Archive for April, 2008

Don’t worry, this isn’t the great content your looking forward to.

That post is still being put together and will be something big.

For now, I’ll go through a rundown of a few of the plugins that I am currently using on MonkeyBlogger that are especially recommended by me.

CformsII

CformsII is a great plugin that I’m currently using on the Contact page. It provides you with an extremely customizable contact form that keeps your site looking clean and sleek, and at the same time provides you with a kick-butt contact form that even will use questions to verify that it’s a person, not a bot.

Link: cFormsII

MonkeyBlogger Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

All in One SEO Pack

Now this plugin is great. It really does the job well, it adds titles, keywords, meta data, for the site, as well on individual posts too. This provides you with a great blog for SEO. I use it here, and on every blog I own or have ever owned. Very highly recommended by me.

Link: All in One SEO Pack

MonkeyBlogger Rating: 10/5 Stars

CommentLuv

This is a nice plugin because it’s beneficial to commentators and gives them a reason to do so. It pulls their latest blog post. So they get a linkback and exposure, so they’ll love to comment. I use it here.

Link: CommentLuv

MonkeyBlogger Rating: 4/5 Stars

ObSocialBookmarker

I want to make mention of one more great Wordpress Plugin. It’s called ObSocialBookmarker. This social bookmarking plugin is great because it automatically adds buttons to submit your posts to many different social bookmark/network sites, including facebook, stumbleupon, digg, and more. You can even choose from over 25 sites to put at the bottom of your posts.

Link: ObSocialBookmarker

MonkeyBlogger Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Well, that’s a wrap! I hope you enjoyed reading a bit about my favorite plugins here on MonkeyBlogger, and Subscribe to the RSS Feed to not miss a beat! We got something huge cooking. Wanna know what it is? Think you do know? Comment on this post with your thoughts. Whoever hits the nail on the head just may get a reward.

Well it’s time for Part Three of this series. I’m thinking that this might be the last one. I am going to be moving on to a few other interesting topics

I apologize that Part Two was not the best post you’ll see, but I felt it was something that should be brought out, as it was an interesting thing that helped me out when I first started out.

This Part Three of the Series “Networking with Digital Point” is going to cover using Digital Point as a way to learn.

Forums can be a great resource for much information, and Digital Point is no exception.

I have to agree Digital Point does have many scammers and useless threads, but it still holds much vital information.

Being as large as it is, it is inevitable that you will have those who do not contribute, but many still do, and that’s really the key. Looking past the garbage scattered across the forums there, and finding the great content you came for.

I can’t even count how many times I had a question or concern regarding webmastering or freelancing, or legal issues of running an online business, and it was already posted on the forum. And if it hadn’t been, it was as easy as posting a new thread asking my question, and within an hour, I’ve already got an answer from someone who knows the answer. At a lot of places, you can ask a question and maybe get an answer, but it’s not the one you want or need.

That’s the difference between Digital Point and other resources or forums.

The internet is ever changing, and so are the standards for websites, forums, e-commerce and business professionals alike.

Many forums or other resources may give you information, but it could be two, three or more years old!

Digital Point is always up to date, as the people who run it and contribute to it are all changing with the internet, and are on top of all the new things, be it html being turned into xhtml, wordpress 2.3 now being 2.5, and any other changes.

When I first went to Digital Point, I was still using old school html to code my sites. That got bashed out of me real quick, and I’m glad it was, as it helped me to progress and learn new things like xhtml, css, and now even PHP.

You can even ask for xhtml/css/php help on Digital point.

It really is a great resource even despite it’s many problems, and I’m glad to be a member there.

Well, that concludes this Three Part series “Networking with Digital Point”, and I hope you enjoyed it.

My next series will be on Digital Point, but taken from a completely different perspective, and a totally different subject. I hope you’ll be around to see it, so Subscribe to the Feed and stay updated!

Well, first off, I really want to thank you guys for the great response I got on Part One of my “Networking With Digital Point” series. I know that 5 comments, (one by me ) is not very many, especially for some A-listers like John Chow or ProBlogger, but for me, it was a great response nonetheless.

Because of getting such great feedback, I’m not hesitating in releasing this Second Part to the series.

In Part One, we discussed the benefits of having a large IM list, (which you harvested from Digital Point), one being the fact that with such a list, anything you might need, be it designers, coders, etc. , are just an IM away.

In this Part Two of the series, we are going to discuss something that I don’t think many really think about as being a benefit, but in my opinion, it’s a big helper. In fact, I personally have benefited greatly from this.

When I first started working online, and webmastering and freelancing and whatnot, I was extremely naive. I believed almost anything, and I followed almost any person, idea, or eBook , be it “Work from home!”, or “Make $10,000 a week! Guaranteed!”, or even “Make 100 dollars a month with no work at all!”. Of course, being stupid and unexperienced with the way online business really works, I bought into these scams.

“But what does this have to do with Digital Point?”

Now now, calm down, I’m getting to it.

