My Life With IT

Image via Wikipedia

Frankly speaking, a new toy is always fun to play with until you reach the stage of boredom. I am bored of Facebook. I still have incoming application requests and have resorted to blocking the applications as I find the them a hassle to keep myself active in more than 30 applications.

I read with amusement about the Facebook Anthem and found it rather endearing. Apparently, We didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel is popularly used to change the lyrics. I have more than 30 applications being loaded in my profile and it sure is loading very slowly.

It took me much sheer power to remove applications that I have no fancy for such as Ninjas vs Pirates, and other games that took too much time to upkeep the status. I’m hoping to remove Superpoke, Fun Wall, Make a Baby and other applications in future.

Facebook, it was good while it lasted.

I haven’t tried it but I smell a fish there. If I were to use this system, I have to put in $5,000 and the money will grow. Or so it’s supposed to. Just take a look at this guy in his boxers out there in the freezing cold. There is a warning about how it works and how a business is to be setup.

Entrepreneurs who have experienced their own business failures and success will know. They have first hand knowledge of managing businesses. Business is tough. You can’t just sit at home fiddling with your website even though it is comfortable and think money will start pouring into your account.

I don’t know who Ty Coughlin is but a search threw up titles with the word ’scam’ ended up in the first page. Apparently, this guy has a lot of different domains trying to lure people into paying him money. This time, he’s looking for a business owner, via ProBlogger Job Boards, no less.

All sorts of marketing needs work. Lots of it. The initial work is usually the most difficult but the sweet fruits of labour is worth it. I have seen too many single page websites claiming that they have earned $7,000 per week and more. Each page design feels 1990s. The key is to use large bold red fonts to attract people into signing up.

Each package usually requires you to pay a minimum sum of $50. I don’t know how long such a system can last but apparently, during the downtimes of the economy, people are often turning to online hoping to earn quick bucks and not be stuck in the office from 8 - 6.

I have blogged for more than 2 years with different platforms. When I first started out, I thought it was just to voice out my thoughts and feelings on things that affect me deeply. Albeit too deeply at times.

What I thought blogging was about:

• I can just voice my thoughts.
• I can vent my anger.
• I can write anything I want.
• I can earn some money.
• I can blog for life.

What blogging has evolved:

• I can’t just say anything about the bad bosses I had encountered.
• I can’t identify the companies unless it’s positive. This is still debatable.
• I can’t write about anything I want.
• I get spammed.
• I get comments about posts that I have written that talk about my perspective being wrong.
• I can’t really earn peanuts if I am not famous enough in the blogsphere.
• I can’t just rely on blogging alone.

I haven’t really lost interest in blogging here. I have been busy with looking at other concepts because I am jobless in a couple of weeks. I have tested a few of my concepts and it’s picking up slow because I haven’t inserted any sexy images for them. Besides, seductive images don’t work because they aren’t about exotic tastes.

I may reveal more of myself but at this moment, I am not ready. I hope to be able to do something useful in life for once besides mindless working. As for the perspectives being wrong, I am not wrong. You are.

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[via RevieWOW]

I have come a long way. Testing various platforms before deciding on Wordpress that didn’t give me headaches until the widget part for 2.5.1. I have long suspected that I wasn’t famous enough, still isn’t despite my attempts at garnering more blog exposure.

There were even times I was suspecting that blogging could be bad and it is wrong. However, my love for penning my thoughts got the better of me. Since I have been blogging my way for a long time, I have discovered a few things along the way. It was a long and arduous path (inspired by Cobalt Paladin).

Blogging Pros

1. You can earn some money online.
2. You can join blog directories and improve your blog’s traffic.
3. You can post hundreds and thousands of photos online.
4. You can tell your friends that you own a blog and the domain is under your name.
5. You can start shopping sprees, sales and hurl insults online.
6. You can freelance more easily as web designers have their names as credits in the designs.
7. You can find more like-minded people.
8. You can blog about niche topics that you have talents for but never discovered.
9. You can sell your handmade items online.
10. You don’t have to rent a shop for selling small items.

