make custom gifts at Zazzle

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Best Graphic Tablet: Wacom Cintiq

Many of you enjoy drawing pictures or cartoons. Some of you may consider selling your graphic artwork at CafePress and Zazzle. You probably have been doing it with pencils on papers. But, how do you get them on your computer?

Your problem is now solved by Wacom Cintiq. I have been using the Wacom Cintiq display tablet and the pressure-sensitive pen to draw all the cartoons you've seen at Cartoosh and giggleZOO. The package comes with drawing/painting software and PhotoShop Element that let you perform all kinds of artwork without making a mess on your desk. It's easy, fun, and exciting. Watch the video and see how it works!


To get one of Wacom Cintiq display tablet, simply click on the link next to the video above, which takes you directly to Amazon. Or, you can visit the Cartoosh Bookstore and look under the Gadgets category. Trust me... Once you get one of your own, you can't live without it or go back to drawing with pencils on papers.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Best Prepaid Phone Service

[Online Business Review] We've recently studies the prepaid phone services available on the market and concluded that Verizon is our best choice. Our study is based on the use case where the prepaid phone is used for emergency calls or occasional short conversations. Our determination is based on various factors: network coverage, service plans, phone choices, and fees. If you're interested in the full discussion, read our post at Project BKO about saving money with the prepaid phone.

Monday, February 9, 2009

The Best Site to Sell Arts on Gifts

We have recently conducted a review over two of the most popular websites - CafePress and Zazzle that let artists or graphic designers to publish and sell their artwork on apparels, cards, and many other gift items. Online Business Review now recommends Zazzle as our best choice of art publishing websites.

Our recommendation is based on several factors that include technologies used by the websites, feature sets, website traffic, site stability, and business strategy. In short, Zazzle allows the artist to open his or her own gallery, publish, and create gift items or products with their art designs. To get a quick idea of what a Zazzle gallery looks like, visit Cartoosh Gallery that features thousands of products. The summary report comparing CafePress and Zazzle art publishing sites is available at our Project BKO site where it discusses various online business incomes. The full report will soon be published.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Note: Problem with Flash Player 10 on Vista x64

I'd like to give you a heads-up that you need the Flash Player 10 plug-in for your browser in order to see our blogs properly. The upgrade to Flash Player 10 is necessary due to the slide show widget from Amazon that displays the selected items I would recommend to you. The upgrade is normally painless except Flash 10 does not work with the 64-bit version of Internet Explore (IE7) on Windows Vista x64. To work around the problem, you can switch to run the 32-bit version of IE7 by following these steps:
  1. Create a new shortcut on your desktop and set the Target field to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" instead of "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"
  2. You should consider giving a different name to the new shortcut to differentiate from existing ones that point to the 64-bit version.
  3. Use the new shortcut to launch the 32-bit IE7.
  4. The upgrade to Flash Player 10 for the 32-bit IE7 should be very easy and smooth.
  5. You can drag and drop the new shortcut to the Quick Launch list or the doc, if necessary.
Sorry for any inconvenience. If you still have problems, don't hesitate to drop me a note or send me an email. Otherwise, enjoy your reading...

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Celebrate 2009 New Year with PageRank 2/10

I wish all of you have a wonderful holiday break. It's still not too late to enjoy the quiet and peaceful time with your family over the next couple of days, before you head back to the office and the schools start.

First of all... a good news and a great gift I'd like to share with all of you. The parent blog of Online Business Review, Project BKO: Online Business Incomes is currently ranked 2 out of 10 by Google PageRank. This is an incredible accomplishment, given that Project BKO has done no advertisement and little in search engine optimization (SEO). Although I have some experiments with keywords and back links, I attribute the PageRank result primarily to readership. For that, my kids and I are truly thankful to have you visiting our blog and giving feedback to our posts.

The two month old Project BKO currently has two sister blogs - Fishtarian for health diet and lifestyle for wellness and Online Business Review that aims to provide the best reviews and recommendations to online business starters and Internet entrepreneurs. Over the next few weeks, we plan to launch an exciting blog featuring series of cartoons that hopefully bring some fun to you and your family. We also plan to launch our online printing business in Spring. We are committed to making our blogs valuable and useful to your own online business, your personal health and daily life. We look forward to having your continuous support in growing Project BKO to the next level.

Lastly, let me propose a toast to... our health, prosperity, and success in 2009. Happy New year to you all.

[picture source: www.californiawinehikes.com]

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Online Business Review: The Best Traffic Analysis

Whether you want to search for business partners or analyze your competitors, Alexa provides you valuable information related to website traffic, site popularity, related sites, detailed usage/traffic stats, supported character-set/locales, and site contact information. Recently acquired by Amazon.com, Alexa aims to bring web navigation to the next level that is both intelligent and constantly improving with the participation of its users similar to Google's PageRank. Using its Related Links menu that comes with Alexa's Toolbar, you can easily find other websites of your interest.
[Updated 12/21/08]

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Online Business Review: The Best Free Blog Site

If you're looking for a place to host your blogs, look no further. You're at the right place. The Blogger.com from Google is my best choice of blogging services. It's a reliable service with lots of features you need. Best of all, you can start blogging today free of charge. Read "Find The Home For Your Blogs: Blogger v.s. WordPress" for an objective feature-by-feature comparison and find out which best suits you.

Online Business Review: The Best Article Directory

Thinking about promoting your websites via article marketing? Sounds like a good idea. But, where to submit your articles? There are so many article directories out there; each claims that they'll distribute your articles to over thousands of publishers. The "Boost Site Traffic via Article Marketing?" offers an insightful discussion of how article marketing works and an objective overview of those article directories. If you are short of time and have to pick just one, I'd recommend Ezine Articles based on its site traffic, PageRank, and quality of the articles.

Online Business Review: The Best Online Publishing Communities

There are several online publishing communities out there; each has its own special characteristics. You can read "Write for More Profit: eHow, Squidoo, and HubPages" for an obejctive comparison review of the three most popular sites. For starters, I'd recommend eHow and HubPages from the perspective of traffic and profitability. You can also see the traffic comparison chart from Alexa.

Online Business Review: The Best Affiliate Network

There are many affiliate networks out there today that connect between the advertisers and the publishers. Each has its own niche sectors. Which is the best for you? The article "Monetize Your Website via Affiliate Marketing" has a good discussion. My best choice has been Commission Junction. Among many other things, Commission Junction offers the best choices of brand name advertisers such as Yahoo, Dell, HP, and many others. It also provides both the advertisers and the publishers excellent tools and analysis reports to manage their accounts and affiliate activities.

Online Business Review: How Do Links Impact Your PageRank?

Everyone knows that the search engine is the crown jewel of Google. Yet, the core of the search ranking is PageRank that determines the position of a web page in the search results. A thorough explanation of PageRank technology can be found at Wikipedia. Many of SEO's understand that links have great impact on the PageRank scores. Visit PageRank Explained in Bright Colors and "Google's PageRank Explained and how to make the most of it" for good explanations and examples.