Happy Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 3 Comments
Filed under: Friends and Family, Musings

I want to wish a very Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends around the world, even if you live in a country that doesn’t celebrate today as a holiday.

Today, I’m thankful for a loving family, great friends, and hot chocolate on a cold morning.

I’m also thankful for all the friends I’ve met online who live on widely separated continents. Most of you, I’ll never meet in person, but some of you have become very good friends.

Yesterday, I spent a very enjoyable day with my family and friends. Today, I’ll spend more time with family. I made sure to hug everyone, some more than once.

I’ll get back to business next week. Today is a day to celebrate being grateful for all the things I’ve received, the great friends I’ve met, and the joy of a loving family.

I hope you have a wonderful day, too.

All the best,

Tags: holiday, Thanksgiving

In Memory of Mattie Lee Dilbeck

November 25, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 36 Comments
Filed under: Friends and Family, John Dilbeck, Musings

Today, instead of affiliate marketing, I’m going to talk about Mattie Lee Dilbeck, my Mom.

In memory of Mattie Lee Dilbeck

Mom died on Friday evening, November 21, 2008, and it was a difficult day for several reasons.

Before I talk about her death, I want to talk about her life.

I am one generation from the farm. Mom and Dad both grew up on farms and worked very hard when they were young, and that’s something that probably made them stronger when they were old.

I don’t know how many stories I’ve heard about plowing fields behind horses and mules under the hot summer sun or picking crops when their fingers were so cold they could hardly move early in the fall mornings.

My Mom was the oldest in her family and Dad was the youngest in his.

Mom and her younger brother, Floyd, used to work together to plow the fields when they were young because it took both of them to manage a plow. Mom collected arrowheads they found in the fields and I still have a few of them, now.

Mom was born on November 6, 1920, and was a child of the Great Depression. As a result, she recycled and reused everything. She was a master at getting full use out of something and discarded it only when it was completely used up.

She was a master at getting the full value of coupons and spent years clipping and passing them around to her friends and relatives, easily saving several hundred dollars per month in foods and household goods, which was a useful skill when money is tight, and it has always been tight in our family.

Mom had to drop out of school before finishing high school to help on the farm. It was only when she was in her mid-20s that she learned of the Berry school in Rome, Georgia. Even though she was about ten years older than her schoolmates, she went back to high school at Berry Academy.

For the next few years, she worked her way through the school and one of the things she loved was baking for her fellow students.

While there, she saw Henry Ford when he visited the school and – if memory serves – she made a short speech for him and his friends.

When she graduated, she was Valedictorian of her class and this was a great accomplishment for her and is something she valued her whole life.

After Berry, she moved to Chattanooga and started studying nursing at Erlanger Hospital.

In those days, nursing students could not be married (for whatever strange reason) and she was less than a year from graduating when she met Bill Dilbeck. Mom’s sister Geneva told me that it was a love that could not be denied.

Mom was an honest person her entire life. She told the truth, even when it was inconvenient. Some of her classmates told her to get married and just lie about it. That was what a few of them had already done. Mom would not do that. She quit nursing school and was married in December 1950.

Mom and Dad moved to the Atlanta area. My grandmother, Cornelia Godfrey, was sick and I think Mom helped care for her. My memory is vague about some of this.

Cornelia died shortly before I was born, so I never knew her. I’ve been told that I missed a very good person.

I was born in 1952 and my brother, David, in 1957.

While going through Mom’s papers yesterday, I found a two page receipt for the hospital stay and services when I was born at Georgia Baptist Hospital. For delivery, doctor’s fees, anesthesiologist, surgical, miscellaneous, and a room for three days, the grand total for my birth was $74.20, paid in cash on July 4, 1952, when they brought me home.

Dad wanted to call me Firecracker, but Mom put a stop to that. It’s a shame, because I like being called Firecracker.

I won’t go into a lot of detail. The highpoints…

David was born in December 1957. I don’t know what he cost.

