Category Archives ⇒ Internet

Multiple WordPress Multi-User Installations

· Brandon Hann

I’ve scoured the Internet looking for the answer to this question and I have found it. The question was, can you you install multiple WordPressMU blogs and have them run under one webhost. The short answer is no. However, as with most things in the online world, it is possible with the right “tool”.

If you’re wondering why I would want to have two separate installs of this, it’s because I have more than one client on my web server, each of which are running their own sites. This is fine for most applications, but when you start dabbling in things like SSL certificates and wildcard sub-domains, that’s when the trouble starts. These are just two items that require their own IP address.

One of my clients would like to run multiple blogs on his WordPress Network, but because I’m already doing that for Ledfrog.com, I’m essentially blocking him from doing so. This is because Ledfrog.com is the main domain on my server and any changes utilizing different ports such as 443 for SSL certificates or services like WordPressMU that use wildcard sub-domains have to go through the server’s IP address and since this IP is assigned to my domain, his will not work.

The way WordPressMU works is once you convert your WordPress install into a network, you have the ability to add new sites to it. These sites utilize all of the main structure of the original WordPress installation while creating a separate blog directory inside the wp-content folder to store all of that blog’s specific files such as media uploads and so forth. Plugins and theme are then made available to all sites provided that you (the network admin) have made them available. The advantages here are that you no longer have to install a whole new copy of WordPress, create a new database, download all the same themes and plugins or manage different webhost accounts every time you want to start a new blog. Everything except the media files are shared. You can imagine how much faster updates are too!

Anyway, to make this happen, you need to create a wildcard sub-domain ‘A’ record in your DNS server that points *.yourdomain.com to your server’s IP address. This is needed because when you create a new site on your network, a virtual subdomain is created. An example of this is my personal blog site, Ledfrog.me. When I created it in my network, I was actually creating me.ledfrog.com.

The real magic happens with a feature called Domain Mapping. This is where you can map a real domain (provided it’s been added to your DNS server) to any virtual WordPress site you have created. Using the same example, I was able to map the domain Ledfrog.me to my virtual blog, me.ledfrog.com, so when you access either of those URLs, you’ll wind up at Ledfrog.me. Make sense?!

WordPressMU Domain Mapping

So all this is fine and dandy when you’re working with one server, one IP address and one main domain, but in my case, another client of mine would like to create his own network. The problems begin when you try to create the wildcard sub-domain. While doing this is possible and serves a valuable function—allowing him to create his own real sub-domains—it does nothing for WordPressMU!

I’ve contacted my webhost, I’ve ran all over Google and even tried Bing out for the first time looking for some help with this and eo far I’ve found two answers. First, I keep getting sent to sets of instructions that allow you use vhost.conf files in your client’s vhost container to allow the use of a wildcard sub-domain. This process basically has you creating a conf file that you then configure into Apache to tell the server that you want it to be included into the configuration for that site. It’s great for adding site-specific features to httpd.conf without affecting your whole server.

The second answer I get is the correct one. You can’t use WordPressMU on two separate installations without an additional static IP address! To verify this, all you have to do is install it on another client on your same server and watch what happens when you try to access one of the the virtual blog sites. Here’s what it does:

Domain1.com is the main domain attached to the server’s ONLY IP address.
site2.domain1.com is a virtual blog site created inside the WordPressMU installation.
site2.com is the domain that is mapped to the sub-domain above.
If you access site2.com, you are really only looking at site2.domain1.com.

Domain2.com is in another client’s hosting account on the same server and same IP address.
site2.domain2.com is a virtual blog that’s created inside the WordPressMU installation.
If you access site2.domain2.com, you are redirected to Domain1.com with an error about registrations being closed.

The reason for that is because site2.domain2.com is being read as a sub-domain of Domain1.com!!

I hope you’re not confused. More so, I hope someone who reads this is laughing their head off because they know the way around all this. Oh and by the way, I’m not try to escape having to purchase a separate IP address. It’s just that my host won’t sell me one without a valid reason and apparently this doesn’t count because they said it’s possible to use one address!

Tonido – Run your own personal cloud

· Brandon Hann

Sometimes I might be away from my home, perhaps at a friend’s out or maybe even out of town. While I generally have my MacBook to keep me connected, there are many times when I go to do something and I can’t because I realize everything is stored on my desktop computer. Of course there are services out there that allow you to upload data to the “cloud”, but I don’t like them because they are either too limited or too costly.

For anyone who doesn’t already know, cloud computing is the new terminology used to describe how we interact with our computers and data on the Internet. In the simplest of terms, creating a cloud allows you to make all of your files available online so you can access them wherever you are.

Tonido

Tonido is free software that allows you to turn your home computer into your own personal cloud! Now, you can run your own cloud services similar to that of Apple’s MobileMe and Google Docs with two major differences: it’s free and you don’t have to upload your files to any 3rd parties.

