Longest Palindrome Ever?

The Longest Palindrome in the World?

A palindrome is a word, phrase or book that reads the same backwards as forwards e.g. Madam, or even Madam I'm Adam.

If you want to have a look at what may be the longest modern palindrome have a look here http://www.palindromelist.com/longest.htm - it's about 5,000 words long and it reads the same forwards and backwards, quite an achievement for the anonymous person who wrote it !

In Hinduism however there are two great books one called the Mahabharata and the other called the Ramayana both about as long as the Iliad and some clever fellow re-wrote them in such a way that read from front to back it is the Mahabharata and read from back to front it is the Ramayana, not a palindrome but something !

Removing Date from Wordpress Posts

Remove Date and Time in Wordpress

I've just started messing around with Wordpress again, which I still heartily dislike. I wanted to remove the date and time from underneath individual posts and finally discovered how to do it. So if you want to remove the date and time under a post, which is very annoying, this is what you do.

Click on DESIGN then on THEME EDITOR, then in the list on the right click on Single Post (single.php).

In the code window that opens up find this text

"This entry was posted on - php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ? at ?php the_time ?and is filed under ?php the_category(', ') ?. "

(I haven't typed all the pointy brackets here as they were messing things up. )

Remove the above offending wording (and make sure you remove all the brackets etc.. to the end of the sentence, and click on Update file, now check the bottom of your individual post and the date and time will have gone. Hooray ! Have a lie down.

This is just for individual posts, for the main page I don't know yet but I'll figure it out later. For proof of what I am talking about check out my post on my FINANCIAL MITES site Forex Trading Basics scroll down to the bottom of the post and you will see there is no date (there was one a few minutes ago).

Phrogger Lives a Year in Closet

Japanese Phrogger Lives in Man's Closet for a Year

What are phroggers? Phrogging is the practice of living in someone else's house without them knowing it. In Japan a woman has just been discovered after living in a man's closet for a year. When you know how small Japanese apartments are then this feat is quite extraordinary. If there is a world record for phrogging then this lady may be entitled to claim it.

Why is it here on a blog relating to domain names ? Because a few months back I registered the domain name Phroggers .com - so it is relevant to my domain name. Perhaps one day there will be a Phroggers association ? I am open to offers for the name by the way.

The woman sneaked into the man’s house when he left the door open one day. He became suspicious when food started disappearing, so he finally installed some cameras to see what was going on.

When he saw some movement he called the police who found the 58-year-old woman in the top compartment of the man’s closet. She was arrested for trespassing. She was quite lucky he wasn't a psychopath !

“We searched the house … checking everywhere someone could possibly hide,” Sergeant Itakura said. “When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side.”

The woman said she had no place to live. She had been enterprising and had moved a mattress into the closet and even took showers. The police said she was “neat and clean.”

Do I smell romance in the air ? Or a book ? Or a Hollywood movie ? "My Year in the Closet" "My Closet Hell" "How Green is My Closet?" "Closet Encounters of the Third Kind"- the possibilities are endless ! And I claim copyright on all of them.

Blogger Advertising Rates

How Much Do Bloggers Charge for Advertising Spots?

Full story in the Chicago Tribune : Blogging Paying Off for a Few

If you’re a blogger you may be interested in the subject of how to make money from blogs. You have probably heard of the big money bloggers John Chow and Darren Rowse already, but how about Jason Busch ? I had never heard of him, but according to the Chicago Tribune he is the “envy of most business bloggers”. Well, that’s a moot point as in order to envy him you would first have had to have heard of him. Be that as it may Mr Busch apparently makes around $300,000 a year from his blog SpendMatters which is aimed at procurement and supply-chain professionals.

So now that you have heard of him, you may be justified in feeling envious, although don’t forget envy is one of the seven deadly sins (along with lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath and pride in case you were wondering). I’m not sure why envy should be considered a deadly sin, but I’m not a Christian so I don’t need to know, but it seems to me that envy can be quite a powerful motivational factor.

