I’ve been on the smartphone bandwagon for years now. I bought one of the first Palm’s to hit the stores, followed by the Tungsten, followed by various versions of the Treo and I’ve now been running on a Palm Treo 500v for over a year.  Over the years, my only non-palm phone has been the Sony Ericsson p990i, which wasn’t all that bad.

One of the reason’s I stuck to Palm was Palm OS, which ofcourse is now history. My biggest frustration with the Treo 500v has been it’s speed and functionality. It works like a clunky windows machine would work in the early days, which means it crashes or freezes and becomes extremely slow at times. The time to open an application is too much time for a mobile device, and of late my Palm has certainly been trying my patience.

I’m thinking about getting a replacement, but alas, there is much choice in the market and not enough experienced information out there to make a decision. The new Palm looks promising. Blackberry has always ruled the business world, but iPhone is fast catching up for both business and leisure.

As a hard-core business user, I need something that can handle all my email, wifi, web browsing and mapping needs without choking or slowing down the device. Blackberry is the unparalelled leader on the email side of things and over the years the one thing that always made me go for a Palm has been the QWERTY keyboard, which is something that Blackberry shares in common with Palm. This is possibly the only department the iPhone is lacking in.

So, the million dollar question (not quite, more like £200-£300) question is which is it, the Blackberry Curve or the iPhone 3G S. Well, both operating systems seem genuinely reliable. Blackberry is also fast developing its applet store to compete with the iPhone. The Blackberry OS also looks to work smoothly and looks great, although it’s not as flashy or as graceful as the Mac.  I’d personally prefer a Windows Mobile device, and I had given some serious thought to the Sony Xperia X1, but the lack of speed in windows devices simply turns me off.

With reviews floating around, it seems pretty clear that the iPhone is the device of choice when it comes to browsing the web or using maps, or getting other apps.  The only department the iPhone falls short in is the keyboard.

Here, however, is where the iPhone makes up for it.  As someone who has to frequently travel on London’s dismal but loved Underground, I very much like the idea of having to carry only ONE device for my music, video and phone needs. That’s a plus, provided the battery can survive me a comfortable 10-12 hours.

I’ve also considered Google Android phones, but their limitation to T-Mobile hasn’t done much for them.  The iPhone seems like it’s fast becoming the winner, but somehow that Qwerty keyboard attachment is hard to part with.

Suggestion or advice, anyone?

Until October 2009, I was a GoDaddy Partner / Wild West Domains Reseller, and although I made some money by selling their hundreds and thousands of unneeded services, I had a very hard time pushing a product which I myself had serious doubts about.

Over the 3 years that I’ve been selling Wild West or GoDaddy Services, I tried many different hosts, and I recommended GoDaddy hosting to many small businesses, because for a website that doesn’t really drive traffic, GoDaddy pricing really isn’t all that bad.  However, I’ve never been too convinced about their hosting services and some of the functionality that comes along with it and today, I will give you the inside story, based purely on experience, as to why you should not use GoDaddy for hosting a website if you plan to build a reputable website.

So why haven’t I been comfortable selling GoDaddy Hosting?  Well, put simply, because it just sucks.  It fails terribly when it comes to speed, reliability and user friendliness, and if you ever have to depend on their customer service, well, you may have to ask Jesus to intervene, because GoDaddy or Wild West Domains Customer service is really, really lost.  So lost, in fact, that they do need a Messiah for enlightenment.

Hosting with GoDaddy?  Better Make Time…

Let’s put it this way: access to the GoDaddy Hosting Panel was so slow that at times I could brew a cup of good old Spiced Indian Tea before the page would load.  It’s one thing to have the front end run slow, but to log in, create email addresses, or use their file manager, or create databases with their custom interface was the most painful experience I have ever had as a web designer.  In addition, if you ever had to log on to the customized phpMyAdmin interface to access the MySQL Databases, well, you’d have to go make some more tea.  Run time between queries with phpMyAdmin is very slow, and it makes for an over all pathetic experience as a webmaster.

