Google Pages

If you know nothing about html and don't want to learn, Google Pages is a great place to start. Creating a web site here is as easy as using a word processor. Once your site is created it will be housed under the easily-remembered domain http://yoursitename.googlepages.com. Another perk is that your web site will be ad-free unless you choose to create ad links of your own. The ease of use offered by Google Pages does have a few drawbacks. There are very few templates to choose from and it is almost impossible to customize the style and feel of your site. So, while not needing to know any html is attractive at first, it can be frustrating later when you find that you would like to make some minor changes but are unable to do so. All in all, though, this is not a bad place to begin your foray into the internet world. You can easily move on to another host when you have outgrown this one.

Yahoo! Geocities

Unlike its Google counterpart, the free web sites on Geocities are supported by advertisements. This means that Yahoo! ads will appear on your web site here unless you upgrade to a paid account. However, Geocities offers much, much more in terms of being able to customize your site. There are numerous templates that you can pick and choose from if you don't have the skill or the time to build something from scratch. Yet, if you do want to build your site from the bottom up, you may do so using Yahoo! PageBuilder or by uploading your own files directly to the server. This makes Geocities a great place to experiment with your own designs and really let your creativity shine.

Microsoft Office Live

If your web site is more business-oriented, then you many want to try the new Microsoft Office Live. Although it is a bit more complex to set up a site here, you will have complete control over how your site is created and maintained. Like Geocities, you can choose to use a pre-existing template or create your own. There are no advertisements, and you can even choose to create your own domain name free of charge for the first year. Microsoft also supplies utilities to help you build a storefront, manage email accounts, and promote your business.

So I bet you're wondering why now did I join the facebook phenomenon? Simple, for marketing purposes! I haven't done my research on this but I presume that there are millions of people with facebook pages all over the world and it seems to be the perfect place to advertise your products. They even have a pay per click advertising strategy where you obtain targeted visitors. Anyway that was my only reason for why I joined but then I started to add friends to my page and was able to find many high school friends who I had not spoken to for ages, and it was really nice to have a chat to them and see what they are up to. I absolutely love looking at the photos that people put up because it so awesome to see how much we have grown and how different we all look now compared to when we were in high school, but the best thing is that everyone still has the same personality they had back then (one of the reasons why I was friends with them in high school). Facebook is also a getting to know your friends a little better, because sometimes you believe that your friends only have one certain layer, but when you read their profile on pages such as facebook you find out all these new things about them that you never knew and not only do you have more to talk about but you realize that you have more in common than you thought.

I also, like many people, love numerous applications that you can add to your page, such as free gifts, plants, superpoke, music, video clips and my favorite tv shows quotes and trivia. I am a huge fan of the tv show Friends and I love the trivia on my facebook page and I'm up to 11000 points and I promise myself to keep going until I have taken the number one spot (lol). I also enjoy the fact that you can join different sorts of groups or make up your own and get others to join, you meet a lot of new people from around the world that way.

So all and all I will admit that I am glad that I have a facebook page and for the first few days I was on it pretty much the whole day. But it is a great way to catch up with people who you have not seen for centuries and also keeping in touch with the people in your life at the moment.

I admit it like the millions of people around the world I have fallen for some of those make money online scams and it really sucks, cos at the beginning you're all excited and expecting to be making millions in just a few minutes, like they promised!! But there is always more to the story, the sales page is always hyped up and the first few that you see, you really believe the hype, however after one scam and another you really begin to feel like an idiot. After a lot of researching and exploring you realize that those sales pages all use the same sort of techniques; promising you millions in just a few minutes, playing on your emotions, testimonials (most likely fake!), going on about it being a secret that no one knows about and so on. It becomes pretty depressing when you realize that you totally wasted your money and that now you have to apologize to your boss for telling him to “shove it” and beg for your job back.

Well the truth is that you can make money online, but it won't be in just a few minutes, no it takes work just like everything else does in life. Making a decent amount of money online requires you to learn just like any other job and over time gain skills that will contribute to your success. These scams that we fall for do not assist in helping us build long-term skills that we can continue using or perfect, all they do is give us a few materials and say “here do whatever you want, we don't care, we've got our money from you now.” Luckily there are very few legitimate programs out there whose goals are to help you succeed in creating a passive income online, but it will take time and effort until you get the hang of things.