The top 10 reasons to run Tonido:

  1. Secure and private – Use an external DNS name such as cloud.domain.com to access your Tonidio-enabled computer from anywhere in the world.
  2. File management – You can have full access to all of your files.
  3. Tonido WebShare – Create specific file shares for specific users, allowing them to have access to only what you want them to while using easy-to-remember URLs. There is a $29.99 charge to purchase the Pro version of this which enables quite a few new features. See Tonido Webshare for more information.
  4. Stream videos – Ever wanted to take your movies and videos with you on vacation, but could never decided on which ones to bring because you didn’t want to fill up your hard drive? You can now stream any video file directly from your home computer through Tonido Explorer.
  5. Stream music – Just as you would imagine, you can also stream all of your music. No need to bring your entire music collection with you anymore!
  6. Manage torrents – I used to have to wait until I got home to start any torrent downloads I wanted to get, but Tonido allows you to create and manage all of your downloads remotely.
  7. Manage money – There’s an add-on feature that allows you to manage all your finances remotely too.
  8. Backups – Use Tonido to remotely backup your whole computer to another computer on the network or to any other computer on the Internet.
  9. Personal blog – If you’ve always wanted to run a personal blog, but didn’t want to deal with all of the hassle of webhosting, you can use Tonido’s “Thots” to do just that. Make it only available to you or the whole world; you decide.
  10. Cross platform – Tonido is available on Windows, Mac and Linux. Remote software is available for those as well as the latest smartphones.

My two cents

From the looks of things, everything is free except the WebShare Pro. Ironically, this is probably the piece of software that you’d use most, so all in all, setting up your own cloud would cost about $30. Of course, you also have to provide your own hardware and be willing to leave a computer on 24/7. After all is considered, you really can’t beat this configuration. Even if you went with MobileMe, you’d have to pay about $99 per year plus deal with storage limitations.

If you’re anything like me, then you probably prefer to do everything yourself because at least you’d have full control of your cloud plus you can un-limit yourself by providing as much hard drive space as needed. My weekend project is going to be setting up such a system. I’ll be posting my final reviews on Tonido once I’ve played around with it a bit.

What can BlogGlue do for you?

· Brandon Hann

UPDATE: BlueGlue is no longer in service. Per an email I received yesterday, the company running BlogGlue has decided to shut down the service and seek some sort of buyout. It’s possible that this service could be resurrected under a new owner, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. It was fun while it lasted! I’m leaving this article up for historical purposes, but will be removing all outgoing links. This was the email sent out to all users:

BlogGlue Closed

Original article:

Just over 1 year ago, I joined a little known website called Arkayne. I even wrote about how to drive focused traffic to your site with Arkayne being the central topic. The purpose of Arkayne was to enhance your blog’s presence by connecting the posts you create with other blog owners who write about similar topics. It was such a simple concept; one that has helped my site grow in ways I didn’t think were possible. Today, Arkayne is now BlogGlue and their concept has remained simple, but has become much more powerful.

For me, blogging isn’t about ranking high in search engines or making thousands of dollars a day selling useless information or products—it’s about sharing ideas and providing valuable information about the things I know with people who want to learn. Of course, if I made thousands of dollars doing this, that would be great, but I don’t intend to sacrifice quality for quantity. This is where BlogGlue really helps out.

BlogGlue Partnerships

The give and take process of BlogGlue starts with a recommendation. As you browse the ever-growing community of blogs, you’ll start noticing many websites that share some common interests with your site. As you click through each one, you can choose the ones you like based on how well they complement your site and submit a recommendation.

The site owners you recommended are then notified of your recommendation and have the option to review your site. If they like what they see and recommend you back, you both become partners. At that point, your blogs are linked.

The plugin

The BlogGlue plugin on your site will add Related Links at the bottom of each post. It gets these links from your partners, so it’s important not to just add every partner under the sun to increase your count. Your site, your partners’ sites and your visitors will all benefit from these partnerships.

The process works both ways as well. Your links will start appearing on partner’s sites in the same location. This is the main function of BlogGlue and it works really well! The more partners you have, the most choices the plugin will have in pulling quality content. And as you would imagine, if you don’t like a particular site’s content, simply delete them as a partner and their links will never show up again!

When writing a post, the plugin also offers some instant help with basic SEO tips. After you saved your first draft, you can click the Test Now button and see exactly what you might be missing and how you can improve the page’s optimization.

The costs

There are three service plans available.

  • Free – $0.00/month – You accept up to 5 partners, but you can have unlimited recommendations. Your site content is limited to 200 pages/posts.
  • Basic – $9.97/month – You can have up 15 partners and still have unlimited recommendations. Your site content is limited to 1000 pages/posts.
  • Unlimited – $19.97/month – You can have unlimited partners and unlimited recommendations. Your site content is limited to 5000 pages/posts.

