Here's a very useful paypal fee calculator, for all of you setting up websites or advertising or ebay sales.
I'm using this right now to work out payments for our website's products. It's very tricky!
Ten Years Today
5 years ago
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Controversy
What is one of those harder, no single right answer, questions going through your head right now?
Saturday, May 16, 2009
20 Ways Ordinary People Can Change The World Via The Internet
20 Ways Ordinary People Can Change the World Through the Internet
I was thinking the other day that ordinary people can do so much to change the world without even getting off their computer. So I wrote a list of ways.
1. Create a website that you think needs to be made, or help on someone else’s website.
Digg This List
Image from Flickr.
I was thinking the other day that ordinary people can do so much to change the world without even getting off their computer. So I wrote a list of ways.
1. Create a website that you think needs to be made, or help on someone else’s website.
2. Use websites such as freerice.org and raise money for charity while you play or view. Use bookcrossing.com and share the joy of seeing a book travel around the world. Search for other websites like that. Basically, have interesting and useful fun online.
3. Buy online from people who hand craft items if you can’t shop locally- support local/independent workers rather than corporations or factory machines. Etsy is good for this, but there are others. You’re paying for ethically made items, and for artisan made (often custom made!) items that take hours. You’re getting a bargain. Similarly, buy second hand online, or swap.
4. Link to great sites where you can. You’ll change the owner’s world, and if they really are great, you'll change the life of whoever now has a chance of seeing the link.
5. Comment on or talk about things that are important to you. There’s a lot of chatter on the internet, but the chatter could represent you and your opinions. One drop of water raises the sea. Don’t leave everything to other people and assume someone else will say it, if it really matters.
6. Protest.
7. If you like something you read on a website or a forum, tell them. Compliments can make people happy. There’s real people on the other end of the ‘series of tubes’ that make up the internet. People seem to only take the time to complain.
8. Make someone’s day.
9. Share your CPU cycles to cure diseases, study global warming or explore space. You’re not using your computer all the time, you might as well be part of a super computer system doing research.
10. Give advice. The internet is full of people needing help and advice or a shoulder to lean on temporarily. Or mentor someone.
11. Age does not matter on the internet- use that to your advantage.
12. Reach out to a friend or family member. So, it’s better to call or visit. But where that’s not possible, taking two minutes to send a message online is a very good alternative.
13. Write something profound- a blog entry, article, fanfiction, forum post, it doesn’t matter.
14. Interact with other cultures or thoughts or types of people. Both sides will learn something.
15. Add to the positivity in the world.
16. Find new friends, and then meet in real life with them if possible.
17. Use the internet to find ‘real life’ causes to help.
18. Study. You’ve got a wealth of information at your fingertips.
19. Research or learn better ways of living. If you change, the world changes slightly.
20. Think of other ways to add to this list, then do them.
Digg This List
Image from Flickr.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Website Launches
Ah, website launches. Nervewracking stuff. Our 'Messages' website is nowhere near ready to launch, but I want to start thinking about it.
There are two ways we could attempt it.
1) Put it up quietly, and let it grow slowly... and gamble on if it gets members.
2) Hype it up first, launch it with a lot of fanfare and gamble on if it'll come crashing down after 2 weeks if people get bored with it.
My natural reaction is 'put it up slowly! That way we don't have to deal with hundreds of new members all at once and we can ease into it! It'll develop a nice little community atmosphere, and it can slowly gain momentum. Also any prizes we give won't be useless! If we did it 'big' then after a few months, an offer of free whatevery won't be that much of a good deal, and it'd be weird to suddenly give free stuff out two months in, if we made a big fuss of it at the start yet no one really started joining!'
But there REALLY are some flaws to that. That's how we tried to start our positive news site.
No launch party or anything, we just put it up one day, and then started using it ourselves. I spent time over the next few weeks going around posting links to it on forums, other websites etc, telling friends about it, putting up Project Wonderful ads... I still hope for the best, but even now we can't get people to submit anything to us. I've got Twitter now, and I'm rssing the articles. Still. Some websites do start off like that okay. We just need(ed) two or three regular posters and it could have been awesome. But somehow, it hasn't hit it off with the Internet yet.
Internet, meet Not Negative News.
Oh sorry, the party music is too loud? I'll tell you about it later.
I'm not giving up at all, but wow maybe I should bribe five people somehow to start talking on it.
