Justin Germino Ramblings

So a man by the name of Dilip reached out to me on Facebook the other day and told me he designed logos as a hobby and was wondering if he could design one for DragonBlogger.com just for the heck of it.

I said sure why not, I was partial to my tattoo logo, but have been flirting with a new blog theme design and my tattoo logo doesn’t scale well for media because it has too many colors, was a photo.  I wanted something clean, elegant that was only 8 colors or less and would be a perfect .GIF file so it loaded much faster when rendering on web pages.

The first test came out with a blue sphere around a dragon and looked like this:

I needed a different size/resolution for a test and wanted to keep my red dragon theme plus I liked my Wolf’s Bane Font that I use as my primary "Dragon Blogger" font, so with some tweaking we ended up with.

I personally like the way it came out, it will be hard to say goodbye to my tattoo logo on the website, but do you think the above logo is cleaner and more elegant than my current one below?

Of course I am still on the fence about switching my logo or not using a variation of my tattoo photo, I knew there many places online you could go to buy or Sell Logos but I hadn’t really given it serious consideration until Dilip offered and sent me a few to look at.  I asked Dilip if he did logos professionally and maybe whether or not he used PixelClerk or other sites to sell logos and make some income for the work that he does, but he told me he only did them as a hobby for now.  I think he has some talent and he could sell some logo designs for fun too.

I have used a variation of the same logo for over 4 years, will be curious if year 5 will be the one where I re-design my theme and logo, I am hoping I do I need a cleaner theme that loads faster and is more responsive for readers.  Looking to have one in place for August when DragonBlogger turns 5 years old.

I had a funny conversation with my wife the other night where I talked about how good Sylvester Stallone looks in his new movie coming out and that the HGH which is Human Growth Hormone must be working for him, of course I am joking that he is doing this to keep fit and bulky for his age like speculations but she was telling me her local clinic where she gets her B-12 shots does HGH shots.

I was pretty sure HGH was regulated and only a few medically approved clinics and diagnosis could qualify for HGH and it turns out it was HCG shots that were being provided which is something I hadn’t read or known much about.

Apparently, HCG which stands for (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) is a pregnancy hormone that is supposed to help the body metabolize stored fat and convert it to energy.  I would have thought this was a type of weight loss injection for women only, but apparently even though it is called the pregnancy hormone injections are offered for men and women and this is supposed to aid with weight loss and metabolizing fat in the body.

I don’t know if it works or not, just thought it was interesting in the confusion and seeing the growing trend in various natural hormone types being used and synthesized as means to treat a variety of ailments and promote weight loss, anti-aging and other remedies.

Have you heard of HCG and do you know anybody who has done it and did they see benefits?

I was actually really sick two days ago with what I thought was a stomach bug (probably was) and in recovery so haven’t been posting much.  I saw however that Deborah Anderson from @SocialWebCafe had finished updating and published our interview from a few months back polishing it up into a formal lessons from the Dragon Blogger article that she wound up publishing on Basic Blog Tips.

Not only was the video interview put together well, edited well but she truly humbled me as a blogger in how she presented me to the audience and with her comments and statements around my lessons and tips for other bloggers.

I am flattered, and saw many readers were people who were introduced to me for the first time as a blogger.  As many who know me know, I started blogging in August 2008, I do it as a hobby and I truly enjoy doing it, networking with other bloggers, reviewing tech stuff and sharing my adventures in trying to grow and monetize my blogs.  I believe in sharing and helping others and as I have learned more about WordPress, Social Media Marketing and more over the years I started offering that guidance and assistance to others where I can as well.

My personality is always infused in my writing and my online communications, you know what I am about and I am not about the sale though I try to earn from my sites like any other blogger, I rely mostly on passive income earning which isn’t a direct sales pitch to the readers.  So I don’t consider myself an Internet Marketer, but more of an informer, I share reviews and list whether I like the product or not, but don’t use the action words, templates or spam like layouts to try and get product sales.  Though it may be effective and others make lots with marketing and sales, I just don’t like it and it isn’t me.

