Scholarship for Continuing Education

Have you thought about how valuable it would be for your career to attend national conferences such as ALA, SLA, ISTE, AASL, or others? Or even a statewide conference, but the money just isn't available? This scholarship will require some advanced planning - the deadline for applications for events between 1/1/09 and 9/30/09 is January 15, 2009 - but your career will
thank you for it.

The Metronet Board has created a scholarship for library staff in the seven-county metro area in honor of Lars Steltzner who passed away this summer. Lars was a true believer in libraries of all types and believed that if one library is strengthened, all are stronger. He was a great supporter
of media specialists and librarians just beginning their careers and was always generous with his time and knowledge. His service on the Metronet Governing Board was greatly appreciated.

The Lars Steltzner Scholarship will be given annually to one staff person from a Metronet member library who is early in her/his career (five years or less). This scholarship of $500 may be used for expenses for a continuing library education event or a national or local library conference. Recipients are eligible to receive the scholarship once in their career. A
plaque listing scholarship recipients will be in the Metronet office.

Click here for a <http://www.metrolibraries.net/res/steltzner_schol.pdf> pdf with details and application form. If you have questions, please contact the Metronet office at info@metronet.lib.mn.us.

Remember, the deadline for events 1/1-9/30/09 is January 15, 2009.

Branch Out 2009

Those of you that attended the MLA Conference – thank you. I hope you all had a great time as I did!

Now that the conference if over… I hope you’re making plans to attend the Branch Out Conference in August (4th and 5th)… You’ll be receiving e-mails periodically throughout the next several months as a reminder… Also… as time permits, periodically check the Branch Out Web site as we update conference information. www.branchoutmn.org <http://www.branchoutmn.org/> Tell you non-SSPiN co-workers about the BranchOut Conference too… attendees, although encouraged to be members of MLA/SSPiN, are not required to be…

Have a great Thanksgiving…

Chris Lang, Office Administrator
Plum Creek Library System

Job Posting - Walden University Library

Library Technician Position

Walden University, which offers graduate degrees at a distance in education, business, public health and the social and behavioral sciences, as well as bachelor degree completion programs in business administration and information systems, is seeking a detail-oriented person to join our team as Walden University Library Technician. The Walden Library Technician works in the Office of Student Development and reports to the Director of Library Services. This position is located in downtown Minneapolis, MN and will begin as soon as a suitable candidate is found.

Under the leadership and supervision of the Director of Library Services and collaboration with library services staff, the Library Technician will coordinate the library's document delivery service and support the work of the library's teams.

The Library Technician will verify citations, search library databases, verify invoices, cancel and place document requests using ILLiad, reconcile statements, send library bills for processing, interface with students regarding requests, and other responsibilities described in more detail at https://sh.webhire.com/servlet/av/jd?ai=737&ji=2300248&sn=l. Applications must be submitted through the web site.

Qualifications for this position include a BA degree and experience in a library or equivalent setting (i.e., library vendor or consortium), M.S. Word, PowerPoint, Access, and Excel proficiency required.

Sue Davidsen
Director of Library Services
Walden University
155 Fifth Avenue South, Suite 100
Minneapolis, MN 55401
612-312-2500 or 800-925-3368, ext. 2500
susanna.davidsen@waldenu.edu

Amazon S3 has Akamai Laying off 7% Of It's Work Force, Maybe.

Seems like only yesterday (cause it was), that I was blogging about how Amazon S3 would be changing up the content delivery network market. In yesterday's post, I had the foresight to say that things in the cdn market were going to be shaked up by Amazon S3.

Today, it was announced that Akamai would be laying off 7% of it's workforce. Now, they didn't exactly say that the layoffs were related to Amazon's S3, however, I can't think of a good reason that Akamai would be down sizing it's business. Sure the economy has been affecting many companies, but Akamai's main business customers are the large companies who continue to use Akamai's cdn services regardless of what the economy is doing. That said, Akamai's business should really be recession proof.

My educated guess is that Akamai is using the economy as an opportunity to dump their employees while trying to save face. The same way many companies did during 911. I think that the reality has finally hit them, that Amazon S3, is making their over priced service irrelevant. I know, it's a bold statement, however, it's just my own educated guess (which most of the times turn out to be true).

10 Reasons Why Amazon Associates Is Better Then Your Traditional Sales Job

As more people begin to use the internet as a primary way of earning a living, we've seen a rise in affiliate marketing. If you haven't heard it defined before, then affiliate marketing is an internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts. In plain english, companies are willing to pay you a commission, every you generate a sale for them.

One of the more popular affiliate programs available on the internet today is the Amazon Associates program. Associates can earn great commissions for helping Amazon sell any of the millions of items in it's product catalog. Remember what the Avon Lady used to do, when she came around with her brochure to sell the latest schwag of the day. The Avon Lady would get a commission each time someone purchased an Avon product from here. Take the same concept, fast forward to present day, and replace the catalog with a website and you've got the Amazon Associates program today.

