Anyway, I was/am taking a small break at work and decided to check it out quick and guess what? The filter here as work blocked it! www.johnchow.com is no longer accessible.

The filter also gives you a reason for a blocked site. Like if I tried to go to a video game site, it would block me and say something like “This site has been blocked for the following reason: Video Game, Gaming News”. At least something like that. Do you know what the message was when John Chow’s site was blocked?

“This site has been blocked for the following reason: Web Ads”

There are now too many ads on the site versus content for me to view it from work. Yikes.

John Chow dot com officially blocked is a post from: Saving money tips - frugal living tips

Celebrating the positive can do wonders for your happiness, self esteem, motivation, relationships, and even health. The more you look at the good things in your life, the less you will notice the things that kinda suck. The bad things will start to loose their hold over you.

I know a lot of people just roll their eyes when they hear people talking like this but it really is true. The secret to happiness and sucess is all locked away in your head. It’s all in how you look at things.

The reason I’m writing about this is because Jason and I are starting to make some money off of the site and even though it’s not a lot (yet) it’s very exciting and is enough to give let us know that everything we’ve done so far has been worth it.

We are not climbing the ranks as fast as some other blogs have, yet faster than a lot of others. Do we worry about that? Not really! We know that if we stick it out long enough, and keep improving and learning as we go we will reach our goals soon enough.

If you have any inspirational stories about focusing on the positive, or want to let us know how your blog is doing please feel free to post a comment below.

Celebrate the small victories in life is a post from: Saving money tips - frugal living tips

One thing to keep in mind is that there will always be hardships and disappointments. You will have failures along the way. Even the most successful people in the world have disappointments and will tell you that the key to “getting there” is to never give up. Even when you fail.

Give up the negativity

When you start thinking about how hard it is to “make it”, you may have thoughts like “I’m not good enough, interesting enough, or internet savvy enough”. A lot of people talk themselves down from chasing their dreams by thinking this way.

There are probably a large number of negative things that you tell yourself on a regular basis, without even noticing it. These thoughts can drain any excitement you once had for a project. This may be holding you back from doing the things that need to be done to make your blog a success.

Your hesitation is not there because you’re lazy, or boring, or bad with computers. It’s because you’re telling yourself that you are!

The next time you catch yourself thinking a negative thought, notice it, evaluate it, and dismiss if it’s holding you back. Remind yourself that you need to ignore those thoughts if you’re going to be successful and happy which is I think what we are all striving for.

I’m not saying that you should go into denial, if there are things that you need to fix, then fix them. Otherwise don’t worry so much and remember that there is always room for improvement.

That is my pep talk for the day.

Negativity will kill your blog is a post from: Saving money tips - frugal living tips

I was wondering if you could help me. I am looking for a few good blogs to read. You see the blogroll at the side of this site? Those are the blogs I read, usually daily. Some of them are no longer worthy of being on that list. I would also like to expand it a little bit.

So I am asking you for some suggestions, and yes it can be your own site. I would like it if they were close to the same topic as this one, or something that compliments it. But I will check out any and all suggestions anyway.

So why would you do this? Well, if I do end up reading the site on at least a weekly basis then it will get added to the blogroll! So you will be giving some link-love to whoever owns the site. Now thats some great internet karma. So just leave a comment or fill out our contact form!

Also, what does it take to get on your blogroll? Do you trade with people? Do you just add what you like or find interesting? Do you have to join a special blogrolling group?

Help me find some good blogs to read!!! is a post from: Saving money tips - frugal living tips

How did you get there? One reason that people end up there is because their site is new. Another reason might be that they have obtained a large amount of backlinks in a short period of time. This could raise a red flag to google that they are purchasing links or obtaining them in some other unnatural way.

How long will I be stuck in the Google sandbox?
It is said that those who become stuck in the sandbox will never come our alive…just kidding! You will probably be stuck there for about 6-8 months so it may take some time before you see the results of your optimizing and linking efforts. Unfortunatly all you can do is wait. This means that you should not rely solely on google for your traffic, especially in the beginning.

Here are some alternative methods for increasing traffic to your site in the mean time:

Pay per click – sites where you can bid on each click and visit to your site. The payments can range from a few cents to a few dollars per click depending on the competition.

