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Blog changes

Hi, and thanks for stopping by! We've made some big changes to the blog - including shutting it down! With social networking and micro-blogging these days, there's no need for us to blog. So check out the latest on our homepage, and thanks for visiting.

One of the hard parts about blogging (aside from keeping up with regular posts (sorry)) is finding a template that fits your style. I was lucky enough to come across the one I’m using now and have since modified it a bit to fit my needs. However, if you’re serious about blogging, you’ll need a unique blog design. And that’s where Unique Blog Designs comes in!

Unique Blog Designs has been in business now for 1 year, and to celebrate they’re having a contest! I love contests, especially when I win Rebecca has been borrowing my iPod quite a bit, so it’s about time she gets her own. Then I don’t have to keep High School Musical and Camp Rock on there at all times.

So if you’re looking for a WordPress theme that truly reflects your style, check out Unique Blog Designs; and if you’re looking for a way to win an iPod, check out their 1-year anniversary contest!

This entry was posted by Eric on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I spent a few minutes with Dr_Ngo and Neil Turner at Affiliate Summit, and we were talking about geo-targeting users. Pretty powerful stuff, if your landing page can say, “Find singles in Buffalo, NY” or something similar (whatever your offer is about).

The easy (but ghetto) way to do this to put the city & state in the query string. So it’d be like page.php?city=Buffalo&state=NY. Then in your code, you just echo the city and state variables, like < ?= htmlentities(stripslashes($_GET['city'])) ? >. But what if you just want 1 landing page, without using the query string? It’s actually pretty simple, and I’m going to walk you though it.

So first, you need a database. Here’s a good free one. So from your ssh line, you’ll want to get this database by typing:
wget http://www.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCity.dat.gz

Cron this to run monthly (looks like they do updates on the 1st, so run your cron on the 5th or so) and then unzip it:
gunzip GeoLiteCity.dat.gz

OK, now you’re going to want to get the PHP module to use this data. From this directory, download

• geoip.inc
• geoipcity.inc
• geoipregionvars.php

So in a single directory, you’ll have these 3 files and GeoLiteCity.dat. Now you’re about to see how unbelievably easy this script is:
[php]
include("geoip.inc");
include("geoipcity.inc");
include("geoipregionvars.php");

$gi = geoip_open("./GeoLiteCity.dat", GEOIP_STANDARD);

$rsGeoData = geoip_record_by_addr($gi, $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);

echo("<pre>");
print_r($rsGeoData);
echo("</pre>");

geoip_close($gi);
[/php]

You’ll see I just do a print_r to show all the variables available to you, but for me, I see:

geoiprecord Object
(
[country_code] => US
[country_code3] => USA
[country_name] => United States
[region] => NY
[city] => Buffalo
[postal_code] => 14217
[latitude] => 42.9761
[longitude] => -78.8727
[area_code] => 716
[dma_code] => 514
)

So now your landing page will say, [php]Find singles in <?= htmlentities($rsGeoData->city . ", " . $rsGeoData->region) ?>"[/php]

With the latitude & longitude, you can even show a map of the area using the Google Maps API. Having the Zip Code would be great for zip submit offers (only 2 1 left in 14217! – Enter your Zip Code to claim the prize!) or lots of other great ideas using a Zip Code database.

Beware of foreign IPs, though. If you’re not in the US, I don’t know what city or region will give back. You can replace $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] above with a known IP to see what it returns.

In case you were wondering, I started this installing this script at 3:40 and had it done at 3:50. It took me longer to write this blog post than it did to install the script, so don’t be afraid to try it yourself. If you have problems, though, just contact me.

This entry was posted by Eric on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 11:47 am and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I had a big stack of business cards after returning from Affiliate Summit (but none from Steve Poland… oh wait, that’s right: he forgot his (isn’t that rule #1??)). Funny thing about business cards is that there IS a standard size, but my stack was full of cards of all sizes. Anyway, here are a few that stuck out in my mind:

Ah, Ashley Madison. We love to hate you. I chose this one not because of the card, but because of the potential. The kiss on the card got me thinking… they should’ve handed out cocktail napkins with the Ashley Madison name and number on it, either handwritten or mass-printed looking like handwriting, with a red lipstick kiss on there. There you go, Ashley Madison, that’s what I want to see next time (if I have to see you again).

This network ran with the baseball theme, including handing out baseball cards, instead of business cards. Stats on their top offers is on the back of the card, and they were handing out baseballs, too. They win the “theme” award (but next time, get the right texture of the card, not just the size!).

John Hasson’s card made me do a double-take. I really thought he forgot all his cards at home & handwrote this thing. I think the funny thing is that each side of the card says, “Flip me Over”. Reminds me of the card that on both sides says something like, “For hours of amusement, flip this card over”

Charles Ngo wins the Quality Award. Rounded corners and glossy texture are both nice touches.

