Why I’m getting an iPhone 3GS – No Matter What!

iPhone shelfDo you have it yet, the iPhone 3GS? No? Me neither 🙁 But it’s not because I don’t want it, it’s because I can’t!! My current iPhone 3G was purchased at Vodafone Malta last year for €515 (US$ 723) without a contract but still sim-locked to the Vodafone network. Recently I had it unlocked at Vodafone for €70 (US$ 98), down from the normal €200 (US$ 281), because they originally told me €70 but later increased the price to €200.

Had I bought it with a 2-year contract (only option), it would – after 2 years – have costed me between €1,255 (US$ 1,764) for the €40 (US$ 53) monthly plan and €2,400 (US$3,370) for the €100 (US$ 140) monthly plan. Not exactly cheap, but the monthly plans do come with minutes, texts and data, bear in mind.

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iPhone SMS vulnerability allows eavesdropping

Wooops! Charlie Miller, OS X security expert, discovered a rather serious flaw in the SMS-part of the iPhone and presented his findings at the SyScan conference in Singapore recently. The hole in the SMS software allows for a remote person to run software code on the iPhone and monitor the location of iPhone using GPS, … Read more →

Retain Visitors To Your Site And Increase Sales Conversions: Exit Grabber Review

Exit Grabber pop-up: Text-based example.
Exit Grabber pop-up: Text-based example.

You want better sales conversions or membership registrations on your website, am I right? Because, after all, that’s what puts food on the table. And beer in the fridge. After having this software recommended by a good friend and Internet marketing guru, I suggested to one of my clients that they gave it a try.

Months later, the results are in.

Allow me to cut to the chase, while Exit Grabber claims to be able to boost sales by 327%, my client “only” saw an increase in membership registration of around 26% per month, compared to a usually very steady membership registration flow. To be honest, that’s not a bad increase at all, considering the price of Exit Grabber is only around 80 bucks. And if they didn’t have this software on their site, the users would  just have left the website, never to return again. And never become a paying member.

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Become A Blogger – Free Video Training Course

This is a time limited deal, the team is shutting down for new “students” at midnight EST July 3rd, so you probably don’t have much time less if you want to read the entire sales pitch and join in on the program, like I just did. You have several options, you can start out with … Read more →

So Long, Safari 4, It’s Been Fun. Welcome, Firefox 3.5!

It’s been a nice few weeks with Safari 4.0 and 4.0.1, when I first switched from Firefox to the new Safari. At first I missed all my Firefox add-ons, but I learned to surf without them, thanks to the speed and “ease of use” in Safari, plus it was very reliable and didn’tget amazingly slow … Read more →

Read It Later: Useful Firefox Add-on & iPhone App

Are you also that kinda web surfer who tends to open up a bunch of tabs with interesting stuff you want to read or study later on and eventually wind up having those tabs in your Firefox browser for weeks, without reading them? Believe me, it’s possible – some of my 15-20 always-open tabs in Firefox is more than 6 months old, simply because I wanted to read them but never got around to it.

Until now.

Thanks to Read It Later I now have 2 amazing features in just one product, one being the free Firefox add-on and one being a paid iPhone app (there’s a free version also, with less features).

Let’s cut to the chase.

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Useful Firefox add-ons (extensions) you cannot live without

Firefox logoThere’s a 22% chance you’re using Firefox, and since you’re actually reading this, you’re probably a bit more tech savvy than the average Internet user, so you’re most likely using Firefox (or Safari, but sometimes Firefox, am I right?). Let’s get on with it – here’s some Firefox add-ons, or extensions if you will, that I can’t live without, can you…?

Adblock Plus

This one is tricky. Advertisements are what keeps lots of the Internet free now a days, so blocking the ads is not the best thing to do. With that said, some sites simply overdo with ads – way too much. Use Adblock Plus to block the overwhelming ads you’re certain you don’t want to see, e.g. flash banners and such. But don’t forget to actually click on some of the ads you see, just to support the site owner and show your appreciation. It doesn’t cost you anything and only takes a second. I do this myself sometimes, even in YouTube videos, if the advertisement is just a little bit interesting.

» Adblock Plus

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How to make the perfect Cappuccino, or: How I learned to stop worrying and making my own cappuccino

Apple logo foamHave you ever wondered how the restaurants made your cappuccino? Because I have, so I decided to go out and buy some rather cheap espresso machine with a steam wand, just to try it out myself. I like coffee and cappuccino, but I prefer to enjoy when I’m out, so when I’m at home, I mostly drink sometimes in the mornings or in the evenings if I feel like making one.

