This morning I changed the wordpress theme for two of my sites: Tim Tebow Zone and Assassin’s Creed 2. They were both pretty standard designs and kind of ugly considering the volume of traffic that they bring in. It was definitely time to update them with new looks and new features.

It’s been 2-3 years since I’ve updated the look of Tebow Zone – it was still running on 800px wide! The site was definitely due for a design update. Tim will be joining an NFL team in a few months, so I picked a Wordpress theme that will easily allow me to change the colors to match that of his new team (hopefully teal and black). The new theme also allows for more/better ad placement.

With my Assassin’s Creed site, I really wanted to get rid of the dark theme I used to have and go with something lighter. I really hate black/dark themes, they look cheap and are hard to see if you have a glare on your monitor. This theme also looks more professional and sleek, and allows for more/better ad placement.

It didn’t take me too long to change the themes for each site. Just had to make a few adjustments, transfer some code and I was on my way.

Post a comment and let me know what you think.

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You’ve all probably seen this toolbar on websites and blogs, but you might not know where it came from. The Wibiya toolbar pops up at the bottom of your screen when you visit a website that has it installed. The toolbar was built and designed to boost your site’s interactive features and increase page views.

There are some really cool apps that you can install on the toolbar including: search, rss subscribe, live notifications, photo galleries, twitter dashboard, facebook fan pages, youtube channels, games, chat rooms and more. And site visitors can view all these things without ever leaving your site.

To see some examples of the toolbar in action, visit Wibiya.com, Mashable or Think Computers – it was on Bob’s site Think Computers were I saw the toolbar and got inspired for this post. He didn’t always have it installed, but I got the live notification letting me know about it.

I plan on installing a Wibiya toolbar on Gator Envy. I want to test it on the blog and forum pages… see if people use it before I try it on multiple sites. I think the biggest benefit will be the Twitter profile and Facebook fan page links that let visitors know they can follow you in other places.

The tool seems cool, but it’s not for everyone. If I ran an e-commerce site I might be careful to add this toolbar. While it will help you showcase some of your social sites and additional features, you don’t want to distract people from making a purchase.

Do you have a Wibiya toolbar on your site? Post a comment with your link and I’ll check it out.

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One of my Christmas presents from my wife was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on PC. I had seen all the commercials and heard everyone talking about it so I really wanted to play. I don’tplay video games alot – maybe 3 hours worth a month, but still this game looked like one of those “must owns”.

When I asked for the game I knew my PC was powerful enough to play it with my dual 2.5ghz processor and 4GB Ram, but I had a suspicion about the graphics card. In fact, the graphics card I had been using was an integrated chip (read: it sucks).

Sure enough when I install the game and go to boot it up for the first time I get an error message saying my graphics card sucks and can’t handle it. So, I head on over to newegg.com and bought a graphics card. I was lucky to be purchasing around the holidays because they had amazing deals. I picked up a Nvidia GeForce 9500GT 1GB for $69.99 + free shipping. It’s not a top of the line graphics card, but it is a very nice upgrade over what I had. It also has 2 monitor hookups so I can run dual monitors in the future.

In total I’ve played MW2 3 times about 15 minutes each time. I haven’t had time to dive into the single player campaigns and always get waxed when I play online. My best record so far is 7-8. Hopefully I’ll get more free time coming up so I can get the game down.

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So I’m playing with the new iPhone application called Dragon Dictation. It’s very cool. It’s a voice to text application. Basically you open the app and push the record button and you begin talking. The application automatically translates everything you say into text form. You can then take the text and copy it to your clipboard, e-mail it to yourself or text to somebody.

Right now I’m actually using the application to create the content for this blog post. I am talking into
the application as I’m driving home from work and it’s actually very convenient. I now don’t have to waste time by going home and sitting in front of the computer to write a blog post. I can just talk it through right now on my way home from work.

A couple things I really like about the application:
1. The ease-of-use. I mean it’s really one button and you push it and you start talking and it types for you.
2. As soon as you’re finished there’s a keyboard that pops up that will allow you to edit the text you created and forwarded as you wish.
3. There are built in voice commands such as “period” “question mark” and “paragraph” that help you organize your thoughts.

There are a few minor inconveniences with the application. If you stop talking for a few moments the application will think that you done and automatically stop recording. So if you’re the type of person that likes to think while they talk and take long pauses, then you better get used to restarting the recording.

The application is also not perfect in that it doesn’t correctly grab exactly what you say but it gets very close. From looking at my text documents I’d say it’s about 85-90% accurate. I’m sure that there are many issues with peoples names and words that end in “s” or “ed.” It just won’t pick up everything you say to the T. And god help you if you speak with an accent.

All in all, this is a must download for any iPhone user. Best of all, it’s free.

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According to Wikipedia, a core competency is a specific factor that a business sees as being central to the way it, or its employees work. It fulfills three key criteria:

1. It provides consumer benefits
2. It is not easy for competitors to imitate
3. It can be leveraged widely to many products and markets.

Whether you’re online an online business, doing affiliate marketing or just run some fan sites as a hobby you need to define your core competencies to be successful.