Mr Busch also states that he wants to make $1 million from his blog-based business by the end of 2009, which is an ambitious target but good luck to him. Bear in mind that his business also includes a “Web site, podcasts, Webinars and speaking engagements”. Plus he also makes money from a strategy and marketing consultancy consulting, Azul Partners.

Although he sees the future being much more closely linked to the blog, which he says has developed a brand of its own and which will now no doubt develop even further after its exposure in the Chicago Tribune and here !

The Chicago Tribune also reveals some interesting statistics about bloggers. There are apparently over 120 million blogs in existence, - there were only 100,000 in 2003, so that’s quite a jump. But, according Jennifer Mclean of Technorati, only about 7 million are actively updated. Actively updated meaning updated once every three months ! I’m amazed, but that makes me one of the top 7 million bloggers in the world – woohoo ! Probably even higher given that I update this blog every few days at least. It is also disturbing, as there must be a lot of blogs lying in around in cyberspace unloved and attracting nothing but copious amounts of pixel dust.

How Much to Charge for Advertisements on Your Blog ?

If you are thinking of getting ads. for you blog then another interesting figure you may want to know is how much you can charge advertisers to place an ad. in a prime spot on your blog. Derrick Sorles, co-owner of Business Blogging Consultants, who publishes 12 blogs, says that once you get to page one on Google, people will start calling you to find out how much you charge for advertisements on your site.

He also says that he offers three different sizes of display ads. for around $30 to $50 a month. That doesn’t seem like a lot to me. I charge $120 a month to advertise on this site, which probably explains why I’ve got no advertisers.

In an excellent article -Does Your Blog Monetization Leave Money on the Table - Caroline Middlebrook says that lots of people charge way too little for ads. on their blogs – the range seems to start at $6 a month ! – she herself charges $100 a month.

Interestingly Jason Busch had a sponsor already lined up before he started his blog, but it took him over a year to find a second sponsor. So it’s not as easy as it may seem. But a basic sponsorship for spendmatters now that it attracts several thousand visitors a day, is $5K a month. So that’s quite a difference compared to what other bloggers seem to be charging – the message is "stop selling yourself short". In fact I have just increased my advertising rate to $500 a month (I have to take into account the fact that I am not on Page 1 of Google).

In Australia, Darren Rowse has been earning a six-figure income from ProBlogger.net and a number of photography blogs since 2005. He says that in the beginning he had to be proactive and approach advertising agencies, now they approach him, so if you they are not approaching you get approaching them.

The secret to all this appears to be to get onto the first page on Google for your chosen keywords, to do this you are going to need to get backlinks, but as I haven’t got that figured out either I suggest you get that particular piece of advice from someone else. Taataaa.

SpendMatters
Jason Busch
Make Money Blogging

TRAFFIC Domain Name Auction Results

TRAFFIC Domain Name Sales $2.5M

The economic crisis and credit crunch wqould appear to be hitting the world of domain name buying and selling too. The latest auction of domain names organised by TRAFFIC raised $2,555,00, but this is considered by most to be disappointing as it is a lot lower than the previous auction.

There were apparently only 75 people in attendance with 75 online. Previous shows have had several hundred attendees. There is the credit crunch to consider of course,and the subprime crisis and also lots of changes in the area of parked domains, with revenue down so high prices harder to justify.

It would seem that money (or credit) is not in such easy supply as in previous years. It could also be that TRAFFIC got their marketing wrong, certainly nobody told me about the auction, which is a pity, given all the useless spam I get from other people an e-mail about something I might be interested in would be quite useful.

Some people also seem to think that Kevin Ham is the only buying names, which may be true, I have no way of knowing, and is interesting if it is true. Kevin Ham is an incredibly successful domaining millionaire - for the latest sotry about him see - http://www.reinvent.com/news_life_just_begun.html

On the bright side GasPrices.com and InsuranceRates.com went for $225k each and maybe.com sold for $40k which seems ridiculous to me !

Some people saw .mobi sales as being disappointing.

