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The Perfect World

In a perfect world, I would have written tons of posts between my last post, and this one, but I didn’t. Fuck that, the world is far from perfect, but you have to make it as good as you can, don’t you agree? I think I finally ended on the right track, after looking around to find my way. For one, I am going to the gym so frequently that my body is starting to change, but more about that later. Business wise I seem to have my things going the way they should. I can basically do what I want, and by the first of September one of my dreams will come through, but more about that later as well.

27 inch iMac Core i7
My New Set-up – 27 inch iMac Core i7

First, you should know that I have been using my brand new 27 inch iMac Core i7 for quite some time already, and I love every bit of it. Every time I have to turn on my old PC to transfer some files or so, I experience the difference in the first person. Boy o boy, do Windows machines suck! I also installed Parallels to be able to use my former Windows applications, as in the past I have acquired many (useful and, oh well… not so useful) licenses to different kinds of software. This is a superb tool which enables you to run Windows programs in your OSX environment. It also gives me the opportunity to test my sites in Internet Explorer, which most of us Internet entrepreneurs know can cause a lot of problems.

Best of everything is my new Mac’s speed. I can run as many pieces of software simultaneously as I wish. Starting up a new application happens in just a heartbeat, and you can even automate all kinds of processes. For instance, I needed to convert tons of GIF files into PNG’s – all I had to do is creating a workflow using Automator, and I was ready within a minute! The more and more I get used to working with OSX, the more efficient I become. It was an incredible investment, money wise, but it’s been all worth it up to now. My new iMac is the perfect computer, no discussion possible!

So, my world has become pretty close to perfect, although it doesn’t look that I am going to make my goal to become a Super Affiliate, which I set 5 months ago. Last week I felt totally different, as I was climbing high up the ladder, without the end in reach, but this week Google deployed Caffeine over all their data centers, and since the worldwide release of it, I have dropped about 30% in unique visitors. Imagine this crap happening after hitting one of my most important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set for ranking with a specific phrase. I’m sure that Stickyeyes will help me to get back on track, but at this moment my investment (which is quite a sum all together) seems to have vanished.

Even if the world would be perfect, it would still suck if your body isn’t in a perfect condition. Perfect makes perfect! Health, physical strength, and fuck it, the shape of my body, have become one of my top priorities. I didn’t give up going to the gym, in fact, I am even going more frequently than when began. I estimate that I am averaging five times per week, including some occasional physio sessions at the gym across the street to work specifically on my back problems. I now have been working out 13 weeks in a row. A little bit of math tells you that I’ve been going to the gym 65 times. I managed to lose 2-3 kg, which might seem too much to you, but take in account the muscleman I’ve become and you can understand I must have lost a tremendous amount of fat, especially around the belly! Honestly, I never imagined myself becoming a gym junkie, but I did and I love it, and now even Lydia, my girlfriend, has become one. While she currently works out three times per week to get her pre-pregnancy shape back, I’ll continue to work on my six-pack, and we’ll definitely form the perfect couple this summer! Say bye-bye to David and Victoria, ’cause here come Giorgio and Lydia!

Supplements

BSN NO-XplodeYesterday I have placed an order at Bodybuilding.com for a new shipload of supplements. The $183.52 are well spent on 5 Lbs of Optimum 100% Whey Protein, 2.25 Lbs BSN NO-Xplode creatine, 40 packs Universal Animal Cuts (a fat burner to cheat away the remainders of my love handles), and 200 caps of Multi Pro 32X vitamins to complete. Until now I was using supplements which I got from a local fitness and health store, but IMO these seemed a bit overpriced. I also switched from Kre-Alkalyn to NO-Xplode creatine, as I didn’t really notice an increase in strength while using Kre-Alkalyn.

I will try to post the results of my new supplements, but for those of you who don’t know Jack about it, let me describe them to you first:

  • Whey Protein – Helps the basic building of muscles. I use this 3 times a day – mornings, post workout, and before going to bed. It’s powder to be mixed with (preferably skimmed) milk to be consumed as a shake.
  • Creatine – Helps with increasing of muscle mass and explosive power, hence more reps and weight. Until now I was using Kre-Alkalyn, but am switching to NO-Xplode to see if I will notice any difference. I plan to use this supplement for a period of 12 weeks and will consume it about an hour before working out.
  • Fat Burner – I simply hate cardio and only do it to warm up my body and loosen up my muscles. After 13 weeks I clearly have lost a lot of fat, but the summer is nearing and yes, I want to show off my six-pack! Animal Cuts should help me get quicker results. People on Bodybuilding.com have rated this a 7.8, and from what I’ve heard you really get pomped up from this shit – so we’ll see.
  • Vitamins – Working out or not, no matter what you do, using vitamin supplements will help your body to become more resistant.

