Yes, that is indeed a wasp's head…. embedded in a cookie.  MY cookie, that I was about to eat.  Needless to say, I will never eat one of these cookies ever again, nor will I ever buy anything with the Dare logo on the box.  Check out the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aTSqwmpPVE&fmt=22

I should probably warn you NOT to watch that unless you don't mind inspecting every cookie you eat for the rest of you life lol!

Dan

This video covers the latest developments on the site, what's been happening with me personally, and what we have coming up down the pipe. This P2Pod is Episode 2 and covers the following:

- Twitter Feed Announcement
- Topsites Launch
- Ad System Update
- Monetization Assistance
- The Magic of Divorce
- Donna's Retirement
- Introducing Barry
- Contest – How you can win $50!
- General Rambling from Dan

To watch the P2Pod Video, simply visit the P2L main page and click on the high or low quality Podcast links at the top right side of the site. I admit the video is a bit subdued, I have a lot on my mind lol! I promise I'll be hyper in the next video!

Enjoy,
Dan

For those of you with websites and want to exchange traffic with us, the new version of Topsites is just about ready to rumble.  We're asking anyone with a site to help us beta test AND get your site listed before everyone else once we go live.  You can add your site right now by going here: http://www.pixel2life.com/topsites/add/

Be sure to make a note of the inbound link you need to use on your site when linking to us and start sending us traffic right away, the tracking is fully functional.  We're hoping to launch this full blast in the next 48 hours.

Thanks!
Dan

It's been in on again/off again development for over a year and a half and has been one of the biggest and most painful projects I have ever been involved in since starting P2L several years ago. It's been one heck of a wait, but ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Pixel2life v5!

Before we get ourselves neck deep in to this wall of text, I would first and foremost like to thank Nick, who really worked ridiculously hard on this project from start to finish. He took some initial concept layout designs I created and just ran with it, creating 99% of the graphics on the site and all the coding of the main site itself. This is Nick's baby, so if anyone deserves a round of applause, it's Nick. We still have a lot to do and we'll be introducing a new member to our development team next week to help out. And that leads to me to our next topic of discussion. BETA TIME!
 

When the web 2.0 revolution hit us a couple of years ago (has it already been that long?!), everyone and their monkey was throwing BETA badges on their sites, along with the usual 2.0 jargon needed to stay with the in-crowd. So I had to really control myself and not put a BETA sticker or logo anywhere on or near the site logo. Not because it's the cool thing to do, but rather because it's totally applicable in this case. Let's face it… we were all sick and tired of the old site and I was totally bored with the entire project of P2L. We all needed this to refresh our batteries and start kicking ass like in the good ol' days. So I pushed to get this done and put live despite several areas not being complete (or even started yet) and probably a disturbing number of bugs in areas that are available to you. So I ask that everyone please bear with us while we finish off areas and fix bugs. We do ask that you PLEASE report any bugs you find and we'll try to fix them as quickly as possible. Even as I type this, I have a huge to-do list for myself and Nick… I will be working hard on content areas and the revamped help area, which is now in the Publishing System instead of on the forums.

Please report any bugs you find HERE!

With all that out of the way, welcome to the new site! The biggest new feature is our credit system, where members will now be rewarded P2L credits for publishing and submitting tutorials, generating traffic for the site and more! You can then cash in these credits for advertising on the site or for P2L prizes and swag or participate in our credit lotteries or even give out credits to other members that have been helpful in the community.

To find out more about the credit system and how to earn credits, please click HERE!
 

Another new feature is the return to the side menu display system for the tutorial categories… I'm sure that's a welcomed relief for those of you that were sick of the drop-down system we had. I admit it was clunky and difficult to use, so we've created a new sidebar browser that is quite easy to use and organized by main categories. However we did retain the drop-down for the forums so you can quickly browse to a particular category directly from the forums without having to go to the main page first. The drop-down is a bit off right now, so please bear with us while we continue to tweak the skin and get it formatted to the look we want.

