Back in 2006/7, when I was out of work for some months, I was persuaded I could produce some income by writing blog posts for various sites. According to the site owners I would make piles of money and probably never have to go to work again. Yeah, right.
However, I did write a lot of blog posts, including ones for a site called Orble, where I had two blogs running consecutively. Both of these blogs mysteriously disappeared a few years ago, and no amount of inquiry to Orble elicited any response. Thankfully, I'd kept the posts from one of the sites - WorkReport.net - relating to issues I had with my prostate in the late 2008-early 2009, because I wanted to write a book using them. (The book eventually got published as Diary of a Prostate Wimp, available as an e-book on Amazon Kindle as well as other devices.)
I did make some cash out of these sites, through Google Adsense, so they weren't entirely wasted.
Another site, Triond, where I also made a small amount of cash (they paid monthly, rather than waiting till the payments had built up to US$100) also eventually went into some kind of AWOL status, and refused to respond to enquiries. Dozens of bloggers wrote to them but they just ignored us all.
The problem with these sites gradually disappearing off the Net is that you lose all the blog posts you've written - unless you're very good at backing things up. I wasn't that good, but early on I tended to write the posts offline, in Word, and then upload them to the blog. Which meant I had copies of them.
I've been sifting back through my old files, and have discovered a fairly large wad of posts, some good, some not so good. In order to give the better ones a new lease of life, I'll add them to this blog over the next months/year. I'll note on when and where they first appeared (if I actually have those details) so that you don't think you're reading totally new material. Not that it would matter: there's an awful lot of recycled material on the Internet!
Just another little project....
Showing posts with label triond. Show all posts
Showing posts with label triond. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Google pays up!
My first ever cheque from Google in payment of Adsense credits arrived today. $125.65 in NZ dollars.
It's only taken me four and a half years to get that much - I first started collecting from Adsense way back in late 2006 after I finished up at OC Books. And because the income came in so slowly - and Google doesn't pay out to overseas customers until they've got $100US in the kitty - it's been a long time coming.
However, in recent months there have been considerable amounts coming through Triond; for instance, up to today for June, I've earned US$5.94, which is about ten times what I use to earn in a month, or three months even. So the next Google cheque may not be quite so far away...2012 rather than 2016!
On another tack, I've been using Evernote for a few months to keep track of odds and ends I come across on the Net, or other bits of info. It's great because it syncs onto a cloud, and I can pick it up on other computers. Occasionally it's a bit clunky...like when it copies something from a site, and insists on putting a box around it so that you can't insert other stuff easily...but in general it's a great storage space.
And it has a great search function. For instance, I wanted to see if I had anything that related to the phrase laminate flooring. I couldn't find that phrase exactly, but in the process of looking I found all sorts of other interesting things (that I'd forgotten about!)
A note about where the first floor plans for the house are stored, for example. The following "MIDDLE AGE TEXTING CODES:... ATD: At The Doctors. BTW: Bring the Wheelchair. BYOT: Bring Your Own Teeth. FWIW: Forgot Where I Was. GGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low. GHA: Got Heartburn Again. IMHO: Is My Hearing-Aid On? LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out. OMSG: Oh My! Sorry, Gas! ROFLACGU: Rolling On Floor Laughing And Can't Get Up. TTYL: Talk To You Louder".
This odd ending to an interview with N D Wilson (who is currently writing the screenplay for C S Lewis' The Great Divorce : Let's just say, I used to hate coffee, and now I don't. I've also gotten pretty good at deep breathing exercises and lying on the floor. [Don't ask me what that's got to do with the rest of the piece.]
Or this intriguing introduction to The Annual Turing Test: Since 1991, the Turing Test has been administered at the so-called Loebner Prize competition, an event sponsored by a colorful figure: the former baron of plastic roll-up portable disco dance floors, Hugh Loebner. When asked his motives for orchestrating this annual Turing Test, Loebner cites laziness, of all things: his utopian future, apparently, is one in which unemployment rates are nearly 100 percent and virtually all of human endeavor and industry is outsourced to intelligent machines.
Or from a piece on urbanisation: Once, while jogging on a treadmill on the top floor of a Sao Paulo hotel, I tried to count the many helicopters buzzing by. The city has the highest rate of private helicopter use in the world -- a literal sign of what heights people will go to in order to avoid the realities of the world below.
Okay I haven't found anything helpful in relation to 'laminate floors' but I'm having a ball going through these old files...
It's only taken me four and a half years to get that much - I first started collecting from Adsense way back in late 2006 after I finished up at OC Books. And because the income came in so slowly - and Google doesn't pay out to overseas customers until they've got $100US in the kitty - it's been a long time coming.
However, in recent months there have been considerable amounts coming through Triond; for instance, up to today for June, I've earned US$5.94, which is about ten times what I use to earn in a month, or three months even. So the next Google cheque may not be quite so far away...2012 rather than 2016!
