Charleen's iPhone Picture of the Sun at Carlsbad

My good friend, Charleen Buriello, took this amazing photo while walking near the beach in Carlsbad, California. She said the sun just looked different, sort of "hexagonal," and so she snapped this image with her iPhone. She also felt something, like a powerful presence about the whole situation.
Later when she looked at the photo, she noticed... it just looked incredible. The sun and the smaller well-defined white light to the right, the circular and transparent image behind that light. It all kind of gave her goose bumps in a good way.
I really love this photo and could stare at it for a long time. Plus it's a lot safer than staring at the sun.
What do you think? Other energies at play here or just some lighting effects on an iPhone?

Google Editions, Pardon Me, Google Ebooks is Here at Last!

Article first published as Google Editions, Excuse Me, Google Ebooks is Finally Here! on Technorati.

Google Ebooks, not Google Editions

We expected it as announced for the summer of 2010. We also expected it to be called Google Editions. Neither of those turned out to be accurate prophesies for the highly anticipated ribbon-cutting ceremony when the world’s largest search engine would open its ebook store for business, but I guess nothing like keeping your word really matters when you’re sitting on a gazillion dollars and have a strangle-hold on the most cherished aspect of the internet.

So, fast forward from summer to the near winter of 2010 and Google Ebooks is actually here and functioning (sort of, see below). It’s good to see they abandoned the original concept of Google Editions, a term that likely would have left a few scratching heads, and went with the impossible-to-misinterpret-but rather-boring-storefront-name of Google Ebooks. Maybe they’ve finally been taking my advice on SEO tips.

A few interesting things to note:

* Google doesn’t have a dedicated reader, like Amazon’s Kindle for example.
* Google makes ebook files readable on any electronic reading device, except Amazon’s Kindle.
* Google is openly against DRM (digital rights management, an encryption code) for the intention of allowing one download to be read on several devices throughout the day. DRM was made famous and still used by, you guessed it, Amazon’s Kindle.

See a theme here? Fortunately for Amazon, it has a loyal customer base, a fine-working and inexpensive product plus a plethora of other ways to make money just in case the combination punch of Apple’s iPad and Google Ebooks eats up too much market share.

One thing that bugs me an as independent author is that Google Ebooks is not anywhere near as user-friendly a place to publish as is Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes&Noble. At those other retailers I can simply fill out the info for my ebook, upload a jpeg cover file, upload a pdf or MS Word doc, review my uploads and presto, it’s done and ready for sales.

Last night I attempted to upload some of my ebooks with Google. I tried and failed with two different methods and currently am waiting on technical support along with several other (from the help forums) independent authors. Surprisingly, Google walked me through a long-winded tutorial on how to rename your cover and content files instead of just loading them up like filling out a form. After I did so, their program had trouble recognizing my user name and password which I painstakingly made sure to type correctly about ten times. Then during an alternative approach the program would not recognize the very file names it asked me to create. And I’m a pro at this! What about all the newbies who’ve never done this before? Those User-Interface guys are mostly Stanford grads, right? You’d think they’d be smart enough to streamline a platform when they have perfectly working examples to go by.

So for now I’m happy that yet another free vendor exists to sell my ebooks, but I’ll look forward to the improvements to their system coming in the winter… maybe spring… hopefully by summer of 2011.
--
Home Page of author Jason Matthews.

add me to your Google Plus circles

Obama's BCS Promise, We're Still Waiting for Change...

(Article first published as Obama's BCS Promise, We're Still Waiting for Change on Technorati.)

