Entrecarders!
WHO DID YOU FIND WHILE DROPPING THIS WEEK?!

It’s time for us to give out some linky love to our favorite Entrecarder of the week!
COPY THE BANNER AND BLOG ABOUT YOUR FAVORITE THIS WEEK.
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EntreCard Find of the Week is now a collaborative effort between Moomettesgram’s Musings and
The Mom With Brownies.

I luv participating in Entre-Find of the Week!’ What a cool way to share the newest blogs you’ve EC dropped in on!

Yes, I know today is Sunday, and as usual, I’m always a day late & dollar short.  Since Slugger’s arrival about 10 days ago, I’ve found myself helping DD out with ‘Lil Moomette.  It seems that since Charming Son-In-Law went back to work after a short “family time leave,” DD has had a meltdown of sorts and is finding out that….geez, being a mommy of 2 isn’t a piece of cake!  So who does she call?  Her own mama!

Anyways, I’m here today, ableit late, about my friend Kim’s new website, JA Blog Grapics.

Long before JA Blog Graphics was born, I had Kim do a few 125 x 125 banners for me. You wouldn’t believe how talented she is, it just blows me away!  See, Kim is an architect by profession ~ and that just amazes me too.  Kim has a natural talent and eye for presentation.  Kim also writes a mean blog at What’s That Smell, and is also one of my award winners of Moomette’s Best WAHM/Blog Site Award.

While I’m at it ~ What’s That Smell is sponsoring a Virtual Baby Shower ~ and Moomette’s Magnificents Olde Towne Shoppes is one of the sponsor/donors ~ you have to see the cool Baby Blankets that I’ll be donating!

Besides banners of all sizes, Kim also does Headers & Sets.

Like my new Banners?  Kim did the WAHM Guru one for me, matching Plug Buttons & a non-static Avatar, as well as the “Been Around the Block” one promoting my Product Reviews.

Now I’m all gussied up for all the WAHM and eBiz forums that I belong too.  No longer is anyone looking at my Maxine Avatar!

So if you’re in the market for some unique artistic talent to promote your WAHM blog, site or eBay store, go check out JA Blog Graphics, and let Kim know Moomettesgram sent you!

Who was your favorite EntreFind this week? Click here to learn how to play. Don’t forget to come back after you blog about your weekly favorite to leave the link to your post below. We want to read your favorites too!

I’m going to make a few interesting observations on Social Networking Forums and Web 2.0 here.

While I don’t purport to be an expert, I have seen a change in direction from when I first started blogging.

Recently I’ve received several e-mails from some of the forums I belong to asking me to stop back & show my face.  Since I’ve been online, I’ve joined countless WAHM and Business forums.  While I still belong to all of the original ones I’ve joined, (outside of the ones I’ve gotten kicked out of, including Facebook ~ read about it here too) I only actually keep up with just a few.

Here’s where I’m going with this.

The newer forums I’ve joined, such as Mom Bloggers Club, Posh Momma, Hip Mama’s Place, MomDot, Moms United in Business, Cafe Mom and others, have all the bells & whistles where you can add your own “About Me” pages; put up your banner logos; website information; links to your blogs; article bases, Wow!  You can comment on other peoples pages ~ join groups, start discussions and more! There is just sooo much social interaction, it’s mind boggling!  There’s Twitter Groups; Entrecard groups; Digg Groups; Regional Groups; and on and on.

Some of the original forums ~ the ones that are sending emails saying “Please come back ~ visit us again ~ we’ve added new Contests to get you to come back ~ they just.don’t.get.it.

The format is older ~ just a list of topics, and you get to add a verrrrry limited siggy.  That’s it.  It’s so hard to keep in contact.   One particular forum, the bloggers mentioned they don’t use Entrecard (now, if you have a Blog, Entrecard is really a “Must-Have” for traffic.)  See my previous post HERE.

Also, hardly anyone knows about, much less uses Twitter.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much traffic I’m now receiving since I started “Twittering.” For those of you who don’t Twitter ~ it’s considered a form of micro-blogging, and there is definiately an audience for it that you need to capture.

Now what’s ironic about my observations, is all this is coming from me, a Baby Boomer Gram.  I’ve made light of the fact in the past how as a Boomer I’m struggling (well, not really, I’m a Geek at heart) to keep up with technology, and always have to stay one step ahead of the curve & my kiddos.  (Read THIS POST.) Now I’m not fresh out of High School, College or anywhere even close.

