Crystal is a valuable member of the NJFM community. She poses great questions, offers encouragement and provides information that has helped many of NJFM’s readers.

She recently unveiled her new website Crystal Clear Edits. You see, Crystal has this uncanny ability to spot typos and errors in manuscripts that have been reviewed by several pairs of eyes. Not only does she have the ability to find these mistakes, she is very compassionate when bringing these errors to your attention.

Her love of reading, respect for language and her eagle eyes makes Crystal Clear Edits the perfect business for someone with such qualities (not to mention that a name like Crystal is the icing on the cake).

If you’re writing a book, have written a book or have documents that require a fresh set of eyes, get in touch with Crystal. Crystal charges a fair price and provides a top-notch service. You won’t regret having Crystal review your manuscripts.

Crystal, I’m excited for you and I wish you all the best. You’ve been a tremendous help to me and I know you will be a tremendous help to others.

Many moons ago I created my online playground, Tidbits and Stuff. You guys know the story. It was a hand-coded site, then a WordPress site, then a Joomla site and now…I’m converting it back to a WordPress site. I expect the process to take a month or two.

I learned a lot since March of 2006 when I first created the site. This site, as you know, has been beat down, picked back up and then Pandalized. It has been ignored, plagiarized and the object of constant experimentation. Tidbits has been one of my greatest teachers.

Paid to Learn

Over the years I’ve earned a bit of money from the site. Some years more money than others, but it consistently earned each month (earnings have dropped since being pawed by Panda).

When I first created the site I didn’t know I could earn money from it. It was a labor of love. Then I learned I could earn money from it and took the  “let’s add as much content to the site as possible” route. Sound familiar?

To populate my site with fast content I used free article directories. Not knowing any better, I used Digg and Reddit to gain quick traffic. I was brand new back then and didn’t realize I was spamming the social media sites.

My efforts gained results. I received record traffic and my earnings increased. All was going fine until one day, while on vacation, I checked my stats and the bottom fell out. Traffic dropped and so did the income. Tidbits was nowhere to be found on Google. My heart was sick (not to mention that Digg kicked me to the curb)!

When You Know Better…

To use Maya Angelou’s phrase (as spoken several times by Oprah Winfrey), “When you know better, you’ll do better.” Now as I look back at my major blunders, I understand why Tidbits never holds on to Google favor. If I were a search engine, I would Pandalize it too.

I stopped using article directory content on the site, but I’ve got hundreds of old articles that need to be removed. Additionally, the site is visually unappealing, which brings me to another lesson: When you find a tool that works for you, work it. Become an expert on it. Spend time learning the nuances and the quirks. By mastering a tool, you’ll reduce your effort and maximize your results.

Playing with Joomla was fun, but non productive. Joomla was too much of a tool for my needs. WordPress, on the other hand, is a nice comfortable fit.

Closing the Circle

I’ve returned to my first online love and am in the process of revamping Tidbits and Stuff. The difference this time is I’m approaching it with a different philosophy. I’m applying the philosophy that I’ve been developing over the past 4 ½ years as an online writer (online writing has transformed my life in many ways).

Slow, steady and honesty wins the race. I want long-lasting results. If I had taken this approach initially, Tidbits would only need a few nips and tucks. Instead I’ve got to perform major surgery in order to transform it into the site I want. Don’t read that as a complaint. It is a learning experience and I love playing around with themes, colors, images and of course, creating content.

I’m back to where I was 4 ½ years ago; playing with a site that I created out of love and taking it to a new and improved level. If I’m lucky, I’ll have it done by January. However, with the holidays upon us February seems to be a more realistic target.

I can’t help but understand why you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The old dog has been around the block enough times to realize the tricks aren’t new. They just have a new façade. Why spend the time trying to master a new trick when the tricks only work for a short time?

In 2011 my word for the year was focus. My goal was to focus on residual income instead of up front pay. My word for 2012 is sustainability; only work on projects that have a long and enjoyable shelf life.

BTW: If you don’t have an online playground, I strongly suggest you create one.  It will teach you more than any guru can.

NaturallySpeaking 11.5

The version I’m using, 11.5, has a neat feature, which makes it easier to post to Twitter and Facebook. Because I like to look at the glass half full, I’ll call it a neat little feature (actually, it’s a pain in the rear).

