Blogging To a T

Long absence

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:18:00 +0000

Has been a long time since the last update.

I am not able to post regularly yet, so just back to bring you a short update.

If you have not already heard, I would like to introduce 2 websites to you which were launched several days apart few days ago:

Malaysia Today - http://malaysia-today.net/
Malaysia Today is no stranger to us, often providing great insights and shocking revelations. This is not a new launch, a relaunch would be more accurate, the site is back at its original web address and it looked (to me) more organized. Don't delete the URL of the backup site though, because judging by the new articles published on Malaysia Today, I would not bet against it being blocked (again) in the near future.

Free Malaysia Today - http://freemalaysiatoday.com/english/
I think this website would be less bias than the one featured above, it will assume the role of an alternative (and hopefully independent) news provider in the country, like its predecessors such as MalaysiaKini and Malaysian Insider but it will apparently cover many other topics besides socio-political news.

To read a more comprehensive review regarding these 2 websites, visit the link below:
New look for Malaysia Today, look out for FreeMalaysiaToday site

Do you have new and interesting Malaysian sites to share with me? Come on, don't be stingy, sharing is caring. Comments are always appreciated.

Save More Than 50% Webhosting Fee With Exabytes 52nd Merdeka Promotion

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:33:00 +0000

In conjunction with the 52nd Merdeka Celebration, our ever patriotic local web hosting company Exabytes is offering more than 50% discount on its web hosting packages (shared hosting packages only).

The countdown begins from 18 August 2009, anyone who purchases on that day are entitled to 52% discount off the original price of the hosting packages. As of today, the discount has been revised to 51% and tomorrow it will be 50%. Get the pattern now? If you have been planning to get yourself a web hosting (domains are also available at an all-time low price), there is no better time than now. The earlier you sign up with Exabytes, the more discount you will get, like they say, a penny saved is a penny earned.

The discount offered will continue to decrease until 30% when the promotion is to end. This promotion is available even after Merdeka Day, it will run until 14 September 2009.

To know more about this iLoveMalaysia Merdeka Promotion, visit the link below:
http://exabytes.com.my/merdeka/2009/index.php

Thank you Exabytes for the wonderful promotion. You are indeed a good role model, by demonstrating your corporate social responsibility consistently.

P.S. There is no affiliate link in this post. I hope you will benefit as much as possible from this promotion. Also, I am not paid by Exabytes to bring this news to you, although I don't mind being offered a free hosting package for my efforts. Just joking!

Twitter Rocket

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:05:00 +0000

Warning: Affiliate links embedded within this blog post. Proceed with caution ;)

I have mentioned several times in my social networks and blogs that 2009 is the year of Twitter. It has the most tremendous growth and buzz in 2009, so much so that I suspect it will be hard for it to maintain the momentum and better its performance in the coming years.

If you are not quite familiar with the world of internet information marketing, you might not appreciate the popularity of Twitter and the hype going around it. Others will know what I say is true: Twitter information products (and tools) are highly sought after (check ClickBank trends) and bloggers are giving increasing priority to drive traffic through Twitter rather than social bookmarking sites such as Digg, large organizations and famous individuals are also trying hard to build up their own Twitter followings.

One famous blogger who recently cannot stop talking about Twitter and his product Twitter Rocket is Ashley Morgan. Ashley owns the PR7 authority blog Upstart Blogger.

Twitter Rocket is a system which will do the following for you (summarized):

setting up and optimizing your Twitter account, making it attractive to other Twitter users and essentially make your account a "follower magnet" (quote).
automate all the hard work needed to maintain a successful Twitter account.
grow your followers by around 1,000 every week and rocket your followers, traffic and income (quote).
monetize from your Twitter account successfully.
keep within Twitter's rules, avoid suspension and keep your account safe.

People who follow Ashley's controversial Upstart Blogger blog will know how much he despised full of hype and ineffective Twitter products and systems which mainly consist of these unethical methods: mass following with no preference of real accounts over ghost robot accounts, mass unfollow accounts that do not reciprocate your following, spam endlessly and creation of multiple accounts to increase visibility.

Thus from this, I conclude that Twitter Rocket may or may not make you hundreds of dollars per week but if it could increase your followers up to 1,000 every week (recurring and might grow exponential), I feel that the price of $97 is money well spent! Especially if (most of) the 1,000 followers are genuine interacting and active humans.

Currently there are at least 2 success stories regarding Twitter Rocket users who leverage the system and their Twitter followers to sell the system as affiliates. Ashley himself revealed that the system has been selling well and his affiliates are making lucrative money. If you want to read more about the success of the said affiliates, try to find the following:

"Proof that I made $2,538 in 7 days" written by one Hannah Solo. (google it)
http://mondodynamo.com/how-i-make-a-passive-income-of-thousands-of-dollars-every-week

I am not linking to them, because I don't wish to send my visitor over to them which might earn them affiliate commissions.

I have not purchased Twitter Rocket and I am not using the system (yet). My Twitter account has merely a little over 200 followers at this moment:

http://twitter.com/bobbytco

Ultimately, remember that I don't promise that you will achieve anything remarkable with Twitter Rocket, everything that you have read about here is quoted or implied directly from Ashley Morgan himself. I just wish to try to promote the hot system as an affiliate and see for myself how effective Ashley's legions of followers and networks are. I might buy this system myself once I make a single sale of it as an affiliate (just so that I know it is really in demand and the system of promoting something via Twitter is effective).

If you appreciate me bringing this system to your attention (which may well be a distinguished and effective Twitter system compared to other products out there), kindly consider purchasing it from my affiliate link below or read more about the system from Ashley himself:

Buy Twitter Rocket Now and Add Up To 1,000 Followers Per Week Now

Entrecard Acquired By ZipRunner, Founder Graham Langdon stay on as advisor

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:27:00 +0000

The inevitable has happened. Apparently, EntreCard founder Graham Langdon has sold EntreCard Inc. to ZipRunner Inc. Googling the name ZipRunner Inc. returns zero relevant result apart from EntreCard's acquisition press release.

