A long time ago, in a far away land (well, far away from Florida, anyway!) a boy geek named Jerry was in love with a girl geek named Katie. The couple met as students at the University of Illinois, and it was true love from day one. Jerry heard about the “Will You Marry Me” contest that 1-800-Flowers.com was running and thought it would be the perfect way to ask the big question. Jerry created a special Valentine’s video for his geeky sweetie, and he won! Not only did he get the girl, but the happy couple will be enjoying a wedding and honeymoon at Sandals, a free engagement ring from Blue Nile, airfare from American Airlines, and a years worth of flowers from 1-800-Flowers.com! Check out the video and wish the couple well…

We can’t all be big winners in the game of life like Jerry, but you can snag a $10 off deal right now from 1-800-Flowers.com - consider it a consolation prize! Just enter coupon code YOUT when you check out at 1-800-Flowers.com!

Link baiting works. I just had to go about it the hard way, by purchasing pre-worn pants at Old Navy, and then blogging about it the mess I found in the crotch of said pants. From there, the story was picked up by The Consumerist, and now it’s linked on the front page of Fark.com:

The incredible traffic I’m seeing as a result on my main blog almost makes the whole experience worth it! Too bad I can’t come up with link bait like this on a regular basis!

I’ve had the code for IZEARanks.com installed on my blogs since the beginning, and I’ve been eagerly tracking the ebb and flow of the rankings for my various blogs. There are still kinks to be worked out, and improvements to be made, but overall, I think this “real rank” is much better than Google’s pagerank, which Google arbitrarily giveth and taketh away.

Here’s what I like about Real Rank:

• It’s a real number, based on real stats. Your traffic counts for 70% of your rank, and your inbound links account for 20%. Daily page views make up the final piece of the real rank pie, offering you a number that’s based on actual blog stats.
• Real rank is only for blogs - you’re not competing against non blogs.
• Real rank isn’t gamed as easily as Alexa can be.
• Real rank is based on REAL traffic, unlike Google’s pagerank. My main blog went from a 4, to a 5, to a 0, to a 3 with the most recent PR updates, my traffic increased. What does that say about Google’s pagerank as a measure of a blog’s worth?
• Real rank updates daily on IzeaRanks.com, and you can easily see how you stack up to other blogs, or just blogs in your genre.

Here’s a screenshot of the real rank for this blog. I’ve been holding steady all week, but if you look at my traffic for the whole month, you can see my traffic has dipped down, and really took a drop during the 3rd week of January. I was on vacation then, and not posting. It’s neat to see your rank change in response to how you’ve promoted (or not promoted) your blog.

This is huge for advertisers - when you buy based on pagerank, you really don’t know what you’re getting. That PR 7 blog could get 300 visitors a day, or 3,000. With Real Rank, you can see exactly what kind of traffic the blog you’re advertising on receives!

Just in case you’re a texting fool, Yahoo has put together a list of things you can do to protect your privacy while texting. I’m sure most of us don’t think of texts like we do emails - but text messages can be forwarded, and they are stored on your cell phone provider’s network. I’ll bet you didn’t know that text messages can be easily intercepted by anyone with a radio kit, and that it’s so easy to do, even Wal-Mart employees have figured it out!

Treat texting like email - don’t send your PIN, don’t send a credit card number, your social security number, or other personal details.

Raise your hand if you’ve NEVER had a speeding ticket!

If you’ve got your hand raised, go away, I hate people like you. Driving under the speed limit at all times, keeping the rest of us from getting where we’re going on time. To the rest of you, come closer, my kindred brethren. My last ticket was in 2006, shortly after I moved to my new home. Welcome to the neighborhood, here’s a $150 fine for not noticing that speed limit change! I almost went to court to fight it, but I didn’t know how to fight a speeding ticket. I wasn’t very confident, so I paid my ticket and went on my merry way, albeit a bit slower. I sure could have used TicketBust.com - it’s a new website that will help you fight your traffic tickets, and if you DON’T get your ticket reduced or dismissed, TicketBust.com refunds the money you’ve paid for their services!

I don’t plan on getting a ticket anytime soon, but my lead foot husband chalks them up like he’s starting a collection. I forsee using the site very soon…he’s about due for another ticket!

I came across this Google search result page last night and found it to be a neat example of Google bombing. I grew up not too far away from the Scientology headquarters in Clearwater, FL, and now live not too far away from where John Travolta makes a home in Ocala, FL. (He has to be close enough to commute for his audits!)

Let Google deny that Google bombing exists, but this proves that it does! By the way, did you know that the very first Google bomb that became well known as the search term “more evil than Satan himself” linking to Microsoft.com?

I absolutely hate it when I’m filling out new patient forms at a doctor’s office, or some other type of official forms, and my social security number is requested. A social security card and the number accompanying it is NEVER to be used for identification, and all too often, doctor’s offices ask for this information just because they can - they don’t need it!

Why am I so touchy about giving out my social security number? I’ve already been the victim of credit fraud once. I was turned down for the very first credit card I ever applied for due to bad credit…credit that was taken out in my name when I was a child! A quick letter to the credit bureau with a copy of my birth certificate was enough to prove I wasn’t out shopping at the age of 5, but it could have been much, much worse. I once worked for an agency that dealt with credit, and oh, the horror stories I’ve heard! We had people put a lock on their credit through the bureaus so that NO credit could be given at all, without written approval.

Lifelock is a company that wants to help people avoid jumping through hoops to protect their credit by:

• Setting up fraud alerts in your name with the credit bureaus.
• Verify these fraud alerts are still in effect every 90 days.
• They get your name removed from credit card pre-approval offers and junk mail lists. (Do you know how easy it is for someone to get into your mail and snag a credit card pre-approval in your name?)
• They send you free credit reports every year from all of the major credit card bureas.
• The items you carry in your wallet are protected with WalletLock™. Lose your wallet, and someone will help you to replace lost and stolen documents, as well as contact the credit card companies to cancel lost and stolen cards.
• If your identity is stolen WHILE are you are member of Lifelock, they’ll help you get your identity, and your life back, at THEIR expense - up to $1,000,000!

How confident is Lifelock that their program works? Not only do they offer a $1 million guarantee, but the CEO publishes his social security number online for all to see. Now, that’s confidence!

I can only hope! If Microsoft buys Yahoo, maybe Yahoo can in turn grow to rival Google, which would mean the end of the Google monopoly. I’m a long time Yahoo user, from my email to Yahoo groups (remember when it was eGroups?) and I love Yahoo news. I even use my Yahoo email to download my pop3 email from other accounts.

If the sale goes through, this could mean big changes for the internet - more search engine competition, maybe new ways to rank websites, and new models of online advertising. Take that, Google!