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.

Non profit and social sites will get traffic by their very nature. The sites are there to fulfill a demand as people are already interested in what they are about. If you have a business site unless you are a branded corporation no one will know it’s there. So, assuming there is a demand for what your site offers you need to let people know it’s there. You can pay for traffic or work at getting it for free. There are heaps of sources for free traffic.

There are, of course, all the evergreen methods for free traffic. Article marketing, link building (exchanges etc.), Ezines and Newsletters, Forum marketing, SEO, Press releases. All these methods are still valid, article marketing particularly so but the world of Web 2.0 is taking over.

So what is Web2.0? Lots of people have different ideas on what constitutes Web 2.0 but here’s a quote from webtrends.about.com which I reckon comes pretty close.

Web 2.0 is the move toward a more social, collaborative, interactive and responsive web. It is a change in the philosophy of web companies and web developers, but more than that, Web 2.0 is a change in the philosophy of society as a whole.

Probably the beginning of web 2.0 type sites has to be traced back to blogs. In the beginning they were pretty much diaries or soapboxes where people would write about the life, happenings, hobbies or rant about politics and things that concerned them.

Now they cover every subject imaginable, like this one! A few years ago the other type of web 2.0 sites appeared, the social sites. Facebook, Myspace etc. Then Squidoo, Hubpages, blogger and many, many more.

So now we have an idea of Web 2.0 how do we use it? There are reams of books on using these Web 2.0 sites but the basic premise is to be sociable. Join these sites put up your own pages on the subject of the market you are in, provide quality content and interact with other people with the same interests.

It’s necessary to establish credibility before you can start marketing to these groups and even then it should be done in a helpful way rather than an in your face fashion. Direct people to sites, like your blog, that also have information relevant to the subject and of course affiliate links or links to your products.

The idea is to lead people rather than push them.

The one thing about all these sites is that they are free to join and participate and, therefore, so is the traffic that originates from them.

As I said there are reams of books on Web 2.0 and Social site marketing, if you would like a quick, free, informative 5 part e-course on Web 2.0 traffic you can access one at http://web20traffictricks.com. There is also a free report ‘Social Networking Exposed’ which gives a concise but detailed, no fluff, how to get started with the social sites.

As always I am very interested to learn your thoughts on the information I provide so please feel free to leave your comments.

OK, it wasn’t a huge list to start with but never the less you’ve got to be happy with that. I am!

So how did it happen, bearing in mind that it didn’t cost me a cent?

No big secret really, it was a giveaway. I signed up, contributed a gift and the optins followed.

At the moment there are a ton of giveaways on the go. Ordinarily you’d think that they’d be full of the same old stuff. It’s true that some of the same products pop up in all of them, mine will.

I’m going to make the most of this while I can because as everyone knows if you want to really make it on the internet, business wise, you need a list! Although everyone kept saying that, it took a long time for it sink in with me but the last couple of months have proved it’s true beyond any doubt. You need a list!

It goes a little further than that though, in that having a list is how you reach the people you are trying to help.

This is really the subject for another post but briefly your list is the group of people you are trying to help, not just bleed money out of. You make money when you help others with what they want or need. No deep philosophy there, it’s just the way the World works.

So back to the giveaways. As I said there are a lot on the go and I really recommend you get into them. I’ve listed a few that I have checked out and they have a good variety of good products on offer. There’s software, ebooks, templates, graphics, videos….all sorts of stuff.

I want you to be able to take part as a contributor. For that you need a product. It doesn’t have to be your own, anything that you have giveaway rights for can be used.

It’s better if you have your own for obvious reasons. You won’t be competing with someone else with the same product. It’s not hard to do that, rework a PLR product it’s really not that hard and shouldn’t take that long. Open Office is free and you can open word documents in it and output them as PDF’s.

Turn a PLR PDF into a slide show, make the slide show into a video and give that away. It will definitely be yours and unique. Again Open Office has a Powerpoint type app that creates slideshows. You can get a free copy of Camtasia 3 here. It’s not the latest version but it works fine. In fact it’s the version I’m still using.

