We are into the new year by a whole month now and I have never been happier with this blog's progress. A few different articles have generated very high traffic and I have managed to smash through my earnings records in a couple of places.

Thoughts From My Life Traffic Stats for January 2008

January's numbers and December's numbers are in brackets.

Traffic started off on a high note because of my Acer Extensa 5420 review article that I wrote near the end of December. My traffic to that page slowed done a bit and in the meantime I had written these 4 articles which have picked up a ton of traffic for me:

• Acer Extensa 5420 Black Screen On Startup
• Frets On Fire - Free Version Of Guitar Hero
• Getting Frets On Fire Working On Vista
• Getting Frets On Fire Working On XP

Still showing very strong page views are my articles on the Best Nintendo DS Homebrew and Aeroplan Versus Air Miles - Comparing Them.

Thoughts From My Life Revenue

Overall, my earnings for January 2008 were $240.32. Here is the breakdown with last month's numbers in brackets.

• PayU2Blog: $95.00 ($75.00)
• Adsense: $105.82 ($59.79)
• Kontera: $29.00 ($21.54)
• LinkWorth: $10.50 ($15.00)

My Adsense blew away the old record of $59.79 to clear one hundred dollars in one month!!! This is important to me because this is when Google issues a payment. Technically I will receive a payment from them every month now.

Kontera has also set a new record. It is interesting that with all the new traffic, it has not increased as much as Google Adsense has. Nevertheless it provides additional money.

PayU2Blog was also high this month as there were 3 pay periods for me in January, so I was receiving money for articles actually written in December as well.

Passive income reached over $145 for the month and over 60% of the revenue for my site. I feel like I could drop PayU2Blog at this point if I wanted, but I will keep using them as they are convenient right now. They were also a big help when I first got started.

This has been my best month (again) for passive income and I am really looking forward to February.

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This month is going to be a focus on advertising and increasing the monetization of this site. I am clearing 500 unique visitors a day and 800 page views a day. This isn't huge traffic, but it is fairly steady.

In John Chow's January 2008 earnings, he was able to make around 10 cents ($0.10) per page view. That is huge. My January page views were around 20,000. With his rate of return that should have earned me $2,000.

I have two main problems when trying to copy what he has done:

• He has an enormous amount of private ad sales revenue.
• He belongs to three ad networks that I cannot qualify for until I have higher traffic. That is Text Link Ads, ReviewMe, and TTZ Media.

In the meantime, I have added BidVertiser to the bottom of my pages and I am keeping an eye on AzoogleAds to see if there are good affiliate programs that I can use. I have added links for 3 of them in my side menu bar and see if I can get any action out of them.

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I wrote the other day about my increase in advertising, but I have added more in the meantime.

I have signed up with two different affiliate programs. The first is AzoogleAds. This is a company that packages together various affiliate programs and facilitates the deal for you while taking their own cut. Create an Azoogle account and check them out. They have an excellent interface for searching and looking for affiliate programs that much what you need.

The second affiliate network is Commission Junction. They are very similar to Azoogle, but I am finding they have a lot more selection to choose from. This is especially true for some of my search criteria which is for more specific traffic from a region.

Pick Your Affiliates Carefully

Remember, be aware of what kind of traffic is coming to your site. Some of my more popular articles are Aeroplan and Airmiles related. These are Canadian airline programs so 99% of my traffic is coming from Canada.

Some of my other more popular articles are technical and troubleshooting related, so having support services affiliates might be a better option. Regardless, it takes time and experimentation. I am ussing a few different affiliates from both Azoogle and Commission Junction and am in the process of testing them out.

Look for results in the next couple weeks.

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I wrote about Frets On Fire a few weeks ago and about how I got it working. The one thing I was trying to get was a guitar though. I managed to get a hold of the XBox 360 guitar for Guitar Hero 2 and try it out.

It works perfectly! All you have to do is plug it into a USB port on your computer, let the drivers install automatically, start Frets On Fire, and go into the Key Settings section to map the buttons.

When you map the keys, you just select the function you want to map, press Enter on the keyboard, and then press the button on the guitar you want to act as that function. It works really well.

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One of my favorite homebrew games has been QuakeDS. It has made it onto my list of the Best Nintendo DS Homebrew. Well now Simon Hall has come out with Quake 2 for the Nintendo DS. You can read about it on the Quake2DS thread.

Apparently it works quite well, but you must have a Slot-2 solution card present to act as extra RAM that is needed to load the game up into. That sucks a bit for you Slot-1 only guys, but that's just the way it works.

I was hoping to write a big article on how to get it working and review the game, but unfortunately I cannot get it working either. I did all the instructions, picked Auto-Detect and Slowest for settings. It counts up the memory, displays some messages that go through too fast to read, and then it displays a red screen saying:

Guru Meditation Error! data abort!

along with a bunch of register values.

I am using a the Supercard Lite with Super Key. Some of the users on the thread have stated that it works for that scenario, but mine has yet to start working.

I posted a comment and will hopefully get a response soon. I'll post my results when I get it figured out.

Here is a YouTube video to watch while you're at it.

