Tuesday, June 5, 2007
A remarkable new way to earn extra money from our blog by adding updated news feed provided by the good people over at The News Room. It is truly a win win situation for everyone involved. All news feed are fully licensed from established and renowned content providers such as Associated Press and Reuters.

It works out even better as us bloggers can pick and choose the news which are relevant to our blog topic and this in turn will enhance our blog quality as well. Here are the payout rates for your perusal:


CPM When Viewed on Your Site
CPM When Viewed On Referred Site
Video Feed
$4.00
$1.00
Video Story
$3.00
$0.50
Text Story
$1.00
$0.50
Image
$1.00
$0.50

I'm sure you will agree that the payout rate is very lucrative as compared to other earning platforms available today. A blog with high traffic and audience surely can rake in a nice monthly income from this program. Presently I believe that payments are made only via checks on a monthly basis with a minimum amount USD 50.00 accumulated balance. Personally I wish they provide the Paypal payment option or allow us to set the amount we would prefer to be paid. For other earning platforms I am involved in, I've always set the minimum payout rate of USD 100.00 cause the bank charges and fees is high which just doesn't make sense for amount lesser than that.

Getting started is easy by just browsing through your preferred category and choose either to embed or in their own term; mash a video, article or image on your blog. As an example, I decided to feature Jordin Spark video which is perfect for my blog.




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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 06:59 | 0 comments
Friday, May 25, 2007
There was some major feature additions over at PayPerPost yesterday which I feel will further strengthen their market dominance for paid reviews or paid to blog industry. The main new feature called PPP Direct is basically a very simple concept of doing it better than your competitors.

With their strength in the number of registered bloggers, the PPP Direct model is very much like ReviewMe except for the low commission rate which goes to PayPerPost. I believe this is very fair as all the marketing work in sourcing for the advertiser is done by the publisher themselves. So why shouldn't they get the bulk of the fee?

All you have to do is to integrate the new PPP Direct badge unto your blog and if an advertiser is keen to advertise on your blog, all they have to do is click on this badge. Then it goes to a negotiation between the advertiser and yourself. This additional feature of interaction is heaven sent in my opinion. It allows us to lower or increase our asking fee depending on the requirements of the advertisers. For example if the advertisers requested for 300 words or additional links, you can suggest an additional fee for doing that.

At the end of the day, PayPerPost is giving more control to both the advertisers and bloggers with this new awesome feature.



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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 03:08 | 0 comments
Thursday, May 17, 2007
IT managers and administrators face a huge task in getting their network running smoothly. Once that is completed to a satisfactory level, it then boils down to managing it well by reducing downtime to a minimum which is the ultimate goal and then utilizing it to improve the business with timely information.

Fortunately there is a program which make it so much easier called WhatsUpGold. This powerpacked and highly comprehensive network monitoring tool have accrued numerous rave reviews from the industry and rightly so too. One of it's biggest strength lies in the user friendly interface or console which makes navigation a breeze.

The list of features is very impressive indeed. Here are just some of them:
  • Web-based Monitoring through a new Scalable Web framework
  • Workspaces with 100+ Customizable Reports
  • Device Dependency Management
  • System Performance Reports using WMI Counters
  • Performance Monitors & Reports using WMI Counters
  • Application Monitoring Templates for SQL Server & Exchange
  • Custom scripted monitors or actions (VBScript/JavaScript)
  • Web Content Monitoring (HTTPS/HTTP)

This amazing program is perfect for small to medium sized businesses where there is plenty of room for growth as your business needs advances and requirements gets more complicated. Needless to say if your company depends a lot on your network and obtaining crucial information, then you should really check this program out today.

Best of all, you can even take it for a free spin and experience it's multitude of functionalities.

Click Here To See WhatsUp in action - Try a Free Download Now




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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 06:20 | 0 comments
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Bloggers from around the world have been given a great opportunity to earn extra income by posting reviews on our blog via PayPerPost's blog network. This time around though, we stand to win great prizes during their HDTV Tuesdays thanks to Bid4Prizes.com sponsorship. This of course is an extension of their hugely successful 1k Tuesday last month which I was lucky enough to obtain one of the $100 task up for grabs.

Tomorrow, a few lucky posties will be able to take home cool prizes such as a Slingbox, Nintendo Wii, Yamaha Surround Sound System or a Logitech universal remote to take home entertainment to the next level. Unfortunately it will not be as straight forward cause the highly creative people at PayPerPost have decided to hide these special tasks within their many normal tasks. So in order grab one of these highly sought after tasks, posties would have to drill-down into the task details to find out for sure. Posties who successfully obtain these tasks would also earn the money that comes with the it which can be anything from $5 to $100.

