Making money online

Since I started my own 'make money online' project about two years ago, the dynamics for making money online have changed considerably. This has come about mainly through Google moving the goal-posts by punishing paid links.
Paid posting alone could net you a decent online second income in those days, but those that were doing paid posting are now forced to diversify. I have never been keen on 'paid to click' or paid to read' programs as I can't see any real benefit IE.. I wouldn't feel like I was contributing anything for the payment (also the pay sucks...). So my second stream has been paid surveys and I will talk through the schemes that I use or have used:
Ciao - I used to do these surveys and cashed out twice, but I became frustrated by the amount of times I would spend more than ten minutes on a survey only to find I was not eligible for the survey and would not get paid... The annoying thing was that it was always the same type of questions and if they paid any attention to my profile they would know full well that I would not be eligible for the survey - enough about them, I dumped 'em and will not be going back!
PureProfile - much better system where you get paid for filling out certain parts of your profile to start with and they use this data to filter the surveys you are sent. Not only this but they pay you a small amount even if you turn out not to be eligible to complete the survey. It may take me a while to reach payout, but the process is painless, no problems so far with PureProfile.
dNeero - this is a great scheme and likely to payout quicker than other schemes. the surveys are always short and easy to complete occassionally requiring you to sign up for something, but nothing too onerous. They pay you a set fee for the short survey, then you can earn more by posting the survey widget on a blog based on the traffic it receives. Not only that but you get paid a percentage of the earnings of your referrals. You get a referral when someone joins after clicking on a survey widget on your blog... like this one:

or if you send them an invitation email.
YouGov - The lastest scheme have tried... Like Pureprofile, they pay a small amount regardless of whether you are eligible for the survey and mostly they send surveys which are geared to your profile. Like PureProfile, I think it will take me a while to get to payout, but I have had no problem with this scheme so far...

Am I covered?

If you have seen one of those lists of 'things to do before you're thirty' or 'things to do before you die...' then you will no doubt have considered some of the more risky ventures proposed in those lists. Maybe you are hankering for a bungee jump or want to have a go at sky-diving?
If you've discussed it with colleagues or friends I bet somebody has piped up 'your insurance won't cover you for that!'.
On a more serious note, some medical conditions can make it very difficult to get insurance cover, and in these circumstances you may have to consider the benefits of high risk life insurance. after all, you can get insurance for more or less any circumstances, it's just that it may be more costly and you may have to shop around a bit to get the best deal...

Bedfordshire Uni Clearing 2008

It’s clearing time again, and a last chance to be considering a course in this coming school year. Once again the University of Bedfordshire will be recruiting via the clearing process from 14th August to the middle of September 2008. The University is rated highly for its’ Sports and Media courses which are proving increasingly popular, but is diverse enough to be very well regarded for its’ courses in Journalism, Law and Business. Over the last few years a lot of investment has gone into the university facilities to make the University of Bedfordshire one of the leading educational institutions in the area.
If you are thinking of taking a course, why not give them a ring on their free-phone number and take it from there…

University of Bedfordshire - Clearing 2008 on 0800 013 0925

Mozilla Email client

One of the things that I needed to do when I was trying to recover my online life after the failure of my main PC was to retrieve my emails with POP3 access as opposed to internet emails. I set up some accounts using MS Outlook Express, but for my online income mail I tend to use MS Outlook too.
It was easy enough to recover connection details (although I couldn't recover addresses or the mail archive) for Outlook Express and was up and running in no time. The version of Outlook that I had on my spare PC though was sufficiently different to my current version for me to end up in a frustrating loop whilst trying to set it up. So I took the step of deciding to dump Outlook and try out Mozilla Thunderbird.
Thunderbird turned out to be easy to download and set up and packed with some great features including automatic detection of junk mail. It looks and feels very much like the Outlook software and many of the features and set up are shared. I didn't get a chance to try email rules (which I like to use for spam), but am sure that Thunderbird functionality is at least as good as the Outlook family - and it is of course, completely free!
So Firefox and Thunderbird, two great pieces of free software but where do they get the names? Something from nature combined with an animal: Fire-Fox, Thunder-Bird what other names could Mozilla utilise - how about Mozilla WaterFrog or Mozilla TyphoonBat? Sure beats 'outlook' and 'internet explorer' for imaginative naming anyhow...
Of course Linux users will have been using this software for a long time, and there are more email programs out there that are probably worth mentioning, but if you use Windows in some form the chances are that you will be using the default MS software. I am here to say that there are good reasons to step outside the box and consider other software providers. Next to MS, Mozilla are probably one of the prime most-trusted software providers and all their software is free. If you take the plunge you may be surprised at how good this software is - and if you think MS software is free (because it was pre-loaded onto your PC) just take a look at the price of MS software disks in your local computer shop...

