Freddie Hubbard with Jazz Messengers on A La Mode

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/anQY4)
If you haven't heard this energetic Freddie Hubbard trumpet solo yet you're in for a real treat. Freddie Hubbard plays a lot of good minor Jazz licks in this solo with a few good licks that are definitely worth learning. I also like how Freddie Hubbard really gets into his solos and takes the mouthpiece off his lips to break his solos up a little bit.

Apparently this video was taken back in 1984 with the Art Blakey Jazz Messengers in Tokyo Japan. The tune is A La Mode.

Is PeopleString the latest social network fad or is it here to last?

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/7pidZ)
If you are a member of a lot of Safelists as I am, you've probably been hearing and seeing a whole lot of news about People String lately. A kind of new social network medium that allows you free ways to earn as well as connect with other people online. In my opinion People String isn't much to brag about, but since it's free to join, it's worth signing up and giving it a try. This is just my opinion though.

At the current moment People String does have one upgrade option for your membership. It's $200.00 and looks like a big rip off to me. You get an e-mail account that you can get for free elsewhere and you can earn off of other paid referrals. Totally looks stupid and I would never upgrade my account and ask you to do the same as me. That $200.00 would be a complete waste of money as there are more profitable ventures out there to take advantage of.

I signed up about a week ago and got a 3 cent sign up bonus.  I don't know why I got the sign up bonus, but none the less I did. I've heard some people claim that they've gotten sign up bonuses of up to $1.50. That didn't happen for me, but could happen to you. People String doesn't promote a sign up bonus on their marketing pages, so I don't know why I got the bonus to begin with. But I'll take what I can get, you know what I'm saying?

As far as I can see People String works kind of like FaceBook as you can grow your network and chat with friends of yours. You can set up a lengthy profile, which I probably won't because I would rather build my FaceBook network than People Strings because FaceBook isn't based off earning money and has already established a good name for themselves.

People String is supposed to give you paid e-mails and like I said, I've been a member now for over a week and have yet to receive any paid e-mails in my inbox. So, at the current moment I've earned 3 cents and that's it.

So to get to the answer to the title of this blog post.

Is PeopleString the latest social network fad, or is it here to stay?

The answer is simple to me. It's a fad, you're hearing all about it now because it's new, but later on, a few months later you won't be hearing about it all too much because there are a whole lot of people out there that are too smart to upgrade their account for an outrageous $200.00. That's the bottom line, it's over priced and you can get more by promoting your FaceBook profile than you could promoting People String earning pennies for all your hard work.

**Disclaimer - An affiliate link is used in this post.

How to stop affiliates from scamming your affiliate program

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/GNmsu)
You know, it's funny, before I owned my own affiliate program I was always concerned about the affiliate program being a scam. Now I'm finding out through trial and error that there sure are a lot of the affiliates out there that will do anything and everything in their abilities to scam affiliate programs. It's kind of ironic, isn't though?

How do they scam affiliate programs?

Well, the easiest way for them to do so is by owning multiple e-mail addresses and knowing how to manipulate IP addresses so it looks like they are signing up a new unique individual each time when they really are the same person. It's usually someone who doesn't have a real stake in the affiliate program with nothing to lose.

Don't believe me? Here is an example affiliate program scammer I recently caught signing up multiple accounts in my affiliate program under multiple affiliates.

You'll notice how similar the e-mail addresses are and also the IP addresses a very similar. This is a sign of an affiliate scammer in your mist.



Let me quickly go over some affiliate program essentials that you should have to protect yourself against fraudulent sign ups online.

• A confirmation link in initial sign up e-mail to confirm affiliate accounts so they don't use someone else's e-mail address.


• Require the affiliate to manually log into their account before they are approved.


• Manually approve all affiliates so you can check for any fraudulent activity.


• Make sure your affiliate program checks for unique IP addresses


• Look for similar names when someone signs up, could be a sign of the same user signing up multiple times.


• Make sure your affiliate program can quickly and easily manage and check through all affiliate sign ups for duplicates because sometimes you'll miss some.


• Affiliates that sign up with weird names that don't make sense like (bat man, super man, spider man) these are probably scammers.


• Building a relationship with your top producers is a good idea because these are the ones most likely to sign up the most fraudulent sign ups at times.


• Requiring your affiliate program to accept e-mails as user names is a good idea because that way only one unique e-mail address per affiliate can be used.


• Make sure the terms and conditions of your affiliate program note that fraudulent sign ups will be deleted and that all affiliate sign ups are approved according to your terms that the affiliates must follow in order to be accepted.

