AlertPay: A Great Alternative to Paypal

If you would like or have started to earn and transact business in the Web, they you most probably have heard already of PayPal. Paypal claims that it provides a "safer, easier way to pay online". That is true.

However, if you are NOT a holder of an active credit card (Master Card, Visa or American Express), then you will not be able to enjoy the full privileges of having a PayPal account. Why? Because you need to "link and confirm your card to get Verified and lift limits on your PayPal account."

You can sign up for or create a FREE PayPal account but until you get Verified, you will not be able to withdraw money from your PayPal account.

With an Unverified PayPal account, you can ONLY perform the following transactions:

1. Send money from your PayPal account to another's PayPal account. Sending Limit is $500.00 USD. The "Sending Limit is the maximum amount of money you can send through PayPal before you link and confirm your debit or credit card."

2. Receive money from another PayPal account to yours.You can also accept payment through a Credit or Debit Card transaction. However, "you can (only) accept up to 5 credit or debit card payments per year at our low per transaction rate."

3. Request Money or Payment from another PayPal account holder. I think there is no set limit here.

4. YOU CANNOT withdraw from your PayPal account and transfer your PayPal balance into your local bank account. With an Unverified PayPal account:

a. Your Monthly Withdrawal Limit is ZERO. "The Monthly Withdrawal Limit is the maximum amount of money you can withdraw each month from your PayPal account."

b. Your Total Withdrawal Limit is ZERO. "The Total Withdrawal Limit is the maximum amount you can withdraw from your PayPal account if you have not been verified. Once your Total Withdrawal Limit reaches a zero amount, your Monthly Withdrawal Limit will be zero as well."

This is where AlertPay comes in. With AlertPay, you can transfer your money from your AlertPay account to and withdraw it from your local bank. -- WITHOUT CREDIT CARD VERIFICATION! Of course, with AlertPay, you can avail of all the other usual services that an online payment system like PayPal offers like sending or requesting funds to or from other AlertPay members or payment facilities such as banks and credit card companies.

From the AlertPay Account Verification FAQ page:

Q: What if account verification? Account verification identifies who you are as a KYC (Know your customer) policy. It's important for the AlertPay network that members identify themselves by submitting documentation to protect our members against fraud. At any time, AlertPay can ask you to become verified.

Q: What type of verification documents can I provide to AlertPay? AlertPay requires a copy of 1 proof of address and 1 photo identification for verification. Please ensure that all four edges of the documents are visible.

Photo identification can be one of the following:

* Driver's license
* Passport
* State ID, Country ID or Photo Medical ID

Please submit the back of the identification if the expiration date is located on the back.

Proof of address must show your name and address and be dated within the last 6 months. You can submit one of the following:

* Utility Bill
* Phone bill
* Credit card statement
* Bank Statement

Q: Is verification necessary to add, withdraw, or transfer funds? Verification of an AlertPay account is not necessary in order to, add or transfer funds. We believe verification increases the security of our network as we are able to verify and authenticate users. Although not necessary, verification is highly recommended.

In some cases, when transactions involve substantial amounts, our security center may ask some members to verify their AlertPay account in order to proceed with their transactions.

And more, you can even earn by referring people to AlertPay (which is what I'm doing right now): "Each time you refer someone to AlertPay, you could earn up to $10 USD. The more people you bring to AlertPay, the more we will reward you. Helping you earn more money -- think of this as our way of saying thank you."

So, if you're tired of online payment hassles, then check out and sign up for an AlertPay account. It's a great alternative to PayPal. ;-)

Creating Blogrolls in Google Reader

In case you missed the announcement, Google has rolled out a new feature in Google Reader that enables bloggers to create blogrolls based on their Reader subscriptions.

Such nifty capability to produce blogrolls may not be new for a lot of bloggers as several feed aggregators like Bloglines and a well-known pioneer site in making blogrolls, Blogrolling, offer the same service. Some may think such services are already neat, but others may see them as quite "out of touch" in terms of integration with most ever-developing blogging platforms.

Blogging newbies would consider Blogrolling convenient and effective already in maintaining a blogroll, as did I when I discovered blogs. But at some point, you would realize that surely there is much better than that especially if you get tired of visiting another site just to update your blogrolls.

Now comes this feature in Google Reader and I'd say that this is the ultimate way of creating blogrolls -- integrated with a very user-friendly Google product at that!

So now let me tell you some how-to tips in creating a blogroll in Google Reader:

1. Subscribe to your favorite blogs using Google Reader. If you're not yet a Reader user but is browsing using Mozilla Firefox, one easy way to do this is to open all the blogs listed in your existing blogroll and, one-by-one in each blog, click on the RSS button located in the right-most end of the address bar opposite the site's address. If an RSS button does not appear in the address bar, subscribe by clicking the "Add to Google", RSS or any feed icon that you can find somewhere in the blog. Another way to subscribe to a site is to do it directly in Google Reader: just copy and paste the blog's address in the "+Add subscription" field.