Only 105 domains were sold :

$225,000 gasprices.com
$225,000 insurancerates.com
$170,000 rainbow.com
$122,000 athlete.com
$120,000 ow.com
$120,000 ringtones.org
$92,500 track.com
$80,000 computerparts.com
$70,000 grass.com
$55,000 sexshows.com
$55,000 filmmaking.com
$50,000 susan.com
$50,000 asia.net
$49,000 anger.com
$42,500 postalcodes.com
$40,000 maybe.com
$37,500 footballscores.com
$35,000 specialoffer.com
$35,000 usedguitars.com
$33,500 sagittarius.com
$30,000 blueray.com
$30,000 floortiles.com
$30,000 bassguitar.com
$29,000 piano.net
$25,000 closings.com
$25,000 boxingnews.com
$25,000 typo.com
$20,000 conglomerate.com
$19,000 engraved.com
$18,000 labsupplies.com
$18,000 mortgage.mobi
$17,500 exerciseballs.com
$17,500 drugs.mobi
$17,000 tvschedule.com
$17,000 freetrailer.com
$16,500 endorsement.com
$16,000 investmentplanner.com
$16,000 carcenter.com
$15,000 management.net
$12,500 refinancerates.com
$12,500 underconstruction.com
$12,500 onlinecounseling.com
$12,000 patti.com
$12,000 influential.com
$12,000 wwb.com
$12,000 language.org
$12,000 honey.net
$11,000 mufflershop.com
$10,500 sales.mobi
$10,500 virgins.net
$10,000 celluliteremoval.com
$10,000 men.mobi
$10,000 films.mobi
$10,000 escort.mobi
$9,500 migrate.com
$9,500 bathsupplies.com
$9,500 computers.mobi
$9,500 airlines.mobi
$9,500 assorted.com
$9,500 freecosmetics.com
$9,250 michigan.info
$9,000 employmentads.com
$9,000 theaterreviews.com
$8,500 civilclaims.com
$8,500 records.mobi
$8,250 metricconversion.com
$8,000 physicians.info
$7,500 honorroll.com
$7,000 flossing.com
$7,000 hospitalization.com
$6,500 luxuryestate.com
$6,000 boats.mobi
$6,000 busstations.com
$6,000 stockmutualfunds.com
$6,000 20.net
$5,500 webclass.com
$5,000 xmaslist.com
$5,000 scraper.com
$5,000 rabid.com
$5,000 forsale.mobi
$5,000 show.mobi
$5,000 airports.info
$5,000 primebeef.com
$5,000 electronicpestcontrol.com
$5,000 garden.info
$5,000 boot.net
$4,500 exerciseclothing.com
$4,000 medicalsupplystores.com
$4,000 badcreditloans.org
$3,500 usedlamborghinis.com
$3,500 uniformservices.com
$3,500 cemeterylots.com
$3,000 thankyougiftbaskets.com
$3,000 burningdvds.com
$3,000 religion.mobi
$3,000 airforcebase.com
$2,500 graphicssoftware.com
$2,500 coconuttrees.com
$2,500 bestmattresses.com
$2,500 optimize.net
$2,000 greeksculptures.com
$1,500 armtattoos.com
$1,500 slangwords.com
$1,200 campfiresongs.com
$1,000 highdefinitionprogramming.com

VAX RUBBISH VACUUM CLEANERS SUCK ! (NOT)

Don't Buy a VAX Vacuum Cleaner

Do VAX vacuum cleaners suck ? Yes, but not as you would wish! VAX are useless, so don't buy a VAX vacuuum cleaner. Are VAX any good - no, they are rubbish. I just bought one and when I tried to use it it was totally useless. It sucks, but unfortunately not dust, it just sucks.

I would have done better to have taken my carpet out into the garden and beaten it with a stick. I took the useless VAX hoover back to Argos where I had the misfortune to buy it and they said tough ! I was told they don't do refunds on useless products, they just sell them. So they are quite willing to take your money selling rubbish, but they refuse to state in their catalogue that VAX vacuum cleaners are rubbish and to be avoided at all costs. If you want a refund you have to make sure you don't use it first, but of course you don't know the VAX rubbish vacuum cleaner you've just bought is useless until you actually try to use it ! By which time it is too late.

