Monthly Archives: June 2007

Windows Vista & The Memory Monster

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My friend bought a new laptop the other day after his old died on him (shows a blank white screen on startup – anyone have any ideas?). So he toddled off to the local PC World to have a look at the laptops. I seem to remember a time a few years ago where desktop PC’s took up the floor space and laptops were confined to one or two rows. Now laptops dominate the floorspace.

While browsing the laptops, I came across a Compaq Presario with the following spec:

1. 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor
2. 2 GB RAM
3. 120 GB HDD
4. 256 MB Shared Graphics
5. 15.4″ Widescreen LCD
6. Dual Layer DVD +/- ReWriter
7. Vista Home Premium

All that for just £599 – an absolute bargain. Since I’m still using a beat up old Compaq with a PIII & 256MB RAM I knew that they make good sturdy laptops; which is more than can be said for the Toshiba my friend was using. So eventually after a bit of umming and ahing he took the plunge and bought the new Compaq (and I don’t know how I walked out without one, I was this close | | to getting one myself). He got a right touch on it too, getting £20 knocked off for signing up to their ‘care’ plan – which was free and can be cancelled at any time.

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The Problems With GoDaddy: Part 2

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This is a continuation of the post I made on 26th June which you can read about here. I’m carrying on by explaining what I think is wrong with the GoDaddy website, interface and ordering process.

Messy & Confused Website

In an attempt to offer every internet service under the sun, the GoDaddy website is mishmash of information. Assume you want to purchase a domain name. You assume they are all $8.95 or lower because that’s what the pretty image above the search box says. You notice some * marks above the prices which usually means there are some terms and conditions involved. After searching on the page you find that the * mark could mean that the domain costs $0.99 or $6.99 or maybe $5.99. It could even mean that there is a $0.22 ICANN fee added to the final cost. Who knows?!

So you type in the domain you want (and maybe get a little confused by the plethora of domain extentions that are available) and choose the .tv extension because your site will be about a TV show.

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New AdSense Borders

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I was in my AdSense account earlier toady grabbing some code to put on my site and I noticed a new drop down box that I hadn’t seen before.

Google have added a new feature where you can now select what style of corner your ad borders have. They now have 3 styles to choose from. These are as follows:

Square Corner
This is the traditional square corner that has been around since the beginning. Nothing fancy here.

Slightly Rounded Corner
This is one of the new rounded corners which has a subtle curved edge.

Very Rounded Corner
This is one of the large rounded corners. The radius is a lot larger and pronounced

The New Code
To tell AdSense what sort of corner you want on your ads there is a new line code added to the text that you copy and paste.

  • google_ui_features = “rc:0″; => Square Corners
  • google_ui_features = “rc:6″; => Slightly Rounded Corners
  • google_ui_features = “rc:10″; => Very Rounded Corners

Effectiveness
Current AdSense theory still says that the best way to optimize your ads is to make them not look like your ads; in other words, blend them in with your content and background and don’t make them stand out like a sore thumb.

I haven’t heard anyone mention anything to say this is no longer the case, so whether or not anyone will make use of these new borders or if they increase CTR is as yet unknown.

To find out if there is any point using these new rounded corners, I will be adding them to one of my popular sites called PayPalPages.net which already makes use of rounded corners for the content boxes.

I’ll report back in a week or two with my findings. I’ll also add some images to this post so you can see what the rounded borders look like.

The Problems With GoDaddy

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GoDaddy is the largest registrar of domains according to WebHosting.info with over 18m domains registered and nearly 21% market share (Disclaimer: I couldn’t find another source to back up this data or when it was valid from so take it with a pinch of salt).

Given that they have such a massive market share and are the dominant force in domain names, why can’t they provide a half decent service? The website interface is the worst I’ve ever used, the domain managing platform doesn’t work in Opera browser, the usability of their software falls woefully short and that’s all topped off with the worst online shopping cart experience in the world.

If you have any experience with domains and hosting in the past 6 months, you can’t have failed to hear about the astonishing story about RegisterFly.com – at one time claiming to be the 3rd largest domain registrar on the internet. If you haven’t had the misfortune to read about the RegisterFly fiasco, then take 30 minutes to read through some articles on RegisterFlies.com – an unofficial customer complaints site.

