Schrock Media & Blog

May 1, 2012

Sunday Poll Results – Earnings

My nosing into peoples financial success was quite interesting last week, as it seems quite a few of use have made some money from blogging.

64% of voters have made over $100 with another 27% making at least a $1 putting to bed the notion that paid hosting is out of reach – You can get a decent package for around $80 a year which will pay for itself very quickly.

At opposite extremes, one person doesn’t want to make money from blogging, and one has made over $5000 – wonder who they were?

To all those seeking to make a dollar or three from blogging: Good Luck!

One of the primary themes of Blog-Op is ‘helping small bloggers to improve’ and that’s as true of me, as any of you reading this blog (although I notice some of my readers are fast escaping small blog status-must be all of my advice ).

The first step towards improving anything is to identify faults and weaknesses about what you’re doing, so these are mine as I see them:

Distraction – The internet is a wonderful terrible distraction to getting anything done if you lose focus. It’s very easy to kid yourself that you’re ‘networking’ when in fact all you’re doing is reading a chain of interesting blog posts-nothing wrong with that unless you should be writing your own interesting posts at that time.
Commenting – Or not. I realise I’m terrible at commenting back on other blogs – partly because I read via feed reader (some people would blame the blogger for not engaging me enough to make a comment, but how many statements can you end with a question?), and partly because I read so fast I’m on to the next post before being aware of finishing the first one. I love receiving comments, so I should give more.
Marketing – I just do not promote this blog enough. I know a lot of the theory about how and why, but I just don’t seem to have the …
Time – How many times do you look up from writing a single post and find 3 hours have gone by? I do frequently. OK, I have 3 blogs, 1 website, oh and a family to run, but I do not manage my time correctly. I am the king of procrastination.
Laziness – My single worst fault over my entire life. Sometimes I just can’t be bothered to touch the keyboard-clicking the mouse is my limit. I’m very aware of this, but it’s a constant struggle most days.

I think that’ll do for now.

Perhaps by writing them down I’ll be more able to combat them and hopefully defeat them. Do you suffer from similar blogging weaknesses, or are there other things you feel you need to improve?

An excellent plugin for WordPress users that promises to get even better: AdIcons.

AdIcons is the creation of Menuguzar of the Rebitran blog, and you can see the output on Blog-Op just by looking at the top left of my page. It allows you to sell a micro version of ‘banner links’ anywhere on your blog, by using ‘Favicons‘ which have the advantage of both looking attractive on your blog, and being attractive to people encouraging them to click them.

Installation

The plugin is installed and activated in the usual way, and the icon block is then placed by inserting a single line of PHP code into your template. Configuration and options are setup through your dashboard and you’re good to go. The icon block can be configured by rows and columns to a size to suit your blog – I went for a simple 2 rows by 5 columns but there’s nothing to stop you having 20×20 if you can fit it in! If I can fill these, I will add more.

Making Money

The making money side of things is also well catered for, as you can choose what icon spaces are available for lifetime sale, and what are available for monthly rental, along with the prices for both. Hover over the top row and you’ll see that a space is currently available for your icon for $50 for life, and that the lower spaces are available for $3 a month. $50 is obviously an introductory bargain for a permanent link, so be quick

Perhaps the most attractive aspect of this is that it is direct selling-no middlemen, no commission, you set your rates and receive 100% of the revenue. You also get to choose your preferred payment scheme, and I’m sticking with PayPal.

Time will tell if they make me money, but I am much happier with these on my blog than most other graphical ads.

Why should you buy an AdIcon on my blog? Well, for one thing it’s a straight Google/Technorati friendly link (Thanks for confirming Matthew) and for another, Menuguzar has some pretty convincing stats on it.

By the way, after Maki told me I should stop linking John Chow in every post, I jokingly replied that I’d link him instead. And now I am. It’s his fault for writing too damn many useful articles….

