Thursday, September 29, 2011

They're Coming to Get You, Barbara

Good Thursday to you. Hope all is well on your side of the
screen. Having just returned from a three-day family retreat with
my kids at New Life Ranch where the kids decompressed on the
ropes course, zip line, and rifle range, I am now trying to get
my head back in the right place, focused on some new projects.

Of course, there are always lots of distractions. I'm not a huge
TV kinda guy, but with the new season of shows, I am psyched for
Harry's Law, The Ultimate Fighter and The Walking Dead. I know,
weird combination of shows. The Walking Dead is something I am
particularly excited about because this season includes episodes
written by my favorite horror author, Stephen King.

George Romero, who started the whole zombie-brain eating niche
back in the 60's with "Night of the Living Dead", said that his
series of movies was actually a dark statement about our society
and that we are all zombies in our own way.

Hmmm. Me a zombie? Yowza.

But if you think about it: we get up, we go to work, we come
home, and rinse-repeat, day after day. Kinda like zombies. Yeah.
I'm a zombie. Guilty as charged, your honor.

And some of us act as if we're brain dead. Can't remember what
city we're in as we're traveling trying to make a buck. And most
of us can't even get moving in the morning without our magic
elixir available at your local Starbucks.

Day after day, we try to make a buck doing the same thing, and
get the same crappy results.

So, maybe Uncle George is right. Maybe we are more like zombies
than we are the people trying to escape or kill them. Maybe our
worst nightmare is true. We have become the monsters that can't
be killed.

Surely, this isn't the way it was meant to be.

Surely, there is more to this zombie existence, right?

Surely ...

I think it depends upon where you choose to live.

I'm not talking about physical location.

I'm talking about where your heart and soul live.

A lot of people claim they live "in the moment".

That's pretty good. Better than living in the past and fretting
about things you can't change.

And it is certainly better than living in the future, making
yourself anxious over things yet to come.

But what does living in the moment mean to you?

For me, I struggle daily over what I can control -- my words, my
actions, my decisions -- and what I cannot control -- which is
just about everything else. So that's where my moment lives.

What about you?

Something to think about as you go to bed this evening and pray
you don't see a zombie in the mirror when you look in the mirror
in the morning.

More to come.

Until next time,


Steven

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Sunday, September 18, 2011

Migrating From FrontPage to XSite Pro

Happy Saturday. Hope you've had a chance to kick back and relax a
little or get some of those household or family errands taken
care of. It's a fine day for it. Me? I've been migrating my older
Microsoft FrontPage web sites to XSite Pro, and I must say I am
thrilled with this tool. It is saving me immense hours and days
of re-coding from scratch, and I expect the SEO results
with these new web sites to be just as good -- if not better --
than the older sites.

When I first got involved with the Web back in 1997, my friend
suggested I try Microsoft FrontPage. Being quite the technical
snob, I refused to read the manual and quickly put up my first
few web sites. It was easy. What I didn't realize was that
FrontPage had some features built into it which really helped
improve the ranking and positioning of my web sites and web
pages.

One of these features was known as Shared Borders. It enabled you
to add a menu of textual links inside a shared border of all your
web pages. If you added or removed a page, the navigation would update itself every time you republished the web site. But the really important SEO aspect of this was the internal links. With every page cross-linked to all of the other pages of the site, the web pages placed very well on popular search engines. This is one of the things I speak about in my ebook Rocket Science Revealed. Microsoft FrontPage facilitated this, and now, XSite Pro does the exact same thing.

Starting yesterday, I designed some new web sites with XSite Pro
and then started copying and pasting the content from the old
Microsoft FrontPage web sites to the new XSite Pro web sites. I
was able to publish the new sites locally to my hard drive and
view them in my browser to make sure they looked and worked well.
Once I was happy with the results, I clicked a button and it
published the new sites to my web hosting account on HostGator.
The results were great. I'll probably replace some of the images
with my own custom images later in the week, but I'm very pleased
with the way they came out.

Now for the novice, XSite Pro comes with an extensive library of
pre-designed web sites. I'm telling you, no matter how much of a
techno phobe you may be, and no matter how scared you are of web
design tools, you, too, can design and publish a new web site
quickly and easily. It's even easier than Microsoft FrontPage was
back in the old days. And it's better because of the dozens of
built-in tools it has -- features that will save you oodles and
oodles of time.