One of the largest updated areas is the Publishing System, which has received a major overhaul. The Publishing System is the online tutorial writing tool allowing our members to write and host their tutorials on P2L, including hosting of all the images, videos and attachments. We've streamlined the entire writing process and added all kinds of new tools and a sexy new editor making it easier than ever to write your tutorials. One of the biggest changes is the contributor functionality, where you can add users to your contributor list and they can access the tutorial in their editor and add their own content. So if you and 3 other members want to pool together and publish a tutorial, all 4 of you can share the same tutorial and content and when your tutorial is published, it shows up under all your accounts as long as you have contributor access.

The other new function is the chapters feature. You can assign chapter names to specific page breaks, which splits down your tutorial in to sections that can easily be accessed by readers with the chapters slide menu. When someone is viewing your tutorial, they can click the chapters slide menu and quickly see all the sections on your tutorial and click a chapter to view that specific area.

We've also added some handy stats on your tutorial's popularity, a preview function and a new tabbed publishing area where you can tab through various publishing functions without losing the information you've already entered on other tabs.

Please note that at this time you can only open 1 tutorial editor session at a time due to the editor's session management. Do not open two different tutorials within the editor in separate browser windows at the same time or one will be overwritten. We're going to fix that ASAP, so just be sure you only work on one tutorial at a time. The other feature that is not quite ready yet but will be soon is the video tutorial support. We want users to be able to upload video tutorials and convert them to FLV format for online viewing, but it wasn't working in time for the update. This will be top priority to get up and running for everyone.

Remember, with the new credit system all publishers will be awarded credits for publishing tutorials with us AND for how much traffic those tutorials generate. And if you consistently publish high quality tutorials, you will be upgraded to a Premium Publisher, which means all publishing system related credits are DOUBLE. So if you generate enough traffic to earn 500 credits as a regular publisher, you would be awarded 1000 credits as a Premium Publisher. Other members can also donate credits to you right from your tutorial if they've found it helpful. There's a credit donate button right next to the author info!

We've added some additional improvements to the tutorial submission system… you can now submit tutorials from multiple categories at the same time instead of being able to only submit one category at a time. For example, if you have 4 tutorials from Photoshop and 4 PHP tutorials, you can submit all 8 at once. On the v4 submission, you would have had to submit the 4 Photoshop tutorials first, then complete the form again for the PHP tutorials. You can also edit your submissions on the spot and it's easier to preview your submission before you submit them to the queue. This should help people avoid avatar upload issues or typos.

Not sure how many of you follow my movie collectibles hobby site, but recently I've been doing video reviews that have been getting a lot of great feedback on YouTube and I would like to bring this medium to P2L with video podcasts! For the sake of branding, I'm calling them P2Pods… nerdy, I know. We're going to work on some original content in our videos by doing interviews with industry professionals and Lord knows what else, I want to have a lot of fun with this. So for your viewing pleasure, be sure to look out for all-new P2Pods!

The Advertising System has also been upgraded quite a bit and will continue to be expanded as the months go by. We've added new reporting, a new notification system when campaigns are getting low on credits and Geo-Targetting is now included. All members will now be able to use their credits to advertise whatever they like, as long as it's PG related content. So for members that publish tutorials, comment and rate tutorials, submit tutorials or perform other tasks that earn them credits, you can now advertise your site, blog, products, affiliate marketing programs, etc. Simply put, if you participate on the site, you can advertise with us for free!

Not interested in the credit system but would like to pay to advertise? Pixel2life.com now has a CHEAP flat advertising rate of $0.05 a click on all CPC based advertising, simple as that. Whether you buy 50 or 5000 clicks, you only pay $0.05 cents a click. That is triple times cheaper than the old rate!

For the moment we are offering the integrated tutorial ad positions (These are the ads you see within the tutorial listings), however we will be looking in to adding additional advertising positions in the near future. For anyone interested in advertising in our P2Pods or Newsletter, please contact me directly.

