All posts by The Artist

Free Blog Aggregator Hosting

My friend, Trent, has been asking me to help him to look for a free script to build a blog aggregator. Being the lazy me, I have not done so. Luckily, this morning, I chanced upon a free blog aggregator host which allows us to either include our blog in an existing blog aggregator page of similar blogs, or to build our own.

I think that this is a great service whereby if you have one or two blogs, you could join the Feedcluster community, submitting your blog(s) to the correct community of blogs that are of the same niche as yours.

For myself and fellow bloggers who have tens of blogs, I personally have twenty, some active, some not so, FeedCluster.com Aggregator Hosting is great for me to host my own blog aggregator, showcasing only my own blogs.

Feedcluster is very flexible in the sense that we could totally customize it, or brand it if you will. Moreover, they provide us with various blog widgets that we could place on our blogs.

Building a blog aggregator is very simple because Feedcluster is very user-friendly. And with your aggregator live, other users could request for blog inclusion or removal. Users could also subscribe to the feed of the blog aggregator or embed it on their blogs.

Besides building a blog aggregator easily, it is also another way to expand the readership of our blogs.

Facebook Denies Selling User Information

I read with interest Facebook’s denial that they have plans to sell their huge database of user information, rebutting an article on The Sunday Telegraph. Frankly, whether Facebook did have plans to do so or will have plans to do so in the future, I wouldn’t be surprise. Haven’t we come across enough companies that were adamant that they would not be doing something only to do exactly the same thing later on under different circumstances?

In any case, signing up with Facebook or any other websites where they provide us with user agreement to read with fine lines so fine that many of us end up not bothering to read, do know that in any case, your personal information is already disclosed and compromised and they could do whatever they want.

If CIA, FBI or any government or security agency asks for this information, website operators are obligated by law to provide it. Remember the case of Yahoo! disclosing private user information to the Chinese Government?

Branded & Unlocked Mobile Devices & UMPCs

I have been on the look out for a new mobile device lately. I really do not feel like spending more than necessary in view of the poor economy but then it has been two years since my last purchase and it is high time I catch up with technology.

Since the last time I checked, there are more models of mobile devices to select from. Besides taking cost into account, nowadays, mobile devices could do so many things that I don’t even need!

I went to check the website of gadget1 for prices and specifications. They are a leading online retailer of new and unlocked mobile devices based in Australia.

After going through so many brands, Blackberry sure has caught my eye! On this site alone, there are nine Blackberry models to choose from and that would be a tough decision to make! Luckily, they are not too expensive. The high end Blackberry models are comparable to the Nokia that I am currently using but it sure looks sleeker and classier and I think, more suitable for female palm.

Besides new branded and unlocked mobile devices, Gadget Circle also carries the latest branded Ultra Mobile PCs from Sony, HTC, Above Net and Raon. I’d like to get one too.

*** This post was brought to you by Gadget Circle ***

Facebook Removes Profiles

When I first registered with Facebook, I read that they sometimes remove our profiles but then I have a friend with multiple profiles that he uses to level up his game characters and even though I told him that he risks getting his account banned, he said that Facebook would have to proof that he has violated their terms of use.

As far as I know, Facebook strives to create an online social community of real people using real names and profiles. Those who use nicknames or business names are deleted.

Well, the thing is, as long as our profile and data are in a public domain, we risk getting them deleted without prior notice. Just take a look at Yahoo! Profiles and AOL Hometown. They don’t need to give us a reason and no, they did not.

The only way to safeguard our data is by hosting it ourselves and that also we need to backup our files regularly. Our hosts won’t take responsibility.

Getting To Know Your Customers

Running an online store where my primary mode of communication and marketing is by email and social networking, I rarely have the opportunity to meet my customers face to face. I find that although we may seem like we are only separated by the computer screen no matter which part of the world we are located in, there are many things that I do not know about them and their shopping and surfing habits. I do get a glimpse of their lives through Facebook, though.

I was reading through the Transpromo Live blog and a lot of the articles there bring home the point to Drive ROI, Know your customers! This would ultimately improve our sales volume and profit, of course.

Just the other day, I wrote a post about junk mail and that it is estimated that each inbox saw an increase of 25% spam mail in 2008. I feel that this is because of the bad economy and that there are still many people entertaining spam mail.

Lee Gallagher of Tanspromo Live has a few posts up that explores the relation and impact between email/junk mail and marketing. If you have been looking for a marketing breakthrough, read these posts.

On side note, I find the blog of Transpromo Live extremely difficult to navigate. I don’t normally say this but really, it does not help that many links turned up with “Sorry. 404 Page Not Found”.

*** This post was brought to you by Transpromo Live ***

Have You Claimed Your Free P1 Wimax Modem?

P1 Wimax will be ending their five month long promotion this 1st February, 2009 and will follow that will the roll out of five new packages, three for home users and two for businesses.

I figure that those who have already signed up with Wimax during their five month long promotional drive since August, 2008, will have to choose at least one package to upgrade to.

I have no idea how much the cheapest home package would be but the modem itself is said to retail at RM999 and that is a subsidized price. So if you are planning to try out Wimax, go get your free Wimax modem latest by 1st February, 2009.

I understand from friends who are in Kuala Lumpur that Wimax resellers are all over the place so I guess that one could never go wrong going to LowYat Plaza.

Right now, only a few major cities have coverage; Ipoh is not one of these cities, unfortunately. Even so, a friend reported to me that despite enjoying strong signal where he is in Kuala Lumpur, Wimax was not only not as fast as he expected, it was worse than his 4MB Streamyx connection.

Google Records 25% Increase In Spam in 2008

According to a report by Google, despite busting a spam mail syndication in November, 2008, the volume of spam mail increased significantly by 25% compared to 2007. They also mentioned that an unprotected email account would receive approximately 45,000 spam messages.

These emails are not merely spamming us with a message to sell a product or service but most of them are one form of phishing mail, virus, malware and other forms of attack. And we are only talking about these coming in via email. We, web users, still have to deal with unwanted messages via instant messengers, Facebook, MySpace and other social networks, and let’s not forget, spam messages on our mobile devices!

Actually, we shouldn’t be surprised with the increase in spam. I read that the tougher the economy is, the more spam will hit our mailbox. Spam is like the social crime in our neighbourhood, just that spam is easier to deal with, by just clicking the delete button.