I'm disappointed with President Obama, the candidate of "change." It's not because of the Wall Street bailout, although that really did suck. And it's not because of health care reform or the troops still in the Middle East or that the economy continues to plunge into depths even lower than the Bush administration.
No, it's because of what he said on Monday Night Football in 2008 (just before he got elected). ESPN's Chris Berman asked Obama, "If you could change one thing in sports, what would that be?" Obama's sure answer, "...it's about time we had playoffs in college football. I'm fed up with these computer rankings and this and that and the other... get eight teams... top eight teams right at the end... you got a playoff... decide on a national champion." He spoke with conviction, a smart answer mere days preceding the election.
That got my vote and probably plenty more from sports fans, both red and blue still on the proverbial fence. I whimsically thought, "Here's a candidate for the average American who can relate to want we really want, and he's willing to take on the corruption of powers that be."
The BCS is about as un-American as anything I can think of. How did they ever get the reigns over this sport? Like a Czarist-regime, it ensures only teams from chosen conferences have a chance to content for the top spot. If you ask college football fans what they want, they'll almost unanimously ask for a playoff system, and they'll likely have a design in mind. Like Obama, I can think of a few; it isn't that hard.
Fast forward a week later from MNF in 2008; college football fans voted in record numbers, Obama got elected and a party like never before happened. Obviously nothing materialized that season, and we understandably watched Tim Tebow lead Florida past Oklahoma, but we had hope for '09. A year went by. The next season Alabama destroyed Texas at the status-quo BCS finale, suspiciously with little said about Obama and his "election promises."
Yeah, there were some measures taken in 2010 involving the Justice Dept, and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) looked into some "anti-trust" laws on how the BCS has taken over NCAA football, but I haven't seen much beyond a show for good measure and face-saving. At first we all thought, "Sweet, it's Hatch, a Utah guy who has as much beef as anyone about the unfairness of the system." That was then.
Months have passed and nothing that I've seen is promising "change" as the college season is ever-nearer a fitting end with another controversy brewing. We believe we know how it will play out. It appears the good folk of Boise State and TCU are destined to watch either Oregon and Auburn or some 1-loss team from a power conference play for the national championship, even if Boise State and TCU continue their undefeated ways in typical blowout fashion. No disrespect to deserving teams like Oregon or Auburn, but how would those kids feel if they played for Boise or TCU? March Madness is unquestionably the best thing in sports. January Madness could be pretty cool too.
So do we have to wait for the government to file a serious anti-trust suit that truly pushes for change? Can we, the American people and average-Joe-college-football fan, file one for them?
A recent Sports Illustrated article on the subject said, "We are stuck with an inexact, capricious, widely despised system." Were they talking about the BCS or politics?

What are your thoughts?
--
Click here for the home page of author Jason Matthews.

add me to your Google Plus circles.
 
+Jason Matthews

A Lesson in Truckee Pride

I had the good fortune to coach a group of kids in soccer this past fall. I've been playing the game for 30 years and coaching for about 4 at the AYSO recreational level. We called our newly formed team Truckee Pride since we live in the small town of Truckee, California. It was our first season playing in the competitive division of club soccer, and we went into it more than a bit unprepared for the challenge. A few of our kids had little to no experience against seasoned teams, and nearly half of our kids were young enough to be in the U12 league instead of the U13 which we played in. A result of these factors led us to play older, larger and much more experienced teams.
It wasn't fun or easy enduring a 14 loss, zero win season. Many of the early games turned into drastic blowouts. A few times the other goal-keeper never once touched the ball as we had trouble maintaining possession enough to move down the field and get off any shot, if even a weak one. Our first loss was 8-0, another was 7-0, another was 12-1 and another was 10-0. This was not only tough but disheartening as the kids gave it everything they had until the final whistle even while facing sure defeat. It felt like life was saying, "You can't win no matter what."
There were tears, plenty of them. There were temper flare-ups and sleepless nights before and after games. And I'm talking about me, not the kids.
For whatever reason they never gave up, though I wouldn't have blamed them. Even after the last game when they played their hearts out and took a very strong team well into the second half holding onto a 2-0 score and getting lots of shots ourselves, they never quit. We ended up losing 5-0 but from the amount of chances we had to score and the number of times their goalie was forced into great saves and the realization that we were making such strides, you'd of thought we had won the game by the look on their faces.
We plan on playing a lot of indoor soccer (futsol) now that the fall season is over. We want to come back in the spring and show those teams how much better we've become. We want to win at least one game in the spring and hopefully a few more. We also want to show life, "We can win no matter what."

