my younger years in the 80s. I love the music. I loved the television, and I loved the movies. One of my favorite 80s movies has to be The Breakfast Club. Who didn't love the brat pack? Emilio, Judd and Molly - among a list of others that made up this group of movie stars known for the teen movies of the decade. St. Elmo's Fire is another one, and I just sat down and watched Some Kind Of Wonderful the other night. There are so many great movies from the 80s. It takes me back to my youth, and it reminds me how great a time it was. WarGames, one of the popular movies of the time, is coming back for a one night only event in theaters on July 24. That is next week. The showing will also contain never before seen interviews. It is hard to believe it's been twenty years, but it has. You really don't want to miss out on catching this!

Firefox 3 & Entrecard

I've been talking a lot about Entrecard on my blog lately, but it is site I find myself spending more and more time on. I've had some problems lately with dropping on my one blog account because of Firefox 3. It kept logging me out.

However, tonight I figured out a small workaround that will work for me until the problem is solved. It isn't the best solution, but it will let me get back to dropping regularly on this blog, and not just my other one. I installed Flock. They call it the social browser.

It is made using the Firefox engine, but since I installed an older version I am not having the same logging out issue I was having. It will do for now.

Keeping Safe On The Internet

The past few weeks I've been coming across sites that have been labeled as attack sites and have been blocked from my browser. I hadn't seen this much in the past, but now it seems to be more and more common. I like it. It is way of them protecting me from the bad you can find on the Internet - viruses, porn, and the like.

However, these filters aren't always full proof, and there are ways to get around them if you really want to. Today, I found out I can ignore the warning and continue onto the site with just the click of a button. What if that had been a porn site, and I was just a teenager? One button click, and I would be able to see all the porn I wanted. There are a number of free porn sites popping up online. You can even find pornish videos on Youtube if you look around a bit.

Filters can be great, but they aren't always the only line of defense you need. There are programs out there, and today I discovered one that offers porn detection. This one might be something for parents to look into. I know I don't want any kid of mine watching porn. Not that I have kids! I do have nieces though, and if they were younger than they are now, I would want them protected. The youngest just turned eighteen. They grow so fast!

Anticipation Builds

Tomorrow I will be at the movie theater to see The Dark Knight. I have my ticket bought, and all I need to do is pick it up at the box office. I am really excited to see this movie, not only as a reviewer but as a fan of Batman. I've seen all of the movies, and I am a huge Christian Bale fan. I was saddened when Heath passed on, and even wrote about his death on this blog.

I'm exhausted lately though. It might be monthly thing, so I'm just waiting it out, and I'm not going to let it stop me from going to the movie tomorrow morning. I was lucky to get the ticket that I did. Showings were selling out. I'm in for the 11:20 showing.

Other than that, there have been a few minor annoyances in life lately. I had a minor issue with a site I write for, and it is making me ponder continuing on with the site. I left before, and I will again if I see it to be necessary. Right now, I'm just going on. Also having an issue on a more personal front. Family sometimes is just troublesome. Not sure why I bothered trying. Thank you for proving to me it wasn't worth the effort.

Knowing Your Bill IQ

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Something that has been weighing on my mind a bit lately is finances. Before I was worrying about not making enough money, but now I'm wondering just how much I'm going to get nailed when it comes tax time next year. It really is funny how that works. I don't like credit cards, and I don't like loans. I like to pay with cash or using my debit card straight from my account. I've seen what credit cards can do to a person.

Today I found a site that lets you take a quick test to find how financially fit you are. Debt help is also offered. In just a few short moments, I found out that I'm 85% percent financially fit, which isn't a bad number. It gives me a B. Not an A, but a B. Damn, I'd love that A. I try to pay the bills I do have on time, but since I work freelance from home a set savings is not yet in place for me. I needed to start making money because I could start really saving it. Now I'm working towards that.

I've invested some of my savings, and I have money market accounts where I can. Every little bit of savings helps. With this BillsIQ, I now know I still need to work on things. I need to save better and save more. One thing at a time though. I just started making more money!

Working The Social Networks

I posted this a few days ago over at the forums at Today.com, and I thought I might share this with everyone here. Since I started Celebrity Today, I've taken a crash course on social networking. I'm learning there are things to do and things to avoid. Social networks are meant to be social. You need to take part in them. Vote and leave a few comments. Submit more than just own articles. Some won't even let you submit your own stuff - like Newsvine and Stumbleupon. Stumbleupon will let you up to a certain point, but then it will stop you.

I've learned lately it isn't good to submit every single post on your blog to the social networking sites, digg especially. Submit the ones of length and that are not found already. How many people wrote about Angelina and Brad's twins? A lot. If everyone digged there post about it, that would be a lot of posts on digg with maybe one or two votes.

If you're able to be the first on a topic, if you're able to add something to discussion the other posts haven't already made, then go on ahead and submit. With digg, do not shout every single post. If people have you added as a friend, they will see your post without shouting it. If you do shout, make sure the article is worth the shout. A paragraph about Angelina's reason for naming her babies might get you some looks.

