Rants & Ravings, From Me to You.

Lifehacker is one of my favorite RSS feeds, I pick up at least a few hacks every week. Since 2010 is starting, I thought I would share Lifehacker’s “The Great Best of 2010 Recap” Just click on the link below.

Remember when things don’t go the way you anticipated, simply smile knowing that the magic is somewhere out there.

http://lifehacker.com/5435500/the-great-best-of-2009-recap

Do yourself a favor and subscribe to lifehacker’s RSS feed. You will not regret it, and if you haven’t picked it up yet. Go grab Gina Trapani’s “Upgrade your life” book. It pays for itself, just click the amazon link below.

One of my pet peeves is scrolling on a web page. I guess someone over at Google felt the same way. It’s kind of strange how Google always seems to be reading my mind! Please, no conspiracy theory comments. Anyway, this tool enables you to analysis your website. I think it would be very useful for anyone dealing with e-commerce sites.

The team at Google can explain it better than I, so here is what it will do.

Special code collects data on the height and width of the browser for a sample of users. For a given point in the browser, the tool will tell you what percentage of users can see it. For example, if an important button is in the 80% region it means that 20% of users have to scroll in order to see it. If you’re a web designer, you can use Browser Size to redesign your page to minimize scrolling and make sure that the important parts of the page are always prominent to your audience. We hope people will use this tool to make their websites better, in turn making the web better for everyone.

If you want more information, just go to http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

JUST WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR AND WHY ARE YOU WAITING?

Far too many people spend their entire lives waiting for that glorious day when the perfect opportunity presents itself to them. Too late, they realize that each day held opportunity for those who sought it out. If you have not formulated a plan for what you would like to accomplish in your life, don’t waste another minute. When you have Definiteness of Purpose fueled by a burning desire to reach your objectives, nothing can stand in your way. Don’t wait around waiting for life to happen to you. When you know what you want and how you expect to earn it, life will agree to your terms, not the other way around.

I received this from a friend of my the other day and it sat in my e-mail box. For some strange reason, I decided to read it this morning and was very impressed. I decided to place it on my blog. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did, please leave me a comment if you do.

“WISDOM COMES WITH AGE” Take 2 min to read this.

This is something we should all read at least once a week.

Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio

“To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.  It

is the most-requested column I’ve ever written.

My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1.  Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2.  When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3.  Life is too short to waste time hating anyone…

4.  Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick.  Your friends and parents will.  Stay in touch.

5.  Pay off your credit cards every month.

6.  You don’t have to win every argument.  Agree to disagree.

7.  Cry with someone.  It’s more healing than crying alone.

8.  It’s OK to get angry with God.  He can take it.

9.  Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10.  When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11.  Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

12.  It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

13.  Don’t compare your life to others.  You have no idea what their journey

is all about.

14.  If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

15.  Everything can change in the blink of an eye.  But don’t worry; God never  blinks.

16.  Take a deep breath.  It calms the mind.

17.  Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

18.  Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

19.  It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.  But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20.  When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

21.  Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie.  Don’t save it for a special occasion.  Today is special.

22.  Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23.  Be eccentric now.  Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

24.  The most important sex organ is the brain.

25.  No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26.  Frame every so-called disaster with these words.  ‘In five years, will this matter?’

27.  Always choose life.

28.  Forgive everyone everything.

29.  What other people think of you is none of your business.

30.  Time heals almost everything.  Give time time.

31.  However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32.  Don’t take yourself so seriously.  No one else does.

33.  Believe in miracles.

34.  God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or

didn’t do.

35.  Don’t audit life.  Show up and make the most of it now.

36.  Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.

37.  Your children get only one childhood.

38.  All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39.  Get outside every day.  Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40.  If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

41.  Envy is a waste of time.  You already have all you need.

42.  The best is yet to come.

43.  No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44.  Yield.

45.  Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.”

If you envision being able to conduct business for yourself via the Internet. It is imperative that you develop your personal brand. This blog helps me to develop my personal brand, my e-mail address, twitter, Linked in, and all the other social media websites help as well. The Internet is an integral part of every one’s life today and in order to be recognized, you need to develop your brand online.

It starts with owning your name online. Sure there are millions of John Smith’s of the world, so if your parents named you that. Good luck trying to get your birth name as a domain name. Even my name John Van Wyk although relatively uncommon was taken by someone located in Canada. I did the next best thing, jvanwyk.com! Everyday I get e-mails from people regarding business and potential opportunities. How can I take them serious when the e-mail address is something like: Hotlips@, Chickenlady@, Masterblaster@, 2cute@ – get the idea?

One of the first domains I purchased online was www.jvanwyk.com I didn’t use it for a year. Wondering what I was going to do with it. Then I decided to begin building my personal brand and this blog helped me. It has enabled me to make business contacts and friends whom I would have never met before. James King from http://www.atmmultimedia.com/ has been a tremendous help to me. He like the others I have met are like minded people whom believe and strive for the same things I do each day.

Developing a personal brand online takes work to create and even more to maintain. This isn’t  something that you can just setup and forget about. You need to work at it daily, maybe five minutes or five hours. You will reap what you sow! However, with all of these social networking sites I mention above, the basic fact is that you need to have passion and drive to see the projects through. Without it, you might as well not even start.

I am passionate about this blog, internet marketing and learning. I have a plan in place for leveraging my passion into something that can support the lifestyle I want to live. I make it a point to reivew my plan each day. Repetion breeds habit, and we all know that habits are hard to break. Life has a funny way of throwing you a curveball every now and again. The measure of your passion is tested each time that occurs.

So, go out and purchase your name as a domain name. Don’t only purchase your name, purchase your father’s, mother’s, wife, kids or boyfriend/girlfriends name (just think of all the satisfaction you would have if you owned your boyfriend or girlfriends name as a domain!) I highly recommend Go Daddy when purchasing your domain name. To help you, I created a seperate web page that can walk you through it. http://whohasmynameonline.com/ just click on any of the ads located on my webpages. When you do that, your helping me keep this blog going as well!

Let me know some of your personal branding ideas by leaving me a comment below. It will not only help me, but everyone else that visit’s my blog as well. I strongly believe in sharing my knowledge with any and all whom ask, I hope you do as well.