Luna Tail

Updated as of 11 August 2008

The worst thing about Entrecard is getting return drops. I get maybe a 30% reciprocal drop rate which is, I don’t think, very good. I’m looking into better sites where people do reciprocate more.

If you want to put the image under your Entrecard, here’s the code:

My drop strategy includes the following:

I now use the Entrebar.. and it’s very nice.

I drop from my Inbox first. But, much of the time, that can be days old and I’m not getting regular drops from sites in my inbox. But I do drop from my inbox first.

Next I use my Blogrolling Above The Fold blog roll list:

I also may do the following, depending on time:

Then I drop from my Requests list. I hope this will grow… and if you keep dropping on me, I’ll keep dropping on you. If you don’t drop on me (and I know from the Inbox) then you’ll be removed from my requests list.

I also have some Favs that I drop on, whether they drop on me or not. And some Forum Friends that I will also drop on.

I also am trying out Blog Catalogs Entrecard Users list to see if any of those folks will drop back.

I also have some YouDropIFollow bookmarks that I will drop on, but again, if I don’t get reciprocal drops, I may not drop on you and you may be removed from this list.

I use this del.icio.us Firefox Plugin I can open my bookmark lists in a window in the sidebar in Firefox. And from there, I can open an entire Tagged group in tabs at the same time.

Since the sites are ones I am, at least a little bit, interested in, sometimes I’ll get stuck reading a site… that’s probably why it takes me longer than 30 minutes to drop all my cards. And I’m still building up sites.

I have five Entrecard accounts right now, so if you see any of these cards dropped on your site they are from me:
Tip Tail
Luna Tail (this blog)
Tail Pix
Pixie Tail
Tatum Tot

If you want to be on my list please comment here and I’ll try to get you on. If your EC box is way below the fold, or your site doesn’t interest me at all, I probably won’t add you. If I have added you because you commented here, you’ll be under the ‘Requests’ group.

Okay, after long last I finally get del.icio.us. And I have my own account, too. And, on top of that, it’s actually organized. Go figure. Me organized. LOL.

Mainly I finally get it because of this plugin for Firefox. It lets me sync my Firefox bookmarks with del.icio.us, and there is a bookmark window I can open in FF to access my del.icio.us bookmarks.

So I’m off and running with del.icio.us. One less thing to backup in preparation of my laptop crashing, which I’m sure will happen again one day much to my dismay.

And, the plugin lets me open the bookmarks in tabs. Which I’m using to hit a number of Entrecard sites every day. Well, not every day. And only when I remember. And not with all 3 of my Entrecard accounts… but hey, I’m trying.

And if my sprained ankle doesn’t heal up soon, I’m going to need a stair lift to get up and down the stairs at my house. Ugh. My ankle needs to heal!

I recently joined Entrecard… and I’ve been reading up on how to drop the maximum of 300 Entrecard’s a day.

Some say to use their browser… a window where you can see pages inside their I-Frame, and surf through and drop. That’s okay, but it’s kinda slow.

Some say to open 50 tabs in firefox, all with a bookmarked list of Entrecard sites, and then drop and close the tabs. Well, that’s all well and good, but my laptop must be slow as snot because it takes 15 minutes just to open all 50 bookmarked tabs. (okay maybe not 15 minutes but I swear at least 7 or 10)

I get bored after dropping about 200 cards. And that’s for one account only. I don’t even get to the other account do drop any.

I guess I either need a better way, or else I’m just gonna give up. :p

This is a site I found cruising around the web today… I found it through Entrecard… see, another benefit to Entrecard, I am finding very interesting sites.

It’s called Sustainable Democracy. And it caught my eye… mainly because I’m a democrat, though democracy does not mean democrat (something I had to grasp when I was older than a kid…)

I am continually frustrated (as I have blogged about in the past) by the tediousness of going to work every darn day and… as Joe said in Joe vs. The Volcano “I was too afraid to live my life so I sold it to you for $300 lousy dollars a week.” Okay that’s not a direct quote, that’s from memory, but it’s close. So the author of Sustainable Democracy says, on his http://www.sustainabledemocracy.org/founder page:

Society, school, government, everyone had promised me that the purpose of all this education and working was to make things better. But the more I went through life the more it became apparent that it was about filling up life with objects and busy work, and not with making things better.

Emphasis Mine. His words strike a chord in me. I mean… I’m frustrated with selling my life for (a bit more than) $300 a week. But still, I’d rather be out there learning, growing, bettering humanity… and sure sure, I could pull myself up by my bootstraps and try to do that. But my anxiety, and the system, and my job… my wanting to eat and have a roof over my head and my dogs’ and husband’s head, rather prevents me from stepping out of my comfort zone and running headlong into the wind.

On his Mission page, he writes:

We have spent centuries working to achieve better technology, philosophy, and social structures to make our lives better. We should begin bringing that effort to bear and create the society that renews and rejuvenates us, not perpetuate the one that sucks us dry until we are of no great use to it.

“Suck us dry” is right. Ugh.

So why can’t we have a society where we are all alive… and doing things we love? Instead of slaving away at a desk 40 hours a week. 40 Hours A Week! It’d rediculous! Maybe there can be something else… something better. Some type of society where we follow our passions, improve humanity and the earth, live sustainably and lovingly… where we don’t have to do mindless (even if not mindless, still tedious) tasks day in and day out to survive?

