Look at this wonderful theme I just bought for MiscBytes a few days ago! It’s the Press theme by Obox, and it was super easy to set up! Just activate, select the widgets for the home page (select from large slider, dual column widget, multi-column widget), and set the options in the OCMX Options panel (like uploading your custom logo, selecting a color scheme, that sort of thing). For each post widget for the home page, you can select to have all categories shown or just one. That’s great for a blog like MiscBytes, which has such a diverse range of topics! The footer is also widgetized, and that’s wonderful if you’re like me and don’t have the time or know-how to create something like that with code.

I chose to show the Blogging and Internet category for my multi-column widget, and for the slider I created a new category called Featured and selected that to be shown. That way I can assign posts to that category if they’ve been crowd pleasers or maybe give readers a little sample of each post category in case they’d like to explore some older posts. Of course you get to pick how many posts you want in your slider, and there are many, many other easy choices to make in the Options panel. I didn’t do any custom coding at all – just activate and configure the options and MiscBytes is rocking a beautiful new theme!

How much did this theme cost? This is the really amazing thing about this theme: its price and its license. The themes at Obox are just $30, and when you buy one you get to pick a second theme free! They also have a paid membership option, but the cool thing is, even with the single purchase, Obox allows you to install the purchased themes on unlimited domains that you own! So if you find two themes you truly love, you may be set for a long, long time for a one-time expenditure of $30.

For my other theme, I chose the Gloss Surface theme. I figure it probably won’t be long before I think of another great excuse to buy another domain name and set up another niche blog!

I’m joining the affiliate program at Obox, but even if you don’t click my links, I think that company deserves our support. The very fact that they charge such a low price, allow unlimited use, and provide such a beautiful and easy-to-use product is something we should appreciate. Head over to Obox and see if you find something you can’t live without!

Since I am totally addicted to buying domain names and also am fascinated with finding the perfect niche in life, I started searching for a excuse plan to put those two together and create a new niche site.

I remembered that I had had a good series about college study skills on an old blog a long time ago, but I had blown that WordPress installation away over a year ago, when the domain expired. Luckily, I mentioned my problem to a friend, who Googled his way to finding copies of those posts on a now-obscure online magazine! I quickly grabbed my articles and deleted them from the site, then I waited a few weeks to let Google forget about them. We can’t have any duplicate content floating around out there, can we?!

Just over a week ago I bought a new domain name, installed WordPress, installed the amazing Thesis theme, and after writing about 15 posts I have a pretty good little site. I have an ad for a great ClickBank product on there that will pay me 75% of all sales, so obviously now all I need is traffic!

Oh, by the way, my new college study skills site is Quick Study Tips. Please stop by, and if you are a student or remember being one, I’d love to have you submit a tip or two. At the bottom of your tip, I’ll link to your blog or Twitter profile or whatever you like.

Even if you have a blog, have you thought about starting a little niche site to focus on selling as an affiliate?

Photo credit: AMagill

This is a guest post by Melissa Tamura. You can find out more about Melissa at the bottom of the post.

As a freelancer, one of your biggest obstacles is ensuring that all your clients are invoiced as needed. You will find that there are a large selection of invoicing apps available, but finding the one that fits your needs best can take some time. These amazing invoicing apps for freelancers can help you create and send invoices easily, so that you are free to work more and spend less time creating invoices.

1. PayPal: PayPal is the number one choice of freelancers because of its convenience and user friendly features. You can create a PayPal invoice and save it for later use, which is especially helpful if you have returning clients or use the same type of invoice repeatedly. Plus, PayPal is free to use and is even available for use on a mobile phone.
2. Intuit Billing Manager: If you have a large freelance business and need to keep up with many different clients, then Intuit Billing Manager is an excellent choice. This app is made by the creators of Quickbooks, one of the leading financial apps online today. Intuit Billing Manager is specifically for processing credit card payments, however, and may not work with other payment methods, such as PayPal. The billing manager is also free for freelancers and other small businesses to use.
3. Fresh Books: Fresh Books invoicing is an excellent choice if you have many clients, and need specific features such as mailing invoices to local business. Fresh Books is free to use if you have less than three clients, with a price range that goes up to $39.95 for unlimited clients. You can add access for other staff members for an additional ten dollars per month, as well.
4. Simply Invoices: Simply Invoices is an affordable option that allows you to send invoices with your custom logo. For unlimited invoice templates, you will pay only $25 per month. If you only need a few invoices a month, then you can use Simply Invoices for free. The invoices you send are automatically saved, so you have complete access to your account history.
5. Bamboo Invoice: If you are looking for free, then Bamboo invoice is the perfect choice. Bamboo Invoice is open source software that allows you to send unlimited invoices, and offers user friendly features.
6. Ballpark: Ballpark invoices allow you to work with your team to keep track of invoices sent by multiple users. This is the perfect option for a team of freelancers who need to keep track of billing and payment information.
7. Blinksale: Blinksale is available for only $6 a month, making it one of the most affordable of all invoicing apps for freelancers. The software is also compatible with Basecamp.
8. Outright: Outright software allows you to import information from Shoeboxed and Fresh Books, and best of all, is free to use. Outright is used to keep track of your tax information and other financial information.
9. Invoicera: Invoicera is more than just a invoicing app for freelancers, it also allows you to keep track of your spending and will automatically bill clients.
10. CurdBee: CurdBee is a billing program that can be used to keep track of which invoice have been paid, which are pending, and where all your invoices stand at the end of the day. CurdBee is free for most users, but for those that need one of the features on the paid version, the fee is very inexpensive.

