Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Net Revolution in Africa soon

Fact 1: 4 out of 100 Africans is using the Internet.

Fact 2: Broadband penetration in Africa is below 1%.

Fact 3: Africa has the highest growth in mobile use globally, twice than the global average.

Projection: More than a third of Africans citizens should have access to Internet broadband by 2012.


Internet access in Africa countries are rare with limited access to Internet and extreme low high-speed connection being available. One of the biggest problem in Africa is a lack of inter connectivity as almost 70% of the Internet traffic within Africa is routed outside of the continent itself. (Read this - The costliest web access on Earth is in Africa) This directly drive up the costs for Internet users.

Since 2005, a total of USD8 billions was invested in telecommunications infrastructure across Africa. With only 1% access, there lies another 99% of growth and opportunities for Africa in the area of Internet and broadband access which eventually it will help to narrow the digital divide across the world.


Additional resources: Internet Usage Statistics for Africa

Finding Hairloss Treatment Products Online

Going bald or losing hair has been a long time problem for human beings. What are you going to do when you encounter with such situation? There are many hair treatment offers being available in the market now. Majority of these offers may seem attractive at the beginning but as the treatment progresses, it may cost a slice of the fortune. Turning to friends to seek out some information will be quite an embarrassing move.

At TrustSource.org, its hair loss product guide provides the most popular hair loss products that are available in the market. It is also being supported with users' reviews. Various hair loss products such as provillus, procerin, thymusil and advecia were ranked and reviewed by the users. By reading the reviews, it will definitely help the reader to choose the best and proven hair loss product in the market.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Latest on Google PageRank: My E-Commerce is now PR3!

I was urged by Jenny to check the Google PageRank for her when she can't believe her eyes seeing a PR4 in her Firefox for her ebay blog.

Then, out of curiosity, I also conducted a PageRank search on my blog too - My E-Commerce.

I just can't believe my eyes too. Is it Google is experiencing any technical glitch on their servers or it is real? I ran a few test on multiple PageRank checker sites to double confirm the new rank.

The results from the multiple PageRank checkers showed the similar figures - PR3! Wow!

These are some of the PageRank checker sites that I used:
http://www.whats-my-pagerank.com/all-datacenters.php


http://www.checkpagerank.com/


http://www.rankalert.net/datacenter-watch.php?url=ecommerze.blogspot.com


http://www.iwebtool.com/pagerank_checker?domain=ecommerze.blogspot.com


http://www.smartpagerank.com/


http://www.goingup.com/pagerank/
http://www.pagerank-meter.com/?domain=ecommerze.blogspot.com


Yes, My E-Commerce blog is now a PR3 blog, jumping from PR0 previously. This is my first Google PageRank. Not bad for a nine-month old blog, which was started in February this year which is primarily used as a supplementary resources for teaching e-commerce in my classes.

Even if there is a technical glitch on Google Servers to cause this temporary new PR3 for this blog, at least I can said that this blog was a PR3 blog once, hahaha.

I also checked the pageRank for a few of my favourite blogs. There are:
How about yours? Check out your Google PageRank and share with my readers.


What is Google PageRank?

"PageRank(PR) is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself is. Google calculates a page's importance from the votes cast for it. How important each vote is is taken into account when a page's PageRank is calculated.


PageRank is Google's way of deciding a page's importance. It matters because it is one of the factors that determines a page's ranking in the search results. It isn't the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is an important one."


More explanation on Google PageRank can be found here at Wikipedia, WebWorkShop and Search Engine Land.

Tech Tags:


Wednesday, October 24, 2007

MSC to be expanded to narrow the digital divide

Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced that the current Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) will be expanded nationwide through the setting up of Cyber Cities and Cyber Centers as part of the plan to narrow the digital divide n the country.

5 Cyber Cities were set-up at the 1st phase of the MSC namely:
  • CyberJaya
  • UPM-MTDC
  • Technology Park Malaysia
  • Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC)
  • Kuala Lumpur Tower

2nd phase: (2 Cyber Cities and 3 Cyber Centers)
  • Penang Cybercity One (Bayan Lepas Free Trade Zone)
  • Kulim Hi-Tech park
  • KL Sentral (Cyber center)
  • Malacca International Trade Center (Cyber Center)
  • Menara MSC Cyberport (Johor)

Latest Cyber Center: Meru Raya MSC Malaysia Cybercenter (Ipoh Padang, Perak)

PM hope that through these launching, the digital divide among the Malaysian will be reduced.

