This is typical of Jon. He creates a great application but never stops working on it and never stops taking notice of the feedback from his users.

You may well buy an application from him but it’s not what you’ll end up with! It will change over time getting better and better and with more features as he thinks of them or they are suggested to him by users.

Anyway, back to today’s update. Jon has just put up a new video of Instant Article Factory showing the latest features the main one of which is integration with another product of his The Best Spinner.

If you’re not familiar with The Best Spinner you really should check it out. Article spinners have been a hotch potch over the years and whilst there have been some pretty good ones of late, I own a couple of them, bought before TBS came out and now abandoned, TBS takes it all to a new level entirely.

It’s impossible to tell you how good it is without sounding hypie! I would urge you to check out the video on it here. TBS gives you the ability of really capitalising on all the hard work you put into writing articles whilst the Instant Article Factory takes away the hard work.

Imagine writing a 350 word review in under 5 minutes! No need to imagine it any more, it’s now a reality! Check out my previous post for a sample.

OK, integration with TBS is just one of the new features and rather than try and tell you about all of the others just go to the Instant Article Factory and watch the video you’ll be glad you did, honest!

Instant Article Factory isn’t available until until next Monday 12th July 2010 and at that time it’s available at a 45% discount for just 5 days. If you need to write articles or produce any kind of content for blogs or websites then you need to at least look at Instant Article Factory.

Article writing software has come of age!

More of my favourite stuff. It’s often necessary for graphics, ebook covers, webpages, blogs etc to need photographs. They can be bought sometimes at a reasonable price from the usual places istock etc but there’s a site I often use which is free. Morguefile.com Sounds a bit gruesome but it’s not. Just scroll down to the catagory list on that page.

You can sometimes get some good images through Google. Select images and enter your keyword. Then in advanced image search there are several dropdowns under the Usage rights you can select various options the greatest one being ‘labeled for commercial reuse with modification’. You still need to check the rights under ’some rights reserved’ which you’ll find under Additional Information on the right hand side. Commonly you need to attribute the source.

Still on graphics, there are some incredible font sites around which are also free. dafont.com is one of my favourites as is 1001freefonts.com but there are many more. Just search for free fonts in Google.

Continuing with graphics, you probably know that I’m a big fan and exponent of Gimp, the open source software answer to Photoshop. Naturally it’s free, being open source , it’s a completely different inetrface to Photoshop but one of it’s greatest pluses is you can open PSD’s in Gimp. Now it sometimes doesn’t always get all or the exact layer information in the PSD but I’ve never found that to be a problem and you can’t argue with the price!

The version of Gimp that you can download off the net is 2.6.x and I have to say that I don’t like it compared to 2.4. If you want to grab a copy of 2.4 you can get one from here learn-graphics.com which is another of my sites.

If you would like a quick start to using Gimp and some easy yet fancy techniques you can always grab my Gimp video course at Gimpvideos.com.

Tell you what, for the next few days you can use this coupon code and get them at half their normal price. Coupon code seblog. I don’t know how long I’ll leave that code up for, I’ll see how it goes. Oh, you can only use the code once, so if you back out you won’t be able to use it again.

I think I’ll call it a night at this point. I still have plenty more favourite things to share so keep a look out over the next few days.

So, forgive me if you know this already. It occurred to me that this might be a useful tip for you if you are selling things as an affiliate.

We’ve all heard, I’m sure, about link cloaking and software packages that are available to cloak links, truth is you don’t need them.

There are many ways of cloaking your links for free.

The first one, which I have used often is to enclose your affiliate link in a php file and place it on your website. Here’s the code you need

<?php $URL=”https://paydotcom.com/r/80713/scraggz/22695654/“;
header (“Location: $URL”);
exit();
?>

All you need do is paste your affiliate link between the ” “, save it with a recognisable name and upload it to your website.

My preferred method is to create a folder for whatever the offer is on my website, put the php file in there and rename it to index.php. Then I can advertise a link like this http://stancraigie.com/answer/

This hides your affiliate link in the first place but when someone clicks on it, it will show in the address bar of the site to which it takes them and 9 times out of 10 will reveal your affiliate link.

So if you want to hide it at that stage as well here’s a free method that I’ve been using for quite some time. Sign up at http://offto.net it’s totally free. There you can cloak your link for free. Not only that but it also tracks the clicks for you and by assigning a nickname you can create several versions of the link, each to track a different campaign. Something like this http://offto.net/scraggz_5164/

The only drawback I’ve found with this service is that you can’t use the links in Aweber or probably any email or email service as, thanks to some of the jugheads who decided this was a great way to spam people, the site is on several blacklists. Offto works at preventing this but as you can imagine it’s a huge task. So, I only use it in the php example or in the background on websites, purely for the tracking statistics that it offers.

Personally I don’t like the look of that link particularly, so I combine the two methods and put the offto link into a php file where the affiliate link goes. When they arrive at the merchants site they will see the offto link which just looks like one of those url shrinkers no hint of what the affiliate link is. A lot of people will still guess that it is an affiliate link though.