If you've ever had a job as a sales person, then you might feel right at home selling items for Amazon. Lets compare working a traditional sales job to the Amazon Associates program.

Traditional Sales Job:

1. You have a minimum quota you have to make just to keep your job.
2. You have a boss breathing down your back to get stuff done.
3. You've got to be at the store during certain business hours in order to make your sales.
4. You can only sell what is instock at your store.
5. You have to deal with problem customers, returns, customer service
6. Might have to train on a product just to be able to sell it.
7. Takes long to move up in the company even though you've been outperforming everyone else.
8. You may not feel like selling the items the store you work for offers.
9. Your entire market might be just a small town
10. So much non-sales related work, like taking inventory, loss prevention, cleaning the store, etc.

So why is an Amazon Associates sales job better:

1. There is no minimum amount you need to sell.
2. You don't have to hard sell anyone to make a purchase.
3. You are free to work on sales when it's the right time for you. No clocks to punch in or out of.
4. You are the boss, no one breathing down your neck, making sure you got the job done.
5. You are not limited to selling only what you have in your store, instead you have access to Amazon's million plus product catalog.
6. You don't need to train to sell Amazon products. You can use your existing knowledge to focus on what you can sell well. For example if you've ever worked in a hardware store like home depot, then you'll find it easier to sell tools and hardware from Amazon's hardware department, making good use of your current experience.
7. Amazon Associates who perform well, easily move up to the next commission tier. You don't have to worry about seniority or politics holding you back from earning more. If you produce sales, then you can enjoy higher amounts of commission per sale.
8. Because of Amazon's huge selection of brand name products in every sales category, it will be easy for you to find a niche market for you to focus your sales campaign on. You can sell the products that you feel comfortable with offering, and feel good about selling such a quality product.
9. Because Amazon is a global retailer, you are not limited in your geographic areas. You will be able to setup a website selling quality Amazon products to customers around the world. With the internet as your global marketplace, you can showcase your website to millions of online shoppers.
10. The Amazon Associates program is free and easy to use. Amazon handles all of the logistics as far as order processing, order fulfillment and customer service, so you can spend your efforts in the areas that really pay off like establishing your brand, and marketing your website.

As you can see, there are plenty of reasons why Amazon Associates is better then your traditional sales job. Now that we've come to this new realization, how can this work for you? The answer to that is simple, if you haven't done so already, go ahead and sign up for the Amazon Associates program. Now that you know you can make money with this program, you'll probably want to learn as much as you can. I'll list a few resources for you below.

Amazon Associates Resources:

1. Amazon Associates Central
2. Amazon Forums
3. Amazon Video Tutorials
4. Amazon Associates Blog
5. E-commerce For Everyone

When you are starting out with the Amazon Associates program, you'll probably continue to work at your day job, as you discover what affiliate marketing is all about, and as you start to earn some revenue. For a lucky few, you'll be able to start making the transition from just a part time associate, to a full time affiliate marketer.

Here are a few example Amazon Associate websites that are earning money on a daily basis as a result of doing some simple branding and marketing:

1. OnlineToolsandHardware.com
2. WeKnowPhoto.com
3. EcoFriendlyShoppingOnline.com
4. StockMyOffice.com
5. InsideandOutHomeDecor.com
6. SportsDirectMegaStore.com
7. GlamorousBeautySupply.com
8. OrderItOnTheWeb.com
9. Consoles-Store.co.uk
10. AllPhoneDeals.com
    

These websites were developed by E-commerce For Everyone, a company that specializes in the development of websites for amazon associates. These e-commerce websites are a great way to build up a good revenue stream. After taking a look at some of those websites, I'm sure it's alot easier to see how you can make money online with Amazon, and why people are ditching their traditional sales jobs to do Amazon Associate sales instead.

We're Switching To Amazon S3

I've been having so much fun using Amazon S3, that I've decided to use it to host all static objects for our clients. It helps to deliver a higher performing website, it's easy to use, and makes easy work of keeping your website contents backed up.

Amazon recently announced a new web service called CloudFront, here's what they have to say about it:

Amazon CloudFront is a web service for content delivery. It integrates with other Amazon Web Services to give developers and businesses an easy way to distribute content to end users with low latency, high data transfer speeds, and no commitments.

Amazon CloudFront delivers your content using a global network of edge locations. Requests for your objects are automatically routed to the nearest edge location, so content is delivered with the best possible performance. Amazon CloudFront works seamlessly with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) which durably stores the original, definitive versions of your files. Like other Amazon Web Services, there are no contracts or monthly commitments for using Amazon CloudFront – you pay only for as much or as little content as you actually deliver through the service.