Meanwhile, in Penang, Penang Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon announced that The Penang-Kulim Broadband Pilot Project is under planning now with more than 100 free hot spots being set-up. The project aimed at achieving 90% of broadband coverage in the state of Penang and Kulim by 2010.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

10 free e-books on blogging

I found out this post from Bookyards and Mashable.com. Both has listed out the top 10 free e-books for blogger. If you are new to blogging, you may want to check out these 10 books. It may helps you to improve your understanding on blogging.

Authority Black Book - 64 pages on blogging, RSS marketing, social bookmarking and generating traffics.

Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - a 9 page ebook on SEO, how search engines operates, how to conduct keyword research, and crafting an SEO strategy.


BlogBash: Deep Secrets of Successful Blogging - Learn from 30 Experts - A compilation of ideas and blogging experiences from 30 experts from the blogsphere. This include our Malaysian LiewCF's sharing on being a fulltime blogger in Malaysia.

Blog Profits Blueprint - 54 pages on starting blogging strategies and tactics including marketing and blog monetization.

Dive into Web 2.0 - an introduction to the principles, applications, technologies, companies, business models and monetization of Web 2.0.

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents - this ebook by Reporters Without Borders provide tips on blogging anonymously and censorship on free expression in certain countries. Suitable for journalists and reporters.


Make Money with John Chow dot com - a 59 pages sharing from JohnChow on his experience of making money online through the affiliate links, blog marketing tips and Google optimisation.

Unleashing the idea Virus - Seth Godin's 197 pages on viral marketing suitable for marketing professional, probloggers, webmasters and those who intend to create a successful brand online.

Web Style Guide - Webmaster's guide on web and interface design, website accessibility, RSS and site development process.

Who's there - Another ebook by Seth Godin for newbie on blogging and web.

Happy reading!

Tech Tags:


e-Complaint portal to be implemented by state Government

Not satisfied with some of the state government services in Malacca? Now with a click, you can post your complaint online to the state government. The Malacca state government is working on setting up a website for the state citizens to lodge complaints online.

However, the e-complaint portal is not link directly to the government offices. Instead a private company will be set to manage the website, forward the email and get the responses before replying back to the complainants.

Seems like just another gimmick by the state government as I'm more concern about the many 'level' of information transfer as compared to direct complaint to the relevant agency. In this case, there might be a higher possibility of the information being lost in transit.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

How to beat ID fraudsters?

This post is a response to the previous post - How to lose your ID easily to fraudsters?

National Identity Fraud Prevention Week's website
has came out with a list of suggestions on how to beat the ID fraudsters. Some of the suggestions are:
  • Don't throw away bills, bank statements or anything that could reveal personal details.
  • Shred all documents, whether at home or work, especially documents containing personal or financial information.
  • Carefully read bank and credit card statements and query any unusual payments.
  • Never give out personal details to people who contact you by telephone or email.
  • Do not reply to emails asking you to confirm private information.
  • Lock up personal documents at home.
The website also provide some facts and real life stories related to ID frauds.

Portable DVD Player

What would you do when you are traveling in a 4 hours journey for your year-end vacation? For me I would prefer to catch up with some movies which I had missed out due to the busy work schedule. Hey, wait a minute. There is no TV set in the car. The last thing that I may want to bring along is a heavy gadget.

With a portable DVD player, this problem can be solved easily. The sleek 10.4 inches player with an ultra slim design of 30 mm thick is an ideal gadget for outdoor viewing of my favourite movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Die Hard 4 and a lot more. This device is capable of running continuously for 4 hours of playtime. If the battery run out, it can be recharged by just plugging into the car's cigarette lighter directly.

Whenever I'm hitting the road, whether by car, bus or train, this sleek device will be a good companion of mine.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

How to lose your ID easily to fraudsters at home?

