Time Ticks On

So it has been some time since I have even wrote or logged into this blog. Since my last post I have been threw ups and downs. Traveling a long road. Apunkalypse went down as it was an epic fail. Since then I have began Genocide Wars. It seems that it is more promising then my first endeavor! Life is looking right in all directions!

I guess I don't want to look on my negative sides of owning more then one website that went down the drain, and just trying stay positive that I have never given up yet. It is not as simple as some people think. Getting positive feedback is not always the easiest thing to attain. Just to get in the market itself is a task, and for it to be only one person running an entire game. All responsibilities fall upon me. I am thankful for the amount of pressure I have put on myself and being able to contain myself. It shows great things on my own behalf. A personal Achievement.

In effort to get back into the swing of things I shall be posting more frequently now. Just to keep myself in good spirit and for more hits!

Ads On Website

I have only one ad on my website. I want it to try to raise income to support the site. When I use Google adsense, no matter how many ads I show I only get money when clicked. Yet when I use Adbrite, I get paid just for showing them. Which one should I choose. Or should I use both of them at the same time and compare? This is really more of a question then anything.

Ads are tricky and new to me still. As I am still new to the whole concept of working a blog and a website/game at the same time. I hope that it all works out for me in the end.

If you have an opinions about this, or could possible help me leave a comment.

Thanks

Not To Be A Googlemonger....But

Well when making a game I know you have tons of game material that you use. Different formulas and big lists of items. Well I was thinking of getting some type of software to use. Excel or Word, something of that sort. When I remembered that Google had a document service. I looked further into it and and came the the conclusion that it will suit my needs just fine.

With the regular document I can write a storyline and then just copy and paste all from with my browser. I also have made about 5 spreadsheet covering my items and I am even using one as a way track my expenses since it is just me working and not much money is coming in or out at the moment. So for now it will suffice. Thanks again Google for making something I can use!

What Will Happen If We Let Evil Weed Be Legalized?

Wow, this is pretty good stuff here. I never knew so many politicians supported and that the usa stores all the tax stamps and wont let the public have them....that is messed up.

read more | digg story

When Calvin Reaches Puberty

Haha, when I seen this I thought it was too funny to pass up. So I am sticking it on my blog. Laugh it up people!......I bet he really wishes he could do that!

read more | digg story

The Power Of A Gfail

So I have been trying to post good articles over the past week. To no avail....Suddenly Gmail crashes and I write a post about it. Within one hour I got more hits then I did all week. I went from 4 visits to 12 visits within an hour!

Thank you Gfail! Don't worry Google and of course Gmail, I still love you all and will continue to use your products. Hell you just gave me a boost! Now of course it is bad for you all. Sorry.

here is proof that it jumped up within the past hour.

Gmail Not Working Or Down

Image was found on this site : http://www.softfacade.com/blog/building_fun_icons_with_lego_mosaic


I went to check my Gmail today, hoping they have approved my adsense account. I go to try to access the home page for Gmail, yet it will not load. I don't know if other users of Gmail are having the same problem, but I have tried it on 2 computers and nether one of them work. It happened around 6 A.M my loacal time.

This isnt good for Google. I have noticed over the past few months certain things not working correctly. Yet they are minor and normally fix them pretty soon. Maybe I should send a support ticket or something to them?

It seems to be working fine with Chrome, but as soon as I try to use it with Mozilla it fails to work and I did not change anything on my browser settings, as a matter of fact i was using Gmail and then when I went to load a email it quit working and just hung there...

So is Google making it to where you can only use their browser with Gmail? I hope not, that would be very bad for them.



Is anyone else having this problem?

Word Of The Day

Today's word of the day is:

Onerous

How to say - AH-nuh-rus

Meaning -

1 : involving, imposing, or constituting a burden : troublesome
2 : having legal obligations that outweigh the advantages

The way I am going to show you how to use this word is going to relate to how I am right now.

Going to sleep tonight was an onerous task.

How To Get Back 20% Of Your Bandiwdth Back From Microsoft

Someone had asked me if I knew how to speed up their internet connection without using some kind of spyware or program to do it. Well I didn't really know of a way, but me being the person I am and I love to help people so I started searching for a way. Well I came accross a video on youtube. I'm not going to show it because it only shows it half way threw the video. It is much easier to just tell you

Click Start–>Run–>type “gpedit.msc” without the “

This opens the group policy editor.