Why Acne?

Acne is a subject that most people are aware of without any in-depth knowledge. For instance, we usually associate acne with teenagers going through puberty, but it can have an effect in later life too.
The basic cause is blockage of the follicles and can be seen primarily on the face, the back, chest and upper arms. Why it is that some people are affected more than others is not clear but could be linked to genetic makeup, stress, ingested medication (including steroids) and factors affecting hormonal activity.

What every man wants...

Call it mid-life crisis if you like, but what man doesn’t get to the stage where he thinks ‘Hmmm a Harley….I could probably afford one of those now…’.
That of course is the sentiment of a white-collar worker, a blue-collar worker may already have an almost-assembled Electra Glide in his garage which has been there for a decade already and has just needed those one or two all-important Harley parts for most of that duration. In many cases your white collar worker will move on and end up with a motor home instead, and the blue collar half-built Harley in the garage will probably end up on eBay someday. the few however, could end up like the guy in the picture...
Such is the stuff of dreams and romance for your average man entering the middle age.

My PC adventures

I am pleased to report the the PC that I created from old parts and a £10 motherboard from eBay has been working perfectly (if not a little slowly) whilst my main PC has been at the menders...
I got a call from the computer shop to say that he had a spare mobo with CPU and RAM left over from a recent upgrade (ironic because the 'old' kit left over from the upgrade was actually better than my original one..). He fitted the new mobo and got it all running for a grand total of £50 which I am more than pleased with.
I have three new 512MB SDRAM chips coming from eBay to add the final touches to my spare PC and I am considering putting another GB of RAM onto my recently refurbished main machine. I was mightily relieved to find that we didn't need to reload the Operating system and all my programs and data are intact..but the lesson is learned and I was glad of the trial run at recovering my online 'life' after a major PC crash. One thing I discovered is that certain parts of my backup system had not been working properly, so that has been all put to rights now. I can certainly see the value of having a 'spare' PC and keeping it up to date in case the same type of thing happens again, and you don't need to spend much to acheive this. Another discovery is that actually computers are not as scary to fix as you might think, and OK we are not getting down to component-level here, but when you consider that parts that make up the whole, ths system is relatively simple to grasp.
Maybe I will start building that dual-core machine...the only thing that stops me is that it is so damn cheap to buy on off the shelf anyway at todays prices.

Moving on from text-speak..

The latest dNeero survey introduces the idea of using images to convey a meaning for those that find typical internet abbreviations or text-speak a bit of a turn off.
The 'talk it up' survey involves a new website that allows you to create visual messages online and then send them to your freinds. Is this the type of service you would enjoy using, are you fed up with text-speak... Well RU ??
Have your say by joining in the conversation and being compensated for your trouble...

Formula one push chairs

The culture around children has changed out of all recognition in the last few decades whether it be as targets for the lastest games and gadgets (PSP, Wii, X-Box etc...) or the amount of effort that now goes into producing some thing like the Maclaren stroller. The equipment that your child wears or travels in is now under scrutiny for development in terms of state-of-the-art materials, technology and most of all...fashion.
In years gone by, the teenager emerged as a target for producers to create products such as the Sony Walkman. In more recent times, this target has widened to include Nike trainers for those that can't yet walk... As with everything, there are upsides and downsides. On the downside is the proportion of our diminishing disposable income that is now ring-fenced by toddler-funding. On the upside is that push-chairs riddled with carbon-fibre and proper tyres with air in them are quite pleasant to use.

A bit fishy....

Well everyone has to have a hobby, and if you take your hobby seriously, you will spend time and money in the pursuit of it. Combining a hobby with a pet or pets is a neat way to have a hobby with added interest. If that involves an aquarium, then it's guaranteed that this is a pursuit that will keep you happy at home, apart from those frequent trips to the aquarium store.
In fact there is a lot of technology involved in keeping a good quarium going, and my preference is to consume rather than observe sea-creatures. However I can see the attraction of maintaining the best conditions to keep those beatiful tropical fish healthy and happy. There is the cleaning and the aeration of the tank to consider, the lighting and heating too. It's not just a case of whether to go for the sunken galleon or the figureine of King Canute resting on the bottom of the aquarium.
I prefer the great outdoors myself and would plump for a dog rather then a home-bound pet, but then you have to spend a lot of time exercising a dog, so the fish are starting to look more attractive.

