Monday, December 29, 2008

Amazon Mechanical Turk

Hello Friends!
I have been actively taking part in myLot and now I am glad that soon I'll be getting my payment from them as I have reached the payout yesterday!
Now coming back to the topic under discussion Amazon Mechanical Turk or mturk is a wonderful site with lots of opportunities for people with various kinds of qualification and talents. Its a site which belongs to Amazon.com and hence its genuineness need not be verified further!
This site has a simple registration process for both the workers and providers.

What are HITs?
As you will find it described on the welcome page HITs are Human Intelligence Tasks which are simple tasks needed to be done for which you are paid depending on the amount of concentration and time you need to complete it.

Who are the workers?
Well we are! Here some simple tasks needs to be done in every company or website and its tiresome to hire temporary workforce just for such simple work which can be done with a little knowledge of English. So the People who need the job done submits their project and the payment to mturk who distributes the work to its members for completion and send payment once the work is approved by the provider.

What kinds of work do we need to do?
They can be various types. For example:
  • A collection of pictures are provided and you need to pick pictures from the collection depending on a given criteria, such as the ones containing "Seals: a fastener"!
  • Give correct title to simple documents.
  • Provide answers to questions.
  • And many others where the variety and the amount of work needed to be done is changing from time to time.
Its basically a very good site for Indians as it pays through checks to Indians. They don't have any referral program.
All you need is an email address and you get started!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Just thought....

We all have problems ranging from family problems to friends problems and so we all have something to say in this kind of matters.
My opinions on various such topics are given below:
Even you have something to say? If yes then why not leave your opinion and comments in the comment board. This section will regularly be updated by newer articles and hence you can visit often and check out my new posts. If my articles can help you or bring even a small smile on your face..then, well what more can I ask for?

How to be secure online?

Cyber crime in India has increased by 50% in the last one year according to The Telegraph India.
Got scared? Don't worry but don't relax. There are few key things you need to keep in mind whenever you are online so that you, your family, and your hard earned money remains sound and securely away from cyber criminals. 
Here is a list of must to do:
  • Use proper security software which are legal and licensed. Use of world wide web without an antivirus is not imaginable right? But many homes in India still have their computers open to harmful things like spyware, malware or trojans. 
You will be surprised to know the amount of price this criminals pay to get your personal information from black market. But how did your information reach there you ask? Well you must have had spywares or simple harmless looking cookies that have send this information to the third parties.
Using free spyware-blocking-and-removing software will keep your private information private. Few of my own favourites are
  1. Spybot-Search and Destroy
  2. SUPERAntispyware
  3. SpywareBlaster
  • A hardware firewall exists or not install a software firewall that is regularly updated and keeps your ports secured and filtered.
  1. Comodo Firewall
  2. Zone Labs Firewall
are few of my favourites in this category.
  • Keep track of what your children do online. A harmless chat with a stranger, which youngsters are very fascinated with, may lead to unwanted incidences of abuse, blackmailing and much worse things.
A website spelled with just one wrong alphabet or a drive by download may send her or him to a pornography website, which is the biggest form of cyber crimes at present, which obviously is not something you want.

  • Never give away your bank or card details to anybody no matter who they claim they are. Remember only, and that is only your account number and IIFS code are the details that can be shared with somebody harmlessly. Avoid using or giving your card details to anybody online. Use secured services like Paypal or Paymate to conduct your online transactions. 
  • Keep your password safe and in your head only! Change your password often and don't use same password for multiple emails, websites or services. They are your password and obviously meant to something hard to guess and not your birth date or your ex-name!
  • Be aware and spread awareness of the legal laws and rights. Surf the net and you will easily get the detailed information about the laws regarding Internet usage in your country.
  • Never open unknown emails or attachments. If you get emails that gives offers which are either too good or too bad to be true then of course they are false! Winning a lottery, death of a celebrity, asking donations and blah blah blah mails, sites or attachments should be avoided and reported to prevent other's falling trap to it.
  • Download from safe, trusted, and reputed sites like Cnet Download.com. They check the  softwares for malicious files before uploading and hence all the softwares in this sites are free of spywares or trojans.
Be safe. Take care and let the Internet be a safer place for everybody.

Mystery Shopping: Shop and have fun while earning.

WHAT IS MYSTERY SHOPPING?
First let me make clear what is mystery shopping.  When companies sell their products their customer care and service  decides whether the customer will return back to the same shop or brand again or not. No matter how many inspections the authorities conducts it is never possible to understand the customer service of the employees in the employer's or inspectors presence.
Mystery shopping is the solution to it. These companies hire aware, sensible and communicative consumers to do a shopping session from their shops or malls. These shoppers in no condition can reveal that they are shopping fro the company. After the session the consumer need to return his or her observational results in the form of a questionnaire or survey form.
Mystery shopping may also involve visiting an automobile showroom, hotel or a reputed restaurant.

