Ad free almost

A little update about my blog.

Finally, decided to remove all ads from my blog - apart from the Google AdSense ads and referrals.

I haven't earned anything from them so far and feel that it's a waste of my blog's real estate. They were just plain distracting.

Might put them up again in the future when I have more visitors and I have a higher PR ranking.

Exhibits mean everything in trade shows

Some of my friends think I am crazy because I like going to exhibitions, museums, conventions and trade shows. However the ones that interest me the most are the trade shows related to technology, especially the computer trade shows. I would have loved to visit CeBIT which was held in Hanover, Germany from 15 March to 21 March. Maybe next time.

There are several reasons why I like to visit such events. I get to see the latest gadgets available in the market and most of them have are at bargain prices. And of course there are the freebies. By the time we leave the venue, you are sure to have at least a few bag full of free goodies. My most memorable event has to be the time I won a Palm handheld in a lucky draw.


Most people don't know it but the trade show industry is one of the largest in the world. When you visit some of the big ones like CeBIT, you can see that it is a very serious affair and the companies try to show off their products and services the best way they can. However, preparing your booth and the displays can prove to be an extremely costly and time consuming task. It might be wise to leave it to the experts.

If you are planning to join a trade show, you might want to consider Nimlok Louisiana. This global industry leader has over 30 years of experience, with an international network of distributors in 56 countries. They would be able to satisfy every possible visual marketing needs for your trade show exhibit, with products ranging from modular displays to portable booths. They can help you remain within budget, meet your objectives and keep to time.

Polls added to my blog

If you look at my side bar you will notice a simple poll I put up. This is one of the new features just added by Blogger. If you are a Blogger user, you would need to go to http://draft.blogger.com/ and log in.

To add a poll to your blog:
1. go to "Template",
2. Click "Add a Page Element",
3. Choose "Poll" and click "Add to blog",
4. Write your question and possible answers,
5. You can also allow visitors to select multiple answers,
6. Click save after you are done.

Poll ready.

That's not all. Now Blogger also allows Enclosures and Video Podcasting.

I guess I can stop contemplating moving to a Wordpress powered blog.

Adsense referrals 2.0 coming to you soon

Adsense referrals 2.0 will soon be available to all AdSense publishers. Listed below are few of the key benefits mentioned on Inside AdSense, the AdSense blog:

- Expanded product inventory: Previously there were only a few Google products to choose from, now we will be able to choose products from thousands of AdWords advertisers.

- Category and keyword targeting: There will be a new option to refer products by category and keyword. Choose by specific category, advertiser, or product and AdSense will figure out which ones will perform best on your site.

- Ad unit optimization: By selecting the Pick best performing ads option, when we create a new referral ad unit, referrals 2.0 will compare the selected ads to other relevant ads, and serve the ads expected to perform best on our site.

- Better targeting for pages with multiple themes: If we have a number of themes on our page, we can now use unique "keywords" for each ad unit to narrow the targeting directly to the theme we want. Hopefully this will translate to higher earnings.

- Greater compensation for high-quality traffic: We will be able to earn more with the referrals, if the traffic through the ads posted on our site translates to completed sales or lead.

- Add your seal of approval: Unlike AdSense for content ads, Google's program policies allows us to add personal reviews of the products we refer.
For example, If you look at the top of my side bar, you will see a referral button for the Google pack. This is a pack of FREE software specifically selected by Google. All are spyware free too.

So how do we start with referral 2.0?

1. Click the AdSense Setup tab in your account
2. Click Referrals.

Don't be worried if you don't see referrals 2.0. I didn't too. Google is gradually making the feature available to all accounts over the next few weeks.

Premier infomercial ad agency

If you are a company looking for someone to handle your media campaign, you would want someone with a proven track record in various marketing areas including direct response television marketing (DRTV).

Hawthorne Direct fits this bill exactly. This company is a leading American full service direct response television advertising agency, specializing in creative/production, media and integrated marketing. They have managed around 600 media campaigns and handled 331 clients since 1986. Some of their cable television advertising clients include entrepreneurs as well as Fortune 500 companies. Some of the big names include among others, Time-Life, Nikon U.S.A., Nissan Motor Corp., Taylor Made Golf, Apple computers, etc.

I have to say I am quite impressed with their philosophy

to openly share as much industry information as possible with our clients and potential clients.

