play·ground: n. A field or sphere of unrestricted pleasurable activity
There's this domain name registrar which is not only one of the cheapest around (if not the cheapest for the level of service they offer, which is great) but also gives away prizes like crazy. Every now and then they organize a contest in which they don't just give a few main prizes but they also give out credits for registering domain names around every corner.
That's exactly what they're doing now and I'm going to show you how to try to win a free domain or two (I already won four in four days!).
I laied down all the steps for you to follow here but if you wish you may go directly to the contest page at Namecheap, which explains all this and even more.
Signup with Namecheap domain registar (it's free and you don't have to give your credit card info) by going to this page.
Follow Namecheap on Twitter. If you don't own a twitter account, registration is quick so go and do that first.
Go to this link, enter your Twitter username where specified and click 'Verify'.
Go to your Twitter account's inbox where you should find a direct message from Namecheap waiting for you. It will contain a short code which you will have to copy.
Go back to the Namecheap website and paste the code on the confirmation page. This will complete the integration process.
Wait for Namecheap to ask a new riddle every hour and try to be the first to respond with a correct answer. The first person that answers correctly and 4 other selected randomly will win the $10.16 domain name credit to use with their linked Namecheap account.
Each contestant can only win one domain name credit per day and you can see all the winners on this page.
If you have any additional questions or concerns, please first read through the contest rules page before asking in the comments below.
Obviously, there are other things Namecheap offers that you'll be able to spend your won credits on, other than on registering/transferring/renewing domains: to purchase WhoisGuards for your domains, SSL certificates or even hosting.
Posted on September 07, 2010 ~ Write a comment
I haven't been writing here for almost a year now, and I had many reasons, albeit not many of which I could be proud of, but still many "legitimate" reasons why this was so.
And while I'm pretty sure not even a dead soul will be reading this anytime soon -- not that it ever did but here it goes...
The other day I realized the true reason for not writing, or at least the major one. Excitement, or rather a lack of it. I believe I hadn't written anything because, well, there wasn't much that happened in my life that excited me to even think of sharing it with the world, or you, probably my sole reader.
That has all changed now. It started with my participation in a contest of writing business plans at my college. That had me excited for quite some time. I realized it's been a long time that I have been so much excited about something for so long. Well, not counting the amazing Palm Pre-mania lately.
This all excitement got me to plan two business projects, and think about a dozen of them. While some of the initial ones are pretty much dead now, I'm not sorry - because I'm still pursuing one, one about which I will be sharing more later. Basically, it should make me rich... hehe... ;)
So let's take things in order...
This is probably the culprit for all the excitement. And I have my friend Dominik to thank for talking me into applying for the contest. And it was literally 5 minutes to midnight on the deadline day that I have applied.
At first I was reluctant to apply because I didn't have any idea that was obsessing me at that time from which I could be making a business plan for the contest.
Even though I usually have many ideas in my head, what general ideas (think innovation), what business ideas which I store in my Ideas Journal, at that point I was just not in the right state of mind, obviously.
Next thing I know, after applying for the contest, without a clue as to what I'll be writing about, the ideas just came pouring in.
The excitement started.
First thing I had to was open my Ideas Journal to store some of the ideas because I couldn't do them all at once and I had to choose one to go with. I didn't know with which plan I will be contending until the very last moment when I just didn't have any more time to think.
Now, as it turns out, after the final versions of business plans were in, I actually wasn't even in the contest. Yeah, it's embarrassing to admit but I was too late to bring my plan in due to my mistake. Had to make it perfect or not do it at all. The clock was ticking and I was running late so I couldn't pull it off in time.
Embarrassing as that was, it didn't - it couldn't - put me off the tracks. Of course the prize would be nice but in the end, the execution of the plan is what I'm after, not the contest prize.
Even though I said the excitement was initiated by applying for the Business Plan Contest, the Pre has got me a bit excited all the way back from the start of the year (Yes! That long!).
That sheer excitement about a consumer device that came almost to the point of obsession (never have I been even remotely excited about a consumer device before, except when I'd wait something I bought ;)) certainly has a part in the reason I'm mentioning it. Ever since the CES in January, I've been reading, watching, commenting and thinking about this device. Crazy, crazy world!
