I'm not a fan of Mac, but that isn't the reason I'm not choosing iPhone. I has been using Windows Mobile PDA since 2006. I used an O2 XDA IIi and an O2 XDA IIi. Windows Mobile is great for synchronizing between the PDA and the personal computer (PC) I'm not a mobile phone expert.

That's why before buying something I read a lot of reviews. This time I actually asked about this on the BrightHand Forum Is iPhone better than PDA Phone? The experts told me not to buy it.

The reasons why I won't buy an iPhone:

Here are the disadvantages of the iPhone:

1. No flexibility of Office suite syncing, editing, formatting;
2. No tap-hold cut/paste function;
3. No selection of multiple emails/texts;
4. It doesn't do JAVA or FLASH;
5. Security on the iPhone is practically nonexistent;

On Brithhand forum, many people had their says, and here is the most complete answer to my question (by pixelator):

You can sync basic Contacts and Calendar elements, but the iPhone is a LONG way from having the flexibility of a WM or PPC device in terms of Office suite syncing, editing, formatting. I don't know how invested you are in the traditional WM way of doing things, but you might find it unnerving that you can't tap-hold-cut/paste or select multiple emails/texts. I know I did.

What the iPhone has is a truly spectacular browser (Safari with scalability). It doesn't do JAVA or FLASH, however and unless you Jailbreak your phone, which is easy enough to do but may void your warranty or cause you other hassles, a WM user may find that there's just too much control being exerted by Apple over the user experience. They want to sign off on all upcoming third party development and even though they WANT people to see their phone as a business option, it currently really isn't. Security on the iPhone is practically nonexistent and it's apparently driving IT people nuts with so many wanting to use their iPhones for work.

...

Bottom line is, the iPhone is difficult to quantify and seems to contradict itself at times. if you're really wanting portable MS Office functions you want to be very clear on your specific needs. For basic Contacts/Calendar with reminders, the iPhone works. Much more than that and you may be sorely disappointed. You won't mind the gorgeous, wonderful UI, though. YMMV but while I'd take a clamshell or slideout keyboard any day of the week, the iPhone onscreen keyboard, which has quite a learning curve to it, is superior to the basic WM popup equivalent.

...

You may read the rest here

Related Articles

Many people also say NO to this iPhone:

• Why I'm Not Getting an iPhone
• Top 10 reasons not to buy an iPhone
• The iPhone is not a smartphone
• Why You May Not Want An iPhone

How about you?

The strange thing that caught my attention is that PunBB is a very simple PHP-powered bulletin board. Why such a big company like Facebook didn't make their own forum CMS or use a commercial one such as vBulletin, or the free and famous one phpBB, or bbPress. Why PunBB?

I went ahead to PunBB and register for an account for their forum. I tested it and here are some findings.

PunBB features

PunBB claims to have the following features:

• is fast.
• has simple layout and design.
• is easy to administrate and moderate.
• doesn't output huge, non-valid, (X)HTML pages.
• has source code you could read and understand.

What I like about PunBB

1. The forum seem to be pretty simple and fast as they claimed it to be.
2. It's light weight.
3. Active support community.
4. Used by famous companies like Facebook.
5. (due to unexpected reason, this part is missing).

What I don't like

There are something I don't like though.

1. The system redirect the URL for almost every action related to the database. That's something very strange, and ofcourse it slightly increase the lag and wait time between operations.
2. The PunBB forum, just like other forums and unlike bbPress, doesn't have friendly URL. At this time I still don't know if there are plugins that provide friendly URL feature for this. If not, this will be a major drawback for the system and might be the cause for me not using it.

What's next?

I'm considering this to be the solution for my own help forum in replacement for the help page. I hate complexity in the interface and back-end system. Something like Joomla just isn't right for me.

If you are interseted in this system, please go ahead and visit their website PunBB and test out their PunBB Forums. And of course, you should check out how face book use it on their Facebook Platform Developers Forum. And (another and) don't forget to come back here and tell me how you feel.

I like about BONTB is its short posts. Seriously, I hate to read long blog posts and I still don't understand why I wrote those lengthy ones. Short blog posts make it easy to read and the topic is clearer compare to composite posts. It's also easier for commenting and skimming.

