As you can see here, I haven’t updated the blog in more than 4 weeks now. Apologies to those who came here to find something new and saw the same article for such long time

All this time I worked. Had some client sites to finish (still have), worked on some of the sites in the network, wrote some articles in my other blogs. I would like to say I took a long break, but it wasn’t the case. Still I thought about this the only day I really ignored ALL work and had fun.

Yes, I wasted one day and now I feel I accomplished so much just by not working.

It’s weird I know: how can I say I had a 24 hour break from all my web related work and still I feel I gained so much?

Some years ago I trained in Karate. It wasn’t something serious since I was on a fulltime job at a radio station, 24 year old female. So no competition for me. Still I trained like a maniac, because I loved each minute. 4 “classes” a week, each 2-3 hour long. I was in the best shape of my life and the technique got better each day.

And then .. I reached a plateau.

I trained so much I wasn’t good anymore, my muscles were sore (even if I was in that awesome shape), I kinda disliked this and that, would go through the Kihon sessions with no passion etc. I was overburnt and sick of all, even if I still loved all the training. And then I took some time off.

It was the winter vacation, we all went to a moutain resort or stayed at home. No Karate for 3 weeks. In the first days I felt like an addict who’s not getting his dose, but after a week it was all better. My blisters healed, my muscles weren’t as tense as before, I got my passion back.

We met again in the dojo and I was a new person. My technique was perfect, I was full of energy and the class was amazing. I missed it so much, I was rested and had my full strength again.

Getting back to our jobs as web developers, we do get this exhaustion, even if we don’t see it. And most of the time this “muscle soreness” hits us exactly when we should work more and better. The moment projects pile up and clients are tough with the deadlines, we break down. How could we take a day off when we know there is so much to work?

Simple. Just do it. Wake up that morning (weekend is better, since clients are also resting) and just go to get some tan, go to visit your city, meet with friends etc. Just IGNORE anything web related, don’t even open the computer if possible. As much as you think the world will come to an end, don’t worry, nothing will get destroyed, no one will die just because you took a day off.

This is what I did this saturday. Got a friend to come to the pool with me, we spent 5 hours in the sun, swimming and chatting like women do. Then I got back, took my car again, another closer friend and we hit the town. Drank some soda, chatted some more and then  met my boyfriend. I refused to touch my laptop, so I finished the night with some TV (Discovery Channel).

The next day I woke up with a HUGE “need” to work. I turned on my computer and checked to see if the world was still as we know it. All was OK. My network was there, the 4 reseller accounts were OK, the payment from some of the advertising companies was issued. I was fresh now and started working.

At the end of the day I realized I haven’t lost anything with my one day break. I worked better since I wasn’t that tired and covered easily for the 24 hours of inactivity.

When was the last time you took a break?

Few days ago one of my favourite Romanian bloggers decided to quit his job and pursue professional blogging. Full time job. He is already getting a nice revenue from this projects and it was just a smart move (even if a tad courageous as he also mentioned). His only concern was that he might think again to get a “real job” since most of his friends and relatives are shocked to see his new career, even if he does make money.

GET A REAL JOB!

No, really.

What’s a real job anyway? I kinda heard this too for the last 10 years. I finished highschool and instead of starting to work in the class as a kindergarted teacher, I decided the pay is too small and this is not what I want to do with my life. So I got a radio DJ job. Yeah, a “real” job indeed.

While my friends would get up at 7 in the morning to start the work at 8 and come back at 4 (our “nine to five is an hour earlier), I was getting up at 9, started the show at 10 and got back at 2. 4 hour work-day, triple the salary. Wasn’t this a real job? Why? Because I didn’t work for 8 hours? I didn’t work in shifts? In a factory?

Most of the time I would feel like I don’t have a real job since it’s indeed special. I can’t say I work a lot, especially now, since I have done this for many years. I am able to start talking about anything in seconds and get my “cool” no matter what happens on air. I am doing my “mixing” too, so I have my show in my hands so to say.

And still, even if it’s relaxing and I am pretty fast in my work, it’s a job. It requires something the people who tell me to get a real job don’t have: a good voice, excellent English pronounciation, self-esteem, humour, music knowledge etc. Whenever some of my friends would make fun of me, I’d also invite them to do my job. If it’s that simple why don’t they do it? Ah, they can’t .. Just as I thought. The radio DJ business is not for anyone.

