First, please forgive all the redundant spellings and overuse of the phrase “AO Smith ProMax” in this article.  I really want the search engines to pick this article up.

I moved into my new home about 4 years ago, and installed in the basement is an AO Smith ProMax hot water heater.  When we purchased the house we didn’t think anything about it.  Hot water heater is a hot water heater huh?  They generally last about 15 years, so didn’t think much about it.

About 7 months ago we woke up to no hot water.  ”Oh man, did we pay the gas bill!?!”  Check the stove top .. yep gas is on.  ”Oh man, I hope the hot water heater didn’t spring a leak.”  Head to the basement.  No immediate visible damage.  Check the pilot light and it’s out.  I figured maybe a gust of wind or something must have blown it out.  I relight it and go on about my way.

Next morning.  No hot water again.  ”Seriously?!”  I check the pilot light and it out again.  Ok, no way it was just a gust of wind.  So I light it again and check back in about 30 minutes.  It’s out again.  I start googling around to see what’s up.

Lots of people immediately tell me it’s the thermocouple went bad on my AO Smith ProMax hotwater heater.  I’m doubtful because the pilot light will actually light and stay lit.  It’s not until sometime later during the actual heating cycle that the flame and pilot light goes out.  If the thermocouple went bad, I don’t think the pilot light would even light.

I post a question on Yahoo Answers, and this super helpful guy tells me there is this screen at the bottom, under the burner assembly that gets clogged up.  Clean the screen, and the problem will go away.  I look, and sure enough on the AO Smith ProMax water heater, there is a mesh screen under the burner assembly.  I later found out this is a flame arrestor.  Anyway, evidently this thing gets clogged up with dust, dirt, particles, whatever, and restricts airflow and causes the burner to go out.

I clean the flame arrestor screen on the AO Smith Promax heater, light the pilot, and sure enough the thing stays lit for about 6 months.

Well, here we are with the SAME problem again only 6 months later.  I light, relight, clean, light, clean, I do everything to make sure that thing is clean.  Day after day after day of no hot water.  Basically it got to the point where I had to re-light the pilot light multiple times a day.  I finally just got in the habit of lighting the pilot each night before bed, and there’s usually enough hot water for a couple showers in the morning.

I even cleaned the screen with my air compressor and an attachment I bent to place the compressed air almost directly on the screen.  I’m positive that screen is as clean or cleaner then the day it came of the assembly line in Mexico, or wherever AO Smith ProMax water heaters are manufactured.

Now it’s getting more and more difficult to get the pilot light lit, which makes me start to wonder, maybe it is the thermocouple.  So I break down and call a plumber to come take a look.  Super nice guy from Fulton Plumbers comes out and I give him the whole sordid history.  He looks, and tells me the thing is still under warranty and I should contact AO Smith and make a warranty claim.

This is where they fun starts.  I submit my warranty claim to www.hotwater.com .. I think their support email is support@hotwater.com.

The first thing they do is tell me I probably cleaned the screen wrong, and they send me a cleaning kit with a specialty attachment for a vacuum to clean that screen.  They also send a different, wrap around filter to supposedly keep the screen clean for longer.

No you have to consider that they knew this was a serious problem.  At the drop of a hat they immediate knew what the problem was.  They immediately pointed me to a website where they even made a video showing what the problem is and how to clean that screen.  The AO Smith ProMax has such a substantial problem they immediatey shipped out several boxes of junk to try and fix the problem.

I of course play along and use the attachment and the new wrap around filter.  Next day, pilot light is out, no hot water.

I send this email to the support email at AO Smith:

Good Morning,

I have received the cleaning kit and the wrap around filter. I have thoroughly cleaned the flame arrestor screen using the provided attachments and brushes. I have also installed the wrap around filter, however my pilot light will still not stay lit.

Please help! I am getting very frustrated with waking up in the mornings with no hot water.

Thanks,
Chris

And SERIOUSLY!  Get a load of the response from AO Smith:

Hello Chris, I do apologize but without having a manifold and supply gas pressure readings or millivolt readings on the Thermocouple it is difficult to determine whether a part is faulty. Pilot outages can happen due to various reasons. You could have an obstruction in the venting causing a downdraft, condensation could cause pilot outages, or there could be a lack of combustion air to satisfy the air requirements for proper combustion.

AO Smith didn’t refer any local plumbers to assist.  They didn’t offer suggestions as to who to call.  They didn’t offer any additional advice.  AO Smith basically spews some techno babble at the customer and says “Sorry” we’re not going to do anything about the warranty.

I think if you like your water heater to actually make and keep the water HOT, you should avoid AO Smith ProMax.  I’ll continue fighting this with them, simply for the principle of the matter, but their customer service is atrocious.  And it would appear that AO Smith will take measures to avoid honoring their warranty.  I think it’s ridiculous that less and 5 years of use and this AO Smith ProMax water heater is basically worthless and the company isn’t honoring their warranty.

There are some other interesting facts about Daylight Saving time.  For example, did you know that not all US States and territories observe daylight saving time?  The Virgin Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Hawaii, and even Arizona!  Well, in reality, Navajo Nation does still observe.  Alaska has passed a bill as well to stop following it.

So how long will this period last?  After you set your clocks back on November 1^st or last thing October 31^st, the clocks won’t need an adjustment until March 14^th, 2010, when Daylight Saving time begins again on the second Sunday in March.

It’s also a great idea to use this time to also check your smoke detectors.  You should always check your detectors at least twice a year, and how convenient, you need to adjust your clocks twice a year!  Did you know that working, properly placed smoke detectors DOUBLE a family’s chance of survival?

Modern daylight savings time was first proposed by a New Zealand entomologist named George Vernon Hudson in 1895.  There are many controversial aspects of daylight savings time, which was originally designed to add daylight time to the afternoon and less to the mornings.  The practice typically benefits retail outlets, sports or other activities that need daylight after normal working hours.  However it doesn’t benefit evening entertainment venues or other evening activities that depend on the sun.

Daylight savings has some complex effects on the health of populations subject to daylight savings time.   Since the primary physical affect revolves around sun exposure, the benefit of additional exposure would be increased vitamin D synthesis, while the drawback would be increased likelihood of skin cancer.  Some people also argue that levels of depression are decreased during periods of daylight savings time as a result of people rising earlier.  On the reverse, some argue that sufferes of night blindness are hurt by the effects of daylight savings time.

Love it or hate it, chances are it’s here to stay.  So be ready on November 1^st, 2009 to get your extra hour of sleep!

This is a real story, from a real person, ME!

I have two boys, ages 5 and 3 now.  They were BOTH super easy to potty train, and we did it in ONE day.

I’m not kidding you.  With our first son, we planned for it, and then on one Saturday morning, we started, and by Saturday night he was out of his diaper, and we never put a diaper on him again.

Nick was 2 and a half when we potty trained.  Matthew was also about 2 and a half when we potty trained him, also.  Same story.  Woke up one morning, and said ‘This is going to be the last day Matthew wears a diaper.’ And it was.

Here’s what we did!

The first thing to make sure of is that your child is showing all the correct signs that they’re ready to be potty trained.  I believe that if you force a child who isn’t ready to be potty trained you’ll just set your progress back even further than if you wait until they’re ready.  I think there are reports and studies about potty training that say this bodily function is one of only a very few things in a toddler’s life that they can control, and if they’re not ready to give up that control, they’ll exploit it to make the experience miserable for you and for them.  It won’t be pleasant if you try and potty train them before they’re ready.  What are the signs?

1.  Make sure they’re able to follow and obey simple commands like “Come here” or “Stand here”

2.  Be sure they are able to pull their pants down by them selves.

3.  They should be waking up from their nighttime sleep with a dry diaper.

I think that’s pretty much it.  If they can do these things, I think you’re pretty much ready to go for it!

We purchased a doll that goes potty to show our children how a person goes potty and to show the kids that when the pants of the doll are dry, we’re very pleased and make a big deal about the dry pants.  I think it’s more important to positively reinforce dry pants than to negatively reinforce wet pants.  We definitely focused more on staying dry as opposed to avoiding being wet.  Stay focused on the goal and not the behavior that you’re trying to eliminate.

We let our son pick a name for the doll so it would develop a bit of an attachment to it.  We spent about an hour showing our son how the doll had dry pants and we would say things like “Wow, look at Mike, he’s got dry pants!  He’s such a big boy keeping his pants dry!”  Then occasionally, we would say “Hey!  Mike has to go potty!  Hurry, lets take Mike to the potty.”  Then we would deliberately go through all the necessary steps to go potty.  First we actually walk (or run) to the potty.  Then we would have our son help “Mike” pull his pants down, and then Mike (who had a small squeeze bottle inside) would actually go potty.  Then we help Mike pull his pants up, flush the potty, and wash his hands.

I think that having our son “help” Mike with what to do, was key part of getting everything mentally straight with our son.

All the while we are doing this, we’re loading our son up on water, and juice.  I would recommend that you stay away from juice, or at lease seriously dilute it.  It turned out ok for us, but it will give most children diarrhea.

Another important thing to do is to make sure you relate the doll’s dry pants to your child’s pants.  We would always check “Mike’s” pants, and then immediately check our son’s pants and make a big deal about them being dry.

When he would start to go potty, we would help him hurry to the potty, help him take his pants down, and help him “aim” properly.  If we managed to help him keep his pants dry, we would praise him a lot and tell him what a good job he did with keeping his pants dry.

If he didn’t make it to the potty, we would encourage him to try and keep his pants dry next time.  And here’s an IMPORTANT step when our child didn’t keep his pants dry.  “Rehearse” the episode three or four times, or as many times as you can without inducing a meltdown.  Start at the place where the child was when they first noticed they had to go potty, help them hurry to the potty, help them pull their pants down, and help them up onto their step stool or whatever.  Do this several times, and always encourage the dry pants.