March 7, 2012

Filed Under: Health

cosmetics for amo skin types

Women like me have it relatively easy when we shop for cosmetics. It seems that 90% of the products available in grocery stores, drug stores, and at department store cosmetic counters cater to those of us with fairer skin. I’m particularly pale, and when I buy foundation, I’ve got my pick of 20 different shades of ivory. Women with pigmented skin, such as Asian skin tones, those with olive skin tons, or other pigmented skin types need to pay close attention to the needs of their particular skin type. Pigmented skin reacts differently to the sun, and can also change colors due to scarring, acne, or other skin problems. ORIKI Cosmeceuticals is a line created specifically for people with AMO (Asian, Mediterranean and other Olive) skin types, and it was created by an American Board Certified Dermatologist. With the ORIKI whitening serum, women can reduce the effects of UV rays and scarring on their skin, by minimizing the pigmentation to the affected areas.

Remember – just because your skin tans easily, that doesn’t make you immune to damager from the sun. People with all skin types should use sunscreen and products with SPF in them to protect your skin from UV rays and other sun damage.

February 15, 2012

Filed Under: Tech

Naples Web Design Video Testimonial

A new video testimonial for Naples Web Design.

October 21, 2011

Filed Under: Real Estate

Real Estate: Downfalls To Consider

When a lot of people think about real estate, they are only really thinking about the great and wonderful things that it can be. They think of how nice it would be to own all kinds of property and how much money they will make from it. While it is nice to dream big, and it is often encouraged, you have to make sure that you are staying grounded with the truth. Truth be told, there are a lot of people that make an exceptional living with real estate. Then again, there are a lot of people who make a go of it and lose everything that they have. Is this a risk that you are willing to take?

Even if you could guarantee that your real estate investment will pay off handsomely, you will have to deal with the fact that your money is going to be tied up for a while in your shortterm housing. Once you invest your money into the real estate, you are not going to see it again until you cash in. This could take months or it could take years. Do you have this kind of time to wait?

As you can see, there are really only a couple of downfalls to investing in real estate, but they are heft downfalls. You really have to make sure that you are tight skinned and that you can afford to lose all of the money that you are putting into it. If the risk is simply too great for you and your personal financial situation, then you might need to put off investing in real estate for another time.

August 10, 2011

Filed Under: Email Email Archiving Tech

Why Businesses Need Email Archiving Solutions

While the compliance requirements of email has been around for many years, there are still a high number of small businesses who are still not compliant. It is estimated that anywhere up to 60 percent of all small business have no form of email archiving solution. In an age where security is everything, this is unforgiveable, but the fact remains.

The case for email archiving solutions are many, including storage, legal implications, compliance, oversight and disaster recovery. Each of these are distinct challenges businesses of all sizes face, and ones email archiving solutions can directly address. Let’s take them one at a time and discuss them further.

Storage

Storage can be expensive. The larger and busier the organization, the more storage they are likely to need. Blindly copying files, or making backups of everything without having a structure is just wasting space. Businesses need backups, but email archiving solutions offer something different.

An email archive only stores the email data. It doesn’t need the surrounding system files, or other unnecessary bulk a backup would generate. It will retain the email and any attachments, and that’s all. This requires much less storage space than a backup, therefore, costing much less.

Legal Implications

The first legal implication email archiving solutions address is that of compliance. Every company in the country has some kind of watchdog or regulator. They will all have varying requirements as to how a company records and retains data. A solid email archiving solution will address those needs.

The other legal implication is litigation. Any company that functions commercially should protect themselves from lawsuits at all times. Having a reliable, trustworthy email archiving solution allows evidence to be collected and used in any defense.

Compliance

Leading on from those legal implications, compliance is still a very big noise in business. Strangely, despite it still being high on the agenda, it passes many businesses by. As already mentioned, industry regulators and the government itself has a set of rules regarding how email data is stored, which is what compliance is all about.

