Today I got a call from FedEx asking me the hours I am available at so they can come by and give me a packet from Canada. I then immediately knew that it must be something from one of the companies I currently work with - CX Digital Media.

I felt like a child on Christmas when opening the package, being very curious to see what’s inside it. Here’s a pic with what I got:

- 2 tshirts

- 2 pencils

- 1 thermos flask

- 1 super mini mobile charger
I really like all these stuff. Actually I was just going to buy a new thermos flask because I lost the old one. Not talking about the mini mobile charger which is actually great since my iphone’s batter only lasts less then one day (damn all the apps and stuff).

Thank you very much CX Digital Media and least but not last many thanks to my account manager Waqaas Hashmi who is a great and helpful person!

I was lucky enough to get an invitation on Yahoo Meme. When I first heard of Meme, I said in my mind “oh no, not another twitter clone”. What would be the use of another twitter alike service called Meme? However, I didn’t want to start off with rude words so I gave it a try.

Since this is currently a beta service, you can not sign up freely, you need an invite. Once you get in, you may notice some minor bugs, nothing major anyway. Actually, this Yahoo Meme is interesting and seems to be pretty good. In comparison to twitter, it lacks the search function but it has some interesting features like letting you to add an image to your update, a video or even a song. With twitter you can’t do this, you can only share links to the videos, pictures or songs you liked.

When I said that Meme lacks the search function, some may argue with me. Yes, it does have one but it will only let you search for people and not for updates.

It pretty much looks like twitter:

… so I guess that’s why most of you got irritated.

Bugs and things I don’t like about Yahoo Meme

• It lacks the search function for updates (already mentioned)
• It won’t let you add a custom background (maybe this will change in the future and I am sure it will because it’s common sense that sharing only 5 templates with millions of potential users is not a winner solution).
• I spotted a bug. It didn’t let me post a song. I tried with 3 different links, 3 different songs, nothing worked. I’m sure this will be fixed too.
• This isn’t very important but I didn’t like that it was a must to use the yahoo e-mail for signing up and receiving updates and stuff. I would have preferred gmail instead.

Conclusion

Surprisingly, I believe that this Meme thing has potential. Can it become a competitor for twitter? Yes! The simple and quick interface, neat design and the new functions, they all help.

If you already have an account there, don’t forget to follow me http://meme.yahoo.com/shocs/ .

Do you need an invite?

I have 5 invites left, so I am willing to give to my readers. All you need to do is to retweet this post and submit a comment to this article with your yahoo e-mail and retweet link.

We talked so many times about Stumbleupon so I assume you already know that this is one great social network. Lately, Stumbleupon has introduced a new function called  sharing.

You can now share a story that you liked most with your entire list of friends.  To do this you have to go to “Your favorites”. Once you get there, you will see in the left side of the page a list of thumbnails. Mouse over one of those thumbnails and then click “Share” if you want to share that respective story with your friends. Here is how it looks like:

(click on the image for full size)

The good

It’s obvious that you can now easily share a story that you liked, with your friends. You can manually select some fellows or you just click on “all” and stumbleupon will do the hard work.

The bad

This is also obvious - spammers! Since this functions has been introduced, I started to get way too many stories into my email from people that only want to promote their websites. I do agree to be sent one or two stories per week from a fellow of mine, but sending me 2-3 stories / day / person is just dumb. I don’t even have time to read&see so many websites.

There was something like this before as well. It is named  “Send to” and can still be found in the toolbar. However, with “Send to” you aren’t able to send emails in mass.

Business cards are very important nowadays and I feel like they will always be important because of one simple reason: they are a must. Whenever going at a meeting, you will want to meet new people, interact with others and so on. Alright, you will talk a lot with them at that meeting but you will also want to talk with them later tomorrow so here’s where business cards are important - they will simply give one to you, which practically is a small card that contains little information about that respective person (name,occupation,phone/e-mail).

In return, you always need to have some business cards at you. Don’t fall in that shameful situation of not having a business card at you when someone asks you for one, you just can’t simple say “alright, do you have a pencil and a piece of paper? Write down my contact info!”.

UPrinting is one great company that delivers this kind of stuff - from business cards, to canvas prints, flyers and more, you can find out more by simply visiting their website.

Done with talking, let’s get back to serious things. Here’s one great giveaway that you will definitely like, sponsored by UPrinting:

Prizes:

- The first winner gets 1000 free standard size business cards.

- The second winner gets one free 18×24 canvas print.

You can choose from any of their stocks for these items.

How to enter:

It’s very simple. Just leave a comment at the end of this post, describing what you would use the free business cards/canvas print for.

