Posted Tuesday, June 7, 2011 by momscashblog |
Writing is a fantastic way to discover things about yourself. It’s amazing how things come out of you as you start to write, that you never knew were there. It’s not just healing, but it’s an amazing form of expression and powerful tool for gathering insight.
Aren’t Journals for Men and Diaries for Women?
Many people, men and women alike, have journaled and written in diaries for hundreds of years…it helps us process all that’s going in our lives, and all that’s going on inside our selves. Many famous scholars, artists, theologians, scientists, inventors, politicians, philanthropists, housewives, and anyone wishing to allow hidden treasures within themselves to be revealed, have journaled through time immemorial. Writing in a diary is not just for women, teenagers and the likes of Anne Frank.
What’s the Difference Between an Online Journal, Blog and Diary?
In essence, they’re all the same in that they’re all on the internet; but in practice, each is as different as the person (or people) contributing to them. There is also some distinction between the three, but keep in mind that the terms are often used interchangeably.
Diary
A diary is often more personal, where one focuses on their daily thoughts and daily events, and is updated on a daily or regular basis–thus, it’s often referred to as a daily diary.
Journal
A journal is also a diary, in a sense, because it records events and thoughts, but often more sporadically, as opposed to daily. Journals can be created for a specific purpose, such as to document one’s travels or weight loss experiences.
Blog
The term originates from the phrase “web log”. A blog encompasses a wide range of purposes, from personal to business. Yet thoughts, news, insights, or general updates are posted regularly, and serve each blog’s own specific niche or purpose.
Setting Your Site’s Preferences
Privacy
Yes, you can keep a diary online, and make it private. You can also make it so that only people you invite can see it. This setting can easily be changed later, should you ever decide to make it public. And vice versa: (more…)
Posted Saturday, January 15, 2011 by momscashblog |
Christmas and the holidays have come and gone. The New Year is already 16 days into January, and some resolutions have probably already been broken. Committing to resolutions can be difficult for some of us, and so easy to break. Setting goals for yourself and your businesses, can help you feel that you have time to accomplish these things without the feeling of failure.
One of the goals I think every blogger is always trying to achieve, whether it’s the New Year or the middle of the year is driving more traffic to ones blog. Traffic equals money. Below is a assortment of only a ” few ways” to bring traffic to your blog. When speaking of bringing traffic to your blog there are so many variables that can be attributed to bringing traffic, that if you tried to list all of them it could take up much of the page.
1. Expose your blog by using the Social Networks like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or any forums that you can participate in and expose the name of your blog. Social Networks are more important than ever before, you must be signed up with at least a couple of the good ones. Exposure!
2. Market your name or the name of your blog, leave the name of your blog any place that you are able to. Some places won’t allow you to attach the name of your blog, but whenever possible do it. If you read the big newspapers online New York Times, Gawker.com, or any others in that niche, at the end of each article is usually a place to comment. My theory is to comment whenever and where ever you can, thus leaving and exposing your blog. Remember though only leave a comment, if you have something intelligent to add to the article that you read. If you get one new visitor that week visiting your blog, I think it’s worth commenting & showing off your blog. (more…)
Posted Wednesday, December 8, 2010 by momscashblog |
Music and the Internet:
Music and the internet has certainly come a long way and it has made “some” musicians very rich and famous. An unknown kid from Canada named Justin Bieber downloads videos of himself singing on YouTube and the kid becomes an overnight success. A band called Atomic Tom riding on the NYC subway are discovered while singing on the B-Train using iPhones with apps sounding like drums, guitars, and piano, they go viral and are being interviewed on all the morning network shows. They’re said to be in talks with Apple and at present time their YouTube videos have over 2 million hits.
There are numerous ways for musicians to make money on the internet, without spending all of ones life savings. With YouTube and many other on demand sites that are out there and new ones popping up, that’s what the musician can look forward to. Maybe it’s our 15 minutes of fame or it’s money that will be coming in from a talent of ours… who knows? I do, because I have listened to Ezekiel Haynes jazz cd “Reflections”.
Meet The Musician:
I know many of you have probably already heard of and follow the blogger Ezekiel, and now jazz musician and entrepreneur. I had asked Ezekiel if he would mind being part of a post informing everyone how he is “making money on the Internet with his music”? With the help of Ezekiel we will give some sites and software that he used to get to where he is now, selling two cd’s world wide on the internet.