My choice for Best Business Card of Affiliate Summit goes to Parked. Sorry I wrote on this before scanning it, but I’ve got some domains I may park with them. Maybe I should’ve used the “notes” section on the back. Anyway, this card looks like a parking ticket. I probably studied this card for 3 minutes when I first got it. Very cool

Someone else is going to have to take over this list for Vegas, as I can’t put myself on my own list, and my card in Vegas will be the one everyone’s talking about. A guaranteed winner

This entry was posted by Eric on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I’ve been bad about keeping up my blog with my trip to Boston for Affiliate Summit. I did upload some photos, but not many.

Amongst the best thing about going to Affiliate Summit was all the great people I got to meet. One of the first people I met in Boston was Ron from 7 Days a Week Marketing, my mentor for this Summit. The mentor program was put together to help newbies get the most out of the conference. Although I’ve been to an Affiliate Summit before, I thought joining this program would still be a great help. So Saturday evening I met up with Ron at the Affiliate Dinner. I loved this dinner, as it was laid back, but not sponsored by a network with free booze. Big difference from the “networking events” where the booze flows freely (more on that later). I sat at a table full of agencies, which was fine with me.

Sunday morning I went on the CAMA Cruise. When I bought my ticket, I got 2, thinking Steve would join me. But then I found out that he wouldn’t be in town in time, so I thought to give Ron my extra ticket. But he already had one! So I got in touch with Ian Fernando and he took my extra ticket. Ian’s a cool guy and I’m glad we got to chat, although I think he’s used to more hoppin’ “networking events”. Oh, and I won a t-shirt while on the cruise. Not an iPod, but I’ll take it

Steve arrived Sunday morning, and thought it was a day off. Nope, sorry! Affiliate Summit starts! So we checked in and… well, I don’t know what Steve did, but I went to a few sessions. My first was John Hasson‘s “Which PPC Engines Work and How?” John reminded me a lot of myself, which was encouraging. He’s a hardcore programmer, but has found success with PPC. “Coder gone marketer,” as John would say. I took some good notes, which I’ll review on the flight home.

Side story… so I’m sitting in the session & the guy behinds me asks a staff member for a pen. She can’t help. I get up to get some water, and notice a pile of Seaport Hotel pens there, so I grab one & give it to the guy. This guy turns out to be Charles Ngo, whom I’ve chatted with now & again online, but had never met in person. That’s one of the best parts about Affiliate Summit – meeting all these people that I see online every day.

Then I went to Leveraging Social Media, which I wasn’t too fond of. A lot about Twitter, but not much of anything else. Afterwards I went to a session on NY Tax Laws, which is a hot topic these days. The solution is so simple it’s almost funny: add some T&C to the merchant agreement, and don’t do direct PPC to merchants if you’re a NY affiliate. Works for me!

After these sessions was the meet market, which (as usual) was too crowded to get anything done. People, if you’re going to talk to someone, have the courtesy to step to the side. I met with a merchant whom I’ve been exchanging emails with, and we simply agreed to meet later during the conference.

Sunday night was the Share a Sale party, but I was beat. Since I wake up at 5AM every day, partying late into the night wasn’t going to happen. Jonathan Radande was looking for 2 tickets, and I happened to have 2, so I hooked him up. It was great meeting him, and even better that I could be of help.

Monday I woke up a bit after 5, but since Steve was rooming with me, I went back to sleep. We then went off to the conference. Sitting at breakfast, I noticed a guy at the table was from 11|15 Media. Turns out we’ve been “following” each other on Twitter for some time, and are working together in the Black Ink Project. Again, the face-to-face meetings are great!

The keynote Monday morning was given by Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, NJ. What???? Yeah, that’s what I thought. However, the speech was very inspirational and even humorous at times. Mayor Booker is a great speaker. Blue Man Group introduced him, which I was a bit disappointed in… I thought they were going to be on stage longer than the 3-4 minutes that they were.

I won’t go into details about the sessions. I attended “Content that Kills”, “Anatomy of a Great Affiliate Program” and “PPC Super Affiliate Strategies You Must Know”. Steve wasn’t having a good time and left lunch to… I don’t know. That’s OK, though, as John Hasson sat down in his spot I got to talk to John a bit, and we headed over to the first afternoon session together.

Monday night was Linkshare’s party, which I had passes to, but again was too tired to make it. I checked out the bar online, and realized with the rain, it would have been very crowded (and loud, and in a bar – 3 strikes in my book). By this time, Steve had switched his flight & headed home. This conference isn’t for him. So I stayed in & watched the Olympics.

