Bush Mackel

A lot of us bloggers are serious about what we do. As such, we treat our blogs like our business and need tools to help our business run effortlessly, smoothly, and professionally.

iContact is a website (and probably more to the point) a set of tools that gives webmasters and business professionals the ability to easily take care of common marketing tasks such as newsletters and mass e-mailings.

First Impressions
As I start with most of my reviews, I had to take a look at the website. Most of the sites I’ve been reviewing lately have that “fresh and clean” look and iContact Email Marketing Software is no exception.

Everything that you want to find in regards to the product is right at the top, so finding what you need is a breeze.

Features That You’ll Smile About
Depending on your level of computer proficiency, you may find some of their tools beneath you, but for regular business folk who are still getting up to speed with computers and the net, a lot of these are sure to peak their interest. Check out a few of them:

* WYSIWYG Newsletter Editor
* Mass E-Mailings take the load off of YOUR server!
* Contact Management System and Follow-up System
* Make surveys, web signup forms and more…

Is This Right for You?
If you’re a business professional who does a lot of salesperson like tasks, I could see iContact being gold. Especially considering you can use it for as little as $9.99 per month and you have the ability to access it from any computer. For others, you may not immediately see the need for something like iContact but then again, sometimes you need a set of tools to remind you that you should be reaching out to customers (and not just the first time) but months down the line. Sure, with a little elbow grease and knno how, a few of us could create a set of tools like iContact Email Marketing Software for personal use, but as they say – “Time is Money” and it looks like iContact could’ve already put in all the time for us. *nod*

Always being on the lookout for a good deal, I jumped on an offer from Best Buy maybe a week ago.

The offer : Pre-Order Halo 3 and get 1600 Microsoft Points for $5.

Now these cards usually cost $20 so needless to say I was pretty excited about the deal.

However, looking back maybe I was a bit TOO excited.

Where’s a Penny When You Need One!?
I’m usually not one to regret my mistakes, but why oh why couldn’t I have found a penny before I found that pair of scissors! *sigh* I was so excited to redeem those points and unlock Pac-Man Championship Edition that before I knew it I had scratched off about 5 characters.

Out of nowhere, my friend Brad over at Do the Justice sent me an e-mail saying that there’s a rumble ’round the internet concerning the PR Update.

Mainly that there wouldn’t be one.

*groan*

Like just about everyone else in this web development game, I’ve been waiting on pins and needs for this update. Should you be worrying if it never comes?

The Story
From this post on Search Engine Roundtable, Matt Cutts says,

As far as the toolbar PageRank, I definitely wouldn’t expect to see it in the next few days. Probably not even in the next couple weeks, if I had to guess.

Since I really try to not rehash posts on other sites, I strongly suggest for you to go visit the post as it was pretty interesting but this begs the question…

Focusing on the Important Things
Even if the Google Page Rank Update never comes, that shouldn’t mean that you or I should stop doing the important things in regards to our websites. Think about it… Focusing on seo basics and other important web development techniques will ensure that no matter what kind of rank system comes up in the future, we’ll be all but ready to jump all over it. So while we’re all waiting, make sure you’re doing the following:

• SEO Basics – You know the deal – Making sure your titles are good, keyword and description meta tags are concise and contain your keywords, making your code neat so spiders have no problems finding content, anchor text, et.

• Incoming Links – Making sure that you have a ton of incoming links is crucial in establishing authority with search engines. And if you’re targeting certain keywords (which you should be doing), make sure you have that in the link text too!

• Content – Content is still king right? Well, give your visitors a reason to come back! And YOU KNOW there’s nothing that looks better to your readers than frequently updated content that’s interesting and useful.

As another Saturday is upon us, it’s time for another dose of Saturday Speedlinkin!

This week things went well on the site as I tried what (I think) will become my trademark style of postings…Blog tips in the morning, and video game jazz in the evenings.

I think I’ll eventually move my video game efforts to another blog, but if I were to try and do that now I’d be spreading myself incredibly thin.

The Thing About Comments by Apex – Earlier in the week I was compelled to write a post for my buddy Apex in order to help him figure out what was going on with his blog. The short of it is, his blog has been around forever getting decent hits on Google, but unfortunately getting NO comments. Thankfully, a lot of fantastic people stepped up to bat giving him some wonderful advice that will undoubtedly help him overcome this small hurdle. (#):)

A Post for Andrew by Tish – Frequenting Tish’s websites, this wasn’t the first time I’ve seen her picture. But I DO BELIEVE this is the first time I’ve seen her with a big ol’ grin and she couldn’t look better! You certainly should post more pics like this budddddddd-y!

