Archive for the ‘Blogging’ category

Blogging Tip 1 – Comment Strategies

February 4th, 2012

Today I decided to break out of the usually finance related topics and mention a new find that I just realized while trying to post a comment on a site that had the comment box a bit too small.

You see, I ended up writing a comment that was almost as long as the original post (which I rarely do), and I was having a hard time reading it.  As I always do (now anyway), to make sure what I typed made sense.

Comment Tip 1

So after getting frustrated, I noticed that in the lower right hand corner of the comment box there was a bunch of dots in a group.  Well the first thing I did was copy my lengthy comment (see Comment Tip 2 below) so I wouldn’t lose it by trying something I never did before.

So I hovered my mouse of the dots and my mouse changed into a diagonal double-headed arrow.  Such an arrow means that I can resize the comment box (Booyah!).  Since the comment too a long time to write, I opened a blank notepad session and copied my comment text into it, just to make sure (yes I got burned before)!

After resizing the window, it was a simple matter of re-reading my comment to make sure my minor comment masterpiece was golden, then clicking the submit button!

Comment Tip 2

I always press the keys “control-a” to select everything, then type “control-c” to copy everything

Comment Tip 3

Always fill in the link option in the comments settings area.  If you don’t, you’ll losing potential traffic.

Comment Tip 4

Write either an intelligent, witty or enhancing comment to the blog site that you are visiting.  By “enhancing comment” I mean a comment that adds additional information to help the readers.  But not an external link!!!

Comment Tip 5

Don’t embed a link in your comment (if you know how to).  I did this initially when I started because I didn’t realize it was wrong.  Needless to say, a lot of my comments were deleted…  Don’t make this mistake!

I hope you find these commenting tips beneficial!

Cheers,

MR

 

Does Blogging Cause A Distaste For Cubicle Jobs

January 19th, 2012

This might be pretty obvious, but since I started blogging and earning a little bit of money, my distaste for my cubicle job has dramatically increased!

With my cubicle (regular) job, I’m stuck in a dingy grey cubicle setup, with very plain lifeless-colored walls.  The cube walls are high, so nobody can casually look at me.  Visitors have to come to my cubicle entryway to socialize.  Lately, I’ve been imagining that my day job, and in particular my cube, is much like a prison cell in the movie Shawshank Redemption.  Sometimes I even fantasize about escaping for the fun of it…  In fact, with friends I sometimes tell them I am going to tunnel out with plastic spoons someday… Silly, but funny at the same time.

While I’ve always had these feelings to some degree, blogging has intensified them so that I’m starting to really dislike my job.

So you might be wondering the reasons I dislike my job because of my blogging?  Well, here they are:

  • I can and do blog in restaurants, libraries, cafe/coffee houses, and at home of course.
  • I can even blog at friend’s houses although I don’t do this much…
  • My entire blogging empire can be managed from my laptop and a simple laptop messenger bag.
  • I can make my own hours (right now it’s past 1:00am where I live).
  • I don’t have to commute if I don’t want to when I’m blogging, this saves precious time for other activities.
  • I can blog from remote location and even different countries, as long as I have an internet connection.
  • I can write blog articles without having an internet connection.  This even increased the flexibility of blogging at any time or place.
  • I’m my own boss!
  • I’m unlimited in creative possibilities!  This makes for a rewarding job!
  • I don’t have to deal with corporate politics or clichés like I do at my cubicle job…
  • If I were to make enough money from blogging, I could travel across the world while working via blogging.

Blogging and online activities really have a lot going for them!  While I keep busy at work and actually have a decent job, I’d much rather be blogging for a living.

If you blog and have a full time cubicle job, what do you think?

MR

 

Blogging on a Cool Fall Day

November 13th, 2011

I’m in our guest room, writing this blog on a child’s desk.

It’s around noon, and looking out our windows, I can see the wind is blowing causing our neighbor’s trees leaves to fall, reminding me that soon it will be snow falling instead of leaves.  This year went by in a flash, the summer seemingly passing with just a blink of our eyes.  We had so much fun, that everything went too quickly!

This past summer, we vacationed on a small Florida Island called Captiva Island, experienced swimming with dolphins, went to a water park at Kalahari Resorts, and just basically kept busy the entire season.