I also like BONTB for providing free blogging help. Yes, you can Ask Bontb! This is a free service similar to what I'm providing right here on my blog. You can ask me for blogging help, or any type of help here. The difference is that BONTB provided the service as a contact form (private email) and he manually publish what he think worth saying. While my service is provided using the existing comment form (public message).

The greatest thing about BONTB is that he is very open minded and honest person. I still remember the last time thanks to him I bought a few PR4 and 5 domain names. Well, I still haven't make those domain active yet and actually haven't made any bucks from them. But if you need a cheap but high-value domain name you may consider to Ask Bontb.

BONTB blog provide many type of useful information. As a matter of fact, it worth visiting so much that I subscribed to his blog on my Google Reader couple of weeks ago. His category list is rather long and I haven't got enough time to dig trough all of those.

Oh, I shouldn't forget to mentioned that BONTB blog dofollows comment author link (no nofollow attribute) so it's a great place to discuss and get rewarded with Link Popuarity and PageRank juice.

I hope this icebreaker blog post will open my fingers up for typing more great posts. Meanwhile, I still am waiting for the new blog design to come out, so Brian, hope you do a good work over there.

Lastly, please ignore this test paragraph for spam links. Own domain name is very good for making blog. Internet Explorer is not as good a browser as Mozilla Firefox.

In Australia I spent most of my time working as a computer service technician. My job was to fix broken computer and maintain a network of around 20 computers for Internet cafe. It cost people up to $80 for a repair I done in few hours. Even when not at work, tweaking and maintaining a Windows PC is just my daily life.

I've been too busy with learning to blog. If the same amount of time that I read, I spend to write, now I would have few hundred articles up and running. Unfortunately, life is like that, learning make you slow down, but after that it give you much more benefit than not learning at all.

Recently I stumbled upon this blog called Web Tools and Tips because of some link bait. At first, I thought it's just some commercial blog up for nothing. But slowly when I repeatedly visit it I found it really match my taste.

If you have a blog, you should link to me now, whisper me and I will put a back link to your page too. My linking strategy is much more generous than many other bloggers. For instant you can check this article Top 65 Ping Sites for WordPress Blogs, see how many inbound links I get from there, and compare how many outbound links from this post.

Silky the author behind Web Tools and Tips is writing a lot about computers tips and tricks. This really turn me on because it's my expertise. I always wanted to write tips and tweaks for Windows. At the time I write this article, the latest tips from Web Tools and Tips is: Make your Windows XP Computer run faster. Since this is what I know well and what I do, I would like to have a quick look at the advices. Here are the main point from this article.

1. Remove unwanted software from your PC
2. Remove unwanted programs from Start up
3. Turn off the fancy Windows XP graphics
4. Clear Browsing History and Temporary files

Well, allow me to give some humble opinions here, even though it's a little off-topic. I strongly agree with the first 3 points. By following those 3 advices you will greater improve the performance of any computer. However, I disagree on number 4. The author said:

If you are a consistent user of your web browser, then over a period, many unwanted Temporary Internet files, cookies, browsing history, your passwords etc. get accumulated in the memory, and is a drain on the PC resources. You can selectively delete them, specially the Temporary Internet files.

Source: http://webtoolsandtips.com/uncategorized/make-computer-fast/

No! If you delete the temporary Internet files you are loosing performance. The purpose of caching is to speed up the online browsing speed. The longer the history and temporary files the faster you will browse the Internet.

Just a simple example, imagine when you get hit a 10MB flash file. If you delete it from the cache, it will have to be downloaded the next time you view it... do you like that 2 minutes wait? If you leave it there, the next hit may take only 1 or 2 seconds.

The temporary files you need to clean up often, are not Temporary Interent Files, but the Temporary System files reside in C:\Temp, C:\Windows\Temp, and %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp.

Oh, that's just a quick look at something I'm good at. There are more to say, but not at this time and not in this article. Silky might not like my honest opinion but that's how I work. I always will give honest opinions even it is negative. I know it hurts because the person (even myself) would feel a little embarrassed, even angry sometimes. However, if that person (including myself) can take that as a positive criticism than they can improve very quickly and become more successful.

