Affordable Websites

How to start your Own Amazon Affiliate Shop

Staff Writer — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 04:49:30 +0000

What is the Amazon Associate Program

Amazon has the largest and most successful online affiliate program. Over 1,000,000 websites have joined Amazon Associates because their program works.

Place links on your site to Amazon
You earn up to 15% in referral fees
Steps
- You may need to modify your permissions beyond the below recommended settings. You’ll know because Associate-O-Matic will give you cues that you still need to write and/or read enable a particular folder such as /aom. For example if 775 doesn’t work you may need to make it 777.
- The first time you open the Control Panel, you’ll be asked to enter your login username and password. Once set, you’ll be asked for this login on all subsequent visits. If you ever decide to change your login, simply delete the file in the /aom directory called cfg.login.php. You’ll then have a chance to reset the password. Though we know this is crude, we will build a better interface for updating your login in a future version.
- You must have your own website in order to build an Amazon.com store front.
- For a Live Example of a UK Shoe Shop with Overseas Delivery Option click here.
- You can set your Shop to ANY Category i.e. Shoes, Electronics, Books, Slimming etc.etc.
- If you need ANY help setting this up please contact me.

Monitoring & Managing your electricity use

Staff Writer — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 14:34:29 +0000

With the increase in electricity prices, many businesses and home owners are starting to talk about ways of reducing their electricity consumption. The big problem is that most people stop at talk. One of the main reasons for this is confusion about what is the best way for people to reduce their own electricity use.

So what is the best place to start if you want to act on reducing your electricity use? Well the most important thing is to start understanding better how you use electricity.

Firstly, do you actually know how much electricity you use every month? It seems like a silly question, but most people don’t know the answer. Tracking your monthly use is very helpful as you then know how much you are using and if any energy efficiency measures lead to reductions in your monthly use. Even better, is tracking your daily use, as you can get a much better sense of the impact of change and also start to understand what consumes the most energy in your home or business. You can track your use by taking an electricity metre reading at the same time every day or on the last day of the month.

However the best way to simplify things for your self is to install an electricity monitor. Electricity monitors range in price from around R900.00 to R1200.00 (EUR 90.00 to EUR 120.00/ They generally come with a wireless device that clips onto your main electricity cable. This then takes readings of current use and transmits to a monitor where you can see how much electricity you are using at any one time. The monitor also accumulates this information and if the system you have bought allows it you can download the information and see your hourly, daily and weekly use of electricity.

The manufactures of these monitors claim that they pay for themselves in a few months with the savings you make by just being more aware of your actual use. While this not be the case for every user, if you have never measured your electricity before you will be surprised at what you learn and how it changes your behaviour.

Some of the main reasons to install a monitor are:

1. Seeing how much electricity you use at any one moment unlocks the competitive drive in you to reduce you use. Since I installed my monitor I constantly go around turning off unnecessary things as I can now see if I am using more electricity than expected.

2. You will learn how much electricity you use when you aren’t actually doing anything (eg how much you use when you leave the house, or your turn off the lights in your office at the end of the day). Many people find out that they are actually using a lot when nothing is happening in their business or home. High usage can indicate things like faults in your electricity wiring, the presence of vampire equipment that use energy even when they have been switched and equipment that has been left on unnecessarily.

3. You will start to understand your patterns of energy use. For instance my home monitor shows that my electricity usage spikes dramatically in the morning after everyone has showered. This reflects the geyser starting to heat up a new batch of cold water. It also shows a number of energy spikes in the night when the geyser starts to heat up again after the water falls below the set temperature. Based on this information I can see that my geyser is my biggest energy user, so it is the most effective item to tackle first.

4. You can track if any changes you make, make a difference: For instance if you start to switch off your geyser for parts of the day, you will be able to see if you then use less energy, or if the savings are lost as the geyser has to work harder when it is switched on again.

Some Devices to use

Owl Electricity Monitor Review – Micro CM130

Positives

Cheapest of all the energy monitors
Batteries included
Strong and reliable signal transmission
Power saver mode
Wireless Display is portable

Negatives

Running total only, no history function
Can’t export results to the web or PC
Short battery life

Installation

If you can change a light bulb, you can install an owl electricity monitor, it’s that easy.