The program that I have discovered (as well as many others) is an online course called Profit Lance. This program teaches you everything about how to make money through internet marketing. It has tons of resources from instructions to blogs to ebooks to videos to articles and blueprints, it would take you a while to get through the material but it is extremely useful. The topics that you learn about include affiliate marketing, Google adsense, getting traffic, SEO tactics, review of products that sell the best and much more. It also gives you a few free websites to promote and make money from straight away. I've only implemented a few of the techniques so far and have already made a few sales, not a lot but obviously more than zero which is what I was generating from the other programs. Imagine if I use all the techniques within the course I would be generating sales left and right, I've actually seen clips on youtube about people showing proof that they have generated a decent amount from applying the techniques they learnt from Profit Lance.

If you are interested but still skeptical and think this is just another scam, then research it first. Google Profit Lance and you will see that there are more positive reviews about this course then negative ones. Oh, and yes it does cost money to obtain this course because the reality is that you “cannot get something for nothing,” but it is less than a hundred dollars and all the resources you obtain is worth way more than what you actually pay.

So here are my Top 5 Facebook Apps (games only!)

1. Triumph

   Yeah, you get to play GOD with this application. You are given several different choices; prioritize the land and build up your population or simply hire an army and take over the world. It's a strategy game that really enhances your thinking skills, so use it!

2. My Heroes Ability

   Who doesn't want to be a superhero? Given an initial ability, you get to develop it any way you want, to enhance your current abilities or to develop new ones. Plus, its new features, such as items and quests (soon), will surely drag new Facebook users into its addictive spell.

3. Dopewars

   This application is really interesting. You get to sell dope, but you don't get caught! Yeah, a strategy game based on turns. You develop a base camp (factory) and produce certain amounts of DOPE any way that you want. You can hire junkies to generate money and thugs to hustle some money. A very interesting game, to be able to know how it is to sell dope. Cool!

4. Scratch and Win

   Who doesn't want to win instantly? I mean, we do want to earn easy money, even if you may deny it, it's a given fact. Scratch and Win enables you to buy tickets and exchange them for prizes (theoretical ofcourse).

5. Put Pupz

   Dog Training minus the Poop. This is one great app that enables you to train your dogs without the hassle of having to feed him and look after his droppings.

For more applications by Facebook, just visit the page.

Bofunk is the hidden gem of the video website genre. Most video website only have a small proportion of interesting videos, that's where bofunk is different because bofunk only submits interesting videos so your guarantied to be entertained and to top it of it has many different genres of videos from comedy to drama.

Funny Junk

Funny junk is probably the funniest of all video websites around. It has a HUGE collection of videos and they are all very amusing. This website is a must if you're bored or just in the mood of some cheering up. Not only has got a huge collection but it is constantly being updated with more videos.

Funny Videos

Funny videos domain name gives you all the information you need, funny videos. All this site has is more and more hilarious videos at your disposal and is still being added to. There is no way anyone could find this site boring. If you're bored this site is a must.

College Humour

College humour does what the domain name says and more it is humour for everyone not just college students. I personally like this website because it has some of the most hilarious videos on the internet. It is always growing with more humour so there is no way to get bored of it plus most of the videos can be watched twice there so funny.

Fun Only

Fun only is one of the funniest sites on the internet and yet hardly anyone knows about it. I have only just found out it existed and now I feel like I was left out of the fun. This website would keep anyone happy and put a smile on anyone's face, defiantly one of the best funny video websites around.

They make you see these programs in bad light while ensuring that they sell their own selected few to you.

I tried to find out who is behind each site and discovered that most of them don't even respond to your mails, no particular address or telephone number in case you need to ask questions. I tried as much as I can to avoid falling into the same category as these sites, so I was actually focused and unbiased. It is necessary to point out that some programs may not be outright scams but time and effort wasters, as they take so much time but pay you so little for your effort. I believe that technology is created to make our lives easier.Thus, online income is supposed to come with less stress and time, therefore along this line I may list some programs but I will ensure that I make a distinction as to which category they belong to.

Without taking too much time these are some of the review sites I will advise you avoid when making your research for a review of program:

• Guru Buster
• WorkAtHomeScams
• BusinessReviews
• IntegrityReviews
• Zen Reviews
• Internet Home Business
• Business Opportunities Review
• Online Paid Surveys Reviewed
  

But, if you do a Google search for "free file hosts" you'll get 4,980,000 results. So, you must think, which of these shall I use? Or maybe, you don't... but, none the less, if you want to share a large file, or a small one, you'll need a nice site to host your files.

