Here is this weeks Weekly Winners post, as with last week all photos were captured using my new Kodak Cd-1013 Digital Camera.

Here is Alexandria-Maybelle, the bunny. We have had her since way before the move to Evansville. We ended up buying her at the feed and tack store one spring while my mom was visiting us in Flagstaff. We had a bunny, Baby Bunny, prior to Alexandria-Maybelle but because of living situations (the landlord forced us to remove our unauthorized pets from the rental) we had to send her and the cats down to The Ranch to live with my mom for a few months.

Anyway Baby Bunny died (from eating apple core and seed we suspect) and we went several months, almost a year, without a bunny in the home. Then we spotted Alexandria-Maybelle. Here she is in the bottom of her giant cage near her litter box. We aren’t sure what her breed is, probably mixed.

Well, N has been talking about this bunny that was found hippity hopping through the grocery store parking lot that someone he worked with had taken in but could not keep. They were keeping it in a plastic storage bin like this oneand were not able to keep it.

It caught his eye because it was a lop ear and he has always wanted one, plus they weren’t providing it with proper living conditions. Oh and we are also suckers for rescuing pets…

We make our pet decisions together normally and during last week he brought up taking the bunny in again. I was trying hard to not get sucked in to the cuteness of the bunny or any of that because once you do you are screwed.

Don’t get me wrong having a bunny isn’t that difficult, the key is providing it with the proper cage that will both keep your home clean and also keep your pet healthy and safe. Bunnies are cute and cuddly and appealing which is why so many people try to keep them as pets. The thing is they are also animals with needs and should be considered life long additions to your family if you choose to adopt one.

Sometimes bunnies can spray pee outside the sides of a typical rabbit cage, which can in turn stain carpet or dirty walls. Plus, they need a means to get exercise if they are solely indoor rabbits and a cage should provide that unless you plan to take your bunny out of the cage every day and let it play and run. Oh and you’ll also need to supervise it while it is running the house it to insure it doesn’t chew through any power cables on on your walls or something. Lastly, just because they were once wild animals does not mean you can just leave them outside in freezing or smoldering temperatures to fend for themselves, this is just cruel.

So when N brought up the bunny thing I explained that there was no way we could afford another $100+ multilevel cage for a second rabbit. Besides sexing young rabbits is hard and putting two together that are not the same sex (and also unfixed) is just bad news. Every heard the phrase humping like rabbits? They are prolific breeders folks!

I told N that if he was set on taking the rabbit in he would have to construct a cage for the thing that was sufficient for indoor use and also that allowed for exercise. And that is had to be done within days of bringing the new bunny home. Well, let me introduce you to Boner, the bunny.

You are probably wondering “well how does she know it is a he if sexing rabbits is so hard?”. Let me just say that we slowly introduced the two rabbits yesterday and he climbed right on top of Alexandria-Maybelle and started humping her head. When I grabbed him off her his penis was hanging out which very quickly told us he is a male. Plus he has these, balls.

Young rabbits are hard to sex but once they become sexually mature it is a bit more obvious, as you can see. So Now we are keeping Boner and Maybelle separate to avoid baby rabbits, we’ll also have Boner fixed when we find a vet and get some extra money. In the meantime the rabbits will just stay close but be kept apart.

Oh and all the household members are now friends with Boner, here is a video of everyone hanging out last night. Crazy huh?

Register.com sent me and unsolicited email about free domain registeration that they are giving away till 3/25/08. I thought it looked like an interesting deal so I headed over to the site to read the find print.

It is actually free for 1 year from the date of registration (you will need to buy your own hosting plan separate from the domain if you wish to use it), the catch is that they want your credit card information on the account so that when the free year is up they can charge you for a second year and so on. They charge $35.00 for 1 year domain registration!! What a rip off!

I actually do not recommend register.com’s hosting plans to anyone who wishes to have control over their site/ SEO. I used them back in the day and was grossly disappointed. I don’t even recommend them for domain registration because it is way over priced but with a free domain why not use them?

The key is to transfer the domain to another registrar at the end of the year and THEN pay for the next years registration. This is what I plan to do!

I got my free domain registration for customgiftsbytalina.com, I will redirect it to my business site (www.craftedcustomgifts.com) thus reserving my business name as a domain so nobody else can use it and misrepresent the business.

A free domain name could be benificial to you as a blogger. Getting a domain registered and buying a hosting plan means you own your blog. It wont be hosted at a free blogging site (like blogger.com, wordpress.com or MSN spaces) which increases your chance for making money off that blog, plus you have more control!

