Entries Tagged 'Internet' ↓

It’s been quite a while since I have blogged about anything even remotely technically oriented. Today however, I feel it is essential that I put out a public service announcement for you loyal readers about USB flash drives.

You know the ones I’m talking about. They fit on your keychain. They’re $5 for a 32MB stick at Target. You can carry around whatever documents you need to on them. They’re a pretty darn great invention.

BUT…

From my experience, USB flash drives are flaky as hell when it comes to data integrity. It is of course impossible for me to say that the data loss incidents that I have witnessed are not user induced, but I feel pretty confident saying that USB flash drives are not a good place to store your data for the long term.

The moral is this: Store your documents on your hard drive, back them up to CDs or DVDs, and transport them with your flash drive. But do not under any circumstances trust your vital documents to just one storage medium.

I am absolutely sick of the crappy, unedited writing that makes its way onto major news websites. I’m not sure what kind of jackholes places like CNN and ABC have writing for them, but damn is there some crap out there.

For example, today’s main headline on ABC7.com (ABC’s Los Angeles affiliate) was “Police Investigating Fatal Accident, 1 Dead.” OK, that’s fine. Let’s move on.

First of all, there is no location mentioned in the whole article, other than “Baseline and California.” I can only assume that they’re talking about somewhere around Rancho Cucamonga or something, but have no way to know that for sure. Haven’t newspapers been putting a location at the beginning of their articles for at least 100 years? How hard is it to translate that to the web?

Second, let’s talk about spelling. The very first sentence in the story is “An inncocent bi-standard is dead this morning following what police believe was a street race that veered into oncoming traffic.”

Now I don’t know about you, but I have no idea what the hell a “bi-standard” is. I would even argue that not even the best spell checker in the world hass any idea what a bi-standard is. Looking a little closer, we realize that there wasn’t a spell checker anywhere near this article. Just the use of the word “inncocent” proves that much.

I am not a spelling genius, and I am not the best about editing and correcting the spelling mistakes on this here blog. But this blog also isn’t run by a billion dollar corporation, and I’m not getting paid a nice salary to write articles that get featured on the front page unlike this jackhole at ABC7.com.

Yes, it’s petty. But I’m a little pissed that I spent five years in a creative writing program and some jackhole is writing shoddy web copy. At least I can find solace in the fact that “the thrid driver is being questioned.”

As a webmaster/blogger/Internet addict/business guy, I am constantly looking for ways to monetize my life through my multiple websites. The thing is, it’s easy to find people who will sell you their secret for $147 (but it’s on sale for you only today only for the low low price of $97! Act now!), but very hard to find people willing to share their ideas for free.

Turns out that you can Receive a Free Copy of "Flip Content for Profit!" if you click that link and download it now. It’s a free report all about taking already existing content and making money from it, and include sections about marketing your products for free, and also creating your own content that you can sell too.

For free, this is an amazing deal. I have paid good money for similar products with many fewer usable ideas than are in this free report. Even if you’re not an Internet marketer yet, you’ve got to admit that the allure of making money online is pretty attractive. Go sign up for the site, download the report, and get started already!

As of January 4th, eBay has increased their listing prices for sellers. I received an email from them regarding this, and have reposted my reply below for your enjoyment:

Good morning eBay,

I can understand the increased Insertion Fee, but why in the world would you increase the Final Value Fee? The Insertion Fee, since it is a flat rate fee, must obviously keep up with inflation. The Final Value Fee however, since it is a percentage of the final sale price, automatically keeps up with inflation since the final sale price of items will continue to increase.

I am a business owner too (not an eBay business), and I understand that as a business owner you have the luxury to increase prices as the market allows. But isn’t the beauty of a percentage based fee (or a commission, if you will) that it automatically follows market trends? I don’t see real estate agents sending out emails at the beginning of the year saying “Hey everyone, I’m increasing my commission from 6% to 6.25%.” That’s because the standard real estate commission of 6% (yeah yeah, I know it’s usually less these days and it’s negotiable and whatever, but that’s the traditional listing commission historically) keep up with the market. Again, the beauty of a percentage based fee structure.

Maybe I’m missing the point, or maybe it’s too early on Monday morning and I’m a little short on coffee. I completely support your right to do whatever it is you must do to keep the business profitable, but your Final Value Fee increase sounds like your ego’s getting a little big for my tastes. But what am I going to do? I’m essentially stuck at Disneyland buying four dollar Cokes. It’s not like there’s another viable online auction site that I can switch to unfortunately.

