Summer Advertising Sale Ends Today!

Well the end of a very successful Half Price Advertising Promotion is coming to an end today. That’s right, in a few hours time (at 3am GMT!), my advertising prices are gonna go back up to their RRP.

Checkout my advertising page for the full lowdown, but here’s the prices that you can expect:

• Top Image Ad - $70/month Now $35/month
• Text Link Ad - $50/month Now $25/month
• Post Level Text Link Ad - $30/each Now $15/month
• RSS Feed Text Link - $60/month Now $30/month
• Sponsored Review - $120/month Now $60/each

Don’t forget, this entrepreneur blog is a PR5 and is around the 5000th most popular blog (according to Technorati). Email me very very very quickly to book your place - the image ads have been particularly hot stuff.

P.S. Thanks to Michael for the graphics changes

Bored Online? What Do You Do?

Once in a while, I like to ask the community certain questions relating to online or offline work and play. This week, I really wanted to ask you:

What do you do when you’re feeling bored and you’re on the computer? Which websites do you visit?

For me, I normally head on over to Digg, watch a video on Youtube or check my Feedreader for any blogging updates. After that, I give up and go and watch TV.

Please list all the websites you go on for news, fun and games in the comments section and I’ll get a bored list setup for all us lazy Blogtrepreneur readers who can’t be bothered to work sometimes and need something interesting to do!

Update: Your official favourite sites and things to do to kill your boredom are:

- The Feedreader
- The Digg (videos)
- The Youtube
- Reddit
- Niche forums
- Rejected Jokes
- UFC
- Investigating conspiracy theories
- Randomly surf the blogosphere
- Desktop Tower Defense
- Last.fm
- StumbleUpon
- Joost
- Refdesk
- Facebook and MySpace
- Technorati
- DigitalPoint
- Browsing silhouette photos on Flickr.

And my personal fave - getting off the computer and doing OTHER THINGS. Yes, there is a world outside the internet! Nice one Jon!

Release The Daredevil In Your Business

Last night I watched the film Daredevil on TV. I’ve seen it before, but as most of us do, we can’t resist watching a classic film again. As I sat down to watch it, I realised that there are a lot of things in the film which relate to business and the online world. The plot focuses on a man who in his childhood becomes blinded by toxic waste and lives through the murder of his father. He vows to fight evil and to bring justice to the world he lives in. Here are some tips I took away from the film:

1. Be aware of what’s happening around you. The Daredevil, played by Ben Affleck, uses his acute senses of hearing and smell to be able to distinguish between people and objects and to form images of his surroundings in his mind, due to his state of blindness. In the online world especially, it’s important to realise and react to changes occurring around you, many of which evolve rapidly. In today’s terms, the rate at which technology is growing and improving is something to take note of, as it could leave you in its ancient trails, or could enable you to improve and grow your business.

2. Change the world. Daredevil avenges his father’s death by seeking justice in a world full of corruption and merciless power. He aims to change the world and to help those who are less fortunate - through his daytime job as a lawyer. If you want your business to be truly remarkeable, aim to change the world. Many entrepreneurs try to come up with this one big idea, only a handful are successful. Take Mark Zuckerberg who revolutionized social networking, or Bill Gates who sought to improve communications around the globe.

3. Don’t be afraid to be different. Ben Affleck, who plays Matt Murdock is afraid that people will be terrified by his blindness and his vacant eyes. However, close companions force him to take off his glasses so that he can be himself and natural. Here, the main lesson is to be bold. Don’t follow the crowd because you want to play it safe; instead show your true colours and stand out from the pack. Not only will this increase your chances of better marketing and PR, but you won’t feel caged in by other people’s opinions and motives.

4. Fight for what you believe in. Towards the end of the film, the Daredevil is targeted by the Kingpin - the big evil boss of the film. Here, Daredevil fights for his true love - Elektra and for the notion of justice. He doesn’t give up and even getting stabbed near the heart doesn’t put him off fighting till the end. Do the same with your business - up to a point. Realise how much potential your business has and try and work towards that capacity. There’s nothing worse than someone who gives up out of sheer laziness.

So go on!
Take your business to the next level by fighting for your beliefs, being bold, being aware and attempting to change the world…

…I dare you.

Blogtrepreneur Interviewed By CashBulge

I just wanted to give a big shout-out to Leonid from Cashbulge who recently interviewed me by email about the ideas, the marketing, the motivation and the success behind Blogtrepreneur.com. Go check-it out:

An Interview with Adnan from Blogtrepreneur

On a sidenote, Leonid has managed to get some great content onto Cashbulge and he’s only been blogging for a few weeks. Good luck to you mate, I’m expecting big things!

XHTML/CSS - We Design It, They Code It

After spending at least 2 days thinking of that title, I thought I’d better crack-on with the review that XHTML/CSS or Xhtmlslashcss ordered from ReviewMe to be featured on this blog. They’ve already managed to generate some buzz around the blogosphere with similar reviews appearing on JohnChow.com and Tyler Cruz to name but a few internet entrepreneurs.

So what exactly does XHTML/CSS do and how does the process work?

Well it’s sort of a “what it says on the tin” service, but I’ll quote from the homepage:

How It Works

1. You send us the design that you want turned into XHTML/CSS. [normally a PSD file]
2. Once payment is received we begin coding your design.
3. Within 3 days we send you your design as valid XHTML/CSS.

I’ve started reading up on both XHTML (which is the more up-to-date and standards compliant code) and CSS in order to try to teach myself coding from scratch. Whilst Wordpress makes it very easy for us non-programmers to create a website, full knowledge of the languages we’re editing in our Admin Panels is a very useful skill to have.

The website itself is clean and easy-to-use, which they promise to do for your site too. One of the major things that strikes you as you enter the page, is the lack of any graphics - an eye-turner to say the least in the age of rich media. Their reason for this?

“What? No Images?” That’s right, we do code not design.

I understand that they do code, but surely their job includes slicing up images and logos and putting them onto other sites. To me, a site with a logo appears 10 times more professional than one without. Therefore, I would recommend that they get someone to create a logo if they can’t create one themselves and stick one in the header (properly coded of course) for branding and marketing purposes.

Tyler Cruz reported in his interview that whilst the homepage was XHTML and CSS Valid, other inside pages like Get Started and Contact were not. This, although easy-to-make error, sort of undermines their whole service, but at least the problem has been fixed.

The crew of coders that own XHTML/CSS seem very capable to say the least. John, Steve and Tomas are all apparent masters in XHTML and CSS and their knowledge of other languages includes PHP, Javascript and MySQL which are all key in more advanced and interactive web development.

Read more

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