Thank you, kids, for never quitting on the game, on me as a coach and on yourselves. If anyone's doing the coaching here, it's you kids coaching me in life and in true Pride.

What do you think?

--

Click here for the home page of author Jason Matthews.

add me to your Google Plus circles.
 
+Jason Matthews

Hey California, Legalize Hemp While You're At It

When Californians enter booths this November, many will vote to legalize small amounts of marijuana, both hippies and the fiscally conscious. If Prop 19 passes, allowing personal marijuana (up to one ounce) to be cultivated and used by those over 21, then a slew of questions will arise: most notably if the federal government will do much about it.
There's another question flying under the radar: when to vote on legalizing hemp? In effect, Prop 19 would legalize hemp in amounts up to an ounce. The problem is that you can't do much with an ounce of hemp. Maybe make a pair of earrings or some lip balm.

Hemp is a cousin of marijuana; both are strains of the plant, Cannabis Sativa L. Like Shepherds and Chihuahuas, they're selectively cultivated for different needs. Marijuana comes from the flowering tops of strains potent in THC while hemp, or industrial hemp, is grown for its seeds, oil, food and fiber. It's not for getting high but hemp has thousands of uses.

Many argue that hemp is the real reason marijuana was made illegal in the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Hemp was heavily grown in backyards, a cash crop that was difficult to tax by the government. "Yellow journalist," William Hearst, a newspaper mogul owning timber fields and paper mills, teamed up with Andrew Mellon, the wealthiest American and investor in DuPont Chemicals. Each stood to lose millions at the prospect of hemp producing paper, nylon and medicines.

Some interesting facts on hemp:

• It's been grown by humans for over 10,000 years, the oldest known crop for textiles. Anything made from cotton, timber, petroleum and plastics can be made by hemp. (In most cases hemp can make them better.)

• George Washington grew hemp. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on its paper.

• In WWII the Japanese cut off our supply of Manila hemp and the "Hemp for Victory" campaign was promoted in the US to support the war needs.

• Ironically, it was legal to pay taxes with hemp from 1631 until the early 1900s. Refusing to grow hemp during the 17th to 19th Centuries was against the law and even punishable by jail-time in Virginia from 1763 to 1769.

Henry Ford was such an advocate he built a car with hemp plastics that was much lighter than steel and ten times as strong. The car also ran on hemp oil. See this video and others on hemp uses.

Californians will vote on legalizing marijuana. If Prop 19 passes, maybe some election soon they'll vote on legalizing hemp. Does this seem backwards to anybody else, or is it just me?

 

What are your thoughts?

--
Home Page of author Jason Matthews.

