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Brokenwire.NET::Nietniks

More fun with feeds
· 2008-04-01 20:51 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET

I was already having a lot of fun with feeds today. But there is even more fun ahead!

This is how it works, in three easy steps:

Step 1: Send email. I’ve set up this special email address rss@nietniks.net wich is willing to receive your sense and non-sense.

Step 2: Subcribe to feed. http://feeds.brokenwire.net/nietniks

Step 3: Have fun!

Slow-chat-ahead! Share cool links, tips, tricks, lunch-invitations, downloads, links to nzb’s or whatever you want (as long as it’s SFW, legal and not evil!)

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Get rich quickly!
· 2008-03-28 22:22 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET

A lot has been written on this topic: How to make money with your blog. That phrase is seen on about 70.000 pages (according to Google), so it must be true! And therefore I've tried it too and I've decorated the pages with all these nice "pieces of flair".

"Yeah. You know what, yeah, I do. I do want to express myself, okay. And I don't need 37 pieces of flair to do it."

The truth is... this blog doesn't make any money at all. In "All Time" (= ever since I've had ads) I've earned a whole $3.86 with a grand total of 9 clicks.

This is wrong! Why am I not getting rich?
I think there are a few possible explanations...

Maybe "IT-Guys" (yes, that's you too dear reader) click less banners than "average" web surfers. (are we smarter?) I know I'm guilty; I never click ads anywhere and certainly not on purpose. That would make sense, wouldn't it? We are trained to look around banners or we install ad-blockers. We just don't like ads, do we?

Or maybe I just don't have enough visitors for this to work. With almost 1000 page views each month my site is just very very very tiny. From the stats I see that most visitors come in through Google, and by looking at their search words I see that many of them can get their question answered on one of my pages. And then they leave, another (happy) customer has left the building! (Or they leave unhappy and all I write is just more crap on the pile that is called the world wide web)

If you do the math, almost 4 dollar with almost 10 clicks: that's 40 cent with each click! That's quite a lot actually, for just a little bit of afford! So the next time I read something good on some blog, then I know I can reward the author by clicking an ad! The drawback of doing that is that we are all just pumping money into the big Google monster we've created (more about that another time).

You know, you can help by putting a link to brokenwire.net on your site, this way you can help me get stinkin' rich :-)
Alternatively: CLICK! (but only if you are truly curious about the advertised product of course!)

So do I really want these ads? Do I want my site to be filled with flair? Especially I don't earn anything with it? Probably not... I write because I like to to and because I think it's great that there is so much information out there that is just available for all of us to find. Sharing knowledge is a great way to get smarter and do your work more efficiently!

Conclusion: The ads are there as a symbol of hope, I may get rich one day, the content is all that truly matters.

So what do you think?

Do ads on blogs make sense, is it Ad-Sense or Ad-Non-Sense?
Do you click ads? Why (not)?
Do you have the golden tip?

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Canon PowerShot S5 IS
· 2008-02-23 17:42 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET

Okay, so here it is. My new digital camera. It is much more camera than the previous one and I hope it can travel with me just as much as the old one did!

New:

Old:

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*hint*
· 2008-02-23 12:12 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET

I’m about to buy a new digital camera…

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Cool browser plugin: PicLens
· 2008-02-22 21:23 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET

Just a few minutes ago I downloaded PicLens, a neat image-browser plugin for Firefox (IE and Safari are also supported). This plugin enables you to browse through (online) images galleries with a really smooth interface. All pictures are place on a virtual "wall" and by clicking them you can enlarge them. It’s almost like watching paintings in a museum (although less boring for most of us). The plugin loads quickly and navigation is extremely natural. We have seen this kind of navigation before in the Microsoft SeaDragon demos, but this time you can try it on your own system. Although not as advanced as SeaDragon, PicLens is a "finished" & working product… And it’s free too.

If you thought that the TabEffect plugin was cool, you’ll be amazed what this does, I promise!

The way PicLens works: the browser plugin picks up a RSS feed generated by the site and retrieves the images from there. Most popular image sites are supported like Flickr, Picasa, Live Images and Google Image search.

To help promote this plugin, there’s also a flash-based version called PicLens-Lite, which does also generate a nice gallery (although the plugin itself is much better).

After you’ve installed PicLens you can go to my Flickr page, press the blue "arrow" icon on any of the images to browse them.

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Vista & Christmas Lights
· 2006-12-19 19:44 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET

UPDATE 05-11-2008: Check out the new WPF christmas lights!

I’ve been running these Christmas Lights ever since Windows 95, and they still work on vista!


bigger image

The border of blinking lights around your screen just adds that true X-Mas feeling to your PC. (Both at home and at work!)

UPDATE 05-11-2008: Check out the new WPF christmas lights!

Download the WPF Christmas Lights

The antique version here

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