Gregg H. Hawkins

As a fellow entrepreneur and near future business owner I know how hard it is to advertise, network, and simply get started from the ground up. To start a home business, any business for that matter, there are many processes you need to go through in order to see the end result. You should always start out by creating a business plan so that you know exactly how you want to approach the different aspects of your business. The business plan covers many topics including the plans and goals for your business through advertising and other means. A well thought out plan for marketing and advertising can be a key to the success of your business.

About DirectMatches
For those of you who are not familiar with DirectMatches, it is a website that works a lot like LinkedIn.com. “DirectMatches.com is an innovative system for meeting people. The inventive combination of person-to-person marketing along with our original concept of a social and business network produces a new kind of service. Driven by a commitment to quality and customer satisfaction, the company markets a broad range of highly developed matchmaking technologies.”

Why You Should Create an Account
What separates DirectMatches from their competitors? “It is the first business and social networking service with a contact management system that operates on a “dynamic basis”, where members are able to select from dedicated networking communities.”

DirectMatches is geared towards people who have a home-based business and someone who is looking to start their own home-based business. There are over 65,000 members at DirectMatches, which provides you with a great business networking opportunity. Through DirectMatches you can grow your network and your business through a professional organization with an eight-year success record.

If you’re still not sure about why you should create an account DirectMatches is offering a free membership to anyone. The free membership package includes your own business profile, free advertising, free classifieds, free networking, and much more.

Overview about DirectMatches
Though I have yet to try DirectMatches it seems like a great concept. With over 65,000 members you can network and advertise your home-based business to a lot more people than you would be able to in the real world. The DirectMatches website looks very simple, but could use a little more work in my opinion. Any business minded person would be dumb to pass this opportunity up. You should always be looking for more ways to promote your business whether it be online or off. Check DirectMatches out for yourself!

Blogging, as we all know, has become very popular with people of many ages around the world within the past few years. We also know that blogging is a very tedious task and that there are certain steps to become a successful blogger. There are many things that make a blog successful; an author’s thought process, the quality of posts, monetizing your blog correctly, and the list goes on but I will leave it alone since we have all heard it a thousand times already.

The Correlation Between Girls and Blogging
What I am trying to get at is that girls, also women, would and currently make fantastic bloggers. They are the perfect example of how to run a blog. Now, you are probably wondering where the heck I am going with this. Relax, I am getting there.

For the guys, how many times have you set up a date and told a girl that you will pick her up at 7:00 pm sharp for dinner? You show up at her house at 7:00 pm sharp and she’s STILL getting ready.

For the girls, have you not spent countless hours putting on makeup, going to hair stylists, and getting manicures and pedicures so that you could look pretty (I’m not saying that you already don’t look pretty)?

…and you answered?
If you answered both questions with a definite “yes” then you are on the right track. No, not on track to finding a girl who will be ready on time and no, not having to not put on makeup, go to hair stylists, and getting manicures and pedicures.

The Correct Way to Blog
Finally. If we study a girl’s habits we will notice that she does in fact spend countless hours getting ready for a date and other “special” occasions. Guys on the other hand, throw on jeans that were on the floor and take 10 minutes to get ready (a general assumption). The way a girl gets ready is how we should all treat our blogs, with care.

A girl may go to the shower to clean herself up, shave her legs, and brush her teeth afterwards. We’ll call this stage the “prepping” stage. She’s prepping herself for the night ahead. As bloggers we need to “prep” ourselves – research the blogosphere, purchase a domain name, purchase a web hosting plan, and much more. Without prep stage we wouldn’t know what we were getting ourselves into.

Next, a girl may throw on clothes and style her hair. We’ll call this the “starting” stage (couldn’t think of another word). In the starting stage of blogging we, most of us, decide that we will use a CMS (Content Management System) to manage our blog, which is usually the latest version of WordPress.

Lastly, a girl puts on her makeup, which usually lasts about an hour or so. In this stage, as bloggers we need to take time to make our blog be presentable. This is the stage where we find the plugins we want to install on our blog, edit the WordPress theme to our liking, and make any other finishing touches. This stage is the most important because it deals with appearance. A girl puts on makeup so that she can appear to look beautiful. Bloggers install plugins and change the colors and look of our theme so that hopefully visitors will enjoy their stay, ultimately converting them into a returning visitor.

With my experience as a blogger I have spent many hours searching for the perfect WordPress theme, finding great plugins, and editing a WordPress theme’s style so that it fits my needs and wants. It takes a lot of time, dedication, and patience, but in the end the finished product is always worth it.

Last Thoughts on the Subject
Treating your blog like a girl treats herself is one of many ways to run your blog. This topic lightly covers blogging as whole and there is much more to blogging than just getting one up and the appearance of it. However, those are the first steps to blogging, which are as important as any other step. Of course, you will need to provide quality content to your readers, but without a blog to publish your content you will be a “nobody” in a vast online world.