add me to your Google Plus circles

New Age: The Free Lunch

Article first published as The New Age: Free Lunch on Technorati.
Remember the old saying, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” or “You have to spend money to make money?” The lunch saying began when saloon owners gave away “free” food to anyone purchasing drinks, an effective marketing ploy that was noticeably not without cost to customers. Spending, or investing, to make money was demonstrated beautifully by George Steinbrenner though the recently deceased Yankees owner was merely quoting a traditional adage.
To me, these phrases go hand in hand. The concepts are that nothing is without cost, and those who want more money must use some money wisely to make it happen. While it appears these dogmas are ingrained in the American psyche, the fact is these beliefs contradict the American Dream; opportunity exists for anyone with ability and effort regardless of their means. Thankfully, these outdated concepts are also changing before our eyes.
The internet is the true champion of all things free. I’m continually amazed at the plethora of free online resources and how much they’ve impacted my life. To name just a smidgen, how valuable are Google, Facebook and Twitter? Hard to put a price tag on what those services would be worth if I had to pay for them.
Here’s a fun headline that you’ll read someday soon (or maybe already have); Homeless Person Creates Empire with Free Tools at Library. Imagine a homeless guy; let’s call him Hal, visiting the public library daily to use the computers. Hal makes a website at a free web design venue with hosting included. He writes articles and uses public domain images to bring attention to the homeless in his city. He asks for donations. Personal checks and PayPal clicks start coming Hal’s way. He adds video and interviews to better demonstrate the plight of his friends. The website booms. Months later he’s the CEO of an upstart company that assists the poverty stricken in his city. Years later Hal’s company has gone worldwide. He raises billions and aids countless people from a venture that began with absolutely nothing invested and services available for free.
I just imagined this scenario, but there’s probably an example of Hal already in action. The naysayers clinging to tradition might argue, “Our tax dollars paid for the library, the computer, the internet connection and the electricity.” Well, sure, that’s right. Naysayers are good at that.
Do they recognize what’s happening to the price of music or video rental? Do they see the possibility of a virtual MBA from Harvard professors at the lower class home of a student in the near future?
The naysayers can stick with whatever money mantra that makes them feel secure. I firmly believe we’ve entered a new age that’s being ushered in by the internet. The Free Lunch is the latest chapter of the American Dream. Will it be prosperous for everyone like it is for Hal? Probably not, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post.

Thoughts or comments?
--
Click here for the home page of author Jason Matthews.

add me to your Google Plus circles.
 
+Jason Matthews

Feeling Stuck in the Tangled SEO Web?

Article first published as Feeling Stuck in the Tangled SEO Web? on Technorati. As a relative latecomer to most things internet, I still don’t manage the firmest grasp on the subject of SEO (search engine optimization). Yes, everyone knows it has to do with how website owners can assist the search engines like Google/Yahoo/Bing to find their sites, and yes, SEO is important for driving traffic. So it seems this would be a pretty clear-cut thing to do, like making sure the phone book lists your business in both the white and yellow pages.
Being a DIY type, I do what everyone does and input search terms to study the subject. Turns out the more I research SEO; the more I realize this entity is not so clear-cut. There are many variables that go into how the search engines work and what factors of your website they determine to be important. In no particular order, a partial list of the factors search engines look for are: keywords and metatag info, quality and quantity of links that point to your site, page content and that of neighboring pages, size in data of your site, duration in months/years that the site has been around, and much more. In fact, Google claims to use over 200 variables in their page ranking algorithm. (Reminds me of how the NFL quarterback rating is determined, and even though nobody claims to understand it completely, we all know that a 107% rating is a lot better than 83%.)
Fortunately there are simple things everyone can do to make their sites more revealing to the indexing spiders who work incessantly for the search engines. Namely metatag data can be added to web pages, and URL’s can be directly submitted to Google, Yahoo and Bing since the largest three internet search engines should be the best places to start. Click on those hyperlinks to go directly to their departments for submitting sites. For submitting metatag details, either check with your site designer or follow the tutorials for places like WordPress, Blogger and with site-building programs like Dreamweaver and FrontPage.
Additionally one may find dozens of alternative search engines and index companies that promise assistance with this SEO enigma. Because many of these companies charge money or require email address with no reassuring privacy policy, I’d rather not use them. I did find one company that’s been around since 1996 and seems to have an excellent free program as well as paid services for those that want to maximize results. Check out ScrubTheWeb for their free SEO test. It’s a lot of fun to see how they rank your website on a scale from 1 to 100, and if they find glaring errors that aren’t in your favor (e.g., the title has more than 60 characters) they’ll let you know.
--
Click here for the home page of Jason Matthews, spiritual fiction author.

add me to your Google Plus circles.
 
