The Wheel of Names

Gratitudes:
1. I'm grateful to have a warm trailer to write this in.
2. I'm grateful that my reading speed has increased.
3. I'm grateful to have a table for art.
4. I'm grateful for peace and joy in my life.
5. I'm grateful for my Bible study.
Plan for the day:
1. Bible study - currently reading Psalms, Numbers, Luke.
2. Use the Wheel of Names to decide what to do next.
3. Read books - as usual.
4. Respond to the shed salesman.
5. Call R. about solar panels I bought.
Some of what I'm currently reading:
1. Adventuring Through the Bible, by Ray Stedman
2. Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
3. Life Along the Applegate Trail, by Linda Lochard
4. Ireland, by Frank Delaney
5. Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
6. The Bible From 30,000 Feet, by Skip Heitzig

Here's how my day is going: 

It is still morning, not quite 11 am. I haven't written in this blog for a while and my attention was drawn to it. No time like the present to refresh my efforts here. This is my oldest blog and I like that it is still online after all these years.

The Wheel of Names - I'd like to give a brief explanation. Sometimes I need help deciding what to do. I keep a list of things to do on Notepad (that app that comes with Windows on my laptop) and I transfer that list to the Wheel of Names each morning. 

Here's my current list (and of course this changes depending on what I'm reading or what I need to do).

Bible From 30,000 Feet
DMV Paperwork
Applegate Trail
Housekeeping Ten Minutes
Mu Studies
Art
Ireland
Adventuring Through the Bible
Power of Praying for Your Adult Children
Cloud of Unknowing
Farmer Boy
Madame Bovary
Inventory
Accounting
Business

So, with my list in place, I spin the wheel, and then do what it says. This helps me get done some of those things I don't really want to do. Every day is different as the order of my activities is randomly chosen by the wheel. It helps break up the monotony of being at home alone all the time.

On that website, check out the gallery to see how other people have used the wheel.

Progress on the Halloween Site

My little Halloween site now has two articles on it.



1. Halloween History: Samhain and All Saints' Day - Oh, I can smell the pumpkin carving already. This was my first article on the blog. I wanted a good understanding of the history of this event I'm dedicating some time into.

I've never been big into Halloween... the way it is celebrated these days is truly not my style. But I live in this culture and want to know how these things come about. It is interesting to know that until the 1930's there was no trick-or-treating in the USA. This is an Irish and Scottish custom and while it started as innocent harvest celebrations, many centuries ago, the day has been beset with fearful folktales and eventually turned into the fright night that many people consider it to be these days.

2. The True Meaning of Halloween - this one happened last night. It practically wrote itself. It is about the meaning of the word, Halloween . . . which means "Holy Eve." And it ended up being about church harvest parties put on to give children an alternative to trick-or-treating.

7 Things Overdone on the Web

I've been an internet user for twenty years now. I think that qualifies me to write about things I believe are overdone on the web. I'm going beyond complaints about the "wall of text" effect and people writing in all-caps. This list is skewed toward internet marketing types because I am one, though to a lesser degree than most.



Here's my list of things I believe are overdone on the internet:

1. The ridiculously overused word, "passion." - I am tired of reading "about me" blurbs on blogs that start with "my passion is" or "I'm passionate about." The word has been used so much it is an instant turn-off for me.

I wonder why people can't find some more creative way to tell us what they are writing about. The fact that they are excited about a topic doesn't exactly qualify them as an expert. I want to see results, not statements of passion.

2. Excess marketing on blog articles. - I was a writer on the now-defunct website, Squidoo. I know what it means to put too many advertisements on one page. I've done it. But I've observed the downfall of Squidoo and at some point realized that one strategically placed advertisement is better than a block of five.

A block of five ads may give a person more to choose from, but it increases the tendency of your reader to skip over the block of ads. People are at your site to read an article and get useful information. They're not there to see an excessive number of ads.

I will use multiple ads if I'm using them to explain how to do something, like on my article, How to Make Homemade Castile Soap. And I'll use multiples on a top-ten best products list, for comparison shopping purposes. But to inundate a reader with ads in the hope that they'll be persuaded to click on one of them, due to the sheer number of opportunities, I don't. It isn't attractive and I hereby eschew the evil practice.

What I find better is to write my article naturally. Then, if I mention a product, I might illustrate it with the perfect product or book that directly relates to the topic of the article.