Now, when you’re running the front end, it’s just as bad.  I switched to several different packages as a reseller: from VPS Hosting to Semi Dedicated to Economy to Deluxe.  They all run at stone-age speeds, and the front end experience is so bad, especially if you’re querying a database, that the website may occasionally time out.  That’s bad news for those of us who wanted to do testing on the server, because oh my, we wasted some mighty precious time.  In any case, it made for a bad user experience, especially if you’re running an ecommerce site, as no user wants to wait 3 minutes for the next window to load.  AJAX could act as saving grace, but the minute your AJAX application would query your sever, well, you’re at GoDaddy’s mercy; and let me tell you, they really are running their hosting service like they’re in the Wild Wild West.

One of the reasons the database access is so painfully slow is that it sits behind an SSL connection.  This is a rather silly move, as most successful hosts don’t employ it simply because it can drastically slow down the performance, of, say, a massive wordpress blog that could be pulling along the lines of 70 queries a page. 

70 MySQL Queries, you say?

With GoDaddy, they claim to be able to monitor the simultaneous number of connections to the MySQL Database and the simultaneous number of active visitors (whatever in the hell that means) on the website.  Now, GoDaddy staff isn’t clear on this, but apparently, if you have more than 50 consecutive MySQL Connectinos or 50 active users, well,  you’re fucked.  You’ll get a 503 site temporarily down error, and it can last for over an hour, because apparently, you have 50 active users who are consecutively glued to the MySQL Database.  How awesome is that?  And yet, neither google analytics or extreme tracking could detect more than 1500 pageviews in a day @ that point.  But these daddy goners had their own agenda.  According to some of the intellects at Wild West customer support, the number of open MySQL DB connections or the number of consecutive visitors would change based on which package you had, where as some claimed to have no knowledge of any such thing.  But nobody really knew what triggered this 503 error.  Apparently, as it turns out, all the staff needs maintenance.

FTP Access, you say?

This one really pissed me off.  No more than 2 simultaneous FTP connections, and no FTP connections lasts more than a 120 seconds.  So, if you’re testing on the server, you’re fucked!  And if you’re hosting multiple sites on the account, you’re penetrated twice because more than one webmaster can’t upload files to the FTP server.  That’s just bad; really, really bad.

Email?

Well, the folks over at GoDaddy may have developed their own email interface, but they still don’t have control over spam.  Either that, or they’ve got too much.  While I was at Wild West, I had several clients complain about their clients complain about how their emails would net get delivered, and the folks over in Scottsdale, Arizona really had it out for everyone.  At times they’ll block hotmail email, even if originates from a valid SPF policy domain, and if you ever emailed them, they were just about as useful as, well, useless.  Besides, if you didn’t pay extra money, you only got 10 MB per email inbox!  Hello!  Free email comes with 2 GB now.  I know you guys are from the same state as McCain, but please keep up with what’s happening!!

Installing Applications

If you’re buying a third party software like an eCommerce Solution or blog etc., please let the party you’re buying from know you’re using GoDaddy, Wild West or Secure Server services, because for so called ’security’ reasons, their settings are all screwed up. For instance, with several ecommerce providers, you’ll have to point to a specific URL to be able to use the curl() function in php with GoDaddy & Co., and it can be very frustrating if you’re new to this stuff and don’t know that your host is the one that’s been screwing you over for hours while you kept thinking your code was all screwed up.  

Worst of all things with GoDaddy is the overall experience if you are a professional.  Just like Sage has mesmerized the UK with it’s marketing and taken over as the defacto accounting software despite being the worst accounting package on the market, GoDaddy with Wild West has marketed itself extremely well, with thousands of affiliates, to the point where they can easily trap the newbie consumer with absolutely low quality service.  Well, I’ll be having no more ofana part to play in  that crime.

If you’re a starter, go with GoDaddy.  If you want good, reliable hosting that works, go for cluster based hosting, and please don’t go with Servage.  I’ve already cussed them out on this website a couple of years ago.  I have finally settled with IMountain.com Solar powered Hosting, and they’re not paying me to write this, which is why there’s no link to them in this post.  I’ve been using iMountain for a few months now, and I can tell you that I’ve been pleased with their speed, FTP, customer service, etc. etc.  They’re not about giving you fancy marketing stuff or spending too much time writing their own cluttered interface.  They’re using respected software in the hosting industry to run their service, and it comes with great speed.  It’s not the cheapest hosting you’ll find, but it is definitely worth the money.