To be able to measure the performance of a solar water heater all you need to do is find the wire (normally red) that powers the backup electrical heating element. For a heat pump water heater you will use the wire that powers the unit itself.

Before doing anything else make sure that all the power in your house is off to avoid potential accidents, the risk is small but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Install the batteries provided, two in the monitor and two in the transmitter.

Press the reset button in the transmitter battery compartment and then hold the Check key until the red light start to flash slowly. After that, press the reset button on the back of the display.

Take the current clamp provided with the owl electricity monitor and position it around the relevant wire, clipping it in place. And that’s all there is to it.

It took me around 15 minutes to complete the whole installation and get the first readings on the owl energy meter when I connected it to my hot water heater.

Basic, But Does the Job

This is a very basic energy meter as reflected in the low price so you don’t get a history function and you can’t attach it to a pc or the web to generate graphs. All it does is give you a cumulative running total of the kwh power usage of the wire it’s attached to but for measuring the power performance of solar water heaters that’s all you really need.

It’s useful to know what the power consumption is within a certain time period so you will have to make a note of the readings, say on the first of every month to get a better grasp of what’s going on, but that takes only a few seconds.

A big advantage of the owl wireless electricity monitor is the fact that the display is portable and the transmitter range is around 30 metres (98 feet) which effectively means you can put it anywhere inside your house.

Battery life is not too good but if you put the owl wireless energy monitor into power saver mode they should last for a year before needing replacement which is pretty reasonable.

Owl Electricity Monitor Cost

It’s possible to order this device directly from amazon.com. Three Models are available.

TREC Pre and Post Paid Meter Energy Monitor

The EnviR package includes 1 EnviR monitor, 1 transmitter, 1 clamp (either prepaid or postpaid.)

Important note: Customers with a 3 phase postpaid meter will need 2 extra clamps (1 per phase).

Technical Details

Unit measured	Watt and KWatt (accuracy +/- 5%)
Dimensions	9.3 x 12 x 15.5 cm
Temperature	0 – 29 Degrees C
Time	24 Hours
Weight	160g
Screen Size	7.3 x 9 cm
Screen Type	LCD
Backlight	No
Power Supply	220 – 240 V 50 Hz 40mA

More Electricity Monitoring Devices

German State Bans Facebook Like Button

Staff Writer — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 07:15:48 +0000

The German state of Schleswig-Holstein has ordered state institutions to shut down their Facebook Pages and remove the “Like” button from their websites — or face fines.

Schleswig-Holstein’s data-protection commissioner, Thilo Weichert, says that an analysis from his office shows that Facebook builds profiles of both users and non-users with data collected by the Like button, reports the Associated Press. If true, this would violate German and European data protection laws.

In a statement, the data-protection organization urged Internet users “to keep their fingers from clicking on social plugins” like the Like button to avoid being profiled.

“We firmly reject any assertion that Facebook is not compliant with EU data protection standards,” a Facebook spokesperson said in another statement. “The Facebook Like button is such a popular feature because people have complete control over how their information is shared through it. For more than a year, the plugin has brought value to many businesses and individuals every day. We will review the materials produced by the ULD [the data protection agency], both on our own behalf and on the behalf of web users throughout Germany.”

According to Facebook, the only information that the company receives when a user who is not signed in hits the Like button is an IP address.

German regulators have clashed with Facebook before. Earlier this month, the data protection supervisor in Hamburg warned that Facebook’s new automatic photo-tagging feature could violate European privacy laws.

Government makes huge Profit from Crime

Staff Writer — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 05:20:03 +0000

I came across this interesting article. ALL Credit goes to the orginal Author (unknown).

Example 1

Take just one million home owners in Gauteng who pay for “armed crime reaction” (not crime prevention), where private security companies react AFTER the Crime has taken place-no wonder they make never any arrests! This Service costs on average R 250.00 per month.
Therfore: 1.000000 x R 240.00 x 12 months x 14% VAT, generates R403 million in tax revenue for the Government!