Read about the announcement here:
EntreCard has been acquired by ZipRunner

Here's a little about ZipRunner, as narrated by its CEO, Andrew Te:

ZipRunner is an investment company with many years of experience with Internet companies. We intend to have a smooth transition and will continue to provide essential services such as dropping cards, earning credits and allowing bloggers to network. We believe that these services are what make Entrecard special. In addition, Entrecard will continue to have Richard Clark (phirate), Entrecard’s founding developer, on its management team.

I really hope this move will further improve EntreCard. EntreCard has gone from (blogger) fans' favorite to a controversial startup, with divided opinions about Graham's plans and what he hope to achieve with EntreCard. No doubt Graham's decisions have been partly fueled by desire to break even or earn some profits from EntreCard even after serving the blogging community without any charges for a year or two.

To Graham's credit, he has implemented many changes to EntreCard in the final few months of his tenure as CEO, probably much more than he has ever done in the 2 year prior to that. Some noticeable changes in recent months:

introduction of paid ads on EntreCard network which is wildly popular
revamp of the old forum and setting up a new one
offering to buy back EntreCard credits from members
asking members to complete CPA offers in exchange for EntreCard credits to raise funds

We wish Graham Langdon best of luck. Just hearing his story, we know that he has gone through a lot, struggling and moving forward with EntreCard. He will now spend time with other projects, yet you may still hear from him about past and current challenges at his new personal blog:

http://ontrapranore.com/

Lastly I also hope for the best for EntreCard users. If there is one thing ZipRunner could do to make us believe that EntreCard is improving for the better under their management, please honour Graham's initiative to allow EntreCard users to cash out their credits! I have about $100-200 worth of credits now and I don't really know how to spend it.

I welcome response from Graham Langdon, ZipRunner Inc. and Andrew Te as well as other bloggers and people from EntreCard community network.

Not possible to earn with Homepages Friends anymore

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:53:00 +0000

Have you heard about Homepages Friends? It was among the first paid to search programmes available online. I have personally earned about £30 from this programme.

It is undoubtedly easy to earn money from this programme which pays its members either through check or PayPal. Members are also paid commissions for referring new members to the service (similar to a multi-level marketing scheme). The searches made by members are automatically recorded and audited to determine the earnings payable to the members. I have no complaint toward the accuracy of the recording and audits but Homepages Friends is known to delay in paying its members even when they have reached the minimum payout amount and time dues.

Unfortunately, all good things eventually come to a (bad or not so good) end. Apparently, Homepages Friends could no longer pay us (50% of) the revenue made from our searches, we can only choose which charity to contribute the earnings to. Members from certain countries are completely restricted from using the service.

Check out the screen shot above, click to view for enlarged view. I am obviously using Homepages Friends search service from a country permitted to use it but still I get such error message. I am reluctant to contact the support to sort out the matter. Obviously user experience and welfare are not the priority of the company anymore.

I feel the members who were responsible for building up the service and helping it earn money are not properly compensated (and consulted over this crucial decision to stop paying members for their searches). The company also tried to offer cheap incentive such as cash prizes of £250, £200 and £150 in a lucky draw to coerce and lure members to agree to the new terms and agreement of the service in order to be eligible for the draw.

The prizes are not exactly cheap but what about other members who do not win? To whom do you owe the success of your company and service? Is this what your members deserve, some which have stood by you even when payment to them are delayed by a few months and tolerated your below par support system (as far as I am concerned there is only 1 staff which often does not offer solution or answer, the staff merely forwards generic responses towards members' concerns)?

It was good while the win-win (50/50) situation existed. You may turn your back on us when you no longer needed us. In a similar way, you will never know when your partner, be it Ask.com or Yahoo! will turn its back on you. Thank you for the opportunity, we will now look elsewhere in the paid to search circle, we wish you the best of luck.

P.S. I am trying to speak on behalf of Homepages Friends members who are in the same situation as I am and feel similarly. I am aware that no all members and general public share the same sentiment towards Homepages Friends. If you feel differently, do share your opinions with us by commenting below. Comments and responses from Homepages Friends management and people who are in the know of the situation are also welcomed.

A Very Superficial Review of Become A Blogger Course

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:15:00 +0000

I have joined the 2 weeks trial access to 'Become a Blogger' coaching course by Gideon Shalwick and Yaro Starak and here is my very superficial review.

Note that new members of the course will not be getting instant access to all the videos available there, hence the subscription model of $77 per month for 6 months, which upon completion of the duration, you are granted life-time access to the site and the resources there without any additional charge.

It is indeed unfortunate that all I can hope to learn from this site is limited to at most 2 weeks' training videos. Of course, I am not complaining. For the price of $1, I managed to view high quality videos as well as download the bonus 'Master The Mindset' motivational audios.

While I enjoyed the opportunity to catch a glimpse of what a professional coaching course is like, I am disappointed to not be able to access further modules. From what I hear, these are the modules available to the life-time members of the course:

Get Your Blog Up And Running Fast And FREE
How To Optimize Your Blog For Maximum Search Engine Performance
How To Create Powerful Content For Your Blog, Consistently and Without Fail
How To Use Images On Your Blog To Make You Stand Out From The Crowd
How To Create A Different Dimension To Your Blog By Adding Audio
How To Breathe Life Into Your Blog Using Online Video
How To Create Multiple Streams of High Quality Traffic To Your Blog
How To Make Money From Your Blog

Then again, I don't really expect to access over a 100 training videos at the price of only $1. Although the first 2 modules contain good quality videos, I already roughly know about the topics. I suppose module 3 onwards would be most useful for me. Perhaps Gideon and Yaro could introduce (an optional) pay-per-view model, so that bloggers could pay to get access to module(s) which they really need.

The videos in the first module is intended for newbies. Nevertheless, it has reinforced my knowledge and I am also glad to learn bits and pieces of new facts (for me) from the basic videos. Beyond this, I cannot give further testimony. What I can guarantee is that Yaro has great knowledge and experience in teaching about blogging and that the quality of the videos and audios are superb, PDF transcripts are also provided (especially for those who are not used to the Australian accent).

