Blogger scam!

I had one of those scam emails today, you know a bit like the ones that say they are from your bank, but somehow they don’t seem to have put your name on the email? They want you to log-in to your account right now via the bogus hyperlink that they have helpfully supplied.

This time though it wasn’t from a bogus bank or even bogus Paypal, but from bogus Blogger. Supposedly there is a problem with the database and I need to log in to correct it…

Here’s the thing…. Google Blogger admin know my name… and my email address that I use to log in to blogger, so why didn’t they use my name, the name of my blogger account or my email address? (the email came into an unconnected email account). A scam, of course designed to lift important information from your Google account, maybe use your Google mail account or even substitute your adsense code for theirs… change the account details for where the adsense is paid or lift such banking information as is available.

If you have seen this email, [mine had a logo similar to the one shown in this post] and Heaven forbid, clicked on a link… change your log-on password right now, and go through all your Google account details to find out if you have been a victim of identity theft…

Slow start to 2008

Another month is drawing to a close and the final few dollars earned in 2007 have filtered through to my Paypal account. I have been busy spending money (mostly on Ebay) to upgrade my PC - seems only fair as the PC has enabled me to earn the money in the first place. I can now rearrange my home office as I have a slick new flat screen, and work faster with an extra 1GB RAM, work with more files on a new 30oGB internal hard-drive, and store more data etc.. on a new internal DVD writer (I bought an external one too, but it has not worked as well as I would have liked).
Earning patterns have shifted somewhat since November when Google took a stick to the PR of most bloggers that I know.
Outside of blogging earnings, Adsense has been steadily climbing to the point where I earned more from Adsense than I did paid blogging in December. I have also hooked up with another fixed adverts (non-contextual) service who have paid me about $15 so far and will pay me $30 next month if all goes well. This is added to the $30 a month or so that I get for hosting other paid ads (not on a blog though I should add...). This month I have been paid my second ever payout by Adsense ($120) and am already half way to another payout...
I do not include any of the earnings in the above paragraph as earnings via blogging, so they are not counted as munny4hunny earnings except where the adsense is from a blogspot blog (of which I currently have three active). I will report earnings more specifically (and I must remember to update the earnings graphic) at the end of January. My first reported earnings were in March 2007, so I figure I have to do an annual summary at the end of February... It would be nice if I could report blogging earnings of $1000 for the first year, but I think I may fall a little short of that figure since paid blogging is difficult with no PR...

$50 blog contest

Super-duper, easy peasy blog contests with plenty of cash on offer - what more could you want...?
Melbel has started a great new blogging contest for a $50 payout - the means of entry is simple, my choices will be to post an entry in a forum, leave a comment against the original post
See the original post here..
and post about it in at least one blog - so that's at least three entries for just 5 minutes typing...
For those that have not visited Mel's blog can I suggest that you take a trip over there to check out her new layout. It's a very cool template, nice and airy and quite different to the intense colours that used to be on her blog when I first visited.
Mel is recently married and has some bills to pay, her blog contains a mixture of personal posts on varying topics and some reporting of the ways she has been making money on the internet. Mel is a fan of sushi and is aiming to be an ebay powerseller. If you want to know any more, get over there and take a look yourself....
[competition now closed]

Negative comments

Occasionally, but happily not frequently.. a negative or rude comment is left on a blog - I was prompted to think about this when I saw some stupid comments on a very eminent blog just yesterday. I have one or two and at the time was disturbed by this approach in what is generally a very positive environment. I find the blogosphere to be generally full of enthusiastic and supportive people, often willing to help and give great advice. I guess like any walk of life, you sometimes come across the occasional idiot.
One comment I received had criticised my design capabilities which is always going to be a matter of personal subjective opinion. I was prompted to visit the site of the commenter and was greeted by a blog with a sum total of two posts clearly written by someone who was probably not old enough to drive. That's when I became more aware that of course there are some very young bloggers out there and, like the kids that might shout something rude across the street then run away if you turn to look at them... they do not always use a level of mature etiquette that the majority of bloggers do.
So the lessons learned are:

• Don't let it bug you if a 'kid' leaves a rude comment
• When commenting, be helpful even if you need to give positive criticism
• Even the best bloggers get idiots commenting on their blog, and are not afraid to leave the comments in place - why? because they are so popular, they can rely on at least four of their loyal readers to post indignant replies...

A comment is a comment after all...

Getting started with a blog

I wish I had been able to find more information about blogging when I started doing this about 12 months ago. It was really just a case of trial and error as a newbie blogger and doing lots of research to get to grips with the concepts of the blogosphere. A helpful guide to starting a blog has been produced and posted at Livewyre.NET. The guide talks about what a blog is and how to set one up, the idea of blogging for free, having your own domain and monetising your blog. If you haven't already started a blog and you are interested, why not take a look at the helpful article?
Other items of interest at Livewyre include free software, website designing and SEO hints and tips along with making money online help.

