I’m still alive and kicking, just in case anyone was wondering why there have been no new posts over the past 2 days. Yesterday I got the call from IBM to inform me that my ThinkPad was ready for pickup. So I made the arduous journey across the “wild west” streets of Bangkok to go and collect it.

IBM did a great job and the new screen is perfect, the only problem is that they formatted my hard drive. Why they did that when only replacing the screen is beyond me, but I was just happy to have my notebook back. So as soon as I got home I started restoring all my data. Luckily I keep extensive backups of everything so everything went pretty smooth.

Once I was back up and running, I decided to check my affiliate stats and I got the shock of my life. I had a great Google Adwords campaign running that was promoting a Credit giveaway offer, conversions were good, so I increased my Adwords spending limit. Unfortunately, the offer expired yesterday morning. So all those Adwords clicks were being sent to an offer that was no longer available. The end result, I am $513 in the red. That’s quite a big loss for me.

Well, I’ve learnt my lesson, I’ve got to read the fine print on all offers and set time limits on my campaigns from now on. If I had my notebook I probably would have caught it early and the losses would have been minimal. Do you think I could claim from IBM for this? I suppose that’s just wishing…

At what point, in their blogging careers, do successful bloggers decide to go full-time? This is a question that I have been asking myself lately. While my blogging income still does not equal my regular salary, I have no doubt that if I made the transition from part-time to full-time blogger, my income would shoot up exponentially.

Is it wise to put all ones eggs in the blogging basket? I know there are some very successful bloggers, the likes or Darren Rowse and some others who rely completely on income from their blogging efforts. Other successful bloggers diversify into other sectors. John Chow runs an Affiliate network, Jeremy Shoemaker owns a few successful forums and niche sites.

Over the past few months, I have been adding sites to my portfolio. These sites are in various industries and niches that I hope one day will be successful. While I’m not ready to risk going full-time, there will come I time when I hope to do just that.

So once again my question is, at what point would you decide to become a full-time blogger? When your blogging income is enough to live off of? When your blogging income matches your regular salary? When your blogging income exceeds your regular salary?

As with most things in life, there are positives and negatives to take into account. A regular salary is stable while a blogging income would probably fluctuate. On the other hand, your blogging income is not limited and depending on how much you are willing to put into it, could easily reach a very high level.

Any of you who have been following my blog for a while, probably remember the issues I had with my Failing ThinkPad about a week back. Well IBM’s support center called me today to inform me that the necessary parts have arrived and they can proceed with the repairs. I jumped with joy and I thought it would be a simple exercise for the technician to complete the repairs. But in life, nothing is simple.

I carefully packed up the notebook this morning, snuck out of the office and rushed over to them. I even bought some snacks and a book to pass the time while I wait for the repairs to be completed. Apparently it’s not so simple, while the parts are there, they still need to assign a technician to the job. So what I was expecting to be a 2-hour job is going to take about 3 days.

I am going to be without a computer for the next 3 days, so my posting consistency may suffer. Quite ironic after yesterdays post on reasons why blogs fail. I will try to maintain a daily post schedule, but it will be made from my office PC, and my boss watches me like a hawk in the office.

Having a good domain name can often mean the difference between a successful blog and one that never gets any visitors. It will most likely be the first thing that your visitors will encounter, and remember your blog by if they ever find your blog online. Many bloggers still use their internet provider’s domain name or a free blogging service to get their messages online.

With good domain names getting scarcer and scarcer, some people are willing to pay top dollar to get hold of one. I’m proud to say that I paid just $10 for my one, well actually $7 as I used a GoDaddy discount code. While I’m cheap when it comes to running my blog, many people shell out vast sums of cash to buy a domain. You’d think that these big spenders would actually use their premium domain? Wouldn’t you?

I came across an interesting fact while aimlessly browsing the net. Only 30%, of people that purchase premium domains, actually develop them. That’s quite shocking, these people are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a domain and then just leave it.

I have compiled a small list of premium domains and what people paid for them, if you visit them, you will notice that they are either for sale or simply display one of those cheesy PPC systems.

Cameras.com	$1,500,000.00	PPC Parking Page
Wrestling.com	$500,000.00	PPC Parking Page
Blue.com	$500,000.00	PPC Parking Page
Sex.net	$454,500.00	PPC Parking Page
WirelessPhone.com	$355,000.00	PPC Parking Page
Brown.com	$300,000.00	For Sale
POS.com	$252,500.00	PPC Parking Page
Mortage.com	$242,400.00	PPC Parking Page
FlashGames.com	$226,950.00	PPC Parking Page
Shopping.eu	$196,803.00	PPC Parking Page

For any blog to be successful and maintain a decent readership, it needs to be updated constantly. Posts should flow beer at a bachelors party, but what happens when the keg runs dry and posts flow about as easily as month old custard?

Posting frequently is important for several reasons. The most important of which are:

1. Search engines love fresh content.
2. It keeps your readers interested and coming back for more.

If your regular posting stops, your visitors will disappear faster than rats abandoning a sinking ship and as we all know, visitors are a blogs most important asset. Statistics show that your regular readers will probably visit your blog for about a week or so before they realize that the blog has gone stale, maybe they will stay subscribed via RSS for about 2 weeks before unsubscribing.

So, what can you do if you hit a dry spell and can’t think of anything to write about? You need to find some inspiration, but where? We all have “celebrity” bloggers that we aspire to be like. Why not learn from them. See what they are writing about and then come up with your own angle. Another option is to break topic and write about something of interest to you, if it interests you then I’m sure someone else will be interested by it too.

Many bloggers make the mistake of trying to stay too focused on their niche or topic. Blogs were never intended for that, news sites were. Break your routine and write about something funny or interesting. Your visitors will be pleasantly surprised and those that aren’t will be more encouraged to leave a comment on your post.