The feature allows you to quickly dictate a new tweet or post to Facebook just by telling the software to do so. By giving it the command of either “tweet that” or “post to Facebook” NaturallySpeaking opens a small dictation window. For tweets the window holds the maximum of 140 characters. I’m not too sure of the character limitation for the Facebook window.

Unwanted Software Feature

Since I don’t post to Facebook nor do I tweet, this feature is wasted on me. The problem I have with this cool feature is that during my dictation, the software mistakenly thinks I want it to tweet something so it activates the “Post to Twitter” window that only holds 140 characters.

When I dictate, I pace away from the computer. Imagine my surprise when I return to home base only to see the difficult concept I was attempting to explain had been reduced to a 140-character tweet! This has happened one time too many and I’ve yet to find the menu option in NaturallySpeaking to disable it.

A Hack Workaround

Not wanting to waste additional time playing around the software, I did a Google search on how to disable the post to twitter or post to Facebook NaturallySpeaking option. I came across this blog post (NaturallySpeaking Tips and Tricks) that was a lifesaver.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who doesn’t like/need/use the feature. After following the instructions, I was able to disable the post to Twitter and post to Facebook feature. It’s unfortunate that NaturallySpeaking didn’t put a quick and simple way to disable the feature in the software.

I look at my software as a tool to help me accomplish a given task. It should not become the task.

What I like about the book is that it’s not all theory. I’ve read my share of positive motivational books (and will continue to do so), but what I like about this book is that Timothy Ferriss provides hands on examples and resources.  One of the resources mentioned in the book that caused me to put the book down, walk over to my computer and download the plugin was the time productivity tool LeechBlock.

I Love Wasting Time

Of all the hours I spend online, I work for about 2 to 3 hours a day and the remainder of the time online is spent checking stats, roaming around forums, checking my earnings and the like.  Although an outsider looking in may think I’m actually working, but I’m not.

As an insider looking out, I realize I’ve developed a few serious time wasting habits.  My  ultimate goal is to create a respectable residual income flow and spend as little time online as possible making it happen.  My less than productive habit of constant stat checking does not add to my financial  bottom line.

Downloading LeechBlock

LeechBlock is a Firefox plugin that can be configured to prevent me from playing around on time wasting sites.  I’ve configured LeechBlock to stop me from visiting StatCounter, Google Analytics, Google AdSense,  a few forums and a few other time wasters from the hours of 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM (I give myself an hour’s break between 12:30 and 1:30).  It’s not that I’m on the computer for that many hours, but from time to time I’ll walk by the computer and the computer’s magnet draws me in to check my stats (I’m sure you guys have felt the computer magnet’s attraction).

There are several configuration options with Leech Blocker.  So far I’ve only managed to configure it for my biggest time wasters.  Once I get a good handle on the plugin, I’m sure I’ll “discover” other uses for it.

Give LeechBlock a Shot

It doesn’t work on IE and I’m not so sure about Chrome, but since I use Firefox it works just fine. This week will be the first week of using LeechBlock.  I fully expect to be so much more productive whether it’s online or off.  Let’s face it,  if I’m not wasting time checking my stats, I’ll either write more, get more things done around the house or spend more time harassing my family.

Column Headings

After listing the residual or up front resource name in the column heading, I hyper link the title to the site’s earnings page.  Of course, if you’re not logged into the site when you click on the link it will bring you to the main page, but when you’re updating your numbers, it’s a lot easier to click the column heading and force the software to bring up the webpage than leaving Excel, opening your browser and navigating to the website (that was a record-breaking long sentence).

Here’s how to do it:

In your Excel spreadsheet, navigate to the cell of the column heading that will be hyperlinked.  In this example, I’m linking to my eHow revenue page, so I click in the eHow column heading cell and then click on the hyperlink icon.

If the hyperlink icon isn’t part of your menu options, navigate to hyperlinks by clicking “Hyperlink” under the “Insert” menu.  The shortcut is “Ctrl-K”

Once you click on the hyperlink icon (or navigate or shortcut to it), the “Insert Hyperlink” window opens.

In the “Linked to:” column, make sure “Existing File or Web Page” is selected.

Next, insert the URL in the “Address” box at the bottom of the window (here I inserted the URL to my eHow account) and click “OK.”

You’ll notice the header will change to the default hyperlink font, color and formatting.  You can leave the formatting as is or you can change it to any color or style you wish.

Using the same “Insert Hyperlink” window you can link to any page within the spreadsheet (or other spreadsheet for that matter).