Visit my new blog for the latest updates

All blog updates will now be on the home page at mauder.com. I hope you like the new look & feel!

Oh, and the new feed address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/MaudersMoneyMatters

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Goodbye to Google AdSense for Now

I took a break today from writing "jerky" content and decided to re-read a couple chapters from the SBI Action Guide. That really got me thinking about what I said yesterday regarding monetizing my beef jerky site too soon.

What SBI teaches about holding off on monetization (adding income sources to your website) makes a lot of sense. After reading it all again and letting it really sink in, I decided to remove all the Google AdSense ads from my site; at least for now.

The only pages that still have AdSense on them are my individual jerky recipe pages. Those HTML files were uploaded individually (versus using SBI's SiteBuilder tool) and it's just too much of a pain in the you-know-what to remove them right now.

Now, as far as other monetization links, I decided to leave the ones that go to my online jerky supplier. After all, part of the goal of the site is to inform folks where they can get all-natural and/or organic jerky online. It would be pretty hard to write content about where to buy great jerky, and then leave the reader hanging.

Removing the Google ads definitely makes the site look much less commercial. This is important when trying to get listed in the big directories because they have human editors. If someone evaluates my site for inclusion in their directory, and they see a bunch of Google ads on every page, they will probably deny the listing.

Once I'm indexed with a few of the major search engines, and ranking well for some of my best keywords, then I will start weaving ads back into my content. SBI's Monetize-It! tool actually helps with this by identifying which pages should have ads and where they should be placed for the highest click-through (and profit) potential.

Depending on the profitability of the keywords on each page, Monetize It! might even recommend Yahoo ads versus Google ads. That's pretty cool, and it's something I would never be able to figure out on my own. SBI has really thought of everything!

Here's a letter from Ken Evoy that specifically talks about using Google AdSense to monetize your website. It's VERY informative!

Anyway, that's my news for today... Now I need to get back to writing a few more content pages and then I'm going to reward myself with a movie. :)

If you missed the big announcement yesterday, and you're sitting there wondering what all the "jerky talk" is about, then you might want to visit All-Natural-Beef-Jerky.com.

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Happy New Year and the BIG REVEAL!

First of all... Let me say HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 2007 is going to be a wonderful year - I can feel it in my bones. I know I promised to reveal my new SBI website last night, but the evening was a bit of a blur and I didn't get much done.

My 16 year old son had five friends over and they were up the entire night eating, drinking (soda), and playing HALO online (which involves a lot of yelling at the TV). A couple of their girlfriends were also at the house until around 1am. So I had to be vigilant and couldn't go to sleep until they were safely home. :)

Needless to say, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep myself until early this morning.

So, I know you're curious about this secret new website I've been working on for the last 24 days, and I am going to share it with you. But first I want to make a couple comments.

One of the things stressed in the SBI Action Guide is to NOT monetize your website too soon. In fact, they recommend waiting until some of the big search engines have already indexed your site, and until you get listed in at least a couple well-known directories. This is important for off-page incoming links which helps you rank better in the search engines.

If you don't know what "monetize" means, it's basically the process of adding income generating elements to your website. Monetization could involve many things such as Google AdSense ads, affiliate links, a shopping cart to sell products, a form to request your services, etc. Of course, this is all dependent on your business model and how you plan to make money.

Now, my new site isn't yet indexed by the major search engines, and I'm not in any directories yet -- but I started monetizing anyway. I know, I know... I'm probably going to regret it, or at the very least it might slow down the success of my new site. But I just didn't see any other way.

See, one of the main reasons for creating my new website is to help people find online sources for something (you'll find out what the something is in a minute). So it was kinda hard to write a bunch of great content and explain why this something is so wonderful, and then not provide links to go get it.

Ya' know what I mean?

While I was creating most of my pages, I also decided to go ahead and throw Google AdSense code in there now rather than later. Google ads are everywhere nowadays, and I think people are so used to them that, for the most part, everyone accepts them. The ads are always targeted to the content of the page they appear on, so they often provide valuable additional content and a link to something a visitor might have been looking for.