For us, I think the key to success was several things:

1.  BE sure they’re ready.  Don’t force it if they’re not ready

2.  Be patient and encouraging.  Don’t yell at them or reprimand them.  This is new and intimidating for them, and they have 100% control over this aspect of their life.  If they decide they don’t want to be potty trained, no amount of training will work.  So be sure to keep it positive, fun, and encouraging.

3.  Be consistent.  Don’t start the project if you’re not mentally ready, or if you don’t have the whole day to dedicate to it.

For us it was totally worth it, and it worked really well.  I think when we did our second child, we even took our older one to his grandparents for the day so we would not be distracted.

We used a book called “Potty Training in a Day” and I would highly recommend that you pick up a copy.  It really worked for us.  And it didn’t just work one time, we were successful with it twice!!!

Check out our next article about how we got both our kids to sleep through the night by 6 WEEKS!!!  Wow .. I would have gone insane without this!

I probably get 20 – 30 email messsages a day, admittadly many of them are duplicates, all with the promise of easy money with some new affiliate marketing strategy or a super secret Google AdWords loophole or something.  I think my favorite is the “Adsense Arbitrage” strategy.  Sounds so legitimate!

Well, I think there are some people making money with Internet Marketing.  Of course the folks who are probably making the best money are the ones launching “make money” programs.  I suspect it’s the modern day version of the small classified ads in the back of newspapers that says “Make Millions, send $5.00 to ….” and the response is simply to run the same ad with your mailing address in the add.  Swell.

Anyway, my offer is pretty darn straightforward.  If you’re a legitimate on-line marketer and if you’re selling a program, let me know.  I have some money to invest in web development (although this is almost always advertised as not neecssary), advertising and some marketing research.  If you think you have a profitable program, contact me and lets work it out.  If I make money, I’ll:

• Purchase your product at full-price (assuming the profit earned is at least equal to the cost of the program
• Split any profits (after marketing / advertising costs) with you 50 / 50
• I’ll write about the experience here and recommend others to purchase the program
• Of course I’ll do all the work.  You teach, I’ll learn.

Seems pretty fair to me.  If you think you’ve got the “secret” and are trying to get the word out, put your money where your mouth is, and lets see what happens.

You can write to me at adwords@chackett.com

Good Luck!

If you’re thinking you don’t know how to make a rag quilt, you’re wrong. As it turns out anyone can do it. Here is a link to an eBook that will show you exactly how to cut and sew the rag quilt.

HomeMade Candles

Candles are one of the most soothing and pleasent things around.  There’s not much that is as nice as lighting a candle and enjoying it fill up your home or office with your favorite scent.  This step-by-step guide will show you everything you need to know to make beautiful candles just like the really expensive ones you see in the stores, and of course since you’re making them yourself, you’ll get it done at a fraction of the cost.  There are even a bunch of people earning a nice part-time income making candles!

Homemade Pet Treats

Now this is a cool deal for the pet lovers in your family.  This is a great way to make home made pet treats that you can give as gifts!  How cool.  Evidently this guy has put together a recipe for dog treats that is totally save and healthy for your friends and family pets.  I think a gift basket of healthy treats!  This guy has special recipies for young dogs, old dogs, and gourmet biscuit recipes.  Bark Bark!  Click Here!

Homemade Gift Boxes

Now this is really cool and interesting.  This is a little different because it’s more about how to make a homemade gift box rather than the gift it’s self.  Basically they give you a bunch of templates that you can print, cut and fold into realy cute and personal home made gift boxes.  It’s really neat and you should check it out!

Homemade Bath And Body

This goes right along with the home made candles.  Maybe you could put together a “de-stresser” pack for that frassled friend of yours.  Make some soothing bath salts or body oils and a candle to burn.  The possibilities are endless!  This looks like a really professional site and the products look a lot like the high-end mall type “Bath and Body” stores.  There is a note that says this particular eBook won’t be available after December 15th.  I guess they’re moving to a video format.  Anyway, this really looks like it’s worth checking out.

Click HERE to go straight to the ideas and skip my heartwarming personal story of home made gifts and the lives they have touched

As I mentioned in another post, times are tough this year.  Every year at about this time, my wife and I have the “We’re not going overboard with Christmas this time” conversation.  We think back to previous Christmas seasons where the house is a total wreck with wrapping paper, bows, needles from the tree.  The kids are usually totally engrossed with some $2.00 stocking stuffer and aren’t paying any attention to the $300.00 Wii or whatever it happens to be.

Keeping things under control this year is going to be a lot easier.  The other day on the radio I heard a retailer start out their commercial by saying something about how “This season, things are going to be different.”  You know its going to be rough when even the retailers are advertising by acknowledging that we’re in tough economic times.

It got me to thinking about the things we’ve done in the past when times get tough.  Home made gifts are probably going to be on a lot of folks lists this year, whether they know it or not!

I remember a photo collage that I made once for my mom.  I spent a couple hours going through old photo boxes and folders on my computer looking for pictures of the family.  I finally picked out about a dozen or so and put them in a photo frame I got from Target for about $10.00.  There’s no doubt it was one of the most meaningful gifts she had gotten in a long time.  It’s too bad that we need these difficult times to push us into doing what we probably ought to be doing anyway.

Soooo .. I’ve put this list of great ideas for ways you can make a real meaningful statement in the gifts you give this year.  By putting together some genuine thoughtfulness and a couple dollars, you can make this Christmas one of the most meaningful and timeless holiday seasons on record yet.  So without further adoo, here are some great ideas for things you can make this holiday season that will show those you care about that you really put some effort and personal thought into their home made gift this year:

HomeMade Rag Quilt:

You can do it with stuff you have laying around the house. One great idea I had was to make one out of the old baby clothes our kids had grown out of and give that to our parents. You know how much grandparents love their grandkids! Can you imagine giving your parents a handmade rag quilt made of the sweet old baby clothes their precious grandkids have out grown? I think my mother would have to be hospitalized!

If you’re thinking you don’t know how to make a rag quilt, you’re wrong. As it turns out anyone can do it. Here is a link to an eBook that will show you exactly how to cut and sew the rag quilt.

HomeMade Candles

Candles are one of the most soothing and pleasent things around.  There’s not much that is as nice as lighting a candle and enjoying it fill up your home or office with your favorite scent.  This step-by-step guide will show you everything you need to know to make beautiful candles just like the really expensive ones you see in the stores, and of course since you’re making them yourself, you’ll get it done at a fraction of the cost.  There are even a bunch of people earning a nice part-time income making candles!

Homemade Pet Treats

Now this is a cool deal for the pet lovers in your family.  This is a great way to make home made pet treats that you can give as gifts!  How cool.  Evidently this guy has put together a recipe for dog treats that is totally save and healthy for your friends and family pets.  I think a gift basket of healthy treats!  This guy has special recipies for young dogs, old dogs, and gourmet biscuit recipes.  Bark Bark!  Click Here!

Homemade Gift Boxes

Now this is really cool and interesting.  This is a little different because it’s more about how to make a homemade gift box rather than the gift it’s self.  Basically they give you a bunch of templates that you can print, cut and fold into realy cute and personal home made gift boxes.  It’s really neat and you should check it out!

Homemade Bath And Body

This goes right along with the home made candles.  Maybe you could put together a “de-stresser” pack for that frassled friend of yours.  Make some soothing bath salts or body oils and a candle to burn.  The possibilities are endless!  This looks like a really professional site and the products look a lot like the high-end mall type “Bath and Body” stores.  There is a note that says this particular eBook won’t be available after December 15th.  I guess they’re moving to a video format.  Anyway, this really looks like it’s worth checking out.

Times are tough this season, there’s not doubt about it. You know every year around this time, my wife and I have a conversation where we say “We’re just not doing Christmas this year like we did last year.” We always have way too much stuff. To be honest, sometimes when it’s over, I look around at the house with toys strewn around, giant black trash bags full of wrapping paper. My wife trying to collect re-usable bows and ribbons. The kids playing with the least expensive stocking stuffer and the most expensive gift overlooked.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas. Starting at about Thanksgiving and going through to the end of the year we have more fun,family and food than I’ve had for the entire year so far. The house is full of life and love and family. It’s really great. But dagummit there’s just so much stuff. Too much stuff. Having all that junk cluttering up our houses and our lives, makes it darn near impossible to enjoy the truly meaningful and thoughtful gifts.

Things have been pretty tough for my family and I this past couple years. We were in the real estate market and doing well for a while. Then of course the bubble burst and we were left holding the bag on a number of empty houses. Last year we didn’t have much money to spend on Christmas so we really had to dig deep and think of ways we could have a meaningful Christmas without breaking the bank. I spent a couple days digging through my computer and found about 12 pictures of my family. I edited them, printed them on my computer, cut them out and put them in a $10 collage picture frame we bought at Target. When I gave it to my mom, she knew how much that gift was going to mean to her before she even opened it. Once she did open it she couldn’t help but cry, even though I knew she didn’t really want to.

My point is that you don’t have to spend money to have a Christmas you and your family will remember forever. The meaning of your gifts and the thought you put into them is far more important than how much you spent. Gifts that you can’t return are almost guaranteed to be the ones that no one would ever want to.

Another really great idea is to make a rag quilt. You can do it with stuff you have laying around the house. One great idea I had was to make one out of the old baby clothes our kids had grown out of and give that to our parents. You know how much grandparents love their grandkids! Can you imagine giving your parents a handmade rag quilt made of the sweet old baby clothes their precious grandkids have out grown? I think my mother would have to be hospitalized!

If you’re thinking you don’t know how to make a rag quilt, you’re wrong. As it turns out anyone can do it. Here is a link to an eBook that will show you exactly how to cut and sew the rag quilt.