On the very last Tuesday of the month, posties stand to walk away with a brand new big screen HDTV as the main prize of this entire campaign. I do wonder if that HDTV's brand emblem will feature PayPerPost as shown in their marketing efforts. I think that would be very cool indeed!



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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 06:34 | 0 comments
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Its hard to come by an online platform that you can participate in contests and win prizes without paying a price in one way or another but that ladies and gentlemen is what whogets.com is all about!

All you have to do is register for free and participate in their unique contest which you stand to win up to $600 worth of interesting prizes ranging from PDAs to printers and mobile phones.

The best part is you can do this without being worried about getting your email spammed or any requirements to purchase anything EVER! Sadly though, only residents of United States may register. Oh how I envy them now!


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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 09:26 | 0 comments
Friday, May 11, 2007
I've been accepted as a member several months ago into this awesome PayPerPost paid blogging service but only got my blog approved back on 22nd of March. Since then there have been no looking back and thus far the amount of tasks and advertisers have surpassed all the other platforms put together.

In this short amount of time, I have generated over USD400 in extra income with USD194 already paid to my Paypal account. I know there are many who are against paid blogging but if you select your tasks which are relevant to your blog, then it surely is complimentary. In this respect personal blogs such as this one would have an advantage so to speak since we can basically write about anything under the sun.

My plans are to use the funds I generate to build other online projects I have in mind which I have so far started 3 that would not have been possible if I never engage myself in the payperpost program.

Besides their amazing system, I think the team behind PayPerPost is extremely dedicated and creative. This can be seen by the way they effectively market themselves and the pride they get from their work.


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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 00:45 | 0 comments
Thursday, May 3, 2007
If you are like me who gets a rush everytime I get a good bargain bidding for auctions, then you will definitely love bid4prizes whereby the lowest unique bid wins!

You could win a brand new Apple iPhone just by registering. It is product which I can't stop drooling over to be honest. Knowing the type of superb quality of Apple products, this is one gadget I could really see myself owning. Yes I am sucker for large screens but who isn't right?

How the lowest unique bid works is basically the winner would be the one and only bidder for the lowest amount. This is really a cool and fun concept. At present there are several available ongoing bids which comprises of items such as notebooks, plasma tvs to believe it or not... a BMW 3 Series!

Just imagine owning the BMW for a fraction of the cost will surely drive you mad no doubt. The great thing about bid4prizes is that even if you do not win the auction, you can still redeem prizes from a large selection of items with your credits earned.



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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 03:47 | 0 comments
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Lately there have been quite a number of web bidding directories mushrooming. It's truly a great concept indeed to pay your way to the top in order to improve your blog or website's pagerank and search engine results.

Since investment is involved, its important to choose bid directories which will give you good return of investment. This can be done easily by observing their Pagerank, Traffic and visibility in the search engines. Once you have done so, you will have to then decide just how much of an investment you are willing to make. Obviously as bidding directories goes, the more you bid, more prominently your blog or site will be seen. If you really have the cash to invest, then you can bid your way to the very first page of the respective directories and get another valuable backlink.



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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 04:44 | 0 comments
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
If you are like me who is online more than 12hours a day, then you must also share my concern about data security and integrity. I used to save all my important data on a 2nd hard-disk but unfortunately it died on me last month and in the process lost all my travel pictures. Since then I've been very careful in ensuring this does not happen again.

Besides that, protecting against malware and hacks is another priority but this is where I find myself in the dark since its constantly evolving. Luckily there are many softwares in the market that does this task on our behalf such as www.securezip.com where they specializes in data security. With a tagline of "SecureZIP - The next generation of ZIP" makes it sound like a new generation of external hard-drive but infact what it does is protecting your private and important data.

Other than protecting stored data, SecureZIP also integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook to automatically encrypt, digitally sign, and zip email messages and attachments. If you are keen, you'll be glad to know that they are now running a promotion for a limited time free download of their remarkable software which you can sign-up for on their site.



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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 07:14 | 0 comments
Friday, April 20, 2007
Surfing the web can be daunting these days by having to filter through millions upon millions of sites. At times what we really need is a platform whereby we can obtain all the latest updates and articles from our favorite sites without having to go through them one by one. We can manage that and much more at BookmarkAll.com anywhere we may be with internet access of course.

One of the main feature I love is being able to use their Bookmark and RSS features and group them by topic for convenient reading. As mentioned on their site, this would be perfect for students who are researching a particular topic as they can organize all the info in an orderly manner which ultimately saves precious time. Organizing your bookmark is easy and you can even customize it a little to your liking as can be seen from the screen shot here:



A key security feature is more towards personal usage for example lets say in our office. We can still have access to all our favorites without the need to traditionally bookmark it on our office computer where privacy is concern and with easy browser integration nowadays to online bookmarks, this truly is heaven sent.

