Over the last two months I have accumulated more than 25 domain names for ideas that could be potentially great projects. I think I’ve figured out that…. I’m addicted to buying domain names. I just see so much potential in them that I can’t help myself.

Over the last few months I have learned more and more about making money online in so many different ways that I had to actually start a list. As I spend more time researching new internet media avenues I learn just how much potential domain names have.

Owning quality domain names is like owning a piece of digital real estate. You don’t even have to do much with it and it can accumulate value. Heck, you could register a catchy domain name and end up selling it to someone who really wants it for 100x (or much much more) than what you paid for it.

I pay $10 per domain name but if I grab one that an upcoming company might want (before they do), I could potentially sell it for $1000, or even more, to them if they really want it.

So if you can turn a profit from simply registering domain names, imagine what you could do if you invested a little time in a simple but effective idea to develop that domains value. One super simple way to develop your digital real estate (domain name) is by parking it at Parked.com

It’s simple. You have domain names sitting around for those ideas you haven’t been able to get to. They’re collecting dust and definitely not making you money. Thats where Parked.com comes in. You go park your domains there and they setup the website and content for you. If your domain is a catchy one or something commonly searched for, you’ll get visitors and in turn, you’ll get money.

Parked.com is one of the higher quality services and isn’t exactly the easiest to get into. You must have a minimum of 10 domains and they must be reviewed to make sure they are high enough quality to actually turn a profit. I recently applied and didn’t make the cut. Although I have registered an additional 5 domains since then so I may give it another go.

As time goes on, fewer and fewer catchy, creative, and genius domain names are being scooped up. With the domain extensions that are available today, people are getting pretty creative with their domain naming (like Ma.tt).

If you want to start getting in on the domain name real estate game you can get your domain names at tons of different places. I did some quick searching at webhostingtalk.com and found a quick list of 5 registrars to go grab your piece of the pie.

• www.namecheap.com
• www.domaincentral.com
• www.enom.com
• name.com
• godaddy.com

Some people aren’t big fans of godaddy.com and I’m not a fan of them either (as far as hosting goes) but lots of people say they do a good job with domain names. I would go with namecheap.com but I am currently with rapidname.com as a domain reseller and haven’t had any problems with them.

Given a second time around I would have went with namecheap.com or domaincentral.com

If you’re interested to know a few of my domain names:

• yourfilehub.com
• mypagestatus.com
• wikiwokwok.com
• mac4designer.com
• 20dollarblog.com

Those are just a few and were for project ideas but are currently collecting dust….
Soon I will have them parked and either ready to be resold or have a project started at them.

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While researching some other web technology today I kept running across mentions of Drop.io Now, I actually came across Drop.io about a month ago. I took a peek at it and set it aside for later. ….and then I forgot about it.

Well, now that I’ve come across it again I thought i’d take some extra time to really see what can be done with it and what they have to offer. I have to say that thus far I’m really impressed. It’s simple, it’s easy, and it works…really well.

The first thing you’re going to notice (since it’s the entire point of drop.io) is the file storage/sharing capabilities. It’s simple, name your drop, upload your files, pick your settings (super simple) …and drop it!

They don’t ask for an email, you don’t have to go through any sign-up, and it’s fast. Once you choose your drop name and drop it, you go right into the drop (account). As the front page will tell you, you’ll see in your drop that you can do so much more than upload and download files.

Drop.io sets you up with an email address that you can send notes and files to, a voice mail number, the capability to setup a conference call and faxing. So here’s a breakdown:

• Email Address: You can send text for a note or attachments to upload files
• Voicemail: Simple, call your voice mail number, punch in the extension, and leave yourself a message. It will save the message as an mp3 in your drop that you can listen to, share, etc.
• Conference Call: I haven’t tried this one but you have a number setup as your conference call line.
• Receive a fax: You can have people send you faxes, which show up in your drop. They have to print out a cover letter with a special section at the bottom but thats a minor inconvenience.
• Send a fax: I really like this feature. You can easily just send a fax from a .pdf or .doc to anyone in the US.

So thats the gist of the list of features. There are a couple other minor ones like adding links, notes, etc. The last two things I want to mention are premium and widget.

You only get 100MB for free. I know that is not nearly enough for getting some of the files I handle moved around but thankfully you can upgrade the service to 1GB for $10. That also upgrades the drop life to last 1 year. The point of Drop.io isn’t long term storage or large storage, it’s a quick “drop” space but I have a feeling it will turn into much more than that. One thing they don’t mention anywhere except on the “Custom” page is you can purchase more space.

Now about the widget! I don’t like having to go to the drop site every time I want to upload a file. I don’t like having to tell person after person the drop address either. Thats where the widget comes in. Just get the code snipet for your widget and put it in your site.

You can even customize the widget a little bit (assuming you know a little html and css) which is easy. The image above is an example (the View Drop button was added). You can also have the look customized by Drop.io

So there ya have it! Quite a useful site, even for those old faxing goobers out there. This is definitely something aiding the fight against stupid!