And now, we get back to us, “weirdos” who sleep late at night and can’t wake up in the morning if their life depended on this. Yes, we wake up at 12, dizzy and oblivious of anything happening to us, we think in hex, pixels, divs and keywords, we spend hours typing, searching, designing. We earn a decent living and we do enojoy it. And of course, for most “normal” people, we are not having a “real” job.

Some years ago I was a bit ashamed too. For being a “strange” person, for not being able to have a normal life and a job like all my friends and family members. And still, after some thinking, I realized my job is real and there is nothing we should be ashamed of. Because we are specialists and we work a lot each day. Here are some of the things that make my web development job a real one in my eyes:

• 9 to 5? Sometimes I have 9 to 12 (midnight). Even if I don’t go to a regular job 8 hours a day, my working day sometimes is more than 16 hours. Any developer knows that when a deadline approaches, we lose sleep so that we solve it all. And when we should be relaxed, we have so many projects that would require us to have a 25 hours day and work 48 hours of it. Just because I don’t go to a regular office for hours, doesn’t mean I sleep my life.
• salary .. in the end that’s what makes a job. We all earn money. Advertising revenue, hosting, web design and programming, content creation etc. Even if this doesn’t sound like “real money”, it’s a pay for a good service. This money is real and we can live off our firms/projects. In my case I have the other “unreal” job (radio DJ) and believe me the salary is very real there too
• we don’t play on our computers, even if the “regular” people think this. The fact we seem to get lost in god knows what article for hours or caress that mouse as if it was the love of our life doesn’t make this less real. No, we don’t build houses, we don’t cure cancer, we don’t even clean the halls. We use our hands and brains to solve problems, to keep clients happy, to provide advertising ideas and solutions. The fact our services are different, doesn’t make them a joke. Our checks and bank accounts prove that at least our clients don’t think it’s a game.
• no, not anyone can do this. In many times, when I got some looks for being successful in an area others just couldn’t survive and getting judged for “having it so easy”, I’d just reply: OK, ya’ think you can do this? What’s stopping you? You think my radio DJ job is a joke and I am getting paid for nothing? Cool, come and do my show. Open the microphone and SAY ONE DECENT SENTENCE without choking with emotion, without being schocked you are on air. Sure you’re almost wetting your pants. I’ve done this for MONTHS till I was able for the first time to just not think about an entire city listening to me and laughing when I say a stupid thing. Because I do make mistakes and all my audience knows it and laughs about it. Does this seem easy? No, it’s not. I have nightmares about my radio job, even if in 10 years no one made a huge fuss of any of my mistakes.

  I’ve also had a coleague tell me “how easy it’s for you. You get a wage value for a site, you’re so lucky.” What does stop him? Doesn’t he also have a brain? Doesn’t he also have fingers and eyes? Why is he struggling to make the ends meet each month when he could earn so much? Ah, he can’t do my “job”. He can’t learn HTML, Photoshop is just a word to him, even after 20 hours of explanations I’d be forced to let him go without him being able to understand that a code in HTML makes the page look like this and act like this etc.

Everytime someone invites you to get a real job, just let them know what you are doing here online is a JOB. And a good one. You have to study all the time, as if you were a doctor. Sure, you’re not saving lives, but the trends change so fast, you can never be too sure you haven’t missed the “train”. You spend tens of hours in a week looking at code, searching for the best keyword, trying to make that green-blue skin look good for your client’s site, creating yet another interesting article.

The blogger I mentioned has quite a talent when it comes to writing. He’s already secured an audience for his blog and the site grows nicely. He’s got talent, he’s hard working, he lost hundreds of hours refining that blog, changing skins, placing the ads for the best CTR. He does have a very real job and seems pretty good with what he does.

I stopped caring about my neighbours opinion for a long time or any other people who think I am a “loser”. I go to the radio at 4 (when others get back) and stay there till 8 since I have an evening show. I work half a km far from home. Then I get back and work on my sites. The mornings I spend sleeping or meeting with my clients. I have a “pregnant lady schedule” as my BF likes to joke. I do earn as much as he does and this is done withouth spending 14 hours as a civil engineer, building blocks in the cold snow or hot summer days. I stay indoors, I take my laptop with me and work, I can taka a break whenever I want, I can shop and then lose the night finishing a project. If we do the sums I also have 10-14 hours of work daily, even if this doesn’t “show”.

