If you haven’t already started using Pinterest chances are you’ve at least seen people “pinning” posts in Facebook or Twitter. Pinterest is a virtual pin board that allows you to pin and share interesting photos and articles with your followers. The nice thing about it is that there’s usually a eye-catching photo that draws you to the article.

So what should bloggers and podcasters consider doing to make their articles Pinterest-friendly? Ideally, there are three things you’ll want to do so that your posts are ready to be pinned: add a Pinterest button to your sharing options, have a large (at least 250×250) featured image in your post, and use a descriptive title.

The easiest way to make your article “pinable” is to have a “Pin It” button available among your social media sharing options. If you’re using WordPress there are plug-ins available that can help you with that. I’m using Standard Theme and I’ve added the “Pin It” button to the native share bar.

Make sure you have a stand-out image for your article

When a person wants to pin your article to their pin board the very first thing they’ll need to do is choose an image to associate with your post. It’s important that you have a large, relevant image associated with your post so that it’s easily identifiable among all the other items pinned on board. If you use the featured image option in WordPress then that image is the one that will appear by default when using the “Pin It” button so you want to make sure it’s a great one.

A descriptive title is important too. When someone comes across your blog post and they use the “Pin It” button, having a descriptive title will go a long way in getting your post pinned and re-pinned. “Episode 263″ is not a descriptive title for your podcast episode but “Flying Space Monkeys Invade the Studio” is one that will grab everyone’s attention. Just make sure the title is relevant to the blog or podcast.

Pinning a Post

For many SEO-savvy bloggers and podcasters this is all second-nature. You’re probably already doing this. If you’re not, then this should help you along in your SEO journey. Oh, and don’t forget to pin this to your pin board and share with your friends.

Click to hear the story at scottroche.com

X Marks the Spot is a story I had previously reviewed. I’d compared it to Goonies at the time, not knowing it would eventually become part of a larger universe.

I think the comparison still holds up for this particular story and I hope you’ll give it a listen. The podcast is free but I’d encourage you to support Scott by buying this or other short stories he’s written.

I’ll be reading more stories for Scott in the near future so be sure to subscribe to Scott’s podcast if you want to hear those stories as well.

X Marks the Spot is also available at Smashwords.com for 99 cents. Buy it today, read it over your lunch break and enjoy the memories that flood into your mind from an age of innocence and wonder.

X Marks the Spot
Ebook By Scott Roche
Rating: Not yet rated.
Published: April 16, 2010
Category: Fiction » Young adult or teen » Sci-Fi & fantasy
Words: 2205 (approximate)
Language: English

I’ve found that when I blog is just as important as what I blog about. I’m not talking about timing the release of my blog articles, I’m talking about when I sit down to do my writing.

Content and timing are very important, especially if you’re not generating any “evergreen content” but writing when your brain is firing on all cylinders is crucial to staying motivated and writing great articles.

When I first started this little adventure I thought I’d sit down in the evenings and write articles for 30-45 minutes every day. Well, that hasn’t worked out. Why? I’m a morning person. I like getting up early because my brain seems to be more creative in the wee hours of the morning. Some of my best ideas come to me before 8 am. If you’re a night owl you’re probably thinking that I’m crazy and I think people who stay up till 2 a.m. are crazy.

Here’s my problem: I also like to stay up late and those two things don’t go together well. When I stay up late I’m generally doing thoughtless activities like watching t.v. or playing video games. I’m not doing anything creative. My brain just doesn’t work that way. Morning comes and I’m punching the snooze button like my life depends on it. I get up late (for me) rush out the door to work and my brain catches up with me.

Now I have a dilemma. Do I start writing down ideas with the hope of getting to it later or write a blog post while at work?

“I can do it on my break,” I often say to myself. 15 minutes turns to 30 and the next thing I know I’ve been blogging instead of working. I can’t expect my writing to succeed if I’m stealing from my employer.

So what’s the solution? Early to bed and early to rise, at least for me. I need to make sure I’m giving my employer 100% even if I feel like there are more important things I could be doing with my time. I’ll say it another way: Stop stealing from your employer. Ooh! That hurts. If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.

What about you? Do you struggle with using your employers time for personal endeavors. If so, do you take that as a sign you need to find a new job or do you justify it. Leave your comments below.

Not only have they done the wondering, they’ve also calculated the cost. Basically, it would cost you $232M. What else could you buy with that kind of money? You could buy a Happy Meal for every student in the US education system (although, I wouldn’t recommend it).

Think technology is getting more expensive?  When you factor in inflation most tech items are getting cheaper.

[via How-To Geek]

When I created an “easy” goal of writing once a week here I didn’t think it would be very difficult to meet that goal. Boy, was I wrong!

I spent all my creative juices writing some place else and when it came time to write here I’d lost the will to deliver. The same thing has happened with my plan to read the entire Bible this year.