These are what researchers in England found out from the rubbish bins:
  • discarded banks details
  • national insurance numbers
  • mortgage documents
  • copies of passports
  • credit card numbers with expiry dates and signatures
  • blank cheque
  • unopened letter
Did you throw any of these into the rubbish bin? Be careful as this will enable fraudsters to steal your identity.

A date of birth, mother's maiden name, password or even an unopened letter can as valuable as cash to experience fraudsters. Criminals use the stolen personal information to open bank accounts, buy goods or apply illegally for credit cards or mobile phones.

So next time before you throw away any document, make sure all the information were properly destroyed or just avoid throwing away documents that contain the personal details.


Tech Tags:

1 million computers in China hit by viruses

During the week-long holiday on early October, almost a million of computers in China were attacked by three different type of viruses, resulted these computer to crash.

This is not the first time China's web user are experiencing problems recently. During last year Christmas holiday, Internet access was slowed down as the result of the earthquake at the Pacific Ocean.

China has a total of 130 million Internet users.

Electronic Commerce - Blog Carnival (16th October 2007)






Welcome to the October 16, 2007 edition of electronic commerce. (Vol 1, No. 3, 2007)

Admin presents Anything Goes & General News: Nonprofits Get Boost From Google and YouTube at Clinton Meeting posted at Anything Goes & General News, saying, "YouTube, owned by Google, has announced that it will help nonprofits set up their own dedicated YouTube channels to show videos and accept donations through "Google checkout."

Blogging

Bart presents How to create the BUZZ that every SHEEP will follow posted at Florchakh Dot Com.

Michael@TSM presents Fall TSM Travel Writing Contest: Win $125! posted at Traveling Stories Magazine.


E-commerce
Doris Chua presents Shopping for E-Commerce Design Service? posted at Welcome to DorisGoShopping.com.

Pushpa Sathish presents Linux for Business: 50 Apps to Get your Office on Open Source posted at Virtual Hosting.


That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of electronic commerce using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.


Technorati tags: , .

Friday, October 12, 2007

Blog with new template

Dear readers,

I already completed the changeover of the blog template from the traditional [Minima] to a new template [Minyx - a 3 columns template and it was converted from wordpress theme which is available from B-themes.]

Hope this will give a fresher look to the blog. This template is best viewed with 1024 x 768.

If you have any comment, please feel free to leave your comments or idea in the comment box.

Happy reading!

Best regards,
Blog Author.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Updates - Template and Layout Maintenance

Dear readers,

Currently I'm working on the new template and layout maintenance. This may take a few days. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. However, you can still read all the posts in this blog as they are not affected in this maintenance tasks. Happy Reading.

Regards,
Blog Author.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Poll - E-mail messages received in a day

In response to the previous post on E-mail Free Fridays campaign, I have created a poll for my readers on how many e-mail messages that you receive in a day.

This include all type of e-mail messages such as personal, work-related and junk/spam mails from all the e-mail accounts owned by you currently.

Just select one answer from the options provided in the poll below.

E-mail-free Fridays campaign in US

Executives nowadays are overwhelmed with loads of e-mail everyday.

Each day, there are 39.7 billion person-to-person emails, 17.1 billion automatic alerts and 40.5 billion pieces of spam are sent worldwide. In a day, a white-collar executive may receive 100 to 150 messages. US Cellular Corp estimated that its 7,000 employees spend 90 minutes a day reading emails.

To tackle this issue of e-mail overloading, 150 engineers in Intel, US launched the "Zero E-Mail Fridays" - a day in the week where employees are encouraged to have face-to-face or phone conversation rather than using emails to correspond. The idea is to create a more direct, free flowing communication and better exchange of ideas.

Another method used is to declare e-mail bankruptcy - deleting or archiving the entire in-box and start over.

Dear readers,
How many email messages that you receive in a day?
What do you think about an e-mail free day? (except the weekend, of course)
How about deleting your entire inbox and start over?

Tech Tags:

SearchBoth.com - a combined search engine

Previously I posted on GahooYoogle.com - a 2-in-1 search engine. Now i would like to introduce another 2-in-1 search engine called SearchBoth.com. Jaydip is kind enough to send me the link for this website/search engine.

