Yesterday I got an interesting email through the contact me page on my site inquiring me about the advertisement slot on Astronyu.com. The guy (presumably from the name) was called Erwan Brun and using email ebrun@bizotto.com. He introduced himself being from an advertising company called Bizotto and have a client who are interested to buy advertising spot on my site.

Flag #1: Advertiser

This makes me chuckles to be honest. In his email he claimed Lacoste Inc (I’m a HUGE fan) is interested to buy advertising spot on my low traffic blog which is totally impossible.

Flag #2. The Email Conversation.

Hello,

Thanks for reply to our proposal!

I represent Bizotto Agency. At the moment we are preparing an advertising campaign for Lacoste Company (it is a French company producing clothes, footwear, perfumery etc.) We already have designed banners for the campaign, they are the following sizes: 160x600, 240x400, 300x250, 336x280, 468x60, 728x90.
What can be your price for one banner (banner should appear at ALL pages of your site) of abovementioned sizes (please specify the place for the banner – top, bottom, left, right)? Please mention a normal link for banner, without javascript code and set prices in US dollars per month.
Unfortunately, we can\'t place our banners through the mentioned system. All our banners must be controlled by the plug-in, it is advertiser\'s requirement. If you are willing to work this way, please provide us with the information we requested above.

Best regards,
Erwan Brun.
site: <a href="http://www.bizotto.com/">www.bizotto.com</a>
e-mail: <a href="mailto:ebrun@bizotto.com">ebrun@bizotto.com</a>
phone: + (0)9 78 62 93 64

Soon after I replied his email with the pricing table, I received his response email.

Hi!

Thanks for reply to our proposal!
We like your price.
To pass to the banner control system follow the link <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://webmaster.bizotto.com/">http://webmaster.bizotto.com</a>
To enter use the following data:

login: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="../">www.astronyu.com</a>
password: HIK3B1M 

You should install and activate the plugin in order to display advertisement. Before making payment, advertiser must approve location of the banner. The banner will be shown on your site when you add special code to your web- address (for example: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="../?adv_test=1">http://www.astronyu.com/?adv_test=1</a>). It means, that visitors will see the banner only if it is approved and payment made.

To get installation instruction for your site type pass to: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://docs.bizotto.com/wp_install">http://docs.bizotto.com/wp_install</a>
To activate your site you have to enter the code: K3M-ZBT-S9N

What way of payment is suitable for you?

Best regards,
Erwan Brun.
site: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.bizotto.com/">www.bizotto.com</a>
e-mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ebrun@bizotto.com">ebrun@bizotto.com</a>
phone: + (0)9 78 62 93 64

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[Updated: Scroll to the end of this article to read more]

The chances are you have a HTC branded Android phone and you already got yourself the free 23GB storage space from Dropbox, good for you, but for others who are not using the latest smartphone by HTC and still want to free dropbox dough, there is another way All you need is just an Android powered phone and a few minutes of your time.

*I am not responsible if you brick your phone following this guide. Be warned, this involved a third party APK and if you’re not really sure what you’re doing, PLEASE DON’T. Installing third party applications from unknown sources can be harmful if you’re not really know what you’re doing please be careful.

Steps:

1. Uninstall your current Dropbox on your phone.
2. Install this third party Dropbox experimental build. You might want to turn on “Unknown sources” settings under “applications”.
3. Wait for a few minute until you received an email from Dropbox like below:
   

   dropbox confirmation email for the free 23gb bump

4. Now, if you’re using dropbox on your PC, you can check your storage by clicking on the Dropbox’s icon on the system tray.
   

Mine was upgraded just fine although keep in mind this free storage is only valid for 2 years and will expire after that and oh, if you’re paranoid like me, uninstall the experimental build and reinstall the official build from Dropbox’s website and don’t forget to change your password, just in case :p.

Credits to @schummuck for the Dropbox APK file!

[06 April 2012] It turns out that if it is too good to be true then it probably is. This is the case with this trick. I checked my account today and to my surprise the free 23GB which I received from the above method are now gone. My account is now back to my normal storage allocation which is now around 5.2GB.

Now, if you’re thinking of using this trick/exploit/method then please DON’T!. Dropbox has already stated that they will remove any space received from this method as discussed in this forum thread.

Re-post from Box.net blog.

Free Space in the Cloud for Android Users

One of our big goals is to make it easy for users to access and manage their content from anywhere, without worrying about storage limitations. That’s why we’re making your Android-powered device even more powerful by giving you 50GB in the cloud. Yup, you heard us right: Now any Box personal user who downloads Box for Android will get 50GB free for life.  

This promotion ends on Friday, March 23, 2012 at 11:59pm PST, so grab your free 50GB on Box by following these steps:

1. Visit the Android Marketplace and download Box for Android
2. Log into your account or register for a new one directly from the app
3. Start sharing and collaborating in the cloud
4. (optional but recommended) Tell the world how you’ll use your 50GB with the hashtag #Box50GB

In addition to getting a storage bump, your file upload limit will jump, too;  you’ll be able to upload files up to 100MB  – like photos, presentations and documents – in your Box account for easy, quick access from anywhere. And remember, you can access your 50GB from any device – whether it’s a laptop, desktop, phone or tablet. We think you’ll like it.

Please note: To activate the new version of Box for Android, you’ll need to grant permission for the app to access your contacts – we only use this data to quickly retrieve email addresses for the invite collaborator feature, and don’t store any contact information on Box’s servers.

You could also stand a chance to win one of the 20 tablets in Box.net giveaway contest.

In my previous post, I wrote about the release of Windows 8 Developer Preview and mentioned that I’m downloading the ISO. Now, I have successfully installed Windows 8 Developer Preview on my computer using Virtualbox. Why Virtualbox? Sure, there are plenty other choices such as VMware or VirtualPC but a lot of reports of failed installation on those virtual machine software. Since I’m more familiar with Virtualbox, let’s just go with it.

Oh, before getting into the installation process, please make sure your computer supports Hardware Virtualization and if you do, just make sure you turn enable it via BIOS. This installation of mine was carried out on a 2.9GHz AMD Athlon II X4 635 running Windows 7 64bit using Virtualbox version 4.0.12 r72916.

Assuming you already have your copy of Windows 8 Developer Preview ISO with you and have already installed Virtualbox on your computer, I now will show you how to use Virtualbox to install your Windows 8 Developer Preview.

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Just recently Microsoft has launched their first Developer Preview of the next iteration of Windows, the Windows 8. As what Steven Sinofsky describe, Windows 8 represents a reimagining of Windows from the chipset to the experience. Eager to see how will it looks on my PC, I’m downloading a copy of the release and will install on my desktop tonight via VirtualBox VM.

Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102.winmain_win8m3.110830-1739 was compiled on August 30, 2011, some two weeks ago, and still belongs to the Milestone 3 stage of the development process. According to Steven Sinofsky, President, Windows and Windows Live Division, a lot of work has already gone into building Windows 8, including 2 million installs internally, 9.3 million performance tests, 1 trillion telemetry data points analyzed, and in excess of 380,000 hours of compatibility testing. You can see the result of all the research and testing in the screenshot below (from one of the conference attendee):

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