Michael E. Cantone's Weblog

OK It Is Time To Get The Lead OUT !

mecantone — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:18:52 +0000

I was amazed where the search for the above title took me.

I use to work for them when they were HP now they want to save the environment though the equipment I tested for them saved lives. The SONOS 5500

It could get messy with any more information than what I already have. I’m no longer a technician but still enjoy troubleshooting but now instead of systems it’s my business and life I have been analyzing. When analyzing systems to the component level it required engineered software to locate which Printed Circuit Board (PCB) that was causing the failure then there were specific test beds designed for each PCB with varying technical expertise pending the complexity to repair the problem of each.

This is way off from the title and what I need to do to get back on track. What I originally wanted to let my readers know is that there are plans in the making to make this an interesting blog to visit. So stick with me and let me entertain you with future post of how things are turning out by being focused.

Learning how to focus was important for me so that I can give you what learn in my life as a Road Warrior Traveler to my new chosen profession as Web Designer Broker. What do I know about web design? Not much in comparison to my peers but way more than the 65% of businesses out there who are too busy building their business to seriously take time to build a website that will GROW their business.

If one were to take the time and read my past entries since I started this blog you can see I have been around some amazing folks who know a ton about marketing online. Now I know a ton myself and know I DO NOT WANT TO SELL HOW TO MARKET ONLINE PRODUCTS.

I have been at this stuff since June of “06″ finally coming to the conclusion that there is a need out there that I can fulfill a service which is, hooking the right business up with the right designer and visor verser.

Some (family) that know me take it that I might be a negative influence they should stay away from upon solid advise from their mentors. They refuse to listen to my analysis of their website not even waiting to hear why I made it in the first place thinking to themselves I am being mean. They Designed a beautiful website that they pored their heart and soul into, what could be wrong with it? Not knowing or caring what SEO means or how I know at a glance once the page is loaded something is wrong. It is such a beautiful site and think, “What does he know?” Obviously in this situation the website for this company is merely for status and does link to things the customer can use as long as their link is on the business card along side a Directors resume. Another thing I know is business. Now my only interest is increasing my customers bottom line were they can take my advice or not but should.

I know more ranting but I’m very calm and know where we have to go. But! It is time to get the lead out.

Please stand by.

I know…Where The Hell Have I Been?

mecantone — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:47:45 +0000

I want to say sorry to those who missed my rants.

For those who didn’t miss anything it has been a while since I last posted.

Finally found out what it is that I wanted to do online, make money at and like doing it!

Design and or find website designs that will enhance a company’s bottom line not just look great with all kinds of fancy gadgets that look like something your next door neighbor’s kid whipped together on his new laptop or mac.

It’s tough to weed through all of the Prima Donna’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna) out there who were constantly told how great their websites look as they were and still are growing up. I wish I knew everything like they think they know. I am very thankful, for learning this business backwards and wish I could have kept going to UMass Boston (http://www.umb.edu/) but that has everything to do with why I want an online business now.

In a couple of days I will be going to Podcamp Boston 4 (http://podcampboston4.eventbrite.com/)

. I went to the very first Podcamp they had at Bunker Hill Community College (http://www.bhcc.mass.edu/) I just wish I knew then what I know now but I still have no idea what to ask or even how to say what I want to ask. Now I know a few online celebrities or at least that is what they are to me.

What Is Wrong With My Blog?

mecantone — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:18:37 +0000

This is what’s wrong with this blog it’s the lack of this…content.

This is one of two blogs. I could feel shame, could and would but that does not put content here. I should have been adding content on here after coming back from a weekend with some of the best information marketers in the business but obviously the economy even gets to them. I do not sell information but I do buy it and will drive 1300 miles to see what makes it work.

A few days before leaving for my journey to Orlando I saw a tactic used by one of the great Gurus finding it to be quite interesting. It was almost like this Guru knew I was coming and thought I had a lot more bucks to spend than the average internet marketer, that’s internet marketer NOT information marketer.

Buying a product from this great Guru at the end of the year in ‘08 made me at least want to see what he was up to with his last minute offer. The product purchased in ‘08 from this Guru, which at the time was one of many I bought or received for free by buying other products but had no clue until coming back from Atalanta what it was or even how to use it. Still don’t. But if you get a hosting account which some how I now have a few of, two out of the three these accounts have what this Guru taught people how to use. I’m not going disclosing any more information than that about the product because I want to tell you about the tactic.