We moved to Vero Beach, Florida in 1960, because of Dad’s arthritis. He worked hard managing several thousand acres of citrus crops during the early 60s.

We were close enough to Cape Canaveral that we could watch the rockets of the space program launch on TV and then rush outside to see them streak upwards into the sky. When the first Saturn V launched, we were amazed to be able to read “USA” on the rocket from about 70 miles away without even using binoculars.

After going through a hurricane in 1965, Dad decided that was going to be his first, and last, experience with those storms and we moved back to the Atlanta, Georgia, area.

Dad was hired back at his old job at Mullins Brothers Paving Contractors in East Point when we happened to run into his old boss in a restaurant while looking for a place to live. Dad never even had to look for a job. How’s that for a sign?

They bought a house in southern Fulton County and Dad worked at Mullins Brothers until he retired in the early 1970s. Mom worked as a power machine operator at several factories and worked even harder raising a couple of cantankerous sons.

Dad had been raised in eastern Tennessee and Mom in north Georgia. When he retired, they split the difference and bought a house – the one I’m in this morning – in Murphy, NC. That way, they’d be able to visit both branches of the family fairly easily.

Dad was about seven years older than Mom, so she had to work when they got here. She worked as a power machine operator for several years and then was hired on the Older Americans project by the USDA, where she worked in a tree orchard for several years.

By this time, I had moved to Murphy to help them out because Dad’s health had started to decline. Even so, he could outwork me any time he wanted. I taught computer programming at the local community college.

When Mom retired, she signed up for college, because it had always bothered her that she never was able to finish college and dropping out of nursing school had been one of the big disappointments of her life. A couple of years later, Mom graduated with an Associates degree in Business Administration, and then she retired.

Life went pretty well for both of them for the next few years.

In the summer of 1991, just a few days after going to watch the Independence Day fireworks, Dad died in his favorite chair of a massive heart attack. One minute, he was getting ready to go work in the garden and the next minute he was gone.

For the next 17 years, Mom continued to live here. She was an active gardener and loved flowers and herbs. She could tell you more than I ever wanted to know about any flower or plant in her garden and around the property.

Mom spent over 30 years studying our family history and easily knew more about the Godfreys and Dilbecks (our direct branches, at least) than anyone else on the planet. Much of this research was done before the Internet, and it required writing many letters and visiting many places to find the information she needed. I’ve put a small portion of what she learned on my Genealogy page or Genealogy Overview page.

I have boxes of records – mostly hand-written – that Mom collected during her genealogy research and we’re lucky that she compiled a good bit of it into a couple of books that she had printed for our family. Several of us have copies of those books.

We lost a great family historian when Mom declined to the point she could no longer do the genealogy research she loved so much.

Mom was always learning something. She has dozens of books about birds (she loved hummingbirds), flowers, gardening, cooking, and many topics related to her religion.

Mom was friendly and could talk to anyone.

She was a loving parent, loyal friend, devout Christian, and would do anything she could to help someone in need.

Mom was always scrupulously honest, even when it was not convenient for her.

She taught me how to read several years before I entered first grade and encouraged my education throughout my life.

In 2001, on Halloween, she started bleeding and couldn’t get it to stop. I took her to the emergency room. A few days later, on her birthday, she was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Weeks of radiation and chemo preceded surgery in Asheville, NC. What was expected to be a stay of a few days turned into over six weeks in two hospitals. The cancer surgery was successful, but she suffered nerve damage that left her in constant pain, and unable to walk or care for herself.

They wanted to put her in a nursing home in Asheville, but after talking it over with Mom, I said, “No.”

My daughter and I brought Mom home and I cared for her – where she wanted to be – until August 2008. It was a lot of work, but I would make the same choice today. She helped me when I needed it, and I have been happy to return the favor when she needed my help.

In August, her health suddenly declined and she had to be hospitalized. A week later she was moved to the nursing home attached to the hospital. Her health continued to decline and she found it harder to communicate as the weeks went by.

