International Calling Cards at Low Rates

If you have someone like a friend or a relative living in a different country, you might have already started using international calling cards. GetMeCallingCards.com is a website where you can buy calling cards at reasonable rates. They are one of the largest and leading online international phone card retailer proving high quality services. All their pages are well made and all the services they provide are shown with many details. Also, they give you the exact details to call from one country to another country. Say from the United States to India, they have a separate page for India calling cards. The same is done for so many countries and you can find out the exact pricing involved by checking out the country that you are going to call. For more details, read about calling cards and international calling cards. GetMeCallingCards.com covers 153 countries around the world. They truly are one of the leading online retailers of phone cards.

The Power of Online Business

Having a business online is really hassle free and less stressful than a lot of other businesses. Just an idea could transform your business from an ordinary state to a world class one. Of course a lot of marketing strategies are involved. But if you love being online and doing things on the web, online business just might be the best thing that you can do. People earn money online through blogging, affiliate marketing, drop shipping, domain auctions and by making websites and providing services. All of them are really good means to make large sums of money. As we all know, the internet is worth many hundred billion dollars and even a little pie of it would make us millionaires. That's the power of doing business online.

Is Design Really Important for a Blog?

Is really important for a blog? I feel that a good design can get more people to respect your website or blog and it will also help you get more subscribers for your feed and newsletters. But there are some blogs out there and those designs are not too good. So how do they still manage to get so much traffic and subscribers. May be good content is all that is important. But a good design will always be of use to you. A blog with a good design and good content will always be in the good books of it's readers.

5 Tips to Become a Famous Blogger

Many of us want to be among the top bloggers in the world. We see a lot of bloggers become popular in their niche and they are called the experts. So we begin to wonder...what would turn ordinary bloggers into popular ones? Well, this cannot be answered in one point or something like that. But I'm listing a few points on this. These points are what I think would make a blog and the blogger famous.

• Social networking - A blogger needs to be a social networking addict when he starts out. Find new friends all the time.
• Emailing popular bloggers - Keep emailing popular bloggers with questions, suggestions and thankful notes. Most of them will get back. It's good to have popular friends.
• Guest writing - Writing guest posts for other blogs will help you develop a friendship with the bloggers for whom you write. And what's more, you gain a bigger audience as many of the readers of their blog might like your content.
• Advertising - Use advertising well. It will have positive effects on your blog. PPC Advertising is highly recommended for targeted traffic.
• Be different - Grab attention and make sure people pause for a moment and read what you've got to say. Most people decide what to do in the first few seconds of their visit to your blog. Keep that in mind.

Bonus tip! Always use the same image on all social networking sites with the same username. You can also use your blog's name as your username. This is to make sure that your face becomes familiar and recognizable in your niche.

Do you have any more ideas on making a blog and a blogger famous? If so, please leave your comments.

An Award Winning Shopping Cart Software for Your Online Store

These days a lot of people are into online businesses. There are many ways by which you can establish a highly profitable business online. You can start a blog or a website and sell ad space to advertisers. Or, if you are smart, you might want to go for an online store where you can sell products for huge profits. But how do make an online store ourselves? If you are not an expert coder and designer, you might find it really hard to do that. But no worries! Ashop Commerce is a leading US provider of hosted shopping cart software. This software unlike many is very simple to put to use and it's features are definitely one of the very best. It's an award winning ecommerce software for your online store. One thing about an online shopping cart is that they are pretty expensive. But when I found Ashop Commerce, I was surprised to see the kind of service they provide. They also give you a trial run with their demo store. So you can actually test it and then decide for yourself. So give it a try, click for a free trial! Also, their support is said to be excellent and if I need a shopping cart software for the shopping cart in my online store I would surely go to Ashop Commerce and sign up. Well, I guess this would be helpful to many webmasters and no more burden of doing it yourself and spending large sums of money! This award winning material is a complete solution for merchants to sell online.

Stylish Design's Ramblings About Web Development

Stylish Design is a blog that I frequently follow. Run by Robert and Andrei, this blog features articles on art and design along with tips on internet marketing strategies. Robert and Andrei along with a team of writers have taken a significant step towards providing quality articles in the niche of professional and artistic design, internet marketing and web development. And something caught my eye today. They have an article that has some interesting points on backup and recovery. They have discussed in detail the highlights of backup and recovery, troubleshooting and networking in this detailed article and I must say that it was quite surely a good read. I don't know much about networking and other related stuff but I learned a few useful things. I think Stylish Design is one of the best web development blogs out there.