Melissa Tamura wrote about weird college scholarships for Zen College Life. Prior to that she ranked the top nursing schools in America.

This is a guest post by Tom Walker.  You can find out more about Tom at the bottom of the post.

Working as a freelance writer can be an amazing experience. It’s an opportunity to work at your own pace, set your own schedule, and choose your own clients. Unfortunately, these wonderful freedoms can become a horrendous nightmare for a freelance writer working without the proper tools. The guide below will provide the 10 tools that every writer needs in order to succeed in the world of freelance work.

1. Basecamp (Project Management) – Managing your projects is an absolutely essential part of freelance writing. If you can’t meet deadlines and balance workloads, than you won’t last long in the freelance writing world. Base Camp can provide you with project managing tools that will help keep you on track.
2. Harvest (Time Tracking) – It’s important that, as a freelance writer, you can track the time you spend on projects. This will help you log the hours that your clients need to pay you for. Get Harvest will help you maintain an accurate time log that will keep your invoice error free.
3. Freshbooks (Invoicing) – All freelance writers need to have the ability to invoice. Fresh Books will allow you to easily create an accurate and tidy invoice sheet. If you can’t invoice properly, than you can’t get paid properly. This is an absolutely essential tool for the freelance writer.
4. Skype (Communication) – It’s important that freelance writers are able to communicate clearly and efficiently with their clients. Skype is an excellent tool to keep you connected. Instant messaging is free on Skype and the user interface is attractive and full of customizable options. Phone calls can be made for a small fee.
5. Open Office (Office Suite) – The word processor is the bread and butter of a freelance writer’s toolbox. When so much of your time will be spent in front of a blank word document, it’s important that the program is efficient and attractive. Open Office is excellent word processing software and best of all, it’s absolutely free!
6. GIMP (Image Editing) – Sometimes the images for your project just aren’t exactly what you need. An important tool for the freelance writer is image editing software. Gimp is an excellent photo editor that will allow you to create the exact image that your project needs.
7. Dropbox (Storage) – Freelance writers need to be able to submit their work online. This is where the Dropbox comes in handy. The Dropbox will allow you to submit your work online and it will allow your clients to easily access and download your work. There are many benefits to the Dropbox. One of the most important benefits is that the file limit is much larger than most email providers. Using the Dropbox will prevent files from being declared undeliverable, something that happens all too frequently with email providers.
8. 30 Boxes (Calendaring) – As a freelance writer, you need to be able to manage your schedule. The website 30 Boxes provides calendar software that will allow you to budget your time and keep track of your projects. Freelance writers can pick up a lot of work with many different due dates. An excellent calendar system can help streamline the scheduling process and help you avoid missing any important deadlines.
9. Phonebooth (Virtual Phone System) – When online communication is not enough, it’s important that you have the ability to contact your clients over the phone. Phonebooth is an online phone service that will help coordinate your phone calls and open the line of communication between you and your client.
10. WordPress (Website) – A website can be an important tool for any freelance writer. The website allows you to display your portfolio online and display your contact information. The ability of clients to access your work experience and samples of your writing with one simple web address can be very appealing. Additionally, you may pick up clients who stumble upon your website. It also gives past clients an easy way to suggest your services to their friends, partners or acquaintances.

Tom Walker is a full time blogger who works for an online ecommerce store specialising in HP supplies as the lead editor and contributor on their design blog where he posts about advertising and design.

Although I have an awesome boss and a really fun job, I want to create an extra little stream of income over the coming years.   For one thing, I want to build in some safety and security against bad economic times or outsourcing trends.   Also, by the time I retire from my day job in about 15 years, I want to already have something well established that I can do to continue to have money coming in without having to drive to Walmart each day to stand on my tired and bored feet and welcome people I don’t even know.   I’m still letting ideas bounce around in my head, and they range from various blog ideas to freelance writing to maybe selling e-books on special topics.   I’m in no hurry to get the final answer yet,  because I still have two sweet boys at home.  But in another year and a half the youngest will go away to college, and the oldest will most likely take that opportunity to move on campus at the local university where he’s currently a freshman.    My hope is that the fall of 2011 will find me starting a new business that I can work on a little in the evenings or on weekends, whenever I want.  

