AdesBlog.com

Rupert Murdoch to Use Robot.txt to Block Google

Posted in » News, Search Engines - by Ades

21 Comments 

Rupert Murdoch the founder and CEO of the world’s second largest media conglomerate News Corp. has said in his latest interview with Sky News that they will be blocking Google from indexing their sites.

This he said will be their strategic move to increase the profitability of their online versions of their newspapers. Somehow he believes that Google is doing more harm by sending tons of traffic to their websites because he thinks that it’s better to have small number of people who pay (paid subscribers) rather than tons of people who do not pay and read his (News Corp) news from Google News for free (even if Google provides a link back).

News Corp. own tons of newspapers, magazines, tv and radio stations worldwide. Newspapers like The Sun (UK), The New York Times (US), and The Wall Street Journal (US) are owned by News Corp. (full list here)

That’s an interesting strategy indeed. He is the only person I heard on internet who doesn’t want traffic and Google’s indexing of his sites :) Normally everyone is after traffic and always trying to improve their SEO to better rank in major Search Engines.

I personally think this strategy of R.Murdoch will do more harm to his websites’ profitability if he indeed will block all search engines from indexing his sites. Sure, he might have loyal customers who will read WSJ and New York times everyday, but any product and website needs advertising. And free advertising like what Google is doing for them is the best thing that any website can get. He only needs to tweak the website to make it free section and paid section. Perhaps free section could only have some brief news and full articles could be accessed only by paid members etc.

Bad for Google?

In his private mailing list, Jason Calacanis of Mahalo suggested that, this move by News Corp might be bad for Google and good for Google’s competitors. Because he believes, now is the time for Bing and Yahoo to approach News Corp directly and be the exclusive provider of News Corp’s news on their search engines. Obviously this would affect Google’s reach and Google’s competitors could effectively snatch some Search Engine Share from Google. (read his article here).

What is your opinion on this issue? Do you think R.Murdoch is doing a right move by blocking Search Engines? Do you think his move is a loss for Google? (R.Murdoch’s interview on YouTube after the jump) Read more »

PayPal Is Finally Fully Operational in Malaysia

Posted in » News, paypal - by Ades

33 Comments 

After just recently adding (allowing) transactions in Malaysian Currency (RM), PayPal has now rolled out full services to Malaysian residents. For those who are not aware of PayPal’s integration with local banks internationally, it was kind of big deal to withdraw funds from PayPal in Malaysia until now. But that’s history now! It now supports over 20+ Malaysian Banks…

What’s more, if you withdraw more than RM400 there won’t be any service fees. Previously you had to pay $5 or RM20 for every withdrawal to your Debit Card. Read more »

Fixed Rate Banners Coming Back

Posted in » Make Money, News - by Ades

19 Comments 

Popularized by BuySellAds.com, it seems like fixed monthly rate banners are coming back to the advertising networks again.

Today one of the major ad-networks LinkWorth introduced new fixed rate option called LinkBanner. They are running it with selected publishers for now, but will be implementing it network-wide soon.

Since global economy is struggling to come out from recession, I think it’s very timely to introduce fixed-rate banner options now. Because most advertisers would welcome this kind of advertising options, especially on high traffic sites (provided that the rates are affordable).

AdesClrPicker v2.2 - Updated

Posted in » News, Sponsors - by Ades

9 Comments 

My free color picker software “AdesClrPicker” has been updated. For those who are not familiar with this tool, it’s a color picker tool that allows you to capture colors anywhere on your screen with a single click of your mouse in either HTML, RGB, C++, VB and Delphi color codes.

In this update, the tool has been optimized (i.e the coding) now it runs even more efficiently. Also the #FFFFFF-bug which caused the tool to get stuck in some situations has been solved. (This was a tough bug, literally ;) took me very long time to find.)

So, please download the new version of the color picker (click here).

Website: www.adesclrpicker.com/

P.S Thank you for your continuous support, feedback and suggestions to make this color picker the best freeware!

Swine Flu Outbreak Map

Posted in » News - by Ades

22 Comments 

Unfortunately swine flu is spreading fast and WHO has raised the level to 5 (out of 6). Phase 6 is the pandemic phase. (click on the image below to learn more about WHO phases).

You can keep track of swine flu developments in a graphical form at BBC website, Swine Flu Outbreak Map page. It shows day to day developments on the flu.

Please take precautions when at work and commuting to work. Here is what the WHO officials want you to do:

• Wash your hands with soap and water often.
• Avoid close contact with other people as much as possible
• Wear a surgical mask if you are in contact with other people
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth. Germs spread that way.
• Avoid leaving your home while sick except to get local medical care.
• Always cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze.

Let’s hope that it will be over soon, InshAllah.

