The Online Home of Peter Claridge

July 3rd, 2007

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I never win anything. Even if I enter a competition where everyone’s a winner. I’d come last. It’s something I’ve learned to accept and get on with.

However, that all changed this morning when I received a text message from GameMobile.co.uk informing me that my recent review of the Lemmings Return game for mobile phones had won the monthly contest and my prize was a free game. Yeah, ok, the games are only worth £3.99 each, but it’s a start. Maybe I can review the free game I get and win the July review contest and get another free mobile game. I’m thinking the new monopoly game.

If you like playing games on your mobile (or if you are so bored on your daily commute to and from work) then check out GameMobile.co.uk for hundreds of games for your phone. They even have some freebie games like Snake and Doom.

So I guess you are probably wondering what amazing piece of literally I penned to win the monthly review competition. Well wonder no more, I’ve added it below:

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Posted in Reviews, Personal | 2 Comments »

July 2nd, 2007

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I’ve never been a good blogger, I always find it difficult to consistantly post new blogs, no matter how trivial or small blogs can be these days. However, recently I’ve been taking an increased interest in blogs and how they can drive traffic to my sites and earn money.

I am developing my own ideas and have just had a project done for me on Scriptlance which aims to further these ideas. They basically revolve around blogs, forums and Web 2.0 sites like Technorati, Delicious and Squidoo.

So, this morning when an email arrived in my inbox from Gary Ambrose (a self confessed non-blogger) announcing a new product by Rob Benwell called Blogging To The Bank it naturally piqued my interest. Any other time I probably would have past, but since I was actively looking into blogs and making money from them the timing couldn’t have been better!

I scanned through the sales page as most people do (check the headline, what does the product do, check the benefits, check the bonuses and finally check the price) and decided that it was probably worth the $47 asking price - he probably could have easily have sold it for $67, but that would have put me off).

So I paid up and downloaded it, and this is what I thought of Blogging To The Bank 2.0…

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Posted in Reviews, Marketing | No Comments »

June 30th, 2007

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My friend bought a new laptop the other day after his old died on him (shows a blank white screen on startup - anyone have any ideas?). So he toddled off to the local PC World to have a look at the laptops. I seem to remember a time a few years ago where desktop PC’s took up the floor space and laptops were confined to one or two rows. Now laptops dominate the floorspace.

While browsing the laptops, I came across a Compaq Presario with the following spec:

1. 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor
2. 2 GB RAM
3. 120 GB HDD
4. 256 MB Shared Graphics
5. 15.4″ Widescreen LCD
6. Dual Layer DVD +/- ReWriter
7. Vista Home Premium

All that for just £599 - an absolute bargain. Since I’m still using a beat up old Compaq with a PIII & 256MB RAM I knew that they make good sturdy laptops; which is more than can be said for the Toshiba my friend was using. So eventually after a bit of umming and ahing he took the plunge and bought the new Compaq (and I don’t know how I walked out without one, I was this close | | to getting one myself). He got a right touch on it too, getting £20 knocked off for signing up to their ‘care’ plan - which was free and can be cancelled at any time.

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Posted in Reviews | No Comments »

June 28th, 2007

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This is a continuation of the post I made on 26th June which you can read about here. I’m carrying on by explaining what I think is wrong with the GoDaddy website, interface and ordering process.

Messy & Confused Website

In an attempt to offer every internet service under the sun, the GoDaddy website is mishmash of information. Assume you want to purchase a domain name. You assume they are all $8.95 or lower because that’s what the pretty image above the search box says. You notice some * marks above the prices which usually means there are some terms and conditions involved. After searching on the page you find that the * mark could mean that the domain costs $0.99 or $6.99 or maybe $5.99. It could even mean that there is a $0.22 ICANN fee added to the final cost. Who knows?!

So you type in the domain you want (and maybe get a little confused by the plethora of domain extentions that are available) and choose the .tv extension because your site will be about a TV show.

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Posted in Moans, Reviews | 1 Comment »

June 26th, 2007

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GoDaddy is the largest registrar of domains according to WebHosting.info with over 18m domains registered and nearly 21% market share (Disclaimer: I couldn’t find another source to back up this data or when it was valid from so take it with a pinch of salt).

Given that they have such a massive market share and are the dominant force in domain names, why can’t they provide a half decent service? The website interface is the worst I’ve ever used, the domain managing platform doesn’t work in Opera browser, the usability of their software falls woefully short and that’s all topped off with the worst online shopping cart experience in the world.

If you have any experience with domains and hosting in the past 6 months, you can’t have failed to hear about the astonishing story about RegisterFly.com - at one time claiming to be the 3rd largest domain registrar on the internet. If you haven’t had the misfortune to read about the RegisterFly fiasco, then take 30 minutes to read through some articles on RegisterFlies.com - an unofficial customer complaints site.

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Posted in Moans, Reviews | 1 Comment »