Thoughts & Philosophies

It’s good to be back. And what a long, strange trip it was and will continue to be. Exhiliarating, exhausting, enlightening.

Ok, so long story short, I went out to live on the streets to see what it’s like. God was with me; the worst thing that happened was a bit of a theft (um — perhaps the night I learned how to sleep in a laundromat). Otherwise, there was more good than harm.

There won’t be a diary of what I saw and experienced. There will, though, be an enrichment in what I can write to you. Frankly, I thought my writing was starting to border on the boring side; perhaps that’s how I saw it from some discontentment and that’s another subject.

It’s been said that we cannot sit down to write if we’ve not stood up to live. Well, I took that to heart. Watching what’s happening in the safety of the living room TV shows pretty much of nothing.

That said — and it’s enough for now — I’ve missed all of you and the only other strange things I want to learn this year are the proper ways to handle firearms and how to milk a cow.  After what I just did, it seems those two things are relatively harmless.

Probably some of the more basic and most effective of the social media are what we know as the dating services. In most of our communities, it’s a rarity to find the old church socials, the community picnics and bar-b-ques, any of those events where, once upon a time, people could count on meeting like people. In today’s web world, online dating services have taken their place and have become the introduction and meeting places for anyone 18 or older. It’s good to have the substutite and it’s better to have one with a great reputation.

JustSayHi specializes in free online dating. What’s that? You didn’t know there were any free dating services? You know now.

Yep, an essential part of our social media, JustSayHi has taken the personals into the realm of community with message boards, forums, polls, and surveys. It’s an active and alive partner working with its members to make sociability a lot more social.

Give JustSayHi a try; start your adventure in social media by finding a meaningful relationship. It’s really free, it’s really good, it could be exactly what you’re looking for. And it’s so easy to say Hi.

This is a SponsoredReview

Since adding paid reviews to Thoughts & Philosophies, I’ve had the vague feeling that something was missing. Try as I might to give a little personality to those posts, there was a limit. But we all know that there’s no such thing as limits. So, thoughts being thoughts and philosophies being philosophies, a great solution appeared: weaving.

What that means is, wherever possible, those paid reviews won’t be isolated anymore because they’ll be following a related, regular post; let’s see if that adds enough personal flavor.

That said, social media has been on my mind lately. It’s incredible what’s available to us; there are so many avenues, that none of us need feel isolated. It’s there to the left of us and there to the right of us and we’re stuck in the middle with each other. Not a bad place to be stuck, even though keeping up with everything can take a chunk of time out of every day.

But the time is irrelevant if it’s spent well. And that’s the question surrounding this writing. What, in your mind, makes social media time worthwhile? It’s not a quick-answer question. There are probably no answers that clearly apply to everyone. More than likely some of the answers are meaningless to some. That’s why it’s such a fascinating topic.

So, let’s open this discussion. My thoughts are that we all need it; we’ve grown away from life in the self-sufficient villages of the past to being part of the grander world community and we need the wider inter-connection.

Yes, a paid review will be following shortly and, even if it doesn’t spark conversation, it’ll be an integral part of this topic and mix well with the thoughts we all already have about the subject.

As promised, next week’s Blog Community Bloggers Carnival is set up and ready for your submissions.

Day: Next Thursday

Date: August 9

Deadline: August 7

Delivery: Blog Carnival

Ok now, what to do?, what to do? Here we go, this is how it’ll work. First we’ll deal with enthusiasm, excitement, and new. Then the carnival announcement. Just to keeps things easy to read (and write), there will be two posts almost back to back. Sounds like a plan to me.

Our friend, Joe Hauckes, and I got togther again this afternoon and, hey!, look over to your right to see what happened! Thoughts has Pages now! And Archives!

I’ll understand if this news isn’t something that makes your day, but it’s really exciting on this end. It feels like the difference between the kids’ table and the grown-ups table at a family dinner. Thoughts & Philosophies is growing up; where does the time go?

Joe worked through CrossLoop to create the Pages and, while I watched from my computer, he taught me enough that I can confidently do at least the rest of this round of tweaking. Probably.

Before I forget, why don’t you run over to Working at Home on the Internet? Joe wrote Why It’s More Important to Crosscheck Browsers than You Thought, in reference to yesterday’s fix and his point is one that you’ll probably find helpful.

Today’s carnival showcases a dozen sources of information and entertainment. When you make your visits, why not leave a comment at a few?

ADVICE
Derek Beauchemin brings Promotion Goals For A Low Maintenance Niche Blog at DerekBeau.com.

Edith Yeung suggests Know How to Ask for What you Deserve and Break the Glass Ceiling at Edith Yeung.Com: Dream. Think. Act.

Ant shares Boost Your Blog Traffic at The Beef Jerkey Blog.

Eric Hudin tells us You Can Make More Working Less at Everyday Marketing Ideas. “Time management is a myth. Time doesn’t stop. There is no managing something you can’t control. What you can do is eliminate your wasted movements to become more efficient and effective.”

BOOKS
Jimson Lee brings 10 Ways to Make It Great! A Framework for Success for Coaches at Speedendurance.com. “A book review for “10 Ways to Make It Great!” written by Phil Gerbyshak.”

