At first, we weren’t much for power tools. In fact a few members of our staff were laughed at for not knowing what “Makita” was (it is a brand of tool), but after seeing a catalog with some interesting mascots, our interests were piqued and we got to work. Over the last few months we’ve learned a lot about power tools, about the industry, and look forward to continually marketing wholesalepowertools.com in an effort to make it the #1 online distributor of great price powertools.

As always, it was a pleasure working with  the WholeSalePowerTools team and we look forward to growing with the new site.

Some, mainly league officials, coaches and fellow players, have been voicing their own opinions and distaste for athlete-blogging. And they should be scared, as blogging is the voice of liability forcing individuals and entities to be responsible. The doors that have been secretively closed for so long are now being blown wide open… or are they?

The voice of reason seems to be setting in for the these athlete bloggers, though. A “bite the hand that feeds you” feeling is washing over them, and making it very difficult for athlete-bloggers to be as candid as they would like to be.

“As successful as Benson has been with his creative endeavors, the possibility exists that they could have a negative impact — that the stigma of being a blogger could actually keep a talented 6-10 athlete out of the NBA. Says Benson’s agent, Bill Neff, ‘One GM told me that [the blog] was a red flag, and he wasn’t the first. There’s an insecurity, from NBA guys, about the blog that shouldn’t exist, because Rod is just hysterical. People may end up looking at him less seriously, even though he averages more rebounds per minute than any pro other than Dwight Howard. Instead of thinking of that, [GMs] may be saying, ‘Do we want this guy writing about us?’”

Read the very eloquently stated response of Rod Benson.

All joking aside, it’s actually Tropical Storm Fay, but by landfall tomorrow it is expected to have become a Category 1 hurricane. According to MarketWatch.com:

Fay is expected to become a hurricane as it nears the southwestern Florida coast on Tuesday, NHC said in an advisory issued at 11 a.m. Eastern.

Fay’s maximum sustained winds are near 60 miles an hour with higher gusts, and some strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours.

Atilus’ offices are directly centered around the spaghetti lines and in the middle of the cone of uncertainty. Check out the picture below to see exactly where we are in relation to where the storm is supposed to go:

We are the red dot with a white border.

Having personally been through Hurricane Charlie and the other storms during that crazy 2004 season I am not too worried, but definitely prepared. Atilus will be closed tomorrow because of the storm and we are expecting to open up again first thing on Wednesday. We will all be working from home though so should you need to contact us email would be best.

A quick note though, on doing just a little bit of research for this post I stumbled upon MyFoxHurricane, a very intense site dedicated to tracking hurricanes. Although it is targeted around the Tampa Bay area it has valuable information for anyone watching this or other storms. And… it also offers live chat, if you’re so inclined.

Sell Your House to Europe (I guess the name says it all)

The problem is complicated. You’ve probbably seen or read our writings about the housing market more than a few times. Real estate and property values in Southwest Florida in particular (specifically Cape Coral and my former hometown, Lehigh Acres), as well as other major areas throughout the country, have been devastated by the collapse of the market, brought on through subprime lending. I am almost finished with “Confessions of a Subprime Broker” by Richard Bitner as some loved ones have been really affected by this downturn and I wanted to know more about this debacle.

The solution Sell Your House to Europe offers is simple. Sure, 8500 homes/day are being foreclosed on (over $2,000,000,000/DAY!!!!), but what if there was a way to bring in outside investors or people looking to purchase a second home within the United States? With the dollar being so low compared to the pound or Euro you could also leverage conversion rates and purchase an already supremely discounted home or property for even less.

Sellyourhousetoeurope.com is a simple site that attracts a vast European audience through heavy overseas marketing (both on and offline) and connects them with homeowners in the United States needing to sell or rent their property.

It is a great solution, and sellyourhousetoeurope.com employees are constantly traveling, networking, and marketing overseas to ensure the success of the site as well as the success of its subscribers.

We are very happy to have been a part in sprucing up the site with some enhanced design elements, and look forward to performing online advertising services as well as possibly assist in the programming of the site in the near future. So, if you’re looking for a solution to this Foreclosed Home problem, I highly recommend checking out http://www.sellyourhousetoeurope.com.

What is My Happy Trading? Well, it’s a top secret project we’ve been working on for nearly a year. Planning began around this time in 2007. MyHappyTrading.com is being described as:

Ebay for [financial] content

Ebay allows you to sell products, tables, chairs, body organs, etc.

MyHappyTrading.com allows you to sell your finance related content. Our automated system allows anyone who likes to write about finance (stocks, options, forex, etc.) to author content, record trades, and send email alerts to their followers and make monthly recurring revenue for providing this information… and so much more.

Here is a screen shot:

Okay, so that is the revolutionary idea. But, is that it?

