The Empty Cabinets of my Mind

Another Triond Article

Still testing the Chitika ads, this time with dashes:

From my understanding, these work for visitors outside of the US or Canada. However, I did not understand how to select keywords, so maybe it will default to keywords Chitika puts in for me, or maybe the ads won't run at all. Only time will tell ;-)

UPDATE: Today when Triond notified me of the publication of my article called Do you Use the CIA Factbook Online? I noticed that someone else signed up from the referral link I blogged about yesterday.

Let's see if this can happen three days in a row.  Here is the link again:

$$$ Like to Write? You will Love Triond! $$$
Pays Monthly

If you missed yesterday's post, Triond is a program that pays residual income on articles you write. They publish them online for you and do all the work of seting up ads from different clients they have, and then they split whatever they earn with you. I have gotten something deposited into my PayPal account from Triond every month since I first signed up in the summer of 2007. In fact, I have gotten way more payments from them than I have written articles.

One Potato, Two Potato...

I had been trying to find a tasteful way to monetize this blog beyond the few PayPerPost ads that come along, but the first giant company that I tried for context sensitive ads had too many confusing rules and the coding was too complicated, so I gave up on them. I think they were pretty glad to see me go, too, but I am very satisfied with Chitika so far. It was a good switch. It took me abut five minutes to set it up and they had my blog approved within an hour. That just goes to show there is more than one fish in the sea and hopefully, more than one potato in the pot. Speaking of potatoes, I wrote this little article yesterday:

Frozen Potatoes 

I also wrote an article called Lying with the Truth. 

If you were to visit either of those articles, you would see that some of the words have double underlining and if you hover over them, an advertisement comes up.  Those are ads from Kontera and if people click on them, then a delightful PTW (Paid to Write) company called Triond gets paid and Triond, in turn, pays each one of its writers half of what they get.  This is a good deal for Triond and a good deal for writers like me.  Triond also pays its writers a commission of 10% on the earnings of people they recommend who end up writing for Triond, too.  That is something new. So here is my referral link in case you would like to write some articles and earn a little Lunch Money:

$$$ Like to Write? You will Love Triond! $$$
Pays Monthly

Also new is a similar set-up that I have added to my gardening blog.  Gardening supplies are expensive, so I decided to monetize that one too, but there you will start seeing ads that look similar to the Kontera ads on the Triond articles.  But mine are from a company called InfoLinks. 

So I went over to my Lying with the Truth article to compare the Konera Links with the Infolinks and when I came back to look at this blog, Chitika displayed an ad asking me if I were interested in "Lying with the Truth."  Ingenious, I thought, but won't that scare some people? 

I want to explain it here so that my readers do not feel uncomfortable.   In addition to wanting to make money the advertising company wants to make the ads interesting and relevant to you.   Another thing I like about Chitika is that instead of burdening me with a zillion no-nos and expecting me to regulate who views my blogs to accommodate their paying advertisers, their smart ads only show to the readers they are interested in targeting.  If an advertiser specifies s/he only wants readers from Canada to click on the ad then Chitika simply checks your location and if you are not from Canada, then they do not activate the ad.    That is SO much more intelligent than displaying the ad to everyone and then getting mad at me if someone who is not from Canada clicks on it.  PS: I am SO excited, because while I was writing this, someone signed up from my Triond referral link. It works!

software 4 directory synchronization

These days there are a lot of electronic devices that need synchronization.  I like the ones that are user-friendly and do it automatically, but sometimes they malfunction and then we have to go back to the old way of doing things.  It is not always the fault of the device or its software.  For instance, there is the time that I left a PDA in the sun inside my car in August in Arizona.  The temperature outside was 110 and I cannot even fathom how hot it might have been inside.  Needless to say, my device was cooked. 

I have a new GPS device that I am thinking I had better learn how to synchronize before something goofy happens to it through no fault of its own.   It is amazing how fast I became completely dependent on these devices. 

