Truebluetitan - Internet Entrepreneur Journey

Thank You Dr. Pausch

Rob Schultz — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:42:45 +0000

I’m a motivational pack rat. I find snippets of things online that inspire me and I hold on to them, referring back whenever I feel weak or question my journey as an Internet entrepreneur. Even as I type this I am drinking coffee out of a mug that reads “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” ~Thoreau

Every once in a while I stumble upon a piece of motivation that is so great, so wonderful, that I keep coming back to it. I can’t stop telling people about it. In short, it changes my life. One person that has done just that is Dr. Randy Pausch, a former professor of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. In late-September, I wrote an article, Dr. Pausch teaches what matters most about his speech, Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, given on September 18, 2008. I have attached his presentation below, and if you have not had the opportunity to watch it yet, then I strongly urge you to set aside some time in the very near future to do so. Since being published on Youtube it has had well over 6 million views (many of those from me) and has caught the attention of the media.

Unfortunatley, Dr. Pausch died a little over a week ago, on July 25, 2008. But his legacy lives on in the form of a loving wife, 3 beautiful kids, and a wonderful book titled The Last Lecture. Shortly after it’s release I bought two copies, one for myself and the other to pass along to friends and family, and everyone that has read it raves about the content within; several family members bought their own copy shortly after reading mine.

Get Your FREE Copy Of The Last Lecture Here!

As a tribute to Dr. Pausch’s life, I purchased 5 copies of his book purely with the intent of spreading his inspiring outlook on life, and I want to give them away to you, my readers. Now, I’m not entirely sure how I should go about giving them away so I’m looking for your feedback, and if the interest is high then I’ll gladly buy 5 more copies, giving away 10 copies of The Last Lecture. I need your feedback: how should I give away these books? Should I ask that you write a blog post about Dr. Pausch or what motivates you? I don’t know. What I do know is that I want it to be something special, so please leave your feedback in the comments section below and I’ll make a decision within the next week.

One Week Without The iPhone

Rob Schultz — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:38:40 +0000

In September 2007, I acquired the first generation iPhone from a former co-worker. After a month of ownership I was so moved by how this little device affected my life that I decided to write a three-part-series about my experience. At that time, my opinion was that the iPhone was an irreplaceable device. Fast forward almost a year and you’ll find that I no longer own an iPhone.

Wait? Where Did Your iPhone Go?

Thanks to a wonderful site, Craigslist (More on them in a future article) I sold my iPhone to a nearby entrepreneur for $200. If I knew then what I know now, I should have demanded a much higher price tag. You see, because of my successful sale a co-worker promptly sold his for $325 and received offers tipping the scales at $400. I’m still befuddled by this, but I can’t complain. I sold my iPhone for what I thought it was worth and it’s new owner seems incredibly eager to play with his new gadget.

So Why Did You Sell It

I decided that the iPhone was too much for me. It provided too many distractions in my everyday life and am now happily using a more basic phone, the Nokia 6120. My iPhone was actually viewed with so much distain by loved ones that it became unaffectionately nicknamed Natasha - My Mistress.

I’m Not Buying That. What’s The Real Reason?

If you actually believe that I would give up my iPhone for a lesser phone then you haven’t been following this blog closely (the Natasha nickname is true, however). I’m a self-proclaimed techno-nut with an overflowing closet of technological goodies. I sold my first generation iPhone to make room for it’s successor.

On July 11, 2008, Apple opened it’s doors around the World (in 21 countries to be exact) to throngs of Apple FanBoys, all eager to get their hands on Apple’s newest product: the iPhone 3G. Possessing neither the time nor desire to stand in these long lines, I have decided to try my luck as the week progresses. In the meantime, I really am using a Nokia 6120 to make phone calls, and am nowhere near as happy as I previously eluded.

How Has The Lack Of An iPhone Impacted Your Daily Life

I feel disconnected. I miss my marimba ringtone. I find myself stopping at ATMs just to get my touchscreen fix. I can’t wait to return to my “normal” technology-filled lifestyle.

