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Why am I excited about this event?

The main reason is networking. I will get to network with top guys in the industry like Gary Vaynerchuck, Matt Mickiewicz of Sitepoint, Yanik Silver himself, and many other top entrepreneurs in the industry.

I will keep this post short as I am writing this while sitting at Orlando Airport, but there will be more news about this event on Balkhis through out this week.

Even though I got the conference ticket through the scholarship which was a big expense, a lot of other expenses needed to be covered such as airfare, lodging, food etc. I am very happy and thankful to the two companies that stepped up and they are sponsoring my trip to D.C.

Sponsors for this Trip

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I will be attending WordCamp Raleigh and WordCamp San Francisco. If you guys live in the area, and/or planning to attend these events, definitely let me know as I would love to meet some of my cool readers.

1. Redesign Uzzz Productions
The past year has been filled with projects, but surprisingly the company that launched it all has been neglected. In 2010 I will implement a new design on the Uzzz site that will not only update the site but show off some tricks I have picked up over the past year.

2. Redesign some aspects of WPBeginner
Launching WPBeginner and watching it grow over the past few months has been incredibly rewarding. It has also shown me the tweaks that need to be made to the nuts and bolts of the site’s design.

3. Broaden WPBeginner’s reach
In 2010, WPBeginner will be tweaked to add more features, services, and freebies for it’s users. This will probably take most of 2010 to complete, but it will be well worth it.

4. Increase social media presence
This goal pretty much speaks for itself. Not only do I plan to organically grow through sites like Twitter and Facebook, but I look forward to the new social networks that 2010 will bring.

5. Attend and speak at more conferences and events
This year brought me to New York City for my first Wordcamp. In a week I will be speaking at Wordcamp Atlanta and spreading the word about increasing Wordpress security. I hope this year bring me more opportunities such as these to network and meet more of you in person.

6. Have Fun
With Balkhis, WPBeginner, Uzzz Productions, and school, it is hard to find a moment to just relax and have fun. My final resolution is take time to myself and enjoy some off time. In the spirit of this resolution, I am blogging from Tennessee, in my first vacation of 2010. Lets hope this year brings more chances for times like these.

I hope 2010 is a successful and enjoyable year for all.

As you all know that I am still a student and week after thanks giving is the last weeks of school and exams are on my head, so it is pretty crazy along side with the clients and campaigns, it become really hectic. Yes I did go black friday shopping, but the best part about this year was that everything was online. I got a WD Passport Portable HD with 500 GB because it was $59.99. I was going to get a laptop from Best Buy because they put out exclusive offers to their Silver Premier members that we could get a head start on Black Friday deals by ordering online. But too bad Best Buy’s staff ruined it for them.

This awesome laptop was only $450 and I was dialing the phone. The girl picked up, told me to hold on and hung up. Called again, transferred me and no one ever picked up. I wrote an email to Best Buy and the best they could do was give me a 750 points in my reward zone. For those who want to know that is $15 worth… That is not how you treat loyal customers Best Buy. From now on, I will be looking for other alternatives before I go shop there.

Another thing that I realized on this blog is that a lot of people are using long keywords as their name while commenting. To all old and new users, it is getting really annoying. And I am sending every comment that does not use their name to SPAM. If it gets really worst, I will begin blocking IPs. I offer do follow top commentator list in the sidebar so don’t abuse it. I am getting keywords like NJ SEO Guy, India’s SEO Company, Business Cards etc. If need be, I will close down comment, or require user registration to cut down spam and worst of all, remove top commentators and make the blog nofollow links. I can now understand why Vitaly Freidman of Smashing Magazine removed the concept of links from the comments. They do not allow users to add links of their website both in the comment, or in the form at all. I might take that route. So take this seriously.

I am attending WordCamp Orlando this weekend and hoping to have a great time. So those who want to come join me, feel free to do so.

For the New Years, I will be going to Tennessee again to Ober Gatlinburg because we had a great time there last year. So a lot of fun coming soon, but right now it is tought times.