That’s so much fun to think about…don’t we all dream of that a little bit?   But when it comes down to it, I can write blog posts or even write an e-book and convert it to pdf, but then how do I set up the website to sell things? How do I get payment? What about all the upselling automated things? I don’t know how to really start an internet business!

I think I found a great resource! (Here come some shameless aff links, but hey, a girl’s got to start somewhere). Over the weekend while I was doing some of my internet procrastinating, I found Johnny B. Truant‘s website, and of course I found the reading extremely motivating! He says he went from zero to five figures a month in just nine months, and the services he provides look very useful and straightforward. One that really got my attention was the Zero To Business in 7 Days system he offers. It’s a set of 30 videos where we can actually watch his screen while he sets up everything we need to start an internet business, and hear from him “face to face” on video about all the various things we need to do in order to make money by either selling our own product or even being the most effective affiliate for someone else’s products. I’m most likely going to get these videos once I have a little more time so I can really watch them and do them justice. Currently most nights I have a hard time getting my guys off one of the PCs long enough to just check my email!

Johnny B. Truant also has other services, such as setting up a WordPress blog for $59, so even if you don’t need that one, it would be good to remember next time your mother-in-law says to you, “I’d like to have a blog! Will you help me with it?” Sometimes spending a little cash can get you a lot farther a lot faster, so you can take off and really start making some bucks!

Have any of you hired a pro for business/blog coaching or actual setup? Did you get returns that more than made up for the price of the work?

Last night when I logged into Twitter, I had a message from them that they are trying Lists in Beta. They mentioned that not everyone is getting to use Lists yet, so I should not tweet about it. Therefore I won’t. Shhh…

Once I got access to Lists, I can see that most of the people I follow are already using them, so I guess this is no big mystery to most of you. For those who don’t, once you get access to Lists, you’ll start seeing them in Twitter, and you can create private or public lists of people to follow. This is great for those of us who are not using a third party app like Tweetdeck. We’re all following so many people that we’re seeing a bunch of spam, and otherwise a bunch of crap we don’t want to see. I’m very happy about being able to create lists of bloggers or other people who share various interests with me so I can really see their tweets.

Now you can look around Twitter and find cool public lists others have created, and actually choose to follow any of them you want. I think it’s soon going to be a status thing to be on the most lists, and now that number is listed on your Twitter profile. Remember, there are private lists too, so you must assume you’re on lots of peoples’ private stalker favorite lists too.

Thanks to the three people who already have me on one of their lists, shown in the picture at the top!  I’d like to follow all of the MiscBytes readers in my Kick Ass Bloggers list. Please leave a comment with your Twitter name below, and I’ll follow you and add you to the list!

When you first log into Google Wave, you may wonder, what do I do next?  For one thing, notice on the lower left side of your screen, any Gmail contacts you had before who have Wave accounts will already appear in the Contacts section. If they are online, they will have a green dot, the online indicator. Once you get started Waving, you will be able to drag contacts into waves any time you like. Note – you can not drag them back OUT of waves, so be sure you really want them in that conversation before you add them. You can always copy a wave and re-invite the people you do want though, in case you get desperate to lose someone.

If you want to get one of your online contacts’ attention, click on them and select the button to Ping them. That will open a message on their screen and they can respond to you.

If you want to check out public waves where anyone is welcome to join in, go to the search box and type with: public + any search terms you want to see.   By typing with: public mbti I found a wave where people were talking about personality types. Notice there is a light purple buffer area where someone is typing, but we can watch her as she types. We can click to reply anytime we want, and lots of people can be replying and talking at the same time.

I would love to use Wave to collaborate at work someday too, and maybe by the time Wave is more widespread we will all be able to do that.  There is a great Help area of Google if you want to know how to do various things like make your wave public, or do something more fancy with a wave. Meanwhile just have fun and enjoy!  I did not receive any Wave invites to give out – I was invited by a friend, but if you don’t have Wave yet, I hope you get it soon!

Real Life Stuff:

Expressive World  A beautiful and inspiring site by Ana!
The Zero Hour Workweek  Need I say more?
PostSecret  An ongoing community art project where people
mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard!
Free chapter of “Escape from Cubicle Nation!”  If you like it, you can buy the book right here!

Geeky Stuff:

Pictures of Geek Culture
The 100 Oldest Currently Registered .COM Domains  Oh if I could just go back in time, with what I know now plus a credit card…
Email Roulette  Kinda fun if you like to play with messages and strangers.

