Recent Blog Entries
Noteworthy Content of the Week
Written by Darice de Cuba on June 29, 2011
With the impending release of the last Harry Potter movie and the newly announced Pottermore website, it has inspired several webloggers to write creative and factual posts. Even I started reading the whole series with the impending movie release. I got two weeks till the premiere on July 13th and only just now started with book 2.
21 Personal Finance Lessons From Harry Potter
Fred and George love playing pranks. By the end of the Harry Potter series, the twins are no longer just selling their products around school, but they’ve launched their own extremely successful business, Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, based on that love.
How Harry Potter Could Influence Ecommerce
By selling D2C (direct to consumer) and removing DRM in favor of watermarking, JK Rowling and company are breaking new ground in online selling. Whether other brands follow suit is yet to be seen, but it appears the consumer and Rowling will both be winners as a result of this move.
Green Lantern is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes right down to it.
At its core, the movie’s moral, much like the comic, is essentially to overcome fear.
I heard only bad things about the Green Lantern, it’s nice to read a review by someone with extensive comic books knowledge. Based on his review I’ll wait for the DVD release, I have been spoiled too much by X-Men: First Class.
Leave comments on other niche blogs and link back to your blog when appropriate. Why is this important? Networking is good for freelancers—you never know when you will impress someone and they pass your information along to a potential client. And aren’t you more likely to to get a lead from someone you have something in common with?
Some good advice here if you want to start blogging or getting more serious about it.
Chunking and what to write right now
Rather than fret and worry about the thousands and thousands of words I have left to write, I’m going to try and split things into more manageable, less daunting chunks. Let’s call it chunking.
This is good practice for more than writing only. When coding a website I tend to split the work in categories and tackle them one by one, it can be tempting to jump between Photoshop and back end coding instead of focusing on one at a time.
With summer in full swing in the northern hemisphere I noticed a general slow down of new entries on the 9rules feed and all around the web. Summer, the low season of internet. As long as new content keeps coming, even in lower rate it’s always better than no content at all.
Noteworthy Content of the Week
Written by Darice de Cuba on June 16, 2011
It shows that while women make up 66% of e-book “power buyers,” in 2009, they were just 49% of e-book customers. The “power buyers,” meanwhile, make up about 18% of the total people buying e-books today but buy a stunning 61% of all e-books purchased.
It’s fascinating how since the release of the Kindle, e-books have become mainstream. I do feel sad about bookshops that have/may have to close due to less sales. Where I live the best CD shop, meaning they had a lot of niche and hard to find music, have closed their doors since iPod and iTunes. The few LP shops have also gone out of business. Even though I own a Kindle I take proud in my bookcase and will continue to buy hard copy,
Why you should enter writing competitions and submit your work to magazines
Scribbling alone in your room is all good and well, but it’s important to pop your head round the door every now and again and say hello to the rest of the writing world.
It might also me good to cultivate a thick skin. On the other hand, just publishing your writing on a weblog and allowing comments will do that.
– she’s alive, and we can’t focus on anything but being alive, because there simply isn’t anything else.
A reminder in an era where we barely take a minute to slow down from working, buying and stressing mostly.
Movie Review: J.J. Abrams’ Super 8
Abram’s Super 8 pays homage most to Spielberg’s 1980?s classics in its last act. Here it is most emotionally gripping and brings into the morality of humanity and our appreciation of life, much like Spielberg did with his classic E.T.
I read from others that Super 8 is this era “The Goonies”. I can’t wait to see it, it will be out in August here in the Netherlands. I always loved movies like “The Goonies”, “Stand By Me” and “The Sandlot”.
These days, almost every tech related issue seems to have the question “How much would it cost to solve this problem?”. That’s a far cry from the original “Where can I find the best hack to make this work?” that I used to have.
My first website was on Lycos I think? I remember I used a Javascript to hide the banner ads. I had a computer I built myself, even added custom led lights to it. Being a student back then I tried to do everything the cheapest way possible instead of just walking in a computer shop to buy a quick fix.
Noteworthy Content of the Week
Written by Darice de Cuba on June 8, 2011
This week is focused on personal posts, a ‘dying art’. These bloggers write about personal topics on a high non MySpace level. “Slow Days” is a beautiful prose, which I consider a personal post. You can put the personal in any kind of post, it’s the difference between a cold commercial weblog or a weblog with actual social interaction.
Yesterday I read a post on a weblog I follow on how the author just moved. He narrates in a fun way about the perils of moving. I could instantly identify with him just having moved myself. I ended up sending him a mail sharing my own experience. That’s what I like most about weblogs, the sharing and social contact.