Rankrz - a review

There’s a new social site on the block and it’s called Rankrz – the idea being that you can rank anything that you’re interested in films, gadgets, operating systems, celebrities whatever…. You can start new listings, get involved in existing rankings and leave comments. There’s more to it than simple ranking sites because you can start discussions on your favourite subjects but it’s more structured than other chat/discussion sites.

Also, the other big bonus is that there appears to be the facility to enter your Adsense code to be paid out when Google Ads are clicked on the site.

I started a new heading (at least it didn’t appear to be listed elsewhere) under ‘making money online’, so if you want to get involved – get yourself registered (it’s a very simple process) and join my discussion – I am registered as ‘Livewyre’ on Rankrz. This is one of those sites that is bound to grow and it's always good to get in at the start...

Looking forward to 2008

Happy New Year!
It is difficult to predict what will happen in the blogosphere in 2008, many of us hoped that Google would not punish paid bloggers in 2007, but it happened all the same...
My December earnings were almost non-existent, but then I didn't really go looking for revenue, but sat back and was paid out for my hard(?) work in November. I made another $30 during December, but was paid out a huge (for me!) $240. I spent most of the money on PC upgrades and some equipment which will hopefully help me to make more online revenue in 2008.
Purchases:
Flat screen 17"(refurbished, ebay) $120
Hard drive 300GB (new, ebay) $80
External DVD writer (hardly used, ebay) $65
Extra 1GB RAM (new, ebay) $35
...and a few other bits and bobs which may help me to add another string to my internet-earnings bow.
I have a lot to be getting on with outside of my munny4hunny activities, hopefully this will not stop me posting here as I like to try to keep the ball rolling on as many projects as I can. I am currently applying a totally new template to one of my websites and attempting to add some meaningful content to another. I also am required to quickly get to grips with PHP for a commercial site that I am responsible for. That's enough for now, because I am on a strict regime of updating at least one page on my website every day (I haven't done todays yet) and I have to get up and go and do my 'real' job in six hours time...
The other good news I have is that my second ever Adsense payout is on the way and I actually earned as much from Adsense in December as I did by paid blogging!!

Happy Christmas

"Sticky until the Turkey has all gone...."

Well it IS that time of year after all, and I just wanted to wish any visitors that happen onto my blog a Very Happy Christmas. I am 'into' the real Christmas, it's not a time for getting fat, drunk and obnoxious, but a time to celebrate the gift of life that we have all been given. For some of us, that will also involve celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Even if that isn't your focus, have a very merry Christmas anyway.
I will be taking a few days away from the Internet to enjoy some family time next week as I tend to spend far too much time in front of a PC when I am at home. Batteries will be recharged for the new year, ready to drum up some serious traffic....

More about commenting

I realised today that I had said that commenting is good, but not really explored how the commenting might be done. So today's post will look at how commenting can be done in such a way that it might be effective in building traffic for your blog.
The first thing to note is that your blog must have content that will interest your visitors - might sound obvious, but what I am saying is that there is no point trying to drive masses of traffic to a blog that hasn't been updated for a month... also no point if you just have a stack of paid posts...
OK, that's the first hurdle out the way - make sure when you invite people to your 'home' that it is ready to welcome your visitors.

Next is the nitty-gritty of how to browse intelligently. I have two methods, both which I tried yesterday to good effect:
1) Visit a blog you are associated with (a friend, or favourite blog), look at the links in the sidebar and look for commentors who have left a URL to a blog - follow this and look for posts that you can usefully add something too in terms of a comment. Don't make it an advert, I would never follow a link from a 'spam' comment that says 'hey check out my blog for ways to make cash quick' in fact the chances are if you do that on my blog, I would probably delete it. Add something on topic and intelligent or - move on to another post. Leave one or two comments, then find another URL in the sidebar or from another commentor. One good reason for using a commentor URL is that you KNOW that they are in the habit of browsing around leaving comments - not always true of a static URL link.
2) Go to a social bookmarking site and look for blogs in a similar vein, then follow the advice above. It is vital that whichever tactic you use, that the sites you visit are on topic for your blog. If you haven't joined social networking sites then these are some that I use:
Technorati
MyBlogLog
SpicyPages

No excuses then, your traffic should be on the move tomorrow if you start doing this today.
Things to look out for:
Sites that follow 'do-follow' guidelines and sites that use a 'top commentator' or 'recent comments' widget are worth prioritising.
Here's an offer for you then 'IF YOU LEAVE A COMMENT HERE - I WILL VISIT YOUR BLOG' thus your traffic will go up by at least one today.... Remember traffic now carries more SEO clout for blogs, and backlinks carries less...

