The Raging Tech

Coming Soon: Logitech Harmony One Full Review

Hey everyone. Just a heads up - I received my Logitech Harmony One universal remote control - and it is completely awesome. The long and short of it is I like it a lot - it found devices no other universal remote has ever found for me before, and it even has provisional support for my Playstation 3 if I can buy the IR-bluetooth adapter.

As I wrote earlier this morning, I’m going out of town this weekend, but I’ll be working on my review and should have something Monday morning to share with all of you.

The reason this is exciting to me is that this will be the first review of a technology gadget that’s been sent to me for free to review. I’ve done reviews of things I already owned before, but this certainly makes me feel good about the reviewing and posting I’ve been doing here so far.

Thanks to my readers - it’s you guys who give me the numbers to show people I’m worth advertising with / sponsoring / sending cool free stuff to review. Don’t forget - if you like my blog and find it interesting, share the URL with your friends and family, add me to your blog roll, and subscribe to my RSS feed!

Bloggers Unite For Human Rights on May 15th

On May 15th, 2008, bloggers from across the world will be participating in one of the largest collaborations of online publication for human rights violations. If you decide to join me, you can help by being a voice for those who don’t have a voice.

There are several main topics to choose from, primarily to keep everyone on the same topics so the impact is greater - such as Darfur, Shi Tao in China and Yahoo!’s part in his being seized by the Chinese government, the illegal detentions at Guantanamo Bay, and more.

Blogs are indexed by search engines, feed readers, and other programs of interest. That means when thousands of bloggers write on the same topic, especially in a relatively short period of time, like one day, it gets noticed.

Join Bloggers Unite now, and on May 15th blog for Human Rights violations world-wide!

SocialSpark: How I Survived Google Spanking Me

As you’ve probably noticed by now, I often write content that is sponsored, and I am pretty open about disclosing such things. At the bottom of most sponsored content, you’ll notice a small blue bubble that will say “Sponsored by” and then the advertiser name. However, some folks didn’t take kindly to any of my content being sponsored, and said it wasn’t cool that I write the same quality of content whether it’s sponsored or not.

Ever since I got my page rank slapped down to zero from it’s former beauty of 3, I had been totally killed on the sponsorships I could take. I’ve previously written about how I’d be taking a break until I could work out sponsorship again. Well, that time has come, as you might have noticed. I have signed up for SocialSpark, which may prove to be the revolution for which the blog monetization game has been eagerly waiting.

SocialSpark uses a system called RealRank, based on actual page views and traffic to your site. It’s also a fun social network that gives bloggers ideas, or “sparks” on what to write about when you’ve got writer’s block. It hooks up bloggers with advertisers and other bloggers, and lets you comment, vote, and leave feedback for each other. Think of it as a MySpace for blog owners, only without all the crap.

You get a friends list, as well as a “fav 9″ to highlight your favorite bloggers. You can send messages, invite people to be your friend, give “props” to those people you like or opportunities that you like. You can see the stats on a blog you’re interested in advertising on if you’re an advertiser.

My favorite part of this system is the pure distinction between blogger and blog. You can give props to a blog instead of directly to a blog owner, which is especially great for people who have more than one blog.

SocialSpark requires 100% in-post disclosure, 100% transparency (no games, man!), actual blogger opinions - they don’t tell us what we should like or dislike, and I only take the opportunities I think are appropriate for my blog and my readers. Sign-up is easy, and payment goes out to your PayPal account, so if you don’t have one of those already, be sure and sign up for one.

It’s free to sign up, even though it’s still in beta, and if you have a blog or are an advertiser looking to spread the word about your product or service, give SocialSpark a try. I’ve never regretted being a part of SocialSpark, and so far it’s been a blast!