One of the sites I'm involved with had AdSense for around 9 months and it brought in a reasonable, honest income stream of around $400 per month. Then, without warning, Google removed our publisher status - without giving us reason. They are infuriatingly unwilling to work with us to identify what went wrong; my suspicion is that we were targetted by some kind of competitor who 'over-clicked' and made it look like us - but Google won't tell us anything. IP addresses, times, dates, routes, whatever; just something that could help us understand what went wrong. In fact, their reluctance to talk to us makes me suspicious that Google the publicly traded corporation has turned to the use of underhand tactics to off-load some smaller publishers such as us; we published but did not advertise with Google in return, and I suspect they saw us as ultimately not profitable enough for their corporate greed.
I like Google the search engine, but I think we were unfairly treated. If I felt that a court would rule in our favour to allow us access to the details of whatever 'crime' we have been deemed to have committed, I would seriously consider going down that route because:
(a) If the undisclosed abuse was internal I could find out who and when, and take some sort of wrist-slapping action. This is doubtful, though; I basically ran the site and was the only one associated with the account and I *know* damn well that I played by the rules.
(b) If the undisclosed abuse was external then we could fight our corner for re-instatement and possibly take action against the abuser, and seek back-payments (which were withheld) from Google plus some sort of compensation for their negligence in handling the matter properly.
However, all that said and done, I think Google thinks it is above the law and in all probability it is (relative to my small outfit) as it will have immensely deeper pockets.
The real shame is that the AdSense programme was working for us, and we were getting relevant ads which our site membership found useful.
Google, you have soiled your image and tarnished my impression of you as a trustworthy, decent organisation. At least as far as your AdSense department is concerned. Your bully-boy approach reeks of a lack of ethics and I hope that you might learn something from my case and (I should imagine) the countless other sites who have been tarred unnecessarily and unfairly.
I'm sure someone else will come on and sing Google AdSense's praises, but remember my words on the day that Google suddenly stops being your friend and starts to regard you as untrustworthy without giving you details of what they deem as your 'crime'. Mark my words...
I post this as myself because I stand beside my words and my certainty that Google f**ked up but isn't decent enough to let us prove it.
jtc
Microsoft release a version of Remote Desktop CLient (RDC) for OSX. I use it to maintain a web server (protected by a firewall) and it works as well as the Windows version. I need to use ftp to transfer files, however, as there's no native file transfer built-in with RDC.
HTH,
John
One of the problems that I've personally found is that Google takes a zero tolerance approach to clickthrough abuse. One of my own sites, which depended in part on the clickthrough revenue (fairly modest) was one day 'barred' from AdSense though despite communications back and forth with the AdSense team, they refused to explain their reasons for removal, nor provide any evidence or details that might have helped us identify the culprit/deal with it and/or prove our innocence.
What annoys me most of all is the fact that I cannot clear my own site's good name and reputation, despite being almost certain that the abuse (if that's what it was) must have originated outwith our own organisation.
In fairness to Google, I'm sure they have to be seen to take a hard-line on perceived offenders, but the danger is that they are also taking a hard-line on sites such as mine whose revenue stream has been cut without a fair trial or explanation.
In this instance, Google Is Not Your Friend.
Post-Adsense, I have a dim view of Google's methods at least where advertising is concerned. However, it remains the best search engine and I wish it all the best, but I was deeply disappointed in the way they refused to extend the courtesy of an explanation and failed to provide any evidence that might have helped us identify what happened and its source.
Anyway, yeah, the above post talking about EMF and using some kind of Faraday cage could be used in your rock-case idea if you get some chicken wire fence material to act as your 'base' and you would slop paper mache over that to make your 'rock'. Sounds, urm, funky, but let me tell you about my own idea:
I always kind hated the idea of having a PC on a desk, so figured that maybe we could incorporate the PC into the desk so that (say) the monitor (a flat panel, of course) could 'flip up' out of the desk and a Wacom-styley graphics tablet would replace the mouse. In fact, the gubbins of the PC could live at the back of the integrated drawers, and the cd rom drive and floppy, etc. could be incorporated in a spare drawer along with a hot-swappable RAID array.
And it would be a gorgeous thing to look at when the PC was 'put away' and the desk reverted back to a writing desk or whatever.
Hi folks.
I've been in a few situations whereby written tests and sets of technical questions have been directed my way. Most of the time I've rallied and been ok but I remember once that an agency had put me forward for a role to which I was really unsuited (I didn't know this until I got to interview) and I must have looked like a buffoon during that technical test.
I don't personally believe that there's anything wrong with technical tests but there should be a degree of relevance to what is expected, and I think that open-ended technological chats are more productive and useful than the kind of 'certification style' recall the third parameter of the.DoAnObscureThing() method, etc.
Remember that an interview is a two-way process - not only are they assessing your suitability for the job, you're also assessing their company's suitability for what you want to do and achieve. A company which relies heavily on the (flawed, IMHO) certification route (e.g. MCSD, for example) probably doesn't really understand development, though I can understand certification requirements from a business and marketing POV.
IMHO the only true arbiter of suitability is retrospective - and so I think assessing people technically prior to the job starting acts solely as a filter of those people who don't perform well in technical tests - whether because they don't know jack or because they simply don't take well to that kind of test. I hope I'd fall into the latter!
Cheers!
