Richard St. John: 8 Words To Success

It’s been a couple days since I have posted, sorry. I have been working diligently on getting a Ringtone campaign set up and creating a write up so I can show you how I did it. Hopefully i’ll be done with that soon, in the meantime I thought this video would be something good to post. It’s a short 4 minute video on how to become more successful, not only online but offline and in general life as well.

Thought this was a very motivational video. Ted.com has some great stuff and I urge you to watch some of the other videos on that site. Some really interesting stuff!

-Nick

P.S. Comments are greatly appreciated! If you like what you saw you should subscribe so I can shoot more stuff like this your way! The subscribe stuff is on the right, or the link in the top menu.

Mac AppleScript: Capitalize text in your clipboard!

I was looking for a way to capitalize my keyword lists (each word, not every letter), and found this little gem off of MacOSXHints.com.

If allows you to input some text and get it capitalized all together, each word, or sentences. I think you can go the other way around too.

**I added a little update so you do not have to input the text manually, it will just take the text that is currently in your clipboard.

This is very useful for mass editing keywords in Yahoo Search Marketing. The reason I use it in YSM is because when you are using keyword insertion, there isn’t an option to automatically capitalize your keywords so I have to do it myself. I just copy my keyword list into the clipboard and press run! It will output the newly formatted text which you can pop into your YSM account.

-- syntax : changeCase of someText to caseType
-- someText (string) : plain or encoded text
-- caseType (string) : the type of case required ("upper", "lower", "sentence", "title" or "mixed")

-- "upper" : all uppercase text (no exceptions)
-- "lower" : all lowercase text (no exceptions)
-- "sentence" : uppercase character at start of each sentence, other characters lowercase (apart from words in sentenceModList)
-- "title" : uppercase character at start of each word, other characters lowercase (no exceptions)
-- "mixed" : similar to title, except for definite and indefinite articles, conjunctions and prepositions (see mixedModList) that don't start a sentence

property lowerStr : "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzáàâäãåæçéèêëíìîïñóòôöõøœúùûüÿ"
property upperStr : "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÁÀÂÄÃÅÆÇÉÈÊËÍÌÎÏÑÓÒÔÖÕØŒÚÙÛÜŸ"
property alphaList : lowerStr's characters & reverse of upperStr's characters
property sentenceBreak : {".", "!", "?"}
property wordBreak : {space, ASCII character 202, tab}
property everyBreak : wordBreak & sentenceBreak
property whiteSpace : wordBreak & {return, ASCII character 10}
property currList : missing value
property sentenceModList : {"i", "i'm", "i’m", "i've", "i’ve", "I’ve", "I've", "I’m", "I'm", "I"} (* could be extended to include certain proper nouns, acronyms, etc. *)
property mixedModList : {"By Means Of", "In Front Of", "In Order That", "On Account Of", "Whether Or Not", "According To", "As To", "Aside From", "Because Of", "Even If", "Even Though", "In Case", "Inside Of", "Now That", "Only If", "Out Of", "Owing To", "Prior To", "Subsequent To", "A", "About", "Above", "Across", "After", "Against", "Along", "Although", "Among", "An", "And", "Around", "As", "At", "Because", "Before", "Behind", "Below", "Beneath", "Beside", "Between", "Beyond", "But", "By", "De", "Down", "During", "Except", "For", "From", "If", "In", "Inside", "Into", "Like", "Near", "Of", "Off", "On", "Onto", "Or", "Out", "Outside", "Over", "Past", "Since", "So", "The", "Though", "Through", "Throughout", "To", "Under", "Unless", "Until", "Up", "Upon", "When", "Whereas", "While", "With", "Within", "Without", "Ye", "ye", "without", "within", "with", "while", "whereas", "when", "upon", "up", "until", "unless", "under", "to", "throughout", "through", "though", "the", "so", "since", "past", "over", "outside", "out", "or", "onto", "on", "off", "of", "near", "like", "into", "inside", "in", "if", "from", "for", "except", "during", "down", "de", "by", "but", "beyond", "between", "beside", "beneath", "below", "behind", "before", "because", "at", "as", "around", "and", "an", "among", "although", "along", "against", "after", "across", "above", "about", "a", "subsequent to", "prior to", "owing to", "out of", "only if", "now that", "inside of", "in case", "even though", "even if", "because of", "aside from", "as to", "according to", "whether or not", "on account of", "in order that", "in front of", "by means of"}

on textItems from currTxt
	tell (count currTxt's text items) to if it > 4000 then tell it div 2 to return my (textItems from (currTxt's text 1 thru text item it)) & my (textItems from (currTxt's text from text item (it + 1) to -1))
	currTxt's text items
end textItems

on initialCap(currTxt)
	tell currTxt to if (count words) > 0 then tell word 1's character 1 to if it is in lowerStr then
		set AppleScript's text item delimiters to it
		tell my (textItems from currTxt) to return beginning & upperStr's character ((count lowerStr's text item 1) + 1) & rest
	end if
	currTxt
end initialCap