Ezekiel’s love for music started at a very young age and was cognizant of playing endlessly at the piano for hours. “Piano, it’s the thing I express through, it’s always running through my head.” “I never got the opportunity to take lessons but, every time I would get in front of a piano I wanted to create. The same with pots and pans or a couple of rubber bands on a box… I wanted to create. Practicing music has never been a chore, it’s always been something I looked forward to doing.”
Nuendo Helps Get Music Recorded:
Ezekiel reveals that he has been using Nuendo for the past 10 years, so he had a good amount of music to work with. Nuendo is a sound mixing, audio production, recording arrangements, editing and surround mixing software.
I had asked Ezekiel what made him want to publish/record his music after 10 years of work. He had an interesting answer to this question. “Creating music is easy for me” he says, “but worrying about how everyone will receive it, is another thing. The thing that woke me up a bit was the thought of passing away and my kids or grand kids going through my things, seeing what their dad or grand dad selfishly kept hid. I believe directly or indirectly everything we do in life, good or bad affects everyone in someway. So, I decided from that day to start releasing every musical idea I had.”
Musicians Online Community:
Indabamusic … indaba comes from the Zulu word meaning to “gather or share ideas”. This was one site that Ezekiel recommended for the independent musician. Indabamusic was started with a community atmosphere in mind, a musical community of artists helping each other and to make their lives easier in all ways of the musicians life. If you need help with understanding or knowing which direction to take your next step, you need people who are in and have been in the business to guide you on the right path. You get a chance to collaborate with musicians from all around the world. This quote from Wired best sums up what Indabamusic and the Internet has done for the world of musicians: “With broadband, social networking apps and web-based audio tools increasingly available and affordable to most people with computers, the world of music is on the verge of big change. That perfect-storm combination of these tools will do for music creation what technology has already done for music consumption: remove barriers of time, space and scarcity”. Indabamusic.com has some real heavy hitter musicians working and donating their time to the cause of helping other musicians. Check this site out!!
Distribution of Your Music:
Tunecore ….. is one of the best places to get your music out to the various digital retail sites. In fact Tunecore has a worldwide distribution site. Ezekiel mentioned that Tunecore.com also offers an affiliate program through CommissionJunction. Tunecore plays an important part in an artists career and in their quest to get their music noticed, as Tunecore gets the music distributed to many of the major companies as in Amazon MP3, Rhapsody, and iTunes. The artist, you the musician receives “100% of your royalties and of course keep all of your rights”. Tunecore has recently widened their distribution to full length films, TV shows, live concerts and documentaries. A Holiday CD made by your whole family? Tunecore will get that song out to all of the digital retailers, you in turn get paid when your music is downloaded or sells.
cdBaby…. is another place to get your music distributed to digital retailers such as: Rhapsody, iTunes, Amazon MP3 and the usual big hitters. They are an online distributor for the independent musician. cdBaby gives the definition of ” [in - de - pen - dent ] (adj.) not having sold ones life, career, and creative work over to a corporation.” cdBaby will sell music that is sent to them, and will help you sell downloads from their sites. This company is run by musicians for musicians. When you send your cd to their “warehouse” each & every piece of music is listened to, in turn cdBaby distributes the musicians music directly to download retailers. This site is another thumbs up from Ezekiel. (more…)
Posted Sunday, November 28, 2010 by momscashblog |
I wanted to get a quick post out to my readers and let everyone know that I’m still around. Some of you may know that I’ve been suffering from a bad case of carpal-tunnel. For those of you who are not familiar with what carpal tunnel is, then let me give you a quick definition.
According to one medical journal, “the cause of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) : is the result of overworking your hands performing repetitive (motion) tasks all day long.”
“CTS is caused by increased pressure on the median nerve. Median nerve is a important nerve on the hand, it gives sensation to thumb, middle, ring and index finger. This nerve is protected by the carpal tunnel. Affects hand and wrists. “ In some cases pain will radiate up to the elbow and sometimes will involve the shoulders.