Your affiliate program might not need all these safety credentials if you don't offer any incentives for affiliates signing up, but if you do, then it is a smart idea to protect your affiliate program from scamming affiliates.

I use Post Affiliate Pro 4 to manage my affiliate program. Don't worry, I don't have a Post Affiliate Pro affiliate link to promote them. I am a real customer of them and they are who I use. I chose them because I knew designing my own affiliate program from scratch would take forever and that I would have a whole bunch of security loop holes I would have to learn the hard way without them.

After discovering how many affiliate scammers there really are out there, I am proud to say I really did make the right decision to go with a professional service. Otherwise my affiliate program would probably be out of business by now with all the fake sign ups I would've had to have paid by now.

Enjoy Bingo? Then you'll like these free deposit bonuses

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.signupandmakemoney.com/blog/2009/11/enjoy-bingo-then-youll-like-these-free-deposit-bonuses/)
I'm not really big into gambling online or playing any kind of Casino stuff, but I ran into a couple of online bingo sites that will give you a sign up bonus just for joining. On top of the free sign up bonus, you'll also have the ability to get a percentage of your initial deposit back.

If you're into gambling online, this is for you. If you're like me on the other hand, you're probably going to want to just take advantage of the free affiliate programs these two gaming sites have to offer. You will have the ability to earn up to 50% of what your referred customers spend on the gambling sites along with an option to do CPA earnings only. Nothing too complicated, but I thought I should at least let you know.

Let's start off with 123 Bingo Online. You'll get a $25.00 sign up bonus just for joining and can earn up to a huge 1,000% return on your first deposit. I think that sounds kind of outrageous in my opinion. Like I said before, I'm not into gambling online, so I don't know how legit these two site really are. Make sure to do your due diligence before putting any money into them.

The next gambling bingo bonus site is Bingo Flash. With Bingo Flash you'll get a $20.00 sign up bonus just for joining and up to 250% return on your first deposit with them. I know it is a whole lot less compared to 123 Bingo Online, but you're probably going to lose all that money to gambling anyway.

Sign up with both of these gambling bingo bonus sites and make at a minimum, $45.00 of free money you can gamble away online.

Signupandmakemoney now has best, OK, and worse categories for sign up bonus sites

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/q24fv)
Thanks to a member of Signupandmakemoney named Arslan, the site now has best, OK, and worse categories set up for all the sign up bonus lists and all other main lists of the site.

Arslan contacted me with a recommended site I should add to Signupandmakemoney, but on top of that, he recommended I should categorize all the sign up bonus sites in best, scam, not so good, etc... He recommended I use a scale from 1-5.

After taking some time to think of the best way to categorize all the sign up bonus sites and other sites listed at Sign Up and Make Money, I came to the final conclusion that the best way to categorize everything would be to put all the sites into sites that I think are the best to sign up on, then sites that are OK to sign up on and still have potential, to finally including sites that I think are the worst to sign up on and you'll probably make the least amount of money with.

Of course these are all my hard headed opinions. If you are the owner of one of these sites or have been paid multiple times by one of these sites and can vouch for them that they are indeed in the wrong category, please contact me right away and I will reconsider where I listed the site.

I most definitely am probably wrong on a lot of the categories I chose for sites. That is why I would love the opinions of others as whether or not the sites have paid you, or even worse, if the sites haven't paid you and have been prolonging payment to you for some time now. It would be really nice to know this information.

I really want Signupandmakemoney.com to be the best resource for sign up bonus sites online now and forever. The only way this can be accomplished is through a community effort. All your opinions are greatly appreciated and can also be submitted at the sign up bonus forum as well.

An arpeggio exercise that will develop your augmented triads

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/XMaHs)
I know this arpeggio exercise doesn't look like much. But if you practice it enough and get it down in 12 keys both up and down the augmented triad, it will help you develop your use of the augmented triad within in your own improvised Jazz solos. This post falls within the whole tone category because augmented triads are part of the whole tone scale.

You'll be able to play the augmented triad starting on any note within your Jazz solo. As we all know, augmented triads sound great and make good use of leading your solo into the next chord change.



Here is a sound sample/demonstration on trumpet:

How to work on this exercise to learn it in 12 keys:

As you can see in the above example, you simply start on the raised 5th of whatever triad you are starting on. It doesn't matter which note you start on, because you'll want to get used to starting off the exercise on different notes to develop your overall technique. If you look closely, there are only 4 augmented arpeggios you are working on. They just start on different notes as you go through the exercise.

