Archives for 2007

Stressed and tired? That’s me

July 24, 2007 by Tricia

I’m feeling kind of wiped out today. Actually I was feeling that way yesterday too.

I think I’m still fighting the flu that my husband had last week – I think I’ve had a touch of it, but no where near as bad as he had it. Which of course I’m thankful for since I have Crohns and if I got the flu as bad as he did I’d probably end up in the hospital!

Also, all the stress of my sites being down – writing to two web hosting companies and waiting for replies from support which can take hours and hours wore me down too.

I really am pleased that my sites are finally working again though. Now, if I could get some decent rest I’ll be ready for anything again!

Actually I have some built up work for advertisers that I’m going to spend the evening working on. I might just take a tiny rest first though so my head will be clearer and with any luck my posts will be better.

Virtual dolls at the Cartoon Doll Emporium

July 24, 2007 by Tricia

When I was a little girl I used to love playing with cut out dolls. I’m not even sure if that kind of toy is still around anymore.

The closest thing that I can come up with that is similar in nature would be sites like the Cartoon Doll Emporium where you can choose a doll type and then proceed to dress it up and accessorize with a selection of items ranging from hats, pants, skirts, dresses, tops, blouses, jackets, purses, shoes, glasses and all kinds of fun items.

The Cartoon Doll Emporium calls these dolls Virtual Dolls. Virtual because they are web based and Virtual because you can make them look any way your heart desires. Or … uhm … your child can make them look whatever way they’d like.

It’s for kids, but I know adults use sites such as this to create avatar images to use on their websites or on discussion forums too. I believe I might have made my own Tricia’s Musings avatar that you see in the header on the Cartoon Doll Emporium. I probably did since it’s supposed to be the most popular dress up website.

There are over 800 different types of dolls to choose from. There are girl, boy, celebrity, character, anime, Bratz, fashion, fantasy, makeover, international, historical, geeks, seasonals, babies,video game, political and even animal dolls. One of the doll types – webkinz even has virtual pets!

You know you’ve found a great site for kids when even as an adult you can have fun with it and spend some time creating interesting doll characters.

Be sure to visit when you have some time on your hands because I have a feeling you’ll be there for a while.

New ExoClick advertising and affiliate program

July 24, 2007 by Tricia

I just joined a new Adsense like affiliate program. It’s called ExoClick.

Have you been using Adsense? Have you had much success with the Google Adsense program? If the answer is no then you might do better with ExoClick. Like Adsense the ads are in the Pay-Per-Click format although the ads are not contextual. The ads that are displayed in your chosen ad blocks are based on the keywords that you’ve entered when setting up the code and the category that you’ve chosen for your site.

There are a number of different horizontal, vertical, box and skyscraper ad blocks to choose from. You have to choose your own colors and there’s no drop down color list to choose from so have your image editing program open in order to play with different colors (and to know the codes for such colors). Otherwise setting up an ad block is easy. Pick your colors, border width, size of ad block, a category for the ad, keywords if you want a specific type of product to be advertised in your ad block, and they decide whether adult ads can show or not.

I created this 300 X 250 px ad block in the category Blogging. I didn’t chose any keywords:

Obviously I could have used slightly darker lettering for this ad. I’ll fix it shortly.

Along with the basic ad blocks you can choose from categorized web portals, search boxes or monetized domain parking. I’m not 100% what that last choice is just yet.

What I also like about ExoClick is that it has a great affiliate referral program. The links that I’ve added to this post are affiliate links. I’d really appreciate it, if you are considering signing up with Exolinks, if you’d sign up through my link. I’ll get a 5% bonus on lifetime earnings of those who signup under me.

While most programs pay monthly or even every sixty days Exoclick will pay weekly if you meet the minimum quota which is $10. You can receive payments by PayPal or check.

If this sounds worth trying you can If this sounds good to you, you can sign up with ExoClick directly. Just register and you’ll immediately be able to begin creating your first advertising blocks.

What makes you happy?

July 24, 2007 by Tricia

Did you know that the word Genki means happy in Japanese?

I often think of things that make me happy. Perhaps that’s a side effect of being stuck at home due to my Crohn’s and being in pain a lot of the time. Considering my circumstances I think overall I’m a fairly happy and positive person.

If I think about it I can find happiness easily. It doesn’t take much. What kinds of things make you happy? I know that one of my blogging friends, Robyn, is full of happiness because she’s just purchased a beautiful home for her family. Security and living space, a new beginning. Yes I’d imagine that those things would make many people happy.

Gazing out my kitchen window at my backyard – seeing all the birds in the feeder or flitting from plant to plant, butterflies and bumble bees doing pretty much the same as the birds, but to flowers, squirrels chasing one another, and just seeing my many flowers in bloom or the pretty foliage in my garden. Those are things that make me happy.

When I take photographs, particularly of flowers, I’m actually trying to show you what makes me happy. I’m amazed at the loveliness of plants and the amazing things they do, the whole blooming process, the patterns within leaves or even within flower petals. I try to show you what I see and what amazes me when I post some of my photos.

I guess I’m a very outdoors oriented person because as I sit here and try to think of things other than family and friends that make me happy I keep thinking of outdoor things.

Being in a canoe, especially on fast or white water. The smell of cut grass. The fragrance of a rose or pretty much any flower or foliage that produces a scent. A sunset or sunrise. The way clouds look when they are dark, or when the sun passes through them. A rainbow after a rain storm, or walking in the warm rain. These are things that make me happy.

A child’s smile, or the sound of children laughing. My husband laughing. Helping others, especially when I’m working as a nurse. Chocolate – anything chocolate. Yes these are things that make me happy.

Today I’m happy and relieved that my sites are back up and running! Does that make you happy too?

I’m back – did you miss me?

July 24, 2007 by Tricia

I’m back!

Well ok I’ve always been here, but I’ve spent the last few days staring at the same “account suspended” or “this site can’t be reached” message that you have see if you’ve attempted to visit any of my or my husbands sites since sometime Saturday morning.

I’ve had some terrible hosting problems over the last month. My “Former” web host was telling me that I had CPU resource issues and I spent a good portion of the last month trying my darnedest to figure out what might have been causing the problem.

If I had a problem I feel that I likely fixed it, however I’m not sure I ever did after what that company did to me on Sunday! They set up a VPS hosting account because I’d agreed to temporarily move to Virtual private hosting until I could fix my problem. I said to them several times that the move was temporary so I only wanted a monthly account.

What did they do? They set up a two year package that cost close to $650!

When I got in touch with Lunarpages on Monday – the only time I could talk to a real person since they don’t offer telephone support on the weekend, I got that stupid bill sorted out and reverse and totally canceled my account.

If they can’t read support email that says “No, no don’t set that. I want more information first” in reply to their $75 per hour service charge to move my account from shared hosting to VPS hosting, and then making the mistake? of billing me for two years, and then not saying sorry or trying to even cover for themselves by saying it was a mistake … well no, I don’t want to do business with that kind of company.

I’m still going to go carefully over my sites to make sure that I don’t have a CPU resource issue, but in the meantime I’ve moved to what appears to be a good web hosting company – Host Gator – and my sites should be running smoothly from here on in.

I apologize to anyone who’s been waiting for me to write a post about their site or company during this time period. I will be working on all past requests shortly.

Now if I can just figure out how to get my primary domain out of the url of my other domains I’ll be happy. I think I’ve got to take a look at the redirects on my domains. Grrr

Stressed and tired? That’s me

Virtual dolls at the Cartoon Doll Emporium

New ExoClick advertising and affiliate program

What makes you happy?

I’m back – did you miss me?

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