Devil Works

I just tried to sign up to the microsoft live service and the sign up screen froze my Firefox browser, funny how it worked perfectly in IE.

One of the reason’s I dislike Microsoft is that big business get’s arrogant, so arrogant that they expect that everyone will be using their product and there won’t be compatability problems.

If only I could convince my relatives to use gmail chat, I wouldn’t be stuck using MSN messenger or whatever it’s branded these days.

I think I can use another messenger program to talk with hotmail users, I’ll be giving that a try very soon.

Back here I expressed a wish to move my Firefox tabs to the bottom of the browser window. The reason I wanted to do this was that it would be closer to the taskbar and make it easier to switch between tabs and applications. This is handy when I’m working on a site and I’m constantly flicking between FTP, image programs, PHP Designer, and the multiple tabs I have open on Firefox. The other advantage is that having tabs and taskbar together reduces the amount of mouse movement I need to do and that’s got to be good for the wrists.

So instead of just complaining about it, I googled it and came up with this answer for moving my Firefox tabs to the bottom.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a suitable plugin, but I did find a simple hack that did the job.

All you need to do is add the code here to the userChrome.css file. If you don’t have or can’t find your userChrome.css file then this page will help you.

I didn’t have the css file so I had to create it in a text editor and save it to the right spot under my user profile. I restarted Firefox and straight away my tabs were at the bottom of the window.

It’s been a couple of days since I made the changes and it’s only occassionaly that I head to the top of my screen to change tabs.

If you’re not using Firefox then there will be a link at the top of the screen where you can download it for free.

Just came across some useful SEO tools at Market Leap.

Link Popularity Check will tell you how many links you have in Google, Yahoo and MSN and will also compare your site with 3 others that you can nominate, as well as other sites in your market.

Search Engine Saturation allows you to check how many pages you have indexed in the three search engines, and also compare your numbers with your competitors.

Keyword Verification checks the first three pages of the search results for your chosen keyword to tell you where you are listed for that keyword.

I have a full time job and I’m committed to getting my online business to the stage where I don’t need the full time job. I guess what I’m really saying is that I spend a lot of time in front of a computer.

This week I’m on leave from the full time job, not actually taking holidays but using time in lieu that I’ve accumalated over the last couple of months.

When I decided to take this time away from work, I had great plans of spending the whole week working on my sites. That was until I sat down and wrote a list of all the things I needed to get done.

Some of them are “must do” items, and some of them are “should do them now cause it’s easier while I’m on leave” items.
Well today I did something that wasn’t on the list. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and the thought of sitting inside bashing away at a computer all day was beyond depressing.

I dug out my snorkelling gear that hadn’t seen the light of day for a good nine months and hit the road looking for a nice spot to dive for some fresh abalone. After a bit of driving in circles I settled on an isolated spot and it was heaven. I had the place to myself, and less than 40 metres from where I’d parked the car I found the abalone I was looking for.

While this might not be everyones idea of a great day out, It was reinvigorating for me. I learn’t that I really want the freedom to do what I want when I want and it reinforced my belief that the net is the best way to do this.

If I was at my regular job it would be difficult for me to decide at midday that the weather was nice, and I should leave work for the day to do something I really enjoy. I want the freedom to hit the water any day I choose.
So I guess what I’m saying is that no matter how goal focussed you are, It’s worth taking time out. It refocuses your thoughts and goals and gives you a refreshing break from your daily druggery.

After my last article on link valuations through Text Link Ads I found another link valuation tool at LinkWorth. So I thought I would do some comparisons and the results were interesting.

Text Link Ads required more information to calculate the results, I selected 4 links per page, site wide placement and chose the relevant catagory. I then picked the highest paying placement for the results.

Link Worth just asks for the URL and gives multiple results, I picked the highest value of the site wide text link option.

Text Link Ads                 Link Worth
jensense.com                         $ 99 $75

wordpress.org                     Ha, Ha, Very Funny        More than $500

engadget.com                         $ 8,611                     More than $500

problogger.net                         $927                         $145

Katespillsthebeans.com             $31                            $60

So it’s obvious that Link Worth doesnt like to automate quotes for links valued at over $500, but TLA is much more adventurous. Having said that one would think that sites with links valued at over $500 would be big enough to get private sales and not lose the percentage taken by the marketer.
As for the rest of the results there are some large variations, both pages have a disclaimer saying that it’s only a guide or an estimate and my brief experience is that I get a little less with TLA than what is estimated.

