Comparison Shopping in Australia

I first blogged about comparison shopping websites back when I first started the FreeCashSpace Blog, but most of them were for U.S. shoppers, with a few services for Canada, the UK, and a few other countries. But now I've found two comparison services for Aussies -- staticICE and ShopBot.

In both cases, they're not general-purpose price comparison search engines, but are specifically for finding prices of computers, electronics, and similar gadgets. If you're buying IT gear, these sites are a good place to get some pricing info.

I've been using both of them to help with eBay bidding -- by quickly getting an idea of the price ranger in online retail stores, I'm better able to work out which eBay items are bargains and which ones aren't. Nothing takes the sting out of losing an auction faster than knowing the winning bidder paid more than the discounted retail price.

As an added bonus, staticICE is available through Telstra's i-Mode service, so anybody with that service can do their price comparisons while they're shopping. Sweet!

Paid to Read Payments -- January 2006

The first month of the year yielded 4 payments:

PolarPTR $0.50
Mesmerizing-Mails $0.01
Random-PTCs $1.57
ShareAdSpace $9.88

Total $11.96

No big earnings this month, and without the payment from ShareAdSpace, it would've been truly dismal. But then again, I've had better things to do than read emails for cash, so the money I've earned came from the few emails I read in between experiencing the joys of a Canberra summer. I'm not complaining!

Snapshirts -- Your Blog on a T-Shirt

From Lifehacker, a link to Snapshirts -- an online T-shirt store with a twist. Input the URL of your blog or website and Snapshirts creates a word cloud of commonly used words on your site. Here's the word cloud for the FreeCashSpace blog:


And for $18, you get the word cloud on a T-shirt, either just for fun or as a way to advertise your website.

My Cool New Desktop

After checking out the Lifehacker Desktop Show and Tell group over at Flickr, I decided it was time to change my desktop. Normally, my desktop is pretty boring. I hate all the themes that come with Windows XP, so I just go for a plain colour background (usually blue), the silver Windows colour scheme, and that's it. But I finally decided to do something different.

First I went to Mobydock.com and got their excellent Taskbar replacement, the Mobydock. It works like the Dock for Mac OSX, and so far I like it.

Once Mobydock was installed, I visited a couple websites that have Windows Desktop Wallpapers available, and found a new wallpaper (at SpaceWallpapers.net). Incidentally, if like changing the look of 'skinnable' applications, you should check out Customize.org. Not only do they have some absolutely amazing images for use as Windows Desktop wallpaper, but they've got skins for heaps of programs. Totally. Freakin. Awesome.

After I'd finally decided on the wallpaper I wanted, I cleaned all the icons on my desktop, and the final result looked like this:



I took the screenshot and leaned back to admire my cool new desktop. And waved my arms and contorted desperately to avoid falling over backwards. I keep forgeting that I've removed the back from my desk chair to try to improve my posture. And of course at that exact moment, my wife walked through the room sweating glowing gorgeously after her Kinetic workout on the Playstation, glanced over at me, then at my new desktop, rolled her eyes, and muttered something that sounded an awful lot like '...married a space nerd' before heading to the shower.

Abandoning Mozilla

Mozilla completely fried on me again, which meant I lost my bookmarks, and my email account wouldn't work. This has happened before, and there's a way to fix it all -- create a new Mozilla profile, then a new email account, then find the email files in the old profile and copy them to the new file, etc. I've done it about three times now. But I decided not to do it again. I'm making the move to Firefox and Thunderbird.

I've been using Firefox as my general browser for a long time. But for Paid-to-Read emails, I like Mozilla better, because the email client works so well with the browser. Firefox and Thunderbird aren't as smoothly integrated (I may be the only one who thinks so), but if I don't have to rebuild my email account every six months or so, it's worth it. And I really dig Firefox.

And Thunderbird is working fine, too. Now I've just got to re-create all my email folders and filters so that my email is organized the way I like it. Doing Paid-to-Read Email programs, it's soooooo much easier if you use filters.

Free Game -- Deal or No Deal

Need to kill a bit of time on your lunch hour or take a break from reading PTR emails?

