You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2008.
1. Listen to Lupe Fiasco. His lyrics are sick. If Lupe doesn’t inspire you, we are obviously from different generations.
2. Always carry a small notebook and a pen or pencil around with you. That way, if you are struck by an idea, you can quickly write it down.
3. If you’re stuck for an idea, open a dictionary, randomly select a word and then try to formulate ideas incorporating this word. You’d be surprised how well this works. The concept is based on a simple but little known truth: freedom inhibits creativity. There are nothing like restrictions to get you thinking.
4. Define your problem. Grab a sheet of paper, electronic notebook, computer or whatever you use to make notes, and define your problem in detail. You’ll probably find ideas positively spewing out once you’ve done this.
5. If you can’t think, go for a walk. A change of atmosphere is good for you and gentle exercise helps shake up the brain cells. My favourite walk is from my car to the gondola at Whistler.
6. Read as much as you can about everything possible. Books exercise your brain, provide inspiration and fill you with information that allows you to make creative connections easily.
7. Exercise your brain. Brains, like bodies, need exercise to keep fit. If you don’t exercise your brain, it will get flabby and useless. Exercise your brain by talking to smart people and disagreeing with people – arguing can be a terrific way to give your brain cells a workout. If you don’t have any friends, read the Economist.
- Christian
*Post originally written November 2007
Blogged with the Flock Browser
So I took a little a break from working on gdgt to get on Virgin America’s inaugural Aircell GoGo WiFi party flight, posting this at altitude. If you haven’t already caught one of the early Aircell flights on Delta, American, or Air Canada, their now-active GoGo service provides in-flight internet. So far, as far as party planes go, this one hasn’t been to raucus — probably because everyone’s been geeking out on their laptops.
Quick facts:
- Shared 3.6Mbps downstream (to the ground), and 1.8Mbps upstream (to the plane — i.e. everyone on the plane is sharing 3.6Mbps of bandwidth for loading pages, downloading files, etc.).
- So far we’ve been getting about 1Mbps down, and 200Kbps up — pretty good considering that this is about as pinned as the system is going to get. There are only about 150 people on it right now, you know?
- Latency is between 200-500ms, sometimes higher. Reasonable latency, though.
- The system uses 802.11a/b/g, although it’s an open AP (i.e. no encryption)
- Aircell intends to block voice and video chat to keep things less obnoxious for travelers. It’s working in flight though — people are doing iChat sessions. But part of this inaugural flight will have live YouTube streaming, so one should expect to have this cut off later.
- Virgin America isn’t filtering content, so feel free to cast a glance over your shoulder and engage your browser’s private mode.
Any thing else you want to know?
Filed under: Transportation, Wireless
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective and powerful ways of earning some money online. This program gives everybody a chance to make a profit through the Internet. Since these affiliate marketing programs are easy to join, implement and pays a commission on a regular basis, more an more people are now willing in this business.
However, like all businesses, there are lots of pitfalls in the affiliate marketing business. Committing some of the most common mistakes will cost the marketers a large portion taken from the profit they are making everyday. That is why it is better to avoid them than be regretful in the end.
Mistake number 1: Choosing the wrong affiliate.
Many people want to earn from affiliate marketing as fast as possible. In their rush to be part of one, they tend to choose a bandwagon product. This is the kind of products that the program thinks is “hot”. They choose the product that is in demand without actually considering if the product appeals to them. This is not a very wise move obviously.
Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, try top choose a product in which you are truly interested in. For any endeavor to succeed, you should take some time to plan and figure out your actions.
Pick a product that appeals to you. Then do some research about that product to see if they are in demand. Promoting a product you are more passionate about is easier than promoting one for the sake of the earnings only.
Mistake number 2: Joining too many affiliate programs.
Since affiliate programs are very easy to join, you might be tempted to join multiples of affiliate programs to try and maximize the earnings you will be getting. Besides you may think that there is nothing wrong and nothing to lose by being part of many affiliate programs.
True, that is a great way to have multiple sources of income. However, joining multiple programs and attempting to promote them all at the same time will prevent you from concentrating on each one of them.
The result? The maximum potential of your affiliate program is not realized and the income generated will not exactly be as huge as you were thinking initially it would. The best way to get excellent result is by joining just one program that pays a 40% commission at least. Then give it your best effort by promoting your products enthusiastically. As soon as you see that it is already making a reasonable profit, then maybe you can now join another affiliate program.