• You can make your rag quilt in ONE weekend
• You already have what you need laying around the house. The key to making your rag quilt a huge success is to keep it personal. The more personal the more meaningful.
• This eBook is jam packed and GUARANTEED to be just what you need to make your project a success, or your money back. No questions asked. And besides, for only $17.00 just think of how many lives you can touch making personal gifts
• Who knows, maybe after you make one or two of these, it could turn into a real business for you. I bet that after one or two people see what you’ve created, they’ll want one for themselves too.

I’ve built and launched several internet businesses.  Some of them have worked well, some of them, not so much.

I’ve decided to put together a video series that will show you, exactly, step by step, how to build and launch a real internet business.  It’s totally free, and it’s totally legitimate.  There’s no bait and switch, no trick or gimmick, no nothing.  It’s just me, and my screen recording utility showing you exactly how to start a rea, legitimate on-line business.

I got pretty sick and tired of seeing all these schemes that are basically just ways to take advantage of people who are desperate for money.  What I’m giving you is the blueprint for a legitimate on-line business.  It’s free and it couldn’t possibly be any easier.

The main reason I’m putting this together is because I want to show you that there are legitimate on-line business models out there.  This isn’t a “lazy millionaire” program.  It’s a real business with real customers and real products.

Please check it out and leave some comments for me.  I know I’m not the most dynamic speaker you’ve come across in a while, but give it a whirl and put the information to work for you.  I think you’ll be glad you did.

Chris

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Now he wants to start a “pressure washing business.”  Which I happen to think is a really great idea, and would be an excellent introduction into building and running a business.  It’s pretty simple in terms of the business concept.  People have dirty houses and driveways and decks.  We have a pressure washer.  They pay us to clean their stuff.  Simple.

But there are a lot of great concepts at work here.  We’ll have capital expenses (more on this later please), marketing costs.  Plus we have partners (me, my 7 year old son, and I can’t leave out my 5 year old), so we have to talk about ownership and how we split the money we earn.  Plus we have simple operating costs like the gas it costs to run the pressure washer, soap, and any repairs we’ll need.  Overall, I think it’s a really great little business for teaching entrepreneur concepts to kids.

So it got me to thinking.  How cool would it be to have a non-profit organization or school or something that would teach kids how to start and operate businesses?  It could teach kids at a young age how to do things like market research, find a need, fill a need.  Learn about expenses and profits operatinng modesl, etc.  WE could have courses on lawn cutting business, pressure washing business.  Maybe even things like tutoring businesses.  Kids are smart, motivated, and eager to learn.  This would be a great opportunity to teach them stuff they can’t (or don’t) learn in school.

Now.  Here’s where I ask for something.  I really want to get this business off the ground, so I’m asking for donations.  We need to buy our first pressure washer to get started.  My son and I did a lot of research at epinions.com, homedepot.com, walmart.com, lowes.com and other places on the internet, trying to find the most economical pressure washer that got high marks in reviews from others, and this is the pressure washer we came up with:

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200347873_200347873

So.  If you’re an entrepreneur or a kind hearted person would would like to help us get this business started, let me know and I’ll tell you how you can donate!

Chris

This is NOT medical advice, and we’re not making any claims about what may or may not happen with you, and you should NOT base any medical decision on what you read here.  I’m not a doctor.  I just wanted to share our experience with you.

Oh, also, if you read this whole thing, and youfound it interesting, please take a moment to post a comment and let me know.  Or even better, if you’re about to go through the same thing, post, and let us know, and then be sure to follow up and post the results. Ok, lets get to the article.

Before the procedure we did a lot of research on the topic and found lots of information about the actual procedure, what are tonsils, what do tonsils do, why do we have tonsils, where are the adenoids, etc.  But there wasn’t a lot of information that described personal experiences with the actual procedure and recovery.  That’s what this is about.Our son had three procedures done; a Tonsillectomy, an Adenoidectomy, and a bi-lateral myringotomy (incision in the ear drums but without tubes).I’m not going to talk at all about any of the events that led up to the decision to have these procedures, and I’m not going to have any discussion about whether it’s right for you or your children or whatever.  The purpose of this blog entry is simply to share our experience with others, so that you can have a personal experience to relate to.  Maybe it’ll make you feel better (or worse) to read what the experience was like for us.So here we go:

1.  Before the procedure – Our son’s surgery was scheduled for about 12:00 noon on a Wednesday.  The procedure took place at a childrens outpatient surgery center.  I think the name of it was “Childrens’ Outpatient Surgery Center” and it is located in Gwinnett county off Satellite Blvd.  The instructions we got from the facility told us that he was not allowed to eat or drink anything starting from like midnight until after the surgery.  I think they told us he could drink something in the morning like some water or gatoraid.  He was ok with that.  We would have preferred to have the procedure earlier in the day so that he didn’t have to be hungry (and ornery) for so long, but he did fine.

We also struggled as to whether or not to tell him what was happening.  Some people said that it would be better to not really tell him what was going to happen.  I don’t know if it was right or not, but I thought it was better to tell him was was going to happen.  I jumped the gun a little and told him they were going to give him a shot that would make him take a rest and that when he woke up, his throat would be sore.  Then we read the information, and learned that they don’t give shots for kids younger than like 12 or something,  They use some sort of gas that makes him go to sleep.  So I altered my story for him and told him they would put a mask on his face and ask him to take a few deep breaths and then he would go to sleep.  He seemed fine with is mostly.  He’s a tough little fellow.  Every once in a while he would seem to be nervous or scared, which of course is understandable.  But 99% of the time if asked about it or asked if he was scared or nervous, he would say “Nope!”  It’s obviously a personal decision, but I thought it was better to prepare him and give him time to mentally digest the deal.

I believe children are much more capable of handling stuff that adults give them credit for.  Just like when they were much younger and we would leave them with grandparents or something.  At about 2 years old or so, we learned that there would be much less crying if we would tell them ahead of time that we were going to drop them off and leave them.  If we would try and distract them and sneak out, the would be a lot more tears than if we told them was was going to happen.  I thought it was best to take the same approach here.  And for us, I think it was the right decision.

2.  In the waiting room (Wednesday) – We got there, and it was obvious that our son was nervous and a little scared.  He even said that he was nervous or scared and was generally kinda quiet and shy.  Which of course was totally understandable and not unexpected.  The nurses brought in two sets of “scrubs” or gowns or whatever it is you wear in the operating room.  We had been told that the patient and one parent can be present in the OR when the anesthesia  is administered.  My wife and I talked about it, and we decided it would be better for me to go with him rather than her beause I was more likely to be able to keep it all together than my wife.  She would probably be an emotional wreck and that wouldn’t be a good thing for our son to see as he’s drifting off.There was a video playing in this waiting room that shows what was going to happen, and it was fine, nothing interesting or scary about it.  So the nurse told us to put the gown on our son (striped down to just underwear) and I put the gown on over my clothes.  Oh, they also administered an oral dose of pain medicine to our son while we were in the waiting room.

Also, a couple nurses came in and aked us a couple “quiz” type questions, I imagine for safty sake.  She asked us if we knew what procedures our son was having.  I think it was some kind of saftey precaution.Then the anestheisologist came in and asked a bunch of questions about what he had for dinner, what time that was, whether he had anything for breakfast, or what he’s eaten.  Then he explained how it would work in the OR with the gas mask and all that, which we had already read about in the papers they set home with us.

3.  In the Operating Room – The nurse came in and said it was time to go.  My wife gave the little man a big hug and kiss, and I picked him up and carried him to down the hall walking behind the nurse.  He was hanging on pretty tightly with his arms around my neck, his legs wrapped around my waist, and his head on my shoulder.  I was pretty nervous for him, and I was nervous that he would cling on and not let go.

When we walked through the doors into the “theater” as they called it .. it was overwhelming for me.  I’ve never been in an operating room, but the amount and size of the equipment in there was intimidating.  I think it affected me more than our son, cause he didn’t say or do anything.We got to the table / gurney where the procedure was to take place and I told him it was time to lay down, and I leaned him over the bed and he let go without any incident laying down.  I would say there were about three people in total at the bed in the OR.  The anestheologist was standing behind a machine, a nurse was sitting at the head of the table, and maybe one or two other nurses standing to the side.

So he laid down with no trouble, and I told him this was the part with the mask that would make him go to sleep, and he just nervously said “Ok.”  The nurse put the mask on him and asked him to take a couple deep breaths, which he did.

He looked around in a really nervous and uncomfortable way, and then his little eyes rolled back into his head and he was out.  I saw the nurse brush his eyelashes, I supose as some kind of test that the anestesia was working.

Of all the things that I’ve experienced, that was by far the most uncomfortable and difficult part of the whole procedure and post experience.  It was just so un-natural or something.  I don’t normally get wierded out by that kind of thing, but that totally freaked me out, and when I got back to the waiting room, I could just barely keep it together.  I had to wait a good while before I could tell my wife about it.  I’m not a cryer, and I imagine that in 10 years of marriage, my wife has never seen me cry (probably because I haven’t cried).  I knew that if I cried, she would turn into a blubbering blob of crying mess.  Anyway, I would just say that you should try to be prepared for that to freak you out.  Although, there’s nothing you can do really to prepare.4.  Waiting in “Stage 2 Recovery Room.” – It was explained to us that there are two recovery rooms; Stage 1 and Stage 2.  I guess Stage 1 is in the back somewhere, and that’s where he is when they first wake him up, and then after they do that, they wheel him in his bed to “Stage 2″ where we had been waiting.

I would say that it took about 45 minutes, and then the Dr. came in and explained that everything went well, and there were no complications or anything, and that he would be out in a few minutes.5.  When he first came out – When they first rolled him into the room where we were, he did not look good at all.  He really looked like he had been run over by a bus.  I was not prepared for how badly he looked.  It was obvious that he had been crying, and he was clearly a little confused and disoriented.  I’m pretty sure that at that time he didn’t really understand what was going on and he was pretty confused.He also still had his IV (which I guess they put on after the gas), and I wasn’t sure what to do with him .. like whether we should leave him there and try to comfort him while he was in bed, or if we could pick him up or what.  Finally the nurses suggested that mom pick him up and cuddle with him a little.  They helped us get him situated in mom’s lap with the IV and all that.  They said that a lot of times, they like staring into space and watching a little TV.6.  Staying with him in the recovery room -  We stayed with him in the recovery room for about 1 hour.  Maybe just a little more maybe a little less.  The nurses were pretty quick to start offering him fluids and stuff, and pretty much right away, he was wanting to have a “slushy” which they prepared for him.  I think it was a cherry popsicle they crushed up into a cup.  We spoon fed that to him over the course of about 40 minutes, and he ate it up nicely.

