BlogMunch

Do you blog every day?

There has been a small furry of posts in the blogosphere relating to blogging frequency. For me, I try to set in a pattern of posting at least once a day, but this has been increasingly difficult as I have a full time job and kids to play with during the weekend. As you can see from my calendar, I have miss two days since I start blogging.

At first, I was quite disappointed with myself for not hitting the target of posting once a day. But blogging really takes time and time has become scarce around my life. I will still try my darnest to write something everyday and hope you will enjoy reading.

Here are some links from both camps (for and against):

www.Mpdailyfix.com

www.Bloggingtips.com

Lifehacker.com

www.Successful-blog.com

www.Chrisg.com/

www.Dailyblogtips.com

www.Problogger.net

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.
Emile Coue, French psychotherapist (1857 - 1926)

My way of searching typo domain names

You can tell that I am quite obsessed with domaining when so soon after a domain names post, I come up with another post about domain names. Typo domain names are profitable in the sense that when a person type in the web address (eg. google.com) on the address bar, he/she might type too fast and type in a typo (eg. gooogle.com or googel.com). So if you own a typo domain, the person will be redirected to your site. There are normally 3 ways to earn money this way.

1. Park your site with a parking service like SEDO.com or Parked.com. They will normally optimized the ads placed on your site to suit your keywords. There is also a added advantage that these services will help to put up notices if you want to sell your domain name.
2. Develop the site yourself by putting content targeted to the users and placing ads. It will be provide more control over the ads put up on your site and provides a service at the same time.
3. Divert the traffic coming in to one of your own developed site.

After such a long introduction, here is how I search for available typo domain names.

There are specific typo searcher like typo-squatter, but the search is quite slow . I prefer to use auction-typo.com to list out the typos in ebay. This is not a specific tool for typo domain searching but it works well.

Then I cut and past the results into mydomain.com. you can specify whether you want to search in .com, .net, or any other TLD provided. I like mydomain.com because the bulk search is very flexible. It accept list separated by commas or cartridge return. Basically, you paste in some text and it will search for all the keywords it can detect.

So do you have faster and better way to search for a typo domain names? Tell me by leaving a comment or email me at reko10@gmail.com.

Donationcoder.com

Today I want to introduce a forum that I lurk frequently. As you can guess from the title, it is donationcoder.com. I first went into this forum searching for a application launcher alternative to Approcket which is taking too much ram. The administrator of this forum, Mouser, develop fast and efficient software using C++. His Find and Run Robot (FARR) is one of the most popular application on the site. That’s that app launcher I am using now. It is currently at version 2 beta.

This is also the site that finally persuade me to donate to a cause. As the name of the site goes, most of the applications within the site are donationware. That means you are encouraged to donate to the author who develop the applications. The keyword here is “encouraged”, as all applications are not crippled and are in full version. For me, I lurk around the forum reading post of different varieties, getting to know the people behind this site and finally feel good enough to donate a small amount to the site. Another good thing is that the money you donate doesn’t go to Mouser. The amount will reflect on your account and you are free to donate to anyone on the forum. Most of my money goes to Mouser as he has really done a good job administrating the forum and also I am using two of his application. The above mentioned FARR and ScreenshotCaptor.

There are just so many things to be gain from reading the reviews, participating in the forum discussions or just chatting in their IRC room, that I can spend my whole day there. Ha, there are even some veterans who is suffering from donationcoder,com addiction. Go in and lurk around, I guarantee you will love the community.

What I read about domain names in a day

Since buying my first domain name, I got very interested in the business surrounding domain names (domaining). So yesterday, spend some time to learn more about the domain names. First thing I learn is that anyone coming into domaining now is about 5 years too late. Most (99%) of the generic names (weather.com, transport.com, books.com, etc.) were taken when shrewd investors snap up great names during the dot com bubble burst. So, if you come in expecting big money, you have to be extremely far-sighted or very creative in thinking up new names. Second thing is that even parking your domain names in Google adsense filled pages will only give you small change (after the yearly renewal fee and hosting fee). The key is still thinking up good creative names.

