You might have noticed that the site has undergone a bit of a change with the template and so far so good - no major glitches and things are going pretty well. You might also have noticed in the top right corner a banner… a corner banner with the “Breast Cancer Research Month” written on it. I figured I’d do my part for the month of October - in raising awareness about the illness and also the code kind of fell into my lap. Stanley over at websiteribbon.com contacted me telling me about his cool site, where you can create these corner ribbons - for free.

There’s no catch - you just put in the information you need and voila - there’s a javascript waiting for you with your text/link/colour of ribbon. Now I had a bit of a dilemma as to how I would put it on this site - do I put it in the header? Or the Index? Well, through trial and error - I’ve managed to figure it out (it really wasn’t that hard - ya!).

We’ve all seen corner images and advertising - but I’ve never really figured out how to do it. Now I don’t have to I can just go to websiteribbon.com and make one for myself. Might be handy if you’re doing a promotion… or just raising awareness… or linking to a cool page on your site. It’s just a bit different from your everyday promotions and thought I’d give Stanley a shout out - and say thanks for a cool bit of code that’s free to use and easy to install!

Popularity: 10% [?]

In case you’re wondering Ms. Danielle won this Microsoft Zune from John Chow a while back and is now offering it as a way to virally market her site.  Ahhhh… truely evil - in such a good way… in a I would never have thought of that!  sort of way.

So here I go - attempting to enter the draw for the Microsoft Zune 30GB.

Ms. Danielle is giving away a 30GB Microsoft Zune that she won from John Chow. I really love her new blog site — she talks about everything from online marketing to golf! I hope I win!

… on a sidenote, I like Ms. Danielle’s writing style and it might be worth checking out - just for something else to add to your RSS feedreader

Popularity: 10% [?]

As an affiliate marketer with a penchant for freelance work when it comes my way I thought this was a pretty snazzy freelance hourly rate calculator from FreelanceSwitch.  I have been wondering what it would take for me to make some extra money and pay some bills.  The calculator asked me questions I’d not even thought about and put it all into action to give me an “ideal” wage - where I could save some money and they also gave the option of the “break-even” rate I would charge - that in itself is rather interesting.  Like a gauge to know how low you can go without worrying if you’re not going to make it.

The base rate I came out with was $36/hour.  So if I were ever to consider working full time on this I would have to make that an hour - for the number of hours I wanted to work/days per week/holidays/etc.  It was honestly a complete wake up call - either I would need to work way more or reduce my debts or expenses… or just stick to what I’m doing and look at my affiliate marketing as surplus - an additional part-time job

Which I’m happy doing right now.

Check out the calculator, where do you see yourself?  Freelancing anytime soon?

Popularity: 4% [?]

Ok, I have a big weakness for Sushi. Growing up on the prairies in Canada didn’t really leave me with a great selection of Sushi restaurants… heh. But out on the coast there are some pretty awesome hotspots… and of course my interest in sushi has grown since my friends introduced me to it “gently” = read: “no raw fish” in the sushi Since then I’ve been sampling the raw… the tempura… spicy wasabi… I’ve gotten to the point where I end up craving the stuff.

I found a pretty cool site called Sushi Day. It’s built around WordPress and it’s almost like food porn to me. Yummy combinations - of traditional and not so traditional sushi ingredients. Really makes me want to start making my own sushi. If only I could convince the others in my house that there isn’t really a big “seaweed” taste to it.

Of course this is totally off topic - but what a niche to build a site.

… and it’s close to lunch.

… guess what I’m having! LOL.

Popularity: 2% [?]

… I know I was and I found a neat little site called ContentHeroes.com - it’s run by another Affiliate Marketer/Online Entrepreneur and so far I’ve bought 3 packs.  They’re $5 a pack for approx. 5 articles.  I thought it would be worth a spin to see what they were like, because well, it was only $5

With their last set of articles they had a glitch in their links - and when I went to purchase the Wedding articles I got the Hybrid articles instead.  I sent them an email and in a day I had the Wedding articles I’d ordered, and they were really nice about the whole thing.  What might have been stressful… wasn’t.

I think they have a pretty good idea.  I mean if you love to write and have a big enough repetoire, it might be an avenue to go - because I think there are enough of us out there who are looking for unique content for our sites and we don’t want to be spending tons of time writing content - or we have an idea and don’t have a lot of background in it and it is just “easier” not to have to research the whole thing.

Popularity: 2% [?]