AOpen MiniPC

I. Want. One.



It's 6.5 in. square by 2 in. tall and weighs about 3 pounds. It's got a 1.8Ghz Pentium M CPU, 512Mb RAM, and a 60Gb HDD. Now if I can just find one selling for less than AU$1000 I'll be happy.

Print and Bind Your Own Paperback Books

Brad at Achieve-IT! has a great Fun and Easy How To Guide to Binding Your Own Paperback Books at Home -- FAST! I've been doing this for a few years and it really is a lot easier than you think. I use a binder rig too, but mine uses clamps instead of bolts and wing-nuts, and it took me about 10 minutes and $5 to make.

I also use a program called ClickBook that helps you save paper by printing more than one page per sheet of paper. This can be tricky to do because the pages aren't printed in the normal order (hard to explain but true), but ClickBook takes care of all that for you.

Like Brad says, if you read a lot of ebooks but don't like reading them on the screen, you really ought to give this a shot. It's great once you get the hang of it.

Firefox Search Plugin for ClicksCount NSPCC

A quick update to my post about creating a Firefox search plugin for ClicksCount.com.uk . After reading a couple of tutorials, I gave it a try, and it seems to work fine. If you'd like to use it, you can get it here:

Firefox Search Plugin for ClicksCount

And if you'd like to learn how to create Firefox search plugins, here are the tutorials I used:

Technoobogy -- How to Make a Firefox Search Plugin

Tucows Developer -- Building Firefox Search Plugins for Tucows Start Service, Part 1

The Tucows tutorial gives instructions for manually adding the plugin to the Firefox Quick Search box, and once you've done that and restarted Firefox, you'll be able to use ClicksCount to search directly from Firefox, and help NSPCC every time you search. I hope it helps, and I hope this idea catches on and other charities can benefit from searches as well.

Helping Kids -- Search for Charity -- ClicksCount

I blogged about some of the bigger "Get Paid to Search" offers by search engines like Blingo and A9, and I mentioned how Yahoo and Microsoft were thinking about getting into search rewards as well. Now it seems that Microsoft is doing it in the UK, but with a twist -- the money goes to charity.

Every time somebody searches at clickscount.co.uk, Microsoft donates money to NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, an organisation that's been protecting kids in the UK since 1884.

I think this is really cool, and I'm trying to figure out how to write a Firefox search plugin that will let me add ClicksCount to my Firefox Quick Search box. If anybody knows how do to this, or can point me to a tutorial or something, please leave a comment or email.

Australian Government May Try Net Filtering

It looks like the nation-wide internet filtering plan announced by the Australian Labor Party earlier this week might actually get somewhere. There's a push for a similar plan by a bunch of Liberal backbenchers (members of the party in power, but who are not part of the Ministry), led by Tasmanian Senator Guy Barnett. It seems Mr. Barnett has rounded up 61 of his colleagues and got them to sign a "plea" to Prime Minister John Howard asking for more action from the government to combat online porn and violence.

I try not to get too political here at FreeCashSpace, but I really think this whole thing is a bad idea. It might help a few politicians improve their "family-friendly" image, but it's not going to do much of anything to protect Australian children. Neither will his plans to "halve overweight and obesity in children by 2015."

From what I can tell, Mr. Barnett is one of those politicians who doesn't know anything about good policy, but knows when to jump on a bandwagon to improve his image and increase his support. It's bad enough when politicians start screwing around with internet regulation for their own selfish purposes, but it really makes me ill when they play the "it's for the good of the children" card. A number of reports have been released saying that filtering at ISPs won't solve the problem. Why do governments pay for these "expert opinions" if they're not going to listen to them ?

Online Word Processor -- ajaxWrite

If you're looking for another online word processor, check out ajaxWrite. It's the first application in a new online office suite offered by Michael Robertson (mp3.com, Linspire, Sadie's Childrens Photography, mp3tunes.com, etc.). I played with it for about 5 minutes, and it works OK as a basic word processor. But I prefer Writely because I can store my docs online, and share/collaborate with others. Still, it's worth keeping an eye on this as the other applications are released.

