I must confess on the list of the many many things that I’m really bad at, link building is at the top of the pile so in a feeble attempt to redress the balance I am willing to exchange links with relevant websites to any of the sites listed in My Websites.

I realise that I have now opened myself up to link spammers incorporated, so if you fancy a link exchange please put a link to the site you are interested in on your website first, then contact me with details of your site and where the link is, I will review it and link back.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Sometime we all need bucking up a bit, I’d like to share with you three pieces of prose that I have on my office wall.

Don’t Quit!

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
when the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but do not quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Anonymous

Life

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

Mother Teresa

Salutation to the Dawn

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life,
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth
The glory of action
The splendor of beauty,
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.

Kalidasa, Indian Dramatist

If you have a favourite motivational piece feel free to add it as a comment.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Happy er…. Merry um… Well now, what exactly ARE we all supposed to be celebrating?

The baby Santa, born in a reindeer’s stable

The Jesus who turned over the moneylenders’ tables so we could all run up credit card bills to celebrate his birthday?

Is this Christmas? Xmas?

Whatever it is, more people may feel inclined to question convention than ever before. That’s no bad thing.

Oh sod it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

Credit must go the the astrologer Jonathan Cainer from whom I plagiarized much of the above

Popularity: 34% [?]

I have just been reading a thread on the Affiliates4u forum started by Jess Luthi P3P does it matter any more? which is very worrying this quote from Jess stood out:

… 9 out of 10 merchants site who dont have P3P but who have an affiliate program, I could not add a product to the basket

As I commented on that thread it is yet another reason for shopping cart abandonment, which equals less sales for merchant, less commission for affiliates and less override for networks.

For the record the other posts where I have touched on shopping card abandonment are here
Christmas is coming checkout your checkouts and Why do people abandon online shopping baskets?

Popularity: 55% [?]

Well I’ve finally done it, migrated this blog from Drupal to Wordpress.

I have taken the time to do a bit of house-keeping and deleted a few of the non relevant posts like the singing sheep.

Undoubtedly there will be the odd teething problem so if you come across anything please contact me.

One problem I had was with comments and unfortunately I lost all of them, however I have installed Lucia’s Linky Love plugin which Kieron recommended, as this rewards regular contributors by removing the no-follow from the comment link, not going to say how many comments get you the link love however I wont set it too high to begin with.

Popularity: 37% [?]