Group A – Jan 2010

What other programs can be used to edit text in graphics if you don't have Photo Shop. Believe Dreamweaver will be able to do it but am not au fait with it. Is there any possibility of a tutorial for newbies to use Dreamweaver to get us going.

I can't help feeling that this was rushed to market before it was ready.
There are no instructions as to what to do with the package that was received, although one can take an educated guess. You seem to assume that everyone has a copy of Photoshop, which is not the case, and therefore you do not supply a blank set of graphics that can be edited in almost any graphics editor.
Please take this as a little constructive criticism, and look at your product from a 'newbie' point of view. A few words in a PDF file saying do this and then do that, plus some easily editable graphics would go a long way to making this a much more user friendly product.
I know that from the excellent quality of your previous products that this will develop into a great membership, but you need to prepare just a wee bit more before launch.
Thanks for a great first product and good luck with the new site.
Brian

Gimp is an excellent free resource which will do most any graphic editing you need. It is compatible with Photoshop. I have both and when I want to do something quickly I usually go to GIMP.

Bruce
http://blog.bruce-leonard.com@admin:

There are many free alternatives to Photoshop.
Firstly, there is http://www.photoshop.com itself a free online scaled-down version

Here are more:
http://www.webdesignbooth.com/15-great-and-free-photoshop-alternatives/

Hope that helps

It is really great to have input from others. Particularly, yes Brian I do agree that some explicit documentation would definitely be a major plus here (Frank does this quite well) – the self muddling how to stuff can really drain the barrel very quickly and lead to complete frustration and burn out. Blank graphics would be most helpful here. Free resources also a must for us "lowly newbies" – things to make life easier. Don't think anyone really minds the work so long as they can see progress – it's the muddling through that seems to do the damage to productivity and self-esteem. Enthusiasm comes from a level of achievement after all. Love the input so thanks to all.

I have a video which shows how to edit a PSD file using Gimp. It's from a series of videos on Gimp that I did a while back. You can get a copy of it here

http://learn-graphics.net/download/PSDedit.zip

There is a problem with Gimp opening PSD files in that it doesn't always open them 100%. In the minisite for instance it doesn't open one of the background layers on the header and footer so it's not as red as the originals. It also doesn't have the facility that Photoshop has to save the slices. You would have to slice it up yourself.

I have created jpg blanks from the minisite PSD, you can get those here

http://learn-graphics.net/download/blanks.zip

Frank, I hope you don't mind me jumping in but after many years in customer service, I just can't help myself.

G'day all,

After a few teething problems, my site is online and ready to rock n' roll.

The graphics have been edited with Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/) and the site with Kompozer (http://kompozer.net/), both of which I use all the time, cause they're free and I'm cheap ;o).

http://bettermarketingtoolbox.com/slplug

Any and all criticism will be appreciated….

I'd leave a testimonial on the 'Testimonials' link, but there's no comments section to do so… hint, hint.

Cheers,
John

Oh John!

$5!! speechless!! I'd better not say any more.

Frank, I installed the plugin to one of my blogs, activated it and can get to it under "settings"… however, under the "Pages" option, it only lists the first 30 or so posts/pages that are on my blog. I've got almost 1000 on there, and as it stands now, there is no way for me to drop a cookie on ANY recent post. How can this be corrected?

I joined on the first day and I am not to happy with the rush thing, the site was a total disaster, after about 10 minutes of searching for the download, finally got it and it and it doesn't work right, you can't change posts or pages it shows me about 20 posts. I have over 1000 on the test blog.

It needs fixed if you expect us to sell it, right now I wouldn't put my name on it, why did you?

Waiting to see what you do with the plugin, that is way more important than the silly graphics complaint or did they not try to use the plugin yet.

I'll give it one month to "pick it up" then I will decide to keep the membership or not.

Don't misinterpret me as negative, I'm not, This is positive feedback

I'm just a perfectionist and I guess I expect the same from others.

Marc Browne

G'day again,

Stan, thanks for your constructive criticism???

I'm not going to explain my reasons for the pricing, suffice to say that I'm in this for the long haul. But if it makes you feel better, I've now tried to implement the nickel script for the third time, but among other possible problems, the grid is not displaying correctly.