Most email archiving solutions are designed around this very issue. They are structured to ensure the company remains compliant at all times, and doesn’t face the risk of financial penalties for not complying.

Oversight

While no company likes to advertise it, many like to monitor what their employees are doing. That can include monitoring email traffic to ensure productivity and prevent data leaks. Email archiving solutions are just one tool that enables this.

The ability for company security personnel to have access to current and historical email data is a great advantage when monitoring employees or maintaining oversight in transactions and Q Viva Marc Anthony .

Disaster Recovery

While backups have an important role to play in a disaster recovery scenario, email archiving solutions can play a part too. If they are hosted offsite, and are accessible via a network, they allow employees to remain productive even while not in the office.

This enables the company to still have a professional public face, continue to do business and complete transactions, whatever is going on in the background.

August 9, 2011

Filed Under: Solar Power

Solar and Your Home

You probably have one already, a solar powered calculator that is. You have probably been using it for years without giving the next step any thought whatsoever. Well the time to give it some thought is now. With energy prices going through the roof, it is time to see what modern technology has to offer in terms of solar uses that extend well beyond that old solar powered calculator.

With the unique confluence of energy cost going up and the cost of installing solar generators and the associated equipment going down, it is time to take a hard look at converting your home, either in part, or in its entirety, to solar power and to also take advantage of the many solar uses available for your home today. There are many good articles out on the web that discuss the how’s and whys of installing solar panels in your home, but this article will discuss what you can run with solar power once you have made the conversion.

Some of the low hanging fruit that you will want to consider converting to solar uses are some of the simpler things in terms of power requirements and your ability to have access to backup sources such as conventional energy sources like the power company.

Lights

Solar uses for items with lower power requirements and those items that you do not have to use 24/7 may be the first things that you will want to look at converting over to solar. Solar in conjunction with rechargeable power sources can be setup to provide power when the sun is not shining as well as when it is. Storing energy during the day for use at night is a serious consideration that one should make as part of their overall solar uses plan. Lighting becomes an attractive consideration because we often do not run the lights through the entire night (we turn them off when we go to sleep) and we don’t necessarily need to run them during the daytime either.

Small Appliances

Starting small, when one thinks of solar uses for appliances, there are many small places to start applying solar energy such as alarm clocks, toasters, radios, stereo systems, your cable box, computers, cell phone recharging, kitchen carving knives, blenders, food processors, garage door openers, and the list goes on of items that are either low draw against a power supply or short usage items that are used and turned off relatively quickly. A wide variety of these items today actually have their own built in batteries that just need to be recharged after use. Many could be operated directly off of a solar power supply or off of a reserve power supply recharged by solar sources.

Larger Appliances

By increasing your solar generating capabilities, you also create the ability to provide power to much larger appliances such as televisions, refrigerators, stoves, washers, dryers, water heaters, air conditioners, the furnace, and another whole host of appliances that see more consistent use and regular power demands. Parallel systems can be tailored to provide backup energy should the weather become overcast for long periods of time or usage spikes on a particular day, but viable solutions are out there that will get a home to virtually 100% powered by solar energy if you are really committed to changing over.

July 23, 2011

Filed Under: Web Design

Fort Worth Web Design

Fort Worth Net Style

Believed Mechanics is usually a specialist web page layout studio specializing in custom web-site styles for our Fort Really worth neighbors. We’ve been designing and promoting internet websites because the web first went public, and have grown as well as it.

Most enterprises know by now that a web site is vital to enhance the customer base and to widen the pool of prospective clients. That does not imply just any web-site. That internet site is your brand on line, so it requires to become excellent. That’s in which we are available in.

We layout every thing from the bottom up and build anything to attain your goals. Every little thing is authentic and made in particular for you. Once the site is full, we can assist market, market and advertise it for you. A web page isn’t really worth something till it’s creating you income.

