Issue 181

Hello, you wonderful you!

Well, it's official, Alison and I are going to have another grandchild. Our youngest daughter is expecting a baby girl in October. It will be her second child.

She hasn't picked out a name for her yet, but she's already ruled out my top three choices. I suggested Boogie Jack or Dennis, but she said those were boy names.

OK, I'll give her that point, but she also turned down Gazmolina.

Kids these days, they're so fussy.

All the best to you,

Bullet Points
The Tips Jar: Faking a Watermark
Webmaster's Q & A: Cut Down the Spam
Life's Little Goodies: Pleasure Fixes
Ask Anything: Obama's Health Care
Miscellanea

Bullet Points

• In the next issue of AAN I'm starting a tutorial on search engine optimization. Now, this will only be one little aspect of search engine optmization. It would take me two years worth of newsletters to include everything in SEO for YOU in this newsletter, and by then there would be more. So I'm really giving you a taste of real search engine optimization.

  By the way, if you follow the link to SEO for YOU, I'd love to hear what you think of the sales copy. I just rewrote it and added some color and images to it. Does the sale copy make you want the product? Does it sound believable?

  Everyone that sends me their honest feedback will be entered into a random drawing. I'll give one copy of SEO for YOU away to one lucky winner. By submitting your feedback to be entered into the drawing you agree to allow me to announce your name as the winner if your name is drawn.

• Speaking of SEO for YOU, I offered two bonuses when I first sold it. The first one was one free upgrade that you could claim anytime, whether one upgrade had gone by or a dozen. You just got lucky, because I've changed that to free upgrades for life! I may not always offer that, but I am now and I'm grandfathering everyone in that has already bought it.

  The second bonus was a mystery product that I planned to add later. That product is Free Reports Goldmine. It's a perfect companion to SEO for YOU because SEO for YOU is mostly about on-page/on-site optimization, while Free Reports Goldmine shows you four off-site ways to get one-way links from high value sites pointing to your site.

  If you purchased SEO for YOU, claim your copy of Free Reports Goldmine by emailing me with your assigned password for opening the SEO for YOU ebook.

  Note: Free Reports Goldmine was going to be a small, special report that sold for $10.00, but it turned out to be more than twice the size I anticipated, so it's now a 44-page ebook. If you bought SEO for YOU and Free Reports Goldmine, drop me a note and we'll work out a different free product for you.

• Speaking of Free Reports Goldmine, if you want to earn extra money, or want to drive more traffic to your web site, or want to start or grow a mailing list, order now and I'll give you two Special Reports, Easy Web Site Money and Get Paid to Write Articles for FREE. These Special Reports sell for $10.00 each if purchased separately.

  I'm selling this three-product bundle for $27.00 on BoogieJack.com, but I'm giving you one last chance to pick it up for just $20.00. That's a $47.00 value for just $20.00, you save over 25 percent off the regular bundle price, and over 57 percent over the cost of purchasing these items individually.

  Last Chance to Save!

  Yes, Dennis! I'm ordering Free Reports Goldmine at over 25 percent off the regular price, with the understanding I'll also get How to Get Paid to Write Articles and Easy Web Site Money for FREE!

  Just $20.00 for all three ebooks totaling 79 pages in all. You not only save money now, but you'll discover several ways to a receive money from these ebooks!

  Note: All three ebooks are in PDF format.

The Tips Jar: Faking a Watermark

One of things I get asked regularly is if I know of a way to watermark an image when the person asking doesn't have a graphics program.

After some playing around, I figured out how to do just that using CSS, HTML, and a little proprietary code to make it work in different browsers.

Now, it's not a true watermark, if someone saves the image there will be no watermark on it. A graphics program is required to place a permanent watermark on an image.

However, when you're viewing the image in your browser, as you can see on the larger image of the horses, it looks like it's watermarked, and that will probably be enough to discourage most people.

