Updates Galore

Wow, I'm tired. Have been doing quite a few work sessions lately, while being sure not to burn out as well. Here's what's in store for tonight's entry (I apologize for my posts getting to be so long lately...)

1. What Do You Do?
2. Bookmark.com Update
3. New Table
4. Project AA & Replayer.org Updates
5. MovieForums, CookingForums, MMAForums Updates

What Do You Do?

I was sitting on the bench waiting for one of the badminton courts to open up when a new member to the club, whom we shall Bob, sat down beside me. He asked me what it was I do, and so I answered him the same way I answer everybody: "I'm a web entrepreneur... basically I have websites and sell advertising on them."

Now, normally when I say this, people are intrigued or interested and usually either reply with "Ah, cool!" or else "You make websites?". In either case the conversation usually continues with them asking for more information on what exactly a web entrepreneur does, but they usually understand it after a few questions. However, my awkward conversation with Bob yesterday helped me realize that what we do may not really be as simple and clear as we think it to be.

Continuing on, Bob replied with:

Bob: "You make websites?" Me: "Not anymore really. I used to 2-3 years ago but now I just outsource the work to others."

Bob seemed confused here and we talked for what seemed like ages, but was probably just 5-minutes, on what outsourcing was. He kept trying to compare it to a hypothetical landscaping business and subcontracting that out, and while I told him that was pretty much what I did, he still seemed confused.

The conversation continued:

Bob: "So, do you code?" Me: "Ah, no way, I'm horrible... I outsource that too." Bob: "So you don't code?" Me: "Um... not anymore no, I outsource that now. I used to code way back when, but I could only get to a certain level. I need much more expertise on my code these days so I hire experts. Why, do you code?" Bob: "Yeah." Me: "Oh yeah?" I was interested now. "What language?" Bob: "English."

I paused... confused. I started to think back if I had somehow made the question unclear.

Me: "Um.. no.. I mean what programming language?" Bob: "Oh... what do you mean by code...? When you code, how do you do it? In college we did code and it was... weird and we had to do things with like numbers.. like.. 1 and 0 and stuff.. how do you do it? So it appears on the webpage? I hear there are programs that will make it for you."

We then get into this strange conversation on HTML, WYSIWYG's and for some reason binary being thrown into there as well. I start to get a bit annoyed as I really hate talking about 'technical' stuff as it's not what I do and I don't like people overhearing and thinking I work in technical support, but I put on a smile anyhow.

Bob then asks me "So... do you find that you can believe everything on the Internet?" I try to remember if the year is 1995 and quickly remember it isn't.

Anyhow, I won't bore you with the rest of the conversation, but the conversation did remind me that not everyone is as comfortable with the world of the Internet and websites as we are. Just when I was starting to think that most people understood what I did for a living too... the odd thing is that Bob wasn't a 60-year-old man, he was not much older than me.

Bookmark.com Update

If you are a long time reader of my blog, you may remember that I announced that I was brokering the domain Bookmark.com. This was back in November and since then I don't believe I have posted anything about it since then.

I haven't been neglecting this, in fact over the months I've contacted a fair number of indivuals as well as companies both large and small. Not too long ago I also created a very well put together PDF file to send to interested parties. I analyzed the site's traffic, visitor demographics and statistical data, inserted graphs and charts, and created a very professional piece of information. Interested parties I've sent this to have been impressed.

I was careful enough to sign a contact with the owner of the domain which can be seen below:

Basically I receive 10% (after escrow fees) of the final sale.

Anyhow, there's this one company I've kept contacting over the past months. I got their automated responses and a couple of times received a bit more hands-on attention, but was usually quickly forgotten. I didn't want to give up on this domain acquisition company, and kept being persistant without overwhelming them (there's a fine line there).

Yesterday, I finally got through. I spoke with the Director of Business Development at the company, and they are interested. He enjoyed my PDF file, BTW :) However, he needs more data before he can make a more 'concrete' offer so I have changed the DNS servers on the domain to point to theirs for a week.

