Free business model
Saturday, August 30th, 2008
This is an article from SitePoint, it’s really a good read so don’t miss it!
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/08/27/better-than-free/
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This has nothing to do with web development, but we got to laugh from time to time
Saturday, August 30th, 2008
The title was actually the blog post text, so here we go..
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Digitalpoint uses blackhat techniques on their users
Friday, August 29th, 2008
I’m shocked, digitalpoint uses blackhat techniques on their users in a sneaky ebay cookie stuffing strategy.
eBay Sues Alleged ‘Cookie Stuffers’
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Three men defrauded eBay in a “cookie stuffing” scheme that made it appear the men’s companies should be paid commissions, eBay claims in Federal Court. It sued Shawn Hogan and Digital Point Solutions, Todd Dunning and Kessler’s Flying Circus, and Brian Dunning and Thunderwood Holdings.
eBay says the men devised software programs that, “unbeknownst to the [computer] user, redirected the user’s computer to the eBay Web site without the user actually clicking on an eBay advertisement link, or even becoming aware that they had left the page they were previously viewing. As a result, the eBay site would be prompted to drop an eBay cookie on the user’s computer even though the user never clicked on an eBay advertisement or even realized that their computer had ever visited the eBay site.”
The complaint continues: “once the cookie was stuffed on the user’s computer by one or more of the defendant’s any future revenue actions initiated by that user when the user later visited eBay intentionally, and not as a result of any advertisement places by defendants, appeared to be eligible for commissions payable to one of the defendants”.
eBay claims the defendants also used deceptive means to prevent it from discovering the fraud, and to conceal it. eBay demands compensatory, treble and punitive damages. It is represented by David Eberhart with O’Melveny & Myers.
Related links: http://www.courthousenews.com/2008/08/26/eBay_Sues_Alleged_Cookie_Stuffers_.htm
http://www.courthousenews.com/2008/08/26/eBay.pdf
Now the shocking part from my point of view, check why this got banned from DigitalPoint.. Jesus, something is going wrong!
Originally Posted by Agent_Dweeb
Who finds it is a coincedence IntellectToday got banned?
I asked him. He got banned and under the reason “To save you from being robbed”
Sort of out of line but either way I have no opinion on any of this and dont feel like getting caught up in the middle of something that could just be a rumour
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Websnapr.com - Bad strategy again
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
I’m using websnapr.com to create screenshots with websites without me hitting the screenshot, go to photoshop cs3, edit, upload, publish in blog media.
Few months ago, they had a pretty big downtime making everyone that use the service go nuts. It’s a free service though, but a brand must respect itself and that’s what they are trying the most, to brand themselves as the #1 snapshot maker. Wrong! Snap.com owns you!
Bad strategy again - they are charging now for medium+ sizes - I have been using M all the time, and now they watermarked it making it unavailable for users to see the image without poping “This is not a free service anymore”. They allow small and extra small still.
I’ve swapped to snap.com and now each and every link can be viewed with it’s snapshot until clicking the link, fair, nice and elegant .js code.
Related links: websnapr.com snap.com
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Manele.me released - a Scorpiono.com production
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
I worked at full capacity for a couple of days and now I can unvail another production which is manele.me (XHTML/CSS/PHP/JS).
Description
The website addresses to the Romanian public that listen to the genre of music called “Manele” - it’s a very big controversy about this kind of music in the country and it created alot of buzz 6 years ago in 2002 and since then the artists came out and started to play a bit more commercial (which I personally dislike).
How it works?
The website is automated, I love things that I don’t have to spend more than 5 minutes on, so the website is fully self-controlable, it has a crawl engine and searches the web for .mp3 with certain keywords and displays them. It’s SEO friendly, mod_rewrite URLs, good structure for the website and keyword density not so spammy like most sites of this kind are. I’m currently working on the off-page SEO because here is the tricky part. Forgot to mention, for on-page it has it’s own engine for SEO which I coded myself that updates dynamically according to the needs to rank #1.
Technologies
I’ve been coding it in XHTML, CSS (design), Photoshop CS3 (web2.0 graphics), PHP (most of it), JS (a bit).
Link: download manele - manele.me
I think in December 2008 I’ll have a decent amount of traffic and I’ll blog alot about this project. Cheers.
1 Comment | Portfolio, Projects manele.me
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40 tips for Life - from DigitalPoint
Monday, August 25th, 2008
I got this from deluxdon at DigitalPoint, cheers mate. Worth reading.
1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day.
And while you walk, smile.
It is the ultimate anti-depressant.
2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
Buy a lock if you have to.
3. Record your late nights shows and get more sleep.
4. When you wake up in the morning
complete the following statement
‘My purpose is to____ today.’
5. Live with the 3 E’s –
Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.