Some browsers don't support the opacity property. In browsers that don't, the division will have a solid colored background and text. The image to the right shows opacity working in the top screen capture and not working in the bottom screen capture. Either way the image appears to be branded with your copyright notice.

In that example I used text as the watermark. It starts with adding some CSS to the head section of your page, or to your external style sheet. Here's the code for the HEAD section:

<style type="text/css">
div.mark {color: #000;
          background-color: #fff;
          padding: 3px 0px 3px 0px;
	  filter:alpha(opacity=30);
	  -moz-opacity: 0.3;
	  -khtml-opacity: 0.3;
	  opacity: 0.3;}
</style>

If you want to use that in an external style sheet use that same code but remove the first and last lines. You can change the opacity level (how transparent it is) by adjusting the number after "opacity" in the four lines that have that term in them. Here's what each of those lines do:

div.mark

Creates a division with the class name of mark. The name "mark" is short for "watermark," so all you guys out there named Mark, don't let it go to your head. ;)

color: #000;

Sets the font color. Note that the color will be partially transparent, depending on the setting you use. Everything inside the "mark" division will be partially transparent.

background-color: #fff;

Sets the background color of the division.

padding: 3px 0px 3px 0px;

Sets the padding inside the division. I used it to set a cushion of space above and below the line of text (the copyright notice).

filter:alpha(opacity=30);

This sets the opacity for most versions of Internet Explorer.

-moz-opacity: 0.3;

This sets the opacity for older Mozilla-based browsers (Netscape Navigator).

-khtml-opacity: 0.3;

This sets the opacity for older versions of Safari.

opacity: 0.3;

This is the proposed CSS3 standard included for the future.

The "trick" to making this work is to nest one division inside another. This is necessary otherwise the image would be partially transparent as well.

The first division uses the image as the division's background image. The second division has the opacity filter set on it and includes the copyright text. Here's the code for the two divisions:

<div style="width: 240px; 
     height: 184px; 
     float: right; 
     background-image: url(images/horses.jpg);">
<div class="mark" 
     style="position: relative; 
     top: 150px; 
     font-size: 12px; 
     font-weight: bold; 
     text-align: center;">
Copyright © BoogieJack.com 2009 
</div>
</div>

Set the first division to the size of the image you use for the background. Most of the code should be self-explanatory, but there are two items that may need explaining.

float: right;

This makes the containing division (the first division) "float" to the right side, which allows the text to flow alongside it on the left. Change "right" to "left" and the division will be on the left with the text flowing around it on the right. If you don't float the division one line of text will be lined up with the bottom of the image, the rest of the text will drop below it.

style="position: relative; top: 150px;

These two pieces of code positions the partially transparent division where we want it. If we didn't use positioning it would be at the top of the image. By declaring the position relative (to where it be positioned by default), when we declare we want the division 150 pixels from the top, it moves the "watermark" 150 pixels below the default position. Change the "150" to a higher or lower number to raise or lower the watermark to where you need for the image you use.

All the inline style code in the second division could have been included in the HEAD section with the "mark" class code. I set it up this way in case you have several images of different sizes so you can adjust it to them easily instead of having to create a new class for each image.

You can also use an image for a watermark, but for browsers that don't support opacity settings, keep in mind it will cover the image you're trying to display. If you don't choose your watermark image carefully, it could look pretty bad. The larger the watermark image, the more of the display image it will hide in browsers that don't support opacity. To use an image for a watermark, insert the image in place of the copyright text I used in the code sample.

Note that if you use an image, or set the "mark" class division so that isn't the full width of the containing division, you can also position the mark division to the left and right by adding:

left: 50px;

...to the mark division CSS code, just after the top: 150px; property and value. The 50px in my example would move it 50 pixels to the right from the left side of the containing division. Just be sure not to set it too far from the left or it could be positioned outside of the containing division.

