DISQUS

I am using Google Documents more and more these days for collaboration. It is a great way to keep documents in the Cloud and allow others to edit them as well.

<abbr>Fred´s last blog post..Wall Street Journal iPhone App</abbr>

I really hope that Skype can buy back Skype. I think that it should improve the updates. I love skype but feel that it is stagnant with Ebay owning it.

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Jack,

Thank you very much for doing these calls. I have learned so much from them and you newsletter.

<abbr></abbr><abbr>Freds last blog post..Cub Cadet Lawnmowers</abbr>

I absolutely love the iPhone Facebook app. The iPhone is the perfect mobile computer and Facebook is an awesome social site.

<abbr>Fred´s last blog post..Washington Mutual CD Rates</abbr>

That was very interesting. The US newspaper industry seems to be in trouble. It would be nice to read more information about the health of individual newspapers.

I think that the current recession will hurt starting web 2.0 companies from getting private capital. But, I don't think that it will hurt existing successful web 2.0 properties.

That is too funny

Mark,

I really liked how you showed through math what is needed to make $5,000 per month. As I read through your post I did have a few questions.

1. 5 keywords that you can rank in the top 6 in the SERPS that give you 1500 searches a day - What criteria do you use to determine whether you can obtain a top 6 ranking for a particular keyword? I have many adsense sites, but I find it very difficult to get 100 visitors a day.

2. Article Marketing Visitors - Are these visitors that find your articles in the SERPs or are they people surfing the article directories? Do these visitors tend to click adsense ads? I noticed you carved out social media traffic. It is my opinion that these visitors don't click. This leads me to wonder about the visitors from your article submissions.

3. 100 visitors a day - How successful have you been with being able to consistently build small sites that get 100 visitors a day? I have built a lot of sites, but I really have trouble getting this many visitors.

Robert,

I completely agree with you that American politics needs to move away from political fighting and instead discuss the issues. However, none of our candidates are truly discussing the issues. Instead, both McCain and Obama discuss goals.

It is easy to discuss goals. Both Republicans and Democrats want better education for our children, better and cheaper health care, and more high paying jobs. Let's be honest, it is so easy to say "I am for improving our education system. We need more affordable health care for all Americans. Let's bring our jobs back home!!" But both parties want these things. Neither Republicans nor Democrats want a worse education system, poorer health care or rising unemployment. But, that is all we hear from the media, and too often Obama and McCain.

So let's actually CHANGE the political discourse in the country. Let's not allow our politicians and media to fool us into discussing who wants these things more. Instead, let's focus on how each candidate, Party or political philosophy would handle each issue.

Let's look at each of the issues you highlighted. In order to actually discuss issues intelligently, I will focus on one issue at a time. Let's brainstorm on how to fix these problems, not fight over whether Obama or McCain is the right person to fix them. These issues are bigger than these two men. These problems are bigger than Washington. But, if Americans actually discuss the issues I am sure we can come up with the solutions and compromises needed to improve them.

1. Education. Again, let's acknowledge that each party wants to improve the education system. The real difference is in political philosophy. What will actually make our education system better? Let's face it, that is the real question.

I tend to be a conservative in my political leanings, but I try to always see others' points of view. Personally, I believe that there are two big problems with education in America.

The biggest problem is that some Americans don't value a good education. No matter how much we spend on these families, no matter how good of teachers they have, these American families will not take advantage of the resources that are already provided. This is a huge problem because there is nothing government can do to quickly fix this problem. You have to change hearts and minds of people and this can take generations.

The second biggest problem is that we can't fire bad teachers. We all had great teachers, average teachers and bad teachers. We cannot afford to waste a year of our child's education on a bad teacher. We must have a system that can fire bad teachers.

Despite there being no quick fixes to improve our education system, I have outline some things that I would like to see changed that would get us moving in the right direction. This list is not intended to be exhaustive, and I hope that your other readers discuss my ideas and add their own.

a. Make Schools and Neighborhoods Safe - Kids can't learn if their biggest concern is for their safety.

b. Make Education a Priority - We need our community leaders, politicians, religious leaders and families to talk about the importance of education. Show kids how they can improve their lives if they study now. Many in our society believe that they will never improve their lives and therefore quit before trying.

Education spending in this country is at an all time high, but our graduates are not getting the most out of the resources that are being spent. If we are going to spend more on education, let's at least reevaluate what we are spending the money on.

c. Teach Our Children the Fundamentals - I believe that we are failing to teach the fundamentals to our children. Our school curriculums focus too much on "nice to knows" instead of the "must knows." Everyone must know how to read, how to write, how to research, mathematics and science. Our curriculums must always focus on these things.

d. Get rid of Bad Teachers - It is funny because I remember my sister who is seven years older than me complaining about certain teachers who were simply not very good or unmotivated. Seven years later, I had to suffer through these same bad teachers. Why? It was not because no one knew that they weren't any good. In fact, everyone knew that they weren't any good. The teachers knew it, the students knew it, and the parents knew it. Sadly, I bet that those bad teachers knew that they weren't very good too.

We cannot afford to keep paying these bad teachers. The real problem is not the money. Sure the $30,000+ salaries add up, but the real problem is that instead of learning algebra from a good teacher our kids waste a precious year of their lives trying to learn as much as they can from a bad teacher. The system needs to be able to weed these teachers out of the classroom.

If we are going to guarantee their salaries, well let them clean the parks, but don't saddle my children by leaving them in the classroom.

This means that the Teachers Union will need to put our children first and revise the tenure system for teachers. In my opinion, tenure should not exist. I don't have the luxury of tenure in my job and teachers shouldn't either. Let merit determine which teachers stay in the classroom and which do not.

