WordPress plugins; they’re great aren’t they? We add them to our blogs to add a number of different features and values in the quickest way possible, often unaware of the issues they could cause.

Security, resources, conflicts and loading times to name a few.

Plugins use different scripts and javascripts so when people open our posts or pages they kick in and do their job, fetching and sending information here, there and everywhere.

The trouble is that the more we add to our blogs the slower they become and if we’re not careful we can end up doing more harm than good.

On occasions there is only One plugin to carry out certain tasks so we have to go with that particular plugin if we want that certain “job” doing, Akismet and Commentluv Premium for example.

Many a time though there are a number of plugins that do exactly the same job as each other so it’s up to the blog owner to choose which one to use they want to use.

Take social sharing plugins for example, there’s 100′s available. Sexy Bookmarks, Twitter Facebook Social share, Share Bar, Socialize, Digg Digg, Add This………… The list goes on and on.

Regular readers will know that back in January I wrote the post: Conducting An Interview Over Skype To Create A Product and pointed out that it was one of the easiest ways of product creation I have come across. If you haven’t read that post then head over as I share everything I done in preparation for conducting an interview over Skype.

At the time of writing the post I had already interviewed my favourite blogger Adrienne Smith but with so much going on I put the recorded interview to one side while I got on with launching my latest product: From Passion To Products

I then spent time promoting, hosting and taking part in The Video Blog Challenge, following up last week with the Challenge Summary and Traffic Competition Prize Winner Announcement.

So as you can see I’ve been fairly busy since conducting the interview but during the challenge I got to work on the interview and got it ready for to share with you all

Here are some of the questions I asked Adrienne:

• You’ve been working online for some time now. Can you tell the listeners what made you decide to start an online business?

The Video Blog Challenge Summary

If you’ve visited my blog any time since February 16^th you’ll know that I’ve been holding a Video Blog Challenge since February 29^th until March 29^th and that I’ve been holding a traffic competition for the same period.

Today’s the day that I announce the winner of the competition and send the prizes to that lucky person…… but before I do that, here’s a little summary.

We had 29 participants and created over 90 videos between us, giving us all free tutorials on a number of subjects:

List Building

WordPress

PhotoShop

YouTube

Amazon Selling

Amazon S3 Storage

Pinterest

Twitter

Google Plus

Facebook Fan Pages

Affiliate Marketing

PowerPoint Presentations

Aweber

Memberships Sites

Give Away Events

Keyword Research

The list goes on and on….

There really are some fantastic videos with everyone sharing their knowledge and helping us all progress online.

As it is a leap year my aim was to encourage people that had never created videos before to start doing so and make this leap year somewhat special. Kind of like a leap of faith or to leap on the fear of creating videos and kick it into touch (if that was the case).

Last year I held a video challenge on my blog and invited everyone to start creating videos and get them uploaded to YouTube and added to your blog posts.

I think the challenge went well and we had some fantastic entries, however it was a little rushed and didn’t give some people enough notice…..

Well I’ve decided to hold another video challenge and as it’s a leap year I’m going to step it up a bit and spread the challenge out for four weeks.

Starting on February 29^th through until March 29^th I’m inviting everyone to create videos and place them on their blogs.

Watch the video below or continue reading…

This gives everyone four weeks of video posts where you can demonstrate your skills in any given subject related to Internet Marketing.

We all know that we’re limited on what we can do in a ten minute video but with four weeks we now have a minimum of 40 minutes so we can do a series of videos to bring our viewers back week after week for parts 1 2 3 and 4.

Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

The Journey To Success Part 9

Developing Alliances and Friendships With Other Bloggers

The Journey To Success is a Blog Carnival that is being organised by Mandy Allen in which some Masterclass bloggers are putting together a series of monthly blog posts detailing The Journey To Success. If you haven’t read the previous posts in this series please follow the link above to do so.

Be sure to read the comments as they have often added a wealth of information to the original posts. Please feel free to reply to the comments or leave one of your own

Moving on to part 9:

Developing Alliances and Friendships With Other Bloggers

Throughout this series I have been saying about visiting blogs and forums that share the same passion as yourself, seeing what they have created from that passion and getting in the mix with them.

It’s amazing what you can learn from bloggers and it’s free information that has been tried and tested, saving you time, frustration and a whole heap of headaches.

Hello and thanks for stopping by

I hope that you all had a great Christmas and made the most of the holiday season to catch up with loved ones and share the celebrations with them all.

I had a fantastic Christmas with my wife and children and then Boxing day I had my mum and two of my brothers around for a good ol’ feed and some festive fun. Which I thought topped off my year nicely, but how wrong was I….

In my last post I detailed how this year has been my best year since coming online and all that I had won and achieved this year. Now it’s all well and good me saying about my progress but when other bloggers mention it the feeling is simply fantastic.

Could this year end any better?

I didn’t think it could but am so very pleased to tell you that it has ended on the highest point I could imagine.

We’re approaching that time of year again, when we sit and reflect on the past 12 months and everything that has happened.

This time last year I was busy making plans for 2011 but they didn’t come off as I put them on hold to be by my mothers side during another health scare.

My mum had another bleed to her brain, this time leaving her with vascular dementia, and was in a bad way. Being both deaf and partially sighted communication was extremely difficult for the staff around her so I was by her side nearly all day every day for the first few months of the year.

As you can imagine the whole experience was extremely stressful and left me quite numb and unable to focus on anything constructive.

I tried keeping my blog up dated and started inviting guest posts, which really helped.

As my mums situation settled down a bit I was able to start spending less time with her so I continued with my blog hopping as best I could. Through leaving comments on other peoples blogs I was lucky enough to win a few prizes.

As many of you know earlier this year I won a place on the Learn With Sally coaching, and what a win it was The coaching is absolutely fantastic and went a lot deeper and further than I could ever of imagined it would go.

Sadly last week was the end of the live call webinar’s and the completion of the course. Not that I’ve completed it yet There’s so much to the course that I’ve been busy learning and applying, making notes then learning and applying some more but I still need to go over some areas and to make sure I’m getting it right and that it has all sunk in correctly

Regular visitors to my blog would have seen the transformation in my blog and the way I now apply myself and my new found skills.

My blog has gone from this….

…..to what you see around you now.

As I’ve been going through the course work, learning and applying, I’ve used some of my new found skills in my posts to demonstrate them as well as creating my videos and showing you how the journey has been progressing, and what a journey it has been.