For instance, I needed to add newsletter subscription forms to
the home pages of every new site. Typically, this would involve
creating the forms by hand with HTML or PHP code or designing
them in the Get Response web site and then copying and pasting
code into the HTML of the web page. Time consuming and confusing.

XSite Pro makes this easy. You select the form you want from a
library of pre-designed forms, add the name of the Get Response
email campaign and bingo, it inserts the form into your web page,
perfectly integrated with Get Response. What's that? You don't
want new subscribers to ever see the standard Get Response thank
you page with all those ugly ads on it? No problem, because XSite
Pro can create a custom thank you page on your web site in the
blink of an eye. I covered the importance of adding a capture
form for subscribers in my ebook Shooting Yourself in the Foot.

And if you like to add those social bookmarking thingies to your
web pages, you can also inset a nice little bar of social media
icons in the footer of your page with just a click. Everything
with XSite Pro is just a click. Are you getting the idea that I like this tool? Here's the latest updated sites:


http://www.EmailMarketingAssistance.com

http://www.EbookCoverCreator.com
http://www.GraphicsAssistance.com
http://www.WebDesignAssistance.com

Remember, each of these sites took me about an hour to generate
with XSite Pro. For the money, you really can't go wrong. If
you've been wanting to improve the quality of your old web sites
or want to get started making your own web sites but are afraid
of HTML editors, then XSite Pro is the easiest tool for you.

Here's what I am going to do to sweeten the deal. Use my
affiliate link below to secure your copy and send me a copy of
the receipt via email to info@schneiderman.net.

Then you have your choice of any one of these bonuses:

1. A free ebook cover design. -- Value $49.95

2. Pick two free ebooks (Designing Ebook Covers, Shooting Yourself in
the Foot, Push Pull Marketing, Make Your Ebook Sell, or Rocket
Science Revealed) -- Value $54.00

3. A free web site review once your site is live. -- Value $300.00

Pick any one of those bonuses. You will thank me for this, I
promise. Now here's the link you must use:

http://tinyurl.com/3b973xz

All my best,

Steven

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

What's Your Pony?

Good morning. As this new day begins I want to share one of my
favorite jokes with you ...

Worried that their son was too optimistic, the parents of a
little boy took him to a psychiatrist. Trying to dampen the
boy’s spirits, the psychiatrist showed him into a room piled
high with nothing but horse manure. Yet instead of displaying
distaste, the little boy clambered to the top of the pile,
dropped to all fours, and began digging. “What do you think
you’re doing?” the psychiatrist asked. “With all this
manure,” the little boy replied, beaming, “there must be a
pony in here somewhere.”

And so I share this joke with you because no matter where you are
in life at this very moment, it is likely that you may feel
buried in horse manure either as a direct result of the economy,
your job, your finances, or even your relationships. Maybe all
four.

This past Saturday I was driving to Sonic to get my son and his
friend breakfast, and we passed a local shop that buys and sells
gold. They had not opened their doors yet, but there were dozens
of people waiting online to get in. The line wrapped around the
corner. It's a statement of our times and makes me wonder if a
run on the banks isn't too far behind.

But despite all of the fear and uncertainty, we need to try to
maintain a positive attitude like the boy in the joke and keep
looking for the pony.

Now the problem, I think, for many of us, is that we set our
sights on things that we may never actually find, and that feeds
the disappointment, fear and anxiety. For instance, every week I
meet people who think they have written the next best selling
ebook or developed the next big Internet product or service. The
reality is they have nothing substantial to place their hopes on,
and so they keep looking for fame and fortune.

What's your pony?

Are you focused on something that is concrete and attainable or
simply wishing for? I've got nothing against hope, but hoping that
money will rain down upon you like manna or that you'll be discovered
as the next great author ... well, that's a far cry from reality.
Sure, it could happen, but it may not happen.

So what do you hold onto to make it through the day?

For me, it's getting a lot simpler -- another day alive, with a
roof over my head, clothes on my back, food in my belly. Being
with my family. Getting hugs and kisses from my kids. Being able
to laugh. There's something about growing older that brings
things into focus. And 53 is around the corner.

