Advertising on Blogs

This is a topic I’ve been considering for some time now. Many of you (who don’t use an ad-blocker) will have noticed that late last year I began experimenting with placing ads on the blog. The idea behind this was the “get-the-blog-to-pay-for-itself” mentality that most of us go through when we realize that there are costs associated with maintaining a presence online if it’s done using your own domain… and what self-respecting geek wouldn’t want full control over their site??

So that led me to ads. There are four different kinds of ads on the site: the Firefox referal link (via Google), Google Adsense ads, TTZ Media ads on each post, and most recently an Amazon referal ad (left-side near the bottom).

When you let an advertising company into your blog you’re allowing them to place text and images on your site which they say will match the content of your site. I’ve found recently that this isn’t always the case. A post that Dave put up on the GGP blog last week illustrates the point. Go ahead and read it. I’ll wait.

Different vendors classify products differently. In this particular case, some rather questionable material ships as a “technology” product because it’s on DVD. Lovely. There are lots of DVDs out there, I wonder how many have shown up on the blog?? I’ve had a couple thousand page impressions of the Amazon ad (not to mention the others) and it really made me think. I’ve had ad-code on the site since the fall, and have managed to rack up an amazing $2.72 (all of it from Google AdSense). To me, the cost of cluttering up the site and the potential for “bad press” far outweighs the benefits of maybe someday possibly getting a month’s worth of hosting paid for.

This time it was an ad for asian girls in an oil-wrestling DVD. At the end of the day it probably didn’t hurt my reputation much, and Dave got some fodder for the GGP blog. But it also didn’t help me much. I expected to see a mini spike in traffic for the day, and that didn’t happen either. And what about next time? What if the next “oops” is more damaging? Bottom line, getting $10 a year (maybe) isn’t worth the crap I’m dealing with at this point.

Expect the ads to come down shortly.

WordPress Woes: Read the Damned Instructions!

Recently some of you may have noticed some instability with the theme on this blog. The theme on the blog seemed to reset to the WordPress default without any rhyme or reason. I assumed it was one of the many plugins I had installed to try to provide additional content or functionality on the site. I tried enabling and disabling all of the plugins but to no avail, there didn’t seem to be anything that would correct the problem outright.

After several hours of frustration, I came across an article on coderemedy.com which provided an explanation, and pointed me at Scott Burkett’s blog for a solution.

What it boils down to is this: I use Alex King’s WP-Mobile plugin to permit the blog to be viewed on small mobile devices (like my own Treo 700wx) and this plugin was not set up correctly. I made the assumption that the plugin behaved like any other and didn’t read the readme file. Suffice to say there’s an extra step with this plugin and I didn’t follow it.

Once the plugin is uncompressed there is a second wp-mobile directory which needs to be moved into your wp-content/themes directory. The directory structure looks something like this:

wordpress/

    wp-content/

        themes/

        plugins/

            wp-mobile/

                README.txt     (where the solution is!)

                wp-mobile.php

                wp-mobile/

                    comments.php

                    index.php

                    style.css

Once the move is complete, the directory structure looks like this:

wordpress/

    wp-content/

        themes/

            wp-mobile/

                comments.php

                index.php

                style.css

        plugins/

            wp-mobile/

                README.txt     (where the solution is!)

                wp-mobile.php

See? Simple! Just read the damned instructions.

Admin Links Widget for WordPress 1.1.0 Released

Well after a far more successful 2007 than I could have imagined, I’ve released the first significant feature update to the Admin Links Widget.

First, THANK YOU to everyone who has downloaded the widget. It has been downloaded an astonishing 2300 times since the inaugural release on August 14th of last year.

The most significant changes for this version are the addition of two new links that you can add to your site:

Edit This Post
Edit This Page

These links provide you the opportunity to edit a specific page or post from a link in the sidebar whenever you’re viewing a single page or post (ie not the front-page, or a search result). This is particularly useful for blogs which don’t have an edit link built into their current theme.

Please take a moment and download the latest version of the plugin from the WordPress plugin repository. And as always, if you have any feedback, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment on the blog.

Scope Creep – A Real World Example

Here’s a real-life example of how scope creep can absolutely kill a project you’re working on. I tend to find that this particular phenomenon tends to take hold of my projects on a regular basis, and I’ve been actively trying to combat it for quite a while now.

The project in question was a very simple installation of TwitterFeed on my blog. In my recent rediscovery of Twitter, I’ve noticed lots of folks seem to be auto-creating tweets when new posts go up… and quite frankly, I wanted in on that action.

First, a description of the problem. The scope creep I talk about tends to come up when a simple project begins to show you options that you ~~just have to~~ could implement. Each option can really be a project in and of itself, and as a result the original project (which should have taken 10 minutes) has taken you the whole night and you’re up until one in the morning working on it and then blogging about the problem!

Here are the basic instructions for setting up TwitterFeed:

Step One: Decide you want TwitterFeed
Step Two: Provide OpenID credentials
Step Three: Start using TwitterFeed
DONE!

Here is the example of what happens when you let your curiosity about the extendability of the same plugin get the better of you. Instead of getting this all to work as expected, it causes an evening of frustration.

Step One: Decide you want TwitterFeed
Step Two: Discover that TwitterFeed uses OpenID
Step Three: Read the OpenID tutorial and discover that you can host your own OpenID server
Step Four: Download the OpenID code
Step Five: Read the roll-your-own-OpenID tutorial and discover that you should use OpenSSL
Step Six: Do trial and error until you find a way to actually get the OpenSSL working
Step Seven: After 2 hours of searching, submit a support ticket and give up on the SSL for now
Step Eight: Go get something to drink. Something strong
Step Nine: Configure phpmyid
Step Ten: Add code to your site.
Step Eleven: Realize that it doesn’t work and use a regular OpenID account until you get more time…
DONE!