They will be testing their ads and CPC rates and whatnot. I made sure that he knew that we were looking for offers of at least $XXX,XXX with $300,000 being close to our minimum. He said it really depended on how the 7-day test period fared, and that "I could offer $450,000 or I could offer $50,000" (funny how $50,000 is meant to sound miniscule here :P).

Anyhow, we are obviously still in very early pre-negotiation stages here, and everything (with this company) is lying on this 7-day test period. If it goes well, I could be $20,000-$40,000 richer in a few weeks :)

I'll keep you posted on how things progress.

New Table

A few days ago I bought a new dinette table to replace what I used to have. I really don't know what I was thinking when I bought the first one. I remember I kept telling myself it was stupid to buy a bigger table as I'd usually just be eating by myself, and when I wasn't, that I wouldn't need anything bigger than a table for two. Oh well, live and learn.

Here is a photo of my old table. It was only $79 I believe and was very small and made out of cheap wood (no finishing on it, square edges, not very sturdy, etc.)

And here is my new table. Nothing crazy or dramatic, and not very expensive, but it is quite an improvement over the old one, no?

The new one has cushioning, the wood is a bit stronger and has a nice light finish on it, and is more curved and rounded edges, as well as being bigger :)

Here's one with a tablecloth. Which do you prefer? Tablecloth or no tablecloth?:

Project AA & Replayer.org Updates

Again, there has been progress on both Project AA and Replayer.org but I don't have anything I can show you yet.

However, I will give you a clue on what Project AA is. It's webmaster related.

I'll have a visual update for you on Replayer.org on the next update.

MovieForums, CookingForums, MMAForums Updates

Since Terrorist #1 is back online, he's back to work. I should have a preview of the MovieForums skin for you by either the next entry or else the entry after that.

The CookingForums skin should be up any day now. I will most likely be buying more of Brian Le's ForumShock services to help kickstart it with a few thousand posts.

MMAForums.org's hired marketing services should be done before the end of the week I've been told and then I can begin advertising it via AdWords and by purchasing banner slots on various sites.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Why hello there fellow readers! Yes, this is a new update. Enjoy.

• Pictures/beautiful day
• Blog layout changes
• Project updates
• The power of attention
• Blog link exchanges

Pictures/beautiful day

Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day so Lisa and I just had to go out and enjoy it. I took some pictures, but admittedly lacked in the quality and number of photos as we were too busy enjoying the day and shopping.

In fact, today is absolutely gorgeous again. See, where I live, it's usually very cloudy/rainy most of the year, from around October through to late April. Then, it's one of the most beautiful places in the world - literally; Vancouver Island has been regarded as one of the most beautiful places in the world. Spring is here, and it's just awesome. I actually think it's getting me to work with more energy and to be more productive!

Below are a few photos, although due to my poor photographer skills, they didn't do the day full justice:

This is a shot of my bedroom. I added it here because some people asked to see some photos of my apartment.

A shot of the view from my apartment balcony. At night you can hear all the millions of crickets chirp and it's so soothing and puts you to sleep.

A shot of me driving. It's sooo beautiful out..

A shot of Lisa. I think we're in the parking lot at the bank, as I had to drop off a cheque.

Westwood Lake. I was too lazy to actually get out of the car and take better pictures :P A random picture of the surrounding area. I live a few blocks from here. We're on our way to do some more shopping.

Another random shot. Look at the sky :)

When looking for a new table at some furniture stores, we found this one place that had the most AMAZING couch ever. There were two we liked, in fact, and were both really similar. I really should have taken a picture of it, but felt weird going out and coming back in to take a picture. Basically it was a couch that curved around a bit and each 'seat' was so comfortable and you could recline in them at various levels, and each 'seat', because it was a glorified movie theatre couch, had armrests that had drink holders in them. And inside the armrests you could place anything like a bottle of wine or a bag of chips. It was amazingly comfortable and would have been the best thing ever.

We talked to the East Indian salesman, as it was run by East Indians, and he was really friendly, and a damn good salesman. lol.. he somehow almost got me out of the door with one... even though I was looking for a new kitchen table.

The thing was, these were both on SALE. Mega cheap. The one was on sale for $1999, and the other for $1199! This is Canadian currency too! The only reason I didn't buy it immediately was that I already have a couch, and buying a new one wouldn't make sense, even though it was the world's best couch.

