The Everything Portal to the Web

Free desktop wallpapers - newest favorite website

Wallbase.cc

I really enjoy changing my desktop wallpaper. What you see behind the icons on a desktop should really express the personality of the user, or at least serve as relaxing, energising, or inspiring, as the purpose of the computer demands. Personally, my favorite wallpapers are all dark 3D art pictures, like blue glass and flames and stuff on top of black. The 3D art gets my creative juices flowing, and the dark parts make my icons easier to find (and gosh do I have icons, but that's another story). I have discovered that wallbase.cc makes it super easy to browse for exactly what I'm looking for- the search options are comprehensive: keywords, dominant colors, comparison to similar pictures, size, aspect ratio, date, views, etc.... It also has a "SFW/NSFW" (Safe For Work/Not Safe For Work, i.e. nudity and images not acceptable by the general public) switch. There is a bit of a community here, and if you make an account you can contribute comments, save pictures to a Favorites section (which you can also organise), and participate in their forums.

Check it out:

The most fun PTC website

The PTC website I'm going to review now is ClixSense. I think that's the one I've actually been a member of the longest, if not Neobux. The ads they have available for clicking are variable and seem to become available at any given moment throughout the day- it's a good idea to keep checking back for newly posted ones. They have a click grid game where you have a CHANCE of winning money. I don't hold much stock in those as my time is usually more valuably spent on guaranteed money rather than the chance of it. Still, I play occasionally, and have won some cash on ClixSense's grid. The offers wall has some neat stuff that will payoff, my favorites being the videos. Watch a 2 minute video and get paid? Yes please. Now, they do have a Tasks section where you can earn cents for successfully completing "jobs", and many people make use of that, but proceed with that as you wish- I have terrible, er, luck, completing jobs to their satisfaction, even though I throw myself into it wholeheartedly and try to work hard. I always end up with false answers and wasting my time for what precious little they offer for it. Getting back to the clickable ads, I do have one word of caution- their ad windows are the most focus-demanding I have ever experienced. They not only must be your only browser window/tab in focus, it also detects if your browser is not in focus above other programs. No chatting or solitaire playing while clicking ClixSense ads! :P So, without further ado, I'll give you the breakdown:

Up to $0.02 per ad click
Up to $0.008 per referral click
Cashout minimum is $8 for standard accounts, $6 for premium
No renting referrals
They offer cashout via Paypal, Payza, Liberty Reserve, and checks (cashout minimum is higher and less frequent for checks than with electronic methods)
Electronic cashout can occur as frequently as twice a week if qualifications are met

Here is my referral link if you would like to give ClixSense a try:

Thanks!

My second favorite PTC site

My second review of money making websites will be for the PTC site "NeoBux". They have been around since 2008 (and just started "celebrating" their 5th anniversary as of this writing), which adds a bit of credibility. I have personally seen some Paid To Click websites get launched brand new, flounder, and fail within a few months, for various reasons, often related to the administrators not being sincere or knowing what they are doing. It seems a few dozen new PTC websites are born every day, and many of them are doomed to fail. So one that has been around for 5 years and is still doing awesome makes for a credible site indeed. Now, personally, I have not earned much money from them yet as I keep funnelling profits back into renting referrals, and each referral is not paying off hardly even close to the ones I have on ProBux. I know what's wrong, I have not purchased the Golden account upgrade. I have seen the profit projections for how I would be doing if I had a paid account, and it just takes my breath away- but get this: Golden account upgrades cost $90 a year! *le gasp* That's okay, I'm sticking with the plan to see how much/fast I can earn online WITHOUT PAYING OUT. So it takes longer. Bleh. Anyway, NeoBux does have some nice features- it is a nice clean website without annoying ads all over the place, and I like the colorful, simple graphics. The rentals area has a feature I have not (yet) seen on any other PTC site- the ability to manually flag referrals with little colored tags, so you can keep track of them for your own personal reasons. So with a standard account you get this:

A minimum of 4 standard ads per day
From $0.001 to $0.015 per click (I get about $0.07 per day)
From $0.005 to $0.01 per referral click
A $2.00 cashout minimum for your first time, increases incrementally to $10.00 minimum
Limit of 300 rented referrals

Two more notes I'd like to make.... It pays to check back on this website a few times throughout the day because ads become available around the clock. (This probably applies to most PTC's but I've paid attention to it more here). The security is just a dot to click on before loading the paid ad- I love this and generally prefer security measures that occur before the advertisement rather than after.
I hope this review wasn't terribly boring. If you'd like to check them out, please use my referral link:

Thanks!