From there, you'll see that the exercise simply alternates up and down in half steps. You can change it up a little bit and do whole steps if you get tired of half steps, it's entirely up to you.

If you decide to learn the exercise in half steps like I prefer, then all you have to do is go up a half step from G# to A and do the same exercise up a half step all over again. Now you'll hit all 12 keys and have alternated both up and down for every key.

Now when you take your next Jazz solo, or play your next Aebersold, you'll want to attempt to bust an augmented arpeggio out somewhere. Preferably over a V7 chord go to a I chord. It works in as many places as your imagination can conjure up.

Get a sign up bonus by placing an Advertyze affiliate link on your site

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.signupandmakemoney.com/blog/2009/11/get-sign-up-bonus-by-placing-advertyze-affiliate-link-on-site/)
Join Advertyze for free, place your Advertyze affiliate link on your site or blog, let the Advertyze team see that you've placed it and you'll get a $1.00 sign up bonus for doing so.

I think that is a dollar well spent on the behalf of Advertyze.com. I would gladly pay $1.00 to everyone that linked back to my website. In the long run, I believe it is well worth the dollar spent.

So what is Advertyze.com all about?

First off, it is a yet another free way for you to earn some money online. You'll get 10 cents every time you sign someone up for free. If one of your referrals ever decides to purchase advertising with Advertyze.com, you'll earn 25% of the profits on all upgraded accounts.

That's what you get for actively promoting the site, you can also use Advertyze.com as an outlet to get exposure to your website. They are a 7 year old Company, so they had some time to build a good customer base network of customers around them.

There are many ways to promote your website online for free, so I would stay away from purchasing advertising from Advertyze.com unless you've really done your homework on them and see them as a good stream of fresh visitors to your site.

If you decide to stick with the route I'm taking, which is simply promoting the affiliate program's $1.00 sign up bonus, you'll have nothing to lose because you won't be investing any of your own money into the Company.

One thing I've noticed about Advertyze.com is that they have an annoying pop up ad that asks you to get started by filling in your name and e-mail address. The ad looks quite appealing if it is what I think it is. They say you'll get 50 free leads a week. I kind of have to wonder how good those leads really are. I guess there is only one way to find out.

Take a look at some more affiliate sites that pay you a sign up bonus just for joining and let me know what you think.

My 9 to 5 Biz looks like yet another typical bux site

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/uu9x7)
I ran into a paid to click site (looks more like a bux site) today entitled My 9 to 5 Biz that is offering a $5.00 sign up bonus for joining. The thing that upsets me about the paid to click site is that it looks just so typical of a bux site. What I mean by that is they obviously are simply just using a standard bux script for their site and put up some cheap graphics, vuala, they are now a new bux site.

My only hope is that My 9 to 5 Biz will turn out to be a legit site that doesn't try to make most of their money off of referrals versus making money off the paid to click ads like they should be doing. As with all sites like these, please do not invest any money in them without doing your best due diligence on them first. Just take advantage of their free benefits, which in the case of My 9 to 5 Biz is simply getting paid to click.

After taking a close look at My9to5Biz, I think I'm pretty happy to say that there business model looks like it makes sense. They only go over 1 cent per click (one for you and one for your referrals) if you are a premium member and they don't have a ton of ads on there site (this would only show that they are promoting there own affiliate links on the site until they get advertisers). This is fine, but at least My 9 to 5 Biz isn't over doing it like we've all seen so many other paid to click sites with that script do.

You have to earn $15.00 in order to cash out on the $5.00 sign up bonus. You can buy referrals as well, this is a red flag for any site. Don't ever buy referrals for something people can sign up for free. It just doesn't make any sense, you know what I mean?

I also checked out the 9 to 5 Biz forum and they have nothing in it yet, they are pretty new to the paid to click community. Like I said before, don't invest any money or too much time in a site like this until you see some results and legit payment proofs from other members.

If you're searching for more sign up bonus sites, make sure to take a look at my list of free paid to click sign up bonus websites and let me know what you think.

When is the best time to upgrade your membership level in Global NPN from Pro to Plus

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/s1iF3)
A majority of us, when we start off in Global NPN, we begin at the Pro level ($10.75 a month). When is the best time to upgrade your Pro level membership, which provides a whole lot of benefits for its low monthly cost, to the Plus level ($19.95 a month)?

