BidVertiser - Get $20 in FREE clicks

August 21, 2008 · 63 Views · Filed Under Promotion · Comment 

Last week I received an email from a company called BidVertiser and they were promising $20 in free clicks. Normally I would just delete the email and move on, but for some reason this one was different. After reading it, I saved the email and actually decided to try it out sometime. So, two days ago, I setup an account and added one of my sites. The site is basically a combination of AdWords and AdSense all in one place. Publishers can place ads on their sites like AdSense and advertisers can create ads and have them included on the publisher’s sites like AdWords.

Signing up was easy and creating an ad for my site was just as easy. I picked my categories and set my max bid at $0.10 per click. After everything was setup, my ad was pending for about a day or so. Once my ad became active, they sent me an email letting me know. I logged in to see how it was doing and I was seriously surprised when I saw that my ad already had thousands of impressions. I only had a couple clicks, but with that many impressions, it looked promising.

As of right now, about 1.5 days of being active, my ad stats are:

Impressions = 82,286
Clicks = 34
CTR = 0.04%
Cost = $2.40
CPC = $0.07

I’ve got $17.60 left in free credits and if the cost per click stays the same, that’s about 250 clicks left. If I decide to continue with this method of advertising, I might build a landing page to send the traffic to instead of sending to the home page of my site.

In my opinion, for the time/effort spent, you really can’t beat the deal at BidVertiser.
Promote your Website with BidVertiser. Get $20 in FREE clicks!

BidVertiser logo

Build your own PC air filter

August 12, 2008 · 183 Views · Filed Under PC Mods, Tips & Tricks · 2 Comments 

If your computer is anything like mine, it sucks in a lot of air and with that air comes a lot of dust. I’ve got two 80mm fans in the front and two 80mm fans in the back plus the 120mm PSU fan. Since the side of my computer has a Plexiglas window, I can see all the dust that accumulates inside the case. Not only is it ugly, but it’s really not good for your computer’s parts. When dust gets around the processor, power supply and other components, it blocks the vents and overheats the computer. As it works harder to keep itself cool, it slowly degrades hardware performance which shortens the life of the computer.

Every couple of months, I like to take my computer outside and blow it out with bottles of compressed air, but I wanted to figure out a way to cut down on the dust even more. With my computer case, there’s a recessed area in the front panel that’s in front of my intake fans. This provided an excellent area for a custom air filter.
front of computer without air filter

I went to Lowe’s and picked up a cheap furnace filter and cut it to fit. You can see in the picture below how it fits in there. I’m not sure if it makes a difference, but I put the wire mesh side on the outside.
front of computer with air filter

Now, most of the intake air is pulled through the air filter before it enters my computer case. There’s still some places that the dust sneaks in, but this catches a majority of it. You can see a comparison in the picture below. The air filter on the bottom is brand new and uncut and the one on top was used in my computer for about two months.
new air filter compared to an old one

If your case isn’t designed like mine, you may have design a air filter with a different size/shape. I hope this helps someone else keep their computer clean, cool and happy!

Useful Links:
Attack of the Killer Dust Bunnies
Create a Dust-Free Environment

Display Google Ad after the first post

August 7, 2008 · 484 Views · Filed Under WordPress · Comment 

I don’t use Adsense on this blog, but I do use it on other sites of mine. I can’t remember where I found this, but I did save the code and instructions.

1. Create a file named “google-ad.php” containing your Adsense code.
2. Upload the file in the directory with your other template files.
3. Open your home.php template file and change it to the following code:

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); $loopcounter++; ?>
<?php if ($loopcounter <= 1) { include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/google-ad.php'); } ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php else : ?>
<?php endif; ?>

If the $loopcounter is less than or equal to 1, then it includes your google-ad.php which contains your Adsense code.

Reorder your taskbar with Taskbar Shuffle

August 3, 2008 · 235 Views · Filed Under Software · 2 Comments 

I am very particular about the order of windows on my taskbar as I work on my computer. I always keep Firefox in the left most position on my taskbar. I’ve always wished that I could just switch them around like a Firefox tab. Well, now I can with Taskbar Shuffle. Taskbar Shuffle is a simple, small, free utility that lets you drag and drop your Windows taskbar buttons to rearrange them.

After installation, you can double-click the icon in the tray to bring up the options screen.
Taskbar Shuffle Options

Here’s a shot of what it looks like when you actually move a program in the taskbar:
Taskbar Shuffle moving a window in the taskbar

Download Taskbar Switcher

Cuil Launches Biggest Search Engine

July 29, 2008 · 110 Views · Filed Under Google/SEO · 1 Comment 

MENLO PARK, Calif. - July 28, 2008 - Cuil, a technology company pioneering a new approach to search, unveils its innovative search offering, which combines the biggest Web index with content-based relevance methods, results organized by ideas, and complete user privacy. Cuil (www.cuil.com) has indexed 120 billion Web pages, three times more than any other search engine.

Cuil (pronounced COOL) provides organized and relevant results based on Web page content analysis. The search engine goes beyond today’s search techniques of link analysis and traffic ranking to analyze the context of each page and the concepts behind each query. It then organizes similar search results into groups and sorts them by category.

121,617,892,992 web pages and this is what I get: We didn’t find any results for “0092ff”

I may have to keep an eye on this search engine. It might just be the next big thing.
We’ll see…

Page 4 of 7<1234567>