You want to make money from Twitter. You joined all 12 networks mentioned in this blog post and see that you’ll get the highest paying offers from Ad.ly or Sponsored Tweets. Here’s a comparison and my recommendation on which one you should use.

Both sites insist on disclaimers in each advertising tweet. Each Ad.ly tweet will usually have a “(Ad)”, while the disclaimer from Sponsored Tweets are customizable, with tags like “#spon”, “ad” or “sponsored”.  This is the same for the tweet too, where Sponsored Tweets will allow you to customize the message (allowing it to be approved by the advertiser) that are tweeted. Yes, some people disagree to tweeting ads, but

You can cash out to PayPal when you reach $50 on both networks, but only Ad.ly offers a cheque option.

Ad.ly – So far I’ve made $152
Ad.ly is the latest Twitter Advertising network, having just launched on the 22nd of September. Similar to Sponsored Tweets below, this service mostly caters to high end advertisers (my two advertisers were Microsoft and NBC) wanting to connect with medium to high-end Twitter users. In fact, founder and CEO Sean Rad says that he wants Ad.ly to be the Federated Media for Twitter. They have an impressive list of high-profile celebrities, including Kim Kardashian, Brooke Burke, Nicole Richie, Brody Jenner, Dr. Drew and Samantha Ronson. ad.ly also allows you to donate a portion of your earnings to a charity of your choice. Their launch party video is shown below:

Sponsored Tweets – So far I’ve made $315.18
Sponsored Tweets is IZEA’s brand new advertising network. IZEA is a social media marketing company and the world leader in sponsored conversations. IZEA operates a network of over 250000 bloggers and 25000 advertisers. Izea has numerous sponsored advertising networks prior to SponsoredTweets, including PayPerPost and SocialSpark. This being said, SponsoredTweets is geared more towards Web Celebrities like John Chow and Shoemoney, although smaller tweeters will still get opportunities.

Yes. I’ve made more from Sponsored Tweets than Ad.ly. But Ad.ly is a newer network, without the backing of a parent advertising company with an expertise in Internet Marketing (yet).

Here’s the conclusion. Sign up for both Ad.ly and Sponsored Tweets. But look out for Ad.ly, which are backed by large advertisers like Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, NBC, Nestle and Microsoft. A bigger company will usually mean a bigger advertising budget, and thus more offers available to you. For example, my advertisers are NBC and Microsoft. Ad.ly also has these “limited time” offers, where you’ll have to accept the ad within 24 hours. Check your email often!

Sign Up for Ad.ly

Sign Up for Sponsored Tweets

To Your Success,
Josh Lam

Have you made anything from Ad.ly or Sponsored Tweets? Which one do you prefer? Comment below.

UPDATE 2: NO INVITE REQUIRED. You’ll need a Dutch IP address. Get a Dutch web proxy or VPN. If you need a Dutch based IP address VPN, use mine: (if you don’t know how to set it up, just google it. sorry there’s too many OS’es to cover all the instructions)

PPTP VPN
address: vpn.joshlam.com
username: joshlam1 to joshlam10
password: joshlamvpn

Alright, once you’ve connected, hit up this website.  Under “1. Choose a product”, select “Open, It’s free!”. Fill in your account details and  submit. Now, connect to the Dutch VPN every 2 weeks when your Spotify client does a location check. Hope that helps everyone!

This doesn’t work anymore, see above for update. UPDATE: You don’t need an invite anymore. Here’s how you get Spotify without an invite:  Use this web proxy with a French IP address and  enter this URL: https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/. Click yes to the warning and sign up using the Zip Code “69008″. Download the Spotify client and sign in. Done.

This isn’t Entrepreneurial at all. But in case you didn’t know, Spotify is the best free music streaming service ever. In my words:

It’s like having your whole iTunes library (but more), without the GB’s on your hard drive. And you can take it anywhere. It’s free and legal too, unlike your LimeWire music collection.

