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Firefox 3.0 Now Available For Download

By Kyle Eslick | Filed Under Web Browsers

I know I’ve become notorious for really long posts lately, so I’ll make this one really quick!   I just wanted to let everyone know that you can now download Firefox 3.0.

If you’ve been following this site for awhile (or you dig through the archives), you’ll know that I have a serious man crush on Firefox, so this is a very exciting day for me.  Even though I always try the betas and release candidates, there is nothing like making it official.

If you’ve tried out Firefox 3.0, what are your thoughts?

Monitoring Tech Advancements Over the Past 20 Years

By Kyle Eslick | Filed Under Technology

It is always fun to take a look back at the past and see how far we’ve come, and that is especially true in the world of technology.   Remember those huge computers that provided an amazing 640KB of RAM?  Back in 1988, you’d have to take out a second mortgage on your home to get performance like that!

PC World got sick of people complaining about the price of an iPhone, so they decided to take a look back over the past 20 years and see how far we’ve come.   After combing through this post you’ll probably appreciate the “cheap” prices we pay for todays technology.

Collection of Paypal Tools

By Kyle Eslick | Filed Under Web Based Apps

Ahhh, Paypal.   One of my favorite online services.  What originally started as a companion for eBay to oversee the auction payment transactions has since developed into an almost all purpose tool for exchanging money online.  Blogs use Paypal to receive advertising payments, domainers use it to buy/sell domain names, and many affiliates use it to make/receive payments.

With Paypal’s expanded services they offer come several new Paypal tools, which were recently covered over at MakeUseOf.com in their post about 9 tools Paypal users should know about.   You’ll find all sorts of great tools, ranging from WordPress plugins, mobile services, and more!

Thunderbird 3.0 Alpha 1 to Arrive Next Month?

By Kyle Eslick | Filed Under Free Software

If you’ve been following this site for awhile, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of the Thunderbird project.   The software is free and very comparable to Microsoft Outlook.  Ever since I first heard about Thunderbird 3.0, it instantly got my attention with the tabbed e-mails feature they were working on.   Truthfully, over the past year I’d kind of forgotten about it because all Thunderbird news seemed to be bad news.

That all changed today when I began reading a post over at Ars Technica that Thunderbird 3.0 Alpha 1 is due sometime in April.   While it looks like the calendar integration (Lightning) will not be included with this release, there should be some good stuff in store for us.

Anyone else looking forward to this release?

A Couple of Ideas to Improve Your AdSense Income

By Kyle Eslick | Filed Under Make Money Online, Technology

A couple of months ago Google made some significant changes to their AdSense program when they re-did the clickable area, which caused a lot of people to lose money. I know personally that my AdSense income dropped by at least $70.00 a month as a result of this change, and I’ve heard from several others that are have had the same problem.

Anytime there is a change, it is only natural we take the time to step back and look over the situation in the hope of finding a way to improve it. One post I ran across recently was written by Josh titled 10 Ways to Increase Your AdSense Income. In his post, Josh covers a bunch of methods people should consider when trying to maximize their clicks.

Two important tips:

2. Target competitive niches! I don’t care what anyone says about MFA sites, they work! I’m not talking about spam sites, I’m talking about high-quality, informative sites that are in a high paying market! Some of these niche sites can bring in $5-$10/day after only a couple days. When you’re making over a $1 per click you don’t need much traffic to make money.

3. If a site has a CTR of 1% or less, remove it from your site. Although there is some controversy as to whether or not CTR causes “smart pricing” to kick in, it’s just not worth risking. At least remove Adsense for a few weeks and see if your overall adsense income rises. If so, you were probably hit with Google’s Smart Pricing. If that site in particular was causing smart-pricing to kick in, consider a different monetization model.

And one tip I’m not so sure about:

8. Do not go by Google’s heat map. It’s a good visual aid for some layouts, but there are just too many variables. The effectiveness of any layout will be determined by color, style, niche etc. so testing is always your best bet!

Click over to check out the rest of the list!

Do You Still Use Facebook?

By Kyle Eslick | Filed Under Web Based Apps

Today I noticed an interesting post over at Webware, which talks about a planned face lift for Facebook.  In looking at the screenshots provided, I really don’t see a major difference in the look of the site, but it will be nice to have the wall in its own tab.

While looking over the photos, I realized that I haven’t logged into Facebook in awhile.   I’ve probably logged in twice in the past 2 months, mostly for maintenance purposes (approve friends, check wall, etc.).  Do you find that you still use Facebook?  Or has it lost most of it’s appeal?

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