Archive for Internet

Are You Worrying About ACTA?

by Jeff Caceres   February 2nd 2012 | 2 Comments  

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Last month, the whole world showed their unity against Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, as it was already shelved by Rep. Lamar Smith. You know why? Due to the websites like Wikipedia, Google, Facebook and Warrior Forum going black to show their protests, they let me and the rest of the world to be aware about this. On  January 18 2012, there are 80 SOPA supporters and 31 opponents. But on the following day, it was surprising that the SOPA supporters have gone down to 63, and the opponents rose to 131.

But the war isn’t over yet, you know?

President Barack Obama of the United States maybe against SOPA and PIPA, but there’s one treaty that he indeed signed with the EU Parliament, and it’s what we call ACTA. For some reasons, ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is SOPA’s big brother, and it is much worse than ever. This international treaty signed by at least 22 countries (including US, Japan, Poland, Ireland, etc.) allows huge media companies and businesses to censor your internet to combat online piracy and physical goods counterfeiting. The worse thing is that ACTA was negotiated in secret, without counseling the public first.

When this treaty will be officially passed through the number of votes on the EU Parliament, there are so many worse things we could expect with them:

1. They might take down websites with copyrighted content. For example, if your video is about a birthday tribute with Lady Gaga’s song, they will take it down and possibly explain it to the court. What if a 3-year old kid downloads a music, huh? Does it make sense?

2. They will order search engines and payment processors to cancel their negotiations with websites that includes copyrighted content (at least one tiny thing).

3. Internet service providers (ISP’s) are required to terminate the subscriptions of every customer who downloads copyrighted material from various sources.

4. Mobile phones, iPods, tablets and laptops with music and software that are downloaded illegally will be confiscated by the authorities.

Does it violate something to our rights?

Of course, it does violate our online privacy rights! Every website that we visit, they will censor it. It means that this law or treaty is not the real solution to combat online piracy, it will only end our freedom of speech. As a result, this will impact lots of online businesses around the world. Internet subscriptions may be lessened due to this international treaty, because we are being limited on using this carefully.

This is why we have to stop ACTA as soon as possible. We remind them that nobody owns the internet, because these old guys in the US Congress and the EU Parliament doesn’t really know what internet is all about. I have signed the petition to Avaaz to combat ACTA, so far more than 1 million people have signed the petition already. The new goal right now is to reach more than 2 million signups. You can participate by signing the petition HERE. Although we agree to fight online piracy, but we don’t allow them to violate our online and privacy rights! There must be another way to do this, as long it does not harm our freedom of speech.

Is ACTA something that we should be afraid of?

If in case this international treaty has passed via the votes of the EU Parliament, this is something we should be afraid of. But it’s not yet too late for us to stand strong and unite against ACTA, we should convince them not to vote against this horrible treaty. We may have defeated SOPA and PIPA, but it’s time for us to defeat the most horrible ACTA to keep our internet open and free.

in Internet, News, Off Beat      tags: , , ,

I’ve Survived The Darkest Weeks of My Career, What’s Next For Me?

by Jeff Caceres   December 5th 2011 | No Comment  

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What’s up fellas?

It’s been a long time since I haven’t updated my blog because I need to accomplish one important thing in my career….which is to survive the darkest weeks I’ve experienced last month. I was busy for most of the time trying to solve this critical problem which leaves me almost nothing (I’m talking about my balance in the bank account).  I didn’t tell my parents about this except Peter (my best friend) and his co-employee in our internet cafe, because I don’t like them to see that my career’s going down and called me a big failure.

Here’s the story about my career’s darkest weeks:

My long-term client (I should not mention his name) has given me $450 for a new article marketing project which involves 50 articles with submissions to Ezine Articles, Unique Article Wizard, Linkvana, Article Marketing Automation and Article Submit Auto. With that amount, I have started to buy WSO’s (Warrior Special Offers) that are related to CPA (cost-per-action) and instant money making techniques), and I’ve even subscribed to Article Submit Auto for $27. I’ve successfully published five Ezine Articles under my Basic Plus account, but the rest of them were rejected. I tried to take my time writing these articles carefully (since I have a decent English language) and attempted to submit them into my Ezine Basic Plus account. But still, they were rejected and I’m totally pissed off. I emailed my client about this problem and I’m about to revise my proposal to me. But instead, my client wants his money back in full.

If I will refund him the full money, that means my bank account will be less than $200 for the first time in a year. My biggest mistake so far is that I buy eBooks and video courses from Warrior Forum and other sources that seems to be promising for me to turn things around, but in the end their methods were still old and re-hashed. My client and me talked more about making a solution to this problem. He suggested that I should take more time researching and writing articles, but when I applied it still Ezine won’t approve my articles. I’ve told Peter about this problem, and he suggested that there could be a solution if I know how to think well. My parents and sisters would have helped me, but I don’t think they’re not good enough to meet the Ezine standards due to no experience.

Are there any other solutions for this?

One of the solutions that I’ve been thinking is to outsource this project to a cheap writer. I met an Indian guy from DP and he showed me his writings from Ezine Articles. I was impressed and I let him start everything. I’ve tested 15 articles and paid $25 to him. After a week, when I checked his articles on my Ezine account, they were all rejected. I’ve asked a refund to him, but he won’t because he already put his time and effort to write these articles at his very best. I had no choice but to let him keep the money.

We’ll, solution was not yet been solved and I am still in fear that I’ll refund my client in full and left with less than $200….until another guy from Digital Point Forums sent me a message….

