Krillion - Finding National Brands Near You

Krillion, a local search engine for offline appliances founded in February 2006 and funded by the Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, offers customers the convenience of having the location information of a product. It is an important site because it tells you who carries the product near you.

Searching for a samsung 32 inch LCD for instance would give a list of available items and their prices. Clicking on one would further provide you the product detail, reviews and product location. On the product location, you would see right away the price comparisons and if the product is available or not. Distance to the store and a map view are provided as well.

Shopping Coupons

“You can get shoes for 85 cents at the bowling alley.”
- A Shopping Tip

Sometimes shopping, online or not, can be a demanding task. At times, you become indecisive, not really with shopping itself especially when you have a lot of resources. But difficulty in choosing what to buy is experienced when online shopping coupons, such as Old Navy and Dell, are involved.

Finding the best deals can be a grueling job. When you find one, you may even get to deal with the frustration of discovering that the coupon has already expired, or that it only works with the retailer's credit card. The technique however is to be persistent in searching. Never hesitate as well to try whatever coupon you have even when there is a disclaimer that "coupon cannot be combined with other offers". It may be a cheapskate but it can definitely save you a couple of bucks notably now that Christmas is near.

Shopping Cart Software

Ashop is a shopping cart software that caters to merchants doing electronic commerce. It can be a good tool for those businesses not transacting online yet. For one, it is one way of obtaining a wider range of customers. And for another, it is also another way of giving customers convenience since they do not need to go out anymore from their homes to buy. The vendor comes to them.

A few of its features include the acceptability of credit cards, customization of the layout and design, and the quick and easy update of the content within hours. The benefits on the other hand include search engine optimization and uncomplicated usability of the site. Also, there is no need to install the software since it is web-based. It is affordable and secured with 128bit SSL encryption. It offers a 24 hour technical support as well. And finally, it provides free emails, upgrades, payment integration, and web promotion tools.

Smorty's New Referral Program

In an earlier post, I mentioned about Smorty being another opportunity to earn, aside from being another way of increasing productivity perhaps. One of its differences with the other paid-to-blog sites is that Smorty would only take 5 full days to review your posts and approve them. Unlike other sites, your earnings will reflect on your paypal account in about two weeks. In terms of writing opinions, posts should be a minimum of 150 words and a maximum of 400 words. Also, only one link is allowed.

Now here is something new about the site. You only not get paid to blog but you also earn when you refer new bloggers to the site. You only need to place the Smorty banner to your site firstly. Then you earn commissions from anyone who clicks on that banner, signs up to the site and writes a post. A 5% commission of the total payments made to your referred blogger will be given to you. This would go on for as long as the blogger you referred writes posts.

On Leadership

As I see it, I need to maneuver my partner around the dance floor,
taking care not to bump into anyone or anything, dancing to the music,
spontaneously choreographing a changing and pleasing series of moves,
all the while maintaining light conversation.
- Mr. Data, Startrek

There are few things about leadership that can be learned just from doing the salsa dance. An article from an online dance instructional website where members receive access to thousands online salsa dance videos, and DVDs by mail, Salsa Dance BootCamp tackles about the tips on leading when dancing. Here are some basic points.

1. Lead clearly.
2. Avoid being a literal and metaphorical jerk.
3. Know the difference between smooth and jerky.
4. Use the lightest effective lead. Know the difference between indication and demand.

The tips given are quite interesting since they can be applied to the corporate world, or to any place where leadership is involved. Also, though they are insights presented from the perspective of men, everyone can pluck something out of these. And those are just the basics. A few more scrolling and one will learn about navigation and the philosophy of the dance. Navigation is all about looking around to avoid any collision and to get through tight spots. Understanding the dance philosophy involves the awareness that leaders lead and followers follow. If a partner can't follow, it is because one can't lead.

Generosity *

To give and not to count the cost...
Except that of knowing that I do your will.
- St. Ignatius Loyola, Prayer for Generosity

A thought-provoking question from Seth Godin:

"If you didn't want anything in return, nothing at all, what's the most generous thing you could do for your best customer, your best friend, your most important prospect?"

For the best customer, I would likely give her or him a discount. Or probably an extra serving.

For a best friend, just to spend time with him or her, I would perhaps walk with him or her until he or she reaches his or her destination even if I am supposedly going the other way.

And for an important prospect, I would probably give her flowers and chocolates. But then I still could think of a more generous or perhaps romantic act like conspiring with high school friends to serenade her some time. Then again I could think of some more and the answers could go endless.