When I started messing around with computers thirty-odd years ago, the big thing was back-up, and for me that usually meant printing everything out on paper.   When it became possible to do  directory synchronization  that was quite a  development, and one that, I think, saved a lot of paper.  

I was one of those who got my PhT (Putting Hubby Through) degree before my PhD and therefore did not get around to filing my dissertation until the mid-80's.  By then we were backing our data up on 5 1/4" floppy disks and I was paying my tuition retrieving data from people whose floppies had met with misfortune.  Sometimes they spilled coffee on them, and other times they got dropped them on the floor and stepped on them, but mostly they just deleted their data by accident and needed it back.

Different Kinds of Search Engines

I sort of divide search engines into my own three categories.  There are my favorite kind which pull up everything about anything, there are specialized ones which pull up a particular kind of response, and then there are the phonies.

Lately when I go to a page that doesn't exist anymore, instead of the 404 error message, a wanna be search engine comes up.  But if you put in a legitimate search term, it spills back a bunch of marketing garbage.  Those are annoying.  It is hard for me to imagine how people can be making money by putting those up, but they must be, or they would not do it.

Then you have search engines which bring up specific kinds of information.  For example, once when I put the term "Rosetta Stone"  into Yahoo's search it gave me information about a group of musicians.  When I put it in a business-oriented search engine, it brought up language instruction software.  When I put it into an all-purpose engine, that one finally brought up the ancient Egyptian artifact that I was researching.   

So when looking for media files, something like Video & Music on Rapidshare might work, but if you want something else there are resources for finding the best place to look. I put the term "specialized search engines" into the Google search box and many lists with thousands of specialized search engines came up. Wikipedia explains that these are called vertical search engine. So I Googlized the term "vertical search engines" and learned that another name for them is vortals.

I love learning new words.

Business Quality Audio

That is what I get from my Plantronics Bluetooth mobile headset.  That is, when I remember to stick it on the cute little charger. 

I don't know how the folks at HeadsetHome knew that Plantronics is the brand I use, but they were right on target, so of course I accepted their invitation to mention plantronics headsets  in my post.

Whenever PayPerPost sends me an e-mail saying my post has been approved for payment, they say to tell all my friends how easy that was. Hmmmm. With the new Version 4.0 it really is easy. I liked the old PayPerPost a lot and was afraid that change might bring complications, but there was no learning curve at all. Like they said, it was easy. Setting up my plantronics headset was easy too. My heart sank when I first started reading the directions, and learned that you have to "pair" the devices before using them the first time. But they pretty much paired themselves. Good thing, too, because I was holding my breath and if it took too long I might have given the term Bluetooth a new meaning.

Are You Getting Google Alerts?

This is still in Beta:

http://www.google.com/alerts

It looks very cool.   Speaking of cool, if anyone needs a coveted Google Wave invitation I have some.  Just leave a comment and let me know.

More Good News from Triond

For those who don't know Triond, it is an online program that pays writers for articles they submit for publication.  Called PTW (Paid to Write), this phenomenon of the internet is a growing industry with many program participating, but of all of the ones I know, Triond has been my favorite.  

Today they provided me with something new.  It is a referral link which I am only to happy to share with you:

My Triond Referral Link

In the past there was only one way to earn money from writing for Triond.  Now there are three:

1. When you submit an article and it is accepted for publication, then Triond showcases it and shares half of the ad revenue it generates with you.  Minimum payout is just fifty cents so practically anyone can get at least some earnings deposited into a PayPal account each and every month.
2. If you have a Google Adsense account, then Triond manages the placement of these additional ads and half of the revenue from those is reported on your Triond dashboard, but deposited into your Adsense account where the minimum payout is $100.
3. Now although the program is still in a testing stage, it is possible also to have a down line (people who joined Triond on your recommendation) and to earn a percentage of what those people earn.  Triond does not take their money away to give to you.  It is on top of that. 

