Sat, 19 Jul 2008
Networking
Blog Search
Blog Categories
Blog Readers
Blog Roll
Monetize Your Website
Check this out! This is history in the making! I am so proud to be my cat Milo’s master (even though he acts like he is my master). My cat’s diary was selected as today’s front page featured diary. I only updated it a few days ago but somehow it caught the eye of the Catster editors I guess?
I add entries to Milo’s diary like he was speaking instead of me talking about him. Milo’s profile follows the same style too. I’ve got 2 other cats, Baby and Ginger. I picked them up in 2005 but I have since given them away to some nice cat lovers.
I’ve got detailed stories on how I found the above 3 cats. They were all stray cats around my neighbourhood. I hope you like cats as much as I do. There are so many stray cats in Singapore and I am proud to do my bit to help these little furry animals in need.
Check out their Catster profiles:
Oh yes! Please give them a virtual treat and give them a “5 paw” rating when you’re there!
Categories: Vincent's Updates | 1 Comment »
I added 2 more bonuses… A basic introduction to Google AdSense and a typo generating software. I will send them to you if you’re an existing subscriber in the next newsletter issue.
Categories: Affiliate Program Marketing | No Comments »
I have decided to cancel my plans to move to Sydney, Australia due to some family problems. I won’t go into the details but my family and relatives in Singapore had a “big fight over money” with my relatives from Sydney, Australia when they visited us last month. I wasn’t around when they were quarreling but I learnt through my sister that they said they don’t want me living in their house unless I pay them the standard market rate for rental! I estimate that’s easily AUD $250 - $400 per week!
My relatives are retired and live very far away from the city. I don’t see the point of going there to stay at their place, pay them high rental fees, and be unhappy since I know they don’t want any of us there.
I thought about this whole migration thing for a while and I realised that all I want now is to move out of my house. I did some calculations and I find that it would be cheaper if I rented an office space near my house and stayed over there once in a while till I make enough money to rent a small apartment of my own.
I’m sharing the office with an old friend of mine. He wants to do some eBay business and we could share the office rent. It wouldn’t cost more than SGD $500 per month/per person if we did that. Furthermore, we could share some of our resources like PCs, internet connection, printers, network routers/switches etc.
I also talked with a few friends who have lived and studied in Australian universities about their experiences. I have a friend who is a doctor and she was trained in Sydney and Melbourne. She told me she prefers Melbourne. I have 2 other friends who studied at Monash University in Melbourne said its a nice place to live but a bit boring. I have another friend who is studying in Perth and he described the place as super boring. Perth is out of the question… I have lived there for 2.5+ years and I don’t really like the weather during summer time because it can be hotter than Singapore!
My little sister is 18 years old. She just completed her “A Levels” exams in Singapore. I think she might want to go to Melbourne to do some kind of medical course. She’s an Australian citizen - born in Perth but raised in Singapore. She doesn’t have to pay ridiculous school fees like foreign students! Lucky her! If she moves there, she could “sponsor” me to live there and I would get additional “points” under Australia’s migration rules.
One of my friends even suggested that I check out New Zealand. He told me his Taiwanese ex-girlfriend lived in New Zealand and liked the place and people very much but she moved to Melbourne to get an education and better job prospects. I personally know Kiwi and Aussie friends. I connect better with the Kiwis because when I talk to them I don’t feel like they have this “I am better than you” attitude.
From my personal experience living in Perth, I know for a fact racism does exist. Not everyone likes Asians like myself. Most Aussies are nice people but a small minority of them are very nasty. I remember walking past houses in Perth when I was little and getting yelled at with things like “Get off my land!” and “Go back to your country!”. My family even had eggs and darts thrown at the front of our house and even a death threat poster with the words “Go back to your country or I’ll kill you”.
School was tough too. Lucky for me I had a bunch of friends that would protect me in case any bullies wanted to rough me up so I never got into fights in school. I also remember a time I was swimming in a public pool and this teenager accused me of picking my nose and went on to tell his friends and they all gave me dirty looks and went “Yeewwwww”. I swear I didn’t pick my nose! Honest!
Anyway, I have a selection criteria for my new home when move out of Singapore:
I like my country and I will keep my business entity in Singapore. We have lower income taxes and its a very safe and stable place to live in. Problem is… It’s also an expensive and stressful place to live in. I just can’t see myself living the life I want to live in Singapore.
Categories: Vincent's Updates | 10 Comments »
I scratched 1 more item off my 2006 to do list. I upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.0! I urge you to upgrade your WordPress blog if you haven’t done so.
