DazzlinDonna » General

Freelancers Union

Donna — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:24:17 +0000

I’d like to quickly point out a site I’ve only recently become aware of (where have I been, right?). It’s called the Freelancer’s Union and can be found at http://www.freelancersunion.org. It’s headed by Sara Horowitz and you can see a short Youtube video introduction of it on CNN Money here.

Basically, Freelancer’s Union is a site geared towards giving some breaks to U.S. freelancers, including the ability to get group rates on insurance and retirement plans. In addition, the organization is involved in political action to try to bring fairness to the tax issues that freelancers face, (we generally pay more taxes than traditional employees do).

Other benefits include discounts on products and services, seminars, webinars, live events, a job board, and a community forum.

It’s free to join so if you are a freelancer, check it out.

I have no idea if this same type of organization exists in other countries, but if you’re a freelancer living outside the U.S., I’d recommend searching around for one. There could be some benefits waiting for you.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Freelancer, Freelancer's Union, Sara Horowitz

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Donna — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 14:32:10 +0000

To all of you, I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. If you celebrate something else this season, then Happy That too! Enjoy the holidays, and be sure to return here on the 30th (next Tuesday) for a special announcement. See ya’ll then!

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Dazzlin Badge of Excellence for LightEcho

Donna — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:49:29 +0000

This Dazzlin Badge of Excellence is awarded to LightEcho. I haven’t given a badge of excellence in a while, and this is the first I’ve given to someone of the male species.

I like this site, not only because it’s visually appealing to me, but because the information it contains is broad and varied, but still on point. And what is that point? Well, I’ll let Jonathan’s own words explain that:

LightEcho.com is the creation of a long time philosopher, a seasoned economist and an experienced internet engineer. It has been designed to provide insight, practical advice, and a new perspective on the emerging internet and technology that inhabit our everyday lives. By imparting ideas that are both attainable and enlightening, the internet can be understood on a level other than what is offered through mass media.

I haven’t fully explored every post in LightEcho’s engaging repertoire, but of of the ones I’ve read, I’m hooked. I bet you will be too.

If you’ve won a Dazzlin Badge of Excellence Award, you can display the awards badge on your site by pasting the following code into your page. Just highlight it, copy it, and paste it.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: economist and an experienced internet engineer, HTML, mass media

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Green Web Hosting – ThinkHost Is No Longer My Choice

Donna — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:48:09 +0000

UPDATE: Due to so many complaints, I’m no longer recommending ThinkHost. However, lucky for us all, my past and still present favorite hosting company, HostGator, has gone green, so I can continue recommending it while knowing there’s an extra goodness in its greeness! So, ignore the rest of this and just know that I love HostGator. *

A few days ago, a friend of mine had web hosting issues (and boy, oh boy, over the years, I’ve had plenty of those!). Because she’s an enlightened sort of gal, she decided to investigate using green hosting services. Since she brought it to my mind, I couldn’t help but go out and start doing a little investigating of my own.

There are a few nice choices in green web hosting, but the one I ended up choosing as the best “all ’round” choice for me or most people I know would be ThinkHost. Reasons I chose them as my green web host of choice:

Their services are powered by 100% renewable energy (solar/wind)
Plants a tree for every client
Good plan pricing with all the right plan features
Fast setup
Multiple payment methods available
Host unlimited number of sites for no extra charge
Lots of space and bandwidth offered
Been around for a long time
Sponsors many non-profit organizations and 10% of their revenue value is put back into community projects
Backed by a site I know and trust (tamingthebeast.net)
100% uptime guarantee – and they actually give you 1 day of hosting free for each 1 hour of service interruption
Backup generators in case of power outages

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve often recommended HostGator and I still do. I love that hosting company. But if you really want to move to an earth-friendly hosting company, then ThinkHost is who I’d recommend for you. If you decide to try them, I’ve even got a coupon code you can use. Just enter the following code on the secure package signup form to get $20 off any package you choose : THINKHOST20

Just wanted to pass along another hosting recommendation, in addition to the one I usually recommend. If you are interested in using a green hosting company, ThinkHost is the one to use.

Disclosure: Affiliate links may be used within this post for products I recommend. They in no way affect my judgement of said products, nor do they affect the price of the product.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: For Us All, Good, green hosting services, green web host, green web hosting, hostgator, renewable energy, ThinkHost, web hosting

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Revolution Money Is Possible PayPal Replacement That Has Real Merit

Donna — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:25:23 +0000

A new payment network, called Revolution Money, is poised to take PayPal’s place. I personally have never had a problem with PayPal but because they are not a bank, and can’t be regulated like one, the possibility of them freezing your account is very real, and has caused many people to get very upset over the years. They can put a hold on your money for up to 6 months while they investigate what they think might be fraudulent activity.