Local Computer Policy–>Computer Configuration–>Administrative Templates–>Network–>QOS Packet Scheduler–>Limit Reservable Bandwidth

Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the ‘Explain’ tab :

“By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default.”

Updated: Feb 24, 2009 - Added pictures

Word Of The Day

Todays word that I have learned is : Fugleman 

Meaning one at the head or forefront of a group or movement.

I used Merriam-Websters word of the day to find this.  Find out more and visit the full page ">here.

30 Days to Sucess

Over at Steve Pavlina's site. There is an article on 30 days to success. The full article here. I have read it about 3 times now and decided to give a few of them a shot. I chose these based on my own personal endevours to gain some personal development. I think that is what my goal is going to be here at Tim Freeman's Blog. Personal development. Not only for me, but for you as my readers ( as soon as I get some). To be listing my own experiences and giving you insight on how they work and if they even worked at all. The list of my 30 day challenges will be as follows.

1. Become an early riser.

I chose this one because I have been sleeping in now for some time, which really impeades my progress in life. I used to wake up early as a cook in the U.S. Army. Waking up before all the other soldiers to  have them breakfast made by the time they were dont with physical training. 

2. Read for an hour a day on a topic you enjoy.

I chose this one because I really like to read. I prefer fictional stories or something that has some actions in the lines. Yet this go round I will be reading something that can help me within my personal development. Since that is the subject I am wanting to get enolved with.

3. Writing a new blog entry every day.

This one should be easy. Sit down and write something in a blog, anyone could do that really. I will be taking this a step further. Write an article on my daily progress in my own life. Which if my progress is slow, will be a task for me.

4. Learn a vocabulary word every day.

I really liked the idea of this one. Not only can it improve you vocabulary, but it will also make me a better writer. When in a group of people and a time arises I can use this word and seem smarter within that group. Which is great for self esteem.

So these are my challenges for the next 30 days starting Feb 21, 2009.

What Is A Niche

So I sit down today to do some research on niches. If you don't know what a niche is then allow me to tell you. A niche is a specific topic and all of the sub topics that remain to the subtopic. For example Dumb Little Man niche is Tips for life. I didn't know this before today but there is two different kinds of niches. Niches for authority websites, and niches for "niches" websites. What that basically means is. Niches for authority take on a broad range of niches. I lue of getting the most readers possable.  Niche websites are lower in content quantity but have more relavent content, as well as being able to bring in more search engine traffic. These websites contain ads from which if people click on them the owner gets paid.

Niches are not hard to find really, just do some research on certain niches.  Niches can come from passions, hobbies, work, school and even home. Try to pick something that you have a "niche" for to make it easier to come up with a way to have unique and up beat submissions. If your forced to do something it gets dull after a while. If you love it in some way you will always have something to say about it.

A niche can make or break a blog or even an entire website. No matter the way its developed. Find out from yourself what would make the best niche for you. 

Free Radio Station From Your Browser - Pandora

I use it all the time. Didn't know if many people knew about it or not. It allows you to make radio stations based on artists. Its pretty cool, you can thumbs up or thumbs down song on the stations and it will not play or play more of the artist that is playing. Also it will play more of that style of music.

Go check it out.

Pandora

Help Putting Video In Blogger

I found this article of how to put a video in your blogger. Its a bunch of mumble jumbo if you ask me, but I had the code that youtube gave me to embed the image into a page.

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qBro4dANNGU"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qBro4dANNGU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

And nothing happened. So if you change the code to

<object width="395" height="325"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qBro4dANNGU"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qBro4dANNGU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="395" height="325"></embed></object>

then it will show it. Its based on the setting for you blog.

Simpsons Video Intro

A Simpsons video that I found to be a bit different

Free SEO Tools And Sites For Web Design

I have been making web pages for some time. Some better then others, some with better layouts then others and some being text based games. When I was needing to drive traffic to these sites, the first thing is getting it listed in index's of big search engines.

• Google
• Yahoo
• Msn
• Altavista

Its pretty easy all you have to do is submit them. You can search around on the net and find links of how to do it. They will crawl your site and find pages. Sitemaps help when it comes to letting them know what is on your site. You can find a free sitemap generator over at www.xml-sitemaps.com. They scan your site and make one for you that is compliant with google. They also offer it in many formats.

Another thing that will help get your name out on the web is checking to see where you stand in these search engines. That being said SEO is what you need to use. Some sites offer software to help you, some offer free tools which is what most people starting out use. I use www.webmaster-toolkit.com. From what I can tell they don't have a set limit of how many times you can check it so that is a plus.