Unfortunately, $77 per month for 6 months is not something I could afford right at this moment. Therefore I am planning to discontinue my subscription when my 2 weeks trial ends. I have to thank Gideon Shalwick, Yaro Starak and Darren Rowse for making this possible.

If you wish to see for yourself the quality of the videos, do follow the link below. 10 videos from the first module is provided for preview, free of charge. Don't forget to claim your free copy of "The Roadmap To Become A Blogger" too!

Become A Blogger Coaching Course

What do you think about this blogging course? Have you joined any blogging/online coaching course before? Which course would that be? Feel free to share your experience and advices with us.

Easy AdSense for Domains Setup with Name.com

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:38:00 +0000

If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, you will no doubt know that my favorite domain registrar is Name.com. I have written a post explaining why Name.com is my number one choice when it comes to domain registration.

This is not the first time I have written about Name.com positively and I am quite certain it would be the last time either. Unfortunately it does not offer any affiliate program opportunity at this moment, perhaps I should pitch the idea to the people behind it.

OK, back to the topic of this post. Just recently, a new feature has been added to Name.com's DNS Management tool (see screen shot).

To serve advertisements on your domains using AdSense for Domains, you have to make changes to your domain name's DNS settings. With Name.com it is easier to make those changes compared to other domain registrars. Just press the button "AdSense for Domains" shown above (pointed by the red arrow), then put in your unique AdSense for Domains publisher ID and you are done.

Compare this with the (multi-steps) settings required with other domain registrars:
Domain Setup Guide (link to Google AdSense Help Centre)

Too bad the domain setup guide does not include Name.com. Perhaps it is so easy that the Google AdSense team think it is not necessary to include domain setup help for Name.com domains? Who knows?

How to Solve Ads Theme Blogger Template Blackout

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:24:00 +0000

Today as I was checking my blog statistics, I was shocked when I see a blackout (literally) across the main content area of my blog. The screen shot below show how the blackout looked like.

Notice how my pictures and ads were showing fine, even the PPC advertising links served by InfoLinks were visible against the pitch black background. At first I panicked, I suspected that the blackout is due to the photobucket account hosting the images of the Ads Theme Blogger Template has run out of bandwidth. However I don't really have time to weed out the problem by going through hundreds of lines of code, and I considered changing to another theme, especially if this problem is going to last over a long period.

Fortunately though, I found the solution from the place where I downloaded this theme - eBlog Templates. This template has apparently been downloaded over 17,000 times, no wonder the bandwidth runs out. There were already about 10 comments complaining about Ads Theme Blogger Template not functioning. Anyway the good people at the URL above has shared the following solution (credit goes to funny guy and ramaraobobby mostly).

1. Search for the following code in your template codes (Dashboard -> Layout -> Edit HTML):
.contentwrapper{width:920px; margin:0 auto; margin-bottom:5px; background:#0000 url(http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/eblogtemplates/adstheme/sbbg.gif) repeat-y right}
2. Upload the sbbg.gif file to your own photobucket account or other free file hosts.
3. Replace the URL of the file:
.contentwrapper{width:920px; margin:0 auto; margin-bottom:5px; background:#FFFFFF url(http://www.free-file-host.com/your_account/sbbg.gif) repeat-y right}

That's all the steps. Save your template once you have replaced the original URL with your own. Your Ads Theme Blogger Template should be functioning perfectly again. No more Ads Theme Blogger Template Problem.

Before I fixed my theme, I googled for some blogger templates just in case the Ads Theme blackout is beyond (quick) repair. Here are some posts which showcase the best blogger themes there are, I shall not waste my efforts, so I will share the posts with you if you need some good blogger templates.

70 Fresh And Modern Blogger Templates
Roundup Of Best Blogger Templates
120 Best Free Blogger Templates Around
125 More Excellent Blogger Templates (The Best Yet!)

There are indeed many recurring themes among the four blog posts, those are certainly themes which are proven without doubt to be the best blogger theme there is. Pick whichever ones you like, they are all free.

P.S. I know it's weird, how could we access the sbbg.gif file if the photobucket account has run out of bandwidth? And how do we subsequently mirror it? It does not make absolute sense but I would not be digging deeper into how photobucket works and its bandwidth restrictions. Anyway photobucket is an absolutely great service, I applaud them for offering optional free service! You should check them out if you need a free photo or image hosting service.

Introducing PayPerPost v4

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:08:00 +0000

PayPerPost has largely dropped out of favor (and sight too!) since slightly more than a year ago. It has turned from a major paid blogging platform (the first one too if I am not mistaken) to a mass links buying marketplace full of rampant spams, questionable links and unethical posts, not to mention the high PR requirements but extremely low payment offers by advertisers. Even its parent company IZEA was promoting SocialSpark (another paid opportunity platform for bloggers and advertisers) aggresively and left PayPerPost to rot.

I am aware that certain bloggers (and advertisers perhaps) were still making good money and having fun with PPP for the previous 1 year but I believe these people are the minority. Prior to PPP v4.0, many bloggers could only earn the initial $20.00 post opportunity from PPP and they received no further opportunity, maybe due to a lack of good pageranks or international geo-targeting opportunity. Furthermore, bloggers are unable to add additonal blogs as long as they have not written 10 paid posts on the first blog they added to the system. This restriction paralyses many bloggers, who may have other blogs with high pageranks. Personally I am more than willing to return $20.00 to PPP provided that I could add other blogs with good PR so that I am eligible for new paying opportunities. Unfortunately, in the end bloggers who were receiving opportunity were also discouraged when they are only offered $5.00 to write a post on their PR2-4 sites.

