Google Adsense

On July 26, 2005, I entered the world of selling advertising space online. Well, to be more specific I set some space aside on this blog for Google to act as my agent and sell advertisements that theoretically relate to what I write on my blog. Today, October 31, 2007, I have finally made enough to request my first cheque.

It has taken me basically 27 months and almost 64,000 page views to reach this point. Interestingly enough, the three Octobers that occurred over that 27 month time span represent about half of my advertising income.

I think that I will achieve another cheque in less than 27 months simply because my blog just keeps growing and growing. I'll continue to post things that I think will interest people in October, my blog's busy month as well as normal run of the mill things.

This isn't the best way to go about making money by blogging, but an extra cheque from Google every now and then isn't exactly a kick in the shins. I'm really excited for it even though I'm making approximately the same amount of money on istock every two weeks as I just made through Google over the last 27 months.

-Gary Milner

One More Thing About TV

If you can download a 30 minute show in 1 hour and it takes people 15 minutes to put the show on the internet after it first airs. You can actually download your favorite shows, (30 Rock and The Office) from the people in New York and be watching them (the shows, not the people) 15 minutes before it airs here in Alberta or an hour and 15 if you live on the west coast.

-Gary

Television

Television

You know what would be awesome? If you could type, "Television Listings for Medicine Hat" into google.com and get a link to for Medicine Hat.

Like some sort of guide to tv. It could have the channels and times listed along with the shows and possibly plot summaries for the shows. It would be like an internet version of TV Guide the magazine.

Seriously how hard could it be? Plenty of people have access to television listings in a computer based format. They wouldn't even have to retype them. They could just copy and past them.

A person should be able to search by time, channel and name of show. Searching for, "30 Rock" should give you a list of times and channels corresponding to when, "30 Rock" playing. Searching for 9:00pm Thursday should give you a list of everything playing on Thursday at 9:00pm as well as the next 2 hours after that.

There should also be links to teasers in an attempt to get you to actually watch those shows. No wonder people download TV. What's the point of watching TV at a set time when A. you can't even find out the time the show you want to watch is on, and B. You can just watch it on your computer without the commercials anyway.

Conversation with a 7th Grader

Me, "Do you want your hoodie in the picture?"
Girl, "No."
Me, "Then take it off."
Girl, "No."
Me, "Do you want your hoodie in the picture?"
Girl, "No."
Me, "Then take it off."
Girl, "No."
Me, "I don't understand. You don't want your hoodie in the picture, but you won't take it off?"
Girl, Sits in Fog
Me, "If you don't want the hoodie in the picture, you have to take it off. If you don't take your hoodie off, it will be in the picture. Are you going to take it off or not?"
Girl, "I want it on."
Me, "Fine."

-Gary

osama

This is a repeat from last year. I like it enough that I think it warrants another posting. I think that it is one of the better templates I have made. At least it looks the most like what I want it to be like.

I figured he's a pretty scary guy, so why not make him into a jack 'o lantern.

Included in this Halloween related post are links to two pictures. One with a black background and one with a white background. The white background picture is for printing and using as the template and the blackbackground is to help you visulize what it will look like.

If you use this one, cut the black part out of the pumpkin. Use the tips and how to's from my other Halloween posts to help you.

In other more job related news, we will be done taking photos towards the end of the month. Right now we are about a week behind printing the orders, but we will be catching up very quickly because we had a week off at the start of October.

-Gary Milner

How to Make a Pumpkin Carving Stencil or Template

I just found a really good tutorial on how to make a pumpkin carving template or stencil.
http://www.homelogichalloween.com/pumpkin_tut.php
It comes in the form of a 20 minute video that seems pretty easy to follow. He even shows how to simulate what the final carved pumpkin will look like. I really recommend it.

Making a template to carve a pumpkin is a lot easier than you might imagine. The tutorial is for Photoshop CS3, but he doesn't use many if any tools that aren't available in a lot of the older versions. Also by watching how he does it, you could incorporate his concepts into making your own templates.

Really there are a lot of concepts that apply to making all sorts of templates that are useful to pumpkin stencils.

-Gary

Ratatouille Pumpkin Carving Template

I've decided that it is time for me to post a new pumpkin carving pattern. This year I've chosen Remy from the movie Ratatouille. The best movie of 2007.

I really enjoyed it, hopefully using this pumpkin carving template will help you have a happy Halloween.

If you want to see my other pumpkin carving templates, here is the link.

Click the photo for a larger version.

-Gary