Other search engines – Focus on alternative search engines like Yahoo, or MSN that don’t have a sandbox for you to get stuck in.

*UPDATE*
Get links from high quality sites – Our readers suggest that getting back links from high quality websites with high PR can help pull you out of that sandbox faster.

What’s stopping me from getting a page rank? is a post from: Saving money tips - frugal living tips

Basically this is a ‘get to know the people behind the blog’ post meme/trade/train thing. We all get a chance to let people know who we are, what we do and what we look like. I honestly like to know what the bloggers I am reading look like. Not sure why, maybe it just makes it more personal. Anyway, lets get started.

I guess I will start with a picture. It is a little old but basically it is still what I look like. The only difference is that I no longer smoke.

Fantastic right? Now a little about me. I am in my twenties, and I work in marketing. I also do web design and IT support. I get bored easily so it is nice to be able to do so many things.

I like almost all music, don’t watch much TV besides cartoons and The Office. Again, I get bored during commercials and go do other things.

I am a very clean person, both in body and my surroundings. Cleaning calms me for some reason. I am a good cook, actually I am a great cook and I love to do it. I also like doing anything outdoors, just not for extended periods of time. Stuff like fishing or hiking. Camping is alright, but going days without a shower or connection for my laptop is just silly.

I am a jack of all trades, and just a big kid. I love playing videogames and having watergun fights. I have no intention of growing up and being boring. I also have no idea what I want to do with my life and I am fine with that. Possibly Princess of Canada or a wet t-shirt contest judge.

My current goal is find a way to make a living on-line without resorting to porn. It would be so nice to be able to work from wherever I was, at least until I got bored of it and became a fireman or something.

So, now the instructions for you!

1st thing to do:
Post a short paragraph or series of photos of yourself showing the face behind your blog. If you already show a photo on your blog, then make your post more interesting by choosing a photo that’s not currently online.

2nd thing:
Include links to others that have participated. Here are the ones that have participated so far:

Gayla at Mom Gadget
Char at Essential Keystrokes
Paul at Reflections
Rob at 2Dolphins
Zep at The In-Sect
Ingo at Stixster
Stevie at Lost In Cyberspace
The Paper Bull at (oddly enough) The Paper Bull
Lisa Sabin-Wilson at Just A Girl In The World
Dawud Miracle at dmiracle.com
Wendy Piersall at eMoms at Home
Dennis Bjørn Petersen at Petersen Inc.
Randa Clay at Randa Clay Design
Drew McLellan at The Marketing Minute
Becky McCray at Small Biz Survival
Phil Gerbyshak at Make it Great!
Steve Woodruff at StickyFigure
Dave Olson at Live the GREAT life that you desire
Greg at Become a Remote Control SEO
Ariane Benefit at Neat Living Blog
Genesis at the At Home Mom Blog
Armen at iFFECT.NET
Mihaela Lica at Online Public Relations
Tara at Graphic Design Blog
Doris Chua at Home Office Women
Edward Mills at Evolving Times
Tony D. Clark at Success from the Nest
Jonathan-C Phillips at SmartWealthyRich
Karen at A Deaf Mom Shares Her World
Lisa Gates at intrinsic life design
Rammel Firdaus at rammelfirdaus.com
Carol at Pentimento
Adam Kayce at Monk at Work
Thomas at Technical Blogger
Tammy Lenski at I Can’t Say That!
Chris Brown at Branding & Marketing
Rory Sullivan at Hamelife
Derek Wong at Going The Wong Way
Embuck at embuck.com
Ms. Q at QMusings
Shelly Tucker at This Eclectic Life
Steve at Ramblings from the Marginalized
Troy Worman at on!blog
Lilith at Lilith’s Owl Nest
Revov at REVO-OVER
Karin at Stop/Start
Roberta Ferguson at robertaferguson.com

A link back to this post is much appreciated, to help create a more personal community!

Third thing to do:
Tag as many others as you like in your post to spread the meme.

Last, but not least:
If you link back to me here and send an email I’ll be sure to include links back to you.

Now, I am tagging Ed, Jon, Michael and Ms Danielle

Roberta Ferguson touched me! is a post from: Saving money tips - frugal living tips

This is supposed to help your RSS readership as well as maybe boost your technorati ranking so it’s got to be good right?

