I run this websites and a few others, including my more popular Amateur Traveler website on a bluehost.com account. I started to run into problems with performance as my site started to push past 2000 page views a day, especially when I would get bursts of traffic from sites like StumbleUpon. I started to get ...

I had a non-profit pitch a story for the Amateur Traveler recently and in the process of getting that story ready for publication I think there is a valuable lesson. What the author had missed was the chance to make the story personable and therefore more memorable. The first version of the story about volunteer ...

On November 20th  I will be teaching a one day short course at DeAnza College called “Blogging for Profit”. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will look at How to pick a topic for blogging How to use keyword research How to setup and maintain a blog using WordPress How to personalize your blog using templates and ...

When I read Seth Godin’s book Tribes about discovering the group of people who want/need you to lead them I understood it and appreciated it. But I think I didn’t get it in quite the same way as I did this week. the problem As many of you know my podcast the Amateur Traveler was ...

Writer’s block comes eventually to all bloggers. You know you want to write a “7 ways to …” style article and you can only come up with 5 ways to do anything. What do you do? Like the song says, I get by with a little help from my friends. In this case my friends ...

I am still surprised and flattered when someone asks my opinion so that is probably why I said yes when I was offered the chance to evaluate a cell phone handset for a major cell phone manufacturer. As the blogger/podcaster I did not really do my homework. I assumed that the company was asking me ...

I have changed the slogan for the Amateur Traveler to: “Amateur Traveler – The Amateur Traveler is a travel show that helps you find the best places to travel to. It includes both a weekly audio podcast and a twice monthly video podcast. It also includes travel news and resources.” This is an ongoing effort ...

I love English. I know no language better than my native tongue. But as someone who thinks in a logical fashion I personally know of at least 4 languages where I can probably spell with better results (German, Turkish, Italian, Spanish) than in the eddies and riptides which comprise English spelling. Personally I blame the ...

It seems over the last few years main stream media has increasingly taken the position that main stream media is “professional” and that bloggers and podcasters are “amateurs”. When did “amateur” become a dirty word? I am an amateur, after all I have a podcast that proudly proclaims myself the “Amateur Traveler“. But what’s so ...