Anyway, here are the giveaways:

Back To Basics Giveaway

I really like this one. It’s being run by Scott Case and Scott has stipulated that all products for the giveaway have to be less than six months old. So no chance of it being full of old rehashed stuff. Last I heard there were over 200 products. It starts on the 6th April.

100% Giveaway

Another great givaway. This one runs until 20th April. The link above will take you to the contributors signup if you just want to join to get free stuff go here.

Easter Giveaway

Some really good packages in here too. This is open until the 21st April. Again if you want to sign up as a contributor use the link above, otherwise you can just join here.

I’ll leave it at those for now. Try and join as a contributor, with a unique product if you can. It really is a great way to increase your subscribers.

Hence the long collection title of this post.

 First thing. I just posted a new video to the member’s area at http://gimpvideos.com. It’s not an epic just a quick guide to where the disappearing menus from the toolbox in Gimp 2.6 went. Now when you move up to 2.6 you should be able find everything.

Next – Brad Callen (of Keyword Elite), is offering at *NO-COST* one of the most powerful pieces of software imaginable to find out what “keywords” Adwords users are bidding on. (I explain why further down)

You can do the following with this free tool:

1. You’ll be able to quickly and easily uncover any Google Adwords advertiser’s keywords in only a few seconds

2. You’ll be able to see critical Adwords data relating to each keyword:

- The actual Adwords ads your competitors have written for each keyword

- The Cost Per Click

- Your competitor’s Adwords rank

- The total daily amount your competition is spending on Google Adwords

3. You can use PPC Web Spy to generate your own huge list of keywords based upon any of the individual keywords your competition is using.

4. You can also generate a giant, targeted keyword list by inputting your competitor’s domain name, allowing you to build an even larger, more targeted keyword list!

5. You’ll be able to immediately see which Adwords advertisers are people promoting products from CB, PDC, and Amazon.com.

6. You’ll even be able to see the landing pages.

7. This all happens seamlessly while you are in Google search!

http://learn-graphics.net/PPCWebSpy

Why is this no-cost?

I’ll tell you the reason Brad did this.  He has the most amazing *viral* upgrade I think I’ve ever seen.

Apparently, those that upgrade for only $47, will always have THEIR AFFILIATE LINKS for Amazon, Clickbank, and PayDotCom products pop up at the top of Google Search. This happens whenever the person who downloaded the software from you does a search for ANYTHING.

(Bottom line, if the person you give the free software to (or someone else in the downline) buys a Clickbank, Amazon, or Paydotcom product, you may very likely get the sale.. leaving you with huge passive income potential)

I can also confirm that this does work on a Mac – OSX 10.4.11 + Firefox 3.0.5

I bought the $47 upgrade on the spot.. BUT the free tool is worth $97 or more in itself!

Watch the video explainers (both for the free product and for the viral upgrade)

http://learn-graphics.net/PPCWebSpy

Thirdly, if you really can’t be bothered mastering graphics software to create your own graphics but still want to or need to, there is an easier FREE option.

It’s Instant Banner Creator. You can create banners, buttons, headers, footers, animated GIF’s and Peel away ad graphics. There are some OTO’s, the last one is pretty good value and gives you access to a lot more. The free version is adequate for most circumstances and you can upload your own designs ie. free graphics that most of us seem to accumulate, to add effects to, so it’s quite flexible.

You can grab a copy here http://banner.freeinfo-site.com

Finally I’ve put together a free ebook showing how to create a curved ebook cover using Gimp. Which, as you must all know is the free graphics software that rivals Photoshop. It’s not like the action scripts in Photoshop you have to actually do it but once you have your design in place it only takes about 10 minutes to turn it into a great looking curved cover with reflections and shadow. Yep, I show you how to do that too.

If you think about it there are techniques there that you can apply to all sorts of graphics projects as well. So feel free to grab the book, sign up at the link below for your free copy and you will be amazed and more than a little bit pleased with yourself when you see what you can produce.

http://gimpvideos.com/sub.html

Well, that’s all for this time. My New Year resolution is to try and be more regular with this blog and bring you more good stuff for 2009. Please don’t grade me on it but I will do my best.

Here’s wishing that 2009 is as good a year for you and yours as I wish it is going to be for me and mine.

