Well, I’m back from my week long vacation. On one hand, it’s nice to be away from a computer and having to do work… but on the other hand, when you’re addicted to checking stats and monitoring your sites it can be nerve racking not knowing what’s going on. Now I do have an iPhone, so I was able to check my earnings on a daily basis, but without WiFi where I was staying it was too difficult to check all my websites or even do work on them from the phone. I was running on the EDGE network and it was extremely slow due to a deadzone right where I was staying.

Anyway, I got home yesterday expecting my first check from Market Leverage. My affiliate manager said the payment would be sent via FedEx for delivery on the 15th. 6:00 p.m. came and I still didn’t have it, so I logged in to make sure ML had my correction mailing info. Of course, they did. So then I emailed my affiliate manager asking for a tracking code. He couldn’t get it for me because the accounting department had already gone home for the day, but he told me he specifically remembers them sending out my check. So, 7:00 p.m. rolls around and I get a phone call from FedEx saying they had a package for me that was returned undeliverable. They asked me to verify my address, but this time it was incorrect. So how does the FedEx shipping label get printed with an incorrect address when my address is correct in the Market Leverage system? Who knows. I gave them my correct address, and they said I would receive the package today.

I am also missing my Adbrite check for this month. I always get my Adbrite checks on the 8th or 9th of every month. Well today is the 16th and I still haven’t received it yet. It’s so annoying when big companies like this don’t use Direct Deposit. I emailed Adbrite asking if my payment was sent out and all they told me was that my payment was processed and that it could take like up to 21 business days to be delivered. I don’t understand them sometimes. It always comes at the same time like clockwork for 2 years… so why would it be any different this month.

So if I’m lucky, I’ll have 2 nice sized checks waiting for me when I get home. Other then that, my trip was great and everything seems to be in order. Now it’s back to work for me!

The way I changed blog themes around here, you’d think I was a teenage girl trying on a prom dress.

Those of you who visit this blog regularly will notice that I once again have changed my blog theme. I made my last change like 2 weeks ago. After about a day or two, I got sick of the theme. It just didn’t look professional. It looked like something I would have had 2 years ago.

After a long search I finally found my current theme Bizfresh. Surprisingly, it was a free theme. In my opinion, it’s one of the top free themes I’ve ever seen. The colors and layout of the theme are great and match my style. Anything better then these would have to be paid for, and you all know I’m cheap when it comes to this blog. There are places for my advertisements as well as all the content.

I’d like to remind everyone that I have advertising space available for a very cheap price, so grab it while you can. Also, feel free to contact me or ask me questions. I used to get questions all the time and make posts out of them. By asking me a question, you get a free link back so keep that in mind.

I just recently updated my blogroll and removed some long-time bloggers I had on that list. I didn’t want to do it, but basically if you haven’t posted in 2 months, I’m going to remove your link. The links are there to provide my readers with other blogs that they may enjoy. If you aren’t posting anymore then they probably won’t enjoy your site.

So I’ve got some room open on my blogroll for like 3 more blogs. If you have an established make money online, web entrepreneur, business type blog and want to be on my blogroll, please contact me or leave me a comment here. I’ll take a look at your site, and if I like it, I’ll add it. I would appreciate it if you also added my site to your blogroll.

You don’t need to have a PR5 site or get 500 uniques/day. Just have a nice blog, with unique content.

It’s been a long time since I ran a contest on Gator Envy. I used to run them in conjunction with major Gator sports events like the NCAA Tourney or the Heisman voting. When you run a sports site that focuses on college football and basketball, the summer months are very slow and long. To keep things somewhat active on Gator Envy, I decided to run a contest. The prize is any piece of Florida Gator merchandise from Football Fanatics ($20 limit). I’ll let then winner pick something out, then I’ll buy it and ship it directly to them from the online store.

Contest Details:
Any Gator Envy member can enter. The only qualification is that you make 10 new posts between June 4 and July 4. I will then use a randomizer tool to randomly select a winner.

It’s a very simple contest and we’ve already had a dozen or so people complete the task. The purpose of the contest is just to have fresh posts coming in everyday, which can be tough when there is absolutely no Gator news coming out right now.

The best thing about running the contest through Football Fanatics is that I have an affiliate account with them. So when I purchase the item for the winner, I can buy it through my own affiliate ID and I’ll make commission off the purchase. I only get 10% commission, but it’s still better then nothing.

And on a side note: Gator Envy surpassed 1,000 members the other day. That is a big time accomplishment in a forum’s life. It’s the first time I’ve ever built a forum to over 1,000 members from scratch so I am proud of myself. Once football season gets kicked off, I have a good feeling that Gator Envy will be pushing 50 members online per day and 100+ news posts daily. Right now we’re at 28,430 total posts.

Those of you who have been reading my blog from the beginning are now seeing this site undergo it’s 6th facelift. I seem to update my wordpress themes ever couple of months. Not only do I get bored of seeing the same design every day, but I always feel like I can improve on the functionality and layout of the site.

So you’re looking at my newest design (that is unless you’re reading this post via RSS… in which case I highly recommend you actually visit the site to check out the new theme). This was a free template I found online, you can find a link to the theme in the footer. I change some of the colors, and obviously the header. For now I went with an easy shark picture. Most of you know I love the beach and am fascinated by sharks.

My previous theme had a nice place for a 728×90 advertisement at the top, and this one does not. Since I sold the ad space on June 1, I still have to keep an ad up there. However, once the ad expires (or if the ad buyer doesn’t care), I want to play with the placement of this ad and try to find a new location. It kind of sticks out. But once the ad expires, I may just leave the header clean from ads.

I doubt that I’ll ever get a custom made blog design for this site. It just doesn’t make enough money or have enough traffic to warrant a purchase like that. Free themes are the best, but they’ll have to do for now. Let me know if you like it, let me know if you hate it.

In anticipation for a new Wordpress design I’m looking for, I decided it would be in this blogs best interest to be upgraded. I was previously running Wordpress 2.3.1 (I think) on here, but just completely an upgrade to 2.5.1. It’s been months since I’ve done a Wordpress Upgrade. I really shouldn’t put these things off, with all those security fixes and all. But o-well, it’s done now.

Now I have about 6 other Wordpress blogs I need to upgrade. Only a handful of my sites are running 2.5.1. Upgrading was surprisingly easy. I made backups of all my files and database just in case. Then I just uploaded the new files and went to the wp-upgrade.php file. It took about 3 minutes. My current theme still works and I’ve had no problems with the plugins.