I'm considering doing things for our Messages site such as handing out vouchers, rewarding people for getting other people signed up, having competitions, linking in as many places as possible all at once instead of gradually... (any other ideas?) but I'm concerned that could backfire as well. If it doesn't hit it off straight away, because they'll look at it and go 'oh. It's not very active is it?' then forget about it and go on their way, (but it'd only not be active because it'd be new) then I'll have run out of places to advertise- forums won't want me to advertise again a few months later.
A big launch flop could be more detrimental...
Thoughts?
There are two ways we could attempt it.
1) Put it up quietly, and let it grow slowly... and gamble on if it gets members.
2) Hype it up first, launch it with a lot of fanfare and gamble on if it'll come crashing down after 2 weeks if people get bored with it.
My natural reaction is 'put it up slowly! That way we don't have to deal with hundreds of new members all at once and we can ease into it! It'll develop a nice little community atmosphere, and it can slowly gain momentum. Also any prizes we give won't be useless! If we did it 'big' then after a few months, an offer of free whatevery won't be that much of a good deal, and it'd be weird to suddenly give free stuff out two months in, if we made a big fuss of it at the start yet no one really started joining!'
But there REALLY are some flaws to that. That's how we tried to start our positive news site.
No launch party or anything, we just put it up one day, and then started using it ourselves. I spent time over the next few weeks going around posting links to it on forums, other websites etc, telling friends about it, putting up Project Wonderful ads... I still hope for the best, but even now we can't get people to submit anything to us. I've got Twitter now, and I'm rssing the articles. Still. Some websites do start off like that okay. We just need(ed) two or three regular posters and it could have been awesome. But somehow, it hasn't hit it off with the Internet yet.
Internet, meet Not Negative News.
Oh sorry, the party music is too loud? I'll tell you about it later.
I'm not giving up at all, but wow maybe I should bribe five people somehow to start talking on it.
I'm considering doing things for our Messages site such as handing out vouchers, rewarding people for getting other people signed up, having competitions, linking in as many places as possible all at once instead of gradually... (any other ideas?) but I'm concerned that could backfire as well. If it doesn't hit it off straight away, because they'll look at it and go 'oh. It's not very active is it?' then forget about it and go on their way, (but it'd only not be active because it'd be new) then I'll have run out of places to advertise- forums won't want me to advertise again a few months later.
A big launch flop could be more detrimental...
Thoughts?
Adelaide Zoo Orangutan
No one can deny that this Adelaide, South Australia, orangutan is smart. She managed to deliberately short circuit an electric fence with a stick, and was building a mound out of grass and sticks in the ditch in order to get to the second electric fence.
She has been previously known (I saw it) to get into electrified areas of her enclosure (they were being protected to let plants grow) by a complex plan of jumping from trees and down support wires.
This recent escape attempt resulted in the evacuation of the Zoo on Mother's Day.
Ah, I love the Adelaide Zoo!
"This animal has a history of trying to outsmart and be a little bit smarter, and she's an animal which has caused lots of keepers a lot of late hours," he said.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Your Favourite Charities
Our new website that will be launched soon will be supporting a charity. We'll be picking the one for the first month, then the other months it will be up for nomination and votes from our readers. Which ones would you nominate for the first month?
Small charities are fine. We'd prefer something that we can pay through paypal, and that is a 'good cause' (though I know that is subjective, we want it to be a non disputable good cause for the first charity at least).
I was thinking of a charity I've heard of where every 5 pounds pays for three books, and these books go to impoverished areas of the world in their local language.
Or World Vision- perhaps we could buy chickens or seeds (or goats or whatever, depending on how much we raise) for a family in Africa.
What would be your nominations? Or thoughts on things we should consider? (things that might put people off, for example)
Small charities are fine. We'd prefer something that we can pay through paypal, and that is a 'good cause' (though I know that is subjective, we want it to be a non disputable good cause for the first charity at least).
I was thinking of a charity I've heard of where every 5 pounds pays for three books, and these books go to impoverished areas of the world in their local language.
Or World Vision- perhaps we could buy chickens or seeds (or goats or whatever, depending on how much we raise) for a family in Africa.