There are two factors that I can think of that would alter your decision in this. The first one is simple. If you have referred two or more Plus level members personally already, you might as well upgrade because you are simply missing out on commissions. Instead of getting $5.00 a month off of the Plus members in your matrix, why not make $10.00 residual? It's not rocket science if you ask me.

Global NPN was designed so that you could start off the membership at the lowest cost possible. This is why it's so easy to refer people to Global NPN. There aren't very many good mlm business opportunities out there that offer such a low fee to get started.

As you progress in The New Plan Network and refer more people, you will find that the more serious minded of your down line matrix will be ready to take their membership to the next level. This is how you can take your team up the ladder with you and earn higher residual commissions in the long run.

This is another reason why I like Global NPN so much and why I think it is the best mlm business opportunity out there today. You get to decide when to go up to the next level. You and you alone make this decision. You can stay at the $10.75 level for as long as you'd like to. No one is stopping you from doing so.

The second factor that might persuade you to go from the Pro level to the Plus level right off the bat is that you may be interested in what Global NPN's upgraded membership levels have to offer. Maybe you need more than 3 url rotators or maybe you need more than 5 url link trackers. If this is the case, then by all means you should upgrade to the membership level that provides the services you are going to need to get the marketing job done.

In either case, you should be offering 30 day Global NPN free trials at the Pro level to get your down lines started off on the right foot.

Here is a quick video from the owner of Global NPN (Geoff Stephen) on why you should upgrade in Global NPN, it's just his opinion. I still think you should only upgrade when you have enough people in your down line that are upgraded or you if you are interested in the upgraded membership level perks.

Disclaimer - Global NPN affiliate links are used in this post.

Examples on how to follow new FTC guidelines for bloggers

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/909On)
It really doesn't bother me too much that the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) decided to be a little more strict in how U.S. website owners write reviews about different products and services, NOT!!! I'm just kidding, it's really for the consumers. I mean I know there are bad people out there, I just never thought of myself as one of them. Now we all have to suffer a little bit more for the errors of others.

So how do we as bloggers and website owners follow the new FTC guidelines correctly?

I searched all over the Internet for some good straight forward answers on whether I should simply put a disclaimer at the end of my blog post if I make money when someone signs up through my affiliate link that I wrote only good things about. Or instead, should I be able to do a site wide blanket disclaimer for everything? I'm not sure.

Here is all that Mary Engle, the Associate Director - Bureau of Consumer Protection, says about what you need to do.

According to Mary Engle it shouldn't be too complicated. But my concern is before I go through all my websites and their corresponding pages (over 1,000 pages be honest), I want to make sure that I am updating them correctly.

It looks like the FTC is leaving it up to us to be creative in how we disclose our relationships with the websites and products we write about.

If you write a review about a website or product and you make money off people signing up or purchasing, we simply need to disclose this in our own unique way to our readers and visitors.

Even after looking through the new FTC guidelines I was unable to find a really good example. So I can only assume it really is up to us.

I believe the best way to disclose that you are either making money off of a product you are writing about or have received some sort of compensation for writing about a product or website is to simply leave a note at the bottom of the blog post or page it was written about on.

There are no real rules on how you can do this, none that I've found anyway. Please let me know if I'm being an idiot on this one or not.

Example #1

You just wrote a review about a website using a referral link from the advertiser's website. At the bottom of the page or blog post you could simply write something like this:

An affiliate link from Company "XYZ" is used on this page.

You could add more to this, but according to the FTC, they only expect you to be straight forward and open, they don't give any other instructions on how to disclose your relationship with the website or product you just wrote an article about.

Example #2

You just wrote a review about an Amazon product using your Amazon affiliate link. At the bottom of the post or page put:

The product link on this web page is an Amazon affiliate link.

That should do according the the FTC's vague guidelines.

Example #3

You wrote an article about a video game that you were given free from the gaming Company in order to say good things about them. At the bottom of the page or post simply put this:

XYZ Company gave a free copy of this video game for reviewing purposes.

That should do. Notice how I'm not referring to myself in these disclosures, I'm just letting the readers know someone is making money off of it whether it is me or not.

Are you getting where I'm going with this? The FTC didn't set any strict guidelines on how you disclose your relationships with the advertisers you write about. So as far as I see it, you just need to disclose it somewhere on the same page and you should be good to go.

Good luck on the December 1st, 2009 switch over!

Marvel E-mail sign up bonus and free advertising

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/0Kz0k)
I would like to thank an affiliate of Signupandmakemoney, Gordon, for introducing me to Marvel E-mail. A free advertising site that gives you a cash sign up bonus of $1.75 and 870 credits currently. You can use this cash sign up bonus towards advertising of your websites online. You can also choose to save it up until you reach the minimum cash out balance of $20.00.

