I haven’t checked my Google Adsense account in a while but more recently I’ve been re-introduced to SEO tricks and tactics so I checked it today. Whao! $100.38, It’s time for them to pay me! This amount was made in about 2 months time on just my blog domain. I’m looking into SEO (Search Engine Optimization) again to increase traffic and click through rates on my blog. I believe my blog has a lot more potential than it does currently and can make a lot more money. I’m just not doing a good job of placing the ads in the right locations.

There are plenty of people out there who blog for a living. I don’t happen to be one of them but it would be nice if I was. If you want to start a blog and learn how to make money, just leave me a comment and I’ll be glad to help you get started!

For those of you who hate Microsoft Windows, you’ll love what I found on Digg this afternoon. It’s this amazing wallpaper by lahandi from DeviantArt! Check it out!

Isn’t this the best linux wallpaper background ever? The bottom reads “In a world without walls and fences, We need no Windows and Gates”. Genius! Need I say more?

I personally think that Bill Gates is a great man and he has created something wonderful, after all it is a business for Microsoft. I don’t hate Microsoft or Gates, but this is a great wallpaper!

Download it here:
http://lahandi.deviantart.com/art/Kill-Bill-52784151

I saw someone take a quiz titled “How Addicted to Blogging Are You?“, he scored 75%, and I said to myself, oh I’m probably a lot less than that. So I thought it would be fun and interesting to know how addicted to blogging I was so I took this little quiz at Mingle2.

The results took me by surprise! I’m 80% addicted to blogging! Gee, maybe I am addicted, I only have 5 blogs that I author and spend about at least an hour reading different blogs a day. What? Thats not normal? You guys don’t do that too? Oh, I’m sure you do… No? Crap! I am addicted! Ahhhh HELP!

Well to think of it, its not all that bad, I’ve almost replaced everything I use to do to get information from like watching TV or reading newspapers to reading blogs. I don’t even watch the news on TV anymore, all I do is go to Digg.com and get all my news. Is that so horrible?

Here are the questions I answered on my quiz:

Q: Where is your blog located?
A: My own domain (for example: www.tonycai.com)

Q: How often do you update your blog?
A: Several times a week

Q: How many blogs (actual blogs, not individual blog entries) do you read a day?
A: 6-12

Q: How much time do you spend reading blogs?
A: 1-2 hours a day

Q: How many different blogs do you post entries on?
A: 4

Q: Have you ever ‘live blogged?’ (where you blog about an event as it’s happening)
A: Yes

Q: How do you stay up to date with all your favorite blogs?
A: I visit each one individually and read it

Q: Have you ever blown off an important task, such as studying for an exam or making a deadline, because you were blogging?
A: No

Q: If something interesting happens to you, do you immediately think about how you’re going to write about it on your blog?
A: Sometimes

Q: What do you usually blog about?
A: Anything and everything, including personal issues or something funny you saw at the park the other day

Q: What kind of blogging do you do?
A: Professional & Personal

Q: Have you ever tried to convince a friend or family member they should start a blog?
A: Yes

Q: Have you ever come up with a great blog idea while doing something completely random, such as taking a shower or watching a movie?
A: Yes

Q: When this quiz is over, do you plan on blogging about your blogging addiction?
A: Yes

Go ahead and take the quiz and post me your results! I’m interested!

Wow, I haven’t used any of my time today to work on my project, SBUGuide because there are so many great discoveries today. The long awaited hack for the iPhone has been confirmed. You can soon unlock your Apple iPhone to work with other SIM carriers such as T-Mobile.

There are two methods I found today which are promising. One done by George Hotz 17, a hardware hack that allows the use of the iPhone for other carriers and a software hack by iPhoneSimFree, a team which Engadget confirmed that their software works. It will be distributed with a cost to the public soon.

Of course, this is all bad news for Apple and AT&T, looks like their exclusive partnership isn’t so exclusive anymore thanks to the l33t hacking community. WOOT WOOT!

The bad news for me is that I’m stuck on the stupid Verizon contract for another year and a half. One thing I dislike about Verizon’s Wireless service is that they install Verizon’s firmware on their phones usually crippling features such as simple OBEX or Bluetooth. Another is that the phones do not use SIM cards, hackers tend not to hack Verizon phones because of it.

You can find instructions of the hardware method on Hotz’s Blog.

Back to school is getting nearer for most of us, some have already started. Everyone is trying to market their products towards students, from Back to School sales to providing a list of essential needs for a students success. Most of it I think is BS! BestBuy released their annual Back to School campaign called “Knowledge for College” which is a guide to products which are recommended for college. All they want is more $$ from you of course.

Mozilla released it’s Firefox Campus Edition today, which was disappointing for me at least. It comes with the core Firefox browsing engine along with three extensions. What ONLY 3? I was expecting it to come with at least 5 NEW features or at least a new theme. The extensions that it comes with are FoxyTunes, Zotero and StumbleUpon.

• FoxyTunes - Basically a iTunes control from your browser.
• Zotero - Citing and organizing your college research.
• StumbleUpon - Internet channel surfing and social bookmarking.

I have to say all these features are pretty much useless, none of these make the Campus Edition worth downloading in my opinion. But if you prefer, you can get it here.

If you already have Firefox, you can make yours “Campus Edition” by just downloading the extensions here.

Since I left my summer job, I’ve been developing a website that my friends (Andi and Joey) and I have come up with. SBUGuide.com. It’s short for Stony Brook University Guide. I’m doing this because I realized that there was no centralized location for prospective students to get information about the university and no website to help current students out. That’s why we’re taking the challenge to bring all those missing tiers together in one website. Yeah Stony Brook’s website is great but isn’t perfect so here’s where we come in a fill in the gaps.