I'm definitely checking out that place again when I move (I'm planning on moving out in around 6 months or so and buying either a house or a bigger and nicer apartment).

Since it's so beautiful out again today, we'll probably go out and take more photos, or else tomorrow or the day after. I'll try to do a bit better job of taking more scenic ones.

Blog layout changes

I've made a few small layout changes on the right hand side of this blog, basically breaking up my sites into main, developed, and under development categories.

Project updates

I know I've been lacking in the amount and depth of project updates lately, but the truth is that there really isn't much to tell. I've been spending pretty much all of my time lately, when working, on either answering e-mails and dealing with advertisers or finishing off items of my last 'todo' list.

MMAForums.net's skin is FINALLY complete. You can view it out here. Once my current 'todo' list is completed, I'll get to work on customizing it a bit more (the ads and whatnot) and start marketing it.

The marketing campaign for MMAForums has halted as I need to figure out some better communication methods with the hired help. It's partly my fault for not being 100% ready and prepared before contacting him as I usually am when I hire people.

Now that Terrorist #1 is pretty much done with MMAForums.net (I still need the PSDs, images, etc.), CookingForums.net's skin should be up fairly soon as well.

MovieForums.org will follow suit fairly shortly.

ProjectAA and Replayer.org are still being plugged away on by my programmers. Unfortunately I don't have anything new visually to show you guys yet. However, there should be something significant to show by next week.

The rest of the projects are not forgotten, but try to think of my projects as a tropical canvass, with the tallest and biggest trees, or projects, stealing most of the sun and energy, with the smaller plants and prospects getting the remains and leftovers :)

The power of attention

I work a little bit here, a little bit there, when at the computer. However, I only usually spend an extremely small percentage of the time actually working. To help compensate for this, when I feel I have a fair bit of energy, I make myself to 'work sessions'. I've done this for a long time, but have neglected to do it for quite a long time. Basically what I do is set my stopwatch on my watch, and work for exactly one hour. During this time I must do work and only work. No recreational chatting or browsing the web. I can't have the TV on or anything to distract me.

I always put on some music, put myself on Busy mode on MSN, and only attend to new e-mails that are work-related. I then work on my 'todo' list or take care of any e-mails I haven't attended to before.

I find that by forcing myself to work with no distractions for a set amount of time dramatically increases the amount of work I get done. I think the main thing it does is force me to get things done I don't want to do and am putting off, usually difficult or time-consuming items on my 'todo' list.

And when I'm done my session, I feel great. The sense of accomplishment is high, and removing one of those items I've stared at on my 'todo' list for a long time feels great. Basically it helps break procrastination on things you need to do but don't want to do.

I then reward myself with either taking a break and watching some TV or going out and doing something, or by grabbing some food and playing a computer game or by chatting online.

The key is not to overdo these work sessions. On a day I'm quite energized and focused, I can usually do around 3 of these work sessions. Sometimes 4. However, on average, I can only handle one or two. Only do these work sessions when you have energy and are awake and focused. That is when you should work.

Blog link exchanges

I have gradually been removing links to other entrepreneur blogs. I remove any blog that has been neglected to stay updated. Many of the past blogs I've linked to had only been updating once every three or eight weeks, and I don't want to link my visitors to such sites.

My number of external blog links has now decreased a lot as a result so I am now accepting new link exchanges with other web entrepreneur bloggers.

Here are my prerequisites - I don't care how much traffic you get or how much money you make:

1. Must be web entrepreneur related (web designer/publisher who makes money or is trying to make money)
2. Must be updated frequently (at least once a week)
3. My link should appear on every page (i.e., not on a 'links' page)

If you're interested, e-mail me at tylercruz (at) gmail.com

I have seen the Light...

