darren h.

Scam.com is a free open forum that I believe is for reporting online scams and help people avoid getting ripped off. I was on this forum about a year ago just trying to help answer other people's questions about various money making programs and try to just give some advice on what worked and didn't work for me. Most of these questions are from "newbies" to the internet marketing world just looking for a little sound advice that they can trust.
Seems like a great thing that's happening right? I learned very quickly that there is a venomous poison running through this forum and no antidote in sight.(sorry for the mellow-drama moment, got carried away)
Lots of problems on this forum, and my first insight came from noticing a few certain members who are posing as some type of authority and expert. But who knows what they really know if anything? Every question someone had on whatever system or program they were interested in finding out about, the same clowns, I mean... "experts" would be quick to trash everything someone mentioned. One guy, who was a senior member had 400 + posts, I read through all of them( well most of them) and out of the at least 400, about 390 of his expert advice and opinion was this type of wording: " Stay away from blablabla, they are not legit." That's it? Um, excuse me sir, but what kind of expert advice is that? Oh please don't strain yourself and your brain usage because obviously you have the answers and why should you go out of your way to explain WHY I should avoid this company"
The second problem I saw with this forum was that as soon as one of these expert guys trashed talked the competition, they sure weren't hesitant to put their website links to direct the same people to their awesome crap they were trying to peddle.
And believe me when i say, they were selling crap, because I checked every one of their websites and so-called legit programs and my built in BS alarm was in overdrive.
Also, these idiot advisers were pointing their judgmental little fingers at certain successful internet marketers who I have personally worked with in the past and used their methods and made money doing so. It was obvious what was going on here, and I felt really bad for these people who just wanted to avoid being ripped off and were looking for a little guidance and support.
On top of all that, whenever i happened to be on that site, it depressed me and angered me even long after I logged off. I would be so bold to say that, If you are on a website like this and it makes you depressed and angry? Chances are this is not a good website

Pretty decent website with articles, web tools, graphics etc. that you can use for your web page and link to which creates content for your site.
Oh yeah, and it's all free... I like free.

Matt Drudge's drudge report news portal has not changed it's look since it came out in 1997. The most consistent website I've ever seen. It is simple, user friendly and doesn't cause migraines. I personally use this site as my go-to for all aspects of world news be it mainstream or alternative. I guess it's true what they say, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Someone sent me the link to this website a while back and my head still aches from it. Too many colors! I would say, the worst looking design website I have ever seen. I think it's a portal site for political news wires but because of the overload of nonsense on it I just can't tell for sure.
It is however broken up into categories, and if you can hang in there you can figure it out eventually. The funny thing about this site is it's page rank on google and alexa.
Google gives it a 4 out of 10 and its world rank on alexa is 20,127. That's rather impressive considering it's ugly factor. Without doing a little research I'll assume this site has been out for quite a few years because mostly I base that on the unbelievable amount of word content it has.
Bottom line is, I don't like this site, it hurts.
Now i must go and lie down for a while after that visual assault I just endured again.

I've read through a few different people's tweets to figure out if twitter is in some way relevant to me. I came to the conclusion that unless you are a famous person or movie star, or you are Indianna Jones, Twitter doesn't apply to you. Because I don't care and I cannot imagine who would care to know that "you have the night off and your going to be curling up with a good book". Use... less info. Here are some example blurbs I read from a few different tweeters and I'm not sure whether to laugh or be depressed about this. Ready?

A tweeter with 45 followers ("?") who must be either family or friends being nice or just really, really boring jobless people with nothing at all to do during their day.
" I just bought some wonderful flower pattern shorts for ten dollars each, wow, what a deal!" Ohhhh Kay.
Same Tweeter 15 minutes later: " I think I'll weed my garden, I love my tomatoes"

OMG! How is this information in any way shape or form relevant or remotely interesting. I guess if I have a tomato garden I suppose. NO! NO! NO! Not even if I did have a tomato garden would I care what this person is doing in 15 minutes.

Here's a different tweeter with a fascinating life: " Marge coming over for tea"
20 minutes later: " Marge called and can't make it"
Do you know why Marge ain't coming? Marge got in her car and then suddenly realized that she would rather watch a test pattern on t. V. for 8 hours straight then to sit with you again and listen to the drone of your voice!
I know I sound mean, but come on, really? Is this what we use the internet for now? People for the most part lead pretty mundane lives, Especially me. I can't fathom documenting my activities daily and thinking that someone would like to know what I'm doing all the time.
Here is the ultimate Tweet in narcissism, which by the way is a disturbing trend in Facebook as well.
Tweeter says: " Well, I'm off to Cuba for fun and sun with Richard and the gang. Just closed a deal and gonna buy a new Jag. Loving Life baby!
10 minutes later: Oh yes, who's the man? Just got the hottest chick's number last night, maybe I'll call her now and not say too much-wanna be a mystery. Too many women, not enuff me"