Speaking of the newsletter, we will be revamping the entire newsletter system and redoing our subscriber database from scratch. For anyone that wants to receive the newsletter in the future, you will need to re-subscribe by clicking on the newsletter subscribe button located on the main page on the right side of the site. We hope to resume newsletter publishing in 1 or 2 months.

The faves functionality has also been updated with a new display and management system, which is still a bit of a work in progress. If you find a tutorial you like, you can click the faves button and the tutorial will be saved to your favorites list. You can then access your faves from anywhere by clicking on faves in your top member bar and the faves list will load right over-top of your current content. From there you can access your favorite tutorials, delete them etc.

In the top menu you will see a couple of options that lead to a splash page… these options are the Code Library and Market Place. These are upcoming new areas to the site that are still in development and will be launched in the new year. You can find out the latest development on these areas by checking out the splash page… we'll update them with the latest info as we can.

And finally, there are a few areas of the GUI that need our work such as the member profile pages and the comment sections, which I think still need work. We'll get to these areas as time allows, so no worries. However, I would still LOVE to hear you input or suggestions on what you see so far. I think this new version is a testament to the fact that we do listen to our users as many of the new features or improvements are based on suggestions from our members. So please don't be shy to voice your suggestions as long as it's polite and constructive. You can even send in design suggestions in the form of image mockups if you want, this is actually a very easy way for us to understand what you are trying to suggest, and we'll be sure to award you with tons of credits if we use your idea.

To all Topsites users… I apologize for the lack of a topsites system, but I want you to know that we are going to get that back up and running as soon as possible! I appreciate anyone that continues to link to us while we fix that up, please bear with us. The topsites link exchange is top priority to get back up and running, please stay tuned for more information on that.

That's about it gang, everything else I will let you explore and discover. Please be sure to report bugs in the Site Support forum at http://www.pixel2life.com/forums/index.php?showforum=6 and we will work on them ASAP.

I would like to thank all you die-hard P2L supporters and staff for sticking with us for so long and I appreciate everyone's patience in waiting for us to get the new site out. I want everyone to know that I recommitted to this site and will be working very hard to make this place more kick-ass than ever! Please help me out by spreading the word about the new site and let people know we're back in business and what we're offering. I hope you enjoy the new credit based system and you use it to help promote your own websites and projects and that our continued success leads directly to your own. Thanks again everyone and welcome to version 5!

Enjoy,
Dan

PS. Don't forget to check out our first ever P2Pod on the main page!

Laters,
Dan

For those of you that have no idea what Sideshow is or my little hobby (aka vice), let me explain Spooktacular for you a little bit… What is Spooktacular? It's Sideshow's annual Halloween and Horror online extravaganza of rotating discounts, spot giveaways, new product announcements, contests, and community interaction, plus much more!  Basically it's a week and a half of Sideshow Collectibles partying with their customers and fans in a MASSIVE online event that runs 24 hours a day for 10 entire days.  During those 10 days, they give away tens of thousands of dollars worth of prizes, announce awesome new products and we all have a blast.  The highlight of the event for me is the 10 day chat room they open up, where hundreds of fellow collectors and Sideshow enthusiasts can interact each other and compete for chat prizes via trivia contests and scavenger hunts.  It's a time for no sleep, minimal food and very little social interaction outside of the computer.  You eat, sleep and breath Sideshow, and hope that when it's over you're still alive and your wife hasn't filed divorce papers.

Some of you are probably wondering who the hell Sideshow is at this point.  For anyone that doesn't know, I collect science fiction movie collectibles, like statues and props and stuff like that from various favorite movies… I specialize in Predator related collectibles, but I also dig Terminator, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings etc.  Sideshow is probably the biggest company in the world that creates museum quality statue replicas and full size prop replicas and they are HUGELY popular for collectors like me.  So when a huge event like this comes around, you can rest assured that we go all out and try to take in as much as we can of the event.  Spooktacular is always held right before Halloween and ends on Halloween day… so the first week of November is always a brutal week for me lol!