The last couple of weeks were frustrating. She was losing weight and strength. After her birthday, it was difficult to communicate with her. It seemed that she understood what she was hearing, but could not complete a sentence.

On Thursday, November 20, 2008, I started running a fever and throwing up. All the yucky side-effects of getting sick. I was planning to visit her Friday afternoon, but was sick enough I had to call the nursing home and ask them to tell her I would not be able to make it.

Late Friday afternoon, Mom’s doctor called and told me that Mom’s systems were failing and he didn’t think she’d live longer than a day, if that.

I called my brother, daughter, and ex-wife and told them. David would not be able to get there before Saturday morning, but Dena (my daughter) and Kathy (my ex-wife) went to the nursing home to be with her. Of course, I was too sick and they would not have let me in, anyway.

Dena called later Friday evening and said Mom was asking about me. She held the phone to Mom’s ear and I was able to tell her I love her and told her that everything would be alright.

Later I learned that David and my cousin Jacque also had a chance to talk to her.

Unfortunately, we could not understand what Mom was trying to say, but Dena said she smiled when listening to us, and we can only hope she understood what we told her.

I fell back asleep.

Sometime Friday evening, November 21, 2008, I’m still not exactly sure what time, Kathy called and told me that Mom had died.

It has been a very sad weekend and I’m sure today and tomorrow will be sad, too. Mom’s funeral will be this evening, and we’ll go down to Coal Mountain, Georgia, tomorrow to bury her with Dad and her family.

She’s better off than she was. She has always been an active, friendly, and talkative person, but it was very difficult to understand what she was trying to say the last 10 days, or so. Most visits consisted of talking to her, helping her sip some Sprite or juice, and holding her hand. Now and then, I could understand what she was trying to say, but it was getting more difficult.

I posted some photos of Mom on my Facebook account yesterday so Dena could try to make a CD that we can show at the viewing. We don’t have many photos of Mom, and I lost many when a harddisk crashed a couple of years ago. But we do have a few.

This should be the link to the public gallery, if you are interested:

Mattie Lee Dilbeck Photo Album

One of my favorite photos of Mom should be visible at:

Mattie Lee Dilbeck – this is the same photo that is shown at the top of this post.

There is much more that could be said about Mom, but I’m going to stop here. I’m still feeling bad and I think I’m going back to sleep for awhile.

Some of the details here may not be entirely accurate. My memory is not completely reliable on some of these details, and I’m still really foggy about what has happened over the last weekend. At least I’ll be well enough to attend her funeral and burial.

I’ll be getting back to work later this week, but the next few days will be family time.

Townson-Rose Funeral Home created a memorial page for Mattie Lee Dilbeck, should you wish to visit it.

In lieu of flowers or gifts, try to help someone or a family who is hungry this holiday season.

All the best,

Tags: Mattie Lee Dilbeck, Mom

Seth Godin on how to make money on the Internet

November 20, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 8 Comments
Filed under: Internet, Marketing, Opinions, Success and Failure

I believe that Seth Godin is a marketing genius and has as good an idea as anyone about how marketing and making money are evolving.

I’ve been paying attention to most of what he has been saying for a few years and I’ve learned a lot in the process.

Today, on his blog, he writes:

Make money: not by building an internet company, but by using the net as a tool to create value and get paid. Use the internet as a tool, not as an end. Do it when you are part of a big organization or do it as a soloist. The dramatic leverage of the net more than overcomes the downs of the current economy.

The essence is this: connect.

Then he goes on to explain 10 ways to connect the disconnected.

Obviously, it’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s a good springboard for thinking about how you can add value by helping people make connections.

You can read the entire article on Seth’s blog: How to make money using the Internet

So, how can you help connect people and make money doing it?

Act on your dream!

Tags: blog, Internet, make money, Seth Godin

Happy Birthday to EzineArticles.com!

