The question is can you download the whole wikipedia on your computer. YES. Wikipedia maintains periodical database dumps and they measure in Gigabytes (from 20 GB onwards).

If you plan to download Wikipedia at any stage, visit http://download.wikimedia.org

Be aware, but, though Wikimedia foundation gives free access to download the Wikipedia, you will be successful only if you have a ultra-fast broadband and comfortable download limits
(Say at least 30 – 40 GB). You can choose to download only few sections, however.

For example, the September 2007 edition of Wikipedia (static html pages) can be download from this site http://static.wikipedia.org/downloads/September_2007/

SOS Children has made use of the Wikipedia articles and has released a DVD, “Wikipedia Selections” for school children that contains selected articles from Wikipedia.The first edition was released in 2006 and 2007 edition got just released. Wikipedia for Schools provide more information on these developments. Thousands of volunteers were involved in editing and choosing suitable articles for young children.

Once you download, you need a Unzip program, 7 Zip – a free utility (Winzip or Winrar are also doing the job).

The $100 Laptop (One Laptop per Child) will have a more comprehensive “Wikipedia Selections” installed in it. The information has finally become free. That’s Sweet.

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If you do online shopping, then without spending another penny, you can donate a percentage of your spendings to a charity. Confused? Usually, the affiliate marketers and publishers get a percentage for every referral they make to such online stores. Giveness springs from the same concept but they help to direct such commissions (affiliate sales) to charity programs.

Giveness is a social network for philanthropists who love shopping. When you buy something from online stores such as Amazon or eBay, via Giveness, they donate a percentage of their earnings to a charity of your  choice directly.

Giveness lists a big basket of about 134 online charities ranging from Children of Rural Africa to Sustainable Harvest International. When you sign up to Giveness, you can choose your favourite charities, before you do shopping. When the online stores send the commissions, all 100% of the money is sent to the charities. Now, you would have had a double joy as your shopping has not only fulfilled your need, but also some percentage of your spendings went to fulfill some higher cause.

Apart from this, Giveness is all about social networking, you will find people who are interested in common things. You can have a personal page, share things, chat or message friends. They should be good souls as they believe they can make a positive difference in this world by doing a small bit for the world.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell a thing. You can also start a charity fund. You can define a purpose – it could be a global problem or it could be even a neighbourhood’s issue. You can organize a charity and start your social service.

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Imagine if your personal information can find way into the computer screens of baddies, the consequences will be unimaginable. Am I scaring you? Not at all. Just follow some news items.

Who has the responsibility for protecting you online? The answer is not a firewall program or your ISP. You should protect your privacy – You are responsible for your online safety.

What you can do to protect your privacy?

1. Use nicknames only.

2. Create an email-id to sign-up for newsletters / social networks.

3. Check if an E-business site is Verisign secure (Click on the logo and verify it).

4. Post only thumbnail photos.

5. Never tell your personal information. E.g. Real date of birth.

6. Don’t tell everything (share your personal problems) about yourself to an online friend. Wait until you gain some trust.

7. Do not think everyone is good.

8. When someone asks for your postal address, ask why?

9. If someone is offering free money, then there is something wrong.

10. Do not blog your personal details.

from Geek And Poke’s Future of Web by Oliver Widder

Related Readings:
EFF’s Top 12 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy – very exhaustive, lists some online tools and services that help you to protect your privacy.

CDT’s online guide to online privacy: Top Ten Ways to Protect Privacy Online

Get safe Online – an expert blog that has excellent blog posts, tips and resources on being safe online.

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How do you get hold of such free schwags. If you happen to visit the web conferences, tech fests and seminars, you will get a loads of such stuff.

If not, you can email them using their contact page and ask them. Not all the web companies encourage the users openly as the following few.

Flickr Schwags: FREE
For example, Flickr says in its blog page that if you need stickers, buttons, balloons – you could send an email to them. I did and got a pack of goodies which are really cool.

“When you are organising a flickr meer, if you let us know in addition to adding your event to the Upcoming Flickr group — we can send you some Flickr schwag: stickers, buttons and name tags. Please include your postal address and let us know as soon as you can, ideally, at least a month before the event.” – Flickr blog

Visit http://www.flickr.com/help/contact to let them know you want some flickr goodies. Within few weeks, the parcel should arrive you.