To Jim and Marc, I don't have that many posts, but of course I tried the script out and it worked for me. I do agree that if it isn't going to work correctly then that's a problem none of us needs.

John

I feel I was a little harsh in previous post, but I see that I'm not the only one who sees the post problem. I have logged a support ticket with the bugs. The script does work as described and its actually a cool idea, it just needs fixed.

Good job…. the plug in is fixed and works great.

@John Leith:

This System is in Beta

This system is in Beta which is why we have got in at $20 instead of $47. For those that do not understand what Beta means, it means that it is still being tested and those that get a in at a discount have to take that on board, there may and probably will be errors to uncover whilst you are using the system.

Even big software houses (like Oracle and Microsoft) use Beta testing to iron out any faults that the users discover. They do it because it is virtually impossible or extremely expensive to try and test every little nuance that may cause a system to fail. By using Beta testers they get lots of people testing the product and are therefore more likely to find faults and errors. Before it is released as a Product to the world.

If it was costing $47 then you would have resonable grounds to complain a the faults. But not whilst you know it is in Beta. the important thing is that whilst it is in Beta any faults are removed as quickly as possible and that the Beta testers have the opportunity to download that fix ASAP.

I think it was Mike Litman who coined the phrase "You don't have to get it right you just have to get it going" This is exactly What Frank is doing. ANd the first couple fixes have already been published (the graphics and the number of posts).

Hi Frank

is it possible to drop the cookie when someone visits the blog regardless of the post they visit, or do you have to set every post individually ?

thanks
Shaun

What will be the release *day* for future products? 1st of the month, 15th, 32nd ?

@shaun kerrigan:

Individually. However, if the post you want the cookie dropping is still in the #1 slot on your blog, ie at the top of the page, it will drop the cookie for you.

-Frank

@Michael Cannon:

We think about the 18th or 19th of each month. We're just deciding what the next months product is for Group A and we'll announce it, probably in a few days or so.

Once again the two products that we're debating over could easily be sold directly by ourselves, they're that good, and I've never seen anyone else do anything like either of these two before. They really are unique products in the marketplace that will both help you with your own business and be great to sell too.

We think you're going to like whichever one we decide to go with.

-Frank

Frank, it is shaping up well. It looks like you have ironed out those bugs and I am putting the finishing touches on the site now. One question though, how do you make those box shape JPGs come out of Photoshop from the PSD files? Is there some sort of script that folds the images into the 3D box with shadows and reflections? Or am I missing something?

Thanks, Geoff

Frank
Could I just clarify your answer please:

"Individually. However, if the post you want the cookie dropping is still in the #1 slot on your blog, ie at the top of the page, it will drop the cookie for you."

So if you have a number of posts on the page it has to be the number 1 slot?,so if you made that post "sticky" and it stayed at number 1 it would work ? do people have to click on the actually post or just by visiting the page with that post on it will drop the cookie?.

thanks

@Geoff Hodskiss:

http://www.plrcodemine.com/2010/02/02/3d-cover-creator/

@shaun kerrigan:

Probably. But don't just trust me on it, try it out and see if it works.

I have a concern about "shadow linking." Isn't this the same as "cookie stuffing?" I believe that many affiliate programs, like Clickbank, forbid cookie stuffing or dropping cookies before the user actually goes to the product page. As I understand it, cookie stuffing is a blackhat method. Not that I object to blackhat methods, but I don't want to sell this to customers who then get themselves in trouble and blame me because I sold it to them! If it's blackhat, we need to disclose it.

So, is it cookie stuffing or not?

Ed

@Ed Bustya:

Where did you get the term "shadow linking" from? Not from me!

My suggestion is and always has been that you write a review of a product and then place a single affiliate link for that product on the post or page using the plugin, and then display a direct link to the site for visitors to click. Lots of people won't click a link if they believe it's an affiliate link, and this plugin side steps that problem and makes sure that affiliates get credit for their promotional work. That's not really cookie stuffing is it?

As another example, AdSpurt will do a similar thing for keywords using the single underline link. It looks like a plain old link, but is actually an aff link. Again, that's not really cookie stuffing is it?

Cookie stuffing as it's known is where you land on a page, and unknown to you have 30 or 40 or 100 totally unrelated cookies stuffed into your browser. So if you then go onto one of those sites you've been stuffed with anyway, then the affiliate would unfairly get credit for work they haven't done. THAT's cookie stuffing, and that's what the affiliate networks object to.