Wow, unreal.
This is a real tweet. I couldn't make this up if I tried. In fact I had to read it a couple of times just to be sure it wasn't a clever joke bit. I guess I laughed unintentionally thinking it was a "bit" I thought, why not just right down "bla bla bla "look how awesome my life is" bla bla bla " I'm so awesome" bla bla bla. Pledge yourself and praise me.( lol)!
The scary thing is, that there are hundreds of these people who are either full of BS or they are living the dream. More like, living in a dream I think. My conclusion is that tweeting seems to all just come across rather pathetic and a cry for someones attention. Twitter is not for me, that's for sure
Wait, maybe Twitter does have a purpose. I did laugh for a solid hour while on it, so I guess it's entertaining at least.

Who on the planet doesn't know what facebook is? Ok, maybe a few African, aboriginal and eskimo tribes who are oblivious to technology. I'll assume if your reading this, you know what facebook is about. If you don't know, I can sum it up with the phrase "social networking king." Facebook took cyberspace by storm a few years back and at the time, "myspace" which was in 2006 the #2 website on the net and the most popular, started to lose ground at a furious rate. Now Facebook is the juggernaut of the social networking craze and myspace is... a... well, not.
I have a fascination with facebook, not because of it's popularity, not because of it's networking tools, or even why people are on it. What I find interesting is how Facebook is trying to save face(no pun intended) with its privacy issues right now. More importantly, I don't understand how people are confused about the privacy settings. Facebook has changed its privacy policy wording numerous times throughout its history basically to appease people who think they're privacy is compromised and to hold the top dog title. But to me, it all says the same thing. Here is what you need to always remember, because If you are not sure about where you stand in terms of your photos, video and written content you post online, just remember two things.
1. Every word you type, photo or video you upload to your facebook page becomes property of Facebook.

2. Assume that everything you put on the world wide web is there forever, and ever, even if it is only confusing looking source code.

If you're cool with that fact, then carry on. If not, read their specific privacy policy and take some aspirin for the giant headache after reading through it all. I found their policy easy to understand, but very tedious and very wordy. I understand why, because they have to protect themselves legally of course, but dear god, it's probably the last thing I would ever want to read.

Also, if I had a Facebook account I would assume that any photos I put on my account that are public access may show up on other websites specifically for advertisers selling products or whatever.
Don't be too shocked if one day you're surfing and you come across a pop up ad on some website with your kids picture on it selling baby products or your bikini clad girlfriend who's photo you uploaded to your facebook album is now part of a "meet sexy singles" ad or something. This actually happened to someone I know. The problem is trying to trace the origin of where the advertiser got the photo. Facebook has thousands and thousands of pictures and are easily accessed by advertisers to help them sell their stuff. Good news is that chances of you seeing yourself in their ads, probably very slim due to the amount of websites that exist now. Now If you can keep those two things in mind and you are not too concerned about it, then by all means keep writing on the "wall" and posting your pics.

Overall, I know it sounds like I'm bashing Facebook but I'm not. I think that it's a brilliant idea and a very useful tool used for it's intended purpose. I only find it funny when there are a surprising amount of people including some of my family and friends who are horrified to learn that your only as private as the content you upload.

I like this website, it's simple, easy to navigate through, has tons of tools and resources to help you with your website and best of all it's free.
Also note, every website I check out is scanned automatically for malware /spyware and any other bad scripts hidden in the source coding that could harm a computer and this website came up clean.

Submitting your URL to a directory can be a bit tedious. I learned the hard way a while back when I was a newbie that there are some directories that instead of helping you get your web page noticed, can get your web page banned from some search engines. After I learned that lesson, I came across this website that is free to join( like most of them) and provides a huge list of "safe directories" to add your website to. The only thing that you have to remember is when you sign up and give them an email, be sure to create a disposable email like a gmail account that will handle massive amounts of advertisers. Part of the reason it's a free service is that you are allowing other advertisers to send you email in exchange for traffic to your website.

Great website for your kids. Incorporates fun games that teach your child the alphabet and how to pronounce the letters using pictures and sound. This website was recommended by my 4 year olds JK teacher. Makes learning fun for them and helps boost their self confidence. I Highly recommended this website.

This is a great site where artists can create original artwork using the sites embedded canvas much like if you are using photoshop. Once you finish your drawing or painting you publish it and other artists on the website can rate your work, give constructive criticism, etc. You can browse thousands of artworks under whatever category and also comment and rate other peoples art. A very fun and free website to build rapor with other artists, learn new things, and do what you love to do best as an artist.