Syndicated Elitist v2.0

Google Adsense Has Been Screwing Me For Two Years

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:29:00 +0000

Well I haven't blogged lately and I figured I would get things rolling again by warning readers about my troubles with Google Adsense. I ran Adsense for almost three years and earned several hundred dollars and guess what? They never sent me a check.

When I contacted them they gave me very vague canned responses and never gave me a precise reason my funds were being held and Google never ever responded to my written letters requesting release of my payments.

So much for Google's evil policy!

AOL Spammer recieves 30 month federal prison sentence

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:04:00 +0000

27-year-old Adam Vitale of New York was sentenced to 30 month's in Federal Prison on Tuesday for his part in spamming AOL users. In addition he was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $180,000.

He was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. Vitale and his partner in crime, Todd Moeller, were busted after they offered their spam services to a government informant, according to an indictment filed in May 2006.

The two sent around 250,000 spam messages to more than 1.2 million e-mail addresses belonging to AOL subscribers, the indictment read.

The spam messages contained false "headers," or the set of information contained in an e-mail that identifies where it has been sent from. The information can be faked. The two also routed the spam through open proxies, or other computer servers, in order to make it more difficult to trace.

Atleast a dozen Internet Service Providers have been collaborating for a few years now on new technology to better prevent spam but there is some much separation with companies failing to agree on any specific solution.

Moeller pleaded guilt to two counts of e-mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit e-mail fraud. He was sentenced in December 2007 to 27 months, court records show. He also was ordered to forfeit $183,000 in profit gained from spamming.

Adam Vitale is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York until he is transferred to U.S. Marhsals custody for transportation to his designated prison.

The Arecibo Observatory needs your help

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:56:00 +0000

The Arecibo Observatory has been troubled with budget problems for years now, but now the future of the observatory is being called into question. The question at hand is whether U.S. Congress will provide funding that is needed badly.

Seti@Home relies on The Arecibo Observatory and without the observatory the UC Berkeley project would cease to exist. I personally have participated in the Seti@Home project for years and I believe the project is a great contribution to science and technology.

You can donate directly to Seti@Home by clicking here and going to their site.

An Exclusive Interview with Jeremy Schoemaker (ShoeMoney.com)

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:27:00 +0000

I had the opportunity to interview Jeremy Schoemaker of ShoeMoney.com today and I asked him just a few brief questions and here is what he had to say. Jeremy is one of the most successful bloggers around.

Benjamin: Do you see ShoeMoney.com as still successful 18 months from now and if yes, what kind of stuff will you need to do in order to keep ShoeMoney successful?

Jeremy: Being I run 6 companies (soon 7) and blogging is something I do "when I have time" I would guess that bloggers who are devoted to blogging full time will surpass the popularity of shoemoney.com. Course I said that 2 years ago too. I just try to have fun with the site.

Benjamin: If you were to give a beginning blogger a tip what would be the most valuable tip you could give them?

Jeremy: Just write about what you are passionate about. If you start a blog about a subject you are passionate about odds are you will like doing it and if you can keep up the passion could possibly make it big.

Benjamin: What is your favorite hobby (not to include blogging) ?

Jeremy: For fun I really like to program. I am a O.K. programer and always enjoy writing programs.

Benjamin: Tell me about some of your favorite places that being a successful blogger has taken you?

Jeremy: Blogger specific pretty much everywhere in the US. I have also been invited to speak at conferences in other countries but have not been able to yet.

Benjamin: What are some of your favorite blogging communities if you have any? (such as BlogCatalog, EC, etc.)

Jeremy: I really do not have a favorite community... I joined and even paid for blog catalog but still am not sure what I even get for paying ;)

Benjamin: Has your blog helped out any good causes such as a charity or any kind of disaster?

Jeremy: Sure we have had a few fundraisers.

http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/01/25/i-am-selling-domains-for-charity/

http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/07/31/help-marcela-devivo-aka-2_much-wmw-mod-2_much-fundraiser/

- End of Interview -

We would like to thank Jeremy Schoemaker for taking time out of his busy schedule to do a small interview with us. If you would like to learn more about Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com click here

EntreCard and SezWho Partner Up!