Now don't get me wrong. It's easy to let life's disappointments
and fears bring everything out of focus in a micro-second. In an
instant something goes wrong, you panic and your world suddenly feels hopeless and that everything is coming to an end. I felt that way last week as financial pressures mounted. Today, less so.

The 1985 movie "Mask" was a real-life story about teenager Roy
Lee "Rocky" Dennis who suffered from craniodiaphyseal dysplasia.
His bone disorder caused massive amounts of calcium to build up
on his skull causing facial distortion. Many call it "lionitus"
because it tends to distort the face and make it look lion-like.
It usually results in early death. Rocky made it to age 16 and lived
a very full life, surrounded by good friends and loving family.
Despite the grim outlook by the medical community and limited
life expectancy, he lived longer and fuller than expected. Here's
a poem he wrote:

"These things are good:
ice cream and cake,
a ride on a Harley,
seeing monkeys in the trees,
the rain on my tongue,
and the sun shining on my face.

These things are a drag:
dust in my hair,
holes in my shoes,
no money in my pocket,
and the sun shining on my face."

No matter where you are in life, set your sights on what's truly
important, pick up your shovel and start digging, searching
through the manure for your pony.

He's got to be in there somewhere.

Until next time,


Steven


P.S.: If you are challenged by marketing or launching your
product or service online, please drop me a line at
info@schneiderman.net. And to forward this email to a friend,
click the link below:

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Friday, September 09, 2011

A Season of Change

Good morning to you, and I hope this newsletter finds you and
yours well, and hopefully enjoying cooler, drier weather as we
approach the Fall season.

Every season brings changes. For my family it means kids back to
school and building our lives around their activities. For my
daughter that means JV Pom, ballet, chorus, and her latest passion
-- cosplay -- where kids young and old dress up like their
favorite cartoon and manga characters. For my son, it means
tennis lessons and tournaments and band. This year he was
selected to play the oboe as well as the clarinet! Between both
kids, and my wife's tennis, and my magic shows and church
activities, we are a busy household. Do you share our pain?

This Fall also brings more changes for me business-wise. As I've
alluded to in recent newsletters, I'm going to focus on doing the
things I like as well as what I am good at. If a project comes
along that doesn't fit that criteria, then I'm turning it down.
And then there's housekeeping. Oh, how I love the housekeeping.

I'm speaking of business housekeeping. I have a lot of domains.
Always have. When I get a good idea for a domain name, I tend to
buy it and develop it -- later -- but not always. So I have a bunch
of domains that are presently up for sale:

Academic-Ebooks.com
BirthdayPresentRegistry.com
ComputerEbooks.info
Cooking-Ebooks.com
DatingAssistance.com
EbookHeadlines.com
Ebookomatic.com
EbookPoets.com
EbookTales.com
FreakingBargains.com
FunnyEbooks.com
GetPublishedInstantly.com
InstructionalEbooks.com
InterviewsWithAuthors.com
MarketingWeapons.com
MotivationalEbooks.com
PublishInstantly.com
Real-Estate-Ebooks.com
RomanticNovel.com
ScaryEbooks.com
SpiritualEbooks.com
WellnessEbooks.com

If you have questions about traffic trends and are willing to
make a reasonable offer for any of these domains, please reach
out to me at info@schneiderman.net. Most of these have been
active for 10 years or more and have established traffic so they
have value if you have an ebook in any of these niches.

I've completed the move of all active domains I am keeping from
my web server to my leased server at HostGator. Very pleased with
the migration. Little to no problems. I really do recommend you
take a look at these guys if you are looking for a web host.
First class support and fantastic low prices. You can learn more
here:

http://tinyurl.com/44zmrqe

If anyone wants to buy my Dell web server, Sonic firewall, and
Buffalo backup, drop me a line. All have been rack-mounted and
running smoothly for the last four years.