Our Fort Really worth layout group is compact but completely formed. We’re knowledgeable sufficient to offer you everything you need and agile adequate to provide flexibility in our method. We have the skills and experience to allow you to appeal to regional, regional, national or international audiences.

Call Thought Mechanics right now and let’s see what develops!

Our range of companies consist of:

Web site layout and development
CMS advancement
Ecommerce platforms
Flash design and style, splash pages and animations
Video production
Logo style and branding
Banner marketing
Domain names, hosting and assistance
Search engine optimization
Net marketing and advertising
And much more!

Initial impressions are every thing, that is why you need a site that functions. You may have seconds to grab the consideration on the visitor and present them what they’re looking for. Fail that and they are going to move on. That’s why finding to understand your audience is so essential.

If you’re looking for simple, effective web page design, you are within the appropriate spot. We use a collaborative strategy in every thing we do. That usually means you’re constantly in the loop, and normally in manage.

Throughout the first consultation, we talk to you about what you’ve in mind, in which you want to become, who you wish to talk to and what you would like to promote. Understanding as a lot about you and your enterprise will be the greatest way for us to be capable to deliver what you need.

Realizing as a great deal as you possibly can about your audience will be the finest way for us to deliver what they want also. You may be our client, and we will take your direction, but we’re designing the website for your visitors, so we must know who they are too.

But web pages are straightforward, proper?

Your website can be a simple tool to promote, market and inform. On the surface it’s a net page with words and images. Underneath it is a mass of code. Even though the premise and implementation are very simple, the perform that went into making is far from it.

An effective web page has to perform quite a few items.

It has to:

Attract new guests
Maintain current ones interested
Give each and every visitor what they want
Market your merchandise
Market your brand
Be effortless to use
Be pretty to search at
Be faultless in its execution
Be error free
Accomplish your goals
Work with any browser, any operating process and now mobiles too

Sites

The web is in which organization happens. It has revolutionized the way we trade, do deals and industry ourselves. In case your web-site is not performing, you’re missing out. A web site is your retailer front, your advertising materials, item brochure, client service division, receptionist and far more.

It is vital to make the ideal impression, deliver what the visitor desires and leave them wanting additional. It has to deliver all that although becoming rapidly, compliant and good to search at. A tall order to become certain, but one particular Thought Mechanics is effectively positioned to deliver.

Ecommerce

Desire to market your solutions on the internet? Want a web based store or shopping cart? Need to accept credit cards? Want to make real income from your web site? Should you answered yes to any of those questions, we are able to help.

Billions of dollars are spent annually online. It really is quickly becoming our favorite technique to store. That tends to make it vital for any ambitious enterprise to have a piece of that action. An online shop sells 24/7 365. It doesn’t rely on passing trade, it doesn’t focus on just Fort Really worth. Web site layout has elevated selling to a international level.

That is what tends to make helpful ecommerce websites to essential.

Social Media

Social Media is actually a comparatively current phenomenon. It has taken off like no one would have believed and now has users numbered in the a huge selection of millions. Making use of it to your advantage requires skill. Skill we’ve in abundance.

Our marketing team includes a wealth of encounter in social media and networking. The two as customers and as marketers. We are properly placed to leverage this medium to promote your small business. In regards to promoting, use every single tool at your disposal to produce interest and make sales. That’s exactly where we are available in.

The Thought Mechanics Distinction

Our vision is uncomplicated, to carry on delivering premium internet site options at an economical cost. At Believed Mechanics, we help our customers transform their firms into money producing machines and favorite, info rich internet sites.

Our commitment to all our clients is usually to deliver cost-effective, high quality web layout and web-site advancement. While also providing sector major seo. We achieve this commitment by functioning with all the finest persons. We’ve many of the most effective programmers and site designers in the country. We prefer to preserve them busy, so why not call us these days to view what we can do for you?

We also offer hosting, domain names, content material, website assistance, upgrades along with other after-sales solutions to all our customers. It is all element of our commitment to producing the world wide web a additional worthwhile place for all of us.