In about 4 months, I’ve only had downtime for a couple of hours one day, and this is the day it took a couple of hours for me to get a response out of them.  But as it turns out, the problem was that someone had a launched a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on one of the servers, and they were busy trying to counter it.  For those of you who’re not familiar with DDoS, it’s somewhat equivalent in cyberspace to what Israel is currently doing to Palestine; you can hardly blame them for fighting the terrorist off before responding, eh?

But that’s IMountain.com.  With GoDaddy and Wild West Domains, I’ve never been able to figure out why I got a 503 error three times a week!

Well, if I was to be concise as I usually am in matters of business, I’d say because they suck.  Bad service, zero customer service and  terrible customer support make for a recipe for an airline that will crash: Qatar Airways, the worlds only fake star airline.

Well, it is typical of the Arab world, isn’t it.  Tie that in with the low life typical customer service staff in London, and you have the ideal combination that hell will possibly comprise of: Arab business mentality coupled with British competence; God help us.  That’s right, I’m racist.  Get over it.

So, what is wrong with Qatar Airways?  Let’s start here:

• Qatar airways will charge you upto GBP 800 extra for wanting to stay over in Doha, Qatar if that’s where the aeroplane stops.  That’s right.  These low life single digit IQ camel riding airline running Islam insulting scumbags will charge you extra money to increase the tourism to Doha, which apparently the Royal family there is trying excessively hard to promote.  well, there you go.  Qatar Airways, a fine example of communication engineering between owner and management; a prime example of efficient business management by Arabs.

• Qatar Airways staff in London / Manchester is, well, like almost any other similar business, fucking stupid.  I talked to some probably stupid frustrated woman  who, when asked why the fuck she was being such a dumb bitch had absolutely no answer.  Well how could she; she couldn’t give me her name when I asked her for it. Dumb bitch.

• Qatar Airways staff lies.  Flat out.  Another classic example of Arab owned business with British style customer service.  These booboo monkeys will only give you an 0870 number to call for bookings and reservations, and they will deliberately make you hold.  I think it is because these low life camel riding sand sluts of customer service or bookings and reservation agents get commission by the minute.  Both the dumb fuck dude and the stupid bitch woman had the audacity to tell me that I was mistaken if I thought that there is no 02 or 01 for Qatar fucking dumpways in the UK.  Well, there are about 7 such numbers.  And for those of you who want them, here they are:
  London:  020 73992566 / 67 / 68 / 69 / 70 / 72 / 77,  Manchester: 0161 8385399

• Lastly, these Islamic insulting fundamentalist promoting dishonest infidels have robbed me of 400 sterling.  What can I say?

I hope Qatar Airways crashes as a business, and I honestly pray that their scumbag employees, well, there is a reason why they will stay in the job of answering a phone all their lives, eh?

Now, I feel better.  If you don’t like this post, well, tough fucking shit; and if you’re from Qatar Airways, well, even more tough.

I want to add that no disrespect is meant to any Arabs here. I do have great respect for many Arabs in general, but I stand by my comments about the Qatar Airways, the way it is run and their entire attitude in general. I would rather pay an extra £100 and fly emirates rather than go with Qatar Air. Maybe it’s just my luck, but the comments here make it clear that others have had similar experiences. After all, my comments about business culture in the Arab world were based on experiences in Dubai. Being in Britain doesn’t help either. Now, if you’re from Oman or Kuwait, I will have good things to say, because there’s a world of difference even between Arab countries and the people that come from there.

Hundreds of webmasters and web designers choose to use ZenCart of OSCart to set up their or their clients’ stores on the web. I myself have setup quite a few shopping stores, and I’m here to tell you that using OS Cart or Zencart just because they are free is not always the best decision.

My personal item of choice is eCommerce Templates. It’s not free, but it doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg, and it will get you everything you need for a shopping store, in probably half the time as OSCart & ZenCart will.

