Jeff

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I stumbled upon this from the site FFFFound.com {sweet site btw} - “KAZE TO DESKTOP” IS A SCREENSAVER WHICH MOVES ACCORDING TO THE CURRENT WIND (=KAZE) CONDITIONS OF YOUR CITY.

Sounded interesting… and the video looked cool. Check it out:

So after installing it I came up with this screenshot of my desktop:

Looks pretty damn cool… so I created a flickr group if you happen to decide to take a screenshot of your desktop and want to share it: Kaze Desktop Screenshots

Let me know what you think and upload a screenshot if you test it out.

View their page to download it. There is a free trial. It only works with windows.

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Car-building legend Boyd Coddington, also of the reality tv show “American Hot Rod” has died today. He was 63.

Anyone remotely familiar with hot rods knows who Boyd Coddington is and surely will be sad to see he has passed away. I can’t believe it myself. I regularly catch “American Hot Rod” on tv here in Norway when I can. It’s always cool to see what they are working on.

Boyd has built some of the sweetest hot rods in existence and is world renowned for his custom hot rods. Some of which you can see below. He will be greatly missed. You can read more about his passing here.

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Last July I added the dofollow to my blog (or more correctly removed the nofollow tag) but soon found people abusing it and I quickly turned nofollow back on.

Joining the “dofollow” movement for awhile I did certainly see an increase in comments but didn’t want to put up with moderating every comment because that’s a waste of time. Some people left great comments, others just a few words to get a link back. So instead of giving credit to useful commentators I punished everyone.

Now there is an answer to this dillema created by Lucia over at bigbucksblogger.com. She’s created a plugin that will allow dofollow on comments but conditionally and I like that a whole lot better then punishing everyone. So I’m once again in the dofollow movement but only under certain conditions… and they are:

You must have commented atleast 10 times for any of your comments to have the nofollow tag removed. The name you use in the name field must be shorter then 15 characters (this cuts out people leaving comments with a bunch of keywords in them). Trackbacks are not followed at all unless they have commented the same as mentioned above (this cuts out the trackback spammers).

When you leave a comment it will show a number next to your name indicating how many times you’ve commented in all.

I hope this encourages more discussion now, although I still have a problem with posting regularly and in a way that invites comments. I’m working on it!

What do you think?

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So my copy of “Reality in Advertising” by Rosser Reeves arrived today. Which I’m very excited about btw. Not only is it out of print but copies of it currently sell for hundreds of dollars on Amazon. It’s from 1961, still in good condition and from the first Borzoi edition.

You might have heard of Rosser Reeves if you have read “Ogilvy on Advertising” or Bob Bly’s “The Copywriter’s Handbook“. Both of these I’ve read recently in which Rosser is mentioned multiple times.

Funny story on how I got my copy…

So about a week ago I was going over my book “The Copywriter’s Handbook” by Bob Bly where he mentions USP (Unique Selling Proposition) which Rosser coined while working for Ted Bates Agency. I decided to look up Rosser on Amazon.com to see if I can find his book “Reality in Advertising” and I did except copies were kinda pricey, starting at $175. Looking at the cool image of the book cover I noticed that it said below it “Customer image from Mockingbird Books” and immediately clicked on the link because that’s the name of my uncle’s rare book business.

I emailed him right away and asked if it was him and sure enough it was. I was totally surprised. I knew he sold rare books but never thought I would stumble upon a book I wanted on Amazon that he was selling. I told him I was interested in the book and he told me I could have it free of charge. How awesome is that?!

Not only did he send the book he included another not so famous book (but cool nonetheless) “How to Advertise” by Kenneth Roman & Jane Mass. It does have a small foreword by David Ogilvy though.

Ok, so I had to go back through my books on copywriting and advertising to figure out exactly where Rosser Reeves was mentioned and I found what I think is a brilliant quote in “Ogilvy on Advertising” by Rosser. In the book “Reality in Advertising” Rosser says”

I’m not saying that charming, witty and warm copy won’t sell. I’m just saying that I’ve seen thousands of charming, witty campaigns that didn’t. Let’s say you are a manufacturer. Your advertising isn’t working and your sales are going down. And everything depends on it. Your future depends on it, your family’s future depends on it, other people’s families depend on it. And you walk in this office and talk to me, and you sit in that chair. Now, what do you want out of me? Fine writing? Do you want masterpieces? Do you want glowing things that can be framed by copywriters? Or do you want to see the goddamned sales curve stop moving down and start moving up?

That pretty much sums up what advertising is supposed to be about…

Here’s Rosser Reeves on Unique Selling Proposition:

Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Not just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window advertising. Each advertisement must say to each reader: ‘Buy this product and you will get this specific benefit.’

The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique-either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising.

The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions; i.e., pull over new customers to your product.

Fun fact: Rosser helped oversee the M&M’s “melts in your mouth, not in your hands.” campaign which is still in existence.

So a personal Thank You goes out to my Uncle Mike who was so kind as to send me those books! Thank you! And if you happen to be interested in rare books at all you can find a link to his inventory on his home page at http://www.mockingbird-books.com/

Stay tuned for a “Reality in Advertising” book review…

If you want to pick up your own copy of Reality in Advertising they are going for about $130 on Amazon.com right now.

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Well the first month of 2008 is almost over… how are you holding up to your New Years Resolutions?

My resolutions for 2008 are:

• Stop Smoking
• Juice Everyday
• Stop Drinking Coffee
• Work Out Regularly
• Make More Money
• Travel More

Well I’m proud to say that I haven’t had a smoke or a cup of coffee since New Years. Kinda nuts when I used to almost live on coffee and cigarettes. I owe it all to juicing daily. Seriously. I’ve traded in smoking and drinking coffee for drinking fresh juice multiple times a day. I have a lot more energy and feel healthier then I have in a long time.

