Kumiko's Cash Quest has a contest on to help her get some links. Pretty good scheme these bloggers have going to get links, but I'm falling for them. Why? Because I want her to link back to my site.

Basically, all she is asking for is a posting on your blog with a guess at what her PageRank will be when the next Google results come out. The posting needs a link to her site (which I included above) and a reference to this contest.

I'm not too sure what she will come out at. She doesn't have a PageRank yet as far as I know, but my guess is it will be a 2.

I have already reviewed her site in the past. The same comments still apply. Her sight is about blogging for money and SEO (search engine optimization). I do like the site. It has a little bit more contrarian attitude then a lot of these "let me tell you how to blog" sites.

Make sure to put it on your list of blogs to fequent as you will probably get something useful out of it most days.

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I signed up with these guys the other day. Another attempt on my part to get traffic flowing to the site. Nothing can hurt I guess. Go try it out and see how it works for you.

The site is called BlogMad. Basically it is a site for the promotion of blogs. I have yet to fully understand how it works, but so far this my understanding...

• You create an account and register your blog.
• You are given 25 credits upon sign up.
• You earn credits by going to BlogMad and then surfing through the other blogs registered on their site. You are forced to stay on the blog for 25 seconds after which, a clickable link appears below to go onto the next site. When you click the link you will earn 1 credit.
• As other bloggers use BlogMad, they will surf to your site, which in turn uses up one of your credits.

So basically, it encourages bloggers to read other blogs and rate them if they want to. I like it because it increases blog traffic, but so far I think I am only getting other bloggers with the same idea as me. I wonder how much these people even click on the ads or help to spread the word about my blog.

Oh well, creates another link for me and some more traffic is better than no more traffic.

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Finally, the Canadian government has forced the phone companies to offer full phone number portability within a geographic area. What does this mean? You won't ever need to switch phone numbers again, unless you move.

Basically, as of today, you are allowed to keep you phone number in the following situtations.

1. You switch from one cell phone provider to another.
2. You want your cell phone number to go to a landline or the other way aruond.

Now if they could just get their prices and services to a reasonable level, we might actually start to trust them.

If you want to read more, MSN has the article on their site.

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Last Update: April 16, 2008

I have owned a Nintendo DS for a couple months now and I have been very impressed with the homebrew scene. I purchased a Supercard DS Lite and the Superpass card for my DS. I have loaded on some very cool apps.

This is a recap of the "must haves" or "must try" at the least. I will include a bit more info about how to do it as well. If you don't know what homebrew is, it is applications and games written by people on their own time that are available freely on the internet. There are some great developers out their that have some very cool projects on the go. You will be surprised.

This page is divided up into the following sections:

• How Can I Run Homebrew?
• Great Applications
• Great Games
• Excellent Resource Sites for Nintendo DS Homebrew

How Can I Run Homebrew?

The simplest way is to shell out the cash for a the hardware. This is a flash card. There are a million out there. You will hear about Slot-2 and Slot-1 solutions. Basically, Slot-2 uses the Gameboy Advance cartridge slot as well as the DS cartridge slot and the Slot-1 just uses the DS cartridge slot.

I tried the Slot-1 solution with the Supercard and found it really flaky and not as powerful, but you can read about it in my article Supercard DS one for Nintendo DS.

Great Applications

MoonShell DS

This is a multimedia application. I have used it to view pictures and play mp3's. I just got it to play video finally. I download the latest version 1.71 and it works just fine. Video is nice and smooth too.

The video/audio player has lots of features too. The graphics are slick. You can set the playback of a file to loop, go the next song, stop, or even turn off the DS itself.

Also included is the option to open a file as text. Might be handy to read a text file if you want. If only you could use it to edit now and be able to delete files on the fly.

Colors!

I just found this application in August of 2007. Update: A new version has come out in September of 2007. It is absolutely fantastic. A painting program that is simple to use, yet has a lot of control. It is even pressure sensitive to the stylus being pressed against the screen. It give you a more natural control over how dark your paint brush stroke is.