Free blogs often cannot use all the nifty little plugins (like comment luv) that exist because they are unable to edit template files and so on. Free blogs are free so the capabilities and benefits are often limited. If you are a serious blogger this free domain name offer can launch you into the world of professional blogging/ owning your own site!

If you want ot claim your free domain head over to their promotion page (http://www.register.com/promo/acquisitions_lp_1.rcmx?trkID=EMAoFkNb1W) and get started.. The offer is only good for the week so don’t wait if you want one.

Then mark your calendar and remember to transfer the domain registration to another registrar of your choice before it expires next year!

Many readers have inquired about website hosting plans and services. There are a number of options to choose from and often times the choices can seem overwhelming. I have found another helpful resource for those shopping for web services. If you visit http://www.webhostingchoice.com you will find a very easy to use tool that allows you to search for plans and services that fit your needs. I believe this tool is helpful and will save time with it’s side by side comparisons of services within your search range. If you are looking for information on a number of hosts and services and would like to see them all in one place you would benefit from following the link posted above.

Also, if you are new to site building or if this is your first website you would also benefit from the informative articles the have posted on the site. These informative articles can help to make sense of buying hosting service and a domain.

I just found a great deal for bloggers who wish to market their blogs outside the realm of the internet. You can get 100 FREE business cards, you just pay the shipping cost! These blogger business cards are a great way to market your blog in the “real world”! On ooprint.com you can design your blog business card with their user friendly site, the blogger specific templates allow you to list your blogs main keywords & tags on the business card along with your preferred contact info.

If you are looking for ways to grow your blogs readership real world marketing through blogger business cards is a great idea that you may want to look in to!

Did you know that many bloggers who get paid to blog are suffering from dramatic page rank drops? Do you know why? It is because of Google’s rules about “passing page rank” through paid links.

Payperpost is a great way for bloggers to get paid for writing but questions have been raised about whether or not they are asking you to break google‘s “passing page rank” rules. Some payperpost writers claim that using “rel=nofollow” in the html for sponsored links is against the payperpost terms of service. Not using it will surely impact your page rank and may even get your sites removed from google so what decision will you make? Which one is more ethical? Are you looking to make money or to provide helpful content to web users, do you have to choose one or the other?
I thought the goal of payperpost was to create internet “buzz” for advertisers and to refer readers to opportunities that were relevant and useful to the target audience. I didn’t think payperpost was a round-about way for advertisers to buy page rank and optimal search engine placement.

Yes, I know that many people are saying that google page rank means nothing anymore and that they are “a soft monopoly” that is loosing respect and creditability over all this. I am just not sure if I believe it just yet. Google is my preferred search engine and they do have many users who believe their results are the best, besides I do get over half of my traffic from their search results!

I guess it all goes back to what we believe is the best type of search results. Do you like your results to be free of paid results and do you think paid results are often irrelevant, do you care? Do you think that advertisers who pay for publicity should also benefit from preferred search engine placement?

Shouldn’t their be a way for the small businesses and the “great content” producers to get into the search engines without having to pay and arm and a leg for publicity? What are your thoughts about all this and where do you think the coin will fall?

Their are some great debates going on about the google/ payperpost saga that you can read about on the payperpost forums. This is a very controversial topic and each blogger has to decide which way they will go.

Additionally, any site owner that chooses to place advertisements on their site for personal gain should consider the pros and cons very carefully! For more reading on the paid links/ page rank issue check out these sites:

• Official: Selling Paid Links Can Hurt Your PageRank Or Rankings
• Matt Cutts on text links and pagerank
• Why paid links in the search results can be bad
• Information about buying and selling links that pass PageRank
• Paid Links To Manipulate PageRank

With any goal or dream perseverance and determination are key. You can do anything you want to if you set your mind to but you also have to take steps every day to get to where you want to be. Everyone has dreams and goals but many people become caught up and forget to take those small steps everyday towards attaining your goal.

You have your blog and your content but it’s not quite performing the way you had hoped, do you want to make your blog more profitable or valuable? In order to do this you need people to read what you publish and you need to improve your page rank and get into the search engines. The higher your page rank is and the more readers you have the more money you will make. Things like technorati page rank, followed incoming links, blog description, tags and keywords have an impact on the success of your blog.

I have found many fellow writers and have visited their blogs, many of them have great content but nobody will ever find it because they have not taken the steps to expand their readership. Nobody comments of their stuff and the page rank is very low. Having a blog is hard work but you can’t simply write something, publish it and expect the readers to come flocking to you.

The idea that you can simply “build it and they will come” is insufficient and will take you years to get the readers and the ranking you desire. As of July 2006 there were over 50 million blogs tracked on technorati. Everyone is blogging these days and chances are hundreds of people are blogging about the very same thing you are. How do you intend to get people to your blog?