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HYIP101 Website

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This is a quick message to any members of HYIP101 that haven’t received our updates. The website has been relocated to http://www.hyip101.biz where you should be able to login to the website and forum as normal. The reason it was relocated was because the hyip101.com domain was a victim of a spam attack and we were asked to remove the site from the server.

So if you have been searching for the hyip101 website or the hyip101 forum, be advised that it’s now located on http://www.hyip101.biz (note the TLD has changed).

If you are one of our customers and need to contact us at any time, please head over to www.juicysupport.com and submit a ticket. We’ll get back in touch right away – note that all communication goes through the support desk, so if you haven’t heard from us after 24 hours, submit another ticket telling us that you haven’t heard from us (chances are our original reply got sucked into your spam/bulk mail folder).

SEO Elite Review

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When it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) I’m a bit of a self confessed SEO nerd. I check all the latest techniques, tips and pointers that are thrown by the gurus of SEO – I have folders overflowing with SEO articles that I print out. I check every tool and every bit of software. I’m even subscribed to goodness knows how many SEO newsletters.

SEO Elite ReviewNow there are some decent freebie tools out there that can help you with optimizing your website. The tools on SEO Chat and iWebTool spring to mind.

There’s also a plethora of paid seo tools available on the internet, choosing the right one is essential for your search engine rankings. Some seo software is quite cheap and others are rediculously expensive. If you are on a budget you need to get one that packs maximum punch for what it costs.

I personally use a tool called SEO Elite. I came across this tool after being thoroughly fed up with some other software (that shall remain entirely nameless, but if you replaced the ‘S’ in SEO with a ‘C’ you might be close). Doing what all good seo people do when researching a keyword, I went to Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines and typed in seo software and looked which sites were ranked in the top 10 of each. I found that SEO Elite was ranked in the top 5 of all the search engines so it seemed to me that not only did they talk the talk, but they walked the walk too.

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Another Get Rich Quickly Scheme?

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I’m often drawn to get rich quickly schemes like a moth to the burning flame although rarely take action to join any and especially loathed to recommend or promote any. In my experience (and everyone’s gut reaction) they are mostly scams, pyramid schemes, illegal, shady, require too much work, require active selling and so on.

There is a company that caught my eye back in January of this year and I’ve been following it closely ever since. I even went ahead and paid the $180 signup fee and have paid the $100 per month subscription fees to be a member.

OK, I know, all get rich quick schemes are scams and before you lose all respect for me and take sincere pity (or just laugh at my expense), please take a minute or two to read on about this…opportunity.

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Site Authentication For Google AdSense

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I just noticed that Google AdSense now has the option to show ads in websites that would previously have been inaccessible due to the page requiring the user to login (authenticate themselves as a legitimate user). For many marketers who run restricted access membership sites it was a pain because we couldn’t put adsense ads in there due to the fact that the spider was unable to check the content and provide relevant ads.

I’m not entirely sure how old this feature is as I’ve only just noticed it myself. Here is a screenshot of what it looks like if you haven’t seen it already:
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B People

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I’ve come across a site (through mainly mindless surfing) that may well give me a scientific excuse the next time I get out of bed after 12 midday to be lambasted by my housemates for being a lazy sod. I’m not infact lazy. I am a B person. Unfortunately the name given doesn’t sound quite as intelligent as the science behind it.

Anyway, I have another word for B People. Computer Geeks. I firmly believe that anyone who works closely, willingly and enthusiastically with computers are naturally late risers and work best when the world is asleep.

Are you a late riser? Do you work with computers also? I need to make a poll and find out if my belief is true.

Find out more about B People at B Society.org

Caution: Builders At Work

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Cover your eyes (and probably your ears to, you can never be too sure) ladies and gentleman and watch your step. This is a building site and lines of CSS, HTML and PHP are being built so please take care. Watch out for any unexpected holes (or broken pages) and mind your head on low flying pixels.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused during this necessary upgrade. We hope to have PeterClaridge.com up and running again serving the internet and wider community (or at the very least serving his ego) within the next few days.

Best regards,

The Management