6. Watch more movies, play more games
and read more books than you did in 2007.
7. Make time to practice meditation,
yoga and prayer.
They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives.
8. Spend more time with people over the age of 70
and under the age of 6.
I spend all day with a 70 yr. old.
9. Dream more while you are awake.
10. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants
and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
11. Drink green tea and plenty of water.
Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon,
broccoli, almonds & walnuts.
12. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
13. Clear your clutter from your house,
your car, your desk and
let new and flowing energy into your life.
14. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip,
energy vampires, issues of the past,
negative thoughts or things you cannot control.
Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
15. Realize that life is a school
and you are here to learn.
Problems are simply part of the curriculum
that appear and fade away like algebra class
but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
16. Eat breakfast like a king,
lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid.
17. Smile and laugh more.
It will keep the energy vampires away.
18. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
20. Don’t take yourself so seriously.
No one else does.
21. You don’t have to win every argument.
Agree to disagree.
22. Make peace with your past so
it won’t screw up the present.
23. Don’t compare your life to others.
You have no idea what their journey is all about.
24. Burn the candles, use the nice bed sheets,
don’t save it for a special occasion.
Today is special.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words:
‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. What other people think of you
is none of your business.
29. Time heals almost everything.
Give time, time.
30. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
So stop complaining about the weather,
the job, the rents etc etc
31. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick.
Your friends will.
Stay in touch.
32. Get rid of anything
that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
33. Envy is a waste of time.
You already have all you need.
34. The best is yet to come.
35. No matter how you feel, get up,
dress up and show up.
36. Do the right thing!
37. Call your family often.
38. Each night before you go to bed
complete the following statements:
‘I am thankful for ___.’
Today I accomplished ____.
39. Remember that you are
too blessed to be stressed.
40. Enjoy the ride.
Remember that this is not Disney World
and you certainly don’t want a fast pass.
You only have one ride through life
so make the most of it and enjoy the ride!
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Today’s dumb incidents: CSS bomb + Dreamweaver spacing fix
Monday, August 25th, 2008
Have you watched “In pursuit of happyness” with Will Smith ?
Because if you did, do you remember the chapter called “This is the chapter called me being stupid” ?
I’m going to write today both about the web master’s part of my life and the personal one, they somehow bind together and generate these dumb actions.
1. I’m editing my CSS like a little css wizzard and screw the header.png somehow
Believe me, up to this point I have no ideea how I messed up the css. I have added a new class .royal with a certain pattern as background-repeat, nothing fancy. Boom, my header.png starts to become an old version of the blog, has nothing to do with the current theme and it looks like crap. I have no idea up to this point how I managed, but I do know I had to get an old version of the current theme, re-create the background gradient and apply it on the site. The good side is that the blog looks even better as I had a small rendering color problem.
2. I’m asking the question of my life in DigitalPoint
I’m getting frustrated after the CSS thingy that screwed my blog and I go to DigitalPoint asking how I can fix my Dreamweaver from putting all those indent blank lines between my code lines.
Thread here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=996453
Message here
Subject: Dreamweaver CS issue with code line spacing
I’m using dreamweaver in “code” enviroment, and it always taps a blank line between my code. It’s so annoying and most of all, when I checked my .css today, I had 1000 lines because he somehow added 4 blank lines between my code lines.
Any idea how to turn it off? I went to Code format, but doesn’t seem to work. I might do something wrong.
Also, any ideea how I clear my code out of blank lines?
Thanks a million,
Subject: Reply
How the *heck* everything works after I make myself look stupid by asking the question, thanks anyway.
Dreamweaver spaces between code problem: FIXED!
Below you’ll see exactely the complex mechanism to fix this problem - Scorpiono!
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Paying for domain names
Sunday, August 24th, 2008
I’m a bit selfish when it comes to money, I have to admit it so note this day in the calendar.
GoDaddy.com sent me an email that I have to pay for the following domains:
sergiu.name — It’s just my name, I keep it for ego — Price: $14.99 / yr
hi5layouts.eu — Web2.0 unique project where you upload your photo and apply differite patterns over it and then generate Hi5/MySpace code. The website is doing great with pure on-page SEO, I haven’t invested in marketing it or link buying. Generated $0 in revenue lately, I’ve not placed anything yet as it has not crossed 500 uniques/day and that’s a good marker for me to get into PPC ads, otherwise just increase the traffic (I’ve learned this from Rez - gamecheats.eu) — Price: $14.99 / yr
I hate paying for domains and I have about 20 registered and only few developed and generating revenue.
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iPhone - a must for a geek?
Friday, August 22nd, 2008
Today 22 August, Orange Romania has released the new iPhone 3G over here and I pre-ordered it to make sure I get the price information on time.