Don’t be the guy who takes 10 minutes to get ready to go to school, go on a date, and go to church. Learn to be a girl and perfect yourself into something amazing. Spend those extra minutes, even hours, to be the best that you can be. You will appreciate the ending result as well as your readers.

Do you know the difference between “web design” and “graphic design”? There are many parts to web design that many people confuse as being a part of graphic design. What a To Do blog made a post titled All Your Skillsets Are Belong To Us?,which describes the differences between the aspects of web design and graphic design. The blog post also covers many other topics to define the word “web design”.

Readability and Viewability
“Presumably you want visitors to your site to be able to view the site without having an epileptic fit (or, less severely, just an urgent desire to go somewhere, anywhere, else).” The post also goes into detail about how most people don’t have big monitors and great eyesight, therefore the text on your site should be readable.

Accessibility
Accessibility is part web design and part graphic design. It also talks about other elements of accessibility such as adding anchor text and alt and title attributes, which apply do a web designer and not a graphic designer.

Security
Security is very important to a web site and web designer. It is important to keep control of your own server and to protect the information of other users at all costs. Security is a technical aspect to web design and has nothing to do with graphic design.

Content
People may have a bad first impression of your website if it has “poor grammar, spelling, sentence structure, article/page structure, bad metaphors/similes/shadowing and any number of other techniques that fill up just as many books and web sites on writing as there are on graphic design.”

Overview of What a To Do
It seems as though that the What a To Do blog is fairly new considering the only post was made on the 18^th of September. The blog could use a definite theme change since it still have the default WordPress theme active. It seems as though the webmaster behind What a To Do knows what they are talking about, however, I believe the blog could use a lot more work. Once the blog is finalized with finishing touches I am sure it will provide a wealth of information to webmasters, web designers, and graphic designers on the internet.

Note: This was a sponsored review for Website To Dos through PayPerPost.

Since my first post about 10 great professional WordPress themes I have come across a few more great looking WordPress themes. This list of WordPress themes contains themes that are business and corporate looking, Adsense ready, and can be easily customized to your needs. I have tried a few of them out and believe that they are sleek and professional WordPress themes. These professional WordPress themes are nice, simple, and easy to look at. Take a look for yourself!

Professional WordPress Themes

1. Autumn Concept is a great professional WordPress theme. It was designed by Ed Merritt, also the creator of the popular Ocean Mist WordPress theme. The Autumn Concept WordPress theme comes readily available with a .css file so that you can easily change the colors of the theme. The theme comes with a default green tone and a neutral tone.

   

   Autumn Concept - [Download, Test Run]
   
   

2. Another great professional WordPress theme is the Ayumi WordPress theme. I just recently changed my blog to the theme and edited the colors and integrated the AdRotator plugin to rotate between 5 images. Ayumi is a 3 column WordPress theme, comes with a default green color, and is widget ready.

   

   Ayumi 1.2 - [Download, Test Run]
   
   

3. dfTheme is a great looking professional Wordpress theme. dfTheme’s black and glossy color scheme gives it a nice professional touch. dfTheme is a 2 column WordPress theme and is compatible with WordPress 2.2.

   

   dfTheme 2.0 - [Download, Test Run]
   
   

4. Gangway! is a sleek professional WordPress theme suited for news related websites and blogs. It is a very simple blue, white, and grey theme, yet still provides a professional look. Gangway is a 3 column WordPress theme that focuses more on the content aspect rather than the visual.

   

   Gangway! - [Download, Test Run]
   
   

5. SimplaZEN is a 2 column WordPress theme. SimplaZEN showcases whites and greys and is a great professional WordPress theme. The design was based off of the Simpla Theme originally designed by Phu. The SimplaZEN WordPress theme also comes Adsense ready.

   

   SimplaZEN - [Download, Test Run]
   
   

6. w9212 is a great professional business WordPress theme. It is Adsense ready for a 120 x 160 skyscraper block. w9212 has a blue color scheme and is a 3 column WordPress theme. The header image is also a flash slideshow that you can easily edit with your own images.

   

   w9212 – [Download, Test Run]

This ends my second list of professional WordPress themes. I found most of these themes while in search for a new them for my blog. As you can tell I ended up using the Ayumi WordPress theme and have been very grateful that I found it. Before finding the Ayumi WordPress theme I was contemplating whether or not using the neutral tone of the Autumn Concept. Many of these themes didn’t have links available for test runs, but I recommended downloading them and testing them out for yourselves.

I was cruising the streets of downtown San Luis Obispo the other day and saw this card in one of the shops. I didn’t have my camera with me so I went online and found it. I thought it was a pretty neat card, especially for us computer people!