+Jason Matthews

Want International Readers? Use Translation Widgets

Article first published as Expand Your International Blog Readership with Translation Widgets on Technorati.
If you want people from all over the world enjoying your blog or getting the most from your website, it makes sense to add a translation widget for those who don’t prefer reading in English. Seems pretty obvious so why did I just recently stumble onto this concept? I’d like to appeal to people who speak Chinese or Spanish as much as possible, not to mention Hindi, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, etc.
It’s true that English is both a common first language and the most popular second language with an estimated 600 million people that know it even though it’s not their native tongue. However, there are several billion people that don’t speak, let alone read, English. Why not enable your website and blog to additionally cater to the preferences of several billion people?
Yeah, I’m a bit slow to most things internet. It’s great to discover the amazing world of technology has nifty widgets one can add to any site to handle this translation gap. Google Translate is one that I’ve just added to my sites, and it currently works for 53 languages. 53, huh? That should cover the needs for most of those several billion people. This HTML code can easily be placed in either the sidebar area or main body of any site (see example). Free WordPress.com bloggers can’t use JavaScript so their implementation needs a “walkaround” which I found here and was happily surprised to see it work at my WordPress.com blog.
There are plenty of other translation tools. Since some of them cost money and others are free, I chose to list those from the later group. A partial list of venues for free translation widgets includes: Microsoft Translator Widget,  Convey This, Kwintessential, Free Website Translation and Virtual Language. I still haven’t tried most of these so maybe others can comment on pros and cons.
So get your sites and blogs multilingual and network with several billion new people.

39.328200 -120.182200

Tagged with: publishing, sell ebooks, self publishing, marketing, online marketing, ebooks, writing, writers, google translate, english translation, translation tool, translation widget, language translation

What are your thoughts on this? Leave a comment.
--
Click here for the home page of author Jason Matthews.

add me to your Google Plus circles.
 
+Jason Matthews 

Future of Web-designers, Extinction or Evolution?

Article first published as Future of Web-designers: Extinction or Evolution?; on Technorati.

Often times I wonder, is the future of web-designers extinction or evolution? Extinction is probably a harsh word. After all, we don't hold web-designers in the same boat with accident attorneys, IRS collection employees or oil and pharmaceutical executives. Evolution is really a better term for web-designers, as in they'll likely need to evolve to stay afloat. I say this because their services are similar to others that are destined to be obsolete in the near future, like video rental warehouses and brick and mortar bookstores. You might ask, however, why is the future uncertain for web-design? Well, because it's incredibly easy for anyone to build their own website and to do it for free. Part of this is really my own much needed therapy; it's a rant of pent up energy after spending several thousand dollars on four different web-designers over the past few years, especially after learning, to my painful amusement, that I could have built the sites myself for free. Now that so many web and blog hosting services offer both the space at their venues and the site-building software included, absolutely anyone can make his/her own website and edit it to hearts content for no cost. Don't believe me? Check out these dot coms: webs, yola, wordpress, blogger, weebly, wetpaint, webstarts, viviti, forummotion and so many others. Most of these companies didn't exist when I first hired out for a site, and you can bet on it that many more are popping up all the time. The competition will only increase to give users more flexibility, bandwidth, applications and ease of use when it comes to making their websites. Oh, and of course it will absolutely have to be free of cost. Yes, a pure dot com domain still costs a bit, about $10 per year, but does it really matter anymore if your domain name ends with the extra suffix as in example.webs.com? Hardly anyone manually types in a URL these days; they click on links to go everywhere. Wouldn't surprise me if you could get the pure dot com for free pretty soon. That would be a nice feature for a fledgling free web-hosting company. I can see it soon, custom domain names included for free! So what are these $120/hr web-designers going to do in the not so distant future? My guess is they'll either work for the rich and lazy or specialize in increasingly complex sites. Today the average Joe has plenty of options for getting a name, business and online identity happening at absolutely no cost. Read more: http://technorati.com/blogging/article/future-of-web-designers-extinction-or/#ixzz10Cr2rKU3
--
Click here for the home page of Jason Matthews, spiritual fiction author.

add me to your Google Plus circles.

