Glype 1.0 Released
I have been using Glype proxy script for almost a year now. There has been several versions since I started using it, and for some time I have been checking in to see when V1.0 would come out. Nick, the script developer, quite the smart man I must say, has been working hard to get V1 done. Its a complete overhaul of the script, website and forum. I believe this makes glype officially out of beta, but I never have really understood the whole Version structure system.
V1 brings some excellent changes to play. The admin control panel is very slick and functional. It makes admin much easier and more organized the previous versions. Another big plus is there is now a stock privacy policy, TOS and disclaimer. I won’t list out all of the features, you can read about it in the V1.0 annoucement post.
I will say this, Glype runs fast and executes smoothly. It supports myspace out of the box. It comes out of the box with more options then scripts that I have purchased for over $200 in years past. It comes fully functional for FREE. Enough said.
Grip Moneys About Me Page
If you missed it, Grip Money now has an about me page. If you would like to know a little more about the goals of the blog or myself. About Grip Money and MAtt
Spring Board Online Earning Opportunites
There are online earning opportunities that I like to call Spring Board opportunities. These aren’t the typical “upload a website and cash a check” businesses that you see on TV or that you hear about online. These are actual opportunities. The ability to earn money with these types of opportunities does not come from the type of opportunity that it is, but rather from the work that you put into it.
I like to call them Spring Board for 3 reasons.
- They don’t take a lot of creativity or knowledge to get started. You can get started with just some simple learning and good old fashion hard work.
- They can serve as a leg up for bigger and better things. You can learn alot of fundamental online business knowledge creating spring board sites. Whta’s even more, is you can meet people that can help you succeed down the road.
- If you decide that you want to get serious with a spring board business, you already have a great start. You just have to take things to the next level at that point.
My spring board business was web proxies. I did this and that in web design for years, but never got serious. I was working a day job, somewhere different then where I work now, and I needed to get to Google images. I like to change the background on my pc, and Google images is great for that. However it was blocked where I worked, so I did research and realized that web proxies would unblock it. After the proxy I was using got blocked, my co-worker suggested I make my own proxy. So I did. A few weeks later I decided to try to make some money in a different way then doing web design. I was reading through a list of 101 ways to make money online when I discovered #93. Setup a proxy. I was surprise to find that I could make money with something I was already doing. Thus I started my trek.
Proxies are more or less seasonal. I started April 2007 and by the time I figured out how to make cash with proxies the season was over – End of May. So I kept at it during the summer and that fall I started to see a bit of a profit. I kept working at it like a mad man and profit started to take a sharp curve up. By Nov 2007 I saw a profit of over $700 for 1 month. I was very excited! I proceeded to write an ebook on how to make money with proxies – the Platinum Proxy Guide and it sold like crazy. I kept at my proxies and saw my biggest month early this year, $1500 income ($1200 net profit). As I learned more I wrote V2 of my ebook, that sold well too. To date over 150 copies sold with a net profit of over $2500 and I am still making a profit with proxies.
Proxies are something that I will keep, probably for a few years to come at least. I made some money with them and decided to take them to the next level. I met some awesome people from making proxies and selling my ebook. I have helped these people and they have helped me. I could not have done some of the things I have done with out them. Now I have started to take SEO to the next level as well. I have 2 sites that are SEOd and are profitable. I have more goals then ever now and more projects in mind. All of it started with proxies.
Spring board sites/opportunities put you out there. They make you learn, grow and search. While working on spring board sites you will inevitably pick up things you can use on other sites down the road. Then once you have the ball rolling you can either sell your spring board site, or just keep it in the background to raise capital for your next project.
If your totally new to making money online and you don’t know what to do, then make a spring board site. It can be your door to bigger and better things, or maybe you can make your living off of it.
I only have experience with two spring board sites – Proxies and Image Hosts. I found proxies to do very well and tried out image hosts, but never really got into them. Here are some resources for each:
Proxies – Join Digital Point Forums (forums.digitalpoint.com) search around for info on proxies. Its there, tons of it. If you want the complete A to Z guide you can purchase a copy of my 71 page ebook. Platinum Proxy Guide – there is even a discount code in that post. 
Image host – The best guide I have seen yet is here. I honestly don’t know if its even still for sale or not. Like I said I didn’t really get into Image Hosts, so I don’t have many resources for them.