Instead of being “ashamed” we don’t fit in any social pattern, I’d say we should be proud. Proud that we can earn a decent living with a relaxed schedule, proud we are so smart to understand all this web related “mambo-jambo”, that we are successful in our projects, we have pleased clients, people who read our articles and enjoy them, advertising systems paying us for links and banners. It’s not a normal job, but it is REAL. At least that’s how I feel it.

This article will be more personal than others, so please bear with me.

I am poor. I live in a poor country and my teen age years were hard and ugly. My family (father and his parents) would barely make the ends meet each month and they made huge efforts to keep me fed and in school. In my family being a good student was the only thing the kid had to do and they were very strict about this. They knew that only studying hard I would have the chance to maybe have a better life. A good job maybe and money in the future. Not huge riches, but at least a decent living.

We couldn’t afford too many things back then. I recall I used to wear the same pair of jeans for 2-3 years, I had very few pairs of shoes, mainly casual-sport ones (since they lasted longer and I could wear them anywhere). Shopping for clothes was always unpleasant: I had to be careful since I knew the next chance to get something new would be in 3-4 months the soonest.

The moment I finished school, I went to a radio station and started working as a DJ. For a total beginner and a “kid” compared to others, the first year was horrible. I used to work for 8-10 hours on the air (can’t understand how I made it) so that I can show them I am of some value. I wanted to learn all I could about music and in 6 months I became one of the best from there, even if I was a paria  months ago.

I worked through college too, happy to be able to earn something to help my family and also pay for my studies. The wage was pretty small, but it was already better than before.

After some time I decided it’s a good idea to get a second job. I was still on the radio and would earn twice the money at an advertising firm. I was the one to do most of the work there and this helped me learn more about running a business.

One year passed and I was ready to move on. A new radio station opened in my city and I went there. The wage was quite good (as much as both previous jobs would pay me together). So, I was once again on a better deal.

It was clear to me that working for others is a good deal, but the best deal for me at least would be to manage my own business. I saved some money and 1 year ago I started my own small web business. As I mentioned in another article: it’s a small venture, but I earn quite well. I work all day long, all weekends, I am again tired all the time, but it does look pretty nice.

In my case the only way to fight poverty was to just look for something to do. Something to bring me money. A bad job at first (since I was a beginner with no experience), then more experience, better jobs, maybe 2 at the same time or a job and a business as I have now. My financial numbers look pretty nice now. I earn enough now to be able to pay for my new car, for any food I feel like eating, I can now buy clothes when I see something nice and even save some more. I can also take care of my grandma and father and try to make them forget: “we can’t afford this now”. Well, we can now afford good meals and even some home-improvements. And we can visit our relatives or just drive outside the city in our nice car.

I was never interested in mentioning about my poverty. When we were really poor, I felt ashamed about this. It never occurred to me to whine about this. I didn’t want people to know I have no money, even if it was obvious.

I have coleagues and friends who like to boast about their financial problems. Some are indeed in dire straights, others just like getting the attention. They like others to feel sorry for them, it seems like this gives them a weird pleasure.

Such people don’t think about HOW to change this, they are content with their situation and accept their fate. And it’s so wrong. The best thing we can do is just work more, cut expenses, try to understand where do we go wrong and try to think about solutions. Just whining and contemplating a bad situation won’t solve this. Sure, realizing you have a problem solves half of it (at least that’s what some say), but half is not ALL.

I know so many people who fight for a better life. I even read some blogs about this and I have a huge admiration for them. They don’t “brag” with their poverty, they do something about it.

For my coleagues (some just can’t adjust to my new situation) I had one word: “WORK! You see me earn some more than before? What’s stopping you? Try to see what you are good at and make money from it”.

It’s not a shame to work, it’s a shame to just whine and expect miracles. Sometimes we make our luck. Or at least we help with it.

Yes, another site.