He showed me his portfolio that he was an Ezine Platinum author with a Masters Degree, and I’ve talked to him on Skype for an hour. His name was Bill, and he promised that all of the articles will be published and will be saved from refunding my client. He initially charged me $2 per 100 words, but he will consider to work slowly for only $1 per 100 words. So I’ve ordered 45 articles from him (5 already published by me) and paid him around $200. As he started working, I kept my fingers crossed, experiencing fast heartbeat and praying that the articles will finally be published.

He worked with these articles for a couple of weeks, and when I was notified that the articles were approved…..WOOHOO! I can finally breathe well…but not totally until he will finish all of them. I have seen some success of getting these articles approved by Ezine Articles, so even I have the confidence for him…I still kept my fingers crossed. Day after day when these articles are published, I distributed thems to Unique Article Wizard, Linkvana, Article Marketing Automation and Article Submit Auto. After he completed his work, all of the articles were finally published. I’ve immediately gathered all the links of each article directory and compiled them into a TXT file (which he required for a full report). Finally, after I submitted the final report to my client, he was very impressed of the work and no needs of refunding him anymore…and my darkest weeks of November are over. I’ve thanked Bill for all of his high quality work, saving me from refunding my client in full.

Afterwards, I’ve talked to him about the upcoming project which does not involve writing on Ezine Articles. It’s pretty easy though, which I need to install 10 article directories into all of his WordPress blogs and I’m very comfortable with that. But for now, he hasn’t given me details yet due to his busy work with Senuke X and other projects. I might charge him $20 to $30 per installation though, depends on the number of categories and settings that I need to setup (especially WP Robot).

But still with more than $200 left, how long would I survive?

I’m trying to go back from square one through finding micro jobs on Digital Point Forums. I’ve found a job that is related to forum posting (topics are SEO, web hosting, etc.) and his rate was very high ($0.25 per 100 words). I’ve started around the last week of November, and I was paid $22 after I requested an invoice from them. But this amount won’t help me a lot to recover what I’ve lost. They will pay me only once month, so that means at the end of December they will pay me based on the number of posts I’ve accomplished. But one time, a forum has given his account an infraction due to the type of post that is not allowed. The forum was very strict though, and he was disappointed on me committing an infraction and he wants me out…so I accepted his decision.

What’s next for me anyway?

One of my closest friends (I wouldn’t mentioned his name) has given me an opportunity which I’m really passionate about…and that is affiliate marketing).  He tested me to write an article about Clickbank products on his review blog, and you know what…he’s really impressed and he like me to become a full-timer for $200 a month. Since he already knows my difficult situation, he paid me an upfront of $100 for 2 weeks of work. Just today, he gave me another separate job that he pays additional $100 per month. It means that my monthly income starting this December will be $300, and it’s guaranteed! Although it’s quite stable, I think it’s good enough for me to recover what I’ve lost in my darkest weeks of my career last November.

As of today, I’ve been finally rejuvenated! But that doesn’t stop me to look for other opportunities and to do some affiliate marketing stuff, because my dream to have a 6-figure monthly income is still alive! For now, I’m trying to be motivated in my daily schedule (especially Sundays) in order for me to become a successful affiliate marketer and my full-time job at the same time.

No matter what kind of struggles do I have in my career, I never gave up fighting this pain. I also thanked God for letting me stay as positive as possible, and to keep going with this project.

I’ll keep you guys updated!

 

in Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Internet, Internet Marketing, Make Money Online, News      tags: , , , , ,

The Futile Field Searches on the Web Today

by Victoria   October 11th 2011 | No Comment  

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As regular web users the world over are increasingly frustrated by web searches that aren’t getting them anywhere, I am often confronted with questions, particularly from older citizens, as to why they can’t find what they are looking for. Isn’t the internet some Mecca for information?  How come all of these ads pop up? What am I doing wrong?

Naturally, this is frustrating, so here are some simple tips and reasons why your search did not lead to the results that you wanted. Firstly, if you are reading this and the above questions are the bane of your existence too, call the offending parties in so that they can read this article with you. Everyone comfy? Ok, this is how it works.

When you search anything on the internet, spider programs reach out and look for what you want to find. They are called spider programs because of their similarity to the real thing – they run out over the web and look for something that they want. This seems pretty straightforward, but these spider programs do not operate on instinct but mathematical and computer-based codes.  When you type in your search words, the spiders go and try to find them.

The problem for most people is that they do not enter the correct search items in the first place. They program their spider incorrectly, so it runs around on the web and gets plenty of information, just not the right kind. The cause of this is what is known as Boolean search operation. Your computer is smarter than you think, and the Boolean operator will combine your terms in order to find something relevant. For example, you don’t need to type “Holidays in the pretty state of Rhode Island”, you can type Rhode Island Holidays. Now your spider will automatically go out and look for related items to that search. It automatically eliminates filler words.

However, if you want to search a very specific phrase, you can tell the spider to do that too. Place your search terms in inverted commas. Now the spider will look for that whole chunk of information instead of every word individually. The result?  More accurate searches, less frustration, and fewer relatives on your back begging for help. It is easy. The internet is no mystery.

If you struggle with computer-related issues in general, then why not search out some online tutorials so that instead of asking the questions, you can wow your relatives with your cutting edge techy savoir faire.

This guest post was written by freelance writer Victoria. She is aware that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

in Internet      tags: ,