Wednesday, December 31, 2008

New Place to look for Jobs in Frederick

Craigslist has help wanted ads for Frederick Maryland.


I always thought of Craigslist as a classified ads site, a sort of online yard sale site. Well you can look for a job in Frederick there as well.

Newspapers traditionally were THE place to place a help wanted ad and virtually the only place a job seeker would look for employment in Frederick Maryland. The Internet has added many alternative places to go for hunting a job and placing a help wanted ad too.

Craigslist charges $25 for a help wanted ad, I found this out because I need a hired hand for my business. Frederick Web Promotions has a "help wanted" shingle hung on it's substantial piece of Internet Real Estate.

Did you know Craigslist has a Western Maryland section

(update on Craigslist and help wanted ads... Craigslist only charges that $25 for the more popular, high traffic cities it features ads in, you may run a Help Wanted Ad in most cities on Craigslist and it won't cost you a dime. I found out because when researching for this help wanted ad I wanted to run it in Washington DC, fast forward 6 months later and a Commercial Cleaning Service I am the webmaster for needed to hire 10 people in upstate New York. I ran a Craigslist Help Wanted Ad in Buffalo NY and it was free.


Craigslist even has a section where they compare Craigslist to
Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com


I just discovered that what I do for a living is becoming mainstream!

There are major differences in
Craigslist Help Wanted Washington DC suburbs

and

Craigslist Help Wanted Western Maryland (at least for my skill set there are differences)


Take a look at http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/mld/web/



What I noticed is that most of the listings are for programmers, but there are, in increasing numbers, help wanted ads for PPC (pay per click) experts and organic search engine optimization specialists

That'd be me

There's even a Frederick Maryland Help Wanted Ad for:


Search Engine Rock Star


I'm not kidding...

Wed Dec 10
PPC or SEO Rockstars Wanted. - (DC Metro Area)

The programmer jobs require a college degree... not so for Search Engine Rock Starr !!!

Here's another Frederick Maryland example of companies that are aware that there are only a few select people with the Search Engine Marketing Skills I have and those companies are quietly seeking to get the Business Blog advantage for thier clients.

Topical Writer/Producer/Editor. _ start now (western maryland )

Responsibilities: Review our journalism programs to identify potential trends, articles, and newsworthy contributors. Track coverage to assure that we are reporting latest, most significant developments in all imaging modalities and subspecialties. Attend and report from meetings as necessary. Prepare features and news reports for print and web publication. Help traffic copy and develop editorial plans.

One of the ads is offering $33 an hour

... I'm thinking

... nah, I can make a whole lot more than that working for myself

I need to hire someone! see this earlier post in this blog

Issue # 45
Life in Frederick Maryland Online Magazine
January 10, 2009

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Moving to Frederick means getting a Mortgage.

Are Frederick Mortgages about to go lower making it easier to be moving to Frederick?

Will mortgage rates drop again?

When the Fed initially announced that plan in November, andwhen it reaffirmed it two weeks ago, rates promptly plunged-- although only for solid, creditworthy borrowers with bigdown payments or lots of equity in their homes. These borrowers discovered recently that they could get 30-yearfixed mortgages in the 4.5% range.
They have since edged back up to just under 5% for solidborrowers who pay a 1% upfront fee and shoulder about $3,000 in closing costs, mortgage brokers said.

Understanding What Drives Mortgage Rates

...when the market expects the Fed to lower rates, theystart snatching up bonds quickly while higher interestrates are still available. That drives up demand and allowsbanks to lower rates. And if the stock market is performingpoorly, investors look for mortgage backed investments asan alternative, again, pushing mortgage rates down.


What's happening now?


This is what should be happening now, right?

The equities markets are uncertain and volatile, and the Fed continues to lower rates, driving up present demand for bonds and mortgage backed investments, thus pushing mortgage rates lower. But it isn't happening the way it should. Investors are avoiding mortgage-backed investments and while are low, they certainly aren't as low as they should be considering the factors in the market and history.

So what's all this back and forth mean to someone moving to Frederick and needing a mortgage?

It means you should buy a home for reasons other than it's investment potential. People bought homes before property values went up more than you earned in a few years, didn't they?