Rather than embed the video which is only the partial story, I encourage you to watch and read my interview 5 Blogging Lessons from the Dragon Blogger and share your own thoughts and experiences.

Lately I have been getting a glutton of emails from various companies asking to remove links from my various blogs, the funny thing is many of the links they are asking me to remove were links made in comments from months or years ago back when I was using CommentLuv with DoFollow enabled.

The emails always start with something similar to:

Good day,

A short while ago, Google changed its quality standards and began reviewing websites for bad linking practices. They are searching for websites who are part of link trading schemes and sites with links that are considered “over-optimized”. My site, xxxxxxx, is one of those sites under review for over-optimization.

I am writing to you today with this in mind. We at xxxxxxx are in the process of overhauling our design and content. We are working to create information that others find useful and will link to naturally. While we are undergoing these changes, I am contacting those who have linked to us in the past.  I appreciate everyone who has used or posted our information, but I must humbly ask that any links to xxxxxxx be removed from your site, xxxxxxxx.com, specifically the links found on xxxxxxxx/xxxxxx.

This only shows you how all those companies who paid to have comments or dofollow links embedded in random articles are now paying the price and seeing penalties from Google for doing such, that money spent SEO optimizing the old fashioned way of purchasing links or hundreds of comments is coming back to bite them.

You simply can’t shortcut yourself to the top, you have to play it smart and do it the right way.  Even guest posting can be abused to where you are violating the ToS of Google, having the same author bio signature in 100 guest posts with the same keyword link may be just as liable to backfire on you, you have to vary it up, be organic, use different keywords and only link from quality sites in the same general niche and category and from articles in a related niche/category to your own site.

Never buy comments from anybody, and if you are going to go around leaving hundreds of comments on other blogs leave quality comments and vary it up, don’t use the same keywords for KeywordLuv or CommentLuv blogs, make sure you vary it up quite a bit.

The best SEO practices are still write high quality content, optimize for long tail and short tail keywords and keep conversations open.  You have to get your article noticed, particularly having it seen and shared on Google Plus and other social media networks.  It won’t be long before search engines themselves are less likely to drive traffic to your blog compared to social media, I envision web search on Facebook will grow, other search will take foothold and you may find that relying solely on Google Plus SERP page is not going to be enough to gain the market you are seeking.

Don’t be afraid to revamp old articles and update their information to make them more relevant, remove the junk articles that get 0 traffic and may weigh your site down.  Reduce pageload times by shrinking overhead of plugins, images, scripts and external calls.  This is something I have plans for with DragonBlogger.com in 2013 is to greatly reduce the load overhead, probably by switching out a theme that uses way less scripting overhead, maybe even dumping my featured slider for something less image/script heavy.

Bottom line, there isn’t a shortcut to SEO benefits by buying backlinks from comments or guest posts.  Using sites like MicroWorkers to purchase bulk comments or backlinks, or buying links from various services will end up costing more harm than good.  Now, I am not saying buying sponsored reviews is bad, in fact purchasing reviews of your product or service through sites like IZEA SocialSpark may benefit and raise awareness for your brand, they don’t violate Google Terms of Service because you are not getting a dofollow backlink, there is a disclaimer, this is purely about brand awareness and you can target geographic or niche audience.  It isn’t the cheapest method of promotion but it is still one with a business or product to sell might consider if they want to get a legitimate way to advertise on bloggers sites and not worry about the Google backlash.

I love Roku devices, I bought 4 of them over the past few years and own 2 Roku XDS, 1 Roku XS and 1 Roku 2 XS model.  One thing that plagues me about Roku is that I still don’t have access to any live streaming news or coverage and think that there should be a deal struck with some Satellite providers to help remediate this problem.

Dish Network Roku Channel!

Why not, I mean Dish Network lets you watch live streaming CNN from your iPad if you are a Dish Network subscriber, why not create a channel on the Roku 2 for Dish Network customers that gives you access to a sampling or small array of your Dish Network package.  This rewards you for being a Dish Subscriber and lets you get at least a few channels for other rooms which may only have a Roku but you don’t want to shell out every month for the extra dish box.  Or how about when you are on the go, this allows Dish network subscribers to have access to some of their Dish channels when they travel if they bring their Roku boxes with them.

