MySplice Blog

It seems like just about everyone has a blog these days: students, moms, churches. So where is yours? Businesses can really benefit from a blog that goes along with their website.

Business websites are for conducting business. You use the pages to tell potential customers about what you do. They can find out all they want to know about hiring a gardener, choosing flowers, buying seeds and landscaping their dream garden if that is where your business is at. What they don’t usually find out about is your life.

When you read online, you can connect with a website through the words of their content. Depending on the type of “voice”, you’ll want to read more. Readers may even want to know what is behind your passion for the sort of business that you have created. They won’t find that on a website.

And, words can sometimes be deceiving. People can promise a lot but not deliver. It can be hard to trust a voice coming through words on a screen without a face or any other information to go with it.

Blogs

Blogs came into creation as online journals. They still are in a way. A blog is less business-like and more personal. Personal is what your readers will want from you. On a blog, they can meet you on another level that will help them to appreciate you even more on a business level.

This doesn’t mean that you have to spill all your dirty secrets for them to get to know you. It is about building relationships that will last. So, in the interest of that, you can be the first to extend the olive branch.

Blogs are great because readers and customers can interact with you each time you post. They can sign in and give great feedback every day if they want.

Your posts don’t have to be very formal. Start by introducing yourself and talking about your road to the online business world. It is an opener that could be just enough to draw your readers in.

Communicating

When readers leave feedback they are responding to posts. Will you leave it at that? Communication is a two-way street. Answer their comments as often as you can – which needs to be more often than not. Carry on a conversation with the people who are willing to give you a chance.

Blogging for business is a useful tool for building relationships with readers and customers. It gives them a chance to see you as a real person just like them and not just a name who wants their sale.

Well I’ve been really busy so I haven’t posted anything recently, but now I’m back. I have a lot of things to post but not a lot of time. I’ll get there eventually I guess.

The other day we were driving in the car and one of the kids said “Are we there yet?” and what a flashback through time that was. It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting in the back seat saying the same thing. Makes you realize how fast time goes by, and how old you’re getting.

I started to think about that…’Are we there yet?’

However, I thought about it in a different way. Getting from where we are today to where we want to be, that’s the new ‘Are we there yet?’ for adults I guess.

Do you remember those days when you were a kid and you felt like you’d never arrive? Sometimes life itself can be that way for all of us at one time or another. We may have the best intentions about our career or even relationships, money or faith, but if we don’t get on the proper path we’re never going to reach our destination, are we?

When I was thinking about all this I realized something, what it all comes down to! It’s not our intentions in life that take us where we want to be, it’s our direction. The direction that we all choose at one time or another makes us reach our destination. So how do we really get moving in the right direction? Well, I’ll leave that answer up to you, drop a comment down below and express your opinion, I’d really love to see what everyone thinks about the ‘Are we there yet’ concept.

JP Morgan released a bullish report today, and that has sent the dow up to nearly to 10,000. It’s just after 12 noon where I’m at and right now it’s only about 12 points away. That’s a big step and a great sign that the U.S. economy is greatly improving, although I myself still believe we have quite a long way to go.

I recently saw some good signs in my TD Ameritrade account and decided to grab a couple penny stocks that could easily make me a million, so I bought PDMI and MYNG for nearly zero money and they’ve both jumped between yesterday and today over 300%. I’ve become very good at picking stocks and knowing when even garbage is about to jump and make a ton of money before it falls to near zero again.

I’ve also been helped along a bit with some stock screening software like Stock Assault from Download Software (downloadsoftware.cc).

It’s pretty good stuff, and with a little industry analysis, chart history over 20 years, a decent P/E ratio and balance sheet checking you can pretty much pick ‘em on your own too.

I’m a little disgruntled today after visiting the domain names site and finding that the Microsoft Word Website Web Page Converter I bought for $48 is now under $5 just a couple weeks later.

