Kuya Dexter,

I just want to make a few corrections regarding the shutdown of Lycos Mail since I myself is still a Lycos Mail user, and it is still one of my main mails since most of my accounts which are scattered around the web are still under my Lycos Mail…

I panicked when I read this, and to my surprise not a single announcement email was sent to me… After a few searches, it was told that only the European Lycos was affected with this, hence other Lycos users should not worry.

I have blogged regarding this just now here if its ok >> http://www.ljdiaz.com/2009/01/30/lycos-mail-users-shutting-down/

Although this is not so popular Free e-mail platform for Filipinos, There are still possibility that some of you use Lycos E-mail. Lycos Free E-mail will shutdown soon. So You better do some back up of your email system and make sure that you have all the data in the safe place. That is the problem if you have data in the freebie, Anytime your data might gone if the company giving it to you fail.

What if it happens to Free Blog Hosting provider ? It will create problems to bloggers for sure. But I just hope it will not happen soon.

Below is a copy of an email forwarded to Blogstorm by a Lycos email user:

Dear User,

We regret to inform you that our parent company has decided to discontinue all unprofitable activities.

One of the activities that will be discontinued is our E-mail business division. For this reason, we are hereby terminating your account as of 15 February 2009. Currently, we are still working on finding a solution to provide you the service through another provider. If we should succeed to do so, we will inform you within the next 4 weeks. But as this is currently doubtful, we would like to ask you to assume the end of the service.

Prior to this date, you may continue to log in to your e-mail account and receive and send mail as usual. After this date, however, we will close your account and delete all content and access authorizations stored with Lycos in relation to your e-mail account, in accordance with legal requirements.

You will then no longer be able to receive or send e-mail under your e-mail address. The contents of your mailbox will also no longer be accessible. For this reason, we ask that you back up all important data from your Lycos e-mail account in the next few days and switch to another e-mail provider.

Should you still be entitled to services for any additional paid options, we will of course reimburse the balance to the bank account you provided.

We regret this measure and would like to thank you for the trust you have placed in us.

Kind regards,

Your LYCOS Mail Team

Lycos UK Ltd., 35 Vine Street, London, EC3N 2AA, UK
registered in ENGLAND AND WALES | Registration No. 03923511 | VAT number: 756796467

Copyright © 2009 Lycos, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Lycos® is a registered trademark of Lycos, Inc.

E-Mail: mail-support-uk@lycos-europe.com | Tel.: 0906 784 4 784 (1£/min.)

http://www.lycos.co.uk

So what if Hotmail, Yahoo or g-mail make the same thing ? That is only if… Are you willing to tell them not to continue and we just have to pay for the service ?

Pictures from The Web Magazine  by Carl Valenzona

Well actually Janette told me thru e-mail that I won the Blog-Professional Category and since I am in Saudi Arabia I have deputized Fitz from Ready To Be Rich to get my award, so the one in the picture is Fitz { Thanks Fitz for representing Tech At Hand } . So to all members of Digital Filipino judges, thanks to all of you for trusting Tech At Hand’s capability for the mentioned award.

And since I am not present in the event let me direct you to some of the post that I found in the net

1. I Won the Blog-Professional Category in Digital Filipino Web Awards
2. DIGITAL FILIPINO WEB AWARDS
3. Digital Filipino Web Awards 2008

I will update this soon, If ever you wrote about the event let me know and I will Update this post To All the Winners Congratulations

Adrian ‘pagvac’ Pastor, a security researcher with GNUCitizen.org, on Friday posted proof-of-concept code that can inject a third-party page — a fake login page in Pastor’s example — while the user’s browser address bar still displays the Google domain. This could dupe the user into entering login details.

"The beauty of frame injection attacks is that the attacker is able to impersonate a trusted entity without needing to bypass XSS/HTML filters or even break into the target server," Pastor explained on the GNUCitizen site.

In a related blog post on Friday, security researcher Aviv Raff explained that Google is vulnerable to "a cross-domain Web-application sharing security design flaw."

And According to the news this flaw has been seen since April and Google is not yet taking any action.

"Today, after not getting any further response from the Google security team about this issue, and after Adrian published his proof-of-concept, I’ve decided to reveal this information in a hope that this security design flaw will be fixed by Google as soon as possible," said Raff.

In reference to the proof-of-concept, a Google spokesperson said, "We’re aware of the potential for this kind of behavior when services are hosted across multiple domains, and we take steps to restrict it where we believe it may have security consequences."

Well Google has to explain this one on their official site, so that their E-mail user will feel comfortable on using their Free E-mail. And Did you know that E-mails can be tracked ?. So better keep a hard copy or printed copy of those E-mails that needs protection such as username and passwords that still resides in your mailbox. Better transfer it to your PC for safe keeping purpose. Better to that or be sorry later on. What if they hack our AdSense Earnings ? So Be Careful .

via www.informationweek.com

So why is this important to publishers.?