Though some things remain unanswered. Given that I am simply human, why would I not want anything in return? Because consciously or unconsciously, I want something in return either in the short run or in the long run.

Supposing that I do not want anything in return so I say that I give what is needed. If I specify that I give what is needed, then I am implying in a certain degree that I do not give just anything if it is only wanted. If it is needed, then I provide. If it is only wanted, then I do otherwise. The need-vs.-want scenario gives the impression then that I unconsciously want something in return. A condition is set - that I give only if it is needed. So that the answer "giving what is needed" is a kind that wants something in return.

Now, I usually do not want anything in return if I give to the person who has already given me something. Since the question speaks about giving to a best customer, a friend and a most important prospect, then there has been an established premise already that the concerned people have given me something. That is why I call them best and important. That is why I call someone a friend. I am being generous to the said people because of a prepaid generosity. But supposing that they did otherwise, I guess everything changes.

The real question then is, what could be the most generous thing one could do to complete strangers without expecting or wanting anything in return?

In contrast with an Online Tutoring service, I would probably give free tutoring to street kids.

But what if I give free tutoring just to feel good about myself? With it, I am already wanting or expecting something in return. So I guess motivation plays an important as well when giving.

* A post dedicated to a friend who each time says, "Always count your blessings."

Creative Cities

Minds fructify across generations and oceans,
otherwise literature and art and music
would be empty interludes and ornament.
- George MacKay Brown

A previous post speaks about Edinburgh being the City of Literature as appointed by UNESCO. The said city belongs to the Creative Cities Network that UNESCO's Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity established in order to link the cities that make creativity an essential element of their economic development. UNESCO has appointed a number of Cities in the fields of Design, Folk Art, Music and Gastronomy. The Cities of Design are Berlin, Buenos Aires and Montreal. The Cities of Folk Art are Aswan and Santa Fe. The Cities of Music are Bologna, Seville, Oaxaca, and Salvador de Bahia. And finally the City of Gastronomy is Popayan.

I wonder if at least one of the cities of Philippines like Vigan, Baguio, Cebu and Manila would qualify for and be regarded as a City of Folk Art.

* The photo shown is that of Seville, featured by a travel blog as the travel photo of the day .

American Choppers in Australia

What are you doing here?
"I'm the chief fabricator and engineer.
You want an autograph?"
- Mikey

The Discovery Channel is currently featuring the American Choppers in Australia. Paul Teutul Sr. and his sons Paul Jr. and Mikey, were brought to the country last February 2007 by Tourism Australia and Discovery Networks to experience the best Australia has to offer and to design a Down Under-themed chopper. Aside from a visit to Russell Crowe's NSW farming property and a little cricket game with him, the undoubted softies toured incredible sights from the Harbour Bridge, Mrs Macquarie's Chair and Bondi Beach to Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef. The featured landmarks are simply marvelous that they compel admiration and make one arrange reservation right away at hotels in Sydney, or even at hotels in Melbourne or hotels in Brisbane.

In due course, Paul Jr. produced a bike that features the attractions of Australia. A map of the country was incorporated on the bike's gas tank. A mini-surfboard served as a cover for the belt drive. An illustration of Sydney's opera house was stamped on the taildragger fender. Boomerangs served as the wheels' spokes. The exhaust pipe was designed to look like a shark's tail. A snapshot of the Great Barrier Reef was painted on the oil's tank. And a kangaroo sign was displayed near the bike's engine. My only problem with the bike is that its handlebar is just too high that a small person won't be able to see the road. Just imagining the bike however makes one remember what Australia is all about.

City of Literature: Edinburgh

The motto of Edinburgh, as you might still see it,
I think, carved over the old castle gate,
is "Sic Itur ad Astra" - "This way to the stars."
- GK Chesterton

Anything that bears the word "literary" often almost fascinates me. The word is considered to be high level that it is usually attributed to things like the arts, scholars in the medieval ages, or to any writings valued for the quality of their forms. To be associated with it is quite overwhelming and unbelievable.

Would you believe for instance that there is already a City of Literature? And it is UNESCO who declares the place to be as such?

Edinburgh is the first City of Literature in 2004. And perhaps it is rightly to be so because it has more booksellers per capita than any other city in Britain. It is home as well to the first billion-dollar author JK Rowling and to an equally great writer Alexander McCall Smith.

I guess it must be time for me to check the classified ads and consider Edinburgh jobs.