Same could be said for DirectTV Channel, Cox Communications or any other channel.  I mean they already have an HBO GO channel for Roku it would be nice to get a little rewards and this wouldn’t be cutting from Dish to Roku but augmenting the services.

Custom Roku Channel Packages

For that matter, I would pay X per month for a streaming CNN channel, why doesn’t Roku offer small subscription packages like a Satellite provider?  I would pay a small fee per month for a channel as long as the value made it less expensive and a better ROI than purchasing the basic satellite or cable package (bare minimum package).

I haven’t been watching Hulu+ mostly I leverage Netflix or Amazon VOD on my Roku, but one thing I really do like having is live news, either local or CNN…etc.  Yet CNN International, channel CNNI seems to be the only live news channel and stopped working a few weeks ago, I don’t know if it will recover.  I checked it on 3 Roku boxes in 2 different states and it seems to be not functional anymore but I can’t find anything written about it and why it doesn’t seem to work after working for over a year.

It was with great regret that I had to return the Ooma VOIP device and get a refund from Amazon after testing and tweaking it for more than a week. The device which offers unlimited free over the Internet calling just would not provide the voice quality level of the MagicJack or the MagicJack plus despite the device costing nearly $130 and being configured and optimized every which way I could find on the forums and the company support itself.

The Oooma device was said to only work well if it was in front of the router, and directly plugged into your Cable modem.  My cable speed is 30mbps down and 15mbps up approximately which is confirmed by Speedtest.net on numerous occasions.

Yet despite this the Ooma would not provide the voice quality and clarity needed to where my callers would say it sounded at least on par with the MagicJack a far cheaper device.  They said my voice was tinny, and randomly it would break up.

I updated the QoS in the device, the Ooma by default I read was using 384kbps reserved for voice, so I tried 20 different settings from 1MB up to 15MB in the bandwidth and confirmed with it’s own test/configuration yet could not get it to perform well.

In addition to the voice quality being poor, I started having trouble with all of my Roku devices the moment the Ooma was now between my router and cable modem.  Amazon VOD and Netflix would stagger video play more frequently, the Roku would have intermittent issues accessing the Internet and when I removed the Ooma from the picture the problems all resolved.

I met many people who recommend the Ooma and even the UPS store person said he used one for 3 years and was surprised I was sending it back, yet when compared to the MagicJack plus which is far cheaper even with annual fee it turns out to be the same as paying taxes every month with the Ooma.

The only thing the MagicJack has problems with is conference lines such as those provided by other VOIP services or Citrix which it will alert you and say you need to prefund credit to be able to dial conference calls.  In the end though the MagicJack Plus turns out to be my most recommended VOIP device again at this time after being majorly disappointed with the Ooma VOIP device.

Finally were off with the family to spend time in our place in Encinitas to ring in the New Year at Legoland this year in Carlsbad.  It has been a while since we had been up to the Encinitas place and I will be spending a whole week there (working from CA mostly) but have a few days off to enjoy time with the family.

It becomes an ordeal lugging the 4 laptops, Xbox 360, Kindle Fires, iPad and other accessories plus the 3 dogs back and forth but it is well worth it for the retreat and being near the ocean.  I can’t wait until I can move to CA full time and just live out are little place up there which is in the plans after the kids grow up and move out on their own.

Meanwhile, I should have some pictures of Legoland who rings in the new year a little early following EST so the kids don’t have to stay up so late.

I look at a Wii U Giveaway contest by another blogger and wonder how effective it is when you consider how many entries each individual user can get. 

You look at the contest at it’s current state:

You can see it has 419,794 entries and think MAN, this must be an amazing return for the contest, why can’t my own contests reach this.  But the truth is you have to dig deeper, a contest like this involves you to like DOZENS if not a hundred social media accounts and you can see each person who enters can get up to 509 entries.