The best part about these plans is that you can grow into them. Start out free and as you start to notice your traffic increasing, just upgrade instantly to the next plan. At some point, your site will be getting hundreds or thousands of hits a day and the unlimited plan will be needed, but you’ll likely be making money at that point!

There are no contracts, hidden fees, cancellation charges, upgrade charges, taxes, etc, etc.! What you see is what you get.

My two cents

I’ve been using BlogGlue for over a year now and I can tell you just by looking at my stats, they have helped my site grow almost 300% and the numbers continue to rise as I become partners with more and more quality blogs. Their customer support has been super gracious and exceptionally fast with any issues I’ve had and I haven’t had many…that’s for sure.

I can’t say enough great things about the operation they’re running over there. Check them out over at www.blogglue.com.

iPad Poised to Take Out Radio and Other Media

· Brandon Hann

A new survey from Google shows that more and more people are opting to use their tablet devices, with most of them being iPads, over traditional media streams like listening to the radio or watching broadcast tv. This is happening just now?! I can’t remember the last time I listened to the radio!

The survey points out that more than half of the people questioned said they use their iPad more than listening to the radio and just about 25% of them use an iPad more than a computer. Finally, a third of these individuals stated they use iPad more than they watch tv. Because the iPad is so versatile, people can now use one device to access the Internet, watch videos, stream movies and tv shows, read newspapers and magazines, listen to music and play games. Of course cable and satellite providers have made honest attempts at keeping you on your television by offering on-demand content, DVR services, music channels, downloadable content, HD content, 3D content, free movies, etc., but without a tv capable of handling some of these things, you’re kind of up a creek.

Apple TV

Apple TV
Since the iPad is an Apple product, I doubt Steve Jobs cares that one of his own products is cannibalizing another market, but I know he figures he might as well have a piece of that pie too. Before he retires, Steve Jobs plans to “revolutionize” the living room. The Apple TV has been an interesting, yet vastly overlooked product since its inception. Originally called iTV (how original), the Apple TV began shipping in 2007 and has seen one major upgrade in 2010. However, nobody is really talking about it.

Is it possible that not everything Apple touches turns to gold? In light of this new survey, one could wonder what the future of Apple TV will be. If you actually take the time to look at the device, it really is pretty cool. You can stream purchases of videos, movies and music right from your iTunes account, access Netflix, NBA tv, YouTube and display slideshows from Flickr photo albums.

However, it would seem that this device is doomed. With the realization that iPads are here to stay, along with other competing products, Steve Jobs is likely to bring the cloud experience to your living room. By connecting all of your devices together, you’ll be able to do anything and everything on just about anything and everything in your home. I can see the commercial now:

  • Man is at work with 2 minutes left to go, watching a Netflix movie on his Macbook.
  • Man leaves work and continues same movie on iPhone while riding the subway home (I know there’s no cell service on subways, but work with me here!)
  • Man walks in the door, turns on tv and continues streaming same movie.
  • Man grabs iPad because he has to go to the bathroom and doesn’t want to pause the movie.
  • Man’s iPad battery dies, he gets upset and breaks iPad.
  • Man gets even more upset, breaks Macbook and tv.
  • Wife says she’s leaving because husband is to “connected” to technology.
  • Man is sad and lonely because Apple Care won’t cover physical damage.

On a serious note, if anyone makes that script into a YouTube video, I want credit!

My two cents

Of course the above example is a huge exaggeration, but the questions are pretty clear. Do we really need all this stuff? Do we really want everything to be so connected that we become so dependent on them? What I would like to see is a way for consumers to pay much smaller fees for tv service. If Apple plans to cloud up the living room with more on-demand tv choices like those you can get from Hulu, then I hope the cable companies respond by allowing customers to only pay for channels they wish to receive. At the rate all this is going, I’m sure it won’t be much longer before network television simply allows you to subscribe to your favorite shows rather than paying to have the whole channel.

Who is John Chow?

· Brandon Hann

I’ll start off by saying I don’t know John Chow personally, nor have I ever met him or even communicated with him via email or any other means.

With that said, I’m writing this article because I wanted to explore what I do know about him, his website and the throngs of followers he’s amassed over the years. I also have to say that if it wasn’t for John Chow, I probably wouldn’t have done much with this website. However, take that statement with a grain of salt! I’m not here to promote his services or tout how great he is and blah blah blah.

What I am saying is that when I got into this whole blogging thing, I wasn’t sure what direction I was headed, so after doing some searches, I found his website, JohnChow.com to be rather helpful. He sort of inspired me with his little video about how great life was–being able to blog online and not have a day job–in which he could then take his daughter out for walks in the park with nobody around because they were “all at work”. Normally, I don’t buy into such claims because while I do understand it’s possible to live a comfortable life doing hardly any work (that’s subjective by the way), I understand that it usually takes a LOT of work to get there. Whether John Chow’s video is he reality or not is not the point. The point is that I knew it could be done and I wanted to get there…for real.