The price at AT&T is $300 USD for the 16 GB model - and it also has a very good advantage over other providers.
Unfortunetly, in my country it’s about 609 E = 901 $ basically this is tripple the price + monthly fees of over 59 E = 87 $ and right now it doesn’t sound that fun anymore..
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TagBridge - hosting scam or at least the worst deal
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
Jamie Wyatt + TagBridge + PulseInternet + Lies = this long story
You’ll definetly want to read if you’re in the hosting industry or simply to understand how things work when people “sell” their company and disappear.
I’ll be honest with you, I’ve kept this as draft as Jamie made a good first impression, he never resolved the issue, he completely vanished….
You’ll hate me after reading this, but the company that I have advertised for on this blog as PulseInternet.co.uk owned by Jamie Wyatt and then transformed into TagBridge.net is more of a scam than a hosting company, and I’ll come with facts to support this.
I was hosted by PulseInternet back in 2007, early 2008 - with a sponsored VPS, a decent one, I’d say it worth about $40/mo. Jamie Wyatt contacted me on MSN, after watching my digitalpoint threads. He then proposed the VPS deal if I advertise on my main social network mylol.net and also create an article about his company on Scorpiono.com. I’ve did it, and actually the article contains true facts, pulse was doing quite good and the support was wonderful, why? To get a good feedback! I might have been one of the few that got this treatment from the support team just to talk nice, as Jamie knew I wouldn’t kiss the company’s ass for a VPS. I did more than requested, I’ve made a few sales and the affiliate % money were starting to add in my account. My first suspicion came after I’ve seen that after 2 and a half months, the same amount of money (1 month payment) was counted by the affiliate system. Therefor, if the buyer will go for 1 year payment plan, I’ll only get 1 month in my affiliate funds. Nice trick huh? Well, maybe just a simple bug or my miscalcultion.
June 2008 - I’ve sold mylol.net on SitePoint and had to give my VPS (the sponsored one) to the new owner, so I’ve told Jamie Wyatt that the new owner is willing to pay for 1 year - $500 USD. He was thrilled, but he knew he could pull out more from me, so I’ve decided to bonus Jamie a $50 if the files of my other websites hosted on the VPS were to be transfered imediately. Money?! Instant transfer.. woot! Who doesn’t like money? No problem..
I’ve been moved to a shared server and promised a new vps for making sales worth of over $500 - but guess what happens meanwhile? Jamie sells TagBridge.net to someone from US called TheCrazedKing. I knew about this move a few weeks ago, before Jamie’s 18th birthday (Yes, 18th), when I was noticed that the company is on negative profit, so he has to quick sell for $50,000 - the future will reserve TheCrazedKing as the buyer.
One week ago, I asked Jamie about my payment and the VPS that was promised. Yes, he managed to provide a VPS with LxAdmin which got canceled instantly by the new owner a few days later. I have borrowed Jamie money for cPanel license payment, so he can fully sell the company. (what?! TagBridge can’t affort $20? - seems not). Still no VPS working.
If I mentioned affiliate money, or vps, I would get ignored and Jamie would simply vanish or tell me to AIM the new owner. *Do I care?!* But I did, I talked to TheCrazedKing (the brand new owner) on AIM, he was so revolved he decided that he will sue Jamie Wyatt and his partner for selling him the company that was nowhere close as they said in the first place. The AIM discussion got me to one conclusion, this guy got pretty screwed as well now, because after the sale most of the customers ran away or asked for refund, and most of us were “sponsored” users, so basically, he had few people actually paying the bills. Wonder where the customers went? Well few days ago Jamie kindly asked me if I need hosting. I was like, outraged, it was such a kick in the nuts to see him asking for MORE money after the affiliate % of $500 I got scammed, the $50 for transfer, the $20 for the cPanel license and everything, he wanted to host me now. *cough* Imagine where TagBridge’s customers are right now? On his private servers most likely..
I’ve purchased my own VPS now, with money on the table and I’m not going to get into any affiliation with any hosting company whatsoever from now on, because it doesn’t worth the fuss.
This blog post was made for a few reasons: some might see revenge, but I know how *sucker* you can feel after the whole experience, and the “hey, need hosting?” in the end from Jamie. I totally recommend you guys to stay away from TagBridge’s hosting, as right now, mylol.net (prepaid $500 vps) is down for 3 days for connectivity issues, and well.. he represents the few that actually pay!! Affiliating with TagBridge or Jamie Wyatt is definetly something you will regret, I have a very bad taste in my mouth at the moment, I had a wonderful opinion about him when I met him, but started to sense something was fishy from the day he was thinking of selling TagBridge.
Heads up people, web hosting is a jungle full of tigers, lions, bears and scammers.
Scorpiono,
2 Comments | Featured, Scammers get pwnd
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