financial zen

Well, by perusing some wordpress plug-ins from pro-blogger (a must read if you blog) I came across the answer to sites that unscrupulously steal your feeds (also called scraping).

Add a copyright message to your RSS feed! All with this plug-in - Angsuman’s Copyrighter Plugin. Really, I consider this plugin a must-have, especially once you start getting traffic and the “referrers” start coming in the form of “blah had a great post, here’s his content, and a link back. By the way, click on all my ads surrounding his entry to make me money.”

I recognize that feed-scrapers that do have link-backs aren’t necessarily evil- they aren’t phishing or stealing outright they’re just trying to make a quick buck off someone else’s writing spirit and soul. I liken them to pyramid schemes and Ponzi-artists - worthless, taking up bandwidth of the internet that would be better suited to a number of amiable bloggers out there.

Enough for my ranting - to my fellow bloggers fighting the scrapers, copyright your feeds!

As an aside, I’ve got some planned entries coming. Being a full-time father/worker/student/husband takes a toll, and it’s writing that suffers so that none of the others do!

A while back I bought a group of tickets for a show - I figured I could get a group of people together to catch it, and I was hoping it’d be a sell out show. Well, that concert is this week, and it’s looking like my plans fell through… which means the show, which is now a SOLD-OUT show, is fair game to be profited on!

I bought six tickets for a little over $300. Checking recent ebay bids shows two tickets going for $250. ($250×3=$750 for the math illiterate, $750-$300=$450 profit)

I was kind of surprised by this - it’s a lot of pop-rock bands, and I was interested in seeing two - ZZ Top and Velvet Revolver (you know, before Scott Weiland is in jail again - I missed Stone Temple Pilots). That left Wife and I with the dilemma - should we stay or should we go? With an upcoming move slated, we’re leaning towards selling the tickets.

What about Ebay Success stories?

I know of one, with my brother-in-law running an ebay store that he currently pulls a profit on. The man has an eye for deals and I’ve seen him spend $10 and make $100. He exemplified frugal living to me - thrift master/shopper, finding deals everywhere he went. His future store will be at Janafrog.com - toys for good boys and girls! I’m hoping he’ll have it running soon.

Personally, I’m attempting to sell more items off on ebay - unfortunately it’s adding items to my to do list. My next goal is to help get things done.