SearchBoth.com provide search result for both Google and Yahoo on the same page, just like GahooYoogle. This helps to save time on searching the information using the search engine one by one.


A test run on the My E-Commerce URL's show the output captured below.


Do you think this website is useful for you? Try it out and see the results.

Technorati tag:

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

WidgetBucks - New PPC for bloggers

Introducing new Pay-Per-Click (PPC) site for bloggers - WidgetBucks, a new advertising network of shopping trend widgets. For every click on the widget, the publisher will get paid. Beside the PPC, publishers can also earn some extra income through its referral program.

It is easy to set up the WidgetBucks in the blog or website.
1. Sign up and earn with WidgetBucks
2. Configure the widget with its publishing system.
3. Paste the code in your blog.

The widget integrates with most of the major blogging platforms such as Blogger, WordPress, TypePad and MovableType.

Currently there are 5 ads formats namely the Skyscraper 160x600, Rectangle 300x250, Leaderboard 728x90, Full Banner 468x60 and Custom 660x330. Publisher can also choose a name for the widget too. You can notice the heading on the image captured on the left with the My E-Commerce title.

For a start, new user who sign up will be automatically receive a USD$25 bonus into his/her account. Check will be sent out on the 1st of each month for all revenue earned during the previous month, provided it has reach the minimum USD$50. I did saw the payment option of PayPal being provided in the account setting.

What I like about the widget is its dynamic ads or animation and the variety of products images and information. You can choose the category of the products or just let the MerchSense crawls your page and finds relevant products to include in your widgets.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Electronic Commerce - Blog Carnival (2nd October 2007)








Welcome to the October 2, 2007 edition of electronic commerce. (Vol 1, No. 2, 2007)


Karel Vandenberghe presents CrowdSpirit: crowdsourcing innovation and co-creation posted at Open Innovators - Open innovation and crowdsourcing, saying, "About a pioneering online e-commerce business model."

raymond nwambuonwo presents HOW TO BECOME VERY RICH: Avoid These Seven Financial Mistakes in your Business posted at HOW TO BECOME VERY RICH.

Kevin Fleming presents Design. Develop. Market. posted at FOS Commerce Blog.

E-commerce

Rodney Burge - Marketing Strategies presents How Important are Blogs to the Media? posted at Lori Prokop - Keyboard Culture, saying, "Free publicity is a great way to get your message out to the world, attract new customers and make money online. To get free publicity for your blog, products or services, you need to get the media’s attention. It’s amazing to see how much the media is depending on blogs."

Internet

Brandy Shaffels presents Ask Patty Launches Social Network for Women Car Buyers posted at ASK PATTY.COM, INC. - PRWeb Press Release Account Feed.

Rodney Burge - Marketing Strategies presents Keyboard Culture Vision – The Online Movie posted at KBC Movies, saying, "Lori Prokop submits this blog post from http://www.keyboard-culture-movies.com containing a free online movie about a new online community called Keyboard Culture. It is a community of talented, enlightened cultural leaders helping people and businesses solve problems, make decisions, create and live from love and light in the highest good for all. Lori Prokop writes, “Join us and together we can co-create a worldwide wave of gratitude, wisdom and enlightened solutions to our personal challenges and world problems.” Go ahead and watch this free online movie... and remember, ONE PERSON does make a difference... and that person is YOU!"

Online Security

Pushpa Sathish presents Can Your Machine Be Hacked? Test Yourself with These 12 Resources posted at Virtual Hosting.


That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of electronic commerce using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: , .

Monday, October 01, 2007

Links

This page is for my favourite blogs and website links, reviews and backlinks from other bloggers or authors and other related links.

