Forward Thinking

It has come to my attention that, while some people make grand incomes from AdSense, most of us who have used it only earned pocket change. You can’t get paid until you reach $100 in click revenue. This means that those of us who haven’t reached that are owed money by Google that we’ll likely never see, and Google gets to keep it in their till where it probably earns interest. We don’t make money from the ads - Google does, hand over fist.

For instance, I have only earned about $28 from two years worth of ads on my sites. This means I can’t collect even those small earnings. So where are the dollars now? Still in Google’s bank account. Multiply that times thousands of bloggers who can’t tap into their AdSense earnings because it’s still too low, and you can see who really makes the money. It’s not even the AdSense top earners, no matter how many times they show us their big checks.

I have nothing against capitalism and free enterprise. I don’t even care how much money Google makes. It’s a free country. I do care, though, when they trounce the little guy to make that money. I do care when they rob mommy bloggers of AdSense revenue because it hasn’t reached a high enough level yet, then rob them again by preventing them from generating income through paid links with a PR smackdown. This strategy goes against free enterprise. The fact that it wasn’t evenly distributed makes it even harder to swallow.

It’s tantamount to a Lowe’s store allowing Home Depot and Ace Hardware to be built in the same town, but outlawing the local hardware guy from building or advertising under the guise of “keeping building supplies high quality”.

I have linked freely to a lot of places. Sometimes, I’ve been paid to link to those same places again. Either one is relevant and quality posting, and I’m sincere in my posts either way. Yet, Google insists that if I was paid, it’s not entirely truthful. By their own standards, AdSense ads aren’t entirely truthful either and take quality away from the internet as a whole. Oh, yes, I forgot that it’s perfectly alright if the site generates tons of traffic.

I don’t want a perfectly level playing field. That’s not fair to those who have worked hard on their blogs or websites. I just don’t want a rock slide pushed down on me when I’m still climbing the mountain.

Technorati Tags: AdSense, capitalism, free enterprise, mommy bloggers

I just read Ted Murphy’s responses to Matt Cutts, and I want to tell you that the responses are reasonable and well-thought-out. I probably haven’t clicked an AdSense twice in my whole online life, which is almost 10 years now. However, I have clicked plenty of links in posts, and found some pretty neat things that way. Maybe there are others like me, I don’t know. If there are, then G’s advertising program isn’t working so well since the advent of paid links in posts.

When I began all this blogging, I couldn’t even spell PR, much less know what it is. When I learned about it, I also learned that several of my blogs had none. I still was able to do some paid posts, so I hardly see how that was passing PR to any advertisers. My PR grew, then dropped again like everyone else’s. The rise was brief, rapid, and high - almost as if G wanted the fall to hurt more.

I honestly believe all this has less to do with quality and more to do with what goes in G’s collective pockets. Sponsored links filter some clicks away from AdSense ads on blogs. It’s more reassuring to read a blog post review and be given some food for thought about a product, site, or online service before you click on it than to just see some ad or flashing banner somewhere on the page. Especially so when you don’t get to select what ads are placed on your blog or website.

I do have other ads, but I’ve hand-picked them so I know they are relevant and they are for companies I’ve done business with in the past and that I continue to do business with. They aren’t AdSense and they aren’t dictated to me. And therein lies the problem.

Technorati Tags: AdSense, advertising

I was pleasantly surprised to see an article in our local newspaper entitled Green home goes solar. As far as I know, this is the first home in this area to go solar and sell the excess electricity produced back to the local power company. I’d like to meet the owner personally and find out more about how he accomplished this. The article tells a lot, but not enough to satisfy my own curiosity.

The article does mention that this home owner doesn’t use batteries. He only sells the power back to the grid. However, for my purposes, I think I do want to use batteries for those days that are less sunny.

I’m beginning to think this is an obsession for me, but I also think it’s a good obsession. If I can qualify for grants to help me get started in my own solar energy projects, all the better! Right now, I’m working on it on my own.

Technorati Tags: solar, batteries, grid, solar energy

I am considering using my solar lights in a variety of applications around my home. However, the driveway lights have such low output that they do little more than mark the way. They don’t cast much usable light anywhere. On the other hand, my solar spotlights are pretty bright which means I’ll probably be getting more of them.

Given that they are LED lights, my thought is that brighter ones could even give off enough light to be useful over bathroom vanities, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom. I suppose my next quest will be for LED light bulbs that have more intensity. The advantage of LED is their lower power usage. This means less of a drain on batteries.