7.  Going home (Wednesday). – Gave him his gift.  I had read somewhere where another family that had gone through this, purchased and wrapped a small gift and showed their child the gift and told them that after they wake up they can open it.  I thought that was a fabulous idea and we did it too.  It wasn’t until about an hour after he came into the waiting room that he was aware / alert / strong enough to even think about opening his present.  But after about an hour in the waiting room, he was ready, and we gave him his gift.  He opened it and was very excited.  We got him a cartridge for his Leapster video game thing which he absolutely LOVES.  He was very excited about it, and really wanted to play it in the car on the way home.

So we got him all set up with his pillow and blanket (which we brought from home) in his car seat, and reclined him a little bit and he played his video game.  I would say that about an hour and a half after he got out of surgery, and he was sitting back there in his seat playing his game, he was starting to resemble the little guy that I know.  He was starting to look like himself, which was sure nice.  Even though he was looking more like himself, he was very politely and calmly suggesting that he thought he needed his medicine, because his throat hurt.  Unfortunately it was going to be about another 1.5 hours until he was able to take the second dose.

8.  The first day (Wednesday). – When we got home, we distracted him with TV and popsicles.  Every once in a while he would ask if he could have his medicine, but he wasn’t like in terrible pain or anything, he just knew he wanted / needed it.  So at the right time, we gave him his first dose of the medicine.

About an hour after that first dose, he was dancing and doing cartwheels.  That medicine definitely sent him into outerspace for a while.  Over all his experience the first day, was not bad at all.  We were pretty nervous about the first night, thinking that he would be uncomfortable and wouldn’t sleep well.  Other than the fact that we set the alarm and gave him his medicine every 4 hours (even through the night) everything was just fine that first day and night.

The doctors said that he might not want to eat for at least a couple days.  That was not the case with our son.  He was having popsicles and ice cream and pudding pretty much right away.

He would say that his throat felt “funny” but that it didn’t really hurt.  So that was good.

9.  The second day (Thursday) – All things considered this day was pretty easy too.  Although, it was apparent that the surgery had really worn him out.  It was on this day that we really realized that this little 4 year old had undergone a real surgery and it had taken it’s toll on him.

It was probably about 10:30 or 11:00 in the morning, and my wife was looking around for the little guy, but didn’t see him anywhere.  Finally she found him in his bed.  He took it upon himself to walk upstairs and crawl into his bed and rest.  This is when we knew that he was just worn out.

I also think the medicine was really making him feel strange and maybe even a little uncomfortable.  I think at first the medicine made it difficult for him to sleep.  Sometimes I would go into his room and he would just be lying there quietly staring at the ceiling.  But he wasn’t in any pain, so that’s good.

He was still just eating soft things like soggy cereal, pudding, popcicles, and other stuff like that.  He had a nice bowl of homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner!

Oh yeah .. Thursday night was kind of tough on the house in general.  The Sunday before the surgery my little guy had some kind of stomach bug and had thrown up that Sunday night.  On this night (Thursday night) that bug hit my wife and older son and they were both in the bathroom throwing up that night.  Somehow I managed to avoid getting it, and so I was taking care of all the sickies in the house.  Fortunately it wasn’t a severe bug, and basically 12 hours later everyone was fine.

10.  The third day (Friday) – On Friday, it was mostly just more of the same.  I think taking the medicine every 4 hours was really starting to take a toll on him.  Both because he’s tired of floating around in outerspace and because he’s never able to get more than 4 hours of restful sleep at a time.  His disposition was good in general.  I think that when it was getting close to the 4 hour mark from having taken his medicine, he would get a little groggy and uncomfortable.  It’s really important to make sure you give them that medicine EVERY 4 HOURS withou fail, or they will get uncomfortable.

11.  The fourth day (Saturday) – Things are really looking pretty good, and we’re beginning to think that he’s a little superman, and that this whole surgery thing was no big deal for him.  He still complains from time to time that his throat feels funny and he’s not too interested in eating things that are too spicy or crunchy or whatever.  But all in all, he seems to be doing great.  We went for a nice long walk through the woods looking for bugs and snakes and whatever.  He really seems to be doing well.

At about this stage of the game he started deciding that he didn’t want to take his medicine.  Although until now, we had been pretty adamant that he take it, even if he didn’t want it.  But I was starting to think that we should consider starting to ween him off the strong stuff, and maybe start alternating the prescription medicine with some OTC tylenol or something.

So far he’s been doing so well, that we were thinking we might send him back to school tomorrow.

So at bed time, we didn’t force him to take his strong stuff, and we gave him a dose of regular childrens Tylenol.12.  The fifth day (Sunday) – At about 2:00 in the morning he woke up, pretty much screaming in pain.  It was quite clear that not giving him the strong stuff was a big mistake.  It was easily the most uncomfortable that I’ve ever seen him.  He was crying and sobbing so much that we couldn’t get him calmed down enough to take his strong medicine.  He was also still resistant to taking the medicine.  Finally, after about 45 minutes of crying and sobbing, we eventually got him to take the strong stuff, and I would say that within 10 minutes, he was calmed down and starting to get ready to go back to sleep.  In a sweet little voice he said “I guess that medicine will help me go to sleep.”

13.  The 6th day (Monday) – He woke up from that terrible night feeling pretty good.  He remembered that he woke up and was in so much pain, but I guess in the morning light, it didn’t seem like a real big deal to him.  He was pretty perky and generally feeling pretty well.  Obviously today we were pretty adamant about making sure that he took his medicine every 4 hours, and he wasn’t very resistant to it anymore.   All we had to do was remind him how much it hurt when he didn’t take it, and he would decide that maybe it’s not so bad to take it.

14.  The 7th day (Tuesday) -  Again, he’s doing very well.  All in all, with the exception of the episode on Sunday night, everything has been pretty good.  He has been alert, generally happy, and normal.  His breath is pretty terrible.  The Dr told us that would happen.  I guess it has something to do with the scarring / scabs that develop at the site of the procedure.  But all in all, he’s doing great.  I think we’ll send him to school tomorrow.

We start stretching out how long we wait until we give him the prescription medicine.  Basically at this point we’ve decided the right approach will be to give him a dose first thing in the morning, and then wait and see how long it takes before he decides that he needs some medicine.  Up until this point it wasn’t uncommon for him to wake up in the morning or wake up from his nap or something and say “I think I need my medicine.”  So we figured we would wait to see how long it takes for him to say he needs it.

The 8th day (Wednesday) – So it’s been 1 week since the procedure and everything is looking good for him to go to school today.  The poor fellow loves school and it’s been torture for him to see his older brother get up and go to school every day while he has to stay home and be bored.  So today we sent him to school and he was just fine.  We gave him is strong medicine at about 7:30 in the morning, and my wife picked him up from school at 1:15 or so (his normal time to get out), and he was pretty ready for his medicine when he got out of school.

The 9th day – Thursday – Well, he’s pretty much turned the corner, and I think he’s good to go.  At this point, it’s just a matter of waiting until the healing is done.Over all, the whole deal was not difficult and we didn’t have any complications other than the episode on Sunday night, which was clearly my fault, and if we had given him his medicine like we were supposed to, there would have been nothing to talk about.

At this point, it was really just a matter of stretching out the time between doses of medicine.  By day 8 or 9 we were getting pretty close to the point where we could dose him in the morning, and then not does him again until bed time.

The last dose of big medicine we gave him was the morning of Friday (about the morning of day 10, if the day of the surgery is day 1).  We sporradically give him a dose of childrens tylenol if he says he needs, it, but pretty much he’s done.

So overall, it was very easy and the results are excellent.  He doesn’t snore anymore and his hearing is GREATLY improved.  His favorite phrase used to be “What you said?” and now his favorite phrase is “What’s that sound?”  The improvement in his hearing was almost instantenous, and I think he’s hearing things now that he’s not used to hearing.  Little things like the fan on the refridgerator, or certain birds chirping, or the house creaking.  We have absolutely no regrets, and I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to do it again.  I was clearly the right thing for us.

Well, hopefully that’s helpful for you!

Chris Hackett

I thought I would give a quick update on my article on Mesothelioma.  It seems like it’s been a very big hit.

My original goal was to have an informational article on Mesothelioma and then monetize it with Adsense ads.  I did some research with a tool called Keyword Elite (which is a way cool tool for keyword research), and I discovered that Mesothelioma was one of those keywords that if my site were monetized with adsense, and I got a click on “Mesothelioma” the payout on that keyword is pretty significant.

So far, the natural search results are netting me anywhere from zero visitors to 5 or 10 visitors per day on the phrase “Mesothelioma.”  Unfortunately I don’t think any of them are clicking on any of the adsense ads.

I’m not sure what’s up with that, but I’ll keep you posted on the progress and let you know how things go.

Thanks!

Chris Hackett

I am testing out a video sharing service called Revver.com.  I’ve uploaded my video there, and I’m sharing it here.  Lets see how it goes.

If by some chance, you’re interested, I’m holding a live webinar / workshop on Saturday, the 16th of February.  In in, I’ll go through all the detailed steps that I don’t cover in this free video.

It only cost $49.00, and I’ll take your questions and give personal attention.  I really think it’ll be worth your while.  Seating is limited, and it usually fills up quick, so if you’re interested, go ahead and sign up.

www.chackett.com/adwords is the link!

