AdesBlog - Entrepreneurship, Blogging, Startups, Making Money Online...

Google went too far with Pac-Man Game?

by Ades on May 22, 2010 in Google, Make Money with 48 Comments

Personally, it was very disturbing to use Google with Pac-Man sound constantly looping at the background. If you don’t know what I am talking about go to google.com now and see (before it expires).

I think Google’s Doodle Team went too far this time. Should have just sticked to graphic logos and not games.

Btw, Google TV is launched at this week’s I/O Conference. TechCrunch has the details here. What is Google TV for bloggers? Well, it’s another channel for you to reach out to wider audience with your ads, probably your ads can be seen on TV in the near future. And for vbloggers (video bloggers) it probably means more money since people can watch their videos on TV. More banner impressions == more money.

Update: now you can see this page at http://www.google.com/pacman/ anytime.

Compare Any Brand Mobile Phones

by Ades on May 20, 2010 in Links with 16 Comments

Looking for phones? Want to compare from one brand to another? Here is a great site to compare all brand phones.

The result for Android phones:

Website: http://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3

Auctionpus.com – Simplicity in domain auctioning

by Ades on May 10, 2010 in Links with 14 Comments

This is one of the simplest domain name auction websites I have ever seen. It shows 8 auctions everyday, thus the octopus theme.

It’s a new startup that puts simplicity as the core value of their business. Normally auction sites are huge and forum-like. One of the advantage of huge sites are that, you can come the next day and see the auctions that were posted prior to that. You can also browse all the auctions and find the domain name/website that you like.

So, let’s see how people will respond to such business model in the domain auction business. What is your thoughts on this website and its business model? Does Google’s simplicity model suits auction sites?

URL: www.auctionpus.com

Get Facebook “Like” Button for your blog

by Ades on April 25, 2010 in WordPress with 38 Comments

Have you gotten Facebook’s “Like” button for your blog yet? If not you can generate one here.

If you need WP Plugin version, you can get it here. Once implemented, plugin will generate “Like” button for each post, similar to the one you see on top of this post. You can customize the position (top-right, top-left, bottom-right, bottom-left…etc).

P.S I have integrated to my blog already. So, if you like any of the blog posts, don’t forget to “Like” them! :) Thanks!

Plugin URL: http://www.minddevelopmentanddesign.com/blog/wordpress-facebook-like-button

My Favorite iPhone Apps (Free)

by Ades on April 19, 2010 in iPhone with 17 Comments

AlJazeera English Live (News)
One of the best news apps around, it comes with live video streaming. Every morning 20 minutes of this app is enough for me to be up to date with current events. Best part is the videos are really watchable, you won’t experience any lagging with wi-fi and it auto adjusts the quality if you are viewing it in 3G.

Download from iTunes: click here

XE Currency (Utility)
I am a long time user of xe.com and XE app is a great utility to have in your iphone if you want to keep tabs on the latest rates of World Currencies.

Download from iTunes: click here

Dictionary! (Reference)
Easy to use dictionary app. When offline, 200,000+ words are available for your reference.

Download from iTunes: click here

Continue reading →

Blackberry by Malaysian Telcos

by Ades on April 7, 2010 in Advice to Businesses with 18 Comments

Maxis and Celcom are two major mobile operators in Malaysia. They are always competing head to head with each other. Maxis is the leader with the largest mobile subscriber base of over 12 million users. Celcom is always the No.2, it has a subscriber base of over 10 million users.

Maxis was the first telco given exclusive rights to distribute iPhone in Malaysia last year. This year they lost that exclusivity and now DiGi – another (3rd largest) mobile operator started offering iPhone 3GS + packages. Celcom unfortunately, again, couldn’t get any iPhone deals. Not yet.

All these info leads to next two screenshots. It will be apparent why Celcom is the runner up and why Maxis is the leader. Both companies offer Blackberry services, however searching for “Blackberry” in their respective official websites will yield totally different results.

Search for “Blackberry” in Celcom’s Website

Search for “Blackberry” in Maxis’ Website

Millions of funds are spent on marketing and outdoor advertising, yet they cannot even optimize their website for one of the most important products/services they offer – blackberry. Celcom, come on! Get your search fixed!

Google Docs, Backup All Your Files

by Ades on February 20, 2010 in Google with 47 Comments

In case you didn’t know, Google Docs now allows you to upload any types of files to your account, not only word docs, pdfs and spreadsheets like before but virtually any type of files.

It can basically serve you as an alternative backup space for all your important data. Google also makes it very easy to share your files with your friends. And if 1GB space is not enough you can easily add up to 16TB (yes terabyte) additional disk space. For example additional 20GB disk space will only cost you $5 per year, more details on pricing here.

It seems Google really wants to know more about you :) The more info and files you give to them, the happier they will get. But frankly, what would we do without Google and it’s free services?

Website: https://docs.google.com

iPad, what do you think?

by Ades on January 29, 2010 in Advice to Businesses, Technology, Usability with 91 Comments

Well, as you know the whole internet is going crazy about the new product of Apple, iPad. I just wanted to know what is your opinion on it? As a product and what its impact will be on the PC industry in general. For sure it’s going to strangle Amazon’s Kindle, will probably cannibalize Apple’s own product – MacBook, because with iPad you can pretty much do anything what you would normally do with normal notebooks/netbooks. It also comes with accessories like doc, casing and keyboard in case you want to use it like a real notebook with real keyboards.

I personally think that it’s an amazing product, it will be particularly popular with marketing professionals who would benefit from this kind of beautiful tablet PC (Mac) for their presentation purposes. As with normal people, they would enjoy it for reading e-books and browsing the internet. And of course, there will be tons of great apps that will make the iPad more valuable and usable than it actually is.

One thing disappointed me though… the photo-frame like edges of the iPad. I thought some of the photoshopped ones prior to the launch looked a lot better. I know that they did this out of usability, so that there would be a place around the device that is not-touch-sensitive. This would make your handling of the iPad easier, it wouldn’t interfere with your work, you wouldn’t accidentally launch some apps..etc. However they could have left the preferences of the not-touch-sensitive margin to the user. Don’t you think?

For example, if you like all four sides to be touch-sensitive you could set all four margins to zero. If you like to hold the left-side while using, you could set only left side margin to 1″ and the rest of the sides to zero…. you know what I mean? Basically, it would be just like the Word document where you can specify the margin of your paper before you print. But anyway…

How about you? What’s your thoughts on this product of Apple? I would like to know your opinions, leave your comments under this post.