Tracking RSS Subscribers in Analytics by Rhys – Do I really need to say anything? I’ve honestly not put this into action yet, but if it’s coming from Rhys I have no doubt it’ll work. And personally for me, the more stuff I can get into Analytics the better.

Gaining Page Views and Returning Visitors Using Post Series by Sarah – When I wrote my Start Blogging Series a while ago it just about killed me. No lie. But, it remains one of my bigger hit posts to date. Here’s why you also should jump into the “Series” mix.

I don’t talk about it enough on here, but I’ve always had a love of home theater. Back in the days of the Nintendo 64, I purchased my first home theater system.

Of course it was from a box, but once it was all setup and I hooked my 64 up to it well, it was one of the best days in my life. Play a deathmatch in Goldeneye and hearing that little James Bond jingle when you kill somebody, “do dO DEE DO! bwwwwaaarnnnnhhhhhh” takes on new meaning as it destroys your ear drums from every angle.

So since then home theater has really been one of things that not only I need, but have gone through great pains to setup properly.

• Verizon FIOS Cable Box – I don’t have a HDTV down here so currently this is connected via simple composite cords to my receiver.
• Microsoft XBox 360 – This is connected to my receiver via component cords and a nice little optical cord for the audio.

Flame On!
As you can tell from the above picture, my components are really squished in there tight which causes some problems in regards to heat. Arguably, the biggest dilemna is my receiver that has a component switcher sitting right on top of its vents. It used to only be on when I was playing video games, but now since I have my cable box going through it, it basically has to be on all the time. I just touched it and it is HOT AS BALLS.

I remember not too long ago when the “next gen” game systems were considered to be Nintendo’s Gamecube, Sony’s Playstation 2 and of course the original Microsoft Xbox.

Back in those days you had a lot of games that were coming out for all the systems and when my friends would ask me which version I would get, I would undoubtedly say, “Xbox. The game is gonna look the best on that system. PLUS the online play is sure to be the best experience between the three consoles.”

Fast forward a couple of years and now the choice is between Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s Playstation 3, and Microsoft’s XBox 360. But even though the systems are different, my answer is still about the same… “XBox. The game is going to look good if not the best on that system, PLUS console online play is still the best of the three consoles.”

1. Graphics – The graphics on the first XBox were hands down better than Playstation 2 and the GameCube. Because of this when a new game out for all three systems, gamers basically knew it was going to look best on the XBox. And at least so far they seem to be continuing this trend. Take Madden 08 for example. On the PS3 it runs at 30FPS, on XBox 360 it runs at 60.
2. Achievements – New on the 360, XBox has given gamers yet another reason to choose 360 games over their competition. Achievement points are awarded to you after attaining some goal on a 360 game. Accumulating on your Gamercard, they basically allow you to rank yourself against friends and online competitors. Sure it’s uber nerdy, but it’s super cool and you get addicted fast. Currently, other systems don’t have that. So when given the choice, am I going to buy Streets of Rage 2 on Wii or 360? Well, on 360 I get achievement points for the game. On Wii I really don’t get anything. You know where I’m going on this one!
3. Online Play – Without a doubt, the area that the XBox destroyed and continues to destroy its competition is online play. On the original XBox, online play was executed simply but extremely efficiently. Take its flagship, Halo 2. All you do is pop in the game, go to the online area, and you can immediately play an online game matched against someone of similar skills to yourself, or EASILY invite your friends to the party for a quick game. Again, they took the “problem” of online play and executed a simple solution VERY well.

Sony? Hello? You there?
If game systems were football teams, I think fans of Sony would’ve called for the head of its coach this year. Because looking back, no one can tell what the devil Sony did in the off season.

(Now obviously I’m omitting the Wii at this point, but it’s really not going after the same market as PS3 and the 360 right?)

So yeah, it’s no secret that XBox destroyed its competition because of its great online play. Now if you’re Sony and that’s your system’s number one failure, wouldn’t you think to address it? I guess not until your system has been out for a good long while and you’re getting the beat down in the video game market.

Final Thoughts
Though it may seem like it, I’m not an Xbox 360 fanboy. It’s just that in the current market, the internet is where it is at. For Sony and Nintendo to not have done basically anything about their online play short comings is beyond disappointing. If Sony had got their butt in gear early, they could have competed if not taken over Microsoft’s share of the online console market, especially with everything Sony can offer in the way of movies, music and other entertainment. Oh well, maybe in the next next gen systems, Sony and Nintendo will have learned their lessons.

