RonMertens.com

I’ve been interviewed for an article on OLEDs, on the Digital Signage Today web site, which was nice. OLEDs are slowly getting mainstream, and hopefully OLED-Info will benefit

So I finally decided to make the move - upgrade all my drupal web sites from 4.7.4 to 5.8. I have 6 of those sites. It took me several days to actually succeeded in upgrading one of them… so many small bugs and stuff to sort out. But it worked in the end.

Anyway I already upgraded u3-info and expresscard-info, and will continue to upgrade the rest.

There’s a new boy in town - Google Knol. The knol (as in knowledge) is a wikipedia of experts. Anyone can write a knol on subjects that he knows about (for experts…). I gave it a try, and written a knol about OLED, and about AdSense. Check it out, it’s rather cool (and while you’re at it, give me a vote!).

Basically several people may write the same Knol (collaborative). The experts can also enjoy the AdSense revenue on the site. There might be several knols for a certain subject (unlike Wikipedia).

I’ve got me a new camera (don’t worry, I didn’t buy more junk - I’m just borrowing this one). It’s a small canon IXUS-70. It’s nice to have a small camera (my Panasonic is a bit larger, and my smaller Canon died in Switzerland).

Check out the photos we took at the beach

Happy birthday to OLED-Info!

If you have 20 minutes to spare, check this out. A great video about the consumer way of life - and what are the implications to our planet, and society, and happiness. So Michal and I are doing at least one thing right - we do not watch TV (we do watch DVD movies and shows - but no ads, and we don’t really watch a lot).

I also try to limit the stuff I buy. For example I try not to buy a lot of presents for all my nephews - I’m sure I’m less popular because of it, but it’s for the greater good.  Actually this year my sister and I decided that instead of buying birthday presents - we’ll give a donation in each other’s behalf. Cool!

I need to stop wanting new gadgets (I really need a new camera… damn). And to stop buying stuff I don’t need (which I’m getting better at). It also saves money, which is a good thing when we’re both almost not earning anything

Check out this nice blog post about AdSenseLog.

“So now I’m refocusing on content sites and with some of them focusing on CPC rather than CPA, AdSenseLog will be a central tool in my decision-making process.”

Interestingly he found out about it in a Facebook Ad - guess my ads there are paying off.

I just received a large parcel in my mail. It was from Microsoft (which was suspicious at best). I decided to take the risk, and open it.
It was this large cylinder, saying that “the writing is on the wall - Microsoft Software as a Service”. Inside was a spray-paint can (!) with a small leaflet telling me that’s it’s time to tell the world that I know it too (that the writing is on the wall) with my name and instructions to cut out my name and spray it.

I really got annoyed. This is a huge waste - I’m sure thousands in Israel got this junk (I never actually had anything to do with Microsoft Israel - beside buying my copy of Windows XP). Probably 90% of it was thrown right away. And it’s probably really damaging to our environment - a can of paint!

Obviously I only had one option - to phone Microsoft and tell them they are annoying, they kill our planet, and should be ashamed. The phone number on the box lead me straight to the delivery company, who was as annoyed as I was, and said he doesn’t know why everyone phones him and asks whether his is Microsoft (which he is not).

So I opened the small leaflet, and found another phone number. I phoned, pressed 3 like was told to do in th leaflet, and I got a nice many with an Indian accent explaining to me that I got to the Calcuta technical support. I love india - but this guy didn’t really help me out.

At this stage I got even more annoyed, and e-mailed YNet and NRG which I hope will publish this in the ‘eco’ sections (YNet phoned me, so I hope they will indeed do something).

I then phoned microsoft again, but didn’t press the ‘3=Calcuta’, and then I got to a hebrew speaking microsoft-lady. She was nice, and later they phoned again and listened to my complains. I hope someone got my message.

So now I have this stupid can of spray on my desk (colour royal blue, or azul real). Anyone wants it?

My latest toolbar (yeah, another one) is one for AdSense publishers. This one is more interesting than the last ones, because I actually coded a component in there to display your latest AdSense stats. A mini AdSenseLog, which is free… It turned out pretty cool I think

AdSense Toolbar