BUSINESS
Leo Dimilo shares Confessions of an Information Junkie - How to Avoid Information Overload at Idiot Affiliate.

Ninja Jon tell us How to Pick a Domain Name for Your Blog at Ninja Blog Setup. “Most people who are buying a domain for the first time make the same mistakes, so I thought I would write up a crash course for buying a domain name.”

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
RCK tells us how to Get More Done with Activity Logs at The Road to CEO. “Have you ever had the experience of looking back on a busy day, week, or month only to realize that you didn’t accomplish nearly as much as you had planned? If so, you’re not alone.”

BUSINESS FROM HOME
Cade Kruiger talks about Sewing For Success: A Home Based Business Opportunity Made Just Right at Small Business Opportunity.

MARKETING
Chris Tackett explores How to Write a Headline and Grab Your Prospect by the Eyeballs! at Direct Marketing News. “The art of writing headlines is important for direct marketing. I will cover how to come up with some great headlines just like the one I use in this article.”

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
GP asks How Can I Get your Attention? at Fish Creek House - INNside Innkeeping. “We’re constantly barraged by thoughts thoughts, ideas and craziness of life compete for our attention…even when the message is important. (Uh…if you think you have an important message, you may want to pay attention to this.)”

TIPS
Matt Hanson shares Advertising Jingles and Commercials - Radio & TV from the Archives at Matt’s Creative Advertising Blog. “I offer some great tips to stop you from getting ripped off by advertising companies. It can happen if you don’t follow these simple rules.“

Those of us who don’t use Internet Explorer often (if at all) might not think this is such a big deal. But, guess what? There are still a whole lotta people who like, use, and even prefer IE.

Because of an incompatibility between some script here and one of the plug-ins, trying to access this site from IE was impossible. Finding and fixing the problem was outside my area of expertise, so my solution was to — well — ignore it and hope it went away. It didn’t, so it was time to go with common sense and call someone who does have the expertise.

A quick email last evening brought our friend and colleague, Joe Hauckes to the rescue this morning. Most of us know him through his blog, Working at Home on the Internet, but Joe also runs My Computer Back in Service, aka  M.C.B.S.  He knows his stuff and had things squared away in about a half hour. Makes me wonder: why the wait in the first place?

The process was quick, easy, and painless; the only thing I needed to do was to download Crossloop to my computer. After that, our computers were connected, Joe could work his magic, and if you use IE, you’re seeing the rest of today’s story.

We’re not finished, yet, but I’m too excited about this development to let it sit unheralded.  Thoughts & Philosophies needs a little more technical tweaking and you’ll soon be noticing more of Joe’s work here.

Yep, that’s what I said and that’s what I meant. It was the number 163 that clinched it, but it was 137 that started it.

What’s she talking about? Do you remember about a month ago when I published 137 Parts To The Ultimate Guide to Productivity? That was the link love-in. One of those links when directly to EmpowerWomenNow and was entered into Ponn’s Online Women Entrepreneur Contest. At the end of the contest the random number picked was 163 (the clincher) and that number belonged to — definitely need a drum roll here — Thoughts & Philosophies and yours truly. It’s true! You can read all about it at EmpowerWomenNow.com Women Entrepreneur Powerful Networking Contest Winner…

Here’s a quick run-down of the fantastic prizes. A one-year membership to Home Based Working Moms – a Wealth Consultation with Marilyn August – an eBusiness consultation with Wendy Piersall – an autographed copy of John-Paul and Deborah Micek’s Secrets of Online Persuasion: Captivating the Hearts, Minds and Pocketbooks of Thousands Using Blogs, Podcasts and Other New Media Marketing Tools with a three-month sub to Blogi360 – access to Ponn’s freelance or ghost writing services – a PRWeb.com press release – and the opportunity to be part of EmpowerWomenNow’s Link-Exchange Directory.

Ok, so this post didn’t make the July 31 midnight deadline I set for myself; excitement won over writing. However, it looks like I’m in for one heck of an education and, as a happy consequence, you guys should be in for one heck of an improved Thoughts & Philosophies.

The Rain -by- Thomas Kinkade

My sister, Susan, sent this to me today. She says it has a soothing, calming effect and, sometimes, that’s exactly what we need. If the picture isn’t raining yet, give it a few more seconds.

In this town that always has room for one more great blog, we have just that: one more great blog. Last Sunday, July 22, Freelance Folder launched its maiden post. I’m not talking about it because I’m one of the contributing authors, it’s really a worthwhile addition to your RSS library.

What’s so special about Freelance Folder? It’s geared to be appealing to all creative business types. All of us who are writers, designers, or entrepreneurs will find something interesting. We bloggers, publishers, artists, and small business owners have a blog that caters to everything we might find necessary.

And who provides all of this information? Right now there’s Johathan Phillips, the founding father, and otherwise known from SmartWealthyRich and Jonathan-Phillips; Goldy from Goldy World; The Old Man (aka Allen Taylor) of World-Class-Poetry and ops manager for NameCritic, Inc.; and Dave Navarro of BetterFasterNow! Oh yeah, and me.

Jonathan’s looking for contributors and guest writers, so go over and take a look. All of the authors are looking for readers; another reason to go over to and take a look.