to capItems from currTxt against breakList
	repeat with currBreak in breakList
		set text item delimiters to currBreak
		if (count currTxt's text items) > 1 then
			set currList to my (textItems from currTxt)
			repeat with n from 2 to count currList
				set my currList's item n to initialCap(my currList's item n)
			end repeat
			set text item delimiters to currBreak's contents
			tell my currList to set currTxt to beginning & ({""} & rest)
		end if
	end repeat
	currTxt
end capItems

on modItems from currTxt against modList
	set currList to modList
	set currCount to (count modList) div 2
	repeat with currBreak in everyBreak
		set text item delimiters to currBreak
		if (count currTxt's text items) > 1 then repeat with n from 1 to currCount
			set text item delimiters to my currList's item n & currBreak
			if (count currTxt's text items) > 1 then
				set currTxt to textItems from currTxt
				set text item delimiters to my currList's item -n & currBreak
				tell currTxt to set currTxt to beginning & ({""} & rest)
			end if
		end repeat
	end repeat
	currTxt
end modItems

to changeCase of currTxt to caseType
	if (count currTxt's words) is 0 then return currTxt

	ignoring case
		tell caseType to set {upper_Case, lower_Case, sentence_Case, title_Case, mixed_Case} to {it is "upper", it is "lower", it is "sentence", it is "title", it is "mixed"}
	end ignoring

	if not (upper_Case or lower_Case or title_Case or sentence_Case or mixed_Case) then
		error "The term \"" & caseType & "\" is not a valid case type option. Please use \"upper\", \"lower\", \"sentence\", \"title\" or \"mixed\"."
	else if upper_Case then
		set n to 1
	else
		set n to -1
	end if

	considering case
		set tid to text item delimiters

		repeat with n from n to n * (count lowerStr) by n
			set text item delimiters to my alphaList's item n
			set currTxt to textItems from currTxt
			set text item delimiters to my alphaList's item -n
			tell currTxt to set currTxt to beginning & ({""} & rest)
		end repeat

		if sentence_Case then
			set currTxt to initialCap(modItems from (capItems from currTxt against sentenceBreak) against sentenceModList)
		else if title_Case or mixed_Case then
			set currTxt to initialCap(capItems from currTxt against whiteSpace)
			if mixed_Case then set currTxt to initialCap(capItems from (modItems from currTxt against mixedModList) against sentenceBreak)
		end if

		set text item delimiters to tid
	end considering
	set the clipboard to currTxt
end changeCase

(* set someText to " " *)

set someText to (the clipboard)

changeCase of someText to "title" (* "upper", "lower", "sentence", "title" or "mixed" *)

Hope this solves some other people’s problems!

-Nick

My experience so far with NeverBlueAds

Got recommended to NeverBlueAds the other day from a friend and just wanted to share a little bit about my experience with them so far.

From the get-go everything seemed very prompt and well organized. It wasn’t but a couple hours after I first applied that I received a phone call from my already assigned Affiliate manager telling me -to make a long story short- that I got accepted. I was pretty excited about this and kind of caught off guar (which isn’t a bad thing), because I didn’t think I would be getting a call later in the day after business hours. I just like overall how fast of a response I received.

After first logging into the system I was very impressed. It has a very intuitive feel, and everything just seems to make sense. Which is contrary to Commission Junction, which I still do not fully understand to this day.

The whole system is similar to Azoogle Ads, but everything is organized just a little bit more, as well as the overall layout/design/colors are more pleasing to the eye.

I also like the types of offers here a lot better than previous companies I have used. There are plenty of PPL offers which is just the kind of stuff I am looking for!

Well that’s about it for now, just wanted to throw in a little update because of how impressed I am so far! I just thought I would share it with you.

-Nick

Part 1: Using Google Adwords to make some cash.

Like I said the other day, I was going to go into a little more in detail what exactly it is I do to make money. Promoting affiliate products through search engines like Google and Yahoo are one of the more popular ways to make some cash online. Most of the big “gurus” online like Shoemoney and Zac Johnson both use this strategy to promote offers such as ring tones and other things while gaining a commission when somebody makes a purchase.

This is one of the main ways I make money online aside from freelance web design/programming, and a few other things. One of the reasons I really like this form of marketing and making money online is because once you have a solid campaign set up, you can leave for a week and still make money doing nothing! Autopilot income! It’s also a great way to spread your business around so you are not concentrating on just one idea. That way if ever something goes wrong with one campaign, you still have other campaigns making you money to back you up.

Note: one thing I should mention before we get too far into this article is that I am assuming you already know what Google Adwords is and what it does.

They overall business model I use to go about setting up a campaign is pretty simple, but it can easily be complicated with little odds and ends along the way. I will share with you my basic outline, but the rest is up to you to experiment with. I wish I could tell you everything I know about making money with Adwords, but it would very quickly turn into a 1000 page novel! The best learning is done by just going out and trying it yourself. At the end of this article I will share with you a few resources I use to make things a little bit easier.