I’m a bit worried about my boy Alex otherwise known as Apexad.

First before I begin with the bulk of this post, let me say Apex that I hope you don’t come out and kill me because I’m writing all of this!

I think in the end (if we can get some feedback) this is gonna be a good thing for all of us!

Now everyone else is askin’, “So what’s up with Apex?”

SPEAK TO ME!!!
From what I can tell, it all started around last Saturday during my Saturday Speedlinkin IV post where Apex asked me to make a comment on his site. At that point I wasn’t really worried and didn’t think TOO MUCH of it, but later on it escalated to a post on his site where he offered a $1 for the first 5 comments on that post.

$1 for a Comment!? That got me to take a pause. I mean, that’s not how you’re supposed to get comments!

Now it seems (if you read that post) that basically Apex is frustrated. From what I can tell he’s getting good traffic from “Keira Knightley” and “Keeley Hazell” but basically NO one is commenting on his site! And as we all know, for a blogger that SUCKS.

1. If people are coming to his site off searches for “Keira Knightley” and “Keeley Hazell“, I’m betting they’re looking for pictures or videos. I doubt that most of those people are going to bother commenting if they don’t or even if they do find what they’re looking for. And besides that, a lot of non bloggers just don’t understand the community concept of blogging so they’re not looking to comment. They just don’t get it.

But you know, that doesn’t account for everyone else. Why aren’t other bloggers commenting? Here are my guesses on that.

1. Not Enough Readers – According to your feed button on your site, you have 16 readersish. I don’t know if that’s enough in terms of loyal readers to translate to a lot of comments. In Feedburner, have you looked at what if any posts of yours are getting clicked? If you have views but no clicks, maybe that’s an indication that you’re not talking about what your readers want to talk about.
2. Reaching Out - Are you schmoozing enough? From experience, getting comments at the beginning is tough. You have to reach out to your fellow bloggers, nurture the readers you have and somehow bring them all back. It’s really tough going at the beginning.
3. Audience – Is the content on your site hitting your target audience? Do you have a target audience? You have the personality to engage your readers – I see it in your posts and when you comment on here, but are you giving your audience what they want and if not, how do you start doing that?

Conclusions
Apex, you can get this done but I think a big problem for you right now (and this is imho of course), is that you’re not really targeting a particular audience. I had problems with this at the beginning, and after I started really going after a certain group of people, this site started to have some success.

So yeah, I turn this post over to everyone now. What do you guys think Apex can do to turn things around? (BTW Apex, don’t kill me!)

Before getting my XBox 360, one of the things that really excited me about the system was its ability to stream media.

At first I thought that you needed a Windows Media Center PC to do this, but after researching the subject for 5 minutes, I found this was not the case.

So if you’d like, come with me and see how easily (or not) it will prove to be to stream a BitTorrented episode of The Shield to my Xbox 360.

My Setup
So just so we’re all on the same page here at the start of this little project here’s my setup: My 360 and Desktop with XP are both connected via a hardline to my router. Currently, the video file I’m looking to stream is sitting in a folder on my computer (c:\To Stream\the_shield.avi) and is ALREADY part of my WMP Library! Okay! Let’s get to work!

Where Do I Start?
Since I’ve never tried to do this on a console before, I really didn’t know where to begin. As such I pulled a move very uncharacteristic for myself, I went to the instruction book. (Man, I could barely write that!) Unfortunately, the section in the book titled “Share Media From Your PC” is a bit scant and I really felt like I should do a second of extra research before preceding. Thankfully, I stumbled onto a post on Joystiq which would become a great accompaniment for the stuff in the instruction book.

Windows Media Connect
Now according to the Xbox 360 instruction book, something called Windows Media Connect is required to make this whole thing work. After reading up a bit on that, I found this little page on M$’s site about it. If you don’t care to click over the important thing is that apparently, Windows Media Connect functionality is now built into Windows Media Player 11 which I most certainly have on my computer! So now I’m thinking that it should only be a function of me setting that up correctly to get everything working!

Setting Up Windows Media Player 11
Once again, a little searching on the Internet can yield tremendous dividends which is how I discovered this page on Xbox’s website with steps to set up WMP 11. First on the list is setting up Windows Media Player to share content with the Xbox 360 by Setting the “Media Sharing” properties in the Library Tab.