One World, One Internet

Maybe I just haven't been paying attention, but it seems like there's a lot of stupid things going on with the internet these days. First I read a post at BoingBoing that says the Supreme Court says that material is obscene if any community in the US objects. Honest, I know a lot of people are worried about porn and other nasty stuff on the Internet, but seriously, this ain't the way to deal with it. Think about it -- there are some seriously freaky people out there with some whacked-out ideas of what's obscene. I don't think it's a good idea to let any community decide for the whole US what's obscene. I'd hate to think that I could be charged with a federal crime just because somebody representing some ultraconservative community somewhere in the United States decided that something on my blog was obscene.

Of course I don't have to worry about that too much since I'm in Australia. But then again our politicians are trying to do some fairly stupid things over here, too. On Tuesday, the leader of our federal Opposition, Kim Beazley, announced the Australian Labor Party's plan to make all Australian ISPs use filters to provide a "clean feed" to all Australian households, schools, and anywhere else that provides internet access that might be used by children. Electronic Frontiers Australia does a pretty good job explaining why this is a bad idea. I can understand why a lot of parents worry about their kids using the Net (including my friend Terry at The Affiliate Marketing Blog who's written a great post about keeping your kids safe online recently). I think every parent needs to be aware of what's going on online, and to be aware of what their kids are doing online. And to educate themselves about what they need to do to protect their children online. But I don't think making ISPs filter content is the way to go. If parents want content filtered, they need to do it at home.

So what does any of this have to do with FreeCashSpace? Apart from the possibility that my blog might be end up filtered even though it's not nasty, I guess I'm just thinking a lot about how these sorts of things can fragment the Internet. Like a lot of the proposals for tiered network traffic, I think it's all a bad idea. It seems to have a lot more with trying to take control or make more profits than it does with giving people better services. Which brings me to the thing that got me started on this in the first place. BoingBoing had another post from Cory Doctorow about Yahoo's new requirement that everybody serving ads through their Yahoo Publisher Network has to find a way to make sure the ads aren't viewed by non-US readers. Again, I understand that advertisers may not want their ads viewed by non-US readers, but it seems to me Yahoo should be the one dealing with it, either by serving up PSAs or whatever, or simply not charging the advertisers for any clicks that come from non-US IPs. Easy. Done. Why put the burden on the publisher? Because I hope I'm wrong, but my guess is that a lot of publishers are just going to block non-US traffic to make sure they don't risk losing their YPN account.

Can you imagine if Google did this with Adsense? Can you imagine what a mess it would be if every website with an Adsense ad on it blocked all non-US traffic? What a freaking nightmare! And I'm not saying that to get into a Google vs Yahoo thing, I'm just trying to show how bad it could get if YPN ever gets as popular as Adsense. I hope that if publishers are going to try to comply with Yahoo's 'No Non-US Traffic' demands, they at least do it with more subtle redirections, rather than just outright blocking. Send me to a copy of your page that doesn't have the YPN ads and as long as your redirect doesn't take long, I may never even know what I'm missing.

But before you do even that, I hope you'll take time to think about whether that sort of thing is to your benefit, or Yahoo's. Because just like with Adsense or any other advertising program, I think there are only so many hoops a publisher can jumpt through before it has a serious negative impact on the relationship between the publisher and the readers. I've been thinking about that a lot after reading Chris Garrett's post called Adsense Blogs vs Sticky Blogs at Performancing.com. At the end of the day, are you putting your audience first or your sponsor first?

Appropriate Site Design -- PlentyofFish.com

I blogged about appropriate site design a couple of weeks ago, and I'm thinking about it even more now after finding a link from Slashdot to an article called The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites.