Note: Click thumbnail for a larger view!

Finding the motivation to do something especially when you are busy doing other things is sometimes hard to find or come across. Lately, I have had a hard time finding the motivation to keep writing blog posts. This whole week I have been running around San Luis Obispo like a crazy Asian with his head cut off. Why? Because getting a new apartment, internet and cable setup, buying food and all that great stuff is quite hectic and exhausting.

Digging a Little Deeper
I have been trying to dig a little deeper to find that motivation but just can’t seem to find it. I don’t want to write blog posts that aren’t of quality because it wouldn’t be fair to my readers. I have made the decision that I will not write a blog post everyday, but will write a blog post when I feel the time is right. If the right time ends up being everyday, then so be it. Now that school will be starting up and I will need to concentrate on academics. I feel that school will keep me busier than ever, especially since my classes don’t end until 5:00 pm everyday.

I want to keep blogging, but the exhaustion of real life has really brought my motivation to an all time low. However, I do believe that once this week is over I will find a new routine and get those ideas running back through my fingertips and onto the screen.

During this, I guess I could say “process,” I’ve learned quite a bit about myself. I’ve learned that in order for any business or startup, a blog for instance, that it takes a lot of time and hard work. I know I’ve said this before in previous posts, but it’s true. We only hear about a few success stories, but what most of us don’t realize is that for every success there were hundreds if not thousands of failures. Without the realization of reality, we too believe that we can become successful. And guess what? We all can and will become successful if we put our minds to it and carry discipline.

Last Thoughts
I also wanted to let my readers know that it’s not all about making money online for me. At times it may seem like it, but it’s not. The reason why I do the things I do; run a fan site, do PayPerPost, and other online ventures is so that my earnings can help fund my college education and living expenses. I do believe that sometimes the PayPerPosts may downgrade the quality of my blog, but it’s something that I need to keep doing.

My goal is to keep on generating at least $200 a month from my blog and another $300 from the fan site my brother and I are running. This will allow me to pay for most of my rent and monthly living expenses. I just wanted to let all of you know what I’ve been up to and thinking. I hope that all of you will be able to understand my feelings and that I truly have a passion for blogging and love the readers that come here day in and day out to read my content. You’ve all helped me become the person I am today and in return I hope that in the future I will be able to help you in some way.

Looking for a new web hosting provider? Look no further! I’ve been using Host Gator since I started my blogging career. I have never had one problem with their services. The hosting plans are great…let me rephrase that, PHENOMINAL. Every time I have contacted support because I had a question or could not figure out something, I have received a reply within the hour and even minutes. I recommend Host Gator to anyone out there hands down.

Host Gator Coupon Codes

• “iceishot” - $9.94 Off
• “jury” - $9.94 Off
• “hgc25″ - $9.94 Off
• “Hostcritique” - $9.94 Off

Hosting Plans Through Host Gator
There is a variety of different web hosting plans you can choose from at Host Gator. The “Hatchling” is $6.95 a month, the “Baby” is $9.95 a month, the “Swamp” is $14.95 a month, and the semi dedicated plan is $74.95 a month. They also offer other solutions for dedicated servers and reseller accounts. I’m currently using the “Baby” plan. With the Baby plan I get 100 gigabytes of storage, 1 terabyte of bandwidth, unlimited domains/sub domains/FTP accounts, and much more. For only $9.95 month Host Gator in my opinion is the best.

By using one of the coupon codes listed above (I found by searching Google) you can get $9.94 off any purchased plan. My brother and I just recently used one of the coupon codes for the Baby plan ($9.95) and our first month of hosting is only costing us 1 cent.

Visit Host Gator Now!

Enjoy!

Pagefetti is a website that offers you a free download for the Webfetti toolbar. With the toolbar you can easily customize your MySpace page, Hi5 page, Blogger page, and Zwinky page. What is great about Webfetti is that you can customize your pages without knowing any html (hypertext markup language).

Now you don’t have to learn the basics of html and spend hours customizing your page. With Webfetti you can change the look of your page in an instant and reveal your true personality to your friends.

What Pagefetti Offers
The toolbar offers you a lot of different options such as the ability to:

• Change your whole layout
• Change your background image(s)
• Add graphics
• Add glitter (animated) text
• Create picture slideshows
• Change your browser cursor
• Add smileys
• Change the look of your text

Test Out Webfetti
If you don’t want to download the toolbar you can first test out the toolbar by going to Pagefetti’s preview page. The options menu is as basic as it gets. All you need to do is open up the drop down menus and select what you want to change on your page. If the toolbar makes it that easy, then I bet this toolbar will become a hit.

