OnePlus One phone giveaway

After a long hiatus, I'm back here with the intention of getting my first smartphone. You read that correctly, a new smartphone. The people at Android Authority are giving away 1 OnePlus One 64GB Sandstone Black Android smartphone to 1 lucky person. You can enter through here to get a chance to win a brand new smartphone. This phone is the most elusive by a start-up company that has a huge marketing plan that is controversial and unique. The only way to get the phone is through an invite and you have 24 hours to purchase the phone.

What's even more interesting is that the price makes it affordable and its specs are pretty good compared to other high-end Android phones. However, getting an invite is just impossible unless you're an early supporter or gotten one from somewhere. The Chinese version is available, but it comes with Color OS which is pretty terrible while the International version comes with Cyanogenmod 11 (a mod of Android KitKat). Don't miss your chance to win the actual phone and not an invite since these things go by quickly.

eBid

I have set-up an auction at eBid for a Garmin Oregon 650t GPS. It's not the GPS used in cars; it's for outdoor activities and mapping geographical areas. It's quite nifty to have and works pretty good if you want to know your surroundings. It is up for auction at a reserve price and I ship to the US only. Here is the link to the GPS.

HitLeap: traffic exchange

HitLeap is a traffic exchange site that allows you to get hits to your websites. You have to pay a monthly fee of either 3 Euros or 7 Euros per month to get anonymous traffic sources, but it is well worth it since people use it a lot to generate traffic to their website.

Dwolla

Dwolla is an interesting money transfer service. Transactions are normally free if it is $10 and under. Otherwise, it is a $0.25 fee for money transfers over $10. Your Dwolla account number is very much like a phone number, but it seems to work really well with online apps like Facebook and Foursquare on your smartphone. The kicker is that Dwolla is supported by a credit union in Iowa which makes it have benefits from the FDIC.

Another is that you can use your Dwolla account to buy bitcoins, which are on the surge lately. Bitcoins are like currency, but they're completely digital and have no backing from any governments. The reason they're so valuable right now is that there is strong demand for bitcoins and the world is in economic turmoil. Problem is that you have buy bitcoins through exchange websites and they only accept certain forms of payment like bank wire transfers, Liberty Reserve, and Dwolla to just name a few.

EpicRewardz monthly contest

There are a few contests spread throughout EpicRewardz. The 1st is a monthly daily survey contest for US people and I'm currently in 1st place. The 2nd is a monthly daily survey contest for UK people. The last contest is an offer wall contest open to any nation. All these contests require people to do the most in 1 month. I'm trying but work is making it hard to do more. If you want to sign up under me and enter go ahead. It still isn't too late to join up EpicRewardz because I joined pretty late and reach 3rd place overall. Not bad for me and you can prove yourself to do more offers or surveys in the middle of the month.

EpicRewardz

This GPT site is very interesting since their daily surveys are paid higher than most other GPT sites. In return, the referral rate is only 5% for 1st level referrals and 2% for 2nd level referrals. It's a great site anyway and there is no minimum to cash out. Payment method is PayPal, but soon the site will undergo a complete makeover later this year to have other payment processors like Payza and Liberty Reserve.

Car accident

I have just got into a car accident, but I seem to be fine. Only the amber headlights and front bumper sustain some damage. The frame is just fine without any scratches. The car I hit was a Suzuki Cultus, which is a very old car from the 80s. It has only 2 doors and the guy was cursing and swearing at me. He mocked me and made fun of my nationality and race. I had to pay him $120 to make him go away, but the car he drove is just too old to even be repaired since Suzuki pulled out of the US market recently. I should have just let him call the police and tell the officer about the slick road conditions on a rainy day. I would've died and killed him if I went any faster, but it was only 50 mph. Lesson learned since this was my 1st car accident.

EpicRewardz GPT: Legitimate for gamers

EpicRewardz has helped me get $160 in just 5 weeks. Sure it isn't as much as CPA, but much easier to do and qualify for. Since I was banned from a few GPT sites, I have to search the web to find alternatives which help me still make money online.

EpicRewardz: another GPT site

This site is just like any other GPT site, but the rewards seem to cater to video gamers. EpicRewardz does however have no minimum payout and payments are made daily which is quite nice. Payment is usually PayPal only, but you can custom order anything off Amazon if you have the points to buy an item from there. The rates for daily surveys are quite high, but referral bonuses are at 5%. Still it is a good site to join and make some cash. I'll be back later to post some links to daily surveys you can do on the blog here.

Bot for Sitizens

Here is a bot for Sitizens, the exploration website that allows you to conquer domains and claim them as your own. It does work indeed, but it is quirky sometimes with its random shutdowns. Otherwise the bot works fine and it does give you advantages in arrivals and explorations.

MindsPay - Survey Completion (USA)

I have an offer that anyone from the USA can do. It is MindsPay and all you have to do is sign-up, confirm your e-mail, and complete a survey from them. You will be paid $0.60 by PayPal if it is approved. It is for those from the USA, but anyone from there can do this offer as long as it credits. BTW, you will be paid if it is credited so just leave your verified PayPal e-mail address under Comments as soon as I find out MindsPay has approved for you.

