I received a few e-mails asking about my new place in Florida. For whatever reason, I didn’t take too many pictures, but here are pictures of the front and rear of the house. You can click the pictures to see a higher resolution version. The walkway runs from our patio right down to the beach, and those bushes offer some protection against any future hurricanes..

As with everything I do, it’s nothing but the best inside.. Next time I’m down there, I’ll take some interior pictures!

We flew back from Florida yesterday afternoon so we could have Christmas dinner with my wife’s family. I was shocked at how many people were flying today.. I thought most people would have flown on Wednesday, but I was wrong. Regardless, we got back into Philly on time (actually about 25 mins early), and were thankful for that!

After wading through 892 e-mails this morning (of which 400 were spam!), I’m finally caught up and ready to roll.

While I was gone, I had time to reflect on 2008.. What a rollercoaster ride it’s been! I had predicted earnings of about $40K/month based on our 2007 numbers, but when the economy took a dump, any hopes of that went right out the window. Unfortunately for me, that means I’ll have to put off my Ferrari F430 purchase for a little longer. In the meantime, I’ll have to make do with the rest of my fleet.

But don’t dispair! We’ve got some killer plans for 2009, and you can believe that we’ll reach (and even exceed) those goals.. And if I can do it, then so can you. So think optimistically, and start thinking about next year, and how you plan to conquer your niche. As always, if you need any advice, feel free to e-mail me.

The weather sucks, and it’s time to get out of Dodge! We’re headed down to sunny Florida for a few days of relaxation.. After all, what’s the point of a beach house if you don’t use it?

What a difference a year makes! My business was so incredibly busy last December that I NEVER would have dreamed of taking vacation at this time.. But it’s been a real eye opener this year, and I decided to take advantage of it to get some much needed rest. In fact, I’m not even bringing my laptop down there, as I don’t want to do any work. (I’ll have my iPhone with me, but that’s just for emergencies..)

So have a Merry Christmas, and I’ll talk to you all next week!

-Z

I’m always looking for cheap ways to drive more traffic to my blogs. Last year, I created a Dallas Cowboys profile on MySpace. I found a ton of Cowboys fanatics on there, and used FriendBlaster Pro to add them as my friends.

Even with the software, it was a pain in the ass, because of MySpace’s CAPTCHA security.. Add too many friends at once, and they’d catch on to you and delete your account. So you were limited to about 500 friend requests each day.

Over the next few weeks, I managed to add almost 2000 QUALITY friends to my account. But I had no idea how to get them to visit our Cowboys blog. MySpace has their own blogging system, but there’s no way to import your previously posted stories. And logging in each day to update their blog with our updates was just too tedious and time-consuming.

Then I stumbled onto Widgetbox. With Widgetbox, you can create what’s known as a “blidget”, which uses your blog’s RSS feed to generate a flash-driven widget. You can then click the “Add to MySpace” button, and add it directly to your profile! I put my widget right in the “About Me” section, so it’s front and center to every person that visits my page.

Now, I’ve got a much better chance of grabbing traffic that comes to my page, and it updates automatically. Gotta love it!

I swear, it’s getting ridiculous! I was looking for a new theme to use for one of our sites, and ALL I could find were these damn magazine-style themes.. I personally blame John Chow (and Unique Blog Designs) for making this blog style so popular!!

Seriously though, while it may be aesthetically pleasing at first glance, they’re actually a pain in the ass to nagivate through – Especially if you want to read multiple posts. (Click, Read Story, Click Back, Scroll Down, Click, Read Story, and Repeat)

What happened to the original blog layouts? Shoemoney and Tyler Cruz both have themes that are easy to navigate, while still “ad-friendly”. I wish theme designers would see that there’s still a demand for these types of layouts, and people will eventually get tired of these magazine layouts.

Until then, the site in question will just be getting a mild facelift..

About 3 weeks late, but WordPress 2.7 (Coltrane) was released this morning. This is a MAJOR upgrade from previous versions, and you can read all about the new features here. Needless to say, this is a pretty big deal.

Before you jump into it though, you need to make sure you’re prepared for the upgrade. Check the Plugin Compatibility List and Theme Compatibility List ahead of time to head off any potential issues.

And of course, be sure to make backups before attempting this upgrade! Good luck!