I just added “Daily Web Ideas” to my Hot Blogs sidebar.

I now have eleven blogs listed there. Uh-oh. You know what that means, don’t you? One of them has to go!

So, I’ll give you, dear readers (all three of you, LOL!), the opportunity to beg for your favorite blogs (even your own) to stay on the list.

Which blogs are hot, and which aren’t? You decide!

UPDATE: I just can’t stop myself! Now, I added “A Blog About Nothing” which means now two blogs have to be dropped!

You had a great idea for a blog post, and you couldn’t wait to post it. But, work got in the way. Then, you had to eat. Then, you couldn’t miss your favorite show, even though it was a rerun.

But, at last, you were in front of the computer. Ready to compose the Great American Blog Post, right?

Then, you completely forgot what it was.

Oh, you struggled, you concentrated, you’re pretty sure it was… no, wait. No, that wasn’t it.

You thought some more. A-ha! You remembered. You started writing, but the words aren’t quite right. They’re not the same words that flowed through your head so easily before, when you were away from the computer, away from any Internet connection. Then, the words made sense. Then, they flowed perfectly. Every line accentuated the former, and made more concrete your point.

Yes, it was going to be a great post. Everybody would want to talk about it. Even John Chow would stop by with a comment.

But, it’s all gone now. Gone. Nevermore. You forgot to back up your brain. Why didn’t you write it down? Why didn’t you grab a pen and paper and write… something! Why!?

Oh, well, there is always tomorrow…

Me? I’m going to scrounge through loose change, check under the cushions and beg for some affiliate sales to gather together $15. Maybe even look for some aluminum cans. I want more readers for my blog, and I’m not afraid to grovel for free soda to do it.

You? You post about my blog on your blog and comment here (or trackback) when you’ve done that. That’ll count as one entry for you. If you have multiple blogs, you can enter once per blog.

Next, if your readers also post about my blog on their blogs, and post a comment about it on your blog post about my blog, each of their comments (on your blog post) counts as an additional entry for you!

July 31st, 2007 will be the last day for this. Then, I will count all the entries and draw a winner on August 3rd, 2007.

Void where prohibited. You must be able to accept a PayPal payment. So, if you’re in a country not served by PayPal, sorry. Any applicable taxes are the responsibility of the winner. And, I reserve the right to retroactively apply any legal stuff I should have included but didn’t know I should have.

Oh, I did mention the prize is $15, sent via PayPal? If not, I’m doing so now. One prize of $15.00 (fifteen dollars). That’s in U.S. dollars, by the way. Everyone else gets my sincere gratitude, which won’t get you even so much as a cup of coffee, but it’s better than a blank stare and complete apathy.

UPDATE: If you briefly mention my blog, I’ll count that as one (1) entry. A full review or long-winded rant (over 200 words) will count as three (3) entries.

Since last November (or thereabouts), I have been working on an eBook on the Development of Brain Power, which features a practical system for increasing your mental abilities. This is without stuff like, “imagine it and it will be yours!”

I was initially excited about it, but now I’m not sure if there would even be much interest. In the past few months, I have only had one visitor express interest in it.

Now, that I have this blog, why not share some information and see how it goes, eh?

This is an early step in the system, and it involves managing your thoughts.

A lot of people talk about living in the moment, but how many people are actually thinking in the moment? Remember the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Data had a girlfriend? She asked what was going through his mind when they were together, and he rattled off a number of things. She was miffed that she wasn’t the sole focus of his thoughts.

Men (and women) aren’t androids, and while we may not be thinking as many things as Data did, certainly we have a lot of thoughts going on in our head, beyond what is relevant at the moment.

Increasing your brain power means that you have to think in the moment. A lot of people let their minds wander when they do routine tasks. They believe that they are being more productive by thinking of other tasks while doing another task.

But, you will be more productive by thinking in the moment, by focusing on the task at hand.

But, my job is boring. I don’t need to think to do [whatever]!

Sure you do. When your mind wanders, you’re not focusing on the task at hand. Best case, you go a little slower than you would otherwise, because you’re not focusing on what you’re doing. Worst case, you make an error. Depending on your job, that may mean you’ll end up re-doing a job (and that’s going to hurt your productivity!) or a visit to the emergency room… or worse.