Why Feature Clutter is Not Going to Help You

Softwares are usually used often by nerds and technology savvy people. And there is one thing that I've noted in so many of these people. Feature Clutter. Take a look at their screens when they are working and you will know what I'm talking about. Feature Clutter is a term used by software professionals and it means that a software is full of so many features..no, too many features I should say, too many features that the original purpose of the software is not highlighted. So I feel that software professionals must avoid feature clutter as much as they can. I don't really feel great when I see so many features and when it takes away the software's real purpose. But some softwares like Picasa have a simpler look and workability.

Would You Use Blackle?

On the first day when I joined my company I noticed that all the computers are set to show Blackle.com as their homepage. If you have not heard of it already, Blackle is the black version of Google search. There is a fact that to show the colour black the computer monitor uses less energy than when displaying other colours. So Heap Media have developed Blackle, a enviroment friendly google custom search engine that has a background colour of black. There are few factors that I would like to look into:

• Would you use Blackle because of the claims they make?
• Would you like to browse black web pages?
• Is all this really a popularity stunt by Heap Media as many doubt it to be?

I don't like using Blackle much. But may be you will. But this site is quite popular it seems. I checked it's Alexa rankings and it is around 4000. So I guess a lot of people use it. Heap Media wants every one of us to set Blackle as our homepages. Would you?

Is it really environment friendly? Or is it just a popularity stunt? Any ideas?

RescueTime - A Very Useful Web Application

I use RescueTime, a very useful tool to track your activities and evaluate how efficient and effective you are. All you have to do is go to RescueTime.com and register for an account. They also provide a software for you to install in your computer and the software tracks all your activities and sends it to RescueTime to store those records in your account. The best thing about it that you can tag and rate all your activities as to which is really productive.

5 Simple Ways to Build More Traffic for Your Blog Without Spending a Dime

I have been in this industry for a while now and I have learnt a few things about traffic generation. I will share them here and some may really help you build substancial traffic for your blog.

• Use social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit. Be more active in these sites and befriend as many people as possible. My personal favourite is StumbleUpon.
• Create an account in forums that already have huge traffic. Use the forums everyday to connect with people of your taste and ideas. Don't forget to add your blog address in your signature.
• Link to other bloggers as much as you can. You are sure to get noticed.
• When someone comments about one of your posts, make sure that you reply in the comments section and through email.
• Write guest posts for other bloggers. A bunch of readers from the other blog might like your blog as well. You can gain more subscribers when you do guest posts.

Follow these five simple and free techniques for a few months and you are sure to attract a lot of readers.

The Bloggers that I Would Like to Meet

I like a lot of bloggers. I have always wanted to meet many of them in person to share and gain knowledge. So here's a list of people that I would like to meet in the near future.

Darren Rowse - He is the guy behind Problogger, the blog that inspired a lot of people to start blogging as a business.

Brian Clark - He is the blogger at COpyblogger and Brian has always given fantastic articles on copywriting and marketing your services.

Colis Ta'eed - Colis is the man behind FreelanceSwitch and PSDtuts. He is a really good web designer and blogger.

Michael Arrington - The guy who came up with TechCrunch.

Steve Pavlina - An inspiration for a lot of bloggers and internet entrepreneurs. I would definitely love to meet Steve to share a few thoughts.

So, these are 5 people that I can think of now. I will update the list with new posts on other fantastic and famous bloggers and entrepreneurs.

The Ultimate List of Blogs That One Should Read

Today I have come up with a list of blogs that everyone should read. There are many millions of blogs out there and one might be overwhelmed by the sheer number and will surely be confused about what to read and what to avoid. These blogs below are the ones that I follow. If you think there is some blog that needs mentioning in the list, please drop me a line in the comments section! So let's take a look at the ultimate list of blogs that one should read!

Problogger

Copyblogger

Freelanceswitch

Zenhabits

Stevepavlina

Lifehack

Jonathanmead

Ririanproject

TechCrunch

Skelliewag

TechCrunch going strong - 614K Subscribers and Still Counting

I am a daily follower of the technology blog, TechCrunch. TechCrunch was started by Michael Arrington and the blog features good technology updates everyday. On some days they even post upto 30 articles! A few years ago when it was started only Michael Arrington blogged in it. But later on as the blog got popular, they have employed a team of members who write about the world of technology. There are many technology blogs on the internet but what makes TechCrunch special is that they also provide good information about the web companies that they're talking about. A lot of investors will find the blog useful. When you look at the number of subscribers of TechCrunch you might feel overwhelmed. The blog now has nearly 614000 RSS subscribers and the number gets better day by day. It is unquestionably one of the most useful and popular blogs on the internet. Their design is also very good. TechCruch provides the latest information all facets of technology, be it windows and mac updates, new softwares or web 2.0 related articles. I guess the subscriber count for TechCrunch will grow at a rapid rate in the near future. After all, it's a really good weblog.