I’ve recently spent some time trying to play with and configure both ZenCart and OSCart, and they’re both quite a mess. The support is sketchy for both of them, as is the pattern in which support is provided. They don’t necessarily come ‘built-in’ with any payment providers, and you have to use add-ons to get them to work with different payment providers and different shipping providers, and finding and installing the right add on can be quite a hassle because, well, they’re written by the creators of zencart or oscart, but by other independent developers.

Please note that my goal here is not to undermine the pros of open-source, as I am a big fan of open source, despite being a microsoft partner. But read on, and I shall tell you why I think you shouldn’t waste too much time troubling yourself with either ZenCart or OS Cart, when you can be up and running with eCommerce Templates in a few hours.

The Pricing & Income Factor

Okay, so OS Cart and ZenCart (I’ll be calling them OSC and ZC from now on) are free. eCommerce templates may run you round about $ 150.00. My experience? On average I can have a shopping store up and running on eCommerce Templates to MY design in less one, inefficient working day. With OSC and ZC, it was a painful operation, and it took me a few days to wrap my arms around the template. In addition, I think the coding model for both OSC & AC is rather sketchy, especially when compared with eCommerce Templates.

Now, let’s do the math. A client hires you to put together a shopping store. You choose one of the free solutions to make an extra $150.00. It takes you three days to make the store, and you’ve fixed a price of, say, $ 1,850 with your client. Three working days means 24 hours, which would be mean that you made an average of $77 per hour, which really isn’t that bad. Now, let’s say you used eCommerce Templates, you can have the same store ready in 8 hours, and if it is your very first store, it really shouldn’t take you more than 12 hours, or you shouldn’t do this for a living. Now, let’s do the math here. You pay $ 150 for an eCommerce Template, and spend 12 hours designing the store. That means you made a whopping $ 142 per hour, which is practically DOUBLE of what you would make if you used OSCart or ZenCart. If that isn’t incentive to sway away from these two packages, I don’t know what else is.

Avoid Tedious Coding, anyone?

There are many of us out there who don’t mind spending time digging into the code, because for some of us it’s actually productive. But i really don’t like to do that when I could be using my time more efficiently, i.e., completing the work that I’m actually getting paid for. With eCommerce Templates, you have one big plus that you don’t with the others. You do not have to be familiar with PHP or ASP templating in any way, shape or form, because their templates come built in for the piece of software that you want to use to do your design, be it Dreamweaver, GoLive, Frontpage, and if you’re not faint of heart, purely CSS & XHTML compliant templates too. That makes it much easier for those who like to stick to familiar territory to “edit” the design.

In addition, if you like to use photoshop to do your design work, you can continue to do that with eCommerce Templates, and simply integrate the “ecommerce” portion of their template/design into yours. You can choose their simple template design for this, and when you’re done slicing up your own design in photoshop, open the files up in your editor of choice, and paste the no more than 3-5 lines of code to get the shopping cart functionality on your pages. It really is that easy. The store at Asif Nawaz Consulting, on http://www.asifnawaz.net/consulting/shopping_store/ is a prime example of something like this, and although it’s not the most flashy of designs, it is a perfect example fo the functionality you can get with eCommerce Templates.

Adding a payment provider

Well, let’s say you’ve been using authorize.net for a long time, and now you want to add google checkout functionality. Well, with OSC or ZC, you’ll have to look for the add on, download it, upload it via FTP (and this isn’t that simple, because you have to replace like 5 files over 15 folders), and then, maybe, if all goes as planned, you’ll have the google checkout functionality. With eCommerce Templates, it is much simpler. You sign up with google, log on to the administrator panel at your online store created with ecommerce templates, and simply enter your google API and Account #, and you’re done. It is actually just that simple.

Shipping Options

This is my biggest difficulty with OSC and ZC.  With eCommerce Templates (eCT), you can use UPS, FEdEx or USPS. I haven’t seen Royal mail here yet for UK, but I hope to see that addition soon enough. You can also use weight based or flat rate shipping, depending on what you sell. I’m not sure if you’ve ever made the effort to integrate FedEx or UPS into a web site yourself, but I’m doing it now with DesignerPottery.com, and I can tell you, it’s note a whole lot of fun. Using eCT, you can sign up from inside your admin panel and have UPS shipping up and running in a few minutes. BEWARE, though, if you are hosting through GoDaddy or a Wild West affiliate. You will need to add a couple of variables to your includes file for it to work.