I think making these services available to small businesses is going to level out the playing field when it comes to delivering content using the kind of bandwidth necessary for a pleasurable site interaction. Fast load times have been a hallmark of larger websites that have been using traditional content delivery network services such as Akamai. It will interesting to see the new face of cdn's in the next five years. We might seen a significant amount of consolidation, and value added resellers similar to the existing Amazon Associates program.

Video: Collection of Your Favorite Cartoon Shows

Here is a collection of all those old cartoons you loved as a kid:

Silver Hawks


Silver Hawks at Amazon

Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors


Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors at Amazon

Centurions


Centurions at Amazon

BRAVESTAR


BRAVESTAR at Amazon

Captain Power


Captain Power at Amazon

Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers


Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers at Amazon

Real Ghostbusters


Real Ghostbusters at Amazon


Inspector Gadget


Inspector Gadget at Amazon

M.A.S.K


M.A.S.K at Amazon

He Man


He Man at Amazon

Voltron


Voltron at Amazon

Thundercats


Thundercats at Amazon

Transformers


Transformers at Amazon

G.I. Joe


G.I. Joe at Amazon

She-Ra


She-Ra at Amazon

Jem


Jem at Amazon

The Snorks


The Snorks at Amazon

Gummi Bears


Gummi Bears at Amazon

The Smurfs


The Smurfs at Amazon

Fraggle Rock


Fraggle Rock at Amazon

Care Bears


Care Bears at Amazon

Rainbow Brite


Rainbow Brite at Amazon

Strawberry Shortcake


Strawberry Shortcake at Amazon

The Monchhichis


The Monchhichis at Amazon

Alvin and The Chipmunks


Alvin and The Chipmunks at Amazon

Ducktales


Ducktales at Amazon

Tale Spin


Tale Spin at Amazon

PUNKY BREWSTER


PUNKY BREWSTER at Amazon

Shirt Tales


Shirt Tales at Amazon

Scooby Doo


Scooby Doo at Amazon

Like this post? Read more about what PuReWebDev has to say.

LibraryThing: Social Cataloging and Social Networking

Tim Spalding, the creater of LibraryThing, was the luncheon keynote speaker at the Minnesota Library Association conference yesterday. He definitely made some provocative comments, and raised some excellent points, many of which I agree with. Bloggers at SELCO and Kasson Public Library again have summarized his presentation. A few things he said and some commentary, noting that these are huge paraphrases and not verbatim:

• Be afraid of OCLC
  Okay, this is a little "inside baseball" talk... I am further convinced that OCLC is evil and ultimately does not have our best interests in mind. They have grown too big for their britches, and the organization that was originally created by libraries to help libraries do what they need to do is now dictating to libraries how to do what they need to do. Their lastest announcement about essentially claiming copyright to the intellectual property in bibliographic records is the last straw, and while they're backpeddling as fast as they can, I say we need to stage a coup and retake our organization. Barring that, we need to take our toys (and intellectual property) and stop giving it to them in what has turned out to be a "work for hire" arrangement.
  
  
• Choose "bandwagons" strategically
  Specifically, Spalding suggested libraries should quit spending time creating Facebook and MySpace pages and hosting gaming events in libraries, just because they are the Latest Things and are Things Young People Do. Just because young people do them doesn't mean the library should too. He actually said something quite funny, but I won't remember enough of it... It was something to the effect of starting a MySpace page for the library and ending up with two teen social misfit friends, a bunch of pedophiles, and the last update being 6 months ago... Okay, he didn't say the 'bunch of pedophiles' part, but one can see it coming. Remember, I went to the library security preconference earlier, where a fair amount of conversation was around using library computers for exchange of child porn. My take: when you're hangin' with your "friends," are you really going to "friend" the library?
  
  
• Use Web 2.0 where it makes sense
  There are certainly places where web 2.0 makes sense, but Spalding suggests that libraries didn't even really get web 1.0 right; why even bother with web 2.0? Okay, I don't go THAT far, but he has a point. We ARE way behind Amazon and Google and... Well, the list goes on... as far as dumping information goes and ease of use and getting "good enough" information. Where we have a strategic advantage is that we know how people USE information, and can get at better information, and of course there's the old what's free and what you have to pay for issue.
  
  
• Tagging can help us catalog
  I agree that individually, tags have a limited use beyond the personal. Your tags aren't going to mean too much to me, and my tags won't mean too much to you. If I tag my picture of a menorah on Flickr with Judaica, that has some meaning to someone else, but wedding gift? Eh, not so much. So, tags in individual iterations are not particularly meaningful. But, in the aggregate? Much moreso. Using LibraryThing for example (of course), he pointed out the use of the tag, chick lit, which incidently is now a Library of Congress official genre heading. Some 86,000+ items tagged cooking, but only 5,800+ tagged cookery. I had a flashback to Sandy Berman and the Good Old Days of Hennepin County Subject Headings - a man ahead of his time. Give the public their own language. And, FWIW, there are real humans who "vet" the tags and do some co-location (i.e. create see references)
  

A couple of cool LibraryThing Things:

I See Dead People's Books This is a group for those interested and involved in entering the personal libraries of famous readers into LibraryThing as Legacy Libraries. Explore the personal libraries of Thomas Jefferson, Willa Cather, and Tupac Shakur among others.