Now I could get started here on why people object to buying things through an affiliate link, it’s a weird bit of psychology and I could rant on about it for ages but I won’t. Unfortunately it’s a fact of life, well a fact of the internet that we have to hide the fact that we are an affiliate. With the FTC’s new rules we now have to declare the fact that we may possibly make some money out of it before people click on the link anyway. So they know we’re an affiliate which leaves me totally confused and wondering, sometimes, if it’s all worth it! Yes, it is!

So do we still need to hide the affiliate links? I believe so, for one they look better and more professional and people will still try and change the link to theirs and steal your commissions which is harder to do if they can’t see them.

I have yet another method which I think is really neat and for this one you don’t even need a website! I only found out about this one recently and it’s so good that you can appear to have as many websites as you want. I know of one person who appears to have 3,000 of them!

The site is cjb.net. On the initial screen just enter your affiliate link into the box and it will create a standard type shortened url like http://abk8o.cjb.net. Why you would want to use that when on the next screen it gives you the option to create a custom url like this http://bloghatter.cjb.net. The extra added bonus of this is when anyone clicks on that link, this is the address that appears in the address bar on the merchant’s site. It appears like it’s your site. Click it and see, it’s brilliant.

Although you don’t need a website for this you do need an email address but then who doesn’t have one of those and if you don’t, just go to Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail or any one of the hundreds of free email services out there.

Just imagine how many virtual sites you could have all linking to affiliate products.

So , to cloak your links there’s three easy free methods which work really well. I hope you’ve found these tips useful.

Feel free to comment on them or, even better, if you have some good ones of your own I’d love to hear about them.

Watch out for my next post in which I list some of my favourite tools.

I’ve meant on several occasions to get back here and post stuff. I have quite a few good things to post about but other stuff kept getting in the way. I’ll just have to make more of an effort.

Anyway, enough of that. I have finally made it here because this is pretty important and urgent. I’m not sure of the implications of this virus apart from the fact I know it screws up Wordpress blogs.

Earlier this week all of my domains on one server got hit by the virus which is attacking websites hosted on Linux servers. If you have Wordpress sites they will not load and you won’t be able to get into wp-admin, it just comes up with errors in a couple of php files.

It infects index*, default* and *.js files. If you look at one of your index files you will see the virus code at the bottom it starts with ‘<script>/*GNU GPL*/ try{window.onload = function(){var‘. It can
be removed manually but it’s a long  job especially in Wordpress as there are a lot of .js files.

Fortunately there is a removal script at   http://seoforums.org/site-optimization/

I can vouch for the script I ran it on 44 domains and it cleaned them in no time.

You’ve got to wonder where these pricks heads are at!

As we all know the single most important factor in getting your site ranked is backlinks. However, we also know there are backlinks and then there are backlinks. Some are worth a lot more than others!

That really translates to the higher the page rank of the site linking to your site then the more valuable that link is in Google’s eyes.

To get to the point, Chris Rempel ‘The Lazy Marketer’ has just brought out a piece of software that gives you the ability to locate those sites and place your links on them.

This is the most powerful – and simple – linking software and it’s just gone LIVE…

It’s phenomenal.

It lets you place your link on thousands of MAJOR authority sites, who would otherwise NEVER do so without this “exploit”…

Check it out here: The Authority Loophole

Oh – and I think you’ll like the price

Short post but that’s it, all the info you need is on the link page you’d be mad not to check this one out!

Oh yeah! I was talking about stolen commissions and affiliates in the first half of this post.

Do you like sneaky? I like sneaky! Not black hat or anything nasty, just sneaky.

I’m referring to the use of iframes to link to other peoples products. Using iframes totally hides where the link has come from. It does way more than just that though.

With an iframe you basically display the target site within your page this means that you can put your own page title with keywords of course. Talking of keywords you can also put your own keywords into the page and therefore go after your own ranking in the SERPs.

See why I say this is way more than just simple cloaking. There’s no way you could hope to rank for a normal cloaked link and with an iframe no one would even guess that it was an affiliate link.

I’m now going to contradict myself and tell you about another free service for cloaking your links! Why would I do that when I’ve just pointed you to a better way?

Well, this one has a couple of useful advantages that don’t relate to affiliate type links. It’s similar to the old tinyurl in that it shortens your links. It’s also reputed to help with backlinks, never a bad thing.

Where I use it mostly is in emails to my list and in Twitter posts. You need to keep things short in Twitter.

So what is it? It’s a new service from Jonathan Leger. How does he keep coming up with stuff? Offto.net is his latest brainchild. Here’s an example of a link http://offto.net/rufolx/  which just happens to take you to offto.net to find out more, all totally free!

Just drifting off subject for a minute with the mention of Twitter. I have been on Twitter for a while but I’m still not sure that I get it!

I’ve read a few books. listened to a few people so I guess I’ve covered it all but I still don’t quite get it. It seems a bit like a free for all. Like the traffic exchanges where you have to look at everyone else’s links and everyone else looks at your links and you hope  someone clicks on them.

Everyone’s putting links in Twitter with the same hope. Apart from a few people with big reputations and big lists already I don’t think it happens. Still, I suppose, you’ve got to be in it!