Uh-oh! But what’s this? My 360 isn’t there! Maybe I should turn it on.

To the 360!
Okay, on the 360 I now have to Navigate to the Media tab and select the “Video” button.

The Castlevania franchise has been around since the early years of gaming on the NES. And almost as soon as it made its appearance, it became an instant classic.

In the years since its inception, some say Castlevania has lost some of its sparkle. Certainly Castlevania 64 didn’t help matters, but the fact remains that amidst the many Castlevania sequels, there was one that became the pinnacle of the franchise, Symphony of the Night.

The Breakdown
If you’ve never played any of the Castlevania games, here’s the usual deal… Lord Dracula has arisen and needs to be put back into the coffin from whence he came. Usually that task falls to the Belmont clan, a family of vampire hunters who fight Dracula and dispatch the creatures of the night with their family heirloom, a holy whip named Vampire Killer.

• Graphics – Even though this game made its first apperance on the original Playstation, Symphony of the Night still holds up because its graphics and backgrounds are beautifully sensual, and have a tremendous amount of visual style that shouldn’t be overlooked. If the developers stopped there, you’d be doing great. Add on some simply fantastic character and environment animation that crop up when you least expect it, and you have a very enveloping world.

• Gameplay – This isn’t an RPG but it’s not your daddy’s platformer either. Given that you can level up your character, get better weapons and armor and even unlock magic spells, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has the best of both worlds. And since control always feels tight and responsive, you’ll never find yourself cursing at the game because your character is doing something you don’t want him doing.
• Music – I don’t even know where to begin when discussing the music. It’s moody, it’s expressive…It’s really unbelievable. Some tracks are haunting – backed by powerful church organs, while others are fantastically wild guitar driven pieces that are sure to amp up the energy. If you’ve never heard the music from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, I think most would agree that it might be worth the cost of the game alone. No joke.

XBox 360 SOTN Enhancements and Changes
New to the 360 mode is “enhanced graphics”, but they don’t look any more enhanced to me. Imho, they just made colors look super bright and I don’t need that. (Obviously I turned the “enhanced graphics” off). Oh, and one change that I care about is that apparently with a patch released from Live, the song “I Am the Wind” was replaced in the credits! I really liked that song!

Furthermore, this is the kind of game that people on Live take pride in getting the achievements for, especially the heralded 200.6% completion achievement. So what are you waiting for?

Sometimes when responding to a comment, I tend to get a bit long winded and try to reign it in.

Other times when responding to a comment I find that I need more “space” to adequately address a certain topic. Yesterday, Apex left a comment on Saturday Speedlinkin IV talking about one of Courtney’s posts I had linked to.

I needed more space to adequately address this one.

Apex’s Assertion

I’d like to talk about Court’s post. It’s informative, and I am not trying to say that it’s not good, but seriously, isn’t that common sense? I mean shouldn’t everybody have those traits?

My Response
First, don’t think that I’m disagreeing with you whole heartedly because I think you may be right in some sense. I think a lot if not the majority of us bloggers are in it because we want it to be our job. We don’t want to work in our 9-5s anymore, and we’re willing to make our blog our business to make it happen.

In this sense, serious bloggers and business owners have a lot in common.

Mindset of a Business Owner
When you ask successful business owners how they did it, I think the majority of them would boil it down to what Courtney said, persistence, vision, self-belief, creativity, consistency, passion. Without those things, you’re just not going to make it. Now is that common sense to most of us? Yes. Is that common sense to most everyone else? No.

And I think that’s why so many people “don’t make it”. And I’m not talking about just bloggers. I’m talking about most of the people in mainstream society. If you go up to 5 of them and ask, “Do you want to be doing what you’re doing today or would you rather forge your own path and work for yourself?” Most I think would say they’d like to work for themselves. But because they lack one of those 6 things, they won’t make it.

Audience Targeting
To end this little rant of mine, I don’t think that a lot of people in main stream society know this stuff as common sense. That’s what makes business owners different than everyone else. It’s the mindset and I think often it’s vision and self-belief. Business owners know that to make it, they need the vision and self-belief to see that they WILL make it when others don’t and tell them they won’t. The people who don’t know how to make it think that FIRST other people have to see them able to succeed and others have to believe in what they’re doing.

So maybe this whole discussion should be limited to scope. Even though its unlikely that non bloggers look much at Courtney’s blog, if one does – Maybe they’ll learn something about mindsets if they read that post. *shrugs* I dunno.