Technotip.org - Part 14

Surf Locally, Without Being Local: GeoSurf™

Lets talk about some serious business: Have you ever bought some inventory on a United States website, sitting in India & wanted to see how it looks for your US clients?

If nothing else, you could be interested in seeing what your competitor is upto in certain country. Where else they are advertising and what creative they are using etc.

Proxy Server
When these kind of situations occur, one thing we all know from our school days is to quickly visit particular site via proxy server!
Oh, did you know this trick as well ?

If yes, then how often these proxy servers failed to show the web pages you are trying to load. How many times these pages kept on loading ?
How many times your browser crashed while trying random proxy sites.

Do Business From Your Country, At Your Comfort
Small businesses like analytics companies for example, need to check their clients inventories from various locations. But they can’t afford to open their company branches in various countries.
In such a situation, they can simply invest a small amount of money in services like GeoSurf and operate comfortably from a single location.

GeoSurf™: Surf Locally, Without Being Local
It’s basically a simple toolbar. Once you install it to your browser, you need to login, select the country from which you want to see a particular website, then hit Apply. It’s that simple. And in seconds you will be surfing the site using GeoSurf locally.

GeoSurf™ is browser toolbar that enables users to get the local perspective from more than 80 global locations. It is often used
by online media professionals (buyers, campaign managers, sales, affiliates, and compliance teams) to view geo-targeted ads and
web content. This way, they can easily validate and monitor campaigns, see who is bidding on localized ad placements, generate
new sources of business, and enhance current marketing activities. It is straight-forward and easy-to-use. The toolbar grants
access to our network of servers that provide our premium proxy service. All of the servers on our network are owned by us,
thereby making them fast, secure, and reliable.

Why GeoSurf ?
GeoSurf is a business intelligence browser add-on that allows you to surf and view content from more than 80 countries and US locations.
It’s an excellent solution for media buyers, campaign managers, sales managers and business development executives.

With GeoSurf you can easily:
– See who’s bidding on your traffic sources
– Perform advanced business intelligence on your competitors
– Confirm geo targeted content is displayed correctly
– and much more..

I have been using GeoSurf for sometime now.
They don’t have ugly popups, popunders! etc.

The main advantages of using GeoSurf:
All the servers are owned by them, so they are fast and reliable.

I used it for some days without any trouble, so thought of reviewing them on my blog.

How I use it ?
I turn on this add-on and start searching for the main keywords of my blog.
I can easily track the rank of my blog for various countries. It helps a lot in creating niche sites targeting specific countries.
Have you heard: You can’t easily beat your competition for a competitive keyword ? Did you think, you can atleast rank high for such a keyword in specific or some countries atleast!

Surfing from various countries was never easier then this. Signup for a trial account, absolutely for free -> SignUp for GeoSurf™

How To Get Into YouTube Partnership Program ?

We all know how our attention span is getting shorter and shorter. We are no longer patient to read long text, we are no longer able to wait till the long introduction is finished to get the actual content.

If we can’t wait, we just Google and go to some other site which provides the meat directly. Keeping the fluff at bay!

With all these early evolution and internet still being in its infancy, Video content has gained a lot of credibility and viewership.

There are many people who are making their living by shooting videos. And no, these people are not Hollywood or Bollywood video makers! They are just like you and me. They are normal people like us. So I thought, if I’m normal too then why not try this!!

It’s comparatively easy to get YouTube Partnership these days. Earlier there were lot of restrictions like country, daily impressions etc. But now, as far I know original useful content is all it needs for one to get into YouTube’s Partnership program.

YouTube fire light On Time YouTube Partner Payment

Below are some guidelines:
(youtube partnership requirements)
1. Open a YouTube a/c. Make sure you do not upload any copyright protected videos. It shouldn’t even contain copyright protected music or art work display. Everything you upload must be owned by you.

2. Upload some unique video content.

3. Make sure they are safe even for children to watch.

4. Leave it for some days or even months, so that it generates some views. This is to make sure, what you have uploaded is valuable and people are looking for it. Meanwhile keep producing and uploading useful video content to your YouTube account.

5. Go to http://youtube.com/partners and apply for the partners program.

6. While applying, make sure to fill appropriate data.

7. Keep creating and uploading quality videos.

I applied for YouTube partnership program on 07 Feb 2011 and got approved on 04 May 2011.

