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I finally received the results for my Audited revenue on Chitika. To my huge surprise, Chitika only offers 50% of the unaudited revenue to me. Above that, Chitika still hasn't paid anything into my Paypal Account.
How am I going to pay for the BlogDrive subscriptions?
I was so angry that I quickly wrote a letter to Chitika Support team to complain. Not too long ago, I noticed that I wasn't the only one suffering.
From JenSense word of forum threads such as DigitalPoint and SitePoint are explodingly scary.
Surfing over to Technorati and you'll find some angry bloggers writing their experience. Among them, ProBlogger in bed with Chitika and Audit Fraud. News website reports: Chitika Chikeating and ThreadWatch. There's even a brandnew domain name dedicated to anti-Chitika, Shitika Where's my money???.
I guess what makes everyone so angry is noone expected the audited to be way over 10%. Furthermore, many have helped promote Chitika for it's high paying clicks. What Jensense says pretty much sums it all up.
I hope Chitika gives a proper explanation and then bankrupt after paying me back my money.
Technorati tags: Chitika
This is taken from the stats package by Google Analytics. Man, I just love to look at the orange dots over and over again because it shows where the majority of BlogDrive users are in this tiny little world. The bigger dots shows a higher concentration of BlogDrive visitors.
(click for a larger image)Somehow, it does makes you wonder: 1) What happened to the Canadians? Don't any Canadians uses BlogDrive at all? You can only spot a couple of dots, and that's it. o_O 2) What about China? Are they all blocked? 3) And Russia? 4) Where are all the South Americans? Weird... Maybe BlogDrive should now morph into multi-linguality to accommodate other countries. As you can see, most (actually all) of the countries which are active in BlogDrive are English-literated regions, and then there's the rest of the world. No matter, it's still beautiful to look at.
A couple of days ago, BlogDrive added some divs tags to all [blog title] texts, wrapping them up and labelling them with a unique ID:
<div id="XXXXX_kdub1">[blog title]</div> XXXXX being some random number. This change has caused some of the scripts I did not work properly. Luckily, it's not a very big change so it's not exactly obvious. Or rather, I'm just a damn good javascript programmer that the scripts just degrade gracefully automatically. *wink* Right, the scripts can be fixed. So, it's not something to worry about since all it needs is my time to sit down and remanipulate the [Blog Title] strings to omit the divs. The problem lies in all the completed, flawless templates. There are more than two hundred fifty of them, and I don't think there's is anytime to look at all of them, and determine which is would fail. Also, my previous method of using [blog title] in <title> tags (to aid in search engine ranking) would now fail to serve any purpose. Maybe BlogDrive should do that automatically for permalink pages, since it'll gain search engine ranks. It's a win-win situation if they do it, since both bloggers and BD gain popularity. However, there might be some specific yet unknown reasons why they have not implemented it. Contrary to what many people thinks, getting ranked in Google is actually much more of a compliment than "leaving tracks on the internet". If you want to blog, you should know well enough what you are opting for.
