Connor Leigh-Smith’s technology blog on web design; making money online; help, tips & hacking for iPods, iPhones & other gadgets… and much more!
Web Hosting Rating
[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 09.18.08 under Web design & development
Just found another awesome web hosting rating website.
They review the best and most economical website hosting companies, and have lists of them.
You can sort the lists into categories, such as:
- Unix Hosting
- Windows Hosting
- Reseller Hosting
- VPS Hosting
- Dedicated Hosting
- Collocation Hosting
- Managed Hosting
I have seen some very awesome website hosting reviewed on Web Hosting Rating, such as Web Hosting Pad, which offers extremely cheap hosting, with unlimited hosting space & traffic, and a free domain for life!
They even have a page of web hosting articles that you can look at when deciding which kind of hosting is best for you, and what you need for your website.
If you’re starting a website of your own, or if you don’t like your current hosting or it’s just too expensive, you should take a look at www.webhostingrating.com!
Thanks for reading 
Display ads and get £15 a month on each site +£35 for doing almost nothing!
[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 09.06.08 under Online Money-Making, Web design & development
Hey,
Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted on the site :S
But anyway, I’ve found a way of displaying ads on websites, and getting paid for it, no matter how many visitors or page views your website gets!
So, you can do this if your website isn’t even read by anyone 
Basically, there are 3 sites you can sign up to. On each one, you get paid £5 a month for every website you have links on. When you sign up, you get a £10 bonus (£15 on one of the sites).
If you own more than one website, you can display ads on all of them, and get paid for each one!
I’ll post proof of payments I have received at the end of this post
The ads are only small, like in the image below, and don’t take up very much space
However, you must put 3 ads on each site you get paid for:
Here are the websites you can use:
The Ad Network
The Ad Network is probably the best site to use. You sign up and get £10 for signing up as soon as you implement the ads on your site… Plus an extra £5 if you put the ads on your site within 72 hours of signing up! So you get £15 for not doing much at all, and then they pay you another £5 a month for keeping the ads on your site.
Click here to sign up to TheAdNetwork and start earning for nothing!
Freebies4Webmasters
This site is just as good as TheAdNetwork really… Just get paid £10 via Paypal for signing up, and £5 a month for keeping the ads on each one of your websites.
Sign up to Freebies 4 Webmasters!
Money4Banners
Personally, I haven’t actually signed up to this website. They didn’t approve my site for it, and I’m not sure why, but I’m currently trying to find out the reason. I know people who use it, and they say it’s good, so you can decide for yourself. This site works in the same way as Freebies4Webmasters
Money4Banners!
Proof of the legitimacy of these sites:
Well, recently I received my first payments from these sites, and I’m posting proof here…
£15 from TheAdNtwork in email:
£10 from Freebies4Webmasters in email:
Screen shot from my Paypal account:
These sites are all ran by the same company, but you can still sign up and use all of them
Thanks for reading, and as always, feel free to comment!
Shark_of_Mirkwood
Free Flatscreen HDTV! Choice of 3 free TV’s.
[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 08.28.08 under Freebies, Uncategorized
Hi,
It’s been a while since I got anything big for free online. So, I’ve decided to get a free flatscreen TV.
I’ll be using Freepay to do this, and I need to get 12 people to sign up under my link, to be able to get my TV.
I thought that I might as well post about it here, and see if anyone else wants to get their own free TV.
I’ll put the instructions below, and if you need any more help or advice, just leave a comment
Once you have done all these steps, Freepay will send you a free Flatscreen TV.
I have a website with proof of other free items I have received from Freepay: Shark of Mirkwood Freebies.
Thanks for reading! If you want any help getting free stuff, just leave a comment.
‘Unique Bloq Designs’ 1st year anniversary blog contest.
[ No Comments ] Posted on 08.25.08 under Uncategorized
Hey,
Just found another contest
UBD (Unique Blog Designs) are offering an 8GB iPod Touch and a total of 4 ‘UBD Citrus’ themes, for simply posting a comment on their blog and/or writing about it on your own blog or website. This is to advertise/celebrate their 1st year!
You get 1 entry for commenting on the contest’s blog entry, and another 5 for writing about the competition and linking to it.
Here is the link to the contest: Unique Blog Designs 1st Anniversary.
Thanks
Flashmint offering $100 to $800 in Blog Contest
[ No Comments ] Posted on 08.23.08 under Contests/Competitions, Web design & development
Alright, I’m a bit late, but I just found out that Flashmint have been holding a contest to see who can design the best Wordpress theme for their blog.
The winner gets $500, and their theme will be used for the blog.
Also, you can get up to $300 for simply advertising Flashmint. Just post a link on your website or blog, and the site that brings most visitors to the Flashmint site gets $300.
Runners up get $200 and $100, respectfully.
Flash Mint – a leader in Flash Designs area – arranges a contest for bloggers and designers with $1000 fund. Find out the details.
