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".
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?
Look what the Easter bunny brought me!
· 2008-03-22 14:16 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET
Today I got a nice package in the mail: My employer sent me this "Choco-telegram" as an Easter present!
(Click to enlarge)
(BTW: We’re still hiring, if you’re interested contact me)
I’m still waiting for Santa to bring my Christmas present, the coupon said "Christmas 2007" but I’m not sure what that was supposed to mean…
If you’re bored this weekend: Take a shot at an Easter puzzle or go ahead and watch Monty Pythons "Life of Brian", it’s very suitable. (It may be old but I think it’s still very funny!)
Sign in to Windows Live using CardSpace
· 2008-03-19 19:52 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET
Did you know that you can use CardSpace to sign into the windows live services? By using CardSpace you don’t need to enter your password to sign into a service. This way you can use a longer, more secure, password and have the leisure to just show your card whenever you want to sign in (from your own pc).
It’s really easy, here is how to set this up:
- Install the .Net framework version 3.0 (already present if you use Vista)
- Get either IE7 or Firefox with a CardSpace plugin. I used Firefox with the Identity Selector extension.
- Assign a Card to your Live / Passport account on the Information Card management page. On this page you can associate a Card with your Windows Live ID.
- Sign into your favorite Live site. (for example, SkyDrive but also Hotmail)
- Never type your password again, just pick the Card whenever you want to sign in.
The CardSpace support in Windows Live is still Beta, but it is very usable. The .NET 3.0 homepage describes CardSpace in the following way:
Windows CardSpace is client software that enables users to provide their digital identity to online services in a simple, secure and trusted way. It is what is known as an identity selector: when a user needs to authenticate to a web site or a web service, CardSpace pops up a special security-hardened UI with a set of “information cards” for the user to choose from. Each card has some identity data associated with it – though this is not actually stored in the card – that has either been given to the user by an identity provider such as their bank, employer or government or created by the user themselves. Having the user as an identity provider sounds a bit strange on first acquaintance – who would trust the user? – but this is a very common scenario: this is what we do every time we register at a web site. The CardSpace UI enables users to create Personal cards (aka self-issued cards) and associate a limited set of identity data. It also enables the user to import Managed cards from third party identity providers. When the user chooses a card, a signed and encrypted security token containing the required information (e.g. name and address, employer’s name and address, or credit limit) is generated by the identity provider that created the card. The user, in control at all times, then decides whether to release this information to the requesting online service. If the user approves then the token is sent on to this relying party where the token is processed and the identity information is extracted.
If you want to learn more about CardSpace and it’s role in the Identity Metasystem take a look a Kim Cameron’s IdentityBlog, he is one of the gurus in the identity area.
Easter puzzle
· 2008-03-19 12:55 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET
The guys at GetDigital.de have created an interesting easter puzzle. So if you’re bored this weekend then you can attempt to solve the easter quiz or hunt for the hidden easter egg on their site.
Besides killing some time you’ll also have a chance to win some nice prices!
With the quiz you can win two 50 € vouchers, and by finding the egg you’ll get a free USB flexlight.
Especially the quiz is really nice. It has 4 questions, and the first one is not too hard (mathematical problem, solve the variables), but I can’t quite get the grips on the second one (yet..)
GetDigital is a webshop, with lots of geek stuff. They’re something like "ThinkGeek". But because they’re based in germany you’ll have less shipping costs. (if you live in europe of course…)
By-the-way, if you know the answer(s) to the quiz or if you’ve found the egg, you must leave a comment here…
Synchronize watches!
· 2008-03-07 08:33 by Thijs Kroesbergen for Brokenwire.NET
Because I’m already knee-deep into sync I wanted to share this: recently Google released a small Sync app to synchronize your Outlook calendar with your Google calendar. The app runs in the tray of your windows machine and it updates the calendars on a set interval.
The really cool thing about this is that you have your calendar always available and you could use this to get SMS-reminders of events on your outlook calendar!
Or maybe not…
From the Google Calendar FAQ:
If you’ve noticed that your reminder settings in Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook events don’t match, keep in mind that while Google Calendar supports pop-up, email, and SMS reminders, Microsoft Outlook Calendar supports only pop-up event reminders. Accordingly, only pop-up reminders are synced between Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Calendar.
Also, Microsoft Outlook Calendar supports only one pop-up event reminder per event. So, if your Google Calendar events contain multiple pop-up event reminders, only one pop-up reminder will be transferred to your Microsoft Outlook Calendar events.
Ouch.. too bad…
But of course there are alternatives, like SyncMyCal which is free if you don’t mind the syncing manually and never look more than three days ahead or back. But this one does respect the default notification setting of your Google calendar and therefore it proves that the API will let you do such things.
So if Google Calendar Sync would respect my default notification type when transferring items from Outlook, or at least would let me specify a mapping between SMS in Google, and Pop-ups in Outlook that would be awesome.
Alternatively someone with a bit of time left could attempt to write a Sync Provider for the Microsoft Sync Framework and use that to make me happy!
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:
