I have been saving up for a fitness elliptical. I have been checking ads and waiting for the one I want to go on sale. Over the weekend-- I noticed Walmart had it on sale for $487.00 but the only way to get free shipping was to have it shipped to the store.

Amazon had the elliptical on sale for $599.00 with free super saver shipping. Then yesterday, it suddenly went on sale for $487.00, too. I emailed family members, whose non-business email addresses I had-- discussing the highly rated elliptical in detail.

By 6:00 p.m. yesterday evening the Amazon offering was back up to $588.00. Why? Walmart was out of stock. By 9:00 p.m. Amazon had reinstated the full $599.00 price tag. Did anyone I emailed click the link to see if it was still available at the price I provided in the email before it went up? Not sure. Though I had two ad links in the email-- neither provided the price from the Amazon site-- so I included it as part of my message. The price I quoted in the emails to family members, is now of course-- wrong.

I am an affiliate with Amazon-- so not only was I hoping to tell them about a great deal-- but also to get the commission for the referrals. I also placed ads for the elliptical on one of my shopping pages. I have one order. If some of you keep up with my personal blog-- you may realize I do not see nor talk to a lot of my family members so anything they may have done as related to the ads-- would not be known to me. Those that I emailed should respond-- if they like.

So the reason for this post? To tell of my recent activities with Affiliate ads, ways to promote, and to discuss the experiment in the sidebar and the reasons for it.

I am a software consultant and like building interfaces for affiliate networks. My experience includes:

• Commission Junction Web Services
• LinkShare Web Services
• Expedia Feeds
• iTunes Feeds
• Amazon Web Services [none in place but have done extensive research].

Demonstrations are integrated within WiredPages.

That said-- the current experiment in the sidebar is not my software. Why? It is too early to tell from yesterday's blitz of emails-- but I feel I have had a lot of problems with re-commissioning [a term like re-gifting] as related to the wrong party. My emails with my affiliate links should have come under different laws. Stronger laws. It would also be harder to change the tracking information in the emails.

This blog is a Thingamablog. What does this mean? The database for the blog sits on my local personal computer. I can republish the entire blog with a click of a button and new html pages will be sent to my server [remix.qisoftware.com] in a matter of seconds [Verizon FiOS key]. It would be harder to maintain someone else's codes on this blog-- when the master version sits offline and easily republished.

I have thought of many different software applications I would like to build for Amazon Associates. I am in an odd position-- so though I think my interfaces are a lot more secure than most-- for me and my situation-- different laws appear to be in place. I am working on having what appear to be temporary measures put in in place for my case-- thrown out or repealed whichever is applicable. As related to email? This should cause several problems if anything is amiss.

The widget in the sidebar is Flash and offered by Amazon to its associates. It should also be secure. Because in my case, it is used in html pages-- that are too easy for me to republish whenever I fee like it-- it should be a deterrent for those that like thinking up new ways to steal proceeds from my sites and revenue streams.

I am always researching on how to make something more secure as related to the internet and e-commerce. I wanted to share some of my research concerns of late-- so that you to, can understand some of the dynamics involved.