=> 1. News From the Net => 2. Feature Article-""Blogger Secrets: Things You Probably Didn't Know" => 3. Webmaster Resources => 4. Promotional Resources => 5. Other Ezines of Interest => 6. Just for Fun or Useful => 7.E Books and Things of Interest to Publishers => 8. Freeware and Shareware to Download => 9.Subscribe/Remove Information *************************************** Hey Gang The sun is shining here in Northeast Ohio today. Can you believe it? You don't see too much of Mr. Sun during the winter here but I'm glad he's decide to make an appearance. It get's so depressing when it's gray and cold with nothing to comfort you but snow and ice. Yuck! I think Teddy Bear and Dakota have cabin fever. All they do is sleep and eat. Well, they do go to the bathroom too, but how exciting can their life be? Ever wonder what goes on in a Dog's mind? I do. Call me crazy but I do wonder what they think about. Whatever it is it's a lot less then I have to deal with. Maybe my next life I'll come back as a dog. Sleeping all day while someone else worries about paying bills looks like a good deal to me. Did I tell you we still haven't finished fixing the house since our fire? I'm still working in temporary headquarters here in my bedroom while Jim uses a spare room for his office. I call them my room and his but he doesn't seem to like that. He's afraid that shortly I'll have his clothes there and he'll be sleeping alone as well. Geezz what kind of girl does he think I am? Would I do that? (LOL) We are close to finalizing plans to start rebuilding our house soon so stick around it should be exciting. We just want to make sure we do it right and we're going to make some additions and changes at the same time. Did you notice GroundHog Day is Wednesday? Does it seem time already for the "little guy" to stick his head out of that hole? It's up to him if we have 6 more weeks of winter or an early spring. What about those of you in California does he predict something besides snow for you? Or is this just an Ohio thing? If you know the full story make sure to fill old Merle in. More useless knowledge I need <grin>. I was in sales training all last week for my day job. My employer has decided that not only should we service policies but we need to sell them.Yay, now I can multi task even more then I do now. Tonight will be my first night taking sales calls and I must say I'm a bit nervous. I'll let you know how it goes. If you'd like to have your very own MerlesWorld.com toolbar now you can. I designed it myself. Download it now at and while you're there make one for your own website to give away. http://www.effectivebrand.com/LandingPage.aspx/CT7480 If you still haven't downloaded my latest f-r-e-e ebook, shame on you. It's called "50 Easy Ways to Promote Your Website". Get your copy over at my new site http://WebSiteTrafficPlan.com If you'd like a custom copy of the book with your name and URL on the cover I'll do it for only 15.00. Drop me a line and I'll tell you what to do to get it. My online friend Stefan has just launched a new ebook cover design service and he's willing to make covers for only 25.00. Check out his samples at http://www.free-advertising-online.com/samples.htm -Make sure you tell him Merle sent ya. If you don't have an ebook it's always a good idea to have one for your ezine or ecourse. I'd really like to see you over at the discussion board. Please give me your thoughts at http://www.merlesworld.com/webbbs/ Don't forget to bookmark the Blog. You'll want to pay an occasional visit for extra goodies I find. http://merlesworld.blogspot.com/ This week's winner for a free ad is.. Ley Gal of Best Marketing Reviews http://www.BestMarketingrReviews.com/news/ For your own chance to win fill in the survey. You'll find the link at the very bottom of this ezine. A winner is pulled twice a month. Enter now. Thanks for joining me, let's get to the good stuff. If you have any comments you can send them to Me. Merle http://www.MerlesWorld.com http://www.EzineAdAuction.com http://www.MCPromotions.com

Amazon Adds Pictures to Yellow Pages
http://tinyurl.com/6s2f2

------
eBay Flexes Pricing Muscle
http://tinyurl.com/6vqly
-----

AOL Adds Pay Per Call
http://tinyurl.com/4w557

-----
Google Set to Open AdWords Access
http://tinyurl.com/54kny
------

Sponsored Links Extend Their Reach
http://tinyurl.com/6qb37
-------

Google Hires Top Firefox Web Browser Programmer
http://www.bizreport.com/news/8620/

-----
FTC Attorney to Legit Marketers: You Could Be Next
http://tinyurl.com/5y6sd

------
Yahoo Readies Ads for RSS
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1668385,00.asp

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"Blogger Secrets: Things You Probably Didn't Know"

By http://MCPromotionsPress.com

Blogging is a pretty popular activity online these
days. It's a great way to connect with your audience
on the Web and create a sense of community.

There are many ways to start your own weblog but one
of the easiest is with a free service called "Blogger."
Owned by Google, it's a feature-rich service that
makes it simple to start a blog of your own.

If you think blogging is just about typing text,
think again. There are many fun things you can
do once you're up and running withyour very own blog.

