Recover Soon Doc

Nancy, I have known you on Squidoo for more than two years now. I know DOC from your tribute that you have written about him. He seems like such a special man and husband. My thoughts and prayers are with both of you. My thoughts and prayers and wishing DOC to get recover soon.

Types of Back Offices

Types of Back Offices

There are three types of back offices. The first two are positive. The third one...well let us just say that you will be looking forward for the weekend off.

First, there is the online back office. This is a good thing and a plus for anyone trying to market him or herself.

The second would be a home office. This could be for a hobby or for the self-employed. The great part of working for yourself is that you are your own boss. You choice your own hours, take breaks when you need to, and no boss from hell. Unless you are the boss from hell and really, really, treat yourself like the devil. This does happen when we expect success to happen overnight.

Find out what the third one is and read about the humorous look between working at home and outside of the home. Click on the link above.

Home office furniture:

Squidoo Clean up Month and New Lenses

March is clean up week on Squidoo. The Squid Team is encouraging everyone to go through their older, lower ranked lenses and clean them up to what they have learned on how to write better lenses.

Plus, just like another social network that I know of, the Squid Team will be on the look out a little more so for spam take and substandard lenses. I believe my lenses are safe. But I have to admit that out of my 250 plus lenses, more than half of these can be fixed up or broken up into smaller lenses. I tend to overdo and overkill, not knowing when to stop. This even applies to my latest lenses. Well, some dogs are hard to train!

I have cleaned up several lenses, but these below had major overhauls and probably took more time to clean up then it was to write the first time around. In addition, the last two are new lenses, which I also cleaned up. You will see some long lenses here. I am not good at using the KISS System.

All comments, bookmarking, sharing and giving thumbs up are welcome on these lenses. One of my goals this year is to get a LOTD. Only you can make this happen. (Note: If you are not a Squidoo member, you can still comment and give a thumbs up.)

Gifts for All Occasions
The print on demand shop, Zazzle has been an addiction for me since 2009. Living in the snow belt of Wisconsin where the weather can be harsh, can warp the mind! That is why my designs look a little twisted. I started my Zazzle site when we were having a record-breaking snowfall for the winter of 2008-2009. I envisioned this snowflake with a wicked face. It is how I felt about the weather. Read more and find some great custom gifts on Sandyspider Gifts Zazzle Showcase

What is Internet Addiction Disorder?
Internet addiction disorder (IAD) is excessive computer use that interferes with daily life. It becomes a compulsive behavior that completely dominates the addict's life. Internet addicts make the Internet a priority more important than family, relationships, health and work. Just like gambling, excessive gaming, a growing sexual addiction or compulsive shopping. Read more, take the addiction test and add your links to this page on
Are You an Internet Addict?

Chocolate Gift Ideas
This is a collection of my Chocoholics Unite! product line on Zazzle and Sandy Mertens on Amazon. Additonal chocolate on Zazzle is found in Chocolate with Sandyspider. Anyone who appreciates the taste of this luxurious treat, will enjoy seeing these creamy, rich, mouth watering products. But be careful! The major side effect of viewing this Zazzle shop is weight gain. Share some love and give the gift of chocolate found in this article Chocoholics Unite Gallery of Gifts

These are the two newer lenses but have already been cleaned up since first published.

Bi-Winning, Rock Star and Tiger Blood Apparel
The online print on demand world of Zazzle and CafePress has gone wild with Charlie Sheen inspired quotes. Amazon and other shopping sites have gotten in on the bandwagon. He was fired from "Two and a Half Men". It is sad to say goodbye to this show that first aired in 2002. Nevertheless, no one can take Sheen's place. See some wild Charlie Sheen t-shirts from his own quotes and some of mine on Inspired Charlie Sheen T-Shirts

For the Love of Green
Green is a nice tranquil color, but reference to green does not always mean the color green. When we think of green, we see money, emeralds, living green, hippies, using recyclable bags, St Patrick's Day, green beer, green animals and feeling at peace. See all the green products on
Green Gifts and Articles

If you are a Squidoo Member,these and any of my other lenses can be nominated by you for a Purple Star and LOTD. If you are not a member you are still welcome to add you comment in the guestbook and give it a like up. Squidoo is free, fun and a wonderful place to write. If interested you can
Join Here!

