Contests With Prizes Are Great

Tagged as: Contests Oct 04

I’m a little slow on this news, but one of the sites that I subscribe and read (ProBlogger.net) is having a contest to celebrate the anniversary of his blog. You can find more details of it all at the competition page. There are $54,000 worth of prizes to be had in a number of smaller contests (although admittedly some of the contests are already done). Many of them are fairly easy to participate in.

So check it out because remember: the possibility of winning is better than no possibility at all!

Easily Blingo With Firefox

Tagged as: Contests, Internet Oct 03

Well, sorry to create a new post on the same subject (Winning With Blingo). But I just wanted to let people know about some further information about using Blingo. Besides, it’s not as if this is going to be a series or anything like that.

Well it’s worth revisiting because:

1. I got no comments on the last post. Not that I’m extremely popular but posts seem to get a fair amount of comments usually. Thus, I have no knowledge that anyone read it!
2. It’s a worthwhile thing to do because I feel like people only stand to benefit from utilizing it.
3. I’ll admit it, I want you to join through me because I wouldn’t mind getting extra chances to win things. Who wouldn’t want that?

In any case, for those of you using Firefox I have a tip for you. Now you can search Blingo in Firefox without ever having known the difference!

1. Go to “about:config”. This stores all of the configurations (sometimes hidden, sometimes available through menus) of everything in Firefox.
2. Change the keyword.enabled preference
   1. In the “Filter:” text box, search for “keyword.enabled”
   2. Right-click the entry with the Preference Name of “keyword.enabled” and click Toggle (make sure that the value is “enabled”
3. Change the keyword.URL preference
   1. In the “Filter:” text box, search for “keyword.URL”
   2. Double-click the entry with the Preference Name of “keyword.URL”. Change the value to “http://www.blingo.com/search?q=”
4. Now hit Ctrl-L (hold Control and type the letter l) or Apple-L (Mac OS X) to access the URL bar. Type something not a website that you want to search for. Try “Derek Wong” if you’re unimaginative.
5. You should be directed to the Blingo search results for “Derek Wong”!

This is something that many people could benefit from. Using the keyboard to access the url bar instead of the mouse is faster as well as minimizing ergonomic issues by using the mouse. (If you didn’t know, increased and poor mouse usage contributes to Repetitive Strain/Stress Injuries.)

Also this will allow you to search the Internet through Blingo (whose benefits I’ve expounded upon in Winning With Blingo) without having to actually go to the Blingo site each time!

Winning With Blingo

Tagged as: Contests, Internet Sep 28

If you don’t know, Blingo is a website search engine. You ask, “But there are tons of them out there, least of which Google, Yahoo!, etc.” Well this search engine is different because they give out prizes just for searching! A hoax you say? Well follow me as I take you on a picture tour of actually winning something!

So want to know more about it than just what it looks like to win? Well I’m here to explain it to you (as I understand it from reading Blingo’s website anyways).

1. Blingo takes your search query and performs and equivalent search on Google
2. Blingo receives results from Google and displays them to you
3. Blingo also displays sponsored results like Google does
4. Blingo makes money on said sponsored results
5. Blingo buys some prizes with some of the money
6. At specified times, whoever performs a search closest to the time they will be presented with the page that I was presented with. You have won!
7. Blingo doesn’t use all of the money on prizes, I’m sure. So they will make money, and you might win something

That’s basically how Blingo works. So let me just tell you that I think that it’s very reasonable to participate with them. The way to approach it, though, is to:

• Think that you would have searched Google anyways for whatever it is that you wanted.
• Don’t expect to win because the odds of actually winning are minimal.
• However, if you do win, then super!
• Don’t perform extra searches for extra entries because you’d likely be wasting unnecessary time.

So you can see why I would think that it’s worthwhile to try! And now that I won, it has solidified my use of it. They also have a neat affiliate program where you can sign up your friends. If someone that signed up through you wins, then you get the same exact prize. The winner’s prize is not diminished, but the original winner and whoever referred them will get exactly the same prize. If you’d like to sign up, then just click the button below. (I thought it looked like a man with a rifle. And I thought that was hilarious. Let’s name him Bob.) What that means is that if you win, I’ll just get a copy of what you win. So we’ll both win. Let’s win together!

Gaming Is Always Fun

Tagged as: Contests, Gaming, Review Aug 10

I like games. Some games I like more than others. I’m particularly a fan of word games even though I don’t get to play them all too much nowadays. I like games that involve decision making because that increases the possibility of losing. I like some card games, but I’m no gambling bo. (Why bo? Why not?)

Over at Ramblings From The Marginalized, Steve has just created Quartile. Yes that’s right, he made the game. That is pretty amazing, I think.

So looking at the game, it seems pretty interesting, even if the concept is a bit simple. It seems to me to be a mix of Scrabble and dominos where instead of piecing together words with letters, you place seemingly domino pieces in arithmetically corresponding spaces. I must admit that it even seems simple when I write that, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t also look enjoyable! Just look at the Wii, it’s doing so well because it purports to be a simple to use gaming system that focuses on fun rather than complexity!

In any case, he has this pretty cool offer to give away one of his prototype marble sets. (The retail sets are made of wood as that is obviously cheaper to produce.) So check out his site for more information on the whole shebang.

A 37″ TV Would Do Quite Nicely Right Here

Tagged as: Contests, Internet Jul 28

I definitely enjoy entering contests. I always figure that you only have a chance if you try, right? Well there’s a pretty sweet contest where 5 Minutes For Mom is giving away a 37″ TV (hooked up by Best Buy, thank you very much). All you have to do is leave a comment and create a blog post linking to them. Pretty sweet deal for the person that wins, and it’s a pretty smart move for them in order to get tons of link backs. Everyone wins. Well except for everyone who enters and actually doesn’t get the TV. So actually not too many people “win.” Oh well, I’m just hoping that I’m the one that actually does win!