Phishing : advise

Emails that are better off deleted than opened

Emails, presumably from the bank, asking you for (confirmation of) your name, bank account number, credit card information, password and Personal identity number (PIN), are better off being deleted. Ignore the request and delete the email.

There has been a series of email and phone scams that our local paper ran a story in the main section warning readers "Don't be hooked by phishers"

This is because banks DO NOT send such a notification via email asking for the details. Even if the email "instructs' you to call a number, or ask you to click on a link in the email, do not be fooled. The link could trigger a spy program being installed on your computer that will activate when you next visit a banking or pay site. The spy program will record your keystrokes when you type the passwords.

If you really want to confirm the message in the email, call the number from the phone book, or the number which you normally use. Don't call the number stated in the email - because the person over the phone may be phoney!

Lodge a report if you are a target for phishing.

Prevention is better than cure. Do not reveal finacial details to anyone over the phone or email. You wouldn't want to find your money being transferred out for payment for bogus online purchases, or payment for pornographic sites.

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Plagiarism

Plagiarism

Today our local paper carried a story about plagiarism, especially amongst students. The title of the story "Thou Shalt Not Copy" carries serious connotations.

I guess it's not only students who should make proper references and give proper acknowledgement to the originator of the information, ideas, words, or opinions; bloggers and website owners should also take heed to cite the source of their information.

With the internet becoming so prevalent nowadays, it's so easy to 'cut and paste' information and pass as your own. Even paraphrasing is considered plagiarism

Wikipedia has a practical reference on Unintentional Plagiarism on the Internet

Very well known works are often used without citation or attribution, but this does not mean that the practice is either permissable or desirable. Some works are very well known in one country but little known in other countries. Authors may quote or adapt works which do not need attribution in their country. Authors may then put such unoriginal work onto the Internet without realizing the need for attribution.

Another thing I learnt today, there are software to check for plagiarism:

AntiPlagiarist - free software

AntiCutAndPaste - check for source code plagiarism

TurnItIn - used by colleges

Also if you are interested in plagiarism software visit The Plagiarism Resource Site to know more about their software WcopyFind

I must remember to give credit where its due.

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Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing Home Based Business Rosalind Gardner

Affiliate marketing is one phrase and one activity which you cannot ignore if you want to build a business over the internet.

This article which I chance upon while doing a search on affiliate marketing sums up the subject well : what, why, how. Excerpts below.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is kind of like being an independent sales representative in the online world - sans the telemarketing!

An affiliate marketer puts links and ads on their web site that are encoded with a specific tracking URL and Cookie. When a surfer clicks on that link and the click results in a purchase, a commission is paid to the affiliate marketer. The commission paid does not change the amount the customer is charged - the commission is paid by the merchant or advertiser.

Affiliate Marketing is different than pure advertising. Advertising is typically sold on a Cost Per Impression (CPM) basis. For every 1000 impressions (views), an advertiser pays a certain amount of money whether or not an actual sale is made. With affiliate marketing, the advertiser only pays when an actual sale is made.

Typically a unique URL is used to track when visitor has originated from an affiliate marketer’s site. Additionally, most advertisers also offer an “action period” - for a certain number of days after the first click, a cookie is placed on a surfer’s computer to continue to track the origination of the referral source. Affiliate marketers like long cookies - which means they will get credit for up to 4 months (sometimes even longer!) after the first click.

Affiliate links can be banner ads or text links. You can add them anywhere on your site you feel appropriate. Of course, if your page is covered with ads with no other compelling content, a surfer will have little reason to want to click on any of your ads. Affiliate Marketing works best when you offer resources for customers to make an informed buying decision.