However, it seems IZEA is now pushing PPP again with this new revamped PayPerPost v4.0. I wonder why? Is the market in SocialSpark slowing down? I am not one to dig too deep into a company's strategy and come up with all sorts of conspiracy theories. Therefore, let's just enjoy the improvements. Briefly, these are the features of PPP v4.0 (mainly for bloggers):

bloggers could set their per word rate, like $0.05 per word, a 200 word post would earn you $10.
bloggers could set their per link rate, if each link is set at $3.00, advertisers requiring 2 links would have to pay you $6.00 in addition to the per word costs of the post.
bloggers could choose whether to allow dofollow or nofollow links only or both. Unfortunately there is no way to set different cost for dofollow and nofollow links.
bloggers could add as many blogs as they want, these blogs do not need approval by PPP admins, as long as advertisers would like to advertise on your blog, you're all set!

Being a blogger who values his own time and blog space and not wanting to degrade the perceived value of a freelance writer/blogger, I have decided to raise the costs of advertising when I add this blog to the PPP 4.0 system.

My price per word is $0.05.
My price per link is $.500.
Conservatively, a 200 word blog post and one link would cost an advertiser $15.00.

I doubt I would get any advertiser anyway on this blog, it lacks updates and critical news. If there is miracle though, I will certainly share the good news here.

Lastly I would like to applause IZEA for coming up with these improvements. I like your innovations but would be curious to see how well PPP v4.0 performs once it runs under full steam.

Click here for PayPerPost v4.0 alpha
PayPerPost v4.0 alpha FAQ (for advertisers and bloggers)

If you have previously registered with SocialSpark, you can use the same login to access PPP v4.0. I tried the old PPP login, but it was not working.

What do you think about PPP v4.0 and the improvements? What are improvements or additions do you think are necessary? Would PPP v4.0 return to its glory days and make advertisers and bloggers alike happy? Has anyone managed to make money from PPP v4.0? Share your thoughts with us please.

Mystery of GoDaddy Domain Forced Credit Card Payment Solved

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:22:00 +0000

Did I mention having problem with the payment system of GoDaddy domain registrar? I have paid for domains using PayPal many times before.

Then the last time I tried to take advantage of its mystery 199DOMAIN coupon which allows us to register a new dot com or dot net at a super low price of $1.99, the only payment option available is credit card.

After that incident, I again renewed my expiring domains with GoDaddy using PayPal. All these made me quite confused but I thought the above incident may just be a one-off incident or a temporary glitch which would be fixed as soon as the GoDaddy found out about it.

Today I decided to google and see if there are any new coupon codes which I could use and I found this page:

Godaddy Coupons For June 2009

The site is called Godaddy Coupon Codes which I suppose will feature new coupon codes every month. From the post above, I found this:

199DOMAIN still active, just purchased 1 Domain Name. It works only if you pay with credit cards not paypal

Now apparently I am not the only one faced with the forced credit card payment problem, I guess the payment option available is set depending on the coupon code that customers use.

I don't know why GoDaddy does this but perhaps they have a monthly credit card charges target to achieve, possibly if they have a large enough volume, the amount of service charges billed by the credit card merchants would be reduced for them. This is just a wild guess, obviously I would humbly take any lessons about this matter from anyone with better knowledge and experiences.

I find it a little disturbing that this issue is not addressed by GoDaddy in its FAQ or knowledge base, or perhaps it was highlighted but it is certainly not easy to find from its site.

The GoDaddy site seems overcrowded, the navigations are confusing and overall it is not user-friendly at all. Important information is not easy to be found, there seems to be too much offers and promotions flying all over the whole site, don't you think? Am I the only one who feel this way? What is your opinion? Don't you think other domain registrars' interfaces are more neat and organized?

Bing inherits legacy to challenge Google

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:31:00 +0000

It is official now, bing Beta was fully launched on 1st June 2009. It is a new web search engine owned by Microsoft Corporation.

It is no secret that Microsoft would like to have a portion of the search engine market and revenue which is currently dominated mainly by Google. The closest competitor to Google is Yahoo while Microsoft's search engine has been ranked the third most popular search engine for a good few years now.

Microsoft sure has a peculiar way to do things. If we were to count precisely, Bing would have been Microsoft's 4th generation search engine, which are preceded by MSN Search (1998-2006), Windows Live Search (2006-2007) and Live Search (2007-2009).

I am keen to believe that continuity is rather important for any web services and virtual real estate to grow and be successful. Thus, I think Microsoft should tinker less with the name of its search engine and just concentrate on improving its search results and related services. I suppose that they are indeed heading in the direction I am indicating, for it seems the main reason Bing is launched and separated from its Live products and services is so that Microsoft's search services would be more independent, efficient and popular among web users.

Regardless of the lack of continuity or of a long-term vision (in the past), it would be naive to write off the potential of Bing at this moment. Backed by Microsoft's vast resources, it may be able to gain a larger portion of the search engine market than its predecessors. It is also important to note that Bing incorporates many new features and improvements, not just a simple name change.

Some interesting sites or pages related to Bing for you to explore:

Google / Bing Comparison
Bing (search engine) at Wikipedia

Try out Bing for yourself. It remains to be seen what Bing could do to improve web users' experience online and what effect it would bring to the search engine services market in general. What do you think about Bing?

Upcoming Posts

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Sun, 17 May 2009 19:46:00 +0000

This is a short update on upcoming posts to expect from me. I think they will be quite interesting.

I finally got around to reducing my time spent procrastinating and actually do something useful and that includes updating this blog.

What are those things which I have done lately and what topics will I be writing about?

I have ordered a Butterfly Marketing 2.0 Home Study Package created by Mike Filsaime (worth $1997!). I was tempted with a free package of the current top 3 most wanted internet marketing products. I only need to pay for shipping and handling charges of $39.95 ($29.95 if it is to be delivered within US). Another Malaysian internet marketer has got his hands on the package, I was encouraged by that and do not want to lose out either. I will most probably do a review on the package but I think the post will only be available in about 2 months' time (it is a huge package).
I am signing up for blogs.mu service. It is a blogging platform which allows multiple separate blogs to be set up under 1 account. I think it would be suitable for individuals who want to publish multiple blogs or for a group of bloggers forming a blogging community or network. I will be trying it out with the latter aim in mind. Thus expect a post about this service, probably in 2-3 weeks' time latest. Thanks to Darren Rowse aka Problogger for highlighting blogs.mu.
Again, another great offer is found at Problogger. Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick's Become a Blogger course is available at the all time low price of $1. The course usually costs $77 but Problogger's readers could sign up for a 2 weeks trial at that special price. This is indeed a rare opportunity and I am taking up the offer. You could wait for my review perhaps early next month or you could grab a place yourself.
I have started using Twitter and found it to be more useful than I initially thought. There are even people who predict that Twitter could eventually replace Google. There are some good posts about Twitter and how to use it optimally. There are also additional Twitter services sites and softwares available. I will be writing about these and bring to you a few hot Twitter-related information products to help you Tweet and socialize better with it.
By the way, do you remember my post about Adsense for Domains? I have managed to set everything up to display Google advertisements on one of my empty (no content on it) domains. I will let you know if and when I make some money from it, hopefully real soon.

