If you’re a regular visitor to the blog, you’ll notice occasional changes – some more obvious than others. Today, the changes are very obvious! I’ve given the site a major overhaul. Britain’s trying to sort out its’ next government – in the strangest election result that’s every happened in my lifetime – and I’ve been up following the news through the night the past few nights. So while I’ve been up, I’ve updated the site theme – to a more modern, almost minimalist theme that’s inspired by the iPhone’s ‘Notes’ app .

You can now enjoy Notes from A Yorkshire Internet Megalomaniac’s closer integration with Facebook and Twitter, clearer access to my social media links, a cutting-edge comment platform, and a few other little tweaks.

Now the blog’s looking nice and fresh, I will once again redouble my efforts to update more often – it’s a constant struggle juggling 3 companies, a social media presence, writing, training, networking, technical work etc… but you probably know that – what’s that you say? Yeah, poor me – I know – grumpy, northern, englishman… it’s due to lack of sleep since Thursday!

Oooh, I almost forgot – I got access to a site that’s not even launched til next week, where I got hold of a copy of Copyblogger‘s as yet unreleased guide to ‘Creating Compelling SEO Content That Ranks Well in Search Engines’. If you want to sneak a copy for yourself before everyone gets hold of it next week, visit this pre-release launch page – you don’t have to leave your email or anything, just download the guide. I’ve printed it out, it’s good stuff.

Take care and have fun doing what you do out there,

Rob

p.s. Let me know what you think of the site updates – leave me a comment below.

Pic courtesy of NASA

It’s the ‘worst’ winter in 30 years according to the press, although I beg to differ – it’s the BEST winter in 30 years! Snow may be disruptive, but it’s so very beautiful, with a white blanket covering the everyday dullness of the city, making buildings look ‘postcard pretty’ and presenting a visual splendour out of town as fields and trees proudly display their temporary white overcoats.

Happy New Year to all of you, and all the best for 2010. I’ve got big plans for this year, although I haven’t made any resolutions – actually that’s an untruth, I made one – to go swimming more often as it’s my physical therapy – but I’ve broken it already due to the fact I can’t get to the gym because of the snow! Which brings me onto what I want to discuss today – why New Years Resolutions suck, and why you shouldn’t make them!

I have nothing against planning or setting goals – these are both worthy activities that will help you get where you want to be. In fact, I insist you set some goals and plan towards reaching them – how will you know how you’re going to get where you want to be unless you have a map? However, don’t name them ‘Resolutions’! Why? Because you’re setting yourself up to fail straightaway…

People don’t generally make New Years Resolutions because they are committed to changing a behaviour, getting rid of a bad habit, or achieving something.

People make New Years Resolutions so that they have something to say when other people ask “What are your Resolutions for this year?”.

Over the years, you have probably made hundreds or thousands of resolutions that you’ve later broken… or never even attempted to keep. In people’s minds, New Years Resolutions are things you make but don’t make the most of. So what if they fail – millions of other people have done exactly the same thing… 2 or 3 weeks into the New Year, old habits reemerge and new improvements slide back to 2009 levels. Subconsciously, we know that New Years Resolutions are useless – a traditional pastime borne of the New Year, soon forgotten as winter fades into memory.

Okay so some people manage to keep their resolutions – but I reckon they’re in the minority. More people give up smoking in the New Year than at any other time of year, and hopefully many remain non-smokers forever… but the majority eventually return to tobacco’s vice-like grip and the comfort of the burning stick of reduced lifespan.

So this year, don’t make any New Years Resolutions. Save yourself the time and effort and future disappointment as you go back on your festively-induced promises.

Instead go out and buy yourself a notebook. In that notebook write down the things you want to achieve in 2010.

Once you have those goals written down, then you can start to plan how you’re going to achieve them.

Once you have your plan, start working towards your goals. Keep it positive and you’re more likely to succeed.

I hope you’re having a great snowed-in day, and let’s all look forward to a successful 2010 filled with fun and laughter (but not Miley Cyrus!)

Rob Bell

I’m not quite sure what it is… it’s not time, it’s not lack of ideas, it’s not lack of content… but something makes this blog harder to keep updating than any of the rest of my web estate! Those of you who follow me on social networks know that I’m online plenty, always researching new and quality information and applications, engaging with and sharing with people. I have almost 2,300 Twitter posts to my name at the time of writing this, so why oh why oh why do I find it such a chore to look after my blog? It’s been 6 weeks since my last update here – shame on me!