After Applying for YouTube Partner Program:

I got this message:

Thank you for your interest in the YouTube Partner Program. Applications are reviewed for a variety of criteria, including but not limited to the size of your audience, country of residence, quality of content, and consistency with our Community Guidelines and Terms of Use. Please note: if your application is not approved, you will not be able to apply to the program again for 2 months.

The YouTube Partner Program is intended for users who want to generate revenue from their existing audience. If you are more interested in increasing your audience, you may want to start with the YouTube Promoted Videos.

Emails I got from YouTube, after I was approved for YouTube Partnership Program:

Dear Satish,

Thank you for your interest in the YouTube Partner Program!

The information you provided in the online sign-up form has been reviewed and approved for partnership. Please proceed and review the tutorial and accept the contract. Once you accept the contract you will need to associate a Google AdSense account to activate your partnership.

Step 1:Online Sign-Up Form Approval
Step 2: Tutorial Completion and Contract
Step 3:Associating your Google AdSense account
You will be required to agree to and comply with the terms of the contract as a condition of your continued participation in the program.

Thanks,
The YouTube Team

Dear Satish,

Thanks again for your interest in the YouTube Partner Program. Your application has been reviewed and approved for the first stage of the application process. We wanted to check in, as you have not yet completed Step 2, creating and linking your Google AdSense and YouTube accounts. All partners need an approved AdSense account in order to receive payment and be accepted in the program. Please sign in to your YouTube account and proceed to Step 2 by clicking on the link below. Thank you!

Step 1:Online Sign-Up Form Approval
Step 2: Google AdSense Approval and Linkage
Step 3:Tutorial Completion and Contract
If you experience any problems with the link, try signing in to your YouTube account and copying http://www.youtube.com/partpro_adsense directly into your browser. If you have any other questions about the application process, please reply to this email.

If you are no longer interested in the YouTube Partner Program, we’d like to hear your feedback. Feel free to reply to this email with any concerns.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Team

Dear Satish,

You’re one step away from becoming a YouTube Partner and earning revenues from your videos. Please proceed to Step 3, to enable your account for revenue sharing.

Step 1:Online Sign-Up Form Approval
Step 2:Tutorial Completion and Contract
Step 3: Associate your Google AdSense account
Sincerely,
The YouTube Team

Dear Satish,

Congratulations! Now that you’re a YouTube partner, you’re on your way to sharing revenue from your YouTube videos and increasing your audience through syndication.

Here’s some important reference material. Please sign in to your YouTube account in order to access this information.

Getting Started Guide – See how to use YouTube partner features.
Partner Tutorial – Review the Partner Tutorial.
Partner Agreement – Detailed partner agreement.
Community Guidelines – Understand your responsibilities in ensuring a positive experience for our users.
Partner Account Settings – Update your Google AdSense information.
Looking for even more YouTube partner information? Visit our comprehensive Partner Help Center or catch the latest news in our blog.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Team

Earn From Your Mobile Phone!

Update: Scroll down to check about YouMint – better way to earn from your mobile phone!

mGinger is the first of its kind opt-in permission-based mobile marketing platform in India, where you can get cool discounts/offers as well as incentives for helping your family and friends get these discounts/offers(by referring them to mGinger). And not to forget, mGinger also allows you to send free SMS. what else we can ask for ? Money, free sms, great deals.

The idea is simple: You have to signup your mobile number and email ID, and specify your interests and the time when you want to get information about these items.

To keep you interested and informed, mGinger also gives incentives for every ad you receive and for each ad received by people in your network upto two levels of referrals(explained below).

So, the more people you refer to mGinger(via the link you get inside your mGinger a/c once you signup), the more you could earn.

Incentives per ad received:
You: 20ps;
Referral level 1: 10ps;
Referral level 2: 5ps;

Example:
If you refer 100 people and in turn those 100 people together refer 300 people, you will have 400 people in your network.

You get 10 ads: so you earn (10 x 0.20) Rs = 2Rs
Referral level 1: 100 people, receive 5 ads each, so (100x5x0.10)Rs = 50Rs.
Referral level 2: 300 people, receive 5 ads each, so (300x5x0.05)Rs = 75Rs.