Everything is currently in it’s ALPHA stages, development started only a day ago. Currently Andi is working on a logo prototype and I’m working on integrating user databases for MediaWiki, WordPress and bbPress. After that’s complete, the most difficult task should be branding and customization. Joey will fill in most if not all of the contents of the website.

Visit SBUGuide’s Blog to see development notes.

See our website at http://www.sbuguide.com.

Podcast  by PBS News Hour about USA TODAY’s college  rankings:

I got a email in my inbox the other day from EV1Servers.net. A company where I first registered TONYCAI.COM with, they have been recently acquired by The Planet, the company went along with all it’s clients (me). I was not notified of this acquisition. The email told me that my domain would expire in 90 days. So I quickly went to renew it because I knew how devastating things are when you loose ownership of the domain.*

When I logged into The Planet’s domain manager and tried to renew, it told me that I had to do it manually with the reseller. So I knew this renewal was going to be a pretty long process. Decided not to waste my time and transferred and renewed it with GoDaddy. They have a good reputation for domain products. So I renewed it for 2 years total of $14 and I got the GoDaddy Certified Domain add-on which is awesome!

* When one looses ownership of the domain, you’d either have to pay a high rate to reinstate the domain or some domain company might have bought your domain to reap the benefits of your visitors so they can make money off your visitors through advertisement parked pages. This happened recently with my friends domain he failed to renew. JHENDI.COM use to belong to my friend Chomell, but now it belongs to “TBD eNom Customer“.

The lesson about domains is renew it way before it expires because once it does, there is a high chance someone will buy it before you do!

It took me a little while to do this and it isn’t perfect but it’s pretty much accurate. I spent the day mapping out all the places I’ve been to while working for NYPIRG. I’m a canvasser and I go all over New York to educate the public about the issues we face in today’s fragile world. I’ve been doing this since May 17th 2007 and my last day is August 24th 2007. Sad to go but I have to get ready for next semester at SUNY Stony Brook.

So this Google Map API shows all the places I’ve been to, the field managers that took me there and the actual turf or streets that I was on. I hope this is as interesting to you as it is for me. It was hard remembering all the places I’ve been to. I’m almost sure it’s accurate but if it isn’t I will make changes along the way.

For those of you looking for a job in the Summer of 2008, NYPIRG is defiantly the way to go! The people you work with and the people that you will meet on turf are priceless. This is by far one of the best things I’ve ever done in terms of a job.

What the heck? That was quick, a little more than a month and we’re already seeing refurbished Apple iPhones on sale at Apple’s clearance store. Hmm. So what’s wrong with it? Maybe nothing, maybe everything!

re·fur·bish (rē-fûr’bĭsh) - To make clean, bright, or fresh again; renovate.

That can only mean a few things, these iPhones were defective when the someone purchased it and returned it to Apple or AT&T. Or simply the fact that the owner did not like it therefore returned it. Maybe Apple is releasing a newer version of the iPhone and is trying to get rid of the older version. Whatever the reason is, it’s a steal! Go grab one if you are looking for a cheap but brand new iPhone.

• 4GB iPhone - $399 ( New : $499 )
• 8GB iPhone - $499 ( New : $599 )

My two cents on refurbished products: I’m a big fan of them, not only are they much cheaper than retail, they are practically brand new. If it was defective, then the manufacturer was told about this issue and had already fixed it, cleaned then repackaged. So in a way it offers the buyer more peace of mind. It almost guarantees that the product won’t be defective when it gets to you, because it was already defective and they fixed it.

Check it out, cheap refurbished iPhones here.

As you may know, I live in the big city of New York and our proud mayor has instituted the 311 service for the greater New York’s 5 boroughs. 311 is a number for city residents to dial to contact local government agency’s to report problems or to see non-emergency help. Bloomberg thought that it would be an easy number to remember and it consolidates all the city’s resources together in one number, not a bad idea!

But recently switching to ViaTalk VoIP, the 311 service was not activated by default, or I should say that ViaTalk didn’t have that feature. I then searched hoping to find a quick solution. I noticed that Vontage, the current leader in VoIP had the 311 feature so at that point I knew it was possible to somehow hack ViaTalk’s Linksys PAP2 VoIP device to get 311 working.

I have not gotten done yet simply because I need my Linksys PAP2 password from ViaTalk, they are currently receiving heavy call volumes due to SunRocket’s customer contract buyouts. I called this Sunday afternoon and I was 22nd in line for their phone support. So if anyone wants to hack the PAP2, I have the directions and you must have the password for your PAP2, if you don’t you will have to submit a support ticket or call to get your password. I have started a ticket about 2 weeks ago, still no response, so good luck with that. But if you already have your password, then read on.

The 3-1-1 number is just a short cut for this number (212) NEW YORK or (212) 639-9675.

1. Login to your Linksys PAP2 via the IP address (http://192.168.0.xxx/admin/).
2. Go to the dial plan section. Becareful not to edit what is already on there.
3. Add the following line to the existing dial plan.
4. |<311:12126399675>|
5. Apply, Save and Exit

As a temporary fix until you get the PAP2 password from ViaTalk, you can setup speed dial to 2126399675. This tutorial will essentially work for all 311 services from any city, you will just have to figure our their local number and then replace NY’s number with your city’s number.

I will post screenshots of the process once I get my password from ViaTalk.

To read more about the Linksys PAP2 Dial Plan, see here.