Webmaster's Blog

What happened to Mister Linker?

2007-11-22T12:46:00.000Z

Does anyone know what happened to Mister Linker? One minute they were there the next they're gone. I thought it was just the usual internet gremlins and it would be back but its been down for a couple of weeks at least.

I thought I would have a go at recreating the site, partly because I liked the site but mainly because I wanted to see how well I had progressed with my knowledge of php and MySQL. The layout is virtually identical as I took it from the original although the internal pages are different. I tried a few different ways to count clicks in & out and most in the end used javascript, the one I have finally settled on allows the site to work with javascript off (although it won't count the outgoing clicks) and creates a proper link to your site so will count as a backlink.

Please take a look Links247.co.uk.

Apologies

2007-11-22T11:54:00.001Z

Apologies for the lack of updates lately. I've been ill and its amazing how far you can fall behind when a little illness hits you. So what's happened since I last posted. I've came up with a way to speed up my arcade site http://247mgf.co.uk and reduce (or hopefully stop the internal server 500 errors). I did this by reducing the number of mySQL queries to create a page (currently the homepage), I plan to reduce the number even further and extend it to other pages once I am sure it is working well.

What else? I tested my php & mySQL skills by recreating the Mister Linker site but more about this in another post.

What about income, well as expected I haven't done so great! This is the totals for the month to date (22-11-2007).

Widgetbucks: $12.84 + $0.17 referral income
Last month I made a whopping $0.33. Plus I have my $25.00 signup bonus. So this month is certainly an improvement. 2 referrals so far also. This has been doing quite well for a low traffic site like I have however there have been concerns over the logging of impressions and clicks.

Adbrite: $0.25 this month, last month was $0.42.

Bidvertiser: $0.21. I'll never get this though as I have stopped using them on my site as my stats disagreed with there's.

BigFish: $6.27. I have had 6 referrals sign up and 1 which has gone on to purchase a game / pack which earned me $6.27. I have created a site using the free software supplied by BigFish at 247freegamesdownloads.co.uk which seems to be picking up traffic all on its own.

Ciao: £0.51 (not a mistake it is added up in sterling). I haven't done much with this apart from completed a couple of surveys but you spent the time doing reviews and surveys etc. I think it would certainly add up.

Blogsvertise: $2. Only been offered the one task which was paid at a reduced price of $2.

Money4banners: £5. These continue to pay the £5 per month for the 3 banners ads placed on my always24-7.co.uk site.

As yet I haven't been paid out for any of these as and when I do I will post.

My New Arcade Layout

2007-11-06T03:27:00.001Z

Uploaded it about an hour ago, still not happy with the colour but happier with the page as a whole. Will start adding more games over the next few weeks. Then I need to start on my new project. More to follow.

Widget Bucks

2007-11-05T23:43:00.000Z

Forgot to add. I have had one concern recently with regard to Widget Bucks, they seem to be messing about with the reporting of money earned. Some days you may show no clicks / no impressions and 0 earned. Other days it may appear. When it does appear it may make you smile but the next day new figures could appear which will make you frown. All in all not a good omen for the future but lets hope it is simply teething problems and things improve very rapidly or they will lose the momentum they built up on there excellent launch.

Updated 247mgf.co.uk

2007-11-05T23:38:00.001Z

I've been busy working on a new layout for 247mgf. I've added a few mouseover effects to give more information to the visitors and I've added more games to the front page while taking up less space. This is mainly using thumbnails and text links while putting the descriptions in the mouseovers. Seems to work well. I still need to work on colour as i'm still not happy about them. Also new logo, Jim of JM Directory offered his services and came up with the new movie reel and gamepad logo. What do you think?

WidgetBucks: One Month Old

2007-11-02T13:25:00.000Z

WidgetBucks is one month old and aren't they doing well! Since launching on the 2nd October they have over 30,000 publishers and served over 200 million impressions. To find out more check out

It's a great start, as long as they pay out widgetbucks.com. Still early days and they are still yet to pay out but early indications do look good and the ads seem to be working well on my arcade site at 247mgf.co.uk. I have now added them to my always24-7.co.uk. I receive double the traffic here so hopefully it will provide a better response. The only problem I have with WidgetBucks at the moment is the time it takes for the ad to be served, I am almost sure this is why the WidgetBucks stats show a much lower impression rate than I am getting. My visitors are moving on before the ads even load. Hopefully this is something that is improved.