So now I'm stuck with a useless VAX vacuum cleaner / hoover - so I still need a vacuum cleaner so I've got to try and buy smething that is not rubbish like VAX and of course I won't be using Argos any more. But I shall of course be warning as many people as possible via my numerous blogs and websites ! Buy anything except VAX you certainly can't do any worse.

America.com Up for Sale

America .Com Domain Name Up for Sale

The domain name America.com is to be put up for auction andm according to the people in the know, it could achieve a very high price. There has apparently been very strong interest and there is the possibility that it could go for over $12 million.

Not everyone agrees though, Ron Jackson editor of Domain Name Journal says : "I think it's a seven-figure name."

America.com will be sold from May 22, 2008, 2:00pm EST to May 29, 2008, 2:00pm EST.
Interest has been shown in the name apparently from industries ranging from yachting companies to clothing retailers.

The sale is being handled by Sedo whose largest ever sale was Vodka.com which was sold for $3 million to a Russian vodka company with plans to enter North America.

Buyers have recently shown interest in "geo domains" such as Chinese.com that sold for $1.1 million. So America.com is expected to sell for more than that.

The domain name was bought 3 years ago by a foreign foreign investor who prefers to remain anonymous.

So if you have a few million burning a hole in your pocket check out the site America.com, pity I won’t get a commission if you do decide to buy.

BIDO The New Domain Name Auction Site

Bido.com an Innovative New Domain Name Auction Site

While wandering around the Internet recently I came upon another new domain name auction site, created by Sahar Sarid, which he has called BIDO. This is the second new domain name auction site I have come across in the last two weeks, which is encouraging as, like I said in my previous post - BQB New Domain Name Auction Site, the sector could do with the competition!

Sahar Sarid is one of the big hitters in the domaining world, he also has his own blog The Conceptualist. I wrote a short post about him about a year ago (unfortunately mis-spelling his name in the process). He is a self-made entrepreneur who started on his path to fame and fortune by asking in an Internet chat room if anyone would lend him $3000 ! Amazingly someone -Jeff Bhavnanie - said yes. For Sahar Sarid's rather extraordinary story see DNJournal.

Bido.com is an auction site with one rather major difference from the other auction sites you may know about, namely it aims on having only one auction a day ! A rather unusual strategy you may think and I suspect you are not alone in your reaction. I can understand why Sahar Sarid would want to concentrate on quality rather than quantity, long lists of names for sale are indeed offputting. The quality names tend to get lost in amongst the far more numerous average names and indeed the average names also tend to influence people's perception of the quality names, making them seem average too. Plus, if you are a seller, it is very annoying to have your name lost among millions of other names with little chance of anybody actually seeing them.

However, having just one domain name up for sale each day does not eliminate the problem of the many thousands of average names, it merely means that someone at Bido has to pre-screen them all to pick just the 'special one' that will be sold that day. Bido is accepting submissions now, so you might like to submit some of your names, but you will still have the problem of how to get your name selected, so just make sure it really is a good name or you really will be just wasting everyone's time.

BIDO will be calling upon the services of a panel of experts to carry out the pre-selection and decide what constitutes a good name, and if you consider yourself an expert in the field of domain name selection then you can even offer your services to Bido on their site, just fill in the form.

Another innovative idea that Sahar Sarid has come up with is that all auctions will start at $1 with no reserve, that sounds a bit scary but fear not, if the domain name does not reach a pre-set minimum price then Bido itself will make up the difference e.g. if you set a minimum of $2,000 but the bidding only reaches $1,500 then Bido will pay the $500 shortfall (less commission). What nice people ! Perhaps someone should suggest the idea to Ebay.

There are certain other restrictions so you will need to check out the Bido website to get all the details.

