A wee game o' chess

Now this is lazy. This link will take you to a chess game that I stumbled across while avoiding other work today. I like it because I can beat it. The caption is from the site I found it on.

Easy Chess Description: This is an excellent chess game made in flash. The computer has very good artificial intellegence which makes this chess game very fun and challenging.

Hope you like it.

ML

What am I posting about?

It's only 10 days since my first posting and already I'm missing days. Now, I was out of town on Saturday, so that's pretty legitimate, but yesterday? I think it's safe to say that this is not my first priority right now. It's good experience. I'm learning about the world of blogging. It's fun. But it's not my first priority.

Maybe it will be at some point, but not today. So what am I posting about? That's a good question. Some would say that it's something I should have considered before I started typing, but if I did that, there is so much potential for distraction that I might not have managed to post anything at all today.

Now you may well wonder what this picture is here for. Go ahead, you can admit it. A conceptual picture of a toothbrush and toothpaste? It's a little out of place. The truth is that the page was looking a little bit too bland. It needed some colour to spice it up. A little red. A little blue. Isn't that nicer now?

So, as I was about to ask before I rudely interrupted myself with the toothpaste picture, what is the point of posting if all I'm doing is saying that I have nothing to say? I was wondering the same thing myself. Well, I was hoping that as I let the words flow that something would tweak for me, but it hasn't.

So what does a computer junkie do when he (or she) is not sure what to do? SURF! That's right. I googled "free blog content" to see what I could find. The first hit was www.free-blog-content.com. Now, that made sense given my search terms, but McAfee advisor gave them a yellow rating, so I skipped down to number two, which had a green rating. That was 10 Ways To Create Content For Your Weblog. They had some good ideas. So while I feel that this is sufficient for today's posting, I know where to go next time I've got writer's block.

And there you have it. One more lesson about blogging.

ML

Blogs can be inspiring

My brother Jaime has now created his own blog. His is less of a money making experiment and more of a travelblog, which lends itself to more of a consistent theme. Check it out for yourself: The Himalayas and India, February-March 2007: Planning, Packing, Blogging.

So what's next for Pursuing Success? Again with the decisions. Some areas I could work on:

• Migrate this site to my own domain;


• Learn more html, xhtml, css, etc.;


• Establish a theme/topic that will make people want to come back, such as:
  
  
  
  • Useful tips;
  
  
  • Humour/entertainment;
  
  
  • Guidelines;
  
  
  • Computer help for laypeople; or
    
  
  
  • Personal Development; or
    
  
  
• Improve the site's design.

It is the theme/topic that is definitely the most important to develop, because there is no sense in creating a blog if no one is going to read it. Of course, it's no coincidence that it is also the hardest part. All of the other steps involve simple research and learning. Establishing a successful theme or topic requires creativity.

So, which one of these steps will I take next? Will my next step even be one of these? Stay tuned to find out.

Thanks for dropping by,

ML

I bought my own domain

I bought my own domain on Friday. I could not believe it, but www.pursuingsuccess.com was available. I had thought that I'd have to work hard and try many domains before finding one that I could use, but I got it on my first try. Go figure.

I reviewed a number of sites comparing different hosts. I particularly favor the ones that include user reviews. After some research, I chose to register it and host it with 1&1 Internet Inc. It costs only $1.50/month and it includes domain name registration, 5 GB of web space, 500 email accounts, 250 GB monthly transfer volume and 1&1 webmail. I'm pretty pleased so far.

I had a harder time choosing software such as an html editor and an ftp (file transfer protocol) program. They weren't hard to find, but there are so many. I spent some time at one of my favorite software and electronics resources - CNET.com. I finally settled on a couple of the more highly recommended freeware programs, AceHTML and Core FTP. I have found both of them to be quite effective and user-friendly. I expect that the paid versions have more to offer, but I'm hardly even using the functions available to me on the free ones so far. I suppose I will become more interested in them as I develop some experience and skill.

Every day is something new.

ML

VISION Statement

I've been interested in personal development for a long time. I've watched "The Secret" a couple of times and I have used visioning as an effective tool.

A friend sent me a link to this video about using a video to create a vision statement several months ago, but I didn't look at it until today. All I can say is:

WOW!

I have got to do this. It looks incredible. Whether or not you believe in the Law Of Attraction, how can you not get benefit out of doing this?

What about you? Any interest in trying this?

ML

And the money rolls in

$1.29

Yep. That's how much I've earned in the four days since I started this blog. So between the initial blogging learning curb, signing up for AdSense and Google Analytics, trouble shooting problems, actually writing the posts and obsessively checking to see if I've had any new visitors, I would say that I've earned an average of approximately $.06 - $.08 cents an hour.

I'm just raking it in.

Once again, AdSense provides all sorts of information to help optimize your income. You can generate reports according to type of ad and date or range of dates. You can check out specific ads or compare different "channels", although I haven't fully explored what those are yet. Here are a couple of examples from today. You can see them full size if you click on them.


And this.
So I can compare which posts either draw people in for a first time or get people to come back and revisit, which is the ultimate holy grail of making money off of a blog.

I'm just scratching the surface of how to use AdSense, let alone the various other methods people use to generate income from their blog. Who knows, maybe I'll break $.10/hour sometime soon. The possibilities are so exciting.

I won't be posting on Saturday because I'll be out of town without internet access.

See you Sunday,

ML

Visitor tracking

Now this is quite incredible. Google Analytics (visitor tracking) is separate from google AdSense (advertising), but not surprisingly, they are fully integrated to work together. What I find so impressive is that they provide so much information, such as who is visiting this site, whether they're first time or repeat visitors, where they are from, how they got referred and whether or not they clicked on any links.

Buy why take my word for it? Here's a screenshot of the summary page.


And that's fresh out of the box. I still need to learn how to configure it to create specific reports that are related to my needs.

ML