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!

Click here to join the site. 

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:

• The little things that can make the day of your family.

• How to handle conflicts with your parents.

• How to apologise to a good old friend.

• How can Students earn a few extra pocket money?

• Why do domestic violence still prevail in India?

• What are the conflicts that can plague India in coming future?

• Effects of childhood sexual abuse.

• Something more on earning online!

• How to understand a teenager better?

• How to get teenagers listen to you!

• Is homosexuality natural?

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.