Some very important people got together to try to give us all a better option, and they just might be able to pull it off. The people behind Revolution Money are Ted Leonsis (Vice-chairman of AOL and owner of Washington Capitals), Steve Case (co-founder of AOL), David Goldman (former vice-chairman of J.P. Morgan), Russell E. Hogg (former President and CEO of Mastercard), David Pottruck (Chairman, Eos Airlines and Former CEO of Charles Schwab), Frank Raines (Former Chairman & CEO of Fannie Mae), Larry Summers (Former Secretary of Treasury and Former President of Harvard University), Jason Hogg (Founder, President and CEO of Revolution Money) and Patrick Graf (Co-Founder and CTO of Revolution Money). That’s an impressive array of people.

The good thing is that Revolution Money is administered by an actual bank (First Bank & Trust in Brookings, South Dakota), and is FDIC-insured, along with your Revolution Money Exchange Account. In addition, unlike PayPal, you can send and receive money to and from other Revolution Money Exchange members with no service charges at all.

The only way that Revolution Money can replace PayPal, however, is for it to get lots of people to sign up. So, to help achieve that, from now until April 15th, everyone who signs up (for free) will automatically get $25 placed into their account. It’s true and it’s real. I tried it. I signed up, and within minutes, $25 was ready and waiting for me.

If you want to be able to use a more secure payment system than PayPal, and you want no charges for doing so, AND YOU WANT $25, all you have to do is click on the button below and go sign up. You will have to give them both your social security number and your bank’s routing and account number, so that your Revolution Money account can be attached to your bank account (just like PayPal does). But don’t worry, it isn’t a scam, and it is safe.

I have a feeling this is going to revolutionize the online payment model.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: actual bank, AOL, bank, bank account, Brookings, CEO, Chairman, Chairman & CEO, Charles Schwab, Co-Founder, Co-Founder and CTO, David Goldman, David Pottruck, Eos Airlines, Fannie Mae, FDIC, First Bank & Trust, Founder, Frank Raines, Harvard University, J.P. Morgan, Jason Hogg, Larry Summers, Mastercard, online payment model, owner, Patrick Graf, payment network, payment system, PayPal, President, President and CEO, revolution money, Revolution Money Exchange, Russell E. Hogg, Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of Treasury and Former President, South Dakota, Steve Case, Ted Leonsis, Vice-chairman, Washington Capitals

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We have a winner!

Donna — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:13:13 +0000

Eric P. Martin of The Blog Novice just won the 26 Week Internet Marketing Plan that I’m giving away. He submitted an entry by suggesting this question:

How do I put advertising code in the sidebar in a php file?

in this post.

I’ve emailed Eric and am waiting to hear back from him so I know where to ship everything.

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest, and special thanks to the 26 Week Internet Marketing Plan people for creating it in the first place.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: advertising code, Eric P. Martin, Internet Marketing Plan, Internet Marketing Plan people, php

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Win 26 Week Marketing Plan Worth Approximately $800

Donna — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:07:45 +0000

You may recall that I reviewed the 26 Week Marketing Plan, and I thought it was very well done and very informative. Because I reviewed it, I have a copy that I’m willing to give away to one lucky contest-winner. In that review post, I mentioned that if you checked it out and read the material, you would have the chance to win this prize. But I’ve decided that it would be too difficult to expect you to remember what you read all this time later. So, let’s make things easier.

There will be two (3) ways of entering this contest.

1) Subscribe to my private list. Look over to the right. See the form just under the yellow highlighted text (under Join My Private List)? Fill out that form, and you’ll be entered to win.

2) Subscribe to my RSS feed and then email me at dazzlindonna@gmail.com to tell me what the footer of the feed says (the bit after the copyright. It begins with “This feed is for”).

3) Participate in my Fill In The Blank post, by commenting there with a suggestion.

Each of these methods of entry will earn you one (1) entry, so if you do all three, you get 3 entries.

Contest ends Friday (3/14/2008) at Noon CST. I’ll be compiling the entries that afternoon, and will do a random draw once all the entries are placed “in the hat”. I’ll then draw a random entry, and announce the winner. Once a winner is chosen, I’ll contact the winner to get shipping information and I will ship the entire package to the winner during the week of March 17, 2008.

If you’ve forgotten what the prize is, go back and read the review, or just head straight to the 26 Week Marketing Plan site to get all the info about it. The cost of the program is 399 pounds, and at the current conversion rate, that equals somewhere around 800 US dollars. So this is a valuable prize, monetarily, but even more important, it is extremely valuable because of the knowledge you can gain from it.

So everyone enter to win! It’s free and easy. Good luck!

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Fill In The Blank For A Chance To Win

Donna — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:24:59 +0000

I’d like to do an informal poll and I would sincerely appreciate it if you would participate. I promise it is very easy. Keep in mind that the broad subject matter of this blog is primarily centered around making a living online, and the various methods of accomplishing that goal. With that in mind, would you please submit a comment that fills in the blank to the following:

How do I _________________________________________?

