Entrecard new credit perks?

Posted by multippt

With the recent update to the Entrecard credit system, there are now more ways to earn Entrecard credits on the go.

1. Buy Entrecard credits

After much debate on whether Entrecard credits are available with cash (officially anyway), Entrecard decided to fill in the gap by introducing the option of buying credits. The buy credits link is available from the main page. Credits are only purchaseable using PayPal. Credits can only be bought in batches of 1000, 5000 or 10000 credits, with each 1000 credits causing $9.50 (presumable determined automatically via a system within Entrecard). Only 12000 credits are allocated for purchase for all users, probably as “market mechanism” to prevent rapid devaluation (or the reverse) of Entrecard credits.

While third party credits are usually offered at a lower price than the official price, there are nonetheless some great perks of the credits coming directly from Entrecard: They are much more secure, and that money spent on these credits go back to the community. The 12,000 credits quota set is partly due to a second feature of Entrecard credits - you can possibly earn actual cash from it.

Entrecard credits sold by cash are compensated to original members who have sold their Entrecard credits back to Entrecard. Hence Entrecard acts as the middleman. However, only certain members would benefit from the extra revenue, and it is generally those who are regarded as trusted and reputable. This applies mainly to active members.

2. Blog on Entrecard blog

If you are not a contributor for Entrecard’s blog, you can get your post published on Entrecard and earn credits for it. Each post successfully approved will get Entrecard credits credited to your account. The better the post, the larger the payout. The payout is largely variable, but the average suggested by Entrecard is in the area of several hundreds, but it can reach a possible maximum of 2000 credits.

Each post on Entrecard will contain a link to your site, thereby promoting your own site as the Entrecard blog receives thousands of views each day.

3. Get paid to blog on your blog

Entrecard has taken one step further to helping new bloggers get the promotion they need. The moment you make a post on your own site, you would get paid 25 Entrecard credits per every 3 days you have made at least one post on your site. Entrecard would detect if you have made a new post on your site via checking your site’s RSS feed.

Did Google just changed its favicon?

Posted by multippt

I’ve just realized that Google changed it’s favicon from capital G to small g. For those of you who do not know what a favicon is, it is that small 16 by 16 pixels icon you sometimes see beside the address bar. I guess that’s probably one of the minor changes that I’ve ever seen happening on the Google homepage.

Nonetheless, it does appear that someone spotted it as well. Kudos to all who managed to spot the change.

I still can’t get accustomed to the new icon. Maybe I’ve been using Google for a very long time and even a small icon change makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Hopefully I could get accustomed to it sooner or later. Honestly, while the new icon looks pretty sleek, the shadow (or gradient?) behind the “g” makes it look ackward. I guess that’s because I’m using IE7 and that the icon appear to be semi-transparent. On Firefox, the icon looks great.

*Note: In order to view the new favicon, you can shortcut the caching process by simply accessing the favicon directly (i.e. google.com/favicon.ico) and refreshing it. Tada, the new Google icon!

Let’s hope Google won’t be turning lowercase anytime soon, otherwise it’ll look pretty odd.

Wordpress 2.5 upload fix

Posted by multippt

Looks like even after extensive testing on Wordpress’s side, one nasty bug managed to slip through, and it’s not the fault of Wordpress either. Apparently, anyone using mod_security on Apache will not be able to upload anything on Wordpress 2.5 or Wordpress 2.5.1. This could be because mod_security doesn’t take a liking towards the Flash uploader Wordpress now uses. This is a big problem for Wordpress, since more than 30% of the Internet uses mod_security (courtesy of Hostgator and numerous other Internet web hosts), which means these uploaders won’t work if you simply install Wordpress and do nothing else after.

The fix?

Simply create or edit your .htaccess using your text editor. Insert the following lines to the file:

<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>

That should switch off security only for your uploader, and chances are your uploader should work fine.

Alternatively, since the entire problem is caused by Flash, you could try disabling the Flash uploader using a plugin that does that.

—

A second glitch is that sometimes the media gallery in Wordpress 2.5 may not be able to insert images. In addition to that, changes to your post might be lost for unknown reasons after doing that. Nonetheless, you can insert the image in another method by copying the URL of the image in the gallery and inserting it via Add Image in the toolbar.

Paid per search? Doesn’t sound quite right

Posted by multippt

My Search Funds is offering to pay you just for web searches. That’s probably one of the easiest ways to earn money, since after all, you do use Google or Yahoo right? Results are obtained from Yahoo, Ask, and Windows Live. Google is not supported since Google doesn’t permit third parties to modify searches. In order words, MySearchFunds would be Dogpile, except that it pays.

The new Dogpile?

Dogpile is already popular enough just for implementing the idea of combining all your favorite (and not-so-favorite) search engines in one. My Search Funds is very similar, except that you need to install a plugin in order to use their service. This plugin appears to record your searches, naturally since it has to know how and what you are searching for. The programme may discredit related searches so as to prevent “repeated searches”.

It’s pretty unusual that someone would offer paid to search services, especially since they may make a huge loss out of it. I’m sure that My Search Funds would be using the information collected in order to perfect their search results, or something else. Nonetheless, for those of you who are not too concerned with privacy issues, go ahead and use My Search Funds.