March to be the Web 2.0 Month on ActionZoneMagazine

ActionZoneMagazine has been a good vent for all that I have to say for the past two or three months. And this month, our readers can expect some articles related to the world of blogging and internet marketing. While the magazine will feature other types of articles as well, it will focus on publishing web related articles. So March is the Web 2.0 month on ActionZoneMagazine! Fellow bloggers can share their views about the articles published.

Stumble Love...It's Uncontrollable!

I became a member of the social bookmarking and networking site StumbleUpon in November 2007. And it's been such a good time using the site. All you have to do is download the toolbar that they provide and start stumbling! I find a lot of interesting websites everyday. A lot of them will go unnoticed if not for StumbleUpon. It's algorithm is so good and unique from the rest of the social bookmarking and sharing websites. I also find a lot of blogs while stumbling. It's the ultimate tool for the starter to gain some traffic and reputation in the online world. You can just submit all the sites and blogs that you like and you will take a look at what others have discovered and stumbled. Adding to that you can add friends too. And even send messages. Now that's really impressive isn't it? Whenever I'm free, I just sit in front of my personal computer and start stumbling. It's my new way to relax and learn a lot of stuff at the same time.

What Tech Magazines Have Taught Me

A few years ago I got into the habit of reading many technology related magazines such as Digit, ICchip and PC Magazine. And the things that I've learnt from all those magazines that I've read over the years is enormous. They provide detailed information on what is new on the market and how to manage your personal computer. It's total fun for those who love their computers and everything about it. A treat for those who love tech news. I've personally used a lot of tips given in many magazines such as tweaking windows for optimum performance, booting up windows faster and tweaking internet settings for faster web surfing. I really think that one can develop immense knowledge about a lot of technology related stuff just by reading magazines.

Adding a Custom Header Logo in Blogger

Bored of your blog title displayed in full text? You might want to add a custom logo to your blogger blog's header. Here's how:

• Log in to your blogger account and click 'Layout' in the blog that you want to edit
• Click 'Edit' in the 'Header' section
• Add your image from your computer or from the web
• Select 'Instead of title and description' and hit save.

That's it. You now have your custom logo in the place where you had your blog title and description.

Why I Like Minyx 2.0

I think you might have heard of the wordpress theme by spiga called 'Minyx 2.0'. And as I wanted a minyx version for my blogger blog, I searched for minyx and the wonderful thing is..I got it! It's really good theme for blogger blogs. Here are the things that I like about the theme:

• It supports widgets
• It works well unlike maybe wordpress inspired blogger themes
• The dynamic sidebar gives you more freedom
• It's easily customizable
• The colours and the design itself is good

You might want to use this theme for your blog. So here's the link:

Minyx 2.0










And a screenshot of it :)

On Forums, Fun and Money

Recently I've been using a lot of forums. I think it's really good. Many forums have very useful information on almost anything. Also one can ask questions to other members if they have any doubts on anything. It's good fun, isn't it? And many forums are good for online business as well. There are places where you can buy domain names and advertising. Freelancers are aplenty in the forums and they provide services that are so important for a successful online business. Whatever it is that you need, whether you need a domain name or a developed website or you need to hire someone to do something for you, forums are really helpful. Surfing through technology forums is much better than calling tech support. Forums are a lot of fun and they help me make money as well. Now isn't that cool?

Why I Started Blogging

I started blogging because I liked publishing my thoughts even though many don't read what I write. But one fine day, a friend of mine gave me a web address saying that it has some details about making money through blogs. That's fantastic! I can do what I love..and earn some money for it! Sounded really interesting. SO I checked out that site that he gave and then started visiting more similar sites. Then I found the Problogger. Period.
Me accidentally stumbling upon Darren Rowse's problogger.net was a real good thing. I learned a lot about blogging and marketing on the internet. His tips are evergreen. Right from when he started in 2005 Darren has been writing really interesting ideas about blogging and online marketing. I like Darren a lot as think he is really good person :)

Here are some from the Problogger:

• How to make money blogging
• How to market your blog
• Choosing a blog platform
• Three simple actions that doubled my traffic in 30 days
• 10 techniques to get more comments on your blog