Here’s how it went. I believe if it was not for the economy my message sent via Twitter would have gone without even being noticed. I let this Guru know through Twitter I was going to Orlando and had questions about the use of his product purchased in ‘08. The next thing I know there was an email with a great limited opportunity which was going out only to those going to the event. It was also for those of us that might arrive early. The limit to this mini event would be limited to five very lucky folks who he promised would make our trip worth it. With these few hours he would teach us how we would be better off than going to the whole weekend event. All this for a mere $300.00. I had an interest but was not sure of my ETA to the event because another great Guru was giving away a great product which I felt as a $30.00 investment was worth putting off my journey for. I thought about stopping at a WiFi Flying J along the way but knew how well these FREE product launches go; they don’t go well. I was on the early bird list but like I said they don’t go well, and it still took three hours to get in. They screwed up, got lots of my info but must have lost it in a bit bucket or something. Never saw it show up on my credit card so I hung around this freezing cold city for nothing when I could have been baking in the Orlando sun.

I arrived in Orlando at 2:30 am Wednesday morning which was eight hours later than the lady in my GPS told me that I would arrive at in the beginning. Because sleeping and driving don’t mix I pulled over twice, once in Virginia where I slept slightly after barely making it to the mens room of a convenient store. A woman in the store told me that rest areas are not safe places to sleep telling me their parking area would be and they’d keep an eye on my van. But being parked in a handicap spot outside the door of a store with people on their way to work stopping by frequently making various kinds of noise was not helping me sleep. Still too chilly to change into shorts and a short sleeve golf shirt it was onward until the groves they cut into the side of the road told me it was time for a real rest.

I was in a rest area in southern North Carolina. Keeping in mind that womans caution, I pulled to the end of the parking area after stopping in the mens room. I then hopped in the back and finally got some rest. It was raining and there was a Sate Trooper facing the rest area which made me comfortable and nervous at the same time. Woke up, changed into shorts and a short sleeve golf shirt. I shot a short video before heading to Orlando. Between road construction and now rain this slowed me down quite a bit. I made up some time as it was getting dark and the later it got the less traffic there was. It was now time to play leapfrog with fellow lead foots all the way to Orlando.

I put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door knob to my room and slept very well. I had a day before the event but knew the hotels price of bottled water. I then bought two cases for what a single bottle would have cost at the hotel. I met the folks running the event and was invited to hang with them. They remembered me from Atlanta. Not mentioning them here either in case they didn’t know about the IM guy with his special pre-event package.

I figured if this IM guy was any good he would have convinced me, if there was an opening, of course, to his five person event, to pay him $300.00 to show me how to use what I bought from him in ‘08. I kept an eye out for him while hanging with the folks hosting the event that I already paid for but he never did show even though his fantastic opportunity event that was to start at 8:00 pm.

After another good nights rest from any further van lag it was now time to go to the event I paid my $200.00 minus hotel and driving expense for. After the third speaker was finished we had a break. I was having minor difficulties with my room so I headed to the front desk and guess who was checking in? That’s right! It was the “I’ll teach you more in three hours than you’ll get out of this whole weekend event;” IM guy. While I was busy talking to the manager the IM guy checked into his room. Guess no one else thought it was a great deal either.

No it’s the economy!

What Do I Do Now?

mecantone — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 02:52:18 +0000

Well, I’ve been down so Goddam long

That it looks like up to me.

Well, Ive been down so very dam long

That it looks like up to me.

Yea, so why don’t one you people

C’mon an set me free. “Jim Morrison”

Tomorrow I go to one of my favorite places, the brace shop. It would not be nice being in Florida next week having it fall apart in the middle of a surprise presentation. I know people would grimace seeing my bare pelican leg when it is out of the brace with the anticipation of a snapping sound from the hyper extended knee joint. It is really hyper extended the brace prevents the odds of that snapping from happening.