2. Tag each blog you've just subscribed to in Reader. Go to a subscribed blog and from the 'Feed settings...' pull-down menu, tag the blog by creating and adding it to a 'New folder' (e.g., "My Blogroll"). Do this for each of the blog you'd like to be included in your blogroll.

3. Change the folder's sharing setting to 'Public'. By default, all newly created folders in Reader are private. To change the setting, go to the Reader 'Settings' page then to 'Tags'. Select or tick your "My Blogroll" folder and from the "Change sharing.." pull-down menu, choose 'Public'.

4. Add your blogroll script into your blog's template. Instantly after doing the previous step, the "add a blogroll to your site" link should appear opposite your "My Blogroll" folder. Click on the link to pop up the "Put a Blogroll on your site" page. Customize the would-be appearance of your blogroll in your blog, copy the script and paste it in the part of your blog where your old blogroll used to be.

5. Rename your subscriptions. Now, you may want to change the names of the blogs as they appear in your Reader blogroll. To rename them to your wishes, go to the 'Feed settings...' pull-down menu and choose 'Rename subscription...'.

There you are, now you can easily organize and manage your blogroll while reading and keeping updated with all your favorite blogs through Google Reader.
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This is cross-posted in my other blog, Planet Google.

Thirsty For Some Joost? I've Got Unlimited Joost Invites!

Joost has launched a new Beta version of its great cable-TV-in-your-PC software.

This version 0.10.3 otherwise known as "Joost Friends Edition" enables existing "Official Beta Testers" like me to invite as many friends or contacts as my time would allow it. In short, unlimited Joost invites for those who want to try the future of web-based cable TV. Leave a comment or email me if you want one.

I have to say that this recently released Joost version has some speed in it compared to the previous one that I tried (version 0.9.2). Well, my hard disk is newly defragged and this probably contributes to the program's speed and stability. In any case, I don't mind defragging my hard drive everyday as long as I can watch without a glitch Joost programs like this one:

From The Joost Team:
"(W)e invite you to enjoy the variety of new shows we're introducing each week. This week we bring you a host of new channels from Universal Music, great science fiction like Earth Final Conflict, and Creature Comforts from Aardman Animations. We've also got swimsuit models and snowboarders, anime and animals, and much more. But that's just the beginning. Each week we'll launch new channels - making sure you can watch what you want, when you want. So stay tuned..."

Well, I am. Way to go Joost Guys!

How Social Media Will Change the World

Here's a very interesting article from Lifehack on how the concept of social media sites like Digg will most likely influence major areas of our lives and basically change the world:

With a very simple concept, Digg.com has changed the fundamental nature of the news media and how millions of people access information. Digg (and its fellow social media sites) democratized the media, and wrenched control of what gets read from the gatekeepers of print and broadcast corporations and gave it to the people. Now, argue about whether this is good or bad, but it’s now a fact of life.

And someday soon this concept will spread to just about every area of our lives, from politics to entertainment to business to … you name it.

Get ready for the democratization of everything, like it or not...

Read the article in full here.

SEOmoz's 2007 Web 2.0 Awards

The Web 2.0 Awards were first created by SEOmoz in 2006:

"Our team reviewed hundreds of sites in the Web 2.0 sphere to uncover the best in each of 41 categories. From there, we assembled a team of 25 of the most knowledgeable, well-respected experts in the field to vote on the winners."

The Web 2.0 Awards Zeitgeist tells more information about the event.

Web 3.0: The Semantic Web

So, this is is how somebody from W3C envision the future of the Web, which, as somebody claimed, could spell the end of Google:

The semantic web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which web content can be expressed not only in natural language, but also in a form that can be understood, interpreted and used by software agents, thus permitting them to find, share and integrate information more easily.[1] It derives from W3C director Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the Web as a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange.

Purpose

Humans are capable of using the Web to carry out tasks such as finding the Finnish word for "car", to reserve a library book, or to search for the cheapest DVD and buy it. However, a computer cannot accomplish the same tasks without human direction because web pages are designed to be read by people, not machines. The semantic web is a vision of information that is understandable by computers, so that they can perform more of the tedium involved in finding, sharing and combining information on the web.

For example, a computer might be instructed to list the prices of flat screen HDTVs larger than 40 inches with 1080p resolution at shops in the nearest town that are open until 8pm on Tuesday evenings. To do this today requires search engines that are individually tailored to every website being searched. The semantic web provides a common standard (RDF) for websites to publish the relevant information in a more readily machine-processable and integratable form.

Tim Berners-Lee originally expressed the vision of the semantic web as follows:

“I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.”

—Tim Berners-Lee, 1999

Semantic publishing will benefit greatly from the semantic web. In particular, the semantic web is expected to revolutionize scientific publishing, such as real-time publishing and sharing of experimental data on the Internet. This simple but radical idea is now being explored by W3C HCLS group's Scientific Publishing Task Force (Demo).