Example 2

A Car Thief steals a R 500.000 car and receives between R 10.000 and R 30.000 for his deed.The Car Owner is paid out by the Insurance Company and then purchases another similar Vehicle on which he pays 14% VAT of approximately R 70.000 as a direct Result of Crime.
Who profited the most? The Car Thief of the Government?
MAKES YOU THINK

36 FREE Classified Sites

Staff Writer — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 04:37:22 +0000

Here is a list of 36 top classified ads where people actually view, post ads and buy stuff. We have eliminated all junk sites from this list. There are no ffa pages, forums acting like classified sites,classified sites which are full of spam or which have no traffic and are not well maintained. These are real classified ads site where if you post your ad you actually have a serious chance of somebody seeing your ad and responding. There are no sites here with an Alexa ranking over 150,000. This means that the sites below all get serious traffic. Some of these Sites are targeted at specific countries but some are suitable for South African Postings such as GUMTREE for example

1. http://www.craigslist.org- The grandaddy of classified ads sites.

2. http://www.backpage.com The second busiest classified site after Craigslist. This is where all the escort ads went after Craigslist took down their erotic ads section due to pressure from 17 Attorney Generals. Not so with Village Voice owned Backpage.com. They told the attorney generals they were just fine with their erotic ads section thank you. Those guys at the Village Voice have major cohones!

3. http://www.gumtree.com Weird name but this site is one of the busiest classifieds sites out there. This high traffic classifieds site is focused on UK ads.

4. http://www.oodle.com This serious classified site has partnerships with ForRent.com in the US and Autotrader UK.

5. http://www.ebayclassifieds.com The official classifieds site for Ebay.

6. http://www.olx.com This board has a presence in most countries and can be read in English or Spanish.

7. http://www.usfreeads.com A popular US focused site with a large business opportunity and pet section.

8. http://www.classifiedads.com Classifieds focused on the English speaking world. US, UK, AU, and India.

9. http://www.inetgiant.com A green board not only in color but in their ads. They have a well represented area for green products. The board is pretty much translated in most languages. I checked their Lithuanian board. No ads there yet. Do you want to be the first?

10. http://adpost.com Solid board with presences in the United States, Singapore,Canada,Malaysia, United Kingdom, Philippines, Ireland, Australia, India, Indonesia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

11. http://adlandpro.com Well established board with a strong focus on internet marketing, business opportunities, and website promotion.

12. http://www.classifiedsforfree.com A well organized world-wide classifieds board.

13. http://www.salespider.com/online-classifieds-free-advertising Classified ads are only one part of this business site. They have forums, sell leads, and offer business tools for online businesses.

14. http://www.yakaz.com A lean uncluttered board which reads your ip and directs your ad posting accordingly. US based as far as I can tell. However, I have not yet tried accessing it with a Chinese ip. Maybe the entire site changes language with my ip. I hate being a slave to my ip. What if I am a Greek living in Spain?

15. http://www.thefreeadforum.com High traffic site which is getting serious promotion. So if you have something to sell this is the place to get that type of targeted traffic!

16. http://www.domesticsale.com US classifieds site which allows car dealers and other heavy advertisters to bulk upload large amounts of listings.

17. http://www.pennysaverusa.com/classifieds/usa/index.html This is the online version of the old Penny Saver newspaper which was a very popular print newspaper with discount deals and classified ads.

18. http://epage.com This site has been in business since 1994. That is before we had Google. It looks somewhat like Usfreeads.com but with less emphasis on business opportunities. They have an affiliate program with over 34,000 affiliates. This means if you post your ad here it goes out on a feed to over 30,000 other sites who run their ads. This means more exposure for you. Many of these sites have programs where other websites run their feeds. This gives you quite a bit more exposure.

19. http://www.recycler.com Simple easy to negotiate classifieds board.

20. http://www.webcosmo.com US based with worldwide advertising possibilities.

