If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve beavered and bustled, torn out not a little hair and become even more of a grumpy old woman than usual - but I have completed (more or less) the theme and the site using FirePow, and an HTML template version of the theme that I developed for the products that are being promoted.  It has certainly been an experience.  Just for good measure I also decided to use PopShops to generate the product pages that I wanted for the second part of the site.

Halloween Funny Stuff has finally opened it’s doors to visitors.  Is it perfect?  Not by a long chalk and I suspect I will be tweaking and twittering with it for a while, but does it do the job – yes, I think so.  My good friend Ron Rink tells me he likes it because it is clear and easy to read.  That pleased me enormously, being somewhat visually challenged myself so I have achieved one of my aims.  Other friends and colleagues have spoken kind words about the graphics, which really is a turn up for the book as it is a well known fact that graphics and I have a love hate relationship – I love to hate them!  Why something which should be so simple causes me such grief, I don’t know – but it does.

Using PopShops to generate the product pages for the second half of the site was a pleasant experience.  It was simplicity itself.  The only thing I would say is that if you are going to use the autogenerate for later product pages from the datafeeds, do make sure you pick your ‘front page’ products with extreme care or you can end up with a few ‘sillinesses’ as my friend Philoscribe would say.  You do also have to keep checking on the product status – but that is the way of the world for anyone involved in affiliate marketing

The job now is to develop the site and this is where we shall see how FirePow operates, certainly in terms of setting up the site, it worked well and there are plenty of training videos to help out with both basics and more advanced options.  In the meantime, I’d be interested in your comments.

I’ve spent the last couple of days grappling with a whole new set of skills.  I build websites, it’s what I do and how I make a living.  Anything I can do to make it easier, provided it’s ethically acceptable, is of benefit.  As I have said before I will spend money to save time so I thought I would try out FirePow as a blog/site management system.  Then comes the fun bit…  I wanted to build a site using wordpress but for the life of me I couldn’t find a theme that would work, so as there is a theme generator within FirePow I thought I would give it a try.

Was that ever a learning experience!  It’s still not quite finished so I shall wait to reveal the url for a few days - however I have to say that the Theme Generator was very easy to use - almost too easy, in fact and I did have to do a fair amount of tweaking after the event.  As a rule I would say you need to do far more thinking than I did before you start.  It would also help to watch the training video before you start rather than half way through as I did.  Make sure you have your colour scheme planned, and you have your images ready, but that aside it wasn’t as fearful a task as I thought.

As for FirePow itself -  early days yet and I don’t feel I can do a full review yet, however thus far I am impressed.  It has certainly lived up to all the promises as far as I have got, but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating as they say.  Watch this space!

My poor old blog has been sadly neglected of late… no excuses only pressure of work and this always seems to come bottom of the list.  Time for that to stop!

Just as an FYI, one of the things I have been busy with is setting up a website for my dearly beloved’s  woodturning business/hobby.  You can have a look at Lacemaking Bobbins  - I have to admit to encouraging him greatly in this for two reasons, first it gives him an understanding of just exactly what it is I do when I disappear for hours into the office - websites don’t grow on trees and they need careful nurturing.  The other reason is far more selfish - if he gets busy in the Workshop, I might get some new bobbins too…

Everyone tells me that video is the big thing, you have to do video. It fills me with fear - for a number of reasons.

It’s a technology I know absolutely nothing about - and my brain aches when I have to learn something new… but more important is that I don’t like having my photo taken let alone being ‘live’ on your screen. It’s a woman thing - I need a make up artist complete makeover team amongst other things. I hate the sound of my own voice - I’m sure I don’t sound like that - do I? My elocution teachers would have a giddy fit! That is only scratching the surface.

But the woman thing comes into play again - I’m damned if I will let something like that beat me. It’s only a b***** machine after all. Vanity - I don’t do vanity (that could be one of those - who am I kidding moments) so I don’t need the makeover crew. So I will make a video. I will introduce myself to the world and at long last flaminglacer is revealed, courtesy of my seesmic profile - enjoy!

I have to confess that generally speaking I am not a lover of membership sites.  They are excellent for those who set them up and can be a real earner but they are often not so good for the member who forks out a monthly fee for something which is less than satisfactory.  I would far rather buy what I want for an upfront fee where I know what I am getting and the transaction is completed in one fell swoop.  However, there is always an exception that proves the rule and this online world of ours is no different to any other.

Last year I took part in the Thirty Day Challenge, an excellent, superb, fantastic (get the picture) month of training and education put together by Ed Dale and Dan Raine – who rank pretty high on my list of good guys.  Most people know about the TDC, as it is fondly known, but for those who don’t, it was/is a crash course in how to make your first $10 online without spending a dime – and that included the training, which also cost nothing.  There were opportunities to spend money, but you were strongly discouraged from doing so.

Ed and Dan do have a membership site – and it’s not for peanuts, but at no time was anyone inveigled into membership.  It was there, but no fuss was made and no pressure applied.  Come the end of the month (and yes, I did make my $10, though it wasn’t my first) I decided I would give The Immediate Edge a try with the firm promise to myself that I would pay for one month, have a look round, get what I could and if I didn’t think much, I would end it there.  If I was impressed – which is not easy, I would give it three months and if it hadn’t paid for itself – I would quit.  Those who know me well will tell you that when I make promises like that to myself  – I keep them.

Ten months down the line I am still paying my monthly fee – and not regretting one penny of it.  In fact, I’d pay more.  The quality of information and education that is made available to the members is excellent.  One tool alone, which deals with the business of Social Bookmarking, is worth the fee, time is the most valuable commodity in my world and I willing pay a great deal to help me make best use of it.

Without doubt though, the most valuable thing is the education gained by the projects that are developed – it’s like riding the crest of a wave, you’re not quite sure how you are going to get to the beach but you soon find out and it’s an exciting ride!  It’s well named as The Immediate Edge because that’s right where you - are the cutting edge of online business.  You can actually try it out for as little as $1 now - a worthwhile investment.

The Thirty Day Challenge is kicking off again, in fact we are in pre-season now, and for anyone who wants to make money online, you should do it.  There’s no charge and you will benefit in more ways than you might imagine.  It runs through the month of  August.

I need to do one more thing here, so please bear with me on this.  I need to say a huge ‘Thank You’.  Part of last year’s challenge required that we form teams, I joined one that started out as Team Thousand Chances.  TDC 2007 has been and gone, but our team has stayed together, we have become The Marketing Mavens, we have grown and we work together still.  More than that though, I have made some friends, true friends, who will stay with me for the rest of my life and for that – more than anything, I will always be grateful to Ed and Dan.  My big ‘Thank You’ is not for the training, or the money I have made but for something far more important – friends.  Thank You, Ed Dale. Thank You, Dan Raine. You are two of the good guys.