Rant 735 / Money-making Tips For Bloggers

My earphones stopped working properly. Actually it's been acting up for weeks now but yesterday, one side stopped producing sound completely. At first, like 2-3 weeks back, the left side got a lot weaker after I accidentally dropped them. Yesterday, for some reason, the right side stopped working after I left them alone for the night.

It might have to do with me cleaning them with a cloth, although it makes no sense. Maybe I pushed dirt into the tiny holes.

Nevertheless I need a new set of earphones.







Randomly took a peek at our utility bills for February. Had a big surprise. Our electricity usage dropped by about half! Our consumption rate has been around 1000kWh per month for the last 5 months, according to the records printed at the back, but this month, it's at over 400kWh.

What on earth just happened???

Let's see... What changed this month?

Nothing. I've had this new PC since January, according to my blog. Oh wait.. the end of January. Might be one factor.

Also, I've been sleeping without the air-conditioner, but that started like in December I think.

Or did it? Too bad I didn't record that down. I don't remember when I began that habit now. My mum has also stopped using it at night ever since her unit's remote control detection mechanism stopped working. I have no idea why she's not using the power button on the unit itself.

This still doesn't make sense. 500kWh, over 30 days, makes roughly 16.7kWh per day. Divide that by 24 gives me an average rate of 0.7kW, or 700W. One air-conditioner unit and a seriously green PC can't cut power consumption by that much... can they?

Does my new PC consume so much less electricity than the old one?? But it's more powerful than its predecessor!

Something is wrong but I'm not going to dig further. Why try to fix something that doesn't need fixing?








So something got me thinking about moving to Canada again today. I had kinda forgot about it ever since I switched to studying Translation and Interpretation (Eng/Chi).

I googled for quite some time and what I found didn't look good. Sure, there are quite a few vacancies for translators and interpretors in Canada, but like 95% of them are for French/English. In fact it appears to be easier for me to get a job in this industry in the US than in Canada.

Before I go on, I should probably get this straight:

Translation - written work
Interpretation - oral work

And there's still a need for a certificate if I want to be a professional translator/interpretor. From what I've read and heard, it's pretty hard to get it here in Singapore due to the difficulty of the tests. Together with the fact that almost all Singaporeans are proficient in these 2 languages to some degree, it's not worth the effort to be a certified interpretor for English-Chinese here.

On the other hand, I need at least a year of experience in this line of work if I want to apply for PR status in Canada as a translator/interpretor, in addition to getting a job there. Maybe I should try another trade. Maybe as an entrepreneur if things work out in my apprenticeship.







For Vista or Win7 users:

1) Go to C:\Users\*name*\Searches
2) Open "Indexed Location"

To make hidden files visible:
1) Go to Control Panel
2) Open "Folder Options"
3) Open "View" tab
4) Under "Hidden files and folders", check "Show hidden files and folders".

Enjoy the endless possibilities.






Here's a very handy guide for making money out of blogging.

Author's mentioned right on top in green, so thank him if you find it useful. His email is at the bottom on the right. Other than the proxy clicker, I don't think it mentions any illegal stuff. Surprisingly legit for something produced in 4chan.

Another tip frequently seen is to avoid mentioning that forum in your blog, but that's only when you have ads. This is because if you attract their attention, you might get flooded by them. Apparently Google gets suspicious when you have lots of traffic from a single source and may not pay you.

Since I'm not putting ads here and I have comment moderation on, I don't feel the need to avoid the name. Furthermore, I believe in using mild words in this blog, so it shouldn't be pissing anyone off.

If you're wondering why I'm posting this, it's because it may become useful to me in the future. Who knows? It's always good to be prepared.

I would probably feel guilty if I have ads and I get an increase in traffic for posting this. It's not right to make money out of someone else's work. Of course, someone might make money off my work. I'm actually fully aware of the possibility.