Claire's Random Thoughts

This is the second step in my guide in Developing Proxy Sites.

It is recommended that you use a custom template/theme to customize your proxy site, preferably one that is optimized for adsense or SEO more so than the default is. After all, the whole point of starting proxies is to gain traffic and collect ad revenue, right? I wouldn’t go for a paid theme. There are simply too many free ones for a paid one to be necessary. If you use a fancier theme, does that mean more traffic? Doubtful, unless your theme is so eye-catching that it becomes impossible for visitors not to remember.. anyway, I would stick with the free themes.

I give up in finding an organized site with an index of Glype proxies. They’re kind of all over the internet if you do a google search, but there is no single site with a large index of templates. one website I found with a few good ones is GlypeDesigns.com if you want to use Glype.

All Nuke Stuff has some nice ones for PhProxy

Zelune templates are a little harder to find, since Zelune is used less extensively overall. However, there are a few good ones, such as the one I used for my Clean and Simple proxy setup.

I’ve really only been a finance major for just over a semester, yet I feel like I feel like I have been for much longer. At the very least, I now understand what recruiters are talking about at networking events, and I can usually figure out what most of the common acronyms stand for. Before I enrolled at NYU Stern last semester, I was able to say that everything I know about finance I learned from Prosper. Now, I may have to amend that statement and say that everything I knew about finance, prior to coming to NYU Stern as a finance major, I learned from Prosper. I came to Stern to learn finance, but in reality, I learned that I really should be here to learn (and still have a lot to learn about) how to fit into the financial world.

Prosper is an online peer to peer based lending/borrowing service. That is, some users lend to other users who borrow. Borrowers sign promissory notes upon receiving money which lenders can then hold onto and collect month to month or trade in the Prosper market. This sounds like trading any kind of financial security, doesn’t it?

Rules of finance I’ve learned from Prosper:
Prices of securities and interest rates are determined by the market to satisfy the laws of supply and demand
When borrowers on Prosper apply for a loan, they often start with an interest rate higher than they are expected to pay. In practice, it actually does not matter what rate they start at, as the market will adjust to a rate that seems fair considering risk and return. In this example, this borrower has a AA rating, the highest possible in Prosper. The initial offered rate was 12.50%, but at this rate, more lenders would be willing to supply money than the $15,000 demanded. Thus, during the bidding process before the loan is written, lenders compete by gradually bidding lower rates that they are willing to accept to loan to this borrower. My prediction is that within the time remaining, the loan will probably be bid down to about 7%, typical of low risk AA.

Investors demand higher expected rates of return for higher risk/volatility
So, if two investments have the same expected return but different level of risk, then it is only natural that the rate for the lower risk investment will be bid down (explained in the previous rule). Prosper offers portfolio plans, and they clearly show that more aggressive investing equates to higher expected yield.

Diversification is the way to go
Prosper’s system even suggests that you should invest with a small amount per bid and in many different loans. This is a simple concept: If you invest everything in one loan and that person defaults, then you lose significantly. However, if you invest $25 in each borrower and lend to many different borrowers, then your return will be comparable to the expected return. Some loans will default, but Prosper even calculates the expected losses based on credit rating for you.

The value of your existing security varies based on market interest rates
This is the concept of interest rate risk. Basically, the first time you decide to sell a note, you will discover that the amount you can sell it for ma not necessarily be what you paid for it with adjustments for already received payments. This is because new notes are constantly being issued, so the selling price of existing notes is adjusted for difference in yield. For example, if you bought a $25 note when the market rate was 5% but the market rate is now 7%, nobody is going to give you $25 for your note when they could buy a new one and receive 7% (provided that both notes are the same level of credit risk). Thus, your 5% note will become less valuable to compensate for the market interest rate change. Conversely, if the market rate were to go down to 3%, you would then be able to sell your existing note for a premium.

Well, there you have it. I really knew more about the fundamentals than I thought I did before I enrolled at Stern. The most important concepts in an introductory finance course I learned from real world experience from a simple peer to peer lending system! No wonder I passed the proficiency exam for the introductory finance course here

I will treat my Everyman sleep posts as a series, only kind of in reverse order. Instead of having an index before the posts, I will make this final post on the topic the index.