So you earn a total of Rs. 127
(What if you refer 1000 people and they inturn refer 3000 people in total? Calculate.)
Everyone and their neighbor has cell phones these days. Well, have you seen some one without one!

Once you accumulate Rs. 300 in your account, you are entitled to receive cheque from mGinger.

Your earnings depends on the number of people you refer, your profile information and the number of relevant campaigns running.

So keep referring more and more people(without spamming them ofcourse) and get more money and I’m sure your family and friends will thank you for introducing to something so cool.

Email:
You also earn when you and your referral receive promotional emails from mGinger.

Will mGinger make me rich ?
So, do you think mGinger will make you rich over night ? No.
It could provide you with some pocket money which you could use for your evening coffee with friends.

The real advantage is the money it can save you by providing you with real big discounts/offers on quality branded items.

Deals:
mGinger has also started new deals, where they provide quality branded items for huge discounts. No bidding or lucky draws involved. You pay and you get it, with huge discounts.

With the introduction of “deals” mGinger has started sending more discount/offer sms’s, hence allowing us to make some more money from the ads we receive.

Is it a new type of scam in the city?
No. It’s not a scam. They actually pay. I have got my payments too. You can actually visit their home page and look at the number and the amount they have actually paid to their users.

Does the company really Pay?
Yes. Below is a proof. It’s my first cheque I got from mGinger, with a nice thank you note.

(Click on above images to enlarge..)

Competition:
There are many other companies that might be running with the same concept, but I have tried many and non are actually good or anywhere near to the quality of mGinger. So I would recommend you to join mGinger and refer your family and friends to it.
Remember, money saved is money earned(and mGinger also pays you for saving your money!).

———————————————————————————————————-

R.I.P mGinger
To our disappointment, mGinger has discontinued it’s operation without intimating its users.
we have found a better alternative to mGinger. Introducing YouMint, which existed even at the time of mGinger, but we thought mGinger as more trust worth(we were proved wrong).

Signup to YouMint ..

Join YouMint.

Sold HTC SmartPhone For Rs. 5000

Yes I sold my HTC p3452 for Rs. 5k Initially I decided to buy HTC because iPhone is too costly in India.

I loved the phone. As always, there were some flaws and I wanted change!

Things I dint like about my HTC phone:
1. Worst battery backup. It dint last even for 12hrs 🙁 With mp3 or WiFi, I could use the phone for 4 to 5 hours max.
2. It was locked to Vodafone! Well, I knew there will be ways to unlock it for other operators. After installing some software, it did work with all operators. But sometimes it needed restart, which again took considerable amount of battery power.
3. Touch screen sensitivity wasn’t satisfactorily built. Messaging was freakingly annoying. The small screen(2.8 inches) of the device made it even more difficult to navigate and to operate the phone.
4. Overall performance of the device was very poor. Slow processing.
5. Couldn’t play mp4 videos (and still this phone is called smart phone!)
6. It had “Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional”, but I wanted android.
7. 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels: Camera quality Sucks! No HD video recording.
8. (Don’t) Touch Screen: Doesn’t work when operated with fingers. We have to use the stylus ……… and it works when operated with nails!
9. Data cable provided with the device never worked. I had to use my camcorders data cable.
10. You have to use the phone with the original company settings and software. If you make more changes, i.e., try to over customize and start installing more 3rd party software, then the device acts as if it’s dead. It slows down the entire device, hangs, takes time even to restart 🙁

For all these reasons, I wanted a new phone. And it’s smart phone era and there are many smart phones with competitive price tag, especially after the advent of android.

But the device had a sexy look, good pouch, not that bad to use for making and receiving calls: if used with original company settings.

Keeping all these in mind, I offered the phone to one of my friend’s friend for Rs. 5000 and he immediately agreed and bought it. Before purchasing he asked a question: Why are you selling it?
Instead of telling, “I want to buy a new phone”. I told all these above demerits, straight forward. But he was already sold to the sexy design of HTC p3452. He is a average user and his main requirements are calls and style! He can use this phone to make and receive calls, and the phone looks great.

How My Freelance Work Got Ruined and How YOU Can Avoid It

I started blogging as my hobby, and till date I continue to blog only as hobby. I never had the intention to live and lead my life out of the income generated by this blog! That’s the main reason why I can provide unbiased information and opinion about any topic and any product.