Overall, I found Web Tools and Tips very interesting blog and I will definitely be a loyal reader. I particularly like Tips 'n' Tricks category from this blog. It remind me to put something into my Windows category.

• 12 Tips of Christmas
• 5 Christmas Movies For The Whole Family To Enjoy!
• 5 Most Popular Styles of Christmas Ornaments
• 5 Of The Best Remote Control Toys for Kids for Christmas
• 5 Things Your Christmas Table Should Not Be Without
• 6 Family Christmas Vacation Tips You Must Know
• 6 Tips For Surviving Christmas Stress
• A Blog Isn't Just For Christmas
• Be His Gift of Self-esteem for Christmas
• Business Christmas Cards
• Christmas Cookie Decorating 101
• Christmas Decorating Trends for 2005
• Christmas Eve Recipe Ideas
• "Christmas For One: Mental Health Over the Holidays"
• Christmas Gift Ideas: Interior Décor Presents
• Christmas Ornaments - Make Your Own with Beads and Pipe Cleaners
• Christmas Time
• Christmas Traditions in Germany
• Christmas Tree Ornament Tips
• Do You Know The Origins of Christmas traditions ?
• Fly Fishing Gift Ideas – Christmas Presents
• Fly Fishing Gifts for Christmas
• Hassle-Free Holiday Baking: 6 Easy Days to Perfect Christmas
• Have a Christmas Party-a planning guide
• Have a Multi-Cultural Christmas with Juan Oskar
• Holiday Craftts - Thanksgiving and Christmas Decoration Ideas
• Holiday Decorating Tips: Christmas Candles
• How Christmas shopping online better your Christmas!
• How to avoid Christmas debt overload
• It's Not Just About Christmas Trees and Christmas Gifts
• Kayaking Gifts for Christmas
• Real vs. Artificial Christmas Trees
• Rock Climbing – Christmas Gift Ideas
• Stress Busting Christmas Tips
• Taking Back Christmas
• The History of the Christmas Card
• The Truth About Christmas
• Time for Christmas plans
• Tips for Christmas Shopping for Babies and Infants
• Tips On Hosting a Christmas tree trimming party
• Unique Backpacking Christmas Gift Ideas for Backpackers
• Unique Camping Gift Ideas for Christmas
• Use H-O-L-L-Y to Beat Christmas Cooking Stress
• What Does the Way You Shop for Christmas Presents Say About You?
• What Flowers for Your Girlfriend this Christmas?

Am I generous? If this list help you in anyway, please kindly link to it from your blog. There will be more to come so make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed for updates.

This post was originally published at as 45 Christmas Tip Articles for a Better X-mas. However, I made a mistake in the links so I republish it here.

1. The Warrior Forum
2. Digital Point Forums
3. The V7 Web Development Community
4. WickedFire Forums
5. Thirty Day Challenge Forums
6. IM4Newbies
7. NetBusinessTalk.com
8. High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
9. The New Bloggers Message Board
10. Clickbank Success Forum

I will check each of them later on and may write more details.

Good Things

Thanks to the new improvement I could see a few things change and here are some good things:

1. 1CoolFile now offer free blog listing. This come with requirements though: you need to write a review about the directory, and some more.
2. 1CoolFile had a major minor change in design, which make it a little neater.

Bad Things

I agree with most of the terms he pointed out, however not for "A reciprocal link must be in the sidebar".

1. Resolved by McGrath. He request nofollow links, so it's fair. Originally I said: It's unfair. Regardless of having PR 6, 1CoolFile is giving nofollow links (not search engine friendly) so the PR is useless, and on top of that asking people to have reciprocal links, which most likely be search engine friendly. Is it blogger selling traffic to 1CoolFile to get listed, or is it 1CoolFile sell/give traffic to blogs?
2. The site is still too messy compare to other directory, and the blog directory is still mixed with the file directory.

My suggestions

Indeed bloggers tend to be a bit greedy and don't want to pay money for things. But when that thing they feel is unnecessary doesn't matter how much attractive it is, they still don't want it. $10 $2.5/year is not a big amount compare to $5/month hosting, but... somehow people hesitate to pay. And since it's the common behavior, perhaps a directory like 1CoolFile should consider and respect it.

Instead of going against the vast population, 1CoolFile should learn more from rssHugger and start booming.