I have been out of work for 9 years from the exact company I am bringing this brace to repair. A young aspiring orthotists who, instead asking the patient with a prescription, thought it better to collaborate with a physiatrist a medical doctor who specializes in physical medicine, rehabilitation, and pain medicine. These spine specialists focus on the body’s musculoskeletal system, which includes bones, joints, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and nerves but in this case never saw a case of Polio in her life. Having no clue to what atrophy was thinking muscle was going to develope from osmosis from my other leg the orthotists worked on the brace that might have helped an athlete that needed some help in the ankle area but remained clueless to the atrophy. Can not help dead ankles with no muscle.

Well, instead of scrapping the whole brace now that the patients prescription was making sense it was decided to rebuild the bottom part of the brace only, which never seemed to align correctly causing lesions 3 inches long and an inch and a half wide which took two and half years to close and many visits to plastic surgeons to repair.

All the brace needs is five worn out straps, replace a sheared of screw and a thick piece of padded plastic and some liner and insurance should cover it but I was assured they wouldn’t. The place where I’ll be having my brace repaired was paid for twice by the insurance company the other third by me is the FDR Center in Burington MA. 01803

Confused Is Not The Word For My Dilemma

mecantone — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:08:50 +0000

It all started January 27 of this year.

I was taking action while hoping to beat some of this New England weather at the same time. I have been trying to cut through the crap of this Internet marketing stuff finally finding some regular folks at a regular price down there in Atlanta at NAMS. I know basically my business is to help businesses that are not on-line to get on-line. This is my business right? If those businesses knew what I am going through right now to get everything straight so I can help and dare charge money to get them, on-line I would then become invisible.

I have a GoDaddy account for my domain name that I did not know I already own the correct one of. The domain at name at Godaddy is MillenniumResourcesLLCOnline.com. I tried getting Millennium Resources LLC not realizing that I already own it through Web.com. I then needed a hosting account so that I could become a WordPress Expert which I thought was going to be a walk in the park, singing up for a HostGator account for that. Some expert said some time back, since I’ve been at this since May 2008 it could have been any one of them, that your domain name and your hosting accounts should be separate.

I can see why many companies never get on-line just from what I am getting confused about. This is my business right? I built my first web page with Adobe Golive 4.0 but never got it published. It was not that hard to do using that software especially after learning code from Laura Lemay’s “Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML 4 IN 14 Days” Second Edition. I always felt blogs were easier than web pages to build but somehow everything seems tainted.

Now I’m getting ready for a drive to Orlando to Willie’s Birthday Bash to meet up with some of the same folks that were at NAMS; I’m hoping to walk away from it with a peace of mind. I have found a model for what my business should be like and will be preparing my business plan for the event with great hopes of landing a Joint Venture. I love marketing and writing never realizing that both would meet as they did at UMass Boston.

I Cannot Let MY EWP Mistake Beat ME!

mecantone — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:00:53 +0000

Should have realized from the poor communication in the very beginning that we should have just got our money back.

We were just doing what one would hope someone would do for us and that would be to give us the benefit of a doubt.

When they were not even aware that they use a gatekeeper type software, (Un-Professional) that alone should have been yelling in my ear.

They only want your money that is why they made it impossible to contact them.

We really can not blame them totally our eyes were on the prize instead of watching where we were going.

The most pure example of how bad EWP is how I can blog here without much effort for free;

and on my EWP site I need to watch content-less videos taking me around the world instead of step by step as was the selling point to where I have a Blog with lots of gadgets doing nothing when they should be making money…and all of this for under $130.00.

How Nice!

We now have a hosting account with all of this EWP crap on it.

In the meantime we could have had a web site and a blog built by using the software the hosting account has built in.

We learned so much from this very bad experience.

It is not over because at the least we can salvage a blog site for my company.

I drove 937 mi. to Atlanta to hook up with my peers who know how paralyzed we all can get.

Feel like we (MRLLC) were the only ones who bought EWP becoming paralyzed not by analysis but by taking the plunge setting our company back in lost time trying to figure out something so simple?

When we get this simplicity figured out we’ll have a great blog to let future customers know why they should let the professionals build their blogs and web sites for them.

I see I’ll be taking my own advice and a professional build my business blog and web site for me.

I Have For Free For What EWP Charged !

mecantone — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:20:09 +0000

How stupid thinking by buying their product it would help me?

Knowing that going on here my WordPress blog for free to edit my about me, ad links, pictures, ad sense we had to ask.

What were we thinking.