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:46:00 +0000

In case you didn't know EntreCard and SezWho have entered into a partnership which was announced today. This partnership will be beneficial to blogger's who currently use EntreCard and those who signup to use EntreCard.

Basically, you get EntreCard Credits for any comments you leave on other EntreCard user's blogs if they have SezWho installed through EntreCard and at the same time other EntreCard users will get credits for posting comments on your blog too.

Now I bet you are thinking that this is going to unleash a load of comment spam right? Perhaps not.... Essentially the community will police comments by rating them.

Now I am not exactly a major supporter of EntreCard although it is a decent service and have perks and such.

I have had some issues with Graham Langdon but in all honesty this partnership will benefit users of EntreCard and will probably generate more interest in EntreCard.

I have installed SezWho on Syndicated Elitist for a test run as apart of this new partnership and I will test it out myself to see what results from using it.

We have our own branded promotional items!

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:21:00 +0000

I went to some vendors of Silicone Bracelets with interest in having custom SyndicatedElitist.com bracelets made to give out to readers and at trade shows and other events.

Well the other day I got my first shipment from the vendor I decided to work with and so far I am satisfied with the results.

If you remember the whole silicone bracelet fad started with the LiveStrong bracelets that Lance Armstrong started distributing with Nike,

Well now we have some bracelets for promotional items and I will be giving them out in upcoming trade shows and conventions.

I am unaware of any other blogger's who actually have their own branded promotional items which would sorta make me the first blogger to do something like this which is neat.

Will the real John Chow please stand up?

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 03:36:00 +0000

Who is John Chow really? John Chow is a blogger living in Canada who founded The TechZone which has become one of the largest hardware tech sites on the Internet.

John Chow wants everyone to think that he is a Dot Com mogul of some sort although the reality is he is nothing close to a Dot Com mogul.

John Chow runs his own blog at John Chow Dot Com and it's a perfect example of blogging at it's worst and an attempt to mislead the masses into believing he is something more than what he actually is.

John Chow thinks so highly of his blog that he has become more of a nuisance than an actual contribution to the blogosphere.

Mr. Chow runs his blog which serves no real purpose other than trying to solicit readers into believing they will make money by signing up with his advertisers and affiliates or by doing as he does.

Does John Chow really think anyone with any sort of intelligence is going to pay him $500 which is the rate he charges to review a blog? I mean come on John Chow can hardly spell by the look of his blog which has a large amount of broken English.

Google has went as far as to penalize John Chow's blog by removing it from it's search results for a period of time and Digg also at one point banned John Chow.

Want an alternative to John Chow?

Check out Josh Whitford's Unconvential Marketing blog and you will find a clean cut blog with relevant content and Josh Whitford in all honesty will not lead you to believe that he is anything other than what he really is. If you want to read more about John Chow then click here.

And John Chow if you are reading this post I encourage and invite you to comment on it.

Good Bye SecondLife, Hello Google Lively

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:15:00 +0000

Google has stepped into the arena with SecondLife with it's newest product known as "Lively" which essentially allows you to create an avatar and interact and chat in a virtual world.

There is already a lot of talk as to how badly this new Google product will effect SecondLife and so far it's not looking good.

Why would anyone want to pay for special features in SecondLife when they can use a alternative like Lively through Google which is more than likely to remain free since Google is notorious for offering everything for free.

I spent a half hour on Lively this afternoon and it is remarkable and honestly when I tried out SecondLife last month I honestly could not say the same about SecondLife.

Comics just for kids? No way!

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:56:00 +0000

For the longest time I had the preconception that comics were for kids but recently I have found a lot of interest in a web comic that is available online and is totally free.

The best part is the comic is clean cut and well laid out exactly what you might expect of a big time publisher.

Anyways, I have been reading Calamities of Nature for a good week now and I have become hooked. I honestly would love to read the epic journeys of Aaron, Alp, Ferdinand, and Harold in my local newspaper but for now I will have to visit the web comic's site regularly to get my fix.

The best part about this comic is that is seamlessly integrates modern cultural icons such as Google and Starbucks into it's stories and have a real strong sense of humor.

But hold on if you don't have the required time to check out the web comic on a regular basis the creator Tony Piro also sells print copies in his online store.

Syndicated Elitist Now Offering Peel Away Ads

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:51:00 +0000

Syndicated Elitist will now be offering and serving peel away advertisements through our partnership with AdToll.

