My poetry blog Wanderer Thoughts has won the December 2008 Best Poetry Blog category and I am now up against four other blogs for best blog of 2008 on BlogNetAwards.com.  I am really hoping to rally a win it would be wonderful recognition for my poetry and my hobby if I can take best blog of the year.
So I am calling on all my fans, readers and Entrecard droppers to take a moment of your time and vote for Wanderer Thoughts Poetry Blog as best blog of 2008.  Compare the other blogs and if you think mine is worth your vote, take the time to vote.

So click on the image above and vote for Wanderer Thoughts on BlogNetAwards, and take the time to let me know on twitter my ID is @dragonblogger, or leave me a comment to let me know you voted.  I appreciate all of your time and support for my work.
To vote find the site admin and login or register on the bottom right of the website, it looks like this:

Then click on how many stars you think my blog is worth.  Thanks in advance for your support.

-Dragon Blogger

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Technorati Tags: best poetry blog, BlogNetAwards best blog of 2008, random twitter poems, twitter poetry, voting for dragonblogger, Wanderer Thoughts, wanderer thoughts on blognetawards

Due to the fact that Dragonblogger.com was still rated a PR of 0 and my personal and poetry blogs were recently related PR1 and PR2 respectively, I concluded I have too many outbound links on my primary technology and entertainment blog.  I have decided to more strictly enforce a NoFollow policy to try and keep some of my PR Juice from flowing out of my site and into other web sites in order to retain a better page rank, since traffic and user visits were not enough apparently.

So I have downloaded and installed the Wordpress NoFollow Links in Posts Plug-IN from the Wordpress archive, and it does work somewhat.  You can set posts in specific categories and they will automatically add “rel=nofollow” to the link’s after the specified # of days you enter.  There is a bug in the plug-in however, if you try to use the “all” instead of the categories individually, then every single link will have a rel=nofollow added even ones that are before the date.

The default is to not add no follow to anything, you must individually select your categories and then specify the # of days before automatically appending “nofollow”.  I have generally kept to a 30 day policy on all of my categories that link out, I will leave all links intact for 30 days with follow.  This way some blogging friends gain the benefit for a while, as well as paid posts which require follow tags will be satisfied and met for the duration of the paid post.

The -1 for “all” is misleading, and really means it will not add nofollow to all your posts, if you put 30, 60 or any number besides -1, then every link will have “nofollow” added and you won’t be able to get some paid posts approved (PayU2Blog and PayPerPost require DoFollow on links).

I was hoping to just set all posts to expire Follow after 30 days, and am hoping this feature gets fixed eventually.

(Click for larger image)

-Dragon Blogger

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Technorati Tags: blog dofollow, blog nofollow, blog pagerank, dofollow, nofollow, nofollow for paid blogs, nofollow with paid posts, wordpress, wordpress plugins

As many of my readers know on my tech blog, I am a poet and write a poetry blog called WandererThoughts.com occasionally I like to showcase new poetry here on Dragon Blogger in the hopes that people are interested and decide to check out more of my poetry.

Here is a poem I wrote for Dragon Blogger, and if you like my poetry I encourage you to check out my poetry blog for more.
I do a daily random twitter poem as well, where every weekday I take a random word from various twitter users and craft a custom poem including those words. Poems range from 6 - 15 words and possibly more depending on how many submissions I get.

So just follow me @dragonblogger and let me know if you want to participate, I have people playing daily.

Passion and Play

Kicking off this evening with playful mockings
You adorn yourself in body stockings

Roleplaying ensues without any rules
Our bodies are our only tools

A prince to save this damsel in distress
Fantasies like diamonds, I must confess

Dreams of skin laced with sweat and cloth
Drinking your lips and savoring this broth

Passions here come out to play
In each and every possible way

My body is yours and yours is mine
This passion described simply as divine

-Poem by Dragon Blogger

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Technorati Tags: bedroom poetry, dragon blogger poems, dragon blogger poetry, dragonblogger poems, love poetry, lust poetry, passion poetry, Poetry Blog

My online Identity known as Dragon Blogger is my brand and in 2009 I plan to build and extend Dragon Blogger in the online community so that more and more people recognize me and get to know the person as well as the content that I provide.  I have been blogging for 4 months as of December 23rd with this blog and already I have grown to over 12,000 unique visits per month averaging over 350 per day and hitting as many as almost 700 unique visits on some days (can’t figure out why the random spikes happen, but they seem to come from StumbleUpon a few days a month).

