More Details On The Launch Of The Iphone 3G In Singapore By SingTel

I’m sure many of you would be wondering when exactly would the Iphone 3G go on sale in Singapore. Well, the highly anticipated Iphone 3G will start selling at 12:01am on the 22nd of August 2008 at SingTel’s Comcentre headquarters at 31 Exter Road, and I so wish that I could be down there to see how the whole atmosphere is , unfortunately I can’t .

Anyway, SingTel released new price plans aimed for Iphone users called iFlexi plans, which compromises of the iFlexi Value Plan, iFlexi Plus Plan and the iFlexi Premium Plan. These plans are the first phone plans in Singapore with bundled talktime, SMS and data. These iFlexi plans are not compulsory for those who want to get the Iphone but prefer to stay on their current plans although the iFlexi plans have lots of extra’s that will certainly help enhance the Iphone experience such as free Wirless@SG extended beyond 2009 and a bundled allowance of data at 3.6Mbps.

iFlexi plan details specially for the Iphone 3G.

Other plan details for the Iphone 3G.

As you can see, the Iphone 3G isn’t going to be cheap as under the 2 cheapest plans available the Iphone 3G costs $698 (8GB) and $848 (16GB). I was somehow hoping it’ll be much cheaper than that .

One thing to note before you decide to drop your hard earned cash for the Iphone 3G now is that both StarHub and M1 report that they will be selling the Iphone 3G before the end of the year. If you hold on for a while and buy the Iphone 3G later you might be able to get it at a cheaper price and with more benefits. Who knows ?

Directory Submission Made Easy - SubmitterBot

Everyone knows how important backlinks are if you need to increase your PageRank. Everyone also knows that one of the easiest way to get quality backlinks is by submitting to web and blog directories as submissions are usually free or are relatively cheap. Everyone also knows that submitting your website to multiple directories is not only time consuming but also boring. Now here’s something not everyone knows – an easier way to submit your site to many directories in a short period of time by using SubmitterBot.

SubmitterBot is a semi-automatic directory submitter which really speeds up the process of submitting your site to multiple directories. All you need to do is to is submit your URL (All accounts get 1 free credit, which can be used to submit 1 URL) to SubmitterBot, and then start submitting your site to the many directories on the internet. The process of submitting your site to the directories only consists of typing in the verification code to verify that you are human and pick the category in which you want your site to be listed. The process is a really an easy one and is something you can do whilst doing other things. For example, I’m submitting my sites while at the same time writing this post

Once you have finished submitting your site and once you are approved by the directories, you will receive confirmation emails. And once you have received them, your job is finished. Something which might otherwise take a long time to finish can be finished in about half an hour. And now that your site is listed by so many directories you’ll reap the benefits of having such a high amount of backlinks to your website .

One more thing that might interests you is that SubmitterBot does not only do directory submissions, they also do article submissions and social bookmarking services. I for one will be exploring how I can use SubmitterBot’s services to further promote Drett, as after a few minutes of exploring the site I can see that SubmitterBot might be an invaluable and useful service after all.

Want To Create Free Graphical Polls? Use GFXPoll

I recently was referred to GFXPoll which is a poll making service. It’s really simple to use, whenever you need to do a poll, go to GFXPoll.com and just click create a new poll, and then just add in the details. At the end of the process, GFXPoll.com will give you a whole set of codes for which you can add into your site or forum to use the poll.

For example, I created this poll within minutes. Real fast and simple.

Poll: What do you think ?

• This is awesome
• This is kind of lame

Status:

Also want to create a poll? Click here

There are many different types of themes available to use, this really does help make the whole process easier as you get to pick themes that suite your site. The theme I’m using here is called the Wordpress theme, quite nice don’t you think?

Just for your information, polls are extremely useful for bloggers and webmasters to gauge how their readers feel about a particular posts or service. If you ever need a poll making service, do think about using GFXPoll.com as I think it suites webmasters and bloggers poll making needs nicely without charging a single cent .

Need To Choose A New Web host? Check Out Mybestratedwebhosting.com

As bloggers and webmasters, there is one thing that we all can’t live without, and that is a web host. In recent times, the number of web hosts found on the internet has increased many folds, so much that a person can never say that it was the lack of choice of web hosts that made him choose such a poor web host. Unfortunately, the overall quality of web hosts has not improved that much and there are many web hosts out there that oversell and over promise thus under delivering. And that’s where Mybestratedwebhosting.com comes in to play.