Any of our existing advertisers or any companies or persons interested in advertising on Syndicated Elitist are able to go directly to AdToll and purchase ad space on our site.

Pricing is set by AdToll using pricing calculation system which tracks our traffic and other statistics and sets a fair market advertising rate for our ad slots. We are proud to be a publisher with AdToll and strategic partner and we strongly recommend AdToll to anyone looking to increase revenue with their existing site.

AdToll offers many different formats for advertisements we just selected them for their leadership in "Peel Away Ads".

Feel free to use our "Contact Us" link above to make any inquiry regarding our site and or advertising opportunities.

SyndicatedElitist.com Accepted As Member of Domain Name Owners Association

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:56:00 +0000

SyndicatedElitist.com has been accepted as a member of the Domain Name Owners Association today. SyndicatedElitist.com currently has 300+ domains registered in its holdings.

SyndicatedElitist.com is a private holding firm and all of our domains names are held and used for a variety of sites and blogs we operate.

MySpace Suspends Mobsters Application And Causes Uproar

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:37:00 +0000

MySpace.com this afternoon suspended the MySpace App known as "Mobsters" which essentially allows MySpace users to create a mob and do mob like jobs in a roleplaying atmosphere.

The issue that caused for the suspension of the MySpace App was essentially that it had technical issues that needed to be worked out. Rumor was that the issues were related to the "Favor Point" system although the developer claims it was simply related to technical issues.

As of right now the Mobsters application has been removed from the MySpace Apps directory and removed from the list of apps installed for each user who had it installed.

MySpace is actively locking and deleting any thread created by Mobsters users in their Developers Forum and is thus far refusing to make any public comment on the situation.

The developer of the game has been actively responding to posts on the MySpace Forum for Mobsters and so has several hundred users who are frantic about the downtime.

Mobsters closely resembles Mafia Wars in both looks and features and have very little differences. Mafia Wars which is the main competitor MySpace App of Mobsters is online and thriving while Mobsters is down.

It is now illegal to annoy someone over the internet

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:54:00 +0000

President Bush signed into law a broad prohibition on annoying someone over the Internet. That's right it is now a federal offense punishable by imprisonment for anyone to annoy someone over the Internet.

Now what exactly in legal terms is determined to be annoying or to annoy someone? Obviously somethings annoy some individuals while not necessarily annoying another. That is exactly what civil rights groups are worried about is that this law is another broad federal law which can be manipulated to prosecute persons who are simply expressing themselves under their constitutional right to "Freedom of Speech".

This law is so broad that it will make criminals of bloggers, Internet radio personalities and many other categories of Internet users. Essentially if I were to read the post of a blogger who chose to remain anonymous they would effectively be committing a federal offense if their post annoyed me.

Why did congress allow this law to be passed? Well because the bill's sponsors hid the bill in yet another bill which provided needed funding for the Department of Justice and to provide rights for women who are victims of violence.

I am pretty certain the American Civil Liberties Union will be taking action against this draconian law because it totally violates every single Americans constitutional rights.

Google Bends Under Pressure

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:16:00 +0000

Google has finally given up on it's refusal to comply with California State law which requires any website which serves residents of California to provide a link on their homepage to their privacy policy.

For the longest time Google had refused to comply with this simple law aimed at protecting consumers but now Google has basically turned around and done exactly what it said it would not due which is place a link to it's privacy policy on it's homepage.

In yet another slam to Google a Federal Judge ordered Google to release many terabytes of logs from its webservers that host YouTube over to Viacom and to the Court which essentially will make IP Addresses and other information available to Viacom and the general public.

What does this mean? It means Viacom and other companies can launch a volley of lawsuits against individual users of YouTube by subpoenaing logs from Internet Service Providers and getting personal information of users of YouTube.

Blizzard Entertainment Officially Announces Diablo III

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:57:00 +0000

Blizzard Entertainment has finally announced the upcoming release of Diablo III which will the latest release in the Diablo product line after fans have waited eight long years.

Diablo III is said to be released by this coming Christmas however no official release date is yet available.

Blizzard Entertainment anticipates record sales on Diablo III, thanks to the large amount of fans the Diablo product line has attracted over the years.

