The fire has gone. The smoke from the smoldering mess wafts listlessly into the blogosphere. Something happened here. An attack maybe. A disaster of some sort. Many have questioned. Others have emailed their concern. One man cared to pay a little to help clean up the wreckage.

The site continued in this state for how long? Some new visitors smelled the smoke, and searched in the archives for the fire. They hung onto hope by subscribing to the RSS feed, hoping either to see rebirth from the ashes or never to be bothered again.

Meanwhile the earth continued revolving, endlessly spinning, shifting, changing. The writer, Jason Boom, felt the urge to grab a shovel and begin moving earth, but something kept him from it. His wife, at home, was pregnant. The freelance writing had taken hold. The web development projects trailed off into the night.

Then, a miracle happened. A light. Jason woke one day with energy to spend towards cleanup. There was a lot of work to be done. It’d been three months, since he’d visited the site, but he knew he could still pull something out of the ashes.

He began by upgrading Wordpress to the latest 2.7 version. The new digs helped brighten the back end of the site some, but what could be said for the content? Would people still care? Would they understand?

Jason noticed that feedburner still had subscriber numbers. How awesome! Survivors! They’re out there. So he pleaded with them.

“Forgive me! Content is king, but lately my content has been absent, off fighting the good fight in the real world. But now I’m back to clean up this mess and make the site no longer stink.”

“I’m back,” he whispered softly into the blogosphere.

Did they hear him?

It was several weeks ago. I came home from the office and made a quick stop at the mailbox. On the way through the front door, I noticed a nondescript white envelop amidst the bills and magazines. I looked it over and quickly realized the return address was from a website I had signed up with some time before. Although it was a mass mailing, I still felt valuable to them. I opened the letter and found no postcard, no note, but three different stickers. The took a look at the stickers and before the night was over I was back on that site, digging for reasons for the stickers and making myself part of their community.

I must confess this is a paid review for a label and sticker manufacturing business. I only took the review because I liked what they had to offer and felt it could maybe help one of my readers with a need either now or down the road. This review presents the idea of the business to you, as I have not purchased any stickers from the company at the point of writing this.

Stickers and labels offered from Frontier Label could be used to promote a startup or to improve packaging for any number of products. The company uses state of the art technology to reduce costs and to improve output of the stickers. They use digital printing to create the custom labels and stickers. The savings get passed on to you.

The Sticker Ordering Site

The Frontier Label site has a lot to offer the end-user. The site looks terrific and really lends the company credibility from the start. You can quickly see they types of stickers they’re offering from the home page. You can also go through the site to create a custom order for everything from coffee bag stickers to bumper stickers.

Once you select the quantity of your desired sticker, then you can begin making decisions about its printing, quality, and size. They offer a wide variety of options for the laid back consumer and the need-it-now type. The prices are dependent on the type of printing your have done — HP Electroink or thermal transfer.

Buying from Frontier Label

Purchasing stickers couldn’t get any easier. The site offers a wide variety of stickers — good for any marketing venture, product image enhancement, or simple goodwill gesture. The site caters to small businesses, startups, and even bloggers if you had the need. Sending a bumper sticker through the mail to a reader might seem like a trivial thing, but it could encourage loyalty to your brand. If you have a need for stickers or labels, then you at least have one new place too look.

Google released their free Chrome browser today. This open source browser promises to be fast and quick with javascript applications, securing computers by sandboxing the websites they browse inside the tabs, and more than adequate with dynamic sites. I checked to see if G Chrome was downloadable when I first got online today, but found it hadn’t been released just yet. By mid afternoon, I was visiting www.google.com/chrome to see how it worked.

I was pleasantly surprised by the simple interface. Google created the browser from scratch, knowing that users like to watch videos, play flash games, and browse quickly from site to site. They also know most Web 2.0 sites have dynamic code to make them work. When I browsed to sites like Digg or Youtube, I was amazed at how fast they loaded. Others are comparing it to Opera.

Everyone should at least download the browser to see how your site looks in it — make sure it renders properly. There are also some neat features to mess around with, like the address bar suggestions/search and the incognito window.

The Incognito Window

I love the description of the Incognito window. They say to be wary of the following: 

Going incognito doesn’t affect the behavior of other people, servers, or software. Be wary of:

• Websites that collect or share information about you
• Internet service providers or employers that track the pages you visit
• Malicious software that tracks your keystrokes in exchange for free smileys
• Surveillance by secret agents
• People standing behind you

Yes, be wary of the people standing behind you, secret agents, and other tin-foil hat wearing paranoids. Google’s got your back on this one. 

The Skinny

My sythesized thoughts on the new browser. Tell me your thoughts in the comment section. 

• The browser has no obvious IE 6 type of errors for my site. 
• I can access many sites faster now, especially dynamic sites. 
• I’m also scared of Google owning all the web. 
• It will likely work well for dropping EC, except the EC toolbar won’t work with it. Well, no plugins work with it now. 
• The “Most Visited” default tab rocks! It lets you quickly search, click on recent sites, and view recent bookmarks. Definitely a smart default screen. No reason why the IE one couldn’t do something similar. 
• I like the search on both the history and favorites. It’s nice, not sure how much I’ll use it, but handy. 
• I’m excited to see how they integrate other Google products with the browser, like Google Reader and Gmail. Any plugins related to those apps would be great. 

I’ve gone through the site and done a few updates, removing old widgets from the sidebar. I found a few new widgets to take their place. One of the widgets, the Publicity Wheel, will have its own post later this week.

I added a widget called EntreDroppers. Some of you may be familiar with it. It displays links to the last ten EC droppers on my sidebar, directly underneath the EC widget. So if you’re dropping on me, you can expect to see a link back to your site on the sidebar shortly afterwards. I think it’s a good way to give back to anyone who drops. What do you think of it? The links are no-follow.

The Boom Shelter

I also updated the Boom Shelter with some announcements and new links to popular posts on the blog. I have a few things going on this month for my readers. If you want to have me review your blog, then just send me a note through the contact form. I haven’t received any messages yet, so I have four spots still open. It’s your chance to get a free Powder Keg Review.

Also, Si Philps announced he’ll be giving away EC credits when my next Boombox Podcast airs. I suppose this is both an impetus for me and for you. I have to create it, you have to submit it. Be on the look out for that.

Have you missed me? I had an eventful April — full of article writing and a trip to sunny California. The problem was I didn’t make time for my blog. When you have a blog and let the content slip for more than a few weeks, readers tend to wonder what happened. They write emails, send out telegraphs, and post disturbing photos to blackmail you back to the writer’s table.

So what stole my time away? My freelance writing and travel. OK, and maybe some GTA action. I have it under control — really I do.

I can’t say things will be 100% better, but I plan on writing at least a few posts a week. I’ve got a few topics in mind. I want to write posts on writing better, to bring the blog back to life with a review, and to stimulate your senses with some lists style posts. I’m pumped. I will also post the May contest. So what have you all been up to? Leave me a comment, send a link, but, please, no more blackmailing.