November 2006 Posts

Slingbox

Anyone have one? I just picked up a Slingbox AV on Buy.com for $105.40. I thought it sounded pretty cool for when I travel.

Focus

It’s fairly common for me to get asked “well, how did you grow your website?” or “how do you do it” or “how can I get more people to my site?” Here’s how. I have a new Nintendo Wii sitting next to me. And I’m more concerned with getting my daily routine finished off.

What I’m Thankful For

Man, my to do list is crazy right now. I’m swamped. But, with Thanksgiving being tomorrow, I wanted to take a moment and talk about what I’m thankful for, both personally and professionally. Let’s go with 5 of each and not all of them can be super serious stuff. Just to make it interesting. :)

Personally

1. My family. Yeah, I know. It’s probably a given. But, it has to be said, anyway. I’m thankful for my family and the fun that I have with them and the support that I receive from them.

2. My friends. I’m thankful for my friends, just for being them. People I joke around with, have fun with. Also, people who are there for me when I need them and help me when I need help. I try to do the same and try to be a good friend, myself. Hopefully, I do alright. People like Brandon, Brandon, Bryan, Chris, Jared, Josh, Stephan, Jeremy, Tom, Seamus and others (and there are others – please don’t take it personally).

3. Members of the armed services. I’m thankful for those who choose to lay their lives on the line for the sake of protecting the freedom of the citizens of the United States.

4. The creators of funny content online. There are a lot of them. But, I’m thankful for people who give me a little break from work to have a laugh.
Barats and Berata, Homestar Runner and Ze Frank are a few that come to mind.

5. The DSL repair guy that came last week. Where have you been all my life? Finally, the internet connection is working normally!

Professionally

1. My volunteer staff. I’m thankful for all of the staff members at my sites. Kind, dedicated, helpful people who not only help me to reach the goals that I set forth for my sites, but are also people that I consider friends. Seamus, Greg, Heidi, Aubrey, Shawn, Brian, Kerry, Kevin, David, James, Jason, Wayne, Jeremy, Richard, Josh, Tanner, Ramona, Keith and Ryan. Thank you all.

2. The truly loyal users and members of my sites. I’m always grateful for the people who come to my sites with good intentions and care about what is going on. People who kindly contribute and help others. It’s one of the things I enjoy about what I do.

3. Business freedom. I love living in a country and a time where starting a business is as easy as registering a domain name and paying for hosting. (Well, OK, it’s not THAT easy!) I love being free to run my business as I see fit (within the understandable limits of the law, of course). If you have an idea, you can do it. More now than ever before.

4. Text Link Ads, Inc. Yes, I am thankful for Google AdSense and Tribal Fusion, as well. Big time. Those 3 companies are my favorite. But, TLA is the newcomer of the block and has really made a big impact, so I really feel like highlighting them. I am thankful… for their existence, more or less. They do their job and they do it well and it’s appreciated.

5. Censor Block. Greatest. Hack. Ever. I heart Jeremy. I heart him very much.

I encourage anyone who likes the idea of this post to post what they are thankful for on their blog. Even if you aren’t in the U.S. or don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s an interesting thing to consider. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Wii Games: $41.94 Shipped (Update Below)

This seems like a pretty good deal to me. If you go to Games Universe, you can pick any of the new Wii games (even pre-orders) and use Google Checkout to get $10.00 off. No tax to North Carolina – not sure about anywhere else – but with shipping, it’s $41.94. I picked up Call of Duty 3, Zelda (pre-order) and I would have picked up Monkeyball if I hadn’t just bought it for about the same price on another site (that was another Google checkout deal, but this one is just easier, trust me). So, I wanted to mention that.

Edit: While that is a good deal, if you are interested in the right games, Toys R Us is having a better one. They are having a $30 off 3 Wii games special on select games and you can get an extra $10 off with Google Checkout. So, I got Monkey Ball, Call of Duty 3 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance for $93.36 with tax, shipped. $31.12 a game. Pretty hard to beat that right now.

22

I’m 22 today.

And I bought myself a Wii. I never play any games, PC or console. Even though we have them, I enjoy them and I’d like to. Just don’t make time. Maybe I’ll make some. If anyone has a Wii, let me know what a great game is, besides Zelda.

Transparency

Transparency is a funny word. I would guess that usage of it has gone up dramatically since the blogosphere began to mature. But, I don’t use it very much. I’m an honest guy and if you ask me a question, I’ll give you the best answer that I can. I don’t know what to call that outside of honesty and professionalism, but if it’s transparency, that’s fine, too.

There have been a couple of notable … staffing changes in the blogosphere in the last few days that I don’t need to talk about and the mention of the word has just gone up. But, it’s being used in ways that I never took it to mean. It’s being meant to say that, more or less, “airing dirty laundry = transparency”. SCREECH. If that’s what it means, I never knew that and I, myself, won’t be transparent. Being transparent, if that’s the meaning, is all fine and dandy, but there are issues of professionalism and right and wrong that have to intercede.

Pouring out every detail about every issue just isn’t cool. In some cases, even pouring out little detail isn’t cool. It’s not professional. Just because people are curious about something doesn’t mean it should be put out there. Plus, you’re in trouble no matter what you do. Say “too much” and you’re petty. Say “too little” and you’re hiding something. The old damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

More Thoughts on Sponsored Posts/ReviewMe

I’ve been thinking about sponsored posts and ReviewMe (as well as reading a lot of other people’s opinions on it) and I am not sure that it’d be a good fit on any of my blogs in the iFroggy Network, but I think I may play around with it here at pokeefe.com. I don’t post a lot here (I post some, but it’s not a lot), but I am thinking that ReviewMe would give me some more things to talk about. Yeah, they’d be paying me, which is a nice side benefit, but it would also give me an excuse to look at something new and post something here, which both seem like good things. But, not sure, though.

Feed Fixed

So, I think my RSS feed is fixed. I didn’t realize it was broken. Brandon mentions the other day that my feed had stopped working for him, so he re-added it. It didn’t click in my brain to check my feed. He mentioned that the last entry he got was from September 11. So, that may be when it stopped working.

Then Jared commented yesterday that my feed wasn’t working. So, I checked and sure enough. I have no idea how it happened or even what the problem was. I just replaced all of the code and it is working again. Sorry about that. And thanks to Brandon and Jared for pointing it out.

So, take a look at all of the entries since then if you want to. I was wondering about the lack of comments. But, then, I don’t have that many readers! :)

Half-Life 1 Anthology

I don’t know anything about it, but I just bought it. It was $3.59 shipped. Seemed like a good deal and I figure I’ll play around with it a little bit. Anyone play it?

Via Slickdeals.net.

Barats and Bereta

These guys are great. I just bought a t-shirt (watch the second clip to see what it’s about) the other day, actually. This is their latest:

And my favorite:

Check out their site and YouTube channel for more.