Freelance Work Life:
I started freelance work accidentally. Some one asked me for help, I did it for free. I helped some more people like this for free. Later on, these people started referring their friends and slowly I started getting clients who were willing to pay me. I started charging modest fee to all my initial clients. They liked my work and they eventually started referring their friends, hence it started making me some serious $cash$. So from here, making money online started making some real sense!

Need for Some Improvements:
Since I started getting good income, I thought – why not invest more time and money into this ? So thought of shifting the work place.

It wasn’t that big move: I shifted from a congested room to a more spacious room inside my home. But moving around things took lot of effort, and time to convince my mom.

My clients were happy for me and they extended the deadlines of project by 2 days 😉

Actual disaster:
It took some more days as we had to get new earthing wires etc and drill the room wall for new electric switches etc.

Finally when everything seemed great, my Internet connection got disconnected 🙁 🙁

It was a regular thing with my old ISP, so decided to even fix that. So I ordered for India’s leading ISP.

Once I made my mind to switch to Indian’s no1 broadband provider(i.e., BSNL), they told me to give me the service in 5 days after I apply for it. So I went ahead, disconnected Reliance Broadband and applied for BSNL broadband. I was excited to have the highspeed internet in my new work place. But it never came 🙁 I called their customer care and they sent me my cheque back informing me that there was an error while processing my application and I will have to do the whole process once again!

I went the same day and applied, after 8 days they promptly came to my home installed the landline and the next morning another person came with new WiFi modem and configured it.
It was great feel to get back and tell “hi” to all my internet buddies and to my clients. I was sure they would support me when they know what went through in my life.

Lot of Mails To Respond:
Eagerly I opened my email and to my disappointment there were a lot of new emails I had to reply to 🙁
Most of the mails were from my clients and they were asking whether everything is ok with me and my family and why am I not replying. I started explaining them via email, and I replied to a lot of them, forgetting some common sense TOS of Google App(my email provider). I had(probably) exceeded the limit of emails that I was supposed to send in a day. So my account got blocked 🙁 🙁 🙁
I started feeling sick for staying awake all day-night, and replying everyone.

Now I was totally pissed off knowing that my clients would be pissed off by me.

I tried all means to contact Google regarding this. My account was blocked more than a week and thankfully restored some days back. I had to reconfigure CName etc with my domain registrar, so not sure what exactly had went wrong.

Now the real challenge: from where to start replying to my emails. There were more and more replies and I had to write this post(finally).

Lessons learnt:
1. Have contact with your clients in more than just one place: I have created Technotip Page on Facebook. Please make sure to join and share with your friends.
2. Take only one or two jobs at a time. Don’t give assured dates to more than 2 or 3 clients.
3. Accept only those works which you are expert at. And don’t accept works which will take time and you need to figure out a lot to start the work.
4. Have some contract: Over years I have seen clients who pay once and keep asking for modifications every month. This actually put me into immense pressure.
5. Have some kind of backup plan.
6. Spread your income. Don’t keep all the eggs in a single basket.
7. Stop taking minor fixes job. These minor fixes take most of my time. So I will be mostly concentrating on my major freelance works, like blog migration, app development etc.
8. Will start building my own apps and make SAS (Software As a Service).
9. Will concentrate more on blogging, even though it doesn’t pay my bills. It makes me enough money to have my tea and pocket money. But it has bought me opportunities, which other wise wouldn’t be mine.
10. Will start educating my clients about online stuffs.

Recovery Plan
1. Have to take blog migration works soon inorder to cop with my ever increasing bills/expenses.
2. Have to send mail to all my clients, in batches, informing the fiasco! I’m sure they would help me recover.
3. Stop taking minor jobs/works, which take lot of time.
4. Keep working.
5. Stop getting stressed.
6. Stop thinking more about the past, and concentrate on the present.
7 Ask clients to support by referring their friends.
8. Concentrate on health.
9. Make sure to work satisfactorily before moving/taking next client.
10. Stay in touch with clients – start ‘clients only’ news letter. It would be like friendly mails and not sales pitches.