As the saying goes, more heads are better than one and this holds true here as well. We can browse other member's bookmark within the same categories of our interest to explore sites which might have eluded us. This in return also means that we can do the same and share our bookmarks with others. Check out this sample bookmark topic on where to find RSS feeds or the screenshot below highlighting News feed.




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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 02:06 | 0 comments
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
This awards is more open than others as they are categorized by industries and open to websites. The 2007 WebAwards is conducted each year by the Web Marketing Association which speaks a lot for its credibility and reputation.

I'm very keen to submit my gaming blog for the Best Gaming Site category although I'm unsure whether blogs will be accepted since there is a Blog specific category. Nevertheless, I'm sure the top notch sites will be nominated and that would make it tough for majority of blogs to do well in my opinion. Awards are always good to not only boost traffic and reputation but also satisfying the ego in all of us in knowing we stack up against the very best.

One area I find very useful is the people behind will be providing a detailed analysis on how each industry compares to others in the competition and that in itself is like a side mini-award. If you are keen to get onboard, do it quick before the May 31st deadline for submissions. You can read up on their guidelines prior submission.




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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 11:12 | 0 comments
Thursday, April 12, 2007
I just had the most tormenting 5 hours with so much blogging plans for the day but suddenly my streamyx was down at a little pass 10pm earlier. Frantically I call the technical department and had to wait for more than 18mins before I was attended to. Thank goodness the guy was kind enough to explain so tenderly the situation to me cause I was at the point of pulling my hair up till then.

Everything is back to normal now since 3am and I understand that there was some faulty issue with one of their god knows how many servers. He did explained tho that not all areas are effected and I was just unlucky.

He also mention to me that they will be doing a service maintenance on their support system this Friday from 3am to 5am which means they will be unreachable. I told him that would not be a problem as long as there are no issues with the internet connection. Gosh I got so much to do but am way too tired already... eeek!

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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 03:38 | 2 comments
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Networking is an important aspect of life and more so on the internet where it is so vast. Today, the social networking scene is getting more targeted and refined thus the launch of Sci-Edge social network for techies and science fanatics from Star Wars to the pure scientific kind, is very timely indeed.

The site design is nothing to shout about but the functionality and huge array of community features are amazing to say the least. There are games, forums, chats and polls among others to get to know one another better within the community.

Starting an account couldn't be simpler by just entering your username and email for activation process. Once that is done, you will need to create a profile and state your location which many details can be kept private if you prefer to do so. Within 3 steps you are taken to your new Sci-Edge page which you can customize to your own liking. Here is a screenshot of my new personal customization page in Sci-Edge:



Everything you need is laid out on your dedicated page and from then on its to just start making new friends and join the groups of your choice. There is even a feature to have your own blog too which you can forward your posts to your friends via email and I think this is a superb feature indeed.

Please do pay me a visit on my final personal page in Sci-Edge or even better start your own Sci-Edge page!



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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 07:12 | 0 comments
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
You really have to give the creative people at PPP credit for their out of this world marketing techniques. Who would have ever dream of breaking a Guinness Book of World Records such as this? Yup... they did just that today and even better, they are promoting it too.

So what is the target then? Well according to the PPP blog post, the highest comments they believe to be in the 350 region but they are not leaving anything to chance by setting a goal of a staggering 2,000 unique human generated comments which contains a minimum of at least 25 words each. So those commonly seen comments such as "Cool!", "All the best!" and "I agree!" just won't cut it.

At the time of writing, there are already 37 comments made and achieving the goal would most likely not a problem since their member base is so large. So its a matter of WHEN rather than IF in this case. Perhaps due to the recent projects they are launching this week, they just wanted to have some fun.

I presume they are looking at a long term goal of gaining popularity and sustain their tight hold on being the very best paid posting platform in the entire web. For this I surely wish them good luck and kudos for attempting this feat.

If you want to be apart of this historical event, go to PPP's blog and comment away!


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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 18:53 | 0 comments
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Being one of the prominent web hosting services around, RackNine decided to push the envelope in making their service even better by upgrading their customer support options for their many affordable RackNine Dedicated Servers plans. This is indeed a crucial step forward especially being in a competitive industry such as this and the fact that customers are not only getting more demanding but affluent as well with their hosting needs.