Let me tell you one thing: Before I finally decided to start working out, I used to be sick all the time – say one time every two weeks. In the past 13 weeks, I have been sick just once. After the whole family has been sick, I couldn’t avoid it – but I was back on my feet after just one day! See why my world is nearing perfection?

Business News

Okay, so my biggest announcement has yet to come. I already mentioned the gym across the street, right? This place is literary across the street, not even a 10 seconds walk from our front door! I can even see people sweating from my in-house office. Dang, I can even see if the chicks working out are nice looking or butt-ugly!

Anyway, once about every week I have a physio session to work on my back problems, and during one of these sessions I ended up in a conversation with my therapist about the things I’m doing for a living. One thing leads to the other, and before you knew it, a few days I was talking to the landlord about renting an office in the same building. Guess what, I was lucky and one’s becoming available coming September. I can’t be more happier, renting an office space so close to the place I live that I can probably use the same WiFi connection.

The space is about 60 square meters (approximately 200 square feet) and can easily store 2-3 persons. Time for growth baby!

In the meantime, I will have to start saving for the interior and supplies because I really want to make my office the place to be! One of the things on my wishlist is a Herman Miller Aeron chair. I want this chair so badly, and had the opportunity to win one in this years’ PAL NCAA Bracket Contest, but unfortunately, my bracket didn’t do very well. Next, to the Aeron chair, I want a big-ass plasma screen on the wall. Since I primary work by myself, it can get awfully quiet sometimes – so I want to be able to come to work, turn on the TV and have an NBA game playing in the background. Furthermore, I NEED to have a Nespresso machine (really can’t live without it at home, so I need another one). Last but not least I will get a pretty dang good security system – probably one connected to some kind of security firm.

What more has been cooking?

In one of my first posts, you could read that I promoted in Hattrick. Well, my stay in the 6th division didn’t last for very long, as I ended in the final position and degraded back to the 7th. I am now facing a couple of teams with similar strength, and have to start thinking of renewing some of my players as well, as they are getting a tad bit too old to keep performing well. Nevertheless, I was able to pull a couple of great youth players in a row, which I either sold or added to my selection. I am thinking to replace my trainer, but have to save up some more money to be able to acquire a good one.

World Cup Betting Guide
Logo for Cancelled World Cup Betting Site

Furthermore, I have been wasting a few days in creating a new site, but I already pulled the plug as it was too much of a risk to fail. The site would have been a sports book related portal targeting the 2010 World Cup Football in South Africa. After consulting with an expert in the field of sports betting I finally decided that I’d better concentrate on something different – which you will soon be able to read more about.

It’s a perfect world after all, but seriously time to stop blogging now and get some sleep, as the sun (<- sons) will rise early tomorrow morning. Speak soon, and don’t forget, if you ever want to chat, either business, about working out or casual, you know where to find me!

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I Ordered a New Mac

Even though I have been ranting about Apple products in one of my previous posts, I am still a big fan of their products. I happened to have some bad luck… so what! And now that my four-year-old PC has started to give up on me lately, I’ve decided that it’s time to replace it with the best possible I can get.

So yesterday morning I left the house. First, I had to run by my dad’s house to take care of his mail, as he’s spending the cold winter times in BsAs Argentina. Once I was done, I drove to MacMe, our local Apple store. Oh boy, I was just as excited like a little boy getting a brand new toy! Since I had to wait another 15 minutes before they opened up, I headed to a coffee shop nearby called Kaldi, for a double shot espresso and some cake (and yes, I’ll work out extra hard to get rid of those dang calories). Nearly half an hour later I finished my coffee, my cake and reading the paper, and walked back to MacMe.

