Signed Up with You Cubez

I signed up with You-Cubez today. The site is a place to create a backlink to your web site or blog. The more your cube is worth, the higher it will be placed, and thus the more likely to be clicked. You can also earn cash. It is interesting, and even fun, but I am very disappointed in the quality of links on the site.

This is a British based site, so all the money values are in £s which are worth about $2, so you can estimate the US value by multiplying dollars by 2, or halving the pounds.



This is what their home page looks like, with the mouse rolled over one cube. You buy a cube for 1£, choose your colors and start working your way up. Actually you can join and then earn enough money to buy your cube. So if you are patient, you don't have to put and cash into the system.

Be careful! There are two kinds of cash. There is cash you can actually cash out and there is cash that goes toward the value of your cube. You earn towards these accounts by clicking regular cubes, and cash cubes. You can earn by playing games, or signing up for offers, and other means. I don't understand it all yet!



You earn actual cash by clicking Cash Cubes. The number you can click is limited by the level of your membership.

You-Cubez' unique twist is that you can build up the value of your cube and then sell it to someone else for an actual profit.

Pros of You-Cubez that I see immediately:
You can see what web site you are going to click on rather than being served random sites as in a traffic generator.
You can start without putting any cash into the system
If you buy a cube the link will last for a year even if you do nothing
Low payout- just 6£ for standard members
There are ways to win a cube- it can be a fun site.

Cons of You-Cubez that I see immediately:
Almost all of the site links are money-making junk. I thought it would be a place to promote a real content site. There are a few- about 4 per page of 100 cubes shown, but you have to hunt for them.
It could be a real time waster. You can earn 1£ for playing 40 games. I played 4 just now, so I haven't earned anything yet since they only show increments of whole pounds, but you don't have to play all 40 at once. The number is recorded, and I assume will convert to value when I reach 40 total. It also takes time if you want to hunt for content sites.

I received a nickel at Neobux for signing up, so I decided to try it out. As always, I'll keep you posted.

See You-Cubez

web ad income Nov 27 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.03 Adgitize $.87 Project Wonderful $.01 Clixsense $.04 Neobux $.05 ______________________ Total: $1.00

unɟ ɹoɟ ʇsnɾ - ʇı dılɟ

˙unɟ ǝʌɐɥ ¡uoıʇɐɔılddɐ ǝlʇʇıl ʎllıs ɐ s,ǝɹǝɥ

Flip Text

web ad income Nov 26 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.02 Adgitize $.82 Project Wonderful $.02 Chitika $.09 Clixsense $.06 Neobux $.06 ______________________ Total: $1.07

Have I Caught Entrecard Cheating?

I wrote at the beginning of November about the results of some experimental clicking to see if Entrecard was delivering only the 15% of ads for their system which they claimed. Using the methods that I chose at that time to load the blog pages, the ad rate did work out to 15%.

But some questions were raised about other methods of serving blogs, so I decided to so some further research today. It was quite enlightening.

First I opened 100 blogs in the Entrecard system by using the EC toolbar. My selections for the type of blogs to open were from several categories that interest me, and the list was further filtered by "Most Popular." I often click this way, knowing that those bloggers are likely to reciprocate and visit my blog. For 100 blogs, there were 16 EC ads. This is certainly within the margin of error, although it is interesting to note that all 15 were served by the time I had opened 80 pages. In the 100 pages opened, 2 of them had no widget, which I thought was pretty interesting for a blog that had made it into the top 20 in a category (I chose 20 from each of 5 categories). I did reload each of those 2, to be sure that the widget really wasn't there.

But when I switched strategies, I really had an eye-opening result. I did two more sets of 100 blogs each, served by the EC widget. But for each of these sets I chose All and Random for the parameters of the search. This should have given me an unbiased sampling of whatever types of blogs are members of the EC network. Here's what I found:

First set:
A. Blogs served- 100
B. EC ads- 39 (39% or 44%- see conclusions)
C. no widget- 22 (one could reasonably expect that a small number of blogs would be so new to EC that they have been approved but not yet added a widget, but certainly not 22 of them. Of the 22, 2 were simply non-existent, 404 file not found errors.)

