Ok, so September is International Talk LIke a Pirate Day.  Here’s some freakin’ pirate jokes!

Have you heard about the new pirate movie?
It?s rated AARRRRGGH!

What’s a pirate’s favorite mode of transportation?
A cAARRRR!

What’s a pirate’s favorite letter of the alphabet?
arrrr

What’s a pirate’s favorite kind of socks?
arrrrgyle

What is a pirates favorite study subject?
arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt.

What’s a pirate’s second-choice job?
an arrrrrrchitect!

This pirate walks into a bar with a big ship’s wheel down his pants. The bartender says, “Excuse me, sir, but do you know you have a ship’s wheel down the front of your pants?”
And the pirate says…
Aaargh, it’s driving me nuts!!

A little kid with a speech impediment dresses up as a pirate and goes trick or treating. he knocks on the door of a house and a man answers. “oh, i can see you’re dressed up as a pirate.” the man says. “but where are your buccaneers?” the kid gets really mad, and says “on the sides of my buckin’ head!”

How much did the pirate pay to get his ears pierced?
a buccaneer

what’s a pirate’s favorite kind of cookie?
ships ahoy

What do you call a pirate that skips class?
captain hooky!

A pirate walks into a bar and the bartender says, “Hey, I haven’t seen you in a while. What happened, you look terrible!”
“What do you mean?” the pirate replies, “I’m fine.”
The bartender says, “But what about that wooden leg? You didn’t have that before.”
“Well,” says the pirate, “We were in a battle at sea and a cannon ball hit my leg but the surgeon fixed me up, and I’m fine, really.”
“Yeah,” says the bartender, “But what about that hook? Last time I saw you, you had both hands.”
“Well,” says the pirate, “We were in another battle and we boarded the enemy ship. I was in a sword fight and my hand was cut off but the surgeon fixed me up with this hook, and I feel great, really.”
“Oh,” says the bartender, “What about that eye patch? Last time you were in here you had both eyes.”
“Well,” says the pirate, “One day when we were at sea, some birds were flying over the ship. I looked up, and one of them shat in my eye.”
“So?” replied the bartender, “what happened? You couldn’t have lost an eye just from some bird shit!”
“Well,” says the pirate, “I really wasn’t used to the hook yet.”

What does a vegan pirate do in jail?
Starrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrve!

What has 8 arms and 8 legs?
8 Pirates!

Who uses a Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feed? Maybe the better question is how many are not using RSS feeds?

Before we go any further let’s talk just briefly about what RSS is and why it’s important. Real Simple Syndication is a process that allows individuals to subscribe to content distribution. This is not like subscribing to email marketing or an ezine. This content is custom fed to your reader and viewable when you choose to listen, watch or read the content. That’s right, the content captured by a RSS reader is not confined to text information.

Say for instance you have a podcast you like to listen to; an RSS reader can capture the podcast and download it for quick listening when you’re ready.

OK, now that we’re past the primer, let’s get back to the subject at hand.

Who uses an RSS feed?

Your average information consumer thrives on RSS information, but there may be an even more interested group of users.

Many business bloggers have very specific RSS subscriptions. If a business blog is dependent on information about a very specific trade or business discipline they can, in turn, provide their readers with some of the most up to date information available.

Their RSS reader scours the Internet looking for the specific information the business owner requests. The information received through an RSS feeder can help the business bloggers establish themselves as trusted resources for quality information.

The truth is there is a two-step marketing plan that is happening when a business blogger uses an RSS feed to find information they can use. The first step is for the original writer of the article or the producer of the audio or visual content. The RSS feed is helping them reach a very specific segment of the online population that is motivated by the material they present. The second form of marketing is when the business blogger redistributes the information. It is marketing for both the business blogger as well as the individual or organization that supplied the original story.

If you are looking for fresh content for your blog or even your website you can utilize RSS through a free article directory that can allow you quick access to the latest content from a specific writer or on a specific topic.

The growth of RSS is incredible. You might even liken the service to something like a newspaper being delivered to your reader that only feature topics you’re interested in.

This can be a great resource for business as well as an incredible time saver as you can bypass multiple online searches for the same information that can be direct delivered to your RSS reader.

The work of online business is already hard enough. That’s why using an RSS reader is a component that can enable you to have more available time to work on other marketing chores and business development.