I have never been known as someone who has good luck and hence, I have come to a point where I believe that luck is something you create chances for through initiative, innovative and creativity. In fact, I still think so. As an engineer who studies mathematics to a point where everything is defined by numbers, chances of luck is mathematical to me too. Over the past few weeks, my luck has been bursting out of everywhere like an uncontrolled chain bomb. Lucks pops up here and there when I least expected it. I thought, maybe it's because of the weather where everyone is in such a good mood. But after a series of events last week, I began to think other wise. Gerhard, an Austrian guy I met in the student union was considered as one of my crazy luck. We met on and off on the street, and I find myself helping him out one day with the skill of catching a cab. Yes, you do need to actually have certain techniques to catch a cab in the snap of a finger. He is from another country and hence doesn't know how stupid the cab service is in Manchester. I told him it's better to go out on to the main street waving his hand than to wait for a call cab. The next thing I know, I was invited to one of his parties and into his circle of friends. (Opportunity created) Juan Carlos, is a Manchester Radio Producer of All FM I met in the hostel. He claimed that I had a good personality and the next thing I know is, I was on air, live broadcast across Manchester. It was a one of a kind experience. (Opportunity created) Saturday, the day my notebook was stolen was when I left the house for only a mere fifteen minutes. All the doors were locked in the house, even the laptop had a laptop locked but it still happened. So, I would say this is unfortunately a very bad luck. My final year individual project is one of the most important course modules that must be completed. I was very depressed because I couldn't manage to find more information regarding my proposed project title and desperately needed some senior advice. I went to lunch in a nearby fast food restaurant two hours before my project meeting. I wanted to sit down and gather my thoughts properly. It was my luck that I met a senior engineering student who is actually specializing in my project area. Ayan, a MSc engineering student chatted me up and before I know it, I have got just what I want: information, explanation, and advice from this dude. I did not just made another friend, but I've finally understand my task in my project. This is pure luck because you don't get such opportunity like that.. (Good luck) Another one of my super bizarre incident has to do with the Shell Career presentation. It was my career advisor who brought to my attention to the talk and I wasn't very interested. However, he urged me to go and take it as an experience and as an opportunity to gather ideas in job hunting. And so I did. I arrived late for approximately 3 minutes. The moment I stepped in, the talk has already begun but instead of the Shell employees giving the talk, it was the anti-shell-environmentalist talking. He was talking about not working for Shell for environmental reasons. I thought "ah". Then there's the regular lucky draw for an Ipod Nano this year. We were told to hand in our details in a card for it. I thought, "shit, another one of these scams to get our email addresses" but I did it anyway. So, presentation over, and everyone moved to the next room for refreshments. I was the only one sat down packing all my stuff and preparing to leave when this gorgeous Shell human resource manager came to talk to me. We had a good chat about my opportunity to work with them, it was good considering that she is so hot. To be honest, deep down inside me I told myself that I would not want to work for such a company for several reasons such as "not sexy enough", "not smart enough" in the self part. I had some food and drinks, and then I left the building picking up a free t-shirt, an umbrella and handed in my card with my details. On my way out, I said out loud to the open air "I will not work for Shell". Two days later, one of my course mates approached me and told me that I missed my opportunity for the Ipod Nano simply because I left early. Shell announced my name moments after I left as the sole winner of the night's Ipod Nano. Now, this is pure good and bad luck. Good because I never win a one in a hundred lucky draw before, and bad because I wasn't there to claim it. How much that suck? (Pure Luck) Of course, the measurement of luck has to have a balance. Nobody can have too much of good luck over a long period of time. At one point, there should be pay back in terms of bad luck. Just like the law of thermodynamics. Luck can be measure in terms of good luck (positive value) or bad luck (negative value). The higher amount of good luck you have, you have to compensate it with bad luck. 0 = Sum of all Good Lucks + Sum of all Bad Lucks,
where "Bad Luck" is a negative value. Sum of all luck is equal to zero. The above equation is a generalized calculation, since time isn't taken account into calculation. Without time, it means that bad things happens to you as much as good things do. Now, I'm sure many people will disagree with this. It's all a matter of individual perspective on the situation, which basically brings us back from fiction to reality, or rather science calculation to praticality. How much luck a person gets is dependant on how optimistic or pessimistic they are. If you think you are unfortunate, you will constantly meet misfortune.
If you feel happy-go-lucky, luck will stick to you wherever you go.
With the ladies, you have to sacrifice the internet. Likewise,
With the internet, you have to sacrifice the ladies.
Let's say, you are in such a situation to choose one among the two. Which would you pick?
A gorgeous lady just approached me a minute ago seeking directions to the nearest computer printer. As I was in a hurry (to get to my room so that I can get online), I didn't bother to talk to her much, eventhough this is such a rare case of oppurtunity when such a lady showed some real interest (likewise).
This is the result of Internet Addiction. A decease I've been trying to fight ever since... I don't know. But it certainly is getting towards the lethal level, i.e. I could Die! It's much stronger than tobacco addiction, or maybe coffee. It might even be the same level as lethal drug addictions.
Now, diagnosis would include: a condition in which my attention shall be allocated towards a wider scope of generality and thus allowing me to come out clean. Situation such as above should help but apparently, the lady failed to lure me away from my computer. How sad is that?
