MelvinBlog

A blog that chronicles my journey on online marketing, blogging, social media, technology and life.

Melvin

Do You Value Your Computer’s Security?

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security

The last couple of about 2-3 weeks, my PC has been on quarantine almost everyday. It was reformatted almost every 3 days because of some silly virus and malicious script. Basically it all started out when I inserted my music player via usb connector. Then it had a folder called “The Corrs” in which is really true because I have a whole “The Corrs” album there. Now the problem was that The Corrs isn’t really a folder. It’s an application that has an icon of a folder, wtf! What happened then is that the virus was triggered and the end of my PC! During that time I dont have any antivirus or whatsoever because I am arrogant to think that a virus can never run unless it is triggered. Also I was boastful to think that I know a lot of things on registry tweaking and cmd command lines and so many stuffs. Eventually, my pc was infected and by trying too hard to manually fix w/my own power it got corrupted. Then I have to reformat it.

So the lesson I learned here is to always value your computer’s security. Most of you know that my blog was hacked and I had to tighten up my security measures to make sure those things will not happen again. Wth my computer I was really careless. I don’t have any internet security software as well as my updates for my OS is turned off and just like that. Before (5 years ago) I was obsessed w/internet security. I mean that time I had about 7-10 anti spywares plus other software specifically just for a certain/special type of virus and scripts. Now I became careless because I think since August last year I never had any antivirus and some anti spy for my PC so I think its hard to blame me for not having one since I withstood any attacks for almost a year w/o antivirus. 🙂

Anyway, in as much as we are concern about the security of our wordpress blogs and websites, I think its just the same thing that we should also care about our computers. Most of us not only use computers for making money online, but also for fun, entertainment, and pornography education. So important because a virus can immediately turn all of these down, the same as spywares can easily steal our personal info. What would you do then if these things immediately happen?

What I did now is purchase a copy of Trend Micro Internet Security and had it updated. I also had to update w/some security fixes for my OS and also try to install anti Spywares and have them get updated as well. Things online change up so fast and its crucial to keep up with the changes that happen. You might have the most secure workstation today and maybe everything is obselete the next day!

So long So long

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Seems like its been a long time since I have posted something here. I was very busy with school work these days pretty much like any other college studs or even high school bloggers and so on.

I have also attended some seminars and some Visual Basic workshops for the last couple of days and I can say I have learned a lot and benefited from it so much. The guy who explained it has done it all well making it look very easy for us to do almost everything.

So this is just a quick post today before I take another nap and hopefully prepare for the exams. How about you, whats new with you these days? 😉

Tyler’s Aff.Marketing 4 Is A Great One

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With all the Market Leverage contests going around since early this year, i think this one from Tyler is a greater one. Tyler Cruz seemed to be a partner of Market Leverage for promoting the latter and the latter sponsoring each and every affiliate contest Tyler holds.

So well what makes this contest extra special? Its because for every contest there is like a new signup category wherein a newbie can compete with a newbie also which puts up a higher chances for both newbies. 😉 Basically I was about to join last month and I really regret that I wasn’t able to join because the new signups last year didn’t really generate a lot of revenue. The third place only even got $1 and still won an illuminated keyboard.

Now, Im targeting the Ipod Nano and am looking good for it. 😉 Anyway Im highly suggesting you to take a look at it and if you think you are already late to join it then you may want to prepare yourself for the next one as Im sure there is! 🙂 And well as this post obviously implies, I also would like to get the $20 prepaid card and i would want to beat out all those faggot contest bloggers which I feeel don’t deserve to win those prizes out. 😉

What’s The Best Birthday Gift For A Girl I?

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Pre-note: The post that you’re about to read below is an old blog post where I was asking my readers about the best birthday gift for girls. And quite frankly the post was done during my college days which means its a very old post by now. But still the entire goal on this post was to survey my readers on what they think are the best birthday gifts for girls or more specifically, the best birthday gift for a girl I care a lot. 🙂

So I have a big crush in school (I am in 3rd year college) and some people call it “genuine attraction” because I have been having it for the past 3 years and I still admire and love her up to today. I am a very shy guy as in really shy. I do have a lot of friends but I don’t speak much to those people whose first name is unknown to me! 🙂 Well back to that girl, I haven’t really even talked much to her a lot because of again me feeling coward shy. But then I think I have kinda given her some gifts anonymously way back 2 years ago.

For me it doesn’t really mean anything if she knows me or not or blah blah. But then here’s the time I have realized I should give it this time personally. I have planned for this way back June and well you can say I am kidding but my initial fund that I planned for a gift for her before is like $100 – $150 and what I am planning to buy is a ring! 🙂 LOL, it symbolizes commitment!  But well long story short, here comes October and I paid all my bills and Adwords and hosting (of many sites) and my debt to my mom! So, the only money I can spend is about $20-$50! I know its ridiculous for some of you but its still a big value here in Philippines. 😉

Now with less than 3 days, what’s the gift you think I should take a look at for the girl I love? I’ve dabbled with pendants, bracelets, chocolate cakes and etc. A stuff toy is the worst thing that you could ever say here so please!

A great friend told me that when I give a gift I should make sure it has value not only romantically but in real life. I’m w8ing for your take. 😉

The Sunday Thing Everyone Is Doing

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Love

So being busy for almost the whole week and coming weeks to come(search for the word busy in this blog, and you’ll find a ton), I have to do the link love that most people do. Btw, just want to say the comment rewards would be inactive at least for a short month as I was looking for a more eye-popping prizes. So Stay tuned! Also I was very happy to have sponsors for this blog that have booked long term!