Why should you buy a home in Frederick Maryland?

You need to be close to a high income work center... you can do a whole lot of work from your computer but at some point you are going to have to go into the office. That office is likely to be close to DC. So where do you buy a home?
Montgomery County is just plain too expensive, Virgina isn't much better and you'll have to cross a bridge or two. Prince Georges is out of the question... where does that leave?

And another point since this post started out in investment terms:
They ARE going to replace the American Legion Bridge... at some point it's going to happen.
They ARE going to build an outer Beltway if for no other reason than to route tractor trailer traffic away from DC.

Montgomery County is NOT going to let that bridge go through Dickerson or Poolesville.
Where does that leave?
============================================




Mortgage Calculator






Mortgage Calculator © ML









FHA Loan Limits




FHA Loans © ML





Issue # 44
Life in Frederick Maryland Online Magazine
January 10, 2009
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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

New Employment in Frederick Maryland

Get a Job in Frederick Maryland continued:

Every other post to this blog is going to be on the topic of finding suitable employment opportunties in and near Frederick Maryland. I can see from my web stats that Job information what you want the most from this blog.

Most Common Resume Mistakes:
Don't include the kitchen sink!

Job seekers do themselves a disservice when they send out résumés with more information than they need. Most employers don’t have the time or patience to sift through the irrelevant details. Here are 10 things your résumé could do
without: (I'm not going to copy all ten items here, just what jumped off the page for me)

1. Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. “If you are careless enough to send out this most important document with a mistake…I immediately assume you'll never care enough about the work you send out representing my company," says Jose Bandujo, president of New York-based Bandujo Advertising. He recalls one candidate who misspelled Manhattan, despite having worked in the city for a decade and another whose great educational background didn’t compensate for the fact that he couldn’t spell “education.”

I'm guilty as hell on this one... I lost a Frederick Internet Advertising customer from not proof reading my copy... managed to learn something from it though:

  1. I now clearly state what my consulting firm does and doesn't.
  2. I'm not your web designer (I can fill in if you don't have one)
  3. I'm not your copy writer (Although I do a great job of it)

I am your Search Engine Positioning guy- that's a very specific talent. Web Designers can not get Google to say exactly what we want Google to say about your company!

This next one from the article surprised me... leave out the opening objectives?

2. Opening objectives. “These are generic…They do nothing to differentiate one candidate from another,” says Donna Flagg, president of The Krysalis Group, a human resource and management consulting firm in New York.

5. Details of every task you’ve ever performed in every job you’ve ever had.
“It's too much information. Managers and recruiters need to know at-a-glance what makes a candidate special,” Flagg says. Focus on those details that pertain to the job for which you’re applying.
6. Excessive bragging. Stating one’s accomplishments can be helpful, but when it’s overdone, the candidate can come across as narcissistic, a huge turnoff for employers, Flagg says

OK, this one hit's too close to home... Bragging cost me getting my name in the paper. When I started my online publishing business I did not know just how many important people were reading my work. My first 3 customers wanted me to think I was not worth anywhere near as much as I knew I was... one even tried to leverage my past mistakes against me, implying that no one else was going to hire me with a checkered past like mine (see my blogger profile and read between the lines)

Bottom line when I DID do something outstanding I went way, WAY too far in bragging about it, not realizing that just a few highly targeted readers that really, REALLY want to know what I'm saying is all it takes for some one in my business to make money.

I'll explain: website one gets thousands and thousands of generic visitors, like
a MySpace Page, why did they come to the site? To "be cool?".

Website two only gets 30 visitors a day, but 1 of them actually BUYS something! That is a 3% conversion ratio.. in my business a 1% means making a substantial profit.

9. Unexplained gaps in work history. While job seekers shouldaccount for these gaps, they should be careful with theirwording. “One of the weirdest things that I ever saw on arésumé…was a candidate who explained a 10-year lapse inwork experience as being in jail during those years forkilling her husband,” recalls Linda Goodspeed, marketingrecruiting manager at VistaPrint. In such a situation, shesays, the best thing to write would be “left work forpersonal reasons,” and the candidate would be able toexplain the criminal record later.
I cover my gaps in employment with being a free lance what ever, it's the truth so I say so. I think every one should have a little side business, even selling Amway or what ever. Hell, your hobby often qualifies as a business if you do it right.