Chris Hackett

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything here.  For those who are keeping score (Bob), this blog is getting something like 0 – 7 unique visits per day.

I recently added two websites to my stash of sites:

www.Acne-Domain.com

and

www.Easy-Pet-Insurance.com

I really just stumbled upon these.  I subscribe to an email newsletter called “Early to Rise.”  Generally it’s pretty good.  It’s a little too long for me most of the time, even though the content is good.  The other day they had an article titled something like “The fastest way to start earning money on-line.”  Which of course caught my attention.

The crux of the article was to buy a website, and suggested that ebay was a good place to check for good deals.  So I went hunting.

I found a bunch of crap sites for sale, lots of adult stores, lots of folks that have obviously written scripts and are selling the same “template” to lots of people.  But eventually I did find a couple sellers that were selling stuff I thought was worth checking out.

I paid $7.50 for one of those sites, and I paid $45.00 for the other.  So I would say that’s a bargan.  Both sites come with pre-loaded content, and both are monetized with Google AdSense, Amazon Associate, ClickBank, and/or Ebay affiliate programs.  One of them also came with a nice, easy to use, administration interface for managing the content, links, affiliate programs, and advertising space.

So go check them out:

www.Easy-Pet-Insurance.com

and

www.Acne-Domain.com

Stay tuned and I’ll let you know how things are progressing.  If you feel compelled to help, please feel free to send some traffic my way by adding a back-link.  I’ll try and find a way to return the favor.

Thanks All!

Chris

Mesothelioma is a very aggressive cancer and can often be difficult to
treat. One of the characteristics that makes Mesothelioma so
difficult to deal with is the fact that often the cancer will not
appear until between 15 to 40 or more years after a person has been
exposed to asbestos!

So what is asbestos? Did you know that asbestos is a
naturally occuring substance? It’s mined from rocks, and is
made of of lots of tiny fibrous materials. It’s particularly
dangerous because the fibers are released into the air where people
breathe them in or swallow them without even knowing it.
Asbestos fibres are not able to be seen without
magnification, and they have no taste or smell, so most of the time,
people don’t even know they have been exposed.

There are basically three different kinds of Mesothelioma; Pleural
Mesothelioma, which affects the lining of the lungs, Pericardial
Mesothelioma which affects the lining of the heart, and peritoneal
mesothelioma which affects the lining of the abdomen.

This lining of the heart, chest, and abdomen is made up of cells called
mesothelial cells. The most common form for Mesothelioma is
Pleural Mesothelioma, then Peritoneal Mesothelioma, and the least
common is Pericardial Mesothelioma.

So what are the symptoms of malignant Mesothelioma? Symptoms
of Malignant Mesothelioma may include:

• Shortness of breath
• Pain in the chest or back
• Difficulty swallowing
• Caugh, Fever, sweating
• Caughing up blood
• sensory loss
• swelling of the chest, neck or face

Where can I get more information about Mesothelioma?

American Cancer Society
University
of Penn OncoLink
The
Mayo Clinic
American
Institute for Cancer Research

by: Chris Hackett

What is Sleep Apnea?

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is usually caused when an obstruction, usually the soft tissue of the rear of the throat, collapses and closes during sleep.  Central Apnea, is when the airway is not blocked, but the brain fails to send the signal for muscles to breath.  Mixed Apnea, as the name implies, is a condition which is a mix of Central Apnea and Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

Sleep apnea is a serious condition which often causes a drop in Oxygen levels in the blood.  The most common type of sleep apnea is Obstructive Sleep Apnea.  With this type of Apnea, enough air can not flow into the lungs despite the breathing attempt.  This can result in a drop in oxygen levels in the blood.  Normal breathing generally begins again with a loud snort or choking sound.

Left untreated, sleep apnea can increase the chances of having high blood pressure, and even a heart attack or stroke.  Untreated apnea can also increase the risk of diabetes and the risk from accidents related to drowsiness.

What causes sleep Apnea?  At the most basic level, obstructive sleep apnea happens as a result in the temporary collapse of the throat.  The throat and tongue muscles relax more than usual, if you have large tonsils and/or adenoids, if you are overweight, or have a smaller boney structure in the nose and throat area, are all factors which can influence the occurrence of obstructive sleep apnea.

What are my Treatment Options for Apnea?

Changes in Activities or Habits.  Avoid alcohol, smoking or medicines that make you sleepy, as they can make it more difficult to keep the throat muscles open during sleep.  Also, try and loose weight if you are overweight.  The extra soft tissue in the throat can make it difficult to keep the throat open during sleep.  Even a little weight loss may help apnea.  And finally, you can try sleeping on your side as opposed to on your back.  This can make it easier for the muscles in your throat to remain open.

Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP).  This is one of the most common treatments for sleep apnea.  This treatment basically involves wearing a mask over your nose which blows a stream of air into your throat at a pressure that’s right for you.  The increased pressure helps keep the throat and passageways open.

Mouthpiece (oral appliance).  This may be helpful for individuals with mild apnea.  This may also be recommended by your doctor if you snore loudly, but do not have apnea.  This piece is generally custom fitted by a dentist or orthodontist, and helps to position the lower jaw and tongue so as to maintain an open pathway to the throat.

Surgery.  Surgery may help some people with apnea.  The type of surgery that is appropriate will depend on the type of apnea.  For children with apnea, a surgery to remove the tonsils and or adenoids may be helpful.  Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (U-vu-lo-PAL-a-to-fa-RIN-go-plas-te) (UPPP) is a surgery that removes the tonsils, uvula (the tissue that hangs from the middle of the back of the roof of the mouth), and part of your soft palate (the roof of your mouth in the back of your throat). This surgery is only effective for some people with sleep apnea.  Laser assisted UPPP can stop snoring but may not necessarily treat the undeylying apnea.  Because of this, it’s very important to have a sleep study first.

There are currently no medicines for the treatment of sleep apnea.

Living with Sleep Apnea

Getting treatment for sleep apnea can help you and your family members.

• Getting treatment can greatly help your sleep and can improve symptoms of snoring.
• Treating apnea can help you feel more rested and alert during the day
• Healthy lifestyle changes which can be helpful for treating apnea are good general health and lifestyle choices such as stopping smoking and loosing weight.
• Some sufferers of apnea will need to wear a mask (CPAP).
• Few people will require surgery
• Get help from your family in the form of moral and emotional support, and encouragement to follow your doctors program, including use of the CPAP device if necessary.

Click here for information on current research and clinical trials for sleep apnea.

This is a real story, from a real person, ME!

I have two boys, ages 5 and 3 now.  They were BOTH super easy to potty train, and we did it in ONE day.

I’m not kidding you.  With our first son, we planned for it, and then on one Saturday morning, we started, and by Saturday night he was out of his diaper, and we never put a diaper on him again.

Nick was 2 and a half when we potty trained.  Matthew was also about 2 and a half when we potty trained him, also.  Same story.  Woke up one morning, and said ‘This is going to be the last day Matthew wears a diaper.’ And it was.

Here’s what we did!

The first thing to make sure of is that your child is showing all the correct signs that they’re ready to be potty trained.  I believe that if you force a child who isn’t ready to be potty trained you’ll just set your progress back even further than if you wait until they’re ready.  I think there are reports and studies about potty training that say this bodily function is one of only a very few things in a toddler’s life that they can control, and if they’re not ready to give up that control, they’ll exploit it to make the experience miserable for you and for them.  It won’t be pleasant if you try and potty train them before they’re ready.  What are the signs?

1.  Make sure they’re able to follow and obey simple commands like “Come here” or “Stand here”

2.  Be sure they are able to pull their pants down by them selves.

3.  They should be waking up from their nighttime sleep with a dry diaper.

I think that’s pretty much it.  If they can do these things, I think you’re pretty much ready to go for it!

We purchased a doll that goes potty to show our children how a person goes potty and to show the kids that when the pants of the doll are dry, we’re very pleased and make a big deal about the dry pants.  I think it’s more important to positively reinforce dry pants than to negatively reinforce wet pants.  We definitely focused more on staying dry as opposed to avoiding being wet.  Stay focused on the goal and not the behavior that you’re trying to eliminate.

We let our son pick a name for the doll so it would develop a bit of an attachment to it.  We spent about an hour showing our son how the doll had dry pants and we would say things like “Wow, look at Mike, he’s got dry pants!  He’s such a big boy keeping his pants dry!”  Then occasionally, we would say “Hey!  Mike has to go potty!  Hurry, lets take Mike to the potty.”  Then we would deliberately go through all the necessary steps to go potty.  First we actually walk (or run) to the potty.  Then we would have our son help “Mike” pull his pants down, and then Mike (who had a small squeeze bottle inside) would actually go potty.  Then we help Mike pull his pants up, flush the potty, and wash his hands.

I think that having our son “help” Mike with what to do, was key part of getting everything mentally straight with our son.

All the while we are doing this, we’re loading our son up on water, and juice.  I would recommend that you stay away from juice, or at lease seriously dilute it.  It turned out ok for us, but it will give most children diarrhea.

Another important thing to do is to make sure you relate the doll’s dry pants to your child’s pants.  We would always check “Mike’s” pants, and then immediately check our son’s pants and make a big deal about them being dry.

When he would start to go potty, we would help him hurry to the potty, help him take his pants down, and help him “aim” properly.  If we managed to help him keep his pants dry, we would praise him a lot and tell him what a good job he did with keeping his pants dry.

If he didn’t make it to the potty, we would encourage him to try and keep his pants dry next time.  And here’s an IMPORTANT step when our child didn’t keep his pants dry.  “Rehearse” the episode three or four times, or as many times as you can without inducing a meltdown.  Start at the place where the child was when they first noticed they had to go potty, help them hurry to the potty, help them pull their pants down, and help them up onto their step stool or whatever.  Do this several times, and always encourage the dry pants.