Sure sure, all through the ages humans have had to work hard to get that food and shelter and dog food… but still… Health Care, good quality solid Health Care, should be available to everyone in our society. No questions. And so, shouldn’t the ability to live life to it’s fullest? In ways we do not yet imagine?

He has three posts, this is the first, to “help introduce and explain the basic ideas and tenets of Sustainable Democracy“. I have started reading these posts, and I am going to go read some more.

Another great quote that speaks for itself:

It should not be the effort of any society to produce more. It should be the focused effort of every individual to innovate in their area of expertise to produce the least quantity needed at the minimal effort required to produce the best results.

Okay, blow my mind, why doncha. I wish I would have thought of this stuff.

Today was one of those rare days when I go over my RSS feed reader to check out some of my favorite blogs. Flo’s Place is right on top and I read her post about the Entrecard.

I heard about Entrecard before but didn’t really get it until I read Flo’s post. So I went and signed up and start Networking with it.

So the deal is you sign up and you create a little Business Card type thing. Okay.. then you can browse to other people’s blogs who also have the Business Card Entrecard widget on their site, and you can ‘drop’ your card onto their widget.

When you drop your card you get credits. And you can use these credits to buy advertising on other people’s blogs. So your little widget picture will show up on their blog.

Kinda neat… there are a number of dog blogs out there, and personal blogs… so I will be surfing around dropping my card so I can buy advertising spots! We’ll see how this works out.

Well, I’m not quite sure but I’m learning. Actually, I think it’s a social networking site. You can meet people and make friends and find interesting blogs to read.

And while you do all this, you make money. If I understand correctly you make money each time someone views your Yuwie profile or blog or videos or pictures. I don’t really know how much money, but they seem to pay out at $25.00 which is a nice low payout.

So I signed up. If you sign up and use my referral, then I get a bonus for all the money that you make. So, of course, I hope you use my referral link!

I received my first letter from my inmate pen pal yesterday. She sounds very nice and she is working in one of those dog programs they have set up for prisoners and service dogs. That is awesome, I’m so glad they have those programs. I am not a big fan of our prison systems… they do not seem, to me, to be rehab oriented. Just remove the people from society. And I don’t have a large faith in our legal system, either. And I think drugs should just be legalized. At least soft drugs like marijuana.

But anyway, I wrote back already, gonna send some pictures of the dogs. Not everyone has seen smooth collies. And I do like to show them off. LOL.

I gotta look up these prison dog programs on the web.

Well isn’t this cool… Maybe Google Page Rank is a thing of the past. If so, it is they that destroyed their own resource.

Izea is rolling out their own page ranking and tracking system next week called RealRank. And, unlike the covert and mysterious Google gods, they are putting up their formula for all to see. And that makes so much more sense to me! Why have a secret and sly ranking formula? What on earth is the point of that, anyway?

I think none. Yeah I know, I’m going on and on about this Google thing but it bugs me to no end!

Of course I hope Izea keeps up with what is promises. They have been having a lot of problems with Pay Per Post lately, and many disgruntled Bloggers. But hopefully they will get all their ducks in a row.

And I’m disabling the Firefox plugin Search Status. Since Alexa doesn’t give accurate measurements and PR is now meaningless.

Along with bagging my AdSense… I’m also looking for other things to replace what I use google for. Gmail will be hard to replace, since I have the email address already, but check out this blog post for great ideas for things to replace google with.

I am changing my search engine to Dog Pile, and will check out some other options. The thing I like about GMail is how it threads the mail that comes in.. but if I find something else that works as well, I’m switching.

If Google looses me, they will have a number of fewer websites displaying their ads, and one less person who will see their ads. The more people that boycott google, the less their ad space will be worth to advertisers.

Well aparently many of the blogs that sell text link ads, and blog for money, have been reduced, by google, to a PR0. My Tip Tail blog just went from a PR03 to a PR00. This blog was at a 02 the last few days, but today, big fat zero.

My only blog that has PR is crabbie tail, and it has no ads on it. I was going to put some up but I’m actually glad I didn’t so I can see the effects for myself.

What is my opinion of PR now? It’s pointless. It’s meaningless. If google is going to penalize blogs and other sites for selling links, then the content of the sites is no longer a measure for a good site. Nor is the popularity based on link backs, or hits to the site… the only determining factor is selling text link ads?

Then there are some really good blogs out there that are getting slammed into PR0. Which effectively tells me not to put any merit whatsoever in google’s PR.

John Chow has a good post about the latest google PR, and there is a lot of discussion going on at the PPP forums. I don’t do PPP much any more, but I do other pay to blog companies and I will continue to do so no matter what google says about them.

In fact, google is being the god power, it seems, in that they will rank you if you display their AdSense, but not if you display other advertising via ad links. So in other words if you want PR, you need to bow down to the all holy google. Ugh. As Robert Clough quoted Jennifer saying on his blog:

oh mighty Google overlords, take my ads, take my firstborn, take anything you wish. By the way, give me a minute to bend over and here’s some lube to make it easier on you.

So what to do? If you own Google stock, sell! Google is punishing the average blogger and making itself more important. If you use Google search, stop. I know I have. Or best yet, ignore Google entirely. I am going to. I am going to hope the companies I work for will no longer use Google as a measure of a blog’s worth. The measure is no longer valid.