Again, this goes against the SBI Action Guide rule to "monetize LAST", but it's really the only rule I've broken. My luck, it's the most important rule and I've now totally flushed my new business right down the toilet. If it ends up backfiring on me, I'll be sure to blog about here so you don't make the same mistake (assuming you decide to build your own SBI site).

Anyway, enough of the small talk... You've been waiting patiently to see my new website/business/world-dominating empire, so here it comes!

Are you ready?

No, I mean are you REALLY ready?

OK, here it is: (are you sure you're ready?) ;-)

www.All-Natural-Beef-Jerky.com

(By the way, that link opens in a new window, so be sure to bypass your pop-up blocker if you have one running)

Ahh.... It feels so good to finally get that off my chest. I've been bursting at the seams wanting to tell you about it sooner, but it just wasn't ready.

Actually, it's still not ready but it's far enough along to let people start checking it out. It will be an ongoing work in progress for a long time, probably forever.

I have tons of content left to write... Things like: dehydrator & smoker reviews and recommendations, more info on how to make your own beef jerky, info on using beef jerky as a great fund-raiser, info and sources for jerky spices and marinades, info and sources for vegetarian jerky and jerky for pets, and lots more free jerky recipes.

If you're curious about why I decided to build a business about beef jerky, read my "About Author" page for a little background on how it came about.

After checking out my new site, please let me know what you think! I'd love to hear some opinions on the progress so far. Are there other things you think I should include? Things you think I should remove? Layout issues? Or, do you just flat out LOVE IT? Please, leave a comment here and let me know.

Well, I need to go eat something (maybe some jerky) and then get back to adding more free jerky recipes to the site!

Again, have a very Happy New Year!

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Behind the Scenes with SBI's Action Guide

Here's another one of those accidental discoveries I make from time to time... While nosing around a few other SBI sites (from the I Love SBI videos), I noticed someone linking directly to the SBI Action Guide. This person had to be breaking some sort of cardinal rule since the Action Guide is a guarded training resource available only to SBI owners! Or so I thought.

A quick search over at the SBI forums revealed that anyone can look at the SBI Action Guide. Apparently, it's a great way to give folks an "inside" look at the guide that SBIers actually use.

Sheesh! Why didn't someone tell me this before?!? I guess it actually makes sense; I just never thought about it. You can't really do anything with it unless you already own SBI.

So, I may as well post a link here so you can experience exactly what I've been going through as I build my new search-engine-dominating SBI website. There's really no better way to explain it - have a look for yourself!

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SBI Update: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

This is just a quick update to let you know I'm still alive and STILL writing content for my new website. I was up until around 1am last night finishing up a series of pages, and I don't even feel like I've put a dent in it yet. There are at least 10-15 more pages of content to write just to get the site ready for prime time.

Needless to say, all this typing on my little laptop keyboard has me wondering how soon to schedule the carpal tunnel syndrome surgery. If I was smart, I would have hooked up one of those fancy ergonomic keyboards and a regular mouse a long time ago. But then how would I sit in my lazy boy chair with all that stuff in my lap?

Anyway... No matter what, I'll be announcing the new site here on New Years Eve. It won't be 100% ready, but it will be close enough for you to take a peek and give me some opinions about it.

By the way, I almost switched over to using my own HTML editor (FrontPage) with SBI, but I changed my mind and decided to stick with the built-in SiteBuilder tool. SiteBuilder really is very simple to use. If you can stack building blocks, you can build a website with SiteBuilder. However, I was getting frustrated because it was taking too long to create each page. I wanted to just switch back to FrontPage because I'm so familiar with that program. But I came to my senses and figured FrontPage would probably make me lazy and cause me to start designing pages the way I think they should be designed. No good could come of that. ;-)

SiteBuilder guarantees that each page is built correctly for both my human visitors and the search engines. Basically, it takes the thinking out of building a great web page, and lets me focus all my brain power on writing good content. That's the way it really should be.

So stay tuned... There are only a few more days to wait and then my new business and SBI website will be thrust upon the world! Well, OK - it will be thrust upon my tiny little blogger world. Give a guy a break!