Open Shelves Classification A project to build a new Dewey-like classification system that would be in the public domain (unlike DDC).

Library Security: Everyone's Resposibility

In our library, we're currently reviewing our disaster plan. Library security is a component of disaster planning, so with that in mind, I signed up for this preconference session led by Jeremy Johnson, Hennepin County Library security officer and computer forensics specialist, and Ben Trapskin, HCL senior librarian. Others have already blogged on this session, such as the posts from SELCO, and Kasson Public Library, and those posts provide a nice overview of the session. But, some takeaways that I noted for our library are:

• Establish a procedure for handing criminal computer use
  While we're an academic institution with different issues in some cases than a public library, we still get our fair share of community users and certainly there may at some point be some student activity that is problemmatic. We would do ourselves a favor by having a process to follow than being reactive after the fact.
  
  
• Design the library spaces with security in mind
  Much of that was done when this building was opened about 7 years ago, but we can continue to think that way. For example, we purposefully are adding additional computer stations in a cluster, to encourage self and peer-policing, but separated from the existing computer stations, to avoid "over-concentration" of people.
  
  
• Secure our staff areas
  We started leaving the doors into our staff areas, such as access to the area behind our circulation desk, unlocked because of all the in and out with carts, etc. Our library faculty offices are in this secure area, and it is not uncommon to have students walk back into this secure area unannounced to visit a faculty member. However, with recent thefts of items from offices on campus, and thinking of what was addressed in this session, we may want to rethink that strategy.
  
  
• Develop emergency closing procedures
  We've had two recent bomb threats on our campus which have necessitated building evacuations. In the most recent one, there was some confusion over a misplaced library check-out laptop computer. Making sure we have emergency closing procedures in place possibly could have addressed this problem.
  
  
• Use programming to improve the library environment and security
  A couple of weeks ago, our library staff had Becky Nordin and Lisa Mohr from our campus Judicial Affairs office talk at a staff meeting about working with students to communicate expectations for library behavior. We talked about making a video to demonstrate okay and not okay behavior, and having an open house and other events to give us opportunities to get campus students "on our side."
  
  
• Create a student advisory group
  Again, thinking along the lines in the above note, how can we get more students to be "on our side" with enforcing and modeling desirable library behavior, like not bringing food in and not talking on cell phones, etc. Maybe we want to work with a focus group of students to talk about our services and environment, and how we can compromise on some of these issues. We may want that group to be an advisory group, or just meet for a fixed period.
  
  
• Create our own HCL "Welcome to the Library" signage
  HCL has signage that has a "friendly" or "yes" side: be respectful, use a quiet voice, etc.; and a "stern" or "no" side: no illegal computer use, no violence, etc. Maybe we want something like that posted at our entrance.
  

Ben and Jeremy had participants break into small groups and use a couple of "How Do You Manage" columns from Library Journal to discuss choices and security issues. I was in a group that used The Lesser of Evils. Other groups used Insecurity. I wish I had been in the group that discussed Insecurity, as that related to an academic institution, but it was interesting hearing the public library folks in my group talk about our situation.

For additional information and discussion, Ben Trapskin created a website/blog for library security called, uniquely enough, "Library Security" (http://securelibraries.com/). I'll definitely be using that in my Intro to Tech Services course when we talk about disaster planning.

Blogging MLA...

I couldn't blog live yesterday from the Minnesota Library Association conference because there wasn't a public internet connection at the hotel and the conference didn't pay for attendee access. So, I'm going to post today on the sessions I attended.

Google Webmaster Tools Doing A Faster Crawl

Want Google to crawl your site faster? One of the fastest ways to make sure Google gets to those deeper pages of content in your site faster is to go ahead and use a Google Webmaster Tools.

For one thing, that's where you'll be able to submit a Google sitemap file. If you don't know what a sitemap file is, you might have just woken up from a 10,000 year old sleep, so, as a basic refresher, a sitemap file is typically an xml based file that contains listings of your page urls, along with a timestamp of when that file was created and last modified. This way, Google not only knows the page exists, but it will know when it was created, and also how frequently its updated.