For the rest of that article go here:

=======================

With the election all we hear about is how damaging outsourcing labor overseas has hurt our local economy. College grads didn't fear this too much as it looked as if only blue collar jobs were going to the cheap labor countries. Well India has more and better and smarter and hungrier college grads than we do. As an entrepreneur I have to say this about that: If he wants it more than you do he earned the right to get it. It's not like anyone did him any special favors, he earned it and you didn't.

Here are 9 jobs that HotJobs at Yahoo says aren't going overseas, these jobs are staying right here: (yahoo credits the US dept of labor for this list)

Dental Hygienist
It's tough to clean teeth from across the world. A career as a dental assistant usually begins with an associate's degree from an accredited college or university.
Pharmacy Technician
People take their health seriously -- that's why a certification as a pharmacy tech is not likely to be outsourced.
Fitness Professional
It's hard enough to be motivated in-person. Offshore encouragement won't cut it. A career in fitness can begin with a certificate program.
Teacher Aide
Teachers need live help to care for kids. An anonymous, off-site representative just won't cut it when it comes to educating our kids.
Auto Repair Technician
Most car troubles can't be repaired with simple, over-the-phone instructions. An auto tech studies anywhere from 6 months to 2 or more years, and will always have a steady stream of live customers.
Pet Groomer
Along the lines of a dog trainer, pet grooming just must be done in person. This is usually only a certificate program.
Plumber
This career depends fully on local workers -- plumbers definitely won't be phoning in from overseas to unclog your toilet.
Veterinary Assistant
A pet's health and happiness is of serious importance to most owners, and they won't be putting it in the hands of foreign workers. You can become a vet assistant by completing a certificate program.
Electrician
This highly technical and hands-on job simply can't be done any other way, except live and in-person.


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Life in Frederick Maryland

Does Frederick County loose money on Recycling?

Frederick County Recycling changing gears... because of money?

I had to think about this article a long time because it might get someone fired.

I've got a readership, there are people reading that work in the City of Frederick, and other people that I can't say are reading this blog. In his book "The Powers that Be" David Halberstam wrote about Katherine Graham exercising political power by what she kept out of the Washington Post.

Last month I had a "run in" with the guy that picks up our recycle bin. What is being practiced in my neighborhood and what is on the county website isn't the same. Our regular driver doesn't want to pick up anything that isn't in the 18 gallon blue bin.

Here's is what is on the official Frederick County Recycling Office website:

Excess recyclables may be placed in paper bags or cardboard boxes no larger than the recycling container. Do not place excess recycling in trash bags
Items that must be tied in bundles, placed in paper bags or similar sized container no
larger then 18 gallons:

  • Newspapers
  • Phone Books
  • Mixed paper (junk mail, writing paper, envelopes, catalogs, glossy inserts, paperback books,magazines, small catalogs and boxboard)
  • Corrugated cardboard-must be flattened and no larger then 2.5' square (no wax coated boxes)


After making phone calls and Googling Frederick County Recycling

You get taken to this:
2. Creates Jobs
Recycling in the U.S. is a $236 billion a year industry. More than 56,000 recycling and reuse enterprises employ 1.1 million workers nationwide.

And this:
6. Preserves Landfill Space
No one wants to live next door to a landfill. Recycling preserves existing landfill space.


And I found this link marked "Citizen Concerns"
Where I found this copy:
" you must provide contact information such as a phone number or e-mail address so that we can reach you when we have follow-up information regarding your request."


I reported a complaint in detail quoting what steps I'd taken to resolve the problem and never heard back from them. Christmas came and NONE of the excess cardboard from Christmas went into the recycle truck... all of it went to the County Landfill, because it all got picked up by the regular trash guys.