Lamps and Lights

I was browsing through a site that offers a wide variety of products from ceiling fans to lamps. Under each of the items are arrays of product types. Say the lamps for instance, under the said product are different kinds of lamps, from floor lamps to torchieres. I was reminded somehow of my teacher in Philosophy of Science who once remarked that reading under a yellow light is better than reading under white light. I think what he meant was that reading under an incandescent lamp which usually radiates yellow light is better than reading under the fluorescent one which generally releases white light. This is so because the incandescent bulbs emit continuous light waves while the fuorescent ones produce sporadic waves. While indiscernible to the human eye, fluorescent lights are said to flicker thus straining the eyes and creating the strobe effect.

As to the white and yellow lights, it is said that the yellow light is created in the the absence of the blue color. The blue hue is intense that it stimulates a reaction we call "glare". In fact, the French, knowing of the said "glare", had the blue removed from the output spectrum of their vehicles' front lamps. Besides, since blue has the shortest wavelength and it easily scatters, it makes on-road vision very difficult.

Moreover, a study published five years ago found out that our biological clock is most responsive to narrow band of wavelengths from 466 to 477 nanometers (nm), which are close to the blue of a clear sky. The so-called ganglion cells in our eyes detect the blue hue and send signals to the brain that it is already morning thus ending a sleep or a circadian drift. The downside however is that bluish light is often detected from computer screens which oftentimes sabotages sleep schedules. The blue light reduces the brain's secretion of melatonin. Melatonin is usually brought about by dusk and darkness to help trigger and maintain sleep.

Now here is something that we can use for our advantage. Aside from a freshly brewed coffee or perhaps a couple of cancer sticks, the blue-light therapy can be used to keep ourselves late at night. While the yellow-light therapy is something that we can use when we want to doze off easily.

Feature: ShopWiki

One of the amazing things about the internet is the so-called wiki. It is a collaborative website which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it. It was Ward Cunningham who applied the word for web use to connote something quick. He got the idea from a Hawaiian bus shuttle named Wiki Wiki. Wiki in the Hawaiian language simply means fast.

At the moment, one of the best-known wikis is the Wikipedia. Others are the Wikinvest and the Wikidot. But here is an emerging kind of wiki site - the ShopWiki. It is basically a shopping search engine designed to help consumers find specific products on the Internet. It has buying guides serving as the wiki site where one can contribute any knowledge about the featured products and moderate the contents for accuracy.

When buying, a customer is not really interested with the specific product but with the product category. This is because the customer needs to gather lots of information or options first before deciding to buy something. ShopWiki provides a central place for relevant information that a customer needs. One can search for personal audio and video products, home theater systems and cameras and photography items. The good thing about the site is its accuracy and its comprehensive coverage when searching for products. Unlike other search engines that provide biased results since they only show the retailers who paid, ShopWiki presents even an unknown retailer with the premise that it has the best price.

For more information, visit the site and check a brilliant story behind it on how everything started with a red British telephone booth.

Blog Advertising

I previously mentioned in my posts All You Need is Blog and Getting Lucky Thru Blogging about some ways of earning income by blogging. Recently, I discovered another site that gives you that opportunity – Smorty. Through it, you get paid to blog.

Generally, the site is a bridge between advertisers and bloggers. Advertisers create campaigns that Smorty eventually distributes to bloggers for write-ups. The set-up is beneficial for both the advertisers and the bloggers. On one hand, the sites of advertisers are promoted through the backlinks coming from the bloggers who write the reviews. This is called blog advertising. On the other hand, bloggers are paid for giving their opinions. Visit the FAQ page of advertisers and the FAQ page of bloggers for more information. Perhaps you would even consider joining Smorty’s Affiliate Program for additional earnings.

And one more thing about the site is that it points to useful tools such as the Easy SEO Guide and the Blog Optimization.

Digital Frames

A while ago, I came across a site that features and sells lcd digital picture frames. As I learn more about the product, I can't help but be fascinated with it.

Basically, the digital photo frame creates slide shows of photos. A memory card can be plugged into it since it has a standard five-in-one card reader and a USB 2.0 connection. It also has a built-in stereo speakers, 1/8" headphone out, and an infrared remote control.

The frame is quite user-friendly in terms of transition of pictures. And the good thing about it is its compatibility with various formats like JPEG, MP4, DivX, AVI, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, MP3, WMA, WAV. This means that you can play, aside from music, an entire movie in an avi format assuming that you have a 2GB memory card.