21. http://www.hoobly.com The cleanest looking classifieds site so far. Just the ads. No clutter at all. Very Googlesque in their design. It must be working for them. Over 15,000 people have clicked their like button.

22. http://www.freeadlists.com They do it all: personals, cars, pets and they do it all over the world though they are US based. They even claim on their homepage that if you are a man looking for a woman you can find one here! Watch out Match.com!

23. http://www.sell.com How much did this domain name cost them? I give them number 1 on domain name value. Excellent classifieds site as well. Kudos for not just squatting the domain name. They have been running online classifieds since 1999. Their advertising engine has been used by big business directories such as AT&T’s YELLOWPAGES.com, newspapers such as the San Francisco Chronicle, and niche online properties such as sellhomes.com. Sell.com is a part of a network of advertising properties. Again, if you advertise on many of these sites your ad will simultaneously run on thousands of other partner sites.

24. http://www.bestwayclassifieds.com/ Claims to be the fastest growing free advertising site in the world. Hmmm, I do not think so. Could they even have said one of the fastest? In any case they may not be the fastest growing site but they do get some good traffic and they have a nice classifieds site worth posting to.

25. http://www.webclassifieds.us A solid well designed board with a .us domain name. What else could you want? They seem to monetize their site quite a bit with Adsense which is good and bad. It means they include more features on the free ads, including free pictures and youtube video (many free boards charge for this) but visitors could be distracted by the Adsense ads.

26. http://www.americanlisted.com A family friendly US only board. I guess if you are an escort or into SM you should stick with Backpage.com. Your church announcements would be welcome here though.

27. http://www.freeadscity.com Lean easy to read worldwide board with non classified ads discretely at the bottom of the board.

28. http://www.chooseyouritem.com This is what they have to say about themselves “Place your classified ads with us and your ads appear not only on our site but also on over 70 partner websites — including over 30 classic car or vehicle related websites, as well as ISP’s, real estate, media, shopping and search networks. Each month, over 1 million visitors view tens of millions of our pages – making our Classified Network one of strongest in the country. Not only is our exposure the best but we also provide the best in value. ” Sounds like a good deal to me.

29. http://www.daype.com Straight forward US only board.

30. http://geebo.com They have quotes about connecting communities, building safe environments and how they are leaders of a “revolution of how classifieds sites see themselves as responsible citizens.” So if you want to join their “nice” revolution go ahead. And while you are at it why not sell that old Buick Enclave you have been meaning to get rid of. Vive La Revolution! (Pervs see Backpage.com)

31. http://www.claz.org I like the name. This site is actually an agregator of classified sites within 250 miles with picture previews. They feature ads from most of the sites I mention here. It does not look like you can place an ad directly here but it probably will appear if you place it on any of the other sites listed here.

32. http://wantedwants.com Well, you can stop looking at classifieds sites right now, forget Craigslist, forget Backpage, nope, it has been officially decided. These guys officially declare that their site is the best classifieds site in the world! I do not agree. But I think their site is worth posting to. Respectable traffic, and sharp unique and fun design. US centered with opportunity for international ads as well.

33. http://www.freeclassifieds.com No nonsense classified site which has their own Android application so you can post ads from your mobile phone. They even have their own QR code that you can scan with your Andorid phone to get immediate sucint info about freeclassifieds.com. Kudos again for the domain name. Mobile friendly site. Smart!

34. http://www.bonqo.com Huge homepage showcase of photo ads. Why not put your photo ad on their homepage?

35. http://www.buysellcommunity.com They sell everything but it looks like they have a penchant for Cocker Spaniels. US and Canada classifieds mainly.

36. http://businesslist.com/post-classified-ad/ Straight forward US targeted classifieds site. All your ads are automatically tweeted to their twitter account. They also sell business lists, hence the name Businesslist.com.

If you have your favorite classified sites please tell us about them in the comments area and especially tell us why they are your favorites. If you found this post helpful please tweet, like, bookmark, Digg, Stumbleupon, and buy an ad during Superbowl half-time. You get the idea. I am shamelessly begging for promotion.