Publishers earns some money thru Clicks from Advertisers that is shown in their site. Whenever Yahoo will Opt out the Targeted Ads it will only means that those ads will not be shown.

Sites such as Yahoo collect information as you browse the Internet, such as what websites you visit, what types of things you are searching for and what ads you click. They use that information to deliver ads somewhat relevant to your interests. Someone who visits many car websites, for instance, would receive ads about cars rather than about plants or diapers. [ source ]

and I believed that when Yahoo says

"The advertising model has made Internet content and services available to millions of people in the United States and around the world — for free," the company said in the letter. [ Source ]

They are right , Yahoo’s provided information is a Business, And it is only thru Advertisers that they can earn from. Yahoo’s e-mail system has been in existence for a long time. And what do you think that keep them on running? It is of course the advertisers, To those creating them problem about that privacy thing, I would suggest them not to use Internet at all if they don’t want their searches to be track, Why don’t they go to the National Library and stop using Internet. But would it be possible

I just hope that Google will not also use this feature. And I am afraid to see opt out also on our Google AdSense That will only means less Click and Less earnings and that will be a nightmare for AdSense dollar earner.

Disclaimer : I haven't reach the 2 digit a day on AdSense, but soon I will have it

So here are my tips for you.

1. Don’t put all eggs in one basket – This is a common tips from all online marketers. What I mean to say is don’t put all your effort in Google AdSense, There are still other source of income in web. [ This call for another post wait for it - You can see my Personal Blog for some other Make Money Online Tips - DexterPanganiban.com ]
2. If you go on Pay Per Post or Sponsored Post, don’t grab all the request, that comes from the dashboard just pick all those paid post that is related to your niche. FYI This site is also doing paid review via site that offer review with price, in fact they give more money than AdSense. Just beware of Google Penalty.
3. If you choose Google AdSense as one of your income source, Be sure to read their TOS and other guidelines about it. It will surely help you understand the do’s and don’t to avoid being banned later on. Some more tips here , here, here and here . [ Ooops lots of link ]
4. Don’t treat other blogger in your niche as competitors, treat them as friends. Even sometime they don’t seem to say hello to you, just continue of being their friend, try commenting and even linking to their site and time will come they will link to you and here you go you have one source of referral for your online goal.
5. Create an e-mail that will cater all your monetization gigs / communication, With this you will be able to track all opportunity that will come on your way.
6. Try to do SEO but please do not make any crap post for your SEO purpose. Make sure that when somebody lands on your site, They will be happy and not frustrated by seeing lots of Ads, and not the information that they need.
7. Subscribe to those site that you know will give you good information about your niche. This is the best thing to do specially whenever you want to be on top of the news around the net.
8. Engage in Direct Advertising. I am presently doing direct advertising, FYI my homepage have 4 advertisers with Text Links. I get them from Digital Point. But please control your Direct Advertisers, You should be able to anticipate the number of links that you will sold in your page. Be sure to make list of all the information of the transaction. { You may Contact me for any Advertising question thru my Contact Page }
9. Enroll in PayPal. This will be your money gateway, because most of the transaction is being made thru PayPal Philippines.
10. Don’t forget to join contest and experiment, Who knows you can get those moolah that are just floating in the net.

Wait for the next batch I still have some points in my mind. Subscribed to my Feeds or subscribe thru e-mail so not to left behind with those tips.

Picture means, This might be old tips but those old tips are the most valuable one.

Disclosure : Some links are affiliate links, Happy Blogging

Ministers are to consider plans for a database of electronic information holding details of every phone call and e-mail sent in the UK, it has emerged.

The plans, reported in the Times, are at an early stage and may be included in the draft Communications Bill later this year, the Home Office confirmed

This is really something to think about.But will it also be considered in Philippines ? if it happens for sure it will be a long debate, same like National ID system. But I am just thinking on the technical side of it, It will be having a very high cost. Just imagine how many people do communication everyday.It will have a very high capacity of server to record each and every communication received in UK. Can you guess ?

But if this proposal will happen in Philippines I will be vocal not to support it. Well it is just my opinion. There should be privacy.BTW above pictures are my kids.

Pictures by Partsnpieces

I would like to share some suggestions on how a new blogger or even an old blogger can increase the possibility of being linked by other site. And this might also be a possibility why I got recently upgraded to PR4 by Google.

• I have been joining different Group Writing Contest such as Fixing Leaking of Your Site , Graphic Design , Daily Blog Tips Project, RSS Awareness day, Digg Experience and others. Whenever the site announced those who joined their Group Writing Projects, They will surely link back to you. Choose site which does not look like a spam site. Remember Google also penalize links to bad site.
• All this writing project pertains to the subject of this blog. I am not just joining any writing project just to have back links. So when Google tries to visit those links and back links that I am receiving Google can tell that I am not just spamming.
• By Increasing comment frequency to other blogs, they will surely visit your blog and if they are interested the will give you a link love. I don’t see any problem putting your best post at the links provided when signing, although some might find it spamming. Be sure it relates to the blog post that you are commenting.
• Joining Groups and forums also helps you gain back links.
• Advertise your blog for free

Here are other linking strategy that I made for this blog which I would like to share to all of you.