At this stage I’m going to stick with TLA basically because I know that the links do sell, but later on down the track it might be worth running a site with Link Worth and seeing what happens. When I have the time I might even read the terms of service for both companies and see if it’s possible to do a direct comparison.

John Chow has done some research on how much a link is valued at using the Text Link Ads calculator.

Engadget.com was worth $11,440 per link per month, Digg.com was listed as “more than you can afford”

According to the TLA calculator my current site I have listed with Text Link Ads is worth about $29 a link per month, but in reality most of mine have sold for around $20 of which I get half.

I’m happy with that, it’s a site I spent some time setting up, but now it takes me around 15 minutes a month to maintain.

I just need 99 more sites like that and I’ll be a very happy boy.

Since my reality moment last week I have been working with renewed enthusiasm on my retirement project.

I also worked out that a site making me $90 a month is the equivilant of having $20,000 invested in a conservative bank account.

So on my todo list is to create 99 more blogs that make me atleast $90 a month. I’ve decided that at the moment I’ll throw my energy into creating 10 blogs just to prove the concept.

I’m going to also use adsense and one other affiliate PPC that I’ve heard good stories about.

So far I have one site fully effective, I’ve got two other blogs that I’ve started in the last few months that will be ready to apply to TLA shortly. I’ve started another one from scratch, and I have a handful more that I started over 12 months ago that I lost interest in. I’ll modernise these and get some fresh articles in them before I apply list them on TLA.

It’s a long way to go, but I’ve got the big picture in mind

As you may have read here before I’m not a big fan of Microsoft, and I’m looking forward to the day where I can wipe it from my life (at the home office anyway).

I came across Explorer Destroyer today and I’ve installed it on this site. If you’re not using Firefox you will have seen a block at the top of the page encouraging you to download Firefox.

This is good for two reasons

1. Microsoft is Evil and has become blase due to it’s market dominance
2. If someone downloads Firefox from the link I will get a small commission from Google Adsense

I’ve tested it in Firefox, Opera and Explorer and it only shows up in Internet Explorer.

It’s easy to install and there are specific instructions for adding it to Wordpress sites.

Go and join the Explorer Destroyer and earn yourself some cash at the same time.

Update: I forgot to mention that the script you use for this is completely free.

Update 2: I’ve removed Explorer Destroyer from my site as it messed with my listings at google

This domain has been sitting idle for a few years with just a single index page, and through that whole period it had maintained a PR of 2. Not great, but a lot more PR than the brand new domains I’ve been buying for my retirement project.

Now that I’ve been developing the site for the last two weeks my PR has gone to 0. I can’t figure it out, maybe the google dance is still going on.

Anyone else got a theory ?

I wouldn’t wish this fate upon anyone, but I wonder if it’s something he’s considered….

Markus Frind runs a fairly large dating site that rivals many of the big players in the industry with hundreds of employee’s. He does this all from his apartement with a handful of servers.

Markus is quite rightly proud of his efforts. Pretty much on his own he has built one of the biggest dating sites on the net. Yet he does it mostly on his own, He has no employee’s and enjoyed the limelight for a while when he stated he was earning $10,000 a day from adsense alone.

Marcus’s latest post ponders the state of the industry

You know your business model has serious problems when your biggest competitor in the English speaking world is run by one person out of his apartment.

He’s built a great business but what would happen if he was out of action for a couple of months or longer?

Like most websites they would run fine for a little while until something went wrong, then they would slowly fall apart.

A few years back when I was running a heap of affiliate sites, I had a joint project with a guy that lived in another state. Hosting was expensive back then and we used the joint project to fund our dedicated server which hosted all our sites.

Sadly he was hit by a rare varient of the flu, he went to the shops one day and never came back. His wife, who I’d never spoken to before gave me a call to let me know what happened. Between us we managed to keep his sites online while they were still profitable which helped ease the burden but I didn’t have the time to run and manage them on top of my own workload. Within 12 months they weren’t covering there expenses and we made the decision to pull the plug.

It’s a sad story on so many levels, but on a business level he had an internet business that was pulling in a healthy 6 figures a year, and within 12 months it was gone because there were no plans in place for his business without him.

Where do you think Markus’s site would be without him there to run it ?

What would happen to your business if you were forced offline for a month or two ?