SlashMySearch

I’ve read a lot about SlashMySearch. It’s a search engine that brings together the search results of Google, Yahoo and MSN and pays you to do the search. So being interested in getting paid to do things that seem relatively simple I signed up to find out how easy it is and how much you get paid.

Signing up was easy and you get a webpage that you can set as your homepage (I didn’t). This webpage is also where you send people who you refer. The referral system pays the referrer very well from what I have read, because so far I haven’t referred anyone. However, you get paid roughly about 2cents every time you search yourself and get a nice big chunk of your referrals payout.

So far so good. However, there are a few problems, all fixable though and you have to remember this program is still in beta. Firstly, you have to earn $50 to get a payout which a lot of people I’ve read about think that is far too high. Secondly, I’m very use to Google and the SMS interface seems so cluttered to me! Talk about distracting! Thirdly, the search results are just not that great either. Compared to my usual, clutter-free, Google search, the results just aren’t as good. Although, after a browse in the SMS forums, apparently the SMS staff are working on all three issues I have with them, which is excellent news.

I have placed my SlashMySearch earns in my sidebar for all to see. I’ll update them as often as I can and keep you posted on how I find the service and if there are any major changes.

If you feel like joining I would love to refer you! Just click here!

Are you getting Paid Per Post?

I was reading a few blogs, as you do when your on the internet, and one topic kept popping up. Payperpost is a relatively new service for bloggers that lets them get paid to write about certain products and services. Now that sounds interesting to me! A student always in need of money, getting paid to do something that I’m already doing. Hmmm… However! Many people are divided by this idea of getting paid to blog as they think that the opinions expressed will be biased.

I can see where they come from, many people would jump at the chance to get paid to write a few paragraphs whether they believed in what they wrote or not. Imagine getting paid about $10 to say that some new mobile phone is worth buying or a new website is worth visiting. Not bad, but I couldn’t blatantly lie about something and say that’s it great just because I was getting paid for it. I have morals! And standards! And ethics! But not everyone does and that is what some people fear; blog posts becoming biased towards companies because they are being paid.

I think that bloggers should be upfront and say “Yes, I’m being paid for this post”, and state whether the opinions are their own or bought. They can do this on a per post basis or by using a disclosure policy covering their whole blog. By doing this, readers can choose to read the post or not and the trust between blogger and reader can remain intact.

Being a curious person I decided to take a look at the Payperpost site. The site has a few rules for blogs that wish to apply eg. must be over 90 days old, more than 20 posts, & no gaps larger than 30 days. However the front tells you little of what sort of things you have to write about. So I did the obvious thing and signed up to have a look inside. You don’t need to add a blog straight away which was fine by me because my blog doesn’t meet most of the criteria and I’m not sure if I want to head down that route just yet. The ‘opportunities’, as they are called on the site, range widely from writing about dating sites to Sony Ericsson’s latest phone.

Payperpost also has two affiliate programs that could cause less division among the blogging community. The first is a referral program in which the referrer gets $15 once the referee’s blog gets accepted. That’s not bad for putting a small button on your site! The second more useful program is called ‘Review my post’. Any member can put a badge on the bottom of their posts and get paid $7.50 when a Payperpost member clicks on it and writes a review of your post on their blog. They also get paid $7.50 for their troubles, by the way. The button seems to apply to any post made on that blog not just the one you clicked from.

What I find interesting about this is that the blogging community thrives on links from one blog to another, something which I had planned to start including in my posts, and getting paid to link to and review blogs will only increase this trend. What this will mean to the blogging community, I’m not sure, maybe nothing but I know I have seen a lot of those little ‘review my post’ bars on blogs that past few days. On the ethics of accepting payment for posts, I think it’s ok once the blogger states that they are being paid for it.

Three reasons WordPress is greater than Blogger.

Ok, so I’ve written a few posts to my blog over the past two weeks. Really, I never thought I’d get this far! No, seriously! When I created this blog I thought I’d make my first post and that would be it. But look at me; two weeks later and I’m still thinking about what would make a good post for my blog. Possibly the reason for this self-doubt is the previous failed attempt I had at blogging several months ago. I started and then quickly lost interest. However, I wonder if it was because my blog was with Blogger and not WordPress…

When I first started getting interest in blogging myself a few months ago, I thought “Ok, I want to blog. I have well… zilch money. And I want it to be quick and easy.” After a brief look at my options, I came across Blogger. It had everything I wanted; it was free, easy, quick and did I mention free? So I signed up straight away, wrote my first post (nothing compared to my first post for this blog, I’d cringe if I read it now…) and I was off! I was a blogger! (Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing) Anyway, I might have written a second post but it didn’t go much further than that.

