Last week I received an email from one Amy Liu from the marketing department of Blogged.com. According to her, BobbyT Blogging To a T was recently reviewed by the editors of Blogged.com and they have graciously awarded it a score of 8.2 out of maximum possible 10 in the Technology/Computers category of Blogged.com. She also stressed that the score is quite high and is an achievement. Needless to say, I am surprised and pleased to have my blog recognized in a certain way.

The score is given based on certain criterias: Frequency of updates, relevance of content, site design and writing style. Considering the age of this blog and the fact that it is a 1-man blog, I am quite proud to display the score chart below (in comparison with the 9.9 score of slashdot.org in the same category).

Blogged.com is a site aiming to discover as many blogs as possible, present interesting content to blog readers, review and categorise blogs accurately and finally make life easier for blog authors and readers and to realize the potential of blogs as new free media.

Feel free to look around Blogged.com to discover more interesting blogs. You can participate in the rating of blogs and you can also add comments for certain blogs that you have visited. If you are a blog author, you can also submit your blog(s) to be reviewed and categorised. Who knows, you might attract many more new visitors to your blog.

Thank you Amy Liu for informing me about the rating I have received. Keep up the good work, Blogged.com :)

Since the announcement of licensed WiMAX providers in Malaysia, a fast and furious competition has ensued between the service providers to be the first to roll out WiMAX services to the end users.

The four licensed WiMAX providers in Malaysia, namely Bizsurf, Packet One Networks, Asiaspace Dotcom and Redtone-CNX Broadband have prepared for almost 2 years to introduce WiMAX services to the general public.

WiMAX is a relatively new technology and service in Malaysia, as such nobody can be certain regarding the future of WiMAX. The main concerns are:

• do the licensed WiMAX providers have enough experience to implement WiMAX services nationwide?
• will the pricing of the WiMAX services be affordable to a majority of the population?
• what are the effects of WiMAX to conventional broadband and wireless internet services?

With so much at stake, the licensees will probably adopt one of the following strategies:

1. Be the first to offer WiMAX services and gain first-mover advantage.
2. Sit back and let someone else be the first, duplicate the success of the first mover and avoid mistakes made by it.
3. Be indifferent to other licensees' moves, introduce WiMAX services when it is ready, according to the company's plans.

Of special interest to consumers is the pricing for WiMAX services. Will it be cheaper or slightly more expensive than the current internet services (broadband and wireless inclusive)? I personally think that initially, WiMAX services would certainly be more expensive than the average Streamyx package, I estimate the price to range between RM120-150 per month.

Whatever the pricing may be, it won't come cheap IMHO because there is the cost of WiMAX modem to consider. The WiMAX service providers may charge a 1 time fee for the modem or they may charge monthly subscription fees. Considering the history of the internet packages in the country, it is highly possible that the WiMAX providers would also require consumers to sign a contract, tying them to the service for a fixed amount of time (minimum 1 year perhaps?).

How much do you think WiMAX will be charged? How much are you willing to pay? I am anxious to try WiMAX and willing to pay a slightly higher price if I could be guaranteed to receive a fast and stable connection. What about you?

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, or the technology better known as WiMAX is expected to be widely adopted anytime soon and will be replacing the conventional modes of internet connectivity (the likes of wired broadband, WiFi and even HSPDA).

Why is WiMAX preferred?

1. WiMAX is essentially a wireless digital communications system, that naturally explains its advantage over wired broadband internet connection.
2. WiMax (IEEE 802.16) is superior to its predecessor, WiFi which uses the 802.11 specifications (WiMAX has wider range, higher speed and less interference effects).
3. WiMAX is also more cost effective to deploy than cables to each house especially in rural areas.
4. During emergency and for security purposes, WiMAX's advantages are undisputed (being far-reaching, it can also be easily set up through fixed or mobile transmitters).

How WiMAX works?
To the end users, there is not much difference in using WiFi and WiMAX. They only have to get WiMAX enabled devices and as long as there are WiMAX services and facilities around, they should be able to experience good internet connection. For further information on how WiMax works, check the following articles:

• HowStuffWorks "How WiMAX Works" (general information)
• WiMAX technical information on Wikipedia (for tech-savvy consumers)

Future Development
World leaders and technology analysts are convinced that WiMAX has plenty to offer and will be adopting it in stages as the wireless networking standard. In mid-2006, Sprint Nextel announced that it would be investing about US$5 billion in WiMAX technology over the next few years. Meanwhile computer developers, led by computer chip giant Intel are preparing to release computers integrated with WiMAX receivers. Other multimedia applications are expected to be enhanced by WiMax.

It has been quite some time since I have entered a contest through this blog. This time the MoneyBites Contest caught my attention and since the entry method is rather easy, I have decided to join in the fun.

MoneyBites is a blog about how to earn online. Unlike other contests out there, this contest is very easy to join, all you have to do is to write a simple blog post about the contest (just like this one), link to MoneyBites with the required anchor text, and subscribe to MoneyBites RSS feed through email.

There are 3 great prizes up for grabs:

1. $50 cash via PayPal
   
2. $20 cash via PayPal
   
3. $5 cash via PayPal

If you have multiple blogs, you can write unique post on each blog to increase your chances of winning the prize on offer. Winners will be selected using a randomizer.

No contest will be easier to join than this one! Hurry up now, the contest is ending on 15th July 2008. Good luck :)

Do you know how to register a domain, sort of your own dot com (and other TLDs too)? It's pretty easy actually, provided that you have your own credit card or other online currency accounts such as PayPal, Moneybookers, etc. Registering a domain with a domain registrar is as easy as signing up for a free email account. Of course, you also have to have money in your online currency accounts before you can purchase and register domain names under your name.

It is essential to choose good domain registrars, you don't want to have trouble registering, renewing or transferring your domains later on. Some good domain registrars are GoDaddy, NameCheap, Domain.com and Name.com. You might want to google them, read up on them and check their reputations before dealing with them.

