Smilebox has added some really neat templates to create your own slideshows with scary music and all!

Enjoy!

Anyway, when I came across a new study done by Hallmark, I naturally wanted to share.

They ran a national survey trying to find how many people received greeting cards from businesses. The survey indicated that 69% said they do receive business birthday cards from companies they have done business with. From that number, 47% said that receiving a birthday card made them more likely to do business with them again.

To make the reason for sending a card even greater, a full three-quarters of those who responded to the survey said that a personalized birthday card combined with a special offer for them would make them much more likely to do more business with the company!

Guys, that is huge!

My greeting card system can make it real easy for you, not only can you send out cards right from your computer, they have a birthday reminder system built in. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Did I mention he finished this product while on vacation? Now that’s what I call dedication and that’s what you can always expect to find when Bob releases a new product.

Here’s an article Bob let me share with you that will teach you some of the fundamentals of Social Networking. If you’ve ever wanted to get started with social networking or have just been overwhelmed by all the choices and noise out there, now’s your chance to get clear answers to help you get going.

Enjoy!

Five Ways You Can Build Your Reputation With Social Networking
By Bob Jenkins

Are you using social networks to build your reputation online? Whether you already are or you are just getting started with sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Ning, building your online reputation is your biggest responsibility.

Here are five ways to make sure you do it right.

#1: Be Proud Of Being You

The first thing is, you have to be yourself. You have to be who you are. Because although you can get away with being fake for a little while, as soon as one person realizes that you’re not who you say you are, your reputation is destroyed almost instantly because of the power of social networking.

So be yourself. And don’t be afraid of being yourself. Realize that you have some gifts and some knowledge that people need to know about, and those that want to learn from you are going to gravitate towards you. Those that don’t think you’re worth listening to are basically going to ignore you. And it’s at their peril, so don’t worry about them.

#2: Transparency - Never Hide From Your Audience

The second thing about your reputation is you should try to be transparent at all times. This means you keep everything real with your audience.

For example, over the last year, I used social media to show you my move from Maryland to North Carolina, including drama with the movers, picking the house, and getting it set up. I also pulled back the curtain to show what it takes to run a product launch.

When I did my last product launch, I was Twittering every day what I was doing to get ready for this site. Most of the gurus out there would keep everything under lock and key, and I was being very clear, saying, “This is what I’m doing to get ready for this launch.” It actually helped me have a better launch, even though I told everybody exactly what I was going to be doing.

They didn’t think that they had some surprise or whatever like most people teach; they just were excited to be part of it and part of the story. So be transparent. Let people know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and they’re going to learn how to trust you.

#3: Be Positive For Positive Results

The third way to build your reputation is to be positive.

There are folks out there who generally can do a good job of being negative. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that to be a very long-term profitable strategy.

It may get you some attention at first and spark some controversy, but that’s not the way to go. Be looking forward to the optimistic of your industry, of your business and what the results are going to be.

It would be easy for you to go onto Twitter or onto Facebook and talk about how you’re having a bad day or this product sucks or this week sucks or this relationship sucks. But you’re not really there for a support network, per se.

You’ll find some of that. If you have something bad happen in your life, sharing it with your followers will be very therapeutic for you and you will get a lot of support back. But when you’re just blasting negative things out, you’re going to get negative things in return, usually.

So try to be positive as much as possible and look for the opportunities that are out there and look at them from that positive perspective.

#4: Build Your Reputation And They Will Come

The fourth thing you must do is to be patient. This is because, initially, your reputation is going to be built only by yourself and the first initial people who get to know you. But as time goes on and you get more followers and you build a larger network of friends and peers, your reputation will solidify to allow your business to grow.

Once it hits a tipping point, your reputation and business accelerates at a very quick pace.

So be patient and let it happen. Don’t try this stuff out for a week and then come back to me next week and say, “Well, it didn’t really work. I didn’t really get any results yet.” You’ve got to let social networking play out over a few weeks and then a couple months and so on. A year from now your business is going to be tremendously different compared to where it is right now.

#5: Contribute To The Conversation – Every Day!

The fifth thing about your reputation is you need to be someone that people look to as a contributor, not as a leech, not as a mooch, as a contributor.

You have to be willing to be involved in the conversation, and you have to be willing to give as much or even more than what you’re going to get in return. The people who do that are growing so fast it makes my head spin.

I feel that I’m a pretty giving person but I see some other folks out there that just keep on giving, giving, giving and they just build up a huge following and that social capital is a real asset to your business. So you need to make sure that you’re contributing as much as possible to the conversation.

I don’t mean that as just go around randomly and try to help people. Within your specific task, your specific industry, the things you know well, you need to be at the forefront of letting people know how to do what you know how to do without charging them money at first.

They’ll come and find your site and your products and they’ll pay you for that as time goes on and their needs grow. With social networking you need to be building your reputation up first.

If somebody has a question, you should be one of the first people who answers and you need to answer without reservation not just, “Oh, I answered that in my eBook; go buy it”. They’re going to find your eBook if you just talk to them and give them solutions to the problem they are struggling with at that moment.

Give people your input, your encouragement for them to get better at what they are trying to do.

Any little quick free advice you can give, give it.

Actively Build Your Reputation With Social Networking And Reap The Rewards

You’ve got to be in this for the reason of having fun and really building that relationship. Dollars will come, there’s no doubt about that. But first, connect with people and really help them out. Understand that they’ll become loyal followers of what you do and see you for who you are.