***Start Copying Here:***

Here are the rules:

1) If you don’t have a bloglines account signup for one, if you do have a bloglines account sign in to your account!

2) Write a short introduction paragraph about what how you found the Bloglines list and include a link to the blog that referred you to the list.

3) COPY the Rules and ENTIRE List below and post it to your blog. To avoid duplicate content and increase the amount of keywords your site can be accessible for, go ahead and change the titles of the blog. Just don’t change the links of the blog.

4) Take “My New List” and move them into the “The Original List”.

5) Add 3 Blogs that you’ve just added to your Bloglines List to the “My New List” section. Remember to also add the “List the Site link next to your new blogs (i.e. http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://www.theblogurl.com/feed)

6) Add Everyone on this list to your Bloglines List by clicking on “List the Site.” Those who want good kharma will list you back. If not, you will for sure get the benefits of readers from the bloggers who continue this list after you.

My New List

Jane May – List the Site
Nathan Drach – List the Site
Jon Waraas – List the Site
Roberta Ferguson – List the Site

The Original List

Foximus – List the Site
KellyCho – List the Site
DerekSemmler – List the Site
CashForComments – List the Site
Nice4Rice – List the Site
Ms. Danielle – List the Site
Search Engine Marketing – List the Site
Mr. Gary Lee – List the Site
Dosh Dosh – List the Site
David Culpepper – List the Site
Darin Carter – List the Site
Derrich – List the Site
Big Rayvin – List the Site
Jon Lee – List the Site
pyxlb0mb – List the Site
Samanathon – List the Site
John Chow – List the Site
IdiotBrain – List the Site

***End Copying Here***

You can all run a train on me… is a post from: Saving money tips - frugal living tips

Our website grade has risen along with our Technorati ranking and backlinks. We are now the proud owners of a website with a 71% grade. That’s a B right? Not bad!

When I first checked our grade (about a month ago) it was quite a bit lower than it is now so we’ve had a very good month. I can’t wait for Foximus blog promotion month! I also can’t wait to see what happens when our page rank finally shows up.

Stat update: Foximus website grade is a post from: Saving money tips - frugal living tips

I figured that I could download it and give the fox a tiny boost while I am working on it, as well as all the other blogs I visit on a daily basis. But I have been denied.

I tried everything to get around it, but my antivirus refuses to let me play with it. I turned it off, installed it, but when I turned it back on it slapped my hand and said ‘No!’. Has anyone else had trouble installing it and maybe found a way to get it installed? My google, stumbleupon and del.icio.us toolbars all installed fine.

Alexa toolbar is adware is a post from: Saving money tips - frugal living tips

When I first installed wordpress I looked into updating the default list but like so many other things I did not write it down at the time and it got lost the sea of mis-firing grey matter that is my brain.

Now that I have been reminded, Jon has done the work for us and created a nice list to get us all started. He goes into a little more detail and there is a disscussion on the good and bad of pinging all these places so make sure you check that out as well.

Anyway, here is the list. You can add it into wordpress by going to ‘options’ and then to ‘write’.

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.feedster.com/ping.php

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://bitacoras.net/ping

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://blogoole.com/ping

http://blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://blogsnow.com/ping

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://coreblog.org/ping

http://godesigngroup.com

http://godesigngroup.com/blog/feed

http://imblogs.net/ping

http://lasermemory.com/lsrpc

http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt

http://ping.amagle.com

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.blo.gs

http://ping.blogg.de

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc

http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc

http://ping.fakapster.com/rpc

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.weblogs.se

http://ping.wordblog.de

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2

http://pingqueue.com/rpc

http://popdex.com/addsite.php

http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2

http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger

http://rpc.britblog.com

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080

http://rpc.newsgator.com

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://rpc.wpkeys.com

http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx

http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz

http://snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php

http://weblogues.com/RPC

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogoole.com/ping

http://www.blogoon.net/ping

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://www.catapings.com/ping.php

http://www.focuslook.com/ping.php

http://www.godesigngroup.com

http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping

http://www.imblogs.net/ping

http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc

http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php

http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

We’re going to be pinging like it’s 1999! is a post from: Saving money tips - frugal living tips