Documentation

The benefit here is that the manual and documentation is detailed and orderly. With OSC and ZC, that was one of my biggest problems. Help online is very sketchy, and nobody wants to spend time weeding through a massive PDF manual to see how something works. The HTML manual and help is easy to use, and you have access to a forum, which discusses almost all of the issues with the product.

Forum Support & Updates

This may be the only downside. eCT periodically releases updates to fix bugs and add functionality, and the updaters cost about $ 25, and they include a 6 month membership on the support forum, where you can directly communicate with their team and other members/users to get your questions resolved. Even if you don’t pay the support fee, you can view everything on the forum. You just can’t ask for help directly. If you don’t want the updaters, you can buy a support subscription, which costs slightly less than the updater, but it’s worth it, because when you’re adding functionality to your client’s store, you will be charging him/her too.

International Compatiblity

Okay, eCT stores are compatible in the US & UK, and I believe elsewhere too, but you do need to check this before you purchase it. In my experience, it works okay for UK based stores too, and it is the only solution that has worked for a UK based store for me without causing me too much heartburn. I’d recommend it to others.

In Conclusion

One thing you must keep in mind is that I have now been using eCT for 5 years, so i am very comfortable with it. Of course, as a new user, there will be a bit of a learning curve, but what I can tell you is that that learning curve will be, at worst, half of what it may be with OSC or ZC. There are solutions out there like CubeCart and XCart, which are free to a point and then they charge you per your requirements, but I don’t have much experience with them.

I’ll be very honest with you: I haven’t tried another solution since I switched to eCT, and that’s because it’s simplicity and scalability attracted me. I highly recommend the product to anyone else.

If you have any questions about the solution, please feel free to ask and clarify them before you buy it, and if you do and it is not too much of a hassel, kindly use the window below to order:

Also, please share with everyone what software you use.

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Okay folks, as those of you who’ve been regular visitors know I’m hosting with InnoDomains (http://www.innodomains.com), this is just a quick update to let you know that I’ve upgraded hosting to a premium package, that, well, COSTS me twice as much. So, what does this mean for you?

- Downloads shouldn’t time out as much. I’ve had multiple complaints from people complaining about downloads timing out. This should help that. How, I’ll explain here shortly.
- Fewer 503 Server down errors. I wasn’t using up all of the bandwidth, just about 200 GB a month max. But the consecutive number of users connecting to download QP direct along with other visitors (exceeding 450 uniques a day with over 1500 hits/pageviews) meant that if at any time there were simultaneous connections in excess of 25, well, you’d get that error.
- Now, that is also one of the reasons the downloads could be timing out. So, please try and let me know what the results are.
- If you have been able to download and install quickplay, please consider donating. I’m only asking for USD 2.00 per successful download & installation as a donation.

Lastly, InnoDomains service has been good. With the Premium Package, I’m getting much better server and database response time, and I haven’t had any server maintenance or overload errors, which I was getting before.

If you’re looking to host a web site that doesn’t require a dedicated server, I would definitely suggest InnoDomains. It’s good. It’s not Rackspace, but then you pay for what you get. As long as the service stays consistent, I think @ USD 20.00 per month, the Premium Hosting package is actually worth.

Check it out.

Picking a mobile phone carrier in London has been difficult. None of them have good reviews, and apparently, all of them provide the same service.

I finally decided last week that I was going to make the move to O2. I had seen their simplicity package advertised, where you could simply buy a SIM for free, and pay GBP 30 per month for 1200 anytime minutes, 500 or 1000 texts (if ordered instore or online), and a free additonal bolt on, which in my case, is the Unlimited Web Bolt On. I decided to go for this because I do not want a new phone. I’m happy with Sony Ericsson p990; the firmware upgrade has made the phone much more stable, and it almost every feature you’ll need: Web, GPRS, 3G, WiFi, Browser, Email Client, Media, etc. etc.