It's been a week since my last post, and for that I apologize. I think it is best for a blog to have an update about once every two or three days, and for the update to be somewhat lengthy (as opposed to a couple paragraphs). I think that way it leaves readers with a good idea when to check back and expect an update, as well as providing them with longer and more enriching posts for when it is updated. The reason for the delay stemmed from the fact that I simply had nothing to write about. The past week I've been pretty disappointed and bitter actually. See, I have around 7 different projects and things I'm waiting on, and while I could have worked on something while waiting, I simply didn't want to as I felt that one of these projects should pop up anytime anyhow. I also took the 'empty' time to watch every episode of Prison Break from 1 to 17. I haven't seen then before, but I heard a lot of people rave about it on ChatWebDev, and anyhow now I'm hooked as well :) Here then, is today's blog update: Blog Income Terrorist #2 AWOL? revenue Magazine MMAForums Marketing Dual Monitors PageDump Acquisition Replayer.org/Project AA Updates Blog Income I originally started this blog because I had a number of people request it. However, now TylerCruz.com is actually bringing in some income. A few weeks back, I added a 468x60 AdSense banner at the top. Shortly after, I had an advertiser (Spencer Fry) come forth requesting to advertise for a fixed monthly fee. I have since had two other advertisers come and ask to advertise on it as well. However, I am only allowing the one 468x60 spot. This is to keep the blog nice and clean and ad-free. It will also, as a result, give the 468x60 spot the best coverage - it's the only advertisement on the site, it's sitewide, and is at the top of the site for best exposure. Also, it's a good deal - traffic to this blog is obviously of perhaps the best possible target audience you could ever hope for - web entrepreneurs who frequent multiple forums, sites, and purchase design services, programming, software, etc. Traffic is around 500-600 uniques per day now. Anyhow, the advertisers are now bidding against each other to obtain the spot, so income, while extremely low, does exist and is increasing from this blog. Again, it's peanuts, but it is always nice to see income come in from a new source. Terrorist #2 AWOL?

Terrorist #2, after repeatedly missing his promised deadlines, suddenly ceased all communication for me for about a week. Worried and frustrated, I finally decided to hunt down his phone number, which wasn't listed anywhere on his various websites or main WHOIS info. I had to wait a couple of days to coordinate a good time to phone him, as the United Arab Emirates's timezone differs greatly from Pacific Time.

I managed to get a hold of him, and it was what I expected - his Internet was down. He said they told him it should be up in about a day or two, and that he'd complete MMAForums in about a day or two once he's up.

Hopefully my phone call will give him a bit of incentive to finally finish MMAForums once he's back online :)

revenue Magazine About a week ago I received in the mail a magazine called revenue. I hadn't heard of it before and have no idea how I got a free (or subscription) issue, and I was about to throw it into my recycle bin, but it's actually a very good magazine! I've been slowly reading it, absorbing everything slowly and methodically. The main downside to the magazine is that it's completely hogged with ads, but at least they are interesting ads - AzoogleAds, ValueClickMedia, etc. The magazine is for web publishers and web affiliates. I'll try to keep you posted in the future on how I like the bi-monthly magazine. MMAForums Marketing I have had way too many people blatantly copying things I've been doing, sources I've been using, and ideas. So I am going to be very careful from now on (If you think Project J was bad...) and often times frustatingly-vague, but I have to as it's in my best interest unfortunately to do so. That said, I've started... pursuing... my marketing for MMAForums. I've hired a worldclass (not an exagerration) person which is taking care of part of something and he should be complete any day now. I'll keep you posted on how MMAForums fares. Current stats: Threads: 80 Posts: 579 Members: 23 Dual Monitors Believe me when I tell you that whenever I heard all the hype of having dual monitors I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Why bother having two monitors? Sure, it's a vanity thing, but I can do everything I need to on one, why do I need two? If anything it'd slow me down. However, today I went out and bought another 19-inch LCD anyhow. Why? To be honest, mainly just for vanity. However, now that I have it. HOLY CRAP. It's not for vanity any more. What can I say? Dual monitors simply rock. It is so much different once you actually have them in front of you and start using them. Now I can't go back to just one. As soon as I placed my second monitor next to my first, it was simply shocking just how much viewspace I had. I had to change my pants. Which brings me to my next point. If you have 2 or more monitors or are thinking of getting another one, you have to get UltraMon. It's a program which unleashes the true power of multiple monitors. For example, it will allow you to have taskbars across both monitors, allow you to stretch applications across both monitors (Hello Photoshop...), let you stretch wallpapers across both monitors, has special buttons next to the minimize/restore/close buttons in windows which let you quickly move to the other monitor etc. It's completely customizable too. It costs only $40 and accepts PayPal.