Well actually Name.com is not that famous. However I have been using them for a few months, I have registered 3 domains with them and their support so far has been excellent. So I can personally testify to the excellence of their service, experienced or newbie webmasters alike should really try them out.

Why do I recommend them so much?

I'm glad you asked. There are a few reasons actually, I will present them in point form, it will be easier to read that way:

1. Affordable price. The new domain registration on Name.com is one of the most affordable, even without any discount coupons. For a new dot com, the fee is only $5.99, subsequent renewals are $9.99 per year per domain, which is pretty standard among all domain registrars. Now, try to beat this price!
2. Domain registration comes with free WHOIS protection. Some webmasters need to protect their personal information with WHOIS protection, otherwise anyone on the internet can easily find out his or her home address. WHOIS protection can easily cost up to a few dollars each year with other domain registrars, while some offer it for free for 1 year. Name.com actually offers WHOIS protection for free every year (please correct me, I might be wrong here...)
3. Free Google Apps. Google apps are provided for free for new domain registration on Name.com. A total of 6GB email space is given in this package together with other useful tools such as organiser, web space, calendar, etc. If you do not have a web hosting, but still wish to have a personalized email, something like name@familyname.com, you could easily have that by registering a domain with Name.com, only $5.99 for the first year and $9.99 for the subsequent years! Up to 200 email addresses (each 300MB) can be created for each domain name.
4. They have excellent support team. I have emailed them multiple times, not because their service is unstable or anything, I just needed some guides to configure the name servers and DNS settings. Each time I emailed the support, they would reply back to me within 12 hours maximum, I did not really keep track of the time they took to reply, it was an estimation but I am really impressed with their support team. Moreover, they do not simply point me to more help files when I ask them questions, they actually read through my questions and advised me the best solutions available. Kudos to Name.com's support!
   

Well, that's about all I could say about Name.com. Note that I am not affiliated with them in any way, I am just one of their customers, a very satisfied one.

If you have $5.99 to spare and wish to register a domain now, why don't you try them out? If you are unsatisfied with their services, you can easily transfer your domain name over to other domain registrars, but I bet you, you won't be unsatisfied :)

Would you like to be a part of history? Would you like to help set a Guinness world record of the most downloaded software in 24 hours' time?

I am already part of the history in making, there are nearly 5,000,000 million completed downloads as I am writing this post.

Mozilla Firefox is the world's most popular browser and Firefox 3 final is the latest version just recently available for download. The new version has many new features, various add-ons, improved security and productivity.

In appreciation of users' participation in the download day mission, users can download their own personalized Firefox 3 Download Day certificates, like the one above. How long has it been since the last time you were awarded with a certificate? Now, you can be a part of history, you can download the certificate, leave it to rot (together with your harddisk), or you can print it and even frame it!

However, before you start installing Firefox 3, be warned that older versions of add-ons, extensions and integration modules from other softwares may not be 100% compatible with it. I have several add-ons which are not compatible with Firefox 3 and also my download manager integration module is also disabled due to incompatibility issue. There are also some minor changes with Firefox as a whole (big ugly icons in the address bar, bigger browsing area, etc), which might take some time for us to adapt to.

So, my advice, if you are highly dependent on Firefox add-ons and enjoying your surfing experience with older versions of Firefox right now, you should proceed to download Firefox 3 (just to help set the world record!) and only install it when you are sure that the add-ons and integration modules have updated versions as well which are compatible with Firefox 3.

Have a happy day downloading and (not) using Firefox 3!

Now I am not an experienced webmaster or blogger. I have only been blogging for like 6 months. In my quest to have my own domain and hosting, I have read many reviews, recommendations and advices regarding choice of web hosts and features to look out for. I shall offer my thoughts about shared hosting here.

If you are looking to get your first domain and hosting, I recommend that you buy a shared hosting. The prices of shared hosting may range from a few dollars to over $100 per year. You will want to choose a company with good reputations, I can easily name more than 5 hosting companies which you can trust the fate of your websites to: Hostgator, DreamHost, LunarHosting, HostMonster, IXWebHosting and BlueHost.

There are many things to consider before getting a hosting account, such as:

• how many domains are allowed (usually 1 main domain, several add-on domains)
• stability of the host (all hosts I mentioned above have close to 99.9% uptime, I think)
• bandwidth (different people may have different needs, depends also on type of sites)
• support (most top hosts now have live chat support, phone support, support ticketing sytem)

So far I only have experience with normal website hosting, I think most hosting companies would offer separate package for other types of hosting such as file hosting, image hosting, proxy hosting, etc. As for normal website hosting, the features that you should expect to have on a shared hosting account are:

• cPanel (most popular control panel for hosting account)
  
• PHP
• MySQL
• Fantastico
• Stats
  

I have personally purchased a shared hosting account from Hostgator. It is not the most affordable hosts around, but it has received many positive reviews in recent months. I can testify to its promise of 99.9% uptime and good support (there is a live chat support available). I have not tried other hosting companies but I have read enough reviews about them that I am confident to list them as my personal top 10 choice of web hostings.

Finally, if you can afford it, do seriously consider the hostings which I have mentioned above. Paying slightly more to ensure the stability of your sites is a good investment. I will also let you in on a secret, I mentioned those hosting companies not only because their prices are affordable, their hostings are stable and their supports are excellent. I mentioned them because they leave an impression on me, some of them have great sign-up offers to attract customers such as free domain, free advertising credits (Google AdWord and others), free setup and other free gifts. So, shop wisely, take your time to evaluate your options, ask for advices from more experienced folks and select the best shared hosting package for yourself. Good luck buying your own hosting :)

Fancy another freebie eh people? Yes, there is indeed another giveaway and this time it is a free ebook called "Get Started Blogging".

Unfortunately, this ebook is not written by me, as much as I would like to claim so. This ebook is written by Germz, you can actually get it free by subscribing to his newsletter.

