Archive for December, 2007

Yesterday i went shopping to ‘The Marshes‘ in Dundalk. I seen a jacket i liked there a few weeks ago in pepe jeans and decided to go up and buy it – not remembering what it looked like or what price it was

The jacket was still there, so i then checked the price; €215 I tried it on and i didn’t really like it anyway, it was way to heavy and padded. The reason i need a jacket is because i’ve one or two parties coming up and it’s bloody freezing out at this time of year.

A shirt and tie is all well and good inside, but outside that’ll leave you freezing over. I do have jackets, but no ‘dressy’ ones (just run of mill sporty/adventure ones), so i was shopping for a ‘dressy’ jacket, and also new shoes as my old ones were battered and literally covered in dust underneath my bed

So i got a pair of new shoes and a jacket. Here they are;

But all of this stuff is boring. Who cares about boring ‘safe’ jackets and shoes. You guys want to see ‘attacking’ clothes, bold, crazy, whacky crap that allows you to have a little chuckle or WTF moment to yourself. That’s why you read blogs.. for entertainment, for something different.

So in order to counter-balance for what i call ‘safe’ clothes, i’ve bought an ‘attacking’ tie – the tie i was talking about a couple of weeks ago The 8 bit geek tie I’ve a party next weekend, so i’m crossing my fingers it arrives before Friday. There’ll be pics of me in the tie if it arrives, i promise

I was also thinking to myself, this would be one hell of a tie to wear to an interview when i’m going for a tech related job… the boss would either think i’m a complete geek/wierdo/joker, or else love it and give me bonus marks for a sense of humour/appreciation for tech stuff. That’s what i mean by an ‘attacking’ tie. It can gain or lose points with people, depending on how tech savy those people are.

So wearing that tie to an interview would be frowned upon by most people as it’s not ‘safe’, it’s risky. But risky is good, as it means you have a chance of beating the guy who just wears a boring stripey tie in. That’s the sort of difference this tie can make.

It typifies my attitude. I could spend €500 on boring shoes and jackets/trousers etc.. but the tie is the most important part to me, because it is the gamble, it is ‘me’ more than any other item of clothing i have on me.

The free ads contest i was holding is now over and i’ve got 6 winners

Everyone had to guess how many hits i got for November (according to google analytics). I got 2330 unique visitors. The dip you see is the when the new theme kicked into action. I forgot to add the analytics code for a day or so, hence the slight blip.

Anyway, the winners are bolded:

blogengage 2200
sirjorge 2400
universitykid 2500
preblogging 2600
ciaranrooney 2752
davidparkinson 3150
mark 3200
knupnet 3404
typelife 13260

If for whatever reason, they don’t take up their ads, ‘mark’ will be next inline and so on.. I’m emailing all winners now as we speak

My girlfriend wants an ipod for christmas..

Not the ipod touch or classic (thank god, my wallet is happy!), but an ipod nano (the new, fat little video one). Mainly due to the size. But this is of course great for me too because it’s the cheapest of the lot.

Normally it costs €149 for silver, and €199 for any other colour. On Friday gone, for friday only, apple had a sale on until midnight. I got a silver ipod nano with free laser engraving for €138 delivered. So i saved €11

I just stumbled upon this deal 10 minutes before midnight!! So the race was on to register an account, order the ipod and fill in my card details Thankfully i got the order submitted in time, but it was simply a case of being in the right place at the right time. I saved €11 so i’m happy

Casually browsing about online can actually pay off

November has been a mixed month for me online.

On the plus side, i celebrated one year in blogging with a new custom blog design – something i believe will help differentiate me from other bloggers. I’ve also added some nice little touches to make my blog more attractive to you guys, such as the ‘you comment, i follow‘ plugin. I’ve also made sure it’s 100% css and xhtml valid.

I’ve also created a network of blogs which i’ve begun to update using a timetable and i have high hopes for these blogs and intend to sell then on within the next 2 months.

On the downside, my pagerank was stripped from me. I also made NO paid reviews in november. Not a single one.

Was this down to zero pagerank? It probably played a role, but even before i had my PR stripped, i did notice the lack of relevant opportunities at PPP and ReviewMe.

It’s disappointing, but then again PPP are going through major changes at the minute so it’ll be 3/4 months before the dust starts to settle on this paid link thing imo. The next pagerank update will be very important and we can probably expect that around January/February.

Anyhow, here’s the breakdown:

Text-Link-Ads: $41.17

WidgetBucks: $43.77

Total: $84.94 (-$27.97 on last month)

Slightly down on last month, but i’m not too worried… i’m slowly trying to test the waters in other areas, such as setting up and selling on sites. It’s perhaps the most profitable way of making money online, but then again it requires a hell of a lot of time and effort and ‘niche spotting’.

Just a reminder to all those who haven’t entered, i’m giving away 4 FREE button ads for all of December, plus 2 FREE text links.

Full details here (Only comments/guesses on that post will be counted).

All you gotta do is guess the amount of unique visitors i get in November. Competition closes on Sunday at 9pm.

So far, we’ve got 9 guesses, so you stand a great chance of winning a freead if you enter. The closest 6 guesses get the ads