JohnChow.com

His site title says, “I Make Money Online By Telling Other People How To Make Money Online”. If you read that and you’re instantly brough back to the days (or late, late nights) when you used to listen to Don Lapre talk about how he made $50k a week by putting “tiny little ads” in newspapers from his “one-bedroom apartment”, then we’re on the same page!

We’ve all seen the late night infomercials touting all sorts of plans and ideas of how to make lots of money in short time and/or without much work, but have you ever really investigated these ideas? What are they really selling you? I mean, I could say to you that I have a super secret plan to make $20,000 a day and I’m only going to charge you $1000 for me to tell you the secret. You get all excited, pay me the money and then I tell you the secret is to move to Hollywood, become and actor and land yourself a sitcom making $20,000 per episode. But is that really a secret? More importantly, did your thousand dollars really help you at all?

Now I’m not calling John Chow a scam artist, but I am trying to illustrate one thing: to make money, you have to work hard. What’s interesting about how John Chow operates is that his website is setup to perform 3 main functions (in this order):

  1. Present a newsletter – No matter where you look on his site, you’ll find a place to sign up to his newsletter. In reality, what he’s doing is collecting email addresses. I’ve personally signed up for the newsletter once and instantly realized that everything being sent was talking about nothing more than how to make money online and the different ways to do it.
  2. Sell a product – He’s not selling any actual products, but rather a multitude of things like ebooks, money-making videos, guides, self-help tutorials and other related digital items at various times on his site.
  3. Keep you coming back – This is where the previous two functions come into play. The more you come back to see the latest offers, the more likely you are to purchase something and trust me, these offers are enticing!

The Offers

The first thing you’ll notice about John Chow’s offers is that they are very similar to everyone else who offers an online product. This brings me to the one problem I have with his site; all these offers do is regurgitate the exact same content, tips and advice as every other site out there that promises you to make money online!

As an example, 90% of these “special” videos all claim you can make thousands of dollars a month by joining affiliate programs and purchasing Google AdWords to help drive traffic to some squeeze page that sells a product about how to sign up for affiliate programs and buy Google AdWords to help drive traffic…you can see where I’m going with this. It becomes a vicious circle.

By the way, the products you’re selling to people are aimed at affiliate/Internet marketers just like you, so all you’re really doing is flooding your own market with new competition! That’s like your local 7-Eleven only selling their products to other liquor stores who are then selling to more liquor stores and so on. In time, your city is flooded with too many sources where you can buy the exact same products. Any basic knowledge of economics would tell you that this setup will eventually collapse.

I like to think of these sites as nothing more than pyramid schemes poised to earn untold amounts of profit for the person/website at the top while the bottom support earns crumbs.

How to really make money online

Of course, you can make money online using all of the available tips and tricks on the Internet, including sites like JohnChow.com, but the reality is that you have to be good enough to beat out all the competition…or just get really lucky.

I’ve been able to make money online from my own network of websites because I provide fresh, original content and people recognize me for that. I don’t take one person’s program, put a spin on it and then mask it off as my own. I don’t partake in shady practices in regards to Google search rankings. I don’t accept payments as bribes from people wishing to be named in a blog post.

I’m not accusing anyone of doing these aforementioned practices, but we all know that some people do. My advice is that if you want to make money online today and a long time from now, stay focused on your vision, provide something valuable to the Internet and keep it real. You’d be surprised just how fast your website will start making money.

If along the way, you can add some extra income using affiliate marketing, then by all means, do it! All I’m saying is that you will not become a millionaire overnight and it takes hard work and dedication to run a profitable website.

So the next time you’re on a site like JohnChow.com, get as much free information as you can, but be weary of purchasing a money-making program.

How To Hack The Facebook Image Bar

· Brandon Hann

Ok so you’re not really hacking anything, but I figured using that word would grab more attention! With that said, this trick is nothing more than an easy manipulation of a new feature in Facebook. First of all, you’ll need to upgrade your account to the new profile layout if you haven’t already done so. You can do this by going to: facebook.com/about/profile/. Login and you’ll see the option to switch.

The New Layout

Also on that page will be a complete description of what visual changes will be made to your profile, but the only one we’re interested in is the new “snapshot” feature. This is the very top section of your profile that tells people some basic information about yourself:

My Facebook Snapshot
My Facebook Snapshot

Above, you can see the highlighted area. You can see what I call the Facebook image bar. It’s a collection of the last 5 photos that someone tagged you in. It puts them in order from left to right, meaning that all newly tagged photos will show up on the left side and move their way down the line.

Hacking (Manipulating) The Image Bar

As you can also see by the screenshot, I have hacked my image bar to show ledfrog.com whenever anyone clicks on my profile. Naturally, I wanted to draw their attention to my site and I was not surprised to find out that people see those images before anything else on my profile! From a marketing standpoint, this is great news.