Dual monitors are great for so many reasons... here are two examples of how they are useful which you may not have realized:

1. In the screenshot below, I am playing Oblivion on one monitor, while idling in IRC on the other. What makes this great is that now I can play my game, and see who is logging in or messaging me on MSN without having to keep on pausing and alt-tabbing in and out. It essentially allows me to 'screen' people and ignore people while I play while being able to watch out for important messages and such. I can't rememeber how many times I've alt-tabbed to check whenever I heard people log in or message me because I was waiting for one particular person.

2. Thanks to UltraMon, I can have applications stretch across both monitors with the click of a button. This is ideal for designers - think of using Photoshop across 2560x1024 of workspace.

PageDump Acquisition

I seem to have a bit of a problem with spur-of-the-moment impulse buys:

I wake up. Turn on the computer. Turn on some music and start to check my e-mails. Meanwhile, I log into ChatWebDev as I haven't been there in a while.

I hear Jon and a few others talking about PageDump and a couple members in the chat ask him if he's willing to sell it and how much he'd want. Jon says "$400" I say "PayPal?" he tells me, I say "Sent." Boom.

So it came with the design and logo and domain. I have absolutely no clue what I'm going to do with it, but the domain definitely is brandable. I'm not sure whether the buy was a good one but I'll just have to make sure I profit from it somehow so I don't look like a complete dork. For development of the site, I think I'm going to turn it into something along the lines of a site where people can easily click a couple buttons and it uploads their desktop screenshot to the site. I could see a lot of use for that.

Anyhow, we'll see. It's now yet another project I have coming up now..

Replayer.org/Project AA Updates

Replayer.org and Project AA programmers/designers have been progressing, albeit quite slowly, but progressing nonetheless. I therefore don't have much to update you with at the moment.

The Whistley Man: Captured

So I awoke from my late afternoon nap, put my contacts in and headed over to my computer. I felt really hot from my nap so I went to open my balcony door a bit to let some nice fresh air in. About 5 minutes later, while checking e-mails and whatnot, he came. He is him. The Whistley Man. The Whistley Man usually comes out only early in the morning or late at night. And he's not alone. Oh no. He brings along his little white dog, and takes it out to go for a little walk and to go to the bathroom. The Whistley Man is a rather large man and uses arm crutches to help him walk, and he walks very slow. While he walks, he whistles. He whistles loud. Very loud. I most often am aware of The Whistley Man when he wakes me up early in the morning from this insanely loud whistling, or else later at night when I'm on the computer doing work. The fact that he walks around (so spookily, I may add) in the parking lot, which has the apartments on one side, and a large forest on the other, only magnifys the volume. I've run into him, down there, in the parking lot, a few times. He could be considered a type of Parking Lot Troll, as he won't let you pass without greeting you with a bit of friendly conversation. He's a nice enough man, but he's spooky. And whistley. Anyhow, I decided to grab my camera and shoot a tiny little clip of him, to show anyone who may be interested. To watch, go to www.movie-vault.com/tyler/movies/ and Right-Click on the_whistley_man.avi and Save As. It's about 1.5 megs. In other news, MMAForums's skin is just about done. Terrorist #1 put the skin up today, finally, but it's not gone 'public' yet; only admins can see it. Also, tomorrow he needs to put the last finishing touches on it, integrating it a bit more, and adding forum status icons, etc. New skin should be live late tomorrow. I also sold all of my domains. I sold them to a guy, all of them for 50% off my asking price, for $340. From all the little $10-$20 domains I bought here and there over the past 3 months or so, I bought around 40, for around $500, and sold them for around $1500. While it's easy money, it isn't good money, so I won't be doing that anymore. I did it before just for some easy no-brain extra income to put into projects, and while it did do that, it wasn't worth my time to make that amount of money. However, this is just for cheap domains. Even though I consider myself to have a very high level of expectation for domains in terms of quality, I will only purchase domains now that are in the upper echelon; so around $50 and up in purchase price. So really, I'll be buying very few domains in the future, with the intention of reselling. American Labourer #1 has been plugging along for Replayer.org and I send him another grand to keep on going. Project AA is also making good progress. Still haven't decided what to do with PublisherForums.com