Second set:
A. Blogs served- 100
B. EC ads- 38 (38% or 43%- see conclusions)
C. no widget- 22 again (see comments above. One blog was by invitation only, one had a suspension notice. One other blog actually had a widget but I reported it for being over MY pornography threshold!)

Conclusion- if you say that I only viewed 88 (100-22) blogs in each set then the percent of EC ads is 39/88 = 44% or 38/88 = 43%! If I had discounted the 22 blogs that served no ads, for whatever reason, and continued to load blogs by this method to get 22 more valid views, even if all 22 had no EC ads, the ads would still have been 39% and 38%. Since it is more likely that there would have been some EC ads, the percentage would have gone even higher. For example, if in those 22 additional blogs, 5 had EC ads, then the percent would have been 44/100 = 44%.

For this level of ads, which is 2.5 times higher than they claim, there would need to be 500 blogs loaded with no EC ads at all to bring the percent back down to 15. Statistics is all about probabilities, and although this is possible, it is highly unlikely! Is there some little known way to load blogs whereby few or no ads are served? Perhaps I should try more sets with Favorites and Most Expensive?

To look at this another way, of the last 200 blogs I tried to open, only 156 of them had an EC widget on which to drop. Of the 156, only 79 actually had ads from other blogs in the system. That is 51%. If EC members are only shown ads from other blogs half the time (admittedly by this one method of blog delivery), no wonder they are upset.

And this is all on top of the fact that there are currently 10 paid ads in the system. I simply counted them as valid widgets that don't go to EC, but still reduce the amount of control that a blogger has over the ads which appear on his or her blog. One can choose to have up to 5 of those not display, but to remove them completely, you have to pay $48 a year and subscribe to Entrecard. This seems pretty far removed from the means of "free" blog promotion that Entrecard touts to potential members.

Checking up on the Entrecard 15% Ad Placement

web ad income Nov 24 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.05 Adgitize $.72 Project Wonderful $.02 Chitika $.03 Clixsense $.03 Microworkers $1.00 Swagbucks $10.00 Neobux $.065 ______________________ Total: $11.92

web ad income Nov 25 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.03 Adgitize $.72 Project Wonderful $.02 Clixsense $.05 Neobux $.07 ______________________ Total: $.89

Chitika Research Says 2% of Users Pay for Internet

Chitika is an online advertising broker which is based on searches performed by internet users. Publishers receive compensation when an advertisement is actually clicked on. They report 60,000 sites and 2 billion monthly impressions of their ads.

In a two-week study in October 2009, Chitika monitored the clicks on ads placed through the system. Without tracking any information about users, 86.6 million individuals were served ads through the system of 60,000 plus publishers. During the study, 1.8 million actual clicks were recorded. Simple division reveals a 2.15% click rate.

Although the use of Click-Thru Rate (CTR) as the sole indicator of success for web site advertising has been discounted in the United States since 2001, it can still be a useful metric. In March of this year, European CTR averages were 0.11% to 0.18%. Before the demise of the CTR in US reports, a 0.3% rate was considered good.

In light of these comparisons, one could reasonably conclude that the method Chitika has developed to deliver "predictive targeted" ads to internet surfers is highly successful.

Since I signed up with them in September, I have earned $3.71 with Chitika ads. Payout via PayPal is automatic when I reach $10. (It would be at $50 if I had requested to be paid by check.) Publishers are paid only for clicks, not impressions.

See Chitika Research Results
See The Latest Ad Click Count
See The Beginning of the End of CTR
Sign up with Chitika

web ad income Nov 23 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.04 Adgitize $.73 Project Wonderful $.03 My Survey $.75 Clixsense $.03 Neobux $.05 ______________________ Total: $1.63

Results of the Adgitize Click Style Poll

Here are the results of the poll which asked people to note how they tended to click on Adgitze Ads. It ran for two weeks, and there were 44 voters. The poll records "44 votes," but this is bad semantics by the poll designers, as there were 115 votes.

Assuming that anyone who writes a blog post, clicks for points and gets some ad and view points could make 250 points a day, and comparing that to the leaderboard, approximately 140 blogs average over 250 points a day. 44 respondents is 31% of that number, quite a good response. Here is what the people said who chose to participate.