Now I realise that more experience really helps with blogging and so this blog is far more successful compared to my other blog but I believe that other factors have helped me lose interest in the other blog and stay motivated with this one. For example, with Blogger where are the statistics?! I’d be lost without my statistics here on WordPress! If I had of known I was getting any page views at all on Blogger I might have stayed! I did add in some counter to the sidebar but it counted everything:my views, updates, Google! So anyone who actually viewed the blog got lost in with the rest. Also there was no views per post or anything similar so if I had continued to blog I wouldn’t know which posts were popular and pulling in the readers.

The-Blogspot-top-of-the-screen-bar irritated me! All blogs on Blogger must have the-Blogspot-top-of-the-screen-bar, which is a ‘toolbar’, yap, you guessed it, at the top of the screen which just made your blog look cheap! Yes, I know it’s free! But does it have to have a bar at the top rubbing it in!? WordPress doesn’t have that! I think it’s called the Blogger Navbar and I never used it once on any Blogger blog.

Also I like the themes more on WordPress than on Blogger. The Blogger themes are cheap, tacky and overused, but the WordPress themes are good to go from the beginning and there is a good choice. However Blogger has the option to edit the CSS code for your blog which can give a default theme the originality it needs, something that you have to pay for on WordPress.com.

I like Blogger and I think that for some people it’s ok. But I love WordPress and I couldn’t imagine a circumstance now where I would want to go back. Just the amount of options you can change on WordPress compared to Blogger gives anyone who wants a quick, easy, free blog the satisfaction that they require.

Joost. The future of TV.

I have been graced with being a beta tester for Joost since near the begin of its launch as The Venice Project. In case your not sure what Joost is, here is a reminder: Joost (pronouned “Juiced”) is a program for your computer which lets you watch television shows, when and where you like. All you need is an internet connection and a quick one at that.

Ok, so lets get down to the dirty facts! Firstly, no. That’s right, no, there are no shows like ‘Ugly Betty’, ‘The OC’, ‘ER’ or ‘Lost’. In fact, I haven’t heard of any of the shows on Joost! However, before you think that this new piece of software is doomed to fail, let me tell you that every show I watched on Joost had my attention and I live in Ireland so I can’t tell if any of the American shows are mainstream but they aren’t this side of the Atlantic. The only channels I recognised was National Geographic and also several MTV shows. I watched a wide selection of shows in the Joost TV guide and they were all good and worth watching. However, a bigger selection of shows are needed if it is to satisfy a mainstream audience and something it will need to do before it ditches the beta tag. At the moment the teams are in negotiations, but have secured Warner Music, Endemol, MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures.

Secondly, you need a fast connection. With near TV quality video, you can download as much as 320mb per hour of viewing and upload up to 105mb, meaning you will need a quick connection so that playback is stutter-free and delays in getting content are hardly noticeable. Also many broadband providers limit the amount of downloading their customers can do e.g. a 20gb per month cap. This means that with a 20gb limit you could watch 65hours of Joost per month. Not bad but that’s just two hours a day which you would probably do now watching normal TV anyway, so as the broadband market gets more competitive the download limit might be something that gets more attention in the near future. For me I have a 1mb connection (:cringe: at times I wish it was so much more!) and a 12gb limit per month (Don’t they realise I have to watch Joost!?) and even with this connection Joost usually (note usually) flows loud and clear.

In case you didn’t know TV on demand is the future of TV, hence the title of this post. Just look at TV stations today, on this side of the Atlantic we have Channel 4 with their 4oD (4 on demand), and BBC is begin to follow suit. Both let viewers watch TV shows when they like, on demand. I’m sure there are equivalents in the US and around the world but what is different about Joost? It’s free. Also it has interactive features which I failed to mention until now. Yes that’s right you can chat about the show your watching with someone else on the other side of the world or just next door. The Joost software has support for widgets which enable your favourite RSS feeds to be just a click away and pop over the show your watching (transparently, of course!). And to get rid of them when you’ve caught up on the latest news? Just click on the show your watching and they fly off the screen!

Now that I’m coming to an end (a little out of breath), why not see what I’m talking about and look at a few of the Joost screenshots. They give you an idea of the simple, clean interface and the quality of display and content.

Well that’s my review of Joost. I like it very much and believe TV now has a future! Not just in Joost but in on demand TV. Joost keeps improving by the day and if there are any major features or extras that I think you should know about I’ll post again.

