My Life With IT

I’ve always wanted to try out home based working. So as to save the earth by a little part on my side. And it’s truly tiring to squeeze into the crowded trains and buses when everyone wants to be the first to board and alight. Now, here’s a simple way to earn US$100.

I can enter the sweeptakes or take a look at home based business opportunities. Actually, I just need those two anchor texts to throw my name into the hat for a cool 100 bucks. And seriously speaking, I love to join in contests where the rules are simple

A quick note, Make Sales Make Money does provide tips on making money online too.

Deadline: 3 Dec 2007

[via Contest Blogger]

I first saw the advertisement for Tatarah was on the MRT. The ads were vibrant as the logo is colourful. This site is different from eBay in such a way that the lowest unique bidder wins the item. Initially, I was excited with the idea as I don’t have to bid too high and still be able to afford it.

The bidding style is not new, I’ve heard of the lowest bidder wins auction during my degree course. It originated from The Netherlands or Holland. Another site that has this concept is Red Toucan whereby there is no bidding fee. Tatarah has a name that is hard to pronounce and remember the correct spelling.

Such a style of bidding method means closed bidding. No one knows how much the bid is as this means there won’t be any lowest unique bid. Tatarah has a quota for each item to be bid. This means bidding early despite the closing date being 5 days away. It has a minimum amount of processing fee of SG$1 excluding GST which I fail to understand why there is a GST when the fee is already charging the bidder for bidding the item that has no guarantee to be the bidder’s. This fee is charged for each bid. Not for every sucessful bid.

The way I see it, the site will be earning more in a short time if there are a lot of bidders. I wished to bid for the Kompressor though. However, the processing fee is $38 excluding GST. I’m starting to hate GST here. It seems to be abused.

While I like the idea of the lowest unique bid wins, I don’t like the way the fees are being imposed for each bid. The fees range from SG$1 to an amount that the provider / partner decides on. Personally, I feel that this will be a stumbling block.

It’s voting time! I was looking forward to looking at the Wordpress Plugin Group Writing Project posts started by MarcoRichter.net and was rather surprised that only 5 including mine to be in the final compilation. So, does that mean that most of the available plugins are able to do the jobs and hence, the limited number of entries?

Before I vote for my favourite post, I’ll like to list the finalists.

• gratemedia.com wants an eMail plugin.
• techzilo.com wants help with SEO.
• myweightlossforlife.com wants better relation between posts.
• thewritersmanifesto.com wants a social plugin.
• itlife.escrito.info wants help with insulters.

Looks like I can’t vote for mine While the SEO plugin was rather useful, I believe one of the features like showing excerpts is already available as a plugin itself.

To avoid the suspense, I’ll like to vote for my favourite post, it’s the plugin for Social submission by TheWritersManifestoBlog. I do agree with the doing away with “logging into every darn social bookmarking just to submit a post.”

I’m trying to build an affiliate network. The basic idea is to cast my net as wide as possible. However, doing this part time isn’t easy and attending the Affiliate Summit should help me in getting connecting better than what I’m doing now. This summit will be held on Feb 24 - 26, 2008 in Las Vegas, Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. Sounds cool to me.

In order to attend it, I would have to cough out US$949 (I believe that’s the currency since it’s going to be in America). I can however, get it free from Zac who is holding a contest to give away one full conference pass to one lucky person.

He is giving away not 1 but 3 such passes for free. W00T! Deadline to join in for a chance to win the pass is on Oct 31 for the 1st, Nov 30 for the 2nd and finally, Dec 7 for the 3rd pass.

[via My Blog Contest]

Had a very disappointing call with M1, again. I think I should switch telco by end of this year. I would like to change my current handphone to another model because this Dopod 838Pro is starting to give me problems. Since my contract has ended, I want to make use of this chance to upgrade. So, I called M1 to check if I would be getting any voucher. Ah, here, the standard model answer was given.

“The voucher is given out based on the plan and the amount of the plan.” Oh, so I have to be an Ultimate mobile phone warrior who pays M1 at least $300 per month so that I can get a voucher to upgrade my handset after the end of the 2-year contract.

I know Starhub gives me the voucher at the end of 2 years. I just received it. Even when my plan was paying them a miserly $30 per month. As a Hub Club member, I can even upgrade my handset at the 21st month without paying the extra $100.

Moral of the story, switch telco by this year when the handphone number can be kept without having to update all my contacts.

Receiving unwanted advertisements on your mobile? I had and still having. ^$&*# I have even received calls from companies representing credit card banks like Citibank, UOB, HSBC and OCBC. I wonder how the heck they managed to cull my personal information. I wonder why they are allowed to do that. And I wonder why the heck do contest sponsors allow the very private information to be sold or given to third parties.

Reading today’s Digital Life on the culling of private information set me thinking. The question asked was “What if you receive an SMS recommending coffee at the very place you are at just as you are contemplating what to drink?” Have our systems become so good and integrated that our information are no longer within our control on how it is being flowed? Why is that we can’t sue them for abusing the privilege to get the information? Do banks even protect our account privacies in the first place?

If banks can freeze the accounts because of a warrant to freeze them without any verification even if the warrant is valid, then why is my money with them for their investments? Why am I still using the very bank that will betray my trust with it? Because it’s the only place I can earn some interest stably, no wait, not stably, they fluctuate with the times. Oh, because it’s the only place where my money will increase cents by cents very year. This reasoning of mine seems flawed somehow.

Putting your name online means you are search-able. Do a Google or Yahoo with your name and you could be found in the 1st 10 results. I know I can be found too. Scary. Putting your real name online means you can easily be framed like getting your reputation dragged into something you didn’t know existed

Facebook provides SMS and it’s being sued by a woman because she received unauthorised messages. Now, can I sue my service provider for being unable to stop unwanted SMS? No. Because I don’t have the cash for it. And, they still haven’t come out with a way to prevent unwanted SMS except to force them to put ADV in front of the message and in emails. Sheesh.

Technology was to help us not to create problems like unwanted emails and SMS.

I’m so thrilled! There are 5 special editions of Monopoly to be given away by Discount Codes. This is a site where you can get discounts from the various affiliates that they have with by using the promo codes given. Besides getting discounts from the various online stores like Amazon.com, Dixon, you can also rate the discounts.

Besides the different ways to check on the discounts, a search function has been provided for you to narrow down your search. I would say that this could be a start in my pursuit for affordable online purchases.

This contest ends on 31 Dec 2007.

[via Contest Beat and Web Affiliate Marketing Tools]

Sometimes, Twitter throws unexpected tweets that seemed connected but they aren’t. Such as Twitter Tips that give you tips after your friends’ tweets. Today, I saw something ironic.

yunnie: exhausted from crying… *sigh* even though i tried not to expect anything, i still end up feeling disappointed.

iheartquotes: Laugh, and the world ignores you. Crying doesn’t help either.

MissLoi: Two … more … days … !

I wonder if I should stop twittering.