As an Internet Entrepreneur, I rely largely upon the Web to keep me plugged into the World around me, and am frequently “checking in” via my iPhone to see what’s developing. The majority of my World news came from Social Media sites like Twitter and it’s expansive community, but I am back to checking CNN, Engadget, Techmeme, and TUAW from my computer to stay in the know. My involvement in Social Media sites has dropped off drastically, as I used to only participate in them from my iPhone.

Lack of Internet activity is just the tip of the iceberg. I used to use the iPhone to take notes, compile wish-lists, and look up random things that popped into my head that would otherwise go unanswered. It had become my technological security blanket and I can’t wait to get that back! I had 8 email accounts setup on my old iPhone and now I’m limited to accessing only 1 of my accounts for 75% of the day.

In addition, the iPhone doesn’t store your address book on the SIM card. So transitioning to my Nokia was even more of a pain than initially anticipated. In my geeky snobberish ways I am refusing to spend the time it would take to input my address book into this phone, plus I don’t want to concede to the fact that I may actually have to use this phone for more than a week. I have a total of 5 numbers memorized, and if you’re not one of them, then there’s a really good chance that you won’t receive a call from me this week.

The Wrap Up

Being without my iPhone has me flabbergasted at how little I had access to before. It’s impact on my life is felt many times through out the day. Sadly, I may actually have to give in and stand in a line for my new iPhone with the rest of the eager public. I’m tired of feeling like an addict going cold turkey in recovery…I need my fix!

For Your Listening Pleasure

Rob Schultz — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:51:30 +0000

In my last post, I talked about my return to Corporate America. It’s been an interesting transition for me to say the least, and after almost 3 months, I still believe that I’m not 100% back in the motions of “the daily grind”.

On a positive note, one aspect of my current project that I’m thoroughly enjoying is that it provides plenty of opportunities for me to listen to a wide variety of music, podcasts, and audio books while I work. It’s not uncommon for someone to walk by my office and see me rocking out with my Sennheisers on. As such, I’ve become quite familiar with a variety of online streaming services like last.fm and pandora and love the new tunes that they’ve introduced to me.

Truebluetitan Recommends

I’ve listened to so much music lately that I could make a playlist several hours long for you to listen to, but for the purpose of this post, I just want to point of some of the best things that I’ve been listening to while in the office.

Yesterday, Coldplay released their long awaited album, Viva La Vida, and it couldn’t have come sooner. After waiting almost 2 years for a new album from my favorite band, I was practically frothing at the mouth while waiting for iTunes to finish downloading. This album reasserts exactly why Coldplay is my favorite band. Viva La Vida is new, refreshing, and chock full of excitement. Coldplay’s music feels familiar, but more evolved since the release of their last album, X&Y. If you haven’t added this album to your collection yet, then I strongly urge you to pick it up today; it’s the #1 album on iTunes and has rightfully earned that place.

I absolutely love it when you stumble upon a group that makes you want to get up out of your chair and jam the first time you hear them. Vampire Weekend does just that for me . Their afro-pop beats are fresh and playful; screaming “it’s summer” in an 80’s new-wave kind of way. I smile every time they shuffle through on my iPhone, and can’t recommend the songs “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and “A-punk” enough.

Because of a link on twitter I discovered the mother of all podcasts, You Look Nice Today, earlier this week, and let me tell you, it’s pure gold. I’m hooked. They’re intelligent witty (sometimes graphic) banter about topics ranging from poop jokes to Nicaraguan hate mail have me laughing out loud daily, and I’m not the only one doing so. My co-worker, Paul, is just as hooked as I am. Both of us can be found giggling out loud throughout the day and we owe it all to these guys. Sign up for their podcast. It’s guaranteed to turn your bad day into one of uncontrollable laughter.

What Do You Recommend?

