Ryan Milani

Lyme Disease Sucks! Help me save a friend.

Ryan Milani — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:53:44 +0000

Photos like this one available in my Etsy Shop

I have a friend who is suffering from Lyme disease. Yeah, you’ve heard of it, because nobody likes ticks. Lyme sucks. It’s chronic, debilitating, and there is very little financial support for those who suffer. So I’m using my photography to donate Kat’s way. Plus, I hope to spread some awareness of Lyme Disease and Chronic Fatigue.

The popular craft and artisan marketplace, Etsy, made setting up my print shop pretty easy. I have plenty of photographs to feature. For a relatively small price you can own a photograph like the one to the right here. For now, prints will be professionally printed on satin photo paper.

So if you are on Etsy, add me to your circle!

Here is a little about Kat’s and her condition:

“Unfortunately so much time had passed between transmission and diagnosis, the bacteria had disseminated and crossed into my brain. I now have late stage (also known as Chronic) Lyme Disease. I would also soon find that Lyme Disease is incredibly controversial and despite strong medical and scientific evidence to the contrary, the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) denies the existence of Lyme disease that persists after 28 days of antibiotic treatment. The IDSA is who insurance companies listen to when it comes to covering treatment. The Social Security Administration also follows their guidelines when reviewing applications for disability.”

You can also be a hero and donate to Kat!

If you want to learn more about Lyme disease, check out Lyme Disease 101, and the movie Under Our Skin.

5 Ways to Rock Out With Spotify

Ryan Milani — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:00:59 +0000

I love discovering new music. As a web developer I spend a good amount of time with headphones on. I grew up with Napster and downloading, then YouTube became a ‘go to’ place for streaming, Pandora rocked my sock off but I disliked the eventual loop, Last.fm introduced me to so many great new artists. Finally, Spotify comes around and gels all of them together into the ultimate music machine.

If you’re not familiar, Spotify was developed by the guy that started Napster then went on to help Facebook take off. You might have seen his character portrayed in the movie The Social Network. Spotify uses Facebook by allowing friends to share playlists and tracks. Actually, there is a lot more to the platform. Here are some ways to rock it:

Share your Playlist

By now you probably know you can create custom playlists. I’ve shared a few like my Coachella playlists. You basically can search through the bazillion number of tracks and select individual or whole albums to add by clicking and dragging. Piece of cake.

By default, new playlists are made “public” which means your friends can see them and you can see theirs. You can also share these with the outside world. Just right click a track and you can get a link to the track

Listen to the Radio

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Spotify has added a radio function similar to Pandora and Last.fm. You can activate the radio by right clicking a single track or by navigating to the artists’ profile page. Selection is pretty good and I’ve been introduced to some great new artists.

Link your Last.fm Account

I still have lots of love for Last.fm. I love that I can listen to them through the Xbox 360, and I like their website and the way they lay out member profiles. Bravo. Now you can activate last.fm from within Spotify and still “Scrobble” the tracks you listen to and love.

Follow Playlists

Your friends have good taste. Follow their playlists and you’ll stay in the loop when they add new music. You can also follow public playlists. Spotify is working at making this element more prevalent in their system. To find public playlists, look for them when you use the search function. That’s a good way to find new music too.

Get the Premium Version

For $10 a month you can listen to Spotify anywhere through your mobile device. This day and age of the car stereo that talks to your phone, I highly suggest it. You can sync up your playlists so they go with you too, and you won’t have to hear ads on either your phone or your pc.

So there are a few cool ways to use Spotify. Pretty cool this thing, no? You might also consider checking out and subscribing to the Spotify Blog, they have some interesting playlists and updates going out through there. Party on Wayne.

Launch: Raw Sports Performance

Ryan Milani — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 05:13:47 +0000

Raw Sports Performance and Center for Strength is the latest addition to my web design portfolio. The Sports performance gym is located in Walnut Creek, CA and is the premier fitness training center for many high school and college athletes in the East Bay. Trainer, Tom Pete, focuses on “function” first – meaning they increase the body’s natural function and flexibility while increasing strength.