Gordon's affiliate link is used in this post and also on the main sign up bonus list.

I believe the sign up bonus was originally $1.50, so it went up and you should take advantage of this opportunity. One thing that annoys me a little bit about Marvel E-mail is their bothering persistence to get you to upgrade by saying you only have so much time left. I think this is ridiculous and they probably won't get very many people upgrading in their $39.99 membership option.

As always, I recommend that you take advantage of the free money and advertising credits you'll be able to earn with Marvel E-mail. Don't ever put any real money into these types of websites until you very thoroughly have done your due diligence of them first.

Apparently, Marvel E-mail allows a few ways to earn with them.

• You can send out a couple e-mails a day.


• Refer others and earn if they upgrade.


• Get paid to click on ads.


• Has a down line builder as part of the membership.


• Take advantage of their window ads.

Nothing too amazing if you ask me, but hopefully Marvel E-mail will become one more source of free advertising online for you to take advantage of.

Take a look at more advertising sign up bonus sites and get just a little bit more free traffic to your websites.

Golden Panda Traffic Exchange sign up bonus and free hits

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/u7EsF)
Golden Panda Traffic is offering a $5.00 sign up bonus until they reach $1,000 members. It looks like a pretty decent traffic exchange from what I can see so far.

The only negatives I could see is that they have a long 20 second timer (at least it's a 1:1 surf ratio though), you have to contact admin in order to get your $5.00 sign up bonus, and you'll have to surf 25 sites in order for your account to be fully active.

On a positive note, some good things about joining Golden Panda Traffic is that on top of the $5.00 bonus for joining, you'll also get about 800 text exchange credits, 1,000 banner impressions, and 1,000 text ad impressions. The way I look at it is that's free traffic to take advantage of. You might as well not let it go to waste.

You can purchase credits, but as I always say with free traffic sites,

"If they offer free traffic in the first place, what's the point of paying for something that others are getting for free?"

To me, it just doesn't make sense.

Of course you can build on your credits by referring other free members. This is true with pretty much any traffic exchange I've seen out there. If I'm wrong on this, please let me know right away.

Other than this, Golden Panda Traffic looks pretty much like any other ordinary traffic exchange out there. Once they build a good membership base, you'll be glad that you joined early and got a bunch of free credits built up.

The key to being successful as a Secret Shopper is where you're located

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/47kXy)
I know that you don't want to hear this, but whether you're brand new to secret shopping or are an experienced veteran (happy Veterans Day by the way), where you're located is going to depend whether or not you'll produce a good extra income stream with mystery shopping. You know what they say, "Location, location, location!"

I'm not as busy with mystery shopping as I once used to be. I choose to grow my residual income online now, verses getting paid on a per job completion basis. Do I still do secret shopping jobs? Of course, if they pay well, are in my 10 mile radius, and aren't too difficult, I will be more than happy to make the extra cash.

Unfortunately I turn down a lot of secret shopping jobs offered by various schedulers, but it's no offense to them, it's usually because the job is just too far away and the pay doesn't cover the gas expenses and time I would have to put forth to successfully complete the job. Not to mention doing the hideous online report at the end of the day. Those are the worse, really.

How do I know location is so important to making money with secret shopping?

It's pretty simple folks, if you are in or around a major city or suburb, you will have more local businesses and franchises around you. This of course equals more money in the bank for you as a mystery shopper. Sometimes it really isn't that cut and dry. I used to do mystery shopping in Washington State. I've averaged around $700 to $1,000.00 extra a month doing mystery shopping part time over there. Once I moved to New Orleans, I've noticed a whole lot less jobs.

Maybe it was the fact that I just wasn't registered with the right secret shopping companies that cover the New Orleans area, but I actually notice more jobs in outlying cities even though New Orleans is where you would think most of the jobs would be.

In Washington, I barely ever had to make my way up to Seattle because most of the jobs could be taken care of in smaller suburban cities.

How do I know if my area is good for earning extra income in secret shopping?

There is only one way to find out. You have to sign up with as many secret shopping companies as you can and see what kinds of jobs are offered to you and where they're at. I'm just an online blogger, so I'm only familiar with areas I've secret shopped in.

Whether you're new to mystery shopping or a seasoned vet, I hope this information helps you in your decision to continue in secret shopping as a way to supplement your income as your own boss.