Your paint can even have opacity to let the other layers show through. This is definitely worth loading up just to play with it. There is a gallery with some very neat pictures in it.

Check out this sample image I pulled from their site.

DSOrganize

PDA type software for your DS. Makes it that much more functional. The little calculator is awesome. It gets better and better every time I try it. I just downloaded the latest version (3.1) and they have vastly improved the configuration options to make it very simple. There is a built in IRC client that worked without changing a single setting (I already set up wireless access to my router via Mariokart) and a web browser that can read text pretty good. I can read my blog fairly easily. No pictures, but the content is all there.

NDSMail

An email client. Supports SSL. I have not been able to get it to work yet, but others have so I am including it in this list.

Great Games

Warcraft Tower Defense

My personal favourite game so far. I loved this custom map on Warcraft 3 and this guy has done an amazing job for the DS. Some of the maps are super tough too. I wrote a guide to getting this working as well called Warcraft Tower Defense for the NDS.

The basic idea of the game is to create a guantlet to kill enemy units as they pass through. Each map has a predefined path for enemies to walk along. The map includes a schedule that sends groups of monsters of various abilities down the path. Each enemy that gets to the end of the path subtracts one from your life. You basically need to find the right combinations of defense towers and place them in the spots that will give them maximum exposure to the enemies.

The only thing left is to wait for multiplayer and it will be a fantastic game.

Twin Isles

This is the most polished homebrew game I have yet played. It is second only to Warcraft Tower Defence as a homebrew game in my opinion. It is basically a very polished, simple version of Civilization. It feels like a commercial game because he has done all the bells and whistles for this game. Here are some of the features:

• Free Play Mode where you can just practice by your self.
• Versus CPU to challenge a computer opponent. First to 100,000 population or destroy the other island.
• Scenarios where you have to complete a specific task. i.e. Grow the population to 500 before the time runs out.
• Save your game! If you have SRAM on your homebrew cart.
• Save your replay. You can watch your game. Same SRAM requirement.
• Nice menu system with more options to turn off music and sound.

Note: For those of you just getting start with the homebrew scene, this is the simplest game to get running. It does not need file access in the game so it does not need DLDI patching (if you don't know what that is, I explain it in an article. Just search for it.). It also runs on both the emulator (no$gba for me) and NDS with minimal effort.

I wrote a more extensive article on Twin Isles for the Nintendo DS. You can read about it there.

Gameplay

Tech Tree

QuakeDS

This is the version of Quake for the NDS right now. It has a number of advantages over DSQuake. I wrote an article on it called QuakeDS - Quake for the Nintendo DS.

DSQuake

The author has also ported Quake to the DS amazingly well. I downloaded the file, renamed it, put it on my memory card, and started playing. It is really that easy.

The file you download includes the shareware version of the game. It works quite well too. The graphics look good, there is sound, and the frame rates are excellent. Hopefully there will be music eventually and the sound and graphics could be cleaned up a bit as there are some funky noises and you can see through walls sometimes. I noticed my weapon will disappear sometimes even though it is actually still there. QuakeDS (listed above) is definitely the superior version, but this is worth a mention.

I wrote an article on it specifically called DSQuake - Quake for the Nintendo DS.

DScent

Fantastic port of Descent. The frame rates are smooth, it does not crash very often (at least for me), and there is sound (music and effects). He has the explosions working too. I don't even know what else he needs to implement other than stabilizing, because it feels finished.

I wrote an article on it called DScent - Descent for the Nintendo DS.

Wolveslayer

This is pretty cool. A hack and slash genre. Basically you run around a kill these gray wolves with your sword. The environment graphics are the most impressive. The gameplay is starting out pretty good. It will be interesting to see where it goes. The only good link I have found so far to download it is here.

SnesDS

Play Super Nintendo ROMS on your DS. Awesome, really. Just find yourself a whole bunch of ROMS. Yes, this is not legal, but who cares anymore. It is a 15 year old system. Some ROMS are flaky, but you can check the compatibility list or try it our yourself.