I think it’s rather ironic that a blogger who is trying to make extra money online, gets carpal tunnel. I’ve had several cortisone shots spread out over this past year in my wrists, which will result in one or two days of relief. After a couple of hours of working on the computer the pain returns, and I’m back to icing both wrists. I was advised to stay off of the computer for awhile, “give your hands a rest”. Haven’t been on the computer except to open email and then closed the lap top. A fellow blogger friend had emailed me and mentioned that “you’ve had a rough 2010 jj and I hope 2011 will be better for you and that you make lots of money.” From his lips to Gods ears. BTW friend… thank you for that email.
I had purchased this blog to help supplement my health insurance that has gone up every year. This year is the highest I’ve ever had to pay for health insurance. I’m sure there are probably many people who don’t even have any insurance, one can’t help but wonder what they worry about at the end of their day.
I was determined to have an e-store up and running for this years holidays, but for several reasons some beyond my control, it doesn’t look like that will happen. Although with that said, I am tenacious enough to get an MCB jj’s e-store up and selling product in the near future. If anyone out there can offer me some guidance or suggestions with an e-store, I’ll take whatever you have. I’ve wanted this for a long time and I’m not going to let carpal tunnel put me down now!
However I will check in once a week and open my email and checking my Entrecard dashboard. I also would just like to mention, no pressure… but if anyone would like to donate a“guest post” send it along and I’ll see it when I get my email.
I would also like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving Holiday, and once again just ask you all to be patient with me until I get this under control.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone, jj
Posted Thursday, July 8, 2010 by |
Hey guys, JJ from MomsCashBlog is around here somewhere but in the mean time, I decided to stop by and give you a little preview of the new theme (before she notices, of course). I’m Enkay from the Blogosphere and i have put together this theme for JJ and I wanted to get your feedback. The new theme is coming soon and I figured that the best way to get the readers all revved up was to give you guys a sneak peak at the new theme. Do I think we’re giving too much away? Of course not, because we all know that until we see the real thing, we can’t enjoy the complete experience and that’s what these images are meant to do. I have two preview images here for you today and I want to start off by showing you the completely re-done top half of the blog. I will go into more details but for now, I’ll let you soak it in. Go on, soak it in!
Ahhh, that’s right. As you’ll notice quite a few things have changed. Although the true details of what is changed will be talked about once the new theme is live. I wanted to give you guys some idea of what the theme re-vamp involved. There are quite a few steps involved and maybe many of you aren’t familiar with how I actually design the blog. The idea is that on a limited time frame (usually a couple hours a day for a week), it sometimes becomes difficult to completely re-do a design from scratch so my steps are as follows:
1) Find a theme that suits my needs. That’s right! Starting off with the right theme means you have a backbone all ready for you. All you have to do is go in and add your creative genius!
2) Add critical components. What I mean by that is adding things such as the logo, the menu bar, the sidebar components and footer components. These can include anything from twitter, to recent comments to tag clouds, etc.
3) Add graphics. The most important part of a design is to make sure that your graphics flow with the blog. You’ll notice the new enhanced graphics used on the new theme. It still retains some of the old design charm but adds a whole new modern appeal to it.
4) Test the theme for inconsistencies. What I mean by this is that sometimes when you develop a theme, what you miss out on are the little things. The spacing may not be right and things of that nature. Although this doesn’t sound like a lot. There were quite a few issues on the new them that took about 40% of my time!
5) Add the money-makers. This includes your Kontera, InfoLinks, Adsense and advertising network type stuff. Generally, this isn’t a big deal so it doesn’t take much effort but adsense integration can take a while to be effective.
6) Test the theme again and correct errors. Testing the theme one last time is key to the process. I realize, as early as about 15 minutes ago, that I missed out on a few things and that I have to go back and edit them.
Alrighty then, time for the bottom half of the new theme! Have a look!
As you’ll notice everything has been streamlined and that’s the key to any new design out there. Simple, effective yet modern. I hope you guys like the theme. We’d love to hear your feedback. If you haven’t heard of me, I am Enkay from EnkayBlog.com and WhatISeenToday.com. I will start blogging soon again so stay tuned for that but in the mean time, if you need anything, do email me at enkayblog (at) gmail (dot) com! Thank you so much for stopping by and we hope you love the new theme!
