Tubetorial has a great tutorial on the basics of making money from Adsense. I’ve been experimenting with the principal of the golden triangle for about 6 months (although Tubetorial don’t call it that, they do refer to that general area, the top left hand quadrant) and there’s little doubt that it works. I’ve not bothered to change the template here at duncanriley.com to utilise it mainly because I’ve not been previously concerned much with the site making money, but maybe after my trip to Canukistan I’ll have to have a play with it when I get back. Which reminds me, if you are in the market for a great WordPress template, the Cutline theme from the folks at Tubetorial is a great theme, I’ve had a little play with it, and it’s easy to move around elements, the layout is clean, and it seems to be very SEO friendly as well. Worth a look.

Tags: Adsense, tubetorial

Sorry to those who had emailed me saying they had looked forward to meeting me, or catching up either at Techcrunch, or the day after it in New York. Unfortunately I’ve had my permission to attend removed and am unable to leave work in Toronto for the trip. Maybe another time, or even in the future with another company one day.

My article this week at The Blogging Times is dedicated to Reporters Sans Frontiers 24-hour online demo against Internet censorship (more details at RSF here). I wrote the article on Monday morning. 24 hours later and what do I read in Bloglines:

The Guide:

On November 3rd, US telecom giant Verizon says it will disconnect a Montreal-based internet service provider (ISP) Epifora whose clients host sexually edgy chat sites. Civil-liberties experts say it’s an unprecedented assertion of corporate control over legal expression.

they also provide other disturbing news out of the United States, some of which I wasn’t previously aware of:

The US government has also lately been turning down the thermometer on internet speech.

?Ǭ? Based on SM stories she had written and posted to her web site, Karen Fletcher was indicted in September for obscenity by US federal prosecutors on charges that carry up to 30 years in prison.

?Ǭ? US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales urged Congress in September to pass legislation requiring that ISPs log all users’ internet activity

?Ǭ? In August, the US Senate ratified the International Convention on Cybercrimes– which requires signatories to investigate and arrest people for suspected crimes– including crimes of expression– that may not be even be illegal in the place where they were committed.

According to Slashdot:

“The Brazilian senate is considering a bill that will make it a crime to join a chat, blog, or download from the Internet without fully identifying oneself first. Privacy groups and Internet providers are very concerned, and are trying to lobby against the bill, but it seems they won’t have much success.”

It just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it. I’m no anti-war, raving lefty, but you’ve really got to ask the question: what in the world are US, UK and Australian troops doing in Iraq, because they certainly aren’t fighting for freedom, after all, our freedoms continue to be taken away. The one thing that sets the Western World apart from the barbarism of many other countries is being given up. Dare I say, but are the terrorists actually winning?

Support RSF by posting in support of free speech online, on your blog, on November 7, and by visiting their site. If we don’t speak loudly now, we may never have the opportunity to do so again in the future.

Tags: RSF, internet censorship

Video as follows (not viewable in the RSS feed, sorry):

Benjamin Haslem writes at Corporate Engadget about experiencing poor customer service from Foxtel, and suggests that it’s evidence that Telstra’s pathetic customer service.

I’ve got relatives here who just moved house: Telstra for phone and Telstra Bigpong for the net. The phone went across ok, but the stupid thing is, despite both the line and the net connection being owned by Telstra, you can’t book your ADSL move until after the new phone service is put on, and then you’ve got to wait a minimum of 3 days. It got worse, the ADSL goes on and it didn’t work. Now I’d note we’re talking same phone number, same exchange for the connection, indeed they literally moved 3 street down in the same suburb. So Telstra blames my relatives and tells them that their ADSL modem must be stuffed and they should buy a new one. $170 later, they’ve got a new one….and the ADSL still doesn’t work. Telstra continues to state that it’s their fault, and nothing is wrong. So thankfully I tell them to get onto Telstra Countrywide locally, these guys are about the only decent and good people working for Telstra. Next day a technician comes out and tests the line: guess what, somethings wrong in the exchange, it’s a provisioning problem! So now it’s nearly two weeks, they are $170 out of pocket, and they still don’t have internet access, and Telstra is unable to tell them how long it will take to be fixed!

F*ckers.

I’ve still got Bigpond ADSL under contract till May 07, but I don’t use it, got myself a nice 2mb Cable connection. Phones are still with Telstra, need to change that now that I’m not moving house again any time soon.

And while I’m at it: bring on the privitisation! All this BS about Telstra getting worse in private hands. Rubbish: no self respecting, proper private company provides this level of service. Scary thing is though: once upon a time it was actually worse, but maybe I’m showing my age, because I can still remember dealing with them when they were Telecom and 100% owned by the Federal Government. Think Centrelink but with your phone connection.

The SMH reports on some left wing groups trying to get this blog and this blog removed from Google’s Blogger. OK, so I may not particularly agree with all the views expressed on either blog, but this doesn’t give me a god given right to demand that they be taken down from Blogger or anywhere else for that matter. Indeed, some of the groups online jumping up and down about these two blogs have highly questionable, at least in my opinion, left wing beliefs as well, with supporters who are typical of the usual bunch of communists and Marxists you find around these sorts of “kill the fascists” style groups. Personally I find their beliefs abhorrent as well (and that’s no secret, I’m a libertarian capitalist through and through) however do we hear calls for these people to be censored online? Where’s the calls for those advocating destruction of our democratic society to be replaced by something between Cuba and North Korea to be censored? Of course in a free society they’re entitled to have their say as well, just as the 2 blogs that these people want banned. The cost of free speech may be high on either side, but we should still defend it, and indeed, it’s worth defending the most when we disagree with it. After all, any totalitarian society starts with the minority groups before its gets to the general populous, and that could well be you.

FortWayne.com reports on the rise in the use of call centres to take orders at fast food outlets. At the moment they (the call centres) are in the same town, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that if your using a call centre to take an order in a drive thru line it’s only a matter of time til you’ll be ordering a Big Mac via a call centre in India, even if you’re sitting in your car in Western Australia, the United States, or even timbuktu.

This Slashdot comment thread is probably one of the more interesting reads I’ve had lately…altough be warned, to read it all takes quite some time. As one commenter noted, it’s nice not to see just another flamewar but some interesting discussion.

For RSS readers there’s video below:

Darren has the details at Problogger, but there doesn’t seem to be the usual we only send to the States b.s. you get with a lot of these offers. I’ve just ordered mine. As a concept though they are rather cool, it will be interesting to see the quality once they’re delivered.