One of the main things people are afraid of with this kind of marketing is losing money. The process I will teach you is geared around minimizing costs, but at the same time maximizing profit. A lot of marketers who are making the big bucks will throw in thousands of fairly generic keywords and throw a ton of money into the process initially, because they are expecting to make all that money back. I’m not saying this is the wrong way to do it, in fact it really isn’t, but when a person is starting out they can’t always throw in that much money at the start.

Instead of using programs to generate huge lists of keywords, I hand pick the keywords myself and tightly monitor the progress of my campaigns. I do this to ensure that my cost is minimized and my profit is maximized. The big marketers will usually not worry so much about this, because they want to make sure they are getting the maximum impressions as possible. By doing it the way I do, I don’t get as many clicks and impressions, but I end up making a much larger relative profit. So the way I make a lot of money is just by making more and more small profitable campaigns vs. only a few huge risky campaigns.

I think I will wait until Part 2 to go into detail steps wise as to how I go about setting up a profitable campaign.

If you want to jump ahead you can visit AdwordsExcellence.com, a great site owned by my friend Stewart McKay detailing step by step on how to make money with Adwords. This is the main site that I give credit to for the Adwords knowledge I have now. There is a free membership and a paid membership with more in depth articles and videos. I honestly urge you to at least give the free membership a try, I promise you wont be disappointed and you have nothing to lose.

Good Luck,
Nick

P.S. I used my affiliate link to Adwords Excellence as a good way to show my appreciation if you wish, but if you would prefer not to use my affiliate link you may click here instead.

Major League Gaming: Halo 3 Top Ten Moments

Hope everyone had a great fun/relaxing weekend. I know I did. The temp around here finally got up to around the 20’s 30’s! That’s t-shirt weather for me!

Just thought I would offset all the seriousness with a little bit of entertainment. Not sure how many of you play Halo 3, but it’s an awesome game and if you have played it even once before you will definitely appreciate this video.

“Reflexes like that don’t exist in a normal human being”.

Wow, these people are ridiculous.

I’m looking on getting into a little more of the details on how exactly I make my money tomorrow, so stay tuned!

-Nick

New server!

Media Temple

Just got the site transfered over to the new server so sorry if there are some problems. I’ll fix those as soon as I can.

This hosting is much much much faster then the last stuff and I hope you can tell the difference. I got my new hosting through Media Temple and so far they rock!

Cross browser compatibility with Safari and others

I just got accepted to the new and upcoming “Rubicon Project“, a site dedicated to help optimize PPC advertising. Only after creating my account though, I noticed that users are required to use Firefox 2+ to access the member’s area!

What a bummer, it seems like a bunch of other sites these days are doing the same thing. Well I guess it’s probably getting better now days, but I think as other browsers like Safari start becoming more popular people need to make it a point to develop their websites so that they can properly handle every browser!

How many of you have ran into problems like this with websites that you are trying to access? It’s really a day ruiner, especially when it’s on a site that you were really excited to be a part of! In some cases, I’m almost more willing to put off using the website if it means I have to open up another browser just to use it.

I’m not sure about you, but it sort of seems like a copout and/or a sign of being unprofessional to me if a website doesn’t function on every browser. I understand that there are some fancy features in css and javascript that only work on browsers like Firefox, but what about everyone using a different browser? Personally, I go without some of those fancy features just to support all of the other browsers.

One thing that especially bothers me is when websites restrict their users to only Internet Explorer. That leaves people like me and other Mac users out in the dust, as IE no longer is supported on a Mac. It not only is unfortunate for the users, but it really restricts the company’s reach to additional clients/users (i.e. less money).

This really makes me realize more and more the fact that we need to be making sure the websites we make are cross-compatible with every browser out on the market. With other browsers like Safari becoming more and more a part in the traffic surfing across the web, we need to start taking it more into consideration.

-Nick

Your and You’re, grammar and spelling in blogging.

Ok, so I’m posting this because over the course of my blog reading history I have been noticing that so many bloggers have terrible grammar!

When I first started heavily reading and participating on other people’s blogs I didn’t notice bad grammar so much, but now that I am an avid reader of a large amount of blogs I keep noticing it more and more! It’s not even the big complicated things that bother me, it’s the small, simple, and easy errors that get to me.

The one thing that I see most often as far as grammatical errors go is fellow bloggers using your instead of you’re. It annoys the hell out of me! I’ve seen famous bloggers like Shoemoney and Amit do it multiple times in their posts.

I remember a while back Shoemoney made a post about grammar entitled “Can you suck at grammar and have a successful blog” which linked to a post from Nick Sullivan’s blog pretty much stating the same thing. I guess more than just me are bugged by these famous blogger’s grammar. I’d also like you to know that I had already thought about making this post on my own before seeing the Shoemoney post!

I do like how Shoe took the initiative to make a post about it though, it really shows his personality. To be honest, if I was him I wouldn’t really care what others thought anyway!

  • I’d be interested in hearing what others think about grammar in blogging. Do you think it is a big deal for bloggers to have good spelling and grammar, or is it not a big deal?

Oh and by the way, I’m not saying that I have perfect grammar. I’m sure someone can point out some mistakes in this very post as a matter of fact. It’s really just the elementary stuff that bothers me.

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