I have to say one thing though, the software works great. I have a Google account that lets me place ads on my site, like the banners you see on this site. It’s nice to have this account because it lets me show advertisements that match my content on my blog. With this Adsense software I can do a lot more. Now I can take a document, even 1,000 pages long, and in minutes turn all 1,000 pages of text into a Website. The really cool part is that this software drops your Google Adsense account information into every page automatically, so every single page shows ads that site visitors click, and I (or you) earn money. It’s so simple to use it’s too good to be true, but it is true and it does work, I can tell you that for sure.

Anyway, I’ve tried the software with my Google Adsense to make some revenue producing Adwords web pages and earlier today I logged into my Google account to see if it worked. I assinged a channel to it so I could track the ads for this campaign, and you know what? I’m smiling! It’s not a big deal, but for a little test I just threw up 2 weeks ago, the results aren’t too bad at all. I went from averaging about $2 a day to about $9 a day, and 1 day shows $17.85! So, now I just need to replicate this about 100 times and make lots of new sites, and with cheap hosting I think I can do this easily. In a couple months I’ll make a new blog about my Adsense efforts and any good results I’ve seen. That’s it for now, have a great day!

Yup, we’ve just passed through the first week of October and the temperatures in Tinley Park, Illinois (near Chicago) are starting to drop. It’s been averaging around 50 to 60 degrees each night, but tonight it’s going to be as low as 24 degrees, and then back to 45-50 degrees for the next 10 days (at night).

In September the temperature dropped a bit so I turned on the furnace, and the little glow plug would shine bright orange but nothing would happen, so I started troubleshooting. I discovered the gas valve was bad. It’s a Honeywell manufactured part. I did some price searching and found this valve sells for anywhere between $197.98 and $455 on the Internet, and next I checked eBay. I was lucky to find a brand new one for only $35 from Surplus City Liquidators, an eBay seller, so I bought it. It came a week later and I popped it in, turned on the heat, and everything was just fine again…for a few weeks.

We’ve been using the furnace here and there as the temperature drops from time to time since the Fall season began, but never has the temperature dropped below freezing. Yesterday I saw the news and the weather called for freezing temperatures for today (tonight) but I wasn’t really concerned about it, just another cold night to me. Well, that all changed when I woke up this morning around 8 a.m. and it was pretty cold in the house. I walked over to the thermostat first thing, but it’s set on heat, and it’s set on 70 degrees, yet the temp in the house was only 59. I was like ‘Oh great, here we go again’.

So, I proceeded downstairs to the basement, and to the furnace. Sure enough, same problem, the Honeywell VR8205H gas valve failed once again. (Funny how the furnace is a Rheem but the transformers, circuit board and gas valve all say Honeywell. I guess it’s a Honeywell furnace with the Rheem name on it. Cross referencing the part and I find Ruud and many others too, but it seems they’re all just building a box with burners and putting Honeywell controls inside.

I have to say, it JUST FIGURES that tonight it’s going to be below freezing and that’s the night the furnace isn’t going to be running. Nobody had the part so I ordered another one, this time from a heating supply (Patriot Supply) in New York who will have my part to me in a couple days, and for 1/2 the price of everybody else, so we’ve got the fireplace going in the basement and some little ceramic (electric) heaters running upstairs for the next couple days. Oh, have to throw this in, these little ceramic heaters were $20 each and we’ve got 4 of them. These little portable heaters are gems! They pump 900 to 1500 watts depending on the setting and produce massive heat! Way more than the big old oil heater we have, which is also a 1,500 watt. There’s a big benefit though, the little ceramics are the size of a cookie jar, with lots of safety features. I like them a lot and highly recommend them. We bought ours at a Walgreens store and the brand name is Wexford (never heard of that one but nice product! Here’s the SKU number: 0 4902247754 4). Not too bad in here though, it’s only 32 degrees outside right now but inside here it’s holding at 68, which is pretty comfortable.

The only major drawback is the fact that our Calutech UV lights on the furnace are now off until the furnace is fixed, so no UVC sanitizing the air for a couple days but otherwise things are turning out pretty good.