Look, it’s a good idea to check reviews of a movie as a collective - meaning looking at the “Average User Review” or something to see if everybody thought it was crap. In that case, don’t waste your money.

But when I hear “professional” critics raving on about how great No Country For Old Men was, I want to vomit. Now before I get any hate mail for the last statement, I thought the movie was very well-made, and I’m sure that’s what garnered all the reviews. However, a well-made movie does not equal a good movie. Yes they had all the artsy-fartsy dramatic camerawork and long silences, but just because it was well written or well filmed does not make a movie entertaining.

And on the other side of the fence, I heard countless “pros” saying Transformers was bad. WHAT!? Every “regular” person I talked to loved that movie, but the high-and-mighty movie critics had to find something wrong with it. Maybe because it didn’t have 22 minutes of silence between dialogues or no dramatic artsy film angles. Rubbish.

Movies, as well as most forms of art are simply too subjective to be taken from one opinion. For example, I like the movie Snatch, and my fiancee hates it. No amount of critic’s opinion is going to make me dislike it, or make her like it. It amazes me to think that these “professional critics” get paid as well as they do just to give their subjective opinion about a movie. It amazes me even more to think that people take their opinions and use it to decide if they should watch a movie or not.

And that, Quahog, is what Grinds my Gears.

Jon highlights the tips:

• Have a nice navigation
• Use appealing graphics (but use animations sparingly)
• Highlight your contact info
• Use correct color combinations
• Use divs, not tables!
• Use XML and CSS (on a separate sheet)
• Include doctype in your HTML
• Check compatibility with all browsers
• Add titles to anchor and image tags
• Don’t use deprecated tags (<b>, <i>)

I contacted customer service and posted on the help forum, with no response from either, as expected. This went on for five days, then suddenly this morning the feed count jumped back up to normal numbers. It didn’t jump up again for the other site yet, so we’re yet to see what happens there.

Did anybody else have this issue?

That aside, it’s a wonderful piece of software, and I’d recommend it to anybody. It’s a great backup solution, automatically backing up all of the computers on your network every night, and allowing a simple recover feature in case something happens, completely restoring any PC on the network. It has some great plugins to use as well - Webguide is my favorite. Webguide was so popular that MS themselves picked up the project and made it free.

On to my point…the problem with Windows Home Server (WHS) is that it’s expensive. The system builder software is good for those who have a spare PC to run it on or can just build a new PC. The software alone is $160, then the price of the hardware. Even better though, you can buy an HP Mediasmart Home Server for about $680. It comes with 1TB (1000GB) of storage space, and is built with WHS in mind. It’s a great option, but way too expensive for most people.

The good folks at MSWHS blog introduced me to Amahi HDA - a free linux-based home server software with many of the features of WHS. Amahi offers:

* Calendaring
* Wiki
* Shared network storage
* Network Backups
* Printer server
* Remote access

You can use a spare computer with at least a 800MHz processor and 512MB RAM or they can send you a desktop box pre-configured as an HDA with a Pentium III 800MHz processor with 256MB of memory and a 20GB disk for FREE (-shipping). A Power user option is available with a PC using an AMD Opteron 244 chip running at 1.8GHz with 2GB of memory and a choice of hard disk, all in a black desktop workstation case for a very low cost.

Sounds like a damn good deal to me. Keep in mind this isn’t going to be as user-friendly as WHS, but that’s what to expect when it’s free (or cheap if you buy the systems they offer.)

I have 3 total invites available for the Beta. Please leave a comment below if you want an invite.

Imagine it like Kontera (or any of the other in-content linking services) except with normal-looking links and no annoying pop-ups every time you hover over the word.

I would imagine this would be automatic in that you place the given script in the footer and it automatically links these keywords for you when you approve it, but I would prefer to place the links myself.

This system is great for bloggers because it take no ad space (no more cluttering up your blog,) and makes it very difficult for search engines to find these links and PR-slap you. The links look very natural.

The links looking natural is also the biggest benefit for advertisers because you can choose the terms you want to rank for and it’s within the article, surrounded by 100% related content.

As bloggers though, you have to make sure the websites you link to are quality sites, so be sure to visit them first.

Let’s just hope that they don’t consider Google Page Rank when determining the price of links, that’s really been throwing a wrench into the gears of paid link services.

First, you need to know what type of battery you have. If you have an older nickel type battery, you’ll need to find a special provider of laptop batteries, but if you have a modern type of laptop battery, then you’ll find it much easier to find the battery for your laptop.

Modern laptop batteries use Lithium Ion cells. Lithium Ion batteries are great because they can be charged as often as they need to be and they do not have the memory effect that plagues nickel type batteries. Lithium Ion batteries also have the most power for the size and weight of a pack. It’s not surprising that they are a great choice for laptop batteries. Unfortunately though, there is a downside.

Lithium batteries lose their charging capacity over time, regardless of whether they are charged or not. Heat is what accelerates their loss in capacity. That means that if your battery is exposed to heat, like inside your laptop, it’s capacity will fall. In fact, inside a running laptop, it can lose half of its capacity in less than a year. Once the diminished capacity starts affecting laptop usage, many people look for a new laptop battery.

