Approved Baby, Approved!
September 8, 2006 Posted by Tyler CruzI apologize again for another tardy post, but the fact is that I’ve had my hands (and mind) full with a bunch of things lately, including incorporating and buying an apartment. However, I have a 10-minute video in this post so maybe that’ll help make up for things…
- Incorporating: Merendi Networks Inc.?
- PublisherSpot
- Fire!
- Blog updates
Incorporating: Merendi Networks Inc.?
I had my meeting with my accountant yesterday. I had scheduled it because I wanted to see if it was time to incorporate again. Below is a video of myself after the meeting saying how it went. I also touch on some pretty big news with my mortgage…
PublisherSpot
I had quite the ordeal trying to get a design for PublisherSpot. I had originally started a contest on Sitepoint for a design with a prize of $600. While there were a lot of entries, only 2-3 were half decent. I write extremely specific details on what I needed and wanted, but nobody really seemed to pay attention or care.
Anyhow, I ended up not choosing a winner there. Instead, I contacted one of the entrants privately and offered him $500 if he made changes to it. Anyhow, the site is pretty much done now. The main template is done, and we are just working on finalizing the subpages. Then my programmer is converting it to valid HTML and CSS and the site will be all done 🙂
However, then comes the arduous task of populating the site with high quality reviews… I plan on officially launching the site on October 1st, 2006.
Anyhow, without further adieu, here’s a screenshot of the design:
Fire!
What follows below is quite lame, but I had made the video a week or two ago and uploaded it up to YouTube, so I might as well post it anyway.
Basically, I had a fire in my apartment. It was just a small grease fire.. and normally I wouldn’t care at all, but I’m quite certain that I was actually quite close to having my entire apartment building caught on fire…My rug 🙁 My poor rug 🙁 I actually phoned Bob Schmuck after the incident (he’s a professional carpet cleaner) but there was no answer. And with me moving out soon, I’m really worried about the cost of this… somebody reassure me please!
Blog updates
I’ve been slow with the updates, I know. And really, I do apologize. I actually have an obscene amount to talk about.. it’s just that I’ve been so busy lately.. incorporating, landing a mortgage, launching new sites…. but the biggest culprit is World of Warcraft…
Fortunately, I’ve managed to get a bit done with WordPress. You’ve probably noticed a few changes. Here’s what I’ve managed to do:
1. Totally improved the right side navigation. I added all the sections I plan on having there (Everything’s there that was before except for the inspirational video).
2. Altered the formatting for the left and right text to make them bigger and smaller respectively, to fit things better.
3. Signed up with Feedburner and added an RSS/Feedburner button to the right side.
4. Added the date below the title of each post.
5. Removed comments on the subpages (About Me, Advertise, Contact Me)
6. Removed advertising/spam from the footer which the template designer put in there.
7. Reduced the amount of posts shown on the front page to reduce vertical scrolling
8. Fixed the image uploader. I don’t know what the hell I did.. I simply chmoded to 777 then chmodded back to 755 and it worked.. how? I have no idea.
So yay for me and you. I’m sure I’ll still have a bunch of questions in the future though. And thanks to everyone who helped me by commenting in my previous post. Speaking of which, a lot of the comments there seem to be messed up… parsed and formatted strange.. is my blog somehow doing that? If so, why, and can I easily fix that?
Anyhow, that’s all for now. I’ll hopefully have another update in a few days.
Good luck and good earnings!
“6. Removed advertising/spam from the footer which the template designer put in there.”
Wasn’t it just a little text that said something like “template designed by *link*”? If so, I think that you should put it back in. The designer deserves the little footer link for giving the template away for free.
Yeah, you aren’t even allowed to remove that.
Lol tyler on point 6, if he designed the template and its a free resource you need to keep the link backs e.t.c Thats just common sense.
Btw you need to fix it that when we go to see the comments it positions the page at them.
i agree with wesley… when you click comments, you are brought back up to the top of the page and have to scroll all the way back down again.
Hi Tyler,
Regarding the ‘fire’ in your apartment, I just wanted to ask you what sort of backup regimen you follow on the PC which contains all your business related documents. Do you have any sort of backup plan you follow (not talking about RAID but actual backups)? I am guessing yes.
Another level of protection would be to not only back up the data but to keep an ‘off-site’ copy. For example, in a safety deposit box at your bank.
If in the event of a fire or break-in where you lose everything, atleast all your work related documents would be safely stored away in your safety deposit box (which are very inexpensive btw).
Whether you back up to optical media, tape or HDD…you would just drop the data off once a week/month and you’re laughing.
Another option to using optical media/tape would be to have a large capacity USB thumbdrive or even full size external harddrive and use Microsoft’s invaluable SyncToy utility (http://tinyurl.com/8qhsj) or whatever the Mac equivalent is if you are an Apple person.