On Mybestratedwebhosting.com, one can find out about the current best web hosting around on the internet among other things such as web hosting comparison charts, user reviews and ratings on the various web hosts available and web hosting tips. In short, if you are looking around for a new web host, check out Mybestratedwebhosting.com to find out which web hosting suites your need best.

PS: If you are wondering what web host is rated as the best web host by Mybestratedwebhosting.com, BlueHost gets the honour. Read the BlueHost review to find out all about it.

Bloggerwave Just Paid Me – It Is Not A Scam

As some of you might have known, I mentioned that Bloggerwave is a scam in one of my earlier posts. At the time of writing that post, Bloggerwave which is one of the few paid blogging networks around had not paid me the money they owed me, even though it was well past the 30 days they had asked me to wait.

Today when I logged into my PayPal account, I realized that they had just sent me payment . The payment was sent on the 15th of August 2008 for a job I had completed on the 18th of June 2008. Yes, it’s much later than the 30 days after which they say the send payment, but late is still much better than never, don’t you agree?

As Bloggerwave does pay, I guess this makes Bloggerwave a legitimate paid blogging network that really does pay and I can’t call Bloggerwave a scam anymore . That said, I have only received one job from Bloggerwave so far, and from what I have seen, I don’t think I will be getting any in the near future, so don’t hang all of your hopes on Bloggerwave to be one of your stable income streams.

If you’re interested in trying out paid blogging, try out Bloggerwave (Payment proof)and BlogToProfit (Payment proof) as these two paid blogging networks are the only ones that have paid me so far. And do take away your misconception that Bloggerwave is a scam, as this post quite accurately proves that it isn’t.

Bloggerwave payment proof:

Bloggerwave sent me payment for the job I had completed earlier on

This Is How You Should Deal With Trackback Spam

Trackbacks are extremely useful for bloggers and webmasters alike when it’s used properly. When used properly, trackbacks can help facilitate communication between blogs and notify bloggers when and who has written about their content. When it’s used in bad ways, it then becomes trackback spam – on par with that of comment spam.

What Are Trackbacks?

Trackbacks basically are a linkback to someone’s else content who has linked to yours. It is used to let the blogger who receives the trackback that someone else is referencing his post and mentioning his site. Trackbacks usually appear in your comments section of your blog (it depends on what type of blogging platform you use and the theme you are using).

Trackbacks look like this:

To see a live example, check out my post here and scroll to the bottom. Note: I deleted the link in the trackback. A trackback without it’s link deleted links back to the website that links to you.

Trackback Spam?

We’ve all heard about comment spam. It’s one of the things that every single blogger would most probably know about. Comment spams usually contain lots of hyperlinks to websites that have questionable content. Comments that do not contain any sort of hyperlinks but are not related to the topic or the post are also usually looked upon as spam and thus gets moderated by the administrator (This happens at Drett )

As comment spam filters are getting increasingly complex and effective, the spammers are getting more and more desperate to find new ways to spam a site, and thus trackbacks spam is born. A person with a website with questionable content links to your post, a trackback then appears on your post which links back to his website. Thus giving him the backlink he wants and also entirely bypassing comment spam filters. Don’t mix up legitimate trackbacks with spammy tackbacks . The spammy trackbacks are where the post in which the person links to you has entirely no relation to the content in which you are writing about while the legitimate trackbacks are where the the content is related.

So What Should I Do about Trackback Spam?

When receiving a spammy trackback, you can do a few things. The first choice would be to delete the trackback, keeping your comments area clean and spamless. The second choice would be to leave it there, giving the spammer the linkback he wants while lowering your reputation and respect as you link to sites with questionable content. The third option is what I’m recommending for you to do, and that is to delete edit the trackback and delete the link, but leave the trackback there. (Example here). This gives you content in your comments as sometimes even spammy trackbacks are related in very small ways while also lightening up your comments area, but at the same time taking away the linkback to the spammy site. Thus saving you reputation and reputation from going down the drain.

Every blogger and webmaster loves content and activity within the comments of a post, but hate giving out links to spammers in the comments area.  The third method I suggested is the best way to deal with trackback spam. It gives you all the advantages of a legitimate trackback while neutralizing it’s disadvantages.

Word of advice, only use the 3rd method which I highlighted above when the trackback is not complete spam. As even the method above won’t help you if the trackback is complete spam. Also, you can use the method which I shared to edit even legitimate trackbacks to stop you pagerank from leaking – yes, it might seem cruel but people do do this.

So from now on, do yourself a favour and instead of totally deleting the trackback, edit the track and remove it’s hyperlink. What do you guys think about trackback spam and the method of which I shared on how to deal with it?