Of all the choices the two outstanding responses were that people like to check out new ads, and they also attempt to avoid ads to sites that do not have an Adgitize widget. Therefore, the big messages seem to be:
     if you buy an ad, place an Adgitize widget somewhere on your site
     if you regularly advertise, change your banner every so often

Coming in with the lowest level, 4 people say that they don't click on any ads. Everyone has their own priorities, and a good case could be made for simply publishing ads and earning just a few pennies a day. In fact, if you don't advertise (and thus have an interest in recouping the cost of the ad), you can probably clear as much money in a month while doing nothing. While it is possible that some people checked both that the do not click at all, and that they don't try to make the 50 or 100 clicks, the choices were meant to be non-overlapping. If this is how it was read, then 6 people indicated that they click occasionally, probably when it is convenient.

Only 7 people click ads with no regard for the site that it leads to. Using the theory that the rest of the people who voted do make choices about what ads they click, then 37 people or 84% do make mental notes as to the sites they visit and use that information to guide future actions. I think a safe conclusion from this information is that 84% of those who click on Adgitize ads are paying some attention to the site visited, meaning that content is being assimilated.

About equally divided, and two sides of the same coin, many people said that they only click sites they like, and that they purposely avoid some sites that they don't like. Again, this means that advertisers pages are being read and understood at some level. Although Google has a bad attitude toward click and run, it is pretty amazing how much the human brain can absorb in a few seconds, and the value of that should not be discounted.

Next, I hoped to find out something about how people attempt to combine Adgitize clicking and Entrecard dropping. Slightly more responses were positive in their attempt to click on sites that carry both widgets, while a slightly lower number said that they actively avoid sites that don't also have the EC widget. I'm not sure that there is much new information there, but one might reasonably say that if you belong to both networks that you will gain more clicks if the two widgets are close together. Since EC no longer gives points when you are clicked on, this may not matter. But people who are looking for both may develop a preference for these blogs.

Finally, one person said that they sent me additional comments by email. I either deleted this accidentally, or it never came. I waded through 1500 messages about erectile dysfunction and free college degrees to check my junk filter, but I couldn't find it. So if this was you, and you had something you really wanted to say, please email me again!

This should be good news for advertisers. People ARE paying attention to your sites. Having a viable number of ads to choose from is good for everyone, since we don't all have the same tastes.

Thanks for participating. And if you haven't tried advertising with Adgitize yet, it's certainly worth giving it a try for a few days or a month. You WILL get increased traffic, and those people WILL notice what is on your site. Click below to join.

web ad income Nov 22 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.02 Adgitize $.71 Project Wonderful $.03 Clixsense $.05 Chitika $.09 Neobux $.04 ______________________ Total: $.94

Assessing My Income Opportunities

Well, I found out Friday that I am losing my best web site client. They want to go with a completely database driven site, and I don't have the software to do that. Sigh.

I need to look at possible ways to increase my income beyond just a few pennies a day. My best option is to continue to expand my online writing income. In general, here is what I currently do, with comments:

• Textbroker- some months there are enough good assignments to make over $100, some months the offerings are garbage
• Associated Content- I post only for Performance Views at the rate of $1.55 for 1000 views. The upfront payments process is so frustrating that I simply cannot deal with it. Here's a humorous look at that: My Wrong-Headed Journey Into AC Land. I earn about $3.50 a month there, but with effort I could earn a little more. I need to get enough articles posted that I move to a clout level 10. Then I would at least receive the highest PV rate.
• Shared Reviews- This is a site where real people review products that they own. I've blogged about it several times. They had a good beginning and then a rocky patch where they had to sink or swim on their own earnings. They are now fairly stable. It is an advantage if you joined early, but there are still good opportunities to make some cash there if you work hard. It should only get better as the site generates more income. This month $2000 is being split among the top performers (rules defining that change from month to month). My share of the pie last month was $47.81.
• Helium- You can write a ton of stuff for them without ever making a cent. I have sold one article there for $10, but can't cash out unless I have $20. Not a place I can talk myself into putting more effort into.
• Contests- I have entered several writing contests this month. Of course there is no money there unless I win. Pretty iffy, but at least it gave me a chance to be a little creative
• Undisclosed- by far, my biggest income generator is from a source I am not free to disclose at this time. Right now, I'm making about $300 a month there. But the articles are all repetitive, SEO heavy, pieces on topics of limited interest to me. I have a hard time making myself do them.