Does anyone else share this malady, and find their blog to be the hardest part of their web presence to maintain?

Of course, I have a bagful of excuses – too much client work, medical appointments, other jobs to do, things to learn, too busy talking to people – but at the end of the day, they are just excuses. I can make time for this blog, I’ve just failed to do so, and I aim to rectify this starting today. I made an agreement with my mentor to finalise the core of each of my sites – I’m going to include this site too, so a redesign to fit in with the others is imminent!

I always put pressure on myself to make my blog posts fit certain criteria – they have to be a certain minimum length, be original content that isn’t lifted from somewhere else, pass my rigorous quality standard… and I set the bar too high for myself, it’s so high I can’t realistically hope to fulfil all the requirements every single time – I have been paralysed by my own perfection-demanding nature. I read Seth Godin’s blog posts each day via RSS and they’re not often very long at all – why do I crave lengthiness in my own??!?

So today I’m giving myself a slap and reminding myself of the saying “You don’t have to be great to get going, but you do have to get going to be great”

What are you going to get going today to get great?

Rob Bell

p.s. I stayed up until ridiculous o’clock to ensure I got my vanity link on Facebook, so I’m going to use it lots – friend me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/robbell

p.p.s. And as if you didn’t already know, on Twitter I’m @robbell

According to this article in Computerworld Twitter traffic has shot up, not due to the teen age group who grew MySpace but rather older people – 45-54 years olds, followed by my generation – the 25-34 year olds. OK you got me, I’m 37 but that’s only on the outside! A ComScore survey found that 18-24 year olds, the ‘traditional’ social media early adopters, were actually 12% less likely to use Twitter than the average. They also found that older users spend more time on the site each visit.

Now I’m not going to repeat the facts in the article verbatim, you only have to click the link above to read it for yourself, but it did get me thinking about why older users might like Twitter much more than other networks. I struggle to believe that I’m now in the 35-54 age group for many surveys, but believe that my generation may be seriously affecting surveys who class us with those almost 20 years older. We were the first generation to grow up with computers available at home – ok they were 1k ZX80s and 48k ZX Spectrums in the early 80s, but we still had them at home,and I’ve now been a computer user for some 29 years (eek!) and an Internet user since 1991, 18 fun filled years (actually 5-10 fun filled years, the days before broadband were awful, we’d wait all night downloading a rubbish picture of a topless girl – that’s right – a picture, just one cos it took that long… You broadband pervs have no idea how lucky you are!) I think people my age have started to skew the survey results where we’re listed with people 20 years older – but that’s beside the point because the article and report don’t use that age grouping – they do it by 10 year gaps, much more accurate and representative, so let’s just get to the point!

I think this metric could have something to do with the ease of use of Twitter in comparison to the other social networks – somewhere like Facebook/MySpace where you have profiles, upload photos and videos, make use of applications you have to install and so forth can be daunting to older people with less computing/internet experience. Maintaining your profile and keeping it updated can take up lots of time, and it’s all very daunting to lots of people. Twitter on the other hand is a beautiful piece of simplicity for the user, and not at all threatening for the inexperienced computer user. You can be up and running in minutes, and there’s always something to read about. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t picked it up and been able to use it straightaway.

Young people easily understand technology, having grown up with it – it’s hard to think we’ve only had computers in the home for about 30 years because they’re everywhere now. My Dad used to stare at my screen in bemusement when he came round because he didn’t believe the people talking directly to me via the computer screen could possibly be real – how were they getting there, and how was text appearing on my screen when I wasn’t typing?!?! Bless him, he was from a generation that grew up before television – he even used a horse and cart for his coal round in his younger days before vans and lorries became the medium of transport for commerce.

How things have changed in such a relatively short space of time in the greater scheme of things.

I think it’s a great positive that Twitter’s attracting an older generation, and many people in their later years find this massive world of information, entertainment, discussion and communication to be as useful and involving as I do. When I broke my back and had to lay down at home for a long time, I couldn’t have survived without the Net – I’d never have escaped my 4 walled virtual prison without it. I see the Net giving those with less mobility wings through which to set themselves free online. I also see it as giving voice to the voiceless and community to the lonely and isolated (although the isolated may struggle to get decent speed broadband in rural areas so they’ll have to stay away from streaming video!)

As the older generation starts to welcome the tech savvy teens of the 80s like myself into their throng via the ‘excuse’ that “we’re not old, we’re only just heading into middle aged”, I’d like to say to each and every one of you silver surfers, “Welcome, it’s a mad place and you’ll fit right in!”