It's not just about money, but also about the look, feel and navigation structure. rssHugger did well and getting their blog list updated every hour. Check out my site on rssHugger and you can see the total different compare to this 1CoolFile site, in term of design.

Yet, I still am not satisfied with rssHugger navigation structure and wrote it here: rssHugger Blog Directory: the Right Model?. 1CoolFile should do better than rssHugger if it want to stay in the competition.

Last but not least, the first thing a directory (fisher) need to do to get the bites (from bloggers), is to prove it's useful. It needs to show some graphs about:

1. How capable it is, i.e. such as how many direct hits, how many search hits, etc.
2. How buyers benefit from it, such as an estimate amount of how much traffic blogs can get per month from the directory

Conclusion

This post is written in response to 1 Cool File: Submit Your Blog For Free from McGrath.ca.

If 1CoolFile can buy my vote. If it can list my blog for free with all the same respect with paid member, like rssHugger did, then I can be sure that it will be a very successful model. For now, I feel I may look bad if I'm on it.

I have the good intention and would like success to fellow McGrath. My thoughts have not yet been refined into beautiful words so please forgive me if the words hurt.

(BTW, Steve, your blog block my comment... again.)

Update: Further on emails, I can see McGrath is a reasonable guy, so I guess his model should be trust worthy.

But hey, here is a big news: Collin LaHay has revamped his rssHugger model after receiving a lot of comment from the review on JohnChow.com. I got a feeling that rssHugger is going to beat up their Competitors with the right model.

It's a similar case as 1CoolFile.com did after receiving negative feedbacks from his ReviewMe post on JohnCow.com. However, Collin made a much better decision and adjust the plan with huge differences.

The good differences

The exceptional change is that, rssHugger now offer 250,000 free blogs within the first year of operation.

What are the requirements for free listing?

• You need to write a blog post to review rssHugger, otherwise you have to pay $20 fee
• Your blog must meet the quality standard and manually approved.

Standout benefits for bloggers:

• Monthly top 100 blogs listing gives more exposure to both viewers and search engine.
• Random listing gives more exposure to viewers (not search engine exposure).
• New RSS Feeds listing gives explores for newly listed blogs.

Some very common benefits:

• Raise awareness of your blog
• Send tons of visitors to your blog
• Share traffic with the community
• Be part of a viral/buzz marketing campaign
• Get new interested RSS subscribers who view your content on a regular basis.

Some limitations

Even the biggest boys of the Internet have their limitations, so does rssHugger.

1. The search feature is still in the browsing form of navigation. This mean... people have to dig for your blog, and less likely it will work.
2. 250,000 blogs is big number, but very small compare to "over 112 million registered blogs, with about 175,000 new ones per day" (Collin LaHay), so if we are late to sign-up we may have to pay that $20.
3. Currently it's totally blogger oriented. Visitors who come to this site will bounce back because they see the home page is promoting some blogger benefits, not for them.
4. The directory is actually located in the "Search" tab. Confusing enough and hard enough to be found or clicked. Worse yet, it's nearly the last tab you can see.

My suggestions

Collin LaHay really needs to consider many more factors invovled in the grow of this unigue model of directory. He may want to look at the following suggestions:

1. Implement the search function as soon as possible. Without a search form it will just drive visitors away. Temporarily use Google site search the programmers are still working on it.
2. It should focus more on the visitors than the bloggers. After all the true purpose should be to benefit the readers, and that's what blogging is about, too.
3. Put the directory right at the homepage, improving the exposure of the blogs. What if visitor type the URL http://www.rsshugger.com and found the promotion for bloggers?
4. The promotion should be done on the "Blogger" page, which explain the benefit of this site to blogger alone. The home page and everything else should be for readers.
5. The about page should be focused on promoting the site to visitors. It's best to avoid mixing bloggers with readers, because not every reader know what is a blog.
6. The registration form need to be more instuitive. Especially to what you will use as the login name. I thought my name will be used but it was the email. It's confusing. And the registration should have email confirmation, for security reason.

Errh, btw, I'm not a lazy bumb sitting at home pointing my finger at somebody just for fun, you can read the about page to find a little more about me, Binh Nguyen.

Generally speaking, a new site always need to learn more. Keep improving is the way to survive as well as to grow.

