I recieved the results to the restricted radio operators permit today and I did very well on the test,  I scored 23/25.  My next steps are to get back in the circuit and prepare to solo.  Before that I need to complete a tricky 50 question multiple choice test which I need 90% on to pass.  This test is called the Pstar and covers almost everything I covered in ground school years ago.

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A week ago I noticed my twitter page could not be found.  I’ve had twitter for a few months now but haven’t updated it in a month or so.  My page now returns a “That page doesn’t exist!” error.  I submitted a support ticket with twitter last Friday and am still awating a response.  Has anyone else had a problem like this?

Another MarketLeverage Contest!

I must say the guys and gals at MarketLeverage went all out in last months sponsoring contests.  I thought I’d just point out one of the last MarketLeverage sponsored contests I can find in the blogosphere.  Tay at SuperBloggingTips had a pretty decent contest going with a Flip Mino, a $50 prepaid credit card and a 2gb USB pen.  The advantage with Tay’s contest is that there aren’t a lot of people entered so I’d recommend you enter today, your chance of winning is fairly high (at least better than any John Chow contest, lol).   Check out the contest here! I heard that Jason (The University Kid) will be having an awesome contest in the future as well.

~ Reid

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I’m glad to see that there are a lot of people still paying attention to this blog.  For the past hour or so I’ve been trying to think of a way to talk about everything I have to say today, but it’ll just end up being a large rambling post.

I Went Flying Yesterday:

I finally got up flying yesterday after 2 canceled lessons due to inclement weather.  This was my first time flying in almost 11 months so I was nervous to start but started to remember all the tricks quite fast.  We reviewed stalls and slow flight while flying in the practice area.  For a power off stall we pull the throttle pack to idle and try to keep the plane flying straight and level.  As the speed falls we need to pull farther and farther back on the controls to keep flying level until the plane can no longer hold level and the nose falls, we then lower the nose to gain speed, apply full throttle and get back to flying straight and level.  On Monday I’m taking my radio operators permit test and will be practicing in the circuit.

I won a Flip Video Mino:

As you saw last week, I posted about The Net Fool’s contest sponsored by Market Leverage.  I won the 1st price of a Flip Video Mino.  I can’t wait to receive it so that I can start testing out some video posts.  I’d like to thank Jim of TheNetFool.com as well as MarketLeverage.com.

MooneyQuest Theme Updates:

Over the past few days I’ve been catching up on some of the blogs I used to read before I went away.  I’ve really noticed how the difference between a decent looking blog and a great looking blog can make a difference on whether you read it or not.  It’s almost a matter of credibility.  I’m going to start reworking the theme I use to make it look more professional.  I’m going to install OIO Publisher and remove some of the old ads I’m running (*cough* TopHostingCenter *Cough*).

Upcoming vBulletin Job:

One of the things that got me started working online was vBulletin forum software.  I’ve been making money installing and upgrading forums for almost 2 years now.  I just got an email from an old customer of mine and he wants me to move 2 of his forums to a new server and upgrade both of them.  This job should net me $400-500.  I think I will write an eBook eventually about how easy it is to make money with vBulletin.  If you have any knowledge at all with FTP and know how to upload a few files, you can easily make $75 for an hours work.

Got a VOIP Number and Looking to Buy a Headset:

I signed up with vBuzzer.com yesterday and purchased a phone number.  For $25 a year I got my own phone number and unlimited incoming and outgoing calling within Canada and the USA, not a bad deal eh.  Normal phone lines cost too much in Canada.  I once called Godaddy in the USA and the phone call cost me $8 for 9 minutes.  Now all I need to do is buy a headset and I’ll be away to the races.  I found a nice set at NCIX.com for $199, it’s the Sennheiser PC350 and it includes a free copy of Quake Wars.  What do you think?

Tomorrow I will be posting part 2 of my “Guide to starting a forum series”.

~Reid

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As many of you noticed by my post 2 days ago, I’m back!!!  I know hope many of you have missed me but I thought I needed to take some time off to recharge my blogging batteries.  I know I could have posted more in the past but I would hate to post short meaningless posts.  I’m going away on vacation for the weekend but will be back Tuesday again.

I’ve given a lot of thought about what I would like to talk about in my next posts.   Some of these topics will include:

• The continuation of my “How to start a forum” series and posts about the launching of my forums.
• My first shot at affiliate marketing.
• My possible attempt at entering the stock market.

I am also planning on writing eBooks again.  Every time I write an eBook I tend to earn $700-1000 off a few hours work.  I’m currently brainstorming ideas of what to write about.

