One thing that I love about blogging is all the great bloggers that I am connected with. I visit their blogs and see all of their fun ideas, recipes, photographs, reviews and much, much more! This Valentine’s Day, I found that Untrained Hair Mom had posted the cutest hair styles suggestions on her blog. She was able to braid her daughter’s hair into a heart!

When my girls were little, I tried to do fancy hairstyles, but usually gave up. For one, both of my daughter’s have my hair – fine, but a lot of it. This makes for the worst ratty mess! We tried every product – detanglers, conditioners, etc. – but nothing seemed to work. We just ended up cutting their hair short until they were old enough to take care of it themselves. Now, that they are both teenagers, they straighten, curl and style their hair themselves, and do a pretty good job of it!

If you are looking for great product reviews of hair products, Untrained Hair Mom posted a summary with all the hair product reviews she did for 2011. Some of the products she reviewed are Curlformers (love these!), I Love My Hair book and Sidewinder Hair Holders. I could have used some of these products when my girls were little!

There are a lot of blogs going dark today. You won’t be able to access their pages. They are protesting a new bill before Congress that involves internet censorship. I thought I would share some information about the bill and how it can possible affect you. Click on the graphic to learn more.

A great blog design makes a big difference. If you blog is disorganized or not appealing, you are less likely to retain your readers. I recently decided to take an old blog of mine and revamp it (Blog Zenith). I hired Misty from CEO of Me, Inc. to do the blog design. She was so easy to work with and made any changes that I asked. Plus, her prices are very reasonable.

Right now, she is having a SALE!! All of her Pre-made Designs are 12% off (only $57!) and upgrades/customizations are 20% off. All Custom Blog Designs including installation, optimization (and free blogger to WP transfer included) are 12% off AND you can get 12 months of hosting for only $20 if you choose a custom design package. (Packages start at just $100, price varies by blog, but a great deal no matter what!)

For more information you can read about her designs on her blog. This sale will run from December 30th to January 12th. Don’t forget to mention that The Shopping Duck referred you!

Some days I just have writers block. I often hear about great products, services or other fun stuff that I want to share with my readers, but then I forget about them. If you are looking for a new way to research blogging topics, why not try Google Alerts.

Google Alerts is a tool that sends you “alerts” to your email or to Google Reader. The alerts are easy to set up and use. Follow these simply steps to set up your own Google Alerts:

1. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts. When you are there, sign in with your Google email account so that you have the option of choosing Gmail as your delivery route.
2. Type in a word or phrase in the search box. For example, I typed in 2011 toys because I want to be alerted when anyone posts about new toys for the 2011 Holiday season.
3. You now have four options to choose from:
   • Type. Choose from Everything, News, Blogs, Videos and Discussions. I choose Everything at first. If I get too many items then I will narrow it down later.
   • How Often. You can specify how often you want to receive alerts. If you want them delivered to your mailbox your options are As-it-happens, Once A Day or Once A Week. If you choose to have the results delivered to Google Reader it will default to As-it-happens.
   • Volume: Your choices are Only the Best Results and All Results. I choose Only the Best Results. These are the best matches to your keywords.
   • Deliver To: Here is where you specify if you want the results delivered to your mailbox or to Google Reader.
4. Click on create alert. It is that simple!

You can create as many alerts as you want. You will also be able to manage your alerts and change the options I mentioned above. Happy blogging!

This is the fourth year that I will be participating in The Thirty Day Challenge. The Challenge is a FREE training program that will teach you how to make your first dollar online with affiliate marketing. The Challenge allows you to work at your own pace. You can finish the training in thirty days, or take your time and complete at your speed. If you are not interested in affiliate marketing, but have your own online business or blog, you will be able to come away with some good information as well. I have used this training to build more links and traffic to my own blog!

Some of the things you will learn include:

Using Twitter for Your Business
How to Find Niche Ideas
Analyzing your Niche
Creating Good Content
Backlinking
Using Web2.0 Sites to Funnel Traffic to Your Site
How to Monetize Your Site

Every time I complete The Thirty Day Challenge, I learn something new. It is worth your while to give it a go!

When I blog about a product, I try and use the product image in my blog post. When I blog about other items of interest, I always try and include an image that will highlight the subject. Blog posts with images standout!

Unfortunately, many bloggers and website owners are using images illegally. Using Google Images to find an image for your blog post may be copyright infringement whether it is intentional or not. If there is an image your want to republish, you must get permission from the copyright owner before you can use it.

Fortunately, there is another way to obtain great images for a small costs – Fotolia.com. Fotolia.com is a image hosting site that has over 13,716,167 images, vectors and HD videos available. All images offered on Fotolia.com are Royalty free and can be used for all kinds of professional documents with no limit on time or copies.

Credit are used to buy images (with credits ranging from $0.75). Subscription services are also available for those that require many images.

I recently did a search on Fotolia.com for the word “soda” as I was completing an article on diet soda. This is one of the many great photos that I was able to download.

Do you want to try Fotolia.com? I have FIVE two-week FREE trial codes. The first five commenters to this post will get a free code. Use the code and download a few pictures. Fotolia.com is a great place to find photographs.

If you visit my site, you will notice that I have a new sleeker design. Thanks to The Thesis Theme for WordPress. This theme by DIY Themes is easy to use and very easy to customize. After buying the theme you have access to tutorials and a community forum. I was having an issue with the header image on this site, posted to the forum and received an answer in less than one hour!

If you are looking for a new theme, I highly recommend The Thesis Theme for WordPress.