treasurehawk.biz Blog

Pictou County Search.com finally has a new logo.  I can’t show you the old logo but you can see the new one at PictouCountySearch.com.  I used the old logo for some time even thought it was somewhat amateurish because I didn’t think I could do a better one myself.  Well it looks like I was wrong.  The new logo is very simple and clean but it is also much more professional looking.  And it didn’t take any more time or knowledge than the previous logo.

That’s the biggest recent development regarding Pictou County Search news.  I am adding new free listings daily as well as visiting businesses to collect business cards.  I am currently adding Stellarton business listings and hope to do visiting and business card collection in the coming days.

The classifieds section will require some attention in the near future as well.  Athough the site is getting good traffic I am not getting any visitors posting classifieds.  I hope the solution is to increase content which in turn should increase traffic.  The two should then feed each other.

Pictou County Search was recently upgraded.  The new software will allow users to access content on their mobile phones.  So now that the update has been completed new content is being added daily.

The new software was also supposed to have a drag and drop feature for the maps if your location wasn’t available.  However, it seems that Google maps does not currently work for all areas of Pictou County.  For now it seems it works fine for New Glasgow.

Also I am still looking for local businesses that would like some free local advertising.  I’ve added a couple of Showcase listings myself as examples.  Here is the page for Pictou County Cycle.  I also created a page for The White Lotus and a sample band page for The Fuzz Petals.  There are also a few more options available to Showcase listings.

The site Pictou County Links Directory is no longer live.  Hosting problems have forced me to shut down the directory formerly at PictouCountyLinks.com.  That domain has been forwarded to Pictou County Search.com.

I apologize if you had a listing on that site or if you were a regular visitor.  Hopefully the new Pictou County Search will be able to will be able to replace any usefulness the links site provided.

Coming Soon (maybe):

I have been considering a few things to improve Pictou County Search.  I currently have three blogs.  I would like to get that down to one blog.  I just have to decide which one to keep.  That decision is not urgent so it could be a month or more.

I would like to add a Help Forum.  I started one on a trial basis but I only have 7 days before I have to start paying for it.  And the client base does not require it yet.

Advertising Specials:

You can get free premium listings and classifieds at Pictou County Search on a trial basis by contacting me through the site.  If your business is not located in Nova Scotia you may be considered for these free offers.

Pictou County Search.biz now has a search engine that is focused specifically on Pictou County.  It is a custom search portal intended to improve your search experience when searching for or about Pictou County.

If you use the Firefox browser Pictou County Search can be added to your search box.  My search box is on the right near the top.  I’m not sure if that is standard or not.  If you would like to add it to your browser click the “add searchbox to browser” link.

Future plans for Pictou County Search.biz include starting a new blog and adding the searchbox to that as the home page.  I am currently just searching for a suitable blog.

I have always been interested in languages.  It would be interesting to be able to communicate in more than one language.  It would also be cool to be able to watch French TV and listen to French radio stations.  Here in Nova Scotia, everyone seems to have access to at least one French TV station.  As for radio CBC radio broadcasts in both languages all across Canada.  Anyway to get to the point to learn another language you need a list of resources.  I decided to put one together and here it is http://www.squidoo.com/second-language.

Find great deals on refurbished Gateway products at http://www.squidoo.com/gateway-laptops.  I now have 3 sites to help you shop for great computer deals in Canada.

I can’t stop Squidooing. I keep running into problems on the net and then solving them with a Squidoo page. My latest page is Nova Scotia Classifieds. I was trying to advertise a business opportunity and in doing so I was searching for classifieds pages in Nova Scotia. So typical of a Google search I found thousands of results. I don’t want thousands of results every time I search for something. I decided to make a collection of NS free classifieds so the next person to do the same search doesn’t have to go through the same stuff.

I’ve also made nearly 20 lenses since I started Squidooing, which I have organized in a lensography. You can see what I’m talking about by visiting “My Lensography” – A Collection of Great Lenses.