The process is generally easy, but if you’re using some intricate design work or you’d like to integrate your default profile pic into the mix as well, it can get a bit complicated. For basic instructions, follow these steps:

  1. Create an image that is 487 x 68px. (487px is counting the white spaces between each photo)
  2. Cut out the five images from your main image. Each of the five need to be 91 x 68px in size.
  3. Upload these five tiny images to your profile. It might be easier to create a separate photo album for them.
  4. Tag yourself in the photos one at a time. If your image needs to line up in a specific order, like mine, you’ll want to tag the last photo first and the first photo last. This way, they’ll show up in the correct order.

That’s it! When you’re done, go back to your main profile page and you’ll see your handy work.

Advanced Manipulation

Obviously there’s some small space between the tagged images, so your photos won’t line up perfectly (like mine), but if you’re dead set on getting the images cut with the spaces in the proper places, you’ll want to cut out the white space on your original image and then take what’s left and turn them into 5 separate images. Make note that the white space is exactly 8px wide.

I created a layered Adobe Photoshop® template that you can use to see where the cutouts will fall if you plan on using a full image to create all the tiny ones. Please note that this template was designed and sized from my own Facebook page. Yours may differ slightly in size and alignment. Use this template as a guide rather than a standard.

It’s super easy to use:

  1. Open the template in Adobe Photoshop®.
  2. Take the image you’d like to slice and dice and place it on a layer behind the cutout layer.
  3. Resize that image if necessary to fit into each of the 6 squares properly so it looks good.
  4. Cutout each image and save them separately.
  5. Upload all images to a new album (if preferred) on Facebook and make sure this album is visible to Everyone.
  6. Tag yourself in each of the smaller photos, but remember to tag the last photo in the lineup first!
  7. Take the 6th photo and make it your default picture and then you’re all set!

Here’s a sample of the template in use with a picture ready to be cutout:

Ledfrog.com Facebook Image Bar Template Sample
Ledfrog.com Facebook Image Bar Template Sample

Issues

As you may have already guessed, the number one issue with doing this modification is that anyone who tags you in photos will be able to destroy your work of art! However, it’s not hard to fix. Just hover your mouse over the image(s) that you want to remove and a little ‘X’ will appear in the corner–click on that and the image will be removed from the top bar, but it will retain your tag.

You can also have a little fun with this too! You can tag your friends in your images and your hacked image will appear on their pages as well! Be careful though…if you start putting up derogatory things on your friend’s pages, you may not have any friends left. Worse case scenario, you could be hearing from the Facebook team if people start logging complaints about you.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you run a website, you are more than welcome to repost some of my steps above as well as the template download, however, I must ask that you retain credit to me by posting a link back to this article and leaving my website information inside the template. Also, please don’t hotlink the template file from my server! Upload it to your server instead.

How to protect yourself from being phished

· Brandon Hann

Phishing is the number one reason why people lose access to their email, banking and even social networking accounts. Anytime you or your friend say your “account got hacked”, this is what happened. In reality, your account didn’t get hacked! If it did, then you’re saying that someone out there was able to break into the servers that hold your account and somehow retrieve access to your account. If that had happened, I can guarantee that I would never do business with a site like that again!

In fact, what did happen was that someone duped you into giving up your login information and this is far from a hack–it’s simply an ingenius way to fool the unsuspecting.

How does phishing work?

It’s the ultimate form of deception in the online world. Here’s the basic scam:

  1. The attacker sets up a website that looks identical to the site he/she is trying to gain access to.
  2. You receive an email that tells you that you have to sign into your account for some reason.
  3. The message contains a link that looks legitimate, but then takes you to the fake site instead.
  4. Once on the site, you ‘login’, but nothing happens.
  5. By clicking the login button, you’ve just sent your username and password to the attacker.

I’m always surprised when I hear that people have fallen for these scams–especially because today’s antivirus software and even web browsers all generally have automated protections against known phishing threats.

So how do you keep from getting phished?

The number one rule to remember is always check the link you’re clicking on. Just because it says http://www.facebook.com/login doesn’t mean it’s actually going there. Here are the best ways to keep your account information safe:

  • Always check the URL once you click on a link. This cannot be faked! If you click on a link that’s supposed to go to Facebook, make sure that the URL in the address bar says Facebook.com.
    URL address bar
  • Don’t click on links in emails. If you really want to be safe, just don’t click on the link. You can always go to the site manually and login. A lot of these scam emails will say that you need to login to update something in your account. Ok, so maybe you want to be sure. Just go to your browse and manually type in facebook.com and login to see what’s going on in your account.
  • Login with fake information. If you’re still not sure about the site you’re on, try to login with an obviously wrong username/password combination. If the site is real, you’ll get an error message saying your login information is wrong. If the site is fake, you won’t see anything happen.
  • Pay attention. A legitimate site will never ask you for your username and password and therefore would never ask you to login to your account to change some mundane details. If the site has a legitimate purpose for having you log into your account, they will usually tell you to login first to see an important message rather than sending it in an email.

What can I do if I got phished?

