The BookmarkMoney Blog

This post doesn’t have anything to do with making money online. However, if you’re interested in making money at home with some moderately expensive machinery, then I’ve got links to some pretty authoratative sites. Everything you need to build a 2, 3, or 4 access CNC machining center from scratch for minimal cost.

Building my own 2 axis CNC machine has been something I’ve been considering for a while, ever since I got the free dvd from PlasmaCam that I saw advertised in an issue of Popular Science a couple of years ago. The possibilities of what you can make with a CNC Router / Plasma Cutter are basically only limited to your imagination. I’ve been considering dipping my foot into the custom cabinetry field, but if I ever do so, nested based manufacturing will be go from day one.

I’m lucky in that I work in a factory, and can buy bulk metal from the company I work for, shear it to size, bend it any way I want on a brake press, and have the guys in tool and die machine some of the trickier parts. Not everyone has access to an entire manufacturing establishment. Even so, my major limitation is space, so when I build mine, it’ll probably be a fixed gantry/moving table design, rather than a gantry that moves on the X and Y axes.

For my first effort, I think it’ll be easier to build feed rollers to push the workpiece through, rather than dealing with building the railing and screws required for motion along the length as well as the width. Think of a giant printer, except instead of paper it’ll use 4′ x 8′ sheets of plywood, and instead of ink, it’ll use a router spinning at 20,000 RPM’s.

Majosoft is an amazing resource for CNC hobbyists. They have everything from plans for engraving machines up to full traveling gantry systems, and everything in between. Clamping devices, programming, software - this site has everything but the kitchen sink.

PM in MO focuses on portable, modular components for DIY CNC projects. They feature everything from PCB (printed circuit board) designs, stepper motors, and hardware drivers.

CNC Zone Forums are the ultimate hangout for CNC geeks. Ask, and ye shall receive an answer.

Engadget emarks on building their own CNC machines.

Massive list of CNC resources.

CNC hobby kit.

LinuxCNC.org home to free CNC software.

If the links above don’t get you started on the right path, I don’t know what will.

Tags: Site News by Jotun
2 Comments »

Online Opportunity: The Psychology of Monetization
Free Blog Monetization Strategies E-Book via Ruck
Colnel Kaizen: 5 Ways to Get Free Advertising For Your Site
Mark Flavin: Triple Your Conversions Report (.pdf)
My EProfits: Winning the Keyword War
Scribbles and Words: 3,413 Resources for Creative, Intelligent People

Sorry for the light posting, but during the week, I only have about 90 minutes of online time per evening, if I’m really lucky, and the actual writing process takes me longer than that.

Tags: Linkdump, Psychology, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Site News by Jotun
1 Comment »

Welcome everybody who is visiting here from my intervew at blogsweluv. Stick around and enjoy the scenery today, because the repo men are taking it back on Thurday.

CopyBlogger: Keyword Research For Bloggers
Online Money Tip: Adsense - Get More Bucks For Your Clicks
Ad Moolah: Adsense Revenue Sharing Sites
The Medici Effect E-Book (.pdf)
Low Cost Techniques to Drive Tsunami Traffic to Your Site
Sephyroth: Securing Firefox
Joseph Ratliff: The Product Launch Secret Weapon
Ultimate Google Analytics Plugin for WordPress
DotCoMoney: Benefits of Joint Ventures
Rachael Ray and the 30 Minute Myth

That’s all for now. I may have enough for another post later.

Tags: Linkdump, Pay Per Click (PPC), Plugins, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Site News, WordPress by Jotun
No Comments »

It’s a LinkStorm(tm)

WordPress SEO Whitepaper
Free Listing at a PR5 Directory
Team Schuman: 6 Reasons TrafficJam.com is a Must-Visit
Dosh Dosh: How to Become an Authority in Your Niche
Ankit Arora: How to Write an Interesting Blog Post
Prospecting vs. Lead Generation
BlogsRating.com - Like Hot or Not for Bloggers
DotCom Mogul: These WP Plugins are the Shizzle
Josh Spaulding: Duplicate Content - It May Not Be So Bad
NoFollow Free WP Plugin Updated - About two days after I installed it.
5 Unconventional Ways to Ignite Creativity
Life Optimizer: Free Passive Income Resources

Debating whether I’m going to the day job tomorrow. Had freezing rain all day, and a couple of inches of snow. By tomorrow we’re supposed to have 3-5 inches more of the crap, with high winds anticipated. I’d rather stay home and read ‘Red Dragon.’