Feedburner Stickers: FREE

Taking a cue from Flickr, now Feedburner provides stickers, but you need to send them some pre-paid, self-addressed envelopes to their address.

Read this announcement on the Feedburner official blog.

Startup Schwag:
There is much an easy way, if you can shell some out some money ($25-$30), startupschwag will collect all such cool schwags (with one T-shirt guaranteed) every month to your address.

There was a startup named ValleySchwag which got shut down earlier because, they could not cope with the users demand. Now, the home page link leads to a 404 page.

Other FREE Stickers:

You can get a free 2007 Ferrari Stickers given away by Shell.

Have you requested such goodies from companies? Whats your experience?

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No, they are not the BIG Pro, A-list bloggers. They are like you and me, our nice, friendly next-door-bloggers, they often produce a stunning post that you wish you had written. Here’s a collection of such 25 top blog posts in five categories that are most-read by their readers. We can all learn something from each of these posts.

1. Utility Posts: You post something useful for everyone (blogger), if your post is convincing, readers will celebrate it. Do not think any topic is known to everyone. There are billions of people who still wants to know what a blog is. Keep your language simple, show them in a clear, concise steps.

Top 5 Steps for Choosing a Blog Theme – Meg is renowned for posting such easy-to-understand, jargon-free, illustrative articles at her blog Dipping into the Blog Pond. I would suggest her to make a “popular page” showing such posts.

Reframing: The sweetest idea for content ideas – Andrew addressed a most pressing issue faced by every blogger in this post. How do we develop ideas for blog posts, to create unique yet, special content which no one else can do.

Should you eat that – Tara, a nutrition student publishes the recipes she tries and the tips on our dietary, eating habits. The blog title Should you eat that reflects the utility for you – to help you to choose your food wisely. If you are looking for recipes, you should bookmark the blog Cook almost anything.

How To Replace the Color Wheel in Your Samsung DLP Television and Save $400 – You don’t need to go looking for such Do-IT-Yourself posts somewhere. Write your own experience how you overcome an issue, a tip that you have developed to solve a problem. That’s all the world is looking for – write from your own experience. This post published by Scott received 594 comments and has excellent photographs to illustrate every step he talks about.

How I stopped a bandwidth thief – Swollen pickles wrote a series of excellent posts to stop a person who stole the bandwidth by direct hot-linking of images. It teaches a lesson to the evil-doers and to you on how to handle if you are in such situation.

2. Surprise Posts: Surprise posts grab your attention at once. You know you want to click and see what’s in there (they are referred as click-baits). You can make that happen with catchy, cheeky titles or opening sentences.

Rate My Ass – The title itself surprises you to know the content.

Amazing Upside Down House – The weird stories such as these are powerful crowd pullers.

Avoid Risk, Sure. Then Die! – Richard wrote a book, “Punk Marketing“, which is based on the mantra that, if you are afraid of risks, then you sure, are ready to die.

And now for an important announcement from the Prime Minister – Lizbee’s picture blog post has a real signature of the Prime Minister of Australia in it.

Australia’s Bizarre Sporting Fortunes – Knowing most of Australians love sports and like reading about them, Mark would never need another better topic other than this.

3. Popular-by-Demand Posts: Every one wants to know your success story (even if there is a pun) or a miserable failure and wants to get inspired or get a good laugh. These posts are always popular among readers, if only you do not disappoint them in delivery.

Snoskred made 5 million dollars online – How much money you could have made if the “spam marketers” were really very generous in their dealings? On a serious note, this post is an eye-opener.

How to grow your blog by over 2000 per cent in one month! – If you are a blogger, you know what it means to grow by 200%, let alone adding another 1800%. Alister who calls himself as “Blogologist” (Did I say that correctly?), posts the techniques he used to get more readership, more links and more comments.

13 signs that someone you know may have an eating disorder – A list of any sort is sure enough to attract your readers. Aussie mum posts a list of signs to check if you or any one you know might have an eating disorder.

Vinyl Beauties post series from Vanessa shows the vintage collection of vinyl records (music album) she presents the cover images in the series. Eye-catching.