Laptop batteries are not interchangeable. This means that if your battery works on one brand of laptop, it won’t work on another. In fact, it probably won’t even work on another model from the same company. This is the single biggest reason why laptop batteries are so expensive and why it’s so difficult to find a replacement battery.

You have three choices when going with a new laptop battery. You can buy a new battery from the manufacturer, but this can be very pricey indeed. At least you’ll know that you are getting factory fresh quality and. You can go with a remanufactured battery in order to save money. They are sometimes even higher capacity than the original and the cells used might be higher quality. Lastly, you can have just the cells in your battery replaced. The upside to this is that you don’t have to worry about finding a replacement battery for your obscure laptop model.

With a new laptop battery, you can restore the amount of time you are able to use your computer when away from an outlet. This will help you be more productive with your time and keep your laptop in like new condition.

A couple of days ago I noticed that the normal little yellow dude Google has for the Street View is now a leprechaun for St. Patrick’s Day. Very cute.

According to Wikipedia:

In Irish mythology, a leprechaun (Irish: leipreachán) is a type of male faerie said to inhabit the island of Ireland. They are a class of “faerie folk” associated in Irish mythology and folklore, as with all faeries, with the Tuatha Dé Danann and other quasi-historical peoples said to have inhabited Ireland before the arrival of the Celts.

There is a Dns Server that gets your request for a web page first.

It takes the urladdress.com and resolves it to an ip address like 132.70.433.34

Basically, that IP address is where your files, pictures, and good stuff is located, we call it the web server.

The way it should work is if the server with your files is down the dns server will just send your visitors to another server.

But that doesn’t happen. With most hosts (all that I know of,) your users just get a “Page Not Found” screen, which is very unprofessional. What you can do with services such as DNSMadeEasy is set up a failover server (with a spare server such as a regular $8/month hosting account,) and when your primary server goes down, the traffic is sent to the failover server.

With static pages that’s very east to do with redundancy, but it’s more difficult with database driven sites like blogs (and in Mark’s case, an Ad Server.)

Regardless, why do no webhosts offer complete fail-over coverage with a remote or outsourced server? They could offer excellent (or ever 100%) uptime, and they wouldn’t be exaggerating. Yes, you can do it yourself, but customers shouldn’t have to go through the hassle of setting up a fail-over solution - that should be the job of the web host. Who wouldn’t mind paying a couple extra dollars a month for that service?

If I’m mistaken, please let me know, but I don’t know of any regular web host to offer this as a standard feature.

Make sure to visit Mark’s post about this for more detail: Web hosting fail-over

Do you think this will increase CTR? People love to interact with websites, and I think people would click out of curiosity. However, I also think this will draw attention away from the ad itself.

This site seems to be more focused on getting people to submit their articles as opposed to being an actual resource for articles, since the menu of tutorials is at the bottom of the page, and the first half of the page is dedicated to telling you why you should submit your unpublished articles to them. The articles have to be unique, in that they cannot have been published anywhere else on the internet.

Howto.fm has an attractive design, and is logical to navigate. Things are mostly laid out how you would expect them to be, so it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. Most of the articles I looked over are quality-written, and the authors display a knowledge of the subject.

They also have a “get free content for your website” page which allows you to place some javascript (or XML) on your site that automatically updates with the most recent content from whatever category you choose. It’s a good idea but I couldn’t find it particularly useful. Each article title generated links back to the respective howto.fm page, and the articles themselves are simply excepts. Plus you have the obvious duplicate content issue.

There were also some issues I noticed with the articles themselves. A random article I checked (Secrets of wifi) is not only placed in the wrong category (programming -> oracle,) but actually contains wrong information. The first sentence is “any signal that is sent without wires is called a radio transmission.” That’s simply not true, as microwave communications and infrared are also wireless, for example. I realize it’s difficult for moderators to be an expert in every subject, but as shown here, you run the risk of publishing false information. That’s exactly why Wikipedia requires that you cite your sources and each category has it’s own moderator.

Another problem with the website as a whole - and you’ll notice this on the front page - is that it’s painfully clear that the owner or writer for the site does not speak fluent English. There are misspellings and blatant grammar errors all over the site. I found these gems on the front page: “toturials” “articlea” and “analized” - which actually means something completely different (google it.)

The grammatical errors are actually bad enough to make the site difficult to understand: “There are actually many advantages for visitors experienced as well as the owners of Web sites” - “The advantage for the owner of the site is that the increase in articles entering links to Web sites” - there are plenty more. A recommendation to the site owners: hire a native speaking English proofreader. Please.

There is a clear link between howto.fm and web-articles.info - the sites are identical. To the owners: if you’re moving away from web-articles.info, be sure to update all links and references to it in the new site (Example - second paragraph.)

