Contests & Entries

No Better Time Than To Win An iPhone

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Well, some of you may know that I absolutely am not happy with my Nokia E61i. It is not that lousy but it annoys, oh damn it sure does! I went to check if the Samsung U740 has arrived but it hasn’t. Is that what I get for living in Malaysia? By the time it reaches me in 2008 or so, a newer, better model would have been released and by then, people from the other side of the world would have been using the U740 as door wedges. *sigh*

Anyway, I have known for a long time that Mr. Gary Lee, the internet marketing guru, is giving away a free iPhone in a blog contest. I have procrastinated but since my bank account balance is not that healthy to be able to afford to ditch my Nokia E61i and the Samsung U740 is still not here yet, I thought I would give this contest a shot. A post on a Page Rank 3 blog only qualifies for ONE miserable entry but hey, an entry is better than none.

Mr. Gary Lee is one industrious guy. He has two projects, one website that sells golf equipment which I have no use for and one website that lists free online coupon promo codes, discounts, bargains and deals. You bet I have use for these!

Actually, I really want to win an iPhone. I could certainly use the spare cash for shopping than to buy another phone! Wish me luck!!!!

Computing & Internet

Trade, Buy or Sell WoW Accounts & Virtual Goods

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A friend of mine is addicted to World of Warcraft and so are many of HIS friends. Perhaps it is because I am only a small time WoW player that I do not understand the magic of the game.

This friend told me about a website, called WoW Trades, that he has discovered where registered members, totalling 4,000 and counting, could buy, sell or even trade WoW accounts. Although I am not a major WoW fan, I was told about this because my friend knows that I am interested to learn about various auction platforms.

WoW Trades is said to be the leading WoW auction marketplace for trading and auctioning of WoW accounts and virtual goods, items that WoW characters have garnered in the game.

Browsing through the auction and trading site, I must say that it is in a very systematic order that makes the site so easy to navigate. Items are listed according to type of trade – standard auction or trade offer and it is fairly easy to look for a particular item.

Buy It Now feature is also available and I have been told before that WoW accounts could command over a thousand dollars so I am not surprised to see the prices listed on WoW Trades.

As with any auction, one could get really lucky, or one could end up paying higher than expected but only people who have been engaged in bidding wars before would understand the excitement.

Just like auctions on eBay, WoW Trades offer Sellers the ability to allow only PayPal verified members to bid on their items. What a great feature to protect the auctions. According to WoW Trades, they close hundreds of auctions successfully every month and I am not surprised since it is so easy to bid and trade!

Computing & Internet

How Many Minutes Have You Lived?

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Today is my friend’s birthday, but he won’t let me know the year he was born in. Yea, guys can be sensitive about age too, you know?

Anyway, last night I was blog hopping and came to know of this website which I find totally fascinating. Well, I have already checked my own birthday and name and also my siblings and some friends.

I am not sure if it is accurate or not. If the data on me is positive, you can bet that I hope they are accurate!!! But whether 100% accurate or not, I do see some accuracy. Perhaps you would want to try them out.

Check your birthday here: http://www.paulsadowski.org/BirthDay.asp

Check your name here: http://www.paulsadowski.org/Numbers.asp

Let me know if you find them accurate! Good luck and have fun!!!

Blogging

Reviewing Financial Independence

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Whilst blog hopping today, I got to know of a blog review contest where the best review of Financial Independence will get to win GBP50 or USD100. Well, I think this is a good chance for bloggers to take a shot at the prize.

Well, I shall not review the posts because I have read through them and although I am not interested in financial issues (I am female, you know?) I believe that many people would find value in such posts.

What I would like to point out is that I like the clean simplistic layout of the blog but it is suffering from a little color clash. For one, the green is either too light or too striking on my screen and I have tried to view it with Internet Explorer and FireFox. The slight contrast of the green and the stark white background makes it difficult to read.

However, I like the header of the blog. It looks familiar, like I have seen it on some financial websites before but I am sure this is original but the message spells $$$ to me, somehow, and so I feel that the header is spot on for a blog with this theme.

On with the color clash…. the Google Adsense and MyBlogLog are in dark blue which does not match the overall color scheme of the blog. The same applies for the dark green for the Blog Catalog viewers.