3. Newspaper websites that load slowly because they have too many ads. I'm going to pick on one news website I've been to recently: S---- Daily News. Today I'm counting more than ten ads on their front page. I don't know if they have any popup ads because I've got a popup blocker.

The excessive ad content makes these pages slow to load and annoying. Furthermore, my reading is interrupted by a content refresh I didn't ask for.

By comparison I looked at the LA Times website. There are only five ads on the front page and the site is quick to load and easy to use. SFGate has seven ads on the front page today.

So to the small town newspaper with an annoyingly slow website I say this: Having more ads on your site is not going to make me want to click on them. It only makes me want to go to another website that is easier to use.

4. Blogs about how to blog. Enough already. I've been a blogger since 2001 and have seen and read more than my share of blogs and articles about how to be a better blogger, what social media I "must" use and how to use it, how to get more hits to my blog, and this morning's offering - "Metrics to Improve Content Performance."

I am honestly so over it... I don't care to read another word from a big-wig content producing super-blogger of epic proportions. Everyone knows now, if you want to make money blogging, write a blog about blogging, social media, or both. The market is saturated but with enough effort you can convince enough people to buy your next information "product" which will have dubious returns on investment for most of the people gullible enough to fall for it.

Listen people, you don't learn to blog from products. You can only learn to blog by doing it. Your first efforts are likely to be clumsy - but don't use anyone else's magic formula for blogging because it is already over-done and seen too many times. Instead, find your own creative voice, and forge ahead. Creativity is awesome.

5. Landing pages. Need I say more? Too many people build landing pages to market their expensive information products. Each landing page has an extensive sales pitch which hopes to reel enough people in to make a fortune on their gullibility.

They have the opposite effect on me. I see a landing page and want to run. I have never read all the way through one of those lengthy landing pages they took so long to write. (Or more likely, paid someone else to write.) They are ridiculous and people are laughing about them.

6. Expensive information products. Yes, while we're on that topic, I'll mention I'm tired of seeing information products that every talking head on the internet wants to sell. They typically have a DVD set, a CD set, a few booklets, maybe even a book - displayed in a professional manner. You can learn about anything you want for 100 dollars or more. This is just sickening.

The truth is you can buy a book at Amazon for a lot less than you will spend buying some talking head's information product collection! Many of these savvy marketers have multiple products. I'm tired of seeing them. Materialism sucks. I'm all for people earning money off their specialties, but I do not like overly-priced information products.

7. Facebook posts that look like videos but when you click them you go to some advertising-heavy web page rather than to YouTube. - These days, I'm very careful what I click on when I'm at Facebook. If I view a video there I want it to be a Facebook video or YouTube - not a photo-link to someone else's website.

A lot of sites are set up to feature thousands of pages with YouTube videos made by someone with no connection to the website. I have no objection to people embedding YouTube videos. I do it myself when a video adds to my topic in a way that will benefit the reader.

What I don't like is the fake-look video images on Facebook that take you off-site to see the video. It is time consuming to load those advertising-heavy websites and let's face it - when I visit Facebook, I want to see what my family members are up to, check on my groups, and get out. I don't want to spend hours there being redirected to other websites for videos that could just as easily be seen right on Facebook.

If you see a YouTube video on a site you could easily go to the YouTube site and share it from there.

That's it for now.

Did I fail to mention your pet peeve? If so, leave a comment to let me know what it is.

...

Photo credit - the computer came from Pixabay.com.

Busy Web Work... Despite the Stress

I've had a busy week... lots of work, and the community activities. My work is website development. Right now I've got lots of sites to work on. I don't do rush orders but rotate my web maintenance duties... with an intention of doing updates on every site every month. To do that, I need to work on three sites each day.

Really, it isn't hard... but it is constant.

Every weekend I have community activities. On Saturdays I go to the community drum circle at the local dreamcatcher. Our dreamcatcher is thirty feet across... very impressive. We sit under it to drum.

My life has been extremely stressful this month. I've noticed that too much stress takes the joy out of living. It caught up with me at the drum circle on Saturday. For a change, I didn't want to stay. Usually I want to stay beyond the time when everyone else wants to leave. This time I wanted to leave first. I was thinking, "Gaaa... where has my enthusiasm gone?"

Today at the writer's club meeting I did better. I managed to forget my troubles and write two short stories. One was about aliens - one of my favorite flash fiction topics.