November 19, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 7 Comments
Filed under: Article Marketing, Success and Failure, Web Services

Chris Knight announced a few minutes ago that EzineArticles is Nine Today.

Congratulations to him and the entire team at EzineArticles.

Over the years they have risen to the top of the article directories through hard work and innovation. They have earned the right to celebrate this milestone.

Best wishes for nine more years – at least.

Act on your dream!

Tags: anniversary, article directory, birthday, Chris Knight, EzineArticles

Can AWeber and Squidoo Work Together?

November 17, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 7 Comments
Filed under: Aweber Autoresponders, Marketing, Squidoo Lenses, Squidoo Marketing, Web Services, email marketing

Why can’t active sign-up forms for AWeber mailing lists be added to Squidoo lenses?

Is there a solution?

Today, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this subject, because the ability to add AWeber subscription forms to my Squidoo lenses is very important to my plans for next year.

I don’t believe there are any unsolvable technical problems stopping these two companies from working together.

It is very easy to add active AWeber subscription forms on other sites. They provide two easy-to-use methods: Javascript and HTML forms. You can see an example of the HTML version of a subscription form on every page of this site, right below my photo in the right column. You can see an example of the javascript version of a sign-up form on the Subscribe page on this site.

In both cases, I accomplished what I wanted in just a few minutes.

Unfortunately, I’ve been looking for a way to do this simple task on my Squidoo lenses for months. I thought I found a solution last week, and it worked very well, but it is being killed by Squidoo.

I just created a new lens with an open letter to Tom Kulzer, CEO and founder of AWeber.com, and Seth Godin, Founder of Squidoo.com, asking if they can find a way to work together to make it possible for us to do something that I believe will have a relatively easy solution. I also emailed each of them and invited them to view the lens.

You are invited to come read the lens and express your opinions:

Can AWeber and Squidoo Work Together?

Perhaps this isn’t a technical problem. Maybe it’s just a lack of motivation on the part of both companies to develop a solution. I don’t know.

Tom and Seth, I hope you’ll find a way to make this happen.

While it may not be important to the vast majority of Squidoo lensmasters, it is important to some of us – possibly many of us. I believe it may be important to many AWeber customers.

I’ve added a couple of polls to the lens and I invite everyone who reads this to come and voice your opinions and help spread the word to others who may want to combine the power of the services AWeber and Squidoo provide.

Act on your dream!

Tags: Aweber, email marketing, permission marketing, Seth Godin, sign-up forms, Squidoo, subscriptions, Tom Kulzer

Tip Jars Part Two

November 16, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 31 Comments
Filed under: Advertising, Musings, Web Services

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about tip jars since I wrote What do you think about tip jars on websites? back in September.

As I wrote in my last comment on that thread, I leave tips on some very useful sites, such as thefluffanutta’s SquidUtils.com. He provides an outstanding service for Squidoo lensmasters and I’m happy to leave him a tip when I think about it.

I’m going to leave the PayPal donate button in the right column of this blog, whether or not it gets used.

On the other hand, I removed the TopSpots list yesterday.

After two months, with thousands of visitors and no nibbles, I simply deleted it. *Poof!*

I’ll still use that service to advertise this blog on other blogs I like, but won’t be offering it here.

In general, I don’t like to have paid links on my sites, and this was the only one where I was doing anything like that. So, even though I was playing by all the rules I know, it never felt comfortable for me.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with TopSpots, but it just doesn’t feel like a good fit here.

Act on your dream!

Tags: donations, PayPal, tip jars, TopSpots

What is your opinion of social networking?

November 15, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 13 Comments
Filed under: Attracting Visitors, Business Networking, Poll, Social Networking, Twitter

Over the last couple of years, I’ve invested a lot of time and effort into using a variety of social networking sites to enlarge my circle of friends and associates on the web. I believe that it is working out well for me and I’m enjoying keeping in touch with my online friends.

