I've been sick with the flu since Dec 23, and haven't blogged anything since. For a few days, I didn't even check e-mail as I just had no strength. Only yesterday and today have I felt coherent enough to read and write e-mail.

I hoped today I would get back into doing some blogging, but it's still difficult to concentrate with all the coughing.

Google sent Christmas gifts to several of its AdSense publishers, as it does every year. This year it's a collection of USB powered accessories. There's a 4-port USB hub, a 64mb thumb drive, a tiny optical mouse, a USB flashlight, some cords, all in a maroon-colored carrying case.

Thanks Google.

I redesigned the template for Biker News Online, giving it a more interesting look, adding more color, and putting it into a traditional two-column blog format.

I also implemented several Editor Kit creatives from eBay's affiliate program trying to get traffic monetization. All of the editor kits I set up display motorcycles for sale. So, one sale could yield a four-figure earning. We'll see how well it works.

Here is what the old template looked like.

We're announcing the launch of two new blogs...

Bottle Watch
Slot Machine Blog

Bottle Watch is a report of the newest wines, beers, cocktails and spirits entering the marketplace. It's not meant to provide expert analysis on taste or quality, but just simply showing you what's new in the world of liquor. There will be no stuff on liquor gear, legislation, or weird news, just the juice.

One thing of note is that I managed to implement a system of categories. It's our only blog with category links. This blog is powered by Blogger, which doesn't support categories, but I managed to work something out using Microsoft's Indexing Services. Thus far it seems to hold up well, and is as automated as Word Press or TypePad.

Slot Machine Blog was supposed to have launched last September, but was delayed due to the other partner having some personal set backs. It looks like things have cleared up, and so I'm going to go ahead and announce it now.

The other partner is a slot machine technician, who has been working on slot machines professionally for much of his career. He's repaired all types of machines from the century-old machines to the newest computerized bandits. He's worked for slot machine manufacturers as well as casinos in Las Vegas. He currently works for a well known indian casino here in Southern California. He also knows how they pay out, how casinos adjust the odds, and he can debunk just about any myth floating out in the public.

The format of SMB is in a question/answer format. Visitors submit questions ranging anywhere from which machines pay the best, how best to spend $20.00, to players' cards, or whatever. I forward them to my slot machine tech, he sends me back the answer, and I post it.

We did our own survey of several dog blogs and found that our very own DoggieNews is one of the top 10 (number 3 to be exact).

Perhaps we're really tooting our horn when we say that we did our own survey, but then again, we're putting in a lot of effort to make DoggieNews one of the top web destinations for dog content, so we take a lot of pride in this.

Here's the top 10 as we found it...

1. http://terriorists.blogspot.com/ (237)


2. http://dogblog.textamerica.com/ (92)


3. http://www.doggienews.com/ (77)


4. http://samugliestdog.typepad.com/ (63)


5. http://flickrdogs.com/ (52)


6. http://www.modernpooch.com/ (42)


7. http://i-pets.com/blog/ (37)


8. http://winniewong.typepad.com/shelby/ (33)


9. http://www.youareadog.com/ (33)


10. http://markandcream.blogspot.com/ (32)

The number in parentheses represent the number of sites linking to that blog as represented in Technorati.

I sought about finding 100 dog blogs by searching through Technorati, several blog directories, and following blogroll links. I actually compiled 106 blogs in all.

Note that I found several blogs proclaiming to be dog blogs, but in fact the majority of their content focused on subjects other than dogs, namely politics, personal ramblings on life, and apologies for not blogging very often. I didn't include them because I wasn't satisfied their audience was largely dog owners.

There were also several pet blogs that I excluded because they didn't include enough content about dogs (mostly cats, birds, hamsters, et al). I considered "enough" to be at least 50% of total content.

You can download the full list on Excel (23k).