Gregory MaGuire

MaGuire is the bestselling author of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Mirror Mirror, Lost,  Wicked,
and Son of a Witch. He brings imagination to a new level in his fantasy literature.
His books are hard to put down.

Wicked: Read this MaGuire novel first and you will want to read every book he ever wrote. That is exactly what I did. Elphaba and the other characters take you into a world that is dark and unbelievable and yet, you truly believe it exists. I can’t say enough about this book and how it will make you feel about the original Wizard of Oz tale. Be sure to have the sequel on hand because you will be intent on reading it immediately.

Son of a Witch: Liir continues the intrigue that was started by Elphaba. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more exciting, MaGuire does it again. I read this book only months ago and I am already wanting to reread this and Wicked because I know I missed out on some things. There are so many details and levels of intrigue that it keeps you on the edge of your seat. I only hope if MaGuire is planning to make this a trilogy that he doesn’t make me wait 10 years. This and Wicked are must reads of MaGuire’s books. If you start with them, you won’t be sorry.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister: This book was an off beat tale of the traditional Cinderella. It held a great deal of mystery and you were instantly drawn into the lives of Clara and her mother and sister. This book is so full of tragedy, deceit, and the unexpected that at any given point, I was not sure who I felt bad for and who I didn’t like. It is an excellent Source of intrigue and entertainment and at times so thought provoking that you almost feel like you are there with the characters.

Mirror Mirror: Another very entertaining novel by MaGuire with vague resemblance to the traditional Snow White tale. I found in this book that although Bianca was meant to be the poor, pitiful child, there were times where you felt she deserved what she got for being such a simpleton. The dwarves are probably one of the most creative aspect of this novel in that they aren’t even close to what you expect from the traditional novel. You will be thoroughly involved with the characters in this book and it will be easy to read in one or two sittings.

As many of you know from a previous review, I like to use Entrecard to build my network of viewers. I also find it a great way to find some unique blogs that I would never have found otherwise. There are tons of wonderful blogs that attract many readers and have loyal followings. For me, it takes a lot to attract my attention for an extended period of time. Well, my attention was grabbed with this one!

Bobbie Dawn is one of most beautiful and unique blogs I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. The first thing that hits you when you open the blog is the beautiful and yes sexy images that the author shares with her viewers. I am not talking about sexy in the trashy porn type way of today! I am talking the era of sexy when pin ups were all the guys thought about and when women were portrayed as beauties. This blog takes pin up art and makes a science of it.

The writing is a mix of a little of everything and her sense of humor is both unique and attractive. One example of this was a post called “The Great Pantie Caper.” I could spoil it by telling you all about it but the viewing pleasure of seeing it must be done by you.

In the current era where trashy pictures and sex and more sex is what sells, this author succeeds by providing sexy with a beautiful sensual way of portraying women. One way she does this is by posting a Pin Up Of The Week. These pictures are gorgeous and provide a beautiful visual pleasure experience.

Of course, this is not just a blog about pretty art pictures. This author also tackles some current issues and ask some important questions. The author herself is well educated and holds a Masters Degree in Science. She is also embarking on her journey of obtaining a PHD in Analytical Biochemistry. All I can say to that is better her than me. I hate Science, I am more a history man.

This blog is unique in many ways and is always a pleasure to visit. I highly recommend you check out this blog and please come back and leave a comment to share if you too were in awe with the beauty of it.

My wife has discovered a site that she like to do all her searching. This site is called Swag Bucks. Basically, you use it anytime you need to search the Internet. You have a chance each time to earn what they call Swag Bucks. You can use those  Swag Bucks for some cool prizes and even gift certificates. Some of the prizes are quite good and they are basically free.

The key is to search like you would any other search engine. Only search when you need to and sometimes a Swag Buck pops up and is added to your balance. Another way to earn is to shop at one of their sponsored merchants. The rate of Swag Bucks to  real dollars varies by which merchant you shop at.

Yet another way to earn is to refer your friends and family. If they sign up and use earn bucks, you get one Swag Buck for every Swag Buck they earn up to 100. These can add up quickly if you have several referrals and they are all active.

I checked out the site and it is easy to use and if you are going to search anyway, you might as well have a chance of earning some Swag Bucks to cash in for prizes. My wife is hooked and does all her web searches on their site.