Irrelevant link exchanges, spam commenting and other linking schemes are also basically useless and unless your blog is found quite often via the search engines your chance of readers “just finding you” is slim.

The best way to build your readership and get your content read is to network! Reading and commenting on other blogs, forums, networking sites and returning the favor when people visit you is the most successful way!

Get out there today and find some blogs that you would enjoy reading and commenting on. You can check out: http://www.technorati.com to search for blogs and add your own, also: http://blogsearch.google.com is a great way to find blogs.

If you can spend 30 min to an hour visiting other relevant and interesting blogs, reading the content and posting on topic comments it will pay off. They key is to be consistent with your own blog posts and to consistently visit and participate in other blogs. Before you know it you will have several cyber friends visiting your blog just as you visited theirs and if your content is really good they may even talk about your posts in their own posts thus bringing you more readers!

Find 3-5 blogs that you like (the more the better), visit them everyday, write on topic comments for as many posts as you can, fill in your own blog address and your information when you comment. Do this for a week just to see what happens! I know you will be surprised at the results!

Ever heard the phrase “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’? Do you believe it? I sure hope not because in business and in life it is so important to try new things and to take a new perspective every once in a while. Learning “new tricks” is essential to success, it keeps us ahead of the game and it pushes us to learn and grow. If you never try anything new you will always get the same old results!

If your business or life is not where you want it consider getting a different perspective from an ActionCOACH. The mentors/ coaches are positive and successful people who can help you achieve your goals! See a mentor or coach about your concerns or goals, you can learn new ideas and you can get a new perspective that could turn things around for you! Entrepreneur Magazine is talking about ActionCOACH and so are many business owners!

If you need growth within your life or business or if you are looking for a positive way you can contribute to others success check out their business coaching franchise and get more information! What could you gain?

Small business & hobby business owners often have a hard time with accounting software. Small companies often do not have the money to buy expensive accounting software and often times they don’t even really need all the bells and whistles that the expensive programs offer. Small business owners care about bookkeeping but often times have a hard time finding a tool that will help them take care of business.

Today I learned about a rather unique company that takes a different approach altogether. They offer a web based accounting program that does the basics in small business accounting. It’s called LessAccounting.com. The idea they have is to offer accounting solutions that get out of your way and let you run your business.

I went over to the site and created a free account just to test our the service. Overall it seems to be beneficial especially for brand new businesses with low volume sales. It’s a great starter program because it is free and you can keep it & use it free as long as you have less than 5 sales, 5 deposits, 5 expenses and 5 proposals to report per month.

The concept is pretty cool, the whole application is web based so you need to be on the internet to input or view any information but it’s easy and great for small businesses!

If you have low volume sales and want an easy approach to accounting this is a great starter program for you and it’s free till your business picks up! Check it out if you need a nice and easy accounting solution!

I was looking around the web today and I found this site that makes custom signs, magnets, bumper stickers and banners for businesses. Visit: http://www.buildasign.com/

I like the site because you can design your sign right there online much like VistaPrint allows you to! I enjoyed checking out the magnetic car signs/car bumper stickers page and am playing with a design right now to have printed through them for my own business (Custom Gifts by Talina).

I don’t see prices listed on the site so I get the impression you have to create your design before you can get size and price information. However, this is the most user friendly site I have found and it makes creating your own sign, banner, bumper sticker, etc a snap! This is way quicker and easier than calling or visiting a print company to have your custom sign built!

If you are doing craft sales, vendor displays or if you have your own store you should check this site out! Also, if you have ever wanted to place a sign in your yard or have a business decal or bumper sticker on your car this is a great resource!

This last weekend I did my first outdoor 2 day craft show at the 3rd annual Slide Rock Apple Festival. Taking on outdoor events meant I had to make some investments in equipment and supplies that would make my space look good.

We bought an EZ-Up Instant Shelter to protect ourselves and the products from the elements. We had some problems with the EZ-Up but I’ll talk about that in another post. Anyway, I am trying to find some ways to make my booth a bit more inviting and eye catching. Yes, that is my booth in the photo….

I found a company online that make custom table throws and table runners. I thought this was cool because you can get your logo on the table! Also, table clothes are a pretty important part of a booths look and feel and they can be hard to come by. I went to the fabric store and bought 11 yards of black fabric just to barely cover my two 8 ft tables for this last weekends show. Anyway, had I known about the custom table throws and runners I would have considered buying my own logo table throws instead.

If you do craft shows and trade shows you should check out the trade show display items, table covers, posters and more over at www.godfreygroup.com. They have lost of fun and creative ways to merchandise and display your stuff!

For more information visit: Literature Display over at www.godfreygroup.com