JTC
Slashdot Mirror
One of the sites I'm involved with had AdSense for around 9 months and it brought in a reasonable, honest income stream of around $400 per month. Then, without warning, Google removed our publisher status - without giving us reason. They are infuriatingly unwilling to work with us to identify what went wrong; my suspicion is that we were targetted by some kind of competitor who 'over-clicked' and made it look like us - but Google won't tell us anything. IP addresses, times, dates, routes, whatever; just something that could help us understand what went wrong. In fact, their reluctance to talk to us makes me suspicious that Google the publicly traded corporation has turned to the use of underhand tactics to off-load some smaller publishers such as us; we published but did not advertise with Google in return, and I suspect they saw us as ultimately not profitable enough for their corporate greed. I like Google the search engine, but I think we were unfairly treated. If I felt that a court would rule in our favour to allow us access to the details of whatever 'crime' we have been deemed to have committed, I would seriously consider going down that route because: (a) If the undisclosed abuse was internal I could find out who and when, and take some sort of wrist-slapping action. This is doubtful, though; I basically ran the site and was the only one associated with the account and I *know* damn well that I played by the rules. (b) If the undisclosed abuse was external then we could fight our corner for re-instatement and possibly take action against the abuser, and seek back-payments (which were withheld) from Google plus some sort of compensation for their negligence in handling the matter properly. However, all that said and done, I think Google thinks it is above the law and in all probability it is (relative to my small outfit) as it will have immensely deeper pockets. The real shame is that the AdSense programme was working for us, and we were getting relevant ads which our site membership found useful. Google, you have soiled your image and tarnished my impression of you as a trustworthy, decent organisation. At least as far as your AdSense department is concerned. Your bully-boy approach reeks of a lack of ethics and I hope that you might learn something from my case and (I should imagine) the countless other sites who have been tarred unnecessarily and unfairly. I'm sure someone else will come on and sing Google AdSense's praises, but remember my words on the day that Google suddenly stops being your friend and starts to regard you as untrustworthy without giving you details of what they deem as your 'crime'. Mark my words... I post this as myself because I stand beside my words and my certainty that Google f**ked up but isn't decent enough to let us prove it. jtc
Microsoft release a version of Remote Desktop CLient (RDC) for OSX. I use it to maintain a web server (protected by a firewall) and it works as well as the Windows version. I need to use ftp to transfer files, however, as there's no native file transfer built-in with RDC. HTH, John
One of the problems that I've personally found is that Google takes a zero tolerance approach to clickthrough abuse. One of my own sites, which depended in part on the clickthrough revenue (fairly modest) was one day 'barred' from AdSense though despite communications back and forth with the AdSense team, they refused to explain their reasons for removal, nor provide any evidence or details that might have helped us identify the culprit/deal with it and/or prove our innocence.
What annoys me most of all is the fact that I cannot clear my own site's good name and reputation, despite being almost certain that the abuse (if that's what it was) must have originated outwith our own organisation.
In fairness to Google, I'm sure they have to be seen to take a hard-line on perceived offenders, but the danger is that they are also taking a hard-line on sites such as mine whose revenue stream has been cut without a fair trial or explanation.
In this instance, Google Is Not Your Friend.
Post-Adsense, I have a dim view of Google's methods at least where advertising is concerned. However, it remains the best search engine and I wish it all the best, but I was deeply disappointed in the way they refused to extend the courtesy of an explanation and failed to provide any evidence that might have helped us identify what happened and its source.
Bad Google. Bad, bad Google.
John
Try WordPress. Open source, PHP/MySQL based, nice. jtc
Ah bu66er, where's the right accent???
;)
Anyway, yeah, the above post talking about EMF and using some kind of Faraday cage could be used in your rock-case idea if you get some chicken wire fence material to act as your 'base' and you would slop paper mache over that to make your 'rock'. Sounds, urm, funky, but let me tell you about my own idea:
I always kind hated the idea of having a PC on a desk, so figured that maybe we could incorporate the PC into the desk so that (say) the monitor (a flat panel, of course) could 'flip up' out of the desk and a Wacom-styley graphics tablet would replace the mouse. In fact, the gubbins of the PC could live at the back of the integrated drawers, and the cd rom drive and floppy, etc. could be incorporated in a spare drawer along with a hot-swappable RAID array.
And it would be a gorgeous thing to look at when the PC was 'put away' and the desk reverted back to a writing desk or whatever.
Hmmmmmm
JTC
Hi folks. I've been in a few situations whereby written tests and sets of technical questions have been directed my way. Most of the time I've rallied and been ok but I remember once that an agency had put me forward for a role to which I was really unsuited (I didn't know this until I got to interview) and I must have looked like a buffoon during that technical test. I don't personally believe that there's anything wrong with technical tests but there should be a degree of relevance to what is expected, and I think that open-ended technological chats are more productive and useful than the kind of 'certification style' recall the third parameter of the .DoAnObscureThing() method, etc.
Remember that an interview is a two-way process - not only are they assessing your suitability for the job, you're also assessing their company's suitability for what you want to do and achieve. A company which relies heavily on the (flawed, IMHO) certification route (e.g. MCSD, for example) probably doesn't really understand development, though I can understand certification requirements from a business and marketing POV.
IMHO the only true arbiter of suitability is retrospective - and so I think assessing people technically prior to the job starting acts solely as a filter of those people who don't perform well in technical tests - whether because they don't know jack or because they simply don't take well to that kind of test. I hope I'd fall into the latter!
Cheers!
JTC