I have actually read through his ebook, it is good, there is solid information in it and is definitely useful for bloggers who are just starting out.

A big part of the ebook concentrates on the Wordpress blogging platform which is widely used by blogs all around the world. However this book includes other general blogging topics as well, which are:

• niche (what it is, on choosing a niche)
• obtaining a blog (what it is, Blogger and WordPress)
• installing Wordpress (with screenshots)
  
• optimizing your blog (plugins, themes, SEO)
• content of your blog (different kinds of content)
  
• monetizing your blog (affiliate marketing, private ad sales)
  
• advertising your blog (sort of marketing your site)
  

Are you interested in the ebook? You should get it now, there is nothing to lose, it is free after all! OK, I know not every free thing is good, but this ebook is definitely worth getting, you can check other people's testimonials to the ebook before downloading it.

Free things are just great, aren't they? Free ebook with useful information is even better. I figure I should also write a few ebooks, but I may give them away for free like Germz, or I may decide to sell them. What do you think? Should I write ebooks? If you were given the chance to choose the subject of an ebook to be written, what subject would you like it to be?

The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks and Techniques is available for download for free on SitePoint. The book is originally sold for $29.95 and is not one of those hastily assembled sub-standard ebooks on the internet.

Authored by Corrie Haffly, this book is intended for web designers and anyone who wishes to acquire a passing knowledge about graphic manipulations. I have not gone through the book yet, but looking at its Table of Contents, it is quite a good book for learning Photoshop and other graphic manipulation programs (most programs have similar features and functionality).

If you have tried to learn Photoshop on your own to no avail and are reluctant to fork out money upfront to buy a proper book, then consider getting this free book which is available for download as a PDF file. You would need a PDF reader to view the book, you can use yet another freebie, the Foxit Reader to view PDF files. Even for those who are already quite familiar with Photoshop, you might still learn a thing or two from this book, or you could just keep it on your hard-drive for future reference or pass it along to interested friends or relatives (you are probably not allowed to distribute it online as a free download though, do check with SitePoint or the author regarding your distribution rights).

You will do well to quickly download the book now because the free offer does not last forever, this giveaway only lasts for 7 more days (ending June 13th, 2008). Get it now!

In conjunction with Exabytes 7th anniversary, I have written an open letter to them. Hopefully someone from Exabytes will read this open letter and give me feedback by commenting here. Here's my 7 paragraphs, 577 words open letter to Exabytes to express all I want. Happy 7th Anniversary!

Hi Exabytes,

I did not know you 7 years ago. I started knowing you since early 2008, that was when I decided to start blogging.

I believe you are one of the best Malaysian hosting companies now, there are others out there but I could not name any off-hand. Maybe my knowledge is limited, or it so happens that Malaysians like to talk about you.

People say you are the best in Malaysia because:

1. Your hosting is reliable.
2. You have excellent and extra-fast support team.
3. Your data centers are based in Malaysia and US, thus ensuring fast access of websites for Internet users based in Malaysia.
   

Although I did not know you in your early years, I have read quite a lot about you and also how you were initially set up. The founding story of Exabytes is indeed inspirational and will be a good motivation for any Malaysians who wish to emulate your success.

Now you are celebrating your 7th anniversary. You may have expanded, have more workers, assets and also customers now than the yesteryears but I believe these days do not count as your glory days in terms of customer satisfaction. I may be wrong but I believe that customers were really happy with your service during your 4th and 5th year in business. Then just few months before your 7th birthday, everything goes wrong - customer complaining about the uptime of your servers, the same customer saying that using shared hosting on Exabytes might affect a site's search engine ranking and finally customers protesting against your new policy which prohibits content related to homosexuals.

Exabytes, why don't you take this opportunity (in view of your anniversary) to put back emphasis on things that matter? Moving forward and expansion are important but you must not lose sight of the importance of maintaining the quality of your services, of which you are highly reputed in the past and a large part of your reputation is based on server reliability and excellent support team. Besides that, regarding the enforcement of the new anti-homosexual content policy, I am sure that your intentions are noble. However you might want to get a professional lawyer to rephrase your policy and you need to distinguish between homosexual adult material and safe content involving homosexuals. Allegation of discrimination against homosexuals is certainly one thing you don't wish to be associated with.

Dear Exabytes, you have established yourself as a reliable hosting with good support and your price is among the most affordable. These are the things that distinguish you from your competitors. Don't forget your roots and continue with the good work you have put in the last 7 years, don't let it go to waste! I am not your customer and have not used your hosting before but if people were to ask for my recommendation of a reliable Malaysian hosting, I would mention your name without a second thought. As for international market, unfortunately you probably would not be my first choice recommendation, there are really attractive offers out there and there is still work to be done if you want to be ranked among the best international web hostings. However, I believe you are not that far off from the big players up there. Make me and other Malaysians proud, I would certainly be happy if one day I could recommend you as the best hosting for international market as well.

Happy 7th Anniversary!
BobbyT

Hi, been quite some days since the last post here. I was busy with a lot of things: buying some webhostings and domains, learning the ropes of self-hosting and WordPress and literally doing marketing with other web entrepreneurs.

Also I have been planning to change the Blogger template for quite some time now and finally you can see the template of my choice here. However the "upgrading" of the layout is not 100% done yet, there is still a lot of stuffs to clean up, re-arrange and modify and add. I hope to finish tying the loose ends with the layout soon.

In the last few days, I managed to grab 2 great hosting offers, 1 is a personal account while the other is a reseller hosting account and I got both of them at a killer price. I am not sure what to do with the reseller hosting yet, either give out some free accounts or sell some cheap hosting packages, or use it myself. Seriously I have got more hosting accounts than I can use right now, and recently I was informed that I have won 1 year hosting + domain from a contest I joined.

OK, this is an unofficial questionnaire. I have not decided to sell hosting packages on the reseller hosting but I may depending on the response to the questions I have here.