It’s hard to do something consistently. Well, it’s hard to do something that’s good for you consistently. I don’t have a problem plopping on the couch and watching a TV show every night.

So what have I decided to do? First, I decided to blog about it. Funny how failure will drive creativity. It may not be the failure itself but the fear of failing again.

Second, I’m back on the wagon. No trying to make up or catch up with my missed post (or Bible reading) just start over and try to be consistent. Rather than stress out over what I’ve missed I’ve decided to push forward and look ahead.

Now it’s time for something completely different and off-track. My son has written an essay for a chance to win a $5000 college scholarship. He already has a full-tuition scholarship but he still needs money for books, room, and board. Can you help me out? Can you click on the picture to the right and vote for his scholarship?

Oh, and if my son wins the $5000, I’ll shave my head.

Book Addiction by Emily Carlin

I still read, but I hardly read purposefully. It’s hit or miss and generally in brief spurts jumping from article to article on the Internet. I hardly ever sit and read with the goal of just reading one thing for an hour or two.

When I do actually sit down and read with intention I find that I have a lot of ideas popping into my head. It really gets my creative juices flowing.

Interestingly, it does matter what I read. I get ideas when I read the newspaper, a sci-fi novel, or a non-fiction book. The act of reading and processing what I’m read rather than just reading in the moment triggers something in my brain.

The same thing happens when I listen to a podcast. A lot of the time I listen to podcasts on my commute to work but the act of driving in traffic takes such much concentration that I sometimes completely miss an idea or topic that was covered. When I’m working around the house or doing something that doesn’t require as much concentration I then start generating ideas.

Getting ideas is great. I have a million of those. Acting on those ideas and actually doing something with them is a totally different concept. Many of these ideas stew in my brain until I completely forget about them. Others continually nag me until I either act on them or I decide to give up the idea.

Right now, I need an incubator, a way to capture ideas, grow them, and then see if they’re viable (sounds like a cloning experiment). What do you do to get new ideas? How do you determine what ideas are viable and what ideas are rubbish?

We read to know that we are not alone. -C.S. Lewis

Some rights reserved by LifeSupercharger

This struggle has led me to “re-brand” my site and “personal brand”. I’ve decided to focus on two podcasts and blog a little here. To start, my goal this month is to post a blog entry that’s 350-500 words once a week in January. In February I’ll increase that to twice a week, three times a week in March and so on. By July I should be posting here 7 days a week with at least 5 blog entries in the 300-500 range.

Why am I telling you all of this? Accountability. If I put it out there in writing and there’s someone reading this then perhaps I’ll reach my goal by September.

You see, I’m a great starter. I have great ideas. The problem is my follow-through. I don’t finish. I don’t ship. I plan to change that this year. This year I will finish. This year I will ship.

In addition to these blogging goals I have a goal of writing an e-book based upon my experience with computer technology and homeschooling. I have the knowledge and information but I just haven’t taken time to sit down and write the book. Like I said, in the past I didn’t ship. This year I will ship that e-book.

I have one other private goal too. It’s a goal I don’t want to share. I don’t want to share it because it’s very personal. I plan on telling only one other person besides my wife. It’s a big goal and one that I face with fear and trembling. I hate fear. I hate fear and trembling even more.

This year will be different. This year will mark a change in my life. This year I hope you will join me in Struggling for Purpose.

I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back. -Phil 3:14 MSG

• getmmatraining.net
• socialgivingpodcast.com
• socialgivingpodcast.net
• socialgivingpodcast.org
• compassion365.com

Google Wallet provides thieves with yet another reason to steal your smart phone. Convergence is great but what about the security risks?

The Global Appeal of Angry Birds [Daily Infographic]

[tentblogger-youtube PZ6SkdkXjAQ]

Bobaloo Films partnering with the writing team of Chris and Kathy Vander Kaay have come up with a sitcom premise based on the life of a new youth pastor. Shot in the style of “The Office” by cinematographer Daniel Trout. Our production team of Kurt deVries, Michael Beazel and Tony Senzamici have already pitched the show to NRB and CTN both Christian broadcasting networks. Both are interested in the project, however, being a non-profit networks there is no money in their budgets for programming. We need to produce a pilot for them to preview. Being broadcast on NRB has the potential to reach 19 million Directv subscribers. The money raised on Kickstarter will go directly to funding the production of the pilot. Once capital is raised and shooting starts we should be able to sell episodes on various outlets such as Worshiphouse Media and Sermonspice. This should allow us to continue shooting an entire 12 episode season. The show will be filled with everyday situations that effect teens and their parents, with a splash of comedy mixed in. Bobaloo Films will be marketing this project to youth groups nationwide along with airing the show on various networks. We firmly believe that this is an incredible project and we look forward to bringing this project to light with your help.