Inside of Google Webmaster Tools, you'll also be able to set the crawl rate for your website. The crawl rate is basically how slow or fast the Googlebot requests pages from your site. Typically you can set it faster, but only for 90 days at a time, which should be good enough for Google to rip through your site and grab the content for indexing. If you have several million pages of content to get indexed, you should start off with several large sitemap files. The sitemap files should not exceed 50,000 urls or 10MB, so compress your files with gzip compression if they are larger then 10MB. Link directly to pages on your site that are several clicks away from the homepage, by doing that, you foce Google to take a look at that page, and the ones it's linking to.

Another method to get the deeper pages of your site indexed, would simply be to re-arrange your link structure, similar to what Amazon did, making the category pages link to sub-categories and even deeper pages in the heirarchy.

Watching Television Online For Free

Decided to do this post today, because I realize that there are many, many people still watching television, with an actual television set. Now, I know people like to cling on to old pieces of equipment like fax machines, eight-track players, and record players, but c'mon people it's 2008.

If you're like me, then you understand that a computer is useful for a whole lot more then actual work stuff, a computer is a great replacement for a television. I gave up regular television a while ago, kind of like when people started realizing that they could enjoy cd's or satellite versus radio broadcast. I stopped watching regular television, and cable television for that matter, once I realized that I could watch all of my favorite shows online, on demand (sorry Tivo), in high-def, and for free.

First you've got to start off with the right gear. For me, it's an HP laptop with built in wireless and a high-def screen and (optionally) a desktop with a 22 inch wide screen flat panel display. On my desktop, I've got a Logitech 5.1 THX surround sound system, so that the sound you get from your computer can be heard at the neighbors house, lol. Now that your audio and video are in check, you'll need to make sure you've got a broadband connection, matter of fact, if you don't have broadband, leave this page now (chump). Assuming you've got a decent connection, you can start retiring your Television, or better yet, put it up on ebay for some other fool to purchase, you won't need yours anymore.

There are several ways that you can do this, and I'll just list a few.

1. Use iTunes. Subscibe to various video podcasts, and download shows of all kinds. This is probably the preferred method for those on a laptop, as your connection might not always be available.
2. Do the same as number 1, but use a program like Miro. It's free and does the same thing iTunes does (except support mobile devices).
3. Go directly to the broadcast networks that are already offering your same Television programs you like. NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, CNN you get the picture. All of them have video available on their websites, that you can watch when you like, not when they schedule you to. Some have already content in HD. Another nice thing about going to the website is that you might be able to subscibe to a video podcast, or just catch up on an older episode in the online archives.
4. Visit sites like Hulu. Hulu is actually a collection of legal content provided by broadcast networks. If you ask me, Hulu is one of the best online video sites mainly because it puts everything together in an easy to browse fashion. They have deals with alot of the cable network providers as well, so you'll find all sorts of content on there.
5. Everything I've mentioned so far, is for enjoying video totally for free, however, if you live on the internation space station and are not governed by the laws here on Earth, then you might want to check out a site called Watch-Movies.net. Yes, the videos are pirated, but where else are you going to see the Quantum of Solace in divx format before the actual theatrical release, lol. Lots of great movies listed on the site, and typically what will happen is that you don't need to download the movie, as they've uploaded them to places with high bandwidth and little oversight like Google video. This means a fast download for you, and nothing to delete on your computer afterwards, and no peer-to-peer ad/spyware downloading crap.
6. Lastly, you could actually buy video access from various video vendors.

Another most useful set of tips that I will bestow upon you would be to make sure you are getting a good amount of usage from sites like YouTube, MetaCafe and others. I probably shouldn't have had to mention those, but I know somewhere out there in cyberspace, is a fool who's been living under a cyber-rock. I hope this little introduction to online video has been helpful. Now try not to get addicted to all this wonderful goodness, I dare you : )

Yahoo Co-Founder Jerry Yang Says My Bad Dawg

Jerry Yang, co-founder and CEO of Yahoo!, is now stepping down from position of Chief Yahoo!. Seems that fumbling the sale of Yahoo to Microsoft for double the current value doesn't go unnoticed.

I'm still thinking that the time looks right for Microsoft to stop messing around and purchase Yahoo. Yahoo is a great company to be honest with you, and it's a tough situation they seem to be in. You'd think after all the great service Yahoo has given to millions of users, that they'd have a user base ready to back them up, and prevent a hostile take over from Microsoft. Doesn't appear to be the case. Why no love for Yahoo? I mean if there was a threat to Google, I'm sure a community of users would be having a fit.

Yahoo, I really like you the way you are, but if you sellout to Microsoft, it's over between us. Mr. Yang, I know it's difficult when you have a baby that you created, and it's growing and changing, but, sometimes the best thing you can do is let nature take its course. Hopefully, the company you created will be intact throughout the rest of the recession, and then hopefully your stocks will pick up and you won't look like such a mark to your larger competitors. Good luck.