A beautiful lady who had a wonderful friendly smile, failed to stop me at that. We could have stood there and talked more about stuff, possibly get her number. I could've given much more help than I had given, such as an escort to the nearest computer printer and step by step instructions on how to print.
Man.
I know everyone's been waiting for me to post pictures about Mardi Gras, more commonly known as the Manchester Pride Festival. So here it is, I didn't take all of these photos mainly because you can find much better photo quality on the internet. Copyright, of course goes to the pictures takers.
The more "beautiful" photos are posted here, but the undesirable pictures shall be posted in hyperlinks (which opens in a new window). I don't want disgusting photos displayed on my blog, neither does anybody wants to see them either without getting prepared, so don't argue.
Bloody tight security and look at the bloody crowd. You should look at the long queue I have to line up for just to get the tickets.
Side view of the canal street.
They even had fun park.
Doesn't she have a beautiful smile? Ahem... him! Wonder how they cover it up.
I'm a Knight without undies.
Lovely ladies! Or are they actually men?
Really, look closely!
I visited the lesbian bar. Crowded and not so attractive. But the drinks were so cheap.
Night bar whoring!
Costume dreeups! Hello Police women!
Colourful designs! But this is... SPANK!!!
Boys and girls! All aboard! Hee hee!
I've got lots more on my mobile, but I think I'll stop for now. Since BD's wonderful WYSIWYG imaging posting and linking system keeps having javascript errors. Not sure why but it's taking a long time to saving and uploading and posting. I'll be sure to use plain HTML the next time I post an entry, which apparently is much easier for me with all the copy and paste. Hehehe. On another story, I just insulted a Greek guy today, indirectly with no hinting at work. I shouldn't but I'm pretty proud of myself. You know how greeks are like and all the pride thingy they have, so it basically made my day. Can you believe it, I made a Greek feel guilty who left the the party we were having with a few mates! In fact, all the mates cheered me. No words, no looks. It's just wonderful how I made it.
ComScore Networks published the list of the top 10 blog destinations in first quarter of 2005. Blogspot.com, LiveJournal, TypePad, Xanga, AOL Journals, blogs.com, MSN Spaces, BlogDrive, GreatestJournal and DiaryLand are top blogging destinations. 
http://www.comscore.com/blogreport/comScoreBlogReport.pdf
Once again, BlogDrive is still pretty low in the chart. In fact, it has dropped (with reference to my earlier post using bsentinel.com as source) This may be a different source. But it gives us a rough figure and estimation. Let's make BlogDrive a better place.
 I've used the below information to built an external cooler for my "precious" laptop which constantly heats up badly. I bought a table-digital-clock-fan for three quid a while ago (It was on sale in BBQ). It runs on three AA size battery, which sums up to about 4.5 volts.
I know for a fact that USB have an output power of five volts. And with the table-fan I have, I can actually run it on my USB. Why do I want to run it on USB? I'm not very keen on batteries to be honest. They die out, and they are expensive to maintain. Connecting it to my USB means that I'll not have to pay for my AA batteries. Also, I get to turn on the fan anytime I want.
I have seen one of these USB fans (picture to the right) in some shops. Cool they are, the idea is actually very simple. Just plug in the right wires into the fan, and it'll run. USB cable outputs five volts DC. Which means, my fan will run. All I need, is a spare USB cable, and a fan. Of course you'll need some wires and a knife.
Now, how do I know which wires or which pin on the USB is what? A little search on the internet with appropriate keywords, I found what I needed (see information below). Certainly, there are more electronic hacks already done on exploiting USB. This particular information below is actually a charger for his own mobile phone. There's another one that exploits the USB for charging it's ninetendo game.
Google is wonderful today.
But not tomorrow.
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for the female usb connector, look down into the end of the connector so that it is oriented like so: 
pin 1 is the positive (5v) terminal (which goes to the output of the 7805) and pin 4 is ground (which goes to the 7805 ground pin). easiest way to test several people were wondering how to tell if you are going to fry your device. here’s the easiest way to test when you are all done wiring: - cut a standard usb cable in half.
- plug the male end into your usb battery.
- connect the positive and negative ends of your multimeter to the red and black usb wires respectively.