Speedyfinger

Speedyfinger is a penny auction site that has been around for slightly more than 2 years. I've been bidding there more often lately since there are more bidders now. It is incredibly slow and very different from a traditional penny auction site. All of their auctions are reserve auctions, so you have to guess whether the auction is high or low. The most expensive item on the auction is the iPad, so the reserve price could be high or low. I made a lot in gift cards.

My first full paycheck in 4 years

I have finally finish my first full-time week in over 4 years. Which is sadly a long time even by temporary job standards. At $10 per hour, I guess after taxes I would get $335. Definitely more than GPT sites, but there are methods out there of making money online. Not those methods that require an investment and expect to lose most of your money. Hopefully I'll get some more money in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I love technology, but I'm too poor to even afford something decent for my laptop PC.

Back to work

Looks like I'm back to my old job for supposedly 24 days. Oh well, it's decent enough for holiday shopping and paying the bills. I know very well that people will be shopping for technology this year, especially with new releases like the iPad mini. Still need to get more money since I lost my main source from GPT sites.

Email marketing advice

It seems that email marketing isn't as simple as it seems. In fact, it is more complicated than it looks. You obviously need money to invest anyway. First and foremost is a bulk email sender program. Most recommend Atomic Mail Sender, but I got UltraMailer Sender Professional for free, but it is limited to only 300 keys. It is still promoting anyway. Second is SMTP servers, which are either free or cost money. Obviously it is going to cost money if you're sending over 20k emails per day. A Google search shows that there are plenty of SMTP servers out there and they aren't cheap. We're talking $300 or more per month depending on how many emails sent. PowerMTA is one most email marketers use anyway. Interspire is another one most email marketers use as well. Free ones like Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo place severe limitations on sending emails to either 100 or 500 per day. Third is a VPS (virtual private server) since this is what you will use to send emails from or else your ISP will cut off your Internet service for good. Most email marketers go with Linux VPS along with Interspire. Fourth is a domain and hosting. Most people want to buy them cheap off GoDaddy, but there are others you can choose.

Email marketing seems to have a sizable investment anyway and payment to set it all up, but most people are able to make decent money on it. Biggest problem is that this will be considered spam and you won't be able to send your emails to inbox properly.

Lead Castle

Lead Castle is a CPA network. CPA means "cost per action." It's what GPT sites use to bring offers to their websites. Interestingly enough, you can do your own offers on CPA. Granted most of them seem to be incredibly difficult to get in since they do ask if you own a business and a website. After that, you can post offers on your site to see if they get approved or not from yourself and other people. The biggest problem is that CPA sites pay on a net 15 or net 30 scale, which means you get paid every 15 or 30 days. If your traffic is good and people are doing offers, then you get upgraded to net 7 and be paid weekly. In reality offers get approved if you do them correctly and you get paid much later. Lead Castle pays by PayPal which is what most GPT sites pay by. GPT sites pay by other methods like Payza and Liberty Reserve.

Windows 8

I have got my hands on Windows 8 today. It seems to work really well for those with newer PCs, especially those on the latest. As for older PCs, don't try to run Windows 8 on those that are much older than 2 years. Anyway there is a steep learning curve to learn some of the new features Windows 8 has, but it isn't so bad once you get used to it. SSDs seem to benefit the most from Windows 8 due to its new features.

I'm just waiting on Intel's Haswell to be released next year since we'll be seeing how Windows 8 really shines. With the holiday shopping craze starting to begin in a few weeks, people will be looking for new tech gadgets at lower prices. The latest trend seems to be smartphones and tablets, but Windows 8 needs to make a big wow factor on consumers to really use the operating system.

Pollbuzzer

Pollbuzzer is an interesting survey site that gives out surveys by email. They're incredibly rare though, but they do pay instantly to a verified PayPal account. The surveys are $1 each, but they pay within 24 hours so I think it is a worthy choice to use. Main reason is that the surveys are only 1 question each, which makes it really short and simple.

Email marketing

Looks like I bought an email marketing package for $275, but it turns out the software is old and doesn't seem to load at all in Windows 7 except for one. The other software has problems with memory when I tried to load an email list larger than 1 million. This is much harder than I thought and feel like I can never send what is intended. On top of that, it feels like I'm spamming messages which isn't good at all. I sign a contract stating I would do this or else the contract is nulled (can't get my money back). Buying lots of things will cost more than $500 with bulk email sending software, SMTP server, Linux VPS, and proxies.

Instasurf.biz is a scam

Looks like the scammer went back to create instasurf.biz after ripping off over $15k from people promising them 12% returns for 12 days. It's all a bunch of lies and it is from the same site as instasurfs.com which is permanently shut down for good. This new website looks the same as the previous one and uses the same template. Do not go to that website and do not invest there! The owner will rip you off, shut down the website, and make another website which looks exactly the same. I had enough of phony websites and trying to make money by ripping people off thinking of investing into the site.