As if I didn't already have enough to get done, I found out last night that I somehow got a computer swine flu virus. Well, that's what I'm calling it anyways. Now it doesn't look like my computer is going to die but it's definitely not doing well. I realized I had a virus/malware/rootkit when I typed something into Google and when I clicked a link, Firefox sent me to some completely different site. I wanted to make sure I wasn't smoking crack so I did this a few more times. Yes, I was infected. The worst part is that the virus is completely random. Now this virus is not just related to Google searches. I am infected with Bing, Yahoo and any other search engine I try to use. As I said the browser redirect virus is random so there is a chance I get to the site I wanted to look at. But in this case when I am doing a search for Spyware tools and click on Major Geeks link, I get directed to Stopzilla's website. If I go back and click the same link again, I get sent to a completely different site. When I click the link from the ...

Early in March, I was let go from Acronis software. Probably for the best because I got hired to build their Channel Program but the company had so much channel sales conflict I wanted to puke. I fought the good fight despite the company selling their product direct. Being out of a job is not very fun. Especially for a guy who has been working in some aspect since he was 15 yrs old. I kept myself busy redesigning some of my other sites, working with some companies on a project basis and most importantly, I got to spend a lot of quality time with my new boy. I wasn't sure what I was going to do next. Thankfully between savings and a little money coming in from other places, we didn't become homeless in the process of me finding a new job. I looked far and wide. The economy sucks and I knew that finding a place to work was going to be difficult. The unemployment rate just kept going up and with that, my chances of standing out from the crowd was getting slimmer and slimmer. Then came along Paragon Software. The company has a global presence in disaster recovery ...

I've owned the domain for a couple years and couldn't find myself to let it go. The idea for the name came from a drunken night with some friends where the conversation of Geek Porn came up. Maybe you had to be there but the idea was that geeks didn't watch or look at conventional porn, they like to check out motherboards and computer components. Something about Super Geek Land just seemed like gold. Without any ads or push on my part the site was actually generating a small amount of money on it's own. All from organic search traffic. Can you guess what the search term was? "Super Geek" and Geek Porn". People actually search these terms. While I was in my unemployed status I did some work on the site and got it to a place where it looks a lot more like I had envisioned. It's basically website that pulls deals for computers, gadgets and other geek stuff from all over the internet and uts it in a single page. Yes, before anyone chimes in, I know there are a few dozen other sites like this. Super Geek Land was more of a project for me to experiment with ...

Whats going on with FriendFeed? FriendFeed is a service which, instead of layering a meta-network on top of all your other social networks, will create a news feed incorporating them all much like the Facebook news feed. It’s an idea that isn’t too difficult or bothersome for social network users to adopt. The site has been around for a while but in recent weeks I have been seeing a lot of activity on my profile that I hadn't seen before. FriendFeed aims to be a one stop shop for all your social networking updates and news items. The four founders were all team members at Google and helped to launch such products as Google Maps, Adsense, GMail and Google Groups. They’ve brought their expertise to a slightly different area: social network aggregating. Users tell the feed which networks they belong to (Facebook, Digg, Last.fm etc) and FriendFeed personalizes your data feed with info from each of the sites. I've had an account for a while and never use it actively. I signed up for the FriendFeed account and plugged in all of my feeds and then left it alone. There were other features such as the ability to comment and share links but ...

Tweaking my websites and blogs is actually really fun for me. I love finding a new theme and getting into the code to make it my own. Since my online sales tips blog hasn't had a real refresh since February 08, I spent some time making it look a bit more clean. I used the same theme as HyperLocal Edge since it seems to be my new favorite. SOCOM Sales started off as a way for me to blog about my journey as a sales person and has morphed into a blog that covers a bunch of different topics. I was getting such a great responce to the site through comments and emails that I even wrote a Channel Sales Playbook to explain how to run a channel sales team. The e-book is free and there are plans to put together a more detailed and expansive e-book covering channel sales in a very simple format. SOCOM Sales was my first professional applicationof using social media. Besides having a blog with over 300 posts on sales tips and selling skills, I manage a Twitter profile called Sales tools that has grown to a following over 1000. Most of that growth has been in the ...

Keeping myself busy in between jobs has been easier than I had thought. After a few weeks I started wondering the age old question "What would you do if you could do anything?" I decided that spending my time using the internet to drive business for other businesses sounded like a good idea. I started HyperLocal Edge as a way to creatively put my skills to work for others. HyperLocal marketing is a growing trend on the internet. For small businesses in this challenging economy, getting solid results from a marketing investment is an absolute must. A new survey from Nielsen Online and WebVisible, however, reveals that local businesses and online consumers are often failing to connect. The survey polled nearly 4,000 Internet users and business owners about their online consumer behavior and business marketing strategies. The data shows a “Great Divide” between media usage and small business advertising. The study provides valuable insight for local businesses that want to better understand online consumer behavior in order to maximize the return on their marketing spend. Some of the key findings: Consumers use search engines 72% more often than they did two years ago Search engines are the No. 1 choice of consumers and ...

I started the Mayor of Concord blog about 8 months ago blogging about local news and events. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. It was really an impulsive decision but I stuck with it so far and I am beginning to reap the rewards of managing a local blog for the community. The hyperlocal blog I run is focused on the city I live in and the surrounding area. There are others in the area that have hyperlocal blogs and more of them are popping up every month it seems. I only have a few hundred posts so far but I am getting a far amount of traffic from the area from people looking for news. I setup a Twitter account almost immediately when I started the blog. The Twitter profile is used to share news from the area and I post my blog and some of y local travels on the micro-blog. The community that has been built continues to surprise me. I get news tips and information from people in the area and people retweet my posts often. Since this is more of a local twitter profile I guess the idea that I don't have a ton ...

One of the smaller websites I started a while back was Official Batman. I am a huge Dark Knight fan and have been since I was old enough to pick up a comic book. I haven't put a lot of work into the site. It holds a few posts and then pulls feeds for other Batman news and a feed for Batman Ebay items. The Twitter profile is just another place where I have links to other news about Batman posted. I like to keep up with all the information on the new Batman movies and video games and this was an easy way for me to collect that information. I dont interact too much with my followers on this account but I do respond to @replies from people.  I don't have a ton of followers here mostly because I don't actively manage the account. I have collected about 100 new followers in the past month just from organic searching I guess.

Another one of the best internet memes going around is a string of emails written from the perspective of an attorney. These are always entertaining. You gotta love this lawyer... Everyone who has ever bought a house will enjoy this.  A New Orleans lawyer sought an FHA loan for a client who lost his house in Hurricane Katrina and wanted to rebuild.  He was told the loan would be granted if he could prove satisfactory title to the parcel of property being offered as collateral. The title to the property dated back to 1803, which took the Lawyer three months to track down.  After sending the information to the FHA, he received the following reply: (Actual letter): "Upon review of your letter adjoining your client's loan application, we note that the request is supported by an Abstract of Title.  While we compliment the able manner in which you have prepared and presented the application, we must point out that you have only cleared title to the proposed collateral property back to 1803.  Before final approval can be accorded, it will be necessary to clear the title back to its origin." Annoyed, the lawyer responded as follows: ...