HOW DO YOU GAIN FROM IT?
Now the interesting and important answer. You can gain from this system by being a mystery shopper yourself! Shocked? Well answer this questions:
  1. Do you go out with your friends or family to a restaurant or shopping mall to unwind?
  2. Are you aware of the brands and the retail boom around you?
  3. Are you good in the your communication skills?
Then that's all! You can be a mystery shopper if you have the time and willingness to succeed in something that requires you to Shop!
Some companies may ask you to pay and join their company. Avoid such ones as they often turn out to be scams.
If you buy or eat anything during the session or any such necessary expenditure will be paid by the company itself along with your session fees.
Mystery shopping in India is a nice prospect as the retail industry is yet developing and that too at a faster rate with lots of employment options in the near future. More the number of people employed in this industry more will be the need of mystery shoppers for the companies to keep a constant check on their employees and perform better than the other retail chains.

WHERE  AND HOW DO I START FROM?
  • Search in the online job portals. They nowadays have one or two required mystery shopper requiring advertisements after one or two weeks.
  • Look out in the local newspapers. They will have more adds matching your requirements both time and distance.
  • Be honest in the questionnaires. Vague and dishonest answers will spoil your any further chances of success in this field.
  • Gather your friends. Be it window shopping or mystery shopping, shopping as whole can become very entertaining in the presence of your friends and equally boring in their absence.
  • Never pay anything from your own pockets if the company doesn't reimburse the later.
I will provide more information later. Till then have a nice day.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Associated Content

Another article submission site with lots of opportunity for US writers.
This website has a revenue sharing program and pays per page view to its writers. If you are an US citizen then you can even get upfront payments ranging from 1$ - 4$ per article depending on the quality.
Its not a good writing option for non-Us citizen as a dollar per 1000 page view is not enough. But it can serve as a good platform for budding writers giving you free readers and an online reputation.
To have a look at this site and know details about the opportunites  click here.
Hope this information will be helpful to you.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Helium! Where knowledge rules!



Last month one of my friends referred me to Helium and I am glad I joined this wonderful site.
Let me explain why...
Its a website where anybody can submit there articles on various titles present in the topics which are available under 29 channels covering almost everything on earth. Still if any member wants to write on a title not present in any channel then he/she can suggest the title to the Helium.The quality of articles decides how much you earn. Click on the banner in the beginning of this post to see the articles I have written there. The articles are rated by other members based on which writers get writing stars and when we rate other's articles, the quality and number of articles rated by the writer in a given period determines the number of rating stars.
Lets see how you can earn from Helium and what are its important and attractive features:
  • Helium shares its revenue with the members who have at least one rating star.
  • Members with at least one rating star and writing star will get upfront payment depending on the number of writing stars they have.
  • Numerous writing contests on various subject gives chance to have a fair competition with other writers on the site and hence win a substantial amount of money and reputation.
  • Marketplace gives the writers to sell articles to publishers or webmasters with a fair price for their talent and also giving you a chance to gain a healthy reputation in the writing circle.
  • Its available to members of all country and pays through Paypal into your account once you reach the 25$ minimum payout. Click below to create a free Paypal account if you don't have one till now.

 Sign up for <span class=PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.">

It may seem a little slow and difficult in the beginning but trust me if I can write even you can!
Click the link below to join Helium and see all the help and resources they have for the new budding writers.

Hope you enjoy writing and meanwhile I will keep adding new information in my posts regularly. Have a nice day!

myLot

SPEND LOT OF TIME IN ORKUT, MYSPACE OR OTHER FORUMS?
I have been payed by this site for the past two months and so now can claim to you all about its being genuine. Here we are paid to:
  •  Respond to other people's discussions, 
  • Answer their questions, 
  • Start a blog, 
  • Ask a question yourself or 
  • Start a discussion. 
  • We are also paid when we upload photographs into the website!
So basically there are lots of  ways to earn from this networking site and also they have referral system.
The paying is little slow and may get to you if you are not the patient types. I have made few wonderful friends here and enjoy my time spent here a lot.
Mylot has few strict guidelines to prevent spamming and that's the only thing that is strict!
With about 155,970 members when I am writing this, the website has been growing for the past few years and has a great reputation of paying its members on time always.
Want to join the site? Then Click
They pay through Paypal or moneybookers.
Haven't signed up for Paypal yet? Well go forward and do it..The banner is there right side bar!

Here is the payment proof:


Online earning

After trying for the past two years when I got my first online payment, that was a great feeling for me!
Sinece I am based in India major online opportunities can't be availed by me as they are mostly forcitizens of  US/UK/Canada.
While starting your jorney towards online earning few important things needs to be kept in mind.
  1. Firstly, never pay anything to earn online. The ones who who ask for money to startwith are surely scams and must be avoided.
  2. Nothing such as "Get rich in 20 minutes" exists in reality and quick schemes like this who promise the whole world to you for literally no effort also should be avoided.
  3. Research enough before commiting your substantial amount of time to any website. Internet has lots of forums and social networking sites who asks nothing to provie you with a list of fraudulent sites and keep one such list handy. You may add few names of your own with time!
  4. Keep patience. Internet is not a gold mine and hence you can't earn huge sum of money in few days investing nothing. Here your investment is time and you should remember that the most successful online enterpreneurs had got their first taste of success only after few years of hard work.
Keeping this things in mind always will help you stay away from scam sites and get disheartened or lose all your hopes of online earning.