You don’t realize how much you live on the Internet until the day you find it’s not there. My trusty IBM Thinkpad has broken down. What I first thought was a problem with power adapter has turned out to be something else entirely. A girl from one of the local computer stores came to check it out, and the verdict was decidedly uncertain. Given that she didn’t speak much English (I live in Thailand, don’t forget) the problem could be anything.

So the situation I’m in is that I have to wait until Saturday before I can get my laptop fixed. I can turn it on, but I just can’t use the power adapter, possibly due to a problem with the socket at the back of the computer. The problem itself was caused by my good friend Mother Nature, who chose to throw down an alarmingly-on-target lightning bolt right at my friends house, thus tripping the switchbox, but not before a power surge found its way to my still-plugged-in IBM.

So I’m out of touch. I can’t check emails, I can’t read blogs, I can’t even blog myself. And here is my blog, wondering where its master has got to. It’s a sad state of affairs, but it’s only now that I understand just how much I use the Internet. Although I like to preach about how I could never work from home, I still spend far too much time on the Internet.

A few days away from the web, however, is good time for reflection. The blogs I have on auto-post with pre-written articles will tick over during my hiatus, but the ones I’ve not had time to write in advance for, like this one, could suffer. Let this be a lesson to us all, that if you blog daily, you must prepare for unforeseen circumstances. We’re all trying to make money online here, and so it pays to always be a step ahead of yourself.

Of course, I’ve found myself in situations like this before, and I always vowed that they would never happen again, but such is life. Sure, I can use the Internet while I’m at work, but strictly speaking, I have work to do during office hours.

Have you ever gone without the Internet for a prolonged period? I swear it’s like loosing a limb.

Tags: Blogger rant by Angel
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Bloggers can be devious people sometimes. If they aren’t out “borrowing” content, they’re trying to get ahead one way or another. The blogosphere is a cut-throat kind of place, but I think the line has to be drawn at taking from others without permission to mislead an audience. Sure, we all want to make money, but some blogger go too far.

No tactic could be said to go too far if it works and makes money, unless you are outright lying to your audience and trying to get ahead by stealing. I came across a blog called The Affluent Blogger. I had a browse through the content and didn’t find anything too inspiring. My confidence in the blog was boosted by the large number of RSS subscribers: it was at over 500, so I thought that this guy must be doing something right.

Then I noticed that the number of comments was strangely low, and the posting was sporadic. Nothing about this blog stood out and said “subscribe!” to me. I right-clicked the RSS button and, to my amazement, The Affluent Blogger is using the Feedburner button of My Two Dollars, a blog that discusses various matters related to making money.

I haven’t contacted either of these bloggers about the matter because there’s really no need to. They’ll both see this post and can act upon it as they wish. Maybe the blogs are run by the same person (although this looks unlikely), or perhaps the two bloggers are friends (again, unlikely), but the fact is that one blogger has taken something from another to deliberately mislead his audience.

It goes beyond content theft and into new territory. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to trust new blogs, like mine, because too many bloggers are going out of their way to destroy any sense of trust that might have once existed. This works in the favor of John Chow, Darren Rowse, Kumiko, and anyone already established in the field of making money online, but it pisses me off.

What are people stealing from you? Probably more than you think.

Update: The blogger in question removed his fake RSS counter already without so much as a comment here.

Tags: Blogger rant by Angel
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Kumiko at Cash Quests recently wrote a provocative post about being all about money. In her eyes, we should be thinking about money all the time. I don’t agree. Yes, I am blogging to make money, but I’m not going to let that take over my life and be all I think about. I’m one of those people who, shock horror, likes his day job! I can’t be the only one, surely. Here’s a picture of the last Adsense check I received for the equivalent of a little over $300.

Although not a great deal, I was proud of that check, but I have no intention of letting it inspire me to “get rich or die trying”. In other money-related matters, here’s what I got in my Paypal account this past week.

That works out to about $325. Not bad going for something I do in my spare time. The thing is, I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing, and I’m going to continue making more and more money, but it’s not going to be the last thing I think about before I go to sleep at night. The last thing I think about before I go to sleep at night will be the girl I love, or the story I’m writing for a magazine, or my family back in the UK.

My last thought before I go to sleep is “Wow! I made $500 in a single day on the internet”

I did once think “wow, I made $1,600 in one night” before I went to sleep after I organized a party in the UK. That was worth getting excited about. And then there was the time I got paid more than $700 to write health articles for a clinic.

My point is, you don’t have to be all about the money to make money. You have to be all about the money to make the top dollars like John Chow is and like I believe Kumiko will be in the future, but are you doing this professionally or on the side? And would you even want to do this professionally?

So, is money always on your mind?

Tags: Blogger rant by Angel
3 Comments »