Sharebuilder along with ING Direct are offering free investing credits

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/3xrMR)
I ran into this rare promotion not too long ago and I thought I would share it with everyone. I don't know how long Sharebuilder and ING Direct will be offering this opportunity. If you're into investing, you might as well get some free investing credits at Sharebuilder while they last. You can earn a $25.00 sign up bonus in free investing credits.

Trading with Sharebuilder costs $9.95 for every trade. One bad thing about Sharebuilder is there trades aren't exactly very fast. In my experience, I've submitted an order online and to buy some shares of a stock and about 3 hours later they will finally buy it for me.

Do you know how much the price of a stock can fluctuate in 3 hours?

That's right, a whole hell of a lot. I have the same trouble with selling shares. I purchase my selling trade, then hours later Sharebuilder will finally sell off my shares, or even worse, wait until the next trading day to sell them off. This bothers me, but if you're into long term investing, it shouldn't be a problem for you.

So you know what you get, about 3 free trades.

What do I get?

Not much, just 2 real time trades (not really real time) and 5 automatic investments (which I don't ever use). I can only get credit for these things a number of 5 times. That's it.

So I'm writing this post in benefit of you more than me. If you would like to be invited, let me know by sending an e-mail to me with your name and e-mail address. I will send you an invitation. Otherwise, just join with the first link in this post to be taken to Sharebuilder's main site.

Take a look at some more investing sign up bonus sites and let me know what you think.

List of 14 Wordpress plugins your blog should have installed

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/vZD6H)
Let's face it, there are a whole lot of really cool Wordpress plugins out there that will spice up your blog in no time. But I wanted to write this article to pin point a list of Wordpress plugins that are pretty essential and that you shouldn't be without.

In my opinion, some of these plugins should just come with the standard installation of Wordpress on your server. Don't worry, you won't miss a single important plugin after reading this blog post.

Just so you know, all of these plugins can be installed from your Wordpress back office. Just go to the left hand side and find Plugins, then Add New. Make sure the plugin name matches the author, otherwise you will be getting a completely different plugin than what I'm talking about.

14 Wordpress plugins you should have installed:

1. All in One SEO Pack by Michael Torbert - This is one of the essential plugins I believe should automatically come with your Wordpress installation. This plugin allows you to give a unique title, description, and keywords for every single page and blog post on your Wordpress site.


2. General Header by David Gibbs -This plugin allows you to add to your head tag and footer div. You might use it to add or change your favicon, add Google Analytics tracking code, etc.. Whatever you would want to use it for.


3. Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachhold -Yet another essential plugin that should come automatically installed with Wordpress in my opinion. This excellent plugin not only generates your sitemap for you, but it also pings out to the Search Engines for you every time you do a new post on your blog.


4. WP-SpamFree by Scott Allen -You probably won't see the need for this plugin right away, but it is another essential plugin for your Wordpress blog. It stops all the spammers and bots from attacking your blog with fake, generated comments full of really bad ads.


5. Contextual Related Posts by Ajay D'Souza -This plugin automatically sorts all your posts for you. After someone visits one of your posts, they can then see a list of related posts that the reader may also be interested in checking out as well.


6. FeedBurner FeedSmith by FeedBurner -This plugin will allow you to redirect your feed url to Feedburner for both your RSS fee and your comment feed.


7. Get Recent Comments by Krischan Jodies -This plugin may not be necessary as some Wordpress blogs might already have a recent comments script already included with their theme. But if not, this plugin will get all your recent comments that you can show to your readers in the sidebar or wherever you would like to show it.


8. Kahi's Notes by Peter Kahoun -This plugin is for you back office only. It just helps to be able to take quick notes on tasks related to your blog or future posts you may want to write about.


9. PingPressFM by Sold Out Activist -This plugin will ping out all your posts to your favorite social networks. You won't believe how much extra traffic this will produce for you in the long run. If you have a problem with PingPressFM plugin not allowing you to add triggers, here is a solution.


10. Sociable by Blogplay -This plugin allows your readers to easily tweet and share your blog posts if they really like them. Makes it easy to print and e-mail posts as well.


11. Twitbar Widget by C. Finegan - This is a simple plugin that allows you to put your latest twitter tweets on your blog's side bar. Just another way to get traffic to previous blog posts.


12. Wordpress Popular Posts by Héctor Cabrera - This plugin tracks hits and comments on posts to determine which blog posts on your site are the most popular. It's a way for you to see what posts are your best work and displays them on your sidebar.