How to Turn 300 Contacts Into 3.3 Million: My LinkedIn Network – Des at Thinking Home business talked on how you could develop your social network at a phenomenal rate.

4. Breezy Posts: They are lengthier but compelling enough to keep your attention till the very end of the post. A travel diary, a personal experience, book / restaurant review or just tips from your own life would form this category.

Relaxing weekend ingredients – Jaycee lists the essential ingredients for a successful, soothing weekend at her blog Semantically Driven.

How To Do A Mini Debrief With Traumatized Friends – Megan talks about dealing with a tough situation where most of us would keep silent.

Adelaide to Darwin Backpacking Road Trip Overview – Neerav often writes about his trips (backpackers reviews, travel tips) around Australia (I would like to travel around Australia as well). His travel diary is fascinating as well as informative.

B is for Boracay -It’s all about fantastic beach and real good time!

Personal post about Long Distance Relationships – A short post on her thoughts but I liked it instantly.

5. Analytical Posts: Start with a burning question and provide convincing arguments and you get a successful blog post. You can compare two services or even produce a list of ten best things.

Why Do Blogs Fail? – Dan at The Wrong Advices analyses the reasons behind why bloggers loose interest and close their blogs one-fine-day.

Why Most People Fail at AdSense – Lisa tells her ‘Hodgepodge theory’ on Adsense.

Why StumbleUpon is a better than Digg for promoting your blog posts – This is one of my favourite post where I compared at the stickiness of readers visiting from two giant social network sites.

Why Is Firefox Still Way Behind Internet Explorer? – Everyone hates George Bush. Any Australian whom I speak to hates John Howard. But, they get elected all the time. Everyone seems to love Firefox, but? I would recommend a serious discussion such as this one would be open to your readers. You can ask your readers to tell their reasons then, you can write a round-up of posts.

NO WATER, NO FUTURE AUSTRALIA – Jules shares her wise words on the Melbourne Water’s ‘Your water, Your future’ (now changed as Our water, our future) campaign and tips on changing the strategy to voluntarily involve people in environmental activism. Here’s Your water, your say group.

25 posts from 25 bloggers, now you know why the readers liked them all. Now is the time for you to speak, what type of blog posts you enjoy writing and why? Comment on.

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1. Volume blogging:
Can you guess how many blog posts a typical ‘A’ list blogger publishes every week? 7 or 15. No, the average is about 28 (that is 4 posts a day). When you post in such great volumes and regularly paced out publishing, the search engines take note of your blog’s update schedule and revisit your blog more often. When you publish a post, say every 6 hours, you attract visitors from every time zone – so, the chances of getting new readership is very high.

2. Value blogging:
Once in few days, they write a blog post that you can not resist reading it at once. That’s value blog post. It might be a collection of tips or resources from the web; you would love to blog about it in your blog pointing to it (that’s link bait).

3. Establish the brand
Successful bloggers place a high emphasis on personal branding. They have a distinct logo, favicon and they brand the RSS feeds – which strongly puts a credible image for the viewers. With a good branding, the marketing is easy. The first-time visitors will always become loyal readers if they ‘see’ a good, branded blog.

4. Run blogging contests
Blogging contests are a good way to create a buzz. The contest participants (who are bloggers) will mention in it (that they are participating in a contest) their blogs to inform their readers, that is a sure way to attract first-time visitors.

5. Encouraging guest posts
A professional blogger gives room to another blogger to write fill-in posts. It is a WIN-WIN situation, where both the guest and the host bogger will reap benefits, because, the readers of one blog would visit other blog and each will showcase their blog in front of a large number of new audience.

6. Two-day, intensive blogging
This is the single-most secret that every professional blogger doesn’t want to reveal. Successful bloggers allot one or two days (just that) for intensive blogging ideas and posts. They develop their ideas and write the posts and schedule their blog posts for publication and forget them. In addition to these scheduled posts, when they come across ‘current events’ – something useful for their readers- they write at once and hit publish. Now, you know their secret of volume blogging.

7. Revenue streams
Every blogger depends ‘Google Adsense’ for making money (that’s the easiest passive money making option for anyone). A successful blogger has at least 10 different revenue streams apart from Google adsense.

My wishes to you for a blogging success.