Actually I have two new Squidoo pages so far this year.  One is a Quit Smoking Guide and the other My Lensography.  The lensography is good for updates and the quit smoking needs some work.  There is lots of info there but it needs to be organized a little.

I also added some new content to the following pages:

1. New Glasgow News Page
2. Pictou County Page
3. Pictou County Job Search Page
4. Refurbished Gateway Computers Page
5. Free Stuff Online Page

I plan to do regular updates of all my pages and create one new page per week.  To create your own Squidoo page click on any link in this article and look for the green “make your own page” link.

Executive Summary (so you don’t have to read the whole article to get the point): I had a problem with my computer.  I decided it might be a registry problem.  I downloaded and used “Free Windows Registry Repair 1.2″.  I liked it.  If that’s a little brief then read on…
Recently I have had trouble opening PDF files. I assumed it was a problem with my Adobe Reader. So I did a search under “why is my adobe not working”. The first few results did not seem to be what I was looking for, so I started looking at some of the sponsored links.

An ad for RegistryFix.com claimed it was due to registry errors. Not really knowing what the truth might be I decided to download the free trial version.

I did a scan of my computer and the software detected 488 total problems. Only 47 of them repairable in the trial version. To get the other 441 repaired you needed to purchase the full version and register it. So for free I get about 10% of my problems fixed. But will it fix my original Adobe problem?

The full version costs $37.00 with an 8 week money back guarantee plus and optional extended download service for $4.95 that would protect your downloaded software for 36 months.

Registry Fix (Trial Version): removes problems for free in the following areas: System Service, File Associations and Windows Fonts. Areas not covered by the trial version are: Active X/Classes Section, Application Paths, Invalid Shortcuts, Add Remove Programs, Program ID Section, Complete Registry Scan.

To the main point. Did Registry Fix fix my Adobe problem? Well it is working better now. After doing this research I’m not sure that my Adobe was broken or just really slow. Anyway I’m happy that it works now.

I wasn’t overly happy with the fact that I was lured to Registry Fix with the promise that I could get my registry fixed for free. So I looked at some more sponsor ads which directed me to Fixya.com/support/adobe. I realized at this point that very often Google Ads were not going to take me directly to a page that I’m looking for. I eventually made it to a site regdiagnostic.com/regcure/. It looked like some cool software, but pretty much the same deal as above. You get a free scan of your computer and maybe some errors fixed for free however don’t be surprised if it’s followed by a purchase request to get the rest removed.

OK! I’m getting tired of being offered free stuff and not really getting free stuff. My next step was to do a search for “free registry repair”. I clicked on the first result which took me to all-internet-security.com/free_registry_repair.html and of course another link to me to regsofts.com. This site was promoting “Free Windows Registry Repair 1.2″. This software is good for Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista. It also has French and Turkish versions.

After reading through the site I’m starting to think that this is really free software. I download the exe file, install it and run it. The software detects 653 errors even after the other software repaired 47 errors. Errors picked up by this software: Non-existent Files or Folders, Old Start Menu Keys, Obsolete Software Entries, Useless File Extensions, Invalid Add/Remove Programs, Non-existent Shared Dlls, Empty Registry Keys, Software Location Issues.

Yep. Nice list. Who cares? How did it work? How the hell should I know? I hit the “Fix Errors” button and the list of errors disappeared. So I guess it worked. Plus it was free. It’s hard to imagine someone making all that up for no reason. That same page had a few other freebies I would like to try. I’ll let you know how I fare out.  By the way I also added the link to my Squidoo page called Free Stuff Online.

Many of the more experienced Squidoo lens builders recommend building a lensography as a way to promote all of your lenses and groups from one lens.  I always planned to do this and I may start today.

I seem to have lens block.  I just seem to be in a spot where I don’t know where to go.  So I thought if I found something very easy to do, it may help me get past this spot.  So here is my Lensmaster Bio Page which does have a list of all of my lenses, but it does quite do the same thing.