Just a big of history

My initial comments on JohnChow.com:

I agree with John Chow about the “wrong model”. I suggest the site to start with first blog post for free and additional blog post pay. Everyone love free stuff, especially bloggers.

I’m a blogger too and I hesitate to pay the money knowing it’s just $1/year. The problem of uncertainty always refrain us from taking action.

A lot of blog directory list for free, and they have PR 7+, then why we pay for a lower PR directory some amount of money and then wait for it to grow?

Recently 1CoolFile.com also got a JohnCow review about the same thing. The different is that he got a PR6 site, but lack of series marketing and web-design.

...

RSSHugger should consider about the stronger competitors and lower its hat to new comers.

Then here is what followed up by Collin LaHay:

Due to the overwhelming comments and contributions, I am going to be revamping the business model (much like john recommended), as well as adding a few things I had planned so that everyone with a quality blog has a shot and listing their blog.

Conclusion

Being listed on a paid directory for free is something really fun and should do? Yes, we enjoy the benefit of being a paid member and get tons of traffic from rssHugger.com for free while rssHugger is doing all the hard work promoting it.

But don't worry, it will cause them no harm. Ethically speaking, go for it. Why? Doesn't that make a win-win situation for both blogger and rssHugger? By providing their service for the first 250,000 blogs for free, rssHugger is getting back tons of backlink and PR juice from those 250,000 free blogs would get them to PR 6 in no time. In return they pass back those traffic to us bloggers.

What's next

I'm trying to have my blog be one of the first 100 blogs listed on rssHugger. Be with me there and let's see the grow of a brand new generation of blog directory.

Feel free to feed me back with comments and I will attend to it as soon as I can.

Overview

Today, I visited his website again after he left a comment on JohnCow.com about his changes for this new affiliate program.

I can tell that he is improving a lot after he Relaunche Affiliate Program For 1 Cool File. It look like he will succeed on this... soon... He decided to cut the price down to very affordable and appealing. I'm not yet an affiliate on his program so... no profit for me for saying this.

As McGrath requested on his post, I tried to post a comment on his post... but unsuccessful due to blocked IP. So I decided to post it here instead, since it's a long one.

My Humble Suggestions

1. There is one quick suggestion I have for the categories: remove the categories with 0 blogs in it. It's just there to keep the screen busy and drive away viewers.
2. I reckon he makes a whole sub domain just for the blog directory. So something like http://blogs.1coolfile.com may do the trick.
   • His software download section in the main site should be kept and improved. Because after all the site name is "1 Cool File", not "1 Cool Blog".
   • This allow him to expend the site later on. Such as adding:
     • http://forum.1coolfile.com,
     • http://tutorials.1coolfile.com, etc.
3. For me I could see a bunch of opportunities you could do with 1coolfile before you want to sell the blog directory service. And yes, it's more profitable than selling few $ /year.
4. As for the terms. "Buy Blog Package" might confuse people with actually buying some blog. So McGrath may want to change it to something similar to "Add your blog". Sometimes, the word "Buy" doesn't work as expected, because people just tend to ignore it.
5. The site, and especially the front page should be keep in a more sleek design. A good start should be keeping the design compact, clear and less confusing. Too many explanation isn't always helpful. Maybe some JavaScript with the big ? mark button to display instruction might work better.

What's next?

I could feel that it's a promising service. There are more things he need to improve though. I guess McGrath needs more people working for him as employees, or partners.

I’m not Chinese. Right now I’m travelling in China. Apparently his web server blocked my IP from posting comments on your blog.

I was just trying to send 2 very legit comments.

My comment for your post John Chow is Losing $ 2082.49 is:

Yes, the weak American dollar is making me lose a lot of money. I'm spending Australian dollars, which also winning the exchange race. Beside the dollars issue, how is life in Canada?

My comment for Relaunching My Affiliate Program For 1 Cool File:

It's too long so I made a new post instead: 1CoolFile.com Needs More Improvements

If you come here via the trackback then I hope you should investigate the issue.

1. A few of my blogs have been there for as long as it was up (good).
2. I see my unclaimed Binh dot Name blog have 7 authorities (good or bad?).

"What is Authority?"

