Archive for the 'Squidoo' Category

Technology has made me lazy, not only lazy but confused too. My new toy, my Samsung Galaxy Ace has a Swype technology keyboard. This means, I don’t even have to type. I just use my finger to swype the words, sometimes it even finishes or guesses the words that I want, even if I swype erroneously.

We used to call up friends to chat, but now we sms or write updates on our facebook walls or twitter which limits our words. We don’t have to say much anymore and we can send greeting cards to many in a click.

Then we have the ipads and many other tablet computers and eBook readers. Life has become simpler, paperless and it has made me lazy and confused.

Sometimes, I look at a device and I am not sure whether to tap it, swype it, tilt it or type on it! It takes a momentary moment, a short lapse of time for my brain to figure out how the device is supposed to work. Maybe its just me. My memory is getting worse and worse. I read in a recent research article that onset of memory loss or dementia may start as early as 45 or something to that effect. Perhaps that explains my confusion over the devices that is supposed to make life simpler but is making me lazy and confused instead.

I am coming out of hibernation today. It sure has been a long time. I’ve missed my blogs. Well, not really come to think of it. I haven’t had much time to think about it.

With the kids at home during the school holidays and the spouse on year end leave, I’ve had almost no free time to myself. That is the part I miss the most. Sure, I love my family lots but everyone needs a little time to themselves every now and then.

Now, its the beginning of a new year and back to school, back to work and back to routine. So, I’m going to have to wake all my blogs up. I have lots to write about but they are mostly in my head. Perhaps I will let some of them stay in there.

Well, its time to wake some of the other blogs now but before I do, a few quick New Year’s Resolutions.

1. Remember to exercise in the mornings
2. No going anywhere near the computer from afternoon onwards. PC time is only in the mornings and that includes blogs, squidoo lenses, facebook, twitter etc. (Phew! That’s a tough one)
3. Cook some new dishes for the family
4. That’s it! Lets not keep it too long or it’ll be hard to keep up

Time to go. After all, I’ve only got the morning to exercise and blog and make lenses and I must go wake up the other blogs now. That’s not a lot of time but since I can blog in 10 minutes its not so bad. Its only the squidoo lenses, they take at least half a day or more each but in terms of personal satisfaction, blogging is better but squidoo beats blogging in monetary terms so I guess the time spent is justified.

I haven’t had much time to blog since the kids are home for the holidays. However, I have tried to do some tweaking and maintenance over at Squidoo because it is the holiday season. Can’t afford to be too quiet over at Squidoo during the holiday season and miss out on all the action can I?

I’m having a good time at Squidoo. Yesterday, I received a Giant Squid 50 Level Club Member Trophy. That means I am now a Giant Squid with at least 50 quality lenses. At the same time, my Popular Kids Book Series lens received a Purple Star.

Holiday sales are starting to pick up a little bit too. Yesterday I had 2 sales directly on Squidoo as well as 5 other Squidoo related sales on my own Amazon Affiliate account. Hope to see more sales soon. It was pretty quiet last month.

No time to write more but I’ve got some udpates over at Squidoo which you can read. If you want to check me out at Squidoo, here I am over at Squidoo - My Squidoo Profile. If you want to read more about my Squidoo Journey, you can go here – My Squidoo Log.

  Join me at Squidoo

It is payday on Squidoo on the 15th of every month. It is fun because Squidoo will put out a note on your Squidoo dashboard to remind you that it is payday and give you links to check your earnings. Squidoo pays 2 months later that means what you earn in July will be paid in September. I joined Squidoo at the end of June so naturally I didn’t earn anything. So my first payday at Squidoo is for my earnings in July.

There are several ways to get paid at Squidoo. One is from a share of a pool of Adsense and other ads. The other is through affiliate sales. The higher tier you are, the higher your share of the ad pool. How high you go depend on your traffic, your clickouts, your sales, your likes etc.

In July, 8 of my lenses qualified for a share of the royalties. The amounts are really small but it is a start. I made $2.68 in royalties for 8 lenses in July. I didn’t make any sales till September so I will have to wait another 2 months for payment for those. You are allowed to either use your own affiliate code or Squidoo’s for Amazon sales so I used both. There is not much difference either way even though the commissions are different. I got 2 sales for the Squidoo ones and 4 under my own Amazon Affiliate Account in September.

To date, I now have 36 lenses. Hopefully they move up the tier or make more sales in future months. Apart from sales, I enjoy writing the lenses. I get to put lots of pictures and stuff easily unlike my blogs. I also get to tweak them over and over again. I have also started to write in areas that I don’t normally write and will continue to challenge myself  in new areas of writing and in coming up with new topics and stuff to write about. You can read more about my Squidoo experience in My Squidoo Diary.

Want to Join Squidoo and give making lenses a try? Its free and its fun but be warned, its addictive, like a game. However, this game can help you make money if you ‘play’ hard enough.

Join Squidoo

I’m writing lenses on Squidoo and would love you to join me

Help! I’m being gripped in the tentacles of a squid!

If you notice my absence from my blog or yours or facebook etc it is because I have a new hobby. Yes, I am not writing lenses on Squidoo and having a whale (squid) of a good time. Squidoo-doobee-doo!

Lenses in squidoo are like a cross between a mini website and a blog post. I love writing and I love being rewarded for my writing. Ok, you do get paid on Squidoo but I think it will be a loooong time before I get paid or get anywhere near being paid. I am just having fun that is all. I love how I can level up and get points and monster trophies for doing what I love the most, writing.

Of course, I would love it if I were paid for it as well but like anything else in life. You will need to work really hard if you want something. Getting paid is hard work. However, if you do what you love and as a bonus, you get paid for it, now wouldn’t that be just great? So I’ll just start by doing what I love the most for now.

Why, for this blog, it took me almost a year or more before I received my first Adsense cheque. Now, I get it every 2 months. It isn’t such a big thing compared to the big earners but it still puts a smile on my face.

If you love to write, why not check out Squidoo too. I’m still a newbie so I haven’t got much to write about the technicalities of it because I am still learning and feeling my way around. Who knows, a few months down the road, I may be able to write a mini guide of sorts.

At the moment, I’ve got 5 lenses. I’m at Level 11, have 1,941 points and 4 trophies.

1. http://www.squidoo.com/a-quote-a-day-keeps-the-blues-away
2. http://www.squidoo.com/being-a-mother-changes-everything
3. http://www.squidoo.com/one-stop-parenting-cyber-cabinet
4. http://www.squidoo.com/mums-gather-here
5. http://www.squidoo.com/ben-10-vs-ben-10-alien-force

The first four were actually created to showcase my blogs and get good back links to it but after this I shall be creating other lenses not related to my blogs. I actually checked out Squidoo because I had read that one of the ways to market your Amazon aStore is to get on Squidoo.  Then I read on the Getting Started With Squidoo (The official overview, FAQ and TOS) under Item No. 5 (2) “Who Should Build a Lens”…….

“2. …have a blog, a lens is a great way to highlight your best posts, to feature a commented version of your blogroll, and to point to the products and services that you write about, read about, enjoy, or want to see succeed. A lens will allow you and your blog to have a bigger share of the commentary and influence on your topic of choice.”

That was it. I signed up and started writing.

Right, got to go and create more and more and more lenses now.

Psstt: One word of caution. I read that at one time Squidoo was in trouble with Google, so please don’t spam Squidoo. (I don’t know whether that issue has been resolved). You wouldn’t want to upset Google and have your Google rank adjusted downwards again now do you?