Tuesday was the last day of Affiliate Summit, which was full of sessions. I attended “Web 2.0 for Affiliates”, “International Options for US Affiliates” and finally “Ethical Issues in Affiliate Marketing”. I met up with Dr_Ngo again on Tuesday and got to chat with Neil Turner for a bit. All these guys are so easy to talk to. I know everywhere you read about networking says to just start a conversation, it’s true. I was only blown off once (by Shawn of Affiliate Summit) but he was rushing off and I approached him again later in the day and he took some time to talk to me.

Let’s see… of course John Chow was there taking pictures of his dinner and filming just about everything, I saw Jonathan Volk walking around, and ran into Matt Wood a few times. I heard Jeremy Palmer was around, but didn’t see him. Too bad, I wanted to share with him the progress of my Black Ink site (which I’m SUPER excited about and can’t wait to get it launched sometime this month).

I’ve already bought my ticket to ASW in Vegas (as its a steal to buy it during this conference) and booked the hotel room (so many people complained they couldn’t get into the hotel were the conference is held at… tip: BOOK EARLY!). Even if I don’t go, I can easily cancel the hotel and sell the ticket to someone else.

So now I’m debating where to get some dinner, and will start getting my stuff together. Tomorrow I’ll slowly make my way to the airport, where I’ll overpay for dinner and sit around & read until my flight leaves. Flights from Boston to Buffalo aren’t that convenient. Oh well, at least I’ll be home soon!

This entry was posted by Eric on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Last Sunday, we were up at my in-laws cottage in Canada when Laura remembered that she hadn’t set the Tivo to record something that night. The challenge was set forth. I got out my Motorola Q and fired up Internet Explorer. Typically, I don’t get coverage up there, but the weather was just right that I was able to get a signal from across Lake Erie.

I logged into my DirecTV account and got to the DVR Scheduler and set it to record Disney from 8 to 9pm. Imagine my surprise when we got home and it actually worked!

Searching for the TV show didn’t work at all, so I just guessed at the time and got it. I don’t know if it was called something else, but I searched for lots of things & nothing gave me the result I wanted (I wanted to Tivo Studio DC but only found Hannah Montana in the guide).

The DVR Scheduler is a free add-on from DirecTV. If you have DirecTV with DVRs, do yourself a favor and set this up now, so when you need it, it’s ready.

This entry was posted by Eric on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 11:08 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I’m trying to wrap up some things before I leave for Boston this Saturday, and one of those things is to write about Summer Camp at Scouthaven that Jason & I went to last week.

We left early Sunday morning, checked in, and after our swim test (which reminded me how much I hate swimming) we got right into activities for the day. They sure kept us busy there! Swimming, fishing, boating, archery, BB guns, outdoor survival skills (used later on during camp). After dinner on Sunday, we had our opening camp fire and enjoyed skits by the camp staff and learned some camp songs. That night, we learned about the stars as Nature Mary pointed them out (with a super-strong green laser beam!).

Monday was again full of activities. In between these activities, we had some GREAT food (with the kids acting as waiters – setting up the tables and cleaning up when we were finished). I can’t remember all of the meals, but breakfast was typically pancakes, french toast with cereal & fresh fruit; lunch was hamburgers one day… can’t remember any more. Dinner was raviolis one day, ham another. I think pizza was in there somewhere, too.

Tuesday was an interesting day, as the afternoon was an adjusted schedule giving us more time to learn some important outdoor survival skills. First the kids learned some important knots, and they better have paid attention because after that was how to build a shelter (lean-to) using a tarp. The boys then built a hobo-stove from a coffee can. After dinner that day, we left our camp and headed to build our own shelter and test out our hobo stoves. Well, the flame under the stove was a bit much, so the boys pretty much had some bread that was burnt in the center with cold cheese in-between (not quite “grilled cheese”). They ate it anyways.

Then it was another campfire (of course) with songs & skits before we braved the outdoors & slept in our lean-to. Surprisingly, it was the best night’s rest I got! I was so asleep, I missed Digger with the morning coffee!! Wednesday morning was our last chance for the early morning swim and it was also the coldest morning so far! Well, we went in anyways. We had some more activities to do, had to pack the van then ate our final meal there. The weather was turning worse in the afternoon, so we didn’t stick around for the final campfire.

We all had a great time at camp. I may have had the best time out of everyone We’re already signed up for camp next year! My only regret is that we didn’t go in previous years. Next year will be Jason’s last at Cub Scout camp – then he moves up to Boy Scouts! I plan on staying with the Cub Scouts, although Jason doesn’t like that idea. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll do both!

This entry was posted by Eric on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 10:37 am and is filed under Outdoors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.