I have a few updates to share today.

1. I’ve partnered up with David on a largely small (yes, largely small) blog. Its all about quality Photoshop tutorials, with an update each and every day. We’ve got an excellent theme for it, not a Wordpress theme - a blogging theme. We have a logo sketch, and I’ll probably be hiring OrangeOnWeb to create the main icotype for it. I’ve already been talking to Oleg (CEO) about a whole icon set so hopefully this can be included.
2. I’m working on another project for Blogonize. A media player suite. I’ve completed all the mp3/podcast player UI designs already, and must say I quite like how they turned out. I’m also creating a (yes, a … FLV - Flash Video Player, so “an Flash Video Player” makes no sense) FLV player, and then possibly show them off.
3. I’ve been talking with another client about re-designing his site, which would be somewhat of a larger job, so I’m sorry if I don’t have an update every day for you all.
4. I’ve also finally installed Akismet. I get hundreds of spam comments a day, and decided to just go for the API key. It was pretty easy, and I recommend installing it if you don’t have it yet.

And that’s it. Just a very quick update.

Ciao!

The roads are all ice, the snow is rock solid - impossible to shovel, hard to snow blow with the machine.

Its 29 degrees Fahrenheit, which is roughly -2 celcius. Check these images out:

I guess this is the actual snow view from satellite.

And this is the map of coldest and harshest?

So as you can see, its pretty crazy weather. I barely made it home. I purchased my car about 3 months ago brand new (’07 model) so its got the latest and greatest anti-slip technology, plus all season high performance tires. So, I’m happy, and I managed a quick update.

Ciao!

The service is basically like what Blogger.com offers, except in a different way. He hasn’t shared his plans too much with me, but from what I was hired to do and how he talks about things … It sounds like a great project you’d want to know about when it launches, even if its just to check it out.

“Blogonize will be a new revolution in free blog hosting power that you can’t miss out on!”

So get on over to Blogonize.com and sign up!
(PS, its spam free, check the privacy statement).

1. Vince (MyHateBlog): Arrogance Defined.
2. Meghan Schmuck (BobSchmuck): The Douchebag That Is Tyler Cruz.
3. Oridian (PublisherForums): Basically Tyler trying to bash an ad network, but having the entire plan backfire on him. In one comment he states he’ll be giving a bad review on his website, PublisherSpot, here.
4. All over Chatwebdev’s IRC channel, around 90% laugh and hate Tyler in #chatwebdev. In fact, there was a tag - !modulus (tyler’s IRC name) - that when called on outputted “gay pr*ck”.

Alright, these are just four things, and sure … everyone is hated on at some point or another in their life. But I’m here to add a #5 to the recent list. My respect for Tyler has gone down the hill faster than an an avalanche. Now, I simply don’t like Tyler. But that’s me, and I won’t create another post bashing the guy, rather I’ll bash a snipped of advice from a recent post on his blog.

“

Personally, I think anything other than .com, .net, and .org is pretty much worthless. And I’m not exagerrating. I’d say everything else to be worth roughly around 1% the amount of the .com. So, if CLOTHES.com is worth $500,000, then CLOTHES.US or CLOTHES.INFO world be worth more like $5,000… and that’s still being extremely generous!

My point? Don’t waste your time getting anything other than .com, .net, or .org. Any other extention sucks.

“

Being in the domain industry for several years, this is probably the worst advice I’ve ever seen given to users / readers. Especially the last statement, “Any other extention sucks.” (its extension, tyler.) This is simply an irrational thing to say, with no thought, and no creativity induced whatsoever. After I read this, I realized what Tyler Cruz is … Uncreative. Its simple as that.

I’m now personally giving all of my readers domaining advice. Every extension has potential. No extension is entirely worthless. Obviously, there are many cases where they are … because of beginners attempting to sell low quality keywords paired with third world TLD’s and undeveloped sites. But that’s not the point. If you’re creative enough, your possibilities are endless - and all the same whether you own the .COM or the .MS domain. If you’re after selling your domain name, then sure, the .com will be the most valuable in most instances, but trying to put down extensions past .COM, .NET, and .ORG is senseless, because .BIZ, .INFO, .US, .EU, .IN, .IM, .SC, .AT, .PL, .CO.UK, .NO (et cetera, et cetera…) all sell well too. They’re all bursting with potential, you just have to be creative enough.