Ever dream of becoming a game show millionaire?

Then take a few minutes to play NBC's online version of Deal or No Deal. Too bad it's not real money -- I played three times and went all the way to end up with $10, then again to win $750,000, and the third time I made a deal at $294,030. Good thing, too. My suitcase only had $100,000. Two out of three ain't bad, I guess.

I've only watched the TV version of Deal or No Deal a few times, but one thing I've always thought was funny was how much everybody (the contestants and the audience) get into picking suitcases. I mean, it's not like there's any skill in it. You pretty much get lucky or you don't. But I guess if you win $1,000,000 you want to be able to brag about something more than just getting lucky.

10 Dumbest Business Moments 2005

Business 2.0 has put together its list of the 10 dumbest moments in business for 2005. A few are fairly predictable -- Sony's digital rights debacle and ChoicePoint selling the personal data of 145,000 people to an identity-theft gang -- but others were less publicized but just as stupid.

Like the decision to create high-prestige condos by converting a notorious insane asylum.

Or a top ad executive saying that the reason there aren't more female creative directors is because 'they're crap.'

Go to Business 2.0 to read more:

Link: Business 2.0 10 Dumbest Business Moments 2005

Make Money Online -- Selling on eBay

Our family has finished the first of several Post-Christmas eBay Clean-out Sales, and made about $200, mainly from selling off our Nintendo 64 games. I won't count it in my monthly earnings figures, though, because we promised the kids they could use it to buy some new Playstation2 games. Easy come, easy go.

But if you can avoid having all your online auction earnings sucked up by your kids, it's a great way to make a bit of extra cash. And get rid of stuff you either don't want or don't need. And it's really not that hard. The trick is to do a bit of research so you at least half-way know what you're doing, then give it a try.

I know there are like, 3,784,296 'Secrets of eBay' ebooks, etc. that tell you how to become an eBay gazillionaire (usually involving dropshipping and whatnot), and while that ain't likely to happen, some of the advice they give is worth reading. Your local library or bookstore probably has eBay for Dummies or something similar that would be worth a read.

Get yourself organized, and do whatever you can to make it up to your customers when you screw up (and you will screw up), and have a bit of fun with it!

The World's First Banner Ad

According to a post over at Slashdot (and I've heard it from other sources as well), the first banner ad appeared on the web on Oct 25, 1994. It was an AT&T ad, and it was showed shown on the Hotwired.com website.


Ugly, ain't it? Can you believe AT&T paid somebody money to design that? Scary!

Hmmmm....I wonder what the click-thru rate was?

The Hard Life of a Virtual Gold Farmer

Came across a link at TerraNova that I thought was worth sharing. It's called How a Gold Farm Works and it's a great read for anybody interested in online games and virtual economies.

I can't remember exactly how long ago it was that I first learned people were making real money by playing online games like Lineage, Everquest and World of Warcraft, but it's something that's intrigued me ever since. I've never tried it, and in fact I've never even played any of those types of online games, butI know it's been a growing industry for years. From time to time there'll be a story of 'sweatshops' where low-paid workers toil 24/7 killing monsters, finding treasure, power-leveling their characters, etc. for the 'gold farmers' they work for. Apparently it's big business these days.

Here's a link to a forum discussion that includes one poster's experience as a professional, full-time 'gold farmer', and the difficulties in running such a business and dealing with 'sweatshop' competition, as well as 'dupers' -- people who can create an unlimited supply of virtual money. It's a pretty involved discussion, and I don't pretend to understand a lot of it due to my lack of experience with games like Everquest, but the parts I did understand were pretty damned interesting. Starting with his claim that back in the early days of 'gold farming', he was able to earn a six-figure salary, employ over a dozen people, and even provide his employees with health-care benefits!

Update on Plat Dupe Issue

Apart from the fact that it's another possible way to make money online, I also thought it was worth mentioning here because it's a fascinating look into another online sub-culture, and also a way to look at how money (both 'real' and 'virtual') affects that sub-culture.

And whether you make it all the way through that thread, or just get a few of the highlights, if you're interested and looking for more discussion, don't miss the comments at TerraNova.