Just writing this blog has been a challenge let along improving it.  I had planned on changing the theme, doing some SEO optimization, and other non-writing blogging aspects to a small but growing blog such as mine.  Seeing the fall leaves has started a fire under my butt, so now I feel like it’s time to run again.

So, that said, here are some great blogging articles to scope out while I play catchup.

Well, there you have it!  Enjoy the reading from this great group of bloggers while I go try and improve my backend blogging skills.

Enjoy,

MR

Is Blogging The Ultimate Mobile Business Model?

November 9th, 2011

As frequent readers might know, I sometimes go to local coffee houses to write articles for my blog.  I usually go to a small local chain called Arabic Coffee House, but today I am going to Panera Bread instead because I’m meeting a friend for lunch and it just so happens that Panera is one of his favorite restaurants for lunch.

Panera Bread

Panera

Now you might be thinking, “What does this have to do with Business or Personal Finance”?

Well, if I were a full-time blogger, the point is I can work from anywhere that an internet connections exists.  Today, you can find internet access points almost everywhere!  I’ve even heard of entire cities providing internet access for their community for free, talk about flexibility!!!  This means I don’t have to incur the cost of having a traditional office (just a post office box).

Some of you might be thinking, what about a phone line?

Well, my phone number is a Google Voice phone number, which is free and very powerful!  It’s powerful because the Google number is configurable to ring any phone I configure the call to route to within Google Voice, even multiple phones (cell or land-line).

Back to the friend I’m meeting:

Unfortunately, my friend lives over an hour away, so it will take him a while to meet me at Panera.  If I had a regular business, the time waiting for him would be mostly wasted, but this is NOT so with my blogging business!

Here is what I am doing while waiting:

  • Writing:  I’m writing this article (obvious huh)…  That is one of the best feature of blogging!  All I need to write an article is: my brain, my laptop (or similar device), and my hands.  I don’t even need an internet connection to write the articles!  Granted I can’t post my article without an internet connection, but posting to my site only take a few minutes tops.
  • Twittering:  Checking my blog’s twitter account, responding to tweets, retweeting interesting articles, and later tweeting this article once it’s posted.  Twitter didn’t start out this big when I started blogging, but now I’m very active on this social channel.
  • Emailing:  I’m responding to emails that I have received in my mailbox.  I get a constant stream of emails now, so this has become a critical part of blogging for me.
  • Analytics:  Periodically checking my stats.  This is generally considered bad, but really it’s a quick and easy way to check to make sure my site is up and functioning normally.  It’s just a quick refresh of the screen.  I also look for abnormal behavior!  I’ve used these stats to block bad guys hitting my site before.
  • Facebooking:  Facebook, activities…  I’m just starting to get into this, but it’s one of the largest social channels out there!
  • Thinking:  Learning to think and observe better in public.  Thinking in my guest room at home is great, but sometimes going out in public, and just watching and listening (or typing and half listening) can spark an idea for a new article (I say this because I came up with two ideas while typing this article).

<My friend has arrived, so I will stop here and finish up this article at home>

It was a great time meeting my friend (I haven’t seen him in over a year), and now I’m at home and wrapping up this post.  That’s another nice thing about a blogging business, I don’t have to worry about picking up where I left off.  I just open my article and go to the bottom and continue to type the article out!

So, I hope I demonstrated that blogging is the ultimate mobile business!  An added perk is that in addition to being the ultimate mobile business, it’s also cheap to start and run!  I love these win-win scenarios!

Cheers,

MR

Joining Technorati

October 25th, 2011

What is Technorati?

Technorati is a site that aggregates blogs from across the blogosphere.  It’s kind of like a reader’s blog nirvana (sort of, I don’t go there).  Technorati has one of the largest collections of blog sites and topics on the internet.  They cover blogs from business, women, sports, technology, entertainment, politics, video and blogging in general.  So as you can imagine, the depth of blogs on this site is very far and deep.

I’m hoping that by joining Technorati.com, the exposure that I’ll receive will have push Money Reasons to an entire new batch of viewers.

Wish me luck and please support my blog!

Update:  Technorati has failed to recognize my blog as a personal finance blog yet again.  Perhaps the term Money in my title moneyreasons.com doesn’t convey the financial nature of my post?  Or perhaps it’s my constant writings about dividends and wealth building strategies that I am deploying and which are working for me?  I don’t understand their logic in ignoring my site I’m a bit popular now, so I guess I’ll just ignore them too…

Thanks,

MR

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