Another big suggestion here: If you want people to submit articles and be active on the site, you must provide them with some sort of incentive. Currently each article only displays the name of the author. Allow the author to use their own links within the article (moderated obviously,) or at link the author name to their own profile which lists their own websites if they have one.

I would also put the article directory at the top of the front page to help people find articles they’re looking for. You can still display how to submit your own article, but it wouldn’t take up half the page.

Altogether, Howto.fm has a chance in this arena. Take a few of my suggestions, get some traffic going, tweak the writing a bit and you’re off to a good start.

Right now, Dotster is offering .info domains for under $1, no limit, so grab a few while you can!

$0.99 .info Domains from Dotster

Egonitron.com is not my primary website. It never has been, and it never will be. Contrary to my tagline (”Helping Geeks Make Money Online”,) this is not just another Make Money Online blog, it’s not an affiliate marketing blog, or anything of the sort. Egonitron.com is my personal blog on which I write about whatever the hell I feel like writing about at the time. That’s the very reason I don’t update as often as I should, and it’s the reason I don’t do any marketing for the blog. I’ve never intended on making any money from this blog (although I have,) and I never intended on getting this blog to be popular (which it really hasn’t.)

While I do give the occasional tip on blogging and marketing and SEO, etc, it’s only because I feel like sharing some information on the subject. Those subjects interest me, so I write about them.

Let me give a little bit of background. While many newer bloggers just name their blog after their own first and last name (there’s nothing wrong with that,) the term “Egonitron” actually came from a nickname back in high school. When I met Danielle and Gary at BlogWorld Expo outside smoking, I believe it was Gary who made a comment expecting me to look like Egon from the Ghostbusters cartoon. If fact, that’s where the name came from; I used to look identical to Egon from the cartoon. I digress…

I like to dabble in all sorts of online ventures, and test out everything. While my primary business is blogging, I play around with PPC, affiliate marketing, domaining, SEO, web development, and all sorts of other stuff. What I really need to do is focus on one or two things and become very good at that before I try other stuff, but it’s really fun For my day job, I actually work in IT for a very large company, but that gets monotonous very quickly.

Again, Egonitron.com is my personal blog in which I do give the occasional tip, list, or other article about things I’ve learned along the blogging way, as well as business stuff, marketing, IT stuff, SEO, or any other cool stuff I feel like writing about. I hope you’ve found some interesting things along the way, and I hope you continue to return to read more. I’ll probably be changing some things soon. Nothing major, but I’ll most likely play around with changing some things on the sidebar, etc.

Don’t be shy, let me know your thoughts…

From an AdSense rep:

Unfortunately, as you suspected, the ******.info domain was
previously found to be in violation of our program policies and is no
longer eligible for participation in the AdSense program.

Should have checked before registering, but at least it was a .info domain and only cost me $3 instead of an $8 .com.

I asked for an exception since I’m a new owner and have nothing to do with the previous violations:

I apologize for the inconvenience. However, as was previously mentioned, since the site was found to be in violation of our program policies, it is no longer eligible for participation in AdSense.

You are welcome to place Google ads on other sites which comply with
AdSense policies.

Drat. Oh well, looks like I’m just putting YPN on this one.

So I’ll do my part and return the favor. Here are a few blogs I fancy:

Blue Hat SEO
Daily Blog Tips
Automoblog
Dosh Dosh
Nate Whitehill
Ms Danielle
Mr Gary Lee
45n5
Uber Affiliate
How To Geek
xkcd
ProfitableProductiveBlogging

Regardless, I may still do sponsored posts here, and I’d like you to know what my stance on them are.

I take sponsored posts from various 3rd-party companies as well as direct. My favorite places to take sponsored posts: PayPerPost, SponsoredReviews, ReviewMe, and LinkWorth (LinkPosts.) It’s a good stream of revenue, but they’re still too reliant on Page Rank. Fortunately, Izea (PayPerPost) is working on RealRank which has already been implemented in response to Google dropping the PR of a lot of blogs in their system to Zero (including mine,) so be careful.

Anyway, I don’t have anything against sponsored posts unless the advertiser requires a positive review, or no in-post disclosure. I believe it’s very important that for your blog to remain trustworthy, you need to be transparent. That means not recommending something that you don’t like just because you’re getting paid for it. Tell the truth. If the advertiser doesn’t like it, maybe they need to listen, and change the service. You did them a favor; companies pay tons of money for real customer’s opinions. Why would this be any different?

I once got a request to review a financial services company on an old blog of mine. I did the review, but there were a lot of problems with the site that I not only said was a problem in the post, but offered a good way to fix each issue. The advertiser didn’t like the fact that everything in the review wasn’t positive, so they didn’t pay me. I “nofollow”d their links, and never took another post opportunity from that post broker.

But I digress. My point is that I believe sponsored posts are great, as long as they’re honest and fully disclosed as sponsored posts. Each of these that I do on Egonitron.com is included in the Sponsored Posts category and also have a disclosure inside the post, usually at the beginning or end.

How do you feel about sponsored posts? Are you OK with not disclosing them as paid, and why?