Thursday, September 02, 2004

Learn While You Surf

I'm often amazed at how much I learn while I'm online.

An article in today's local paper noted that the City of Philadelphia is considering taking on the costs of setting up the whole City for wireless connections to the web, at low or no cost for residents and visitors to the city.

One of the justifications for the move is that it would be much cheaper to do that than it would be to build a small library, and many more people would benefit from the access.

I think it's a great idea.

But how beneficial is web access? How much of a difference will it make to peoples' lives if they can just surf the web where ever they will? When ever they want?

A post over at DonnaM's blog looks at going online and 'Wasting' time looking for information. I've come to the same conclusion as Donna.

When I go online looking for the answer to a specific question, I don't always find the answer. But most of the time, I do learn something useful.

Apologies to Google and Blogger

I owe Google and Blogger an apology.

Last week, I applied to participate in Google's AdSense, after reading an article on the Blogger webpage titled There's an AdSense in my Blog.

To my surprise, I was turned down. I didn't expect that after reading Biz Stone's AdSense article. I sent Biz Stone an email, and I sent another to the AdSense team expressing my confusion and my dissatisfaction. I even made a blog post here: Google Hate Me

A DNS propagation problem kept me from getting emails at the beginning of this week, and I went through 72 hours or so without any emails. (Serious withdrawal there!) As I was sorting through my accumulated mails yesterday afternoon, there were a couple from the AdSense team.

One of them was a note informing me that I had submitted the wrong URL (".net" instead of ".com") and that they visited my blog, and figured out what had happened. The other was an email accepting me into the AdSense program.

It's my fault. I wish they had included the URL I submitted when they sent me the rejection. But regardless, I should have given them the right address.

It does appear that someone other that Google and Blogger own blogspot.net, and it's for sale. It does have a redirect going on to another site. I can understand why they would have sent a rejection notice.

Thanks AdSense team, for following up.

Monday, August 30, 2004

Inline Ads at Forbes

Since I've been paying a fair amount of attention lately to advertisements on web sites, a Whitespace article discussing Forbes' use of Ad Links In Content sort of stood out for me.

A good question, too. Should this type of ad be linked to differently than other ads in an online article.

I hope that this practice is abandoned. And quickly.

Two-Year Anniversary of Cre8asite Forums

It gives me a lot of pleasure to announce that we are celebrating the second anniversary of Cre8asite Forums. See: Cre8asiteForums Breaks Out the Champagne for its Two-Year Anniversary

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Seeing Cliches

Fun site, well worth a visit, A Primer of Visual Cliche shows images that we see in many places, and how they are used over and over. And they are accompanied by some pretty insightful language:
Advertisers seemed to think we gape with astonishment, collapse with hysterical laughter when faced with twins - be it shampoo or spark plugs.

Harvesting Solar Hydrogen

Good news on the scientific front from the land down under.

Research at The University of New South Wales is underway to bring us a breakthrough in energy that is amazing. Will we see Solar hydrogen being the way people start supplying their energy needs within the next seven years?
Using special titanium oxide ceramics that harvest sunlight and split water to produce hydrogen fuel, the researchers say it will then be a simple engineering exercise to make an energy-harvesting device with no moving parts and emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants.


This is a technology to keep an eye upon. What does it mean to the giant energy producing companies, to the Middle East with their reserves of fuel? What political and economic forces will be ignited if this energy system starts being implemented?