AnyWho: Legit Uses for Reverse Call Look Up

Reverse phone look up is a service that many phone users tend to overlook. In fact, many forget that it even exists. However, the service has a few great uses, and can be an excellent tool when dealing with any of the following:

Telemarketers
Do you have one number that repeatedly calls you, and you are pretty sure – judging by the 1-800 number – that it is a telemarketer? Well, instead of subjecting yourself to a sales pitch before begging to be put on a no-call list, look that number up using Anywho.com. With a quick click of the mouse, you’ll have the company’s name, and you’ll be able to add yourself to their no call list online without having to speak to anyone. And if the company continues to call you, you’ll have its info to turn over to the Better Business Bureau.

Nights Out
Ever have a great night out only to wake up to a phone number scrawled on the back of your business card or on a cocktail napkin? Wondered who the person was whose number you received? Instead of having to call the person and asking awkward questions to get a name, you can simply enter the number into Anywho. You’ll get their name and address and then be able to scope them out of Facebook to determine whether or not they are worth your time.

Prank Callers
If you have a number that repeatedly calls you and then hangs up, reverse phone look-up the number immediately. While prank-callers have greatly reduced their antics since the inception of Caller-ID, there are still those that do it and it can be highly annoying. Instead of being called on repeat at 3:00 AM, look the number up, and the send the caller’s info to the local police.

Random Write Downs
Do you frequently find numbers written in your own handwriting across the tops of random papers or on post-its? Don’t feel comfortable giving these numbers a call to discover who is on the other end? Reverse phone look up the number. You may find that it was your dentists personal number that you forgot to enter into your phone or a co-worker’s number you jotted down a few days ago without attaching it to their name.

Although reverse phone look up is often overlooked due to the high use of caller-ID and the lacking use of land lines, it does still have a few great perks. The service is generally free too, and can give you a great start when trying to look someone up. The services in which you pay for can provide even more detailed information which can be great for employers. So the next time you receive a call from an unknown number, don’t panic simply look it up using reverse phone look-up.

Life Is Short, Follow Your Heart!

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.
Don’t let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice.
And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
They some how already know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.”
— Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address:
Most Inspiring and Life Changing

Today, Thursday 25 August 2011, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced his resignation as CEO of Apple and expressed his love to serve as Chairman of the Board, Director and Apple employee.

Here is the complete resignation letter written by Steve to the board:

To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.
I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

Note: Tim Cook Named as new CEO of Apple.

We wish him good health and happy life moving forward.

PayPal Rules For Indian Users

How To Open/Create PayPal account ?

This could be the question people might start searching answer for in some months or years time. Because new users may not know all the information needed to open and start making use of PayPal account.

If you are an Indian PayPal user, then you have a different set of rules than PayPal users of other countries.

Here are the basic things to keep in mind while opening a PayPal a/c:
These are mandatory things to have, to open and enjoy the benefits of PayPal a/c.

1. PAN or Permanent Account Number
2. Purpose Code
3. Bank account in India

According to new PayPal rules, you should not keep any balance in your PayPal account for more than 7 days. It should be withdrawn to the bank a/c which is connected with your PayPal a/c with in 7 days, what-so-ever the conversion rates be on those days 🙁

PayPal also has auto-withdraw option available for Indian users.
Goto Profile -> Add/Edit Bank Account and click on “Make Auto Withdrawal” button.

Add PAN Number:

Your PayPal a/c -> Profile -> My Details -> Click on Add next to PAN.

Add Bank Account:

Your PayPal a/c -> Profile -> My Money -> Click on Add my bank next to Bank accounts.

Add Purpose Code:

Your PayPal a/c -> Profile -> My Money -> Click on Add next to Purpose Code.

Note: I’m a blogger and freelancer, I have added “Freelance journalism” as my purpose code.

Add Your Current Postal Address:

Your PayPal a/c -> Profile -> My Details -> Click on Update next to the Address field.

NOTE: One thing to know clearly is; From now you will not be able to pay for any product, service or anything using the balance present in your PayPal a/c. You should pay only by the credit card that is connected to your PayPal account. i.e., You have to first transfer the balance amount in your PayPal a/c to your Bank Account, and then pay from your Bank Account via your PayPal account! Now you may ask, whats the catch ? This is the rules RBI has set for Indian PayPal users, so we have to follow it.