O2s mobile phone service has been good. I don’t get any unusual signal outage, and the internet speed on the phone is also pretty good. But their Customer Service is nothing short of horrid!

Since the day I got my SIM from O2, I cannot view my bill or allowance online. Over the last week, I’ve had luck with viewing my billing/allowance only once on the web site. I have exchanged about 5 emails with customer service, and oh my, they are as incompetent as they come. I thought HP (hewlett packard) had everyone beat when it came to bad customer service, but O2 is quickly surpassing HP to new, unknown levels of incompetence and customer dissatisfaction.

When I try to view my bill, I get an EBPP_1102 error. When I try to view my allowance, I get the same EBPP error code with a different number. Now I’m not sure what kind of a programming glitch their web development team has made, but their customer service has absolutely no idea about what’s going on. They’ve come up with the wildest suggestions, like deleting my temporary internet files, having a corrupt cookie, having an old browser that doesn’t support 128-bit SSL encryption, or having an ISP that needs to be contacted because the problem is at their end. They should really try telling that to Virgin & BT, and I’d want to see how either of them reacted to that. I’d want to see the size of the hole in O2s tushi when BT is done responding to that (not that BT is a blessing in any way either).

First rule of thumb, train your god damn customer service representatives, and please, train them to be honest. If they don’t know what’s going on or have NO idea about what the problem is, they DO NOT need to make incorrect suggestions or accusations about our PCs, cookies, or ISPs. They should say that they don’t know what’s wrong, and that they will try to find out.

Second, why the fuck does every person who responds to my email an Indian, who has no fucking idea about how O2 works, secure socket layers or web browsers work, or how ISPs work? I’m going to assume that O2 is being cheap over here, and they’re outsourcing customer service to India. I’m sorry, is there any shortages of Indians in the UK? There are lots of competent ones here, please hire them. They’re educated (in real, for the most part, not by University of Kerala which prints PHDs only), and they’re less prone to lying and giving ludacris suggestions.

And your web development team? Are you outsourcing this to Pakistan or India too? And exactly how much money is O2 saving on it is unfathomable. The website is pathetic. They’ve tried to use AJAX without getting the basic functionality right. Does O2 really think I’m impressed with AJAX when I get an error every time I try to access my billing or allowance? Here’s a hot tip for O2: NO! I want it work, and I DO NOT want to speak to low IQ, incompetent, customer service who doesn’t the difference between a client side and server side error and tries to talk IT.

Here’s a little tip for O2 Tech Support: The error is server side. You’re running a script that’s trying to access my bill & related details from a database (I hope & not a text file), but it fails to do so, either because it cannot connect to your server or because their’s a coding error. Either way, I CANNOT fix it at my end. You need to do it. Browse the internet and see how many other people have the same problem. What are you, stupid?

If you can’t get the service right, don’t offer it.

To top it all off, I get a call from O2 Customer Service today saying they don’t have the right billing address? Well now, who in the hell changed it. Not only was the woman who called UNABLE to communicate properly in English, but she told ME to call customer service and get my address updated because she could NOT take down the address. I mean what the fuck is this, a fish market? And how in the hell did my address get changed on the web site? Why does customer service fidget with our account information when they don’t need to? And, WHY the hell does the update my details feature NOT work on the web site?!

I’m this close to writing to the head office and asking them if they need help with their web site and customer service training, because clearly, a monkey could do a better job than O2 is doing right now!

Is it just me, or is Marks and Spencer trying very hard to be green? I’m all about being green, but I’m not one for supporting pathetic, horrible business ideas, and Marks & Spencer have really done it with this one.

Apparently, they’ve conducted research which concluded that the average life of a plastic bag was short-lived, and that it was bound to hit the trash can shortly after the goods were purchased and handed to the customer in the bag. So, instead of learning from better business in the United States, they’ve now decided to charge every customer 5 pence per plastic bag, like that’s going to make any sense. So far, this applies to Marks & Spencer Food only; the flashy plastic bag image must stay with the clothing or what?

Look, I think it’s simply a stupid idea to ‘help the planet’ by charging people for bags. Do they really think that someone who’s spending £50 in a department store will mind paying 5p for a bag in a country where the sales tax / VAT is 17.5%? No! Not only that, the best solution to a problem is not to penalize the end, but to tackle it at the root.