Let’s analyze the market of one TLD Tyler Cruz would call ‘bad’ and ‘useless’ - dot US. The .US extension was developed in 1985 as a ccTLD (country-code-top-level-domain). Sources show that after the .US sunrise period, on August 30th 2002, an average of 1,000 new .US domains were registered per day. Over 331,000 .US domains were registered from August 11th 2002 through January 1st 2003. There have been .US domains that have sold for a price range up to $100,000 USD. And, you’re saying its worthless, Tyler?

Then you take a look at creative people. Take Joshua Schachter (founder of Del.icio.us), for example. This is one of the web’s hottest, most popular 2.0 startups. What’s the TLD? Not .com, not .net, not .org … .US! This domain would barely have value if it were .com, compared to .us… Think about it, del.icio.com? icio.com? Other than it being a decent LLLL.com - Its incomparable to the tyler-acclaimed worthless ccTLD.

I’d expect someone like him to argue this as “oh, but this is a special instance!”, and I’d just have one word to say back. “No”. Its not a special instance, anyone could have thought this project up, and many have - just not in the same way.

Think about what Tyler is saying, he’s also saying that mega million TLD’s such as dot TV (.tv) are worthless too? Now I’m sure if you know a little something about domains you’d stop right there and say to yourself … “bullshit”. Yet, Tyler, with his 345 loyal feed readers and many many blog readers gives the worst advice in the world - “Any other extention sucks.” - because he brokered a domain or two.

I’m here proving what he’s saying is totally wrong, and that if you’re a reader of his blog you may want to consider anything he says before taking it in deeply, because Tyler is overall a very uncreative person who can sometimes give the like in advice.

And I wanted to link exchange with him … hah!

That’s all for now folks, stay tuned for some good news coming up.

1. I was asked by good internet buddy Feros (Owner of NetBusinessBlog) to write a few guest posts on his blog, NetBusinessBlog. I haven’t talked to him much about it, but hopefully I’ll be able to write up some great articles on there and on Fruda to keep everyone interested and happy with their ventures.
2. In my last post I mentioned something about a project with Dave (Jakowenko). We’re both into wild TLD’s, ones like .sc, .im, .st, .no - et cetera… As well as, obviously, the primary TLDs and basically all TLDs. The project will be more of a ‘break-even, invest profit into making more tools’ kind of project, and will be a very helpful resource to all who domain (verb), so look out for that.
3. I’ve partnered up with a good bud and partner, Matthew, on SharedPCGames. The website is very impressive, it averages around 10,000 unique visitors a day,  or so, and makes quite a nifty sum each month. Hopefully the website will be totally revamped and built twice as strong to compete with MiniClip and things of the sort.
4. My other project, which is more of a YouTube style 2.0 social community type of deal, has also been undergoing development for about a month now. I’ve been scouting around for a programmer and coder to hire, with some luck. I already have a server, and will be getting 2 dedicated IP’s from my primary ISP and another backup from a different ISP … As well as a T1 + connection. The server has a very advanced firewall we built ourselves, and so far is hack free (over 5,000 attempts a day according to linksys logs). The project is quite a complicated one, and I had to cut out many things like FVC and all of the complex scripting that goes with it (ffmepg, RoR, LAME, php/perl). Can you imagine I’ve been quoted $4,000 (lowest) for FVC? So, I probably will hold on to that idea once the website takes off. Just wanted to give my readers a heads-up on some project work for once.

And that’s it! I’ll think up a codename for that #4 project, and talk more of it in the coming days.
Stay Fresh

So, if you think you can do it, vote @ http://shutdownday.com/

I’ve grown bored of this current design, and I’ve also considered the limited interactivity factor. I currently have around 100 feed subscribers via non-feedburner RSS feed, though I’m hoping to use my feed channel there with the update, possibly (http://feeds.feedburner.com/Fruda).

So with this post I’m just letting all of my readers know my blog will become better for the better, with much more updates, much more good info and coverage, much more fun and all that good stuff.

I’ve also got a new [small] project/resource/utility which I’ll probably blog on about, later on… And I’ll probably have a little giveaway going on with my buddy Dave.

Ciao

Here are screenshots of the work I did…

Its a blogging service, just like Blogger.com (for example). The client is very creative, and I imagine this will be a hit. Check out the website at blogonize.com - there is nothing there yet, though he will shortly put up a little beta tester system (everyone has a chance at it, he’ll be frequently giving out invites), so get on over there in a few weeks or so and try to score yourself an invite.

Feel free to comment on what you can see (I know its not much). I may post lighter and fuller previews as well, so stay tuned!

Ciao