The difference between the new Web 2.0 forums and older forums is like night and day; analog and digital; VHS & DVD; Tape Decks and CDs.

Forum Administrators have to keep ahead of technology if you’re going to retain your membership.  Members are going to flock to where there are bells, whistles & graphics nowadays.

We are all spread so thin today and only have a limited amount of time to spend online, and obviously want to maximize that time to our fullest potential.

Why does it take Gram here to point this out?  What do you think?

Do you find yourself drawn to the newer forums?  Are you still frequenting the older ones?  Hmmm?

‘Contest! Prize Package worth OVER $2000.00′ ~ Mom’s United in Business

Mom’s United in Business is holding a contest!

Contest Deadline: Friday August 15, 2008 11:59pm EST
Winner will be chosen via random drawing and announced Monday August 18, 2008

Prizes have been generously donated by members of Moms United in Business.

The super Prize Package is worth over $2,000.00 !

We are not merely a business community, promoting women and their businesses. We are an organization of motivated and energetic women offering inspiration and support not only as a wife, mother, sister, daughter, and/or friend, but as a woman in your own right!

We believe that by following our own dreams, listening to the whispers of our hearts and by nurturing ourselves we are then able to give more abundantly to our families and our businesses.

We are dedicated to supporting you as both a Mom and a Business Professional. As we all know, the key to a successful business is networking and to a successful life is balance!

If you’re serious about your business ~ Join MUIB today!  It’s FREE!

VOTE FOR ME ~ KEEP ME ON TOP ~ I’M A TOP MOMMA ~

Click the Button to Keep Me On Top!

Are you looking for a terrific, friendly forum to join to network your WAHM business? Then look no further!

I’ve been a member of Smart Moms ~ Smart Business for quite some time now. The ladies are really friendly, intelligent and quite helpful. It’s one of the few forums that I find myself revisiting and participating in quite frequently for all the helpful business advice, family discussions, cooking tips and camaraderie.

Work At Home Moms - Smart Moms ~ Smart Business, LLC
is a resource for women; teaching how to create multiple streams
of income by working from home. Free tips & tools, forum, eBook,
and consultation.

Sign up for the lively forum discussions, and don’t forget to get the helpful Free eBooks that are available for download!  Tell them I sent you!

I’ve been so busy lately, I can’t even breath! Between getting ready for the birth of my new grandson; trips up to Vermont for Charming Son-in-Law’s mom’s 50th birthday party ~ plus we have a wedding coming up that I have to find a dress for!

That’s left very little time for me to try to get any eBay listings done for my eBay store. I’m trying to list things for Back-to-School, along with all the vintage collectibles, sewing patterns and other items I picked up on my recent trip to Upstate New York when I visited my brother.

I also offer Hard-To-Find Health, Beauty & Cosmetic items.  If you’re looking for something in particular or a special brand and can’t find it, e-mail me here and I’ll try to locate it for you and add it to my store!

Here’s a great tip to have fantastic, awsome auctions if you are a SAHM mom, new to selling on eBay, or want to learn how to start selling your household items on eBay to earn a little extra money.

Check out Seller’s Source Book. They literally have thousands of terrific templates to help you have a professional looking auction.

A professional looking listing is no longer a “nice to have” it is a “need to have.” Let us help you maximize the potential of your auctions!

You can schedule your listings to launch directly to eBay ~ have matching About Me templates ~ Host your own images without any additional fees ~ and be privy to Product & Services Reviews,  Articles, Hints & Tips and a Seller’s Community Forum.

Want to see how beautiful the templates are?  Click on any of my auctions and see all the different examples!

Check out SSB if you want to maximize your sales! I’m sure that’s part of what helped me to become an eBay Power Seller!

Don’t be alarmed! I’ve felt that one of my banners The Mom Pack banner needed an “attitude adjustment” and therefore I did a little redecorating and replacement with this one such renegade banner!

It’s that time again, where I’m going off on a tangent.  Hot Flashing about whatever gets my dander up.  I’m providing this service to all the Moms out there and sharing my experiences in the e-commerce world.

Within the last 1-1/2 years since I’ve been “online,” I was advised to join various Mom forums.  There’s one in particular that’s highly touted as being helpful, however, it’s moderated.

By moderated, I mean that anytime you want to post a comment, suggestion, response, etc., your post has to go through the forum administrator.