I have braces. Well, not the “classic” type anymore (wore Damon braces for 7 months on my lateral teeth), but Invisalign (those plastic buggers you put on your teeth and expect them to get straight

I have done a lot of reading all these months, came up with a site for the Romanian orthodontics patients and now I started a blog like site about Orthodontics for the international public. It’s called Orthodontics Today (cheesy, I know) and I’ll write there articles about this topic. And my own experience too.

Didn’t get to do too much styling .. made some changes in the theme and now I am submitting to social networks. Let’s hope someone will find my articles useful.

Even if most people will tell you “it’s an oversaturated business, don’t bother anymore”, let’s try for a second to plan such business. Even if there are so many web hosting firms around and so many services to chose from, why not try it? It’s a tough niche, but with some work and dedication you might make it really work. I have thought about this possible business too and, even if I just sell hosting to my web design clients and not work on this as a standalone business, there were some ideas that crossed my mind. I won’t be a hosting provider only because it’s not my dream niche, but allow me to offer some advice and maybe some hints I have thought about all these months.

What can I bring new in this business? Read the rest of this entry »

I have the huge luck of living in one of the biggest cities in Romania, Timisoara. Officially we have a population of half a million people (still we are getting close to 1 million with all the ones who have no legal forms in Timisoara). Not a huge city for the coutries that have bigger ones than we do, but pretty “dense” when it comes to people on the web and even bloggers.

Even if I don’t quite like getting out to meet strangers, I tried to leave the loner attitude aside and be more social. And I really haven’t got ANY reason to regret this.

I don’t go to web conferences. Most of the time these cost quite a lot and again most of the time there are only some general issues being discussed, things I can learn easily from articles and tutorials, for FREE and in my own time and speed. Most conferences are led by people who haven’t done too much to impress me and who can’t offer me some real solutions for the money I have to pay. So, no, I don’t believe in such “events”.

Still the local bloggers meeting is something else. We had a well known blogger make the arrangements, we have all been contacted and invited to the pub. It’s a small pub in Timisoara and the only “obligation” we had was to come there and be able to pay for our coffee or beer. Or natural orange juice or whatever we’d drink or eat. It’s just like getting out with a friend, less costly and more informal. God it was a blast.

Sure, we didn’t know each others by real name. I had to present myself as “Ramona Iftode” and then, seeing their faces (it was clear the name didn’t say anything to them), I had to add “I’m dojo, from dojoblog.info”. “Ah, it’s you, so nice to see you” was the response and I suddenly realized people DO read me and they do know me. At least they know that mean woman who’s writing on the Romanian blog.

The great thing about this meeting was that we were able to see the person BEHIND the blog. Most of the time we have a small picture on the blog and few words about ourselves. Imagine the thrill of getting to know that “picture” and talk personally to that “presentation”. Some people found me to be quite chatty and funny, others were more quiet and maybe weren’t too impressed. It’s absolutely normal: I also had people who really impressed me and some I wasn’t able to know that well and love from the first time we met.

The costs were very very small as compared to those famous web conferences. I drank some hot chocolate and an oranje juice, others “killed” the beers and others just fed their caffeine addiction. Some smoked and we all talked. We changed places at the tables (we were 20-30 people there) so that we can chat with other people too, we exchanged links and business cards (the ones who are also firm owners or just had the time to create some cards), and we even planned some projects together.

Right now we are working on creating a non-profit organization for bloggers. We’ll try to promote blogging in high-schools and show the students there all the advantages of a nice blog. Many bloggers are 16-20 year olds, why not be able to offer them more information and some official help? Blogging can be something wonderful for a teen-ager, we can help them and guide them as much as we can.

We have also discussed about a magazine I’d like to start and after chatting a little about this project, the most proeminent blogger in my city declared he’s 100% by my side and he’d help me as much as he could. Now this is really a great result after just 2-3 hours of chatting.

Our first “encounter” was so successful and we had such a nice time with all those strangers that we decided to meet monthly. On the last sunday, each month, we meet in a pub or outside for a barbecue since it’s so nice and warm outside. We have exchanged links, got to know some great people, some even befriended and started meeting outside our events.

