I just received an email from Nate Whitehill that they are launching a new theme store called Theme Wars. Theme Wars will feature a wide variety of WordPress themes available for purchase. You can visit the site at ThemeWars.com.

As you can probably tell by the name, Theme Wars is not just a theme store – there is a little bit of a twist.

Here is how it works:

1. Eack week, any blogger can submit into this weekly theme wars.
2. The theme war will then be a contest to design a particular type of theme (e.g. magazine, business, etc.) as voted on by the community (via poll) the week before.
3. The best two designs which the community votes for will be sold in the Theme Store. The winning designers will receive 25% and 10%, respectively, each time their winning design sells. Simply wonderful ideas.

This launch is one of the most anticipated theme store launches EVER and one that will surely generate a lot of buzz.

I must say that this is an opportunity for designers to earn money by submitting their designs into the Weekly War. They not only will be receiving a percentage of each sale, they will also earn a spot in the “Featured Designers” page, that actually gave them the exposure for their branding and also additional marketing.

Then for blogger like myself, it simply gave me access to a wide range of themes from a wide range of different designers.

Pricing wise, themes are be priced at $69 for a multi-use license to $149 for a developer license (includes Photoshop documents). Monthly membership is also available to get access to all of the themes available and this is a great package for blogger who wish to try out a variety of themes or for bloggers with multiple blogs and wish to give each one a unique look.

Standard pass to Theme Wars cost $20 per month plus a one-time payment of $147 which you could access to all past, present and future themes, as well as unlimited access to the support forum, documentation, video tutorials and theme updates, etc..

Developer pass cost $27 per month plus a one-time payment for $177 and this monthly membership gives you access to all past, present and future themes, as well as unlimited access to the support forum, documentation, video tutorials, theme updates and Photoshop files, etc..

The first war at Theme Wars features the war of the magazine themes.  Go to Theme Wars and cast your vote now!

Theme Wars – From The Maker Of Unique Blog Designs

Popularity: 3% [?]

What is it that allows some people to become so very successful, while most of us struggle just to get by?

I started reading Adam Khoo’s motivation books many years back, ever since my company engaged him as a speaker for our personal development program and from that day onwards, i bought all of his blueprints. The very first book that i bought from him was “Secrets of Self Made Millionaires” which motivates me in many ways.

There are a lot of books out there on how to become a millionaire, and quite a few on investing as well.  Mostly, they’re disappointing.  The millionaire books might be inspirational, the good ones anyway, and they may have some advice that’s useful, but in order to actually making them work, you would have to sign up for follow-up seminars and the special, proprietary coaching programs of the authors, all of them expensive.

And about those books on investments – they tend to be disappointing for a different reason:  Either they’re too basic and conservative, in the vein of promising you that you too can become a millionaire if you invest 10% of your salary for the next 40 years. 

Or they are, once again, too vague.  They might provide introductions into some of the basics of certain aspects of stock trading, but if you’d try to actually follow their advice, you’d soon find yourself in hot water.

Not so with Adam Khoo’s book, he actually provide the blueprints – and the details – on how to make investing work.

Adam had a goal, he wanted to be a millionaire and he achieved it by the time he was 26 years old. Not only that – he was a best-selling author to boot.

Honestly speaking, it’s easy to think that they have something special, something the rest of us have no access to. This is half right. They do have something special. But it’s not something that’s out of our reach. Anybody can get access to that secret ingredient that makes those people successful.

And many people have already done just that. They have tapped into and are using the same “Patterns of Excellence” that have helped those special few to achieve their success.

You may be wondering how anything could possibly have that kind of transformative power, Adam starts his course by sharing his own story: Contrary to what you might think, he wasn’t always a millionaire. He was actually kicked out of school and had extreme difficulty to find any school that would even take him in. But then he encountered the exact mind set technology you’ll learn in Patterns of Excellence, and he turned his life around dramatically. He became a valedictorian, and then, within just a few years, a Millionaire when he was 26 years old. He also became a best-selling author and one of the top peak performance coaches and speakers in Asia.

And in his home study course, you will gain access to the same strategies Adam used to achieve his own success. You’ll discover how to copy and model the strategies of success that you see in the successful people you admire, and, as you start applying them in your own life, get the same results.

If you have setbacks, and you will, you’ll learn how those super achievers deal with setbacks, and how you can do the same.

Even the most successful people experience setbacks, but somehow, they bounce back quickly. We have all heard of stories of millionaires and even billionaires who bounce back from near-bankruptcy to being millionaires and billionaires once again at record speed. Donald Trump comes to mind, as does Bill Bartmann. How do they do that?