As for other options I am sure they exist, be sure to research them before you invest your time or money into them. Digital Point forums is a great place to start. If your not a member there, you should check it out. Its the largest webmaster forum in the world, and a great place to learn.
The wisdom of a pop star
Unwritten – A song published by Natasha Bedingfield is a constant point of refocus for me. Whether Natasha has any idea of the wisdom of her song or not I don’t know. What I do know is that the song has immense value to me when it comes to making money.
The core of the words go like this:
I am unwritten, can’t read my mind, I’m undefined
I’m just beginning, the pen’s in my hand, ending unplanned
Staring at the blank page before me
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
Let me brake it down from my perspective.
Your life and my life are unwritten. We don’t know what is going to happen today, we can’t control what happens to us. We can however control what we do with our lives, and what we do with what happens to us.
The song says I’m just beginning, the pen’s in my hand, ending unplanned – When you start each day you get a new chance. A chance to do something, a chance to succeed. Each day of your life is a new page that is not written down. What will you do with your life today?
Staring at the blank page before me Open up the dirty window Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find Reaching for something in the distance So close you can almost taste it Release your inhibitions – When you look at your life each day, don’t think about what can’t be done, think about what can be done. Get some illumination from those around you that are succeeding, read their blogs, read their twitters, read their forum posts. Sometimes you can feel you are on to something, its so close you can taste it. Quit holding back and go get it.
Feel the rain on your skin No one else can feel it for you Only you can let it in No one else, no one else Can speak the words on your lips – Life comes at you fast, stop and feel the rain. See what is really around you, what could be. Only you can succeed with your life, no one else can or will do if for you. No one can speak your words, no one can do your job, no one will earn the money for you.
Drench yourself in words unspoken Live your life with arms wide open Today is where your book begins The rest is still unwritten – Your thoughts and ideas are your opportunity, immerse your self in them and put them into action. Live your life with arms wide open, ready to embrace whatever comes your way and use it to your benefit. Today is where it all starts, today is where the opportunity starts. Today is the day you can start making money, or today is the day you can do nothing. Your life is not written down, its not decided, will you embrace today and write it down as a success? You don’t have to make money today to succeed. However, if making money is your goal then you DO have to take steps toward that goal to succeed. If I take steps toward my goal, regardless of whether or not I make that goal today, then today was a success. The more steps the better.
Someone once said “Today is the first day of the rest of your life”. What are you going to do with it? Are you putting yourself in the position today so that you can earn money down the road? How about that plan?
SEO College
I attended a private Bible College in Indiana for 4.5 years and a state technical college for .5 years. The college mentality seems to be, work hard during college at whatever job you can, and once you get out you can apply your degree and get a good paying job. As you know I currently work a day job, but I want to quit that someday and work for myself full time. Rather then wander around aimlessly I decided I needed a plan and time frame.
One class I attended at the state college was “Advanced Website Design”. The teacher is one of the best teachers I have ever had, smart and helpful. The class was centered around learning Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver and a few other tools. The majority of what we did was to go through in-program tutorials or online tutorials for the programs. The tuturial would give us a project and then guide us step by step how to do it. Thus we were able to learn by hands on experience and, to some degree, at our own pace. This teacher taught me one of the single most valuable things I can ever learn. He taught me how to teach myself. Basically the class was just organized tutorials that you completed. I can read and learn anything myself. Simply read, learn, apply in a structured format and your doing the same thing.
Thus I came up with a plan. The plan in a nutshell was to go to SEO college for a “bachelors” degree. By that I simply mean that a bachelors degree is typically a 4 year degree. So I plan to learn SEO and online business in 4 years. Now in a typical college, you would have to pay money, usually alot, to have someone teach you. Given the fact that you are really doing the work, all they are really doing is guiding you and making sure you achieve a measurable level of knowledge. Neither of which actually guarantees you will earn any money with your degree when you get done. This isn’t to appealing to me.
So I decided to consider myself as being in SEO College. By having my own college I can create a learning plan, learn in an organized format and measure my level of knowledge by how much money I make. I am of course not just learning SEO, I am really learning how to make money online. Its just like college, with a few differences. I don’t have to pay some school a incredulous amount of money to learn. In fact as I learn and apply I am actually earning money. I don’t have to do it on the schools time frame. I can learn as fast as I like. I don’t have to go thru four years of wondering if I am going to get a job when I get done. I get to actually build myself a job as learn. Also in this case I get to stay on top of things. If there were a college course on SEO it would be well outdated by the time you finished the 4 years. I stay up to date as the market changes.