The good thing is I have 2 things I did need.

A GoDaddy and a HostGator account.

We know neither of them are being used correctly.

Now I have to clean up the mess that EWP left on my hosting account.

I have been thrown off the horse quite a few times trying to start my business and refuse to be another statistic by some greedy after work cash cow scammer.

I want this to be my job not my hobby.

How can someone take something that is free and charge people?

Had a delayed reaction after hearing it in a webinar how we were being scammed which could have been worse.

I cried when reality hit me.

We were being talked into this with the free $97.00 monthly charge being waived.

Really thought these guys were experts!

I learned how to be an expert alright!

Gives my business a purpose which is to be out there protecting the business who realized the importance of marketing a web site and a blog to grow their business with online traffic which turns into foot traffic.

My company already got ripped off for them using up huge chunks of time by translating steps that are not in a strait line but were a mess of going back and fourth steps with no direction taking steps out of sync not to mention major steps that should be taken well before you even start.

There are no links here because I am pissed that I drove over 1200 miles thinking I would hook up with some answers by finding Experts who are not.

Is It A GoDaddy or A Nodaddy?

mecantone — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:40:57 +0000

I thought GoDaddy would contact me but actually it does not state that anywhere so another assumption one must take on their own initiative to achieve what one wants.

I will be conquering my fears by going for it all today.

Did I make a mistake going to the Warrior Forum to check out GoDaddy that did not have many good reviews?

In earlier post on this blog my claiming my vast knowledge over the average web user is going to bite me in the ass when it comes to learning the ropes to hosting my first company WordPress blog which ironically is going to be on advice on how to select website builders and services for their company specifics.

But!!!

I have to make the attempt before I fail.

That is my rant for today.

Check out my other blog and see how I hung myself there at 50’s the new 30’s.

Valentines Day Do Not Forget!

mecantone — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:22:16 +0000

Yes I will drop what I am doing right now to make sure my honey of 33 years gets a Valentines Day gift even if I die in the process.

You can NOT buy a Christmas present and get away with it because that day is for the kids…even when things get tough.

You can NOT buy a Birthday gift but you would seriously be at great risk especially if you do not have printer with stock to make a card for an emergency backup.

You HAVE to… no matter what buy a Valentines Day gift and Card even if you are in the hospital; have them wheel your bed down to the gift shop or you wont be leaving that hospital.

Happy Valentines Day!

Hope Help Will Stay Around When It’s Needed

mecantone — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:32:02 +0000

I never made an outline for this post so here it goes.

Is it AADHD that I have or is because I’m aJoneser ?

The last thing I expected was to have someone from GoDaddy reading my blog post and offering to help me out.

It was so frustrating that of course I whined on my blog but got a tweet offering for help also.

Was told by GoDaddy While your hosting account is now active, it typically takes between 24-48 hours before your hosting account is ready for you to upload your Web site.

I think it is something that should definitely be added to the training video I was following; this “little thing” like the waiting period along with how to set up your GoDaddy account that is not mentioned or thought of in the video.

Seriously, no, seriously I have forgotten more about designing web pages using HTML, Visual Basic among other things “thinking” this stuff should be a lot easier not more difficult to set up.

Like when I visited my daughters MySpace page one day while she was in between apartments staying at my house using my wife’s laptop I saw a pretty good MySpace blog then a few days later it was a whole new theme and design.

The first thing I said to myself was, “She doesn’t know one thing about HTML how did she do that?”

Then found out that her friends and cousins I knew who barely knew how to turn on a computer also had these great looking MySpace blogs.

I got hold of a couple of these template thingys and manipulated some of the code then someone put a block on a picture I drove a couple thousand miles to take.

It was a picture personally taken by me of a Route 66 emblem painted on Route 66 the highway in Kansas.

Back to the AADHD theJoneser I talked about in the beginning.

As far a the AADHD thing I am suppose to be building my business but I let some company called MyCorporation do my legwork for me so now sounding foolish to my peers when the only thing stopping me from becoming affiliates with companies I paid to do so with I cannot because since December 3, 2008 been waiting for my Articles of Incorporation.

The Joneserthing; after a ton of research done on the Baby Boomer market I was taken aback finding it to be the toughest but largest market segment to do business in and being a Joneser narrows an area of that market segment for my company.