A Touch of War

This is what the DS needed from the get go. A real-time strategy game. If Blizzard or Westwood Studios could ever republish some of their classics like Warcraft, Starcraft, Command and Conquer, or even Dune, I would be one happy man. Speaking of Dune...AmplituDS is working on a real time strategy engine and has a video of it running Dune II. Unfortunately he is not releasing it.

AmplituDS

This is a very cool game. Not much to explain other than it involves cool music and timing your button presses and movements to hit targets on the screen. Successfully hitting series of targets turns on music tracks for a time and increases your score. Seriously try it out. This is my second favorite game right now. I wrote an article on how to set it up called AmplituDS - Nintendo DS Homebrew.

DSChess

Everyone needs a chess game. This one is based on an open source chess engine called Fruit 2.1. The chess board is on the touch screen so you can drag and drop pieces. When you click on a piece it shows you the available move locations as well. Recommend a move is also implemented. It is small, simple, and very easy to use.

Excellent Resource Sites for Nintendo DS Homebrew

• Wikipedia Entry on Homebrew

  Check it out. It will be updated more frequently than this article.

• Drunken Coders

  This is one of my favorite sites right now. They offer an RSS feed and keep fairly up to date on the latest releases.

• Dev-Scene's NDS Homebrew Catalog

  Go here first for browsing the different releases. These guys are the best source for finding applications thus far.

• Nintendo DS Emulation News

  A few too many ads on their site, but you can get some good news articles on there and information if you want to take the time to look around.

• Neo Flash

  They have competitions for homebrew games and applications. Check them out periodically for news.

• DSFanBoy

  Same thing as above. Good news.

• NDS Homebrew

  Good site. There is a downloads section, but the performance can be slow at times.

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Setting up a blog from scratch is a bit of work. Here is a checklist of things you need to do to start things off.

Set some goals for your site.

Seriously. Just take piece of paper or write yourself an email. Jot down a few things about what you want your site to be about and some cool features you would like to see on it.

If you can think of something that you feel is lacking from most blog sites, it might set you apart from the crowd.

Decide on the niche you will want to write about.

This was a hard one for me to do, but it is recommended by everyone. You should focus on a niche that you are good at or have an interest in. Being generic will kill you. I'm generic right now. I have written articles and articles to see where I would end up. Unfortunately it is still a pretty wide swath.

Choose a domain name.

If you are using a free blogging site, it will be whatever they have available. If you are registering a domain and building your own site from scratch or some open source code then the sky is the limit.

Find a hosting service.

Again, if you are using a free service then you are fine. If you are going to pay for your own space then shop around. GoDaddy is quite cheap, but if you are looking for higher bandwidth, you might have to go with more expensive solutions.

Have a clean, nice looking design

Take the time to make your page look nice. If you can find a template or a friend with good graphics skill that will be the easiest. Open Source Web Design is a great place to find some sleek, simple designs for a blog.

Set up a tracking service.

This is a must. Find a company that will provide you with web tracking. This will tell you how much traffic you are getting, how many unique visitors, how they are getting to your site, if they are returning visitors, and a lot more. Some web trackers are free and others you pay to get the better service. I'm currently using ActiveMeter.

Register with search engines.

Register your web site with search engines. It seems to take a long time before they will index your site, so just do it and then forget about it for a few months. Keep in mind that if you get a link from another site to you, these guys will pick you up in time. This just helps the process. You will want to register with

• Google
• AltaVista
• Excite
• HotBot
• Infoseek
• Lycos
• WebCrawler

Submit articles to submission sites.

This is how I got most of my traffic to begin with. Ezine Articles has give me the most success. I post articles I like the most to there. You need to not give everything away in your posted article. Keep them wanting more and then link back to yourself in it for more information or pictures. Other blogs will pick up these articles and post them as well. Gives you link backs and traffic.