Alexa is a web information company. They rank websites by amounts of traffic. Once your in this companies directory and they are tracking your stats its good. They show all the linkbacks too. Monitor how high or low you website has grown over time compared to any other website on the net. How neat is that!

One thing if you think that you want to move on to learning something more in depth then just using a program to make blogs, CMS, Wikis, and E-commerce sites. Try making it on your own to fit your needs perfectly. Go over to www.w3schools.com and start learning some programming.

Reasons Why People Play Video Games

1. Entertainment
That is the best reason why. Video games by design are sold along side of other media. Media is pure entertainment. From the movies to musics. Video games in today's age have both in them. Plus many other aspects. When I was a little kid I used to go to the mall and spend a roll of quarters at my local arcade. Over time as technology grew and newer designs came about. Consoles were released and the gaming era took off. Individual game sales shot threw the roof along with the price of the materials also.

2. Graphics
To many times have I seen commercials that aim around how robust the graphics are on the new titles. Even over time the requirements of games have skyrocketed. It used to be only a few pixels that made up a game, now you need powerful 3d engines to run the graphics of the games. Along side that you computer or console needs to be up to par to run the game. Not to mention all of the different types of graphics.

3. Interactivity
Games are so fundamental these days. Seems like they have a game out for almost anything. With new technology emerging every day with toys like the wii which adds tons of body interaction. It really helps to put you into the game.

4. Multiple Player Functions
Your sitting around playing you favorite game. Now imagine that with also playing with thousands of other players around the world. It lets you compare how well you fair against them. Some having top ladders and different modes of play.

5. Challenging
Some people just like a good challenge. Games are designed to be challenging as to give off a replay value. Playing games with multi player adds a great deal of challenge as it not only challenges you but also other players to be the best. Who doesn't want to be the best?

6. Story
Writers work hard to create a storyline for games. When games first came out there wasn't a need for a story line. The game just did what it did. Today game have immerse story lines that can go into several cds long. World of Warcraft has made two expansions to the main game that started their craze. All which made amazing sales. It stayed alive because they came up with a nice story line and the game had amazing depth.

7. Character Development
Some games such as the bigger named World of Warcraft has a nice player creation's system and along with it the way a character progresses in the game. Gaining levels, attaining new skills, collecting items and PvP which is a big deal in some levels.

8. A Home Away From Home
Some people play games to escape their own reality. All for their own reasons. Games today have to put warning labels on them. Poeple will play the game so much that they forget about their real life. Kinda wierd if you ask me but hey thats life.

Is Blogging For Me Or Not?

So you set you heart out to start a blog. You get it all set up and think of a really cool name for it. Then as you sit down to start, your left in a blank. You think what did I get myself into? What made me want to start a blog? Well I read an article one day that made me think of how money is made. It said that you should not only get paid for the amount of hours you put in. Because nobody really cares about if you put in 40 hours in a week or not. Its set in our head that we can only make money for the time that we are working. But what about the time that we are not working? We spend more time not working then working. So why not come up with a way to make income from not working? That was the smartest thing I had ever heard.

So blogging came to mind. If I can just get people to read my blog, ad some adsense to it and maybe with some SEO. Who knows? In term of advertisement you only get real money when you get clicks, but you still get some small amounts of money for each impression shown. Write well written articles, that people will want to read, and you my friend have impressions. Not the best income in the world, but its a start. I first tried messing around with ads when I was running a small MMORPG game back a year ago. From the amounts of views I was getting and the amount of impressions, I didn't gain much money at all. Yet it got my foot in the door and allowed me to learn some things about ads and how they work.

If you can dedicate some time and some brain cells to a blog then it could be for you. If you can't stand to write then I would say its not for you. You might not even have the slightest clue what to write about and thats totally up to you what you choose. You can only find out by blogging and seeing. Writing comes easy for me, as I am full of information and I love to write.

Interview with A Gamer Playing Left 4 Dead

Today I am sitting down with a friend of mine. Lets call him Shaky for confidential reasons. This guy plays video games with most of his time away from work. There will be times when I am just crawling out of bed only to find him in my room playing some type of game on my desktop. He is an avid gamer. Since I have met him that is pretty much all we sit around and do. He plays a wide genre of games. From FPS to Mmorpgs. 3D and even text based games. So today while he is in his own zone of the gaming world. I am going to be asking him a series of questions.

Lets hope that I don't distract him as to pull him out of his gaming experience.