I turned in my request for vacation next month. Soilwork is coming through Iowa, and less than 30 miles away from me. I’m totally in. Plus, they’re playing in a 150-200 person club. I’ll be lucky if they don’t literally rock my face off. Next on my wishlist, please come back Rammstein! They came through with Slipknot and System of a Down back in 2001, but I had to miss it for a college class that had 100% mandatory attendance for the semester. To this day the fact that I missed Rammstein makes me sad inside

Speaking of Rammstein, I spent Saturday morning listening to the new album by Emigrate, a side project by one of Rammstein’s guitarists. It’s a pretty good effort, but some riffs seem almost directly transferred from existing Rammstein songs. I didn’t care much for their politics either, but I usually don’t if I’m not listening to Hardcore bands. Overall, I give it a plus, and I do plan on doing an in-depth review at some point.

I went and saw the doctor today. Bronchitis and sinus infection. Just my usual monthly infections. Working with burning metal and aerosolicized petroleum producs takes its toll on my asthma.

It sounds like next weekend I’m going to go read for a part in an indie movie they’re filming close to here. I’m probably just throwing away part of my Saturday, but I’ll be hanging out with good friends, so it’ll definitely be a laugh.

Finally, here’s a recipe for your enjoyment: Buffalo Chicken Salad.

Take 6-8 boneless/skinless chicken tenders and place in crock pot with 16oz Hot Sauce and 1 stick margarine. Cook on high for three hours.
Crush 1 handfull of original Doritos or taco chips in the bottom of a bowl.
Add Lettuce.
Shred chicken and place on salad.
Shred pepper jack cheese over everything.
Enjoy!

Tags: Cooking, Gurus, Linkdump, Music, Plugins, Reviews, Site News, WordPress by Jotun
1 Comment »

Sorry for the light posting today, but between the sick kid and the brake job I had to do on my car, there hasn’t been a lot of free time to blog.

I was sitting and thinking about my answers to the blogsweluv 10 questions, and the question “What are your tips for becoming a better blogger?” has been tickling the back of my brain. It didn’t really inspire any tips, but I did dredge up a pet peeve.

Why can’t anybody spell voila? I read dozens upon dozens of sites a day, and I keep seeing “wa la.” It took a while for me to register that it wasn’t some new slang that the kids were using, but the phonetic spelling of the word. I understand that the schools today teach “spell it like it sounds,” and some of the blogs are written by people whose mother tongues isn’t English, but it’s one of those things that really digs at me.

And for the invariable smartass who wants to point out ‘Voila’ is French, not English - I know.

Seems like I’m not the only person annoyed by this.

Tags: Site News by Jotun
No Comments »

Between tending to my sick daughter, and drooling over the thought of Bruce Campbell doing a guest post (*sigh* he’s dreamy), I’ve found a second or two to work on the site backend.

Most importantly, I’ve installed NoFollow Free which strips out all of those pesky nofollow tags that are used to discourage comment spammers. I check and approve all comments, and if I don’t want them here, they won’t live very long. I realize I’m nobody, but dammit, this is my soapbox, and if people who visit here want to comment in good faith, a tiny trickle of linkjuice from yours truly is the very least I can do.

If you look at my posts, I am a prolific linker. Depending on the day, I read several dozen to several hundred different sites. I’m an information addict with strong exhibitionistic tendencies. That’s my nature - I gather lists of items that interest me, and present them to the world at large. Sometimes they are similar, sometimes they’re WTF?, but I always present them to help share the knowledge. Not for trackbacks. Not for shameless self promotion.

If somebody is interested enough in what I say to mention me, I’m more than happy to pass a link on to them. The internet is built on links after all. I’m not all that concerned by the two scraper sites that are currently broadcasting my thoughts around the internet. Why?

Firstly, RSS Footer makes sure I’m being credited.

Secondly, if you believe the Open Source evangelists, knowledge wants to be free. hax0rs want free knowledge. Either way, I’m really not saying anything profound, and they are helping get the word out. I ran a scraper site once upon a time. The purpose wasn’t to make money, it was to keep up on news from dozens of sources on a topic I was passionate about. It eventually evolved into a Syndic8 style site, which I relaunched this year as an article directory site. I understand that not all scrapers are in it for the money.

In addition to every comment, I check every trackback. I think I’ve notched up about four or so, but that’s not the point. If somebody is watching the watchman (upcoming post alert re: The Watchmen Movie) it makes me curious. If they like what I have to say, then they probably share similar interests as I do, and I’ll spend a few minutes noodling around their sites. Often times I find amazing gems that I never would have had I not visited.

So anyway, feel free to comment knowing that your effort may be rewarded by a search engine that has yet to be developed. Free link love forever!