Read other blogs.

Get involved in the community, seriously. Read other blogs, post comments, and just get interested in the whole process. Start with John Chow, then go to ProBlogger, and try Kumiko's Cash Quest after that. You will start to find more and more of these sites that are useful.

Set up a sitemap.xml file

This is about good web design. Google and other search engines will use this file to make sure they index everything on your site properly. I don't know how well it works, but it doesn't hurt to have one.

Create an rss feed

This is a simple and useful technique to appeal to those who use RSS. It is a great way to provide easy access to a summary of your articles. You can read about it in my article Adding an RSS or XML Feed to Your Website.

Register with Technorati

This a site that maintains a collection of blog listings. They attempt to rank the top blogs based on the amount of links that point to your blog. I think it can be manipulated a bit, but it will still give you some exposure nonetheless.

Register with FeedBurner

If you followed my instructions about RSS feeds above then you might want to check out Feedburner. They will provide you with some stats on people accessing your feed and make a pretty summary page for you as well.

Sign up for monetization

You want to make money right. Then you will want the automatic systems established by some of hte higher end companies. Try to strike up a balance of placing ads around your site. Banners, text link ads, purchased links, and more can be used.

• Adsense

  The grandfather of them all. Let's you put a variety of ads in different styles in your page.

• Text Link Ads

  Will double underline various key words in your article. Clicking will go to a advertiser's page. These guys will only deal with you if you are high enough PageRank and traffic.

• ContentLink

  Same as Text Link Ads, but you don't have to have the higher profile blog to get an account. Actually, I think anyone can get an account.

• Adult Friend Finder

  Yeah I know. Not very classy, but it pays well. I haven't signed up, but I've been to a lot of sites that have.

• CrispAds

  I don't know much about these guys.

Write, write, and write content.

You are going to need good content. Write it yourself and if you are too busy, you will need to pay for it. Free articles can be picked up off of the article sites, like Ezine Articles

Get involved in link exchanges.

I shouldn't even say this, because I haven't done it yet. Well, that is kind of lying. A couple of my favourite blogs have initiated it on a mass scale to their readers, so I took part in it. They will link back if you write a review. There is nothing stopping you from sending an email and asking them the same thing though.

Ask for postings on other websites.

I have not done this at all. I will try it sometime in the future and let you know. I want to have a high quality article that I really feel like throwing out there.

Read other blogs, comment legitimately, and get involved in the community.

Not only do you get some links back to your own site, but far more important is the learning process and sense of involvement you will get. If you visit other people's blogs and offer constructive feedback, there is a chance they will return the favour, see an article they like, and perhaps do a posting for you as well.

Start with some of the mainstream sites and then branch out, you might find someone in the same area with some interesting articles. Some of my favourites are...

• John Chow
• ProBlogger
• Kumiko's Cash Quest

This is just the beginning of some of the lessons I learned thus far. Look for posts to follow as I learn more about what I'm doing.

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I have been sitting at PageRank 1 for awhile, but this week my traffic has gone from 15 unique visitors a day to over 70 consistently. I want to step it up a notch and try to drive more traffic here. Having more links will increase my Technorati ranking and if the links come from higher PageRank sites then it will help incrase my ranking.

Basically, I just want more traffic. The more people read, the more I feel encouraged to write. Hopefully this will, in time, generate a more steady stream of income.

I will link back to your site and one article you specify if you review me. These are the rules however:

1. The post must be at least 150 words.
2. There must be a link to http://thoughtsfrommylife.com.
3. There must be a link to one of my articles that you have an opinion on (good or bad).

Afterwards, post a comment to this article with the link to your review and I will promptly put a link back in for you (you will get a free link back in the comment as it is).

As a further note, I am willing to do reviews for other sites for $25. I will guarantee that it will be the top post on my home page for 24 hours.

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I am trying another technique to get people reading my blog. I always appreciate knowing if there is some discussion on a posting. If there have been a few comments then you know it is either an interesting posting or there has been an interesting comment that has triggered more discussion.