I also run "Dumpster Diving for Instant Cash" blog and reported there that the prices paid for aluminum is down about 50%, recylcling centers are buying scrap but there is no current demand for it at all, they reported this:
"We're buying aluminum right now and just letting it pile up. That's why we're not paying as much for aluminum as we were 2 months ago. Right now demand for aluminum just dropped to zero. We're hoping to sell our stock pile next year, but we're not even sure we're gonna be able to sell it next year"


Now I thought the county had just brushed me off... so I did some more investigating:

At the Counties website it seems that if you blinked you'd miss this:
at the upper right hand side of the page is this tiny box:
Login to check on
existing requests

and You've got to look closely to hunt this down:
Logged in as XXX@somedomain.com
View Existing Requests
Account Settings

Frederick County is moving away from weekly recycling pick up to twice a month and switching from the current 18 gallon little blue bins to two larger sizes: 32 gallons and 65 gallons (roughly the size of the City of Frederick's trash cans).

I'm wondering if the price of something easily turned into cash like Aluminum is down to about half what it was, what's that done to the price of cardboard?

I'll bet my bottom dollar the county loses money on cardboard when times are good, what ever they're doing now has got to save money because instead of paying for 50 pick ups a year, they'r now having to pay for 26.

Fair enough, the county has got to save money... but is our cardboard going to get picked up?

Do they no longer want to pick up cardboard?

I logged back in and sent a second request for follow up... almost no one is going to go to this much trouble to get their cardboard out of the landfill and into recycling. How many other areas is cardboard going into the trash?

From where I sat, the county did not email me back(inspite of the copy on the official Frederick County website aluding to "leave us your email so we can get back to you" )... it looked to me as if my request was ingored... I'm a reporter for Frederick.com, so I made a Youtube vid of the driver leaving the cardboard (a cover my butt so it doesn't look like I'm crying wolf move on my part)

in the video I'm holding my granddaughter and you can hear me talking to her.
view it here:

Does it look to you like the cardboard was cut to 2 1/2 feet?

Now a month later the Frederick County Government Recycling website I see this line:
You may also exchange your container for a larger size (up to a 95-gallon cart) or purchase additional 18-gallon blue bins. For further assistance, please call the Office of Recycling at 301-600-2960.
I honestly do not remember if that line about exchanging our little blue bins was there a month ago... I DO remember seeing the line where I can BUY an extra bin

I'm wondering if cardboard has lost some of it's importance because it's not a cash crop like aluminum is/was... right now neither of them are bringing in the money they used to.
If cardboard brought in a tiny fraction of aluminum before I'm thinking they're losing money on picking it up now.

Hopefully the cost cutting measure (if cost cutting is why they're changing the system) will make it so we can get our cardboard to NOT go into the landfill.

With the exception of summertime bees being attracted to the soda cans sitting in our back yards for two weeks rather than a few days, it is a Green Thing To Do to come around 26 times a year instead of 50, lessens the recycling processes carbon foot print.

Footnotes to follow up on the counties change from weekly to every two weeks and links to the costs associated with recycling in nearby Montgomery County and Carroll County below:

Feb 17 2008 Taxes Keep Incinerator afloat source Carroll County Times


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Life in Frederick Maryland









City of Frederick circa 1858

While doing research for this blog I came across an amazing Pre Civil War Map of the City of Frederick:

City of Frederick in 1858

Frederick County District 2
Isaac Bond, Map of Frederick County, 1858
, Library of Congress, MSA SC 1213-1-457

As much as I'd like to take credit for finding this amazing piece of Frederick Maryland's history I cant. All I can take credit for is for being a enough of a search engine wizard to discover a little known map of the City of Frederick from 1858.

Republished with permission for use on Life in Frederick Maryland


I'm told (full disclosure: some one I worked with told me this, I've not yet researched it fully) I'm told that before the civil war Frederick was basically 5 farms and the homes in the historic district.

The old home just past the crest of the hill coming down Market Street from Rt 70 and before you get to the Maryland School for the Deaf (on the right side heading north) is one of those original farm houses. A guy I did temporary work with (heating and air conditioning guy) told me he wanted to buy that home but changed his mind due to the fact that it was prohibited to upgrade an historic home with air conditioning.

Apparently if a home is listed in a "historical register" then you're required to leave it much as it was, sort of like if it was a museum.

I can appreciate that, but have mixed feelings about the restriction... thinking it might have the opposite effect; one of retarding interest in maintaining a Frederick Icon.