Rules:

Winners will be picked randomly. Also, winners in the United States and Canada qualify for free shipping. Shipping fees will apply to winners outside these areas.

This giveaway will end on March 26. I wish you good luck!

Getting approved at big affiliate networks that have great payouts it’s a challenging thing, but my brain works on this principle “if he could do it, why couldn’t I?” and you should too. I am member of many affiliate networks and trust me, some of them are really really good (Market Leverage, MaxBounty,etc) but some offer only few campaigns that don’t even pay much. So, choosing and getting approved at a big and good affiliate network is an important step. So, how do I get approved by any affiliate network?

Tip 1 - Have an website/blog

I know, you could be a huge e-mail marketer, but this isn’t enough. Every big affiliate marketer has its own page on the web. Perhaps, you could make your personal website or blog where you describe yourself and what you do. This helps a lot, the review team will definitely think you are a serious and professional guy.

Tip 2 - Speak English fluently

This is only valid for people outside USA. If not all, 90% of the affiliate networks that exist will give you a call and ask you some questions. If you will say only “aaah”, “okaay”, “aaah”, your chances to get approved will decrease. If you are good at writing but not that good at speaking English, ask a friend of yours to speak instead of you.

Tip 3 - Don’t use “ghetto language”

You should never, but never speak with “yo”, “dawg” and I don’t know what other ghetto words when talking to an affiliate network staff member. You won’t be cool doing this, the person who you will be talking with will think you are just a kiddo or a douchebag that only had a dream to make money through affiliate.

Tip 4 - Be prepared to answer any question

Most of the affiliate networks if not all of them will ask you this when trying to join them:

“How are you going to promote our products?”

You should have an answer ready for this question and not babble. If you have a pause like “aaaaa”, your chances to be approved will decrease.

Tip 5 - Use email@your-domain.com instead of gmail, yahoo, etc

Some networks even request you to use the email provided by your domain name in order to verify that you really own that website. Using this tip will show that you are professional and don’t play.

There could be more, but following these tips should eventually get you approved by any affiliate network as long as it is open for new publishers. If you have any other questions, feel free to e-mail me or write a comment here and I will try to help you!

Getting approved isn’t really a big thing, the hard part comes when you have to make money, but this is the first step. You can’t make money without being a member somewhere.

I’ve just upgraded all my blogs, installing the new Wordpress 2.7 which seems to be fantastic! This is a review of the new Wordpress script.

First of all, I can say that Wordpress 2.7 has a new interface which, in my opinion, is better in terms of usability and design than the previous interfaces used on the older Wordpress scripts. You wouldn’t notice the changes looking outside-in, but inside-out. The admin panel got a very clean and modern look which reminds me of the operation system called Macintosh. Here’s how the new Wordpress 2.7 admin panel looks like (click on the picture for maximizing it):

What I like about Wordpress 2.7

I personally switched from Wordpress 2.2.1 (I know, I’m oldschool!) so obviously I had a big shock because the things are very different from what I was used with, but I addapted quickly to the new design because many things are now just much better! A new feature I really like is called “Screen Options”. What it basically does is to show or not show different things on the dashboard, things like “Right Now” (which is a short summary of your blog), “Recent Comments”, “Incoming Links”, “Plugins”, “QuickPress”, “Recent Drafts”, “Wordpress Development Blog”, “Other wordpress news”, you know, in general stuff that was before too but you couldn’t do anything about them. You aren’t interested in let’s say “Other wordpress news”? No problem at all, you won’t see that box any much longer! Another cool feature is that you can now drag the boxes and arrange them the way you like. To do this you must click and hold while moving the boxes.

Did you know that wordpress can be a feedreader too? Sure thing! You can now get the latest articles of your favorite blog right into your wordpress dashboard.

What I don’t like at wordpress 2.7

There are only few things I didn’t like. For example, I am a person who should wear glasses, so I would liked it more if the font was a little bit bigger in the “New Post” page. Another aspect that I didn’t really like is still related to my eyes. Although the new design is clean and modern, there seems to be too much gray and my eyes are hurt. I would add some more blue.

Conclusion

All in all, Wordpress 2.7 is great, and I again recommend you to try it. This way you’ll experience something new, something that will make you be proud of wordpress, and you will stay up to date with the latest security updates.

How do I upgrade?

Very simple! All you need to do is to download the new script from here, access your ftp, delete the old “wp-admin” and “wp-includes” folders, and then copy all the new wordpress files (skipping wp-content because there are your themes, pictures, plugins, and you don’t want to lose that), overwriting the old ones. If you encounter any problems, feel free to add a comment here, telling what happened and I will try to help you.