Ya so I made that big post yesterday about having a PR4 domain in my portfolio (gowforum.com). I made a post on Digitalpoint yesterday just entertaining some offers for the site. The thread got blasted with like 5 replies saying “FAKE PR!!” I felt under attack, and like potential buyers thought I was trying to rip them off. Honestly, I didn’t know the PR was fake. I don’t even know how to give a website fake PR.

One of the members gave me a link to a site called Valid Rank. You can read the Fake Pr Valid Rank Report. According to this site, my PR4 domain is stealing pagerank from another site. How fitting. This site gives you a huge warning at the top, right next to a site thumbnail (a thumb of what was on the domain before I bought it), alexa rank, domain age, IP, backlinks, and directory listings.

If you check the domain using Dig Pagerank, all like 50 datacenters show a pagerank of 4. However, the number 4 is colored Red, not Green. This indicates fake PR.

Like I said above.. I don’t know how a domain can get fake PR. I don’t know what fake PR means or how you get rid of it. But the moral of this story is to check domains before you buy/sell them to make sure they’re legit. I looked like an ass yesterday. I don’t want you to do the same.

This blog post is proudly sponsored by Myspace Tweaks.

So I was looking through my domain portfolio on Godaddy, which has about 40 domains in it. I like the check from time to time if I have any domains worth renewing. I have a lot of crappy domains in my portfolio. Out of the 40, I have websites on like 12-15 of them. While looking though, I stumbled across an old gem: GOWForum.com.

This is a domain I acquired through a prior transaction back in March. The domain gowforum.com came with a site I bought. It stands for “gears of war forum”. Gears of War is a highly popular Xbox 360 video game. I play it all the time online (email me for my gamertag). I wouldn’t be surprised if this game is around for a long time and we see a few sequels.

I left this PR4 domain just sitting in my portfolio because I felt that it was too late to start a Gears of War forum. The game is almost 2 years old and there are plenty of established GOW forums already. However, I don’t want this domain to go to waste anymore. So today, I’m introducing to you the latest Gears of War Forum on the web.

I decided to go with PHPBB v3 (because it’s free). I haven’t used phpbb in a looong time. Version 3 is way better then 2.0. The admin panel is so much easier to use. I really like it. It’s by far the best free forum software out there. I went with a free style too, just changed the header image to a Gears of War one. I think the site looks really nice for everything being free.

I’m still unsure of what I want to do with this site. Do I really want to invest all the time to get this site off the ground? Can I really compete with all the other established GOW forums? Or should I just sell the site as is and hope for $100? Tough decisions.
I’m going to install a few mods on the forum and add SEO friendly URLs while I think about it.

So if your a Gears of War fan, you have to check it my Gears of War Forum. Sign up and post!

Today is the 6th anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York City.

It doesn’t feel like 6 years. I can still vividly remember where I was when I heard the news. I was a freshman at UF, living in the dorms. I had just woke up for Calculus 2 class and was flipping the channels for ESPN. However, every channel on the TV was fixated on the attacks, which at this point they just thought a plane accidently flew into the building. As we’re watching, we see the second plane fly into the second tower and all of a sudden the mood changes and Americans realize their being attacked on their own soil.

Today is not a Federal Holiday like. We still go to work and school. Offices aren’t closed. Americans just like to take this day to show their patriotism. You’ll see more American flags flying. You’ll see more red, white, and blue. You’ll hear a lot of people showing their support for our troops. One of my best friends is in Iraq fighting right now. So I’ll take this moment to say how proud I am of him and appreciate him putting his life on the line everyday so people back home don’t have to.

I’m pretty sure I’ve posted this video before, but just in case you missed it, I feel like this is a must watch Youtube video. Viewer Discretion is advised.

 

As I mentioned in my post about playing with Skype, I had my very first interview on last Friday. In the past, I’ve been interviewed several times, but this was the first time I had to interview someone else. I was lucky enough to interview former Florida Gator football star, Travis McGriff.

I was very excited to have the opportunity to interview someone of his calibur. The guy had one of the single best WR performances in 1998 for the Gators, and went on the play several seasons in the NFL. He’s now a spokesman for the upcoming All American Football League, which debuts in Spring 2008. Gainesville is hosting the Florida team, so it’s only appropriate that McGriff’s representative seeked out Gator Envy to host the interview.

If my contact with the AAFL was pleased with the Travis McGriff interview, she will lineup as many as 5 more interviews with former Gator players for me. That will be huge for Gator Envy. I’ve never seen any privately owned forums give their members access to exclusive interviews. I’ll have a nice competitive advantage if this happens.

I conducted the interview using Skype, and a recording program called Pamela. You can find Pamela on the official Skype website. Pamela easily exports your recording to mp3 format. Unfortunately, you only get 30 days free, then you will need to purchase the program. I then used a program called Audacity to edit the audio files.

The end result and interview details can be found at Gator Envy. Or you can simply download the Travis McGriff Interview. I also plan on making a video from this interview to place it on YouTube.

With the growth of Gator Envy and the nature of the site, I decided to take the plunge and purchase a live chat program for my members. How hard did it hit my wallet? Less then you might think…only $5 via Paypal can land you one of the top live chatting applications you can have on your website, FlashChat.

When installing a live chat application on a site with Vbulletin, FlashChat is pretty much a no-brainer. It works great with Vbulletin and the good folks at VBulletin.org have developed a mod for easy integration.

I haven’t yet installed FlashChat on my forum, but I will likely get it done this weekend. I felt having a chat on Gator Envy was a good idea because it gives Gator fans who can’t go to the games a place to chat with other Gator fans as the game is being played. You can limit the chat room to specified numbers or usergroups, so it will never get to the point that it drains all your server’s resources. In addition to game chats, I also felt like the chat room opens up the opportunity for me to invite former Gator players to hold live Q&As with my members.

Be sure to check out Gator Envy on Monday to see the chat room integration. You will have to be a forum member to have access, so be sure to sign up if you haven’t already.

This blog post is proudly sponsored by Myspace Tweaks.

Skype’s been around for awhile now. I’ve always heard of people using it to chat with their friends for free. And this is voice chat, not texting on a keyboard. I’m going to be conducting an interview tomorrow and needed a way to record the conversation. I think my cell phone has a record option, but I don’t know how I’d get the recording off my phone to my PC and convert to MP3. So, I figured Skype would be the best option.

I downloaded Skype and purchased the $3/mo outgoing call plan. So not only can I make free calls to other Skype members, but I can also call anyone in the United State from my computer. I won’t use cell phone minutes, and have the ability to record conversations to my computer in mp3 format. To record that call, I am using a program called Pamela. It comes with a free 30-day trial, then I think it’s something like $25 for a license. I can record for up to 30 minutes in my trial… which should be plenty of time.

So I was playing with Skype the other night and stumbled into a Live Chat session. The topic was Aliens and Ghosts. Katie was in the room with me and really had no idea what was going on. At first I was intrigued and surprised by the intelligent conversations people were having. Most of the participants seemed to be from England. Anyways … some Swedish guy comes in and starts talking crap and telling people to suck his you know what. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. Everyone was getting mad at him and he just kept talking in that deep Swedish voice. I was laughin my ass off for like 5 minutes. I don’t know if all live chats end like this or if I just got lucky.

Skype seems like a pretty cool tool. It will definitely come in handy if I needed to talk to someone in Europe. If they’re a Skype member it will be absolutely free.