Well, I’ve done my part by advertising it here, and if I have time, I’ll design a theme for them
Tutorial - How to make a Userbar for signatures in Adobe Fireworks
[ No Comments ] Posted on 08.21.08 under Tutorials, comedy
I already made a tutorial on making user bars in Photoshop, but now here’s one for those people that prefer using Fireworks. Fireworks is a lot simpler than Photoshop, and I prefer it for doing easy tasks like this.
As I mentioned before, I’m using the CS3 (Creative Suite 3) on a Mac, so using the program might be a little different for you, but it will mostly be the same, and it’ll still be easy to follow.
Here we go…
Alright, first of all, open a new file in Fireworks (you should know how to do this ;))
Draw a rectangle using the Rectangle Tool, that measures 350 pixels by 20 pixels, like this:
Change it to whatever colour you want. I’ll use a gradient, so the rectangle fades from blue to green:
Here is the rectangle now
You need to apply an effect that puts faint diagonal lines across the rectangle. This makes it look more ‘glassy’, and is very easy to do.
Simply select the rectangle, and in the toolbar at the bottom, find the ‘Texture’ option, and change it to ‘Line-Diag 1′:
Now your rectangle will look a little bit more 3D:
To make it look glossy, you have to put a white oval with a gradient over the rectangle.
Make a circle the same size as the rectangle (350×20px), and fill it white (with no outline). Move it up, so that the bottom half of the oval covers the top half of the rectangle:
Now, change the gradient of the oval. Give it a linear gradient, and use the settings below:
Both ends need to be white, but one end is just more transparent than the other.
The part shown in red needs to have to Opacity changed to 10.
By now, your userbar should look something like this:
Using the Text tool, you can put some text into the user bar, and you can also add a small image if you like. It also looks better with an outline, which is added by making another rectangle the same size as the original, with no fill and a black outline.
Thanks for reading, and if you need any help, feel free to leave a comment
GCSE Exam results
[ No Comments ] Posted on 08.21.08 under Random Stuff
Like many people in the country today, I got my GCSE results
I didn’t get anything in the post, so I checked online, and thought I’d post my results here:
I guess I did pretty well overall
iPod with (dead) stuck pixel replaced by Apple for free :D
[ No Comments ] Posted on 08.19.08 under iPod/iPhone
As you might know if you have been reading this blog for a while, I got a free iPod Touch from Freepay.
However, my iPod had a very noticeable bright red dead stuck pixel right in the middle of it, which was annoying when I was watching movies. So, after a few months (yeah, I’m kinda lazy at times) I decided to contact Apple and get them to fix or repair the iPod Touch. Here, I am posting the steps I took to get the iPod replaced and how long it all took.
Firstly, I went to the UK Apple site, and found this page. I typed in the details it asked for (iPod’s Serial Number and my country). After that, I was told the status of my warranty - thankfully the iPod came with a year of free warranty.
After clicking on ‘Request online service’, I got to the part that said ‘Choose your service options’ - simply a few questions I had to answer about the problem with my iPod. I chose the correct options, and wrote a small explanation at the end (including what I had already done to try an solve the problem).
This was all done on the 9th August.
After this, I got an email explaining that the repair would probably be covered by the warranty, and that I would receive packaging in the post, that I would use to send my iPod to Apple.
Surely enough, 2 days later, I got a box in a bag from UPS. I put my iPod in the box, and used the UPS website to schedule a collection time for them to come and take my iPod back. They came the next day, on the 12th August.
After 2 days of missing my iPod, and wishing I could have it back, I got another email from Apple, saying that they had received my iPod Touch, and that they would notify me when the repair was complete. Within 24 hours, I got yet another email saying that they had replaced my iPod, and had sent it back to me. I should allow 2 working days for it to reach me.
Here’s a screen shot of my repair status:
Just 1 working day later, a UPS van pulled up outside our house, with a brand new iPod Touch for me!
So, all in all, I got a brand new iPod Touch within 4 working days of sending it off, and all just because of 1 single dead pixel :
Apple’s support system is great!
I have already jailbroken my iPod again, and am using all the apps I had before
Here is a pic of my new iPod just out of it’s packaging:
So, I hope if any of you have a problem with your iPod Touch or iPhone, you’ll get in contact with Apple and get it sorted out as quickly as I did
Thanks for reading!
Jake and Amir
[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 08.14.08 under comedy
I’ve been watching the Collegehumor podcast videos for quite a while now, and I just found a website by Jake and Amir, from CollegeHumor, of their own hilarious videos.
Here are a couple of their (IMO) best videos from their site, enjoy!:
They have a lot more great videos on their website, Jake and Amir Dot Com.
Disclosure Policy
[ 1 Comment ] Posted on 08.14.08 under About
Just though I’d say that I’ve written a disclosure policy for the site, on advertising and sponsored posts.
The policy can be found here, or you can read it below:
This policy is valid from 14 August 2008
This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact Connor Leigh-Smith (connorbob21@gmail.com).
This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.
The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post may not always be identified as paid or sponsored content.
The owner(s) of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers’ own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.
This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.
This is just to make it clear that a few of the posts on the site are paid for, but I will never write about anything I do not believe in.
Thanks
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