So if every person were to do all entries, and you divide 419,404 by 509 you get 824 unique people who entered the contest.  More likely let’s say each person gets 200 entries or so not doing all of them as they are extremely cumbersome and you still get 2,098 original participants. 

This is for a contest with no referral entry capability, so no one or few people can potentially reach higher amounts so the odds are around the same if you divide entries by 25% and total entries by 25%.  This makes me wonder the real benefit of making most of your entries give 10 points instead of just using 1 generic entry for all entry methods like Punchtab does because in the end the odds are the same, all you get is inflated entry numbers and have a larger # of entries earned.

This to me is artificial inflation and makes a contest appear more widely popular and successful than it actually is.  Akin this to my Google Nexus 7 giveaway where I amassed 24,000 entries but every entry was 1 at a time, there were no 5 or 10 bonus entries, if there were this contest would have had 300,000 entries?

So which do you think is better, having a contest that gives many entries for single entry and having hundreds of thousands of entries (but it skewing because of the numbers it gives per participant) or a contest that awards just 1 entry per participating entry without inflated numbers?  One thing is for certain, 400,000+ entries looks impressive and unless I go back to Rafflecopter and do the same 10-25 entries for contests I likely won’t see contests with 1/4 of a million entries or more anytime soon!

Uncorked Wine bar in Scottsdale was one of my recent stops before going to see the Cavalia Odysseo show at the premiere the other night, it was recommended by a friend and I am so glad we paid them a visit.

Uncorked has a casual atmosphere with several couches and a few smaller tables with tall chairs.  It is a warm atmosphere and doesn’t seat a lot of people, this gives the feel of a bunch of friends just hanging out and enjoying some wine, appetizers and cheese of course.

I didn’t get to partake much in the wines as I was driving and only had a few sips of what my wife ordered.  She ordered the Sparkling Flight which had a sample of 3 Brut sparkling wines.  I would probably have ordered the Dessert Wine flight ( I have a weakness for Muscat and Port wines).

One appetizer we ordered was the Goat Cheese and Red Pepper Flatbread

It was delicious but turned out to be my least favorite of the 3 appetizers only because the next two were so amazingly good.

The Lamb Meatballs stuffed with goat cheese was my 2nd favorite appetizer of the three we ordered and the meatballs were very satisfying.

If there are two things I love almost above all others, it is cheese and deli meats, so when I had the cheese tray where you select 3 cheeses from a list and they bring out a platter that looks like this, my mouth started watering.

The cheese was amazing, the hard salami, prosciutto, marinated olives, crostini breads, black grapes, mustard, almonds and candied pecans.  It all was amazing, my only wish was that they added a little bit of honey or honeycomb for some of the aged cheeses which would have paired very well.

If you are in Scottsdale (North Scottsdale) and looking for a place where you can enjoy some great wine and eat some great food but don’t feel like the giant entrée thing, more like various samplings of appetizers then Uncorked is a great choice.

Uncorked Wine Bar

16427 North Scottsdale Road

Scottsdale, AZ 85254

Promenade Shopping Center‎

(480) 699-9230

uncorkedwinebar.com‎

I was a sponsor in the Emperola $500 cash giveaway, I saw it as a good opportunity to branch out and reach an audience outside of my own readers and help bring in more following and fans from another cash / giveaway site in the hopes more will discover my own giveaways.

This is part of my plan for 2013 which is to invest more in giveaway sponsorships on other sites, and help grow audience and social media further as well.  Sponsorships for giveaways have so far provided me a better return on investment as as far as social media growth goes than pretty much every other advertising mechanism I have tried.

Sure, I don’t mean buying following in bulk and getting a ton of cheap spam bots following you, I mean actual living people who follow your social media accounts and they tend to be interactive and join conversations too.

Follow Some of the Sponsors First!

Hopefully this sweepstake will provide a good ROI, I haven’t been involved with a giveaway using this giveaway system before.

Here is the link: http://www.emperola.com/index.php?mv=mini

It ends on Dec 26th!