Tags: Blogging, Plugins, Site News, WordPress by Jotun
No Comments »

Not a whole lot to post tonight. Rushed 30 miles to take my daughter to urgent care with a 102 degree fever. Told that she has an ear infection and got a prescription for antibiotics.

Submitted my answers to blogsweluv’s 10 questions. We’ll see if I make the cut or not.

Downloaded some free comment locating software. Downloaded, have yet to install. Hopefully it works better than the Groovytastic BlogDigger software.

Paging through the Fab@Home Project. Very interesting. I’ve been looking to make a DIY CNC Router table, which is the opposite of this project. I’m debating if I can get enough metal from the dumpster at work to substitute for the acrylic parts. My brother would probably be able to use their workcell in his pastry business

Watched an episode of Drew Carey’s show at Reason.tv. Watching this really puts things into perspective when it comes to income. Money quote: “In 1982 the average worker had to work 460 hours to afford a cell phone. Today the average worker has to work 2 1/2 hours to afford a cell phone.”

Update

Looking at blogsweluv’s thoughts on answers, you probably won’t be seeing my responses to their questions any time soon. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess I didn’t really showcase my passion for blogging.

I’m really not passionate about blogging. I have many passions in life, but blogging will never be on that list. I’m passionate about information dissemination, and this blog is merely the tool by which I achieve it.

I’m also an incurable smartass. That’s ok - their blog, their rules. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I still wouldn’t mind Bruce Campbell doing a guest post.

Update 2

I guess I was wrong about my 10 questions responses. I guess my wry humor managed to shine through my terse answers. Maybe it’s just a slow day for them.

I have no problem with wordiness when it’s flowing into this blog, but as soon as I have to comment or write something elsewhere, it’s a struggle.

Something to ponder I guess.

Tags: Site News by Jotun
4 Comments »

This weekend the wife and I sent the kid to grandma’s for the weekend. On our way back home we stopped and cashed in two Buy One, Get One Free (BOGO) pop caps along with picking up some supplies. Stumbling out of bed this morning, I grabbed a Diet Pepsi from the fridge and cracked the top. BOGO! Great way to start the day. Later, just before noon, I grabbed another Diet Pepsi from the fridge for roadtrip fuel. Another BOGO. Sometimes luck works in strange ways.

I made another sale from my AdWords campaign. That brings the grand total up to $82 this week. I added some long tail keywords to my primary campaign and started playing “Survivor” with alternate ads. I brought another campaign online late last night that is my most researched/worked one yet. 340 specific keywords, including some great long tail keywords that shouldn’t have been available to me.

Right now I’m limiting the campaign to a specific geographical region with some very motivated customers that have no problem spending a lot of money on something that they have the expectation of lasting for decades. Looking at my analytics, there are more hits to the offer than clicks listed in my Google stats. It may be wishful thinking, but I’m guessing that a couple of visitors are making repeat visits to confirm to themselves that it’s a worthwhile product. They’ve taken the bait, the hook has been set, and now it’s just time to reel them in.

I’m going to let the new campaign run for another day before I start playing Survivor with it too.

I’m in the process of building an eBay classified ad that should provide the start of a good email list. For 30 cents a day, it seems like a pretty good investment. I’ll keep you updated on its progress.

Finally, I have a campaign in the works with some pretty awesome prizes, but first I have to make sure that a couple more of the prizes are in place before I announce it. More details forthcoming.

Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Site News by Jotun
No Comments »

Saturday Morning Funnies: Only in Russia

3 Tips to Optimize Your Email Landing Pages. Pretty common sense stuff, but it’s amazing how rare ‘common’ sense is.

6 Easy Ways to Improve Your Affiliate Offer. How to make your squeeze pages sing like the big boys’.

50 Directories to Submit Your Site To. Another Directory List. All have high pagerank and don’t require reciprocal links.

Free Backlinks on Squidoo. Free is free, and backlinks are backlinks.

Backlink Creation Guide lens located on Squidoo.

Increase Technorati Authority with this link exchange program.

Top 100 Social Video Sites. There’s also a sister post Top 100 Social Networking Sites

34 Sites that Pay You to Blog.

Making Money With Youtube. Similar to this post on Cash Tactics from a few weeks ago. Great minds think alike I guess.

20 Ways to Get Massive Traffic.

DotCom Mogul has a pretty exhaustive list on CPA Networks.

Two thoughts on affiliate marketing:

Amit at Super Affiliate Mindset posts his tips on how to get started as an affiliate

Paul disagrees quite strongly.