I caught our County Council in action yesterday. While channel surfing I stopped at the Frederick County Government Channel on Comcast. I'd never paid too much attention to local politics and I'm glad I saw this taped meeting.

The topic was how to best coordinate the Frederick County Fire Department and it's Volunteer Fire Department. I did NOT know that such a huge portion of our Fire Department was privately funded. I thought Chevy Chase and Bethesda were the only ones rich enough to have a private Fire Department.

The meeting displayed the shortcomings and good parts of the relationship between the Frederick County employed Fire Department and it's public counterpart. There were some jabs at each other (enough to make watching it interesting) but overall I was impressed with our local elected officials. I found them thoughtful, more than I'd have expected. The cable show illustrated warm caring people representing us, not the nameless faceless (unresponsive to the public) concept I previously had regarding local government. I wished I'd have written down the council members names but I will look at them with more interest having seen this discourse.

I've got a story for you I'm working on but now that I'm moving more and more towards actually being a reporter, I've got to be more through in my research.

This blogs traffic is exploding, better than I'd expected and I had some pretty high expectations.

That's all I got for now.
c ya


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Sunday, December 28, 2008

Affordable Advertising Available Here

This blog is run by a well seasoned Search Engine Optimization Guru who happens to live right here in Frederick County and loves living here.

All of my blogs perform well in all the search engines, but my forte is Google. Google amounts to 3/4 of all Internet Searches worldwide, Google is bigger than all the other search engines combined.

Why would you care?

If you own and operate a small business here in Frederick Maryland and the downturn in the economy is hurting your profit margin you know you need to do something to get more business and have that something be affordable.

As a Frederick Small business owner you already pay for some kind of advertising, let me ask you something... does it work for you?

Can you track it's effectiveness or are you just throwing money at the problem and hoping for the best?

Advertising needs to have a ROI (Return On Investment) or it's money down the drain. Do the newspaper ads you run pay for themselves? Does the (expensive) listing in the Yellow Pages turn a profit for you?

Advertisers need to be aware that more and more people are searching online for LOCAL businesses. Over 1,300,000,00 Local Search Engine Queries were made EACH month in 2007, the figures for 2008 are not yet published but the trend is increasing. Over the past 10 years yellow page usage has dropped by a third.


For a fraction of that you can get listed here.
  • $20 per month (month to month, no contract) for a feature article in a blog post per week for 4 weeks.
  • $12 per year (one dollar a month!) for a business description ad on the right side bar of this blog.
  • $25 donation to Frederick's "A Mission of Mercy" on Facebook and I'll give your business a blog post sales pitch for 3 months!

Why would you want to be listed on this blog?

With 3000 page views per month and the extremely high ranking in Google this blog is your most affordable advertising option available to you right now for 2009.

Google these:
Type "Life in Frederick Maryland" into Google Maps.

Next Good Question:

What Good is a Search Engine Local Google Guru if he cant get himself listed at the top of Google?
Not only in Maryland
Not only in the US
But Worldwide:
Google this:

Maryland Internet Advertising

Local Google Advertising

Local Google Guru

Search on Yahoo for the same:

Maryland Internet Advertising

Local Google Advertising

Local Google Guru


Try MSN Live Search

Maryland Internet Advertising

Local Google Advertising

Local Google Guru

And again on AOL Search

Maryland Internet Advertising

Local Google Advertising

Local Google Guru


If you want your Maryland Corporate Website to perform this well in all 4 of these giant worldwide Internet advertising venues then Call David Bruce at 301 363-8206



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Saturday, December 27, 2008

Frederick is full of Photographers

Frederick is home to quite a few budding photographers, and some of them are pretty good!


From Life in Frederick Maryland
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I just got a suitable camera (one that will let me do YouTubes), right now I'm relying on the fact that the camera is good enough for my purposes.


If you go to http://flickr.com and type Frederick Maryland in the search box you'll see dozens of beautiful photographs from home grown Frederick Photographers.

I'm 'friends' with a just a few of our photography artists (friends in the social networking vien)
Here are just a few of them:

Chris Foster's Flickr Page:

Lou Hamilton's Flickr Page:



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