Updates

Blogging accomplishment of the evening:

1. Totally updated the look of Read and Release. Way cleaner. Go visit! Shiny!
2. Created header for R&R as well as button to use for EntreCard.
3. Signed R&R up for Entrecard.

So now...all four of my "personal" blogs are on EC. It might become an obsession.

Yay!

Finding the Right Host

I've been talking quite a lot recently about my current blogs, my new efforts, and the work I've done in the past with maintaining web sites/blogs purely for revenue. Obviously, one of my biggest concerns, as someone who enjoys making money online, is the hosting plans I set up for my sites. For my "free" blogs here at Blogspot, not an issue. But for the sites where I own the domain (currently a half dozen or so), having the right combination of fair pricing, consistent uptime, and ease of use is so important to me when I look at hosting. I've been burned in the past...cheapest ain't always the best option!

In any case, I wanted to share a comparison web site with you that I found - it takes a look at various hosting options and gives web hosting rating metrics to help you make decisions. (This site is to web hosting as "PowerToChoose" is to electric providers.) Beyond simply comparing the many, many hosting companies out there, the site also has a great directory of advice articles to help make decision-making easy. The best I found so far was "The Advantages and Disadvantages of Shared Hosting."

If you have some decisions coming up, or are just curious, go check out this site. It makes comparison shopping for great hosting services a cinch!

New Blog is UP!

Hey, ya'll!

Remember the hinting around I've done about starting (another) new blog?

Well...it's UP! With a few foundational posts (About, Disclosure Policy, Usage Policy) and the first "real" post posing a time management question, it's now open for business.

Called "0 to Mom" (playing, of course, on my love for NASCAR), its tagline is "Parenting at the speed of life."

Go check it out when you have a chance!

Blog Revamp - PART 1

I've successfully finished part one of my BIG BLOG REVAMP!

All posts from Tiffany Takes On... have been successfully transferred over to this blog, as well as related comments. YAHOO!

If you haven't kept up on my rantings, read them here!

Next step - upload new template.

I gave my chosen new template a try-out tonight on a test blog, and it works beautifully - I think you're going to love it! I'll have it uploaded over the weekend and ready to roll...yahoo!

Stay tuned...much more to come.

American Idol

Ok, so I just have to say this...

Does anyone else not care about American Idol as much as I don't care about American Idol? Supposedly, someone won tonight. Freaking yay. Half the blogs on my Reader are gushing over it. As if I care.

I tune into the try-out episodes if I'm home and nothing else is on that I'm dying to see...basically because I'm the heartless sort that loves laughing at stupid people. (And as a musician, I love to laugh at stupid people who actually think they have talent.)

I have not once watched an actual competition episode. I have a download of one of the performances - some chick singing with Rascal Flatts - but that's it.

The rest of the time? Please. TV off, hand me a book. As much as I miss my husband when he's out of town, I like having this time with no TV on. It really gets sickening sometimes. Plus, I actually get stuff done when the boob tube isn't making my brain cells die.

Speaking of books...MAJOR updates coming for my book blog! I'm behind by as many books as I've already blogged on, and have finished 2 more in the past 3 days! This weekend's project is to CATCH UP ON BOOK BLOGGING!!!

Oh yeah, and the other updates and that pesky little BIG ANNOUNCEMENT that I pre-announced. Still coming soon. Layout update ought to complete this weekend as well. BIG ANNOUNCEMENT tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, May 27th.

Stay tuned...

Q&A with God

Finn, over at A Life Less Ordinary, has been kicking back with God over at her portal...and today, I got my burning question answered! Go over and see why God made the platypus! :-)

Burning Questions, Part II: A Conversation With God

(No, I'm not making fun of religion - I happen to be secure in my faith and belief in God. But I do think that some people take God and faith way too seriously, and so I love little skits like this one that I believe can be used as a teaching tool for people to learn that not all of life is serious and that it's ok to have a comfortable relationship with God.

Changes, They Are A-Comin'

To the site, I mean!

I've decided that I'm completely bored with the look of my blog, so over the next few days, I'm going to be working to change that. Want a sneak peek on what may be coming? Here's what I'm contemplating!