Do not miss out these upcoming posts. To avoid missing them, do subscribe to my RSS feeds through RSS readers of your choice or by email. I will also be tweeting these upcoming posts through my Twitter account. Do add me on Twitter if you have not already.

Cheap $2.19 dot COM domain at GoDaddy

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:55:00 +0000

Have not updated for quite some time. To make up for that, I'm offering you a goody here before the start of a new month. Read on if you are interested to register a .org, .net or even .com domain at a low price of $2.19...

GoDaddy is famed for offering ridiculously cheap new domain registrations, it is probably part of its genius marketing strategy, where it sells an item for cheap but try to push for the sales of other products simultaneously. Well, I think the strategy is certainly working (otherwise why do they keep offering it?) and I am not one to complain about such a lucrative offer. The cheap domain registration is offered as a redeemable coupon code discount, the coupon code is...:

199DOMAIN

Be sure to memorize this coupon code, this offer is sort of recurring every 1-2 month(s), it will be something that you will encounter quite often in your life as a webmaster or website owner. Unfortunately for every GoDaddy account, you could only register one domain each time this coupon code offer is (re)opened.

Don't miss this opportunity, whoever you may be, webmaster, website owner, internet marketer or just a casual web consumer. You can possibly register your first domain at a ridiculously cheap price, or get a secondary domain which you have been eyeing for quite some time, or you can buy a keyword rich domain and build a niche website to earn passive income or flip it, or you can simply register a domain and flip it at webmaster community sites or forums like DigitalPoint or SitePoint for quick profit. If you own a mailing list or a membership site related to virtual estate such as web domain, you can make your subscribers happy by sharing this coupon code and news with them. The possibility is indeed limited only by your imagination.

Follow my lead and say this: Thank you GoDaddy!

Lastly, as usual, I tried to pay for a new .net domain through PayPal but unfortunately I am not able to select that payment option, I am only left with payment by check or credit card options. I have insider news that the current promotion will (most probably) end on 1st of May, hence I chose to pay with credit card. I wonder if this is a temporary glitch with GoDaddy's system or have they permanently restricted payment options to only check and credit card? The latter seems improbable, they will definitely lose quite a large sales volume if that is true. I will open a support ticket at GoDaddy and keep you informed. In the meantime, let me know if you are successful in paying with PayPal.

Have fun and Happy Labours' Day!

Update (07/05/2009):
I did not contact GoDaddy support regarding the payment options but I have since renewed a domain there and payment by PayPal is absolutely fine and I encounter no problem whatsoever. So, I'll pin the problem down to my own error or a glitch in GoDaddy (their logging in and out mechanism is not very convincing to me personally).

April 2009 OIOpublisher Coupon Code

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:23:00 +0000

Do you still remember about OIOpublisher, which I mentioned last January?

I will not be repeating what I said in that post, so if you have no idea what the heck this thing is and you are curious or interested to find out, kindly refer to the post linked above (click on the OIOpublisher hyperlink).

I still maintain that OIOpublisher is one of the most advanced WordPress plugins I have ever used and it is also in my opinion the best personal ad management platform. Regretfully though, my latter opinion does not really count for much because honestly, I have not used many personal ad management scripts, there are some free ones which I intend to try out soon, will let you know if OIOpublisher's position as the best IMHO is affected in any way after I try using other scripts.

Anyway, OIOpublisher team always comes up with new innovations, albeit a little slowly but having been with them for about 9 months, I can say for sure that there will definitely be some new features added every quarter year, either improvements to the script itself or changes to its affiliate program.

The team is very ambitious too, last I heard, they are planning to integrate CPC/CPM ad management into OIOpublisher (with an independent advertising network working parallel with this feature), a separate script module able to run independently off WordPress, etc. Well, those are the features to look forward to as addition to OIOpublisher's current features such as ad management, sales management of ads, text links, reviews and other products. Mind you, for $47, you are guaranteed of a lifetime updates of this wonderful software, there are frequent updates and improvements and not a single cent more expensive.

For an April special savings of $8 off the $47 pricetag, please scroll to the bottom of this post to get the coupon code.

I really like this software more and more but unfortunately my earnings using this plugin is still pretty low, therefore I would not boast further to encourage you to buy it. Just know that the low earnings is due to my blogs low exposure and popularity, not because OIOpublisher cannot handle the sales.

Anyway, I suppose I will be bringing another post about this software to you in May with a new coupon code again. In the coming post, I will suggest further improvements and new features which the OIOpublisher team can consider using.

For April special savings of $8 off the $47 pricetag, please use the coupon code
"SPRING-REBATE" when you purchase OIOpublisher.

Rapid Blog by Name.com

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:35:00 +0000

Hello, I am introducing a new service from my favorite domain registrar to you - Rapid Blog.
First of all, this is not a paid post and there are no affiliate links, although I sure would like to be paid by Name.com if I managed to refer a few customers to them.

Name.com is my favorite domain registrar, there are many reasons for that. I am subscribed to their newsletter. I received a newsletter a few days back and was informed about a new service called Rapid Blog. Apparently this service includes a fully configured (setup) WordPress blog and a domain name at an affordable price. In other words, you are buying blog hosting from them and there is nothing to worry about, no cPanel, no WHM, no changing nameservers, no installing add-on domains, etc. You just worry about your blog layout and content while let the experts at Name.com handle the technical stuffs.