Just don't do it and don't tell people to do it. Tell them they're ensuring they're getting the credit for the work they're doing anyway.

-Frank

@John Leith:

Yeah! Sorry about that. It was a knee jerk reaction as I felt that $5 just devalued the whole thing but each to his own. As Frank says we're free to do what we want with it, pretty much.

Hey Guy's your taking a bit stick early in Beta but i am here to say that the idea is great and i love it and all that stick can only make it a better membership for the future.
Keep the great work up and can't wait till we get to Group Z.

Peter G

@John Leith: John, nice site and nice product title & description. Good on ya for taking action… unlike me who still hasn't even tested it… or even unzipped it….. *sigh*

Suffering from too-full-platter,

Donna

Hey Frank,

I hope you don't mind but I have tweaked the code a little. Firstly to improve the layout, look and feel of the settings page and secondly to add some on-screen instructions for using the plugin.

I have sold two so far after being online for less than a month. Traffic is building slowly to the sales site with just under 200 visitors so far. That's a half-reasonable sales conversion rate.

I am offering a free 12 month support service for buyers who sign up. They get added to an autoresponder list where I will broadcast script updates as well as cross-promote other PLR products as they come out. There is an upsell on the welcome page once they have signed up for the free support. I have been learning something from you Frank

The site consists of the main sales page, a dozen or so FAQ and articles pages and a few misc pages. Google has sent me visitors based on 75 different keywords so far so writing the FAQs and articles is paying dividends. The support page is password protected and I offer additional hints and tips on that page, as well as a reminder about the free 12 month support service.

I have been promoting the URL in comments on blogs and by other means.

Hopefully that this short story helps give others ideas on what might work with their own sites.

Geoff

So here I am reading about a bug fix in the January product, click on the download link, and get "Sorry, your access to this content has expired".

Same happens when I try to get my February product, released in March with no notification – I came here within 30 minutes of receiving the first email since the one telling me the February product was delayed.

There should be a better way of giving people what they paid for than expecting them to play a game of "guess the release date", especially now you are out of beta . . .

@Matt Whelan:

Presumably you're here because I sent out an email about it?

That's what's going to happen from now on. I've actually got a lot to tell the membership, but I've been figuratively biting my tongue as we're all very busy here and I know that as soon as I say something there will be people saying something back which I have to answer.

And that's fine. So I'm sorry Matt, but you can expect to hear more from me in the future.

I've extended the download of all Group A products until tomorrow.

Unfortunately there's no other way I can do this as DAP doesn't seem to work in the right way with product delivery. If it were a learning course, it would work perfectly as the assumption with DAP is that it's going to be drip fed, evergreen, ordered content.

With products DAP isn't so good, and it looks like the only way I can do this for now is to expire content, which as you've found is a pants way of doing it. So I'm having my own WordPress membership plugin coded up that will work in just the way I (and I've seen plenty of others) need it.

Maybe to work around the limitations of DAP I'll have to create new sub-groups, one for each month until my own plugin is live. We'll see.

-Frank

Frank, one of the affiliate links I have tested on my blog using the cookie dropper code causes the actual affiliate landing page to open up. Is there some sort of frame busting code that affiliate landing pages can use to break the frame and therefore make the plugin less effective (for that affiliate anyway)? I hope this is not a trend that catches on among affiliate landing pages as I would not like to have to issue refunds to all my customers (of my re-badged cookie dropper plugin). Cheers, Geoff

I found it! The frame breaker code is real simple.

if (window!= top)
top.location.href=location.href

I am looking for a way to defeat this but if anyone knows how to in the mean time, please post it here.

Don't worry about the above comment. I think it is best to just advise customers to avoid the occasional site with frame buster code.

Not sure if this has already been answered before, so if so sorry, but can more than one cookie be dropped on a single post?

Thanks Sally

Hi Sally
This is James, Yes you can put as many cookies as you want on a page.
Just enter the URL and then select page and press submit.

Thanks

James

It may be worth your while checking out the current proceedings against Christopher Kennedy in the USA. eBay has successfully brought one charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Chris for selling cookie stuffer software. Note the "selling" part of it. He was not the end users, although he may have used his own software, he was selling it.