So about the plan. I don’t have a strict plan per say as things do constantly change. However I have basic plans. -I do have many small steps laid out, but in order to keep this post reasonable I will give a summary. I will give more detail of my plans over time. – My plan is to quit my job by April 2011 and be able to work full time for myself. I believe that I will meet this goal before April 2011. The purpose of considering myself to be in college is to keep me focused and on target. If the average joe can get a degree and job in 4 years, I can get an excellent education and create my own job in 4 years or less. When I get discouraged about things not going fast enough, I remind myself I am just a sophomore in SEO college, how could I expect to know what a graduate like Shoemoney or John Chow knows? Shoemoney and John paid their time in “school” I am paying mine now.
My status in school? – I started April 2007 with proxies. I have since written an ebook that has earned over $2500, I have earned over $1500 with proxy websites in one month. My latest successful projects include 2 content sites that are SEOd. I can’t say everything I have done has earned a profit, but even Google and Apple have had non profitable ventures at one time or another.
To reach my goal (maintaining my current income) and quit my job I need to earn $65,000 per year. To be comfortable I want to earn $80,000 to $100,000 per year. I earned about $10,000 last year and am already on track to well exceed that this year. If things go as I would like I will make between $30,000 and $48,000 in 2009.
It all starts with a plan. If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. I WILL go part time at my job for a while when I transition and quit my job altogether one day. I have a plan, what is your plan? Do you even have a plan? Do you want to succeed in earning either a living or just some side money online? Then get a plan and stick to it. Enroll in a hypothetical self taught college if you want, start a blog to help you keep track of your progress maybe. Just be sure to WRITE IT DOWN. Do it, on paper, on purpose. Do it today, do it now.
Monetizng with Text-Link-Ads.com
Yesterday I was reading a post by John Chow on monetizing, and he listed Text-Link-Ads as a source he uses. I have seen TLA before, but never really had a site to use them on, or that I wanted to. As some may know I started making money online with proxy websites. These are not the type of websites that would fit the bill for TLA. About 6 months ago I started to get serious about making websites that were SEOd and rank well in Google. Given that I work full time with a family as it is, I have been on a rather slow path at learning SEO. I have gotten a site up and running and on the first page of Google for a competitive Microsoft term. The site brought in $270 last month solely from adsense, so its starting to get moving.
That site is the type that can work with TLA, so I applied yesterday. I got it all setup and was approved yesterday. Before 11AM today I got an email that they had sold an ad on my site already. Given how new my site is and all things considered it only costs $15 to buy a link. So its not to high of a price, but I was surprised at how quickly they got an ad sold. Give my current profit share it could bring in an extra $50+ per month for that site. So thats not too bad for now. I assume the prices go up as the site grows, they say they review each month. I will see how it goes, but for now it looks like a painless way to more efficiently monetize. All told I didn’t remove and adsense ads to put up the TLA ads, so its pure profit at this point.
Renting a mobile office dirt cheap
I spent some time talking with a professional and they told me that they tried a home office and it didn’t work. Considering I have a 1 year old and a pregnant wife, I am in the same boat. I tried to have a home office for a over a year. I tried different rooms and we even moved to a new house in that time, but I was forever getting interrupted. Now my family is important, but constantly talking with them disrupts my concentration and I lose focus, thus I am very unproductive. I recall reading an interview that Shoemoney did. The question was asked something like what was the worst mistake that you made. He said something to the tune of trying to run a business while taking care of his baby girl.
Thus I have come to the conclusion that I need an office. I have looked into office space here in phoenix, which is quite pricey. The best deal I found was a non retail office complex that would rent out a room with a desk and chair for 1-5 days per week. It starts at $250 per month for 1 day per week, and goes up by $100 for each additional day of the week that you add. So 2 days a week is $350 per month. Given the fact that I still have a 40 hour per week full time job that I work, 2 days is the most I would need it. So I am looking at $350 per month. I think it is worth $350 per month, but I don’t have that much extra cash to be spending on an office at this point.