Rapid Blog at a glance
Pricing
One of the attractive features of this service is its budget blog hosting price. Its monthly plan costs $3.99/month while the annual plan would only cost $1.99/month.

What do I think about Rapid Blog?
Coming from Name.com, I have no doubt that their service will be reliable. This service is most suitable for internet users and companies that wish to try out blogging without spending too much while they take their first blogging steps.

Name.com is not the first to offer WordPress hosting service, I am sure the demand for such services will only increase in the coming years as blogging become more and more popular.

Regarding the price, its $3.99/month plan is not the cheapest in the industry, at that price I could easily get an unlimited domains hosting with 50GB monthly bandwidth, not just a single WordPress installation. However, the annual $1.99/month plan is about the lowest you could get from any of the major reputable companies. I highly recommend to pick up this package, it will only cost about $25/year.

Lastly, here are some of my concerns. This service will probably not include cPanel, what about FTP accounts, will that be supported and allowed? Is there a possibility that users would be able to use scripts other than WordPress, upon request or is this restricted to WordPress only? Also, the permissible bandwidth and diskspace for this service is vague as defined in its FAQ, hence bloggers with some decent traffic will probably avoid this service.

What do you think? Would you rather go for regular web hosting or Rapid Blog? Why?

Adsense for Domains

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:10:00 +0000

Just received a heads up from Rohaizad.com regarding Adsense for Domains is now open for registration for Malaysian publishers.

I have more than 5 domains lying around, not earning me any money and is certainly a liability when the time comes to renew their registrations.

As you may have already heard, some internet marketers make money online through domain parking. In simple terms, it means that they allow some domain parking companies to serve advertisements on their domains, revenue from the advertisements is shared between the domain parking companies and the domain owner (also known as the advertisement publisher).

It may sound easy to make money this way, but usually the domain parking companies will only accept publishers who have 100 or more good keyword domains into their programs. I personally feel that this policy is ridiculous.

Now, through Adsense for Domains, any domain owner can make money from their unused domains by parking them under Google Adsense program. The steps are pretty simple too, log in into your Adsense account, select Adsense Setup tab, then select Adsense for Domains link, accept the agreement, park your domains and start checking for your earnings.

Unfortunately, not all domains are suitable to park and earn money from, the domains should have good keywords that are frequently searched for and already have some organic traffic to them. Once you have parked your domain with domain parking companies including Google, you are not allowed to promote the domains further or drawing unnatural visits to them as that would influence your earnings from the advertisements served.

I would probably discuss about what domains are suitable for domain parking, what are the usual domain parking companies and what are the rules to observe if you wish to earn money from domain parking if there is enough interest in this topics.

For now, I have tried to use Adsense for Domains with 1 of my domains which receive satisfactory organic traffic and type in traffic daily. I shall keep you posted about my earnings (hopefully at least a few cents per day).

Do you have any parked domains? Are you making good money from them? Would you try Adsense for Domains?

NeoBux - Finally A Quick Paying PTC Site?

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 13:35:00 +0000

Would like to bring you a good news. I just got paid last night by NeoBux, a Paid To Click (PTC) site with good reputation.

http://www.neobux.com

The amount I got paid is pathetic, to be really honest and accurate - $1.98, the original amount was $2.02 but $0.04 was deducted as payment fee or something, whatever.

I have been using this PTC site since October 2008, the total amount I have earned is $3.02 but some money was lost and unaccounted for because I become an inactive member for more than 30 days and my account was suspended around November or so.

Just for your information, my earning is so low because I have zero referral. Everybody knows that to make decent money from PTC sites, you have to have at least a few hardworking referrals. I have been told by friend with good intention that I am never going to be rich using and promoting PTC and other programmes with MLM commission schemes, which I totally agree.

I did not expect to be rich and this probably explains why I have zero referral after 5 months. The main reason why I keep on clicking days after day is partly just for fun and to see if any of these PTC sites actually pay. Besides, I don't wish to refer anyone until I am sure the service actually pays its members.

Just early this year, I have heard some good things about NeoBux mainly in MyLot discusssion which I have just joined. You would be surprised to hear almost complete positive reviews regarding this service, I can finally see why after renting referrals from them, receiving payment from them and visiting their forum, which was my first time in my 5 months with them.

The referral that you rent from NeoBux are mostly active members, as inactive users would lose their money in their account, I think this is a good policy by NeoBux, there is no point having members who don't click in PTC sites. The referrals are delivered immediately, you can profit from their activities within 24 hours, the same with its payout, the minimum payout is only $2 and is processed immediately. To compare, I have heard of Bux.to users who are still waiting for their payments even after 6 months!

I have said what I wanted to say regarding NeoBux. If anyone asks me if there is a good PTC site to join, both my hands and legs are up for NeoBux. As I have mentioned, I still maintain that you would not get rich through PTC, even if you are using several sites as reliable as PTC but you can most definitely make decent money from it - I saw someone in NeoBux forum with proof of his latest $600 payment. Again, you reap what you sow, the harder you work at promoting it, you will get higher earnings, fair and square.

Lastly, although I don't expect to get rich through PTC, I certainly could use some help to make more pocket money, especially by doing something as simple as clicking and browsing through certain webpages. If you appreciate me sharing this piece of news about NeoBux with you and would want to make your time online a little more worthwhile by earning some pocket change, do sign up with NeoBux as my referral (click on the button below will do). Thank you and may you earn some decent money with NeoBux!

Get Free Hosting from DreamHost

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:20:00 +0000

See the pun above? DreamHost is now offering free hosting with its beta DreamHost Apps. To be more accurate, it is not quite the same as your idea of usual free hosting, though.

DreamHost Apps is a free program for now. The great thing is that it will be free forever, for people who are lucky enough to sign up before they decide to close registration for free accounts. Previously, only about 100 or so people managed to get in and DreamHost has been getting massive number of requests to offer more free accounts since. I think they were busy checking their servers to make sure they could handle more users ... or not. Regardless what the people in DreamHost were doing between the first registration phase and the second, the good news is that now there are 10,000 new registrations allowed - each registered user allowed to send out 2 invitation codes to register for DreamHost Apps, indicating that they are prepared to support at least 30,000 new users.