1) Photo Blogging: Post photos to your weblog
with this free software called "Hello." Get
it at http://hello.com. It makes it easy to
upload photos to your blog.

2) Audio Blogging: Post to your blog by phone.
Once registered, you'll receive a special number.
Call it, leave a message and it's immediately
posted to your website as an MP3 audio file.
To sign up, go to http://www.AudioBlogger.com

3) Email Posting: Post to your blog by sending
an email from any email application. To set
it up, you'll need to log into your blogger
account and go to "settings" then "email."
You must specify if you want your posts
to publish automatically or saved as drafts
for later publishing. The subject of your
email will be the title of your blog post,
with the email body making up the rest of it.

4) Team Blogs: This allows groups of people
to contribute to one blog. One person must
create the blog, then invite others to join in.

5) Templates: Blogger has over 30 templates
to choose from. Make sure you back up your
blog before attempting any changes. There
are also third party template providers you
can choose designs from. See:

http://BlogSkins.com
http://BlogDesigns.com

6) Blogger Toolbars: Google has one built into
its toolbar that makes it a snap to post to
your site while visiting any webpage you might
want to comment on. Firefox also has a toolbar
of its own with blogging components. See it
at http://FireFoxToolbar.com/ blogger or Google's
at http://toolbar.google.com/

7) Feeds: Blogger users can syndicate their
content via an Atom Feed. Former Blogger Pro
suscribers can choose between Atom and RSS
formats. You can find this feature in your
Blogging account under "settings," then "site
feed." If you'd rather syndicate in RSS, your
only choice is to use an outside service like
http://FeedBurner.com

8) Comments: If you'd like your readers to
participate on your Blog, you'll want to turn
on "comments." Found under "settings," you
can choose from preferences like allowing
anyone to post a comment, allowing only
regular users to post comments, or allowing
only members of the blog to post (if it's a
team blog).

9) TagBoards: Different from comments, TagBoards
also allow your blog readers to post comments.
These act more like a discussion board or chat
room for your blog. However, they're not aimed
at individual posts but attached to your entire
site. You'll find free providers of this service
at:

http://Tag-Board.com
http://ChatterBox.com

This is a great way to add a feeling of community.

10) PhotoBlogs: If you'd like to share a
lot of photos with your readers on a regular
basis you may want to add a "photo album."
You'll find many sites that offer this free
service such as:

http://Shutterfly.com
http://Ofoto.com
http://DotPhoto.com

11) Polls: Do you know what your readers think?
Running polls on your site is a great way to
get inside your readers minds and get them
involved with your blog. A few free poll service
providers are:

http://FreePolls.com
http://PollHost.com
http://BraveNet.com
http://WebPollCentral.com

12) Advertising: If you'd like to run ads on
your blog and get paid per click, you'll want
to look at Google Adsense. Since Google owns
Blogger too, they make it simple to add their
advertising to your site. See,
http://tinyurl.com/3j3k8

13) Camera Phones: If you have a SrintPCS cell
phone with a built in camera you can send your
pictures directly to Blogger. You'll need to
set up an "email address" to post to. For
instructions, see Blogger's Help section on
"posting via email." On your phone it works
like this: you snap a picture, select "share,"
pick your specific blogging email address,
then ok. Your picture is uploaded.

14) Keyboard Shortcuts: Blogger has many different
keyboard shortcuts you can use while making a
post.

cntrl + B= Bold
cntrl + I= Italics
cntrl + shift + A= Link
cntrl + d= Save as draft
cntrl + s= Publish Post
cntrl + shift + P = Preview

15) FTP: You can host your blog on Blogger's
server, or host it on your own via FTP
access. You'll find this option under "settings"
then "publishing."

16) Email Posts to a Friend: If you'd like to
allow your visitors to email your interesting
posts to their friends you can enable this feature
under "settings," basic tab, then where it says
"show email post links?" say yes.

If you'd like to watch some free tutorials
on "Learning Blogger," see these by Molly
Holzschlng at http://tinyurl.com/6euw3

So what are you waiting for? Now that you know
all of the really cool things you can do with
Blogger, why not experiment. Who knows, maybe
there's been a "born Blogger" hiding inside of
you all along. Blog away my friend; the world
is waiting.

=====================================
Merle of WebSiteTrafficPlan.com offers a
F-r-e-e ebook and an e-course that will
teach you how to promote and market your
website. Grab your copy now at
http://WebSiteTrafficPlan.com

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Doctor HTML

Quick, somebody call a doctor? Run a single web page
thru this online diagnostic test. Check for document
structure, meta tags, spelling, even dead links. Very
handy for checking for existing problems.

http://www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML/

-----

Backup to FTP Server

This tutorial will walk you thru the steps of
backing up your data via FTP to a remoter server.
Believe me, if you don't ever do a backup there
will come a day when you willl regret it.

http://tinyurl.com/42oov

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***********************************
Useful Tips
***********************************

Convert Color Graphics to Black & White w/Photoshop

It's easy to change a color graphic to black and
white with Photoshop. Simply open your image
then select image then adjust, channel mixes. Then
check the "monochrome" box and that's it. If you'd
like to lighten or darken the image play with the
sliding color controls.