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I just received my new Nixon watch in the mail today. It is The Duke and looks pretty cool. It has a brown strap and gold/brown faceplate on it. It looks pretty dressy, but not over the top so it suits my work quite well.

I ended up buying it on eBay for US$145 brand new. This is a fair bit cheaper than the stores. From what I have found, the Nixon Duke retails for around CA$230. It looks like the brown one is at this price and the rest of them are $280 and up.

The Duke is in Nixon's Business Class line of watches. Check out The Duke product page on the Nixon site.

The specs on the website are:

MOVEMENT
2 HAND SUPER THIN MOVEMENT WITH SWISS PARTS AND REAL DIAMOND

CASE
CUSTOM 30 METER STAINLESS STEEL WITH DOMED HARDENED MINERAL CRYSTAL, AND DOUBLE GASKET CROWN.

BAND
CUSTOM DOUBLE TONGUE IMPORTED LEATHER WITH CUSTOM STAINLESS STEEL BARS.

Why I Bought The Duke

The band is nice and wide, which is what I was looking for. The second reason is that the casing and metal is all the darker brushed silver look. I'm not one for bright colors and this does it up just right.

Drawbacks to The Duke

Only one as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't have the hour markers on the face. There are no markings at all except for the hands, Nixon logo, and a little jewel at the bottom. I am getting used to it, but you have to take that extra second to make sure you know what time it is.

There are a few different colors available so check them out on eBay or go to the Nixon site for the details. The best prices are definitely on eBay though.

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I wrote about The Duke, a Nixon watch I purchased on eBay the other day. Well my wife also purchased a Nixon watch called The Lizzie. It is a nice looking watch. It is a little more casual than The Duke, but could still be worn on dressy occasions.

When looking for Lizzie Nixon watches, there are a ton of different styles out there. Hers has a white strap with holes patterned through the band and a shiny stainless steel casing. There are little dot markers for the hours and the arms glow in the dark.

I ended up buying it on eBay for US$45 brand new. I had a hard time comparing it for a deal. From what other on-line stores state, it looks like it normally retails for around $80, however I see it is no longer carried in some of the actual watch stores here in Canada. Perhaps it was discontinued. Either way, it is a really nice watch for that price.

The specs on the eBay page are:

Stainless steel Case
Leather Band
Case is Waterproof to 3M (Band NO)
Weights 3oz

Why She Wanted the White Snakeskin Lizzie

It is overall a really nice watch. Having the white band makes it wearable with almost any outfit.

What She Does Not Like About the Lizzie

She has not had any complaints so far. For the price, it is a really nice looking watch.

There are a few different colors available so check them out on eBay.

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This past long weekend, a group of us stayed at the Chateau Canmore in Canmore, Alberta. It is located just 10 minutes from the Banff park entrance.

Overall, the place was pretty good. The price was reasonable and the facilities nice and clean.

Check out Chateau Canmore's site.

What's Nice

Our room was nice. Two beds and a pull out bed in the sofa in the other room. It had two televisions, fridge, microwave, and a couple of tables to set stuff on as well.

There is a hot tub and pool. They are pretty small, but not a lot of people were using them anyways, so we were always able to get in. The pool is inside and the hot tub sits on a deck outside.

There is also an exercise room and restaurant. We didn't use either, but they looked nice.

The main lobby has free coffee in the mornings, which is nice if you are getting an early start to the hill.

What's Not Nice

I couldn't complain much, but there were a few annoyances.

It was hard to keep the room cool enough. It was quite warm so we always had the window cracked when we were home. Didn't run the fireplace once all weekend.

Only one of the televisions had RCA inputs on it, so you can only hook up a DVD player or other device to the one in the bedroom.

They have the slowest elevator I think I have ever been in. It is kind of funny actually.

The Train?

We had read a lot of reviews complaining about the train being too noisy. We saw the train, but I never heard it once while we were staying there. Mind you, we had a room on the front side of the building and not the back, so that might have helped.

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I don't know what it is with FeedBurner, but their stats certainly have been going up and down lately. I was over 70 just a couple days ago and now I'm down to 44. I was going up and down by 15 a day for a few weeks as well.

Maybe it is the cutoff time or they have a glitch in their system. Oh well.

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I finally broke down and purchased Guitar Hero 3. I have been playing the free version Frets On Fire for the last while, but I wanted the guitar and it was reasonable to pay $80 for Guitar Hero on eBay instead of the $60 for just the guitar anyways.

You can check out my Frets On Fire - Free Version Of Guitar Hero article to find out more about it.

I have to say, having both programs is a pretty good mix. The full campaign mod and animation of Guitar Hero is nice for single player. However, the way bigger list of songs for Frets On Fire make it nice for playing whatever you are feeling like.

Purchased On eBay

I bought the game on eBay, and I feel I saved around $15 since I didn't have to pay the tax in Canada either, so the savings aren't ideal. Another thing I didn't realize is that there is a product key in the manual (which I didn't get) that lets you register on-line to compare scores. This is free in Frets On Fire anyways, but it would still be nice to have on Guitar Hero.

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