Their "Resources page" carries loads of interesting information on direct response marketing. The founder and chairman of the company Timothy R. Hawthorne, shares his secrets for managing high-quality, successful long and short form campaigns for clients.

The company believes in maintaining long term client relationships. Some of the entrepreneurs that they helped are now today's household brands. So, if you need a company to develop and/or manage your DRTV campaigns, you might want to consider Hawthorne Direct.

All search engines in one - Dogpile

Most of my friends prefer to use the Google search engine (so do I), whereas some of them like Yahoo!, on the other hand, a small percentage use MSN Search and others.

What if we have a search engine that brings together the best results from Google, Yahoo! Ask.com, About, etc? Well, you have Dogpile.

J.D. Power & Associates named it as top consumer search engine for 2007. You might also want to learn more about Arfie, their mascot.

Tags: arfie dogpile search engine

Cell phone accessories store

I would have laughed if somebody had told me 10 years ago that we would be moving around with a wireless phone that can fit in the palm of my hand, with a color screen, play games and music on it and take pictures and movies. The idea was there but in sci-fi and James Bond movies. However, it's a reality now and it was reported here in the UK that, many houses don't even have a land line anymore as more and more use their mobile (or cell phone).

Along with the phones, an entire industry has developed - for cell phone cases, batteries, and other accessories. Not only are they used to express your individuality or fashion sense, they are often used to make our life much easier - the hands free kit for example.

You can find accessories for all types of cell phones at AccessoryGeeks.com. This online company has been in business for three years now, supplying cellular and iPod accessories to customers in US and Canada. With over 20,0000 items, Accessorygeeks.com is said to be the store with the most 'Complete Line of Cellular & iPod Accessories' around. Taking a look around their online store clearly verifies this claim.

Alexa rankings

All this while I have been concentrating a lot on improving my Google page rank. I do realise that Alexa rankings are equally if not more important too. Right now the Alexa rankings of this blog is not that impressive: 461,677.

Unlike Google page rank where we aspire to reach PR 10, it the opposite for Alexa rankings. Here the lower the Alexa rank, the better.

If you are a newbie to this, just check out what they have to say about 'Alexa Traffic Rankings' on the Alexa site.

Though a lot of critics say that it not a true indicator of web traffic to a site, Alexa rankings are still used by many sites for the same - this includes a number of online advertising companies.

if you are looking to improve (lower) your blogs' Alexa rankings, you might want to read Dosh Dosh's '20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank'.

I have already taken some of the steps listed there including putting up the Alexa rank widget on the sidebar and also have Firefox’s SearchStatus add-on installed.

Let's see how it goes from here.

Tags: alexa rankings web traffic SearchStatus

Security software comparison sites

As someone who's obsessed with the security of my computer, I am quite astonished when I come across people who don't have any anti-virus software installed on their computer. Usually, these happen to be the newbies who just bought their pc. I have also noticed that even when they do have an anti-virus program installed, a lot of people do not bother to update the virus definitions. 

 I already have a firewall, an anti-virus program and two spyware removers installed. However, I do keep myself updated to compare different software available in the market. It can be a bit confusing sometimes when you have several companies advertising their security software, as the "best". 

 Visiting review and comparison sites can help us in making our purchase decision. The best ones reviews and compare different web security software along with the prices.

HongKiat's blog hacked

Just visited Malaysian blogger, Hong Kiat's blog and I got this:


Looks like his site has been hacked.

At time like this I am thankful that I am hosted on Blogger.I don't lose sleep at night wondering whether someone will deface my site or worse still, delete it all together.

Online certification courses

I was looking through the ads in the local newspapers and I noticed that there were a lot of IT jobs available. I already did a certificate course on E-commerce in Malaysia but I am seriously considering of getting a Microsoft or Cisco certification. The reason being that that what most of jobs being advertised require.

However, I wouldn't want to sit for an exam only to fail it. Though there are a number of institutes offering training courses around here, I don't have to time to attend classes. PrepLogic's online certification training courses are something that I might take up. They provide a number of different courses for the IT community right from A+ certification, Cisco Certification Training or MCSE Certification training.

Besides the fact that they are online, I like Preplogic's training courses because they are fast and cheap. They always have the lowest price on discount VUE exam vouchers and Promteric exam vouchers. Best of all, they are offering a money-back, Pass Guarantee. This means that they will refund the money if we don't pass the exams.

If you are looking for an online certification training course, you might want to take a look at PrepLogic.