Archive for review:
Monteiths Bar in Edinburgh
If you are ever thinking of visiting Monteiths Bar for a drink or meal, please read this first!!!
Christy and I like to go out for a meal once every week if we can, and sometimes we’ll get together with friends and do something special.
Last week, Thursday July 2nd, Rob invited me out with his girlfriend Amy, and we went along with Stephen and Catherine too. Stephen also brought his cousin, who was over from South Africa. Christy’s birthday was the day before so it was nice to get out with friends and have a few drinks.
Rob had booked Monteiths Bar on the Royal Mile, so I did a quick Google check and unfortunately read some not-so-good reviews. Rob had been there before and assured me it was a nice place, so we ignored the reviews and went ahead.
Upon arrival, the waitress – who turned out to be the manageress – forgot Stephen’s drink, then turned up with three cocktails instead of two. Easy mistake, so we let it slip, despite waiting a further 10 minutes for his drink.
When it came to ordering food, the menu had only a handful of dishes on it, and a few were not available, making our choices very limited indeed. However, we let that slip too, and I ordered a pastry covered meat dish…which the waitress advised would take 35 minutes to cook as I wanted it well done! 35 minutes to cook a mains is a joke, especially in a professional kitchen!
I can’t remember what Rob ordered, and that’s because his meal was never cooked. You see, the waitress forgot to order Rob’s food, thus we all ate whilst he watched. He was told about 3 times his meal would be “5 minutes” and after about half an hour, he cancelled his order. Seemingly the food was “being dished up” by that point.
Whilst he was waiting, Rob ordered a cocktail, which the waitress – remember also the manageress – didn’t know how to make. She asked one of her staff “do you know how to make this drink”. Who allows someone to manage a cocktail bar not knowing how to make the cocktails on the menu? Rob’s drink didn’t turn up until he reminded the waitress about it.
Upon fishing our food, Rob asked to speak to the manager, which we found out was the waitress who had been serving us. She apologised without much sympathy and didn’t really do much to retain us as future customers. She removed Rob’s cocktails from the bill and discounted 10% from it, however it felt like she couldn’t wait to have us leave because of the embarrassment.
I left my business card as the bar had no contact information for the owners. I requested one of them contact me and I was assured this would happen. 7 days later I am still waiting on that call.
One mistake you can live with, two is simply careless and three or more is a joke, especially in a place that charges £25 for a main meal and £7 per cocktail. As a result of their gross negligence, general attitude, crap service and failing to call me, Rob setup Monteiths Bar Sucks to ensure others know what to expect.
We’re not out on a mission to sabotage the business, but after the service we received we wanted to let the World know how rubbish Monteiths Bar in Edinburgh was.
If the owners ever read this, I hope it has served as some useful information on how your business is being run.
Khalid.
Review of BuyBlogComments.com
On April 16th I decided to test Jon Warass’ BuyBlogComments.com, part of his Developer-Hut.com network. His website certainly raves about their benefits yet I was slightly skeptical, especially as a number of people had posted negative reviews and many industry folk deemed it as grey/black hat seo.
I paid for 80 comments at a cost of $19.19 and patiently waited for a report. On May 1st I sent a support ticket requesting an update as the system stated my order would be completed by then.
I received a generic reply stating they were busy and so I waited again. On May 8th I sent another support ticket and received no reply.
(click on images for full size)
I then requested a refund via their online system and today received an e-mail from Paypal stating that their e-mail address: sales@developer-hut.com was not in use and so I automatically received a refund.
It took me over one month to receive nothing but an automated refund as the e-mail address they are using for Paypal money transfers are not in use.
In short, I would definately not recommend their service.
Good luck with your pursuits,
Khalid.
The Value of Link Building with TNX
In a previous post about Off Site SEO, I mentioned the importance of backlink building. In today’s web world where competition saturates some markets, webmasters are finding it increasing difficult to find quality links at an affordable price.
Further to that, trying to sell links that don’t have a high pagerank is even harder…until now.
In steps TNX, a link network/marketplace that allows you to buy a high amount of links within specific niches without breaking the bank. And, you can sell links easily too!
For the publisher, TNX will allow you to earn money on text links, even on pagerank zero pages! For the advertiser, TNX gives you access to thousands of link spaces across hundreds of sites without you remortgaging your house!
As I write this, there is 23035474 links in the system with 32665656 pages indexed by the site. In short, this is not a trivial system that can be laughed at, this is a resource that provides you with easy access to quality link building.
The entire process is easy for both publisher and advertiser:
For the publisher… 1. Install the TNX code on your site. 2. Add your site to TNX system. We will approve it in 1-2 days. 3. Raise the number of links displayed on pages of your website (max. 4 links). 4. Create your own ad campaigns or sell TNX-points to TNX-system or other TNX users.
For the advertiser… 1. Create an Ad campaign following all 3 steps that are provided you by TNX. Buy TNX-points if you don’t have them yet. 2. Relax and watch for results. 3. Edit your campaigns or create new ones using your experience.
So how much does it cost and how much can you get paid?
Well, I’ve personally never used the site as I’ve been too busy recently, BUT, the results seem good. According to Jim Karter, a webmaster, he did quite well with the system!