This depends on when you find out what happened. If you sent your login info and you realized right away that it was a scam, go log into the real site and quickly change your password. These scammers will usually send out the fake email to thousands of users at one time in hopes to get a few bites and they may not have sorted through all the login info they received by the time you found out, so you may still have a chance to save your account.

If you were already scammed and you lost access to your account, you need to contact the company that runs the site to explain what happened. They usually won’t turn over accounts based on a simple request, but they can monitor the account for suspicious activity and/or shut it down. However, don’t expect to get your account back. This rarely happens as it’s almost impossible for you to prove that you’re the rightful owner.

Help others in the community when you come across a known scam or specific person involved by alerting your friends not to respond to their requests. You should also report this information to the website they are attacking.

Final thought

Phishing will never disappear just like viruses, spam, black-hat hackers and other threats out there. There’s an old saying that says “Never let a sucker keep his money.” Don’t be the sucker. Don’t rely 100% on your antivirus software for for big name website to shut these scammers down. You need to rely on your knowledge to help you wade through these types of threats when using a computer.

Lastly, if you’re not to sure about a specific website or link, don’t enter any personal information on it!

Is the AT&T Unlimited Data Plan Coming Back?

· Brandon Hann

UPDATED AT THE BOTTOM :: Verizon will be getting the iPhone and offering unlimited data plans to all customers. Will AT&T keep up??

We all know what a disaster it was when AT&T pulled the plug on the unlimited data plan for iPhone on June 7th, 2010. Then they slapped us in the face by launching the tethering feature AFTER the fact, so they would ensure that nobody could possibly tether their iPhone while on the unlimited plan unless they felt like jailbreaking their device…but that’s another story!

From a business standpoint, this made perfect sense. I mean, ever since the iPhone launched, AT&T has taken quite a beating from both consumers and critics for their QoS problems (that’s quality of service for those non tech-savvy readers!), but who could have predicted the popularity of the phone? I think everyone was skeptical of another computer company releasing a phone–look how the first Microsoft-powered phones fared.

Lack of sufficient data

When the $30 unlimited plan was pulled, we were left with two limited options: 200MB for $15 per month or 2GB for $25 per month. The fear was that we now had to vigilantly watch our usage so as not to be hit with per MB overages. On iPhone (or any smartphone for that matter), it’s hard to put a ‘mental’ cap on something like data because practically the entire phone is using data for everything! However, the truth of the matter is that when you looked at your actual data usage and compared it to what you thought you used, most people were very surprised–myself included.

So now we have two caps and a new feature: tethering. It adds $30 or $35 to your data cost depending on whether you get the Enterprise plan or not. The problem here isn’t the price because you could easily spend $60+ on a 3G plan from any major provider. The issue is simply that a limited data plan my be fine for a phone, but not a laptop! How many YouTube videos or Netflix movies can you stream until you hit your cap?!

Unlimited plan coming back??

Due to my recent ramblings about how the iPad compares to the new MacBook Air, I have put serious thought into selling my iPad and getting an Air, but my main problem was the lack of wireless 3G Internet access for the Air–and considering the fact that almost every other netbook has 3G services built in, this is a big deal.

I began searching for other options. I was looking into how much more cost I would incur by adding a 3G/4G Internet device to my tech arsenal. The logical first step was to check out AT&T since I’m already a customer. All I ended up finding was the same limited data plan at a high cost. I figured if I was going down this road, I might as well just add the tethering to my phone.

That’s when I discovered this:

Current iPhone data plans from AT&T
Current iPhone data plans from AT&T

What you’re seeing here is a current screenshot from my AT&T Wireless account. While looking at my options for adding tethering to my account, I discovered that the original unlimited data plan is now on the list of features I can change! Also, a new Enterprise data plan has seemed to appeared although I’m not sure why it’s there and more importantly why it’s cheaper. When clicked on, both plans show almost identical product descriptions except the cheaper one talks about “savings”.

What does this mean?

I can’t really say. It could be that because I’m a grandfathered customer, I still have access (at least visually) to the original unlimited plan. The second Enterprise plan may have just shown up because they changed the price. Who knows, but what I can say is that until I learn more about the above screenshot, I’m not changing a thing! I don’t feel like running the risk of losing my current unlimited plan!

If someone from AT&T is out there, please look into this matter and see what you can find because the few AT&T reps I’ve spoken to don’t seem to have a clue.

New Verizon iPhone

UPDATE: Jan 12, 2011 — I’m posting this update because as everyone is aware, Verizon is now getting the iPhone on February 10th. Verizon has also stated that they will be offering the same unlimited data plans enjoyed by their current customers to all iPhone customers as well.

If AT&T is smart, they’ll want to reinstate their unlimited plans on the iPhone, but only time will tell. It looks like the flood gates just got opened!

