Every blogger has moments of brain drains in which they ran out of blog topics.  One way to keep up with blogging ideas is to read specific news in the industry your blog is covering.  One way it to setup alerts with Google alerts.

From Google’s site:

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on a competitor or industry
• getting the latest on a celebrity or event
• keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

Create an alert with the form

Base on Google alerts, you can look up specific topics in which you can have Google send you an email either day or as it happens.  What removes the need for you to search constantly.  I have setup two Google alerts to provide me with additional blogging ideas.

I received an invitation from E-miles a couple months back and since I was looking for mileage at the time, I signed up to give the program a try.  E-miles is a program where they reward you frequent flier miles for watching promotion ads and merchandise purchase.  In the typical campaign, they offer 5 miles for you to look at a specific deal such as the Directv or the Netflix offers web surfers have accustom to seeing.  If you decide to join the program, e.g. Netflix, you earn additional miles while they earn affiliate income for referring you to that company.  Currently it takes 500 miles to deposit to your online frequent flyer account.

One short coming with e-miles is that unless you purchase products through the site, it will take awhile for your miles to accumulate.  However, it is perfect for those people who doesn’t fly often but want to keep their miles for expiring.  Each time you deposit miles into your frequent flyer program the expiration dates get reset.  In term of other programs that offers freebies, be sure to check out MyPoints and Swagbucks.

eRewards is another free online survey company that I use on a regular basis.  I first heard of this program after joining Northwest award program.

Here is some of the positive and negative aspects of eRewards:
Positive
- Decent among of surveys per week.
- Receive 50 cents for surveys you don’t qualify.
- indicate how long it will take to complete a survey and how long much you can earn.
- Redeem $15 Borders Reward Bucks
- Redeem 2 used movies from Blockbuster
- Redeem Northwest Mileage
- Redeem different kinds of magazine such as Forbes, Times, Sports Illustrated etc.

Negative
- Unable to redeem cash for the surveys
- Surveys tend to be longer than average
- Some survey credits take one to two weeks before it gets credited to your account.

eRewards is not for everyone.  Personally I enjoy reading different kinds of magazine and books so free books and magazines have its appeal to me.  For those people that rather receive cash, check out Extra Cash & Rewards for additional money making opportunities.

Seinfield has always been one of my favorite television shows.  When I was back in college, Seinfield is my daily break from the mundane study.  Amazon is currently offering Seinfield – The Complete Series (32 disc box set) for $99 and free shipping.

If you are a follower of technology news, you know that one of the key aspect of software is keep it up to date.  Often times the a patch is created to  address security flows that would otherwise make the owner of the software vulnerable.

There is a lot of buzz in the tech sphere tonight regarding people’s blog that uses self hosted wordpress under attack.  The attacker will create an additional admin account and use that account to delete some of the previous blog post that might have existed.

How do you know you have been attacked?  Here is the explanation from Lorelle’s WordPress blog:

There are two clues that your WordPress site has been attacked.

There are strange additions to the pretty permalinks, such as example.com/category/post-title/%&(%7B$%7Beval(base64_decode($_SERVER%5BHTTP_REFERER%5D))%7D%7D|.+)&%/. The keywords are “eval” and “base64_decode.”

The second clue is that a “back door” was created by a “hidden” Administrator. Check your site users for “Administrator (2)” or a name you do not recognize.

Remember to upgrade to WordPress 2.8.4 and schedule periodic backup of your WordPress database!

Neobux is a pay to click that program that pays users to watch a set of advertisement each day.  If you are a new member, you will receive 4 different ads worth 1 cent each for a total of 4 cents a day.  The first thought when I joined the program was that it is totally not worth it.  4 cents a day does not mean much as there are other programs that are much more worthwhile.

However, it does have a very decent referral program is which each click by your referral is worth 1/2 of a cent.  If you refer a lot of users and that participate in a somewhat frequent time frame, you can net yourself some decent change.  Personally I use the PTC programs when I am watching T.V.  While a lot of people might find it not worth the effort, Neobux might be appealing to international users where 4 cents means a lot more there than the United States.  They pay by paypal and the payment is very fast.

o celebrate the milestone of surpassing over a million followers to Amazon MP3′s Twitter feed, Amazon is offering one free song download valued at $1.29 or less.

I am a little late to the news as Swagbucks released a new version of their toolbar yesterday.  As a way to encourage usage, they are offering a free swagcode everyday this month.  (Which means you can earn up to 30 swagbucks, almost a $5 Amazon gift card!).  If you haven’t already, remember to download your Swagbucks toolbar.  For those of you who doesn’t know what Swagbucks is, it is a website that offers rewards for your daily search activities and more.  Read my review here.

ValueMags is currently offering a complimentary 12-issue subscription here.

I just received $30 Amazon gift certificate from Communispace for participation in the private community.  Unfortunately the private community is restricted and highly selective.  Once again, if you are a member of SurveySavvy and if you receive an email regarding private community, make sure you fill it out to the best of your ability, you will be greatly rewarded if you are selected.