I continue to try and write reviews on products, software that my readers may use or want to use to help in their every day computer use.  I also will continue to provide honest and complete movie reviews as well as keep up with my NBC Heroes following.  And first and foremost to my fellow bloggers I plan on sharing everything I learn about blogging, from SEO to Income Generation with my readers so that everyone can model or at least pick some of my tactics to try and see what works for them.

So to summarize the last four months of blogging here is my primary methods for building my current success level:

Entrecard is still my #1 traffic generator consistantly, get the service and drop often.  Drop your inbox but go a day behind and drop further, don’t drop the same day droppers as they can’t drop you back the same day, always drop 1 day behind and you will see better traffic.  Also, do leave comments and feedback, don’t drop anonymously and move on, build a blog community and build blogging friends.

Twitter doesn’t generate enormous traffic but gets me out there and I enjoy connecting with people, I plan to leverage twitter more and more over the next year as just a means of getting to know people and for them to learn who I am and what I am doing.

SocialSpark I have worked hard to become the 3rd most # of friends on SocialSpark and I am hoping to take the 2nd slot in early next year just behind the CEO who automatically has everyone who joins on his friends network (cheater).  I have helped many people on SocialSpark, people will message me with random questions like “How do I get started?”, “How do I Link my blog”, “How do I add the ITK Tools”, and I am always more than happy to share anything I can with people, it comes from my tech support nature in my day job.

Blog Catalog, Zimbio, StumbleUpon, Digg are also helpful and I will be leveraging these more over the next year, particularly StumbleUpon and Blog Catalog which seem to work very well for some people.

For everyone looking to create a successful blog and build readership, and earn a little money on the side, keep this blog in mind as I will be sharing everything I have learned with you at some point as I learn it.  I am by no means making bank, but I have earned between $100 and $150 per month consistantly with my blog by its 2nd month and will be closer to $200 in January I predict.

Happy New Year

-Dragon Blogger

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Technorati Tags: blogging success, dragonblogger, dragonblogger.com, entrecard, justin germino, socialspark, stumbleupon for blogs, successful blogging

Actually got an assignment about a product I plan on purchasing in the next few years and that is a tankless water heater for my house. We have 3 bathrooms in my home and several family members will be taking showers or baths at the same time which causes us to run out of hot water very quickly. Tankless Water Heaters remove the need for that 50 gallon tank in your garage or basement and heat water on the fly as it flows through the unit and into your faucets. This creates and endless supply of hot water that is on demand rather than wasting electricity keeping your water tank heated throughout the day even though you may only use the water at night or early morning.

Though Tankless Water Heaters are slightly more expensive than traditional water heaters, there is some tax credits of $300 dollars on some models in 2009, and they last typically 2x as long in years, so if you had to buy 2 Water Heaters in 20 years, and only 1 Tankless Water Heater then you would be at the same cost + the benefit of the monthly savings on your electricity bill.

I am in a new house that is 3 years old, so I expect my current water tank to last about 5-7 more years but if it does break down sooner I will be replacing it with a Tankless Water Heater for sure.

Has anyone replaced their Water Heater yet? Do you notice a benefit or disadvantage of the Tankless Water Heater vs the older Tank Model?

I am curious to know.

-Dragon Blogger

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Technorati Tags: home energy, home water system, hot water, hot water system, reducing home energy, saving electricity, tankless water heaters, water heaters

So I found out today that my Wanderer Thoughts poetry blog just got a Page Rank of 2, my personal blog Justin Germino received a Page Rank of 1, and this blog which is more prevalent and popular than both of those blogs is still a PR of 0.  I decided to compare a recent Page Rank comparison against my friend Damien Riley’s Postcards From The Funny Farm Blog.