1. Would you like to have your own blog with your own dot com?
2. What price are you willing to pay per year for blog and domain hosting?
3. If you were going not planning to have your own blog, would my offer of USD3/year hosting and domain entice and perhaps change your mind?
   

Obviously, my hosting will be able to support forums, PHP, MySQL, etc. but I am thinking that most people will prefer having just a blog. My hosting has up to 400GB bandwidth, I will be selling at least 10 accounts if I decide to sell. Some simple calculations, if you were to buy a domain to be hosted with me, the total might only come up to $10USD per year. Interested?

Would like to know your opinions about this. Meanwhile I will keep a watch on the hosting server, to see how stable it is and I may post the report few days later. Also I have 3-4 good posts being lined up and at least 1 or 2 freebies for you guys soon, so don't forget to check this blog again tommorow or the day after tommorow!

Some of you might be aware that besides maintaining this blog, I also earn money online by providing article writing and rewriting services. Therefore I am especially alert when there is important news regarding this trade. Few days ago, I stumbled upon an online tool to help rewrite an article, to make it unique. The tool has a most curious name - BadArticle.

Unfortunately, this tool will only work with Internet Explorer 6+ onwards and requires prior installation of Microsoft Word 2003. I am lucky that I have both.

I wish to test out this article rewrite tool, to see how much of a threat it is to us, freelance writers who make partial income from rewriting jobs. Below is a sample text which I feed into BadArticle and the rewritten text. Note that BadArticle will only start to rewrite an article having a minimum size of 1000 (characters or space, I guess, each line break is worth 2 characters). My sample text is padded with some random sequence of alphabets so that I can use the tool.

This is a sample article written by BobbyT to test out the BadArticle rewriting tool.

Search Engine Optimization experts have mostly agreed that having unique contents will usually rank sites higher than others with duplicate contents. Therefore it is vital for webmasters and
bloggers to type out their own unique posts, or hire an article rewriter to do the job.

Well there is another alternative, there are automated article rewriters which will convert an article into a unique post. Who needs human to do the job when we have an obliging piece of computer laying around? Now you can feed whatever articles you want into BadArticle, it will produce (hopefully) unique articles out of them.

How to test whether BadArticle has done a good job or not? Use copyscape, feed it the article produced by BadArticle, if there is no duplicate found on the Google index, then that particular article is fairly unique.

Here is the rewritten text:

This is a model term written by BobbyT to analyze out the BadArticle rewriting tool.

Search Engine Optimization experts have typically approved that having rare filling will generally rank sites higher than others with duplicate inside. Therefore it is essential for webmasters and bloggers to print out their own single posts, or hire an condition rewriter to do the job.

Well there is another alternative, there are automated clause rewriters which will convert an critique into a rare advertise. Who wishes creature to do the job when we have an obliging example of notebook laying around? Now you can nourish anything articles you want into BadArticle, it will construct (hopefully) exclusive articles out of them.

How to examine whether BadArticle has done a good job or not? Use copyscape, nourish it the thing produced by BadArticle, if there is no duplicate found on the Google symbol, then that particular section is justly sole.

From my analysis, there is a total of 153 words in the text and BadArticle replaces 31 words from the original text with alternative words. 31 words out of 153 total words is a change of about 20%. The rewritten version is not really intelligible but I am partly at fault here. BadArticle provides for users to change the suggested alternative words on the fly before it outputs a final rewrite, which I did not mainly because I want to demonstrate the true capability of this tool without human intervention. Another reason why the rewritten version is not that good is because of my uncalled for preferences for out-of-context verb such as feed and adjective like fairly which could carry many meanings.

If any of you intend to use this tool for unique articles, I would advise that you proofread and revise the rewritten text before publishing it, your readers would probably misunderstand your meanings if you just blindly use the rewritten text without revision. Based on the performance of this tool, I shall conclude that article rewriters would not be out of job for a long time to come, yet. However, BadArticle is a new tool and is probably being improved even at this moment when you are reading this review. Besides, what more could you ask for from a free tool and service?

Test BadArticle yourselves, don't just listen to my unqualified assessments! Get unique now!

Free Article Spinner
Free Article Rewrite

How long have you been reading blogs? Do you follow blogs that blog about blogging and related topics? If you have been reading blogs that blog about blogging for quite some time, you should have realized one common thing about all those blogs. Most, if not all, organize contests in their bid to attract more visitors and followers and improve their site rankings.

There are many blogs that blog about blogging, so there is no shortage of information available. Besides, if every other blogs are running contests, and one blog doesn't, it will certainly lose out in comparison with the others.

This is in contrast with the situation in the yesteryears, where blogs about every niche are pretty scarce and they are more valued by their own groups of readers. Although the number of blog readers at that time were small, those who follow blogs do so with pure interest and sincerity. They do not follow blogs just because there are weekly lucky draws or monthly contests with great prizes to win.

So, does this mean that a blog with good content won't be followed if it doesn't run contests? No, definitely not! The blog readers still have a tendency to follow the blogs with good content, but between 2 equally great blogs, it is more likely that they will participate in the one with more activities and great prizes to be won.

Am I for or against contests?
This is not a simple question. When everyone is organizing contests, they will be a tendency by some people to concentrate purely on organizing bigger and better contests, to the point of neglecting the original direction of their blogs. As a result, there will be more posts with no useful information (or so called spam posts) online while production of beneficial or resourceful posts are halted or delayed. However, the running of contests is still under control so far, there are no excessive contest posts yet (among millions of pages in the internet!), and there are certain bloggers out there who still refuse to buckle to peer pressure and continue producing useful posts, ignoring fancy gimmicks of the competitors. Considering this, I am in favor of contests at this moment, they attract attentions, convert blog readers to loyal followers and when there are more followings, there will be improvements, among the blogs that blog about blogging as well as in blogosphere in general.


