Enkay

As many of you know, using the little touchpad on a laptop can be frustrating specially when you’re using it 12 hours a day. This post comes out of a recent purchase of a mouse mostly because my work laptop starts to become somewhat of a pain in the comfort department when I use the touchpad or even the little pencil eraser mouse. I started sitting there with an old school wired mouse that I had received with a desktop I purchased in 2001 – yes old school and eventually that became a burden having to travel with the extra wires and such so I decided to go out on a limb and purchase the Microsoft Mobile Mouse 6000 from a local Fry’s.

Whats So Great About It?
The cost of the mouse generally is $39.99 but Microsoft was nice enough to pay for the mouse in the end so it became $0 out of pocket for me but even for $40 this mouse really is great. I have an unboxing video below and to be honest, this post is NOT sponsored by Microsoft nor have they asked me to do this. Also the video features a black version of the mouse but its the exact same mouse. I just have used this mouse for a month now and have really loved it and mostly because it works on almost any surface. Transparent surfaces are a no go but I’ve tried it on granite, leather, different types of carpet and this makes using the mouse pretty much anywhere quite spectacular.

The best part about it atleast for me is that the bluetrack technology gives the mouse more accuracy and I haven’t noticed a tremendous difference aside from its capability to work on a multitude of different surfaces. It does that have the tiny nano transceiver which is pretty convenient because its hard to notice and fits into the mouse when I need to stow it away.

Interestingly this made me think about what people prefer when they need a mouse – some folks prefer a wired optical mouse, some prefer wireless and some are really comfortable with the touchpad or pencil eraser mouse – so I want to know what do you prefer?

Link : Microsoft Mobile Mouse 6000

Google Adsense – How I love thee! I have always been a huge proponent of Google Adsense and have received several checks from Google as well but, considering that I have been away from the blogging scene for so long, it becomes a bit difficult to continue generating revenue but I have to say that even with the minimal amount of activity that I have had on the blog, Adsense helped pay the hosting bills a 100%.

Ahhh yes, Hosting! Interestingly enough, I had a huge battle with 1and1 as well but thats a story for a different blog post [Reminder for Self]. Now that I am back and the fact that I had some white space in the sidebar, I decided to add a large 250×250 Google Image Ad in the sidebar.

I also went ahead and added a 468×70 ad at the bottom of each separate post page. I do want to add an ad to the bottom of each post on the main page as well. These are not the intrusive ads but the ads that are really really thin and text only.

The basic thought process behind the placement of the ads is:
1) Visibility of the ads on the main page – When you place the ads on your page, make sure that they are visible and not jumbled with other ads and generally placed in the first fold of the page. Right now the ad in the sidebar is towards the bottom because of how long it takes Google to get relevant image ads to show up but eventually it will move to the first fold of the page.

2) Placement within a post - When a blog post is published, there are several ad options – such as placing the ad in the middle of a post, bottom or the top of a post. When an ad is placed at the top of a post, it probably shouldn’t be a large horizontal ad but a square ad aligned to the right of your post. I will include this type of ad in this post so that you can see how the ad will look.

3) Choosing the right ads – Generally Google places the content based on what you select but, what I mean is choosing an image ad vs text ads and there are tons of articles out there as to which ones are better. I will probably have a post on that topic coming up shortly so we can discuss which is better but, for now, just know that choosing the right kind of ad for the space is critical. Lets say I used a text ad in the sidebar instead of the image ad, it would probably look too crowded with all the text that I have in the sidebar for links and such. So that’s kind of the point that I am attempting to make with this last bullet.

Let me know your thoughts on the ad placement topic and I will have more posts regarding Adsense and ads in general along with sample pages and where I would recommend ads to be placed. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this post. I haven’t done a list-style post in a while but those seem to be the ones that always get a good bit of attention. Either way, have a great weekend!

How many of you have received a quick email from the owner of a blog, almost instantaneously after you have posted a comment on their blog the first time? Show of hands? Seems like almost all of you have at some point – at least those of you who are blog dwellers have. I always thought it was a great concept but also figured it was a bit too spammy and I figured that some bloggers would take complete advantage of that first email and they did and it definitely worked but I think that lately the practice of using it has slowed down.

Today, I decided to download the same plug-in and give it a whirl. The plug-in is called Thank Me Later. What the plug-in allows you to do is basically contact a first time commenter on your blog and pass on your appreciation to them for doing so. What the plug-in also allows you to do is to write a personalized message, so generally bloggers include their RSS feed link, a link to their 5 most popular posts or even a link to their book.

For example, if you are a first time commenter on my blog, you’ll receive a link to my RSS feed which helps build your reader base but also you will receive a link to my ebook. Its just a way of furthering your traffic and helping build rapport with new commentators on your blog as well. My main idea is to also network with people who comment on my blog. I’m building my RSS base again so I would really like to see whats going on in my blogosphere.

Also, since its the summer, I figure that I will have a bit more time to put together a second book and hopefully pass that onto my new and existing readers as well and possibly a contest along with that too. Not sure how many contests take place any more but maybe you can give me your feedback on that too. Take a look at the sample email that I generated from the plug-in.

The plug-in is just a really good tool to reach out and have first time visitors remember you. Its interesting because I get a lot of traffic from Google so lets say someone visits my blog, likes a post and comments and then closes the window without book marking it or paying attention to the domain. Now, the plug-in will help email them a link to my feed, my blog and my book. Its seriously a great add-on if you use it properly and don’t spam your readers. Let me know your thoughts on the plug-in. Is it too bothersome or is it a good idea as long as the blogger doesn’t take advantage of the plug-in?