Gold prices to quadruple by 2010, Chris Wood

Posted in » Make Money, News - by Ades

10 Comments 

Chris Wood is a person who has predicted US Mortgage Crisis back in 2003. He is a managing director and chief strategist of the broking firm CLSA.

His latest prediction is that, by 2010, gold prices will quadruple to $3500 (per ounce) from the current $994 (per once) price. That’s some news!

The collapse of securitization is a much more deflationary situation in the U.S. than anything seen in Japan when the bubble collapsed in the early 1990s…

Gold may be the safest haven for investors as policy makers accelerate responses to the crisis, devaluing currencies versus hard assets such as gold in the process, said Wood. Gold is likely to more than quadruple from the current level of $986 per ounce currently to $3,500 in 2010, he said. Bloomberg

Back in Malaysia, Datuk Husam Musa, Kelantan Exco suggested that Malaysia should convert its reserves from foreign currencies to gold dinar.

“Malaysia can obtain as much as RM162.6 billion ($1 = RM3.6) for this year if the reserves were in the form of gold dinars following the rise in the price of gold globally.

“If we follow the current value, one gold dinar is worth RM518 with the lowest value being one Dirham (RM5),” said the Kelantan State Exco, Datuk Husam Musa in tabling a working paper at the Gold Dinar Seminar 2009 at University Malaysia (UM) here today.

“The price of one gold dinar this year increased 11.07 percent to RM512.20 compared to RM461.15 last year,” he said. Bernama

Should you invest in gold?

According to Chirstopher Wood investing in gold may be “the safest haven for investors”, and many other economists share the same opinion. Here is the graph of gold prices for the last 10-years. Having said that, do your own research and seek professional advice if you are serious about investing in gold.

Kindle2 goes iPod style

Posted in » News, e-books - by Ades

7 Comments 

Amazon’s new Kindle2 looks great, a lot like Apple’s iPod design actually. Kindle is Amazon’s ebook reader device. It has 6″ diagonal display with 600 x 800 pixel resolution and weighs 10.2 ounces. It’s as thin as most magazines with 0.36″ in profile.

It supports the following formats: Kindle (azw), txt, Audible (formats 4, Audible Enhanced (aax)), MP3, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion.

With 2GB memory (approximately 1.4GB available for user content) it can hold up to 1,500 ebooks. Whenever you don’t feel like reading, you can switch to text-to-audio version and it will read the ebook for you.

It’s priced at $359.00 and will be released on 24th February 2009. Amazon is now accepting pre-orders. It’s definitely in my wishlist.

Read more on Kindle2 on details page.

OnlineProfits.com

Posted in » Make Money, News - by Ades

8 Comments 

OnlineProfits.com is a new project launched by Daniel Scocco. Unlike other online courses that were launched previously, this one is not only about “blogging”, but it has 21 different topics (see below).

If you are the type that prefers structured learning instead of the self-learning “find here and there” method, then you should check out this project.

Here is the list of the 21 module (each has several lessons inside).

• Introduction and Business Principles
• Domain Names
• Setting Up Your Website
• WordPress
• Web Design for Entrepreneurs
• Business Models
• Choosing Your Niche
• Blogs
• Other Types of Websites
• Web Content and Copywriting
• Basic SEO
• Advanced SEO
• Generating Traffic
• Social Media
• Web Metrics
• Selling Advertising
• Email Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• PPC (Pay-per-Click)
• Landing Pages
• Selling Your Products

Fees for the course are at $48 a month for the initial intake (50% off), subsequent intakes will be charged $98/month.

I am not sure how the quality of the lessons will be, but judging from the tutors’ line-up, I would say the content quality should be good. Because those guys definitely know what they are doing and successful in their own fields.

Website URL: http://www.onlineprofits.com

Join AdesBlog Community

Posted in » News, Personal - by Ades

10 Comments 

While you have some free time on AdesBlog, i thought it is a good time to remind you to join our community. Currently there are 522 valuable members and growing.

Also please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed. There are little over 1,200 RSS subscribers (when all member are visible).

If you are one of the readers who view this blog through RSS reader only, don’t forget to check back the blog at www.adesblog.com once in a while. Because there is a miniblog section on the blog which is not published through RSS. In miniblog section I post short, twitter like posts that are beneficial but do not require extended, lengthy discussion.

Finally, you can also follow me on twitter. My new account is at www.twitter.com/ades.

Discounted Ninja Affiliate WP Plugin ($50 OFF)

Posted in » News, WordPress - by Ades

6 Comments 

Pawan’s Ninja Affiliate WordPress Plugin is going for only $47.00 for the next 3 days only instead of the normal price $97.00. If you were considering buying this plugin, now is the time to get it!

Ninja affiliate is a great plugin that will make linking texts in your blog posts very easy. More info on the plugin here.

Screenshots

Plugin URL: http://www.mbpninjaaffiliate.com ($50 OFF)