March 2008

Stripped by someone elses blog, here's my reply in full, on how to break away from Yuwie.

The original post was on, and the original stripped reply was on http://www.profy.com/2008/03/03/yuwie-social-or-pyramid-network/ Here is the full text of my reply...

Forget Yuwie. I have some friends who dumped 100s of hours in design, and time into Yuwie, and got paid 99 cents. Their "downlines" (read:suckers who signed up under them) numbered in the 100s too. So for the amount of ads they are showing, and what Yuwie is getting paid for it, they are making hardly nothing.

counterpoint: Oh! But they are making something, you just admited to that!

retort: If I hired you, as a semi-skilled web designer, and offered to pay you 1/2 of 1 cent per hour of your thoughtful hard labor, what whould you say? But rather than just whine about a place getting super-cut-rate below

sweatshop wage labor out of innocent people, let me give you some free advice, about some free things... It's up to you to put it together right though, and you do need a broadband connection.

http://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/ <= Use the free service.

http://janaserver.de/start.php?lang=en <= Free server to point the above at.

http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ <= Makes a blog website on above server real easy.

http://adsense.google.com <= Free advertising program that pays you real money.

you can add these for more power...

http://php.net/ <= Free module to use with above server package.

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.1.html <= Free DB manager to use with above. .

and finally...

http://zaphodb777.dyndns.org <= My website that uses all of the above, and makes an honest 10-20 cents a day so far (it's young) from Google.

Yes it's work and learning, but no more than having to jump through Yuwie's hoops, and eventually alot less work once established, and much more money in your pocket! :)

Zap

(PS. I should really copy this to my own blog!)

(PPS. And I did!)

A sign of hopelessness.

Arrgh! Who really loves a geek?

I Am 87% Geek

Sorry about the fouled sticker, but it doesn't jive with my blog's style-sheet. They should generate the sticker, as a graphic, on the fly, using the PHP graphics module... but that would be assuming things of a cheese site.

Pointless I know, but cute.

Zap!

The power of webcams.

Okay, I used to think that webcams were just cute little technological thingamabobs that were an addition to a website. It's turning out they are much much more. I put up my webcam of Casper Mountain, and then submitted to 4 camera indexing sites. Wasn't expecting much, but...

The response was amazing. Almost as many visitors as sites I had submitted to! So, I have gone whole hog and submitted to every APPROPRIATE site that came up in the first 10 pages of the Google search results. Let's see what happens.

So here is my advice, if you have the savvy to set up a webcam like at http://zaphodb777.dyndns.org/webcam.php and hope to make money off something like http://adsense.google.com/  by all means get with it. It can drive gobs of visitors to your site.

What should you point your webcam at? How about the yard where the dog plays, or the bird feeder, or even the street outside? I am lucky enough to have a glorious 1KM tall mountain to point mine at, but even a marina, or a pretty red cliff that changed with the light would be nice. You could, on the edge of etiquette post a picture you took with your digital cam, and update it daily. ( Just please warn visitors not to wait all day for the next image.)

Oh, and forget porn... that is so NOT what people surfing the web who buy actual products are looking for. I would almost bet, that there would be punitive actions by adsense if you had filth on your pages. As a matter of fact, it is against their policy.

So let's get clickin' like Chickety China the Chinese Chicken, and show the world our corners of it!

Pepsi Yawn and Snickers Emo

Okay, how many of you have almost damaged your radio due to the Diet Pepsi Yawn commercial?

Anyone hear of any vehicle accidents caused by sleeping drivers pushed into sleep by Pepsi Yawn?

No, I am not going to post the real name of the product here, as that would boost popularity in some engines. I love Pepsi, but think their latest idea to sell what actually tastes like a real good new product, BLOWS! It's almost enough to send me out for a bottle of Coke. But no, I won't drink Coca Cola... it really is the choice drink of crankers. Really, I am not kidding. How many hackers do you know that drink Pepsi! Now how many ex, and current dope addicts do you know that greedily suck down Coke? Think about it.