Wordpress Version 2.6.1 Just Released

Wordpress version 2.6.1 has just been released, and I just upgraded . You can read more about the changes here. Basically, if you’ve no problem with using Wordpress 2.6, then you have no reason to upgrade to wordpress 2.6.1. Actually, the only reason I upgraded was because I found the stripe in my Wordpress control panel telling me that a new version of Wordpress had been released irritating, so I upgraded my Wordpress installation to 2.6.1 just to get rid of it.

I’m happy to say that this time my upgrade of my Wordpress installation was uneventful and nothing out of the ordinary happened while upgrading. I did a manual upgrade this time mind you, without relying on all those instant or automatic backup plugins.

Anyway, this was just a heads up to all of you that wordpress Version 2.6.1 has just been released .

True Knowledge Invites Giveaway

Have you heard about True Knowledge? To put it simply, True Knowledge is a search engine that aims to fulfil some gaps and inadequacies found in current search engines.

True Knowledge aims to fulfill a longstanding internet industry goal – providing consumers with instant answers to complex questions in a single click. To achieve this, users can add knowledge into the True Knowledge engine by going through a complicated process where the True Knowledge engine gets to better understand the content and thus helps it to show better answers.

For a comparison, here is the result returned by both the True Knowledge engine and the Google Search engine after searching for “Who wrote the novel Oliver Twist”.

Results returned by the True Knowledge engine:

See how True Knowledge returns the results? It makes searching for known facts easier as it directly returns the answer along with a standard search technology results.

True Knowledge returns both results based on it’s own engine and a standard search engine. When it’s own engine doesn’t or can’t return anything, it then totally relies on a standard web search. Users can endorse or contradict results returned by the True Knowledge engine, this is supposedly done so that answers and results returned are more accurate.

Results returned by the Google Search engine:

Although the results returned by Google Search engine will eventually help you find the answer you are looking for, it’s a case of searching again and again. Like reading though the content in the websites in the results returned.

Can you see the comparison and difference between results returned by both the Google Search engine and the True Knowledge engine? Quite noticeable isn’t it? Yes it is.

True Knowledge users have the ability to add information into the True Knowledge engine. As I mentioned earlier on, the process is very complex, needing the person who enters it in to enter a lot of fields and data about a fact or knowledge he wants to add into the engine. I tried entering some simple information and knowledge about myself under “David Koh”, and when trying to fill up facts about myself, I had to fill up so many other fields that had not been defined yet. Yes, I know what I’m trying to say here sounds really confusing, but just take my word on it that when trying to enter data and information into the True Knowledge engine is complex at best. Hopefully in the near future it’ll be much more easier.

The True Knowledge engine is a work in progress, and it heavily relies on information and knowledge added by users and people. As this is the case, the quality of the results returned by the True Knowledge engine will be increasing steadily. One downside of relying heavily on user added knowledge is that for now, there is just too little knowledge to e able to replace Google in my daily uses. Maybe in the near future it’ll be able to be one of the top search engines used by people. Maybe

I was recently given 20 invites to True Knowledge which I’ll be giving to visitors and readers of Drett to preview this new technology that might be the future of internet search technology. To get one, please leave a comment with your email address and reasons why you think you should receive a True Knowledge invitation. Remember, it’s a first come first served basis, so do hurry .

How To Increase Search Engine Traffic Without Spending A Cent

Search engine traffic is one of my favourite sources of traffic. It’s free, it’s targeted, and it steadily increases in time. Drett receives around 800 unique visitors a month from search engines alone, this means 800 visitors that I do not need to pay a cent for. Pretty nice deal right? Free targeted traffic.

Before I start on how to increase search engine traffic to your blog or website, I just want to say that I’m not some expert or guru who claims to be able to increase your search engine traffic overnight. Nor am I saying that the tips and guidelines I’m about to share with you are surefire and will surely help you increase your traffic from search engines. I’m also not trying to imply that by using these tactics you can easily gain more traffic from search engines that established sites, although I wish this was true .  I’m just a blogger who is still relatively new to blogging and want to share my humble experience and opinions.

And with that, I’ll start.

There are many ways to increase search engine traffic to your site, so many that if I were to write about every single way to increase traffic known to bloggers and webmasters, it’ll take more than a day. Rather than trying to cover every single way to increase traffic from search engines, I’ll share some tips that will help you increase your search engine traffic by just adjusting and optimizing the way you write your content. Something which I found to be quite effective, does work, and something I myself do.

