Thursday, February 4, 2010

How long does it taken until AdSense ads are displayed on your blog

This article has details about the time-delays between Adsense ads being added to your Blogger site (in header, footer, sidebar, or inside your posts), and the ads being visible to your readers.

Ten minutes ...

After you have signed up for AdSense and started putting ads onto your blog, you may find that you want to get the ad-code from AdSense instead of using the gadgets that Blogger has.

When you get advertisement-code from AdSense (eg to make an image-only ad) or because you want to put an ad right inside a post), there is a message saying that it will take at least 10 minutes until the ad display's properly. Personally, I've found that it can take 20+ minutes Google is having a bad-hair-day.

So go and have a coffee, then come back and test that you've got it right after that.

Or 2 days!

The specific ads show are based on the page content. Google's web-crawler needs to visit the page and index it before they can choose ads for your page. And it can take up to 48 hours for this to happen.

So depending on the settings you used for what do do when no ads are available, readers may see a public-service ad, or may see nothing at all, for up to 48 hours after your ad is created.

Showing image-only AdSense ads in Blogger

Putting AdSense ads inside blog posts

AdSense Troublehooting hints-and-tips

Setting up AdSense on your Blog

Other advertising programmes

AdSense Troubleshooting: Extra line breaks

This article is about fixing problems with AdSense advertisements that are caused by having extra line-breaks in the ad-code.

Putting AdSense ads into your posts - what can go wrong

Previously I've explained how to set up AdSense for your blog, and how to put AdSense advertisements
right inside a post rather than in the header, footer or sidebar.

However AdSense ad code won't work if it has any extra line breaks added to it. This is why, to put it you need to paste the code into the editor in Edit HTML mode, not Compose mode. And to be certain, I also recommend that you make sure the "use tags" option (previously called "Ignore new lines") is chosen as well.

If you don't do this, ie if you put the code into the Post Editor while you are in Compose mode, Blogger seems to insert extra tags (ie new lines) in places. And this causes the ad to not be displayed.

Fixing the problem

If you encounter this problem while putting ad-code into a post in this way, it's best to go in to Edit HTML mode and:

remove the whole piece of Ad code
in a separate window, log into AdSense (www.google.com/adsense), choose the Ad you want from from Adsense Setup / Manage Ads
copy the ad code
swtich back to your blogger window and paste the ad-unit in again

Removing the line-break characters by hand is tedious to do, and I've found it's very hard to get right.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Making a website that you can update easily

This article explains the issues that community groups and non-profit organisations can face with managing their websites, and explains how Blogger can be used to address them.

Community groups and website maintenance

Many community groups and non-profit organisations set up projects to build a website.   Often, an enthusiastic volunteer offers their time and expertise to build it.   Or a third-level student does it as a course project.

The new website is launched, often with a party.   It looks great, and the content is fresh and exciting. Things are great.

But a while later, something needs to be changed.   If they're lucky, the enthusiastic volunteer or the student is still around, and happy to do the change.   But more and more changes are wanted. Over time, the enthusiasm wanes. The student graduates and moves away.   The volunteer starts to resent the amount of time needed, Eventually, the student is nowhere to be found or the volunteer is no longer unavailable.

In the "lucky" scenario, the next step is often that the group finds money to negotiate a support contract with the former volunteer's company. Hopefully, the company charges them a fair rate for the work.   It may not feel fair to the group, though, because they don't know what the market rate for this sort of work is, or how long things really take. In the "unlucky" scenario, the group has incorrect information on the internet that cannot be changed because no one knows how.

Does Blogger offer an alternative to this scenario? I think so, and this article explains some of the advantages, and issues, involved.

What is Blogger? How can it help?

Blogger is Google's tool for building "blogs" - essentially diaries kept on the internet. See Blogs, bloggers and Blogger for a full explanation of these sometimes confusing terms.

But Blogger is now a lot more sophisticated, and can be used for other things too.

If a website is built using Blogger:

The software used to build and update it is free
The hosting is free (if the address is www.WHATEVER.blogspot.com), or very cheap (if the address is www.WHATEVER.com). And address ike www.WHATEVER.COM is called a custom domain, and is easy to set up - you can buy the address through Blogger, or use an address that you already own.
It's simple to make updates, after the initial set-up is done
It can even be set up to update itself when someone emails a certain address (which you only tell to people who you want to be able to do updates!)
Whoever updates it doesn't need any special software: just a computer with internet access.
It willl work in all the different web-browsers (with some with very rare exceptions).
By default, it's structured like a diary: most recent info first, older info further down. Which makes it a good fit for "newsletter" style things, which is often an objective for community groups.
But it doesn't have to look like a diary - you can give it a "home page" in a variety of ways.

Issues, Risks and Disadvantages:

There are risks with using Blogger: Google could change their minds about any aspect of it (though I doubt that they will do anything drastic or expensive). There are limits to what it can do. It may be perceived by some people as "lower quality". You don't control the hosting: you aren't paying for it, so you don't have any rights as a customer.

These risks are all real, and in some cases they will be so serious that you decide another approach is better. But for some groups, the advantages will outweigh the risks.

A final thought:

No matter what tool you use, building a website is "easy": lots of people can do it, and they'll all be happy to tell you what a bad job the last guy did.