Now onto bashing Snickers, and their new product commercial. Now, as time goes on, it will be no secret I hate emos. I am clinically depressed and am of the opinion all emos are faking it, or are depressed by the fact they are gay, and can't come to grips with it. For god sakes, I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself. This new commercial for snickers is such an annoyance, that I can't even remember the name of the new product.

It goes a little like this: Some poop-head emo gets offered a snickers something-or-other energy bar, and tries it. Now the 1st part of the commercial that annoys me happens, he unwraps it loudly, and eats and swallows it very loudly. These bodily sounds are gross when amplified, and only George Carlin could make them "not gross". Sadly, no company is hiring George lately (HINT).

Next the emo pipes up and says "Hey! I am not hungry anymore, feel energetic, and the loneliness is gone............ Oh wait, there's the loneliness." (or words to that effect). I am now groaning and hollering epithets at the radio so loud I don't hear the end of the commercial, and could care less.

Remember in Pink Floyd's "The Wall", where all the carbon-copy kids were marching into the meat grinder to become the regular pulp of society? I think we had a glimpse into a cure for emos right there, in a more literal sense. Put them out of our, and their collective misery... and feed some pigs at the same time.

Get a clue Snickers. Emos don't have money, and can't afford your product. Why not try an upbeat commercial, with some good data about your product in it, and present it in a clean, appealing fashion. I certainly wouldn't buy food that had anything to do with a lice infected emo (notice the head scratching?), and neither should you.

Zap!
(Climbing off the soapbox again!)

Added Mac Flaming as suggested by Mr. Frost

A few You-Tube videos for you...

Mac Killed My Inner Child

Macs Suck

And the winner is...

But everyone can win!

Enjoy!

Zap!

iPod Nano... or how to proprietarily shoot yourself in the foot.

When will these companies learn, that the best way to hurt yourself, is to strike out on your own, and put a wear-part in a device where people can't get at it to change it?

Case in point, the iPod Nano... The batteries are catching on fire from being poorly constructed (the batteries), and cycled too much. Oh, sure, the same battery pack, in a different lump of plastic has been powering cell phones for years without problems (educated guessing there), but phones don't throw the kind of load on a battery that an h.264 + AAC audio and video decode will do. And people like the device, and some people (like the Japanese ) will watch video on both the way to and from work, charging at both places (lots of cycles in there!). So it goes as expected the first LiOn batteries are burning out there, rather than in the more gadget sedate USA.

Face it, when a Lithium Ion battery, like the one in the Nano gets used beyond it's life expectancy, they usually suicide by one thing... hot gas venting (fire).

So take this as a lesson learned Mr. Jobs, use standard stuff, or pay the price (as you may have to with these Nanos needing safe batteries)...

iPod Nano II should use RCRV-3, standard rechargeable Lithium Ion. Why?

1. You don't have to pay any other company for use of the open standard.
2. Most people could replace a defective battery themselves.
3. Allot of people could remove and set on some concrete a battery that was hot, but not yet venting gas, thus saving their investment!
4. You will finally break the stereotype in the non-apple community that if it has a fruit name on it, it's proprietary.

Of course, Apple has been kept alive for many many years, by illogical people who find proprietarily being locked into one company's products is just fine. (Usually leftists who don't mind complete control over their lives, such as attorneys, news publishers, and educators.) So, chances are, Apple will continue to go on for as long as there are illogical people to feed it.

Seriously here, ask someone their political affiliation, job, and then ask what computer they own...

Leftist AND/OR Legal/Publisher/Educator = High chance of a Mac.

Conservative or Libertarian of any other employment = Very low chance of a Mac.

Make your own survey, and see for yourself, I dare you.

Zap!
(Soapbox off!)

TORsion of the stomach!

Well, just a couple hours ago, I was relaxing on a late friday night, when an IRCOP comes into the chat channel the applet on here connects to...

And says I was in the main room of the network spouting obscenities.

Seems my TOR server was LEAKING! I had NO exits allowed, and yet, someone was connecting through my machine, to Starchat's #Starchat, and trolling in there.

TOR is dead, dead to me, and should be dead to you. It leaked, and I had told it not to. so avoid httq://t0r.eff.0rg! The project is unsafe, and will never be trusted here again!

Zap! (With a very sour stomach!)