Now you know what I like to listen to, but what do you recommend? I’m growing sick of the songs on my current playlists and am seeking your advice on new groups, podcasts, and audio books that will make my days in the office more enjoyable. So what’s on your iPod? Who cares if your tastes differ from mine and what’s listed above. Throw some suggestions out. You never know what might stick. Also, let me know what you think about my recommendations. Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? I’d like to know.

Hello Corporate America…Again.

Rob Schultz — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:00:44 +0000

It’s been nearly two months since Truebluetitan has had an update grace it’s pages, and that’s for a very good reason. You see, I’ve always approached this blog with the mindset of “make money first, blog about it second”, and I’ve been doing just that. Shortly after my last post, I was approached with several tantalizing offers to rejoin Corporate America, and spent the last few weeks of April interviewing with project managers, customer relations directors, and CFOs around the Pittsburgh area. It took a lot of soul searching, but I am proud to announce that I have joined CIBER, Inc. as a Business Analyst.

My Role with CIBER

CIBER is a publicly held International organization that specializes in providing large corporations with specialized IT support. As a Business Analyst, I bring my in-depth knowledge of various Content Management Systems and Portal applications to the table. Combined with my previous project management experience in organizations of all sizes I aim to become a very valuable asset to their Pittsburgh division.

I’ve been a member of the CIBER family for a little over a month now and can honestly say that it feels very good to be a part of an organization again. I’m having a seemingly impossible time adjusting to the 5:45 A.M. wake-up time, but I love the ability to work on large scale projects and interact with intelligent like-minded co-workers.

What Becomes of the Internet Entrepreneur?

Now I know that many of the entrepreneurs subscribed to my RSS feed are probably reaching for the unsubscribe button, but I politely ask that you hang around for a while. It’s a little uncommon to make the transition from entrepreneur to employee again, but if you meet me in person I’m sure that you would agree that there’s nothing common about me.

My Internet Entrepreneur journey isn’t over. I’m just taking a different route than originally intended. Several of the projects that I have been working on are nearing completion and their launch will soon be showcased on this site. In the meantime, I’ve been networking with some incredible talent and am joining forces to make my newest projects top-notch.

To all that have stuck around, I thank you for your patience and encouragement through personal emails. To those of you that are visiting Truebluetitan for the first time, stick around, you’re about to see some seriously cool stuff!

Social Media: The Power Of StumbleUpon

Rob Schultz — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 06:00:52 +0000

With the way I see it there are 3 primary sources of Web site traffic:

Search Engines,
other Web sites,
and Social Media sites

By paying close attention to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) it’s possible to eventually rank well on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for high-traffic keywords, and actively participating in sites in your niche will yield highly-targeted traffic to your site. Both sources of traffic are incredibly important and a Web site cannot prosper without them. However, today’s discussion does not surround either of them, instead, we’re going to focus on the third, Social Media, and in particular: StumbleUpon.

What is StumbleUpon?

Like I said before, StumbleUpon can be categorized as a Social Media site just like Digg, Del.icio.us, and even Facebook. However, up until recently, I never got the draw of StumbleUpon. It requires the installation of a toolbar (that doesn’t work with my browser of choice: Safari), and you’re constantly clicking a button to view random Web sites. The first time I used it I thought “I don’t get the concept behind this”.

Discovering Stumbling Great Content

Determined to discover why this site has such a huge user base, I decided that a closer inspection was in order, and as I dove deeper I started to uncover the real magic of StumbleUpon. I completed my profile, updated my interests, and soon began stumbling, actively giving sites “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” and leaving reviews of the sites that I really liked. Before long, I found myself stumbling across amazing informative Web sites about things that I was actually interested in.

Today, after a thousand or so clicks on my stumble toolbar, I’m confident that amazing content is waiting for me each time that I click that stumble button in the corner of my Firefox browser (though I’m still wishing it was Safari). I’m actively participating in many of the sites that I have stumbled upon (after all they’re targeted to my interests) and learning lots of random facts along the way. The best part is that this isn’t all that StumbleUpon has to offer!

