Category: Site News

This website is very old. It’s been with me for many years. There are plenty of articles which are useful both for myself and the rest of the world. Bit by bit, word by word, link by link, image by image, this site was filled and filled over the years. Technologies changed. Some new techniques and concepts came up. Some old ones faded away. Spending as much time as I possible can (after everything else) on this site, sometimes I manage to introduce big changes – like a new bit of functionality or a totally different look. Not to confuse and scare everyone, I try to be open about the changes that were made. When something big is changed I post a description of what it was and why I felt the change was needed. These updates are published in this category.

Google AdSense auto optimize

I barely remember even having this blog, let alone the fact that Google AdSense is installed and working here.  But it is.  It’s been years since my daily or at least frequent posting, however the website is still getting some traffic, and, apparently, still earning something from the ads.

I never really considered monetizing this blog – it’s more of a personal space on the web, but I do occasionally play around with money options to see what’s there.

Google AdSense

Today I received an interesting email from Google AdSense, which notified me of some adjustment they did without any trigger or action from my side, which apparently will increase a 63% increase in the ad earnings from now.  This is very cool!  My last payout of a minimum threshold (70 EUR) was back in August, 2020.  With this new increase, chances are I will get through the line some time this year.  We’ll see.

Writer’s block and the power of good habits

Back in a day when I was blogging almost on a daily basis, writing a new blog post was a zero effort for me.  That includes coming up with the idea for the post, the actual content, typing, formatting, and every some promotion around social networks and among my friends and colleagues.

The last few years, however, I stepped away from blogging and shared my thoughts, ideas, and useful links on a variety of media, such as internal company Slack, and a multitude of instant messengers, like Telegram and WhatsApp.

All that brought me to where I am now.  Most of the content that I shared on social networks and instant messengers is buried in the archives, never to be seen again.  My creative powers are diminished to the point where I’m struggling to verbalize a tweet.  And my publishing productivity as practically non-existent.  Even when I want to write up a short blog post just like this one, every cell of my brain is resisting the idea.

However, I want to bring that skill back.  I’ve setup daily reminders to blog.  But they aren’t doing much.  At least for the last month or so.  I’m constantly distracted by the ideas of reorganizing this website, catching up with history first, and so on.  But nothing ever happens.

So, I guess, for the next few weeks you’ll see my hectic attempts at restoring order.  For now, I will write for the sake of writing.  Just to get back into the habit of it.  And while I’m at it, you’ll probably be puzzled by the unusual randomness of subjects, inconsistency in length, quality and schedule, weak attempts to fill in the blanks, and other weirdness.  Bare with me.  Or not.  After all, the web is huge.

Mobile test

One of the many reasons for abandoning this blog was the lack of the proper mobile app. Earlier versions of the WordPress for mobile were very limited. They were lagging behind the fast-paced development of the web application.

Giving it a try now, I already see that there was a significant progress. The UI is much cleaner and easier. Block editor is supported. And there are probably large improvements in the media handling. Although, that is yet to be tested.

This gives me hope…

Welcome to HTTPS

Finally, after years and years of recommending Let’s Encrypt to everyone, this blog has now followed its own advice and moved to HTTPS. All the old links should be automatically redirected as well, so most people probably won’t notice any difference. But if you do, please do let me know.