Here’s why you need to upgrade to WordPress 2.0 as soon as possible:
That’s all I can think of right now. WordPress is the best PHP blogging and content management script I have used. I keep telling everyone to use it because its really easy to use and customize to your needs.
In a bid to combat email spam, I have installed a WordPress Contact Form plugin. Please use my contact form to contact me from now on. I used to leave my javascript encrypted email address on my contact me page but somehow I have been receiving weird spammy emails. Not sure where they came from but I am not taking any chances because it could get really bad and I might be forced to abandon my email address.
Categories: Affiliate Program Marketing | No Comments »
I need a favour from you. I decided to scrap all my current ideas for my private forums because I want to create the forums for YOU and not for me. Therefore I created a quick 2 question survey that will only take you 5 seconds to complete to find out exactly what YOU want..
Please fill up Vincent Rich’s Private Forums Survey.
Thanks a lot!
Categories: Blog Updates | No Comments »
In my part 2 of the Vincent Rich’s blog 2006 updates post, I mentioned stuff like making the forum search engine friendly and adding email digests. Point number 1 and 2 are done. I have also changed the newsletter bonuses too (Point 5).
Some people emailed me asking about the insiders forums. Its not finalized yet but I will be able to create an insiders forum very soon. Last night, I stumbled on "The Secret"… I will create a "personal development" forum for my newsletter subscribers only. I would like to create a small community of like minded and action minded people who are committed to improving themselves in this forum.
I will announce this in my newsletter very soon. As of now, I still haven’t finalized how to integrate my newsletter and forum together. I only want people who are my newsletter subsribers to be part of certain forums and when they unsubscribe, I want their names out of those forums without having to manually delete them off the members list. I have some ideas but not enough time to make it happen. Maybe I should outsource it.
Categories: Blog Updates | No Comments »
Just a post to clarify my position on these "Paid To Surf Programs". I have a Studio Traffic account but I did not deposit any money into my account. In my previous post about Studio Traffic, I mentioned I wouldn’t mind putting in $1000 but I did not say I have put in $1000. I registered for a Studio Pay account, Studio Traffic’s payment gateway, and it was really a pain in the neck to set it up because I had to scan my Singapore identity card and my latest telephone bill to them as verification which took about 3 weeks to process if I remember correctly.
After my Studio Pay account was finalized, I wanted to put some money into Studio Traffic. Then I had some doubts… I asked myself:
My answers were No, No, Yes. Therefore I didn’t put in any money at all.
I personally know people in Singapore and Malaysia who swear by Studio Traffic. They consider it their main source of income. I wouldn’t use "Paid To Surf Programs" as my main income stream because I don’t think I can trust these companies.
I read up on "Ponzi Schemes" at Wikipedia and here’s what I found:
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high returns ("profits") to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. In fact, a Ponzi scheme must have abnormally high short-term returns in order to entice new investors. The high returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises (and pays) require an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going. Once the flow of new investment stops, the scheme is doomed to collapse.
The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique after immigrating to the United States from Italy in 1903. The manner of Ponzi’s initial scheme was actually fairly crude, one of the apparent reasons being that he himself believed that he had found a way to legally generate large profits.
Today’s schemes are often considerably more sophisticated than Ponzi’s (though the underlying formula is often quite similar), but the idea behind every Ponzi scheme is to exploit the lack of judgement by some based on greed.
When I was introduced to Studio Traffic, I was overcome by greed. The whole concepts sounds so easy… Just turn on your PC, launch your browser, load the pages, and wait for a check at the end of the month. In fact it sounds too good to be true.
Recently I have been receiving emails about 12 Daily Pro. I haven’t joined that program but it looks slightly more "legit" to me. The web site looks kind of cheesy in my opinion but here’s what I have found out about 12 Daily Pro just by searching on Google.com:
12 Daily Pro looks pretty good at the moment but I am still undecided. The whole idea of "Paid To Surf" program looks "legit" to me even though it looks a bit like a "ponzi scheme". I will remain positive about these programs but also expect the worst to happen. Looking back at my previous Studio Traffic post, I think $1000 is way too much. Maybe $100 to $500 would be a more realistic amount of money I am willing to lose if these companies go bust within the first 3 months of me investing my own money into them.
Categories: Affiliate Program Marketing | 14 Comments »
I have removed the previous bonuses. Check out the drop in window at the blog home page to see what the new bonuses are and sign up for my newsletter to receive the new bonuses. I have sent out an email to existing subscribers with links to download the new bonuses.
Categories: Blog Updates | 2 Comments »