There are two FeedBurner buttons on the site, one at the sidebar and one at the bottom. The bottom one should be taken off. PayPal’s Make a Donation button should be moved to the sidebar as well.

Also, there is a link to “financial-independence.net” at the footer of the blog which leads to Page Not Found.

So there you have it, my review of Financial Independence which could make the blog more pleasing to the eye. Wish me luck!

Charity

Animals Have Rights Too

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My sister and I are both animal lovers. If I lived in my own house, it would have looked like a zoo but my parents are not that keen on animals. My dad is OK with them but of the thirteen years that I have my two dogs, my mom has never pet them or cared for them at all. Isn’t that weird?

My sister subsequently moved to Tennessee and she says there is an animal rights non-profit organization called Humane Society of Memphis & Shelby County.

But my sister and I are caught in a chicken and egg situation, in the way that we definitely would love to devote some time to charitable bodies on animal rights (there is an SPCA in my hometown), we both have to work very long hours that leave us no time to do what we want. And if we had spent time on charities like these, our families would be left wanting.

However, we always try to educate people on animal rights. Yes, animals have rights too, but you will be surprised how many people treat animals as some “thing”. Having kept pets all my life, I can certainly understand that animals have as much right as any human being to live in this world and as “higher beings”, we should care for and protect them.

Later on in life when we are more financially stable, my sister and I hope to be able to devote time and be hands-on in our favorite charities on animal rights.

Much appreciation to Mr. Navtej Kohli, a philanthropist and business owner, for making this post possible. To read more on Mr. Navtej’s philanthropic efforts, please check out the Tej Kohli Foundation – Five Years of Philanthropy.

Mr. Navtej is also on Facebook, LinkedIn and SEOmoz.

Computing & Internet

It’s Not Always About The Payout

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As a blogger who blogs for pay, I was asked if I only select high paying opps to write. Well, of course not. Blogging is more than that.

Recently, I was lucky to snag a $5 opp that brought me a lot of traffic from organic searches. See, $5 is considered a low paying opp but it brought me traffic that I would not have found. Although the topic is something that I am rather familiar with, I did not thought of writing about it earlier because I was not that passionate about the topic.

However, now that I have seen the volume of traffic that the selected keywords could generate, I would be exploiting it more and writing more on the said topic since I already know about the subject.

Many people do not understand how we could blog for pay. Besides the income, I do enjoy being introduced to all sorts of websites, services and subject matters that I would not otherwise have known about.

Let’s not forget about the traffic. Besides those that come from organic searches, there are also traffic from your colleagues and many other sources that could only help in your Alexa ranking. And what about the host of people whom I got to know through blogging?

Like I said, it’s not always about the money.

General

The All Important Tertiary Education

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None my friends whom I got to know in adulthood believe that I do not have a college degree. They think I am pulling their leg but why should I downgrade myself? If I do have a college degree, I would have been proud to let others know, of course, unless I got it through warming the seat!

It is all the more ironic that unlike my friends, I do not have a degree education when both my uncle and aunt are prominent educationists in the country! What is that about the black sheep in the family?

In my own defense, it was not as if I did not study hard enough. I did aim for a university degree when I was in high school. Everyone was saying how it is THE only goal we should set for ourselves to reach and that having this coveted piece of certification would open up so many opportunities for us.

Having two educationists in the family means that my siblings, cousins and myself would be getting free study tips each time there was a family gathering. They did not just taught us how to study for a degree but how to score, how to get a first class degree. Naturally those were the times that I don’t have fond memories of because nobody wants to think of books during the holidays!

I put it all down to bad luck. Well, I really studied hard and even obtained rather good grades but before I managed to even enter university, my family went into financial distress and almost went bankrupt. When things became such, the family was in the verge of breaking up, there was no money and we did not even know when the next meal comes from, education was the last thing on my mind.

I had to go out to work, to earn, to support the family in whatever way I could. Being the youngest, I suffered the most because my brother and sister were already completing their tertiary education, and since I haven’t started yet, it seemed as if I have the least at stake.

Till today, I have a chip on my shoulder because society looks at people like me, people without a university degree, differently. Many people think that we are incapable of performing at work. I don’t think it is true because we do have worldly knowledge that we gained from working young!

Random Thoughts Off My Mind