As stated above, these four ideas will not magically make education better. But, if they would be focused on, I believe education would be significantly improved. I hope that you can tell from this comment my passion for helping our children to learn. I am sure that my conservative leanings are evident in each of my ideas, but that is just how I approach issues. What do you think would improve our education system?

Sincerely,
Fred Peters

That is a crazy picture. I wonder what the story is behind this?

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That is so funny. I read about both dieing yesterday, but did not see the irony. Although, I must admit, that Jesse Helms did a lot of good while in the Senate. Sometimes, the good is just not focused on.

That is too funny.

I didn't get this story.

I love Jim's videos. I watch every daily flip that comes out.

Revenue projections are absolutely critical to growing a business. As you said, you need a goal to hit.

I think you need to go a step further though. You need to build out a concrete plan as to where those revenues are going to come from. A bridge report showing what you need to bring in to hit your projections.

I luv the keywordluv plugin. This plugin allows the commentator to announce himself while still getting an anchored link. Thank Simon!!

I can't imagine middle class american getting much help from Obama. They will end up paying more money to the government and have less to give to their kids and family. More women will not be able to stay home with their children. And, they will see Obama hurt their retirement savings by increasing capital gains taxes.

The "elite" (otherwise known as intellectuals and the rich) and very poor are the constituency of the Democratic Party. The Party of Roosevelt is no more.

Thanks sharing this petition Sara. I don't know if I am going to sign it yet. I need to understand what research is being done. However, if it is just of researching perfume and makeup and other frivolous things, I will sign the petition. I think that I have a lot of reading to do on the Radical Blogger Blog.

-Fred

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Andy,

Thanks for you tips on how to use Friendfeed. Like most of us Internet enthusiasts, I signed up for Friendfeed, but I really haven't done anything with it. I am going to try to do a search and follow a topic right now. It will help my blogging efforts.

Andy,

Thanks for you tips on how to use Friendfeed. Like most of us Internet enthusiasts, I signed up for Friendfeed, but I really haven't done anything with it. I am going to try to do a search and follow a topic right now. It will help my blogging efforts.

Outsourcing of software is nothing new, but I am surprised every day what new things are being outsourced overseas. I am seeing more and more legal work being outsourced overseas.

Wow, I hope that Obama supporters did not create this video. I thought that Obama was for changing politics. Bringing all americans together, Republicans and Democrats. Well, I guess this is just politics as usual.

The worst part of the video was its attempt to drive blacks and Republicans farther apart. This is not good for black people in our country. It is very harmful to our country and the prosperity of blacks to feel that a large segment of Americans (Republicans) are racists. This is not true and despicable for the Democratic Party to try to use this to get votes. This does not help the country in any way.

Although the race baiting was the worst part about this video, I had some other thoughts.

1. Small Neighborhood Stores - Americans have been helped a great deal by the low prices offered by Wal-Mart. Let's not demonize business. Remember that Wal-Mart provides a lot of jobs around the country and especially in the South. While you and I would not necessarily want to work retail, many Americans make their living working hard in this industry.

2. Cures for Diseases - This issue really stumped me. The whole philosophy behind the Republicans' plan for health care is designed to ensure that doctors and drug companies continue to have incentives to innovate. Government will not find the cure for cancers, but doctors and drug companies will.

3. Outdoors - The environment has always stumped me because some of the biggest Republicans I know are huge environmentalists. Hunters, fisherman, farmers and many other Republican voters love the outdoors. While they might not want government to dictate what car they can drive (while those same politicians fly in private jets), they are the first people to actually do something to help the environment.

Another thing that I find ironic about the environmental debate is that many urbanites are the environmental activists. Did they ever look around where they live. Cities are the worst things for our environment. These mass areas of concrete create huge problems for our waterways. The environmental pollution caused by so many people living together is terrible. No, those people in the red states actually live environmentalism, not just talk about it.

4. Minorities in prison - Again, despicable race baiting. Let's find a way to solve this problem, not call Republicans racists. This helps no one. Additionally, the Democratic Primary was the primary that used race to divide people. Bill and Hillary Clinton, and their Democratic supporters should be ashamed.

5. Big corporations - I have worked for large corporation and small businesses. I have also worked as a lobbyist for big business. Democrats mix up big corporations with business in general. Big business actually tends to be for Democratic policies. These regulations keep small business from being able to compete against large business. It is the small business community that is heavily Republican. These small businesses need less regulation and taxes in order to compete with large corporations. It is important to remember that these small businesses hire a much larger percentage of Americans than large corporations.

I know that this video is intended to be humorous and that my comments are probably too critical considering this commercial was created for humor. I am not missing this, but I thought that it presented a good opportunity to add to the discussion here.

-Fred

Golf is a game of you against yourself.  It is a great personal battle: a very mental game.  This is my favorite thing about golf.  It is the ultimate game of discipline.

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I think that there are two reasons why there are so many Make Money Online blogs. The first reason is that what we are interested in. If you are trying to make money online, it almost becomes an obsession. People turn start doing a make money blog because that is what they are in to.

The second reason is that the A listers in the make money online crowd don't give sufficient examples of how to make money using a niche outside the make money space. We all see how the successful make money bloggers pimp new affiliate programs, ebooks and software tools, but we never actually learn how to monetize other niches. There is a real need for this type of information. The problem is that people don't want to show their niches. But, is it really going to affect you that much to open up a little bit more? I don't think so.

Just my thoughts,
Fred

This is great advice. I pay a lot of attention to my load times. Very often I will put a new widget on my blog and not notice that it takes forever to load. I think that this really hurts a blog. Paying attention to load times is very important.