Eww, streaming. I hate streaming. That’s what I thought. But once you try Spotify, you’ll never to back to listening to YouTube videos. Period.

So why isn’t everyone using Spotify if it’s so great then?
1. Because you have to in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, France or Spain. I sorted that excuse out for you already. Read this blog post “How To: Access Spotify from Anywhere!“.

2. You need to be invited.
Leave a comment below (enter your real email address in the email box) and I’ll send you an Invite within 24 hours. Excuse gone too. Don’t worry if I run out. I have loads (i.e. 100+) to giveaway.

I wrote this blog post after a bunch of Finnish people kept asking me for Spotify invites. Direct quote from one of them: “you are somekind of legend here cause my friend told about you and that you can help ”.

In Finnish: Kirjoitin tämän artikkelin jälkeen joukko Suomen kansan kysyi minulta Spotify kutsuu. Suora lainaus yhdeltä heistä: “Olet somekind tarujen tässä syy ystäväni kertoi sinusta ja että voit auttaa ”. No, haluan antaa kaikille Spotify kutsuu. Niin jätä kommentti, ja lähetän sinulle yhden.

Swine Flu was officially confirmed by Chief Executive Donald Tsang at around 8:50.

I recently got an old laptop from my dad. The first thing I realized was that the the Wi-Fi wasn’t working really well, if working at all. At first, I thought that it was just acting up, and it’ll be fine after a restart. Not happening. The laptop was as stubborn as hell. I could see my Wireless Network, but I could never connect to it at all.

So then I thought that there could be a problem with an outdated driver, or worst, a corrupted driver. Of course, being a Compaq laptop, I headed straight to HP.com to download the latest drivers. I downloaded them and hoped for the best. But luck wasn’t on my side. The Wi-Fi problem was still there. The driver had to be outdated on HP’s website, especially considering how old the laptop was (It’s the Compaq Presario B1900 shown above, in case you wanted to know).

Secondly, I searched and combed all over Broadcom’s website for Driver downloads. There wasn’t any downloads for my specific wireless card. Broadcom is more an OEM parts (i.e. Wireless Cards) manufacturer, thus I’m guessing they provide the downloads straight to the Computer Hardware brands like Dell, HP, lenovo etc. So, back to square one.
I was stuck. I googled the web for “Broadcom drivers”. Trust me, that was completely useless. Third party sites either had the outdated driver as well, or only had it for a specific Operating System (except for mine).

I guess all that googling led me to UniBlue. I used to use their RegistryBooster and knew I could trust them. They’re not your typical Internet Software scam, claiming to give you a “new computer” whilst the software did nothing. I knew their software actually worked.
I found out that they released a new product called DriverScanner and downloaded it RIGHT away. A quick scan of my drivers showed that I had numerous outdated drivers. And guess what? I saw that my Wireless Card was on that list!
Like I mentioned, I knew I could trust UniBlue from my previous experiences with their software. I went straight to their website and purchased DriverScanner 2009 with the little money I had in my PayPal balance. I then got the full version, which actually allowed me to download the Drivers.

I know what you’re going to say right now – “I bet that still didn’t work” or “back to square one”. Well, for once, you’re wrong. After the driver installed (The latest version was 4.170.77.3, while I had 3.xxx.xx, which was pretty outdated in terms of version number), I re-entered the Wireless settings and waited patiently for the dreaded Connecting dialog box in Windows XP. “Connected!” it finally read! I was so happy, as it meant I could take the laptop to school, as the only way to connect is Wi-Fi there. As I bonus, I downloaded the Bluetooth drivers as well, as to my surprised, the Bluetooth started working as well! (I previously thought there wasn’t any Bluetooth on the laptop)

Disclaimer: This is a true story. I truly, from my heart, recommend UniBlue 100%. If you have any driver problems, I suggest you download DriverScanner first to check how outdated your drivers are, then buy the program if necessary.