As some of you brought out in the comments to part one, Digital Point is over run with scammers. And that is precisely why I am warning you. But, what if you didn’t have a warning? Well, some scams on DP are extensive, but most are really just small pocket change lost here and there. These scams are just babies compared to the huge complex “pyramid schemes” out there. With that in mind, Digital Point serves as almost a learning ground, showing you just a taste of how people really work online, and can teach you to be much more careful about where you spend your hard earned money.

I know this may not seem to have anything to do with Networking or Digital Point, but to me, it’s something that I find interesting and should be brought up. Digital Point serves as a network where you will soon learn how people are and how they operate.

I hope you guys enjoyed this read, I know it’s a bit off topic so please forgive me, but I felt it was something that would be interesting to post and discuss in the comments.

Part Three of this series will be much more on topic I promise. So Subscribe to the RSS Feed and don’t miss it!

I’m sure many of you guys know of Digital Point Forums, one of the largest, if not the largest webmaster forum on the Net.

Now, I’m not the first blogger (nor the last I’m sure ) to bring up Digital Point. One difference is that many bloggers and other webmasters are starting to talk bad about Digital Point.

While I must agree with them on some things regarding the downsides of DP, (yes I’m abbreviating it from now on ) I still believe that there are some great things to gain from this “internet giant.”

This is Part one of a 3-5 part series, (Haven’t decided how long I should make it ) on Networking using the Popular Webmaster forum Digital Point.

Digital Point is one of the best places to waste time reading useless threads network with other bloggers. Your provided with a pretty even playing field, and there are some easy ways to build up your rep as well. (More on that later)

One thing in particular that helped me with my networking was the IM username feature. This was one very useful tool that quickly rose my MSN/Yahoo Buddy list numbers from 15-20 to over 300!

Now, I know that seems like too many, and sometimes it feels like it. But by doing this, I always have whatever I might need on hand. Wordpress Coders, Designers, Writers, Webmasters, Bloggers, you name it, I’ve got their IM.

It’s really helped me by adding all these people to my MSN/yahoo accounts through Digital Point. It’s helped me to build a great network between me and other bloggers and webmasters, so we can end up with a “help me help you” kind of business relationship.

I’ve benefited from this giant IM list many times before, and continue to. When starting this blog, I’ve used, (and will continue to use) this IM list to promote and market this blog, as well as get ideas and help on marketing it. Maybe I can even milk a few mentions on other blogs.

I hope you enjoyed this Part one of my Series “Networking with Digital Point”, and please leave me comments on what you thought about it.

Also, feel free to subscribe to the RSS so you don’t miss the rest of this series and other great posts.

Well, this is my first real post here on MonkeyBloggger.com, and it’s a good one. At least, in my opinion.

I really think that you will enjoy reading this one, it’s got some great information that any and all internet entrepreneur should know.

Now, I know that this doesn’t seem to make any sense at first. One thing that most people do is network with other bloggers, and bounce ideas around.

While there is nothing wrong with doing this in particular, the idea is to keep it between close business partners.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of scummy people around the internet, who will rip off or outright steal your ideas with no disregard whatsoever. It’s a sad truth really.

Let’s imagine this: You’ve just come up with a great idea, an internet store to sell many products; Books, toys, furniture, you name it, you’ve got it! Now your on IM one day, thinking up ideas for this online store, and you decide to bounce it off a friend. Now, you’ve worked with him many times before, and you trust him 100%.

Now, you tell him, “Bill, I just can’t come up with a great name for my store. I was thinking ‘www.rainforest.com.’ ” Bill replies by saying, “I don’t know, don’t you think ‘www.amazon.com’ would sound much better?” Ah, now you’ve got a great idea, and your off to develop the site and it becomes an internet giant.

Now imagine this: Same scenario, but instead of consulting Bill here, you decide to talk to George about it. Now, from what you’ve heard, George is a pretty reliable worker. But, you’ve never personally worked with him. But you decide to ask him anyways. “What’s the harm?”, you might ask. Why don’t we find out. You tell George you can’t come up with a name for your website. So he asks, “What’s the website about?” So you proceed to tell him what your amazing idea is. Now I bet you feel pretty high and mighty when he replies by saying, “Wow, that is an amazing idea.” So you tell him www.rainforest.com is what you’ve got, and he says he’s got no good ideas.

So you continue in your search for a proper domain.

3 months later, your flipping through the channels, and stumble upon a report of an amazing new e-store! One that has blown away any competition. What’s it’s name? That’s right, www.amazon.com. And who runs it? No other than George, your “IM buddy”.

So what’s the lesson to be learned here?

Well, if you really trust someone, and they have proved themselves worthy of your trust, then by all means, bounce ideas off of them, it will almost always benefit you in the end.

But if you don’t really know someone too well, or they’re giving off “bad vibes”, then do not, and I repeat, do not tell them any business ideas or secrets, as it will always come back and screw you over bite you in the butt.

I’ve had it happen to me numerous times, took me a long while, and many mistakes to learn better. But that doesn’t mean it has to be the same way for you.

A lot of what this blog is going to be is to really help you guys, to teach you from my own mistakes and bad situations, so that you don’t have to go through the same thing. If you would like to continue learning these great things, please come back, and don’t be afraid to subscribe to the RSS feed as well!