My absolute favorite PTC site

I have decided my first Paid-To-Click ("PTC") website review will be for the one that has payed off the highest and quickest for me so far: ProBux. This no-nonsense PTC has no extra frills such as banner ads flashing in your face everywhere you look, time-wasters such raffles and contests (although there is a clickgrid, like most PTC's have), and even the paid ads themselves have no human verification on them to be extra clicks you have to make. While I realize this opens the door for cheaters and may be a concern for the advertisers, it is really convenient for an honest person like me to not have to discern which of five pictures is upside down or type in a two digit number just to prove that I'm not a robot. One of the reasons this website is proving profitable for me is that it is simple to rent referrals, keep track of them, and get lots of profit from their clicks. As I'm sure lots of other people would say, I'm not too good at getting direct referrals, so rentals being easy on a PTC site is very helpful to me. Also, each ad seems to pay well and there always have been many ads to click on every day. I am currently a member of about 20 PTC websites and this is the one I check on first every day.

With a standard account you get:

Up to $0.015 per click (averages $0.05 a day for my own clicks)
Up to $0.01 per rented referral click
7 days between new rentals
7 days between cashouts
Limit of 200 rented referrals

If you feel up to trying it out for yourself, please visit ProBux through my referral link:

Thanks!

Site remodelling

Completely redecorated this blog, moving stuff around, adding better images, changing text colors, and basically tried to bring the feel up to date from the 1990's Netscape Navigator feel it had before. I left all the posts and previous content untouched, but removed a few doodads that were slowing down the loading or were empty anyway, mostly banners from sites that don't exist anymore. This revamp is in preparation for launching something new I've been excited about lately... making money on the internet. I have personally been hard at work trying to rake in hard earned pennies (literally!) from Paid To Click websites for the last few months. There seem to be a lot of tricks to the trade, and millions of websites screaming "Look at me and how I make $800 a month sitting on my @$$ while others do internet stuff for me! Just give me $10 and I'll tell you how!". Oh jeez. This information needs to be available for free, but then again if the 2% making real money suddenly became 25% making real money I'm sure those people wouldn't be raking in $100's anymore.... Anyway, although I'm sure I haven't figured out even half of the tricks out there that produce better results, I'd like to throw my opinions into the pot and start writing reviews about the Paid To Click websites, Traffic Exchanges, and other money making options that I have personally sampled. My info will be available for free, but of course I will be offering up my referral links for each website I review. If anybody appreciates my information or would like to check it out on your own, I hope you sign up through my links so I know that I am effectively helping others. Thanks for visiting, please bookmark this or subscribe to my blog!

Fishful Thinking

Excited about Fishful Thinking by Goldfish Crackers
Support resources for parents to raise their children with positive thinking

A laugh a day keeps the doctor away

One of the conveniences I enjoy about the World Wide Web is the ease of access of entertainment. Let's face it, when you can't get television and newspapers are difficult to come by, the internet has it's own substitutes that become the norm. In this example, I'm talking about comics. Ahh, the classic comic strips from the newspaper, but with 100% less newsprint on your fingertips, and you don't have to skip through the financial section! I have found that it makes it even more convenient if you read them on an RSS program. For those that don't know yet, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Anyway, what it means is that with a program, you can "subscribe" to a "feed" (imagine a stock ticker with pictures), and deliver new content to you as soon as it's published. I personally recommend RSS Bandit, it's free and easy for a beginner to figure out (I use it). Get RSS Bandit here.
So, to find the comics you want to read, either in an RSS reader or online, I find the following websites have a large enough variety to satiate my thirst for comedy:

Comics.com

Arcamax.com

Gocomics.com

Happy reading!

P.S. Did you know that you can subcribe to this blog with RSS?

Win money for searching!

Another scheme that has been around on the internet for quite a while is the Search And Win website. The angle is that you do internet searches, advertisers get hits, they pay the search website for the traffic, the search website rewards you for participating. I love deals where advertisers are doing the funding, usually that means I can get rewarded for doing something for free. I have never paid for anything I've done on the internet (except, obviously, for the internet access), and I have loads of goodies, entertainment, and even moolah for doing stuff. Anyway, I'm getting off subject. This is another one of those situations where you need to pay attention to the rate at which you are getting rewarded. How many points do you earn/win at a time? How many points does it take to get a reward/prize? I'm sure there are many Search And Win websites, really good ones, but I will show you the ones I like best so far, and yes, I have included my referral code in each of these links:

Winzy has no redemption prizes, just chances to win cash, Amazon.com gift certificates, and iPods. They also have a few games you can play to win more points.

Blingo offers a chance to win cash, Amazon.com gift certificates, and Fandango Movie Tickets on your first 25 searches every day.

This one actually has a redemption store for the points you've won. I have been told you can win only once per hour, so spread your searches throughout the day.