Thoughts About Pagefetti’s Webfetti Toolbar
Personally, I have endured many hours trying to customize my MySpace page. I remember the day when I first registered for a MySpace in August of 2003. I wanted to customize my page to make it the best looking page, but didn’t know what I needed to do. Although it took me a while to learn the basics of html – how to add a background image or color and change the look of the text, I enjoyed every minute of it. I am the kind of person that likes to know how to do something, but I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who would like the simplicity of this toolbar.

Note: This is a sponsored review for Pagefetti through PayPerPost.

“John Chow made his name back in the pre-bubble era with a tech website called the TechZone - which is still around today. In recent years, what began as a personal blog has grown into a money-spinning Mecca of JohnChowites, flocking to discuss all manner of blog-related money making schemes along with Chow’s trademark dining posts.” - [source]

Who hasn’t heard of or about John Chow within the last year? John Chow is a common name that is thrown around in the blogsphere – mostly about his monthly blog earnings. John Chow’s latest report for August 2007 revealed that his blog earned more than $17,000 for that month. He earns a boatload of money, but where does it all go to? To his family? Most definitely. Towards PPC campaigns? Maybe. Expensive meals around Vancouver? Yes!

How Much Has John Chow Really Spent?

As a reader of John Chow’s blog I have seen many pictures of food. These pictures reveal decadent foods that are beautiful too look at because of the finishing touches allocated to each “piece”. Sometimes the food looks fancier than a decorated veteran who has served our country. Without further ado, the total of John Chow’s “fine dining” experiences has been tallied.

$120.00 (February 16, 2006)
$130.00 (March 14, 2006)
$400.00 (March 24, 2006)
$62.00 (March 27, 2006)
$200.00 (April 21, 2006)
$145.00 (October 10, 2006)
$66.00 (October 23, 2006)
$150.00 (November 17, 2006)
$1,314.37 (December 2, 2006)
$1,085.56 (January 11, 2007)
$13.00 (January 18, 2007)
$200.00 (January 19, 2007)
$200.00 (January 22, 2007)
$105.00 (January 25, 2007)
$125.00 (January 30, 2007)
$215.00 (February 6, 2007)
$450.00 (February 19, 2007)
$125.00 (March 3, 2007)
$300.00 (March 10, 2007)
$26.00 (March 22, 2007)
$48.00 (March 27, 2007)
$37.00 (April 2, 2007)
$20.00 (April 9, 2007)
$540.00 (April 12, 2007)
$70.00 (April 14, 2007)
$400.00 (April 19, 2007)
$120.00 (May 13, 2007)
$40.00 (July 18, 2007)
$220.00 (August 8, 2007)
$548.00 (September 2, 2007)

Grand Total: $7,474.93

There were many of John Chow’s posts that didn’t include the bill amount for a meal. However, this compilation is of the posts where he did mention the bill amount. As you can see, the total amount for his fine dining experiences came out to be $7,474.93 since February 16, 2006. I’m assuming the grand total is a lot higher because of the posts he didn’t mention the bill amount in and the fact that he has probably eaten out and not made a post before. Wow, that’s a lot of money!

On another note, what would you do with an extra $7,474,93 dollars?

First and foremost, I would like to apologize for the lack of updates the past few days. I have been quite busy moving into my new apartment in San Luis Obispo, California. Yesterday (Sunday), I did not have power to my apartment nor did I have access to internet. However, a miracle happened this morning as I was lying in my bed half asleep. All of a sudden the power was turned on for my place. I think some fraternity brothers of mine figured out what switches to change to get power and turned my apartment’s on as well.

This whole week looks as though it will be a little slow for me blogging wise, because I will not have access to internet. Currently, I am connected to someone else’s wireless network because they forgot to password protect it! Yay for free internet while it lasts. I have scheduled an appointment with Charter, the local cable provider, and the earliest appointment they had was for next Tuesday. Hopefully the network I’m connected to doesn’t password protect their network until then!

My 3rd Year at College
As I mentioned above I am now back at college. It will be my third year at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as a business administration major. I am really excited to see what this school year has in store for me. I am going to try concentrate more on academics and pursue a marketing concentration. This year seems like it will be a lot better not only because of the location of my apartment (just off campus behind the business building), but also because of the classes I’m currently enrolled in.

My schedule seems a little lighter this quarter, however I believe it will still challenge me. I am currently enrolled in 4 classes, which is only 14 units. I’m retaking Statistics 251 (I didn’t pass last quarter), an economics course that fulfills 3 class requirements, a philosophy class, and a beginning piano class. I am really excited for my piano class because I have been trying to get that course since the beginning of the last school year.

Thank You!
I would also like to take the time to thank all of you for the support and kind feedback about the new design. I really appreciate your words as it provides more inspiration and motivation for me to keep blogging. It reminds me that we are a community and without the continued support of fellow friends blogging would not be where it is today.