Google Insight Search

Was ready Andrew Chen's blog about the new Google Insight search. It's basically like a Google trends on steroids if you ask me. It gives the search related keywords to the one being searched on, but also the ability to search different time frames and geographical locations, giving the person doing the search, a great opportunity to view historical search trends. Great new tool from Google.

Some of My Rss Feeds

I've got a few rss feeds I'm trying to promote and get indexed, so I figured I'll drop a little link or two to get things started:

First is my tools and hardware feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ToolsandHardware
Second is my Solar Panel Reviews feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SolarPanelReviews
Third is my Photography and Camera reviews feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DigitalCameraShopping
And last but not least is my Office Supplies feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/stockmyoffice

I've already got a few subscribers per feed. I love making use of feedburner, does a great job of getting content out there. It's also pretty slick for affiliate programs like Google adsense, and other contextual advertising programs.

Amazon Associates Show Off New Retail Trends

It's been said that 2008 is definitely the year of the Affiliate, but to be more precise, it's the year of the Amazon Associate. This year, we've seen a major growth in niche retail websites that specialize in a wide range of categories from Amazon's vast product catalog.

At first glance, most visitors hardly recognize that sites such as StockMyOffice.com , EcoFriendlyShoppingOnline.com or OnlineToolsandHardware.com are all websites designed and developed specifically for use with the Amazon Associates program. The website owner pays a small fee for the hosting and development of the design, then the they spend the next few months marketing the newly branding sites. With Amazon offering anywhere from 4-15% commissions for each item sold, website owners can quickly realize what making money while they sleep feels like.

Amazon Associates can earn any thing from a few dollars to hundreds of thousands per month. Large shopping comparison engines like Yahoo! Shopping, become.com, mysimon.com, pricegrabber.com, and others are rumored to be some of the highest volume associates. The Amazon Associates program has evolved from it's modest beginnings, associates can do anything from link to products, or consume vast amounts of xml product data via the Amazon Associates E-commerce Service.

Amazon recently completed a new Site Stripe feature and cleaner redesign of the Amazon Associates Central. They have essentially made it easier to link to various products and to access reporting. Amazon's vast number of Assocaites have helped Amazon stay #1 in online retail and become the original molding from which all other retail affiliate programs are based.

It will be interesting to watch what happens to the online retail market place as the old establishment of brick and motar retailers compete directly against affiliate marketers. I believe that affiliate marketing will allow a site like marketer branded site like WeKnowPhoto.com to compete against a brick and mortar brand ritzcamera.com. It will be interesting to say the least.

My Experience With Amazon S3

Well, after waiting a significant amount of time since the release of Amazon S3, I decided to dip my toe in the waters and see what it feels like. I'm happy to say that my expectations have been met. By using Amaozn S3, I was able to improve the performance of my existing infrastructure, and the visitor experience.

As a web developer and general internet guru, I spend time reading things about website performance, and other crazy notions of a better user experience. By using Amazon's S3 for all of my static content, I reduce the amount of requests Apache needs to serve on our own servers. Instead of wasting the more valuable system resources of my web server to serve images, javascript files, flash and other static content, this can now be offered to my website visitors on a world-class content delivery network, Amazon S3.

The speed improvement on the website I tested (WeKnowPhoto) was immediately noticable. Offsetting the regular Apache web requests by serving images and other static content on S3 means more capacity on my existing data center servers. Essentially more bang and less bucks to provide a much faster loading website. Speed is such a critical component to the enjoyment of a web visit. Everyone hates a slow loading website. If you're anything like me, then you can remember the days of dial up modems, and the excruitiating pain that was requesting a web page.

I'm considering moving the entire E4E platform to S3. This way, clients can enjoy the benefits of having their content on a cdn. Might be an additional option for some clients, or just a value added service, haven't come to a conclusion on that yet.

Getting Ready For Amazon S3

I've been considering using's Amazon S3 for a while now. I think of the S3 service as an inexpensive content delivery network that can reduce the over all load on my servers, while improving overall site performance. My main interest is in uploading static content files like css, javascript and images.



By uploading those page objects to Amazon's S3, my web server can simply focus on rendering php pages, and not worry about serving images and other static content. I expect the modest expense to pay for itself in the additional capacity that each single server can offer. This will reduce datacenter equipment expenses, and administration time, so I'm all for it.

I like the idea that I can manage an S3 account via a plugin in my browser. I've been using Amazon's Ec2 and I manage it the same way, right from my browser.

Maybe SysteMax Will Buy Circuit City

With Circuit City going the way of CompUsa, a potential exists for the remaining Circuit City assets to be snatched up by SysteMax, parent company of TigerDirect. With Circuit City closing out the majority or all of their stores, the remaining assets such as it's brand, website, and inventory, might look like an attractive purchase for companies looking to break into consumer electronics market.