- if it reads something very close to 5v then you are wired correctly.
Reference: how-to: 'usb battery' v2 - hack a day - www.hackaday.com
The internet is a very dangerous place. Many have said that, and I agree. But after yesterday, I can't agree more than ever before.
THE INTERNET IS A VERY DANGEROUS PLACE!
Mark that into your subconcious, always use common sense when you find some new information. Double checking if your research returns a solid answer. Sometimes, even being cautious isn't enough. I've been digging some valuable resources for the past few days. When I say valuable, I mean information that is hard to find and mostly not of interest to the majority of public.
Through a link from one of the blogs around. I learned of Blog Explosion, and it's power to increase traffic and exposure of your blog. Blog Explosion serves as a Click Exchange Programme, making you surf through other blogs on the internet, and grand you with Internet traffic from other bloggers who, like you hopes for exposure and traffic for your blog. Blog Explosion seems harmless, though you might risk getting your computer infected with viruses or trojans brought in by certain anonymous blog sites that you surfed.
Initially, I thought. Who would have thought of such ridiculous yet succesful (in demand) method of gaining internet popularity? And worked it out as a form of business? Surely, it'll not survive long.
Then I came across MyBlogCafe.com, a new weblog directory websites, serves as a brand new blog community. The webmaster and I had a short email conversation, and from there, I learned of StudioTraffic. The name of the website sounds professional, and the layout seems like a reputable company. I soon learned that, this is some what similar to BlogExplosion (BE). (And I thought the webmaster of BE would be some brilliant guy.) Since we know all this is mere copy cat.
Studio Traffic (ST) brings traffic to your website, not restricted to blogs. It claims that by surfing 200 webpages per day, you'll earn 1% of what you invest in them. (means you'll need to dig out some small amount of money) So, 1% may seem to be a small amount, so small, it's pretty worthless. But if you were to put the amount in days, within 3 months, you would have earned back the amount of money you put in, and within one year, you would have 4 times the amount of money in your account.
I read through the explanation over and over again (who wouldn't when you found some easy-money-making scheme?) It didn't occur to me in the first place that this is money-making-scheme in the first place, at all. Althought I'm not desperate in cash, it does interest me. Who doesn't?
The FAQ was written in terrible English, and the method of explaning the whole process are pretty unclear and to me, very immature. It reminded me of the days when I visited some direct-selling friends. Very enthusiatic, but baseless.
Like I said, I thought that it did not occured to me as a money making scheme in the first place. I have a reason for this. As some of you may know, I have been participating in Google Adsense. Google's text advertisement, like the one above. I learned from there that, certain advertising companies, like the banner at the very top of this page, earns revenue through the number of times it's being displayed. That's how blogdrive survives, through hits. (damn phases says hits doesn't matter, though i doubt you'll be reading this, bleh)
StudioTraffic bring hits to your website, increasing the number of time your banner is displayed. It's cheating, no doubt. But it also explains where their source of revenue is coming from, and hence able to explain the 1% generousity.
Wait, it still didn't make sense to me. If you put in $10, you'll get back $40 per year for 365 days(though according to StudioTraffic, you get more, but let's not get in to that). Now, that's nearly 4 times what you invest, and all you do is, surf 200 webpages per day.
You may think that $40 is not a lot of money. Now think again, with $1000, you'll get back 1% each day, in one year, you would have recieve 4 times more money than ever. You could have paid of your internet fees, bought a new hardware upgrade and more just by doing this. Is it true that advertising companies are really paying that much to these websites for hits?
Obviously not. I run another search on google, and I found this. It explains all.
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Now that I know it's a scam, and that it isn't something that comes that easily. I thought of BlogExplosion, I thought of the forums I visited, I thought of Adsense. How do you know if any of this is another hoax? It looked so promising, and it was recommended by a (somewhat) friend.
The other thing that really scares me is, the forums. I visit many forums every now and then, including webmasterworld. And many times, forums poster appears to be the same person, with a different name and location. All with the same message. There are certain things that bring out the desire of more and better wihtout much efforts.
And they worked.
What's more alarming is that, they are based in Malaysia. With a very large community whom responce to such greed. http://www.studioreview.dk/
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