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Everyone tells me that video is the big thing, you have to do video. It fills me with fear - for a number of reasons.

It’s a technology I know absolutely nothing about - and my brain aches when I have to learn something new… but more important is that I don’t like having my photo taken let alone being ‘live’ on your screen. It’s a woman thing - I need a make up artist complete makeover team amongst other things. I hate the sound of my own voice - I’m sure I don’t sound like that - do I? My elocution teachers would have a giddy fit! That is only scratching the surface.

But the woman thing comes into play again - I’m damned if I will let something like that beat me. It’s only a b***** machine after all. Vanity - I don’t do vanity (that could be one of those - who am I kidding moments) so I don’t need the makeover crew. So I will make a video. I will introduce myself to the world and at long last flaminglacer is revealed, courtesy of my seesmic profile - enjoy!

I have to confess that generally speaking I am not a lover of membership sites.  They are excellent for those who set them up and can be a real earner but they are often not so good for the member who forks out a monthly fee for something which is less than satisfactory.  I would far rather buy what I want for an upfront fee where I know what I am getting and the transaction is completed in one fell swoop.  However, there is always an exception that proves the rule and this online world of ours is no different to any other.

Last year I took part in the Thirty Day Challenge, an excellent, superb, fantastic (get the picture) month of training and education put together by Ed Dale and Dan Raine – who rank pretty high on my list of good guys.  Most people know about the TDC, as it is fondly known, but for those who don’t, it was/is a crash course in how to make your first $10 online without spending a dime – and that included the training, which also cost nothing.  There were opportunities to spend money, but you were strongly discouraged from doing so.

Ed and Dan do have a membership site – and it’s not for peanuts, but at no time was anyone inveigled into membership.  It was there, but no fuss was made and no pressure applied.  Come the end of the month (and yes, I did make my $10, though it wasn’t my first) I decided I would give The Immediate Edge a try with the firm promise to myself that I would pay for one month, have a look round, get what I could and if I didn’t think much, I would end it there.  If I was impressed – which is not easy, I would give it three months and if it hadn’t paid for itself – I would quit.  Those who know me well will tell you that when I make promises like that to myself  – I keep them.

Ten months down the line I am still paying my monthly fee – and not regretting one penny of it.  In fact, I’d pay more.  The quality of information and education that is made available to the members is excellent.  One tool alone, which deals with the business of Social Bookmarking, is worth the fee, time is the most valuable commodity in my world and I willing pay a great deal to help me make best use of it.

Without doubt though, the most valuable thing is the education gained by the projects that are developed – it’s like riding the crest of a wave, you’re not quite sure how you are going to get to the beach but you soon find out and it’s an exciting ride!  It’s well named as The Immediate Edge because that’s right where you - are the cutting edge of online business.  You can actually try it out for as little as $1 now - a worthwhile investment.

The Thirty Day Challenge is kicking off again, in fact we are in pre-season now, and for anyone who wants to make money online, you should do it.  There’s no charge and you will benefit in more ways than you might imagine.  It runs through the month of  August.

I need to do one more thing here, so please bear with me on this.  I need to say a huge ‘Thank You’.  Part of last year’s challenge required that we form teams, I joined one that started out as Team Thousand Chances.  TDC 2007 has been and gone, but our team has stayed together, we have become The Marketing Mavens, we have grown and we work together still.  More than that though, I have made some friends, true friends, who will stay with me for the rest of my life and for that – more than anything, I will always be grateful to Ed and Dan.  My big ‘Thank You’ is not for the training, or the money I have made but for something far more important – friends.  Thank You, Ed Dale. Thank You, Dan Raine. You are two of the good guys.

‘Free’ is a somewhat emotive word on the internet – we all seek the ‘free’ information that will give us the key to success, we look for the ‘free’ tools that make our job easier, we mutter when we discover that something that purports to be ‘free’ actually ends up costing us – even if only an email address for a list that we rapidly unsubscribe from.  One thing I think we often forget is that ‘free’ always costs somebody, somewhere, something – and sometimes we are perhaps unwittingly guilty of taking advantage.  I have to say I am currently suffering from a pang of guilt about something I should have done a long time ago – and I owe both an apology and a debt of gratitude to a supportive friend.