A lesson in commenting

The buzz is all about getting back to basics now that The Big G (Google - that's right, who's your Daddy??) is getting wise to the things that bloggers have been taking for granted. There were the viral links which were incredibly successful at driving the Technorati Authority through the roof.. Mine went ballistic, but is dropping almost as fast now. How can I retain the ranking? Commenting of course, that thing we used to do before we 'grey-hatted' our way around the internet picking up cheap undeserved back-links. Trouble is now that Google has got it's stick out, some bloggers have reverted to 'no follow', so be careful where you comment (you know who you are - ha ha...)
To make matters worse, the Big G is now tinkering with the PR calculating hysteresis to try to stamp out paid bloggers. What can we do about that? Well the daft thing is that the paid blogging will now have to be 'under the radar' - I used to stick 'paid post' after every advert - I'm not going to do it now am I? I might as well just ask Google outright to permanently remove my PR.
So, as I said, let's get back to basics and start commenting on each others blogs again, spread the love... follow your linky heart wherever your browser takes you and leave little droppings of love behind... and be a bit more subtle about the old paid blogging.

Big Cash Giveaway!!

Quick post for a contest closing today… Dec 17^th at Midnight PST (whenever that is!). The contest is run in conjunction with ‘NeverBlueAds’ the affiliate network people. Rather generously they have come up with $300 cash to spread over three first prizes. You enter the contest by simply mentioning it in your blog post (pretty simple…), and giving a mention to the sponsors (I’m with you so far…) – further entries can be obtained by signing up with NeverBlueAds and using your own referral link to link to them…(Well why wouldn’t you????).

So that’s full marks for simplicity and big bucks! Get your skates on though!!!

If you want to know more about this sponsor, why not read the following article: Affiliate Marketing with NeverBlueAds.
Other sponsors for the prizes on offer: Blogging4everyone, Nspeaks, Select Index, and A Links Blog.
They deserve a mention just for making this big prize contest possible.

$25 Blog contest

Another easy contest as reported on the new ContestBlogger forum:

All you have to do is tell your readers about the contest, link to the original contest post and link to the IBDinsurance.com homepage with a relevant anchor. In truth, I think the contest devisers have been quite cute because this seems like a cheaper way to get links than using a paid to blog service, but the chance to win $25 can’t be ignored….so I’m in!

And....if you happen to be looking for Health Insurance in North Carolina, then pay the site a visit.

Random draw to be made on 1^st Jan, payment via paypal or money order.

Get more for your endowment

There are a number of reasons why you may need to sell an endowment policy, for instance if you can’t keep up the payments, you lose your job or you need some capital for a major purchase.

In most cases, simply surrendering the policy to the issuer will mean that you will lose a lot of your investment, but there is an alternative.

Instead of surrendering the policy and returning it to the policy provider, there are a number of agencies who will be able to sell on your policy to a third party and may well be in a position to offer you a better deal. One such service offering to Sell Endowments is endowment express who say they can find buyers willing to pay up to 30% more than the policy surrender value.

The future for blogging

I firmly believe that the current drop in paid to post blogging could be a temporary blip during which time some of the poorer paid blogs will cease to be, and the better ones will continue to pick up in some form or other in the future.
PPP have shown that there is money available and you can rest assured that the people running PPP, Smorty, Blogsvertise etc.. will be working out a strategy to keep their market going via the bloggers that they have on their books. This month, I have to admit that opportunities have all but dried up (I'm glad I made the most of last month!), and I expect to make virtually nothing over December (althoughI will collect much of the cash earned last month).
The emphasis now must be on building traffic, which ironically seems to rise automatically during intensive paid blogging periods (basically because I am posting daily). Traffic seems to be up over all of my sites recently, and I haven't made much conscious effort in that department - I must put more energy into it and see if I can raise my 'RealRank' from the rather poor standing it has at the moment. Let's see what the future brings.

Good start to December

My first earnings for December have arrived in the form of a $5 prize (less the usual paypal fee) from a competition post completed in October (waterproof memo boards). I really hope some of the November contests are just as successful!!
Technically, you could argue that contests were a way of getting paid links, so perhaps I should keep quiet about winning anything in case Google turns up again to slap me... However seeing as I have no PR, I guess I can do whatever I want.
Of course, ironically Google own my blogging platform so I guess if they wanted to, they could pull the plug on me by kicking me off Blogger.... Ah well, I will continue to do contests in case that's the only way to raise cash via a blog in the future....

Looking back at November

This is how my earnings spreadsheet looks for the month just gone. The 'Total' is the earnings since March, and the 'This Month' figure is how much was generated in November (PINK for earnings, RED for actual money received via paypal, the rest will be paid out in the coming month). For comparison, I have shown the same table for October.