(Click for larger Image, you can’t see the stats good with this tiny image)

From these stats listed above:
My Wanderer Thoughts blog is same Page Rank as PFTFF blog which should not be possible. The PFTFF has 25x more results on the web, 8x more yahoo backlinks, almost twice as good Alexa rank and yet has the same PR2. Meanwhile Dragonblogger has 5x More backlinks from Yahoo, better Alexa rank and more results on the web than Wanderer Thoughts and is still a PageRank of 0.

If Results from the web was hugely important, then there is no way Wanderer Thoughts would be a PR2. Then again my Rock Along Productions blog is a PageRank of 4, and it has less links, hits and alexa rank than all of these blogs.

The reason why my blogs are penalized is Paid Blogging hurts your PageRank, everyone knows it. Its a shame though because of the double edge sword, you need a high PR to score better opps, and doing paid opps hurts your PR. I continue to try and model my strategies to match Damien Riley’s but he has almost two year lead on blogging over me, so I wish I could tell my readers that I know how I achieved a Google PR and the best way to say this is:

Web Sites without paid content will automatically have higher PR than if you have a disclosure badge, or do PPP or PayU2Blog posts. This is why Rock Along Productions and Wanderer Thoughts which do no paid content or posts have a PR of 4 and 2 respectively yet have less than 30 unique visits per day in comparison to Dragonblogger.com which has over 300 unique visits per day.

The odd thing is my personal blog does do paid posts, SocialSpark and PayU2Blog and it still has a higher PR than my Dragonblogger, so this throws a wrench in the works. Dragonblogger is the only one that has done PayPerPost opps though, so does Google specifically penalize PayPerPost blogs?

Just some of my thoughts and comments.

-Dragon Blogger

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Technorati Tags: getting pagerank, google pagerank, lost pagerank, making sense of pagerank, pagerank 0, pagerank heads or tails, pagerank nonsense, pagerank sense, penalize pagerank

After seeing the trailer to the new Dreamworks film Monsters VS Aliens which was on the Kung Fu Panda DVD, I am not ashamed to admit that I was laughing as hard if not harder than my 5 year old.  This movie looks fantastic and so funny.  It takes a parody of War of the Worlds, Godzilla, It Came From the Desert and rolls it all into one.  An alien invasion spoof where monsters are called upon to help save the earth, the humor looks spot on and I am betting this will be a huge hit for Dreamworks.

What do you think of the preview, are you looking forward to seeing it?  I honestly would see it in theaters even if I didn’t have kids, but bringing my 2 boys will at least make me not stand out in a crowded theater.

-Dragon Blogger

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Technorati Tags: dreamworks aliens, dreamworks monsters, dreamworks movie trailer, Dreamworks Movies, Monster Movie Spoof, Monsters Vs Aliens, new dreamworks movies

I am one of those people who upgrades their cell phone through my provider every year or two when I can upgrade a phone and renew my service account. I usually get either a discount or a free phone on the lower end. When I saw that bestincellphones.com allows you to get a Blackberry Pearl for free I was absolutely amazed. Seriously, even with contracts directly it costs over $200 to get a nice blackberry even if it is a model a few months old.

But after looking for free verizon phones I found that the offer was a free Blackberry Pearl, with a new Verizon account and with activation waived. This was an excellent way to get a high quality new phone for new cellular subscribers.

Of course all of the best free phone deals are for people willing to purchase a new Cellular company account activation or switch carriers. Like if you were currently with Verizon and wanted to look for new free Sprint phones you can find a wide variety that are free even phones in the $200 - $400 range are free with a new contract.

However I did find many free models for people who are just wanting to upgrade their phone by renewing their contract with your existing carrier. So even if your looking to upgrade and want to look for free Tmobile phones you can find 10 cell phones that are free just for renewing your contract. Some phones like the Nokia 2760 and the Samsung T429 have enough of a rebate that you actually get money back from choosing that phone making you actually gain a credit just from choosing the phone and renewing your contract.

If you were in the market to setup a new account with AT&T and looking for at&t cell phones for example they have the Blackberry Curve 8310 not only for free, but with rebates you actually get $74.99 cash back from a mail in rebate. (The phone actually costs .01 cent, and they give you a $75 mail in rebate, which is kind of odd but still works the same way).