Posted Saturday, July 3, 2010 by |
May and the month of June have been hell for MCB. With malware hitting my site in May up to 3 times and then in June, was just too much. I was so tired of emailing back and forth to Hostgator and then begging GoogleWebmasterTools to please reconsider my site and get it back up and running. After checking with my hosting company, they indicated that… “the last time Google found any malicious content was 03/13/2010.” Yet I’ve had several attacks since March, and here I was in June of 2010. It’s hard to make money with one’s blog when it’s going off-line a couple of times a month. After all that is the purpose of having this blog, to make extra money.
I took a chance and reached out to a fellow blogger that I was hoping would say yes to helping me. The internet can be very tricky, people can pretend they’re something that they’re not, some will inflate their income tell you they have many more blogs than just one. But they’d rather not tell anyone the name of the other blogs/websites. I never understood the reasoning behind that one, well maybe I do. But for some reason I believe that when you are a blogger your dealing with a different caliber of personalities. I found that out when I first started my blog, you can connect with some of the nicest people you will ever meet. I’m still friends with many bloggers, with emails and phone calls back ‘n’ forth.Oh I’ve encountered one or two blogger (bullies ?) that didn’t like the idea of me buying “this” blog. No matter what I did back then those bloggers would never come around and finally gave up writing rude and snide things about me. But that was back a few years, before I even really knew about blogging, hell I’m still learning everyday.lol With that said I reached out to a blogger that I knew was smart with codes, ftp’s, and all of those other things I needed help with. That blogger was Enkay, I had started visiting his blog back a few years ago, and knew from reading his post and comments that this was a very educated & honest guy with a good head on his shoulders. I also felt that I could trust him and I knew he had what I needed…. HELP.
(more…)
Posted Wednesday, April 28, 2010 by momscashblog |
Turning Ones Passion into a Business
We are always looking for new ways to make money online. We discuss affiliate marketing, starting a blog, or dropshipping with websites. But have you heard of “the Maker Movement” or “hobbypreneurs”? It’s considered a “boom” on the internet, turning ones passions into small businesses. A person with a gift for knitting, the arts, jewelry making, writing stories or poetry whatever hobby you are into, can now make you money on the internet. Taking those hobbies and creating a store online (small business) with the help of new internet applications that are coming out almost everyday, anyone can now feature their wares on the internet and make money.
A lot of us have heard or are members of one of the very best sites on the internet for people with any kind of artistic know how, or a passion for crafting and that would be Etsy’s dot com. It is like a global marketplace where one can buy or sell their handmade items and turn them into cash. Martha Stewart has featured Etsy’s on her show several times as her favorite craft website. If any of you haven’t ever visited http://etsy.com you’ll see some of the most talented & unique craftsmanship, give it a look. Etsy’s gives you, the artist or craftsman a chance to make money and show your work on your storefront.
People of all ages are turning their passions for crafts,hobbies, writings, & music into businesses where it can either be full or part time jobs. Typically some of these ventures do just start off as a hobby or a love for a certain craft and later it transforms into a business online.
On Demand Publishing
Since the use of the internet, computer programs and high tech tools, things have been easier and cheaper to make in this age of internet technology. You can now become a published author with your own hard or soft cover books. There are POD “print on demand” dot coms, self publishing, and ODP “on demand publishing” dot coms now. One can get their stories, cookbooks, how to books or even that book of poetry you have always thought you had in you published, printed and you can start selling it at Amazon dot com or maybe Barnes & Noble. Have you had dreams about vampires, like Stephanie Meyers phenom author of the Twilight series? I know she didn’t go with a ODP “on demand publishing” but just think about it, if you have a story in you you can get it published now without having to go through a large publishing company just to get turned down.
On cnn.com I had read an article about the subject of “on demand publishing” where the Director of http://lulu.com (which is one of the many “on demand publishing co.’s that one can find by a search) Gail Jordan was talking about all the great things that this fairly new nontraditional publishing companies can offer anyone who wants to write and get published. Jordan was saying there is no one telling you that they want you to change chapter 6 to chapter 10, or that the title doesn’t work for them, remember you can’t get rejected. You pay for these services and they give you what you want without making you change anything. Let’s not forget that this could be considered “Green Publishing” you are only getting a certain amount of books printed so trees are being saved by using these services. (more…)
Writing is a fantastic way to discover things about yourself. It’s amazing how things come out of you as you start to write, that you never knew were there. It’s not just healing, but it’s an amazing form of expression and powerful tool for gathering insight.