By default all the ‘Utility’ windows, what was the Toolbox, layers and Brushes,Patterns etc dialogues, are on top by default. So any image window that is larger than the gap between them is behind these dialogues ergo you don’t see all of your image. I really hate that!

You can fix it though. Go into Edit->Preferences and then Window Management. In the ‘Hint for the toolbox:’ and ‘Hint for other docks:’ drop downs select ‘Keep Above’ and then OK.

You’ll be told you need to restart Gimp for the changes to take effect and once you do your image window will be the one on top when it’s active.

Now that, I like.

The Toolbox menu has gone and with it the Xtns menu! It took me a little while but I’ve found the inhabitants of the X’d Xtns menu and File menu.

‘Buttons’, ‘Logos’, ‘Patterns’ and ‘Web page themes’ live under ‘Create’ in the File menu in the empty image window that opens on startup. Also in there are what used to exist under the Toolbox File menu ‘Acquire’ entry, namely  ’Paste as New’ now ‘From Clipboard’, ‘Scanner/Camera’ and ‘Screen Shot’.

Other entries from the Toolbox menus have been scattered around. Sticking with the File menu ‘Preferences’, ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ and ‘Units’ are now in the Edit menu of the afore mentioned empty image window. Also in here is the Xtns menu ‘Module Manager’ now just called ‘Modules’.

‘Script Fu’ from the Xtns menu now resides at the bottom of the Filters menu. The last two items from the Xtns menu ‘Plug-in Browser’ and ‘Procedure Browser’ have eloped to the Help menu.

The Dialogs menu that used to exist on image windows has been replaced by the Windows menu and has an added ‘Recently Closed Docks’ entry which is basically a Dialog history.

One major addition to this version is GEGL the Generic Graphical Library which is a programming library under development for image processing applications. It is mainly developed to bring support for images with more than 8 bits per color channel to GIMP. It has been partially implemented in GIMP 2.6.

You can check out the release notes for 2.6 here.

A lot of the changes in 2.6 are in the engine room with the only obvious ones being the change to the user interface, brought about, apparently, by many users complaints.

Personally, I can’t imagine what complaints could have led to this change in the layout. The only obvious advantage is that in Windows it now only takes up one slot on the taskbar and clicking on it will restore all windows and dialogs whereas before you needed to do them individually and Gimp could fill the taskbar all on it’s own.

When I first looked at this latest version I have to admit to having a minor panic attack when I saw the Toolbox menus gone! Checking the release notes confirmed my worst fears, it had been taken away. What I found to be disappointing was that no one had taken the trouble to tell us poor schmucks where all the contents had gone to!

I did quite a bit of searching around forums, user groups etc to see what the story was, nothing! Admittedly it didn’t take too long to find them all again in the new version but to my way of thinking if you are going to change something like that it’s just good user support to document it. Isn’t that a sign of the times? Don’t get me started on that one, a topic for a grump session!

As yet, I believe the latest version of Help is the 2.4 version so you won’t find it in there.

I haven’t yet used this version enough to be able to comment on the other improvements so I’ll have to leave that for another day. One thing I did do though, was to install this version in a seperate location so that I retained my familiar version 2.4(security blanket). I suggest you do the same, at least initially. All your shortcuts, Start menu etc will be overwritten with the new one, just means you have to make a shortcut to the previous version.

Well, that’s my take on it so far. I would be really interested to hear what your thoughts are on it and also your thoughts on my thoughts so, please, feel free to leave a comment.

Wrong! The quality, availability and range of free open source software for windows is excellent and rivals, if not betters some commercial software.

So what kind of software is available?

Just about anything you can think of. I don’t intend to list all that’s available because it would take pages and you can easily do a standard search in your browser but be prepared for a long list to go through.

A good place to start for Windows is www.opensourcewindows.org. This site doesn’t list everything rather it lists the most popular.

So let’s have a look at some of those.

One of the most popular is Open Office. Which is a big, full featured suite of tools for word processing and spreadsheets. Compatible with and a free replacement for Microsoft Word documents. It also supports the OpenDocument Format and has something that other office suites don’t have, the ability to turn your documents into PDF format.