The bottom line is that having a website that looks good is fine, but if it doesn't work the way people want it to, they won't care how good it looks. I think Daoust over-emphasizes the importance of design simplicity, particularly in the case of Google -- sure, it helped that Google's design was clean and simple, especially when compared to AltaVista and other popular search engine/portals of the time, but Google got popular because it worked. Users got useful, relevant results quickly. That's what webmasters have to keep in mind. Why are people visiting your site? Does your design make it easy for them to do what they want to do? If not, it doesn't matter how great your site looks.

But apart from all that, I'm looking at the example site given in the article, PlentyofFish.com. It's a free dating site and in the 5 minutes I spend looking around, it does seem easy to use. According to the site stats displayed, there were over 35,000 simultaneous visitors when I was there earlier. Now there are over 18,000. They get over 600,000 visitors a day. Those are some pretty damned impressive numbers. No wonder they're making so much from Adsense.

But why is the site so popular? I think it's because it's 1) free; 2) easy to use and fill a genuine need; 3) ugly. Except I don't think it's particularly ugly. But it does avoid the slick professional look that most big dating sites have. And I think that appeals to a lot of people. It feels less like a dating site and more like a place where they can hang out, even if the main purpose of hanging out is for meeting people. And because the thing is free, they don't feel like they're customers. It also means they're not prodcuts being bought and sold. They're just people using a website to find and meet other people. In other words, they don't feel like they're being marketed, or marketed to.

And the main thing is that the site design doesn't interfere with its purpose. People come to the site to look for and meet other people, and that's what takes up most of the main page. It's an ad-supported site but the ads don't dominate. As several people pointed out in the forum discussion about the article, PlentyofFish.com has a great Alexa rating because of all the traffic, but it's Google PR is only average, and it barely makes it in the top 50 results for "dating" (but #3 for "free dating") at Google. There's not a whole lot of SEO going on with the site because SEO does nothing to help their members use the site.

Motorola C116 -- It's Just a Good Cheap Phone

I followed a link from a post at Slashdot called How Great Cheap Phones Never Get to the US. Gary Krakow at MSNBC writes about the Motorola C116, a cell phone that's sold in many countries for about US$40 -- total price. You choose whichever wireless phone provider you want, switch whenever you want, and your phone is yours, bought and paid for.

Of course for $40 you don't get a lot a bells and whistles. You get a basic phone. Makes calls, receives calls. Sends and receives SMS messages. And that's about it. No MP3s, no camera, no internet access. Sounds perfect!

This is coming from a guy who uses a Nokia 3210. It's 5 1/2 years old and it's the only cell phone I've ever owned. I got it when I agreed to a 2 year contract, I switched to a much better deal with another company as soon as my contract was up, and I'll probably keep using the phone until it dies completely. I can't find batteries for it locally, so I either buy them on eBay or direct from China. I can get new faceplates and other accessories for it the same way.

I'm happy with it, but I know it won't last forever. So it's good to see that somebody is making a basic phone that doesn't cost a lot and doesn't get me tangled up in any contracts. It looks like Motorola doesn't sell them here in Australia, either. I've found 1 on eBay, and I'm going to keep looking around. I'd like to know that if my 3210 dies, I can buy a brand new phone kit for under AU$75.

If people want to spend $1000 (either up-front or by signing a contract for services they probably don't need) for a high-spec phone that's fine. I just wish there were more options for those of us who don't. My phone isn't a fashion accessory or a mobile multimedia device. It's just a freaking phone.

MillionHitsLotto -- a Different Kind of Traffic Exchange

I joined MillionHitsLotto a couple of days ago, and so far I'm having a blast with it. It's a manual traffic exchange, but instead of earning credits for each site you view, you earn lottery tickets. For every 7 sites you view, you get one lottery ticket. You choose 5 numbers (I always go for the Quick Pick) and if you match 2 or more numbers, you win credits -- 2 numbers = 10 credits, 3 numbers = 200 credits, 4 numbers = 5000 credits, and 5 numbers = jackpot (starts at 1,000,000 credits and goes up).