I rest my case. So let this be a lesson to you:

Figure out what you need to get done
Get it done
Make notes of the other options along the way
DONE!

Twitter Rediscovery

I’ve had a Twitter account for about a year now. Until this past week, I think I’d only posted to it about a half-dozen times. But recently, I’ve started to see some value in Twitter. For some of the bloggers that I follow, something that I’ve noticed on occasion is the delay inherent in RSS. Being able to see immediately when a post is made lets me be the first commenter, or gets me some information just a bit earlier.

I was able to post something to my Twitter account this week to give me some ideas for an issue I was having in my life. By allowing a few more people to give me some feedback, I was able to get an answer and set up a post about it.

My Twitter client of choice (at the moment) is Twhirl, which I covered for this week’s Global Geek Podcast.

So over the next while, I’ll be giving Twitter a good run and trying to see who I can follow, and what I can learn. Nuggets. It’s all about nuggets… er tweets.

Mac Lab Rat – GGP #75: Pink Privacy

Time once again for another Global Geek Podcast, and with it another edition of the GGP Mac Lab update. I’ll be your lovable host for the four minute segment, so with no further ado on to the geekery:

iTimeMachine

First up this week is iTimeMachine. This application allows you to connect your computer to network disks to perform TimeMachine backups. Even with the announcement that Steve Jobs made at MacWorld about the new TimeCapsule, there are still some advantages to using an app like iTimeMachine.

Obviously, the freeware application is a good deal cheaper than the $500 1TB TimeCapsule, particularly if you already have the drive. The other huge advantage is that iTimeMachine also allows the use of AirDisks, something that isn’t currently supported even by TimeCapsule.

iTimeMachine is a simple one-button application that works as advertised. Definitely something to try out if you’ve got a spot in your house to stick one of those 1.5TB MyBook drives…

Twhirl

Twhirl is a Twitter client that runs on the Mac, as well as Windows and Linux. The cross-platform nature comes from it’s use of the Adobe Air framework. Air provides a simple mechanism for installing and setting up the application.

The biggest selling point for Twhirl is it’s ability to handle multiple twitter accounts. This really sets it appart from its peers like twitteriffic. Twhirl uses the Adobe Air Beta 3 platform.

LeopardMod

LeopardMod allows you to tweak settings in OS X that aren’t readily changeable by other means. For the most part it’s a really nice UI to handle command-line plist changes (like this).

There are over a dozen different settings that this application can change. It will allow you to tweak settings in Safari, the Dock, the Menubar and more.

And if you hadn’t figured it out yet, LeopardMod only works with OS X 10.5 “Leopard”.

Caffeine

Caffeine is kinda like a double-shot of espresso for your Mac. When using this program you’ll never again have your screen blank out while you’re giving a presentation (or staring at something).

This application allows you to disable power-management features for your Mac by overriding the default settings and preventing the computer from going to sleep.

The application can be run manually, or set to auto-start in your menu-bar (getting crowded by now if you’ve installed all my great Mac freebies… lol). The menubar icon can be clicked to toggle between normal, and “caffeine” modes.

Reminder: Take-Down your MySpace Account Tomorrow!

Just a reminder that tomorrow is the official “Delete your MySpace Account Day”. If you have a MySpace account, and you don’t use it, cut down your Bacn and join in the movement.

I’ve been thinking about deleting my Myspace account almost since the day I got it but always opted out of doing so because of the few friends I have who don’t have Facebook accounts. But by remaining on Myspace, I realize, I’m becoming an enabler. I’m giving those friends no reason to switch over from Myspace by giving them access to my Myspace profile.

Originally posted by Simon Owens.

Visit the originating website, or join the Facebook group.

January 30th: International Delete Your MySpace Account Day

I’ve just been directed to a post over on Simon Owens’ site Bloggasm that January 30th is to be International “Delete Your MySpace Account Day“.

As a MySpace member who only ever logs in to check on someone else’s profile about once a year, it just isn’t worth getting all the Bacn from MySpace. I completely understand where Simon’s coming from on this and have decided to join him in supporting this initiative.

So if you have a MySpace account and you don’t use it anymore, join in on International Delete Your MySpace Account Day.

If you’re a Facebook member, you may want to take a moment and join the associated group as well. Thanks to Tom for setting that up!

Bloggers Rule! – CBC’s Test The Nation

Last night the CBC, Canada’s national public broadcaster, aired a quiz show which pitted six different groups from all walks of life against one another on a show they’ve called Test The Nation.

This time around the groups were: Chefs, Cabbies, Celebrity Impersonators, Backpackers, Flight Crews and Bloggers. Members of the blogging team included Vancouver’s own Buzz Bishop, and Rebecca Bolwitt from Miss604 and the Crazy Canucks.

At the end of the day, the Bloggers prevailed winning all three of the available prizes. Check out Rebecca’s post on the victory and the official Test The Nation website for more.

Ultimate Google Analytics Plugin for WordPress

I’ve always been a bit of a stats monkey when it comes to… well pretty much everything. I like to know how many there are, how long it takes, how much it costs. I want the numbers. But more than that, I want accurate numbers and often times in the past trying to get accurate numbers for website traffic has been a real challenge. Google Analytics does a great job of tracking every hit to my blog, but unfortunately it tracks mine too. This conundrum led me to the Ultimate Google Analytics Plugin.

This plugin does a great number of things and has an options screen as long as my arm. Aside from having the ability to ignore administrators, it also has the ability to add in tracking to all of your outgoing links and downloads.

If you use WordPress and you use Google Analytics you need this plugin.

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The crossroads of life and tech

Tag Archives: Blogging