International Domain Speculation

· Brandon Hann

As any domain owner will tell you, domain speculation is a rough game. In fact, it’s very similar to the stock market in some sense. No, the value of a domain doesn’t fluctuate with rising and falling markets, per se, but the risk of “guessing” which domains will have resell value now or later is just as high as it is on Wall Street.

When thinking about this topic, I was browsing around the Internet and came across a few articles about International domains and with the few new TLDs that have been launching auctions for previously reserved domains, it’s hard not to want to dive in head first and buy all the good domains available.

The problem? Nobody can accurately predict the value of such names and the reason for this is because there are so many factors that play into what they might actually be worth with the worst part being that these factors vary depending on who you talk to!

International Domains (ccTLD)

ccTLD is short for Country Code Top-Level Domain. These are the 2-character TLDs that were assigned to each country in the world. There were a few reasons to do this, one of which was to increase the amount of domains available for registration and also to provide each country with a domain that pertains specifically to them.

However, what this also did was allow domain speculators and other individuals who felt they missed out on the booming domain industry to start registering the same domain names that were selling for hundreds of thousands, but in a new TLD. While this sounds like a master plan, one must be reminded that every TLD is valued differently and in an industry where value is extremely subjective, this is troubling to hear.

So how does one value an International TLD?

Digital Gold Rush

The best domains aren’t always the obvious ones. For example, you might be tempted to register Business.de because Business.com sold for $7 million at one point, but you might be better off registering Geschäft.de (business in German).

Other valuable domains might be really short ones that can be used for URL shortening services like the one I got, xi.io for example. You might even be considering a “domain hack” like te.am, assu.me, ballga.me or fres.co. Whatever the case may be, you could be sitting on a gold mine or bust out like so many others who jumped on a bandwagon.

No matter the case, every time a new TLD is launched, a frenzy ensues and all over the Internet, you can see articles and postings about launch dates, sunrise periods, pre-registrations, trademark reservations, general registration, premium auctions and domain valuations. It seems that the latest trend is the premium auction feature. This is where the country or (registrar acting on behalf of the country) has decided to place a series of “premium” domains on reserved lists, generate some buzz and then release them in specialized blocks in hopes to squeeze the most value out of a domain.

No other TLD was more successful at this process than dotME.

dotME Domains

The dotME TLD comes from the country of Montenegro. Their site, Domain.me will have you believe (in short time) that dotME domains are the greatest thing since sliced bread! Their ability to promote and market their cause is unparalleled in the business.

The first thing they did was reserve thousands of domain names, marked them as premium and put them up for auction. Back in April, they auctioned off a ton of first names like Michael.me, Jack.me, Chris.me and so on. I was able to acquire Brandon.me and that’s all I needed.

On November 17th, Sedo auctioned off another large block that netted about $400,000. TheDomains.com posted a list of the top selling dotME domains if you want to check it out. While you’re at it, head on over to Domain.me and check out some of their upcoming premium auctions.

Here’s the top five from that list:

  1. Like.me: $26,500
  2. contacts.me: $15,600
  3. game.me: $13,100
  4. poker.me: $12,099
  5. friend.me: $10,099

What’s interesting about this list is that the domain Business.me was far down it having sold for $4010. This goes to show that not only is dotME simply not dotCOM and never will be. But another interesting point is that Business.me doesn’t seem to make sense in the dotME spectrum. The reason for this is because dotME forces the word “me” when you see it. This makes dotME perfectly suitable for personal blogs and other domains that use words that work with the word “me”.

My Two Cents

The point to this post was that International domains can be great additions to any portfolio and they might hold some value to someone somewhere, but generally speaking, the TLD will make a huge difference in the value of a domain. So when you’re out there speculating your next purchase, make note of how others might relate to your domain choices.

Quibids.com Review

· Brandon Hann

Pronounced kwi-bids as in half of the word ‘quick’, Quibids.com provides an interesting take on the auction format. I wrote a really short auction summary about this site already alongside a comparison to eBay, but after watching (and participating with) the site for the last couple of days, I decided to dive right in and write up a review.

There are many people out there asking if this site and others like it are scams. While it’s easy to think like that considering you can get products at huge discounts (sometimes as high as 97% off), you really need to look under the surface to find that this is completely legitimate! You may be asking yourself how a company can afford to give away products as such discounted rates and that is where the magic comes in!

UPDATE: One of my visitors came to me and said he wrote an eBook about Quibids and that it contained all sorts of tips and tricks on how to win items from Quibids, so I asked him to send me a copy. I’m probably the biggest skeptic I know, so I just had to see and I must say that it was actually a really good read! Of course there are no sure ways to beat the Quibids system, but there are some logical steps you can take to increase your chances. See below for a review on this eBook.

Is Quibids.com a scam?

The answer is NO. The game is played with mathematics, timing and a little bit of luck. You as the bidder can bid on anything you want and as much as you want, but be careful…each bid only adds $0.01 to the item and costs you $0.60. Confused yet?! I’ll go over all this is a bit.