The idea certainly is novel, and should make for an interesting way of auctioning domain names and I for one will be interested in seeing how it works out, and seeing what names are chosen, but with only 1 name a day being auctioned your chances of having one of your names selected have got to be slim. I also don't understand how Sahar Sarid intends making money from this venture. Bido's commission as I understand will be 8% so presumably the names are going to have be rather expensive names to make the venture worthwhile. Although I guess there will be indirect benefits from the numbers of people visiting the site.

What constitues a good name is an interesting question - for example how much do you think the following names are worth - TAZ.com - Coolnews.com - Posse.com - SideJobs.com - Systematic.com - how much would you pay for them ?

Well they were sold for $40K - $30K - $24.5K - $16K - $400K respectively this year. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder ?

So 10 out of 10 to Sahar Sarid for innovation and all power to his elbow ! I will be watching BIDO with interest and I may even submit one or two of my own names.

Thank you for reading and please feel free to leave your comments and insights.

BIDO
Sahar Sarid
Domain Name Auction
BQB

BQB New Domain Name Auction Site

New Domain Name Auction Site Launched

As previously mentioned BQB, a new site forum buying and selling domain names New Domain Name Auction Site has been created. People will be able to buy and sell their domain names at auction without having to pay any commission, which is good news as the domain name industry big hitters needs some competition .

You may be wondering why you want to invest in domain names, in which case read this post about domain name millionaire Kevin Ham You Wanna Be a Domain Name Millionaire?

So if you are at all interested in the possibility of making money from buying and selling domain names sign up quick. BQB is however selective about who they will accept but if you mention my name 'advaita' on the application form as your referrer then hopefully that will sway them !

The new site is BQB (Better Quality Business) - it's only been active for around a week and is still in beta but it already has over 150 members and over 300 domain names listed for sale.

It concentrates mainly on short .coms as this is where 90% of sales are.

They state : "BQB is founded on Professionalism - each member is individually screened, successful applications are manually approved"

So if you are looking to buy or sell a domain - go check them out ! It's free to sign up but they do say they are selective about who they accept but if you mention my name 'advaita' on the application form as your referrer then hopefully that will sway them - sign up to BQB !

Find Expired Domain Names Using Google

How to Find Expired Domain Names Using Google

This post explains how to find expired domain names using Google. If you are interested in domaining or want to make money from domain names or if you are just looking for a domain name for your site that has already been registered and may therefore have some residual pagerank and visitors, then you might have asked yourself "How Do I Find Expired Domain Names?" If you don't know anything about buying and selling domain names or why people would want to do it - read this highly informative article about Domain Name Millionaire Kevin Ham

Well Mr. DotSauce from DotSauce has just created a cool video tutorial which explains exactly what you need to do ! And he has very kindly made it available free of charge which is even cooler. It turns out it is not too difficult to find expired domain names using Google (as long as you know which keys to hit on your keyboard and in which order!) and the most important bit is done from your Google search window. It could hardly be easier.

So after you have finished reading my wonderful blurb check out Mr. DotSauce's video tutorial and do what he says - once you know what to do it's easy - and strangely satisfying, much better than all those other videos you've been watching !

The all-important Google search you need to do is - "Auction Date" 04-10-2008 intitle:xxxxxxxx site:whois.domaintools.com - where the date is any date you like but it must be two weeks before today's date and where xxxxxx is the keyword you want to insert (although it can aso be done without keywords) - so if you want a site relating to a particular keyword, then replace xxxxx with the keyword of your choice. I have typed this here so that you know exactly what to type as the video zips by quite fast and you need to keep pausing it to see exactly what is being typed. The rest of the video explains what to do after you have carried out the Google search and it would take waaaaaay too long for me to type it all here and your attention span just wouldn't handle it, but on a video it's easy. You also need to use a neat tool created by DnCleaner DNCleaner to clean up the list you end up with.

So here is the link to how to find expired names using Google - How to Find Expired Domain Names Using Google - it could be the best video ever ! Thank you Mark from DotSauce, I might finally be able to register some decent domain names !