This really made me think about the power of local bloggers and the fact many don’t realize all the opportunities. I see many people willing to drive hundreds of miles to God knows what conference, but they never thought about meeting other people from their own town/city who share same ideas and dreams. Sure, those huge conferences do have a point, you get to know the “biggies” in your area, but why not try to meet the local bloggers too? Sometimes you get better results from partnerships with smaller bloggers than with one huge one. Because some of these bloggers, just like you, might become big too. And it would be great to get your name out there, as much as you can.

So … have you ever been into such a meeting? How does the local blogger community look like in your own city?

From time to time I need images for my sites or for my clients’ designs. I like using StockExchgange most of the time (a free photos site). Still, sometimes I need a better looking image and I come to stockexpert.com for that image. The good thing is that the images would cost 1 USD, a small price when we think about the hundreds of dollars we can get for a design.

I have been using the site for 1 year I think and was able to get some pretty decent images for 1 USD. All with a nice resolution (just good for web): 800×600 pixels.

Some weeks ago I downloaded one again for a new design and was shocked to see it’s a smaller one. Yes, it’s just 400×300 pixels (half of the ones I was able to get all this time for the same price). I thought I did something wrong, but then, after another download I noticed the increased price.

So, the same image I’d get for 1 USD now comes for 2 USD. 1 dollar for a small image, maybe it’s a tad too much. Or maybe we just have to settle for this till we find something better.

Do you have any ideas? Is there a better service?

I know you got sick and tired of hearing the same thing: “content is king”, but let me tell you ONCE again, you have NO idea how true this is. A good site is important for us because of the GOOD UNIQUE content, because it’s useful and we need all those informational articles in order to be able to understand a topic and gain as much knowledge as possible.

A good content is now one of the most sought for commodities on the web. People pay good money for unique articles, for re-writing (when they can’t hire professionals or are just too cheap to pay for something good, but they still want to fool the search engines into thinking the content is original), translations and many other options.

Most of the bloggers and article writers who create unique articles are already in a huge advantage: they create something original that draws people in and can also bring in revenue from advertising or any other money making plans. And still, I am shocked to see how many such good bloggers are too lax when it comes to protecting their own content.

Even if a unique article is just 5 minutes of work to you, its value is HUGE. Because it’s UNIQUE.

I started creating articles 6 years ago with a Karate site for the Romanian people who were into martial arts. In just weeks I saw my work being copied by others. I got mad and demanded for the duplicated plagiarism to be deleted. It was. Sure, I got some response like “yeah, you’re so mean, why can’t I use the article too?”, but I knew I was right. I am mean indeed, but that unique article that’s too good to be stolen, is also good to bring ME traffic and revenue in time and establish me and my site as an authority.

In some months I started a webmaster project (forums with unique articles) and got even more interested in creating content and also protecting it as much as I could. There are tens of articles I wrote and tried to make them interesting and useful. Sure, I am not a professional writer, but this didn’t stop my visitors from learning something from me and be able to improve their web design skills.

From time to time I still have people who steal content from me or try to scrape my blog articles. My content, even if copied partially, can bring some traffic to them and revenue. They do try to steal our content to make their sites content rich and earn money from our work. I still have to see such content thieves who have NO ads at all on their site (since most try to fool us into thinking they are just good samaritans and wanted their visitors to get more knowledge blah-blah-blah). Sure, with Adsense all over the site and tons of affiliate links. All with my own articles. Cute!

So, maybe it’s time for most of us, (good or bad) content writers, to realize the IMPORTANCE of our content. For our site that would have more visitors, a good image and why not a good revenue and for ourselves too since all our articles do have VALUE. In this case the value is for our site only. We don’t have to pay tens of dollars for an original article, we have it created in few minutes by our talented minds. The others, who can’t create articles are invited to PAY for a unique article and we’d surely provide them with the best article we can create.

But our work is ours and will be used ONLY in our projects. As Google gets more drastic with duplicate content and as the content market grows each day, a good unique article is like a jewel that needs to be protected. Even if some think I am mean, I don’t allow re-publishing. UNDER NO CONDITIONS. I don’t care what site you use, I don’t care how much of my article you are using. You can’t do this.

What can a visitor do if he/she really likes one of my articles? The same I do: I just link to it and write a nice short personal presentation recommending it to my visitors. I do promote that good article and still don’t steal the content another author created.