Best of all, OpenOffice can be downloaded and used entirely free of any licence fees. OpenOffice is released under the LGPL licence. This means you may use it for any purpose – domestic, commercial, educational, public administration. You may instal it on as many computers as you like. You may make copies and give them away to family, friends, students, employees – anyone you like.

OK, we’ve roughly saved $500. Let’s see what else is available.

There are browsers, email clients, FTP clients, media players and so on and on and on.

One of my favourites and one that I use a lot is Gimp. Full name, GNU Image Manipulation Program. It’s a lot more than a mere manipulation program however. Gimp, in fact rivals Photoshop and it’s uses extend to graphics creation, photo enhancement, special effects, drawing, the list goes on covering just about any graphics operation you can think of.

One big plus with Gimp is the ability to open Photoshop PSD files along with it’s layer information enabling you to edit them quite freely.

I first came across Gimp on the odd occasions that I happened on a Linux system and assumed it was just the Linux version of Windows Paint accessory. Boy, was I wrong!

Whilst it will be fairly easy to start using the Open Office suite Gimp presents a whole new learning curve. It is after all a fairly specialist program. Fortunately the internet is full of tutorials of varying degrees and quality covering the different aspects of using Gimp.

Unfortunately because there are so many it can take hours if not days sorting out the wheat from the chaff and really getting what you need to know to get started.

Being a frequent user of Gimp I have put together a series of 12 video tutorials on getting started with Gimp. You can find them here.

Whilst some of these are aimed at creating a salespage the majority cover the basics of working with Gimp to get you off to a flying start. As well as basic techniques there are advanced techniques covered, such as creating reflections and shadows.

We’ve now just saved ourselves a minimum $700.

Whilst there are many more open source free applications out there to be reviewed I will have to finish here and cover more of them in other posts, so keep an eye out for those.

It really is worth investigating the open source software available. apart from really specialised programs you can almost certainly find  all the software you will ever need for free.

God bless those programmers who give of their time and talent to create these excellent free applications.

Join a few lists, as we all must do and you inevitably get bombarded with lotsa emails.

Some of the people who were complaining about the scourge of email are now guilty of, as are others, of making the situation worse.

You may now receive an email referring you to their latest blog post which is at least a 500 word article, about 5 emails, or worse, referred to a video which is usually 15 to 18 minutes long!

Some blog posts are worth the reading and provide useful information, such as this one from Frank Haywood but you need to know the author or you could waste a few emails worth of time.

It woudn’t be so bad if the videos actually provided valuable content, which they all claim to do but very few deliver. They’re usually filled with 17 minutes of waffle, fluff and BS to get to the sales message at the end.

A sales message which could have been delivered in the email in about half a dozen lines without all the crap.

Video, in particular has been touted as the latest and greatest and it is when it’s used to impart real information, like tutorials, a quick product demonstration on a sales page or even a short, to the point sales video.

As you probably know I produce videos myself but I like to think they provide useful, valuable content on how to get up to speed with Gimp.

Just in case there is the slimmest chance that those responsible for these time wasting productions might see this, hey guys, you’re ruining video and annoying your lists, well, some of us anyway!

9 times out of 10 now, if I’m told there’s a video to watch I delete the email. They have to do a pretty good job in the email to get me to look at it.

Because of that I’ve missed out in the last couple of weeks of the opportunity to throw $1497, $1997 and $1997 at the latest big boys offerings! Tut tut, boo hoo!

They’ll say that’s my loss, is it? I wonder how many copies of that stuff will actually work for the buyers who get it? It would be interesting if it was at all possible to find out.

Anyway, got that off my chest, grumpy old bugger signing off!

So, to get back to where I should be the Graphics Videos site is all set up now with the affiliate program in place. The affiliates page at the site will give you all the information you need to start promoting the videos.

Gimp really should be promoted strongly and I intend to do just that. It is a fantastic program for the price! OK, it can’t do absolutely everything that Photoshop can do but it comes pretty bloody close. AND at the price is a million times better value!

Don’t get me wrong I’m not anti Photoshop, I use it and I really like it but when you’re starting out or on a tight budget Gimp is a lifesaver. {I still probably use Gimp more though!}

The only problem with it and Photoshop, as with all comprehensive software, is that they have a steep learning curve. That was the inspiration for my Gimp videos, a quick kick start to find your way around and start doing meaningful stuff with it.