On another tack, I've been using Evernote for a few months to keep track of odds and ends I come across on the Net, or other bits of info. It's great because it syncs onto a cloud, and I can pick it up on other computers. Occasionally it's a bit clunky...like when it copies something from a site, and insists on putting a box around it so that you can't insert other stuff easily...but in general it's a great storage space.
And it has a great search function. For instance, I wanted to see if I had anything that related to the phrase laminate flooring. I couldn't find that phrase exactly, but in the process of looking I found all sorts of other interesting things (that I'd forgotten about!)
A note about where the first floor plans for the house are stored, for example. The following "MIDDLE AGE TEXTING CODES:... ATD: At The Doctors. BTW: Bring the Wheelchair. BYOT: Bring Your Own Teeth. FWIW: Forgot Where I Was. GGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low. GHA: Got Heartburn Again. IMHO: Is My Hearing-Aid On? LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out. OMSG: Oh My! Sorry, Gas! ROFLACGU: Rolling On Floor Laughing And Can't Get Up. TTYL: Talk To You Louder".
This odd ending to an interview with N D Wilson (who is currently writing the screenplay for C S Lewis' The Great Divorce : Let's just say, I used to hate coffee, and now I don't. I've also gotten pretty good at deep breathing exercises and lying on the floor. [Don't ask me what that's got to do with the rest of the piece.]
Or this intriguing introduction to The Annual Turing Test: Since 1991, the Turing Test has been administered at the so-called Loebner Prize competition, an event sponsored by a colorful figure: the former baron of plastic roll-up portable disco dance floors, Hugh Loebner. When asked his motives for orchestrating this annual Turing Test, Loebner cites laziness, of all things: his utopian future, apparently, is one in which unemployment rates are nearly 100 percent and virtually all of human endeavor and industry is outsourced to intelligent machines.
Or from a piece on urbanisation: Once, while jogging on a treadmill on the top floor of a Sao Paulo hotel, I tried to count the many helicopters buzzing by. The city has the highest rate of private helicopter use in the world -- a literal sign of what heights people will go to in order to avoid the realities of the world below.
Okay I haven't found anything helpful in relation to 'laminate floors' but I'm having a ball going through these old files...
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Viewers galore!
In February this year, the New Zealand Herald published a list of things that are great about the country of New Zealand. The other day I had another look at the list, and added a few comments of my own.
My article appears on Trifter.com, one of the many offshoots of the Triond.com site. For some reason it's taken off; it's had more readers than any other article I've published on that site - at least in terms of how long it's been on there (about three days). I don't know why it's taken off, that's the funny thing, but it's already been dugg on Digg quite a few times, and it's probably visible in other places too - I haven't yet checked.Anyway, it's a pleasant surprise. After months of slogging along on Triond with very slow viewing stats, it's great to have something go over the top.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Catching up on writing
Over this Easter weekend I've managed to get on and do some more writing for the Triond site, where articles can be left indefinitely, and can keep on getting viewed, and making money. (Peanuts, but it is money.)
I sat down a week or so ago and tried to chart out my writing/composing priorities. Doing an article a week for Triond was one of them. I kind of caught up by writing four articles, a couple of which were rehashes of pieces I'd done before.
So for those with an interest in other things I do, here are the links:
Blowing My Own Trumpet. This is a piece about trying to promote yourself on the Net. Self-referential is the term, I think!
Friends for Life. This one looks at some of the books on my shelves and concludes that some of them make better friends than the real people I know. Hmmm. This was a piece I started some time ago and never did anything more with.
The Delightful Lives at 44 Scotland St. Another 'rehash' - in the best sense. I've taken the four book reviews I've done of the four episodes in Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland St series and woven them together into a long overview. It's called recycling.
Support Your Local Circus. This was written new and fresh yesterday after I went to see Weber Brothers' Circus in Mosgiel, one of the outer suburbs of Dunedin. It's a lovely little circus, full of energy and life, with clowns that are genuinely funny, and some wonderful Asian acrobats. And three absolutely crazy motorcyclists racing around and around inside what seems a very tiny metal globe.
Photo by Atelier Teee
I sat down a week or so ago and tried to chart out my writing/composing priorities. Doing an article a week for Triond was one of them. I kind of caught up by writing four articles, a couple of which were rehashes of pieces I'd done before.
So for those with an interest in other things I do, here are the links:
Blowing My Own Trumpet. This is a piece about trying to promote yourself on the Net. Self-referential is the term, I think!
Friends for Life. This one looks at some of the books on my shelves and concludes that some of them make better friends than the real people I know. Hmmm. This was a piece I started some time ago and never did anything more with.
The Delightful Lives at 44 Scotland St. Another 'rehash' - in the best sense. I've taken the four book reviews I've done of the four episodes in Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland St series and woven them together into a long overview. It's called recycling.
Support Your Local Circus. This was written new and fresh yesterday after I went to see Weber Brothers' Circus in Mosgiel, one of the outer suburbs of Dunedin. It's a lovely little circus, full of energy and life, with clowns that are genuinely funny, and some wonderful Asian acrobats. And three absolutely crazy motorcyclists racing around and around inside what seems a very tiny metal globe.