My first day I had 27 tickets and matched 2 numbers, the second day I had 16 tickets with 1 that matched 2 numbers, and today I had 21 tickets with 4 that matched 2 numbers. So all up I've won over 100 credits, and generally had a good time doing it. As more people join, the variety of sites to view is improving, and it's fun to dream about winning over 1,000,000 traffic credits!

Article Marketing for Bloggers

Yaro Starak at Entreprenuer's Journey wrote a great blog entry about article submission. Writing and submitting articles is one of the tips you read everywhere. But does it work? That's what Yano decided to find out. One of the things he found out doesn't surprise me at all -- that in most cases his articles were published on splogs, so that even though he got backlinks, they weren't worth much.

Another one of the things he mentions really made me stop and think. He says that he was submitting his articles to EzineArticles.com, and mentions that after submitting 10 articles, he was given "Platinum Status." Based on his observations, not a lot of authors get "Platinum Status" because they don't submit more than a few articles. He then goes on to say that a lot of people involved in article marketing feel the pay-off doesn't really hit until around the 20 submission mark.

In other words, yeah, a lot of people are jumping on the article submission bandwagon. But the vast majority of them don't commit to it and put in the effort needed to start to get the rewards. I've got a feeling a lot of us do that sort of thing all the time -- we read 200 different books and blogs and ebooks and we decide to try 100 different things. But long before we've made enough effort with one thing, we've moved on to try something else. Then we're bummed out when 'nothing seems to be working.'

That's why I think it's important to try to stay focused and organised. Save ideas for later, but don't let them take over and screw up what we're doing now. Better to do a one or two (or ten) things well than lots of things half-assed. Take things slow, and take time to evaluate what you've done, think about what's worked and what hasn't. Make a plan, then actually give ourselves the chance to stick to it by allowing ourselves the time and focus to make it happen.

FreeCashSpace Blog One Year Anniversary

Wow, I just realised I've been writing this blog for a year now. Sweet. Thanks to everybody who reads, and to everybody who comments, links, emails, etc.

Blogging My Bookmarks -- Dulance.com

I've blogged about shopping and price comparison search engines before, but I've got one bookmarked that's new -- Dulance.com. Dulance is a second-generation shopping engine, with over 1,000,000 online stores in its index. Their claim is that if there's a North American website selling it, they'll find it. I've been using it off-and-on for a while, and I've managed to find some pretty obscure things -- books I read as a kid and couldn't remember the title or author, but with a little digging on Dulance, I found them.

Brian Smith at ComparisonEngines.com did a phone interview with Dulance's founder and CEO, and it's worth a read if you're interested in these kinds of search engines or if you like shopping online. 1,000,000 online stores -- that's some serious shopping!

Zookoda -- Mailing List Manager for Bloggers

When I came across Zookoda, my first thought was 'Why would you want a mailing list when people can just subscribe to your RSS feed?' Then I thought about how many people don't use any sort of RSS feed aggregator or reader, and I signed up for Zookoda.

Basically, it's a mailing list manager, optimized for bloggers who use MoveableType, TypePad, Blogger, Yahoo!360, MSN Spaces, Bloglines, or WordPress. Zookoda hosts the mailing list software, so you don't have to add anything to your server. Just a bit of code on your blog so people can sign up for your mailing list, and a bit of list management through the Zookoda site, and you're in business.

I've just started setting up my first Zookoda mailing list, and so far it all seems pretty easy and intuitive. So if you're looking for another way to let people know what's going on at your blog, I think this could be a pretty good way to go about it.

Online Tools for Creating Website Color Schemes

If you build websites, either from scratch or by modifying existing templates, picking the right color scheme is important. A great color scheme can really make a website stand out. So can a bad one, but usually not with the kind of results you're hoping for.