Project AA and More Domains

Oh, hi... Heh, forgot this window was open. Was printing out a payment receipt thing from CasinoPartners which I have to sign and then fax (bah, annoying!) before I can get my money, and am listening to Lee Dodd's radio interview. I have a ton of windows open right now and a lot of stuff on my mind, and am listening to this radio thing at the same time, so excuse me if this post simply sucks :) Just a little update: Project AA has commenced. My programmer accepted the project, quoted me a lovely lovely price.. so we've started on that. It should be done within 2-3 weeks. The core programming and HTML/CSS/JS that is. Then I will be outsourcing the graphics to somebody else, as he's really just a programmer, and the graphics will overlay the basic HTML framework the programmer makes. Then the programmer will get the project again and overlay the finishing CSS over it. And today, I bought PublisherForums.com PublisherForums.net and PublisherForums.org - dunno what I'll do with this yet, possibly make my private forum, or else just make a general webmaster forum. If it's the former, then I only have one site left on my list to make, which is to try an e-commerce/affiliate site. Gah - soooo many sites in the works..

Project Updates

In this edition of Tyler Weekly, we shall explore the progress on some of Tyler's ongoing projects:

• CookingForums
• MMAForums
• ProjectJ Revealed
• Project AA

CookingForums Here is a preview of the skin for CookingForums. The design is about 85-90% of what the end result will be. Should be finished, coded, and be up in about 2 weeks. MMAForums Just in case you forgot, this is what the skin of MMAForums is. It's just about finished being coded, for the umteenth time, says Terrorist #2, and has been definitely promised to me to be up by the weekend. Even without a marketing campaign going and without a skin to cover it's nakedness, the site is showing some early signs of life: Threads: 28, Posts: 135, Members: 10, Active Members: 8 Granted, most of these are from Bryan Le's ForumShock.com, but some of them are from my MMA friends as well. So far, I'm pretty satisfied with ForumShock. ProjectJ Revealed If you didn't catch it in the video, there was a little cameo of ProjectJ near the end. ProjectJ is actually:

What the site is actually about/for, is still a secret.

Project AA Project AA is making great progress. After spending 3 hours a couple nights ago until 3AM searching for a domain, I found one I'm satisfied with. It's nothing great, but it was the best I could come up with, and I didn't want to risk having my brians expload by thinking any longer. I've also written up a very detailed 4 page project description to which I shall present to my very longtime programmer I hired many times in the past, and now occassionally hire. We'll see what he wants to charge me. If it's affordable, then boom, Project AA shall commence.

It's finally here...

After much delay and several months, the Inspirational Flash Video meant to target webmasters and web entrepreneurs is finally here. I had it commissioned to try to give a little something back to the community since things are going well for me at the moment. Please note that this is meant as inspiration and motivation. It was not intended as a narcissistic piece or for self-promotion, so please keep any negative comments to yourself :) The link to the video is now located at the right hand side of the site. Enjoy!

That time of month...

• That Time of Month
• MMAForums
• Video Updates
• Project J
• Three More on the Way
• That Time of Month

Don't worry, estrogen levels haven't risen. At least not to dangerous levels... Ahem... anyhow, it's that time of month again. I've recalculated my monthly and daily averages today for the past 6 months. There was a significant jump. Last month the averages were $128 a day and $3,861 a month and now they are $152 a day and $4,639 a month. Big change. This is because March proved to be another great month for PFO. In fact, I broke my record month of January already! Here's a post I made exactly 2 months ago: So this is my best month ever - and this is obviously not a normal month; many advertisers renewed slots with the increased prices for 6 months or 12 months and so forth, so this is nowhere near the norm for me. Next month will probably be around $2000 I'm guessing, for example. However, this still brings me hope that I'll reach my goal of an average of $10,000 a month by September 2006. It would also be nice to break my PFO month record of $8,311.40 one day.. I'd really enjoy that... Well, I had certainly not expected to beat the record so soon. I felt I would have in maybe 10-12 months, but certainly not 2 months later. My March earnings for private ad sales on PFO came to $8,496.30. Only a mere $184.90 more, but enough to take the trophy :) However, it is true once again what I said before "this is obviously not a normal month; many advertisers renewed slots with the increased prices for 6 months or 12 months and so forth, so this is nowhere near the norm for me." So as a result, January and March really helped bump up my averages. However, I don't feel too bad about these 'abnormal' months, as the rules haven't changed; I still take the average from the past 6 months. Stability and consistency is key when analyzing economical success. MMAForums