I have the pleasure of working out at Raw and can say I’ve never felt stronger pulling tires across a room and doing roman squats. With their personal training and one-on-one approach I feel like I have learned more than my years at the big box fitness place. Grrrrr.

Raw Sports Performance and Center For Strength

Here is the new website I recently launched for them using WordPress.

Photos from my Trip to Monterey

Ryan Milani — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:19:40 +0000

A friend came to visit last weekend so my friend and I took him down to Monterey, Ca. He’s from Spain and this was his first visit to California, let alone the states. It was a pretty action packed adventure. After heading to the Boom Boom Room in San Francisco for some live funk music, we drove down to Monterey to stay with a friend down there. She took us to a small cafe to see this crazy musician who plays the cello like a madman, Tornado Rider. Holy cow, that was crazy.

The next day, we hit up Pebble Beach and Big Sur’s Pfeiffer Beach. We actually had decent weather for January. On Monday we scored some passes to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. If you have never been, this is a must go place if you are anywhere near San Francisco visiting. It’s a great aquarium. I took over 250 photos that day – yikes! I only posted a handful of the best ones over on my Canon s95 Photo Blog.

It was a great weekend!

2 Quick Ways to Optimize Adwords Performance

Ryan Milani — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:17:42 +0000

Here are two great tips for optimizing Google AdWords campaigns. Many small businesses who use Google AdWords also manage them on their own. Problem is, usually they are too busy maintaining operations to truly dive into the world of optimizing AdWords, a task which can be a full time job in its own right. Unless you hire a Google AdWords Specialist, you are on your own to figure out how best to optimize and manage your account. So in that spirit, here are two of my favorite quick tips to optimize AdWord campaigns: Identifying and eliminating negative keywords, and using dynamic keyword insertion in ad copy.

1) Identify and Eliminate Negative Keywords

Eliminating keywords that are NOT relevant to your product or service is one of the most basic principles to optimizing AdWord campaigns. Without paying attention to the actual search terms visitors use, you run the risk throwing money at unqualified leads.

For example, if you sell only “regular coffee,” you wouldn’t want to come up in search results when people are searching for “decaf coffee.” No, that would cost you money if anyone clicked your ads. You would need to add “decaf” as a negative keyword, likely as a broad match term.

Fortunately, Google AdWords makes it simple to view actual search terms and easily add them to your negative keywords.

Select an Ad Group or Campaign you want to focus on.
Click the “Keyword” tab at the top.
Below the main chart, select “See Search Terms” (All or Selected).
Scroll through the list to get an idea of what people are actually searching for when they click your ad. (If you don’t see many results, try expanding the date range).
From here you can add any keywords to your negative keyword list. Note, that by default it adds them as exact matches, so you may want to add a specific keyword as a broad match term, or a phrase match.

2) Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion in the Ad Copy

Ads that mirror the actual search term tend to get much higher Click Through Rates than ads that have static ad copy, therefore you should learn to use dynamic keyword insertion in several of your ads. Dynamic keyword insertion will change the title in your ad copy to the actual search term used.

For example, say you have two ads in your ‘Bulk Coffee’ ad group; one with the title “Purchase Bulk Coffee” and the other “Wholesale Bulk Coffee.” In your keyword list you have keyword combinations, such as: “bulk coffee”, “wholesale coffee”, “purchase bulk coffee”, “buy bulk coffee.” A tightly focused group of keywords relevant to your ads, but with dynamic keyword insertion you can make the actual search terms appear in the ad title, so that if someone searches for “buy bulk coffee” the actual ad with say “Buy Bulk Coffee,” and not just “Bulk Coffee.” As a bonus, your ad title will appear in bold, because it matches the exact search term, making it more visible.

Dynamic Keyword insertion is pretty easy to use. Simply use brackets along with “Keyword:” and a default title, “{Keyword:some default title here}”. The default title inside the brackets are just in case the users search term is too long for dynamic insertion.