27 inch iMac Core i7
27 inch iMac Core i7

With a budget of €2,000 in mind, it didn’t take me long to decide what to get. I already mentioned it, only the best would qualify, and 10 minutes later I was ready ordering a 27 inch iMac Core i7, which is tested and crowned as the fasted stock Mac model ever. I well exceeded my budget with €400, because I added Apple’s Care Plan for 3 years (no surprises this time), as well as some additional software, but alas…

Unfortunately, I have to wait for another two to four weeks before my baby arrives, and I can finally say farewell to PCs for good. My new Mac will surely benefit my efficiency while I’m working.

What’s the iMac Core i7 all about? Good question, I even called MacMe this morning to find out myself, as I had no clue what I bought for my hard earned €2,400 (approx $3,200).  First, of, it’s a Quad Core processor featuring a new technology called Turbo Boost. Secondly, the i7 Core features a technology called Hyper-Threading. Technically it’s really a complicated thing, but in a few words it comes down to this: it’s lightning fast and can handle tons of apps at the same time!

When it arrives, I will create a dream set-up that includes my iiyama ProLite E2607WS (26-inch screen), the iMac 27 inch, and hopefully soon the Herman Miller Aeron chair which I hope to win in Poker Affiliate Listings’ NCAA Bracket Contest. I know the competition is fierce, but with a little help from Terry I know I have a more than decent shot to win!

The count down has started…

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Working (Out)

The past two weeks have been awesome. I have invested much more time into my business, than in the past months. I’ve been really working hard to get things done – and I did. It really feels good, and we all know where it eventually will lead to more money, hence a bigger car.

Besides working harder, I finally took the step to get back at the gym. It must have been more than a year, and since I didn’t play any basketball since September, you can imagine the current shape of my body. I’m currently working out harder than ever before. Four times a week, from Monday to Thursday, I’m lifting weights to work on my arms, shoulders, chest, back, and abs. Unfortunately, I have to skip the Friday session, as Mauro has swimming lessons and I have to stay home to take care of Dante. I actually came up with a very cool idea when I was searching the web for supplements such as protein and creatine. I’m probably not the first with what I’ve in mind, but if you can make it in the gaming vertical (which is one of the most competitive), you should be able to make it in any vertical.

It’s already the second year in a row that we have a real winter in the Netherlands. It’s been freezing and snowing a lot since December. I’ve been building igloos in our garden, together with Mauro, and also took him skating a couple of times. Last year he could hardly stand still on the ice, but this year he was seriously moving around. You can imagine how proud I am, and happy to see him enjoy to skate just as much as I do.

When I was a little fellow, I used to play hockey. I was totally crazy about it, I lived hockey during the winters, and was always hanging around the ice court, which was very nearby where I grew up. When I was about 16 years of age, they demolished the skating rink and build a new one on the other side of town. This, and the reason that I was still the shortest (and lightest) kid amongst the other team members, made me decide to quit playing the game I loved so much (a decision I still regret today). I hardly ever went skating again, until five years ago, when I decided to buy a new pair of Bauer (Supreme 5000) skates out of the blue. These were the type of skates I could only dream of a kid. So, every time the opportunity arises to skate on a lake, I’ll take it, and I’ll bring my son along.

In my last post, you could read a little bit about how PokerStars Partners are screwing affiliates. Even though they are the official affiliate program for the biggest online poker room in the world, the fact of the matter is that they run the worst possible program for affiliates. Commissions are much, much lower than anywhere else, and now that they have adjusted the terms and conditions, many of us are down up to 65%, hence I finally decided that I don’t want to deal with them any longer.

Poker Bonus Help LogoI (re)moved all PokerStars related content from Poker For Free. However, it would be a shame to junk tons of quality content in four different languages (which is also good for traffic), so I created a new website, which I named my supplementary site, to store all the content I no longer use. Besides PokerStars, I also decided to get rid of two other poker rooms performing way under the limit. This, all mixed up with a good domain name from the shelve, and taking some more content out of retirement, gave me plenty of pages to have a more than decent website right from the start. Even though I am not planning to do anything major with it, I do have to say that I really love what it has become. Curious? Have a look at Poker Bonus Help, and judge for yourself!

I’ve always worked very, very hard, and the harder I worked, the luckier I got.

