Helping To Find A Cure For Multiple Sclerosis

I have a vested interest in finding a cure for Multiple Sclerosis. There are so many lives affected by MS, and most people you see who have MS you wouldn't be able to tell. It's a debilitating disease that eventually robs a person of all their motor skills. The National Multiple Sclerosis Society describes it this way:

MS is thought to be an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system (CNS). The CNS consists of the brain, spinal cord, and the optic nerves. Surrounding and protecting the nerve fibers of the CNS is a fatty tissue called myelin, which helps nerve fibers conduct electrical impulses.

Several of my close Family members have MS. I would love to see a cure happen in my life time. It's important to continue researching what causes this disease. Who gets MS?

Approximately 400,000 Americans acknowledge having MS, and every week about 200 people are diagnosed. Worldwide, MS may affect 2.5 million individuals.

There are many ways you can get involved in helping the fight MS. The MS Society has a great list here.

ProBlogger.net, as part of their Birthday Bash, and a sponsor FreeMoneyFinanace.Com are giving away $1000 to the winners favorite charity. Mine would be the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. I would encourage you to donate as well.

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De-cluttering Your Blogs Sidebar

Build A Better Blog Day 3

Today's tip is short and sweet. If your blog has a sidebar (and most do), now is the time to do some trimming. As people build their blog they acquire links, badges, scripts and many other items that over time slow down the rendering of your blog. Remember graphics and scripts take time to send from your web server to a visitors browser.

A good way to see how your blog is performing would be to view it in several different browsers. Since most people only have one, maybe two browsers installed on their computer, asking for help from your readers is a great way to accomplish this. You could also use speed services such as iWebTool's Website Speed Test. Putting my domain in the box, digitalthom.com, shows the site loads in 2.7 seconds. Now that may sound fast, but in my opinion, its really not. I'd love to have something in under a second.

The moral of the story here is thin is in. If your site loads quickly you will keep your visitors longer. If there are significant delays they will move on. You only have a few seconds. Evaluate all of your blog "bling". If it's necessary, fine, if not, see if there are other ways of displaying the information or remove it all together. Good luck.

ProBlogger's day three post: Search for and Join a Forum

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Giving Props to my Peeps

This weeks Prop goes out to a Twitter friend Jim Long. It's one thing to see news on the Internet, on the radio or TV. It's a whole different experience when you read about it through the eyes of the man who is capturing it on Video.

Jim Long is a cameraman for NBC News. Since I started following what Jim had to say on Twitter, I've come to learn just how important Jim and skills are to the news he reports. I've also gotten an inside seat as news is happening. For instance, one Sunday when Jim was shooting a news program, he was sending us behind the scenes activities you would never see on camera. Don't get me wrong, Jim doesn't disclose anything that he shouldn't, he has great integrity.

Visit Jim's web site and if you are on Twitter, you can follow him there too.

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Tell Me What You Are All About

Build A Better Blog Day 2

My suggestion for today is to create an About page that actually has content and tells me what your blog is all about. The only thing you really have to decide is how personal you get.

1. Tell me a little about yourself, something that we can connect with.

2. Tell me why you are writing the blog.

3. Give me links to other blogs or sites you maintain.

4. If you belong to Social Networks like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, give me the links so we can connect.

5. Give me a list of your favorite web sites and blogs.

6. Give me some way to contact you whether it be a separate Contact Me page or simply an email address. I remember not too long ago a reader commented on my blog that I had no way of being contacted and he wanted to know if I could give him an email address. That was a pretty rude awakening thinking how much potential business I may have lost because I didn't have a way for readers to contact me.

An About Me page is a good place for you to tell me your story. Here are a few links to About Me pages I like

Chris Brogan

CC Chapman

The ultimate About Me page is Robert Scoble's WikiPedia page

And here is Thom Allen's About Me page

Now I'm asking each of you to comment with the link to your About Me page. Go ahead, do it.

Here is a link to ProBlogger.net's day two post: Run a First Time Reader Audit on Your Blog

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ProBloggers Birthday Bash and $54,000 in prizes

Yes, you read that right, $54,000 in prizes are being given away for ProBlogger's Birthday Bash. Personally I'm excited at the chance to win 2 20" LG USB Monitors. Hey, what have I got to lose.

Darren does a great job of generating traffic to his site, and giving his sponsors more traffic too. I've followed Darren and ProBlogger for a while and I don't think I know anyone better at showing their readers how to make a living by blogging. He walks the walk. If you've ever wanted to see a blog that makes money and isn't just a bunch of lists and links to other sites, add ProBlogger to your feed reader.

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