Greywater Recycling

The number one global concern is not global warming, as many think. It is actually the shrinking resource called clean water. Think about it, which would you choose to live one week without, if you had to choose one: petroleum, food, or water? Nobody can choose water because you cannot live without water for one week. So why is everyone concerned so much with recycling aluminum and paper? Pfft! Let's all try to preserve our diminishing water resources.

I wish to share with you the following for your reading pleasure:
Greywater Irrigation
Wikipedia's Greywater article
Answers.com's Graywater article

Simply put, water CAN be used more than once.

Blog Action Day

Today is the day! The next few articles will be rather out of character for the theme of this blog, as they will be directly related to saving the environment rather than saving money by doing free things on the internet.

Alert for all bloggers

Hi blogging fans! Don't forget, next Monday, October 15th, is Blog Action Day. If you still haven't signed up, there is still time. Blog Action Day is a moment when bloggers worldwide take the time to talk about saving the environment. I still plan on participating, and I hope the movement helps make a difference. You can help too! If you don't have a blog, make a blog! (There are plenty of free blogging services on the internet like the one I'm using). And don't worry if you can't think of what to blog about. You have a couple of days to think about what you'll say, and to research it if neccessary.

Update

Denied again. I have decided not to pursue BlogExplosion any more right now.
I'm getting plenty of readers from BlogMad and Blog Soldiers anyway.

Email from BlogExplosion:

Your site was denied at BlogExplosion.

Title: The Everything Portal to the Web
URL: http://everythingweb.blogspot.com/

This site was denied for the following reason(s):

Site Not Allowed

BlogExplosion only accepts certain types of websites, and yours does
not match our list of allowed sites.

And I am sick right now, that's why I'm not blogging as much. I will be back at full speed ahead as soon as I feel better. Thanks!

After weeks of waiting....

...to be approved by the benevolent admin at BlogExplosion (and my hours spent surfing via their system to earn points), I received this in my email yesterday:

Your site was denied at BlogExplosion.

Title: The Everything Portal to the Web
URL: http://everythingweb.blogspot.com/

This site was denied for the following reason(s):

No Original Content

Our reviewers determined that your site contains content from or links
to nothing but other sources, and does not have any original content.
Because of this, your site does not fall inside the definition of a blog
and we cannot accept it.

Spam/Keyword Site

Our reviewers determined that your site has no purpose other than to
generate money. Such sites include keyword blogs and blogs with nothing
but sponsored posts and largely rely on incoming links to generate
revenue. Such sites are not blogs, they are spam.

Don't you think this is outrageous? What really pisses me off is the Spam/Keyword Site section. Find one single sponsored post. I have two, count them: 2, places I could possibly make money off this blog. If you look in my Ads and Affiliates section in the right, I have referral links to Agloco and FreeCardMatrix. IS THIS SPAMMING???!!! As far as original content, I would like to think the time I've spent writing about websites and cool things on the internet have not gone to waste. Please comment to this post. I don't care if you agree, disagree, or are indifferent, just let me know that you've read this post and what your thoughts are. Thank you, dear readers.

Get a free email address

Okay, when you signed up to have internet where you live, your internet provider gave you an email address. I hope that's not the one you use for everything, because if you start receiving 100 SPAM emails a day, and you want to ditch the email address because you can't stop them, then you'll have to go to your internet provider and explain the whole situation. What a headache! Instead, I recommend having a free web-based email address. They are easy to create, most are easy to navigate, and you have the option of starting fresh anytime you want to! Plus, you could have more than one email address. You could set up one for emailing your friends, one for business, and one for signing up for freebies (hint, hint).

My number 1 recommendation:
Yahoo! Mail
(More info HERE)
Sign up now!

My number 2 recommendation:
MSN Hotmail
(More info HERE)
Sign up now!

My number 3 recommendation:
Gmail
(More info HERE)
Sign up now!

Free music for your website

You can download all the music you want for free- the catch is that they're MIDI files. MIDI's, which stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, is a tinny/computerized sounding version of any kind of audio. Like the music old nintendo used to play, or a lot of phone ringtones sound like. They make great backround muzak for your website, because the files are smaller than mp3's, so they load quickly, and you can loop them.

A great place for finding whatever MIDI you want is MIDI Search Engine (A.K.A. MusicRobot). You can search by band, song, or just browse by the letter. Take it for a test drive today.

P.S. You could even have a snippet of famous music play on your computer when you shut it down or start it up, just an idea, hee hee.

musicrobot.com

MIDI Search Engine

Freebies for 9/04/2007

Country Bob's sauce coupon via mail for free full size bottle.

Coffee sample pack for completing coffee survey. They assure you several times that your info is confidential.

Pet safety pack from ASPCA.

