Being Snowed in Isn’t such a Bad Thing
December 20, 2008 Posted by Tyler CruzA week-and-a-half ago I made a post titled An Update on My Web Projects which many readers were happy to read. It had been so long since I had made such a simple post updating the progress on my various projects and what I’ve been working on that I simply forgot that that was the initial reason why I started my blog in the first place.
Here then, is another update on what I’ve been working on!
First, allow me to give meaning to the title of this post. I live in Canada, but on Vancouver Island which is pretty temperate throughout the year (think Seattle), and is not one giant igloo like some people may like to think. However, this past week it started to snow… a lot. In fact, it snowed so much that yesterday that schools and many stores were closed.
While this didn’t affect me too much since I work from home, it did affect a very special trip I’ve been planning to do with my blog for over a year now. So, that is on hold for the moment but I hope to reschedule it and get that trip done soon.
(The view from my old apartment 2 years ago since I was too lazy to take a quick photo for this post)
Other than that slight setback, the snow has been nice. Apart from being nice to look at, it’s great at getting me to sit down and work. Why exactly, I don’t know. But I guess you could equate it to a writer being stuck in a snowed-in cabin who ends up getting out of his writer block and writes 50-pages overnight.
E-Mails
I managed to weed through all of my e-mails and finally respond to some really old ones. What bugs me though is that I still have 13 in my inbox that are awaiting responses. I’m never fully satisfied until they’re all deleted and done with (or archived). 13 is very good for me though, at times I’ll have a couple hundred e-mails that need attending to (I don’t count spam or personal e-mails).
TylerCruz.com
I upgraded WordPress and spent a fair bit of time upgrading various plugins as well as trying to sort out some issues with a couple plugins as well (If anyone knows why my Digg This plugin isn’t working, please help me out!)
I also had an issue with Windows Live Writer in which whenever I tried to post it stripped and parsed out all the < and > tags in the HTML and output that as the actual post. It took a while to fix, but after a number of e-mails to Microsoft (surprisingly their tech support for WLW is actually pretty responsive!) and my network administration company, we found out it was due to PHP being upgraded from 5.2.5 to 5.2.8 without the XMLRPC being installed.
This will explain the reason behind the “Test Post” some RSS e-mail subscribers will have received… sorry for that!
The Big Project
We’ve made some decent progress with The Big Project. The design was finalized and is now in the hands of the XHTML/CSS coder who is 90% done coding it. The code wasn’t commented or formatted to my liking, and there were a few other minor things that needed attending to so I sent it back to him to complete. I’m hoping to get the finalized version by tomorrow.
Once that is done, I will begin writing my long and boring detailed description that I will hand off to my programming team. It will probably span close to a dozen pages and be very technical so I won’t be looking forward to that. The programming on this project will be very complex, but my launch date for this project is February 1st, 2009.
It will probably be close but I think we can make it by then. That will give them 5 weeks to complete the programming.
New Sites Set Up
I set up a bunch of domains I had purchased into sites, setting them up in WHM and CPanel and documenting their details (such as usernames and passwords) and setting up e-mails for them, etc.
One of these was for The Big Project and the others were for various sites I’ll be launching for future PPC affiliate marketing efforts (see below).
PPC Affiliate Marketing
I’m a little bit excited because I’ve been working hard this week which in turn has allowed me to get caught up with other projects. And being caught up with other projects means that I’ll soon have time less excuses to put off my PPC affiliate marketing efforts.
In fact, I might get back into affiliate marketing (AM) later tonight or tomorrow. I truly believe I can make $100,000 a month from AM if I put in the time and effort, which is my main motivator.
The first thing I’ll do is take all the data accumulated during the past 4 months or so for my campaign, analyze it, and optimize it. The next thing will be to get started creating several sites for various new campaigns (offers) I’ll be trying.
I love it when it snows a lot as well. I always seem to be most productive when there is no way out of the home office! Also, can’t wait to get an idea of what the Big Project is all about; sounds quite interesting.
I love snow also! There is never a better day than a snow day.
I don’t miss the snow much, except for the look of it (before the plows come, that is). Sorry your trip got put off, but you’ll be able to get to it soon. Remember, I get first pick (after you and Lisa of course)!
Is that the effect of Global Warming? In our country too, there are big stones of ice dropping. It was a rare phenomenon but nowadays, it keeps coming back.
Oh. Here in my country there is also some snowing although its not really snowing here until just this month..
Snow, one of the few things I see little of living in the Southeast U.S. When we get even a light dusting the entire state shuts down.
It’s good, though, when something forces me to sit down and finish up the projects I’ve put to the wayside.
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Being snowed in you did get an amazing amount done. Had the same thing happen in my part of the country in the early part of the week. We had ice and where I am no one knows how to drive on ice and snow. So best to stay in and get things done.
Snow completely ruined my day and I planed to get a whole bunch of stuff done but of course I ended going back to my old roots and playing some WarCraft 3 all day.
good job. I wish i could have a snow day and the wife and baby went some where. those two things can not happen at the same time but i wish.
Wow, that looks really nice from here, but how is it there? Like you can’t go out, is it that bad ?
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I would have to say that one of the best things about being able to work from home is not being affected by “snow days.” That is unless you lose power. If I lived 30 minutes north of where I currently live I would be one of the unlucky ones without power for several days. Luckily for me I am able to work at my office or from home. I used the time to reorganize my goals for 2009. I hope to put all the tips and advice that I have found here to good use!
Oh and of course I played my new Wii system! Glad to hear everyone is safe! 🙂
nice entry, I’m a newb to AM marketing. I’m curious how you manage several sites and still have time to put towards marketing. well good luck.
Can’t wait for the BIG project announcement.. 😀
We’re snowed in to (Portland, OR) and it’s amazing how much you can get done when all the distractions are taken away, and there is nothing else for you to do but work.
Matt
wow to the snow and wow to the $100,000.00
today i was reading and very much willing to learn about affiliate marketing. I was one of those layoffs employees and been thinking of working at home and make money…your site is giving me more motivation to do that.
wOW…100K a month??? that’s like 3x more than the A-listers have been making from their blogs! Good luck and hope you let your readers know the path once you get there – or at least give us some breadcrumbs.
If snow brings down the Internet there and the TV cable, it would be horrible…:(
-Mike