Terrorist #1 has really been lagging behind on finishing the skin. However, he's stated he'll have it done in a several days. I'm not surprised with his tardiness, in fact, I almost expect it. While it's very annoying and unprofessional, he always makes up for it with his sheer quality.

I'm also taking a rather sadistic enjoyment out of it; It's taken him months to finish one skin, and I have 2 more after that one, the joke here being that the people who are stealing my terrorist for their own skin will have to wait a very long time for their skin to be completed :)

Apart from the skin, I've decided to test out Bryan Le's ForumShock.com - his Atomic package, the largest package he provides, was too small for Mr. Tyler Cruz, so I ordered a custom package to satisfy my... needs. That's right, I said my needs. So far, there's been less than a dozen posts, but he told him it would take between 4-6 weeks, so we'll see how it pans out.

Video Updates

The inspirational flash video I've commissioned is finally nearing completion. It will probably be finished and launched with a week. I will have a link on the right hand side of my blog which will launch it in a new window.

Project J

American Labourer #1 has fallen behind about a day or two in terms of our scheduled milestones as he calls them, but that is very close to schedule so it's no problem. I'm pretty satisfied with him so far still.

He's been providing me with written progress reports with sample URL's. I'll be very interested in seeing it when the backend programming starts to get coded, as I've only seen his frontend work so far, and am interested in seeing the calibre of his backend programming.

As promised, whenever a decent amount of progress is done on the site, I will give another clue as to what Project J is. Clues so far:

1. The first letter of the domain is 'r'. 2. It is poker related. 3. The second letter of the domain is 'e'. 4. The third letter of the domain is 'p'.

Three More on the Way

Even though I have a bunch of sites in the works, I felt it wouldn't hurt to undergo a few more. I really need to start earning more money, as well as spreading out the sources of my income. PFO is great but I don't want to have to depend on it.

I've therefore come up with the following new projects:

1. Project "AA" 2. E-commerce site 3. Private Webmaster Forum

Project "AA" Okay, stop. I know what you're thinking. "Oh no, another secret project". Well, I'm sorry but it had to be done. However, while still fairly technically involved, Project "AA" is not as technically complicated to undertake as Project J. I've also already hired somebody to work on it, and it will not take as long as Project J has been taking. E-commerce site First off, I'm not 100% I'll proceed with this. I'm about 75%-80%... I've never made a site that was purely an e-commerce site. By e-commerce, I'm not talking about dropshipping (I don't even know what that means, but I like the word...) or directly selling items myself. I basically mean being an affiliate like Mook-Jon and ukoffer. I'm simply interested in this other avenue available, and am very willing to explore it. I'm not sure where to start, but I believe I'm going to search for an expensive niche, and basically commission a quick-n-dirty site for it, put up affiliate links, and do the AdWords/Affiliate dance. It does not take two to tango anymore. Private Webmaster Forum I'm most likely not going to proceed with this, but it's an idea. I'm about 20%-30%... The idea was to make a forum for web entrepreneurs and make it private access only. That is, by invitation. The reason? To provide an area where serious and knowledgable web entpreneurs can talk and share ideas without having to worry about "how much do you make?" threads or hideously crappy or overpriced domains for sale. It may also allow the fortunate invited members to share more interesting ideas and advice. This would obviously not be a money-maker site. It'd basically be non-profit. HOWEVER, a possible idea would be to make it invite-only, allowing those members to post, but others can purchase paid memberships, for $5 or $10 a month, allowing them to 'peek' and silently observe the discussion.