Follow these 5 steps to building your reputation online and you’ll not only beat your competition, you’ll have more fun doing it!

Bob Jenkins teaches business owners how to use internet marketing strategies effectively to attract more customers and get more sales without spending a fortune on advertising. Get more free social networking lessons at www.DiscoverSocialNetworking.com.

Some of the new features include improved performance, one-click bookmarking, and the Smart Location Bar. The smart location bar is pretty cool, you start typing in the address bar and it starts looking for a match making it easier to find the site you’re looking for.

As for the “improved performance,” I can say it is faster. I good deal bit with things like opening new tabs (CTRL+T). One of my biggest reasons for looking forward to the new FF was how much memory it eats. With FF 2, under normal working conditions, I’d see Mem Usage at 400,000 K! Now if I was on a heavy research day (2 browser windows with 10-15 tabs each), it was just ridiculous at how slow FF became. Time to restart!

I haven’t seen it come down as much as I would have liked. I admit, I overtax it a bit. Like right now I’ve got 12 tabs in one window and I’ve had it open for 17 hours, and Mem Usage is at 390,000 K. Oh well, it’s still faster. :o)

This is a list of my add-ons that weren’t compatible with FF3 yet.

del.icio.us
Firebug 1.05
iStockFirefox 2.0
Smart Digg Button 1.01
SpellBound Development 0.9.8.20060108
View Formatted Source 0.9.5.0

These just needed to be updated, which is great because I use all 3 of these all the time. My heart stopped for a second when they were included in the list above.

Google Toolbar for Firefox 3.0.20070525W (Updated 3.1.20080605W)
IE Tab 1.3.3.20070528 (Updated 1.5.20080310)
Squidoo 2.0.4 (Updated 2.0.7)

This is the first I’ve heard of Karen Armstrong, but I like her style. She knows what she’s talking about and does it eloquently. She’s got several books with pretty high customer ratings. More books to add to my pile! ;o)

Watch her video

Being able to write good sales copy is critical to the success of your website. But you have to do it carefully, you don’t want to scare off all of your visitors by hitting them over the head with excessive BUY NOW talk. It’s a process you have to ease your prospects into. They have to trust you first before they do any business with you.

If you are a marketer, sales professional or business owner of any kind, this book is a MUST READ! Here’s a couple of highlights…

• Explain why writing for the Web is different than writing for print… and how to do it.
• Help you understand your four visitor types and how to talk to each kind.
• Tell you how to find the key words to use so you can tell your visitors “what’s in it for them.”
• Explain exactly what you need to put in your headlines and subheads. (hint… it begins with a “B”).
• Explain exactly what NOT to put in any of your content. (hint… it begins with a “J”).
• Show you how to identify your USP and how to use it to stand apart from your competitors.
• Teach you the difference between your customer’s needs and their wants - and how to give them what they want.
• Tell you what kinds of images actually work on your site and what kinds do not.
• Teach you how to ask for the order.

Hey, it’s free, why wouldn’t you want to at least check it out? You don’t even need to subscribe to anything to get the book. Just go to http://myws.sitesell.com/optimize.html to download your copy, then come back here and leave a comment to let me know what you thought about it.

Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University didn’t have a great batting average, but on this day, she smacked one over the fence - with two on base none the less! As Sara was rounding 1st base she blew out her knee tearing her ACL.

The rules state that if any of her teammates help her, she’d be called out. She could also call in a pinch hitter but the hit would only be counted as a single.

As the first baseman, Mallory Holtman of Central Washington, turned to see what was going on, she got another one of her teammates, shortstop Liz Wallace, to help carry Sara around the bases. They carried her gently touching her foot to each base. This selfless act ultimately lost Central Washington the game.

This story has already made headlines all over the place and most recently appeared on Ellen.

I couldn’t find the clip on Ellen, but here’s the story on ESPN2.

I felt like a true science nerd during last weeks episode of CSI: The Theory of Everything. The title, “Theory of Everything” caught my attention because I first learned about this theory several years ago while reading Ken Wilber’s book, A Theory of Everything. Brian Green made it popular in his book The Elegant Universe. So my curiosity was piqued, but I didn’t think the episode was really going to go into the actual “theory.”

I can’t pretend to know much about it but the way I understand it is String Theory involves quantum physics and could be the missing piece of the matter/energy puzzle. These quantum “strings” look like rubber bands vibrating at different frequencies.

We already know that solid objects aren’t really solid when viewed under an electron microscope. It’s all moving. So, what the theory suggests is if you go down even further, past the molecule, past the atom and quarks are these strings made of vibrating energy. This is still theory because we cannot see past the quarks yet. I’ll leave it there, read the Wikipedia article and my book recommendations for more info. But I’ll warn you, it’s pretty heavy stuff. :o)

It’s so fascinating because each atom literally contains an entire universe within itself! What?! I know blows my mind too. Here’s another book I’d recommend you check out by the Dalai Lama, The Universe in a Single Atom.

Here’s the clip of Grissom explaining String Theory and why it’s called the theory of everything.

In the middle of the episode who shows up but Adam and Jamie from one of my all time favorite shows, Mythbusters!

Here’s the clip…

You basically connect your Adsense Account to YouTube.  Then you choose the type of content you display.  I chose “Automated Content” for the video below.  It automatically chooses video content based on the content of your site.

You can also choose by video category or provider.  That’s really all there is to it.  It will generate the code for you and then you copy and paste, as I’ve done below.

Is that Lumbergh at 3:25?