Alan Bond

Oh, by the way, I also gave Online Casino Blackjack [sold] a makeover. It still lacks content, but that’s a matter of time. If you happen to own a Dutch casino related website and want to do some contextual link exchanges, feel free to get in touch.

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It’s Been a While

… 39 days to be more precise. Many things have happened in between my last post and this one. Oh first of all: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Where have I been? Actually nowhere, but I just didn’t feel like blogging. I really don’t feel like it now either, but alas… I owe you one.

So let’s start where we left off, my Apple Sucks post. You won’t believe what happened after I’ve written that post. As you could have read, my girlfriend’s MacBook was having all sorts of problems, so we were planning to drop everything off at MacMe, our local Apple dealer.

In the Dutch language, we have a saying that sounds as follows: “Van uitstel komt afstel.” I’m not sure if there’s a comparable saying in the English language, but it translates to something like this: “To delay is to cancel.” Now, this saying relates to us bringing her MacBook, as well as my Time Capsule to the store to have them fixed. We didn’t, and then the following happened.

Something like three weeks ago, Lydia was working on her MacBook at the dining table. I was working upstairs as usual, until she called me to come down immediately because her MacBook made funny noises, and it didn’t want to boot after she restarted OSX. It was definitely a familiar sound. I couldn’t be wrong, it couldn’t be anything else than a failing Hard Drive. Dammit, I hate that sound!

This meant that at this point we didn’t have access to her data any longer, including thousands of family and vacation photos. Even worse, the Time Capsule containing the back-ups also died, remember?

A week earlier, Lydia went to MacMe to see what they could do for us, for our broken Time Capsule, and her broken keyboard. At the moment they were really helpful and offered us to extend the warranty period, so we could get a new Time Capsule. Great!!! This was still possible because our Time Capsule died before it turned 2.

But it got even worse, much worse. As the Hard Drive in Lydia’s MacBook completely died, we brought everything in for reparation. Then the phone rang. Her HD was not accessible anymore, it was deader than dead! The only thing left they could do was ripping the Time Capsule apart, getting the Hard Drive out, placing it into an external storage case, so at least we didn’t lose our data. But, this meant that we would lose the option to extend the warranty and get a new Time Capsule.

Mauro and Dante
Mauro and Dante, our boys

It was no matter of discussion. We just wanted our data back, more specifically the pictures of our two beautiful boys; Mauro and Dante. And that’s exactly what they did.

I can’t be more sad about our bad luck, but I have to say that I am really happy about how MacMe helped us out. In the end, they didn’t make us pay for L’s new keyboard, as well as for the research and repair. We only had to pay the hardware, i.e. a new 5Gb Hard Drive and the external storage case. Just €238.95, yet we still have to buy a new Time Capsule.

Now, that’s is superb customer service! Something you won’t frequently see at a regular mega/computer store.

All that’s well, ends well. So, I’m currently planning to buy the 27 inch iMac computer. I just want this sucker to replace my slow as hell PC. These babies don’t only look good, you can run Windows just as easy on a Mac these days, so who needs a PC. Who was talking about alternatives again?! Apple is awesome! (Until it breaks down.)

What more has been cooking?

I have been playing some online poker (and have been losing some), so I self-excluded myself from playing and save myself some money, but more importantly time and frustration. I still believe I have the required skills to beat the damn game, but I’m just the unluckiest player in the world! (And don’t you dare to call it variance!)

In the affiliate business, PokerStars Partners has been fucking with affiliates. I’d say screw those bastards! I already have put them in final positions and am seriously considering to completely remove them from all my sites. Their numbers are totally ridiculous! Seriously, my advice if you’re considering them: stay away from them and team up with Full Tilt Affiliates for your US traffic.

I didn’t go to the London Affiliate Conference past weekend. Firstly I was planning to go, especially because I’ve never been to London before, but I had no valid reason business wise for being there. Since I’m not a super affiliate yet, I don’t feel like making all kinds of promises to my partners. I rather wait until the moment I can show them some real numbers, and sit and talk then. Stickyeyes is helping me out to make it happen and we’re now seeing some progress.

Last but not least, my dad left for the heat in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I was planning to pay him a (surprise) visit, but it’s just too complicated leaving a family back home when mommy has to work. He will surely enjoy his stay in BSAS without me.

Time to call it an end. I’ll try to write my next post sooner.

