Have a blog? Here’s a tip to help gain readers!
April 17, 2008
So you have a new and ‘truly’ innovative blog, you would like to share your insight with the rest of the world but you have no idea how to obtain more readers.
Here’s a tip that many bloggers have no idea about — Update Services
Update Services are offered by Wordpress (this site is built on WP) by default. Unfortunately, it pings only one service, Ping-O-Matic.
The Update Service works by “pinging” the service each time you edit or create a new post. This ‘Ping’ is then processed and your post can now be found by really really bored people.
The Tip:
Update your Wordpress services by going to >>Options>>Writing and update with the list provided after the break.
999 Reasons Why Facebook Is The Worst
December 20, 2007
Facebook is the worst but no matter how much I don’t like it, I can’t help but check it every day. I did a little survey at my break this morning and these were the most commonly cited reasons why Facebook is the worst:
9. It is the world’s most deadly Time Burglar
It is a scientifically proven fact that you can’t spend less than 3 hours at a time checking your wall, your superwall, your gifts, your free gifts, your superpokes, your Schrute Bucks, your graffiti area, and all this information for all your friends and even people you have never met. If I do a quick calculation here, that means that at every possible moment in time someone is creeping on your profile, 24/7. Um, ew.
9. Everyne knows all your business, all the time.
Even those little applications you add steal your personal info. It seems like you give up the right to that information when you make an account. To make it worst, those people you left in elementary school keep trying to reconnect. The ones you wanted to stay in touch with you still talk to, and the ones you were never friends with in the first place want to rekindle the friendship that never existed. It gets real creepy when someone asks you about something posted on your profile before you have even had a chance to see it yourself!
9. The fact that you hate it does nothing to help you delete your profile.
I must admit I have tried deleting my profile before, but I keep encountering this hardware problem whereby I can not press the mouse button on that particular screen. Is it the fact that I don’t want to lose contact with people, don’t want to be able to creep my friends, or just don’t want to have to call them that is preventing me from pressing DELETE?
I don’t know, but the one thing I do know is that Facebook is the worst. I know, I will post this on my profile and everyone will know how I feel!!
Stumbleupon - Crack for Nerds
December 13, 2007
Stumbleupon is quite the interesting tool. It’s great for exploring the internet and it’s proved to be an addiction to some (me included). The problem IMO lies in the ability to quickly “stumble” on many interesting and informative articles. Once you see something you like, it makes you believe that the next one stumbled will be even better. There you have it — an addiction is born.
Original Image can be found here:
http://i23.tinypic.com/a3kumr.jpg
Hiring a Web Designer? Some tips to make them crazy!
December 11, 2007
I’ve been running a web design department for quite some time, and it’s quite easy to send me over the edge these days. It’s not because I hate the job, it’s not because the company or people are awful to work with. Nope, they’re actually super cool. The real problem is the fact that the customers have unrealistic expectations for what they pay for.
These tips will send your designer over the edge and possibly to the centre for addiction and mental health:
- Tell your designer that you want a website that has the functions and design of MySpace, Facebook and YouTube — in one.
- Ask for a discount (usually on their already rock-bottom prices). If you are an existing hosting customer, ask for free web hosting for a year! That’ll grind their noodle.
- The designer or manager will ask you for your sites content before the project can begin. Make sure to tell them that you have everything prepared and ready-to-go even if you don’t. Once ready to send the content, send multiple emails each with a small piece of your content. There’s nothing more annoying then waiting for content in order to finish a website.
- After you have agreed upon the initial contract/proposal ask for a quote minus a few of the options that you originally wanted.
- Do not under any circumstances listen to the suggestions of your designer. They may know what’s best but what’s the fun in that.
- If the designer or manager asks what you would like to be able to manage (edit/add) on the site yourself. Say that your site is going to have millions of visitors and that you’ll need to update all facets of the site.
- A logo is one of the most important aspects of a website. When the designer asks for yours, send them a low-resolution image in *jpg format or send them a old business card.
At this point, if you were to try any other stunts the designer and manager would probably have to quit or end up like the guy in the above picture. Enjoy!
If you have any of your own, comment and we’ll place them as additional points.
So, you want a website? (Part 1)
June 7, 2007
Having your own website means freedom of speech, your own personal place to rant and rave, or somewhere just to setup shop. No matter what the intention, you can do just about anything you need to do online.
Before you start planning and spending the money to get the ball rolling, take a few moments to think about what its real purpose is. You may be surprised to know that many services and products related to websites are free and ultimately can save you lots of time and headaches. Before we talk about those, let’s first describe the website checklist;
Requirements:
– a product or service
– domain name
– hosting and email
– marketing and promotion
– ongoing maintenance, webpage updates
– more marketing and promotion!
– More updates…
I’ll not get into the details of a business plan and research. We’ll assume you are 100% convinced and are ready to take the plunge. The first step is coming up with a domain name. You need to come up with many, and alternative spellings, etc. A good place to search for names is domains bot. .com domain names cost about $8 US each. Each domain name type has a different price, and there are no set prices. Shop around!
If you need to generate names, try dnwiz. Once you have a name, then you need to give it an address. Every webpage on the internet has an address. Think of it as a postal address. People need to be able to find it. It’s address is called an IP address. An IP address will be automatically assigned by the hosting domain registrar – which is where you “pays your money, and gets your name”
Once you have purchased the domain name, you have an address, but no house to put your website. The next step is to find a host. We hosting is typically a company with a room full of network servers split into many shared websites. One server could house thousands of separate websites, all completely independent of each other. This is called shared hosting, and typically runs about $3 – 20 per month for the average hosting package. Watch out for the setup fees; where the hosting is charged monthly, as well as an annual setup fee. Most setup fees can be waived if you purchase hosting by the year.