I also do extended Spooktacular coverage on my other site, Predatorstuff.com and it's VERY busy for me while I try to post the latest Spookfest news AND keep an eye on chat and new contests etc.  It's stressing, but a lot of fun!  If you want to get a taste of what my work looks like, you can check out the Spookfest article category by clicking HERE!  You can also check out the main portal page on Sideshow's site for Spooktacular 2009 by clicking HERE.

And with Spooktacular all finished, I always put together a little written review of the event to talk about my thoughts on the event, but mostly just to thank Sideshow for spoiling us rotten and as a thank you to all my friends who hung out with me in chat over MANY long hours.  I'll be posting my review later this week, but I did toss up a quick thank you and shoutout video tonight if you're interested.

The video is available on YouTube in HD, check it out by clicking HERE!  Most of it you probably won't really understand what the heck I'm talking about, but it gives you an idea of the fun I had.

So yeah, that's where I've been for the last couple of weeks, hope everyone had a GREAT Halloween and hauled some serious candy!  I'll see you next post…

Take care,
Dan

You can put V5 up now I'm back lol

One of the most critical aspects of any website is a contact stream of fresh content being posted, otherwise people will return a few times, find nothing new, then never come back again. With the increase of traffic we typically see after the summer, it's critical to keep a steady stream of content flowing on your site to grab and maintain new visitors and members. Unfortunately for many of us, we lack the time to be able to provide this steady content and this is where articlealley.com is an awesome resource. With just a couple of clicks, you can quickly find articles 100% relevant to your blog that you can use absolutely free as often as you like.

The other nice feature is the fact that you can track down favorite authors and specifically locate their articles… I was looking through their SEO articles and found a couple of awesome article writers that consistently had original ideas in their articles, not the usual "optimize Metas and get links" stuff that every SEO article in the world has.

If you do use their articles on your own website, the only rule of thumb to know is that the author information must be included with the rest of the article, which is typically a little blurb about the author and a link to their homepage at the bottom of the article. This is actually a fantastic tool for those of you that DO enjoy article writing because you can register as an author and submit YOUR articles to the database. If anyone uses your articles on THEIR blogs or websites, they have to publish your author information and link as well… this is a fantastic way to earn yourself one-way inbound links to your website.

On the other side of the coin, if you have a website but lack the time or skills to write good solid content, you can actually hire Article Alley authors to write articles specifically for you at very decent rates that don't break the bank. In fact if you order 11 or more articles, you pay $25 an article… if you've ever shopped around for content writers, you know that's a very good price.

So again, if you are looking for a HUGE database of articles that are completely free to use on your blog or website OR if you want to get in to article writing yourself, I highly recommend you check out www.articlealley.com.

Enjoy!
Dan

With the v5 upgrade coming soon and the insanity that will surely follow, I wanted to get the approval queue back to what it should be (5 – 7 days wait) instead of the 3 or 4 weeks it managed to get to. So over the last few days I have been spending hours going through the queue and approving tutorials and I am now back to 6 days woohoo! So currently there is well over 100 tutorials in the approved queue, which means there's enough in there to keep showing new tutorials on the main page every 30 minutes for several days.

So for anyone that was getting annoyed with the huge wait times to have your tutorials approved, I want to assure you that I was not ignoring the problem and I will be making a big effort to ensure it doesn't get backed up again. Ideally I would like the queue time to be only a couple of days at most.

Funny to think that there was a time where I was so excited to get one submission and would be approved within minutes! To get 5 tutorials submitted a day was like WOW!!! Now it's more like 105 a day. A huge thanks to everyone that takes the time to submit their tutorials to our database… we wouldn't have much of a site if it weren't for you webmasters and tutorial publishers submitting your content.

That reminds me, hope you guys dig the new Publishing upgrade on v5, it's pretty much 100% awesome with added awesomeness added for good measure. For anyone out there that doesn't have a site or enough bandwidth to publish large tutorials, don't forget you can publish and host them right here in our publishing system for FREE! And with the new site coming up, Publishing will be even easier to use and you get rewarded for them!

More to come on that very soon.

Thanks again everyone!
Dan