I guess you guys will forgive me for talking too much about contests on this blog after I dedicated this whole post to explain why I am in favor of contests. Anyway, do check out the above contests if you haven't heard about it, I am one of the sponsors ... Try to spot the prizes that I offer :)

What is your opinion about contests? Do you favor contests or are you against them? Why? Share your views with us please, we will like to know.

Hello people, how have you all been? Wondering when I am going to update this blog? I am glad to announce that the wait is finally over (that is, if there is anyone waiting at all...), and I will try to update more often from today onwards, no promise though...

Today I am going to talk about the value of silence in Blogosphere. No doubt, many of you have heard of idioms about the virtue of silence, for example, "Silence as virtue" and "Silence is golden". However, those idioms don't hold absolute truth in the Blogosphere. True, there are times in the Blogosphere, when things are better left unsaid, but most of the time, it is better to voice out one's opinions or just say something, anything at all.

In the past few days, due to me being busy with real life commitment, I have had the opportunity to test out the effect of keeping silence on this blog: there are fewer visits and comments as time goes by. I can only conclude that silence is not golden in the Blogosphere.

First of all, why run a blog if you are going to be silent most of the time? The reason people read blogs is because they want to read something fresh, they want to know what you have to say, regardless of you boasting, lying, revealing a top secret or just simply blogging about your dull life, there is probably someone out there who wants to read your blog posts.

I am often amazed at how some personal blogs out there could have massive followings eventhough they do not offer much valuable information. I think the reason is because the modern technologies nowadays have estranged people, they have a busy lifestyle and interact mainly with certain few individuals everyday and as a result, they actually crave for some interactions with other people, they are expressing the natural tendency of human to bond with more people and they want to feel attached to something: your blog. So why deny these blog readers the opportunity to read, enjoy and respond to what you have to say?

By being more outspoken and active in the Blogosphere, you not only attract followers and readers of your own but also enable you to actually get somethings that you want. Need help installing WordPress plugins? Want to have sponsors for your upcoming contests? Would like to collaborate with other bloggers for some projects? The secret to attaining all those is to speak up. Ask and you shall be rewarded, remain silent and naturally your needs will be unfulfilled because no one knows what you think or require.

I have heard that the Blogosphere would not be what it is now if initially every bloggers, blog readers and internet users were to keep to themselves only. Seriously the Web works only because websites link to one another and maintain the "sharing" policy. Every element of the Blogosphere is interdependent and no one can succeed without others. If you already know this golden rule of Blogosphere, why don't you break the ice and start networking today?

Lastly if you were to maintain long silence, you will lose much more than regular visitors to your blogs. You might lose touch of blogging, lose contact with online friends and associates and lose credibility as a trustworthy and omnipresent authority of your niche. You certainly don't want that to happen, do you? After all, I am sure your purposes of setting up blog(s) are to expand your social circle, gain more exposure and popularity to yourself, your products and ideas, right? There's a simple way to achieve that - break the silence, speak up and make yourself and your opinions known. Happy networking :)

With the recent blogging craze, I am sure many people wondered, "What's with a blog, why is blogging such a big deal anyway?"

It seems that I am able to provide at least an appropriate respond to that question now. A blog in itself is nothing, it is the content and potential viewership that matter, a borderless Internet does make that potential seems unlimited. Apparently, good blog posts are so highly valued that big companies are paying bloggers to blog about them and their products or whatever issues they have chosen. Now, that is not really a small matter, where else in the past has anybody been paid to type and publish a few hundred words?

I have recently joined PayPerPost (PPP) and this blog has been approved to participate in the paid post program. Bloggers are not encouraged to reveal how much they are paid for a post, so I will just say that this post which is sponsored by PPP has a good price, a double figure amount.

My participation in paid post program is in line with the direction of this blog. I can evaluate PPP, get paid doing it and also introduce this simple form of money making to you. However I will try to refrain from post paid on this blog as much as possible unless the topic is suitable for the niche of this blog. Advertisers and publishers of payperpost should also observe word of mouth ethics and be moderate and tactful in buying or selling paid posts to maintain the quality of websites and keep scam sites to a minimum possible number.

The money earned from this program will be used in part to promote this blog (not much because hosting on Blogger is free) and in funding my purchase of my own hosting for other projects.

Are you a new blogger aiming to earn some money online? Have you run out of things to blog about? Feeling unmotivated because your blog does not benefit you in any way? If you fall into any of the mentioned categories, perhaps you want to consider signing up with PayPerPost and make blogging more fun and rewarding. Take note though, your blog has to be at least 30 days old with at least ten posts written in the last 30 days prior to registration with PayPerPost marketplace.

Join now with this link below and you will earn a double figure paid post offer from PayPerPost itself. Alternatively, you can look around the PPP site and read its FAQ and TOS if you are unsure about paid post program.


I get paid to blog, so can you! Join now, what are you waiting for?

Juggler at The WWW Observer is running a mini contest and giving away $100 dollars to 1 lucky winner (payable via PayPal). It is very easy to participate in this contest, you can either blog about this contest and link to the contest page, or subscribe to The WWW Observer feeds via e-mail (don't forget to confirm your subscription!). If you do both, you get one contest entry for each task and also 1 bonus entry, which adds up to total 3 entries for higher chance to win the 100USD!

This mini contest will run from 5th April to 20th April, 2008. The draw for the winner will be done after the contest has ended and result shall be announced on the 21st April, 2008.

Oh yeah, the main purpose of this contest is to gain more email subscribers, because Juggler is planning to have a bigger contest in May, so with the exposure gained from this mini contest, his contest in May will get the attention it deserved. By the way, browse around The WWW Observer, it has pretty good content with a personal touch from Juggler himself and don't forget to subscribe to his feeds by email if you like the site.

I am feeling lucky after winning 3 contests, and since this contest is easy to participate, I figure why not join in the fun and let my readers know about this contest as well? You have a chance to win this prize too, why not give it a try? Good luck everyone!