For the best post that I have seen and bookmarked, here they are:

The perfectionism thing is a great read. When I have read the title I was about to contracdict it and when I read the content I suddenly agreed with it. 😉 Shoemoney’s most commented post that week is an eye-opener. Just because guys like him who never finished college  became succesful, all of a sudden everyone wants to quit going to school and start making money online, which again I say is not for everyone. The Why do you blog question is popular these days and its interesting to see what are people’s take with it. Mr. Cooper talks about the importance of design. It’s so true that because everything has become a 2.0, design seems to be an important factor(very important) for getting viral.

For this coming week, I have a lot of unique ideas that can surely piss you out. 😉 I have prepared some posts that will break your neck make an emphasis on reality rather than what most people say. 🙂 So again stay tuned and make sure you are not subscribed to my feed

You Always Have To Rotate

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I am surprised on how many people not even considering rotations when they are advertising or just talking about internet marketing in general. Rotation is just basically rotating of ads and other stuffs. Why do you need to rotate? It’s simply as because by rotating you are optimizing your campaigns or whatever you are doing. Just one simple great example is when you’re placing out affiliate links on your blog. When I was starting out before, the 468X60 banner at the top is not a paid placement, it was just a clickbooth affiliate link. And well, what I did is that I put out about 3 different 468X60 copies of clickbooth banner and rotated them and observed who do well the most. I ended up finding out that the clickbooth banner you’re seeing now is what works best.

I think its important to do this. I mean when an advertiser calls me up for advertising I am more likely expecting them to give me about different ad copies. This is important, I mean if you’re out to buy an adspot promoting something you should almost always have different types of banners so that you can make the most of them. That’s why I don’t really like OIO because although it rotates ads, it doesn’t give out the advertisers an option to put up different ad copies.

Even in Pay Per Click and affiliate marketing, rotating is also very essential. In Adwords I always have ad variations on products that I am promoting and Google optimizes it themselves to show more what gets more clicks. People normally get tired of what they see and rotating it makes it look fresher for them. So how do you rotate?

Well there are different methods but I can say you can use a simple php roll call. You can download the ad rotator plugin by Taragana. The steps are enumerated their on his site and its really very easy. You can also use openX but this can be confusing to newbies but the features are really powerful. As you can see there’s really no excuse not to rotate. I can boldly say rotating can make anything that you’re doing online better

September 2008 Income From My Whole Life

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Sorry for the crappy title. 🙂 The month of September is a busy month for me! I have to go full time in school and Pay Per Click campaigns! Anyway September is a nice month and I just thought I will do a roundup like what most people pretty much do. This is the first time I will do this one 😉

Rankings and Blah Blah…

  • Alexa down to 136,000
  • PR dropped to 0 for no reasons at all
  • Technorati in 50,000 now!
  • 12,000 Pageviews from last month
  • Top 130 in 45n5
  • Improved Google SERPS
  • What else

I have improved slightly overall even though I haven’t done much promotions. I have also not been posting anything related to making money and most post from this month don’t have the quality that most blogs offer. Still my readers are still visiting and have seen increase return visitors traffic. The number of comments per post is still great and I just think the best way to say is thank you for my readers! 🙂

So for the income of the blog this month

  • $25 from Paid Post
  • $55 for direct sponsorship

Believe it or not this is the highest paid advertisement I got in this blog. From June to August, it was just like $10 – $20 and last month was probably the best month. I also got a long term bookings and some really took advantage of my cheap rates (my advertise page is still not updated)!

Income from Affiliate Networks

The Copeac thing is doing great. You may remember me for posting the Pay Per Click Campaigns that I did with Copeac. $165 is damn impressive for me because I just kick started things off last September 20 until the last day. The $62 from PJN was actually $62 way before the 15th month, before I took all my camps down from them. Still a decent amount for me! Btw, PJN still pays new signups $10 for signing under my ass! $20 from Clickbooth is I don’t where it actually came from and the my smallest earnings that came from Comm. Junc. is great considering I even have forgotten my password with my account with them.

Basketball Betting

So Actually I and a great friend Raymille had this little bet on our teams, me w/Ateneo and him w/his LaSalle crap! Eventually LaSalle sucked that bad and was swept in the entire series.

Expenses

  • Adwords – $120
  • Food and Transpo for school – 500 PHP ($12)
  • Bills ($20)

So I really hate talking about expenses because it makes me feel I have earned nothing but lets face it everyone spends on something. The adwords cost for the entire month is just actually when I started running Copeac’s campaigns. I set up a very poor low budget campaigns. For the food and transportation, I have always been over what’s my money for school. My parents give me about $6-8 per day for my expenses and its like I was always $10 per day not because I have poor budgeting but because everything has skyrockted in terms of price.

So, that’s everything for the previous one. What should you expect from me this October? Literally none! 🙂 I will be trying to post some of my PPC tactics and some blogging tips that I have learned along the way as well as my ramblings and blah blah. I would also like to beg Market Leverage to accept me to their network because I think I was like rejected for about 20 million times and all I wanted is to get accepted to their program and hopefully dominate Tyler’s New Signups Affiliate Challenge! 😉