Technorati Tags: solar lights, solar spotlights, LED lights

With having so many days in a row without sunshine, I find my solar lights to be a bit lacking in brightness. I’m quite surprised, though, that they are lighting at all. Apparently, some solar energy comes through even on the cloudy days, to keep the batteries charged somewhat.

Today is clear and sunny, though, so they should all receive a nice, full charge. My next step is to put the smaller inverter to use by connecting it to the small solar panel to see if it will push enough power to charge a cell phone. Eventually, I’ll have a larger panel or a bank of panels and one or two deep cycle batteries to use for my laptop and other devices. I am hoping to be able to use the 750 watt inverter then, which would give me more options in my ongoing quest for solar power living.

Technorati Tags: solar lights, inverter, solar panel, deep cycle batteries, 750 watt inverter

We actually had some sleet and snow the other day. It didn’t stick around, but it still brought some chilly temperatures with it. This means that now, I’m having to use winter heating in my house. While I’d rather move and get that cabin I talk about so much, I still have to address the issue of heating the house I live in now.

I do have a small ventless gas heater in the living room and I have a couple of small electric heaters, one that looks like a tiny wood burning stove. I still haven’t hooked up the propane for the gas heater, though. Mainly because once I start using it, that means I have to replace the propane soon. Not having a truck means I have to ask someone to do this for me.

If I had gas infrared heaters, I could achieve the heating I need here without the higher use of gas that conventional gas heaters have. This would be a lot friendlier to my budget. I’d still use the propane bottles, but I’d lean more toward having a larger tank put in that the gas trucks could deliver to.

Technorati Tags: ventless gas heater, propane

Hillary - the one who’s running for president now - has gained support in some of the oddest of circles. Among the New York movers and shakers, she’s quite popular. However, many of us in mainstream America just aren’t that enthralled with her.

She’s a Super Liberal of the lowest form, bending her jargon to fit what she supposes are her supporters. She wears a different face on every different occasion. If she’s speaking to conservative, right wing religious groups, she tries to come off as very fundamental. If she’s speaking to liberal groups, she tries to come off as modernistic and humanistic and liberal. If she’s speaking to unions, she portrays herself as the working man’s best friend. If she’s addressing business moguls, she aligns her philosophies with the get-rich-at-any-cost mindset.

Just who is she anyway?

I work. I work hard and give up a lot for my job. But what’s the point, really? More income? What good is income if family relationships are stripped away?

I should get custom pens that say, “My Name is NOT Mrs. McDonald!” This would remind me and others that it’s only a job, regardless of how others who work there may treat it.

I’m going to find something different. I am completely tapped of energy and have to realign my priorities, then find a way to make money that doesn’t strip me of my personal self and my life.

Recently, I became aware that an individual can actually have two addresses and two mailboxes. For instance, I can keep my post office box and also have a mailbox at my house. Mail will be delivered according to whichever address to give to the sender. This way, if you need to receive some mail at your home - at your physical address - you can easily do so.

Recently, blogspot or blogger has stopped allowing commentors to leave a URI in the signature portion of comments. This has been the source of great consternation among many bloggers across the web, and forums are full of hate and discontent over it.

Of course, you can leave your site name within the comment itself, but often publishers will decline comments that are done this way. The only other way many see to leave a URI in the comments is to become a blogspot user and sign in with your Google user name. However, there really is another solution, and it’s turned out to be very simple.

Get a free OpenID account and use that to sign your comments. If you are currently a Technorati, LiveJournal, or other subscriber, using OpenID is already in place for you. You simply type in your user URL (http://technorati.com/people/technorati/yourusername) and your signature name will be linked to that.

And guess what? There’s yet another way to sign your comments so that your actual blog or website URL is linked to your name. Get the free OpenID account, as previously stated, then add two lines of code to the “head” portion of your site. This will tell blogspot you have a verified ID for that site, and your site will be linked to your signature.

I know this works for blogspot blogs. I just added my two lines to one of my blogs there, commented on a post in my sister’s blog at blogspot, verified through OpenID that I wanted blogspot to always be allowed access to my signature, and it went through. Easy peasy.

It’s not as quick and simple as it used to be when you simply typed your URL into the address bar given for that, but it’s still pretty easy.

I learned how to set this up at Intertwingly.net and it worked like a charm.

Technorati Tags: blogspot, blogger, comments, Technorati, OpenID