Archive for the 'Notes' Category

I am a very optimistic person by nature and even with the recent changes with Google and the way they align the Page Rank which affect alot of you, my trusty readers, I must say, the recent months are very challenging for the most of us.

I have noticed that the marketplace has been abit dry for everyone, be it the Asian Communities or even those Northern American people. I was analyzing the market for both the blogger and the advertiser, and the recent drop in earnings and conversion ratios on the Adsense or even Pay Per Click markets. People are even willing to come and pay your site a visit for less than one-tenth of a penny / cent. People stop linking each other in retrospective view, for the fear of PageRank wrath of Bad Karma and the works.

Let’s face it, even businesses are worried of the slowdown in the Chinese Markets. What I mean is that the aftermath of the Beijing Olympics 2008 Post Construction Frenzy. Chinese stocks, like AliBaba and others are heavily over inflated, mostly 10-1 bias. Its a Dot Com bubble waiting to burst, and all works MUST COMPLETE before May 2008 and thus the rush to get things done, with slip shod work and cutting corners. May is the DEADLINE for major work to complete and handover must be done prior to July 2008 to welcome the visitors and tourists. Millions in fact. One of the reasons why Singapore Airlines won’t cancel their Airbus A380 Mega Jumbo all depending on the capability to shuttle the tourist dollar in.

China invested over a TRILLION DOLLARS within it’s internal economy to fuel the Olympic Bid. They want the world to know that they are no longer classed as the last ancient world of prehistoric times. China has risen, true to Prophet Muhammad SAW words, that we should head east to China to find knowledge and trade, but will this last.

We all know, majority of the businesses are targetting typical American markets, with exorbitant costs in the advertising alone with low conversion ratios and everything else, heavily inflated. Something worth 10 cents is sold for 10 Dollars with so many hands along the way. And since the American Sellers have stopped buying advertising space, because of the recent credit crunch, who do we have to look for? Knowingly that American and European markets are heavily dependent on volatile credit markets, depending on their ever trust credit cards of Visa, Diners, Mastercard or Amex , the Asian markets don’t. They all pay IN CASH. Hard Currencies like GOLD, Dollars or Euros.

So those in the Stock Markets have dumped their stocks for gold, in view of the Northern Rock scandal and Gold is ever going up, and up. So if you have been hit by the Google Evil Engines, then it’s time to fight back. And I know just the trick.

Till then.

Garmin has a new wonder for you bloggers : GPS Device For SEO Bloggers. Never get lost again in the Cyberspace. Know where you are and what you would do next, telling you which ad to click, where to place your email address, who to visit so you get the most visiting revenue out of your site and tells you what to do so you can be a Google Adsense Billionaire!

Yeah, fat hope! This is just another hallucination of mine but would it be absolutely great to have a device like that? For now, we are just stuck with the C340 Street Pilot Navigator which tells you which roads to avoid just in case there is a traffic jam / pileup / roadworks in your route. And if you are a truck driver, you won’t get stuck with small C-roads which are less than 2.1m wide so you can’t get stuck at those country roads and deep fords which the stupid GPS Maps won’t tell and let you get yourself and the car a free car wash! Or truckwash in this case.

And so, you won’t need that nag from the wife if you missed the small side junction to get to your destination, as it will recalculate the route and provide the alternative almost immediately. And forget the Nokia N95 as that is not complicated an comprehensive enough to trajectory to get you out of that bumper to bumper traffic jam as it’s equipped with the FM TMC (traffic management control) signal encoded into your standard FM Radio.

I know this is great as it evens tells me where the static speed cameras are! I know cus I uses it, and as for now, I have to settle for this.

Any better ideas?

To those who are desperate to get some dosh from paid blogging, there is a place called SMORTY which I have en tasked myself to write. Well, rather having nothing else to do, there are alot of opportunities coming up on their Task Bar.

You can also join their affiliate program thru ClixGalore and nab an additional 5% of all referrals to their way. Which is a great way ,compared to top guns like PayPerPost who never compensate (properly) their customers that brought good business leads.

So, if you have a great traffic, you might want to write about SMORTY and their opportunities. But as norm, the competition is stiff, but at least, there is no Geo Target Demographics in place. So, what are you waiting for. Sign up or you’ll miss the boat. At least get paid for blogging, right?