So long!

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Apple Sucks!

Apple SucksHey, that’s a strange title for an avid and long time Apple user! But I’ve completely had it with Apple products. They look great, they’re ease of use… but their life time is simply ridiculously short. Let me briefly describe to you how I came to the conclusion that Apple products suck.

I bought my first Apple product, a 15″ Mac PowerBook G4, a little over four years ago, when Apple was nothing compared to what it has become to date. The large crowd didn’t use these higher priced notebooks yet. I’m still using the same Mac, but had some significant problems with it over time.

The first problem was actually one that Apple handled really well, when they recalled all batteries for replacement due to a safety risk. My second problem however was one of large scale, as my hard drive crashed. I tried several recovery programs, but gave up after trying for a few days. I finally accepted the fact that I lost all my files, including irreplaceable photos and movies, and replaced the hard drive with a new one. Besides the frustration, the repair also turned out to be quite expensive.

Apple Time Capsule
Apple Time Capsule

Because I never wanted to experience such a situation again, I decided to invest some money and bought a 500Gb Apple Time Capsule, which is a storage device that makes backups on the fly combined with a wireless network router. The perfect solution!

In the meantime, we bought more and more Apple products, including an 8Gb iPod touch which we hardly use. My girlfriend, just as brand minded as I am, also bought her first Apple computer, a 13″ MacBook. We even convinced my dad, who was 75 years old at the time, to buy a MacBook, and so he did. My dad is a renown tango DJ, but that’s a whole different story that I’ll surely cover in one of my future posts.

My girlfriend’s MacBook started to act up really soon after she bought it. First, her keyboard failed to work properly, but luckily it was replaced by the local Apple dealer for free, as it happened within warranty. When we returned home from our family vacation to Mallorca, she tried turning her MacBook on, but apparently, her battery died. The reason they gave us was that “it sometimes happens when batteries are completely discharged”. New batteries cost about 10% of a new MacBook, hence we didn’t buy a new one yet, as buying a new MacBook might be a much better choice.

Not long thereafter, a few keys of her keyboard stopped working. Besides these hardware failures, the plastic of her MacBook began to crumble off. After googling this on the web we found out that it’s a common thing that more MacBook owners are experiencing.

Two weeks ago, something bad happened again. It was a Monday morning, my girlfriend went to work, and I sat down in my in-house office to begin my daily routine, when I noticed that the WiFi network was down, I went downstairs to check on the Time Capsule, and it turned out to be completely dead. Since I had a huge todo-list, I decided to use the wired network instead and started working.

Up to this morning, I didn’t pay too much attention to it, as the occasion didn’t occur, but somehow this morning I felt like searching for more information about dead Time Capsules. It turned out that tons of other Apple Time Capsule owners ended up with the same problem.  From one to another website, I stumbled upon the Apple Time Capsule Memorial Register.

Dead Time Capsule

The Memorial Register for Time Capsules is a website where owners can register their dead Time Capsule. It turns out that 1562 registered Time Capsules had an average life span of approximately 18 months. Hmm, I bought mine in April of 2008… and that is really close to average!

After doing some more research, it appears that more Apple products seem to die after approximately 18 months. Weird stuff! The worst part, Apple ignores there is a problem at all, and owners of dead Apple products are left behind neglected.

Until today, despite the problems I’ve encountered, I used to be a big fan of Apple products. For one, I love the iPhone, and there’s really nothing close to an iPod either! But from now on I’ll resist being part of the Apple hype and go with the flow. Many Apple owners I happen to know have one thing in common, they don’t dare to admit that Apple sucks, because to them there are no alternatives.

Anyway, coming Monday I will pay a visit to the local Apple dealer in person and see what they’ve got to say about it. If it can be fixed, I guess I’ll have to convert my Time Capsule it into a really handsome gift-box.

Would I buy another Mac again? Probably so…

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Staying Focused and Maximizing Efficiency

Most Internet marketers I know struggle to stay focused. So do I sometimes. Staying focused when working from home can sometimes be really hard, as there are so many things which may keep you from working, and being your own boss doesn’t really help either. In fact, many of the fellows I know from the online gaming industry play online poker while they really should be working. Even though I have done it too, and when the occasion occurs, I still do, this is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. While some people make a decent living from playing online poker, only a sparse group are really that great that they reach all the way up to the high stakes tables.

