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.