Sites/Blogroll:
LiewCF - Malaysian 1st Fulltime Blogger
JennyHow - Malaysian Fulltime eBay Seller
Joyce Yu's Blah blah blah
Joyce Yu's Yummy Yummy experience
Wingz's Rojak
Pui Kwan's Wonderful Space
Mercury's MerDuriaN Dot Com
ProBlogger.net - Tonnes of blog tips


Reviews/Backlinks:
Complimentary Ebay Consultation by iCalyvn
Why Must Visit Malaysia voted as one of the Top 5
Thank You Links, Paypal New Withdrawal Options & Misc Updates
by Jenny How
Thank You Links by Jenny How
The Contributors of LiewCF Birthday Fund by LiewCF
ReviewBack (Season3) by iCalvyn
E-Commerce Blog in Malaysia
by BlogChung
My E-Commerce (Review)
by Simon's Money Notes
I Started By Selling My Mini Skirts in eBay by Jenny How
Buying durians with credit card?? by Joyce
moving toward Ecommerce world by colors city


Others Links:

Wedding Songs - Offering a wide variety of articles and resouces relating to weddings and wedding planning including finding the right wedding rings and dresses, beach weddings, las vegas weddings, wedding decorating tips, wedding gifts and more related information.
Christmas Gifts - Online store for portable dvd players and mp4 players, tie racks, cd storage and nokia mobile phones
Internet Marketing Blog - Internet marketing blog, covering all topics internet marketing from seo to social networking. We have a general themed links directory and accept links from most sites.
Custom Diamond Rings - Offers affordable diamonds and custom engagement rings settings, platinum ring settings and mountings from new york diamond district.
Beginners Guides - Welcome to the new beginners guide to pimping your phone! Your phone will be the belle of the ball in no time at all!
Amazon E-commerce Store - Amazon.com e-commerce store front solutions. Sell everything amazon.com has to offer. No merchant account necessary, nothing to stock. Professional amazon e-commerce store.
Christmas Gifts - Nice site offering christmas gifts
Global Landmark Realty - Lake conroe real estate homes for sale in montgomery county texas view houses for sale in conroe - lake conroe online in texas
Orderitontheweb.com - Online Shopping Deals - Books,dvds,music - When you want to shop, just order it on the web. We make online shopping safe and easy. Most orders over $25 ship free. Buyer protection and great customer service. Safe online shopping for books music electronics dvds. Now with video product reviews.
Ecards - Ecards - free e-cards, birthday ecards, invitations, funny e-cards, romantic ecards, love ecards, valentine's ecards, thank you ecards, christmas ecards


More links are available here.


PayPal: New option to withdraw money to credit card

Thanks to Jenny who linked her readers to Ades, there is a piece of good news for PayPal user. Andrew also wrote a beautiful post on this news.

Previously, there is not much option for us, especially Malaysians to withdraw money from PayPal. It is either having a bank account in America or through the reseller method.

But now, a new option has been provided - Withdrawing money directly to the credit card account (Visa or Mastercard). Of course, there will be USD 5.00 transaction fee plus a daily maximum withdrawal cap of USD500.00. The transaction will take 5 to 7 business days.


This will spur more people to use PayPal as their payment option and transfer the money back to the credit card (it may help some to clear their card debts too.) This prove to be very much convenience for online users, reducing the hassle to open a US bank account.

Get Paid to Blog

Fancy getting paid to blog on some topics that you are interested in? Well, you can consider Smorty, a blog advertising site that provide its members the opportunity to blog and earn money at the same time.

Advertisers will put up advertising campaigns with Smorty. Registered member are required to choose the campaign that they are interested in the personal admin panel or check their mail regularly. Once the campaign has been selected, opinion articles are to be wrote for the campaign based on the requirements set by the advertisers. Some of these requirements are such as putting up one or two specific anchor text and link within the post to link back to the advertisers website, minimum number of words (it would be around 50, 100, 150 or up to 300 words) and the tone of the article.

At the end, upon approval, payment will be made on weekly basis to your PayPal account. This is how Smorty work to connect the advertisers with the bloggers. Spending few minutes to write a blog post and getting paid in return itself is indeed a good news that I believe worth to be shared with my friends.

Top 5 posts for September 2007

September was a busy month for examination period. The examination marking took away most of my blogging time. That's why I only managed to blog a few posts for September.

Nevertheless, still need to continue this series of Top 5 posts for the month. Once started must let it continue. Here are the top 5 posts:

1. Malaysian Escrow Services
2. Six types of Corporate Blogging
3. BlogRush in generating more blog traffics
4. Top 50 influential bloggers
5. Shopping cart solution

Happy Reading!