Bloggeries is a blogging forum, where it is attended by bloggers, webmasters as well as internet marketeers. There are many benefits of joining Bloggeries, such as:

1. You can make friends with many bloggers
   
2. You can get good advice and latest news about the blogosphere
3. You can share revenue with Bloggeries if you have AdSense account
4. You get paid if you signup for webhosting and domain from HostGator and GoDaddy through the forum under Rob's affiliate ID (he is the forum owner)
5. You can sell or buy services and products on this forum

My experience on this forum has been a very pleasant one. It is not as crowded as the Digital Point Forums and consequently the discussions there are of high quality and there are also less scams and spammy members to be found. I have managed to make some friends on this forum, they are really helpful bloggers. By networking on this forum, I managed to get some linkbacks and also small reviews from the generous bloggers there on their pageranked sites!

There are a few really important subforums in Bloggeries that I will mention here and at the end of this review, I am also going to highlight certain shortcomings of this forum.

Show Off Your Blog subforum
This is the subforum where you can post your blog's URL and let other forum members visit it and give you comment and feedback about your blog. This is a good place for you to attract new readers and expose your blog to a larger audience. Obviously if people like your blog, they might share it with other friends or return for more content.

Buy, Sell and Trade Classifieds subforum
This subforum is the business center of Bloggeries. You can buy, sell and trade stuffs here. I have personally sold my articles here to a few bloggers.

Blogging Basics, Blog Marketing and Make Money Blogging subforums
Each subforum's functions is clearly indicated in their names. Blogging beginners can learn from the Blogging Basics subforum while anyone who wishes to market their blogs better can visit the Blog Marketing subforum. Make Money Blogging subforum mainly discusses anything about monetizing your blogs, but I don't think we are allowed to promote affiliate links here or anywhere else on Bloggeries.

Bloggeries Lounge and Bloggeries News and Site Updates subforums
The Bloggeries Lounge subforum can be used to post miscellaneous thoughts and also your introduction when you first joined Bloggeries. In the Bloggeries News and Site Updates subforum, you can find out about the future direction of Bloggeries, its current development and also any special promotion such as membership drive cum referral contest.

The main thing that I like about this forum is the personal touch and interaction with Rob, the owner of the forum and generally all the members here are very friendly and helpful.

However, this forum can certainly be better if it has more active members, opportunities and also traders. The opportunities that I feel are missing are in the forms of freebies and also free directories submission which are available almost everyday in the Digital Point Forums. More attention should be given here to attract these kinds of free offers to Bloggeries, probably by offering these freebies peddlers some sort of benefits in return (mutual benefits attraction works most of the time!). However, this situation can change for the better, if only Bloggeries could increase its number of active members, certainly some people would take it more seriously and become more interested to promote their products or services there. You can make a difference, join a friendly, resourceful and helpful forum now and make it better!

Join Bloggeries Now!

P.S. While you are at the forum, don't forget to check out Bloggeries Blog Directory and Blog Review too...

Feed Flare is running their first contest with $500 cash to be won as well as other prizes totaling over $5,200 and 25,000 entrecard credits! Guess what, there contest will be ending on March 31st and the draw for the $500 cash and 25,000 entrecard credits will be done after the contest ended. Check out the other prizes below.

Here are the prizes:

1. Mini Unix web hosting package free for 1 year - Donated by BlurFur web hosting services (value - $70.00) - random draw
2. Advertising voucher with Bidvertiser worth $200.00 in free clicks (value - $200.00) - random draw
3. Blog branding package which includes (Favico, header, logo, 125×125 button) design package donated by Graphic Identity (value - $200.00) - random draw
4. Free advertising for one month in the form of a 125×125 button on Blogging Cents. (value - $35.00) - random draw
5. Win a free advertising spot on the “You Can Learn Series” blog in the form of a 125×125 ad button (value per spot - $5.00) - random draw
6. Exclusive Theme donated by Unique Blog Designs (value - $99.00) there is around 10 different themes you can chose from if you win - random draw
7. Win one of 2 copies of the “Written Promptly Everyday” E-Book donated by The Prompt Writer (value per book -$5.00) random draw
8. Win a copy of “How to launch a profitable free lancing business for under $50.00″ donated by the “Self Made Chick” (value - $12.00) random draw
9. Custom banner design and the size will be of your choice donated by Dat Money dot com (value - $50.00) random draw
10. One month free 125×125 advertising on Jason Boom dot com. (value - $20.00) random draw
11. Grand Prise - 25,000 Entrecard credits (one lump some, the largest amount to be given away in a contest to date) draw date is March 31st (value - not really sure but some where around $250.00 I think)
12. Bonus gifts - we have 200 pages on the “One Buck Wiki” to give away - the first two hundred contest enterer’s will be each given one page as a bonus gift just for entering our grand opening contest.You will still be able to win any of the other prizes we have as well. The current selling price for a page on the “One Buck Wiki” is $20.00 making this our largest prize package worth over $4000.00 in cash value.
13. Featured Grand Prise = $500.00 cash payable via PayPal with the draw date being March 31st.

Joining this contest is easy, you have to subscribe to Feed Flare by email, blog about this contest on your own blog and post 2 simple links provided to Feed Flare. For more information about this contest, follow this link:

It is party time at Feed Flare! Win $500 cash

Don't miss out on this now, I don't even want to imagine what is possible if I were lucky enough to win some major prizes through this contest! Good luck contesting :D

Webmasters, bloggers and advertisers should take note here if you have not heard of TNX.net yet. This site is bringing text link revolution. Text links trading has never been made easier before, some of the advantages of TNX.net over its competitors are:

• website publishers can sell links on each page of their site instead of selling site wide links (effectively improving earnings up to ten times more!)
• both publishers and advertisers have a say in picking who they sell and buy links from (ensuring only the best quality and relevant links)
• makes it possible for advertisers to rank well in Google search results for highly competitive keywords at relatively low price (think ranking #1)
• free tool (link generator) for advertisers to make paid links look natural for Google (avoid getting caught buying links and penalised by Google)
• revenue earned by selling links can be converted into advertising payments immediately
  

How effective is TNX.net system for advertisers?
Personally I have not used TNX.net system yet, but I have heard that for as low as $11 per month, advertisers could get 10,000 static links. This will dramatically improve the rankings of linked pages, not to mention the amount of traffic the links will bring (if only 1 user click through each of the links you bought, you would have minimum 10,000 uniques, not bad at all for $11!)