Ok, since Quibids is a penny auction, it’s obvious that the bids only increase by 1 cent or in some cases, 2, 10 and 20 cents. The exciting part of this format is that the final values stay relatively low and you can sometimes walk out of there with a $700 item for about $20. Don’t be fooled though–this statement is very similar to saying you can walk into a Vegas casino and take $3500 off a roulette table by betting only $100. It’s doable, but the odds are against you.

How does Quibids.com work?

They sell you bids and then allow you to use those bids to bid on real products. These products are always very popular items such as Apple iPads, MacBooks, home theatre systems, Blu-ray movies, etc. This is so people are more likely to bid. Here’s how the site breaks down:

  • You buy bids for $0.60 each.
  • Each bid adds $0.01 to the auction price.
  • You compete with other bidders.
  • Each auction has a time limit.
  • Any bids placed within the last 15 seconds brings the timer back to 15 seconds.
  • As certain values are reached, this resettable timer is reduced to 10 seconds.
  • If you are the high bidder when the timer reaches zero, you win.

After you win an item, you pay your bid amount plus shipping. Don’t forget to take into account the amount you spent on bids in the first place! One advantage that Quibids has over other similar sites is that if you lose, they let you take the total amount of how many bids you placed to put in as a credit toward buying the item at full price. But they get you here too because the “retail price” is sometimes higher than an actual price you might find at retailers or online shops such as Amazon.com.

How is this profitable?

In case you haven’t seen the business-end of things yet, here you go. Quibids is in the business of selling bids. For just about every bid, they make $0.60. I say “just about” because they do offer free bids, cheap vouchers to get extra bid packs and referral bonuses. But for the sake of this example, we’ll stick with $0.60 per bid.

If you saw an Apple iPad sell for $217.80, Quibids just made $13,068. This is how they can afford to lose money on
the sale. After the auction, they simply order you an iPad at retail price which depending on the model can be as low as $499 and ship it to you.

Of course, not every iPad sells for that much. I think the lowest one I saw was $17. Still not bad though, considering Quibids made about $1020 on that sale. The huge savings are passed on to you courtesy of the hundred other bidders that wanted that item as well.

My two cents

I’ve been on the site for about 3 days now and I’ve placed a few bids, but so far I haven’t won anything. I even chased a Blu-ray movie and got beat out because I couldn’t watch the auction. That leads me to my first comment. To play this game, you have to constantly watch. Of course you could use their Bid-O-Matic feature that will place bids on your behalf after you designate how many bids you want to use and what your maximum is, but you still have to be vigilant.

If you want to save your money, your best bet is to watch and watch and watch. Jumping in at the right time seems to be the only true way to win. When is the right time? That’s a tough question because it is easy to sit there and hope everyone else either gives up or goes to sleep. I even expected that people would be working and therefore unable to watch the end of the auction. This is not practical because this site is accessible all over the world, so no matter what day of the week it is or what time of day, there are always thousands of people on the site looking for good deals.

Plus, there’s no restrictions on who can jump in an auction or when. It might be you and one other bidder down to the wire and then all of a sudden, a new guy jumps in with fresh bid counts and maybe even more money than you. My advice if you’re planning on using Quibids is to bid on and win a few of the smaller items first so you can get familiar with the whole process. Once you feel comfortable enough, try something bigger, but always keep this in mind: no matter what anyone ever tells you, there is no “system” to beating this site and getting a good deal. You have to have a little luck and sometimes a lot of money.

Quibids Winners Guide

Anyone who follows my site knows that I never “sell” you anything. I’m here simply to voice an opinion and hopefully help someone along the way. With that said, you can rest assured that if I ever post a link on this site to a product it’s because I either own it myself or I have used it enough to make a comment on it. In this case, I was given a copy of this Quibids buying guide that is supposed to help you win at Quibids auctions. Naturally, I felt like this was just another spammy eBook that contain common sense knowledge and “strategies” that don’t work. I was wrong!

While there are certainly no ways to beat the Quibids system and ensure never-ending victories, there are a few things you can look out for and in time, you can theoretically increase your chances of winning. The eBook is 10 pages in length and doesn’t contain one picture. I mention that because without pictures, you get 10 full pages of actual text that will help you at Quibids. It was written by Mike Tjosvold and he sells the eBook from his Facebook page for $10.99 and that will end up being pennies compared to what you will save on Quibids.

For more information, view the Facebook page for the Ultimate Winning Guide for Quibids. If you decide to buy it, remember these two things: 1. On the PayPal checkout page, tell Mike that Ledfrog.com referred you and 2. There’s a money-back guarantee if you’re not happy with it.

It looks like the guy who wrote that guide just simply disappeared! Sorry…it actually was pretty useful.

My last piece of advice is that if you’re shooting for a big dollar item, plan to buy it at the retail price because you’ll hate yourself in the morning if you spent $200 trying to get a $500 iPad and didn’t end up paying the price difference!