Thursday, February 26, 2009

Monday, February 23, 2009

IHOP is dishing out free pancakes for Mardi Gras

IHOP is dishing out free pancakes for Mardi Gras

When you were a kid and a trip to IHOP was a special day? Remember when you got older and a trip to IHOP was a special day?

Now, you need to remember that on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009, aka Mardi Gras, aka Fat Tuesday, IHOP is serving free short stacks in exchange for a donation to the Children's Miracle Network. Actually, their site says one free short stack per customer and "All we ask is that you consider making a donation to support local children's hospitals through Children's Miracle Network, or other local charities."

From 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. - yes that's a 15 hours of pancake lovin'! - feast away on IHOP's delicious griddle delicacies. Now you can finally try every syrup option without the threat of ruining your meal. Hey, just order up another short stack and then really consider making a donation. We're of the belief that if you promise a donation, you'll get a second stack for "free."

(Hmmm, note to self: Call the accountant and see if this is a tax writeoff.)

Good stuff: Pancakes!

Do-gooder stuff: Since 2006, IHOP has raised almost $2 million for children’s charities. Last year, they threw 1.5 million free pancakes in front of donors. For those of you without a long-enough ruler, that's roughly a 12-mile short stack. Yeah, that's pretty much a half-marathon worth of pancakes.

>> Read More Here

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Top Article Directories of 2009

If we want to decide what the top article directories of 2009 will be then we need to look at what makes a top article directory.

So the first question is:
What do you want from an article directory?

* One of the things you want is high-quality back links. There’s no point in having a back link from a low quality site, in fact according to Google it may even be possible to harm your site with a really bad back link. However, I don’t think we need to worry about that from many article directories. In addition if no-one visits the article directory then any article there is unlikely to get syndicated, so there will be no back links for reprinting.
* Another thing you want from an article directory is qualified traffic to your own website. To get that qualified traffic you need the article directory itself to rank well with Google. Which leads us quite nicely to my next question:

What will Google be looking for in 2009

The latest buzzword from Google is “user experience“. Google got to the top of the search engine pile by providing the best results. That’s also how they’re aiming to stay there. Whilst they won’t reveal the secrets behind their search engine rankings they do tell us a lot about the sort of things are looking for. Right now they’re looking for a good user experience.

There has been a lot written about the mechanics of the Google search engine. But unless you actually work for Google most of it is just speculation, so let’s take a commonsense approach.
What makes a good user experience

As far as I can tell there are two major parts to a good user experience.
What your page looks like

Whilst it is true that the Google search engine is basically a robot, which means it can’t actually look at a page in the same way human does, it still has humans programming it, clever humans! So whilst Google won’t decide that your colour scheme is bad or that it doesn’t like the look of your graphics, it will still be analysing the “look” of your page.

Google will have ideas about things like the amount of advertising on a page, the amount of graphics on a page, the amount of multimedia on a page, the amount of links on the page, and, of course, the amount of actual content on your page. They are going to have some way of measuring all of these things and deciding what balance gives a good user experience.
What the content of your page is like

This is where the quality content debate comes in. Whilst Google may not be able to tell if you actually know what you’re writing about, they will have other things that will tell them, or at least give them a good idea, if your content is any good. If people are only on your page for a couple of seconds Google will conclude that your article is rubbish. Google will also be able to look at things like spelling, and grammar.

There are also of whole host of minor considerations, such as where the links on your page lead to.

So now we have an idea of the sort of thing Google may be looking for let’s have a look at some article directories.

Read More Here

Saturday, February 21, 2009

'Leaked' Rihanna Beating Photo Prompts LAPD Investigation, Angers Father

Chris Brown, Alleged Perp of Domestic Violence, Could Face Serious Jail Time
The picture of a brutalized Rihanna has gone viral on the internet. TMZ has posted the "leaked" picture of the beautiful pop singer and, if this is what Chris Brown is allegedly capable of doing when he's angry, the 19-year-old R&B singer might
'Leaked' Rihanna Beating Photo Prompts LAPD Investigation, Angers Father
Date: February 20, 2009
Los Angeles, CA
United States of America
need to enroll in some anger management therapy sessions. What has been done to Rihanna, the awful results of a terrible beating as captured in the police photo, is criminal.

Read More Here

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Arthritic Insomnia

If you are dealing with arthritis, one of the hardest things to deal with is the insomnia. The sleeping disorder is going to prevent you from getting the rest that you need to stay healthy and this will in return make your arthritis worse. It can be a terrible cycle that you are dealing with. There are many things that you can do to take on arthritis and it is important to consider all of the options so that you can get a better night’s rest every time you go to bed.

Having insomnia is figured out by a number of problems. You must first have difficulty falling asleep. Many people will experience this at some point in their life. However if you are frequently finding it hard to drift off to sleep, you may want to talk to your doctor about it. If you are waking up often through the night for no good reason, this is a symptom too. This will usually happen to everyone and more so to people if they are new parents. If you are finding that you are constantly tossing and turning more than once a week, you are probably dealing with insomnia. Some with insomnia will sleep throughout the night. Their problem may be that they wake up too early or they do not feel refreshed after many hours of sleep. It will depend on how frequently insomnia happens for you and if you can be diagnosed with short-term insomnia, intermittent insomnia or chronic insomnia.

Anyone that suffers from arthritis will also find that they have chronic insomnia or insomnia that does not go away and occurs for a long time period. There are many reasons that chronic insomnia is found in people that do have arthritis. The pain will keep some awake at night and will occur with illness but some of the patients find that their joints are painful and inflamed after they do activity. A second reason of insomnia due to arthritis is a high level of stress that most patients with arthritis have. Worrying about an appointment with a doctor can cause a person to stay awake all night long. There is no difference for any patient that is young and just recently diagnosed or older and has had the problem of arthritis for many years. Insomnia can be a side of effect of the medicine that is used to treat arthritis. These medicines may rid the pain but can make you stay up all night. Without taking the medication, you may also be awake all night with pain.

There are a number of ideas that a person can do for insomnia. You are not alone is the first step. You need to talk to your doctor about any medications that you are taking that keep you up all night. There are going to be side effects of drugs and they can be addicting as well. Taking the right steps to take the stress out of your life is going to help you sleep better at night too. You and your doctor are the only people that can take the right course of action to fix the insomnia in your life. Talk to them and get a good night’s sleep because it is essential for healthy living.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Why Do Over 130,000 Webmasters Use SEO for Firefox?

Want to know why Google or Yahoo! ranks pages? If so this is the Firefox extension for you. SEO for Firefox pulls in many useful marketing data points to make it easy get a holistic view of the competitive landscape of a market directly in the search results.

Want to learn more? Watch this video.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Make Money Blogging Online

Making money online by blogging is very possible if you have the knowledge or are willing to learn what you do not already know. There are a few steps to follow if you want to make money from blogging. If you do not already have a blog started, there are several websites available that offer free blogging, all that is necessary is that you sign up. There is no fee involved, and it is very simple. Blogger.com is one of the easiest free sites to use, and it has been around for over fifteen years. This free blogging site and others like it offer tutorials to get you started if you have never blogged before.

Click Here for your Blogging Guide