Note: If it doesn't work in IE for you, you could try adding:

filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(opacity=30);

...to the div.mark code in place of the filter:alpha(opacity=30); code snippet. Either is supposed to work, but I don't know because my installation of IE is corrupted.

Do not read this sentence until next Friday. Read this sentence last year. :)

Webmaster's Q & A: Cut Down the Spam

Q: Is there a way to cut back on the spam email I'm getting without using spam filters? I don't want to miss any legitimate email, but I get email addressed to all kinds of people at my domain and there is no such email addresses.

- Addison B.

A: There are a few things you can do, but first, if your host offers spam filtering I wouldn't rule it out just yet. With the spam filtering each of my various hosts offer I can set how aggressive I want it. Set the aggresiveness very light and it shouldn't grade many, if any, legitimate emails as spam.

Also, with many spam filters you can set it so it still sends you all the email. Instead of deleting suspected spam it will just flag it to get your attention. Most of them just append something like ***Spam*** to the subject line. It does help me in sorting through the garbage, so it may help you too.

From the sounds of things, you can cut your spam way down by disabling the catch-all email address for your domain. A "catch-all" email address means that any email sent to your domain goes through to you.

For example, if your domain is domain.com, a spammer could send email to:

al@domain.com, ann@domain.com, bob@domain.com, bill@domain.com,
anybody@domain.com, anything@domain.com, etc.

...and you'll get everyone of them. Catch-all email used to be a nice feature before spammers ruined it. If someone misstyped your email address you'd still get it. Now it's just asking for a flood of spam.

You should also encrypt your email address if you use email links on your site. Spambots crawl the web looking for email addresses, so if you have an unencrypted email address on your pages it will be found by multiple spambots and you'll start getting bombarded sooner or later.

If you use an email form, make sure the mail processing script is one that doesn't require your email address to be on the web page, but instead requires you to insert it into the script itself. For extra safety, use a script that uses a substitution for the @ symbol because I've read some spambots can retrieve email addresses from inside mail processing scripts.

There's a small freeware program called EncryptHTML that I use to encrypt email addresses. I feel your pain, Addison, so download the software on my bandwidth dime:

» Download EncryptHTML

There's nothing to install, just double click the program icon to run it. Once you open the software just paste your email address into the top half and click the Convert and Copy to Clipboard button. I paste the whole email link code, not just the actual address. For example:

<a href="mailto:you@yourdomain.com">Email Me</a>

The program uses JavaScript to create the link, so anyone with JavaScript disabled wouldn't have access to it. For them, you can use the noscript tag to offer an image of your email address. Just place:

<noscript><img src="images/email.gif" /></noscript>

...after the Javascript encrypted link, and browsers that have JavaScript disabled will see the image with your email address on it. It won't be clickable, but they can type it into their email to you. Most people have JavaScript enabled, and of the ones that don't, most probably won't be looking to write to you, so any negative impact of offering your email address this way is really very minimal.

Disabling your catch-all email address should eliminate a lot of your spam from the sounds of it, but if you still get too much you may want to start fresh with a new email address. Your old email address could be in too many spammers address files already.

Hope that helps!

Life's Little Goodies: Pleasure Fixes

Do you suppose there are some basic things all humans long for beyond the material necessities and comforts?

I would suggest peace of mind, lasting happiness, and love are all universal human aspirations. I would also suggest these things are always very near and attainable.

What do most modern cultures teach us though? Through television, movies, music, magazines, books, and everyday observation of others chasing after this or that, one could easily come to the belief that happiness comes from pleasure, and that pleasure comes from consumption, materialism, physical appearance, and sensuality.

Idealized lifestyles, physical beauty and sexual innuendo are paraded in front of us as if we should all live like millionaires and look like models, and everyone should find us attractive. We chase dreams the fantasy peddlers flaunt, only to end up disappointed when we can't live up to those unrealistic and impossible standards.

And so we seek substitute pleasures in a neverending quest for happiness . . . after all, the underlying message is that happiness comes from continuous pleasure fixes.