What StumbleUpon Can Do For Your Website

Not only can StumbleUpon provide you with amazing content, but it also can provide amazing amounts of traffic to your Web site if the articles you write are worthy of being stumbled. Now I don’t want this post to become overrun with graphs and numbers, but I do want to share some insight regarding Truebluetitan and StumbleUpon.

On March 6, 2008 I wrote a post entitled Why I’m A Mac Addict. For a little over a month this post was fairly dormant with a comment posted here or there, but nothing crazy…until yesterday.

With my Internet connection down, and my iPhone refusing to let me access the Edge network, I was unable to check my Web site statistics for the greater part of the day. Finally, at about 5 PM I was able to log in and found that close to 1,000 people had visited Truebluetitan already. At 6 PM I checked again, and found that the number was now over 1,200. As the clock struck midnight I decided to check for one last time. Much to my surprise, I discovered that over 2,400 people had visited my site in a 24 hour period. I was floored.

Truebluetitan used to receive 2,400 visitors a month, but thanks to StumbleUpon and other Social Media sites, it has become possible for this to happen in a day! Not only that, but my post, Why I’m A Mac Addict, has become the most popular post on this site and seems to be sparking a bit of a debate between the Apple Fanboys and M$ faithful.

One Last Thing…

Don’t forget to friend me if you’re a StumbleUpon user! I’d love to meet some new members of the community! Now if you excuse me, I just received an alert from my server telling me that I’ve used 80% of the Truebluetitan’s monthly bandwidth allotment…time to bump it up!

BlogforBloggers: Looking For A Few Good Bloggers

Rob Schultz — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:15:38 +0000

Another one of my projects is almost ready to go live, but I need your help in order for it to maximize it’s potential.

BlogforBloggers, something that I’ve talked about briefly in the past, is coming along nicely. In case you’ve missed the description in the Project Tracker, I’ll quickly recap.

In my last job, several of the employees were familiar with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but none of them had a Web site of their own, which meant that they rarely implemented any of the best practices themselves. I, being a firm believer in learning by doing, wanted to provide my co-workers with the means necessary to implement these concepts first-hand. So I started Project Blog Club, which taught employees how to launch and maintain a Web site of their very own and test the effects of SEO modifications.

I miss being a part of that club, and still feel the need to give back to the community. Technorati reports indicate that there are over 60 million blogs out there today and new bloggers are jumping into the fray every day. So I’m creating BlogforBloggers, a Web site for bloggers by bloggers. The sole purpose of which is to give those new bloggers a place on the Web where they can learn from the experience (and mistakes) of those of us who are already active in the blogosphere.

Help Wanted

With all of that being said, I need your help. I’m looking for bloggers who want to give back to the community. It doesn’t matter what your level of experience is, if you want to give back then you can participate. Yes, you can be a blogger starting out or author of one of the most popular blogs out there; I’m asking for your help. I could write all of the posts for BlogforBloggers by myself, but I don’t know everything there is to know about blogging nor have I experienced enough to be considered a professional blogger.

So How Do I Help?
Anyone interested in participating in my lil’ venture should head on over to the BlogforBloggers section of my Project Tracker. Once there, take a look at the post topics. If there’s a topic there that you would like to write about then contact me with your name, Web site URL, email address, and your topic of choice and I’ll add you to the list.

I’m sure that I’m missing some obvious beginner topics so if there’s something that you think should be on the list then please use the contact form to have your suggestions added to the list. If you’d like to blog about that topic then please let me know that as well.

What’s In It For Me?

Writing a blog post that’s ready for public consumption often takes a lot of time and I can’t ask you to help without giving something back. So I’m working on some kind of incentive program, but for now each author will have a profile in BlogforBloggers About section. The profile will include the author’s photograph, a brief description of the author, and link to the author’s site. In addition, if you sign up to author one of the blog posts in BlogforBlogger’s project tracker page you will get a link back there as well. Who knows, maybe we’ll even set up an interview on Truebluetitan as well.