So, over the last year or so, I’d been lurking, picking up bits & pieces of useless usefull useless information.  Many of the moms post trying to hawk promote hawk their products, contests, news, etc.   Most of the time the comments are veiled, and disguised as if to provide information.  If you are savvy and can read between the lines, you really see that they’re trying to sneak in a little self-promo.

The quality of the valuable information has taken a dive digressed taken a dive, and provides nothing but a middle-school  lunchroom sorority house Animal House atmosphere where the sisters travel in packs.  I’m so happy I blog.

I’ve voiced similar concerns here in the past.

Wicked Stepsisters

One of my online buddies has become so disgusted disillusioned disgusted that she’s since gone “No Mail” on this particular forum.

This is a photo of the Yahoo Group Homepage.  You can see how the number of posts have been steadily declining.

You see, I think they’re arrogant and they play favorites.  When I tried to make a simple post, no different than that of anyone else, I got a nasty polite nasty email from the forum moderator Julie saying that if I didn’t like their rules, perhaps the site is “not for me.”  Harumpf.  I’ll lurk, thank you very much.  So now I’m a Persona Non Grata, and bet ya none of my posts will go through, should I decide to try to post again. (Don’t have to be concerned about posting there anymore.)

I’ve found that the moms on mommy blogger forums, and even non-mommy blog forums are much nicer, and willing to share all kinds of information.  If you don’t blog and would like to know how to go about starting a blog, join the Mom Bloggers Club.  They’re a great bunch over there!

As my faithful followers know, I’m not Edith,  I don’t like being stiffled, and I speak up when I feel the need to.

Pay attention to what’s going on in the forums you join, and read what’s between the lines.

I haven’t checked the calendar, but I bet it’s pretty close to a Full Moon tonight. Usually I know when it’s a Full Moon because I hear the Consumer Services Reps bouncing off the ceiling fielding telephone calls, as they sit not too far from me at my cubicle job. But I didn’t go into the cube today.

It seems all day long, all I’ve had is technical problems.

First, all of the my incoming links to this blog disappeared from my Admin Panel. Then, I can’t upload all of my ebay store new inventory items to Google Base Connector, because I found out after doing a post on Suzanne Wells‘, the eBay Coach Free Forum that it’s down, and has been down for awhile, and the Google gods can’t fix it, yet.

Also, Social Spark and Pay-Per-Post are having issues, and that’s messing up some of the blogs according to my Mom Bloggers Club friends, and Tammy at Mommy Knows Everything, in particular (who kindly responded to a comment I posted on her site. See, she does Know Everything!)

However, in spite of all that, here’s a tip for all of you who’ve bothered to read as far down as this sentence.

I use Avast as my anti-virus protection, and ran a scan today because of other issues. Thank goodness for that FREE terrific software. Here’s how to get a FREE download:

Avast Anti Virus 4 Home Edition. The most recent release, Version 4.8.1201.80611 contains improvements in spyware and rootkit detection.

Although this program is free to use you must register before the end of the 60 day trial period. Once you have completed the registration you will receive an email with your license key which is valid for one year. Once you have downloaded and installed the program, insert the license key within 60 days. The registration process is simple and only takes a few minutes. At the end of the one year you simply need to re-register and obtain a new free license.

Download the FREE English version here. By the way, this is not a paid post, just a good tip!

Hat Tip to Colin! Thanks!

Depression Bread Lines

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Bob Dylan

I’m probably hot-flashing again, dear readers, as I’m getting into one of my moods where I feel I must speak up. I’m posting this on my Musings Blog, rather than my “fun” Mama Mentor Blog, because ~~ this is not a fun topic.

Part I

I belong to several social networking forums. One in particular, a Mom forum, has been heavily debating the State of the Union and the economy, and whether anyone thinks it’s affecting their WAHM business. As the posts are moderated ~ well, you can understand that many do not get through. Personally, I’m getting a little tired of that forum. Thank goodness I blog, so I can expound and get on my high horse.

Many of the Mom members are young. I have nothing against being young ~ I was there myself once long ago.

But I cannot agree with their comments that the economy is rosy, things are great, and that the media is just making things out to look badly. Forum comments reflect the position that the economy is only bad to those whom are personally affected by it. Yes, and no. There’s a maxim that the “personal becomes the political.” I can agree with that.

However, I just didn’t fall off the apple cart. I’m a Baby Boomer and I’ve been married for 34 years, and have obviously lived through the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Never have I seen things looking so bad for this country.