New Ebook, How to Make Your Own Free Website: And Your Free Blog Too

This ebook is brand new and scheduled for Amazon Kindle release on Sept 21st. If you want to learn how to make your own free website, then look no further. Especially designed for those without knowledge of HTML coding, the guide highlights free web hosting and blogging sites that come with easy to use site building software. See examples at http://your-own-free-website.webs.com/ and http://yourownfreewebsite.yolasite.com/.

Easy to follow and packed with no cost methods, tips and online programs that will help anyone make a free website. It's written by Jason Matthews, author of The Little Universe, Jim's Life and How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free.
--
Click here for the home page of Jason Matthews, spiritual fiction author.

add me to your Google Plus circles.

+Jason Matthews

CreateSpace and the $39 Pro Plan

I get occasional emails from readers of my ebook with questions on CreateSpace like “Does this cost money?,” “Where's the $39 Pro Plan” and so on. per the free question; it all depends on you. It can be 100% free if you can do it yourself. Can you format a document to fill pages of a book? If so, then you can do it. You can also make a book cover with a graphics software like Gimp or Inkscape or use one of their custom templates. I opted to do it myself. and had major and minor hurdles with Microsoft Word for the interior files and Inkscape for the cover design, but I did get past them. I've done three books this way and now feel much more familiar and efficient with the process.
If anyone's interested, this is what I said to a friend recently about it;
CreateSpace is Amazon’s print on demand company. They offer a range of services for writers to make books in print. It can be a totally do-it-yourself and 100% free experience, or it can also be catered to your needs with a lot of bells and whistles (and far from free). I chose the free version and have done 3 books this way. But when it came time to actually order a proof copy (something required by them before your book goes live and usually costs me between $6 and $9 and includes shipping), I also chose the $39 Pro Plan which allows me a significant reduction on cost per books that I buy and a better royalty payment when others buy the paperback through Amazon or CreateSpace. But you won’t get prompted (or have any need) for the $39 Pro Plan until you’re at that stage of ordering your proof copy. This will only be necessary after you have filled in all the pertinent information about your book and after you have uploaded both the interior files and the cover file and submitted it for publishing (which is a review by them) and it has been accepted and a proof needs to be ordered. Then it makes sense to get the Pro Plan which they will give you prompts for.
First go to https://www.createspace.com/. Click on the link for Authors – Make your books available. Under Book, click Create One (or Learn More if you want to read it from them).
It will then ask you to either sign in with an existing Amazon account or to create one.
Afterward there will be a series of prompts and items to fill in which should be self-explanatory.
They also have an excellent community support forum that can do an even better job with instructions, and in some cases you’ll find detailed answers for the exact same questions that have been asked by others in the past. Here’s the link for the community support forum https://www.createspace.com/en/community/index.jspa
For much more information and advice on free methods to sell ebooks, please check out How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free. You can also contact me by email without any of the following spaces, jason @ the little universe (dot) com

--
Home Page of author Jason Matthews.

add me to your Google Plus circles

You Can Make Free Websites and Sell Ebooks Anywhere

I'm continually amazed how easy it is for anyone to sell ebooks these days. You can sell ebooks in so many ways: from your own sites with PayPal buttons, from online ebook stores like Amazon, Smashwords, Apple, Barnes&Noble and more. You can also sell ebooks via eBay and other auctioneers.

How much do you think this has to cost you? Zip, it's all 100% totally free. And if you want to sell physical print books, you can do that for free too with CreateSpace from Amazon. And the best part is this, you can now sell ebooks and make a name for yourself and hopefully make lots of money. You know the old saying, "you have to spend money to make money?" Well, it's just not true in this case.

Now is the best time ever to be an independent, self-published author. If you'd like to sell ebooks and do it with no cost methods, just contact me or read my ebook on selling ebooks, How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free.

What do you think? Comments?

--
Click here for the home page of author Jason Matthews.

add me to your Google Plus circles.

+Jason Matthews