Right now I’m doing Amit’s system, although I’ve been pressed for time and haven’t setup the backend tracking, which I realize is a mistake that I plan to rectify shortly. I definitely see Paul’s point, and understand where he’s coming from. I’ve always been happy to spend money to make money. I’m not making big bucks, but I am making sales every couple of days, and that helps me feel that I’m not wasting my time.

I’m lucky enough that I have the HTML/web design background so I’m not starting from scratch, but my copywriting skills are sorely needing to be developed.

In site news, I’ve added CommentLuv which will append the last post you make on your website underneath your comments here. So comment away!

This post has been about three hours in the making, so I’m drawing the line now. Off to enjoy some kid-free Saturday action!

Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Gurus, Internet Marketing, List Building, Pay Per Click (PPC), Plugins, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), WordPress by Jotun
4 Comments »

This post is going to deal entirely with comic books and the movies that are based on them. If you’re not interested in either, then stay tuned for more money making posts.

According to Empire Online Ryan Reynolds (Waiting, Blade 3) has joined the cast of the new Wolverine movie. Reynolds will be playing Deadpool, and fighting alongside Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). I’m actually pretty disappointed by the news. As much as I like Ryan Reynolds, I was hoping that the Wolverine movie was going to follow the story of Weapon X, which is an amazing story.

Apparently Warner Brothers and Leonardo DiCaprio are planning on filming a live action version of Katsuhiro Otomo’s groundbreaking cyberpunk tale Akira. I was taken aback at first, however short of Orlando Bloom signing up, Leo is one of the most effeminate/androgynous American movie stars I can think of - which makes him perfect for a live action remake of an anime movie.

This news comes on the heels of my finishing the sixth Akira graphic novel. 2500+ pages in 7 days. It’s an amazing series, and this is the second time I’ve read the entire series. While the movie will always have a special place in my heart, after reading the manga in their War and Peace-esque length, I just can’t bring myself to watch it again. I am impressed that they are planning on doing two movies, but there’s no way that live action special effects can compare to the animation, especially when Tetsuo loses control of his power and becomes Godzilla blob. I cannot envision that scene looking anything less than crappy rendered in CGI.

I got the tip off this morning that Columbia Pictures has optioned “The Boys” for a big screen adaptation. I have been a huge fan of Garth Ennis’ work on the “Preacher” series of graphic novels for some time now, and was recently introduced to “The Boys.”

The basic premise is that there’s a secret outfit within the CIA that keeps track of superheroes, and if necessary reigns them in. Blackmail, extortion, murder, nothing is too dirty or underhanded for The Boys to stoop to in fufilling their mission. The stories are well crafted, and chock full of Ennis’ trademark black humor and sexual perversion.

I picked it up to read the foreward, and ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting. My sides splitting with laughter, I literally couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to take in the story. The second graphic novel is due to be released in the next few months, and I’m looking forward to picking it up. I’ve been told on good authority that the Tech Knight, Garth Ennis’ parody of Batman, is a real gutbuster.

My great fear with this adaptation is that they will mangle the casting. I don’t have any strong feelings about any of the major characters except for Hugh “Wee Hughie” Campbell. Wee Hughie was based, visually at least, on actor Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), and I’m afraid that he may get passed over in the casting for a more familiar nebbish actor, such as Steve Buscemi.

I was excited to see that HBO is working on a Preacher series. Then I saw the details. The plot synopsis states: An ex-priest turned professional gambler exposes murder and corruption in a small New Mexico town. Um, WTF? Did anyone involved with the series even read the source material?

Powers Boothe has been cast as Jesse Custer (The Preacher) Powers Boothe is a great actor, but the Custer character is a twenty-something shepard to a redneck town in deepest Texas. Unless the series starts at the end of the graphic novels (which I haven’t made it to) and tells the story in flashbacks. However, the lack of Cassidy, who is integral to the series, makes me believe it’s not to be. They may have renamed the character, but why?

This makes me want to cry. I pray that HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Fire and Ice” remains closer to the original material.

Finally, it appears that the “Priest” movie is still on, but details are scarce. I’m dreading this one. The manga tells the story of Ivan Isaacs, a priest who sold his soul to a demon to gain vengance against one of the arch-dukes of hell. It’s a gritty, intense, rollercoaster that grabs you by the front of your shirt and holds you tight throughout each 200 page installment.

The series originally ran for 26 issues in South Korea, but seems to have stalled out. I got issue 14 two years ago, and I’m still waiting on issue 15. I’ve actually given up hope on ever finishing this series. It’s a shame, since I loved the merging of the horror and western genres. It was a bloody, brutal, and most importantly - interesting series, that ended too soon on this side of the ocean.

Tags: Books, Movies, Reviews by Jotun
1 Comment »