Scattered Mind

Thats the way I feel about BlogMad .

I’ve been using BlogMad for the last couple of months since they started back in the day(actually a few months ago).

I was one of their first initial Beta Testers.

I’ve also posted about them here .

After a hickup here and there they are now full in swing and taking over the Blog Scene piece-by-piece.

For the few months they’ve been online and going they already have something like 2700 blogs registered on their site and more than 5400 users registered.

One advantage about BlogMad is that they have 1:1 ratio when browsing Blogs. So for every blog you visit, you get one visit back – fair deal – no strings attached.

They also hold special double point days or timeframes where if one browses blogs you get double credits etc.

I can’t wait for them to accept payments to buy credits etc..

If you guys wanna join BlogMad, please use this link so I can get some credits.

Gr8 stuff!!!

As I realized yesterday there is much more to Google search then meets the eye.

Usually I just type in what I wanna search and voila, I get it, but there are much more feature to Google Search then the standard search, like the Calculator function etc.

Here are a few examples:

Finding Pages:

Holiday Travel	The words Holiday and Travel
Bermuda OR Greece	either the word Bermuda or the word Greece
People Eating	The exact Phrase “People Eating“
Tango -dance	Search for Tango but NOT dance
define: protocol	Display definition of the word protocol

Calculator:
For this type in any arithmic calculation and see it calculate the answer for you.

Look at these examples:
12 + 34 – 56 * 7 / 8
45% of 39

Some nice conversion tools too
120 lbs in kg ,
300 Euros in USD

There is alot of features like stock price index etc. thats built into Google Search, but head on over to the help section to find out even MORE .

Google Search Help

Again, another innovation out of Googles’ camp,

Google Checkout

Google Checkout gives you the power to only have one login for all the shops where you shop(thats if they support Google Checkout). You can track orders from multiple shops in one interface. This brings everything together.

This is really a cool innovative idea. I just wish they would start supporting South Africa. Currently Google Checkout only supports US peeps. Paypal also does not support South African merchants.

Whats wrong with us(South Africa) !!!!!?
South Africa does have a stable economy, and one of the best investment oppurtunities in Africa, can’t these “giants” see that.

Haven’t you ever wished you could have one page where you could everything you need for PHP,

or busy in Debian but can’t remember the function(or what it starts with for that matter).

Ever wanted to do abit of database maintenance but do not know what function or utilities to use.

Then you need to get yourself a few Cheat Sheets .

Lets face it, unless you have a photographic memory, no developer can remember all the different functions, options, tags, etc. that exist. Documentation can be cumbersome at times, thats why I like cheat sheets. They are quick references that feature the most commonly forgotten things on a specific topic. You can print them out and hang them on your wall, or just keep them handy in your bookmarks for quick reference.

Over 30 Cheat Sheets for developers

Well, I’ve received an invitation to visit LugRadio Live this year. I’m very eager to go, as all my accomadation etc. is paid for, all I need to do is get the plane ticket.

At the moment, I’m just stuck on a project, and not just that, first need to sort out the companies’ tax stuff, well, at the moment there is 27 days left, so – hopefully I’ll make it, otherwise there’s always next year.

Though it would have been cool to watch Mark Shuttleworth speaking overseas…

At last, some good news. I heard tonight that my Ford Explorer sale went through and I will be getting my present in next week.

It is a 1994 Ford Explorer 4.0 litre V6 american beast. One of my dream cars, although with the current fuel prices I’m starting to wonder about this purchase, but for now it will only be my Sunday toy.

Pictures to follow as soon as it’s MINE – hahaha

My favourite editor for doing Java and PHP is Eclipse with the PHPeclipse plugin for the PHP stuff.

One thing that happens quite quickly when developing and using the wide array of tools, is the desktop getting cluttered very fast.

What I’ve acome up as a “sort-of” solution is making the Outline and Navigator panels hide when not using them. They call it “Fast View“. You just right click on the tab of the panel and select/deselect the “Fast View” option. When selected, it behaves by disappearing as soon as you type or click on the code page, thus giving you a full view of the code and not all the other stuff.

Panel Gone

Navigator showing

Outline showing

Well a while back I wrote a post where I mentioned that I added an extra Adsense banner to see what improvement it has on the clicks on the banners.

Firstly, what I’ve done, a recap:

I originally just had 1 Adsense banner on the right(number 1 on illustration).
I had about 1-5 clicks in one month which did not make me alot of dough.

So, I added an extra banner almost in the “reading-line”(how people read the site), but still not interfering with the users reading or browsing(not too IN YOUR FACE).

The result is that I now get about 20-30 clicks per month on these Adsense banners, and the traffic was the same as it previously was.

So I reckon, the reason for this could be 1 of 2 explanations.
1. The fact that there is now 2 banners on the site; or
2. The fact that the new banner is in the user’s reading path, making it possible for the user to spot it in the hook of his eye-type-of thing.

Well, again, I have spend little time to think about a post, but have a nice link to some nice Javascript toolkits, this is quite neatly done.

Javascript for Rich Internet Applications

This is really a good example of very carefully planned site, with fancy AJAX modules for giving you a sort of desktop effect with everything you need/want right in your browser on one page, I like this a bit more than Luuks’ Browser Operating System, this is much faster and lighter, and not too busy.

Do checkout NetVibes.com