I’ll admit it. I haven’t used videos on this blog enough, as they are SUCH a great way to get your point across. I could make up excuses why I haven’t, but I think I’ll stick with the one that goes “I can’t find a simple one to use”.

Of course we have the free screen recorders (Camstudio, AutoScreen to name a few), but they can sometimes produce low quality videos or make you spend valuable time to learn how to use the program efficiently. I have yet to find a good quality one that is free.

So, just as I start hunting for another one that meets my needs (Easy To Use, Lightweight, Great Quality), I stumbleupon ALLCapture. Interested by the amount of features that this product offers (Then again, what online software DOESN’T have a list of features) I downloaded the trial and gave it a shot.

The Testing

Well, I start off with the ability to capture text and mouse movements, something that is crucial to present a tutorial or review. It certainly passed the test with ease with no stuttering.

Next off, I capture a youtube video. This was done excellent preserving quality, but the frame-rates was a little less than what the video was showing. No biggie - I don’t pirate Youtube videos anyway.

So, overall I would recommend this product to produce awesome videos to teach your readers new things or create tutorials that would be much better learned inside a Youtube player than in text.

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A picture will capture somebodies attention much more faster than the average title and text. Like in this example, it allows the reader to first identify what the picture is, and then makes them curious about the text and content that is around it.

In this post, I’ll give you seven different websites that provide free pictures for you to use on their posts. Without further reading, here they are:

• Flickr.com - The world’s largest website for pictures.. With thousands upon thousands of new ones uploaded each day.
• Stock.xchng - You will find quality photos here. All of them are very well done and look highly professional.
• StockVault - Great user interface and easy to look at gallery provides an optimal user experience.
• EveryStockPhoto - This website takes photos from Flickr and other Stock Photo Websites and presents them to you. Great for variety.
• MorgueFile - Simple Website With Excellent Search Results.
• Imageafter - It has a great variety of pictures from different users, although the design could be a little better. (Pixels + Dark Blue Background was so two years ago )
• PixelPerfectDigital - Not as many results as the first six, but has categories that are easy to scroll through and find what you are looking for.

So I was checking my “Recent” incoming links in my Wordpress Admin area, and I saw that one was a trackback from a blog hosted on Wordpress.com. So, I clicked the link to see how they had linked to my article…

It turns out that a person had scraped the article that I wrote and the track-back was to a post that I had linked to in the article! Everyday is something new at Bradblogging.com.

I had two emotions as I read my own post on another website - Annoyance and Happiness:

Happiness because that meant that the article that I wrote was actually worth copying to another blogger’s blog, which means that people would consider your article “Good Enough” to scrape off your website.

Annoyance because now I have to ask them to put a link to the original article, or file a D.M.C.A. Takedown notice, which takes valuable time out of my day.

We’ll just have to see how this plays out I suppose.

Have you encountered content theft before on your blog? If so, how did you handle it?

So the whole “Blogging” concept is a great thing. You write articles and then hopefully, if the reader gains something from it, you most likely have a return visitor/subscriber.

But when’s the right time to start introducing advertising? A personal tip that I have learned is that it really doesn’t look good when you have around 3 subscibers in your Feedburner Feedcount with the average hits of 10 per day. Then comes the factor of how much you actually make off of the 10 people… Probably less than a pack of gum’s worth.

Quite honestly, I have tried not to show advertising on this blog because I really want to provide minimal distractions from the content that I so vigorously write :). So the point of the post is to make you question when the right time to start the P.P.C. machine/private sales on your blog. Will you wait for 1000hits/day? or will 100hits/day be “enough” for you.

Posting content to satisfy your readers is a lot different than posting a blog post. Let this diagram explain:

Not every post is going to shine on your blog, that is something that can only be learned with experience. However, by taking simple steps in order to make sure that the posts aren’t a blunder on our blogs, we can ultimately make it look better to anybody that decides to pay a visit.

I really enjoy creating websites and it is a hobby of mine. So much infact, that I have created a “Web Design” firm over at www.freshneverfrozendesign.com to show a tidbit of what I can create. Have a look if your interested.

Alright time to get to the point, which is asking the readers of the blog if they would be interested in a “free” custom wordpress theme that I would design and release. It would be simple enough to not distract your readers from your content, but elegant enough for them to notice the aspects of the template. I have a couple of good ideas, but it is always great to have more.

If you like the idea and are curious as to what the template would look like, comment below and throw in what makes a well-designed blog template. It’s just another thought that I had to benefit the readers of Bradblogging.com

I have finally been able to bring out the second part of my series which is putting prizes in your contest that are worth joining /blogging about. Since we already know how to create one that is easy to read and join, we can now start to brainstorm some of these prizes that will definitely draw attention.

There are three different types of prizes that a blogger can put inside of their contest. Low budget, Mid-budget and you guessed it, High Budget. Many different situations arise when obtaining prizes as some bloggers have been in the business longer, making money along the way. They can then use this to fund a contest which could present a problem for a newbie blogger that has just started out.

So in order to balance all three “classes” of contests, there will be a list for each. Without further adieu, here is prize ideas for any type of contest.

Lower Budget Prize Ideas

• Sidebar or banner advertising on your blog (Cost-Free).
• Blog/Website Reviews (Cost-Free).
• The “Overused” contest prize (Even we are guilty on that one) - Entrecard Credits (Cost-Free).
• Project Wonderful Accounts - You’d be surprised at what $5 can buy worth of advertising on that website ($1-15).
• Asking around fellow bloggers for prize donations: Reviews, Advertising, Cash? (Cost-Free).
• Life-Time Subscriptions to the $5 Theme Club @ Wpdesigner.com.

Mid-Budget Prize Ideas

• Cash Prizes ($10-100).
• Subscription To Seomoz.org - All about SEO which could be useful for bloggers.
• Magazine Subscriptions: PCWorld? Electronic Gaming Monthly? Or let the winner chose (Cost Varies).
• 1 Year Domain Name and/or Hosting (Varies By Host).
• Premium Blog Templates - Free of links to the creator and sponsors (Premium Theme “Revolution” - $99 for single use license, Cost Varies).
• Problogger’s Guide to Blogging “6 Figure Income” E-book (Cost: $29.95).

High Budget Prize Ideas

• 100-1000 Manual Directory Submissions (Varies by provider - Rough Estimate $99).
• Marketing Campaign guaranteeing the winner 500 ads on various websites and blogs for 1+ month(s).
• Yahoo Writeup & Director