Posts from September 2007

When my daughter went to secondary school, like every other dutiful parent, we religiously completed all the necessary forms and paperwork.

As part of this, I must have divulged my mobile phone number. Now this must have been intended for emergency use only because I don't divulge my mobile number (07723 431768) lightly.

So, imagine my surprise when I received the following text message yesterday:

'This is Hogwarts Girls' School. This is a reminder that Autumn Term starts on Wednesday 5th September at 8:40am. Hope you had a good summer. Thank you.'

I was gratified to see the correct positioning of the apostrophe and replied:

'Many thanks for your recent text message. I was so busy enjoying my summer holidays that I had completely forgotten the fact I attended school so your reminder was very timely. I am sure my mum probably would have reminded me at some point because she is so annoying like that. Rest assured I have purchased a brand new compass and protractor set for the challenges in the coming year. However, thus far, I have resisted my mum's overtures to buy a new skirt that conforms to the new 'Length Guidelines' published in May 2007.

CU L8TR M8. Norma-Jean Brightside (aged 14 3/4)'.

I travel quite a lot. I usually stay in decent hotels. I am fairly easy to please. All I really need on my short visits is a clean bed and a shower.

However, most of the hotels in Rotterdam (including the one I stayed in last week where I could stroll down to the client offices - my idea of nirvana) are fully booked for reasons that are unclear.

I have a feeling that there may be a major tulip festival taking place. Either that or it is because (for reasons outside my control) I am being forced to book at 24 hours notice.

In any event, after hours of hunting for a hotel room without success, I asked the client for assistance and am pleased to announce that I now have a confirmed booking for three nights at the Grand Hotel Central in central Rotterdam.

Then I just happened to read some reviews on this establishment and I am really starting to wish I hadn't.

Steve has an admirable habit of titling (almost) all of his posts with a line from a song.

Just went to the post office. I was in luck. Just one lady, with a baby in a pushchair, posting a small parcel. Or so I thought.

'First class, please'

'That's £2.57 please'.

'Oh - hang on. Do you think I should send this recorded ?'

[ She didn't ask what benefits recorded delivery offered versus registered or plain first class. Even more odd was the postmaster's reply ]

'Yes. I think you should.'

[ without asking about the contents of the parcel or outlining what recorded delivery offers ]

'Yes. That will be £3.74 for recorded'

Delay as he prints out the necessary orange labels

Delay as the lady takes an eon to complete the necessary labels.

Delay as the lady dutifully sticks the labels on the small parcel.

Delay as the lady coos to the baby 'There - that's all our jobs done. Isn't that good ? All our jobs are done. Haven't we both done well ?' Well, yours might be but I am still waiting.

Further delay as the lady unbelievably plucks out a debit card to pay the massive sum of £3.74.

Coincidentally, I am posting two parcels abroad but resist the temptation to ask

'Hmm. Do you think I should send these recorded ?'

After all my jobs are complete (didn't I do well) in the Post Office, I need some cash as I was perilously close to annoying the eight people behind me in the queue by paying by debit card for a transaction totalling £7.68.

And so to the cashpoint. Again, I am in luck. Just one gentleman ahead of me. Or so I thought.

He completes his transaction, withdraws his card so I make my advance. I nearly bump into him as he submits his card again for another transaction. He must be checking his balance.

Again, he finally completes this transaction and I nearly walk into him as he pauses and initiates a third (well three that I have witnessed) transaction.

Finally, after what seems an eternity he turns and walks away. I catch his eye because I am wondering whether the machine has run out of cash but no. Unbelievably, he mutters

'Nope. Doesn't want to give me any cash today. I'll have to try again later.'

5 seconds later, I have successfully withdrawn £100 so the gentleman was either overdrawn and polling every 30 seconds to see whether additional funds might have miraculously cleared or he was a complete idiot.

Back in the old days, things were very simple. You filmed endless hours of footage with your analog camcorder; your summer holidays, opening Christmas presents around the tree, your child's first steps and birthday parties.

Then, the night before you set out on your next summer holiday, the wife utters words that strike fear into the very heart of your soul:

'Charge the camcorder batteries and have you transferred all the tapes to video so we can re-use them ?'

Of course, you haven't. So while everyone else slumbers, you untangle the wire spaghetti and transfer six hours of tedious footage spanning 364 days that no-one will ever watch. Worse, to prove you did a proper job, the wife has included crafty snippets of footage of grey cloudy skies, the inside of the camcorder case and an inadvertent curse. Of course, she has done this deliberately to ensure you locate and edit these mistakes out of the directors cut presented for her final rigorous QA review. This task involves skillful dexterity with both hands on the play/record and pause buttons on the video and the camcorder and prolongs the agony.

Eventually, you decide there must be a better way and this is to embrace the digital age so you buy a digital camcorder.

Excited and eager to play with the technology, you make a short, 72 minute film, alone in your bedroom.

You unwrap all the wires, connect them to the computer only to discover you need something called a Firewire card. Your interest wanes and you tell the wife you 'need a part and I haven't got one in the van so it will be 6 weeks'.