• Make no-follow attribute to site which you think doesn’t need your link love.
• Make your homepage to have all no-follow, Try to search for a plug-in for this one.
• I have also made some tips regarding better way of linking to your old post.
• Make “me” rel Tag of all your social book marking site, See my footer to know what I mean.
• Doing SEO without sacrificing the authority of the site, So the homepage will not show any topics that does relate to my niche.

I just hope that those above information will help you increase your back links and later increase your PR, As of today I have 1014 Blog reactions as shown in Technorati.com Home Page this might not be very high but still good if you find it good don’t forget to sign in my feeds either thru RSS Feed reader or by e-mail

Incoming search terms:

• pldt weroam activation for samsung galaxy tab

from : paypal@suite.com

We recently have determined that different computers have logged onto your Paypal account, and multiple password failures were present before the logons. We now need you to re-confirm your account information to us. If this is not completed by March 25, 2008, we will be forced to suspend your account indefinitely, as it may have been used for fraudulent purposes. We thank you for your cooperation in this manner. To confirm your Online Banking records click on the following link:

>>> Click here <<<

Thank you for your patience in this matter. Paypal Customer Service. Please do not reply to this e-mail as this is only a notification. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. 1999-2008 PayPal. All rights reserved.

Just warning you guys.

What will be your benefits ?

You will have your chance to be visited by My readers that is looking for some information in the web thru my customized search engine. My customized search engine will only search for the listed blogs that I will include . If you like the idea just continue to read at my instructions below

What is the Instruction ?

So how will I include your home page  in my Google Coop Custom Search Engine? It is so simple I have listed below methods on how I can include your site to my Custom Search Engine

1) Subscribed to my feeds via email subscription. ( Don’t forget to verify your subscription first )

2) Link to my old post ( Leave in comment section the URL location )

3) Blog Roll Me ( you can choose your anchor text. )

Then I will respond to the comments after I have added your URL.

Other Rules

I will impose the rule of 1 e-mail per URL. If you would like to include your other blogs but you have already used your e-mail just make a post or mention one of my archive post in your blog post then let me know it by commenting here and I will be happy to include your site.

This is actually a win win scenario. I like to increase my feed subscriber by rewarding your site of being included in my custom Search Engine.

If you have link to me before and have already subscribed to my email just use your email in commenting and leave the blog URL where you link me and leave your URL that you want.

I have no idea how many blogs included me in their blog roll so if you have included this site in your blog roll. I will also include you.

How can you check if I have included your site ?

just try typing ” site://yourdomain.com ” at my custom search engine at the side bar.

This is my experiment to increase my RSS readers. Hope you like my simple request.

Now what is the importance of having a unique theme or Unique Graphic Design?

• Easy Recognition

Whenever somebody visit your site from a search engine, usually it will have a 100% bounce rate, that means after seeing what they want at your site, they tend to check for some other exit links from your blog. You will be lucky if your visitors will roam around your site. What I am saying is if your site is constantly appearing in searching for some related keyword for your site, you are already building your readers trust in your Website and having a readers trust is having a regular visitors for your site. Just imagine if you have about 20 Website with the same layout. Readers will be confused on which blog he is visiting.

• First impression Last

I still believe in saying that first impression last. So if your first time visitors will not be impressed at your site, for sure there will be no e-mail subscription or RSS subscription. They will not tend to come back even there are lots of good contents in your blog.

• Your Graphic or Your Blog Design is your identity in the web.

So would you like to have a Multiple identity or just a single identity in web. Of course you want to be unique as much as possible if the budget permits it.

Now What Type of Design is best in my Opinion ?

I am a happy person and I believe your theme color should be using a light color I hate dark themes that is why when I got the chance for a make over I choose light blue. Dark colors seems to convey loneliness. [ This is just my opinion ] . A good site navigation is also an important factor for your design layout. You have to have an idea of helping your visitor to easily navigate your site.

How Far Will Your Blog Graphic Design Could Bring You ?

Well a good graphic design plus a good content will definitely bring good traffic and better branding in the net. See how far Darren and Jeremy for International Blogs and Abe in Philippine blog now. Would you think without their graphic design brands, will they be known as unique? I don’t think so.

A believe that a unique graphic design gives prestige for a Website so if you have some earnings to spare why don’t you spend some for your blog design. Or continue joining contest until you win Best of luck

Anybody can disagree in my mentioned opinion but be constructive.

This is my entry for justcreativedesign.com ” Graphic Design Group Writing Project “