This is of special importance for the self-employed, or those working part time at home to earn a little extra money. Focus on the job at hand. You won’t get more work done by focusing on other things, but you may be able to finish the current task faster. If you finish jobs faster, that means you have more time to take on additional jobs or more time to spend with your family or doing things you enjoy doing.

Practice focusing on the job at hand at every opportunity. That includes starting when you get dressed in the morning. If you want to contemplate your tasks for the day, take five minutes and do so. Don’t think about them while getting washed and dressed in the morning–instead focus on the task at hand!

For example, when you are brushing your teeth, focus on brushing your teeth. Do a good job.

But, I can think of other things while I brush my teeth!

Yes, you can, but that’s not the most productive use of your time. People think that because something is so routine that they can do it without thinking about it, they might as well be using their mind for something more useful. But, what is most useful is getting your teeth cleaned properly.

Despite supposedly good dental practices, people still have cavities, lose teeth, etc. While you can blame some of that on sugary drinks, the fact is that most people aren’t really paying attention when they brush their teeth. They go on autopilot. They believe it is so routine, they have it down pat. But, as their mind wanders to other things, their teeth probably are not getting cleaned properly. They move the brush around a bit, spit, rinse and then go about their business. And, in so doing, they are doing both their teeth and their gray matter a disservice.

I say this not to encourage good dental habits (although I do encourage it!), but to illustrate the point. When you let your mind wander, you are not successfully completing the task at hand. You brushed your teeth, but you did not do so with full effectiveness. The other side of this is that it is may be taking you longer to brush your teeth than it would if you simply focused on brushing your teeth. (And, the flip side of that is that you may not be spending enough time doing so in the first place!)

In all things, focus on the task at hand. You will very likely discover that by placing your full attention to the current task, you can actually get them done faster than you would when you let your mind wander to other things.

Take the first step in training your mind by focusing on whatever task you may be doing at the time. Do not let other thoughts enter your mind. Focus.

Start tomorrow morning when you get washed and dressed for the day. Focus on the task at hand, and not the things that need to be done later.

This is an important step. Try it. It may take some practice to keep your mind focused. But, give it a try and see if you aren’t more productive.

One Man of One Year Goal has launched a new blog, A Man’s Man, which begs the inevitable question: Is One Man a Man’s Man? Will his username on a Man’s Man be a Man’s Man’s Man? Man, oh Man, how many Men can we stand? Better Man up and see!

I had to get that out of the way. Sorry, man.

Now, be forewarned before clicking the link above that there is some adult content. No pictures (at least not at the moment), but some of the content is, well, adult. So, scatter the kiddies before clicking the link.

My point of mentioning this blog is that I think that One Man has done a better job of designing this blog than he did with his One Year Goal blog, which I semi-reviewed in my earlier post, “Blogging for Money.”

Looking at A Man’s Man, you can see that, while there are ads, the advertising is far less intrusive and obvious. He can still safely (if done right) add more advertising and not have it impact negatively on the appearance of the blog.

Nice header too. It is a stock illustration, which is a negative in that it is not something unique to the site. But, it has a pleasant appearance. He could even crop out the martini glass (which is partially cropped now) and still have a nice header image. I get what the martini glass is supposed to evoke, but I don’t like it cropped such as it is, especially with the olive partially sliced, and I don’t know that it’s really necessary. Aside from that, the site does have an attractive look and feel to it. Oh, but I do find the vertical lines in the sidebars next to the headers to be very unattractive and annoying, as though it were a coding error and not intentional.

As mentioned in his “About” page, A Man’s Man “is dedicated to helping all men become Men’s Men.” Please give it a look, if not for the well-done appearance, then for the content. Again, though, scatter the kiddies!

Okay, so I’ve added another category. I know I listed my main topics in my “What’s This Blog All About?” post. But, I swear I’m not getting off track again.

The new category is “Brain Power.” My initial thought was to just tag the posts as “Blogging,” as it will have usefulness to bloggers. But, it really needs its own category. And, that’ll give me the option to expand on the range of topics I can cover in the future, no?

