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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.

My name is Norman and I am a blogoholic.

Two years ago, I started this blog purely as an experiment to see what all the fuss was about.

Two years ago, I didn't even know what blogging was. I certainly didn't expect that I would still be doing it two years later.

I didn't anticipate that I would subsequently play with themes, plug-ins, spend money on a domain, migrate to my own WordPress blog and eventually add AdSense.

During the first year (honeymoon period), I enjoyed monitoring the traffic statistics for my hosted WordPress blog.

Much to my surprise, I discovered that I actually enjoyed writing. Initially, I thought I might be capable of creating a technical blog about Siebel and/or Oracle but I soon discovered that I preferred to post anecdotes from my tedious life as a IT consultant.

As a consequence of creating the blog, I learned about various blogging platforms (Blogger, WordPress, Movable Type, Drupal, Typepad, Habari and Google Pages)

I also learned about RSS, various Web 2.0 tools (Bloglines, Reader, Netvibes, Blinklist, Feedburner) and signed up for various social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn).

Most importantly, I made a handful of new friends that I am still in regular contact with.

Then one night, I sat in a Dublin hotel room, staring at a pint of Guiness and mindlessly pressed 'Publish'. Seconds later, I then immediately stared at this particular vacuous post and thought 'What am I doing ? Why am I doing this ? What is the point ?'

After two years, I was blogging purely because of the self-imposed pressure to create content. Content that was valueless, worthless and pointless.

So, suddenly and spontaneously, I decided to take a break because I simply couldn't be bothered any more. Blogging just wasn't fun any more.

After one day, I still checked for comments, scanned the Web server logs and reviewed my precious AdSense revenue.

After two days, I read my RSS feeds for blog comments and examined my pretty Google Analytics charts.

After three days, I strongly resisted the urge to check anything.

After five days, I didn't do anything. I didn't feel obliged to write a blog article. I didn't feel obliged to comment. I didn't feel obliged to scan any of my 167 feeds.

After seven days, I forgot I had a blog. I actually talked to friends and family. The feeling of liberation was surprising.

After nineteen days, I realised blogging was an addiction. An addiction that didn't fit well with my obsessive personality.

After twenty eight days, I realised my blog was now two years old (I started my blog the day after WordPress launched). An interesting experiment which had now naturally drawn to a close.

So I was sorely tempted to close the blog down.

But then Doug said he liked 'Prince' so I had to start all over again.

After recent horrific events, I was forced to flee the country so I took my family (and a couple of young hangers-on) for a relaxing break at CenterParcs near Eindhoven.

For those readers with (young) families, CenterParcs in Holland is very similar to the setup in the UK except that the prices are lower and staff are actually friendly and helpful.

For those readers without families, CenterParcs is probably not for you.

Anyway, I have returned refreshed, invigorated and raring to go. I am currently wading through my backlog of email. Then I will quickly review the week's football news and my Fantasy League team selections, watch 'Saxondale' and then normal blogging service will be resumed as I ease myself gently back into work and scale my ivory tower.

Oh, hang on a minute, the scheduling goddess has helpfully seen fit to send me straight back to Holland (Rotterdam, to be precise) to spend the remainder of my Euros so I need to quickly iron a shirt, pack my last two pairs of clean undergarments, order a taxi and get to Heathrow Terminal 4 immediately.

Oracle 11g has recently been released so it's time for everyone to submit their colourful screenshots into the 'Oracle 11g banner version' competition. Well, nearly everyone.

Apologies for the delay but, finally, I am proud to present my paltry, monochrome effort.

I just installed Oracle 11g onto a VMware server running Redhat Enterprise Linux 4.0. It actually took me more time to configure VMware tools and successfully share the folder staging the distribution than to install and configure Oracle.

The virtual server had a mere 512MB of memory and was hosted on a Thinkpad T43 laptop with 2GB memory.

Thanks for bringing us Joy Division, New Order, The Hacienda and your faith and passion for Manchester.

From The Times:

His name change to Anthony H. Wilson was, he once said, to "wind up all the people in Manchester who think I'm a flash twat"

57 years young. Much too soon. RIP.

Create tables, resize, add rows and columns, preview the output and add the finishing touches in Google Docs.

Then simply paste the HTML into the WordPress WYSIYG editor.

Less than two minutes to index a new article. Impressive.

Please don't tell Norma but, earlier this week, I spent £25 in Shagorika. Such is the life of a sad, lonely IT consultant on a slow Tuesday night in Sunderland.

Unfortunately, contrary to my expectations, Shagorika turned out to be a rather mediocre, overpriced Indian restaurant rather than the sordid den of sexual iniquity I was hoping for.

It took me a while to summon up the courage to cross the threshold. My nerves were soothed when I was warmly welcomed by a beautiful, flirtatious lady who led me by the hand to a cosy waiting area. She gave me a complimentary drink and asked me to wait a minute while she prepared a table. A table, not a bed ! How very exotic.

I looked nervously at my surroundings; comfy seats, a well stocked bar, motoring magazines and stunning ladies peeking out from behind net curtains. Then my host returned with a warm smile: 'Sir, I are ready for you now'. And by now, I was also ready for her. In fact, I could barely contain my excitement.

My glamorous hostess led me to a table with an immaculate white table cloth, set for 3 courses with wine glasses. Perplexed, I reluctantly sat down. I wasn't really that hungry so I asked if this foreplay was absolutely necessary and whether it cost any extra.

My hostess looked a little confused, proffered me a food menu and ran back to the bar. Then the awful realisation slowly dawned. This was not a brothel but an Indian restaurant. Words can not describe my utter embarrassment and how stupid I felt. Particularly, as I had already stripped down to my vest and boxers.

I immediately and rapidly got dressed again and ordered 'The Chef's Choice'. Fortunately, I was able to bury my head in the July-August 2007 copy of Oracle Magazine to avoid the stares of my fellow diners.

Originally, I was going to savour this fine publication with my partner, in the glowing aftermath of our steamy, breathless sexual encounter. Normally, I would smoke a cigarette but a recent change in the law prohibits that nowadays.

One of my favourite sections in Oracle Magazine is the interviews with real-life DBA's. However I nearly choked on my Prawn Patia as I read this inappropriate and leading question to M. K Rizwan:

'What's your favourite tool or technique on the job ?'

I am now frantically leafing through my 157 back issues to see precisely how Tim and Doug replied to this question.