For those who would like to read this in HTML format, this issue of Boomer eZine is posted on the Boomer eZine website at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V2I1_041307.htm and on the Boomer eZine Blog at http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com.  

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Table of Contents for this issue.....

1.    Authors Comments

2.    Q & A, Suggestions and Comments

3.    Values We Live By

4.    CRON – Set a Timer on Your Site

5.    How to Quit Your Day Job - Ebook

6.    Announcement by Yahoo Search Marketing

Author's Comments

Another fast paced week.  I wrote the first part of the eZine in my hotel room in Florida .  I will finish it on Wednesday and publish it on Thursday so I will have it finished before the weekend.

On Friday, Linda and I are flying to Dallas where I have a business meeting early in the afternoon.  Then we are spending the weekend with our son, Travis and his wife, Linda Lee.

We are printing “Values We Live By” in the first issue of our second year so our readers will know the standards by which we conduct our business.  If you ever feel that we are not conducting ourselves by these standards, we want to hear about it from you .

You will also notice a change in the format of the eZine.  Each of the topics in the Table of Contents is a link to the article.  Also, the email version of the eZine is in summary format with links back to the main website.  I am certain that you will find the web site version much more enjoyable reading than the old text email format.  This will enable you to see the presentation with some color and some pictures.

Q & A, Suggestions and Comments

One of our readers wrote and asked a question about Site Build It that I could not answer immediately.  Here is our exchange.  

___________________________________________________

Sun 4/8/2007 7: 01 PM  

John, I really enjoy your editions; they are great especially for someone who is not a super computer guru! I reviewed SBI as you suggested and I have a question--I want to sell my own E Reports in PDF format--not HTML.  can I do this with SBI.  The software I will probably use is PDF995. What do you think?   thanks in advance for the info, best Jack

______________________________________________________

Sun 4/8/2007 9:25 PM  

Jack,  

Thanks for being a subscriber.  Thanks for the complement.  

Good question.  I believe that you can post PDF files for download, but I am not certain.  Tomorrow I am off to Florida for three days.  I will take my laptop with me and I will research your question when I am on the road.  I will get you an answer during the week.

_______________________________________________________

Tue 4/10/2007 6:25 AM

Jack,  

I was 99% certain that SBI allowed PDF files, but I wanted to verify that it did.  

Yes, you can upload PDF files to SBI so your readers can download them.  One of the moderators on SBI has written a VERY detailed step by step sequence on how to do this.  I was amazed at the detail of the procedure.  This will help anyone who is not too technical be able to upload a PDF.  

There are many PDF writers that do a good job.  I am not familiar with PDF995, but it will probably do just fine.  If not, there are others from which to choose.  

Let me know if you have any other questions.  

John Howe  

_______________________________________

 Tue 4/10/2007 6:46 AM

Jack,  

I'm back.  I checked PDF995 and it puts a logo on the free converted document.  The unmarked version costs $9.95.  

Take a look at CutePDF at http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/Writer.asp  

This is what I use for my PDF creation.  It is free and does not mark up your converted document.  

When you install it, it acts like a printer.  You have the document up that you want to convert and tell the system to print the document.  You then select the CutePDF printer and click print.  This will create a PDF file in the location you specify instead of printing the document.  

It is easy and works well for me.  

John Howe

________________________________________________

Tue 4/10/2007 8:46 AM  

John, I can't tell you how grateful I am for the information.  I'm redoing my website and hope to have everything ready to go by the end of this week---I already have a couple EReports to sell.  The information on your Ezine is invaluable to me--Thanks!!  Jack

________________________________________________

 If you have anything for this section or you have a suggestion for a topic for an article, please go to http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Suggestion_Form1.htm and give us your input.  With your input, we can improve the Boomer Video eZine.   

Values We Live By 

I want to make it a habit to post this at least once per year in the eZine so our readers will know how we strive to conduct our lives and our business. 

This was first published in Volume 1 Issue 2 4-15-06 at 

http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I2_041506.htm. 

