business

Adsense Logger plugin for WordPress

Adsense Logger is an open source PHP script that helps website owners to optimize Google Adsense for their sites. I just found out about it today and realized that I wanted something like this for a long time, but never took the time to find it.

Apparently, there is an excellent plugin for WordPress that automatically installs and configures Adsense Logger to work with WordPress. Simply copy the files from the ZIP archive and assign correct permissions. TADA! You’re done. If you wish to see your Google reports within your WordPress administration area, enter your username and password in the plugin configuration page.

I’ve just installed and tried it and looks really good. Now all I am missing are those ad clicks (hint, hint, hint).

Found via this Bloggin Pro entry.

Calendaring issues solved with AirSet

I’ve been looking for a tool to do shared calendaring for some time now. I went through manual editing of text files, ical, Korganizer, RSSCalendar.com and some other tools that I don’t remember anymore. None of these provided all the functionality and comfort that I needed. So, I used neither one of them.

Today, I finally came across a tool that looks very promising. One of the comments to this post in Alexandra Samuel blog suggested AirSet.

I tried it and it was love from the first sight! AirSet provides a free online service for managing and sharing of calendars, contact lists, and web links. It features flexible access control facilities with user and group management. Sharing of information can be neatly controlled and can be utilized either via RSS feeds or via AirSet web service.

I liked it so much that I immediately registered and created my public calendar. Check the “Calendar” link at the navigation bar at the top of the page. There you will find my public calendar and a link to the RSS feed with items for the next 30 days.

I foresee a lot of popularity for AirSet in the near future. Congratulations to the development team for a really nice service. Let’s see how stable it is.

PayPal works for Cyprus

Cyprus (together with the other newly added EU members) has made it to the country list of PayPal. The account is somewhat limited, but at least it works. I’ve tested the registration procedure and went through OK. I can now receive and send money, but I can’t get them cashed. This is not a big problem since I can spend them online.

You can donate money to me if you feel like it by using the button below:

If you don’t have any idea on how much to donate, then here are a few ideas for you:

$1 USD – Thank you.
$5 USD – Let me know what can I do for you.
$10 USD – You are special.
$50 USD – You must be the size of your heart.
$100 USD – Leave your name and URL in the comments and I will write something nice about your website here.
$1000 USD – You practically bought my soul. :)

Try it. It should work. Let me know how it goes in the comments.

Speaking of dollars

I’ve been too kind to my visitors with the Google Adsense thingy. Only one or two of you guys are clicking on the ads. I don’t have any banners on the main page, and I used to have only one on the full post page. I am adding few more on the there. Hopefully those won’t be too annoying and will display enough interesting ads for you to check them out more often.

With all the blogging I am doing, I think I can earn some bucks with this site. If that won’t work, I will have to separate my blog into several blogs, each of which will be topic oriented (movies, Cyprus, blogosphere, computers, personal). Those will be much easier to promote and profit from.

C’mon, I’m not aksing for much.

SPAM isn’t all that bad

Where I look on the web, everyone is complaining about SPAM. “My Inbox is full of SPAM”, “I am lacking behind because of SPAM”, “My site was SPAMed” and stuff like that. I beileve that everything in the world has its good and bad sides. Such situation with SPAM when everyone is complaining about it is one-sided though. I believe there is some good to be found. Here is my small contribution.

Every time comments in my blog get SPAMed I feel good. You might think that I am such a pathetic loser that SPAM comments are the only kind that I get, but that’s not true. I am soon to celebrate a 1000th comment (that’s a hint by the way). The reason for my joy is my choice of software. Since I migrated to WordPress SPAM stopped bothering me. At all. When yet another script comes in and leaves two or three dozen comments about “online casino” or “morgage bonus” all over my posts, all I have to do is click on “Awaiting moderation” link in the administration interface, scroll down to the “Mark all as SPAM” link, click it, and than click “Moderate comments” button to submit my moderation. That’s it. It probably takes me less time to discard all of these comments than it takes that script to generate and post them. Fantastic!

But my blog SPAM is not the only kind that provides me with good mood. Occasionally, a SPAM message would get through my anti-SPAM software that protects my mailbox. Since these are usually singular messages which are easy to identify and delete, I can afford some time to look inside. More often than not they are pretty funny. Consider this one from today.

From: info@mamchenkov.net
To: leonid@mamchenkov.net
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 09:01:08 -0700
Subject: Your password has been successfully updated

[-- Attachment #1 --]
[-- Type: text/html, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0.5K --]

   Dear user leonid,

   You have successfully updated the password of 
   your Mamchenkov account.

   If you did not authorize this change or if you 
   need assistance with your account, please 
   contact Mamchenkov customer service at:
   info@mamchenkov.net

   Thank you for using Mamchenkov!
   The Mamchenkov Support Team

   +++ Attachment: No Virus (Clean)
   +++ Mamchenkov Antivirus - www.mamchenkov.net

[-- Attachment #2: approved-password.zip --]

Isn’t it funny? First of all, I am the administrator of mamchenkov.net domain and all services related to it. So I know that this is crap even before I finish reading the Subject line. Oh, wait. I actually know that this is crap even before I finish reading the From email address, because, guess what, there is no such email as info@mamchenkov.net. And, of course, there is no such thing as “The Mamchenkov Support Team”. Or “Mamchenkov Antivirus”. That all is just pure fun! It’s like I would be trying to convince you that you are not you, but that I am you, although I am obviously not. :)

Now that I am thinking about it, I was wrong saying that the Web remembers only the bad stuff about SPAM. There was a lot of laughter on that Slashdot story about some African cosmonaut left on the orbit. And there was this poetry project that was using phrases from the SPAM messages composed into poems.

What’s your SPAM fun story?