Until today, I was showing a couple of widgets from MyBlogLog.com that showed the social networking sites I’m active on and some of the latest things I’ve written on a variety of the sites I frequent.

It turns out that those widgets were interfering with the appearance of polls I create using PollDaddy.com, so I moved both of the social networking widgets to a new social networking page, here on this blog.

That solved two problems I’ve been having.

One, it speeds up page loads a bit because it reduces calls to MyBlogLog.com from every page.

Two, it makes it possible to add polls to articles I write. I don’t know how many polls I’ll be creating, but I’m going to try a few to see what we can learn.

There is an art to creating polls that get reliable results. I am not a master of that art, yet. Therefore, I’m afraid that some of my polls will be worded incorrectly and may skew the results. Since nothing really important will be affected by these polls, I’m not going to worry much about it and I’ll just add polls when there is something I’d like to learn more about from the readers of this blog and other places I’ll show the polls.

You never have to participate in the polls, but I welcome your voting and your comments.

In the following poll, I’m asking your opinion of social networking. I realize that your opinion may not match my preconceived notions, so you can select multiple choices and add your own if it isn’t already there.

To add your own answer if it doesn’t match one of the choices next to the checkboxes, just enter it in the gray text bar between the last checkbox and the View Results link. (At least, that’s what I hope it will do.)

When you’ve made your selections or added your “other” opinion, don’t forget to click on the Vote button.

I look forward to your opinions and thoughts about social networking.

Act on your dream!

Tags: opinion, Poll, Social Networking, web 2.0

How to add an Aweber subscribe form to your Squidoo lens

November 13, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 26 Comments
Filed under: Aweber Autoresponders, Squidoo Lenses, Squidoo Marketing, Web Services, email marketing

In a previous post on another of my blogs, I wrote about adding subscribe forms on our Squidoo lenses:

Squidoo module request – Sign-up forms for Aweber mailing lists

Last week, Lewis Smile added a comment to the post and told me my dream was answered. Today, I finally found enough time to see what he was talking about.

Update: Before you get too excited about this, I’ve learned that the folks at Squidoo are working to defeat this “trick,” as it is being called. This means that any AWeber sign up forms on our lenses will stop working at any moment.

Please see the comments on this post for more information.

I purchased his report for only $7.00 and downloaded it immediately.

Well, that’s not exactly how I started. I read Lewis’ blog post, AT LAST! Aweber Opt In Forms On Your Lenses!, and read in the comments that he had an active form on his Squidoo Traffic Tricks lens.

There it was. Cool!

Being the frugal person that I am, I looked at the source code and saw that the form was actually a javascript widget that was powered by Clearspring.com.

Immediately, I grasped the concept. Lewis was using a widget as an intermediary between the Aweber javascript, which won’t work on a Squidoo lens, and the lens itself.

I joined Clearspring, but after a few minutes of looking around, I decided it would take longer to work out the details for myself than it would to purchase the report, download it, read it, and put what I learned to work.

If the report had been $47, or $27, or some other higher amount, I’d have learned how to do it myself. But, for a report that costs only $7.00, it was a no-brainer to just buy it.

You can find the report at SquidooTricks.com.

As someone who earns his living from affiliate marketing, it pains me to send you to such a valuable site without using an affiliate link, but the information here is too useful not to tell you how to get it for yourself – even if I’m not earning anything from it.

Sigh.

In just a few minutes, I bought the report, downloaded it, and read it.

My initial thoughts were correct. I probably could have worked it out for myself in an hour or two, but Lewis has done an excellent job of telling you just how to make this work for you.

I went to Aweber.com and added a new sign-up form for my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing blog. I use Aweber to manage email subscriptions for what I post to this blog, as well as a growing number of mailing lists I manage for myself and for my clients. I wanted to create a new form that I would use only on Squidoo lenses so I’d be able to track the source of new subscriptions.

That took maybe 10 minutes to do.

