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.

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.

Internet Users Proven To Have More 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

Time To Start My Personal Blog

With BruceMarler.com already launched and running as a domain industry focused blog I thought it best to start a second blog that will allow me to post random thoughts and topics unrelated to domain investing and online marketing.

It seems a little weird to have to start a second blog rather than just write about what I find interesting on the “other” blog but at the end of the day I think this will allow a little more freedom to voice thoughts, post funny things I have read or watched, and in general just talk about whatever I want or in otherwords vent when I want:)

Also, and this is the domainer part of me, I think it is best to do this on a .ME domain which I truly feel allows for a nice little personal touch to an individuals site. This site will likely be focused less on “professional” topics and more on topics I find interesting or life in general. You should expect more links to other blogs, videos, and other things yet to be defined.

Thanks for reading, and look for more soon.