I would say that an average price (not calculated, just seat-of-the-pants estimate) per article is about $5. If I could make myself write four articles a day, I could cover my bills. Just FOUR articles. But I have to tell you, that yesterday I did three, and my brain was just about fried. They take varying amounts of research, but some take quite a bit. They have so many criteria to meet the client's SEO wishes that it can give me a headache! (Seriously... one article had 13 keywords it wanted included at least once, but not more than twice each- and two of those were primary concepts of the article with no good synonyms. They specified the number of paragraphs and subheadings. They wanted it in a natural writing style, and they wanted it all in 400 words. Took two hours, and only earned $5.50).

So... I think I'm off to write an article.

P.S. I'll report the results of the Adgitize click style poll tomorrow, with some analysis.

web ad income Nov 21 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.04 Adgitize $.74 Project Wonderful $.03 My Survey $.10 Clixsense $.07 Chitika $.03 Neobux $.055 ______________________ Total: $.97

Using Windows Picture and Fax Viewer

Windows Picture and Fax Viewer is a very handy application that I often forget about using. I thought if I reminded you about it, it would help me remember too!

Any computer with Windows XP or 2003 has it installed. In Windows Vista it has been replaced with the similar Windows Photo Gallery. It is not software for editing, but just an easy way to see the images in a folder, at a decent size, without opening editing software.



You can view the images in any folder which contains images. Acceptable formats include jpg, gif (including animated), bmp, png, wmf, emf, ico, and tiff. Open the desired folder. It doesn't matter what view is selected (eg. thumbnails, list, etc). Select any image and right click, then choose Open With/ Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. The viewer will open and you can scroll through the images that are in that folder.



There can be files in the folder that aren't images, and the viewer will ignore them. In the screen capture here you can see that I'm about to view any images that are lost on my too-busy desktop- an easy way to find an image.

Within Windows Picture and Fax Viewer you can view pictures with the best fit to the screen, make them full size, or zoom in and out. You can rotate images. You can print, save with the same or a different name, and delete images. Another choice is to close the viewer and open the image with your default image editing software.

Supposedly, in the My Pictures folder if you simply double-click on a photo file the viewer will automatically open. This may not be true. For me, a double-click just opens my photo editing program. But you can always do the right-click and Open With option.

See Microsoft Documentation for the Picture and Fax viewer.

web ad income Nov 20 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.69 Project Wonderful $.04 Clixsense $.06 Neobux $.06 Microworkers $1.60 ______________________ Total: $2.46

How to Connect a Digital Projector to a Computer

I've borrowed a different digital projector a couple of times in the past few weeks, and struggled to get it working correctly with my computer. The problem is that computers have many different video cards, and getting the two electronic components to talk to each other may not be obvious. Nevertheless, there are four basic steps to follow (just for the video feed), and I'll list those here.



1. Find the connection cord, probably a 15-pin connector, and hook it between the computer and the projector. There may be two such connections on the projector (use either one), but there is probably only one on the computer. If you want the audio to run through the projector you will need to also connect that cord, and again, it should only fit in the one jack.

2. Connect both the projector and computer to a power source and turn them on. The projector will probably have a basic on/off switch, and a power/standby button. You will need to turn them both on. These should boot up independently. The projector will probably display some sort of brand logo.



3. One of three things should happen, which will determine what you do next.
A. If you are extremely fortunate, the computer screen will appear on the wall screen and you are good to go. It's unlikely that this will happen.
B. You may get a blue screen on the wall and a message that the feed has been detected. This is a good start, but not helpful for your presentation.
C. You may see the message shown above, "no input detected."

4. Send the computer display to the projector. This is the tricky one. If 3A did not happen, try the following in order.
A. Find the Input button on the projector and press it to cycle through the choices. This may get you nothing, or it may progress you to 3B.
B. Open your computer's display panel. (through the start menu, or right click on the desktop), then choose Display, then Settings.


You should see two boxes, which may not be the same size. The box with a 1 is your computer screen. The box with a 2 represents the video display. You need to select the 2 and change its size with the slider bar to match that of your computer. If you want to use the mouse as a pointer, also check the box "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor," and drag the numbered box so that it matches the physical position of your computer relative to the projector. (If the projector is left of the computer, drag box 2 to the left). Click "Apply." You will probably be given a countdown timer to verify that you want to make the changes. If you aren't sure, just say yes, because you can always change them again.