NOV - spreadsheet:

I will talk through some of the major points that have had an impact on earnings in November. From the top then, I think that I have pretty much given up on Creamaid due to them being less likely to approve a post for no apparent reason - I may use them again if I get desperate... Blogsvertise has actually been the biggest earner for me in November yielding $157 through their 'grab bag' system, this time I used my other blogspot blog to do most of these opps. PPP started well, and I made over $100 in the first week through PPP and Blogsvertise, leading me to speculate on a possible $400-$500 this month, but the Google effect kicked in and opps all but dried up by the end of the month - the same was true of Smorty, once the PR dropped, it wasn't long before the opps dried up. This was a shame particularly because I had only just regained my PR, and opps were flying at me from all directions. You may spot that I have tried a new service 'Sponsored reviews' which gained me an opp for $13, if any further opps arrive from this source I will be sure to post more about it.

OCT - Spreadsheet:

All the usual suspects are listed for the 'small change' earnings, I can see that I could combine the two survey sites (Ciao and Pure profile) for future spreadsheets, and I will combine some other sections to make the sheet easier to read for the future.
Despite the loss of PR, this month has been my most successful so far netting me nearly $324 - ironically this was entirely due to the fact that my PR had shot up at the end of October!! At least I was able to make a little hay whilst the sun was shining, and hold out hope for the future. Having seen my PR going up and down so much recently, I remain hopeful of regaining PR again in the future.

Free Business Cards

Trends shift and change, and some 'old skool' ideas re-emerge in a newer environment. Right now, 'Ooprint' are offering 100 FREE blogger cards for you to scatter around in the 'real' world in order to generate some traffic in the digital world.
Once you have posted your URL everywhere you can think of on the world-wide-web, why not carry some hard copy versions of your URL to leave in some strategic places or pass on to those you think may visit your blog.
I was particularly struck with just how suitable this particular card would be for me - what do you think?

Desktop themes...

I have been tagged by Ellie over at ThePinkC, and this time I am required to show the world my desktop.....
Now, my desktop is not as seasonal as hers, but there IS a story behind it. A lady I know has a cat called 'Bub', and this cat is quite a character on his own. Some time ago she took in a stray who is a little scruffier, (but somewhat mentally more stable..) than Bub. He has earned himself the moniker 'Scrub', so there you have Bub and Scrub.... Now I was playing with my little girl's 'etch-a-sketch' toy around last Christmas and came up with this cat cartoon which I named Bub, then went on to make some adjustments to make a Bub and a corresponding (slightly scruffier) Scrub. I developed the characters on Macromedia Freehand, and there we have the desktop (I think I must have imported into Fireworks to add the colour and text).

The intention was to come up with some stories for Bub and Scrub, but I never got around to writing any more than the first few lines... Nonetheless, the cartoon remains on my desktop in case I get inspired. I have developed characters for both of them: Bub is the mean one, and Scrub is the happy-go-lucky naive one who usually ends up in trouble for Bub's misdemeanors. I think that Scrub probably triumphs at the end of every story...
So err... that's MY desktop, what about yours, here are the folks that I am tagging:

• Rachel
• Greg
• Garion
• HotDogMan

The Hot Dog Truck revisited

Sometimes when we are busy looking for the next new thing to do, it is not a bad thing to look back and see what you did in the past. This blog has been through a lot of changes in design and emphasis and content and direction, yet I feel like taking a step back in time today and doing a review of another blog, something I haven't done for a long time (except where there was the lure of payment or a possible prize). I have become so 'sold out' that I have almost forgotten where I began. The PR changes will be turning the blogging world around and maybe that is no bad thing...

Today I revisited The HotDogMan, and am happy to report that he still has his PR4, not only that, but he has one of the most entertaining blogs that I have come across since I started blogging. Even those posts which may actually be...possibly...well.. in some way...sponsored... are just as entertaining as the stuff he 'dishes out' straight from his own thoughts and life in general.

After reading the tales from the HotDogTruck again, I am inspired once again to rethink the direction of munny4hunny, especially as there may be a dearth of chances to get paid to blog in the coming months.

Hat's off once again to the man who brings us laughter as he hands out the dogs, age-old wise advice as he fries the onions and the benefit of his vast experience as he lightly tosses a salad.

Pinoy contest for $25

Well, we are back on the contest track! Thanks to 'Millette05' at mmmtalk forum for this one...
This one is a 'must do' you can win $25 just for leaving a comment against the original contest thread here.
It is a Christmas theme too, just to get you in the mood for the festivities - all you have to do is complete the sentence:

If I had an extra P1,000 ($25) this Christmas, I would…

In order to be in with the chance of winning an extra $12, all you need to do is post about the contest and link back to it, leaving a comment with the URL against the original post. The contest is on the Pinoy Money Talk website which has lots of good advice not only for Pinoy bloggers and webmasters, but for everyone.
This contest is so easy, you have to ask: why wouldn't you????