But happiness, peace of mind, and love are right where most people least expect to find them. They are our natural, innermost state of being. We find these qualities elusive because we bury them under years of fear, judgments, condemnation, rejection and other negative thinking. Sometimes we even insulate ourselves from them through layers greed, envy, anger, hatred and other self-tormenting emotional posturing.

Our mental discomfort is often the result of not accepting reality, though few will see the deeper truth in that statement. What is, is what is. Copping an attitude doesn't change reality, it changes us, and seldom for the better. Accepting reality for what it is, is the beginning of finding the happiness, peace of mind, and the love that is within each and every one of us.

Accepting reality for what it is doesn't mean we lose our desire to make improvements to our physical, mental or emotional state. It doesn't mean we can't strive to make changes we think will bring us happiness. It simply means we give ourselves permission to be happy with ourselves right now, just as we are, with all our warts, foibles, ugly thoughts, and with our body and appearance just as they are.

It is also means giving ourselves permission to be happy no matter what our circumstances are. Happinesss doesn't care if we are poor, or messed up on the job and got fired, or failed to live up to our own expectations . . . happiness is just like reality, it just is, it's up to us to simply accept it.

Accepting reality for what it is does not mean withdrawal or retreating from the world or our problems. Ideally, it means letting go of disappointments and outcomes, and facing our problems with clear thinking. It also means allowing others the space and encouragement they need to be who they are on their own life journey.

To be happy then, we must give up the impossible task of seeking happiness outside of ourself. We must stop the endless chase of pleasure fixes and trying to order the world around us according to our idea of how it should be.

When unhappy circumstances befall us that are beyond our control, we acknowledge them, yes, but we need not feed energy to our cynicism, anger, fear, and worry. These reactive impulses only separate us from who we really are in our innermost being, making the best and wisest response more difficult to discover.

We have a tendency to create mental stories to go along with our negative circumstances. These stories tend to stoke the fire of our emotions, and the more we repeat the story to ourselves and others, the more we fan the flames of negativity. That only makes the fire burn hotter and caused more pain.

Denial of these emotions isn't possible. We feel what we feel, but we don't have to dwell on negativity. We don't have to let our emotions determine our actions. If we simply acknowledge them without reacting to them, or even better, if we determine to learn from them, they soon fade away for lack of energy.

Whenever we feel mental or emotional discomfort, think of it as one of our life lessons making itself heard. As Helen Keller said, "Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood." Most do not recognize this, so they have to repeat the lesson, often with different players in different circumstances, until they finally understand.

While our culture supports and encourages perpetual, narcissistic, pleasure seeking, those who promote it as the panacea for happiness do so because doing so is part of their own chase for pleasure fixes. In other words, their urgings are self-serving.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with creating moments of pleasure for ourselves. In fact, a certain amount of pleasure is essential to living a balanced life.

The mistake we often make is to substitute temporal external pleasures for our inner source of true and lasting happiness. In time, liberal substitution of pleasure for happiness creates a pleasure addiction in our psyche, and we lose some of our equilibrium and discernment.

Our happiness, our peace of mind, and the love we create do not come from endless self-gratification, but from an inner wellspring that is an essential part of our nature.

When we move beyond the emotional and psychological machinations we devise that keep happiness, peace of mind, and love at a distance, we will discover they have been a part of our essence all along.

There is something self-defeating in the too-conscious pursuit of pleasure.
- Max Eastman

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.
- Edith Wharton

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne

This is my "depressed stance." When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this.
- Charlie Brown

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
- Eric Hoffer

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Ask Anything: Obama's Health Care

Q: What do you think about Obama's health care ideas?

- Darin M.

A: I appreciate you wanting to know what I think, but I'm not going to pretend I know enough about it to offer an opinion that's worth reading. I am using your question though, because I thought it was appropriate for offering this food for thought...

• When we can send men to the moon,
• when we can transplant hearts and even faces,
• when we can erect a building over a half mile high...

