Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and holiday season!

Master marketer and copywriter Ted Nicholas sent out a holiday message the other day

With a subject line…

…”Holiday Reflection By Ted Nicholas”…

…it included a piece of writing that Ted especially likes.

It’s the famous piece by Ralph Waldo Emerson…

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

A piece of writing well worth reading and reflecting on regularly.

Best wishes and may you enjoy every success.

Yes, I have given the site a makeover…

…and changed the theme to the “WordPress Dream Theme”.

Like many online marketers I have…

1) Settled on WordPress as the preferred platform as a Content Management System for websites

2) Looked at, tried out and purchased many different premium themes.

Ironically I bought the “WordPress Dream Theme” a while back and have used it as the platform for a number of sites that I’ve set up for clients.

However, I didn’t get around to using it on this site until now.

The theme is very flexible and easy to use and is packed with useful features.

But the thing I like most is the support and training provided.

There are hours and hours of video training…

…spelling out everything you need to know in great detail…

…and backed up with a great forum for questions.

You can get up and running in couple of hours, but it’s worth spending the time on the training to master both WordPress and the Dream Theme itself.

The Dream Theme is available through GYFDMember.com…

…and yes that’s an affiliate link.

Which reminds me…

…couple of housekeeping matters.

1) There are a whole new set of “legal” pages covering Terms Of Use, Privacy and FTC requirements.

2) You should assume that any advertisements on this site will result in yours truly receiving some sort of remuneration.

3) In blog posts, if I mention a product or service that I would receive a commission for if you were to purchase, then I will make that clear.

Feel free to leave a comment about the new look of the site…

…what you like and what you don’t.

There will be a more changes as I play around with the layout and the features of the WordPress Dream Theme, but the basic layout is in place.

I confess I originally wasn’t going to watch the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton…

…(now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, of course)…

…but I did in the end.

And what a wonderful occasion.

1) The enduring power of stories and symbolism

I won’t go into a long discussion here about the role of the Royal Family in the British Constitution but there is no doubt that the Monarchy is a great symbol and vehicle for national unity.

And the archetypal story of the prince meeting and marrying his princess is very potent.  Certain stories relate profound lessons about the nature of our existence…which is why they end up being archetypes and retain their relevance over the years.

2) Some wonderful words

The couple wrote this prayer for the occasion…

God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage.

In the busyness of each day keep our eyes fixed on what is real and important in life and help us to be generous with our time and love and energy.

Strengthened by our union help us to serve and comfort those who suffer. We ask this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Wonderful example of simple, yet very moving, writing.

ANZAC Day is arguably the most sacred day in the nation’s calendar…

…and here’s a good article in “The Australian”…

“The next Anzac century.”

…that expands a little on the reasons why.

And on this ANZAC Day 2011, here’s a recently discovered poem written by one of the Digger’s at Gallipoli…

His name was Martin Toms and he wrote the poem “New Year in the firing line” on December 5, 1915…

I cannot hear the New Year bells

Ringing of hope renewed

I can but hear the shriek of shells

With their tale of deadly feud

I cannot sing of Auld Lange Syne

My rifle sings for me

No gentle hand is pressing mine

Except in memory.

I cannot see my loved ones near

I can but watch the foe

War ends the old the passing year

Blood red the New Year’s glow.

Yet for nowhere else in the world wide

Should I leave the fighting line

The flying bullets give me pride

That a place in the trench is mine.

The men who stay at home and shirk

Earn but their country’s scorn

Here is the place mid war’s grim work

To hail the New Year born.

Toms survived Gallipoli but was later wounded in action and died a few years later as a result.

(Thanks to The Mosman Daily for publishing the details of Toms’ story and the poem.)

By the way, the flower in the picture at the top of this post is the Australian Wattle, the national flower.  Sprigs of Wattle are often worn at ANZAC Day cermonies.

To conclude, with thanks to those who serve and in memory of all the ANZACs…

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old,

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.”

UPDATE:

Great article in “The Australian” today about one of the lesser-known, almost forgotten ANZAC battles…

“The other Anzac Day heroes”

…Kapyong in 1951.

Happy “Australia Day” wherever you may be!

Today, January 26, is Australia’s national day and marks the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788.  Generally, it’s a pretty laid-back day given over to picnics, barbecues and other outdoor celebrations.

The 2010 Legatum Prosperity Index was recently published…

…and Australia came in at #4, with only Norway, Denmark and Finland ahead.

Call me biased, but that’s a pretty strong confirmation that Australia is one of the best places in the world to live…

…and hey, Oprah loves us too!