Learning From Failure

I just read Reg Braithwaite's post called What I've Learned From Failure. It's long and it's about software development, but a lot of the lessons he's learned can be applied universally. And he's got some really good quotes, which is how I ended up reading the article in the first place, thanks to a link from BusinessPundit. Here are some of my favourites:

"I have been fired from more jobs than most people have had." - Mark Cuban

"Argue with idiots, and you become an idiot." - Paul Graham

"Some days you are the bug, some days you are the windshield."

"“It is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead." - Edsger Dijkstra

"We tend to seek easy, single-factor explanations of success. For most important things, though, success actually requires avoiding many separate causes of failure." - Jared Diamond

"There are two kinds of people in the world: those who finish what they started."

"If you compete with slaves you become a slave." - Norbert Weiner

and the one that got me to click the link in the first place, because I'm old Parrothead:

"If you decide to run with the ball, just count on fumbling and getting the shit knocked out of you, but never forget how much fun it is just to be able to run with the ball." - Jimmy Buffett

—Anybody with experience in project management will no doubt be nodding as they read Reg's excellent post.

Free Software

In the Free Software Department today, I've found a couple of goodies:

LockNote by Steganos. It's just a simple little text editor, a bit like Notepad or Wordpad. The difference is that when you finish and close your document, it's automatically encrypted and password-protected. When you want to open it again, double-click the file and enter your password and you've got access. A great way to safely store passwords, etc.

IOweYou. This is an online expense tracker with a difference -- it's for small groups. Ideal for roommates, carpoolers, etc. You set up the expenses that you share, who pays for what, etc. and it automatically keeps track of who owes who (whom?).

TimeTracker. Another online app. This one tracks how much time you spend doing things. You create an 'event' (like writing a blog entry), start the timer when you start the task, stop the timer when you finish, and it will create a little report for the event. I'm using it to keep track of the time I spend blogging and reading 'Get Paid' emails.

BookBurro. This one's a Firefox extension that pops up a small panel whenever it thinks the webpage you're viewing is related to a book (seems a bit hit-and-miss, but if nothing else it works OK when you're looking at a page at Amazon, B&N, or one of the other online bookstores). Click on the panel and it fetches prices for that book from a number of different online bookstores (Amazon, Alibris, Books-a-Million and more). Works really well as a price-comparison tool, and I highly recommend it to all Firefox users.

Ted. I haven't tried this one yet but I will download it today and try it out soon. Ted finds .torrent files for your favourite TV shows and automatically downloads them. If you don't know what .torrent file is, read the BitTorrent article at Wikipedia. I download a fair few TV .torrents, either because the shows aren't available here in Australia or in some cases we're a season or more behind. It's also useful when you miss an episode and you want to catch up.

HassleMe. This one's a simple service. It sends you reminder emails. You go to the website, tell it to remind you roughly every 3 days to do your laundry. Tell it where to send the emails (type in more than one email address and it selects one at random -- a cool way to split up tasks!) and it'll email you a reminder.

I found all these thanks to LifeHacker.

Mad Money -- How Much is Too Much?

I post a lot about ways to make more money, but in many cases the real issue isn't how much money you make, it's how much you spend. I know a lot of people who make plenty of money, but who are living on the edge, financially speaking. My wife and I got pretty close to that edge ourselves, which was one of the reasons why I started looking for information about how to save money. And from that I found out that lots of people weren't just saving money online, they were making money as well. And now 7 years later, so am I.

But the reason for this post is because I've been thinking about how people view money and how they spend it, particularly after reading Common Cents. Marylaine Block talks about our changing perception of money, and in particular our different and changing views of "mad money."

Mad money is money that you're comfortable spending without really thinking about it. Coffee before work. An impulse purchase in the supermarket check-out line. A spontaneous lunch when you're out with friends. Or the amount of money you'd loan somebody without expecting them to pay you back.

Everything I've ever read about getting your personal money situation in order almost always starts with keeping some kind of record of the money you spend. And I think most people are surprised to see how much money they spend without really thinking about it. I know we were when we first started tracking our spending.