Find Expired Domain Names
Video tutorial expired domain names

Previous posts :

New Domain Name Auction Site Launched
Fastest Cars in the World

Fastest Cars in the World

Make Money - Pay Off Your Debts - Buy the Fastest Car in the World ! - Easy

So you want to make money, online preferably, doing very little and watching the money simply pour into your online account ? Why not ? Some people do it. Some people don't even have to do it, it seems it's all done for them by the mysterious power of attraction ! Haha, well I must have tapped into some other mysterious power.

(SCS Ultimate Aero - 257mph)

But once you've made your money you may want to spend it on the fastest car in the world, in which case it would be nice to know which one that is exactly. So I have kindly put together the list of the Top 10 Fastest Cars in the World !

(Bugatti Veyron - 253 mph)









The list of the Top 10 Fastest Cars in the World - courtesy of Forbes Magazine

1. SSC (Shelby Super Cars) Ultimate Aero - top speed 257 mph - price $654K
2. Bugatti Veyron - 253 mph - $1.5 million
3. Koenigsegg CCK - 250 mph - $695K
4. Saleen S7 Twin Turbo - 248 mph - $595K
5. Bristol Figher T - 225 mph - $700K
6. Pagani Zonda F - 215 mph - $741K
7. Spyker C8 Double 12 S - 215 mph - $325K
8. Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 - 213 mph - $430K
9. McLaren Mercedes SLR - 206 mph - $498K
10. Silva GT - 205 mph - $75K (for the cheapskates among you !)

Strangely there is no mention of fuel consumption.

I've got to admit a preference for the Bugatti. To see the whole article with all the gruesome details see : The World's Fastest Cars - please leave a comment on which you prefer and how you intend to get the money to pay for it - and let me in on your secret !

If you came here by mistake and what you were really looking for was a picture of the beautiful, voluptuous and curvaceous Nigella Lawson eating an ice-cream by Lake Titisee whilst dreaming of a Black Forest Gateau then you need to go here : - Nigella Lawson, Lake Titisee and the Black Forest Gateau Caper

- you may need to scroll down a couple of inches.

New Domain Name Auction Site Launched

New Auction Site for Domain Names

If you follow the world of domain name buying and selling you will be pleased to learn that there is now a new site where you can auction domain names. Competition is good, especially as in the domain name industry there is not a lot of competition around. The big names tend to have things pretty much sewn up, with the exception of the domain name forums such as Namepros and DomainState.

The new site is BQB (Better Quality Business) - it advertises itself as No commission, No Listing Fees. No BS. and it certainly looks like it means business and intends to build up its client base so as to be in a position to rival its more famous competitors. It's only been up and running for a few days and is still in beta but it already has over 300 names listed for sale.

It is concentrating mainly on short .coms as this is where 90% of sales are - in their own words "BQB.com is a no commission, next generation domain name auction platform dedicated to short domains."

They further state : "BQB.com Inc. seeks to reduce the pain sellers of domain names currently endure, paying exhorbitant commissions which are in our opinion often unjustified." Well I think everybody will agree with that sentiment, except of course those charging the exhorbitant commissions, we know who they are.

"BQB is founded on Professionalism - each member is individually screened, successful applications are manually approved"

I for one am grateful that there is an alternative to the big faceless organisations which normally deal with domain auctions and look forward to the continuingsuccess of BQB.

So if you are looking to buy or sell a domain - go check them out ! If you do decide to sign just give my name 'advaita' as referral, it won't make me any commission but it will get my name entered into their competition. Thanks.

Astronauts Required Apply to ESA

How Can I Be An Astronaut ?

Ever thought you might like to be an astronaut ? I did once upon a time, unfortunately the only astronauts around when I was young were a few Americans and Soviets and the crew of the Starship Enterprise so I was robbed of my chance !

But now if you want to be an astronaut then your luck might be in 'cause the European Space Agency is looking for four astronauts. You need to be a member of one the 17 European states and also "highly motivated !" (what a surprise).

For more details have a look at my education and jobs blog Astronauts Wanted

For information on how to write a covering letter see : How to Write a Covering Letter

Astronauts wanted
ESA Astronauts
European Space Agency