I went ahead and bought the Samsung BD-P1600 model because it was on sale and because it had some features that I thought I would enjoy.  It was a very good price for an entry-level Blu Ray player and it came with the Dark Knight Blu Ray movie.

I really liked how even my old DVD’s played fantastically through my older television so I have no isssues with the quality of the product.  I don’t even have an issue with the front cover that comes down when you open the disk tray with the remote like the reviewer at CNET does.  I thought that was a cool feature.  Who cares if you can’t use the front panel controls until you pull the flap down.  Most people use the remote to control their DVD players – from their couch.

But this is not really a review of the Samsung BD-P1600 Blu Ray DVD player but is a review of my buying experience with this player.  I bought this player based on price.  I bought this player while I was in a hurry.  I’m not sure the salesperson who sold it to me would have taken the time to tell me more but what he did tell me was that is was wireless ready and I could watch YouTube videos through my television.  But I needed one thing that he didn’t tell me about -

The Samsung WIS09ABGN LinkStick

When I got the player home I was excited.  Not because I wanted to watch movies in blu ray but because I was going to be able to wirelessly access my home network to watch YouTube videos.  Once I tried to connect to my network I found that I couldn’t without a wireless adapter.  I checked the manual and thought like all the products which tout their own products I would buy any cheap wireless adapter I could find.  Didn’t work.  So I ran around town looking for Samsung’s proprietary adapter.  I found one and have been happy since.

But there is still one more thing…..

The first thing that comes up when you hook up wirelessly the unit asks you if you want to upgrade the firmware.

DON”T DO IT!!!

I tried to but it got stuck at the last step where it says not to stop your unit or it might not work.  It stayed stuck overnight.  A call to customer service and she told me not to upgrade the firmware unless there was something wrong with the unit and it was okay to unplug the unit.  A subsequent search on the internet came back with other people who had the same problems and even worse for those whose upgrade went through.  Now their players are inoperable and they have to send their units back.

Except for this one caveat I would highly recommend this product for those just entering the Blu Ray DVD market.  There is a model upgrade that includes the wireless adapter if you don’t want to hunt around for it later after buying the BD-P1600.

Enjoy your new player.

What I did come up with is a twist.  I’ve been using Twitter to gain followers to funnel some of them to my web pages.  Sometimes I promoted them but most of the time I just collected quotes. <I love motivational quotes> I did all the things to get more followers except pay for anything that supposedly increased your followers list. I did the – Follow all the top people in Twellow and follow their followers.  I also used John Chow’s new twitter site to gain followers.  Both ideas worked well.  But it was all manual.  I found that it took a lot of my time. I wanted something quicker and would work by itself mostly. What I did find was I getting many more followers from one simple fact:

People love to retweet other people who have interesting or useful information or links.

So, I came up with the idea of putting the two of them together.  Twitter and StumbleUpon.

• I will promote this blog post on Twitter.
• Next, you leave a comment with your URL for me to “Stumble” your web site.  Same rules as Nick’s (no porn sites etc., etc.)  Just 1 site please as I don’t think I have as much time as Nick.  Feel free to go over to his web site at http://www.nickstraffictricks.com and he’ll Stumble 3 for you.
• Cut and paste this and post it in your update window in your Twitter account:

RT @Ryan700 Want link Juice? http://bit.ly/3CXkY

What’s going to happen is when people click on the link they’ll come to this blog and leave a comment for me to Stumble their web site.  They’ll go back to their Twitter home page and retweet the last message back to their followers and the cycle begins.  I’ve kept the message short so more than 1 person’s twitter ID can be RT’ed.  Have fun!

• If you haven’t got a Twitter account by all means go to Twitter and sign up for one.  I’m not going to get into the rules and such so have a look around, play with it and follow some random people.  Use the “search” feature for topics that may interest you and you’ll find some people to follow just to get started.
• Once you have your account go to Twellow and sign up and you’ll find people sorted in to categories.  You will be asked to fill in your information including which categories you wish to be included in.  Once you’ve done that then it is time to subscribe to your favorite categories.  Start following the people who have the most followers in their listing.  Go to their home Twitter page and click on their followers link.  Start following their followers.  Do this for a few people in Twello.  There is a 200 follower a day limit at Twitter.  Once you’ve reached 200 followers for the day – stop!  You’ll notice that if you picked your categories or people correctly you’ll probably get about 50% following you back.  This is key.  Do this for a week.
• One you’ve done this for a week you’ll notice that some people followed you back as a result of your efforts.  Some people use Tweetlater or other tool to automatically follow people who follow them. Once you are getting near the 2000 followers mark you should remove the people who aren’t following you back.  You can do this at John Chow’s Twitter Follower web site. You can also gain more followers at Johns site because everyone who signs up at his site promises to follow people back – so sign up.  His list is growing.
• Once you have a momentum going you can also advertise you twitter page.  Comment on people blogs.  Join up at Vinefire and advertise your Twitter page for free.