By the way, are you interested in seeing Joost with your own eyes and I don’t mean the screenshots! I have 1 invite to give away to the first person who emails me (alanblogging [at] gmail [dot] com) or comments to this post! This invite gives you full access to the beta, lets you create a new account and download the software. Get going!

All invites gone I’m afraid! If I get more I’ll share them around.

Changing the Present. For the better.

Sorry for the delay in posting I have been a bit busy.
After appealing for a few comments the other day about my blogging so far, I logged back on to find well… none. :tear rolls from eye: However I checked my email and good news! I got a email about my blog! When I seen it there, I hoped it wasn’t going to be too negative and clicked on it apprehensively, preparing myself for the worst. I had nothing to fear though as it was a suggestion for a #6 for the post 5 ways to make a difference for free. Phew!

I read through the suggestion and I’d like to thank the sender, Robert, for it very much. However, it doesn’t fall under ‘to make a difference for free’. I included change.org for the simple reason that it had a good social network basis that enabled anyone to discuss issues without having to donate. So I’m sorry but I can’t include ChangingThePresent.org in the post. However the site looks really good and I want to include it in some way, so I’m giving it it’s own post!

ChangingThePresent.org is a website where you can make a donation to a charity in the name of another person. There are 33 different causes e.g. Disaster Relief, Blindness & Vision, HIV/AIDS, Cancer, Peace and Human Rights. In each of these there are different donations you can make e.g. in Global Warming, you can make a donation and adopt a penguin for $50, if you would like to donate $1500, you would give a cash-strapped community an intern to help them, create or update a community’s greenhouse gas inventory; create a local Climate Action Plan; develop pilot projects to reduce community global warming pollution, and reach out to local organizations. If your budget doesn’t stretch that far then you always adopt a sea turtle for $25 or offset 2000 pounds of carbon dioxide with a $5 donation. Really the choice is endless on the site and the perfect donation for that person you know is on there somewhere.

The site is well designed and laid out and I think that the amount of choice available should accommodate everyone. Each gift has a through description when clicked on and describes both the problem and what your gift will do. I think that this website may not be the next big thing (prove me wrong) but I do believe it is a great step forward in donations to charities and will definitely contribute to “Changing the World”, “One Gift at a Time”.

Click here to check it out.

Blogging – Difficult or Easy?

Well I wrote my first proper blog post and published it yesterday. I was fairly happy with it and thought that it was good enough to start the blog off with. I didn’t want it to be short or worse: drone on for pages. As a student I’m use to writing stuff all the time but usually when I write something, be it a speech or short story it’s usually just to one person; the person who marks it! So I found writing to anyone who wanted to read my ramblings very unusual and it’s a concept I’m still trying to grasp.

It isn’t easy to write each and everyday but it isn’t overly time consuming or difficult and I’m hoping it will easier to me over the next few weeks. Also as of now no one has commented on my blog, either good or bad, which I find slightly disappointing, but I’m sure I’ll get over it. If you have any suggestions, comments, tips, jokes, something you need to get off your chest, facts, or something you’d just like to share, feel free to comment or email me (can be found on about page).

Well that’s it. I hope to write again tomorrow. Maybe with something a little more interesting!

Talk soon,
Alan.

5 ways to make a difference for free.

Here are 5 ways to make a difference and help someone that won’t cost you a thing, and best of all you won’t even have to leave your computer!

1. Share your knowledge. A great way to help people is to share what you know. How many times have you used Wikipedia to look something up? I use it all the time, anywhere from 1-20 times a day and I’m sure you do too, maybe even more. Now how many times have you edited an article? Or created one when you came across an article that hasn’t been started? Probably much less than the number of times you looked something up. Well now is your chance. Why not boogie on over to Wikipedia and contribute some of your wisdom, imagine the number of people you’d be helping!
   ‘Help-o-meter’: 1 person per day per article, (i.e. you would help 365 people on average with just one article.)

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2. Donate your PC Power. How often do you leave your computer running when your not there? Perhaps your downloading something? Running a virus scan? Well during that time you could share the processing power of your computer to help find cures for Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Huntington’s Disease, Osteogenesis Imperfecta & Parkinson’s Disease. Even if you don’t leave your computer turned on alone, it can work away in the background while you work and with quicker and quicker CPUs, you hardly notice it’s there. For example I have an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU and while I type this and listen to music I’m running Folding@Home in the background, the only way it affects me is that it makes me feel good that I’m helping to find cures for the diseases above.
   I prefer to use Folding@Home as they seems to have made good progress both with results they have received from people like you and I and they have also taken advantage of new technological developments eg. they have expanded from using CPU’s into using Graphics Cards. However there a are other distributed computing systems that are just as good, eg. BOINC. For a full list of distributed computing systems click here.
   ‘Help-o-meter’: Impossible to say. At the moment you are helping researchers study these diseases but in 5-20years when they discover the cure for Cancer or Alzheimer’s Disease, you could have contributed to save thousands millions of lives.