Photo by Atelier Teee
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Back to HitTail
It’s rather a while since I last checked out HitTail, and that means that there’s a swag of searches listed which have connected up to this blog in some way or other. A few of them are downright strange, for example:
Crowls Land Investment (wasn’t aware we had any land to invest)
Money order not it [sic] my name
Coffin maker carpenter twentieth century Russian Chinese
Loss of little toe evolution
Eat cheese itch on fingers (urrgh)
Slouching towards serfdom
Don’t use Triond cause it is an Israeli company (scary - who finds that a problem?)
Country line dance water man Crowl (obscure)
How the Indians use to right in leather (use to what?)
I was in an Oxycise infomercial
A number of keywords turn up in some form over and over:
Smidgen
Couples San Souci
Men’s engagement rings
Insects in compost
Brother of the More Famous Jack (in one instance, the Less Famous)
Distressed oatmeal
John Foulds’ World Requiem
Alfred Hitchcock
The Marriage quote from Shall We Dance
Singing in the Rain
The movie, Bandidas, (particularly the horses)
Which all rather seems to indicate that I must be writing about some things that other people find interesting!
Crowls Land Investment (wasn’t aware we had any land to invest)
Money order not it [sic] my name
Coffin maker carpenter twentieth century Russian Chinese
Loss of little toe evolution
Eat cheese itch on fingers (urrgh)
Slouching towards serfdom
Don’t use Triond cause it is an Israeli company (scary - who finds that a problem?)
Country line dance water man Crowl (obscure)
How the Indians use to right in leather (use to what?)
I was in an Oxycise infomercial
A number of keywords turn up in some form over and over:
Smidgen
Couples San Souci
Men’s engagement rings
Insects in compost
Brother of the More Famous Jack (in one instance, the Less Famous)
Distressed oatmeal
John Foulds’ World Requiem
Alfred Hitchcock
The Marriage quote from Shall We Dance
Singing in the Rain
The movie, Bandidas, (particularly the horses)
Which all rather seems to indicate that I must be writing about some things that other people find interesting!
Monday, March 19, 2007
Gulp! Gareth Farr Naked!
Latest HitTails' key words:
Gareth Farr Naked. Well, I’ve never written about poor old Gareth Farr and nudity in the same sentence, so this one was a bit of a surprise. I’m not sure what the original searcher was looking for, but I don’t think it was Farr’s lack of clothing. And, rather hilariously, the response that Google got from my page combines two different posts together: one about Farr and one a quote from Michael Gurr in which the word ‘naked’ appears.
There seems to be a fascination with ‘portmanteau word’ and boat. But the interesting thing is that in Google’s responses there are three of my posts listed in the first five. Maybe HitTails’s onto more than we suspect!
The ‘crowl swim’ search was really for crawl swim and came from an Arabic site. But it isn’t only non-English speaking people who make this mistake and use my name for that of a type of swimming. Plenty of US bloggers write ‘crowl’ for ‘crawl.’ Must be a pronunciation issue. I’ve written an article about this which now appears on the Triond circuit.
Triond of course is the place I’ve got a number of articles listed at, and I managed to make the second page with Google’s responses for this one, which is quite something. And got two showings to boot.
‘Howard Shore kong score’ brought up my page somewhere way down the list. That’s okay. Merely to be in the Google listings is a major achievement these days.
Postie.conHitTails continue to intrigue. It’s perhaps fortunate that I don’t get a lot of keywords popping up from them, as I’d never get anything else posted here. Not to worry, what does come up is well worth a look.
Gareth Farr naked
Portmanteau word boat
Triond
Crowl
swim (arabic)
Howard shore kong score
Gareth Farr Naked. Well, I’ve never written about poor old Gareth Farr and nudity in the same sentence, so this one was a bit of a surprise. I’m not sure what the original searcher was looking for, but I don’t think it was Farr’s lack of clothing. And, rather hilariously, the response that Google got from my page combines two different posts together: one about Farr and one a quote from Michael Gurr in which the word ‘naked’ appears.
There seems to be a fascination with ‘portmanteau word’ and boat. But the interesting thing is that in Google’s responses there are three of my posts listed in the first five. Maybe HitTails’s onto more than we suspect!
The ‘crowl swim’ search was really for crawl swim and came from an Arabic site. But it isn’t only non-English speaking people who make this mistake and use my name for that of a type of swimming. Plenty of US bloggers write ‘crowl’ for ‘crawl.’ Must be a pronunciation issue. I’ve written an article about this which now appears on the Triond circuit.
Triond of course is the place I’ve got a number of articles listed at, and I managed to make the second page with Google’s responses for this one, which is quite something. And got two showings to boot.
‘Howard Shore kong score’ brought up my page somewhere way down the list. That’s okay. Merely to be in the Google listings is a major achievement these days.
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