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SBI Buy-1-Get-1-Free Deal - Only a Few Days Left!

Ken Evoy from SiteSell sent out an email this morning as a reminder that the SBI Buy-1-Get-1-FREE deal is almost gone. The offer expires at midnight on Christmas Day (December 25th). I've said it before, and I'll say it again... I REALLY don't understand how this company makes money with everything they offer -- and now they're cutting the price in half!

So if any of you are teetering on the decision of whether to try SBI or not, now is the time to step up to the plate. You can get TWO full SBI packages for the price of one, and you can do anything you want with the freebie. Use it for yourself, give it away, sell it to someone else, whatever. Whatever you do with it, you have 9 months to decide before you "activate" it.

And don't forget the completely risk free guarantee SiteSell offers on SBI. If you're not 100% thrilled, you can request a refund.

If all my ramblings here on the blog haven't convinced you that SBI is the coolest thing since peanut butter, then maybe you should take a peek at a few of these Why I Love SBI Videos. I'm amazed at what some people will go through to share their excitement over SBI... Too funny!

NOTE: The "I Love SBI" page can take a long time to load because of all the videos. They are well worth it, but your browser could appear frozen for a minute or two while they load up. If you'd rather avoid the slow load time, then I recommend the new SBI Video Tour.

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Use a web form to CAPTCHA that info!

There hasn't been much to blog about lately because I've been too busy writing content for the new site. But I was in my SBI SiteBuilder creating a form today and discovered a new feature I was anxiously awaiting. You can now add a CAPTCHA word verification to all forms you design with Form Build It. And it's as simple as selecting a radio button on the screen!

If you recall, I mentioned CAPTCHA in a previous post about SBI's spam & virus protection features. I wasn't expecting them to add it so soon, but who's complaining?

CAPTCHA isn't a word you hear every day, so here's a full explanation over at Wikipedia. Basically it's a simple little verification step that ensures hackers and automated "bots" can't blast your web forms with spam. CAPTCHA requires a human to read a word embedded in a graphic and then type it in.

Here's an example:



So that should help cut down a bit on the garbage emails coming in from my new site. This isn't really so much of a problem with my contact form here at Mauder.com, but then again I don't get near as much traffic here as I plan to have at the new site!

Of course, SBI added this CAPTCHA feature at no additional cost to SBI owners. That's pretty standard practice over at SiteSell... They are constantly adding value to SBI, but they don't seem to ever increase the price. Again I ask you -- how does this company make money??

By the way, expect to see an announcement here by January 1 about my new website! :-)

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Concern for my Health and Safety

OK, this is getting scary... Ever since I started the ol' SBI project, I haven't been doing much else -- and that includes sleeping. Of course, this really comes as no surprise to me since I have a very addictive personality. My tendency toward addiction is precisely why I never took up online gaming (World of Warcraft) with the guys at work, or online virtual reality interaction (Second Life) with my buddy up in Michigan.

Anyhoo... I realized this morning that, since starting this new business with SBI as my partner in success, the rest of my life has been on hold. The fact that I went to bed last night...er, this morning...at 4am and got up at 6am might have been the first little clue that something is wrong. And should I be worried about the hallucinations or about almost falling asleep in the shower and crashing through the shower door?? :-( Thankfully I take public transportation to work so I'm not a road hazard to anyone else!

You might say I'm just highly motivated to get this business off the ground, and you're absolutely right. But it really shouldn't be at the expense of everything else. I basically come home from work every night around 5:30pm and hop right back on the computer to write content for my new website. If I'm lucky, I might stop for something to eat or to talk to my family for a few minutes.

So why am I concerned for my health and safety? Well, besides the obvious lack of sleep and the health/safety issues of walking around like a zombie, I'm also a little paranoid that my wife might do something to hurt me. Whenever she walks past me on the computer, I can feel her steely gaze cutting right through my soul. I can only imagine what she must be thinking she'd like to do with my laptop. I'm betting it involves either a chipper/shredder, or stuffing it into very dark scary places where it really does not belong. OUCH!