There are some good pros to this site. First and most important is that it is free. Second, you get stuff for something you do anyway and they use top search engines to get the result. Third, if you get lots of referrals, the Swag Bucks can add up quickly.Finally, they have some great prizes for all levels of earnings so you can get something quite quickly.

There are very few cons because it is a free site. However, I can think of a couple. The Swag Bucks grow slowly if you do not have referrals and you do not get them for every search. It is very random so you can lose enthusiasm quickly if you bore easily.

Overall, this is a pretty cool site. I am always excited about any site that gives away free prizes. I suggest you check out Swag Bucks and sign up for your chance to earn prizes for something you do anyway.

I have been quite busy lately and have not had a lot of time to review stuff. I have updated the blog with many posts that I wrote a while back they were added from a review blog I had hosted on Blogger. Please check out the archives for some great website reviews.

I love to check out websites and blogs and often times I find some of the coolest sites simply by visiting sites of those who visit my site. Susan, the owner of New-Wordpress-Themes.net recently visited my SEO Blog and since she is a member of MyBlogLog, I was able to track down her websites.

I was impressed with New-Wordpress-Themes.net and decided to rate it here on my review blog. There are tons of free Word Press Theme sites on the Internet. I love to look at the different themes so I decided to take a look at this one. I was impressed with the look as soon as the page opened. It is nicely designed and looks very professional.

Of course, a website with a nice design does not always mean that the content is equaled to the look. With this website, the content is great. There are many themes in the gallery for free download. There are some I have seen and some nice ones that I have not discovered elsewhere. My only negative to the themes was the fact that all the themes do not have demos. Otherwise, there are all the great features of a good theme gallery.

If the themes was the only thing this site offered, I would not have been so excited by the site. The site offers its own forums. This is a nice feature for people who love to feel like that are part of a community. That is not all the site also offers a great list of ways to monetize your blog. Though these links are affiliate links, it offers new and even experienced bloggers a nice list of ways to make money.

If all that was not enough, the site has a great list of some of the best Word press Plugins and tools. I have seen many times new bloggers asking what plugins should I use. This list is a good one and should include most needs of any blogger.

Overall, this is a great website and a wonderful resource for bloggers. I am sure to add this one as a favorite and I hope my readers will find equally useful.

Robert, owner of Information Ninja, submitted the following review:

When I started off online I had no idea what I was doing.  I started purchasing domain names through Godaddy.  I don’t remember if I chose then because they where one of the more popular sites of their kind or the cheapest.

If your looking to register a domain name then there is nothing wrong with Godaddy.   The problems began when I started hosting my websites with them.

Godaddy has the website tonight feature for those of us who do no know a thing about designing a website.  Website tonight is a simple online program that allows you to add blocks of text or images so you can have a site online in minutes.  Using these types of programs limits how your site design will look, but if you are a newbie this could be just what your looking for.

I had a web designing program already so I didn’t need this feature.  You can use a free program like NVU for free to design your site.  NVU is a HTML editor similar to expensive programs like Dreamweaver or Frontpage.  With a HTML editor you don’t need to know any code, and you can design your site to look any way you would like it to.  You simply click, drag, and drop the graphics on your computer screen.  Then using a ftp program you can upload your site to your webhost.

Godaddy’s hosting is inexpensive and their service is reliable.  They contacted me phone several times to see if I wanted to save money by purchasing a years worth of hosting.  They were polite, and no high pressure sales tactics were used.  The Godaddy representatives I spoke with asked if I had any questions or concerns, and quickly took care of any billing issues I had.

Now with the excellent customer service that Godaddy offers it is a shame that they do not have cpanel.  I purchased the launch formula marketing membership software, and spent hours trying to figure out how to install it on my website that was hosted on Godaddy.  Then I found out that it could only be installed through cpanel.  I immediately switched hosting providers, and was able to install the software with no problem.  Using cpanel makes a webmasters life so much easier.  I don’t understand why Godaddy does not have it.

Since goddaddy I have tried kiosk.ws and host gator.  I am now using three hosting services and it is costing me a fortune.  This is my own fault since I could host unlimited domains for a flat rate using one hosting service, instead of three different ones.  I will be taking care of this soon, and saying goodbye to Godaddy, and making a choice between Kiosk.ws and Hostgator.