I've used a lot of the social networking sites. From the big ones like Digg, reddit, Stumbleupon, Proppeller and Mixx to the little guys like Blog Engage, Blogatiser, Kirtsy, Livewire, Post on Fire, Thoof, and Blogvine. There are a couple of others, and some have worked better for me than others. Not every single one will work for you.

Time just flies by

Monday, July 14, 2008

I've been horrible about keeping things up here, but things are busy. Things get added in, and my schedule goes to heck. I'm working on it though. The past week my house has been mostly empty. My brother has been off coaching in a couple of out of state tournaments. The first in Oregon, and he flies back in from Chicago tomorrow.

I've been writing a lot, but not any fiction. Someone should smack me for that. I'm just so tired by the end of the day that pulling out a story to work on is just hard. I even have less time to read. Most of my days are either spent promoting or writing for Teevieo or Today.com. I have applied to a couple of other sites, and I'm waiting to hear back.

One sounds like it might be right up my alley, and the second is using the skills of researching celebrity gossip stories online and sharing them. No writing involved. I'm hoping to hear back on that. I always email new positions I find. I do have a blog idea for something out of my genre of celebrity gossip and news, but I'm still pondering it. Something in the technology genre dealing with software.

The good news is I finally see results. I've been writing professionally since 2001, and I've not had one year where I have had to file taxes due to my earnings from my freelance writing. This year I will have to. I hope I don't have to pay a lot! Crossing fingers there. It isn't like I spend a lot though. I buy the occasional DVD or poster, but I like to save my money.

Now if only I could get something going with the fiction. One sale makes me want more.

I will admit ...

Saturday, July 05, 2008

That I am a messy person. My room is not the cleanest. It's not the type of dirty that is gross and disgusting by any means, but there are clothes and piles of papers all over my room. I revolt against cleaning, and I have for a long time now. Growing up, my mother would be so hard about being nice and neat. As I grew older, I just learned how to hate it. Instead of cleaning, I wish I could just throw at least half of what I have in my room at this moment right out the bedroom window or over the balcony ledge and have it go into some great abyss to never be seen from again.

Could you imagine is we could really do that? I hate doing laundry. I hate vacuuming. I hate everything about it. The rest of the house is fairly neat and tidy thanks to my dad and brother. You would think it would be the men that would be the messy ones, but no its me! I am admitting it fully right here and now. Will I change someday? There is always room for change and improvement. So someday I might change my ways. I need to clean sometimes right? I'm thinking I'm do for a cleaning right now actually.

We have this huge loud vacuum right now, and it is such a pain. There is a new vacuum out right now by Dirt Devil . I used to have one of these myself years ago. It is even Energy Star compliant, which is important. Could the new hand held or stick vac help me in my cleaning? It could. Anything is possible. I just need to stop hating the word!

Maybe time does heal all wounds.

Friday, July 04, 2008

The fourth of July hasn't been my favorite holiday for quite some time. Growing up in Los Angeles, I used to love the day. It was a day filled with family, food and fireworks. Thirteen years ago today, my mother passed away, and I've always said she helped keep this family together. She may have adopted me, but she was still my blood. Complicated family tree. I don't speak to my birth father these days at all, and I barely talk to anyone else. I called my brother in California this week, and he isn't doing all too great. If you pray, throw in a few words for him.

It's kind of funny to me because in learning how to tweet, storm facebook and bouncing around online this week I actually found the facebooks of some people I once knew or talked to. It is weird finding people like that online, but you get over it. Today to me is just another day. I take it a little bit slower, think a little bit more, and I remember the woman that raised me. She was only 57 when she passed away, and she would be seventy now. I sometimes wonder how she would be now, how I would be if she still loved. She was always my strongest supporter. I still miss her, but this year it isn't as sad. Not sure why, but that's just how it is. Have a happy 4th of July everyone.

Of Digg, Entrecard and Editor's Choice

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

I've been using Entrecard almost since the day it arrived on the scene. Some things have come around as ways to get readers to your site, and they just don't seem to work very well. Blogrush is one of these things that immediately comes to mind. Yes, I'm using it on my blogs right now, but I'm just trying to see if there has been any more improvements since I last used it. In the week I've had it back on, there hasn't much of anything in the way of new traffic. I'll give it another week trial and see what happens.

Entrecard, however, has been a great way to get find new blogs to read myself and get new people to my blogs. I've noticed just how well the service can work in the past month with my other blog, Celebrity Today. A lot of my readers come from there, and I love seeing them come back day after day. Last night, Graham over at Entrecard started something new with Digg. Entrecard is really the biggest social network of pure bloggers out there, so when they join together it is going to be great. People have been adding me on digg all morning, and I'm hoping this is another great way to get my blogs noticed.

Celebrity Today was just honored today as Today.com's Editor Choice Blog for the month of June. I've put a lot of work on that blog, and I know it is still new. It will be two months old this month. If the months ahead, I plan to keep writing good content and contributing to the blog community as best as I can. Happy July everyone. Posts three days in a row! I needed to revive this blog too.