Below are some resources I use to research on the topic.

Domain Names Forums
www.webhostingtalk.com
Namepros.com
www.namefaqs.com/

In these places, you can ask questions and read up on different aspects of domaining. Namepros.com is especially good and most of the veterans there are helpful.

Keyword search
tools.seobook.com
www.wordtracker.com
adwords.google.com

To choose a good domain name, you have to research thoroughly. All these tools except wordtracker.com are free. But from what I have read, wordtracker is the best keyword search tool in the business.

Domain names search
instantdomainsearch.com
www.bustaname.com

Use these to find domain names that are not taken. 9 out 10 keywords you type in are already taken. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Dropped names
www.premiumdrops.com

Here is a website that will allow you to search names that have expired or going to be expired. There are some nice names to be found here, but you have to ask why do the previous owner allow it to be expired. You can also filter by pagerank or Alexa rating to know whats the traffic like before.

Domain Name Registration
www.1and1.com
www.godaddy.com

Self-explanatory.

Parking of Domain Names
www.parked.com
www.sedo.com

On these sites, you can park your domain to earn some cash. The reviews at Namepros.com says that parked.com pays a higher rate.

Domain Valuation
http://estibot.com
http://leapfish.com
Domain name appraisal guide

Type in your domain name to let them estimate the value of your domain. Blogmunch.com is currently worth USD$220.00 at estibot.com and USD$43.00 at leapfish.com. Take everything with a pinch of salt.

Domain names story
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2005/
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/

Now, if you decide to go into the business, here are some inspiring stories to motivate you.

So, there you have it. All that I have learn in one day. These information is by no means comprehensive, as there are lots of knowledge to be gain still in domaining. But I think this is a good starting point. Okay, got to go think of my own domain names. No peeking.

Live Free or Die Hard - aka Die Hard 4.0

Watch Die Hard 4.0 with my wife on Monday and, damn, what a entertaining movie this is. From the opening explosive scene where John McClane (Bruce Willis) saved Matt Farrell’s (Justin Long) ass from professional killers to them getting trapped in the tunnel getting sandwiched by opposing cars. Its just one action setup to another.

Although Willis is already 52 years old, he still jumped around like he was 12 years ago when Die Hard with a Vengeance was filmed. He seems to like elevators as the lively fight in the elevator with Mai Linh (Maggie Q) pay tribute to the elevator scene from Die Hard 1. Need to mention, the way he punch Maggie’s face got to be seen to believe. Not even in WWE is a person punched so hard.

John McClane: Mai? Asian chick, likes to kick people? Yeah, last time I saw her she was at the bottom of an elevator shaft with an SUV rammed up her ass.

The fight between Raffaelli and Willis was highly anticipated from the start, but disappoints as it ended very quickly in the meat grinder.

The plot of the film is basically McClane and Farrell moving from one action set to another causing tremendous damage and mayhem while displaying McClane amazing abilities to stay alive. The idea behind it, though, was clever and illuminating. Using a Wired article entitled “A Farewell to Arms” by John Carlin as a backdrop, the story tell us what would happen if anything that is controlled by computers got hijacked by cyber-terrorist. The idea of a “Fire Sale” is also new to me.

John McClane shows that although he is not as smart as some of the geeks in the movie , his ability to think on his feet is unparalleled. From using a fire hydrant to hose a helicopter, to driving a police car to crash the same helicopter, then finally shooting himself to kill Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), all show what a brillant cop he is. Its a pity, considering his age, there might not be a Die Hard 5.

In conclusion, I would give Die Hard 4.0 two thumbs up for giving me and my wife such an entertaining 2 hours.

Thomas Gabriel: On your tombstone it will say “Always in the wrong place at the wrong time”.
John McClane: How about “Yippi-kay-ay, motherfu - “[gunshot]