What would be your nominations? Or thoughts on things we should consider? (things that might put people off, for example)
Birthday
It's my friend's 25th birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday! :) You know how much I hope you have a great day, I'm sure. Last year we went to a really nice Indian restaurant as a group, and it was raining yet we walked up and down the streets and enjoyed ourselves. I had baked him a chocolate mocha mud cake...
Why can't someone invent a way to have a virtual party... holograms or something!
Why can't someone invent a way to have a virtual party... holograms or something!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Promoting Your Blog or Cause
Good morning, viewers!
Our new website is slowly (though I'm sure my friend doesn't feel like it's slow, he's working very hard!) being developed, and it's now my job to trawl around through the internet looking for content for part of our website.
Part of our website will involve a different blog entry every day (or maybe even more than once a day once it really gets started!).
We hope to get an incredibly large range of topics covered, and from a very large variety of people. I'm hopeful that it could be a great social experience, as everyone can comment. When you're looking around for blogs you tend to look for ones that are similar to yourself... this one will allow a snippet of life to show from many different life viewpoints. Those who submit the articles will get a wider demographic looking at their writing, and those who are reading will get something new to read every day. Exciting stuff!
When the site is up we'll have a submissions form so that you can put it up yourself, but for the first few weeks, I'm going to be asking, and putting articles up under my own account (credited and linked to the original blogs of course) just to keep things moving along.
So, I'm asking you- Would you like some free blog promotion? Or to speak to the world about a certain topic?
If so, you can reply with a link to a certain blog post you think would be good, or just a link to your blog and let me pick out one or two of your articles to add to my list of submissions. Either way I'd credit you with a link back to your blog, unless you want to remain anonymous (tell me.)
Remember that the blog entry must make sense out of context! And for now, not be too 'topical' as it could take months for the website to be up properly.
What do you think of this idea?
Our new website is slowly (though I'm sure my friend doesn't feel like it's slow, he's working very hard!) being developed, and it's now my job to trawl around through the internet looking for content for part of our website.
Part of our website will involve a different blog entry every day (or maybe even more than once a day once it really gets started!).
We hope to get an incredibly large range of topics covered, and from a very large variety of people. I'm hopeful that it could be a great social experience, as everyone can comment. When you're looking around for blogs you tend to look for ones that are similar to yourself... this one will allow a snippet of life to show from many different life viewpoints. Those who submit the articles will get a wider demographic looking at their writing, and those who are reading will get something new to read every day. Exciting stuff!
When the site is up we'll have a submissions form so that you can put it up yourself, but for the first few weeks, I'm going to be asking, and putting articles up under my own account (credited and linked to the original blogs of course) just to keep things moving along.
So, I'm asking you- Would you like some free blog promotion? Or to speak to the world about a certain topic?
If so, you can reply with a link to a certain blog post you think would be good, or just a link to your blog and let me pick out one or two of your articles to add to my list of submissions. Either way I'd credit you with a link back to your blog, unless you want to remain anonymous (tell me.)
Remember that the blog entry must make sense out of context! And for now, not be too 'topical' as it could take months for the website to be up properly.
What do you think of this idea?
$7.01
*sigh*
It is slightly depressing. That's the extent of money that our advertising has earnt us so far, and it certainly wasn't from this blog. It was from Fluffy Bricks.
However we've still not worked out Project Wonderful ads for Not Negative News.
How pathetic do I feel now?
It's sort of why I've not been posting on the blog very often. Just looking at it was depressing, and posting seemed futile.
However I've reactivated the ads on this blog and hopefully I'll be able to muster up some new posts and views, so we can keep plodding along. At this rate it'll take a million years, however I guess we're adding new websites at a consistent rate, and every little bit will help. And one or two might 'make it big'.
It is slightly depressing. That's the extent of money that our advertising has earnt us so far, and it certainly wasn't from this blog. It was from Fluffy Bricks.
However we've still not worked out Project Wonderful ads for Not Negative News.
How pathetic do I feel now?
It's sort of why I've not been posting on the blog very often. Just looking at it was depressing, and posting seemed futile.
However I've reactivated the ads on this blog and hopefully I'll be able to muster up some new posts and views, so we can keep plodding along. At this rate it'll take a million years, however I guess we're adding new websites at a consistent rate, and every little bit will help. And one or two might 'make it big'.
Colours
What are your favourite colours for a website? A website that you could stare at for hours that is. Say favourite three or four colours that go well together.
Help us out!
Help us out!
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