The technique is to do it slowly but surely. There is really no need to rush into things, especially with affiliate marketing. With the way things are going, the future is looking real bright and it seems affiliate marketing will be staying for a long time too.
Mistake number 3: Not buying the product or using the service.
As an affiliate, you main purpose is to effectively and convincingly promote a product or service and to find customers. For you to achieve this purpose, you must be able to relay to the customers that certain product and service. It is therefore difficult for you to do this when you yourself have not tried these things out. Thus, you will fail to promote and recommend them convincingly. You will also fail to create a desire in your customers to avail any of what you are offering.
Try the product or service personally first before you sign up as an affiliate to see if it is really delivering what it promises. If you have done so, then you are one of the credible and living testaments aware of its advantages and disadvantages. Your customers will then feel the sincerity and truthfulness in you and this will trigger them to try them out for themselves.
Many affiliate marketers makes these mistakes and are paying dearly for their actions. To not fall into the same situation they have been in, try to do everything to avoid making the same mistakes.
Time is the key. Take the time to analyze your marketing strategy and check if you are in the right track. If done properly, you will be able to maximize your affiliate marketing program and earn higher profits.
Learn more affiliate marketing secrets
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Cool tools, Odds and ends, Freeware, iPhone
Oh man — finally, we’re getting an app that fulfills the promise of the iPhone. Ever since we knew the iPhone would have a camera and an internet connection, we’ve been waiting for SnapTell Explorer, and now it’s here and free. Download and install it on the iPhone, and then snap a picture of any book, CD, movie, or videogame, and bingo, you’ve got links to listings for it (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Wikipedia, Google, etc.) around the Internet. I have no idea how it works (some type of picture comparison script hooked up to a database, surely, though it’s amazing that it works that well with just the iPhone’s camera), but that’s fine, because it makes it all the more indistinguishable from magic.
The main drawback is that it takes a bit to search their database — while wifi or 3G are much faster (obviously), Edge will have you waiting a few minutes for a find. And at this point, all they have are links to pages — it would be nice to see a price comparison right away and/or a quick rating (to see instantly what people think of a movie if you happen to be standing in a video store making your choice). Finally, it would be nice to see this extended to all sorts of items — I tried scanning a few groceries that I might be price shopping, but for now it’s just books, movies, and music.
But otherwise, it’s awesome — even in low light/bad light situations, as long as you can get a recognizable picture of the case, it works. This is exactly the kind of thing the iPhone is made for, very cool to finally see it in action.
[via Waxy]
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Is PC gaming giving way to today’s more versatile and powerful consoles? Not according to a market study recently conducted by research group JPR, which claims that more gaming PC’s have been sold over the past three years than Xbox 360s, PlayStation 3s, and Wiis combined. The study, which tracks the sales of three different classes of gaming PCs over since Q3 2005, found that 196 million units have been sold between then and Q3 2008, compared to a worldwide total of 74.7 million consoles. As Edge points out, this of course doesn’t take into effect handheld gaming systems like the DS and PSP, which sold a combined 125 million units during the same period.
The study goes on to conclude that the $20 billion dollar PC gaming market, predicted to rise to $34 billion by 2011, was bigger, worth more money, was growing faster and had better tech than the console market could provide. Okay then! PC gamers in one corner, console gamers in the other. Ready, fight!
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Six Ways to Profit from your Niche
Create an article site and monetize it with Pay-Per-Click traffic and Google
Adsense preferably.
You could collect articles from a group of individuals within your topic of interest
or start a larger more broad article directory that covers many topics, like
http://www.ezinearticles.com
If you click onto an article specific page at the link above, you’ll see Google
Adsense on the page, and I believe the site owner of EzineArticles.com makes more in a
day from Adsense than most people make in a month. Let’s just say to most people that
figure is not even in the realm of possibility.
Once you establish a hot article directory, you’ll get some true love from Google
as well as fuel more submissions from your all your authors and publishers.
Then, once you build visitors to the independent articles that get submitted, it’s
just a matter of science in the percentage of people that click on a paid ad that generates a
commission to simply increasing your traffic to increase your pay.
Don’t look at it as simple work – nothing really is.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