For us, I think the key to success was several things:

1.  BE sure they’re ready.  Don’t force it if they’re not ready

2.  Be patient and encouraging.  Don’t yell at them or reprimand them.  This is new and intimidating for them, and they have 100% control over this aspect of their life.  If they decide they don’t want to be potty trained, no amount of training will work.  So be sure to keep it positive, fun, and encouraging.

3.  Be consistent.  Don’t start the project if you’re not mentally ready, or if you don’t have the whole day to dedicate to it.

For us it was totally worth it, and it worked really well.  I think when we did our second child, we even took our older one to his grandparents for the day so we would not be distracted.

We used a book called “Potty Training in a Day” and I would highly recommend that you pick up a copy.  It really worked for us.  And it didn’t just work one time, we were successful with it twice!!!

Check out our next article about how we got both our kids to sleep through the night by 6 WEEKS!!!  Wow .. I would have gone insane without this!

About a year ago, we signed up and we went with the annual plan.  I think it was about $200 for 12 months.  We figured that we would try it out, and it service and reliability were good, we would cancel our Bellsouth services.

Well service was not good at all.  In fact it was totally unusable.  We put the router in front of the “gizmo” as Sunrocket called it.  We tried putting the router behind the gizmo.  Nothing worked.

Sunrocket tried to help a couple times, but we couldn’t get anything working.  We kind of forgot about it, and we were planning to move, so we thought we would try it at the new house.

Our DSL is MUCH faster at the new house.  The Speed Test reports that we have about 6.2MB downstream and I can’t remember what out upload was, but it was a lot.  Still nothing seemed to work.

By this time, we started getting email, voicemail, and maybe even some postal mail announcing that Sunrocket was going out of business.  Not surprising if others had a similar experience as what I had.

My wife checked her account balance, and there’s a charge from Sunrocket for like $208.22  You’ve got to be kidding me?  For what?  I’m sure that this charge was placed after the annoucement they were going out of business.

A phone call to the credit card company and I’m sure it’ll all be taken care of.  The lady at the credit card company said they’ve been getting LOTS of calls since Sunrocket made the announcement.

Have you been charged by Sunrocket?

Here are some high-level “requirements” for the site:

1.  Would prefer open source tools and code, definitely want the site to be deployed on linux.  Perl, apache, php, mysql .. are all great.

2.  The site will not be static.  It will be dynamic in nature.  There will need to be multiple levels of “authors” or “contributors” who will deliver and edit content.

3.  Content will consist of photos and text.

4.  The site will be “repliated” or duplicated in some way.  Meaning that I’ll provide a copy of the same site with possibly the same or different content to each user.

5.  The site will be monetized with AdSense ads as well as direct purchasing of banners spots from advertisers.

I really think I have a winner here, but I’m a tad short on funds at the moment.  If you would like to partner up on this, and are willing to work for equity / future profit let me know.  I’ll tell you all about my idea and we’ll see if it sounds like somethign you’re interested in working on.

Thanks!

If you’re like me, you’ve probably had more than one spell cast on you.  Chances are you’ve had spells cast on you, and you didn’t even know it!  Has this ever happened to you:

• Found yourself on a website that you didn’t mean to go to?
• Had the urge to purchase something you didn’t really need?
• Spent WAY too much time surfing the Internet?

Did you know that NONE of this is your fault?  SHOCKING isn’t it?  Well, I only recently discovered this myself, and now I’m going to share this startling secret with you.  My trusted Internet surfing buddy.

I was checking my spam folder the other day, and there were a bunch of messages in there about the movie “The Wickerman” along with some instructions on how to attend a course or buy some product or something that would allow me to cast spells that would help me make money or gain wealth.

Of course I don’t cast spells, and I bet you don’t either.  Here’s another shocking secret that I’m going to reveal to you.  Not everyone on the Internet is as “stand-up” as you and me.

There could potentially be hundreds, maybe even thousands of unscrupulous internet marketers out there casting spells.  I wonder how many of those spells were cast on YOU?!?!

There’s hope.

This is exactly why I created Wickerman Spell Breaker 3000(tm) just for you.

You’re the victim here.  The victim of heartless money hungry spellcasters.  I mean who even knew we should be watching out for these people?  Well, I got tired of being the victim, and I want to help you stop being a victim.

By using my WSB3000 (Wickerman Spell Breaker 3000), you’ll save yourself potentially millions of dollars (or yen), that you would probably have used to buy products and services while under the powerful force of one of these hideous spells.

How much do you think it’s worth to save yourself that kind of money?  $10,000?  $5,000?  How about $1,000?  If you act right now (and you agree that you’re not currently under the influence of a spell), I’ll give you this amazing deal for the totally ridiculous price of only $5.00

How can I make this even better?  If you click now, and place you order before the end of today, I’ll double your order.  That’s right.  You’ll get TWO copies of WSB3000.

You owe it to yourself, and more inportantly you owe it to your family and friends to not only order this now, but share it with your friends.  In fact, you probably ought to go ahead and just order enough so you can give a copy to anyone you care about.

I’ve been getting them for a while now, and really haven’t paid them any attention.  I think the last one I got was from digned.info, and the links in the email (none of which I clicked) pointed there too.

I know there are a lot of people out there looking to make a quick buck on the internet, but casting spells?  I can’t imagine what that looks like.  I’m thinking about chicken feet, eye of newt, and a big, black, cast iron cauldron boiling over with dry ice smoke over flowing the sides.  That or you have to collect a locket of your victim .. umm, I mean customers’ hair, put it under your bed, sleep with your feet on your pillow and say their name backward three times before you fall asleep.

Well, if you know anything about this, please .. post a comment!

We finally got all our materials together for the coregistration project.  Here’s basically how it’s supposed to work.

We have a series of 5 email messages that we loaded up into an autoresponder (AutoResponse Plus).  Then we researched and selected a Co-Registration records provider.  We talked with a couple and eventually selected a provider called CoReg Media.  Supposedly they’re a pretty big player.  What they do is provide records from other websites.  You’ve probably seen coregistration if you’ve ever signed up for an account somewhere, and then before you “checkout” or finish the registration you get a screen that says something like “Hey, are you interested in any of this other stuff?” and if you are, you check the radio button and click continue.

At that point the surfers information is passed to the coregistration company and they probably do some scrubbing or validating and then post the record (lead) to my autoresponder and we start sending the emails.

The first email is sent immediatey, the second email is send the following day, and so on.

All the emails are basically a “pitch” that points the potential customer to a landing page where we put the hard sell on for the product.

So far, we’ve been delivered a little over 1100 records from CoReg Media and we haven’t had a single conversion.

We have a couple places to look and see if we can make improvements.  We’ve already tested two versions of the initial email we send out.  The first email we sent was a pretty long pitch and I suspected that it might be delivered to spam folders, we tried a really simple email, and so far it would look like the stats are about the same.

The next place to check is basic deliverability.   We might try using a third party email provider like Intellicontact to deliver the email and track open rates.  Although, at this point, other that poor conversions and clickthrough rates, I don’t really have any reason to believe the ARP program isn’t working.

Of course after that we’ll start analyzing the actual records to make sure they’re not incentivized or pre-checked or something like that.  Those are issues that are difficult to figure out.

We have had a pretty low unsubscribe rate (24 unsubs out of 1108 records provided).  I don’t know if that means that the messages aren’t being delivered properly so people aren’t opening or unsubscribing.  Or it could be that the records are incentivized or pre-selected in some way, and the recipients are expecting “spam” on their journey to win an ipod or something.

Either way, we still have collected about 1100 emails so far, and we fully intend to continue sending messages to that list until they unsubscribe or die

Seriously though, I do intend to send a personal email message to a handful of the records and ask them where they coregistered and to make sure it wasn’t incentivized or pre-selected.

I’ll keep you posted!

Here is a link to a Potty Training web page that we did.  We were able to potty train our child very quickly, and this is a page that kind of explains what we did.

Here is another link to a page I did on sleep apnea.  I think the other page I did on potty training was better than this one.  Probably because I had to start from scratch with the apnea page, but knew what I was talking about with the potty training.

Anyway, the concept is that you create a web page or small site that is built with the sole purpose of placing adsense ads on. If you’re not familiar with adsense, it’s the “content network” equivalent of Google’s AdWords program. I’m sure you’ve seen them when you’re surfing the web and you see a callout box or a small section that says something like “Ads by Gooooogle” or something like that.

Publishers (people with websites) can earn money by allowing Google to place ads on their website. If someone clicks the ad, then the owner of the website will get some money from Google. The more competitive and expensive the keyword that triggered the ad, the more money the publisher will make for a click.

With arbitrage, the goal is to find profitable niches by doing extensive keyword research and finding a niche where the competition for keywords isn’t so stiff that you can’t afford to drive traffic.

Anyway, the link at the top of the page here is going to give you a really excellent view of how the whole thing works.

Check it out.

Chris Hackett

So everyday I try and visit my blog here to see how things are going, and to see if anyone has left any comments. So far, no Comments

Oh well. I can handle it.

One thing I did notice is that I get a good many clicks from people who have punched in “1shoppingsite.com” into google or some other search engine. Interesting.

If you missed the earlier blog post, basically the deal with 1shoppingsite.com is that they have scripted a “storefront” to Clickbank products, and you give the 1shoppingsite.com script your clickbank ID, and they in turn give you a the storefront where all the affiliate links for all the products are your affiliate link. Pretty cool.

So I got to looking around, and I noticed that on the 1shoppingsite.com site, there are adwords, and during the setup process, you’re supposed to enter your adsense code, and I guess they give you credit for the adsense clicks too.

I’ve been thinking a good bit lately about the adsense thing. In fact, I originally started my journey by thinking about adsense. I saw some ad or promo about how to do this stuff called “Adsense Arbitration,” where basically write content for the purpose of getting high value adwords ads displayed on your site. And then you use PPC to drive traffic to the page. The intention is that you pay $.10 for the click to get the visitor and $.15 for an adsense click. I don’t know if it works or not. I did write one or two articles and try to make it work. I’ll write about that in a different blog.