What Do You Think?

In the end, I’m merely looking for a way to give back to the community and help the new guy out a bit. I get a lot of emails every day regarding blogging basics and this is how I am going to answer them. So what do you think? Will it work? Will you help to make it work?

Come on. Join me. Let’s give back.

Arrival Alert: Be The First To Know!

Rob Schultz — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:59:13 +0000

Arrival Alert, is a web-based product tracker that helps you score the hard-to-find products before anyone else. It’s the first of several web applications that have been in development under the Schultz Media Network umbrella since November 2007.

Currently, Arrival Alert, is operating in a Live Beta mode. We just couldn’t wait until all of the cool features were finished to release it into the wild. After all, the product tracker is ready for public consumption so have at it. You never know when your product might be in stock. Just wait until you see all of the additional features that Arrival Alert will be rolling out over the next couple of weeks…it might make your head spin!

What does Arrival Alert do?

If you are like me and many of the consumers out there then there is a chance that you want the latest and greatest gadgets, gizmos, and toys the second that they’re available. Unfortunately, since we all have the same idea, they’re often incredibly difficult to come by. Take the Nintendo Wii and it’s accessories, for example. They were the hottest gifts of the 2007 holiday season and still prove to be impossible to find today. Demand for Wii was so high late last year that my Win A Nintendo Wii holiday contest was a huge hit for Truebluetitan. In fact, I still get emails from people looking for a Wii. Frankly, I didn’t have an answer for them…that is, until Arrival Alert came along.

Since late last year, my business partner, Dimitry and I have been designing a Product Tracker site from the ground up. Running on Rails, Arrival Alert constantly searches various online stores for hot items (like Playstation 3 Bundles). As soon as these products are in stock, Arrival Alert sends out alerts to it’s subscribed users, ensuring that they’re one of the first in line to place their order.

Granted, this is no easy task, but we’ve spent hours optimizing Arrival Alert and we’re proud to say that we’ve accomplished what we set out to do. Arrival Alert boasts a streamlined design, beefy back-end web server, and a lil’ super secret sauce to make it the best at what it does. In short, Arrival Alert is one cool web app.

There are other sites out there that provide product tracking, however, that’s where their similarities to Arrival Alert will end. Arrival Alert is running in a Live Beta mode with additional features being added daily. Also, this is just one site in a network of sites that are going to be released by the Schultz Media Network and it’s business partners. The integration of which is going to provide users with a unique online experience with features that we just can’t wait to share.

While I can’t divulge what’s next on our mile-long to do list, I have been given the go ahead to to let the cat out of the bag on one or two things. Don’t see what you’re looking for on Arrival Alert? Fear not, we’re working behind the scenes to get them added. It doesn’t hurt to contact us to make sure that it gets added either. The list of stores that we’re monitoring is also going to increase exponentially. We just need to stop playing with all of the other fun things that we’re developing!

Oh! And if you like contests with kick ass prizes then Arrival Alert might just be the place for you; take a look at what we’re tracking and you can probably guess what our prizes might be. However, the only way that you’re going to be able to take advantage of this is to sign up and subscribe to our alerts. Don’t delay. You never know when our first giveaway might take place!!

Welcome CSS Site Visitors!

Rob Schultz — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:10:43 +0000

In my last post I announced the redesign of Truebluetitan. After being inspired by some seriously amazing designs on Smashing Magazine I decided to step out of my comfort zone and take Truebluetitan to the dark-side. I’ve tried to go dark before, but whenever I would share my conceptual design with my peers they frequently exclaimed “it’s too dark” or “the readability suffers here”, and so Truebluetitan remained very white, blue and gray for quite some time.

I’ve always wanted a dark theme for this site, and I think that now is the perfect time for it. As I venture down the path to becoming an Internet Entrepreneur there is a lot of unknowns, and I sometimes feel like I’m finding my way through the dark. Truebluetitan is, and always will be, a reflection of my personality, and right now we’re finding our way together.