I would think for a company like SysteMax, the Circuit City database of customers and the brand itself would be a very attractive aquisition. The Circuit City brand is very well established, and to be honest, has a deeper market penetration with regards to general consumer electronics then any of the other SysteMax brands. Most of the SysteMax brands are focused on the geeks, who regularly build their own computers.

In either case, Circuit City's main competitor Best Buy is sure to be happy that it will finally be dominant in it's market. Circuit City claims that it will continue to operate, however, I wouldn't be buying an extended warranty from them anytime soon, lol.

Considering Solar Panels To Reduce My Electric Bill

I've been considering how I can reduce my home energy expenses. My bills aren't enormous, but I do pay about $150 a month before heating and cooling expenses. I've already put in some energy efficient light bulbs in every room, and believe it or not, we actually knocked off about $20 from our bill just by that simple switch.

Once I saved money by switching my light bulbs, it got me thinking that I should take it a step further, and possibly add solar panels, or a wind turbine. I don't know how to attach a power inverter to my electric box, so I'll need an electrician for that, but I think spending a few hundred dollars, just under a thousand, should start saving me another $30 to $50 off my electric bill. That monthly savings would mean that the solar panel would pay for itself within 2-3 years.

When you thinking of going green as saving some green, then it gives you a whole new reason to be just a little more environmentally conscious.

Investment In E-commerce Technology This Season

It's good to see that the hit to our economy has not stopped investment on innovative new website technologies. Many websites are investing in the user experience in attempts to keep and get new business.

One notable site this season is babyage.com . They have steamlined their look, and included a healthy dose of ajax. I like the quick info function they made, it's an easy way to get some product information, while still browsing through the category. Target.com has been using that feature for a little while now. I did my own version of that feature a little while back on one of my older (2yrs) sites.

I hope this holiday season brings in the kind of sales that retailers are looking for. I'd be very bad for business for the holidays to be a sales bust. Times are hard right now, just ask Circuit City, lol. While I've been working hard to crank out some new features, I think that just some basic site improvements, will improve convertion rates, and really thats all any retailer could ask for. If you focus on pleasing your customer, you'll do well any time of the year.

Should Microsoft Buy Yahoo?

Yahoo's stock price has dropped to well below half of the price Microsoft was going to offer for it. Microsoft claims not to be interested, but if you ask me, I think Microsoft would buy Yahoo out just for the sake of acquiring it's search engine and advertising businesses, user base, and some of it's properties.

While Yahoo is still a giant in it's own right, right about now, it's looking like a Microsoft lunch and goody basket. I don't know what the aftermath of such a purchase would be, other then I'd probably go ahead and close out my old Yahoo mail account. I'd probably close out my mybloglog account too. I don't really like using any of Microsoft's web services. It's bad enough I use their operating system on my laptop (for the wireless nic drivers that is).

I don't see Yahoo coming out of this economic recession fully intact. I think Microsoft is going to put the squeeze on the old Yahoo. Shame too, cause I really liked their commercials, lol. Yahoooooooo!

My Experience With Windows on Amazon's EC2

Being a developer of websites for Amazon Associates, I've long been an advocate of Amazon Web Services. Recently, I decided to give Ec2 for Windows a try. Don't get me wrong, I use Linux web servers for all my business servers, but I had a computing task that I thought Windows on Ec2 would be well suited for.

During my normal website marketing activities, I typically will build a very large Google Site maps, XML files with 40,000 urls, and anywhere from 5-22 per site. To do this, I run a website crawling application which pulls 15 urls every 4 seconds. Now my server is a dual quad core processor, capable of serving hundreds of pages per second.

The problem:
1. Building my site maps quickly to get my new websites indexed quickly, and to let Google know some of the deeper pages of site content.
2. Making use of my server's capability.
3. Not run the crawling application on my desktop

My Solution:
1. Run multiple instances of my crawler on various Windows via Amazon Ec2.
2. Launched 5 instances, quickly and easily right from my browser.

What I discovered? The new cloud computing model is going to make another revolution in computing that I don't yet believe has been fully appreciated. I envision that companies such as Adobe may offer their applications more affordably via Amazon Ec2 amis or computer images (think Norton Ghost). This will create new sales channels for software vendors, and possibly bring more of a user base for their applications.

Home Brew Coffee versus Dunkin Donuts

Let me be clear from the beginning, I'm not a coffee aficionado, but Dunkin Donuts does have some decent coffee. I know enough about coffee to know that it's great for programming my next few lines of php, and that I want it with a minimal amount of fuss.

So anyway I've been thinking about buying my own little home brew system so I can save the time and expense of running out to grab a cut, plus there's nothing better then waking up knowing that you don't have to go anywhere, but to the computer desk and kitchen.