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3. Grab your phishing r,od. Just imagine: between May 2004 and May 2005, about 1.2 million people in the US suffered losses caused by phishing, totaling approximately $929 million USD! That’s $775 per person! Ouch!
   Luckily, new browsers, like Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2, are starting to include phishing protection features, which is great as it warns a surfer when they come across a suspicious website, reducing the number of vulnerable users greatly. However, there is one problem: phishing sites go up and down like lightening, some staying up for only a few hours at a time. This means that if hundreds of phishing sites keep cropping up every hour as others go down, keeping and up-to-date record of all of them can be difficult to say the least. Enter Phish Tank! A place where ordinary people like you and me can report sites we think are phish sites and also verify other’s reports. It’s a very effective way of making sure the blacklist used by Firefox and IE is kept up-to-date. So far Phish Tank has uncovered 17,359 phishes out of 95,742 submissions.
   ‘Help-o-meter’: Well if you submit or verify one phish site and just help stop one person from entering their details on one of these sites then you could have saved that person $775. Not bad for about 30seconds of you time?

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4. Question Time! Ever had a question that kept nagging at you? What was the name of that guy in the film? Who sang that song? Or have you just had a problem and needed a solution? Well, Yahoo Answers is the place to go. And many do! Yahoo Answers is where you can ask any question you want and other users answer back or suggest solutions. It’s easy and to help other people you would have to be the one answering the questions. Every time you answer a question you get points and if your answer is chosen as the best answer you get extra points. The higher your points, the higher level you can reach, the more you can help.
   With new questions being added by the second, you can always find a question that needs to be answered. It also seems to be the ‘in’ thing to do at the moment with many huge celebrities posing questions to the public at large, for example Hillary Clinton, Leonardo Di Caprio, Al Gore, Bono, Stephen Hawking, Jonathon Ross and Oprah Winfrey. Check it out yourself and give it a go, Yahoo Answers.
   ‘Help-o-meter’: For every question answered, you help one person.

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5. Support the Cause! So you are determined to stop the world from destroying itself by global warming? Great. Now what? You install CFL bulbs, turn your thermostat down by a few degrees and turn your computer off when you leave it unattended (don’t forget Folding@Home!!!). Ok that’s done, but the other 5,999,999,999 people in the world don’t do a thing. Right… Problem there. Enter Change.org, a new social network site. At Change.org you can meet like-minded people. It’s like a more upmarket MySpace. You sign up to causes that you would like to help and you see other people who would like to help change these things too. There are over one million non-profit organizations on the site that you can help by donating, if you wish, but you can also freely discuss the topic with others and state why you support that cause. They have all the major causes covered from recycling to improving public schools and if they haven’t got your cause on the site you can add it in a few seconds. Why not head on over and add your support to a cause?
   ‘Help-o-meter’: Impossible to say, in the short-term very few without donating but in the long-term you might just convince others to join your cause and put pressure on world leaders to make a change.

Well that’s the 5 ways to help make a difference online for free. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for putting up with me! If you are wondering I do all of the above so I speak from experience and have used all of them.;)

Oh and if you have any comments I’d happy to hear them. Thanks.

Bye for now,
Alan.

First steps.

Welcome to my new blog! I’m Alan and I’ll be your host. Suppose I better start by explaining what my blog is going to be about. Well I’m not quite sure yet. I think it will be a hybrid of personal views, world affairs and technology. It may be more. It may be less.

I just want a way to get my views and opinions across to a wider audience and possibly make some money on the side from ad revenue later on.

I have one post that I’m working on at the moment and I hope that someone will like it. It’s a mix of technology and ‘do-goodism’. You’ll see what I mean.

Anyway I’m not sure how much I should write, whether to choose a small and often or a big and far between style… For my first post, I’ll choose small and we’ll see later how often it’ll be.

Thanks for reading,
Al.

(p.s. I choose to attach this Flickr image as I think it really sums up my blog at the moment. Hope you like it.)

New life emerging
Originally uploaded by parvapax.