Thus the majority of entrepreneurs is simply better off working! Take PokerStrategy, the biggest affiliate in the world, as an example. There isn’t a living soul on earth that makes that kind of money playing online poker. From what I’ve heard, they have a monthly turnover of approximately $8 million dollars. Personally, I’m not working as hard anymore compared to when I just started working for myself, although occasionally I still have my moments. Averaging 60+ hour work weeks will eventually burn you out. Then again, I don’t have to as I’ve learned to be more efficient. For instance, I have outsourced all my writing, and I try to come up with neat things that help me to do more in less time.

Take statistics. Checking your statistics can be a very time-consuming action, that’s why many marketing blogs tell you to only do this once every week or so. I know this rule by heart, but still, the first thing I do after making coffee in the morning is checking my stats. I confess I’m a stats addict!

This morning I decided to invest some time into creating something that I had on my mind for a while, something that helps me out being more efficient in regards to the previously mentioned addiction; a dashboard. Since I make use of Piwik (open source analytics program) for all my mini sites, and Piwik has all these handy little widgets which can be implemented and used externally, I created a dashboard which displays the most important statistics of the previous day. Besides statistics, my dashboard also contains links to the home page, CMS, and the Piwik installation. I predict that my dashboard will save me up to 10 minutes a day.

Another thing I once created to become more efficient is LinkAdmin.net. I will dedicate a post to it some other time, as it still isn’t finished for the public, however, I’m already using it myself. In a nutshell, LinkAdmin.net  helps me to manage my links; paid links (shame, shame, everybody knows my name), and exchanged links.

Conclusion. Us entrepreneurs enjoy the most of freedom, nonetheless, we still have to pay our bills at the end of every month. Losing focus is easy, but staying focused really pays off. Learn how to do your work more efficiently, and you’ll be rewarded with plenty of time off to spend however you like it.

Let me end this post with a quote.

Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.

Robert Heinlein

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Dreams Make Things Happen

Today, while enjoying a nice cheese and pesto sandwich that my girlfriend Lydia’s made for me, I was dreaming out loud until my she interrupted me. She told me that I might be better off if I stopped dreaming and would focus on things that will be easier to accomplish. For one, she brought up my vision board. “You’re adding new things before even fulfilling the things you’ve put on there, say 2 years ago.” But to me, a vision board is not about things that are in reach. My vision board is about extraordinary things, and she’s right, some of those things might never become reality.

Not so long ago I was reading Graham’s blog. He posted a movie with a speech by Nick Vujicic. For those of you who don’t know Nick, he’s an Australian fellow without limbs. Imagine yourself! And no, that didn’t happen while swimming with crocodiles, Nick was actually born without both his arms and legs.

Anyway, my post isn’t about Nick Vujicic. (Google his name if you want to know more about him, it’s worth it.) My post is about dreams, more specifically my dreams. Nonetheless, I like to mention two things he said in his speech that kind of inspired me.

“I have many dreams and goals that I have set to achieve in my life.”

Nick Vujicic

Nick doesn’t only dream, he makes dreams come through. He is persistent. I personally like to go one step beyond. I’ve made many dreams come through already. I was a bum, and look at me now, only 10 years later, and guess what… my life has just begun!

“As humans, we continually put limits on ourselves for no reason at all!”

Nick Vujicic

I love the idea of a limitless life. When I look around me, at my in-laws, for instance, they tend to think things over way too carefully. They rather think in problems, instead of possibilities. Many people do. I, on the other hand, I don’t like boundaries. I don’t risk my life, or my family’s, but I completely agree with Nick’s statement. There is no reason to put limits on ourselves.

So, I’m a dreamer… Big deal! I’ve always been dreaming, and besides my girlfriend, my mother loves to remind me whenever she can. But guess what, without my dreams, I would still be a corporate slave in a 9-5 job!

I’ve dreamt of having a family, I’ve dreamt of being financially independent, I’ve dreamt of being in control… and I’ll keep on dreaming! I like to dream for myself, for my family, and for my friends. In fact, what would it all be for, without dreams?

