50 Vintage Web Ad Banners

Check out the link below to take a look at old banner ads from the late 90s.

VC&G | 50 Vintage Web Ads

Time sure flies! Back then we didn't have fancy ad-blockers or anything. It was quite normal to have such ugly flashing banners all around the pages we were visiting. Good old days!

Dealing With iOS9 Ad Blockers on Your Ad Sponsored Blog

A good article posted on Igor Kromin's blog, a blog I visit from time to time. Thought I'd share it here.

A new release of iOS always brings in new features and its share of troubles and this time it hasn't been any different. Since the iOS 9 release date on the 16th of September, Apple made available its content blocker API to developers. This brought out a deluge of ad blocker apps on the App Store, with some topping the charts within moments of release. This may be a welcome addition to many people, but something that many miss is how this hurts those sites and blogs that rely on advertising revenue to pay for their hosting fees. 

So I got to thinking about how to deal with this. I've seen comments stating that content providers should just suck it up and find alternative ways of generating revenue. I'm sorry, but this is the kind of argument that a zealot preacher would sermonise - all talk about how it should be without solid examples or direction about the 'better ways'. I would argue that for a casual blog, ads are the only real viable source of revenue.

Unfortunately there is no easy way to deal with this situation. The only thing I could come up with was to appeal the the readers' sense of decency by supplying a message when an ad does not load.

Read more:
Dealing with iOS9 ad blockers on your ad sponsored blog

VBScript / VB Syntax Highlighting in Sublime Text

Did you ever feel like programming that quick Excel macro in Sublime Text, but you couldn't because it doesn't recognize VB syntax out of the box? (Not that I like that much to program Excel macros, but you gotta do what you gotta do!) Well, thanks to this plugin, you can now enjoy Sublime Text for any of your VB / VBA / VBScript endeavors.

GitHub | VBScript package for Sublime Text

Download it, extract it inside your Sublime Text plugin directory, remove -master from the extracted folder's name, fire up Sublime Text and you're up and running!

Just when I thought Sublime Text couldn't get any better!

Fix Sublime Text 2 Scroll Lag

Is Sublime Text your favorite text editor yet? Make sure you check it out right away, it's awesome:

Sublime Text: The text editor you'll fall in love with

Depending what OS you're using, your computer's performance and likely a few other factors, you might notice that there's a slight lag when scrolling using the mouse wheel in Sublime Text. Here's what you have to do in order to fix it.

1. Click Preferences, Settings - Default

2. Search for "scroll_speed" and set it to 0. (It's usually set to 1.5 by default. )

3. Save and close the settings file.

By disabling smooth scrolling, we get rid of the slight mouse wheel scrolling lag we experienced until now.

Web Fonts for Your Blog: Open Sans vs Lato

As I was browsing around to find out which web fonts are the most popular and ultimately, which one is currently the best, I came across this blog post. It compares in depth 2 of the most popular free fonts of the moment: Open Sans and Lato. Both are looking great, but which one is the best?

Open Sans vs Lato : A head to head Comparison

How to Create Great Content

It's not always easy to produce content that is worth someone else's time, something that is worth posting. Sometimes you get it right, some other times you don't. The key here is to be steady and make sure everything is in place to allow yourself to create great content every time. 

When browsing the Internet, people need to get their hands on the information they're looking for as fast as possible. What does that mean? It means they are laser focused, impatient and have a very short attention span. What are the most basic things you can do to maximize your chances to satisfy these people and present them the awesome, compelling content they're looking for?

Blog Activity Graph for FlatPress

A new plugin for FlatPress was recently released by Igor Kromin. It's a great addition that allows you to see your monthly blog activity.

Click the link bellow to check it out:
Blog activity graph for FlatPress

FreeOrion Is Now On GitHub

I didn't look at the FreeOrion project for quite a while. I just found out they migrated to GitHub a short time ago. That's great news, as GitHub is the place for open source collaborative development right now.

It will hopefully boost the motivation of contributors and bring in new ones too. I'm definitely going to look into the code once more when time permits and see if I can submit a few simple mods that would move things forward a little.

FreeOrion on GitHub, contribute now!  GitHub | FreeOrion

Official FreeOrion website: FreeOrion

New Official FlatPress Style: Leggero v2

I'm pleased to announce that NoWhereMan, the maintainer of FlatPress, approved my new take on the classic FlatPress theme. Leggero v2 is part of the FlatPress source code, as an available style for the Leggero theme.

I present you, Leggero v2!

Some quick details about it:

• It's 100% responsive
• It works properly with Internet Explorer, as well as with any modern web browsers
• It uses web fonts with shadows, has a transparent sidebar and a fixed background image
• It looks modern and actual, while still having the "FlatPress / Leggero" feel it should have

5 Easy Ways to Make Your Forum Thive With Activity

Every forum admin has been there one day or another. Things are going pretty good on your forum, but after a little while, you notice your board has somehow stopped gaining speed. How to make your forum more active?

Like for many things, many small details can make a huge difference. The following suggestions are pretty easy to put together and achieve great results in less than a month.

So, what are the easiest actions you can take to bring your forum up to the next level? Let's see!

Chitika Review - Pay Per Click Ads

I tested Chitika, a pay per click (PPC) ads service to help publishers monetize their traffic. I displayed their ads a forum message board and 2 blogs for approximately a week, with very disappointing results. Here's my quick review of Chitika.

$0.07 for 5 clicks? Are you kidding!?

You read it well. What they give you per click is ridiculous. The highest paid click I managed to get was $0.03. I've read similar feedback on quite a few blogs and forums analyzing various ads networks. It would seem that their PPC is very, very low, especially if you're used to Adsense's $0.50 to $3.00 per click. Even with a very high click-through rate, which I had not, it would take you a huge number of clicks to earn anything of interest.