Testing a New Residential VoIP Review
I have been in the VoIP industry for many years now and strangely enough have never really tried to build a website about the topic.
Well, I am doing a little test blog about residential VoIP and home office VoIP service.
Found a few good providers I could compare and connect too. So far the best overall deal for basic home service seems to be Phone Power Residential VoIP Service. The others on the main page have some great VoIP deals for home office and soho users as well.
Look for some indepth VoIP articles coming up soon there.
New Racing Kayak Store Launches
Inspired by some friends of mine that are obsessed with racing kayaks I recently acquired RacingKayak.com. I was not sure how I was going to develop it but with help from SmartName.com I was able to put together a full online store focused on selling kayaks and kayaking gear.
The store just launched and tweaks are still being made but looking forward to seeing the results.
A few niche domain names as a test
As I beta test the free minisite tools at EzDevelop.com I like to test niche domains that have solid advertiser value and decent search volume.
Last night I put three together, the content is weak admittedly but what I am testing is not obvious but a few links are needed so here we go.
Discount Headstones is one of the headstone related sites, Pet Headstone is a very niche grave marker site, and if you are looking for headstone prices look no further.
I am amazed at how many companies provide headstones and granite markers online. I would of never imagined….
Launching New Tech News Aggregator
Been working on a new Tech News aggregator tonight at Gadget Lab. After the success of iFones.com I thought it would be worth putting another one together, trying out the news theme from Studiopress to get it going and so far so good.
With the Motorola Droid drawing so much attention thinking much optimization around Droid needed.
Target Black Friday Ads 2009 Top Google Search Trend
As would be expected as we get close to Black Friday Target Black Friday Ads 2009 is the top search trend on Google today, anyone that keeps up with search trends watches these trends yearly.
It still amazes me though, I mean we all see it every year, but to witness the trends in peoples behavior in a trending tool like this is always interesting to me.
I am sure next up will be WalMart Black Friday Ads and Best Buy Black Friday Ads. Lets see.
I am sure my wife will be one of those searching:)
Does Playing Video Games Breed Leadership Skills
Just a quick post, I am sure this has been discussed elsewhere but as I sat here tonight listening to my son I realize that playing video games breeds a certain level of leadership in teenagers.
Let me give you a bit of background, my son is typically pretty laid back, not really controlling, extremely bright straight A student, honor society, etc, etc. But he doesn’t really push people, does not really take control. It is not a confidence thing really, he just kinda takes life as it comes and understands at his age too many kids take themselves way to seriously, it amazes me sometimes how mature he is from that standpoint.
But, as someone who tends to take control too frequently, I want to see my kids push push push on people and take control, well I dawned on me tonight that he is gaining certain leadership skills in places many people would not appreciate.
Recently he picked up the new Xbox 360 game Call of Duty Modern Warfare (kick butt game BTW), and as I listen to him he is absolutely leading the people on his online team, I can hear them taking it as leadership too. They do what he says, it is almost without question. I realized, he actually has quite strong leadership tendencies but just chooses where to use them.
So my question is, and I think after really thinking back to seeing him in various interactions, is that video games can breed certain qualities, they for sure build puzzle building and analytical skills, but in team based online games I think in many cases they are building leadership skills. I am sure this is not all new to people reading this but I thought it was a pretty neat observation.
Testing Some EzDevelop.com Features
Well, working through building some Free Minisites on EzDevelop.com tonight as we continue beta testing, we added a few features like auto-hosting and customer header upload. We have a ton more features coming and they will be announced on my other blog as we move forward.
For a couple test sites that I did tonight just to test features here ya go:
CornerCouch.com – Site took less than 10 minutes even with a content rewrite, sure it is only one page but we have had success getting one page sites ranked.
VolumizingShampoo.com – This is a name I picked up just for testing and thought it would work well for a little test I am doing tonight, less than 5 minutes…..
It is nice when beta testing can actually be productive and not full of bugs, sure we have had a few but overall we are very pleased that the tool works as advertised. There are a couple process flow things we want to clean up and some more features but hope to open it up to the world next week.
Launching A New Network Of Niche Sites
Well, realized I had not posted on my new “personal” blog in awhile so thought I would do a quick post on what I am working on tonight. As we test the EzDevelop.com Free Minisite tool I decided to build out a group of Fractional Jet Ownership sites.
I have had great success with networks of niche sites and thought this would be a nice little test of how long it takes to put this together if content is available.
Although these terms are not searched for 10s of thousands of times they are searched for hundreds of times and each search could be worth millions of dollars to the proper company. As such building traffic in a network like this could be valuable.
I put together:
Although the EzDevelop.com tool is still in beta and there are a few things being worked through I was able to build these 4 sites in less than 20 minutes total. That is counting upload time.
In the next version due out in a couple weeks it will be even faster. Cannot wait.
How To Get Rid Of Ladybugs and Ladybug Infestations
How to get rid of ladybugs in your house and ladybug infestations were two of the most searched trending topics on Google trends today, as such it seems like a good idea to do a post about this for no other reason than we can see how hard it is for a new blog to get ranked for long tail trending keywords.
Here are some tips I found searching online about how to get rid of ladybugs:
First off the ladybugs you are tired of dealing with are not actually ladybugs, who would of though. They are actually the asian lady beetle (as opposed to the asian man beetle). They were brought to to the US in the early 20th century to reduce other bugs people were tired of but did not have Google to search for ways to kill.
Now, lets go with the obvious and figure out how to close all the cracks in your windows, doors, etc to keep the ladybugs out of your house. Nuff said.
Now lets take a direct quote from another site on how a certain type of earth can kill the ladybugs:
Food grade diatomaceous earth will get rid of lady bugs. Diatomaceous earth is a natural pest deterrent that I’ve been pushing in my articles for quite some time. It comes from fossilized algae that are mined and then eithe refined for medical purposes or bagged for landscaping and pest control needs. The most popular theory regarding diatomite’s effectiveness suggests that it is the microscopically, razor sharp composition of the algae that cut through the exoskeleton of the intruding insect, causing death by dehydration.
Sounds painful. Man, not a good way to go.
Now for one of the funnier ways I found to kill ladybugs, vacuum them up. Now I have witnessed houses with this problem and if whoever came up with the vacuum cleaner idea can tell those people how to vacumn their fluorescent lights please let me know.
OK, thanks for reading this far as part of my little test. Not sure this will pull it off but lets see.
Internet Users Proven To Have More Brainpower
Brainpower
In a UCLA study out today it has been shown that adults using the Internet show increased brain function after just one week of Internet activity.
After reading this I look around at all the dumb things I see on the Internet each day and wonder how bad it would be if the Internet had not increased the intelligence of these people doing the not so bright things they do.
With Internet penetration as high as it is it must mean that we are all supremely intelligent now that everyone on the Internet is smart. Hmmmmm. I think I may be questioning the study now.
Here is a link to the story, which is actually pretty interesting, all my joking aside: Internet Is Altering Our Brain Structure
