So this is the first sweet monday post of 2009. Not only that but a lot of things are going around in my life as well as in the blogosphere that I would like to share. There are other things that are going on in local areas that you might want to see as well.

Well first of all, I don’t know how many of you guys keep track of NFL, but Pittsburgh Stealers defeated Ravens and Arizona Cardinals will be entering Superbowl for the first time after six decades. So that will be an interesting game to see. Also Superbowl advertising hits to to its records high in this dreadful economic period. 3 million for 30 seconds. Insane isn’t it.

Second major news is that Circuit City is closing down, so there is a liquidation sale that means good bargain. But fellow bloggers, make sure you compare prices before you buy anything. Second, I would recommend not to buy something very expensive because all sales are FINAL. So be careful.

Third news is for my female bloggers. I know a lot of females are interested in getting make up and other cosmetics. Well due to a major lawsuit big brands are giving out free $25 gifts. It will start on Tuesday. For detals read here.

Now lets come back to my life. I think it is time that I buy my own house. What do you guys think? Well I have already started paperwork with the bank. I have started looking around, and I have also started to call realtors and such. It is a long process, but I am hoping that I get a house. Lets see how that goes.

Well coming back to the blogosphere. There are a lot of interesting reads that you guys should see.

12 Useful Web Tools for designers (My Favorite)

80 Best of Adobe Illustrator Resources, Tutorials, and Freebies

Top 10 fonts of 2008

The Ultimate Collection of Free Vector Packs

How to create your own Firefox themes

17 Really Useful Wordpress Plugins

10 Twitter Tools to Get Information About your Twitter Stats

Those are some of the suggested readings. I read them during the course of this week. I recommend you read them too. Specially the freebies ones because there are some good stuff there. Things that you should’ve read on Balkhis in this past week:

7 Reasons Why Your Website was Penalized or Banned by Google

What if you Never Make Money Blogging?

7 Personality Traits that are found in Successful Bloggers

Big Bloggers Desperate for Subscriber Count

This is the last Balkhis Sweet Monday of this year as it is now coming to an end. There has been a flu that is going around. Almost everyone in my family got sick and it was my turn, so I got it too. I was sick for almost about 3-4 days. Which delayed a lot of work. But I am slowly recovering. Next week be prepared to see a lot of pictures from my trip to Tennessee. Hopefully I will be better and ready at my pace.

My schedule is following:

We will leave for Tennessee on the morning of the 2nd of January. It is about 9 – 10 hour drive. We will be in Ober Gatlinburg, so if you are in that area feel free to contact me and I will be glad to see you there.

Expect tons of pictures and hopefully some videos of me falling too.

Some posts I read while I was sick:

Ultimate Blogging Resource Guide for 2008

101 Blogging Tips I’ve Learned in 2008

How to Restart a Dead or Dormant Blog

I hope you guys enjoyed your Christmas and all. I got sick on the day of Christmas, so o well. I am hoping to Enjoy some of New Year’s Eve. You guys do the same. Keep me updated. It is nice to get emails from you guys.

After a long week of working and enjoying, It has come to an end. And I am looking forward to a new week. My great uncle from Belgium is here, so I am taking him around all over Florida as well. So it is fun and work. I get really exhausted by the end of the day. Due to that, I really didn’t read a lot of blog. I didn’t check out any new blogs in the blogosphere either. I will share some of the posts from the places that I am subscribed to.

4 Widget Ad Options to Make Money Online

Thinking Outside the PPC Search Box

Timeless Blogging Tips for Bloggers

How to create Ebooks and PDF files using Google Doc.

Now those were some that I found interesting and useful. I will not put a lot of details out, but Uzzz Productions is also getting a redesign. I am hoping to launch in January for the product, and the redesign of Uzzz. So keep your eyes open. There will be an affiliate program to come also

I got an email with an offer to review a book called Blog Blazers. Firstly, I am not a fan of reading books. I would rather read online blogs, but when I visited the blog blazers website and saw what it was really about. I decided to accept the offer and see how good this book really is. Well the book arrived in my mail a few days back, and I am done reading it. I am going to tell you one thing and only one thing. This is a book that you should read, if you have never talked to one of the successful bloggers. Because this book have 40 Top Bloggers sharing their secrets to creating a High-Traffic and High-Profit Blog!

Before I give you more insights on the book. You guys should know who is the person behind this book. It is no one else but Stephane Grenier, founder of LandLord Max. Stephane sells property management to Real Estate Agents through his website. He also have a blog called Follow Steph which has generated good reviews for his product. He uses it to market LandLord Max, and it gets over 500,000 uniques per year.

So what is this book really about? Well it is one on one interviews with 40 top bloggers. They were all asked the same questions, and you hear different perspective on the same questions from these experts. Some of the questions were:

What’s your best tip for writing a successful blog post?

What are your main avenues for marketing your blog?

What’s the best way to make money from your blog?

What was your most successful blog post ever?

And a lot more. Each interview is about 5 pages long and the book contains 206 pages. This book put aside all the unnecessary crap, and gets right to the point. Ask them the questions that you need which makes this book an excellent piece of writing. It is easy to read and digest the information. There are some of the industry’s leading bloggers like Seth Godin, Neil Patel, Yaro Starak, Aaron Wall, and some that I didn’t know existed who have also made an impact in this industry.

There were a lot of resources mentioned in the book that I didn’t know about. So it is not pure common sense.

Some of the Downsides that I noticed in the book was that it could’ve used more popular bloggers. Perhaps Darren Rowse, Shoemoney, John Chow, Brian Clark, Merlin Mann. While I respect the reputation Neil Patel, and others have earned, but I think the guys I mentioned above are far more ahead in the Blogging Industry itself.

The bottom line is that this book costs $16.95, and it is worth every single penny you would spend on it. Some of the mistakes that these bloggers have made, you can learn from them. You won’t have to make their mistakes and risk your blog. So go out and buy this book right now.

Last week I missed the Link Love monday because of my little brother’s Birthday. I spent most of my day taking a test and than driving down south for his birthday. But that doesn’t mean that no link love this week. Today is the first day of the last month of the year. So it is time to get all the receipts together and see how much you made in the year

7 things you should be doing while your blog is still young

How to do keyword research for search engine rankings

20 reasons to choose wordpress as your platform

So there will be major announcement coming out this week that will upset a lot of people here. But there are other things that will make up for it also. So keep checking with Balkhis.

You might have noticed the post frequency have decreased on Balkhis and the sole reason for that is because I am on a break and I came back home. I prefer to spend more time with my family because I only get a few days. That is why I am only posting every other day.

Other than that the three articles you should check out on Balkhis this week are:

Keywords in Post Titles, Does it really matter?

How to limit number of archive months displayed

How to organize your wordpress blogroll links

I hope you all have a very good december. Keep up to see what I have planned for the upcoming year