Sure, there are lots of Gimp tutorials on the net and tons of them are excellent. It can take time to find the ones you need though and a lot of them are written and not video. Video just makes it so much easier to see what’s going on and to follow.

That’s why I created the set that I did, they really get you going with Gimp fast. They only scrape the surface though as Gimp’s capabilities are huge. For that reason I will be releasing more sets in the near future covering more advanced aspects of Gimp.

It’s amazing how many people have never heard of Gimp. I was at my dentist the other day he’s a  keen computer buff but he’d never heard of it! I believe that Gimp is still one of the best kept secrets of computing and as such there must be an untapped audience out there.

So, if you’d like to spread the word and promote the videos for 50% commission head over to the Graphics Videos affiliate’s page and sign up, we can both make some money and raise the profile of Gimp.

The Graphics Videos at gimpvideos.com are now at their normal price of $27. This still represents great value at only $2.25 per video.

I know from comments I’ve received and read on various forums that a lot of people get Gimp, it’s free after all but then struggle to get started with it.

That was the reason behind these videos. There are a lot of excellent free tutorials on the net for Gimp but it takes time to search them out and a lot are written which isn’t always as easy to follow as being shown.

The set of 12 will get you off to a flying start with Gimp. First off, where everything is and then into a lot of the really nice effects that you can produce with it. Reflections and shadows amongst others.

They don’t and can’t show you everything. The range of Gimp’s capabilities is huge and will be cause for more videos in the future. What the videos will do is take you from beginner/novice to a skilled graphics creator/manipulator in a short space of time.

Anyone interested in becoming an affiliate, I will be launching an affiliate program shortly I just need to get it all set up. In the meantime if you wanted to promote the videos get whoever you introduce to put your details, preferably paypal email, in the additional comments box when they sign up and I’ll pay 50% commission.

Not the best way to run affiliates I know but I also know that some of you were quite keen to promote these videos and I always like to help people out. And it’s good for me too!

I’m also toying with the idea of a resell rights package so stay tuned.

I have seriously neglected it. I do have an excuse, naturally. A couple of weeks ago I appear to have trapped or as the doctors put it compromised a nerve in my right shoulder.

I got this wild picture in my mind of the nerve being caught on camera by a private detective in a compromising position with my shoulder blade! Anyway, whatever it is, it bloody hurts! So, I’ve been restricted in what I can do in total let alone on the computer. I am becoming quite good at left hand mousing though! One hand typing ain’t so good.

One quick announcement. I’m taking the Graphics Videos nickel sale down at 3pm GMT on Sunday 29th June at which time it will revert to it’s normal price of $27. So, four more days to grab a bargain. You can still get this great set of how to get started in graphics videos for under $10 at the time of writing.

I think it will be a while before I get back to regular posts. As I have to wait almost four weeks to see a specialist I’ve decided to give a chiropractor a go. Now opinion on chiropracty sees to be heatedly divided so I would be really interested to hear people’s opinions/experiences on the subject.

So, please if you have an opinion/experience post it here. Thanks.

http://forums.theplanet.com/index.php?showtopic=90185&st=0

Considering the extent of the damage they have done a remarkable job to get it back up and running.

So, gimpvideos.com is back and running, all up to date.

The nickel sale is still on, still with the opportunity to grab a set of how to graphics videos at a bargain price. Still under $10 at the moment.

Nothing else to read here so go have a look…………go on.  Graphics Videos

In mitigation it was quite hectic with a few last minute things to set up but that’s really no excuse. And I only just realised it when I did that previous post about the outage at the datacentre. So, I can’t even say rush over to gimpvideos.com and check it out because, chances are, at the moment you won’t be able to get on to it!

But, I will say this, keep trying because it will come back and, even if I say so myself, it’s well worth looking at!

You can get a set of how to videos for Gimp that show you some amazing things for a bargain price, less than $10 at the moment. Here’s a list of the video titles.