Starz asks Shaky: So what game are you playing today? Shaky replies with "Left 4 Dead".

Starz: What type of game is this?
Shaky: First Player Shooter.

Starz: So what exactly is a first person shooter?
Shaky: Pretty much, busting head shots threw a crosshair.

Starz: So that seems like it can be challenging at times.
Shaky: Oh yea. Its pure skill

Starz: Whats the purpose in this game?
Shaky: Its a zombie survival game.

Starz: Are you playing with other people?
Shaky: Yes I am, I am playing with three other players online.

Starz: So do you like the fact that you can play with real people opposed to as just playing with artificial intelligence?
Shaky: Oh yea, always.

Starz: Why is that?
Shaky: Real people actually use skill. Realistic teamwork.

Starz: I see you just died what happens now?
Shaky: Well my team is getting destroyed now. So I have to wait for a respawn.

Starz: What do you find most interesting about games?
Shaky: That is actually difficult to answer. I like the physics, the action and the gaming community.

Starz: Does the graphic make or take a game? If so why?
Shaky: Yes definitely. Because you would want to see the environment that you are operating in with the best view possible. It puts you in the game with 3d objects.

Starz: What would you say the main reason is that you video games?
Shaky: Entertainment and its challenging.

Starz: So if someone challenges you to a video game. Would you accept the offer?
Shaky: I am always up for challenges. That is one of the main reasons why I play FPS is because the majority of them offer multiplayer functions.

Starz: Well Shaky thank you for your time and answers to my questions. I will let you get back to your gaming.
Shaky: thanks

With that being said. It makes me want to play a video game right now. He is playing with some younger woman, her brother and some other random guy from who knows where. They have never met and odds are that they never will. Yet that is half of the fun of them. They connect us threw common interests. A zombie survival game might not sound fun to all people, but for video gamers like myself and many others, its a godsend. There is not many like it out on the market today. There are many other First Person Shooters available. Yet this game is in a league of its own for now.

Top 10 Things I Love About Computers

1. Games
I first played Wolfenstien 3D when I was just a small kid back in 1995. I learned what a computer was that day. I had never really played with one before. All that I had used before that point in time was an Atari and a NES. In due time I found out that most of today's games are developed on computers. With powerful 3D engines that blow the computer from back in 1995 out of the water, Over the years I started to play more and more games on the computer.

2. Internet
Which is what brings me to my next point. I have spent I don't know how many countless hours playing video games over the internet. From First Person Shooters (FPS) like Battlefield 2 and Left for Dead to Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) like Guild Wars and World of Warcraft. These games are playing with people over the internet connecting our computers together in real time. Allowing people like me from the gaming community to play real time with thousands of people all around the world.

3. Programming
I know this one might seem weird to have as something that made me fall in love with them, but its true. Programming is what makes up the computer. Without it the the hardware wouldn't know what to do with all the data. I started to learn some programming and soon learned that there is many different types of programming languages you can learn. I have learned a few over my 6 years of messing around with the programming sides of the internet and programs. I have even taught a friends of mine the basics like simple HTML commands. Anything more then that and they will have to learn themselves like I did, or go to school for it. Or they could even just take a few classes on a certain one and be able to put it to use.

4. Shopping
I never thought I would need to shop on my computer. Until the time when I actually had to do it. I had moved to Germany for my time in the military. I lived there for 10 month then I got deployed to Iraq. I went to the PX and bought a laptop for 700.00 US Dollars. I had the internet in my room. It was very slow but it worked. None the less it was coming time for me to come home for my R&R time. A two week vacation. What a relief! Well I had needed some clothes to wear for when I got home, but since all of my civilian clothes was locked up back in Germany. I turned to the internet. I bought a few shirts, a few pair of paints and a pair of shoes. I decided i can buy some extra underwear and socks once I got back home. My order showed up 2 weeks later. Everything was fine and fit accordingly. Shipped from America all the way to Iraq. I wore the clothes home and had my vacation.

5. Music
What is the best place to get music in today's society? The Internet! Its fast, cost very little money and the best part of all is you don't have to get out of you seat to get it. You remember the big lawsuit some time ago with Napster and The band Metallica. Well against all of their efforts to stop it. It still goes on today. Yes some places do it legit and you pay for the music and the artists get their royalties. You even have the ever so popular youtube. Where you can just about look up any song.