Sandra aka Bloglady owner of C4Him Media Blog submitted the following web hosting review:

I’ve used several hosting companies over the years and as you probably know, they can be great for several months and then suddenly start having problems. I’ve been using Squiggout for about a year now and am quite impressed by them. Their website states that they have chosen as a top ten host.

I can host unlimited domains and I have more than enough disk space (5000Mb) and bandwidth (200Gb) for myself and my clients.

They have provided better than 99.9% uptime and they notify me of any down time due to upgrades, which is always minimal and occurs in the wee hours of the morning.

I pay by subscription via PayPal, which is more convenient for me. The package I have is about $10 a month, but they offer an even cheaper package which is great if you only have one or two domains to host. They also have larger packages plus a reseller package.

I only have one cpanel, which makes it easier to manage my domains using only one ftp account, although multiple ftp accounts are available. I chose Unix shared hosting and CPanel because that is what I am used to, and many say that Unix is more reliable than Windows hosting.

You also get Fantastico, which has the WordPress blog which so many of us use, and they also provide a website builder which I have not used.

I have always used the All In One SEO Pack on my Word Press blogs. It helped by allowing to set meta tags, mark no index pages that you did not want indexed in the Search Engines and do automatic descriptions for your posts pages. It was the must have plug in for Word Press users. That was until now.

Recently the creator of the All in One SEO pack has stopped offering support. Since he did, someone else has taken up the support. However, in the meantime, a new creator has taken the old plug in and expanded on it and created Platinum SEO Pack. This one is much better because it allows many new features when doing SEO.

This does all that the old plugin does and more. Here are the features copied from the Word Press Download Page:

* Optimized Post and Page Titles for search engines

* Generates all SEO relevant META tags automatically

* Helps you avoid duplicate content

* Lets you override any title and set any META description and META keywords, for any post or page

* Compatible with most other plugins, like Auto Meta, Ultimate Tag Warrior and others.However you may have to disable All in One SEO pack

* You don't have to fear changing permalinks. If you are not satisfied with the current permalink, change it through Settings >Permalinks in your admin panel, without worrying about loss of Page rank or Google penalty.Platinum SEO plugin will take care of issuing a 301 redirect to the new location.This is a new essential feature, not present in All in one SEO

* Add index, noindex, follow or nofollow, noodp, noydir, noarchive, nosnippet meta tags to any post/page.These options are not available in All in one SEO Pack. Find out why this option to set post/page level Meta Robots Tag useful?

I love this Plugin because I wanted to change my permalinks ion my other blogs and it was a going to be a pain to do and redirect everything to the new URL. With this plug in, it was so easy and all the redirects were done for me. I also in the past have wanted to make certain links no follow and it was a pain to do so. With this plugin it is super easy to do. This is a must have for any Word Press Blogger.

I would have gave a link back to the author’s page but the link is not working but I did include a link to the download at Word Press.Org for anyone who wishes to download it. If you use it, lease share your opinion by leaving a comment here.

For those who have been checking out my humble blog, you may have noticed a change in the look. I just purchased an exclusive Word Press theme for the blog. I like the new design and it sure does brighten up the place.

I would love to hear what others think. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

As you know, I am always on the hunt for great websites. If it is useful my readers, I try to include it here. Recently, I was searching for ways to promote my blogs and ran across a great site that will help anyone who owns a blog.

I found a DoFollow Directory that has categories of sites that not only allows comments but all the sites are having dofollow links. This means that if you leave a comment on a site listed in the directory related to your blog, it will provide a link that the search engines will follow back to your site. This is the number one way to get listed in the search engines and ranked high.

I found this directory to be a great resource and it was well designed. If you own a blog, they allow you to Submit Dofollow Blogs for free. Because many website owners are always looking for links back to their site, this will increase your traffic.

Another cool feature of this directory is that people can vote on your site. This will show how popular your blog is and will help you improve your blog. If you own a blog or website, this site has to be on your favorites. I provided the links to see the directory and a direct link to submit your own blog. Please feel free to comment of you used the directory, I would love to check out your blog.