One last point, while posting frequently is important, it doesn’t mean you have to post every day. If you suddenly have a inspirational day and writing comes to you easily, don’t post all the posts at once. Store some as drafts and save up for the next dry spell. Your readers won’t mind if you go quiet for a day or two between posts.

One of the most difficult challenges a blogger faces is losing your focus. This is especially true for an Internet Loser like me. It’s hard to maintain your enthusiasm for a project when you don’t see any rewards for your efforts.

Once you start down the slippery path of losing your focus, it usually leads to distraction. Distractions are a bloggers worst enemy. I think that I have many more distractions than most and I need to come up with creative ways to combat them.

Living in Thailand creates its own set of distractions, there is so much going on around me. I will constantly get interrupted by every day occurrences. For example, while setting up some advertising campaigns yesterday, my wife called me to come and look at the baby elephant outside our apartment.

Most bloggers face distractions, how many times a day do you check your email, Facebook or visit your favourite bloggers site? How you deal with these distractions inversely affects how successful you will be online.

Most distractions are avoidable using sheer willpower but others need a change of environment. I would love to say that I live in a Penthouse apartment in the heart of Bangkok, with rooms to spare for my work, but the truth is that I live in a shitty Studio apartment on the outskirts. Not having a dedicated area for working is a serious problem.

Now here is the catch 22 situation, to be able to afford the space to work in peace, I would need to be successful. To be successful I would need the space. Maybe this is the wrong mindset to take, but I feel like I’m trapped in a never ending cycle. So if you have any tips on being more productive with my limited resources, I would love to hear them.

Being an Internet Loser, I’ve become quite familiar with Affiliate Program rejection letters. I get one practically every week. I must admit my heart sinks every time I get one, especially when I know the program would convert really well on one of my sites. It always feels like a stab to the heart.

You may be thinking that my sites don’t qualify for the programs and that would be my first thought too, but usually I am rejected simply on the basis of my location or nationality. 95% of my web site traffic is from US or European visitors, which is pretty much the Holy Grail of internet traffic to any Affiliate Program.

While I understand the reason for some rejections, usually involving local laws, some simply baffle my brain. As an example, I cannot apply to gambling programs as gambling is illegal in Thailand, but getting rejected for a travel program makes no sense at all.

Now, many successful Affiliate Marketers all recommend Commission Junction, www.cj.com, as the best place to find Affiliate Programs to promote. What do you do if 95% of the programs reject you as soon as you click the apply button?

I have applied to a few programs, most of which need you to call or fax them before they approve you and I’m hoping that I will not have to face another rejection letter this evening. Here holding thumbs that they think things through. Wish me luck…

Where would a blog about being a loser be without some proof about my lack of success. While browsing the net today, looking for ways to make money online (almost a full time job for me), I decided to check my AdSense earning and low and behold, there was a click, someone had clicked on one of my Ads. Yippee! Time to break out the party hats, fine champagne and grab my wife so that we can dance for joy at out new found fortune.

After the euphoria of the initial surprise started to wear off, I decided to look a little closer. Yes someone had clicked on an Ad, but it was worth absolutely nothing, not a cent, zero, naught or whatever you want to call it. I wonder how much Google made of that click… Talk about keeping 100% of the profit while I do the work.

I know we are near the middle of the month, so it’s either too early or too late to supply an income report, but I figured what the hell. I may as well celebrate this little victory and share it with all of you.

Total Income: $0
Total Expenses: $15

Total Profit: -$15

After just over a month of life, the blog has made $0 and cost me about $15, which gives me a net profit of -$15. All of a sudden that warm fuzzy feeling has left me and I’ve come crashing back to earth.

I’m not sure what’s going on lately regarding my sleeping habits. I used to love sleeping; I always used to be able to sleep for at least 8 hours a night. Not anymore though, now I’m lucky if I get 4. While I must say it is not affecting me to badly, I still function completely normally, it is just damn annoying.

I’m one of those who believe in the concept of “Early to bed, early to rise” and I rarely go to bed later than midnight. I’m always up before the wife in the mornings. While it hasn’t affected my performance, it is apparently having an affect on my boyish good looks. My students have noticed the dark rings and are starting to give me all sorts of sleep inducing advice. For example:

1. Exercise before bed
2. Drink warm milk
3. Meditate etc.

Now one thing I’ve noticed is that Thai people never have any sleeping problems. They can sleep anywhere and anytime. I’m so envious of that. My wife just has to step into a moving vehicle and she will instantly fall asleep.

I’m considering heading to the pharmacy to go buy some sleeping pills…

After selling my old Acer notebook to my brother in April, I have been relying on my aging iBook for my day to day computing needs. My wife has also been using the iBook for her university projects. This had led to various issues and time constraints which has had a serious affect on my productivity.

To combat this affect, I decided to invest in a brand new Lenovo ThinkPad about a month ago. The main aim of using the ThinkPad, was to aide my online money making ventures. I think it has had the opposite result though. The switch from OS X to windows XP has been a nightmare for me and the “cherry on top” is that my brand new notebook seems to be dying a slow painful death.

About 2 weeks ago, I noticed that the screen had developed 2 dead pixels. While these were annoying, they didn’t affect me too much. I also noticed that the screen was getting unusually hot. Even though, I wasn’t subjecting the notebook to any really processor or graphics intensive tasks. When I booted up the notebook last night, I noticed that the amount of dead pixels have no multiplied to about 12. This has now become a problem, being in Thailand and not speaking much of the language has led to even more problems. The store I bought it from simply referred me to the Lenovo helpline; they in turn referred me to a service centre consultant who can not speak any English.

Well it looks like my weekend will be spent personally visiting the IBM service centre and using a series of hand gestures to explain the problem. Oh, what joy…