In that case, you may perhaps go one better than someone with a Zenith or Coby DVD player. Or you may even be on a par with someone who has an iPod video.

Getting Lucky Thru Blogging

Michael Jordan must have been overjoyed the moment he realized the fact that he could earn for doing something he loves, basketball. Comparably, the Google founders must have had similar experience of being ecstatic for getting paid doing what they love. People like them are simply lucky. And in some ways, the kind of luck they have could be a root of envy for several other people such as myself. Because it is often too rare to be in a situation like the one they have - getting paid for doing something you have passion for.

However, one thing I've discovered if you happen to be a blogger, and have a passion for blogging, you could be like the lucky people too. Because fortunately, you can get paid for blogging. And this kind of opportunity is made possible by payperpost.

Post something like the Bamboo Jeep in Boing Boing, or the Sputnik Sweetheart, or even about some chicken mami SEO project. Then draw a particular connection of whichever topic is relevant to an assigned task by PayPerPost and you could be on your way of doing something you love and get paid for it like Michael Jordan and the Google founders.

That way, you become lucky as well and all you need is blog.

Mailboxes

The motion picture The Lake House has one item, aside from the lakehouse itself, that is significant to the lovers - the mailbox. It is their portal in communicating with each one. But more than being the conduit to make possible the exchange of letters to communicate, with it, they are able to transcend time so that in the end, an unsual love story falls into place.

With today's phenomenon when phones have become the dominant way of communicating, it is quite unconventional for a mailbox to serve as a means to be in touch, more so, a means to manipulate time. Nevertherless, we take a look at how it brings us convenience.

Mailboxes, be it residential mailboxes or commercial mailboxes, can be of benefit to the letter's recipient in two ways. First, if the person is doing some house chores, he'll never have to be bothered, except when a break is needed, by the postman when a missive or a parcel arrives. Second, if the person is out to the office or perhaps to the market or mall, he'll never have to worry about missing his letter.

Mailboxes can be beneficial to the postman as well. Because mailboxes are present, the postman will never have to worry about not delivering the letters just because the recipients are not around. He will never have to wait for the recipient taking time to get interrupted from a house chore.

From a certain perspective, it can be said that the internet has adopted this kind of concept. When a person emails another, he'll never have to go through the hassle of waiting for the receipient to go online. He can send emails anytime even if the recipient is not around. Same with the recipient. He can receive emails through his inbox, which is the mailbox of the internet, anytime without waiting for the other person to go online.

Mailboxes then have introduced us to a convenient way of communicating. And perhaps they actually have introduced us to a way of transcending time as well. With them, the recipient will never have to waste time getting interrupted. And the postman will never have to wait for the preoccupied recipient.

All You Need is Blog

I'm absolutely sure that everyone has a say about something or has to say something. If you think that it is important to say it, then say it. Write about it even if it's only about a tiny red paperclip. Or better yet, blog about it. If Nike were a blogger, it would have said, "Just blog it!" Or if the Beatles were bloggers, they would have said, "All you need is blog. Tadada tadada."

Seth Godin's advice is: blog even if it is just one post.

And when you start to blog, you may need this blogging manifesto. Perhaps after a hundred days of blogging, you'd know every word in this blogossary.

After which, you may want to take a little step further and consider making some quick buck through blogging. I say Bloggerwave gives you that opportunity. Visit its FAQ site for further clarifications then you may get started right away by signing up. Log in, look for open opportunities, and start posting.

Feature: EasyToBook.com

Since a sponsor asked me to write about several stuffs, I will be starting to post various topics that may be totally different from my usual entries. Nevertheless, I'd try to make them at least a bit interesting. So here goes the first one.

EasyToBook.com is a booking service for hotels in top cities offering thousands of discounted rooms. With this, customers can actually make hotel reservations in places like Amsterdam, New York, London, Paris, and more. Few of the service advantages include waived registration fees and wide variety of hotel choices, not to mention the ensured safety of the customers' credit card information. And for those booking in Amsterdam, the site also offers information on Amsterdam travel, restaurants, airport and so on. The service terms and conditions can be read here.

So how does everything work? At the homepage, the customer firstly sets the accomodation destination then chooses the date of arrival and departure. Next, the curreny type to be used (US dollars, euros, or pounds) is decided on. After which the site finds the best available deals and provides a list of the hotels indicating the room type, availability, price, review rating and more. With this, the customer is ready to make the reservation. For follow-up, the customer can always check his or her booking.

And for further information and inquiries, click on the FAQ and Customer Service sections.