February Update : Day 10

A week has went by so I thought it was time to give an update. This is a big update for me. A couple of things happened over the past week.

I fixed my gaming computer. Turns out all it needed was a new power supply. I found one pretty cheap on the Internet. $17.99. It might be cheap but it is 550 watts and it runs my PC just fine. No more loaner PC for me. The one I had was just so old but I am glad I had it for the moment, as it allowed me to purchase the power supply.

I currently have 361 page views for the 9 days it has counted. That is almost 40 page views a day on average. I need around 54 page views a day on average to attain my goal. However something happened today. I had submitted 3 articles for up-front payments. I received an email today letting me know one of them was declined for up-front. My morale was shot but I went on to publish it as a Display Only. Later on I received another email saying that an offer has been made. They are willing to pay me $3.53 for one of the articles, then another one about an hour later for $3.00. This made me very happy and raised my morale through the roof.

I had a very good weekend. I'm back to being able to play games and have a fast computer to do my work on. Faster computer makes researching things easier. Especially when you need to read from one page and type on another. Windows 7 helps me do that. That is for sure. I had Windows XP on the loaner PC and it had Microsoft Word on it. I wrote all of my stuff using that so now I am used to it. I will be getting it for Windows 7 because I don't like the Word that it comes with much. Not enough features and no spell check.

Getting Life Back Into An Old PC

So I have been wanting to game for some time now, and I have been able to play some games. The loner computer I have right now is an old dinosaur of a PC, as you can tell from the specs below.

Most applications and games now require at least 1GB of RAM to run. Along with a crappy integrated video controller from Intel. This things runs about as slow as can be. My gaming rig was a pretty decent build.

Equipped with:

• Phenom X4 9100e Processor
• 750 GB Hard Drive SATA
• 4 GB of DDR2 SDRAM 240-pin PC2 6400/800MHz
• 2 GB Overclocked EVGA GeForce GTS 250 PCI-E Graphics Card.
• MSI K9N2 SLI Platinum nForce 750a Socket AM2+ Mother Board

The bad part is, it will not boot up. I replaced the mother board, but it didn't do much good, still no boot. Changed out power supply and still no boot. That really only leaves the RAM, mother board, processor, and power switch. Since you should be able to boot/post with no RAM being seated, but get an error post. That rules out the RAM. That leaves the processor/w heat sink and fan, and the power switch. I tried to short the power switch on the mother board but it still did not create a boot. That leaves me to believe that it is the processor.

So I will start off by trying to replace the processor since I have no way to test it on another working pc that will match the socket.
Update: Feb, 11 2011

Found out it was only a power supply issue all along. Replaced with a 550 watt PSU and now I am back on my gaming pc. This makes me a happy customer. 

Multi-Tackler

With today's society the way it is, people must often tackle many tasks at once. I find myself constantly doing this. Constant multiple tasks in front of me. It gets frustrating at times.

Along with trying to find some solid work, it makes life more stressful. Bills pile up while the income does not. I have found some ways to make money. Though it is no nine to five job. I don't have to put in 40 hours a week though or break my back doing it. I get to do something I enjoy. I do my own training for it and I'm my own boss of sorts.

You have to be good at many things these days to get around in this world. From being able to drive and change the radio at the same time. If not you are prone to causing some serious damage. Think of the pilot who has to read 20+ gauges at the same time, to make adjustments in his flight.

With teenagers playing more video games then ever. Its no wonder that hand eye coordination is better then in previous decades. Computers allow us to do this in the masses. I can have anywhere from 3-5 tabs open in one window, while controlling a media player and some other windows as well.

You have to have some grasp of technology to be able to keep up in today's world.

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. 

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.

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