What do you do better than your competitors? What do you deliver to your customers (site visitors) that makes them choose you over the competition? Do you have breaking news, the best pictures or technology on your site that can’t be found elsewhere? Those are core competencies.

If you ever find yourself straying from your core competencies, then you need to step back and evaluate what you’re doing and what you’re trying to accomplish with this project. How will it help you in the long-run? How does it fit your goals?

I suggest coming up with 3-4 core competencies that you can easily define and memorize. Write them down on a post-it note and slap it on your monitor. Don’t forget them and don’t stray from them.

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A couple of years ago, I used to run 2 dedicated servers and a VPS. Since then, I’ve dropped the dedicateds (to save money) and house all my sites not on a single, powerful VPS. A VPS is nice because it’s a lot cheaper than a dedicated server, and with most hosting companies VPS’s are managed. However, if you want a managed dedicated server you need to pay extra.

I’ve been exclusively with ServInt for years now. They are the absolute best hosting company I’ve ever come across. There have been several times where I’ve hit some traffic spikes and the VPS can’t handle the load, so they upgraded me temporarily to an extremely high powered VPS at no charge for like 24 hours. They’ve done it on multiple occasions and without it, I would have had my sites down. Another positive of a VPS is that the hosting company can upgrade you to more RAM with the flick of a switch. Not like a dedicated where it takes hours/days.

During the holidays, most of us see an increase in traffic. Whether it’s from holiday shopping, people staying indoors (cold weather) or kids being home from schools – you will see traffic increases and you need to be prepared. Downtime during this season is not good. It can cost you a lot of money.

Today, I upgraded my VPS to a higher level. I’m tripling my RAM and bandwidth for a slightly higher monthly fee. I only need the extra juice until about mid-January, so after that I plan to downgrade to what I am currently on. Because I pay month-to-month this is very easy to do.

How are you planning for the holidays? Do you expect more traffic? Are you amping up your servers?

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I know this post is a day early, but I’ll be heading up to North Carolina for the holidays so I wanted to get this out before it’s too late. My wife and I will enjoy Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house here in Jacksonville (though it will be served closer to lunch time this year). Then later in the afternoon/early evening, Katie and I will drive to North Carolina. We’ll be staying until Sunday.

We don’t have anything planned really except for a trip to the Biltmore Mansion. They decorate it for Christmas with trees and lights – so that’s something my wife wants to see. Other than that, we’ll play it by ear. Might try to go on a hiking trip if it’s not too cold (temps are supposed to be in the 30s – compared to the 70s here in Florida). Hopefully I’ll get to check out some of the Florida vs. Florida State football game as well on Saturday.

If we do anything awesome I’ll be sure to post it here when I get back along with some pics. So until then, Happy Thanksgiving!

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Ubisoft’s most highly anticipated game of the year finally hit the stores yesterday. Assassin’s Creed 2 is a follow up to the original game, which came out in 2007. This is relevant to me because I run an Assassin’s Creed 2 fansite. Traffic is up 120% over last week and I’m loving the additional revenue that comes with it. That’s one of the good things about running a website where hype is built up around the content – you get that additional boost when slow/steady sites don’t.

Of course the traffic will steady itself out as soon as every buys the game and ultimately stops playing. Probably around January/February – I think the holiday season will see a nice new surge of Assassin’s Creed 2 owners.

When I first started running Assassin’s Haven, it was very easy because I actually owned and played Assassin’s Creed. This time around I’m not buying Assassin’s Creed 2, so it will be a little more difficult coming up with unique content for the blog. I’ll rely on Youtube videos and Twitter for sources of new info that I can expand on and blog about. It won’t be hard, it will just take a little more time researching content.

Here’s to Assassin’s Creed 2 being a huge success and Ubisoft developing a third installment in two years.

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Today is Veterans Day in the United States. I want to take the time to thank all of those who have served, and continue to serve, our country. I think we all know someone personally that has served in the armed forces. Both my grandfathers, who are no longer with us, served during World War II – one was a merchant marine and the other was in the army. One of my very close friends has served in Iraq and is home safe now. It’s important to take a minute of your day to say thank you to those who have served. Without them, we would not enjoy the freedoms we have today.

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Have you ever muttered the words “If only there were more hours in the day?” I know I have. But is it that we don’t have enough hours in the day or is it that we aren’t using them efficiently? Tim Ferriss, author of The 4 Hour Work Week, seems to think you only need less than one hour a day to be successful. I’m not sure about that, but I do believe you don’t need to crack down 14 hours a day to get things done.

I work a full-time job, have a wife and home and like to get out of the house on weekends so the time I have available for online work is extremely limited. I get up at 5:45 every morning and get things done before I head out the door for my job. It’s brutal at times, but these 1-2 hours every morning is all I have so I have to make the best of them.

Do you have a full-time job? A wife and a family? A house to keep up? Friends to hang out with? A lot of online marketers fit in this category, not the stereotypical 18 year old loser living in his parent’s basement. Every minute of every day is crucial. It’s important to have your priorities in line and rid yourself of time-wasters.

How much time do you need per day to be successful? Can you get everything done in an hour? 3 hours? 8 hours? Post a comment and let me know.

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