The other story was shorter - about a woman falsely accused of drug smuggling, inspired by my current obsession with watching old episodes of "Locked Up Abroad" (a National Geographic Channel show.)

This evening after the meeting I worked on three more sites. One of them was a forum. I upgraded to the most recent version of phpBB, installed a new theme, which is white (I love)... also checked stats and was thrilled with lots of search engine traffic, installed advertising, and made a new header graphic for the site. I also interfaced it with my new Prayer Power website.

Earlier today I was meditating about my work, and got an inspiration that one of my websites would become an important site, somehow. Honestly, at this time I can't see it. I can only go ahead and develop it and see what happens. I'm looking for all sorts of ways to create new income streams... I so want to close some of my other sites. I'm looking for change.

Small Business Web Design

A few years back, in 2002 or 2003, I started a web design business. At the time I was so sure that was the ideal business for me. I loved web design! I'd been making websites since 1995. I love HTML. In fact, before I started my business I purchased and read a book on HTML cover to cover, and enjoyed it. I wanted to make sure my information and skills were top-notch before I started working for clients.

Well, guess what! After a few years of working as a web designer, getting more jobs than I could comfortably enjoy doing, I burned out. I finally had to admit to myself that although I love web design and HTML, CSS, and XHTML ... I don't love working for clients! My love of web design is for making my own sites, being creative, and doing my own thing.

I totally had to re-think that business! One thing I changed was my web design website, Klamath Design. I made it into a site for telling people how to get into the web design business. I made an auxiliary page called How to Start a Webdesign Business. I know there are lots of people out there who want to start web design businesses, and hope my experience can help. Hopefully they will enjoy it a whole lot more than I did! Different strokes for different folks, as they say!

So, why did I start a new business and put "web design services" into my business license application? My new business, LJ Martin Web, is mainly an online marketing type of business. I've created something that will cover ALL my online money-making activities, which at this time are really quite varied. One of my main interests is in helping people learn to start their own internet-based small businesses. This has worked so well for me, I very much want to show others, stay-at-home-moms especially, how to get started.

I added the "web design services" option to my business license because I wanted the OPTION to be able to do that as part of my business - just in case someone I know needs help. I believe the best online businesses include diversification, and so I'm allowing myself the choice to do web design if I decide I want to.

Now, for this year, I honestly don't want to. Maybe next year that will change.

FOUND Magazine

I found this site to be fascinating. It's an opportunity to look closely at little bits of the private lives of others.

Easy Template Change

It was another time management decision. Rather than designing another blog template I decided for now I'll use one of blogger.com's new templates... plus I've turned off the archives for the time being. Maybe later I'll restore the other pages that were here but for today I don't want to deal with it.

Why did I change my blog template? Because I was tired of seeing pink! It was pink, pink, pink for several years and somehow that color no longer fits my personality.

Leaving AFRA, a Time Consuming Activist Organization

Today I made a major time management decision. I said "no" to AFRA. Oh my... I cannot believe how liberated I feel. Now don't get me wrong. I LOVE AFRA. I really do. And I love the people there. That's why it was a major time-consuming addiction for me. So I wrote to the founder and the vice-president and said I'd no longer be participating.

In case you're wondering, AFRA is the American Family Rights Association. I'm an activist more than an advocate but call me either. I care about family rights and am concerned about families torn apart by false accusations. So I've had a family rights website online for four years.

My decision is to moderate my time commitment by participating only in my website and not in AFRA activities in the future.

After turning off the mailing lists and adjusting to my new activity level today I had the pleasant sensation of having time for other things like my writing (remember that!?).

411 Rally Website, and Other Websites Planned

Website projects update - the 411 Rally website is as done as it is going to get for a while. It is very plain. All I plan to add to it is printable press releases, posters and flyers, yet to be written and designed. Since then I was given the graphics software I needed to do better sites, and will be using the new software to design the Happy Camp Chamber of Commerce site so it will look better than the ones I've done before, hopefully! I made two design samples for them and will be working on one or two more designs during the coming week. I just accepted another design project for the California Family Rights Association.

People here are pestering me for chocolate bars and pastries so I need to quit writing and go to the store.

Later... I'm back. I remembered one more website I'm supposed to do - for the new Klamath River Writers Club. I also offered to do free websites for each of the members that don't have one yet so we can all start offering our writing skills for sale online. After that I should put up a website for website design... maybe I can start doing this for money soon, especially now that I have the software I needed.