I agree with Marylaine that the idea that a GameBoy should be considered a stocking stuffer is beyond me. And I'm happy and thankful that, at least for now, my kids aren't thinking like that either.

Gather.com -- Get Paid to Contribute

How weird! Earlier today I came across a site called Gather.com and added it to my list of sites to blog about, and now I just found a post at SmartMobs talking about it as well.

In a nutshell, Gather.com is a sort of group blog/social network sort of thing where you can write articles about things you care about, and participate in a sort of group conversation through comments. Sounds like fun. And here's the kicker -- they share their advertising revenue with contributors. According to their About Us page, they pay regular contributors of high-quality content in cash, and everybody else gets points, which will be redeemable for merchandize and/or gift certificates soon.

Content contributions can be in the form of text (articles,essays,short stories, etc.), audio (songs, podcasts, etc.), images or video. I read a few articles and most of them were pretty good, so I've signed up to see how the social networking/rewards points part of it works.

Lucrative Addiction -- Contests and Sweeps

Techdirt pointed me to an article at PalmBeachPost.com about a guy who gave up smoking by starting a new hobby -- entering contests. Five years later and he's got a room full of prizes, including two entertainment systems -- a Sony system valued at $2000 and a Panasonic system worth $1400 -- a trip for 4 to the Daytona 500, and a football autographed by Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott. And he's still trying to collect the prize he won from Miller Brewing back in September -- a Chrysler Crossfire worth $35,000.

Now when he wakes, instead of reaching for his first of 40 unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes, Stan Welsh sits down in front of his computer and enters a dozen or so contests. And by making this part of his daily routine, he's won thousands of dollars worth of prizes -- some of which he keeps and others he sells for cash.

And Stan's not the only one into contests and sweeps. There a heaps of websites and forums devoted to the subject, and if you're interested in becoming a power player in the exciting world of contest and sweeps, then you should check them out.

Contest and Sweepstakes Links:

Here are a few of the better contests and sweepstakes forums and sites that I've found:

Online-Sweepstakes.com
ContestAlley.com
ContestHound.com

If you know of any other good sites, drop me a comment or email me at wil at freecashspace dot com.

Does Amazon.com Owe You Money?

Most Amazon.com customers don't know it (I had no idea!), but if they buy an item and then the price drops within 30 days, they can ask Amazon to refund the difference. So if you buy a CD for $12.99 and 2 weeks later, you see the price has changed to $10.99, Amazon will give you the $2. And if 2 weeks later you see it's dropped further to $9.99, you just request another refund and you'll get the other $1. No questions asked!

So any time you make purchase at Amazon, it's a good idea to create a reminder for yourself to check the price and see if it drops. Or you can use a service that will monitor the price for you, and email you if it goes down. I found a couple that will do it for you -- RefundPlease.com and AmazonPriceWatch. Both services are free, but I haven't used them so I don't know how well the work. Maybe the best way to go is to register the purchase with both services and put a reminder on your calendar. At least until you've done it a few times to see which way works best.

Thanks to everybody at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity for this great bit of info!

TellAPal -- A Real-World Referral System

My wife just mentioned that somebody on one of her favourite forums was asking for help finding a good carpet cleaner. We've found a guy who's really good, so my wife recommended him, and several other people posted in agreement. He's really good, and he's got a growing reputation in our area.

The thing that popped into my head was that, while I'm happy to recommend the guy, it would be cool if he and other offline businesses had a referral system, just like online businesses with affiliate programs. Then when I help him get a new customer, I could get a little reward -- maybe $5 or $10 off our next bill.

I know of a few businesses that reward their customers for referring other people, but not many. So it was kind of cool when I came across a link for TellAPal, which is basically a service that helps offline businesses set up their own referral reward program.

I think it would be really cool if this, or something like it, took off. Personal recommendations can be very valuable, and it would be nice if the rewards could be shared by businesses and the consumers who recommend them to others.

Clipfire -- New Shopping Search Engine

For US-based bargain-hunters, there's a new shopping search engine called Clipfire that could be really cool, if it gets enough people participating.