I think I'll sit down tonight and work out a schedule that allows me to continue working on my website, AND lets me do all the other stuff that needs to be done. After all, with us hosting the Mauder Family holiday party this Saturday, there are probably a few things my wife would like help with for the remainder of this week.

I still plan to officially launch the new site on January 1, but if it gets delayed a few days or even a week -- so be it. The world will not come to an end. After all, I've been waiting for this to happen since 1991, a few more days won't kill me (but my wife might).

If you don't hear from me for a few days, don't worry. But I'm off on vacation next week in between Christmas and New Year's and plan to write lots of content during that time. So, if you don't hear something from me by mid next week, you might want to call the authorities and tell them you suspect a domestic disturbance over at the Mauder residence! ;-)

Let this post serve as a warning to anyone considering their own SBI hosted site... While SBI has made it very simple and turn-key to build a successful online business, it is far from easy! It takes hard work and dedication and you've got to be willing to put in the time to make it happen. This is not your run of the mill business-in-a-box, self-duplicating website, pie-in-the-sky business opportunity. I've been there and done that. "Business opportunities" do not work! If they did.... I wouldn't be here typing this today.

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Spam, Email, and Wormholes...Oh My!

Have you ever heard of a wormhole? No, not the ones in the ground where worms live, and not the ones that transport you to the other side of the galaxy. Or are those blackholes? Uh, it doesn't matter.

No, I'm talking about email wormholes. The kind that let you receive email from anyone for a predefined period of time and then...POOF! They disappear; never to accept another piece of email ever again. I guess that's sort of like a wormhole (blackhole?) in outer space. You have a certain amount of time to get in and get out, or you'll be collapsed into nothingness -- never to be seen again!

You probably think I'm completely nuts and talking total gibberish right now. If I would have read the above two paragraphs prior to last night, I would have been right there with ya'!

But here's the deal... Spam (junk email) is a huge problem for me with this domain (Mauder.com). So you can imagine my concern when I registered a brand new domain with SBI and had to start thinking about providing new email addresses to people out in cyberspace. I certainly don't want to end up with another steady flow of spam flowing into my new domain.

Thankfully, before I decided on my email strategy, I did a little reading about SBI's Spam 'n Virus Blast service.

In a nutshell, SBI uses state-of-the-art technology to protect every SBI owner from getting inundated with junk email and email-born viruses. The virus stuff, albeit very important, is the easy part. But spam? Now that is another problem altogether.

Here's what I learned about how SBI protects it's customers from spam:

1. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is allowed to email an SBI owner without FIRST being whitelisted. This means your email address must be added to a database of known safe senders. If a non-whitelisted person sends an email to an existing SBI-domain email account, they will receive an error message back with instructions on how to whitelist themselves.

2. They strongly encourage all SBI owners to never post an email address on their website in a human readable format (ie. mailto: links in HTML). Seedy characters on the 'net can easily grab those and add them to their spam databases. Rather, SBI encourages users to create custom forms (ie. "Contact Me" form) using the integrated Form Build It! tool. When a site visitor fills out a Form Build It form and includes their email address, that person is automatically whitelisted and can then send email from that address to any address on my SBI domain.

Sidenote: SBI is even in the process now of integrating CAPTCHA into the Form Build It tool. If you've never heard of CAPTCHA, I bet you've seen it. It's where you are presented with a distorted graphic showing letters and/or numbers and you have to type them in before you're able to submit a form. This prevents automated spam-bots from spamming via a form on your site. If you want to see CAPTCHA in action, simply post a comment here on my blog.

Anyway, #2 (Form Build It) is pretty slick and that works great, but it's #1 that causes me some concern. The error message with whitelisting instructions is all well and good, but what guarantee do I have that a potential new customer is going to actually read the error message? Are you telling me I have to constantly worry that I'm not seeing important email from potential new customers? I think not.

Enter -- The WORMHOLE!