I’m no stranger to juicing. I got the itch a few years ago after reading about living healthy and seeing Jay Kordich’s Juiceman Juicer infomercials. You know the old dude with crazy eyebrows… I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials. Anyway I juiced for awhile but it didn’t stick because well it’s kinda a pain in the ass. You need tons of stuff to juice and it takes awhile with the prep and clean up.

This Xmas though I decided to get another juicer and start again. Now that I have time during the day it’s not so much a pain and it has really helped me to stop smoking. I wake up and juice an entire pineapple, two oranges and two apples. It is so much better then starting the day off with a few cups of coffee and cigarettes. Healthier too!

Then during the rest of the day I drink usually a few glasses of carrot and apple juice. Vegetables are better to drink then juice because of their nutrients but fruit juice tastes a whole lot better. I have Jay Kordich’s “The Power of Juicing” book which lists a ton of great recipes. Basically you can juice anything except bananas and mangos because they are too soft to go through the juicer.

Anyway, if you’re a smoker and want to quit try juicing and keep occupied. I find that it helps to chew on something,, gum, sunflower/pumpkin seeds - if you’re craving nicotine maybe try some chewing tobacco. I know that’s not a whole lot better but if it can help you go another day without smoking then its a good thing. Just try not to get addicted to that.

So I’m pretty proud of myself for going this long… the longest I haven’t smoked in probably years.

Now I just need to work on the going to the gym and making more money part so I can travel more.

Amazon.com has some good juicers available such as Jay’s Juiceman series of juicers as well as Jack Lalane’s model. Do a quick search by clicking Juiceman below.
Juiceman

If you’re holding up to your New Years resolutions let me know! I’d love to hear about them.

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*Advertisement*

Pepperjam Network - “The Next Generation of Affiliate Marketing” Releases PepperjamAds. PepperjamAds is a way to display affiliate ads from multiple companies in one ad block, kinda like you see in your adsense block. So now you can rotate multiple affiliate ads in the same space instead of just one.

The ads are not contextual as I was told because they don’t rely on your website content to select which ads to display, you preselect the ads yourself. So you can run them along with adsense.

You simply sign up for multiple companies programs if you haven’t already and click on PepperjamAds in the top menu. Well I don’t have to type out how to do it when they’ve already created a helpful video…

You can see my PepperjamAds to the right. Super simple to set up and they rotate between 3 different companies ads I chose; text-link-ads.com, pepperjam and seomoz.

You can define how the ads look just like you do with adsense i.e. pick background, border, font colors to match your site.

I’m new to their network and just signed up because I was asked to review their service. After signing up though it only took about 5 minutes to be approved which is something I appreciate.. speed.

Their user interface once you log in is impressive. Everything is laid out very clearly.

The one thing I have a problem with is that the interface is set in reverse type, meaning white type on a black background. That’s a nono in design because it’s a lot harder to read. I’m sure they are going for an “edgy” look but readability is a lot more important.

Oh and they seem to have only 85 partners in their network which isn’t a lot. I didn’t find a whole lot to promote with this blog but I’m sure things will change. They look like they are only going to get better with time.

If you haven’t already done so go check them out.

The following was a paid review.

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You can publish a book of your digital photos super quick and easy using lulu.com’s photobook creator. It’s basically a drag and drop application that runs in your browser. You just select one of a few themes they have and start uploading your digital photos. You can get either a hardcover or softcover book in sizes 9×7 or 8.5×11.

Their software allows you to easily upload your photos, then drag them to any desired page so you control the layout. You can have text below or next to your photos if you like or none at all for a sleek look.

I made one of these for my wife in about 2 hours… take into account I was enhancing all the images with photoshop actions so that’s what took so long. If your photos are already ready then you could have your book made in as little as 10 minutes if you’re quick. That’s how easy their system is to use. I think it’s a cool way to share photos of your kids or whatever with your family/friends. It’s the perfect gift for grandparents too.

This is the first book I’ve done using lulu.com and it was a breeze. Now I just can’t wait to see how it turns out. If good, which I’m expecting then I can easily order more from the product page. Super simple!

View their holiday shipping schedule to see if you still meet the deadline for Christmas. If you missed it you should still give it a try. Better late then never right?

I’ll keep you posted how my book turns out.

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Why every real estate agent should make sure they aren’t using frames on their website or that they don’t choose a real estate design service that offers quick DIY websites built using frames.

It seems like a common occurrence that realty websites are built using frames. I see it all the time and I still see real estate website design agencies designing or offering websites that still use frames. Frames are outdated, hide your content from search engines and are just plain wrong to use.

Most agents, like most business owners don’t have time to figure it out or have time to edit their websites so they go out and find the first web design company to build their site. Well let me tell you that that is a big mistake. If you ever want to rank for your real estate keywords then you need to get a website that doesn’t use frames.

Framing your content is like putting all your valuable information in a vault that no one can get to. Sure your visitors can see it but search engines can’t. It’s hard to explain in words why search engines can’t see your content and I’m not going to describe it in words. I might make a video later if you still don’t understand why frames hurt your website in search engines. Then I can atleast show you why it’s bad to have your website designed in such a manner.

If you are serious about your business you should go with a completely custom design. One that doesn’t use frames, is designed using CSS and is XHTML valid. I can’t express how important that is to where you rank in the search engines.

If you ever expect to receive qualified real estate leads from your website you need to make sure that it is optimized for search engines. That is unless you want to spend a fortune on pay per click services like adwords. Do yourself a favor,, have your website designed right and spend that pay per click money on content and a bit of good SEO. Your business will thank you for it!

If you are in need of custom, search engine friendly real estate website design then you can click that link and then contact me. I can design and optimize your website and help you achieve top rankings.

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