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The auction for “C” block wireless airwaves (used by TV broadcasters) in the 700-megahertz spectrum is finally over. Verizon Wireless is guessed to have won the auction but the winners are still being kept secret.

Lots of people don’t like Verizon but I’ve had cellular service with them since high school and they’ve always been great for me. I know have 4 phone lines and “unlimited” broadband with them. They’ve always done well and taken care of me so I hope if they did win the auction that they come up with some really good services and make them cheap! lol, like Verizon is going to do that.

The auction apparently ended at $19.59 billion!

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For those of you new to WordPress and even those of you who haven’t heard yet, WordPress released a sneak peak of WordPress 2.5

Looks like the admin/control panel has some much needed updates and upgrades.

“…customizable dashboard, multi-file upload, built-in galleries, one-click plugin upgrades, tag management, built-in Gravatars, full text feeds, and faster load times…” ~ by Matt over at WordPress.org

They have apparently redesigned WordPress from the ground up. That sounds pretty exciting to me since there are so many features I feel should be built into WordPress and this would be the perfect opportunity for it to happen.

If you haven’t checked out the sneak peak, take a few minutes and check it out. It looks like some sweet features will be arriving. Hopefully the upgrade process will be a breeze too…

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Awhile ago I signed up for the Hulu.com beta. It was a web based way to watch TV shows, TV clips, and movies. The content was pretty limited but the Hulu magic has been released to the public and not only has more content but had some nice improvements over the beta. Above is a clip I liked from the movie Live Free or Die Hard.

Overall the interface is clean and easy to use. There are ads however but only in the TV shows or movies, just like commercials. Some people really find that annoying but it really doesn’t bother me. It’s common place on TV and the service Hulu offers is much more dynamic and on demand so ads are expected. Plus there is only one ad at a time. Unlike TV which can have 5 ads in a row. Plus the ads are interactive sometimes.

Hulu even has some HD content available. You can embed clips like the one above. They have a neat little “dim lights” feature to dim everything around the screen so it’s easier on the eyes. Some of the TV shows expire though (because of the big boys like NBC).

Playback has worked extremely well on safari and firefox for mac, internet explorer, firefox, and safari for windows XP, and even works well on my old windows 2000 computer.

Here are some of the features Hulu offers:

• Share - Send an email to your friends about a certain show or clip.
• Embed - Put the show on your site.
• Details - What am I watching and when did it air?
• Feedback - Video issues? Report them.
• Fullscreen Playback
• Pop Out Window Playback
• Lower Lights - Makes the site background light gray instead of white.
• Rate - Rate the episode.
• Playlists - Keep track of what you watched. Even comes with RSS feeds and privacy settings.

Here are some of the shows Hulu offers:

• The Office
• Simpsons
• Family Guy
• A-Team
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Arrested Development
• Doogie Howser, M.D.
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents
• WKRP in Cincinnati
• Monk
• Dr. Steve-O
• Keeping Up with The Kardashians
• Weekend at Bernie’s
• Bulworth
• Andy Barker P.I.
• So You Think You Can Dance
• ‘Til Death
• Scrubs
• Bones
• My Name is Earl

They offer lots more content too.

There really are tons of really cool features at Hulu.com and now that it’s open to the public, it’s a simple sign-up (free) and watch away! If they start getting more movies available I may just have to cut out my netflix account from my entertainment stack.

Oh, my personal opinion is that Hulu is better than joost. No software install is required to watch videos at Hulu. That makes it easy to watch stuff anywhere I go. I really think Hulu is a step in the right direction and will really take off.

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(Push the right arrow in the flash app above to flip the page!)

I work at a local newspaper and one of the “new technologies” they have been working on is a flip page viewer online for our printed publications. We have anywhere from 25-35 special sections (as we call them) go out yearly along with the newspaper. Somewhat recently the discovery of Issuu.com came about. There were some issues with our issues Ok, that was kinda lame… So we were having problems uploading our PDF’ed special sections which resulted in getting me involved in solving the problem. It was a simple matter of using the correct .joboptions (PDF settings), which we initially didn’t know about.

So, being the curious bugger I am, since I was now involved, I checked out all the cool things Issuu.com could offer. It’s pretty sweet really. You upload your PDF’ed publication, it converts it into a really nice flash page flip publication. Then you can put the link on your website or you embed the mini-viewer (as displayed above).

ichk! Who wants to send people away from your website? That’s not the goal with most websites. So I was off to solve the problem! Of course I checked out their Help section first and there are two example pages that had already embedded the full viewer at their website.

I wanted to take it a step further and incorporate a column on the left of the page. Why? Because we wanted to be able to provide additional information and links for our advertisers, plus our company logo, etc. It was important to be able to open the page while staying at our website, then navigate to other pages or back to the previous page easily.

To view the end result go here.

If you would like to do this on your site you can download the example files here.

As soon as I have more time I will do a full write up about all the cool features of Issuu.com but I thought I’d share this one right away!

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