So we stayed in Sheraton at the Meadow Lands Plaza, East Rutherford, NJ. I have learned my lesson not to drive in NYC, so I did not waste a lot of time. Trains and Subways all the way. Now this was by far one of the best conference and it was really cheap. $40 << That's it.... Those who did not go missed a great social networking opportunity.

I met:

Matt Mullenweg, Founder of WordPress
Brian Gardner from StudioPress
Jane Wells, Interface and experience designer for WordPress
Jeff from WPTavern
Daisy Olsen from WP Mama
Lisa Sabin-Wilson, Author of WordPress for Dummies book
Adria Richards from Freshworkshops

And Many Many Other people.

Aside from meeting these awesome people, I had a blast in Time Square LOL.

Well the plan in the future is that I am definitely attending WordCamp Orlando which is scheduled for Dec. 5th 2009. So for those of you who are in the area, it is definitely a great one to attend.

Thanks Giving is coming next week, so I am planning for the Black Friday Shopping. And most importantly, Zain’s Birthday is coming next Tuesday. He will be turning 6 years old now. I changed his blog to a single page website, which we do plan to build more on some day.

If you are in the affiliate marketing industry, Market Leverage has a great offer for Christmas which I think will provide great results. This offer is Santa Letters from the North Pole. From personal experience, a lot of parents and grandparents buy these, so it would be a great success in PPC and Mommy Blogs. A few extra bucks can help you buy Christmas presents for your loved ones too

I would like to speak at WordCamp Orlando, so lets hope they accept my proposal because I think I can give an awesome presentation on the topics I suggested them, so if you would like to see me speak, then send them a message (Shameless lobbying lol)

So October 2nd was my birthday. No celebration on Balkhis because it wasn’t the right time. I was still working hard on WPBeginner. Well today I feel very happy as the Google PR updated. WPBeginner received a Google PR 6 with many inner pages at PR 5 and PR 4. Where as Balkhis got a PR 5 which went up also, it was a PR 4.

Now the Alexa of WPBeginner also went in 17k which is also very good, so all to all this startup was a very successful one.

What’s next in the list? Well you should expect me back to the posting schedule on Balkhis. Although I will not be posting once a day, but you should expect a few posts a week. We are also working on the redesign of Uzzz Productions. The new site will also be powered by WordPress but it will be built with mostly jQuery. It should be done by mid November.

We are also working on new features for WPBeginner coming by Mid December with a slight additions in the design to make it more user friendly. Add more services and so on.

Personally, I am conducting a twitter experiment which I will update you guys later and tell you how it worked out for me. Hopefully it will be great and it will benefit me a lot, and when I share it with you guys, I am certain that it will help you guys also.

I will be attending WordCamp NYC 2009 this coming November 14-15. If you are in New York and want to hang out, let me know and we can arrange a meetup. Ofcourse if you attend WordCamp then we can chill for the whole two days.

A contributing member of Balkhis, Zain Balkhi will be turning 6 on November 24 this year. So, I will be updating his portfolio site Life of Blogger. The site got a redesign when he graduated from his Pre-K class earlier this year.

A special plug for Darren Rowse and his new Pro Blogger community where I am an active member now a days. Quality discussion for bloggers and a good place to be if you are interested in interacting and learning from bloggers on all levels. There is a $1.95 monthly membership fee but it is well worth it. Join now before the price goes up because I am sure it will. The price is to avoid spammers and keep the quality discussion with paid moderators. I love it in that community. Good source of traffic also.

Something I realize that most people were confused about and I got many emails about it also. People asked me why does WPBeginner get better results than Balkhis. What you need to understand is that WPBeginner is a niche blog for WordPress users. Balkhis is my personal blog where I happen to share SEO tricks, Web Design tricks and basically my experience. Do not mistake Balkhis for something it is not. Personal blogs get big over time whereas niche blog gets big faster.