That said, keep in mind that if anyone were to break in and steal your PC, they would have access to all your work data and passwords (if you keep a password list). Yikes! To protect against this you should keep all your sensitive data on an encrypted disk/partition/file (www.truecrypt.org).
This may all seem a little excessive or paranoid but if your business is valuable to you (duh!) then these precautionary steps should be part of a daily regimen. Better to be safe than sorry.
Good luck and good earnings Tyler =)
Nice pick on the design. I liked that one the best.
I really like your blog so I’m glad you decided to keep it up. Congrats on being approved.
To everyone regarding the removal of the author’s advertising: I viewed his comments in the CSS header and didn’t see anything stating to keep that in tact. All it mentioned was that it was open source.
No point in leaking out PR and such if I don’t have to. Anyhow, he didn’t specify that it had to stay.
Regarding the comment ‘jumping’ – I don’t know how to fix this, I don’t know HTML and all that jazz unfortunately, sorry. If you know of an easy fix let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
Brandon – trust me, I’m a freak when it comes to worrying. I’m a worry wart, so you may be pleased to know that I DO make a ton of backups. I have all my secure files password protected with long and unique passwords too (I vary my passwords).
About once a month I make HD/computer backups and burn to DVD. I keep logs of what I’ve backed up and when I last backed them up.
I’ve also thought about keeping an off-site copy.. I’ve given some to my mom to keep at home in case there was ever a fire or big earthquake or something. However, she has much older versions of the DVDs so they may not be all that useful.
Although, to be honest, if there was a big fire or earthquake, not having the latest advertiser logs won’t really be my biggest worry at that point, although it would indeed be a big hassle.
As for the deposit box, I thought about that too, but to me, it’s not worth renting out the box and driving there once a month… why not just drop it off at my parents instead?
And yeah, if people were to come in and steal my PC, that’d be bad. Although, I figure that most ‘thiefs’ would only have a basic working knowledge of computers. Most of my important files are password protected, and for anything that isn’t, or me being logged into MSN etc, I’ll probably have known they stole my PC fairly quick and will be able to change the passwords from a different computer.
I understand your concerns though and I appreciate the advice – I definitely worry about those things as well. Fortunately I think I’ve done decently well to prepare for them. I’ll probably take it one step further in the future as my work grows.
I am wondering, Tyler, how did you get my telephone number? You could have just emailed me.
Anyways… If the heat of the oil burns the carpet similar to an iron, you might have a problem because regular professional cleaning wouldn’t remove the burn. On the other hand, if the oil didn’t burn the carpet and just soaked in, a professional carpet cleaning could easily remove it for under $100. I would recommend having it checked as soon as possible so you know.
Have a good one.
Hi Bob,
I apologize if you wanted that to be private, I was just really worried.. 🙂
I simply grabbed it from your WHOIS info. I tried adding you to MSN first, asked a ton of people what your MSN was but couldn’t find it. Then I went through all your sites and couldn’t find an e-mail I believe. I went on forums looking for your IM information there too but it wasn’t listed. I also did a few other things…
Yeah, a small part of it is actually burned. I don’t think they can fix this, but it’s not ‘too’ bad, so maybe they can ‘clip’ it off with a razor or something. The rest is just a bad oil stain.
Having it checked – is that free, do you know? I should probably contact my landlord first, right? It’s extra complicated because I’m moving out soon and don’t want to tip him off that I’m moving so he doesn’t try to replace me sooner before I’m ready (ex. “Oh, it’s okay, just contact me a month or two before you move and we’ll take care of it then”)
Hi Tyler,
Actually, I don’t have a problem with you (or people) calling me. I just didn’t realize you really did call until 5 min ago when I checked my missed calls. I’m more than willing to help other Internet Entrepreneurs at their time of need even when it is Internet unrelated.
You could just call a professional carpet cleaner to come do a free estimate and see if it can be removed without your landlord knowing.
Doing it yourself (not recommended)
Using a razor, remove a small piece from the closet and shaping it into the burnt piece then gluing into place. You could use tacky glue. I would recommend having a professional perform this task but you can choose.
Keep it real!
Ah.. are you the person who just phoned me? I didn’t pick up because the number looked funky and I assumed it was just another advertiser…
Yeah. It was me. 🙂
Insert that right before the comments somewhere. (I believe)
(a name=”comments”)(/a)
change by you know what.
I find it very very lame that you removed the designers note, you truly are a very ignorant and arrogant guy. Good earnings on your pokerforum.
Please add me on MSN (chronic.impulse@gmail.com) as I can help you with a few wordpress things (jump to comments and more). I am not the best designer, but I may be able to design you a blog for free, can’t promise anything or anything good however.. but it would be free. 😛
I think you should put back the credit to the template designer, he deserves the credit and I dont think he meant to “advertise/spam” and it doesnt have to say that you have to leave the credit in tact, it’s just common sense (at least for webmasters/developers)
It’s not a big deal or anything, it’s just you brought it up so other people are picking on it 🙂
congratulations on your first spam!! Where’s the cake?