So when I read Amber Rhea's blog post about color schemes, I immediately bookmarked all the great web-tools she linked to. There are more links in the comments, so don't miss those as well. Tools like these can be a great help, particularly for people like me who aren't particularly creative. I know what looks good and what doesn't, but it can be a real pain tweaking code for hours trying to get it right.

Writely Now a Part of Google

I've been playing around with Writely for a few months, after discovering it and blogging about it here. For anybody who missed it, Writely is a browser-based word processor that let's you save, and access, your documents from anywhere. You can also share your documents, and collaborate on them online. It's pretty sweet. And it's just been acquired by Google. Which is great for the Upstartle team, but a bit of a bummer for anybody who wants to try Writely, because they've temporarily closed registrations while they make the transition. You can give 'em your email address and they'll send you a note when they're accepting sign-ups again, and hopefully it'll be a short wait.

Appropriate Website Design

I've been working on a new blog template, and thinking a lot about what kind of design I want to use. And just as importantly, what kind of design the people who might read my blog would be most comfortable with. Doing all that thinking made me hungry, so I made myself a beautiful roast beef and tomato sandwich. But nevermind that. The important thing is that while I was eating that sandwich (damn it was good!) I was thinking that I really don't want to use a pre-made template that makes my site look ultra-professional or anything like that. Because, well, basically because I'm not ultra-professional! I'm just a regular guy sitting here in my boxers, a t-shirt and my favourite baseball cap, blogging about things that interest me.

So when I read a blog entry about design appropriateness by Peter Merholz, I could really understand what he was saying. Sure, as web users there are times when it's important that a site look professional and corporate. It helps create trust and credibility. But sometimes we're more likely to trust somebody who's 'just like us.' That's why we like blogs that feel more personal and less corporate.

I think people interested in things like affiliate marketing need to keep this in mind. Sure, some affiliates have a lot of success by creating a site that looks like a big corporate e-commerce site, but that's not the only way to do it. I'm not saying the site has be ugly or hard to use, but sometimes it works to have a more 'personal' look and feel, and trying to get more of a 'one on one' experience for your visitors.

GiveSmart -- Shopping for a Good Cause

Just discovered a different kind of rewards program, thanks to the Museum of Modern Betas. The program is called GiveSmart and it's a lot like EmailCash or MyPoints, with one big difference -- the rewards you earn aren't for you, they go to various charitable causes -- fighting breast cancer, helping hurricane victims, etc.

From what I can tell, it involves using their toolbar for Internet Explorer, which pretty much counts me out, but if you're interested in shopping for a good cause, check 'em out.

Overstock Outlet -- OO.com.au

I just came across a new (at least it's new to me) online discount store called Overstock Outlet. They're an Australian company, and they sell all sorts of overstocked items -- clothing, electronics, toys, homewares and more. The prices look pretty good -- they say that if you find the same item at a lower price (online or offline), they'll beat the price by 10% (giving you a store credit) -- and the shipping charges are reasonable, too.

I also like the fact that they accept Paypal, as well as a lot of other options -- Visa, Mastercard, Bpay, bank deposit, PayMate, and even installment payments.

And they also sell 'wholesale' lots, which could be of handy for people who are interested in reselling on eBay or wherever. For instance, they've got some Hyundai DVD players in lots of 15 for $600 ($40 each), and I see the same DVD players selling for $50 on eBay. That's a potential $150 profit.

Ah cool, I just realised they're also an EmailCash Reward Partner, so members can earn 1 point per $ spent. Sweet!

More Surveys from PureProfile -- I love it!

PureProfile paid me last month ($25.00 directly to my bank account) and I'm happy to say I've already had 3 surveys from them in the last week, putting another $5 in my account. I hope this keeps up. I really like this survey program. Most of the surveys are pretty interesting (the one I just did was asking if I would be interested in a new power company that is apparently going to start servicing our area), and they have plenty of good payment options -- direct bank deposit or a lot of different store vouchers (including Sanity music, Caltex, and Greater Union cinemas).