VALUES WE LIVE BY:

1)    We are professed Christians, and we believe in and try to live the "Golden Rule"

2)    John is a Rotarian, and we believe that the Four-Way Test of Rotary is the correct way to conduct business:

a)    Is it the truth?

b)    Is it fair to all concerned?

c)     Will it build good will and better friendships?

d)    Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

We have a saying. “Truth before Profit”, which is something that many Internet marketers should heed.

All business on our sites will be conducted using these values as our guide.

FOR PROFIT

The work that we are doing on this site is for profit.  Our income derives from recommending carefully selected resources to help you learn and become a better entrepreneur.  If this site makes a recommendation for you to buy a product, it will be carefully researched and will not be "fluff" just to take your money.

Our income will be from fees and commissions paid to us as an affiliate of the product that we are recommending.  Our fee is included in the price that you pay for the product and does not add to your cost. The links we give you to purchase the product enable us to receive the commission. Please use our link when you buy the product so we can be fairly compensated.  You are also an entrepreneur.  You can appreciate that people should be fairly compensated for their hard work.  You would want the same for yourself.

CRON – Set a Timer on Your Site  

CRON is a function in Unix and Linux operating systems which allows you to schedule a job and the job will run at the date and time scheduled until you delete the CRON statement.  

You may consider this to be too technical for you, but not so if you will carefully read what it is and how it works.  It is a function of which you should be aware.  Even if you do not need it now, remember it for the day you will need it.  

Apache server includes this and it is easy to use with the graphical interface. 

The format for CRON is “* * * * * “Command to execute”  

Each asterisk represents a field in the command and can contain the following values.  If you do not want to specify a value for that particular field, leave the asterisk in that position in the CRON statement line. Each of the five fields is separated by white space. 

Here are the values that each field (left to right) can have other than the asterisk:  

 What prompted the need for the CRON on our site was our use of the software package, CB Ad Box Pro.  This requires that we copy the ClickBank master file into a file on the Boomer-eZine website periodically so our copy is kept current with the ClickBank master.  

Since we get busy and forget to do this weekly, a method to have our website do this automatically was the answer.  

The CRON function is very flexible and can be set to run on almost any time frequency you can imagine.  

If you specify a minute in the first field and an hour (24 hour clock) in the second field and leave all the other fields as asterisks, the specified program will run on that hour and minute every day.  If you want the program to run twice a day at 10 and 11 AM , you can write the CRON as:  

 CRON 0 10,11 * * * Command to execute  

With the proper combinations, you can set up a job to run automatically on almost any schedule that you can imagine.  

Let’s try a few.  Write a CRON to execute on every Sunday at midnight .  

If you got “CRON 0 0 * * 0 Command to execute”, then you are right.  The zero in the first position is on the hour. The zero in the second position is midnight .  The zero in the fifth position (day of the week) is Sunday.  This is what we used for our CRON settings for the CD AD Box update.  

Set up a CRON to run once per year on the last day of the year at midnight .  

CRON 0 0 31 12 * Command to execute  

If you have a graphical interface, it is easy to enter the CRON information.  Here is the Hostexcellence interface for the CRON.  

Just enter the correct information in the fields and click “Submit Query” and you have set up your schedule.  

As I said earlier, you may not need this right now, but remember it for when it will come in handy for you.  

“How to Quit Your Day Job - High Performance Affiliate Mark eting”  

Last week I told you about an offer from Jeremy Palmer to our Boomer eZine readers to view his free video tutorial about Adcenter.  He also included a $50 bonus on Microsoft Adcenter to try what he explained in the video.  

If you missed that offer from last week it can still be accessed at  

http://snipurl.com/Adcenter50dol  

After my communication with Jeremy, I was curious about his book, but I was not motivated to buy it at $49.95 since I have already read several great books about affiliate marketing.  One of the best I have previously read is Chris Chandler’s Google Cash which I have reviewed previously in http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I45_021607.htm.  Google Cash is primarily about pay per click (PPC) marketing.  Using PPC marketing, you make your money by promoting products and services using affiliate relationships.  