Smells Like HubPages

I published this article on Qondio on March 16, 2011. After fixing 24 of my hubs in order for them to not be deleted by the editors according to the new rules for articles. The warning was that there were to many Amazon products on these hubs. The new rule is one Amazon or eBay product per 50 words. As in the brag as much as you want with your Zazzle products on Squidoo, the Amazon and eBay products seemed unlimited on HubPages. Well this is not the case any more! These are all fixed (took all day), except one which is a recipe hub and will be a new recipe lens on Squidoo soon. You can leave a comment and rate this on Qondio Here!

Bellow is the article I published.

Smells Like HubPages

By Sandy Mertens

New rules on Hubpages have made me love Squidoo even more!
Having never really understood HubPages and their point system, I have asked for help with some of the masters there. I followed their advice with getting more involved with the forums, groups, contest, commenting voting up hubs, keywords, adding more content, staying active on HubPages and promoting as much as I can. My score remains in the low 80s.

For a very short time, my hubscore was in the low 90s. If your score is not 100 or near that, no one will find you from the main page.

I can't help but feel that HubPages is a good old boys club, if you are not in it, too bad for you.

I know people with a few hubs and a high score on their main page. These people are not as active on HubPages either.

Scoring does not mean you don't have well written content. I have seen many hubs from popular hubbers with near perfect scores that were short and substandard. Yet the score on their hub was high. Now I am not trying to take apart any particular hubber. There are many talented writers there. However, the scoring does not add up. I have been following one hubber who happens to be a doctor. She writes about all different medical problems in terms a layperson can understand. Her hubs are always well written and informative. At the time that I am writing this, her score is 1. That is right! A single digest number score. Maybe she hasn't participated as much as I have or added as many pretty pictures in her hub. But does she deserve a 1 in her main profile page?

New rules added to HubPages will make it harder to enjoy this social network site.

1. All duplicate content hubs will be eliminated from their site. Fair enough, I believe in originality and not duplicate content. Out of my 80 hubs, one is label duplicate. It is a recipe hub. The article links the editors sent me where not even close to my recipe. There were similarities, but all recipes will have this. I love this recipe and I am sure the people on Squidoo will too!

2. There is now a limit to how many Amazon and eBay products that one can have listed in your hubs. These also reflex on the word content verses products in your hub. Nothing wrong with that unless your article is about those products and Squidoo recently enforced a limit to Amazon and eBay products as well. But Squidoo is more flexible if your main purpose is to have a product lens. In fact, selling Amazon products is encouraged.

I have many gift hubs that now have this warning. If I don't fix it by March 25, 2011, these hubs of mine may not be in existence.

Not a new change but something you should know, HubPages only allowed two links to an outside site, unless you were able to RSS it. While Squidoo, it is nine. If you are a Zazzler it is hard to promote your shop on HubPages. On Squidoo the link limit does not apply to Zazzle products. You can promote and brag away.

It looks like a lot of overhauling on HubPages or moving my hubs to friendlier places.

Here are some Kindle and paperback books on Hubpages, Squidoo and social networking.

Inspired Charlie Sheen T-Shirts and RocketMom

These are my two latest articles on Squidoo. The first one is my latest on funny t-shirts from one funny actor who may be having a meltdown.

The online print on demand world of Zazzle and CafePress has gone wild with Charlie Sheen inspired quotes. Amazon and other shopping sites have gotten in on the bandwagon. He was fired Two and a Half Men. It is sad to say goodbye to this show that first aired in 2002. Nevertheless, no one can take Sheen's place. See the funny t-shirts inspired by Sheen on Inspired Charlie Sheen T-Shirts.

Second article is a compilation lens about the articles written for for Session 12 of RocketMoms. This is also a main lens that will used for future lensographies of my RocketMom lens.

The first time I saw a RocketMoms lens was from lensmaster OhMe. How did she get that? It looked so different and unique than all the other type of lens templates.

Through her, I discovered RocketMoms and joined with the Second Session. Since then I have participated in all sessions except a couple during the summer of 2010. Read more about this on RocketMom Sandyspider.