As many of you know, I live in New England. I filled up my car today. I’d been riding on fumes, and have an American made car. We don’t wear the US flag on our sleeves, but DH insists we do buy American when we can. It cost me $64 to fill up today. I’m saving that gas receipt, just for ha ha’s. I used to have a 2002 Malibu that we bought new. In 2002, it cost me $12 to fill, which I thought was great, since it replaced the 1995 Windstar mini-van that I had.

Methinks that the young moms are looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. Just because you’re perhaps not personally affected, doesn’t mean the rest of the country isn’t. We’re what I consider, or used to consider middle class. I’m a college grad. I have a DD who’s a college grad, and another who’ll graduate in May 2009. My DH spent time at Marquette University in Milwaukee, and now owns his own business.

I read over 20 national newspapers a day because of my cubicle job. One of my favorite columnists is Debbie Solomon from the Burlington Free Press in Vermont. Her recent post sums up my feelings better than I can express them. Read it here. I hope this link continues to work.

Kiddos, things are going to get much worse before they get better. Hold on to your hats, you’re in for a ride.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my rantings and ravings on this subject. Comments appreciated.

Well, the saga of my experiences as an Affiliate Marketer continues. My faithful WAHM readers may be familiar with my promise to keep you informed on how things are going with being an Affiliate Marketing Independent Consultant.

It’s not going. In fact, it’s going bye-bye.

My list of banners and buttons is getting smaller. Tonight I resigned from 4 more companies. Another one bites the dust. Why you may ask?

Well, I’m sick and tired of having to meet “Quota” each month or quarterly. Many of these Affiliate sales companies require you to make a quarterly purchase of at least…$25.00, which, I don’t feel like spending on something I may or may not need if I haven’t had any sales. There’s only so much I can put aside for Christmas, or give to my DDs.

I’ve decided to take the advice of a member of a WAHM forum who had commented on the same issue. Instead of spending money on Quota items, I’d rather spend the money and invest it into inventory for my own stores, either my eBay store or my Moomette’s Magnificents Olde Towne Shoppes. Actually, the way the economy is going right now, my gas tank might even be a good place to spend this “new-found” money.

The competition on the forums is fierce, with too many moms hawking the same affiliate products. They’re hawking the products through Yahoo Groups (don’t get me started again on those); through traffic exchanges; through forums. Not only that, turf wars exist. For example, before tonight’s drop and run, I had posted on a forum and apparently had stepped on someone’s toes ~ and heard about it. Give me a break. Thinking there were too many cooks in the kitchen, I resigned.

Here’s another example of why I dropped out. I invested in a domain name for one of the companies, and had it redirected to my affiliate URL. Each time I thought I had made a sale, I got an email from the company owner saying “we’re having a problem with the server ~ sorry, it came through the main site, not your affiliate URL ~ commission denied.” This happened one too many times. I wasn’t born yesterday, lady.

To add to this headache, I know I have “downlines” who signed up under me. One company refused to give me the name of my downline, except under pressure when I asked. Think I’ve seen any money in my Paypal account from any of her sales? Not.

I’m still giving the companies a shot that don’t require a sign-up fee, nor require that you meet a monthly quota.

So tonight ladies, I’m just here to suggest that ~ perhaps your hard earned money can be better spent someplace else, rather than trying to meet a company owner’s mandated quota each month and fattening their pockets.

It’s brutal out there, and besides, it’ll cut down significantly on the junior high chit-chat e-mails when I unsubscribe from those Yahoo Groups.

If you sell on eBay and have an eBay Store, you may or may not be aware that there have been some recent changes to the advertising policy toward About Me pages.

From the current talk about town, on forums and other sites, live links to outside sites are no longer allowed.

For example, I can no longer have a clickable banner pointing to this blog on my eBay About Me page. Nor can I have live links to my Shoppes site, or my direct sales affiliate links, such as Auction Sniper or Sellers Source Book (which, by the way, is a great source for beautiful templates for your auctions!)

So last night I spent quite a bit of time “killing” the live links to my sites, while still keeping the banners up. I had to figure out a way to point my customers to my other sites, and hope that most of them are computer savy enough to know how to find me from the dot com breadcrumbs I’ve left for them! Being a creative WAHM with an ebiz is hard enough already!

My “new” About Me page is here.

If you still have live links on your site, you might want to re-think doing your own About Me page so you’ll be in compliance with eBay’s new policy.