Nonetheless, the information collected by My Search Funds would be incredibly useful to companies like Alexa, since it records search traffic.

Privacy issue?

My Search Funds states in its privacy policy and Terms of services that it would collect information and retain it. Fortunately, it’s not much of a problem, since Google does almost the same. However, the fact that they are willing to divulge your personal information to the authorities meant that they will keep your personal information forever. Most search companies do not do that, so you may want to be wary of that.

Not much information was given on how the information might be used for future purposes.

To trust or not to?

There are no costs involved in participating in the programme, but you may want to note that My Search Funds is recording whatever you are searching. While you may not mind that, some do especially if they are searching for you-know-what. The pay rate sounds cheesy - but it’s possible that they may have gotten that from just ad revenue.

Five ways to get a Digg/Reddit clone

Posted by multippt

If you love Digging (or redditing) to the point that you simply must have your own personalized “Digg” site, this article is here to help you do that. An added bonus - the full installation steps are in this article as well, so you don’t really need to read the instruction manual to get your Digg clone running.

#1 Pligg - Digg

Pligg is the closest you can ever get to Digg, except perhaps the interface (but you could always make one up right?). Currently the most popular CMS under social bookmarking, Pligg is used numerous entreprening site owners. Pligg also supports anonymous voting, perhaps one element that Digg cannot offer (yet).

The 10 minute install guide to Pligg (assuming you have your web host ready):
1) Download Pligg, install it to where you want it to be. Make these directories writable (CHMOD 777) otherwise some features might not be available: backup, cache, templates, templates_c, avartars
2) Go to the installation page (i.e. http:// yourpliggsite /install/) and follow the instructions on the installer
3) If you done it right, Pligg would be installed within 5 minutes. You can then log in using your own password.
4) Go to the administration panel (link is at the top panel) and browse/tinker with the options available.

While Pligg may be still in beta, it is fairly stable and usable. There might still be some glitches though, but chances are it is fixed with every update. Fortnately, Pligg is in active development and a final release may come out at any time.
Rating: 9/10
Sites using Pligg: Sphinn

More »

May PageRank update review

Posted by multippt

Looks like the PageRank update is going to be great news for webmasters, since there is an overall increase in PageRank across sites, unlike the previous 3 PageRank updates that have done the opposite. This update has been carried out over several days, so you may want to check out inner pages of your site if you went PageRank hunting on the day of the update.

This update saw more increases than decreases, partly because the main penalty round occurred a week before the update began (probably the first signal that an update was iminent). The penalties involved mainly new sites selling paid links, so it does seem that Google is tightening its stance against paid links. This is not expected since after all, Google gave their official message that nofollow paid links are not allowed and subjected to penalties. The paid link business have gone a lot more quiet (but it doesn’t mean that webmasters are not giving up on paid links though).

Google may have also changed the weightage of links, now giving internal links slightly more power or perhaps all links in general. Probably great news for site owners who have been building links for a while.

Microsoft (finally) drops bid on Yahoo

Posted by multippt

Looks like Microsoft decided to withdraw it’s second bid (given the results of the first proposal, not many paid much attention to the second proposal) to acquire Yahoo. It’s not that surprising that the bid failed since after all, the second bid was only slightly higher than the first bid (but much less than what Yahoo wanted). This so-called ”hostile takeover” appeared to end with nothing more than a whimper. Well, at least now we know Yahoo is certainly not going to big Microsoft (or perhaps, Macrosoft?).

Sadly, Yahoo will eventually be taken over by someone, or some company. Microsoft will probably come back a third time, or probably much more, hoping Yahoo will eventually say “yes”. Despite Google “helping” Yahoo against Microsoft’s tyrany, it’ll take only time before Microsoft would probably finally get its hands on Yahoo, given Yahoo’s current deteriorating situation (stock market, etc. etc.). Certainly not-so-good news for the Yahoo community.

So what do Microsoft want to do with Yahoo?

There’s one thing for certain - Microsoft will NOT do anything related to search. The primary reason why Microsoft wanted Yahoo was not for Yahoo search or the hundreds of services Yahoo provided. Microsoft simply wanted the advertising portion of Yahoo (plus some other technologies to include in Microsoft’s ever-growing arsenal of proprietary software) since it’s going to be the next big thing that’s going to expand Microsoft’s wallet.

I guess time will tell before we will see Microsoft Yahoo (or Microhoo) in the near future.

Why no Microsoft Yahoo?

The first answer is obvious: Yahoo simply didn’t want Microsoft, and Microsoft now knows that. Given Yahoo’s constant turn-downs on Microsoft’s offer, as well as going as far as making deals with rival Google in relation with advertising (fancy Yahoo actually advertising Google AdSense rather than its own ads). In addition, Yahoo did not release any statement even when the dateline was due.

The community has been pretty neutral about this matter, but there are certainly some people who do oppose the takeover (thereby, calling it “hostile”). Why oppose? With Microsoft Yahoo, we will end up having to pay more for ads. Microsoft would attempt to use Yahoo to inflate ad prices everywhere and anywhere (as part of their “business plan”).