Weeks later, and much to your surprise, you successfully install the Firewire card needed for video capture.

Finally, you can transfer the footage to the PC. Sony helpfully include software (curiously named 'Picture Motion Browser') to perform the transfer. Staggeringly, you can even rewind, play and fast forward the camcorder from your computer.

Amazingly, you transfer your alternative film which traces the life of a pair of socks from the drawer, through a full day worn on a pair of feet and finally into the wash basket.

You proudly gather the family to review this stupendous and life changing event. Feedback is mixed; 'Is that it ?' and tantalisingly 'Can't you edit out the 32 seconds of the ceiling ?'.

Of course, you can edit the footage. You are a master of the digital age. You are a budding film director. You quickly remove the spurious footage from the final cut. Only you can't because the Sony bundled software doesn't support video editing. You have to shell out £50 for a separate product called Sony Vegas.

Alternatively, you can use Windows Movie Maker (freely available with Windows) which is capable of importing the AVI files and actually editing clips. Even better, you can add opening titles, closing credits and an impressive fade effect as the socks are tossed into the wash basket.

Your life is complete. You turn the computer off and forget all about digital video technology.

Until 8 weeks later, when you are going to visit the in-laws and the wife says:

'My mum and dad would like to see the DVD of our holidays and that alternative film you make about a pair of socks.'

No problem. You simply turn the computer on, open the project and click 'Burn to DVD'.

Only you can't. Your computer doesn't have a DVD burner. No problem. You share the files to another computer and hit 'Burn to DVD'.

Only you can't. Windows Movie Maker can't create DVD's.

No problem. The computer happens to have a trial version of Video Studio installed so you simply save the Movie Maker film as a new, large AVI file, import it, and click 'Burn to DVD'.

Only you can't. There isn't enough disk space.

You count to 10. 10 times. Then, in a fit of pique and a last desperate effort to preserve your sanity, you spontaneously splash out on an external hard disk drive with half a terabyte of storage dedicated to digital video data and a DVD writer.

The Freecom drive simply plugs into a USB port, has a separate power supply and works out of the box. No need to read the non-existent instructions. Oddly, the drive is formatted as FAT32 so you perform a quick format to NTFS and start copying files. Happily, the drive is quick and more importantly quiet.

Similarly, the LG DVD writer also plugs into another USB port and has a separate power supply. The drive includes a copy of Nero Express so you can finally burn the godforsaken video footage to DVD.

Finally, the holiday footage is edited, trimmed with effects and titles. There is even a top level menu including Chapters, humorous out takes, interviews, biographies, versions in French, German and Italian and an 'Extras' disc.

You are delighted and even though you say it yourself, quite proud of your achievements in the past 3 weeks. You go downstairs to share the glad tidings and sit down with a bucket of popcorn and a gallon of Coca-Cola to enjoy the DVD with the family.

It is unusually quiet and there is a note on the kitchen table

Couldn't wait any longer.
Gone to Crete.
Back in 2 weeks.
Hoover upstairs, mow the lawn and wash the pots.
Window cleaner on Wednesday.

One of the reasons I decided to put Adsense on this blog was out of sheer curiosity. There are plenty of Google sponsored case studies available from American shoe shops that significantly increased sales and revenues using Adsense.

Successful blogger John Chow is totally and refreshingly transparent with all his various revenue streams but I didn't have a clue what income (if any) a small-time blogger might expect.

So, here - drum roll, please - are the revenue figures for this blog for the first 3 months

• July - $8.31
• August -$8.33
• September - $8.77

Not a massive amount but certainly more than I expected and enough to cover my hosting costs with Bluehost. This is from a blog with around 100 daily visitors (mainly one-hit wonders from Google). I used a simple wide banner (Leaderboard) with 3/4 adverts and blended the background into the theme. Initially the banner was on the footer but after a few days, I moved the ad to the header section ('above the fold').

What is quite interesting is that, for various reasons, I hardly posted to the blog in August (5 posts versus 25 and 23 in July and June respectively) yet the revenue (if you can call it that) was consistent for each month. Also, the trend is upwards for each month - just !

I briefly experimented with a 'Adsense for Search' box but it didn't integrate well with my current theme (plaintxtBlog) so I abandoned it.

Another fun element was watching the Google AdServer try to present suitable adverts based on my content. Because I don't really signpost things with flashing lights, at times Google displayed a fairly bizarre and esoteric mix of (in)appropriate banner ads.

Some more facts and figures:

• Most clicks in a day: 4
• Most lucrative click: $1.64
• Least lucrative click: $0.01 (yes, 1 cent)
• Best day: 5 June 2007 ($2.16)
• Worst day: $0.00 (too many to mention)

Morwenna Banks, who plays Vicky in Saxondale, is superb. While she gets some of the best lines in the comedy series, co-written by Steve Coogan like

'Tell him to put some jam on his shoes and invite his trousers down for tea.'

...her delivery and timing is absolutely brilliant.