Why doesn’t Marks & Spencer switch to paper bags? There are environmental hazards with paper too. But come on now, it’s a step in the right direction. This attempt at winning the ‘green supermarkets war’ is a bad one; all Marks & Spencer will do is turn off customers. Anyone with even a little common sense can see that there is a problem with this model to help the planet. Just charging customers is a pathetic publicity stunt, one at which I hope Marks & Spencer fails, because it is an extremely superficial attempt to justify their savings and profits above and beyond a rather noble cause.

Help the UK and the environment by switching to paper bags that can decay, Marks & Spencer, not by passing on your cost to the customer. A fine should be imposed on all stores that supply customers with plastic bags. Then we’ll see who charges 50 pence and who switches to paper bags.

On another note, why isn’t the UK switching to paper bags?

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I recently wrote a small, not so comprehensive post about how my blog went from receiving 34 hits a month to over 5,000 unique hits a month in under a year. I also mentioned that your primary goal, when making money, is NOT to get people to visit your blog and click on your pay per click ads like Adsense and make you money, but it is to provide genuinely relacant and good content with an ultimate goal to drive traffic. Once you get some of that with good relevant content, well, there are much more efficient ways than PPC advertisements to monetize your blog.

What if you got paid to blog rather than get paid if someone clicks on your PPC ads? Sounds more attractive doesn’t it. It should, because maybe, MAYBE 1% of your visitors will click on your PPC advertisements. If you were actually getting paid to blog, you would have two benefits that you wouldn’t with pay per click advertising:

1. You’re blogging on a topic or content someone wants you to blog, which means there is a market for that particular product out there, and that actually means that you’re putting useful content on your blog, thereby inviting more traffic to your blog.

2. Your making money from your blog is NOT solely dependent on pay per click advertising, which can be a nice alternative to you logging in to your adsense account 5 times a day to see whether you’ve actually made any money.

In addition to the above two benefits, your visitors will NOT be bothered by obstructive pay per click advertising banners all over the place, which will make for a more pleasant experience, possibly attracting more traffic to your blog.

I know you’re dying to know what this way of blogging for money is. The good news is you CAN make money from your blog, but the bad news is you CANNOT do it with bad content. You have to be willing to blog, and NOT just to make money. Here’s how to actually make money with your blog, or what can actually being coined as ‘blogged advertising.’

Use Smorty, a blog advertising service.

Smorty is a service connecting advertisers with bloggers. Advertisers can pay bloggers to write opinion posts with links back to the advertisers site. Smorty can tell you who’s willing to pay what. This is something you could attempt as an individual too, but unless you’re someone who gets over 20,000 unique valid and relevant hits on your blog, chances are an advertiser will turn you down. With Smorty, you don’t have to worry about that. Once your blog is approved for writing, you can make money with articles you write on your blog!

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Okay, so it is just me or the truly worst ever deodrant and shower gel for men is FCUK. I mean, come on French Connection, in London, in temperature that gone over 8 degrees celsius all bloody fecking Winter, FCUK deodrant doesn’t last me even 4 hours. Mind you, I am clean! The shower gel sucks ass too; it hardly makes any lather.

What in the hell are these people trying to do! Any supermarket or pharmacy you go to in London will have FCUK on sale; you’d think they’re trying to get rid of all these shower gels and deodorants. Try any of them! Sainsbury’s, Boots, ASDA, they’re all trying to rid themselves of FCUK stuff. It’s horrible. Don’t use it! Warn others not to use it! I have an extra deodrant stick I bought; brand spanking new! Anyone interested? I’ll pay for the shipping & handling too!

With Denim or Tabac, you could easily make do all day with the scorching 44 degrees celsius plus heat and 80%+ humidity of Dubai or Karachi. Use FCUK there, and you’ll pass out with your own body odour!

Since Denim or Tabac isn’t available in the UK, stick to Lynx / Axe. I think it’s probably the best. My second choice where Tabac or Denim is available, but it works pretty well.

Shame on FCUK. It’s not worth a FUCK!