A wormhole email address is an ingenious invention from SBI that solves the spam problem for good. Basically, in a matter of a couple minutes, I can create a new email address, designate it as a wormhole, and specify how long I want it to live. Anywhere from 5 days up to 60 days, or I can create a permanent wormhole. So now, anyone who sends email to the wormhole address will get automatically whitelisted and be able to send email to any account on my domain. After the wormhole reaches the end of its predetermined lifespan, it disappears and stops accepting new messages.

So, where would you use a wormhole? That's simple. Anytime you provide an email address offline such as on business cards, brochures, flyers, etc. Or, whenever you sign up for something online and want to make sure you receive email just long enough to get the information you signed up for.

Doing business with Paypal is another great use for a wormhole. When someone pays me via Paypal, I get a notification email from the person sending the money, not from Paypal. So how do I make sure I always see those messages when I have no idea what address they might be coming from? Create a wormhole, of course! I simply setup a permanent wormhole address called something like paypal-incoming-money@My-Really-Cool-SBI-Domain.com and attach that address to my Paypal account. Done! I'm protected from spammers forever, and I'll never miss an important email.

Of course, wormhole accounts are only available to SBI owners (hint, hint) but I just thought they were so cool I had to share. Maybe I should think about converting Mauder.com over to SBI so I can eliminate the 1000+ junk messages I get every day.

Hmmm...

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Hey, SiteSell has their own Blog now!

As I was posting my last blog entry, an email popped up from Ken Evoy telling me about a new blog SiteSell just launched. They call it - The Blog. Pretty creative, eh? I think it's mainly targeted at SBI customers and SiteSell affiliates, but it looks to me like pretty much anyone could benefit by reading some of the stuff Ken Evoy writes. He's a pretty smart feller when it comes to marketing online! After all, he wrote the bible on it!

So anyway, take a peek at SiteSell: The Blog and make sure you subscribe to it if you have an RSS reader.

I'm going to bed... Have you SEEN the time?!?

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SBI Update: Moving on to Days 6 thru 10

It's 3:15am and I'm VERY happy to report that I finally made it past my analysis paralysis and finished up days 4 and 5 of the action SBI action guide. Actually, I finished all that yesterday and made sure my site content blueprint was finished and ready to roll BEFORE the all important step of registering my new domain name (which is also done by the way). :)

So now, after spending a full 8 hours typing content and creating pages for my new SBI site, I'm physically and emotionally exhausted. In fact, this post might be totally incoherent, but that's OK, I can always edit it later after I get some sleep. ;-)

I gotta tell ya', the more I work with Site Build It, the more impressed I am with the comprehensive tool set it provides. I'm making a special effort, for the good of this blog, to make sure I don't use any of my own HTML code, or past knowledge of building websites on this project. Nope. It's gonna be 100% SBI only, just to show what truly can be done with it.

When I showed my wife the site last night, she was completely shocked and wanted to know how in the heck I designed that in such a short amount of time. With a snide grin, I explained that it was just one of the many templates available to SBI owners. I merely selected one and customized it a bit. Of course, the customization of the template was done using ONLY the SBI provided interface. I did ZERO graphics customization or HTML of my own.

To be honest, it's KILLING me to not just tell you the name of my new site. But I have to maintain my composure. The site just isn't ready for prime time yet and I don't want to release it. A few more sections, about 400 more hours of typing content, and it should be ready.

HA! I'm just kidding about the 400 hours - at least I hope so.

Anyhow, I really need to get some sleep, so I'll sign off for now and try to check back in with you tomorrow...er, today... Ugh!

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SBI! Update - Analysis Paralysis

The first question that most people might be asking is, "Why is Dave up at 4:12am in the morning blogging about his SBI! website project?" And that would be an appropriate question. The answer is... I can't sleep and it sounded like a good idea! ;-)

Actually, I fell asleep on the floor last night watching Chris Angel MINDFREAK. Man, I love that guy! Anyway, I woke up from there around 3am with a major backache and then remembered my wife asked me to fold the clothes in the dryer before she left for work last night.

So, after a bit of stretching to loosen the ol' back muscles, I folded the clothes. I also started another washer load of stuff all on my own. I'm such a good hubby! :-)

Anyway, back to my SBI! project update.