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I am not a qualified financial advisor, but over these years, I have learnt few things that worked for me in saving money. Continuing from the yesterday’s post, here are the remaining five money saving tips that have worked for me. You would’ve heard many of them and they are nothing but common-sense, if you actually look at them. They will work for you as well, I bet.

6) When you go in a group, Spend for yourself only
When going in a group, try to spend for yourself only. Don’t get me wrong. You can spend for your friends once in a while, but do not make it as a habit and becoming a sponsor of everyone. Have a check on the amount you spend. If someone is paying for you, give back your money to them or spend for them another time. Keep track of the records on things such as these – who spent for you and for whom you have spent. I don’t keep track of every cent with my close friends (‘You pay a movie for me, I will pay you the next movie’ kind).

7) Write some financial goals, now
Two years ago, without any serious intention, I jotted down in my personal journal that I would get a job in a year that would pay me Rs. 50, 000 a month (that was my financial dream, when I was working in a job with a paycheck of Rs. 16,000). A written goal clearly sets you in a positive direction; I had read that somewhere and thankfully it worked for me. A few months later, I was at the University of Adelaide doing a Master’s Degree with a scholarship. Do you know how much money I was receiving a month in Indian Rupees? A little over 50,000 rupees (tax-free). Fancy that?

How did it happen? With few written words and some extra work from me. So, do a favour for your financial future. Write down a reasonable goal that you would like to achieve and set a time stamp on it (Say, for instance, a saving of $2000 by December 31st, 2007)

Carry your lunch box
Oh yes, it works. The first thing I purchased when I came to Australia is a Tupperware lunchbox set to carry my daily lunch with juice. The lunch is often very modest – four slices of bread with peanut butter spread and chocolate spread or veggie burger – with squeezed orange juice. The lunchbox not only saved money for me, but it contributed my health as I stayed away from fast food. Occasionally (once in few weeks), I went out for lunch with my colleagues to have a cool ‘lunch chat’. When I had stopped carrying lunchbox while I was writing my thesis, lot of money went on the nasty fast food lunches.

9) Say ‘No’ to credit cards
I don’t have a credit card. Not even one. Some of my friends said, ‘credit cards are for emergency situations’ and gladly accepted them. Now, they are in trouble for their “emergency spending” on clothes, food and movies. When you have a credit card, it is easy to get tempted by the “0%, interest free loans”. I admit that I can not handle my temptations and I am weak on them. So, I have not even a single credit card. I spend it only from my debt card. And, anyway, my other account has my savings which I always can use if an emergency situation arises (it has no ATM card access but, I can transfer them online when I need in an emergency).

10) Have a financial advisor or refer some books
You can not be a financial guru and I am not one either. We need to know only necessary things that are enough to make our life comfortable. That’s my style. And, if you open your eyes and ears, you will receive good financial advice – I meant “good”, not some gossips or ‘quick-rich schemes’ (actually, they are quickly-broken) from half-cooked-experts (sadly, they happen to be your friends or relatives). If you are working, you will have an accountant working with you – so, ask them (My friend says so. ‘Is it so?’) over a cuppa. Or if you are like me, just keep tab on a newspaper’s financial columns or trusted books. If you think it is all over your head, then keep a professional financial advisor -

These tips are effective only when you act on them (doing is way better than just knowing). Start with a one or two. I would recommend you to start with budgeting (you just need to use your diary, that’s all). Without knowing where your money goes, it is difficult to save or cut-down your expenses. Just do it. As always, share your opinions on this post.

Read the part 1 of “Money Saving Tips”

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Here are the 10 money saving tips that have worked for me which would very well work for you too. I have acquired them by own experience of money (mis)management and from my friends, books and some old financial advisors. I am going to publish it as a two-part post because, it is fairly long and I think it is worth contemplating on each of these five aspect for a while. I am eagerly waiting for your comment as usual.

1) Pay yourself first
When the pay check comes, who comes to our mind first? Right, the bills. But, if you choose to set aside a specified sum for savings, you have done the first step in creating a secure future. The savings account you transfer should be without an ATM card access and the savings are for your major pleasure – for the year-end vacation, or for your dream car.