Success Tips
Most successful affiliate marketing sites are review and content based. As an affiliate marketer, it’s up to you to educate and inform YOUR surfers/readers to help them determine what products and services are right for them. Here are a few good examples of very successful affiliate sites:

Rosalind Gardner got her start in affiliate marketing by finding a need and filling it. She entered the online dating scene in 1997, and didn’t really know which sites were the best, and which were ones to avoid at all costs. She learned by trial and tribulation which sites were the best and most reputable on the net. Then, realizing there were many other people who would want to know about what she learned, she launched Sage-Hearts.com - one of the first dating site review portals on the internet.

Sage-Hearts is a GREAT example of simplicity paired with great content, and her results prove it - based on her success in affiliate marketing, she wrote an eBook called How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online.

Another good example is Brad’s Deals - a coupon site with over 2500 Handpicked Deals & Coupons. Brad originally started the site to help his friends save time and money shopping online. Currently consumers using BradsDeals have spent over $100M at over 700 retailers - because he works constantly to update his site and he has a loyal customer base of his own that visit regularly to use his coupons (affiliate links with a built-in discount).

Affiliate Marketing works best on a site dedicated to affiliate marketing. It is less effective on blogs for a couple of reasons - most blogs offer free content (which predisposes our readers to expecting things for free), and most good blogs have what’s called a lot of “Leaky Links” - meaning links that send traffic away from your site without the potential to earn you $$ (non-affiliate links). This is a generalization, of course, so note that there will always be exceptions to this.

Skills Needed
To be successful in affiliate marketing, the following skills are needed - though you can rest assured you don’t need them all right now - some of them will simply come with time and experience…

Search Engine Optimization

Paid Search Engine Marketing

Sales Copywriting Skills (for reviews, informative articles, newsletters and other marketing materials. Head over to CopyBlogger to learn from The Guru on this subject)

Webmaster/html knowledge

A mailing list building strategy (very important!)

Working knowledge of spreadsheet programs and the ability to analyze costs vs. commissions

Ability to analyze web statistics on a basic level

Pros and Cons
Affiliate marketing can be extremely lucrative. It also can be built to the point where much of the business can run on autopilot, giving you a lot more time with the family. It can also be quite rewarding, knowing you are providing a valuable service to people who need the information you offer.

Affiliate marketing also requires patience. This is not an instant-get rich quick business. It takes time to learn what works and what doesn’t work - and to learn how to build up your own traffic (in order to send it elsewhere!). Time is the best teacher for affiliate marketing, as you can study what links your readers are most interested in (by tracking their clicks), where your traffic comes from (what keywords they use to find you), and what affiliate links convert to the most sales.

Income Potential
Don’t expect to earn much in your first few months in affiliate marketing, especially if you are only doing it part time. After the first year of persistent work, you can expect to see a steady revenue stream. I can’t say for certain, but from my past experience and that of others I know personally, I would say the low end of income potential is $10 K a year and at the high end the sky is the limit!

As with many businesses - you get out of it what you put into it. A six figure income from affiliate marketing is absolutely possible - and is also not the norm. In fact, there are a few seven figure affiliate marketers out there - so it certainly pays to learn the business!

Training or Certifications Necessary
No formal training or certification is necessary. Kids have made big bucks in affiliate marketing.

Sales Skills Necessary
You don’t need to do any in person presentations or make any sales calls. But you do have to write compelling sales copy, present product information in a clear to read and understandable format, make site navigation easy and intuitive, and handle customer service emails (sometimes your audience will have questions or problems with a merchant - while you can’t control what happens, you can yank links from your site, or add more based on what your readers like and dislike).

Remember – you are PRE-Selling for your advertisers – keep this in mind and your results will always be better than if you just throw links up on your site.

Initial $ Investment Range
It doesn’t take much $ to invest into creating an affiliate site. You have to pay for web hosting, and a solid email marketing/autoresponder tool (unless you know the CAN-Spam laws like the back of your hand are are willing to risk your email marketing business based on what you know). If this is your only source of income, then you need to plan for the time it will take to get your business up and running to a point that it will make you actual income (plan at least 4-6 months).

