Zack Live

After reading A Ddfinitive List of Paid Blogging Websites by Maki, I realized there are so many paid blogging websites out there for blogggers to pick up and dive in. I tried to categorize websites in that list for helping bloggers to choose the right one. All these websites below support PayPal.

First Class: there are three websites in this category, which are websites I am using now. This first one is PayPerPost. As Maki said, “ If you only want to sign up for one paid blogging network, I would highly recommend using PayPerPost above all the others.” This is the largest paid blogging network, offers a lot of assignments for you, and also pays good. The other two websites are ReviewMe and SponsoredReview. These two networks are include in first class because of their high payment and offering enough jobs for bloggers.

Fast Payment: These websites are good for beginners to test if paid blogging networks suit you, because they pay within one or two week. Blogitive pays weekly with a flat rate of $5 per post; Smorty also pays weekly with $1 more than Blogitive, $6 flat rate. Blogging Ads pays weekly. PayU2Blog pays every two week.

Worth Trying: the first one I will suggest LinkWorth. Because you can not only write sponsored posts, but also sell contextual links. Other websites worth trying are Blogsvertise, LoudLaunch and BloggerWave.

Paid blogging network is the easiest and fastest way for you to get paid by blogging, which may also encourage you in blogging. It’s good for beginners, you may like to try paid blogging networks before you find better ways to make money from blogging.

Poem of today:

Auguries of Innocence

( William Blake 1757~1827 )

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

Just finished reading Darren’s post about WordPress plugins, I found four plugins are useful for my blog.

1. Simple Tags: the most attractive function to me is the Tag Suggestion. Suggestions come from Yahoo, Tag The Net and your old tags. Another useful function is the Auto Tags.
2. WordPress.com Stats: I have Google Analytics on my blog, but it’s said that WordPress.com Stats updates in real time, I would like to give it a shot.
3. WP-Polls: it’s time to poll. This is an Ajax poll system, very easy to use. Update: I found that the WP-Polls can only use in Sidebar, not for single post. And you need to create a page for it. I don’t like that, so I deactivated this plugin.
4. Ajax Edit Comments: allow users to edit their own comments for a limited time.

This is my second WordPress theme, I called it BlacknWhite because of the main colors of the theme are black and white. I created this theme according to l.m.orchard’s blog. I added some small icons to improve the design. It’s released under GPL license, you can download it for free.

If you found any bug or you want to say something about the theme, please leave a comment below.

Theme Name: BlacknWhite
Theme Version: 1.0.2
Theme Author: Zack
Theme Category: Two Column Themes
Theme Properties: 2 columns, Fixed width, Widget ready, Right sidebar, Black, White

Download Here: BlacknWhite WordPress Theme

This theme is just been accepted by WordPress Official Theme Directory, you can now download and preview it from WordPress.org:

Download

Preview

Update:

06/11/2008: Fixed the little bug of sidebar in single page.

SuSuNa.com is a micro-blogging website based on Laconi.ca. SuSuNa.com supports Twitter, you can add your Twitter account to SuSuNa.com, everytime you post a message on SuSuNa.com, the message will be sent to Twitter, too.

It’s very easy to integrate Twitter to SuSuNa.com, click Setting one the menu, and then select the Twitter tag. You can now enter your Twitter account and password, remember to check the first two options. You will get the same functions as Twitter.

Try to post a message on SuSuNa.com, and then go to check your Twitter account, you can see your message from Laconica.

I tried to set up a web server on my own computer, I found it difficult to set up a DNS server on Windows, and then I came to ZoneEdit, a website offers free DNS service. I like the design of their home page, it’s just a list of services they provide, very clear and direct. They have Dynamic DNS allowing home users(cable modem, DSL, dial up)  to run a website on their own pc, which is exactly what I need. They also have WebForward and MailForward. If you are looking for free DNS service, you may like to try ZoneEdit. 

Features of ZoneEdit:

 

• Managed DNS Service - Did your registrar sell you a domain name, then leave you without any DNS? ZoneEdit.com provides DNS, with an easy front end. Just type in a domain name and an IP address on a web page, then browse to the domain you’ve created, instantly!
• Secondary Name Service - ZoneEdit’s high-speed managed network is located across the US/Europe. Adding more DNS servers to your domain results in reliability and speed.
• WebForward™ - Do you have a web site with a complicated address? Would you like to have a “www.___.com”? Use our pathed WebForward™ service, and visitors will get transferred automatically!
• MailForward™ - Easily forward mail@yourdomain.com to other email addresses using MailForward. You can set up a ‘default’ email for every domain as well.
• Free starter web page - No place to park your domain while you develop it? Park it here!
• Branded Site - Get your own nameservers and your own control panel to complement your firm’s existing website. Give your clients secure access to only their own domains, and they’ll save you time and money by editing their own DNS entries.
• Our Network - All of our servers are colocated at top-tier NOCs, with redundant fiber connectivity, diesel backup and climate-controlled environments. Click here for more info.
• Dynamic DNS - Full free dynamic DNS support allowing cable modem, dsl, and dial up users to run web sites on your home pc.
• Failover & Load Balancing  - monitoring, failover and load balancing services for web servers
• Backup Mail Service  - Want to run your own mail server, but you’re afraid of missing important e-mails? Our optional “Store and Forward” service will accept e-mails for you while your mail server is down or unavailable, and redeliver them when you’re back up!

For more information, please visit the ZoneEdit website: http://www.zoneedit.com/

SuSuNa.com is a micro-blogging website, like Twitter.com. It’s powered by Laconi.ca, an open source micro-blogging tool.

I think micro-blogging is quite interesting, you speak out a short sentence to describe what you are doing or feeling now, and the others will respond to you if they’re interested in what you said. I want to have my own micro-blogging website, it turns out to be SuSuNa.com. And thanks to Laconi.ca, because of this great tool, I set up SuSuNa.com in two days with all main features a micro-blogging website should have.

After the installation of Laconi.ca, I activated the FancyURL function, and then I found the Tag page was not able to be visited. I couldn’t figure out what caused this problem. But after I registered the first user, everything became normal.

One thing about Laconi.ca, I think should be improved is that you can only edit the CSS file of a theme. Which means you cannot change what to be displayed on a page, but only how to be displayed.

SuSuNa.com is online now with full features, there are still something to be done, for example, a new theme is necessary. If you got any idea, feel free to let me know, although I may not be able to implement it.