Rob

p.s. I have no excuse for not posting very often today, beyond ‘Twitter ate my homework’

Since November last year, my natural sleep pattern – always a source of great annoyance, because I don’t appear to have one – has gone downhill again. The current time zone I’m living in has the following characteristics:

Wake up mid afternoon, and go back to sleep until dark. Wake at 6pm noticed it’s dark and 6 so it must be morning time – too early to get up…. then spot the 24 hour clock and realise you’ve actually slept all the way through daylight, except for that bit you saw streaming through your window just before you went to bed.

Swear lots because that’s another day you’ve missed and most things that involve people have to be done between 9am & 5.30pm – the traditional time for work, yet not the one used by this dojo!

After an evening meal as breakfast, sit at the computer and start the day’s business… continue until 2.30am then contemplate going to bed to start getting bodyclock back to normal times. Then sit back down at PC, end up really getting into something that could wait until morning, and end up staying up until 9-10am (it was 9.23 this morning!) before going to bed and struggling to sleep before mask is applied that keeps light from your eyes. Sleep very heavily, with phone unable to wake me up – doorbell has a better chance, but it’s still not guaranteed!

Wake up at 3, but feel it’s cold so sleep again until 6 – go through exactly the same as yesterday!

That routine is fine when you don’t need to be to do anything, but this week I’m attending 5 lectures and an employment discussion – all starting at 9.30 in the morning – which has been my bedtime for some weeks… It’s really snowy so that could be a great excuse if I miss it, but it’s only 1/2 mile on foot, which may take some time and be a little painful thanks to my cripple’s hip, but at least I’d be there…

If I get off the computer now and go to bed I could get 7 and be up at 8…. although lets face it I have only been up for 5-7 hours today so I’m not exactly tired. Solution – popped a sleeping tablet, and will be sleeping after all!

So I have to attend lots of daytime events this week for which I must become a daywalker once again! This means I won’t be around as late on the US conferences and seminars I tend to follow – most don’t even start until 1 or 2 am here.

Working online can be great fun, but once you adjust to the later nights (due to our being 5 hours ahead of
Easstern Time) it’s hard to get back without pulling at least one all-nighter-and-next-day-too, where you stay up until 10 pm then go catch up on 2 days of sleep. Unfortunately, that night’s sleep oftens lasts 14-16 hours so you lose the next day and are still on nightwalker duty!!!

Last week was increasingly frantic as we finished all the server moves to their new all-singing, all dancing and full-featured new home at RobBellHosting

Just a few problems with transferring the .co.uk domains away fron Lycos and onto 123-reg – Lycos have promised me twice to update the data that’s stopping the transfer, and they STILL haven’t done it having had over a month and 9 letters requesting they get a move on. Lycos have ruined their relationship with me over this – they were always a good company, with an, albeit limited, grip on customer service. Now I won’t use any of their products henceforth – the profitable ones they haven’t closed down, that is.

At least the data’s all moved though – and everyone’s running off the new ips. Yay, glad that’s over – too many all-nighters pulled in 1 week, IMO!

Can’t believe the snow outside – good few inches on the ground everywhere, it looks great – might take my camera out in it if I get the chance tomorrow… between the 2 courses I’m taking. I’ll show you some of the sights in Wintery Wakefield, many of which are truly beautiful – the city always looks lots better with snow covering it!!!

I’ve been using a lot of Traffic Exchanges this week to build subscribers up for my mailing list – go to Rob-Bell.com’s About Rob page to subscribe if you’d like to get my fifty favourite free sites and tools for making money online too. I don’t generally finding TE work to be the most exciting, but it’s fine if there’s something on TV – yes I do both at once! Seen considerable increase to the subscriber numbers – it’s doubled, then that doubled, now we have a nice number!

My first Traffic Exchange recommendations are:
Traffic Splash
Royal Surf
Dragon Surf
I Love Hits
Start XChange and
Advertising KnowHow

I use all these regular and see great results. They’re all free to join, but you can upgrade to increase the rate you generate credits and the number of sites you advertise. I’m going to write more on Traffic Exchanges in the near future, but those 6 are great to get you started. 5 of them offer what is called “SuperSurfing” – if you surf all 5 exchanges at once (using a tabbed internet browser) you get extra credits for each site you view.

I an upgraded member in all of the above exchanges – over a year 1/2 in some of them.