Answer 1: Ownership

I got really surprised and asked myself over and over again: "Hey! That's my blog, how come it have 7 authorities already? Who are those people got onto my blog". I click on that "Authority: 7" button again and again a few times just to find out who owned my blog. But each time it would lead me to the blog profile... so annoyed and disappointed, I was.

Then I asked myself: "Am I being noob?"

Is it sort of JOKE? At my very novice first impression I thought someone took over the ownership of my blog. And even worse, I thought 7 people got a hand on owning my blog.

Answer 2: Membership

The joke didn't end so soon. I tried to search Technorati site for some hint, but maybe it's just for experts, so I couldn't really find an answer to it.

I, being a human finally realize what it means by looking at other blogs listed on Technorati. Still, the concept was misunderstood. I thought it was the number of people who added my blog to their favorite list, or maybe it's members of my blog community like in MyBlogLog. But anyway, I got calmed down and put the issue aside for a bit.

Answer 3: Non of the above

That's enough to make me laugh, when 6 hours passed, I posted 2 long posts, and read many pages of blog, still got the misconception in mind.

When things are done, I decide to search for "What is Technorati Authority" on Google, and found this page: What is Authority? Finally I realize, it's Technorati who plays the game of creating new English term.

I strongly agree with Micro Persuasion about the term "Authority" and its very natural English meaning:

According to the Oxford Dictionary, authority is:

a) the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience

Hmmm, Technorati link counts don't let me boss anybody around.

b) a person or organization having power or control in a particular, typically political or administrative, sphere

Hmmm, nothing about links here.

c) the power to influence others, esp. because of one's commanding manner or one's recognized knowledge about something

There was a noticeably very long comment from Deepak explaining the word Authority in Technorati use. Regardless of how acceptable his explaination is, it's just an excuse from a "blog authority" who try to alter the meaning of an English word just for the sake of "being authority".

Conclusion

Well, I feel Technorati should admit it's improper use of the word authority in place of the word popularity or more simpler term "inbound links". Making novice people wondering around not knowing a term, just doesn't make you any cooler. Even if it's too late, or too ashamed to admit it, then at least Technorati should:

Describe term Authority everywhere it present, especially right after the sign-up complete.

The blogosphere is not a game world, we consist of real people, and real readers. So please consider using some term that's more simple to understand. Perhaps the "high authority" people in Technorati should think about the KISS principle. Use the KISS and you may get real kisses.

(Just in case people don't know, KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid, kiss = using your mouth to kiss. )

The Good as I can see

1. This site has a professional look.
2. It is well established and has nearly 3,000 community member on MyBlogLog.
3. It is content rich with a niche about marketing and SEO.

The Bad as I can see

1. The banner is too large, it covers 1/3 of my screen height and push the content down.
2. There are some logos of various search engine across the header. Those I feel are not necessary and they take plentiful of valuable space. Why are you advertising the search engines?
3. Also, instead of a horizontal menu I see the subscribe buttons accross the screen between the header and the content. And the way they animate is distorting the display on my screen.

The Bug as I can see

I can't believe it have some bug with the comments form. After submitting the comment I waited for a while without seeing any change in the page. When I scroll up I found this:

Warning: main(../../../wp-config.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /www/wordpress24/wordpress/wp-content/themes/vantagepress-green-13/vantagepress-green-13/comments-ajax.php on line 2

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required '../../../wp-config.php' (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear') in /www/wordpress24/wordpress/wp-content/themes/vantagepress-green-13/vantagepress-green-13/comments-ajax.php on line 2

I took a screenshot here:

Comment to the author: The file comments-ajax.php is missing. Somehow it's with the theme vantagepress-green-13? I don't know much details about this theme and the plugin they are using on TheWebMarketingBlog.com, so I can't comment on this.

I kindly suggest the author of this blog should fix it soon, so that I and other readers can have our say.

What's Next?

Since this is a first review, I also would like to notify everyone of my intention: I'm not for sale. Reviewing is one of my hobbies and I do so without any bias. Expect me to write more negative reviews than positve reviews.

As a matter of interest, since I'm so happy to review other people's stuff, I'm also happy other review about mine too. So feel free to slap to the face for something I done wrong, or thumb up my good work, all are welcome.