I do think that writing can be fun, but I have so many ideas that I don’t know what to write about. There are some ideas that I think would be fun to research and then report what I find, but I am not sure if they are profitable ideas. For example, I am not sure if they are good ideas such that people are going to search for them, and then when they reach my site they are going to earn me money somehow.

Blog writing is something that I am still not sure what I am doing. I know that the posts on a blog are supposed to be personal, but sometimes I get an idea that is technical, or one that I want to state without bias and I am not sure how to post it. Do I add a little opener and post it in one of my blogs? Maybe a forum? The majority of the blogs that I read do not have the same feeling. I am thinking now that one way to get around it is to have a “newsletter” or online journal that I can compile these type of articles.

Writing as a whole is fun, however I don’t think that I would be able to do it for a living. I look at the amount that I pay a lot of my freelance writers and I am not sure how they do it. I pay what they ask, and I stay away from the cheap ones as I have been burned before, but still $.05 a word and less seems like too little for me to live on. But maybe they are doing it as a hobby like me.

I don’t think that I am ready to become a freelancer yet, but that is something that I am working towards. I am aiming for 5 years where I can work from anywhere. I want to be able to pick up my computer and get out of the office, and work from anywhere there is an internet connection, which with 3G and the like is almost anywhere in North America, and I am sure that I can get a reasonably reliable connection somewhere warm and tropical

One of the things that I have a problem doing is making buttons, they are a pain in the behind and usually take me longer to make than it is worth, but then I was stumbling along, like I do when I get bored and found this.

Not bad eh?

Simple and gets the job done….

Brilliant Button Maker

I was browsing Crestock the other day and noticed that they have a Free Photo of the Day.

This is a piece of stock photography that they give away hoping to grab more people and make more money. Maybe it will work for you

If not, add the free photo feed to your reader, maybe you will find something that you like.

So I have been thinking that it would be really cool to put videos from Google Video and YouTube (now both owned by Google) in my blogs. I checked out a couple of the standard plugins that are out there and they either did too much and the syntax when writing in the blog was convoluted or they didn’t work.

Therefore this weekend I began writing a plugin to do just that, however I found out very quickly that I am not very good at filtering strings with PHP. I have been able to get everything that I want it to do to do it so far except I can’t get it to work as a plugin. Basically the syntax will be [vid type='xx' data='xxxxxxxxxxx'][/vid], the type will be for the video, and the data will depend on the type. I am hoping that a simple id will work for most. Also in future versions you will put a title in between that will be either above or below the video, and maybe I will add functions so that you can vary the size too, but I think that will start making the plugin too much for what I want to be able to do.

If anyone else out there is interested in something like this please let me know, otherwise I am sure that this will sit on the back burner until I get very bored again, which doesn’t happen very often.

God’s Debris is a book that really makes a person think.  It is also FREE Now.  If you think that this is a scam check out the ad that is on Dilbert.com.

I actually bought this book in paper form before I ever found out that I could get it for free and I don’t regret paying for it at all.  It is a short book but if you are someone that doesn’t have a very open mind you may find it disturbing.

Adams takes you through the meaning of life, and he does it by simply stating the simplest answer is always right.  It will make you think, and make you question just about everything that you know.  And that is the best part of the book, it makes you take nothing for granted.

So if you are bored at work this is a great book to pass the time because you can read it right on the computer screen.