Previous Posts:
1. My Polyphasic Sleep Experiment
2. Day 1
3. Days 2-3
4. Off, Then Back on Everyman
5. REM Naps Yet?
6. To Stick to Everyman or Not to?
7. My Life Now Vs. Last Year

I just realized that I never reported about what happened to my Everyman sleep experiment.

To make a long story short, I quit after about a little over a month after I began. To sum it up:

I can report that Everyman does not cause the increased alertness and energy the way people who have tried the Uberman schedule have reported. Unfortunately, since it’s a hybrid  between regular cycles and REM cycles, it does not appear to be extreme enough for the brain to produce this extra alertness. I wouldn’t try Uberman either, for reasons I have previously described. It does, however, allow one to have a few extra hours per day without feeling significantly more tired than he/she would feel after the traditional full night monophasic sleep schedule.

Reasons I quit:
I just want to enjoy being 21 years old. For this schedule to be effective, alcohol is forbidden.
Even towards the end, I had a little trouble controlling my diet. In the long run, this kind of schedule will probably cause someone like me to gain weight.
Some people I knew seriously thought I was insane, clinically insane (or on drugs).
I either have to sacrifice the schedule or a normal daily life (it was annoying when any event conflicted with nap time)

Switching back to monophasic sleep was definitely easier than the adaptation period from monophasic to Everyman. For the first few days, I often woke up after a few hours in the middle of the night. I then had to force myself not to take a nap during the day so I could sleep longer the next night. However, the switch back to monophasic sleep only took about four days to get on schedule and a week not to feel tired anymore.

If the Everyman schedule fits your lifestyle, then I would say, go for it! As for me? This was quite an experience. If my schedule permits, maybe I can go back to this in the future! Or more likely, I might experiment with biphasic sleep sometime. Keep posted for updates!

This is the first step in my guide in Developing Proxy Sites.

Developing a proxy site is much easier than building a content rich site from scratch. Therefore, not surprisingly, many webmasters start out by creating proxies.

I am assuming readers of this article have a basic knowledge in how web hosting works. E.g. setting up a hosting account, setting up DNS servers, uploading files via FTP. If not, then you may have to google a few key terms to fully understand this article.

Starting a proxy site is really quite simple, especially if you use a basic script, basic template, and don’t worry about going overboard on ads in the beginning. For example, I made a very clean and simple proxy already as my first experiment, Clean and Simple.

The first step is to download a script. For my Clean and Simple example, I used Zelune, which is based on Curl. Some other popular ones are PHProxy (also based on php). I am featuring these three scripts, because they can be installed by simply uploading files. There are others, but installation is a bit more complex, and I am trying to keep this guide as simple as possible.

I prefer the Curl-based Zelune, because it the easiest on system resources, fast, and clean-looking. There is even an option for the user to hide the browsing bar, which none of the other scripts offer. However, the downside is that it lacks an admin dashboard or control panel, and it is somewhat complicated to put ads on the proxified pages (which is where most of the revenue comes from). In the future, I might create a tutorial to show how to do this if/when I figure out how to.
Pros: Light on system resources, fast, clean, can log in to secure sites
Cons: Hard to put ads on proxified pages

PHProxy is also easy to install and quite popular. It is similar to Glype, except there is no admin control panel option. Putting ads on the proxified pages is just as annoying for PHProxy as it is for Zelune. Therefore, out of these three, PHProxy would be my last choice.

Conclusion: My overall favorite is the lightweight Zelune because it is light on resources and allows for browsing more complex pages that require secure logging in. However, if you would like to put ads on the proxified pages without doing further research, Glype would be the ideal beginner’s choice, as it is the easiest to set up for that purpose.

I haven’t had a topic worth blogging about for a while. Perhaps I’ve just been busy with my first semester at NYU Stern as a junior. Anyway, throughout this winter break, I have been reading about proxy site development and might begin to start some for myself for a small stream of cash flows. I never considered how profitable these could be until lately.

I will begin a new series of posts for developing, optimimizing, hosting, maintaining, and most importantly, monetizing proxy sites for a profit. Originally when I had series of posts, I had seven posts per series, one per day for a week. From now on, I will no longer be following this structure, as the last time I tried this, I ran out of time in the middle of the series and stopped posting. I will simply be posting whenever time permits.

Tentative Topics:
1. Picking a script
2. Downloading a template
3. Finding a host
4. Monetizing proxy site