13. WP Greet Box by Thaya Kareeson - This plugin tracks where your visitors come from and politely asks them to subscribe. For example, if a visitor comes from Google, it will say, "Welcome fellow Googler, please subscribe." You can personalize the greetings any way you would like to.


14. Follow Me by Brian Chappell - This plugin makes it very easy for readers to follow you on various social networks without taking up a lot of space on your blog. There are similar plugins, you just need to find the best one for you.

I hope this information is helpful to you, keep on blogging.

Web design is fun, but you should really focus on producing content

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/SaTiE)
Being a web designer is so much fun and challenging. I just recently caught myself focusing a lot of time on re-designing a music website of mine. This is why I decided to write this blog post. No matter how much fun it is to update and tune up your website to look like perfection, the thing that really matters is content when it comes to getting organic traffic from the search engines and a good amount of repeat visits from subscribers from your site or blog.

I mean, your website or blog can only look so good. Believe me, I've seen some really impressive looking sites out there and I absolutely love to look at them, but a lot of them lack content in my opinion. As long as your website looks very well organized and well spaced, your content should be the main focus of the site.

It's hard for a web designer or programmer to stop working on code and instead focus on getting good, quality content out to the worldwide web. I really don't have an answer to this problem. I mainly just wanted to write this article as a friendly reminder to take a break from the code and and just be satisfied with what you got. You know what they say,

"Content is king!"

Impressive Allen Vizzutti Fire Dance trumpet solo

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/sty4y)
I love listening to Allen Vizzutti trumpet solos. Vizzutti is cool because he can do tunes like Fire Dance that sort of combine Jazz soloing along with classical trumpet technique that is really impressive. Things like double tonguing octaves, circular breathing, etc...

Allen Vizzutti takes an awesome trumpet ride on this tune and an amazing trumpet cadenza at the end with a bunch of high notes in between. I hope you enjoy!

Most MLM Business Opportunites are not scams, you just have to pick the right one

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.signupandmakemoney.com/blog/2009/11/most-mlm-business-opportunites-not-scams-you-just-pick-the-right-one/)
Now I know what you're thinking, "Is this guy crazy? Of course they're all scams!" Don't get me wrong. I've had my fair share of scams since I've been in the online money making business. Scams obviously do exists, but most of the MLM business opportunities you see popping up all over the place are legit. I would say about 70% to 80% of them are not out to rip you off, but are actually legitimate ways to make money online.

Sometimes what makes a multi-level marketing business opportunity a scam is the simple fact that you joined up with super high expectations only to find out a month later you haven't signed anybody up.

What does this mean?

Well, it doesn't mean that particular mlm business opportunity is a scam, it just probably means that particular mlm businesses opportunity just wasn't the right one for you.

The business opportunities that are legitimately priced (such as low $10.00 to $40.00 monthly membership fees) are most likely not scams.

But if get some guy calling you up and asking for $500 to $1,000 and promising you the world, then we most likely have a problem. So, let's quickly go over a few signs of a scam:

• Very high fee.


• Product doesn't match the monthly fee.


• You got a sales person calling you very aggressively to sign up.


• Claim you will get a bunch of free traffic or sign ups just for joining.


• Make it sound like you don't have to do anything but sign up to succeed in the business.


• Promise you huge earnings without any work.


• Ask you for money upfront and promise you free money in the distant future.


• Haven't been in business very long.


• Can't find very much information on them when you search the web.

OK, so now let's go over some signs that the mlm business opportunity is most likely a legit one:

• They have been in business for a few years.


• Low fee to join.


• Don't promise you extraordinary earnings for doing no work.


• Are realistic and show you how many sign ups you'll really need to reach payout.


• Minimum payout is $100.00 or less.


• Product looks legit and makes sense.


• You can find information about the mlm on the worldwide web.

Always do your due diligence when joining any kind of mlm business opportunity that cost money. I have tried many and failed at many and only succeeded with a few. The few I succeeded with were because they were the right ones for me. The other ones I failed at weren't scams. I just didn't have what it took to promote their particular product or service.

I'm ultimately for free ways to make money online verses mlm opportunities. I'm not one of those people like to hop from program to program. It just doesn't seem beneficial to me. I currently have 3 mlm business opportunities that I have been building now for the last three years. They are all growing at a good rate.

I'm glad I ventured out and tried a few things before I found 3 great programs that worked for me. Now if I ever promote anything other than these 3 programs, they are always free affiliate programs that don't cost a single dime to promote.