I also want to suggest if you want to stay updated with what I am doing then follow these two twitter feeds. @syedbalkhi and @wpbeginner.

I am also contemplating closing comments on posts that are older than 90 days to avoid SPAM. What do you guys suggest? Obviously the final decision will be mine, but I want my readers input in making this key decision.

I do encourage you to tweet with me, or email me if you have a specific question. I am glad to help out when I can. I missed you guys just as much as you probably missed me

Well I would like to call this Creativity At Work – Just like my New Twitter Profile Design

Check out the Youtube Video below. Feel free to leave comments here or on youtube. If you like don’t forget to digg/stumble/tweet to spread the words. Lyrics are below the video.

Big Big Money
Big Big Money
Big Big Money, Money, Money, Money Yeaahhh

Welcome to Balkhis
It’s a blog for bloggers
Learn all the tips and become problogger
Make six figures and get gold diggers
To digg all your posts, so you can be famous
And eat famous amos

Making money online wasn’t so easy
Spending all the money for SEO by Daisy
Visit Balkhis and Learn SEO
So you can rank high in GOO
I meant to say Google
It’s a baby you can toogle
No Black Hat only White toys allowed
Content is so good its high as cloud

Advertising, Social Media are piece of Cake
Visit Balkhis so you learn how to bake
PPC, CPM, All the money that’s spent
Keep em in your pocket and go on a vacation
Clear up your mind and work online
Dot Com Life Style and a cup of wine

Web Design is important and so is optimizing
That’s the truth and no compromising

CHECK Out Balkhis Dot Com
And go far ahead as Joel Comm
Shoemoney and JC are so high
But their ladder can’t go as high as mine

That’s the bottom line and you should dig it
Visit Balkhis if you wanna see it

Big Big Money

1. Wardrobe with 25% Sponsored Clothing

25% Shirts, and other clothings that you own are from conferences or other blogs/companies online. Syed has alot, alot, and alot of shirts/caps that are sponsored from different companies and websites. So when he goes out somewhere it is very likely that one of these companies will be advertised. He is asked questions by people around town what is this company and it makes him sound so geeky lol.

2. You google yourself and your site multiple times a week.

Syed got an authority status for Balkhis at the end of January. He checks his name and sites that are ranking for his keywords atleast multiple times a week. I have asked him why, and he said that it helps me see how well I am doing with advertising my own site. Or which sites that I should advertise on.

3. Your family has to go to your blog to see photos of your vacation

Syed never updates facebook. Majority of his pictures are his friends tagging him. The only time his families can check his pictures are when they are on the blog. And that is not the only time, but it is the only way. (For proof of this see our Tennessee Vacation and more on Balkhis).

4. You regularly speak to and about people who you met online

Syed talks to insane amount of people online, and I can’t keep track of everyone. A good number of these people he has never seen before, but he talks to them online. And he tells me often what happened in someone’s life later on the day, and I have absolutely no clue what he is talking about, so I have to ask him who was so and so.

5. You ask for social media for breakfast

One day Syed asked me to wake him up, and I went over to his apartment in the morning. After waking him up, I asked him what is he going to have for breakfast, and the answer I got was “Social Meda”. Syed is a deep sleeper, so it takes him a while to be fully awake. I still tease him about this one and this was a long time back.

6. Your Girlfriend is Now Blogging on Your Blog

Seven Posts and counting. Yup that is me. I have learned so much about blogging from Syed that now I consider myself as a blogger. I have blogged at Balkhis multiple times.

7. Your nightime routine includes checking your email thrice, twitter, and other stats.

You cannot get an exact time to sleep for him. He might say he is going to sleep at 11 pm, but he ends up going to sleep later like 12 p.m or after that. The reason is that he checks his emails, reply to them, tweet to his friend, check other stats on his blog. And from these, other tasks come up which he tries to get done. Which results him being tired the next day, and I have to deal with that.