As a member of Jim Cockrum ’s “Silent Team” site, I received an email this week that Jeremy Palmer had posted his book, “How to Quit Your Day Job”, on the Silent Team site so all members could download it free.  That was a no brainer.  I downloaded it to my laptop and read it on the flight back from Florida on Wednesday.  

Jeremy has written an outstanding book on affiliate marketing in his “How to Quit Your Day Job - High Performance Affiliate Mark eting”.  If you are interested in PPC advertising and affiliate marketing, I highly recommend it.  

His information is easy to understand.  He has many descriptive screenshots to demonstrate his narrative, which certainly makes it easier to follow.  

Jeremy covers some new tools that have come online that “Google Cash” does not mention.  Also, the Yahoo Search Mark eting keyword tool is being phased out.  Jeremy does not depend on it in his book except to say it is on borrowed time.  (Many books still use the Yahoo Search Mark eting [old Overture] tool as a foundation of the book, which is dishonest, in my opinion) since the tool will be discontinued soon.  

One thing that Jeremy discusses is the sales season of various products.  Google has a feature that I did not know about that shows the sales of a particular keyword by month for the year.  That in itself is enough to justify my buying the book (and I got it free).  You do not want to be focusing on an advertising campaign when your market is historically not buying. 

If you want to buy Jeremy’s “How to Quit Your Day Job - High Performance Affiliate Marketing” for $24.95, here is the link to the sales page:  

http://snipurl.com/QuitDayJob  

HOWEVER, I have a better offer for you.  The cost for the initial membership for Jim’s site is $49.95 and the cost of Jeremy’s book is $49.95. (I just discovered that Jeremy has cut the cost of the book on ClickBank to $24.95 through 4/30/07 ).  Now, throw in the all the other bonus downloads on the Silent Team site and you come out way ahead.  

Just as one example – Expert, John Thornhill, has compiled a collection of eBay books worth (by my calculator) $957.07.  Yes, some of these may not be applicable to what you are doing on eBay, but go ahead and discount it 50% and you still get $478.53.  

If you want to really get a deal, sign up for Jim’s site and get all the bonuses.  The initial fee ($49.95) covers the first two months of membership.  When the renewal for the third month comes along ($19.95), you can decide if the value on the site justifies your keeping your membership or dropping it.  

If the experts continue to post their ebooks as free downloads, the $19.95 per month is a bargain.  I predict that you will continue your membership for the value that you receive once you have tried it.  

A little more info about Jim’s site:  The site is approaching 800 members and there have only been three requests for refunds.  That is a very high level of customer satisfaction (99.625%).  

You say, “This sounds like a sales pitch”, and yes, I admit that it is.  It is a sales pitch since I am convinced that the value is there.  Where else can you get the continuing value of direct access to an outstanding panel of experts, download books for much more than the initial cost of the membership, and participate on a forum with people who are dedicated to being successful on the Internet.  The members of Jim’s site are people who recognize the value of membership and the success it brings (if you work hard and smart).  

Go to www.silent-team.com and evaluate the offer yourself.  It is an outstanding resource.  

Do it now so procrastination does not keep you from moving forward.  

Announcement by Yahoo Search Mark eting (YSM)  

We discussed writing ads for Google and Yahoo Search Mark eting in http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I51_033007.htm.  I received this email from YSM this last week.  YSM is working hard to upgrade its model to try to compete better with Google.  I am posting it here in case you missed it.  

1.  Short descriptions will be required when you create or modify an ad, beginning in May 2007.

Long descriptions will be optional. Currently, you have two options for your ad descriptions: long (up to 190 characters) and short (70 characters or fewer).  

2.   Yahoo! Search results will only show short descriptions beginning in June 2007.

If you only use long descriptions, your ad will be automatically cut off to fit within the 70-character limit, which may impact your ability to communicate valuable information to users and your results. We recommend that you create a short description for any existing ad to guarantee that your most important information is included.  

That wraps up our issue for this week.  Until next week, stay tuned. 

John and Linda Howe

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