Besides, this blog is still relatively new. So, no time like the present to include new stuff, eh?

In an earlier post, I wrote “Unfortunately, some of these blogs seem to be the equivalent of MFA (Made for Adsense) sites, in terms of appearance if not content too.”

Recently, though, I have been coming across blogs that are much more (much, much, much more) the equivalent of MFA sites. I did a blog search in Google, and found blog entries related to my search topic. But, when I visit the blog, I find that the content of the post (which is most likely scraped content) has nothing to do with the blog title, with the exception of sharing keywords. The problem is that the keywords have a completely different meaning when used in a different context. So, it is most likely that some kind of script or program matched the scraped content to a headline, because a human being would have recognized that the two did not match.

These “blogs” do have ads, but I did not click any. Why reward these “bloggers” for putting up useless sites, not to mention most likely violating copyright laws by copying content from other websites?

Sadly, too, you can find these kinds of “bloggers” in comments on other blogs. So far, I have had only one such blogger comment on any of my blogs. I am generally not in favor of deleting comments, but reserve the right to do so when the comment has nothing to do with the post, or is just nonsense ranting with a link to one of these MFA “blogs.”

Those are the bad, bad blogs. Now, for a good one…

If you read John Chow’s blog, it is also helpful to read the comments. You can find some useful blogs there (as well as some not-so-useful ones). Here is one I found today (and I’ll also pick out a good post to spread some “link love”):

Social Packs dot Com: “4 Leadership Traits and How You Can Use Them For The Better”
(”10 Healthy Tips to Have More Energy” is also a good read.)

On second thought, I think I have been to that blog before. Or is this just deja vu? In any case, some good content there.

In his current blog entry, “The Topics and Subtopics of your Blog,” Chris Bibey talks about the topics and subtopics of your blog. And, in One Man’s blog, in his “Weekly Review Review,” he mentions this blog, saying, “Dan Blogs is a blog about…well…whatever Dan Blogs about.”

Mind you, I’ve been thinking about this before I had read either of the aforementioned blog entries, but they make a valid point.

Chris Bibey writes in his blog post that “One of the most difficult tasks for some bloggers is to stay on track with their content.”

I started out this blog with the intention of covering a limited number of topics, primarily just those of personal interest that don’t merit a website or blog of their own, at least not yet.

I got off track Wednesday, with the SciFi topic post. I enjoy science fiction, but that doesn’t belong in this blog. It belongs here.

So, henceforth, I hope and plan to refrain from straying off-course. (Thanks to Chris Bibey and One Man for the reminder!)

What you will see here is stuff on blogging (including blogging in general as well as monetization issues and so on), technology, nature and antiques.

I will soon be relaunching a separate website/blog that will cover nature and gardening. But, that will be more “formal” in nature [sic], and this blog will continue to have my own nature photos–those images that tend to be a bit off-the-wall.

Antiques is something I’ve not yet blogged about. I am not going to go too deeply into antiques. It will mainly be items that I have collected and items that I may restore. Depending on your definition of “antiques,” some of these things may not even qualify! They will most be items from the early to mid-1900’s, with most being mid-century or even newer.

That’s all for now! Please comment if you’d like to read my laconic comments on anything else!

I took this photo last Sunday, at the same time as the “Look Upward!” photo.

This was my first chance to work with this photo. Like the last one, I converted it from color to black and white. I thought about a sepia tone, but I wanted to keep this photo consistent with the last, because they are both maple trees.

Maybe next time I’ll do a sepia tone for an older look.

John Chow had a post yesterday, “Get 250 Free Business Cards To Promote Your Blog,” in which he suggests getting free business cards to help promote your blog offline.

The problem with some of the “free” business card sites is that they’ll have an ad printed for themselves on the back. Not to mention the shipping cost and delivery times. (Be sure to check those out before you purchase from one of those “free” sites!) You may be able to find a better deal on custom printed business cards on eBay.

In addition to business cards, though, and as mentioned in John Chow’s post as well, is using custom rubber stamps. You can have your stamp made anyway you like it, with a logo too, and stamp it on anything (within reason).

Think inside the box: letterboxing may be an ingenious way of promoting your blog too!