~ Reid

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I’m sorry to have been away so long, I will be posting more about my month off in the next post.  I’ve been wanting to inform everyone about a great contest my friend Jim (The Net Fool) is running.  I’m squeezing my entry in at the very last minute but its not too late for you guys to enter!  The prizes are amazing and would definitely be something I could use.  The first prize is a Flip Video Mino, the new and improved version of the Flip Video Mini.  This new version is much smaller and runs on a rechargeable battery.  The second prize is a $50 MarketLeverage gift card.  It is refreshing to see a contest with physical prizes rather than normal entrecredits and ad spot prizes.  You had better get your entry in soon as the contest ends tonight at midnight!  Entering the contest is easy, just check the list below for ways to enter.

• Mandatory –> Registration and 1 Ticket: Subscribe to our RSS feed via email
• 1 Ticket per Submission: Submit one of our posts to social media networks Digg, StumbleUpon and/or Mixx
• 15 Tickets: Make a 300+ word blog post that links back to this contest at theNetFool.com and Market Leverage
• 25 Tickets: Create a video and submit it to YouTube

You can read the full details about the contest at TheNetFool.com!

PS: Happy belated birthday Jim!

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I returned from Florida late last night. I had a great vacation and would love to live where I stayed. Unfortunately, the internet connection there was horrible and I was unable to go online for more than a few minutes at a time before the connection would cut out again. I will be sending out the prizes for the contest this afternoon. Unfortunately, only 1/3 of the winners actually claimed their prizes. If you didn’t claim or didn’t win, don’t worry. There will be another contest soon to give out the leftover prizes plus some more prizes which I will get for you soon.

I’ve read a few posts on forums such as Blog Premiere asking about advice for starting a forum. For many people, starting a forum is confusing. In my opinion, starting a forum isn’t complicated, but it will require a lot of dedication and hard work to get started. I will be writing a three part series on how to start a forum. This guide will tell you everything you need to know to start your own forum. I am a vBulletin tech, so I have setup and modified many popular forums in the past. I am planning to start my very own forums soon, so I will be blogging on that shortly as well. This guide will start off with the basics and move onto the more important stuff in parts 2 and 3.

Picking out a domain for your forum:

One of the trickiest parts of starting a forum in my opinion is finding a good domain. With domainers picking up a lot of domains and holding them, this can be tricky. When you want to pick out a domain for your forum, I strongly recommend you get a .com domain, if you can’t get a .com domain, go for a .org domain. I’m planning a few forums, and found some very nice domains, but had to go with a .org domain. Don’t worry, .org domains generally do just find. Do not buy a .info, .in, or any other crappy TLD domain as you will be shooting yourself in the foot. You can buy your domains from GoDaddy, but I strongly recommend NameCheap as they offer free WHOISGuard protection.

I have a few domains I will always check first when I’m thinking of a forum name. First of all I always check the domain ending in forum/forums, such as AviationForum.com, or TechForums.com. Normally these will be taken buy you can always email the owner and see if he’s willing to sell (see next part). Then I move onto checking other domains that are short but suit the topic well. If you want to buy a domain for a forum, try checking for available domains in this list that would suit you.

www._________forum.com

www.——–forums.com

www.——–spot.com

www.——–central.com

www.total———.com

www.———zone.com

Basically, check your topic of the forum with a simple word at the end. Don’t try and make your name so fancy that its hard to spell or remember. Some of the domains I own include TechCentral.org, TotalAviation.org, WebmasterSpot.com and DetailersEdge.org. As you can see, all of these domains consist of 2 words and are easy to remember.

Domain taken? Attempting to buy an already owned domain.

Sometimes you will think of a domain that would be perfect for your forum. You check NameCheap to find that the domain is already taken and that there is no live site on that domain. At this point, I’d highly recommend you try and contact the current domain owner and see if he wants to sell the domain. To do this, visit Whois.sc and enter the domain which you want to buy. If the domain is not protected by WHOISGuard, it will bring up the owners contact information. Send him/her an email and hope that you can negotiate a good price.

A Word About Backordering Domains:

A while back I was talking to a friend about a domain I wanted to acquire. He told me I should backorder the domain with Godaddy.com for $19.99 so that I’d get it when it expired. I strongly advise you to not use Godaddy’s backorder system, you are very unlikely to get the domain that way. Basically, each registrar gets is allocated a certain number of servers to ping the ICANN database to try and catch the domain as they drop. You are much more likely to get the domain by backordering the domain with Pool.com for free (you pay $60 once you actually get the domain) or SnapNames.com These registrars have far more servers than Godaddy, and thus a better chance at getting you the domain. Remember, it is likely cheaper to try and contact the owner of the domain first as sometimes domains are registered and the owner will keep renewing them.

Stay tuned for part 2 of 4 which will talk your options for forum software and content management systems. I will also let you in on a great quality hosting deal.