Here’s how I make a cappuccino, as good as possible, with the equipment I have to my disposal:

1: If possible, use a metal pitcher. Make sure to chill it first, this will better the foam.

2: Fill metal pitcher with “half a mug” of fresh whole milk, that hasn’t been steamed before. For my cappuccinos, I use 2 espresso shots, which equals pretty much 1 coffee cup. I’ll be using the same amount of milk, as the 2 espresso shots – and then pour it together in a mug afterwards.

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What does a 13 year old do with an 80’s Walkman?

Quite an interesting experiment, and funny too. BBC gave a 13 year old kid a Sony Walkman, as it appeared when it was first released almost 30 years ago. The Walkman was a complete stranger to the kid, which resulted in some funny observations. “When I wore it walking down the street or going into … Read more →

Beginners Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), part 1

Business GraphIf you have absolutely no clue, or very little, about Search Engine Optimizaiton, reading this post will get you started with some basic information.

As you have probably figured out already, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SERP means Search Engine Result Pages, ie. the page you see on e.g. Google with the results of what you just searched for. And SE, you guessed it, Search Engine, like Google, Yahoo, Bing and so on.

I’m going to assume that you already have a website or a blog, that you wish to optimize a bit and get some more hits from the Search Engines. Lets start with the first and most important rule.

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"Uncharted" to be made into a movie?

PlayStation 3 game, “Uncharted”, my favourite PS3-game by the way, is looking to become a movie, according to Columbia Pictures, who’s having Kyle Ward write the script. Kyle Ward has also been connected with movies based on “Kane & Lynch”, with Bruce Willis playing one of them, and “Hitman 2”, claims The Hollywood Reporter. It’s … Read more →

My First 2 Weeks With Twitter: Experiences and recommendations

twitter_logoToday is exactly 2 weeks since I signed up for Twitter and started using it “for real”, and have I learned a thing or two!!! This post will sum up some of the things I’ve learned so far, my experiences and recommendations.

The direct impacts Twitter have had on me involves:

  • Relaunching my website, as I thought it would be interesting to see how it would turn out, when I “advertise” my blog posts through Twitter. Also, for some time I’ve been needing a public place to publish some of the things I have on my mind, so this Twitter thing seemed to be a good idea.
  • Reading a ton of blogs and articles, almost everyday. Back in my pre-Twitter days, I mostly just read the local newspaper online as well as TUAW (Apple blog), in addition to some forums once in a while. Post-Twitter, I’ve come across websites and blogs I never knew existed – and they have alot of great content, articles and theories, that I enjoy reading.
  • I’m much more updated, because the important news spread to Twitter faster than I would otherwise have received them (by my daily visit to the newspaper sites).
  • I connect with new and interesting people, that I’ve never met or known before.

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Apple might beat Nokia in future "mobile war"

Despite advanced smartphones and being the largest phone manufacturer in the world, Nokia simply cannot cope with Apple when it comes to content and the use of software within the phones. That might cause serious problems for Nokia, when the “future mobile war” begins. The biggest advantage with the Apple iPhone is surely the App … Read more →

6 Highly Recommended Ways of Using Twitter Search

twitter_logoWhile some may argue that FriendFeed is more “real time” than Twitter, Twitter is still the bigger player in the “social network league”. Here’s some great tips on how to get the best out of Twitter search.

1: Stay updated with topics you care about.

I like to keep up to date with Apple and iPhone news. But what if I also wanted Palm Pre in that cocktail but avoid all the retweets, well, you should simply do a search like this:

apple OR iphone OR “palm pre” -rt filter:links

2: Managing multiple Twitter accounts but still want to stay updated on them all?

Some users might have multiple Twitter accounts, and it would be nice to see all messages to all your accounts, regardless of which one you’re logged in to, at the moment:

to:techpatio OR to:techpatio1 OR to:techpatio2 (you catch the drift…. very simple)

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Michael Jackson Death Crashed Several Websites

The story about the death of Michael Jackson was so big an event, that several news sites and services simply could not keep up with the increased traffic from visitors. Gossip “girl” Perez Hilton took quite a blow in his website uptime, as well as TMZ, which recovered fairly fast though.

Even Twitter wasn’t able to cope with it all, but they’re already having some issues every now and then, so no big news really. According to Trendrr an amazing 100,000 mentions of Michael Jackson occured on Twitter – an hour!! That’s about the same high level as the beginning of the Iran election.

Good ol’ mighty Google didn’t have the best of days either. They confirmed to BBC that they actually thought they were victim of some sort of an attack, since so many searches occured for the same subject at the same time. That’s why alot of people ended up with the message “We’re sorry but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer”.

R.I.P., M.J.

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