I have been playing around with Google Adsense for the past few days. I just started using Adsense ads, so I am by no means an expert, but there are a few things that I think can optimize clicks.

First, put the ads in your content. I know my eyes ignore ads in headers and sidebars. I am sure others do too.

Second, make the ads blend into your page. Make the link color the same color as your link color and make the backgrounds the same color too.

Third, use the box format rather than the banner. My eyes are also trained to skip over banners too. I am sure mine aren’t the only ones.

Fourth, ads can look like more content. If your ads are blended into your site, and Google is showing relevant ads, the ads can actually be helpful for your readers.

Those are a few things that I think will increase your clicks. I am still trying to make my ads more relevant though. Google has some tips to make your ads more relevant. I just implemented them. We will see how they work.

I have never really gotten into calendar software. I have checked out iCal, 30 Boxes, Google Calendar and many others. My life just isn’t really busy enough to use one. I may start using Google Calendar a little more now. They now have a Netflix release public calendar. Now I can check my calendar to find the top new releases from Netflix each week. Pretty cool. I may have to look into more of these public calendars. I might have a use for Google Calendar after all.

Technorati Tags: 30 Boxes, Calendar, Google Calendar, iCal, Netflix, Software

I just read that Mr. Wizard died. Mr. Wizard’s World was one of my favorite shows as a kid. Mr. Wizard got me to enjoy science. He made science fun. There were never enough shows like his when I was a kid. To this day I still love watching science stuff. The Science Channel is one of my favorites.

So a while back I tried the “picture a day” thing, but couldn’t keep it going. Yesterday I found flickaday.com. It makes it as simple as going to a website to take a self portrait if you have a webcam. I have their badge in my sidebar. It should be interesting once I get a few more pictures taken.

I don’t really mention my link blog very often, but recently I have added some cool links. My link blog contains the cool stuff I find on the web from day to day. It usually has way more cool stuff then my blog does. Here are some highlights from the past few days:

Make A Giant Sandwich (Costume) (via make)
Ugly Mailbox Blog (via Boingboing)
Determine the Doneness of a Steak (via Lifehacker)
What the Workd Eats (via Boingboing)
Flying Spaghetti Monster on Toast (via Laughing Squid)
My Generation (via xkcd)

If my link blog isn’t enough content for you, you can find everything on my tumblelog at tinkr.tumblr.com.

So yeah, I got Google Ads now. It’s weird how often I notice them on other sites now. My brain has been trained to ignore ads. Now that I got ads I am looking at other people’s ads more. I have been looking for the best place to place them. A place where they will get clicks, yet they wont annoy the hell out of you. It’s also weird how I am so tempted to click my own ads. I guess they are geared toward the content and since I wrote the content they are geared mostly to me.

We just got back from seeing Everclear at Ribfest. It’s weird seeing bands you loved in the 90s grow up. This really wasn’t the Everclear I grew up with. Art Alexakis is the only original member. It was still a great show. It brought back many memories of my college days. We got right up front against the fence. It was great. I had no heads to try and look over to see. I should have brought my camera, but I didn’t feel like dealing with that. Art sure looked like he was having fun up there. Bands get lots of crap for not hanging it up when they quit making hits. If I was in a band I would keep playing as long as it was fun. I think it would be nice to be able to play smaller venues like this when they get older. I know it is much more fun watching bands play in small venues, it must be fun to play in them.

I love all the software that has portable versions. I usually don’t use them on my thumb drive, I use them at work. Our work computer is locked down so you can’t install anything. I can’t stand using IE so of course I use Portable Firefox to surf the web at work. Last night at work I ran across a video file I wanted to view. It was a MP4 file which of course couldn’t be viewed with Windows Media Player. I hate Windows Media Player anyways. My media player of choice is VLC. So for work I got Portable VLC and was able to watch my video. Portable Apps are great and have many uses.

I have never had any ads on my site. Mostly because for ads to create any money you need traffic to your side. I applied for Google Adsense and was accepted, so I might throw some ads up in my sidebar. I am more interested in playing around with them and seeing how they work than making money. Who knows, maybe having ads will make me want to blog more and produce more content. Maybe my readership will grow beyond three people then. Who knows. I don’t care much either way.