However, part of the reason I mention Palm Pre here has to do with my current business plan that I intend to carry out in the very near future. (And given that I'm nearly obsessed with the freaking thing, I plan to write much more specifically about it... but now's not the time...)
Palm Pre has not only brought some major advancements in the mobile world, especially the smartphone world, after the IMHO not-so-much-a-smartphone, Apple's iPhone, who nevertheless brought big advancements in the mobile industry and become a worldwide hit. But as a long time Palm (of both devices and the Palm OS) user and fan, it got me excited because this is very likely going to be the next phone I'll get (I use a Palm Treo 680 at the moment). But it got me excited even more because I should be able to develop applications for it.
It's really exciting because I've never even thought of writing apps for the PalmOS but now that Palm has made it easier for even web developers to develop applications for their system by using HTML/CSS/JavaScript, I'll just have to give it a try. I just have to brush up my JavaScript skills until they publicly release the SDK.
If you didn't get a clue, writing Palm Pre applications will be the basis of my business plan.
So the plan is simple: ;)
What else do I need? There's even a how-to article for that last goal. :D
I can't say this wasn't heavily influenced by the iPhone App Store gold rush. Sure it was. And while I don't think I have an idea for an application that could make me "rich" quickly, having a company that produces software has long been one of my dreams. I decided that I just can't miss an opportunity like that, to learn how to develop and pull this whole thing off, since it was never easier for a guy like me (with only a poor background in web technologies) to develop for something that I truly believe will become the biggest mobile platform in years to come.
P.S. I will be writing more about my excitement about the Palm Pre, my plans for the startup, how I cope with development of apps and also how I'm learning to develop in this altogether... so stick around, subscribe to the feed or bookmark the site...
Posted on June 03, 2009 ~ Write a comment
“People form habits and habits form futures.”
It's one of the most important things I was fortunate to learn early on from a fellow named Mike Litman.
He also said:
“Successful people make a habit of doing things they don't like to do.”
I must admit there are habits I continue to struggle with but I see it as a never ending process and not as a journey with an end.
Posted on July 17, 2008 ~ Write a comment
As with every new version of Firefox you can expect there will be addons that won't be compatible with the new version immediately after the Firefox release.
It's all good until it happens to you, right? ;)
It's all good until this happens with your must-have-or-die Firefox extension, right?
Well, something like that happened to me. More specifically, not only is the addon incompatible with Firefox 3, but the project seems to be d.e.a.d. - and that stinks... :(
So, without further ado, for all the users of Tabbrowser Preferences, this isn't Tabbrowser Preferences for Firefox 3, but it's a way to get to almost all of it's features even without it.
All you need to do is open this txt file, modify the values inside to your liking and then save it into your Firefox profile (How to find your profile?) and voila!
All of the settings are now saved in Firefox 3, even without Tabbrowser preferences! (OK, truth is I got a little carried away, since some of the settings were tied to Tabbrowser preferences and you'll see which ones I'm talking about because they are commented in the above txt file)
It's easy to modify the values. Just change the true/false or the integral value where it shows up.
You can help others and share this resource to the world using the self explaining button below.
UPDATE, June 20th:
If you came here without seeing what Lawrence Webb, a.k.a larryvgs on addons.mozilla.org suggested "For those who MUST HAVE their tabs on the bottom", here's a solution for you:
Put the following in your userChrome.css file (it doesn't exist by default but it should be located in the sub-folder called chrome in your profile folder) or just open this userChrome.css and save it in your chrome folder.
/* Display the Tabbar at the bottom */
#content > tabbox {-moz-box-direction: reverse;}
The orginal instructions are supposedly at support.mozilla.com.
UPDATE, July 2nd:
There's now a new and still experimental addon Tab Focus for all of you who can't live without Tabbrowser Preferences' "Select tabs when the mouse is moved onto them" feature. Thanks TDM for letting us know!
Posted on June 19, 2008 ~ 25 comments