Well, first of all I put it on a website which did not had much unique content but had a page rank of 4 and around 3000 pages indexed. I hope everybody know how easy it is to create such non-unique sites, but those sites do not get search engine traffic. But I did not need search engine traffic. I added the code from TNX in my template so the links were sold for every page. In one month, I made around 140,000 TNX-points.
So, overall what I got in return of a useless (because of it non-uniqueness) PR4 sites is:
1. Cash of $66/month 2. Around 3000 to 4000 PR0 and PR1 backlinks for my new sites. (I did not need higher PR link for my new sites right now)
TNX use a points system to pay webmasters, so instead of money you get points which you can cash in or use to buy links for your sites. Like a virtual currency, the moneytary value of your points can fluctuate, which can have a positive or negative affect on your earnings.
If you are worried about the negative impact of selling links, i.e. losing your rank, TNX has that covered too! Unlike other text link networks, TNX use a code that seemingly Googlebot doesn’t pickup.
Overall I think TNX is fresh, effective way of link building/selling and it is something I’ll definately be trying it soon! If you’ve used TNX, let me (and other readers!) know so we can get some honest reviews.
Good luck with your persuits,
Khalid.
Park Let – Find a Park Space!
I remember reading a newspaper article recently about a man who was looking to rent a parking space in the busy town of London and simply couldn’t find anything. This attracted a lot of media attention, especially as we’re becoming more conscious about issues such as global warming, overcrowding and traffic distruptions.
I think public transport is a great way to get around the city, but only if it is reliable and clean (the interior). Unfortunately, this is rarely the case and so for many people who are looking for reliability, purchasing a car is the only option left.
First obstacle over, now finding a parking space. Scouring newspaper ad sections, Gumtree offers and convenience store window ads takes a lot of time and effort, which people generally don’t have these days. Aside from that, why would you want to spend your Saturday afternoon looking for a space to park your motor? I couldn’t think of anything more boring!
And if you choose to be one of the millions of people who park their car on the street, you may become the victom of vandalism or even theft! Iff you have to pay for parking, well you might as well spend hours raiding your piggy bag preparing the correct amount of change for each day you travel!
In comes Park Let, a site dedicated to finding you a space with minimum inconvenience. Covering the majority of UK cities, including London, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Park Let offers, at present, 10675 parking spaces and garages currently available for monthly rental or sale!
Using Google Maps, you can easily navigate to your local town and pick out a park space, view the complete details including address and price and apply accordingly. Alternatively, if you don’t find a space, you can easily setup e-mail notification when one becomes available!
Park Let take a 2.5% commission on the sale price of a parking space and 15% of the rental. They even collect payments on your behalf, making your life as a seller that bit easier and as a buyer less hassle continually arranging a payment with a vendor.
Park Let is a great example of a cool idea that has turned into a viable business providing a useful service to both parking space seekers and sellers! A truly entrepreneurial business model.
Park Let – Parking London
Pay Per Post!
The following is a paid review that is completely my own opinion…
PayPerPost is a website that brings both bloggers and advertisers together in order to create a single portal to connect the two parties. The site is completely free to use and works as an effective marketplace where advertisers and bloggers both have choices.The system works in a simple way – An advertiser posts information about their site/product/service they wish to be reviewed, along with post criteria such as minimum word count and price. Bloggers can then look into the opportunities directory and review the sites/products they qualify for. Once the blogger has completed this, they submit a link to their post and the transaction is complete! Simple really.All posts are then reviewed by Pay Per Post staff. When they are satisfied the job has been completed, the advertisers account is debited and the bloggers credited. Voila!The immediate benefits to advertisors is that they can get access to hundreds of bloggers from around the world and create a frenzy about their product/site/service overnight! To the average blogger, Pay Per Post is a cash machine that they can tap into 24 hours per day…providing they put the work in.Being lazy at first, I decided to sign up for an account and have a quick peep, but nothing more. It wasn’t until I logged back in and earned a few bucks for a short review (here) that I realised the opportunities available to me to earn. I quickly became addicted and intend to try to post a review at least once per week.
At this stage, my only hesitiation is separating the sufficient from the spam. I am curious as to how Pay Per Post intends to ensure bloggers just aren’t writing crappy review for a quick buck and thus lowering the quality, which will in turn lower prices. I’ll be monitoring this situation and will probably post reviews from higher paying advertisers to separate myself.
I would certainly recommend Pay Per Post as a secondary income to your blogging hobby or career…it can be rather fruitful.
Good luck with your persuits,
Khalid.
OOOO with OOPrint!
The following is a paid review that is completely my own opinion…
OOPrint.co.uk or OOPrint.com is offering the newest trend for bloggers looking to network with their “Business 2.0” card. Business cards are a great way to leave your mark with someone outwith the digital world.
The cards come in a number of different formats, including Standard, Square, Vertical and Large. After choosing the format that best suits you, the easy-to-use customisation process begins. From here, you can choose colours, designs and even tag clouds! Yes, at the bottom of every business card you can have a tag cloud showing what your blog is about and what keywords you mention most often! How cool!
Right now, OOPrint are giving away 100 free blogger cards (you only pay for shipping), so get your order in before the offer expires!