Adam will walks you through that so that you too can overcome setbacks and failure and use them to achieve your goals even faster. i went through that..

So what made all the difference?

Adam discovered a mind technology called Neuro-Linguistic Programming and he suddenly realized why he wasn’t getting the results he wanted in life, AND what he needed differently to achieve his goals in life.

So at the tender age of 26, Adam started three successful businesses that have a combined turnover of $20 million, and become a successful multi-millionaire.

Now YOU may be saying – ‘Oh! He can do it, but I can’t!’

Well, the plain and simple fact is, Adam’s a very ordinary person. In fact, he even got kicked out of school once! But he still turned his life around and made it big.

So the question is

…

Why can’t you?

To find out more about how Adam transformed from an un-inspiring underachiever into a millionaire at just age 26, and how YOU too can achieve your goals in life (no matter what age you are!), simply visit the link below:

• Paying The Way To The Top
• Millionaire-Book
• Success With NLP
• Secrets Of Millionaire Investor
• Multi Million Businesses
• Profit From The Panic
• Child Winner

You’re probably very excited about the potential, but you may still wonder how to get yourself to actually do what it takes. Well, Adam shares his own strategies as well. He shows you how to stay focused and motivated, how to do what it takes, and especially how to overcome the big bugaboo, procrastination.

All in all, Adam’s book is a great combination of solid information and secrets shared in a comfortable fire-side chat. The friendly format makes it fun to listen to and gives you a glimpse of a more personal side of millionaire Adam Khoo than you may get in some of his other programs and books.

Popularity: 2% [?]

“In a world where everyone is obsessed by self image and looks, looks matter“ !

 And yes, people really do judge a book by it’s cover..

This really cool software will quickly and easily transform your images into 3d eCovers that will make your website look like a million bucks!

Who else wants to create amazing ecovers directly from their PC under 3 minutes with just afew mouse clicks to skyrocket their product sales by at least 72% !!

Popularity: 19% [?]

What’s in a Search Engine?

To effectively optimize for search engines and to better understand
what’s really happening, there is value in knowing how modern search
algorithms work. This article will walk through the creation of a
hypothetical search engine, and will show how this impacts search
engine optimization.

Step One: Make a List of URLs and Crawl Them

Before anything can be done, a list of URLs needs to be retrieved to
initially crawl. The most popular option for this is to load the URLs in
the DMOZ database. These aren’t the only sites that will be crawled.
The pages linked to by sites in the DMOZ directory are also crawled
since the crawler follows the links. It certainly helps to be in DMOZ,
especially if you don’t have enough links from other sites to be sure
that you’ll be sufficiently crawled.
Now, a group of computers are set up to download all of the pages on
the list. These are called the “crawlers.” They will also look at the links
on those pages, and crawl those URLs as well (the crawlers will
continue following links until their hard drives are full).

Step Two: Analyze the Pages
The crawlers now go through each page and look at their content.
First, the crawler makes a table with every unique word on the page.
It gives “points” to each word based on how many times it’s used on
the page, and words in bold, in the title, in meta tags, or in headers
are given extra points.

Word         Points
shoes               145
athletic           78
sneakers        34
sandals           12

        
This means that you should use the most important words more often
in your text. However, using a word too often will mark your page as
being spam, which will cause the crawler to delete your site from its
database.

It then creates a percentage of the frequency of each term:

Word      Points      Percentage
shoes           145           5.80%
athletic      78             3.12%
sneakers   34              1.36%
sandals      12               0.48%

Usually, the percentages are stored in the database and not the actual
points, though longer pages may be given a slight advantage later on.
As a result, adding a lot of unnecessary text that uses one term a lot
will raise your percentage for that term, but will also lower the
percentage for other terms.

More advanced engines will also cross-reference each word to other
major words based on where they are relative to each other. (Words
appearing next to each other are given more points here.) So, for example:

Word           shoes      athletic      sneakers      sandals
shoes                -                20                    12                  7
athletic           20               -                      11                  4
sneakers         12             11                      -                     5
sandals             7               4                       5                   -

As a result, the placement of words relative to each other does matter.
This is why targeting phrases is usually better than targeting a variety
of single words.

Calculate Link Popularity
The crawlers now take their lists of the URLs that each page links to
and combine them. So for each page there is now a list of the links on
it, as well as the text of each link. The list is then reversed, so that
instead of showing the links on each page, it shows for each page the
sites that link to it.