8. You check your comments more often than your voicemail

Another true fact about Syed. He checks his comments more than once a day otherwise his spam folder gets huge. Answer I get is that he wants to make sure none of his reader’s comment went to Spam which now is a problem. But he does not check his voicemail this often even though the phone shows you on the top that you have a Voicemail.

9. You make your own theme song

Syed asked his roommate to make a theme song for Balkhis. And another Rap song that he made will be on soon also. The sad part is that I have to listen to these songs in our long drive.

10. You know the URLs of at least fifteen other blogs off the top of your head

I am being modest when I say this about Syed. He knows too many sites off top of his head. I personally keep a bookmark selection, Syed just visits them without using the bookmark tab.

11. You would sacrifice food for an internet connection

Syed never have his meals on time. Which often gets unhealthy. I have told him multiple times about this. He even wrote a post about it once when I insisted him to do so because this was suppose to change his habits 7 Unhealthy habits that affect your Productivity.

12. You email your girlfriend “Hey, woudn’t this be a good post?”

I have gotten too many emails asking me for titles / ideas. Sometimes I think why does he ask me when he has more experience in this industry. [Edit by Syed: That is because I like to hear other people's opinion]

13. Your relatives are scared you will put them on your website

Family times yay fun. Embarassing times around friends yay fun. When it is with bloggers, you are afraid when they will blog about it. I mean he blogged about his cousin’s face full with cake. Specially now since Dina from Market Leverage sent him these multiple shirts in different colors saying: I am blogging this, it has become his favorite collection. He wears these to events and people than are scared to be on his site.

14. You use abbreviations in real life

Syed uses f9, btw, brb more often then I can count. I think that is all from his little chats and tweets that he does online. But it has seriously affected teh talk time. If you know Syed well, you would understand these terms.

15. You buy a new computer as a backup

I told him that he didn’t need this new computer, but he got it anyways calling it a backup. Like four external hard drives are never enough for your primary computer. This is when you make BS excuses and hide behind your online life.

16. You still bid on auctions even when your overseas

He recently went to Pakistan due to his Grandfather’s death. But he kept bidding on this Power Mac G5. Knowing that he won’t be able to pick it up as he is out of the conuntry. He won the auction in Dubai and asked me to pick it up for him.

17. Your uncle, girlfriend’s family member, and other family and friends subscibes to your rss feed

I know two person I can think of right off the top of my head that has subscribed to Balkhis. His uncle and my mom. They both have sent him emails in the past commenting on his blog posts. Alot of our friends are subscribed to Balkhis as well just to check out what crazy scheme he is working on.

18. You have a stock of 5-hour energy drinks for late night sessions online

Have I not seen this one before. He has a stock of these unhealthy drinks that he use if he has to work on some big projects online or to pull late night sessions.

19. You were on Twitter before Tweeting was cool

Twitter is becoming cool and a very hot phenomena recently as Oprah and other stars are entering. And alot of its exposure on CNN and other media networks. Well it really makes me feel weird that he was on it before it was popular like any other services. Now that all of us friends are joining twitter, he has been there, so we ask him questions. Before when he talked about twitter, we used to call him crazy. By the way I am on twitter as well. I joined during Izeafest but I am not very active. But you can check out his Twitter Profile.

20. When You have Crazy Dreams about the Web

One time he was sharing his dream with me that how he was telepathically connected to his website. His brain was functioning as internet. He could move through his site using his brain FTP so much faster. Uploading was done alot faster. Also he could use wordpress with touch screen moving everything with his hand. And he didn’t have to type because his thoughts were being typed by wordpress.

Well this is a life of Syed Balkhi. I did share alot of insight moments in here so you can know more about him. I wrote this post because I won an argument with him and the bet was I would get to share this on the web. And so I did now. Anyways you would not believe that being on the web as a webmaster, blogger, SEO, or any other profession really influences your day to day life and your personality. Often you would deny it, but ask the people around you because they see it more than you do.

Yes I do know it is a joke .. this post is to highlight the Apple Craze and how this video is making fun of it.