You can also verify the effectiveness of TNX.net system by analyzing their homepage. Their excellent Alexa ranking despite having a page rank 0 is a testimony to their success. Previously, TNX.net also managed to get good ranking in Google for highly competitive keywords such as "text link ads" and "sell text links" in just 1 months time (unfortunately, they have been filtered out of the search results due to conflict with Google's policy!). You don't have to trust my words about TNX.net system, read some of the reviews about the system here:
http://www.technorati.com/search/tnx.net?sort=authority

How does the system work? Well, advertisers and site publishers trade in TNX.net with points system. In fact, for a limited time only, TNX.net is giving away up to 5000 free points (which can be used to purchase up to 5000 links for 1 month!) to new members. The points that you earn as a publisher can be used for your own advertising campaign on other sites or you can sell them back to TNX.net which will pay you via PayPal. Take note though, that the value of the points are not fixed (suggested price per 1000 points is equivalent to about $1 or slightly lower). Advertisers will be credited with 20,000 points when they pay $30. The number of points advertisers have to pay to publishers to buy links varies depending on the page rank of the page where the links will be placed, its Yahoo backlinks and niche, etc. If you are a webmaster having good PR (PR > 0), you should definitely check out TNX.net now, you can earn substantial amount of money by selling only as few as 4 links per page (you have to be discreet though, and do not reveal your affiliations with TNX.net lest being penalized by Google) .

I am personally impressed by TNX.net system because their system revolves around logic, and they provide good information on their website, for example their explanation about Google PR. They have made all the hard work, tidying up all the tiny details of protecting their users, making sure that the bought links look natural, etc. Therefore I was reluctant to put the title of this review as "Text Links Trading Made Easy via TNX.net", I have omitted the "trading" keyword because TNX.net is essentially not a link farm, its main purpose is not just to generate revenue by trading low quality links all over a publisher's page. This system if used discreetly can help many new webmasters to get a fair share of the wealthy Internet. However I agree that rampant links trading without control will result in many spam sites and generally, bad user experience for the Internet users! I hereby salute TNX.net for being a master of text links and thank them for the revolution brought about by them!

What are your opinions? Do you buy or sell text links? What are the effects of buying and selling links? How much do you earn from other text links ads system? Do you get good traffic and ranking by buying links? Share with us please, we would like to know. Thank you in advance :D

Just ignore the title, I am sure if you have not started disclosing your policy, you certainly will in the near future. Unless of course, you decide not to recommend anything to buy to your readers, in your blog post, in the sidebar, in the comment, anywhere in your blog, ever. Some of you may ask, what is disclosure? Let's see:

What is disclosure?

The act of making something obvious. Disclosing (divulging or explaining), the purpose and interests of a blogger in his/her published posts: written, audio or video.

Source: http://www.disclosurepolicy.org/

Apparently, if you market anything at all in your blog, which can be considered "word-of-mouth marketing" to US citizens, you are required by law to make disclosures of your relationship with your affiliate partners and forms of compensation that you receive from them. Otherwise, you may be subject to legal action for deceptive advertising. Remember, no matter how honestly or impartially you review a product, you might still be subjected to legal action unless you have a disclosure policy to protect yourself. Other advertisements you placed on your blog may contain promises such as "99.9% web hosting uptime", which you may not be able to verify and certainly, you do not want any part in the potential deceptive advertising charges!

Get protected now, generate your own disclosure policy
You don't have to seek the service of a lawyer to draw up your own disclosure policy. DisclosurePolicy.org was created and funded by PayPerPost to help you generate your own simple disclosure policy. You can select to create a disclosure policy that is meant for an individual blogger, a group of bloggers, or even a blog sponsored by a company or organization. It is hassle-free and will take only a few minutes of your time. I disclose here, that I do not have any affiliation with DisclosurePolicy.org and I do not receive any forms of compensation to recommend its service just for the sake of making something obvious.

Here is my disclosure policy if anyone is interested to read it. Undoubtedly, I am going to adopt the more professional disclosure policy generated by DisclosurePolicy.org, but I am really tempted to use this cheeky one below which I modified from the one generated for me:

This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.

The compensation received certainly influenced the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. Money is the source of all evil, how true!

The owner(s) of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives meagre compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always adhere strictly to advertisers' guidelines to lead readers into believing our opinions, finding, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products fabricated based on advertisers' wishes. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are not always purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

This blog does contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content may not always be identified.

Hehe, anyone daring enough to use the disclosure policy I modified above? Certainly will score points with advertisers, but I pity the readers :D

So have you disclosed or not? What effects does a disclosure policy bring? Will your readers trust you less or appreciate you for being honest with them? Do you know any advertisers that explicitly demand you to make a disclosure policy? Please share with us your views, we will like to know! Thank you.

It is really hard to resist a good easy contest with irresistible prizes up for grabs! Don't you think so? TysBlog.com is organizing its first entrecard credit contest and 3000 entrecard credits, $25, a blog review and permanent links are up for grabs too. There will only be 1 lucky winner though. To join this contest, you have to do 3 things which are to stumble the contest post, write a short post about the contest, subscribe to TysBlog.com feed by email. Hurry, the contest is ending on the 20th of March! Best of luck to all contestants :)

Have you heard of HYIP? It stands for High Yield Investment Program. It is basically an investment program that seems too good to be true. By offering high interest rates return for money invested, such program easily attract people who want to strike it rich instantly. The interest rate may range 5-250% a month. Originally such program is conducted in real life but with the recent advent of making money online craze and e-currency facilities, more and more of HYIP programs are emerging on the internet.