Some search engines stop here and simply store the number of links
pointing to a given page, but Google takes it a little further.
For every page in its database, Google gives it “points” based on how
many links are going to it–just like any other search engine. Then, it
re-calculates the number of links pointing to each page, but gives
more points to links that had a higher point-value themselves in the
first count. It then repeats the process about 100 times, each time
making the points more accurate. So:

1. Points are assigned based on the number of links going to a
page.

2. Points are calculated again, but pages get more points if the
links going to a page had more points in the last step. (Because
Yahoo! had a lot of links going to it in the first step, a link from
Yahoo! would now be more valuable.)

3. The original point values are thrown out and are replaced with
the points just calculated. Now, the points are re-calculated
again, this time considering the points from Step 2 instead of
Step 3. This is repeated approximately 100 times, and every
time the points become more accurate (because it considers
further down the line where links are coming from).

Now, Google takes the point values–which could be extraordinarily
large–and converts them to a PageRank, which is on a scale of 0 to
10. However, it does not simply convert, for example, 1,000 to 1 and
2,000 to 2. The scale is logarithmic, which means that higher
PageRanks require much more points.

Webmaster Goodies has an approximation of what the ranges most
likely are–look at the first three columns. The actual ranges aren’t
available to the public, but the ranges on that site are believed to be
fairly close. Obviously, a logarithmic scale makes a difference: PR1
requires 6 to 30 “points,” while PR10 requires more than 25 million
points.

Now What ?

Search engines put the databases into a specialized format, and then
write the search software.

When a search is made, every site containing the relevant terms is
pulled up. The ranking is based on a combination of the points for each
relevant term, the site’s link popularity (PageRank), and other smaller
factors. Each engine weighs these differently.

You should now have a better understanding of what’s happening
under the hood of the search engine, and this should help in
optimizing your pages as well.

Popularity: 24% [?]

27 Photos | View as slideshow

Experience the tranquillity of countryside living in the rustic setting of D’Kranji Farm Resort. The Singapore’s first and currently “one and only” Agri-tainment farm, located in Lim Chu Kang area. This is the exact place for anyone wanting to escape from hustle and bustle of the city life and to pamper yourself, to relax, to rest.

Luxury accomodation, scenic views, peaceful surroundings and farm stay experience, it’s all part of what makes D’Kranji Farm Resort a unique and pleasant retreat. Facilities available include lifestyle spa centre, shopping at retail kiosks, dining with Chinese, Malay and Indian gastronomic delights( Restaurant offers seafood including chilli crab and local cuisine as well as fried black pepper kuey teow and coffee pork ribs).

Popularity: 34% [?]

Becoming an super affiliate is now “Push Button Simple and Easy”.

Dear friends, imagine how it would be like if you have a huge list of subscribers, and a proven method to generate tons of sales on demand … How would your life be different ?

Do you think it’s just a dream? It can be a reality, and I’d like to show you how you can achieve it with minimal effort.

Here’s what I’d like to show you today -

A proven method to generate sales on demand and a sure-fire way to build your list of buyers (NOT freebie seekers or tire-kickers) on autopilot!

Here’s what I’d like to offer you:

• A powerful software that builds multiple lists of responsive buyers for you on autopilot.
• Automatic Delivery of your bonuses! This is the perfect tool for any ClickBank Affiliates aspiring to be ‘Super-affiliates’.

If you are a Super-Affiliate, you’ll love this because it will automate everything for you AND at the same time, rebuilds your list of loyal buyers!

Are you convinced? Let me share with you a proven method to increase sales …

Proven Methods to Increase your Sales Instantly on Autopilot. Secure your copy today and 2 valuable bonuses is awaiting you..

Your Bonuses Awaiting You ! Just For Acting Now…

Since we were on the subject of automatic bonus delivery, I’ve prepared 2 valuable bonuses just for you:

	Boost Your Sign-up Rates With These Professional Quality Opt-In Graphics. Comes with Master Resell Rights.Value: $67
	Secret Marketing Strategies: Volume #1 – Volume #30.         Includes Private Label Rights. You can edit and add your name as the author. You can also use these bonuses to build your own list with CBListAutomator Value: $47. Each volume contain 50 easy marketing strategies that you can implement immediately to boost your profits.
	Un-Parallel Support is included.If you ever get stuck, or have a question, help is just a ticke away. You can assured that you will receive a reply. Just ask any of my customers from 2002!

The only thing left is for you to say ” Yes” and take advantage of this incredible offer before it’s gone. Your small investment today is a tiny price to pay compared to the benefits you will receive! 

