The food network is launched

I am really happy and excited to announce the launch of my new food network. We have a lot of fun resources for chefs, or people who just like to watch some goofballs try and cook.

Let me know if you enjoy the site, especially the cooking show!

Insert clever title here

Well, this is a blog about my business. So here is just a tiny, eensy-weensy, advertorial on a product that I'm selling, NOD32. I just thought since I saw it in the news, it was worth mentioning here.

NOD32 is pretty unique as antivirus products go. It doesn't soley depend on "signatures" to identify a virus. So many of the other antivirus products out there need to update those signatures for you to provide any protection at all. But NOD32 has an advanced scan that doesn't need those signatures or updates. It catches and protects people from the latest crappy virus, before other antivirus makers even know the virus exists.

Read more...

Have I been under a rock? Are ezines of old pretty much dead?

So yesterday I mentioned I'm going through Yanik Silver and Jim Edward's book 33 Days To Online Profits. And I have been amped on the material. Ahh, but there's been a bump in the road...

There is like two days of material that focuses on using eZines as advertising. And the first resource they recommend is paying for an eZine directory like Top Ezine Ads. They are saying that eZine advertising is a very affordable way to reach a lot of eyeballs.

So, I buy the directory. So far, I am not impressed. The directory is definitely more focused on eZines that you can get advertising for, which the free eZine lists out there don't help with. But I spent hours trying to find eZines to advertise in, and I swear more than 95% of the eZines listed are dead links! This list isn't kept up to date at all.

They recommend another by the way, which claims to be updated daily I think. I might check it out. But I have a new plan.

Haven't Blogs pretty much replaced the concept of those email eZines? So I am going to focus, I think on Blog advertising. To Jim and Yanik's credit, they do include in their new 2005 edition of their book, a bonus that talks about Blogging. Not in very much detail as it really promotes another guy's "system" on Blogging, and they don't even mention Blog advertising.

So, I'm not asking for a refund yet on 33 Days, but that eZine list I think is going back.

Sorry if I am a little slow on realizing what you already knew about Blogs. :) But apparently I'm not the only one. Which brings me to another observation.

Did most of these internet marketing gurus make most of their profit from their mini-sites (which they are teaching about) only in the late 90s. I mean, anyone with a pulse and a computer seemed to be making money in 1998 on the internet, but today things have changed. Do these mini-sites work anymore, or am I just a sucker? Of course, I'll let you know hot it goes. And I'm still a fan of Yanik and Jim, unless I can't make a dime. You two need any antivirus software? :)

33 Days To Online Profits

My previous readers are aware that I recently purchased the eBook from www.33daystoonlineprofits.com. I have been real excited about getting my first mini-site/sales letter thing up and today is the day.

You can check out my first site built with influence from this book at www.inventric.com/products/nod32.

I'm still jazzed about the book :) . And I will stay that way unless I realize I can't make any cash money. There are a few things though that I noticed Yanik Silver and Jim Edwards introduce in their book that really could use some more explanation. I'll cover them as I come across them, here in my blog.

The first major point is with autoresponders. I checked out their recommendation on an autoresponder tool: www.aweber.com. So it definitely seems a little pricey at $19.95 a month. However, my first impression of it is "Wow".

I definitely wanted one tool that could do both email campaigns and autoresponders and I think this is it. I have used Got's Campaigner and ConstantContact.com. And those are good tools too that seemed affordable for the industry they are in. But they don't do autoresponding at all or well. And I don't particularly care for how they gather emails for new users. ConstantContact has a two form process: takes a user's email on the first page, and then sends them over to another form for more details.

Aweber has just one form. Get a first name and an email. Easy to embed in your mini-site. I like that. Ahh, but there was the first hold up, that Yanik could have said a few more words on. But at least I was able to look at his own website like www.instantsalesletters.com

If you sign up for his mini-course, you'll see that there is a form to enter in the first name and email address. When you submit, you see a thank you "page" appear inside his sales letter. The user isn't confusing redirected away from the exciting sales letters. Great, so how do I do that!? I had to look at his JavaScript code.

I saw that he uses the SSI IFrame script from dynamicdrive.com. Awesome! For anyone using iframes, you need this. It dynamically resizes the iframe based on the size of the page that it frames.

So in this case, after the user submits their name/email, the frame gets smaller to enclose around the smaller "thank you" page. Keeps your letter very nicely formed and still allowing you to use iframes. Check out the source behind my mini-site if you need. But the instructions at dynamicdrive.com were pretty self-explanatory.