Rapidshare

Rapidshare is a German company, that has been around for a while. The main advantage of using Rapidshare is that the average download speed (for a premium user) is about 1 megabytes per second. So, if you were to download a 100mb file it would take about 100 seconds. Not a bad deal if I may say so myself. But, there are 2 bad parts to this. The first, is that to download from Rapidshare effeciently you have to be a premium member, which costs about $50 for 6 months. The second, is that the maximum file size is 100mb. So you have to use "split-archives", which are basically compressed RAR archives that are split into multiple pieces that you have to have together to decompress. So overall, if you need to share that large powerpoint, or Halo 2, Rapidshare is one of the best ways to go.

Megashares

Megashares, I must say, is one of the coolest hosts I have ever seen. Megashares lets you upload a file that can be up to 10GB large (using the custom uploader), or 1.5GB large using the standard uploader. You can also purchase "link cards" that allow you to download files of any size, quickly. But without a link card, it takes forever to download a large file. But, Link Cards are cheap (about $20 for 6 months) so Megashares is a great option if you have a little extra cash hanging around. But the main disadvantage is that your files have to be downloaded at least once in 5 days, or 5 times in 25 days.

GigaSize

GigaSize is a fairly nice file host, without that many ads or strings attached. With a free account (it's free xD) you get to host 600mb per file, which isn't that bad. I could store my entire picture collection with that much space. Also, your files stay hosted for 90 days without a download, which is the same as Rapidshare, but you can only have up to 2 (with a free account) downloads at once. Which is ok, I guess. But the thing that really makes GigaSize a decent competitor is that it allows you to gain "GigaPoints" which you get 1 per each file download. After you get enough of those you can upgrade your account for a certain amount of time. Rapidshare has a similar service, but you need far less GigaPoints than Rapidshare Points to get a premium account.

Friendly Files | FileHo

When I first saw Friendly Files, I thought "Oh wow! Unlimited file size, sweet!". But then thats where my problems started... I tried uploading a 500kb file to the site, and it took about 3 hours to do so (yet my upload speed is about 512 kbps). So the only way I could get a file uploaded was to do it via FileHo.com. But then, after I went through all of that trouble. I found out that I would have to download it in Internet Explorer. And if that wasn't enough, I would also have to download and install a download manager called "ADS Technology", which I thought was a little much to ask for a 500kb file. So, I recommend against using Friendly Files, "cause it"s not that friendly.

So, if you need to share Crysis, or Halo 2, go with Megashares. If you need to share that photo of you and your nephew to your grandparents, use GigaSize. If you need to backup your software (or download other "software backups") use Rapidshare. And whatever you do, do not use Friendly Files/FileHo unless you plan on downloading things in Internet Explorer using an unknown download manager.

So, I checked it out, their privacy policy and return policy and found them more than acceptable. I looked for the special lock icon to show that it is a secure site and found it. Confidence grew from there, and I found the pair of shoes that I wanted and bought them then and there. Within a short time, a package arrived in perfect condition from momnpopstores.com and I just had to try them on. Wow! What a difference a new pair of shoes makes! Sign me pleased as punch and will definitely keep this store in my bookmark list.

1. Speed
2. Shipping costs are reasonable.
3. I can find what I want.
4. Local area does not carry items that I want.
5. I do not have to leave my house to shop.
6. No dealing with crowds of people.
7. Ease of shopping.
8. Personal information is secure when I shop with a store that has a lock icon.
9. Save on gasoline
10. Convenient and I can shop in my pajamas, if I want to.

Yes, I think it's that good.

Urbis has a system of rewarding your reviews of other's writing with credits, which you can then use to unlock their reviews of your writing. What this creates is a website where your comments and critique are valuable, are a form of currency. This results in thoughtful reviews of your work. It also challenges you to come up with more than a mere “I liked it!” when reviewing the work of other writers. This is bound to develop your critical reading skills.

So far, I've posted three poems from my archives, and found ways to improve them. I'm finding this invaluable, despite its addictive qualities. Work that has languished in my files for years is being dusted off and given new life.

Poetry isn't the only thing you can post at Urbis. Short stories, essays, non-fiction, journalism, blogs, novel treatments - there is a category for nearly every known form of writing.

Now let's talk interface, because there's nothing worse than a great resource with a bad interface. Thankfully, Urbis has a clean user interface. It loads quickly, and is extremely intuitive. To submit your writing, you click "submit". To review the work of others, you click "review". When there is a new review for you to read, you are emailed. To "unlock" your review, you click on it, and if you have enough credits, it opens up for you to read. If you don't have enough credits, simply click on "review" and give a few critiques.

It's simple. I like me some simple.

Pink Towel Review: