Devil Works

I like everything that isn’t Microsoft (except for their hardware, but that’s another story) so I was happy to see Scoble posting that Firefox version 2 is getting closer to release. I have a rule of not trying brand new software cause it can stuff things up but as soon as it’s ready I’ll be happy to upgrade, firefox hasn’t let me down yet!
My biggest wish for Firefox is that they have an option of locating the tabs at the bottom of the window near the taskbar. Years of using multiple IE windows naturally leads my mouse to the lower part of the screen when I want to change tabs.

Anyone know of any plugins or mods that will help me make this happen?

PS: I know I said I don’t like Microsoft software but it’s obvious I’m a windows user, One day linux will have everything I need and I’ll have the time to install it and learn how to use it without it effecting my productivity, but until then I’ll continue to use it.

If your like me and spend a lot of time working from home have you ever considered your workspace? For me it’s always been wherever I fit. But I wonder how it effects my productivity.
I found this article which has some great pictures of some really inspirational offices.

I liked Kathy Sierra’s use of a tralier as an office, I’d love an office I could take anywhere.

Today I approved another ad at Text Link Ads which brought up my monthly income for the one site I run it on to around $90. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but later as I sitting at my desk doing my day job I had a thought, that $90 a month is around $1000 year.

Now $1000 isn’t a huge amount of money, I need a lot more than that in a year to live on, but then I thought about how I actually made that money.

About 18 months ago I started a blog about my credit card woes, mainly to make a little cash, but also to garner some interweb community support in my battle of material wants versus a life of credit card debt. It’s not a huge site, around 100 pages I think, and it might get 50 uniques on a good day. These days I make a short post on it about once a month.
About six months ago I read about this site called Text Link Ads which sells links for your site and shares the money with you. I was making stuff all with Adsense so I thought I would give it a try. All I had to do was put a bit of code into my site template and away it goes.
Once or twice a month I would get an email saying that I had a new ad to approve for my site. At the moment I’ve sold 7 out of a possible 8 links which is delivering about 90$ a month to my paypal account.

So what’s the point of this story your asking ?

Well it’s the oldest money making system in the world, find something that works and multiply it.
At the moment I have one site making $90 a month for probably 10 minutes of work each month. Now what if I was to have 100 sites making $90 a month, that would bring me close to $100,000 a year working around 20 hours a month.

My biggest problem will be my attention span, I’ve started on a dozen different ideas over the last 12 months but never stuck with any of them for various different reasons. So this time I need to set realistic goals and stick to them.

Update: I just found out that my concept isn’t unique. Work Boxers has an article on it here.

I seem to be on a Google fixation at the moment, but they keep doing interesting things.

I’ve just discovered the Google apps for your domain beta program, while I have no need for it at the moment on the outside it looks like a good thing. Web site owners will be able to have branded Google services, currently included are gmail,talk, calendar and  web page creator.

The thing that puts me off from using this package on my own domains is this little bit at the bottom of the page

*Organizations accepted by Google during the Google Apps for Your Domain beta period are eligible for free service for their approved beta users even beyond the end of the beta period, as described in the Terms of Service.

So what does this mean? Once you have gone to the trouble of setting it all up on your domain and getting your users/staff all set up Google might decide to start charging for new users. Google have already hinted that they will be looking at offering a premium service in the future, but have given no indication of when this will be or how much it will cost. Sure it’s free for now, but how cost goes into the time taken to set it all up ?

Until Google offer more info on the future of this service I’d be steering clear.