Quaero, European Answer to Google

Following French President Jacques Chirac statement to media last week, The Quaero project is prepared as a search engine for European Union. This initiative is taken to match US domination in media search. At the present, most of search engines giant such as Google, Yahoo and MSN are based on US.

Last December, Japan government also unveiled their plan to launch their own search engine to lessen Google dominance.

Filed in: European Search Engine, Google, Quaero

Making Profit from PPC Advertising?

As click frauds are considered as one of the biggest threats to Pay per Click advertising model, you might think that advertising through PPC program such Google AdWords just a waste. Despite of the facts, PPC for some of people still one of the best way to drive the traffic and generate sales.

The writer of Cash from Your Camera Robert Hartness experienced that PPC advertising still efficient. Regardless the click frauds, choosing good PPC providers are a matter. In his experiment, his Google AdWords campaign drove fewer visitors than Kanoodle; however, Google AdWords resulted in better conversion rate.

Good Bye Passport, Welcome Windows Live ID

A new Microsoft's InfoCard technology will back up Windows Live ID service to provide authentication service for Windows Live family by 2007. A Microsoft spokesperson said that Windows Live ID would play a large part in making upcoming services possible. However, the service launch date is not known yet.

Windows Live ID was first revealed at RSA Conference earlier this month. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said that InfoCard was intended to replace Passport. InfoCard technology will provide integrated place for personal data and payment information.

Miva Joins Contextual Ad Program Battle

Recently, Google is facing more and more competitors. After Yahoo successfully introduced Yahoo Publisher Network to answer Google AdSense. Last Monday, Miva, a performance marketing network, joined the battle by launching a beta global contextual ad program.

Not like the others, Miva gives publishers more control, letting them generate content while protecting their brands’ integrity. Miva also offers automated and manual system. Using automated system, Miva’s contextual engine dynamically serves relevant ads based on the page’s content, whereas the manual system allows publishers to select keywords manually to match ads to both content and visitor demographics.

Filed in: Contextual Ad Program, Google, Miva

Click Fraudsters Earn Billion Annually?

Internet ad-traffic scams become one of the hottest topics these days. Business Week reported that a web consultant, Greg Boser, created a software program as a clickbot to create the fake clicks. It routes traffic all over the Internet through anonymous proxy server, creating the false impression that visitors are from all over the world.

While companies such as Google and Yahoo are doing enough to reduce the number of fraud clicks, in fact, the fraudsters are always one step ahead. As a result, Google stock was downgraded last January. On the other hand, senior director of Yahoo! product management confidently said that click fraud is still manageable as Yahoo! system continually improve and update to any new patterns and problems. Meanwhile, Google employs teams to monitor fraud click activity.

Security experts agreed that it is trivial to filter out some not legitimate traffic. However, it will get more complicated when a hacker utilize a worm to infect thousands of vulnerable PCs to route traffic from actual computer all over the world to his sites. This technique is nearly impossible to identify.

Ssstttt... Microsoft' Secret Project

Microsoft has a secret... BetaNews reported, Microsoft registered www.origamiproject.com early this week. However, don't expect to see any product information there. If you wonder, Microsoft provides a few hints that might help you to guess. Once, you open the website, a flash animation will greet you and pop up 4 questions: "Do you know me? Do you know what I can do? Or where I can go? Or how I can change your life?" And finally, it ends up with the text: "you will learn on 3.2.06"

Several industry watchers are speculating Origami could be a new type of wearable PC or small digital camcorder referring prototype demoed at COMDEX 2001 or perhaps Microsoft answer to Apple iPod. Who knows?

Anyway, we'll know the answer soon...

Windows Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview

A long waiting browser from Microsoft, finally hit its milestone.. the beta 2 preview... With massive new features such as tabbed browsing, built-in RSS support and importantly the security enhancements, IE7 is worth to try.
However, most of the new features are not really new for me. I have been enjoying such features through Mozilla Firefox.

Despite of the facts, the new features of IE7 still look great. Importantly, it is not as greedy as Firefox in term of memory consumption.

If you are interested, you can download the beta 2 preview from: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=4521302

Please note:
- Installation will involve windows validation. If your windows is not valid, just forget it :)
- The installation will replace IE6, and you cannot rollback the installation. So, just install if you are ready.

World's Most Expensive Chocolate

Ever wonder what is the most expensive chocolate in the world? For sure, it is not Godiva. Just give you an early shock, this chocolate costs you US$5.200 per kilogram. What does make this chocolate so expensive? As the maker said, "It's made of 70% Valrhona cacao, which is blended into a creamy ganache with truffle oil. The truffle is then hand-rolled with a dark truffle on the inside and dusted with cocoa powder."

This chocolate company is Knipschildt Chocolatier that was founded in 1999 by Fritz Knipschildt, who got his culinary education as a chef in Denmark. You can call this chocolate: Chocopologie. If you interested in, and want to know how does the worlds's most expensive chocolate taste? Go and buy... Visit the website: www.knipschildt.com

Journal: I Love You, Mum...

Anyone gets Il Divo songs? Kinda nice songs.. Like it very much...
My favorite one:

"Mama, thank you for who I am.. Thank you for the things I'm not... Mama remember all my life. You showed me love, You sacrificed think of those young and early days... That I am where I am because of your truth. I miss you, I miss you... Mama forgive the times you cried; Forgive me for not making right... Mama I hope this makes you smile; I hope you're happy with my life... And I know you believed in all of my dreams, And I owe it all to you, Mama"

I realize that I LOVE U very much, MUM..

Journal: My Declaration

I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me.
Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it.

I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, and all my actions, whether they be to others or myself.
I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears.
I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes.
Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts.

I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me.
However, I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me.

If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded.
I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do.
I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me.

I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am okay.
I am a Young Man whose Journey has begun 25 Years ago since I came to this beautiful Planet , called Earth and I will keep moving on my journey to become a better person and help those who need my help.
I am Hery, and I will not Give Up...
If I have to Climb that Mountain, by God's Help I will and I will not give up.