Feel free to submit as many comments as you want. The goal here is to find out what you would like to know how to do (as in a step-by-step process). Please make it specific; in other words, don’t say How do I make money online? That’s too broad. Narrow it down. Here’s some examples to get your mind working. How do I determine what size images to use in my blog posts? Or… How do I crop images to the size I need them to be? Or… How do I choose which affiliate programs to promote?

To encourage participation, I promise to give everyone who submits a real question (i.e. spammers will be thrown out) an extra submission in an upcoming contest that I’ll be featuring very soon. The prize is worth nearly $1000, and is well worth playing for, so keep that in mind before you decide to ignore this request.

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing how you fill in the blank!

P.S. Even if you already know how to do something, but think it might be a question that others would have, submit those as well. We aren’t judging you by the question you ask… merely obtaining a list of questions that would be good to answer.

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I Am Now Available As An eBusiness Coach

Donna — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:51:48 +0000

Although the written word is extremely powerful, it can’t compete with a one-on-one conversation. Beginning today, I am launching a new aspect to my business, in which I can be hired as an eBusiness Coach / Consultant. What does that mean? That means, one-on-one conversations with people looking to transition to making a living from home and succeeding with an online business. It means providing guidance, clarity, and support with weekly phone sessions and follow-up emails. It means personal attention.

If you or someone you know is looking for a coach / consultant to help ease them into making a living online, visit my new site (listed below) and consider what it would mean to have your own personal coach guiding you along the way. Thanks for listening.

Donna Fontenot – eBusiness Coach / Consultant
www.ebuzzcoach.com

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Am Now Available As An eBusiness Coach, coach / consultant, Donna Fontenot, e - business, eBusiness Coach / Consultant, online, personal coach, www.ebuzzcoach.com

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The Blogosphere: Power Of The People

Donna — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:39:48 +0000

Think blogging and participating in online communities cannot bring about powerful change? Think again! After reading one short forum thread post, a blogger was able to pick up a big story, tell his readers about it, thereby causing a cascade effect that changed the way, not one, but TWO huge companies practiced business.

For quite some time now, registrars were required to allow a 5 day grace period, in which domain names registered could be cancelled and refunded within 5 days. This process allowed large blocks of domains with popular search keywords in them to be registered, monetized (usually by Google Adsense), and if it was discovered within the 5 days that it was not a profitable domain name, cancel it, get a refund, but keep any moneys generated within the 5 days. With a large enough batch of test domains, constantly cycling through 5 day periods, a company doing this “domain tasting” could amass large amounts of money. Of course, this also meant that large amounts of domain names were taken out of circulation, and some of those had trademark issues.

So besides the registrants, who else profited greatly? Google, for one, as they generated revenues when those Adsense-enabled sites got clicks. But the surprise profiteer in this turned out to be Network Solutions, and that’s how this mighty stack of cards came tumbling down.

Three weeks ago, on January 8th, 2008, a forum thread was started by Stratagenix at DomainState.com. It read:

BEWARE: Don’t Search For Names At NetworkSolutions.com

Network Solutions has instituted a 4 day lock on all domain names searched on their site. They are effectively using phishing techniques to hijack or steal domain names and forcing domain name registrants to register their names at Network Solutions. The standard domain name registration fee at Network Solutions is $34.99 – significantly higher than the leading alternatives. I was forced to register a domain name with them today or chance losing it to another registrant. This is unethical in my opinion and should be illegal. I will be filing a complaint at ICANN.

As far as I can tell (and I could be wrong), Bill Hartzer was the first to pick up on this thread and blog about it. From there, the outrage began, and the blogosphere exploded with the news.

A mere three weeks later, and both Google and Icann have made changes that should end this practice of domain tasting forever.

First, Google took action, when they were said to be “considering banning newly registered domain names from participating in the Google for Domain Names program, severely hampering the practice of domain tasting.”

And now, ICANN has decided to not allow a grace period on transaction fee refunds, and that is likely the last nail in the domain tasting coffin. This should also end NetSol’s incentive for hijacking domains during those 5 days.

These issues aren’t new. They began long ago, and they’ve been noticed before. In August of 2006, speculators wondered if NetSol was hijacking domains, and Network Solutions denied the allegations at the time.

I spoke to someone at Network Solutions about this, and she assured me that there is no way anyone can monitor domain names researched on their site.

The blogosphere is a different place now than it was back then. It is stronger and more pervasive, and this time it had the power to break the backs of some mighty powerful people.

Remember that the next time you wonder if you should blog, because you think no one will be listening. It is amazing just how powerful one small voice can be.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bill Hartzer, blogging, blogosphere, blogs, domain tasting, Google, ICANN, Network Solutions, online communities, power, powerful, search keywords

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