Free tooltip script

2007-11-02T12:14:00.000Z

I've added tooltips to popup over url's on my arcade site which work well using scripts from dynamicdrive.com. However someone pointed this tooltip script out to me prototip. Looks really good and a lot more versatile than what I am currently using.

Hope it helps someone.

All the best,
Michael.

Some Free Script Sites

2007-10-30T17:21:00.000Z

I've found my 2 javascript scripts I wrote for rotating ads, text, banners etc. have been added to some more free script sites. I submitted my scripts to "Script Dungeon" and they were accepted the other site "only free scripts" I only know about because I they came up in my logs. Nice to know that the scripts are out there helping people though.

http://scriptdungeon.com/

onlyfreescripts.com/

Other great script sites are:

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/

http://hotscripts.com/

and another great work are the scripts at http://www.phpjunkyard.com/. However I have never had the chance to actually use them but I always want to!

All have lots of great ideas.

Mojopac: Take your PC where ever you go

2007-10-29T17:44:00.000Z

Heard about this site on one of the forums I regularly visit but its worth repeating it as it is an excellent piece of kit. Mojopac allows you to take you PC where ever you go. I'll let the people behind you tell you what it is, see the quote from their site below:

MojoPac is a technology that transforms your iPod or USB Hard Drive or Flash drive into a portable and private PC. Just install MojoPac on any USB 2.0 compliant storage device, upload your applications and files, modify your user settings and environment preferences, and take it with you everywhere.

Every time you plug your MojoPac-enabled device into any Windows XP PC , MojoPac automatically launches your environment on the host PC. Your communications, music, games, applications, and files are all local and accessible. And when you unplug the MojoPac device, no trace is left behind – your information is not cached on the host PC.

Check them out at http://www.mojopac.com/. There's even a free version for individuals. I like free ;).

Big Fish Games Principal Network

2007-10-28T14:51:00.000Z

Earn by offering free games to your visitors.

I've only recently signed up for this affiliate program but already it seems very promising. I checked today and I already have my first referral to the affiliate program so hopefully they will do fantastically and earn me a nice bonus. However I'm also promoting the business directly and have set up my own site Free Game Downloads 24/7. Take a look, not bad? This is all done with free affiliate software available from Big Fish when you sign up. It's easy, all you require is hosting with php enabled (see post below for more on this).

You don't need to have a whole website dedicated to them though, you have RSS & XML feeds and all the usual banners and text links. Joining the affiliate program is FREE so check it out, what have you got to lose? Big Fish Affiliate Program.

PHP: PHPInfo: Your first PHP Script

2007-10-28T00:49:00.000+01:00

Now i'm no expert when it comes to PHP or HTML for that matter but I have learnt a thing or 2 along the way. I do have problems remembering it all, maybe that's my old age! So maybe it will help me if I add as much of it here as I can and if it helps you along the way then fantastic.

First of all what does PHP stand for?

Well originally Rasmus Lerdorf devised PHP sometime in 1994 for creating his 'Personal Home Page' so that's what it stood for. It eventually grew into what it is today and was then renamed PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.

PHP pages are created in the same way that you would create any other webpage, using your favourite text editor. This can be something as power hungry as Dreamweaver or even Notepad. Just remember to save your work with the extension .php. You can use other extensions but it involves additional work and this is meant to be basic, easy babysteps so let's not complicate things to much yet.

Ok, our first script. I assume you have webhosting already sorted out and it is PHP enabled? Don't know, well let's use our first script to find out.

PHP files can also carry standard HTML, XHTML and the like therefore you need to let your server know that what follows is PHP coding so that it can be treated as such. PHP does this by using the to finish, like so:

HTML

<?php

YOUR PHP CODE GOES HERE.

?>

HTML again

Easy. Our first script will we write will output the phpinfo file which will tell you everything about the version of php running on your server. If it doesn't produce anything then you don't have php enabled on your server.

Ok here we go, open a new document and enter the following:

<?php
phpinfo();
exit();
?>

Save the file as index.php and upload to your server. Now using your favourite browser navigate to your domain and you should see something like the pic below:

IF you don't see anything then you probably haven't got php installed on your server. If you do see something like the above then congratulations you have just written and executed your very first php script.