There are many sites on the internet that offer support and tools for us to use and merely ask, very politely, in very small letters, for a donation to help support the work they are doing – freely.  How many of us actually do something about it – we download the free software, we love the tools, we use them daily but I will bet my bottom dollar that most of us go blithely on forgetting that time, effort and money go into providing us with those ‘free’ tools.  We all have good intentions of chipping in when ‘I make some money’ – but do we…  Or maybe we think to ourselves that we can’t give much so better wait until we can, rather than accepting that small amounts add up and every little helps.  There is always the unspoken thought in the back of our minds that ‘someone’ else’ will be providing the necessary support – but we all know that ‘someone else’ generally doesn’t exist!

I use Squidoo, my passion for it is well documented.  To help me I use SquidUtils – a site full of absolutely fabulous tools for Lensmasters which makes life so much easier.  SquidUtils is provided, free of charge, by  The Fluffanutta, a Lensmaster and programming genius for whom I have great admiration.  He develops the tools and then makes them available to us all with a generosity of spirit that is outstanding.  Many, many Lensmasters could not manage their businesses without these tools.  There is a tiny little box in the sidebar that very politely and discreetly asks for donations and I suspect that many users, like me, keep meaning to do something but never get round to it.  Anyway – somebody else will always be doing something, won’t they….

If we don’t support these sites, and the generous souls who provide them we will lose so much more than the tools, we lose something of our own generosity of spirit in that we take without giving, and that diminishes us as human beings.  I had allowed myself to become diminished in that way and I am saddened by my failure to support my friend’s generosity, and to thank him.    I will not allow that to happen again, it is too high a price .  I have donated – but more important still I want to take this opportunity to thank The Fluffanutta for his kindness and generosity in sharing his skills so freely with us all.

It’s over - after months of training and anticipation we have completed The Moonwalk. I have to say I had no idea it would take over my life to such an extent. The amount of time spent training for the event has been enormous, and has meant many other things, including my blog, have had to go on the back burner. Does that matter - it’s a question of priorities.

For anyone who is new to this, The Moonwalk is a walk undertaken mainly by women, to raise funds for Breast Cancer research and treatment. A very important part of the event is to raise awareness of Breast Cancer and so for that reason we walk wearing only a decorated Bra on our top halves (we did have trousers too!) and we walk through the City of London starting at midnight. How far do we walk - the whole 26.2 miles of a Marathon. For me, as a survivor of Breast Cancer, this walk has had the highest priority of almost anything else over these last weeks and months. I did the walk with my daughter - and 15,000 others - with the stated aim of trying to do something that would prevent just one family going through the fear and misery that we did. I hope we have achieved this.

Thanks to the generosity of our friends, family, colleagues and the readers of this blog we have raised nearly £2500, ($5,000) and more importantly we have got lots more people to do their regular checks,including the guys! The death rate for men diagnosed with breast cancer is much higher than that for women because it is often so much further advanced when it is found.

The walk became a family event as my dearly beloved volunteered as a ‘Crew’ member on the night, looking after all the bags that everyone left, and then presenting Medals to the Walkers as they finished - the best part for us was that he was the one who gave us our medals as we crossed the finish line. It was an unforgettable experience, to see so many people streaming out of that giant pink tent into the cold night and pounding their way round the streets of London, the amount of commitment and emotion that represents is immeasurable. It was a privilege to be part of it and an experience I will treasure for the rest of my life.

I’m taking a few days holiday now but after that normal service will be resumed. If in the meantime you would like to contribute to the cause our fundraising page is still open and you can contribute here but more important still please, please, please, Ladies and Gentlemen - DO YOUR CHECKS.

I’ve just signed up at Clipmarks.com today so thought I would experiment with it by drawing your attention to one of my favourite blogs. If this works there should be an excerpt from the blog below with links through to it….. if not, I’ve got it wrong and a pox on technology!

clipped from www.philoscribe.com   The Philoscribe Blog A Working Writer’s Journal Article Marketing - what are the drawbacks? The word on the street is that article marketing is the way to gain organic listings in the search engines thereby increasing traffic numbers to your websites. That’s the good news. But, what are the disadvantages to embarking on an article marketing campaign? Well, first and most obviously, the articles need to be written. Either you or someone else will need writing skills in order to produce the materials. Most people are more than capable of writing an article, they simply lack confidence or time.