Click Here to Act Now..

Popularity: 38% [?]

Being in the affiliate marketing business is not that hard now with the internet at your disposable. It is much easier now compared to the days when people have to make use of the telephones and other mediums of information just to get the latest updates on the way their program is coming along.

So with technology at hand, and assuming that the affiliate is working from home, a day in his or her life would sound something like this…

Upon waking up and after having breakfast, the computer is turned on to check out new developments in the network. As far as the marketer is concerned there might be new things to update and statistics to keep track on.

The site design has to be revised. The marketer knows that a well-designed site can increase sign ups from visitors. It can also help in the affiliate’s conversion rates.

That done, it is time to submit the affiliate program to directories that lists affiliate programs. These directories are means to attract people in joining your affiliate program. A sure way of promoting the affiliate program.

Time to track down the sales you are getting from your affiliates fairly and accurately. There are phone orders and mails to track down. See if they are new clients checking the products out. Noting down the contact information that might be a viable source in the future.

There are lots of resources to sort out. Ads, banners, button ads and sample recommendations to give out because the marketer knows that this is one way of ensuring more sales. Best to stay visible and accessible too.

The affiliate marketer remembered that there are questions to answer from the visitors. This has to be done quickly. Nothing can turn off a customer than an unanswered email.

To prove that the affiliate is working effectively and efficiently, inquiries would have to be paid more attention on. Nobody wants to be ignored and customers are not always the most patient of all people. Quick answer that should appear professional yet friendly too.

In the process of doing all the necessities, the marketer is logged on to a chat room where he or she interacts with other affiliates and those under that same program. This is where they can discuss things on how to best promote their products.

There are things to be learned and it is a continuous process. Sharing tips and advices is a good way of showing support. There may be others out there wanting to join and may be enticed by the discussion that is going on. There is no harm in assuming what opportunities ahead

Popularity: 24% [?]

PPC stands for Pay Per Click – a popular advertising technique on the Internet. Found on websites, advertising networks, and especially on search engines, PPC advertising involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. These are usually placed close to search results, where an advertiser pays a particular amount to visitors who click on these links or banners and land on the advertiser’s web page.

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services – the higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will find the ad (and click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it “keyword auctioning”). Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

· Pay per placement
· Pay per performance
· Pay per ranking
· Pay per position
· Cost per click (CPC)

PPC advertising is usually done with the following standard procedures:

1. Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.

2. Creating a keyword list.

3. Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.

4. Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.

5. Writing out an ad copy.

6. Setting up the ‘landing pages’ for your ads.

7. Placing the advertisement in the search engine.

There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business ‘online’. Some of them are listed below:

· Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly – they can go ‘online’ within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.

· Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. Visitors are narrowed down into ‘qualified’ people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer – those who are more likely to become a ‘lead’ (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.

· Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or “organic” search engines.

· Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive – the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. These are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).

Below are some important things to consider when planning on a pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right. Know how to bid right – a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your PPC program – if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

· Discount offers
· Testimonials
· Celebrity/famous endorsers
· Money-back guarantees
· Free trials or sample offers
· Freebies
· Reverse psychology
· Major benefits (”Lose weight”)
· Direct instructions (”Click here”)

7. Maintain a professional-looking site. Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple – designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.

Done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment

Popularity: 21% [?]

If you would like to increase your brain power, there are literally hundreds of different types of exercises and games you can play to do so. The key word here is “play”. It is much easier for your brain to respond, change and grow when learning takes place in a relaxed and fun format.

The following list of ten activities is a good one to start with for boosting your human brain power:

ü  Do brainteasers and puzzles

ü  Learn to appreciate optical illusions

ü  Learn to play an instrument

ü  Try being “ambidextrous for a day”. Use your non-dominant hand
to do tasks you normally do with your dominant hand.

ü  Block one or more of your sense (sight, sound, etc) and try to
navigate your environment

ü  Try to think of interesting new uses for everyday objects

ü  Try to find connections between unrelated subjects

ü  Have a pen and paper handy so you can “doodle” when you
aren’t doing anything else, are on the phone, etc.

ü  Use your imagination to re-write history. How would the world be today if a particular historic event had not occurred?

ü  Read books on creativity and learn about mind mapping and
brainstorm techniques

If you’ll notice, there is a theme across the board here: boosting your brain power is all about doing something new. In order to break your usual mold, you’ve got to surprise your sub-conscious mind by presenting similar information in news and surprising ways. Force your mind to make the connections and bypass the usual “editing” process that goes on in the background.