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http://www.addsyou.com
username=MjAwOC0xMS0yOSAwMDozMDoyOQ==

You know the drill: for $399 you buy one OLPC XO laptop and a second is sent to a child somewhere in the developing world. Same deal as last year only now with the help of Amazon’s powerful retail reach. Devices begin shipping in about 30 days — a bit longer outside the US. Naturally you can also just gift the $199 laptop direct to a kid of OLPC’s choosing. About the quickest way to become a donor short of meeting a hotel stranger in possession of roofies and a bathtub full of ice. 
Read US site


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While I’m generally pleased with Windows 7 so far , I’ve found myself shaking my head every now and then. In some instances it’s obvious that Microsoft has been paying attention. Other times, not so much.

I’ve noticed five issues so far that, though minor, leave me wondering if Microsoft is going to be able to pull off a really great OS by its projected mid-2009 release.

.ZIP Files
Windows 7 still takes forever to extract files from a zip archive, which leaves me dumbfounded. An 18.4mb zip containing only two files took me almost 23 seconds to extract using the right-click context menu’s extract all option. Using 7zip’s context menu extraction, the same operation took less than three seconds.

Zip files have been supported natively since Windows XP. Seven years later, there’s still no improvement. Third party applications are so much better at handling .zip files it makes me wonder why Microsoft bothered adding support in the first place.
FTP Support
Is it really too much to ask that a Network Place I’ve created actually behave like a local drive? Plenty of free applications that I use can do it with no problem, so why not Windows? When I tried to edit a text file on my FTP server, Windows 7 tried to open it in Internet Explorer – which instantly had a fit of colossal proportions. Multiple windows spawned and re-spawned when I closed them. Ultimately, killing the iexplore.exe process put a stop to it. 

Shouldn’t an FTP location behave like any other network place, such as an SMB share? If Windows can’t handle that, maybe FTP shouldn’t be an option.

Adjusting the Clock
This used to be so easy, and now it’s not. Now when I double click, the pretty little calendar/clock applet appears and hides. Why? I understand that my clock is supposed to synchronize automatically, but what if it doesn’t? With XP, double clicking the time took me directly to a screen that allowed me to change it. Now it takes a right click, left click, and then a click on another button.

Well, at least the UAC prompt is gone. Yay.

Network Connection Repair
Once again, this was such a simple operation in XP. Right click the system tray icon, choose repair, and wait a few seconds. It worked well, too. Vista introduced the god-awful diagnose and repair system. It takes forever and it hasn’t solved any additional issues for me – and Windows 7′s version is just as bad.

If diagnose is here to stay, maybe the solution is to present both options right up front. I for one would be quite happy to just have the old repair option back.

Managing Network Connections
The connect to menu in XP is configurable, and I like being able to expand it. Vista dropped that option, and it’s still gone in Window 7. I also can’t right click a system tray icon and view all connections like I could in XP. I’ve got to go through the network and sharing center first.

It’s needlessly overcomplicated. Getting rid of little conveniences like this is no way to improve an operating system.

Am I alone in this? If you’re running Windows 7 do these things – or other little things – frustrate you, too? Share with your fellow readers in the comments!

The philosophy goes something like this: the great thing about Linux is that it’s secure, and the great thing about open-source software is that it’s thoroughly and constantly vetted for robustness. So to that end, Android should be pretty rock solid, right? Perhaps, but the overwhelming enormity of this particular bug definitely gives us pause. It turns out that G1 firmware revisions RC29 and earlier literally interpret everything you type as command-line operations, so if you happen across a legit command, it’s going to get executed — with superuser permissions, no less. No, seriously. Just go to the messaging app, the browser, or anywhere else a text box is convenient, type “reboot,” press the enter key, and watch magic happen. We’ve tested this on two G1s, both with RC29 firmware, and have gotten this to consistently work on one of the two, so your mileage may vary — but either way, this needed to get patched on the double. Fortunately, Google’s been quick about it, rolling a fix into the RC30 build that’s being rapidly pushed to users as we speak, but man… how did that get through?