DreamHost said that DreamHost Apps will probably cost about $50 annually once it is out of beta. I personally think this is a marketing strategy for them to offer massive budget hostings in the future. Hosting with no extra features required, just the basic popular apps and affordable to everyone.
So how does this free hosting differs from other usual free hosting?
Firstly, as its name goes, DreamHost Apps host your web applications for you. It is a weird move though, seems like they want to further limit the potential of shared web hosting, where only the most popular and safe applications and scripts are supported, even normal HTML webpages are unlikely to be natively supported (I am sure it can be done, but that's not the intention of DreamHost Apps, is it?).

For now, the supported apps are as follow. More applications will be added soon, supposedly.

WordPress - wordpress.org
Drupal - drupal.org
ZenPhoto www.zenphoto.org
phpBB - www.phpbb.com
MediaWiki - www.mediawiki.org
Google Apps and GMail

You have 3 domain options with your DreamHost Apps account, you can use subdomain provided by DreamHost, use your own registered domain or register new domains with DreamHost. For now, there seems to be no limit on the amount of domains allowed to be used with DreamHost Apps and the resources available (bandwidth and disk space) are not explicitly defined, which I would read as unmetered until further notice.

I think this is a great offer. You could have your own blog running forever, without any cost at all, or if you would like to have your own dot com, the fee is only about $11 yearly. If you are a business owner and would relish some web presence, I suggest you invest the amount above to register a domain and start getting attentions and attracting potential customers from the Internet today. If you need advise on setting up a proper website with DreamHost Apps, I am available for consultation, just get in touch with me.

Lastly, do not be too excited about the free offer, though. There are some limitations, there will probably be no FTP access, SSH access, email and technical support unless you sign up for the paid plans. That is OK for me, I have no complaints for free stuff, do you? Now if you would like to have a DreamHost Apps account, do negotiate with El Diablo below (at present, there are still over 9000 accounts up for grabs).

http://www.dreamhostapps.com/
(Well, did I not mention that DreamHost is run by some mad entrepreneurs with some good sense of humour?)

Buy OIOpublisher Cheap Until End of January 2009

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:27:00 +0000

OIOpublisher is among the most useful plugins I have ever used with WordPress. It is not a free plugin though, it is a retail plugin designed to help one to manage advertisers, display advertisements, sell anything one could possibly think of, accept payments and make money.

If you prefer an official definition from the creator, here it is:

What is OIOpublisher?

OIOpublisher is an ad platform with a focus on performance, control and ease of use. Serve advertising on your blog or website and keep 100% of the revenue you bring in.

Let's see the full features list of OIOpublisher.

What OIO can offer you
* OIO can be used as a standalone platform, or as a Wordpress plugin
* sell text ads, banner ads, in-content ads and paid reviews
* sell custom items; from custom ads to digital downloads
* entirely automated; purchases and epxirations all handled automatically
* your own ad server; javascript output lets you display ads on any website
* break ads into zones; display ads easily over multiple sites
* click and impression tracking; weekly ad reports emailed to advertisers
* no empty ad slots; show your own default ads until slots are purchased
* ad status management; approve / reject / expire / renew / validate ads
* setup your own affiliate program; reward people for selling your ads
* easily extend functionality; modules let developers go further
* integrated marketplace; let us help you advertise your ads
(OIO here refers to the plugin itself, OIOpublisher and the OIO forums and marketplace)

There are many more features that are being developed with the ad platform right now such as multiple ad durations support, ad coupon codes capability and CPA / CPC pricing options. As a buyer, you are entitled to upgrade for life for all new versions of OIOpublisher. I think in the next few updates, OIOpublisher will emerge as a complete ad platform, you don't need to depend on any advertising networks anymore, you can run your own CPC campaigns.

Right now, the ad platform can be run independently of WordPress, it just need to be used on a web server supporting PHP and MySQL. I can even install it on any WordPress, it will be my own personal ad platform/server, allowing me to sell ads on my blog here at Blogger and accept ad payments on my behalf, even while I am sleeping!

The marketplace is also very unique. Any site running OIOpublisher will be listed in the marketplace, where daily impressions, CTR and other information about the site will be available. You can select any sites under a particular niche/category with suitable traffic for you to purchase your ad space from.

The usual price of OIOpublisher is $47. It is a one time-fee, you can use it on as many domains as you wished and you get all future updates of OIOpublisher for free.

Now you can get it for only $25 - this special price is only valid until end of January 2009. Click on the button below to purchase and use the coupon code Jan90-25.

Homepages Friends Payment Proof

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 08:59:00 +0000

I promised to show you Homepages Friends payment proof. So here it is, without further ado. Click on the image to enlarge.

Please do not copy my screen shot, the reason why I have put a watermark there. If you want to convince your readers about Homepages Friends, you can link them here or if you do not want to do that, then please get your own screen shot.

If you are new here and have no idea what Homepages Friends is, please refer to my previous posts:
Homepages Friends Redesigned Account Control Panel
Earn money as you search

To join Homepages Friends now and start earning money just by searching and purchasing merchandise online as usual, click on the button below:

Happy Money Making Online. May the God of Prosperity grant us more wealth this Ox year! However, don't forget your health too, it is the most precious wealth. Drive safe.
Happy Chinese New Year 2009.

Demonoid Open For Registration

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:12:00 +0000

Demonoid.com is now open for registration but I have news that it will only be open for a day.

So you better hurry up if you wish to join one of the best "torrent" distribution and tracking sites which is still free.

Usually Demonoid.com is a closed membership site, with its own private torrent trackers. Membership registration will be open periodically throughout the year as its server resources allow. The only other way to join as a member when the public registration is closed is through existing members' invitations. Take note though, nobody is supposed to charge a fee to send out invitations, this is against the rules of Demonoid.

Enjoy yourself registering and downloading all the quality and hard to find torrents there.