Hosting packages are defined by many factors, including:
- storage space you will need for your website (how many gigabytes)
- bandwidth requirements (how many visitors will you have each month, and what are they doing at your site? Reading, or getting data, music, or other files from you? (again, measured in gigabytes)
- Uploading – can people give you files and put them on your website?
- Number of email accounts you need
- Storefront (e-commerce, shopping cart, can you accept credit cards)
- Database – will users register to login, will they store any personal information, or interact with your website in any way
- Support for creating and publishing the website with Microsoft FrontPage, or Adobe Dreamweaver (you need special software on the server to allow you to publish the website from your own computer, directly to the internet)
To locate a hosting package you will need to shop around, and may look at hostsearch.
To be continued tomorrow…
Getting Stuff for free?
June 5, 2007
Further to my article (getting stuff for - really?) there are alternate methods to get those goodies for free. These are called paid referrals, referral trading, and conga lines.
Paid referrals and referral trading is a simple concept, where you trade referrals with others. Each helping the other complete their required offers and get the freebie. You complete an offer under their referral code for them to receive the signup credit, and they reciprocate for your free site offer. http://www.refstop.com/ is an example of a community driven website that helps users’ trade referrals. As I mentioned in my previous article, I paid for referrals (pay4trade) which you can do as well. Paid referrals cost somewhere in the $5 – $50 range depending on the value of free item you are after, and the amount of time you wish to advertise the pay 4 trade. Refstop.com charges you a fee to advertise your trade t its members which typically costs $5 – 15 for 10 days. Site members can rate each other on how quickly they completed the offer, and how quickly they were paid for the signup. I spent $60 in advertising, and $180 in referral costs. Each of my signups made $20 on average for completing an offer under my referral account.
Conga lines are like chain letters, where you signup on a list, and graduate up a level as new people are added to the list. These are quite popular, however very hard to manage. Here today gone tomorrow.
Offers vary from medicine to audio clubs. Each offer has different nuances. Many offers will require a credit card to sign up, and will require an ongoing subscription. Other offers may allow you to cancel after a trial period ends, and often will refund your complete costs. It is your responsibility to learn the conditions and ask questions before you take the plunge. Offers may automatically renew a subscription without your consent – which you gave upon your initial signup, and will require you to call them and have the subscription cancelled. Check availability in your country, they may charge you additional shipping. In my case, I had to signup 2 additional referrals to get shipping to Canada. I opted for the paypal cash instead of the 10 referrals for the xbox 360.
Best advice:
- decide on what item you want, estimate its value in a retail store
- research the different websites for the cost (number of referrals) and how much it may cost you to get this item
- check the websites for the offers that you can complete
- check community websites, forums, and other groups to get opinions and advice
- verify that offers are valid in your country, if you get the free item, does it cost more to ship to you?
- what is the general opinion of the site’s reliability, technical support, policies, referral completion time limits
- is the item new, or refurbished (which it may very well be)
- how will you get signups (you cannot spam, if you get caught, they will negate your account)
- will you use conga lines, or referral trading sites
Helpful links: (for your information only, I do not condone or have affiliations with these sites)
Wikipedia (general information)
http://www.refstop.com/ (referral trading, user forums, and pay4trades)
conga lines (general information about conga lines)
forums (refstop user groups)
FYI - What is DRM? An article from Defective by Design.
April 20, 2007
[Thanks to Chris Brand for this tip]
Big Media describe DRM as Digital Rights Management. However, since its purpose is to restrict you the user, it is more accurate to describe DRM as Digital Restrictions Management. DRM Technology can restricts users’ access to movies, music, literature and software, indeed all forms of digital data. Unfree software implementing DRM technology is simply a prison in which users can be put to deprive them of the rights that the law would otherwise allow them.
After months of campaigning during 2006, DefectiveByDesign.org declared Tuesday October 3rd an international “Day Against DRM”. With more than 10,000 technologists having joined in the campaign and pledged to take direct action to stop DRM, and with more than 200 “actions” planned across the globe on October 3rd, we had achieved our goal of raising public awarness to the threats possed by DRM.
Now we must move from awareness of DRM to rejection of DRM. DRM technology is not vanquished. It is still a growing problem for all computer users, and by extension all of society. DRM is being used to restrict individuals’ use of their own copies of published works. To enforce these restrictions, DRM software, and now hardware, must monitor and control a computer users’ behavior. Frequently it reports on what it sees.
You might be aware that iPod users are restricted from transferring their music to other non-Apple devices because the music downloaded from iTunes is encrypted - locked with DRM. It allows you to write an audio CD, but if you ever want to take your music to a new portable device in a compressed format, you will end up with very lousy sound quality. These drawbacks are of course there for a reason: customer lock-in. Apple inconveniences its customers into binding themselves to Apple products.
This type of nuisance is but the foreshadow of greater ones to come. Standing behind the technology companies, the film and music industry (Big Media) loom large. To increase their control, they demand technology companies impose DRM. The technology companies no longer resist. Of course many of the technology companies now see themselves as part of Big Media. Sony is a film and music company, Microsoft is an owner of MSNBC, and Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, sits on the board of Disney. These technology companies cannot be expected to serve the interests of the technology consumer.