The hard bits are:

Defining the audience
Setting the aims & objectives, knowing how you'll measure them, and doing the measurement
Defining the policies
(what content? who decides what to show, and what not to? who is responsible for doing updates ?)
Simple, cost-effective, ways to keep the content up-to-date
Doing training materials, so that when the current person doing updates leaves, their replacement can learn to do them too.
Designing and implementing the search-optimisation approach (SEO) and communications plan
(There's no point in building a website if no one reads it!)

If anyone ofters to build you a website, make sure that their plan covers all these issues, so that you aren't left with an embarrassing white-elephant on the web, with your name on it.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Ford EcoSport 2011

Seguindo uma das recentes modas do mercado brasileiro, a Ford abrevia 2010 e já em fevereiro lança o EcoSport 2011. Com leves mudanças estéticas, ele pretende manter-se competitivo no mercado até a chegada de uma nova geração, em 2012. Na dianteira, ele ganhou nova grade frontal, e a parte da frente do capô passa a contar com o nome do carro. As laterais passam a contar com frisos e um novo jogo de rodas de liga leve de 15 polegadas, e a cabine ganha novo quadro de instrumentos e novos revestimentos. Os motores permanecem os flexíveis 1.6 de 105/111 cv e 2.0 16v de 141/145 cv (gasolina/álcool).

Outra ótima novidade é o aumento do prazo da garantia, agora de três anos. Além disso, o EcoSport teve reduções em sua tabela de preços, como a versão topo-de-linha 2.0 4WD, que tem preço inicial de R$ 61.880, apresentando uma redução de mais de 3 mil reais. As versões do modelo são outro item inalterado, sendo a básica FreeStyle, mediana XLT e topo 4WD. Outra das qualidades do jipinho é sua lista de equipamentos de série, que desde a versão básica contempla ar-condicionado, computador de bordo, rodas de liga leve, direção hidráulica, trio elétrico e sistema de som multimídia.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Post Options - handling line-breaks

This article explains the difference between the Edit HTML Line Breaks values of Convert new lines and Press Enter for line breaks.

What is the Line Breaks option in Blogger

Line break through Potarch Wood. - geograph.org.uk - 418605

One of the items that can be set in the Options section of Blogger's Post Editor is how line-breaks are handled.

At one time, the values for this were:

Convert new lines
Ignore new lines

But now they are:

Press "Enter" for line breaks
Use tags

(sometimes in the updated interface, the text has looked a little strange - but the effect of it stayed the same).

What do these settings mean:

Despite the wording change, these options mean the same thing:

Convert new lines and Press Enter for line breaks:

If you are working in Compose mode, and use the Enter/Return key to make a space between paragraphs, Blogger will put a new line into the underlying post for you. But if you look at the HTML behind the post this will show as a new line, not as

Ignore new lines and Use tags

If you are working in Compose mode, and use the Enter/Return key to make a space between paragraphs, Blogger will put a new line into the underlying post for you, AND if you look at the HTML behind the post this will show as

This may not seem like a major issue, but it can be important to understand if you want to put code from elsewhere into your posts.

Also, if you are moving posts between different blogs it's quite important to have the same line breaks setting on each side before you copy the HTML, or else you can get strange-looking results

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Audi A4 Sport

Depois de o irmão A3 ganhar a versão esportiva por aqui, agora quem desembarca é o A4 “nervoso”, com o pacote S-Line de itens de visual e um interessante motor, por R$ 185.721.

O belo desenho do sedã tem sua veia esportiva posta em evidência pelos acessórios exclusivos, como rodas de 17 polegadas, ambos parachoques redesenhados, com o dianteiro ostentando vistosas entradas de ar que rodeiam os faróis de neblina.

Já o interior é premiado com bancos esportivos revestidos em Alcantara. O motor é o eficiente 2.0 FSI Turbo, seguidor da tendência do downsizing, que produz 217 cavalos. Seus números são 6,9 segundos para sair de 0 a 100 km/h, e 240 km/h de velocidade máxima. Quem controla toda essa força é o câmbio CVT Multitronic de oito velocidades.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Nissan Tiida 2010

Depois de adotar motor flex, o Tiida agora entra em 2010 com leves mudanças estéticas e redução nos preços, provando novamente o bom produto que é, para que talvez agora ele finalmente consiga se estabelecer no segmento, hoje povoado por carros como Citroën C4, Fiat Stilo, Ford Focus e Hyundai i30.

Suas mudanças estéticas no exterior se resumem à nova grande, mais parecida com a do sedã Sentra, e aos faróis, agora com área totalmente transparente. Na cabine, ele ganhou novo quadro de instrumentos e novos revestimentos de bancos e painel de portas, a versão básica S passando a ter ajuste de altura de série para o motorista.

Enquanto isso, a versão de topo SL ganha chave presencial I-Key e novo jogo de rodas, de 16 polegadas. O Tiida mantém o excelente pacote de equipamentos, e traz desde a versão básica ar-condicionado, direção elétrica, vidros e travas elétricos, banco traseiro reclinável e ajustável horizontalmente, e airbag duplo. A SL adiciona ar-condicionado digital e freios com ABS, EBD e BAS.

A redução de preços deixou a tabela da seguinte maneira: versão S com câmbio manual de seis marchas por R$ 48.990, S com automático de quatro marchas por R$ 53.990, SL manual por R$ 52.990 e SL automática por R$ 57.990. Todas as versões são equipadas com o motor 1.8 16v flex, que produz 125/126 cv, quando abastecido com gasolina ou álcool.

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