I’ll just add a small marketing observation…

Out on my usual morning walk today, I stopped by at the “St Honore Sourdough Bakery” in North Sydney (long time readers will know of my enthusiastic endorsement of this great little bakery)…

…and was confronted with a queue out of the door onto the street!

Lots of people buying bread, rolls and other goodies for barbecues and picnics, of course.

Couple of thoughts came to mind…

1. They have a great product and a loyal customer base

2. They’re open when they’re customers want them to be!

Nice to see this local business doing well…

…and have a great  ”Australia Day”!

It’s an occupational hazard of using a computer…

…over time your keyboard is likely to get a little…messy.

And because keyboards can be fiddly things (all those moving keys and little nooks and crannies)…

…they can be difficult to clean properly.

I’ve certainly found it a problem…

…so I was very interested when my good friend and ace online marketer Heather Trondsen told me about “Cyber Clean”.

What is it?  It’s a new high-tech cleaning compound that is ideal for cleaning cavities that are difficult to reach with conventional cleaning methods.

Best way to explain it is with this video (which also happens to be a nice example of a mini video sales letter)…

As you can see, it’s a kind of gel…reminds me a little of Play Doh.

Here’s the company site with more details www.CyberClean.tv

My friend Heather loves CyberClean…

“Very cool.  My keyboard has never felt so clean.”

Haven’t tried this myself yet, but will do so.  Also, I note some other reviews of the product are a little lukewarm.

However, in support of clean keyboards for copywriters and marketers…

…I think it’s worth you knowing about this!

And, if you’ve tried out “Cyber Clean” yourself, I’d love to hear what you think.  Simply leave a comment.

The ODE…

They shall grow not old,

as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

With gratitude to those who served, those who serve today and those who support them.

If you’ve been wondering what’s been going on here at “Maximum Results Copywriting” with the blog…

…lack of posting, posts disappearing etc…

…well unfortunately the site got hacked.

If you found your browser being hijacked and directed away to another site…

…or you were alerted to a virus threat…

…many apologies.

After being alerted to the problem I investigated ways to solve the issue.  Not being terribly tech savvy, in the end the easiest thing to do was completely “Nuke” the site and start again.

So, I’ve been reinstalling everything…

…plus trying to make sure that site security is improved.

The one saving grace to all of this is that at least I had a clean backup of data.  Unfortunately it wasn’t totally up to date…

…hence the “lost” posts.

Once again, apologies for any problems…

…and normal service will be resumed shortly!

As you will probably have noticed (unless you’re new to this blog…in which case a warm “Welcome!”)…

…there’s a whole new look to the place!

I finally decided to bite the bullet…

…and get myself a premium theme for the blog.

I’d been thinking about this for a while, both for aesthetic reasons and to improve functionality.

Problem is there are a lot of great themes out there, many of them free, so I ended up paralysed by indecision.

Fortuitously…

… master marketer and copywriter Ray Edwards hosted a very useful webinar last week featuring theme designer Cory Miller.

On the webinar, Cory talked about using WordPress in general and his themes in particular.  One of which is the “Flexx Professional” that I have decided to use.

There are so many great things about this theme.  As the name suggests, it’s very flexible and hence very customisable.  PLUS it has some features that make it a very powerful content management system.  It seems to me that this is a perfect tool for creating a wide range of “mini-sites”.

Anyway, I’ve only just started figuring out what I can do with the theme…so watch out for more changes!

One other reason for going with Cory was that my original theme was a free one that he designed and had made available through Michel Fortin.  So, an element of the old “reciprocity” marketing principle at work.

If you want to find out more about Cory Miller’s range of premium WordPress themes, check out www.iThemes.com. At US$79.95, they are an absolute steal, in my humble opinion.

Oh, and the graphic in the header?  That comes with the theme…it’s not me (although I wish I had hair like that, in contrast to my “fashionably short” look!). I’ll be changing it shortly.

There’s a very cool feature where you can have a number of images that rotate.  However, once I’d got over the initial childish excitement and put my hardcore direct response marketing hat back on, I turned it off because it seemed to me to be a distraction.

As well as being “Australia Day”, today is also Chinese New Year, Korean New Year, Tet in Vietnam and Republic Day in India.

In the Chinese calendar, this is the Year Of The Ox.  According to Wikipedia, the Ox represents prosperity through fortitude and hard work.  Sounds like that could be very appropriate for the year ahead!

May I wish you “Kung Hei Fat Choi”  (“Best Wishes And Be Prosperous”)!