Additional tip: Ask your bank if they provide an additional low-fee account that provides high-interest-rate (up to 8% returns) for the savings. They are termed as investment accounts or award-saver accounts. I have a Commonwealth bank’s award saver account which penalises me (with a fee of $5) if I don’t deposit anything in it for a month. So, I make it a point to transfer at least $50 a month to avoid penalty fee.

2) Save before you spend
If you set aside a minimum amount out of every week’s pay regularly for a year, you would be surprised by the amount of money you had saved by the end of two year period. I am not saying that you should starve to save money. But, whatever little you can set aside, just do it. It could be as little as $50 a week or even $25 a week. Just transfer it and then you start spending the remaining money.

3) Don’t save cash
Saving in the form of cash (notes and coins) in a piggybank does not work (at least for me). When I have got some cash in hands, I would always find a way to spend it. I always pay from my card. At many a times, I have avoided unnecessary expenses, just because, the shopped did not have a debt card transaction or EFTPOS facility (thanks heaven!).

4) Carry a shopping list and stick to it
Prepare a shopping list before you go for shopping. This not only avoids the impulsive buying and you may tend to buy some unnecessary things that you may not require. Look for an item you would like to purchase and watch out for specials and choose that is of low price and good quality. Don’t buy a combo offer (‘Buy 3 to save $1’ kind) unless you need them. Most often we tend to buy 3 packs to save few extra cents only to dump one of them in the dust bin (after expiry).

Additional tip: Do not shop when you are hungry.

5) Budgeting every day’s expenses
I hate to sit down and write every day’s expenses – just like you. When I did it for one month and saw the benefits, I have found a new financial wisdom. I knew where my every dollar went. It is easy to remember your daily expenses and not down them in a small pocket diary. At the end of the month, just add them in categories, such as Groceries, Clothes, Food, Movie and other things. You would be surprised by the financial awareness it creates for you.

Contemplate on these five tips and say if they are worth. This second part of the post is to be continued tomorrow.

Continue to the Second part of “Money Saving Tips”

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Yes, every blogger aims to achieve all of these and more (money and fame) from blogging. We want the benefits of being a professional blogger – but, do we do exactly what probloggers do?

Here is the habits of highly effective bloggers who earn the money and fame in the blogosphere.

1. Professional bloggers are honest in their dealings: Yes, they understand that you can not mock around if they aim to earn money and fame from blogging. They are very serious about their blogging and they work hard something unique for their readers. Be it the blog’s design, content, search engine optimisation or marketing – they give their heart into everything. No pain, no gain.
2. They give before they get: Every successful blogger would agree that there is a certain period of time – where you are expected to give all your energy into your blog. You can not expect your blog to earn bucks in the early days. Those who wait, shall reap big rewards.

3. Probloggers are not afraid of mistakes: Everyone makes mistakes (or shall we call them as experiments or trials?) when we venture into an unknown territory. The mother of all mistakes is ‘not learning from your mistakes’. They experiment boldly – try new methods and techniques to improve their blog, different sources to build traffic, readership. They constantly get feedback and quickly learn and adjust their strategies.

4. They have set clear goals: What you want to achieve through blogging? How much readership do you want to build? How much you want to earn? What is the time frame to achieve? Do you have a blogging schedule? Very few bloggers are very clear about what they want to achieve with their blogs. Set realistic goals for your blog – think on them.

5. Money comes last: You get paid for the work you already did. This truth applies to blogging as well. It is very common that blogs do not earn much money in the initial months – but once you have the content, readership and traffic, you will get plenty of money. Probloggers understand this. Do not stop if your blog does not earn quick dollars.

6. Probloggers read a lot: Books. Blogs. RSS feeds. They follow, skim through every possible reading material in their specialty (niche) area. They meet fellow bloggers, attend conferences and learn outside the online sources to inform their blog readers. Unless you read, you will not have authority in your writing. Read more.

7. They understand users: They follow what users like. They track user behaviors on how they respond to a new design, a blog post and quickly adapt to the readers. If you are not in touch with your readers, then you are already lost. They send out newsletters, freebies to reward the users. With readers, you grow.

More importantly, they are passionate about blogging. They strive hard to reach new heights. They would sacrifice anything for the sake of blogging (at least till they retire).

What do you think the essential quality of a professional blogger? Have I missed anything? Comment on.

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