Also, PPC (Pay Per Click) traffic is quite critical to the success of an affiliate marketing site, so plan on opening an AdWords account and paying for some traffic.

Read more from http://www.emomsathome.com/blog/

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How to write the "About Me" Page

If you want to write an effective "About Me" page for your blog, read about the advise given in the ProBlogger site which is reproduced below

There are four main questions that readers want answered on your “About Me” page:

who you are…

your expertise

how your expertise addresses their problem or goal

how they can contact you

I have rewritten my about me page after reading the above advise.

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Social bookmarking sites - what and why

Del.icio.us Technorati Tag

Over the weekend, I was introduced to a new phrase "Social bookmarking website". So I decided to find out more.

What are social bookmarking websites?

Social bookmarking websites are internet sites that allow users the option to store their favourite sites and webpages online, and label them with tags.

Since the bookmarks are stored online, they are not limited to a particular computer. (*plus point for people on the go).

There are many social bookmarking websites; the popular ones being Del.icio.us and Digg and also Technorati, Flickr


More about Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us ...is a collection of favourite sites- yours and everyone else's.

Del.icio.us allows you to

Keep links to your favourite articles, blogs, music, reviews, recipes etc from and access them from any computer on the web. Add your bookmarks from anywhere

Share favorites with others - friends, family and coworkers

Discover new, cool and useful bookmarks that everyone else has saved.

What are Tags

Tags help to organise and remember your bookmarks.

Tags are one-word descriptors that you assign to your bookmarks.

Tags are basically keywords - it can be a category or a subject. Tags are how you summarise your webpage or site.

Tagging is flexible
Because tagging is more flexible than categories or folders, and can be created easily, it can result in grammatical errors, misspelled words, singular and plural forms of the words, and spaced and unspaced versions of the word/phrase. To each his own.

Some service providers like Technorati allows you to tag your own content and add it to to the Technorati index

Use of Social bookmarking sites
Traffic-wise, tagging is another method of getting your website and blogs to be found by users. That's free traffic generation! Assign as many tags to a bookmark as you like, to increase the chances of being found.

Social bookmarking sites generate traffic to your site. It is time to monetise the traffic- convincing sales letter (promoting affiliate products or your own products), adsense clicks and so on.

Cool ways of using bookmarking system

Doing a research? Keep your source materials online

Going on a holiday? Save links to hotels, activities, food, transportation

What's cooking? Save the links to your recipes online

Other social bookmarking sites allow you to save your videos (YouTube), photos (Flickr).

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Internet Marketing Newswatch

Resources
Get the latest news in internet marketing from, where else, but the Internet Marketing Newswatch

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Thank you friends!

This is the first time I have participated in any referral program over the internet. Since the very first day I started in this new online business, I vowed to myself that I am not going to be a product-pusher. I will only recommend a product to my list if I have tried it and genuinely believe that another person will benefit from the product.

100percentMalaysian has just sent me an email to notify me that at least 5 of my friends have registered for the free materials from the site. To these first 5, I thank you for making my 'first affiliate program' a success. To the newbies, do listen to the audios. Seriously. I am now quite excited about this new business!

This is the email I received. Feels like a kindergarten kid receiving his first book prize.

============================================================
You have successfully referred enough members to qualify for VIP membership at 100PpercentMalaysian.com, Please login now and you'll be able to access your VIP members area.
============================================================

Elaine,

This is an automated email.

Thank you for your efforts in referring new members to 100 Percent Malaysian.

I want you to know that you've achieved your minimum referral requirement. And this has UNLOCKED EXTRA DOWNLOAD in the VIP Members area.

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Asia Adsense Immersion Bootcamp

Dr Mike Woo Adsense

On Saturday, I attended a preview of the Asia Adsense Immersion bootcamp to be held in Singapore on Dec 7-9, 2006.