Blogging Stuff:

TechGenuine Custom Logo/Header Image Contest Winner Announcement  Thanks so much Ricky! I won an awesome header and logo, which I’ll use on my new niche site LefthandedLife.com, launching early next year.

My Premium Domain Names For Sale Cheap!  Some great, brandable domain names for sale now!

DiTesco’s iBlogZone Is For Sale  A cool post to help you to get inspired and see how much your blog is worth!

How To Pick Up From Your Blogging Downturns  An encouraging and inspiring post that we can all use from time to time.

Every Product Needs An Affiliate Army  Excellent post reminding us – no matter what we have to sell, our success can be multiplied many times over if we remember to include an army of affiliates!

Is Your Blogging Identity At Risk Of Being Stolen?  Looks like Sire caught someone doing it!

Find Invisible or Offline People Who are in Fact Online on Facebook!  Always loving a good mystery, I loved this.

Do you have privacy policy?  Great reminder and solid help with something that we all need to do, the sooner the better.

CommentLuv now live on 40Tech, and Commenter vs. Commentator  Comments are the life of a blog, but what do we call the person who’s contributing them..?

Friday Funny: Service?  A Friday funny where we realize what the word “service” really means!

TechPatio Launches New Apple News & Articles Blog: ApplePatio  After just three months of existence, TechPatio has spun off a cool niche blog all about Apple!

Photo credit:

When we get a Twitter account, we follow some of our friends, get followed back, then start talking to each other with replies back and forth, even about very personal stuff. I see this all the time, and of course there’s nothing wrong with it as long as you realize that anyone in the world can see your tweets by default. Just go to http://twitter.com/USERNAMEHERE and you can see every tweet this person has done, unless some have been deleted. Want to know what Penelope Trunk has been up to? Just go to http://twitter.com/penelopetrunk and you have it all right there. And the point is of course, if we can do that to her, your boss or future employer can do it to you.

People are also searching for keywords, so if they are searching for a certain keyword that is in one of your tweets, your tweet will come up in their search results. That can backfire even if you’re using an odd username that’s not your real name. Remember the Cisco Fatty? She had applied for an internship at Cisco she didn’t really want, and for some reason she forgot that the whole world could see her tweets if they wanted to. Now maybe only her friends were following her, but remember anyone who’s looking at the public Twitter stream or searching for a word like “Cisco” would see that tweet immediately.

I have a friend who was tweeting about the impending demise of the company he worked for, complete with the company name! I quickly sent him a private message about Cisco Fatty, hoping to save him from an untimely termination. Wouldn’t you think Twitter-savvy company representatives would search for the company name once in a while to see if customers are talking about it? My friend kept tweeting, but he changed his last name in his twitter profile to “Fatty.”

If you decide you want only those you approve to see your tweets, just go to Settings - and check the box marked Protect my tweets. You tweets will no longer appear in the public timeline, but then you will be able to talk to your friends and family as freely as you like. Maybe you could have a personal Twitter account that’s protected, then your public account where you promote your blog like crazy!

Have fun on Twitter! Talk to strangers and enjoy it, but just be aware – we can all see it. Don’t tweet about any fatty paychecks if you want to keep them!

Photo credit: Ben Lucier

Here are three little things I have thought about while enjoying the internet lately: 

1)    If someone knows the email address I use for my Gravatar and for commenting on blogs, then they can “be me” and comment on blogs saying anything they want to in blog comments, appearing as me, unless someone has reason to check their ip address in the commented blog’s WordPress dashboard.   And I can’t think of any reason anyone would check, unless I see a comment which I know is not me and contact the blogger!    If you decide to try this at home, please use the email address of someone you know, so they can get you back.   Don’t use mine.  I read the whole internet top to bottom, so I would know. 

2)   I am so glad there is no “online now!” indicator in Twitter and I hope they never add it.   Imagine if every time you tried to log into Twitter all your followers who were selling something immediately started bombarding you with DMs and @replies about ways to make money.  Or worse, imagine how your friends and family would be so mad at you, “I saw you were there, and you didn’t answer me!”  or “My friend saw you on Twitter at 2 pm, but we were at my sister’s wedding!”

3)  If your significant other decides it’s a good day to start an argument, I suggest you have it in Google Wave.   Then when you get to the part where they want to go ’round and ’round with the same old argument over and over again, all you have to do is click Playback to show the opening statement and each successive one.  Or you could even show a statement and react differently this time, but in that case you’d have to retype it.  Remember you can reply to a single statement in Wave, so it should revolutionize the way you waste your time arguing.

(repeat)

I think I have given you enough fun things to ponder and try out for now, but don’t worry, I’m always working on finding more internet wonders for you!
 

Photo credit: Nika