New site header, photo by CC Chapman

I wanted to edit the theme a little bit on troyrutter.com, so I finally added a pic that wasn’t black and white.   I’m not thrilled with my weight lately, so photos of me are hard to come by.  But the one above was taken at Podcamp Boston 2 by none other than the great CC Chapman.  So… why not use it?

Thanks CC!

[TAGS]CC Chapman[/TAGS]

Just found – johnchow.com and timferris.com

I must have been living under a rock for the past several years because I never once heard or visited johnchow.com before yesterday. I had found his site as a link-of-a-link-of-a-link while reading the message forums at Tim Ferris’s fourhourworkweek.com site that is a companion to his successful book, The4 Hour Work Week.

As many of you who read this blog know, I have been stuck on how to a) get a popular blog and yes b) make money on the Internet -  for a while now. I have the technical knowledge, and devour different techniques when I read them in print, but I don’t seem to have one thing – the niche to end all niches.

I don’t consider myself a boring person, really, but when it comes to online marketing the advice is always the same: find a niche that excites you and run with it. But what if you don’t have a niche? Or maybe you don’t recognize your own niches?

John offers a free 59 page ebook that explains in real terms what it takes to go from 0 to making $10,000/mo or more blogging. But, there’s that niche thing again. I just don’t know what interests me. Besides online marketing / affiliate marketing (which is a “black niche” since everybody tries to do it) I really don’t know what else to blog about.

If anybody out there has some kind of niche profiler questionnaire, please let me know… perhaps it will jump start my brain cells a little.

Blah

Is it July yet?

Fine tuning of the blog

I have just realized just how un-user friendly this blog is. I love Movable type, so I will stick with it, but I have GOT to work on this template this weekend before it drives me nuts. This includes working on the spacing of the ordered lists there on the right (as well as font sizes) and all-out housekeeping.

Unfortunately, there are so many things on my plate to do yet this weekend, including working on the next podcast, ironing the clothes for next week, editing my NaNoWriMo book, memorizing my lines for Bye Bye Birdie and the Renaissance Faire, and of course exercising before the next weigh-in on Tuesday.

I did take a nap this afternoon, so perhaps I’ll be able to squeeze a few more hours in tonight than normal. Just have to fight the urge to boot up World of Warcraft…