Would you like a Top Ten Search Engine Placement?

2007-10-26T14:30:00.000+01:00

DiscountClick Online Marketing Services

We all came across the internet in different ways, then we create our very own place on the world wide web. Maybe you have a blog like this or a website. Lovingly put together by you. We then sit back and wait and wait and then wait some more and hope that someone will come along and visit us.

Its even more important if you are a business and you are trying to earn money from your site. If only we could obtain a top ten position for our chosen keywords on the major search engines. You can but its hard work and most of us simply haven't got the time to do both our jobs / run our business and learn all there is to know about Search Engine Optimisation. This is where companies like discountclick come in. They work tirelessly on your behalf to put you in the best position for top positions. Results are obtainable in as little as 2-4 weeks and typically takes 2-4 months to get to the top of the search engines.

DiscountClick have a range of options for all budgets ranging from $500 USD for their entry level Search Engine Optimization Website Service, which is an affordable solution for businesses just getting started on internet marketing. All the way up to $3000 USD for high end sites who want high rankings for high competitions keywords. Monthly services, no long term contracts.

Take a look at discountclick.com for more information.

Weekend....

2007-10-20T19:04:00.000+01:00

Weekends are always busy for me. 9 Children makes it so, so I don't get very much work done. However I was up until 2:30am working on some amendments to my arcade sites scripts. I added a list of links below each of the game thumbnails in the category lists on the front of the site.

My arcade site is based on the GSS (gamesitescripts) and phpBB forum, although very heavily modified during integration. If anyone is interested in what I have done and how leave me a message and I will give full details. Take a look at the site if you like something let me know and I'll tell you how I did it.

Weekends are also very bad for traffic. Schools are out and no one seems to want to waste time playing games online. A bigger problem this week as its also half-term here in the UK so it'll be a week of low traffic :(.

My first attempt at turning my text to gold

2007-10-20T00:24:00.001+01:00

Well I had a go at the tutorial for making your text look like gold and here are the results:

What do you think?

Update

2007-10-19T23:53:00.000+01:00

The arcade banner advertising seems to be working and visitors are starting to arrive at 247mgf.co.uk. We even had a couple of new members sign up to the members, that's not so unusual but these actually made some posts! Unless you run a forum you will not understand how amazing a feat this is. Its one thing to get visitors and then to have them sign up but to actually post is the difficult part.

It's difficult to know what's best when it comes to advertising on your site, do you want to keep your visitors or let them go which obviously advertising is trying to do. With arcade banners you're not even earning from your visitors leaving. I've got about 14 different banners, from about 10 different banner networks all trying to grab my visitors attention and whisk them away, and I know its working as I checked the banner networks logs today and I have quite a good rate of clicks for all of them. Most are getting around 2%-4% hit rate from me but then they are also bringing a lot of the traffic to me. I will keep monitoring it but as long as there bringing in traffic I will keep them but remove the non-performing networks as time goes on. I will of course keep you all posted.

Always24-7.co.uk also did well this week, although there is no advertising on there at the moment so no income but some of the traffic did filter over to 247mgf.co.uk so it wasn't a total waste.

As I am still working out how to spend the huge amounts of money I made a couple of days ago I haven't checked if I made any more but I will try and have an update over the weekend.

I'm working on another idea to enable me to promote some of the more adult affiliate programs that are unsuitable for this blog and my current sites. These should bring more income in. Again I'll keep you posted.

Free Software

2007-10-19T23:49:00.000+01:00

Free software Serif the people who created Pageplus.

The software is 3DPlus and this is what Serif say

"3DPlus is the amazing 3D design software that enables you to create stunning 3D graphics for your home, school or business - no experience required!

With 3DPlus you can create outstanding 3D designs in just a few minutes - with no need for any complicated VRML or other programming! And best of all, you can download our amazing 3D software, 3DPlus 2, completely free!"