• Total Layout Change. It's blah-blah boring right now, isn't it? I need some pizzazz!
• Header/Banner Change. I'm kind of a fraud according to my own banner. Let's face it. This isn't my writing blog. It's a blog where I post random thoughts, occasionally a product or site review that I'm commissioned to work on, lots of MeMes...and oh, yeah, the occasional snippet of my writing. So yeah, while it was meant to be exclusively about my writing, it's gone pretty far beyond. And somehow missed the theme of fiction along the way!
• Fiction. Hey, I knew I started this site for a reason! In the future, I'll be posting more snippets of my writing for you, dear readers, to give me your feedback on. Some short stories and some excerpts from my manuscripts in progress.
• Theme. Yeah, I call this place Breakfast at Tiffany's, as a play on my name and my passion for both the book and movie Breakfast at Tiffany's. But other than splashing a picture of Audrey Hepburn up, I've done zip, nada, nothing with that theme. Shame on me! I'm working on creating a weekly, or potentially bi-weekly feature that's actually a play on the theme. Stay tuned!
• This whole columns thing... I don't like it either. Two just ain't cutting it. So I'm going to three. I'm actively in the hunt for a new template that mimics the layout I've got pictured in my mind. (Did you know that at one time I was a Layout Editor?) So why three? Well, let's face it. I've monetized my blog. I'm trying to make pennies wherever I can. Have you seen the rising costs of gas and food? So even though that's all I'm making right now - pennies - I'm working on improving that. I once ran several moderately successful websites that pulled in around $50 bucks a month each in advertising. Not a lot, but some cash. I gave it up because I just didn't keep up with it and thought that I'd rather focus my efforts on blogging instead of HTML-ing. I now realize the error of my ways - I should have done both. (And in an effort to do so, I've purchased a few new domains and will be making them into monetized sites with specific niches. More on that later.) In any case, going to three columns is a boon to both me, the person hoping to make a bit more money, and you, the reader who may not want to see my ads. I'll be "segregating" all of my ads to one of the columns...so as you're scrolling down, you can quite easily let your eyes ignore a portion of the site, instead of having to scroll through ads to get to other sidebar widgets or information. And hey, if you happen to see an ad you like, go for it! :-)
• Two become one. A few months ago, I created another blog called "Tiffany Takes On." It is basically my rant blog. I see a news article that gets my feathers in a flair and write my reaction to it. Ok, in like 8 months I've written 14 posts. I'm not exactly prolific over there. And my site traffic reflects upon that! So as a part of the redesign of this blog, I'll be incorporating those posts in (dated appropriately and with comments copied and pasted as they won't transfer) with the contents here. And in the future, when I feel like ranting, I'll just do it here!
• Cheaper by the dozen. Ok, not really a dozen. But I'll still have other blogs independent of this one. Namely, the book blog, Read and Release: Tiffany's Tomes, will be staying a standalone blog. A couple others I started as a whim, however, will be going away. Not worth my time/effort. Don't worry - you won't miss anything. I never announced them here or put them under my profile, so the few posts I have done on those topics won't be missed by anyone if gone. I will, however, be introducing one of my other blogs to you all. It was actually the first blog I started, back in July of 2007 - 3 months before this blog here. Since then, I've written it quasi-anonymously (using even a different Google login!) and it's on a fairly personal topic. But the readership, interestingly enough, is about 5 times of this site, with no marketing or advertising on my part. Google loves to index that blog, so it gets lots of hits. Anyhow, I think you'll like it, and so it's COMING SOON as a part of a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. So, other than the four sites I mentioned buying above which will be run entirely independently, I'll be down to three blogs - and that I can handle!

So there you have it! Now it's your turn, readers! What do you think? Any changes to suggest? I'm open to them all - and to your feedback on everything I've written about up above!

Defeated by Technology

A few months ago, I blogged that I'd found this neat article in the blogosphere that centered around a store I worked in on the Jersey Shore back during the summers of 1998 and 1999.

It turns out that the writer of that original blog about Cloud 9, Ann Richardson, came to visit my post, and blogged about it! She then tried to contact me...but that was unfortunately during the time when SBCglobal was busier eating new emails and destroying old emails and locking me out of my account than actually delivering communication.

By complete coincidence, I Googled myself today - something I do every few months or so to see what web sites have linked to me or picked up links to some of my freelancing articles - and found her later post.

I just finished popping off an email to Ann from my more reliable Yahoo address and hope to hear back from her! In any case, she's earned a reader for her blogged related to Jersey Shore Business News - and dear readers, I encourage you to go visit her!

Blogger Spotlight: The Random Forest

I'm going to begin a new series of blog posts here at Breakfast at Tiffany's: spotlighting other great blogs that I come across through my travels throughout the 'Net.

My first spotlight is on The Random Forest, who can be found with both .info and .com addresses, with varying content.

The Random Forest is just that - random! And that's why I love the two sites this blogger runs. In between sporadic posts letting readers know about products and services, he also puts forward amusing ramblings on music, site authoring, life in general, and just about anything that falls into his orbit. In other words, it's very similar to Breakfast at Tiffany's, but with a more original title!

In his own words, Mr. Random Forest himself describes his blog as Reviews, rants, my life and randomness.

Go check him out today!

I.DID.IT.

I've been such a disgraceful slacker this year, but I finally caught up with a project. My book review blog is now UP TO DATE! I was seventeen books behind as of today, but they are all now blogged on, and appropriately backdated.

You really should go read.

Read and Release: Tiffany's Tomes.

YAY!

I've been SAVED!

No, this is not going to be a post about religion. :-)

What I'm talking about is my blog on 451Press - PitStopReport.com. 451Press has hit some hard times, recently, and has lost portions of their revenue - the revenue necessary to maintain hundreds of websites and pay hundreds of bloggers, like me.

I only began my writing on PSR back in November - so when the announcement came out that 451Press was looking to trim back quite a bit from hundreds of blogs to just 149, I was sure my head would be on the chopping block - new kid in town and all that.