So after taking care of the laundry items, I started thinking to myself, "Well, since you're up, you should probably work on trying to finish up days 3 & 4 of the SBI! action guide. After all, you did say you were going to have it done three days ago." And that was about the extent of it as I lay there in my bed staring at the ceiling. I figured a little blogging might get me motivated.

Unfortunately, I've been experiencing a bit of "analysis paralysis" ever since I posted my last SBI! update on Monday. For some reason, I'm just having a really hard time doing the final pruning of my master keyword list, and I'm also over thinking my site content blueprint and making it a whole lot more difficult that it needs to be. This is not uncommon for me.

One of my major issues is that I'm trying to out think the Brainstorm It! tool that SBI! provides. I sit there staring at the supply & demand numbers for a given keyword, and I KNOW I should dump it based on the profitability column. But NO! I find myself talking to the computer screen saying things like, "Are you kidding me? That's a GREAT keyword. I'm not dumping THAT one! I KNOW that one will make for some great keyword focused content pages."

You don't have to say it... Every once in a while I feel a tinge of my old ways trying to creep back in, and I have to remind myself of why I started this whole SBI! thing in the first place.

Granted, it probably wasn't the best time to start a big project like this right before the holidays. After all, there are all sorts of social engagements between work, family and friends. In fact, I was at a company "team" holiday party last night. It was afterwards that I fell asleep watching MINDFREAK. Maybe I had one too many "beverages". ;-)

We also have a ton of work around the house to get ready for hosting my family Christmas party. And then there's the bookkeeping I'm way behind on for my wife's catering business. And the kids are always needing help with homework, and the... OK, I'm beating a dead horse.

I have a lot going on, we all do. But I'm not making excuses, and I'm NOT giving up on my SBI! business project. NO WAY, NOT EVEN CLOSE! If it takes me a week or two longer to launch the new site than I originally planned, so be it. It's taken me since 1991 to get to the point of finally building a real business, I don't think another couple weeks is going to hurt.

Besides, I have the entire week between Christmas and New Year's off of work, and I intend to use that time to get caught up. Both with my bookkeeping tasks, and the SBI! website.

As far as I know, I have nothing planned tonight after work, so I'll get back to my SBI! action guide then. But since it's now 4:40am after typing and editing this update, I think I'll sleep for another hour before it's time to get up for work.

Oh, before I drift off into a blissful slumber, I wanted to mention that Site Build It! is offering a Buy 1 Get 1 Free Holiday special through December 25th. The second free site can even be saved and started up to 9 months later! That's an awesome deal, and I'm wondering now why I didn't wait so I could have had a free second site to start working on later. It's the story of my life...

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Business Opportunity BUST! Recognize any names?

It truly warms my heart to see some of these business opportunity scams finally getting smacked by law enforcement. The FTC couldn't have selected a more appropriate name for the project -- FAL$E HOPE$. That pretty much says it all...

The Federal Trade Commission today announced Project FAL$E HOPE$, a federal and state law enforcement sweep targeting bogus business opportunities and work-at-home scams. The crackdown includes more than 100 law enforcement actions by the FTC, the Department of Justice, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and law enforcement agencies in 11 states. In four of the new FTC cases alone, consumers have lost more than $30 million.

“Bogus business opportunities trample on Americans’ dreams of financial independence,” said FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras. “If a business opportunity promises no risk, little effort, and big profits, it almost certainly is a scam. These scams offer only a money pit, where no matter how much time and money is invested, consumers never achieve the riches and financial freedom promised.”

That's just the beginning of an FTC news release on Tuesday titled, Federal, State Law Enforcers Complete Bogus Business Opportunity Sweep.

Here's a more comprehensive list of all the FTC cases open under Project FAL$E HOPE$. I don't know about you, but I recognize more than one name from that list. Thankfully I never got sucked in by any of those specifically, but I certainly investigated a couple of them.

Reading about stuff like this is a great reminder that I'm finally doing the right thing by giving up on pie-in-the-sky business opportunities and focusing on starting an honest business of my own.

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