If you're interested you can download it here: FREE SERIF SOFTWARE

Added Info: Just discovered that Serif do a number of free software offers: Check'em out Free Serif Software

The 100 oldest domains on the internet

2007-10-19T20:25:00.000+01:00

Ever wondered who were the first to get there domains:

Top 10 oldest domains are:
1. 15-Mar-1985 SYMBOLICS.COM
2. 24-Apr-1985 BBN.COM
3. 24-May-1985 THINK.COM
4. 11-Jul-1985 MCC.COM
5. 30-Sep-1985 DEC.COM
6. 07-Nov-1985 NORTHROP.COM
7. 09-Jan-1986 XEROX.COM
8. 17-Jan-1986 SRI.COM
9. 03-Mar-1986 HP.COM
10. 05-Mar-1986 BELLCORE.COM

The full list can be found at: The 100 oldest domains on the internet

Making your text look like gold

2007-10-19T09:02:00.001+01:00

Someone has asked me to build them a website, now I tried very hard to convince them that this was a terrible idea as a) I am useless at designing websites and b) see number 1. However they insisted, obviously this because they are either mad or more likely that I'm not charging (yet!).

I decided that it would be nice to have the heading in gold writing on a black background but I wanted it to look like gold rather than just be coloured gold. A little bit special, in the end I found a few sites, the first 2 sites are colour chart sites which helped with getting the colours I was looking for although in the end I didn't require them:

http://halflife.ukrpack.net/csfiles/help/colors.shtml
http://www.computerhope.com/htmcolor.htm

The next 2 sites were more helpful as in they showed how to make your text look like gold. The latter of the 2 sites being the best of the 2. However it is a long winded process but does look good at the end.

http://www.wowwebdesigns.com/power_guides/gold_text/
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshoptutorialstextfx/Creating_Text_Effects_with_Photoshop.htm

http://www.designvitality.com/blog/2007/09/photoshop-text-effect-tutorial/

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photoshop-text/text-effects/gold/

I did follow the instructions on the last site and although it did look good it took a while and it didn't look exactly the same as the sites example but I think that it because I didn't shape the text correctly at the beginning as the sites example seemed thicker. However it did look good. I will be giving this a go with a different font later but that I feel will be a little more difficult.

Money 4 banners

2007-10-18T19:59:00.000+01:00

I gave a brief mention regarding "earnings" so far yesterday but I forgot to mention that I also received my monthly £5 payment into my paypal account yesterday from money4banners. If you haven't joined these yet and you have a website take a look. £10 joining up payment and £5 per month for placing 3 banner ads on your site.

money4banners

Flash, Actionscript, flash game creation

2007-10-18T13:08:00.000+01:00

As a few of you by now will know one of my sites is a flash game site. Now I hate not knowing how something is done so I have decided to learn a little of how flash games are created and hopefully be able to create my own game albeit it probably very simple. Here are a free sites I have found that will hopefully help me figure it all out:

http://www.cartoonsmart.com/

http://www.flashkit.com/

http://www.actionscript.org/resources/categories/Tutorials/

If you know of any other good sites then please let me know. Thank you.

A couple of great CSS resource sites

2007-10-18T09:07:00.000+01:00

Came across these late last night:

cssvault.com
cssbeauty.com

Also joined a couple more arcade banner exchange sites (starting to become an addiction). Later I will put up the full list of arcade banner sites I have joined and links, also how well they are doing. Overall I think it is working albeit on a small scale.

Dictionary.com another helpful web resource

2007-10-17T21:42:00.000+01:00

Another web site to add to the web resource list: http://dictionary.reference.com/

Oh yes! Finally in the money! :)

2007-10-17T18:59:00.000+01:00

Oh Yes! On my way to being a internet millionaire! Noticed today that Adbrite had placed an ad on my site so I thought I would check them out (I'd forgotten that I had placed adspace with them). Anyhow I discovered I had made...... wait for it.............. $0.03 YES!!! Not quite enough to retire :) but did you think that was exciting? Well I thought while i'm checking out Adbrite I would have a look at my BidVertiser account and that was a whopping $0.08. So to recap:

Adbrite: $0.03
Bidvertiser: $0.06

This time next year i'll be a millionaire ;)

Free photo resource site

2007-10-17T09:17:00.000+01:00

Came across this excellent free photo resource site. If you need any photo's for your blogs or web sites then take a look at http://www.sxc.hu/index.phtml

New Web Resource Site

2007-10-16T20:45:00.001+01:00

Just came across this after checking out a new site for someone. Dreamweaver tutorials, programming, web design, htaccess, everything and anything to do with publishing a website.

http://www.thesitewizard.com/