Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

Web Worker Daily is asking an interesting question:

which sites and services on the new web (defined however you like) are important enough that you’d pay for them? And how much? Or are you dedicated to always finding ways to do things online for free, no matter what the entrepreneurs might like to hear?

I try to find things that I need for free. But sometimes I don’t. Or things that I really like give me an option to pay for them. And then I do. Currently, I only pay for my Flickr account and Linux Weekly News subscription. I also donate frequently to sites and tools that I like, but that, I guess, doesn’t count.

If I had to pay for the tools I’m using today for free, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Goolge Docs, Google Analytics, Twitter, and del.icio.us would be on my list. I’d also had no problem at all paying for software: WordPress,  Firefox, Vim, Pidgin, Fedora Linux. And I would subscribe to TechCrunch, Web Worker Daily, and Slashdot. This probably sounds like a lot, but I really can’t imagine how I could keep up with the world without using all of these.

What about you?

What do you spend more more on: your Internet connection bills or your car’s fuel?  Use monthly periods. How does that change if you consider all extras for your Internet connection (web hosting and other web services, extra services from your ISP, extra bandwidth utilization charges, etc) and extras for your car maintenance (oil, service, car wash, etc)?

(I came up with these questions while reviewing my spending statistics at Wesabe, which is an excellent service.  The basis for comparison of fuel to Internet connection lies in both of these being vital for many modern citizens, while they are currently mutually exclusive – you don’t use Internet while driving and you don’t use your car while using the Internet.  Not just yet.) 

I agree with this part of the article:

While amidst recent market turmoil its stock is down 16% from its recent high of $747 to about $629 as of Thursday, I suspect that just means now is a good time to buy.

I disagree with the rest of it though…  For example, this here is some complete non-sense:

Google has a Microsoft-like lock-in

I had to visit the bank today.  Since I was on my way to the park (with Maxim), I decided to take him in.  While we were standing in the queue, one of the clerks stopped by to say hi.  She played a bit with Maxim and suggested that we open an account for him.  I thought she was kidding, so I replied in a Fargo-ish way “Oh, yeah.  Right”. Surprisingly, she looked at me very seriously and said that she wasn’t joking one bit.

Needless to say I got interested.  She said that all I had to do was to bring Maxim’s birth certificate, and based on this document she can open a bank account on his name.  Maxim will only be able to use this account when he is 18.  But until than, both I and Olga can transfer small amounts of money to that account – 10 or 20 pounds a month.

As a result, if we’d do that, Maxim will have a good sum of money to start the adult life.  (Calculations for the lazy ones: 10 pounds per month x 12 month per year = 120 pounds per year.  Maxim is now 1 year old.  That means that he has another 17 years to go before he can use the account.  120 pounds per year x 17 years = 2040 pounds + bank percentage.  4080 + percentage you’re willing to make it 20 pounds per month).

I understand that for many parents saying this outloud is like repeating that the planet Earth is round, but for me it was a completely new unconsidered idea.  I’ll be rushing back to the bank with Maxim’s birth certificates one of these days.

I’m sure by now everybody knows about One Million Pixels project. Interesting idea that earned the guy even more than a million dollars and that will make you go “Oh, Jez, why didn’t I think of it first?”.

The idea was so simple and effective that several projects spinned off of it. Some are simple copies. Others try to apply the same idea to something other than pixels.

One of these new projects got my attention – One Million Blogs. Instead of pixels it tries to sell one million spaces for blog links. If you have a blog, you can pay $1 and get linked to from that site. You will even get a 30×30 pixel square for your logo, or whatever else you want to place in there. Saying that they want to see one million blog links together, and not only one million dollars, adds a nice touch to the project.

In fact, I liked it so much, that I immediately sent them my $1 USD (via PayPal). Within a few hours I’ve got a reply confirming my transaction. I emailed my ugly face downsized to 30×30 pixels and this blog’s URL and got linked. I even received two personalized buttons – my number is 52 – that I can use anywhere to link back to One Million Blogs. Since I am not using buttons on my site, I’ll save them in this entry.

Check it out. While you still can find me in there…

Now this one is simply great.

I was reading through the funny IRC quotes at Bash.Org.Ru, which is a Russian analogue of Bash.org, when I came across the quote #4741.