I prefer to be creative and take advantage of the opportunities around me. Enter the mobile office. So I decided to just “rent” a mobile office for the time being. Here in Arizona many places have free WiFi internet access, since I have a laptop that is WiFi enabled (as almost all are) this works well for me. I have the spots that I like, such as Burger King -which is where I happen to be right now 
. I come to Burger King, order a small coke for $1.10 and I sit at a booth that has a power outlet. I get unlimited free refills on coke products and tea, I get a comfy booth, power, restrooms, windows and sunshine. If I get hungry I go get a side salad and a whopper jr for a buck each. I put on my Bose noise
canceling headset and go to work. The Burger King I am at right now ( I have more then one I go to) always has birds outside the windows as well. They always hang out and eat french fries and such. They make a great distraction to watch for a minute when I just want to clear my mind. The pictures here are of my Burger King workstation as I write this post.
Other places I like to go include Barnes and Noble and Starbucks (starbucks has cheap refills on their tea), both of which are AT&T hot spots. With the AT&T hotspots you have to have an AT&T account which costs a few bucks a month. My dad has a AT&T hotspot account, so I just borrow his. I also like to work at a park near my house. There are picnic tables there and lots of houses, so several unsecured WiFi networks. There are many other places that offer completely free WiFi. I am ever keeping an eye out for such places.
Pros:
- Dirt Cheap
- Open when I need them
- Free Internet
- Free Electricity
- Windows and Sunshine
- Cheap or free refills on drinks
- Generally comfortable for a reasonable period of time
- Restrooms
- Food if I get hungry
Cons:
- Have to pack everything up each time I visit the restroom or else it might get stolen
- Once in a while its tough to get a booth with a power outlet
- Sometimes have distractions
- Music that plays over the store speakers can be annoying
- Chairs and booths can be uncomfortable over a period of time
As you can see the Pros well out weigh the cons, and I even had to spend some time trying to come up with the cons. I could see this also getting to be a challenge if you tried to have an office here 40-60 hours per week. I only am out 10-20 hours per week. I also break things up, I don’t really stay at one location for more then 2-4 hours on average. An advantage for me as well is the fact that I live in a city with 4 million people, so there are many many places with free WiFi. Moving from place to place helps me keep things fresh and focused. I would love to hear any thoughts or ideas anyone else has on improving “office renting”.
My Ebook being pirated on Rapid Share
A friend informed me that my ebook – the Platinum Proxy Guide – is being pirated on rapid share. This happened with V1 of my ebook and now V2. Now I obviously don’t want extra copies of my ebook flying around for free; however, I am actually quite pleased. It says something that people have found that my ebook is of a great enough value that they will pirate it. Free things don’t get pirated, worthless things don’t get pirated. So its quite the complement, as well as a boost to the fact of how good the book is.
So to the person who uploaded my book, thanks for the complement, but QUIT stealing my work!
According to Shoemoney the Secret Sauce for making money online is..
I have been at making money online via SEO sites and other online means since April 2007. I have talked with many people via forums and IM. It seems many people just want a quick fix or free money. I will admit there are times when I just want things to go faster and make money now. However it simply doesn’t work that way. However I think it is quite simple. While at the Marketleverage conference Shoemoney posted up some of the twitter posts from the confereance. Here is what John Chow wrote:
The secret sauce to making big money according to Shoemoney – HARD WORK!
I completely agree. In the successes that I have had, there are always nay sayers. I have been called a scammer, been accused of photo shopping my screen shots and so on.. I no big player, but I do work hard. I always say that it takes hard work, but there is that large group of people that think its some special secret.
Here is Super affiliate Harrison Gevirtz on the secret to his success. ” It’s true that I usually make a six figure net (not gross) income each month, primarily through PPC….You’ll perhaps be amazed that there are no “secrets”. It’s not because I’m not telling you— rather, it’s a ton of hard work and a little bit of luck. It’s amazing how “lucky” you get when you work hard.”
I totally agree. I work 40 – 50 hours per week at my day/night job, addtionally I put in 10-20+ hours on my buisness, and still take time for my wife and son. In 2007 I netted a little over $10,000 and hope to break $15,000 this year. Its a tough balance, and I hope to be going more full time with my business in the coming year. None the less, its takes consistent dedication and hard work.
If your new to online money making, get a grasp on this: Hardwork = success. Its no guarantee of any ammount of money, but hard work will pay off.
Thus Grip Money is born
Here at Grip Money I will share with you my my knowledge, experiences, thoughts, ideas, and observations about making money online. Grip Money is named as such, as I hope that it will help you get a grip on making money online. It will also help me to write down my thoughts as then I can clear my mind for more ideas. Thus Grip Money.
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