Traffic Exchanges are a very cheap(free) alternative to expensive advertising yet the targeted users on there make them perfect when your product needs the Internet Marketer marketplace. Find out the things they need, and offer them – use sales to pay for exchange monthly upgrades so you get more credits to spend getting your site seen.

Eeek it’s 2.15 am, I haven’t actually had an early night after all – bugger!

To Your Success,

Rob Bell

Tomorrow I’ll be telling you all about the 2 Business Link courses I’m going on – exciting stuff eh?!?!

Now you may know already about my sleep problems. If not, you are about to!

Rob Can't Sleep

Since I’ve been very young I’ve always found it difficult to sleep on a night, but as I’ve got older it’s got worse – especially since I had 3 big extreme sport accidents that mean I get a lot of pain through the night (and the day!)
I have painkillers, relaxants and even sleeping tablets to help me get a decent night’s kip, but they don’t always work.

It’s nothing for me to stay up all night working on the PC, going to bed at 8am if I bother going at all. My record for not sleeping is 106 hours – that was a long week!

When I am asleep, I’m impossible to wake up – for instance, I have 6 powerful plug-in alarms (battery alarms have NO chance) which require me to get out of bed to reach each in a different location in the room. I often end up sleeping until 2 or 3 in the afternoon – if I’ve taken a sleeping tablet I end up sleeping in all day – heck I woke up at 8pm this evening, missing a lovely Sunday Roast at my Mum’s house.

Telephones have no chance of waking me from my slumber, so reminders that I’m meant to be doing something when I’m asleep just go to voice mail.

The trouble with such a lifestyle is that you miss the daytime an awful lot – and it’s difficult to make appointments, difficult to work during the day, you don’t get much sunlight – heck I feel like a non-blood-drinking vampire!

I do, however, most of my best work through the night, finding the peace and quiet a pleasure that helps me to concentrate, focus and write/design documents so much better than I do in the day with all the distractions (on the days I do rise before night-time!)

It’s not unusual for me to work a couple of days without sleep, seated at the PC the whole time except for breaks, trips to the shops, etc….

Now I have a problem! Starting the week after next I have lots of courses I’m attending towards progressing my business development. Many of them take place at 9.30am – a time I’ve only seen when it’s been as I’m going to bed. I haven’t got up at 8.30 for months – it’s going to be a challenge, but I’m at the stage where I’m ready to do this – if I have to train after no sleep so be it. I’m also trying to return my sleeping pattern to what most people consider ‘normal’, sleeping from 12 til 8am. I have to admit I’m finding it so hard – my pain does not like to be told when it has to leave me alone so I can sleep!

The fact that I’m writing this gives away that I am still up after 2am (although I had a sleeping tablet about 2 hours ago). I’m not even slightly tired, and I have a horrendous ache all down the right side of my back.

I’ve tried every cure I can find for the lack of sleeping, but it’s been a lifelong partner of mine. Lately I’ve started to wonder if I don’t have an extended body clock – heck I could be evolving like that because it’s got easier, not harder, to do 35-40 hour sessions at the PC. I read something once that you should only go to bed when you’re tired enough… I don’t think I’d ever sleep again if that’s the only time you should sleep!
I’ve used lavender essential oils and candles, I don’t watch TV in bed on a night unless it’s a special occasion, I have a mug of hot chocolate made with warmed milk – although not tonight as I ran out of hot chocolate!

Anyone else share my sleep problems, and suspect they might have ‘evolved’ to a new sleeping pattern?!?!

Got any tips? I’d love to hear from you,

Rob

How lucky am I? From a small flat to multi-millionaire status without having to do anything but inherit it from a man I never ever heard of who left it to me in his will.

Of course I haven’t really inherited the money – I’ve just got yet another of those letters from strange non-office email addresses which turn out to be from a cheeky chappy somewhere in either Africa, or an Eastern European State, although more and more seem to be coming from chinese email addresses which I find odd given the stringent controls on internet use over there.

I regularly inherit millions from people I’ve never heard, get offered millions to act as a go between and get some money out of a country, and I also get a remarkable amount of offers to grow my penis and viagra – which I find somewhat insulting at my young age of 37!

I thought it might be fun to start a conversation with this guy, so here’s his email first -

The Chambers of Kelvin Smith QC and Associates
2 Bedford Row London,DX LDE 17 WC1R 4BU
United Kingdom.
Email: barr.kelvinsmithchambers101@live.com
Attorney at Law
Faegre & Benson LLP, UK.

