Easy (Kinda) Money

One very important thing bloggers should do is to capture the e-mail addresses of people that read their blog. This is something I have not done yet. I have been putting it off because of what I perceive to be the complexity of doing it. I had searched for widgets and plug-ins and I could not find anything that I could install. Additionally, I wanted something to do more than just capture e-mail addresses. I wanted something that would auto respond, help me manage a mailing list, help me send newsletters and product promotions. continue reading…

It has been a long time since I have posted on my blog. I want to apologize to all of my readers for this lapse. Suffice it to say, that I have been going through a myriad of personal problems, and I needed to handle those first before I could focus on this blog.

 

With the new enthusiasm and some new ideas, I want to get back on this horse. This passive income journey has been good to me. Even with my absence, I have still maintained a fair amount of income in respect to the small amount of work that I have put into it.

 

The articles and posts will be coming regularly to you now. I want to thank you for bearing with me through this difficult time. Your comments and suggestions have really made me believe that I am doing a service here. So thank you again.

It is more than obvious that I have been doing a poor job of updating this blog in September. I feel that I owe a bit of an explanation.

 

First off, I had a hard drive crash. As you know, I was able to recover using Carbonite.com. I also had a family medical emergency with my mother, which required my constant attention. As much as I am committed to the readers of this blog, I am just a little more committed to my family. Within the next 3-4 days, I will be able to commit myself again to this, and my other blogs.

 

I want to thank you for coming here repeatedly. Your feedback has kept me motivated for these past few months. I will update again soon, with some very useful information! Thank you again for your loyalty.

 

As a side note; I just installed a “CAPTCHA” to my comment  form. I hope it does not inconvenience you too much, however, I was receiving over 100 spam comments per day! Thank you for understanding.

I am sure you have noticed that I have been away for the past two weeks. It seems that as of late I’ve been having more than my share of technical difficulties. Here is the next in the long line of technical dramas that I have experienced. The computer that I use to update my blog and write my eHow articles crashed two weeks ago. I brought it in to see if I could get it repaired. But, to no avail. It was a laptop computer that I use for most of my Internet business. After the “techs” told me that the hard drive was fried, I was fairly upset. Instead of jumping in and buying another PC, I decided to purchase a server grade computer. Obviously, this took a little time.

With this type of computer it took far longer than normal for me to understand how to set it up. However, I believe it will be worth it. The next step was to arrange the programs, settings and options, similar to my last computer. Again, this was more complicated, because the computer is far more powerful. Or, I should say, the operating system is far more powerful.

Now I get to the subject of my post. Carbonite. Yes, this is going to be another sales pitch. As you know, I do not recommend any affiliate that I do not believe in. I do believe in Carbonite. Carbonite saved me many days of trying to re-create files. It was actually a fairly simple process. I clicked on two or three links to completely restore my hard drive database of files, articles, and programs. I am highly recommending a Carbonite to you. It is very inexpensive, only about $60 per year. I guarantee that if your hard drive crashes, it will be the cheapest $60 you ever spent.

Now, here is what I do not like about Carbonite, the affiliate program. The commission is good, and the product is good, however, they use Commission Junction as their affiliate portal. Commission Junction makes you jump through the most convoluted hoops to retrieve the HTML code to put on your site. As of this writing, I am still waiting to be approved, whatever that means, to place the Carbonite banner on my sidebar.

Carbonite is an awesome product, I recommend it to anyone who cares about their data. However, if you want to become an affiliate, be prepared to jump through the flaming hoops.

I guess I must have  become a “big boy”

This blog has been attacked and spammed…. To be honest, I did not know I was that popular.

I should have these issues resolved by tomorrow, and unfortunately, I will need to moderate the comments. Trust me, if you disagree with me I will not supress you distaste… I welcome your criticism.

Please continue to comment.

As we go into the month of August, I notice my readership levels are increasing. I want to thank you for this. Without you, the reader, this blog would be useless.

 

Therefore, I wanted to take this time to thank you for making all of this possible. I realize that you think you may be a small cog in a machine. However, you would have become an integral part in this website. Now I have a favor to ask:

 

I want to have your opinion on everything. Do you like the background design? Do you like the way the posts are written? What things about the blog do you hate?

 

I feel it is a very important for you, the reader, to give me feedback and criticism about this site. You are the reason I write. I want to deliver the articles and posts that you want. All of your comments are important to me. I know that it takes time to build a readership, and I appreciate the loyalty you have given to me

One  of the things that I would love to see in the comment section of my posts, is suggestions for new passive income streams. I want this place to be a blog where we share ideas and to increase each other’s income. If you have found a passive income stream that works for you, please post it here in the comments section.

 

If you have a very good idea that as working for you, then please use the contact link at the upper right corner of this page and submit your ideas as a guest post on this blog. I think one of the missing elements is a feeling of community on this blog. So please, comment, and comment on comments. LOL.

 

I have also set up a forum for this site. Within the next day or two I will put a link to this forum in the very top right corner of the blog I hope you’ll visit and discuss the issues at hand.

I wanted to apologize for yesterday. It appears that the server was down for quite some time. Of course It is not a server that I own, however, it is the server that I chose, so I aplogize. My Server is Bluehost and it does have a 99.3 uptime percentage, so this is a rare event. I am talking to the admins to see what happened and how it will be dealt with in the future.

lost my last two weks of posts…… I will try to recover them

Image via CrunchBase

As much as I like theBlogger.com format. I can see the limitations. If I really want to expand, I need to leave the nest. It is too difficult for a non-techie like me to customize things the way I want . In addition, it is obvious that having my domain name would be beneficial.

I had looked into several web hosting companies that offered “WordPress” ready hosting, and I decided to go with “Bluehost”. This decision was not made lightly, but I trust the opinion of “Pat” from http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/ . So I will be spending most of July bringing that blog to fruition.

But don’t worry (he said, as if you lived and breathed for this blog), I will continue to post here, and I will archive all of my posts on the new site; as well as leaving a link here to the new-and-improved-blog.

Please try to bear with me through these first growing pains. I am discovering this journey into passive income just as you are. (we can do this, he said as he put on his sweater and outdoor shoes. “Can you say “passive income”"? he said as he fed the fish and strolled out the door).

I was pushing my feeble cranium to decide how to turn my chaotic thoughts about passive income into something that the reader might understand. Therefore, I decided that instead of spewing forth words in a haphazard manner, I should get organized. I think in might be beneficial to give you a monthly report of my passive income streams. This way I can really begin to tweak things, and start to grow this business.

So today I am going to sit down, and find out what my starting position was at the beginning of the month, so to better prepare to report my passive income at the end of the month.This is going to take some time today, so forgive me if this particular post is not the most informative.

I think tomorrow, I am going to go into how I have been generating an above average pay level at Ehow.com. Until then however, it is time to start number –crunching.