My Life, and Pursuit of Becoming A Millionaire

3 Things To Know Before Buying Thesis Theme

I’ve used the Thesis theme for the last few years and for the most part, I’ve been really happy with it.

Clean code, good SEO control, and a great support forum with very helpful users. And if there’s one feature I’m repeatedly glad for with this theme it is the fact that there is a responsive support forum, because I’ve spent a huge amount of time in the trenches there.

Nothing but love for the gods and girlies on that forum.

So without further ado, here are 3 things that I wish I would have known before jumping on the Thesis theme bandwagon. I won’t try to talk you out of Thesis, but depending on what kind of person you are, what you’re looking for, and how much you love to tinker, there may be better options for your first (paid) WordPress theme. [Continue reading...]

Accounting Software for Affiliate Marketers (And Your Small Business)

I hate quickbooks

First of all, let me get something out of my system: I HATE quickbooks. The only good thing about Quickbooks is that Intuit offers a 30(?) day money back guarantee. No questions asked. And I’ve taken them up on that several times. I’m pretty sure that I have downloaded Quickbooks for Windows at least three different times, and one time on my Mac. Each and every time I am completely overwhelmed, lost, and frustrated because it is obvious that whoever designed quickbooks did so WITHOUT affiliate marketers in mind. And each time I requested, and was granted a refund.

I don’t have “vendors” or “customers” or everything else like that that is standard to most other businesses. I understand that, as such, I’m probably going to be comparing apples to oranges here in several ways, but Quickbooks just sucks. Design sucks, usability sucks, and the fact that they try to upsell you around every single corner (like Godaddy) sucks! Not to mention, I suck at accounting, numbers, and anything that involves taxes. And I don’t have much desire to get better at it. Just give me an f*#ing solution that works and that someone as nubish as me can figure out.

I have been looking for an accounting solution for my small business for probably the last 2-3 years. I finally found one. And it’s free as long as you don’t go over a certain amount of transactions per month. But it’s easily a service that I am willing to pay for as soon as I reach the transaction limit. Thank goodness that I don’t do many transactions though. ;) Now that you’re dying of suspense, I’ll let the cat out of the bag . . .

The service is called Indinero! If you already know about it, then good for you why the hell didn’t you tell me about it a long time ago? If you’re familiar at all with Mint, the online personal finance software, you can think of Indinero as the small business accounting version of Mint. I have a prediction that eventually Indinero will be acquired by Mint, but that’s neither here nor there.

The setup is lightening fast, and once you sign up, you simply connect your business bank/checking account and it automatically imports the last three months of transactions. There is also a manual import that allows you to import further back than three months. So, say you wanted to throw all of your accounting history into Indinero from all of 2010, all you’d have to do is export from Jan 1, 2010 to Dec 31, 2010 into a CSV from your bank, if they offer it, which they should, and then format the data into whatever format Indinero wants it in, which is easy, then import it and you’re good to go.

I was completely lost with my 2010 taxes at the beginning of this year when I was trying to figure all of this accounting crap out. I hate doing taxes by the way. Not that I hate paying them, I just hate that it’s so damned hard to figure out. Anyway, Indinero helped a lot with this. I imported all of 2010′s data from my bank like I mentioned above, then using Indinero, I categorized all of the transactions (which sucked because it took forever), then I ran a P&L report on Indinero for 2010, printed it out, then took that shit to my accountant. He’s filling out the mountains of paper work required for my simple s-corp as we speak. Damnit, I was supposed to call him today. . . It’s 1:52 AM right now. fml.

Moral of the story: Thanks to Indinero, I was able to get my taxes done and the accounting future for my small business looks a lot brighter. I just need to keep up on categorizing my transactions. That’s really the hardest part . . . and it’s not hard. Just makes you think, which is never a good thing.

Indinero kicks ass. Not to mention, one night when I was bored/happy with their service, I sent them an email that simply said “You Guys Kick Ass.” They replied nearly instantly asking me for my mailing address. They sent me some free stickers and a free shirt.

I love you Indinero. Thanks.

Organize Receipts with Shoeboxed

I‘ve owed these guys a shout out for a really long time. They contacted me a few months ago asking me if I’d like to try out their service in exchange for some feedback. (Just a side note: if you ever have had the opportunity to work personally with me, you know that I’m either really reliable and super responsive, or I tend to be extremely unreliable and take forever to respond. I guess it just depends on what day you get at me.) Anyways, they set me up with an account and I started my testing. After several months, I finally have something to say. Organizing receipts with shoeboxed isn’t for me, but I bet it’s for you.

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Most Ergonomic Keyboard on the Planet

I return to you briefly to tell you about my newest discovery in ergonomic awesomeness. Introducing the most ergonomic/comfortable/chopped-in-half keyboard in the universe: Kinesis Freestyle Solo Ergonomic Keyboard. (FYI, you’ll also probably want to buy the VIP accessories kit if you’re thinking of following in my footsteps. This allows you to adjust the incline and adds wrist rests.)

My Kinesis Freestyle Keyboard

My new keyboard sitting on my desk.