[tentblogger-vimeo 28171399]

[tentblogger-youtube eebqcX6cqP8]

Episodes are released every Thursday at SyFy.com and you can still get caught up in time for the next episode.

From SyFy.com:

Pittsburgh, 1975. Edward Borman, a lowly government office drone, finds himself trapped when the deadly men of Mercury seize his office building as a staging ground for their nefarious plot. Aided by Jack Yaeger, a daring aerospace engineer from a mysterious organization known as “The League,” Edward must stop the invaders and their doomsday device, the Gravity Engine.

Drawing from the same retro serials that inspired such films as Star Wars and Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Mercury Men reintroduces audiences to the great mystery, danger, and suspense the stories were originally known for. The series consists of 10 online episodes, each approximately 7 minutes in length.

The Mercury Men is created by Christopher Preksta, best known as the writer/director of Captain Blasto, for which he was nominated for two Streamy Awards. His short concept film The Mercury Men (filmed prior to the series) was featured at San Diego Comic Con (2008), the Brainwash Movie Festival (awarded Best Film, 2008), and the Action on Film Festival (awarded Best Science Fiction Film & Best Visual Effects, 2008).

Back in May we released an alpha (pre-beta) version of our accountability program for Android (which is a plugin for your Firefox browser). Now we are releasing another critical piece of the puzzle: an app that monitors Internet activity on your stock browser.

Interested in helping us test the new app? Go to CovenantEyes.com/AndroidAlphaSignup.

As we mentioned before, we are building this program from the ground up with the help of Covenant Eyes users. The more people who help us test this app and give us feedback, the more we can customize this program to meet your needs.

In the future, we hope the program will have other features such as:

• Monitoring the use of other apps (what apps are running, when are they running, and what are their descriptions?)
• Monitoring the installation and uninstallation of apps
• Password-locking certain applications
• A special module on the Accountability Report pertaining to Android use

This particular one is from the day Atlantis (STS-135) launched for the last time effectively ending a great era in manned space flight.

There’s really no way to predict these anomalies. Hopefully I garnered a few extra followers.

If you’re out there say, “Hey!”

Live Video streaming by Ustream

This post made me smile

I’ve recently had a few revelations when it comes to blogging and podcasting. This all stems from great content I’ve been consuming from people like Pat Flynn, Cliff Ravenscraft, John Saddington, and Andy Traub.

You might be thinking, “Wait a minute! Don’t all of these guys tell you how to make money by blogging and/or podcastsing?” Yes and no. Primarily what they tell you is to be passionate about what you produce. The take-away I’ve been getting over and over when listening to these guys is that I need to be passionate. I was passionate, alright, but about the wrong thing. I’ll get back to that later.  Ultimately, my blogging and podcasting should make me smile.

You may recall a previous post where I said that I’m done podcasting and have decided to start life-casting (for a lack of a better term).

When most people think about life casting images of video cameras strapped to someone’s head or goofy videos on YouTube come to mind. That’s not what I’m doing. Instead I’m producing content around my life. If that means a podcast only gets released once a month, so be it. If that means I don’t blog for three months, that’s OK.

Here’s a nice bulleted list to break things down for you:

• Stop blogging/podcasting for stats. Instead of trying to create a catchy, SEO-friendly blog post that will produce a lot of site visits I’ll blog and podcast about what makes me smile. In the end, the result of my work should be that people who are like-minded will come to find my content and it will make them smile too. If that’s only 50 people it’s OK.
• Goals are great but not achieving them doesn’t equal failure. In our competitve culture we’re expected to reach certain goals and if we don’t then we’re a failure. Not blogging/podcasting for 20 hours a week because you decided to spend that time with your family is not a failure!
• Monetization should not be my ultimate goal. If I try to do stuff just to make money then it’s likely that I will not ever find fulfillment in what I’m doing.
• 333 is only half evil and this is here for filler.
• If I build relationships with the intent to make money then I’m no better than the sleazy lawyer on TV. I need to built REAL relationships with people. A strong relationship with another human is more important than the balance in my check book. I can say this because I have a full-time job that already pays the bills.

Now, if I was blogging/podcasting for a living many of these points would be very pie-in-the-sky. However, this is a hobby for me and I should treat it as such. My drive for producing content was to make money, not to create great content that makes me smile.  That’s what got me discouraged. My stats are low and the community engagement is almost non-existent. Maybe people could smell that I wasn’t having fun or that I was just trying to figure out how to make a few bucks.  Smells If I make enough money to offset the cost of my hosting plans then I’m in good shape.

I’m passionate about a lot of things and I shouldn’t worry about making money off of things I enjoy. If I eventually get there that’s a bonus. If I NEVER get there then at least I had fun on the journey.  Oh yeah, and at least I smiled a lot along the way.