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My Traffic is Back

Google is one big mystery, this is something that all Internet marketers and search engine experts know. I don’t consider myself to be an SEO expert, nonetheless, I do know the most important things to make sites rank pretty well. But sometimes, I remain clueless about what’s going on with my rankings.

Take one of my mini sites, Online Casino Roulette [sold], as an example. As I stated in one of my previous posts, I am not actively working on casino related sites anymore, however, I make sure to check all of my sites’ statistics every morning. So this site is not a highly trafficked site, but it had a nice and steady average of 7 unique visitors per day. Then last week it happened… I could already see a downfall, but when my site hit rock bottom, I started to worry about what Google had against it.

Google Analytics for Online Casino Roulette
Online Casino Roulette Visits

At first, I thought of some sort of penalty, but that was not the case as my site was still fully indexed. I performed several tests, amongst them checking the site’s current rankings with SEOBook.com’s Rank Checker, and discovered that I was no longer ranking in the top 20 SERPs for my most prominent keywords.

But as mysterious my rankings disappeared, today they reappeared. After analyzing my positions, I can say with confidence that everything is back to normal. Once again, I remain clueless.

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Overhauling the German Max Poker Bonus

Max Poker Bonus LogoYesterday I’ve been mostly busy moving the German Max Poker Bonus to a new environment and upgrading the scripts to our latest’s. When Kurt and I started working together and created our first Max Poker Bonus site, we decided to host it on a server located in Austria (instead of Germany) because of a German law that prohibits sites linking to online gaming sites. This law is also the reason that we chose to use a .com, instead of a .de domain. So we found a small, but the reliable host, where the wires are short when you’re in need of assistance. Host Austria that is.

Unfortunately, Host Austria’s infrastructure was a little bit outdated, and because of that many of the scripts I’ve created for the Dutch Max Poker Bonus and UK Max Poker Bonus didn’t work. We could easily have moved to another host, but we decided to stay, as quite frankly we were more than satisfied with their service.

Long story short, yesterday was the big day! Christian from Host Austria copied our site and database to a new server, and I made sure that all scripts got upgraded and verified that everything worked as it should. After changing the DNS overnight, I woke up this morning to find our site running flawlessly. Great!

Today I will finish off the big overhaul.

As many of you already know, Google recently released Site Performance, a tool that you can find under Labs in your Webmaster Tools. This, together with Google’s Page Speed tool and Yahoo’s YSlow tool, both add-ons to Firebug, gives you advice in which areas you can adjust your to improve its performance. Things like enabling Gzip compression or parallelizing downloads can really speed up your site. I’ve done this (and more) for a few of my sites already, and I really recommend doing it if you own a site with a fair amount of traffic. Case studies have proven that a faster loading website drastically improves user experience, thus conversions, and we all know what that means!

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The Show Must Go On

Yesterday evening I could feel that my body would not be in best shape today. I felt a cold coming up, as my nose started dripping and every joint in my body was hurting. But as an entrepreneur, a one-man show, in particular, you don’t want to be in bed. Every lost day is a day behind in schedule.

Fortunately this morning I felt OK. It’s not that I feel great, but at least good enough to do the most important things (and write at least one post in my blog).

However, four weeks ago I had groin surgery, more specifically a right inguinal hernia surgery, and the surgeons applied the mesh repair method. Basically, this means that they implanted a patch into my right groin to fix a weak spot.

After surgery, I expected to be out for a day, or maybe two at most, and then back to work.

Boy, I was so wrong. I’ve camped on the couch for nearly two weeks. Even though I had my laptop, I decided to do the bare minimum. My body obviously needed the rest, and it was actually fun to watch TV. Discovery Channel helped me through the day. I watched programs like Overhauling, Extreme Lodgers, How It’s Made, and such.

Another positive consequence from taking a break was that I had plenty of time to think things over. It actually made me come to the decision to temporarily cease working on my casino and bingo sites, and focus on projects that actually make up my paycheck.

As an Internet marketer, you have many decisions to make. Many times I’ve made the wrong decision, those that actually have cost me money, in fact, if I was smart enough to choose another term than ‘free poker’ years ago, I would have been in fat city. Then again, I had zero experience. But this time I’m confident that I made the right one!

So two weeks ago I started working again. Full throttle. And I’m really glad how things are going, and best of all, I’m much more motivated than I was before my break.

Right Inguinal Hernia Surgery