So you will notice now that I have added the number of comments to a few places on the main summary page of my site and in the posting itself. I am coding it into my RSS feed as well. Hopefully it will encourage more readers.

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My wife and I booked a trip using Air Miles to Montreal for the upcoming May long weekend. My sister-in-law and her husband also booked a ticket using their Aeroplan points. It gave us a good scenario to analyze the value of the points.

A positive for both is that we were easily able to get the 2 tickets we needed for the couples to go to Montreal. There were a good selection of flights available to fit our schedule

Air Miles

Because we have the Gold WestJet BMO Mosaik Mastercard (isn't that mouthful), our flights were 1400 Airmiles/ticket. This is half the normal rate, because we have the Gold card (this is a $75/year fee).

Our taxes were over $300, but the flights themselves would have cost us $1000 for the two of us.

Aeroplan

This is 25,000 Aeroplan points. The standard rate for Canada. You can get tickets for 15,000 points if they are within the same region (like Alberta to BC or vice versa).

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I have booked a number of tickets through the airlines' websites and also on the online travel websites like Expedia or Travelocity. One thing I have noticed is that the prices can really vary from day to day. Recently, I was trying to decide if there is any kind of pattern for this.

Why? Because I am always frustrated when I have found the tickets I want and then I just wait a day to discuss with my wife and make arrangements at work for the time off. When I go back the next day, the prices have changed substantially for the worse. I have a feeling that the airlines have a complex marketing system for their ticket prices, but this will hopefully give some indication of the movement of these prices.

Update: I have the follow up posting for this now

I am going to do an experiment. I am going to check flights just using Expedia for three scenarios. These are selected at random by me to represent 3 different kind of situations for booking a flight.

1. A flight from Calgary to Montreal for the May long weekend. (internal flight for the weekend)
2. Round trip flight from Calgary to London leaving July 4th and returning July 23rd. (international flight from Canada during the holiday season)
3. One way flight from Los Angelos to Quito leaving July 20th. (international flight - typical backpacker, "I don't know when I'm coming back" ticket purchase).

I will record the prices for the cheapest flights available as of today. Every day, I will check the prices and I will write down the cheapest price for that day. I know this isn't really a true test because flights could fill up or become available, but it will show quite a bit about what prices will be available. I'm assuming we can leave at any time those days.

Calgary to Montreal Round Trip (May 18th, May 21st)

Date of Quote: Saturday, March 17th, 2007
Price: $560

Calgary to London Round Trip (July 4th, July 23rd)

Date of Quote: Saturday, March 17th, 2007
Price: $1457

Los Angelos to Quito (July 20th)

Date of Quote: Saturday, March 17th, 2007
Price: $483

If anyone has some theories or ideas on how this works please let me know. Hopefully someone who has worked at an airline might have some insight.

Update: I have the follow up posting for this now

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I have reached a new level in traffic. I know some of you will think its pathetic, but I have crossed over to the 70 unique visitors a day for most of last week now. I'm not sure what has happened, but I have done the following recently.

1. Submitted 7 more articles to Ezine Articles
2. Began to comment on other blogs more frequently.
3. I digged a couple of my own articles (I know, I know, I'm pathetic). I just wanted to see what happens really.
4. Joined some more blog communities, including BlogMad.

Anyhow, it is a bit more exciting for me. I'm going from the occasional zero revenue Adsense days to having no zero revenue days. I am still going to focus on good content however. I would like to write more on the blogging for money, aeroplan/airmiles rewards, and travel issues though.

Here is a picture of my traffic levels since January 18th.

Goals to Accomplish by March 20th

Here are some of the goals to accomplish for this week.

1. Stay up to date with my favourite blogs and find a new one with good content.
2. Post at least 1 good quality comment on each blog I have read.
3. Write a blog posting on Aeroplan and Airmiles.
4. Write a blog posting on blogging and traffic.
5. Write a blog posting on traveling.

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