Ronald Su dot Com

Good Compact Camera For Your Blog

For those of you who are still using plain text for your blog posts, you need to change now! Since John Chow is already using videos into his blog posts, if you don’t act now you will be left very behind. Most likely your blog will fail too. Who wants to read just plain text nowadays? So do the good thing for your readers and get a good digital camera now!

Compact DC Is Your Blog’s Best Friend

Some of you already know I have a digital SLR and you may ask why I need a compact DC too. A SLR is good for enthusiasts photographers or photo blogs, but doesn’t really do the job for a more general blog. Reason being is because it is quite big to carry around. For a blogger, you want to carry a camera with you to anywhere you go to. Have a quality pocket size DC allow you to take pictures of those you find interesting and the food you eat. Readers love to see what you eat! Also, you can take video with your DC too, so don’t just look for image quality in a camera, look for video quality as well.

Nikon vs. Sony vs. Casio

I’ve used many different brands of digital cameras and I found Nikon, Sony, and Casio to be my favorites. I am really talking about the Nikon S52, Sony T300, and the Casio EX-V8. If you know a little bit about cameras, you may know they all all ultra-compact cameras. As the name may tell you, they are very slim and their lenses do not extend out. They are also at the high end of the price range. However, you really need something light and compact for your blog because it should be in your pocket all the time.

Casio EX-V8 For The Win

I am currently using a Nikon S51 and have used the Sony T300 and Casio EX-V8. I bought mine 6 months ago and simply didn’t do enough research for an overall best camera for blogging. If I am going to buy a new camera now, I will get the Casio EX-V8. Below are the reasons and comparisons. These are the most important specs and my own opinions, I am not going to have all the specs to bore you.

Nikon S52	Sony DSC-T300	Casio EX-V8
Resolution: 9 MP Image Size: 3456×2592 Manual Settings: No Zoom: 3x stabilization: Yes Video: 640×480 30fps	Resolution: 10.1 MP Image Size: 3648×2736 Manual Settings: No Zoom: 4.3x stabilization: Yes Video: 640×480 30fps	Resolution: 8.1 MP Image Size: 3264×2448 Manual Settings: Yes Zoom: 7x stabilization: Yes Video: 848×480 30fps
Comment: Using S51 and they are pretty much the same. Overall best image quality as details and lights are very accurate. Focusing a bit slow. Face detection feature sucks. Worst video quality. Very grainy video especially in low light conditions.	Comment: Good image quality. Focusing is fast and details are sharp. Exposure can be inaccurate sometimes. Best video quality. Very detail videos and more than enough for Youtube. Also best looking with sleek slider. Expensive.	Comment: Excellent image quality. Very detailed and sharp. Also very fast both startup and focus. Great zoom for size. Good screen and good grip. Very good video quality. Can also capture in wide screen mode. Very good value for money. Best for smart bloggers.
		Ronald’s Pick

I hope this post will help you choose the best DC for your blog. Remember to keep your readers entertained with good pictures and high quality videos. Feel free to drop a line if you want to share your thoughts.

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Tags: blogging, camera, dc

I Am Totally Up For A New Theme

I was on Jasonboom.com the other day, reading the post called “Weekly Implosion: February in Review“. I must admit Jason is a very good writer and very knowledgeable in what he has to say. I ended up looking through his blog design and his theme. It’s quite neat and what got most of my attention is his logo figure and the bomb figures. They help create a strong branding image to his readers.

Blog Oh Blog Has Nice Free Wordpress Themes

I checked out his theme’s footer and saw the theme was designed by Jai Nischal Verma from Blog Oh Blog. I followed the link and landed on Blog Oh Blog’s website. They have some very nice Wordpress themes for grab. Some themes do require you to buy them in order to use them but most of the themes on their site are free. Jai’s newest design is called “Chronicles“. It is a very functional 3 column theme that is suitable for most niche blogs. It totally convinced me to switch my current theme to it.

Time For a New Theme

The theme design is great but I find the colors to be not my cup of tea. When I adopt the Chronicle theme, I will change the colors to a brighter color and add in my favorite red. I also find the RSS subscribe icon and the blog title locations to be mismatched. I think it will look much better if they switch places. It’s all up to me and I will test out the theme whenever I have a chance. I think I also need a custom logo to help brand myself. However, I will not use a cartoon like figure for it since everyone else is doing it now. Tyler Cruz, John Cow, Jason Boom …

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Tags: blog oh blog, blogging, branding, design, image, logo, theme, wordpress

Inspiration Monday - John Chow (Part 2)

Last week I wrote about how John Chow inspired my blogging and Internet life. Originally for this week, I wanted to have a post on how other bloggers think of John Chow and how they see him inspirational. I emailed some well known and some fairly new bloggers to gather some information on how they think of John. Unfortunately, only a handful of them have responded. Most of them who responded had not given useful content for my post. Ken from KenSavage.com had replied this “Can I focus on … the fact that he doesn’t really teach anything?” I mean… Sure! However, I disagreed on his comment. Because it is tax season here in Canada, John Chow had posted a series on running a blog as a corporation and its tax advantages. In his posts you can easily find knowledge and I think he does teach you something (except when he talks about fine dining and cars).