Sample of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal from Post and STARTSAMPLING

Microwave Singles sample from Hamburger Helper and STARTSAMPLING.

Shaker cup and vitamin shake sample from Spiru-tein. I actually received one in the mail recently!

Beauty sample of your choice when you register at Pür Minerals. (Make sure you confirm from the email they send!)

Skin care sample from Pristine Skin Care Products. (Another one you have to confirm via email)

Sample of Power Pixies from Airborne, cold preventative products.

Army dog tag from GoArmy.com.

Sample of Dry Cleaner's Secret via WALMART and STARTSAMPLING.

Cool website #1

www.redkid.net

RedKid.net is a someone's personal project and has such fun stuff on it, I'm sure you'll enjoy browsing it for a few minutes or hours (I did). Everything is easy to find, easy to read, and rated for all audiences. I especially like the sign generator section (you have got to try creating your own bumper sticker!), and there are several to choose from. There's an arcade, student resources, and so many fun things to do.

Sweepstakes for 8/29/07

Mike and Ike Candies - Candy Giveaway Restrictions: US 13+ INSTANT WIN PRIZES: (200) Two Hundred winners will each receive a 2.12 oz. package of Tangy Twister and the remaining (300) three hundred winners will receive a 2.12 oz. package of either MIKE AND IKE ORIGINAL®, BERRY BLAST, TROPICAL TYPHOON, or JOLLY JOES® candies ($.79 ea.) Odds of winning depend upon the total number of persons who play. Play until you win! :) Prize redemption is in a pop-up window, so turn your pop-up stopper off first!
Tetra - The Quest Sweepstakes Restrictions: 13+ US, DC (exc PR) Grand Prize (1) $10,000 Cash, First Prize (1) A trip-for-two to the Caribbean island paradise of St. Lucia, Second Prize (5) The Ultimate Aquarium, Third Prize (500) A remote-controlled mini-submarine, Fourth Prize (750) Tetra t-shirts. UPC code 046798046798
General Mills - Live Like A Star Sweepstakes Restrictions: 8+ US, DC Prizes: a. Sweepstakes: ONE (1) GRAND PRIZE: $25,000 and ONE (1) FIRST PRIZE: $10,000. Odds of winning a Sweepstakes prize depend on the number of eligible entries received during the Promotion Period. b. Instant Win Game: ONE THOUSAND (1,000) PRIZES: $100. Odds of winning a prize depend on the number of eligible plays received during the Promotion Period divided by the number of prizes available. Limit: one (1) Instant Win Game prize per person. Use code Crunch
Nikwax Web Quiz - Footwear Gel Cleaner Instant Win Restrictions: Open to residents in US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. You can only win a maximum of one free product per household every 3 months. However, for every 3 friends you have referred that play the quiz, you will be able to play and win again immediately. (Do you happen to want my email address for who referred you? :D) Win a free bottle of Nikwax Footwear Cleaning Gel for answering 5 questions correctly. Don't worry about the questions, they help you find the answers!
Totino’s Get MEGA Giveaway Restrictions: 13+ US & DC Grand Prize (1) an all-new 2007 Jeep Patriot; two snowboards; two sets of snowboard bindings; two pairs of snowboard boots; two pairs of skis; two pairs of ski poles; two pairs of ski bindings; two pairs of ski boots and one snowmobile. First Prize (100) a Sony 512MB MP3 Players, ARV $90.00. Second Prize (100) an Ogio Snowboard Backpack, ARV $55.00. Third Prize (100) a Burton Beanie Hat w/Built-in Audio, ARV $40.00. Fourth Prize (1,701) Coupons redeemable for one 17 oz. bag of Totino’s Mega Rolls, ARV $4.43. UPC code 18000-99973

My Coke Rewards program

The Coca-Cola Company is currently running a product-purchase rewards program, called My Coke Rewards. You can collect codes from under caps and inside boxes from several of their varieties of beverages. After entering these codes on the website, and once you have saved up enough points, you can redeem the points for all sorts of freebies and goodies! They have had all sorts of sports merchandise (NASCAR, NFL, NBA, etc.), Coke branded swag, magazine subscriptions, and (my favorite) even free rentals from Blockbuster. The goodies are occasionally sold out, but new ones are being added all the time! Once in a while they have a day where all the points you get that day are doubled! The only negative is that they limit you to entering 10 codes or less per day.
Sign up now and enter these codes:
100084226454945 Free Coke
(must redeem it immediately upon entering code or you will forfeit it!)
100084148441474 for 25 Points
100084056688357 for 25 Points
100082211832616 for 10 Points
100083969675326 for 10 Points
100082622438433 for 10 Points
100083158358966 for 10 Points
100082157763657 for 5 Points
100082021821624 for 3 Points