The bootcamp will be conducted for the "first and last" time, by Dr Mike Woo-Ming, a medical practitioner turned internet entreprenuer.

I learnt some thngs at this preview. Thanks to the local facilitator. If you are keen to attend, click here for more details.

Here are important points to consider when placing on Google Adsense on your sites/blogs:

Location of ads. Read Google's optimisation tips on where to place the ads in order to encourage more click-through.

A great advertisement is of no good if there are nobody interested in them. As a responsible site owner, the articles on your site must be interesting, unique, and of value to the visitors.

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World Internet Summit

World Internet Summit

The World Internet Seminar (WIS) series is on the second leg of the Asian tour beginning with Indonesia (Nov 12) and now in Malaysia (Nov 17).

The internet gurus will be in Singapore next.
Other countries are Japan, Thailand, India and United Arab Emirates.

Read more in the WIS blog

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100 percent Malaysian Internet Marketers?

100PercentMalaysian Gobala Krishnan PayPal Get MP3 file

Do these topics interest you?

Why I quit my job to become an internet marketer

Why I tried MLM and decided never to do it again

A simple 5-step plan I used to discover what I really want to do

How I fell into the Get-rich Quick trap

The 5 biggest mistakes I made in internet marketing

I came across these free MP3 audio files here

Listen to the MP3 recordings made by the website owner, Gobala Krishnan, a Malaysian guy who shocked Malaysia a few months back with his secret ebook about Paypal and Clickbank.

I have listened to all 5 audio recordings and also the other recordings on how he created and marketed a product that made over RM28,000 in less than 120 days.

I am still learning about internet marketing and when I find something newbies like us can learn from, I like to share it. Forget about the Astro Max and the cash prizes he is offering for new members, just listen to the audio recordings.

This is real Malaysian experience. Do register and download the audios or transcript for free.

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Death of Internet Marketing

I have not even started, and now the talk in the internet is that "Internet Marketing is dying!" I received many emails persuading me to download a free report "Death Of Internet Marketing".

My first reaction? I ignored all the emails, but in the end, temptation got the better of me, and I clicked on one of the link to download the free report.

Apparently over 17 popular internet marketers launched new products in October 2006 -too many for the 'small' internet marketing market. Good products got ignored because of the influx of new product launches.

So what do we do in this situation?

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Difficult to access Google?

I have had difficulty in accessing Gmail and Google in recent days, and I put it down to the bad weather - heavy thunderstorm. Now I know its not isolated problem. Apparently there has something to do with our service provider Streamyx.

Go see Jeff Ooi's article on this

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Treasure hunt - Massive return of investment

Weekend de-stress activity

ROI, Treasure hunt


Went on a treasure hunt on Saturday with a group of friends. To the uninitiated, a treasure hunt is NOT about looking for hidden treasures.

In a treasure hunt, we use our brains to crack a couple (between 4 to 5) clues which will lead you to decipher the item that the clerk-of-course (CoC) wants you to buy and hand over to him. The trick is, once you crack the clues, you should stop at the first shop you see and get that item, before some 'KIASU' team buys all the available items off the shelf. Seriously, this is what we encountered. The minute we went into a local sundry shop and ask for the item, the proprietor, said "all taken up by the previous person".

The treasures are not the only questions we need to answer. There are usually another set of between 30- 40 questions, made up of anagrams, word-replacement, and cryptic questions you see in crossword puzzles, that you need to solve along your journey to the check point. The answers are in the signboards of the business entities. Actually the business owners should be paying for the free advertising!

What I cannot understand, is how I end up joining the treasure hunt fanatics who sacrifice their weekends to get up early (6 am or earlier) and spend practically the whole day on the road solving cryptic questions.

Anyway, I think this is also another business for the masters of the game. The winning team gets to receive Rm2000 in cash, against an investment of Rm320 per team. A massive return on investment, I would say!

P/S our team won a steam iron each.

To know more about treasure hunts, click here

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