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.

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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?

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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?

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For many years I have build my own “brand” in the online communities and till this day a good part of my traffic and even some excellent deals have come from these forums. What have I done to establish myself in these forums?

1. Have the SAME USERNAME in all of them.

Yes, in order for the people to recognize you, we need a name they would see over and over again. In time this name will make them thing about “quality, intelligence, tact etc.”, all the things we are careful about when trying to establish that brand.

I am dojo in over 200 forums. No, I cannot post daily in all, but I am there and from time to time I am writing content. I am present in the big ones: webhostingtalk, sitepoint, phpbbhacks, digitalpoint, theadminzone, namepros etc. and in my own communities.

It’s a name that kinda attracts attention since it’s a “special” one. You guessed, it’s a good idea to have a name that’s special.

2. Ah, I assume you know the avatar.

Just like the username, my avatar is the same in most of the forums I am active in. It’s the red nosed face (a picture of mine taken when I was at a friend’s birthday. She has a white hat with candles on it with the “happy birthday” message on it and of course the red nose that makes me look very “serious”).

Still, it’s a picture you have a hard time forgetting. It’s funny, it’s a decent one (no one can say children can be offended by it), it’s safe for public view and it’s UNIQUE. Yes, uniqueness is what we need in this too. A standard avatar won’t cut it, try to have a UNIQUE one: your picture or something you know no one can download from the free avatar collection sites.

3. And now .. let’s behave

The most important thing about our online brand is to establish it as a GOOD one. The way we behave on the forums is the way people will see us. In time we can become some of the best known members in a community, some of the most respected ones and this means in time a good image and even a good business opportunity.

• we all hate spammers, don’t be one. No, the good member we are won’t spam. We have to read carefully the rules, know where to advertise and do this AFTER some excellent posts made there. As a forum admin I am getting short tempered seeing people who come and spam my forums (yes, coming to post an advert in the first message is spam in my book) and I even ban the accounts now. So, we don’t want this to happen.
• we want to be seen as good and well informed, guess how the posts should be. Don’t post one-liners, don’t post idiotic messages just to post there. When you have something to say, then say it. Otherwise just relax and do some more reading.
• offer good information and write in English. Sure, chat style is cool for myspace, we are on some decent forums we want to conquer. Good style, excellent information, useful advice. These are the tricks.
• who cares you dislike some members? Just mind your own business. No, flame wars won’t establish your brand as a good one. Even if you are being attacked by some member who had a bad hair day, offer an elegant ignore and deal with it like a gentleman (or lady). If it’s something too offensive, report the post and then wait for the moderation team to act on it. Again, as a forum admin, I cannot stand people who like to play justice in my forums. From a small mean sentence we can get to real wars in the forums. Are you short-tempered? Chill and don’t make a fool of yourself.
• be consistent and active. No, you won’t establish a brand with 3 messages. Find some big forums and also some smaller ones (easier to be noticed) and post frequently. Keep the posting to that high level and present yourself as the good web businessman you want them to see you like. In time, you will be amazed by the results.

And now, go there and amaze some people. And let us know how it all went

Writing 1Y0-259 or even EX0-101 and PMI-001 is easy for the 642-825 professionals who have done advanced exams like 642-436 as well as 70-293.

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I think it’s a good idea to start with an explanation about the inspiration of this awesome article you’re about to read. I was browsing 2 of my Martial Arts forums and had to validate some accounts. I had a free IPB license on them and this was the only way I could keep those awesome guys posting porn and Viagra at bay.

As you can imagine I am sick and tired of them and so far I have to personally validate each email account and try to see if there are spammers or real members.

After another pruning I got the idea for this article. Don’t think you can have issues only in forums that have admin activation. In some you might need help since you didn’t get the activation email or you didn’t know to check for it in the spam/junk folder of your online email account. Doh … Might happen too.

Here are some tricks to NEVER pass my activation. Hope they help and you’ll never use them (or .. do what you please )

1. Use a domain that’s well known for spamming. I would gladly recommend mail.ru, inbox.ru, cashette.com and other awesome and inspirational places that flood us daily with those superb members who just want us to get some good deals on porn movies or warez software.

2. If you’re gonna do this, do it right. No need to use a generic name. Please use a “keyword” rich one so that we can easily see what good brands you are using to promote yourself. I am thinking viagra_purchase@gmail.com or buy_tramadol@gmail.com or any other well thought email address. Why get something like john2006@gmail.com when you can really have such a nice and easy to remember email address?

3. If this name is not cool enough, then use another trick. Make me really see how cool you are by having a nice address like: dadfhshds@gmail.com or anything like this. Just write some random letters like jdzlfhauq4u5y and you’re the coolest. Doesn’t matter this screams to me “fake”, I must be the stupid one. Who cares this “screams” to me “spammer who didn’t even create an email address”, you know better.

On top of this you can try some “combinations” of these. A random name on a well known spam source domain, maybe the “tricky” words presented at point 2. Don’t forget to also try register for 20 times at least with different cool addresses like the one I already mentioned. I love people who really know what they want

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Disclaimer: if I really need to mention this again .. don’t do this. My spammers use these “tricks” and they are deleted and the addresses banned. Hope this doesn’t teach some of these crappy people better ways to flood our boards. God I hate spammers. Good bye

Don’t go for free web hosting due to absence of adsl, as you will have to compromise on the domain name as well as marketing plans like pay per click.

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