You type in what you're looking for, and it returns results to try and help you find a good deal. If you find one, you can 'clip' it, which is basically a combination bookmark and a vote for that result. Results with the most clips move to the top of the results. I did a couple of searches and it worked pretty well. I even registered and clipped a few.

The other side of the search engine is the submission side. Any registered member can submit either a product into the engine. You can even earn a commission on any sales by including your affiliate code if you've got one. In theory, if people what you've submitted, they clip it and it moves up in the results, which might mean you get even more sales commissions. Or maybe you just help people out for free.

I like the idea, and will keep an eye on it. Might even submit a few links myself if I come across any good deals.

Get Paid Info -- GettingPaidOnline.com

There are lots of websites created by PTR members promoting their referral links, but I came across one site that's a cut above most. It actually provides useful information about high-quality Paid to Read programs, Paid Survey companies, and even some Affiliate Networks that will help you earn money online.

If you're looking for info to help you achieve your goal of getting paid online, gettingpaidonline.com could be a very helpful website.

PTR Hacker Gets Free Ads

I read this Admin message from the owner of BeezyClickin.com and I just don't know what to make of it.

I am not sure any of you are aware of an issue many PTR sites have been having over the last 8-12 months. I will fill you in a bit on it.

Many sites were experiencing a hacker. In which somehow he was getting into our sites, and placing a PTC on our sites. For months many of us have been trying to figure out how he was doing it. On Sunday 1/8, the site experience some downtime in which the MYSQL was down.

The server in which many sites hosted by my host were. Because the hacker again attempted to get into the sites, and the Server was locked down.

Somebody's been hacking PTR sites for the last year so they could get a free PTC (paid to click) banner? Something smells fishy.

Anybody know anything about this? If you've got some info to share, plese leave a comment or email me at wil at freecashspace dot com.

Back Up Your Back-ups?

According to an article on Yahoo! News, burned CDs may have a lot shorter lifespan than normal CDs. I don't have a business with terabytes of crucial information stored on CDs, but I do have important documents, family photos, MP3s and a lot of other things I'd like to keep safe.

I've been burning CDs for about 4 or 5 years now, and so far I haven't had any problems. After reading this article, I went back and pulled out some of my oldest CDs, and had no problems getting to the data stored on them.

With more and more people buying and downloading digital music and movies, taking digital photos, and storing important documents in digital form, it's important that they be able to safely store that data long-term. Could you imaging popping in the CD with the pics from your wedding, or your child's birth, only to find out the data was corrupt?

Hopefully it's not going to be a big issue, but it's definately something I'm going to keep my eye on from now on. My oldest burned CDs seem to be fine, but a lot of the CDs I've burned since were much cheaper quality. I hope it's not a problem because honestly, I don't see magnetic tape back-ups in my future.

Chinese Cybercops

After writing earlier about all the click fraud going on these days, and because there's a lot of fairly scammy stuff in the world of PTR, it was kinda funny that I came across a little entry about Chinese Cybercops at Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs blog.

In a nutshell, it seems the police in Shenzhen are going to require all Shenzhen websites to have two 'virtual police' icons that users can click on and ask questions that will be answered by real police. People can file complaints, or just chat with the cybercops to learn more about laws related to the Net, and to let them rest easy knowing that the cops will protect them in cyberspace just like in the real world.

It's a good reminder that while it sucks that there are all kinds of scams online, it would also suck if cyberspace becomes too regulated. What good is the Net if it's in 'lock-down' mode? Sure, I totally geeked out the first time I read John Perry Barlow's Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, but to be honest, I think that while a lot of people may have romanticized notions about life in a lawless frontier, cyber or otherwise, I don't think many of them would like the reality, particularly if they've ever experienced it.

On the other hand, I don't think these Chinese Cybercops are going to be very effective. So far I haven't seen a lot of government regulation of the Net that is. Maybe that will change, but when it does, will it be a good thing?

Trade Your CDs for a Free iPod

Millenium, a music store in Charleston, South Carolina has a pretty cool deal for people interested in getting rid of their CD collections and embracing digital music -- you send them your CDs, and they'll send you an iPod! They'll accept CDs by mail, but if they don't accept some of them, you'll have to pay shipping to get them back (they accept CDs in good condition that have a reasonably good chance of selling, so you might think twice about sending them that copy of Zamfir's Romance of the Pan Flute).

