January 2006 – The blog of Steve Root

New experiment – googleads now on the site

Well, traffic levels here are increasing regularly. Guess either a) I have a lot of friends b) Theres actually some content here people want to read c) Lots of people are getting lost and ending up here.

I’ve decided to try hosting some googleads here. The theory is if you are reading one of my pages, google will put some relevent adverts alongside the page. If you happen to be interested in that companies product (it’s almost always going to be a product) then you can follow the link. The company pay google a few pennies for every person that follows the link, and google pay a (no doubt) miniscule percentage to me. Be interesting to see if it provides any holiday spending money.

Before you ask:
1) no, it doesn’t work if I click on the links to earn money for myself. It also recognises the same person following the link, so don’t bother clicking on an advert 30 times – computers can be clever things and will simply not count you.
2) Yes, if i do actually ever recieve a cheque from google for this, I have to pay tax on it 🙁 For me, that will simply be a case of raising a corresponding invoice to cover the reciept and it will be part of my business accounts. I guess other people have to register with the tax office and start doing a tax return.

The CD/DVD-Drive and the Paperclip (a.k.a. how to get your DVD out of your computer when the power is off)

“D’arghhh!” said the man as he’d once again forgotten to take his favourite DVD out of his computer before turning the machine off. Now, he’d have to turn the power on to get the DVD out. Being a good man, he couldn’t possibly turn the power off until windows had fully started, the disk had ejected and he could use the windows software shutdown button, lest he damage his data. It looked as though he’d be leaving late again… unless he just goes without the DVD… hmm, he pondered momentarily.

“But Wait!” said his friend, “you can still leave in a hurry AND take the DVD with you by using one of my magic paperclips”

“Magic paperclips! Don’t make me laugh, I can’t get my DVD out of my computer unless I turn the power on” said the man dismissively.

“Then watch, dear friend…”said the mans friend, as he bent the magic paper clip out of shape. He pushed one end of the part straightened paper clip into a little round hole on the front of the man’s CD/DVD drive,

“I’ve never noticed that hole before” said the man, at the same moment as the drive magically popped open revealing the much desired DVD. “Wow!” said the man.

“You’re welcome”, said the friend, returning his quite ordinary but now mishappen paperclip back into his desk drawer.

Phases of Life

I half mentioned before (my post about secret lives) how I’m finding that life goes in phases. For example, at the moment I am (once again) in my book reading phase. I’ve been devouring hundreds of pages a night in an effort to sleep (I’m also in my not sleeping phase, which, I remember having both phases in my teens).

Last summer I had a running phase which stopped almost completely over Christmas but for which I felt the urge to start again last week (a 20 minute run was a killer!). I’m also back in an ATC Phase (I was an Air Cadet, now I’m at the local Air Cadet squadron as an instructor), I’m missing my Cycling phase (in my late teens I used to cycle miles, especially at weekends). My guitar phase is ongoing though without lessons and without having written any new songs.

There’s another phase which I’ve been in for many years which I feel is about to end, at the same time I’m finding others are trying to start (hey, one day I will learn how to program in Java and write that game I’ve always wanted too).

I’ve only noticed these phases as I’ve got older. When younger I guess I didn’t know any different. “Plus a Change, Plus C’est La Mme Chose” – remembering my French phase.

Note to self: I’m sure this post isn’t very good English – even though the google spell check was happy. Perhaps I’m finally getting sleepy.