For further details, lets have a look at RackNine's recent Press Release:

RackNine Inc.
http://www.racknine.com
Toll-free: 1-866 GO RACK9
sales@racknine.com

RackNine Cuts I.T. Overhead for Customers New Offering from RackNine Equals Expert Support & Great Value Edmonton, Alberta (March 27. 2007) –
RackNine a leading provider of shared and dedicated web hosting services, is expanding options for its dedicated server customers by adding an Assisted Service Plan–a professional solution without the traditional costs. RackNine’s technical support will address needed patches, backups, monitoring and vulnerability assessments. Customers can get the power of a dedicated server without having to perform all of the administrative tasks associated with an unmanaged account such as server startup, patching and anti-virus protection. Add-on services, with the purchase of a service contract, include security scans, backup and recovery, monitoring and escalation management, at no additional fee. Custom engineering options are also available, billed at a flat hourly rate. The plan can be added to qualified dedicated hosting accounts during the purchase process. While users are provided with a basic startup environment, RackNine can also assist customers who have special needs. As with all dedicated servers accounts, customers can choose from a wide range of options including operating systems, RAM, hard drives, processors and firewalls. In addition, as with all RackNine services, the plan is backed by RackNine’s round the clock customer support. For more information on RackNine dedicated server plans, visit http://dedicated.rk9.net. About RackNine RackNine Inc. is the evolution of its former company, Couple Guys Consulting. Originally founded in February of 1997, Couple Guys Consulting grew as a leader in automated website management, developing the popular and widely-used SiteTools content-creation system. Couple Guys Consulting entered the web hosting arena in 1999 after being unable to find a reliable method to outsource its hosting arrangements. A subsidiary (CGC Network) was formed to handle hosting needs of both Couple Guys Consulting's web presence as well as needs of a quickly growing userbase who were also unhappy with their current hosts. Hardware solutions were heavily researched, technical staff was hired and trained, and CGCNetwork's experience in high quality dedicated - and shared - hosting began. CGC Network has since evolved to provide inexpensive and incredibly reliable consumer hosting services. New servers and infrastructure have been laid, our aggressive package pricing is implemented, the newest and most advanced user management system ever created has been installed, and our always-present commitment to providing high quality service has turned CGC Network into one of the fastest and most user-friendly systems available.
- RackNine - © 2007 RackNine Inc. All Rights Reserved.

I personally place huge importance on hosting reliability, prompt response time and server stability when it comes to hosting. With all these array of new upgrades made, RackNine truly inject a peace of mind to all their customers.

Furthermore especially for bloggers, their shared hosting plans starts from only USD 3.95 per month which comes with more than enough adequate features to manage your own blog with your own independent domain name. One of the standard feature I am sure everyone would appreciate is being able to choose from over 100 professionally designed templates in various color variations.

The part I love best about RackNine shared hosting is being able to sign up for shorter periods at a slightly higher price. This is important for those interested to try out hosting their own blog and gauge if they want to pursue it further and it also allows their customers to try their service and hosting capabilities.



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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 12:42 | 0 comments
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Through my blogging journey, I kept stumbling upon bloggers advising to submit to directories to increase traffic. So far from my 4 blogs, this effort seems not as effective as they say it would be. I must admit I do receive some traffic via some notable directories but is it necessary to submit our blogs to hundreds of them?

I tend to find geo and industry specific directories to be slightly more effective thus far. For example as a case study, LondonAdvertisingDirectory.com is very targeted to the Advertisng and British audience and I could foresee a blog within the related topic to do very well here. Of course the question of the directory's own traffic is important but for a newly launched directory such as LondonAdvertisingDirectory.com is hard to measure.

The uniqueness about
LondonAdvertisingDirectory.com is that submissions have to be paid and thus this raises another question whereby are paid directories better? Do they use their revenue to promote themselves which will eventually benefit their advertisers?

Well unfortunately for me, the standard sponsored 1 month submission of £4.97 (approx. USD 9.60) to LondonAdvertisingDirectory.com is a little too much for my budget. Although from the current over 1,000 paid submissions I can see from the main page, it begs to differ. Perhaps it does benefit the advertising related sites located in London.

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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 02:01 | 0 comments
Saturday, December 30, 2006
These past few days have been frustrating indeed trying to access overseas sites due to the earthquake in southern Taiwan which caused a fault on Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 links between Shantou, China and Tanshui, Taiwan, and between Lantau in Hong Kong and Chongming, China.


Sometimes it takes an event of such magnitude to remind us how interconnected we all are and how reliant we are on the internet at the present time. A lot of bloggers like myself and people wanting to confirm flight details online travelling to this affected region faced sluggish access so hard to live by. I contemplated how accessing the internet back when there were no broadband service was like... seems like centuries ago to me.


From Malaysian Newspaper
For tourist David Persson, 20, who was trying to update his website at a cybercafe on Leith Street in Penang, only managed to upload his travel pictures but it took him more than an hour to do the normally 10-minute job.

“I read online that there was an earthquake in Taiwan which damaged undersea cables,” said the Swede who together with his friend Philip Stahl, also 20, is on a six-month trip across China and South-East Asia.

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posted by Daryl W.T. Lau at 16:24 | 0 comments