C. This may now present the computer on the screen. It is more likely that this will get you a blue screen, but you should be able to move the mouse and see the cursor move off the edge of the computer monitor and appear on the wall screen. This is progress!
D. You will probably need to click on "Advanced." This will open another window, and one of the tabs should have the name of your video card.



There should be several choices of settings. On the left should be a list of options. Look for the one that is similar to this one "set up multiple displays." This will open a panel with choices similar to the ones seen below.



On this list, I selected "Clone." And you can see the projector name appears in the list under point 2. Click the Apply button, and the monitor display SHOULD now appear on the wall screen.

This is not a definitive troubleshooting list. But it should solve many ordinary types of computer/projector communication problems.

My best advice is to make sure that you have PLENTY of time to get set up if you are doing a presentation with an unfamiliar digital projector.

web ad income Nov 19 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.68 Project Wonderful $.03 My Survey $.10 Clixsense $.05 Neobux $.05 ______________________ Total: $.92

Dreaming of Far Off Vacations

Over the past year I have written a number of articles on travel topics, several of which were about countries in the Balkan region. Consequently, I have to say that I’ve developed quite an interest in taking a Croatian holiday, to help satisfy my terminal wanderlust.

The eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea has become quite a tourist destination, but there are still any number of small towns where I could escape the crowds, and explore islands in a small boat. Croatia spills down the seacoast, and one can find villages, hiking trails, mountains, beaches, and nature parks, as well as the night life and cities that appeal to most tourists (not me!). Of course, it won’t ever happen on my budget, but hey, I can dream!

One always has to wonder if it is worth paying to have a travel agent help arrange a trip. Here’s a review of Thomson Holidays that I found which has a very positive attitude toward using an agent. I decided to look up Thomson Holidays to see what they offer. They do have packages which include Croatia holidays.

Who knows, maybe some day I’ll get to visit some of the fascinating places around the world.

Thomson Holidays offers packages to many destinations in Europe, Thailand, Africa, Australia and surrounding islands, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, Israel, South America, and the United States.

See Travel, for one of my favorite wanderlust poems.

web ad income Nov 17 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.23 Adgitize $.63 Project Wonderful $.04 Clixsense $.06 Chitika $.03 Neobux $.075 ______________________ Total: $1.07

web ad income Nov 18 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.03 Adgitize $.70 Project Wonderful $.03 Microworkers $1.35 Clixsense $.04 Neobux $.06 ______________________ Total: $2.21

My Smashed Penny Collection

Just for fun I thought that I would tell you about my smashed penny collection. Probably like every other kid I had a few of these collected on family vacations. I have no idea what happened to those first ones I owned.

For a long time they went out of fashion and you couldn't find anywhere to get them. As an adult, the first machine I saw was at the 1982 Knoxville World Expo, which was the last gasp of the phenomena that were the World's Fairs. I had to have one!

Since then, I've run into a few of the machines. You put in a penny, and 2 quarters to pay for the privilege of turning a crank that runs the penny through a die, which elongates it and imprints an design. Some machines will do multiple designs - for 51 cents each, of course! I try to get them all.

There are now 26 in my collection. I know, that's pretty lame for a collection, but it's fun! This one is the closest to where I live, and also the most unusual since it has a hole and bead chain attached. It is for the Big Sable Point Lighthouse at Ludington, Michigan.

Smashed pennies can be worth up to several dollars after a few years. Like any collectible, the value depends on the demand. The more unusual your penny, and the greater general interest, the more it is going to appreciate. You can even buy thin plastic booklets to store them in. However, I don't like how tightly the pennies fit in the pockets. I'd rather be able to pick them up and feel the designs.

It's really hard to choose a favorite, but I think it might be this one of Snoopy in a canoe, with two of his little bird friend campers!

I've included links to two sites about collecting smashed pennies.

See Penny Collector
See Smashed Pennies- America's Best Souvenirs

web ad income Nov 16 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.01 Adgitize $.62 Project Wonderful $.04 Clixsense $.09 Chitika $.03 Neobux $.07 ______________________ Total: $.86