Apparently, there is still a lot of interest in dark designs nowadays as Truebluetitan has been featured on several CSS design galleries across the web. The amount of visitors to this site has exponentially increased, requiring me to up the allotted bandwidth to Truebluetitan on my web servers. In fact, I’m seeing record traffic numbers daily.

I ask that any of you who are new to this site to please take a look around, leave some comments and come back frequently. If you like what you see, please subscribe to my RSS via the feed or email.

To those of you who are already subscribed to my RSS and familiar with Truebluetitan, I ask that you take a look again. I just released an update to Truebluetitan this morning that greatly increases the readability of the grungy theme released just a few days ago. In addition, I also paid a lot more attention to the projects that I am working on and have rightfully given them a more prominent spot on the homepage. There’s lots to see and read in this version and I encourage you to do so.

Over the next few weeks I will be releasing some very cool projects into the wild and can’t wait to share all of my (and my partner’s) hard work with you. Finally, after months of labor intensive effort, I’ll feel like I’m making progress on my Internet Entrepreneur journey.

Truebluetitan Goes Grungy

Rob Schultz — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 08:41:14 +0000

Days after the longest post that I’ve ever written, I’ve decided to write the shortest post to ever grace the pages of Truebluetitan.com. As you can tell Truebluetitan has officially gone grungy (Click through RSS Readers!).

I’ll let the rest of the design speak for itself, but there’s a couple of new bells and whistles implemented in this release with a few more scheduled to appear later this week, which in web 2.0 terms that would make this a beta! ;)

What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Inquiring minds want to know.

How To Build A Web Design Gallery In Under 15 Hours

Rob Schultz — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:34:12 +0000

This is, without-a-doubt, the longest post that I have written to date. However, it’s the most chalk full of information too. If you have any pointers on things that I can do differently next time I would love to hear them. I’m always interested in streamlining the design/development process.

For years now, I have been using del.icio.us to bookmark inspirational website designs. It has served me well, but unfortunately comes up short. Del.icio.us’ features list does not include a way for me to quickly view the website designs and sort by their colors and/or subject matter. This has always left me feeling a bit discontent so I decided to do something about it. The end result: delicious CSS

The Challenge

On Sunday night I dreamt about building an online web design gallery because of my displeasure over the way I was bookmarking inspiring website designs (I know…there are much better things that I could spend my time dreaming about, but I just couldn’t shake this). When I awoke on Monday, I got to work; Interested in making it challenging, I decided to see if I could build the entire site in 15 hours or less.

Do We Need Another Web Design Gallery?

I can hear you asking yourself, “Do we need another web design gallery?”, and the answer is probably no, but after taking a look at my RSS reader I noticed that over half of the galleries I am tracking have fallen dormant. Now the primary purpose of my css design gallery is for me to visually bookmark websites that I find visually appealing, but the ability to give public recognition to the talented web designers and developers makes me happy. Lastly, I wanted to see how quickly I could turn this idea into a reality.

How Did You Do?

It’s been a long two days, but I came in under my time limit, and I’m proud of what I created thus far. Hopefully, as time allows, the site will continue to evolve in the future. Below are the steps that I took to construct delicious CSS:

Choosing A Domain Name

Time Spent: .5 hours (DNS Propagation time: 12 hours) I love seeking out and registering exciting domain names. There’s something to be said about finding a good domain name that has not been claimed. Instant Domain Search is my tool of choice. The end result of my search was www.DeliciousCSS.com. Since my intent was to replace my del.icio.us bookmarks with a CSS design gallery I couldn’t have picked a better domain name. Additionally, I thought that delicious was a good adjective for describing website designs that I enjoy.

Hosting

Time Spent: .25 hours Web design galleries have the potential to receive a tremendous amount of traffic and take up a large amount of hard drive space. Knowing all of this, I allocated a large portion of my server’s bandwidth and storage space to this site. If you don’t own a website hosting company then I suggest taking a look at WebHostingTalk to find a host that can accomodate your needs.