If it wasn't for programming, I don't know what I'd be doing, cause I'm so lazy when it comes to doing any kind of labor. I hate working so much, that I even dislike preparing food, taking being a slacker to a whole other level, but that's another blog post. I was checking out this stainless steel coffee maker.I might buy it. I have one now, but haven't used it in a bit because the coffee just hasn't really tasted as great. Not sure if it's the water. Florida water sucks by the way. You've got to purchase your own water. I usually get mine in the form of some caffeinated drink anyways.

So anyways, this week after going from forever, I actually realized that Dunkin Donuts has a sandwich I like, a BLT on a poppy seed bagel. Pretty decent.

My YouTube Channel

I've been enjoying YouTube for a while now. Most of the time I've been a consumer of videos, but not so long ago, I thought I'd get in on all the action and post a few videos about my favorite topics. If you'd like to check me out and some of the work I've been doing with the Amazon Associates program, please feel free to hit me up and subscibe at http://www.youtube.com/user/PuReWebDev

I mainly discuss topics like website marketing, Amazon.com , Google and web development.

New Forum For Amazon Associates

I know there are a lot of Amazon Associates out there who would like to discuss the program, how to increase earnings, technical issues, new product offerings, and changes within the Amazon Associates program. In addition, I've noticed the the official amazon forum is rather useless, as it isn't moderated.

I'd like to recommend everyone who wants to learn more about the associates program, or just to hangout, please feel free to stop by our associate forum. You don't need to be a customer of ours to enjoy our forum. We're going to be moderating it, so if you post a question, you'll receive a prompt knowledgeable response.

Blogger versus Wordpress

Was recently thinking this weekend, why Google didn't just purchase WordPress to use as it's default blogging platform.

WordPress seems to have more features and gadgets, which makes it more useful. Both are very clean and easy to use, but I still think WordPress is a hotter bloggin platform.

My wordpress blog is at PuReWebDev.com, check it out. I use it to do a little promotion of my e-commerce sites.

Developing Cool Applications

I've been working on developing a web-based e-commerce solution for affiliate marketers to have their own e-commerce websites. The service has actually launched already with surprising amounts of success. We've put in a lot of hard work, and continue to crank out several new features on a weekly basis.

For a good amount of time, development was at a near stand still simply dealing with customer service and support issues. That quickly got old, and I realized that the problem with our development cycle was that I was on the phone helping people do simple things that a flash video should do.

I've recently taken the last month to change our business model slightly. Most businesses that I've created in the past have been phone heavy, with lots of customer hand holding. This obviously creates a scalability problem for small start-ups. Putting in the features that customers need to make changes on their own, is one of the major new directions we've decided to take.

No more phones : ) , feels good.

Considering Zend Encoder

For the longest time, I've had clients that have wanted to download my application for use on their systems. Part of the reason I created a web service is so that I don't have to concern myself with platforms other then the one I run on.

I've been thinking about buying Zend Encoder to protect my application. I like the fact that it has a license system and you can protect your intellectual property, even remotely. Maybe I'll continue with my SaaS business model and forget all about this download and software distribution non-sense.

Prepairing For Holiday Sales

I'm looking forward to this holiday. I'm interested in seeing what kind of sales my online stores will have this year. This holiday season, I've been spending time getting a jump on the marketing and exposure of my sites.

November sales appear to be up already. Hopefully the sales volume can be sustained even after the holidays. This years economic meltdown has really affected everyone, although I'd say that alot of online stores have been recession proof.

Some Deep Linking

It's been a little while since I've done some deep linking to some of the inner pages on the various sites I work on. Deep linking is great to help improve the total number of pages that will be in the Google index.

So here are some sites currently being worked on:

1. EcoFriendlyShoppingOnline.com - Currently focuses on Solar Panels, Wind Turbines, Power Inverters, Rechargeable Batteries and eco-friendly lightbulbs.

2. WeKnowPhoto.com - Currently focuses on Digital Cameras, Film Cameras, Flashes, Lenses, Tripods, Drives and Memory.

3. AllPhoneDeals.com - Currently focuses on Cell Phones, Office Phones, Voip Phones and Cellular Accessories.

4. InsideAndOutHomeDecor.com - Currently focuses on kitchen furniture, housewares, small appliances and outdoor decor.

5. StockMyOffice.com - Currently focuses on office electronics, office and school supplies, computers and office furniture.

6. 75Direct.com - Currently focuses on skateboarding, surfing, skiing and paintballing.

7. ParadiseBeautySupply.com - Currently focuses on makeup, skincare, haircair and fragrances.

8. DvdSmartReviews.com - focuses on well... dvds.

9. Consoles-Stores.co.uk - focuses on the ps3, xbox 360 and the nintendo wii.

10. OurColony.net - focuses on pc games, sony psp and nintendo ds.

Wow, that's quite a few new sites and categories. I didn't exactly link as deeply as I would like, just basically did one link away from the homepage. Link building typically takes some time in anycase, but hopefully these new links will pass on just a touch of pr.