Budget Software

No, not a post about cheap programs, but a post about budgeting software. In the days of tightening finances, we need all the help we can to run a tight financial ship. It's not just our personal budgetting that we will need to be creative with, businesses that don't budget will not survive the coming recession.
The current financial crisis will result in less spending which means that the businesses that survive will be those offering the best value for money whilst still being able to make a healthy profit. Businesses that have got fat and lazy in past years will find themselves squeezed out of the market. Sharpen your pencils if you want to be trading in two years time...

Ups and downs

I have had one of those 'good news..bad news' weeks this week:

Good News.. I reached payout from Google Adsense for the third time this year and am already three-quarters of the way towards my next payout.
Bad News.. I lifted something far too heavy at work and have suffered chronic pack pain all week.

Good News.. I successfully fitted a 'previously enjoyed' Motherboard and CPU to an old PC, upgrading (just a little project really) from a 300mHz P2 to a 533Mhz Celeron to use as my 'spare'.
Bad News.. I managed to 'blow' the Motherboard on my main PC when fiddling with the RAM. So now I am using my spare as my main PC while it is getting fixed by someone who knows what they are doing!!

Not such a bad week when considering that I will have had a welcome cash injection (even if I have to pay it all out on a new MOBO..), and my back is getting better. Overall Adsense performance seems good at the moment with one of my blogs in particular getting some good PPC results (Hey you CAN make Adsense on a blog!!).
I am also happy that the PC upgrading project went OK, I have not exactly brought my old PC into the 21st Century, but I have brought it through from 1995 to about 1998, and the MOBO only cost me £10 ($20) on eBay including postage... Maybe I will attempt a dual core next time!

Looking for another dollar...

Since paid blogging is getting harder and Adsense doesn't really bring home very much bacon, other avenues for earning cash via the internet will no doubt become popular.
Maybe you will be tempted into Forex or and futures trading but these particular routes involve an element of financial risk which does not appeal to me. My views on risk investment is that you should only get involved if you are using money that you can afford to lose, and that definitely isn't me!
That said, the current financial crisis will prove to be a big earner for some lucky investors, and if you gauge the market right, you could end up profiting from the credit crunch.

July 2008

My blogging earnings for July have been $147 raised from a variety of sources including PPP, PayU2Blog, Creamaid and Adsense. My Adsense earnings have been building nicely, I think last time I got paid, there was already about $30 in the pot towards my next payout - this time there will be $70 already in the pot so I am hoping to get paid out much quicker this time. I should point out of course that the majority of my Adsense earnings comes from sources other than blogs... although my newer blogs have contributed recently.
I also get payouts from fixed adverts which raise around another $50 per month, and the occassional privately requested advert/text link which sometimes brings in an extra $40 or $50. I have been impressed this month with the amount of traffic that it is possible to drum up via StumbleUpon, and next month I am going to try another method of raising traffic levels and generally pursue some networking ideas to build up 'readership' of my various blogs.

PC update

My 'one-step-at-a-time' approach to PC maintenance has proved quite successful so far and I am installing Windows onto my newly 'created' PC today. I still have some extra RAM and a spare hard-drive coming from eBay auctions next week, bringing my total expenditure on this project to about £50/$100. This is not the first time I have embarked on this type of project, and am happy to say that without the cost-cutting advantage that eBay offers, there is no way that I would even attempt this type of PC customisation..
There is still the chance that this project could fall flat on it's face, but the fact that I may get a perfectly workable PC that will probably be twice as quick as it's previous incarnation, is worth the £50 spent even if I end up just learning a lot more from the experience and end up dumping the PC.

Strange brew

The world seems full of potions and medications and treatments to correct defects caused mostly by our unhealthy society. Along with the myriad diet plans, come the fat burner, the anti-aging cream and the little blue pill...
It is as if we can fix every little quirk with some treatment or other. You can even get a cream for if you have dry skin around the heel of your foot (as if it mattered..). I have noticed that the market has turned it's attention to men in the last few years. In my book real men couldn't care less about wrinkles and grey hair, but it's clear from the advertising that I have got it all wrong.
I'm not even concerned about wrinkles openly displayed by the fairer sex and am frankly more disconcerted when confronted with those elderly women who appear to have a face made from extra taut cling-film with a trout pout stuck on top.
I digress..... the market (especially the internet) is awash with tablets and powders, potions and creams, would it be too revolutionary to say 'lets eat properly and do some exercise'?

TV Lifts

The sheer size of the modern TV means that you have to put some real thought into how you are going to mount the thing in whichever room you intend to view it. The modern TV doesn't just sit in the corner of the room any more, it is often the centerpiece of the room, mounted impressively as the main feature. This is when you might start to consider tv lifts and dedicated furniture and fittings specifically designed to integrate your new modern flat screen HDTV into your living area.