1. Installation & Guided Tour
2. Xtns Menu Features
3. Using Text Part 1
4. Using Text Part 2
5. Removing an Image Object From A Photograph
6. Creating a Sales Page Header
7. Creating a Software Box/eBook Cover With Reflections & Shadow.
8. More Reflection Techniques.
9. Selections Part 1
10. Selections Part 2
11. Creating Sales Page Objects.
12. Putting it All Together – Creating The Sales Page

So, just keep trying.

Unfortunately I don’t have any details of the extent of the outage but it must be pretty serious as most datacentres are never out for long.

My apologies for this but please stick with it. As they say normal service will be resumed as soon as possible and thanks for your patience, assuming you have any left that is!

Don’t you hate that when you’re in a phone queue and they say, “We appreciate your patience”!!!. If they only knew and I suspect they do, it’s the one thing guaranteed to shorten your patience.

Anyway, hopefully it won’t be too much longer.

It’s been decided that there’ll be a pre-launch in the form of a Nickel sale.

If you’re not familiar with a Nickel sale the price starts off low and increases by 5 cents for every sale. It’s therefore important to get in early.

The videos are 12 in all and cover

1. Installation & Guided Tour
2. Xtns Menu Features
3. Using Text Part 1
4. Using Text Part 2
5. Removing an Image Object From A Photograph
6. Creating a Sales Page Header
7. Creating a Software Box/eBook Cover With Reflections & Shadow.
8. More Reflection Techniques.
9. Selections Part 1
10. Selections Part 2
11. Creating Sales Page Objects.
12. Putting it All Together – Creating The Sales Page

If you would like to see an excerpt and sign up for early warning of the start of the Nickel sale go to the Graphics Videos site right now! It will take place sometime in the next few days.

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of mis-information that people who regard themselves as experts, spread around the net and forums. It’s no wonder that anyone who is trying to get into internet marketing gets confused and unfortunately put off.

Maybe that’s the aim, cynical comment warning! These mis-informants are making a bit of money and don’t want any fresh competition! They can’t handle the truth competition. Fact is the net’s so big there’s room for everyone.

Anyway back to Adsense. Of course it still makes sense. I’ve been making a steady income from Adsense for almost a year. Not enough to retire on yet, but steady.

With all the talk of how Google is the enemy and the slaps etc. you really need to put this all into perspective. Why do Google run Adsense, no brainer really, to MAKE MONEY!

So why would they want to stop you from making money? Answer is they don’t. If you don’t make money then neither do they!

Google has a responsibilty, mostly to itself, to ensure that anything promoted by them is ethical and in line with guidelines and obviously they are going to stop anyone trying to cheat the system.

Play by the rules and you can make money, lots of money.

One guy who has and does is Michael Cheney and I have a free report from Michael that you can get right here, right now, Adsense4U. No signup required. Unless you want to of course and you can do that in the sidebar to the right. Your choice.

Michael is the master at Adsense and you can’t do better than to follow what he does.

Here’s a hint, if you decide to look at the videos, look more than once! Say na more! nudge, nudge! wink, wink!

Well here’s the wake up! If you seriously want to build an internet business you are going to have to invest something. That includes, time, effort and I’m afraid money.

Now that’s not entirely true.

Confusing ain’t it?

Sure is. It all depends on how you want to approach it.

I initially told you that you could do it for free with Bum Marketing and Article Marketing and you can. But, Travis himself talks about sending visitors to a landing page for those article directories that won’t let you put in affiliate links.

If you are going to have landing pages you need web hosting, domain name(s), pages built or at least domain name forwarding.

If you are going to produce your own products from Private Label Right products you will need a source of those, usually a PLR membership site.

If you are going to get really serious you will need an auto-responder to service your list. Having a list is crucial to making an income on the net.

I could go on but this post would get very long.

For a long time I refused to accept that I had to commit to ongoing expenses but then realised what I was spending on each next best thing!

A few months ago I was introduced to a membership site which offers all of the above and more for less than $50 a month. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever found. Previously I had been spending way more than that a month buying things which are included in the membership at My Marketing Goldmine.

Here’s a list of some of the benefits.