Since Microsoft FrontPage is dead, I have purchased and started
playing with XSite Pro 2.5. Boy this thing jumps through hoops
and does everything you could ever dream of ... one look through
the 1000+ page reference manual told me this was a good
investment. I'm really quite amazed by the power and flexibility.
You can build sites form scratch with your own design or use the
library of professional templates that come with it. You can add
functionality with minimal effort using wizards. Everything is
point and click easy. If you are looking for a fantastic fast web site
building tool, this is it:

http://tinyurl.com/3b973xz

Have some product reviews for you this week, too. If you ever have to
convert audio or video files from one format to another, I have
found a tool that is way cool. It converts virtually anything to
anything. It's easy to use and packs a tremendous amount of power
and functionality into a very small application. It's called
Bigasoft's Total Video Converter and you can learn more about it
here:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/multimedia/bigasofttotalvideoconverter.htm

If you've ever wanted to limit access to the Net for your
children and teens, I've found a terrific tool call
SafeSearchLock. Essentially, it locks down the search
functionality of all major search engines so little eyes don't
see anything they shouldn't. It's only $2 and really does a
sensational, hands-off job. Install it and it starts working:

http://www.cooltoolawards.com/software/utilities/safesearchlock.htm

One last item. All good things must come to an end. You've got
72 hours -- until midnight Sunday September 11th -- to take
advantage of my $499 special offer to help you launch your next
ebook or digital product. Offer includes the ebook cover or
product image, the mini site, 3 banner ads, a sales letter and a
press release. Limited to first 10 people. Don't look for the
offer Monday morning. It will be gone!

http://www.schneidermanmarketing.com/

Until next time,

Steven

P.S.: Share this with a friend by clicking the link below:

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Monday, September 05, 2011

Best Web Hosting, Best Web Editor

Good afternoon on this hot, sunny Labor Day weekend. I wish you
and yours well, and hope things are going okay wherever you may
be. It's been an interesting week for me as I have begun to
downsize my business operations and refocus. Most notably I have
gone from owning and hosting my own web server to using a leased
server through Host Gator. This has been a technical learning
experience, but I've managed to get through it without any
wounds.

For over a decade, I bought and owned my own web servers. Frankly,
if you can afford it, and you have dozens of domains to manage,
it's the only way to go. Having the capability to remotely
connect and move files, add pages, and work on the server itself
as opposed to remotely publishing from your PC to your server --
well, it's a convenience and a luxury. That said, it cost me
roughly $3,000.00/year to maintain, and that's without having to
repair or replace hardware, update software licenses, or bring in
my tech guys to fight off the hackers.

I decided to use Host Gator as my new leased web host because the
cost savings were incredible. I was able to purchase a three-year
package with unlimited domain hosting, email, space, etc for only
$225.00! That means a savings of almost $9,000.00 over the next
three years, not to mention they provide excellent free support
services.

Now I know a lot of people use GoDaddy because they are domain
registrars and convenient, but an average web hosting package for
a single domain with email and limited space runs around $50.00
each and if you need support, forget it. Their online interface
for managing your domains and email and files are atrocious.

Hands down, Host Gator is the best web hosting company I have
come across. They provide you with a CPanel which is your control
panel for everything. It's all very intuitive and most of it is
wizard-based and walks you through the steps of setting up your
first domain quickly and easily. If you are interested in
learning more, go here:

http://tinyurl.com/44zmrqe

I have some new reviews on their way to you. Moving to Host Gator
has forced my hand to adopt a new HTML editor to create web sites
quickly. I've decided to give XSitePro 2.5 a whirl. I've reviewed
older versions, but this new version has some real time savers
including wizards to create good looking forms to capture visitor
information, setting up news feeds, links to social media, adding
audio and video files with a few clicks, etc.. I'll still spend time on
the graphic design, but putting it all together and publishing
looks like it couldn't be any easier that XSitePro 2.5. I
strongly suggest you check it out here:

http://tinyurl.com/3b973xz

Lastly, I want to extend a holiday special to all my loyal
subscribers. Go to ResellerProducts.com and buy any product and
receive one of equal value for free. Simply make your purchase
and send me an email to info@schneiderman.net requesting your
free product and I will send you a link to your download page.
There's great stuff there to help you with your graphic design,
ebook covers, banners, animation, sales copy, tons of stuff and
all low priced. So go here to take advantage of this Labor Day
Special:

http://www.resellerproducts.com

Until next time,


Steven