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Hey everyone,

I’m just getting a quick post in from the house I’m staying in.  The internet  connection is horrible so I will try to post soon, but it keeps cutting out.  Sorry about my lack of posting lately.  When I get a better connection, I will get posting.
Reid

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I’m proud to announce the winners of the first MooneyQuest contest.  We had an awesome turnout with 667 entries in total.  I will be posting more about the effects of the contest in a future post.  Now, onto the prizes.  I calculated the number of entries each person had and entered the email associated with the entries into random.org and did the draw.  There are 21 prizes, so I took the first 21 winners and matched them with the list of 21 prizes in the prize list from the original post.   Here are the winners.

 Now here are the winners matched with their prizes.

Please click the image to view it full size.

Thoughts from the contest:

I certainly thought this contest ran well.  For my next contest I will be changing a few things.  First of all I would like to run a longer contest, I believe a month would be a fair length.  Secondly, for the drawing, you can see this time some people won more than once.  I think for the next contest, a one prize per person limit should be setup to keep certain people from winning a lot of prizes.  Lastly, I hope I won’t be so busy during the next contest so that I will be able to post daily during it. 

Over all, I really thought the contest went smooth.  I would like to congradulate all the winners and thank everyone for participating.  I would like to send a special thanks out to the contest sponsors; this contest would have not been possible without your support.

On a side note, I am working on my first major project, I will be talking about that soon.  Secondly, I will be on vacation from the 10th to the 19th.  If anyone is interested in guest posting, please contact me.

Could all the winners please comment here to claim your prize within 7 days. Unclaimed prizes will be redrawn out to the people who entered.  I will email you the details!

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I first started making some decent money online back in November of last year.  I started to read some of the big name blogs such as John Chow, John Cow, Tyler Cruz, Shoemoney, etc.  I’d like to warn anyone that reads these blogs that reading them is a waste of your time!  They will not help you earn any money online!  Why’s that?

They are already making good money online - The bigname bloggers meantioned above are already making good money off there blogs.  Tyler Cruz is earning $1400+ a month from his blog alone while John Chow is earning over $30,000 a month from his blog.  They already have sites making very good money and have no need to post about there progress.

Their posts are hardly relevent - Lets take a look at JohnChow.com first.  If you read most of his posts, you will find paid reviews, posts about his dinners, and lots of stuff.  None of them will really tell you how to make money online.  As his header says, he makes money online by telling you how much money he makes.  Now lets look at Tyler Cruz, a fairly sucessful web entrepreneur.  He has over 1500 RSS subscribers but almost none of his posts will tell you how to make money online.  If you look at his most recent posts, you will see ones telling you how much money his blog is making, ones about his vacation and his server crash and even more paid reviews, but do any of them give beginners tips to make money online.  Again, the answer to that is no.  I could go on forever with this post talking about MMO blogs which won’t help the readers, but that would end up getting boring.

Why you should read newer blogs - I tend to subscribe to newer blogs such as The University Kid, The Net Fool, etc because they are newer to the MMO niche, yet they blog about their progress making money online.  These guys are the ones who will provide you with first hand information about making money online.  You can follow their successses and failures, while a big name blogger will only bloat about how much they are already making and not help out the reader.

With MooneyQuest, I will try and guide you guys to make money online.  I have written one major tutorial so far and will have many more to come with ways that you can make money online.

As for the contest, I will be tallying up the entries and picking the winners within the next day or so.  Stay tuned for the announcement of the winners.

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Its been over a week since I last posted on MooneyQuest and I feel very ashamed of it.  Basically, I finished my final exam on April 24th and have been working ever since.  I finally got a decent high speed connection setup yesterday, I’ve been on satellite internet for years and finally found a cellular wireless service.  My ping is now down to 100 from 800+, my speeds are up to 1.3mbps from 700kbps and my upload speeds are now 500kbps, up from 70kbps.  Overall, I’m very happy about this.  I can finally use skype!

As I meantioned above, I’ve been working a lot since I finished exams.  Making $13 an hour is nice but I would certainly like to get a long-term money making website going soon.  I’m getting a little sick of people posting on DigitalPoint asking “How can I make $1500 a month online without any investment”.  I see so many of these threads every week.  I finally have an answer for you.  Most of you won’t like it, but here it is!!

wait for it…

wait for it…

wait for it…

still waiting….

GET A F**KING JOB!!!!!

So many kids on DigitalPoint assume that you can make thousands, even millions online without any work.  If you are one of those, you are so wrong.  I won’t deny there is money to be made online, but whether you work online, at a 9 to 5 job, or whatever, you will need to put effort into what you do.  Nothing is easy, but if you work at something hard enough for a long time, you will have a good shot at making a lot of money.

Anyways, I hope to get back to posting daily now.  I’m very sorry about being away for so long.  The contest will go on as planned, don’t forget to enter today if you have not already!

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