{Keyword:Bulk Coffee}

Between these two quick AdWords optimizing tips, you can expect more qualified leads coming to your site by eliminating negative search terms that aren’t relevant to what you are marketing. And you’ll increase your Click Through Rate (CTR) by making your ad stand out by using dynamic keyword insertion, which will lead to a better quality score and thus a lower Cost Per Click (CPC). If it’s too much consider hiring an AdWords Specialist, such as myself.

Giving Up Beer…And My Gut

Ryan Milani — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 03:03:53 +0000

7.2, 9.6, 10.4 – What do they have in common? They all are percentages of my favorite alcoholic beverages…aka beer. I’m not a alchy, far from it. For the last 8 years or so I’d have a few beers regularly though, with dinner or with nightly activities; beer drinking and bowling seem to go hand in hand. Now for the last three months I’ve held off on those nightly delicious brews, and the results are pouring in, just not in a glass.

To confess, I did this unconsciously. Simply lost interest in it all. It might have been because my routine has been thrown off this last year with all the travel I’ve done. Work a 9 to 5 and I might have needed those beers to relax, but I’m certainly relaxed enough now to not lust after them. Plus, spending $5-$10 a night (yeah I like the good stuff), well, that will discourage you too.

Since those three months, with a little eating right and a little exercise, my long time friend Mr. Spare Tire has gone missing. I didn’t intend this, I didn’t expect this, but hey, I’ll take it! I also feel fresher in the morning and am getting better sleep. Not to mention, I’m being nicer to my heart and my liver.

According to the MensHealth book, The Testosterone Advantage Plan:

“Several groups of researchers have looked at how alcohol affects body composition, and the results are fairly consistant in one area: People who drink the most alcohol have the highest waist-to-hip ratios.”

“This happens for two reasons. First, alcohol causes your body to store fat in your midsection. Second, according to a 1993 study published in Metabolism, it seems to have a wasting effect on thigh and gluteal muscles.”

So there you have it. Probably wasn’t anything you didn’t already know. Especially if your are a trainer or athlete, but not everyone is. I still have drinks, just more socially and not on a regular schedule. I’ve also cut down on sugar and bad carbs and have tried to keep up with the Mens Health Belly Off Workout. My body is thanking me for it and I feel pretty healthy these days.

Coachella Playlists on Spotify

Ryan Milani — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:44:18 +0000

Coachella tickets went on sale today. I went ahead and created three playlists on Spotify, one for each day, so you can hear all the music that will be at the festival. Now to get a ticket…

Day 1: http://spoti.fi/wfZgMK
Day 2: http://spoti.fi/wurBoe
Day 3: http://spoti.fi/yhkhkV

My Canon S95 Photoblog… on Tumblr

Ryan Milani — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:12:35 +0000

I bought a Canon S95 camera last year for my trip to Central America. After watching and reading a few reviews, I was convinced to splurge a bit on this high-end point and click camera. I liked it because I didn’t have to haul a big SLR around while backpacking, but it also has high performance abilities and lots of options to take more control over what you shoot. The price was a little steep, at the time it was $400 (now it’s more like $300), but it was, and still is, worth every penny.

Taking a lot of pictures, I wanted to find a great way to showcase the best shots, rather then just dumping them into Flickr, which I was doing for a little while. I had been using Tumblr for my travel blog and I liked it’s simplicity and flexibility. So since July I’ve been photoblogging my best photographs on Tumblr and it is going great.

So check out my Canon S95 photoblog for pictures of my travels and to see what this awesome camera can do.

My photos are now being enjoyed by lots of people around the world, made possible by Tumblr. Similar to Twitter, Tumblr has a unique discovery engine which makes good content go viral. So everyday I post new photos and check to see which photos are getting “liked” and “reblogged,” and who’s subscribing to me. I’ve also hooked up FotoMoto to Tumblr so if anyone wants to make prints or share my photos, they can easily do so, and I get a percentage.

That’s pretty much my photoblogging strategy. I’m really just doing it for fun, because I love to take photos. Do you have a photoblog? What do you use? Curious minds want to know.