Blogging Cons

1. You don’t really earn thousands of dollars online.
2. The money doesn’t always come constantly.
3. Being anonymous doesn’t mean you won’t be found. Photos and details of you can and will be displayed in full glory.
4. You get known for something that you wished it hadn’t come to light. Such as Edison Chen, Fragrance Prince and many others.
5. Being anonymous also means that Asian advertisers distrust your reviews and you don’t get invited to events much.
6. Your photos of you being drunk or behaving wildly can turn off potential employers.
7. Freelance becomes a problem when someone accuses you of ripping clients.
8. You have to upgrade Wordpress constantly. So do other platforms.
9. You get flamed, spammed and even accused of wrong-doing.
10. Your words are dissected and scrutinised and probably mis-interpretated half the time.

These could just be the tips of the iceberg but I stick to blogging because it’s a way to voice out without requiring a license for the soapbox in that park. Lord knows how long it’ll take to grant a paper license for public speaking.

We have all heard of the local blog advertisers for bloggers. We have been using them since they were launched in hopes that it would add one more zero behind our digits. Alas. It wasn’t meant to be. First, there was this script that kept redirecting to another page that shouldn’t even be there.

Second, there was this script jumping to a suspended page when the host should have auto-renewed the domain license. Third, there was this change in granting privileges to certain bands of publishers who would use that one and only advertising company.

Fourth, another change soon followed by the rival. In fact, I don’t really see the difference between them as they have different ways of advertising. One gives ads only when there is a certain number of unique visitors, the other just give out ads so that bloggers have a faster rate of earning the money.

In fact, it used to be Adsense that can let the bloggers earn money faster because it is using PPC. However, in the recent times, things have changed. For bloggers, it meant a slow down of income as companies want action done instead of just visitors visiting their page for a short while and not buying stuff from them.

Despite the turn of events, blog advertising still is lucrative because bloggers don’t have to do paid posts and just refer to the advertisers without lifting a finger. Paid posts are notoriously ignored and even looked down by PR.

Some posts are linking to link farms and the bloggers may not even know that until someone tells them. Thus, PPP has taken a slight beating from this as they don’t seem to filter advertisers looking for bloggers who will blog about them. Some sites have ridiculous requirements such as “must have PR3 and above” and “300 words” and “USD$5″ for a 300-word post. The problem? Sometimes, there is nothing to write about the site for 300 words and it sure ain’t worth my efforts writing for USD$5 for 300 words.

Hence, the attraction of blog advertising is there. It still is lucrative for those whose CTR is high.

The grass always look greener on the other side. When you see a friend earning $4, 000 per month for doing seemingly simple job, you envy them and wished that you could earn that amount every month too. IT is known for its high pay. Just note that in Singapore, it ain’t that high a pay unless you are at manager level and above as they don’t see paying $8, 000 a month for a SAP developer or BW developer is worth the money.

Read here about foreign talents being paid more. Enough said. Being in the IT line for at least 6 years, I have seen different users with different ways of giving you their requirements. How they give it to you so that you can interpret it correctly is one thing.

It’s very frustrating when your user don’t even know what they want or are not able to tell you how they like it except they love to tell you how to programme it. Now, isn’t this great? I should just give them the programme and shake my leg while I still get my pay.

After 6 freaking months of doing 2 seemingly simple databases, I am about to give up. I kept being chased after on when the things can be up when they can’t even tell me what they want for nuts. If that’s the case, please gather your thoughts and sort them out before even telling any programmer to do anything.

After the development, they started to look at cosmetic changes. Nothing new. Except the changes involved the codes and there is no way I can shorten the timeline to change them they want to see it ASAP. Finally, they seem to have decided what they want. Now, they want another change to a previous request.

I’m starting to wonder if IT users tend to be the sort where they tell you how to do the programme rather than tell you how they want the system to function. Work can be such a headache and at times like this, I feel like changing to another field.

[via Flickr]

It seems that the net-savvy would like to play a part in helping the needy. Given that Violent Acres is raising funds for West Valley Child Crisis and LLY is also doing the same for every Pong/Nang. It got me thinking if any local charities accept Paypal, the popular e-payment standard adopted by eBay. Even eBay does support charity.

A quick search from Charity Portal reveals that NCSS charities are using credit card donations while Paypal isn’t supported. I’m not sure why but perhaps it could be difficult to monitor the donations via Paypal despite its ease for payment history?

UNICEF supported online donations but due to some technical problems, they have changed to the pen and paper method. With hackers loving to attack hack take over any website, especially if it’s a widely read site, problems do occur.

If donating the IT way is anything to go by, no matter how secure a site is, hackers are bound to make it vulnerable and deterring genuine donators from doing their pay.