Putting Pictures to Music

I have been uploading pictures to the Internet ever since I got my first digital camera almost 10 years ago. I started creating my own websites and putting my pictures in them using a photo editing program, html editor and a separate ftp program to transfer the files to the Internet. I would then have to use another program to create a slide show effect and yet another to add and mix the music. Lets not even look at the time and effort it took to put all these things together. I was looking at a good 4-5 hours of work just to get one group of pictures in decent shape to show my family and friends.

Forward the years to 2003 and lower the cost of a digital camera to the tune of about $150.00, down from the $800.00 price tag I bought my first digital camera for and you get an explosion of people taking digital pictures and wanting to share them with friends and loved ones. Now there are services like flickr photo, snapfish and shutterfly. These websites will store your photos online and let you present them in a slide show effect for free. Their money is made by convincing you that not only do you want to share those digital pictures of your beautiful baby girl but also purchase a set of picture prints to send to aunt Jane and uncle Leroy.


Well, its now 2007 and even big search engine websites like Google and Yahoo have gotten into the act of photo storage and display. We now have so many services to choose from and digital cameras now under the $100.00 mark, how is one to choose?

Music is my answer. I found a website called http://www.fliptrack.com/ that will not only allow you to store and display your many photos for free but they will magically mesh these photos with some of your most favorite songs. You get to tell a personal story with your pictures by mixing them in a music video style that is so easy to do. I was able to put together a flicktrack of my beautiful baby girl in less than 15 minutes. I do suggest you download fliptracks great picture and music mixing software to take advantage of all the many spacial effects if has to offer. Gone are the days of traditional picture taking. So lets all make sweet music with our digital pictures and give http://www.fliptracks.com/ the lead to our inner soul for sound.

Online Publishing has It's Advantages

Publishing on the Internet has had its ups and downs over the years. One of the many challenges is first finding people who want to read your words and sentences on a regular basis. Then if your online publication is lucky enough to have people coming to visit you really want them to come back again and again. But most of all your main objective is to make money off those frequest visitors. Hence you need to have advertising.

One of the fastest ways to make money from the content you publish is through contextual advertising. Services like Google Adsense and Yahoo Publisher give even the little guy an ability to make some extra money on a daily basis. I have been using both of these services on almost all of my websites and believe me when I say how good it feels to get paid over and over again for publishing just once.

One way of advertising that seems to be making a comeback is "Banner Advertising". Banner advertising was made famous back in early days of the Internet. Its effectiveness wore off after a few years as other forms of Internet advertising became more popular and cost effective.

Using a service like http://www.dclickads.com/ gives you the best of both worlds. Not only can you display banner ads that they will pay you for but they also have text link ads, and premium embedded link ads. So if you have not yet become an online publisher because you don't think you can make any money, try Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher and www.dclickads.com

Traditional Shopping is Dead to Me

As a young boy living in the New York City, my mother took my siblings and me around to all the major stores to go shopping. I can remember walking through these huge buildings, floor by floor looking for the best deal my mother could find. With four children and on a nurses salary, my mom would go from one end of a city block to another just to take advantage of some competing sales one store had over the other. Oh and please don't let my mom have had a coupon she would cut out from the Sunday newspaper. That coupon was like a paper lighting rod that just had to get used before it was to expire at any cost.

Of course all I wanted to do was not be there--not be at any of those stores, because I knew at some point in time I would be left holding the bag. This is not a figure of speech. I was literally left holding my mother's bags of either clothes or groceries and she would be off somewhere in the store trying to pick up one last item. The most embarrassing part of it all was when she would forget an item just before we got to the cash register and I was left in the line in her place. She would tell me to stay in the line until she got back and of course she never got back in time. So there I was in front of the checkout cashier with no money and no mother in sight to rescue me from all the angry onlookers behind me waiting their turn.

Fast forward nearly 30 years and the intervention of the Internet and E-commerce. I am married now with two kids. I can buy just about anything over the Internet and never have to leave my home. If I want to shop at Target for my kids I can first go to http://www.couponchief.com/ and pick up a 10% off electronic coupon that will give me a discount when I finish my purchase at checkout. Not only can I shop online and get what I want without standing in any line but I can get a great discount on almost anything I purchase.

My wife and I will be celebrating our wedding anniversary this June. What a perfect opportunity to purchase a wonderful piece of jewelry from Blue Nile and get Free Shipping on all my orders. So, you can plainly see why "Traditional Shopping is Dead to Me" because with the advent of the Internet, Online Shopping and now discount coupons from The Coupon Chief there is absolutely no reason, and I mean N-O reason for me to be left holding the bag in a department store line again in my lifetime.

Are you a High Risk Business that needs to process credit cards?

The only thing you have to be to considered a "High Risk" when it comes to doing business in this economy is anything against the norm. If you don't have a store front aka sticks and bricks location then you are considered a "High Risk". If you do have a store front but it is in a really bad town, city or zip code, you are considered "High Risk" and most of all if you have questionable or to put it bluntly bad credit you are definitely considered "High Risk".

So what is a business to do when they can't make the grade of a traditional bank or "Low Risk Only" credit card processor? Well, fortunately you do have a few options. One way I have gotten around not even having a merchant account is use services like PayPal.com and Google Checkout. Both services don't care if you are "High Risk" or not, all they want to is a verification of who you are and what you are selling. You can be up and running in minutes with any one of these services. PayPal.com happens to be my favorite and I have been a verified merchant of theirs for the past seven years.

Now their is also and answer for all you that want to step out there and go the extra mile and get a traditional merchant account. There places to go even if you are considered a "High Risk" business. Advantage Processors.com and Easycharge.net two places you can at least start. So don't stagnate your business by not accepting credit cards. Give one of these services a try and take your business 2 The Next Level.

Technology for Business Sake

Here is a great new Radio Show that is hosted by my good friends Brent Leary and Michael Thomas. You can listen to them weekly on Business Radio 1160 WCFO in Atlanta GA. They are looking to help small businesses take advantage of all the great things that technology has to offer. They will be talking about everything from how to choose the best CRM software/service to how to use the email on your Blackberry device more effectively. Take a listen to their first shows below.