City of San Francisco Sued By National Rifle Association

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:20:00 +0000

The National Rifle Association has filed a lawsuit against the City of San Francisco as a challenge of it's ban against handguns in public housing.

The City of San Francisco currently prohibits citizens from possessing or maintaining a firearm in their residence if they happen to live in public housing.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down a handgun ban in the Nation's Capitol and defined the right to bear arms as constitutional and one that the government cannot infringe upon.

Law professors are already predicting a win for the National Rifle Association since the Supreme Court recently ruled on a very similar situation.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom who proclaims himself a champion of civil rights says that the "City will defend it's ban on handguns" which many residents are funding hypocritical since he claims to stand up for the rights of his constituents.

But if the constitution entitles a person to bear arms then should Mayor Newsom not be backing the Nation Rifle Association or making an effort to terminate this unlawful ban?

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said the Supreme Court ruling didn't address gun bans on government property and that he was "confident that our local gun control measures are on sound legal footing and will survive legal challenges."

San Francisco also requires residents to keep guns in lockboxes or equip them with triggerlocks. That law, passed by the county supervisors last year, wasn't challenged in Friday's lawsuit.

A state appeals court has overturned a broader citywide gun ban passed by voters in 2005.

The NRA lawsuit against San Francisco is expected to test the ruling's scope for cities and states, a prospect that could open the door to a host of challenges to California gun control laws. The NRA has said it intends to file a similar lawsuit challenging Chicago's stringent gun control laws. Chicago and San Francisco are two of the only major cities with their own laws.

Legal experts say that many gun regulations will remain intact, but the court's decision could place other laws in jeopardy, particularly if they infringe on a person's right to own a gun for self-defense. Lawyers for gun rights advocates maintain that San Francisco's public housing gun law runs afoul of that right.

Allen Davis of the California Firearms Association says "Mayor Gavin Newsom will champion the rights of gay individuals to marry but will not defend individuals constitutional rights to bear arms?".

San Francisco Citizens To Vote For George W. Bush Sewage Plant

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:42:00 +0000

A group of San Franciscans have gathered enough signatures to have a initiative on the upcoming San Francisco Ballot which if passed would rename a San Francisco Sewage Plant to George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

This is no joking matter the group gathered 3,000 more votes than they needed and city/county government is partially supporting this change in name.

Activists from the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, a mischievously-named group behind the move, will ask supporters to participate in a "synchronised flush".

It may sound like a student prank, but the proposal is almost certain to be passed. Democrats usually secure between 70 and 80 per cent of the vote in San Francisco – and in 2006 passed a proposition to impeach Mr Bush and his Vice-President Dick Cheney by a majority of almost two to one.

"In 50 years from now, we want people to see George Bush's name on that plant, and ask each other what went wrong," said Brian McConnell, the Memorial Commission's organiser. "We want them to be reminded of the Iraq war, and his other dramatic mistakes, and this is the perfect way to do it."

Instead of President Bush getting a library or monument namesake he will be getting a sewage plant.

State of Emergency in California

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:27:00 +0000

If you have read the newspaper lately or watched the news you would be aware that California has several hundred wildfires active right now and more than 20% of these fires are not even being fought by firefighters due to lack of firefighters.

We have fire crews from other states and just about ever town or city in California has sent most of its firefighters in addition to State and Federal fire crews.

Northern California is currently the worst place when it comes to wildfires most towns have smoke so thick it is hard to drive let alone breath.

Weather forecasts are predicting more lightening which will likely start many more fires and with resources stretched thin California needs all the help it can get.

Syndicated Elitist effective immediately will donate 100% of it's revenue from advertising to the American Red Cross for use in it's fire relief efforts and disaster services. We will continue to donate 100% of our revenue from advertising until such point as the fires are contained.

We just switched over to Project Wonderful which uses a Infinite Auction system for Ad sales and we have already donated our first batch of funds to the American Red Cross.

If you are not interested in advertising but still want to help we strongly encourage you to donate to the American Red Cross which is providing essential services to the residents of California.

Syndicated Elitist Meetup and BBQ

noreply@blogger.com (Zane Fallon) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:38:00 +0000

Syndicated Elitist is currently in the planning phase for a Meetup and BBQ in which our readers, advertisers, business partners and other interested parties can come and enjoy good food and some good company.