No, of course not! There is so much more. Here is a breakdown of all of many of the amazing features:

• A full fledged Stock/Options/Finance Trading Community - On MyHappyTrading.com you can make friends, create conversations, create groups, and join thousands of discussions about anything you ever wanted to know about finance. Additionally you can be notified when and what all of your buddies on the site are up to. Instantly know where they are, what they are talking about, and saying.
• Chat - Chat is fully integrated allowing you to easily make friends and share in the conversations of others.
• Blogging - a full blogging system that allows you to personally author a blog about your ideas and experiences and allow friends to read.
• Forums - comprehensive forums with topics and posts growing daily. Learn from other people’s experiences.
• Happy Stock Meter - Probably one of the cooler (and simpler) tools on the site the Happy Stock Meter allows ANYONE (members and non-members) to vote on their favorite stocks for free. With this tool you can either see a random stock and chart and rate it (on a scale of 1 - 10) or you can look up a stock. This tool is a quick way to gauge MyHappyTrading users’ opinions of stocks at any given moment.
• Happy Trades Live - A free tool available to all members that allows them to permanently record all of their stock or stock options trades. Additionally, you can also choose to publish your trade publicly, allowing other members to know what you are up to.
• … and lots more.

We’d like to thank everyone at MyHappyTrading for working together to create such an amazing project. It’s been an amazing journey and we hope you will check it out.

PR: n/a I: 0 L: 0 LD: 0 I: 0 wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

So after days of internal debate I decided to give in. I was pulling the trigger. That damn iphone was going to be mine. Until…

In order to enjoy the capabilities that make the phone so amazing requires activation and a 2 year agreement. You might be saying,

“What, is this guy stupid? They all require such term agreements.”

Yes, but what if you decide to move away from ATT service? What if you decide that you no longer want to be held at the mercy of their agreement, and instead you wish to go through a separate service provider for your cell use, and would rather use your iphone for the Ipod and Wi-Fi (Hot Spot) capabilities?

Well, you can’t. Without an active service contract all of those fancy functions are rendered useless.

I wonder if the calculator still works?

But, today, a revolution has happened!!!!!

Google released their amazing “Google Insights” tool.

The tool, pulling data directly from Google’s database of searches, allows you to target categories, timelines, and even… specific areas!

By choosing some or all of the above you can then hone in on words and phrases that are a) not only currently being heavily searched for but also b) find terms that are quickly gaining speed. Every web or internet marketer needs to add this tool to their repertoire immediately!

P.S. you can also use the tool to predict the future.

We have spoken about this issue before, but the business community at large is still not listening.

As a service provider or a product retailer, which should encapsulate all businesses, your number one concern, priority, and purpose is to relate, appeal and please your client or consumer base. PERIOD.

Furthermore, I do not care where you are placed in your managerial hierarchy within your company, what your name badge dictates, or email signature signifies, you are a Customer Service Representative. As high up as the President and CEO of a company, you exist because of your consumers not in spite of them. Your title is only pertinent and reflective of your internal company role not your external company role.

This blog post is inspired by a recent experience of mine, in which I was told by the “General Manager” of my apartment complex that she could not guarantee that the maintenance men would take their shoes off before entering my living room to fix my air conditioning unit (which has been broken and “fixed” 4 different times.) You cannot promise that they would take their shoes off? Why not?

She responded that they report to the “Maintenance Manager” and he reports to her. What?

Does there have to exist such a disconnect in a management interface?

She should have agreed to my simple request and responsibly made sure the “Maintenance Manager” was aware of my concern. A simple phone call would have alleviated any potential problem.

It is amazing how something so simple can mean so much to your customers, and yet be so hard for businesses to comply.

Well, my lease is up soon, and my check book reports to my pen and my pen reports to me… looks like I have a disconnect of my own.

A related video you may find interesting:

http://www.google.com/search?q=Promote+your+web+venture

Atilus does pretty well, between 1 & 2 depending on when you search. Not bad at all! Google is routinely indexing the site and we have seen our posts on Google in as little as 5 minutes.

But, as many of you know I authored a post the other day on “How to get on techcrunch.com,” and I decided to quick see if that one was popping up:

http://www.google.com/search?q=How+to+Get+on+TechCrunch.com

No Atilus. Strange.

I then searched for the actual page and wah-lah (is that how you spell that)…. nothing.

It seems that Google completely ignored or excluded this page from their index. Why? Well, it is really my fault. Most of it was copied (although cited) verbatim from the original post.

The point is DO NOT COPY TEXT FROM OTHER websites. It will not be indexed and may hurt your rankings.

I am going to lick my wounds, edit the post, and pray that Google forgives me.

That is why they have created Youtech.me, which offers an avenue to showcase your new application to the tech world.

They are going to be scouring the internet looking for new and old web based applications that they fancy to write reviews of these applications, which will include notes on design, functionality and ease of use among others.

But you can grease the wheel, so don’t be shy and navigate to their contact form and fill out all sections, including a 3-4 sentence comprehensive description of your application that you wish for them to include in a blog post about you.

Yes! They are eager to write a review of your site!

Things just got fun again!