If you’d like to take your website for the up coming level, or want a new one particular, call the TM Fort Worth dev group currently!

Post By: Darrin Demchuk

July 15, 2011

Filed Under: Education

Precautions Pertaining To HIV Infection

AIDS or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is one of the most commonly known and feared diseases in the world. AIDS is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus and HIV symptoms or infection is considered to be a precursor to AIDS. The impact of the disease is such that even developed countries are afraid of the risks of outbreaks. As it is, AIDS or being HIV positive is considered to be a pandemic globally and estimates suggest that there are 33.3 million people in the world who either have AIDS or are HIV positive. In addition to this, statistics also reveal that there are approximately 2.6 million new HIV infections every year. These statistics become especially alarming because of the fact that there is no known cure for HIV infections or AIDS. This means that the best defense against AIDS or HIV infection is to not get infected. The following are the three primary ways through which a person can become HIV positive and the relevant ways of preventing the same.

Sexual contact: Sexual contact is, by far, the most prominent way through which the HIV virus spreads amongst people. In different words, unprotected sexual contact between an uninfected person and an infected person can result in the former getting infected with the HIV virus from the infected person. Reluctantly, the only way a person can be protected from becoming HIV positive through sexual transmission is to use protection i.e. condoms.
Body fluid exposure: For an uninfected person, exposure to the body fluids can also result in the transmission of the virus. Body fluids can be anything from tears, saliva, blood and urine. This means that even healthcare workers are at risk of getting infected. These risks can be avoided with the use of barriers such as gloves, masks and other similar types of protective gear. Another way that body fluids can end up in the transmission of the disease is through the use of contaminated needles, scalpels and similar sharp objects. If the sharing of needles is avoided, these risks can be lessened.
Mother to child: Finally, a pregnant HIV positive mother can end up infecting her child just by the action of breastfeeding. Therefore, the best way to avoid such transmission of the virus and the disease is by not breast feeding the child. Instead, the services of a wet nurse or a surrogate breast feeder should be employed.

The prevention of HIV infection is very important because AIDS is a very dangerous condition that has no known cure. HIV, as the name suggests, affects the infected person’s immune system in such a manner that it becomes almost redundant. This makes it particularly easy for other types of disease to take hold in the infected person’s body. These types of diseases are termed opportunistic diseases because with a properly functioning immune system, they would be ineffective. If a person does get infected with HIV, however, then anti retroviral treatment is an option which can only suppress the infection and not cure it.

June 28, 2011

Filed Under: Web Design

Web Design with HTML

html As hard as it may be for many of our younger readers to believe, the World Wide Web itself actually predates HTML; of course, this will only come as a surprise to those of you who know what HTML is and how it is used in chicago web design. Whether you’ve only just now heard of HTML or you know a bit about it already and would like to learn more, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll discuss the origins of HTML, how it is used and its development over the past 20 plus years and a look at the future of HTML design.

For starters, HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language; and means exactly what it says: in case you’re at all perplexed, the “hypertext” in question is the code which is used to build the pages themselves. There’s no room here to go into a detailed discussion of exactly what hypertext is, but web pages certainly qualify. As for “markup”, this refers to the tags used in HTML which indicate to web browsers and other software how the pages are to be formatted.

HTML tags indicate formatting properties such as spacing and other typographical elements along with background and text color. HTML still can be used for this purpose, though now decorative elements like colors and the like are often handled through CSS or cascading style sheets since CSS makes it easier to maintain stylistic consistency throughout the different pages of a website, with the design propagating to new pages as they are built.

HTML caught on quickly in the early 1990s after Tim Berners-Lee proposed the first HTML tags. The adoption of HTML in web design led to a quick switch from plain unformatted text to formatted text with an eye for design and as faster modems and more advanced image rendering capability in web browsers became commonplace, images became a common feature of websites. HTML evolved right alongside of the growing World Wide Web, with support for tables and frames following quickly.

