Finding income, or sources of income, in these tough economic times is no mean feat. That’s why I’ve taken to scouting around for the best spots online (all free mine you) to give you your best shot at making cash from home.

At the moment, I’m only going to recommend a small handful because, frankly, most of these services are not what they appear to be and are a complete waste of your time (and mine). However, there is hope – and really good places to look – above and beyond the obvious (like Monster.com).

The ones I’ll be talking about off and on are not “submit your resume and hope for the best” web sites. These are boards and/or opportunities that, with the right skill set, just might land you a coveted telecommuting job (i.e., working from home for decent money).

Let’s start off with: (more…)

For bloggers and website owners around the globe, if you’re struggling to get that PR rating from Google, and it still hasn’t happened, there is a reason – competition.

Not your competitor-type competition (though if your “niche” is more an “umbrella” that does effect you), but (especially for bloggers) if you’re participating in “paid to post” programs to pull in some cash for your time and efforts, chances are fairly certain that the powers that be will frown forever upon your efforts. But don’t despair. The ultimate sign of a popular web site or blog is its level of traffic. I’ve seen web sites with PR 6′s and 7′s, that get so little traffic they are truly lost in cyberspace yet acknowledged for what? Content, yes? Purity, most likely.

Anyway, just thought I’d get that off my chest yet again.

And, since it’s Sunday I also wanted to share two web links I’ve run across. One explains not only the “how to” to retweeting, but the why do it in the first place; the second is a warning about scammers using Facebook (yet again) in another unsavory way (both worth reading):

Bloggingbits on How to Retweet

Mashable posts about yet another Facebook phishing scam

We’ve also include additional link outs to topics covered in this post

Hope you’re in the middle of enjoying a wonderful Memorial Day weekend (for those in the U.S.) and a marvelous weekend to those around the world!

Related articles

• Google, SEO, Publishers and Spam (webmetricsguru.com)
• The Facebook Phishing Scams Continue, Day 2 (allfacebook.com)

You’ve got to admit that blogs that give you visuals help ease the “text only” versions, and tonight I was lucky to come across a free to join website called Acobox.

Sort of along the Flickr line, Acobox gives you free signup access as either a blogger or a photographer (actually as a blogger I do see I have the ability to upload images to their site).

Then you just go hunting for interesting pictures they call “hotlinks.”

For example, you’re looking at one right now.

It was very easy to get and insert, too – don’t you just love that!

This particular image came from their Animals Gallery under Birds, which lists 316 additional images. And, of course if you opt to add yours into their system, just think of the advantages of having your images hotlinked on other peoples websites and blogs.

The only trouble I seem to be having is what I see inside the wp-admin is space between the picture and my words. Outside on the blog, the words hug tight to the image. I’ve tried playing with the horizontal alignment, but it doesn’t seem to do much of anything (sorry I’m a bit of a stickler, but I’m sure there is a workaround for this).

Oh and as the title tells you, this isn’t just for bloggers. Website owners can come to Acobox and get their images, for free, too!

So don’t be shy. Again sign up is free, and I had this image inserted in the blink of an eye.

Enjoy!

After making our post for January 3, it was off to my favorite forums. That’s where I found six tools mentioned by Owen that he loved using in 2008.

The one that caught my eye is Zemanta, an add-on to your Firefox browser that automatically recognizes your wordpress and/or blogger blogs. It’s a tool that’s going to help suggest photos, videos, articles, etc., related to what you’re writing about – all done from inside your admin area.

Here’s an example:

Related articles by Zemanta

• Twitter Is Stealing Your Password

What the example above shows is something Zemanta considered “related to” the rest of the information in this post (see below about Twitter).  There are many items to choose from, but I just picked this one – all from inside the admin area of this blog.

After installing (and it’s quick and painless and yes I did read the terms of service first), you’ll end up on the welcome page where you’ll get instructions on “how to get started right away” using this super cool tool!

A big thanks to Owen for sharing this and five other tools (one of which he created himself).

Excellent!

And, for those of you wondering why your WordPress Twitter Updater plugin no longer works, well we don’t currently have the answer to that… However, TwitterBar 1.1 may be your easiest solution.

It’s been available since November 1, 2008, tried and tested. Just be sure you know what you’ve got typed in your address bar before you Twitter it. It can be words, the link of the page you’re on, whatever. So double check first

(The Firefox logo was also pulled in using Zemanta.)

A second alternative to get your feeds posted directly to your Twitter account (though the toolbar above is very cool), is TwitterFeed

TwitterFeed requires you to create an OpenSource id. Just be prepared to validate your signup via email AND be adept at picture recognition – the  process is a tad long while you “guess the picture” during the account creation process.

What TwitterFeed will do is, depending on your setting choices, take a peek at your blog feed and post the last “x” amount you designate at the time interval you ask it to check. While that may sound confusing, it’s not – it’s just a fill in the blanks AFTER you get past the picture recognition thing (it’s very hard to explain but worth the trouble).

So there you have it… multiple ways to get your current posts automatically onto Twitter, plus add some graphic interest to your posts painlessly.  Enjoy!

Now it’s your turn to tell us what you think about this post. So please DO comment!