While I am not YET accepted to post for this task, I am quite happy to say that alot of jobs are coming in with this network, and despite the slowdown in the economic breakdown in the US and England, people are still advertising. Mainly because they need the sales to push thru and I was looking thru their marketplace as an advertiser, their rates are really comparative to what the others are doing.

As they are based down-under in Sydney Australia, they cater to more or less the niche markets. Recent advertisers includes major accounts in Australia and something that caught my eye was a supplier who wanted to promote their customized bedding. I’ll feature that in a bit over my wife’s blog later on. To some, it’s peanuts when they are paying $6, but six bucks is far better than having no work.

Anyway, like always, Christmas shopping frenzy is already started, and you better start your shopping for advertisers too! Best Wishes.

Brought to you by me as a partner blogger for SMORTY.COM. It’s time the market cater for your needs.At least with these people, you can get paid to blog, even though it’s a small token amount.

I was going thru my list of sites to visit after my month long trip from hell, and one thing I noticed that alot of my readers are cluttering their blogs etc with full of ads and irrelevant ones.

Meaning, when I load up, all I see the first frame is just ads, and it’s a put off. I want to see content and not just filled with ads popping over.

Ads pay the bills, but know a balance of both sense of cents and sensitivity. Target it properly.

One thing I love is to shop, for anything. One thing I know less about is Wiki …which is a free knowledge contributed by everyone who knows about this. Someone forwarded me about Shop Wiki’s Electronics listings where it’s a list of stores just like EBAY.

Mainly, because ShopWiKi shops for the world’s best which I was told that they search over 180,000 stores . Which I must admit, they are a very good comparative internal site in relation to PriceRunner and even Tesco!

Which is why I was tempted to do a search for iPhone and read the reviews after the disgustable Ted Murphy’s comments about it and AT&T on the PayPerPost community Blog,makes me wonder, if I should actually get it when I am in the US!

At least…it’s an online directory which is moderated! And I’m shopping for more stuff!

Some arrogant advertising agencies are segregating alot of good advertising slots by separating the American , Canadian, Asian and European markets despite proof that these sort of old school advertising don’t pay great bucks.

Yet,someone asked, how to trick the system.

I am registered as a BRITISH REGISTERED ENTITY, meaning with a UK Address and phone number.

It does not take a genius nowadays to have a local phone number and address, by just renting addresses like a post box or Mail Box and a VOIP Phone number like Skype for less than $40 a year! Heck I even have a toll free number for $2 a month. Get your Toll Free numbers at TollFreeNumbers.com for $50, and up to $1000 for a vanity Number. Say you know the offer from me..and they will work something for you.

Typical cost for a pricey New York post box address cost about $120 a year plus $200 for mail redirection costs, and the phone number costs. Fax numbers cost free too thanks to EFAX or JFax.

What else… that one, and you must be able to get hold of the GEOLOC proxy server. That …in another issue.

Something came across me recently and this was compliments of some friends at the top, you mean Wealthy people.

If you do take paid posting, one thing to remember is demographics. Install some sort of internal tracking device to see where your visitors are from, what they are doing and seeing. One good way if thru the MyBlogLog community, and seeing your member’s track actions.

One off the note, you must be able to CHOOSE your topic properly. Don’t just clutter your site with all sorts of internal advertising or external endorsements as they lose value for your customers. Visitors are your customers and advertisers are your cash cow. Good conversion ratios will always bring you the cream of advertising. I have so many to pick and choose.

So must you.

Domain Hostile Take Overs are a real life tragedy, when your Web Host is hostile, and you can’t access your emails and what not. When the WHOIS DATA of the Domain Registrant is unaccessible, people who are with Mal Intent hack into the EMail Account and deliberately Transfer the Domain to another Registry without proper authority. They then change the Domain Name Servers and put the site involved to a link mongering page.

One trouble we commonly hear, is that BACK ORDERING. Back Ordering is when you fail to renew your domain on time and it goes into REDEMPTION PERIOD where it can cost anything over $150 to redeem the domain and after 30 days, it’s released back to public domain. I have had a lot of my domains taken over many years ago when I was dead broke, and it was Network Solutions as the only registrar then. One of my cherished domain was Gizmo.NET which is really a real deal. A hard way to get the domain back is to file for IDRP, or International Dispute Resolution Policy for infrigement of the patent or copyright. So, there is a sort of protection against CyberSquatters alike.