HTML was, almost from the moment it began being used, the de facto standard for web design just as it is to this day, along with CSS for easier control of layout across multiple pages and Java and other scripting languages for dynamic elements on web pages. However, HTML has been more than capable of keeping up with the almost unimaginably quick pace of growth online, thanks to the literally millions of people worldwide who actively develop HTML code, many of whom contribute to the standards of the format itself.

The emphasis in web design shifted away from simple HTML-based page design briefly, though it has come back to simplicity and user friendliness via more attention being paid by web designers to overall usability, ease of navigation and a better user experience in general instead of trying to overwhelm readers with animation and gaudy graphical elements. It is now extremely common to pair HTML or XHTML with cascading style sheets, especially on blogs and other Web 2.0 platforms.

Another trend in web design which beginning designers as well as website owners who outsource their design work is creating web pages whose code is in full (or as close to full as humanly possible) compliance with the standards for HTML web design as set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (or W3C for short). There is certain to be further evolution in HTML standards as time marches on and new communications possibilities are dreamed up by forward thinking web designers, with the latest standard, HTML 5 being rapidly adopted. The latest advances in HTML based design take into account the fact that Flash is no longer necessary for viewing video or other multimedia content on web pages and keeps in mind that this web media format is being phased out. The capabilities of web browsers and for that matter, computers are continually advancing, but if the past is any guide, HTML is certain to keep growing right along with them and to remain the lingua franca of the internet for the foreseeable future.

June 26, 2011

Filed Under: Lanyards

Custom Lanyards

When speaking about custom lanyards, they can be designed to make students proud to wear them in order to show great school spirit as well as pride in their school. A good place to begin is with the school mascot. Get it printed on the custom lanyards of the school as a way to encourage pride in their school so it will want them to wear the lanyards. With such a broad choice of materials and colors to choose from, it is not difficult to match school colors and then have the mascot and logo printed exactly on the custom lanyard.

There are very important advantages when one uses a custom lanyard when compared with other kinds of identification holders. One good thing about the lanyard is that it will greatly reduce the chances of a student losing her ID badge. Due to the fact that the lanyard will keep the ID badge visible at all times, it will be quite simple for the staff to be able to recognize when someone stranger is in the school. Also, with the lanyard’s colorful, bright appearance, the custom lanyard will certainly instill an attitude of cheer and will help to promote school spirit throughout the school.

Today, the lanyard serves a very important function in the school; its main purpose is to foster school security. If a lanyard is well designed, it can make it more difficult for someone who is unauthorized to impersonate an employee, student or visitor. If the lanyard is printed with the specific school logo, it can make it much simpler for the security staff to react quickly if a person tries to blend in by wearing a lanyard of a different style.

It is even possible with today’s technology to customize school lanyards for special organizations or groups. Bands, science clubs, math teams, glee clubs and other groups are able to have their own custom lanyards that are printed with their own specific logos or other text that can be printed on them. This is surely one great way to build camaraderie within all the different groups in schools.

It is surely a terrific choice to use bright colors in order to promote students using custom lanyards. It is very simple to order lanyards in vivid, bright and bold colors in addition to regular school colors. In the hallway, if a student is wearing a bright custom lanyard that has bold lettering, it will really stand out when he is going down the hallways; it will add a splash of color to the day in school.

When one goes to order lanyards, most people choose to order them through the Internet. The most inexpensive lanyards are the tubular ones. These custom lanyards can be bought in several different colors. These tubular lanyards are composed of a material that is tube-stitched polyester, which looks much like shoelaces. The logos and text that are printed on these custom items will be legible and clear.

If you want the ultimate in a custom lanyards, then you should choose nylon. These lanyards are of the highest quality available. Out of any lanyard style, these items offer the smoothest finish and brightest imprint of any other lanyard style.

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