Some general observations (or rants). I write about whatever captures my attention - and also post a few useful tips and PHP scripts for webmasters, too, as I learn from my mistakes, requirements or other people's experiences.

Each week, I’ll post a selection of quality, free magazines and whitepapers (mainly relating to technology topics) which I’ve found the most interesting and believe would be of interest to my readers. Yes - that’s right - absolutely free - the only "catch" is you have to read them while you’re using your PC as they are ezines.

First up is Businesses Beware - New Battlefront in Email and Web - Email and the Web offers productivity benefits, but it also poses areas of risk that can threaten productivity, system uptime and the reputation of your organization. Read more.

DailyTechRag - IT News, Trends &ampl Fun Stuff - An very popular online IT magazine delivering you the latest news to you daily and quickly. Read more.

SearchSystemsChannel - Operating Systems Information and Analysis, Tips, News - Uncover the most in-depth information and analysis on topics including windows and open source operating systems, remote server management, database management and server virtualization in SearchSystemsChannel. Read more.

After spending a lot of time reading mixed reviews, I have finally decided to test out Bidvertiser and see how it compares first-hand to other services I have used. Overall, Bidvertiser perhaps had as many reviews for as it has against. I am first going to test it out on my blog and only on the post page for the first few days (I will later add it everywhere on my blog).

What I did notice at first is some problems with how the ads are displayed, although this seemed to go away after a few page refreshes (and it was not caching issues as I cleared my cache a few times). Aside from this small niggle, the control panel is easy enough to use and Bidvertiser allows for a greater control over advertisement sizes (a custom size can be specified) than many other services.

Bidvertiser allows better filtering of unwanted adverts. I have not tested it yet, but you can select for pre-approval of an advert before it will be featured on your site. They also display if the ad is geo-targeted and to which country (or countries).

I’ll report back on the progress (if any) within 7 days of The Bidvertiser Experiment.

Perhaps you too can Make money from your Website or Blog with BidVertiser?

I was recently looking for a plugin for Amarok (it seems to be the best mp3 player provided with openSUSE 10.2) which will display the song title and artist of the music track I’m currently listening to in Pidgin’s status. After spending some time researching available plugins and reading user comments I found AmarokPidgin at KDE-Apps.org which does what I want and appeared to have straight-forward installation.

So, I installed the plugin and once up-and-running it worked like a charm. However, the plugin was unable to generate the default configuration so I had to do this manually. Just copy the config file below in to a text editor and save it to ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/scripts-data/ as AmarokPidgin.ini.

Read more…

Andy McNab’s latest book, Crossfire, is shortly to be released. In fact, it will be available from November 3, 2007, and is one book I am eagerly anticipating (along with many other people, I’m sure).

Crossfire places the stories hero, Nick Stone, in Basra (Iraq) as bodyguard for a TV crew. It’s dangerous times and during an insurgent attack Nick, the man hired to protect people, is the one saved by a reporter. Mysteriously, though, the reporter disappears shortly after the attack and curiously Nick’s old masters, the intelligence service, ask Nick to find him. What interest could SIS have in a reporter?

The search leads Stone to travel to several countries and finally ending up in Kabul. This is where things take a bad turn and Nick suddenly becomes the hunted. Will Stone survive, or will he die in the Crossfire?

Like every book Andy McNab writes, it is sure to be a page-turner and perhaps one I should leave for a day off work as I know I won’t be able to put it down until I’ve reach the end. Fortunately, it’s also currently available for half-price at Amazon - that’s right, £9.49 for the hardback, which is a bargain when compared to waiting several months for the paperback copy (which will be released in June 2008).

Google has quite a few blogs, almost 40 of them in fact (possibly more as I can’t guarantee this list is comprehensive), but there was not one central (and official) list that I could find (perhaps I need to look harder?) nonetheless I did usefully find a feed of all the blogs and also an OPML file containing all the blogs (this can be imported in to your favourite feed-reader). However, while this is useful many readers won’t be interested in every blog so below I have included below a list links for official feeds in order to make it easier for you to choose which ones you’re interested in and subscribe.

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