Anyway, so back to 1shoppingsite.com. So seeing all this stuff from them got me to thinking about how I could turn that into a money making idea.

My wife is looking into community websites, and I’ve always been a big fan of creating websites where the users generate most or all of the content. Stuff like job / resume services or dating sites. I was thinking about making one on American Idol!

Then you monetize the site with adsense. I don’t know how many people are reading this, but if you’re willing to partner up with me, send me an email and let me know. I’d like to launch a community website and monetize it with Google Adsense.

I’m thinking of doing something just like the 1shoppingsite.com deal, and we give that away to ClickBank affiliates and folks that want to make money on-line. Except we keep the revenue from the adsense ads!

Ok, I’m going to go write an entry on the Adsense Arbitrage method ..

Chris Hackett

This is a tad old but still ridiculous.

Big Google Check

This guy created an on-line dating / match-maker / adult friend finder type of site, made it free, and salted it with un-obtrusive adsense ads.

I’d say it’s working for him.

Chris Hackett

Today I started an Adwords campaign for a weight loss product that I’m working on with a partner.

I know the diet pill / weight-loss market on-line is both highly competitive, and at times a bit over-crowded, but I think we’re going to give it a go anyway and see what we can get done.

Here is the main landing page.

I’ve started a Google AdWords campaign and two adgroups in the campaign. One adgroup is a generic “weight loss” group with not much in the way of targeting. The other is a “Hollywood” group with weight loss keywords related to hollywood.

As usual, I’m tracking everything with adtrackz, so we”ll see how everything goes! I’ll keep you posted!

Chris Hackett

I’m about to purchase like 100,000 “visitors” from the site to see if we can get any conversions or not.

Here’s the site where I’m sending them.

I’m not entirely sure what to expect yet, and I’m not sure what I’m going to learn about it, but I guess we’re going to find out!

Obviously I’ll post the results here in my blog as the hits start coming in!

Well, today I took like 5 minutes and set this thing up. You know most of the time when I sign up for this kind of thing, I’m really just checking it out to see what other people are doing. I think it’s interesting to see how other people are trying to make money.

This site walks you through a couple (like maybe 5) steps where you enter your name and your clickbank affiliate ID and that kind of thing. They then build this site for you.

I’m still not entirely certain how the provider of this stuff makes money. From what I can tell, all the links for product in the store end up with my affiliate ID in them, so I make the money from affiliate sales, if there are any. Also, during the sign-up process, they asked me for my Google AdSense publisher ID, so I assume that the adsense ads that are displayed will end up being credited to my account. Who knows.

Now I don’t know for sure that this is their strategy. Maybe it is, maybe it’s not, but here’s what I would do with this idea:

1. Hire an eLance.com or RentACoder.com person to create a “template” website and scripts that will automatically generate the appropriate clickbank affiliate links. So that you can spam the world with something like “Hey, let me give you this FREE massive ClickBank online storefront, where you can instantly be offering thousands of products, ALL with YOUR affiliate links! Be ready to publish your store in like 5 minutes”

2. Advertise this “free cash machine” on Adwords, ezines, safe-lists, etc, trying to get as many people as possible signed up.

3. Use my own AdSense publisher ID to display adsense ads on all these other peoples free storefront.

Maybe I’ll give it a shot. If I do, I’ll post my progress here!

Chris Hackett

Step 1:  Create and Download Landing Pages.  This particular program has a cool form that affiliates can fill in and they’ll generate a nice little zip file of a bunch of landing pages that you can upload to your own server / domain.  I did this, and gave it my affiliate id and a google conversion tracking code, so I can tell which keywords are actually creating sales.

Step 2:  Test the Links.  Never, and I mean NEVER, set up and launch a campaign or adgroup of any kind until you’ve tested the links to make sure they work and that you’re the affiliate when you get to the clickbank checkout page.

Step 3:  Create the Adwords campaign.  For this, I created a simple campaign called “Government Records”

Step 3:  Create an AdGroup.  For this step, I selected one of the “niches” that are available in this government records program.  For the sake of simplicity, lets use “birth records” as an example.  I’ll create an AdGroup called “Birth Records”  It’ll ask me to write the ad, and I’ll use something targeted like “Search Birth Records Now” and “Instant Access to Birth Records” etc.  I enter the appropriate display and destination url’s

Step 3.A:  Remember that I said the affiliate program would create a bunch of landing pages, so I make sure I link directly to the landing page that is for “birth records,”  This landing page has been optimized for certain keywords related to “Birth Records”  This will increase relevancy, and hopefully my CTR, which will in turn result in a lower CPC.  Yay.

Step 4:  Add Keywords.  Once I have saved the AdGroup, there’s a keyword tool link in the next page Google displays which will allow you to seach for and add additional keywords.  Click this tool, and enter “birth records” in the keywords box, make sure “used symonyms” is checked.  When you click next, Google will go out and look for keywords.

There will be two columns of data.  One will show the search volume for the previous month and the other column will show keyword compitetion.  Click the heading for ‘keyword competition” until all the data is sorted so that the kewords with the lowest competition are displayed at the top.

You’ll pretty easily be able to see a handful of keywords that are relevant to your ad and your program that have little or no competition.

Add these keywords and off you go!

Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat!

So today I got to thinking about an old campaign that I used to run for a program called Government Records.  I think it was pretty successful when I ran it the first time.  The problem the first time was that I didn’t make but a single Adgroup.

I used the most awesome tool, Keyword Elite to create this massive list of keywords, and then I just jammed all those keywords into a single AdGroup.

At first it worked great, and I probably made like 10 sales in the first day or two.

Then I got the GOOGLE SLAP!  Whoa.  What the heck was that.  All of a sudden all these keywords that I had been paying like $0.25 each for, all of a sudden are inactive and it is telling me the minimum bid is like $10.00.  Yikes.

So after doing some research, I learned that it all comes back to RELEVANCE!  Google wants everything to be relevant.

While Keyword Elite is really an awesome tool for creating and managing large lists of keywords, the user (that’s you), still has to do some work to make sure that your keywords are relevant.

So now, what I do is I try to group relevant keywords together into groups of about 5 to 20 keywords and put them into their own AdGroup.  This way, I can have a nice, tightly related group of keywords, and I can write an Ad that is more closely targeted (also RELEVANT) to the set of keywords.

Also, you should always be split testing your ads.  At all times, you should have two ads running in the adgroup.  After every 100 clicks or so, you should look at the CTR (Click Through Rate) for each of the two ads.  Take the one that is performing poorly, and re-write it to see if you can make a new ad that beats the current “winner.”  This way, you can constantly be improving your ads, and CTR.

Remember, Google will reward you for a higher CTR.  In the eyes of the Google Algorithm, a high CTR means your ad must be relevant to the searchers terms, since searchers seem to be clicking on it a lot.

If you’re interested in learning more about this stuff, you can get on the mailing list for my upcoming course on how to make money on-line with Clickbank and Google Adwords.  It’s going to be a solid, step-by-step guide on how to make money online.  I’ve made a bunch of videos and the whole bit to walk you through everything step by step.  Check it out

So I think in my last entry I talked about the fact that I was about to go meet this fellow about the company he worked for.

Turns out the company name is Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals and they have an awesome line up of products from weight loss to muscle and strength, general healthcare and sexual performance.

I’m really excited about having an opportunity to work with them.  They have excellent payment terms, prices, and loads of good marketing materials already written up.

I’ll write a separate blog entry outlining my exact strategy for this.

So awhile ago I posted a “buying lead’ on a website called AliBaba.com which is this huge online global marketplace.  It’s awesome .. you should check it out.

Anyway, I posted that I was looking to buy weightloss or health and wellness products.  Got lots of responses, but the other day this guy contacts me from a local company.

I have been planning to launch some kind of on-line direct-response health and wellness or diet product or something like that.  This guy might be able to hook me up with the product and might even do drop-shipping for me.  We’ll see.

We’re gonna go have a beer at Taco Mac.  Yay.

Tomorrow I’m going to write more about exactly how I plan to launch this (or some) product.

Stay tuned.

Chris

I’ve seen lots of posts in various forums where a “newbie” comes in and makes a complaint about not having a website or not knowing how to use html.  OR maybe they’re complaining that they haven’t made any sales, and adwords is starting to eat them alive.

Almost always, someone pipes up and suggests they get a blog and pepper it with affiliate links.  They’re always claiming to be able to make some sales that way.

So here I am.  I guess this whole blog will be a “case study” and I’ll let everyone know how it’s working out.

Chris Hackett

Keywords are important for virtually EVERY aspect of on-line marketing and advertising. They’re really the foundation of everything.

If researched property, keywords will influence everything from domain name selection, to content on your landing or home page, to the keywords you use in your pay per click campaigns.

I use a tool called KeyWord Elite It’s a tad on the expensive side when compared to some of the other tools, courses and eBooks, but it really is one of the most useful tools that I have. I would say I use it on a daily basis.

Some of the cool stuff it does:

* Create a very large keyword list quickly

* Edit the entire keyword list quickly and easily

* Remove unwanted characters from the entire list easily and quickly

* Get demand data for keywords .. it will go out and check the online tools to see how many searches there were for a keyword. This is AWESOME!

* SPY on your competition. It goes out and researches the top several websites for each keyword and will tell you why they’re at the top. Shows keyword density, themed content, and all kinds of stuff that tells you why they’re ranked so high!

* The coolest thing I think it does is to go out and spy on AdWords competition. You can give it a keyword list, and then give it a website, and it will tell you which keywords are being used by other affiliates to promote the particular website.

It might not be obvious at first but one of the really cool things about this is that you can set this to run several times automatically every day.

So what happens after a week or so, is that you can see which keywords are consistently showing up at the top of the list.  I’ve only just now started to figure out how to use this tool, but what I’m noticing is that most of the affiliates are using a keyword for a couple days and then they give up on it.