Maybe it’s a good idea to be “mean” and try protect that king. We don’t want other sites (stealing our content) to get better traffic than we do, we don’t want others to earn money from our work. If it takes you and me 5-10 minutes for an article, this doesn’t mean it’s worthless. It means we might type fast and just have the ideas flow. The fact we don’t spend 5 hours into making an article, doesn’t mean the article has no value. And this value, even if sometimes we fail to understand this, is big enough to attract others to use it for their own profit.

What do you think about this? How important is your own content to you?

I like to see the “daily blog tips” from time to time, so this morning I was greeted with an article I thought about for quite some time too: Twitter Less, Blog More!

Even if in this case the author has Twitter in mind, I think we can go further and expand this to almost all social networks that exist at this moment. And let me tell you, they are in quite a number.

I read a lot about tips of submitting your content to tens of social media sites, about how to get into the top spots in digg, mybloglog, blogrush, entrecard, sphin, technorati etc. How to add as many friends as possible, how to click on cards, enter “what I am doing now” messages, see how many people follow you, how to follow others, how to vote, click and blink.

Even if all these DO help us to get our content and blogs out there so that other bloggers can see them, we WASTE a lot of time by doing this. In my first days of Entrecard I wasted 3-4 hours a day dropping cards on others, reading and commenting, since I was trying to Get something more from that crappy Entrecard traffic

In all social networking sites in order to have success one needs to spend time and effort. It takes work to get those top results in network that are saturated with people who DO THE SAME as you do. They are all there, adding friends frantically, voting, exchanging hellos and trying to get their own content as high as possible.

Each minute you spend OUTSIDE of your blog, you spend it NOT working on your blog. It’s also true that these networks do bring in traffic and exposure, but it’s also important to balance this promotional effort with the content creation. It would be sad to spend hours a day promoting a content that’s getting less and less valuable, since you can’t spend too much time writing from all the efforts you are making to get the word out.

Maybe it’s a good time to start spending more time reading useful content and preparing our articles, then run to FEW sites that would help us promote, send a link and spend few minutes and then get back to our blog. Maybe this would slow down some of that big less quality traffic many of these sites bring in and it would attract some visitors who would come back to read that good content we spend a lot of time creating. GOOD content will always attract, that’s the secret.

Would you like to drive this car? What of you had access to it from the moment you take driving lessons? Would you like to learn how to drive on such a car?

I have a client who is a driving instructor in my city and he taught me how to drive too. He would be our example of the best way to drive clients to your door as a business. He’s done it and maybe we can learn from his experience too, about how to offer our clients something that would make them COME to us and WANT to work with us.

He is a “crazy” guy, he just bought a Peugeot 307 Coupe (135 HP) and he’s using it as a “school car” for the clients who want to learn how to drive a car. And let me tell you: THEY ALL WANT TO DRIVE THIS BABY.

He started with a small car that has no value (as compared to this one). Then he got better cars and he realized that clients are picky and want more and more for their money. 6 months ago, when I took driving lessons he used a Volkswagen Passat car (a great one too) and the reason I chose him (from all the instructors he had there on all kinds of cars) was the fact I’d be able to drive such a nice car.

Sure, in the end I had to learn how to use a car in the city, but I got something more: the chance to “ride” an over 100 horse-power engine on an “almost luxurious car”. It was a blast: a good car is a pleasure to drive.

After some months that “maniac” took his business to an even greater level: got a “jewel” of a car, a coupe that looks amazing and attracts people like a magnet. I drove that “baby” and let me tell you I was in huge ecstasy. Now, he’s not teaching people how to drive (as tens of other similar firms do in my city only), he’s the ONLY one to let his students drive a convertible. Even if the car will have to suffer (it wasn’t new, it cost 13 thousand Euro, just like my new Opel Corsa, 90HP), he’ll be able to make lots of money to cover the car’s “use” and also bring way more clients to his school and secure a good profit.

What did he teach me and all of us now, since you know the story too? That in this business world thinking outside the box and offering something better and different can be the secret to success. Such a “perk” drives people to your door. It brings you recognision (you’re the “crazy” one to offer this and that) and clients who’d kill to work with you.

The only thing is to be able to understand what might make your business special and “push it”.