…with Generalized Dystonia
Up until Friday or so, I used to get a lot of trackback SPAMs on this blog which Akismet caught. Over this weekend and even today, however, I haven’t received any of them at all. It’s like as if my site has disappeared from their radar as well as from the ‘Net. I wonder if this has anything to do with my Google PR drop.
Have you noticed this on your blog?
I’ve seen this on some of the blogs before, but I didn’t bother to check it out until today. Basically, rssHugger is a free promotional service for blogs to attract potential loyal readers and increase the traffic by listing your RSS feed on their directory. The more you blog, the higher the chance of you getting listed on their “Top 100″ which gets reset every month to give everyone the equal chance. It comes down to how active you are with your blog, but even if you aren’t that active, users will still be able to find you if your blog contains what they are looking for.
So it’s a great service for bloggers like myself looking for wider exposures on the Blogosphere. 
In early November 2007, my PR dropped from 5 to 3, and it suddenly plumped to 0 yesterday presumably after its bot indexed the site. It appears that I’m not alone, though, as there are at least a couple of posts about this over at Google Webmaster Forums. It’d be very nice if their Webmaster Tools was able to tell me the reason for the drop.
Looks like my money-making days are over, at least until the next update. 
What’s your Google PR?
Edit: At least they’ve apparently fixed their link command. 
Using this extension, I’ve made it so that the paid posts are excluded from my RSS feed, because even I wouldn’t want to read those and get bombarded with them in my reader. However, I’m not too sure about my FeedBurner RSS feed if it gets its contents from my own RSS or something else. Let me know if it’s the latter, and I’ll think about getting rid of it and just use my own. In any case, I’d appreciate it if you’d subscribe to my feed.
Nowadays, there are numerous contests held by other blogs that promise either free advertisement space or EntreCard credits and some even offer real money or gift to increase the traffic to their sites. Most of them encourage you to write about the contest on your own blog, and some even state that doing so will increase your chance of winning by a certain percentage. Also, there are contests asking you to subscribe to their RSS feed by e-mail.
Well, I don’t do any of them, because…
What’s your opinion?
I’ve added a comments form to my page template and made it appear only where comments are allowed (open). Also, as you can see, I’ve used a JavaScript (DHTML) so that the form is expandable / collapsible as the form on pages looks kind of ugly. Just in case you want to incorporate it on your site, it’s this one.
For work, I need to find a service / company that offers a free / cheap donation service for non-profit organizations. I know PayPal has that feature, but I think they are pretty expensive — especially for organizations like us. They charge 2.9% + $.30 for every transaction, and they don’t offer “specials” for non-profits which I think they should just for their PR.
Anyway, I’m asking for your help! Do you know such an online service that’s cheaper than PayPal?
Like Ivy said, I think I’m going through andropause which could have started a little early for me because of Deep Brain Stimulation surgeries I had in 2004. There are days when I’m very irritable, angry, tired and unmotivated despite that I’m taking an anti-depressant, and I’m also at that age for a mid-life crisis. When that strikes, it would be quite serious since I have depression. I’m hoping that it would just pass me by or go through it quickly, because I can’t afford to both financially and medically; that is, I can’t afford to not work, and I can’t just try any other anti-depressant because of my Dystonia.
The ol’ man isn’t helping at all, either. You see, I’m very sensitive to sounds when I’m not doing so well physically and emotionally, but he raises his voice (and he’s very loud) even in the mornings I need to sleep in because of my condition — for nothing. I’d write a book on how inconsiderate and insensitive he is!
I found out about Marie Digby just yesterday, and she has all of what it takes to be a great singer… voice, beauty and talent. She plays both guitar and piano very well, probably better than most professional singers her age. She was noticed in just 2 weeks by Hollywood for her song “Umbrella” and appeared on radio as well as on TV, so I guess she’s that good.
She has that little huskiness in her voice which would be great for R&B and soul music in my opinion.
By the way, she’s half Irish and half Japanese which, I think, are a perfect match. She’s gorgeous, isn’t she? But then, I’d be biased as I like Irish and Japanese / Korean women! 
 I hope she doesn’t turn out like Britney Spears.
Yup, I’m selling it on eBay here. It’s totally brand new in its original case and box, so if you are interested, please place a bid. I didn’t even open its casing, so I’m certain that it has everything that’s supposed to come with it. However, I’m only shipping within U.S. including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.