Category Archives: Musings

Twitter Dictionary Twittords

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Twitter Dictionary
Twittords is more than just a dictionary for words created by those using twitter. It is for all the shorthand created due to the character limitations of Twitter, IM clients, SMS and more. Any IM client or micro-blogging platform that limits your total characters per message will naturally spur creativity.

Twittords was conceived due to the volume of new creative words being generated by Twitter users. Twittords was launched recently on April 20th, 2009.

Add a Word to Twittords
Due to twitter’s popularity, when you add a word it will link to your twitter profile. The Twitterverse, IM and SMS users have created their own lingo, find and add your best and be one of the first to add the latest words. The words do not have to start with a “T”, just anything commonly used since you are limited to a specific number of characters.

Find and add the best words you see in Twitter, IM clients, and SMS – to Twittords the Twitter Dictionary

GoDaddy Hosting Promo Code

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GoDaddy Hosting

Use GoDaddy hosting promo code FAN20 for 20% Off website hosting. The FAN20 hosting coupon for 20% off on hosting is always the better deal. However, if you choose a month to month plan you will want to use coupon PETS1 for 10% off web hosting. With the free online advertising credits you actually make money on this deal. Go to GoDaddy Here.

GoDaddy Hosting Coupons
FAN20 – 20% off Hosting plans of 1yr or more [ direct link here ]
PAN1 10% off month to month plans [ direct link here ]
FAN123 20% off Website Tonight Website Tonight is a point and click website setup and design product [ direct link here ]
HOSTFEB1 $7.99 34% Off Hosting – 1 year Deluxe Hosting for $68 instead of $103 [ direct link here ] February Special

* See the entire list of Go Daddy Coupons here for hosting, domains, auction accounts, SSL certificates and more.

Most think of GoDaddy for domains but they are also very competitive in their hosting. For 12 months of web hosting you get a great package and it ends up only costing $45 with the promo coupon FAN20. Simply enter the promo code at checkout. On the right side of checkout you will see a box that reads Enter Promo or Source Code. Click that link and a box will appear where you enter the godaddy hosting coupon. Once you enter it hit the Apply link and the discount will be applied.

Step by Step Instructions for Applying the Coupons at Checkout.

Web Hosting Perks
With the $45 a year package you also get $95 in free advertising credits. These are credits with Google, MSN and Facebook. Looks like you can make $50 after you redeem the credits. Same information can be found on the Squidoo page about GoDaddy Hosting in detail.

Website Hosting Types
godaddy hostingThere are multiple types of hosting accounts available. There are the typical hosting accounts to create any presence you like. Also available are accounts specific to WordPress, blogs, podcasts and more. You can also have entire servers, dedicated servers, virtual dedicated servers and even cloud servers. You can even have application add-ons, analytics and additional IPs if needed for your hosting.

Recently they added what they call their 4GH Hosting. This is their 4th generation hosting. There is also a godaddy wordpress hosting account to get up and running fast. Most hosting companies put your site, your web space, on one computer. Other websites are also on that one computer. This is the typical definition of shared hosting. There are problems that can arise. For example if someone elses website that is on the same computer has problems and brings down the computer than your site goes down also. If your website or another website on that computer becomes very popular the amount of traffic can also cause server problems. That can bring down your site. What larger companies typically do is use a load balancer. Load balanced web hosting takes the incoming traffic and routes it to one of many computers, your website hosting files are copied onto multiple computers and therefore the “load” (which are visitors to your site) is spread among many computers. Now your site does not go down due to too much traffic, nor will another site cause you problems. There is much more that the 4GH godaddy hosting does for websites you but that gives you an idea of it’s website hosting capability.

Beltway Startups Site for VA, MD and DC Startups

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We started a news blog entitled Beltway Startups to focus on start-ups and online businesses in the Virginia, Maryland and District of Columbia region. Online startups and events within this region are covered. Keep up to date with the regional online companies and local events, in and around Washington DC.

Take a look and join the RSS subscription list, site is here: Beltway Startups

Blogging Statistics by Technorati

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Technorait published what they call the State of the Blogosphere, full of interesting information

I find the term “blogosphere” and their definition of a “blog” interesting. It is interesting because even they questioned the term “blog”. Software such as WordPress, which most would consider a blog, can be modified to not resemble their definition of “blog” at all.

They have released the study in multiple parts, here is their table of contents:

It is a good read. However they mix opinion with their survey answers, I am curious what others agree or disagree with.

Teaching my Twins Online Commerce through Fundraising

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My twins fundraiser is over and they raised enough to win a limousine ride. They are very excited and I am obviously very proud of them.

There are many lessons learned, I originally posted on September 28th, 2008 the article that I wanted to teach my boys blogging, e-commerce and twitter. That was one of the goals, to introduce them to online commerce, communications tools such as twitter and blogging tools such as WordPress.

We had a fundraiser update on October 7th, 2008, and the fundraiser ended on October 8th, 2008.

Thanks to everyone that sent them messages of encouragement and purchased online to assist their fundraising. The totals of their fundraiser are finally in. The twins each sold enough that they both get to participate in a special prize – a Hummer Limousine ride to a local pizza place with the principal at lunch time.

They are obviously very excited and it reinforces the lesson that hard work pays off. I say “reinforces” because they already understood that their hard work (going door to door and selling online), and working hard allowed them to obtain a large number of sales.

Another great lesson was the fact that they do not keep the profit – it is for a good cause, to raise money for their school system. Not only do they benefit, but everyone presently at the school and those to follow will benefit as well. Helping their community is a great lesson.

Now they have their own twitter, @longestbrothers, and their own blog LongestBrothers.com.

I am happy to say this experience has more than peaked their interest and jump started their curiousity.

Also, this was a great experiment of those who want are thinking about creating their own blog, twitter account, following etc. We were able to obtain a domain name, create a new WordPress site, create a twitter account and following, then create the proper messaging to drive supporters to the fundraising website to purchase items, all within a week. If my 6 year old twins and I can do it, so can you ;-)

Manage your Twitter Account with Tweetdeck

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I heard about TweetDeck many times as a way to manage your twitter account. It is an application you download to easily and efficiently manage your twitter account. I am glad I finally tried it and was very impressed.

The interface can be arranged in many ways, a common way is the image below. You can see 3 columns, one with all the tweets of everyone you are following (labeled as #1), one with the replies to you (labeled #2), and the third column has tweets sent only to you known as the direct messages (labeled #3).

You can also reply to tweets in the top row (labeled as #4). When you view an individuals profile it also pops up into the application. You can completely manage your twitter account without ever visiting the Twitter website nor having to tab back and forth between replies, direct messages etc.

TweetDeck works on Mac OS and Windows machines. It is free, however you may donate. Find TweetDeck here .

Coupon Page for Savings

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I added a Coupon and Promo Code page today. I only put coupons that I found and are helpful, such as non-expiring GoDaddy coupons (domains and hosting), Petco coupons (pet products) and Finishline coupons (shoes and athletic gear), from big brands.

However what is most interesting to me is that I created the main Coupons page the parent page in wordpress. Then I made pages under the parent page, if you look at the page directory on the side of the site you will see the parent page and child pages are indented. The child pages are currently GoDaddy Coupons, Petco Coupons and Finish Line Coupons.

Therefore I have created a subgroup of pages under Coupons and most importantly I applied a new template to these pages so they look different than the rest. Take a look at my home page then look at a coupon page and you will see there is alot less in the sidebar, just a page menu and ads. I wanted to keep it simple and direct.

Adding a different template to wordpress pages is simple and I will discuss in an instructional article next.