Keeping track of your AdSense revenue hast just got easier with the public release open source php AdSense tracker from Adsenselogger.com.

In short, the purpose of AdsenseLogger is to track the owners clicks and impressions on Adsense Ads across multiple domains. The Adsense ad tracking registers amongst others : Adsense ad colours, referrers, details about ad clicked, ad size, ad type and much more data that will assist in optimizing Adsense earnings.

A Wordpress plugin for the AdSenes logger is available for download over at kloeschen.com.

Steve Smith of Ordered List felt the WP Administration area needed a little ‘freshening up’ and wanted the utility to feel more like an application, and less like a traditional website. So he went ahead and took some time off his busy schedule to design a new look, codenamed Tiger following the Macintosh-esque design in its OSX Tiger.

So folks just to showcase the difference here’s what out admin interface looked like pre-Tiger:

and here’s what it looks like now with the awesome Tiger extension:

Sweet yes? You can download Tiger from Steve’s beautiful webblog here.

A friend asked if I knew of a good web calendar software a few days ago. I didn’t. But then I reminded myself of what another friend showed me a few months ago, some groupware software he wanted to install on my server. So I Googled around and found it. It’s called eGroupWare and it’s a one stop solution to your virtual office needs. It’s got everything you can think of, calendar, address book, messenger, wiki and more. It comes in a pretty package too and best yet it’s FREE. They have a working online demo if you’re curious.

Everything works nice. In fact I haven’t seen anything quite like this before. I’m definitely thinking about selling my desk and moving my office online!

The purpose of majority of the web sites is to keep the visitor happy. Once online, your visitors cannot see you face to face immediately, nor can they talk to you. The only way they can interact with you at the moment is to browse your site, and read what you have to say. Imagine being at a local store, where you see no workers, but machines everywhere. You scan your items, you pay, and you leave. No one offers you any discount, no one offers you any smile, and no one greets you or says goodbye to you. That would feel weird, wouldn’t it?

In the same way, the days are gone when internet users came to a site that offered no way to contact the author, and even more strange, no way to let the user offer any suggestion or advice related to the content posted on the site. Today, a successful site should work just like a retail store, or even a local coffee shop. You should do the following three things to make sure your visitor has a good experience at your site:

1. Enable your visitors to interact with you via email
2. Allow them to leave comments
3. Let them interact with other visitors and users on the site.

Read the rest of this entry »

After long days of self torture and forced lobotomies we finally found another reason to fight through. Bes is a fine blogger from Southern California and he has joined the crew here at dS as a contributing author. He will be writing articles alongside me and Lee and he will be in charge of kicking our asses on rainy days. So please welcome him and leave nasty packets down at his blog.

So you want to start a blog but you haven’t got the technical know-how or patience to set-up something like Wordpress. Or maybe you’re simply looking for something simple, easy and ready to go, straight from the bag so to speak.

Then Blogger is the ‘just-add-water to go’* solution you’ve been looking for. Get your own blog up and running within 10-15minutes tops with Blogger. No downloading, no techie tweaky thingymajig to deal with, just fill out a quick online registration form, choose your theme, add a blog description, create yourself an optional profile and you’re ready to start blogging.

Blogger hosts your blog for you, so no need to worry about those pesky hosting costs either. Your blog will have all the features that a major blogging title should, like blogger comments (let visitors leave comments on your posts), upload photos directly to your blog (you can also email photos and blog entries using your special mail-to-blog email address), there is also a mobile to blog feature and group blogging options.

Did I forget to mention it’s FREE. That’s just blog-tastic mate!

* Metaphorically speaking that is. We strongly advise against literally adding water to your blog.

Way way back, during the birth of the Internet, when a 14k modem was considered super-fast (and posh!) I used to build all my web sites by hand using nothing more than notepad and raw html (do you remember the ‘created with Notepad’ web icon?). Back then I had a real passion for what I was doing and this showed in my web sites. One of which got two separate reviews in two separate Internet magazines here in the UK.

People liked my site because it showed a real passion for my hobbies and interests. The content would be updated daily without fail and the site design would change at least once every few months. This was true blogging before its time. My sites still get that same level of energy today as they did those many years ago, but the web is a much larger place now and to stand out you’ve got to be willing and ready to go that extra mile, or two.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.com has compiled his series on Declaring War on Blogger Apathy into an article. As every blogger should know, apathy has the greatest potential to kill your blog. As Darren put it:

A blogger can have the best strategic plan in the world but if they have no motivation, passion or drive for their blogging it will almost always amount to nothing at all.

To wrap a long article short, these are the basic facts Darren shared to fight blogger apathy:

• Start a Series
• Invite questions from your readers
• Revisit old Posts
• Redesign
• Write Posts Ahead of Time
• Keep an Idea Journal
• Develop a Posting Schedule
• Get a Guest Blogger
• Read other’s blogs
• Interact with other bloggers
• Meme it Up
• Subscribe to a new Source of Information
• Short Posts
• New Stimuli
• Just Write
• Get a Coach
• Take a Break

Read his full article for the complete breakdown.

I hope his tips offer a new breed of motivation for you, for every blogger could use a fresh moment of blogging from time to time.

Children are the webmasters of the future and as responsible adults it’s our duty to equip them with the right knowledge by ensuring that they learn the basics of designing and building a web-site. It’s also extremely important that they learn good manners, wash their hands before every meal and clean their teath before bedtime… Sorry about that, got carried away in parent mode then.

Webmonkey for kids is an excellent online learning tool for the home and at school. There is a planning guide for teachers and parents. Or you can simply let you kids work through the lessons and fun projects on their own initiative. There is also a playground section where kids can take time out from their learning.

Children and adults alike will enjoy the easy to follow lessons and projects available on the Webmonkey for Kids web site. But for the more experienced webmasters out there, why not try webmonkey.wired.com

Design is usually associated with visual representations of things. But when you think about it, it’s more of a psychological approach than anything else. I might sound like I’m talking nonsense so let’s break it down:

Good design starts with a good idea. It should be executed in a simple, functional manner without gimmicks or superfluous detail. It should be memorable. It should be thought provoking. It should deliver a clear point of view.

Good design communicates.
Good design generates action.
Good design pays.

Agree? Maybe not. But there’s a good way to inject your thought with fresh data beyond your regular protocol. I specifically like the last part, good design pays. It sure does.