Two books that can be of great help on the creative side of this are “The Artists Way”, by Julia Cameron and “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”, by Betty Edwards. 

Popularity: 25% [?]

If you’re looking for good, residual income opportunities there are some guidelines you can follow that will help you choose the programs that are right for you.

The first consideration is always the legitimacy of the program. While it may not be possible to avoid scams or duds 100-percent of the time, you can usually tell if a company is legit by answering a few questions:

How long has this company been in business?

Who are the major players behind it?

Has anyone posted a bad review or a complaint with the Better Business Bureau?

Does the opportunity sound too good to be true?

The second thing to consider with any residual income opportunity is how well it will convert for you. In other words, how easy will it be to make sales?  Your skill as a marketer will have some effect on this, but the main thing to look at is whether the product associated with the opportunity has real market demand.

Is there a real need for the product?  Is it priced fairly compared to other products of similar quality? Can people get a much better offer somewhere else?

Next, think about whether this income opportunity is a niche you know something about, something for which you have an affinity. You need to be able to speak the ‘lingo’ of your market in order to connect with them and sell to them effectively.

You also need to feel good about the product, or else you won’t be truly motivated to put your all into promoting it.

Lastly, remember that all residual income opportunities, like any other opportunity, require a solid marketing system.  You should have a strategy in mind before you sign up for the program.

When you have a well-thought out plan at your disposal from the get-go, you’ll be able to start marketing and seeing the results right away.

If you don’t have plan, you’re likely to flounder – trying this method and that, but never achieving the results you desire. You’re at risk then of getting discouraged and blaming what may have been your perfect opportunity for creating a residual income stream.

Don’t let that happen! Do thorough research, make an informed choice and take action with a solid marketing plan. It takes a little more work up front, but it is well worth the results you’ll reap over the long-term.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Profits are gained and lost on the foreign exchange, or ‘Forex’, market due to fluctuations in the exchange rate. This fact may seem like common knowledge, but one should not take for granted how exchange rates are determined.

There is actually a very rich history behind the concept of the exchange rate, and it is important that you understand why things came to be as they are — as well as how to capitalize on that knowledge.

This quick tutorial on exchange rates will help you do just that.

First, let us look at the simplest definition of an exchange rate. An exchange rate is the value of one currency in relation to another. If one U.S. dollar is worth $1.20 Canadian, then the exchange rate is 1:1.2, or 1.2 for the CAD/USD currency pair.

What does this really mean, though? Why is it that one currency can be worth more than another, and who decides?

If you look back to the earlier part of the 20^th Century, you’ll recall that most currencies of the world were back by precious metals, like silver and gold.

It used to be that the United States followed the ‘gold standard’, which ‘pegged’ the Dollar to the price of 1 ounce of gold.  All other currencies were then ‘pegged’ to the Dollar and allowed to fluctuate in either direction by a margin of no more than 1 percent.

This type of exchange rate, although it allowed for minor fluctuation, was considered a “fixed exchange rate”.

Now, fast-forward to the latter half of the century, and you find that the ‘gold standard’ has been dropped, along with the fixed rate model of exchange. Instead, the foreign exchange market now operates primarily on a ‘fluctuating exchange rate’.

Fluctuating exchange rates are governed by the market forces of supply and demand. If the demand for a currency exceeds the supply, then the exchange rate (and value) of that currency will rise.

Likewise, if the supply of a currency exceeds market demand, then the value of that currency (and its exchange rate) will drop.

We see this happening today with the U.S. Dollar. In order to keep up with government spending, the federal reserve prints more and more dollars, then sells them to other countries as ‘debt’.

The market forces which previously gave the dollar its strength — such as oil exports and oil transaction denominated in U.S. dollars – have eroded.  Thus, we not only find the exchange rate of the dollar weakened, but also the exchange rates of many of our closest trading partners.

The Japanse Yen, for example, has fallen even more than the dollar. Part of this is due an overall crash in the Asian market, but it is also linked to the fact that much of Japan’s economic growth at the end of the last century depended upon exports to the United States.

This is just one example of how market forces affect exchange rates, but it is a useful one for examining some of the factors involved in rate fluctuations.

If you would like a real world exchange rate tutorial, I recommend opening a demo trading account with an online broker. Do some test trades to get a feel for things, and make note of current exchange rates.

Then, make sure you stay abreast of world and financial news, and see if you can spot the relationships between major announcements and rate fluctuations!

Popularity: 12% [?]

Make