So what's the moral of this blog post? Well, it's simply to let you know if you fail at a multi-level marketing business, that mlm business probably isn't a scam. It just means it wasn't the right business opportunity for you in the first place. So you need to keep searching until you find the right one for y0u.

There is a famous saying I want to share with you.

The average millionaire tries out 7-10 business ventures before they find one that works.

This simply means, don't give up!

Clicks Vista and Quids Corner both pay to sign up

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/Qupns)
Found a couple more sign up bonus sites. I would like to personally thank Gordon for introducing Clicks Vista to Signupandmakemoney. His affiliate link is used both in this blog post and at the main sign up bonus list. After visiting Clicks Vista, I was lucky enough to find yet another sign up bonus site entitled Quids Corner. I know it's an odd name, but it still has potential for some free income earning possibilities.

Let's get started, shall we.

Clicks Vista is free to join, they offer a 25 cent sign up bonus. Unfortunately, it looks like Clicks Vista is only accepting members from the United States and Canada. If you are from another Country, they will oddly refer you to Quids Corner. This shows me that both sites are probably owned by the same individual or entity.

Clicks Vista claims to be a paid to read, paid to click, paid to sign up, and last but not least, a cash back shopping site. That seems to be a lot of ways to earn, but we'll only know by giving it a try.

Quids Corner offers a sign up bonus, but they don't promote that on their sign up page. You can actually get a 25 cent sign up bonus as well by joining Quids Corner. I find that to be quite odd. After I signed up, thankfully the sign up bonus was deposited without any delay.

Quids Corner claims to be a paid to read email site as well as a cash back shopping site. If you know much about me, I'm not really too big into cash back shopping sites. This is mainly due to me not being a big shopper. I mean, in order to get cash back, you got to spend the cash first. You have to realize that this is not very easy for penny pinchers to do.

Both sign up bonus sites look to have a Blog and Forum attached to them. If anything else, these two sites may be simply a good way for you to network what you currently got going on at the moment.

Easy Money PTC sign up bonus and free advertising

(My Original Blog Post: http://www.signupandmakemoney.com/blog/2009/11/easy-money-ptc-sign-up-bonus-free-advertising/)
I ran into Easy Money PTC the other day and noticed it offers a $1.00 sign up bonus for joining free. So I went ahead and added it to the Signupandmakemoney sign up bonus list and I am now writing about its pros and cons in this blog post.

It looks like the most you can earn per click is 3 cents per 25 second timer. This seems odd to me and just a little bit high in price. This might be another one of those scam sites that are betting on people to upgrade their membership or buy referrals in order to come ahead of the game.

Take a quick look at some of their advertising cost. Pretty low and affordable to me, so why on earth are they paying members up to 3 cents per click, but there is no way their advertisers and paying enough in ad revenue to fit the bill. Looks fishy to me.



I'm not 100% sure if Easy Money PTC is a scam or not. All I'm saying is that the numbers just simply don't add up.

Another thing that bothers me is their site stats (take a look to your left). Over 39,000 hits in one day, but only 10 members online and a little over 4,000 members. What is even scarier is that they are claiming to have paid out over $65,000 878 times.

Hmmm... Let's do the math on that. $65,000 divided by 878 payments made = $74.00 per payment.E If you take a close look at Easy Money PTC's payment proof page, you'll see that most payments average around $20.00 to $30.00 a pop and  a lot of the payments made are to the same individuals.

So what's my point here? I don't know if Easy Money PTC is a scam or not. What I am recommending is that you at least check them out and see for yourself whether or not they are a scam. Never invest any money into a site like this, but take advantage of the potential free traffic and earning capabilities.

Another thing that disturbs me is that I haven't gotten my $1.00 sign up bonus. I have contacted Easy Money PTC in hopes that this is some sort of mistake. How can you promote a $1.00 sign up bonus and not give it to your members unless it is seriously a mistake?

Take a quick look at my earning stats. Am I blind, where is the sign up bonus?



A lousy 3 cents is all I've earned so far for clicking on one ad. Seriously where is the sign up bonus?

Alright, I think I've said enough bad things about Easy Money PTC for now. So let me mention some of the good things about them. They do have lots of earning options. You can get paid to click, paid to read, paid to sign up, etc... They also have a click exchange area where you can build up some free traffic back to your ads.

You can't cash out until you earn at least $20.00. Good luck getting there. And it also looks like the only way to earn off of referring other members is by being an upgraded member yourself. What kind of program is this anyway.

If Easy Money PTC isn't enough for you, take a look at some more get paid to sign up bonus sites that are free to join.