In an online world that recognizes the power in knowledge-based content RSS has become a goldmine for those interested in passing the wealth along to their customers.

The beginning of OCModShop was a hobby, and it certainly LOOKED like a hobby site.  We had some cutting-edge quality content, but the site design was severely lacking, and everyone took product photos with digital cameras that can be bested by the average 6-year-old.

People will pretty much take you at your own reckoning, so if you look and act like an amateur, then no one will take you seriously.  You have to “fake it before you make it”.  One step in looking like a professional is to take some kick-ass product photos.

Other webmasters disagree about the importance of quality product photos… after all, if you have good quality content, that’s all that matters, right?

WRONG!

Any webmaster that looks at their logs will realize that most visitors don’t actually READ much of the content you spent hours editing.  People only trust headlines and snippets… and photographs. 

A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say.  Not only can good photographs make vendors stand up and take notice, but you look more credible.  We are visual creatures, and our initial impressions are influenced by appearances.  The average person will put more value into a review with good photographs rather than the article that looks like some kid in his garage.

Incendentally, I take all of my photos in my garage, and anyone who actually saw my “studio” would think I was a madman… it’s cluttered with comptuers, gear, boxes, and other junk.  But, my photos don’t look like it.

Not everyone can afford studio lights (even though they’re not as expensive as you think: read about cheap photo lighting here), but it really doesn’t take much to step up your photographs a notch.  Every one of the photos in this post were straight out of the camera without any editing, and I used very cheap Britek lights that any serious “professional” would scoff at.

Just get a white sheet (or posterboard), two “full spectrum” desk lamps, and a digital camera.  Drape the sheet over a tall box, making sure there’s a good slope that cannot be seen.  Put the lamps on either side of your product, and snap away… and for the love of all that is Holy, turn off the flash!Â

I’ve been working with Home Theater Computers for over 10 years.  Back in the day, a HTPC was the only way to get a progressive-scan DVD player.  There were lots of caveats, and there were no fancy 10′ interfaces like there are today… it had the same usability as a computer.  I used a highly-programmable remote to attempt to automate everything (turn on everything at once, open up the DVD player application), but it ended up being many many hours spent with very little benefit.

There are a few media center suites, but the most popular by far is Windows Media Center.  The appeal to transforming a computer into a HTPC is that you can access all of your media (downloaded Divx movies, mp3s, HD-WMVs, DVDs, home videos, photos) from one location.  Imagine replacing an entire rack of home theater equipment with a simple box.  The HTPC cases available today also make your PC look like home theater equipment.

I’ve been using Windows Media Center for about 4 years, and I have a love-hate relationship with it.  A general-purpose computer will NEVER be as reliable as an appliance, and that’s my major problem with it.  Sure, it has features that other appliances can’t touch (download DVD titles over the Internet, stream NetFlix in real time), but it just isn’t reliable. 

You have to consider the SAF (Spousal Acceptance Factor).  You’re probably a busy guy, and do you really want your wife and kids bitching at you to fix the TV because it froze or crashed?  If you have a HTPC then you must realize that have to add “TV technition” to your list of support roles. 

One of the reasons I use Media Center is to save on the $5 fee that DirecTV charges for their DVR service, which calculates out to be $60 a year.  You can easily spend four times that in a new hardware upgrade.  Not to mention the electricity costs… a typical HTPC will eat up abour 200 watts, and it has to be on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (4800 watts a day x 365 = 1,752,000 watts or $140 a year).  Compare that to a typical DVR appliance which uses between 20-30watts, and it costs $14 a year… 

I have several Media Center PCs (so we can watch recorded shows on any TV, no matter where they were recorded), so the electricity costs start to stack up.

Several other gripes: the remotes “crash”, not all of the buttons work, a PC is always noisier than a DVR appliance, the electricity and heat issues, hunting down the right codec when your DivX movie has no sound, limited high-definition recording options, tweaking your video card to get the best output…

You can spend a lot of time making things work more smoothly, but then you’re spending more time fiddling with the damn thing then you are actually enjoying watching TV.

So I’m getting rid of Media Center… I’ll watch my downloaded videos on a Playstation 3 (which also has a BluRay player).  I’m using a QNAP NAS to store videos, and it can stream directly to an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, which reduces the need for a HTPC… and the NAS only uses up 5 watts of electricity.

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