One good process is to RENEW THE DOMAIN UP TO THE MAXIMUM, normally for 10 Years (nine if it’s still live) and for domains like Tonga (Somewhere.TO), you can buy a TOnga domain and pay for a .TO Domain for US$25 a year for 100 years, compared to $50 a year. Only good thing about .TO domain is that it’s BUILT IN with WHOIS PRIVACY!

Talking about WHOIS PRIVACY and Domain Name Accuracy, GoDaddy has been known to DELETE DOMAIN NAMES that does not have accurate details.Meaning, if you use a fake or inaccurate / nonrespondent email address and/or mailing address and telephone number, and someone complains about it to GoDaddy or ICANN, the domain will be deleted.

So, now we have talked about Contingency Planning for DOMAIN NAME.

But what if we use LIVE SYSTEMS? How do we utilise a FLIP? And WHAT IS A FLIP?
That is in Part 3

As part of what I preach, I am synchronising my Servers and Databases across the whole Network, From London to Boston,Mass USA and another Synchronisation to my servers in Dallax,TX and Robins Nest FL, plus to Malaysia and Singapore.

So, don’t mind me…there will be some synching to be done..and hickups!

This is part one of the Series on Management and Proper contingency planning of your Websites.

Open Structure consists of you knowing where everything are, what they do, by the subdomains and such, and also main importantly, what to do in an emergency.

Emergencies can be classed as :
Deliberate Denial Of Service or DDOS Attacks (aka Hackers Bombardment)
Suspension of Domain Services
Server / Service Provider Outage
Natural Disasters
Domain Hostile Take Over.

DDOS are normal, and like an example is Comment Spamming. A Good process is to remove the naming sequence for WP-COMMENTS-POST in your INDEX or PAGE.PHP to something else. It’s located in the form entity.

Suspension of Services can occur when a rouge script, hacked or unintentional overloads the resources and takes over more than 30 seconds of Processor Time in each instance. This is a norm in any Hosting Environment. The Limit may also be 30% of the SINGLE CPU LOAD at any one time. If you utilize FEEDS or XML Calls, a delay in your uplink feed causes this issue predominantly. So, do a remote call as a CRON JOB instead.

Sometimes, it may be also our own fault, like internal ads showing some sort of Pornography. This will lead to suspension. Another mistake is PayPal auto payment system failed to debit the funds from our account or credit card due to Non Sufficient Funds (NSF) or Credit Card companies not authorising them for some stupid reason what so ever.

Server Outage can occur as this relies on Network Attached Storage devices failing due to Corruption on the Data heads of Hard Drive Failures, as it will break down even a Raid-10 system. Powweb had this issue last year, and killed the entire network , even with Load Balancing in place, as a good load balancer,only distributes the load thru within the cluster of servers but they still dependent on the NAS, and as we all know it, NAS uses Hard Drives, and they are made of spinning moving discs and motors and rotors. To get a Raid rebooted or remounted back can take HOURS, depending on how much damage was the corruption, and with the provision of a proper snapshot of the data embedded within. What is made worse, that the Database Servers also rely on this, and any non-async of the data will kill the clusters.

Natural Disasters like Flood and Earthquake causes alot of damage. In California alone, a single shock can cost the population over $20Billion in damages. Even with a shock proof building and power generators backed up, the Power Grid and Telephone lines are in the ground, and a knockout at the Exchange will kill the feeds. It’s no good to hear that an ISP has 30 or 100 connectivity to the outside world when a 5.0 on the Richter Scale will kill the city Telecommunications Backbone.

Even a knock on the Far Eastern Plates, like what happened to Taiwan recently killed ALL the UPLINK UNDERSEA CABLES at that point of time. We know that most of the economy now depends on Asia , and without the Net Access to our clientele there, we are roasted!~ Some ISPs are better equipped with redundant systems and routes, and a tertiary communications layer is enabled. Though its very technical, but it’s quite simple to implement, but costly, at the rate of about $10,000 a minute.

Hostile Domain Takeover is when your nameservers are changed and sites removed , due to either NON PAYMENT of RENEWAL FEES or simply, being taken over.

Enough Nightmares already??