We are projecting this event to occur in late July or early June as of yet a permanent date has not been scheduled but once we all check our schedules for any conflicts we will be able to set a precise date.

In addition to good food and discussions regarding the blogosphere and Syndicated Elitist in general we will also be giving away gift bags.

Please also note that we attend a number of events annually and starting next year we will start having booths at some conventions. Feel free to use our contact system if you ever want to see if we are going to a specific event.

BlogExplosion

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:39:00 +0000

BlogExplosion although still semi-functioning seems to be a thing of the past. Apparently BlogExplosion is not approving new blogs and users have waited months for their blogs to be approved for this service.

In fact staff and forum moderators have criticized the owners of BlogExplosion on it's official forums and when we attempted to contact the owners of BlogExplosion for comment we found out their contact phone number was no longer in service.

What is the fate of BlogExplosion? Will it return to glory?

ResellerClub Business Practices Revealed

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:19:00 +0000

Are you considering using ResellerClub to offer domains to your clients? You should read this first!

ResellerClub (A Directi Service) offers some of the most competitive reseller prices for domains available. ResellerClub is owned by Directi a company based out of Mumbai, India.

Does ResellerClub charge a setup fee?

Yes. ResellerClub falsely advertises on their website that they do not require a setup fee but before you can ever use any of their reseller services you will have to deposit around $199 which they will try to tell you is not a setup fee but it is in fact a well disguised setup fee.

Does ResellerClub provide a stable and reliable solution?

No. ResellerClub has had technical difficulties with it's service since it first launched and is plagued with slow loading control panel, platform errors and more.

Does ResellerClub provide efficient support?

No. ResellerClub has it's staff in India and they speak broken English and sometimes confusing and unrecognizable words. In addition to this if you were to inform them of their service being slow or down or any issues they will usually reply with a "canned" response informing you everything is fine on their end.

Does ResellerClub have a support forum?

No. They did for awhile but customers seemed to complain about the service so much that they perhaps pulled their forums offline as a result of complaints in an effort to avoid bad publicity.

Is ResellerClub helpful when a domain name dispute occurs?

No. ResellerClub is notorious for not getting involved in situations where a reseller of theirs deletes or hijacks one of it's customers domain names. In fact Directi in 2003 allowed one of it's largest reseller customers account to be not only hijacked but sold to another party and that customer lost of his domains, customers and funds as a result of ResellerClub's actions.

Ultimately if you want to take a risk than ResellerClub is the way to go..... But if you want a solid fair service then you might want to look at Enom or Godaddy's reseller programs.

Fast Hosts - The UK's Number 1 web host hacked

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:52:00 +0000

FastHosts which claims to be the UK's number one web hosting provider had a handful of it's customers dedicated servers hacked into this evening including Devstars.
At the time of publishing this post FastHosts had yet to reply to our e-mail requesting comment and informing them that their clients servers had been hacked.

Click here to see a screenshot of DevStars.eu's website at the time of publishing which was apparently hacked by a group of hackers from Turkey.

I am worth $2,929,378.00

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:23:00 +0000

Well it seems I am worth a lot of money according to Human For Sale and its a darn shame I didn't put myself up for sale early. Too bad I am married now, right?

Well I found this site and it was interesting so I made a small post about it.

What happens when people do LiveVideo?

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 02:11:00 +0000

So where do you go when you want to "act a fool" for everyone to see in real time? LiveVideo of course.

I was invited by one of LiveVideo's developers to checkout their site and I spent around a half hour on the site and saw total strangers doing bad things.

I saw women and men alike sing horribly and saw people pick their noses and saw a baby get slapped in the face all in real time. It is amazing what webcam technology enables people to expose about themselves.

People who use webcam's should be very careful about what they allow their webcam to capture as you will be judged and not by few but instead by many.

It is unlikely you will see me doing a webcam show anytime soon but who knows I might be putting my foot in my mouth!

BloggerPros.com now a reality!

bkerensa@gmail.com (Benjamin Kerensa) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 08:03:00 +0000

BloggerPros.com a forum community specifically for bloggers launched at 1:00A.M. the site provides a open forum for bloggers to discuss anything a blogger might want to discuss.

Will BloggerPros.com be the next best thing in the Blogosphere?