On the subject of getting ranked in the SERPs, it’s a well known fact that Wordpress blogs get ranked a lot easier than normal sites, Google likes ‘em.

It therefore makes sense to use Wordpress to create your sites instead of standard HTML. I’ve been doing this for a while with some good results but in keeping with not wanting to re-invent the wheel and tell you how I do it, last week I found a really handy little guide to doing just that. Caroline Middlebrook has produced this free guide and you can get it from her site at http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/.

While we’re on Wordpress I just found a salespage theme for it. It’s template driven and you can create a very professional looking salespage in minutes at $5 it’s cheap as chips.

Without ANY knowledge of HTML you can quickly get one of the 8 styles of the salesletter on your blog. The theme is done very professionally and has lots of nice, neat design elements. You can see it here: http://offto.net/09jiak

Well, this half of the post has gone on a bit as well! I’m sure I’ve given you lots to look at and be going on with. I’ve got a few more but I’ll leave those for next time.

If you have any useful tips or tools you found I’d be glad to hear about them so feel free to post a comment. It’ll get you a backlink and every little helps.

Story Number One

Many years ago, Al Capone virtually owned Chicago. Capone wasn’t famous for anything heroic. He was notorious for enmeshing the windy city in everything from bootlegged booze and prostitution to murder.

Capone had a lawyer nicknamed ‘Easy Eddie.’ He was Capone’s lawyer for a good reason. Eddie was very good! In fact, Eddie’s skill at legal manoeuvering kept Big Al out of jail for a long time.

To show his appreciation, Capone paid him very well. Not only was the money big, but also, Eddie got special dividends. For instance, he and his family occupied a fenced-in mansion with live-in help and all of the conveniences of the day. The estate was so large that it filled an entire Chicago City block.

Eddie lived the high life of the Chicago mob and gave little consideration to the atrocity that went on around him.

Eddie did have one soft spot, however.. He had a son that he loved dearly. Eddie saw to it that his young son had clothes, cars, and a good education. Nothing was withheld. Price was no object. And, despite his involvement with organized crime, Eddie even tried to teach him right from wrong.

Eddie wanted his son to be a better man than he was. Yet, with all his wealth and influence, there were two things he couldn’t give his son; he couldn’t pass on a good name or a good example. One day, Easy Eddie reached a difficult decision. Easy Eddie wanted to rectify wrongs he had done.

He decided he would go to the authorities and tell the truth about Al ‘Scarface’ Capone, clean up his tarnished name, and offer his son some semblance of integrity. To do this, he would have to testify against The Mob, and he knew that the cost would be great… So, he testified.

Within the year, Easy Eddie’s life ended in a blaze of gunfire on a lonely Chicago Street.
But in his eyes, he had given his son the greatest gift he had to offer, at the greatest price he could ever pay.

Police removed from his pockets a rosary, a crucifix, a religious medallion, and a poem clipped from a magazine.

The poem read:

‘The clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop
At late or early hour.
Now is the only time you own.
Live, love, toil with a will.
Place no faith in time.
For the clock may soon be still.’

Story Number Two

World War II produced many heroes. One such man was Lieutenant Commander Butch O’Hare.

He was a fighter pilot assigned to the aircraft carrier Lexington in the South Pacific.

One day his entire squadron was sent on a mission.

After he was airborne, he looked at his fuel gauge and realized that someone had forgotten to top off his fuel tank.

He would not have enough fuel to complete his mission and get back to his ship. His flight leader told him to return to the carrier.

Reluctantly, he dropped out of formation and headed back to the fleet. As he was returning to the mother ship he saw something that turned his blood cold: a squadron of Japanese aircraft was speeding its way toward the American fleet.

The American fighters were gone on a sortie, and the fleet was all but defenceless. He couldn’t reach his squadron and bring them back in time to save the fleet. Nor could he warn the fleet of the approaching danger.

There was only one thing to do. He must somehow divert them from the fleet. Laying aside all thoughts of personal safety, he dove into the formation of Japanese planes.

Wing-mounted 50 calibres blazed as he charged in, attacking one surprised enemy plane and then another.

Butch wove in and out of the now broken formation and fired at as many planes as possible until all his ammunition was finally spent. Undaunted, he continued the assault. He dove at the planes, trying to clip a wing or tail in hopes of damaging as many enemy planes as possible and rendering them unfit to fly.

Finally, the exasperated Japanese squadron took off in another direction. Deeply relieved, Butch O’Hare and his tattered fighter limped back to the carrier.

Upon arrival, he reported in and related the event surrounding his return. The film from the gun-camera mounted on his plane told the tale. It showed the extent of Butch’s daring attempt to protect his fleet.

He had, in fact, destroyed five enemy aircraft.

This took place on February 20, 1942. and for that action Butch became the Navy’s first Ace of W.W.II, and the first Naval Aviator to win the Congressional Medal of Honour.

A year later Butch was killed in aerial combat at the age of 29. His home town would not allow the memory of this WW II hero to fade, and today, O’Hare Airport in Chicago is named in tribute to the courage of this great man.

So What Do These Two Stories Have To Do With Each Other?

Butch O’Hare was ‘Easy Eddie’s’ son.

(Pretty cool, huh?)