Super Fast Premium Web Hosting
Fully Hosted Access To JVManager2* (Fantasos)*
Unlimited Professional Autoresponders
Unlimited Professional Ad Tracking
Your Own Fully Customizable Website
Your Own Fully Customizable Weekly Newsletter
The “You Can! Make A Living Online” Training Program
Access To “Ultimate List Building” Package
Access To Gigantic Resale Rights Library
Ready to Use “Plug-In” Scripts and Marketing Tools
Access To Huge Private Label Library
Access To Rapidly-Expanding Niche Library
Access To Private Label Articles Vault
Access To Website Template Library
Access To Step-By-Step Training Center
Access To Affiliate Training Center
MyMarketingGoldmine Member Only Forum
Access To Legendary Support Network
MyMarketingGoldmine Affiliate Program

The amount of stuff in there is mind boggling, truly. It really is The One Stop Shop for marketing on the Internet. There’s a link to their site in the sidebar. They sometimes offer a behind the scenes tour for seven days so you can check it out without any obligation. In any event they offer the usual money back guarantee for the life of the membership. It will not only save you $100’s, maybe $1000’s it will also save you time and effort.

To be successful at anything, motor sport, business or a career you have to apply the same principles. Learn everything you can, pay attention to detail, prepare, execute and never give up.

One other phrase comes to mind also.

If you always do what you’ve always done then you’ll always get what you’ve always got!

In other words, if you want to change your life then you’ve got to change something! You have to take a chance, stick your neck out, take a risk! It doesn’t have to be a big risk but probably involves getting outside your comfort zone.

It can be as abstract as just risking your reputation or self esteem when your friends and family find out you’re trying to build an internet business!

Stay focussed, ignore the negative. Success is getting up one more time than you fall flat on your face. Every failure is one step closer to succeeding. Think about the guy who gave up at 6up!!

You will get negativity and it’s usually from people who are too afraid to try anything themselves. Plus, there’ll be resentment that you are trying to improve yourself and your life when they are content to plod along with the everyday. Ignore them!

My progress you ask. Slow but steady. My series of tutorial graphic videos are coming along and I will probably post an excerpt here next time. Thanks for asking!

Oh, by the way, the race meeting went OK. I didn’t shatter any records but I scored some points and the car and I made it home in once piece, which is always a bonus.

 Here are the links for the Free graphic programs.

Gimp: http://www.gimp.org

Paint.NET http://www.getpaint.net/download.html

Another free program that I use quite a lot for quick basic operations such as resizing, cropping etc is irfanview. It has a nice neat interface and is ideal for quickly fitting images into webpages etc. It’s capable of lots more and is really easy to use. I will cover it in one of the videos as well.

Irfanview http://www.irfanview.com/

Sorry but that’s all for now. I just wanted to get the links up as I promised.  I will be back again before too long this time.

Now you can knock out Times New Roman in seconds and that’s only the beginning of the fantastic things that PC’s are capable of when it comes to graphics. Having done a commercial art course has some advantages but when it comes to PC graphics it’s a whole new learning curve. Which is why I decided after months of struggling myself that a series of how to videos for computer graphics might be useful to others trying to get started.

You may think that getting good graphics software is expensive, if you want Photoshop, it is! What if I told you that there were two really top notch graphics programs that are FREE. I still find it amazing that this software is available to anyone who wants it, for nix, nather, zilch!

Now there are some really talented people on the net who already knew that and just went ‘duh! I knew that!’ Well a lot of other people didn’t, me included ’til a short while ago and it’s those people that I’m trying to enlighten. So if you’re a graphics genius, guru, expert this may not help you…….then again, you never know. Like everything else on PC’s, the net and life, there’s always something to learn 

Anyway ‘nuf of that, GIMP and Paint.NET are the two and between them there isn’t much you can’t do in computer graphics.

I’m still working on the videos, I keep jotting thoughts in here to keep me going. It’s a sort of ongoing to do list. If I’ve put it in here then I’ve made the commitment to see it through. Trust me I need that. There’s too many distractions, other things I could easily do or not do.

It won’t be too long now and shortly I’ll tell you where you can find them, though I’m sure most of you could easily Google it for yourselves. I intend to start off with installing and setting them up, though most of it is pretty basic Windows stuff apart from a couple of little extras. The intention behind that is to make it a complete series from the beginning onwards. I’ll be back in a couple of days or so.