45 CDs = 512Mb iPod Shuffle
65 CDs = 1Gb iPod Shuffle
85 CDs = 2Gb iPod Nano
110 CDs = 4Gb iPod Nano
130 CDs = 30Gb iPod Video
175 CDs = 60Gb iPod Video

And if you don't have enough CDs for the iPod you want, you can make up the difference in cash! How freaking cool is that?

Send in your CDs to get your free iPod today!

The Connection Between PTR and Click Fraud

Wired had a good article about click fraud, but as with most articles, didn't really cover the PTR connection (mainly because PTR isn't really on the mainstream radar). They did mention Indian 'click farms', which did hit the radar screens a few years ago, but I don't think many in the media understand that PTR creates a sort of global click farm that sucks money from advertisers several tiers down from those who generally advertise through Google, Yahoo! and Overture.

For anybody who doesn't get the whole click fraud thing and how it works in PTR, here's my basic explanation. Any time a PTR member does a search on a PPC search engine, types in a ZIP code or email address, or does any other action just because they're getting paid for it and not because they're really interested in the advertisers' products, that's click fraud.

All those fractions of cents really are adding up to a lot of money being stolen from advertisers. And that really sucks.

Google PC and GoogleNet?

I'm not big on New Year predictions, and even more skeptical about predictions and hype in the tech industry. But a few ideas have been thrown around lately that have got my attention, and both of them have to do with Google.

The first is something that's been talked about for a while now, and was mentioned again recently in the LA Times -- the GooglePC. A low-cost PC that runs Google's own OS instead of Windows, sold in Walmarts and other other retailers at low prices, maybe just a couple hundred bucks.

For me, the big question is will it be a fully functioning PC, or some kind of 'Internet appliance' sort of thing? The reason I ask is because people have invested a lot of money in software that runs on Windows. Can Google give them enough reasons to switch? A substitute for word processing and spreadsheet applications could be done one of two ways -- OpenOffice, or online applications. But maybe the biggest issue for family PCs will be games. What will the kid think about giving up their Windows-based games when Mom and Dad bring home the new GooglePC?

On the other hand, Google may have something very different in mind. Something that combines some functions of a PC with other devices such as the phone, tv, stereo, etc. Of course PCs can do all that stuff already, but if Google can make it easy -- out of the box -- then they could be onto something.

Which brings me to the second Google rumour floating around (including Robert Cringely's take on it all) -- GoogleCubes. Basically, these are little boxes with lots of different kinds of connectors on them, so that you can plug them into just about anything -- your phone, TV, stereo, PC, etc. They wirelessly network with each other, making it really easy to hook any phone into a VoIP network, move music and video around from one device to the other, etc. And it may turn out that they connect to Google either by your existing broadband connection, or by Wi-Fi if you happen to live in a place where Google offers free wireless networking. Throw it together with the GooglePC and Google's network of portable data centres, and maybe it really will be moving closer to something that could be called GoogleNet.

So why am I blogging about all this? Easy enough to see my interest in the GooglePC -- cheap hardware. But what about the possible GoogleCube or GoogleNet? Simple really. If Google do this, it could mean cheaper VoIP calls, an easy way to get digital content from one box to another (like from my PC to my TV) and a cheap way to get access to legal music and video downloads. I like Google. If they can do for VoIP and media production and distribution what they've done for search and online advertising, then I'm all for it.

Paid to Read Payments -- December 2005

With everything going on in Dec, I didn't get around to posting weekly payment updates, but I'll post one for the month.

Surf-Down-Under $2.50
Mesmerizing-Mails $0.32
NetsReward $0.92
MoonlitSubmit $0.42
PolarPTR $1.07
ShareAdSpace $27.22

Total $32.35

As best I can figure out by going back through my payment records, that's a total of $261.45 earned online in 2005. Most of that was for reading email ads for an hour or so a day, and doing the occasional paid survey. And a little content writing as well.

Not bad, but I'm hoping to make more in 2006. I hope everybody reading this does too.