Office Hours: Monday – Friday 9:00a.m. – 5:00p.m. Evening Appointments
Available

On behalf of the Trustees and Executor of the estate of Late Engr. Jurge
Krugger. I once again try to notify you as my earlier letter was returned
undelivered. I wish to notify you that late Engr. Jurge Krugger made you a
beneficiary to his WILL. He left the sum of Ten Million Pounds
(GBP10,000.000.00) to you in the Codicil and last testament to his WILL.

This may sound strange and unbelievable to you, but it is real and
true.Being a widely traveled man, he must have been in contact with you in
the past or simply you were nominated to him by one of his numerous
friends abroad who wished you good. Engr. Jurge Krugger until his death
was a member of the Helicopter Society and the nstitute of Electronic &
Electrical Engineers.

According to him this money is to support your humanitarian activities and
to help the poor and the needy in our society. Please if I reach you as I
am hopeful,endeavor to get back to me as soon as possible to enable me
conclude my job. I hope to hear from you in no distant time.

Note: You are advise to contact me with my personal email address:
barr.kelvinsmithchambers101@live.com

I await your prompt response.

Yours in Service,
Barr. Kelvin Smith QC.
Attorney at Law.

And here’s my ‘prompt response’, softly softly for now -

Dear Kelvin.

Regarding the title of your email I assure you I received no first or second email from you relating to the matter.

It is of interest to me that I could be the recipient of what is certainly a substantial amount of money.

Would you mind emailing me back from your office email system with more details?

Thanks,

Rob

So let’s see how it pans out! More reports on this as it develops!

Hi readers,

You’ve perhaps noticed a lack of posting over the lasty couple of weeks, wondered if I had some blog malaise keeping me from writing. Nothing like that I’m happy to report, but I currently have real problems with my phone and internet connection at home – and I knew I used it a lot but for 2 weeks, I’ve felt like I’ve been missing a limb. They’re hoping to fix it finally on Monday, so fingers crossed….

I’ve been unable to access any of my sites, networks, applications. My router keeps dropping at random interval – it cant hold the connection. The speed varies between the 8mb/s I’m supposed to get and the ridiculously slow 542b/s – aaagh!!! And it has been a really tough 2 weeks! The worst part about the whole experience has been dealing with my service provider’s call centre. After over an hour on the phone today, to get nothing at all sorted, I’m afraid to say I lost my cool, called the guy an idiot and insisted to be put through to a senior manager. 5 minutes later, I’ve got an engineer booked for Monday – yay mean Rob!!!

I’ve managed by immersing myself completely in X3 Terran Conflict, but sometimes I wish it was multiplayer, cos Space is a lonely place!

I’m also  running some Internet courses as a bit of volunteer work very soon, I took the disaster that was losing my internet, and decided to work some more on offline stuff – nice to deal with people rather than letters and numbers once in a while!

Hoping to be back really soon,

Rob, on his mates PC

thanks to Elvis for providing today’s headline (although Mark James actually wrote the song!)

A few days working nose to the grindstone have resulted in lots of progress with various projects. One of the projects has given me some headaches though – as my intentions were called into question, very unnecessarily in my opinion.

Previous readers will know about my research project into Internet Marketing, where I’m asking people to submit their single biggest question about Internet Marketing at Ask Rob Bell

This is an important project to me, one I’ve already invested over 1 hundred hours in, so I was a little put out, as you might imagine, when it was suggested to me that it was a transparent trick to harvest email addresses – I mean, what the heck?!?!

I have several ways to increase my subscribers and get people onto my lists, several of which are working very very well, but the ‘Ask Rob Bell’ project is not one of them. I simply want to find out and understand what people in Internet Marketing actually want to know – and asked for email addresses so I could send a copy of the upcoming book to the people with the best questions.

So to allow people who don’t want to leave any contact details to submit their questions, I’ve started a version of the page that only requires the question – no other details needed. Anyone who uses this form won’t be able to get a copy of the book as I’ll have no email address to send it to, but it should make paranoid people feel safer about submitting their best question!

I’m aware of general themes and sub-niches within the industry, but I’m not a psychic – I wouldn’t ever presume to know what other people want to know without asking them first. It seems rather arrogant to think I know so much that I can tell people what they want to know without asking them – am I able to read minds or something?!?!?! Well actually… that’s a tale for another time!

A cornerstone of any successful marketing project has to involve research – without which, how can anyone hope to understand their market fully?

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after” is a quote from J.R.R.Tolkien – author of the Hobbit and epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings trilogy