Did I not mention that the offer of HYIP seem too good to be true? I found an online HYIP program, that pays 1.1% daily interest for investment of 5-1000USD during 180 business days. By doing simple calculation, I found out that with an initial investment of 5USD, I can get raw profit of almost 200% after 180 business days! Before you start asking me to provide you with the URL of this program, you have to take note that many HYIPs have been proven to be scams, they either disappear with your money or make it difficult for you to withdraw your earnings until the big day of their disappearance. Therefore you can also associate HYIP with high risk investment plan.

There are probably some genuine, stable and interesting HYIPs out there. Their business models are usually based on investing customers' money on forex, sports betting, metal trading and other profitable businesses.

How are the scam HYIPs operated? The scam HYIPs are usually Ponzi schemes, they do not really invest customers' money on any businesses but they will create an illusion that they are generating revenue by investing in undisclosed business ventures. The truth is, they will pay high interest rates to existing customers from newest members' invested money. This is done initially to gain members trusts, to create a stable image for themselves and to encourage even more investments from the greedy masses who want to make easy money. In the end, they will encourage members to invest the interest earned too and almost all the members at the bottom of the scheme will not be seeing their hard earned money anymore.

E-currencies has made it possible for new HYIP to emerge on the internet and attract members from countries all around the world. The collection and payment of funds have also been made simpler, there is simply no contact between members and HYIP runners. Undoubtedly, the security risk is also higher in this scenario because the average web users certainly wouldn't enjoy tracing scam HYIP runners.

Therefore, when it comes to e-currencies and personal information on the web, you ought to be more careful. Be especially cautious when you are promised something out of the ordinary, because all scams sound that way.

Take note that I don't mean that all HYIPs are scams. I have found some HYIPs sites and also some HYIPs monitoring sites, and apparently there are a few stable and honest HYIPs on the internet now. However I am reluctant to share the details here lest I unintentionally lead you to scam programs. Besides, I could not vouch for any of these programs as I myself do not really have the funds to invest. I may run a review of the HYIPs monitoring sites, if the respond to this post is good.

Before ending this post, I ask that any readers who have experience in HYIPs to come out to comment on this post and share your experience. You can share the genuine paying HYIPs or caution other users from joining a program that smells of scam. Would really appreciate that! Thank you and happy investing :)

MindBlogger is running his second contest. There's no doubt a lot of contests being run this month. I will be joining a few more, in the hope of grabbing something big out of the contest craze right now. Now, back to MindBlogger's contest, he doesn't promise everyone a prize, but there will be at least 10 winners with various prizes being offered, so in my opinion it is almost like everyone is a winner. I like this kind of contest, because more people have a chance of winning something (a little consolation prize is better than nothing to show for your efforts, right?).

OK, the real name of the contest is "1650 ECs + a FREE Blog Header + 12 Free Ads" Contest. Too long in my opinion, but good description and great prizes! Here are the prizes on offer:

• 1st Place: 1000 entrecard credits + a FREE customized blog header + a FREE 125×125 ad on MindBlogger for one week + a FREE Text Link Ad on MindBlogger for one month
• 2nd Place: 200 entrecard credits + a FREE 125×125 ad on MindBlogger for one week + a Text Link Ad on MindBlogger for one month
• 3rd Place: 100 entrecard credits + a Text Link Ad on MindBlogger for one month! Wait..

It doesn’t stop there! From 4th place to 10th Place, 7 lucky bloggers will win a FREE Text Link Ad for one month each, and 50 entrecard credits each!

So it sums up to 1650 ECs, a FREE customized blog header and 12 FREE Ads! In addition to that, every blogger entering the contest and earning more than 6 entries will get a permanent linkback from the follow-up post(s) MindBlogger does about this contest.

The prize I am really looking forward to winning is of course the first prize, because I would like to have a customized header (I have a poor designing skills, you may say :D ). You have to be a blogger and own a blog to join this contest. The ways to join are pretty standard, stumbling, digging the contest post, subscribe to MindBlogger via RSS or email, add him to your Technorati favorites and blogging about the contest like I am doing right now. One last thing, if you are interested to join, please take note that the closing date is 18th of March at 1200H (GMT). I really have a knack for joining contests only at the eleventh hour, I know :)

So good luck to everyone who joins this contest and for more information about this contest, visit the link below:

"1650 ECs + a FREE Blog Header + 12 Free Ads" Contest

My dear friends, kindly allow me to veer off topic here. This month has been really incredible for me thus far! First I won 3500 entrecard credits, then just yesterday I got rewarded with $20 via PayPal by responding to Scott's $20 blogging challenge. I thank this opportunity to thank Scott Wainner for his generosity. Yes, I am grateful to be so well rewarded, yet I am hungry for even more.

I will continue to enter a few more worthwhile contests and try to improve this blog further with the winnings (hope luck will still be with me :D). Anyway, as of right now, I am also in position to win another 1000 entrecard credits. See the Garfield picture up there? Yeah I drew it and used it to participate in a Draw Your Favorite Cartoons Contest. It really does reflect my feelings right now. Unfortunately, there are only 2 competitors in this contest including me, so I am in with a real chance to win the credits. Hopefully you will follow the above link and vote for my entry if and only if you think my drawing is better than the other competitor's because I believe in honest competition! The voting for the better entry is due to end tommorow, 10th March 2008. So come on, the more votes, the better. For anyone who so much as visited that link, I thank you for your time :)

Lastly, I'll like to say that I have great plans for this blog and they will be implemented as soon as possible, probably more and better articles, more customizations, more user-friendly and more rewarding for the visitors and readers, yes you. You might have noticed me using the selective expandable post blogger hack, this is only the first of many customizations I am going to implement. Hope you like the new organizations better. If this blog is useful to you in any way, I sincerely hope that you will consider participating actively in this blog's activity and subscribing to my RSS feed or email subscription. Thanks and see you again soon!