I have honestly browsed all categories even though I am only with Verizon at the moment and when my contract comes up in a few months I will be looking for the best cell phone deals and it appears that the deals here are much better than just going through your carrier directly, so it is worth shopping around and comparing.

-Dragon Blogger

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Technorati Tags: best cell phone deals, best in cellphones, cell phone deals, cellphone deals, cellphone specials, free cell phones, free cellphones

My wife actually picked out this movie at blockbuster as the read on the back of the box looked interesting.  The movie wasn’t as funny as I thought it was going to be, however the movie was most enjoyable and is a good romantic film that shows that any relationship can have its ups and downs but love is worth sticking it through in the end.

The movie focuses on Frank Allen played by (Ryan Reynolds) I have actually seen 2 Ryan Reynolds movies in 3 days, kind of weird, his other movie Definitely, Maybe was also a very good movie, but he plays a similar role.  His character is a narrator of the story more or less in both movies, and he plays a similar character type.

So Frank Allen is a man who creates lists for everything and is very much organized and in order, rarely taking any unplanned chances or random acts.  Though how he met and married his wife was a rather interesting story, and we learn this as we get more into the film.  The movie all starts when his wife tries to insert a chore into his daily plan and sets the clock backward 10 minutes to give him some extra time to get the chore done.  She accidentally sets the clock forward and causes him to lose 10 minutes however and his day is a complete mess.  He misses his ferry, is late to his “Time Efficiency” seminar where he is the key speaker on how to be efficient with ones time.

Things spiral down hill from here and he blunders into a situation ending up in a hotel room with a groupie, he awkwardly escapes the situation but not before his wife assumes he has been cheating on her.  This leads him to spending the night alone and almost getting into an accident with a woman in labor in her car.  He drives her to the hospital and helps her get admitted, but when the mother runs away abandoning the baby Frank is left and listed as the father.  His wife now thinks he has been having an affair, has a child with another woman, and he is left trying to explain all of this.

Just when you think things can’t get worse, they do and the rest of the film covers all of this.  He learns that he isn’t the father of his daughter, but his best friend Buddy Endrow is (played by Stuart Townsend).  So he assumes his wife had an affair on him, meanwhile she was just as shocked to learn it wasn’t Franks child, Buddy is shocked to learn he actually is a father and still loves and has loved Frank’s wife Emily (played by Susan Allen) the whole time.

The movie has one of the best endings out of this type of movie showing how true love overcomes many things and my favorite part is in the last several minutes of the film and how it all works out between the three of them.  For a movie that I had never seen advertised, not even sure it came out in theaters, this was an unexpected treat and I would give it 4 out of 5 stars in the Romantic Movie genre.

-Dragon Blogger

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Technorati Tags: Chaos Theory Review, Dragon Blogger Movie Reviews, Review of Chaos Theory, Romantic Movie Reviews, Ryan Reynolds Movies

I have been extremely busy experimenting with various blogger social networks and keeping up a presence here and there and I am going to suffer burn out pretty soon I imagine.

I continue to have a strong presence on Twitter with my daily Random Twitter Poems, ironically, my poetry blog is very popular but makes n0 money at all, I don’t do paid posts on it, since I really want it to be my purely creative outlet.

I continue to strongly keep a presence on SocialSpark, Zimbio, Entrecard and have added Blog Catalog, Digg and StumbleUpon.

I also do a little on Mixx, Plurk, as well as leaving blog comments and directly engaging other bloggers via their own blogs.

All of this I do within the short 2 hours per day I have to blog, I usually can’t do much during my work hours but send out a tweet and take in a random poem during my lunch break. My whole purpose is to use these social networks to get to know people and have them get to know me, the more people I meet and interface with the better. Building many social networks is key to getting people to know who you are and once you start getting name recognition among enough people your blog can spread via word of mouth or “tweet”.

I am going to have to invest in espresso machines if I keep up with this level of activity.

-Dragon Blogger

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Technorati Tags: blog advertising, blog sponsorship, blogging for money, make money blogging, making money blogging, paid posts for blogs, payperpost, realrank, socialspark