Today's Three Doses for the Mind.

The First Dose: New knowledge for today - learning and doing initial Site Promotion using Go Daddy's Traffic Blazer.

The new knowledge that I picked up today was the basic fundamentals of how to promote my newly published site: http://www.besthomecareproviders.com. This is really not rocket science and nothing new to many internet entrepreneurs but to a newbie like me, this certainly was new ground: learning and doing search engine optomization, website analysis, and finally site submission and registration with the major search engines and directories. A great help is the service package I purchased from Go Daddy, their Trail Blazer Deluxe Package. I'm not going into the details of that here - you can check that one out for yourself - but it was a thrill to be "registered" for the first time with Google and Yahoo - with hundreds of other search engines and directories still to follow. It just made me realize the immensity of the world wide web - and the many details, procedures, protocols that anyone serious in this business has to go through and understand. Good thing the Support provided by Go Daddy was really excellent. They're there when you need them for any question or clarification and the steps that one has to do. An internet geek can probably figure this out on his own - but for one in a hurry to get moving and without the luxury of allocating longer time for self-study and experimentation, I have been taking the easier route - just go to Daddy for answers to questions and guides on what to do next.
Just to let you have a sense of where I'm coming from: I am new at this internet business thing - designing and publishing a website, blogging, podcasting (I haven't done any of these things before.). Although I've been using the PC for many years - as early as when it was still in that original large rectangular box with a separate green monitor - and where the biggest thing for me then was knowing how to do "Wordstar" wordprocessing. To compound my learning situation, I have just shifted from the PC to the Mac, and there is a whole new world of difference in doing things with the computer that is somewhat akin to the differences between Apples and Oranges. I have my transition pains and agitations - but that's another story.

Still another element that compounds the situation and makes me move this forward just a bit faster is the fact that I am going for a three week semestral break not only from school work, but I will also be out of the country - and away from my work station by Tuesday next week (that 08/12/08). So I really had to get the ball rolling, at least on the major search engine registrations, pronto!!! I realized here that, just like in any other major undertaking in life, you really have to think long-term. I was advised, (and I took it), to adjust my domain registration from my cautious month-to-month initial "testing" phase that I signed up to about a week ago, to a five-year Domain Registration - in order to signal to the search engines and all other internet search players that I'm not about to quit soon, and therefore give me a higher search ranking than if I had remained as a month-to-month entrepreneur. The logic of this view made sense to me, so I heeded Go Daddy's suggestion to upgrade to 5 years domain registration. Like it or not, ready or not - I'm committed here, so that's that.

The Second Dose: Something Funny

Here are three jokes I found today:

"My husband won a thousand dollars at poker the other night and he split with me."
"He gave you half?"
"No, he took his thousand and left!"

- - - - - -

She came into the police station with a picture in her hand.
"My husband has disappeared," she sobbed. "Here is his picture. I want you to find him."
The inspector looked up from the photograph.
"Why?" he asked.


- - - - - - - -

"John, dear, I'm to be in amateur theatricals. What will people say when I wear tights?"
"They'll probably say, I married you for your money."

- - - - - - - -

Now here's the Third and Final Dose for the Day: An inspiring story.

Source: From a collection of favorite writings about enjoying and keeping friends, by Peter Seymour, published in a small but very substantial book entitled 'The Treasure of Friendship," copyright 1968 by Hallmark Cards, Inc. The story is by Robert Hardy Andrews:

To Be A Friend.

In India 2500 yearts ago, a man named Gautama Buddha walked the roads and preached and taught. His teachings are still remembered by five hundred million Buddhist believers in Asia and the Orient.

I am not a Buddhist. But I find no disloyalty to my faith in accepting advice as practical today as it was when Buddha first offered it. In a mango grove in Bihar he told one of his disciples that five things are necessary to achieve release from unhappiness and fear. These, he said, include: restraint, proper discourse, energy in producing good thoughts, firmness in pursuing them, and acquisition of true insight. But first of all, and above all, he said, the seeker must learn to be a good friend.
When people asked for a definition of friendliness, Buddha answered, "It means to have hope of the welfare of others more than for one's self . . . . It means affection unsullied by hope or thought of any reward on earth or in heaven."

Buddha admitted that such generous wholeheartedness would not be easy. Yet in the long run it is intensely practical. "Compassion and knowledge and virtue" he said, "are the only possessions that do not fade away."
"To be a good friend . . ." How simple it sounds - just five short words. Yet how much they represent! Think how much it could mean, a flowing out of new forces of friendship from person to person, and eventually from land to land.
Try as we may, there is no other form of security. As Buddha said, "Friendship is the only cure for hatred, the only guarantee of peace."

Let me just add to this story what Socrates said of friendship:

"Be slow to fall into friendship;
but when thou art in,
continue firm and constant."

Well folks, that's it - my Daily Dose for the Mind, for today.