Following the instructions in Lewis’ report, I copied the code I’d need and proceeded to the next step – create the new widget on Clearspring.com.

Even though I’d not done anything but look around Clearspring for a few minutes, I found his instructions extremely clear and easy to follow.

It took maybe 20 minutes or so to create the new widget and another couple of minutes to add it to my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing lens on Squidoo.

(If I had broadband, it would have gone much quicker, but slow dial-up is still all that’s available here where I live.)

I didn’t follow all of Lewis’ instructions on creating the widget.

He advised us to hide the “get and share” links at the bottom of the widget. While I can see reasons for doing this, I don’t like to ever use code on a site that hides the text by making it the same color as the background.

Plus, I don’t mind if someone gets that widget and puts it on another site. I’m not sure why anyone would want to do it, but I’ll take all the subscribers I can get.

It took a total of maybe 45 minutes from the time I bought the report until I had an active Aweber sign-up form on my lens, and that includes downloading and reading everything.

Lewis has done a remarkable service for us by providing such clear instructions.

Now, all I have to do is add this Clearspring.com widget to the other lenses where I syndicate this blog.

Then, over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing the same thing for other mailing lists I manage through Aweber.com.

This has come at a particularly fortuitous time, because I am in the planning stages of setting up quite a few new mailing lists and Squidoo lenses. Lewis’ method of adding a subscribe form to a lens will make what I plan to do much easier and probably more effective.

Thanks Lewis. My dream really was answered.

Act on your dream!

Tags: Aweber, email marketing, Lewis Smile, mailing lists, Squidoo, Squidoo lens, subscribe form

Site Build It! $100 Harvest Special

November 1, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 2 Comments
Filed under: Sitesell and Site Build It, Success and Failure, Webhosting, Websites

I was so busy the last couple of weeks that I didn’t even have time to promote the Site Build It! Halloween special, which ended yesterday at midnight.

I know you may be interested in building a successful online business using SBI, and I’m sorry I didn’t let you know about the special offer.

But, even if you missed the Halloween special, Sitesell is offering the $100 Harvest Special from now until midnight on November 9, 2008.

Yep, that’s right. For a little more than a week, you have the opportunity to purchase one SBI site for about $300 and you can get a second Site Build It! subscription for only $100 more.

Buy both for yourself, go in with a friend and each of you can get a subscription for $200 each, or buy one and give the other to a friend, relative, or colleague.

I’m not going to even address all the misconceptions about SBI this morning. I’ve had those conversations until I’m blue in the face.

Site Build It! may not be for everyone – I don’t use it for quite a few of my sites – but I know it is the absolute best way for someone to identify a niche for your online business, brainstorm topics, design the structure of your site, build it, host it, and promote it. SBI offers a variety of tools that cannot be found elsewhere – especially with the level of integration between the tools that SBI offers.

Then, you also get the step-by-step Action Guide, unlimited support, and a members-only forum that is extremely helpful and supportive.

Site Build It offers more than just a place to put up a website. There are many thousands of places and ways you can do that. SBI offers what I have come to think of as a success cooperative where people like Ken Evoy, founder of Sitesell, really believes in your capacity for success and helps you achieve it.

Don’t listen to the naysayers and the uninformed. Site Build It! offers a comprehensive set of tools, procedures, tutorials, and support that you won’t find anywhere else.

I am a very satisfied Site Build It! customer and I invite you to visit my Act On Your Dream! site, hosted by SBI. I’m working on a plan right now where I’ll be greatly expanding that site over the coming year.

Whether you take advantage of the $100 Harvest Special, or not, do yourself a favor and learn about what you can do with Site Build It!

Why just put up a website when you can build a successful online business?

Act on your dream!

PS. You don’t have to take advantage of this special offer to buy two SBI sites. You can always choose to purchase just one SBI subscription, even when the specials are offered. If you don’t need two sites, there’s no reason to buy more than one.

Tags: online business, SBI, Webhosting