I think because I am just a tiny anonymous blogger in the blogospher, most bloggers out there won’t take me seriously. However, I totally give my respect to Tyler Cruz from TylerCruz.com. I know he is a pretty well-known and uprising blogger. He is the only person replied my email with information I was looking for. He actually took the time to modify one of his earlier interviews to suit my needs. Now I am why his name is way brighter than others. If you want other bloggers to give you respect, you first have to respect them, no matter how small they are. This is what Tyler wrote in his response:

Hi Ronald,

You can take an answer I wrote in an interview for: http://www.winningtheweb.com/tyler-cruz-interview.php. I modified it slightly to work for your post.

John Chow deserves the recognition he receives. I saw him build his blog up from when it was fairly new to what it is today, and he’s now making over $30,000 a month from it.John is just a very smart guy and understands how to make a buck. He’s not just a successful blogger; he ran, and still runs, TheTechZone.com which is a very successful technology review site, and employs a number of people. And he’s had his hand in countless online projects and endeavors that most JC fans don’t even know about.And his knowledge with money doesn’t just apply to the Internet; he’s very good with finances, investing, and real estate. John is now a superstar of blogging, has been on TV several times, on the front cover of major newspapers, and best of all has fun doing it. This is why John inspires me.

Cheers,
Tyler Cruz

Thank you Tyler for treating me as a fellow blogger and took the time to reply my email. I know it isn’t something special to you, but it is quite special to me.

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Tags: blogging, community, inspiration, john chow, ronald su, tyler cruz

Update On Build A Niche Store (BANS) Project

It was been a week since I’ve written about my Build A Niche Store (BANS) project. Boy! It was a though time getting the script installed. It wasn’t the script’s fault though. After days of solution hunting I’ve got through it and finally got something to show. You can view the project site at CellPhoneJet.com, feel free to add any comment or suggestion.

Main page of CellPhoneJet.com, my Build A Niche Store project featuring the coolest cell phone auctions.

After 2 days of customizing the layout and pages, it now looks like a full functional website. However, it still needs some search engine optimizing and original content creating. My schedule for this week is to finish building the website and by next week I can start driving traffic to it. The funny thing is that I have notice Googlebot had already visit the site and received 4 unique hits even though I had never setup a link to it. I’ve already started to brainstorm my next niche store in order to reach my 5 stores in 3 months goal.

Also, I’ve noticed there is an online course on blogging for profit called Blog Mastermind. Read about it in Chris Bloczynski’s blog. I wonder if there will be a university degree in the future called “Blogging” in the faculty of Business.

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Tags: affiliate, bans, blog mastermind, blogging, Build A Niche Store, cell phone, cool phone, ebay, web design, web development

Business Basics - Starting Up a Business With Focus

It’s time to go back to some business basics. Some of you might forgot the basics of starting up a business. I see a lot of small business these days making a critical mistake by not starting there business right. Do you have a new business idea? Are you going to start a business? If you are, you need to revisit the 4 approaches to tackle your market.

There are 2 groups that your business will belong to: broad or focused. Within each group, your business is either targeting cost or differentiation. So the 4 approaches are: broad and cost minded, broad and differentiation minded, focused and cost minded,  and focused and differentiation minded.

Broad and cost minded - you are entering your market by offering variety and lower prices than your competitors.
Broad and differentiation minded - you are offering variety and your products and services are better than your competitors.

Focused and cost minded - you are entering your market by offering a specific type of product or service, they are priced below your competitors.
Focused and differentiation minded - you are focusing on a specific type of product or service, they are better and different from your competitors.

Think of your blog as a business. Don’t just start your blog without  thinking about these 4 approaches. Most blogs are focused on a specific area of interest, but how will yours stand out from your competitors? Will you charge your advertisers less to get more businesses? Or will you charge your advertisers more because your site offers high quality content and attracts high quality visitors?

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Tags: Basics, blogging, business, competition, ideas, learn, market, startup