Anyway, that’s my thoughts on your price increase for what it’s worth. Take it, or more likely leave it, and have a nice and profitable new year.

Sincerely,
Liam Ferris
eBay buyer and seller since 1999

So my wife went to Canada to visit family, and she was going to bring some coffee beans for her mum. I went to the TSA’s website to make sure that coffee beans are not on the list of disallowed items list (who knows why they would be, but I wouldn’t be surprised for some reason). I figured that rather than calling the airport or the TSA, it would make sense to check their website.

Turns out that their site crashes Safari as soon as it loads. I figured, being a webmaster myself, that I should be a good Netizen and let them know. Turns out they don’t care. Awesome. Here’s my email to them and their response:

To: tsa-contactcenter@dhs.gov

Category: Website Feedback

Message:
Just thought I would let you know that your website crashes the latest version of Safari. If you’re going to be disseminating such allegedly important information that is so essential to national security, you might want to make sure that it’s accessible to everyone no matter what browser they’re using. Thanks.

__________________________________________
Date and Time of message: 12/24/2006 2:04:43 AM

Re: Customer Service Feedback <<#45237-93139#>> Inbox
TSA-ContactCenter
to me
More options Dec 27 (4 days ago)
Thank you for your e-mail message.

So that we can better assist you we encourage you to call us at 1-866-289-9673 for assistance. If you are outside the United States and cannot use the toll-number, please call us at 1-571-227-2900.

We hope this information is helpful.

TSA Contact Center

Possibly the most useless Congress ever, the 109th, has finally ended. Seriously, could we have possibly had a more inept group of people running the country than the good old 109th? It seems that thee 109th was overrun with selfish representatives who may or may not have been elected by their constituents, and who hardly gave a shit what their constituents wanted from them.

Fortunately with the demiae of the 109th comes the demise of the anti-net neutrality bill which would have killed the Internet as we know it today. Check out an article on the demise of the bill here.

This is a paid post from Blogitive.com and USWeb.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a complex process to say the least. In order to effectively optimize your website for Google’s robots and their counterparts, there are many different things you need to understand.

One of the most important things in SEO is understanding how Google’s algorithm works, and how you can take advantage of it to increase your link popularity. Google’s algorithm is also more complex than the other search engines but if you concentrate on Google when optimizing your website and building link popularity you will be much better off.

For a long time, page rank was very important in Google’s algorithm, and had a lot of effect on how Google would determine your site’s popularity and placement in its search results. These days however, link popularity is much more important than page rank. Page rank is still important, but what Google really looks for now are links pointing to your website from many different sources on the internet.

I hope this helps a little bit. For more information, check out USWeb.com.

OK, remember Elf Bowling a few years back? If not, it was a really lame but extremely amusing Flash game that was out during the Christmas season a few years ago. I can’t remember there being a good online waste of time for the holiday season that stood up to Elf Bowling in the past few years, but I am happy to announce that such a game exists this year.

This magical waste of holiday time is called Line Rider, and is located at LineRider.com. Basically, you draw lines with your mouse that a little man wearing a scarf rides down on a sled. You can do all kinds of cool things like jumps, flips, loops, whatever. It’s one of those games that simple but addictive.

So give it a look. You’ll love it. Oh, and it helps if you turn down your mouse sensitivity. Just a little hint for you.

I have just launched a new website dedicated to teaching people how to make money online in a variety of different ways. In basic blog format, I will review and discuss the many ways that I am currently making money online. I will rate them on a scare of one to five stars on three categories, “Fast,” “Easy,” and “Money.”

The site is located at http://www.fasteasymoneyonline.info. I invite you to visit the site, and please let me know what you think. Any input, comments, criticism, whatever, is appreciated. Currently I’m working on the “Blogging for Dollars” series, which should be beneficial to bloggers everywhere.

If you’ve got a hankerin’ to make fast easy money online, you might consider checking out some survey sites and doing some online surveys and focus groups. I have done a number of online surveys in the past few years, as well as focus groups, and have had a lot of success so far.

If you are interested in the master list of focus group and survey sites, check out PaidSurveysOnline.com. It has worked for me, and it will work for you too. In fact, when you sign up they will instantly send you a $20 survey. Pretty cool, eh?