After doing all these things you’ll find that your list of followers will grow and grow consistently.  Once you’ve got a big list you can start deleting people who don’t fit in with who you are trying to reach.  I try to weed out the people who post every 30 seconds,  who post nothing but advertising or affiliate links or people who tell you every time they go to the store or wash their hair or other mundane things.  Quotes on the other hand are my favorite.  People who publish quotes are handy to have on your list.  I have had many of my quotes that I have saved from other “Tweeple” retweeted on Twitter resulting in more followers joining my list.

“Stand by Me” performed by musicians around the world from SKAT on Vimeo.

Spaghetti marketing is the act of marketing ones websites and products in a seemingly disconnected way in order NOT to spend any money expecting that I may make some money in order to invest in my internet marketing business.

You see, I’ve spent a bit of money downloading products in the past which didn’t give me the results that I wanted. I didn’t get results because these e-books were so long – some were over 300 pages – that I didn’t have time to finish them.  So I decided to go the free route as much as possible.

Actually, most of the things that I found were useful but they took a lot of time.  Article marketing is one of the ways to generate traffic to your web site but after writing about half a dozen articles the ideas are coming slower.   I’m sure my writing will pick up.

There are a few other ways I’ve been able to get more people to my web sites that I’ve learned from good people at the Warrior Forum. A lot of good advice and lot of them free. Like this thread by Todd Lamb and this thread by FlightGuy. These 2 techniques got my follower count at TwitterⓇ from 10 to almost 500 in three days.

I’ve commented on blogs which is another good way to get traffic but it’s random.  I still don’t know if position in the comments section makes a difference or if it is worth commenting on old postings.  I do know that writing a post mentioning someone else’s blog in it can get you back some “link love” as the link-back section is usually at the top above the comments at some blogs.

I’ve tried Free Traffic Exchanges too but that took a lot of time clicking through other peoples web sites which I wasn’t interested in to get credits so other people can click through mine.  I bet most of them weren’t interested in mine either.  I tried to market in Craigslist but they flagged me and deleted my ad for an affiliate product but they allowed me to advertise my free e-book.  I wonder if they’ll allow me to advertise an email capture opt-in page?

It’s time to get serious.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”

If ever there was a comprehensive road map to getting your book “out there” then this is it.  Bob Burnham, best selling author of 101 Reasons Why You Must Write A Book covered a lot of information in this night school course.

Three hours of useful information from writing your book to publishing, printing and promoting it. If you have ever thought of writing a book or even an article to generate more leads, make more money or work less then this is the course for you.   You will learn:

• How to write and publish your own book in 40 days
• How to write your book fast with our BRWT Force writing technology
• Why it is best to self publish your book
• How to attract more customers rather than chasing them
• How to promote and sell your information for the most money
• Why you don’t have to be a writer to be a published author
• How to earn more money in one month than your use to making in one year
• How to self publish your book without any cost to you
• Where you must go to get publicity for your book
• How to niche your information to make it the most valuable
• How to self promote your book and put all the money in your pocket
• The must know reason why most authors are broke and why you will be rich.

I hope that you find this review helpful.  One last thing – I feel that I got more than my moneys worth with this course.

Creativity.  We just don’t know how to be creative anymore.  When we were in school we were always using our brain to come up with creative answers to the tasks at hand.  When I was growing up we didn’t have video games and video on demand every time we got bored.  We made plans to go to the movies.  We made plans to watch a favorite TV show because if you missed it that was it until the next episode the following week.  If you missed seeing a movie the theater there wasn’t a video coming out it the next year.  You had to look for it in the TV schedule if you wanted to see it.

Some of us took piano lessons so we had to practice every day even if we had to be reminded to.   And during the rest of the time we had to be creative.  I took empty cereal boxes and created board games on the blank side of the cardboard.  I made go-carts with the spare parts that my dad gave me.  We even played on the street – games we made up.

So what am I going to do to conquer boredom starting right now so I’m prepared when I’m retired?

• I’ll probably still hang out at the book store but I won’t be spending any money.  Maybe I’ll even get my library card again.
• Do a lot of walking – with my dog and without.  Walking sometimes helps me come up with things to write about on my blog.
• Get a bike and maybe get rid of one of our cars.  Take long bike rides.
• I’d like to continue writing my blog.

So, what are you doing to prepare yourself for filling up the extra time you’ll have when you retire?

Productivity.

What is this word “productivity”?

It used to mean that when a company wanted to increase productivity they wanted to manufacture more stuff in less time and less cost than they did it before. Now it means even your doctor has only 5 or 10 minutes to get all the information he/she can from you before making an assessment. And forget about telling him about more than 1 ailment. You’ll have to make another appointment for that.

What about the bus driver who has to keep to a strict schedule? No doubt as the productivity buzz permeates the atmosphere in management circles their schedules are getting tighter. I’ve been honked at by several impatient bus drivers lately, no doubt because they are late.  Truck drivers are also driving their rigs like sports cars!

Many people are finding themselves doing the jobs of three people after the last round of layoffs. If increasing productivity creates more mistakes then I don’t see the cost saving in it. The pressure to do more with less wears people down and costs more in sick time and medical costs.

I have nothing against boosting productivity as long as it does not create an unsafe situation where people can get hurt.

Drivers who speed because they are trying to get to their next appointment, the next bus stop, or the next load pickup will surely cause accidents.

What price we pay for productivity?