6. Chatting
Chatting is very popular, in fact I do it myself. There are so many different types of chatting platforms out. Most social networking sites have their own type of chatting preferences. Which connect millions of people daily. Its pretty crazy that this day and age its funny when you hear "You don't have a myspace? How can you not have a myspace, everyone has one!". I actually creeps me out a little bit. Yes I know what you thinking, and I do have a myspace, but no you can not have it. The only downside of most chatting is the use of robots. Or known to the chatting communities as "bots". They normally consist of text appearing like someone is chatting but it displays suggestive mature content. Which of the likes, gets on the nerves of most people.

7. The ability to sell anything
People do it everyday. Ebay, Craigslist and other companies of the like, You can sell you old junk to just about anyone. Or you can even wholesale items out of you garage! Its that simple. With great websites like these. I have used them myself to sell off old computer parts. People will buy just about anything if it has some kinda of value still left in it. You can even reach far more people then of yesterdays yard sales. You can reach a guy who sips tea in California with a laptop and wi-fi all while sitting in the basement of you mom's house. Kinda creepy if you think about it. Yet it reaches far more people then sitting outside all day trying to sell it out of your front yard.

8. Knowledge
The internet is full of it. Think back in time of our founding father of the United States of America. They could read one newspaper a day. Attain that knowledge only on the topics chosen of the particular towns writers choice. Today you can type a few words in google and off you go. Low and behold you find yourself in a slew of websites all with some kind of information on the topic that you choose. It would have taken someone from 200+ years ago a lifetime. To attain the amount of knowledge that the internet can give someone in today's world.

8. Pictures
The Mona Lisa and other famous paintings are beauties of this world. Yet I have been on such sites as Flickr and Photobucket and have seen some very nice photos that people from all around the world have taken. Some things that can't even be seen by the naked eye. The way the pictures capture moments in time forever. With the advancement of camera technology people can make vast amounts of money threw freelancing at weddings and other events. Models get paid thousands if not millions of dollars to pose for pictures. Do you think Mona Lisa had money like that in mind when she posed for her portrait?

9. Business
The way that computers have changed the way we do business is amazing. They can track orders, take money, display items, transfer money, and tons more. When you can sell your product without having to pay someone money for their services to sale that item for you. Then that is something that is perfect. Cuts down on all of the cost of having to employee people. Which can drastically reduce you outgoing budget. Along with it being online and not in a single location, that increases sales. So all in all its not a bad idea for an existing business to venture into an online business if not already.

10. Websites
Today they have a website for just about anything you want. With the ever growing demand in this information driver culture of today for websites. More and more are made every single day. In fact you should be reading this from a website if I am not mistaken. I even suggest that you make a website of some kind for yourself. You never know what it will bring. It could bring you a way

Don't Get A Job!!!

I was browsing around the web the other day and came upon a site that an article caught my eye and it was something about not working, in other words don't get a job. I read on and it made some of the best sense that I have ever heard in my life. Although this site doesn't allow me to place all of the details on my site, I can still quote the part that had me hook, line and sinker.

"Why is getting a job so dumb? Because you only get paid when you’re working. Don’t you see a problem with that, or have you been so thoroughly brainwashed into thinking it’s reasonable and intelligent to only earn income when you’re working? Have you never considered that it might be better to be paid even when you’re not working? Who taught you that you could only earn income while working? Some other brainwashed employee perhaps?" Quoted from Steve Pavlina.

You can find the full article here. It was simply a matter of time before I thought to myself. If he can do it, then why can't I? I thought on and finally came to realize that I can with time and an overall good attitude on the matter at hand. Here I was thinking that this guy makes an income of what I could only dream of making. The possibilities are endless on the actual outcome of this. But you know what you have to take some risks in these events. You can't get you foot in the door if you don't put it there!. I am actually happy that I found this read as it gave me a slight different outlook on a way to make money. I too bought a domain and it came with free hosting for a year. I have put a game on it using a free PHP engine called EzRPG. I think it will bring in some visitors and since its a game, it should bring back a decent rate of people to my site. Also since its a game, with tons of different actions, it generates a lot of page views. A blog is just about the same thing. If you have the correct content for it.

If you like writing, then you can almost enjoy writing a blog. Telling people of you life experiences, tips, pictures, and even videos in today's more popular cultures. For some reason people seem to view and read anything that the internet has to offer. A video on youtube.com can be as stupid as someone gluing their ear to a speaker, yet for some reason it will get view after view. Some even get 1 million views. Which for me is yet to be attained. Like I said before....This is my foot in the door.