But there are a handful of affiliates for each product that I’ve researched so far that are bidding on the same keywords using the same Ad Text all the time.

You can be pretty sure that if an affiliate has left the same ad and the same keywords running for more than about a week, that it’s making money for them.

This is a business where you really don’t need to re-invent the wheel.  find out what other successful affiliates are doing, and then do what they’re doing.

This really is one of the most useful tools that I use at all.  I would HIGHLY recommend that if you’re serious about trying to make money on-line, you should buy KeyWord Elite.

It will help you if you’re writing content pages for AdSense, it will help you if you’re trying to increase your page ranking in the search engines, and it will definitely help you if you’re trying to uncover super targeted, low-competition keywords for a pay per click campaign.

You should check it out.

Well, this is the part where I give you a real quick introduction to Google AdWords.

Google AdWords is an advertising program offered by Google, and I would venture to say it’s the most popular Pay Per Click advertising program being used on the internet.

Here’s how it works.

First, I’m sure you’ve seen the “Sponsored Links” that are on the right hand side of a Google search results page. All those ads are paid to be there, and you might be surprised to know that it doesn’t cost as much as you would think.

As an advertiser, you create an AdWords account, and from there you can write an ad, provide the URL where you want the surfer to go once they click the ad, and other target market information (language / geography / location / etc.. )

The most important part of the process is to determine the keywords that you want to trigger your advertisement. For example if you’re selling bicycles you’ll select keywords related to bicycles such as “new bike” “cycling” “spare bike parts” and similar.

Once you have your keywords selected, you can then enter a “bid” amount for those keywords, letting the AdWords system know how much you’re willing to pay for a click. I have a formula I use to figure that out, and I’ll share it with you later. But it’s obviously tied to my conversion rates. You also set a daily budget for spending so that you don’t break the bank with paying for clicks.

So, now you have an ad written, you have key words selected, and you’ve given yourself a budget. Once you have everything set up, Google will start displaying your ad almost immediately! I would say that depending on how targeted you niche is, you’ll usually start seeing impressions and clicks within the first 15 minutes!

What a great marketing medium where you can create an advertisement, target that ad to specific geographic regions, target specific keywords, define a specific budget and launch the campaign in about 15 minutes!

The hard part is in the “tweaking” .. the “broad brush” strokes are easy and encouraging, but the details are super important.

Just stick with it, take your time, don’t give up. It takes time, but once you get a sale or two under your belt, you’ll have the bug for sure!

If you sign up at ClickBank as a publisher, (which I haven’t done yet, but plan to), I think they only charge you like $50.00 or so to get your account as a publisher set up. Then they’ll manage the affiliate program for you. They’ll process credit cards and do the whole bit. I think it’s a good deal.

To me, it’s the logical next step in the make money online pursuit.  It goes back to the ol’ ‘I’d rather make 1% of a hundred other people’s effort than 100% of my own effort.”  There are quite literally thousands and thousands of people looking for products to promote on ClickBank.  Just think about the volume of business you could do if you could tap into all those people.

There are a couple keys to being a successful publisher at ClickBank:

1.  Remember your audience.  When you’re promoting your product to affiliates, remember that you’re not promoting your product anymore, your promoting a BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY.  You gotta convince other folks that they’re going to make money by promoting your product.  Don’t spend too much time convincing affiliates how great the product is.

2.  Provide Support.  You gotta let your affiliates know that you’re there for them, and that you’ll support them.  You should provide them with keyword lists to use in the PPC campaigns.  You should give them banner ads, and you should pre-write some PPC ads (both text ads and graphic ads) that are already formatted and ready to go at the major PC places like Google and Yahoo.

3.  Show, claim, or demonstrate high conversion rates and low return rates.  When you’re an affiliate, you want to know that sites convert.  I want to be sure that if I send 100 people to your site, that at least one or two of them are going to turn into a customer.  Conversion rates are very simple to calculate.  If you send 100 people to a page, and 2 of them make a purchase, the conversion rate is 2%.

I’m currently working on my own eBook that’s all about making money on-line.  I’m planning to market my book as a “Foundational Principles” type book that’s going to teach you the fundamentals that you need to be successful.

Most of the eBooks and programs out there are so over hyped and make really outrageous claims about $100,000 a month clickbank accounts.  I’ve never directly seen any of these accounts, and I’m sure they probably exist, but without the correct foundation, there’s not much chance that you’re going to end up with anything even close to that.

So keep your eyes open.  Hopefully I’ll have my course ready to go soon.  It’ll be complete with a video series and everything!  Hopefully it’ll be the standard 101 introduction for anyone who wants to make money on-line.

A lot of these other books and programs cost about $80.00 give or take.  My attitude toward that is that while probably 80% of the material is the same old stuff re-hashed, it’s actually pretty likely that there is a tip or trick or idea in the course that’s going to help you earn more … IF you have the right foundation in place.  That’s where my book comes in place.

So keep your eyes open and I’ll let you know when the book is ready to go!

So here’s an actual strategy that I’m trying out. I’ll let you know how it goes.

A friend of mine here in Atlanta is quite the negotiator and entrepreneur. Once he went into a bank and negotiated a deal with them to finance this car they had on a repo.

I convinced him to write a short article describing exactly what he did and then we would sell the article on-line for like $5.00 or something.

I launched a Google AdWords campaign with about 1,000 automotive keywords in it, and set a budget of like $10.00 per day and let er rip.

We got a ton of clicks but no sales.

Sooo .. I decided to change strategies a little. Instead of trying to sell the article, I’ll start giving it away for free. Just enter your name and email address and I’ll give you instant access to the article.

The theory here is that once I get the email address, I’ll give the article as promised, and then I’ll add the email address to an autoresponder that’ll send them occasional email messages.

The first message in the autoresponder will be sent on the following day, and it will be an email message, directly from me, that says something along the lines of ”

Hey $FirstName,

I hope you enjoyed the article you read yesterday, I still can’t believe that guy got such an awesome car for practically nothing.

So yesterday, I came across a site that I thought you would want to check out. It’s a site that lists all these government seized cars that are being auctioned off all over the country.

I did a search for some cars where I live, and I couldn’t believe some of the deals people were getting. Anyway, since it seems like you might be thinking about a new car, I figured I would pass this along.

Good Luck!

Chris Hackett

Of course all the links will be my affiliate link to the “seized government auction” website.

The second message in the series, which I’ll probably send like two or three days later might be a little less targeted, but maybe still pertinent . maybe something along the lines of ” Hey .. is your computer slow? maybe you have a virus, you should click here to do a free scan to be sure.”

I’ll try and stay low-key and non ‘hype’ ed up and I figure I’ll keep sending them an email every once in a while until they unsubscribe.

I’m thinking that for the first week or two, I’ll send them a message every couple days, and after that I’ll send one once each week or two.

So that’s one strategy that I’m planning to try out. I’ve got the ClickBank links created, and the products picked out. I’ve also written the email messages, which I’ll post here if I can figure out how!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll let you know how things go!

Chris Hackett

I’ve been reading and searching and toying with the whole Affiliate Marketing concept. Here’s my take on it.

I believe there are some people who are making a LOT of money with affiliate marketing. Right now, I’m not one of them! But I do believe there are actually people making a lot of money doing it.

If you’re new to the whole concept of affiliate marketing, basically the concept is that you promote and advertise products and or services that are provided by someone else, and if you refer a person who makes a purchase, you get a part of the profit.

It seems to me, there are basically two kinds of affiliate programs, pure digital products and services, and physical goods.

Clickbank seems to be the clear leader in selling digital products on-line. Basically if you have an informational product such as an article, eBook, “how-to” or other document that you think other people would pay money for, you can allow Clickbank to manage an affiliate program for you. They make your digital product available to affiliates to promote. So lets say you want to sell the book for $29.00. You allow affiliates to make a part of that $29.00 in exchange for promoting it for you. It can be a great way to make a lot of money.

Of course the other side of that coin is to login as an affiliate and select other people products to promote for a profit.

My strategy is to start as an affiliate, and see if I can’t make a little money with that first. So far it’s been hit or miss. I’ve selected and promoted a handful of products. Some of them have been good, some of them have not. The ones that were good weren’t great, and the ones that were bad, weren’t awful.

How do I promote these things? So far, only with PPC. Specifically Google Adwords. It’s taken me a while to figure out all the ins and outs of Adwords, and I’m sure I still don’t have it all figured out, but I’m getting there.

In a later post, I’ll give you specific examples of the products that I’ve been promoting and how they’ve been doing.

It’s not really specifically geared toward Internet marketing, but there’s good general information about getting in the right mind-set for direct response marketing.

I think there are a LOT of people out there who have good ideas for marketing and advertising efforts, but never do anything about it because they’re afraid of what people will say or something, because they think their ideas are too crazy or different or something.

Anyway, I would recommend that book if you’re starting on a path to making money on the internet!

I’m new to this whole blogging thing, but it’s all over the place, so I figure I better give it a go. We’ll see what happens. I’m not sure if I’m disciplined enough to do this everyday, but I guess we’ll find out!

My goal here is to document my journey in my quest to earn a full-time living on-line.

I suppose I should tell you just a tad about me so you can tell where I’m coming from. I’ve done a lot so far.

After graduating from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro GA, I went to work at the CNN Center in downtown Atlanta as a “webmaster” for CNN. This was back in like 1995 / 1996. IN fact, I think when I started, there was no such thing as CNN.com. I was there for a couple years and then jumped around from place to place until just a couple years ago when I decided I had about enough of sitting in cold, loud datacenter floors at 2:00 in the morning.

So I packed up my technology bags and headed toward real estate. I got my license and started investing heavily. Things went well with that for about a year and a half, but has fallen apart nicely lately.

Now I’m absolutely determined to earn a fantastic living on-line. This blog will document my journey.