I used to think that “ergonomic” was just a buzzword that crafty marketers would use to try to get their products sold. I’m pretty sure that’s really the case, but I have actually found one keyboard that is actually ergonomic. Screw it. This keyboard is just comfortable and I’m sure it’s healthy for my hands, so I’m done using that term for now. Or at least the next 2 seconds…

If you’re anything like me, you spend anywhere from 10-20 hours a day on your computer. Your hands/fingers/wrists started getting tired especially when you had to copy and paste tons. You’ve experimented with Microsoft’s shitty “ergonomic” keyboards and haven’t been satisfied. You’ve probably even experimented with trusted brands like Logitech. I’ve tried them all. Was never impressed. Now I am.

I’m going to say that you need this keyboard if you do what I do. If you’re in the industry. It’s comfortable, the keys are fast, and it sorta looks awesome (or gay depending on your taste).

Right when I busted it out of the packaging I wanted to see if it could handle my amazing typing skills so I put it to the test on the typing speed app on Facebook. Right out of the box I got her up to 98 WPM with zero errors. I’ve been using the Kinesis Freestyle Solo Ergonomic keyboard all day and my fingers aren’t tired, nor are my arms.

I think this keyboard is necessary for your health if you f around on the computer as much as I do. Buy it up. If you buy through my links up above I’ll get a small commission. If you’d rather not buy through my link, I don’t care. Just go to amazon and search the name of this board. You’ll be glad that you bought it. It’s a little pricey I guess, but now that I have it in my finger tips, I think it’s easily worth double the price.

Total price that I paid for the keyboard plus the accessory kit is $145.19 from Amazon.

I could list a few little gripes about the keyboard (like there being no number pad on the side where other normal keyboards have them), but little crap like that doesn’t even add up to minus half a star. This keyboard does what it was made to do and it does it well. 5/5 stars for me.

A Magento WebHosting Company Worth My Time To Write About.

Best Magento Hosting Company

You should know by now that Magento is a very powerful, free, beautiful, and spiffy (that one’s from me) shopping cart software. It’s like oscommerce but a billion times better. I have a long history of talking about (and in some cases, talking smack on) Magento hosting company’s here on this blog. Lucky for you I have found another web host that can handle the demands of Magento.

Enter: WiredTree.

I’ve been using WiredTree for the last couple months, and there are three things that come to mind when I reflect on my experience I have had with them thus far:

1. 100% uptime. No, I really mean it. These guys really are up 100% of the time. Ok, if you insist that 100% is impossible, then just give them a try. I was with Simple Helix before and my site(s) went down multiple times each week. Sure, they always sometimes had a good excuse, but that doesn’t solve the problem.

2. Lightening fast support. Yeah, I bet you’ve heard that claim before. I’m betting you’ve seen the “best customer service” banners and the like from the big guys like MediaTemple. Guess what? I was with MediaTemple about a month ago and the best they could manage was one response per day…and I had to wait overnight to get the response to the previous days question. That just sucks. Especially when you have noob questions like I tend to have. Baby steps sums that one up. Here’s the deal: WiredTree is there for you. Really. Noob questions to complicated, they will usually respond within 15 minutes.

3. Magento Compatible. I currently have the Managed VPS1024 plan (previously had the 512 plan and Magento ran fine on it as well). I plan on moving all of my websites over to WiredTree as soon as I get the nerve to do it. If you’re looking for a Magento host, go with WiredTree. Better performance, service, and better people running the organization in general.

Examples of sites hosted on WiredTree:

1. Well….you’re looking at one. EliteEternity.Com is hosted @WiredTree.
2. My new Mallard Skate Shirts Brand website.
3. Tons of my other sites and blogs that I have actually had the time to migrate.

If you’re debating on whether or not to switch web hosts because you think it will be too complicated to move your blog from wherever you’re at to WiredTree, then think again. I’ve created a guide on how to migrate your blog from Dreamhost to WiredTree. The same principles apply if you’re current host isn’t Dreamhost. You can still follow the guide. I also made a guide on how to reconnect your Google Apps to your new WiredTree account. This guide includes simplified information on all of the seemingly complicated CNAME, MX RECORDS, etc.

P.S. Thanks to Justin Dupre for telling me about WiredTree. He has a great affiliate marketing blog that you should check out if you feel so inclined. Are you reading this, Justin? You should comment on one of my posts so I feel cool. I look up to you. lol.

Pandora For VGA, Windows Mobile, Touch Diamond, Pro. :)

Nathan over at Fluffy Phones just posted about how the folks over at XDA and a few other places have created a patch to allow for us VGA phone users to finally install a working, VGA version of Pandora on our Windows Mobile devices! Although I have yet to test the fix on my Diamond, [...]

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Awesome Place For Free Icons!

iconspedia This is the best place I have found on the web for free icons. For some reason, I had never heard of iconspedia before, but I’m definitely going to be visiting this site quite frequently. I just downloaded my sidebar Twitter, and LinkedIn icons from there. Pretty nifty! Get some free icons!

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