Honestly, I think every Australian who's online should join both PureProfile and EmailCash. They really are great programs. And the rewards do add up!

Google's Google Video Videos

In an obviously desperate attempt to keep their employees from running off and signing up at Yahoo! or Amazon -- because the great free food, stock options, daycare, gym, massage rooms, beach volleyball, and the chance to hang out with lots of other Googly geeks wasn't enough -- Google gets all sorts of people in to give talks that might be of interest to Googlers.

And now that Google Video is up and running, you can watch those talks if they're of interest to you!

I watched Seth Godin's presentation at Google the other day, and now I've found about 4 more that I'm going to watch when I get a round tuit. Including talks by John Batelle and Sergey Brin, and presentations about Second Life and Internet crime.

Here's the page with all the videos from the Googleplex.

MacZOT! Great Deals on Mac Shareware -- One Deal per Day

MacZOT! is a new site that works a lot like Woot. They have some cool products and totally awesome deals. But the trick is, they only offer one item a day. So you have to check each day to see what's on offer (and in the case of Woot, they have a limited number of each item available, so you have to be super-quick to score a deal).

And the cool thing about MacZOT! is that since they're selling shareware, you can download the product and try it out before you shell out any cash. The savings they offer appear to be substantial (Todays item: Reg. price $12.95 MacZOT! price $8.95) so if you're a Mac user and on the lookout for good software at very reasonable prices, bookmark MacZOT! and score yourself a bargain.

And bookmark Woot as well because it's awesome, too!

Boycott SmartFilter

I hope none of my frequent visitors (Hi Mom! Hi Martin! Hi Terry!) are using the filtering/censorship services of Secure Computing because I'm hoping to get the site added to their black list. If you don't know what's going on with Secure's SmartFilter filtering service, here's a good place to read about it. And here. Here too.

I understand that people want to try to stop their kids/employees/cult followers etc. from finding (accidentally or not) porn, auctions, dating, poker or whatever other kinds of sites you think will ruin their lives/productivity/spiritual purity on Kool-Aid Day. But SmartFilter isn't a very good way to go about it. Because it's not smart. It's dumb. And it sucks balls.

The $39 Experiment

Tom Locke was looking at a $39 roll of stamps sitting on his desk one day and came up with an idea. Write letters to 100 companies telling them how much he loved their products, and then asking them to send him some freebies. He says it's a "social experiment" and surprisingly, a few companies have actually sent him some swag. Way to go, Tom! Good luck with it, dude.

Tom's got a blog called The $39 Experiment where he'll update the world on the progress of the great "gimme free stuff" social experiment.

Free USB Thumb Drive From Microsoft

Go here and give Microsoft your contact details and take a short quiz and they'll send you a free USB drive. No idea what size, or what kind of valuable info they've put on it, but hopefully you can read it, trash it, and have yourself a free thumb drive, courtesy of Mr. Gates and co.

Payments for February 2006

A nice flow into the Paypal account this month, mainly thanks to a couple of good survey programs. PureProfile paid me again, and then I only got one survey from them for all of Feb. Got another one tonight, though, so hopefully they're picking back up.

On the PTR scene, I got two payments from PolarPTR. This program is quickly becoming my favourite PTR, and I've started a bit of advertising for it to build a downline. DonkeyMails is also becoming a good earner, while Avant-Cash and Mesmerizing are falling off. Random-PTCs is holding pretty steady, although maybe not quite as strong as it was 6 months ago.

PureProfile $25.00
Avant-Cash $2.14
MesmerizingMails $0.02
Random-PTCs $1.09
NFO MySurvey $60.00
DonkeyMails $1.41
PolarPTR $1.42
Total $91.08

Yearly Total $103.04