It seems like we ought to be able to solve problems like...

• People dying from lack of food,
• people dying from lack of water,
• people dying from lack of health care.

I think a combination of greed, lust for power, and moral corruption in government and big business are the reasons we let people die for lack of basic needs.

I blame career Demon-crats. I blame career Republi-cons. I blame the medical industry. I blame big business. I blame the legal system. I blame the media. I blame apathy.

I don't have any solutions other than sweeping the house clean, and by that I mean voting out career politicians. As Albert Einstein said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Career politicians have created or turned a blind eye to most of the problems we have by the laws they enact or fail to enact, so if we want to solve these problems we have to clean out the kind thinking that led to them.

I believe few politicians put the citizens interests first anymore. They cloak issues in language that makes them appear caring and altruistic, but in reality, their words are carefully scripted to elicit the desired response.

It's all standard operating procedure to most of them, nothing more than window dressing. They depend on citizen apathy and laziness to stay in office. Their unspoken motive is to make themselves and their political contributors and allies more wealthy and more powerful.

Politicians are aided by a national media that has way too much power concentrated in far too few hands. We seldom hear the whole truth anymore, we only hear what they want us to hear.

It's time for "We, the People" to start cleaning house . . . before we're cleaned out.

Note: Reader questions and comments are sometimes edited for length and clarity.

Featured Site: Work from Home List

Millions have lost their jobs in the last several months, or taken paycuts or accepted fewer hours to keep working. I'm hoping this site helps a few of you out.

It's an ABC television station out of Memphis that lists several web sites that offer work at home opportunities. Hopefully a legitimate news site will have checked each opportunity out to be sure they haven't included any scam sites on their list.

I do recognize a couple of them and they are legitimate, but use your good judgment just the same. Remember, if any ask for money up front it's probably a scam.

» Web Site Link: Work at Home List

A Video Interlude: Take a "Feel Good" Time Out

A Heap of Hope—the power of a positive attitude.

Reader Feedback

Reply: Glad you like it, Alan. Beats the heck out of asking for reciprocal links, doesn't it? The search engines value the one-way links far more than reciprocal links too, so they help with search engine optimization. The link building methods I outline in Free Reports Goldmine are my second biggest source of traffic, just after Google.

If you like the linking ideas, I have to tell you I barely touched the surface. Look for a new ebook strictly about link building somewhere down the road. Of course, I'll announce it right here so you won't have to look too hard.

Reply: Older past issues are part of the archived content in the members site. The content from recent issues isn't included because I'm trying out membership software to automate a lot of the processes instead of me having to do everything manually. There are exciting changes coming to the member's site. I explained them to the current members and received about 250-300 responses, with every single response in favor of the changes. Here's a little of what I'll be doing:

• Members will be able to make money by contributing content.
• Members will be able to promote their own web sites by contributing content.
• Members will have access to about 300 royalty free music clips.
• Members will have their own "buy" links for my products where they will always get a discount on most of my products.
• There will be tons of new business graphics like guarantee badges, buy buttons, headers, image bullets, etc.
• Members will receive a free membership to 3 other paid membership sites—on me!
• Members will have access to commercial ebooks from other sources. Some include resale rights and master resale rights, meaning you can sell them and keep the all the money. Many will be free to you, some I have to charge for because of the conditions set by the author, but they will be priced low, often as low as $5.00.

I'll go into more details at the appropriate time. Anyone who signs up now can access the member site as soon as your order is processed, but I won't actually start counting your time until after the new member site is open, so you'll get a good deal of free time while I'm selecting the software and rebuilding the site.

Perhaps more importantly, anyone who is a member when the new site opens will be grandfathered in at the current prices, while anyone who joins after it opens will pay a higher rater—and believe me, you're going to want to be a member when you see all that a membership can do for you! If you're interested, now is the best time every to join, so check out the benefits of being an Inner Circle member right now.