A lot of time a tweet is just not enough. Lots of webloggers turn to Twitter telling themselves they have nothing good to write about on the weblog. Your faithful readers rather read two paragraphs of what you have to say instead of nothing at all. There is a lot of irrational pressure on producing posts of high standards. Weblog is free form writing, there is no rule you have to write a minimum of 500 words and have excellent grammar. As long as you put excitement and/or passion in what you have to say. A pro baseball player doesn’t hit home-runs all the time either.
So while Puff Daddy made millions on Notorious B.I.G.’s death, I rocked out as some of emo’s most important albums were released: [...]
It rains. Starts slowly with a pitter, then a patter, then the sky breaks open, empties itself on us. We are too soaked to run so we walk. We skip, we hop, we dance around each other, we laugh, our voices like thunder.
How to Trick a Girl into Watching a Superhero Movie
If you’re anything like me, you’ve already begun thinking about how you can possibly trick convince the girl (or guy) in your life to see one all of these with you.
I’m talking about the process of figuring out how to use all my skills and interests in the manner that brings me personal satisfaction. What is it that I can ultimately become? That is a unique challenge, and I suspect it isn’t all that common.
Noteworthy Content of the Week
Written by Darice de Cuba on June 2, 2011
Two more buttons have joined the uncountable number of available social buttons. Google +1 and Twitter’s “Follow”. Personally I’m not a fan of sites filled with buttons to share content. You should analyze really well which ones benefits you more. Try to keep the buttons to a maximum of five.
How to Add Google +1 Button to Your Site
Google has just released the Google +1 button which webmasters can add to their site / blog and enable visitors to give a recommendation to Google and your friends about your site.
Twitter’s New Button Keeps Followers on Your Site
Twitter’s new “Follow” button allows fans to follow you without ever leaving your website. It’s one click (as long as they’re currently logged in to Twitter) and you’re done.
50 Things You Won’t Say On Your Death Bed
I always remind people who work too hard that no one on their dead bed ever said, “I wish I worked more”.
I’m proud of all those late night e-mails I sent out to co-workers proving I was still working
That cosmetic surgery was the best thing I ever did
How much money is in my bank account?
I’d rather be alone if you don’t mind
Amazon’s Book Publishing Plans Brings Hope to Independent Writers
Sources close to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos are indicating the company may be about to launch its own book publishing house. The news comes a week after the company announced that its retail bookselling division is now selling more Kindle Books than eBooks.
I don’t know if I should be happy about this or not. I have a Kindle, but I still like hardcopy books and competition on the publishing market. You know the story about how every major publishing house rejected J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter manuscript. It was only Bloomsbury who saw the great potential. My point is, Amazon can start publishing as long as they don’t aim to clear out competition.
But here I was at this conference and I was hearing people espouse my pet theories as fact. Many of them had had the resources to do actual studies or tests to back up these theories. And even whilst I learned from them … I mostly learned that I needed to trust myself more and I needed to really start acting on my ideas. It was definitely a confidence booster.
Well written personal weblogs that makes you recognize some things about yourself.
Noteworthy Content of the Week
Written by Darice de Cuba on May 30, 2011
Last week there was no “Noteworthy Content of the Week”, the past three weeks I was in the process of signing for a new apartment, removing the wallpapers, painting walls, buy stuff, get friends to install them, packing, moving last week and unpacking.
Today is my first day back in the daily routine. I sit at the same desk in a new place beside a window which looks out on the opposite apartment buildings. I live in the city now and there are people and neighbors everywhere. Lets see if the move and change of location will inspire me to write some posts on my own weblog.
If last week you posted something you’d like linked here, drop a comment and I’ll check it out. Without further ado, this week posts:
What Can You Buy for $1 These Days?
Back in 1930, the humble dollar could get you a decent table lamp, a quality bathrobe, or roughly six gallons of regular gas. But these days, it’s hard to find anything that costs $1 or less.
Why We’re So Bad at Predicting How Long a Task Should Take
First, we fail to consider our past experiences when planning. When planning, people perceive the specific task or activity that they need to complete as unique. That is, they tend to disregard the time that was needed to complete the same, or similar tasks or activities, in the past.
How I Hit The First Page Of Google For The Term Life Coach
Do you know what it was?
“Ask for help!”
The only way I can improve on that (and please avert your eyes if you’re easily offended) is to say:
“For fucks sake, ask for help and stop being so stubborn!”
11 Simple Rules of Excellent Houseguest Etiquette
Think you have what it takes to get invited back again and again? Perhaps you do — but only if you’re following these nonnegotiable rules of houseguest etiquette.
A blog is measured by its productivity. Or, it’s measured by its quality. It’s measured by different things by different people in different situations, and those different factors lead to different differences. No one knows what a successful blog is, outside of “this blog makes me money, dawg.”