CMS Platform

Time Spent: 1 hour (Note: Internet connectivity issues resulted in severe delays uploading via FTP. Thanks Comcast!) Choosing a Content Management System (CMS) for a website can be a difficult choice. There are thousands publicly available, and choosing the right CMS can be a daunting task if you’re unfamiliar with their features. However, for this exercise, it was a fairly easy choice. I’ve designed custom WordPress themes for several websites, including Truebluetitan, and knew that it was capable of meeting my needs. To make things even better, I remember stumbling across this FREE CSS gallery online a week or two ago. I knew that using this theme as my foundation was going to give me a time advantage.

If you feel that WordPress may not be the right CMS platform for you, then I suggest stopping by Open Source CMS. Their large selection makes them the ultimate resource.

Site Design & Development

Time Spent: 11 hours (Note: Including the initial website posts) Admittedly, I’m not the most proficient developer so this part of the process always seems to take me forever. I knew that I wanted the website’s design to be simple and I already had a theme to work from, but I didn’t want the site to be just like the theme that I started with. In the end, I think that I came up with a site design that has a different feel and gives the attention to the websites being showcase.

Delicious CSS is currently using the following WordPress plugins: All in One SEO Pack, BM Custom Login, Comment Relish, FeedBurner FeedSmith, Google Sitemaps, ShiftThis | Thumbnail Size, WP ContactForm, and WP PostRatings

External Resources

Time Spent: 2 hours Once the site was up and running it was time to setup the external resources to make the website complete. Sometimes it feels as though this part of the process can take as long as the website design. At this point I was just ready for the site to go live. It was 2 AM on Wednesday morning, and I had enough. Below are the resources that delicious CSS is using.

Technorati: Technorati is a great way to promote your website and gain additional exposure in the blogging community. Sign up today.

Feedburner: If your website has an RSS feed, then you’ll want to sign up for Feedburner. This website allows you to track the number of RSS & email subscribers to your website.

Google Adsense: While I’ve ran million dollar SEM campaigns for Fortune 1000 companies, I have never setup Google Adsense on any of my personal websites. I decided it was time to give it a try, but I don’t have a lot of faith in it. Hopefully it will prove me wrong.

Google Analytics: I love statistics, and Google has a great analytics package for tracking your website visitors. You’re missing out if you don’t have Google Analytics on your site.

Reinvigorate: Google Analytics has a shortcoming: It lacks real time analytics and in this day and age with all of the social media sites like Digg and StumbleUpon you want to be on top of it. That’s where Reinvigorate shines.

Entrecard: When Entrecard first launch, I was there. It’s been over 3 months since I started using it and I wanted to see if it would work for delicious CSS as well. It’s a great FREE advertising network that has the ability to deliver a crazy amount of traffic if played right. Let’s see if it delivers.

Crazy Egg: Where do your visitors click? CrazyEgg let’s you know. Read my write up on Crazy Egg for more detail.

Favicon: When it comes to designing a website I’m anal retentive down to the last pixel. That includes a little 16×16 image that sits in your address bar. A favicon is a must-have; it’s the cherry on top of the sundae.

iPhone/iPod Touch Home Screen Icon: The iPhone has changed the way we view the web with our mobile devices. A recent update allows iPhone/iPod Touch owners to bookmark their favorite websites on the home screen of their device. With the addition of this little image, my website sundae now has 2 cherries on top!

Let’s Wrap This Up

So there you have it. In a little less than 15 hours I completed an online website design gallery. The site is up and running and I’m now ready for a nap. With over 700 inspiring website designs bookmarked via del.icio.us, I’ll be very busy moving them over to delicious CSS…right after my nap! I enjoyed this post and the challenge of building the site. If you would like to see more posts like this on Truebluetitan then speak up. I’m up to the challenge.