Tim Berners-Lee has further stated:

“People keep asking what Web 3.0 is. I think maybe when you've got an overlay of scalable vector graphics - everything rippling and folding and looking misty - on Web 2.0 and access to a semantic Web integrated across a huge space of data, you'll have access to an unbelievable data resource."

—Tim Berners-Lee, A 'more revolutionary' Web

You can learn more about The Semantic Web by going through the W3C Semantic Web Frequently Asked Questions.

[via Digg]

Slow Joost

I have had Joost now for over a month and yet I haven't really enjoyed watching programs using the much-loved web-based cable TV software since the client basically crashes almost all the time.
Apparently, Joost's web connection speed and PC hardware requirements are quite high which is why, according to this Joost FAQ:

"We're constantly working to improve CPU and memory usage behaviour, but there are occasional instances where even quite powerful computers experience difficulties running the Joost software."

To improve Joost performance, someone suggested simple hard disk defragging. This would probably help especially if your system is low on ROM resources or disk space and since running the client "creates a cache on your hard drive that on occasions can become relatively large in size (up to 2GB).":

"However, it shouldn't normally fill up your disk, unless it was almost full to start with. We are aware that there is a Joost bug which shows up Disk Full errors when the disk is not full and asks for more info about your computer. If this happens, check if your disk is really full and if it is, try to free up some disk space."

Well, I guess it would still take some time before they finally figure out how to make Joost "lighter" and more responsive. It's still in beta anyway.

By the way, if you want to try Joost for yourself, leave a comment and I'll give you an invite -- I have three Joost invites up for grabs.

The Coming Virtual Web

BusinessWeek Online has run a very interesting special report on the fast-becoming popular virtual world Second Life and The Coming Virtual Web.

From this article:

The number of Second Life residents generating more than $5,000 in monthly income has more than quadrupled to 116 in the past year, according to San Francisco's Linden Lab, owner of Second Life.

BusinessWeek.com made a stab at finding out who's raking in the most, and how. Virtual real estate has been the most lucrative industry from the start. The top land baron, Ailin Graef, became the first Second Life millionaire in November. Some Second Lifers are making a mint off consulting fees from the real-world corporations that are entering the virtual world. And there's a rapidly growing industry in designing clothes, accessories, and animation for avatars.

Start living in The New Web.

Btw, I am Lorimer Larsson in Second Life, pleased to meet you.

Interplanetary Internet

Cyber and real terrorists who have thought of creating global havoc by destroying the Web's major hardware infrastructure may have to build a spaceship first before they can execute their plan:

Net reaches out to final frontier

A programme to kick-start the use of internet communications in space has been announced by the US government.

The Department of Defense's Iris project will put an internet router in space by the start of 2009.

Launching Iris could also signal the beginning of the development of the internet in space.
It will allow voice, video and data communications for US troops using standards developed for the internet.

Eventually Iris could extend the net into space, allowing data to flow directly between satellites, rather than sending it via ground stations.

"Iris is to the future of satellite-based communications what Arpanet was to the creation of the internet in the 1960s," said Don Brown, of Intelsat General, one of the companies who will build the platform.

...At the moment most satellites have to communicate with one another through ground stations or via radio signals to a relay satellite.

Deploying routers on satellites would allow them to communicate directly with one another using common internet standards, known as internet protocol (IP).

"The Iris architecture allows direct IP routing over satellite, eliminating the need for routing via a ground-based teleport," said Mr Brown.

It also raises the possibility of routinely transferring data through the satellite network, rather than ground based cables.

"This is a logical extension of radio communication between satellites," said Paul Stephens of DMC international imaging, a subsidiary of Surrey Satellites in the UK.

Along with Cisco and US space agency Nasa, it put one of the first routers in space onboard the UK-DMC satellite, part of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) used for observing the Earth for major disasters.

The DMC router uses the latest IP networking standards to send critical images to ground stations for use by rescue workers.

With IP becoming more prevalent for use in space, Nasa and internet pioneer Vint Cerf have also investigated the possibility of using internet technology across the solar system.

Although some work has been carried out on the necessary standards and protocols, no definite schedule has been announced for this interplanetary internet.

Apparently, this is part of an idea of "one of the founding fathers of the Internet", Vint Cerf, to build an Interplanetary Internet.

The Future PC

Is this how we will use the PC in the future? Well, at least that's how Intel envision the future to be with their aggressive development of the Ultra Mobile PC or UMPC.

Watch this and say "to think is to create" a thousand times:
Got this one from Om Malik's blog.

The New Web Defined

Web 2.0 essentially embodies democracy in the internet.

For the more comprehensive definition, go to this Wikipedia article.

So, Where Will They Try Put An MP3 Player Next?

Before, Levi's introduced the iPod jeans. Now, a company called DADA has launched their mp3-playing Dada Footwear Code M/BBS (ooops, for men). Which I think will only be marketable if a Nike Corporate Logo Swoosh is emblazoned on either side of the shoes.

Makes me wonder where or in what will some company try to put an mp3 player next?