So if you have been thinking about signing up with Triond and writing some articles and getting some money, this is a good time to do it.  Of course, if you use my link, then I get extra money too.  How sweet is that?  Needless to say, if you are my referral, I try to help you get started over there. 

Now this is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme and especially at first you will be seeing pennies not dollars rolling into your PayPal account.  But once an article is published there and if it gets any exposure at all it will continue to earn month after month without any further effort on your part.   And if your can join their referral program, and you have friends who also join and write articles, then you will earn a little bit more month after month from their articles as well. 

Remember, this is in Beta, so if it does not work, please leave a comment and let me know.  Or better yet, please leave a comment anyway!

Get Residual Income from Triond

My next favorite PTW program is Associated Content, followed closely by Squidoo, but AC members can only refer through e-mail, not with referral links.  Here is Squidoo:

My Squidoo Referral Link 

I don't try to make a lot of residuals from Squidoo, but it is great for directing traffic to my blog.  It is also a great place to get started in PTW if you are new to the concept.

Clouds and Rain and Flowers

The strangest stuff ends up in my inbox from time to time and this morning there was a discussion on Cloud Computing.    Just this week I parted with a few bucks to buy services trend in that general direction.  I already use web-based databases and mail services and a blogging platform that supports mobile posting.

But now I have added the aforementioned GRD Agenda, more on which later, and finally,  Garmin.  I had been using Google Maps, which are great for some things, but I wanted to try the voice direction and presumably faster speed a fancy GPS has to offer.  When I put the trial version into bike mode and started riding around the neighborhood, said voice told me to pedal right through a gate that was secured with a big old padlock, but that sort of thing happens.  I should draw a cartoon of me getting ready to crash into that gate, only with a full-sized laptop resting on the handlbars and me with my head in the clouds.

My overzealous spam filter sure had its head in the clouds when it tossed my Google Wave invite in the trash!  Ah, but I was expecting it and went and pulled it out.  So I've been checking Wave out from the inside and did finally get a few extra  invites to share with my readers.    If you have a burning desire to check Wave out for yourself and want an invite leave me a comment and I see what I can do. 

By the way, it is time to start thinking about who you need to send flowers!

Playtime! Google has Waved Me In :-)

So here is my new avatar:

Yep, I have all these new toys and it isn't even Christmas.  Just installed Wave last night and haven't found all the buttons yet, but the first thing I went "Wow" over is you can get interactive with your fellow Wavies on a map. 

The first "Thud" was that so far I'm not getting it to format correctly in Firefox, or at all in IE.  Good thing for me, I already use Chrome.  Understandably, Wave and Chrome are best buds.

Well, back to WOIK!   Anybody wants to help me sort it  out over there my name is drann just like in the URL that landed you here.

Oh and get this.  When I tried to Google up my new self ("drann" + "wave" + "Google") here is the title that came up:  "Was ist dran an Google Wave?"   Less  one "n" my name is apparently a part of speech.   Babelfish informs me that in German it is the preposition "to."  I like that.  

Good Soundbites

I am very happy with my current web hosting provider, but if I were out in the cold looking for a different service, I would take a long look at HostNexus.  There are many things about the whole tone of the site that are attractive, but why not take a look for yourself:

Coldfusion Hosting:

I love the Halloween pumpkins, and since they are seasonal (and because I got this listing from PayPerPost v4 and the advertiser said to go ahead and use screenshots if we wanted to), I'm going to preserve their banner.    Did that serve as in-post disclosure?

So is that banner cool, or what?   Here is how they describe their services:

....Cheap Web Hosting from the leading Web Hosting Provider....

I like that they don't beat around the bushes using words like inexpensive or affordable.  Cheap is what I would be looking for, that and the lifesaver:

In addition to 24/7 support, 99.9% uptime, and a plethora of useful tools and services, HostNexus has an interesting forum.  And did I say blog hosting for as little as $3.96/mo?

Considering all that HostNexus has to offer and the reasonable pricing, I am surprised that they come off sounding so literate.  I am impressed.