If you are a web savvy person, you probably have a Twitter account. However, if you are like one of the millions of ordinary people you probably do not have a huge following. Well, I myself have less than ten people following me, half of whom I don’t even know! But I don’t mind because I don’t use Twitter all that much. I only use it to fee my Facebook status.

Anyway, there are people who are trying to make money from Twitter and how much one could command very much depend on the size of followers. If you are looking to expand your Twitter followers, perhaps you should check out eBay.

Yes, don’t be surprised that you can now buy thousands of Twitter followers on eBay cheaply. Granted, these are just shell accounts which not much activities and when you spew sponsored tweets, no one would really take notice. After all, these are fake accounts but they serve the purpose of making up the numbers. Are you desperate enough? LOL

Google has kicked off their “social search” feature that supposedly will gather information from our social network profiles like Facebook. Some of the information pulled may include our name, photos, our friends, the pages or groups or applications that we are a fan of, etc.

Of course, although Google may now have this ability, it is up to us to make the necessary changes of how much information we want to be listed on Google by adjusting our privacy level at the account control panel or settings of the social network profile.

There are pros and cons whether we want to be on Google or not. I think the main thing that we have to take into consideration when we decide to allow or disallow Google to list our social network profile, is what we use the profile for.

In any case, it is good to occasionally check that your privacy settings are as your have saved them. You know, sometimes updates would switch your settings to default. That could be pretty unnerving. LOL

Over this past week, I have been receiving numerous messages from major banks in Malaysia with the subject header: Important Update, Update Reminder, Security Alert, Security Verification or something or other with just an urgent or important tone.

The most common “banks” are Maybank, CIMB and Public Bank. Of course, when I use inverted commas on the word bank, you will know that these email messages are not from the real banks. They are phishing attempts and I am glad that my email spam filter managed to catch all of them!

Do know that a reputable bank will never send you an email and for that matter call you on the phone requiring you to disclose your log in details and other credentials in an unsecured environment.

And even if a bank or financial institution suffers a lapse of judgment by doing so, you should NEVER click on any link provided, for your convenience, in an email. Access the website directly from your browser by typing in the address in the address bar manually. If you are using Firefox, the browser will let you know that you have accessed a trusted website by showing green on the address bar.

Take care of your security online!

I hate January because this is the month when most of my domain name expires. It’s great to have my own domains, of course, but when January comes around, I cringe just looking at the invoice from my web host. Unfortunately, most of the time, I am unable to find coupon codes for domain renewal.

Often times, my friends would ask me which web hosting company to go with for their first domain name purchase and web hosting service and usually I am unable to determine for them and ask them to go to websites like AlreadyHosting.com to read reviews of the current top ten web hosts and to compare features and pricing and make the decision themselves.

AlreadyHosting.com doesn’t only provide us with web hosting news and views, this is where we could also find web hosts that provide free domain names just for signing up for a web hosting plan.

This is also where web hosting coupon codes are provided. You’d be surprised to know that unlike the unavailability of coupon codes for domain renewals, there are a plenty of coupon codes for webhosting to choose from that could save us a considerable amount of money. Imagine getting a website hosted for only $0.01 per month! If almost free web-hosting is what you have been looking for, then head over to AlreadyHosting.com to grab the coupon code!

*** This post has been sponsored.

My friend, Carey, sent me a message last night asking me to help her set up a blog. She even provided me with a user ID and password. I asked her if she wanted a blog hosted on a free platform or one that is self-hosted. I told her that if she is serious about blogging, it is best to host her blog herself. After all, free blogs have limited features, though they are very friendly, especially to a newbie blogger.

Carey knows nothing about blogs, websites and hosting so it’s like teaching a total newbie the differences in a self-hosted blog and a free blog. I didn’t have too much time to explain in detail but I told her that she could read all about web hosting from AlreadyHosting.com. She should have already done her homework by making a search online but she is not computer savvy.

Anyway, through the website, she should be able to compare for herself the top ten web hosting companies for 2010 based on pricing, hosting features, technical support and independent user reviews.

Actually, even for veteran webmasters, it is not always easy to keep tabs of web hosting services offered by the top hosts so a web hosting review website like Already Hosting helps a lot in keeping us updated with the latest news on hosting.

*** This post has been sponsored.

This feature may have come a little to late now that a whole bunch of previous Yahoo! Mail users have moved on to Gmail but it is still a great feature for those of us who are still using Yahoo! Mail.

With this new feature, Yahoo! Mail now allows highlight of messages from people who are our friends. This is great for users who have more than ten email land in their inbox daily. I receive almost fifty new email daily “only” and have been caught selecting all unread and moving them to the trash, unfortunately. I have also emptied my Spam folder by just clicking the “empty all” link without even checking what’s inside. Sometimes, legitimate email will be wrongly flagged as spam, unfortunately, but dealing with all the email on a daily basis just gets too much to handle.

Even though I have already informed all the important people of my new email address, I still have people writing in to my old Yahoo! email address by mistake. Whatever it is, with this highlight, it will make such messages stand out from the long list of junk mail that I get daily that goes to my inbox. Phew!

As Google’s YouTube remains blocked to web users in China, along with other user-generated content websites and social networking websites like Facebook, Baidu is planning to start a new website exclusively for video sharing similar to YouTube.

Baidu is one of the most visited websites in China and it enjoys the larger slice of the search market pie in China and I think that if any video sharing website has the potential to be as big in China as YouTube is around the world, Baidu could be the one.

Whatever it is, even if Baidu’s new video sharing website may be big, its content will still be regulated. It’s just that it will be easier for the authorities to control it compared to international websites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. What are your thoughts?