Here is a rough translation for you:

Billing

Dear customers! For the last three days we had a technical problem and your used Internet traffic wasn’t calculated properly. We kindly ask you to calculate the approximate amount of traffic that you used during this period and pay cash accordingly in our office. With best regards, company management. http://isp.kz/

I smiled and almost went away. But before I did so, I noticed a small post-scriptum – it was a moderatorial note from bash.org.ru that confirmed that this message was actually posted to the official website of the provider.

So, I rushed to check it out and, indeed, it was still there.

I was laughing so hard that I almost woke up Olga and Maxim. I mean how stupid and naive that is – asking your customers to pay based on their own calculations? What are they counting at? Good will? Honesty? Or maybe they just have an excellent sense of humor. If so, they should have an update of some sort published shortly.

After all, those who thought tha Borat (.kz stands for Kazakhstan, as does Borat) was an exhageration are wrong. He is by far not. No.

Hellenic Bank has been one of the best banks on the island for some time now. The difference between all of them is very small, but in this case, that’s what makes it more noticable.

One of the reasons that I switched to Hellenic Bank was that their Internet Banking website was working in Mozilla Firefox. And not only it was working, it was almost perfect – all operations were available and there was no need for a Java plugin or anything like that.

A minor annoyence existed though. Main menu was a little bit screwed up and didn’t show completely. It was possible to see it by clicking the little menu frame and either selecting text in there, or using the scoll mouse. Not very comfortable, but at least it worked.

Last week Hellenic Bank finally fixed the issue. Now everything looks and works perfect. More reasons, therefor, to stay with them in the coming year.

If I was to pick a feature that I miss the most, it would be the SMS notification for the change of account balance. Currently I can only setup alerts which will notify me if account balance goes above or beyond a certain amount. But what I want to have is an SMS when something changes at all. Other banks have it and I don’t see any reasons why Hellenic Bank can’t have too.

Anyway, I am still pretty pleased with their service.

The blogosphere is going crazy with this new toy from Technorati. My blog is slightly over $18K. And although I doubt anyone would want to buy it, I won’t sell it anyway. It carries my name after all. So, how much is your blog worth?

Still, I think it would be nice if there was a tool that could be seriously used by those who buy blogs – I don’t know who they are, don’t ask me. If there was such a tool it would be so easy to measure blogs, build blogs for sale, find buyers, and sell them, that it would be a good business opportunity for those of us, who … well … dares to try.

Until than we should simply blog blog and blog hope. We should hope that someone with the will and money will one day find our piles of posts and offer us something in return, so that we could finally go and spend some quality time with our families. No. I don’t think that would inspire that. If bloggers will be paid for what they do, they would probably do more of it. Or so I think.

P.S.: Last two paragraphs were put here for one reasona and one reason only – to make this post look good. You see, because I use DIVs instead of TABLEs, once in a while I get this weird formatting glitches that require me to put more text or be abandoned by all my audience, starting with me. You can stop reading now. Like you even did. I bet you are already cleaning the history and cache of your browser to help you forget this URL faster.

I was scrolling through ThinkGeek’s list of new additions (RSS feed actually) when something broke my concentration. Out of three new items added on October 19th, two didn’t make sense together:

1. Digital Picture Frame with Remote
2. 7″ Portable Tablet DVD Player

[Read the rest of this entry...]

Hazard told me about this new cool offering from Hellenic Bank – P-card, so I went to the bank today to see if I can get it.

Basically, P-card is a regular debit card. It is not connected to any of your accounts though, which is a nice thing if you want to use it on the web. The amount debited can be anywhere from 15 CYP and 500 CYP. If you run out of money, you can debit more. The P-card is for electronic use only, which is good enough if you ask me – web, ATMs both local and abroad, and shopping point of sale systems – are all good.

Applying for the card is extremely easy. Any clerk of any branch can issue the card in about 10 minutes. All you have to do is present and ID card or passport and debit either cash or from your account. The good thing is that you can even use P-card to give someone else money, like a gift for example.

I decided to start with a 50 CYP card, debitted from my account. I have received a package that contained the card itself, PIN, the copy of terms and conditions, and a bonus CYTA So-Easy 5 CYP card. Not bad.

I have also tried if the card worked on the web and didn’t have any problems. I have purchased myself a two year Flickr Pro account. By the way, I have a couple of ideas on how I am going to use it extensively in a very near future.

Resume: if you need a quick, simple, and secure way to buy stuff on the web or via other electronic means, get yourself a P-card from Hellenic bank. That’s a really good option.