No use crying over spilt milk

4000It has been an interesting week for me so far, I was feeding my daughter Eve and with no warning she managed to throw up her milk all across my keyboard, there was no saving it so I had to do some research for a new one, I wanted something that was ergonomic after last year when I changed to a vertical mouse which helped a slight RSI.

With that in mind I opted for a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 which is a split keyboard, it arrived this morning and I have to admit I am finding it tough at the start to adjust so I’ll be a man of few words today until I get used to it.

Good result
So, remember my domain faux pas buying replica weapons? good news this week I managed to sell it for a profit, it cost me £261 and I found a buyer at £500 so it worked out ok in the end :)

Viral Idea
If you want a viral idea something struck me recently, when people get ill and take the day off they want a duvet day just keeping warm and feeling sorry for themselves,

- Viral business idea - a blogging duvet
For those bloggers a little under the weather, a duvet that is specially designed to keep them warm yet let them type & blog, a few blogging duvets sent to the right people and you could have a really viral product.

In the works
I received a reply to one of my many emails recently, I offered $10,000 for a domain which I know is worth $ 6 figures, the reply was very positive asking about future use and if I could leave a small link to forward any old traffic for a while to their new site. I heard back again yesterday:

Thanks Scott,
Let me have some discussion here and I will get back to you shortly.

It’s feels like I am waiting for a pregnancy test! pacing about knowing that one answer will have no effect and everything carries on as normal, the other answer could change my life! Now I have already started working on the ‘no’ scenario and how I can turn that around to a yes so I will not give up on this even if they decline - wish me luck!

About Scott Jones

Scott hails from the north east of Scotland and started earning online at the end of 2000 building websites for local businesses during which time he won an award from Lord Alan Sugar for Excellence in Enterprise. After having quite a bit of success with domaining Scott mainly runs educational evergreen websites which generate over 3 million visitors per month but is always on the lookout for a fresh thinking out of the box way to turn a buck. Follow on Twitter.

Comments

  1. Guess what ? :) I’m on amazon ordering a keyborad like that. 😀

  2. I have the exact same keyboard for less than a year now and the ink on the s, d and f key is already almost gone. Here I thought that stuff would survive a nuclear war. Black is also a bitch when it comes to dust, you see EVERYTHING.

    • It’s a fair size of a keyboard ain’t it? pretty competitively priced though, I tend to change my keyboard every year or two anyway so should be fine if I can get used to the split in the middle - I am used to hitting the T buton with my right hand so re-training myself.

  3. Kids and babies are a great excuse to buy new gadgets, just find something you want to upgrade then leave it at reach level.

  4. I LOVE that keyboard. I use it at home and the office. Takes a bit of getting used to, but once you do it is great.

    However, they seem to have absolutely no tolerance for spilled liquids so be careful when drinking soda or whatever around it.

  5. Yeah, let’s just hope he’s not reading your blog, and sees that it’s worth six figures… then I’m pretty sure your 10K offer may be turned down

  6. Good luck on buying the domain, new keyboard boddy! :-)

  7. Reading as usual but I have to comment on this post.
    How the (you know what) can you get your little one to throw up over your computer :).

    My guess is you were trying to multitask, a couple of years ago we had a nice commercial in The Netherlands demonstrating the consequences, but alas I can’t seem to find it online.
    Maybe some other dutch readers remember the commercial in question ?

  8. I’ve got a standard microsoft wireless keyboard and that still took a while to get used to (delete key in weird place).

    That mouse looks bonkers. Are they any good?

  9. Scott,

    About Duvet Days — presumably if you made a site about it you wouldn’t market it in the Adsense direction? The stats don’t really suggest it would be a success. I’ve been choosing my niches on the basis of SE hits vs searches, but then I see your sites like weapons.co.uk and I wonder how you identify workable niches with such huge competition (‘weapons’ gives 155m Google results).

    Do you have any tips for ‘thinking outside the box’ when it comes to niches?

    This site is fantastic, by the way.. I’m always excited when I see a Self Made Minds entry in Google Reader!

    • I use my gut instinct along with reading material and then research a niche and then target and buy up what I can. I like topics like furniture & future technology which can give a balance between what is popular now and always will be against possible popuar areas that offer good value at the moment and longer term punts.

  10. I dropped a big slice of cheesecake on my laptop keyboard. Fortunately, apart from a slightly sticky T key, it survived. :) It would have been an expensive slice of cheesecake if I’d had to replace my laptop! Thought I would just share that pointless bit of info.

    • Never has the consistency of a pudding been so important than when it meets a keyboard, cheesecake would seem ideal in those circumstances Garry for post pudding recovery :)

  11. I’ve lost several keyboards to spilt tea, coke etc etc. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s best not to buy really expensive keyboards, and indeed my last few have been well-thought-out purchases under the £10 mark from eBuyer, and they’ve been great!

  12. Lets hope the domain owner doesn’t read your blog and realise they’re under selling! Hope the sale goes through!

  13. I love the 4000 keyboard. I’ve always used Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pros, but they were the last ones with the Page Up/Ins/Del block in the correct order, so I had to buy them off eBay at huge cost.

    The 4000 is the direct successor for that keyboard, so I was over-the-moon when it launched. I’ve been using one in the office for over a year and very happy with it, and just last week finally replaced my Pro with a 4000 on my personal desktop too.

    • I couldn’t agree with you more. The last one I found at the goodwill, I was desperate for one and stopped there is hopes they would set me up. Now that I can get one with USB I will be stopping by amazon soon. Any affiliate link I should use guys? 😉 Like you said, it is all about the page up/page down button layout.

  14. Wish you luck, Scott. I do really hope that you will ajust to the new ergonomic model.
    I was working for all my life on ordinary ones, so now I am suffering from arthritis. Pains can even stop my work for a period, as fingers are really getting numb and printing hurts like Hell. Thinking of getting the new one as well.

  15. I suppose you mean that literally! Such accidents do happen. Honestly, I always tend to look at the brighter side of things. Maybe that keyboard ought to have been replaced already. Or maybe there’s a new one out in the market with better features. Something more suitable for your needs. There’s always a reason for everything. And if you can’t find one, then make one. Hehehe.

  16. Same thing happend to me also feeding my little boy 😉

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