"Need Traffic?"

John Reese has put together the most complete home
study course on how to get traffic to your website.
Take advantage of John's 10 years of online marketing
experience and strategies he used to generate over
1.57 website visitors to his own sites. This course
includes 7 DVD's, 6 CD's and over 500 pages of text.

http://www.mcpromotions.com/johnreese.htm

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If you'd like to swap ads with this ezine please send your
requests to mailto:adswap@merlesworld.com Please include
your ezine name and the number of subscribers.
-------------------

ATTENTION: Small Online Biz Owners!

If you're trying to market your Website and are not
sure where to turn, subscribe to MC Promotions Press
Newsletter and get the information you need to be a
success online. Sure-Fire Promotion/Marketing Tips.
Sites that will help you. Little known advertising
tricks.....and much more. Start increasing traffic
to your site Now http://www.MCPromotionsPress.com

Go Back Up

Safety Sign Builder

Want to build some fun signs? These look like the real
warning signs you see in the workplace but you can add
your own sick twist and print em out.

http://www.stclaire.com/go/industrial_signage/sb2/html

--------

Google Friends Newsletter

Is Google your favorite search engine? Then you
may want to sign up for their ezine. Messages
include updates on Google search features,
business partnerships, and products in
development. Now you'll always be the first to
know about any exciting news at Google.

http://www.google.com.au/contact/newsletter.html

-------

Low Rate Credit Cards

This site has thoroughly researched over 200
credit cards. You will find the Top Credit
cards in the nation with the lowest interest
rates and most of them have no annual fee.
They also included their unbiased opinions on
each one of them.

http://www.lowcards.com/

Go Back Up

"50 Easy Ways to Promote Your Website"

This f-r-e-e ebook contains over 100 resources that
will help you get traffic to your website quickly
and inexpensively. Grab your copy now at:

http://www.websitetrafficplan.com/ebook.htm

Go Back Up

Abilon

"Abilon displays headlines from RSS Channels in an
easy to read format. It is small (about 500 kb),
fast, and free. Adding new channels is as simple
as right-clicking and entering the address of the
feed.Abilon displays headlines from RSS in an easy
to read format. It is small (about 500 kb), fast,
and free." I downloaded this and I really, really
like it.

http://www.abilon.org/

--------

PowerPoint 2DVD

"A very simple yet practical tool to convert your
power point to DVD or miniDVD. You can burn a
miniDVD just with a regular CD and a common CD
burner) and view them on your TV, complete
with background image or color, background
music, and selection menu" This is a great
way to watch your PowerPoint Presentation
without a computer or create biz presentations
and send them to clients.

http://www.powerpoint-to-dvd.com/

--------

Master Pre-Installation Tester

Another great free tool by the Willmaster.
"With Master Pre-Installation Tester, you can
test your server to see if it meets a script's
requirements before you buy/download
and try to install it. "

http://willmaster.com/master/pit/

Go Back Up

Well, that wraps it up,once again thanks for joining me.
If you have any comments please send them to comments@merlesworld.com or visit the site.

For advertising rates for this ezine visit http://www.merlesworld.com/advertising.htm

Current subscriber base is over 3,200- My list is clean as all email addresses are removed the very first time they bounce.
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If you are not a subscriber and would like to be send mailto:subscribe@merlesworld.com

For great web hosting or if you're in need of a programmer contact mailto:DavidBlack@SiteDesignandHosting.com .He's wonderful and an expert at what he does. Tell him "Merle" sent ya.

P.S. I am currently in need of testimonials for this ezine.If you enjoy it please let me know. Send to mailto:testimonials@MerlesWorld.com
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I'm now offering my articles for syndication on your website All you have to do is paste SOME code where you want the article to appear and every 10 to 14 days when I update it on my end it will display a fresh article on web design/ maintenance on your site. Easy to do and gives you fresh content without any work whatsoever. For more info and to get to the code Click Here.

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Disclaimer: Merle's World does not accept any responsibility for any liabilities as resulting from any claims in this newsletter or by the advertisers in it. This newsletter is for informational purposes only. We respect your privacy and do not share our mailing list with anyone. All content provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Comments in this ezine are strictly the opinion of the publisher. Merle does not endorse, and is not responsible for, the above ads. Please use your own discretion when responding to ads in this ezine. Copyright 2001-2004 All Rights Reserved. View our Privacy Policy and our...Site Disclaimer

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