For bloggers who do not download much torrents, membership at Demonoid is akin to being a member of 9rules blogging network, there's certain privilege and honour not found elsewhere.

Thank Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. For Cheaper Web Hosting

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:29:00 +0000

No, seriously. Since this is my second post regarding a certain web host giving some crazy deals at anytime they fancy, I have to admit that they are really crazy. See for yourself...

This web host is DreamHost. Sign up for two-year hosting plan, use promotional code "4444", you are entitled to four years of hosting for just $4.44 per month!

I am not sure whether you have to pay $4.44 x 48 months or $4.44 x 24 months to get the four year hosting because I am a customer from a region which is less trustworthy regardless of the fact that I could pay with USD all the same.

This promotion will almost definitely work for people residing in US. Unfortunately, I can confirm that the promo code does not work for people in Russia, Malaysia and India (and who knows elsewhere?). If you are even slightly tempted by this interesting promo and feel offended to be left out, please make your feelings known by commenting below.

I am convinced that DreamHost always offers crazy deals, this very point has been echoed by them publicly. I might have missed out the New Year sales as well as this, but if you do your part and made your opinions known, I hope somewhere in the future my post will get noticed and they will make an effort to satisfy potential customers from other regions too.

In brief, thank Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. for cheap web hosting.

"Congratulations, President Obama. I wish you can make a difference in the world, for the better."

Entrecard Do You Hear Me?

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:51:00 +0000

Today I received an email from Entrecard, informing that there are some new features and events coming up.

If you are an Entrecard user, you should have received the email too. Seems like they are eager to break the news to us. However, the events don't really look all that interesting to me. No offence but who wants to go on a dropping spree when they can surf the web and interact socially at Facebook? Echo your approval of this in the comment below if you agree with me on this.

Unfortunately I won't be sharing the news from the email with you here, you may read it on Entrecard blog, it is the latest post. By the way, at the end of the email, there are these wordings,

Do you like the new features?
If you like the new forums and the manual approval feature, let us know! We read and listen to all blog posts written about Entrecard, and writing a post about us and telling us what you think is a great way to show your support!

Right, it was exactly the same size, I just copy and pasted from the email. There I revealed some of the new features announced in the email. Anyway, that's not my point. I seriously wonder whether the staff at Entrecard really listen read and listen to all our blog posts about Entrecard.

Hence the experiment that is this post.

I previously sent an email dated 13 January 2009 to their support staff but until today, has not received a reply yet, not even an acknowledgement of receipt or an excuse saying they are busy and would keep my email in view, no, none of that. Perhaps they are just too busy reading our blog posts and have no time for email support?

I think I will save both our time if I just ask the question here. The Entrecard staff may even reply here by commenting, hey it is much quicker than replying to an email, right?

The question is, "Would you mind providing me with a list of Malaysian Entrecard users, for easier drops and other activities?"

Or perhaps you could respond to my request, can you bring back the features to list all Entrecard users according to their geological position? I could compile the list of Malaysian Entrecard users myself if this feature is enabled, I don't really fancy troubling the support staff.

Without this search feature, it is akin to searching for certain Entrecard sites with specific niches, just that we don't have the sites all under different categories, so users have to wade through the master list by themselves, visit those sites one by one, and still could not be certain about the niches of some sites or totally don't find what they are looking for.

I have written too much now, time to retire and rest. I have just installed the Entrecard toolbar, look pretty neat to me at this moment. Will certainly help for card dropping, card advertising, bookmarking your favorite sites and changing between several linked Entrecard profiles. But more about the toolbar later, in another post.

Hope to have an Entrecard staff notice this post.

Feedburner Accounts To Be Transferred To Google

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 15:46:00 +0000

I have not logged into my Feedburner account for a few days now. Today, when I log into it, guess what I saw?

Can you read the small print? It says, "Hey! We are moving FeedBurner accounts to Google. Learn more or Move your account now."

That statement seems to mean that Google is shutting FeedBurner down. However, that is not entirely true, your readers can still each your via your FeedBurner feed URL, such as http://feeds.feedburner.com/BobbytBloggingToAT. Google intends to support the FeedBurner feed redirection URL for as long as possible (it will be redirected to a feed hosted by Google server when your account is transferred there), but it is my view that the service will eventually be dropped.

You can click on learn more to read about the imminent changes regarding the move or you can move your account right away. To save your time, let me innumerate a few key points which average FeedBurner users like you and me are supposed to know about the move:

The move is primarily intended to improve the AdSense platform. Google will try to improve on FeedBurner's technologies and address its shortcomings during the move and integration of the two platforms.
In the future, all FeedBurner will only be a virtual entity, all its data will reside on Google's network of servers, like all its *important* assets.
You most probably need to move your account by February 28, 2009.
You will not lose any subscribers during the transition process. All feeds.feedburner.com URLs will redirect your readers to feeds hosted by Google. Your readers will continue to receive your feeds.
There are better algorithms at Google to more accurately calculate feed subscribers and reach than the algorithms used at FeedBurner.com
So far, no concrete new features will be available at feedburner.google.com.
The Site Stats (visitors) and FeedBurner Networks will be permanently retired.
You need a Google ID to manage your feeds at the new platform (get Gmail now).

Well, so you got some things to do after reading this post. It's weird though, why don't they do autocrated and automated move and only inform users after that? Probably it's because they just want the users to sign for a new Google ID, so as to standardize all users across the network.

Learn more about the move here.

A step-by-step tutorial on how to move your FeedBurner account, anyone?

P.S. There was a major Google slowdown and breakdown about 4PM GMT today, I wonder if it is connected with Google allocating space and resources for FeedBurner integration. Any insiders can confirm this far-fetched guess? More importantly, did you notice the slowdown?

What Real Geeks Do

noreply@blogger.com (BobbyT) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:48:00 +0000

LOL, this video is interesting but unfortunately too short. Is it real or is it fake? You decide.

Anyway, just to be on the safe side, if your company happens to have a large screen or lighting system on the building, you'd better increase your security. Better to be safe than sorry ;)