Adsense users you have snail mail!

January 31, 2008 | 5 Responses

And expect a phone call? Google Adsense now requires phone verification and users must enter a pin number sent to them by good old fashioned snail mail. I just got off the phone with who I can only assume was Mrs. Google and she sounded quite pleased to hear the beeps of my dialing pad when I entered my verification number. Now all that is left is to wait for the pin number to come in the mail. It kind of makes me wonder what’s next, but as long as this gets my payments off of hold, I’m not one to complain.

This is said to be another way that Google can improve service and support for Adsense users. I also read recently that a domain must now be over 5 days old before it qualifies to make money from Adsense. This is Google’s attempt to weed out those who register domains for a five day grace period (offered by some registrars) to test out how profitable the domain can be and then dumping it if they don’t make enough. Read more about it in Bob Ritchie’s post about domain tasting.

MBL Widgets and why you have to comment to show your face around here

January 31, 2008 | 4 Responses

I mentioned before that I am not a fan of the MyBlogLog reader community widget. As you can see, although my community continues to grow, I still haven’t taken a shining to using the widget. The reason for this is simple, people don’t actually have to read your blog to get their profile linked. I’ve even auto-joined communities just by passing over the same link more than once without even being aware of it. This means that my picture, and therefore my profile and therefore my website, has been linked on websites I’ve never so much as skimmed. Is that fair? No, not really. But if the website’s owner wants to give it away like that, who am I to stop him?

I am still a fan and avid user of MyBlogLog and chose to implement the community on my website in a different manner. MyAvatars is a plugin that displays the commenter’s Gravatar or their MBL avatar next to their comment. I found this was more of an everybody wins approach to using display pictures because they still get their profile linked and I, in return, get a comment.

After all, wasn’t that the original intention of having a blog as opposed to just a collection of articles? Getting comments? Many of us choose to reward our commenters with a top commentators list (much like the one I have). Well would it make sense if all somebody had to do was load my page to get onto the top comments list? Ofcoarse it wouldn’t. So, to me, it just makes good sense for someone to have to comment in order to get their picture on this website.

The word on webfetti

January 31, 2008 | 4 Responses

A liitle while ago, I made a sponsored post on this website about something called Webfetti. For one reason or another, it generated a huge amount of traffic. This lead me to look at what some people thought of the toolbar and how it was working for them.

Although it seems to have generated a serious amount of buzz, it doesn’t all seem to be positive. As a matter of fact, most of the incoming visitors were looking to uninstall webfetti.

As you might have guessed, I didn’t test the software myself. I didn’t really see a need to as I have no problem customizing my profiles manually. For others it isn’t that simple. I would definitely recommend doing a little research before installing software to customize your myspace. There are hundreds of online Myspace profile editors that will do it for you. As I mentioned in the other post, most of these sites will try to nab a backlink out of you for supplying the code to edit your profile. If this is the case, I have a quickfix for you below.

How to uninstall WebFetti

Some programs provide an uninstall; The ones that don’t can be uninstalled by going to:
Start Menu>
Control Panel>
Add/Remove Programs>
Wait for the program list to load and select the one to remove.

Then hopefully most of the program is removed, but the registry can sometimes contain leftovers.
Start>
All Programs>
Accessories>
System Tools>
Restore>

Restore to as recent a date as possible before you installed the program causing the problems. You may still need to reset some of your IE or Firefox options as this is a toolbar (and they ARE usually naughty like that).

Another option is to run REGEDIT and look for anything suspicious that starts when Windows starts.

Removing Links from your recently edited profile

Most Myspace profile editors will supply you with a large and confusing code. It will usually start with a tag that looks like this:< style type= “text/css” >< /style >
This is the part you need to keep your profile looking as it did in the editor. In order to remove the the link to the profile editor website, all you have to do is find the tag that looks like this: < a href=”http://www.pimpmyprofile.com” > Of coarse the text in between the quotations is going to be whatever site you got the script from, but you get the idea. What you need to do is highlight from the beginning tag < a href=”sitename” > to the end tag, which will look like < /a >. It may be a capitol or lowercase a, but these are anchor tags, which are what makes links.

So now you have a safer way to edit your profiles, without installing any spyware or malware carrying toolbars. A good place to start is with Thomas’ Myspace Editor. Very simple to use and can be found with a simple Google search.

Google Docs VS. MS Word

January 16, 2008 | 10 Responses

I was talking to some friends about how we all hate that the school uses Microsoft Word. After trying to find a Microsoft Word compatible word processor, many of them had given in and made the jump to actually buy microsoft software to use at home.

“WHAT?!?!” I replied in horror. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

Some students use a free alternative to MS Word called Open Office. OpenOffice does everything you can do with MS Word and then some. It is probably the best open source word processor. However theres still the matter of physically transferring the document by email, usb key or whatever mobile device and then hoping it will look the same when it is printed out at school (cuz you know you don’t have any ink at home and you might as well use the school’s ink for all the college tuition your paying).

I prefer to work on and store my files in the same place with Google Docs. That way I always know I can access them on any computer anywhere. I don’t have to open my text files in any other program to read and print the documents, but if I wanted to Google exports in several useful formats such as PDF, .txt file, Word, OpenOffice format and even HTML.
I’ve also used Docs and Spreadsheets to work on group projects because we don’t have to be in the same place or even working at the same time and we can communicate and collaborate.

Apart from the collaborative features and optimum accessibility offered from Docs is the fact that you will save space on your PC and you can create and edit different types of documents all in one place. MS Word is part of Microsoft Office, a suite that installs several programs to do different types of things. Powerpoint for presentations, Word for word processing,   Outlook for emailing, Excel, Access,  and so on and so on. These are all things you can do from your Google account, most of them right inside Docs and you don’t need to install any software to do it.

If you haven’t tried Google Docs and Spreadsheets for yourself you don’t know what you’re missing. You can save yourself dozens of headaches and all you need is a Google Account.

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