So I kind of took the way of the scared mousie and stayed out of it for the past week as they've been deciding. I have new posts...but haven't put them up pending the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT.

Which came out this morning...

...and I'm good to go. YAHOO!

So...look for a bunch of posts to go up tonight, backdated to the dates I actually wrote them over the past 10 days. And of course, please visit me going forward to see all the latest in the world of auto racing - you can see the headline from my most recent article (via RSS) at the top of my blog page here at Breakfast at Tiffany's!

YAHOO!

But anyone can write, right?

Since I began "seriously" writing as a freelancer almost two years ago, I have fielded this kind of reaction more times than I can count.

"What's so special about what you do? Can't anyone do "that kind" of writing (referring to web content)?"

Know what? I never claimed to be all that special. What I have always claimed, however, is to have a knack for putting words together into cohesive thoughts and sharing those words with others.

Know what else? Even though I only began "regularly" freelancing two years ago, I've written for more years of my life than I can count. From starting a newspaper in first grade with my friend Caryn to editing my high school yearbook, to publishing two articles in small publications while in college, writing has been a large definition of my life.

And although it's not my only or even primary income, I consider it an achievement that I've been able to do more and pay for more and spread my writing around (under my own name or as a ghostwriter) because of the projects I've taken on as a freelancer.

A majority of the costs for my wedding - paid for by freelancing. A large part of the down payment of my house - paid for by freelancing. Various payments and extras and fun stuff - you got it.

It makes me very angry to compete against writers who think that it's perfectly acceptable to sell either a majority or all of their "writing" for pennies on the dollar. And it's gratifying how many web site owners come to realize that if you pay $1 for an article that is 400-500 words long, they got what they paid for: crap.

Deb Ng, one of my heroes in freelance writing, had a great post on her blog today, reacting to a web site she found proclaiming that anyone and everyone could write for pay if they chose to. *Snort.* Deb is arguably the first lady of freelance writing and blogging, and ya'll need to head over to her award-winning site, Freelance Writing Gigs, to check out her article and all of the resources she has to offer.

Tiffany

Unsatisfactory Immigration Laws

(cross-posted to TiffanyTakesOn.Blogspot.com and ArsCompendium.com)

I would like to share the following portion of a famous political speech. Please read through the speech instead of succumbing to the urge to skip to the bottom, where I've posted the author/bibliographic information.

"Our present immigration laws are unsatisfactory. We need every honest and efficient immigrant fitted to become an American citizen, every immigrant who comes here to stay, who brings here a strong body, a stout heart, a good head, and a resolute purpose to do his duty well in every way and to bring up his children as law-abiding and God-fearing members of the community. But there should be a comprehensive law enacted with the object of working a threefold improvement over our present system. First, we should aim to exclude absolutely not only all persons who are known to be believers in anarchistic principles or members of anarchistic societies, but also all persons who are of a low moral tendency or of unsavory reputation. This means that we should require a more thorough system of inspection abroad and a more rigid system of examination at our immigration ports, the former being especially necessary.

The second object of a proper immigration law ought to be to secure by a careful and not merely perfunctory educational test some intelligent capacity to appreciate American institutions and act sanely as American citizens. This would not keep out all anarchists, for many of them belong to the intelligent criminal class. But it would do what is also in point, that is, tend to decrease the sum of ignorance, so potent in producing the envy, suspicion, malignant passion, and hatred of order, out of which anarchistic sentiment inevitably springs. Finally, all persons should be excluded who are below a certain standard of economic fitness to enter our industrial field as competitors with American labor. There should be proper proof of personal capacity to earn an American living and enough money to insure a decent start under American conditions. This would stop the influx of cheap labor, and the resulting competition which gives rise to so much of bitterness in American industrial life; and it would dry up the springs of the pestilential social conditions in our great cities, where anarchistic organizations have their greatest possibility of growth.

Both the educational and economic tests in a wise immigration law should be designed to protect and elevate the general body politic and social. A very close supervision should be exercised over the steamship companies which mainly bring over the immigrants, and they should be held to a strict accountability for any infraction of the law."

I would like to state that I think that the author of this speech is a very wise and prescient man. And no, I am not of an anti-immigrant mind; rather, I'm against:

• any person who enters this great nation illicitly;
• any so-called "illegal immigrant" (why don't we simply call them "illegal") who takes and takes and takes from the resources of our land without any effort to give back;
• or any legal and able-minded citizen who does not actively seek to better himself and his nation.

Who is this orator, you ask?

None other than President Theodore Roosevelt, in his "First Annual Message" (a precursor to the State of the Union address) given on December 3rd, 1901. Read the speech in its entirety at The American Presidency Project.

Introducing...

...a new blog.

Ok, ok, I know that this blog, in itself, is still quite new. And I know that I already write all over the place online anyways. But hey, what's another new venture?

Called Tiffany Takes On... my new blog is a place to highlight the news, my views, and what's going on in the world around us. Basically, it's a forum for me to share my own editorial on current happenings.

Fun times! Go visit! Let me know what you think!

Tiffany