Content is something every website and blog has. A lot of content, a little content, boring content, interesting content – all different forms of content. What many of them who write the content on their sites and blogs do not know is that they rarely ever do manage to optimize their content and maximize the content’s potential.

Here are some guidelines to follow and take note of when writing content on your blog which I find helps you rank higher and appear in more search engines results, thus increasing your traffic from search engines for free. I’m quite sure that these strategies and guidelines below work, so you might really want to give it a try

• Increase the number of different keywords in your content
• Increase the number of times a keyword is repeated – don’t spam it though
• Phrase your sentences and keywords in your content properly
• Have a permalink with keywords
• Have titles that have keywords

Increase the number of different keywords in your content and increase the number of times a keyword is repeated.

Just by increasing the number of different keywords and times the keyword is repeated in your content, you can quite dramatically increase search engine traffic to your site. When you write your content, don’t just write for the sake of writing, think about how you want your visitors to find the particular content you are writing, what kind of terms and keywords that are related to your site, then write your content around those particular keywords. Repeat the keywords whenever you have a chance (please don’t spam the keywords though, exercise discretion ).

As you have more different keywords and repeated keywords, the keyword density of your content and related keywords number increases, and so does the chance of getting more traffic to your site from search engines. For example, if you have 2 kinds of keywords in your content - “bike” and “camping”, you’ll be able to get traffic from search engines not only on keywords such as “bike” and “camping”, but also on searches for “bike camping”. This really does help. Trust me .

Phrase your sentences and keywords in your content properly.

I cannot begin to stress how effective this method has been for me. Basically, you should try phrase your sentences and keywords in the same manner and sequence in which people use to search on the search engines.

For example, you should use repeated sentence in your content, such as “free traffic for a lifetime” instead of breaking up the sentence. This is because it gives you a higher chance of ranking high in search results whenever people search for “free traffic for a lifetime”.

Similarly, if you keep using the phrase “make money online by blogging” throughout your content, you’ll stand a high chance of being listed high in the search engines result whenever people search for “make money online by blogging”.

Have permalinks and titles with keywords.

One thing I noticed after a couple months blogging is that posts and pages with titles and keywords that has the keywords I’m searching for more often than not appear higher in the search engines result. This means that the search engines put a higher emphasis on posts that have titles and permalinks full of keywords than those that don’t.

The next time you write the title of your post, instead of just writing a catchy title, try to strike a balance between the degree of attractiveness of the title and the number of keywords in it.

So these are some of my tips on how to get more traffic from search engines by just optimizing your content. And once again, I don’t claim that with this you’ll instantly be able to gain a whole lot of traffic from search engines, but every little bit does does help.

My last word of advice to all of you is to never stop writing content, as even if you don’t optimize it thus maximizing it’s traffic from search engines potential, these content when accumulated and indexed by search engines will eventually bring in some traffic from search engines .

If you agree or disagree with some of the tips I wrote about above, please comment below. Together we might still be able to come out with better tips .

The Apple Iphone 3G Is Coming To Singapore On The 22nd Of August

I’m sure many of you have heard of the Apple Iphone, it’s what Apple calls a revolutionary device which is a phone, an Ipod and an internet device rolled into one slim and stylishly designed package. Basically, the Iphone is exactly like the Ipod Touch that is being sold in here in Singapore except that it also works as a phone.

I’ve some good news for all of you Singaporeans who are waiting for the Iphone to be launched in Singapore as the wait is over – the Apple Iphone will be launched in Singapore on the 22nd of August (Yes, this month) and it will be exclusive to SingTel [Source].

SingTel will be launching both the 8Gb and 16Gb in either black or white colors. So far they have not announced their pricing or plans yet, but you can sign up here to make sure you are notified when the plans and pricing are unveiled. I signed up too as I’m really interested to know more about the Iphone. I might even consider getting one if the price is agreeable .

Many wonder why the Iphone is such a big deal especially since there currently are phones on the market that are touchscreen, has 3G, WIFI enabled and basically most of the functions and even the look of the Iphone. To me, it all comes down to two words – the experience. The whole Apple experience, something a Windows user will never really comprehend until the make the switch and try out the whole Apple ecosystem and then get forced back into the Windows world.

Anyhow, I’ll be writing more articles about the Iphone soon, so you can get to read more about the Iphone in the coming days.

Now for all of you who have been waiting for the release of the Iphone 3G in Singapore ever since it was launched in America, it’s time to rejoice , and if you’re a Starhub or M1 user, time to switch to SingTel – the exclusive network in Singapore that can sell the Iphone.